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Well, he mixed in the sugar to primary. Even if the ferment was finished, this would have stirred up some yeast - more than typically gets into beer at bottling, I'd guess. More yeast than usual might indeed go after readily available sugar in very short order. Assuming the priming was reasonably well mixed in, I don't think bottle bombs are in the offing unless the beer wasn't done fermenting. There just doesn't seem to be enough sugar there.
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Apr 15, 2012 00:45
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| # ? May 30, 2024 18:44 |
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I had no idea I was creating an enigma when I bottled my first beer. Neat.
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Apr 15, 2012 01:48
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Brewing pictures for the brewing thread. Bottles.  Poor lonely hops, they fell on a brick. Too bad they will never get used.  Citra looking just fine.  Getting ready for the boil. 1 oz and 0.5 oz each  Starting to boil.  These are all Citra hops that went into an attempt at making Zombie Dust. Never had it before, but since I've heard that people like it, it sounded interesting. Separating the whole leaf hops from the wort was a lot easier than I thought. They clogged the filter bag more often than pellets, but I was able to leave the bulk of the hops behind in the boil kettle instead of having to run them through the mesh bag I was using to filter. Could have made a drat soup out of the leftovers.
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Apr 15, 2012 02:27
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Last Saturday I brewed a blonde ale, today I moved it into the keg I finished off the same day as the brewing session. 7.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) 0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine 0.50 lb Crystal Malt - 10L 0.50 lb Vienna Malt 0.25 oz Centennial (55 min) 0.25 oz Centennial (35 min) 0.25 oz Cascade (20 min) 0.25 oz Cascade (5 min) 1 Pkgs Nottingham It smells pretty good and tasted decent with no carbonation; I'm really looking forward to giving it a taste in a few days when it's got some carbonation.
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Apr 15, 2012 04:36
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Two gallons of mead in the making. On the left is a mix of distilled water, Golden Eagle syrup, which is a mix of corn syrup, sugar cane, cane molasses, and honey, flavored with lime, raspberries, cinnamon, and clove. On the right is a batch of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead using locally procured honey and a Florida orange. We'll see how they turn out. 
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Apr 15, 2012 04:58
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Super Rad posted:I agree totally! Coldness mutes so many of the crucial flavors in beer, and I think that drinking "ice-cold" beer is a recent phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the recent phenomon (I'm talking last century here) of light lager monopoly - and who wants to taste those beers any better? On the one hand, yeah, and those flavors and scents are neat as they come out. On the other hand I don't usually like the textural changes and increasing tendency to foam in my mouth that accompanies warming (especially tannins being revealed, I don't enjoy "classic" red wines or scotches). The chilled glasses are to keep my beer relatively cool while I drink it, which takes a while (often 1/2 hour or more). "Drink it Ice-Coldtm" is a retarded marketing gimmick, but it seems like a bottle held in hand will be room temperature in under 10 minutes in a 74F room. I think generally I don't like my beer to go over 55 or 60F. v  vAnyway. To brewing! I'm looking for good braggot recipes, hoping to find one with: a) a noticeable honey note b) decent carbonation c) medium to thick body Anyone have something they'd recommend?
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Apr 15, 2012 07:18
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Bought a chest freezer off of craigslist today to turn into a kegerator. Brought it home, plugged it in, and the drat thing doesn't get cold. Should have just bought a new one, would have been less expensive in the long run.
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Apr 15, 2012 07:50
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Zakath posted:Bought a chest freezer off of craigslist today to turn into a kegerator. Brought it home, plugged it in, and the drat thing doesn't get cold. Should have just bought a new one, would have been less expensive in the long run. Well your mileage may vary on CL. However sometimes if it's an older freezer/fridge it might take a while to get down to temp. I found both an old fridge and freezer and thought this initially as well. Both ran fine but we're barely cold after a day. Within a few days though both were running like champs and chilling beer. Odds are too that it could be something small (if there is a problem) with the refrigeration deck. Call a repairman/technician/whatever from a listing and just toss a couple questions at him, they'll usually answer most questions and help you out.
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Apr 15, 2012 15:23
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lazerwolf posted:That's what I was thinking. I also have a quick question about attenuation. I think it finished around 1.018 which was a bit high compared to the recipe. I basically let the beer sit in primary for 3 weeks and then bottle. Is there something I should have done to ensure some more attenuation? Getting extract beers to attenuate well can be a bitch. Using extra light DME as your base can help. Also, go easy on the crystal malt.
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Apr 15, 2012 19:42
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I'm setting up a corny keg system for my basement. Getting a chest freezer and going to get a few taps going. One question I have is for lagering, I currently rack to the secondary and sit it at 38F. Can I rack directly into the keg for lagering and just attach a line to carbonate when its ready or should I continue as I am and then transfer to the keg for carbonating/dispensing?
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Apr 15, 2012 21:58
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You can lager in kegs no issue. If you find that there is a lot of sediment at the bottom of your secondary in your present process, you may then want to transfer out of the lagering keg and into a fresh keg for serving - this is easy to do with a jumper hose, a short piece of beer line with an out fitting appropriate for your kegs on both ends. This would get the beer off the sediment and help keep it clear in your glass.
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Apr 15, 2012 22:59
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Jo3sh posted:You can lager in kegs no issue. If you find that there is a lot of sediment at the bottom of your secondary in your present process, you may then want to transfer out of the lagering keg and into a fresh keg for serving - this is easy to do with a jumper hose, a short piece of beer line with an out fitting appropriate for your kegs on both ends. This would get the beer off the sediment and help keep it clear in your glass. Will have to give it a shot with the batch that is in primary right now. I have recently moved from 1 gallon batches to 5 gallon batches after saying gently caress it and just taking over space in the house. Trying to see how many 5 gallon carboys I'll need versus how many 5 gallon kegs I'll need. Bottling was annoying enough with 1 gallon batches, I'm not going to bother with the 5s.
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Apr 15, 2012 23:03
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I did a little more work on the stand this weekend. Here it is yesterday after a cleanup pass and with the burners test fit. I added the gas rail and valves after this but didn't take a photo. This morning I put a couple coats of high heat paint on and then reassembled. I still need to mount the pumps and run a few gas hoses but it's almost ready.  Unfortunately I'm brewing a 10 gallon dubbel this afternoon that's going to occupy my fermenting fridge for a while so I don't think the maiden run will be for a couple of weeks. I'm sure there will be plenty of process tuning and programming in the meantime.
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Apr 15, 2012 23:06
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Looks amazing. If and when I get around to building the next iteration of my rig, I may ask you for some details, if that's ok.
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Apr 16, 2012 02:11
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I've posted recently about boil volumes and hop utilization, so I'll get into specifics here. I'm interesting in doing this kit (http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/PetiteSaisondEte.pdf) as my next batch. I love saison and it sounds amazing plus with the warmer temps rolling in using the 3711 yeast will work well. I plugged the recipe into hopville and messed around with the boil volumes. The initial recipe is 3.15# Pilsen LME 1# Pilsen DME 1# Wheat DME 0.5# Belgian Caravienne (steeping) 60 min 1 oz UK Kent Goldings 10 min 0.25 oz Saaz / 0.25 oz Styrian Goldings 2 min 0.75 oz Saaz / 0.75 oz Styrian Goldings the instructions call for a 2.5 gallon partial boil with all of the fermentables added at 60. Hopville gives me a rough calcuation of ~15 IBU. If I bump up the boil volume to 6 Gallons I'm getting ~28 IBU. I know Saison are the true 'Belgian IPA' but would that big of a jump in IBU change the taste of the beer entirely?
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Apr 16, 2012 17:38
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Welp, first brew day was on Saturday. Things that went wrong: Forgot to add the 8oz of brown sugar near the end of the boil Scorched a bit of extract on the bottom of the pot Pushed the seal on the lid of the fermenter in to the wort with the air lock (fished it out with a sanitized arm) Overcooled my wort when adding water at the end (not a full boil recipe) Despite that, I hit OG right on the nose, according to the recipe. I think this was because the recipe called for 6.6 pounds of extract, and I added 7 pounds. Its bubbling merrily away in my crawl space at the moment, we'll see if its any good in a couple of weeks.
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Apr 17, 2012 00:17
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MalleusDei posted:Pushed the seal on the lid of the fermenter in to the wort with the air lock (fished it out with a sanitized arm) I did this on my first brewday and the beer turned out fine.
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Apr 17, 2012 00:19
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MalleusDei posted:Welp, first brew day was on Saturday. If your crawl space gets higher than, say, 68F you may want to check on it to make sure it doesn't explode and make a mess (assuming you didn't assemble a blowoff valve).
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Apr 17, 2012 00:39
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If you really want, you can boil the brown sugar in a small amount of water, cool, and add directly to the fermenter. I probably wouldn't bother if you hit your desired OG anyway, but it's an option to remember if it happens again.
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Apr 17, 2012 01:24
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Making a hoppy saison to celebrate the early hot temperatures in NYC. I'm pretty excited about it. 2.5 gallon batch 5 lb Belgian pilsner (83%) 1/2 lb Dark munich (8%) 1/2 lb Wheat malt (8%) Target OG 1.058 (71% efficiency) 1 oz Styrian Golding (3.8% AA) @ 60" 1/2 oz Saaz (3.0% AA) @ 10" 1/2 oz Saaz @ 1" Target IBUs 33.9 I targeted a low mash temperature of 147, but somehow ended up at 152 even after I accounted for heating my tun, so I just left the lid of my cooler open for the 60 minutes I mashed; by the end it had dropped to 144. In retrospect I guess I could've added some cool water and done a thinner mash. I still got much higher efficiency than I expected, 77%, giving an actual OG of 1.063. I'm using Wyeast 3711 French Saison, which should give a FG of 1.011 for 6.3% ABV. It's turned out even hotter than I expected and I have no means of cooling the wort, so it's getting above 80 now during primary fermentation. Guess I should have gone with the Dupont yeast! Scythe fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Apr 17, 2012 |
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Apr 17, 2012 02:46
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I'm always a little amazed by how much carbonation changes beer. I did a rebrew of a "blah" Belgian wit from last year, upping the citrus flavors a lot to make it more interesting. Tasted it flat right after kegging and it tasted like grapefruit juice cut with lemonade, massive citrus bomb. A few days later, carbed and chilled, it's MUCH more in balance and drinkable. I probably still overcompensated a little on the fruit flavors but this is going to be refreshing as hell when the weather turns hot.Scythe posted:I'm using Wyeast 3711 French Saison, which should give a FG of 1.011 for 6.3% ABV. It's turned out even hotter than I expected and I have no means of cooling the wort, so it's getting above 80 now during primary fermentation. Guess I should have gone with the Dupont yeast! I think you'll be fine, saison yeasts dig hot temps and 3711 gives no fucks about mash temp. 1.011 is probably the high end of what you will hit 
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Apr 17, 2012 03:07
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Scythe posted:actual OG of 1.063. Docjowles is right. I love 3711 and it normally finished around 1.004 for me no matter what, so your beer may be closer to the 7.5-8% range.
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Apr 17, 2012 03:40
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Magua posted:Docjowles is right. I love 3711 and it normally finished around 1.004 for me no matter what, so your beer may be closer to the 7.5-8% range. I just hit 93% attenuation with WLP670, and that was over six weeks with it sitting around 67 the whole time. Saison yeasts are so forgiving, I'm surprised they're not more popular, especially since you're assured to have them eat down to around 1.004 regardless of where you start.
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Apr 17, 2012 04:09
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The other Wyeast saison yeast was a real finicky partner when I last tried it. Two beers, both took at least a month to fully attenuate, and only got down to like 1.008 and 1.010.
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Apr 17, 2012 07:18
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I primed a batch of American amber ale with some old extract 3 weeks ago (calculated to 2.6 volumes, sitting at around 68-69 degrees). In retrospect this was a horrible idea because it's not very carbonated. I tried using a heating pad under the bottles but still nothing. Is there anything I can do at this point?
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Apr 17, 2012 13:36
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Docjowles posted:I did a rebrew of a "blah" Belgian wit from last year, upping the citrus flavors a lot to make it more interesting. Tasted it flat right after kegging and it tasted like grapefruit juice cut with lemonade, massive citrus bomb. A few days later, carbed and chilled, it's MUCH more in balance and drinkable. I probably still overcompensated a little on the fruit flavors but this is going to be refreshing as hell when the weather turns hot. Got a recipe? Sounds just about awesome for the coming months. We hit 97F in northern VA this weekend. This summer's going to be a loving bastard.
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Apr 17, 2012 14:27
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Can you guys tell me about the brewing thermometers you use? I'm up to the stage where I need to infuse some specialty grains for my next brew so would need to keep the pot at a constant temperature. On some videos I've seen guys use a clip-on thermometer that sits on the pot rim with the probe reaching down. On the other hand there's a lot of stuff like this which I fear is finicky and prone to breaking. But it's cheap. That said I don't want to go for cheap just because it is, if something is useful further down the line. edit: durr missed the link from the post. Kaiho fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Apr 17, 2012 |
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Apr 17, 2012 14:55
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Thermapen is the only thermometer you'll ever need for anything, both brewing and cooking related.
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Apr 17, 2012 15:11
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Doesn't look long enough. Do they make foot-long Thermapens? Also, doesn't look like I can leave a Thermapen in my roast in the oven with a timer and temp readout on a remote unit clipped to my belt while I do other poo poo around the house. 
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Apr 17, 2012 15:23
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Thermoworks also makes remote-read thermometers with cables as long as you could want. Thermapens are great - I love mine to an unreasonable degree - but a long-stem dial or digital thermometer is just fine for this. For steeping, you really only need to hold within a range, so anything that is accurate will work just fine.
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Apr 17, 2012 15:26
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Jo3sh posted:Thermoworks also makes remote-read thermometers with cables as long as you could want. While it's true that steeping doesn't need a high degree of accuracy - the stem dial thermometer that came with my brew kit was absolutely useless the first time I did all grain. While it was reading accurately in the room temperature ranges, it was reading over 10* low on our mash. We tossed that piece of junk and got a kitchen probe thermometer for $10 that was much better suited to the task. However it still gave wildly inconsistent readings and would take so damned long to give a final reading. in the end I ordered a thermapen and never looked back.
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Apr 17, 2012 16:22
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internet celebrity posted:I primed a batch of American amber ale with some old extract 3 weeks ago (calculated to 2.6 volumes, sitting at around 68-69 degrees). In retrospect this was a horrible idea because it's not very carbonated. I tried using a heating pad under the bottles but still nothing. Is there anything I can do at this point? You sure you calculated correctly? 2.6 volumes is plenty of carbonation for american ales. Remember that you need significantly more extract than you would sugar. Also, keep the bottles in the fridge for a couple days before you open them to make sure all the carbonation is in solution.
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Apr 17, 2012 16:35
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I just use a candy thermometer, but I suppose I should check it's calibration with a digital probe before I use it again.The Dregs posted:I had no idea I was creating an enigma when I bottled my first beer. Neat. Requesting bottle bomb update. I bottled my third 5-gallon batch last night and I finally feel like I have the whole brewing/fermenting/bottling process down now. I'm ready to move out of the kitchen and buy a propane burner. Is the Blichmann burner worth the extra money over the KAB4 ($140 vs $90)?
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Apr 17, 2012 16:45
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internet celebrity posted:I primed a batch of American amber ale with some old extract 3 weeks ago (calculated to 2.6 volumes, sitting at around 68-69 degrees). In retrospect this was a horrible idea because it's not very carbonated. I tried using a heating pad under the bottles but still nothing. Is there anything I can do at this point? How long did you have them chilling before opening? It takes some time for the co2 to actually get into solution and at lower carbs in general its easy to think you've got flat beer if you aren't chilling for a couple days.
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Apr 17, 2012 17:06
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zedprime posted:How long did you have them chilling before opening? It takes some time for the co2 to actually get into solution and at lower carbs in general its easy to think you've got flat beer if you aren't chilling for a couple days. Hmmm, I never knew that. I'll throw some in the fridge tonight.
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Apr 17, 2012 17:32
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It's basic gas law. Most gasses are more soluble in colder liquids. Which is why if you fill a growler or glass, it will foam less the colder the glass is.
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Apr 17, 2012 17:38
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zerox147o posted:If your crawl space gets higher than, say, 68F you may want to check on it to make sure it doesn't explode and make a mess (assuming you didn't assemble a blowoff valve). Docjowles posted:If you really want, you can boil the brown sugar in a small amount of water, cool, and add directly to the fermenter. I probably wouldn't bother if you hit your desired OG anyway, but it's an option to remember if it happens again.
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Apr 17, 2012 19:26
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Is the Blichmann burner worth the extra money over the KAB4 ($140 vs $90)? I've got the KAB4, and aside from the distance from burner to keggle, it's pretty great. I fitted it with two trimmed pieces of ductwork (9$ at Lowe's) that fit around the burner housing for directing the heat directly to the keggle. Great heat shields and easy to make--if not a little ghetto looking.
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Apr 17, 2012 19:45
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I recently purchased a Groupon for a brew starter kit from Midwest Supplies. The amount of stuff you get for the price seemed pretty darned good to me, so I thought I'd share. The deal is $76 shipped for their Bewing Basics Equipment Kit, a $25 gift certificate for your next order, a wallet bottle opener, and ingredients for an Irish Red Ale, an Irish Stout or an Autumn Amber Ale. I've brewed beer a few times, but it has been a whole lotta years and I was always just assisting someone else who actually knew what they were doing. Am I safe to assume that once I get a brewing kettle and some bottles I'll have everything I need to get a batch of beer going? I'm looking to start with the Irish Red, if that makes a difference. Does anyone have experience with Midwest Supplies? I assume they're reputable and all that...
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Apr 17, 2012 20:16
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| # ? May 30, 2024 18:44 |
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I got started on that kit myself. I didn't brew very good beer at first, but I'm a champion now. You will need a thermometer. I would also get some Star San sanitizer, because if I remember right it comes with a cleaner and not a sanitizer. Other than that, you should be good. There's a limitless amount of upgrades and gadgets to buy, which will only make things more enjoyable and allow you to brew better beer.
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Apr 17, 2012 21:10
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