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I left a quart of starsan in the fermenter by accident and transferred dry irish stout wort on top of it. You couldn't taste it in the final beer.
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Jan 10, 2021 07:16
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Kraftwerk, It sounds like you and me got the same kit! I did the boil about a week ago and and racked my first brew into the carboy today. I figured I'd give you a heads up, if it is the same exact kit, your hydrometer didn't come with a testing flask, so you'll need a graduated cylinder, or similar vessel, if you don't want to test directly in your fermenter. I went ahead and bought a beer thief for that purpose. I'd also recommend getting a large pail for giving your pot an ice bath after boiling (just reread you got a wort chiller nvm), and it comes in handy for sanitation purposes too. If any of my advice sounds off, please let me know. I only just started too.
Johnny-on-the-Spot fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Jan 10, 2021 |
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Jan 10, 2021 08:30
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I have a problem with the wort chiller. I got the cold break one off Amazon and it looks good but it arrived with the pvc tubes heavily kinked at the clamps. Depending on how much cold water I run through it I get leaks. The leak will vary between a drip drop to a stream that will directly flow along the coils all the way into the brew. I don’t know what to do to control the leak. Should I tighten the clamps? Get new tubes?https://imgur.com/a/VMCSlIh
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Jan 10, 2021 20:42
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Take off the clamps, cut the tubing and reattach. Problem solved.
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Jan 10, 2021 21:05
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Sooo did not quite think about the consequences of boiling 6 gallons of water in my kitchen for multiple hours. It's raining from the ceiling 100% next time will set up an exhaust fan for when the lid comes off. tater_salad fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jan 10, 2021 |
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Jan 10, 2021 21:54
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Jhet posted:Take off the clamps, cut the tubing and reattach. Problem solved. Okay but is there any way I can stop it from leaking? As it stands it sends streams of water down the coils and would flood my wort if I did it for real. I need a way to control the leaks.
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Jan 11, 2021 06:09
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How do people usually clean bottles? After using/rinsing is a soak in PBW/oxyclean enough? I've got a brush of course but it's really a pain and doesn't work too well because of the narrow opening.
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Jan 11, 2021 06:53
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tater_salad posted:Sooo did not quite think about the consequences of boiling 6 gallons of water in my kitchen for multiple hours. Hope you're ok! I'd think the problem is the whole boil since it's usually done lid-off. That's where you lose all the liquid (for a big propane burner at full boil it's like 1 gal/hour). For people in houses they often just get a propane burner and boil outside/in a garage.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:01
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Kraftwerk posted:Okay but is there any way I can stop it from leaking? As it stands it sends streams of water down the coils and would flood my wort if I did it for real. I need a way to control the leaks. If it's correctly tightened and it's on without anything impeding the liquid it should be fine. The tubing should be tight enough with those clamps screwed on to be water tight. I'd expect the issue to be from the crimps in the hose messing with the seal if they're already screwed on tightly, but one of them looks to be tighter than the other in the picture.
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Jan 11, 2021 08:56
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Kraftwerk posted:Okay but is there any way I can stop it from leaking? As it stands it sends streams of water down the coils and would flood my wort if I did it for real. I need a way to control the leaks. Jhet posted:If it's correctly tightened and it's on without anything impeding the liquid it should be fine. The tubing should be tight enough with those clamps screwed on to be water tight. I'd expect the issue to be from the crimps in the hose messing with the seal if they're already screwed on tightly, but one of them looks to be tighter than the other in the picture. Yeah, the clamp near the top of that picture seems like it's not tightened enough. If that's the one that's leaking, give it a few solid turns and try it again. With thick enough tubing, it's hard to over-tighten those.
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Jan 11, 2021 09:38
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Eeyo posted:How do people usually clean bottles? After using/rinsing is a soak in PBW/oxyclean enough? I've got a brush of course but it's really a pain and doesn't work too well because of the narrow opening. First, I put all my 750 ml bottles in the shower and using a small funnel and a bar spoon i put some PBW in each bottle. I then unscrew the shower-head and fill each bottle with warm water, let the bottles sit for 30 min, dump out the PBW and rinse the bottles once. After this I transfer the bottles to my kitchen where I use one of those spring loaded bottle washers filled with starsan to sanitize each bottle, letting them stand while prepping my priming sugar and dumping out the excess starsan foam before starting the bottling process. This is enough as long as you rinse your bottles after use. The few times I come across a bottle which expels some sort of weird gunk after the PBW rinse that bottle usually goes in the recycling, although I'm sure one could bring out the bottle brush if one is short on bottles. thotsky fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 09:45
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PBW soak and water rinse after use. StarSan before bottling. I've had one infected bottle and it was the last bottle of a batch that was several years old when I drank it, so I have no idea if it was the bottle or not.
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Jan 11, 2021 10:04
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Eeyo posted:Hope you're ok! I'd think the problem is the whole boil since it's usually done lid-off. That's where you lose all the liquid (for a big propane burner at full boil it's like 1 gal/hour). Oh it's 100% the boil, I have an electric kettle and it's below freezing so if like to stay inside. I feel if I start runing a fan out the window I'll be okay. Also the 9 gallon kettle exits a lot higher than my stovetop 5 gallon. Bottle chat: Rinse when they come to me and inspect if they have poo poo in em after the Rinse they go.(I have friends that are better at bottle hygiene than others). Then a trip in the dishwasher (dry agent turned off). Then day of bottling thru take a dip in one step. tater_salad fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 12:07
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Ok thanks. I'll probably be asking a bunch of questions as I ramp up for my next beer. Next question: is there significant stratification of beer in a fermenter after flocculation? I've yet to make up a bottling bucket, so last time I bottled I made up a sugar solution and used a small (sanitized) dropper to dose each bottle with the right amount of sugar. Then I just used the small ball valve on my fermenter attached to a bottling wand to fill with beer. I'm wondering if that can lead to differences between bottles, like will the beer be significantly different from the first to the last bottle since it's taking off different layers from the fermenter as I fill the bottles? I figured the way I did it has a benefit of less oxygen ingress, but if it's significantly non-homogeneous I think I'd be better off making the bottling bucket.
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Jan 11, 2021 19:54
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Eeyo posted:Ok thanks. I'll probably be asking a bunch of questions as I ramp up for my next beer. No, the beer itself is homogenous. Of course, you could kick up some yeast or hop sediment and get more or less of that in one bottle than another, but the beer itself won't be any different. In fact, mixing priming sugar/solution into a beer in a bottling bucket is much more likely to give you some stratification.
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Jan 11, 2021 20:21
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I bottle from the fermenter and don't notice much difference between bottles. I normally mark the bottles I use when I get really close to the trub, so I know the ones that might be a bit funky. I still seem to get oxidation issues though, even though I cap the bottles as soon as they're filled. I've got a cheap corny keg now, but can't find a decent deal on co2 cylinders (they're $300 here), so I'm going to try keg conditioning and use a sodastream cylinder to dispense.
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Jan 11, 2021 20:27
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You can definitely dose bottles with your priming sugar/solution individually, but most people put it into the bottling bucket. If you do use a bottling bucket, add the priming sugar solution to it first and rack into the solution. I'd also sanitize a spoon and very gently stir a couple times as it's filling to ensure the sugar is evenly mixed.El Pollo Blanco posted:I bottle from the fermenter and don't notice much difference between bottles. I normally mark the bottles I use when I get really close to the trub, so I know the ones that might be a bit funky. Where are you located that CO2 tanks are that much? I think a new 5lb tank was $60 when I bought a spare one a couple years back.
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Jan 11, 2021 20:41
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I just bought a used 15 gallon demijohn to make a big elderberry wine in. How the hell do I clean and sanitize this thing? Lol
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Jan 12, 2021 15:39
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Very carefully. ...that's not a joke.
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Jan 12, 2021 15:54
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i was thinking about brewing this weekend again then I Realized I don't really have a second seed mat for heating, although my current yeast is 55-75°f capable so currently monitoring the temps of my fermenter to see if I can ferment 2 at the same time.
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Jan 12, 2021 15:57
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tater_salad posted:i was thinking about brewing this weekend again then I Realized I don't really have a second seed mat for heating, although my current yeast is 55-75°f capable so currently monitoring the temps of my fermenter to see if I can ferment 2 at the same time. Assuming your current beer will be a week in at that point, it will be largely done fermenting and the temp should be a lot less important.
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Jan 12, 2021 18:43
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hot cocoa on the couch posted:I just bought a used 15 gallon demijohn to make a big elderberry wine in. How the hell do I clean and sanitize this thing? Lol For real though, unless you have some fancy keg-cleaner or something I'd eat the cost of filling it with PBW, letting it soak, and then emptying it with an autosiphon.
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Jan 12, 2021 18:51
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rockcity posted:Assuming your current beer will be a week in at that point, it will be largely done fermenting and the temp should be a lot less important. It might be done it's a 1.100 Beer and I pitched last night, so if I brew sunday it wont be a week in .. we'll see how it all goes and what activity looks like with low temps.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:03
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tater_salad posted:It might be done it's a 1.100 Beer and I pitched last night, so if I brew sunday it wont be a week in .. we'll see how it all goes and what activity looks like with low temps. You really don't need a seed mat for brewing. I've only used them for saison/farmhouse and belgian yeasts/styles. I've always left my English style yeasts go at basement temps (62-70F), and most US strains do fine in that range too. It might take an extra day or two, but it's homebrew so I don't worry too much about that. Low temps are sub 60, and then you should just make lagers/kolsch if you can.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:09
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Jhet posted:You really don't need a seed mat for brewing. I've only used them for saison/farmhouse and belgian yeasts/styles. I've always left my English style yeasts go at basement temps (62-70F), and most US strains do fine in that range too. It might take an extra day or two, but it's homebrew so I don't worry too much about that. Low temps are sub 60, and then you should just make lagers/kolsch if you can. I'm scared of lagers, my temp probe was showing 58 on exterior of the fermenter. Next beer is an irish red and wyeast 1084 is looking for 62+ degree so I'll just do the seed mat wrap again. My wee heavy should be okay once it gets rolling I like to keep a little heat in the fermenter till it gets moving then it'll be all fine because it should generate enough heat to keep itself moving for a bit.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:39
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I got another question. While I work on my first ever homebrew I just realized that I technically have all the equipment I need to make mead as well don't I? Could I use the same stuff for mead or are the cleaners not effective enough to clean out the beer stuff?
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Jan 12, 2021 23:47
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Mead works great in the same stuff as homebrew. Cleaner and sanitizers work the same. You may want to do smaller batches, or maybe not? Honey for 5gal of mead can be expensive. You may also check on what mead makers are using for vessels. I’d think plastics are fine for O2 ingress, but depends on just how long and how perfect the alternate solution would be. I’ve just used 1gal glass vessels with plastic lids or rubber bung with airlock.
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Jan 13, 2021 00:14
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Jhet posted:Mead works great in the same stuff as homebrew. Cleaner and sanitizers work the same. You may want to do smaller batches, or maybe not? Honey for 5gal of mead can be expensive. You may also check on what mead makers are using for vessels. I’d think plastics are fine for O2 ingress, but depends on just how long and how perfect the alternate solution would be. I’ve just used 1gal glass vessels with plastic lids or rubber bung with airlock. For 1 gal batches of mead/wine/etc I use 2 gallon white buckets from Home Depot for primary, and then rack to a glass jug. Many years ago I got 5 gallons of Whole Foods fancy-rear end apple juice to make cider with, so I use those, but anything would be fine. During primary I just leave the lid resting on top, since you usually want to be aerating/degassing once a day anyway.
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Jan 13, 2021 00:37
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rockcity posted:Where are you located that CO2 tanks are that much? I think a new 5lb tank was $60 when I bought a spare one a couple years back. New Zealand, they're generally in pretty short supply, so you rarely see used cylinders for sale. The added problem is refills for a sub 1kg cylinder will be the same as 2.5kg. Most brewing hardware is insanely expensive here. I just bought a spunding valve off AliExpress for $20 (other local home brewers recommend it), keg king in Australia have a better product for a similar price, but here it'd set you back $90 new. I got two ball lock disconnects from the same store for a few bucks, but they might be crap. I doubt they'd be any worse than the plastic disconnects sold locally for 3x the price.
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Jan 13, 2021 01:40
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Bottled my first brew last night! It's an amber ale and I got so excited I even made my own label! Can't wait to have a sip while I'm making up my next batch next week!
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Jan 15, 2021 21:34
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Always a good feeling when it’s in and conditioning. I hope you tasted the samples along the way, it’s really fun to get a perception of what it’s like over the course of fermentation. Good luck with batch 2.
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Jan 15, 2021 21:36
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Thank you! I've been tasting it along its process, and was surprised how much it changed at every step. I was happy with its taste after the initial fermentation but truly impressed with its flavor after racking.
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Jan 15, 2021 21:43
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Kraftwerk posted:I got another question. While I work on my first ever homebrew I just realized that I technically have all the equipment I need to make mead as well don't I? Could I use the same stuff for mead or are the cleaners not effective enough to clean out the beer stuff? more falafel please posted:For 1 gal batches of mead/wine/etc I use 2 gallon white buckets from Home Depot for primary, and then rack to a glass jug. Many years ago I got 5 gallons of Whole Foods fancy-rear end apple juice to make cider with, so I use those, but anything would be fine. Are those Home Depot buckets food safe? I have heard icing buckets from a bakery (they just throw them out/recycle them) can be used, but given how cheap actual plastic fermenters with spigot, airlock, etc are I could never be bothered, even starting out a starving grad student. Jhet posted:Mead works great in the same stuff as homebrew. Cleaner and sanitizers work the same. You may want to do smaller batches, or maybe not? Honey for 5gal of mead can be expensive. You may also check on what mead makers are using for vessels. I’d think plastics are fine for O2 ingress, but depends on just how long and how perfect the alternate solution would be. I’ve just used 1gal glass vessels with plastic lids or rubber bung with airlock. Honey is generally a fair bit more expensive than other fermentables, although I've found a restaurant supply store local to me that sells it in 3kg tubs for AU$30 each. You could also try hitting up your local FB apiarists group - likely you could find someone with a lot of excess honey they'd be happy to sell on to you. hot cocoa on the couch posted:I just bought a used 15 gallon demijohn to make a big elderberry wine in. How the hell do I clean and sanitize this thing? Lol You really want some kind of thing for it to go into to help carry it/set it down without breaking it. Mine fits just inside a milk crate so I use that. Honestly I hate the thing and have only used it once (for a big batch of mead, which I need to get on doing again). Dangerous and a relative PITA to clean, siphon, and move around compared to my other fermenters - you also need to be mindful of temperature shocking it. PBW soak is the way to go - I have a long bottle brush as well. Jhet posted:You really don't need a seed mat for brewing. I've only used them for saison/farmhouse and belgian yeasts/styles. I've always left my English style yeasts go at basement temps (62-70F), and most US strains do fine in that range too. It might take an extra day or two, but it's homebrew so I don't worry too much about that. Low temps are sub 60, and then you should just make lagers/kolsch if you can. Depends where you live and what your living situation is - downstairs is basically just kitchen/shower in my flat (along with my brewing gear) which we don't heat in winter since we spend so little time down there, and it definitely drops down sub 60 much of the year. By contrast, we have a mild summer and the ground floor doesn't get much direct sunlight, so it almost never gets warm enough I'd need to turn on the cooling circuit. For anyone interested, I think I stumbled across a pretty cheap and low-effort setup for a temperature controlled fermentation chamber: I use an secondhand upright freezer ($80) with an Inkbird ($25) for temp control, with heating provided by a reptile heating cord ($25) that runs through the old shelf brackets on the inside. With a shelf I made out of MDF ($5) in the middle, it can just acommodate 2 fermenters, and I can turn it on to freezer mode if I want to make a bunch of ice for cold crashing. Chest freezers are easier to come by but lifting full fermenters in and out of one of those is a hard no from me and my old man back. Ethics_Gradient fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 21:51
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Ethics_Gradient posted:Are those Home Depot buckets food safe? I have heard icing buckets from a bakery (they just throw them out/recycle them) can be used, but given how cheap actual plastic fermenters with spigot, airlock, etc are I could never be bothered, even starting out a starving grad student. My understanding is that HDPE (which is what all those buckets are made of, you can check because it'll have a #2 recycling symbol on it) is food-safe unless it's colored with toxic dyes. I don't know what dyes are toxic, and I know lots of people just err on the side of not using any colored HDPE. I'm of the opinion that it probably doesn't matter in any significant way, but the white ones should be food safe anyway. I don't think there's any difference between an icing bucket (or a pickle bucket, or any number of other food product buckets) and a paint bucket from HD/Lowes/etc. I keep my grain in orange HD buckets -- again, I don't think it's a significant problem, and since it's room temperature solids, I think it's extremely unlikely that anything could leach in significant amounts to be noticable.
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Jan 15, 2021 22:11
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more falafel please posted:My understanding is that HDPE (which is what all those buckets are made of, you can check because it'll have a #2 recycling symbol on it) is food-safe unless it's colored with toxic dyes. I don't know what dyes are toxic, and I know lots of people just err on the side of not using any colored HDPE. I'm of the opinion that it probably doesn't matter in any significant way, but the white ones should be food safe anyway. I don't think there's any difference between an icing bucket (or a pickle bucket, or any number of other food product buckets) and a paint bucket from HD/Lowes/etc. Solid goods should be fine and iirc it’s the acid (beer) and moisture that could cause the dyes to leech, and the other crap that gets on them in manufacturing. The resin itself is food safe. HD sells white food safe buckets too for about the same price. I don’t use them as they’re only 5gal and I wouldn’t have headspace or would need two and would have too much headspace. I use bins that are advertised as dog food bins for the grain and they have wheels. I’d use a pickle bucket to make a Berliner Weisse myself. Pickle beer sounds tasty.
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Jan 15, 2021 22:34
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Jhet posted:Solid goods should be fine and iirc it’s the acid (beer) and moisture that could cause the dyes to leech, and the other crap that gets on them in manufacturing. The resin itself is food safe. HD sells white food safe buckets too for about the same price. I don’t use them as they’re only 5gal and I wouldn’t have headspace or would need two and would have too much headspace. I use bins that are advertised as dog food bins for the grain and they have wheels. I'm not a big fan of pickles usually, but my brew club's resident "weird beer guy" has made pickle beer before. It wasn't as bad as "salsa beer".
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Jan 15, 2021 23:19
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more falafel please posted:I'm not a big fan of pickles usually, but my brew club's resident "weird beer guy" has made pickle beer before. It wasn't as bad as "salsa beer". Salsa beer sounds terrible and I’d be one who’d do a Reaper Stout (well, maybe one or two bottles but it would be bad). I can’t think of one good thing to put in salsa beer. Make beer and then make a michelada with that beer. At least with pickle beer you can actually add acetic acid, cucumber, and dill to a beer without it being too hot to drink.
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Jan 15, 2021 23:37
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Jhet posted:Salsa beer sounds terrible and I’d be one who’d do a Reaper Stout (well, maybe one or two bottles but it would be bad). I can’t think of one good thing to put in salsa beer. Make beer and then make a michelada with that beer. Yeah, it had tomato juice and onion juice in it. Dude is not known for playing it safe.
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Jan 15, 2021 23:46
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I haven't made it, but I drank a pickle beer before. It wasn't great... I tried cooking with it but in the end just drinking it with a bit of tabasco was the best way to consume it.
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Jan 15, 2021 23:50
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Can you clean your equipment within dish soap? I thought I’d give everything an initial cleanse with Dawn before I use my star San. Just to wash off any traces of stuff left from manufacturing.
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Jan 16, 2021 00:42
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