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Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks pickles are a loving abortion of a food and should be placed nowhere near a burger, sandwich, or anything else for that matter. I'm cool with cucumbers in their natural state though. They're like....firm lettuce. e: glad this is at the top of the page so my picklecaust opinions are loud and clear.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:34
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Looking for some advice concerning a possibly stalled batch: I brewed some sort of beer on Saturday at a friend's house... 6 lb wheat malt, 4 lb 2-row, 1 lb crystal 20, probably way too much Amarillo and Cascade hops (my favorite combination of way too much hops), and Wyeast 1007 German Ale http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=150 pitched at 70f. The yeast took a while to bulge the pack after I slapped it, which worried me a bit, though it was cold where we were working. I put it near the space heater and it did start to bulge up before I pitched it. I was told that it was bubbling happily the day after brewing but slowed down pretty abruptly by the time I got there on Monday and I saw about a 1-2cm thick krausen. I usually use American Ale 1056 and see happy bubbling for 24-48 hours or so after brewing and about triple the krausen. There was a good cake at the bottom and it WAS bubbling, but maybe once every ten or so seconds; definitely slower than I am accustomed to at that point. Ferm-o-meter said 68-70f which is good. Wyeast says it is a low-flocculating yeast and it matures quickly; should I not worry about the apparent stall and keep on keeping on, or maybe I should pitch more? What do you think?
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Mar 5, 2013 21:44
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clutchpuck posted:What do you think? Take a gravity reading. It's the only way to know what's going on for sure. Also cucumbers own, you weirdos 
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Mar 5, 2013 21:51
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wattershed posted:Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks pickles are a loving abortion of a food and should be placed nowhere near a burger, sandwich, or anything else for that matter. I agree, I always pick my pickles off food, and never eat those ones. But a pickle out of a jar is another story entirely, and I don't like to whip out the facts, but go eat a head of lettuce with nothing on it and tell me you like it. After all a cucumber is just "firm lettuce". Ill be here to welcome you to the light side when your done. As for your question. This is where hydrometers come in. If your brewing in a bucket, you may have a poor seal, which explains the less airlock activity. The BEST way to tell if a fermentation is going or not is gravity readings  .
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Mar 5, 2013 21:55
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Pickles (any kind of vegetable) are awesome, as are raw cucumbers. Cooked cucumbers are loving awful though.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:06
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withak posted:Pickles (any kind of vegetable) are awesome, as are raw cucumbers. Cooked cucumbers are loving awful though. This made me think of the chinese oil cured pickles with the szechuan peppercorns in them. And that made me think of using szechuan peppercorns in beer. Szechuan peppercorns in beer......
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Mar 5, 2013 22:09
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Marshmallow Blue posted:I agree, I always pick my pickles off food, and never eat those ones. But a pickle out of a jar is another story entirely, and I don't like to whip out the facts, but go eat a head of lettuce with nothing on it and tell me you like it. After all a cucumber is just "firm lettuce". Ill be here to welcome you to the light side when your done. Well I wouldn't eat a head of lettuce plain, nor would I just take a big ol bite out of a cucumber. Sliced into a salad, I can get down with that (I know someone who likes them on hot dogs, weirdo). The only thing I really like pickled are pepperoncinis and jalapenos, not sure why everything else literally makes me gag at the smell of it. Kimchi, relish, the whole lot. I'm sure my taste/scent buds are making me miss a lot of awesomeness but it's my own prison I guess.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:12
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It is why pickles must win. Because I and most others, CAN take a big bite out of a plain pickle. Superiority of Pickled Kind. However, What tops Cucumbers, and Pickles? Pumpkin of coarse. Best beer is pumpkin beer, best coffee is pumpkin coffee, best pie... you guessed it folks. But I'm from Massachusetts and we're pretty big on pumpkins up here.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:21
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Crunkjuice posted:Do you guys keep a logbook of your brew history/info? Did you just grab something online or make up your own? I made a template Google Doc that I use for each new recipe. It has summary details (serial number, name, yeast, temperatures, OG, FG and ABV), all of the ingredients, the recipe with step by step instructions, and then the rest is a log with entries by date and time for whenever I do stuff after the initial brew like measure gravity or bottle. If I remember I try to add tasting notes whenever I test a bottle. Each doc is named "<serial number> - <name>" and put in a folder on the Google Drive so they're easy to find. It's also nice to be able to look them up on my phone when I bring stuff to a tasting party and anyone asks about the details.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:32
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One time I tried to give names to my beers in Beersmith and I realized I didn't know what any of them were. Back to "IPA Experiment #4."wattershed posted:Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks pickles are a loving abortion of a food and should be placed nowhere near a burger, sandwich, or anything else for that matter. As a defender of the pickle, I demand satisfaction.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:40
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Mr. Wiggles posted:This made me think of the chinese oil cured pickles with the szechuan peppercorns in them. A couple years ago New Belgium did a German hefeweizen with szechuan peppercorns added in. It owned. edit: link Docjowles fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 22:45
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Now I want spicy pickled onions. I will have to make a big fuckoff jar to keep in the fridge for beer-snacking. And maybe some kimchi also. Hell, maybe I will just raid the "mysterious things in jars" section of the Korean market near me.
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Mar 5, 2013 22:58
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The trick with those peppercorns is balancing "enough to get a good mouth tingle" with "this tastes like nothing but pepper"
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Mar 5, 2013 23:01
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Not quite the same thing, but I did a beer with black pepper that was seriously good. I used one ounce of peppercorns in ten gallons, crushed, in the boil, and it gave the beer just a little tinge of spice. It was a very mildly flavored beer in all other respects, so there was less to get in the way.
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Mar 6, 2013 00:19
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j3rkstore posted:I have a journal I keep my hand-written recipies and notes in Thank god, I thought I was the only one for a minute.
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Mar 6, 2013 01:04
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I have a friend who likes to keep a journal of the beers he drinks and I read it once and all of his notes were like "this beer is good. It is yellow."
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Mar 6, 2013 01:29
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I'm brewing my first Hefeweizen this weekend, and I'd like some opinions about what kind of mash schedule I should follow. My Radical Brewing book suggests a glucan rest,followed by either a protein or ferulic acid rest, and then a single or double decoction. However, in my search for a mash schedule to follow, I've been reading that a step mash could be more appropriate than a decoction. Opinions?
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Mar 6, 2013 04:06
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j3rkstore posted:I have a journal I keep my hand-written recipies and notes in  
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Mar 6, 2013 04:36
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Crunkjuice posted:Do you guys keep a logbook of your brew history/info? Did you just grab something online or make up your own? I usually write up whatever recipe I'm going to do in Hopville (so I can play around with things if I'm bored, see expected OG/FG/IBU/etc, and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to convert from and compare to Imperial recipes). Then I copy the recipe into a notebook and write whatever notes in there, like dates, temperatures, difficulties/challenges in brewing, taste, etc. I'm not that far into homebrewing but it keeps things organised Also putting the book next to the beerfridge means I'm more likely to scribble in a word or two
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Mar 6, 2013 04:42
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Huh, I've never seen one of those notebooks that didn't have the white parts colored in. I don't think I trust you anymore. Someone look at this recipe I've been tinkering with. My girlfriend wants to clone a local IPA and I know the grain/hops they used, but not the quantities, and IPAs aren't my specialty so I'm just making educated guesses. Any feedback appreciated: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/37789/joffrey-double-ipa
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Mar 6, 2013 04:45
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clutchpuck posted:Wyeast 1007 German Ale All yeasts have different temperature ranges they operate well at, you should check Wyeast's website for the recommended temperature range for the yeast you're using. For the German Ale it's 55-68*, so you're above the top end of the range. This could mean you only really saw activity for 24 hours because your yeast plowed through everything since they were at the very top end of the temperature range. Not saying your beer will be bad but generally you want to stay around the middle of the recommended temperature range until you know how a specific yeast operates at the extremes of that range.
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Mar 6, 2013 05:30
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Crunkjuice posted:Do you guys keep a logbook of your brew history/info? Did you just grab something online or make up your own? I print out/photocopy beer recipes I want to try. This local brew shop has a file cabinet of 100s of various recipes too, so I haven't done a lot of my own stuff. I HAVE made a few batches of standard types of beer that don't require too much imagination from guidelines out of a book too. I have a drawer full of beer recipes and usually just grab a few pounds of grain, some malt, some hops, some yeast and do a wort over a weekend. The one beer I did kinda put together myself was a pumpkin pie brown ale. It's a standard brown ale with American yeast and sweeter cascade hops. Last 10 minutes of the boil I add in a whole pureed sugar pie pumpkin (flesh and skin, thanks blendtec). Then I make an infusion of a mix of pumpkin pie spices I get online from Penzey's, which sits in my fridge for a month. I rack after 2 weeks to help get rid of sediment and move from a plastic tun to a glass carboy. I rack the beer into a bottling bucket after another 2 weeks with a bucket funnel and screen to help remove even more sediment. It takes a few times of stopping and cleaning off the screen, but it makes a huge difference in the final product. Then I keg in a 5 gallon corny keg, chill to 65 and put 18 PSI on it for a day occasionally. Edit: It's nothing special, but I'm proud of it because it's a recipe I've been tinkering with for years to get to come out really well. Prior batches had a ton of sediment or were bitter...or tasted like iron cause of molasses priming. This last October was really probably the first time I was happy with how it came out. Logarth fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Mar 6, 2013 |
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Mar 6, 2013 14:19
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fullroundaction posted:Someone look at this recipe I've been tinkering with. My girlfriend wants to clone a local IPA and I know the grain/hops they used, but not the quantities, and IPAs aren't my specialty so I'm just making educated guesses. Any feedback appreciated: It sure looks a lot of hoppy bitterness. Honestly, have you reached out via email/facebook/twitter/phone call/show up and ask the brewery? Just about any local place would be more than happy to give a homebrewer a leg up in creating a clone to one of their beers.
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Mar 6, 2013 14:40
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I have been considering just clearing out my entire kegging and kegerator setup. I just don't drink that much to justify it, it takes up a ton of space, is fiddly about proper carbonation, and going back to bottles would let me have a good mix on hand instead of the 5 gallon kegs. Am I just getting too rosy eyed about how much of a pain in the rear end bottling is?
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Mar 6, 2013 15:07
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Shifty Pony posted:I have been considering just clearing out my entire kegging and kegerator setup. I just don't drink that much to justify it, it takes up a ton of space, is fiddly about proper carbonation, and going back to bottles would let me have a good mix on hand instead of the 5 gallon kegs. If variety is important you can always get a couple more kegs, fill/charge them, and then just disconnect and store them. I have 4 filled now (2 taps) and it is really easy to just swap one out when someone wants something different.
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Mar 6, 2013 15:25
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Bottling isn't a pain at all though. It's the easiest part of the whole brewing process, in my opinion.
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Mar 6, 2013 16:13
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So I guess we never found out what the best way to add cucumbers to a beer would be, huh? I was planning on making something similar to the CCB cucumber saison this summer, since that sounds refreshing as poo poo but the last couple pages made me super nervous.
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Mar 6, 2013 16:51
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Shifty Pony posted:I have been considering just clearing out my entire kegging and kegerator setup. I just don't drink that much to justify it, it takes up a ton of space, is fiddly about proper carbonation, and going back to bottles would let me have a good mix on hand instead of the 5 gallon kegs. I don't think bottling is too much of a pain if you have someone to help and you buy new bottles or don't care too much about having your old bottles de-labeled. I always end up making a minor mess though. (I'm bottling two batches in the same day this weekend though so I may change my mind)
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Mar 6, 2013 17:10
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Jacobey000 posted:It sure looks a lot of hoppy bitterness. Honestly, have you reached out via email/facebook/twitter/phone call/show up and ask the brewery? Just about any local place would be more than happy to give a homebrewer a leg up in creating a clone to one of their beers. I've asked over email/social media a couple times but never got a response, yeah. My only methodology was to put the bittering hops first, hybrids in the middle, and aromatics at the end, with the quantities being similar to other beers I've made that I liked. 
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Mar 6, 2013 17:42
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Jacobey000 posted:It sure looks a lot of hoppy bitterness. Honestly, have you reached out via email/facebook/twitter/phone call/show up and ask the brewery? Just about any local place would be more than happy to give a homebrewer a leg up in creating a clone to one of their beers. Yeah... it's hard to say without knowing more about what you're cloning, but it seems like you have WAY too much early hopping going on. Is the target beer actually super retardedly bitter, or balanced but full of hop flavor/aroma? I'd consider knocking the 90 minute addition down to ~1oz of a high alpha hop, then move EVERYTHING else forward to like 15 minutes or less and more dry hopping. Dry hop in primary for 3-4 days, rack to secondary (to get it off the hops before they turn super grassy) and dry hop again. Then package. You can't really get more than 100 IBU's into solution so anything beyond that is wasted, and (this is more debatable but IMO) you probably aren't getting much but pure bitterness with additions longer than about 30 minutes.
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Mar 6, 2013 17:45
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Docjowles posted:Yeah... it's hard to say without knowing more about what you're cloning, but it seems like you have WAY too much early hopping going on. Is the target beer actually super retardedly bitter, or balanced but full of hop flavor/aroma? I'd consider knocking the 90 minute addition down to ~1oz of a high alpha hop, then move EVERYTHING else forward to like 15 minutes or less and more dry hopping. Dry hop in primary for 3-4 days, rack to secondary (to get it off the hops before they turn super grassy) and dry hop again. Then package. Thanks for this, going to adjust accordingly. I'm no longer really trying to clone the beer as much as figure out a way to just make a good DIPA with the ingredients they've listed. The last one I made actually had more bittering hops at the beginning (and I agree it was painfully bitter) but it made my GF happy so ... who knows. Hopheads 
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Mar 6, 2013 19:35
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Shifty Pony posted:I have been considering just clearing out my entire kegging and kegerator setup. I just don't drink that much to justify it, it takes up a ton of space, is fiddly about proper carbonation, and going back to bottles would let me have a good mix on hand instead of the 5 gallon kegs. Personally I think bottling is an enormous pain and sucks more than anything else in brewing. But that doesn't seem relevant to you situation. If the kegging system isn't being utilized while also being a limiting factor when it comes to variety then sure, get rid of it and go bottle. Certainly bottles scale better in many many ways, the notable exception being effort. Doesn't sound like that is threshold you have to worry about.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:26
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Docjowles posted:You can't really get more than 100 IBU's into solution so anything beyond that is wasted I'd take exception to how that is phrased. The scale breaks down at about 100 IBUs so that numbers beyond that don't really mean anything. But that's not the same as wasting hops that are above and beyond this theoretical measurement limit.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:30
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Shifty Pony posted:I have been considering just clearing out my entire kegging and kegerator setup. I just don't drink that much to justify it, it takes up a ton of space, is fiddly about proper carbonation, and going back to bottles would let me have a good mix on hand instead of the 5 gallon kegs. As with all aspects of brewing, do what works for you and makes the beer you want to drink. I went back to bottling for a few years when I was having issues with my kegs and an old fridge. But I also found it to be a giant pain to bottle. Even if you do decide to go back to bottling, I would advise merely putting the kegging stuff aside rather than selling it on Craigslist or something. You may find, as I did, that you want to come back to it later, and it's not getting cheaper.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:30
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drewhead posted:I'd take exception to how that is phrased. The scale breaks down at about 100 IBUs so that numbers beyond that don't really mean anything. But that's not the same as wasting hops that are above and beyond this theoretical measurement limit. I thought it was also the case that your taste buds hit a point where you can't distinguish between something that calculates out to 110 IBU's vs something that calculates to 250. You hit a threshold where they're just "maximum bitterness". But I could certainly be misremembering.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:36
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drewhead posted:Personally I think bottling is an enormous pain and sucks more than anything else in brewing. Yeah, I honestly like having something different nearly every time I have a drink. I just feel a bit silly getting rid of 5 five gallon kegs + 1 three gallon keg, kegerator, CO2 system, beer gun, and associated stuff when everyone talks about how great kegging is. I mean don't get me wrong: being able to keg in 5 minutes vs bottle 50 bottles is nice, but... I dunno I prefer bottles and honestly find them less effort overall. I suppose I should just put up a flier at Austin Homebrew and see if anyone is interested. I don't even know where to start on pricing though.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:54
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IIRC IBUs as defined have a physical ceiling around 110 because of solubility of alpha acids don't let any more in solution. Alpha acids are just generically bitter so I'm not sure why it became the IPA gold standard. 80+ to me and there's no real difference at that point of tongue numbing. Its not technically wasting hops because alpha acids are just a bonus hop flavor to a lot of the good stuff you can get.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:57
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Shifty Pony posted:Yeah, I honestly like having something different nearly every time I have a drink. I just feel a bit silly getting rid of 5 five gallon kegs + 1 three gallon keg, kegerator, CO2 system, beer gun, and associated stuff when everyone talks about how great kegging is. I mean don't get me wrong: being able to keg in 5 minutes vs bottle 50 bottles is nice, but... I dunno I prefer bottles and honestly find them less effort overall. Why not just bottle a gallon or two before racking the rest to a keg each time? That way you'll have bottles and you'll also have more of a turnover in kegs.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:30
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And I thought I'd only get a few responses regarding my cucumber question. I managed to track down more details of the beer that inspired the question. The brewery, Copper Kettle Brewing, says that it also includes Coriander during the boil and is aged on fresh cucumbers. Won the prize for most original beer at the festival I tried it at so I was not alone in my opinion of it.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:44
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So they just rack on top of them in secondary? (I've been wanting to do a cucumber beer for years)
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Mar 7, 2013 02:05
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