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Kaiho posted:I seem to have ended up running a beer shop with a homebrew component. I'm going to get uncrushed grain (we have a mill) to compete on price and freshness. I'm curious to hear your experiences of home brew stores - what sort of bags do they put your grains into once crushed? Just regular old plastic? Might I suggest this is an excellent time to pick up the hobby, if you haven't already?  Mine uses simple LDPE bags in a wide range of sizes, and has buckets for measuring and collecting the grain before tossing it into the mill.
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Jul 20, 2014 15:44
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One shop I use just uses paper grocery sacks for grain. The other uses LDPE bags, and has a heat sealer.
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Jul 20, 2014 15:58
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The shop I usually go to uses paper bags, which I like.
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Jul 20, 2014 16:18
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Thufir posted:The shop I usually go to uses paper bags, which I like. Both shops in my area also use paper bags. They work great, just stapled closed.
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Jul 20, 2014 17:09
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Back in April, I brewed a Vienna lager for a club competition. It's been lagering for a couple of months, and it's changed a lot since I put it away. Now, I think it's at least as good as 90% of commercial lager beers I have had, so I'm stoked for tonight's competition.
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Jul 20, 2014 19:13
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Kaiho posted:I seem to have ended up running a beer shop with a homebrew component. I'm going to get uncrushed grain (we have a mill) to compete on price and freshness. I'm curious to hear your experiences of home brew stores - what sort of bags do they put your grains into once crushed? Just regular old plastic? UK wise (I don't know about america) they put them in vacuum sealed plastic bags [one reason I ended up getting a vacuum sealer), once opened you can't re-vacuum seal as the plastic is abit thicker so I just put them into a new vacuum seal bag which I can reseal. I buy uncrushed though but I found it's the same with crushed. It's no real bother to me but people without vacuum sealers end up using rubber bands. Regular old plastic is fine UK market wise for cost etc, But this is online, at stores you buy them by kg plastic bags or loose which tends to be very different homebrew store to homebrew store.
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Jul 20, 2014 21:00
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Kaiho posted:I seem to have ended up running a beer shop with a homebrew component. I'm going to get uncrushed grain (we have a mill) to compete on price and freshness. I'm curious to hear your experiences of home brew stores - what sort of bags do they put your grains into once crushed? Just regular old plastic?
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Jul 20, 2014 21:03
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Thanks guys. (I've been brewing both at home and on a very small commercial kit as a result of the hobby) and now we're bringing a brick and mortar lhbs to central London (UK) for the first time. As it's a bottle shop first, and a homebrew store second, I have to tread the line between "provide a whole range of products" and "knowing I can't compete on price with online, make sure I have the emergency essentials and good service".
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Jul 20, 2014 22:55
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Kaiho posted:Thanks guys. (I've been brewing both at home and on a very small commercial kit as a result of the hobby) and now we're bringing a brick and mortar lhbs to central London (UK) for the first time. As it's a bottle shop first, and a homebrew store second, I have to tread the line between "provide a whole range of products" and "knowing I can't compete on price with online, make sure I have the emergency essentials and good service". If it helps this is what a friend of mine did in Bristol, emergency essentials so so forms of hops, malt and dry yeast (you can't really stock liquid as a brick and mortar, atleast in UK). http://www.brewbristol.com/home-brew.html
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Jul 20, 2014 22:58
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We already have some WLP vials, and are looking to get a wyeast account.
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Jul 20, 2014 23:05
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Kaiho posted:We already have some WLP vials, and are looking to get a wyeast account. Definitely do this, I work at a lhbs in Australia and we manage to stock the entire Wyeast range so I suspect getting it into Europe would be a cakewalk.
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Jul 20, 2014 23:18
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To me it's more about the volume we would need to shift. There are plenty of wyeast suppliers in the UK online, and they are our main competition.
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Jul 21, 2014 00:39
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Kaiho posted:To me it's more about the volume we would need to shift. There are plenty of wyeast suppliers in the UK online, and they are our main competition. Yeah, it's tricky maintaining a range of stock in good condition while not throwing away/discounting stock. We kind of get around it by having beer on tap in the store that we ferment ourselves, and we will often use multiple packs of older yeast that we don't want to sell for that.
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Jul 21, 2014 02:23
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Brew day! Got myself 4oz of German Hull Melon hops. Decided it was time to do a SMaSH beer with that and some Irish Stout Malt. Bittered at 60 minutes with some Magnum and Columbus (only 0.5 oz, so I hope it still counts as a SMaSH), added the Hull Melon, and am gonna dry hop with 2oz, as well. On a side note, am so sick of Simcoe, Amarillo, and Chinook, that I'm banishing them from my repetoire for a while. Have a Pale Ale with Wakatu and Moteuka fermenting, and am looking for any suggestions for unusual hops.
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Jul 21, 2014 02:57
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Jo3sh posted:Back in April, I brewed a Vienna lager for a club competition. It's been lagering for a couple of months, and it's changed a lot since I put it away. Now, I think it's at least as good as 90% of commercial lager beers I have had, so I'm stoked for tonight's competition. Welp, I won. Small comp, though - only three entries, and one was obviously flawed. I guess, despite enthusiasm when the lager comp was announced, very few people actually managed to produce one, even though we allowed hybrids like CA Common. So that makes 2 comps in a row I have taken first in.
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Jul 21, 2014 03:03
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Jo3sh posted:Welp, I won. Small comp, though - only three entries, and one was obviously flawed. I guess, despite enthusiasm when the lager comp was announced, very few people actually managed to produce one, even though we allowed hybrids like CA Common. So that makes 2 comps in a row I have taken first in. Still, very cool! Congrats! I FINALLY brewed today. I missed this. Already got a fermentation going too  Relatively simple saison with my brett gatherings (things like Saison Brett among others) as a "starter" for a larger planned one haha.
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Jul 21, 2014 03:36
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Finally got to try the saison I brewed a while back. 3 weeks in the bottle, it's about right. I dry hopped it with an ounce of German Hull Melon, which I've never used before but it sounded like a good flavor for a saison. It definitely comes through as a fruit-bowl kind of aroma, and compliments the 3711 pretty well. I bet this would be a great hop to use in a Belgian wit or something light.
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Jul 21, 2014 03:57
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Jo3sh posted:Welp, I won. Small comp, though - only three entries, and one was obviously flawed. I guess, despite enthusiasm when the lager comp was announced, very few people actually managed to produce one, even though we allowed hybrids like CA Common. So that makes 2 comps in a row I have taken first in. Awesome! Congrats! It's kind of the same here, even for the national homebrew competition, theres only a couple of entries for each lager, tons for IPA and Best Bitter and some of the others eg Robust porter. You've starting to rack up alot of wins!
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Jul 21, 2014 06:09
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Has anyone here successfully sour mashed for a berliner weisse in a round cooler mash tun? Mine is 1 day in and it's getting a little butyric. I'm gonna ride it out and see what happens and hope it goes away, since it's already a sunk cost, but it'd be nice to get it right the next time.
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Jul 21, 2014 07:41
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Glottis posted:Has anyone here successfully sour mashed for a berliner weisse in a round cooler mash tun? Mine is 1 day in and it's getting a little butyric. I'm gonna ride it out and see what happens and hope it goes away, since it's already a sunk cost, but it'd be nice to get it right the next time. Mine turned out like garbage water. If you have a keg system I highly recommend purging as much air out of the mash using your keg gas as you can. If it smells bad definitely don't taste it till after you boil, the majority of that smell will boil off.
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Jul 21, 2014 08:15
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Syrinxx posted:Are you using lager yeast or a specific steam strain? Steam is high on my to-do list. We're using San Francisco. Hit all our numbers during the brew (over OG by 2 points and 11 Gal vs 10 Gal both of which are "within Tolerance" ) and considering the huge starters we had fermentation kicked within a couple hours. Now comes the hard part... the waiting game!
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Jul 21, 2014 17:36
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Bag of Sun Chips posted:The only thing holding me back from kegging is the fact that I don't have a chest freezer. I really need to invest in one so I have some place to store 3-4 kegs and finally build a kegerator. Alternatively, if you have space, just get a regular fridge. Those pop up on CL much more often for really low prices / free.
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Jul 21, 2014 17:53
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First brew in three months and it was the laziest all-grain brew ever. I didn't bother to use my recirculation set up for the chiller, let it cool to like 90, and then I just picked up the entire pot and dumped it into the bucket with a paint strainer over the top, and then pitched yeast the next day after it cooled on its own.
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Jul 21, 2014 20:33
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Glottis posted:Has anyone here successfully sour mashed for a berliner weisse in a round cooler mash tun? Mine is 1 day in and it's getting a little butyric. I'm gonna ride it out and see what happens and hope it goes away, since it's already a sunk cost, but it'd be nice to get it right the next time. Brett may be able to clean some of that up. Hell, even Crooked Stave had issues with butyric acid in some of their botlte releases but it got cleaned up by the brett. Grossing my fingers so far with the berliner experiments - I've done a sour mash and sour wort method and haven't had any weird smells coming from either of them. I really need to go buy some more fermentation buckets so I can finally transfer on top of some black raspberries.
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Jul 21, 2014 23:00
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Bag of Sun Chips posted:Brett may be able to clean some of that up. Hell, even Crooked Stave had issues with butyric acid in some of their botlte releases but it got cleaned up by the brett. Interesting. Would you suggest I ferment it normally (I was gonna use Kolsch yeast), then if it still tastes lovely, throwing some Brett in there? Who am I kidding, 80% of the reason why I wanted to brew a Berliner weisse was because I was too impatient to wait for a real sour. edit: 48 hours in and the liquid coming out of the mash tun is ~80 degrees tops. This is not going to work. Glottis fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 04:06
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Looks like my bugs are hard at work making sculptures from the fruit (blackberries, nectarines, peaches) I dumped into this sour. The purple along the bottom is even more vivid in person. 
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Jul 22, 2014 14:27
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Finally getting around to brewing Jo3sh's stout today, as well as transferring the mead and berry wine to secondary. I brought the wines up to the kitchen to transfer on friday, and then immediately got called out to work, and was busy as hell from then on, so hopefully sitting on the counter for a few days hasn't hurt them! I also didn't get a chance to make a starter for this stout, but I'm sure it'll be fine... Also, unsurprisingly, my old roommate and former brew-partner who was supposed to be coming over today seems to have flaked on me. I expected that, but it would have been nice to have somebody help carry stuff, since I seem to have strained my upper back... Oh well, beer will make everything better!
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Jul 22, 2014 16:20
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So my Brett C mead hasn't started yet (12 days). In fact the gravity went up 5 points to 1.080 (maybe the honey wasn't fully dissolved). It's weird because there is definitely a bunch of CO2 in solution. The airlock is very slowly bubbling and I can degas quite a bit and still have CO2 coming out. I added some water to lower the gravity stress some, and I'm going to pitch some yeast hulls tonight to see if it gets going. When can I expect to see brett actually lowering my gravity? I pitched 1 full vial of brett C into 1 gallon of 1.080 must. What's going on if CO2 is being produced but gravity isn't dropping?
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Jul 22, 2014 16:32
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Marshmallow Blue posted:So my Brett C mead hasn't started yet (12 days). In fact the gravity went up 5 points to 1.080 (maybe the honey wasn't fully dissolved). It's weird because there is definitely a bunch of CO2 in solution. The airlock is very slowly bubbling and I can degas quite a bit and still have CO2 coming out. If I'm not mistaken, Brett usually comes in much smaller cell counts than Sacch. So instead of the ~100 billion cells you're getting from a regular White Labs Sacch vial, you're getting like ~20 billion cells. It might just be really underpitched and taking a while. Although I think Brett tends to be funkier when it's stressed, so that might not be a bad thing in the long run. I guess I'd let it run for a while -- if it's not dropping after a few more days, you could build a starter from another vial and pitch that. Also, if you suspect your honey wasn't fully dissolved, then you don't really know what your OG was -- so it might have started after all!
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Jul 22, 2014 17:25
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more falafel please posted:If I'm not mistaken, Brett usually comes in much smaller cell counts than Sacch. So instead of the ~100 billion cells you're getting from a regular White Labs Sacch vial, you're getting like ~20 billion cells. It might just be really underpitched and taking a while. Although I think Brett tends to be funkier when it's stressed, so that might not be a bad thing in the long run. I guess I'd let it run for a while -- if it's not dropping after a few more days, you could build a starter from another vial and pitch that. I didnt think that it may actually be dropping. I hope I didn't overshoot by that much! I need that brett to stay alive. So tonight, I'll take a new baseline OG, add some yeast hulls, and see where I go from here. I also picked up a bottle of Orval to step those dregs up and add that if need be. (mostly I just wanted to try Orval). As far as stepping that up goes: as Orval has brett and sacc, can I make a starter from nutrient and maltodextrin so the sacc can't grow?
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Jul 22, 2014 18:07
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What are the go to controllers people recommend using for temp control in a fermentation fridge? I'm finally breaking down and deciding to build one to go in my garage. I'm getting tired of having to stick with the handful of yeasts that will ferment ok at 74 degrees during the 6+ months a year I have to run AC in my house. I'd just be looking to do a small setup for one or two 5-6 gallon carboys.
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Jul 22, 2014 19:22
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rockcity posted:What are the go to controllers people recommend using for temp control in a fermentation fridge? I'm finally breaking down and deciding to build one to go in my garage. I'm getting tired of having to stick with the handful of yeasts that will ferment ok at 74 degrees during the 6+ months a year I have to run AC in my house. I'd just be looking to do a small setup for one or two 5-6 gallon carboys. The stc-1000.
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Jul 22, 2014 19:30
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rockcity posted:What are the go to controllers people recommend using for temp control in a fermentation fridge? I like the STC-1000. You can buy the controller on eBay for $18 or so, and complete a build for another $20 or less, depending on how much stuff you have lying around vs. buying for the project. E;f,b.
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Jul 22, 2014 19:31
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Awesome. That's what a few of the builds I've seen online use so that's good to hear. Looks like I can get one for about $20 prime shipped from Amazon too. Time to scour around on craigslist for someone unloading a small chest freezer on the cheap.
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Jul 22, 2014 20:00
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Marshmallow Blue, I finally got around to tasting your mead and transferring it to secondary. The gravity had apparently stalled at 1.030, as that was the reading I got like a month ago as well as today. It smells almost like marshmallows or cotton candy, along with booze. The taste, however, is rather disappointing. Sweet, alcoholic, and burned is the description that springs to mind. We'll see how it tastes after aging, but I probably caramelized the honey for too long or too hot. It's almost like a mead stout...I'm still tasting it and editing in my thoughts as I go, haha  Less red than it should be...really just brown... Worst case scenario, I just use it to make my mead-marinated honey/walnut coated grilled pork loin! BLARGHLE fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 20:02
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BLARGHLE posted:Marshmallow Blue, I finally got around to tasting your mead and transferring it to secondary. Strange. Yeah it must have been over-cooked a bit. I looked back at my notes and mine finished at 1.027, so that's about right for it as far as gravity goes. I know near those darker colors the burntyness can really overpower and mine was nearing that level but not offensive. If it hasn't cleared, try hitting it with some bentonite. My last couple bochets, I've stopped cooking a bit earlier to tone down the burnt flavors. If you feel it got overdone, you can blend it down too with a traditional mead or continue to age it. My last bottle from my first bochet (some recipe as the one I gave you) is 1.5 years old. Maybe I'll open it tonight and see how it is! I don't think it will ever be a mead where you drink a big full glass, but more of something you have in small servings like a port.
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Jul 22, 2014 20:22
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Marshmallow Blue posted:Strange. Yeah it must have been over-cooked a bit. I looked back at my notes and mine finished at 1.027, so that's about right for it as far as gravity goes. I know near those darker colors the burntyness can really overpower and mine was nearing that level but not offensive. If it hasn't cleared, try hitting it with some bentonite. Maybe I'll blend part of it and see how that goes. And maybe I'll make another less-cooked one in the meantime! Also, you and I must not drink port the same way, because I'll sit there and down the whole bottle if given enough time, haha! BERRIES! WINE!  Chunky....  It's quite cloudy, but you can get an idea of the color here  Next time I need to put some kind of strainer over the end of the siphon.  Aside from the pulp, it tastes good, if a bit dry. I'll backsweeten it a little when it comes time to bottle, but I don't think I'll have to do as much as the original recipe it was adapted from calls for. The pulp was clogging up the tip of the siphon, which caused it to suck a bunch of air into the line along with the wine, so I'll probably have to drink this pretty quickly to avoid having a bunch of bottles of berry wine vinegar. Hopefully with a couple siphonings and applications of gelatin it'll be clear in a few weeks! BLARGHLE fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 21:23
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Pulled a sweet-rear end homebrew move last night. Doing the next step in my Consecration clone and it was time to pitch the Roeselare. Cut open the WYeast pack, pour out the nutrient, cut the inner yeast pack, pitch into the carboy. "Hrm, that's looking awfully clear for yeas-gently caress DAMNIT"
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Jul 22, 2014 22:38
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wattershed posted:Doing the next step in my Consecration clone and it was time to pitch the Roeselare. Cut open the WYeast pack, pour out the nutrient, cut the inner yeast pack, pitch into the carboy. Speaking of things that went wrong, I have a friend who bought a property that has a handful of giant apple trees on it. She loves cider. I suggested she make cider, because free alcohol right? I explained the process of pulverizing the apples using a food processor (we have to use what is on hand), then squeezing out the juice using a bucket and a disc on top while standing on it, finally pitching the yeast. I was not present for the operation. Today she complains that whole thing is covered in funk and smells like acetone so I ask a few questions. Turns out Day 1 turned apples into applesauce, and left it in a bucket on the counter covered with netting (it wouldn't fit in the fridge). Day 2 squeezed apples into apple juice into a bucket left on the counter covered with netting. Day 3 yeast is purchased and pitched onto the juice. Lids were not used throughout because sterilizing [sic] things with bleach isn't fun. ProTip for folks explaining homebrewing: it may sound silly but you should point out that all the steps should be done back to back to reduce contamination.  I don't know what is growing in that bucket right now (which now has a lid!) but for you guys like pelicle porn, I'm sure it's going to be a taste explosion.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:33
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I would bet money your friend is going to end up with a bucket of funky cider vinegar. It might make good salad dressing though!
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Jul 22, 2014 23:56
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