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Just went and kegged the beer from that exploded fermenter I posted about a month back. The beer is absolutely fine, though from my super yeast pitching it finished all the way down to 1.008 and 9.8% ABV. Not what I was trying to make but actually pretty good in its own right. Tonight I'll be making my first attempt at dragging a keg to a party. Think I will leave this rocket fuel at home though.
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Sep 25, 2015 21:50
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Acceptableloss posted:Also, does anyone here have experience with Lactobacillus Brevis? Does it really drop the gravity as fast as Wyeast advertised in their De Bom blend? I'm looking to (as quickly as feasible) add some tartness to a beer I've been aging for 9 months already. I'm thinking adding some maltodextrin and L Brevis may be the way to go. Re-posting this because I'm thinking it may have been missed with my other question in the same post. Acceptableloss fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Sep 25, 2015 |
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Sep 25, 2015 22:01
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Acceptableloss posted:Re-posting this because I'm thinking it may have been missed with my other question in the same post. I've used brevis, but I doubt it's the only LAB in De Bom, since while Brevis is hop and alcohol tolerant is still going to peter or fairly quickly once your sach fermentation starts going. Great for Berliners though.
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Sep 25, 2015 22:19
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Kaiho posted:Are you just going to weld a tube into the bottom and attach a butterfly valve? And a removable standpipe on the inside? Got it off a local brewery so they've already done all that [they fitted cooling system too, so I just gotta hook up my flash cooler to it etc] because expanding from 5 barrel to 15 so I swooped in and got their old kit cheap ;D Works out in total including all the little extra things like pumps and such I'll have set up a 5 barrel brewery for 1/4th the price, maybe more!
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Sep 25, 2015 22:58
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 It is DONE. FIlled up one of the kegs with Star-San water and ran the lines through - with the purchase of 2 more kegs, I'll have 3 kegs on tap with 1 extra for dedicated cleaning. This has been kind of a pain in the rear end and I'm glad it's (99%) done. All that's left is possibly insulating the inside.
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Sep 25, 2015 23:05
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Fluo posted:First of the 5 barrel [180 US gallon] open top fermenters turned up, now just to piece it together Yeah pretty much the idea is to run a couple small holes through the lid and to have them similar sized to carboys so you can bung one up and run a probe into the fridge. Ideally bung the second but drill the holes on the one that has the lines running through it in order to get a tight fit. And yeah, ultimately finding a chest freezer that doesn't have top cooling in the lid is the goal. It'll be a few months until I'm done anyway so once I am ill post pictures. I get 2 weeks at Xmas so I plan on trying to assemble everything I need for then and basically just putting it together. It should be doable at $600/week income after rent and expenses but I like making cured meats too so there's that haha
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Sep 26, 2015 08:31
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McSpergin posted:It's all well and good until the chest freezer packs it in This is pretty cool. Is this all contained in one model or is this an assembly? Also did you design all the faucets, etc yourself or did you somehow find part files online?
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Sep 26, 2015 14:40
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wildfire1 posted:I've used brevis, but I doubt it's the only LAB in De Bom, since while Brevis is hop and alcohol tolerant is still going to peter or fairly quickly once your sach fermentation starts going. Great for Berliners though. L Brevis is definitely not the only lacto stain in the De Bom blend, but it's supposed to be the most aggressive, hop tolerant, and fastest fermenting. That's why it's effective for all lacto fermentations like Berliner weisse. The De Bom blend advertises tart flavor production in 1-2 months. The guys on the sour hour podcast also talked about Brevis tearing through a wort very quickly on its own. I was just curious if anyone here had experience with it and what conditions they used.
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Sep 26, 2015 15:57
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illcendiary posted:This is pretty cool. Is this all contained in one model or is this an assembly? Also did you design all the faucets, etc yourself or did you somehow find part files online? It's a multi part assembly, and I just modelled the tap, as an assembly, and the central section and bulb holders. I got the bulbs off grabcad and the pipe components and nuts and bolts were taken from the solidworks design library as they have most of the components like that modelled already. My fabricator is ordering in all my metal when he does his next stainless order 
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Sep 27, 2015 03:23
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Update on my 5 year past best by Cooper's Stout: bottled it on Monday, is carbonating in bottles (modestly, I bulk-carbed at a reduced rate because I'd read it tends to overcarb). In line with my iffy initial hydrometer technique, I'd guess probably ~3% ABV based on how buzzed I get off drinking it. Taste is surprisingly not awful considering the provenance of the ingredients and this being my first effort; not something I'm proud of, but drinkable. Once the semester ends in mid-October I think I'm gonna have a go at the Dark Ale kit that I purloined the yeast for this brew from, using yeast reconstituted from Cooper's Pale Ale bottles. Question I had: I fill the fermenter up to 23L like the recipe suggests, so even with the yeast cake at the bottom (and a bit of beer I was too lazy to try and get out) and fairly regular hydrometer readings, I wound up with 21+L at the end of it. Would this be partially to blame for the lower ABV, and if so, is there a particular recommended amount to reduce the added water volume by? Jo3sh posted:I stopped using glass carboys and went back to buckets for a few years after I dropped a carboy full of wort. A friend of mine dropped a glass carboy on his foot this year, required a trip to the ER and lots of stitches 
Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Dec 20, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 11:37
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For people who have mashed with pumpkins or similar vegetables, how did you figure out your strike/sparge water volumes for those additions? I'm doing a pretty simple mash for a sweet potato wheat beer with 5lbs of 2-row, 3lbs of German wheat and 6lbs of halved and roasted sweet potatoes and I have no idea how to calculate for the sweet potato in terms of water volumes.
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Sep 28, 2015 03:30
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rockcity posted:For people who have mashed with pumpkins or similar vegetables, how did you figure out your strike/sparge water volumes for those additions? I'm doing a pretty simple mash for a sweet potato wheat beer with 5lbs of 2-row, 3lbs of German wheat and 6lbs of halved and roasted sweet potatoes and I have no idea how to calculate for the sweet potato in terms of water volumes. The Mad Fermentationist says he doesn't mash it, he just adds it to the fermenter. Apparently, there's not a lot of starch in pumpkin flesh to convert, so there's not much to gain by trying to convert it. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2015/09/chocolate-butternut-squash-porter-recipe.html
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Sep 28, 2015 03:36
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Jo3sh posted:The Mad Fermentationist says he doesn't mash it, he just adds it to the fermenter. Apparently, there's not a lot of starch in pumpkin flesh to convert, so there's not much to gain by trying to convert it. Yeah, I've found supposed statistics for sweet potatoes on forums for Beersmith and it's almost negligible. Most of the people I've found using it though were throwing it in the mash. I hadn't even considered putting in in the fermenter, but that's an interesting option. I do want to oven roast them for flavor, but I could give them a quick steam to kill anything that might be on the surface afterwards. Edit: He does say the squash flavor was subtle at best, but that beer is loaded with a lot of flavors, so it's hard to say if it's the beer or the method. Double edit: I stuck with putting them in the mash. Man does that make for a hard run-off/sparge. I had to stir and blow through the exit valve to unclog a whole bunch of times. The wort did seem to have some sweet potato flavor in it though which was good to see. I still may throw another pound or two in the fermenter when I add the maple syrup to it just to try to up it a little more. rockcity fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 04:22
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I am inadvertently preforming a science experiment... I made a Belgian IPA yesterday and discovered that even with the false bottom, it IS possible to clog my chiller with hops. It was a 11g batch with a whole pile of hops in a hopstand. Only 5.25oz in the boil. I was able to get one carboy chilled to pitching temp and it clogged hard when the other one was still at 110. I was too tired to mess with unclogging the chiller, resanitizing it and trying again, so I transferred it to the fermenter and left it overnight to chill. It was down to pitch temp this morning. Same yeast in both, but i gave the slow chill one an extra 50% of the yeast slurry to compensate. Exact same beer otherwise. I am curious to see if there is even a difference. 110 is cool enough it *shouldn't* affect the hops too much, but that's prime infection territory. Anyone want to trade my plate chiller for a cfc...?
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Sep 28, 2015 13:09
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Hello, homebrew thread. I haven't brewed anything for months - longer than that if we mean strictly "at home". I'm looking for inspiration. I want to brew something fairly easy to get me back into it and something I won't need a ton of silly ingredients for. My temperature control is a bit lacking but it's pretty much a constant 17C (62.6F) in the room where I'd be fermenting. Help me thread, what style of beer should I get on with? I like drinking pretty much all styles, but probably could do something lightly hoppy/floral/easy drinking.
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Sep 28, 2015 15:17
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Pale Ale or IPA is always the first thing I make when I get back into brewing when I take a break.
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Sep 28, 2015 15:58
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Kaiho posted:Hello, homebrew thread. At that temperature a simple Pale Ale would work, but Saisons are nice and simple and usually don't need any temperature control at all: Simple Saison: 80% Pale or Pilsner 20% Wheat or Oats 3711 French Saison Yeast Hop to anywhere between 20-40 IBU. All hopping schedules work pretty well depending on whether you want to showcase the yeast or the hops. Likewise, Saisons are great in a wide range of gravities so you don't really have to worry that much about hitting a specific target.
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Sep 28, 2015 16:06
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I just did a Pseudo-SMASH APA, something like: 95% Vienna (I wanted to try this as a base malt) 5% CaraVienne ~1oz Bittering Hops ~1oz 10min ~2oz as a 180º Whirlpool / Hopstand ~2oz as a 160º Whirlpool / Hopstand ~3oz dryhop US-05 Aside from the Vienna, I wanted to experiment with late addition hops, and I had a bunch of varieties that I'm trying to get rid of - 7Cs, Amarillo, and Calypso all made it into this batch. Racking over to my keg, I'm not sure I've ever had a beer smell as amazing as this one, and even though I was just tasting it uncarbed out of the hydrometer, it was downright juicy.
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Sep 28, 2015 16:18
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robotsinmyhead posted:I just did a Pseudo-SMASH APA: That's the exact same hop schedule my Belgian IPA that clogged my plate chiller used. It was clean out hop freezer day... Glad it worked for you! Mine was: 1.25oz magnum bittering 2oz cascade, 2oz Amarillo 10min 1.25 oz citra, 2oz Amarillo 60min @180 2oz citra, 3oz Amarillo 30min @160 Dry hop is whatever Amarillo I have left. Beer Smith had it ~100 ibu and it tasted every bit of it. Smelled like apricots. I am still amazing how much bitterness you can pull out of the higher temp whirlpool hops.
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Sep 28, 2015 16:33
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Kaiho posted:Hello, homebrew thread. I've come to discover that I'm starting to drift into crazy land as far as the stuff that I've brewed this last summer and so I'm going back to basics. Like others said,I think a pale ale or saison would be a good start. Thinking of doing the same to get my fundamentals realigned, starting with a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:38
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Kaiho posted:I want to brew something fairly easy to get me back into it and something I won't need a ton of silly ingredients for. I like drinking pretty much all styles, but probably could do something lightly hoppy/floral/easy drinking. It's getting along to autumn, so I'd look into a nice porter or stout, myself, if you want an alternative to Pale Ale. I just grabbed a half-sack of brown malt, which I had never used before, so I tried a recipe loosely based my regular export stout, with some contribution from this article: http://byo.com/hops/item/1751-brown-malt Here's the recipe I settled on: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/blood-moon-eclipse-stout-09fd7f
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Sep 29, 2015 00:28
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Just brought a bunch of beer to a party weekend and the hit ended up being my all Citra, 50/50 MO/Pils (no crystal) + WLP002 beer. Managed to get a ton of flavor from 10oz of hops, and this is absolutely going to be my go-to single hop beer. I kind of want a version on tap all the time. No-sparge as usual. Recipe here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/241384/englishish-citra-ipa
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Sep 29, 2015 03:56
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Der Penguingott posted:I am inadvertently preforming a science experiment... Things I've learnt Don't use Belgian Ardennes in a session Belgian IPA. I dumped a full keg, every time I drank it I would not feel great. Next time I think I would just do it with a Trappist yeast but keep it similar to a patersbier with more hop so there's some phenolic and ester character as well as Ye olde hoppes
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Sep 29, 2015 04:10
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Glottis posted:Just brought a bunch of beer to a party weekend and the hit ended up being my all Citra, 50/50 MO/Pils (no crystal) + WLP002 beer. Managed to get a ton of flavor from 10oz of hops, and this is absolutely going to be my go-to single hop beer. I kind of want a version on tap all the time. Can you describe your no-sparge method? I've seen one version of it, but it involved a pump that I don't currently own.
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Sep 29, 2015 12:07
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McSpergin posted:Things I've learnt Was it just the combo of the yeast and the hops that just didn't agree? I used oyl-500, so we'll see I suppose. I guess i could blend if I need to tone the hops/bitterness down. The first two pitches had huge tropical fruit and lemon with a little bit of bananna, bubblegum and pepper. I figured it would go well with the fruity hops. From the smell of things so far this batch will be more spicy/peppery. I wish I knew more about how the hop and grain compounds effected ester and phenol production so it wasn't trial and error. I did the grain bill as a hybrid of my normal saison and an IPA: 75% mo, 10% wheat, 10% sugar & 5% Belgian pils (because this was also clean out the fridge day). Og was 1.069, expecting fg 1.005-6.
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Sep 29, 2015 13:11
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Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I think I'll shoot for something like a 5-ish% pale with something lovely like Amarillo/Mosaic. Thinking something tangerine-y and lovely. Jo3sh is right, it is getting toward autumn but my cupboards are full of stouts that I am never drinking. That said, brown malt (and amber malt!) are so overlooked, they're lovely.
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Sep 29, 2015 15:31
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Which pairing is better: Amarillo/Mosaic Amarillo/Citra Citra/Mosaic
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Sep 29, 2015 15:51
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Biomute posted:Which pairing is better: Citra and Mosiac pair fantastically. That'd be my first choice for sure.
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Sep 29, 2015 15:56
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Amarillo/citra is a favorite of mine. Mosaic pairs well with anything though, much like amarillo.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:02
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LaserWash posted:Bend, Oregon Just a quick update, but yeah that pretty much hits the nail on the head. I would totally move there and I only spent about 14 hours there. Hit 10 Barrel for a late dinner and did their 10 beer sampler and then hit the Deschutes tasting room the next morning. That whole trip to the Pacific Northwest was just awesome for beer. In addition to those, I also hit Cascade, Hair of the Dog, Pike, Fremont, Elysian and Granville Island. More related to homebrewing, I also contacted Crosby Hop Farms to see if they had any 1lb packages floating around and one of their guys got back to me and I met him for a private tour of their processing facility. That whole tour was awesome. He literally walked me through every piece of equipment they use. The whole place smells amazing. I left with 4.5lbs of hops including a new experimental hop that just got an official name a little while back, Idaho 7. Now I need a vacuum sealer so I can actually store these after I open them. Edit: I'm planning on using an ounce or two of the cascade to dry hop the meyer lemon kolsch/common that I kegged a couple weeks ago. The taste is awesome, but it lacks the citrus nose character I was hoping for so I figure dry hopping would help that a bit. I'm about to order a regulator for a paintball tank that I have so I can serve remotely so I can take this with me to an event next Thursday. The beer is sitting in my kegerator at serving temp. If I dry hop, should I take it out of the kegerator to let it warm up to room temp for the dry hop or just keep it cold? rockcity fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 18:03
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Festbiiiieeeerrrr. Super happy with the clarity, the gelatin worked fantastically. Really happy with how this beer turned out as well. A tad too much in my flameout hop addition given the style, but I can live with it.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:04
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LeafHouse posted:Citra and Mosiac pair fantastically. That'd be my first choice for sure. Seconding this, though any of those combinations should pair well. I have had several single-hop Amarillo and Citra beers, and find that I prefer Citra over Amarillo. I do a lot with just Mosaic. The most recent batch (which should be drinking this weekend) looked something like this for 11 gallons: 30 lbs American 2-Row 2 lbs White Wheat Malt 1 oz Mosaic @ 15 minutes 3 oz Mosaic @ 10 minutes 8 oz Mosaic @ Flameout / Whirlpooled 15 minutes 4 oz Mosaic split between two fermenters for 4 days before kegging I could easily see replacing some of the Mosaic with Citra or Amarillo. Maybe something to try for next time! Out of curiosity, which yeast strain are you planning to use? I've done a few variations on the above recipe with several different strains: Good: WLP001 Better: Danstar Nottingham + Danstar Windsor Ale Best, by a long shot: Yeast Bay Vermont Ale
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Sep 29, 2015 22:18
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nullfunction posted:Seconding this, though any of those combinations should pair well. I have had several single-hop Amarillo and Citra beers, and find that I prefer Citra over Amarillo. I don't like notto, something about it for me but if you're using it with Windsor as well it could be interesting. Seconding the Vermont ale it's an incredible yeast!!
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Sep 29, 2015 22:40
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Scarf posted:Festbiiiieeeerrrr. What was your recipe if you don't mind? I've got a starter of wlp833 sitting around that needs using
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Sep 29, 2015 22:42
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McSpergin posted:I don't like notto, something about it for me but if you're using it with Windsor as well it could be interesting. Thirding Vermont ale yeast. It's so good. I'm really regretting that I didn't harvest it, even though it was a bigger beer than you typically want to save yeast from. There are several companies carrying that strain now including newcomer Imperial that More Beer just started carrying.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:00
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nullfunction posted:Seconding this, though any of those combinations should pair well. I have had several single-hop Amarillo and Citra beers, and find that I prefer Citra over Amarillo. 3711 French Saison + Brett C (in primary). Going for tropical fruit-bomb. Might try the combination with my go to english yeast (1318 London Ale III) for one of those north-western style pale ales though. I'm guessing the vermont ale is similar if that's meant to be Hill Farmstead-like.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:30
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Inadvertent science experiment ongoing in my ferment fridge! When I pitched yeast for the current batch, I ran out of oxygen, so one fermenter got the usual dose and the other got a tiny gasp. At the moment, the full-dose fermenter is going great guns and starting to blow off, while the other one is going but has about half as much foam. They each got about the same amount of yeast (half of a 2L starter), so it will be interesting to see if there is any difference in the eventual beer.
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Sep 30, 2015 00:04
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robotsinmyhead posted:Can you describe your no-sparge method? I've seen one version of it, but it involved a pump that I don't currently own. 1) Get a comically oversized mash tun for 5 gallon batches 2) Calculate your strike water volume based on the absorption rate / mash tun loss, mine is about [desired preboil volume]+[0.12*lbs of grain] 3) Mash in. Some might say "it hurts attenuation to have such a thin mash!". Those people are wrong. 4) Drain everything into the kettle and go. No need to sparge. Coincidentally I'm having my first ever issues with attenuation. I'm wondering if I somehow mashed way too high (how bad would a mash in the ~157 range be for attenuation?), or if this special new canned yeast I'm using that's supposed to be Conan is totally letting me down. It's only been 5 days but it appears to have flocculated out already, and it's only at 60% AA.
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Sep 30, 2015 01:55
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Glottis posted:1) Get a comically oversized mash tun for 5 gallon batches I used a Yeast Bay version of it and it finished about 5 points above my estimated FG, but it was 8.6% so the little bit of sweetness wasn't a big deal. It actually tasted really balanced and it might have been a bit hotter otherwise.
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Sep 30, 2015 02:03
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Glottis posted:(how bad would a mash in the ~157 range be for attenuation?) I don't have a number or anything, but it would definitely tend to yield a low-attenuation wort.
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Sep 30, 2015 02:10
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