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Bruinator posted:New year, new beer! Anyone else planning to brew Jan 1? Jan 2 for me. Either over at my buddy's house, splitting a batch, or here at the homestead, keeping all 10 gallons, if he flakes.
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Jan 1, 2013 03:53
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| # ? May 21, 2024 08:25 |
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Apologies to my Santee, but the package was shipped out today. Pneumonia put a damper on my activities.
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Jan 1, 2013 04:44
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Bruinator posted:New year, new beer! Anyone else planning to brew Jan 1? Man, love your system, its pretty slick! Pretty jelly, not gonna lie. Planning on brewing the pale ale I was asking for recipe help with a few pages back tomorrow. Got a lot to do first though, need to crush my grain and test my wort chiller for leaks, hopefully it warms up enough for that to happen. Its supposed to drop down to about 3 f tonight, with a high of 30 tomorrow!
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Jan 1, 2013 05:35
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Yet another brewday where I forgot to take a gravity sample at some crucial point, this time before pitching the yeast. I really need a refractometer. (I also pitched all of the trub into the fermenter because I'm too cool to care about hops and break material I guess)
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Jan 1, 2013 06:39
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Bruinator posted:New year, new beer! Anyone else planning to brew Jan 1? With a system like that, I can't help but think "programming redone for simplicity" is a bit of an oxymoron.  But I'm not knocking--that's a very impressive setup. Are you trying to automate the whole process? You mention hops clogging fittings. If your next attempt fails to keep your lines clear, maybe consider some large tea ball infusers. If one is insufficient, then there is nothing to stop you from using more in the same pot. I also wonder if you can set your pumps in reverse/backwash when these situations arise. Regarding January 1st, I may brew tomorrow. But I'm just doing extract to verify that the non-grain portion of my process is working okay.
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Jan 1, 2013 07:20
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Angry Grimace posted:Yet another brewday where I forgot to take a gravity sample at some crucial point, this time before pitching the yeast. If you don't have something specific you are ready to do if your gravity is plus or minus at a certain point and you're lazy like me, you should really think through whatever measurements you're planning. A lot of them tend to be curiosity driven.
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Jan 1, 2013 09:19
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zedprime posted:I might be going way off in the deep end with my empiric brewing style but gravities are really just nice to know at a certain point, especially when kegging since you don't need to worry about bottle bombs. Typically my efficiency never goes over or under around 70-73%, but its still nice to know, I suppose.
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Jan 1, 2013 14:53
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Would it be too much to have 20% of the grain bill be roasted and chocolate malt in a milk stout? I think I used 10% last time total and it wasn't enough. This is the recipe so far. I was reading Left Hand's bottle though and nowhere do the mention using chocolate malt, they only mention roasted barley, unless that's a generic catch-all for any dark malt.
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Jan 1, 2013 15:26
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Midorka posted:Would it be too much to have 20% of the grain bill be roasted and chocolate malt in a milk stout? I think I used 10% last time total and it wasn't enough. This is the recipe so far. I was reading Left Hand's bottle though and nowhere do the mention using chocolate malt, they only mention roasted barley, unless that's a generic catch-all for any dark malt. 20% is an awful lot, seriously. Roasted barley is chocolate malts, yeah. When you say 10% wasn't enough, you used 10% chocolate malts, not a mix of crystal malts & chocolate? 10% of 500L would be tar-pits dark, even 350L is pretty drat dark. If you are looking for "chocolate" though, chocolate malt isn't going to get you there. It's too roasted. Or you could just add chocolate/coco nibs to get chocolate. e: So it looks from your recipe that it's still not sweet enough? Mash higher maybe? Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jan 1, 2013 |
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Jan 1, 2013 15:37
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I just added a little Crystal 60 after reading looking into some recipes. The problem I had with my milk stout is that there wasn't enough roasted presence or cocoa sweetness like Left Hand's Milk Stout. I suppose I'll scale back a touch on the chocolate malt, but how in the world does Left Hand get their's with a sweet cocoa without using any cocoa? At least it doesn't say so on the bottle anyway.
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Jan 1, 2013 16:02
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Jacobey000 posted:20% is an awful lot, seriously. Roasted barley is chocolate malts, yeah. Whole lotta wrong going on in this post. Roasted barley is definitely not chocolate malt. Chocolate malt is malted barley that is generally kilned around 320-430*F. Roasted barley is unmalted barley that is generally kilned around 430-450*F. Chocolate malt is what I'd call the primary dark malt in porters and gives more of a chocolatey and toasted flavor. Roasted barley is the primary dark malt in stouts and gives more of a coffee-like roastiness and is more bitter and sharp. You could definitely use 20% roasted barley or chocolate malt (or a combination of the two) in a porter/stout if you REALLY like roasted and chocolatey beers. My dry coffee stout I used to brew a lot had 15% roasted barley in it, and I've done beers with 20% total between chocolate and roasted barley. You just have to like the flavor it imparts, because it starts to get a little acrid sometimes. Cut down on your IBUs a bit if you go with that much dark malt. Midorka posted:I just added a little Crystal 60 after reading looking into some recipes. The problem I had with my milk stout is that there wasn't enough roasted presence or cocoa sweetness like Left Hand's Milk Stout. I suppose I'll scale back a touch on the chocolate malt, but how in the world does Left Hand get their's with a sweet cocoa without using any cocoa? At least it doesn't say so on the bottle anyway. I just checked the Left Hand website and they use 2 row, crystal, munich, flaked oats, flaked barley, and chocolate malt. If you didn't get enough roast or chocolate flavors you can definitely up the percentage of those malts, although you may have just used too much milk sugar. I find that it's easy to overdo a lactose addition and when you do it tends to mute and muddle other flavors.
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Jan 1, 2013 16:17
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Josh Wow posted:Whole lotta wrong going on in this post. Thanks for this post, I used 2 pounds of lactose for the first batch which was a buzzed brew-day mistake. It smells more milky than I wanted so that may be the case. I'm going to try the new recipe and see how it comes out, but thanks for the advice.
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Jan 1, 2013 16:35
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Josh Wow posted:Whole lotta wrong going on in this post. Ah, that part I didn't know. I was thinking they were just short-handing the "roasted" thing, I guess in the recesses of my memory kilned malted barley and roasted barley were in two different categories. Thanks for the clarity.
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Jan 1, 2013 16:46
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:With a system like that, I can't help but think "programming redone for simplicity" is a bit of an oxymoron. I started out trying to improve my temperature control with a controlled heatstick helping out my gas stove and wasn't really happy with the results. I didn't like the mess it made in the kitchen, long wait times for the boil, inconsistent mash temps, etc. Naturally the next step was a direct fire RIMS system. I'm happy with it being semi automated - the system gets the sparge and strike water to temperature, I mash in, it takes the mash through the appropriate steps, I sparge, then monitor it closely during the boil. I don't really have any desire to take myself completely out of the process, I just wanted a cleaner way to control temps and stop spilling wort all over my kitchen. Cleanup is on the system is pretty simple since only half the manifold and piping gets exposed to wort and I built it in modules so I can split it up for cleaning in process. By the end of the day I only need to clean and put away the final pump/chiller/BK since everything else has been cleaned during the boil. Everything but the stand is stored in a second floor spare bedroom so ease of setup/breakdown was important to me. I've actually got one of those big infusers that I've been meaning to try. Thus far I've been OK with pellets added directly and I'm really hoping that the MLT false bottom works for leaf. The pumps don't backwash - I'm using Chugger inline AC pumps and they only go one direction. Cleaning mid brew is possible but a real pain since you need to disassemble with a screwdriver while the whole thing is at boiling temps. There are a couple of surprisingly small passages on the pump inlet right behind the impeller that catch the leaves and I think the only solution is to keep them out in the first place.
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Jan 1, 2013 18:54
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Also, when I was making that beer last night, I noticed that the real Citra DIPA recipe has no flameout or whirlpool additions, but I still had like .3~ oz. of Citra left that seemed too small to reseal in the vacuum sealer so I just threw it in at flameout. I guess its no longer a "clone." 
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Jan 1, 2013 19:41
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Yesterday I brewed a Black IPA I got from Austin Homebrew ( http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_42_609&products_id=13527 ). This was the first time I used a yeast starter instead of just single pitching yeast. This morning was the first time I had to rig a blowoff tube because my fermentation blew my airlock off the top of my bucket. Now i'm worried about infection. I know there really isn't fuckall I can do except wait, and see if anything looks bad when I rack to a secondary and drop hop in a week's time, but I'm worried if the hour or so that it was exposed without the airlock on has a legitimate chance to gently caress the whole batch up. That'd be a real shame because cleaning up that mess smelled drat delicious. I was also wondering if all of the hop pellet remains that are blowing out of the beer through the tube (and that erupted from it) will have any negative effect on the flavor. I figure the hops added during the boil don't really give more flavor to the beer after the boil, or is that wrong? I'm guessing most of the flavor will come from my drop hop additions, and I shouldn't lose too much from the hops that were ejected along with all the krausen and my airlock, but I'm wondering if any of yall know more about it. Either way I'll just rig a blowoff tube when I start my next batch, because the yeast starter did its job excellently and I'm definitely going to keep doing that.
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Jan 1, 2013 19:51
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Korwen posted:Yesterday I brewed a Black IPA I got from Austin Homebrew ( http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_42_609&products_id=13527 ).
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Jan 1, 2013 20:01
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Korwen posted:Yesterday I brewed a Black IPA I got from Austin Homebrew ( http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_42_609&products_id=13527 ). Nothing to worry about, this happens to everyone at one point or another. Not only is the CO2 going to protect the beer like Grimace said but the yeast are going to out compete any other organism that could conceivably have gotten in there at this stage in the fermentation process. The biggest danger is probably not cleaning the bucket and lid well enough before you use it next time, when the krausen gets everywhere it's sometimes hard to get it all off.
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Jan 1, 2013 20:42
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Is 7 percent Vienna too much for a pretty hoppy American Pale? Looking to beef up the malt backbone of my standard Pale.
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Jan 1, 2013 21:04
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global tetrahedron posted:Is 7 percent Vienna too much for a pretty hoppy American Pale? Looking to beef up the malt backbone of my standard Pale. Not at all. My IPA has 2 pounds of Vienna and 9 pounds of 2 row and I think its drat good and my APA recipe is basically the same thing without the sugar.
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Jan 1, 2013 21:38
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You can use vienna as the entirety of your base malt for a pale ale or IPA and it'll come out great if you like them on the maltier side.
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Jan 1, 2013 22:39
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Rough brew day, I was not prepared to deal with trying to separate my wort from 3 oz of whole hops. I made the mistake of using my Spiedel fermenter as well, should have just used a bucket I think. Probably lost a good gallon of wort, and if this turns into beer after what it went through today then I am never going to worry about an infection again. Because of the hops, I couldn't use a siphon hose to transfer the wort, so I think that means I need to drill out my kettle to add a valve now. On the plus side, I think I had about 72% efficiency, not 100% on that though, my eyesight sucks and its hard to tell exactly what my hydrometer is reading. What is the most accurate way to check gravity? Refractometer? Also am I going to get an accurate reading if my sample is hazy, I am guessing with break material? My wort cooler worked wonders, about 15 mins to cool to 75, I need to compact the coils a little though, I think maybe half the drat thing was sticking out of the wort. I need to modify my corona mill a little, I had to double mill about half my grain due to the plate wobble that it has. I saw an instructable with some mods for the mill to make it grind more consistent, so I think I am going to play around with it before my next brew day. Also need to unfuck my garage so that I can get some grain storage bins or at minimum a place to keep my equipment more organized, right now it is kind of spread out all over the house. Blah, I am tired, time to drink a beer!
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Jan 2, 2013 01:53
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bengy81 posted:Because of the hops, I couldn't use a siphon hose to transfer the wort, so I think that means I need to drill out my kettle to add a valve now. I received some extremely useful advice from crazyfish on this one - wrap your siphon with a fine mesh strainer bag. Works like a charm.
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Jan 2, 2013 04:16
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Was away for two weeks for work. Shipping my secret Santa tomorrow (sorry it's late!). Purchased a blonde kit that was on sale at LHBS. Anyone have ideas for fun additions? I have whole coriander and orange peel on hand.
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Jan 2, 2013 07:21
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I can always tell when I've made a bunch of crummy recipes when they're still in the keg two months after I kegged them. I mean, I guess there's nothing *wrong* with any of them, they're just not particularly interesting in retrospect. I'm not sure its such a great idea to even bother making beer solely on the grounds someone else will like it.
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Jan 2, 2013 08:53
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The SMaSH I did with Galaxy hops and wheat LME is maybe one of the most delicious and unique PAs I've ever tasted. I highly recommend these hops if you like fruity hops, really stoked to use these more. Glad I bought a pound when I had the chance.
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Jan 2, 2013 14:58
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hellfaucet posted:The SMaSH I did with Galaxy hops and wheat LME is maybe one of the most delicious and unique PAs I've ever tasted. I highly recommend these hops if you like fruity hops, really stoked to use these more. Glad I bought a pound when I had the chance. Has anyone done a SMaSH with those Belma hops that were posted awhile ago? I am planning on making a Two Hearted Ale clone, but subbing Belma in for Centennial, and switching out the 2-Row for some Floor malted MO to give it some more backbone. The only reviews of Belma I have seen are that it has a huge strawberry nose in beers.
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Jan 2, 2013 16:27
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ScaerCroe posted:Has anyone done a SMaSH with those Belma hops that were posted awhile ago? I am planning on making a Two Hearted Ale clone, but subbing Belma in for Centennial, and switching out the 2-Row for some Floor malted MO to give it some more backbone. The only reviews of Belma I have seen are that it has a huge strawberry nose in beers. A lot of people on HBT have done it and almost all of them found that Belma has a very small aroma or flavor contribution that is easily overpowered by practically any other bold American hop. It also has an awful old-lady name.
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Jan 2, 2013 16:44
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Angry Grimace posted:A lot of people on HBT have done it and almost all of them found that Belma has a very small aroma or flavor contribution that is easily overpowered by practically any other bold American hop. It also has an awful old-lady name. Adding onto this, it appears to be a good cheap bittering hop to use under something else. Next order I make I'll probably grab a pound or two just to play with, maybe a large Belma addition at 60m and then hit it with Galaxy or Cascade at 15, 1, and dry hop.
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Jan 2, 2013 17:16
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ScaerCroe posted:Has anyone done a SMaSH with those Belma hops that were posted awhile ago? I am planning on making a Two Hearted Ale clone, but subbing Belma in for Centennial, and switching out the 2-Row for some Floor malted MO to give it some more backbone. The only reviews of Belma I have seen are that it has a huge strawberry nose in beers. Adding to the pile, I wouldn't say Belma has a "huge" anything smell, it's extremely mild across the board. The strawberry smell is the most prominent thing in there though.
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Jan 2, 2013 17:24
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Took the cap off of my first homebrew last night. The BB American Cream Ale that I discussed earlier in the thread. It's definitely palatable, but there's a slightly sour citrus funk to it and a super dry finish. Chlorine maybe? We didn't have an iodine based sanitizer yet and used a weak bleach solution.
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Jan 2, 2013 19:16
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mbottoms posted:Took the cap off of my first homebrew last night. The BB American Cream Ale that I discussed earlier in the thread. It's definitely palatable, but there's a slightly sour citrus funk to it and a super dry finish. Chlorine maybe? We didn't have an iodine based sanitizer yet and used a weak bleach solution. Interesting. My wife and I did the same thing, only we used the White Lab's Cream Ale yeast. Our water source was one of the bottled water coolers from BJ's. There was definitely a citrus hit there, but it wasn't sour or funky at all. Finish was crisp but I wouldn't say super dry. One major problem I had is flocculation; the yeast seems to just fly everywhere and never really settled on the bottom. It's also heavily overcarbed, so I need to learn how to better carb my beers. 5 oz against 5 gallons seems ludicrously high.
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Jan 2, 2013 19:58
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We used the dry yeast that came in the package and it wasn't overly active. It might have been a bit on the cool side during fermentation, but it finished exactly where it should and came out at 5.25abv as promised. We used some generic 'drinking water' from the grocery store because the city water is pretty dismal and we didn't want to put 5 gallons of water through a 1/2 gallon brita.
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Jan 2, 2013 20:27
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mbottoms posted:We used the dry yeast that came in the package and it wasn't overly active. It might have been a bit on the cool side during fermentation, but it finished exactly where it should and came out at 5.25abv as promised. We used some generic 'drinking water' from the grocery store because the city water is pretty dismal and we didn't want to put 5 gallons of water through a 1/2 gallon brita. Our OG was pretty low (want to say 1.039) so our ABV was only 4.4%. Ah well, it's been a hit so I can't really complain.
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Jan 2, 2013 20:32
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mbottoms posted:Took the cap off of my first homebrew last night. The BB American Cream Ale that I discussed earlier in the thread. It's definitely palatable, but there's a slightly sour citrus funk to it and a super dry finish. Chlorine maybe? We didn't have an iodine based sanitizer yet and used a weak bleach solution. Not saying that's what it is for certain by any means, but "slightly funky, acidic and way too dry" is like the textbook definition of bacterial infection. But as you say, maybe you just didn't completely rinse the bleach solution off everything? One of the huge benefits of something like Star-San is that it's no-rinse so a) you don't have that problem, and b) you aren't rinsing your sanitized gear with unsanitized water.
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Jan 2, 2013 20:56
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Brewed a RR Consecration clone yesterday (the kit that came with the barrel pieces), and tried to actually use my hydrometer for the first time. Except even with the most careful pour of wort into my graduated cylinder, it got all foamy and bubbly on the surface, obscuring my view. This is only my second batch of all-grain beer (using BIAB) and gravity looked to be somewhere between 1.070 and 1.080. Close enough. Now this batch calls for a secondary and I'll be pitching Roeselare. I've never used more than one kind of yeast so I'm not sure when the best time to pitch is. Wait until fermentation is done with my Abbey Ale yeast or do I need to do it sooner so the Roeselare has something to eat?
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Jan 2, 2013 20:58
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Docjowles posted:Not saying that's what it is for certain by any means, but "slightly funky, acidic and way too dry" is like the textbook definition of bacterial infection. But as you say, maybe you just didn't completely rinse the bleach solution off everything? One of the huge benefits of something like Star-San is that it's no-rinse so a) you don't have that problem, and b) you aren't rinsing your sanitized gear with unsanitized water. yeah, we didn't rinse it. It was 2oz of bleach in ~6 gallons of water. I'd been led to believe that the concentration would be low enough not to matter. I've since heard some pretty strongly dissenting opinions on the subject. Switching to iodophor on the next batch and we'll see if it's a little cleaner tasting. Edit: Poured some into a glass and let it sit for a few minutes. The off flavor really smooths out after a few minutes outside of the bottle. strange... mbottoms fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jan 2, 2013 |
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Jan 2, 2013 21:04
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Sirotan posted:Brewed a RR Consecration clone yesterday (the kit that came with the barrel pieces Where'd you get the kit? I'd be interested in making a redemption clone. So... So very tasty...
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Jan 2, 2013 21:22
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Where'd you get the kit? I'd be interested in making a redemption clone. Right here: http://morebeer.com/view_product/20882//Kit_All-Grain_-_Russian_Rivers_Consecration Edit: Oh hey, and going back to that page, the description answers my question: quote:Vinnie recommends fermenting down to around a 1.016-1.018 with Abbey Ale yeast. He recommends the temperature to be 72°F during the first few days of fermentation, and then lets it free rise to 76°F until the target gravity of 1.016 is reached.
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Jan 2, 2013 21:30
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| # ? May 21, 2024 08:25 |
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I've now brewed 4 batches (kegged 3 of them) from extract kits. For Christmas, I was given a Blichman burner and money to get an all-grain kit. I see at NB, if you buy the kit, it comes with 2 coolers. What's the advantage of using 2 coolers as opposed to 1? In the videos I've watched, they only use 1 cooler to mash and then pour sparge water through it. How do you use the 2nd cooler? All-grain seems to be a step up in allowed variety. Is this the case? If you're doing a recipe and there's an extract kit available, is there any reason to do it all-grain?
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Jan 2, 2013 22:12
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