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I'll get some Irish moss before my next batch, thanks. I did end up getting particles that were floating atop the beer into my carboy. They appear to be little bits of the malt itself. Can I just wrap some cheese cloth around the tip of the racking wand to prevent bits like that getting through? Is there any reason not to use some sort of filtration method like that (in cases like mine where there are little bits of grain matter) so long as it's properly sanitized?
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Jan 20, 2012 00:25
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Ratbones posted:I'll get some Irish moss before my next batch, thanks. I did end up getting particles that were floating atop the beer into my carboy. They appear to be little bits of the malt itself. Can I just wrap some cheese cloth around the tip of the racking wand to prevent bits like that getting through? Is there any reason not to use some sort of filtration method like that (in cases like mine where there are little bits of grain matter) so long as it's properly sanitized? You'll run into a problem where things will get caught in the siphon tube and clog your filter, making it run slow and/or stop altogether, meaning you'll have to stop, disassemble, clean, sanitize, then start again. You will also cause more sheer, which will cause you to get more foam. I don't know if this will be significant or not, but it's certainly a thing.
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Jan 20, 2012 02:15
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do you guys have any suggestions for good youtube videos/channels for beer brewing? I've found a couple but they are either two minutes long or made by slow adults, see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTvKHOXiQiI  anything that is start to finish, detailed, maybe some videos on hops and hop growing, all that kinda stuff. big thanks in advance 
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Jan 20, 2012 02:29
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chiz posted:do you guys have any suggestions for good youtube videos/channels for beer brewing? I've found a couple but they are either two minutes long or made by slow adults, see here While it's not always super instructional, Brewing TV hasn't done me wrong: http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewingtv/
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Jan 20, 2012 03:47
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Just whatever you do, don't watch Alton Brown's episode about homebrewing. It made me question if he knows anything about anything cooking related and is just a scam artist.
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Jan 20, 2012 05:31
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Darth Goku Jr posted:Just whatever you do, don't watch Alton Brown's episode about homebrewing. It made me question if he knows anything about anything cooking related and is just a scam artist. What does he get wrong? It has been a while since I saw it, but it didn't seem too bad. As I recall, his hop schedule was weird, and he didn't really elaborate on the specific recipe, but, overall, the process was pretty standard for a basic mini-mash recipe.
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Jan 20, 2012 06:01
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I've been tempted for quite a while to do a homebrewing miniseries on Youtube. I have good cameras, decent brewstand setup and I'm not 1. 50 years old and inept 2. prone to 45 minute explanations of process 3. creepy 4. HBT stereotype, etc etc It'd be a bunch of fun to do, too.
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Jan 20, 2012 06:08
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Imasalmon posted:What does [Alton Brown] get wrong? If I remember right, he boiled the specialty grain, and poured hot wort over grocery store bagged ice (not terribly sanitary) in the fermenter for cooling. There might be more, it's been a while for me too. P1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1gKBZS7XPs P2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GeXSxoJvQ Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 20, 2012 |
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Jan 20, 2012 06:10
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Hypnolobster posted:I've been tempted for quite a while to do a homebrewing miniseries on Youtube. I have good cameras, decent brewstand setup and I'm not Why don't you then? I'd watch them.
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Jan 20, 2012 06:13
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Imasalmon posted:What does he get wrong? It has been a while since I saw it, but it didn't seem too bad. As I recall, his hop schedule was weird, and he didn't really elaborate on the specific recipe, but, overall, the process was pretty standard for a basic mini-mash recipe. 1) Sanitizing with bleach (though that's not really a huge cardinal sin, it's just not optimal) 2) Shoving everything in his fermenting bucket and risking scratching the hell out of it 3) 20 minute boil 4) Boiling the specialty grains 5) Calling hop additions at flameout 'dry hopping' 6) Using commercial ice as topoff water (IIRC this risks infection) 7) Using non-amber bottles This is just what I remember off the top of my head. I love Alton's show, and it's part of what got me interested in brewing. Just don't take it as gospel.
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Jan 20, 2012 06:34
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Hypnolobster posted:I've been tempted for quite a while to do a homebrewing miniseries on Youtube. I have good cameras, decent brewstand setup and I'm not Yes, do it. Start tomorrow or this weekend I've been reading through Joy of Homebrewing, read through some of How to Brew on the internet, but it's always good to see someone actually do it.
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Jan 20, 2012 06:36
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crazyfish posted:I love Alton's show, and it's part of what got me interested in brewing. Just don't take it as gospel. What it sounded like to me (having just watched a few minutes of it again and hearing a lot of terms misused) was that he had been through a discussion of the brewing process once with a homebrewer, then wrote the script and did not get the brewer back to re-read the script and provide corrections or improvements. A lot of the bits that grate on my ears (e.g., calling a steep of specialty grain a "mash") sound like confusion about technical terms. The typical discussion I get into with nonbrewers has lots of side discussions along the way ("now if I were doing this from grain, this would be my mash") that could lead to this kind of confusion. Basically, bad writing or bad technical consultation.
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Jan 20, 2012 07:13
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Hypnolobster posted:I've been tempted for quite a while to do a homebrewing miniseries on Youtube. I have good cameras, decent brewstand setup and I'm not I, too, would like to see goonbrew videos.
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Jan 20, 2012 12:46
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First time using WLP002....Holy chunks! I was concerned at first at the level of chunking with the yeast reproduction, but found out it was common.
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Jan 20, 2012 15:26
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Hypnolobster posted:I've been tempted for quite a while to do a homebrewing miniseries on Youtube. I have good cameras, decent brewstand setup and I'm not I'd definitely watch some "how to" homebrewing videos. As someone who learns from demonstration better, it'd really help me with the more technical aspect of homebewing.
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Jan 20, 2012 16:42
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I've got my fermentation bucket in a closet, where my thermometer reads 66 degrees. However, the thermometer on the bucket says its 72, and ideally I'd like to get it down to 68. I don't have a basement or anything temp controlled that I can put this in. Is there anything I can do to drop the temp short of turning off the heat in here? I've even considered sticking it in my drafty window because its a whole 0F outside today.
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Jan 20, 2012 17:01
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Yeast produces heat during fermentation, so your in-fermenter temp will also be higher than what your ambient is, typically 6-7f. Keeping a steady and optimal fermentation temperature is one of THE most important steps when making beer. A chest freezer or small fridge with a temperature controller is the best time tested method for controller temperature fermentation. If you can't swing this method your best bet is to just brew with yeasts that like warm temperatures and don't mind inconsistent temps which is basically going to narrow you down to some belgian strains and saison strains. After that you get into a lot of really half assed inaccurate methods involving tubs of water and changing out frozen bottles of ice. Google son of fermentation chiller and you will see what I'm talking about, IMO they aren't really worth the hassle compared to the two above methods.
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Jan 20, 2012 17:09
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Sirotan posted:I've got my fermentation bucket in a closet, where my thermometer reads 66 degrees. However, the thermometer on the bucket says its 72, and ideally I'd like to get it down to 68. I don't have a basement or anything temp controlled that I can put this in. Is there anything I can do to drop the temp short of turning off the heat in here? I've even considered sticking it in my drafty window because its a whole 0F outside today. Wrap it in a wet towel or tshirt, turn a fan on it. Not terribly accurate, but it'll cool it down. Then you just have to keep re-wetting it every couple of hours...
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Jan 20, 2012 17:11
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Retemnav posted:Wrap it in a wet towel or tshirt, turn a fan on it. Not terribly accurate, but it'll cool it down. Then you just have to keep re-wetting it every couple of hours... So I guess that's a no then.  Welp, moving it next to the window that is covered in ice on the inside. That should do it for a day or two until it goes back up to 40 here....
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Jan 20, 2012 17:18
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rage-saq posted:Yeast produces heat during fermentation, so your in-fermenter temp will also be higher than what your ambient is, typically 6-7f. Keeping a steady and optimal fermentation temperature is one of THE most important steps when making beer. I've been using a swamp cooler for awhile, and if you do it indoors with a pretty reasonable temp (70 or so), and get an initial temp, it's really easy to maintain a solid 65-70 without interruption. It isn't perfect, but it's better than just letting it run wild.
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Jan 20, 2012 17:20
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rage-saq posted:
Unfortunately, not everyone has enough room for a massive industrial grade restaurant refrigerator I have a small 2-keg fridge that I use for fermentation whenever my kegs are empty, but living in an apartment I occasionally have to resort to using a 15 gallon tubberware container filled with water and my fermenter placed in that. I find it's fairly accurate, works pretty well and doesn't cost me a dime.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:02
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rage-saq posted:Yeast produces heat during fermentation, so your in-fermenter temp will also be higher than what your ambient is, typically 6-7f. Keeping a steady and optimal fermentation temperature is one of THE most important steps when making beer. For the moment I've been keeping my carboys in kegbuckets - this is how I get my wort from 90* to pitching temperatures (tap water in southern california can only get the wort cooled down so far in a reasonable timeframe). Once the wort has been aerated and the yeast pitched, I just drop the carboy back into the bucket of cool water. I take frequent reading with a thermapen and due to evaporation, the water is always slightly below ambient meaning the fermenting beer should be close to ambient in temperature (because the carboy is immersed the temp differential is smaller than the usual 6-7*). When it's warmer I replace 1-2 bottles of ice water a day to keep it within a 2-degree swing, but now that it's winter I don't even have to do that - the temperature is consistently in the low to mid 60s which can actually be frustrating when I'm using yeast that performs better in the high 60s
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Jan 20, 2012 18:08
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RiggenBlaque posted:Unfortunately, not everyone has enough room for a massive industrial grade restaurant refrigerator What does this keep the temp at? And what is your air temp generally? Might have to do this the next time I want to ferment something below 70, I don't have the space or the $$$ to be buying fridges.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:10
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Sirotan posted:What does this keep the temp at? And what is your air temp generally? Might have to do this the next time I want to ferment something below 70, I don't have the space or the $$$ to be buying fridges. I live in upstate NY so at this time of year it's 32 degrees outside at most and water comes straight out of the tap at 38*. My usual strategy is to keep it about 2* below where I want it with frozen old 22 oz diet coke bottles and that almost always gets me the temperature I want.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:15
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Sirotan posted:What does this keep the temp at? And what is your air temp generally? Might have to do this the next time I want to ferment something below 70, I don't have the space or the $$$ to be buying fridges. Since I work from home I took some readings for you: Air temp - 69* Water around my carboys - 63* This is probably slightly confused by the fact that my GF turns on the heater in the mornings, but I take readings several time a day usually and the temperature rarely swings and because each bucket has ~10gal of water total in it the total thermal mass means the swings are very small.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:19
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Sirotan posted:What does this keep the temp at? And what is your air temp generally? Might have to do this the next time I want to ferment something below 70, I don't have the space or the $$$ to be buying fridges. It's pretty easy to keep temps below 70. You won't have super control over it, but it works well to dissipate the heat produced by fermentation and maintain it throughout. Put like 10 or 15 water bottles in the freezer a week before and just swap them out 5 at a time.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:27
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Super Rad posted:Since I work from home I took some readings for you: I guess I could still try this method with my current batch as its been less than 24 hours since fermentation began, but for now I've got it near an outside wall and the air temp seems to be 58*, with bucket temp slowly dropping to about 69* right now. On Sunday its supposed to get a lot warmer here and/or I might decide closing the hot air vents in my bedroom was a dumb idea tonight, so maybe I should. I realize all the temp swings are probably a terrible thing for the beer, but hey this being an extract brew and all, I'm just trying to ghetto it up to the max. At the very least I'll try this method from the beginning with my next batch if needed.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:32
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crazyfish posted:6) Using commercial ice as topoff water (IIRC this risks infection) I do this, actually, and haven't had an infection in like 10 batches or whatever. I pour boiling or just-off-boil wort onto the ice, which should kill the surface bacteria or whatever the store ice is infected with. At least that's what I tell myself, I'm probably just lucky. I just don't want to buy a wort chiller to fit this pot when I'm going to be getting a new pot in the summer.
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Jan 20, 2012 19:01
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TenjouUtena posted:I just don't want to buy a wort chiller to fit this pot when I'm going to be getting a new pot in the summer.  Fit the pot? No, but seriously, it's all about the length of the coils and the temperature of the water pumped through it. I have a 15 gallon pot and a 75' coil but as you can see not only does the coil not get fully submerged in a 5 gallon batch, it's significantly smaller than the pot and it still only took like 20 minutes to go from boiling to about 80 degrees. I have yet to do a 10 gallon batch, but I'm also an upstate New Yorker and the hose spits out near freezing water during the winter, so I'm not at all worried about the difference in size.
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Jan 20, 2012 19:33
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Ok, I decided to try the water bath technique for my fermentation bucket. Right now I've got it in about 10gal of water at 62*. Googling tells me ideally I should keep the water at 62* if I can for the next 4-5 days or so. I think I should be fine without adding ice for the next couple of days, but I'll be monitoring the temperature to be sure.
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Jan 20, 2012 23:15
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I thought I'd give a little update on the problem I had a little bit ago in case anyone else has similar issues. Basically I was getting really bad attenuation even with most of the obvious factors (low mashing temp, proper mashing time, good yeast, etc) already taken care of. After a few suggestions I: 1) Increased the mash thickness to 2 qts / lb 2) Added 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to try and get my mash Ph up from 5.2 @ room temperature. It didn't register as being any higher, but whatever. 3) Mashed at 148* 4) Used yeast nutrient I'm not sure which of those factors did it, but my attenuation was very good this time. 1.064 down to 1.010 and still going on my Citra IPA. It will probably stop at somewhere around 1.008-1.009 which is what I was looking for. Thanks to everyone who put in some advice!
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Jan 20, 2012 23:23
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RiggenBlaque posted:I'm not sure which of those factors did it, but my attenuation was very good this time. 1.064 down to 1.010 and still going on my Citra IPA. Cool, the dry finish will really make the Citra pop. I'm glad whatever it was helped.
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Jan 21, 2012 00:03
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Sirotan posted:Ok, I decided to try the water bath technique for my fermentation bucket. Right now I've got it in about 10gal of water at 62*. Googling tells me ideally I should keep the water at 62* if I can for the next 4-5 days or so. I think I should be fine without adding ice for the next couple of days, but I'll be monitoring the temperature to be sure. In the future, you want to avoid rapid (i.e. more than a couple degrees per day) temperature swings as it can cause the yeast to misbehave in a number of ways. Once the bubbling slows down I'd recommend you take it out and let it warm up again, maybe rock the fermenter back and forth a bit to get some extra yeast back into suspension and finish up.
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Jan 21, 2012 01:32
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indigi posted:In the future, you want to avoid rapid (i.e. more than a couple degrees per day) temperature swings as it can cause the yeast to misbehave in a number of ways. Once the bubbling slows down I'd recommend you take it out and let it warm up again, maybe rock the fermenter back and forth a bit to get some extra yeast back into suspension and finish up. Good to know. I got it from 72 to probably 66 over the course of the day, less than 24hrs after I pitched the yeast. What kind of bad things can I expect if I've screwed it up at this point?
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Jan 21, 2012 02:27
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If it was early on in the fermentation, just more (still possibly unnoticeably more) esters and off-flavors. If you dropped it 6* when it was about halfway or more done it could cause the yeast to go dormant and not finish attenuating fully which could potentially lead to overcarbonation/bottle bombs.
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Jan 21, 2012 02:38
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What do you guys do for cold weather brewing? My kettle doesn't fit on the stove, and it seems that the cold weather will suck away my heat make me use a ton more propane. I'm considering going up to my parents house and seeing if I can brew in their garage, that should at least cut down on the wind some.
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Jan 21, 2012 19:42
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I've got two of those super cheap pop up canopy things that I put up in any windy or otherwise crappy weather that help a lot (one goes actually up, the other on it's side upwind). If it's really awful out, I give up and abandon the brewstand and just do partial boil extract batches and have just as much fun I've brewed in the garage before, but my garage is pretty ridiculous and filled with welders and steel and half-apart farm tractors. I'm also a very very wet brewer and I don't think I've ever brewed without getting at least 10 gallons of water and excess runoff all over the ground, so the garage is usually unwise.
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Jan 21, 2012 19:53
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Toebone posted:What do you guys do for cold weather brewing? My kettle doesn't fit on the stove, and it seems that the cold weather will suck away my heat make me use a ton more propane. I'm considering going up to my parents house and seeing if I can brew in their garage, that should at least cut down on the wind some. There isn't an appreciable difference in the amount of propane it takes to brew in hot or cold weather seasons. I still get about 4-5 brews out of a propane tank in the summer (110f) or winter (30f).
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Jan 21, 2012 19:55
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Going to be doing a full boil for the first time, on my mini mash + extract Weizenbock recipe -- I've been doing late extract additions previously, is it still necessary with a full boil or not?
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Jan 21, 2012 19:55
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With a full-volume boil, I would put in all the extract at the beginning of the boil. You still may not get as pale a color as an all-grain batch, but the darkening effect will be much smaller than with a concentrated boil.
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Jan 21, 2012 20:05
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