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RagingBoner posted:Since it's an extract kit, your best bet is to make sure you get all the good out of your steeping grains you can by squeezing the bag. That is what really instills most of the hearty flavor (your malt extracts add flavor too, but are mostly a source of sugars for the yeast). (Sorry if I totally blow the terminology on this question) From what I can tell, the Mr Beers work by dumping one thing in, which is a combination of malt and hops extract and grain extracts. I don't think there's much for him to squeeze. However, since the "keg" is just a fermentation vessel, can't he do a simple thing with steeped grains and hops and then malt extracts to make it better than all extract, but not all grain? That's how I just did my first attempt and it seemed to be a good combination of "boil some bags" but not "boil all the bags."
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Mar 19, 2013 14:49
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Saint Darwin posted:(Sorry if I totally blow the terminology on this question) Man, I didn't know they made extract kits with no steeping grains. No wonder it tasted like crap. Yes, that method should work to make his next batch have more body; just get some milled malt, put it in a muslin bag, steep it at around 170* for 30 minutes before the boil, then add the extracts, and squeeze the mess out of it when you remove the bag. Just get 1/2 lb pale ale malt milled at your local homebrew store. ...then add jalapenos, because, well, gently caress YEAH SPICY
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Mar 19, 2013 15:01
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RagingBoner posted:Since it's an extract kit, your best bet is to make sure you get all the good out of your steeping grains you can by squeezing the bag. That is what really instills most of the hearty flavor (your malt extracts add flavor too, but are mostly a source of sugars for the yeast). Interesting. The last extract kit I did specifically said not to squeeze the steeping grain bag. Regardless I think it's time I took the step towards all-grain.
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Mar 19, 2013 15:01
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Yeah, I'm definitely getting bored with the limitations of extract. After my wedding I'm definitely making the plunge and doing a cooler conversion.
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Mar 19, 2013 15:20
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A lot of sources say squeezing the grain bag is super bad because it extracts tannins but logically that doesn't make much sense to me. I wonder if that's another homebrew urban legend. Or maybe kit instructions just assume it's your first batch and you're going to gently caress up and steep too hot, and want to minimize how much of that gets into the wort?
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Mar 19, 2013 15:20
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Docjowles posted:A lot of sources say squeezing the grain bag is super bad because it extracts tannins but logically that doesn't make much sense to me. I wonder if that's another homebrew urban legend. Or maybe kit instructions just assume it's your first batch and you're going to gently caress up and steep too hot, and want to minimize how much of that gets into the wort? It is an urban legend. Heat and high pH extract tannins, not squeezing. As an extract brewer keeping it under 170 is all you really have to worry about to avoid tannin harshness.
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Mar 19, 2013 15:39
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RagingBoner posted:Man, I didn't know they made extract kits with no steeping grains. No wonder it tasted like crap. Yes, that method should work to make his next batch have more body; just get some milled malt, put it in a muslin bag, steep it at around 170* for 30 minutes before the boil, then add the extracts, and squeeze the mess out of it when you remove the bag. Just get 1/2 lb pale ale malt milled at your local homebrew store. http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/1008/nm/Classic_American_Light1 It's a Bud Lite all-extract clone! edit: Swinging things back to something I said pages ago, looking at the mini-fridge we aren't using right now, I don't think the standard fermentation bucket will fit, and my girlfriend is too nervous about the fullsize fridge from the 60s we have in the basement to let me plug it in and use that, which means that I really have no idea how I am going to brew after this batch unless I keep doing it at my friend's house, which is a bit difficult as he has 3 kids and is insane most days. Adult Sword Owner fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 15:53
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Saint Darwin posted:
I use a mini fridge as a fermentation chamber and it works fine. I had to remove the plastic inside the door, and chisel out some of the foam where the top of the bucket was impacting it, though.
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Mar 19, 2013 15:58
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Imasalmon posted:I use a mini fridge as a fermentation chamber and it works fine. I had to remove the plastic inside the door, and chisel out some of the foam where the top of the bucket was impacting it, though. Right, I should have said that. I can't do any permanent modifications since it's not mine. edit: Also another random topic veer, my friend recommended I look at this site when I got a headache from looking at hopville and not knowing what the hell any of the varieties are http://beerlegends.com/ Adult Sword Owner fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 16:00
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Angry Grimace posted:The actual Mr. Beer kits are pretty much crap, but all you have to do is not use their ingredient kits and buy your own. Use the fermenter and equipment that came with the kit, but make extract batches with unhopped malt extract, real hops and name brand yeast from a homebrew store. The Mr. Beer instructions are also pretty much crap, unless they have changed sine I last looked. But I agree, there's nothing wrong with the equipment itself. Darth Windu, I'd suggest you ditch the Mr. Beer-branded recipes and go to a local brew shop to get ingredients for your next batch. They will very likely have recipes that are scaled for 5-gallon batches, but a little arithmetic will get you where you need to be for the MB fermenter. You will probably end up with some extract (either dry or syrup), some crushed grain, a packet of yeast, and some hops in pellet form. You will also want a mesh or cheesecloth grain bag, and some no-rinse sanitizer is a good idea also. You'll end up heating water in a pot, and steeping the crushed grain in it. You'll remove the grain before the water gets to 170 degrees, and then you'll stir in the extract. Make sure all the extract gets well dissolved and does not clump up on the bottom of the pot. This will get boiled for an hour, and you'll make one or more timed hop additions depending on the style you choose. After the boil is over, you'll cool the wort (you can do this just by putting the pot in a sinkful of cold water) and then pour it into the fermenter and add the yeast. You can make a wide range of beer this way, from pale to black and from light to heavy. Chances are good the shop can help you pick something out that is similar to something you like to drink, and can give you more detailed directions.
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Mar 19, 2013 16:03
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I don't squeeze the bag, either. On Sunday, when I steeped grains for an Irish red, I set the bag in a colander over the stockpot for about 5 minutes or so after it was done. I reserved a test jar full of the extract, and it read 1.020 for 6oz. each of roast barley, crystal 120L, and crystal 40L in a gallon of water. Hopville's estimated steep efficiency is 37.5% (1.014), but I hit 52% just from letting it drip out.  Now, I had never really considered what gravity the steeping grains would lend to the final recipe, since when added to the 6 gallon batch, they contributed less than 4 GU. However, I went to the trouble of measuring it, and found my numbers to be higher than expected. Perhaps removing the grain bag completely would have given me an efficiency of 37.5% as Hopville assumed, and surely squeezing the bag would have given me more gravity than my drip method. This was supposed to be a really quick post and then I went and worked out the equations and the thread kept moving. If tannin extraction is no big deal, then it seems to me that I probably could have used as little as 4oz of my specialty malts by squeezing the bag? I'll try it out the next time I steep and report back if anyone is interested.
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Mar 19, 2013 16:13
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Docjowles posted:A lot of sources say squeezing the grain bag is super bad because it extracts tannins but logically that doesn't make much sense to me. At Full Sail, in Hood River, OR, they use a "Meura mash filter" which essentially squeezes the liquor out of the mash rather than sparging. They have a big spiel about how this saves a load of water (and it does), but I am sure it also reduces the amount of time it takes to get from grain to fermenter, which effectively increases the capacity of their brewhouse. Anyway, if Full Sail can squeeze their whole mash almost dry and have no issues with tannins, I am pretty sure that squeezing steeping grains to get a little more color and flavor is not going to cause any issues.
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Mar 19, 2013 16:45
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Saint Darwin posted:http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/1008/nm/Classic_American_Light1 Hah.. I got this same kit last year and just finished up my first brew. I skipped making that Classic American Light for the time being, and picked up a 'deluxe irish stout' kit that comes with extra liquid malted extract, from them to make for St Patricks day. Added a booster pack, and some molasses to it, and let it sit. I was a little off on my timing, so it's not fully ready.. but I let it spend 2.5 weeks fermenting, after 1.5 weeks conditioning in the bottles, I stuck 2 bottles in the fridge to finish for a week, and drank one last weekend. It turned out really tasty, but felt a little unfinished. It was a little thin, and the flavors felt like they weren't completely developed. It tasted a lot better than the HARP Lager my brother brought over though. I've now got 7 liters of it in the back of my fridge that I'll be leaving for at least two weeks, I'm thinking they can only get better. However they turn out, it was fun to make, and cool to drink a beer I made. I'm thinking I'll run down to the homebrew shop, pick up some better yeast, malt and hops, and try to spice up the bud-light clone next. Or maybe, you know.. jalapenos!
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Mar 19, 2013 16:57
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In other news the Belgian Tripel extract kit I started a week ago is still fermenting like crazy. It never exploded on me, but it's been bubbling at a constant rate and the krausen is still on top and happy. I suppose this is the reason people were talking about making monster starters, so that the yeast would go through the fermentables as quickly as possible? What kind of off-flavor can I expect from the longer fermentation period? To be clear I'm totally in the RDWHAHB field with this. I'm more curious than anything.
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Mar 19, 2013 17:19
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internet celebrity posted:It is an urban legend. Heat and high pH extract tannins, not squeezing. As an extract brewer keeping it under 170 is all you really have to worry about to avoid tannin harshness. Its pretty funny how many things turned out to be urban legends. Beer4TheBeerGod posted:In other news the Belgian Tripel extract kit I started a week ago is still fermenting like crazy. It never exploded on me, but it's been bubbling at a constant rate and the krausen is still on top and happy. I suppose this is the reason people were talking about making monster starters, so that the yeast would go through the fermentables as quickly as possible? What kind of off-flavor can I expect from the longer fermentation period? Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 17:42
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Jo3sh posted:At Full Sail, in Hood River, OR, they use a "Meura mash filter" which essentially squeezes the liquor out of the mash rather than sparging. They have a big spiel about how this saves a load of water (and it does), but I am sure it also reduces the amount of time it takes to get from grain to fermenter, which effectively increases the capacity of their brewhouse. I'm about to rig up a small pilot batch at home for my special projects and I may try to rig up something like this to see how it does.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:08
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:In other news the Belgian Tripel extract kit I started a week ago is still fermenting like crazy. It never exploded on me, but it's been bubbling at a constant rate and the krausen is still on top and happy. I suppose this is the reason people were talking about making monster starters, so that the yeast would go through the fermentables as quickly as possible? What kind of off-flavor can I expect from the longer fermentation period? To expand on what Grimace said, it's not really so much better or worse to have, say, 90% of the fermentation complete in 2-3 days or 7-10 days unless there's a component of the yeast you're looking to pull out (or not). For example, if I'm brewing your tripel recipe and want an overly estery nose with some fruity notes to taste, I might underpitch my yeast a bit to force the cells to work extra hard and produce what might be considered off flavors in other styles but might be desirable in my tripel. If I want a more classic profile of the yeast I use, I'd likely pitch an appropriate amount. If I overpitched, the yeast would get lazy given that they don't have to work as hard and the classic "Belgian character" in the yeast might end up a little underdeveloped. If I'm doing a classic IPA, I use White Labs 001. If I'm doing a DIPA, I use the White Labs SD Super Yeast 090. I do starters for each of those, as I like a quick and tidy fermentation. It's not so much that I'm looking to avoid a specific byproduct of the yeast, in so much that if I can power through my fermentation and hit my ~77-80% attenuation I usually get with those strains + a starter in 3-5 days, I can start my dryhopping sooner, give the beer those flavors, and get it on a keg nice and fast. I'm personally a big fan of ultra fresh IPAs, and feel pretty drat confident I can tell the difference between a two-week old IPA and a four, six or eight-week old IPA, especially if it's loaded with late addition/dry hop hops. In the case of those more neutral-profile yeasts, I don't get anything out of letting them park their asses in my fermentation fridge for 3-4 weeks unless I'm looking for additional complexities in the flavors that I know won't come around for a month or more.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:27
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Jo3sh posted:At Full Sail, in Hood River, OR, they use a "Meura mash filter" which essentially squeezes the liquor out of the mash rather than sparging. Isn't that how fancypants tea is brewed? Heat it, and it vacuums down through the leaf bed? I've wondered why if it works for tea and coffee it can't work for beer. Probably something very logical about it but it's not coming to me right now.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:30
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LeeMajors posted:I'm about to rig up a small pilot batch at home for my special projects and I may try to rig up something like this to see how it does. I think they do sparge to some level, but that the mash filter is so effective at getting liquid out of the grist that their efficiency is through the roof. This would get them huge savings in grain costs. So I think for a home-game version of this, you could use a fairly strong cloth bag to line your mash tun, do your mash and drain off as usual, add a batch of sparge water and then just twist up the bag to squeeze juice out of the grain. Maybe pressing it with some kind of weight or something would help also. wattershed posted:Isn't that how fancypants tea is brewed? Heat it, and it vacuums down through the leaf bed? I've wondered why if it works for tea and coffee it can't work for beer. Probably something very logical about it but it's not coming to me right now. Like a vacuum pot? I don't think that's quite the same thing as the mash filter they use. They actually use physical force to squeeze liquor out of the grain. I don't think a vacuum setup would work for brewing because it requires boiling the water. I mean I think it would push water through the grainbed just like it pushes water through coffee grounds, but I think the temperatures are not right for mashing.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:39
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wattershed posted:To expand on what Grimace said, it's not really so much better or worse to have, say, 90% of the fermentation complete in 2-3 days or 7-10 days unless there's a component of the yeast you're looking to pull out (or not). This is funny because I just used WLP090 on a regular IPA and WLP001 on a Double IPA.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:48
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Jo3sh posted:Like a vacuum pot? I don't think that's quite the same thing as the mash filter they use. They actually use physical force to squeeze liquor out of the grain. I don't think a vacuum setup would work for brewing because it requires boiling the water. I mean I think it would push water through the grainbed just like it pushes water through coffee grounds, but I think the temperatures are not right for mashing. Yeah, I think so? Like one of these - http://prima-coffee.com/hario/siphon - if that's a vacuum pot? Regardless, that thing in the link looks rad and I want one for....something, anything really. Angry Grimace posted:This is funny because I just used WLP090 on a regular IPA and WLP001 on a Double IPA. But...but...the attenuation!!! Those are my default go-to yeasts when I'm not looking to impart a yeasty quality on the beer. Anything 1.060 and below I go with 001, above that gets 090.
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Mar 19, 2013 20:11
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fullroundaction posted:Read the first sentence you quoted
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Mar 19, 2013 20:14
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wattershed posted:To expand on what Grimace said, it's not really so much better or worse to have, say, 90% of the fermentation complete in 2-3 days or 7-10 days unless there's a component of the yeast you're looking to pull out (or not). So as a huge loving newbie could you break down your entire classic IPA process (in a PM if you don't want to spam here)? Really trying to get my head around how vastly different the process is for different types of beer.
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Mar 19, 2013 20:19
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Jo3sh posted:At Full Sail, in Hood River, OR, they use a "Meura mash filter" which essentially squeezes the liquor out of the mash rather than sparging. They say up to 98% efficiency and use 20% grain flour. A pretty sweet system that it looks like runs back to back to back batches and squeezes the sweet wort out of the grains by compressing them with a water-filled bladder through a screen (many bladders and many screens). Now I want one of those 
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Mar 19, 2013 20:30
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Saint Darwin posted:So as a huge loving newbie could you break down your entire classic IPA process (in a PM if you don't want to spam here)? Really trying to get my head around how vastly different the process is for different types of beer. As a HFN, I honestly wouldn't recommend caring too much about exactly how long you leave a beer on its yeast. If you're not consistently hitting your mash/sparge temps, your volumes, your fermentation temperatures, more things fundamental to the taste/smell/mouthfeel of the finished beer, focus on all that stuff first, or at least understand what you need to do in those areas like the back of your hand, before you start focusing on cell counts and manipulating your strains to produce certain characteristics in the beer. Now, that said, I don't really try for a "classic IPA" in my IPA recipes. I love ultra fruity, floral IPAs that are light on malt but are still immensely drinkable and, in most cases, sessionable. If I could reproduce Alpine's Hoppy Birthday or Duet, I'd be a happy camper. That means a dry but not overly so mouthfeel, so I'm targeting 150° in my mash. I've begun refocusing where my hop additions are to post boil and dry hopping instead of the 30/15/5/1 (minutes left in boil) routine that seems to be boilerplate in the "west coast IPA" recipes you see out there. In my last Citra-heavy IPA, I went with 2oz spread out over the last 10 minutes of the boil, then when the wort was cooling (over about 20 minutes because I swear my IC is inefficient as poo poo) I kinda winged adding in another ounce of Citra, maybe a silver dollar-sized amount of pellets every couple minutes until I emptied the 1oz bag. I've been reading more and more about the influence post-boil hops have on flavor and aroma and I'm intrigued on what going this route will give me in the end. I'm also dry hopping with a few oz of Citra and Amarillo for about two weeks, putting an ounce or two in there for a few days, taking it out, adding a few more ounces, taking it out, etc. This is not unlike Kern River's Citra recipe, though I'm tweaking it a bit because I came across a really good deal on Citra leafs and pellets and I'm cranking it up a bit. There's a bunch of people in this thread who could give you more tips and tricks for their go-to IPA recipe, but that's just where I concern myself. Focus on the fundamentals, and when you've got the process and procedures down, THEN worry about how to tweak and modify the other variables. All my hop addition timings, whether to use a hopback or not, etc, that's all stuff that can make a good beer better, but isn't going to turn some gutter water into ambrosia. Taking care of the foundational things and consistently doing them right has to come first.
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Mar 19, 2013 20:44
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:Edit: Whoops, Wattershed beat me to response. Anyway, it's still useful info. Well, that stuff is mostly yeast information, IPA's are essentially brewed the same as any other beer. What is probably confusing you is Wattershed talking about getting Belgian character, since that generally goes against conventional yeast practices with the whole underpitching, fermenting hot, using high ester-producing yeast and other tricks people do to get more ester production from yeast. Take a look at the chart below and the section labeled "Yeast" to see the kinds of flavors you can contribute to a beer from fiddling with yeast.  Now an IPA should really focus on the hop flavor, right? So instead of doing things to maximize yeast flavors like you would in a Belgian, you'd follow the more conventional advice for yeast like make a starter, use a neutral flavored yeast, ferment on the low side in order to minimize these flavors that distract from the hops. WLP001 and WLP090 are both strains of yeast that are pretty common for IPAs due to good attenuation and a fairly neutral effect on flavors. This leaves a good base beer for hop flavors to really shine through. Now the other main thing about IPAs is that you want to drink them fresh so the hop flavor is at it's maximum and freshest flavor, so a good yeast that doesn't effect the flavor, can work quickly, and get you dry hopping sooner rather then later would be preferred. Daedalus Esquire fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 20:48
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CapnBry posted:For those who hadn't heard of mash filtering, I found this pretty spiffy product brief about High Efficiency Brewing Systems. This one from IDD Process & Packaging, in California. IDD is actually in the next town over from me. I should see if I can go talk to them and see their gear.
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Mar 19, 2013 21:14
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IPA recipes are like assholes. Everyone has a different one and they all smell like flowers.
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Mar 19, 2013 21:17
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wattershed posted:As a HFN, I honestly wouldn't recommend caring too much about exactly how long you leave a beer on its yeast. If you're not consistently hitting your mash/sparge temps, your volumes, your fermentation temperatures, more things fundamental to the taste/smell/mouthfeel of the finished beer, focus on all that stuff first, or at least understand what you need to do in those areas like the back of your hand, before you start focusing on cell counts and manipulating your strains to produce certain characteristics in the beer. Random comment: Duet is entirely Amarillo/Simcoe and is called Duet because all of the editions are equal amounts of both.
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Mar 19, 2013 21:19
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Angry Grimace posted:Random comment: Duet is entirely Amarillo/Simcoe and is called Duet because all of the editions are equal amounts of both. Ah, but how much of each? And when to add? That's what I've been trying to dial in, I think I'm on the right track with the timing but something in my malt profile is off and I'm not sure what it is. Need to try Maris Otter next, I know Alpine uses that for some of their beers, and while I don't *think* it's used for Duet I want to try it to make sure.
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Mar 19, 2013 21:30
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wattershed posted:Ah, but how much of each? And when to add? That's what I've been trying to dial in, I think I'm on the right track with the timing but something in my malt profile is off and I'm not sure what it is. Need to try Maris Otter next, I know Alpine uses that for some of their beers, and while I don't *think* it's used for Duet I want to try it to make sure. I have this feeling that Pat McIllhenny would be less than helpful. The recipe itself is base malt (no clue if its US 2-row or MO), Carapils, white wheat malt, amber malt, acidulated malt and sugar. Most IPA recipes have pretty similar amounts of the character malts, so I'm sure any old concocted IPA recipe would be pretty close, (e.g. 10 lbs of base malt, 8-12 oz. of Carapils, 5.-1 lb. of wheat, .5 or so of amber and .75 lbs of sugar). You could probably drop the acidulated malt unless you have some need to adjust your mash pH. The hop regimen, I couldn't say. // I just made my own IPA recipe that's going to be ready to package in like two days. I pretty much have no clue what its going to taste like since I did a lot of exponentiation on it. I'm hoping to get a baseline for a recipe I can tweak down into my own personalized recipe. The starting recipe was 9 lbs. of US 2-row, 3 lbs. of Vienna Malt, .75 lbs. of Cara-vienne (although I would have preferred continental malt, the LHBS only carried domestic), and half a pound of corn sugar. The hops were all Amarillo and Simcoe, and I did a lot of making poo poo up on the spot. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 21:43
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Angry Grimace posted:I have this feeling that Pat McIllhenny would be less than helpful. Yeah, I forgot to mention that I have that outline of the malt bill from that one dude's clone website, where he actually does hear from Pat to get at least that much out of him, so that's been my jumping-off point. Our water from Helix water district sits kinda high on the pH scale - I generally just cheat with a tablespoon of pH 5.2 to give myself a blank canvas, but with the Duet clones I've been walking the acidulated malt upward from 4oz to 8oz in my most recent attempt. I quite enjoy what it imparts; my next move is to go with about a teaspoon of pH 5.2 and stick with the 8oz acidulated. I have more notes on getting this recipe right than on all my other beers combined, haha.
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Mar 19, 2013 21:56
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wattershed posted:Yeah, I forgot to mention that I have that outline of the malt bill from that one dude's clone website, where he actually does hear from Pat to get at least that much out of him, so that's been my jumping-off point. Our water from Helix water district sits kinda high on the pH scale - I generally just cheat with a tablespoon of pH 5.2 to give myself a blank canvas, but with the Duet clones I've been walking the acidulated malt upward from 4oz to 8oz in my most recent attempt. I quite enjoy what it imparts; my next move is to go with about a teaspoon of pH 5.2 and stick with the 8oz acidulated. I have more notes on getting this recipe right than on all my other beers combined, haha. I rather wonder if he literally means amber malt and not some kind of crystal malt. "Amber malt" in older brewing parlance (regionally) can also mean a crystal malt around 40L. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 22:02
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Angry Grimace posted:I rather wonder if he literally means amber malt and not some kind of crystal malt. "Amber malt" in older brewing parlance (regionally) can also mean a crystal malt around 40L. I've been using whatever "Amber malt" they've had at The Homebrewer. I feel like it's a Weyermann product, but that doesn't jive with what they list in their inventory on their website. Perhaps that's just out of date. I know it's in the 20-25°L range, and after keeping that amount static a few times and it coming out more, well, Amber-y than the real deal I'm going to scale it back a bit for the next go. But yeah, maybe that's not the actual malt type used.
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Mar 19, 2013 22:30
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Having started to read through Extreme Brewing and seeing all these incredible recipes, I've decided to get into all grain. Could someone tell me the difference between BIAB and using a mash tun / hot liquor tank? Is it mostly a question of control and efficiency?
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Mar 19, 2013 22:41
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wattershed posted:I've been using whatever "Amber malt" they've had at The Homebrewer. I feel like it's a Weyermann product, but that doesn't jive with what they list in their inventory on their website. Perhaps that's just out of date. I know it's in the 20-25°L range, and after keeping that amount static a few times and it coming out more, well, Amber-y than the real deal I'm going to scale it back a bit for the next go. But yeah, maybe that's not the actual malt type used. The Amber Malt they have at the Homebrewer is Weyermann Amber Malt, so if there's an issue, I would imagine its on Pat's end. It could also just be that the ratios are really weird. The actual malt bill he gave seems like it would be way drier than what I remember of Duet though. Duet has at least some level of sweetness in it. Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Having started to read through Extreme Brewing and seeing all these incredible recipes, I've decided to get into all grain. Could someone tell me the difference between BIAB and using a mash tun / hot liquor tank? Is it mostly a question of control and efficiency? Yes and no. BIAB is just mashing inside your brew kettle with the full volume, in other words, its just no sparge mashing. Its true that its a lot harder to hold a specific mash temp using a BIAB, but wattershed would know more than I since I believe he does a lot of (if not exclusively) BIAB. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 22:42
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Angry Grimace posted:Yes and no. BIAB is just mashing inside your brew kettle with the full volume, in other words, its just no sparge mashing. Its true that its a lot harder to hold a specific mash temp using a BIAB Yes and no :) Here's my setup during the 90-minute mash:  Basically I cut Reflectix into strips, wrapped them around the pot, razor bladed slits for the pot handles, then cut out a few circles for the lid. Since I only use the lid during the mash, the reflectix is glued onto it, but as you can see the reflectix is bungeed to the pot itself. If I'm aiming for a 150° mash, I'll get it to about 151.5° (measured in about the middle of the mass), kill the heat, slap the lid on, wrap the reflectix (it's fire-proof, I don't have it on when the flame's going but it's good to know), set an alarm on my phone for 90 minutes, and go do other stuff. That photo was from this past saturday, where it was probably about 66° in the shade during the mash. At 90 minutes I pulled the lid and the wrap, and the temp was 150.3°. I put my grain bill in from the start with my mash water, then walk the temperature up. I haven't noticed any side effects from this. Not saying there aren't any, but I'm apparently blind to any consistently present off-flavors from it if there are any. Keeping it on the burner, I get that residual heat from the steel arms the pot's sitting on, which I've found makes a bit of a difference. One time on a particularly cold SD morning, I killed the heat at 149° for a stout. I put the pot on the ground as I'd been doing up to that point, and 90 minutes later it was showing 144°. I just put the heat back on it at about 150° for another 10-15 minutes before mashing out, but that was the last time I put it on the cold concrete. We all know our own equipment better than anyone else, and brewing on it for a few years we know little tricks and ways to manipulate it to our needs. Based on the size of the grain bill, the style of beer, and the weather, I've gotten quite adept at hitting my rest temperature with BIAB.
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Mar 19, 2013 23:47
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wattershed posted:I put my grain bill in from the start with my mash water, then walk the temperature up. I haven't noticed any side effects from this. Not saying there aren't any, but I'm apparently blind to any consistently present off-flavors from it if there are any. You don't worry about scorching at all?
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Mar 20, 2013 00:39
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:You don't worry about scorching at all? I have a cooling rack (I think they're for cakes or something) that keeps the bag off the bottom of the pot. I also had the bag tailored to the exact size of my pot to prevent a lot of fabric from massing up down there.
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Mar 20, 2013 00:49
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| # ? May 17, 2024 19:16 |
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Brought sure homebrew to a dinner party tonight and had every bottle start to foam out immediately after opening. It's an IPA I brewed back around October. The taste was a bit soured so obviously I have an infection of some kind, but what would cause it to foam up like that? Or is this a case of I'll just never know? Of course when it was fresh it tasted great and I had no problems at all.
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Mar 20, 2013 02:08
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