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mrhemisphere posted:Thanks for the prompt replies - trusting the hydrometer completely makes sense. Excellent! Now get ready to bottle. No particular rush, no matter what the old fogey wisdom claims. Dissolve your priming sugar in some near boiling water, pour that solution into your bottling bucket, and siphon your beer out on top of it. Try to have the beer coming into the bucket right at the bottom, and angle the hose so that the beer swirls around in the bucket as it is filling up. That'll make sure the priming sugar is mixed in there well. Also, I am incapable of bottling without spilling a bit, so if you are like me, have a pot or something to stick the bottles in while you fill, and a towel handy. Just some personal experience there, and not a necessary thing at all. Leave the bottles in a cool dark place, like a cabinet under the sink, for a week or two. Put them in the fridge, and then enjoy your beer! Fun fact, since you mentioned Abita: Andygator was a winning beer from a homebrew contest, and Abita took a big risk actually making it, since it was above the abv limits in Louisiana at the time. zedprime posted:I was going to add to Jo3sh's write up there is nothing wrong in theory with whats happening from a can I drink this stand point, but you are in for such a ride of off flavors if you just roll with your air con set in the 70s. If you think it is already hot in the South, you are not going to like June-August. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Apr 4, 2012 |
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Apr 4, 2012 04:36
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I use the aeration setup from williams brewing. http://www.williamsbrewing.com/WORT-AERATION-C106.aspx
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Apr 21, 2012 21:31
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Cpt.Wacky posted:How do you run the temperature probe inside the fridge? Drill a hole somewhere or just close the door on the wire, maybe with a small notch cut out? I close the lid on the wire.
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May 3, 2012 19:51
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Jo3sh posted:Nope, loads of brewers have reported good success in both. In my particular application, whenever I want fridge temps (for cold crashing or whatever), I crank the external thermostat down as low as it will go, and the fridge's own thermostat then manages things. This is obviously a bad idea in a freezer unless you want beersicles. In my freezer, I leave the internal thermostat at it lowest setting, and only use the external thermostat to control the temp. Means I only ever have one dial to fiddle with.
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May 3, 2012 20:40
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Splizwarf posted:Well, it will accumulate moisture every time you open it. I wonder how practical a little de-humidifier would be? I use this, and it is awesome.
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May 15, 2012 21:15
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Meaty Ore posted:Sunday evening I started my first batch of homebrew beer (a wheat ale) using a kit I received as a birthday gift last year (I hadn't started it sooner due to You're fine. The stuff on the bottom is a yeast colony. What temperature are you fermenting at?
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May 23, 2012 00:02
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). While I did read the OP and expected not a whole lot of activity in the first few days, I wasn't expecting a sharp dropoff in activity between the first and second days. As in, from a moderately low, but noticable amount to virtually nothing. Also, what looks like about an inch of what appears to be a whitish yellow sediment settling to the bottom. Are both of these normal? Or am I worrying over nothing far too soon?
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Angry Grimace posted:I was sitting around in class bored today and was wondering what kind of beer would impress the widest number of people into thinking you're going to be a brewing superstar. Probably some kind of mild pale ale. I remember talking to a local pro brewer who said he once brewed an adjunct light lager budweiser clone for a wedding and was told by a bunch of guests that if he brewed beer like that, he was gonna be a MILLIONAIRE! I brewed a lime blonde ale to mimic bud lite lime. It was the most widely accepted beer. I cried.
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May 23, 2012 02:57
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AlternateAccount posted:Well, all my gear should arrive tomorrow and I will do my very first homebrew, hopefully. Before you add the yeast, aerate away! Once fermentation has begun, avoid unnecessary turbulence. Also, don't worry about it too much. Just because something is optimal doesn't mean if you will tender your beer undrinkable because you bumped into the fermenter once or twice. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 00:51 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 00:41
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AlternateAccount posted:Huh, well then when WOULD I go through a secondary fermenter? If you wanted to add some sort of flavoring after fermentation had ended, or as a clarifying or aging step. The concept of secondary fermentation is a holdover from the days of lovely yeast availability necessitating the need to get fermented beer off of the yeast cake before autolysis becomes problematic. Other outdated or misrepresented notions are statements like "After one week in primary, blah blah blah..." Properly, brewing is more about measuring the gravity than having a specific and rigid time frame. Even with that in mind, people brewed in caves before hydrometers, star-san, iodophor, and the concept of oxygen saturation existed. Don't stress about any of it too much. It is absolutely an exact science if you want to do it commercially, and it has a large margin of error if you just want to make good beer. If you are stressed out about any part of it, just breathe deep and remember: At worst, you made 5 gallons of something you can use for soup. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 05:39 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 05:28
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Stalizard posted:As I speak to you, I am drinking my very first batch of homebrew. We call it scheissebrau and made it with a Mr. Beer kit we bought heavily discounted at Ross. The kit came with a can of Hopped Malt Extract and a pouch of Nondescriminate Carbohydrate ABV Booster. It makes a 2 gallon batch at 3.4% abv, we decided to do 1.5 gallons and hope the ABV would jump into the ~5.something range. We left it in the fermenter keg thingy for two weeks and then bottled it into 2 liter Walmart cola bottles with some sugar in the bottom, which we left in a cool dark place for an additional 2 weeks. Scale everything linearly except the yeast. Go on and use a full packet of whatever yeast is called for and you'll be fine. Best option for sanitizing is star san, then iodophor, and finally a bleach solution like this one http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-3.html. In terms of upgrading to a 5 gallon setup, you probably have everything you need except for a large enough fermenter and maybe a pot for boiling. I don't know what a mr beer kit includes, but really all you need for 5 gallon extract brewing is a large, food grade bucket for fermenting and a pot large enough to boil at least 3 gallons of water. Read up on that link I posted. It's a great resource, especially when starting out. It's where most of us started out for sure, and probably the best guide for the basics (plus a little bit) of brewing. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 05:00 on May 31, 2012 |
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May 31, 2012 04:56
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bengy81 posted:I have been having the same issues, I have made a handful of kit beers, and while they aren't bad, they aren't great. I really think it is time to look into all-grain, I was gonna build a 10 gallon cooler rig, but I already have a 5 gal cooler, so I think I will just convert that and do 3 gallon batches with that, or maybe brew in a bag. Google "Swamp Cooler"
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Jun 5, 2012 06:10
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I add my dissolved sugar to the bottling bucket first, and then wrack my on top of it so that it stirs it as it is being siphoned over. Never had any problems with uneven carbonation. I sorta angle the wracking cane so that the beer flows in a circular motion as it is being transferred into the bottling bucket.
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Jun 8, 2012 20:11
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I did one partial mash, then jumped right into all grain. It really sounds more difficult than it is.
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Jun 22, 2012 01:21
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I'm no chemist, but I'm pretty sure that gaseous CO2 all looks the same at the molecular level.
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Jun 26, 2012 01:17
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What is tygon tubing? I am googling around a bit, but I can't find anything extolling it's virtues other than the branding website. Also, where are you getting your nitro? Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 04:36
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You won't be overpitching the yeast by an amount that would be detrimental. In fact, you would probably fall right in line iwth Jamil's yeast calculator. I will say that if you have a pot big enough to make 5 gallons, you ought to just go for it. It is about the same amount of effort on your part to make 1 gallon as it is to make 5. A bit more to lift, and it takes a bit longer to boil and cool, but you get 50 bottles of beer instead of 10. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Jul 20, 2012 |
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Jul 20, 2012 01:38
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Depends on the burners. Keep in mind that you don't have to boil 5 gallons unless you are doing all grain. If using extract, you have much more flexibility for smaller boils. Regardless, do what fits right for you. I occassionally do three gallon all grain batches on my electric stove. My only real point is that you are going to dedicate 2 or 3 hours minimum to this, and you might as well get more for your time and effort. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jul 20, 2012 |
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Jul 20, 2012 02:17
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LaserWash posted:I also had it in my mind that I was going to experiment with smaller batches so I wasn't making 45 bottles of beer I didn't end up liking. As I found my groove I was planning on expanding. Aside from the "give it away" method, which works pretty well, I also enjoy the "make soup\stew with it" and have lunch for the next week. If you don't like soup, I havew used beer as parts of marinades, as a partial water replacement for pasta, deglazing pans for sauces. I'm sure there are other ways to use it well, I am not exactly well versed with cooking techniques. I think you'll find your own beer to be quite palatable. Especially at first, since you will tend to stick to recipes of styles that you enjoy. However, I am not trying to strong-arm you into doing more than you are comfortable with doing. There is nothing inherently wrong with doing one gallon batches. It's just that, to me, a one gallon batch wouldn't feel worth my time. If it fits your time\value equation, then go for it, and welcome to a fun hobby!
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Jul 20, 2012 03:19
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U.S. Barryl posted:I use bottled spring water for all my brews, and yet they have all come out tasting a bit chemically. I just realized that I've been diluting my priming solution with plain tap water. Usually about 2 pints or so for 5oz of corn sugar. Our water is certainly treated with chloramines. Would that be enough for me to notice this weird flavor? I bottled a pumpkin spiced ale about a week ago, which I was sure would be the best I have made since I used temp control for it. It still has this off flavor though. The sample tasted good before bottling, so I'm guessing the small amount of tap water at bottling time is doing something. This trial and error process is driving me nuts. I'm wasting tons of money on ingredients and I have 15 gallons of beer that tastes like rear end. How are you cleaning your bottles?
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Aug 3, 2012 18:06
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U.S. Barryl posted:Ok, I brew again on Sunday. A coffee stout. I'm going to use only bottled spring water. After I cool the wort I'm going to aerate the poo poo out of it, and pitch two packets of s-04. I'm going to use the large water tub and ice bottle method to keep temps below 68F. I'm not going to leave the beer in the fermenter for more than two weeks. I'm going to prime with bottled water and corn sugar, and make sure that my bottles are super clean. What temperature are you sparging at? Other than that, don't rush the beer too much, in the primary, and in bottles. How are the older beers tasting these days as compared to before? You might try taking a bottle or two to your local homebrew store and ask them to try it to help you identify the problem.
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Aug 3, 2012 21:10
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I would argue that you should get a 6 or 7 gallon pot up front. It gives you the flexibility to move into all grain without much up front expense (over a 5 gallon pot). Remember, you can't boil 5 gallons of wort in a 5 gallon pot. I would also skip the beer thief, and instead use the auto siphon to gather beer for testing. The larger pot can also be used if you decide not to get into the hobby. Crawfish boils, fried turkey for thanksgiving, extremely large batches of soup that you can freeze and use in the winter. I could go on. Point is, if you don't already have a pot to boil in, you might as well go for the biggest one that you can.
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Sep 13, 2012 00:27
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What was your recipe?
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Sep 18, 2012 18:57
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I never lose any wort checking my gravity with the hydrometer. Sanitize the collector, the hydrometer, and the testing vessel first, then pour the wort back into the fermenter.
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Sep 22, 2012 00:26
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Gelatin works great as a fining agent. Just be sure to not get the gelatin too hot before adding to the bucket. Dissolve a tablespoon of gelatin in a half cup or so of water at around 80c. Don't boil the gelatin, or it doesn't set right in my experience. Gently stir that into your beer, let it sit for a few days, and you should be good to go. Or use a tea bag. Caveat: I've never added gelatin to the bottling bucket, so I don't know if it will interfere with the spigot at the bottom. You can do a really good job at clearing the beer by fermenting it in another bucket (or carboy if you prefer, but buckets are cheaper), cold crashing it after fermentation, and then siphoning it into the bucket with the tap for bottling. Food grade buckets can be found for less than $10 around my area.
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Sep 28, 2012 10:09
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Steve French posted:Using a strainer is not really feasible for me; I have a brew pot with a valve + spigot on it, I have that go to the plate chiller, and then to the carboy. I could use a strainer + funnel for the last step, but not really to go from the brew pot to the chiller, and I'm worried about getting hop debris in the chiller. I use something like this that I built myself. Haven't clogged my plate chiller ever.
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Oct 15, 2012 21:24
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While I've never used the Blichmann Beer Gun, I am confident that the purpose of lowering the pressure is to create a slower, less turbulent experience for the beer so that you don't knock the CO2 that has already been dissolved out of solution. The pressurization of the bottle is also a big part of this. So, while I am sure that you could rig the beer gun in such a way to work with the bottling bucket or fermenter, you wouldn't be carbonating it while you did so.
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Oct 16, 2012 23:56
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wattershed posted:I guess that's what's confused me when I read excerpts on forums about people using it to bottle straight from their bottling bucket without previously carbonating the beer. If I connected the beer gun to my CO2, purged the bottle with the gas, then (maybe by pushing the uncarbonated beer through the gun with an autosiphon?) filled the bottles, do you (or anyone else reading this) have a guess as to how long it would take for the CO2 to work its way into the bottled beer? While some gas could be absorbed into solution at the right temperatures, you won't have enough pressure to carbonate the beer to an appreciable level with the method you describe. Even if you could conceivably get the CO2 that would be present in the head space of the bottle to fully absorb into the beer, it wouldn't be enough to make a noticeable difference. You would also be creating a vacuum in the head space of the bottle, since the gas that was present there would now be in solution. Aside from the possibility that this would destroy the bottle if you managed to get this to happen, there would not be any way for the gas to stay in solution without dropping the temperature well below freezing (I think. I don't want to do the math on it right now). Carbonation in beer works by forcing CO2 into solution as a system of pressure and temperature. As more CO2 is added to the vessel (by the CO2 tank attached to the keg, or the yeast producing CO2 in a sealed bottle), pressure and temperature work together to allow the liquid to absorb the gas. If pressure is released, the gas will escape solution, making the beer go flat, as it were. The beer gun (along with racking cane\stopper setups, and counter pressure bottle fillers) works by creating a seal at the mouth of the bottle, and equalizing the pressure in the bottle to that in the keg. Since the beer in the keg has absorbed CO2, and that CO2 is being kept in solution (in part) by the pressure being exerted by the CO2 in the head space of the keg (and the CO2 tank attached), when you equalize the pressure between the bottle and keg, the gas in solution will not have a chance to be released. Make sense?
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Oct 17, 2012 07:36
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You might just have a leak somewhere. Have you checked the gravity?
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Oct 21, 2012 16:57
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I am hoping Ubik will give me a few suggestions on my Nightstalker clone. I spoke with some Goose Island reps at GABF, and they told me that more Nightstalker is coming this year as part of their Legacy Series, but considering how poorly distributed Goose Island is here in Texas, I would love to create my own. 2-Row Pale 52% Munich 28% Chocolate 8% Crystal 150 4% Roasted Barley 4% 60 minutes of enough Simcoe to give 60 IBU 10 minutes of Mt. Hood to give 4-5 IBU Wyeast Irish Ale (1084) Mash for an hour at 154. What do you think, Ubik? Am I pretty close?
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Oct 21, 2012 19:23
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Ubik posted:That's actually pretty close! The main changes I'd make would be to change from C150 to C60, and to consider another ale strain as your yeast. I'd be wary of the diacetyl that 1084 tends to leave behind. I'd suggest 1272 (American Ale II), 1028 (London Ale) or 1450 (Denny's Favorite) instead. Glad to see I am close! I was targeting 1.108 with it, but I can push it a bit. I have pulled off some really big stuff with my setup, so I think I can push to 1.131. Big rear end starters are something I have setup around, so I intend to aim as accurate as I can get. I have no idea why I never thought to dry hop it, especially since I love the hoppiness on fresh Nightstalker. Thanks for the yeast advice as well! Oh my goodness, I want to brew tomorrow!
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Oct 22, 2012 02:54
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Ubik, what do you think about adding some de-bittered black in there to push the plato up? About an equal amount to the Crystal and Roasted Barley. So I would redo it as 52% 2-Row Pale 28% Munich 8% Chocolate 4% Crystal 60l 4% Roasted Barley 4% De-bittered black Fair amount of Simcoe for 60 minutes Some Mt. Hood at 10 minutes Dry hop with Simcoe for a few days Wyeast 1450 That pushes it to 30.1 plato, should finish around 13%, and end up at rouchly 70 IBUs. Or does it move me too far away from glory?
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Oct 22, 2012 20:58
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Midorka posted:I've been reading up on immersion chillers vs plate chillers, it seems immersion chillers are decent but still not too great at cooling wort, I'm reading roughly 30 minute cooling times for 5 gallons. Plate chillers seem to get it done super fast but cost more, are a pain to clean, and need a pump. Any one care to weigh in? We've been putting our pot into an ice bath and it's been taking 5 gallon batches roughly 40 minutes, is an immersion chiller much better or should we just save up for a plate chiller eventually? I run a plate chiller, and you do not need a pump. Gravity does a great job moving wort through the thing. You have to make sure you are not carrying a lot of trub and debris into the chiller, though, or it can clog. I built my own version of the hop stopper, and it works great. My plate chiller will cool 5 gallons of wort to roughly 2 degrees fahrenheit over the temperature of the water I putting in the other side in roughly 5 minutes. Surrounding the chiller with ice packs gets it down even cooler. Cleaning it after use is not difficult, but can be time consuming. I always run water through the wort side both directions until it comes out clear, and then put it in the oven on self clean for 15 minutes. Before I use it, I dunk it in a bucket of star san for a while. I love the plate chiller. Makes my life so much better.
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Nov 1, 2012 04:14
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Whodat Smith-Jones posted:Ok cool. On an unrelated note, I pulled up Mr. Malty's yeast pitching calculator since I was planning on making a starter tomorrow night, and I noticed the "use by" date on my vial of WLP 090 is November 11. According to the calculator, that would mean the production date was around July 11 and the viability would be around 14%, so I'd need a 3.5 liter starter with 6 vials, which nobody would bother doing. You'll most likely be fine. The assumptions that Mr Malty make are incredibly extreme. Making a small starter certainly wouldn't treat you wrong, though.
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Nov 7, 2012 14:36
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They run at different pressures, but I know you can get natural gas burners for hurricane preparedness and such. edit - A quick googling tells me that it is easy and common to convert a propane burner to a natural gas burner. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 21:35
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With my plate chiller, I get 5 gallons of wort from boiling to 1 degree above water temperature in 5 minutes.
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Nov 24, 2012 02:17
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LaserWash posted:Friday before last (the 16th), I brewed an "Texas Bock" from AHS choosing the US05 instead of the recommended American or German styled lager yeasts (mostly since I don't have lagering capability). It depends on a whole lot of things. However, airlock activity is not a good gauge of fermentation. You might just have excess CO2 leaving solution. Take a gravity reading with your hydrometer.
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Nov 25, 2012 21:41
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LaserWash posted:Okay, that makes sense. Is there anything I should do for that or is it taking care of itself? It is in no way a problem. It's called carbonation. You just can't just fermentation by it. Take a gravity reading, wait 24 hours, then take another gravity reading. If it hasn't moved, and it's in the expected finishing range, bottle it.
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Nov 26, 2012 04:15
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almost posted:Has anyone primed/carbonated anything in a bottle with a screw-on cap? How much carbonation can those things hold? Never tried carbing in a bottle with a screw on lid. You can move a bucket once fermentation has started, just don't slosh it around. The primary gas released during fermentation is CO2, which can be incredibly deadly at certain levels. Those levels will not be reached unless your room seals airtight, is fairly small, and you start with a high gravity.
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Dec 4, 2012 17:03
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thomawesome posted:So, I've been brewing with buddies for a bit and understand the general concepts behind the process. I use a mini fridge. You could also use whatever you are keeping your keg in.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:44
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fullroundaction posted:What I mean is a way to carbonate the bottles without using sugar (in tablet/pill form or through a solution) like a concentrated CO2 tablet or whatever so that things like temperature, yeast suspension, etc are not a factor. You can keg your beer, force carbonate it, and then bottle off of the keg.
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Dec 19, 2012 19:50
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