|
Tried a bottle of the caribou slobber that I bottled on Tuesday morning. Holy crap, even with this being "incomplete" since I haven't really let it carbonate fully, this is better than half the beers you buy at the grocery or liquor store. Can't wait to taste the completed version.
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 03:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:50 |
|
|
Homebrewing: better than (at least) half the beers out there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 05:59
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:Homebrewing: better than (at least) half the beers out there. I think this is most suprising to those new to the hobby and the people they share with. A lot of "craft" places really do make poo poo and a decent amount of them don't condition what-so-ever, pushing beer through their stream in days.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 10:40
|
|
|
An old black man that used to drive forklifts at my high school job taught me to make the homebrew. I ended up using a 5 gallon bucket that was used for pool chemicals; a big bag of domino sugar; and yeast from the old country store. Fill to the top with water, stir, seal, and put the bucket out in the sun for a week or two. You know it's done when the bubbles disappear. Then filter into old two litre bottles and now you're set. Easy enough My finished product tasted funky sweet like champagne without carbonation. But you could get real drunk. crikster fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Sep 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 12:05
|
|
|
crikster posted:An old black man that used to drive forklifts at my high school job taught me to make the homebrew. I ended up using a 5 gallon bucket that was used for pool chemicals; a big bag of domino sugar; and yeast from the old country store. Fill to the top with water, stir, seal, and put the bucket out in the sun for a week or two. You know it's done when the bubbles disappear. Then filter into old two litre bottles and now you're set. Easy enough that sounds safe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 12:46
|
|
|
Jacobey000 posted:I think this is most suprising to those new to the hobby and the people they share with. A lot of "craft" places really do make poo poo and a decent amount of them don't condition what-so-ever, pushing beer through their stream in days. The one brewery up the street from me makes pretty good stuff, but talking to them in a tour once it sounds like their biggest challenge is dealing with turnaround time. Their demand has really outgrown their facilities even with expansion so they really can't let things condition long, even the scotch ale or other heavier ones.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 20:16
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:Homebrewing: better than (at least) half the beers out there. crikster posted:An old black man that used to drive forklifts at my high school job taught me to make the homebrew. I ended up using a 5 gallon bucket that was used for pool chemicals; a big bag of domino sugar; and yeast from the old country store. Fill to the top with water, stir, seal, and put the bucket out in the sun for a week or two. You know it's done when the bubbles disappear. Then filter into old two litre bottles and now you're set. Easy enough And simultaneously, worse than all of the beers out there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 20:44
|
|
|
crikster posted:An old black man that used to drive forklifts at my high school job taught me to make the homebrew. I ended up using a 5 gallon bucket that was used for pool chemicals; a big bag of domino sugar; and yeast from the old country store. Fill to the top with water, stir, seal, and put the bucket out in the sun for a week or two. You know it's done when the bubbles disappear. Then filter into old two litre bottles and now you're set. Easy enough Thus started Crickster's prince of tides summer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 21:33
|
|
|
Just brewed up my pumpkin ale for Halloween/Thanksgiving drinking. 4 lbs dry light extract 3 lbs dry wheat extract 1 lb Crystal 40 1.5 lbs pale malt .5 lb flaked wheat 3 lbs roasted pumpkin (just a splash of molasses) 2 oz fuggle 90 min 1 oz hallertau 60 min 1 oz fuggle 5 min 2 tsp mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves Wyeast 1056 American Ale Tasted drat good going into the primary, can't wait to try the finished product.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 22:07
|
|
|
Goddamn, what a ridiculously long brewday this is. Had a 22 pound grain bill and wound up with a stuck sparge. On top of that, I had to boil my second runnings waaaaaaaaaay down in order to hit my gravity. I started at about 11am and I'm about 15 minutes into the 60 minute boil (I've been basically boiling wort on my stove for about...three hours already?). It'll all be worth it though - the wort tastes super delicious already.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 23:48
|
|
|
crazyfish posted:Goddamn, what a ridiculously long brewday this is. Had a 22 pound grain bill and wound up with a stuck sparge. On top of that, I had to boil my second runnings waaaaaaaaaay down in order to hit my gravity. I started at about 11am and I'm about 15 minutes into the 60 minute boil (I've been basically boiling wort on my stove for about...three hours already?). It'll all be worth it though - the wort tastes super delicious already. Are you me? I'm brewing a dunkelweizen today and it's taking loving forever. Grain bag tore and spilled a bunch on the ground as I was doughing in, I scooped some into the mash tun but didn't want to get a bunch of dirt in there so a bit was lost. Then grain got under my false bottom and clogged up the sparge (twice!) so I had to dump everything into buckets and clean out the tubing. Came in 5 points low on my pre-boil gravity so I'm boiling way longer as well. I at least figured out that my false bottom is warped and that's how poo poo is getting past it. Now I need to figure out how to reshape it or just switch to one of those water tank hose braids because this poo poo is getting old. Edit: and now it's raining (I brew outside) Docjowles fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Sep 30, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 00:36
|
|
|
Jeez guys. I don't do all grain but oddly enough my dunkelweizen partial mash brew day was a ridiculously long one. Anywho, does any one have a good (simple?) Red ale recipe that I can shamelessly butcher? I was talking to my ultimate team today about home brewing and then of course said I'd do one for the end of season tournament. Everyone was really excited about "a red beer". I think their basis was killians haha.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 01:02
|
|
|
I'm planning to convert my kegerator (made out of a chest freezer) from a tap tower to a collar with taps on the front (should have done the collar in the first place). A few questions I had for anyone else who has gone the collar route: - is insulation inside the collar necessary? I got rubber weather-stripping to put under the collar, and I'm making it out of 2x8 boards. - is it important to treat the wood in any way (sealing it maybe?) to protect it from moisture and condensation? I'm planning to put nicer looking wood all around the outside of it (except the vent areas of course), so the wood I make the collar from won't be visible and doesn't need to look nice, but I'm moderately concerned that if I just throw some untreated pine on there that it'll have problems in the long run. I have polyurethane that I could put on, but I'm not sure if it's worth bothering.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 02:21
|
|
|
Steve French posted:I'm planning to convert my kegerator (made out of a chest freezer) from a tap tower to a collar with taps on the front (should have done the collar in the first place). A few questions I had for anyone else who has gone the collar route: I don't know where you live, but we don't get below freezing here and rarely clear 105°. I keep my keezer on my back patio, semi-shaded by the awning. I added the refrigerator weather stripping on the top and bottom of the collar, then got lazy and didn't seal any of the wood. I figured if it was running all day or the condensation was piling up, I'd address the matter, but it's been around six months and things are going well. If you need to concern yourself with cooler temperatures, I'd seal and insulate it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 04:45
|
|
|
wattershed posted:I don't know where you live, but we don't get below freezing here and rarely clear 105°. I keep my keezer on my back patio, semi-shaded by the awning. I added the refrigerator weather stripping on the top and bottom of the collar, then got lazy and didn't seal any of the wood. I figured if it was running all day or the condensation was piling up, I'd address the matter, but it's been around six months and things are going well. If you need to concern yourself with cooler temperatures, I'd seal and insulate it. I'm in a quite temperate climate (SF bay area) and it'll be inside, so I'm not concerned about weather. I was more concerned about condensation forming inside the kegerator; it's entirely possible that this is not even close to being a problem, but I don't really know about these things so I figured I'd ask others with experience. Good to know that it's been working for you, that's a solid vote for leaving it as is. I can always seal/insulate it later.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 05:18
|
|
|
Steve French posted:I'm in a quite temperate climate (SF bay area) and it'll be inside, so I'm not concerned about weather. I was more concerned about condensation forming inside the kegerator; it's entirely possible that this is not even close to being a problem, but I don't really know about these things so I figured I'd ask others with experience. If condensation is your big concern myself and some others here would recommend this guy to take care of that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 05:56
|
|
|
Paladine_PSoT posted:Thus started Crickster's prince of tides summer. What is a prince of tides summer? The man was of an underprivileged class and probably illiterate except for maybe shapes and colors. These old country people don't have a very complex understanding of anything.. but he sold me hook line and sinker into making beer that way. But in those days, being 17 and in a county that banned alcohol sales, the only other option for alcohol was paying $1 a Budweiser from black people who bootleg to children. They also had $4 a Paul Masson brandy half pint. Not a bad deal but it was sometimes on Saturday scary going into a little one room shotgun shack with 20 black folks crammed in playing dominos, shouting and hollering. They'd be your best friend if you bought a 30 pack. Anyway, my man said the hotter outside it gets, the stronger the beer gets. But looking back, his whole method is probably a crock of backwards logic.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 13:34
|
|
|
crikster posted:What is a prince of tides summer? basically you bone barbara streisand He was right to an extent. Yeast work faster and harder the hotter it gets, but they also increasingly put off compounds that make your brew taste like rubbing alcohol and/or just plain rear end. So getting it really hot might encourage them to eat that last little bit of sugar but it's not a good tradeoff unless you're just desperate for the strongest booze possible (which it sounds like you were  )
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 17:15
|
|
|
Anyone have some suggestions on what I could brew to pitch onto some WLP028 yeast cakes that I just used to make a Scottish 80 shilling ale? I have a 10 gallon system, and I was wanting to use the two healthy yeast cakes that I have in the bottom of 2 of my 6.5 gallon carboys.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 18:23
|
|
|
Brewed a Witbier w/Wyeast 3944 2 weeks ago. It fermented at about 66 the whole time, I attempted to get the temperature to rise after about a week but couldn't get it past about 72 (drafty house, and it's been cool here). Was hoping to get some yeasty esters on it by letting the temp rise but it's tasting pretty clean. The gravity is now holding at 1.012, so I know it's done fermenting. However, I recently got a space heater I could point at the carboy, but now that fermentation is over, is there any point to letting it warm up or should I just go ahead and bottle it? It is tasting nice, just a bit more clean than I'd like.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 18:44
|
|
|
Had to rig a blow off tube last night for the first time. Don't know what caused it, was just a dry packet of Windsor like I've used before. Thinking I probably pitched it warm and the yeast went crazy-go-nuts. I tried to use the "jam siphon tube onto the airlock post" trick for like 10 minutes before giving up and realizing that my siphon tube would fit into the hole in the rubber stopper.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 19:12
|
|
|
I've had a request to bring some beer to a wedding in a few weeks. I'm only kegging my beer. The wedding is way out of town for us. Is there a simple solution that I'm not aware of for transporting/cooling/tapping a corny keg for one day use?
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 19:22
|
|
|
"Some beer" means how much? I use 2.5 gallon Cornies for situations like this. When I keg beer, it goes into a 5 gallon Corny and that goes into the serving fridge to settle and carb up. It literally never moves until it's empty. It's easy to jumper over beer into another keg (the short one in this case) by hooking up a short hose that has a beer-out QD on both ends. Beer gets pushed out of one keg and into another with very little agitation, and leaving all of the sediment behind. The reason for the short Corny in this case is that, by removing the black plastic handle, they fit nicely into a 5-gallon Gott/Rubbermaid cylindrical cooler. There's a little room for ice, and a picnic line can be coiled up in there also. I routinely take two of these rigs on the annual Vegas trip with friends; they are easy to bungee to a folding dolly. As for gas, I use a CO2 injector deal that uses 12 or 16 gram CO2 cartidges. If I were doing it today, I might opt for another solution - there's one based on a 20 ounce paintball tank I like the looks of. All of this allows me to pour clear, cold, carbonated beer at a remote location. I think I would have a hard time getting it on an airplane, but anyplace within driving distance is easy. If the 2.5 gallon keg is not an option, consider jumpering the beer over to a fresh, sanitized 5 gallon keg, and then putting the whole thing in a chest cooler large enough to hold it. EDIT: Or if the drive is not very long, just transfer the beer off the sediment and then bring the cold kegs not in a cooler. Once at the remote location, they can be refrigerated (if you have some lead time) or just placed in a tub of ice. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Sep 30, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 19:40
|
|
|
Just brewed some liquid malt extract kit with the hops in it already with my two buddies who have never brewed. I taught them some basic fundamentals and I showed them how/what to sanitize. Didn't get around to having a yeast starter though and I'm doubting the dry yeast they had in the packet. We'll see in two weeks or less.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 20:22
|
|
|
Man, don't EVER try to add hops to a sock thats already in a boil, I think that made the biggest mess I have had so far on a brew day. Also must have scorched some lme, been straining bits of black stuff out of my pot for the whole boil, blah.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 23:38
|
|
|
Steve French posted:I'm planning to convert my kegerator (made out of a chest freezer) from a tap tower to a collar with taps on the front (should have done the collar in the first place). What didn't work out with the beer tower? I've been thinking about adding a beer tower to my set-up, and I'm curious why the collar set-up is so preferable. bewbies posted:I've had a request to bring some beer to a wedding in a few weeks. I'm only kegging my beer. The wedding is way out of town for us. Is there a simple solution that I'm not aware of for transporting/cooling/tapping a corny keg for one day use? Jo3sh's way is much more in-depth, and will definitely guarantee some nice yeast-free beer. But, for a low-tech solution: at my wedding we just got a big plastic tub (you can probably find them for under $10 at Meijer or a place like Menards), filled it with ice, and put the kegs and the carbon dioxide tank in there, with picnic taps for serving. It worked fine, even for three kegs. With just one, I'm sure you can find a container to fit. You might want to get there early to make sure everything's set up properly, though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 23:49
|
|
|
Sionak posted:What didn't work out with the beer tower? I've been thinking about adding a beer tower to my set-up, and I'm curious why the collar set-up is so preferable. Seems like a tower would tend to overbalance the lid; and you'd have to pull the freezer away from the wall to open it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 23:54
|
|
|
Reasons why I should have gone with a collar in the first place but are moot now: - Using a collar doesn't require modifying the freezer itself; it's pretty trivial to return it to its original condition (I didn't care that much about this). - In order to have the relatively flimsy sheet metal that the freezer lid was made out of support the tower well, I had to take apart the lid and reinforce the metal from behind with some plywood. Not a huge deal, but  Reasons why I'm going with the collar route now: - As Jo3sh said, having a tower on the lid means that I have to pull the freezer away from the wall whenever I want to open it - Adding more taps is easier with a collar. Right now I have a two-tap tower in the center of the lid, and if I want to have more taps, it means I'd have to either replace the tower with a much more expensive one with more taps on it, or get a second tower and have it look awkward and lopsided, or get two more towers which is even more expense - Keeping the towers cool is something you have to deal with; if you don't, you'll probably always end up having foamy pours whenever you haven't poured anything for a few hours. Another factor that could go either way is that with a collar, you end up with more clearance on the inside, but you also have to lift things higher to get them into the freezer. This didn't really affect my decision either way; I'm mostly dealing with 5gal corny kegs which even when full aren't that hard to lift, and I also never had any clearance issues. It does mean that I can fit a keg on the raised part (above the condenser and all that), which means if I wanted to I could probably fit 13 of them in there. The final reason is that I'm planning on putting some hopefully nice looking wood siding all around it and a nice wooden top (maybe with copper over it eventually if I get some money); having a wooden collar seemed like the best way to attach all of that without having to drill into the side of the freezer itself. The reason I want to do that is that it is fuuuuuuugly:        Obviously it could use a bit of cleaning, but even clean it's still an ugly white box. Steve French fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Oct 1, 2012 |
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 00:45
|
|
|
wattershed posted:If condensation is your big concern myself and some others here would recommend this guy to take care of that. Hey Splizwarf this looks like a perfect solution to your mold problem in the fridge.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 01:12
|
|
|
Hi homebrew people! I'm hoping you can help me out. I'm not a total newbie, but I'm close. I've successfully brewed one of the kits from the Brooklyn Brew Shop. These are all-grain kits designed to make 1-gallon batches for tiny New York apartments like mine. The IPA came out great, but we had some trouble with the porter kit today. Our mash was a bit hotter than it should have been, largely due to our stove heating unevenly. We wound up with about a half gallon of wort before the boil, and less afterward. We topped it off with a few cups of water, but stopped short of adding more because we thought it would dilute it. What went wrong? Could it have been the temperature or something else? Do I have any hope of getting a small amount of drinkable beer out of this?
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 01:21
|
|
Tater Love 
|
I bottled my first beer (IPA) today. I was pretty pleasantly surprised when it tasted ok, even flat. The recipe didn't include any dry hopping but I added 2 ounces of cascade hops at the start of secondary anyway and I can't help but thinking that it probably saved the beer. I guess I'll find out in a couple weeks.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 01:43
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:I think I would have a hard time getting it on an airplane, but anyplace within driving distance is easy. Side note, but when I went to Cabo last year there were a poo poo ton of fishermen on our plane, and each of them seemed to check a bungee'd/duct-taped dolly with 2 or 3 igloo coolers attached. They intended to bring back all their fish, and inside on the way there they had bottles of water and gel packs. If those dudes could fill half the plane's undercarriage with fish, I imagine igloos with kegs would be doable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 02:20
|
|
|
Steve French posted:Reasons why I should have gone with a collar in the first place but are moot now: Okay, thanks so much for the explanation and the pictures. I am really glad you posted when you did - I had heard about using collars but didn't really know how they worked. Having seen your pictures and reasons, I think for my space and purposes a collar will be the much better choice.. but that's a few months/paychecks away yet. Sionak fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Oct 1, 2012 |
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 02:21
|
|
|
Steve French posted:Another factor that could go either way is that with a collar, you end up with more clearance on the inside, but you also have to lift things higher to get them into the freezer. Double hinge that bastard. Even reaching down into it to clean something or gently set a bottle or two you want to cellar inside there becomes a lot easier...not to mention that when you're moving a keg in or out you can lift the collar and, aside from the lower clearance height, the beer lines for the existing hookups are lifted out of the way as well.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 02:29
|
|
|
wattershed posted:Double hinge that bastard. Even reaching down into it to clean something or gently set a bottle or two you want to cellar inside there becomes a lot easier...not to mention that when you're moving a keg in or out you can lift the collar and, aside from the lower clearance height, the beer lines for the existing hookups are lifted out of the way as well. I'll have to see if that becomes a problem; I'm trying to take this one step at a time (time and budgetary concerns). At this point, I don't think I've done anything that prevents me from doing that in the future.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 02:38
|
|
|
global tetrahedron posted:Brewed a Witbier w/Wyeast 3944 2 weeks ago. It fermented at about 66 the whole time, I attempted to get the temperature to rise after about a week but couldn't get it past about 72 (drafty house, and it's been cool here). Was hoping to get some yeasty esters on it by letting the temp rise but it's tasting pretty clean. The gravity is now holding at 1.012, so I know it's done fermenting. Yeah I wouldn't bother heating it up again, it won't do anything. You could always bottle condition it with some brett to add character 
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 05:07
|
|
|
Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Hey Splizwarf this looks like a perfect solution to your mold problem in the fridge. I was just thinking the same thing. For anyone wondering, I need to address condensation in the keezer somehow as I'm getting a bit of puddling moisture and thus some mold under the buckets. Will Star-San destroy mold or should I just spritz bleach solution for my cleanup? The keezer's empty for the next week at least so I can let it air out.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 13:20
|
|
|
Splizwarf posted:I was just thinking the same thing. For anyone wondering, I need to address condensation in the keezer somehow as I'm getting a bit of puddling moisture and thus some mold under the buckets. Will Star-San destroy mold or should I just spritz bleach solution for my cleanup? The keezer's empty for the next week at least so I can let it air out. I would wipe it down nice and dry, let it air out, and then clean it up with white distilled vinegar. It does a good job against most mold (the majority of which will die since you'll be drying out its environment) and it's not toxic at all. Also wear a mask and gloves.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 13:55
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:Yeah I wouldn't bother heating it up again, it won't do anything. You could always bottle condition it with some brett to add character Yeah, I just went and bottled it. Part of the appeal with this one... quick turnaround. Maybe becoming my standby, cheap, easy to make, quick.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 13:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:50 |
|
|
To whomever suggested using a blowoff for Saison de Noel, thanks. You preemptively solved a problem. It's kinda fun listening to the carbonation of the StarSan in the pitcher. Is there a way to tell ahead of time if you'll need a blowoff or an airlock?
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2012 14:29
|
|
