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Propane burners are really cheap, you can probably find a used one for at least $20 at the most, though you'll need the burner since your stove isn't strong enough. Check thrift stores for people giving turkey friers, found mine with an 8 gallon aluminum pot for $35.
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Oct 14, 2012 04:07
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Nostratic posted:Sooooooo I just spent almost 90 minutes trying to boil 3, then, 2 gallons of water and it sat at 206 degrees for the last 45 minutes of that. Hooray for having a lovely loving stove. (correct me if I'm wrong) but that should be warm enough to sanitise/sterilise the water/wort, so you can dump it all in and go (if doing extract). You probably won't get the hops utilization predicted by the recipe nor maybe some of the colour, it won't be exactly what the recipe predicts, but it'll still (eventually) be beer. When you add in the ingredients you might want to take off the heat and stir them through properly before putting the heat back on. I think part of the idea to get a rolling boil is to take out a bunch of the oxygen and compounds that lead to off flavours (sulphites or something I think), which is nice, but in terms of priorities lots of other things are more important (temperature control, proper sanitisation, etc) (newbie, take with a grain of salt, etc)
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Oct 14, 2012 04:46
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So, the Maple "Kitchen Sink" Porter I threw together from dumping a really quite ridiculous variety of leftover grains that I had laying around in with some maris otter turned out pretty good! I also put something like a pound of maple syrup boiled with about 1/2 tsp of fenugreek in there, after the bulk of primary fermentation was done. It's got a little hint of maple taste and aroma but nothing too overpowering, just the way I wanted it. Still might need a little time mellowing a bit, but I think it's on the right track. The problem I'm having is with my kegging. It's the first batch that I've kegged. It appears to be carbing up okay so far, but I'm leaking a pretty significant amount of beer from what I think is the top of the dispensing post whenever I have the dispensing line attached. When I take the line back off, it's fine. I'm guessing this is something going on with the poppet? I've replaced the o-rings on this pin-lock keg when I got it, but that was a couple of years ago I think, and I'd only just got around to actually using it now. Would they have issues just from sitting on the post for that long, even if I wasn't using it? I thought about swapping posts with one of the other 3 kegs I've had sitting around, but the lid is one of those that has the three holes on top instead of the ring to pull for pressure release, and pushing an awl or something in there doesn't seem to do much, so I'm not really sure what to do if I need to relieve pressure and switch out poppets. If I unscrew the gas post first, would that still spray beer all over the place? Now, all this aside, holy poo poo this is sooooooooooo much less of a pain in the rear end than bottling, and between that and going all-grain, I'm actually looking forward to brewing new batches pretty much all the time now.
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Oct 14, 2012 05:46
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The most likely scenarios are either a bad o ring on your poppet, or that you're trying to put the wrong disconnect on the wrong post. Open your keg lid and make sure you're putting the black disconnect on the poppet that has the dip tube that goes all the way to the bottom. I've seen several kegs where people swapped the in/out posts without really thinking about it. If you want to try switching poppets you can depress the center of your gas in with a small screwdriver to release the pressure. Josh Wow fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Oct 14, 2012 |
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Oct 14, 2012 13:51
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nominal posted:So, the Maple "Kitchen Sink" Porter I threw together from dumping a really quite ridiculous variety of leftover grains that I had laying around in with some maris otter turned out pretty good! I also put something like a pound of maple syrup boiled with about 1/2 tsp of fenugreek in there, after the bulk of primary fermentation was done. It's got a little hint of maple taste and aroma but nothing too overpowering, just the way I wanted it. Still might need a little time mellowing a bit, but I think it's on the right track. When you replaced all of the O-rings did you use keg lube to make sure they would seal well? Sometimes you have to really lube those fuckers up (awwww yeah) to make sure they seal. If you are getting leakage from the poppet itself you can go to Brewer's Art and they have replacement poppets. Just take your leaking post with you and they can usually find a replacement that will fit. Also, when you take the poppet out of the post, you can put some keg lube on your finger and smear it around the tiny gasket that is permanently mounted to the poppet itself to see if that helps.
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Oct 14, 2012 15:39
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The 3-hole release is an emergency blow off and tends to be standard on pin-locks. Since it only blows if the pressure gets up really really high, places like keg connection usually include a little plastic cap that goes on the gas out and depresses the poppet for when you need to degas.
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Oct 14, 2012 17:23
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Nanpa posted:(correct me if I'm wrong) but that should be warm enough to sanitise/sterilise the water/wort, so you can dump it all in and go (if doing extract). You probably won't get the hops utilization predicted by the recipe nor maybe some of the colour, it won't be exactly what the recipe predicts, but it'll still (eventually) be beer. When you add in the ingredients you might want to take off the heat and stir them through properly before putting the heat back on. I think part of the idea to get a rolling boil is to take out a bunch of the oxygen and compounds that lead to off flavours (sulphites or something I think), which is nice, but in terms of priorities lots of other things are more important (temperature control, proper sanitisation, etc) Managed to get it good and boiling a bit after your post with a lid that actually fits, first batch is in the bucket and bubbling away happily! Thanks for all the advice so far, great thread!
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Oct 14, 2012 19:00
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What's the best way to clean a big, fat blow off tube? Too long for a brush.
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Oct 14, 2012 20:42
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I soak mine in PBW for a bit and rinse well. It doesn't get perfectly clean but it's just a blowoff tube and it never comes in contact with the beer.
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Oct 14, 2012 20:58
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Daedalus Esquire posted:The 3-hole release is an emergency blow off and tends to be standard on pin-locks. Since it only blows if the pressure gets up really really high, places like keg connection usually include a little plastic cap that goes on the gas out and depresses the poppet for when you need to degas. Ahhhhh, yeah, I didn't think about degassing by just pressing down on the gas poppet. Maybe I could try that and see if it beers me in the eye.
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Oct 14, 2012 23:59
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So my wife and I did the cream ale extract kit. Between the mega burner and our aluminum turkey fryer pot boiling was a snap, but the OG was 1.039 when the kit calls for 1.049 to 1.054. Any idea what could have happened? We went to 5 gallons in the bucket. Oh well. Time will tell in two weeks!
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Oct 15, 2012 00:38
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:So my wife and I did the cream ale extract kit. Between the mega burner and our aluminum turkey fryer pot boiling was a snap, but the OG was 1.039 when the kit calls for 1.049 to 1.054. Any idea what could have happened? We went to 5 gallons in the bucket. Did you top the bucket off with water? I bet you just didn't get a good mix of wort/water before taking the sample. It's kind of hard to miss your target gravity with extract.
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Oct 15, 2012 00:44
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global tetrahedron posted:Did you top the bucket off with water? I bet you just didn't get a good mix of wort/water before taking the sample. It's kind of hard to miss your target gravity with extract. My wife stirred it for about 2-3 minutes, and we added it to the 5 gallon market ahead of time. We might have lost a little bit due to boil over, but I didn't think it was too terribly much. Oh well. Only way to find out what happens is to drink it. Darn.
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Oct 15, 2012 01:09
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I'm having a bit of noob excitement here and wanted to share. Cooked my first batch last night, and when I checked on it this morning it was bubbling happily away in the airlock. Did a fistpump and went on with my day. This evening my son had walked by the den and said, "Papa, your beer is bubbling like crazy! It's bubbling on to the floor!" Sprint to the den to see that it is indeed bubbling out the airlock and has leaked a bit around the bucket seal. Had my "oh poo poo" moment as my wife walked in, and she asks what do we do. Thanks to this thread I said, "Blow off valve! We need tubing!" She yells, "I'VE GOT SOME!", bolts off, and comes back in a few seconds with a length of tubing that exactly fits the tube inside the airlock. Washed it and sanitized it, stuck it on, ran it into a mason jar with Star San in it, and we're golden. That poo poo is bubbling like crazy! We're having a great time with this and are already talking about starting another batch 
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Oct 15, 2012 01:35
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I can't tell if this is an absurd question or not but maybe someone has dealt with a similar experience. I finally got a little wine refrigerator for fermenting my beer. When seeking it out I made sure to take careful measurements of my 5 gallon carboy to make sure it'd fit. I found a cooler that fit the measurements, brought it home, carboy fits snug but nicely. I quickly realized my primary bucket is a little bit wider than my carboy and doesn't allow the door to close, there's a good inch or so at the largest point of the gap between the frame and the door. I don't think I'm going to be able to find a bucket that's going to fit and it seems like a waste to do my primary in the steamy Texas heat only to move it in the fridge for secondary. I'm wondering if it's possible to get some weatherstripping to fill the gap for a couple weeks. Will too much cold air escape? Will I warp the door? Is it a lost cause?
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Oct 15, 2012 03:07
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Globochem posted:I can't tell if this is an absurd question or not but maybe someone has dealt with a similar experience. I finally got a little wine refrigerator for fermenting my beer. When seeking it out I made sure to take careful measurements of my 5 gallon carboy to make sure it'd fit. I found a cooler that fit the measurements, brought it home, carboy fits snug but nicely. I can't speak to the weatherstripping, but when I found out the buckets I used to ferment in wouldn't fit in my fridge, I propped them up with a doorstop so the door could close.
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Oct 15, 2012 03:38
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Globochem posted:Tiny fridge Three solutions, two more permanent than the other... -As others have done, take off the inside panel of the door, and cut out some of the door's innards where the bucket would otherwise hit it. -Bungee cord the gently caress out of it so the door is as closed as possible, and stuff wet towels in the gaps still left. -Create a collar which will give you a little more depth inside. Look up "keezer collar" on google for more info, but basically you're talking ~8' of 2x4 wood, ~16' of weather stripping, and some foam sealant. A lot of us have done this either to fit larger kegs in our chest freezers or to put stuff on the hump on the freezer. You'd just be doing this vertically instead of horizontally.
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Oct 15, 2012 03:57
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RiggenBlaque posted:I can't speak to the weatherstripping, but when I found out the buckets I used to ferment in wouldn't fit in my fridge, I propped them up with a doorstop so the door could close. This is pretty much what I plan on doing. I've got some foam weatherstripping used for air conditioners that I'd use to plug the gaps then sit a heavy object against the door to keep it as close to closed as possible. My biggest concern here is that I'm going to do permanent damage to either the hinges or the existing seal. I'd take a hatchet to the innards and the door if I could, but the door is glass and I think the compressor is behind the back panel so I think I'd be creating more problems.
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Oct 15, 2012 04:29
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Nostratic posted:I'm having a bit of noob excitement here and wanted to share. In my very limited experience: if you're not making a mess you're not doing it right. :fistbump:
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Oct 15, 2012 05:13
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Globochem posted:I can't tell if this is an absurd question or not but maybe someone has dealt with a similar experience. I finally got a little wine refrigerator for fermenting my beer. When seeking it out I made sure to take careful measurements of my 5 gallon carboy to make sure it'd fit. I found a cooler that fit the measurements, brought it home, carboy fits snug but nicely. This is probably the least fun solution, but you could just scale dowm to 4.5 gallon batches and primary in your 5 gallon carboy. I suggest this as an interim solution while you build a collar to make your bucket fit.
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Oct 15, 2012 13:07
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Have you checked to see if a 6.5gal carboy would fit? Edit: Or 6gal, can't remember the standard sizes. Sirotan fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Oct 15, 2012 |
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Oct 15, 2012 13:57
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Another option that could work would be to try seeing if the dimensions of a better bottle are smaller (I think they are). As I mentioned, I used to have to prop up my buckets to fit in my fridge, but when I switched over to better bottles they fit in there no problem.
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Oct 15, 2012 14:57
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Well so yesterday I got back into brewing for the first time in like a decade. I had all these grapes from our grapevines you see so we stemmed them and smashed them up and I ended up with about 4 gallons of juice. I added a little pectic enzyme, some campden tabs, and some extra sugar since they aren't actually wine grapes I don't think (I don't really know what they are but they were planted by some Italians 60 years ago and they're seedless). I'll pitch the yeast tonight and we'll see what happens!
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Oct 15, 2012 15:48
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What does everyone usually do for hop removal/filtration when doing multiple hop additions? I usually just put them in a fine mesh bag in the boil and that's worked fine, but that's for the batches I've done so far with just 1 or 2. I'm going to be doing the NB black IPA, which has something like 5 hop additions over the course of the boil. I'm using a friend's plate wort chiller and I'm somewhat paranoid about getting a bunch of hops stuck inside it.
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Oct 15, 2012 16:51
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Steve French posted:What does everyone usually do for hop removal/filtration when doing multiple hop additions? I usually just put them in a fine mesh bag in the boil and that's worked fine, but that's for the batches I've done so far with just 1 or 2. I'm going to be doing the NB black IPA, which has something like 5 hop additions over the course of the boil. I'm using a friend's plate wort chiller and I'm somewhat paranoid about getting a bunch of hops stuck inside it. Along those lines: what are you using as strainers when putting the wort into primary. I want to find something at bed bath and beyond or Walmart, but don't know what properties I should be looking for.
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Oct 15, 2012 17:15
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My dad and I brewed a 10% Belgian and it sat in secondary for 4 months (we were lazy...), so we decided it would be best to add yeast at bottling. It was our first time doing this. My dad actually did the bottling himself and was worried things went wrong. Here's what he did: - boiled the dextrose in water - rehydrated the yeast in the dextrose water, per instructions on the packet, after letting it cool - Put the dextrose/yeast water in the bottling bucket and siphoned the beer from the carboy into the bucket. - Gave a light stir before bottling. We thought this would be the best way to ensure it was mixed evenly, however he noticed a lot of yeast particles towards the end of bottling. Did we screw up? Should he have dumped the yeast into the carboy the night before? If we did screw up, are we going to have flat beer or will it just take 6 months or more to carbonate? If the former, what can we do?
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Oct 15, 2012 17:39
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LaserWash posted:Along those lines: what are you using as strainers when putting the wort into primary. I want to find something at bed bath and beyond or Walmart, but don't know what properties I should be looking for. I throw all my hops into the boil without a mesh bag, but use this strainer when going from boiling pot into the primary. Works really well and aerates the gently caress out of the wort.
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Oct 15, 2012 17:41
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hellfaucet posted:I throw all my hops into the boil without a mesh bag, but use this strainer when going from boiling pot into the primary. Works really well and aerates the gently caress out of the wort. I have been using a funnel with a screen insert to do what hellfaucet does, only the screen has such small surface area that I'm constantly having to wash it out and re-sanitize over the course of emptying my brew pot. Gonna be getting a strainer like that before my next batch.
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Oct 15, 2012 18:05
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Posting to say that strainer is wonderful. I use a sanatized spoon to scrape it clean when it eventually clogs up, but as long as that stuff isn't going into my beer, I'm happy to do it.
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Oct 15, 2012 18:50
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Does that work better than trying to siphon out the wort from the brew pot? I imagine it would, plus it saves more wort.
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Oct 15, 2012 18:51
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Nanpa posted:(correct me if I'm wrong) but that should be warm enough to sanitise/sterilise the water/wort, so you can dump it all in and go (if doing extract). You probably won't get the hops utilization predicted by the recipe nor maybe some of the colour, it won't be exactly what the recipe predicts, but it'll still (eventually) be beer. When you add in the ingredients you might want to take off the heat and stir them through properly before putting the heat back on. I think part of the idea to get a rolling boil is to take out a bunch of the oxygen and compounds that lead to off flavours (sulphites or something I think), which is nice, but in terms of priorities lots of other things are more important (temperature control, proper sanitisation, etc) I think boiling is an absolute necessity to convert the AA in hops into its bitter tasting form. I'm actually not 100% certain, but flameout additions register as an increase of 0 to IBUs even though hypothetically those hops would spend some time under boiling but over 200*F, so that's why I'm thinking that unfortunately your wort absolutely must be at a boil to get IBUs out of hops.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:09
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hellfaucet posted:I throw all my hops into the boil without a mesh bag, but use this strainer when going from boiling pot into the primary. Works really well and aerates the gently caress out of the wort. Are you cooling your wort in the boil pot?  Aerating the wort when it's hot is bad.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:29
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I believe the minimum temperture to see AA conversion is 175* F, but that's based off a sketchy memory of hearing it second hand...I don't have a source to cite it.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:32
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Super Rad posted:I think boiling is an absolute necessity to convert the AA in hops into its bitter tasting form. This isn't strictly true. Bitterness from hops is a function of temperature and time. Flameout hops don't end up adding much because they're usually only sitting hot for a minute or two til you begin chilling and you get down below the point where they're contributing any bitterness. Pro brewers absolutely have to factor in the IBU contributions of flameout hops cause they can end up sitting hot for upwards of an hour while they whirlpool and move to the chiller. Just think about the effect of elevation on the boiling point of water. Where I live water boils at around 202, and there are breweries up in the mountains where it's well under 200. Yet they can brew IPA's just fine  You might find you need to adjust your recipe slightly if you went from sea level to 12,000 feet but it's not chemically/physically impossible.
Docjowles fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Oct 15, 2012 |
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Oct 15, 2012 19:33
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Splizwarf posted:Are you cooling your wort in the boil pot? Yeah, I've been putting the wort chiller directly into my boil pot after my boils, then pitching the yeast once it hits around 75 degrees, then running the wort through a 1/2" tube attached to a ball valve into the strainer then into a funnel which connects to the carboy. Oh god, am I doing this wrong?
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Oct 15, 2012 19:35
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hellfaucet posted:Yeah, I've been putting the wort chiller directly into my boil pot after my boils, then pitching the yeast once it hits around 75 degrees, then running the wort through a 1/2" tube attached to a ball valve into the strainer then into a funnel which connects to the carboy. You're pitching the yeast into the boil kettle then transferring it into the carboy? I'm still new with this stuff but that sounds very wrong.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:37
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Looks fine to me, I usually do my yeast after transfer...not sure that it matters though.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:40
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No, you're doing it right except for pitching yeast into the pot, although I like to get my wort into the fermenter first so I don't have to cool the metal of the boil pot. If you're cooling it in the pot, then the method you're using sounds ideal and will give you a lot of aeration. Just look out for the strainer getting clogged and overflowing.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:40
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quote:...a bunch of suggestions to use a strainer... Using a strainer is not really feasible for me; I have a brew pot with a valve + spigot on it, I have that go to the plate chiller, and then to the carboy. I could use a strainer + funnel for the last step, but not really to go from the brew pot to the chiller, and I'm worried about getting hop debris in the chiller. Does anyone else have this sort of setup and have a decent way of handling this when doing many hop additions where it's a pain in the rear end to keep putting them in a mesh bag?
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Oct 15, 2012 19:45
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Splizwarf posted:No, you're doing it right except for pitching yeast into the pot, although I like to get my wort into the fermenter first so I don't have to cool the metal of the boil pot. If you're cooling it in the pot, then the method you're using sounds ideal and will give you a lot of aeration. Just look out for the strainer getting clogged and overflowing. Won't he be losing a lot of yeast this way? It will stick the sides of the pot, get caught up while being siphon/strained out, and so forth. Sounds really inefficient.
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Oct 15, 2012 19:45
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