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Prefect Six posted:It just seems odd that he says it should be a 10ml to 1g ratio and then says something completely different three sentences later. I have noticed that many times, people say things that means something close to what they mean, but that actually means something else. It's not just brewing, it's every aspect of life. It drives me bananas.
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Nov 16, 2012 04:17
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 07:54 |
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 ATTENTION GRABBING HEADLINE Goonbrew secret santa again this year, gentlemen? Last year was a rousing success. Paladine_PSoT fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Nov 16, 2012 |
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Nov 16, 2012 08:00
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Instructions?
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Nov 16, 2012 08:53
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Made a starter that was a little too big for my flask. Had a bit of krauseny foamy blowoff come out of my foam stopper and onto the counter. Did I lose any yeast because of this? Or is this inconsequential? It did look a bit yeasty although I've never thought of krausen as yeast-rich.
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Nov 16, 2012 14:59
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global tetrahedron posted:Made a starter that was a little too big for my flask. Had a bit of krauseny foamy blowoff come out of my foam stopper and onto the counter. Did I lose any yeast because of this? Or is this inconsequential? It did look a bit yeasty although I've never thought of krausen as yeast-rich. Yeah, you probably lost some yeast, but it's pretty inconsequential as you're growing a shitton more at the same time.
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Nov 16, 2012 15:53
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Wooooooo!!!!!!! BREW DAY!!!!!!!!!!
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Nov 16, 2012 16:22
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That's what I figured. Just disappointing to see a distinctly yeasty grime on the countertop. Gonna need these yeasties, making a 1.098 Barleywine tomorrow, and a 1.097 DIPA on Sunday... never made such high gravity beers before, much less two in a row. Got to buy some more tubing to make blowoff assemblies! Good times. Starting what I hope will be a new tradition- a big group of friends of mine get together a few days before Thanksgiving and basically just have a friends Thanksgiving. It's a lot more fun than regular Thanksgiving! Anyway, the aforementioned Barleywine will be brewed on this Friendsgiving 2012 to be opened on Friendsgiving 2013. Is this why brewing is the best hobby ever? Yes. Recipes: Friendsgiving Barleywine 2013 posted:
Hop Bomb DIPA posted:
With the DIPA I'm worried about all the hop residue clogging, well, everything up. Was thinking about using the nylon strainer bag I use for BIAB and putting it over the lip of the bucket. When I dump in the wort and top off, theoretically I could take the bag out and all the hop debris would come with it? I use a strainer generally but with a recipe like this I think a strainer would get clogged and/or heavy.
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Nov 16, 2012 16:28
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I did a brew a while ago with only 5 oz of hop pellets in the boil, where I tried lining my strainer with a nylon bag to catch as much hop material as possible. It almost immediately got clogged up. With 16oz in the batch I think you may run into the same problem. For my latest batch I strapped a nylon mesh bag over my autosiphon and racked the boiled wort to my primary, which seemed to work fairly well.
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Nov 16, 2012 16:37
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global tetrahedron posted:With the DIPA I'm worried about all the hop residue clogging, well, everything up. Was thinking about using the nylon strainer bag I use for BIAB and putting it over the lip of the bucket. When I dump in the wort and top off, theoretically I could take the bag out and all the hop debris would come with it? I use a strainer generally but with a recipe like this I think a strainer would get clogged and/or heavy. Going to echo what the poster before me said, it will clog immediately if you're using pellets. When I do super hoppy beers I just say gently caress it and let the hop gunk settle out in the primary.
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Nov 16, 2012 16:39
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I use a large mesh metal strainer. It sits perfectly on my bucket and aerates the poo poo out of the wort before I pitch the yeast.
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Nov 16, 2012 16:41
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Midorka posted:I use a large mesh metal strainer. It sits perfectly on my bucket and aerates the poo poo out of the wort before I pitch the yeast. I've got something like this, I've found it clogs up pretty readily and I've got to use my stirring paddle to jostle the hops out of the way so it can drain. Sounds like I'll just try and rack it then. Usually avoid that because it's one more thing to clean but sounds like my best bet at this point.
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Nov 16, 2012 16:45
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Also plan on losing, like, a gallon of wort to that insane amount of hops. Increase your batch size, or just  That's one of the times the hop extract sold by Northern Brewer really comes in handy, you can cut down on wort loss to your bittering additions.
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Nov 16, 2012 16:56
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global tetrahedron posted:I've got something like this, I've found it clogs up pretty readily and I've got to use my stirring paddle to jostle the hops out of the way so it can drain. Sounds like I'll just try and rack it then. Usually avoid that because it's one more thing to clean but sounds like my best bet at this point. I've never had a problem using  that, but then again the most hops I've used in a beer was only a few ounces.
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Nov 16, 2012 17:09
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Docjowles posted:Also plan on losing, like, a gallon of wort to that insane amount of hops. Increase your batch size, or just Hmm, I may just deal with it. I probably (definitely) don't need 5 gallons worth of 10 percent DIPA anyway. If I lose that much wort, would I equivalently want to top off with a little less water? I can just barely fit 5 gallons worth in my kettle so I'll probably do a 4-4.5 gallon boil. With boiloff and hop soakage, I'll lose at least 1.5 gallons of wort. drat. Could I first add a minimal amount of topoff water, check the gravity, and then add more water accordingly to match my desired gravity of 1.097? I'll look into the hop extract also. edit: wow, the hop shot syringe is only 2 bucks. screw it, I'm going for it.
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Nov 16, 2012 17:17
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Topping off I figure its more useful to pay attention to gravity than volume. I've found so many people obsessed with getting 5 gallons or else that they end up with watered down beer. Not that you can really water down a 1.1ish dipa but still.
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Nov 16, 2012 18:00
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zedprime posted:Topping off I figure its more useful to pay attention to gravity than volume. I've found so many people obsessed with getting 5 gallons or else that they end up with watered down beer. Not that you can really water down a 1.1ish dipa but still. I did this with my first few batches trying to just follow recipes exactly and they all wound up being lower gravity than I wanted. If your OG is looking good, don't top off and just deal with less, but better beer.
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Nov 16, 2012 18:35
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hellfaucet posted:I did this with my first few batches trying to just follow recipes exactly and they all wound up being lower gravity than I wanted. If your OG is looking good, don't top off and just deal with less, but better beer. I just started aiming for 5.5 gallons or whatever rather than 5 to account for yielding slightly low. This way I get my full keg, and can just throw any excess into bottles without having to worry about volume/quality topping off.
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Nov 16, 2012 18:55
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I swear to god I'm always like 1 minute late to the citra/amarillo hop stock.  Stop buying all the loving good hops ya jerks!
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Nov 16, 2012 19:19
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hellfaucet posted:I swear to god I'm always like 1 minute late to the citra/amarillo hop stock. This site still has Amarillo and Simcoe, although they're only available in oz increments which means a full pound would cost you around $25
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Nov 16, 2012 19:48
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RiggenBlaque posted:This site still has Amarillo and Simcoe, although they're only available in oz increments which means a full pound would cost you around $25 Full pounds of Simcoe are available with max 4 pounds, last item. Amarillo is only available by oz and max 1 pound. (Getting a pound of each) Nephzinho fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Nov 16, 2012 |
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Nov 16, 2012 19:59
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I'm going to be doing my first 2 part batch sparge. Normally I run off completely then add water, stir, and run off and then I'm done. I've seen that doing 2 sparges can increase efficiency so I plugged it into Hopville and for the 3.1 gallons it wants me to sparge with, it only put .3g for the first sparge and 2.8g for the second. Is that normal or should I just do 1.5g and 1.5g?
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Nov 16, 2012 20:31
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Midorka posted:I'm going to be doing my first 2 part batch sparge. Normally I run off completely then add water, stir, and run off and then I'm done. I've seen that doing 2 sparges can increase efficiency so I plugged it into Hopville and for the 3.1 gallons it wants me to sparge with, it only put .3g for the first sparge and 2.8g for the second. Is that normal or should I just do 1.5g and 1.5g? I just do half and half for mine.
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Nov 17, 2012 01:20
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Speaking of the 2L starter I made, the yeast I used was probably 6-8 months old. After 36 hours on the stir plate I put it in the fridge and there's a pretty good layer of brown (which I assume is dead) yeast at the bottom and a thin layer of milky-white healthy yeast. I'd like to brew on Sunday, should I try to wash the healthy stuff and make another small, 2L starter tomorrow and hope I get enough or should I put it off and just pony up the $7 for a fresh pack of yeast?
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Nov 17, 2012 03:16
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Prefect Six posted:Speaking of the 2L starter I made, the yeast I used was probably 6-8 months old. After 36 hours on the stir plate I put it in the fridge and there's a pretty good layer of brown (which I assume is dead) yeast at the bottom and a thin layer of milky-white healthy yeast. I'd like to brew on Sunday, should I try to wash the healthy stuff and make another small, 2L starter tomorrow and hope I get enough or should I put it off and just pony up the $7 for a fresh pack of yeast? Ale or lager? If it's a lager, I'd pony up for a fresh pack as I don't gently caress around with underpitching lagers, but for an ale, it really depends on what strain we're talking and what gravity. If it's anything Belgian, I'd say you're *probably* fine as stressing the yeast will just give you more funky Belgian character, whereas an American style clean flavoured yeast might not do as well.
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Nov 17, 2012 03:46
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crazyfish posted:Ale or lager? If it's a lager, I'd pony up for a fresh pack as I don't gently caress around with underpitching lagers, but for an ale, it really depends on what strain we're talking and what gravity. If it's anything Belgian, I'd say you're *probably* fine as stressing the yeast will just give you more funky Belgian character, whereas an American style clean flavoured yeast might not do as well. It's actually a belgian ale, so I guess I'll go for broke?
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Nov 17, 2012 04:28
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What has two thumbs and forgot to steep the 1# of 20L for his White House Honey Porter today? This guy  Also, "  Hey, look at all these fools dropping their stir bars into the wort why don't they just put a sanitized grain bag over the mouth of the flask?"/proceeds to dump my only stir bar into the wort 
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Nov 17, 2012 06:43
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nmfree posted:What has two thumbs and forgot to steep the 1# of 20L for his White House Honey Porter today? This guy You could just always just cold steep the 1# you forgot, boil and cool it and then add it to the fermenter.
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Nov 17, 2012 10:52
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Angry Grimace posted:You could just always just cold steep the 1# you forgot, boil and cool it and then add it to the fermenter.
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Nov 17, 2012 20:18
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Right now the featured episode on Wisconsin Foodie is a tour of New Glarus Brewing and and interview with brewmaster Dan Carey.
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Nov 17, 2012 21:24
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nmfree posted:I... didn't know that was a thing. I think I'll do that, thanks. In other news, I have no clue how I'm going to use 2 pounds of 2012 Simcoe. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Nov 18, 2012 |
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Nov 18, 2012 01:58
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Brew Day has never been more exciting. Tomorrow at 9am I make the move to all grain with my 90% finished electric brewery!  I don't really know many people in the neighborhood I moved into last year but having this rig out on the driveway today doing a dry run really brought a crowd. I've got 4 people on my street who just love good beer, 1 rabid homebrewing fan, and 2 more who are considering getting started. One works for a honey company (I didn't even know that's a thing city folk did) and offered to hook me up with as much exotic honey as I want at deep discount. Homebrewing: making new friends who want you to get them drunk. First beer is going to be a clone of the St Rogue Red Ale. I wonder if I'm going to be able to get any sleep tonight.
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Nov 18, 2012 02:23
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Ok so that's about the coolest thing ever. I want more details! Did you use a build guide or was it self designed? How much did you spend on parts?
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Nov 18, 2012 02:38
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CapnBry posted:Brew Day has never been more exciting. Tomorrow at 9am I make the move to all grain with my 90% finished electric brewery! That looks really cool but I'm trying to figure it out still... the two kettles on the left and center are for mashing, and the one on the right is for boiling? Are you somehow using electricity to boil as well, or will it be off to gas for the boil in that third kettle which is disconnected from any of the pump stuff?
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Nov 18, 2012 02:40
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Yup the left two are are for mashing. The far left pot heats up strike water + sparge water + extra water, then I pump the strike water to the second pot and add grains. Then the second pump starts circulating the wort (what's it called at this stage?) through a heat exchanger to keep the mash at the right temperature. It can also ramp the mash temperature however I want it, so long as it is just around a degree a minute. After the mash out, I reconfigure the tubing to slowly pump it over to the boil kettle and sparge with some of the remaining water. I'm not sure how I'm going to measure that accurately until I finish building the scales to do it by weight. The boil is another 4500W electric heating element. When the boil is done I am going to try using the first pot again as a chiller, filling it with ice water and running the wort through the heat exchanger again. Inside of the boil kettle. I'd obviously do something to mitigate hot side aeration on the return tubing:  The majority of the instructions on how to build the system I got from The Electric Brewery, but I've changed a few things along the way. For one I tried to save money but that didn't really work out, as I've spent over $4500. $500 was on tools, like a circular saw to make the stand, metal punches, drill bits, wire strippers and cutters, a shop-vac, taps, and some pulleys to bend tubing. I've also wasted about $250-300 on "enhancements" that didn't work out or things I broke, and $200 on installing a 30A outlet. Also, I've got to work up a way of mounting the control panel to the cart so there's still a little spending. Eventually I am going to mount a tablet inside the large gap in the control panel for recipe reference, a boil/mash timer, and the aforementioned water level measurement circuitry. Further down the road, I might make the tablet control the whole process, with the help of some more microcontrollers. Right now I just want to make the hell out of some beer! CapnBry fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Nov 18, 2012 |
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Nov 18, 2012 03:26
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What's the best way to remove labels without destroying them? I've got a bunch of bottles lying around that are taking up too much space and I need to get rid of them, but I figure I'd be a nerd and keep the labels if I can get them off without annihilating them. Also, I'm thinking of trying out doing some juniper berries in a stout. I've read they can kind of get overpowering if you go too crazy with them, so how much would I be looking to put into a 5 gallon brew? And should they go in the boil, or just be put in the fermentor or what? Alternatively, I was thinking maybe chocolate nibs. How much for the 5 gallons?
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Nov 18, 2012 05:03
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CapnBry posted:Brew Day has never been more exciting. Tomorrow at 9am I make the move to all grain with my 90% finished electric brewery! That is a seriously awesome and ballsy way to jump into all grain
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Nov 18, 2012 05:32
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Detective Thompson posted:What's the best way to remove labels without destroying them? I've got a bunch of bottles lying around that are taking up too much space and I need to get rid of them, but I figure I'd be a nerd and keep the labels if I can get them off without annihilating them. Also, I'm thinking of trying out doing some juniper berries in a stout. I've read they can kind of get overpowering if you go too crazy with them, so how much would I be looking to put into a 5 gallon brew? And should they go in the boil, or just be put in the fermentor or what? Alternatively, I was thinking maybe chocolate nibs. How much for the 5 gallons? Soaking them in water and/or Oxyclean is pretty much your only bet. If they stay intact or not is kind of a crapshoot.
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Nov 18, 2012 05:56
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CapnBry that is seriously the coolest loving thing. Perhaps I'll get inspired and do something like that. Today my wife and I brewed a local version of Northern Brewer's Saison de Noel, which Splizwarf got me into. I got the ingredients from our local shop (MD Homebrew in Columbia, MD) so a few things were different. MD Homebrew has White Labs stuff only so I went with the WLP 670 Farmhouse Blend. Instead of the CaraAroma we used Crystal 120, and the malt extract was 6.6 lbs of CBW Pilsen Light. I also tossed the corn sugar in with the DME at the 15 minute mark so I wouldn't have to worry about getting sugar on my wort chiller. OG was 1.070 so this should be interesting. Also while not strictly homebrewing, tis the season for egg nog and the holiday thread has this recipe which looks pretty promising. Those bottles were full when I started... 
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Nov 18, 2012 06:00
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I've seen a LOT of all-grain brewing setups in this thread that are very intricate and expensive, and the general theme (since noone has posted a poor-man's rig)seems to be that for your average extract brewer to transition to all-grain brewing it's going to take a lot of money. Thankfully THIS IS NOT THE CASE! You can do everything they do, make beer just as delicious/experimental, and do it for a lot less money (though it is a bit more work and takes more micromanaging.)What those shiny toys and doodads accomplish is to eliminate some of the inherent human error and eliminate unwelcome variables. You can make the transition to all grain with an investment as low as $10-$50 depending on what equipment you already have on hand. My personal conversion cost me $50 because I didn't have a Turkey Fryer. It turns out that my Dad had one for boiling corn that got used once a year, and we would have given it to me if I'd asked. Ask your loved ones for stuff. If they love you they'll give you their turkey fryers for free.) So the first and biggest hurdle is getting a big enough pot/burner. As you've probably noticed with your extract boils, heating up 2.5 gallons on a gas-range takes forever, for a 5-6.5 gallon boil, you'll encounter the heat-death of the universe before that baby boils, so you need more juice. The cheapest way to do this is via a $35 turkey fryer at Wal-Mart. This comes with a propane burner that feels like the rear end end of an F-22 Raptor, and a 36qt stockpot. While elitist jerks will argue that aluminum pots are inferior to steel or copper based kettles (they are actually inferior by the way) Aluminum turkey fryer pots are also less than 1/10th the price, so while they won't last more than 2 years, IDGAS because it would take me 20 years to break even with a stainless steel pot that gave me less volume. Because you can effectively do your mash inside your brew kettle if you use a large grain bag ($2.50 at your LHBS), the only other thing you need to buy/rig up is an improvised lautering tun for separating the sweet wort from your spent grains. There are a number of methods to accomplish this, from coolers (if you already have a cooler w/ a drain on the bottom this is the cheapest way, otherwise, do what I did) to uber-shiny $1,500 mash/lautering systems that hold your sparge water at exactly 170.00000000000 Degrees Fahrenheit, (using a quantum mechanical formula to devise the optimal volume of water to use for sugar extraction no less!) but I do this by using a regular stackable plastic bucket such as the one here:  Note: The Home Depot Homer bucket works great for this and costs about $5. You then modify this bucket by drilling small holes in the bottom:  To use it as a lautering tun, just place it on top of any empty pot or pail:  Note: I usually use an empty ale pail to collect the wort instead of a kettle because it's taller, but that the kettle was next to me when I took the picture so deal with it.After your mash time is up you simply lift the grain bag out of the kettle (letting as much wort drip out as possible) before placing the bag into your bucket. Add Water 1/2 gallon at a time in what is known as "Batch Sparging". When you're done sparging just dump the wort into your kettle and boil. This method works really well because due to some Osmotic Sorcery the physics works in your favor and the water won't drain to the lower bucket until you lift your bag up, thus you get the "real" lauter tun effect of letting the sparge water soak on the grains without spending $$ on a real one, or ruining your favorite cooler. Just make sure that if you used your ale pail for this just be sure you don't forget to wash/re-sanitize it. You can do everything here Solo, but a set of helping hands makes everything a lot easier, particularly moving buckets/pots of near boiling water. Friends like making (and drinking) beer with you. You do have friends right? Total bill: $35 turkey fryer $2.50 grain bag $5 Bucket $7.50 Floating thermometer (though I suppose a floating thermometer is a luxury, sticking your hand down into 158*F mash to dig a regular thermometer out is retarded, go spend the $7 for one that floats you cheap prick) __________________________ Total: $50 I suppose you should buy a real mash paddle (lovely plastic ones are about $6, quality wooden paddles are around $20-$25), but in my experience a broom handle works just fine (just remember to sanitize it/take the broom head off) Also, for your first all grain batch, use 20% more grain than your recipe calls for because you'll probably gently caress it up and get lovely efficiency, secondly don't do an Imperial stout with 18# of malt for your first time like this dumb rear end in a top hat *points to self* did, because 18# of wet grain is really closer to 40# of wet grain which sucks rear end if your figuring out how to use your system for the first time. Make losing your all-grain virginity not-suck by picking a normal sized recipe instead of trying to handle the BBC of beers. This method does work, and it works well once you get the hang of it. Eventually I'll probably buy proper equipment, but for now I'm focusing on improving my recipes/ingredients. Today I bottled an Amber Rhubarb Ale, with Lemon and Pink Peppercorn seeds, it was loving amazing, and it's something =you could never find in a store, even the good craft beer stores, and I couldn't have done the recipe with an extract setup. *Fixed a typo or two DrFrankenStrudel fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Nov 18, 2012 |
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Nov 18, 2012 06:35
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Where did you get a Patriots bucket?Angry Grimace posted:Soaking them in water and/or Oxyclean is pretty much your only bet. If they stay intact or not is kind of a crapshoot. Yeah, I figured as much. I'll give it a go and see what I can save.
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Nov 18, 2012 07:56
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