|
Grevling posted:
That's pretty interesting, mind posting a few links? I had no idea about this. Been reading up a lot on Kveik and related old yeast strains and old-timey farm brewing (since I live in a region famous for old-timey high ABV malt beers) and I know some people super into this stuff. Oh yeah, so I decided to get into home brewing, because what else am I gonna do? So far I've got a few nano two-liter fermentation tubs with water locks for testing out different brew ideas, made some basic kvass in those, most turned out fine, my smoked bourbon sourdough kvass did NOT turn out okay at all. I've also bought a cheap but solid and reliable brew machine on the advice of an enthusiast I know, pretty low budget stuff but I'm sure it will work. I'm still doing a lot of reading before I get started (and all the yeast is still on order) but I have easy access to smoked malted barley, solid types of yeasts and other stuff so I shouldn't take long to get going. Got an old-timey brew room in the basement next to an old-timey stone cellar that maintains constant low temp all year round, I'm constructing shelves there for storage. I want to start with some form of saison, which I love, and I also definitely want to try to do a fireweed traditional mead (with mead herb and norwegian honey, obvs) and a cloudberry braggot if I can pull it off, I certainly have the storage space. Since I'm pretty new I'm gonna get an experienced brewer to walk me through things so I can be learning by doing as well. There's just so much to read about and learn first though.
|
#
¿
May 1, 2020 09:53
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 8, 2024 00:58 |
|
|
So, I made my first batch of beer, a fairly uncomplicated IPA and well, I learned a lot. As in I made a bunch of mistakes. My set up worked pretty well, but I had a couple of malfunctions that in hindsight were obvious and the wort came out at about 1030 OG. I'm pretty sure the reason was a combination of milling the grains wrong (don't have a mill, forgot to ask for the grain shipment pre-milled, had to improvise) and I completely misunderstood the whole sparging thing and did that completely wrong. At least I didn't contaminate the wort, and it did start fermenting albeit it's not terribly active. I plan to spike it tonight with some pasteurized/boiled honey solution, a boiled mango puree and the dry hops to see if it can be saved and the ABV upped some. Probably gonna have to ferment a little longer than two weeks if it takes, we'll have to see how slow the honey gets eaten. Maybe it'll turn out like a hoppy mild braggot? Probably gonna get dishwater. We'll see. I've ordered up some more stuff and I'm gonna try again next week and do it right, as well as racking my fireweed mead over to secondary.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2020 09:08
|
|
|
Scarf posted:Congrats! Any brew day that ultimately ends up with something drinkable is a win! Well, here's hoping. Tasting just the ferment it's got an amazing hop flavour, but 5 days into the ferment it's at 1010 and appeared stalled... So I added the boiled puree and the pasteurised honey and it immediately got very active in the airlock. Might just have been starving. I'll be happy if it ends up in general beer ABV territory at bottling, which I'll probably have to delay some. I used commercial beer yeast, dry from the brewshop. I'll check the exact kind tomorrow. Two packs, rehydrated it (and it got active enough to nearly explode my sterilized jar, but I'm experienced with sourdough so I'd removed the gasket). Fermenting at 19-20 degrees Celsius, but my heating chamber is subpar. The insulation seems to work well but the heater doesn't and the temp sensor seems to fluctuate between 18 and 20 but the average should be around 19. Gonna have to do something clever about it.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2020 22:05
|
|
|
Mr.Sloth posted:Hey congrats on the first brew. Going back down memory lane and you are ahead of the curve compared to me hah hah. A final gravity of 1.010 seems about right for an IPA but maybe someone can correct me. I alway use this chart on brewers friend as a general reference https://www.brewersfriend.com/2017/05/07/beer-styles-original-gravity-and-final-gravity-chart-2017-update/. Thanks for a great resource, that link will come in handy. I did in fact record the amounts (record everything, always, thanks thread!) and I'll try and math it out from my OG read after work, that's a super tip!
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2020 12:41
|
|
|
Nth Doctor posted:Gonna put my wager on SafAle S-05. You're pretty good at this.  Mathed out my abv based on the sugar content and the calculated end ABV is 4.58 but I'm guessing it's not gonna ferment out completely at bottling. However, I am adding sugar for priming at bottling so on the balance I'm hoping for around 4.5?
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2020 18:34
|
|
|
So, I went and bottled my first brew and started my second, a dark christmas ale with hops, cinnamon and orange peels. My final gravity for the IPA turned out to be 1.005, and it smelled wonderful. I thought I had a bunch of sediment in it but it turned out I just added so much poo poo it was terminally clogged at the top and bottom, the priming rack solved that nicely. Miscalculated the final amount and winded up getting about 19 liters, but that's... a lot more than I expected visually. I hope it turns out okay, it's bottle conditioning now  The christmas ale went much smoother than last time, except for a clogged bazooka filter. Goddamned piece of poo poo. Had to use a backup siphon. I got so stressed and took so long I forgot to take an OG reading  Just gonna have to hope for the best I suppose.Things I learned: bazooka filter problem calculate more time, no even more time, in fact the entire day is now brew day
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2020 14:06
|
|
|
That's really cool. Anyone got any hot tips for a great fake lager kveik type recipe for a beginner to try their hand at? I really want to try a brew with kveik. And while I'm asking, anyone got a particularly good braggot recipe they like? I'm thinking something summer-y would be best, since I figure it will have to bottle age or sit in a secondary until at least next summer.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2020 19:52
|
|
|
That's a great suggestion regardless, particularly as I love Saisons. I did read that braggots should not be combined with too much hops, particularly if one is making a 50/50 honey/malt by weight braggot, and a lot of recipes recommend bog myrtle (pors) which I think is pretty cool. There's a local microbrewery (Klostergården) that makes a lot of their lighter beers with bog myrtle and it's very interesting. I also got a bunch of meadowsweet (mjødurt) lying around I figure might be cool in a braggot. Just trying to do some research before I commit a bunch of cash to buying honey in bulk. I trust this thread's advice over my googling any day.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2020 09:58
|
|
|
Thotsky is a pretty advanced (late stage?) brewer so that's nothing to worry about. Whatever you make at home is gonna be cool and good, stoneage people made beer with magic sticks and wild grains which you are miles above. That said your thing sounds both complex and delicious. Shame there isn't some sort of easy sample sharing system (obviously that has a ton of issues).
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2020 09:36
|
|
|
Made my first mead while I'm waiting for my urq clone getting done, nanobrew so I got a liter of product out of it all. Taste right out of secondary is kinda good actually, it's very dry and the cold crash cleared it up nicely and it is incredibly fragrant. Taste is honey and alcohol dominated, with just a hint of fireweed and not really any apple, but then it needs storage so... Bottled a 0,75 wine bottle and a 0,3 tester and tossed it in the cellar to revisit in a year.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2020 17:00
|
|
|
There's always bottle pasteurization if you're really worried.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2020 08:06
|
|
|
thotsky posted:Nice dude! It's really encouraging to see a real clear amber result after bottling, but I also feel like working with tiny amounts while less work in terms of scale leads to huge losses. Like I got a liter ish of usable product out of 1,8 liters pre ferment. That's a lot. I mean, I guess it's fine since I'm experimenting with flavours mostly, but a year is a long wait and only two chances for taste testing. Hard to find a middle ground between 1,8 liters and like 11. I have to think on this.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2020 08:16
|
|
|
Bottled my third ever beer yesterday, an urq clone czech pilsner with Saaz hops. Didn't hit optimal OG of 1051 but landed on 1045, but also didn't hit target FG of 1015 but landed close to 1010 so I figure it's alright. Snuck a taste test and man, it already tastes incredible. Got some feedback on my second beer, christmas ale. Apparently meets with massive approval from the 60+ crowd though I'm still not super impressed myself, it's a bit malty and will probably do well to get some cellar time. Almost done with the first shelves and the storage rack for my mead, which I have two batches of bubbling away (one strawberry sweetmead melomel and one wild raspberry honey sweet show mead that I might secondary with something). All in all I am enjoying the heck out of my new hobby. Sure is a lot of cleaning though.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2020 07:46
|
|
|
thotsky posted:
That is super cool, please report on it because that is badass. Are you going mostly honey fortified or full-on braggot?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2020 08:52
|
|
|
Dude Sweet posted:
It's also pretty funny. I'm soon done conditioning my fourth ever beer, a german style dark lager. I cannot believe how well it turned out, it's drinkable immediately and very full and rich, almost overwhelming with flavours. This type is gonna be a staple for me going forward. Overshot my target OG for this one a little bit but the attenuation was pretty spot on. Also bottled a strawberry mead, turned out okay but not as strawberry forward as I had thought. Gonna see how this one does, might add more strawberry or better quality next time. Secondaried a nagoonberry and wild raspberry honey sweet mead, and brewed a cyser with Gravenstein apples and summer flower honey. This hobby is incredibly rewarding.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2020 06:27
|
|
|
thotsky posted:My honey kveik meadowsweet beer turned out earthy, clovey and gross. We did make a honey and meadowsweet milk ice cream that was delicious though. I am thinking meadowsweet is too overpowering in beer but the main culprit here is probably the kveik. That's a shame. It's a neat idea. Sure it can't be saved by storing for a while? I'm having a problem with my basement storage setup and I'm pretty sure it's basically moisture. I'm getting mold on my bottles, which I'm not too worried about but they are all flip-tops and it's gathering along the rubber seal. Obviously, that's no bueno so I've been wiping them down with vinegar but it's a pain in the rear end to keep doing it. I've installed a temp and hygrometer, and I guess I have to buy a dehumidifier to get the humidity down to fight the problem but I'd love a different solution. Meanwhile I got a blueberry belgian abbey quadrupel brewing, excited to see how it'll do. I'm pretty spot on my target OG for it, so I'm expecting it to end up around 9,5%, and I'm storing for half a year before I try it.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2020 19:02
|
|
|
Made a belgian, trappist, quadrupel, blueberry. For some reason, it attenuated a lot, and I missed my target FG by a lot. 1087 to 1017 ended up to be 1082 to 1005. With priming sugar I math it to around 10,4%. Ought to be 9,3. Bit on the harsh side, so I'll let it rest for 6 months and then we'll see.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2020 11:45
|
|
|
thotsky posted:What yeast? Mangrove Jack's M31. E: Though to be fair, I did gently caress up and did a lovely wrong-temp rehydration, but I would have figured that would gently caress up the yeast, not help it attenuate.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2020 15:26
|
|
|
thotsky posted:Thats a very attenuative yeast. It's the equivalent of WLP570, which has the STA1 gene (diastaticus), so the attenuation potential is huge. With these yeasts it becomes very difficult to predict where you will end up without nailing your process and knowing how your recipe performs with that process. Is this the first time you have brewed this recipe? Oh yeah, I got it all off a brewolution kit that I simply went and added blueberries to, I don't have the knowledge to put something like this together myself yet. gently caress doing malt math. It's an important lesson about all grain kits though.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2020 21:21
|
|
|
thotsky posted:Fruit is also pretty much straight up simple sugar; it will make any yeast attenuate a bit more than usual. That might absolutely have contributed. I guess I'll wait and see, I didn't immediately detect any off flavours or smells other than very present alcohol, and I bought a few bottles of Chimay Blue to compare.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2020 07:30
|
|
|
The Strangest Finch posted:I'm considering trying to make mead next. Most of the recipes I've seen have been extremely simple (which is definitely a perk). However, some call for the addition of a yeast nutrient. What exactly does that do? Beyond that, is there a specific yeast I should seek out? So far my personal experience has been mostly positive, but dry high-alcohol meads need storage regardless, so I would recommend planning on storing dry meads for a year regardless of what else you do. Otherwise, degassing is for sure very important but should be done very carefully to avoid adding oxygen. Making mead is simpler, but easier to gently caress up, and honestly with the relatively high cost of quality honey you really super do not want to gently caress up sanitation. Speaking of honey; quality raw ingredients are important. Having just started with meads I'm already noticing huge differences between mostly cheap, standard and unpasteurized specialist honey. Quality matters a lot. I recommend trying out a bunch of small batches to see what you like best. So far my best results have been going fairly traditional, 12-14% meads with either chopped boiled raisins or yeast nutrients to help out - I find the raisins simpler overall. Really easy shorthand is two parts water for every one part honey, but obviously there are a lot of very specific recipies out there to try. My last mead was an amazing success:   This is nagoonberry sweet mead, 12% ABV and came out a perfect blend of sweet and tart, extremely berry forward and very pleasant to drink. I think after storing a while it will make an amazing dessert wine for some sort of berry dessert. E: Oh yeah, about mead yeasts. You can do fine with a basic decent universal wine yeast, but Wyest Dry and Sweet mead yeasts are great. I'm particularly impressed with the Sweet mead yeast, so I recommend making both dry and sweet meads to see which you like more for any particular recipe, unless the recipe is very specific to a type. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Sep 13, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2020 10:37
|
|
|
thotsky posted:I just started my first cyser/melomel. Some nice quality apple juice, honey, raspberries and blueberries. For nutrients I boiled up some leftover kveik, white labs nutrient and a few raisins. Added everything up front with pure O2. Fermenting it with Saison Dupont yeast. I will be doing punchdowns for a few days, and then maybe add some oak cubes that have my mixed ferment on them.... Maybe. Very nice. I got one brewing that ought to be ready for bottling in about a month (Gravenstein, lynghonning) with meadowsweet and using just boiled raisins for a nutrient kick but I'm really not sure it needs it, it's been extremely active and turned active after a very short lag phase. I know punchdowns are the recommended thing for melomels, but I've been thinking I might just use glass sink weights instead. Easy to sterilize and use, should be fine right?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2020 06:45
|
|
|
I figure a hop bag would to the trick? I've tried using that for berries and it works for that, but it needs a lot more glass weight than what I used and I don't want to use anything else. Figure it would work in the inverse if it's threaded over the siphon.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2020 10:31
|
|
|
Whoa, you got a freeze already?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2020 15:40
|
|
|
The Strangest Finch posted:On the topic of repeated racking for wine. How much time should I wait between racks? Are there visual signals I should be looking for? Primary fermentation of mead is slow, and you can expect a primary of a 12-14% mead to go 4 weeks, easy, though you should rack before 6 weeks to avoid autolysis issues. 9 days is normally way too soon to rack. Fermentation might be slow, or maybe your seal is faulty so gas is escaping and not bubbling. Do you have any idea if it's just stuck (as in, you have a wayy too high stable gravity reading for a FG)? Myself, I basically rack from primary after about 4 weeks though if there's activity I might wait a bit, then I leave it in secondary for about 4 more weeks until I'm certain fermentation has stopped. If gravity is still moving after 8 weeks (which it totally can!) I might rack a final time, but if it seems stable enough I usually bottle at that point and let it age out in bottle. I got myself a new toy though, a small cone fermentor with a lees collector so I don't have to take the risk of racking. Gonna be sweet to see if it works, it could be a massive timesaver.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2020 19:55
|
|
|
Yeah you've added a difficulty step maybe but brewing great beer is still very much on the table.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2020 15:59
|
|
|
So, my kölsch hit my target og and fg pretty spot on, looked nice and clear so I'm excited to try that after conditioning. Never had it so that'll be cool. Bottled my cyser. It uuuuh.... Well, thing is, I forgot that apple juice has sugar in it. I also used a fairly hardy wine yeast. So it ended up at 20,5% abv. Whoops. But, it also tasted really good right out of secondary so I'm gonna store it for a while and hope. Bottled my cloudberry mead. Potential disaster. I don't know what or why but it came out very dry and just highly acidic. Ended up around 16% abv which is a 1% higher than expected, and had a bad case of pectin haze... But after bottling it cleared almost completely in a week. I don't get it. I cold stored it for a week. Anyway, might as well store it for a while and see how it goes.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2020 10:59
|
|
|
Weird. What kind of honey did you use?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2020 11:21
|
|
|
big scary monsters posted:I think cloudberries are a little tricky, I made a cloudberry wine and it tasted somewhat harsh and "hot" even after dilution to 12% and a year in the bottle. Could be they just really need to age, or maybe some extra back sweetening? I didn't really manage to pick any this season so I have to wait until next year before I can try again. Quite possibly. Cloudberries are loving weird and the seeds probably input a lot of tannins, incredible amounts of pectin in them as well, and they contain so many enzymes and poo poo that they are probably not actually optimal for flavouring but do all sorts of weird things to a brew... but the taste is also so goddamned good. I'll let you know if aging helps mine any.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2020 15:35
|
|
|
Pretty sure you can use an all grain brewer to make mead if you're making a quantity, but you don't neccessarily need one. Most homebrewers make like, 1-2 gallons per batch? Good honey is expensive! Making a 5-gallon batch of mead I would have to be damned sure of the result beforehand.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2020 11:27
|
|
|
Hasselblad posted:What is the boil method for mead? As far as I know, there isn't a boil method per se. What I do is boil my water that I'm using for about 15 minutes, which is when I add an appropriate amount of meadowsweet. This accomplishes sterilization of the water and a herbal/tannin help for aging and mouthfeel. This is also when I add boil dissolvable yeast nutrient. Also how I sterilize my cooling spiral. I then bring the temp down to 80, mix in the honey and bring the temp back up to 80 for 1 minute for ultrapasteurization. Then I quickly cool it to pitching temp and transfer. I always flavour in secondary. E:yeah, never boil honey. At the most, pasteurize it. Boiling ruins flavour.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2020 23:27
|
|
|
Got a bit of a different issue, I'm trying out a conical fermenter for a christmas mead project and the temp in my (I'm starting to realize) insufficient fermentation chamber is uneven, too warm up top and too low at the bottom. I used a slightly old yeast and it's going slow. It's going, but it's visibly so slow I'm worried it might stall. Rather than do the obvious (make a new one, buy more equipment), which won't help me now, I thought of a good idea: take off the yeast collector in the bottom, pitch the small trub there again, swirl it a bit and leave the bottom bit dry and the valve closed. But I can't get the loving yeast collector off. And it's plastic, so if I try and unfuckle it with a handy pipe wrench, I risk just plain destroying the thing. I'll have to figure out a way to do this, as gentle as possible. Really annoying though, and I think I'm seriously risking brew contamination at this point. Given that it's well over 100$ worth of ingredients, that kind of stings.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2021 20:44
|
|
|
big scary monsters posted:Maybe a bit late to ask for this particular batch, but did you put plenty of silicone tape on the threads? My Fastferment conical came with a whole roll of tape and instructions not to stint - and after the first use I put on more because the threads cut through most of the layers I'd used. I did, yes. Well, at least I hope so. The cone feels a lot looser than it ought to be but I don't want to overthread it. I did use plenty of tape though. I figured it out. I looks like if you close the valve before you try and get the yeast collector off, it creates a vacuum and it just won't come off. Finally tried opening the valve and presto  So, repitching may have helped, but it's still got a sucky seal because the airlock isn't bubbling or the fermentation is just slow. There's a fair krausen and visible activity though so I'm just gonna leave it for a while. gently caress it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2021 14:58
|
|
|
I secondaried my mix yeast easter braggot from last year just cause it ended up being seriously high gravity, and it really helped clear it up a bit. I wouldn't do it to most beers, but if you're doing anything funky it might definitely come into play. Bit of time has passed now and I can say with absolute certainty that my graff experiment failed badly. It's tart, bitter and disgusting. I don't know if it's just that I really shouldn't have followed the recipe and used US-05 of what was primarily a cider, but instead definitely used a cider yeast or if it's just my stupid loving fermentation chamber that just won't play well with my small conical fermentor. I'm still really struggling with it because the conical fermentor keeps a lot of the liquid fairly high in the chamber where it's plainly too warm, which isn't an issue for my carboys. Basically I'm thinking I should scrap my chamber design and rebuild it or just replace the entire loving deal with a busted fridge from somewhere. I don't really have the time or the energy though. Learning a lot of lessons.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2021 22:42
|
|
|
Huh. No I went and bought expensive apple juice and basically took some wort from a simultaneous brew and added to it, containing the flavours I mainly wanted. It fermented out extremely quickly (which is kind of the reason why I think the conical fermentor hosed it up, my co-fermenting project in a carboy turned out fine). It is for sure ruined. Half the point was seeing if I could make use of high-quality apple juice to make something decent out of and well, might want to stick with flavoured cider or something. Too bad I don't like cider much.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2021 23:20
|
|
|
I have such a friend, and I kind of want to plant my own as well if I can see a way to consistently make something good from it. I did make a cyser that turned out pretty good, if a bit strong. Never made Apfelwein, so I suppose I ought to try that at some point.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2021 23:43
|
|
|
I'm starting to think I should stop pasteurizing the honey I use in meads and just make sure to sterilize the water and mixing vessel used. Unpasteurized honey should contain some wild yeast strains buuuuut, not a lot of folks do the pasteurization thing. Those CS mead folks don't. I dunno.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2021 13:34
|
|
|
BAE OF PIGS posted:How long will yeast stay good for if refrigerated? I bought a kit like back in the late summer/early fall that I've never gotten around to brewing. The package the yeast came in said to refrigerate ASAP, which I did, but it's been sitting there for months now because life has gotten in the way. I used one last month that was like 9 months old. Worked... slow. Might be a bit risky, depending on what you're making. I suggest making a starter of it first, that should definitely be possible.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2021 11:40
|
|
|
I can use my own tap water, luckily. It's from out in the sticks and treated in a modern plant so it's not chlorinated at all, it tastes absolutely wonderful - like a mountain stream on tap. If the tap water is that lovely I'd honestly consider buying bottled water in bulk to brew. And also potentially get rid of whatever rear end in a top hat politicians you have that don't give a poo poo about clean tap water. It's a surprisingly simple issue with a huge impact on the population and life in general.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2021 11:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 8, 2024 00:58 |
|
|
Mr. Wiggles posted:Hello, homebrew thread. I'm sure this has been answered a zillion times before, but if you would indulge me please. How brave are you? Bottle pasteurization is a thing. Very doable if you're safety concious and have a good method.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2021 20:09
|
|