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Jo3sh posted:This is my usual method also. I don't have any personal experience to speak from, but the guy who runs TheElectricBrewery.com has done a really good job documenting his entire build and process. Here's his page on sparging with a 2-pump HERMs rig. He says he runs the sparge at about 1/5 Gal/min. Is that about normal for fly sparging? Mistaken For Bacon fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jan 31, 2012 |
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Jan 31, 2012 17:30
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Yep, that's a standard slow sparge. Cool, thanks for the link.
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Jan 31, 2012 17:42
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Alright so I have my first batch in the fermenter (god I hope it turns out okay). But that means it is time to start planning my next beer  For a second would you guys recommend another kit (like linked in the OP?) or do you have a recipe site that I could start looking at?
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Jan 31, 2012 18:05
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Jo3sh posted:This is my usual method also. I have a RIMS setup but still batch sparge. I also runoff the first runnings and the sparge at full speed with a march pump at 2.5-3 gal/min against all conventional advice, so I'm not really to be trusted. I recirculate the sparge for a minute or two and bring it up to temp with the RIMS and then runoff. I did it the exact same way when I was still using propane (and I still just use propane 75% of the time because eRIMS is fiddly). e: I'd just like to point out how much batch sparging and recirculating mash rocks. After first runnings are done, I can have the sparge completely finished and my full kettle volume in about ~8 minutes. The whole mashing process from dough in to single batch sparge to full kettle is probably about 72 minutes.  Fly sparging is for chumps. Hypnolobster fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Jan 31, 2012 |
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Jan 31, 2012 18:25
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Can someone explain the difference between a batch sparge and a fly sparge? I think I did a fly sparge, IIRC we drained the mash and then began adding water slowly trying to keep a consistent stream and level.
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Jan 31, 2012 18:42
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When I batch sparge, this is the rundown of events: -- as mash nears end, heat sparge water -- mash completes -- vorlauf -- pump first runnings to boiler -- add half of sparge water, stir, let rest a few min -- vorlauf -- pump second runnings to boiler -- add remainder of sparge water, stir, let rest a few min -- vorlauf -- pump final runnings to boiler -- start boil, clean mashtun. A fly sparge is more like this: -- as mash nears end, heat sparge water -- mash completes -- vorlauf -- start sparge water flow -- start runnings flow -- balance sparge and runnings flow so water level in tun is maintained ~1-2 inches above grain bed and set runoff speed -- watch it for an hour or so until sparge water runs out and grainbed runs dry -- start boil, clean mashtun
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Jan 31, 2012 18:57
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Attempting my first-time newbie brew. Not a beer, just basic cider, until I gain some confidence. Downside so far is that I discovered my jug bungs are just slightly oversized (drat you, off-spec jugs!) immediately after adding my yeast. They make a seal, but they pop out at an easy touch. So currently they're held to a decent seal by packing tape. I'll have to find ones that fit better, and flip a coin on what to do: try to swap them out during fermentation, and risk making apple vinegar, or leave them and ride this out (risking making apple vinegar). Leaning towards the typical advice of "let it ride," and finding correct bungs for next time. It's odd though: the store owner actually hand-tested them in wine equipment store, and seemed satisfied, so I guess it's a pretty small difference.
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Feb 1, 2012 03:25
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Tape should be fine. If you swap them while the airlock is still bubbling don't worry about it becoming vinegar, as long as its off-gassing it should push any oxygen out.
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Feb 1, 2012 03:43
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They will pop out much easier if they are the slightest bit damp. Just let it ride.
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Feb 1, 2012 04:58
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Thanks guys. Looking forward to this. Incidentally, one of my housemates isn't against home brewing, just kind of cautiously unsure of the whole idea, so I am now referring to the jugs as "aquariums", filled with "abnormally small fish". So my update is that my fishies are doing fine.
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Feb 1, 2012 14:48
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Unsure how?
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Feb 1, 2012 18:25
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So I've never dry-hopped anything before, at least not until last night. Racked my future IPA onto an ounce of Amarillo pellets with the intent on letting it sit for a week, and then bottle. So now I have a 1/8" layer of green pond scum floating on top my precious beer. Is that supposed to settle down to the bottom, or will I need to plan to rack out from under this?
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Feb 1, 2012 18:29
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Cinnamon Bastard posted:So my update is that my fishies are doing fine. So when it's all done, you'll be drinking aquarium water? Fish fornicate in water. kitten smoothie posted:So I've never dry-hopped anything before, at least not until last night. So now I have a 1/8" layer of green pond scum floating on top my precious beer. Is that supposed to settle down to the bottom, or will I need to plan to rack out from under this? It will settle out. vvvv On the other hand, I dry hop with loose pellets all the time and don't have any issues with it at all. I do get the occasional hop particle in my glass, but it's never been more than a couple and it's never bothered me. I'm not sure what the difference is between our processes, but we do seem to get different results. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Feb 1, 2012 |
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Feb 1, 2012 18:39
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kitten smoothie posted:So I've never dry-hopped anything before, at least not until last night. Racked my future IPA onto an ounce of Amarillo pellets with the intent on letting it sit for a week, and then bottle. I just made this mistake too, poured 2 oz of cascade pellets into my secondary, and hops got all over. It generally falls to the bottom as the week goes by (At least mine did). I ended up leaving a bunch at the bottom of my secondary, then letting the bottling bucket sit for half an hour, and then leaving a bunch at the bottom of the bottling bucket. It seemed to take most of the little hops grains out, but I also lost a whole gallon of beer this way. Next time I will be using plugs and getting a hop bag for dry hopping.
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Feb 1, 2012 18:41
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Sanitize a hop bag or other fine mesh thing, and put it over your racking cane. That should mitigate any hop poo poo getting into your final beer.
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Feb 1, 2012 19:07
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I'm using a program called brewtarget to figure out my first all-grain recipe that I'll be doing in a month or so. It calculates that after mash and sparge I'll have 7.3 gallons in the kettle for a 5.5 gallon batch. My question is: Will a 60 minute boil take care of the extra volume? Should I up the boil to 90 minutes to evaporate down to 5.5 gallons or will I really boil off nearly 2 gallons of wort? What happens if I start my hop additions at 60 minutes, complete the boil, but still have 6.5 gallons?
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Feb 1, 2012 20:09
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kitten smoothie posted:So now I have a 1/8" layer of green pond scum floating on top my precious beer. Is that supposed to settle down to the bottom, or will I need to plan to rack out from under this? It might settle on it's own, but in my experience that isn't always the case. When that happens, I gently swirl the carboy for a couple seconds which usually mixes the hops back in. Depending on their geometry certain hop bits will never sink, but most of them should sink immediately with some swirling. U.S. Barryl posted:I'm using a program called brewtarget to figure out my first all-grain recipe that I'll be doing in a month or so. It calculates that after mash and sparge I'll have 7.3 gallons in the kettle for a 5.5 gallon batch. My question is: Will a 60 minute boil take care of the extra volume? Should I up the boil to 90 minutes to evaporate down to 5.5 gallons or will I really boil off nearly 2 gallons of wort? What happens if I start my hop additions at 60 minutes, complete the boil, but still have 6.5 gallons? This is something you'll need to feel out your first few brews as it will depend on a number of factors including wind/temp/humidity, as well the size of your boil kettle and how strongly you choose to boil. If you have been doing full boil extract brews you should have a rough idea of how much water you lose in 60 minutes. I can definitely burn off 2 gallons in 60 minutes by keeping everything at a roaring boil but this often makes hop additions very difficult as it causes a ton of foam. As a result I exclusively do 90 minute boils now - among other things it also allows me to have the hot break completely exhausted by the first hop addition.
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Feb 1, 2012 20:37
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I boil off almost 2 gallons an hour in my typical process, and I could do a lot more if I cranked it up. That's in a half-barrel kettle and a ten gallon batch, over a high-power burner turned down to a low but rolling boil.
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Feb 1, 2012 20:45
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Jo3sh posted:I boil off almost 2 gallons an hour in my typical process, and I could do a lot more if I cranked it up. That's in a half-barrel kettle and a ten gallon batch, over a high-power burner turned down to a low but rolling boil. That's a big boiloff. I think I lose less than a gallon in a half barrel kettle with a 10g batch. I'm at sea level on the coast with high humidity, which seems to lower the rate of evaporation.
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Feb 1, 2012 21:20
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Darth Goku Jr posted:Unsure how? Same way that if you (to keep the fish theme) said "hey, want to go try sushi" to a significant percentage of North American people, they'd get this faintly uneasy look and say "...really?" You know, even though there's a well established industry of restaurants centered around sushi, and even though it's a very well understood form of culinary practice. A lot of people still have that automatic "oh boy I don't know if this is a good idea, and I'm going to be apprehensive pretty much the whole way through" reaction. That sort of thing. Which I'm sure many of you have experienced.
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Feb 2, 2012 00:22
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Literally never, actually. Maybe if you live in suburban Mississippi, but I've never been to a place in the contiguous 48 where a suggestion of sushi is looked at askance.
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Feb 2, 2012 01:23
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Cinnamon Bastard posted:Which I'm sure many of you have experienced. But after I bottled the first batch she was still all "uh, I'm not going to drink any of your crazy bathtub beer until you have a glass to prove it doesn't make you blind."
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Feb 2, 2012 01:24
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First homebrew complete. Certainly drinkable (it's just a NB kit), but the body and taste seems rather thin. Not sure what causes that.
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Feb 2, 2012 01:35
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The list of potential causes for either of those individually is as long as my arm, nobody can really help you out unless you provide as much information on the recipe/process as possible.
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Feb 2, 2012 01:51
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indigi posted:The list of potential causes for either of those individually is as long as my arm, nobody can really help you out unless you provide as much information on the recipe/process as possible. I'm going to try out another batch very soon, hopefully able to iron out the kinks I had making this first one, and try to document what I did during the process much more thoroughly than the first.
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Feb 2, 2012 03:29
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If I pick up a sixtel from the liquor store, can I hook it up to my corny setup or transfer the beer to an empty corny? I've hit a dry patch but I'd like to have something in the kegerator for Sunday.
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Feb 2, 2012 03:32
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indigi posted:Literally never, actually. Maybe if you live in suburban Mississippi, but I've never been to a place in the contiguous 48 where a suggestion of sushi is looked at askance. I run into it a lot (both regarding sushi and a general aversion to things that are new). Of course, this housemate considers any movie made before 1992 to be "really old, too old to be good", and stares at me blankly when I try to explain that Caddy Shack is actually a brilliantly funny movie that simultaneously satirizes and refines an entire genre of teen comedy films. So he's not exactly open to anything he didn't experience before age 18. When this cider is done I'm going to drink it while watching Caddy Shack, is what I'm trying to say.
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Feb 2, 2012 04:04
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Toebone posted:If I pick up a sixtel from the liquor store, can I hook it up to my corny setup or transfer the beer to an empty corny? I've hit a dry patch but I'd like to have something in the kegerator for Sunday. You have to have a sanke coupler to hook it up to your current setup. All you have to do once you have the sanke coupler is remove the disconnects from your gas and beer lines and hook them up to the correct spots on the coupler. If you have a well stocked homebrew shop they should have the coupler. Here it is on Northern Brewer: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/sankey-coupler-all-stainless.html
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Feb 2, 2012 04:08
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kitten smoothie posted:My wife didn't really mind when I took up brewing and went with me to buy the equipment & first ingredient kit. At which point I hope you screamed and clutched your face.
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Feb 2, 2012 05:22
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Josh Wow posted:You have to have a sanke coupler to hook it up to your current setup. All you have to do once you have the sanke coupler is remove the disconnects from your gas and beer lines and hook them up to the correct spots on the coupler. If you have a well stocked homebrew shop they should have the coupler. Here it is on Northern Brewer: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/sankey-coupler-all-stainless.html That's more than I was looking to spend on something I'm only going to use rarely. I was thinking of putting a quick disconnect on the liquid out line, transferring it over to my keg, and replacing the picnic faucet, but that would probably just get a bunch of oxygen in the beer.
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Feb 2, 2012 05:32
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Anyone ever dealt with old/stale/infected(?) malt? What kind of flavors/aromas might it contribute to the final product? I bought some sacks back last February or March and have kept the stuff in orange Home Depot buckets. I feel like there's a house flavor - not bad, but noticeable and not really called for - in the all-grain batches I've brewed with that haul in the past 4-5 months. I don't think it's an infection because I've done a few extract batches/batches I bought fresh base malt with and they don't have it, and while I'm pretty sure (aka hoping) it's not a process issue, it's a bit of a red-fruity/sharp taste at the edges/finish that reminds me of my oxidized 70 shilling. I'd describe it as vinuous, but it may be acetaldehyde or something similar like that. It's only in the beers I've done with that malt I've been storing since then (MO, pilsner, and 3/4 sack each of Vienna/crystal), and it wasn't in any of the all-grain batches I brewed before August-ish. The saison I did in June or July doesn't have it at all, but since then it's there. I might just notice it because I'm looking for it, but I honestly can't taste it in the other batches, so while it may be a complete process fluke, I'm starting to suspect it's the base malt. I might just toss the rest (about 30lbs) It's really frustrating because while I'm pretty sure it's an ingredient issue I can't help but feel I'm missing something in my process that's causing it, and I'm getting discouraged. I never had problems with oxidation before (besides my 70/- and I'm pretty sure I know what went wrong there) and it's never been picked up on beers I've submitted to competitions (70/- excepted). I can't help but think I'm not sanitizing properly or I'm loving up and oxidizing it somehow even though looking through my notes my process hasn't changed much if at all.  Maybe it's my immersion chiller or kettle somehow? I'm at a loss.
indigi fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Feb 2, 2012 |
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Feb 2, 2012 07:49
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Are you putting your chiller in with the boil the last 10 minutes? Physics dictates that 10 minutes of contact with boiling wort should sanitize your chiller no problem.
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Feb 2, 2012 13:52
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Toebone posted:That's more than I was looking to spend on something I'm only going to use rarely. I was thinking of putting a quick disconnect on the liquid out line, transferring it over to my keg, and replacing the picnic faucet, but that would probably just get a bunch of oxygen in the beer. Yea that would oxygenate the poo poo out of the beer. There's really no cheap way to do what you want to do unless somebody has a coupler you can borrow.
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Feb 2, 2012 14:07
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Jo3sh posted:At which point I hope you screamed and clutched your face. To be fair I was a little apprehensive myself. Mainly because cleaning out the thick krausen ring inside the fermenter was pretty nasty and I then was all "wait I drink this?" It had the sort of oily, slimy consistency and color of what typically exits my body 4-6 hours after taco night. I guess it is the accumulated hop oil that causes that.
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Feb 2, 2012 17:22
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The cider and it's applewine buddy that I made in October is now ready to be kegged, carbed and bottled, just in time for next fall  
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Feb 2, 2012 18:49
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Huge_Midget posted:Are you putting your chiller in with the boil the last 10 minutes? Physics dictates that 10 minutes of contact with boiling wort should sanitize your chiller no problem. Yeah. I was thinking more like the copper reacting with the aluminum kettle and leeching something into the beer, however unlikely that is.
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Feb 2, 2012 19:11
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Question, doing a partial mash is simply steeping some specialty grains around 155 before the boil then removing them before the boil correct? Would I put my malt extract in with it and let it all sit at 155 then remove the specialty grains after a pre-determined amount of time?
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Feb 2, 2012 19:14
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I would think you would want to steep without using the extract. Think about it in terms of dissolving sugar, that's all mashing is, getting the sugars and proteins in the grains to dissolve into the water. For simplicity: If you dumped table sugar into pure water it would dissolve pretty quickly, but how long would it take to dissolve into syrup? Granted syrup is an exaggeration, but it's is the principle of it: the more sugar already dissolved, the harder it is to dissolve more. Since your gonna boil the extract anyway, why not wait until then in order to maximize how much you get from the grain.
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Feb 2, 2012 19:37
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Midorka posted:Question, doing a partial mash is simply steeping some specialty grains around 155 before the boil then removing them before the boil correct? Would I put my malt extract in with it and let it all sit at 155 then remove the specialty grains after a pre-determined amount of time? No that is just steeping grains. Most "specialty grains" don't need to be mashed because the starches have already been converted to sugars as part of the malting process. A mash implies unconverted base malts like pilsner, 2-row/pale, or Munich being held at a specific temp and water:grain ratio in order to let natural enzymes convert their starch to sugar. If your recipe only calls for--for example--crystal malt or dark roasted malts, it's not a mash because no conversion is happening. To your other question, you can go two ways. Add all the extract after you pull the grain out, heat to boiling and boil 60 min (easiest). Or, add like 1/3 of it and then add the rest at the very end of the boil. Extract beers tend to end up too dark for their style because long boiling darkens the extract. Adding most of it at the very end mitigates this.
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Feb 2, 2012 19:41
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When I do extract batches, I always steep at least a pound of base malt with the specialty stuff and maybe 20-30% of my extract to let the enzymes go to work on the longer sugars in the LME/DME. It's not as controlled as a regular mash, but I make sure to keep it in saccharification range. I'm still deathly afraid of extract batches finishing high and take some extra precautions.
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Feb 2, 2012 19:48
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