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Ratbones posted:I've never brewed anything before, but my lovely wife got me a brewing kit for Christmas, so I'm excited to get started! I've got a couple question for you fine folks though. Thermometers Well, boiling is boiling, and there's no worry about that temperature. For steeping grains, you don't need a very precise level of control, so anything that will let you say "between 150 and 165 degrees F" with confidence is really all you need. A decent floating thermometer from the brew shop, or a stem thermometer, or an inexpensive remote probe type from the kitchen aisle at Wal-Mart is really all you need. Later on, you might need a faster or more accurate unit, but you can get by just fine for $10 or so, I am guessing. Sanitizers C-brite is chlorine-based. Chlorine is a heck of a good sanitizer, but it can lead to off-flavors in beer. If you can wait, Star-San will make your brewday much more pleasant. I suggest mixing it in a spray bottle with distilled water. That way, the bottle of concentrate lasts a long, long time, and you have a long-lasting mix around you can use as needed. Just spray down the things you need to sanitize until they are good and wet, let sit for about one minute, then dump any accumulated liquid. No-rinse sanitizer is wonderful. The ratio for Star-San is 1 ounce or 30mL in 5 gallons, or 6mL per gallon, or 1.5mL per quart. The spray bottles I have around are 24 ounces, so I use 1.25mL per bottle, which is a tiny bit rich. Get a children's medicine dropper or a syringe to measure such small amounts. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 03:37
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^sniped whilst writing...^Ratbones posted:stick on thermometer Ratbones posted:Also, the kit came with C-brite cleaner, but would it be worth waiting and ordering some Starsan to replace it? Will I be okay just going ahead and using the C-brite? Protip on StarSan: buy a plastic spray bottle to create your StarSan sanitizer in. The 1L bottle I've got uses about 4 drops per use. I've been brewing a year now and have yet to run out.
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Dec 29, 2011 03:39
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Jacobey000 posted:^sniped whilst writing...^ I also use a quart spray and I use well over 4 drops. I fill the measuring compartment a mm or 2 up so I pour a small stream into the bottle. 1 oz for 20 qt scales down to .05 oz for a quart. Is .05 ounces 4 drops?
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Dec 29, 2011 03:57
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tesilential posted:I also use a quart spray and I use well over 4 drops. I fill the measuring compartment a mm or 2 up so I pour a small stream into the bottle. gently caress if I know. I never fill the bottle up with water: toss in a few drops, blast water in till foam overflows, shake it to hell, spray a couple times in the sink to get "the good spray," and away I go. I almost always end up dumping a decent amount of left overs anyway. e: Join irc.synirc.net #beer for awesome beer chats as well as "Live help" on your next brew day. Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 04:11
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You guys are always talking about spray bottles for star san, but how does that work with a carboy? You can't exactly put a spray bottle inside of the carboy to reach all the surfaces...
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Dec 29, 2011 04:46
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beetlo posted:You guys are always talking about spray bottles for star san, but how does that work with a carboy? You can't exactly put a spray bottle inside of the carboy to reach all the surfaces... Unscrew the top and pour some in.
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Dec 29, 2011 04:49
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beetlo posted:You guys are always talking about spray bottles for star san, but how does that work with a carboy? You can't exactly put a spray bottle inside of the carboy to reach all the surfaces... I don't use my carboys anymore, they suck.
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Dec 29, 2011 05:04
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tesilential posted:I don't use my carboys anymore, they suck. Better bottle, and I've already had an infection using that. I'm not touching plastic buckets. No way.
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Dec 29, 2011 05:17
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Toebone posted:Unscrew the top and pour some in. Yep. Then put the palm of your hand over the mouth and slosh it around until it's all wet with sanitizer. Maybe do that a couple of times. beetlo posted:Better bottle, and I've already had an infection using that. I'm not touching plastic buckets. No way. Why not? I have hundreds of gallons through my buckets with no infections. There's nothing inherently infectious about plastic.
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Dec 29, 2011 05:57
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beetlo posted:Better bottle, and I've already had an infection using that. I'm not touching plastic buckets. No way. Why? I've left beer in buckets for over a month with no infections. Pros: - no sunlight concerns - built in handle so easy to carry and lift in and out of freezer - unbreakable/safe - easy to make hop additions, top crop yeast, take samples - large opening makes cleaning a cinch, my buckets are cleaner than my carboys Cons: - must remove lid to see yeast activity Infections have to do with your cleaning and/or sanitizing process, not what material you ferment in. The bucket getting scratches doesn't matter, they come with TONS of scratches/grooves due to the manufacturing and shipping process and thousands of home brewers use them with no problem. Add 1 gallon 180*f water to bucket and shake if you're scared. Oh yeah, in BLAM Vinnie of Russian River recommends plastic buckets for home brewing. :P
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Dec 29, 2011 05:59
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beetlo posted:Better bottle, and I've already had an infection using that. I'm not touching plastic buckets. No way. I've only ever used buckets and I've never had an infection.
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Dec 29, 2011 06:00
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End-of-year roundup! 1/1/11: Pepper-orange beer. 1/29/2011: Maris Otter / Amarillo SMASH about 2/12/11: CDA, heavy on the Citra 4/3/11: Quad after rage-saq: "The Iconoclast" 5/22/11: ESB / Pale Ale, all Willamette. 6/5/11: Brown ale - delicious, came out a little darker than I wanted. All Citra. about 6/19/11: Hairball, a strong red ale after Lagunitas' Hairy Eyeball. Kind of a caramel bomb. about 7/31/11: All-Sorachi Ace IPA about 10/3/11: Dusseldorf Alt about 10/22/11: toasted-oat ale from Radical Brewing - some of it will get a spice tincture to serve as a Winter Warmer on 12/31's brewday. 12/4/11: Brown ale I put together on the spur of the moment after I realized I had nothing planned that day. 12/31/11: Double IPA (planned) All of the above were ten-gallon batches. I also did five of a fortified cider, so I am at 125 gallons for 2011. What did you guys brew this year?
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Dec 29, 2011 06:28
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11/17, Black IPA. Everyone loves it, but the drat thing is a little bitter and I know exactly why, so perfect batch next time  Tomorrow: Maple Red Ale.
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Dec 29, 2011 07:32
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Jo3sh posted:What did you guys brew this year? 2/7 Foreign export stout 2/16 Northern english brown 2/20 Blonde 3/21 Belgian pale 3/23 Belgian blonde 4/24 American pale ale 4/28 Hefeweizen 5/6 Ordinary Bitter 5/8 Munich helles 5/8 German pils 6/3 IPA 6/10 ESB 6/28 Hefeweizen 7/3 SMASH ALAH MO/Amarillo/S05 7/7 American rye 7/12 SMASH ALAH 2-row/Willamette/S05 7/13 Belgian blonde 7/20 Obsidian stout clone 8/10 German pils 8/12 SMASH ALAH GP/Golding/S04 8/17 Witbier 8/23 Scottish 70/- 8/25 SMASH ALAH MO/Fuggles/S04 8/30 Dunkelweizen 9/1 Mild 9/4 American stout 9/7 SMASH ALAH 2-row/Citra/S05 9/11 Berlinerweiss 9/13 Wee Heavy 9/16 Jann's Strong ale 9/19 SMASH ALAH GP/Hallertau/S04 9/22 Maibock 9/25 Belgian dark strong 9/28 SMASH ALAH 2-row/Centennial/S05 10/1 English barleywine 10/4 Hefeweizen 10/25 Pumpkin ale 10/28 Vienna lager 11/1 Northern English brown 11/26 Baltic porter 11/28 Sweet stout 12/27 SMASH ALAH MO/Fuggles/S04 Should bang out a doppelbock Friday
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Dec 29, 2011 07:56
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I would have all stainless steel equipment if I could afford it. Everything was cleaned and sanitized. Pretty sure my problem was a scratch in a... plastic hose. I had to dump 10 gallons. The risk may be minimal, but the less chance of scratched equipment loving me over, the better. Plus I don't have room in my lager fridge for a typical fermenting bucket. 2.5 gallon batches. My racking cane is stainless now. Transfer hoses are silicone. I can heat sterilize them. Overkill? Of course. Peace of mind? Definitely.
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Dec 29, 2011 08:13
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a lot of my notes aren't dated for some reason, so I think a couple of these were technically 2010. mindphlux 2010-2011 brewlog
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Dec 29, 2011 10:48
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so basically I brew german beers and american ales with fruit in them hi nice to meet you
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Dec 29, 2011 10:49
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1/7 - dampfbier #1 yellow version - ruled 1/23 - helles - all tettnanger, all delicious 2/13 - biere de garde #1 yellow version - ruled 2/17 - pilsener - all hallertauer, good but waited to long to drink so hops faded 2/17 - belgian pale w/ brett - totally badass 6 months later 2/25 - biere de garde #2 brown version - possibly the best beer I made all year/ever 3/13 - belgian dubbel w/ brett - used cake from pale ale, super bretty, super great 3/13 - oatmeal stout - awesome english beer 3/19 - cocoa shell brown porter - ok not great, should have used english yeast 4/3 - english IPA - pretty lovely thanks to Palisades being fruity as hell hops 5/8 - clusterfuck cream IPA - cream ale gone IPA with all cluster, what a lovely beer 5/30 - witbier - loving fantastic 6/5 - irish blonde - boring as poo poo 6/12 - fresh hop pale - 4 oz of wet hops ain't poo poo, even at flameout, boring 6/18 - roggenbier - pretty drat good, making it brown next time instead of orange 6/18 - hopburst pale ale - good, nothing special 7/8 - split 10 gal coffee and coconut browns - both sucked donkey dicks 8/14 - brown saision - fantastic 8/14 - brown dampfbier - pretty good but kinda boring, pitched too much yeast 8/21 - oktoberfest - best beer of the year/ever?- keg was destroyed in about 3 days 9/5 - hopfenschwarzbier - lots of tettnanger and hallertauer pretty badass 9/11 - belgian stout - better than I thought which means it was decent 9/21 - extract dubbel - pretty good 10/16 - belgian quad - so far loving great, glad I bought expensive rear end sugar 10/30 - english porter - 15% chocolate malt 100% awesome 11/20 - munich dunkel - lagering 12/17 - rauchbier - 92.5% rauch malt - about to lager So that's like 140ish gallons. Moral of the story is I shouldn't make American beer. German/Belgian/English 4 lyfe.
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Dec 29, 2011 12:42
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mindphlux posted:a lot of my notes aren't dated for some reason I have the same issue. On some of my brew sheets, I remembered to fill in the "brew date" field or just wrote the date on the printout, but some of them I just have to go by the print footer that reports the date I printed the sheet, which might be the brew day or a couple days before. So, brewing-related resolution for 2012: Try to get better about keeping notes. I will say that my notekeeping has gotten much better in 2011 over previous years. In about August of 2010, I actually started keeping things in a notebook instead of pretending I was going to but never really getting around to it.
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Dec 29, 2011 17:26
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7/1 - Belgian Tripel. Disliked it at first but it seems to be getting better with age. Hopefully the quad I'm going to brew in January turns out better. 8/7 - Vanilla Porter. A little thin, and not as much vanilla flavour as I wanted, but still drinkable. 10/23 - Key Lime Belgian Wit. Absolutely delicious. 10/25 - Apple Cider. Amazing what you can do with store bought apple juice and a yeast packet. 11/6 - Belgian Wit. Almost as good as the key lime. 12/27 - Oatmeal Stout. Not sure about this one yet, as it just started primary, but I'm pretty hopeful.
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Dec 29, 2011 17:54
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GonadTheBallbarian posted:Tomorrow: Maple Red Ale. gently caress it, I'm doing a lager. The grain was inexpensive, and I'm trying to learn as much as possible, so why the hell not?
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Dec 29, 2011 18:08
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Cause you may not have enough yeast proper temperature control, two things that could easily ruin a lager
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Dec 29, 2011 18:37
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I'm so glad I joined a local homebrewers group. There's a guy who is a manager at a homebrew store and has been brewing for a while who lives near me. He contacted me and we've been talking and I think we have the same goals in the long run. We're going to brew together sometime in the near future and see where things go!
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Dec 29, 2011 19:30
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Midorka posted:I'm so glad I joined a local homebrewers group. There's a guy who is a manager at a homebrew store and has been brewing for a while who lives near me. He contacted me and we've been talking and I think we have the same goals in the long run. We're going to brew together sometime in the near future and see where things go! A budding brewmance, how cute!
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Dec 29, 2011 19:43
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Indeed, I feel like I met my girlfriend on e-harmony. He has a 10 gallon set-up so we're deciding on what to brew. My first brew is going to be an all-grain too. Fun!
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Dec 29, 2011 19:52
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Lets talk acid rests! The Ph here in Austin is like 9-10 on average. The purist in me wants to try an acid rest to see if I can drop that Ph into an optimal range. The issue is I am batch sparging in a cooler, which makes the whole temperature rest thing a bit more tedious. My next recipe calls for about 16 pounds of grain. I am thinking of mashing in with a ratio of 0.87 quarts per pound of grain (3.5 gallons) and let that rest at around 113 degrees. Once the Ph drops to the optimal range, I will then add boiling water (2-2.5 gallons) to bring it up to a mash temp of 151. I did most of these calculations at this website: http://www.brewheads.com/tempchange.php Does anyone have any experience doing an acid rest on a batch sparging system? Any advice on a simpler way to do this? Anyone know how long an acid rest will take? This process is obviously a lot more difficult than adding some brewing salts, but it seems like a fun experiment. EDIT: It would appear the acid rest is mostly beneficial to undermodified malts.. will it do anything to a fully modified malt? ziebarf fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 20:15
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Midorka posted:I'm so glad I joined a local homebrewers group. There's a guy who is a manager at a homebrew store and has been brewing for a while who lives near me. He contacted me and we've been talking and I think we have the same goals in the long run. We're going to brew together sometime in the near future and see where things go! I'd like to join my local group and attend this month's meeting. I was actually going to do that ans share samples of my last batch. Well, until my last turned out disappointing (as I posted about earlier). I'm going to wait until my chocolate stout is done and give that a whirl. Hopefully that turned out better. I don't want to roll up to my first home brewing club meet with some lovely home brew. 
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Dec 29, 2011 23:43
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Oh Nos! "Fragile Glass!" is usually interpreted by UPS drivers as "Make a good trampoline".  But all contents seems to have survived despite my route driver's best efforts.  Into the beer fridge they go! Thanks Imasalmon! Looking forward to breaking into them.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:11
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indigi posted:Cause you may not have enough yeast proper temperature control, two things that could easily ruin a lager I have both, the naysaying is constructive though, so thanks for that.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:12
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Pretty sure I'm missing a batch or two, this is all from the top of my head pretty much. Batch #1 English Brown ale i guess. Popped my homebrew cherry. Didn't gently caress up. Addicted. #2 Marzen without lagering process. Hey I was just reading Complete Joy give me a break! Ok #3 Dunkelweizen/weizenbock. By and large my favorite extract recipe, thanks Char6lie P! #4 Kolsch v1. eh. Extract #5 Steam v1, better than eh, not much though #6 Raspberry wit. Nice level of acidity, want to try modifying recipe in future though. #7 ESB v1, was very eh, tried the recipe from Radical Brewing. #8 Summer Ale with ginger and coriander from Radical brewing. Used same yeast as 'eh' esb to much better effect (WLP013) #9 Saison, straight up, no spices. Can you tell it's summertime yet? #10 Pliny the Elder clone. Noticed I hadn't made any real hoppy beers yet and decided the obvious thing to do was use a recipe with a calculated IBU of over 250. Did not disappoint. #11 Cyser. FG came in at a cackling 0.994, still awesomely drinkable. #12 ESB v2. First partial mash. Used MO and WLP002 and a big improvement. #13 Steam v2 Much better, still didn't get the NB hops i wanted for a cleaner profile, still solid. Extract #14 Kolsch v2. The proudest I had been with a beer. Most technically proficient beer I had made up til that point. Partial Mash. #15 Smoked IPA with chipotle pepper. Just wanted to get goofy. Went British style to downplay hop character. Pretty solid all told. #16 Dusseldorf Alt. Extract, decent but really want to try it partial mash or all grain. First completely temp controlled fermentation. #17 All-Citra IPA v1, for a friend, really happy with it and convinced a friend to homebrew. win-win #18 pumpkin ale. kept the spices restrained, and caramelized some pumpkin for secondary. pretty happy with it. #19 Oatmeal stout. VERY solid beer, can't wait to make again. #20 Oatmeal cookie brown. Kinda screwed up mash, bad efficiency. #21 Dunkelweizen. So good I kept it as an extract recipe. #22 Oatmeal cookie brown 2: Redemption. A marked improvement. #23 Mostly citra IPA. Took the all-citra, and incorporated some Simcoe in it to give it a piney backbone at the request of friend. Brewed it Yesterday. Next up though not necessarily in order: Belgian golden strong ale, alt v2, and steam v3 (first all-grain)
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Dec 30, 2011 00:14
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Anyone dry hop in the keg? I was thinking of putting some leaf cascade in a nylon bag and letting it stay there, am I going to end up clogging my lines or getting terrible vegetable flavors?
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Dec 30, 2011 00:28
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Toebone posted:am I going to end up clogging my lines or getting terrible vegetable flavors? Possibly the former but you can pretty much count on the latter. At least make some way so you can remove it after 3 weeks. Dry hopping at cold temperatures also has a lower effect as well. Just dry hop in your primary once fermentation is about done.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:30
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Dolemite posted:I don't want to roll up to my first home brewing club meet with some lovely home brew. There's no obligation to bring anything, some people only brew once or twice a year, if you bring a nice commercial beer that's more than enough. I would recommend just going regardless.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:34
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Jo3sh posted:What did you guys brew this year? Can I play? 10 gallon batches unless otherwise noted 01/01 - Scottish Heavy 01/17 - Vienna Lager 01/29 - Oatmeal Stout 02/12 - Mailbock 03/12 - APA 04/23 - Oktoberfest 05/14 - Belgian Triple (5g) 07/04 - Holiday Spice Ale 07/04 - APA 08/06 - Kolsch 09/05 - Witbier 09/05 - Alt 11/05 - Stout 11/05 - Steam 11/25 - Schwarzbier 11/25 - APA 12/26 - Chocolate Porter 165 gallons total. Beat last year by 10 gallons. Started doing two a days and decided that was the way to go for me from a time perspective. As long as I'm not decoting something I can get started about 7AM and be done by 5. Exhausted, but with 20 gallons of beer.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:52
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Toebone posted:Anyone dry hop in the keg? I was thinking of putting some leaf cascade in a nylon bag and letting it stay there, am I going to end up clogging my lines or getting terrible vegetable flavors? I used to, just putting pellets in a cheap nylon stocking and leaving it there until the keg kicked. I get better results by dry hopping in the fermenter though - I think the extraction of the aromatic compounds is just a hundred times better at 60-70 than it is at 35-45.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:59
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Docjowles posted:I think you'd still want to mash them, otherwise you will have tons of unconverted starch left over. Maybe that doesn't matter as much in a dark stout you don't need to see through? I'm not sure what (if anything) it would do to the flavor. ok, thanks! got two extract with specialty grain batches under my belt, might as well go on and try a partial mash 
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Dec 30, 2011 01:39
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units is right) for an hour. Then lift up the bag, let it drain back into the pot, and pour more hot water over it til you get to your normal boil volume for your pot. From there, go on with your process as normal.
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after my horrible blackberry seed incident that took me like 5 hours of nail biting and grueling messy labor to resolve, I've learned never EVER to put large-particulate matter into a keg. worst decision ever.
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Dec 30, 2011 01:45
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I'm planning on brewing a barley wine for the first time on Monday, racking it onto the yeast cake from my porter which I will (hopefully) be kegging right beforehand. I'm planning on doing a half-batch so it's not too expensive in case I screw things up. Here is my tenative mini-mash + extract recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/1059751/home-brew/barley-wine Anything I'm overlookin in racking onto the yeast cake? Do I have enough/too little hops for the style?
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Dec 30, 2011 02:12
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From July till November:
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Dec 30, 2011 03:36
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Zakath posted:Anything I'm overlookin in racking onto the yeast cake? Do I have enough/too little hops for the style? I'd move all those 30 minute additions to at least 15 minutes and up the amounts to compensate for the loss in IBUs. My American barleywine (5 gallon batch) got dinged in a competition for not having enough hop aroma/flavor and I had 1oz at 15, 5, and flameout. (I'm assuming you're going for American due to Cascade and high IBUs) GonadTheBallbarian posted:I have both, the naysaying is constructive though, so thanks for that. I wasn't naysaying, you said "why the hell not?" as if it was something you were just winging without any thought - something I've done more than once with predictably inconsistent results - and just wanted to give you a couple reminders as to why you might not want to. Sorry I didn't convey my sentiment clearly, I posted that from my phone
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Dec 30, 2011 03:43
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