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baquerd posted:So I made this cream ale and it tastes like a pina colada. This isn't really a bad thing, it's just really unexpected. How the hell? I'm guessing some crazy temp flucuations I had due to no dedicated fermenting chamber, but... pineapply citrus and a hint of coconut? Could be a combo of Oxidization and DMS? You've got six row, corn and rice - did you boil for 90min? Lid off? How much movement did it go through during the temp changes? Anything else maybe? I don't have temp control at my place at all - and have never had these flavors. Even at the high 60s, low 70s, Notty shouldn't be throwing off that much/kind of ester. Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 03:09
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Jacobey000 posted:Could be a combo of Oxidization and DMS? You've got six row, corn and rice - did you boil for 90min? Lid off? How much movement did it go through during the temp changes? Anything else maybe? Two-row, not six-row. 90 minute mash at 152, 60 minute partial boil of 4 gallons added to 1 gallon water in fermenter. No movement, sealed and airlocked; temp fluctuations were due to outside temps. Maybe DMS, I don't really know how to recognize that, but I wouldn't call the flavor or aroma vegetative, and neither is unpleasant at all. The beer has a citrus nose which I would characterize as pineapple, and the taste is a watery pina colada.
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Feb 26, 2013 04:17
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Hey guys, first time brewer. I just bought a kit from my local homebrew store (intermediate kit with a carboy) and tomorrow i'm going to tackle the very arduous and what i'm sure will be difficult task of brewing the munton's bock beer that came with it. Serious question though, from what i've read fermentation should be done at 65-70f degrees. If i don't want to kill my electric bill and set the thermostat for that range for a few days, whats the best way to ferment in that temperature range? My house is usually set to 73-75f. I'm sure it probably doesn't matter too much for this specific premade brew, but in future brews where it will matter, how do you guys control the temp for fermentation? For the record, i'm in Texas and i'm a hair worried about this summer.
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Feb 26, 2013 05:37
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Crunkjuice posted:Hey guys, first time brewer. I just bought a kit from my local homebrew store (intermediate kit with a carboy) and tomorrow i'm going to tackle the very arduous and what i'm sure will be difficult task of brewing the munton's bock beer that came with it. Ambient doesn't tell the whole story, the fermenting beer usually rises up a few degrees during the peak of fermentation and can throw off flavors even if your room is within the top end of the temp range. Fermenting slightly hot can do anything from nothing, to providing slightly more fruity flavor than you'd prefer from a 'clean' yeast, to pumping out fusels in extreme cases. One of the standard recommendations for a beginner is to get a big tub of water for your carboy/bucket to sit in with some water. Freeze a few milk jugs or soda bottles full of water. Simply throw a couple in as needed and change out when necessary. You can put a t-shirt on the carboy or bucket that goes into the water for a bit of evaporative cooling. I live in a warm climate too and very quickly gave in and bought a minifridge at a yard sale. Another option would be to make lots of Belgians or Saisons. Bruinator fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 05:56
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Be aware that some water and frozen bottles can change the temp in a hurry. Dumping some water and frozen bottles in and then going to bed may result in waking up with beer 10* below where you left it. I speak from experience on this one.
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Feb 26, 2013 06:26
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So it took a week and a half to two weeks, but I'm finally getting some action on my Oud Brune. It started looking foamy yesterday, and this morning had that muddy looking layer on top, but you can still kinda see the foamy krausen under it. The base for the beer came from the brown recipe the local brewpub I interned for uses, though I dialed back the hopping a bit and replaced some of the pilsner malt with extra munich due to what I had on hand. The yeast/bugs are the dregs from 3 bottles of jolly pumpkin I grew a starter from a few months back, and the the dregs from a bottle of Ommegang Aphrodite we drank the night it was finished. See you in a year delicious sour beer...
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Feb 26, 2013 14:13
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Speaking of sour beer, I racked my Flanders red to secondary about 3 weeks ago. There was a pellicle forming in primary from the Roeselare, a few big white bubbles, that I expected to see re-grow when I racked it but I'm still getting nothing. I dumped dregs from a JP Bam Biere in a week ago and I'm not seeing a pellicle yet. Would it be a good idea to add 8oz of maltodextrin with some fresh lacto and brett cultures to get everything going again or should I just wait and let it do its thing?
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Feb 26, 2013 14:58
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internet celebrity posted:Speaking of sour beer, I racked my Flanders red to secondary about 3 weeks ago. There was a pellicle forming in primary from the Roeselare, a few big white bubbles, that I expected to see re-grow when I racked it but I'm still getting nothing. I dumped dregs from a JP Bam Biere in a week ago and I'm not seeing a pellicle yet. Would it be a good idea to add 8oz of maltodextrin with some fresh lacto and brett cultures to get everything going again or should I just wait and let it do its thing? You're fine. Pellicles are finicky. I've had several that have taken months to grow and some barely appear at all. I don't see anything wrong with the steps you listed, but I'd wait a while before I'd think that they're necessary.
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Feb 26, 2013 15:21
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Ive always wanted to try a sour mead, just haven't had the opportunity with so many other batches / ideas. Sorry for the crappy photos, my Ipad takes worse photos than my stinking phone! Going to have to use a real camera in the future. The stupid sideways one is a 2 month old Wild Blueberry Maple Melomel. And the upright darker one is my bochet, (about a month old) which is boiled/ caramelized honey. They both taste great!  
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Feb 26, 2013 16:58
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I'm looking at kegging setups and trying to get the most economical option. None of these come with a co2 tank, which I can probably get locally for cheaper by getting a used one. Option 1 $216 shipped Option 2 with kegs comes to $240 shipped Option 3 $350 shipped I'm leaning towards Northern Brewer because I've been using their equipment for years (my previous keg setup was all NB stuff) so I'm familiar with their quality level but by far the most expensive (partly due to the better regulator). I've never used Keg Connection before but I think they've been mentioned positively in this thread before, and I've never heard of Kegco products that are sold at BeverageFactory.com. Obviously I want the best equipment available (and despite moving to NYC I still consider NB to be my LHBS so I want to continue to support them) but my wife wants me to spend the least amount possible.
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Feb 26, 2013 17:35
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I keep forgetting about bochets, I'll have to make some one of these days. Just started a metheglin, I boiled chamomile, bitter orange peel, coriander, grains of paradise, black pepper, and ginger in a gallon of water for 5 minutes, which I added to 15 pounds of chokecherry honey in a 5 gallon batch. I was trying to decide how to add the spices without boiling the actual honey. If this comes out lackluster, i can always "dry hop" some more spices when it's finished.
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Feb 26, 2013 17:38
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two_beer_bishes posted:I'm looking at kegging setups and trying to get the most economical option. Kegconnection.com is great. I've worked with them both on my bar (partially) , and on a friend's bar (completely), and they were super both times. If you want to customize your kit, give them a call and they'll do whatever you need, don't feel constrained by the preset options. BeverageFactory.com was good too: when I was building my bar, that's where I ended up getting all my faucets. I had no trouble with them either, but all I was buying were a bunch of perlicks with no funny business that I can recall. As for the CO2 tank, you probably don't want to buy one, unless you're sure you can get it refilled with a minimum of hassle. By far, it seems the norm these days is to exchange them rather than refill, so you'll be sad the first time you take your nice shiny jewel of a tank down and give it up for a grody old beat up one. I bought mine because I didn't know any better, and it's been a hassle. When I was in Des Moines (half a million people) I managed to find ONE place that would refill, and the guy that did it was only there like two days a week and you had to call ahead to make sure he was actually in. I'm in Erie, now, and have yet to find a place--although I haven't looked all that hard, but the fact remains it's much harder to refill than exchange. On a side note, don't bother with a dual-gauge regulator (that is, one with a gauge for regulated pressure and a gauge for tank pressure.) The tank pressure one always reads full until all the liquid in the tank has converted to gas, at which point it goes from "full" to "empty" in about 3 pints. If you want to know how much CO2 you have left, you have to weight the tank. A little hanging scale is a great way to do that. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 17:54
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two_beer_bishes posted:I'm looking at kegging setups and trying to get the most economical option. I don't see a ton of difference between options 1 and 2. They both have a single regulator body with a mechanism for distributing gas to the two kegs. I'm not crazy about the picture of the black beer line in option 1, but who knows what they will actually ship. might be worth finding out what the ID of that line is - if it's 3/16", it's probably not terrible, but I think actual beer line is usually or always clear. Between the two, I would probably sink the extra $34 to buy option 2, partly because it's a known vendor and I have heard reports that they have made problems right for other goons. Option 3 has a dual-body regulator, which means you can set different pressures for the kegs. This might be handy, and I know a couple guys who love that ability, but I have used a single-body for many years and never missed the additional capability. No question that NB will give you good service and will have designed the kit so that the owners / employees would be happy to use it to pour beer, but the $110 price difference seems kinda high unless there is something I am not seeing. So between those 3, I would probably choose option 2. When you get your CO2, I strongly suggest you go for a 10-pound bottle rather than 5.
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Feb 26, 2013 18:09
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And just to be clear, since Jo3sh mentioned the dual-body regulator: there is a difference between a dual-body regulator and a dual-gauge regulator. The former can be useful, the latter is a ripoff, at least for CO2. 
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Feb 26, 2013 18:11
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... and I respectfully disagree with Munki in that I actually do like having the second gauge on my regulator. Yes, it acts in a binary fashion, but at least I don't have to actually wait until the beer stops pouring to realize I am out of gas. Besides, I don't think I have ever seen a single-gauge regulator for sale in a beverage supply place, and it can't really add that much to the cost anyway.
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Feb 26, 2013 18:17
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A scale works excellently for actually tracking how much CO2 you have, though, and you can get a perfect one for like ten bucks. Either one the tank sits on, or a little hanging one works great too. Just tare with an empty tank and you'll get an accurate reading regardless of the level in the tank. Here's a fancy digital one for $12: http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Yellow-Digital-Hanging/dp/B0012T9QNA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1361899177&sr=8-3&keywords=20+pound+scale Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 18:19
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Northern Brewer's keg kits are way overpriced. I would go with (and have gone with!) kegconnection or possibly midwestbrewingsupplies. Get your CO2 tank from a local welding supply place and save yourself shipping/hassle.
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Feb 26, 2013 18:20
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BerkerkLurk posted:I keep forgetting about bochets, I'll have to make some one of these days. yeah well boiling the honey for anything but bochets is typically bad news. You could boil a small saucepan of water using your spices and make a "tea" of it and add that overly spiced water to your regular room temp / warm water and dissolve your honey into that. and as you said, you can always add more spices if necessary to the secondary.
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Feb 26, 2013 18:30
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Anyone else entering the AHA national competition today? I'm entering an American Brown Ale. Maybe an IIPA.
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Feb 26, 2013 18:51
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Thanks for the help guys, I'm going to go with the keg connection setup!
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Feb 26, 2013 19:07
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Where did you guys get all of your bottles? Homebrew store, craigslist, local bars? I completely forgot about that in my planning and now i have 4 days to come up with enough for my batch.
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Feb 26, 2013 19:28
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Got a bottling/storing/freshness question. I'm planning on brewing a pale ale in about two weeks, dry hopping for a week, and bottling it by March 31 at the latest. I'll be in Florida for work from April 1 - May 3, so I wouldn't be able to drink it until about 3 weeks after it'd be ready for consumption, and I'd have it sitting at room temperature the whole time rather than in being kept cold. I was just wondering if it'd be worth waiting until May to brew it if some of the flavors would've mellowed out considerably by the time I can get my hands on it. I'd be doing all late hop additions, and my understanding is that hop flavors deteriorate a bit quick that way, but maybe I'm just making that up. Should I just hold off brewing for ~6 weeks or will it matter?
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Feb 26, 2013 19:29
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Crunkjuice posted:Where did you guys get all of your bottles? Homebrew store, craigslist, local bars? I completely forgot about that in my planning and now i have 4 days to come up with enough for my batch. Throw a party and have everyone bring a six pack.
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Feb 26, 2013 19:38
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Neat blog post the other day on The Mad Fermentationist. He compiled the hop bills (or his best guess based on available info) for many of the top American IPA's to look for patterns and trends. Centennial is easily the most commonly used, followed by Simcoe and CTZ.
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Feb 26, 2013 19:56
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Crunkjuice posted:Where did you guys get all of your bottles? Homebrew store, craigslist, local bars? I completely forgot about that in my planning and now i have 4 days to come up with enough for my batch. I think I've had the same ~100 bottles for a year since I use them over and over. I asked people to save me any brown pry-offs they had and kept all of my own. I've slowly been weeding out all the squatty and weird shaped bottles by gifting so I almost have all long neck master race bottles.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:00
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Crunkjuice posted:Where did you guys get all of your bottles? Homebrew store, craigslist, local bars? I completely forgot about that in my planning and now i have 4 days to come up with enough for my batch. Questions like these make me feel like I drink more than anyone in this thread. 
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Feb 26, 2013 20:39
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Hell, I don't even save bottles, and I don't really buy bottled beer all that much. But I have a couple of cases that have just magically accumulated. Back when I was bottling, I had a couple friends save bottles for me. One guy drank two bottles of beer a night, every night. It doesn't sound like a lot, but that poo poo adds up fast. I had garbage bags full of bottles that I had not even touched. In the 4-day timeframe, though, I think your best bet is to either hit up a local bar and offer to by their empties for the cost of the deposit (and a promise to slip the barkeep a couple of bottles when it's done), or just to go to the FLHBS. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 20:40
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Bottling time is, by definition, the time when you have enough empties available to do it. If you have to put it off a week or two then that is the way the cookie crumbles. Ask friends/neighbors to save empties if you have to, or raid your street's recycling bins. Or buy a few cases of whatever and invite people over to help you empty them in a hurry (no one will ever refuse to help with this). Otherwise the only option is to step up your own drinking. withak fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 20:44
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Galler posted:Be aware that some water and frozen bottles can change the temp in a hurry. Dumping some water and frozen bottles in and then going to bed may result in waking up with beer 10* below where you left it. I speak from experience on this one. This is true, but it's pretty easy now for me to maintain 63-64 water temp for a few days in a basic swamp cooler.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:55
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LeeMajors posted:Questions like these make me feel like I drink more than anyone in this thread. Same. I feel like my girlfriend and I should become competitive beer drinkers due to our near-mythical ability to fill up the bottle tree when needed. Semi-related question, that I've admittedly done no research on: why is there no gear/caps for doing twistoff bottles? Just wondering if there's no demand for it or if there's an actual good reason why poptops are better for the homebrew process.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:58
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LeeMajors posted:Questions like these make me feel like I drink more than anyone in this thread.
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Feb 26, 2013 21:07
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fullroundaction posted:Semi-related question, that I've admittedly done no research on: why is there no gear/caps for doing twistoff bottles? Just wondering if there's no demand for it or if there's an actual good reason why poptops are better for the homebrew process. Canadian twist-off bottles are thick enough to be re-used, they use regular crown caps and capper. It's the american twist-off bottles that are apparently too fragile to be re-capped
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Feb 26, 2013 21:10
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Whodat Smith-Jones posted:Got a bottling/storing/freshness question. I'm planning on brewing a pale ale in about two weeks, dry hopping for a week, and bottling it by March 31 at the latest. I'll be in Florida for work from April 1 - May 3, so I wouldn't be able to drink it until about 3 weeks after it'd be ready for consumption, and I'd have it sitting at room temperature the whole time rather than in being kept cold. I was just wondering if it'd be worth waiting until May to brew it if some of the flavors would've mellowed out considerably by the time I can get my hands on it. I'd be doing all late hop additions, and my understanding is that hop flavors deteriorate a bit quick that way, but maybe I'm just making that up. Should I just hold off brewing for ~6 weeks or will it matter? If you bottle right before you leave it'll still be fresh enough when you get back. It takes about two weeks for the bottles to fully carbonate, so you're only adding another two weeks on top of that which isn't too bad.
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Feb 26, 2013 21:16
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BerkerkLurk posted:Yeah I thought the hobby naturally sprang from a near troubling amount of anti-social drinking, but here we are. Don't worry, I've got your backs and then some.  I was at my local Whole Foods yesterday looking to get lazy as poo poo and find a swing top bottle to share some of my homebrew. They carried exactly 0 bottles of this type despite their beer ordering guy being a homebrewer who gives me samples of his stuff in swingtops.  Also, I'll share one of his brew creations that speaks for itself: The Dillsner.
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Feb 26, 2013 23:09
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BerkerkLurk posted:Yeah I thought the hobby naturally sprang from a near troubling amount of anti-social drinking, but here we are. I actually used to drink a very moderate amount. But then I turned 21 and started brewing. EDIT: For those of you looking for rhizomes, Hops Direct just emailed me to say they will have them available by this Friday at 5PM PST. 10 varieties, $7 each. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 23:24
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ChickenArise posted:Don't worry, I've got your backs and then some.
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Feb 27, 2013 00:32
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Hello folks. Just thought I'd update you on the FRANKENMEAD (Caramelized apple pie Cyser). Figured I'd take a gravity reading to see if its dropped down a bit. Well it's dropped more than a bit. It's now at 1.051 . That's a drop of 062 in just a few days. Added nutrients and maybe is thing will be done fermenting in another week haha! Alright I also snuck a taste... Here's a quote from my note pad. "Tastes spectacularly good. Cinnamon strong but not overwhelming. Apples, tart and smooth with a brown sugar caramel finish. Absolutely can't wait To share this one, as long as it sticks to its roots and the rest of my recipe plan don't mess it up. I don't see how it could but this is good stuff folks.
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Feb 27, 2013 02:56
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zedprime posted:Actual dill, or sorachi ace? I'm picturing a Pilsner with a midget dill pickle floating in it, as there is a serrano bottled with Cave Creek.
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Feb 27, 2013 03:17
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Jo3sh posted:I'm picturing a Pilsner with a midget dill pickle floating in it, as there is a serrano bottled with Cave Creek. I have the sudden urge to make a sorachi ace IPA and bottle a dozen with mini dill pickles.
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Feb 27, 2013 04:02
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I'm still new to brewing, not having brewed yet myself. Our monthly beer tasting group has a few members that do and we are slowly becoming a homebrew club it seem. I'm planing on brewing my first beer (either some kind of IPA-ish something or an Irish Stout) within a month or two. Planing on starting easy (kit) and moving along from there. Anyways, to the story! Last weekend I scored two Corny kegs from my Dad who used to do a lot of home brewing. He hasn't done anything with them in the past 10 years at least so needless to say I'm having to rebuild them (replace all o-rings). I also managed to get two regulators (one of which isn't for CO2 explicitly, though seemingly has been used for it, the other of which might be broken), a 20 lb CO2 cylinder which is mostly full, a hydrometer, some airlocks, and a carboy brush. But the purpose of this post isn't to bore you with a list. I want to detail tearing down a seemingly quite odd keg. I tore down the the first one and everything seemed standard enough. When I got to the second one things got a little weird. I did some research and I think it is an "older firestone" keg with a "racetrack" lid. The other seems to be a newer style Cornelius keg. Both have ball lock connectors though the details of the internals vary. Here is an overview of the parts.  The right set of parts is from the second older keg (firestone). You’ll notice that this set has a red plastic tube. This red plastic tube is the gas tube and it is a smaller diameter (.25”) than the metal gas tube found on my other keg (left). Other differences include the white polymer (delrin or Teflon probably) spacer things that inside the post and hold the poppets inside the posts properly. I haven't found this ANYWHERE but I have a buddy at work that is going to turn me out a few on a lathe. This spacer thing also serves as the sealing surface against which the liquid and gas tubes seal. No such part is used on the newer one on the left. Another big difference is the poppet type. The firestone keg uses a “Poppet Valve (Older Pin Lock Firestone)”.  The other keg uses a “Poppet Valve (Cornelius)”.  Additionally, the posts are slightly different externally, though I'm not replacing them. Another big difference is the firestone liquid tube o-ring (and the liquid tube for that matter which is much larger diameter than the other liquid tube). The o-ring is has a significantly larger inner diameter AND is much thicker. It kind of looks like a black olive slice. Austin Home Brew was the only place that I could find that has something that seems to be what I need. This is why I ended up ordering almost everything from them as they had all but the newer pressure relief valve. They also have $6.99 shipping on orders up to $100. The next difference (related to the racetrack vs. oval lid) is the pressure relief valve.  The one in the firestone (racetrack) lid is kaput and I'm replacing it with this which is probably going to require drilling a 3/4" thru hole in the lid. Shouldn't be a big deal. The newer keg just needs a replacement one of these.  All in all I'm spending $36.71 per keg to refurbish them which is still cheaper than buying refurbished ones that are ready to go. I honestly enjoy working on these kinds of things so the "cost" for my time is something I'm happy to spend. The strange parts for the firestone keg are bringing up the price, as well are the more expensive poppets for the newer keg. I'm also buying 3x of each poppet (only need 2x but I like having replacements on hand) and more o-rings than I need. I'm very sure I'll get the newer one working, but I'm a bit worried about the firestone keg and its odd tube o-rings. That keg might turn into quite a fun little project! The price per keg doesn't include the price of some keg lube, star san, and PBW. I'm looking forward to having a keg cleaning and reassembly in a few weekends. I've go the whole tear down thing figured out, but what is my best bet for cleaning and sanitizing? Soak stuff in PBW followed by a quick soak in star san? I know I should keep Aluminum parts away from star san, but everything here is polymer or stainless. Hope someone might find this useful if they ever run into a crazy rear end keg. Feel free to comment or ask questions or tell me I'm completely insane! Ninja edit: I also have a mini fridge that I'm going to do my best to convert to a keg-o-rator. Another project!
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Feb 27, 2013 17:17
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