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Cold smoke for malt? That makes sense I think. Forgot to consider that.
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Apr 9, 2015 07:17
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Cold smoking is definitely the way to go if you can swing it. My setup lets me smoke with no added heat so that's what I do. Basically I have an electric smoker and I create smoke by sticking a soldering iron in a soup can full of chips and only use the heating element for temperature regulation of the chamber, so when I smoke malt I leave the heating element off. You want to spread the malt out as thinly as possible. I have an upright smoker with three racks so I made some metal mesh screens for the racks and can fit about 10 lbs total with the grain being about an inch deep. Mist the malt with water with no chlorine in it, the water helps with smoke absorption. Campden tablets are great for this, the last thing you want to do is to create chlorephenols. I turn the grain and very lightly remist every 30 minutes for the first hour. For the second hour I just turn the grain without misting to let it dry out. Once it's done I put it in a bag and let it sit for 2-3 weeks before using it. I've been told it can be too acrid if you don't let it sit for a few weeks. I don't know if that's true cause I've never tried using it sooner. I've done this method and used it for 100% smoked malt rauchbiers and they turned out amazing. The really great thing about smoking your own malt is you can do more than just base malt. My last rauchbier was vienna, munich and caramunich all smoked. I plan to do a porter with UK 2 row, crystal and chocolate also all smoked this winter.
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Apr 9, 2015 11:05
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Bottled that cabernet IPA I made a couple weeks back. Took 4 hours to bottle because we just had a baby. I really need to get kegs now.
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Apr 9, 2015 16:10
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One of the breweries down here (Westbrook if anyone is familiar) often gets rid of bourbon (and other various) barrels from time to time and sells them for like $35 a pop. Is it worth it to pick one up for beer purposes? Or is pretty much all of the flavor and whatnot extracted after aging one batch is completed?
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Apr 9, 2015 16:32
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Scarf posted:One of the breweries down here (Westbrook if anyone is familiar) often gets rid of bourbon (and other various) barrels from time to time and sells them for like $35 a pop. Is it worth it to pick one up for beer purposes? Or is pretty much all of the flavor and whatnot extracted after aging one batch is completed? They're possibly still good. Bourbon barrels can only be used once for bourbon by legal definition for the style. Those barrels are good for a few more turns filled. I think you just need to pay attention to what was in it before and know that there might be some other bugs in there hiding in the wood. If I could get one for $35 for brewing I would, but my guess is they're nearing their life and are being put to pasture (for gardening and whatever you might do with it). Can't hurt to talk to the brewers though.
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Apr 9, 2015 16:44
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Jhet posted:They're possibly still good. Bourbon barrels can only be used once for bourbon by legal definition for the style. Those barrels are good for a few more turns filled. I think you just need to pay attention to what was in it before and know that there might be some other bugs in there hiding in the wood. If I could get one for $35 for brewing I would, but my guess is they're nearing their life and are being put to pasture (for gardening and whatever you might do with it). Yeah, I'm not sure if they just do one batch with them and then toss them, or if they try and get the most out of them as possible. I'll have to ask the next time they have a batch. They go pretty quick, people usually swing by and buy them up within a few hours of when they announce it.
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Apr 9, 2015 16:56
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Scarf posted:One of the breweries down here (Westbrook if anyone is familiar) often gets rid of bourbon (and other various) barrels from time to time and sells them for like $35 a pop. Is it worth it to pick one up for beer purposes? Or is pretty much all of the flavor and whatnot extracted after aging one batch is completed? Oh hey another person from the low country. I was just at a talk on sour beers and there was a lecture (all in Korean) about barrels. My understanding is that you can sanitize them and clean them out some and use them quite a few times. I'd totally grab some if I was still around there. Hell when I'm back this summer I might stash one in the car.
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Apr 9, 2015 17:45
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DontAskKant posted:Oh hey another person from the low country. I was just at a talk on sour beers and there was a lecture (all in Korean) about barrels. My understanding is that you can sanitize them and clean them out some and use them quite a few times. I'd totally grab some if I was still around there. Hell when I'm back this summer I might stash one in the car. Mostly true, but I don't think you want to take a barrel used for sour stuff and then put something in it that you don't want infected.
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Apr 9, 2015 18:34
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ChickenArise posted:Mostly true, but I don't think you want to take a barrel used for sour stuff and then put something in it that you don't want infected. Well I know they have some foeders now for their sours, so I don't think they do them in the barrels anymore. DontAskKant posted:Oh hey another person from the low country. I was just at a talk on sour beers and there was a lecture (all in Korean) about barrels. My understanding is that you can sanitize them and clean them out some and use them quite a few times. I'd totally grab some if I was still around there. Hell when I'm back this summer I might stash one in the car. Oh nice! Last batch they had for sale was back in November I think. Scarf fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Apr 9, 2015 |
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Apr 9, 2015 20:13
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Do you have 5 homebrewer friends to help you fill a barrel? The huge volume would be my biggest concern.
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Apr 9, 2015 20:17
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internet celebrity posted:Do you have 5 homebrewer friends to help you fill a barrel? The huge volume would be my biggest concern. Revolution was selling them by me for $50 each a while ago and this is was what stopped me. Its a big leap from 5g carboys to a 55g barrel... It would be good for sours but then you've got all your eggs in one batch. If it gets weird you can't blend.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:56
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CIDERTALK My super-high gravity cider seems to have taken all of the sugar it will eat. After my last addition, the gravity only dropped a point or two before stalling out around 1.020. This leaves me at about 18.5%abv...do I want to try pitching more champagne yeast to get it up to 20%, or just bottle and age it and try to get the next one even higher? My dry cider with Mangrove Jack yeast and Malolactic culture also seems to be coming along quite nicely. It smelled like rear end when I first moved it to secondary and pitched the malolactic, but it's been about a month since then, and it smells much more clean and pleasant now. I haven't decided if I'm going to filter/keg this one, or just bottle it and let it carb up that way(if the yeast are even still around after the planned three months in secondary).
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Apr 10, 2015 00:15
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I did maple wine that got up that high and it fermented a long as time. It was still going 6 months on. I used a lot of syrup and it's still sweet. I've given that out before and people end up getting destroyed by it if they aren't careful since it's easy to finish the bottle and not realize what it's doing to you. And that's what I like to hear  My rice wine's moving along. I have liquid at the bottom. That's progress.
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Apr 10, 2015 01:02
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internet celebrity posted:Do you have 5 homebrewer friends to help you fill a barrel? The huge volume would be my biggest concern. The guys at my LHBS filled a 100 litre barrel with a pretty good lambic they did, it sat for something like 12 months before being bottled and wax sealed. I haven't had the chance to try it yet but word is it's decent and I know it scored a 38 on bjcp guidelines
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Apr 10, 2015 03:55
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I have a question for you me and my mates have tried to make a pale ale with pale malt wort 70l post boil and have tried to do a few different beers with it, in one fermenter which is about 21l we added Ringwood yeast and there's been no reaction, temperature when adding the yeast was about 19 Celsius but there's been no reaction. Any ideas the others with different yeasts have worked fine.
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Apr 10, 2015 04:24
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StoneOfShame posted:I have a question for you me and my mates have tried to make a pale ale with pale malt wort 70l post boil and have tried to do a few different beers with it, in one fermenter which is about 21l we added Ringwood yeast and there's been no reaction, temperature when adding the yeast was about 19 Celsius but there's been no reaction. Any ideas the others with different yeasts have worked fine. Was the yeast propagated from a starter? How old was it and was it just dumped in as is?
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Apr 11, 2015 00:39
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StoneOfShame posted:I have a question for you me and my mates have tried to make a pale ale with pale malt wort 70l post boil and have tried to do a few different beers with it, in one fermenter which is about 21l we added Ringwood yeast and there's been no reaction, temperature when adding the yeast was about 19 Celsius but there's been no reaction. Any ideas the others with different yeasts have worked fine. It takes time too - how long has it been? I'd say it's less of a "reaction" than a slow crawl to bubbling.
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Apr 11, 2015 01:25
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Is there any trick to bottle conditioning high ABV beers? My last batch (7.5%) was still flat after three weeks, and my current batch (10.2%) hasn't made any progress in the last two weeks. I popped the caps on the 7.5% batch and used Prime Dose which did the job and I'll probably do the same to the other batch tomorrow. I was just wondering if bottle conditioning with priming sugar stops working at a certain ABV.
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Apr 11, 2015 14:41
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DecentHairJelly posted:Is there any trick to bottle conditioning high ABV beers? My last batch (7.5%) was still flat after three weeks, and my current batch (10.2%) hasn't made any progress in the last two weeks. I popped the caps on the 7.5% batch and used Prime Dose which did the job and I'll probably do the same to the other batch tomorrow. I was just wondering if bottle conditioning with priming sugar stops working at a certain ABV. It doesn't usually stop working, it just takes a lot longer. Once you're getting about 10% I would start worrying about ABV tolerance. Might have been worth pitching some fresh yeast (champagne works well for this) the day before bottling, so that there is some alcohol tolerant yeast still happily floating around.
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Apr 11, 2015 15:00
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Yeah, I think those Prime Dose capsules use champagne yeast actually. I see NB has vials for like 7 bucks which is cheaper than Prime Dose. Should I worry about the alcohol tolerant yeast bringing down my FG too far? Would I control that with a certain pitch rate?
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Apr 11, 2015 15:11
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Prime Dose is just compressed sugar tablets, no yeast involved. If you're bottling conditioning big beers, you'll need both sugar and yeast. In theory, champagne yeast shouldn't drop your FG at all, since it only eats simple sugars and your primary yeast should have done that. In practice it's not necessarily that simple, hence suggesting adding it the day before to avoid overcarbonation.
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Apr 11, 2015 15:20
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Not to split hairs here, but Prime Dose (the gel capsules) do contain yeast, according to the bottle anyway. But I like your suggestion of adding the champagne yeast better, as it probably reduces any risk of infection versus dropping two gelcaps into each bottle. Thanks for the advice. E: Also, it looks like NB doesn't even sell Prime Dose on their website anymore so champagne yeast it is! DecentHairJelly fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Apr 11, 2015 |
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Apr 11, 2015 15:45
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My wife got me keezer hardware for my birthday months ago and I'm only just now getting around to getting a freezer and building it. The co2 distributor she got me has hose barb fittings (this one http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/kegging/gas-hardware/gas-distributors/4-way-co2-distributor-w-5-16-barb-shutoff.html) instead of MFL. I assume I can just use an oetiker clamp to attach gas lines? Or is MFL so obviously superior that I should try to get a different distributor?
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Apr 11, 2015 15:56
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Thufir posted:My wife got me keezer hardware for my birthday months ago and I'm only just now getting around to getting a freezer and building it. The co2 distributor she got me has hose barb fittings (this one http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/kegging/gas-hardware/gas-distributors/4-way-co2-distributor-w-5-16-barb-shutoff.html) instead of MFL. I assume I can just use an oetiker clamp to attach gas lines? Or is MFL so obviously superior that I should try to get a different distributor? MFL is pretty nice, but you're probably not going to be changing your gas lines around very frequently. The problem with barbs/clamps is that it's more of a PITA to disconnect/reconnect them than with MFL, but if you're setting it up once and leaving it forever, it's really not a big deal.
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Apr 11, 2015 17:03
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Thufir posted:My wife got me keezer hardware for my birthday months ago and I'm only just now getting around to getting a freezer and building it. The co2 distributor she got me has hose barb fittings (this one http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/kegging/gas-hardware/gas-distributors/4-way-co2-distributor-w-5-16-barb-shutoff.html) instead of MFL. I assume I can just use an oetiker clamp to attach gas lines? Or is MFL so obviously superior that I should try to get a different distributor? Something like that is what I have. I have worm clamps and it works as it should be expected (you might find worm clamps are cheaper at Lowe's/Home Depot than from LHBS). Make sure that with the worm/oetiker clamps that you get them on there REALLY good and tight. If you get a leak, it's going to come from there.
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Apr 11, 2015 17:03
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Oh, and if you do go MFL, I feel I need to mention this as a public service. MFL doesn't seal on the threads, it seals on the flare part of the connection. There needs to be a gasket to make an leaktight seal. Every ball lock QD I've used has a plastic gaskety-thing built onto the MFL connection, but other MFL pieces don't -- you need nylon flare washers for these connections, or they will leak. Flare connections also need to be wrench-tight, hand tight won't do it.
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Apr 11, 2015 17:27
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Trying to branch out my podcast listening: Currently, I listen to most of the penis, sex, and fart jokes on the brewing network, the goofy nerd laughing of the basic brewing podcast and the snore fest of the beersmith radio podcast. Is there anything else in this vein that you guys like out there?
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Apr 12, 2015 04:12
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I just started listening to the brewing network, and between the ads and the homo-eroticism I'm amazed they get around to talking about beer at all.
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Apr 12, 2015 13:31
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LaserWash posted:Trying to branch out my podcast listening: Brewing Business is okay.
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Apr 12, 2015 14:44
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I tasted my wheat beer on Thursday after being kegged and force carbed for a week. Had a strong sulfur smell and tasted a little bit sour/bitter, which was strange because I only put in 1oz of hops. I decided to purge the keg and it smelled rancid. Like someone had just taken a poo poo in my living room. Fast forward to last night, I tried it again and it tasted great. No sulfur smell, no bitterness. 
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Apr 12, 2015 14:57
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LaserWash posted:Trying to branch out my podcast listening: Biomute posted:I just started listening to the brewing network, and between the ads and the homo-eroticism I'm amazed they get around to talking about beer at all. Jesus christ, these are so full of truth it makes me so sad BrewingTV is gone. I know it's not a podcast, but the point is still valid: god drat are the other ones so heinously awful. Some goon with talent should do one, I'll help anyway I can (even with cash). e: seriously though, I can only kind-of stand the Sour Hour on BrewingNetwork and it's horrid. Why on earth would they have full length songs play between 'sets' a full 2min "intro," and neither of the guys on there has a shining personality nor are "experts" on "sour beer". Any of the other BrewingNetwork shows are atrocious ship-heaps which hold an hour full of rigamarole, 10min of combined "commercials" and maybe, JUST MAYBE 20min of actual useful information. Anyone associated with their work should be ashamed. Basic Brewing and Beersmith seem to be an a nuclear arms race to be the most awkward podcast about beer. It's like HBT got a voice and decided it would be personified into those three outlets. Please someone fix this. Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Apr 12, 2015 |
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Apr 12, 2015 19:26
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Jacobey000 posted:Jesus christ, these are so full of truth it makes me so sad BrewingTV is gone. I know it's not a podcast, but the point is still valid: god drat are the other ones so heinously awful. Some goon with talent should do one, I'll help anyway I can (even with cash). After BrewingTV went, Chop & Brew started going strong. Alot of the same characters are in it.  Has the odd 30minute podcast, and once a month or so they do a brew banter video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snhp_xDU1ow&t=652s edit: also beer wise got all my beers ready for my birthday, fixing new elements as it turns out the wiring fried inside and the electrician mate said its safer to just buy new ones. 
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Apr 12, 2015 20:55
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Fluo posted:After BrewingTV went, Chop & Brew started going strong. Alot of the same characters are in it. I wish Chip Walton would come out with something by himself. I'd let that guy do anything he has an idea to produce. If he got the money and backing, he'd be the best podcaster/youtuber on beer out there. Period. Also CraigTube is weird. I swear the dude is loaded every time he makes an episode. Also, speaking of loaded, the episode of basic brewing video where James and Steve make the partigyle beer is hilarious fun and really awkward. Watch it now if you haven't.
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Apr 12, 2015 21:20
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Fluo posted:After BrewingTV went, Chop & Brew started going strong. Alot of the same characters are in it. Yeah, I know. I really wish he was more active, tbhq. He's got a fulltime gig at Summit so I can't really blame the guy. LaserWash posted:I wish Chip Walton would come out with something by himself. I'd let that guy do anything he has an idea to produce. If he got the money and backing, he'd be the best podcaster/youtuber on beer out there. Period. True - I sent the guy $50 when he was launching Chop & Brew when he was collecting funds. He's a fantastic producer/editor, quite talented.
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Apr 12, 2015 23:35
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So all of my home brew stuff has been sitting in my parents basement for the past 2 years as I don't have space for any of it in my current place. Had it stored thinking that there wasn't a point in getting rid of everything if I didn't need the money and may use it later, but it is looking like my next place isn't going to have room for it either and I am moving away from my 5 gallon batch equipment towards doing small batches when I feel the need to create. I have a keggerator with 4 taps, a number of 5 gallon buckets, a number of 5 gallon carboys, a 7.5 gallon conical, 2 large kettles, a large cooler with mesh drain for whole grain brewing, and something like 6 corny kegs. Going to keep my bottling equipment and misc poo poo. I don't want to ship anything because it is all quite large, but it is currently residing in a basement in NJ. Preferably pick up, but can meet someone in the tristate area. Before I make an SA mart thread or go the way of craigslist, figured I would look in here to see if there were any interested parties in picking things up. Will post some pictures of various equipment later, but if anyone is interested send me a PM.
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Apr 12, 2015 23:53
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Did a carb check on my english pale after a week in the bottle: Not too bad if I do say so myself. Tasted pretty good too!
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Apr 13, 2015 04:34
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I've moved back to western Washington and I'm looking for a good lhbs. I live on the east side of Lake Stevens but I'm willing to drive a bit if that's my only option.
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Apr 13, 2015 09:15
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Haven't been there myself, but Homebrew Heaven in Everett seems to have a good reputation. Looks like it's probably 20-25 minutes from you in Lake Stevens. http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/5027/?view=ratings&ba=jklinck
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Apr 13, 2015 16:43
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Scarf posted:Did a carb check on my english pale after a week in the bottle: Carb check? Or you just wanted a homebrew?
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Apr 13, 2015 17:25
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Carb check? Or you just wanted a homebrew? Both 
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Apr 13, 2015 17:55
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