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As long as the active part of the ferment is over and you can keep them out of the light, the fermenters will probably be just fine, although agitated and needing to resettle. The kegs will be no issue unless they get really excessively warm (like the beer gets over a hundred degrees for a sustained period of time). If they have any sediment, they will get stirred up and need to resettle as well. Really, those things (both fermenters and kegs) have enough thermal mass that they will rise some in temperature during the drive, but not inordinately. It takes hours for chilled beer to get warm sitting at room temp; an hour and a half in the car will be just fine. Load them last and unload them first, or as close to that as you can. Insulate them and keep the sunlight off. Pad any glass carboys so they can't break. Sloshing might cause some spillage out of the carboys, so don't put them right by your nice furniture.
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Jul 14, 2016 18:41
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Also, Air conditioning. When I moved, the beer rode in the car with us.
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Jul 14, 2016 18:47
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I'd try and get everything out of fermenters if at all possible. Kegs should be 100% fine though.
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Jul 14, 2016 19:03
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Also, Air conditioning. LOL, the ultimate "roadie." Who really drinks their beer from the store out of cans and bottles when you can pull homebrew straight from the keg into your gullet?
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Jul 14, 2016 19:33
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I didn't drink it, it was just my precious brown ale in bottles (not kegged).
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Jul 14, 2016 20:03
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Have a freezer for fermentation control for my future beers. Excited to see if this makes a noticeable difference or not. I'm not expecting anything crazy since I age in the basement and the temperature usually hovers in the low 70s and I mostly drink ales but I'm sure it'l do something.
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Jul 15, 2016 03:36
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nullfunction posted:Ne Cede Malis, your beer is on its way! Check your PMs for tracking details. I tried a few of the beers and really enjoyed the saison and kolsch, both of which are styles I usually hate. The saison was my favorite by far! Just the right amount of spicyness but without the overpowering banana hammer I normally get with a lot of saisons. I can see why they won medals. If you don't mind me asking, what didn't you like about the kolsch? It was really pleasant to drink. There were some initial volatile aromas that were kind of strange but after that it was delicious. The head retention on it was crazy; it was thick and foamy for ~30 minutes it seemed. Never seen that before in any beer. Sadly, the rye IPA leaked out more than I thought and it was super papery and oxidized when I tried it. I could still taste the rye clearly though. What % of the grain bill was rye if you don't mind me asking? I'm thinking of making my own rye IPA and that seemed like the perfect amount of it to me. The wee heavy also was sadly completely flat when I opened it. I'm not sure if I was supposed to wait longer or if it had carbed enough. It's not a style I'm super familiar with but I can see how bottle conditioning would really make it shine. I've been kegging for a year or so now but this one really makes me want to try out cellaring some of my beers. In that vane also I'm going to sit on the Count Drunkula for a while and save it for a special occasion. Guess I'm saving the best for last! Also, Jhet I opened a few of the prison ciders I sent you and they tasted absolutely awful haha. Sorry I subjected you to that experiment! At least you now know what 0 effort cider tastes like I suppose.
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Jul 15, 2016 03:55
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Arcland posted:Have a freezer for fermentation control for my future beers. Excited to see if this makes a noticeable difference or not. I'm not expecting anything crazy since I age in the basement and the temperature usually hovers in the low 70s and I mostly drink ales but I'm sure it'l do something. At the very least, it's nice to eliminate it as a variable in the process.
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Jul 15, 2016 05:21
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Ne Cede Malis posted:Also, Jhet I opened a few of the prison ciders I sent you and they tasted absolutely awful haha. Sorry I subjected you to that experiment! At least you now know what 0 effort cider tastes like I suppose. I think it really was just fermented hot. It had some off flavors, but no acetic or vinegar, so it wasn't the worst thing I've ever tried by a long shot. I tried to make some rice wine and while it worked, it was just not very good. If you make it again, just keep it cooler and give it plenty of time to clear before kegging/bottling. Cider is really easy, but it takes about 2-4 times longer for it to start to be good. And don't forget the Pectic Enzyme and yeast nutrient. They both really help. That should make everyone having received their beer from the summer swap too. Thanks everyone for participating!
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Jul 15, 2016 05:35
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Arcland posted:Have a freezer for fermentation control for my future beers. Excited to see if this makes a noticeable difference or not. I'm not expecting anything crazy since I age in the basement and the temperature usually hovers in the low 70s and I mostly drink ales but I'm sure it'l do something. It's made a huuuge difference for me so far, but before I didnt have access to a cool basement and the ambient temp in my apartment is pretty high.
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Jul 15, 2016 07:15
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Drone posted:It's made a huuuge difference for me so far, but before I didnt have access to a cool basement and the ambient temp in my apartment is pretty high. Just getting a coolbrew bag and ice blocks has done a ton of good for my beers. I can keep my fermenter under 70 and have it hover around 65 regularly. It's done a great deal to cut down on off flavors or overpowering banana flavors in beers. That and just learning to be patient and waiting to pitch my yeast.
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Jul 15, 2016 13:52
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Arcland posted:Have a freezer for fermentation control for my future beers. Excited to see if this makes a noticeable difference or not. I'm not expecting anything crazy since I age in the basement and the temperature usually hovers in the low 70s and I mostly drink ales but I'm sure it'l do something. The biggest difference I noticed is that you can turn beers around much faster. They will also be a lot more consistent batch to batch. Keeping the fermentation in the ideal range eliminates a lot of the 'green beer' flavors and higher alcohols that need to be aged out.
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Jul 15, 2016 15:22
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I'm definitely picking up some of those Coolbrew Bags - I recently brewed some saisons, and they have too much ester character for my liking. Hopefully I can ferment at 60 degrees next time to keep the ester quality down.
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Jul 15, 2016 15:49
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Hi all! I'm making a heady topper clone with the yeast Rockcity sent me in the summer secret santa exchange I used a popular online calculator, and it says I need about 350 million cells. That seems high, as I've gotten similar ABV from IPA with just one packet of dry US-05, which I thought was about 200 million cells. What am I missing?
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Jul 15, 2016 16:10
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Drone posted:It's made a huuuge difference for me so far, but before I didnt have access to a cool basement and the ambient temp in my apartment is pretty high. Same here. I live in FL where it's hot 9 months out of the year. We keep our house at 74-75, so I was stuck using yeasts that could work in that range before I got my chamber set up. It's opened up a whole new world of yeasts for me. Drunk Nerds posted:Hi all! 350 doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility. I just double checked my Beersmith recipe for that DIPA and it called for 310 billion to go from 1.073 to 1.012. I'd consider doing a stepped up starter with that. If you can. Use a 2L flask and start with a 1L starter. Let that go then chill it for a couple days and decant off the liquid. Then brew up probably a 1.4L batch of wort and add that to the yeast. I'd probably add some fermcap if you can get your hands on it as this will get ripping at this stage and I had a foamover doing it once for a lager. This was on a stirplate though. To clarify, the 350 billion you got isn't the minimum needed to ferment, it's the recommended pitch rate. You could definitely ferment with less, but you may stress the yeast and get off flavors. You do also run the rist of the stress on the yeast making them crap out and your ferment gets stuck. On the opposite end of things, if you overpitch, you get little yeast character. rockcity fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jul 15, 2016 |
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Jul 15, 2016 16:19
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Drunk Nerds posted:Hi all! In my opinion, that calculator is not really ideally suited for homebrewing use. I know it's based on best practices in commercial brewing, where absolute consistency and rapid turnaround are keys to making a profit. Obviously, profit is not the motive for homebrewing, so the advice that calculator gives can be taken with a grain of DAP. You will absolutely make good beer with less than 350 billion cells, but you'll make better beer with 350 billion than you will with just the 100 billion that come in a smack pack. And of course, in the context of a culture you got from a friend, you're not going to have a great idea of the number of cells that are in it for a whole bunch of reasons. You can make a good SWAG at it, but it will hardly be perfect. I don't know what rockcity sent you, but you probably will want to make a good starter from it. I think you kind of have to aim high, since the SWAG you will make about its viability will have some error, and you have to apply a correspondingly large fudge factor. 350 billion does not sound out of range as a target at all for a beer in the 1.075 range. And regarding dry yeast like US-05, I've made plenty of good beer with one sachet of dry in five gallons. For heavier beers and lagers, I tend to use two sachets, though.
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Jul 15, 2016 16:40
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Jo3sh posted:In my opinion, that calculator is not really ideally suited for homebrewing use. I know it's based on best practices in commercial brewing, where absolute consistency and rapid turnaround are keys to making a profit. Obviously, profit is not the motive for homebrewing, so the advice that calculator gives can be taken with a grain of DAP. You will absolutely make good beer with less than 350 billion cells, but you'll make better beer with 350 billion than you will with just the 100 billion that come in a smack pack. Yeah, the amount of cells in that vial is a real gamble, especially because it wasn't from a washed yeast cake, it was grown from a can of Heady topper. I stepped up from a 100ml to 1L starter from the can, decanted most of the liquid and then filled a white labs vial from that. Gun to my head, I'd wager maybe 80 billion cells in the vial, assuming I had maybe 200 billion in the 1L starter.
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Jul 15, 2016 16:49
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rockcity posted:Yeah, the amount of cells in that vial is a real gamble, especially because it wasn't from a washed yeast cake, it was grown from a can of Heady topper. I stepped up from a 100ml to 1L starter from the can, decanted most of the liquid and then filled a white labs vial from that. Gun to my head, I'd wager maybe 80 billion cells in the vial, assuming I had maybe 200 billion in the 1L starter. If I were in that situation, I'd probably put that vial into a 1.5L or maybe 2L starter for 5 gallons for wort at ~1.075. But that's just a guess.
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Jul 15, 2016 17:07
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Jo3sh posted:If I were in that situation, I'd probably put that vial into a 1.5L or maybe 2L starter for 5 gallons for wort at ~1.075. But that's just a guess. Yeah a 2L would do it probably do it. I only have a 2L flask so 1.5L is typically the biggest I go so I usually do a step up for big beers.
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Jul 15, 2016 17:36
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So, my first ever brewing experiment (a Brookly Brew Shop Everyday IPA), ended up in a disaster with every bottle overcarbonating and having to be thrown away. I'd like to give it one more shot before I give up and decide buying stuff was a waste of money. Can anyone recommend me a simple stout recipe, preferably a stronger one, which I can ferment for a good while just to be extra sure everything's done.
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Jul 15, 2016 18:42
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Is that a 1-gallon kit? Or a 5-gallon? And are you doing extract, or all-grain (I presume extract, but want to be sure)? How strong are you thinking - export stout (Guinness Extra Stout) or Imperial stout (Old Rasputin)? In general, you can prevent bottle bombs by: 1) Pitching a good dose of healthy yeast. In five gallons, one sachet of questionable yeast might not get the ferment going quickly, or it might ferment slowly. Get good fresh yeast, and make sure you're pitching enough. For five gallons of strong beer, like the stout you're asking about, this can mean using two sachets of yeast. 2) Managing temperature. If you have wild temperature swings in your ferment area, the yeast can be less efficient or can even just decide to go to sleep for a while. Ideally, you want a coolish room temperature, but consistency is just as important as the thermometer reading. If the area where your fermenter sits is at 65 degrees F during the day, but drops to 45 at night, you might have some issues. 3) Making sure the ferment is finished. The all-time best way to do this is by checking the gravity. I know you're in a position of not wanting to throw good money after bad, but if you don't already have a hydrometer and test jar, they will help you to understand the state of your ferment. By pulling a sample when you think the ferment is over, and then a day or two later, you can see whether it is still dropping. As a crude alternative, you can just wait longer. For most "normal" beers, two weeks is generally enough; for stronger beers, you may want to go three to four weeks if this is your method. Item 1 above will help a lot with this also, as a healthy pitch of yeast will ferment out much more quickly than a weak one. 4) Prime your bottles appropriately and consistently. When I bottled, I used to batch prime, by making my calculated carbonation charge into a syrup by boiling it for a few minutes with a pint or so of water, putting that into my sanitized bottling bucket, racking the finished beer into the bucket, giving it a gentle stir, and then bottling. Alternatively, you could look at a metered method for adding sugar to each individual bottle. Probably the easiest way to do this is with some kind of carbonation drop or capsule. I think Northern Brewer has one they sell which comes in a soluble capsule, so you just add the right number for the size of the bottle you're using - I think it's 2 for 12 oz., 3 for 500mL, 4 for a 22 oz., or something like that. Check the directions for best success. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 15, 2016 |
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Jul 15, 2016 18:51
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Jo3sh posted:Is that a 1-gallon kit? Or a 5-gallon? And are you doing extract, or all-grain (I presume extract, but want to be sure)? Anyway, I'd prefer all-gain, since that's what my first batch was as well.
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Jul 15, 2016 19:14
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Bigger batches aren't easier, really, but they are also not appreciably harder. But I just edited my other post with a bunch of other things that might help as general advice. Let me cut down my M'aidez Export Stout to a 1-gallon recipe. That one was really good, and won a club competition a while ago.
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Jul 15, 2016 19:30
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M'aidez Export Stout (1 gallon recipe) 2 pounds Maris Otter ale malt (UK) 0.2 pounds flaked oats 0.2 pounds roast barley (UK) 0.15 pounds chocolate malt (UK) NB: I strongly recommend UK malts for this. It makes a huge difference. US malts are just thinner somehow, and the roast malts don't have as much character to them. Mash at 151-152 for 60-90 minutes. 0.4 oz. Northdown, boil for 60 min. 0.2 oz. Challenger, boil for 15 min. White Labs London Ale yeast, WLP013 In a 1-gallon batch, you don't need to make a starter, and even a whole packet of this yeast is almost too much. You might consider using half a packet if you can do so easily enough. You might also sub in Fermentis S-04 English Ale yeast (blue packet). It's a dry yeast and will be easier to divide, and it's a few bucks cheaper. But the WLP013 is the right yeast for this beer if you can manage it. OG should be about 1.067 and FG around 1.019, for about 6.2% ABV English stouts don't need a lot of carbonation. I actually served this through a fake beer engine I hacked together, so it was virtually still in the glass, but if you're bottling, you'll want to use a good online carbonation style chart and priming calculator to determine the right amount of sugar to use for your preference. My guess is that this beer will want about half an ounce of corn sugar for priming in one gallon. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jul 15, 2016 |
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Jul 15, 2016 19:42
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Jo3sh posted:In my opinion, that calculator is not really ideally suited for homebrewing use. I know it's based on best practices in commercial brewing, where absolute consistency and rapid turnaround are keys to making a profit. Obviously, profit is not the motive for homebrewing, so the advice that calculator gives can be taken with a grain of DAP. You will absolutely make good beer with less than 350 billion cells, but you'll make better beer with 350 billion than you will with just the 100 billion that come in a smack pack. ^ This exactly. Unless you're counting cells, and testing for viability in your sample, you aren't going to know how many cells you have in your starter much less the yeast you were sent. I've noticed that when I do count cells and test for viability (requires a microscope, a hemocytometer slide, dye, patience to count the little buggers, and is a  rabbit hole), I tend to need a certain size of starter using a stir plate for anything over 60% viability. Small beers (up to about 1.045) need about .75L of starter. Normal beers (1.045-1.060) need about 1L. Large beers (1.060-1.075) need about 1.25L, and if you're going larger than that, you're going to get towards making a 2L starter. So using an online calculator isn't a bad thing if your yeast is fresh and/or was stored well in a cold place. I can usually get away with storing yeast in mason jars in a 40F degree freezer for at least 6 months before my viability really starts to drop. Anything older than that you're possibly going to need to step and hope that you have enough viable yeast. If it is old, give yourself an extra three days in case you don't get the activity you were expecting from a starter and then step it. Also, some yeasts you'll find give off esters you like and other flavors you like when you stress them out by underpitching as well as fermenting at different temps. Learning your yeast takes time, because they react to their environments differently based on so many variables. It'll at least stay in the same ballpark, flavor wise, but the variations are great fun to play with.
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Jul 15, 2016 20:11
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Hey, thanks everyone... really helpful stuff. Yes, I was planning on doing a 1 L starter, decanting, then doing another 1L. Sounds like maybe I should make that secondary starter 1.5L?
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Jul 15, 2016 22:12
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Just for grins, I went back and looked at the first posts in the three home brewing threads we've been running. HBT1 was started by goon Mulaney Power Move on May 29, 2007 - more than nine years ago, and this one has been running almost five years itself. poo poo, guys, we've been at this for almost a freaking decade.
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Jul 15, 2016 22:53
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Drunk Nerds posted:Hey, thanks everyone... really helpful stuff. I go slightly bigger on the next one because you hit a max saturation point where yeast just won't reproduce more in a given volume and you likely won't gain nearly as much as you think doing a second 1L.
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Jul 15, 2016 22:55
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Jo3sh posted:Just for grins, I went back and looked at the first posts in the three home brewing threads we've been running. HBT1 was started by goon Mulaney Power Move on May 29, 2007 - more than nine years ago, and this one has been running almost five years itself. Incredible! I have only been posting since maybe 2008
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Jul 15, 2016 23:55
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Der Penguingott posted:The biggest difference I noticed is that you can turn beers around much faster. They will also be a lot more consistent batch to batch. I'm excited to see that so many people find it a big impact. Now I just need to go through ~ 7 more gallons before starting the next batch up.
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Jul 16, 2016 03:23
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My bottled beer has the same off flavor as the keg, so I will start PMing people for addresses who previously volunteered to take a taste.
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Jul 16, 2016 23:43
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:My bottled beer has the same off flavor as the keg, so I will start PMing people for addresses who previously volunteered to take a taste. Maybe you don't like beer?
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Jul 17, 2016 13:01
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Biomute posted:Maybe you don't like beer? Let us say that is not a problem.
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Jul 17, 2016 16:11
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Just for the sake of argument, I'll assume that you don't actually dislike beer.
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Jul 17, 2016 16:12
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Drunk Nerds posted:Hey, thanks everyone... really helpful stuff. For grins I built up a pitch in the BrewersFriend starter calculator. Starting values are a Slurry of 80 Billion cells. Doing 2 individual 2L starters (1.040 no agitation) results in a final pitch of 289 billion cells with a target of 284 billion cells. If you need to get up to 350 by your other calculations, you may need to use a Stirplate or at least shake the starter on a regular basis.
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Jul 17, 2016 16:16
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Zaepho posted:For grins I built up a pitch in the BrewersFriend starter calculator. Starting values are a Slurry of 80 Billion cells. Which would make good beer for sure. Homebrewing is, for the reasons Jhet pointed out and many more besides, much more about ballparks than precision targeting. With 280-some billion cells, that HT clone will ferment out just fine and will taste delicious.
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Jul 17, 2016 16:35
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I'm about to use my brand new Inkbird temperature controller for the first time, wort's just coming up to a boil. I'll be fermenting in the mini-fridge I usually use as a kegerator. What's my best option for the temperature probe: - inside a jar of water, in the fridge - taped to the side of the fermenter with some foam insulation -through the airlock, directly in the wort -going to the LHBS and buying a thermowell I'm leaning towards taped to the side, any thoughts?
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Jul 17, 2016 18:33
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I had good results with underneath the carboy in the punt space, and also taped to the side with some insulation. What I do now is just in the air of the ferment fridge and keeping that a few degrees below the target ferment temp of the beer. The key is to do something that works, and to do it consistently.
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Jul 17, 2016 18:56
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Jo3sh posted:Which would make good beer for sure. Yeah, counting cells is great fun and all... but there are so many other variables, that using ballparks instead of professional pitching rates makes much more sense for home brewing. There are definitely precision measurements you can make, but so long as you aren't severely underpitching, ballpark is going to get you as close as you feasibly need to be. Professional rates are for making exactly the same beer <insert large number> times a year, so that your customers are getting the same thing when they pop the bottle. Chances are for most home brewers, they're not going to notice a little difference from a variable pitching rate, or they aren't going to brew the same beer without changing something in the recipe or environment. Anyway those calculators really only provide a good ballpark anyway. The only way to know how many cells you're actually pitching is by counting. Get into the right ballpark with your quantity and your beer will do just fine.
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Jul 17, 2016 19:10
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Toebone posted:I'm about to use my brand new Inkbird temperature controller for the first time, wort's just coming up to a boil. I'll be fermenting in the mini-fridge I usually use as a kegerator. I tape it to the side under some bubblewrap. Works well enough.
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Jul 17, 2016 20:39
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