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Darth Goku Jr
Oct 19, 2004

yes yes i see, i understand
:wal::respek::stat:
Just got back from my local homebrew club's Christmas party. This is awesome. For a $15 biannual dues I get a 10% discount at my LHBS, I got to try an '04 World Wide Stout and a 94'(!!) Sam Adams triple bock, got 5 of those Sam Adams whatever glasses, and blah blah blah.

I'm sorry if this sounds like bragging, but I'm actually trying to get any Cleveland area goons to consider joining LMHBA or SNOBS. And just showing anyone not in a local homebrew group the awesome benefits outside of great feedback on your brews that (unfortunately) is simply impossible on the internet (though they're working on that).

Join your drat local club.

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Josh Wow
Feb 28, 2005

We need more beer up here!

mindphlux posted:

oh, I don't think this is ridiculous at all. anyone think this is ridiculous?

I don't think it's ridiculous, but it's not necessary. My procedure when I change kegs is to rinse it out with hot water until it's clean and soak it in star san for 60 seconds. I dump the first pint from a new keg because of sediment/mixed beer in the line. This procedure doesn't change even if I've had a brett beer on tap or something similar. Every 6 months or so I'll run star san through my lines and dissamble and clean my taps. I've never had any off flavors or infections from this.

Also there was some talk of autolysis recently. I brewed up a belgian quad on October 16 and bottled it this Monday. It sat in primary the entire time in a bucket. When I bottled I didn't add any extra yeast even though the beer was pretty drat clear. I tried a test bottle yesterday and the beer is already carbing up nicely and I can't detect any off flavors.

Plastic Jesus
Aug 26, 2006

I'm cranky most of the time.
I was inspired by this to try to make an "East India Porter," which has turned now more into an Imperial Porter with a shitton of hops. Any opinions on how this might turn out?

code:
Get EIP or Die Trying

Style: Robust Porter	OG: 1.079	
Type:	FG: 1.020	
Rating: 0.0	ABV: 7.73 %	
Calories: 258	IBU's: 44.91	
Efficiency: 70 %	Boil Size: 5.83 Gal	
Color:   52.7 SRM  	Batch Size: 5.00 Gal	
Boil Time: 60 minutes	
 
Grains & Adjuncts
7.00 lbs	 52.83 %	Pale Liquid Extract
2.50 lbs	 18.87 %	Brown Malt
0.50 lbs	 3.77 %		Amber Malt
4.00 ozs	 1.89 %		Black (Patent) Malt
1.00 lbs	 7.55 %		Chocolate Malt
1.50 lbs	 11.32 %	Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
8.00 ozs	 3.77 %		Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
 
Hops
1.00 ozs	 Goldings, East Kent	60 min
0.50 ozs	 Select Spalt	30 mins
1.00 ozs	 Goldings, East Kent	20 mins
1.00 ozs	 Select Spalt	15 mins
1.00 ozs	 Goldings, East Kent	10 mins
1.00 ozs	 Select Spalt	5 mins
1.25 ozs	 Goldings, East Kent	1 mins

Yeast: Safale US-05
 

Docjowles
Apr 9, 2009

Seems like a lot of C120, especially in an extract brew which is going to tend to be sweet and underattenuated anyway. A little of that stuff goes a long way. Also be aware that amber malt needs to be mashed, and that and brown malt may need to be special ordered unless you have a really well-stocked LHBS.

I think it's an awesome concept, though!

Plastic Jesus
Aug 26, 2006

I'm cranky most of the time.
The 1.5 lbs of the 120L crystal was a bit worrying to me as well, I definitely don't want it to be cloyingly sweet in the glass. If I dial up the Pale extract to 8lbs and drop the crystal to just be 8oz of 120L am I swinging the pendulum too far the other way?

My LHBS is tiny, but manage to keep an impressive supply and have brown malt in stock. I've done partial mashes in the past and with the small amount of grain I hope it'll be manageable.

Darth Goku Jr
Oct 19, 2004

yes yes i see, i understand
:wal::respek::stat:
No, it's not like that would make you go from cloying to champagne-like dryness if that's what you mean. I would say a general rule I have is never exceed a pound of crystal malts in a recipe. It will still be a plenty rich beer.

Biohazard
Apr 17, 2002

So this has probably been asked a bunch of times, but I'm thinking about alternatives to bottling. It's obviously my least favorite part. I'd love to just have a keg system, but between he initial investment and electricity of a second fridge, I don't see that happening right now.

I was going through the Norther Brewer catalog and considered getting one of those Tap-A-Draft setups that uses CO2 cartridges. Anyone have experience with these? Seems like a cool idea, but also feels like one of those things that probably doesn't work all that well.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

Biohazard posted:

So this has probably been asked a bunch of times, but I'm thinking about alternatives to bottling. It's obviously my least favorite part. I'd love to just have a keg system, but between he initial investment and electricity of a second fridge, I don't see that happening right now.

I was going through the Norther Brewer catalog and considered getting one of those Tap-A-Draft setups that uses CO2 cartridges. Anyone have experience with these? Seems like a cool idea, but also feels like one of those things that probably doesn't work all that well.

If I wasn't kegging, which you should be if you can justify the expense in your mind (file under 'entertainment', skip going to a few nice dinners and nights out for a month or so) I would totally be using growlers.

buy five 1 gallon growlers, and just go through the effort of cleaning those and whatever.

you'd have to drink a gallon of beer every time you wanted some homebrew, but I can think of worse things, and the saved effort over 30-50 tiny rear end bottles would totally make it worthwhile.

Prefect Six
Mar 27, 2009

At what temperature do you guys generally keep your serving fridge?

Josh Wow
Feb 28, 2005

We need more beer up here!

mindphlux posted:

buy five 1 gallon growlers, and just go through the effort of cleaning those and whatever.

Growlers may or may not burst if you try to carbonate beer in them, I haven't seen definitive proof one way or another. The glass isn't rated to hold a carbonating beverage though so they definitely could shatter. Plastic soda bottles would be a better choice if you wanted to go that route.

I have a friend who can't have kegs because of space issues and she uses party pigs for part of her batches and enjoys them. I just bottled for the first time in a long time this past Monday and it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Sure I'm glad I don't have to do it all that often but it went quickly enough.

Jo3sh
Oct 19, 2002

Like all girls I love unicorns!

Biohazard posted:

I was going through the Norther Brewer catalog and considered getting one of those Tap-A-Draft setups that uses CO2 cartridges. Anyone have experience with these? Seems like a cool idea, but also feels like one of those things that probably doesn't work all that well.

I haven't used that one specifically, but I used something similar for a while that was based on 3L soda bottles. It really didn't work well. In my reading and talking to other brewers, I have not found a mid-sized packaging solution that works as well as you would hope. They all seem to have fairly high running costs, too - those little CO2 bulbs are a pretty expensive way to buy gas. EDIT: It looks like even in bulk, the 16-gram carts are nearly a dollar each.

Bottling is high in pain-in-the-rear end factor, but the cost is really drat attractive. Kegging always works and is fairly cheap to run once you get it set up, but the startup costs are, as you pointed out, high.

Still, ask all the guys here who keg if they would sell back their kegging rigs and go back to bottling - I'd bet you get no takers. I know that it has made brewing much more enjoyable and worthwhile for me.

Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Dec 11, 2011

Plastic Jesus
Aug 26, 2006

I'm cranky most of the time.
Maybe I'm dumb or just haven't done it enough to be annoyed, but I don't really mind bottling and my daughter freaking loves helping. 80% of what I make goes into bombers or 750ml bottles so perhaps that makes it less tedious than using only 12oz bottles?

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich

Prefect Six posted:

At what temperature do you guys generally keep your serving fridge?

mine is at 37-42. but, I don't have much of a reason for that - other than that's about as cold as I could set it without having my kegs randomly get frozen.

Josh Wow posted:

Growlers may or may not burst if you try to carbonate beer in them, I haven't seen definitive proof one way or another. The glass isn't rated to hold a carbonating beverage though so they definitely could shatter. Plastic soda bottles would be a better choice if you wanted to go that route.

Interesting to note, but do you have any idea why? I'd not assume this one by default - I mean at least let one explode before you write them off. All the growlers I've seen have been pretty thick looking glass.

also, in my case, my only growler is a giant 2L brinkhoffs bottle I bought from a random fleamarket in the germany countryside. I think I could drive a tank over this thing without it exploding. in fact, it's so awesome that I have to take a picture of it for you guys.






Jo3sh posted:

Still, ask all the guys here who keg if they would sell back their kegging rigs and go back to bottling - I'd bet you get no takers. I know that it has made brewing much more enjoyable and worthwhile for me.



I have probably spent around 900-1100 on my kegging set up, from co2 tank to serving line to converted freezer to 5 ball lock kegs to wood for my collar, blah blah blah. but, like jo3sh said, it has totally reinvigorated my interest in brewing, made my house parties a lot better, gotten me exposure in local homebrew scene, saved me tons of time - and most importantly, made me take brewing just a little bit more seriously. I wouldn't trade back my stuff, even if you were gonna give me double the money back.


edit : because I'm posting pictures anyways, and I love my lil guy -



mindphlux fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Dec 11, 2011

Jo3sh
Oct 19, 2002

Like all girls I love unicorns!

Plastic Jesus posted:

Maybe I'm dumb or just haven't done it enough to be annoyed, but I don't really mind bottling and my daughter freaking loves helping. 80% of what I make goes into bombers or 750ml bottles so perhaps that makes it less tedious than using only 12oz bottles?

It's not terrible if you have an assistant, and it sounds like you have a great time sharing the process with your daughter, which is great. My buddy and I used to trade off helping each other. With one filling and one capping, it's a pretty pleasant way to pass some time and shoot the breeze. When you are doing ten gallons and bottling solo, it gets to be kind of a pain.

I also found there was a pretty fair amount of overhead involved in the intake of glass from the various people who brought me empties, always remembering to rinse after pouring, blah, blah, blah.

Biohazard
Apr 17, 2002

Sounds like I should just keep bottling till I can afford to start kegging. On average how much does running a kegerator eat into your electrical bill? I know it depends on size and where you keep it, but I'm curious what people here saw in terms of their power bill going up. This would probably be a better question for the kegerator thread I suppose.

Jo3sh
Oct 19, 2002

Like all girls I love unicorns!

mindphlux posted:

I have probably spent around 900-1100 on my kegging set up, from co2 tank to serving line to converted freezer to 5 ball lock kegs to wood for my collar, blah blah blah.

That's a nice rig. Mine is much more cheap-rear endutilitarian, using a standup fridge I got for free and put no money into, etc. Still, considering the number of kegs I have around the place (there was a pic a number of pages ago), I have to guess I am 1000 dollars into it, maybe more. I think it's worth it, though; I literally think my production would be half or less if I had to bottle everything.

It's easy to steal (less than) an hour to head out to the garage and drop ten gallons to kegs. I can do it after work and not really cut into the time I spend eating dinner, sleeping, seeing my wife, etc. In contrast, bottling solo would require several hours of work, and bottling with a helper would require a couple of hours plus coordination.


Biohazard posted:

On average how much does running a kegerator eat into your electrical bill?

It might be less than you fear; You can get a deal ("Kill-a-Watt") that plugs in between the wall and any 110V load that measures its cumulative draw. You can use that to get an idea of how much it would cost to run a fridge. Keep in mind, most beer fridges get opened a time or two a day, if that - with faucets through the door, I don't have to dump cold air on the floor to get a beer. With converted chest freezers, the insulation is typically better and all the cold air stays pretty well put even if you do open the lid.

Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Dec 12, 2011

Alarbus
Mar 31, 2010
When I made my collar, I bought a panel of the thick polystyrene insulation, so it's an half inch thick oak collar with an inch and a half or so of insulation. If you keep it full, I have beer and yeast where there aren't kegs, it holds temp better.

Any savings were promptly offset by buying a second chest freezer for lager fermentation and secondary keg storage. It's also full of bulk hops at the moment.

Prefect Six
Mar 27, 2009

Well I fermented my wheat porter warm, but maybe a little too warm (London Ale @ 72F). It tastes more like a hefeweisen than a porter. It smells chocolate, but has a very strong ester profile (banana mostly).

And today I found a small burnt region on the bottom of my kettle after boiling my Pale Ale. The last time I did that the beer was fairly undrinkable. I thought I had been doing a better job stirring, but apparently I got lax this time. We'll see how it turns out.

SoftNum
Mar 31, 2011

Plastic Jesus posted:

Maybe I'm dumb or just haven't done it enough to be annoyed, but I don't really mind bottling and my daughter freaking loves helping. 80% of what I make goes into bombers or 750ml bottles so perhaps that makes it less tedious than using only 12oz bottles?

I don't mind bottling. I mind the work it is to wash / de-label / sanitize the bottles before the bottling.

mindphlux
Jan 8, 2004

by R. Guyovich
I'd estimate $10 a month for my freezer... Never measured, but I do have a killawat thing. I'll hook it up tonight.

bssoil
Mar 21, 2004

I find almost more excuses to not bottle as I find to not write my thesis. Bottling 23 L alone is a long procedure without a partner...oddly when I made a casual observation to my wife that a helper would make it far easier, she did not bite...? Filling is fun and satisfying, capping sucks.

crazyfish
Sep 19, 2002

I live in a relatively small apartment so I don't have the space to get a chest freezer and a kegging setup. Luckily, my wife helps me bottle - she sanitizes the bottles by dipping them in a bucket of starsan, hands them to me to fill, then I pass them back to her and she puts the cap on. Bottling days aren't short, but they're a hell of a lot quicker now than when I was bottling solo.

Daedalus Esquire
Mar 30, 2008

bssoil posted:

Filling is fun and satisfying, capping sucks.

I'm like you, luckly my brewing partner disagrees and finds capping extremely satisfying and stress-releasing.
I prefer the meditative act of filling so it works out well.

Docjowles
Apr 9, 2009

As if I needed another reminder to just be patient, I poured a glass of pilsner I brewed at the end of August. It had been in "pretty good" territory for a while but just in the last week it abruptly dropped brilliantly clear and the minor off flavors are gone. It's been lagering near freezing almost that whole time, not sure why everything finally just settled out this weekend. Went from "meh" to being one of the best beers I feel I've brewed.

Now I'm kinda itching to get some more lagers going since I apparently have a 4 month lead time to look forward to :f5:

edit: also drat mindphlux, that keezer is ballin'

Josh Wow
Feb 28, 2005

We need more beer up here!

mindphlux posted:

Interesting to note, but do you have any idea why? I'd not assume this one by default - I mean at least let one explode before you write them off. All the growlers I've seen have been pretty thick looking glass.

When yeast produce CO2 it has to then be pushed back into the beer before the beer is carbonated so the growler would be under pretty good pressure and might explode. Unless it's in a very well enclosed container this could be both potentially very dangerous and quite messy. Not really something to screw around with.

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
Just a heads up, those 6 gallon carboys are back in stock at Amazon for $30 and super saver/Prime eligible if anyone was looking for some early self-Christmas presents. I picked up 3 because I've been thinking about making the transition to glass for a while and now's as good a time as any. $30 6 gallon carboys are a steal even without free shipping. Time to pick up some of those carrying strap contraptions.

Dolemite
Jun 30, 2005
Fffffuccckkk! Brewed yesterday and was totally doing good until the very end of the brew day. My screw up resulted in having to dump all my beer! My sweet, sweet beer! :(

Actually I made two big mistakes. The first one was managing to get grains to make it into my beer. The reason that even happened is because instead of sewing a grain bag for BIAB, I simply line my turkey fryer's basket with voile curtain. So when I filled the kettle with more water than last time, it was enough water to flow up and over into the basket itself, circulating the grains into the beer.

I figured that I'd just deal with the occasional grain in my teeth while I drink these and just keep the beer. But later in the brew day, I hosed up again. I had my parents over so they could play with my son while I brew. Well, my mom wanting to be helpful volunteered to be the equipment washer. While that helped a whole lot, the thing I forgot is that she's not a brewer. Why's that important? Well, she was using soap instead of star san. That includes washing a kettle I was using for top off water.

You can probably see where this is going. But, yeah, mom put dishwasher soap and water in the kettle to let it all soak. It was sitting next to my other fermenting buckets. But, what I normally do is let my buckets sit in a water and star san solution then dump the solution out and refill with water when I need to top off or just use the buckets. The water in the soap filled kettle looked foamy and clear just like my star san buckets and so I just emptied, refilled and topped off with the soapy water. A whole gallon of soapy water!

Once that happened, I decided it was just time to cut my losses. Grain filled, soapy chocolate stout did not sound appealing to drink at all!


But on the plus side, I got WAY better efficiency this time! :woop:. According to efficiency calculators, I got between 73-78% efficiency this time! The trick to double crush your grains has to have been the difference. I'm totally stoked! I also let more water drip back into the kettle and I also did a ten minute mash out. I didn't sparge, just heated the water to 170 and let it rest 10 minutes.

I also have the process down much better now. BIAB is actually really easy to do. If I had known about this sooner, I just might've skipped extract all together. Really, it's amazing that a simple process of heat water, soak grains, wait, boil water, wait is all you need to make beer!

Welp, looks like I'll be trying again this weekend. It was just gutting to dump the beer. The smell and taste was amazing! This beer literally smelled and tasted like a fine dark chocolate candy bar. Both my dad and I were just going on about how we couldn't wait to drink it. Even the wife was impressed with how close to a chocolate bar the beer smelled like. Sorry beer, we never even got to know you. :(

---

Question for BIAB-ers:

I learned the hard way that I just can't go much more above 5 gallons of water in my kettle. I mashed with 7.5 gallons of water and when I dropped the grain basket in, the water displaced high enough to flow up and over the walls of the basket and draw the grains out into the wort. This means I obviously need to mash with less water. If I just mashed with ~5 gallons of water and then topped off at the end of the mash, is that doable? My immediate concern is that I'll end up with lovely efficiency.

digitalhifi
Jun 5, 2004
In life I have encountered much, but nothing as profound as the statement "all we ever do is do stuff."
^^It seems like you could simply mash with less water, but instead of just adding top up water do a sparge-rinse. Just heat your normal top off water to about 168* and while holding the grain bag open over the pot, pour the hot water through the grains. This will rinse the remaining converted sugars off the grain. Its the same basic method that is employed with a traditional batch or fly sparge. The real trick can be holding the bag of wet grain while you pour nearly boiling water through it. You'll definitely either need a strong helper, or rig some sort of pulley system to help hold the bag up. HBT might be a good resource for BIAB resource tips.

Daedalus Esquire
Mar 30, 2008
I also use a voile curtain, however, I asked my mom to make it into a bag for me. She made it tall enough that I can fold the bag over the rim of the pot and clamp it. The only way grains can get in the beer is if the bag rips at all. If the water gets too high it means it was going to spill over the top of the pot anyway, but still wouldn't get out into the water.

Darth Goku Jr
Oct 19, 2004

yes yes i see, i understand
:wal::respek::stat:

Dolemite posted:

Question for BIAB-ers:

I learned the hard way that I just can't go much more above 5 gallons of water in my kettle. I mashed with 7.5 gallons of water and when I dropped the grain basket in, the water displaced high enough to flow up and over the walls of the basket and draw the grains out into the wort. This means I obviously need to mash with less water. If I just mashed with ~5 gallons of water and then topped off at the end of the mash, is that doable? My immediate concern is that I'll end up with lovely efficiency.

I do a sort of modified Jamil BIAB where I in a smaller four gallon pot mash in at around the normal 1.25/1.5 quarts/pound of grain, and after conversion I mash out. Meanwhile, I have a second pot with whatever water I need for a full volume boil MINUS one gallon, heated to around 170 too. I transfer the bag to the second pot, rinse/sparge as well as i can, and while holding the bag over the pot, use that last gallon to 'sparge'.

It's a bit of extra work but it's to avoid tannin extraction and blah blah that would happen with BIAB's whacked out grain:water ratio.

crazyfish
Sep 19, 2002

I'm going to be doing partial mash on my stovetop soon, and I plan on using my bottling bucket as a lauter tun. No having to hold a heavy grain bag over a pot for me :)

Magua
Feb 26, 2004
I just have a colander that sits on top of the kettle. I lift the bag and then put it back down on the colander when it's in place. Then I can pour the gallon of sparge water over it.

Prefect Six
Mar 27, 2009

indigi posted:

Just a heads up, those 6 gallon carboys are back in stock at Amazon for $30 and super saver/Prime eligible if anyone was looking for some early self-Christmas presents. I picked up 3 because I've been thinking about making the transition to glass for a while and now's as good a time as any. $30 6 gallon carboys are a steal even without free shipping. Time to pick up some of those carrying strap contraptions.

Do you have yours already? Do they use a weird size stopper or anything?

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

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

Prefect Six posted:

Do you have yours already? Do they use a weird size stopper or anything?

I believe they use a #7 stopper from the reviews, but someone else mentioned they started using a different manufacturer with slightly different measurements. I'll find out when they get here tomorrow.

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos
I just need to brag a bit to get it off my chest but I am finally moving to start a position which isn't 100% overtime so I will finally have both the time and the money to brew instead of one or the other. I am so pumped to get out the equipment again even though I probably wont get back at it until the middle of January.

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

indigi posted:

Just a heads up, those 6 gallon carboys are back in stock at Amazon for $30 and super saver/Prime eligible if anyone was looking for some early self-Christmas presents. I picked up 3 because I've been thinking about making the transition to glass for a while and now's as good a time as any. $30 6 gallon carboys are a steal even without free shipping. Time to pick up some of those carrying strap contraptions.

Are these big enough for primary fermentation of 5 gallon batches? I did my first brew over the weekend and my 5 gallon carboy didn't have enough head room, resulting in a foam volcano over night.

The other problem I had was steam condensation. I was brewing in the kitchen on the stove and I have a combo microwave/vent hood above it. The steam from boiling was condensing on the microwave and occasionally dripping back down into the pot. How do you prevent this? Boil with the lid on and babysit the temperature so it doesn't boil over? The vent sucks anyways so I'd love to tear it out and replace it with something better.

Last question, my kit had two addition of hops. Is it normal to have a separate mesh bag for each hop addition? The last addition went in without a bag and since it was pellets there's a ton of debris in the carboy now. Is that ok?

SoftNum
Mar 31, 2011

Cpt.Wacky posted:

Are these big enough for primary fermentation of 5 gallon batches? I did my first brew over the weekend and my 5 gallon carboy didn't have enough head room, resulting in a foam volcano over night.

The other problem I had was steam condensation. I was brewing in the kitchen on the stove and I have a combo microwave/vent hood above it. The steam from boiling was condensing on the microwave and occasionally dripping back down into the pot. How do you prevent this? Boil with the lid on and babysit the temperature so it doesn't boil over? The vent sucks anyways so I'd love to tear it out and replace it with something better.

Last question, my kit had two addition of hops. Is it normal to have a separate mesh bag for each hop addition? The last addition went in without a bag and since it was pellets there's a ton of debris in the carboy now. Is that ok?

Your beer will be fine. My first batch I didn't use a strainer or hop bag or anything, and so all the hops from the batch all ended up in primary. It'll add hoppy flavor from being in there with it, but overall it should be fine.

I don't use hop bags, I love hops flavor and want as much as possible. Instead I use a mesh strainer over my bucket when I transfer from the kettle into the bucket. The problem with this method is that I can only strain about a gallon at a time without getting my sterilized spoon out and scraping the hop goop from the strainer.

One thing you probably don't want to do is try and move it into a second container to get it off the hops. You'll probably just end up stalling the fermentation.

Dolemite
Jun 30, 2005

digitalhifi posted:

^^It seems like you could simply mash with less water, but instead of just adding top up water do a sparge-rinse. Just heat your normal top off water to about 168* and while holding the grain bag open over the pot, pour the hot water through the grains. This will rinse the remaining converted sugars off the grain. Its the same basic method that is employed with a traditional batch or fly sparge. The real trick can be holding the bag of wet grain while you pour nearly boiling water through it. You'll definitely either need a strong helper, or rig some sort of pulley system to help hold the bag up. HBT might be a good resource for BIAB resource tips.

Hmm, this isn't a bad idea at all. Conveniently, there's a broken off piece of piping coming out of the house that found makes a great holder for the basket of grains. So pouring water over the grains won't be hard.

Daedalus Esquire posted:

I also use a voile curtain, however, I asked my mom to make it into a bag for me. She made it tall enough that I can fold the bag over the rim of the pot and clamp it. The only way grains can get in the beer is if the bag rips at all. If the water gets too high it means it was going to spill over the top of the pot anyway, but still wouldn't get out into the water.

While I don't have anyone that can sew for me, you're on to something. I could probably just buy another package of curtain and this time, cut it so I can run it over the rim of the kettle and clamp it down. I'll just need to find a way to suspend the bag slightly so it isn't sitting on the floor of the pot. I've heard of the bags melting if that happens.


Darth Goku Jr posted:

I do a sort of modified Jamil BIAB where I in a smaller four gallon pot mash in at around the normal 1.25/1.5 quarts/pound of grain, and after conversion I mash out. Meanwhile, I have a second pot with whatever water I need for a full volume boil MINUS one gallon, heated to around 170 too. I transfer the bag to the second pot, rinse/sparge as well as i can, and while holding the bag over the pot, use that last gallon to 'sparge'.

It's a bit of extra work but it's to avoid tannin extraction and blah blah that would happen with BIAB's whacked out grain:water ratio.

So basically, you have two pots going at once: a mash in pot and a mash out pot? Then you heat the mash in pot to 170 do the mash out and transfer to your other mash out pot that's been sitting there all this time?

After that, you're 'sparging' with an additional gallon of 170F water to reach the full boil volume?

LeeMajors
Jan 20, 2005

I've gotta stop fantasizing about Lee Majors...
Ah, one more!


So I brewed an all centennial IPA and due to schedule conflicts with my brew-compatriots, we dry-hopped for 3 weeks instead of 1 week. After bottling and carbing, everything appeared to be well except it seemed super bitter with a weird aftertaste that I couldn't really place. I didn't notice any sanitation issues, but it just seemed like all the oils had dissipated basically.

I think it was probably the over length of dry-hopping in buckets, but I can't seem to put my finger on it. Maybe it's just the flavor of loading up on all centennial. Thoughts?

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Daedalus Esquire
Mar 30, 2008

Dolemite posted:


While I don't have anyone that can sew for me, you're on to something. I could probably just buy another package of curtain and this time, cut it so I can run it over the rim of the kettle and clamp it down. I'll just need to find a way to suspend the bag slightly so it isn't sitting on the floor of the pot. I've heard of the bags melting if that happens.


Yea, I have a false bottom that came with my kettle, but depending on the size of your pot, you could probably order something like this as a pretty cheap false bottom:
http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Large-Stainless-Vegetable-Steamer/dp/B00004UE8F/ref=sr_1_4?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1323719691&sr=1-4

If you have access to a sewing machine, I don't think it's all that hard to make a bag either...granted, I've never had to learn to sew since my mom and grandmother both sew very well. I guess you just cut a big rectangle that you wrap into the cylinder, and then cut a big circle for the bottom and attach them.

Here was the first result for "Cylindrical bag sewing template"
http://cottonandcloud.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-sew-circular-bottom-neatly.html

I'd recommend sewing each seam twice for extra strength.

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