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Why haven't I been making beer for years? First homebrew: Pale ale - half 2-row, half Maris Otter, Chinook for bittering, Columbus and Amarillo as flavor/aroma hops, BRY-97 yeast. I brewed it on July 7 and on July 25 it is totally drinkable. Not the best beer I've ever tasted but among the various craft pale ales available here I'd put it solidly near the median, according to my taste anyway. e: I know it's awfully pale, I don't care. toe knee hand fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 05:46
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toe knee hand posted:e: I know it's awfully pale, I don't care. If it's good to you, you've already won. Now is the time to start planning the next batch. A glass or two of the last batch generally helps.
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Jul 26, 2014 15:14
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I finally was able to finish up the bulk of my beer/coffee bar last night and I put the inaugural batch into the kegerator to start carbonating. Out of curiosity, how do most people do their carbonating in kegs? It seems like it ranges from anything to a natural yeast fermentation, setting the regulator to serving pressure and waiting a week all the way to cranking the regulator the 60 psi and shaking the crap out of the keg. I ended up sort of settling in the middle and am using the way Northern Brewer recommended with setting the pressure to 20 PSI for two days, then backing down to serving pressure. I also picked up a used 7cf chest freezer on craigslist for a decent price and built my temp controller setup for it as well. I'm going to rather enjoy not having to stick to the handful of yeast strains that will ferment well at 74 degrees during the 6+ months we have to run AC here in Florida. Edit: One thing I meant to mention was that I made sure there was a good sized gap all around the kegerator to allow air flow. There is about an inch on each side and an inch and a half up top and I also have an access hole on the right cabinet to control the temp and allow another place for air to go. Because of that I did have to build a flange on the top of the unit to maintain a sealed cool air space between the kegerator and the tap. rockcity fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 16:46
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That's a sweet-looking build.rockcity posted:Out of curiosity, how do most people do their carbonating in kegs. I'm super lazy, so what I do is just rack into the kegs and then hook up the gas a serving pressure and leave it alone. There have been times when I needed carb'ed beer faster than that; in those cases I've cranked it up to 30PSI for a couple days and then back down to serving pressure for a day or two more.
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Jul 26, 2014 18:27
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Jo3sh posted:That's a sweet-looking build. Thanks. I had to come up with something really put together looking to convince my wife to let me put a kegerator in the kitchen. My next small project with it is to buy some hardware to make one of those cabinet doors a sliding pull out that will hold all my glassware.
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Jul 26, 2014 19:00
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toe knee hand posted:Why haven't I been making beer for years? First homebrew: Say bye to your wallet
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Jul 26, 2014 19:54
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Yo Marshmallow Blue - I bottled my lambic mead today. Based on your blog and posts here, I think I'm a couple months behind you in the process. Mine was just a pretty straightforward honey+water deal, though with a bit of maltodextrine for the bugs. It came out at 0.992, which is a lot drier than I was expecting. I'm pretty excited, although I'm going to wait about three more months to crack one open so that they can age in the bottle and carb up. I'm shooting for something that's very lightly carbonated. Woo!
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Jul 26, 2014 23:24
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Goddamn, I love drinking my own beer. 
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Jul 27, 2014 02:01
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Apparently I'm not so good at this beer-making thing, despite plenty of good experience with wine. My GF and I made a batch of "Canadian Adventure" (made in the UK) as baby's-first-homebrew. For reasons of silly schedules for both of us, it sat for way too long in the fermenter, about 2 weeks beyond the 10 days the instructions said for fermentation. By the time we got around to bottling it, there was a thin layer of big off-white disks on the surface that stuck to the sides of the fermenter as I siphoned the beer out. It tasted OK, like a low-flavour kind of macrobrew but no hint of any of the bacteria-have-ruined-your-beer tastes and smells that I read about, except a very faint kind of banana or pineapple fruity smell that I couldn't taste in the beer. We racked it to a carboy and let it settle out for a couple of days, then racked it to another carboy - pulling it away from the layer of crud (yeast?) on the bottom. Then we stirred in enough dextrose for carbonation, about 1/2 cup, and bottled into Grolsh swing-top bottles. Now, two weeks later, it's flat and my GF hates the faint remaining fruity smell, which I honestly can't detect. But it's flat and a bit sweet. Does anybody have any advice that might at least add some carbonation to it? I think the yeast might be dead, because it doesn't seem to have done any CO2-generating with that priming sugar. The entire process start to finish happened at room temperature.
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Jul 27, 2014 03:09
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ExecuDork posted:Apparently I'm not so good at this beer-making thing, despite plenty of good experience with wine. My guess would be that like many kits yours came with crap yeast. Fresh yeast would definitely been fine for carbing when you did it (lots of people leave beers in primary for over a month with no issues). The floating disks may have been wild yeast, especially if they looked dusty or filmy rather than foamy. Good yeast might have helped prevent that from getting a hold or maybe something wasn't sanitized well. You'll know sooner or later if it was infected, if so your beer might end up overcarbed and/or develop some unexpected flavors. With packaged kits the dry yeast should generally be tossed and replaced with fresh.
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Jul 27, 2014 05:00
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Myron Baloney posted:My guess would be that like many kits yours came with crap yeast. Fresh yeast would definitely been fine for carbing when you did it (lots of people leave beers in primary for over a month with no issues). The floating disks may have been wild yeast, especially if they looked dusty or filmy rather than foamy. Good yeast might have helped prevent that from getting a hold or maybe something wasn't sanitized well. You'll know sooner or later if it was infected, if so your beer might end up overcarbed and/or develop some unexpected flavors. With packaged kits the dry yeast should generally be tossed and replaced with fresh. Yeah I think it's the yeast too, even if you're using dry yeast toss the dry yeast that you get in those kits. 2 weeks beyond the 10days instructions wouldn't do any harm so it must be the yeast.
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Jul 27, 2014 05:27
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Because the yeast never really did anything, other than the oxygen exposure that may have happened when transferring the beer to the bottles, you should theoretically be able to put it back into a carboy, add some new yeast, and let it sit for another three or so weeks. From that point, just act as if this was the first time bottling and go from there, however if your girlfriend doesn't exactly love the fruity flavors in there you may just have to fall on the sword and drink all of it yourself. Tough luck.
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Jul 27, 2014 05:53
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We're eager to try again, and the "get good yeast" advice is particularly welcome - wild yeast (or some of the wine yeast surely resident in my apartment) seems a likely culprit. It underwent fermentation - foamed up, smelled like it's supposed to, generally acted like yeast doing their thing - but then had an opportunity to get weird after that, I think. I suspect the yeast in the bottles is either dead or in such a low concentration that their activity is really low. It's only been in the bottle for about 2 weeks and the kit instructions talk about 6 weeks+ so the easiest thing ( ) is to just let it sit. We might shake the bottles up, as suggested in other places.I forgot to mention the SG - 1.010 before bottling. wattershed posted:you may just have to fall on the sword and drink all of it yourself. Tough luck. 
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Jul 27, 2014 06:15
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ExecuDork posted:We're eager to try again, and the "get good yeast" advice is particularly welcome - wild yeast (or some of the wine yeast surely resident in my apartment) seems a likely culprit. It underwent fermentation - foamed up, smelled like it's supposed to, generally acted like yeast doing their thing - but then had an opportunity to get weird after that, I think. I suspect the yeast in the bottles is either dead or in such a low concentration that their activity is really low. It's only been in the bottle for about 2 weeks and the kit instructions talk about 6 weeks+ so the easiest thing ( You're worrying about this way to much dude. The yeast on the top of the fermenter is perfectly normal, people are way to hasty to jump to conclusions about infections. 2 weeks in, your beer isn't necessarily going to be carbonated. Keep the beer around 20c+ and it'll carb faster, but I normally don't bother cracking a bottle until 4 weeks in. I work in a homebrew store and get stories like this all the time. With regard to the fruity smell, you may have fermented it a touch too warm so try and control your temps around 18c next time.
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Jul 27, 2014 09:03
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Jermaine Dildoe posted:Say bye to your wallet I actually started brewing, in part, to save money. Because even at 4x American prices for brewing ingredients a craft beer here is around $6 a bottle at the grocery store and we don't have great variety.
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Jul 27, 2014 10:08
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pugnax posted:Goddamn, I love drinking my own beer.
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Jul 27, 2014 10:11
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I really need to work out a bottling setup, I have two brews that I've been putting off bottling because I just find it so difficult - last time took me ages, loads of sanitising with cleaner, catching overflow etc. And tips for sanitising bottles? I've put the latest batch in the dishwasher and run it at 90c/200f - this should do it right? I have some sanitiser which I'll use for the siphon, so that bit is ok. I'm in a small flat/apartment so no chance of a 'long term' setup. Any tips?
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Jul 27, 2014 10:40
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When I bottle I just set up an assembly line and dunk bottles in a vat of star san, then fill, then cap. If I'm alone I just do six or so at a time, but with a friend you can just have one person dunk and cap while the other fills bottles. Larger format bottles are your friend.
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Jul 27, 2014 11:34
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You know those brew days you have where you miss gravity or spill a bit or your volumes are off and you think "oh that wasn't the best brew day"? Mine the other day ended up with a broken grain mill literally within the first kg of milled grain. I just bought it off our club president too, only for $20 though thankfully. But it made for an interesting brew day. 10 points under on a session Belgian IPA on preboil and 5 under with adjuncts on post 
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Jul 27, 2014 13:49
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Red Oktober posted:I really need to work out a bottling setup, I have two brews that I've been putting off bottling because I just find it so difficult - last time took me ages, loads of sanitising with cleaner, catching overflow etc. Sanitize your bottles and line them up in a half-sheet rimmed pan, or maybe two. Put sanitized crowns on top of the mouths. Pick up a crown, fill the bottle, and put the crown back on top, then move to the next bottle. Fill them all, then go through and crimp the caps on them. The sheet pan will catch spillage. The biggest frustration for me when I bottled was trying to make a setup that would let me move each bottle through the process (sanitize, fill, cap, store) individually, while not allowing contamination of the bottling equipment. I used to get a brewing buddy to help out, but if I were bottling alone, the above is what I would do today. pugnax posted:Goddamn, I love drinking my own beer. Truth.
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Jul 27, 2014 16:13
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ExecuDork posted:We're eager to try again, and the "get good yeast" advice is particularly welcome - wild yeast (or some of the wine yeast surely resident in my apartment) seems a likely culprit. It underwent fermentation - foamed up, smelled like it's supposed to, generally acted like yeast doing their thing - but then had an opportunity to get weird after that, I think. I suspect the yeast in the bottles is either dead or in such a low concentration that their activity is really low. It's only been in the bottle for about 2 weeks and the kit instructions talk about 6 weeks+ so the easiest thing ( Swing tops can have issues with carbing if the seals are old. You might want to consider going with classic crown top bottles and caps or replacing the rubber on your swing tops.
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Jul 27, 2014 16:13
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wildfire1 posted:You're worrying about this way to much dude. The yeast on the top of the fermenter is perfectly normal, people are way to hasty to jump to conclusions about infections. 2 weeks in, your beer isn't necessarily going to be carbonated. Keep the beer around 20c+ and it'll carb faster, but I normally don't bother cracking a bottle until 4 weeks in. I work in a homebrew store and get stories like this all the time. With regard to the fruity smell, you may have fermented it a touch too warm so try and control your temps around 18c next time. I used to work in a wine-making shop, and the troubleshooting we did for customers always came down to either "be more clean" or "stop using that ancient ganky-rear end lovely weirdness from the old country. Use glass carboys, dammit! And I'm not explaining to you, again, the difference between a US gallon and an Imperial gallon. Put your wine in bottles, you old crank". Wine doesn't have carbonation to worry about so the anxiety all comes crashing down on the perceived high-falutin' taste factors. I actually had somebody, in all seriousness and without a trace of irony, tell me about how much they appreciated the taste of cat pee in their Cab Franc. For the record, Cabernet Franc tastes like an oil spill, not cat pee you pretentious rear end. Where was I? Right, winemaking is easier than beermaking, I think - fewer things to keep track of. It seems like the taste of wine is more-or-less what you'll get at the point of bottling, while beer can change considerably after it's in the bottle. Daedalus Esquire posted:Swing tops can have issues with carbing if the seals are old. You might want to consider going with classic crown top bottles and caps or replacing the rubber on your swing tops.
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Jul 27, 2014 18:13
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How do the Grolsch bottles hold up with respect to skunking? I am very sensitive to skunked beer (which is a bit odd as I'm not particularly sensitive to other tastes that often bug people like bitterness and cilantro) and I know that ordinary green glass does very little to prevent it. Do the Grolsch bottles have any sort of extra treatment or if I were to use those would I just have to be really super careful about keeping them in the dark? side note: I lived in England for a couple years and most people there didn't seem to understand the concept of skunked beer, possibly because the country lacks skunks...
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Jul 27, 2014 21:25
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The best bet is always to store beer in a cool, dark place, no matter what color bottles it's in. Brown glass won't prevent skunking, just slow it down. If you're looking for non-green swingtops to scavenge, Fischer D'Alsace used to package one of their beers in a brown glass bottle, but I haven't looked for it lately.
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Jul 27, 2014 21:37
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A brewery around here bottles in 1L brown swing-tops (Howe Sound). I'm collecting those, though slowly, as their beer is okay but not my favourite. I'm not close enough to actually go to the brewery and try to buy some of their bottles from them. e: don't like Grolsch either but it's more popular so those bottles aren't too hard to get a hold of.
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Jul 27, 2014 21:39
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Jo3sh posted:The best bet is always to store beer in a cool, dark place, no matter what color bottles it's in. Brown glass won't prevent skunking, just slow it down. If you're looking for non-green swingtops to scavenge, Fischer D'Alsace used to package one of their beers in a brown glass bottle, but I haven't looked for it lately. I have looked for it for a few years, and you apparently can't buy it in most(or possibly all) of the US anymore. I loved the Fischer Amber, and the bottles were great for brewing...
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Jul 28, 2014 00:43
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Anyone ever reused a yeast cake for cider? I racked a 19L batch to keg and immediately poured another 19L of (the same brand) apple-juice onto the cake but after 36+ hours the airlock has only just risen. First batch was on the cake for about 6 weeks, would that increase lag-time? ~~~ Also, one of my kegs isn't holding pressure anymore worked fine for the last beer it was holding but not fine now. Tried replacing the o-ring, and using a lid from a different keg-same result. Seems like the inside top lip of the keg where the lid fits is slightly bent out of shape (kegs are old pin-locks I got for $40 a pop). Not too sure how to deal with this aside from hammering away at the lid to get it to a place where it holds pressure.
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Jul 28, 2014 00:55
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toe knee hand posted:A brewery around here bottles in 1L brown swing-tops (Howe Sound). I'm collecting those, though slowly, as their beer is okay but not my favourite. I'm not close enough to actually go to the brewery and try to buy some of their bottles from them. I've got a shitload of howe-sound swingtops AND villa-terresa 750mL prosecco swing-tops that I don't use anymore (gently caress bottling) if you're looking for some more bottles. JawKnee fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 00:56
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JawKnee posted:I've got a shitload of howe-sound swingtops AND villa-terresa 750mL prosecco swing-tops that I don't use anymore (gently caress bottling) if you're looking for some more bottles. I am totally looking for more bottles. Where do you live? I'm in Victoria but I go over to the mainland on occasion.
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Jul 28, 2014 01:05
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Vancouver, doesn't look like you have PMs so maybe take this to the Vancouver thread? Most of the goons there have my number or I know so I don't feel leary about posting it there for a little while Also, did a quick count of those bottles: 8 howe sound 1L, ~20 villa teresa 750mL swingtops, a few grolsch 500mL swingtops
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Jul 28, 2014 01:55
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JawKnee posted:Anyone ever reused a yeast cake for cider? I racked a 19L batch to keg and immediately poured another 19L of (the same brand) apple-juice onto the cake but after 36+ hours the airlock has only just risen. First batch was on the cake for about 6 weeks, would that increase lag-time? First, have you confirmed that it can't hold pressure at a high PSI, like 35-40? Sometimes it takes a push of a lot of pressure to seal up an o-ring and you can actually walk it back down to serving pressure successfully after that. Second, have you tried keg lube? It's the only thing that seals two of my "as-is" kegs, giving a bit of padding in places where the seal isn't optimal. Lastly, check williamsbrewing.com for oversized o-rings...you can probably get one cheaper locally, or even check McMaster, but I've read that a slightly larger diameter ring can get the job done in your case.
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Jul 28, 2014 05:55
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wattershed posted:First, have you confirmed that it can't hold pressure at a high PSI, like 35-40? Sometimes it takes a push of a lot of pressure to seal up an o-ring and you can actually walk it back down to serving pressure successfully after that. 1) I tried this yesterday (around 35 psi) and while it did seem to hold pressure after that, I left the keg overnight with no gas line hooked up to see if the pressure would hold - no dice, no co2 in the keg the next morning. 2) Yup, freshly lubed up the new o-ring, and the inside lip of the keg, didn't seem to make a difference 3) I'll have to look into that if I can't get it working otherwise Thanks for the advice
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Jul 28, 2014 06:05
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ieatsoap6 posted:Yo Marshmallow Blue - I bottled my lambic mead today. Based on your blog and posts here, I think I'm a couple months behind you in the process. Mine was just a pretty straightforward honey+water deal, though with a bit of maltodextrine for the bugs. It came out at 0.992, which is a lot drier than I was expecting. I'm pretty excited, although I'm going to wait about three more months to crack one open so that they can age in the bottle and carb up. I'm shooting for something that's very lightly carbonated. Woo! Is there any sugar left for them to carb with? Awesome, Maybe we can trade a bottle of each or something. I think it tastes much better when chilled for what it's worth. Little news on my 100% Brett C mead. It's going stupid slow (down to 1.071 from ~1.080 in 2.5 weeks). This being a combination of lack of nutrients and a higher than planned gravity. I'm going to pitch some orval dregs and see where that gets me. Maybe the sach and brett in there will give it the boost it needs, even though I'll have to lose the "100%" brett tag. I'll be more prepared for the next one; a Lower gravity Brett B Trois.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:05
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JawKnee posted:Anyone ever reused a yeast cake for cider? I racked a 19L batch to keg and immediately poured another 19L of (the same brand) apple-juice onto the cake but after 36+ hours the airlock has only just risen. First batch was on the cake for about 6 weeks, would that increase lag-time? Did you provide any yeast nutrient? It may be lag due to stress. The simple sugars alone may not provide enough of what the yeast needs to keep going. Might be worth tossing some yeast nutrients at it, and maybe a drop of olive oil (rather than oxygenating at this stage).
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Jul 28, 2014 15:08
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Is there any sugar left for them to carb with? Awesome, Maybe we can trade a bottle of each or something. I think it tastes much better when chilled for what it's worth. I added a bit of priming sugar. It's bone dry otherwise. And yeah, I'd totally be up for a trade. I don't have PMs but you can email me at username at gmail
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Jul 28, 2014 17:26
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ieatsoap6 posted:I added a bit of priming sugar. It's bone dry otherwise. And yeah, I'd totally be up for a trade. I don't have PMs but you can email me at username at gmail Email sent. I can probably swing 2 12oz bottles. Which reminds me that I really really need to dig through my closet and get a full inventory of what bottles I have available.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:46
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Zaepho posted:Did you provide any yeast nutrient? It may be lag due to stress. The simple sugars alone may not provide enough of what the yeast needs to keep going. Might be worth tossing some yeast nutrients at it, and maybe a drop of olive oil (rather than oxygenating at this stage). no but that's a good idea, I'll have to pick some up from my LHBS today. The new cider has picked up now, and krausen is forming so I guess it just takes a while for a cake that's been sitting for weeks to get going.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:42
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JawKnee posted:The new cider has picked up now, and krausen is forming so I guess it just takes a while for a cake that's been sitting for weeks to get going. Awesome! glad to hear it kicked. Hopefully with such a big "starter" it'll ferment out quickly and cleanly
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Jul 28, 2014 20:54
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Email sent. I can probably swing 2 12oz bottles. Which reminds me that I really really need to dig through my closet and get a full inventory of what bottles I have available. Nothing came through  typo?
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Jul 28, 2014 23:33
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ieatsoap6 posted:Nothing came through Looks like ieatsoap without 6 got a very strangely titled email
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Jul 29, 2014 02:15
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