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I purchased several of the 1gal home brewing kits a while ago from craft a brew on the forums but moved before I got the chance to brew them all. I only have a 1,500 watt hot plate to cook with now. Would that be a reasonable way to heat up 1 gallon of water? If not I think I would like to buy the Bayou Classic SQ14 propane burner. I could brew outside and also cook with it as a grill I suppose. What would you advise? Plus the SQ14 would work well when/if I move up to 5 gal kits. The SQ14 seems to be highly reccomended by other brewers.
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Jul 19, 2012 05:27
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space pope posted:I purchased several of the 1gal home brewing kits a while ago from craft a brew on the forums but moved before I got the chance to brew them all. I only have a 1,500 watt hot plate to cook with now. Would that be a reasonable way to heat up 1 gallon of water? If not I think I would like to buy the Bayou Classic SQ14 propane burner. I could brew outside and also cook with it as a grill I suppose. What would you advise? Plus the SQ14 would work well when/if I move up to 5 gal kits. The SQ14 seems to be highly reccomended by other brewers. I've never heard of a house that doesn't have a stove at all. In any case, I personally recommend brewing outside with propane setups for every brewer that can feasibly do so. In other news, I'm really going to miss having this APA around the house when this keg finally kicks. I'm a terrible person. I brewed it with a friend and told him I'd bottle some up for him, but I totally didn't do it and drank all of it.
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Jul 19, 2012 08:30
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Angry Grimace posted:I've never heard of a house that doesn't have a stove at all. In any case, I personally recommend brewing outside with propane setups for every brewer that can feasibly do so. Fooled you!
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Jul 19, 2012 08:45
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icehewk posted:I'd like to give it a shot myself. Have you tried using an ale yeast with it? I don't have lagering capability yet. Never done it with an ale yeast, it'd turn out pretty different but still a fine beer I'm sure. I'd use US-05 if you can only keep it in the high 60s when fermenting, and Wyeast German Ale if you can keep it around 60*. space pope posted:The SQ14 seems to be highly reccomended by other brewers. That's a great burner, but I don't think I'd recommend it for 1 gallon batches. I don't think you could keep the flame low enough for a 60 minute boil without boiling off too much water. Just try boiling a gallon of water on your hot plate and if it doesn't work buy a better hot plate. Or just skip the 1 gallon kit and go straight to 3 or 5 gallon batches and get the propane burner. I never really understood why anyone would do all the work just to make like 9 beers when all is said and done.
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Jul 19, 2012 11:22
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Josh Wow posted:Never done it with an ale yeast, it'd turn out pretty different but still a fine beer I'm sure. I'd use US-05 if you can only keep it in the high 60s when fermenting, and Wyeast German Ale if you can keep it around 60*. That's what i was thinking. I got the 1 gal kind of an intermediate test. I am a terrible cook so if I also turn out to be a terrible brewer I will have spent a lot less money on the 1 gal kit then if I bought a 5 gal setup. If I can make a few 1 gal kits without killing anyone I'll move up to 5 gal when I'm done. Angry Grimace posted:I've never heard of a house that doesn't have a stove at all. In any case, I personally recommend brewing outside with propane setups for every brewer that can feasibly do so. I have a stove but hte landlord turned off the gas. He keeps promising to replace it with a new electric stove "soon."
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Jul 19, 2012 14:37
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Bottled up my saison last night. Only got 42 bottles out of it...the OG was right on track, 1.041 and it finished 1.010. Now the waiting game. Here's a visual! 
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Jul 19, 2012 15:58
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lazerwolf posted:Bottled up my saison last night. Only got 42 bottles out of it...the OG was right on track, 1.041 and it finished 1.010. Now the waiting game. Couldn't be bothered to clean the labels off? For shame 
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Jul 19, 2012 16:10
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Mr. Glass posted:Couldn't be bothered to clean the labels off? For shame Hey, if you're lazy you can use the beer labels to hazily remember what's in there rather than appropriately marking the caps and taking notes... That's how come I have a closet full of beers that I'm not entirely sure what they are. God drat I love kegging.
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Jul 19, 2012 16:15
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Mr. Glass posted:Couldn't be bothered to clean the labels off? For shame I did a bunch from past brews but giving out 6 packs to friends I lost all of those bottles. Plus some of those labels are on there really well, as Professor Farnsworth would say, "It's stuck in there with glue or something, I don't know."
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Jul 19, 2012 16:30
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lazerwolf posted:I did a bunch from past brews but giving out 6 packs to friends I lost all of those bottles. Plus some of those labels are on there really well, as Professor Farnsworth would say, "It's stuck in there with glue or something, I don't know." 
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Jul 19, 2012 16:38
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Super Rad posted:<label chat> Me too. I use a big fat Sharpie to write right on the side of the keg. To be fair, though, I did spend a whole bunch of effort a while ago to go through all my kegs and scrape off old labels and stickers, along with accumulated dirt and adhesive residue.
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Jul 19, 2012 16:47
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Josh Wow posted:70% vienna Forgive my ignorance, but can you explain your hops? Is that half added at 20 minutes and half added at flameout, or am I reading that wrong?
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Jul 19, 2012 16:54
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Jo3sh posted:Me too. I use a big fat Sharpie to write right on the side of the keg. I just throw masking tape on the front face of the keg with the beer inside + the date it was kegged. Also put a piece on the top handle with the name of the beer so that I can see it from above in the keggerator as well. Hoping to get another chest freezer off craigslist that is bigger than the 7cu ft now to store these things in-- I am officially out of space.
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Jul 19, 2012 16:58
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I used this stuff once and it made me feel like a layer of skin was coming off. My hands were slippery for an hour. I guess I should have worn gloves. It was a creepy experience.
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Jul 19, 2012 17:34
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PBW does get slick as hell but it rinses off easily in warm water unless you used like 8x the normal concentration.
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Jul 19, 2012 18:11
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Splizwarf posted:Forgive my ignorance, but can you explain your hops? Is that half added at 20 minutes and half added at flameout, or am I reading that wrong? I'll let Josh Wow confirm, but my reading of that recipe is that you should do a bittering addition and then use an equal amount of hops split up from 20 to 0 minutes (e.g., 20% each at 20m, 15m, 10, 5m, and flame out), with the entire recipe coming in at 20-25 IBU. EDIT: I just faked up a recipe in Hopville for this. Here's the hop schedule reflecting what I tried to describe above: 1.25 oz Tettnang @4.5% 60m .25 oz Tettnang @4.5% 20m .25 oz Tettnang @4.5% 15m .25 oz Tettnang @4.5% 10m .25 oz Tettnang @4.5% 05m .25 oz Tettnang @4.5% 0m In five gallons of 1.052 all-grain beer, this comes out just a tiny bit bitter, at 26.8 IBU. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jul 19, 2012 |
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Jul 19, 2012 18:24
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lazerwolf posted:I did a bunch from past brews but giving out 6 packs to friends I lost all of those bottles. Plus some of those labels are on there really well, as Professor Farnsworth would say, "It's stuck in there with glue or something, I don't know." I usually just soak the bottles in Oxyclean and hot water in the bathtub and they come right off; I use a Brillo steel wool pad or a scrubbie with some mild dish soap to get the rest of the gunk off. Its worked pretty well, with the exception of certain companies that apparently use some kind of cement to affix their labels.
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Jul 19, 2012 21:20
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Jo3sh posted:I'll let Josh Wow confirm, but my reading of that recipe is that you should do a bittering addition and then use an equal amount of hops split up from 20 to 0 minutes (e.g., 20% each at 20m, 15m, 10, 5m, and flame out), with the entire recipe coming in at 20-25 IBU. You're halfway right. I meant to do about half the IBUs as your bittering addition and about half of them for flavor/aroma, but I didn't mean they needed to be split equally. In my version I did: 1 oz Tettnanger @ 60 1 oz Hallertauer @ 15 .5 oz Tettnanger @ 0 .5 oz Hallertauer @ 0 But you could play around with pretty much any sort of flavor/aroma additions and it'd turn out well.
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Jul 19, 2012 21:43
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Angry Grimace posted:I usually just soak the bottles in Oxyclean and hot water in the bathtub and they come right off; I use a Brillo steel wool pad or a scrubbie with some mild dish soap to get the rest of the gunk off. I've done this before I was just lazy this time. It really don't bother me at all to have labeled bottles
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Jul 19, 2012 22:34
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Angry Grimace posted:Its worked pretty well, with the exception of certain companies that apparently use some kind of cement to affix their labels. I've built up a theory that Alpine is anti-homebrewer. I swear they use a whole horse to glue on each label. Coronado's not much better. We need a "that said, gently caress bottling" emoticon, because seriously, that said, gently caress bottling.
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Jul 19, 2012 22:42
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If the labels don't come off after 20 minutes soaking in hot water + oxyclean then I recycle them instead. Sam Adams stuff seems to be fairly consistently easy to remove. That said I've just bought new bottles from the LHBS for the last 2 batches for the sake of time and effort. I haven't gotten into kegging yet (eventually) but I really don't mind bottling. I have the bottling bucket up on the counter with the bottle tree next to it and a bottling wand on the spigot. A bowl underneath to catch drips and a chair to sit in. The bottle tree with sanitizer injector is really the key though.
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Jul 19, 2012 23:01
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Brooklyn bottles seem to give me the most trouble out of anyone else. I don't even bother with them anymore, their bottles go straight into the recycling.
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Jul 19, 2012 23:12
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I like Deschutes bottles. Labels remove cleanly and they don't have any branding outside of a lovely wreath of hops around the base of the neck.
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Jul 19, 2012 23:28
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The labels on Erdinger, Spaten, and St. Pauli Girl bottles fall off if you look at them and the bottles are nice and heavy. However Spaten and St. Pauli Girl use green bottles. My beer doesn't last long enough for green bottles to be any kind of issue so I don't care.
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Jul 19, 2012 23:44
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Anyone know any good beers that come in swingtop brown bottles? I'd love to have a few of these lying around for transport to parties.
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Jul 20, 2012 00:03
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Anyone know any good beers that come in swingtop brown bottles? I'd love to have a few of these lying around for transport to parties. Hirschbrau Doppel-Hirsch is a wonderfully malty doppelbock that comes in 500ml brown swingtops.
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Jul 20, 2012 00:05
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Or I could have googled it...
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Jul 20, 2012 00:13
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RiggenBlaque posted:Brooklyn bottles seem to give me the most trouble out of anyone else. I don't even bother with them anymore, their bottles go straight into the recycling. Two Brothers gives me those troubles too, and I took the same course of action. My favourite bottles are New Glarus - the labels just seem to fly right off and leave no residue (though some of them have foil around the top and that is annoying to remove).
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Jul 20, 2012 00:40
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Josh Wow posted:70% vienna
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Jul 20, 2012 00:43
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On the subject of the one gallon kits: Thinking that I'll try a few and then go off on my own by buying my own ingredients. I understand that you should be able to use 1/5th of everything in a five gallon recipe, but does that also include the yeast? How are you kids with the one gallon kits making the yeast spread for five gallon kits over one gallon batches? LaserWash fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jul 20, 2012 |
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Jul 20, 2012 01:26
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You won't be overpitching the yeast by an amount that would be detrimental. In fact, you would probably fall right in line iwth Jamil's yeast calculator. I will say that if you have a pot big enough to make 5 gallons, you ought to just go for it. It is about the same amount of effort on your part to make 1 gallon as it is to make 5. A bit more to lift, and it takes a bit longer to boil and cool, but you get 50 bottles of beer instead of 10. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Jul 20, 2012 |
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Jul 20, 2012 01:38
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While a pack of yeast can be used successfully to brew 5 gallons of beer it's almost always recommended to make a yeast starter because more yeast is pretty much always better. So for 1 gallon just use a full pack of yeast and you'll be set. You could make a starter and then divide it up if you're using the same yeast for multiple batches brewed close together to save on yeast costs but I wouldn't try to divide up the same pouch/vial/packet of yeast.
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Jul 20, 2012 01:39
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Might also break off later and go the three gallon route. The biggest hurdle is that I have an electric stovetop and while it is in a new, nice house, I don't think it could make five to four'ish gallons of water boil. Don't know, don't have the pot to try, and kind of doubt it anyway. I know the hardcore guys make the water boil on propane burners. Does a gas grill, like you cook meat on, put out enough BTUs to make water boil? I'm probably imagining this, but it seems a half way decent grill could do something like that.
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Jul 20, 2012 02:10
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Depends on the burners. Keep in mind that you don't have to boil 5 gallons unless you are doing all grain. If using extract, you have much more flexibility for smaller boils. Regardless, do what fits right for you. I occassionally do three gallon all grain batches on my electric stove. My only real point is that you are going to dedicate 2 or 3 hours minimum to this, and you might as well get more for your time and effort. Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jul 20, 2012 |
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Jul 20, 2012 02:17
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How much water WOULD you need to boil? I also had it in my mind that I was going to experiment with smaller batches so I wasn't making 45 bottles of beer I didn't end up liking. As I found my groove I was planning on expanding. LaserWash fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jul 20, 2012 |
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Jul 20, 2012 02:25
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LaserWash posted:How much water WOULD you need to boil? Extract is boiling 3 gallons to dilute to 5. If you don't like your beer (fat chance) you can give it to people who will like it just because you made it and they will owe you favors.
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Jul 20, 2012 02:33
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Spent way too much time tonight redoing some kegerator stuff. Cleaned all the lines, bottled 10 gallons of cider and applewine and filled 4 kegs with beer. I need to pick up a 5 or 6 way gas block. Tees strike me as a terrible idea. Also, stout faucet and a nitro bottle!   e: Anybody have suggestions for a faucet cover for a stout faucet? I'm at a loss.
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Jul 20, 2012 02:43
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Hypnolobster posted:Spent way too much time tonight redoing some kegerator stuff. Cleaned all the lines, bottled 10 gallons of cider and applewine and filled 4 kegs with beer. I need to pick up a 5 or 6 way gas block. Tees strike me as a terrible idea. What did you do to secure the collar to the body of the freezer?
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Jul 20, 2012 02:50
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I was thinking of adding some juniper berries to a future batch, maybe the stout kit I've got laying around. When is the best time to add them? Fermentation? During the boil would probably just kill the flavor, right? How much would be a good idea to add to a 5 gallon kit? And should they be thrown in whole berry, or crushed up first, or what?
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Jul 20, 2012 03:04
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zerox147o posted:What did you do to secure the collar to the body of the freezer? I took the rim of the freezer apart (carefully) to see where the coils started, and then I used construction adhesive to put blocks of soft wood into the void under the rim and then adhesived it all back together. The collar is just toenailed through the rim of the freezer into the wood. There's a bead of silicone caulk around it, too. Mine isn't really the ideal method, but I was drinking. It's also a horrible 90's chest freezer that was $25 so I wasn't too terribly worried about it.
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Jul 20, 2012 03:07
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