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zedprime posted:Or we can just be incredibly classy and call it musky. Welp, time to get to work on a Syrian Panther Sweat recipe.
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Oct 19, 2012 19:42
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So my wife and I are on a cider kick. We've got all these empty cider bottles, we've got a 5 gallon glass carboy, and we're hitting up a local farmhouse tomorrow that theoretically sells apple cider and honey. So we're thinking of making a "Southern MD Cider" with all local ingredients. Tell me if this is a viable plan: 1) Obtain 5 gallons of cider and 2 2) Pasteurize to 140F for 45 minutes if not already pasteurized. 3) Dump in sanitized carboy. 4) Add WLP720 Sweet Mead/Wine Yeast. 5) Come back around two weeks before Thanksgiving. 6) Bottle and prime. 7) Drink at Thanksgiving. Sound good? Do ciders develop a krausen or other issues that might clog up a 5 gallon glass carboy? Otherwise I might go 4 gallons and 1.5 lbs of wildflower honey. Actually 1.5 lbs is all I have so who knows what I'll do. Maybe a pound of brown sugar to add to it? Beer4TheBeerGod fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 23:52
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:So my wife and I are on a cider kick. We've got all these empty cider bottles, we've got a 5 gallon glass carboy, and we're hitting up a local farmhouse tomorrow that theoretically sells apple cider and honey. So we're thinking of making a "Southern MD Cider" with all local ingredients. 1) I think you're going to need less honey. 1 gallon of honey is about 12 pounds. 24 pounds of honey in five gallons of juice will make a strong as gently caress must. For comparison, my five gallon batch of mead used only fifteen pounds (five quarts) of honey, and I've never used more than five pounds of honey in five gallons of cider. If you DO use 24 or even 18 pounds, it will take some time to ferment out and won't be ready for Thanksgiving. I'd look more at a couple of pounds of honey in five gallons if you want to be anything like ready in five weeks. 2) Why pasteurize? I would sulfite it. I'm not sure what the right ratio is, but add Campden tabs or K-meta in the appropriate amount, stir well into the juice, wait 24 hours, and then pitch yeast. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Oct 20, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 23:58
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Jo3sh posted:1) I think you're going to need less honey. 1 gallon of honey is about 12 pounds. 24 pounds of honey in five gallons of juice will make a strong as gently caress must. For comparison, my five gallon batch of mead used only fifteen pounds (five quarts) of honey. If you DO use 24 or even 18 pounds, it will take some time to ferment out and won't be ready for Thanksgiving. I'd look more at a couple of pounds of honey in five gallons if you want to be anything like ready in five weeks. Yeah I meant pounds there. I have never looked at sulphur dioxide, although this link provides a lot of useful information. Does sulfiting add a huge amount of benefit over pasteurizing?
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Oct 20, 2012 00:05
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Sulfites will eliminate the need to heat the juice, which means better retention of delicate fruit flavors. You don't need to do anything to the honey as it is self-preserving.
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Oct 20, 2012 00:16
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Okay. If I buy sealed and pasteurized cider can I skip that step then? I'm not opposed to doing it, but I figured the less effort the better. Also what about the 5 gallon carboy? Do I have to worry about a krausen or popping an airlock with ciders? Anybody have any success with WLP720? I'd like a cider that isn't super dry at that seemed like a reasonable thing to try out.
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Oct 20, 2012 00:32
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Okay. If I buy sealed and pasteurized cider can I skip that step then? I'm not opposed to doing it, but I figured the less effort the better. Yes, I do pasteurized juice straight from the bottle with no sulfites or heat. Cider is much less foamy than beer because it does not have the gums and such that grain does. You will need much less headspace with cider than beer. You should be fine with a nearly-full fermenter.
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Oct 20, 2012 00:35
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About a month ago, I posted about potential mold that I had on my beer. After talking to several other sour brewers, they confirmed that yes it was most likely mold. However, there was no reason to pitch the batch. I waited and opened my bucket again today to see how it was going. I took a gravity sample and it had dropped from 1.062 to 1.020. It also tasted amazing, as tart and sour as most commercial examples. The top of the bucket still looked like it was growing mold, but the beer was covered in the good kind of bacteria. Ropey lacto, white and spotty brett with some pedio bubbles all looked disgusting, but in a good way.
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Oct 20, 2012 01:04
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Brewed our first all-grain today and it came out great. We brewed this: http://hopville.com/recipe/1655583 which is a recipe we re-formulated for kicks. We hit 1.058 OG and hopefully everything is sanitized correctly so it doesn't get infected like the IPA.
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Oct 20, 2012 02:12
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Two pounds of crystal malt? You need to go back to the drawing board
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Oct 20, 2012 03:29
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Agreed, 18% crystal malt is way too much. I usually try to keep it under 5%, but I think crystal malt is generally very overused. Keep it to under 10% next time
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Oct 20, 2012 04:29
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I'm on the fence about pulling the trigger on this as I've got a shitload of beer that still needs to be drank, but I know someone will want to: This site is selling 1 lb of 2012 Simcoe for under $20. http://www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=534
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Oct 20, 2012 04:33
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almost fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Oct 20, 2012 11:06
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almost posted:I've never brewed before, but I recently saw this silly thing, and I was wondering is it that easy to make cider stronger? Can you really make a 5 gallon cider go to 14% by dumping 10 cups of sugar into it? I'm basically wondering how you would make it as strong as possible. Yeah, no preservatives, especially sulphites. Vitamin C/Ascorbic Acid is fine though (iirc). Straight sugar basically ferments to alcohol completely, so it's often used to bump up ABV But bear in mind that's probably going to taste like arse, and the plastic in the water cooler bottle probably won't be at the right grade for keeping cider in for months. If you're prepared to sit around for two months waiting for cheap hooch, you may as well put some effort in to start with and find a decent bucket. Great if you want to make a bunch of apple goon, but if you want to make something drinkable by itself you may as well lay off the sugar for a bit until you've got a process down. It isn't hard though, most drinkable simple cider recipes are just juice straight from the bottle mixed with an appropriate yeast. The secondmost important thing after sanitation is of course temperature control. Nanpa fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Oct 20, 2012 |
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Oct 20, 2012 12:29
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crazyfish posted:I'm on the fence about pulling the trigger on this as I've got a shitload of beer that still needs to be drank, but I know someone will want to: This site is selling 1 lb of 2012 Simcoe for under $20. http://www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=534 Out of stock already
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Oct 20, 2012 12:34
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RiggenBlaque posted:Out of stock already Holy poo poo that was a great deal.
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Oct 20, 2012 12:36
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almost fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Oct 20, 2012 12:37
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Josh Wow posted:Agreed, 18% crystal malt is way too much. I usually try to keep it under 5%, but I think crystal malt is generally very overused. Keep it to under 10% next time Guess we'll know better for next time. The original called for 1lb 10ounces of Crystal 75, so the guy at the homebrew store said 2 lbs of 60 should be fine. Guess he was wrong, it should still be pretty darn good though based on the aroma.
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Oct 20, 2012 14:35
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almost posted:So are there quicker ways to make decent strength alcohol then, that are just as cheap & simple? Is cider slower to ferment, or is it just a taste thing? Why do you say to lay off the sugar at first, does that make it more complicated? How strong do you figure the cider will be without added sugar? It will take longer to ferment yes, how much I have no clue, there's probably others more knowledgeable about this though, and it might take longer to taste decent. Sugar probably wouldn't have that much chance of contamination, and you can always boil it for a bit if you're that worried. I was recommending laying off the sugar to start with (at least not to 14% levels) on the basis that it'd take longer to ferment and mature, and you might have to start worrying about yeast nutrients or somesuch. If you search around, generally the turnaround time is a couple of weeks/month, with it getting better with age (to a point) How strong it will be from just juice depends on the sugar content of the juice to start with, which from the first hit I found on google 1.048, which will give you an alcohol content of around 6.4% to 5.3% (the formula is (Original Gravity - Final)/7.46)). The only way to be sure whether it's stopped completely is to measure the gravity with a hydrometer, and most of the time it'll end up close to 1. I don't know about the turning to vinegar part, but I think that takes much longer and involves it not being airtight/shielded from UV or somesuch. You can use brewing calculators like the Hopville Calculator to see how much sugar raises the alcohol content/OG by volume (others are more knowledgeable, take with a grain of salt etc)
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Oct 20, 2012 15:24
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almost posted:I've never brewed before, but I recently saw this silly thing, and I was wondering is it that easy to make cider stronger? Can you really make a 5 gallon cider go to 14% by dumping 10 cups of sugar into it? That's the basics right there. Making ethanol is not really a problem; making it taste good is. But really, that lovely comic is about 90% accurate for some of the fortified ciders I have made. 1) As you point out, sanitation is very important. Get a real fermenter (even a bucket type) and sanitize it and anything else that will touch the cider. 2) Temperature control will make this taste a shitload better and will help keep you from having truly amazing hangovers. Ideally, you'll want to keep this in an area that has a consistent temperature of about 65 degrees Fahrenheit while it ferments. 3) Quality of ingredients does matter. Don't use the cheapest juice you can find, IMO - use juice you like the flavor of. Juice that is shelf-stable will have been flash-pasteurized, and that's good. Added ascorbic acid is fine. Sorbates of any kind should be avoided. When I can get it, I like to use juice that says not from concentrate on the label as I think it tastes better. 4) Yes, adding more sugar does up the ABV, but there is a limit and 14% is about as high as you can reasonably expect; yeast are living organisms and eventually can't tolerate more alcohol in their environment. Adding more sugar also will not help the flavor, and will increase the time it takes to ferment out and clear. 5) Sugar straight from a sealed package is pretty likely to be sanitary, and I have used sugar that way before. Given the industrial processes involved in refining and packaging sugar for sale, it would actually be pretty surprising to get contamination that way. 6) (And this is the big one) If you're just looking for a good way to get hammered, save yourself a lot of trouble and buy a handle of vodka. You can make good beer/wine/cider at home, but you can also make very bad beer/wine/cider. Chances you'll kill anyone are very small, but people who get sick from drinking too much of your cider will blame you, not the fact that it's way stronger than it tastes and that it drinks like lite beer. This poo poo is actually kind of dangerous in that regard.
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Oct 20, 2012 16:37
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I've got the beer with California lager going. Should it be a little stinkier than a typical ale would at the same temperature (~62*F).
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Oct 20, 2012 16:52
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Yeah, I made a California Common with that yeast once and it was kind of more sulfurous smelling during fermentation than most yeasts I'd used. I think that's the trend with most lager yeasts, if I'm not mistaken. It turned out to be one of the best beers I've ever made though.
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Oct 20, 2012 18:54
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Dumped my first batch a couple days ago, it was a Witbier with an extremely unpleasant/grassy bitterness out of the fermenter that I've never experienced before. I have made this beer in the past and it turned out well, but in those instances it was made with 2 lbs of honey and sans the pilsener malt, munich, and flaked oats. In the former recipe, the 2 oz of hop additions were at 60, 30, and 15, whereas this time I spread the additions out, as you can see in the recipe below: http://hopville.com/recipe/1652487 I'm thinking the bitterness has to be either from when I pitched the yeast, this adjusted hop schedule, or just some basic flaw in the recipe. I used my wort chiller as usual, racked to primary and then waited overnight until the temp dropped to 68 to pitch the yeast because I was in a hurry. Could this contribute to off flavors? I was under the impression that as long as it was in a sanitary setting it wouldn't matter. Second, was removing the honey not a good choice as the added grains I mashed didn't add enough to the gravity to balance out the other ingredients? Or is a continual addition of hops in a beer like this not a good choice? I think I'll definitely change that, as the bitter/floral characteristics in a Wit come from the yeast/coriander/orange peel, I suppose. I am pretty good about sanitation so I don't think it's anything related to that. In the past with this recipe I've been able to go from kettle to glass in two weeks, so back to the drawing board...
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Oct 20, 2012 19:17
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I got my scores back from my first homebrew festival and, of course, the beer I thought was the worst did the best (brewed to style) and the beer that I thought was best got the worst scores (not brewed to style at all). "Sorry but your entry has been ruined by to [sic] many hops which swamp all other flavors...Please work on recipe formulation, balance should be everything" Oh well, still good feedback on the flaws.
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Oct 20, 2012 20:23
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I've got a bit of a crisis - apparently I can't read a calendar, my Halloween party is next Friday and I should have done my cider extract brew a week earlier but I started fermentation yesterday. The instructions say it needs to ferment for 6 to 7 days, then you bottle or barrel it for about 5 days while it settles. Is there anything I can do to speed up fermentation? Right now it's in a hot water cupboard where the temp is about 23 Celsius and I'm hoping fermentation will finish by Wednesday and I can put it in ten-liter bladders similar to a large wine-in-a-box bag, where it can settle while it's in the fridge. I'm hoping any yeasty taste will be masked by the berry flavoring that will be added before barreling. Is this a lost cause, or can I be helped?
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Oct 20, 2012 20:24
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How much additional gravity should I expect from adding a single pound of honey at flameout on a 5 gallon batch?
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Oct 20, 2012 20:30
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global tetrahedron posted:Yeah, I made a California Common with that yeast once and it was kind of more sulfurous smelling during fermentation than most yeasts I'd used. I think that's the trend with most lager yeasts, if I'm not mistaken. It turned out to be one of the best beers I've ever made though. I just threw my Cal Common in a keg. The White Labs San Fran Lager yeast took forever to show activity. I think it was about 2 days before I saw anything at all. Did you guys have the same thing?
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Oct 20, 2012 20:32
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almost fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Oct 20, 2012 20:37
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almost posted:Does it matter if there's air at the top of the bucket, or how much air? What if I "racked" it once, would the air matter in the second bucket? No, any air in the headspace is neutral to possibly beneficial for yeast reproduction. It will all get purged anyway once fermentation starts up. You don't need to rack to a secondary, but if you do, purging the headspace with CO2 is probably a good idea. almost posted:If I added Campden Tablets the day before the yeast, would I keep the bucket sealed the same as if it were fermenting, while I wait for it to work? Yes, but you won't need to for regular bottled juice. If you're getting unpasteurized juice from an orchard or something, then you will want to use Campden or another source of sulfites, but don't bother if you're using regular grocery-store juice. almost posted:The cheapest alcohol I've found here in my Canadian provincial liquor store still comes to about $1.35 for one drink's worth of ethanol, so that's $20 to get drunk once. I haven't looked into it yet but I'm hoping yeast for brewing is cheap here without some sort of sin tax. I am consistently amazed at how few Canadians homebrew. We have taxes on beer here, too, but drat.
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Oct 20, 2012 21:00
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Jo3sh posted:I am consistently amazed at how few Canadians homebrew. We have taxes on beer here, too, but drat. The vice taxes are one of the reasons I got into homebrewing as a Canadian. I'm in Manitoba, decent beer is like $2 per serving from the liquor store whereas my homebrew comes to about 50 cents a bottle
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Oct 20, 2012 21:26
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Has anyone here had Westbrook's Gose? It's probably my favorite local beer and I'd love to try to recreate something similar, but I don't really know where to get started. It's not exactly typical of the style ... though I guess you could call it an "Imperial Gose" if you don't care about being mocked. Salt scares me.
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Oct 21, 2012 01:29
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If you want to strengthen up apple cider, an alternative to sugar is to just add several cans of apple juice concentrate. A 12 ounce can has about half a pound (1 cup) of sugar and costs under $2 last I checked, though the apple harvest this year might have pushed it up. While this costs more than the cheap apple juice + white sugar rocket fuel, four gallons of juice plus ten cans of concentrate will have double the apple flavor. Though also will be more tart, so keep that in mind too.
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Oct 21, 2012 02:04
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Killer robot posted:If you want to strengthen up apple cider, an alternative to sugar is to just add several cans of apple juice concentrate. A 12 ounce can has about half a pound (1 cup) of sugar and costs under $2 last I checked, though the apple harvest this year might have pushed it up. While this costs more than the cheap apple juice + white sugar rocket fuel, four gallons of juice plus ten cans of concentrate will have double the apple flavor. Though also will be more tart, so keep that in mind too. I am doing this soon.
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Oct 21, 2012 02:19
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Is there any reason that I can't use this to filter gunk/hops/etc out of my wort after brewing to help it thin out? I was planning on having someone hold all three together while I pour into the bucket after sanitizing. I like this because it appears to be a lot finer than what a normal strainer is. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=12910649 LaserWash fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Oct 21, 2012 |
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Oct 21, 2012 03:12
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LaserWash posted:Is there any reason that I can't use this to filter gunk/hops/etc out of my wort after brewing to help it thin out? I was planning on having someone hold all three together while I pour into the bucket after sanitizing. I like this because it appears to be a lot finer than what a normal strainer is. Someone linked this earlier and I think it would be a better solution since there's less risk of the hops and other gunk escaping. Alternatively you could just make your own using various size mesh screen from a website like McMaster-Carr. Incidentally if any of you are not familiar with the glorious wonder that is McMaster-Carr I highly recommend spending some time perusing their website. Their catalog is four inches thick. I have a question about my own brew. It's a cream ale extract kit that I somehow got 0.01 below the recommended OG (1.039 instead of 1.05-ish). I might have just read the hydrometer wrong, but I think I got it right. Well the bucket was bubbling like crazy the first few days (WP080 cream ale yeast), but after 3-4 days it seems to have stopped. Should I be worried? It's been a week and there hasn't been much activity. The room does have pleasant beer smell though, although every time I walk in it seems less potent.
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Oct 21, 2012 04:16
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:I have a question about my own brew. It's a cream ale extract kit that I somehow got 0.01 below the recommended OG (1.039 instead of 1.05-ish). I might have just read the hydrometer wrong, but I think I got it right. Well the bucket was bubbling like crazy the first few days (WP080 cream ale yeast), but after 3-4 days it seems to have stopped. Should I be worried? It's been a week and there hasn't been much activity. The room does have pleasant beer smell though, although every time I walk in it seems less potent. Don't worry, your beer is fine. Beer is finicky and gravity points will often be one or a few away from your intended OG and your finishing target. You really can't judge a beer's fermentation based on the airlock. Normally, a beer like the one you brewed will eat through most of the sugars in the first few days and slowly finish the rest. Most beers will finish between a few days and a week. An air lock is not an accurate indicator of fermentation activity. Just because it's not bubbling doesn't mean it's not fermenting and just because it is bubbling doesn't mean it is. Often times, an airlock will bubble for weeks/months afterward as CO2 comes out of suspension from the beer.
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Oct 21, 2012 04:30
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Someone linked this earlier and I think it would be a better solution since there's less risk of the hops and other gunk escaping.
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Oct 21, 2012 04:32
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Angry Grimace posted:Extracts don't have variable efficiency like all-grain wort does. You either added too much top off water or you didn't mix the top-off water and the boiled wort very well before taking a sample. I'm sure I screwed something up, but in true homebrew fashion I'm going to assume it'll still be tasty until proven otherwise. Two more weeks until we open it up!
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Oct 21, 2012 04:45
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What does really underpitched yeast taste like? My last 2 batches (the first 2 i've ever used liquid yeast) have the most horrific sulfur/dirty sock flavour, even after 2 months. None of my dry yeast batches have ever had this problem. One batch was Wyeast 3333 german wheat and the other was wyeast 1762 belgian abbey.
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Oct 21, 2012 09:15
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almost fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2012 12:27
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