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Looks like I got my first infection, likely due to accidentally leaving the airlock off for nearly an hour while I was doing things around the kitchen and racking other batches. It looks like a small mold island (it is a bit green in the center but it doesn't show well in a photo) along with a film over the top of everything. I threw it into the fridge at 38 degrees and it has stopped growing so I hope I can rack from under it, force carbonate, and then drink. The film:  The floating island of not-supposed-to-be-there: 
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Dec 2, 2011 17:54
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Want to brew this weekend and I've got an imperial stout in mind that's probably going to come in at 1.100 or thereabouts OG. A coworker of mine who has done this stuff way more times than I have has said he doesn't do starters, and his standard practice on brew day is to fill up a growler 1/2 to 2/3 with his wort, and put the rest in the carboy and plug it up. Then he pitches the yeast into the growler and lets it get going for a few days. After all that, he dumps the growler into the carboy, puts the airlock on, and it's off to the races. Is this a viable thing for something with a gravity like that? I am inclined to do it as I don't have time to make a starter and brew next weekend, and I'm wanting to get this going sooner than later. Alternatively, can I just pitch three or four smack packs into the full 5 gallon volume and skip the gymnastics? Yeah, they're $8 each at my LHBS but I have never been opposed to just throwing money at my problems.
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Dec 2, 2011 20:21
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CaptBubba posted:Looks like I got my first infection, likely due to accidentally leaving the airlock off for nearly an hour while I was doing things around the kitchen and racking other batches. It looks like a small mold island (it is a bit green in the center but it doesn't show well in a photo) along with a film over the top of everything. I threw it into the fridge at 38 degrees and it has stopped growing so I hope I can rack from under it, force carbonate, and then drink. That doesn't look like an infection, could just be some residue of something.  This is a pellicle, the sign of lots of bugs and wild yeast.
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Dec 2, 2011 20:29
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rage-saq posted:That doesn't look like an infection, could just be some residue of something. I would agree with you but I just looked at my cider I racked over that same day (which has been finished with fermenting for months now).  gently caress. Me. Must have been the thief or the auto-siphon. I think I just caught it early on the stout. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Dec 2, 2011 |
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Dec 2, 2011 20:38
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kitten smoothie posted:A coworker of mine who has done this stuff way more times than I have has said he doesn't do starters, and his standard practice on brew day is to fill up a growler 1/2 to 2/3 with his wort, and put the rest in the carboy and plug it up. So he doesn't make starters, he just makes a starter. Sort of a post-facto starter, sure, but that's what it is. Even with that, I don't think you'll have the kinds of cell counts you'll want for a RIS. I'd suggest you pitch onto the yeast cake of a smaller beer, maybe a dry stout or a robust porter.
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Dec 2, 2011 20:43
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I have an infection concern myself. I've had one seriously infected batch, a mocha stout. When I first started drinking it, it poured with a massive head, like half the glass. Then it started gushing when I opened the bottles. When the first bottle exploded, about 5 months after I bottled, I dumped what was left. This week, I opened up one of my last bottles of a hefe I brewed almost a year ago. Poured it in a glass, and the whole thing turned to foam. It didn't use to do this. Now I'm worried that everything i've brewed has been slightly infected. Normally we drink it pretty fast, so its not a problem. But we're banking hundreds of beers for my wedding next year. What if they all turn into gushers right before the wedding?
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Dec 2, 2011 21:08
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I had a similar problem with my old bottled batches. At first the bottles would open with a good burst of gas but eventually they would instantly turn to foam when poured even though the bottles didn't seem to be highly pressurized when I opened them. Turned out I was overcarbonating. The excess CO2 was eventually going into a super saturated solution and coming out instantly given any shock (cool beer + warm glass). Chilling the beer for a while and serving with the glass chilled to the same temperature solved the problem completely.
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Dec 2, 2011 21:34
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wafflesnsegways posted:Now I'm worried that everything i've brewed has been slightly infected. Normally we drink it pretty fast, so its not a problem. But we're banking hundreds of beers for my wedding next year. What if they all turn into gushers right before the wedding? Get a keg setup. Bottle from there if you have to. This way you can always hit it with campden after fermentation and knock out any wild yeast. Did you taste any of the gushers? Did they taste infected? It could just be your beer wasn't 100% fully attenuated and the months of storage gave the yeast time to chew through those last .0002 gravity points. Jo3sh posted:So he doesn't make starters, he just makes a starter. Sort of a post-facto starter, sure, but that's what it is. I feel like unless you're gonna put the wort at lagering temps while your starter gets going in that scenario you will wind up with more infected batches. And a starter at 1.100 OG isn't going to provide the best medium for yeast growth or give you the healthiest yeast when you do get around for pitching. indigi fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Dec 2, 2011 |
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Dec 2, 2011 22:28
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ok so a while back I asked for a citrcus hop bomb recipe to make for a friend, and i got what amounted to a Zombie Dust clone, with all citra and uk pale ale malt. Dude really enjoyed it and wants to go again, but with some adjustments. He wants it a bit maltier in taste and does want a hint of resiny or piney hops to balance out the large amounts of citrus. Would switching to Maris Otter take care of the maltiness? The hop schedule was an ounce each at 60, 15, 5, & 1 minute with 3 oz dry hopped. I was thinking simcoe and maybe making the 15 or 5 minute addition into half an ounce of each. Thoughts?
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Dec 2, 2011 22:38
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Darth Goku Jr posted:ok so a while back I asked for a citrcus hop bomb recipe to make for a friend, and i got what amounted to a Zombie Dust clone, with all citra and uk pale ale malt. Dude really enjoyed it and wants to go again, but with some adjustments. He wants it a bit maltier in taste and does want a hint of resiny or piney hops to balance out the large amounts of citrus. Would switching to Maris Otter take care of the maltiness? Keep the late additions. Hell use half of the 60 min addition at 10 instead, less bitterness and more malty backbone with extra hop aroma/flavor.
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Dec 2, 2011 22:46
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CaptBubba posted:Looks like I got my first infection, likely due to accidentally leaving the airlock off for nearly an hour while I was doing things around the kitchen and racking other batches. It looks like a small mold island (it is a bit green in the center but it doesn't show well in a photo) along with a film over the top of everything. I threw it into the fridge at 38 degrees and it has stopped growing so I hope I can rack from under it, force carbonate, and then drink. I had something like this on top of the last batch I bottled. It almost looked like a greyish dust film across the top in mine. I looked around online, and I guess it's a mold that forms when there is exposure to oxygen on the surface. It didn't have any affect on my taste or smell and I just spent about half an hour with a large spoon skimming the surface to remove as much as possible. Luckily, since it relies on O2, it only forms on the surface, so you can rack under it. Unfortunately for me, the reason it formed was that I racked to my bottling bucket, then my bottles didn't come through so I let it sit in there for about 2 weeks with a headspace full of oxygen waiting for my buddy to drop of the empties.
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Dec 2, 2011 23:10
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Daedalus Esquire posted:Luckily, since it relies on O2, it only forms on the surface, so you can rack under it. Unfortunately for me, the reason it formed was that I racked to my bottling bucket, then my bottles didn't come through so I let it sit in there for about 2 weeks with a headspace full of oxygen waiting for my buddy to drop of the empties. Next time boil 4-8oz DME and add it so the yeast will wake up, use up whatever oxygen was introduced, then fart out a nice blanket of CO2 to keep themselves safe.
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Dec 2, 2011 23:26
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Redesign of my blog. Going to start posting new articles soon. http://www.onegallonhomebrew.com
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Dec 3, 2011 00:23
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indigi posted:Next time boil 4-8oz DME and add it so the yeast will wake up, use up whatever oxygen was introduced, then fart out a nice blanket of CO2 to keep themselves safe. Yea I would have done something like this had I thought it would take as long as it did. I was assuming it would only be a day or two and then kinda forgot. Luckily the wasn't that hard to remove, and, unlike bacteria, doesn't change flavors/smells.
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Dec 3, 2011 03:19
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noone is probably interested, but regarding my safale problem a page back : I looked at my bucket, and realized I was using a new airlock I have no experience with - it's the kind that has like a round chamber, with a smaller round 'cap' that sits on top of a spout coming straight up out of whatever you plug it in to. Normally I use the kind of twisty Z shaped one piece bubblers. anyways, I hadn't put enough water in, so air could escape without the little thing bobbing up and down and creating bubbles - so turns out my ale was probably fermenting fine all along, and I just couldn't tell. I filled the thing up with a little more starsan solution, and it started bobbing per normal, so some co2 producing action was happening all along.
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Dec 3, 2011 09:45
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Just want to brag that my first-ever batch was a total success. I used a kit from Craft a Brew, which I think mostly involved some pale malt extract, cascade and perle hops in a 1-gallon carboy. I just wish there was more of it. This is a great hobby.
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Dec 3, 2011 16:35
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mindphlux posted:Airlock stuff I really wish that the manufacturers would just put a "fill to this level" mark on all airlocks. I have multiple styles of the little cap type and they all take different water levels to work right without splashing water out the top.
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Dec 3, 2011 18:35
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On Black Friday 2010, I brewed a Flanders Red. It went into the keg this afternoon, 1 year and 7 days after brewing. The pellicle never fell (it showed signs of wanting to fall on multiple occasions as it began to soak up the beer from beneath, but always resurged and went back to a furry white cap). I kegged it in order to hit the exact level of carbonation I want, and will probably bottle it with a beergun from there. I didn't want to chance over/undercarbing a year old beer. Uncarbonated sample tastes fantastic though, I highly recommend Jamil's Flanders Red recipe.
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Dec 3, 2011 19:06
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Jo3sh posted:Even with that, I don't think you'll have the kinds of cell counts you'll want for a RIS. I'd suggest you pitch onto the yeast cake of a smaller beer, maybe a dry stout or a robust porter. I've never reused a yeast cake before. From what I see from googling, it seems perfectly safe to just rack my original beer into secondary same day as I brew the big stuff, and just drop the wort straight back into the carboy -- is that true? So long as I don't sneeze into the carboy, and keep it covered with some sanitized tinfoil while the yeast is uncovered, I should be OK then?
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Dec 3, 2011 19:09
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CaptBubba posted:I really wish that the manufacturers would just put a "fill to this level" mark on all airlocks. I have multiple styles of the little cap type and they all take different water levels to work right without splashing water out the top. The ones I get at my LHBS have a fill line, but really I find you don't need very much water. Just enough that the middle piece is floating slightly.
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Dec 3, 2011 19:10
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Decided to brew something on a whim, just for fun. I guess you could call it a Belgian Amber: code:kitten smoothie posted:I've never reused a yeast cake before. From what I see from googling, it seems perfectly safe to just rack my original beer into secondary same day as I brew the big stuff, and just drop the wort straight back into the carboy -- is that true? More or less. kitten smoothie posted:So long as I don't sneeze into the carboy, and keep it covered with some sanitized tinfoil while the yeast is uncovered, I should be OK then? indigi fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Dec 3, 2011 |
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Dec 3, 2011 19:36
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I want to start homebrewing soon (maybe santa will bring me the stuff), but i'm curious... How likely is it that my first batch of beer will be drinkable? I mean, will I be able to make some decent out of the gate or will it take a couple tries before I have something I can drink and share with friends?
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Dec 3, 2011 19:46
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The Phantom Goat posted:I want to start homebrewing soon (maybe santa will bring me the stuff), but i'm curious... How likely is it that my first batch of beer will be drinkable? I mean, will I be able to make some decent out of the gate or will it take a couple tries before I have something I can drink and share with friends? I spent a lot of time reading howtobrew.com before my first batch. I think the main thing for getting a drinkable first batch is that you get good ingredients for an extract brew rather than using a canned kit.
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Dec 3, 2011 19:49
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The Phantom Goat posted:I want to start homebrewing soon (maybe santa will bring me the stuff), but i'm curious... How likely is it that my first batch of beer will be drinkable? I mean, will I be able to make some decent out of the gate or will it take a couple tries before I have something I can drink and share with friends? Very likely. My first batch was Pretty drat Good and better than my subsequent three or four, which were also drinkable. Go with something easy to start off with like a pale ale, an ESB, etc.
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Dec 3, 2011 19:49
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I need some advice, pretty quickly. For this flemish sour I'm trying to brew, I think my primary is about done and I'm ready to secondary and throw some bugs in. I don't want to use 'strains' or whatever out of packets, I'd much rather use the dregs from a sour beer and pitch that in to my young beer. I was inspired to brew a flemish sour by Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Red Ale (brewed by Van Steenberge), and I have a bottle of this on hand. I need to know if it has live cultures though and am finding conflicting information. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html This page, in particular, says it has live bugs, but then in the comments section there is some debate. any way I can tell? If not, anyone have a recommendation for a sour ale to use for this purpose?
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Dec 3, 2011 20:27
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You can absolutely make something drinkable the first go. The keys are a decent kit, decent ingredients, decent sanitation, and a decent process. You really can't go wrong if Santa brings you a kit and ingredients from one of the major online or meatspace brew shops (morebeer, northern brewer, many others), and you follow a good process from howtobrew.
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Dec 3, 2011 20:28
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CaptBubba posted:I really wish that the manufacturers would just put a "fill to this level" mark on all airlocks. I have multiple styles of the little cap type and they all take different water levels to work right without splashing water out the top. The way I do it is to fill it up to the point where the bobber can move freely without hitting the cap, and bubbles have a short path through the little squares holes on the bobber. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5TEfB-E6Hs
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Dec 3, 2011 20:48
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mindphlux posted:This page, in particular, says it has live bugs, but then in the comments section there is some debate. any way I can tell? If not, anyone have a recommendation for a sour ale to use for this purpose? Use anything else on that page, especially from beers you enjoy since those bugs produce the flavors you like. Jolly Pumpkin and Russian River have very good beers so those are the ones I've used. I don't know anything about Monk's Sour other than it's a pretty good beer.
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Dec 3, 2011 21:29
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mindphlux posted:If not, anyone have a recommendation for a sour ale to use for this purpose? Can't comment on the viability of the Monk's. However (depending on where you live), a couple Flander's that I really enjoy are Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja and Duchess de Bourgogne. Also, if Russian River's sours are available in your area, you can't go wrong with those. edit: er...what indigi said.
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Dec 3, 2011 22:33
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The Phantom Goat posted:I want to start homebrewing soon (maybe santa will bring me the stuff), but i'm curious... How likely is it that my first batch of beer will be drinkable? I mean, will I be able to make some decent out of the gate or will it take a couple tries before I have something I can drink and share with friends? Brewing an extract kit is harder than making coffee but a lot easier than making soup. Fermentation is key, make sure you pitch at the proper temps (< 68*) and ferment on the cool side (60-66* to be safe). You will be surprised and impressed by the results.
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Dec 3, 2011 22:40
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The Phantom Goat posted:I want to start homebrewing soon (maybe santa will bring me the stuff), but i'm curious... How likely is it that my first batch of beer will be drinkable? I mean, will I be able to make some decent out of the gate or will it take a couple tries before I have something I can drink and share with friends? If you do the following: 1) Find a great, proven, highly rated recipe 2) Buy the freshest ingredients you can 3) Be VERY anal about cleanliness and sanitizing You WILL make a pretty good batch your first time out.  You can usually get recipes from Home Brew Talk or maybe your LHBS. There's some great recipes being thrown around in this thread as well. I actually got my start using josh_wow's Belgian recipe.Like tesilential says, extract based recipes are fairly easily. If you can boil water and pour powder into pots, you already know how to brew. Just make sure your tools and equipment are always clean since infections are the biggest cause of off flavors. --- So I'm thinking I'm going to brew next weekend. I'm really happy I went all-grain! When I was brewing with extract in my very cramped kitchen with small pots, I hated being boxed in by brewing stuff everywhere. Dumping in extract pouches was getting boring and felt no different than making powdered soup. I was starting to not enjoy the brewing process. But now, being able to brew outdoors with my burner with all the space in the world is awesome. Plus, it feels totally bad rear end to create beer from grains. The exact process the pros use! Being able to watch TV, brew, and stretch out makes all the difference in the world. Also knowing that I'm truly rolling it all from scratch is a definitely mental boost. It's like graduating from an automatic to a manual transmission and now enjoying driving. So all that said, now I need to decide on what I'm going to brew. I think I've got Belgian ales down. I want to do something totally radical. Kinda thinking of a chocolate stout. I'm thinking maybe do something like melt in some Heath toffee bar at the end before flameout. I know that I want to make a 'dessert' beer. Something you wouldn't think to pair with food, but is a great beer to unwind with.
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Dec 3, 2011 23:24
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well, the guys at my homebrew/beer store scared me out of making my ale sour.  I mean I knew brett was a beast to work with, and had already planned on sacrificing one of my buckets to be forever the 'sour beer' bucket, but they made it sound like basically no matter what I did, all my equipment would be contaminated. the room it sat in, even.so, I have a relatively neutral heavy ale (14lb pils, 2lb white wheat, 2lb crystal 80l, ale yeast) that I need to make more interesting in secondary. I could add fruit I guess, but anyone have any more interesting ideas? I have a spiced beer going, so that's out...
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Dec 3, 2011 23:54
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mindphlux posted:well, the guys at my homebrew/beer store scared me out of making my ale sour. That guy is a dumbass. You'd want to buy a new set of anything plastic or rubber that comes in contact with wild yeast/bacteria, but it's not going to jump out of the bucket and  infect your house Many breweries and thousands of homebrewers ferment regular beers and sours side by side without issue.
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Dec 4, 2011 00:11
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Docjowles posted:Many breweries and thousands of homebrewers ferment regular beers and sours side by side without issue. Port Brewing and Lost Abbey, for example, are in the same commercial space (Stone's old facility in San Marcos, CA). The entire place is crammed with barrels, and there aren't that many fermenters in there that they could afford to segregate the beers in any meaningful way.
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Dec 4, 2011 00:19
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god damnit
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Dec 4, 2011 00:31
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As a pretty critical side note, brett isn't a big scary bug. It's just yeast. It dies like everything else. I'm convinced that 90% of people who get all paranoid about separating brett fermenters and sacc fermenters really just have poor sanitation. e: bacteria and the like are different stories, but brett is pretty innocuous. Sour bottle pitches, roeselare, true pedeo/lacto/various brett fermentations I can see keeping equipment separate.
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Dec 4, 2011 02:07
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All you guys who use counterflow or plate chillers, how do you clean them after use, and how do you sanitize them before use?
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Dec 4, 2011 07:01
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Jo3sh posted:All you guys who use counterflow or plate chillers, how do you clean them after use, and how do you sanitize them before use? I'm curious about this, but a step further. how the heck do breweries with fixed pipes and CIP systems really get clean? it seems like any enclosed system where you can't run a brush through would be a magnet for gunk - I mean even let's assume you transfer off a primary fermentation from a vessel to some secondary tank, and yeast sludge, trub, etc is going through those pipes. Even if you cleaned it immediately, I can't see having many thousands of dollars worth of beer on the line and just trusting that a flush of PBW and starsan or whatever cleans your tubes. same goes for plate chillers, where protein rich wort is flowing through nook and cranny ville.
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Dec 4, 2011 07:05
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mindphlux posted:I'm curious about this, but a step further. how the heck do breweries with fixed pipes and CIP systems really get clean? They use nasty nasty chemicals for CIP systems, including sodium hydroxide (lye). In fact, that's part of the reason everything in commercial breweries is stainless and never aluminum, as lye and aluminum make hydrogen gas, which likes to explode. I live just a few miles from a major biochem company, and a lot of their early equipment was upcycled brewery gear from Kirin. If CIP systems are good enough for the pharma industry, they're good enough for beer.
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Dec 4, 2011 07:08
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| # ? Apr 18, 2024 23:03 |
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Okay, the Homebrew secret santees have been sent out! If you did not receive a santee and signed up for one, please let me know via post. First person to receive, start a discussion thread for the results!
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Dec 4, 2011 08:19
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