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The LHBS doesn't reopen until Thursday; gently caress it, sour dopplebock
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Nov 9, 2020 13:55
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Toebone posted:The LHBS doesn't reopen until Thursday; gently caress it, sour dopplebock If you’re fermenting and storing cold as well as >10ibus you’ll be fine. Probably don’t repitch that yeast.
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Nov 9, 2020 15:36
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I'm planning on buying myself either the Robobrew or Anvil Foundry with the recirculation kit. The Robobrew is a bit cheaper (~$600 vs $670 CAD) from my LHBS but the Anvil has the double walled vessel and looks like it has better build quality (from youtube reviews). I think the external pump is another point for the Anvil since it makes cleaning/unplugging much easier. Is there anything else I should be considering when comparing the two systems? Right now I'm leaning towards the Anvil... I just need some external validation that it's a good choice.
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Nov 9, 2020 22:10
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Personal opinion, as I don't have an all-in-one, but it looks very appealing: The Anvil all day. The ability to go 240V when you want and the technical and warranty support just seems so much better.
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Nov 9, 2020 22:51
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I'm looking for some tips in adding oak chips and coffee in beer. I got some medium toasted French oak chips and tried them in a wine I made - I put 50g in a mesh hop bag, added 200ml boiling water, let it cool and added a small amount of potassium metabisulphite and soaked overnight. Put the chip bag in 10l of wine the next morning, and 24 hours later there was already more than enough oak flavour. Probably too much oak - it's a somewhat light berry wine and it would probably have worked better with a more powerful red. I was thinking of trying a 25g dose in 20l of a kettle soured Flanders red I'm planning. The wine was already sulphited and stabilised and also around 12.5% ABV so I wasn't too worried about infection, but I assume a K meta soak will be enough to prevent any infection in beer too. I also have a nice chocolatey stout currently in secondary and want to add some coffee flavour. I've seen people suggest using cold brew, which seems nice in that it would let me figure out the right ratio of coffee to beer with a small sample volume. Others seem to swear by either whole beans or coarse grounds in the fermenter for a few days - then I suppose I'd have to open the beer and taste it daily which I'm not so keen on. I could either StarSan wash or sulphite the grounds, or hope that the alcohol (about 6.3% ABV) is enough to prevent any residual bugs on them from growing. Anyone have experience or favourite methods with either additive? big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Nov 12, 2020 |
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Nov 12, 2020 01:41
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2 oz of reused and boiled medium french toast in 5 gallons of saison for 6 months needed another 6 months in the bottle to mellow out. I would use less now, maybe even half, certainly no more than 2g/L Chips will be more intense than cubes. I guess stouts could probably take more oak.
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Nov 12, 2020 02:22
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thotsky posted:reused and boiled medium french toast Sounds breakfasty.
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Nov 13, 2020 07:19
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Made Apfelwein early last month, used honey crisp apple juice vs. the usual motts, primed it last weekend and holy hell is it amazing.
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Nov 15, 2020 22:12
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Care to share the recipe/process?
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Nov 19, 2020 17:17
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At my brewclub meeting on Saturday, we finished up the last of our Off-Flavor Testing Kit and it was a wild ride. Mercaptan is one of the worst things I've ever tasted on purpose (the other was Caprylic Acid) One of the last we did a was a very basic "Metallic" flavor and I noted how my last few beers have had a metallic flavor that I couldn't narrow down and it turns out that flavor comes from old/improperly stored malt and YEP - I've had this bag of 6-Row for over a year now and it's definitely the culprit.
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Nov 19, 2020 18:35
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robotsinmyhead posted:At my brewclub meeting on Saturday, we finished up the last of our Off-Flavor Testing Kit and it was a wild ride. Mercaptan is one of the worst things I've ever tasted on purpose (the other was Caprylic Acid) Did you do butyric? Caprylic was bad, but butyric was awful. Also I hilariously remember doing the off flavor tasting and then going to a brewery taproom that has a popcorn machine, opening the door and just getting blasted with diacetyl, minutes after getting the taste out of my mouth.
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Nov 19, 2020 20:14
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Pillow Armadillo posted:Care to share the recipe/process? If you Google "apfelwein recipe" you'll find it. Basically, chuck some apple juice and sugar in a fermenter with some yeast, leave it alone for a month, and enjoy! It actually is quite good, especially considering the minimal effort and cost involved. I have a batch queued up myself, but my ferment fridge is currently acting as secondary beer storage, so I don't have room for a fermenter.
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Nov 19, 2020 20:48
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more falafel please posted:Did you do butyric? Caprylic was bad, but butyric was awful. Butyric is gnarly but it's familiar? Caprylic was like poison and my lizard brain was sounding alarms because of it. Almost literally flight-or-fight responses from that poo poo.
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Nov 19, 2020 20:49
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Butyric familiar for parents that have changed a newborn diaper or two in their life. You'll never forget that smell.... ever....
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Nov 19, 2020 21:19
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I see youre butyric acid and I raise you Isovaleric acid. My old job had a sample of it in the lab and it was a loving foot cheese bomb. Brett apparently makes trace amounts of it! Edit to avoid a double post: Gonna hard cold crash a dopplebock I've been lagering the old fashioned way for 6 weeks this weekend. Good god Im tired of lugging around ice this beer better be worth it. Bread Set Jettison fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Nov 19, 2020 |
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Nov 19, 2020 21:28
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I work at a chemical plant and one time there was a mercaptan leak. Not gonna forget that smell anytime soon.
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Nov 20, 2020 00:04
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Jo3sh posted:If you Google "apfelwein recipe" you'll find it. Basically, chuck some apple juice and sugar in a fermenter with some yeast, leave it alone for a month, and enjoy! It actually is quite good, especially considering the minimal effort and cost involved. I have a batch queued up myself, but my ferment fridge is currently acting as secondary beer storage, so I don't have room for a fermenter. The cyser I did this spring is certainly appley, but I need to backsweeten it a bit. Basically did what you did, and pretty much all the sugar was fermented.
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Nov 20, 2020 00:55
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Pillow Armadillo posted:Care to share the recipe/process? Pretty much EdWort's recipe from homebrewtalk. Assuming you have a 6.5GAL carboy: 6GAL honey crisp apple juice yeast energizer & nutrient, follow recommended amounts on label 3# demerara EC-1118 yeast Sanitize everything like it stole something. Get 1GAL juice up to 150 american degrees and dump in your 3# sugar, stirring until you can't feel any sugar on the ladle. Add energizer, nutrient and remaining juice to your carboy including your gallon of sugar/juice and stir it for a hot minute. Microwave a cup of water to the specs on your yeast packet, add to the must after you see activity. Seal it up and watch for activity in the first 4-6 hours. Let it go for 4 weeks, you should stop seeing activity somewhere after the 2 week mark. Rack it into another carboy, remove a half gallon or so and warm to 150 american again to prime with 5oz demerara. I like to prime it in 750ML champagne bottles with plastic stoppers and wire hoods , anything less than champagne bottles will produce bottle bombs, but you could prime in bottles as you would beer and be fine but champagne bottles are cheap and reusable so why bother. After 3-4 days it will have bubbles and after 10 days it should have maximized effervescence.
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Nov 20, 2020 19:43
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I've also got a batch of Apfelwein on the go at the moment - I used a combination of brown sugar and light syrup. It's been going about 3 weeks and is still actively fermenting, but I'm in no big rush. Planning to add some cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, maybe star anise, and make a mulled apple wine.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:02
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5oz sucrose into 5.75 gallons (figuring some loss to lees) will only give you about 2.5-2.6 volumes. Regular beer bottles are good up to 3 volumes. I’m not sure how you’ve gotten bombs with this recipe with good sanitation, but you shouldn’t be getting them. It’s not any higher than I’ve bottled before (lower really, 2.8vol is the most I’ve pushed regular bottles and that was with a cider batch).
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Nov 20, 2020 20:17
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Huh, I didn't realise it was so low. I carbonate hefeweizen to a little above 3 volumes, but I also use flip-tops so I expect the seal would fail before the bottle would go pop.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:47
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Flip tops do tend to have a higher standard rating so you should be fine for your process. If the seal is very good and strong, the glass could still be the weakest point depending on the state of the bottle. Regular beer bottles won’t just start blowing right at 3vol either. They might take higher just fine, but the spec on it is rated because that’s where they start to fail. I had to dig through all this in depth a few months ago to select the right bottles for my mixed ferm saison that I wanted in smaller bottles. Ended up with 500mL rated for 4 volumes which is plenty as I carb to 3.6.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:54
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That's reassuring, because I added priming sugar to a batch about an hour ago targetting 3.2 volumes and I was just about to start bottling when I read your post! I don't like to go higher than that with this beer anyway because I had a batch where I didn't dissolve the sugar evenly enough and ended up with a couple bottles that sprayed the ceiling on opening.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:59
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Jhet posted:5oz sucrose into 5.75 gallons (figuring some loss to lees) will only give you about 2.5-2.6 volumes. Regular beer bottles are good up to 3 volumes. I’m not sure how you’ve gotten bombs with this recipe with good sanitation, but you shouldn’t be getting them. It’s not any higher than I’ve bottled before (lower really, 2.8vol is the most I’ve pushed regular bottles and that was with a cider batch). Never had a bottle bomb. My risk aversion is just set higher than normal.
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Nov 21, 2020 00:47
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piss boner posted:Never had a bottle bomb. My risk aversion is just set higher than normal. If you're going to all that effort with the champagne bottles, you should try 6 volumes next time if you haven't already. It's super fizzy and makes a really awesome texture for cider. Bonus is that you're already using champagne yeast which will have no issue doing exactly this level of carbonation. Champagne bottles can do higher than 6 vol too, so it will still work with your risk aversion.
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Nov 21, 2020 01:33
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If my beer picked up an infection at bottling time, I'd probably know by the smell/taste right? I bottled about 2 weeks ago, and most of the bottles look pretty boring. Some have a small amount of stuff at the top of the beer, and also there's some dots on the side near the bottom of the bottle. Not sure if it's just yeast settling differently in some bottles or something like that. I'm going to open one of the different looking ones tonight to make sure I'm not developing some bottle bombs for myself. I figure if it smells and tastes OK then it should be good to drink.
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Nov 21, 2020 01:35
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Jhet posted:If you're going to all that effort with the champagne bottles, you should try 6 volumes next time if you haven't already. It's super fizzy and makes a really awesome texture for cider. Bonus is that you're already using champagne yeast which will have no issue doing exactly this level of carbonation. Champagne bottles can do higher than 6 vol too, so it will still work with your risk aversion. Aluminum bottle caps are generally not rated higher than 4 volumes though, and I've gotten seepage below that. I would not go higher than 3.7 if capping.
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Nov 21, 2020 01:42
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8 weeks later, my Fig Dopplebock is done. For 8 weeks I brought tons and tons of ice down to my basement to lager it old fashioned style. Zero finings added but look at the loving clarity~ Precarbonation, tastes great! Little boozy but that should mellow out with bottle conditioning and carbonating.
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Nov 22, 2020 21:14
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Bread Set Jettison posted:8 weeks later, my Fig Dopplebock is done. For 8 weeks I brought tons and tons of ice down to my basement to lager it old fashioned style. Zero finings added but look at the loving clarity~ Are you running it through a strainer into a bottling bucket?
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Nov 22, 2020 22:47
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broseph posted:Are you running it through a strainer into a bottling bucket? Yep I was worried that there’d be some particulates from the fig and/or loving up somehow.
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Nov 22, 2020 23:44
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Bread Set Jettison posted:8 weeks later, my Fig Dopplebock is done. For 8 weeks I brought tons and tons of ice down to my basement to lager it old fashioned style. Zero finings added but look at the loving clarity~ I'm curious how much fig you put in there. Dried in the secondary? Sounds tasty but I love figs.
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Nov 22, 2020 23:47
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Fig Dobblebock, sounds really cool. I'm making a date Quad right now, feels like we're peas in a pod! I'm also going to keg my saison with homegrown apricots fermented with Omega C2C American Saison and I'm loving pumped for that. It's almost been 3 months and while the Brett hasn't come as much as I hoped (I heard C2C was really fast Brett character) the apricot is shining and ready and that's what matters.
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Nov 22, 2020 23:57
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C2C was really fruity the time I used it. I’m not sure if it does get really funky or not, but I’m inclined to say you need to treat it to something to chew on to kick up the funk. With the apricots I’d expect you to get a lot of fruit and the brett will just keep working over time. I don’t know that it’s a super funky strain in it though. Just a mildly funky one. Still a good blend imo, but Brett can mean big fruit and not only horsey barnyard.
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Nov 23, 2020 01:23
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Jhet posted:C2C was really fruity the time I used it. I’m not sure if it does get really funky or not, but I’m inclined to say you need to treat it to something to chew on to kick up the funk. With the apricots I’d expect you to get a lot of fruit and the brett will just keep working over time. I don’t know that it’s a super funky strain in it though. Just a mildly funky one. Still a good blend imo, but Brett can mean big fruit and not only horsey barnyard. Ohhh, goootcha. More Brett C than Brett Brux or something. Very fair and while maybe not quite what I expected from the description, I'm really pumped (still) for this end beer. Honestly my Father in law (who grows the fruit) is more in for how it currently tastes than a funkyboi like I'd maybe prefer. Either way, I'm not sure I have been this excited for a homebrew in a long while.
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Nov 23, 2020 04:45
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calandryll posted:I'm curious how much fig you put in there. Dried in the secondary? Sounds tasty but I love figs. It ended up being 20ish oz of dried golden and mission figs. I forget the actual weight in my notes because I’m a bad brewer.
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Nov 23, 2020 12:55
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does anyone here mess with distilling? i've been eyeing copper-alembic.com for a while but they have a dizzying inventory of stills in a zillion configurations and sizes and i don't know what's right for me to start with. for perfume of course.
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Nov 25, 2020 06:20
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thetan_guy42 posted:does anyone here mess with distilling? i've been eyeing copper-alembic.com for a while but they have a dizzying inventory of stills in a zillion configurations and sizes and i don't know what's right for me to start with. for perfume of course. There was a goon who opened a distillery. Let me see if I can find their A/T E: You may want to speak with Weltlich A/T about running a distillery Nth Doctor fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Nov 25, 2020 |
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Nov 25, 2020 14:51
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thetan_guy42 posted:does anyone here mess with distilling? i've been eyeing copper-alembic.com for a while but they have a dizzying inventory of stills in a zillion configurations and sizes and i don't know what's right for me to start with. for perfume of course. I've been pretty interested in distilling for awhile, and bought a 30L boiler with a pot still head because it was cheap, and I use it for biab brewing, but haven't actually got around to running a wash through it. If you can buy a T500 still where you are that's probably the easiest way to get into distilling. If you want to make neutral spirits you need a reflux column, whiskeys/rums etc. you'd need a pot still column. You can get both of those with a T500 or similar product. I think those copper alembics are something you should consider buying once you've got some experience running a still and need a specific bit of kit for your needs though. Don't buy turbo yeast, flavourings and filtering crap though. I've got a few books on home distilling that are very useful, will check the exact titles when I'm able to.
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Nov 25, 2020 22:18
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Do you automatically get put on an ATF/TTB list if you buy a still in the US? I know you can always say you're using it for distilling water/essential oil/fuel alcohol, but I'd rather not be on anyone's radar.
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Nov 27, 2020 08:23
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more falafel please posted:Do you automatically get put on an ATF/TTB list if you buy a still in the US? I know you can always say you're using it for distilling water/essential oil/fuel alcohol, but I'd rather not be on anyone's radar. I've heard that you do. Anecdotally, I used to know a guy who bought one and then said he got a letter from BATFE saying "don't use it to make booze." Another person recommended Clawhammer, which doesn't sell stills, but sells still kits, as a way to avoid such a list.
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Nov 27, 2020 16:07
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