|
All grain is worth it if only for not having to deal with and clean up clouds of DME everywhere (I'm really messy okay, but it just goes everywhere). Plus I find waiting for the mash gives me plenty of time to clean the fermenter anyway
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 07:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:45 |
|
|
Nanpa posted:All grain is worth it if only for not having to deal with and clean up clouds of DME everywhere (I'm really messy okay, but it just goes everywhere). Plus I find waiting for the mash gives me plenty of time to clean the fermenter anyway I'm basically being gifted extra equipment to do 5 gal all grain batches, with some exceptions in equipment. I'm excited to try it since ive been exteact only too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 12:27
|
|
|
Bobsledboy posted:All that yeast sitting around in the primary is going to absorb a lot of the hop oils from your dry hop, the hops will also be less accessible to the beer once they settle into the cake. You'll get more out of the hops you put in if you rack it off the yeast first, but you can also just add extra dry hops and not worry about it. You can put the hops in a bag or mesh ball and suspend from the lid with dental floss so they don't settle out. Or, you can do the same in the keg.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 13:20
|
|
|
I'm thinking of going deeper into the rabbit hole in the next few weeks by purchasing a fermenting freezer that I'd hook a temperature controller (probably STC 1000) up to. I've read that some people keep a fan in their fridge to keep the air circulating and/or to take care of the humidity. How many goonbrewers do fans in their fermenting freezer and what do you guys have? Anything else I need to have in order to make the project a success?
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 13:47
|
|
|
Has anyone tried making bread with their leftover mash? I was at tour of Yards the other day and they mentioned doing it to make the bread for their attached restaurant.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 15:59
|
|
|
Did my first sour mash yesterday. On the one hand, I love the shortened brew day and being able to split up the mash and the boil between two sessions. On the other hand, opening the cooler to check the temp this morning was absolutely horrifying and my nose hairs are still traumatized.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 16:17
|
|
|
Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Has anyone tried making bread with their leftover mash? I was at tour of Yards the other day and they mentioned doing it to make the bread for their attached restaurant. I made a bread recipe that included some wet spent grains and it was pretty terrible, but I'm sure it was more to do with the recipe that flew in the face everything I know about bread making. I've seen at least a few goons mention here about good results making bread and pizza dough with spent grains. One thing I haven't tried though is making flour out of the grains. You spread the grains out on cookie sheets and dry them in the oven, then mill into flour and replace some of the flour in a regular recipe. My spent grains just go into the compost with plenty of sawdust these days because 
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 16:31
|
|
|
LaserWash posted:I'm thinking of going deeper into the rabbit hole in the next few weeks by purchasing a fermenting freezer that I'd hook a temperature controller (probably STC 1000) up to. A fan sounds like a ton of work for what people think they are trying to do. If you get that controller you can set your differential for a variety of different control schemes. The best of all worlds to me has always sounded like getting some like insulation and using it to wedge the probe next to your bucket with a 1 or 2 degree differential. Or just set it to a 5+ degree differential and let it just hang free in the freezer, that's what works well enough for me and anyone with the analog JC controller. There are a million ways to skin this cat.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 17:03
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:Well, I finally did it - I forgot that there was a stir bar in the flask, and I dumped it right in the fermenter. I immediately took some blue tape and a Sharpie and made a label to remind me so that I won't dump it down the drain when I go to clean the carboy. Ahhahahaha! I have a piece of blue tape sharpied as well that I just peel off my fermeneter when I clean and stick it on the outside of my fermentation chamber for use next time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 20:52
|
|
|
Does anyone here have experince when it comes to brinning home made beer and wine across the US/Canadian border? The Canadian border site only talks about commercial products (as far as I can tell) and any other forum of brewers just gives anecdotal evidence and other unhelpful advice. Can anyone point me to an authoratative source so I can declare my stuff at a reasonable rate or even duty free (as it had no commercial value) and not get denied entry or have my stuff dumped out infront of me for not declaring it?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 03:08
|
|
|
LaserWash posted:I'm thinking of going deeper into the rabbit hole in the next few weeks by purchasing a fermenting freezer that I'd hook a temperature controller (probably STC 1000) up to. I have an Elitch STC 1000 set to 18.5 +/- 1C and a 10 minute cooldown, and it has kept my carboys nailed at 18.5 for weeks. The thermal mass of the liquid will prevent any big swings.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 03:16
|
|
|
Northern Brewer is running a sale on their British beer kits through tomorrow in honor of the royal baby, so I grabbed a nut brown to do this weekend. The recipe is so simple, though, that I'd like to spice it up with an extra hop addition for flavor (the recipe as is only calls for Fuggles at 60), but I have no idea what kind I should get. I'm not a hophead, so I don't want anything too crazy, just a mild but definitely present hop flavor to add a bit of complexity. One of my brewing buddies did a blonde ale on Saturday and one of the hops he used had a really smooth, almost buttery aroma that I thought might work well in the nut brown (assuming it tastes like it smells). It was either a Styrian Golding or an East Kent Golding, not sure which. Anyway, if you guys have any suggestions I'd love to hear 'em. Just for background, this nut brown will only be my fourth batch. The first was a Mr. Beer that somebody got me for Christmas (so that barely counts), then I did a kolsch, then took a couple months off. Right now I have a batch of The Innkeeper from Northern Brewer bottle conditioning, and then I'll do the nut brown this weekend. I'm comfortable in the brewing process and all, but I haven't done much experimenting just yet. Still book-learnin' and following recipes. I'm doing a cream ale next where I'll play with some fruit and flavor additions and then...who knows. By the way, I don't know if this is a common thing or not, but one of my favorite brewing-related moments was when I figured out that I could use my temporal thermometer to monitor my ferment temperature. Works like a charm.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 08:38
|
|
|
LaserWash posted:I'm thinking of going deeper into the rabbit hole in the next few weeks by purchasing a fermenting freezer that I'd hook a temperature controller (probably STC 1000) up to. I use a chest freezer with an STC-1000 and I have a heat cord (like this) wrapped around the inside of the walls. I mounted a cpu fan from an old computer upside down on the lid like so that it blows air slowly downwards and powered it with an old 12V phone charger. The thermostat seems to cycle a lot less since I added the fan and it was pretty easy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 10:00
|
|
|
Skitz posted:I grabbed a nut brown to do this weekend. The recipe is so simple, though, that I'd like to spice it up with an extra hop addition for flavor (the recipe as is only calls for Fuggles at 60), but I have no idea what kind I should get. You could do a lot worse than just to add more Fuggles or maybe some East Kent Goldings at 5 or 10 minutes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 15:07
|
|
|
If any of you are American Homebrewers Association members, within the last year they've started posting both current and back issues of Zymurgy online. They also just added mobile/tablet apps, search your app store for "Zymurgy". They've digitized every issue back to 2000 so far which is pretty cool. eZymurgy has been around for a while but I felt like it was worth mentioning. The AHA does a terrible job advertising the cool stuff they do. I only heard about the mobile app from someone else's Facebook page.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 15:22
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:If any of you are American Homebrewers Association members, within the last year they've started posting both current and back issues of Zymurgy online. They also just added mobile/tablet apps, search your app store for "Zymurgy". They've digitized every issue back to 2000 so far which is pretty cool. Their emails are legit newsletters (not counting shilling for whatever new book some brewer has written) so if you haven't signed up or have it going to your spam folder it's not a bad idea to make sure you're getting it as it mentioned the app.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 15:27
|
|
|
I'm not a member but I downloaded the app because it has a sample issue and I figured I'd check it out. From the reader's poll section: 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 15:51
|
|
|
The Zymurgy app has been a real piece of crap for me. I can't access anything.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 15:59
|
|
|
Home brewers are generally dudes hanging out making beer cause they can, not beer nerds. Also a lot of tourist members for GABF tickets. Not an absolutely terrible list though, hell yeah La Fin du Monde and Saison Dupont.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 16:00
|
|
|
Indolent Bastard posted:Does anyone here have experince when it comes to brinning home made beer and wine across the US/Canadian border? The Canadian border site only talks about commercial products (as far as I can tell) and any other forum of brewers just gives anecdotal evidence and other unhelpful advice. Can anyone point me to an authoratative source so I can declare my stuff at a reasonable rate or even duty free (as it had no commercial value) and not get denied entry or have my stuff dumped out infront of me for not declaring it? If it's finished, bottled, and fermented then I'm pretty sure it's in the alcohol category, regardless of being homebrew. "Alcoholic beverages are products that exceed 0.5% alcohol by volume." You'd have a tough time arguing that it's not a "product" just because it's homemade. e: You'd probably be best off phoning this service for an authoritative answer mewse fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jul 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 16:02
|
|
|
The Mad Fermentationist is doing an AMA on Reddit. Check it out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 16:09
|
|
|
zedprime posted:Home brewers are generally dudes hanging out making beer cause they can, not beer nerds. Also a lot of tourist members for GABF tickets. No there's like 4 of my favorite beers on there. Just uh... I guess there are just as many non-beer nerds as beer nerds in my homebrew club. We even have a few 'shiners who show up because :thesouth:
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 16:10
|
|
|
mewse posted:If it's finished, bottled, and fermented then I'm pretty sure it's in the alcohol category, regardless of being homebrew. For those interested, you must declare any amounts above the allowed personal 1.5 litres (53 imperial ounces) of wine; a total of 1.14 litres (40 ounces) of alcoholic beverages; or up to a maximum of 8.5 litres of beer or ale. Also you can only bring a maximum amount of 45 liters in a single trip. One plus is that you can set the value of this "product". The woman I spoke to said that $2.50-$3.50 per bottle is the average value of 750ml bottles of home made wine.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 17:36
|
|
|
Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Has anyone tried making bread with their leftover mash? I was at tour of Yards the other day and they mentioned doing it to make the bread for their attached restaurant. I made some applesauce muffins with spent grain that were pretty good, but it was just a tiny amount of grain called for in the recipe. I also made some biscuits, which were not that great. The spent grain made them kind of chewy, which was ok when they were fresh out of the oven but kind of gross at room temperature.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 17:47
|
|
|
I can't seem to find any data on how quickly UV light skunks hops, but am I being too paranoid about not bottling batches of hoppy beer in my kitchen (that doesn't get direct sunlight) during the day? I suspect I am. But 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 18:02
|
|
|
fullroundaction posted:I can't seem to find any data on how quickly UV light skunks hops, but am I being too paranoid about not bottling batches of hoppy beer in my kitchen (that doesn't get direct sunlight) during the day? I keep mine under the kitchen table, no cover, that get some light, but not direct. No skunks so far. Edit: Or my pallet is hosed Dubbel Edit: Brown bottles only. Green and clear will skunk faster.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 18:05
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:You could do a lot worse than just to add more Fuggles or maybe some East Kent Goldings at 5 or 10 minutes. Seconding the East Kent Goldings for a nice bit of spicy. Styrian Golding is actually derived from Fuggles so it might be better to mix it up for more complexity.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 18:10
|
|
|
fullroundaction posted:I can't seem to find any data on how quickly UV light skunks hops, but am I being too paranoid about not bottling batches of hoppy beer in my kitchen (that doesn't get direct sunlight) during the day? Get a glass. Fill with beer. Leave in your kitchen. Take sips throughout the day. Then you will know exactly how long it takes to skunk beer in your kitchen. Also you get to drink a beer.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 18:14
|
|
|
That sounds like a fun experiment. Ill grab a hydrometer sample and leave it on my porch (which gets indirect) and report back. This is the recipe I'm bottling today. My latest attempt to push out as much hop flavor/aroma as possible. http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/simcoe-smash-11 Early additions are because my SO is an unapologetic hopwhore. E: it seems like its pretty hard to judge pre-carbonated hop aromas. I'm assuming that's because the co2 is doing most of the work pushing them to your nose with the finished beer? fullroundaction fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jul 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 18:26
|
|
|
fullroundaction posted:I can't seem to find any data on how quickly UV light skunks hops, but am I being too paranoid about not bottling batches of hoppy beer in my kitchen (that doesn't get direct sunlight) during the day? My friend continually gives me poo poo for claiming that beer will skunk in less than 2 minutes in direct sunlight, despite the fact we stood on a patio at Alpine Beer Co. for like 4 minutes and our beer was skunky. Midorka posted:The Mad Fermentationist is doing an AMA on Reddit. Check it out. I regret to inform him that I'm not impressed by Modern Times stuff so far. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jul 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 19:09
|
|
|
Angry Grimace posted:My friend continually gives me poo poo for claiming that beer will skunk in less than 2 minutes in direct sunlight, despite the fact we stood on a patio at Alpine Beer Co. for like 4 minutes and our beer was skunky. I think the benchmark is 15 seconds with a Pilsner Urquell at solar noon in summer.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 19:19
|
|
|
Cpt.Wacky posted:Seconding the East Kent Goldings for a nice bit of spicy. Styrian Golding is actually derived from Fuggles so it might be better to mix it up for more complexity. Yeah, I learned that last night after I posted, actually. I think I'll go with the East Kents since that was on the table already anyway. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 20:52
|
|
|
I keep US Goldings in my freezer at all times as my go-to for "needing emergency hops". I love them, and you can get them dirt cheap at the Hop Shack. http://www.hopsshack.com/store/bulkhops.html My hop skunking experiment got cut short at the 1 hour mark when I moved my hydrometer tube into direct sunlight (on top of my car). As I was taking this picture the wind blew it off and shattered it   So yeah, UV light will ABSOLUTELY destroy your beer. Not even once, kids.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:00
|
|
|
Rest it Pieces oh great hydrometer tube. Facts are facts, UV light will destroy your hydrometer tube 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:02
|
|
|
Glass hydrometer tubes? Mine are all plastic. Weird.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:39
|
|
|
Mine is plastic too. I was shocked that it was able to fracture and split into as many pieces as it did. Okay time to go sanitize 100 bottles for tonight. Why do I love this hobby so much again
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:41
|
|
|
fullroundaction posted:Mine is plastic too. I was shocked that it was able to fracture and split into as many pieces as it did. UV exposure can make many plastics more brittle, in addition to skunking the beer inside.  edit: Though it probably takes months or years of sunlight to affect most plastic stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:43
|
|
|
Angry Grimace posted:Glass hydrometer tubes? Mine are all plastic. Weird. I've shattered one of my plastic ones before, shrug. So I brewed a saison and a cider a few weeks ago, then got super busy (and went on vacation). The saison I'm not worried about, but the cider was fermented in the mid 60s (Nottingham yeast, I believe) for a good while but has since been sitting in my 70-80deg apt for another week or two since I haven't had time to bottle. I'm 99% sure it was done fermenting at temp before being brought up to this level. Will such poor storage have an affect on the cider or is it not really a big deal? Really what I am getting at is that I need to buy a chest freezer because my keg takes up my mini fridge now.  hahaha.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:44
|
|
|
ChiTownEddie posted:So I brewed a saison and a cider a few weeks ago, then got super busy (and went on vacation). The saison I'm not worried about, but the cider was fermented in the mid 60s (Nottingham yeast, I believe) for a good while but has since been sitting in my 70-80deg apt for another week or two since I haven't had time to bottle. I'm 99% sure it was done fermenting at temp before being brought up to this level. Will such poor storage have an affect on the cider or is it not really a big deal? Shouldn't be a deal breaker. The big temp issue for the most part lies in fermentation temps. At least with meads.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:45 |
|
|
Skitz posted:Northern Brewer is running a sale on their British beer kits through tomorrow in honor of the royal baby, so I grabbed a nut brown to do this weekend. God drat it this works so well. Picked up five more all-grain kits. They were having problems with the UPS rate calculator so double-check it has your shipping amount before submitting. Mine got messed up and I had to call them but I got a discount out of it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 21:55
|
|