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The kegerator defrosting thing has me thinking about my own kegerator I use for fermenting. I think it needs new lining. It feels to me like it's not really sealing when I close it, and it sure does ice up in there. I don't think I can drop it down to freezing to do the lagering step like I used to either. What can I do to basically service the thing?
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May 23, 2012 18:42
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| # ? May 29, 2024 00:17 |
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Northern Brewer is having a sale on some of their hops right now: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-ingredients/hops/sale-hops I guess I'll be grabbing some!
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May 23, 2012 19:50
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ChiTownEddie posted:Northern Brewer is having a sale on some of their hops right now: Indeed they are. Picked up 4lbs of hops I've ever heard of: Styrian Aurora, Styrian Bobek, German Opal, German Smaragd. All the descriptions sounded nice and I love to try new things. I've got 100+lbs grains to plow through still, as well. Gone be good summer.
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May 24, 2012 03:12
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Well, all my gear should arrive tomorrow and I will do my very first homebrew, hopefully. One thing I am kind of confused about, is there ANY point where it's a good idea to aerate your beer? I know I have heard in various steps that splashing things around will help, but then other places I read that oxygen is a bad thing. This is going to be an all extract situation, two fermenters and them going into bottles.
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May 25, 2012 00:36
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AlternateAccount posted:Well, all my gear should arrive tomorrow and I will do my very first homebrew, hopefully. Before you add the yeast, aerate away! Once fermentation has begun, avoid unnecessary turbulence. Also, don't worry about it too much. Just because something is optimal doesn't mean if you will tender your beer undrinkable because you bumped into the fermenter once or twice. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 00:51 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 00:41
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You also shouldn't worry about over aerating the wort before you add yeast. After your wort starts bubbling away, any excess oxygen that the yeast didn't use for reproduction gets stripped away by the CO2 bubbles. So basically, unless the style calls for characteristics from stressed yeast reproduction, you really can't over aerate during the stage where you transfer to the fermenter. Any time post-yeast you want to keep aeration to a minimum though.
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May 25, 2012 01:20
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By any measure its really impossible to over aerate before fermentation on anyone's first go at it. That is assuming they don't get a bug up their rear end to bubble pure oxygen into their beer first time around. You never can know about people interested in home brew. Also he says he wants to use two fermenters? You can definitely not bother. Unless you can give a coherent reason on why you would want to that convinces yourself let alone others, there is zero reason to use a secondary fermenter.
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May 25, 2012 04:35
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zedprime posted:Also he says he wants to use two fermenters? You can definitely not bother. It's just barely possible that it's a space thing. 5 gallons into two 3-gallon Better Bottles or something like that. But otherwise, yes, zed is right: secondary fermentation is not needed. Let it ferment until it's done as indicated by a lack of change in the specific gravity, then maybe a couple more days for it to settle and clear a bit more, then bottle it.
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May 25, 2012 04:41
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Jo3sh posted:It's just barely possible that it's a space thing. 5 gallons into two 3-gallon Better Bottles or something like that. But otherwise, yes, zed is right: secondary fermentation is not needed. Let it ferment until it's done as indicated by a lack of change in the specific gravity, then maybe a couple more days for it to settle and clear a bit more, then bottle it. Huh, well then when WOULD I go through a secondary fermenter? I'm perfectly happy to just pick up some more ingredients and start a second batch a day or two after the first since I have the fermenter. edit: except its a 5gal instead of a 6, that might be problematic. AlternateAccount fucked around with this message at 05:27 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 05:23
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AlternateAccount posted:Huh, well then when WOULD I go through a secondary fermenter? If you wanted to add some sort of flavoring after fermentation had ended, or as a clarifying or aging step. The concept of secondary fermentation is a holdover from the days of lovely yeast availability necessitating the need to get fermented beer off of the yeast cake before autolysis becomes problematic. Other outdated or misrepresented notions are statements like "After one week in primary, blah blah blah..." Properly, brewing is more about measuring the gravity than having a specific and rigid time frame. Even with that in mind, people brewed in caves before hydrometers, star-san, iodophor, and the concept of oxygen saturation existed. Don't stress about any of it too much. It is absolutely an exact science if you want to do it commercially, and it has a large margin of error if you just want to make good beer. If you are stressed out about any part of it, just breathe deep and remember: At worst, you made 5 gallons of something you can use for soup. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 05:39 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 05:28
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Maybe for a really big beer or a lager that you're going to age for 8+ months. At that point you'd want to get the beer off the yeast cake since yeast will eventually die and basically rot/spill it's guts into the beer. Also, a lot of people will rack their beer onto fruit in a secondary if they are doing a fruit beer or sour.
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May 25, 2012 05:36
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AlternateAccount posted:edit: except its a 5gal instead of a 6, that might be problematic. So do a 4 gallon batch.
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May 25, 2012 05:39
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Another question about doing a cereal mash with unmated wheat. I'm assuming that the wheat should be crushed like normal grain, before being boiled?
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May 25, 2012 05:48
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wafflesnsegways posted:Another question about doing a cereal mash with unmated wheat. I'm assuming that the wheat should be crushed like normal grain, before being boiled? Yes, mill it.
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May 25, 2012 05:52
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Awesome. One more question - I'm using a small amount of this unmated wheat for symbolic reasons. (My brother found it at a farmer's market where he lives, and I want to be able to include it.) Here's the grain bill: 66% 6 lb 0 oz American Two-row Pale 37 1 ~ 22% 2 lb 0 oz Rye Malt 29 4 ~ 6% 0 lb 8 oz Crystal 80L 33 80 ~ 6% 0 lb 8 oz Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries) 25 5 ~ 1% 0 lb 1 oz Roasted Barley - 550L What if I just skip the cereal mash out of laziness and confusion, and mash it like normal? If doing so won't ruin the beer, I'd rather do that, even if I don't get much fermentable sugar or flavor from the wheat.
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May 25, 2012 06:36
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What temp do you guys run your keezers at? I am not planning on using it for fermenting, I'm strictly thinking of it as a serving appliance for kegged ales. I try to keep my bottles around 48° in my bottle fridge, but it seems like I'd want to keep the keezer colder than that? I'm also gathering that the colder the beer, the less foam I'll get in my lines, but I know line length/diameter plays a larger role in that than anything else. I plugged my keezer into the Johnson temp controller tonight, and it went from 72° to 35° in about 5 hours. Might have been less, I just didn't check it for 5 hours. Nevertheless, it made me happy to see the collar addition and my best attempt at weather stripping work quite effectively. I'll keep an eye on the electric bill over the next few months to see if the controller is efficient or if I have to improve the insulation and seal. In other news, I ordered a Barley Crusher(TM) mill - anyone have one and care to share tips or tricks? If not, I guess I'll be the nerd to deliver the hardware trip report.
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May 25, 2012 06:53
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I've found 48 to be a good compromise temperature close enough to cellar I'm not waiting forever for a glass to warm up while still keeping the serving line at a sane length. There's always resistive inserts if you'd like to keep it warmer without filling your freezer with loopdeloops of tubing. Foam in the lines is generally a result of temperature differences. Foam in your glass is a result of unbalanced lines.
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May 25, 2012 10:02
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Looks like I've found a possible source for keg-pots: a local car salvager/breaker says he might be able to get me some 50-liter kegs, cut the top off them and weld on some handles. Oh dear, what am I getting into? I'm only just about to do my second extract kit brew so jumping into full mash will be a big change. I'll still have to find a big burner & stand to do it outdoors though.
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May 25, 2012 13:32
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I'm thinking about doing a parti-gyle over the long weekend, because when else am I going to have so much time to do a complicated brew? My girlfriend requested an apricot wheat beer so I was thinking of a grist like 45% pils, 45% wheat, 10% munich. Her beer would need to be the second runnings, but I'd want it to be close to normal-strength, so I think I'd shoot for 1.045, which means my first runnings (going by Radical Brewing's 2:1 ratio for the first third vs the second two-thirds of the total volume) would be around 1.090. I'd take the 1.045 beer, hop it lightly (20 IBU?) with something like Crystal and ferment it with something super-neutral to end up with an American wheat, then rack onto a couple pounds of apricots in secondary. I have US-05 lying around, can I use it for this or do I need a wheat-specific yeast to make a super clean American-style beer? What to do with the 1.090 beer is up in the air. The two suggestions that seem relevant in Radical Brewing are to do a wheatwine or an invented "Abbey-style" version of a weizen, but I've never done or even tasted either. I'd guess for the wheatwine I'd hop with a boatload (75 IBU?) of, say, Goldings and then ferment with something like Whitbread, and for the "Abbey weizen" I'd do Saaz or Tettnang to a high-but-not-as-high level, around 50 IBUs, and ferment with something like Trappist High Gravity? Anyone done anything like this? I'm making it all up so any comments on the whole thing are welcome, but yeast suggestions in particular would be great.
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May 25, 2012 14:13
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Stopped by the LHBS and picked up supplies to brew a Hef and Pale Ale this weekend. They were out of my preferred yeasts (who doesn't have wy1272?) so I picked up wy1450 - Denny's and wy3056 - Bavarian Wheat Blend. Anyone have experience/tips/feedback on these two strains? Its my first time using both.
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May 25, 2012 14:18
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Ghetto fabulous time: to have a constant 23-25 degrees Celsius for the fermenter, can I just use a fan heater that has a built-in temperature control? I have an unused wardrobe I can stick it in. Since I already have the heater, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying £32 for a heating belt type of thing I was thinking about, and actually it's more exact as well.
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May 25, 2012 15:22
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Scythe posted:yeast suggestions in particular would be great. For the heavy end, you could do something like Aventinus, which is a wheat doppelbock. Keep the grist the way you want it, but pitch a big starter of Wyeast 3068. As to the apricot beer, you might look into canned puree just to sidestep the issue of the sanitation of the fruit. Apricot being so delicate, I am not sure a couple of pounds will do it. I'm not a fruit beer person, myself, but I get the impression a pound per gallon is a pretty normal level. Use American Wheat Ale yeast for this one. krushgroove posted:Ghetto fabulous time: to have a constant 23-25 degrees Celsius for the fermenter, can I just use a fan heater that has a built-in temperature control? I have an unused wardrobe I can stick it in. Since I already have the heater, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying 32 for a heating belt type of thing I was thinking about, and actually it's more exact as well. That's pretty warm. If you're brewing a saison or a quad or something, then yes, that would probably work as long as you are careful not to set anything alight. If you're brewing almost anything else, you'll be a lot better off without the heater. For most ales, I would be looking for 15-17 C ambient.
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May 25, 2012 15:31
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Jo3sh posted:That's pretty warm. If you're brewing a saison or a quad or something, then yes, that would probably work as long as you are careful not to set anything alight. If you're brewing almost anything else, you'll be a lot better off without the heater. For most ales, I would be looking for 15-17 C ambient. Thanks - I'm just going to be brewing from a kit again, from memory the first batch I did in the winter had to keep a temperature of about 23 C during the first week or so. I put the fermenter in the airing/hot water cupboard and kept the hot water turned on, but I was thinking it would be more controlled in a wardrobe up in the loft. This next batch will be 'European lager', which may very well call for a lower ambient temp, I won't know until I get the kit in my hands. I'm pretty sure it won't call for actual lagering.
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May 25, 2012 16:45
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Scythe posted:I'm thinking about doing a parti-gyle over the long weekend, because when else am I going to have so much time to do a complicated brew? Do a can of apricot puree, and then see if it has enough apricot flavor before you bottle/keg it. If it is lacking then dump in a bottle of apricot extract, would be a lot easier and more sanitary then using fresh apricots.
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May 25, 2012 17:00
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Especially for lagers and lager-like (brewed with ale yeast, but with the aim of creating a very clean-tasting beer), you'll want to keep the temperatures down. I miscalculated in my head the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit, so the temperatures you were proposing are not as dramatically high as I had thought, but 23 C is 73 F ambient, which is still warm for ales and especially for lagers. Remember that the heat of the yeast activity will keep the actual beer a few degrees warmer than ambient, so you might actually be fermenting at 25 C or 77 F, which is definitely warmer than you'll want for that style of beer. If you have a room or area that is cool enough that you want a light sweater while you're in it, that would be a good place.
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May 25, 2012 17:01
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Keggerator currently contains: Brown Ale American Pale Ale German Pilsner Currently fermenting and is 2 weeks away: American Pale Ale Belgian White On the drawing board: Czech Pilsner (should be ready around the time I get back from a trip to Prague) Cream Ale (I really like ales) Tripel There is a brewery about 15 minutes from me called Defiant that makes an awesome tripel (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14359/43008) that I want to emulate and work on tweaking. Anyone have a good tripel they would suggest as a base or should I just try to get some hints on the recipe from them next time I swing by (different employees there offer different levels of insight on their process)? Nephzinho fucked around with this message at 18:52 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 18:49
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Amazon put the Paklab 6-gallon carboys on sale again for $30 with free 2-day shipping via Prime. I usually miss the boat on this deal, but saw it when it was still active and picked up a pair. Unfortunately, what arrived were two large boxes of broken glass. You'd think more than a thin layer of paper and some bubble wrap would be used to protect a big goddamn vessel of glass. gently caress Amazon, gently caress UPS, etc etc etc - I can't trust that company (Paklab, not Amazon) to properly secure a carboy again, regardless of the great price.
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May 26, 2012 01:01
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wattershed posted:Amazon put the Paklab 6-gallon carboys on sale again for $30 with free 2-day shipping via Prime. I usually miss the boat on this deal, but saw it when it was still active and picked up a pair.
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May 26, 2012 02:22
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Hypnolobster posted:Just get a replacement. Amazon has pretty great customer service. Completely agree on the customer service, I already have a refund on its way. It's 5-7 weeks to get a replacement, they're backordered at that price from Amazon. It seems Amazon gets batches to sell for $30 w/free shipping, and they're gone within a few hours. This deal pops up every 6 weeks or so. I'll need two more carboys for some longer-term aging I'll be doing, and the next best price will be at a local shop so I'll just support the local guys on this one.
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May 26, 2012 03:26
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Jo3sh posted:For the heavy end, you could do something like Aventinus, which is a wheat doppelbock. Keep the grist the way you want it, but pitch a big starter of Wyeast 3068. Ooh, I love Aventinus, good idea. How did I not think of that? Apparently in the real Aventinus some crystal or chocolate is involved (they almost say as much on the label, I bought a 500mL tonight to taste for planning), but I bet it'll be all right since I'm going to be a few degrees Plato above the real thing. I'll take a look at the canned puree also. Thanks!
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May 26, 2012 05:33
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wattershed posted:Completely agree on the customer service, I already have a refund on its way. Aah, the stocking problem didn't even occur to me. That's sort of a bummer to wait to get it, find it exploded and then wait for a refund. I'm all used to the usual amazon prime replacements and getting the new one in ~2 days.
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May 26, 2012 05:42
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Jo3sh posted:If you have a room or area that is cool enough that you want a light sweater while you're in it, that would be a good place. Unfortunately I'm in a rented house with no basement, but I could set up an ice bucket or something to keep things cool if I have to.
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May 26, 2012 11:09
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Scythe posted:Ooh, I love Aventinus, good idea. How did I not think of that? Apparently in the real Aventinus some crystal or chocolate is involved (they almost say as much on the label, I bought a 500mL tonight to taste for planning), but I bet it'll be all right since I'm going to be a few degrees Plato above the real thing. You could always steep a bag of crystal and chocolate before the boil
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May 26, 2012 14:21
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Had a party where I had my Saison in bottles alongside a 24 pack of Stone IPAs, purchased largely because I knew some of the people coming were IPA drinkers and it's a pretty safe beer to stock overall. After about 9 hours, exactly 1 of the Stones was gone, and my stock of homebrew bottles is much, much lighter. Can't loving wait for my next brew day, to get the next round into kegs and save everyone the hassle of opening the fridge and finding their bottle opener. Hell of a lot less cleanup afterward too. Just wanted to brag, I guess...I don't have a ton of beer drinker friends but it's great to have the ones I know enjoy what I've made.
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May 27, 2012 06:31
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wattershed posted:Can't loving wait for my next brew day, to get the next round into kegs and save everyone the hassle Amen, kegging is the way to go for home consumption and easy cleanup, but since I got a couple of 5 gallon korny kegs I realized that I don't share as much as I used too. It's all well and good to have 3 beers on tap at home but I miss bringing over a couple of 6 packs to a gathering and getting the feedback from the people there that I don't know as well and don't come down to my basement to feast from the keg. The two solutions I see are to either brew larger than 5 gallon batches and bottle the excess or get a couple 3 gallon kegs and bottle the extra 2 gallons. I guess that there is really only one option, brew more. That said I am going to brew a lemon-basil wheat next and I'll let you know how it goes. Anyone tried brewing with basil yet? I did some taste tests steeping basil and lemon zest in hot water and adding them in a stock wheat beer along with some of the lemon juice as well. The test beer I liked best would be brewed with 1.5lbs of basil, zest of 6 lemons, and the juice from 6 lemons. When I've looked on other forums for this style the all use less than this. I want the lemon and basil to be very present in this beer, that's the point, but are those amounts insane. I'll brew a basic wheat beer on Memorial day and add the lemon and basil about a week later in the secondary, so if anyone has a comment on this please post this week.
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May 27, 2012 09:57
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AlternateAccount posted:Well, all my gear should arrive tomorrow and I will do my very first homebrew, hopefully. Proper aeration is a good and necessary thing once the wort is COOLED to yeast pitching temperature and put into your primary fermentation vessel. Yeast need oxygen, but if the wort is still hot try not to agitate it too much. As for a secondary fermenter, I agree that it is not necessary, but it is nice to get the beer off of the yeast/trub that is in the primary and let the beer settle out for another week before you bottle/keg your beer. You'll have less solids to worry about if you if you've racked your beer into a secondary. Also if you dry hop or want to do any extra fruit additions to your beer they are better suited to adding into the secondary vessel. Plus having a giant glass jug makes you a scientist right?
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May 27, 2012 10:18
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Huge_Midget posted:Assuming you have nice healthy yeast let that poo poo sit in the primary for a month. Flipping hell, I may just have to take this advice. I brewed my standard english porter (not an imperial one or anything) on the 11th of May. Today, I figured I'd check the gravity considering there's been very little activity recently and the krausen dropped ages ago. 1.020. Started out as 1.052. I gave it a bit of a stir hoping to get some of the yeast to get back on it. I really wasn't expecting it to finish that high. I mean, I can assume it's not finished, right?
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May 27, 2012 12:30
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CorpseOnMars posted:Amen, kegging is the way to go for home consumption and easy cleanup, but since I got a couple of 5 gallon korny kegs I realized that I don't share as much as I used too. It's all well and good to have 3 beers on tap at home but I miss bringing over a couple of 6 packs to a gathering and getting the feedback from the people there that I don't know as well and don't come down to my basement to feast from the keg. The two solutions I see are to either brew larger than 5 gallon batches and bottle the excess or get a couple 3 gallon kegs and bottle the extra 2 gallons.... No need to make it so complicated. Have growlers or swing top bottles for transporting your brew to someone else's house.
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May 27, 2012 16:36
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Jahoodie posted:No need to make it so complicated. Have growlers or swing top bottles for transporting your brew to someone else's house. This. I have a variety of coolers that are good for transporting various amounts of beer. The soft-sided cooler I use for transporting a single growler gets used a lot. A half-gallon of beer is roughly a six-pack.
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May 27, 2012 16:52
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Not to mention that you can bottle from a keg, too, if you want longer-term storage. I think Blichmann makes something designed expressly for this purpose.
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May 27, 2012 21:44
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