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Kelley Geuscaulk posted:Lagunitas has put out a clone challenge for the National Homebrew Conference this year. They gave their recipe out and are challenging homebrewers to put up against the real Hop Stoopid. Extract contributes the desired IBU without soaking up too much wort compared to the equivalent amount of hops. I think it's mainly to keep production costs down.
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May 8, 2012 16:07
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lazerwolf posted:I think it's mainly to keep production costs down. Ahh, I was looking at if from a flavor perspective but that makes a lot of sense when your making like 85bbl batches.
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May 8, 2012 16:19
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Angry Grimace posted:Anyone got any advice on the best place to get Corny Kegs? I need a couple to get started, but I have no clue if there's some source that's way better than others or whatever. A lot of places seem out of stock too. Craigslist is a bit of a bust around here since you pretty much have to pounce on an offer within the hour it gets posted. Way too many people like us who want to get a foot in the kegging game. Midwest had a 10% off thing on their 2-keg + CO2 + hoses + regulator combo that I jumped on last week, not sure if it's still active but for all the parts (assuming you need more than just the kegs themselves) I think you'd be hard-pressed to beat it. Also, if they don't hold pressure or are otherwise hosed up, they take returns if it's dysfunctional out of the box. A friend advised trying some of the local homebrew clubs. You have dudes in those things going fairly quickly from 5 > 15gal kegs and they'd prefer to keep their well-maintained kegs in the hands of people who would do the same, not some rando on CL with $50.
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May 8, 2012 16:21
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Kelley Geuscaulk posted:Ahh, I was looking at if from a flavor perspective but that makes a lot of sense when your making like 85bbl batches. It also gives you just the hop resin flavors without the vegetal flavor of the flowers themselves.
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May 8, 2012 16:21
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Further down the page it also reads that they used to get all of their bitterness from Simcoe hops prior to 2007 after which it was no longer economical.
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May 8, 2012 16:28
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Jo3sh posted:Any decent yeast will - it's really just a fairly simple collection of sugars. gently caress if I know what it would be called, though - somewhere between mead and pulque, I guess, depending on how much honey is involved. I don't know how the nutrients in agave nectar are - you may want to add some to get a healthy ferment. He added a pound of honey to it to make it technically a specialty mead for competition, which isn't a lot of help on the naming issue.
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May 8, 2012 17:52
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wattershed posted:Craigslist is a bit of a bust around here since you pretty much have to pounce on an offer within the hour it gets posted. Way too many people like us who want to get a foot in the kegging game. Midwest had a 10% off thing on their 2-keg + CO2 + hoses + regulator combo that I jumped on last week, not sure if it's still active but for all the parts (assuming you need more than just the kegs themselves) I think you'd be hard-pressed to beat it. Also, if they don't hold pressure or are otherwise hosed up, they take returns if it's dysfunctional out of the box.
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May 8, 2012 18:12
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Cornys seem drat near indestructible. I think some people just have infinite time and money with which to brew. If I brewed 10+ gallon batches, had a 6 tap kegerator and also always had some imperial stouts or whatever to age for years, I could imagine wanting a ton of kegs. Or if I wanted to make a run at the Ninkasi award and enter like 40 beers into NHC. However none of those is true of me so 3 has been plenty. They are really great for storage and even as a "secondary", though. Zero oxygen pickup, zero light exposure, and when you want to serve you don't need to rack again, just hook up 2 hoses.
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May 8, 2012 18:22
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I've produced 3.5 batches so far and I already want to have about 10 of them available. A 4-tap kegerator, backups for that, and a pair of travelers. Except I really should think about 3 travelers, for a light, a dark, and a cider. Hmm, maybe I need 11 or 12? Yeah, that stockpile could grow really easily. 
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May 8, 2012 19:00
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I realize this could probably go in the beer discussion thread, but I think it has relevance for home brewing as well. I saw this post linked by Matthew Clark of Thornbridge Brewery here in the UK: http://ghostdrinker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/is-ipa-still-ipa.html I'll post it here since it's not long: Ghost Drinker posted:Is IPA Still IPA? Living in the UK, the American hoppy IPA is definitely on the rise though nowhere near as ubiquitous as across the pond. Quite frankly, once you've tried a dry-hopped IPA there's little going back. Tasting something like Greene King's "IPA" is a disappointment in my opinion. So I tend to agree with the post. IPA is changing, and it's the Americans who are making it what it is becoming. I don't mind. I'm going to brew the hoppiest motherfuckers my friends have ever tasted. And then they're not going to go back to bland pub pale ale.
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May 8, 2012 19:20
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Kaiho posted:I realize this could probably go in the beer discussion thread, but I think it has relevance for home brewing as well. I saw this post linked by Matthew Clark of Thornbridge Brewery here in the UK:
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May 8, 2012 21:29
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Some friends are talking about going tubing on a river this summer, and I think it'd be fun to brew something refreshing to drink along the way. But we're pretty sure they won't allow glass, for safety reasons. Does anyone have experience using something other than kegs or glass bottles? I know in the UK you can get Strongbow and the like in a 2L plastic bottle, but I've never seen beer in something like that before. Any other suggestions? Any particular tricks or tips? (I don't know if it matters, but our usual setup is 5 gallon all-grain batches carbed/conditioned in 1L and/or 12oz glass bottles.)
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May 8, 2012 21:48
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Blistering Sunburn posted:Some friends are talking about going tubing on a river this summer, and I think it'd be fun to brew something refreshing to drink along the way. But we're pretty sure they won't allow glass, for safety reasons. Northern Brewer has these. I've never used them but I can't imagine they wouldn't work.
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May 8, 2012 21:53
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I've reused 1L Pepsi bottles to send beer to via checked luggage, and it has worked well so far. I'd say either just take a keg with you and tie it to your tube, or bottle off the tap into 1L PET bottles (or whatever size).Docjowles posted:Not sure I'd want a ~50lb anchor tied to my tube If it doesn't float, it just needs more headspace, so get to drinking until it bobs to the surface. And I had pictured in my mind one of the short kegs I use for roadtrips - prob. more like 30 pounds. A cooler of ice and Lite beer weighs just as much. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:26 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 8, 2012 23:16
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Not sure I'd want a ~50lb anchor tied to my tube 
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May 8, 2012 23:45
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Glad this topic came up actually, I've been meaning to myself. Another of my hobbies is river rafting. Aside from the day trips we usually run on weekends most of the year, we usually have a week long trip where we bring all supplies and enjoy a lengthy float. I'd like to take this to the next level and bring homebrew for the group, especially next year when we'll spend 18 days in the Grand Canyon on the Colorado. The upside of these trips is you can strap just about anything to the raft, so I'd like to figure out how to bring a few kegs with me. Keeping them cold isn't an issue, the river temperature is in the low 40s so as long as we can use that for cooling it should be fine. My question is that going through rapids and the like is sure to shake up the kegs and I would assume this would make pouring perfect pints difficult when we reach the campsite for the evening. Anyone have any experience with something similar? If I can't get the keg situation figured out, I'll probably invest in some party pigs to take with us, but it would be pretty sweet to bring several kegs instead.
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May 9, 2012 00:13
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Blistering Sunburn posted:Does anyone have experience using something other than kegs or glass bottles? I know in the UK you can get Strongbow and the like in a 2L plastic bottle, but I've never seen beer in something like that before. Any other suggestions? Any particular tricks or tips? The worry with soda bottles (which I bottle into, btw, I use 1 liter bottles that have held bitter lemon, tonic water, etc mixers) is that they are clear. They hold pressure like champs and in PET plastic oxygen transfer is minimal, at least for the time I keep my drinking brews around. But the clear plastic makes them ripe for skunking, especially if you are outside and you have hoppy brews. My brew room is in the basement so gets little to no natural light, and I've been okay so far but only ever intended the PET as a stop gap until I get enough glass or if I have to lug stuff to a festival or whatever.
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May 9, 2012 00:20
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Trane posted:<rafting> I've taken kegs in the car for long road trips, and in general the issue is pretty minimal. I've been able to pour reasonably well within a few minutes of stopping. Get some kind of portable CO2 solution like a paintball bottle or the one on homebrewfinds, and you should be ok. You can vent the headspace easily and adjust the pressure as needed. It's not perfect, but it's easily good enough for camping/rafting. vvvv Good point - I generally let the beer settle and clear in kegs, then jumper it over to fresh kegs for the road trip. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:30 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 00:21
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Depending on your clarifying steps you may want to take an extra one as your biggest issue will be yeast in suspension. Or just bring a weizen or saison.
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May 9, 2012 00:26
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My wife bought me a brooklyn brew shop 1 gallon brew kit and I finally got done with the brewing process and popped open my first bottle tonight. Not too bad, but I'll probably be sticking with letting the professionals do it until I can pay off some debt and save up to get a setup that I actually want. Anyways, how do I know if the batch I brewed is bad? When I opened the bottle, it seems like a lot of air or something in the bottle, as it popped off a lot louder than any other bottle I've ever opened...though that may be simply because the beer only went to the neck of the bottle and not an inch below the top like I normally see on bottles. It tastes alright...definitely a bit too sweet for me, though.
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May 9, 2012 01:04
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Kaiho posted:The worry with soda bottles (which I bottle into, btw, I use 1 liter bottles that have held bitter lemon, tonic water, etc mixers) is that they are clear. They hold pressure like champs and in PET plastic oxygen transfer is minimal, at least for the time I keep my drinking brews around. But the clear plastic makes them ripe for skunking, especially if you are outside and you have hoppy brews. My brew room is in the basement so gets little to no natural light, and I've been okay so far but only ever intended the PET as a stop gap until I get enough glass or if I have to lug stuff to a festival or whatever. Well the ones you buy for homebrew are both PET and not clear. No idea if the color really makes a difference in non-glass though.
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May 9, 2012 02:29
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nwin posted:My wife bought me a brooklyn brew shop 1 gallon brew kit and I finally got done with the brewing process and popped open my first bottle tonight. Not too bad, but I'll probably be sticking with letting the professionals do it until I can pay off some debt and save up to get a setup that I actually want. If it smells like horsy rear end or tastes like piss and vinegar it is infected; if it smells and tastes like beer it is probably not. I don't know what the recipe was but if it wasn't just intentionally too sweet for you, maybe the fermentation stalled out and left some unfermented sugars? That would also explain why the bottle really popped when you opened it - the fermentation might have been still creeping along and built up more pressure in the bottle than originally intended. Or maybe not, it just sounds vaguely reminiscent of my adventures with ham-flavored barleywine grenades last year 
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May 9, 2012 03:21
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Getting caught up with the thread after being away...mrwrong posted:I have a batch of the brewer's best summer ale bubbling away in my primary and my wife made the suggestion of adding some cardamom when I transfer it to the secondary. Has anyone done this before? I am not sure how much to add or if it should be the whole pods or the seeds. I'm thinking of just chucking some whole pods in a mesh bag and adding that to the secondary. Will that work or should i go with seeds instead of the whole pods? I made a Wit late last summer that was just 50/50 wheat/malt. I stuck in the traditional coriander, but then added some Star Anise, whole cardamom pods, fresh lemon grass, and fresh basil. I'm guessing that it was around half an ounce each for 10 gallons. Measuring the fresh stuff was "hey, these two stems I cut off just now look like enough". That beer smelled simply amazing. I wish I'd bottled some for the spring competition season. I added everything at the end of the boil for five minutes. I'll make it again this year, but I'll likely leave out the coriander all together. I don't have my notes handy but I probably bittered with a bit of cluster and had a saaz late addition. Next time I don't think I'd bother with late additions at all with all those other flavors working in there. Trane posted:Anyone have any experience with something similar? If I can't get the keg situation figured out, I'll probably invest in some party pigs to take with us, but it would be pretty sweet to bring several kegs instead. I take a keg on the back platform hitch to my football tailgates every home game in the fall. All we do is vent the keg and then repressurize with 16g CO2 carts and we're good.
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May 9, 2012 14:38
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Bass Concert Hall posted:If it smells like horsy rear end or tastes like piss and vinegar it is infected; if it smells and tastes like beer it is probably not. I don't know what the recipe was but if it wasn't just intentionally too sweet for you, maybe the fermentation stalled out and left some unfermented sugars? That would also explain why the bottle really popped when you opened it - the fermentation might have been still creeping along and built up more pressure in the bottle than originally intended. It smells/tastes like beer. It was their every day IPA. I have a little bit of hops coming through but not much...definitely not like other IPA's I've had. One thing I noticed is that after the boil and I put it in the carboy and pitched the yeast, I waited for about 3 days and never saw it bubble. Maybe bad yeast? After the 3 days, I took the airline off of it (that was submerged in a bowl of sanitized water), and replaced the airline with the airlock cap at the top and let it sit in my pantry for 2 weeks. After that I added 3 tbs of beer to the mix and bottled it, then stuck it back in the pantry for 2 weeks. Not sure why it's sweet...maybe too much honey? I remember when I was bottling it, it already seemed a bit sweet to me. Ah well, maybe home brewing just isn't for me right now...the rate of return to where it's cheaper to brew than buy some Sierra Nevada or something just isn't tangible right now, I think...
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May 9, 2012 15:18
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Would something like: 3.15# Wheat Malt Syrup 3# two-row 2# white wheat malt 1# flaked wheat Hallertau hops Make a decent wheat beer? Looking for a pretty simple base to turn into some kind of shandy for my gf.
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May 9, 2012 16:48
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To be quite honest, most of us aren't brewing cause it's cheaper. A lot of us have a "house batch" that we like and can brew 5 gallons of for $20, but like any hobby, a lot of us enjoy the design process or the actual brew day activities. What yeast did you use? I'm sure you fermented if the bottles made a popping noise when you opened them, that means at least some of the sugar is being converted. Also, since you bought a kit it's entirely possible that the yeast in the kit is old and most of the yeast was dead which can cause long lag times as the yeast gets it's population up. Actually, I have two of those 1 gallon Brooklyn brew shop kits on my shelf and I know they just put the yeast and hops in a little foil package in the brew bag, which isn't the best idea since you can't really pull out the yeast and hops to refrigerate them, and I don't think they get stored in refrigerated areas. As for the hops, the instructions for the brew on Brooklyn Brew Shop's webpage doesn't give you actual volumes, just when you should add fractions of the package. Looking at their schedule, I'd suggest a few changes, the first, is moving most of the cascade additions to further along in the boil. The Columbus addition and the first two cascade additions are really gonna contribute more to bitterness then to aroma and flavor, so if you double the 15 minute and the 5 minute addition you'll get more hop flavor. The second change I would add is to take the zero minute addition and throw that in the fermenter once the primary fermentation dies down so that you have at least some measure of dry hopping and the aromas don't all get blown out of the beer by the yeast. The last thing is, some types of yeast are real powerhouses, I don't think this is the case since you probably had pretty unhealthy yeast, but I've pitched yeast before going to bed and woken up to a completed fermentation, had I not taken a gravity reading, I'd have been none-the-wiser as to whether or not it fermented. Try letting your bottles sit for another week, then give them a taste and see how it's changed. If it appears to be getting less sweet then you're on the right track and maybe your yeast is just chugging along slowly (Don't keep your bottles cold, you need your yeast to be happy and active in this stage).
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May 9, 2012 17:02
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Daedalus Esquire posted:To be quite honest, most of us aren't brewing cause it's cheaper. A lot of us have a "house batch" that we like and can brew 5 gallons of for $20, but like any hobby, a lot of us enjoy the design process or the actual brew day activities. The yeast was just in a packet. The expiration date said 2013 iirc, but like you said, that stuff has been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long...I got the kit about 2 months ago and threw the hops and grain in the freezer, but I'm sure the damage had already been done sitting on the shelf forever. I'll take your advice and take the beer out of the fridge and let it hang out for another week. Stupid question time: Is there any chance of this beer getting overcarbonated and blowing up the bottles while it's hanging out in the pantry? I'd rather not come home one day to a huge sticky mess to clean up...
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May 9, 2012 17:11
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It's possible. It really depends on how much of that sweetness is fermentable sugar. Without gravity readings I can't really predict it, but try putting them in a box lined with towels if you are worried about it.
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May 9, 2012 18:11
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... Or just put them in a box lined with a garbage bag.
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May 9, 2012 18:14
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Or a cooler with the lid shut.
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May 9, 2012 18:15
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ChiTownEddie posted:Would something like:
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May 9, 2012 18:15
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BerkerkLurk posted:That looks great to me. American ale or German wheat yeast, depending on what you're looking for. The former would be good for something like Leinenkugel Summer Shandy (they use lager yeast, actually, but I never saw the point, then add lemon extract) and the latter you can use for German Russ (what they call half wheat beer, half lemon soda). Or whatever the hell you want, lots of Shandy options out there. Also try adding some grated lemon peel to your priming solution when you boil it before bottling. That assumes you're bottling, of course.
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May 9, 2012 19:00
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crazyfish posted:Also try adding some grated lemon peel to your priming solution when you boil it before bottling. That assumes you're bottling, of course. ...be careful with grated lemon peel. A teaspoon, even, goes a LONG loving WAY. My lemony saison is an rear end-kicker and a little underdimensional due to the overwhelming blast of lemon, and I barely used two teaspoons in a 5-gallon batch.
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May 9, 2012 20:44
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Daedalus Esquire posted:To be quite honest, most of us aren't brewing cause it's cheaper. A lot of us have a "house batch" that we like and can brew 5 gallons of for $20, but like any hobby, a lot of us enjoy the design process or the actual brew day activities. I see what you're saying, but don't discount the cost factor. I figure I saved around $1500 last year based on average batch price and a assumption of $8 six packs. (I brewed 15 ten gallon batches) Sure I've spent a bit on equipment over the last decade, and sure my time is worth something, but I could of paid myself $16 an hour and come out ahead. But yea, brewtime is play time for me. 
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May 9, 2012 20:57
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I agree, saving money on beer is not really a driver for my brewing - far more effective just to stop drinking - but I have to say I save money on it too. I brew 10 gallons of ordinary house beer for $25 or so, and big beers are around $40. Even at warehouse store case prices, I am getting a whole batch for the cost of 1 to 2 cases of decent beer.
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May 9, 2012 21:17
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I'm buying equipment tonight. Tell me about the Northern Brewer 10-gallon mash tun kit and what you like and don't like about it. Also, what are you guys using for sparging? How much force should I try to have? Will something as simple as a wide-headed watering can (with the right temp water in it of course) be effective?
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May 9, 2012 21:20
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Jo3sh posted:I agree, saving money on beer is not really a driver for my brewing - far more effective just to stop drinking - but I have to say I save money on it too. I brew 10 gallons of ordinary house beer for $25 or so, and big beers are around $40. Even at warehouse store case prices, I am getting a whole batch for the cost of 1 to 2 cases of decent beer. Are you factoring in equipment costs, though? I have a pretty modest setup and I would estimate I've spent about $1500 at least on equipment that is either dedicated to brewing (grain mills, mash tun, etc) or equipment that is multipurpose that I explicitly bought just for homebrewing (thermapen, electric drill, etc).
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May 9, 2012 23:03
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Sure... maybe I have about the same amount of gear you have. Or maybe more, I don't know what your rig is like and I have no idea what all my crap adds up to. But I've also been brewing for about 19 years now. Call it $100/year? That's like $8/batch, so even if you add that in, my house beer goes from $25 to $33 for ten gallons. ... and that assumes that the rig has depreciated in value to zero by this time, which is probably true from any kind of rational accounting perspective, but also means that I can stop counting previous expenditures in future batches. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 23:21 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 23:18
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Splizwarf posted:I'm buying equipment tonight. Tell me about the Northern Brewer 10-gallon mash tun kit and what you like and don't like about it. Also, what are you guys using for sparging? How much force should I try to have? Will something as simple as a wide-headed watering can (with the right temp water in it of course) be effective? Don't buy it. The coolers are priced roughly double or more what those coolers cost at Home Depot. Just buy the cooler conversion kits from a brewing shop (NB does have them, as do others, about 30 bucks a piece, and cheaper if you piece together the stuff from the hardware store) and buy the coolers themselves at your local hardware store/home depot. It's not like the NB Mash-tun kits are preassembled anyways. They just send you coolers and a conversion kit. Maybe even think about batch sparging if you want to go cheaper. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 23:56 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 23:47
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I think a massive part of it is the satisfaction. This is a hobby, much like any other. The money you spend on it just happens to produce a tangible (quaffable) product but hell, there's people spending money dressing up as cartoon characters in public. So your mileage may vary. I personally enjoy the crafting and social aspects. It's a pretty neat feeling pouring something you've made for a friend to have a taste and maybe even a buzz from. I get people may brew because of cost, given local taxation issues or whatever. I can't say I am anywhere in the black with this, having brewed what, 6 batches so far. But it is a hobby I've gotten into more than anything else in a while. Hell, most of my time procrastinating the past few terms have been reading either these threads or stuff like them. Various crap about the art of brewing It also makes me appreciate (or understand/critique) the beer I get commercially or in a pub much more thoroughly. I like being able to go not just "ooh, that's roasty and liquoricey" at a really robust porter, but also "that must be some serious amounts of brown and chocolate malts they've used to get it this thick". I even got two tiny little hop seedlings and am cultivating them in my garden in the vague (most likely vain) hope of getting just that bit closer to actually having made/nurtured something that will give me a buzz both taste and alcohol wise. Overall I've spent probably around £100 on equipment and another £200 on brewing ingredients or kits. The latest order that came today is a big chunk of that but will get me 5 whole batches. For 4 months' worth of time that's a significant outlay, but the fixed costs of fermenters etc will only decrease relative to total costs and quite frankly I most likely would have bought beer with at least part of that money anyway.
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May 9, 2012 23:54
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