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illcendiary posted:I meant to ask this awhile back, but recently I left a solution of Star San in a keg and beer line in my kegerator for about a week. Can the Star San seep into the tubing and affect the flavor for future beers? No
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Jan 20, 2014 04:30
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Anyone have a good technique for saving bottle dregs for sours?
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Jan 20, 2014 04:37
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illcendiary posted:I meant to ask this awhile back, but recently I left a solution of Star San in a keg and beer line in my kegerator for about a week. Can the Star San seep into the tubing and affect the flavor for future beers? I've left Star-san in the lines for a month or so and not really noticed much flavor impact. If I were competition brewing, I might change the lines, though.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:56
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illcendiary posted:I meant to ask this awhile back, but recently I left a solution of Star San in a keg and beer line in my kegerator for about a week. Can the Star San seep into the tubing and affect the flavor for future beers? At some point I will stop being lazy and setup an Arduino to control the thing and probably have some logging to get better data but for now the settings I listed are working fine for me. illcendiary posted:I meant to ask this awhile back, but recently I left a solution of Star San in a keg and beer line in my kegerator for about a week. Can the Star San seep into the tubing and affect the flavor for future beers?
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Jan 20, 2014 04:57
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Jerome Louis posted:Anyone have a good technique for saving bottle dregs for sours? I just put a bottle of JP in the fridge for a few weeks, and made sure it wasn't disturbed.
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Jan 20, 2014 05:36
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Galler posted:I've got mine set to 6*C with 1*C deviation and a 5 minute compressor delay. Anyway, rant aside, with my settings and a 70F ambient temperature it runs for 10% of the time. On for 13 minutes then off for 1hr 58mins. For the first 3 minutes it pulls 150W declining to 110W, then it climbs up to 125W over the next 10 minutes. In my mind freezer are more efficient if they run longer but less frequently. I could be wrong about that, I guess I should correlate temperature drop per minute per W or something.
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Jan 20, 2014 05:46
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Jerome Louis posted:Anyone have a good technique for saving bottle dregs for sours? Pour them into a starter and let it sit for as long as you need. You could even pour new wort into the bottle and pop an air lock onto it. If you're away from home, you could just cap/cork it and I'm sure it'll be fine for a day or so before you can pour it into a starter or your beer. Groupon Goods has a stainless steel growler on sale right now. These insulated growlers will keep the same temperature for a day and you don't have to worry about it breaking. Dropping a full growler sucks. http://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-lifeline-stainless-steel-growler?utm_source=rvs&utm_medium=afl&utm_campaign=4534259
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Jan 20, 2014 06:18
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Finally pulled the trigger (heh) on a Blichmann Beer Gun since I need to bottle some stuff for competition. I know to keep the pressure and temperature as low as I can while filling to prevent foaming. Are there any other tricks I should know about to get a good fill?
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Jan 20, 2014 14:07
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I'm in the process of renovating my basement and part of that process is installing a small brew room that will support a e-biab brewery with ventilation, etc. My problem is right now if I want to brew I need to do it on my stove, and my house has terrible ventilation in the kitchen. Has anyone ever done anything with making a standalone "vent hood" that they hang over their pot and then pipe out of a window? I've been looking at 6 inch inline fans with a standard outlet plug that I was going to attempt to setup, and then move the fan down into my actual brew room when its ready for it. Something along the lines of this: 6inch 400CFM Inline Fan with a homemade plywood hood and window fitting to prop in the window.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:47
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I had some WLP300 that expired in October of last year sitting in my fridge from a brew that I never got around to. I am planning on brewing tomorrow, and made a yeast starter yesterday in a tupperware with tinfoil. It's not showing any signs of activity, is there any way to tell weather it's usable or not?
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Jan 20, 2014 15:05
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ChiTownEddie posted:E: Unrelated to that haha has anyone noticed any difference between 1 big dry hop vs multiple smaller ones? I plan on doing a few experiments when I do a 10 gallon kitchen sink pale ale in a few weeks. * dry hopped before primary starts * .5 oz per gallon dry hopped for 7 days total * .5 oz per gallon dry hopped half for the full 7 days and half for only the last 3 * no dry hopping for control No one will ever agree about any of this but at least I'll know what works for me on my setup.
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Jan 20, 2014 15:08
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Jo3sh posted:OK, I just got done with my STC-1000 build, and it's working great. I will admit the compressor delay function did confuse me at first, because the "cool" light was blinking but the fridge did not turn on. Do you guys who have STC-1000s leave the delay at 3 minutes, open up the temperature differential, neither, or both? I keep mine at 10 minutes (the highest compressor delay) with a 1C differential. I set it to 0.5C under my desired temp.
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Jan 20, 2014 15:20
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fullroundaction posted:I plan on doing a few experiments when I do a 10 gallon kitchen sink pale ale in a few weeks. I will be very interested in this. I still haven't decided if I should dry hop again or just count on the pre-fermentation dry hops to do their thing.
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Jan 20, 2014 16:47
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fullroundaction posted:I plan on doing a few experiments when I do a 10 gallon kitchen sink pale ale in a few weeks. Thats awesome, report back 
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Jan 20, 2014 16:58
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OK so that beet beer is put on the back burner because I'm all of a sudden not really feeling like it. I now have the itch to try a sour. I have a Brett saison that I put into secondary and intended to age for 6 months that I should maybe check on considering that out of sight out of mind it's now been 3 years... Maybe worth doing a geuze if it's not completely and utterly rank. Barring that I'm thinking of trying a sour mash. Anyone have experience with that? Casual internet research has mixed advice. Some places are strict and ridiculous about specific temperatures and no oxygen environments etc. Others are more lax. What I don't get is why some are so strict. If the point is to get wild beer flavors, is it really that bad to just let it go wild? No one is super specific like that when making sourdough or other wild fermented foods. And its going to be boiled anyway... GrAviTy84 fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 20:39
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GrAviTy84 posted:I now have the itch to try a sour. I have a Brett saison that I put into secondary and intended to age for 6 months that I should maybe check on considering that out of sight out of mind it's now been 3 years... That sounds tasty, have you kept the airlock from drying up in that time? Probably doesn't matter as much with the bugs, but it may be a tad acetic if anything got in (like fruit flies). I also am not doing my Vienna Ale at the moment. I want something a little more hoppy but not an IPA. I'm going to try to clone Harpoon 100 Barrel series : Polskie Manste . And I mean clone in the loosest definition. I can't find Manyarka hops by the oz anywhere, and Northern Brewer doesn't have Amber malt either.
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Jan 20, 2014 20:45
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GrAviTy84 posted:If the point is to get wild beer flavors, is it really that bad to just let it go wild? There's some pretty terrible things floating in the air and they would happily eat your sugary wort just as much as the good things. Wild yeast can impart flavors that taste like feces or rubbing alcohol. When you're making fermented foods, you usually use a lot of salt or make a brine to kill a lot of the nasties, but let things like lactobacillus thrive. Here is an opinion that I trust that can answer your question better though. http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2014/01/wild-yeast-wrangling-how-i-wild-ferment.html
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Jan 20, 2014 21:27
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Does anyone have a 3 Floyds Gumballhead clone that they can attest to?
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Jan 20, 2014 21:28
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Midorka posted:Does anyone have a 3 Floyds Gumballhead clone that they can attest to? Gumballhead is a wheated pale ale/IPA with lots of Amarillo hops (and iirc it's single-hopped), so that should at least start you in the right direction, but I don't actually like the beer very much so I've never attempted to clone it.
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Jan 20, 2014 21:37
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GrAviTy84 posted:OK so that beet beer is put on the back burner because I'm all of a sudden not really feeling like it. Good because if you did it I'd have to distill carrots or something for purposes of competition and really that's getting into crazy territory. 
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Jan 20, 2014 21:48
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fullroundaction posted:Sure thing! My recipe was mostly based on one from Radical Brewing, but a I made a couple modifications based on what I had on hand. One caveat is that I have no idea what kind of bugs were in it because I grew a whole bunch of lacto from old grain and apple juice for a no-boil Berliner Weisse, which I used the cake of to ferment this beer. If I were to play it safe I would just use US-05 and a bag of lacto (pitched at the same time) and wait a few months, sampling every month and bottling when it's sour enough for you. Found this old post because I just drank a small bottle of Duchesse de Bourgogne and I'm now a sour-convert... It's not too sour, just layers and layers of different things going on, simply fantastic. I've tried a few gouze and lambics before, but this is something else. So now I absolutely need to make a Flanders Red, but scared of loving up my first sour, since it'll take a while before I get to taste the results. I figure I'll make the recipe above, split a 10 gallon batch and try one with US-05 + WLP677 Lactobacillus and another with maybe WLP655 Belgian Sour or Roeselare Blend to see which culture I like best. Does this sound like a good plan or anyone got a better suggestion? Newbie question: "sampling every month and bottling when it's sour enough", does the lacto stop working when taken off the yeast cake or something? And after months of sharing a bucket with these crazy bacteria, are there enough yeasts alive to carbonate in bottles?
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Jan 20, 2014 21:54
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internet celebrity posted:Finally pulled the trigger (heh) on a Blichmann Beer Gun since I need to bottle some stuff for competition. I know to keep the pressure and temperature as low as I can while filling to prevent foaming. Are there any other tricks I should know about to get a good fill? Put your empties in the kegerator now so they'll be the same temp as the beer. That'll go just as far as the other precautions in keeping the foam down. Also, fill it to where it overflows just a bit, as that'll push the head foam out and leave you with only beer. Remove the gun (that'll create some headspace), and drop another second or two of CO2 on the top of the beer to ensure there's no oxygen left. Cap immediately, and wipe down your bottle. Done. On a different note, I accidentally nailed one of my tap handles with a full keg and it busted the o-ring on the Perlick 525SS tap. From that point, there was no static position I could leave the handle in where it wouldn't drip. I didn't have any replacement o-rings meant for the Perlicks, but I DID have a bag of o-rings meant for keg posts. I put one of those down in place of the busted o-ring, gave an extra-snug tightening to the piece that sits on top of the ring when reassembling, and it works great. Those Perlick-specific o-rings are expensive from Perlick, and while I'm sure there's a cheap McMaster part that works just as well, it's not something anyone needs to go out of their way to order if they have a few packs of keg ring replacements handy. Just something I thought I'd share in case you find yourself in a pinch.
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Jan 20, 2014 22:37
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Haha northern brewer sent me an extra packet of hops in my Irish red ale kit, I'll take that as a sign I need to goof around with my first ever home brewing and make this thing kinda hoppy. Even more awesome is that these are called "liberty" hops 
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Jan 21, 2014 00:13
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adebisi lives posted:Haha northern brewer sent me an extra packet of hops in my Irish red ale kit, I'll take that as a sign I need to goof around with my first ever home brewing and make this thing kinda hoppy. Even more awesome is that these are called "liberty" hops Throw them in at the end of the boil, right when you turn the flame off. You won't regret it.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:16
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Stonedog posted:Found this old post because I just drank a small bottle of Duchesse de Bourgogne and I'm now a sour-convert... It's not too sour, just layers and layers of different things going on, simply fantastic. I've tried a few gouze and lambics before, but this is something else. So now I absolutely need to make a Flanders Red, but scared of loving up my first sour, since it'll take a while before I get to taste the results. Good plan, lacto keeps on doing it's thing indefinitely unless you go out of your way to kill it (eg pasteurization), and yeah the yeast has no problem with cohabitation for as long as you have it in the fermenter. When in doubt just add a pack of rehydrated yeast at bottling time (or slurry or whatever you have). You can feed your guys a half gallon or so of fresh wort a couple weeks before you plan on bottling to see if they're still up for the job and to get them ready to do work (this is what I do).
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Jan 21, 2014 00:26
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Stonedog posted:Found this old post because I just drank a small bottle of Duchesse de Bourgogne and I'm now a sour-convert... It's not too sour, just layers and layers of different things going on, simply fantastic. I've tried a few gouze and lambics before, but this is something else. So now I absolutely need to make a Flanders Red, but scared of loving up my first sour, since it'll take a while before I get to taste the results. you can always get your feet wet with sour mashing instead of sour fermenting. its not as complex in the finish, but the results are obtainable on a "standard" homebrew timeline.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:31
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I have two questions about Bottle Conditioning. After using the packet of priming sugar that came with my recipe kit, I let my bottles condition for 3-4 weeks, and the beer tasted great. However, after opening several, I noticed they were starting to seem more and more pressurized. I got scared of potential grenades, so I opened them all and re-capped them. 1) When I opened them all, about half oozed foam out the top while the other half had no fizz at all. My guess is that the priming sugar wasn't evenly distributed. I poured my sugar straight into the bottling-carboy and then auto-siphoned the beer into bottles from there. My best guess is that maybe I should have stirred up the beer before bottling it to ensure an even spread of sugar? 2) Is there anything tricky to know about re-capping beers? I just opened them, let them sit for a few minutes, wiped them down and re-capped. I figure I might have some flat beers afterwards, but it should all still be salvageable.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:39
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syphon posted:I have two questions about Bottle Conditioning. After using the packet of priming sugar that came with my recipe kit, I let my bottles condition for 3-4 weeks, and the beer tasted great. However, after opening several, I noticed they were starting to seem more and more pressurized. I got scared of potential grenades, so I opened them all and re-capped them. Most kits come with WAY too much priming sugar for a single batch. You still have to measure out the right amount. If you dumped in the entire thing, you very much may have accidentally created some potential bombs. You do also need to very thoroughly mix in the priming sugar solution. I would avoid ever directly adding priming sugar because, one, it hasn't been boiled and could contaminate the batch and, two, boiling the sugar in a few ounces of water before adding it to the beer makes it far easier to mix in evenly. If you're going to use priming sugar, you definitely need to transfer to a bottling bucket first and make sure to very carefully stir in the right amount of priming sugar solution to ensure it's evenly distributed throughout. Prior to doing that, I skipped the bottling bucket and would directly siphon from the carboy into bottles while using a carbonation drop in each bottle so that no single bottle had a lot more sugar than any other. Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 02:51
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The packet of sugar explicitly said for a 5 gallon batch (which is what I used) and I didn't mean to imply I dumped the sugar directly into the Carboy, I boiled it in a little bit of water first (as per the instructions). So you're saying it's best to stir the sugar(water) into the bottling bucket before bottling? That's pretty much the only step I didn't really follow, so I'm wondering if that's the source of my woes. Also, I'll consider using the tablets next time. Is there a decent list of pros and cons for the tablets over a packet of sugar?
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Jan 21, 2014 03:04
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Jo3sh posted:OK, I just got done with my STC-1000 build, and it's working great. I will admit the compressor delay function did confuse me at first, because the "cool" light was blinking but the fridge did not turn on. Do you guys who have STC-1000s leave the delay at 3 minutes, open up the temperature differential, neither, or both? I have my temp probe inside of a water bottle. The heat mass of the water causes the freezer to stay pretty stable and maybe turn on once a day for 30 minutes.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:12
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syphon posted:The packet of sugar explicitly said for a 5 gallon batch (which is what I used) and I didn't mean to imply I dumped the sugar directly into the Carboy, I boiled it in a little bit of water first (as per the instructions). You absolutely want to stir the sugar into the beer in the bottling bucket--as thoroughly as you loving can without making bubbles--before you transfer into bottles. Basically you've now created an unknowable portion of your bottles to likely be bottle bombs, and many to be undercarbonated.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:16
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Post #1: Today I brewed (mixed?) a new cider primarily for my wife. 5 gallons of Tree Top and 1 lb of Turbinado sugar putting the OG around 1.06. My plan is to ferment all of that out, then add a combination of apple juice concentrate, maple syrup, and more Turbinado sugar to bring the SG back up to around 1.04, bottle it, then pasteurize the bottles in a week or so after I've confirmed it got some carbonation. I used the Belgian Strong Ale yeast in hopes it'd add some interesting flavor but I don't expect much. a) is this a really stupid idea? the pasteurization? As far as I can tell, it's the only way to get carbonated sweet cider in bottles that doesn't involve using lactose and might actually taste good. I saw people putting 150 degree water in a cooler, adding the bottles, and waiting 40 minutes or so to do this. b) is 1.04 going to be disgustingly sweet? She likes very sweet ciders, "iceman" if you've had it, and enjoys ciders even sugarier than the Woodchuck variety. Given that the regular Tree Top is 1.05 I think 1.04 is fine but I have no clue. Glottis fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 03:24
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Post #2: I've got my first ever all grain batch in the fermenter. I brewed it about 2.5 weeks ago, and just over a week ago I added 3oz of Amarillo for the dry hopping. I was hoping to keg it today but I just can't seem to get this layer of dry hops on the top to fall in. It was huge earlier today before I tried smacking the carboy and most of it fell, but this last bit has been there for hours despite repeated attempts. Should I: a) wait a couple more days for it to fall in b) ignore it and keg it anyway, just trying to avoid the hop chud? Here's a picture (I had just smacked it, which is why you can see a few bits falling down): 
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Jan 21, 2014 03:30
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fullroundaction posted:Good plan, lacto keeps on doing it's thing indefinitely unless you go out of your way to kill it (eg pasteurization) Sort of. It does have a ph sensitivity and can make it it so sour that it inhibits further growth.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:03
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Cointelprofessional posted:Sort of. It does have a ph sensitivity and can make it it so sour that it inhibits further growth. If your beer's ph drops below stomach acid (which lacto can survive) you've got a whole new set of problems.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:24
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fullroundaction posted:If your beer's ph drops below stomach acid (which lacto can survive) you've got a whole new set of problems. Lacto might survive, but it won't be around for much longer. To quote Wild Brews, page 112, "Even though the microorganism produces lactic acid, Lactobacillus will ceased to reproduce at a ph of around 3.8."
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Jan 21, 2014 04:55
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Glottis posted:Post #1: Today I brewed (mixed?) a new cider primarily for my wife. 5 gallons of Tree Top and 1 lb of Turbinado sugar putting the OG around 1.06. My plan is to ferment all of that out, then add a combination of apple juice concentrate, maple syrup, and more Turbinado sugar to bring the SG back up to around 1.04, bottle it, then pasteurize the bottles in a week or so after I've confirmed it got some carbonation. I used the Belgian Strong Ale yeast in hopes it'd add some interesting flavor but I don't expect much. a) I think home-pasteurization of homebrew is loving insane and way too dangerous to attempt, but I also would never, ever buy glass carboys.  b) I think it'll be quite sweet. You could always take some of that iceman and do a gravity reading to find out where it lands. Getting the beer back up to 90% of it's OG is kinda interesting to think about, butt seems awfully high of an OG. When you say you'll let the bottles sit for 1 week - you are taking your life into your own hands as far as bottle bombs. Adding that much sugar back may only take days, if not hours (12?) to get carbonated. And you'd have to act fast. c) Iceman is a ice-distilled cider. The flavor profile is much more complicated than "add more sugar" due to the fact they are freezing and pouring off the sugar and booze (which don't freeze). I'd do it this way: Buy your store-bought cider, add all that sugar to begin with (1.090), ferment it on down and then freeze it up, and bottle it. There is massive loss from doing this (just like all distilling) so be aware. e: Virigoth posted:I've been looking at 6 inch inline fans with a standard outlet plug that I was going to attempt to setup, and then move the fan down into my actual brew room when its ready for it. Jacobey000 fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 05:03
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Jacobey000 posted:a) I think home-pasteurization of homebrew is loving insane and way too dangerous to attempt, but I also would never, ever buy glass carboys. This pulls about 4x more air than a standard vent in a bathroom. It's for hydroponics and a sealed system so it should be able to take the humidity just fine. It should be a more durable option to a bathroom vent. I'm looking for maximum removal and minimal smell for the indoor brew.
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Jan 21, 2014 05:28
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fullroundaction posted:nmfree have you tried any of our stuff yet?  ) Anyway, I'll probably drink the two pumpkin beers this week, leave the Tripel and Golden Strong for another week or two, and write up a little more detailed set of tasting notes then.
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Jan 21, 2014 05:38
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Virigoth posted:This pulls about 4x more air than a standard vent in a bathroom. It's for hydroponics and a sealed system so it should be able to take the humidity just fine. It should be a more durable option to a bathroom vent. I'm looking for maximum removal and minimal smell for the indoor brew. Yeah, i saw that afterward. Could be mildly overkill...
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Jan 21, 2014 13:54
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