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So does anyone have any experience in trying to get maple sap? Not syrup, but the actual tree sap that they boil down for syrup. I was thinking it might be a cool idea to brew a beer using sap instead of water.
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Sep 23, 2012 17:00
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Midorka posted:It will take longer to get to boil point, and longer to cool off with a bigger pot for no increase in quality.
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Sep 23, 2012 17:25
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Daedalus Esquire posted:So does anyone have any experience in trying to get maple sap? Not syrup, but the actual tree sap that they boil down for syrup. I've heard of people doing this: unfortunately I live in another state from my uncle that makes syrup or I'd have an easy source. But from what I gather it's a matter of finding someone that does, and asking them if they'll sell you a few gallons of sap: you're just only going to be able to get it when it's in season, late winter or early spring when the temperatures are first reliably breaking freezing. It takes 40 or 50 volumes of sap to make one volume of syrup, so a full boil worth of maple sap should give you equivalent maple content to a pint of syrup or so.
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Sep 23, 2012 20:12
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Ok, maybe I'll look around for local syrup producers then. It shouldn't be too hard since I'm in upstate NY. I'd probably only do a gallon or two batch with it at first, but I'm curious as to how a beer made with it would turn out.
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Sep 23, 2012 20:25
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I know it's been discussed before, but is it cool to let your beer sit in your primary longer than 2 weeks? Do you even need a secondary for most recipes under two months? I'm looking at doing a stout like this for the fall/winter and considering whether I need to futz with a secondary just yet.
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Sep 23, 2012 22:10
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I don't think a secondary is ever really *necessary* unless aging for 6+ months. There is probably a benefit to it when dry hopping or adding fruit and for clarity reasons, but yeast is pretty robust these days and won't die off and spill their guts into your beer. I had a cider that spent 8 months in primary and it tastes fantastic.
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Sep 23, 2012 22:57
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Daedalus Esquire posted:I don't think a secondary is ever really *necessary* unless aging for 6+ months. There is probably a benefit to it when dry hopping or adding fruit and for clarity reasons, but yeast is pretty robust these days and won't die off and spill their guts into your beer. I had a cider that spent 8 months in primary and it tastes fantastic. I think a secondary is *never* necessary unless you're transferring to a different vessel to gain some of the characteristics of that vessel, like, for example, a barrel, because it's rare when you're bulk aging a beer for that long. Sours can deal with autolyzed yeast - the autolyzed yeast feeds the bugs, and most other beers just plain don't need bulk aging for that long. I turned around a 9.6% quad in two months without ever transferring to secondary and it's probably the best thing I've ever brewed.
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Sep 23, 2012 23:46
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Daedalus Esquire posted:helpful crazyfish posted:Also helpful Awesome! Anyone have any suggestions on a flavorful extract kit or recipe to make for the holidays? It's too bad nobody has any maple syrup based recipes for sale.
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Sep 24, 2012 00:19
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I continue to plug Northern Brewer's Saison de Noel extract kit. The fermentation range is 70-95F so it doesn't need a refrigerated fermentation arrangement.
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Sep 24, 2012 00:25
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YASD posted:Awesome! Anyone have any suggestions on a flavorful extract kit or recipe to make for the holidays? It's too bad nobody has any maple syrup based recipes for sale. Problem with maple syrup is you need to use way more of it than you think you do to get a noticeable maple flavour after it ferments down. I've never done a maple beer, but I hear that fenugreek is what people use to approximate it.
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Sep 24, 2012 01:03
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I was under the assumption that you racked from primary to avoid off-flavors from sitting on the spent yeast.
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Sep 24, 2012 01:41
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That used to be the dogma, but these days we are pitching more yeast and healthier yeast, so it does not get stressed and nutrient-deficient like it used to when brewers pitched a 5g packet of dry yeast that had been stored at room temp for god knows how long and might not have been all that clean to begin with. We have better temperature control over our ferments, we're not brewing with malt extract that was made for the baking industry, and we have much, much better sanitation.
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Sep 24, 2012 01:59
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Yea, that's used to be the reason when home brewing was a young hobby, but now that there are several yeast labs that produce high quality yeast for brewing they generally don't end up rotting away and making things taste gross anymore. As I just said, I had a cider sitting on the yeast cake with no ill effect for 8 months. :edit: beaten with better explanation
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Sep 24, 2012 02:10
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I recently brewed a sour and pitched a starter of little dregs. Its been a week and I opened the lid to add some more dregs and noticed that there was some mold growing on top. There were little white rafts with forest green in the middle. I skimmed them off using a spoon and sealed it back up. I'm hoping that it will eventually turn into alcohol and repel any future mold, buy does the fact that it was already there mean its ruined?
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Sep 24, 2012 02:24
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Are you sure it was mold? A lot of sour bugs make a coating on the top that looks like an infection...because essentially it is. Youre beer may or may not ever develop the usual krausen on it, and may end up looking really gross. Google image search for sour pellicle if you want to see how gross sour fermentations can look.
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Sep 24, 2012 03:29
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Yeah, Google "pellicle". If you're brewing with Brett or making a sour beer that weird white raft is actually helping. But don't sweat it, I'm sure it will come back
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Sep 24, 2012 03:57
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crazyfish posted:Problem with maple syrup is you need to use way more of it than you think you do to get a noticeable maple flavour after it ferments down. I've never done a maple beer, but I hear that fenugreek is what people use to approximate it. I gather it does help to use Grade B dark syrup since it's got a much stronger maple flavor that survives fermentation better. But even then, if you don't want to use a significant amount of syrup use fenugreek, right. Or just imitation maple flavor, which is made from fenugreek anyway.
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Sep 24, 2012 09:44
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Docjowles posted:Yeah, Google "pellicle". If you're brewing with Brett or making a sour beer that weird white raft is actually helping. But don't sweat it, I'm sure it will come back He said it was green though. I've never had any of my pellicles turn anywhere close to green. Just get the mold out and try to stay sanitary. Also stop opening your bucket up. Depending on the what is in your dregs you can start to produce a ton of acetic acid with oxygen exposure. Yesterday I racked the Tropical Sour into the rum barrel. It is a berliner base fermented with Lacto. 4 days later pitched in brett and added 6lbs of peaches. 2 months later it's going into the rum barrel with 1/2 gallon pineapple juice and 1/2 gallon papya juice. 
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Sep 24, 2012 17:27
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Somehow I love Abbey beers but have never made a Dubbel, so I rectified that this weekend. I was surprised by how little and how light of a candi syrup I needed to get into the right color range, just a pound of 90 Lº candi syrup with a pound of table sugar, with straight pilsner malt in the grain bill. I've been lazy about starters and oxygenation for a while, so I got it done this time and had a nice yeasty mess to clean up this morning. No regrets. Bigdee4933 posted:Yesterday I racked the Tropical Sour into the rum barrel. It is a berliner base fermented with Lacto. 4 days later pitched in brett and added 6lbs of peaches. 2 months later it's going into the rum barrel with 1/2 gallon pineapple juice and 1/2 gallon papya juice.
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Sep 24, 2012 18:30
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I had last week off so I made some progress on a few brewing projects. My mead yeast trial is entering the aging phase now.  Left to right is Wyeast Sweet Mead, Wyeast Dry Mead, Lalvin 1116, Baker's yeast, and Lalvin DV10. I also had Lalvin 1118 but it was in a dark green jug so no picture. There was another jug with Lalvin RC212 but it got an infection so I dumped it. I'll transfer the 1118 to a clear jug and get a new picture once I've racked them all off their lees for aging. The Wyeast Sweet is obviously the clearest with the Dry version right behind it. I picked them up from the LHBS and they were both less than 1 week old. The sweet version swelled right up after smacking but the dry version took 3 days. I racked a batch of mead with Lalvin 71B-1122 onto 8 pounds of tart cherries that were pitted and frozen. After about a week it's picked up a nice pink color but not much flavor yet. I bottled a batch of cyser that had been aging for about 12 months. It came out better than I expected with a deep medium gold color. Yesterday I made up a new 5 gallon batch with RC212 that will be getting about 7 pounds of blackberries after primary. Even though it got it infected during the trial it was still the besting tasting out of all of them up to that point. I also cleaned up, sanded and put a finish on the cider press. Same for the apple grinder that was held together by clamps last year. I replaced the stock garbage disposal motor that overheated with a big general purpose motor. There are a few boxes of apples waiting to be pressed so I'll post some action shots soon.
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Sep 24, 2012 19:13
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I'm going to make my first yeast starter tonight and have a couple of questions. 1. How do I determine if I need a 1000mL or 2000mL starter? 2. If I make a starter of a given volume, do I decrease the amount of water I add to the wort by that amount (i.e. if I make a 2000mL starter, I should only have ~ 4.5 gal of wort)?
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Sep 24, 2012 19:22
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BDawg posted:I'm going to make my first yeast starter tonight and have a couple of questions. This will help you ball park how big the starter should be. You could make less wort if you wanted, but a smarter idea is to make the starter a few days in advance and then throw it in the fridge once its done to separate the yeast from what is probably some foul tasting beer. When you're ready to pitch, take it out of the fridge, pour off most of the separated beer, and you're good to go.
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Sep 24, 2012 19:25
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Yeah, the "beer" that results when you make a starter smells and tastes awful. You don't want to dump that into your wort.
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Sep 24, 2012 19:28
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A starter is just a roughly 1.030 gravity DME + water mixture that you boil for 10 minutes. Why wouldn't you add the whole amount of liquid and yeast to your batch? Setting aside the ridiculous numbers that Jamil suggests on Mr. Malty, I did a starter for my last batch. It was 11 gallons of 1.050 OG Scottish 80 shilling, and I only had to make 1.5 liters of 1.030 unhopped wort that I pitched 1 vial of WLP028 into. I split the batch between two 6.5 gallon carboys and added roughly 750 mL of the starter to each. I didn't know that people decanted their starters unless they were making some really ridiculously large amount.
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Sep 24, 2012 20:46
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Depending on your environment, it could be 1500ml of beer fermented at like 85* that has been constantly oxygenated. Have you ever tried drinking the starter? It doesn't taste good and I don't want that in my beer if I can help it. It can also screw with your target color depending on what you're making.
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Sep 24, 2012 20:58
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Huge_Midget posted:A starter is just a roughly 1.030 gravity DME + water mixture that you boil for 10 minutes. Why wouldn't you add the whole amount of liquid and yeast to your batch? Setting aside the ridiculous numbers that Jamil suggests on Mr. Malty, I did a starter for my last batch. It was 11 gallons of 1.050 OG Scottish 80 shilling, and I only had to make 1.5 liters of 1.030 unhopped wort that I pitched 1 vial of WLP028 into. I split the batch between two 6.5 gallon carboys and added roughly 750 mL of the starter to each. I didn't know that people decanted their starters unless they were making some really ridiculously large amount. Well, it really depends - for example, lager starters are usually like a gallon of wort for 5 gallons of finished beer. You definitely want to decant that off. But even with low gravity ales I just don't see the point of putting something known to be gross in the beer when it takes no real effort to pour the gross stuff off.
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Sep 24, 2012 20:59
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Having never done a starter I am really confused about why the yeast would be producing a beer that tastes like butt in the starter wort but switch to more lovely flavors as soon as they're dumped in the wort proper. Is the starter being made with something horrible for a wort? I thought it was usually just a sugar solution of some variety.
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Sep 24, 2012 21:11
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Splizwarf posted:Having never done a starter I am really confused about why the yeast would be producing a beer that tastes like butt in the starter wort but switch to more lovely flavors as soon as they're dumped in the wort proper. Is the starter being made with something horrible for a wort? I thought it was usually just a sugar solution of some variety. One part is that you ferment a starter in a highly aerated fashion, as opposed to the anaerobic conditions of making actual beer. This encourages healthy yeast reproduction, but it doesn't generate the same chemical output or alcohol content. Another is that generally you're not going to temperature control a starter too rigorously and it's probably going to be fermenting warmer than you'd want the actual beer. This makes more off flavors. If the conditions for making ideal starter were the same as for making ideal beer, you wouldn't need to make a starter in the first place.
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Sep 24, 2012 21:21
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I've been dumping my whole starter into the wort for the past couple years 
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Sep 24, 2012 21:58
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j3rkstore posted:I've been dumping my whole starter into the wort for the past couple years And I bet all your batches tasted awful!!!!!
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Sep 24, 2012 22:17
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It's certainly not the end of the world. If i'm pressed for time I'll just throw the whole thing in too, but if you can avoid potential off flavors in such an easy way, I figure why not
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Sep 24, 2012 22:25
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I guess I take for granted that I keep my house at 67 degrees year round. I also add a small amount of yeast nutrient to the starter, to really boost it. I've tasted starter before and it tastes like DME based wort plus yeast. It's no worse than what you get if you drink the yeast sludge off the bottom of a bottle-conditioned bottle of beer.
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Sep 24, 2012 22:31
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j3rkstore posted:I've been dumping my whole starter into the wort for the past couple years This is what I do, doesn't really affect the taste of the batch at all. I understand the concern around it, but it hasn't made a discernible effect in any beer I've made, in fact my starters smell awful as soon as they're made and all they have in it is DME. I made plenty of good beers with DME prior to going all grain, but boiled DME with no hops in it does not smell appealing - all trace of that disappears when mixed into properly hopped wort though. Decant or no, two tickets to the same organ, IMO. I appreciate how quickly the beer starts fermenting and thus warding off infection, but others will appreciate discarding what they see as sub-par and oxygenated wort (even if all the oxygen will shortly be displaced by CO2). Just go with whatever feels right, and if you don't like the results just try something else out.
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Sep 24, 2012 23:24
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I'm getting ready to bottle my Caribou Slobber brown ale, finally! The jerks at NB forgot the corn sugar, so I have use my own table sugar. The recipe requires 2/3 cup of corn sugar, which I don't have. The email I got back from NB says that I should use 5/8 cup of table sugar. Does this sound right? I don't want my first brew to come in under carbed. If it matters, I like a good head. Also, how can I tell if my 5 gallon bucket full of star San water is still good without the use of a ph meter/strips? Is there really a way of checking by the "clarity" of the solution? It's been stored in a warm garage in Texas if that matters. LaserWash fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Sep 25, 2012 |
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Sep 25, 2012 01:06
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If it's cloudy it's spent. However, the only way to know if it's good is based on ph. Did you use DI or RO water to make it and has it been in a closed vessel? I made a starsan solution with DI water a couple months ago and it's still clear and has a ph around 2.5 so it can last a while.
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Sep 25, 2012 01:32
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LaserWash posted:I'm getting ready to bottle my Caribou Slobber brown ale, finally! http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html
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Sep 25, 2012 01:35
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Had my first brew day yesterday and am so stoked about plunging in head first. Went all out and got a starter kit that skipped bottling straight into kegging with forced CO2. Read the poo poo out of this thread and popped for the things everyone had deemed useful or necessary, skipped over a couple of other things and learned a ton. It has been almost 4 years, but goddamned I always forget just how anal goons are about poo poo they get interested in.  I bought two kits with specialty grains to start with, as I got a decent brew pot as well that let's me keep a steady, accurate temp: a Sierra Pale Ale clone and an Autumn Amber Ale. I figured starting with low gravity beers would be the best way to to get down the basics before I really gently caress something up. Wow, was I in for a totally new experience! Coming off of a good 6-7 year binge on video games, I was looking for a hobby to help occupy my time away from my computer and keep me busy while abstaining. After a bunch of weird soul-searching I decided that since I love beer so much and go to local breweries pretty much every week to refill growlers that this might be the direction I wanted to take. At first I started looking at basic starter kits, reading the forums, reading "How to Brew" by John Palmer under all of your recommendations. I eventually decided, go big or go broke! The natural motto of anyone ever addicted to economies in MMOs. Got most of my equipment on Wednesday and promptly started cleaning my basement that had been left deserted for the last 3 years due to never having a reason to go down there. Took until Sunday to get it sorted, cleaned, and sanitized, but I wound up making a pretty sweet workspace for homebrewing with some cinder blocks, an old door, and some cheap $30 plastic shelves next to my basement sink. I cleaned everything obsessively and waited until Sunday when my buddy could come over and help me with our first brew. He wanted to do the IPA first. We hosed up at first by misreading the pretty vague recipe that came with the IPA kit and steeped the grain bag from 60°F to 150°F and then another 30 minutes at ~150°F. It smelled a lot like hay, and the product in the fermentator right now is crazy dark, so I'm thinking the extra steeping probably had something to do with it. Not sure if this is actually going to have big ramifications on the flavor profile of the beer, but hoping it doesnt. My buddy left after we made the IPA and I decided to go for broke and make the Autumn Amber Ale the same day as well. My fiance was a pretty big trooper through the second batch, as I didn't have anyone around to help me carry the 5 gallons of wort down my basement steps to siphon into the carboy and then back upstairs to our coat closet. I had no idea this was such a workout! My gaming-conditioned arms were screaming at me from neglect. But eventually I finished the batch of Amber Ale and had a closet full of 10 gallons of wort! gently caress yeah!  The temperature dropped to the high 30s last night and I had forgotten to turn the heat on, so I woke up this morning freezing and fearing the worst for the fementation. I checked out the carboys and those fuckers had stayed at a solid 72°F and the IPA had already started to develop krausen! I was stoked, turned the heat on so I could actually get dressed comfortably, told my fiance to "turn off the heat when you leave" and headed off to work. A few hours later I checked with her and asked if she had remembered to turn off the heat, she replied "No." and I again, freaked out. I took my lunchbreak and raced home as fast as I could to turn the heat off and make sure I hadn't experienced a blow off due to the high heat. As soon as I opened the door I saw this:  Being a novice, this was startling to see how fast the yeast had already worked it's magic on both beers. The krausen on the IPA had a thick hop-covered krausen, and the amber ale already had started to develop about an inch of foam on the top. Both carboys still at a steady 72°F. I reread a bunch of stuff about the primary fermentation process and ultimately decided that they both seemed really healthy and I had nothing to worry about, shut the heat off, and went back to work. Got home tonight and they look even more funky and awesome. I've been opening the door to the closet probably every 15 minutes and checking out the progress and watching the bubbles both inside the carboys and in the airlocks just go go go. This is some of the most rewarding fun I've had in a long time, and I'm now totally hooked and can't wait to brew my next batches and thinking constantly about how to improve my efficiency in the brew process. I absolutely need to get a propane burner for the boils, I definitely need a carboy carrier to help me get them up and down my basement steps, and I think I'm probably going to pop for a big chest freezer now, as opposed to a medium-sized one. This poo poo is expensive, but holy poo poo is it fun and obsessive! I think for my next batches I'm going to try higher gravity beers: Saison de Noel (since everyone in this thread seems really into this kit) and Dead Ringer. It's hard for me not to want to buy two more carboys to just brew these this week, but I'm going to restrain myself and use that money to buy food. 
hellfaucet fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Sep 25, 2012 |
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Sep 25, 2012 01:39
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That is an enormous cat.
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Sep 25, 2012 01:47
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Angry Grimace posted:That is an enormous cat. The picture skews his size a little, but yeah those are 6.5 gallon carboys, and I do call him "Big Boy."
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Sep 25, 2012 01:56
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hellfaucet posted:The picture skews his size a little, but yeah those are 6.5 gallon carboys, and I do call him "Big Boy." I thought it was just an effect of the picture at first, but his head appears to be over your 5 gallon marker.
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Sep 25, 2012 02:25
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