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Splizwarf posted:This isn't an issue in Virginia, the homebrewing limit is 200 gallons/year/person; the precedent is that each person involved can take credit for up to 200 gallons, so two people working together can produce 400 gallons/year and so on scaling upward. I get that it's not for profit and for personal use, but I'd bet that if you're using commercial equipment for the freezing or whatever it would still be seen as unkosher by anyone that could make your life more difficult about it.
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Mar 6, 2012 20:10
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Cervixalot posted:I'm slowly catching up with the rest of the thread, so apologies if this has been asked a million times. It's safe to try it, but it's not going to have much carbonation and it's not going to taste as good as it will in another week or 3. I did the same with my first batch. I actually think it's a great idea when you're starting to try some early and keep trying it every week to get an idea of how it develops.
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Mar 6, 2012 20:25
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Huh? I was just talking about using a standard chest freezer. On the other hand, I don't see why using professional-grade equipment would make a difference; I have a professional-grade mixer but I'm not running a commercial kitchen with it. Having the specialty timing belt tool for my car doesn't mean I'm running an auto shop either. Heh. Why would anyone bother making my life difficult about it? Are there places where people actually go around checking if you're making beer in the kitchen, and inspecting the basement freezer?
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Mar 6, 2012 20:29
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Never underestimate the ability of people to be asssholes.
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Mar 6, 2012 20:42
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In preparing to do BIAB, some generalities I read about efficiency with higher-gravity brews: - There's diminishing returns in cranking up the grain bill to increase OG once you clear about 1.070. This is countered a little bit by... - 90 to 120-minute mashes, and 90 minute boils in an attempt to start with a grain bill that's larger than traditional 3V AG brewing and using more water than usual. The longer mash/boil times should increase the boil-off amount, leaving the large amount of grain sufficiently steeped and, after 90 minutes, the target amount of wort (albeit in a higher concentration) at the increased OG. - A bit of trial and error is involved here, but if you have a very fine mesh bag, you can mill your grains equivalently fine. Using Swiss Voile (that super thin poo poo they use for curtains), obtainable at your local fabric shop or by just buying a curtain at HD/Lowe's/Target, these work terrifically as filters because it allows maximum surface area and sugar extraction without letting a bunch of debris into the wort during the boil. This is also a nice way to battle efficiency concerns in high-OG recipes. - It seems that those crazy Aussie bastards who started this whole BIAB thing have done a lot of testing on squeezing the poo poo out of your bag vs only squeezing a little bit or not at all, and have confidently stated it doesn't harm the quality of the wort to squeeze it as much as you can, contrary to the popular concerns about tannin releases and introducing unwanted flavors into the pot when oversqueezing wattershed fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 20:51
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withak posted:Never underestimate the ability of people to be asssholes. A rule has always served me well. There was something I saw a while ago where a brewer's neighbors saw him dicking around with a copper coil and reported him to the local gendarmes for distilling. The video showed the cops walking out of the guy's house with an immersion chiller and a copy of the New Complete Joy of Home Brewing. Another guy got turned in because his neighbors thought he was running a meth lab. So it's not so much that the police are going to come looking for you, but that someone not familiar will think it's odd enough to call it in. Even if you're vindicated in court, it's certain to be inconvenient, time-consuming, and expensive. And back, if I may, to the question of large volume. I personally don't have the energy to run multiple batches in a day - certainly not the 3 to 4 it would take me to brew 30 or 40 gallons. I'm pretty lazy though. I know plenty of people in this thread have done double batches in a day, and I have had several people brewing with their rigs on my patio at the same time, but (again, just me) if I were aiming for high volumes, I would choose one of those 20-gallon super rigs with all the gadgets and make a largely automated process. That would be fairly easy to do twice in a day, I think.
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Mar 6, 2012 20:58
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Oh crap. Can someone give me a quick yes/no answer on this? I'm supposed to be bottling a Triple (Brewferm triple kit) and since it's so strong I decided to do it in reused half-litre glass bottles. I started sanitizing them and as I pulled out the first set from the sanitizing bin I noticed little mold "flowers" in the water. Looks like someone didn't rinse these puppies out properly after drinking them... :/ Are they safe to use after sanitizing/brushing or not? I'm happy to up the dose of chlorine-based substance I'm using (VWP powder) if that'll kill whatever spores there are. Otherwise the beer's going in PET 1-litre bottles...
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Mar 6, 2012 21:21
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Chuck the sanitizer you got the mold in, I would say, then clean and inspect all the bottles well. Resanitize them once they are clean and you should be good.
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Mar 6, 2012 21:23
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Thanks man, will do.
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Mar 6, 2012 21:27
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wattershed posted:In preparing to do BIAB, some generalities I read about efficiency with higher-gravity brews: I have also read that doing a dunk sparge can greatly help for higher gravities.
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Mar 6, 2012 21:43
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quantegy posted:I have also read that doing a dunk sparge can greatly help for higher gravities. Can you elaborate? I'm new to this.
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Mar 6, 2012 21:50
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quantegy posted:I get this as well, even with the regular crush from my brewshop. Technically, BIAB is not no-sparge, the sparge water is just already in the mash. I'm really not trying to be condescending here but if you don't do a sparge, it's no sparge brewing. Just because you use the same amount of water doesn't make a sparge magically happen.
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Mar 6, 2012 21:52
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Josh Wow posted:I'm really not trying to be condescending here but if you don't do a sparge, it's no sparge brewing. Just because you use the same amount of water doesn't make a sparge magically happen.
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Mar 6, 2012 22:00
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icehewk posted:I pitched a yeast starter created from harvested yeast last night and there still isn't any activity coming from the primary (holding steady at 61*). I aerated it really well after pitching and checked the bucket lid to make sure it was tight. I took a peek after about twelve hours and it has spots of yeast poking up through the foam from aerating, but I still think I underpitched. Should I try pitching more yeast? Keep getting skipped over. Any ideas?
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Mar 6, 2012 22:05
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icehewk posted:Keep getting skipped over. Any ideas? 12 hours is perfectly acceptable to not have krausen, your yeast are most likely working. 61 is pretty low for a lot of strains though, which one are you using? Angry Grimace posted:I don't think he's trying to argue he's actually performing a sparge; he's saying that his efficiency is comparable to a traditional mashing methods (presumably because the same rinsing of sugars from the grains happens?). Again not trying to sound like a dick but we have several people the last few pages with really basic questions so I'm gonna be nitpicky about terminology so they hopefully don't get things mixed up. There's a pretty major difference in sparge and no sparge techniques. Josh Wow fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 22:08
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icehewk posted:Keep getting skipped over. Any ideas? What strain of yeast, what was the starting gravity, and what is the gravity now? Hoe exactly did you aerate? 12 hours isn't a long time to wait, especially at a cooler temperature like you describe.
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Mar 6, 2012 22:10
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Angry Grimace posted:I don't think he's trying to argue he's actually performing a sparge; he's saying that his efficiency is comparable to a traditional mashing methods (presumably because the same rinsing of sugars from the grains happens?). Yes, something like that. I'm not saying you are performing a sparge, but it has the effect of one. Since the full volume of water is in the mash, you will get better efficiency than a true no-sparge brew where some of the water never contacts the grain. Josh Wow posted:Again not trying to sound like a dick but we have several people the last few pages with really basic questions so I'm gonna be nitpicky about terminology so they hopefully don't get things mixed up. There's a pretty major difference in sparge and no sparge techniques. Sorry, not trying to confuse anyone, I'm relatively new as well so if I've misunderstood something I apologize. I was just trying to say that the way I understand it, the no-sparge method is not the same as a full volume BIAB method. quantegy fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 22:20
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Used Wyeast's 1469 West Yorkshire harvested from a previous batch, making it second generation. Pulled trub from that primary, bottled and let it settle for an hour and then used the liquid remaining from that to begin 800ml starter. Starter ran ~40 hrs. I aerated with a well cleaned and sanitized stick blender. OG was 1.060. Current reading of about 1.055 so it's working, and it was also nearly completely krausen by now. Apparently a carboy is in order. icehewk fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 22:27
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Does the term "sparge" boil down (haha) to "hot rinse"? What's the story with aerating, I understand that it's getting extra O2 into the mixture and circulating the yeast, but is it a boon to add to any recipe or something done only when called for, to achieve a specific result? I have a good stick blender so it's not just academic curiosity. Splizwarf fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 22:27
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quantegy posted:Yes, something like that. I'm not saying you are performing a sparge, but it has the effect of one. Since the full volume of water is in the mash, you will get better efficiency than a true no-sparge brew where some of the water never contacts the grain. This is why I clarified. What you are doing is a true no sparge brew. A sparge is where you add water during or after your initial mash runoff to rinse the sugars from the grains. With batch sparging you completely drain the water from your grains then add more water to the grain to rinse the sugars. With fly sparging you continually add water over your grainbed while it's draining. If you don't add a second addition of water in some way you aren't doing a sparge, and are losing efficiency. "But I get 75% efficiency with no sparge BIAB!". That's great, but if you sparged it'd be higher. High efficiency is not the end all be all and too high of an efficiency can actually be detrimental, I only say that to point out the differences between sparge and no sparge brewing techniques. icehewk posted:...and it was also nearly completely krausen by now. Apparently a carboy is in order. The temp range on that yeast is 64-71, so let it get up to 64 and you'll get more activity. Also you don't need a carboy to check on your krausen, just pop that lid open. Keep a spray bottle of star san around and spray it down before you close the lid. quote="Splizwarf"] Does the term "sparge" boil down (haha) to "hot rinse"? [/quote] How To Brew has a free online version that'll answer basic questions like 'what's a sparge' and 'what's aeration do' better than this thread. Josh Wow fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 22:28
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Josh Wow posted:This is why I clarified. What you are doing is a true no sparge brew. A sparge is where you add water during or after your initial mash runoff to rinse the sugars from the grains. With batch sparging you completely drain the water from your grains then add more water to the grain to rinse the sugars. With fly sparging you continually add water over your grainbed while it's draining. Right, but it seems to me that if you start with the full volume in the mash, it is more similar to a batch sparge than a no-sparge where you never rinse the grains. But I don't know a lot about no-sparge, I was under the impression that it greatly reduced efficiency to around 50%. quantegy fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 22:35
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Splizwarf posted:Does the term "sparge" boil down (haha) to "hot rinse"?
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Mar 6, 2012 22:37
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quantegy posted:Right, but it seems to me that if you start with the full volume in the mash, it is more similar to a batch sparge than a no-sparge where you never rinse the grains. You do not rinse your grains therefore you are not sparging. What you do is no sparge brewing. Having a higher mash volume doesn't magically disqualify it from being a no sparge brew. Go read the section on sparging in how to brew, please.
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Mar 6, 2012 22:40
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To add to the discussion of aeration, yeast viability, yeast attenuation in high gravity beers, etc, here's a link to a PDF of a presentation by Tyler King (head brewer at The Bruery) - Achieving High Alcohol Content Through Fermentation It's clearly just an outline of what I'm sure he talked about in more detail, but as far as tips and figures to aim for it's got some useful nuggets.
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Mar 6, 2012 22:52
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Thanks for the explanation on aeration. It sounds like what that means is if you made two batches and aerated one, in that one the yeast would run through the sugar faster by breeding faster and in larger amounts, ending fermentation sooner? Is there an advantage to it beyond speeding up fermentation? Why not do BIAB with less water, then sparge the bag as it hangs over the pot? To put that another way, what's the difference between a) boiling a pound of grain in a gallon of water and b) boiling a pound of grain in a half gallon of water and then adding another half gallon of plain water and stirring it up? Is it that a half gallon of water will not as readily absorb double the material from the grain? Is that what people are trying to accomplish when they talk about longer mash times? It's funny, while typing this out I've started framing soup-making in terms of extraction in my head and it's a weird way to look at it; certainly that's how making stock works, though.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:04
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Josh Wow posted:You do not rinse your grains therefore you are not sparging. What you do is no sparge brewing. Having a higher mash volume doesn't magically disqualify it from being a no sparge brew. Go read the section on sparging in how to brew, please. Yes, I have read that. Sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult I'm still not sure what I'm missing. These are the methods as I understand them: Fly sparge Batch sparge BIAB (your full volume of water is in the mash) no-sparge (the mash contains part of your water, but you don't sparge with the remaining water) I see your point about biab having no sparge. I thought the "No-sparge method" was what I defined above. If it also includes mashing with the full volume of water then I apologize for the confusion.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:10
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Josh Wow posted:
I was just throwing that out to state that the addition of extra grains for BIAB (as you stated) is probably not needed in a standard gravity beer, since most recipes are formulated for 72-75% efficiency.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:10
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Splizwarf posted:Thanks for the explanation on aeration. It sounds like what that means is if you made two batches and aerated one, in that one the yeast would run through the sugar faster by breeding faster and in larger amounts, ending fermentation sooner? Is there an advantage to it beyond speeding up fermentation? As for your BIAB question, some people do that, but I just question why you'd do that as opposed to just batch sparging in a regular old MLT since sparging the bag would already require a HLT. The short answer is, it's making something specifically designed to be cheap and simple more complicated when the recipes and assumptions already assume that you aren't sparging.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:14
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Help me out with the acronyms. The recipe I'm going to be trying for my first whack at non-kit brewing is from Clone Brews, predating BIAB by probably 10 years, so I'm trying to work out how I need to approach it. I don't have the equipment for doing it without the bag, and don't know what specifically to call that equipment so this sentence is awkward (sorry!).
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Mar 6, 2012 23:19
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Splizwarf posted:Help me out with the acronyms. MLT = Mash/Lauter Tun - Somewhere to hold the grain at an appropriate grain to water ratio, for a determined amount of time, at a specific temperature (or temperature steps) HLT = Hot Liquor Tank - Vessel used to heat/store water to be added to the MLT (sparging, temperature steps, initial strike water, etc.) BIAB = Brew In A Bag Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 23:27
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Angry Grimace posted:The short answer is that healthy yeasts produce better flavors and provide better attenuation (i.e. they consume the amount of sugar you want them to, as opposed to going inactive and leaving a sugary, incompletely fermented beer). And to slightly expand on this, if you make a yeast starter (video) a day or two before brew day, you'll increase the actual amount of healthy, hungry yeast, meaning that not only will they be efficient but that there will be more yeast to do the work. I'm sure there's situations where it's not a good thing, but I've never heard of someone saying "yeah, I had too much yeast in that batch and it came out bad." Also, if you keep the fermenter in the temperature range that the yeast like (this varies on the strain), they will work more efficiently, which is usually a good thing. Sometimes yeast working for a few weeks at a time tends to get them 'tired' and the flavors they produce aren't what you'd want or expect from the strain. They will be working for a few weeks if the temp is lower than it should be, meaning they just work slow. I've read that in situations where for whatever reason you can't keep the temp up high enough, and you know this ahead of time, it's smart to build up a substantial yeast starter to counter the slower fermentation time. The more yeast, the less work they have to do, and they don't tire as quickly. If you're just starting out (I'm pretty much in the same boat) I'd recommend getting the basics down, then concerning yourself with yeast propagation numbers and things of that nature on your second/third/fourth brews.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:37
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I have a question about overshooting the OG of recipes. I'm using the all-grain Dunkelweizen recipe from Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and I overshot the OG by 10 points. The only difference is that I used 3 pounds of Marris Otter pale ale malt instead of Munich Malt (I accidentally too much munich malt in a previous recipe than I realized). My OG gravity reads at 1.066 instead of 1.056. I got the 152 mash temp spot on, mashed for an hour and then sparged for ~40 minutes. This has happened with a couple other recipes, and I was wondering if there are any obvious answers other than use less grain. My concern is that this beer will end up being too sweet since the WLP300 aren't a super high attenuating strain. Last thing I want is a malt bomb.
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Mar 7, 2012 00:41
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wing-wing posted:I have a question about overshooting the OG of recipes. I'm using the all-grain Dunkelweizen recipe from Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and I overshot the OG by 10 points. The only difference is that I used 3 pounds of Marris Otter pale ale malt instead of Munich Malt (I accidentally too much munich malt in a previous recipe than I realized). My OG gravity reads at 1.066 instead of 1.056. I got the 152 mash temp spot on, mashed for an hour and then sparged for ~40 minutes. This has happened with a couple other recipes, and I was wondering if there are any obvious answers other than use less grain. My concern is that this beer will end up being too sweet since the WLP300 aren't a super high attenuating strain. Last thing I want is a malt bomb. Use less grain. Start using a program / spreadsheet / website that will calculate your measured efficiency and after a few brews you'll have a good idea of what you average and will be able to scale the malt bill in a recipe up/down based on the efficiency of the recipe vs. your personal efficiency.
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Mar 7, 2012 00:59
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Also, it's worth pointing out that the recipes in BCS are written for a slightly lower efficiency (70%?) than a lot of people get, and also they assume you lose a lot to trub and such, so the target volume is larger than you may expect. I personally feel that they goofed up at least some of the conversions to all-grain in the bargain.
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Mar 7, 2012 01:49
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Something that just dawned on me...help me see where this makes no sense (or if I've stumbled on something awesome) If I'm looking to do a BIAB (though I guess this would apply for other types), and I want to make this big burly RIS, the limitation would be the sheer size of the grain bill and how that would be hard to fit that into, say, a 10-gallon vessel along with the proper amount of water for a 5-gallon batch. Here's where my eureka moment came up - what stops me from loading up my vessel with all my water (as one does with BIAB) and only half the grains, doing a full mash, pulling them out, adding the other half of the grains, and doing another mash, then boiling that wort as usual? The word that comes to mind that would be my enemy would be 'saturation' - at a point it seems that the wort wouldn't be able to accept any more sugar, or at least be effective in stripping the barley of their goodness. Am I on the right track with that last point, or would this be a reasonably viable way to attack a large, 1.100-ish OG RIS while still going the BIAB route?
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Mar 7, 2012 05:14
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As mentioned earlier in the thread, several people have read Extreme Brewing. What recipes have you brewed and how have they turned out? I'm thinking of brewing the Wild Flower Wheat and the Midas Touch and wondered if anyone had any advice.
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Mar 7, 2012 05:33
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wattershed posted:Here's where my eureka moment came up - what stops me from loading up my vessel with all my water (as one does with BIAB) and only half the grains, doing a full mash, pulling them out, adding the other half of the grains, and doing another mash, then boiling that wort as usual? As you touched on, the less sugar is in the wort surrounding the grain, the easier it is for sugar to dissolve out of the grain and into the wort. Your efficiency will plummet. Another thing to consider would be to do two separate mashes and collect the runnings from each, yielding twice as much preboil wort at your regular gravity, then doing a long boil to get rid of the excess water. I did that for a barleywine (although I did a batch sparge rather than BIAB), and it was very fine beer.
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Mar 7, 2012 06:54
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Jo3sh posted:Another thing to consider would be to do two separate mashes and collect the runnings from each, yielding twice as much preboil wort at your regular gravity, then doing a long boil to get rid of the excess water. I did that for a barleywine (although I did a batch sparge rather than BIAB), and it was very fine beer. In a situation like that (and pardon my scientific ignorance here), where I'd be doing a longer boil explicitly to reduce water volume and therefore increase gravity, are there adverse effects I should be aware of? Especially in regards to burning grains or boiling off flavors I'd actually want in the batch, which would result in a sub par beer?
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Mar 7, 2012 07:21
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You'd have to be a bit more precise on starting boil volume and your boiloff rate I guess for that longer period of time, especially to time up right your first hop addition. It'll darken the beer a bit, and reduce DMS, but there wouldn't be anything bad that would happen as long as you adjust your hop schedule appropriately. Mosher advocates a longer boil to approximate decoctions.
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Mar 7, 2012 07:30
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wattershed posted:In a situation like that (and pardon my scientific ignorance here), where I'd be doing a longer boil explicitly to reduce water volume and therefore increase gravity, are there adverse effects I should be aware of? Especially in regards to burning grains or boiling off flavors I'd actually want in the batch, which would result in a sub par beer? Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Mar 7, 2012 |
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Mar 7, 2012 07:32
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