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Whodat Smith-Jones posted:Yea or nay on secondary for cacao nibs?
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Feb 23, 2013 18:51
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Midorka posted:Well in the case of older beers isn't it possible that there wouldn't be enough yeast in suspension to carbonate? I was thinking that by adding yeast a certain amount would stay in suspension even after cold crashing. I mean, I cold crash my beers and there is always enough yeast to carbonate. Some would stay in suspension, but you're missing the main point I was making. It's counterintuitive to add yeast that you need to carbonate the beer, then cold crash which would make it drop out
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Feb 23, 2013 18:51
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Josh Wow posted:Some would stay in suspension, but you're missing the main point I was making. It's counterintuitive to add yeast that you need to carbonate the beer, then cold crash which would make it drop out I do understand that, but would adding it and cold crashing have more yeast per area than simply cold crashing a year old beer and then bottling it?
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Feb 23, 2013 18:53
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Hypnolobster posted:Carb drops and sugar cubes are pretty notorious for causing infections and being hilariously inaccurate. A really random old fashioned way to carb beer is by sanitizing some raisins in some star-san and then dropping a couple in the bottle.
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Feb 23, 2013 18:54
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Thanks for the responses regarding the cacao nibs, but I guess I should've clarified that I was wondering whether secondary would be worth all the effort since the general consensus around here is that secondary is pointless in most cases where you aren't aging something.
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Feb 23, 2013 19:07
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Angry Grimace posted:A really random old fashioned way to carb beer is by sanitizing some raisins in some star-san and then dropping a couple in the bottle.  I guess the idea is that wild yeast on the raisins survives the sanitizing while other stuff does not?
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Feb 23, 2013 19:57
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withak posted:
No, the idea is that yeast will eat the sugar in the raisins and carb the beer.
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Feb 23, 2013 20:08
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Midorka posted:Whoa, 20 minute mash? What's up with that?
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Feb 23, 2013 20:15
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Angry Grimace posted:The weirder part is the 12 oz. dry hop Well to be fair he's doing a 13 gallon batch. When you scale that to 5 gallons it's more like 4.5oz of dry hops which, while a lot, isn't absurd.
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Feb 23, 2013 20:23
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zedprime posted:Modern malts are dripping with enzymes so most of the time the mash is really done that fast if you bullseye the temp where beta and alpha amylase are both trucking at full capacity and everything after 20 minutes is insurance. Yep, do an iodine test and save yourself some time.
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Feb 23, 2013 23:20
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Docjowles posted:Well to be fair he's doing a 13 gallon batch. When you scale that to 5 gallons it's more like 4.5oz of dry hops which, while a lot, isn't absurd. I do have to admit 13 gallons is a pretty weird size.
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Feb 23, 2013 23:23
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I'm ready to pitch the yeast into the Octoberfest style lager I've prepared but just noticed I've got a dry wheat beer yeast instead of the dry lager yeast I was meant to have. Is this going to be a significant issue or am I just going to end up with a cloudy lager?
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Feb 23, 2013 23:53
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Rozzbot posted:I'm ready to pitch the yeast into the Octoberfest style lager I've prepared but just noticed I've got a dry wheat beer yeast instead of the dry lager yeast I was meant to have. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, but uh, yeah that will result in a completely different beer. It will produce booze but it's not going to taste anything like an Oktoberfest.
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Feb 24, 2013 00:33
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Rozzbot posted:I'm ready to pitch the yeast into the Octoberfest style lager I've prepared but just noticed I've got a dry wheat beer yeast instead of the dry lager yeast I was meant to have. Go back and purchase a lager yeast. Wheat yeast will be an entirely different beer and will probably not ferment out at lager fermentation temperatures.
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Feb 24, 2013 00:34
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Midorka posted:I do understand that, but would adding it and cold crashing have more yeast per area than simply cold crashing a year old beer and then bottling it? You'd have to do both and plate them to find out, but it's a pointless question. If you need to add more yeast to carbonate then do it after you cold crash
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Feb 24, 2013 00:54
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Is an Octoberwheat a thing? I ordered the grains and yeast from a new online store and they sent me out the wrong yeast. All the local home brew stores here aren't open Sunday so I can't get new yeast until tomorrow. Leaving my wort overnight should be fine as long as everythings been properly sterilized right?
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Feb 24, 2013 01:27
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Rozzbot posted:Is an Octoberwheat a thing? The closest style I could think of would be a Weizenbock, but obviously the wort would have to be wheat based. I personally detest German wheat beers and am a pretty big fan of German lager, including most bocks.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:31
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Well, it seems there is a new brew shop opened only a few miles from me, and a club spinning up in association. I also found that I have been talked into doing a demo brew at the shop. Fortunately, my rig is going to get carried up there, so at least I will be familiar with the tools. I have no idea yet what to brew, though. My current thought is to brew a pretty standard California-style PA or IPA as I have all the ingredients on hand for it (apart from yeast, but that won't be a problem given I am brewing at the shop). What would you guys suggest? I am thinking simple recipe, easy to brew, and approachable/popular with fairly new brewers. Amber something?
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Feb 24, 2013 01:40
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Jo3sh posted:Well, it seems there is a new brew shop opened only a few miles from me, and a club spinning up in association. I also found that I have been talked into doing a demo brew at the shop. Fortunately, my rig is going to get carried up there, so at least I will be familiar with the tools. I have no idea yet what to brew, though. My current thought is to brew a pretty standard California-style PA or IPA as I have all the ingredients on hand for it (apart from yeast, but that won't be a problem given I am brewing at the shop). An Irish red might be a thing to consider! It's that time of the year.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:44
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Jo3sh posted:Well, it seems there is a new brew shop opened only a few miles from me, and a club spinning up in association. I also found that I have been talked into doing a demo brew at the shop. Fortunately, my rig is going to get carried up there, so at least I will be familiar with the tools. I have no idea yet what to brew, though. My current thought is to brew a pretty standard California-style PA or IPA as I have all the ingredients on hand for it (apart from yeast, but that won't be a problem given I am brewing at the shop). Dry Irish Stout, although you'd have to be doing all-grain since you have to work with a good amount of adjuncts.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:51
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Angry Grimace posted:Dry Irish Stout, although you'd have to be doing all-grain since you have to work with a good amount of adjuncts. bengy81 posted:An Irish red might be a thing to consider! It's that time of the year. Those are both really good ideas. I had already considered an Irish Red since we discussed it as a style at the meeting last weekend (because of, as you noted, St. Patty's), but I had not thought of an Irish Stout. Looking into that one now. Any other thoughts? EDIT: hosed up the quoting. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 02:00
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Jo3sh posted:Any other thoughts? I like pointing new people to a belgian pale ale/table beer. Most people like belgian style beers and they're often expensive ones to buy, plus you can (generally) ferment it at room temp so it's great for beginners. Just do whatever two row or extract you like for the base, then like 5% honey malt and 5% table sugar and maybe some biscuit or abbey malt or special b if you want. An oz of something noble for bittering and another 1-2 oz of noble stuff at the end and you're golden.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:01
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Okay, I racked my mead for the first time last night. I took a hydrometer reading and got 1.000 exactly. As I understand it, that means there's no more sugar in the mead for the yeast to eat, correct? I tasted it and it was really dry-- way drier than I'd like to drink eventually, so I want to add more honey when I bottle it. Is this a recipe for bottle-bombs, or will the yeast have all given up by that point? EDIT: Forgot to add, I crushed and threw in the campden tablets that came with the kit when I racked it. Pucklynn fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 03:45
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Yeast never gives up, never surrenders. If you want to back-sweeten it with something fermentable like honey or fruit or whatever, get some campden tablets to actually kill the yeast off, then add your sweetener.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:47
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Pucklynn posted:Okay, I racked my mead for the first time last night. A sweet mead/wine relies on one of two things. You can let it go totally dry and then stabilize/backsweeten. Or you use so much honey in the boil that the yeast strain can't eat it all and you let that sit under airlock for a few months, racking once or twice to make sure the gravity doesn't change. With something you're going to be potentially storing for 6 months to several years, I generally recommend the easy and failsafe stabilization/backsweetening. I'd only use the mass-sugars approach to a sweet wine if I was actively avoiding the use of K-meta or K-sorbate in that wine. I use a combo of potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate in proper amounts for wine stabilization and it has yet to fail me. Campden tabs only contain potassium/sodium metabisulfite and generally benefit from the assistance of potassium sorbate in stopping or preventing a fermentation when introducing additional sugars. Potassium metabisulfite stuns a yeast and inhibits yeast/bacterial growth; but it does not really kill the yeast, nor does it stop them from reproducing. Potassium sorbate neuters yeast, rendering it impossible for any living cells to reproduce; but it will not stop those existing yeast from eating their fill. A potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate combo in the appropriate amounts will thus stop or prevent pretty much anything that isn't a champagne yeast without changing your flavor profile at all. By the way, make sure you check that people don't have sulfite allergies before offering them anything that you used campden or K-meta in. Cheers.
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Feb 24, 2013 09:59
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Bad Munki posted:Yeast never gives up, never surrenders. If you want to back-sweeten it with something fermentable like honey or fruit or whatever, get some campden tablets to actually kill the yeast off, then add your sweetener. Campden and potassium sorbate will do if your back sweetening. Campden alone will shock it but if your adding enough sugars it will come back, it will find the sugars, and it will explode. How old is the mead? It may just be young, that really hot flavor is a sign of that. If you want to let it age a mellow out more (and not add more sugars), you can just use campden since even if the grav drops .004 its just going make make your mead sparkling and shouldn't blow up your bottles.
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Feb 24, 2013 14:30
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Well, the mead is only a month old so I'm hoping it will age and mellow. I guess we'll find out in another couple months. I'd like to get it bottled by about three or four months (leaving here in August and it needs to be transportable by then). I'd like it to be sparkling, but I'm not so sure I want to risk it with my first mead. Since I've added the campden already, would it be reasonable to rack it once more, add the appropriate amount of potassium sorbate at that point and back-sweeten it at bottling time a month or two later?
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Feb 24, 2013 15:31
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Pucklynn posted:I took a hydrometer reading and got 1.000 exactly. As I understand it, that means there's no more sugar in the mead for the yeast to eat, correct? I just wanted to follow up on this because I don't think it was specifically addressed yet. No, 1.000 does not mean all the sugar is gone. It only means that the particular blend of alcohol, water, and sugar you have in your fermenter has a specific gravity of 1.000. A mix of water and alcohol alone with have an SG of less than 1.000, so there is still some remaining sugar in there.
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Feb 24, 2013 16:12
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After receiving a homebrew kit for Christmas from my wife's parents I have brewed six batches and bottled four of them. The first batch was an American Wheat that disappeared very quickly as I shared them with my family and friends. The subsequent batches have been beers with less mass appeal so I should be the primary consumer of most of them. I brewed using the "Boundary Waters Wheat" kit from Midwest Supplies yesterday. I have been bugging my wife to make a loaf of bread using the spent grains since I brewed the first batch and this time she did. She put the dough together yesterday afternoon, punched it down, then let it sit on cookie sheets overnight. She baked it this morning and it was pretty awesome. Steeping grains are a resource to be treasured!  Yesterday some friends and I went to the Beertopia Extreme beer Fest. It was a beer tasting event in a hotel conference center where nearly all the beers were >=7% ABV. It started at three and I was pretty much useless by six. I wanted to try as much of the weird brews as possible. Some of the stuff that I tried:
A couple of cask aged barleywines A peanut butter stout A Brett Saison (it did not taste at all like I was expecting. No horse blanket at all) A marshmallow stout (surprisingly good) A ghost pepper IPA that was pretty mild A ghost pepper something else (I was pretty drunk at this point) that was pretty spicy - I don't think I could handle a whole pint of it A couple of Russian Imperial Stouts Lots of black IPAs A hemp seed IPA that was ... flavorful? Various beers that had been aged in various barrels, rum barrels, oak barrels, wine barrels... A vanilla stout ice cream that I thought would be vile but was actually pretty good A S'Mores porter that for me was the highlight of the event I have never had cider other than Woodchuck before and I was surprised at how dry it is. The guys from one of the local brew clubs had a Ghostbusters theme. They were dressed up in brown jumpsuits and all their beers had Ghostbusters themed names. The black IPA was called Winston and the marshmallow stout was the Stay Puft. They had people in the jumpsuits walking around dispensing beers and ciders from black backpacks made up to look like the proton packs from the movies. They were clearly having a good time. I am not a huge fan of IPAs. When I have had them in the past the hop flavor is just so overwhelming. Some of the IPAs I had yesterday did not present such a full scale assault on my senses. Do IPAs get more "harsh" as they age or is the harshness something that mellows out over time? I really want to try to make something like the S'mores porter, and I'd like to make it pretty soon so it is ready for summer grilling. Does anyone have any recipes they have actually made and tried? I have found a couple online but they were always from people who hadn't actually made them. Last weekend I bottled a porter that I had transferred for secondary fermentation. That was the only beer that I have put in secondary. The previous two batches that I have bottled were carbonated after one week in the bottle (I couldn't wait... the wheat was fine, the scotch ale was way better after more time in the bottle). The porter that was bottled from secondary had almost zero carbonation one week after bottling. Is that normal for beers that have been transferred to secondary? It seems to make sense that a beer would take longer to carbonate after being twice separated from the majority of the yeast.
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Feb 24, 2013 18:17
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PBCrunch posted:I am not a huge fan of IPAs. When I have had them in the past the hop flavor is just so overwhelming. Some of the IPAs I had yesterday did not present such a full scale assault on my senses. Do IPAs get more "harsh" as they age or is the harshness something that mellows out over time?
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Feb 24, 2013 20:02
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Last night, a friend of mine brought over some beers that he bottled 5 years ago. The first was a honey nut brown ale. This beer seemed to defy all of the conventional wisdom I've heard about storing beer for a long time. The carbonation was absolutely perfect. The aroma was huge, and was probably the honey-ist beer I've even smelled. The taste was great too, and surprisingly, very sweet! He did nothing to prepare the bottles for long term storage and used standard caps and naturally carbonated. I have no idea how the carbonation managed to hold and the flavor remained so sweet. He also had a honey wheat. This one also had fine carbonation, maybe just a little over-carbed. However, the aroma and taste were very vinegary, so we suspect it was infected at some point. It was undrinkable.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:07
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What's worse for the beer, pitching around 75 degrees or letting the wort sit in the cooler for a few hours until it hits 60-65? Brewing a porter using Wyeast London Ale (1028).
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Feb 24, 2013 20:14
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The wort will be fine in the cooler for a few hours if you want to wait to pitch the yeast. I do that all winter long (brew, rack, then leave outside for a few hours before I pitch). I wouldn't suggest pitching first and then throwing it in the cooler though, as big changes in temperatures once the yeast is active are a big no-no. Re: carbonation over time: in my experience once something is carbonated it's carbonated ... pretty much for the life of the beverage. I think you're more likely to see the [liquid] go bad before you see it go flat (assuming the container is properly sealed). I'd love to see a chart or some real data though. Can't find anything solid in my books or Google. I'm sure it's out there though.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:25
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vwman18 posted:What's worse for the beer, pitching around 75 degrees or letting the wort sit in the cooler for a few hours until it hits 60-65? Brewing a porter using Wyeast London Ale (1028). As long as your sanitation methods are good, it's better to get it to the right temperature rather than pitching hot. How are you cooling the wort, ambient air?
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Feb 24, 2013 20:27
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Toebone posted:As long as your sanitation methods are good, it's better to get it to the right temperature rather than pitching hot. How are you cooling the wort, ambient air? Cooling via immersion chiller, but I'm in Florida and groundwater is pretty warm even this time of year. It takes me forever just to get it down to 75.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:41
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^^ Might want to invest in a prechiller like this or make a larger one of your own out of some copper tube and fittings at some point. Sit the little bugger in an ice+salt bath prior to your immersion chiller and it'll drop things considerably faster.Pucklynn posted:Since I've added the campden already, would it be reasonable to rack it once more, add the appropriate amount of potassium sorbate at that point and back-sweeten it at bottling time a month or two later? As to sparkling mead, it can only be done dry or with non-sugar sweeteners; because you can't pasteurize it like you can a sparkling cider without ruining the flavor profile. With wine, you have to let it ferment out all the sugars, then you have to introduce just enough sugars prior to bottling to carb up as you would do with beer. Do not ever do that in standard bottles, though. Wine bottles aren't meant for pressure. At best you'll blow the cork. If you're set on a sparkling wine, use champagne bottles with appropriate tops or beer bottles with caps. (Beer bottles can still explode if you get the carb wrong, btw.)
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Feb 25, 2013 00:43
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What would be the proper procedure for putting something starchy like a sweet potato in to a beer? Should I just boil it in its own water and then put it in to a cheesecloth bag and toss it in to the wort? I am not sure how all the starch might affect the beer, anyone ever tried it?
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Feb 25, 2013 02:45
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Porkchop Express posted:What would be the proper procedure for putting something starchy like a sweet potato in to a beer? Should I just boil it in its own water and then put it in to a cheesecloth bag and toss it in to the wort? I am not sure how all the starch might affect the beer, anyone ever tried it? I'd treat it the same as pumpkin, and there's a lot of internet resources for brewing with pumpkin. Roast it at a high temperature to get some caramelization and flavor development, scoop out the potato (leaving the skin behind) and add it directly to the mash. If you aren't brewing all-grain, google "partial mash", it's easy. You just need to steep a pound or so of a base malt like US 2-row or Maris Otter with the potatoes around 150F for half an hour to activate the enzymes in the malt which convert all that starch to sugar. Then proceed with your brew day as normal.
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Feb 25, 2013 03:01
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Docjowles posted:I'd treat it the same as pumpkin, and there's a lot of internet resources for brewing with pumpkin. Roast it at a high temperature to get some caramelization and flavor development, scoop out the potato (leaving the skin behind) and add it directly to the mash. If you aren't brewing all-grain, google "partial mash", it's easy. You just need to steep a pound or so of a base malt like US 2-row or Maris Otter with the potatoes around 150F for half an hour to activate the enzymes in the malt which convert all that starch to sugar. Then proceed with your brew day as normal. drat, im gonna need a bigger pot cause my poo poo is almost overflowing as it is before putting a pound of sweet potatoes in it!
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Feb 25, 2013 03:10
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You can't cold crash a beer for too long, can you? My IPA has been sitting in primary at 32* for a week and I meant to keg it this weekend after brewing but never got around to it. Aside from losing another week of freshness before drinking, would it hurt it to sit in the fridge until next weekend?
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Feb 25, 2013 03:36
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