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BerkerkLurk
Jul 22, 2001

I could never sleep my way to the top 'cause my alarm clock always wakes me right up
Using the 100% Munich LME from the LHBS and WLP515 I made a beer that was total dogshit. I was hoping I would get something along the lines of De Koninck, but it wasn't even close. Just sort of astringent with very little Munich malt flavor.

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Toebone
Jul 1, 2002

Start remembering what you hear.
Beer disaster! I accidentally positioned the picnic tap on my keg so that when the fridge door closed, it opened the tap. Luckily I opened the door just a few minutes later so I didn't lose everything in the keg, but it made a hell of a mess :tubular:

beetlo
Mar 20, 2005

Proud forums lurker!
Well I overshot the starting gravity on my Oktoberfest by quite a bit. 1.068 when it was supposed to be 1.056. I'm thinking I'll either dilute it when moving to secondary or perhaps right before bottling. More beer... I guess. Does this sound reasonable?

As far as why I overshot... Probably because this recipe was more of a partial/mini mash than a full extract beer (Beersmith calculated based on extract). Actually got fermentables from the grains instead of just some color and flavor.

tesilential
Nov 22, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

Toebone posted:

Beer disaster! I accidentally positioned the picnic tap on my keg so that when the fridge door closed, it opened the tap. Luckily I opened the door just a few minutes later so I didn't lose everything in the keg, but it made a hell of a mess :tubular:

I've heard about this, so I take care to make sure the picnic taps have some clearance from the freezer lid! I'll admit when hosting parties when others pour themselves I slack and it could easily happen to me as well!

beetlo posted:

Well I overshot the starting gravity on my Oktoberfest by quite a bit. 1.068 when it was supposed to be 1.056. I'm thinking I'll either dilute it when moving to secondary or perhaps right before bottling. More beer... I guess. Does this sound reasonable?

As far as why I overshot... Probably because this recipe was more of a partial/mini mash than a full extract beer (Beersmith calculated based on extract). Actually got fermentables from the grains instead of just some color and flavor.

If you got the volume you wanted, don't even dilute it, just enjoy the stronger beer!

Paladine_PSoT
Jan 2, 2010

If you have a problem Yo, I'll solve it

Repost for those too busy to dig to past pages:

Okay, here's the SA Homebrewer Secret Santa reg form. Registration is open until 11/30/11 and I will send assignments no later than 12/3/11.

Please be aware of restrictions and packing requirements for shipping beer. Do your homework!

Signup Form

We should make a sticky or something.

Toebone
Jul 1, 2002

Start remembering what you hear.
I just kegged a batch of the chocolate mint stout from Radical Brewing. I tried a sample, I'm surprised how good it is, even flat and warm.

Retemnav
Mar 20, 2007
Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?
Just finished brewing my Roosbois tea ale, just a straigh LDME + Czech Saaz recipe. Did a 2 gallon batch, split between two 1 gallon carboys for fermenting. Brewed and poured the tea into the first one, and dropped the tea bags directly into the fermenter on the second one. Not sure if that was a great idea, but it's an experiment...

beetlo
Mar 20, 2005

Proud forums lurker!

tesilential posted:

If you got the volume you wanted, don't even dilute it, just enjoy the stronger beer!

It's like a .5% difference in ABV. That HAS to gently caress up the flavor I'm going for. It was already on the high end for the style before I messed up.

SoftNum
Mar 31, 2011

So, I'm super psyched. My first self-written recipe came out.. pretty good!


code:
1 lb. 80L Carmel
1 lb. Smoked Malt
1 lb. Melanoiden
6 lbs LME Briess Gold
2 lbs DME Briess Gold

2 oz Summit @ 60 min.
1 oz Goldings @ 15 min
1 oz Goldings @ 2 min.

White Labs WLP #001
It's... VERY smokey. I think the next iteration I'm going to go to 3/4 or 1/2 lb. of smoked malt, a bit more LME/DME, and I'm goign to do 2 oz. of Saaz as a dry hop in secondary for a few days. I want some grassy notes on the front. But it's also pretty.

Anyway. brag brag. :)

exe cummings
Jan 22, 2005

Anyone have any good/bad things to say about Munton's syrup kits? I used their "Old Ale" kit today for my second ever batch.

rage-saq
Mar 21, 2001

Thats so ninja...
Drinking my first glass of my Imperial Porter batch2 that I made about a month ago and has been in keg for almost a week. Its pretty drat awesome, pretty much what I remember from batch1, didn't change a thing other than hops. Needs a little bit more age but its already super smooth and creamy, and I probably should have bumped up the English chocolate a tiny bit to give it a little more body and chocolate but I might feel differently about it in
Here is the recipe The Profound Porter

I'm brewing tomorrow and couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I had been thinking about brewing a session IPA lately but I've also been into hoppy saisons a lot so why not combine both?
5.5% abv saison with a lot of American hops, inspired by Boulevard Tank 7 but scaled down.

Here's what I've got.
code:
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal      
Boil Size: 6.99 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 40.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
6 lbs                 Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)            Grain         1        68.6 %        
1 lbs 8.0 oz          Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)                   Grain         2        17.1 %        
1 lbs                 White Wheat Malt (2.0 SRM)               Grain         3        11.4 %        
0.50 oz               Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 90.0 min         Hop           5        27.3 IBUs     
0.50 oz               Zythos [10.90 %] - Boil 10.0 min         Hop           6        4.9 IBUs      
1.00 oz               Falconers Flight [10.50 %] - Boil 1.0 mi Hop           7        7.8 IBUs      
1.50 oz               Zythos [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days     Hop           9        0.0 IBUs      
1.0 pkg               French Saison (Wyeast Labs #3711) [50.28 Yeast         8        -             
0.50 oz               Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days     Hop           10       0.0 IBUs      
4.0 oz                Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)                  Grain         4        2.9 %         


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 8 lbs 12.0 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 10.94 qt of water at 163.7 F        152.0 F       75 min        

Jo3sh
Oct 19, 2002

Like all girls I love unicorns!

exant posted:

Anyone have any good/bad things to say about Munton's syrup kits? I used their "Old Ale" kit today for my second ever batch.


The issue with canned kits (at least here in the US - not sure where you are) is that they don't move much, so they can be quite old before they are bought by the consumer. Syrup, even in tins, degrades over time. The other major flaw is that the instructions are pretty terrible - put the syrup and another can of dextrose into warm water, and add the yeast under the cap (which is also, at least potentially, poorly stored).

So canned kits would not be my first choice here in the US, with so many options available to me (e.g., Northern Brewer's huge variety of kits). In the UK or other areas where the kits might move more, I think you can probably make good beer from them, as long as you abandon the directions and do some kind of boil, ideally using malt extract rather than dextrose to boost the gravity, and with fresh yeast of known provenance.

I think canned kits are reflective of the homebrewing culture in the UK, which seems to be mainly focused on making an acceptable pint cheaply, as contrasted with the US culture, which seems to be mainly about making beer that is as good as any available in the market, with a focus on craft and experimentation. Neither approach is incorrect; it's all about priorities.

Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Nov 20, 2011

crazyfish
Sep 19, 2002

Cracked open my key lime wit that I bottled about two weeks ago. I was really excited about drinking it when I tasted it out of the fermenter, and now that I got to drink it fully carbed it's glorious. By far my favorite of the three batches I've made. Hoping my secret santa assignee enjoys it as much as I am :)

Dolemite
Jun 30, 2005
Welp, I think the yeast I harvested way back is dead. :( I've had my stir plate working for around 18 hours now and there still isn't any kind of fermentation going on.




I would think that I'd see some activity by now! Is it normal for a starter to take this long to get going? I'm wondering if maybe I stored the old yeast for too long. Looking at my records, I think I stored the yeast back in late May.

But, I did keep the yeast in the refrigerator the entire time. The yeast were stored in air tight mason jars as well.

tesilential
Nov 22, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Your yeast are certainly not as viable as they would be if they were fresh, but there should be enough yeast to do the job.

I've had even fresh yeast in a 1 gal starter take 3 days to show signs of fermentation. If your starter is small enough to not affect the final beer, I would just brew tomorrow as planned and pitch the whole starter when the wort is cool. You could also do a no chill and pitch Monday or even Tuesday if you keep the wort sealed up. I pitched yeast 36 hours after brewing on my first full boil batch since I didn't have a wort chiller.

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?

beetlo posted:

It's like a .5% difference in ABV. That HAS to gently caress up the flavor I'm going for. It was already on the high end for the style before I messed up.

Why not taste it first and find out?

beetlo
Mar 20, 2005

Proud forums lurker!
I would have to taste it before bottling and carbing. Hard to really judge it at that point. I will probably end up leaving it alone, though.

For some extra content. Cooler mash tun. I've seen the thread over at homebrewtalk about converting, but the guy lists all these 5/8" parts that are rather difficult to find (the o-ring and washers especially). Seems you would want to go 1/2" to make everything easier. Fill any gaps with high temp caulk or something. *shrug*

beetlo fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Nov 20, 2011

Jo3sh
Oct 19, 2002

Like all girls I love unicorns!
I would bet McMaster-Carr would have all the 5/8 parts.

beetlo
Mar 20, 2005

Proud forums lurker!
Edit: Never mind. I can make this work. I just hate searching for stuff. Want to go to store. Get what I need. Leave.

beetlo fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Nov 21, 2011

Jacobey000
Jul 17, 2005

We will be cruising at a speed of 55mph swiftly away from the twisted wreckage of my shattered life!
Went to keg today and I'm pretty sure my Cranberry Wheat is infected.


So my question is, will the fridge slow things down so it doesn't turn into vinegar? Can I just play it off like I meant to sour it with wild yeast, etc?

rage-saq
Mar 21, 2001

Thats so ninja...

Jacobey000 posted:

Went to keg today and I'm pretty sure my Cranberry Wheat is infected.


So my question is, will the fridge slow things down so it doesn't turn into vinegar? Can I just play it off like I meant to sour it with wild yeast, etc?

Taste it and see. That doesn't really look like an infection but probably just some of the particles from the fruit floating to the surface. An infection is bubbling and has all kinds of weird white ropy things on them.

Super Rad
Feb 15, 2003
Sir Loin of Beef

Darth Goku Jr posted:

The main reason people decant larger starters is you've just oxygenated the poo poo out of all of that unhopped beer left in the flask and it can contribute off flavors in the finished project.

If unhopped super young beer is perfectly good booze I don't want to know what's not good. And I've had decanted starters take off in less than 2 hours so I think that's a non-issue too.

Definitely not trying to start an argument here, I feel that in the end decanting or not will yield a very similar product and it's all about making your brews the way you want to, but I definitely have not noticed any sort of off flavors. Boiled DME by itself smells like horrid wet dog, and that's the very stuff that most homebrewers will use to make their first beers - it's the hops and other flavors that make extract brews palatable at all. I just hop my 4.5 gallons accordingly to make up for the .5 unhopped gallon of starter and the flavor works itself out, especially when the 4.5 gallons of beer is all-grain.

As far as the oxygenation concern I also feel it's rather moot when you take into account how little the starter affects the overall flavor, not to mention that the extra oxygen in the starter is wanted to some extent to boost the reproductive phase.

Like I said, I don't think either way is necessarily better, but at the very least I'm certain pouring the whole thing in is slightly simpler.

Toebone
Jul 1, 2002

Start remembering what you hear.
I'm thinking of installing an on-door faucet on my mini-fridge. I know Perlick faucets are well regarded, is this a good one? Besides the faucet and tap handle, would this shank be all I need to hook it up to my current corny keg setup?

Jacobey000
Jul 17, 2005

We will be cruising at a speed of 55mph swiftly away from the twisted wreckage of my shattered life!

rage-saq posted:

Taste it and see. That doesn't really look like an infection but probably just some of the particles from the fruit floating to the surface. An infection is bubbling and has all kinds of weird white ropy things on them.

Yeah, I mean it tastes okay. Honestly, it tasted much better a week or two ago - now it tastes much more 'sharp' with alcohol. We'll see how a bit of bubbles and some cold does for it. Strangely enough, it seemed to taste better the longer the sample sat.

Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Nov 22, 2011

Jo3sh
Oct 19, 2002

Like all girls I love unicorns!

Toebone posted:

I'm thinking of installing an on-door faucet on my mini-fridge. I know Perlick faucets are well regarded, is this a good one? Besides the faucet and tap handle, would this shank be all I need to hook it up to my current corny keg setup?

I really prefer all-stainless faucets and shanks over plated brass ones. More expensive, but worth it in my opinion.

But yes, beyond the parts you have linked, you'll just need some beer line and some QDs appropriate for the type of Cornies you've got.

crazyfish
Sep 19, 2002

Batch #4 (belgian wit) is getting bottled this week, and I'm already starting to plan ahead for my next couple batches. I want to do one session-type batch, and one big, heavy batch to give me an excuse to buy some new equipment (like flasks for making yeast starters). Earlier in this thread I had the desire to do a Belgian dubbel, but I decided to go crazy and I'll now be doing a quad, in particular, a Westy 12 clone(ish). Since I can't do all-grain yet, I've decided to go partial mash. This guy has a lot of specialty-type grains which I think a partial mash will help a lot with.

Based on this recipe: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/pious-westvleteren-12-style-quad-multiple-147815/

code:
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 4.46 gal
Post Boil Volume: 3.91 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal   
Bottling Volume: 4.60 gal
Estimated OG: 1.104 SG
Estimated Color: 33.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 23.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 102.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
5 lbs                 Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)            Grain         1        32.7 %        
1 lbs                 Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM)               Grain         2        6.5 %         
8.0 oz                Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM)                  Grain         3        3.3 %         
5.3 oz                Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)                 Grain         4        2.2 %         
4.0 oz                Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)               Grain         5        1.6 %         
3.2 oz                Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)               Grain         6        1.3 %         
6 lbs                 Pilsen Light Dry Extract [Boil for 30 min] Dry Extract   9        39.3 %        
1.00 oz               Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop           8        14.1 IBUs     
2.00 oz               Styrian Goldings [3.90 %] - Boil 30.0 mi Hop           10       9.3 IBUs      
2 lbs                 Candi Sugar, Dark (160.0 SRM)            Sugar         7        13.1 %        

Mash 90 min @ 152. 

Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity.  Pitch at around 65, let it self-rise to about 80 and hold 
it there until nearly done, then cool it down to about 70.  At FG, rack to secondary and condition 
for 2 months, then bottle.  
Aimed high on the OG in case I'm not very good at partial mashing.

Couple questions:

- I was thinking about trying an open fermentation at least for the first couple days while it's still at high krausen. I'm hoping to get a little bit more of a fruity, raisiny, cherry-type character out of it, plus it (mostly) avoids the need to rig up a blowoff hose. Does this seem like a good idea? I'm probably going to pitch a pretty reasonable starter, and I might loosely cover the fermenter until it starts.

- Anyone ever used a bottling bucket as a lauter tun? I've got some paint strainer bags that fill up the bucket, so I can pour the mash into the strainer bag and batch sparge using the strainer bag as sort of a false bottom.

- Anyone have a favorite recipe for dark candi syrup? I'm not going to buy the brown rocks at my LHBS, I'd rather save some scratch and make my own.

crazyfish fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Nov 22, 2011

Docjowles
Apr 9, 2009

PSA: Morebeer.com is going to have a "Woot off" for Black Friday. Constantly updating Deal of the Day as each one sells out. http://www.wortomatic.com/notify/re:-warning:-this-friday-is-a-w00t-off!-on-the-morebeer!-deal-of-the-day%5D

tesilential
Nov 22, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

crazyfish posted:

:words: about brewing a belgian quad


I actually tried for a Westyish All Grain beer a few months ago. Here are some comments based on my experience:

- I would keep the lid on tight until the airlock starts bubbling, then loosen it and just lay it on the top to keep contaminants out. The outward pressure of co2 leaving the wort will stuff from sneaking in, and IME the yeast makes a big mess and high krausen.

- For fermentation, I would hold it at 68* for like 3 days, then let it get to 72* for a couple days. Only after 6 days would I let it get to 78*. This yeast gave me mostly green apple (cider) taste when I pitched at 68* and let it get to 78* after 30 hours. At 1.083 my OG was also lower than yours, so I'd expect even more off flavors in a higher gravity brew. Despite this yeast creating a monster krausen and blowoff, I found it actually took quite a while to finish, so you can let the temperature rise more slowly. Westvleteren does do the schedule you cited, but their yeast behaves differently since it is under more pressure than our 5 gallon buckets.

- I have used a regular fermentation bucket for mashing many times, the bottling bucket should work great. The spigot won't clog since you'll have all the grains contained in your BIAB bag.

- I also made my own candi syrup for this recipe, using table sugar (cane), a couple pinches of citric acid powder(from LHBS), and a tiny bit of water. The first time I messed up by using way too much water and it took a long time to evaporate out. Toss in 2 pounds of table sugar, and like a teaspoon of water. Turn the heat up to medium and wait a while until it all melts. You don't have to stir or anything. Use a thermometer to get the temp up to 270 and lower the heat to maintain it. I slowly crept up to 280 to get a very dark amber color, but you may want to play it safe to ensure you don't burn the sugar and end up with an unfermentable caramel. Use a spoon to drip a drop unto aluminum foil to see how dark it really is since it will appear black in the pot while still being amber.
When I brewed mine my recipe was 90% pilsner malt, 10% candi syrup, with only my syrup for color. It did not end up quite as dark as I wanted, more of a dark amber. You are using chocolate malt so you should be set.

After a couple months in the keg my batch has mellowed out considerably and is starting to become an interesting Belgian so overall I am OK with the finished product. I will be making some changes next time, most of which are outlined above. Good luck!

rage-saq
Mar 21, 2001

Thats so ninja...

crazyfish posted:

Batch #4 (belgian wit) is getting bottled this week, and I'm already starting to plan ahead for my next couple batches. I want to do one session-type batch, and one big, heavy batch to give me an excuse to buy some new equipment (like flasks for making yeast starters). Earlier in this thread I had the desire to do a Belgian dubbel, but I decided to go crazy and I'll now be doing a quad, in particular, a Westy 12 clone(ish). Since I can't do all-grain yet, I've decided to go partial mash. This guy has a lot of specialty-type grains which I think a partial mash will help a lot with.

Based on this recipe: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/pious-westvleteren-12-style-quad-multiple-147815/

Aimed high on the OG in case I'm not very good at partial mashing.

Couple questions:

- I was thinking about trying an open fermentation at least for the first couple days while it's still at high krausen. I'm hoping to get a little bit more of a fruity, raisiny, cherry-type character out of it, plus it (mostly) avoids the need to rig up a blowoff hose. Does this seem like a good idea? I'm probably going to pitch a pretty reasonable starter, and I might loosely cover the fermenter until it starts.

- Anyone ever used a bottling bucket as a lauter tun? I've got some paint strainer bags that fill up the bucket, so I can pour the mash into the strainer bag and batch sparge using the strainer bag as sort of a false bottom.

- Anyone have a favorite recipe for dark candi syrup? I'm not going to buy the brown rocks at my LHBS, I'd rather save some scratch and make my own.

Couple of tips.

I think doing a partial mash quad is pretty difficult (I tell somebody that later in that thread of mine) but liquid pilsner extract is the best bet. I think you'll want to up your % sugar to 17% to account for the unfermentables that are intentionally put into malt extract.

I think your hopping rate is a little low but not being able to do a full boil really fucks with your hop utilization and IBUs.

You need dark candi syrup (from either http://www.candisyrup.com or http://www.darkcandi.com) to make a good dubbel or quad. It really is the most important ingredient in making a good dubbel or quad.

You can cook sugar on the stove with a candy sugar thermometer but it doesn't come out like either of the good commercial brewing candi syrups. I've tried it a bunch of times and its not even close to what either of the two companies above do. Avoid the rocks though, they are crap.

Don't pitch too much yeast, some of the key date/cocoa flavors come from a slightly longer reproductive cycle on the Westmalle yeast. 200-240 billion cells for 5 gallons seems to be a sweet spot for this recipe. If you have some kind of o2 stone I'd skip it for this beer as that will also hold off some of the good Belgian yeast esters that you want.
Make sure the yeast ferments at least up at 78f fermentation temp and be able to hold it steady there. A generous application of fermcap when its really starting to get going keeps everything in check. I know a few people who have done that beer with some kind of open fermentation (low head pressure) and have had interesting results but its not really for me.


Reading my old thread kind of reminds me I haven't updated the OP in a long time with some of continued experiments trying to get the perfect quad. I'll have to clean it up some.

rage-saq fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Nov 22, 2011

crazyfish
Sep 19, 2002

Wow, totally didn't make the connection between rage-saq and saq - cool to see that I scoped another goon recipe!

Thanks to the both of you for the comments. I'm dead set on a partial mash right now because I've already got a bunch of the grain and extract sitting around. I'd have to run out to my LHBS for some of the specialty malts and the 3787. I might sub 3.3 lb of pilsen LME for 3 pounds of the DME to lower the gravity slightly, and since I'm not concerned about darkening too much, I might wind up adding it earlier in the boil.

I'm not going to brew this for a couple weeks yet, so who knows, I might bite the bullet and buy a bunch of all-grain gear :)

SweetSassyMolassy
Oct 31, 2010
Just got into all grain and have kegged my first AG batch last night. I'm hoping, and this may be silly, that since this batch is using grain instead of extract that the malt flavor complexity increases dramatically.

The one thing I have noticed with my brews is that the ones that are kegged all tend to have muted flavors compared to the beers that are bottled. Is this something that should be expected or is there maybe some common mistake that people make while kegging that can cause this?

Now that I think about it, my kegs will sit refrigerated for weeks while the bottles I have only go in the fridge the day I want to consume them. I don't cold crash any of my carboys so suspended yeast might account for it?

tonedef131
Sep 3, 2003

BerkerkLurk posted:

Using the 100% Munich LME from the LHBS and WLP515 I made a beer that was total dogshit. I was hoping I would get something along the lines of De Koninck, but it wasn't even close. Just sort of astringent with very little Munich malt flavor.
Just for future reference De Koninck doesn't actually use any munich malt in their mash, it's made up entirely of pilsner and vienna malts. I made a really pleasant Belgian Ale last year when that yeast was out with vienna and German pale malt, some brown sugar and hallertau hops. I just brewed up another one yesterday since that yeast is out again but this time swapped the pale out for pilsner, stuck to an all-malt grain bill and used Saaz, so it should be a lot more along the lines of De Koninck. Every time I make a Belgian ale of this sort I end up using more and more Vienna, I think I'll likely just do 100% vienna from now on and perhaps even try a decoction schedule similar to what Palm uses.

Caustic
Jan 20, 2005
Anyone tried aging/fermenting in a bourbon barrel? Where did you get yours, and how the hell do you keep it sanitized?

I just tried Drake's HighWater The Aphotic Baltic Porter, which is Bourbon Barrel aged. ØL in Walnut Creek (sister bar to The Trappist) had it on tap and it was utterly fantastic. Would like to simulate at home.

mewse
May 2, 2006

Caustic posted:

Anyone tried aging/fermenting in a bourbon barrel? Where did you get yours, and how the hell do you keep it sanitized?

although i haven't read anything about it, i would guess you wouldn't want to use it as a primary fermenter

Docjowles
Apr 9, 2009

On a homebrew scale it probably makes sense to just get a couple ounces of oak cubes, soak in bourbon for a while and then add that to your secondary. A standard barrel is frigging 55 gallons, and you want it full to avoid massive oxidation and the barrel drying out and leaking. Good luck filling one yourself ;)

I've heard you can buy smaller barrels made specifically for homebrewers, but that because of the higher surface area:volume ratio the beer ends up INCREDIBLY oaky.

Hypnolobster
Apr 12, 2007

What this sausage party needs is a big dollop of ketchup! Too bad I didn't make any. :(

Docjowles posted:

On a homebrew scale it probably makes sense to just get a couple ounces of oak cubes, soak in bourbon for a while and then add that to your secondary. A standard barrel is frigging 55 gallons, and you want it full to avoid massive oxidation and the barrel drying out and leaking. Good luck filling one yourself ;)

I've heard you can buy smaller barrels made specifically for homebrewers, but that because of the higher surface area:volume ratio the beer ends up INCREDIBLY oaky.

Small barrels (and big barrels for that matter) are also usually really really expensive.

It'd be a lot of fun to get 3 or 5 or whatever homebrewers together and do a 6 batch day so you can age in a full barrel. Lots of larger homebrew clubs do that.

rage-saq
Mar 21, 2001

Thats so ninja...
I have a 6.25g bourbon barrel that I've had for a while. After the 2nd batch the bourbon character was gone but the oak character still comes in with enough time.
I use it for sours, its pretty hard to use a barrel for beer for more than one batch and not have it get an infection.
As far as getting a barrel and keeping it from getting infected, make sure that the barrel is emptied, bunged, packaged and shipped to you and filled with beer in as short a time as possible. Even then getting an infection is a risk.
We had a club project where we were careful with a 55g brandy barrel and filled it up with an 11% wee heavy pretty quickly and it still got infected. Fast forward a year or two and its a pretty incredible sour wee heavy with a nice brandy character.

wafflesnsegways
Jan 12, 2008
And that's why I was forced to surgically attach your hands to your face.
I have a friend with a 2-gallon barrel that he uses for oaking cocktails. I don't know where he got it from or how much it cost him. I'll ask.

Noghri_ViR
Oct 19, 2001

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How many people have sour mashed before? If so could you describe your technique? Did you do a whole mash sour or did you add a percentage of grain in after? What style of beer did you try souring? How long did you let it sour and at what temperature?

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indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
Has anyone ever used the French press/hot steep method of "dry hopping?" I'm thinking of doing that to my lager. I guess worst-case scenario is that it gets a bit watered down, which I'm fine with.

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