|
Jo3sh posted:A beer after work and maybe a couple on the weekends adds up pretty fast. If you drank 12 ounces a day on average, five gallons will last you about seven weeks. If you brewed five gallons once a month, drank one a day on average yourself, and shared a few a week with friends, your production would keep pace with demand. Given the meticulous levels of sanitation involved in modern beer brewing methods, I sort of wonder what beer tasted like 150 years ago. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jan 25, 2012 |
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 22:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:22 |
|
|
I'd say it's half about price ($8 bombers vs same price for a gallon of the equivalent homebrew) and half about being able to brew what you want to drink. No one makes a lime wit (except for the mediocre Blue Moon seasonal) so homebrewing allows me to make a couple cases for myself and my friends pretty much whenever I feel like it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 22:39
|
|
|
My story goes: 1. Friend and I go in on a Brewer's Best starter kit with glass carboy and a brewer's best Irish Stout kit. 2. Set a date to brew and while waiting for that day to approach I decide that doing it in the kitchen will probably be messy and gross so I order a turkey fryer with a 5 gallon pot. Brew said Irish Stout. 3. Brew a brown and hefe kit from Brewers Best. Hefe turns out decently well, brown is a totally gross bust. 4. Decide I've got the "process" down, order a 15 gallon pot, make a bag out of an old voile curtain, and start doing all grain. 5. Buy a wort chiller. Brew a porter. Realize it's over carbonated. Cry. Then order kegging equipment. 6. Brew an ESB that's currently in kegs, brew an IPA that currently fermenting. 7. Spend most of today looking at coolers online to finally upgrade to a mash-tun. At some point in there, I dumped a bunch of cider in carboy, but that only sorta counts.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 22:49
|
|
|
So I have a basic Amber kit that I posted last page, but I was thinking...if I stop by the brewery shop to pick up some star-san, could I just pick up a bit more hops to add a tiny bit to the kit? Do you think that would "mess it up"? I really prefer hoppy beers but I dont want to ruin a potentially "fine" beer with that enthusiasm.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 23:10
|
|
|
ChiTownEddie posted:So I have a basic Amber kit that I posted last page, but I was thinking...if I stop by the brewery shop to pick up some star-san, could I just pick up a bit more hops to add a tiny bit to the kit? Do you think that would "mess it up"? I really prefer hoppy beers but I dont want to ruin a potentially "fine" beer with that enthusiasm. So, personally, I'd brew it according to the instructions and get that down. Process and mechanics are just as important as ingredients, and you'll probably have an easier time following the instructions as written. Maybe when you're at your FLHBS, pick out an IPA kit to do in a week or two. That said, it's almost assuredly a 20 min boil kit, so if you are trying to make it more bitter (as opposed to just adding aroma) you'll probably want to increase the boil time to 60 minutes. And don't add any more than 1 oz extra (again, imo. without looking at the kit and mapping out what you want.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 23:28
|
|
|
So...Learn what the heck I am doing, before getting too crazy. Check, I can do that. Haha thanks. I was getting pretty excited reading back in this thread 
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 23:36
|
|
|
Check your Costco flyers in the mail - $4 coupon for OxiClean.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 23:46
|
|
|
I need a good hefeweizen or wit recipe. Anyone have a recomendation? How the hell do you narrow down the recipes that you can find to the good or great ones? I'm looking around on hopville, and there's a thousand recipes for any given style. I'm considering this one right now: http://hopville.com/recipe/599129/witbier-recipes/must-be-the-season-of-the-wit
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 01:04
|
|
|
Local Yokel posted:I need a good hefeweizen or wit recipe. Anyone have a recomendation? If I remember correctly, Wheat malt extract is typically a 50/50 mix of wheat and pale malt, so just do 100% wheat extract with a bit of noble hops and a hefeweizen yeast.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 01:24
|
|
|
Hefeweizen is stupid easy. Extract (60 minute boil): 6lbs Briess Bavarian Wheat DME (65% wheat, others are lower) 14 IBUS of Hallertauer or Tettnang Hops (amount varies by AA) for 60 minutes Wyeast 3068 Throw in some Malto-Dextrine if you want extra foam (3-4oz) All-Grain (90 minute boil): 6.5lbs Wheat Malt 3.5lbs Pilsner Yeast and hops the same The ferment is fast and furious. Use a blowoff tube unless you have a ton of headspace. Try to keep around 68. Lower for more clove, higher for more banana.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 01:26
|
|
|
If you want to go all out: from what I remember il serpente cosmico has the de-facto Hefeweizen mash schedule I'm sure someone could post.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 02:06
|
|
|
Thanks for the advice gents. Going to combine a few ideas and go get supplies tonight.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 02:24
|
|
|
Local Yokel posted:Thanks for the advice gents. Going to combine a few ideas and go get supplies tonight. I sent this to ya in a PM from memory, but I'll post my recipe from my notes for the benefit of others (big thanks to the goons who helped me fine tune this one): code:
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 02:35
|
|
|
So part of the fun of brewing is coming up with names and of course punny names are the best (or worst if you're that kind of person). A little game I like to play is turning songs/movies/items near me into beer names and, being on a They Might Be Giants kick, I recently came up with these: Cyclops Bock Old Pine Bock She's Actual Saaz (Probably should be a lager or pilsner) Doppel Worm Apollo 18 IPA (bittered with Apollo hops, clearly) Flansburgh Red Ale How do the rest of you name your beers?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 02:36
|
|
|
I live in an area of California called the Conejo Valley (Conejo being Spanish for rabbit), and there are numerous wild rabbits in my neighborhood, so I have a sort of loose naming scheme related to rabbits. Brown Bunny Usagi IPA (this uses a Japanese hop variety, and Usagi means rabbit or bunny in Japanese) Alt.binaries.bunnies But mainly I just find a word or phrase I like that reflects or puns off some aspect of the beer or something I was thinking of when I made it. Since I'm kind of cranky, my Imperial Stout is called Old Irascible. The first time I brewed my house porter recipe, I dropped one of the carboys, so that recipe is forever called Half-Wasted Porter. My wife called one of my IPAs Anemia because it was pale, and I appropriated the idea but pronounced it like 'I need me a IPA'. I brewed Janet's Brown (with adjustments) from Brewing Classic Styles and called it Serena's Brown (Serena is not my wife's name, but my car's). Rage-saq's quad is called The Pious - not being a pious man myself, I called it The Iconclast when I made it. Sometimes when I brew, I try to emulate commercial beers (with adjustments, of course). My Barleywine was called Old Fogfoot as it was aimed sort of between Old Foghorn and Bigfoot. My strong red, after Lagunitas' Hairy Eyeball, was called Hairball, and that morphed into Hareball to bring it in line with aforementioned rabbit theme. I guess I am all over the place, really.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 02:58
|
|
|
Living in the Cleveland area I named my steam beer "Cleveland Steamer" for about five minutes before I realized every other homebrewer in the metropolitan area named theirs the same.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 04:10
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:Alt.binaries.bunnies This is amazing 
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 04:47
|
|
|
Story: 1) Beer Zero: Nut Brown Ale from extract. Stubbornly decided to brew in my apartment. 7gal turkey fryer pot and a cooler full of ice. We made no reasonable considerations for cooling, assuming it would be easy with some ice in a cooler. The beer turned out with tons of off flavors from lovely cooling, cardboard-like taste with the lovely extract bill and we hosed up the timing because we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. But I was hooked. 2)Beer One: Pliny Clone Huge hops, extract + steeping grains, wonderful beer. Everything turned out well, just slightly overcarbed. Decided then and there to go all grain. All Grain Bonanza....beers two (first one doesn't count) through 10 Built mash tun, got wort chiller, and continued in the 7gal for awhile. We have cranked out 8 beers of improving quality. Moved to 10g batches in keggles. Started yeast washing and making big starters--which has saved us lots of money. I did open a stray one of the first browns, and it was so bad I had to pour it out. That's when I knew we were improving exponentially with each beer. Next steps: march pumps, RIMS tube, plate chiller. Eventually I would like to save and get out West to brew school. My fiance' loves beer and loves my hobby. It's a pipe dream, but myself and my brew buddies want to eventually open a small commercial brewery. Hopefully it isn't too saturated here to do so by the time we have enough capital. LeeMajors fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jan 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 15:31
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:The first time I brewed my house porter recipe, I dropped one of the carboys, so that recipe is forever called Half-Wasted Porter. It saddens me that so many people that are using plastic exclusively will never get to go through this rite of passage. Kids these days. I don't tend to name all my beers other than the recipe/style they came from, but I do have a few. My favorite comes from a story. Actually Alt. You see, I have this co-worker who is normally a dumb as a bag of hammers, but when she's on her migraine meds she's a lobotomized bag of hammers. She also can't display even a casual command of the English language. She has a few words, and tries to construct verbal sentences by combining 5-30 of her few words and mix in vocabulary that normal people use. One of he oft-repeated words is "Actually". She came in to my cube one afternoon and spoke a six words sentence to me. Four of those words were "Actually". She's also the queen of messing things up. Well, that's not fair, cause messing things up implies that she understands the "correct" way and doesn't meet that standard. I recall a day where she involved herself in an argument with three other coworkers claiming that the day was Tuesday when in fact it was Wednesday and no amount of people showing her the date on her computer, phone, calendar, etc would convince her otherwise. When truth finally dawned on her some two hours later she exclaimed to the world "I don't know where my head is". I had to eat my shoe to prevent my natural instinctive response from being blurted out. This kind of person should be outlawed in open office environments. Know how one is supposed to learn form mistakes and not repeat them? Well, she doesn't. So I'm making the German Altbier for the first time one afternoon and I just have a horrible brew day. I make mistakes all over the place. I run of or propane in the middle of the boil. I forget to put the strainer in the bottom of the pot... and don't discover this until I'm nearly done with my boil with whole flower hops. So there I am ladling 10 gallons of 212 degree wert. (Ugg!) I goof the ingredients; I forget an additive. It was just a ton of little DUMB mistakes. Mistakes that I've done correctly 100s of times. I was worried the beer wouldn't be any good. So I dubbed it 'Actually Alt'. It became a favorite of my co-workers that are of the 'normal' persuasion.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 15:47
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:Thank you, thank you. Finally my misspent hours on Usenet pay off.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 16:22
|
|
|
Steps thus far: Father-in-law buys me a 'class' at LHBS and I buy a kit from a "you-are-allowed-to-buy-one" coupon my wife made me. Buy a too small pot, buy a bigger one at a restaurant supply place but I now know is also too small. Bought and auto-syphon, stainless keg set, and refractormeter (b/c I already broke 2 hydrometers). I haven't really bought that much in a year, odd. Beer names: I go for nerdy and obscure as gently caress references. 1) Cyborg Anthropologist [pale ale] - talked to some dude about this woman who was the only one in her field, named it thus. 2) Wampa Slayer [wit] - watched too much Star Wars 3) Biere de Chateau Picard [french biere de table] - too much Star Trek 4) Vegabond Gingered Ale [papzain recipe] - lazy and stolen 5) [dark saison] - just moved to Maine and hated my job/life too much to care 6) Cascade Bitter Failure [US hopped bitter] - Goonfleet jokes~ coupled with beer 7) Big Fat Cran [Cranberry Wheat] - hated my job (again) and didn't care 8) Red Barn [Red Farmhouse] - inspired from my uncle's big rear end red barn and connects between #9 and future farmhouse beers 9) Uncle Braggot [2x1gal experiment] - Uncle sent 4 containers of honey and wanted to brew with them. One pitched with US-05 and the other dregs from a local brew & jolly pumpkin. His farm is in MI, JP is in MI - thought it fitting. I used spend a decent amount of time lamenting on names (where applicable) and even tried to to make a label for each brew. I still do this even though I mostly keg and don't even has access to a printer anymore.      Obviously still trying to find my "style" but I have fun finding images for inspiration and what not. Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jan 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 16:50
|
|
|
LeeMajors posted:Eventually I would like to save and get out West to brew school. My fiance' loves beer and loves my hobby. It's a pipe dream, but myself and my brew buddies want to eventually open a small commercial brewery. Hopefully it isn't too saturated here to do so by the time we have enough capital. Hell, open a brewery in Southern California. There's a crapload of good beer in San Diego, but everything in between there and San Francisco is a freaking wasteland. You would think Los Angeles would have a huge beer scene, but you would be wrong. There are a few tiny breweries around but as far as I can tell, each one is selling to about four accounts. The Bruery seems to be doing well in Placentia. Firestone-Walker is in Paso Robles, in the middle of the state, and that's pretty much it between Stone and Anchor.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 17:24
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:Hell, open a brewery in Southern California. There's a crapload of good beer in San Diego, but everything in between there and San Francisco is a freaking wasteland. You would think Los Angeles would have a huge beer scene, but you would be wrong. There are a few tiny breweries around but as far as I can tell, each one is selling to about four accounts. The Bruery seems to be doing well in Placentia. Firestone-Walker is in Paso Robles, in the middle of the state, and that's pretty much it between Stone and Anchor.  ). The San Diego area saturation is only going to get worse with Pizza Port allegedly putting their beers in cans and their head brewer looking for a new facility. I actually did the drive from SD all the way up to Eureka and there's really a much wider spread up there then there is mid-state. I took a homebrewing class with Yuseff Cherney (the head brewer at Ballast Point) he speculated that it has something to do with the water quality/taste.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 17:56
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:Hell, open a brewery in Southern California. There's a crapload of good beer in San Diego, but everything in between there and San Francisco is a freaking wasteland. You would think Los Angeles would have a huge beer scene, but you would be wrong. There are a few tiny breweries around but as far as I can tell, each one is selling to about four accounts. The Bruery seems to be doing well in Placentia. Firestone-Walker is in Paso Robles, in the middle of the state, and that's pretty much it between Stone and Anchor. There's still a huge vacuum here in SC because the beer laws have only moved from draconian to semi-draconian. Also, while they are a few good breweries here in Charleston, all but one are in their relative infancy--including Westbrook, which was built by a rich kid's dad with no outside investors, and he regularly cranks out a thin, lovely IPA and other horrid stylistic abortions. Coast is pretty phenomenal, but hasn't enjoyed much success beyond the region. We do have the best bottle shop in the US according to RateBeer (CBX represent) and an exploding beer-bar scene. I don't know, maybe it's ripe for the taking if we can put out quality beer on a large scale.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 18:05
|
|
|
I have a 4.4cu ft minifridge now that I use as a beer fridge. While doing beer batch #3 I've been thinking that maybe I should get a new minifridge (5cu ft or larger) to turn into a fermentation fridge. Then I was also thinking how rad it would be to build a kegerator and start kegging my beer. But now I'm not sure which I should make my priority, since I really don't have the kind of space or money right now to do both. My options are is: a) turn current minifridge into a kegerator, and not buy a fermentation fridge b) buy a larger minifridge that can be a combo fermentation fridge and kegerator, I just wouldn't be able to use it for both functions at the same time c) throw caution to the wind and turn current minifridge into kegerator, and wait until the end of the school year and buy a used 5cu ft+ minifridge from some college kid moving home What kind of an investment am I looking at for a fermentation fridge? Beside the cost of the fridge it's my understanding that I'd only really need a digital thermostat right? And what size would I need to be able to hold at least 2-5gal buckets at the same time? Scope creep......
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 19:26
|
|
|
morebeer has 32oz of starsan on sale for like $10 today but shipping it up to canada will add $35 in shipping charges
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 19:30
|
|
|
Jacobey000 posted:I used spend a decent amount of time lamenting on names (where applicable) and even tried to to make a label for each brew. I still do this even though I mostly keg and don't even has access to a printer anymore. My printer at home is a color laser, so I don't need to worry about the ink running and the label looking like poo poo. I was kind of thinking of just printing on plain paper and then using premix wallpaper paste to stick it, but I'm wondering if there are better ideas. If that's what people do, any good tips for print dimensions for a standard bottle?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 20:52
|
|
|
http://www.onlinelabels.com/beer-bottle-labels.htm This has the dimensions for most styles. Don't buy from there though, check other places. For example, Amazon has 600 4x3 labels for $11 instead of $38, and I'm sure you can get other sizes just as cheap if you search. http://www.amazon.com/600-X3-33-Super-Adhesive-Labels/dp/B00578MS6Y/ref=sr_1_11?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1327609376&sr=1-11
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 21:25
|
|
|
When I was in Hawaii, I had Maui Brewing's delicious Onion Mild ale made with Maui onions. I would like to make my own and am looking for advice. I emailed their brewery, but haven't heard a response so I turn to you. I don't recall the exact balance of caramel, coffee, and chocolate in the grain bill so my plan is to use the Northern Brewer's Caribou Slobber as the base for the experiment. They use Willamette, Liberty, and US Goldings for the hops, but I was thinking of using Chinook instead to compliment the onions with a garlicky and spicy taste. http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/CaribouSlobber.pdf I don't have access to Maui onions, so I was planning on using Vandalia instead. I was going to roast them in the oven for 30-40 minutes until they're nice and brown and then add half during a mini-mash with the grains and add the rest at the flameout. Help?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 23:01
|
|
|
Cointelprofessional posted:When I was in Hawaii, I had Maui Brewing's delicious Onion Mild ale made with Maui onions. I would like to make my own and am looking for advice. I emailed their brewery, but haven't heard a response so I turn to you. I don't think I can really help, but I had an idea one drunken night to make an onion saison. Very interested to hear how your experiment turns out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2012 23:46
|
|
|
Off topic & a warning to those who don't pay attention: I am currently actively avoiding death-by-shattered-glass as beers that are over-carbonated are exploding in my kitchen. Backstory: I brewed up a 5 gallon batch of beer and forgot to write down my OG leaving me to guess what it was. I let it sit in a bucket for a week then a carboy for 16 more days. I thought it was ready to be bottled so I bottled it with about 3 cups of honey as my carbonation sugar. All the beer is over carbonated and when the radiators come on in my apartment there are at least 3 bottles that break. I came home to 8 broken already thinking I missed the worst of it but apparently not. edit: lost all 46 beers. I was able to not die by coving the beers with a towel to prevent shrapnel, opening a window and letting the room cool down, and, through the towel, opening each beer. The foam shooting down made it look like a shuttle launch. The moral of the story/tl;dr: Keep proper measurements and err to the side of safety. Yakadan fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Jan 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 01:57
|
|
|
^^^ 3 cups? Holy loving mother of god.kitten smoothie posted:I was kind of thinking of just printing on plain paper and then using premix wallpaper paste to stick it, but I'm wondering if there are better ideas. If that's what people do, any good tips for print dimensions for a standard bottle? There is always the milk trick. You pretty much just print, cut and brush/dab a tiny tiny amount of milk to the back of the paper, let it dry and away you go. I bought .75" circles from onlinelables.com - way, way too small to be of any use but now that I don't have a printer I just write on them stick 'um and roll ghetto style. Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 02:48
|
|
|
Jacobey000 posted:^^^ 3 cups? Holy loving mother of god.  Yeah...those should've been bottle bombs at like 3hrs. All of them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 03:00
|
|
|
I had transcribed the recipe wrong, three times as wrong now that I go back and look at the actual book recipe. 1 cup of honey would have been more than fine. I lost all the beer but at least I know I won't gently caress up again with my batch currently in the carboy. Yakadan fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jan 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 03:10
|
|
|
Jesus. I bet that made a hell of a mess to clean up.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 03:40
|
|
|
mewse posted:morebeer has 32oz of starsan on sale for like $10 today but shipping it up to canada will add $35 in shipping charges the gently caress is wrong with people/businesses? Hey btw how long would that last you, the 32oz? Like how many brew sessions if a brew session was five gallons?
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 04:39
|
|
|
chiz posted:the gently caress is wrong with people/businesses? one oz per 5gallons of sanitized water....32 sessions. although, depending on needs, i occasionally sanitize more than 5g at a time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 04:40
|
|
|
Buy some 6ml plastic transfer pipettes, mix 1 gallon at a time with 5.9ml of starsan. I use about half a gallon of starsan for an entire batch from start to finish. Shaking and using autosiphons to pump it around through tubing is the trick. Soaking just uses tons of the stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 04:43
|
|
|
I'm probably at least six months and sixty gallons into my current quart of Star-San, and I have 30 ounces left. So at that rate, 4 ounces a year, a quart should last me eight years. Call it five years to be conservative. If by brewing stayed at the current rate, that's more than 600 gallons of beer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 04:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:22 |
|
|
somebody plz smuggle me some starsan the next time they come to canada. i'm desperate
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2012 04:49
|
|