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Hey Goons, I have a weird question, I have recently gone home for part of the summer (I finish my Bachelor's in May) and have discovered that my beer brewing equipment was left outside (in the garage, but uncovered), and that it may have ended up sprayed with chemicals as it is sitting right below a dead wasp nest (My parents always use raid to deal with them) Is there any way to salvage my glass/containers/brushes/ect. or should I just get all new equipment?
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Jul 23, 2013 22:16
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numerrik posted:Hey Goons, I have a weird question, I have recently gone home for part of the summer (I finish my Bachelor's in May) and have discovered that my beer brewing equipment was left outside (in the garage, but uncovered), and that it may have ended up sprayed with chemicals as it is sitting right below a dead wasp nest (My parents always use raid to deal with them) Is there any way to salvage my glass/containers/brushes/ect. or should I just get all new equipment? Unless you're really hard up for money, ingesting raid is probably not a good idea. At a bare minimum, I'd toss anything plastic.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:04
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Plastic can absorb poo poo like that pretty easily; I would get rid of anything plastic. Glass should be ok after a thorough soapy scrubbing. The other way to look at it is that you have been given the perfect excuse to get all new stuff. :-)
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Jul 23, 2013 23:23
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Any of you guys make wine from whole grapes, but do not use a press? I was thinking of doing some stomping and then straining with some paint straining bags. Thoughts?
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Jul 23, 2013 23:42
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ScaerCroe posted:Any of you guys make wine from whole grapes, but do not use a press? I was thinking of doing some stomping and then straining with some paint straining bags. Thoughts? freeze them, put them in a bag, and take a potato masher to them
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Jul 24, 2013 04:20
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Welp, I just made a pretty hilarious blunder: I dropped my spray bottle of Star-San into a fermenter full of freshly-cooled, freshly-pitched wort.  No sanitizer spilled out of it, but the exterior probably wasn't terribly clean. I need to stop doing this sort of thing. Considering how quickly the last batch of this beer (4.5% porter) got consumed, how large/healthy a yeast pitch I gave this one, and how many times I've dropped things into wort/beer without starting rampant infections, I imagine it'll be okay. But I might as well keep an eye on it.Also bottled my first SMaSH beer today, a pale ale with Maris Otter and an experimental hop varietal known only as 7272 that I got from Goose Island. So far it smells and tastes fantastic. Whenever this hop actually hits the market, whatever name it's under, it's going to be a big one. /edit: On that note, what's the worst homebrewing blunder that you've made and still managed to recover from? Or didn't? RocketMermaid fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 04:28
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Ubik posted:Also bottled my first SMaSH beer today, a pale ale with Maris Otter and an experimental hop varietal known only as 7272 that I got from Goose Island. So far it smells and tastes fantastic. Whenever this hop actually hits the market, whatever name it's under, it's going to be a big one. Say more about that hop varietal. What sort of recipe does it compliment? What kind of aromatics? Is it like Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy, or something different? My worst blunder? I tried washing yeast once and made two great beers from the first jars of washed yeast that I had. The 3rd and 4th beer clearly had infections/stressed yeast. One tasted like green apples and was way over carbonated while the other tasted exactly like bubble gum. Another blunder that I still haven't cleaned up is one that really upset me. I have about a dozen sours aging in my basement and every couple of months I'll do a round of tastings and gravity measurements to check their progress. Well, a La Roja clone that I made was just starting to taste beautiful, but I wanted to make sure the gravity was terminal so I let it sit for another two months. Upon checking it again, I noticed that bung came out of the carboy very easily. After a sample, it tasted strongly of sherry. It was oxidized and completely ruined. So bummed.
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Jul 24, 2013 05:16
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Cointelprofessional posted:Say more about that hop varietal. What sort of recipe does it compliment? What kind of aromatics? Is it like Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy, or something different? It's definitely solid for pale ales and IPAs. Goose Island used it as one of the hop varietals in one of the Pitchfork music festival collaboration beers, Run The Jewels. I'd describe it as very citrusy and slightly earthy, with a unique honeydew melon character.
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Jul 24, 2013 05:55
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Ubik posted:/edit: On that note, what's the worst homebrewing blunder that you've made and still managed to recover from? Or didn't? Pitching yeast at flameout 
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Jul 24, 2013 06:02
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Freezing an amber ale or adding 0.5 quarts of water per pound of grain for my witbier as I was mashing in and not realizing it until too late. Edit: The amber ale was frozen during cold crashing. I hope it has some yeast in it to bottle carb.
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Jul 24, 2013 06:17
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Cointelprofessional posted:
Well, you just convinced me to brew another sour. Waiting a year or more for a batch that can be completely ruined by accident is just terrifying (so clearly the solution is to brew more  ).I don't have any huge blunders to admit, though my wort chiller did leak into my wort for a few batches before I figured it out. I've had some minor equipment blunders, like forgetting to close the valve on the mash tun before mashing in or accidentally disconnecting the hose that connects the false bottom to the valve with the mash paddle.
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Jul 24, 2013 12:42
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1. Not accounting for honey's ability to neutralize hop bittering acids in a loaded honey ale. 2. I used 0 nutrients for my first 4 batches of mead.
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Jul 24, 2013 13:56
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Ubik posted:On that note, what's the worst homebrewing blunder that you've made and still managed to recover from? Or didn't? My last brew session was pretty much one continuous blunder. It was my first all grain (BIAB). My grain bag was too small. I messed up my volume, leading to a two hour boil in order to get the gravity over 1.035 (was planning 1.045). I learned that the most flammable material known to man is the foil packet the hops come in. I didn't have a grill lighter on hand so I lit my burner by lighting a rolled up paper towel. I then left the smoldering paper towel on the same metal tray I had my hop packet on. My theory is that a gust of wind both relit the paper towel and pushed it on top of the hop packet because when I turned around there was no paper towel and my hops were on fire. The ones I saved didn't smell like burnt plastic so I used them anyway. It was also my first time making a starter. It was my first time using the white labs tube instead of the smack packs and I decided to shake it up to get everything into the liquid. When I opened the cap it was like opening a shaken can of yeast soda. My ultra-session witbier seems to be coming along well enough though. Bowrrl fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 15:44
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I think I am finally settled into my new apt enough to have a big brew session this weekend. Thinking a nelson sauvin saison and a brett IPA. Does anyone have any thoughts on this recipe? http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/former-bossman-brett-ipa Its using all hops I have on hand so there isn't a ton of leeway on that. E: I don't really have any terrible mishaps with my brewing (luckily) But I have dropped every single thing that could possibly be dropped into cooled wort or fermenting beer (while checking gravity). Nothing ruined yet! *crosses fingers* ChiTownEddie fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 16:12
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Bowrrl posted:I didn't have a grill lighter on hand so I lit my burner by lighting a rolled up paper towel. I've done this. Except the burner kept turning off, so I had to bike to the hardware store and buy a lighter. My worst blunder was accidentally leaving the plastic paddle in the fermenter after aerating- I used it to rouse up the wort before pitching and somehow left it in for 2-3 weeks. Answered a lot of questions when bottling time came, like, "where the gently caress did I put my paddle?" Beer came out fine. Paddle was never the same, though, after all the things it saw...
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Jul 24, 2013 16:31
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global tetrahedron posted:My worst blunder was accidentally leaving the plastic paddle in the fermenter after aerating- I used it to rouse up the wort before pitching and somehow left it in for 2-3 weeks. Answered a lot of questions when bottling time came, like, "where the gently caress did I put my paddle?" Beer came out fine. Paddle was never the same, though, after all the things it saw... This reminds me of another one. I ended up melting / partially melting a plastic spoon I was using to stir caramelizing honey. I was pressing down to find the bottom of the pot to scrape any hard bits off, and it was hitting the bottom with any force. I was like that's weird. Pulled the spoon out of the molten foam and the spoon was all droopy. I still drank the batch regardless of possible carcinogens.
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Jul 24, 2013 16:41
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First one that comes to mind was spending like 4 hours wondering how the gently caress the gravity of my beer went way down after the boil. Finally figured out that the hose clamp on my immersion chiller was a little loose so like a gallon of water seeped into the wort during chilling. The beer ended up totally fine, other than being a lot weaker than intended. edit: Another was a batch of ESB that got poor attenuation for whatever reason, finished at like 1.018 and I wanted more like 1.010. I decided to pitch some dry yeast I had hanging around to see if it would chomp it down any further. Figured since there was so little work for the yeast to do that I didn't need to bother putting it back on temp control. lol, nope. The new pitch must have overheated because it made the beer smell like hot garbage  I gave it like 2 months and it just never got better. One of the only batches I've had to just straight dump.
Docjowles fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 16:45
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Two biggest blunders... 1) Let my infusion chiller do it's thing while I ran downstairs to sanitize stuff. When I returned the 20g kettle was overflowing as the hose clamp wasn't on properly and nasty hose water absolutely destroyed/displaced the entire batch. 2) Dropping a full carboy and watching it shatter 2 feet from my face. Luckily no injuries and I made enough for two carboys so the entire batch wasn't lost this time. My basement smelled like rear end for a good couple of months though.
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Jul 24, 2013 16:50
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Lots of leaky chillers. Perhaps the biggest mistake is simply using worm clamps on one's chiller. Upgrade to compression or sweat fittings and never worry about it again. I also dropped a glass carboy once. No one got hurt, but I was pissed off for sure. That recipe is forever called 'half-wasted porter.'
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Jul 24, 2013 17:31
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Jo3sh posted:That recipe is forever called 'half-wasted porter.' Because it was half wasted? Or because you were half wasted when it dropped? Or both. I can imagine the mess on a 5 gallon glass / wort explosion would probably piss me off to my absolute limit. How long does it take to clean all that up?
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Jul 24, 2013 18:11
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Because it was half wasted? Or because you were half wasted when it dropped? Or both.  Marshmallow Blue posted:I can imagine the mess on a 5 gallon glass / wort explosion would probably piss me off to my absolute limit. How long does it take to clean all that up? It was pretty ugly.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:48
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Because it was half wasted? Or because you were half wasted when it dropped? Or both. It's kind of the worst, maybe two hours of cleanup but I'm still finding shards of glass under stuff as much as five feet away from the impact point. The smell is almost gone now, and that's after shopvacing the hell out of it initially. My shopvac does kind of suck though.
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Jul 24, 2013 19:37
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And gentleman that is why you use Better Bottles, or at the very least use a carboy strap of sorts.
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Jul 24, 2013 20:06
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Marshmallow Blue posted:I can imagine the mess on a 5 gallon glass / wort explosion would probably piss me off to my absolute limit. How long does it take to clean all that up? Three hours and a half hours when you drop it in the back of your shop amongst all your tools and various benches/stands with poo poo you had stacked up for years and that 1.082 sticky wert splashes everywhere and runs into every conceivable crevasse. I mean, I wasn't even mad. I just realized the rest of my afternoon was gone and had to get to it as quickly as I could and being pissed would only cost me time. (but don't mistake my exasperation for maturity). I do now freak the gently caress out when I go to a brew session at one of my club mates houses and see them pick up a full carboy by a holder around the neck. They smile dryly and humor my request to ALWAYS SUPPORT A CARBOY BY THE BOTTOM knowing not what true consequences await them. I'm OK with being that guy. Still wasn't as bad as when I had a plumber pop off the cap of the sewer line in roughly the same spot and the backup which he was there to fix emptied into my shop/garage from the street blockage. I used so much Clorox that day I couldn't smell anything for a week.
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Jul 24, 2013 20:07
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Midorka posted:And gentleman that is why you use Better Bottles, or at the very least use a carboy strap of sorts. I don't think that's a valid reason. Better Bottles, Glass Carboys, and even plastic buckets should all be supported by the bottom when moved full. The neck/handle just isn't designed to support all that weight full. Just because you've gotten away with it before (and I did for YEARS) doesn't mean it's correct. In my case I think it was a clear case of misuse as opposed to product defect or design flaw. "Yea but it doesn't shatter into a million pieces when I drop it" argument is understandable, but fruit of the poisoned tree.
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Jul 24, 2013 20:14
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EnsignVix posted:1. two hours of cleanup but I'm still finding shards of glass under stuff as much as five feet away from the impact point 1. Yeah I just stepped on one of those micro-shards of glass the other day, And I can't remember the last time I broke a glass. 2. good one!
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Jul 24, 2013 20:16
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drewhead posted:I don't think that's a valid reason. Better Bottles, Glass Carboys, and even plastic buckets should all be supported by the bottom when moved full. The neck/handle just isn't designed to support all that weight full. Just because you've gotten away with it before (and I did for YEARS) doesn't mean it's correct. In my case I think it was a clear case of misuse as opposed to product defect or design flaw. "Yea but it doesn't shatter into a million pieces when I drop it" argument is understandable, but fruit of the poisoned tree. I never carry a carboy by the neck and no one here said that either, not that I saw. Glass carboys are less permeable, I'll concede to that, but they are have the inherent danger that you brought up. I don't think the small benefits to using glass are worth potential health hazards. If you're going to use glass though you should get a carboy carrier like I suggested.
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Jul 24, 2013 20:36
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Northern Brewer is having flat 6$ shipping for the next 24 hours. I think I'm going to pick up a kit or two. Now to decide what to get...
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Jul 24, 2013 20:52
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ChiTownEddie posted:Northern Brewer is having flat 6$ shipping for the next 24 hours. I think I'm going to pick up a kit or two. Now to decide what to get... Coupon code required or just straight transparent deal on shipping? E: Or I could just go to the page and see for myself! Take Advantage of Flat Rate Shipping - 24 Hours Only - No coupon code needed! $5.99 Flat Rate Shipping on all qualifying products. Offer valid 24 hours only until Midnight CST 07/25/2013. No promo code required.
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Jul 24, 2013 21:00
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Austin Homebrew Supply does flat rate shipping on all products year round  Also they're running FREE SHIPPING for the next 24 hours on everything. http://www.austinhomebrew.com/
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Jul 24, 2013 22:41
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My sour mash saison experiment went kind of awry last night and I ended up with a super sour smelling stuck sparge. I guess rice hulls don't really help that much if the mash has been sitting around for a few days? Who knows. Anyway, as a result I oversparged and ended up with a 1.045 wort instead of a 1.066 wort. I'm considering whether I should boil up enough DME to compensate and add it to the fermenter tonight (which would be 24 hours after the initial wort went in) or just let it be and settle for a roughly 6% beer rather than something closer to 8.6%. I guess the questions I have are: 1.) Is a separate DME addition 24 hours after boiling the wort a bad idea? 2.) Would additional DME affect the overall sourness of the beer?
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Jul 24, 2013 23:12
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ChiTownEddie posted:Northern Brewer is having flat 6$ shipping for the next 24 hours. I think I'm going to pick up a kit or two. Now to decide what to get... drat it. I just paid $40 for shipping on an order yesterday. Also, regarding carboy carrying talk: they fit in milk crates pretty well.
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Jul 24, 2013 23:41
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Cpt.Wacky posted:drat it. I just paid $40 for shipping on an order yesterday. Cancel? Submit a help request to get it changed?
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Jul 25, 2013 00:00
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ChiTownEddie posted:Northern Brewer is having flat 6$ shipping for the next 24 hours. I think I'm going to pick up a kit or two. Now to decide what to get... Oh perfect I wasn't going to brew this week but I guess I will now. Is "I've got saison out the rear end" considered a polite way to invite people over to drink?On another note I just bottled some 5-month old Nottingham-fermented cider with champagne yeast & a can of concentrate for the first time. I know conventional wisdom says it's safe but it was still around 1.006 and I'm going to worry about it anyway. I'm keeping a PET bottle of it right on my desk so I can't forget about it.
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Jul 25, 2013 01:29
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fullroundaction posted:Pitching yeast at flameout that is straight up murder.
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Jul 25, 2013 01:58
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Oktoberfest (and general lager) question: if I lager for 6 weeks or so @ 2C in secondary will there be any yeast left for bottling or do I need to add new yeast with the priming sugar?
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Jul 25, 2013 04:05
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I froze my amber ale the other day. It was frozen for a week before I realized it. I'll let you know if there's any carbonation in a few days. I'd wager that there still is and still will be in your lager though.
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Jul 25, 2013 05:55
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That's fairly flawed logic. There's a big difference in lagering for a long time at temperatures above freezing which will cause yeast to go dormant and drop to the bottom of the fermentor and actually freezing the yeast which can kill them. I'd say after 6 weeks there's probably enough yeast left to carbonate your beer, but why take a chance on a beer that is going to take you 8-9 weeks to make? Buy a $4 packet of dried yeast and add some of it (1/4-1/3 of the packet) to your bottling bucket and mix it in thoroughly. The tiny bit of money and effort is well worth it to make sure you have carbonated beer.
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Jul 25, 2013 11:30
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Ubik posted:/edit: On that note, what's the worst homebrewing blunder that you've made and still managed to recover from? Or didn't? Two big blunders both related to barrel aging. I bought an empty 5 1/2 gallon Balcones bourbon and racked in my Breakfast Stout clone for a month. Come bottling time I thought I'd make this batch special and dipped the bottles in wax. Except the yeast had died and none of them carbed. I had to open every bottle and put in a few drops of rehydrated champagne yeast. It worked, but I was too lazy to re-wax the bottles. The next two batches I put through the barrel (a coffee brown with vanilla bean and a scotch ale with some home smoked malt) ended up way too carbonated. It wasn't until I saw The Mad Fermentationist had the same problem that I identified the culprit. It wasn't a wild yeast infection, but the yeast from the previous batches still in the barrel. Different yeasts that eat different sugars. The brown is only slightly overcarbed, the scotch ale is basically a batch of bottle bombs. They haven't haven't exploded, but I'm hoping a year in the bottle will oxidize and make them at least drinkable.
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Jul 25, 2013 15:35
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fullroundaction posted:Austin Homebrew Supply does flat rate shipping on all products year round And before that they've had free shipping on all kits but coopers can kits. They love running specials like free shipping it seems. Also, the Coopers Mexican Cerveza kit isn't really too bad! I had some straight out of primary and it was very drinkable.
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Jul 25, 2013 15:35
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