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rage-saq posted:Posting my brewing setup. madre de loving dios That is an outstanding setup man. eight kegs at a time going, you must drink a real lot of beer. I salute you.
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Jan 16, 2012 06:11
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Did my first 5 gallon batch on Sunday, along with my first attempt at mini-mashing. Also got to use my immersion chiller for the first time, although I found out too late that it only has a spigot connector and not a indoor faucet one. So I ended up standing there for 15 minutes clamping it onto the faucet as tightly as I could with my hands. That was a pain in the rear end. Crappy image of immersion chiller and my rubberband rigging system which didn't hold any pressure at all. Having the big canning pot was so much nicer. Did a 3 gallon boil volume (and I'm pretty sure my stove wouldn't be able to get much more volume boiling) and I had no problems with boilovers from it. Also, the canning rack makes a great sparging rack for a mini-mash. The fermentor was already bubbling away this morning, so now I just have to drink and clean enough bottles for 5 gallons of beer...
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Jan 16, 2012 15:30
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chiz posted:madre de loving dios Or he has friends who drink a lot of beer... but I wouldn't know anything about that... no, sir. Not me. If Austin hadn't gifted me 6 bottles of Maharaja on Saturday I could say I'm "low on beer" and justify breaking into your garage and stealing what's left of that keg of blonde, rage-saq, BUT I GUESS I'LL JUST SUFFER ALONG QUIETLY. Actually, that reminds me, my IPA should be ready by next weekend methinks.
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Jan 16, 2012 16:36
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I found a decent cheap turkey fryer at Home Depot online if anyone is interested. I've heard good things about it for what it is.
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Jan 16, 2012 16:42
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Alleric posted:Or he has friends who drink a lot of beer... but I wouldn't know anything about that... no, sir. Not me. You left too soon yesterday. You can see a list of beers we opened. Good times.
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Jan 16, 2012 17:03
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Found stuff floating on the top in my cider bottles when I got home from a weeks vacation, what is this? Is my cider ruined?
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Jan 16, 2012 17:51
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His Divine Shadow posted:Found stuff floating on the top in my cider bottles when I got home from a weeks vacation, what is this? Is my cider ruined? It's hard to tell what it is, if anything - what stage is your cider at? Is it still fermenting or is it conditioning? Have the yeast been killed off via campden tabs or something like that? If you're still in the fermentation process I'd crack the fermenter open and take a sniff - most critters that could live in cider will produce some noticeable odors. If you're in the middle of bottle conditioning you may want to open a bottle and see what's going on - wild bugs can ferment further than yeast can and it's possible that an infection could lead to bottle bombs so it's important to know if you're dealing with before it gets to that stage.
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Jan 16, 2012 18:05
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It smells like apple wine and tastes sour, which I guess is normal. It's been a bit over a week, week and a half maybe. All the bottles I look has stuff, not all have the dark bits though. Edit: The yeast has not been killed off either, I added sugar in fact so I could carbonate the cider in the bottles, the bottles where also sterilized in the oven for an hour at 200C. No noticeable odors either, just the usual wine and alcohol smell. I will see about opening another bottle in a month and trying it. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jan 16, 2012 |
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Jan 16, 2012 18:39
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I do all my apple wine/ciders with no added preservatives or chemical cleaners, alot of the time you will get a fine white mold layer on the top, its no problem, it will slightly effect the taste, but you can filter it out with a really fine filter, wont hurt you or nothing. From talking to some brewmasters in the area, when you brew with nothing added the fine white layer is all good, its when it changes color that you have to worry. Iv done around 30 44l carboys full of apple cider/wine in my time, all done with nothing added but pure fresh pressed apple juice, honey and yeast. SO yea, that is just some personal opinion, but you say some have dark bits, thats the worry, new to me.
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Jan 16, 2012 19:07
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Speaking of ciders, I just took a hydrometer reading of mine and HOLY CRAP did it get dry: 0.992! I had an estimated OG of 1.079 (didn't have a thief at the time and had to rely on the estimate) which means I'm looking at just short of 12%. I still need to back sweeten it, but currently, it tastes like a tart apple champagne that was left out too long and lost it's fizz. I'm thinking about maybe siphoning off some in this state to try carbonating it like a champagne to see how it tastes.
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Jan 16, 2012 19:15
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grass posted:I do all my apple wine/ciders with no added preservatives or chemical cleaners, alot of the time you will get a fine white mold layer on the top, its no problem, it will slightly effect the taste, but you can filter it out with a really fine filter, wont hurt you or nothing. From talking to some brewmasters in the area, when you brew with nothing added the fine white layer is all good, its when it changes color that you have to worry. Iv done around 30 44l carboys full of apple cider/wine in my time, all done with nothing added but pure fresh pressed apple juice, honey and yeast. SO yea, that is just some personal opinion, but you say some have dark bits, thats the worry, new to me. It's not in all bottles, I guess it could be crud in this particular one. They where all sanitized like all gently caress multiple times, and then sterilized in the oven. Some of the bottles had lots of crap in them as they had been sitting in a shed for over a decade. This cider was also made from fresh apple juice, with wine yeast and "brewing sugar" (I think it's dextrose). BTW I wanted to try brewing ale now and I saw Alton Browns episode on beer making and it was quite interesting, his fermenting buckets had taps though, that would really have made things easier for me, can you buy them separately and install them yourself later on? His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jan 16, 2012 |
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Jan 16, 2012 19:40
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His Divine Shadow posted:BTW I wanted to try brewing ale now and I saw Alton Browns episode on beer making and it was quite interesting, his fermenting buckets had taps though, that would really have made things easier for me, can you buy them separately and install them yourself later on? They are usually called bottling buckets. You should be able to buy the spigots from any brewing supply place I think. You will need a way to drill a ~1" hole in an existing bucket if you want to just buy a spigot.
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Jan 16, 2012 19:56
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Daedalus Esquire posted:Speaking of ciders, I just took a hydrometer reading of mine and HOLY CRAP did it get dry: 0.992! I had an estimated OG of 1.079 (didn't have a thief at the time and had to rely on the estimate) which means I'm looking at just short of 12%. What yeast did you use? That sounds like the kind of cider I want to drink.
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Jan 16, 2012 20:27
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In my experience, cider and any sort of yeast always yields extremely dry hard cider. I've gotten under 1.000 using both champagne yeast and US-05 and this year I tried WYeast's sweet mead and that still brought it down to .998. Cider must be nothing but fermentable sugars.
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Jan 16, 2012 20:32
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Jacobey000 posted:Add them to secondary. Why wouldn't I want them to ferment with everything else?
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Jan 16, 2012 20:42
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how well can the wine yeast go after normal sugar? Can it eat it at all, or only partially
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Jan 16, 2012 20:42
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His Divine Shadow posted:I saw Alton Browns episode on beer making and it was quite interesting I've seen that episode also, and unfortunately, it's kind of crap. I mean, I think it's great that someone like Alton Brown used his popularity to spread the word about homebrewing, but the methods he used were kind of questionable in several places. That said, brewing using better methods is not hard. Read http://howtobrew.com and get equipment and supplies from a good retailer and you should have good results. Daedalus Esquire posted:Speaking of ciders, I just took a hydrometer reading of mine and HOLY CRAP did it get dry: 0.992! RiggenBlaque posted:In my experience, cider and any sort of yeast always yields extremely dry hard cider. I've gotten under 1.000 using both champagne yeast and US-05 and this year I tried WYeast's sweet mead and that still brought it down to .998. Cider must be nothing but fermentable sugars. Using Champagne yeast, I got 0.995. When I used Sweet Mead, S-04 and WLP775, I had much less dry results. It seems to help to add a bunch of sugar or honey as the yeast slow down a lot in higher-gravity ciders. Champagne yeast is more aggressive even in that circumstance, though. His Divine Shadow posted:how well can the wine yeast go after normal sugar? Can it eat it at all, or only partially It will eat the gently caress out of it. High OGs may not be fully attenuated, but in anything below say 1.060 (higher with some strains), sucrose will get converted to ethanol and CO2 quite handily by any beer or wine yeast. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jan 16, 2012 |
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Jan 16, 2012 20:42
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I was using Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast for the cider. Oddly enough, the apple cider I used as a base DID contain potassium-sorbate (.1% according to the package). I was worried about it stalling out early since all reproduction would be inhibited, so I did a 1.52 qt starter using some dark brown sugar and pitched it all the next morning. Since I had only done beer before, I was expecting a kraeusen on top that never came, so despite the fizzy bubbling, I pitched two more packets of Red Star that I hydrated but did not put in a starter. Beersmith estimated my yeast population at 600 billion. Based on the cake on the bottom of the carboy, I believe it, that thing is just over 2 inches tall. As for my recipe, it's pretty simple: 5 Gallons cider 1 lb dark brown sugar 2 lb honey 1 lb maple syrup and I used a 1.5 qt of water in the starter and a little bit of water to get the remnants of honey and maple out of their bottles. The airlock is still bubbling, but I assume at this point it's mostly just CO2 coming out of suspension, not continued fermentation action. Just to be sure, I'm considering stirring everything up and letting it re-settle over another week or two before I hit it with campden and potassium-sorbate so I can back-sweeten it.
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Jan 16, 2012 21:02
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One more kegging question: Are the chrome Perlick faucets fine, or should I shell out for the stainless steel ones?
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Jan 16, 2012 21:17
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RiggenBlaque posted:In my experience, cider and any sort of yeast always yields extremely dry hard cider. I've gotten under 1.000 using both champagne yeast and US-05 and this year I tried WYeast's sweet mead and that still brought it down to .998. Cider must be nothing but fermentable sugars. I used Nottingham this year and it finished sweet.
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Jan 16, 2012 22:51
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Plastic Jesus posted:Why wouldn't I want them to ferment with everything else? Because if they were present during primary fermentation, the much more vigorous stage of fermentation will drive away most of the fruity goodness right out of your airlock. There will be enough yeast in suspension to ferment the blackberries in the secondary.
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Jan 16, 2012 23:19
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Imaduck posted:One more kegging question: Are the chrome Perlick faucets fine, or should I shell out for the stainless steel ones? I've heard a few times that after using them for a couple years all the chrome gets worn off and there's only one place the chrome could be going. I just shelled out the extra dough for stainless even thought it was painful to spend that much more.
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Jan 17, 2012 00:30
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Imaduck posted:One more kegging question: Are the chrome Perlick faucets fine, or should I shell out for the stainless steel ones? Depends on how much use you're expecting out of your setup - on paper it makes more sense to go all out with SS from the very beginning to avoid replacement costs, but this can set the initial costs prohibitively high if you're going for a multi-tap setup. From what I hear, your average restaurants/bars use chrome-plated stuff so it can't be positively lethal though still not very pleasant to consider - I personally have a 4-tap setup with chrome-plated faucets and shanks and have yet to see any of the brass below in the handful of times I've disassembled the faucets and plating is supposed to be extremely thin so I can't imagine each individual glass has an amount of chrome that's significant though over time... yeah... I just try not to think about it 
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Jan 17, 2012 01:10
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Chromium and molybdenum aren't heavy metals and can even be biologically active in a helpful way. The worst part about chroming coming off your taps is that your taps now look like horse poo poo. e. speaking of kegging I am in the market for a system and was wondering if anyone had guidelines on how many cornies and optionally CO2 cans you can fit into any given size of chest freezer. I could do the legwork or research eventually but that goes against the whole point of the internet. zedprime fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jan 17, 2012 |
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Jan 17, 2012 01:15
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zedprime posted:e. speaking of kegging I am in the market for a system and was wondering if anyone had guidelines on how many cornies and optionally CO2 cans you can fit into any given size of chest freezer. I could do the legwork or research eventually but that goes against the whole point of the internet. It depends on if you build a collar that lets you fit kegs on the compressor hump and also if you use ball or pin locks as well as the size of the chest freezer. I have an 8.8 cu ft one with a collar and ball locks and I can fit 5 kegs and a 20 lb CO2 tank, or six kegs if I moved the tank outside.
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Jan 17, 2012 01:31
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Stupid noob question My first two batches were Brewers Best kits. The first one I did was an IPA this spring, and a cream ale in October/November or so. I got lazy and left that batch sit in a secondary for a while, and then 2 weeks ago I bottled it the same time as I bottled a porter I made (extract recipe, but not a kit). Last night I tasted the cream ale, and I noticed an aftertaste that it had in common with the IPA. It was overly sweet, and just seemed off. It seemed to have mellowed out some after the IPA sat a month or two in my basement, but was still there. The initial taste seems appropriate to the style, but then this sharp sweet taste hits. The porter, which was not from a kit, does not have this flavor. It was smooth and tasted great; I am really happy with it. I used extract, specialty grain, and whole leaf hops purchased from a different shop than where I got the first two kits, and used a week-old pack of Wyeast 1056. Is this aftertaste what people talk about when they say "extract twang" and is this the result of the kits having been spoiled? The homebrew shop had a wall full of those kits, so I can't imagine they get turned over fairly quickly.
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Jan 17, 2012 02:14
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RiggenBlaque posted:I've heard a few times that after using them for a couple years all the chrome gets worn off and there's only one place the chrome could be going. I just shelled out the extra dough for stainless even thought it was painful to spend that much more. I've seen faucets that had had all the coating eaten off inside. I think it took more than a couple years, but I decided I would just buy stainless gear after that. Zedprime is probably right that it won't actually kill you or even hurt you. Super Rad is probably right that bars and restaurants use chromed faucets without issues. I figured I was only going to buy faucets once (unless I expand), so why not get the nice ones.
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Jan 17, 2012 02:19
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kitten smoothie posted:Is this aftertaste what people talk about when they say "extract twang" and is this the result of the kits having been spoiled? The homebrew shop had a wall full of those kits, so I can't imagine they get turned over fairly quickly. I would hesitate to say "spoiled," but the theory is that the "extract twang" comes from stale extract. Unfortunately, a lot of shops just don't do a lot of business and can't turn over their stock that fast. Buy from a retailer you know has good turnover and you won't have to worry. It's hard to say for sure this is what you're tasting, but it's a pretty good guess. Try another vendor for a batch or two and see if the issue goes away, maybe.
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Jan 17, 2012 02:25
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Jo3sh posted:I would hesitate to say "spoiled," but the theory is that the "extract twang" comes from stale extract. Unfortunately, a lot of shops just don't do a lot of business and can't turn over their stock that fast. Buy from a retailer you know has good turnover and you won't have to worry. This is primarily why I won't buy LME or the Brewers Best kits at my LHBS anymore. DME has a much better shelf-life. I'll happily buy anything else at the LHBS though.
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Jan 17, 2012 02:48
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Jo3sh posted:I would hesitate to say "spoiled," but the theory is that the "extract twang" comes from stale extract. Unfortunately, a lot of shops just don't do a lot of business and can't turn over their stock that fast. Buy from a retailer you know has good turnover and you won't have to worry. Yep, the next batch was all ingredients from a different shop and not out of a kit, and it tastes really good with none of the twangy aftertaste. I'm a little sad I'm handing this batch out because from the one bottle I tasted, I really liked the stuff and not just because I made it. On the other hand I'm happy that the celebratory beer for the upcoming birth of my son is not going to be swill  The shop where I got the bum kits was a place that had a ton of LD Carlson/Brewers Best stuff in the back of the store and also sold a bunch of herbal crap in the front of the shop. The fermentables in the kits were mostly LME with a little bit of dry extract, so that might well have explained it. I don't remember if the kits had pack dates on them or not but I guess I'd put a fair bit of money on them being stale. The shop where I got the good ingredients seems to move the stuff fast since that's all they do. Hops and yeast are super fresh there; the 2 or 3 Wyeast packs I've bought there were all less than 10 days old. Now that I think about it, the kits in shops probably have to trend toward being stale in general. You might do a kit for the first batch or two to get the hang of the process, but then after that you're buying loose stuff. So your ability to get a kit that isn't stale depends upon the shop's ability to get people in the door who are completely new to brewing. At any rate, I have bought the valves to convert coolers to all-grain and that would pretty much render this all moot. But I have hesitated on going forward with it until March or so, because I don't see myself standing out there in the damned cold for a few hours cooking stuff up. And then this weekend and last weekend we had 70 degree days in the middle of January which would have been perfect brew days. Oh well.
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Jan 17, 2012 04:39
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In looking to pick up a new brewing book, would people recommend Designing Great Beers or Brewing Classic Styles?
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Jan 17, 2012 17:36
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Toebone posted:Brewing Classic Styles? I haven't read Designing Great Beers but I really like my copy of Brewing Classic Styles. The recipes are extract by default and he's got a blurb with each of them sort of explaining the history and characteristics of the style. It's very, very informative for a neophyte like myself.
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Jan 17, 2012 17:47
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I have and use both of them. It's telling that they are here on my desk, rather than in the bookcase behind me. The other brewing book I have on my desk is Radical Brewing, so I guess those are my three favorite brewing books, at least at the moment. Designing Great Beers is a rundown, style by style, of what goes into recipes that do well in competitions. Basically, it's an analysis of recipes, with results like, "x% of advancing recipes used this type of malt, in amounts ranging from y to z% of the grist." It will tell you what goes into a winning recipe, in an aggregated way. It does not contain recipes as such, just information about what you can put in a recipe if you want to do well with judges. Brewing Classic Styles is mainly a book of recipes, again arranged style by style. The recipes are presented as extract plus specialty grains, with addenda for converting them to all-grain. I disagree a bit with some of the conversions they use, so check the math before you go buying grain, is my advice. Both books address brewing primarily as brewing to the target of BJCP style guidelines. That's not really where I tend to brew, but if that's what you're looking for, you could do much much worse than to have these two books on your shelf and to use them as tools in building your recipes. I have made some very good beers by using these books, but I have not tried entering them in any competitions, as that's not really my thing.
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Jan 17, 2012 17:52
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Two part-er Should I replace these poppets?  Is this an infection in my braggot?  I used raw honey and added to fermentor right before pitching the yeast so I'm not shocked if yes.They are conditioning (2nd week in fermentor). The bubble move kinda 'scummy' when container is shifted. When can I bottle then? Should I give them extra time before conditioning them in the bottles? Need I add sugar when bottling even?
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Jan 17, 2012 17:55
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TLDR it's about whether you want a recipe book, or a book on how to write your own recipes. I think both books are great but they have different goals. A couple other distinguishing features: * Designing Great Beers does not cover every style. I don't have it with me but off the top of my head, there is zero discussion of anything Belgian. It's also pretty old, so the discussion of American styles isn't necessarily all that relevant. I don't think there's much talk about all-late-hopping, for example, which is key to many of the hop bombs we know and love. That said, the styles it covers get a great treatment, including the history of how they came to be. BCS has at least one recipe, and sometimes several, for every single BCJP style including poo poo like pumpkin beer and lambics. But the "how" and "why" of the recipe gets maybe half a page instead of 20+. * Designing Great Beers devotes half the book to brewing processes and ingredients, and how to choose which ones to use to get your desired result. There's also a lot of math on figuring out volumes and mash temps and stuff since it's from before brewing software was available. Some of it is a bit dated (good luck finding like half of the hop varieties he describes) but there's a lot of nice info, too. BCS has a couple brief chapters on the processes and ingredients the authors use so that you can more closely reproduce the recipes, but it's not as broad or deep as DGB. * BCS is "just" a recipe book, but it is a very good one. I think it's a great book for new brewers, or really anyone who just wants to make beer they know will be good without a lot of fuss. It takes the recipe out of the equation and lets you focus on process. You will need something like Designing Great Beers and/or Radical brewing if you progress to developing your own recipes, though. Docjowles fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jan 17, 2012 |
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Jan 17, 2012 18:53
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I decided to go with BCS. I figured it'd be worth it to have a solid baseline recipe for whatever style I'm riffing off of, instead of looking up a bunch of random recipes on homebrewtalk or whereever and hoping for the best. Designing Great Beers also sounds a bit more in depth than I need at the moment.
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Jan 17, 2012 20:49
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Anyone done a IPL? (India Pale Lager) How do they taste? I've got some experimental yeast from Wyeast that I need to get through 6 generations worth of data and I'm having a hard time keeping the variety in my fridge with it.
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Jan 17, 2012 23:25
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Noghri_ViR posted:Anyone done a IPL? (India Pale Lager) How do they taste? I've got some experimental yeast from Wyeast that I need to get through 6 generations worth of data and I'm having a hard time keeping the variety in my fridge with it. You could always be the first. What about a lagered porter?
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Jan 17, 2012 23:33
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Left Hand and Terrapin did a collab IPL in 2010 called Oxymoron. They brewed it at Left Hand so I don't know anything about it other than it was delicious. Left Hand might have some info on their site. Jacobey000 posted:What about a lagered porter? It's known as a baltic porter.
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Jan 17, 2012 23:46
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I can't imagine it would be THAT different from a standard American IPA; it's not like WLP001 is imparting huge yeast character or anything. You'd probably also need to go even more overboard on late/dry hops to account for the long lagering period. Not saying you shouldn't do it, just seems an odd choice. But most of the best homebrew probably is. Josh Wow posted:It's known as a baltic porter. Or schwarzbier!
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Jan 17, 2012 23:59
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