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Just found this thread by chance so I thought I'd share my first attempt at cider making. I've always wanted to do it and had access to a 5g primary and carboy, so I bought 5g of cider from a local orchard and thought I'd give it a shot. In retrospect I think it would've been smarter to do a smaller batch for my first attempt. In just under 2 months I ended up with this: (everyone likes pictures, right?) I'm really happy with the color and clarity, and MY GIRLFRIEND and I agree that it's pretty drinkable despite maybe leaving it sitting on the lees longer than I should have. I forgot to record a hydrometer reading after adding the sugar, so I have no clue how much alcohol is in it. Fermentation stopped at .995 so I'm guessing it's a bit higher than your average cider.
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 21:10 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:38 |
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Jacobey000 posted:Bottling from a keg is a pain. I couldn't get the pressure right, turned it way down (9psi) and it was still just coming out all foam. Tried the picnic tap with bottle filler for a while and that was serious trouble 90%+ foam. Eventually I just used the tube rammed into the regular tap and the pressure finally died down enough to fill the bottles okay. What temp is your keezer at? 9psi is not really low at all unless it's like 70*. I keg at 47* at 14psi, and completely vent the kegs and set the reg to 2 psi to bottle directly from a picnic tap. I do a lot at once since venting the keg wastes a bunch of co2 when the kegs low.
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 21:28 |
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greasy digits posted:Just found this thread by chance so I thought I'd share my first attempt at cider making. I've always wanted to do it and had access to a 5g primary and carboy, so I bought 5g of cider from a local orchard and thought I'd give it a shot. In retrospect I think it would've been smarter to do a smaller batch for my first attempt. In just under 2 months I ended up with this: (everyone likes pictures, right?) What kind of yeast did you use? Or did you just use the wild yeast already in the cider?
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 21:31 |
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greasy digits posted:
Looks nice. I'm sure there's a simple reason, but I have always kind of wondered why cider changes color so much during the ferment. Yours appears to have done what mine does - get paler. As to alcohol content, you can probably make a spitball guess at your OG by using 1.050 or so as a theoretical gravity for the juice before you added sugar, then adjusting upwards depending on how much you added.
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 21:40 |
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greasy digits posted:I'm really happy with the color and clarity, and MY GIRLFRIEND and I agree that it's pretty drinkable despite maybe leaving it sitting on the lees longer than I should have. I forgot to record a hydrometer reading after adding the sugar, so I have no clue how much alcohol is in it. Fermentation stopped at .995 so I'm guessing it's a bit higher than your average cider. I've read that with modern yeasts it's not as much of an issue to leave it on the lees. Any harsh flavors should mellow out over time. Did you add anything besides cider and yeast, like sugar? Is it completely dry?
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 21:51 |
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Jacobey000 posted:Bottling from a keg is a pain. I couldn't get the pressure right, turned it way down (9psi) and it was still just coming out all foam. Tried the picnic tap with bottle filler for a while and that was serious trouble 90%+ foam. Eventually I just used the tube rammed into the regular tap and the pressure finally died down enough to fill the bottles okay. protip : make everything cold as poo poo, and drop your keg to ~2.5psi. I use a party tap to bottle from a keg, which I very cleverly attached to the hard plastic part of a bottling wand. it's amazing, but the wand I had just magically fits snugly into the black plastic spigot of my party tap, so I just jam it up in there, and it works without any leaks. I basically have a bottling gun for free!
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 22:56 |
Yeah, most wands will nicely fit in a party faucet. I did that for a while too. Pretty sweet coincidence.
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 23:01 |
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Does anyone have a good robust porter recipe that I can do on my mini-mash + extract setup? One whose yeast cake would transition into fermenting a barley wine? A barley wine recipe would be awesome, too!
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# ? Dec 9, 2011 23:40 |
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I've revised my mash schedule for my german wheats to add in an acid rest. A little research around the interwebs indicates that an acid rest brings out more clove aroma and flavor (I'm getting a little too much banana and I can't really lower my ferment temp much). I also discovered that I mashed something more like a medium to light body beer when I want full body. Too long at the wrong temperature. tl;dr: Double Infusion w/ batch sparge 111 for 15 minutes 150 for 45 minutes Batch sparge 168 I've seen all kinds of crazy mash schedules with multiple sacch rests and even a protein rest (for a hefe that seems stupid). Of course decoction as well. Don't want to open that can of worms quite yet. Opinions on this relatively simple one?
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 01:52 |
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If you want fuller body I'd suggest mashing at at least 154*, 150* is pretty low. Also with only 45 minutes I'd worry about complete conversion at that 150* with so much wheat.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 02:42 |
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indigi posted:If you want fuller body I'd suggest mashing at at least 154*, 150* is pretty low. Also with only 45 minutes I'd worry about complete conversion at that 150* with so much wheat. Yeah that was a concern. Gonna be tough to reach 154 unless I adjust the grain ratio for the acid rest. Hmmm... Edit: I'm using a cooler for the mash tun so I can't direct fire to up temps. Revised: 111 for 20 minutes. 1.0 qt/lb 154 for 60 minutes. 2.0 qt/lb The added water will have to be 205 for this to happen according to beersmith. Yikes. beetlo fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Dec 10, 2011 |
# ? Dec 10, 2011 02:43 |
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You could also add body to some extent by including flaked oats or another body building grain in the recipe. Although that might not be Reinheitsgebot
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 03:44 |
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mindphlux posted:protip : make everything cold as poo poo, and drop your keg to ~2.5psi. I read everyone else's replies and thanks - I think all of you were on the right track. Bottles were at room temp, Keg wasn't degassed. I bought a party tap just to use for the racking cane trick thingy, but alas I was getting huge head. So next time I will chill and degass. Most likely didn't help that someone from work was over getting the bottles as I filled them and I wanted to be all cool with my keg setup.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 03:47 |
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Docjowles posted:You could also add body to some extent by including flaked oats or another body building grain in the recipe. Although that might not be Reinheitsgebot Indeed it wouldn't. I'm trying to do things the Weihenstephan way. Of course I'm pretty sure they decoct, but whatever. Edit: Holy crap my minifridge is at 29 degrees. Didn't think it could go that low. I am helping it with milk jugs of ice, but still. Might have to lager colder and longer. beetlo fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Dec 10, 2011 |
# ? Dec 10, 2011 03:47 |
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beetlo posted:Indeed it wouldn't. I'm trying to do things the Weihenstephan way. Of course I'm pretty sure they decoct, but whatever. Body can be complicated since it can be a very personal thing, especially since with simple mash schemes, you focus on temperature where you are trading body versus cloyness. When I first started mashing I was running off of How to Brew which made <151F range sound like the desert relegated to session beers at 35 points. Turns out final rest is kind of a bad way to modulate body depending how sweet you are looking for in your beer. If you can use the final rest to get to a beer with the sweetness and body you want, very cool. You might be playing with adjuncts or earlier rest temps to get a body to go with your sweetness depending on what you are looking for though.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 05:50 |
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Jacobey000 posted:I read everyone else's replies and thanks - I think all of you were on the right track. Bottles were at room temp, Keg wasn't degassed. I bought a party tap just to use for the racking cane trick thingy, but alas I was getting huge head. oh, were you already using the 'stick a bottling wand into the party tap' method? (aka 'racking cane trick'?) I was so happy when I figured that out, I had hoped I was just ultra clever and noone had ever done that before in any case, degassing kegs is like, the bane of my existence. I can't even serve out of my normal taps without degassing, otherwise it's complete foam for everyone. I feel like that's something I must be able to fix, but I have like, a keg fridge at 38deg, some perlite taps with 5-6ft of hose between them and the kegs, and my desired level of co2 for most kegs is like 10-15psi (@40deg) still though if I don't vent and drop them down to ~2-5psi before a party, everyone is just like 'wahhh my beer is all foam'
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 06:34 |
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You might try like doubling the length of your hose. Longer hose = more friction = slower serving speed and less foam. The diameter of the hose impacts that as well. I have a tripel on tap right now about the same pressure as you (15 PSI, 40*F) but pouring though a long-rear end 14 ft and 3/16" inner diameter tube and it comes out great. Also for whatever reason I find I HAVE to pour into big glasses. Pint glass? Fine pour. Half-pint? 100% foam no beer
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 08:12 |
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mindphlux posted:oh, were you already using the 'stick a bottling wand into the party tap' method? (aka 'racking cane trick'?) I was so happy when I figured that out, I had hoped I was just ultra clever and noone had ever done that before If you are getting nice pours at 2-5 psi, your setup is unbalanced. You need at least 10 feet of 3/16" hose to have decent pours with 14psi. Even then you'll have a few inches of head. I'd do 14' personally. Your other option is to restrict the flow of beer in your system. People have added those plastic spiral shaped "epoxy mixers" to their serving hose and/or dip tubes to slow down the exiting beer.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 08:14 |
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tesilential posted:If you are getting nice pours at 2-5 psi, your setup is unbalanced. You need at least 10 feet of 3/16" hose to have decent pours with 14psi. Even then you'll have a few inches of head. I'd do 14' personally. I've been meaning to buy some of these, and tried to tonight from Grainger. but, I wasn't sure if I had the right ones, and it ended up being like 25 bucks after shipping, which didn't seem right for some little plastic things, so I cancelled the order. where should I get these insert things? which ones are the best?
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 08:43 |
Grainger is usually overpriced on just about everything, it seems, but they're also likely to have local warehouses that you can check for certain products being in stock. The more likely you are to find an item at a construction site or similar, the more likely they are to have it on hand, of course, but even if they don't you can place an order through a local warehouse and get it shipped there, and you should be able to skip on the shipping costs.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 16:07 |
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mindphlux posted:where should I get these insert things? which ones are the best? Here's the guide I used a while ago to put some together - it includes a part number to order from McMaster-Carr: http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/resistive-gate-draft-beer-flow-control If I were doing it today, I would use those exact same mixer nozzles, but put them in the kegs' dip tubes rather than build that adapter section in the beer line. The hard part, of course, is finding the right amount of resistance - it took me several attempts to get a pour I liked, by using various lengths of the mixer core.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 16:34 |
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Jesus christ, somebody used mixer nozzles and didn't just drop them in the diptube?
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 17:50 |
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Ok having some trouble getting my kegging setup running. Other than a ball lock post that wouldn't fit into the disconnect without some extra force (which I will probably and almost immediately regret) my faucet is leaking. I don't get it. I've removed it and put it back on a dozen times. I followed the directions on kegconnection, but the faucet leaks where it screws onto the shank. If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate it as I just don't understand how I screwed up screwing the faucet onto the shank so horribly. e: doing some more googling it appears people of complained of Perlick's teeth not fitting on some (chrome) shanks. Why the gently caress would kegconnection sell me a faucet and shank as part of a package that does not fit? Prefect Six fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Dec 10, 2011 |
# ? Dec 10, 2011 17:51 |
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Get some keg lube and just glob that poo poo on there, fixes 90% of leaks
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 19:20 |
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indigi posted:Get some keg lube and just glob that poo poo on there, fixes 90% of leaks I didn't quite glob it on, but I added some keg lube and tightened the ever-loving crap out of it and it appears to be holding. After I ran PBW through, purged, added rinse water and started to push the rinse water through I did hear some air noises coming from the collar, but no liquid. I've had it sitting with star san solution in the tubes for the last hour or so at ~20 PSI, so hopefully if it's still leaking I'll be able to see signs of dripping.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 19:23 |
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So I am a total newbie brewer and I just made a barleywine that - at least on bottling day - tastes like honeyed ham. While I realize that this is a goon's dream come true, I don't really know what to do with 5 gallons of hambeer. Is this an off flavor that comes from contamination, too much time left sitting on the yeast, insufficient fermentation, or something else? Is it likely to age out in the bottle? Here was the recipe: Steeped in 5gal water at 170F for 30min and removed: 0.5 lb Carafa II 0.5 lb Chocolate Wheat Kept at rolling boil for 60min: 6 lb Dark DME 7 lb Amber DME 1 lb Belgian light sugar 2oz UK Challenger pellet hops (added 15min into boil) 2oz US Perle hops (added 45min into boil) Originally pitched with WY505 Belgian Saison ale yeast and yeast nutrient for 1 week at 70F, then racked to secondary fermenter and pitched with Safale Old English Ale yeast for 2 weeks at 70F. I also noticed a *lot* of yeast sediment coming out at the bottom of each bottle - about a quarter of an inch - so maybe the taste is from that? Should I bother uncapping all these bottles, pouring them back into the bottling bucket, and trying to rebottle them without so much sediment? Help
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 20:46 |
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Jo3sh posted:Here's the guide I used a while ago to put some together - it includes a part number to order from McMaster-Carr: thanks, I'll take your advice. in unrelated news - am I being insane with my keg cleaning regimen? unless I've had 0 issues with a beer tasting off, and haven't let a keg sit empty for months (rare that the latter doesn't happen), I completely disassemble my posts and diptube and everything, let it soak in 160deg PBW, rinse the everliving gently caress out of all of it, let everything soak in starsan, reassemble and lube, and then fill the keg with ~1gal starsan, toss it all around, and call it a 'ready to go' keg. some comment on this page or the last I think someone said something about not disassembling their kegs when cleaning. either I'm insane, or they're insane
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 21:10 |
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That's what I do with my kegs as well, I can't imagine doing much less than that for a run of the mill cleaning. I don't let them sit dry for longer than a day, and they're still filled with CO2 so not much is gonna grow in there, but still. Takes about 20 minutes and I do it while I'm getting ready to rack a new beer in.Bass Concert Hall posted:Originally pitched with WY505 Belgian Saison ale yeast and yeast nutrient for 1 week at 70F, then racked to secondary fermenter and pitched with Safale Old English Ale yeast for 2 weeks at 70F. Sounds like autolysis. That comes from using old, unhealthy yeast, and also letting the beer sit on the yeast too long. I let my barleywine sit on the yeast for about 12 weeks and didn't get any of that. You might have got a bad or just old vial, or maybe it was stored at room temperature for too long, or maybe massively underpitched, didn't aerate, no nutrients, and long time in primary could lead to that, but it seems hard to do with a new pack of Wyeast or White Labs vial. e: actually, calculating all the fermentables, that looks like you pitched 100 billion cells into a 1.120 beer. That is your culprit. You would have needed to pitched over 4 smack packs to get the correct amount of yeast, or something insane like a gallon starter with two packs. If it got even 65% attenuation (low for a saison yeast) you're looking at a 10.5% beer. The Safale you added almost certainly just died and sank to the bottom to spill their hotdog flavored guts. Also that is nowhere near enough hops for that big of a beer. That solution, unfortunately, won't really solve anything as the flavor's already in the beer, not just in the sediment. The best you can do is hope to avoid it next time. Some other advice I'd give is to not steep in the full five gallons and not as 170* as both can extract tannins and make the beer more bitter and astringent than you wanted. I've edited this post like two dozen times so forgive me if it seems disjointed indigi fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Dec 10, 2011 |
# ? Dec 10, 2011 21:17 |
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Can I reseal the colorful "tear open" hops bags from hopunion with my vacuum sealed? Or do I need to repackage them after opening?
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 21:28 |
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Just bottled my first Homebrew, an IPA I brewed from a Brewer's Best kit. I tried some as is (uncarbed, about 14 days after pitching the yeast), and it wasn't too bad but it did leave a bitter aftertaste on the back and sides of the tounge. Is that a "green" beer taste that may fade with more aging time?
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 22:23 |
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mkultra419 posted:Just bottled my first Homebrew, an IPA I brewed from a Brewer's Best kit. I tried some as is (uncarbed, about 14 days after pitching the yeast), and it wasn't too bad but it did leave a bitter aftertaste on the back and sides of the tounge. Is that a "green" beer taste that may fade with more aging time? Lol, bitterness and IPA's go hand in hand. Some are more bitter while others are more flavorful, but for the most part they are the most bitter tasting beer. Why don't you post your hop schedule?
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 22:33 |
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mindphlux posted:thanks, I'll take your advice. When I reassemble the keg and sanitize, I throw in about half a gallon of star san, shake it up and then loosen the posts and turn the keg upside down and let it dribble out of the posts and pressure relief, then tighten them back down while still wet. Posts get assembled under star san too, and then the last of the star san gets pushed out under Co2 through the line and faucet. It's ridiculous, but it makes me feel better. I hate infections.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 22:34 |
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tesilential posted:Lol, bitterness and IPA's go hand in hand. Some are more bitter while others are more flavorful, but for the most part they are the most bitter tasting beer. Yeah, I know IPA's are supposed to be bitter. The initial taste has a good balanced hoppiness like you would expect, this is a more extreme aftertaste. The hops schedule per the kit was 1.5 oz of Columbus bittering hops and 2 oz of cascade bittering hops at the beginning of the boil, then 1 oz of cascade aroma hops at 55 minutes, then 5 more minutes of boiling before chilling. mkultra419 fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Dec 10, 2011 |
# ? Dec 10, 2011 22:39 |
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mkultra419 posted:Yeah, I know IPA's are supposed to be bitter. The initial taste has a good balanced hoppiness like you would expect, this is a more extreme aftertaste. The hops schedule per the kit was 1.5 oz of Columbus buttering hops and 2 oz of cascade buttering hops at the beginning of the boil, then 1 oz of cascade aroma hops at 55 minutes, then 5 more minutes of boiling before chilling. 3.5 ounces of bittering hops would make a pretty drat bitter beer. I'm brewing a IIPA tomorrow with expected IBU around 100 with only 2.5 oz of bittering hops. Of course cascade is much lower AA than the magnum and warrior I'm using, but I would totally expect your beer to be VERY bitter. Its a 5 gal extract batch right? The flavor will come together when the beer is carbonated so I wouldn't worry about it. Also 1 oz of is not enough for aroma and flavor. I used 3 ounces at flameout and 2 ounces for dry hopping on a Pale Ale, and it coulda used more. I would dry hop with a couple more ounces of hops before bottling unless you already did. Like 1 oz cascade 1 oz Simcoe or amarillo. If not 2-3 oz cascade would give you good flavor and aroma. tesilential fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Dec 10, 2011 |
# ? Dec 10, 2011 22:43 |
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tesilential posted:3.5 ounces of bittering hops would make a pretty drat bitter beer. I'm brewing a IIPA tomorrow with expected IBU around 100 with only 2.5 oz of bittering hops. Of course cascade is much lower AA than the magnum and warrior I'm using, but I would totally expect your beer to be VERY bitter. Unfortunately already in bottles, but still all good info for the future, thanks.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 22:52 |
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tesilential posted:If you are getting nice pours at 2-5 psi, your setup is unbalanced. You need at least 10 feet of 3/16" hose to have decent pours with 14psi. Even then you'll have a few inches of head. I'd do 14' personally. Also a point to note, something like Tygon tubing, which is lined to prevent picking up flavors, has a LOT less resistance. I have 10' lines and have some foaming issues, but I'm too cheap/lazy to rebuy and coil 20' per keg.
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 23:28 |
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I feel like I must be doing something wrong because I just have 5' party taps with the plastic nozzles, pour at carbing pressure (10-15psi depending on the style), and only have foaming problems if I've just moved a keg. Maybe my lines are so dirty that there's a ton of resistance even though I soak those in PBW and Star San along with the rest of the stuff
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# ? Dec 10, 2011 23:52 |
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Hypnolobster posted:I do this every time beer goes into a keg. I actually get so obsessive that I disassemble everything in the whole serving line as well, including removing faucets and soaking them, the tubing and posts. oh, I don't think this is ridiculous at all. anyone think this is ridiculous? I mean I don't know about your guys serving setups, but when I disconnect my lines from a keg, there is immediately an air bubble inside the line between my faucet and keg. If I let that sit more than a day or something, there's solid gunk inside that line due to residue hardening or whatever. although, what I had taken to doing is having a keg of starsan, and running that through my lines immediately after I disconnect them from an active keg - then just leaving the hoses/faucet sitting with starsan until I'm ready to hook up a new keg. I'm pretty confident that's an acceptable alternative to completely disassembling them after every use. but yeah if you just have beery faucets/lines sitting around for weeks - totally called for to clean them before tapping a new keg, in my book.
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# ? Dec 11, 2011 00:27 |
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Bass Concert Hall posted:So I am a total newbie brewer and I just made a barleywine that - at least on bottling day - tastes like honeyed ham. While I realize that this is a goon's dream come true, I don't really know what to do with 5 gallons of hambeer. A touch off topic but I found this to be drat funny. Sorry for your loss.
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# ? Dec 11, 2011 03:06 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:38 |
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mindphlux posted:in any case, degassing kegs is like, the bane of my existence. I can't even serve out of my normal taps without degassing, otherwise it's complete foam for everyone. I feel like that's something I must be able to fix, but I have like, a keg fridge at 38deg, some perlite taps with 5-6ft of hose between them and the kegs, and my desired level of co2 for most kegs is like 10-15psi (@40deg) Read the Brewers Association publication http://www.draughtquality.org/w/page/18182201/FrontPage completely. It really has everything you need to know about balancing a draft setup. That combined with the line length calculator http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f84/beer-line-length-pressure-calculator-35369/ should get you pretty close, start 1' longer and trim accordingly. I do not in any way endorse reading HBT as it is the shithole of homebrew information, but that calculator was put together well.
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# ? Dec 11, 2011 03:40 |