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internet celebrity posted:What's the best way to use campden for removing chloramine? Do I just crush up a tablet and add it to the water as I'm heating it? I just crush a tab between two spoons and split it between my strike and sparge water when I measure them. I give each a good stir, and then light the fire. I use one tab for all the water I use for a ten-gallon batch.
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Sep 12, 2013 15:32
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CapnBry posted:Can you provide some numbers for this, for the temperature of your fermentation, the ambient temperature, the amount bottled, and the amount of sugar used / what sugar used? My pale ale was sitting at ambient basement temps so ~65F which means ~68F-70F peak fermentation temps. I bottled at 65F and used that as my plug-in.
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Sep 12, 2013 15:33
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EnsignVix posted:To my fellow Pumpkin Ale brewers, I just wanted to get a general consensus on how many of you use actual pumpkin, also if using pumpkin when do you add it? I do use canned pumpkin and add it to the mash which this year was pretty tricky to manage. I did almost 4 lbs (3lb 14oz) of previously roasted and frozen actual pumpkin stuff. My wife makes pumpkin pie/cookies/etc from real pumpkin, and so we had it left over in the freezer from last year. I did a partial mash BIAB-style with 3 lbs of 6-row. Because it had been frozen for 8-9 months, it was pretty goopy, so a lot of it ended up in the boil, and quite a bit ended up in the fermenter after going through the strainer -- there was about 1/2 gallon of sediment including yeast cake, cold break, and pumpkin goop on the bottom of my primary. It worked pretty well, the pumpkin flavor turned out great. I didn't get much in terms of gravity out of it (only about 0.004), so maybe my partial mash was really bad (I had trouble keeping it at temperature, it was my first time). Of course, when I tested a bottle after a week, it was completely uncarbonated. I'm hoping the yeasties just haven't kicked back up after a long (4 week) secondary. Still tasted good, though.
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Sep 12, 2013 16:20
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I roasted 2 16 oz cans of organic pumpkin in the oven at 400 for 1 hour. Then I put the pumpkin into a nylon bag and added it to the mash with my steeping grains. After 45 minutes, I removed both the pumpkin and grains and continued my extract batch as normal.
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Sep 12, 2013 16:43
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The mead is tasty! Drank the sample last night. There's one problem, though. It's yeasty. It smells yeasty as all hell, and has a mild yeast flavor. I might have gotten some autolysis when my first yeast batch stuck. If it doesn't crash out, I'll have to try to mask it with some additional orange. Anyone know a good companion flavor to orange? Maybe cinnamon/clove?
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Sep 12, 2013 17:34
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I've fallen a bit behind on this thread but I doubt this question's come up in the last couple of pages: What's the conversion ratio for malt extract to grains? My birthday's coming up and I want to make a recipe I really enjoyed, but it's an extract recipe and I really want to try it out with BIAB.
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Sep 12, 2013 22:58
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NEED TOILET PAPER posted:I've fallen a bit behind on this thread but I doubt this question's come up in the last couple of pages: You can use brewtoad (brewtoad.com), input the grains you'll be using, and play with the amounts until you hit the OG/FG/whatver you're shooting for.
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Sep 12, 2013 23:13
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Made starter with said Orval dregs mentioned above. This is about day 2 now and... something is happening. It took a bit to get going but now there is definite CO2 emission and some krausen going when I agitate it. The only new thing I notice is like these gray blobs, of the sort I've never seen in any starter. They sort of have the character of trub, but are slightly fuzzy almost and some floats on the top of the wort/beer. I am fairly certain this wouldn't be anything to be concerned about, but then I have never worked with a sour yeast before. I can provide pictures if necessary. It smells cidery/CO2ey, so I know something is happening, at least.
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Sep 12, 2013 23:17
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Dry extract / DME is about 43 points per pound, per gallon (PPG). LME is about 37 PPG. So if you used seven pounds of DME in a five gallon batch, you'd get (7*43) = 301 total points of extract. In five gallons, this would give you an OG of about 1.060. Each malt you choose for an all-grain batch will have its own contribution. Most base grains are about 35-37PPG. However, this is a maximum theoretical yield, which you can't get at home and wouldn't make good-tasting beer anyway. There's an efficiency factor which depends on your equipment and your process. For normal-strength beer (5-6% ABV), I find that my efficiency is usually around 75-80%. This is pretty normal for homebrewers who have done it enough to get a process dialed in. You may start lower, and BIAB may not be as efficient as a three-vessel mash. I typically tell people to build a recipe based on 70% their first time, and have some So, if we assume 70%, and if your malt has a theoretical yield of, for example, 36 PPG, we'd expect to get 36*.70 = 25 PPG out of it. To get 301 total points of extract, you'd need about 12 pounds of grain. Long story short, the exact conversion factor depends both on what grains you'll be using and the overall efficiency of your equipment and process. vvv Oh, hell, that's an unfortunate typo. Fixed. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 23:18
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Jo3sh posted:I typically tell people to build a recipe based on 70% their first time, and have some male extract on hand to bump things up a little if needed. That's pretty gross man, keep your jizz beer away!
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Sep 13, 2013 00:01
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baquerd posted:That's pretty gross man, keep your jizz beer away! Better patent that poo poo, if for no other reason than to stop Rogue from making one.
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Sep 13, 2013 00:59
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Docjowles posted:Better patent that poo poo, if for no other reason than to stop Rogue from making one. I'm sure HBT has prior art
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Sep 13, 2013 01:51
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Finally got everything hooked up for my keezer (first ETC was a dud) and now the compressor isn't cycling. Anyone have any problems like this before? The compressor itself is getting extremely hot, and occasionally clicking at me, but the fan isn't turning on.
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Sep 13, 2013 04:27
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For the first time in months my keezer is running. 25 gallons of homebrewing in it right now carbing up, another 15 gallons in fermenters, I can't wait to get back to brewing more.
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Sep 13, 2013 12:08
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I'll be buying some Mason/Ball jars today for washing yeast and storing yeast starters. Is there a "right" size, company that makes jars, material, etc. that I should be looking for, or is it just one of those things where you can buy anything? I'm thinking "bigger is better." Also, I assume that a good StarSan bath takes care of any critters that I would need to sanitize against. I'm seeing a few people that boil their jars, but  ...Got two more beer kits last night, but my Kölsch came with a Safale K97 dry yeast instead of the White Labs that I ordered. Should I be upset?
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Sep 13, 2013 13:51
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I have an off-the-wall question, was wondering what you guys think: After I mash my grains in the mash tun and start to fly sparge, could I increase my efficiency by dumping those sparge runnings back in my HLT and recirculating the sparge? Consider it like a really really long vorlauf. Now that I have a pump and an honest-to-God brew stand, I'm anxious to see how much my efficiency can be increased. LaserWash posted:I'll be buying some Mason/Ball jars today for washing yeast and storing yeast starters. Is there a "right" size, company that makes jars, material, etc. that I should be looking for, or is it just one of those things where you can buy anything? I'm thinking "bigger is better." You paid for significantly (relatively speaking) more expensive yeast than that. I'd send them an email. But overall, it should be just as effective unless you are doing some kind of high-gravity monster kolsch. In short, if you don't care about the $3 difference, don't worry about it, but you might get a gift certificate or something out of it for bringing it to their attention. RagingBoner fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 14:13
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in theory you are getting more sugar out per volume of water, raising efficiency. my first time using all grain i got my calculated boil volume + sparge volume and i stuck to it, dumping the runnings back in in the beginning, and i got my initial gravity where i wanted it without a massive over volume. otherwise you are looking at a longer boil time, possibly a longer mash time if you didnt extract everything, and you spending more per batch because you had to dump DME into the boil to get gravity up.
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Sep 13, 2013 14:31
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RagingBoner posted:In short, if you don't care about the $3 difference, don't worry about it, but you might get a gift certificate or something out of it for bringing it to their attention. Yeah, I think the thing that bothers me is that I was really wanting to compare the flavors of the WLP029 to the Wyeast 2565 that I've done before. The 2565 had a little powdery clouding that wasn't going to go away unless I hit it with a lot of time (I did some gelatin and hit it with a whirlfloc when I brewed and fermented). That, and I'm making it for my wife, which also kind of matters for marital bliss.
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Sep 13, 2013 14:48
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RagingBoner posted:I have an off-the-wall question, was wondering what you guys think: As long as you you're not adding your first runnings back to the mash tun, it would probably help efficiency. Kind of like a RIMS without a heat source. I got into an argument with someone a while back. He wanted to add his collected wort to his sparge and didn't understand why that would negatively affect his efficiency.
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Sep 13, 2013 15:12
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LaserWash posted:Yeah, I think the thing that bothers me is that I was really wanting to compare the flavors of the WLP029 to the Wyeast 2565 that I've done before. The 2565 had a little powdery clouding that wasn't going to go away unless I hit it with a lot of time (I did some gelatin and hit it with a whirlfloc when I brewed and fermented).
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Sep 13, 2013 15:30
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LaserWash posted:I'll be buying some Mason/Ball jars today for washing yeast and storing yeast starters. Is there a "right" size, company that makes jars, material, etc. that I should be looking for, or is it just one of those things where you can buy anything? I'm thinking "bigger is better." I bought pint-sized wide mouth Ball jars which seemed to work great. I also just sprayed with StarSan before using, but it was my first time saving yeast and I've yet to repitch them so I'm hardly an expert.
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Sep 13, 2013 15:38
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Anybody have any ideas on all-grain Belgian Dark Strong recipes? I'm using Wyeast 3522 and don't want to buy expensive sugar. I'm thinking 75% Pilsner, 5% sucrose...and 20% split up among some other stuff. Cara 8? Special B? I'll need something for color, obviously. e2: might try making my own syrup http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/20-lb-sugar-jar-yeast-nutrient-114837/ Thufir fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 15:51
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I use leftover pickle jars, ball jars I've acquired from jellies and such that relatives have made, etc with no problems on the repitch. Honestly, just of a good job cleaning then sanitizing and any glass jar should be fine.
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Sep 13, 2013 15:52
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Daedalus Esquire posted:I use leftover pickle jars, ball jars I've acquired from jellies and such that relatives have made, etc with no problems on the repitch. Honestly, just of a good job cleaning then sanitizing and any glass jar should be fine. I've tried a million times to use leftover pickle jars but even after soaking in Oxi forever I can't get the drat smell out. Any tips? LaserWash posted:I'm thinking "bigger is better." Bigger is definitely better, especially when you're trying to save an entire cake. They're dirt cheap at Walmart for the 20-24oz size (I think my case of 12 was like $14 or something). I keep my jars labeled specifically for each type of yeast I use (I don't trust StarSan to effectively kill all the yeast). Instead of going full HBT I just heat up a kettle of boiling water and dump it in if I really want to make sure I'm destroying everything. e: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ball-Wide-Mouth-Quart-Jars-12pk/16930173
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Sep 13, 2013 15:57
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internet celebrity posted:As long as you you're not adding your first runnings back to the mash tun, it would probably help efficiency. Kind of like a RIMS without a heat source. ... why would it?
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Sep 13, 2013 16:03
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Guess there's nothing wrong with putting the jars in the dish washer and running a sanitize cycle.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:09
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RagingBoner posted:... why would it? The grain is always going to absorb some of the liquid and most mash tuns have dead space. If your first runnings are 1.090 and your grain absorbed 2 gallons of wort, you now have 2 gallons of 1.090 wort left in the mash tun. You sparge with X amount of water and the liquid in the mash tun is now, say, 1.030. When you run off again, there will be 2 gallons of 1.030 wort left in the mash tun. If you add your collected wort back, it will increase the gravity of the liquid left in the mash tun.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:18
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RagingBoner posted:... why would it? Because the sugar content in the wort will be the same or possibly even higher than the sugar content of the grain in the tun. There has to be a gradient to get the sugar out of the grain. If there's no difference, sugar will stay where it is. Think of this. Take a sponge and soak it in a really dense sugar solution. Now put the sponge in a clean vessel, on a steamer basket or something so water can flow through it and around it. Your goal is to wash the sugar out of the sponge with a stream of liquid. If the stream of liquid is that same rich sugar solution, you're not getting anything out of the sponge. But if you use pure water, you'll get some of the sugar out. Not all of it, because there will always be something left in the sponge, but certainly some of it. The more you rinse, the more sugar you will get out, but it takes a lot more water for rinsing than you have trapped in the sponge. Eventually, you have gallons and gallons of water that you have used to rinse the sponge, and you have to say gently caress it, that's enough.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:19
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Thufir posted:Anybody have any ideas on all-grain Belgian Dark Strong recipes? I'm using Wyeast 3522 and don't want to buy expensive sugar. Buy the expensive sugar, but not the rocks. You want the stuff made by https://www.candisyrup.com. You can buy it from the website or any of the homebrew sites. D180 is where it's at, that stuff is magic. I made a quad with 2 lbs D180 and 1 lb D90 with the Westmalle strain and it came out similar to Saint Bernardus. I did another one with 1 lb of D180 and 1lb of D90 and the Unibroue yeast and that turned out great as well. For your specialty malts definitely a little special b, and you can use some caramunich or abbey malt or biscuit malt if you want. The magic is in the D180 syrup though.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:51
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Yeah, but $7/lb at the local shop   e: (5.5 gallon batch) 13 lbs Belgian Pils 2 lbs Abby malt 1 lb Special B 1 lb D-180 syrup .75 lbs sucrose 1 oz Brewer's gold (70 minutes) 3522 Belgian Ardennes Thufir fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 17:01
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What do you guys think of this recipe. Very heavily based on Stone's Enjoy By IPA (but less ABV and less hops) 6 lb Maris Otter LME (75%) 1.5 lb Plain Amber DME (19%) 0.5 lb Dextrose (6%) 1oz Cascade 60m 1oz Simcoe 10m 1oz Northern Brewer 10m 1oz Amarillo 10m 1oz Columbus Flameout 1oz Citra Flameout 1oz Cascade Flameout (Whirlpool for 15-20 minutes) 1oz Neslon Sauvin DryHop 1oz Galaxy DryHop WLP0007 (Dry English) BrewToad is giving it 1.062 (end up around 6.1%) and 55IBUs (I expect slightly higher because of whirlpooling and not cooling immediately).
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Sep 13, 2013 17:13
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ChiTownEddie posted:What do you guys think of this recipe. Three thoughts come to mind on this one. I'm sure Mitch uses dextrose for good reason but the purist in me would rather remove it, bump up the base malt to make up the abv loss, and mash a little lower for the dryness. Cascade I like to FWH and I think it might be good in this recipe. It'd add a bit to your IBU, but your perceived IBU shouldn't go up, and you'll probably get a more pleasant bitterness. I guess lastly I'm wondering where the primary Maris Otter decision came from. I'd use more American 2-row, MO is great and all but I'm not crazy about too much of that flavor profile in my American IPAs. Not saying I wouldn't consider using MO at all but I probably wouldn't go 75%.
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Sep 13, 2013 18:02
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fullroundaction posted:I've tried a million times to use leftover pickle jars but even after soaking in Oxi forever I can't get the drat smell out. Any tips? I buy semi-local pickles in glass jars; they aren't ball jars, but they are glass. I don't really do anything special, just eat the pickles, drink the juice (don't judge me, it's really good), then rinse the jar with hot water and dish soap. I'll rinse them out again a few times with hot water and then let them air dry, recap, and sanitize when I go to use them.
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Sep 13, 2013 18:04
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I'm interested in jumping into kegging. Nothing really fancy, just something to have on hand as an alternative to bottles. Are there any recommended setups or a shopping list available on Amazon (I've got a nice gift card going towards it).
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Sep 13, 2013 18:16
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EnsignVix posted:Three thoughts come to mind on this one. I'm sure Mitch uses dextrose for good reason but the purist in me would rather remove it, bump up the base malt to make up the abv loss, and mash a little lower for the dryness. Cascade I like to FWH and I think it might be good in this recipe. It'd add a bit to your IBU, but your perceived IBU shouldn't go up, and you'll probably get a more pleasant bitterness. I guess lastly I'm wondering where the primary Maris Otter decision came from. I'd use more American 2-row, MO is great and all but I'm not crazy about too much of that flavor profile in my American IPAs. Not saying I wouldn't consider using MO at all but I probably wouldn't go 75%. I have some MO Extract and that combined with them using some "English Pale Malt" I was like "eh, close enough". Plus I adore MO in general. I could however probably do a bit less and add some more Plain Amber DME in. FWH'ing in an pure extract recipe where I don't even have steeping grains would that just be tossing the hops in as I am heating up the water? Think it'll do something similar to what you're referring to? I could definitely try it anyway haha.
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Sep 13, 2013 18:24
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Oodles of Wootles posted:I'm interested in jumping into kegging. Nothing really fancy, just something to have on hand as an alternative to bottles. Are there any recommended setups or a shopping list available on Amazon (I've got a nice gift card going towards it). Hope it's a really REALLY nice one. Bare minimum, you will need: *1 ball lock corny keg ($60 and up) *1 fridge/freezer ($150 and up) *1 temperature controller for fridge ($70) *1 CO2 Tank ($50 and up) *1 CO2 regulator (~$50) *5 ft gas line tubing ($5) *1 gas line connector ($5) *1 picnic tap with tubing and liquid connector ($15) *1 bag of hose clamps to make sure your connections aren't leaky ($5) And if you want to get fancier, you can install a permanent tap with a shank for about $60 worth of hardware and a little woodworking skill (for the collar around the top of the freezer). All in all, you are looking at about $500 to get set up with the bare minimum. But, if you use logic, if you are going to spend $500 and have a system that is just okay, you might as well spend $1000 and have a system you are really happy with that has 3 kegs, stainless shanks, forward sealing Perlick faucets, a 3 way regulator... Oh god I've spent a lot of money.Edit: This video gave me a solid idea of how to go about building my kegerator. RagingBoner fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 18:54
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Ha, thanks. It's not quite that nice ($150), but I've already got a spare fridge, so that helps a lot. What's wrong with something like this? Obviously it doesn't come with a temperature controller or the tank, but it looks like it's got the other basic pieces. Is the temperature controller necessary? I assumed I'd brew like normal, except instead of bottling it after a couple weeks, I'd put in the keg, force carbonate it, and then put it in the fridge at a normal fridge temperature. What's the temp controller for if I've got a working fridge? I know these questions are really basic, so thanks for bearing with me
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Sep 13, 2013 19:01
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Daedalus Esquire posted:I use leftover pickle jars, ball jars I've acquired from jellies and such that relatives have made, etc with no problems on the repitch. Honestly, just of a good job cleaning then sanitizing and any glass jar should be fine. I've found that the jelled seal ring on the lids is what can absorb a lot of odors when I pickle. Thankfully, you can buy just the lids on their own, which is actually recommended if you plan to reuse jars more than a couple of times!
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Sep 13, 2013 19:03
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RagingBoner posted:Oh god I've spent a lot of money. New thread title please. And yeah, if there's once place NOT to cut corners, it's when you're building your draft system. Get the forward sealing faucets and threaded disconnects now so you don't just end up replacing your cheap faucets and components later.
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Sep 13, 2013 19:04
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Oodles of Wootles posted:Is the temperature controller necessary? I assumed I'd brew like normal, except instead of bottling it after a couple weeks, I'd put in the keg, force carbonate it, and then put it in the fridge at a normal fridge temperature. What's the temp controller for if I've got a working fridge? It's mandatory if you're using a chest freezer as a lot of people do, but just nice to have for a fridge so you can dial in an exact temperature.
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Sep 13, 2013 19:06
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