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Holy poo poo a new thread. I'll probably still read through the other 250 pages or whatever the gently caress I have left in the old one since it's totally educational and entertaining, ajaarg drama was educaining or something, but thanks for a new thread. So, my second batch is fermenting and I really hate extract. I guess since I'm used to cooking and having total control over what the gently caress's going in my poo poo, it's really annoying to me, I feel like I'm cheating myself big time. So I'm going to start to convert a cooler to a mash tun after I get paid this week. I do 3 gallon batches, so I'm thinking a 7 gallon would be fine for handling pretty much any all grain beer in that size batch, including barley wine and stouts and stuff. I think the most convenient way to go would be getting a cylindrical cooler, the drink dispensers or whatever, swapping out the spigot for a ball valve, and then using a false bottom. Would that pretty much be all I need to do? Any brands insulate temp better than the others or is it all pretty much the same poo poo? Any other aspects I'm overlooking for moving to all grain or does my plan seem pretty sound? And while I'm asking a bunch of poo poo, I kinda just want to be lazy and pitch my next batch on to the saison yeast, and since I'm in so cal the temp will probably still be fine, but I don't want to do another saison. Any suggestions for styles that might take well to a saison yeast? WLP568, specifically. A part of me just wants to try with a beer that totally doesn't seem like it'd go with the yeast just to see what the gently caress the combination yields, maybe I'll come up with something good. Or at least not horrible, guess we'll see. It's only a matter of time until I try it haha, even if I don't do it the upcoming batch. Oh yeah, I also hate hydrometers and want to get a refractometer. Anybody know what I should look for in one/ where a good place to get one is? James Bont fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Sep 18, 2011 |
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Sep 18, 2011 09:42
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Picked up all the poo poo to make my cooler mash tun except for a false bottom, should be fun. Thanks for the advice/ feedback and confirming that a cooler and false bottom is the way to go. This is gonna be way more fun than using extract. I'll be going to the homebrew shop on sunday to pick up a false bottom and the ingredients for my next batch, saison's pretty much done. Bottling day (or "wish I had a keg setup" day) will probably be monday. First batch was an extract brown ale, then it's this saison, so next will be my first all grain batch. Any suggestions? I don't really wanna do anything real rich/ malty, no porters or anything, but I'm not really sure what I do want either haha. Maybe something hoppy, holiday-y, both? I'm thinking on it, but I really have no idea. I don't really wanna do some complex mash for my first all grain, but decoctions and poo poo pretty much just seem to be "take out a measured amount of the mash, heat it up, add it back, repeat(?)", not nearly as difficult as they initially sounded when I first started reading up on homebrewing, so that really doesn't seem so bad if it seems like the way to go for the style I'm feeling. Guess I'll just update if I have any ideas, maybe I can get some help putting together the grain bill. Also, if anybody knows offhand what size false bottom I need for a 5 gallon cylinder coleman cooler that'd be great, otherwise though I'll just drag it along to the homebrew shop sunday and see which one fits best haha.
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Sep 24, 2011 09:40
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Jo3sh posted:It's pretty small - I think it's like a 9" diameter. You'd probably be best off dragging along the cooler anyway. Yeah, that's what I read on I think northernbrewer or something earlier but I'll just bring the cooler anyways. So I'm thinking since I haven't really done anything hoppy yet I'll do a pale ale, I'll probably use all marris otter. I'd like for it to have just a little richness to it though since it's not really spring/ summer any more, so a little more body/ sweetness is what I'm looking for I guess. What would be the best way to go about it, mash a little higher, maybe around 152 or something? Or throw in a little crystal? I'm using hopville and it seems like for my little 2.5-2.75 gallon batch 5 lbs of marris otter will do. Think I'll give the Thames Valley yeast a try, too. Anyways I don't wanna use your usual amarillo/ cascade sorta american hoppiness, any more unique varieties? I don't really care about staying totally historically accurate to the pale ale style, I just want good beer and something a little different than the usual west coast hop profile.
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Sep 24, 2011 21:43
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Jo3sh posted:You could do a whole bunch worse than to scale j3rkstore's ESB recipe a few posts up to your batch size. ESB is not a super-hoppy beer by current standards, so if you just can't stand the idea of brewing non-hoppy beer, just tweak the hops upward to hit something like 50-60 IBU. The English hop varieties j3rkstore is specifying have a very different character than the citrus/pine thing a lot of American hops do, so you can use those if you want, or you can sub in American cultivars of English types, such as Mt. Hood or Willamette. Oh man, I didn't even see that ESB recipe, looks pretty much like exactly what I had in mind, I'll just scale it down and change up the hops. Or indigi's too now that I'm scrolling further up, they both look pretty good. Guess I should've refreshed before posting. Thanks guys. Dry hopping definitely sounds like a good idea. I really did like the aroma from the fuggles when I did my brown ale, I'm not really feeling like going totally english but they are nice. I'll keep an eye out for Riwaka and Sorachi Ace, they sound interesting. Even though it falls back in to west coast hop profile territory, I think I'll have to get some Simcoe if I see it. It's just so drat good. I want to keep my beers real simple though so I can get a good understanding of the ingredients, so marris otter, a little crystal or biscuit or something, 1-2 hops, and thames valley is what I'm looking at. Maybe I'll just say gently caress the pale ale, do the ESB, and go pure fuggle with some dry hopping action. It all sounds pretty good haha. Thanks again for the advice, I'll probably be brewing this some time later in the week.
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Sep 24, 2011 23:16
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So I guess I'm doing a citra pale esb or something? Hopville's beer calculator thing says it qualifies as esb but is just 1 ibu over an american pale ale so whatever. I saw sorachi ace and pacific jade and was really thinking about using those, but one pack of citra pellets left so I said gently caress it. Keeping things really simple so I can get to know my ingredients. Recipe for my little 2.5 (or slightly over) batch is now: 5 lbs marris otter .25 lbs crystal 15 Thames Valley yeast 2 oz. citra hops, 12.3% AA That's it. For the hop schedule I'm thinking something like .25 oz at 60 .25 at 30 .25 at 45 .5 at flameout dry hop with remaining .75 for a week after primary fermentation I'm going for a good balance of bitterness and lots of fun aromatics since the aroma and stuff is one of the best things about citra, so does 46 IBU's sound alright? That 1 IBU pushes it in to official esb territory, so it looks like there's gonna be a few ESB's coming in the thread haha. I know citra is totally atypical of an "esb" but I don't really care about staying true to style, I just want to make good beer dammit. But since I'm using citra I'm thinking about dialing back on the maltiness just a little more than I'd originally planned on so the hops can shine a little more, maybe mashing at about 148-150 for an hour or so. Does that sound good? Also, how much water would I start with if I plan on batch sparging? I know generally it's around 1 1/4 quarts per pound of grain, so do I divide it up a little bit? maybe a little less than a quart for the main mash and then rinse with the remaining water I need over another 1-2 additions? Any advice would be much appreciated. Oh and about the false bottom no luck with a 9 inch at the homebrew shop. I'm gonna try this "brew in a bag" deal, for my small batches it seems like it'll actually work alright. Rather than using it like an oversized teabag, I can just have it line my cooler mash tun for all sorts of filtery goodness. It hangs out the top and I can still screw on the lid with the bag hanging out. And for $5 even if it doesn't work alright, then it's not a big deal. Got some extra malt extract hanging around in case this goes horribly wrong, but I think it'll be alright. Also the homebrew shop is one of the best places to get stranded thanks to a lovely ignition. Free beer  a guy came in with a (light) brown ale made with 2-row, pale chocolate malt, and biscuit, forgot the yeast and hops used though. It was nice, may have to try something with pale chocolate some time soon.
James Bont fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Sep 26, 2011 |
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Sep 26, 2011 09:18
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So for my next beer I'm gonna do something of a strong porter with mexican chocolate and pasilla peppers. About what temperature should I mash at, maybe 155 or so? I want it to have some decent body, not watery, with a bit of residual sweetness too. Probably gonna use a quarter pound or so of some dark crystal malt to help with that. Also I was gonna use marris otter for my base malt. Recipe so far looks something like 7 lbs marris otter 1.5-2 lbs piloncillo/ panela/ whatever you wanna call it .25 lbs chocolate malt .25 lbs crystal 90 .25 lbs roasted barley 1.5 oz amarillo hops (in .3 oz doses at 60, 30, 15, 5, and flameout) which puts my little 3 gallon batch to about 35 IBU's. 2-3 pasilla peppers 3-4 little discs (bars? I don't know) of mexican chocolate Danstar Nottingham yeast Sound alright, suggestions, criticisms, anything? I'm happy with it but I don't know, this is my first recipe really. The pale ale I did last was just really simple, it was already pretty much the same as 2 recipes already posted. This has a bit more going on so any input would be appreciated. Otherwise I guess I'll just go ahead with it and see what happens.
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Nov 26, 2011 08:25
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tesilential posted:helpful stuff Thanks for the tips. Brown malt instead of roasted sounds like a good idea and should help with the flavor profile I'm going for. More crystal/ chocolate malt, I dunno. I might bump it up to a half a pound chocolate malt but the crystal I'm afraid of going overboard, I might bump it up to a half pound as well but I don't think it'll be too necessary. Hoping the beer will get more of it's sweetness/ body from mash temp/ chocolatey goodness rather than having to use more crystal. Oh also I've been meaning to ask, does all grain brewing just produce a lot more protein/ hot break poo poo than extract? My last brew was my first all grain and I hit my projected OG and stuff pretty much on point and was pretty happy about that, but it just seemed so drat cloudy. It's almost ready to be bottled now and everything has pretty much settled out and stuff so it doesn't look all stupid and cloudy anymore, just looks like delicious beer. So I'm not stressing about it really, just wondering if it's normal.
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Nov 27, 2011 10:15
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So I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding what to brew next. I was originally thinking some type of belgian style, but the more I think about it the more I want to start messing around with sours. So maybe I should try something with a decoction mash next brew, that way I can sort of get used to it and do a turbid mash for a lambic down the line. I figure I can probably brew a lager with some anchor steam yeast no problem. Any style suggestions? I'm thinking a dunkel or something but I don't really know. Unrelated, holiday porter seems to be coming along great. Overshot the gravity which means my efficiency was somewhere around 75-78% or some poo poo, looks like this is going to finish out at 8.7% or so. A week after fermentation started and it's still got krausen. Used a good chunk of the yeast cake from my last pale ale brewed with WLP023 burton yeast, seems to be working well. My only concern is that by overshooting the gravity it might end up a bit sweeter than I wanted. I figure if it finishes out too sweet though, I can use maybe a quart of water for priming sugar, boil the poo poo out of some hops in the water, strain it, then add my priming sugar mix it all up and bottle. Nothing wrong with fixing a beer up before bottling like that, right?
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Dec 14, 2011 09:02
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So this porter or whatever is taking loving forever. Over 3 weeks now and still krausen. Should I be worried? I don't know what it is but I guess there's still fermentation going on. OG was like 1.090 so I guess that's probably why it's taking long. Mashed at about 152. Dumped in a pretty healthy sized chunk of yeast from the yeast cake of the previous batch (pale ale, wlp023) for this beer, and like I said the yeast seem to be working just fine. I shook the poo poo out of it to see if the krausen still being there was sort of a fluke, but then a day or two later it had reformed so obviously this beer's not even done. I haven't even bothered with a gravity reading yet since you can SEE there's still poo poo going on. Anyways enough bullshit, should I just let it finish out in the carboy it started in? Or since I'm nearing 4 weeks here should I rack it in to my bottling bucket prematurely and then when bottling day comes just mix in the priming sugar? or should I put the priming sugar directly in bottles? I dunno, I just want this beer to hurry and finish.
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Dec 31, 2011 20:40
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Well thanks for the help. Beer literally still has foam chillin on top about 1/2-1 inch thick, but I took a gravity reading and I think it's probably done. Going down to 1.015 from 1.089 is pretty drat good attenuation, I can't imagine it going much further, so I guess I'll bottle in a couple of days. Thanks again. Tastes nice. Malty, roast and chocolate come through good, and a little bitter hoppy finish. Almost on the verge of being a little too malty for me, maybe it was the mexican chocolate or I should've used more sugar. Seems good for my second all grain attempt though so I'm happy.
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Jan 3, 2012 03:15
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ChiTownEddie posted:While on the topic of honey... if you want to have a hint of honey flavor in your beer is it better to use that as the priming sugar (or at least partially), add it during fermentation as drewhead suggested, or add it during the brew process? Honey malt maybe? Also goes by the name Gambrinus I think? Another brewer at the homebrew shop one day was in buying some ingredients and brought in something of a pale ale he brewed with 2 row, light chocolate, and honey malt, forgot what hops and stuff. I'd never heard of Honey malt before that but sure enough it's there at the shop and it tastes pretty much just like honey. The flavor seemed to come through nice in the beer. So I don't know how much to use or anything having not used it myself (yet!) but I know it exists and adds a good honey flavor to beer.
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Feb 14, 2012 23:47
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Bruinator posted:Now on to my question: First time Brett user here. I've got an Orval style beer fermented with White Labs Bastogne down to about 1.010. About a week ago I transferred it into a corny, threw in a tube of Brett B, and stuck a blowoff on the gas out. I popped the lid yesterday to see my first pellicle and was rewarded with nothing - just the clean beer surface, no sign or smell of brett. Should I have made a starter? What temperature do you guys usually use Brett in the secondary at? I was planning to give it another 3-4 weeks at 59 degrees. Do I just need to relax and give it some more time? While I haven't done anything with brett (yet!) I'm pretty sure that it takes a while to really do anything. Probably wanna give it a month or two minimum, unlike regular yeast where you just pitch it then in a day or two you got krausen threatening to blow the airlock off a carboy. Docjowles posted:Why not test the ones you have? Take the temp of boiling water and make sure it's what it should be (adjusted for elevation if necessary). Then pack a jar or large glass with ice, fill with water and make sure it reads very close to freezing. Of course that assumes your thermometers have that entire range available. After a hiatus in brewing taking care of some bullshit, I finally got my IPA fermenting. Equal parts amarillo/ sorachi ace, hoping it works out well. Looks like fermentation is nearly done in fact so I'll probably start dry hopping tomorrow. Hooray! Thinking about doing a witbier next, I'm not especially familiar with the style so I figure it'll be a good way to learn. James Bont fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Mar 11, 2012 |
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Mar 11, 2012 22:11
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So I couldn't decide what the gently caress to brew, but I did stop at the homebrew shop anyways since I was in the neighborhood. Looks like I'm gonna do a belgian dark ale on jamesons soaked oak chips. Forgot to buy some more candi sugar stuff but I have a half pound leftover and figure I can substitute the rest with turbinado, caramelizing it if I need to I guess. I'm going for something strong here, and while I haven't gone on hopville yet and sorted everything out, this should be a 9-10%. This was just kinda hastily thrown together, so I dunno. The recipe I think will come out ok, but I'm not sure about how to treat the yeast. Went with the westmalle, WLP530. Anyways 7 lbs Golden Promise .5 lbs Special Aromatic .5 lbs dark candi sugar .25 lbs caramelized turbinado .25 lbs crystal 15 .25 lbs chocolate malt Tettnanger hops WLP530 yeast ^That's for a 3 gallon batch. I seem to recall reading something somewhere (probably here) about letting the fermentation temp rise over a couple of days to the upper 70s, then as fermentation starts to die down lowering it or something. Also I know for some belgian styles/ yeasts they're supposed to work better by adding sugar during the ferment, so is that something I should bother with? Well anyways I gotta clean bottles to get this IPA out of my fermenter, so I'll start figuring out this belgian after. Any advice would be appreciated though, thanks.
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Mar 20, 2012 02:15
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Oh alright. I wasn't sure about why I should be doing either of those things, but now that I know the purpose I'll take that in to consideration when sorting out this recipe later. Thanks.
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Mar 20, 2012 03:15
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Docjowles posted:You could add a hilariously tiny amount of something like Black Patent Malt if you just want to orange things up. 1 to 1.5oz should get you in the ballpark based on plugging it into BeerSmith. Add it during the vorlauf stage right before sparging and you'll get color without any roastiness spilling over. Having just bottled a saison that I dryhopped the hell out of with amarillo, I can say it's pretty drat tasty. I kept it simple, grist was 5.5 lbs pils, 1.5 lbs munich, .25 lbs aromatic, and then I used a half pound of candi syrup too. Pretty color, nice goldy orange. I think I threw in something like 3 ounces of amarillo for dry hopping, hard to say. Started with an ounce and a half but felt it needed more after a few days, so I just grabbed another handful of pellets and threw them in. For my next brew I'm thinking about doing a witbier, 50/50 grist of pils malt and wheat, but this will be my first time doing any sort of wheat beer. Should I step mash to do a protein rest or anything like that? Not sure how the wheat is gonna change things exactly, if at all, so I dunno. Or can I just mash at like 150-152 for an hour or whatever as usual?
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May 6, 2012 20:56
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Anybody ever really use the San Francisco Lager yeast? I'm thinking about doing some stupidly dry hopped lager (a'la Bruery's Humulus Lager) and using that yeast at about 55 to ferment, but I'm wondering- should still bother with a starter or pitching on a yeast cake or whatever, or can I just toss in a whole vial (for 3 gallons) and be fine? Also my saison came out drat good now that it's fully carbonated and everything, really happy with it. Only problem, a stupidly minor one, is the head collapses kinda fast. Grist was mostly belgian pils with some german munich (something like 85/15, and if anybody cares the rest of the recipe was just candi syrup and a bunch of amarillo) so I'm thinking a protein rest might've helped fix that, right? I mean it's not a huge deal and it sticks around a bit, but it seems like I remember all the saisons I've drank having a bit of a denser more long lasting head. Still, fuckin delicious, I'm sure it won't be long before I brew another, it's been a hit. For anybody doing a saison any time soon, I gotta say WLP566 is a pretty kickass saison yeast, I like it better than the 568 blend but I haven't tried 565 yet. Got sort of a bubblegummy flavor from that blend when I fermented in the 70s (comparable to Le Freak by green flash if anybody's had it), this one had a nice sort of fruitiness going on with a decent peppery finish. Fermented fast, not a huge krausen, thorough attenuation (I hit a little over 80%), totally gonna get used again in another beer.
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May 17, 2012 08:54
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Angry Grimace posted:Making a Pale Ale this weekend and I was planning to use some Citra hops in combination with something else as flavor hops. I have Simcoe and Amarillo on hand, and was planning to just go with Magnum for bittering as usual. I was actually gonna brew a pale ale like, tonight hopefully, and have the same hops on hand. Like Docjowles said, citra/ amarillo are pretty sweet and need the help of a more piney/ resiny hop unless you're really going for that bright sorta fruity hoppiness. I've done all amarillo and amarillo/ citra before and sorta felt the same both times. This time, now that I actually have simcoe, I was thinking either simcoe/ amarillo or simcoe/ citra with just a little amarillo. I've kinda settled on 2:1:1 simcoe/ citra/ amarillo, so I guess we'll see how that turns out. Hope yours goes good! As an aside and sorta relevant, when I'm sorting out my aromatic hops/ dry hops, I always mix the hops in a dish, cover it for a bit, then take off the cover and take a nice big whiff to see if that's what I want in my beer or if it needs adjustments. Am I the only one? Hops just smell loving good and I figure, since they're mostly being added for their aroma and stuff, smelling them all together is a good indicator of the flavor profile I'll be adding. I don't know though, maybe I'm just weird.
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Jun 14, 2012 07:34
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bengy81 posted:I want to try my hand at doing BIAB sometime in the next week. I am thinking of doing a 3 gallon batch, anybody have a recipe for a saison, or another beer that I can ferment from 60 - 70 degrees? 5.5 lbs belgian pils 1.5 lbs german munich mashed at 150-152 .5 lbs light candi syrup If you want it more gold rather than goldy orange, just use more pils and less munich, big deal. I thought mine had a real pretty color though. Hops of your choice, bitter appropriately. I did about 40 IBU's with 10.1% AA Amarillo so it took something like .3 oz. And then I added a lot more amarillo for post boil/ dry hopping (1 oz post boil, another 2 dryhop). Although more traditionally you'd use noble hops, tettnanger or saaz or whatever. Homebrew shop dude's recipe uses hallertau but I personally don't care for that hop. The yeast I used was white labs saison II, WLP566. Really happy with the way it came out, and was probably the quickest ferment I've had. Kept it about 70 until I thought it had a healthy ferment going, then I let it free rise as high as it wanted. And it didn't even blow up! Low krausen, high attenuation, it was surprising. Definitely plan on brewing another saison soon using it. James Bont fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 16, 2012 |
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Jun 16, 2012 22:29
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^ I think the white spots from oxyclean/ hard water only happens when you don't have things completely submerged, or there's a little dry spot. I bought some glassware from a thrift store a while back and it was in kinda bad shape, so I gave it a good soak in oxy/ hot water. Most of it turned out fine. One of them was a brandy snifter and ended up with a little bubble of air in the glass while it soaked since it was on it's side. It had a little white spot for a while after that, in fact it's still there a little bit but I drink from the glass anyways. I figure if all that star san and poo poo won't take it off then it probably won't get in to my beer.Kaiho posted:So would I just dump my dry hops onto the mess it currently is if I can tease out a non-foamy gravity sample? Assuming it's done, that is. Yeah, definitely take a gravity reading but so long as your yeast was healthy you're probably fine. Similar thing happened to me once on a porter I brewed using Thames Valley yeast. The krausen just never really completely died. After like 2 weeks I got concerned so I took a gravity reading and it had attenuated down over 80%. When it comes to bottling either siphon out from beneath that top layer, or cold crash it a few days and that stuff should fall out of suspension. You're probably fine to throw in your hops now though.
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Jun 17, 2012 20:03
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