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internet celebrity posted:Looks like a solid Belgian Dubbel to me. Use all the LME (add a pound or so of table sugar if you want to bump it up) and steep .5lb of the aromatic and .5lb of the special B. Bitter with .5oz of the Northern Brewer and finish with Willamette and use your favorite Belgian yeast (hint: use Wyeast 3787 and a blowoff tube). I've already got a Dubbel in the pipeline but looking at the ingredients again I'm thinking Flanders Red.
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Aug 2, 2013 19:45
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BerkerkLurk posted:My hops have really taken off this year after basically just establishing roots last year and doing nothing else. Right now the cones are feeling a little dry and looking a little brown here and there. There's still some spring to them and no yellow lupulin yet, so I think I still need to wait until the end of August at least. Please make reassuring noises at me. I got about 4oz out of my harvest of first-year hops 2 weeks ago and it is about time to do it again, maybe another 2oz up there. I was all excited but then they dried out to less than 1.25oz.
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Aug 2, 2013 19:45
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For anyone who's done a two- or three-beer day on a single set of equipment, any advice specific to a multi-brew process that I should heed before I dive in? I do BIAB so I see it as a matter of having the grains milled and set aside, then medium cleaning sweeps of everything since I'll be using the equipment again an hour or two later, twice. I can't think of anything else, but wasn't sure if I was forgetting something obvious.
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Aug 2, 2013 19:58
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wattershed posted:For anyone who's done a two- or three-beer day on a single set of equipment, any advice specific to a multi-brew process that I should heed before I dive in? I do BIAB so I see it as a matter of having the grains milled and set aside, then medium cleaning sweeps of everything since I'll be using the equipment again an hour or two later, twice. I can't think of anything else, but wasn't sure if I was forgetting something obvious. Good luck. That is all. One time I did 2 meads in one day and that was the Last time. And mead is peanuts in pre-pitch compared to beer.
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Aug 2, 2013 20:05
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Just ordered a pound of Simcoe wet hops from my LHBS since I live in a stupid city where having a yard where you can plant hops is an unthinkable luxury, yeehaw! Does anyone have experience brewing with wet hops? I'm looking at doing a Munich Simcoe SMaSH with pelletized Simcoe for bittering and then the whole lb of wet hops thrown in at flameout with an hour hop stand. Any suggestions?
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Aug 2, 2013 20:11
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wattershed posted:For anyone who's done a two- or three-beer day on a single set of equipment, any advice specific to a multi-brew process that I should heed before I dive in? I do double brewdays all the time, it generally only adds about 2 hours to my day. That's with a regular mash tun though, and I mash in on my second beer as soon as I start the boil on my first one. Beyond that I make my second beer a simple one, usually with either just a 60 min addition and maybe a flameout addition. That way I can get the boil going as fast as possible and then deal with cleaning my immersion chiller and throw my fermentor with my first batch in it in my fermetation chamber.
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Aug 2, 2013 22:22
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Thanks, guys. I'll start thinking about mashing into the cooler for the beer with the smallest grain bill instead of doing it in-vessel the usual BIAB way. Should help me get a jump on one of them.
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Aug 2, 2013 22:31
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Had our first all-grain brew day with this mash tun we just built based on these plans: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Converting_a_cooler_to_a_mash_tun#Cylindrical It was a disaster. Every possible thing went wrong but most of that was just us being dumbasses and forgetting all the things we've learned from all of our extract brews. Well, that and completely loving up building the tun. That sucked, but it didn't end up leaking, so there's that. We DID, however, have really lovely efficiency. My brain is too fried to do the real math, but for Palmer's really simple efficiency rubric here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter18-6.html , we scored a 22.something. Not so great. I'm fairly certain we were just lautering too fast, and we didn't really have our sparge set-up thought through very well. What do you guys do to make sure that you aren't lautering too fast? Also, does aeration/oxidation matter while lautering? Palmer says it does a lot, but I find that confusing, because it doesn't seem to matter at any other point before pitching. The wort is going to end up being mixed with shittons of oxygen as you boil it and do everything else - why does it matter if it splashes or bubbles a little bit during lautering?
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Aug 3, 2013 07:54
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Cpt.Wacky posted:It shouldn't feel cool to the touch (still damp) and when you pick one and slice it in half lengthwise you should be able to see the yellow bits of lupulin inside. 
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Aug 3, 2013 08:06
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firebad57 posted:Also, does aeration/oxidation matter while lautering? Palmer says it does a lot, but I find that confusing, because it doesn't seem to matter at any other point before pitching. The wort is going to end up being mixed with shittons of oxygen as you boil it and do everything else - why does it matter if it splashes or bubbles a little bit during lautering? This part is a total homebrew urban legend. The term people use is "hot side aeration" and it just doesn't matter at all, don't worry about it. Maybe if you're gonna let your beer sit out where it's real hot for months or years it could come into play. But once the beer is carbonated and ready to drink, stick it somewhere cool permanently and/or drink it in a reasonable timeframe and you've completely sidestepped the "issue". Palmer's book is very good in most ways, but it's also super old, especially the online version which is the first edition (the printed version is up to its third edition and even that is old as hell). He's one of the hosts of the Brew Strong podcast and they've discussed this very topic if you want to Google for it. vvv literally lol'd at that, well played Docjowles fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Aug 3, 2013 |
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Aug 3, 2013 08:09
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Skitz posted:Are you this guy??
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Aug 3, 2013 08:44
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So a while ago I had a recipe for a raspberry wheat ale and got ingredients for it, but I lost the recipe and months past. I can't seem to locate it, but I've got the ingredients - might as well use 'em. Anyone have any pointers for what to do with all this stuff? I have: 1 oz sweet orange peel 2 oz coriander seed 3lb Pilsen DME 4lb wheat DME 2lb flaked wheat WLP400 yeast 2oz Willamette hops A 3lb can of raspberry puree Light brown candi sugar White candi sugar I've also got some leftover grains: Appx 8oz British light caramel Appx 8oz Franco-Belges Kiln Coffee Appx 8oz Weyermann pale wheat Appx 8oz Breiss organic Carapils Any thoughts/pointers/recipes? MJP fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Aug 3, 2013 |
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Aug 3, 2013 15:25
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Are there any online vendors for Conan yeast? I read something about East Coast Yeast selling it but I can't really find anywhere to buy it online.
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Aug 3, 2013 17:56
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Skitz posted:Are you this guy?? I wish. Mine's only one story and not nearly as dense and lush. I probably should have fertilized them more.
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Aug 3, 2013 18:47
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Alright - I think I figured out that having NO loving IDEA how to actually batch sparge might have been the cause of yesterday's batch's low efficiency. Next week's will be much better, I'm sure. On a related note - for our next batch, my brew buddies and I kind of wanted to do something with a bit of wheat - either a wheat beer or a saison, or maybe a belgian. Are these manageable for people who are quite new to all-grain? If so, which is most manageable? Does wheat actually make it any more likely for sparges to get stuck, or is that just oats and others? We're down to hack through challenges, but I've heard about wheat and oats and other non-barley grains causing stuck sparges, and I'd like to do something on the easy/simple side for this one, since we're trying to make it our first really successful all-grain brew.
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Aug 3, 2013 23:36
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firebad57 posted:On a related note - for our next batch, my brew buddies and I kind of wanted to do something with a bit of wheat - either a wheat beer or a saison, or maybe a belgian. Are these manageable for people who are quite new to all-grain? If so, which is most manageable? Does wheat actually make it any more likely for sparges to get stuck, or is that just oats and others? It's not all that bad, especially if you aren't talking like 60+% of the grain bill being something super gummy like wheat, oats or rye. Throw a pound of rice hulls (your homebrew shop will have these, they're super cheap) in the mash and that will help with any sparge issues.
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Aug 3, 2013 23:53
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Docjowles posted:It's not all that bad, especially if you aren't talking like 60+% of the grain bill being something super gummy like wheat, oats or rye. Throw a pound of rice hulls (your homebrew shop will have these, they're super cheap) in the mash and that will help with any sparge issues. Its weird though because a "pound" of rice hulls is a tremendous amount since the hulls weigh almost nothing. I usually pay for half a pound of rice hulls and take 5 or 6 handfuls and its like 2 or 3 ounces. I've been using rice hulls in almost every beer now because I've been double crushing at the local shop for all my beers.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:02
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So Mr. Malty has got to be wrong. It's recommending a 1.2 liter starter for a 1.044 beer.
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Aug 4, 2013 17:07
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Midorka posted:So Mr. Malty has got to be wrong. It's recommending a 1.2 liter starter for a 1.044 beer. Lager? Really old yeast?
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Aug 4, 2013 17:26
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Midorka posted:So Mr. Malty has got to be wrong. It's recommending a 1.2 liter starter for a 1.044 beer. Sometimes the default setting for yeast viability date is sometime in 2008 or something. Really confused me when it suggested like 13 vials for a 1.055 beer.
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Aug 4, 2013 17:54
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Whether or not you specify using a stir plate also makes a big difference.
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Aug 4, 2013 18:13
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So, another fruit experiment. My wife has a couple of cases of plum jam that won't sit up. Rather than throw it out, I wonder if I could turn it into plum jerkum. Thoughts?
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Aug 4, 2013 18:19
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Good luck. That is all. I can't agree more, I'm mostly brewing mead and wine right now, and even considering how much less work they are when compared to an all grain beer, it takes a while to do each one. Mr. Wiggles posted:So, another fruit experiment. My wife has a couple of cases of plum jam that won't sit up. Rather than throw it out, I wonder if I could turn it into plum jerkum. Well, it depends, what did she toss in for preservatives? Often times if people use preservatives in their jams and jellies it won't ferment well. I tried to make a melomel with some Strawberry Rhubarb jam my friend made and even though it registered as sugary on my refractometer, it never fermented completely and I ended up with a very watery brew.
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Aug 4, 2013 20:32
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It's just plums, sugar, and pectin.
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Aug 4, 2013 20:46
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What's up with Homebrew Finds? They haven't posted a whole bunch this week. I get that it's probably a single guy doing the page, but is there any one else that does a similar page? Thinking of buying a $100 gift card from AHS this week because they have a deal where if you purchase $100 you get $20 in gift cards...
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Aug 4, 2013 22:08
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ScaerCroe posted:Lager? Really old yeast? Nope on both. The viability date is also assuming it was packaged today. I think the calculator is busted. I don't remember Mr. Malty recommending a 1 liter starter even for a 1.065 beer a few months ago. There's no way a starter is required for a beer of 1.044og. Also it wouldn't be a brew day if something didn't go wrong. I brewed a brown ale, but forgot my oats and forgot to make a starter so I modified the recipe to hit 1.044. Well I wasn't paying huge attention to the boil, in-fact it was barely boiling. I ended up with 6 gallons instead of 5 which brought my OG to 1.036. Then as I was cooling the wort, my chiller leaked a little into the wort. I spilled a bit of the yeast down the side of the carboy and to top it off I said "gently caress it" and pitched at 80f.
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Aug 4, 2013 23:42
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Midorka posted:So Mr. Malty has got to be wrong. It's recommending a 1.2 liter starter for a 1.044 beer. Mr. Malty is extremely pessimistic about your yeast's health. It will assume a ton of it is dead even if you set the production date to same day as pitch. Midorka posted:Nope on both. The viability date is also assuming it was packaged today. I think the calculator is busted. I don't remember Mr. Malty recommending a 1 liter starter even for a 1.065 beer a few months ago. There's no way a starter is required for a beer of 1.044og. "A White Labs tube has between 70 and 120 billion cells of 100% viable yeast, depending on the yeast strain. Some cells are much larger than others and there are more or less per ml based on size. (The information on the White Labs web site stating 30 to 50 billion cells is out of date.) We can just assume there are around 100 billion very healthy yeast. You would need 2 tubes if you were pitching directly into 5.5 gallons of 1.048 wort to get the proper cell counts." ~from Mr. Malty You can just pitch less than MM tells you, of course. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that MM goes high because the authors don't believe that there's a tremendous danger in overpitching. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Aug 4, 2013 |
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Aug 4, 2013 23:50
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Maybe I am remembering wrong. That's highly likely. Question, anyone know of any reason why my propane burner as suddenly started charring the sides of my kettle? It's losing a huge amourn of heat as the flame escapes the sides and it charred the gently caress out of my kettle everywhere. There was also an abnormally huge amount of char on the bottom of my kettle today. This is very frustrating. Edit: Doing some reading it appears that I should clean my burner. The thread I read was talking about air valves and regulators, but I don't know anything about messing with those and my instruction manual never came with one. I'll clean it and hopefully get a better burn next time. For what it's worth I'm using a Brinkmann Turkey Fryer if anyone knows about how to make sure that gets more air. Midorka fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 00:12
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Mr Malty uses commercial pitching rates which are that much higher than what is strictly needed for an average homebrew between insurance for such large quantities of beer and that beer at that scale is slightly more stressful on the yeast to begin with. e. sooty flames mean you need more air
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Aug 5, 2013 00:14
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ItalicSquirrels posted:1) Did you add any kind of acid at all? Citric acid, acid blend, even just starting your yeast in orange juice? One of the things that has always helped me in the 4 five gallon batches I've made is adding a teaspoon of citric acid to the honey and water as well as starting in 12 ounces of OJ with the nutrients and energizer. Like Cpt.Wacky said, repitch, add more nutrients, and make sure you aerate well. The first week of fermentation had 5 cut up oranges and a cut up lemon in it, it still has orange zest until it racks. Cpt.Wacky posted:Mead isn't some mystical process. The fermentation mechanics are the same as beer. Sugar, water, yeast = alcohol and CO2. The starting gravities are higher and the yeast strains are different but everything else is pretty much the same. "Mead takes a long time" whether it's referring to fermentation or aging is just like "Rack to secondary" in the beer world. For a long time no one understood the importance of yeast nutrients to avoid stalled or prolonged fermentations. Those conditions (and probably no temperature control) stressed the yeast causing off flavors that needed a long period of aging to get rid of them. When I went to visit Sky River Meadery here in Washington the owner said they only need about 3 months to go from pitching yeast to bottles. I drive past that on my way home from work. Always wanted to go in.
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Aug 5, 2013 00:43
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Huh... I went to check on the mead, and it looks like fermentation is cracking right along, but... I have to submerge my fermenter in a secondary bucket filled with water for temperature control. The prolonged stalled first fermentation seems to have given time for a pellicle to develop in the cooling water. It's since been drained, scrubbed, and refilled with sanitizer. Now I have to check the PH on that thing every few days while fermentation continues until I can rack it and let the temperature do whatever the hell it wants.
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Aug 5, 2013 05:52
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Mr. Wiggles posted:It's just plums, sugar, and pectin. Then go for it! It should ferment fairly easily. I've made plum wine a couple times and it's always turns out good. I don't think the pectin would make a huge difference to the yeast. Angry Grimace posted:Mr. Malty is extremely pessimistic about your yeast's health. It will assume a ton of it is dead even if you set the production date to same day as pitch. I have only used the white labs vials once or twice and always had good results with only one. I brew mead that can have a starting specific gravity of up to 1.134 (31 brix). It takes a while to ferment, always 45 days in primary and secondary, and always with step feeding and oxygenation for the first 2 weeks of each, but one vial will work. I've been much happier with the smack packs from Wyeast, given 2 hours to "cook" they seem to give a huge yeast starter without the need to babysit it so much. cryospam fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 12:02
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cryospam posted:I have only used the white labs vials once or twice and always had good results with only one. I brew mead that can have a starting specific gravity of up to 1.134 (31 brix). It takes a while to ferment, always 45 days in primary and secondary, and always with step feeding and oxygenation for the first 2 weeks of each, but one vial will work. I wish my LHBS carried Wyeast for the simple reason that White Labs vials are a pain in the rear end to use. The yeast is always stuck to the bottom so you have to shake it to get it all suspended, so then it takes 10 minutes to slowly open it without it exploding everywhere. On a somewhat related note, yesterday I figured out that I can make yeast starter wort in the microwave. This changes everything.
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Aug 5, 2013 13:53
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I think I need to just repeat to myself several times "it will be fine". Just made my Austin Homebrew supply Budget stout last night. Pitched the yeast around 6 pm and in the past I've seen very solid signs of vigorous fermentation within 12 hours. I saw a few bubbles in the airlock that indicated that it had been passing CO2 alright. I went and read the directions and they mentioned not worrying until 24 hours out. Hopefully it will be doing something more when I get home from work today. This is my 4th brew so I'm still a bit paranoid when it comes to worrying that I'm going to screw things up every time I brew. Really hope this one turns out well as I'm planing on trying to make a bourbon barrel "aged" stout out of this and I have been very much looking forward to my first real experiment with beer.
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Aug 5, 2013 13:59
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internet celebrity posted:I wish my LHBS carried Wyeast for the simple reason that White Labs vials are a pain in the rear end to use. The yeast is always stuck to the bottom so you have to shake it to get it all suspended, so then it takes 10 minutes to slowly open it without it exploding everywhere. Open one smooth motion and dump into the wort. I guess it helps if you have a bucket with the lid off and are not working through a stopper hole but even then it just takes a bit more aiming. You're inoculating wort, not politely pouring soda. Part of me prefers White Labs because smack packs are infuriating in a way and I didn't own scissors for the longest time. The nutrient packs are so handy though considering how long the yeast stays at an average shop.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:01
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zedprime posted:Open one smooth motion and dump into the wort. I guess it helps if you have a bucket with the lid off and are not working through a stopper hole but even then it just takes a bit more aiming. You're inoculating wort, not politely pouring soda. This either results in pouring off all the liquid on top while the cake is stuck to the bottom of the vial, or an explosion with at least 75% of the yeast on my hands. The only thing that seems to work for me is shaking it until the whole cake is in suspension, slowly opening it, closing it when the foam gets to the top, and waiting for the foam to go down again.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:10
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Huh... I went to check on the mead, and it looks like fermentation is cracking right along, but... Are you sure it wasn't just yeast with honey proteins floating? I've had some pretty weird nasty looking mead krausens. They are fairly scary since theres no hop bits to give away that it's in fact krausen. How old was that mead? And how long was it exposed to elements that may render a pellicle.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:14
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Fluo posted:Generally I feel the same, I don't know. A lot of my beer friends are in CAMRA and They absolutely do exploit the trendiness, but I can't think of anyone making more interesting beer in the UK at the moment. Some of their online-only stuff is stonking.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:21
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about anything if it isn't cask. I love cask but I enjoy keg and bottles just as much, then I get lectures from them about how amazing Brewdog is (fun pointing out most brewdog is bottle and keg now adays) and they think I'm insane for thinking that they do ok beer but alot of it as PR and trendism. 
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internet celebrity posted:This either results in pouring off all the liquid on top while the cake is stuck to the bottom of the vial, or an explosion with at least 75% of the yeast on my hands. The only thing that seems to work for me is shaking it until the whole cake is in suspension, slowly opening it, closing it when the foam gets to the top, and waiting for the foam to go down again. You shaking it when you first get it out of the fridge? It'll settle again before pitching but should just need a quick swirl instead of your full fury and then you only have the fizzyness from it being warm.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:36
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Filboid Studge posted:They absolutely do exploit the trendiness, but I can't think of anyone making more interesting beer in the UK at the moment. Some of their online-only stuff is stonking. Its usually a bad sign when ones argument for something is that it is interesting without any more specific qualifiers like, I don't know, maybe actually tasting good.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:43
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