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Daedalus Esquire posted:Yea brass, but I followed John Palmer's instructions on soaking them to remove surface lead. I've noticed a lot of the brass parts for sale near me are labelled as lead-free, just as a point of interest. That probably just means they're using some other metal, like cadmium or something.
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Dec 17, 2011 00:11
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 23:49 |
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Yea, I didn't really look to hard at the packaging, it's easy enough to just throw them in vinegar and peroxide for 3 minutes and not worry either way. Regardless, that guy's prices and shipping are pretty much unbeatable as far as I can tell. I'm immensely happy with my kettle. It also has a great false bottom that it came with.
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Dec 17, 2011 00:23
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My Goonbrew Secret Santa package came too!  Thanks, poster Johnnysmitch! Nothing broke or even got scratched. I got 2 each of an amarillo-hopped wheat, Irish Red and Black Cherry Stout. I haven't had time to crack any yet, but I had to post photos of his labels because they are baller as hell. Look at this right here.   
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Dec 17, 2011 01:14
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Those are awesome! Almost makes me consider delabeling, cleaning and labeling bottles for gifts next week. gently caress it, I'm gonna toss some bottles in oxyclean right now. I'm looking for ideas on a kettle ball valve system. I do BIAB in a 20 gal aluminum stock pot. I am going to put a SS 1/2" ball valve as low as it will go, like 1/2" from the bottom. Im not quite sure what to do for the pickup tube. I'd love to just do the bazooka screen but I use pellet and whole hops and hear it doesn't work with pellets. I think my best bet is for a side pickup (tube picks up against kettle wall) and to use the whirlpool method after I chill. Does that sound like a good plan? I wont be draining after the mash, just after the boil. What do you use to attach your dip tubes to the bulkhead? Brewhardware.com has the weldless bulkhead and valve kit for $30 with a standard inner female 1/2" MPT fitting. They also offer an upgrade with a 5/8" compression fitting to directly insert the dip tube. He says it's the way to get the shortest dip tube and have it be easily removable. How important is this?
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Dec 17, 2011 01:37
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Godspeed, box of goodness - - Santa
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Dec 17, 2011 10:07
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Anyone have tips for quick turnaround batches? I'm thinking of brewing up a 2.5 or 3 gallon extract batch for New Years.
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Dec 17, 2011 18:23
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Toebone posted:Anyone have tips for quick turnaround batches? I'm thinking of brewing up a 2.5 or 3 gallon extract batch for New Years. Just make something low gravity with a quick yeast and keep on top of your fermentation. The go to answer for this question is usually hefeweizen and those are great but you can do almost any low gravity american, english, german or belgian style with the right technique. Basically just do something that doesn't need to mellow at all. Hoppy stuff works well as long as it's balanced and you don't make it too bitter. I can crank out a great belgian pale ale or ordinary bitter in two weeks easy. Dry stouts and porters are also great, just don't use the irish ale yeast cause it's sluggish. Ferment somewhat warm to help things finish quickly, about 68 for most american/english strains or 70-72 for belgian ones. Keep your OG under 1.050 and you should be done in under a week pretty easily. I hope you keg cause there's not much getting around bottle comditioning times. If you do bottle pick a low carb english style and monitor your fermentation carefully. If you hit your FG within a week your yeast will still be plenty active to get you carbed up in another 5-7 days.
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Dec 17, 2011 18:40
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I've done two belgian wits that have been drinkable (bottle conditioned even!) in about 3 weeks. Of course, with only about two weeks till NYE, I don't think you're gonna be able to pull it off without a kegging setup.
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Dec 17, 2011 18:42
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I am kegging, so that'll cut down on the time some. I think I'll play around in BeerCalculus then head down to the LHBS
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Dec 17, 2011 18:47
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Ended up going with 3 lbs extra light LME, 4oz crystal 60L, 35 IBUs and lots of aroma/flavor additions of leftover cascade and amarillo, plus a packet of US-05. I'm gonna have to eyeball the hops because I can't find my stupid scale.
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Dec 17, 2011 22:13
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PokeJoe posted:It's been an interesting day, my mother's trying to set me up on a date with a furry and I got a package in the mail! Cheers!
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Dec 18, 2011 00:08
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PokeJoe posted:It's been an interesting day, my mother's trying to set me up on a date with a furry ... You can't just say this, you know.
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Dec 18, 2011 00:21
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What would be the closest sub for victory malt in a recipe? Biscuit malt maybe?
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Dec 18, 2011 00:27
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mewse posted:What would be the closest sub for victory malt in a recipe? Biscuit malt maybe?
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Dec 18, 2011 00:34
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indigi posted:Franco-Belges' Kiln Amber That's DEFINITELY not at my LHBS. I met the owner today and asked him about victory malt because it seems like it's in half the recipes from Brewing Classic Styles, he didn't even know what it was. I think I'll try subbing in biscuit malt to the book's oatmeal stout recipe sometime next year.
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Dec 18, 2011 00:41
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Any extract brewers stock up on DME / LME for brewing? How do you find it? (for reference, I'm talking about buying 30-50 lbs of extract at once) I expect I'll make 7-12 batches before I convert to all grain brewing, so I'd like to stock up on ingredients instead of buying 3-5 lbs at a time. Also, anyone have an extract Nut Brown recipe they particularly like? I have a party to 'cater' in July, and I'd like to make sure my recipes work well. SoftNum fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Dec 18, 2011 |
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Dec 18, 2011 02:55
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I thing LME doesn't store well.
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Dec 18, 2011 03:10
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Toebone posted:Anyone have tips for quick turnaround batches? I'm thinking of brewing up a 2.5 or 3 gallon extract batch for New Years. As Josh Wow mentioned, hefeweizen is a very common answer to this question, but a nice Ordinary Bitter or even a Special Bitter would also be a great choice. Smooth and malty, not too hoppy. With a good active yeast, they can be done fermenting in a week (or really, only a few days) and ready to drink in two. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Dec 18, 2011 |
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Dec 18, 2011 03:18
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digitalhifi posted:It's me. I am your Santa. Glad to see everything got there in one piece. I didn't include my name cause I wasn't sure if we were supposed to be all secretive about it or not. Ah, I see. Thanks again! TenjouUtena posted:You can't just say this, you know. Haha, my mother doesn't know she is a furry. It's the daughter of an old coworker of hers. I decided to look her up on facebook and there was a link to a deviant art page that has some furry drawings. None of them are sexual though. My roommates keep telling me to go for it so I can tell them about it.
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Dec 18, 2011 04:01
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PokeJoe posted:My roommates keep telling me to go for it so I can tell them about it. it's always fun being the guinea pig..
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Dec 18, 2011 05:06
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withak posted:I thing LME doesn't store well. Yeah I'd go for DME unless you are going to brew like a madman and use it all within a month or two. Try asking your LHBS if they'll cut you a deal if you buy a shitload at once. Failing that, look at the bigger online stores I guess and see if they have bulk pricing.
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Dec 18, 2011 06:48
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Jo3sh posted:I've noticed a lot of the brass parts for sale near me are labelled as lead-free, just as a point of interest. That probably just means they're using some other metal, like cadmium or something. I did a lot of research on parts and it seems to me that most of the lead scare from brass parts is overblown. I looked into the food safety of brass fittings and it was mostly seen as an extreme precautionary measure.
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Dec 18, 2011 14:46
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Toebone posted:Anyone have tips for quick turnaround batches? I'm thinking of brewing up a 2.5 or 3 gallon extract batch for New Years. indigi posted a great 15 minute boil IPA/APA extract batch that I've done a few times and always enjoyed. I do 12ish days fermenting with a large pitch of 001 and force carbonate and drink it very fresh. It could be easily scaled down to 3 gallons. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=2984156&pagenumber=458#post395009261 indigi posted:
Hypnolobster fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Dec 18, 2011 |
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Dec 18, 2011 15:21
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Got my goonbrew secret santa package into the mail yesterday (godspeed) and then proceeded to have the most painful brewing session I think I've ever had. My first mistake was starting at 2:30pm, but this was the only chance I was going to have to brew until after the new year, and I'd been culturing my lactobacillus for two weeks, so I went for it. I was brewing a double batch to make 6gal each of lambic and berliner weisse, but I botched up the mash and decided to just punt by tossing in some crushed up Beano tabs to get the conversion. That almost worked, but somewhere in the mix there I managed to break my 6gal glass carboy  , the pot I was using to vorlauf, a brewing thermometer and my grill lighter.I had to put the berliner weisse in my plastic brew bucket since it was the only fermenter I had left open at that point, so I guess it's going to be permanently used for sours now. I really hope these two come out drinkable, because I'm going to have to spend a decent pile of money at NorthernBrewer to replace all this crap. At least I will have basically all better bottle fermenters now. Also, I didn't end up in the hospital when I broke my carboy, so there's that. 
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Dec 18, 2011 16:07
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Acceptableloss posted:I managed to break... the pot I was using to vorlauf How do you break a pot?
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Dec 18, 2011 16:45
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Josh Wow posted:How do you break a pot? You drop/throw it onto the cement when your glass carboy explodes next to your foot. Apparently calphalon is not as tough as it looks.
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Dec 18, 2011 17:15
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So a few months ago, I mentioned that I bought a Miller home draft and planned to refill it with homebrew. It didn't go great. The Miller home draft is basically a modified Tap-A-Draft, made by the same people. It's a 1.5 gallon plastic bottle and a tap. I refilled the bottle with homebrew, and let it naturally carbonate. Earlier this week, I got a C02 cartridge (a 16 gram cartridge, not the 12 gram cartridge the normal Tap-A-Draft system uses). This cartridge was slightly too short, so I ended up folding up a piece of paper to push it into place. This didn't seem to work so well, as I could hear a brief hiss every 60 seconds or so. After the first glass, the system lost pressure, and beer was just dribbling out. So I went and bought another cartridge - threaded this time, instead of unthreaded. It was slightly longer. But when I went to switch them, the needle that punctures the cartridge popped out with the old cartridge, along with the rubber ring that holds the cartridge in place. I used tweezers to jam that back up there, but who knows if I did it right. Screwed in the threaded cartridge, and this one was the right size. But two seconds later, a loud noise from the release valve. Figured out later that it basically emptied the entire cartridge at once and blasted the C02 through the release valve. We ended up giving up on the tap and pouring the beer out of the top. Luckily, this was at a party, so we finished up the gallon and a half before it went flat. But overall, not a good experience. Maybe someone more knowledgable than me would have been able to get it working better, but it seemed clear that this was not designed to be taken apart or reused. Too bad, because it was cheap and it would have been fun to have a little keg I could carry around with me.
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Dec 18, 2011 20:57
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Took another crack at brewing the chocolate stout that I screwed up last week. This time, I decided it was time to get me an assistant brewer. I volunteered my son to help. Hey son, why don't you get me a sparging pot...  WAIT BUDDY YOU AREN'T HELPING!  So, man, I can't believe I waited so long to buy Fermcap! I LOVE this stuff! The minute a boil over happens, just add in a few drops and never have to worry the rest of the boil! Even better, I was able to really crank the heat on my burner higher than I previously could, thanks to the protection from boil overs. For $5, it's a great investment. I did have two screw ups happen during the session. First, I accidentally started to mash waaayyy too high! The thermometer that came with the turkey fryer is pretty sad. It's so slow to register the true temperature that by the time I saw it read 150-155F, the water was actually 175! Good thing I didn't walk away from the kettle after I cut the heat! Fellow goon and brew buddy tesilential told me about a cheap, wireless digital thermometer Wal Mart sells. I'll have to pick one up. Even though the grains sat at those mash out temps for a good 10 minutes before I could cool it down, I don't think that affected my efficiency too much. I got 1.051 versus the 1.053 from last time. I'm glad I was able to reproduce that efficiency again. Later in the session when it was time to remove the grain bag, I didn't grab one section of the curtain and managed to dump in some grains. Crap! Luckily, I had a bunch of extra sections of voile curtain sitting around. So I just lined a bunch of small pots with the curtain and poured the wort into each pot, then recombined the newly filtered wort from each pot back into the boil kettle. But man, what a pain in the rear end to squeeze each bag and get the wort back! At least the rest of the process went smoothly. Measured the OG at 1.063, so this ought to have a decent kick. If I can keep the temperature in the right zone for the Nottingham to be happy, this has the potential to be a great beer! The hydro sample alone tasted like a Hershey's dark chocolate candy bar. Yummmm.
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Dec 18, 2011 22:10
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Dolemite posted:Hey son, why don't you get me a sparging pot... But Dad, it's my rocket ship on the way to Mars and I have to stay in it or the BEMs will get me and I won't be able to fight them off with my laser gun until they all die and become extinct and then I can't find the hive queen and zap her too and then rescue the princess from the evil overlords.
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Dec 18, 2011 23:23
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Dolemite posted:Worst Homebrew Ingredient 2011
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Dec 18, 2011 23:51
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mewse posted:Worst Homebrew Ingredient 2011 I can't find the thread, but there was someone on homebrewtalk that wanted to brew a beer with his dead wife's ashes.
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Dec 19, 2011 00:38
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crazyfish posted:I can't find the thread, but there was someone on homebrewtalk that wanted to brew a beer with his dead wife's ashes.  I remember that. So hosed up.
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Dec 19, 2011 00:48
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I dunno, I'd drink it, just to say I did.
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Dec 19, 2011 00:50
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Born in 1955? What a fine year for women.
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Dec 19, 2011 01:31
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awesome, I think I got more compliments on my spiced RIPA than any other beer to date. vodka tinctures really work!
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Dec 19, 2011 02:01
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Dolemite posted:Looks like you all had fun! As far as starting the mash at 170*, the fear isn't getting low efficiency, it's denaturing the enzymes necessary for conversion. If the strike water was 170* your grains were in the 160's and you should be good. I sometimes use a few drops of Iodophor in a wort sample to make sure the starch conversion to sugar is complete.
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Dec 19, 2011 02:06
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I entered my first homebrew comp this week  Belgian tripel that I am really really happy with but it was also my first time bottling anything off a keg that needs to keep for longer than the time it takes to get to a party. So I am kind of paranoid that it will be super flat or oxidized or something. Whatever, feedback is feedback!I had another comp I planned to enter with a coffee stout I'd made before. I racked onto the coffee, but then life intervened and it sat on the grounds for 4 days instead of 2. I kegged it last night and it doesn't suck, but it more or less tastes like a shot of espresso. Didn't seem worth driving 90 minutes each way to the dropoff point just to get back a scoresheet that says "great job brewing coffee, where's the beer?" I bet it will mellow out and be great but for the competition deadline it was way too harsh. So uh TL;DR if you have a future event you want to brew for, don't rush it because you will get stressed and gently caress it up!
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Dec 19, 2011 02:09
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crazyfish posted:I can't find the thread, but there was someone on homebrewtalk that wanted to brew a beer with his dead wife's ashes. Maynard James Keenan scattered his mother's ashes in one of his vineyards and named the wine from those grapes after her. But putting ashes in the beer? That's just gross.
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Dec 19, 2011 02:38
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I did a search, apparently the HBT thread titled "Brewing with Human Remains" was (mercifully) deleted. It was linked in the old homebrewing thread by BerkerLerk. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2984156&pagenumber=434&perpage=40#post392671478 Some choice quotes that were posted from the deleted thread: "My wife just died from cancer. Is it safe for me to add her ashes to a beer? I'm thinking 1 teaspoon per gallon in a hoppy double IPA." "It shoudl be safe, as long as you don't dump the whole urn in. Also, make sure that there's no bone fragments left because sometimes they are mixed in with the ashes, athough they would probably settle out with the trub anwyay." loving Homebrewtalk 
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Dec 19, 2011 03:02
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I made a starter on Friday night for the porter I brewed today, but it seems to be starting slower than I thought it would -- 6 hours later, there is some small sign of fermenting going on, where I expected at least this much maybe an hour after pitching. Were my expectations way off? The yeast in the starter seemed really active last night, but the head was all gone this afternoon by the time I pitched it. I have a stir plate, and I think I had it set low enough that it wasn't stirring too fast. I made the starter with 3oz of DME in 1L of water, boiling for 10 minutes and cooling to 70F before pitching the yeast. Did I make it soon before pitching it?
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Dec 19, 2011 04:00
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