|
JawKnee posted:So I washed the yeast from my last batch pretty thoroughly and stored it in a sealed container in my fridge for a month. Today I was planning on making a starter from it. I opened it, decanted the water off, and took a sniff expecting to get some of the flowery fruity smell of yeast and instead got a burnt or roasted smell off of it. Is that indicative of the yeast having gone bad? What was the beer you harvested it from? If it was a stout or something there was probably a small amount of flavor carried over and I wouldn't worry unless you're planning to reuse it in a super light beer. "Burnt" isn't a yeast or infection related smell as far as I know.
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 18:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 04:03 |
|
|
It's an American Ale I Wyeast which I used in a big IPA, smelt fine going in the fridge, not so great coming out. guess I'll get a starter going and go pick up a new smack-pack just in case.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 19:24
|
|
|
RiggenBlaque posted:This site currently has 2012 Amarillo and Simcoe hop pellets, if anyone is in need. The Simcoe is a pretty decent price too, $20 I still haven't used up the three pounds of hops I bought last year, but I've really wanted to try simcoe. If kept vacuum sealed in a freezer hops don't tend to lose that much AA right?
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 19:33
|
|
|
Prefect Six posted:I still haven't used up the three pounds of hops I bought last year, but I've really wanted to try simcoe. If you believe BeerSmith (which I have no reason not to), a 13% simcoe that was vacuum sealed and in a freezer would drop to 12.11% after a full year.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 19:53
|
|
|
RiggenBlaque posted:This site currently has 2012 Amarillo and Simcoe hop pellets, if anyone is in need. The Simcoe is a pretty decent price too, $20 Thanks for this, just ordered a lb of Columbus and 10oz of Summit at way less than it would have cost up here in Vancouver.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 20:08
|
|
|
RiggenBlaque posted:This site currently has 2012 Amarillo and Simcoe hop pellets, if anyone is in need. The Simcoe is a pretty decent price too, $20 Thanks for this! I've been on the fence about doing a Simcoe IPA and this just helped me pull the trigger. Guess I'll need a Foodsaver after all!
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 20:12
|
|
|
Infidel Castro posted:So my Belgian Wit has been in primary for 8 days now. Decided to take a gravity reading, came out to 1.012 (as I expected). After that, I decided to take a sampling to make sure it didn't get infected (had a problem with my chiller leaking some water into my wort after the boil) and while it didn't taste sour, it had far more bitterness that I would have expected from a wheat ale. Does the yeast just need time to clean poo poo up, or am I going to wind up with an overly bitter finished product? If you've got any way of calculating the IBUs that would help. Bitterness from orange peel and coriander will fade relatively quickly and even hop bitterness does fade over time as well, so whatever the problem time will probably smooth it out. Also chilling the beer will lower your ability to perceive its bitterness, keep that in mind whenever judging something based on room temperature.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 20:29
|
|
|
I want to jump on the Simcoe but I've got four pounds of hops still on the way from hopsdirect, and no idea what I'm going to do with them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 20:34
|
|
|
Make (so much) beer 
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 20:46
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:Make (so much) beer That's my plan. I have been buying hops faster than I have been using them, and they are piling up. I just added 4 pounds from HD the other day. I hope all my guests like hops this coming year, because that's what they are getting. Edit to add an update on the finger-lacerating issues I had with my ferment fridge on Saturday: The part showed up, and I just replaced it; it works great. What's more, I bought the right wrench so I was able to keep my fingers away from the fins of the evaporator and no blood was shed. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Nov 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2012 21:15
|
|
|
Got a stir plate for.starters, can't wait to see it in action!
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 00:01
|
|
|
Midorka posted:Got a stir plate for.starters, can't wait to see it in action! Don't drop the stir bar in from the top, let it slide in down the side. Erlenmeyer flasks are sturdy things but you don't want to risk it. Don't forget to pull the stir bar out when you're done. Fishing a magnet out of a bucket of wort because you forgot to remove the bar ahead of time isn't fun, and you probably will need it again to make a starter prior to that bucket finishing fermentation if you're like a lot of us.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 00:57
|
|
|
Thanks for the tips!
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 02:12
|
|
|
wattershed posted:Don't forget to pull the stir bar out when you're done. Fishing a magnet out of a bucket of wort because you forgot to remove the bar ahead of time isn't fun, and you probably will need it again to make a starter prior to that bucket finishing fermentation if you're like a lot of us. I may or may not have done this like 10 times  "Ok, self. This time, DO NOT POUR THE GOD drat STIR BAR INTO THE CARBOY, repeat after me" *10 seconds later* "FFFFFFUUUUUUU--"
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 05:03
|
|
|
When I bought stir bars, I bought the "stir bar retriever", which is another stir bar fixed onto a flimsy plastic handle, and it's not all that effective at retrieving. Plus, you have to sanitize it and worry about what goes into your starter. The best solution is a hard drive magnet on the outside of the flask. It'll hold that sucker firmly in place while you swirl the yeast and pour it in. Said hard drive magnet also helped hold the lids to tart cherry cans in place while opening them, since the fancy automatic opener poo poo the bed. Batch two of tart cherry hard cider is looking good!
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 13:20
|
|
|
 I just bought a few extra stir bars.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 15:21
|
|
|
Hi thread, been a while. I have two questions that I'm hoping you guys have experience with and can answer. 1) I am going to send some beermail. Now, I live in the UK and am fully conscious that some of the packages will never arrive but on the other hand anything sent in the EU should be kosher. What sort of packaging should I look for? It'll literally be like a longneck or two per consignment. A shoe box padded with tons of newspaper and bubblewrap? What have you guys used? 2) I made a tin kit that I had lying around, a Brewferm Abdij. I decided to really go for it and made a dark amber candi syrup which I dumped into the fermenter. Only problem, and one I haven't noticed before, was that part of it seemed to clump as I found out when stirring the whole shebang. I couldn't get all of it to dissolve and ended up pitching because it was late and I was exhausted. Are yeast able to chow through that, or am I looking at some amount of sugar that will simply never be eaten? I don't mind waiting for a long time.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 15:31
|
|
|
Kaiho posted:1) I am going to send some beermail. Now, I live in the UK and am fully conscious that some of the packages will never arrive but on the other hand anything sent in the EU should be kosher. What sort of packaging should I look for? It'll literally be like a longneck or two per consignment. A shoe box padded with tons of newspaper and bubblewrap? What have you guys used? Yeah pretty much. My goonbrew secret santa last year sent a superbly wrapped box. Basically he wrapped each beer in bubble wrap, then put 3 at a time into large ziploc bags and stacked the bags inside the box with more bubble wrap in between. Then he filled in all the remaining space in the box with crumpled newspaper. Everything had tons of padding and there was no room for the beer to shift. If something did somehow leak, the liquid would be contained in the bag. There's some more info in the beer trade thread OP but, while nice, the dedicated beer shipper boxes aren't necessary.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 17:14
|
|
|
Got to thinking about this after I siphoned into a bottling bucket this morning: I covered my siphon in a muslin bag to filter out some of the hops as I was transferring my pale ale into the bottling bucket. I use sugar to carb my beer in bottles. I hope that I had enough yeast in the "filtered" beer to carb it. Should this be a problem?
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 21:43
|
|
|
A yeast cell is like 1,000,000 times smaller than the holes in the bag. You're fine, there's plenty in suspension. vvv woohoo! 
Docjowles fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Nov 9, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 21:49
|
|
|
LaserWash posted:Got to thinking about this after I siphoned into a bottling bucket this morning: I do this everytime except that I use 2 bags, one for racking onto my priming solution in my bottling bucket, and a fresh bag for racking to the bottles. I haven't had a batch fail to carb up yet (btw thanks for the advice with respect to my IPA Docjowles, leaving it for 3 more weeks let it carb up just fine!)
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 21:58
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:leaving it for 3 more weeks let it carb up just fine! Time, the universal homebrew problem solver. All of my kegs are filled, a few fermenters are still going through primary-- clearing space on a shelf to bottle a triple and IPA for aging. Brew far more than I drink, patience for time to settle out certain beers is not an issue. Finishing up my all grain cream ale weekday brew. Threw a few cups of grain in with some bread flour, semolina flour, yeast, and salt. Got a tacky dough together and going to throw it in at 375F for a bit and see how it comes out. Hate always wasting spent grain. Yes, I know 3 cups out of an 8.5 pound bill is essentially the same, but principles!
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 22:33
|
|
|
Midorka posted:Got a stir plate for.starters, can't wait to see it in action!  stir plate buddy, I got my stir bar in the mail today. Since I homebrewed my plate I have to get the magnet dialed in so the stir bar stops chattering, but I'm looking forward to building a starter in the next week or two.
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2012 23:41
|
|
|
zerox147o posted:Time, the universal homebrew problem solver. I wish I had more space to expand into. My apartment is loaded already, I run my propane burner out in the parking lot behind my building, I only realistically have space for 2 fermenters being full at any one time, and I have nowhere to put a kegging setup which I would desperately like to do.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 00:50
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:I wish I had more space to expand into. My apartment is loaded already, I run my propane burner out in the parking lot behind my building, I only realistically have space for 2 fermenters being full at any one time, and I have nowhere to put a kegging setup which I would desperately like to do. I have a pretty small house and I wound up making room in a coat closet for one of my carboys. It makes my jackets smell like a still but hey, it works. I have two long-term projects in the primary right now and it's been killing me since I have an extra kit sitting around right now. Just waiting it out with my yeast in the fridge. I'll make a starter with the fridge yeast when it comes time. I've been trying to avoid having my buddies come over for "a beer" because it usually ends up in half a keg being gone at the end of the night. For this reason alone I've been highly considering going to a full-fledged 10gal per batch all-grain setup when I get my tax returns. My buddies are drinking me out of house and home. That being said, it's kind of awesome to know that your buddies are into your beer and enjoy it. The effort vs. reward with this hobby is pretty loving cool.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 01:32
|
|
|
So hops direct sold out of Citra and Amarillo hops in less than 5 minutes. They still have Chinook and cluster, though
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 02:29
|
|
|
I've been brewing going on around 4 years or something. Tomorrow is going to be my first IPA. I think I've been going about things backwards.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 03:10
|
|
|
I made a starter yesterday with an old vial of yeast that I mentioned the other day ("use by" date is tomorrow), and there's currently action going on inside the flask, which probably began around 5am, but I'm wondering if it's going to be enough. Isn't the rule of thumb that a 2L starter approximately doubles the amount of yeast you pitch into it? if that's the case then I'd still only have 20 something billion cells once the starter finishes since the viability was around 11-12%, and I'd need 200+ billion. My starter was only about 1.6L, so I probably didn't even double it. And I don't even know if going to the LHBS and picking up more DME to step up the starter will even increase it by much. I wanted to brew today, but I don't want to pitch a starter containing only 1/10 of the amount of cells I need. And with the exception of 2:00am through 8:30am, I've been shaking it every hour or two, but I don't know exactly how much that's helped it. Sorry for kind of obsessing over this, but what would you guys do in this situation?
Whodat Smith-Jones fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Nov 10, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 15:44
|
|
|
Go to the store and buy a second vial of yeast?
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 16:30
|
|
|
I've literally never remembered to retrieve a stir bar from a starter. I always lose them down the toilet or the drain when I empty the trub out of the fermenter after forgetting it a) when I pitched and b) at the end. I'm brewing up the dreaded unspeakable today...a pumpkin beer with 5 pounds of pumpkin and I'm not sure how the pumpkin is going to affect my strike water calculations. Anyone have an idea?
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 17:06
|
|
|
Maybe dough in with grain and strike water and then add pumpkin/water heated to your desired temp?
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 17:15
|
|
|
Any reason why you're actually using pumpkin instead of pumpkin pie spices? Everything I've read/heard including from the manager of my LHBS is that pumpkin by itself adds almost no flavor and just makes a big mess out of the brewing process... and may permanently haze up the beer too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 17:36
|
|
|
Super Rad posted:Any reason why you're actually using pumpkin instead of pumpkin pie spices? Everything I've read/heard including from the manager of my LHBS is that pumpkin by itself adds almost no flavor and just makes a big mess out of the brewing process... and may permanently haze up the beer too. As for haze, it's a Robust Porter with like half a pound of Black Malt. I doubt it will matter 
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 18:28
|
|
|
Anyone have tips on adding cocoa nibs (or any other chocolate-flavor product) to secondary? I made a dunkelweizen and it's just kinda "meh". I feel like some chocolate in the finish would make it really nice. It's being served at a party in a week, is that long enough to impart chocolate or should I not bother?
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 20:01
|
|
|
So due to some unfortunate complications I am unable to brew today, as I originally intended. The starter I made 2 days ago is bubbling happily, but given the weather over the next week I may have to delay for a while - how should I go about storing my starter? Pop an airlock on it and put it in the fridge until brew-day? And how long will it last once stored?
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 22:02
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:Anyone have tips on adding cocoa nibs (or any other chocolate-flavor product) to secondary? I made a dunkelweizen and it's just kinda "meh". I feel like some chocolate in the finish would make it really nice. It's being served at a party in a week, is that long enough to impart chocolate or should I not bother? I do my cocoa porter by putting the beer on the nibs for a week, just like dry hopping. If it's in a keg, use a bag to keep them out of the dip tube. Bags in the produce section have worked out well for putting hops into the keg do far. I've been doing four ounces for a week and it's been fantastic every time. Just be careful if you're putting the bag into a carbonated keg. Holy foam.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2012 23:46
|
|
|
hellfaucet posted:I've been trying to avoid having my buddies come over for "a beer" because it usually ends up in half a keg being gone at the end of the night. For this reason alone I've been highly considering going to a full-fledged 10gal per batch all-grain setup when I get my tax returns. My buddies are drinking me out of house and home. Set up a sign that strongly suggests they 'tip' the brewer. "poo poo ain't free," etc.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2012 01:53
|
|
|
I have an imperial stout that finished fermenting, I know it needs to store for a while. Will it matter if it's sitting in a 71 degree room, or should it be a bit colder? I know temperatures are hugely important while fermenting, but how important are they when not fermenting? We have a dubbel fermenting now and that's why the room is 71, I'd honestly like it a bit higher actually but I don't think we can yet.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2012 03:53
|
|
|
Midorka posted:I have an imperial stout that finished fermenting, I know it needs to store for a while. Will it matter if it's sitting in a 71 degree room, or should it be a bit colder? I know temperatures are hugely important while fermenting, but how important are they when not fermenting? We have a dubbel fermenting now and that's why the room is 71, I'd honestly like it a bit higher actually but I don't think we can yet. Not super important unless you're lagering. I've done room temp conditioning and it hasn't caused me issues.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2012 04:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 04:03 |
|
|
To combat moochers, we have a tip jar on our kegerator that says "Help. The beer keep flowing. Donate for future ingredients."
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2012 04:44
|
|
