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thotsky posted:I don't really know what to think of the way kveik is being advertised. Yeah, the beers traditionally made with it are fermented very warm, but those beers are very far removed from mainstream craft beer, and can contain flavors I don't think most drinkers would consider good. Does a warm fermented kveik produce an American IPA of the same quality as a temperature controlled US-05 ferment? If so, who's to say that's down to the kveik, and not just that the overton window on what is acceptable yeast characteristics in an American IPA has shifted? Maybe other conventional yeasts would produce beers that are likewise acceptable at those temperatures. If you haven't seen it Lars Marius Garshol has a sparsely updated but fantastic blog about European farmhouse beers in general and Norwegian ones especially. Lots of trip reports, traditional brewing processes, history and commentary, and he's made several posts about kveik in the last year. Might be some answers for you there and it's an interesting read in any case if you're into that stuff.
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Jul 22, 2019 18:59
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Well, that's the most eventful start to a brew day I've had in a long time. I washed kegs and got my gear ready. The hopper on my mill had gotten messed up somehow, so I ended up dumping it back and forth to another bucket while trying to fix it. Then, I finally got it fixed on the third attempt but tipped over the last one-ish pounds of grain and crushed grain all over my porch. At least it's mashing finally, but this will undoubtedly turn out to be the best beer I've made in ages because I'll have no way to reproduce that part of it. That's the APA that will have El Dorado and Simcoe. I was also planning on making a quick sour saison with a short boil, L. plantarum, and 3726, and that may still happen today. I have no idea. My fuggles are about a week or two away from being harvested too. Probably make a brown ale, saison, or london porter to take advantage of actually getting enough for at least a batch this year. They do okay, but I should have planted a higher yield variety or even Willamette instead.
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Jul 22, 2019 19:09
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big scary monsters posted:If you haven't seen it Lars Marius Garshol has a sparsely updated but fantastic blog about European farmhouse beers in general and Norwegian ones especially. Lots of trip reports, traditional brewing processes, history and commentary, and he's made several posts about kveik in the last year. Might be some answers for you there and it's an interesting read in any case if you're into that stuff. Yeah, I love that blog. It sort of inspired my doubts here; I'm pretty sure Lars commented on the folly of defining "off flavors" when in some styles these things might be common and accepted. I've had some raw ales myself that were pretty dang off-putting. The more palatable kveik beer's I've had generally hide yeast expression behind a lot of sweetness or a touch of smoke. I guess if I really wanted a definitive answer to this I'd brew a bunch of kveik beers myself, but my passion is more for saison and mixed fermentation beers.
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Jul 22, 2019 19:16
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thotsky posted:I guess if I really wanted a definitive answer to this I'd brew a bunch of kveik beers myself, but my passion is more for saison and mixed fermentation beers. See, I'm right with you here. I've brewed a few, but I've also done raw saisons that turn out on point and in style. I don't think raw ale is necessarily the problem any more than the kveik is for those beers. I think they're probably just not great beer because of all the flaws jump out at you. "But it's traditional" people will say. And sure, it's traditional to do things in a style, but you could make traditional yoghurt and end up making really bland or off putting yoghurt. Use some tools and tricks learned through practice and advancement and it suddenly tastes better. Off flavors or flavors that are off putting, do not make for great beer. If THP were traditional in a Berliner weiss, you wouldn't have people fawning over it. I don't know why people hold off flavors in great esteem in anything else. (Looking at you, people who love green glass for your saisons and think it's traditional.) In the same breath, I will also say that the ascetic character that you get in Flanders is not an off flavor, but they control it and work to make it balanced. Which is I think the real point here. Not all flavors are bad or good, but it's all in how they're balanced. (Except THP, that's just bad.) If they don't balance the flavor in those traditional styles, it's just not going to be good. I've made raw ale that is indistinguishable from a boiled batch. It tastes similar, fermented the same, and comes out with similar clarity. If your process is good, and you treat the yeast well, you have a good chance to make good beer.
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Jul 22, 2019 19:30
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I know it's crazy to think about since it's still July, but is anyone else getting excited for Fall/Autumn? Hands down my favorite beer-season... And I just realized this morning that I need to get my Festbier underway for Oktoberfest. Hopefully brewing that in the next few weekends.
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Jul 22, 2019 23:26
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It’s rare that anything I brew makes it that long these days. A keg will last 3-4 weeks normally. It might make it that long if I pretend that it’s still fermenting or do mixed ferm and it is still going. I wish I could find more Brett isolates, but a lot of labs only prop pro-pitches of single strains. It’s not entirely necessary of course, but it would be interesting to play with them. I do look forward to brewing a new batches of London porter and some American Browns.
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Jul 23, 2019 01:32
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My favorite things to drink are lagers and milder styles, but hands down my favorite things to brew have always been porters and stouts. Something about it is extra satisfying. Fall is definitely porter-making time.
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Jul 23, 2019 01:42
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Scarf posted:I know it's crazy to think about since it's still July, but is anyone else getting excited for Fall/Autumn? Even my wife, who hardly drinks, has noticed that I haven't brewed anything dark recently. So yes, I will be brewing an export stout next brewday. I just hope it's not a million degrees while I am brewing it. I recall something very similar last year - I had this beautiful stout on, but it was still hot (easily through September around here). Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jul 23, 2019 |
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Jul 23, 2019 02:28
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I jumped into the Hard Seltzer craze and decided to make my own because my kegerator is 100% empty and I'm between beers. 2x 750ml bottles of Absolute Citrus 10.5 liters of water Zest of 7 limes I looks like pond water due to the lime zest bleeding out. It's gonna get ~3.25 volumes of gas as soon as I get my tank refilled. I was going to do a sugar wash and ferment it, but I want to see how good this comes out.
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Jul 23, 2019 11:37
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I'm buying a house with a basement and backyard after 10+ years of single bedroom apartment brewing and I'm excited for all the beer I'm going to have the time and space to brew. Please quote this post in 6 months when I've made a single batch and totally have a recipe sketched out for the second.
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Jul 23, 2019 12:47
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Hypnolobster posted:My favorite things to drink are lagers and milder styles, but hands down my favorite things to brew have always been porters and stouts. Something about it is extra satisfying. Fall is definitely porter-making time. And porter-drinking time! I'm about ready to crack open my Baltic that's been in the keezer since late January. Poured a sample a few days ago and it was fantastic.
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Jul 23, 2019 13:33
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robotsinmyhead posted:I jumped into the Hard Seltzer craze and decided to make my own because my kegerator is 100% empty and I'm between beers. Interested in how this turns out, cause that's an easy way to get a keg filled.
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Jul 23, 2019 13:39
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Toebone posted:I'm buying a house with a basement and backyard after 10+ years of single bedroom apartment brewing and I'm excited for all the beer I'm going to have the time and space to brew. Please quote this post in 6 months when I've made a single batch and totally have a recipe sketched out for the second. Hah, I did 220v induction in my apartment, but the house had a gas dryer, so I picked up a Blichmann hellfire as part of my "moving expenses". Did two or three batches the first year (had a baby shortly before buying the house), but this year I'm at eight batches or so. Check your basement temps, it might be perfect for lagers this fall/winter!
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Jul 23, 2019 14:52
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Does anyone use a multi-body secondary CO2 regulator distributor for their keezer? Do you feel like the extra cost is worth it? Does it make balancing your system easier? I mean, I like to think I brew a decent variety of beers with at least moderately different carb levels, but $200 compared to $50 to get gas to 4 kegs...
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Jul 23, 2019 16:41
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Scarf posted:Does anyone use a multi-body secondary CO2 regulator distributor for their keezer? I use a two stage system to be able to have separate pressure to my two kegs. Is it worth it? Hard to say, but when I have two beers on (at vastly different volumes) it's very useful. That being said, I tend to have kegs kick around for about a month, and in that time I prefer to not have overcarbed beer, or lose carb over time. If you're not running something near 3.0 vol, at the same time as something at 2.5, it might be worth it? I inherited my two-stage system so I didn't have to shell out for it.
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Jul 23, 2019 16:49
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I have 4 taps amd room for 5 kegs in my kegerator and bought a dual body regulator and a 4 way distributor. One regulator feeds the 4 way splitter and then I have a fifth line on the second regulator. This allows me to have one keg at a different serving pressure for carbing or if I just want a significantly higher or lower level of CO2. Right now I have a keg of saison set at 14 psi, then my other 3 kegs of lager are running at 10. Its nice but not super necessary.
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Jul 23, 2019 16:53
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Josh Wow posted:I have 4 taps amd room for 5 kegs in my kegerator and bought a dual body regulator and a 4 way distributor. One regulator feeds the 4 way splitter and then I have a fifth line on the second regulator. This allows me to have one keg at a different serving pressure for carbing or if I just want a significantly higher or lower level of CO2. Right now I have a keg of saison set at 14 psi, then my other 3 kegs of lager are running at 10. Its nice but not super necessary. That sounds like a pretty good compromise... Might go that route. Thanks!
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Jul 23, 2019 17:04
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I have a dual regulator, and each feeds a four line manifold. I usually have two kegs of beer, one of water, and one of white wine. This also allows extra lines for pushing sanitizer, or carbonating something. Or I can sneak in a half keg of something else.
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Jul 23, 2019 20:40
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Since I have two CO2 bottles, I have been thinking about just buying a second single-body regulator and putting a couple of gas lines on that. That way, I would be able to go portable without disrupting my serving setup, or I could set up the other reg to run another pressure.
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Jul 23, 2019 22:14
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The way I normally see people doing it in pictures is two regulators going to two manifolds. I could conceive of reasons for a single for each, but it’s probably going to be good enough to just have two different pressures. Three if you force carb everything, but with these carb lids that are relatively cheap, you can just hook up to serving pressure and be done the next day.
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Jul 23, 2019 22:44
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Personally, I'm tempted to just buy a second bottle+regulator. I've been carbing my kegs with the rock-and-roll method lately and I VASTLY prefer it to burst carbing in the keezer.
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Jul 24, 2019 03:19
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As someone who may be getting baby's first kegging setup in the next month or two: is there a qualitative difference in taste between force carbing and just putting your beer under a normal amount of carbing pressure for a week or so?
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Jul 24, 2019 07:23
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Drone posted:As someone who may be getting baby's first kegging setup in the next month or two: is there a qualitative difference in taste between force carbing and just putting your beer under a normal amount of carbing pressure for a week or so? Nope, aside from the risk of over-carbing.
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Jul 24, 2019 13:10
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Toebone posted:Nope, aside from the risk of over-carbing. Or if you're doing mixed fermented beers it can be best to package with bottling sugar after sealing the lid with co2 head pressure.
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Jul 24, 2019 14:17
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After wiring it up backwards and scratching my head (and cursing) for 30 minutes, I finally got the new temp controller set up and running on the new upright ferm chamber. I had simply cracked open my old one to look at the wiring scheme, but failed to realize that my original one was flipped over, making all the terminals backwards compared to the one I was currently wiring...  Hooray for my keezer not having to pull double-duty anymore and me not having to coordinate fermentation/lagering rotations! Scarf fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jul 24, 2019 |
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Jul 24, 2019 17:02
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I'm lucky enough that I can just do lagering and fermenting in the winter. I may build a box to lager in the stairwell that leads down to the basement. It should keep a very consistent temp all winter if I do it right. Otherwise, my version of temp control is the current ambient temp in three locations in my place. It would be nice to add a fourth spot. Well, nice for me, my family just gets to look at it when it's not in the basement.
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Jul 24, 2019 17:08
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Toebone posted:Nope, aside from the risk of over-carbing. Also it's slow, like really slow. Fine if the beer needs to be conditioned anyways, but most of the time you could already have been drinking it for a week and a half.
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Jul 24, 2019 17:48
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Speaking of kveik, my GF came home from a walk today with a bunch of mjødurt (meadowsweet, in Norwegian literally "mead herb") and says that there is a ton of it growing nearby at the moment. I've been wanting to try a brew with it for a while, and was also wondering if it might be an opportunity to try a kveik. I haven't used either before, though, or tried any other gruit. I'm limited to extract brews with speciality grains, any pointers on building a recipe? Or any tips on using meadowsweet or kveik?
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Jul 24, 2019 19:28
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The pale ale I brewed on Monday is already in a keg and dry hopping. It was at 1.011 already, so it's good to finish under pressure. Crazy fast. It's very fragrant, so I'm hoping this will allow me to keep more of that hop character. I'm expecting that I'll have to dry hop the Sour Brown Saison (with Cashmere) in another day or two because that's just flying too. I'm not sure what it is, but my turn around time is so much faster than it was even last year. Better yeast quality and control maybe?big scary monsters posted:Speaking of kveik, my GF came home from a walk today with a bunch of mjødurt (meadowsweet, in Norwegian literally "mead herb") and says that there is a ton of it growing nearby at the moment. I've been wanting to try a brew with it for a while, and was also wondering if it might be an opportunity to try a kveik. I haven't used either before, though, or tried any other gruit. I'm limited to extract brews with speciality grains, any pointers on building a recipe? Or any tips on using meadowsweet or kveik? Read http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/393.html and other things you can find on the strain you have. Most tend to want nutrients for worts under 1.060 sg and most like to ferment warmer. Also, underpitch by quite a bit. The yeast registry there has pitch temps for most of the strains and it's good to keep it warm afterward. I haven't used meadowsweet, but it sounds interesting. If you want to highlight your herbs, I tend to go with a pale recipe with my base malt starting around 80-85% of the total grist. I adjust from there if I'm adding wheat/rye/spelt there ends up less base malt. For pale beers it may end up more, but I start there and then add specialty malts (munich, vienna, chocolate, etc). For Norwegian farmhouse beers, they didn't really have those unless they roasted themselves, so typically it wouldn't contain the specialty malts we're used to using. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't work. So if you're limited, just start with light dme and go from there. Maybe a bit of wheat dme to give something else, or maybe toss in a small amount of smoked malt to add another dimension. Maybe use some light crystal, some amber, or brown to add another dimension.
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Jul 24, 2019 20:23
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I'd never noticed this before, so someone Physics me: I got my CO2 tank filled (again) and did a rock/roll carb on my Whiteclaw clone. The tank was warm. I put it in the keezer then over night turned off, and it looks like it lost ~1/5th of its volume. That's just from the gas cooling off right? Please tell me my tank is magically venting through the main shutoff valve.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:04
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Yes, it will appear to have lost volume if you cool it down.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:07
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Yep. noble gas law - pressure goes down when temperature goes down. If you let the tank warm up again, it will "grow back" the gas you "lost."
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Jul 25, 2019 16:19
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Jhet posted:Read http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/393.html and other things you can find on the strain you have. Most tend to want nutrients for worts under 1.060 sg and most like to ferment warmer. Also, underpitch by quite a bit. The yeast registry there has pitch temps for most of the strains and it's good to keep it warm afterward. I haven't used meadowsweet, but it sounds interesting. That's really helpful, thank you! Ironically it seems like it's much quicker for me to get hold of Wyeast or White Labs strains than actual farmhouse yeast despite living in the Norwegian countryside, but I'm going to check some local forums and see if anything else is easily available.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:26
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Thanks. I was a bit sauced last night when I came home and the beer had been on 40psi for the last 5 hours and it looked like it had leaked out - which if you read my dumbass posts, I'm extremely nervous about. I got pretty mad about it and shut the whole thing off, woke up this morning, and it had lost even more, but it was likely just from the cooling.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:50
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big scary monsters posted:That's really helpful, thank you! Ironically it seems like it's much quicker for me to get hold of Wyeast or White Labs strains than actual farmhouse yeast despite living in the Norwegian countryside, but I'm going to check some local forums and see if anything else is easily available. Please allow me to make that infinitely easier for you. Here's a kveik trading group on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/174036689779170/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1263168033840104/ I haven't used either of them, but they're out there. I think the first has a bunch of them in Norway, so they might be able to just post them to you.
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Jul 25, 2019 17:42
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What do people think of those plastic conical brewing setups? Saw a FastFerment in my local brewing store and it looked interesting, but I guess the reviews there are pretty terrible. We've always used glass carboys, not sure about the idea of using plastic. Used to brew with my parents, getting started putting together my own setup. I'm jumping straight to kegging, gently caress cleaning out a billion bottles and putting up with sediment at the bottom of the bottle. So the idea of something that doesn't need to be racked from primary to secondary sounds pretty appealing. Just not sure about the idea of plastic, seems like if you scratch it then it would become impossible to clean. tbh I probably just need to troll craigslist or whatever and see if I can find somebody flipping a stainless conical setup. Or even if I had to pony up retail for it... whatever, I'll get use out of it. The conical fermenting systems with temp-hold heater/chiller functionality look awesome and I'd totally be down for raspberry-pi style hooking everything up to monitoring and poo poo. Automated sparging would be pretty cool too if that's possible, be nice not to have to tweak flow. But that's definitely a "someday" thing. For now since I don't have a kegerator (or even a spare fridge to throw kegs into) my intended serving method would be to take a hose tap and transfer it to some growlers and toss it in the fridge to cool it off... is that practical? Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 05:39
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Plastic is safer to move than glass carboys and unless you're doing long term mixed fermentation there won't be any impact from oxygen ingress to worry about as it takes a very long time. I don't use the plastic conical fermenters because I find them to be too expensive to be worth it. I'm not sure what you'd be doing to it where you'd scratch it (although it's possible), but for about $20 you can have a plastic bucket fermenter that will last a long time if you don't throw sharp objects at it. I've had mine for about five years and about 20-25 batches a year for the last four between 3 buckets. New carboys are triple the price and I'd have to build a safe way to move them (so a box). There are people in this thread who have stainless conicals and will probably speak well of them. If that's the sort of money you want to drop, it won't be the worst thing. It wouldn't be terrible to find it second hand. There are a lot of people in my area who are getting out of the hobby right now, and it's not really growing at the moment, so you might have some luck depending on your area. In the meantime, one bucket would get you through, and it will come in handy for other parts of the process if you do manage to find a stainless conical. I just wouldn't do the plastic one. E: Your plan with growlers won't be ideal (CO2 dissolves differently at different temps, and will make serving more difficult and foamy), and you can't condition in them as they're not rated for pressure. You could probably find a small fridge or freezer on craigslist. Or the one I bought was maybe $150 at the time for 7 cu ft. Jhet fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 06:33
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Plastic is fine, but those are trash. Get a spiedel.
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Jul 26, 2019 13:28
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My whiteclaw project has a weird snag that I've seen in a few of my beers before. I assaulted this thing with gas for days hoping to get an effervescent champagne-like carbonation, but it just won't take. When I pour it, it's SUPER fizzy with a massive head (no protein, so it dies right away) but the actual fluid is practically flat. I don't actually understand this - if the CO2 is in solution, it shouldn't be coming out that fast. I've tried messing with the serving pressure, which knocks down the fizzing a bit, but it doesn't fix the fact that it's flat. Any ideas?
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Jul 29, 2019 12:08
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How long is your tap line and what is the inner diameter? It might need more restriction for higher carbonation levels.
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Jul 29, 2019 13:17
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