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hbf posted:Just did a brew with Safale US-05. Normally, I never worry about things getting too cold because my old apartment was always quite warm. However my new place gets really chilly, I haven't started using the heat yet. Ambient temp is prob around 60F. Is this too cold for proper fermentation? It's on the cool side but I think you'll be fine. When fermentation is active the internal temp can be 3-5* higher anyway. If you can put it somewhere slightly warmer near the end of fermentation that would help the yeast finish out but it's probably not a big deal.
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# ? Sep 29, 2011 18:43 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:06 |
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hbf posted:And I was trying to clone Avery's Ellie's Brown Such a good beer to clone, let us know how it turns out.
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# ? Sep 29, 2011 22:51 |
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I've started US-05 at 58* internal and it was fine. Once fermentation begins slowing down, wrap a blanket around it and it should be fine.
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# ? Sep 29, 2011 23:24 |
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Anyone have experience or advice for reusing lager yeast? It was a German pilsner, sat in primary for about 3 weeks between primary and diacetyl rest, then another 2 weeks dropping to lager temp/lagering. Gonna rack it to a keg over the weekend to continue lagering if needed, or just put it on tap. Should it still be pretty viable at this point? I pitched a big-rear end 2 liter, 2 vial starter into 5 gallons. Planning to either divide it in half and do two moderate gravity lagers, or use the whole thing for a huge doppelbock I can sit on for like 6 months. Docjowles fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Sep 30, 2011 |
# ? Sep 30, 2011 03:17 |
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I'm fermenting with Safale 05 right now, it's never hotter than 65 in my apartment, and the activity is downright violent. To wit, I realized after brewing that I'd lost my airlock and so I fashioned a temporary one from tubing and a rubber band; the stopper blew off during the second night of fermentation. With a new airlock in place today (day 3) it's bubbling like it's pissed off about something and I've had to add water twice. I think you'll be fine.
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# ? Sep 30, 2011 07:36 |
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How do people clean their blow off tubes? I used my siphoning tube, because I didn't have anything better at the time and now it's got a lot of gunk in it.
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# ? Sep 30, 2011 18:57 |
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Cointelprofessional posted:How do people clean their blow off tubes? I used my siphoning tube, because I didn't have anything better at the time and now it's got a lot of gunk in it. Soak that poo poo in PBW overnight and you'll come back to a clean blowoff tube.
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# ? Sep 30, 2011 19:03 |
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Very.. uh, odd question. I bought some really goddamn delicious sprouted almonds the other day and got to wondering if you could malt almonds/other nuts like you do barley for making whiskey, then mash and ferment? Anyone ever heard of anything like this?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 00:22 |
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Anybody else playing with squeezed apples this year? I've got 5 gallons of hard cider fermenting, 5 gallons of apfelwein fermenting, 2 gallons of fresh cider in the fridge to drink now, and 3 gallons of fresh sparking cider carbonating in a keg. The intention being that people can mix sweet sparking cider from my beer faucets with hard cider or clear apfelwein, both of which will be hugely dry. I'm using montrachet yeast in both the hard cider and the apfelwein because while it smells awful fermenting, it ferments way, way down and tastes wonderful after a couple months of conditioning. I've done it with beer yeast and champagne yeasts and I really just prefer the montrachet wine yeast. Plus it's like 50 cents for a packet. Toss in some nutrient and oxygenate the hell out of it and throw it in a dark corner for a few months and hurray! My only issue is that I have no idea how long fresh cider is going to last in a keg. It'll be an all co2 environment and around 36-40 degrees.. It'll definitely be interesting. I don't know what else I can do to keep everything that's potentially living it in killed.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 01:03 |
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I've left cider in the carboy where it fermented for 2-3 months and it just gets better (that was spiked with dextrose, though). I'm sure it'll be fine in a keg. As for almonds, I have no idea what kind of fermentable sugars they have (close to none I think?) but I do know they contain a shitload of alkaloids, so keep that in mind. There's also the issue of the fat and while I know nothing of what fats do to the fermentation process I can't imagine it's good.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 01:10 |
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Plastic Jesus posted:I've left cider in the carboy where it fermented for 2-3 months and it just gets better (that was spiked with dextrose, though). I'm sure it'll be fine in a keg. Oh, I don't mean the hard cider or apfelwein (hell, I'm still drinking a batch of apfelwein from a keg that I made last august), I mean that I intend to throw 3 gallons of fresh, unfermented cider into a keg to force carbonate. My only worry is that even in a 36-40 degree keg under co2, it might still slowly spoil/ferment/potentially become dangerous, being nothing but a big pile of sugar and water. I don't know if a nearly completely pure co2 environment will retard any spoilage of fresh cider? I was considering pitching sorbate into the keg in the hopes that it'll kill off any natural beasties from the squeezer, etc. The guy I bought the cider from uses UV light to kill anything living in the cider and I brought him carboys wet with sanitizer, but I don't know how clean his filling equipment is, where he left the cork while he was filling, how much dust was in the air, etc. I'm also not sure how sorbate reacts inside a serving vessel. If it doesn't all go into solution, I'd hate to have it sitting at the bottom of the keg to get sucked into a glass. I can't imagine a higher concentration of sorbate in somebody's drink is particularly good for them. If it stays in solution it shouldn't be a problem though. Hypnolobster fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Oct 1, 2011 |
# ? Oct 1, 2011 01:14 |
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I like turtles posted:Very.. uh, odd question. I bought some really goddamn delicious sprouted almonds the other day and got to wondering if you could malt almonds/other nuts like you do barley for making whiskey, then mash and ferment? Seems unlikely, there's so much protein in nuts. However you can crush and soak them in vodka to make a ballin Almond infusion. Different than Amaretto which is made without any almonds what-so-ever (apricot pits). There was a huge infusion thread going that recently got caught in the purge. Not sure if another has been started but I would assume so.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 01:24 |
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Sorbate dissolves well, and it's got the toxicity of table salt. I wouldn't worry about adding some. Almonds, even "malted", would be presumably useless as a major mash ingredient. They're only some 15% starch/sugar by weight, and are mostly fat and protein. It'd be like all the problems of using too much oats in your beer only magnified. The infusion idea is potentially neat though.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 01:29 |
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Hypnolobster posted:Oh, I don't mean the hard cider or apfelwein (hell, I'm still drinking a batch of apfelwein from a keg that I made last august), I mean that I intend to throw 3 gallons of fresh, unfermented cider into a keg to force carbonate.. Oh, right, sorry. I'd be sketch about that too. Why not just Pastuerize it?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 02:34 |
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I have a pumpkin spice ale nearing the end of two weeks in primary, as I talked to the owner of my LHBS he mentioned to actually get some PUMPKIN flavor in the drat beer to caramelize some pumpkin and throw it in a secondary and accept the fact I'll have a pretty drat cloudy beer. Does anyone have any experience with this? Does this just open me up to infection?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 02:36 |
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Never used pumpkin before, but the heat involved in caramelization will sterilize the product. I wouldn't worry about infection if you handle it carefully.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 02:48 |
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Docjowles posted:Yeah this has been my experience too. Once I got into starters and aeration I found most "average gravity" beers didn't need those 1-2 months to start tasting good. But there's no way someone's doing all that on batch #1 so it's safer to just tell them to wait 3 weeks and But you're right, there's no way Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is sitting in primary for a month for example. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's less than a week. was back logged on this thread and noticed this. I've taken a bunch of brew tours and one thing that stuck me in a most recent one was at ShipYard they over pitch like a mother fucker (and said so), open ferment, and their brew only fermenting for three days. Now they, and most places, move the beer to conditioning takes for much much longer. I know they don't make money with a slow ferment, but god drat. Also, I've been growing more and more interested in foraging for brew ingredients and think I may make this my slant on brewing. Get a couple of wildness guides, books on leaves, berries, etc. After moving to Maine and reading Radical Brewing, I'd love to pick some things up on hikes. Hell I've found wild hops growing in a bramble on an Island, there are piles of what I assume is Heather on my bike commute to work. I may have already missed this year's bounty, but I think I'll have a decent amount of time to get a bit more educated on what to look for. Advice?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 02:51 |
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Hypnolobster posted:Oh, I don't mean the hard cider or apfelwein (hell, I'm still drinking a batch of apfelwein from a keg that I made last august), I mean that I intend to throw 3 gallons of fresh, unfermented cider into a keg to force carbonate. Using sorbate at room temp and letting it sit for 24 hours the way you'd use it for wine should put it all into solution. If you're concerned, sorbate the carboy, let it sit, then rack into a keg. You'll lose a few ounces, but it would leave any particulate on the bottom. Last year, I did a few things with cider, all unpasteurized. Nottingham with cider and sour cherries. Cider with Weihenstephan yeast. Cider with Bavarian wheat yeast. And late spring I used a pasteurized cider with cherry puree from the wine section at my local homebrew shop. Cider with Weihenstephan was amazing. In all cases, I fermented to 1.008 to 1.010, and crash cooled it in the fermentation freezer to 30*, and then racked into keg/growler/whatever. It worked pretty well, I'll definitely do it again this year. I haven't used Montrachet yeast, I've used D-47 for a number of different meads and really like the flavor. It also consistently goes to 14-14.5% abv, which makes figuring residual sugar really easy. Twice now I've used 12 pounds of honey with 5 gallons of the unpasteurized cider. It went from 1.14 to 1.032. It's very sweet, but it makes for an amazing dessert wine. I bottled half in 750ml and half in 375ml. I'm considering making two this year, the full dessert version, and one with ~2 gallons of water in place of cider. The family running that orchard loves us. We've been going there for, uh, almost 20 years now for apples and cider, and now that I'm making mead/cider/beer/etc, I've been buying a lot more. The owner's son and I swapped bottles, I gave him mead and cyser, and he gave me an apple/pear wine, and a blueberry/grape wine. Both were quite good!
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 03:34 |
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drewhead posted:Seems unlikely, there's so much protein in nuts. Oh yeah, love making infusions. I've been thinking about starting a new thread for infusions but . Protein throws off fermentation huh?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 04:44 |
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Okay, so I just cracked a bottle of my accidental hefeweizen, and it was like a goddamn volcano. I didn't shake it, it just erupted from the carbonation. I put 2 tsp priming sugar per liter bottle, is this too much or did I bottle too early while it was still in primary?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 05:44 |
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Okay, so I just cracked a bottle of my accidental hefeweizen, and it was like a goddamn volcano. I didn't shake it, it just erupted from the carbonation. 2 tsp doesn't sound like much for one liter. Good thing you used plastic as glass could have been messy. What was the gravity when you bottled? Edit for content: I brewed SMaTH on Thursday that is a variation of the one I did a few months ago. single malt, 11 # of Maris Otter three hops 60 min = 1/2 oz centennial 1/2 oz n. brewer (39 IBU) 10 min = 1/2 oz centennial 5 min = 1 oz cascade (whole) flameout = 3 ounces of cascade whole hops The original used cascade with centennial for bittering and was a hit among my friends. I'm experimenting with late hoping on this one as the first had cascade throughout the last 20 mins and this one has a much larger flameout addition. The beer is also overall about 10-15 IBU's higher (depends on how much if any IBUs the 3 oz of cascade contribute at 0 min) I expect the beer to be full of delicious cascade aroma and crisp with good body and low gravity. The thames valley yeast (1275) really goes well with cascade for some reason. Actually prefer it with american hops than with english hops. Bought a new thermometer at walmart for $15. It is the oven proof probe type and it gives an instant reading, way better than the $12 digital meat thermos I'd been using before. My new favorite piece of gear. It freed me from holding the thermometer in the wort often while cooling and having to sanitize it each time. This time I tossed it in near the end of the boil and left it there until I hit my pitching temp Also, opened one of my last Fuller's London Porter clone I brewed in April. It was spot on after primary, then seemed to lose body a week after bottling. Theres a huge thread on HBT about the yeast and bottling, and people saying it wakes up and attenuates further, tasting like an entirely different (usually worse) beer. Well I took a gravity sample of the porter for the hell of it, and spent several minutes decarbonating it in my hydrometer jar. I was surprised to note it was now at 1.014 when it had been at 1.018 at bottling time! I left it in primary for a while this yeast flocculates as well as any so I believe it must have gotten agitated and woken back up to consume more sugars. I'm now hoping to use this discovery to save my belgian dubbel (with 3787, westmalle yeast). I brewed this 3 weeks ago and it's stuck at 1.016. The yeast flocculated like a brick after a week, and now I'm tempted to rouse it (with a sanitized coat hanger) and get it into suspension to see if it won't drop a few more points (1.008 would be nice). tesilential fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Oct 1, 2011 |
# ? Oct 1, 2011 06:10 |
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I like turtles posted:Oh yeah, love making infusions. I've been thinking about starting a new thread for infusions but . You're in luck.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 06:30 |
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Plastic Jesus posted:You're in luck. Oh, cool. Thanks!
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 07:40 |
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Prefect Six posted:How's this for a recipe: Anyone have any comments on this?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 15:24 |
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mattdev posted:Soak that poo poo in PBW overnight and you'll come back to a clean blowoff tube. Thanks, that worked out great. For those of you that brew higher abv beers (7-9%), how long do you usually leave them in the fermenter(s) before kegging or bottling? Is it advisable to leave them in a few extra weeks to let them mellow?
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 20:03 |
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So, I just opened the second batch of mine, an Kit Irish Red and it's.... Disappointing. It tastes watery, and doesn't have much body or much aroma. It's this kit: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/irish-red-ale.html I used the White Labs yeast this time. I know that I used too much fill(ice) when I went into the fermentor, so that explains some of it. How can I avoid this in the future? I was a fuller mouth feel. Hoppier is easy to get, just more hops. Also, it's under-carbed again. I'm thinking I might just start capping the 16 oz. bottles, instead of using the swing tops.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 20:22 |
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Prefect Six posted:Anyone have any comments on [wheaten porter]? It's not going to be as deep brown/black as I usually think a porter should be. Chocolate wheat seems less dark to me than choc barley malt. It does look good, but I think you will get more like a brown wheat beer than a wheat porter.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 23:15 |
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Cointelprofessional posted:For those of you that brew higher abv beers (7-9%), how long do you usually leave them in the fermenter(s) before kegging or bottling? Is it advisable to leave them in a few extra weeks to let them mellow? It's an unusual beer for me that stays in the fermenter more than 2, maybe 3 weeks, and gets most of its mellowing in the keg. The IPA I just did was in longer, but that was because I was on vacation for two weeks and did not get to the dry hops until I returned, so it was in maybe four weeks all told. A Belgian quad was in for 5 weeks, I think, but the bulk of its mellowing has happened in the bottle.
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# ? Oct 1, 2011 23:59 |
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Jo3sh posted:It's not going to be as deep brown/black as I usually think a porter should be. Chocolate wheat seems less dark to me than choc barley malt. It does look good, but I think you will get more like a brown wheat beer than a wheat porter. Yeah, I'd say maybe a bit of some debittered black malt might get it more to what you'd think of for a porter without messing up the character
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 00:25 |
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About to bottle an extract Dortmunder. It has lagered for about 4 weeks. Do I need to worry about adding more yeast before bottling, or are the yeast still in good enough shape to do the trick with some corn sugar added? I pitched at least 150-200 billion yeast cells originally.
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 01:08 |
Hypnolobster posted:Anybody else playing with squeezed apples this year? Yes! I have 5 gallons of cider I just racked over this evening. It was 5.75 but I left almost gallon in the bottom with the yeast because I'm making a naturally sweet cider. I'm using British Ale WLP005 and even with nutrient added it smells like a wet dog that rolled in something. I'm planning on making more as my carboys free up because I can get unpasteurized cider from a local orchard for $5 per gallon. Having a fermentation fridge is so awesome. I'd just like to throw that out there for anyone considering it.
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 02:17 |
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Jo3sh posted:It's not going to be as deep brown/black as I usually think a porter should be. Chocolate wheat seems less dark to me than choc barley malt. It does look good, but I think you will get more like a brown wheat beer than a wheat porter. Should I add a small amount of black patent to get it darker?
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 02:58 |
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If that's what you want, of course. I don't think a brown wheat beer is a bad thing at all. You might look at a porter recipe you know you like and work from that, subbing in part wheat extract and wheat specialty grain. I like a porter to have a fair measure of chocolate malt, a bit of roast dark roast malt, and some medium or dark crystal in it. But don't brew to make me happy; you're the one who [has|gets] to drink it.
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 05:29 |
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Question about temperature control during fermentation. Should I place the thermostat probe in water or have it exposed to the the air? I've been experimenting with it in a glass of water and the air in the fridge is of course getting cold well before the water. So by the time the condenser shuts off there is a good 10 degree difference between the air and water. The water temp keeps dropping. For instance: Right now air temp is 55 and water is 64. My target temp is 68 for a hefe. What matters more? Temp of wort or temp of air around the wort?
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 05:38 |
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Insulate it somehow and tape it to the side of the fermenter.
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 11:24 |
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I like turtles posted:Protein throws off fermentation huh? Almonds just aren't made of the same stuff that malted barley is. I was saying that almonds lack the starch of malted barley. They have all the protein (and fat) instead of convertible starch.
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 19:44 |
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Everyone overcomplicates using a temperature controller. First and most importantly, make sure you have a thermosticker on every carboy and bucket you have. This will give you a very accurate reading of the temperature of your wort (within 1-2* at worst) and is more accurate than taping a probe to the fermentation vessel. Next chose your fermentation temperature. A good one for many ales is 64*f. This is the temp we want the actual wort to be during fermentation. Set your TC to 60* with a 4*f differential. This keeps the wort temp at a constant 64* on my setup. Confirm this with your thermosticker. The issue with taping the probe to the bucket/carboy and setting to 64* is that the wort temp needs to rise above your target temp for the compressor to turn on. If you set to 63* with 1* differential then you negate this, but now the compressor turns on and cools the wort back down to 63* (sometimes lower) before turning off. It takes a long time for the wort temp to change and the ambient temp will be MUCH lower in the freezer so when the compressor turns off at 63* the wort continues to cool via the ice cold freezer. It could go significantly lower than you want it to. It's also nice to not have to worry about the probe when I'm moving buckets and carboys around. I sneak mine in near one of the lid hinges and keep it along the backside and out of the way. tesilential fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Oct 2, 2011 |
# ? Oct 2, 2011 21:53 |
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Has anyone tried one of these? I'm hoping to be able to use something like that for mashing with multiple steps/rests, so wondering if there was an easy way to add a DIY filtering device for the lautering, or if I would need a separate lautering tun. Also I wonder if 2kW is really enough to give a 20+ liter batch a proper boil. For bonus points: Can such a pot double as a sous vide rig?
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 22:19 |
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Hypnolobster posted:Anybody else playing with squeezed apples this year? Care to share your apfelwein recipe? I've only had it once, but it seems like a perfect fall drink.
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# ? Oct 2, 2011 23:21 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:06 |
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Acceptableloss posted:Care to share your apfelwein recipe? I've only had it once, but it seems like a perfect fall drink. It's pretty simple, and basically just the one that keeps floating around the internet (namely HBT). 5 gallons of jug apple juice, only preservative is ascorbic acid Montrachet Yeast 1 lb Dextrose (or 2 if you're feeling like making it stronger) Yeast Nutrient Pour 3 or 4 of the jugs of apple juice into a sanitized carboy (I get all obsessive and after I've just cracked the lids on the juice to the point where it's about to break the safety seal/whatever, I spray a bunch of starsan up into the threads), dump half of another jug into the carboy, pour the dextrose into the jug, shake the gently caress out of it to dissolve, pour it into the carboy. Usually before I add anything, I pour in my rehydrated yeast and nutrient, although you can just sprinkle it in, but it'll likely clump up. I oxygenate for about 60 seconds, throw an airlock on it and let it ferment out and condition for at least 4 months, preferably more like 6-8, then just keg it. It comes out super super dry and clean, with a nice big bright apple flavor. Super tasty all on it's own, even tastier drank in quantity with some fresh sparking cider added to it (or Sprite, 7up, etc if you're feeling trashy). e: This post is already long, but here are some pictures, because pictures are cool. Since these will sit around for a long long time and montrachet has a gigantic ferment temp range, it's just sitting in a 64 degree room where it'll stay for a few months. I may move it to a ~75ish degree room for the last couple months to speed aging, but I'm conflicted on the idea. cider fermentation is pretty cool and creamy looking. apple juice fermenting is extremely boring, but watching the fast streams of co2 coming from everywhere is pretty cool. Hypnolobster fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Oct 2, 2011 |
# ? Oct 2, 2011 23:35 |