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How do you make yourself feel better after a 16 hour work day? Ordering a 7cu ft chest freezer to slap the new external thermostat onto, obviously. Pilsner and APA ready to go into kegs that will sit in the cooler for another week or so before hitting it with the co2. Brown ale tapping tonight after a few problems with getting my kegging system working. Another APA and the Farmhouse Bier de Table (Northern Brewer kit) ready to brew tomorrow and make their way to the vacated carboys. Pretty sure the APA is going to be a staple in the cooler, not quite sure what to go about making next.
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May 4, 2012 18:34
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Whats the equation for how much batch priming sugar to use? I'm going to be bottling 22L tonight.
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May 4, 2012 19:52
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Les Oeufs posted:Whats the equation for how much batch priming sugar to use? I'm going to be bottling 22L tonight. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html
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May 4, 2012 19:58
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Docjowles posted:Just kegged my 50:50 Citra and Amarillo IPA. It's flat so I'll reserve judgement, but it seems like it might be too much of an all citrus bomb and could use some of that pine tar character to balance. If I rebrew this down the road, what might be a good hop to mix in? Google leads me to Chinook or Simcoe (hopefully the crop is bigger next year!). Yeah, I've been really happy with my 65:35 Citra/Simcoe IPA, where I started from the Zombie Dust clone.
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May 4, 2012 21:19
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wattershed posted:http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html Thanks. It says 1.8 oz (=51 grams) to prime 22L. Does that sound right?
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May 4, 2012 23:35
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For fairly light carbonation, yes. I assumed 12 degrees Celsius and it looks like that's about 1.7 volumes. That might not be to style depending on what you are bottling.
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May 5, 2012 00:46
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Judging by this page http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html I'm going to go with 4 oz
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May 5, 2012 01:30
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Bit of an experiment brew tomorrow. I want to really see what kiln coffee malt tastes like so I'm doing a dry Irish stout recipe but swapping the roast barley for kiln coffee. I can't imagine it being TOO much different from pale chocolate, but it's about 30* lighter and people rave about how coffee-like it is, so maybe it'll turn out like a smooth iced-coffee beer.
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May 5, 2012 08:12
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Working on a Belgian Pale Ale recipe to do next. Would love some comments on this recipe-in-progress or links to good recipes if anyone's done one before. (For 2.5 gal) 2.5 lbs Belgian pilsner (47%) 2.5 lbs Munich (47%) .25 lbs Caramunich (5%) 1 oz Special B (1%) Probably just a single infusion mash at 152 or so. Targeting 1.055 (with 75% efficiency). .5 oz Amarillo (7% AA) @ 60" .25 oz Amarillo @ 10" .25 oz Amarillo @ 1" Target IBU 37. I have 3711 hanging around that I washed from my saison, so I'm thinking of using that. It should get down to 1.005 or so yielding 6.7% ABV. I'm wavering on whether or not I should use munich/caramunich or vienna/caravienne, or if I should toss in some aromatic or victory. I'd really like a nice orange color; Hopville thinks this'll get to 10 SRM the way it is...
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May 5, 2012 19:04
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I have a batch of the brewer's best summer ale bubbling away in my primary and my wife made the suggestion of adding some cardamom when I transfer it to the secondary. Has anyone done this before? I am not sure how much to add or if it should be the whole pods or the seeds. I'm thinking of just chucking some whole pods in a mesh bag and adding that to the secondary. Will that work or should i go with seeds instead of the whole pods? My inlaws are Indian and i was thinking of Trying to come up with an Indian spiced ale for my next beer, so if anyone has a recipe they could pass along I would appreciate it. I've done a few kit beers and would like to branch out and start to buy everything individually.
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May 5, 2012 19:24
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mrwrong posted:cardamom I would definitely take it out of the fibrous pods and baybe bash it up a bit in a mortar. One very good approach is to soak your spices in decent vodka for a couple of weeks, then add the resulting tincture to the beer rather than the spices directly. mrwrong posted:My inlaws are Indian and i was thinking of Trying to come up with an Indian spiced ale for my next beer. If your mother-in-law has a special recipe for garam masala (I know there are as many variants as there are families), maybe ask her for some and use that to spice your beer, again with the tincture trick.
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May 5, 2012 19:45
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mrwrong posted:I have a batch of the brewer's best summer ale bubbling away in my primary and my wife made the suggestion of adding some cardamom when I transfer it to the secondary. Has anyone done this before? I am not sure how much to add or if it should be the whole pods or the seeds. I'm thinking of just chucking some whole pods in a mesh bag and adding that to the secondary. Will that work or should i go with seeds instead of the whole pods? I can't really offer too much guidance on either of these points, but your post reminded me of Midnight Sun's Bangalore DIPA which was loving incredible. http://www.midnightsunbrewing.com/beer_11WTbangalore.php
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May 5, 2012 19:46
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Scythe posted:I'm wavering on whether or not I should use munich/caramunich or vienna/caravienne, or if I should toss in some aromatic or victory. I'd really like a nice orange color; Hopville thinks this'll get to 10 SRM the way it is... You could add a hilariously tiny amount of something like Black Patent Malt if you just want to orange things up. 1 to 1.5oz should get you in the ballpark based on plugging it into BeerSmith. Add it during the vorlauf stage right before sparging and you'll get color without any roastiness spilling over. I think you'll do well going with munich + caracunich, and no aromatic or victory. Munich is already a very rich malt, as is special B, and you're not trying to brew a bock here. Give it a shot and if you really want to punch up the malt even more, make a note for next time. Also, amarillo is an interesting choice for a Belgian beer. I think it could work, especially with the saison yeast, but something like styrian goldings or german hallertauer might be more "traditional" (if you can apply that word to Belgian brewing).
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May 5, 2012 20:01
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Here's a question regarding leftover yeast in bottles. I know with beer this is sometimes preferred because you can bottle age your brews, but I make a lot of mead too. My last batch sat in tertiary for probably 6 or 7 months and never fully cleared. To clarify, it spent about a month in primary, 2 months in secondary, and then that 6 or 7 month period where it was done fermenting but I was hoping it would clear. It was a wee bit hazy so I figured that was as good as it would get and bottled it all. Fast forward another 6 months and I had perfectly clear mead with a 2-3mm thick cake of yeast at the bottom. This was cool and all because it actually did clear, but it was extremely hard to pour without getting yeast in the glass, which gave an extremely bitter taste to it. Most of the bottles went 2/3 empty because the bottom 1/3 was full of unsettled yeast. So what can I do to avoid this with the 5 gallon batch I've got going? I have campden tablets and bentonite which I purchased but ultimately never used. Do you guys have experience with these? I think I put campden in a 3 gallon batch of something but not bentonite. I do remember accidently tasting a small bit of camden and it was loving disgusting. Any advice would be appreciated.
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May 5, 2012 20:35
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Docjowles posted:You could add a hilariously tiny amount of something like Black Patent Malt if you just want to orange things up. 1 to 1.5oz should get you in the ballpark based on plugging it into BeerSmith. Add it during the vorlauf stage right before sparging and you'll get color without any roastiness spilling over. Thanks for the advice. Honestly the Special B was pretty much only in there for color anyway, so maybe I'll just sub it out for black patent and do it at vorlauf as you suggest. The Amarillo is in there to satisfy an urge for American hops (my last few beers have been finished with Golding, Saaz, and Strisselspalt and I need some citrus!)--I know they're not traditional. Thanks again!
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May 5, 2012 21:14
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Ok, this kit beer is doing my head in. I want to start doing grains again, but Brew in a bag seems my only option. Is this: http://mashmaster.com.au/p/4300172/brew-in-a-bag-biab.html A suitable bag for a 25l or would I have to still use a 50l pot? The reason I say that is a matter of space. A 25L pot I can throw on the stove, a 50l pot I need to find somewhere safe to use my old "vietnamese flame thrower" deathtrap burner.
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May 6, 2012 06:22
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kaempfer0080 posted:Any advice would be appreciated. Cold crash before bottling for at least 12 hours.
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May 6, 2012 19:48
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kaempfer0080 posted:Any advice would be appreciated.
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May 6, 2012 20:25
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Docjowles posted:You could add a hilariously tiny amount of something like Black Patent Malt if you just want to orange things up. 1 to 1.5oz should get you in the ballpark based on plugging it into BeerSmith. Add it during the vorlauf stage right before sparging and you'll get color without any roastiness spilling over. Having just bottled a saison that I dryhopped the hell out of with amarillo, I can say it's pretty drat tasty. I kept it simple, grist was 5.5 lbs pils, 1.5 lbs munich, .25 lbs aromatic, and then I used a half pound of candi syrup too. Pretty color, nice goldy orange. I think I threw in something like 3 ounces of amarillo for dry hopping, hard to say. Started with an ounce and a half but felt it needed more after a few days, so I just grabbed another handful of pellets and threw them in. For my next brew I'm thinking about doing a witbier, 50/50 grist of pils malt and wheat, but this will be my first time doing any sort of wheat beer. Should I step mash to do a protein rest or anything like that? Not sure how the wheat is gonna change things exactly, if at all, so I dunno. Or can I just mash at like 150-152 for an hour or whatever as usual?
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May 6, 2012 20:56
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Jo3sh posted:I would definitely take it out of the fibrous pods and baybe bash it up a bit in a mortar. One very good approach is to soak your spices in decent vodka for a couple of weeks, then add the resulting tincture to the beer rather than the spices directly. Thanks for the tips. I mashed up a bit of the cardamom and added it to the secondary but I'll definitely get her families garam masala recipe and soak that before I brew up my next batch.
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May 6, 2012 23:21
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Super Rad posted:Well I think you may have misunderstood what he did, I think he may have added about 10x too much nutrient if I'm reading his post correctly. Yup, that makes me feel a little better, thanks. It's fermenting at my dad's so I haven't seen since I put the lid on, and he told me it looks strangely yellow. On the other it's by far the palest thing we've brewed yet (3-4 SRM) and he didn't see what the wort looked like. So... time will tell.
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May 6, 2012 23:27
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I love kegging, but god drat if it doesn't end up as annoying as bottling some days. Got a new keg about 10 days ago and transferred an IPA into it. It refused to carbonate at all even after days at 30 PSI and having the poo poo shaken out of it. Also there's a small puddle of beer on the floor of the keezer, uh-oh. Did the ole' Star San spray, found a tiny leak below the beverage out post, tightened the hell out of both posts to be sure. A few days later, beer is still flat and I noticed the regulator pressure has dropped like 8 PSI below where I set it. Star San again, identify another tiny leak at the hose clamp holding the hose onto the gas disconnect. Cut if off, re-clamp, all good. A few days later, it's doing the same drat thing  Now it's leaking slightly out the bottom of the gas disconnect. After triple checking everything and using entirely too much keg lube, it's still hosed up. Bought a new gas disconnect from the LHBS, put it on, and finally I see no little Star San bubbles anywhere. I fully expect something else to go wrong, but fingers crossed for now.Hopefully that's the end of it, this IPA isn't getting any younger. I've had a lot of stupid little issues like this kegging, I'm like the embodiment of Murphy's Law. Docjowles fucked around with this message at 02:37 on May 7, 2012 |
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May 7, 2012 02:32
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Docjowles posted:I love kegging, but god drat if it doesn't end up as annoying as bottling some days. I was fantasizing about my upcoming keg purchase today during my 4 hour bottling session. I had complained in the beer thread about lovely labels, and I take that all back now, it took 3 different soaks in oxyclean to get the labels off of some breck and dry dock bottles. My daughters also kept touching everything, enough that I though about bathing them with StarSan so that they wouldn't contaminate my precious beer. I thought I had my bottling process down to 1.5 hours or so, but today proved me wrong.
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May 7, 2012 03:28
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Another Colorado brewgoon? Nice  I wouldn't go back to bottling; I've had plenty of those awful 4 hour bottling days. But getting your keg system working leak-free can be every bit as much of a chore. I was ready to throw the new keg through the window this morning when I saw it was still leaking after a weak of tweaks.
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May 7, 2012 04:03
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kaempfer0080 posted:Here's a question regarding leftover yeast in bottles. I know with beer this is sometimes preferred because you can bottle age your brews, but I make a lot of mead too. Unfortunately you've already found the most reliable technique: time. Just keep racking and aging in the carboys until it's clear. Various fining agents may help with existing batches. Campden (metabisfulite) is not a fining agent though, it's for killing the yeast and anything else that's growing in there. What you can do for future batches is try a different yeast with better flocculation characteristics.
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May 7, 2012 04:57
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duck monster posted:Ok, this kit beer is doing my head in. I want to start doing grains again, but Brew in a bag seems my only option. You will be fine using a 25L pot. If the bag goes over the side of the pot it won't matter in the least.
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May 7, 2012 05:05
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What yeasts like to eat agave nectar? A friend of mine has a shitload and wants to try making a mead with it.
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May 7, 2012 22:05
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The WSJ just posted an article about what to do with spent grains. Nice to see that baking them in an oven will stop the rotting effect because phewwwwwwww.
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May 7, 2012 22:21
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Splizwarf posted:What yeasts like to eat agave nectar? A friend of mine has a shitload and wants to try making a mead with it. Any decent yeast will - it's really just a fairly simple collection of sugars. gently caress if I know what it would be called, though - somewhere between mead and pulque, I guess, depending on how much honey is involved. I don't know how the nutrients in agave nectar are - you may want to add some to get a healthy ferment. icehewk posted:phewwwwwwww. I know what you mean. I'm brewing today, and the spent grains are in the greenwaste bin. By the time it goes to the curb on Friday, it will be positively rank.
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May 7, 2012 22:34
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Jo3sh posted:I know what you mean. I'm brewing today, and the spent grains are in the greenwaste bin. By the time it goes to the curb on Friday, it will be positively rank. Guess I'm lucky I always brew on a weekend and our garbage day is on Monday! I've never had moist spent grains sitting for very long but I can imagine it gets pretty bad.
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May 7, 2012 22:49
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One time I finished brewing super late, by which time I was kind of tipsy. Resolved that I'd "totally clean the mash tun tomorrow". ... Finally remembered and opened it up like 2 weeks later. 
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May 7, 2012 23:06
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I ended up with a bag of grain out of sight out of mind, but tied up mostly tight in a trashbag to itself. I was so confused when there'd be an occasional whiff of incredibly sweaty feet. I finally caught on that it wasn't ghost feet and by the time I got it to the dumpster my nose was dead for the rest of the day.
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May 7, 2012 23:11
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Alright so I'm about to bottle with some maple syrup instead of corn sugar, but I really don't want to boil it. Would I be fine just adding the maple syrup straight to the bottling bucket?
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May 7, 2012 23:34
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I doubt it. How are you going to make sure it dissolves and mixes evenly? I'd at least dissolve it in some hot water first.
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May 8, 2012 00:57
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Anyone got any advice on the best place to get Corny Kegs? I need a couple to get started, but I have no clue if there's some source that's way better than others or whatever. A lot of places seem out of stock too.
Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 07:06 on May 8, 2012 |
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May 8, 2012 06:34
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icehewk posted:The WSJ just posted an article about what to do with spent grains. Nice to see that baking them in an oven will stop the rotting effect because phewwwwwwww. Can you do this with specialty grains that have been steeped? I realize their flavor would be super intense but it's currently the only grains I'm equipped to handle.
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May 8, 2012 11:58
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Getting ready to make a starter for my Marzen today and it's going to be my first lager. Do I need to keep the starter at lager temperatures or can I just leave it out on the counter like I do with my ale starters?
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May 8, 2012 13:12
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Kaiho posted:Can you do this with specialty grains that have been steeped? I realize their flavor would be super intense but it's currently the only grains I'm equipped to handle. Definitely. You're sucking out a lot of the flavor by steeping them, so they won't be as intense as you're imagining. I made bread using spent grain from a helles once and it was really bland. internet celebrity posted:Getting ready to make a starter for my Marzen today and it's going to be my first lager. Do I need to keep the starter at lager temperatures or can I just leave it out on the counter like I do with my ale starters? Do it at ale temperatures so the yeast will grow more quickly, but give yourself 24-48 hours to cold crash the starter in the fridge after it's done fermenting. Your yeast will grow fine but will make incredibly lovely beer out of the starter wort, so you don't want to add the liquid in. Just pour the liquid down the drain and only add the pure yeast that's settled to the bottom
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May 8, 2012 13:32
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Angry Grimace posted:Anyone got any advice on the best place to get Corny Kegs? I need a couple to get started, but I have no clue if there's some source that's way better than others or whatever. A lot of places seem out of stock too. Check Craigslist, but they're harder and harder to find in my experience. Other than that I think one place is as good as another, they're always going to be around $50 (ball lock, I have no experience with pin lock). Some will come cheaper but generally don't have new O-rings, which you want and they are only ~$5 to replace. Make sure the keg is guaranteed to hold pressure unless you're getting it for a song, otherwise you may get stuck spending another $30 replacing poppets and pressure valves and lids and crap. I can vouch for MoreBeer, bought two from them. First time I got burned buying the cheapie not guaranteed to hold pressure (it didn't) and had to get a new pressure valve, next time I got the slightly more expensive one and it's fine. You get free shipping on them which counteracts the higher price. My other keg was dumb luck on Craigslist, some dude got sick of brewing and sold it for like $30 with all the fittings and hoses 
Docjowles fucked around with this message at 15:07 on May 8, 2012 |
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May 8, 2012 15:02
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Lagunitas has put out a clone challenge for the National Homebrew Conference this year. They gave their recipe out and are challenging homebrewers to put up against the real Hop Stoopid. Here's the link http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2012/05/lagunitas-hop-stoopid-clone-recipe/ I was looking through the recipe and I noticed they used hop extract (hopshot) as a 60 minute addition. Anyone use exact before? What's the benefit over hop pellets?
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May 8, 2012 15:59
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