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twoot posted:Our three apple trees made a decent haul this year. Split the less aesthetically pleasing specimens out to make some cider. Got about 22 litres of juice through a juicer attachment for our stand mixer. Hmm. There's an apple tree in our garden that's producing some really rough-looking ones that are currently just going to waste. Might check if there are any that aren't overripe, pick those and chuck them in. What did you do to the juice after pressing?
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Sep 16, 2013 08:23
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Kaiho posted:Hmm. There's an apple tree in our garden that's producing some really rough-looking ones that are currently just going to waste. Might check if there are any that aren't overripe, pick those and chuck them in. What did you do to the juice after pressing? I treated it with campden powder and pectin enzyme. In ~48 hrs I'll pitch cider yeast and add any secondary flavours.
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Sep 16, 2013 09:53
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What's a normal volume for the entry requirement in a homebrew competition? There's one upcoming in my neighborhood, and the entry is 5 gallons. That's an entire batch for me  In good news, a LHBS/craft beer shop is opening up a block from my apartment. Should make those last minute "oh, I forgot to buy yeast" days less annoying.
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Sep 16, 2013 10:31
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twoot posted:I treated it with campden powder and pectin enzyme. In ~48 hrs I'll pitch cider yeast and add any secondary flavours. Thanks. I have some campden and once I source a ladder or something I'll be able to pick them. I don't even like cider and think this will be fun  Toebone posted:In good news, a LHBS/craft beer shop is opening up a block from my apartment. Should make those last minute "oh, I forgot to buy yeast" days less annoying. Support a local place, definitely. They'll cost more than where you order online from, but at least where I live (London, UK) there is a complete dearth of homebrew shops centrally. High business rates and online competition I guess
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Sep 16, 2013 11:02
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Toebone posted:What's a normal volume for the entry requirement in a homebrew competition? There's one upcoming in my neighborhood, and the entry is 5 gallons. That's an entire batch for me 4-6 bottles. The most popular scheme I've seen is they use the first two to screen out everything spoiled or obviously out of category, then use the last two for strict judging and ranking.
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Sep 16, 2013 12:20
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zedprime posted:4-6 bottles. The most popular scheme I've seen is they use the first two to screen out everything spoiled or obviously out of category, then use the last two for strict judging and ranking. This is true. I think the AHA does 4 bottles, 2 for the first round of judging and 2 for a possible 'best in show.' At least that is what the judge in my previous homebrew club kept hammering home. Worked really well for us. @Toebone, 5 gallons is excessive and not right at all. I'd contact them to make sure the number is correct. ChiTownEddie posted:Hell yes pal! Not just about people liking my simple recipe but that it was a really good experience. I've been too much of a chicken to go to one in Chicago...ugh I really should try and check it out. It's just so intimidating in a major city I think.
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Sep 16, 2013 13:17
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Alright, I'm trying out this "dry hop for only one day" method that was touted in that study a few pages back. Very aromatic after about 18 hours at room temperature... Which begs the question: why did brewers ever bother dry hopping for longer than a day? Has no one ever tried this before?
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Sep 16, 2013 13:19
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RagingBoner posted:Alright, I'm trying out this "dry hop for only one day" method that was touted in that study a few pages back. Very aromatic after about 18 hours at room temperature... Which begs the question: why did brewers ever bother dry hopping for longer than a day? Has no one ever tried this before? Old habits die hard but old brewing habits don't die. Also I think the one-day dry hop was done with constant agitation so you might want to purge the headspace and give it a good shake every hour or so.
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Sep 16, 2013 13:38
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Could the 5 gallon thing be "you must brew 5 gallons [or less] from which you bottle the entry"? As in, no pro-ams allowed?
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Sep 16, 2013 13:53
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internet celebrity posted:Old habits die hard but old brewing habits don't die. Re-reading the summary, it seems to say that un-agitated wort extracts just as much hop aroma compounds in one day as it does in seven days, and that the best way to extract these aromatics is to both: a) Agitate the wort constantly via a pump, (something that few people would have the setup to do while keeping the wort sterile) and b) Use pelleted hops instead of whole leaf hops. This sounds like sacrilege for all my Pacific NW friends, but makes total sense. As we all learned in chemistry, the smaller the solute, the more surface area, and the better the absorption rate into the solvent.
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Sep 16, 2013 14:24
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Jacobey000 posted:This is true. I think the AHA does 4 bottles, 2 for the first round of judging and 2 for a possible 'best in show.' At least that is what the judge in my previous homebrew club kept hammering home. Worked really well for us. I could see 5 gallons if there was like a beer share or something in a smaller club competition or if they are naively optimistic about getting extra beer for training new judges. But if its like they are asking you for 5 gallons for faceless judging, some dudes just want a load of beer in exchange for some token score sheets.
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Sep 16, 2013 15:39
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zedprime posted:4-6 bottles. The most popular scheme I've seen is they use the first two to screen out everything spoiled or obviously out of category, then use the last two for strict judging and ranking. Really? That's odd, nearly all competitions I have seen are two bottles including NHC and all the AHA/BJCP sanctioned ones. The first bottle is for the category judging, and the second bottle is in case you make it through to the best of show round. Usually the 5 gallon things are keg only competitions or festivals where they intend to serve or have you serve your entire sixtel. You can even get away with sending one bottle in some competitions. The stewards/judges are careful to recap your beer if you win gold so that they can still serve yours in BOS. Not recommended but if you only happen to have one bottle I wouldn't hesitate sending it or maybe quickly e-mailing your competition organizer to check if it is okay.
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Sep 16, 2013 15:47
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Homebrewing competition at my house next week. Kegs submitted for judging can be left on the back porch.
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Sep 16, 2013 15:48
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Kaiho posted:Could the 5 gallon thing be "you must brew 5 gallons [or less] from which you bottle the entry"? As in, no pro-ams allowed? No this is an elaborate scheme to get a shitload of free home-brew.
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Sep 16, 2013 15:52
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Wort chilling trip report: I didn't use frozen bottles, I used another immersion chiller as a pre-chiller in a bucket of ice water...and I still couldn't get my wort below 75 degrees. Oh well, winter is coming. e: There was very vigorous fermentation this morning, hopefully my blowoff doesn't get clogged while I'm at work or else I'll have krausen all over my basement. Thufir fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 16:19
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EnsignVix posted:Usually the 5 gallon things are keg only competitions or festivals where they intend to serve or have you serve your entire sixtel. I think this is the case - the competition is tied into a music festival, and I assume festival goers are going to be able to taste/vote on all the beers. There are going to be BJCP judges, as well as a "Peoples Choice" category.
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Sep 16, 2013 16:21
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Club comp report: My pale ale took third. I thought mine was the best of all of them, but then, that's why I brewed it that way. The first and second place beers were not bad at all, so I can't begrudge anyone their win. Ten bucks toward a sack of malt won't hurt anyone's feelings any.
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Sep 16, 2013 16:28
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Toebone posted:I think this is the case - the competition is tied into a music festival, and I assume festival goers are going to be able to taste/vote on all the beers. There are going to be BJCP judges, as well as a "Peoples Choice" category. That's kind of cool, I'd probably sacrifice a whole batch to have a bunch of people taste my beer.
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Sep 16, 2013 16:31
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Thufir posted:That's kind of cool, I'd probably sacrifice a whole batch to have a bunch of people taste my beer. I was actually signed up to do exactly that - the club has a booth lined up at a local beer festival and a bunch of the guys in the club had volunteered their beers, but apparently the ABC said we can't serve homebrew to the public. Which is kind of odd, given that there's an established homebrew festival in this county where nothing but homebrew is served - and where the club had a booth and poured homebrew. Whatever, I guess we're going anyway, but we just won't pour. That just means homebrewers get to drink commercial beer for free all night.
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Sep 16, 2013 16:38
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So, is anyone using beersmith in a serious manner? Im trying to adjust my pumpkin recipe to add the ingredients proper, and up my grain bill a tad, but im having a pisser of a time getting it to fit in my equipment profile. basically : i have more grain then will fit + mash water in my cooler) according to beersmith. but, my old recipe is claiming to ALSO not fit. And i seem to remember i had plenty of room left over when i added to that volume + water on the fly as well last time. I would like to set things up as close to reality as possibly to take some of the work out of water volume .. but this is getting nuts. but i guess i am limited to 12lbs of grain @ 1.25 quarts per in a 5 gal cooler?
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Sep 16, 2013 17:11
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Jo3sh posted:I was actually signed up to do exactly that - the club has a booth lined up at a local beer festival and a bunch of the guys in the club had volunteered their beers, but apparently the ABC said we can't serve homebrew to the public. Which is kind of odd, given that there's an established homebrew festival in this county where nothing but homebrew is served - and where the club had a booth and poured homebrew. Liquor law is weird as hell. I think we get away with the festivals the club here serves at by them being non profit donation tickets and "donating" the beer to the organization. Once its out of non profit area I think there's a lot more trouble but donations make it fine with law magic.
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Sep 16, 2013 17:18
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There's probably something like that at play, and clearly, I don't know all of the details. I do understand the festival organizers and sponsors (including the local Rotary club) have been very supportive and wanted it all to work, but the official agencies could not/would not let us do it. Personally, I think that if the right people had been asked, there would have been a way to say yes, but for whatever reason we got the guy who wanted to say no. He's probably just not educated enough on the subject, so we'll try again next year and see if we can help everyone to understand.
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Sep 16, 2013 17:36
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RagingBoner posted:Alright, I'm trying out this "dry hop for only one day" method that was touted in that study a few pages back. Very aromatic after about 18 hours at room temperature... Which begs the question: why did brewers ever bother dry hopping for longer than a day? Has no one ever tried this before? I just bottled 10 gallons of pale ale that was dryhopped for about 28 hours (6oz of chinook, swirled 3 times), and the hoppiness is definitely just as good as when I do it for 5-7 days, and a bit "fresher". So ... I guess I just shaved a week off my turnaround time on super hoppy pale ales. e: Before I used a tea steeping analogy and it makes perfect sense still. No one would argue that after 24 hours you've already extracted everything you're going to get from a tea ball/bag, so why should hops be any different?
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Sep 16, 2013 17:59
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If the law is just legitimately bad, you should contact the AHA to see if they'd be interested in working to get it changed. They've worked with legislators in a bunch of states to revise lovely laws like not being able to pour homebrew at competitions or festivals, or even bring it out of your home at all. Although IIRC Jo3sh is in California which is already one of the most liberal states with regard to homebrew so they might not view it as a priority.
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Sep 16, 2013 17:59
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Docjowles posted:If the law is just legitimately bad This is the question, really. Again, my feeling at this time is that we got an inspector or some such with incomplete information and a tendency to say no rather than yes. It's a perfectly normal thing to do when faced with something we don't understand. I know the club president is reasonably well plugged-in to local government, so I think there's a good chance we'll get a different answer next time.
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Sep 16, 2013 19:37
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I've finally embarked on my very first home brewing adventure this weekend and I'm afraid I may have cocked it up already. I've got two 1-gallon carboys with a half-gallon of cider each. The guy at my local home brew supply told me to use only half the packet for the full gallon, or a quarter of the packet for each carboy. My brain turned off right as I was adding the yeast, and I put half the packet per carboy, effectively doubling what he recommended. I'm using Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead, the package says 70 billion yeast cells. The only thing I can think of is to go get another gallon of cider, kill the wild yeast, and add it to what I already have. That won't be ready for another 24 hours at bare minimum though, and likely take me more like 32 hours due to my schedule tomorrow. How screwed am I? What can I do to fix it?
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Sep 17, 2013 02:49
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It is fine.
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Sep 17, 2013 02:53
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withak posted:It is fine. Okay. Would adding more cider help or hurt in any way? I wouldn't mind ending up with more once it's done.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:11
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runchild posted:Okay. My guess is you'll end up with drier cider (more alcohol) due to the increased yeast if you leave it as-is. I suppose you could add more cider to sweeten (more leftover non-fermented sugars) it. Or add more to one jug and leave the other as-is so you can see the difference and it can be a nice point of comparison.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:17
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I've pitched a whole packet for a gallon before. You gonna be fine.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:27
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Yeah the initial quantity of yeast shouldn't affect the FG much. I would top them all off with cider, why only ferment a half-gallon?
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Sep 17, 2013 04:54
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withak posted:Yeah the initial quantity of yeast shouldn't affect the FG much. It's a gallon total, I wanted to start small. The guy at the supply store suggested splitting it into two jugs, it seemed like a good suggestion at the time. I think I'll add some more to at least one. I like illcendiary's idea of comparing the two.
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Sep 17, 2013 05:17
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twoot posted:I treated it with campden powder and pectin enzyme. In ~48 hrs I'll pitch cider yeast and add any secondary flavours. Do you have a recipe you recommend? I really want to do cider this year. How many apples would you say that was?
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Sep 17, 2013 05:32
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http://davespicks.com/writing/mme/recipes/hangover.html I've made that cyser before and it is pretty good. Just use a different yeast. I like the basic cote des blancs. Champagne takes a dry product and makes it even drier. No one needs that. One of the problems with cider is that real cider uses different kinds of apples. There are a couple of ways around this. One is to make it with "more stuff" such as this cyser. Another is to add specific stuff, like acid blends or back-sweetening. Another (which I also like to do) is drink the cider before it is fully fermented. Sweet and boozy, a good combination. By buying new cider/apple juice/apple concentrate you can keep making a sort of "perpetual" cider for a while before it becomes too lactic.
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Sep 17, 2013 05:45
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fullroundaction posted:I just bottled 10 gallons of pale ale that was dryhopped for about 28 hours (6oz of chinook, swirled 3 times), and the hoppiness is definitely just as good as when I do it for 5-7 days, and a bit "fresher". I also just bottled a hoppy red ale that spent three days on 4 oz. of dry hops, and it seems just as aromatic and intense as it would be after a 7-day dry-hopping. I might have to do this another few times just to be sure, though. 
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Sep 17, 2013 06:04
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Do you have a recipe you recommend? I really want to do cider this year. How many apples would you say that was? It was around 5 12L/2.6Gallon buckets of Apples, I don't know the weight. We have 3 apple trees, two are of James Grieve variety and one unknown, so they aren't a real "cider apple". I've done this for a couple of years and I've never really followed a written recipe. What I do is;
Hopefully this helps. Cider is really versatile and difficult to mess up.
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Sep 17, 2013 13:16
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For a Dunkelweizen would you guys just do Wheat and Munich? Now consider it from a partial mash perspective... I was thinking of some Munich LME (41%) + Wheat DME (20%) + Red Wheat (39%). In the recipe I mocked up really fast that is pretty light on color (~6-7SRM). Should I add some caramel malts (Carawheat?)? Some Dark Munich to the mash? What do you guys think? E: Jacobey000 posted:I'm in Chicago as well (I think there is a few of us here) and am tempted to go to one the many. If you wanna chill and drink homebrew and have something a bit more informal, I'd be down. Could always use another person to drink up my beer. What neighborhood are you in? Sorry I missed this. Yeah I'd be down! I live in wicker park riiiight next to Div Blue Line stop. I don't have much atm, but I brewed this weekend and am planning on test batches the next two. I'd love to get opinions on those in a few weeks. 
ChiTownEddie fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Sep 17, 2013 |
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Sep 17, 2013 15:28
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Got what appears to be my first infection. It's a white film, not unlike white out, floating on top of the beer. From what I'm reading online, it's acetobacter, so this beer is going to go down the drain. I don't know for sure what caused it, but I want to put my money on the airlock running low. I wasn't in love with the beer in the first place, so at least now I'll have some spare bottles to bottle up my saison which I'm much more excited about drinking.
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Sep 17, 2013 15:45
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The people demand photos.
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Sep 17, 2013 15:54
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If you have an extra jug or some bottles somewhere you can reserve a gallon to continue the acetobacter fermentation and have plenty if malt vinegar. Tastes great on French fries and for making pulled pork and BBQ sauces. That way it's not a total waste.
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Sep 17, 2013 15:55
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