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I got a $50 gift card to Northern Brewer for Christmas, and I have no idea how to spend it. Any suggestions?
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Jan 23, 2014 07:28
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It's good that there's been a ton of Sour chat lately. My brewing partner and I are going to do our first sour soon, and we're trying to figure out how exactly to go about it. We're both big sour fans, and we're willing to sacrifice one of our plastic carboys to the sour gods. We both love Duchesse, and since it was the first sour beer either of us tried so long ago, it seems like a decent place to start for a recipe, so I just stole this http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/first-sour-1 basic recipe from the thread (I think it's fullroundaction's), but substituted Nugget in for the hops, since we have a ton of that in the freezer. I know it says Roeselare on there, but we really want to do bottle dregs. We had a few different ideas for this, and I wanted to get some opinions. 1.) US05 for primary, then pitch Duchesse dregs for secondary. Seems pretty standard, but less exciting to me. 2.) Culture some Duchesse dregs in a starter for a while, and just pitch these for primary. Probably more waiting/would this even work? 3.) My favorite idea. Hold THE SOUR BOWL at our house, and have all our beer friends bring bottles of different sours. Either brew earlier in the day and have the wort ready for pitching, or just take the dregs of all of these bottles and make a starter with them and brew the next week. But ONLY using these dregs, no primary. Or I guess we could do primary with US05 and then do this... Anybody have any thoughts about this idea of pitching the dregs of many different sours? It seems exciting, because it would a crapshoot - hopefully the fact that they'd all be "good" sours would avoid the chance of those really weird bug flavors (enteric, butryic). I guess it does have a problem in the fact that all of these sours will be disturbed and moved during transportation, so it would be harder to get a good concentration of bugs at the bottom. Any ideas for this? I guess we could just buy a few bottles the week before to make sure.
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Jan 23, 2014 07:50
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Skitz posted:I got a $50 gift card to Northern Brewer for Christmas, and I have no idea how to spend it. Any suggestions? I got a $100 one myself and have no idea how to spend it. Makes me wish they sold thermapens.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:17
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firebad57 posted:It's good that there's been a ton of Sour chat lately. My brewing partner and I are going to do our first sour soon, and we're trying to figure out how exactly to go about it. We're both big sour fans, and we're willing to sacrifice one of our plastic carboys to the sour gods. Open top ferment it like a boss and pray that some badass yeasties come out to play. I've always wanted to do this but never had the guts.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:31
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illcendiary posted:I got a $100 one myself and have no idea how to spend it. Makes me wish they sold thermapens. well, what's your setup now?
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Jan 23, 2014 08:56
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illcendiary posted:I got a $100 one myself and have no idea how to spend it. Makes me wish they sold thermapens. "Bacon" beer, duh.
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Jan 23, 2014 13:02
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firebad57 posted:1.) US05 for primary, then pitch Duchesse dregs for secondary. Seems pretty standard, but less exciting to me. Between these two ideas, I'd definitely pitch bugs in primary if you want it to taste like Duchesse. Pitching in secondary is more for oud bruins, old ales, and beers that only need a hint of tartness. Also I've read that Duchesse is backsweetened with saccharin so keep that in mind. I understand the appeal of harvesting Duchesse dregs (do you know for sure if the bottles have dregs?) but Roeselare is a great microbe blend. edit for question: I've got a beer that fits perfectly in the overlap between American amber ale and American pale ale. Here's the recipe. If I was going to enter this beer in competition, where do you think it would do better? internet celebrity fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 14:17
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firebad57 posted:
Duchess dregs aren't viable. Duchess is a blend of an older beer and a younger beer and then it is pasteurized which effectively kills the dregs. The younger beer gives it the sweet flavors and it's only bottled because all of the bugs have been killed. Otherwise, you'd read about Duchess bottles exploding at liquor stores more often. I would pitch dregs from something else that you like. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html firebad57 posted:2.) Culture some Duchesse dregs in a starter for a while, and just pitch these for primary. Probably more waiting/would this even work? Again, this wouldn't work. Culture dregs from something else. Just toss them into a starter with an airlock and no stir plate and wait a week or two. Give it a smell and if it it doesn't smell like nail polish or feces, toss it in the beer. firebad57 posted:3.) My favorite idea. Hold THE SOUR BOWL at our house, and have all our beer friends bring bottles of different sours. Either brew earlier in the day and have the wort ready for pitching, or just take the dregs of all of these bottles and make a starter with them and brew the next week. But ONLY using these dregs, no primary. Or I guess we could do primary with US05 and then do this... Yeah, you could just toss them all into the beer and they should be fine. You could do it for the primary or not, but if you toss them in a bucket, just remember that you now have a sour only bucket. If you toss them into a carboy, leave some headspace because the kreusen could be just as big as a regular fermentation. firebad57 posted:I guess it does have a problem in the fact that all of these sours will be disturbed and moved during transportation, so it would be harder to get a good concentration of bugs at the bottom. Any ideas for this? I guess we could just buy a few bottles the week before to make sure. As long as people aren't shaking them when transporting, you let them sit for a few hours, and pour them correctly you shouldn't have any problems.
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Jan 23, 2014 16:36
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Cointelprofessional posted:
Thanks for the advice, everybody. Good to know about Duchesse bugs not being viable - in retrospect, I am sure I would have heard WAY more about people using them if they were, since it's such a popular beer. We'll probably grab some Jolly Pumpkin and Russian River stuff and go hog wild.
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Jan 23, 2014 16:47
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Glottis posted:well, what's your setup now? Just got a 10 gallon all grain setup for Christmas. Need to purchase a 10 gallon kettle but they're really expensive on NB. Already have a kegerator and ferm chamber. Right now all I can think of is their $18 digital thermometer (which would at least be an upgrade from my dial thermometer) and some spare tubing. I guess I could buy a kit or two...
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Jan 23, 2014 17:06
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 I don't know who my Secret Santa who gave me this but poured myself one of yours today and it was great. Bitterness and flavour spot on. Thank you.  I've repackaged my secret santa stuff to send, printing off a new letter and will be sending it tomorrow/Saturday. Should get there Wednesday/Thursday but it's split between two packages just so you know if you're wondering where the other beers are on the letter but should turn up at the same time since I'm sending them at the same time. Fluo fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 19:58
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That'll be mine! Really glad you enjoyed it, the real test though will be if the second bottle tastes as good. I seem to have been having some major consistency bottles between different bottles of the same beer. I suppose it could be that all bottles have the faults and some people are able to notice them more? Moving to kegging from my next batch so that should help with consistency.
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Jan 23, 2014 21:34
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Anyone else taking the Chemistry of Beer class through Janux (OU)? Totally feelin' advanced as gently caress. 
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Jan 24, 2014 00:48
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hellfaucet posted:Anyone else taking the Chemistry of Beer class through Janux (OU)? Yeah haven't started week 2 yet though. First session was like "beer has FOUR main ingredients!" and then "incomprehensible biochemistry" with not much in between. Best part was the last video with the dude from Sam Adams who should really be the one teaching the course. Also no one but him pronounced wort correctly. :shake fist:
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Jan 24, 2014 01:06
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fullroundaction posted:Yeah haven't started week 2 yet though. First session was like "beer has FOUR main ingredients!" and then "incomprehensible biochemistry" with not much in between. I've just signed up, got to work my way around the site as its quite different to that other online university etc. Seems fun though and yeah I though "Oh I could just test out the test," saw the first answer then saw a biochemistry diagram after lol.
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Jan 24, 2014 01:57
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Yeah, I posted a bit too soon, all of a sudden I got to chemical structures and was like, oh yeah, this poo poo I learned 15 years ago....
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Jan 24, 2014 02:25
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fullroundaction posted:Yeah haven't started week 2 yet though. First session was like "beer has FOUR main ingredients!" and then "incomprehensible biochemistry" with not much in between. Pretty much this. I need a study buddy or something jesus.
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Jan 24, 2014 04:08
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Do you not actually need any prerequisites to sign up ?
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Jan 24, 2014 04:25
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my son bort posted:Do you not actually need any prerequisites to sign up ? If I remember from EDX, you treat it like any other college course and don't give up on the first week. https://www.edx.org/student-faq Since the deadline was today (24th) I just did the proper test right away, got 8/12 but kind of regret but would be worried I'd miss it otherwise when I wake up.
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Jan 24, 2014 04:35
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I keep reading about traditional Krieks, and how the US has no equivalent of the cherries used in Belgium. I worked on a cherry farm for 10 years, so I have access to a variety of sweets/tarts. Is there nothing that even partially resembles the Belgian cherries? I seriously doubt it.
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Jan 24, 2014 05:54
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Finished brew day for my sour mash lychee lambic. Did 72 hours of sour mashing 50% of the grain bill. It did indeed smell like overripe pineapples with ever so slightly the faintest tinge of stank, which is kinda cool IMO. Tasted pleasantly sour, not bracingly so, I'm worried at full dilution it wont be sour enough, but I suppose I can just add lactic acid later if I need it. Strained and boiled the sour wort for 10 minutes, chilled and transferred to fermenter. Then mashed the rest of the grain bill at around 152 F for an hour. Sparged, boiled with 1 oz of crystal hops for an hour. 10 min left I added about 3 tbsp of fresh ginger and 5 lbs of pureed lychees. Chilled and added to the sour wort in the fermenter and pitched S-04. GrAviTy84 fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jan 24, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2014 06:50
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I am so loving full of rage at myself right now. Over the last month and a bit, I've been doing a series of Belgians - a blond, a dubbel and this weekend I was going to brew a Tripel. All of this was repitching 3787 yeast from batch to batch so that when I went to brew the last beer in the series, a Quad, I'd have a yeast that was ready to demolish a beer and attenuate right now. So today to prepare for my Tripel brewday on Sunday I washed my yeast and carefully prepared a starter, sanitised my stirbar and went to walk my starter over to my stirplate and... dropped it onto the carpet. My flask smashed. poo poo went everywhere. 
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Jan 24, 2014 09:08
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ScaerCroe posted:I keep reading about traditional Krieks, and how the US has no equivalent of the cherries used in Belgium. I worked on a cherry farm for 10 years, so I have access to a variety of sweets/tarts. Is there nothing that even partially resembles the Belgian cherries? I seriously doubt it. Plenty of American sour brewers use varieties of cherries found in the US (Montmercy is the big one iirc) to lovely effect.
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Jan 24, 2014 13:39
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wildfire1 posted:I am so loving full of rage at myself right now. Over the last month and a bit, I've been doing a series of Belgians - a blond, a dubbel and this weekend I was going to brew a Tripel. All of this was repitching 3787 yeast from batch to batch so that when I went to brew the last beer in the series, a Quad, I'd have a yeast that was ready to demolish a beer and attenuate right now. This more or less happened to me and I ended up making a massive starter from my dub to pitch into my trip. Worked out fine (considering the situation) but it wasn't ideal.
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Jan 24, 2014 13:50
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GrAviTy84 posted:Tasted pleasantly sour, not bracingly so, I'm worried at full dilution it wont be sour enough, but I suppose I can just add lactic acid later if I need it. Don't forget, fermentation drops pH quite a bit - plus carbonating (carbonic acid) will have it's own effects.
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Jan 24, 2014 13:55
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Anyone used Wyeast 2035 and had a really long lag time or no krausen with it? I pitched 2 packs into a 2L starter last night, and this morning there was nothing. Starter is at room temp on a stir plate. Usually by 12 hours in I have a creamy yeasty flask and a 1/4"-1/2" krausen on top. I'm brewing tomorrow, so I've still got time, but I was hoping to cold crash it at high krausen.
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Jan 24, 2014 17:58
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Woo hoo, finally got my Secret Santa package ready to go out! It's still Christmas season....right?!
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Jan 24, 2014 18:02
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Angry Grimace posted:Woo hoo, finally got my Secret Santa package ready to go out! It's still Christmas season....right?! Secret Valentines package now.
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Jan 24, 2014 18:40
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GrAviTy84 posted:Finished brew day for my sour mash lychee lambic. Oh man, Could you post your recipe? This sounds pretty great, so much so I am going to have to add to my list of beers to brew (4 on the list atm but I do 2 brews one day after the other normally).
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Jan 24, 2014 18:44
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Fluo posted:Oh man, Could you post your recipe? This sounds pretty great, so much so I am going to have to add to my list of beers to brew (4 on the list atm but I do 2 brews one day after the other normally). Sure thing: Grain bill: 10 lbs 2 row pale 8 oz special B 8 oz crystal 120 2 lbs flaked wheat extra fermentables: 5 lbs lychee puree - used a combination of canned and fresh peeled and pitted. Hops: 1 oz German Crystal (4% AA) Spices: 3 tbsp sliced fresh ginger root 5 gallon batch Crack all the grain. Measure 6 lbs of it and mash in the low 150s for an hour. Let it cool to 120F and then take a handful of unmashed grain and stir it in. At this point I felt the pot exterior so I knew what 120 F felt like on the surface of a pot. I read that sour mash buggies are anaerobic and that the unwanted bugs are aerobic so you want to open the lid of the pot as little as possible, hence feeling 120 F from the exterior so you don't open it to check temp. Some people put plastic wrap on the surface of the mash to restrict O2 flow. I flooded the head space with CO2 from a tank then put the lid on planning to never open the lid again until souring was complete. Cover and hold between 100 and 120 F as best you can for 3 days. I put it in my oven with the light on. In my oven this holds temp at about 95 F or so, so every 12 hours or so I would turn on the oven on "warm" at 160 or so until the exterior of the pot felt like what I remember 120 F feeling like again. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, remote probes, IR thermometers, etc, but I don't have those things. After 3 days strain in a lauter tun or pour into a grain bag or whatever. I liked how this part smelled, like tart pineapples though I read that it depends on the ratio of acetobacter, pediococcus, lactobacillus, etc, etc, etc that went to work on your wort which is all determined by a wide range of variables. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. This will smell awful. Hot sour wort kind of smells like sour garbage to me. after 10 min, chill and transfer to your sanitized fermenter. I capped mine off with a sanitized airlock even though I wasn't pitching for a bit just to keep it all closed. Then mash the rest of the grains like a standard all grain single temp infusion mash. Sparge, etc. I just hopped once at boil for 60 minutes. I read that stale hops would work better for the style but I didn't have any, so if you have some old stale hops this might be a good place for them. With 10 minutes left in the boil I added the ginger and lychee puree which stopped the boil...so I brought it back to a boil and boiled for another 10 minutes. Chill and transfer to fermenter and pitch yeast. I was on the fence about us-05 vs s-04 for this part but I opted for s-04 because of flocculation and there is a lot of junk floating around that can haze this beer. I also read it finishes sweeter which could work well for this style. I also read that fruit beers are violent fermenters (and I know from experience that S-04 is pretty violent, too) so I did 12 drops of fermcap-S in the fermenter right before pitching yeast. anyway, this is my first recipe share, idk if you know all the sour mash stuff, I didn't, but I thought I'd share it in case you didn't. apologies if you know how to do all that stuff already.
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Jan 24, 2014 19:09
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Virigoth posted:Secret Valentines package now. Biggest problem was that the beer in question just didn't seem "ready." I just kept putting it off because I wanted to let it lager for a bit, but I still don't think its anywhere near my most impressive work.
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Jan 24, 2014 20:06
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Angry Grimace posted:Biggest problem was that the beer in question just didn't seem "ready." I just kept putting it off because I wanted to let it lager for a bit, but I still don't think its anywhere near my most impressive work. If it isn't ready, it isn't ready. I'm sure your beer loving receiptiant understand. I was just saying you should send it with some chocolates and flowers. 
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Jan 24, 2014 20:09
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GrAviTy84 posted:Sure thing: Woah thanks man, great write up. Will be doing it in the next month or two!  Might try it with passion fruit instead of lychee depending on which is easier to get here.
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Jan 24, 2014 20:53
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Seems like people live to do sour mash, but it feels to me like doing a sour wort would be far simpler, mostly because you don't have to think about lautering your gross sour mash, you just sour in the kettle and out it straight onto a burner once it's sour.
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Jan 24, 2014 22:45
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wildfire1 posted:Seems like people live to do sour mash, but it feels to me like doing a sour wort would be far simpler, mostly because you don't have to think about lautering your gross sour mash, you just sour in the kettle and out it straight onto a burner once it's sour. probably true. Idk how to inoculate a sour wort though, would it be the same as a mash, with a handful of unmashed grains? or would I have to buy a lacto culture?
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Jan 24, 2014 22:52
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Is needing to boil pilsner-based wort for longer to drive off DMS a real thing or just something people parrot? I feel like I should know this but I heard it during a podcast last night and it got me thinking about a couple light Belgian beers I've made that had a really grainy/husky off flavor to them but I could never identify the problem.
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Jan 24, 2014 23:30
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GrAviTy84 posted:probably true. Idk how to inoculate a sour wort though, would it be the same as a mash, with a handful of unmashed grains? or would I have to buy a lacto culture? Put your uncrushed grains in a steeping bag, pull it out when you pasteurize the mash and bring it up to a boil.
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Jan 24, 2014 23:42
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random thoughts: So I have this 3 year old brett saison in secondary. Fermented using WLP670 which is a "blend of a farmhouse yeast strain and Brettanomyces". I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. I was thinking maybe doing something sort of solera style where I top off with fresh wort, referment, then rack off and bottle half, top off again with fresh wort, repeat. Does this sound like a dumb idea or something that could work? How likely is it that there are any usable yeasts left? I know the saccharomyces are probably long deceased, is the brett dead too? I was thinking maybe even putting some oak spirals in and doing a fake barrel age kind of thing? Is this also dumb? help edit for refs: yeast blend: http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp670-american-farmhouse-blend oak spirals: http://morebeer.com/products/winestix-french-oak-carboy-2-pack.html?site_id=7 GrAviTy84 fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jan 24, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2014 23:50
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GrAviTy84 posted:random thoughts: So I have this 3 year old brett saison in secondary. Fermented using WLP670 which is a "blend of a farmhouse yeast strain and Brettanomyces". I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. Just drink it! Sounds delicious.
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Jan 25, 2014 02:43
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I'm not sure about soleras generally, but at the very least I think that sticking oak in there indefinitely would end poorly.
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Jan 25, 2014 03:36
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