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Splizwarf posted:I too would enjoy reading about kegs. Well, my wife will be in the house over that time period.
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Apr 6, 2012 04:23
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Stultus Maximus posted:At the end of this month, I'll be taking a nice 7 month paid 'vacation' to the desert. I plan to pitch yeast into (most of) a gallon jug of cider then rack it into a second gallon jug, screw the top on, and put it into the refrigerator until I return at the end of the year. Maybe beef it up a bit with some extra dextrose. That's what we did for our cider which came out pretty good. Boiled the dextrose with some water to sterilize it and then add all of the cider and dextrose into your gallon jug(s)
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Apr 6, 2012 04:37
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lazerwolf posted:someone sell me on the pros and cons of getting into kegging. Pros: Easy as gently caress. I can keg ten gallons, moving beer from two fermenters to two kegs, in about 45 minutes. That includes sanitizing the kegs and cleaning up the fermenters when I am done. No helper even remotely needed, and most of the time it does take is generally spent having a glass while the siphon runs. Never ever worry about under- or over-carbonation again. Carbonation levels are set by temperature and CO2 pressure, and if you don't like what you are pouring, you can adjust those to tweak the results. Can transfer off the sediment so you can pour clear beer at a remote location. Cons: Expensive. Have to run a dedicated fridge. Hard to take just a couple of bottles to a BBQ or give them to a friend. This is ameliorated somewhat by using growlers.
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Apr 6, 2012 04:41
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Stultus Maximus posted:Well, my wife will be in the house over that time period. Ah ok. In that case get a second fridge off Craigslist, put it in the basement, and fill it with gallon jugs of fermenting cider. She will probably be annoyed if you just leave one taking up space in the main one the whole time. Or she'll drink it. Plus this way you have more than just a gallon when you come home. 
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Apr 6, 2012 04:48
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Jo3sh posted:Hard to take just a couple of bottles to a BBQ or give them to a friend. This is ameliorated somewhat by using growlers. For short distances is it possible to fill bottles and cap them for this purpose? What's the bare minimum for a kegerator? I am running some limited space and I have heard of converted minifridges that can fit a corny keg or 2. This is the angle I'm interested in right now if its possible
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Apr 6, 2012 04:50
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Is $40 for used corny's at Northern Brewer's physical location (so they can be inspected) a good deal, or is it better to just hit up a scrapyard?
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Apr 6, 2012 04:55
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lazerwolf posted:For short distances is it possible to fill bottles and cap them for this purpose? What's the bare minimum for a kegerator? I am running some limited space and I have heard of converted minifridges that can fit a corny keg or 2. This is the angle I'm interested in right now if its possible Sure, I have used swingtops for this with good results. I have even filled PET soda bottles and had people carry them overseas in their checked luggage. It's not so much about distance as duration once it's opened. I use a regular kitchen fridge for my serving fridge, but you can easily get away with a smaller unit. All but the smallest fridges will have room for two Cornies plus a small (5#) CO2 bottle, I am thinking. Ball-lock Cornies are about 25" high and 8.5" in diameter. You'll want another inch or so of vertical space to accommodate the fittings. Pin-locks are a little shorter and a little wider, but I don't have one handy to measure. icehewk posted:Is $40 for used corny's at Northern Brewer's physical location (so they can be inspected) a good deal, or is it better to just hit up a scrapyard? $40 is about right. I have not looked much in scrapyards, but I am guessing you won't get good ones that way. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 6, 2012 |
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Apr 6, 2012 04:58
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lazerwolf posted:For short distances is it possible to fill bottles and cap them for this purpose? What's the bare minimum for a kegerator? I am running some limited space and I have heard of converted minifridges that can fit a corny keg or 2. This is the angle I'm interested in right now if its possible Yep. If you have somewhat cold bottles, you can drop the pressure down a bit and fill them directly from the faucet. Not competition-level perfection in terms of maintaining the carbonation or avoiding oxygenation, but it certainly works. There are bottling adapters you can buy/make as well that do a better job. Converted minifridges are probably one of the most popular kegerators. You need to be careful how big the compressor hump is, but if you look around you can find minifridges that will fit two corny kegs as long as the Co2 bottle isn't inside the fridge. icehewk posted:Is $40 for used corny's at Northern Brewer's physical location (so they can be inspected) a good deal, or is it better to just hit up a scrapyard?
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Apr 6, 2012 05:19
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You guys are making me feel like a lucky bastard for picking up as many ball-locks as I could carry at $17 each a couple years ago. It was a container recycling company that didn't really know what they were sitting on. New O-rings, and they were right as rain.
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Apr 6, 2012 14:30
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icehewk posted:Is $40 for used corny's at Northern Brewer's physical location (so they can be inspected) a good deal, or is it better to just hit up a scrapyard? Yes. Looking at their local competitor, Midwest Supplies, they're asking $40 for pin-locks and $50 for ball-locks.
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Apr 6, 2012 14:36
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Docjowles posted:0.5 ounces each of Amarillo and Citra, added at 60 min (first wort hop), 15, 10, 5, 0 and dry hop? Also open to just doing 100% Amarillo or Citra, I really do have a lot. First World Problems! I've never used them together, but that sounds like a promising schedule - you might want to double check that the IBUs will be right since you only have a total of 1oz of purely bittering addition (although the 3oz from 15-5 minutes will probably make up for it). Amarillo is my favorite IPA hop so I can't imagine this could turn out wrong, just make sure the BU/SG makes sense, the beer should probably end up in the 6.5-7.5% ABV range with FG of 1.009-1.013 to stay in IPA-style balance. Also regarding the two posts about kegging above - kegging is awesome, I went from bottling to having a 4-tap keggerator within a few months. You just need to be sure you love brewing enough to dedicate that much money/space but the convenience factor is huge - now I just need a beer gun to bottle on-demand.
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Apr 6, 2012 16:39
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Super Rad posted:I've never used them together, but that sounds like a promising schedule - you might want to double check that the IBUs will be right since you only have a total of 1oz of purely bittering addition (although the 3oz from 15-5 minutes will probably make up for it). Thanks! Yeah I'll double check the math in Beersmith, but my old Centennial recipe was based on 10%AA hops and the Amarillo and Citra are both around that value too. So a little goes a long way in bittering.
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Apr 6, 2012 16:42
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Docjowles posted:Looking for some advice from the hop heads! I tend to brew malty styles, but I got a comical amount of hops from a homebrew club meeting at New Belgium a while back that I really need to get into a beer. I wish I had those problems, those are all great hops. I've used Cascasde, Amarillo and Citra in an IPA that turned out fantastic, one of my favorite recipes. I have only used Sorachi Ace once, and found them very unique. Not sure if I'd want to mix them with Citra, I'd recommend brewing a Pale or IPA with them and using some of what you have listed with a bittering hop to try out the flavor.
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Apr 6, 2012 17:10
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Super Rad posted:Also regarding the two posts about kegging above - kegging is awesome, I went from bottling to having a 4-tap keggerator within a few months. You just need to be sure you love brewing enough to dedicate that much money/space but the convenience factor is huge - now I just need a beer gun to bottle on-demand. Yeah I'm getting there with my love of it. I'm hoping this batch of pale ale is worlds above my last batch that I didn't try any temperature regulation. This is also my first time fermenting in a glass carboy instead of a bucket.
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Apr 6, 2012 17:33
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Ain't Sorachi Ace hell of lemongrassy?
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Apr 7, 2012 06:43
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indigi posted:Ain't Sorachi Ace hell of lemongrassy? The internet wisdom is that it's very lemony. But my friend's all Sorachi IPA was all passion fruit and plum, the closest thing I can compare it to is that bright red dragonfruit Vitamin Water flavor. I don't have recipe details besides "a lot of goddam Sorachi Ace", though. Maybe he threw like 6oz at it in the last 5 minutes plus a ton of Special B in the mash and that's what made it taste so weird, I dunno.
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Apr 7, 2012 07:50
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A brewpub I went to tonight had two pale ales with all NZ hops and they were very distinct. They're like noble Starbust-candy hops. Very interesting and weird. I'm gonna have to grab some at some point for my single-hopped pales so I can get a bead on them.
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Apr 7, 2012 09:51
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indigi posted:A brewpub I went to tonight had two pale ales with all NZ hops and they were very distinct. They're like noble Starbust-candy hops. Very interesting and weird. I'm gonna have to grab some at some point for my single-hopped pales so I can get a bead on them. I got a ton of tropical fruit out of a SMASH I did with Belgian Pilsner and Riwaka. I was even asked more than once if I had added mangoes or passionfruit or something to the beer. As for Sorachi Ace, I mostly get a lemon-peel kind of flavor out of it; I haven't noticed any particular tropical fruit character from it. It probably depends on exactly how it's used and all that.
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Apr 7, 2012 15:18
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Went over someones brew day with one of those Sabco rigs. It was... interesting. It seems like it takes more attention than just leaving it on its own. But then it doesn't take all that much attention so it'd be otherwise boring unless you invite people over to make a mini party of it.
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Apr 8, 2012 00:37
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I'm considering using citra for bittering my saison I'm brewing tomorrow but now I'm reading conflicting opinions about it. Some say citra give a strange off-flavor when used for bittering, other people say it's fine. Has anyone here bittered with citra before? Or specifically, bittered a saison with citra?
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Apr 8, 2012 02:29
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internet celebrity posted:I'm considering using citra for bittering my saison I'm brewing tomorrow but now I'm reading conflicting opinions about it. Some say citra give a strange off-flavor when used for bittering, other people say it's fine. Has anyone here bittered with citra before? Or specifically, bittered a saison with citra? I did an all Citra Zombie Dust clone and thought it came out wonderfully.
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Apr 8, 2012 03:52
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Okay, I tried the stout I bottled today. It kind of smelled vinegary. I used starsan in the bottles before I bottled them, and there was a little foam in the bottles. I know star san should be rinse free, but when I opened my bottle and drank some, it seemed to have that same type of foam. Did I ruin my beer?
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Apr 8, 2012 04:13
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Unless you dumped it into the bottles totally undiluted or something, no, you did nothing wrong with the StarSan. I'd suggest just leaving it alone (and out of the fridge) to condition for 2-3 weeks then trying another bottle. Very fresh homebrew can taste pretty weird but given time it abruptly turns a corner and becomes great. There could be a problem with it, but give it some time before you worry.
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Apr 8, 2012 06:59
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Gothmog1065 posted:Okay, I tried the stout I bottled today. It kind of smelled vinegary. I used starsan in the bottles before I bottled them, and there was a little foam in the bottles. I know star san should be rinse free, but when I opened my bottle and drank some, it seemed to have that same type of foam. Did I ruin my beer? This happened to an oatmeal stout my friend and I made. We decided to add chocolate to it in the secondary. I guess my friend just dumped in the powdered chocolate instead of boiling it first. Now we have a slightly sour cherry chocolate smelling oatmeal stout
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Apr 8, 2012 16:05
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I moved about a month ago, and my place is still kind of a mess. This morning I was tackling my office/beer room, putting away all my brewing supplies on some metal shelves I bought, when I discovered my canning/brewing pot suffered a fatal injury during the move. Looks like the movers jammed it against the corner of something hard, as there is now a huge dent in the bottom rim that is already starting to rust. I've had this guy on my to-buy list for a while, since my old pot was only ~4gal. Guess I'm gonna have to take the plunge. RIP babby's first brewpot 
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Apr 8, 2012 17:25
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lazerwolf posted:This happened to an oatmeal stout my friend and I made. We decided to add chocolate to it in the secondary. I guess my friend just dumped in the powdered chocolate instead of boiling it first. Now we have a slightly sour cherry chocolate smelling oatmeal stout Mine was the milk chocolate stout that a goon is selling in the 1 gallon kits, so no real surprises. I'll let it condition for another week (It's been two). On that note, will refrigerating it before its' done conditioning hurt it, or can I pull it out and continue? edit: come to think of it, it might have gotten too warm during the fermenting process. I'm going to have to wait until I have a house with central (Moving soon I hope) before trying again. Gothmog1065 fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 8, 2012 17:36
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It's more expensive and not as fun, but I've been doing mainly extract + specialty grain batches with short boils lately. I don't have as much time or space as I'd like, and it's a tad more expensive, but knocking out a 5 gallon batch in an hour and 45 minutes is really convenient. Just did a simple base with some Special B, unmalted wheat, and a bit of melanoidin that I'm going to pitch Roselare into.
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Apr 9, 2012 01:12
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Just wanted to check in after bottling my first batch. I've been lurking in the thread for about a month, I took some unused equipment from my dad's place, bought what I needed to fill the gaps, and brewed a Three C's IPA (Columbus, Cascade, Centennial) as my first ever homebrew. I bottled today, and couldn't help but give it a taste. It was flat, warm, and was a bit like drinking some sort of hoppy beer-wine, but it was amazing nonetheless. A lot of hard work all paying off at first sip! So I want to say thanks to everyone who posted questions and helpful tips in the thread, because they were a big help, even if I didn't speak up at the time. And I want to encourage the other lurkers that are thinking about getting into brewing: do it. It's awesome. More awesome than you can possibly imagine!
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Apr 9, 2012 02:32
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I have to say my strong pale ale from over a month ago is absolutely fantastic now. I took a bunch home for Easter and my family loved it. I was really surprised at how they all mellowed out so nicely with just ~2more weeks in the bottle (it had already been 1-2 in the bottle). So excited for this chocolate milk stout I got sitting in secondary now.
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Apr 9, 2012 02:50
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Congrats on your successful brews! Today I brewed the Amarillo and Citra IPA I posted about the other day. It went well, but didn't put as much of a dent in my hop stash as I envisioned. A crazy "one pound of hops per 5 gallons" triple IPA seems like the obvious solution, but I doubt I could drink a keg before it went stale. I might have to steal indigi's style and brew a bunch of quick pale ales with an assload of hops in the final 15 minutes.
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Apr 9, 2012 05:50
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Sorry if I missed any discussion on this earlier on the thread, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with one of these bad boys or anything similar. http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/The-Braumeister:_:21.html "The particular advantage is the fairly revolutionary, simple and leak-free use of the system. What makes the main difference is the malt no longer being washed out through an agitator, but by a gentle re-circulating pump treatment of the wort. Mashing, purifying and hop boiling are all done in one single kettle. The control is fully automatic and can be programmed according to the specific recipe. The Braumeister is designed for a brewing process of approximately 20 litres or 50 litres of beer. All sorts of bear such as wheat beer, pale or amber ale, Maerzen beer (German sort of dark strong beer) and many others, can be brewed. Thanks to its small size and simple handling, the Braumeister is ideal for domestic use in everybody’s kitchen."
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Apr 9, 2012 15:28
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djwetmouse posted:Sorry if I missed any discussion on this earlier on the thread, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with one of these bad boys or anything similar. No experience but you need a 220v circuit to even use one and they are also limited to ~1.060 OG beers by itself (you can always add some extract if you need to make bigger beers). My LHBS sells them and they have nothing but good things to say other than the two concerns above, one of the employees was even trying to trade his 3-vessel RIMS/HERMS machine for a Braumeister.
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Apr 9, 2012 16:18
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Just the fact that the 5 gallon version costs almost $2k USD is enough to turn me off of that, god drat.
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Apr 9, 2012 16:49
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Would there be anything wrong with making up a big batch of starter wort and canning it? It would be convenient to have good starter wort on hand so I wouldn't need to boil some up every time.
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Apr 9, 2012 16:55
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internet celebrity posted:Would there be anything wrong with making up a big batch of starter wort and canning it? It would be convenient to have good starter wort on hand so I wouldn't need to boil some up every time. Wort is so rich an environment for bugs that it's hard to get it clean enough to keep well. I have heard of it being done, I think via pressure canning. You could also just use commercial bottled malta, e.g, Malta Goya.
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Apr 9, 2012 17:05
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I'm thinking about trying a pseudo-lager sometime soon. In the homebrew secret santa, my santa sent me an absolutely phenomenal triple decoction Vienna lager. While I don't have the setup to do either a lager or a decoction mash (all-grain on my stovetop), I think I can sort of half attempt to approximate it by doing a step mash (which I most definitely can do) and either using a super clean ale yeast or a lager yeast at ale temps (according to an episode of Brewing TV, Wyeast's bavarian lager strain works for this). I think I'd be able to keep the temp around 60-62 or so through most of the ferment with a swamp cooler. Has anyone ever done a pseudo-lager before?
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Apr 9, 2012 17:37
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Anchor has done it basically forever. You might look into Wyeast 2112 California Lager. vvvv also, altbier is a phenomenal and underappreciated style. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Apr 9, 2012 |
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Apr 9, 2012 17:41
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crazyfish posted:I'm thinking about trying a pseudo-lager sometime soon. In the homebrew secret santa, my santa sent me an absolutely phenomenal triple decoction Vienna lager. While I don't have the setup to do either a lager or a decoction mash (all-grain on my stovetop), I think I can sort of half attempt to approximate it by doing a step mash (which I most definitely can do) and either using a super clean ale yeast or a lager yeast at ale temps (according to an episode of Brewing TV, Wyeast's bavarian lager strain works for this). I think I'd be able to keep the temp around 60-62 or so through most of the ferment with a swamp cooler. Has anyone ever done a pseudo-lager before? Look into making a Kolsch. It straddles the line between lagers and ales.
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Apr 9, 2012 17:43
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The White Labs German Ale or San Francisco Lager strains will both do a good job replicating the very neutral flavor profile of the more traditional lager yeasts. The German Ale strain in particular has become one of my favorites - it really leaves hop flavor and aroma completely untouched, moreso than the Anchor (SF Lager) strain IMO.
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Apr 9, 2012 17:47
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Huge_Midget posted:Look into making a Kolsch. It straddles the line between lagers and ales. I actually just used the Wyeast Kolsch strain to make a clone of New Glarus' Spotted Cow. I'll have to see how the higher ferment temps made it act; I'm probably going to bottle it tomorrow. If it wasn't clear from my post, I was planning on doing an all-Vienna malt pseudo-lager. Hope it comes out half as good as j3rkstore's.
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Apr 9, 2012 17:51
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