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Super Rad posted:When you have 5 gallons of beer plus 5-10 gallons of water it will hold it's temperature fairly well even with only one dose of ice per day. And as a general rule, the larger the volume of water, the slower it will change temperature; if your pond is heating up too quickly, make it bigger. Try to keep it roughly cube-shaped to minimize surface area exposure (where the heat is exchanged), ie don't make it 2 feet deep by 5 long and 8 wide.
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Mar 23, 2012 14:08
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Kegged my Rye Farmhouse Stout a couple of days ago - will be dropping to serving pressure today. It's a cluster gently caress of a recipe and I'm not sure how I feel about it. One thing I'm walking away with though is I'd love to use French Strisslespalt again - those hops smell like fruity pebbles and would be totally kick rear end in a less complicated Belgian/french ale. They got completely buried from the roasted rye and the spicy yeast (3711) in this batch. My wife suggested doing an IPA with them... a Belgian Strisslespalt IPA-style brew - it sounds so wrong, but would it be right?
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Mar 23, 2012 14:16
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I am a little confused about stepping up starters. Here's what I'm gathering so far, let me know if I'm way off. Boil up some starter wort in the 1.040 range, cool and pitch. Keep swirling the jug to keep the yeast in suspension. Then, to step it up I need to refrigerate the jug after 24 hours, let the yeast fall out of suspension, and pour off the liquid on top. Take the jug out of the fridge and make up some more 1.040 wort and add it to the jug. Is this right?
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Mar 23, 2012 16:49
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Pretty much. The idea is to increase the volume of the starter wort each time. Say you want to make a huge 5L starter for a lager, but you only have one fairly old vial of yeast. 5L of wort is too much for that yeast to handle, so it will stress and mutate and not just generally not give you the end result you want. But if you step the volume from 500ml to 2L to 5L, the yeast will grow nicely.
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Mar 23, 2012 17:27
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I guess what I'm confused about is the part about pouring off the liquid on top. This seems to contradict what I read about yeast washing, where you want to keep the liquid on top and throw out the cake. Yeast is confusing 
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Mar 23, 2012 17:32
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With yeast washing, you're pouring off the liquid and a layer of crud, then rinsing with sterile water and storing. You want some water in there so that it's easy to swirl up the yeast and dump it out when you go to use it. With a yeast starter, the liquid is fermented wort that tastes and smells like complete rear end. You're pouring it off because you don't want that ending up in your finished beer.
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Mar 23, 2012 17:39
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OK, it looks like the number of choices as far as sanitizers go in my area is pretty limited. I guess I'm just going to use the metabisulfite I made last time. So how exactly do I use this? Basically soak and then let dry completely?
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Mar 23, 2012 19:24
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Sodium Metabisulfite works slowly, because it doesn't outright kill any bacteria, but does so as it air dries. Just mix it up to whatever directions you have, rinse all your cool equipment with the solution, and let it air dry completely. The fumes can be irritating, so do it in a vented room if possible.
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Mar 23, 2012 23:01
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http://www.sandiegobeerblog.com/2012/03/23/white-labs-tasting-room-now-open/ White Labs (the yeast company) now has a tasting room in San Diego. Looks interesting from the homebrewer perspective, at least. 
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Mar 24, 2012 02:03
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Angry Grimace posted:http://www.sandiegobeerblog.com/2012/03/23/white-labs-tasting-room-now-open/ That would actually be really neat and educational.
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Mar 24, 2012 05:29
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Planning on going over there tomorrow. I want to try those saison variations, especially since I'm using one of them right now. Need to see how bretty it can get if I let it sit longer. This is an incredibly awesome idea, and is going to be a homebrewer's bonanza if they can rotate style sets with reasonable frequency.
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Mar 24, 2012 06:12
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Is it the same recipe for each style, just with a different yeast? That would be pretty awesome.
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Mar 24, 2012 17:26
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withak posted:Is it the same recipe for each style, just with a different yeast? That would be pretty awesome. I think/hope so, I recall reading that was their plan with it when it was first announced. I'll report back later today with more details.
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Mar 24, 2012 18:53
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Jacobey000 posted:Kegged my Rye Farmhouse Stout a couple of days ago - will be dropping to serving pressure today. It's a cluster gently caress of a recipe and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
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Mar 24, 2012 19:46
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indigi posted:Strisselspalt Yeah, I loved the aroma of them, and hate to see it get buried by other hops or malts. Maybe a super simple Belgian?
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Mar 24, 2012 20:12
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Gentlemen, behold my ghetto mead: I used a few pounds of natural honey from Costco, tea leaves, orange peel, cloves and regular bread yeast. I made it in a reused gallon jug with a McGuyvered airlock (after scalding everything with boiling water a few times). After 4 months, I filtered it and gave it a taste - it was like cheap wine, high alcohol content, mild yeast flavour resembling fresh beer. I cooked some more honey and water and added it for taste, now it's sweet with deep honey flavour and a strong alcohol kick, everybody who tried it loved it I'll be definitely buying some serious equipment for another batch as soon as I can spare the money
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Mar 24, 2012 20:16
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Cowcatcher posted:Gentlemen, behold my ghetto mead: Nice work. I really need to bottle one of my meads this weekend. I was surprised to see how well the baker's yeast did in a side by side comparison with Lalvin 1118 and 1116. The baker's yeast cleared up much sooner and much more thoroughly, and there were hardly any off flavors after only a few months.
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Mar 24, 2012 20:42
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Okay, got a dumb question. How To Brew lists "the beer clears" as the way to tell that fermentation's died down enough and it's bottling time. Well, okay, that sounds reasonable, except I made a jet-black stout.  See if it's hazy? I can't even see a flashlight through it! Advice?
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Mar 24, 2012 20:43
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Splizwarf posted:Advice? Take a gravity reading, then 2 days later take another one. If they're the same bottle it.
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Mar 24, 2012 20:45
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Take measurements with a hydrometer, and if it doesn't change in 3 days time, fermentation has finished. If you don't have one, give it three weeks.
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Mar 24, 2012 20:46
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Oh, yeah. Duh, heh.icehewk posted:Take measurements with a hydrometer, and if it doesn't change in 3 days time, fermentation has finished. If you don't have one, give it three weeks. I do, and a jetpump-style thief. Thanks for the advice, guys!
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Mar 24, 2012 20:50
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wattershed posted:I think/hope so, I recall reading that was their plan with it when it was first announced. I'll report back later today with more details. So...it's open bar right now here. This doesn't suck.
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Mar 24, 2012 21:27
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OK here goes... I have a beginner question: I kegged my Palace Bitter in a 5gal keg this afternoon using corn sugar instead of CO^2 (I have that hooked up to my other keg right now). I wanted to describe the steps I took to you guys (and gals) and would appreciate you folks telling me all the things I did wrong. Cleaned up the (new) keg. Soaked all of the bits in StarSan, replaced them, put a cup or two of StarSan inside the keg. Sealed it up and inverted it for an bit, then swished it around and replaced it with another cup or two and swished it around again. Once it was clean, I took the lid out again and put them in a bowl of StarSan. Meanwhile, I mixed up a cup of water and 3 oz of corn sugar and boiled it on the stove for 5 minutes. Then I set it aside to cool. Put the fermentor up on the counter. Took another gravity reading to make sure (still holding steady at 1.008) using my wine thief and hydrometer. I think, if i were to do it again, I would have moved the fermentor up on the counter earlier and then let the sediment settle again for a few hours. There was some floaties present in the cylinder I used to check the gravity in. I washed everything that was about to touch the beer in StarSan (siphon, tubing, etc) I detached the CO2 momentarily from the other keg and used the valve on the tank to flush/fill the new keg with CO2. When I felt it rise up to the top or thereabouts, I pulled it out and poured the fairly warm corn sugar mixture in the bottom on the keg. I then filled the keg from the fermentor up to nearly the top, trying to leave as much sediment as possible but leave little headspace in the keg as well. I think I hit a good medium. (which is the best side to err on?) I put the lid on the keg and topped it up with CO2 and then released most of the pressure using the relief valve to leave room for the CO2 produced by the corn sugar. This is the part I'm really wondering about. I read that you want to leave as little oxygen in there as possible but I don't want to do anything that will cause problems. So... its sitting there in the corner. How much do I have to worry on a scale of "you are fine" to "omg evacuate the house!"? What could I have done better or differently? Do I worry too much about this stuff?
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Mar 24, 2012 23:47
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Sounds like you did everything right, have a beer and don't sweat it.
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Mar 25, 2012 00:03
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Docjowles posted:Sounds like you did everything right, have a beer and don't sweat it.
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Mar 25, 2012 01:24
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wattershed posted:So...it's open bar right now here. This doesn't suck. And now to complete my review... It was reasonably crowded in there, though that was from about 65% of the people actually in the tasting portion of their class, which when they went back to their in-seat education part of things opened the place up a bit. They had six saisons, five or six red ales, four or five brown ales, four hefeweizens, a pair of belgians, and then Ballast Point's Yellowtail base beer with four different yeasts. They have 15 gallons of each beer, and they don't make multiples, so when one blows they don't replace it with anything since the style sets are meant to be served in unison. To that point, I was told they expect to be changing their sets every few days at the most. Tasters (the only thing they have) were $1.25, but I didn't have to put a card down until 2pm, and I got there about 1:10. I'm not sure why they were doing open bar but I wasn't going to complain. The servers weren't able to answer too many questions about their product, which was a bummer, but I was able to confirm from another guy with a lab coat (which in itself is funny to see bio/chem type people in lab coats walking through the tap room) that each beer in any one style is brewed identically to one another except for the yeast. This made the tasters (which they didn't limit simultaneous servings of) fascinating - to see how great a difference the yeast makes given everything else being the same is eye-opening. It's nirvana for beer nerds - this isn't the place you'd want to go as the third stop of a beer tour or something, but should be the first stop if you're not looking to simply get bombed on a tour and want to start by having an education then better appreciating what you drink at the other places.
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Mar 25, 2012 01:28
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wattershed posted:It's nirvana for beer nerds - this isn't the place you'd want to go as the third stop of a beer tour or something, but should be the first stop if you're not looking to simply get bombed on a tour and want to start by having an education then better appreciating what you drink at the other places. This sounds amazing, thanks very much for reviewing and posting. I split a 15 gallon batch once into three 5 gallon carboys and used a different yeast strain on each, which was very interesting, but this just takes it to a whole other level. Good on White Labs for making this available to the public, I hope to get a chance to try something like this some day.
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Mar 25, 2012 18:29
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I was going to try to brew a 1 gallon batch in a carboy yesterday, just to try brewing out. Instead, I threw out my back pulling 4 little girls in a wagon and spent the rest of the day in bed. My wife went out and (misguidedly, but her heart was in the right place) bought me a Mr. Beer. IPA flavor, which I can't stand. Would there be anything wrong with me going to the brew warehouse and buying enough materials for a 2 gallon batch and fermenting in the Mr. Beer? If it works like that, then this will actually be a pretty nifty gift.
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Mar 25, 2012 21:56
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Mr. Beer is a perfectly good fermenter. People talk poo poo about it because the recipes it comes with are mostly terrible.
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Mar 25, 2012 22:03
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Yea the Mr. Beer as a fermentor is pretty great. I like to go read the Mr. Beer forums from time to time, they're pretty funny. There's some dudes that have like 10 of those things going at a time and they talk about modifying the stock kits to make them drinkable. Pretty good stuff.
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Mar 25, 2012 23:42
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Has anyone done any aging in kegs? I'd like to brew some strong beers soon and age them until next winter, but I'm going to be moving soon and fear that moving from one house to another with beer in a carboy will oxidize it too much. A sealed and pressurized keg wouldn't have that though, right?
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Mar 26, 2012 00:15
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withak posted:Mr. Beer is a perfectly good fermenter. People talk poo poo about it because the recipes it comes with are mostly terrible. Truth. As long as you use good, fresh ingredients and use methods, you should be just fine using Mr. Beer as a fermenter. All the usual advice applies - use Star-San for sanitation, do a good boil, pitch yeast of known quality, ferment at an appropriate temperature, etc. - but there's absolutely no reason you can't make great beer in a Mr. Beer fermenter. In fact, some enterprising person should make a line of kits sized for Mr.Beer equipment. Cointelprofessional posted:Has anyone done any aging in kegs? I'd like to brew some strong beers soon and age them until next winter, but I'm going to be moving soon and fear that moving from one house to another with beer in a carboy will oxidize it too much. A sealed and pressurized keg wouldn't have that though, right? Kegs are great for bulk aging. Oxidation is no concern if there's no way for oxygen to get to the beer. You want to avoid letting it get hot if you can (U-haul across the desert in July == suboptimal), but it will fare better and be easier to move and less likely to break in a stainless tank than a glass carboy. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 00:37
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Did my first all grain yesterday. Underestimated the amount of time I would need. Wound up mashing in at about 4 and I had yeast pitched at 8. I hadn't finished my cooler mash tun yet (still leaky) so I wound up doing the lauter and batch sparge in my bottling bucket with a paint strainer bag. Efficiency wasn't awful for a hackjob method like that (a calculator puts me at about 68%) and having lovely temperature control on my sparge, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I'll probably have my mash tun finished before my next all grain adventure, so hopefully it'll be better next time. My experience *really* makes me want a kettle with a ball valve now. Pouring 5 gallons of wort into a carboy is no joke. On the plus side, my Spotted Cow clone attempt is happily bubbling away right now. Wyeast 2565 is crazy aggressive - bubbling nearly 2-3 times a second! edit: I want to start buying grains in bulk and crushing them as I need without having to take trips to the homebrew store. Should I save some scratch and go with the corona mill, or go all out and pick up a Barley Crusher? Money isn't really tight, but I like to save money where I can. crazyfish fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 01:30
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Tasted first batch of beer yesterday! Incredibly smooth, and the carbonation seemed to work out so that's a plus. Although we may have added too much bottling sugar, and the beer has a distinct "wine" taste. Will that dissipate or is it due to something?
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Mar 26, 2012 01:37
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Cointelprofessional posted:Has anyone done any aging in kegs? I'd like to brew some strong beers soon and age them until next winter, but I'm going to be moving soon and fear that moving from one house to another with beer in a carboy will oxidize it too much. A sealed and pressurized keg wouldn't have that though, right? I have a quad on tap right now that I aged in a keg for a full year. When the year was up the keg was still under pressure, so the beer had literally 0 exposure to oxygen in that time. It's drinking amazing.
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Mar 26, 2012 01:45
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Arnold of Soissons posted:I have a quad on tap right now that I aged in a keg for a full year. When the year was up the keg was still under pressure, so the beer had literally 0 exposure to oxygen in that time. It's drinking amazing. Able to share that recipe? I was thinking about doing the exact same thing.
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Mar 26, 2012 03:15
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After running my copper-coil wort chiller for five or ten minutes today I noticed there was a slow drip of water dripping out from the plastic tubing joint into the kettle. I was feeding the water into the chiller using a garden hose. I luckily had a screwdriver handy to tighten the brace back up to stop the leak and I don't think a whole lot made it in. This was an extract batch with a partial boil so having more water added isn't a bad thing since I was going to do it anyway. But I wasn't going to add that water from a garden hose that has been sitting outside since last July that could have had god-knows-what living inside it. So all in all I had some small but unknown quantity of hose water come into my wort, what are the odds of the batch being ruined?
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Mar 26, 2012 04:26
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I've done literally that exact same thing, except in a full volume all-grain batch. Other than lowering the OG like 10 points (I didn't figure out what happened til I took my OG reading and it was lower than before I started boiling  ) it was totally fine, no off flavors. I felt pretty dumb but it didn't ruin the batch.Edit: If it seems nuts that I didn't notice like 2 gallons of extra volume, I plead the excuse that I had dinner guests and it was dark by that time. By now I've had worm clamps fail me at every stage of the process, from mash to chill to keg. So I tighten the poo poo out of them every time I see one. Docjowles fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 05:35
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It was going into a volume of water that was near-boiling. It is fine.
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Mar 26, 2012 05:38
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I bottled one of my meads tonight in 8 wine bottles and 24 beer bottles. It's actually a cyser with apples I gleaned and pressed in a DIY cider press. I really like the idea of being able to crack a beer bottle for tasting as it ages instead of trying to finish off a whole bottle myself. It started at 1.128 and finished at 1.020 with Lalvin DV10, for about 14% ABV. It was in primary for a little over a month, and bulk aging for about 3 months. I'm really impressed with how it tastes for such a short time aging. Nice sweetness but not overpowering, and some hints of apple and honey.
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Mar 26, 2012 06:01
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