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robotsinmyhead posted:I haven't seen anyone here pro-secondary aside from really longterm aging. I "secondary" on occasion more-or-less to clear the beer, especially with large dry hop additions. Getting those floaties out of suspension helps a lot, IMO, but isn't necessary. We do secondary, but that's mostly to do clarification that can be done better in other ways and because my FIL saw it suggested on a Northern Brewer recipe, so that's the way he does it. 
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Apr 8, 2016 17:32
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Awesome that was my thinking but I wanted to be sure. I can't wait to use my SS brewtech Brewmaster bucket. Jo3sh posted:Secondary chat: Awesome that's what I was thinking. Can't wait to use my SS Brewtech Brewmaster brew bucket.
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Apr 8, 2016 18:49
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HatfulOfHollow posted:Does anyone have a decent roggenbier recipe? I did a hefeweizen but with rye instead of wheat. Also like 1% roasted barley to get a nice brown colour mostly. Pretty good I guess? Spicy but still lots of banana. I never had a commercial roggenbier though.
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Apr 8, 2016 22:43
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Anyone have a recommendation on sort of a half-way point on  between something like those SS Brewtech Brewmaster, and a plastic bucket? I'm really just looking for more headspace, something bigger than a 6.5 gallon. But, I also want to plan carefully on external size of any fancy fermenting vessels, so that I don't screw myself over for the eventual upgrade to a fermenting freezer/fridge. I see Northern Brewer carries a 7.9 gallon bucket, but it looks really squat.
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Apr 8, 2016 23:31
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Chapman Equipment makes stainless fermenters that are less expensive (and also less feature-rich) than the Brewtech ones. They're available in 7, 14, and 21 gallon sizes, apparently. I paid $190 for a 14, shipped. It holds fermenting beer just fine. https://www.chapmanequipment.com/
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Apr 8, 2016 23:38
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Morholt posted:I did a hefeweizen but with rye instead of wheat. Also like 1% roasted barley to get a nice brown colour mostly. Pretty good I guess? Spicy but still lots of banana. I never had a commercial roggenbier though. Yeah I'm looking for something more akin to a spicy, slightly tart dunkel. I can handle a little bit of banana, but I don't have much good experience with german yeasts. My one attempt at a hefe was a banana party and I'd like to avoid that again.
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Apr 9, 2016 02:43
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I'm about to pull my hair out trying to get this stir plate to work! I got a large plastic project box from radio shack, super strong neodymium magnets from home depot. Installed a computer case fan as close as possible to the top of it without scraping. Got an adjustable voltage power supply, using 7.5V, .3A, which is perfect for the 25 Ohm pot. The stir bar sticks no problem to the magnets (I got their polarity right, one north one south) and it spins like it's supposed to on its own. I can get it to spin crazy fast. I can even turn up the voltage to 12 and make it spin insanely fast. But as soon as I go to use it with water in my 2000ml flask, it just won't even catch the magnets at all, let alone spin. I've tried a bigger fan, no dice. I tried a different power supply (12V, 1A) no dice. It's got to be the strength of the magnets right? I got these. Are those still not strong enough? Is my stir bar weak? The stir bar seems like it should be stronger. I got them from my local homebrew shop. They flat on all four sides, rounded on the ends, but not like a pill, more like if you cut strips width-wise of a surfboard. Best I can describe it. Is it a crappy stir bar? I got big and small and neither work well. Edit: Just realized the stir bars aren't magnetic at all. That's crap right? Clearly the problem? yamdankee fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 03:03
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yamdankee posted:Edit: Just realized the stir bars aren't magnetic at all. That's crap right? Clearly the problem? Probably? The stir bars I'm used to are magnetic enough to stick to a vertical surface. Looks like this: http://labelpeelers.com/equipment/tools/stir-bar-for-magnetic-plate-stir-single
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Apr 9, 2016 05:24
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All the stir bars I've seen are magnetic, buy one on Amazon if you're not sure about the one you have. They are $8 or so. The size of the bar and magnet placement is very important. Make sure the magnets are spaced so the middle of them lines up with the ends of the stir bar. Other than that - your magnets may not be strong enough. I had to use 2 magnets on each side for my stir bar or it would throw the bar. I also cannot get my plate to work on a carboy it bucket because it is too thick. It only works on a flask. Edit: Trying a new formulation of my double IPA recipe today and trying out the Conan Yeast. I've got a humongous starter of it now. (975b cells). Quite exciting to do this one, I haven't made any IPAs in a long long time! The last time I made this one with Maris Otter/2row and 100% falconer's flight and we kicked the keg in 2 weeks. The only other thing I really changed was adding a small amount of carapils and backed the sucrose down to 10% from 15%. Last time was almost too dry. Recipe: 2xIPA Brewer: Dan Asst Brewer: Style: Double IPA TYPE: All Grain Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Boil Size: 13.83 gal Post Boil Volume: 11.70 gal Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal Estimated OG: 1.092 SG Estimated Color: 7.1 SRM Estimated IBU: 115.8 IBUs Brewhouse Efficiency: 86.00 % Est Mash Efficiency: 88.3 % Boil Time: 90 Minutes Ingredients: ------------ Amt Name Type # %/IBU 20 lbs Pale Ale Malt, Northwestern (Great Weste Grain 1 64.5 % 6 lbs Vienna Malt (Briess) (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 19.4 % 1 lbs Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) Grain 3 3.2 % 1 lbs Wheat - Red Malt (Briess) (2.3 SRM) Grain 4 3.2 % 3 lbs Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 5 9.7 % 5.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 13.4 IBUs 8.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 Hop 7 49.5 IBUs 4.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool Hop 8 20.6 IBUs 4.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 60.0 Hop 9 32.2 IBUs 1.0 pkg Vermont IPA (Omega Yeast #) [124.21 ml] Yeast 10 - 4.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs 4.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 31 lbs ---------------------------- Name Description Step Temperat Step Time Mash In Add 39.00 qt of water at 163.1 F 150.0 F 75 min Sparge: Fly sparge with 8.44 gal water at 168.0 F Notes: ------ Der Penguingott fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 13:07
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Any tips on how to get a taste for off flavors? I've had two 1 gal batches in a row turn out with the same nasty off flavor but I am having trouble pin pointing exactly what it is. I'm torn on bad tap water (maybe too chlorinated?) or too much oxidation but I don't think it tastes much like 'wet cardboard'. At first I thought it was from too much boil off on the first batch, but correcting that in the second didn't matter. It doesn't smell foul so I don't think sanitation is poor. All I know is the longer the beer sits the worse it gets. e: Also worth mentioning that they are coming out flat despite having conditioning/carb tablets dropped into them Master Stur fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 20:36
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Sounds vaguely like Autolysis. Hard to tell without a better descriptor of the flavor, but flat beers in conditioning can be a lack of yeast, possibly from autolysis.
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Apr 9, 2016 21:02
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Any of these sound close? http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors Chlorine issues create a distinct "bandaid" flavor, it's hard to miss.
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Apr 9, 2016 21:22
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I'm sipping on one now. When I put this in the fermenter and then bottled it smelled like beer, but now it just has an off scent. Taste is stale/flat but it doesn't taste like beer at all anymore really. Could be a band aid flavor? Chlorinated water and oxidation are the two things I think I'm really doing wrong so I'll target those next brew.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:03
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An easy and cheap fix for chlorine is to dissolve a Campden tablet in your brewing water. This turns the chlorine into a tiny amount of salt. One tablet will treat up to 20 gallons of water for this purpose.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:06
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Jo3sh posted:An easy and cheap fix for chlorine is to dissolve a Campden tablet in your brewing water. This turns the chlorine into a tiny amount of salt. One tablet will treat up to 20 gallons of water for this purpose. Yeah I bought some of those earlier. I am just frustrated because the off taste is enough to sink pour the beer but it's not distinct enough for me to tell what it actually is. Short of buying some band aids to slap into my mouth and forcing everyone I know to taste test I am just lost.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:10
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I made a Pliny clone and seriously underpitched it. It sat for about 2 months before I kegged it, and it's a disgusting mess. Is it too late to re-pitch from a largish starter?
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Apr 9, 2016 22:44
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Not "everyone you know," but if you took some to a local club meeting, you might just find someone who can place it for you. Just tell them that you have an off-flavor and you want some help with it, and more than likely someone can help. I had a buddy who had a persistent off-flavor, and when he took it to a club, one taster pretty much immediately told him to replace the garden hose he was using to fill his mashtun and hot liquor tank with a drinking-water hose. The point being that more, and more knowledgeable, palates can help. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 22:45
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Jo3sh posted:Not "everyone you know," but if you took some to a local club meeting, you might just find someone who can place it for you. Just tell them that you have an off-flavor and you want some help with it, and more than likely someone can help. Hrm turns out there actually is a club in my middle-of-nowhere. I'll hit them up if I get the same taste when fixing the perceived chlorine issue.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:17
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porkface posted:I made a Pliny clone and seriously underpitched it. It sat for about 2 months before I kegged it, and it's a disgusting mess. No saving it now I'm afraid!
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Apr 10, 2016 00:28
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So since I am a complete and utter idiot, distilling is no longer enough and I began to do beer. My first beer just started. I decided a sour farmhouse is a good place to start... Because I'm stupid. I started with a saison base and used equal parts Vienna barley and rolled wheat, malted it and extracted eything. Washed it wih 150 degree spare then added it all to the boil pot. Got it to 2.5 gallons of water and did a no hop quick boil of 30 minutes with bitter orange peel and grains of paradise then added a pound of golden candi syrup and 1 lbs of light DME. cooled it to 90 and moved it to the fermenter and added the rest of the water to make it approx 5 gallons. Final temp at about 80, corrected SG of 1.057. I pitched the White Labs 677 Lacto and am going to let that go until the pH is under 4 then float some belle saison yeast and let it ferment until it's done. After primary is finished I will rack it to another bucket and dry hop it with Nelson Sauvin for 4 days then prime it and rack it into swing tops. Am I missy anything here?
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Apr 10, 2016 02:14
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Master Stur posted:e: Also worth mentioning that they are coming out flat despite having conditioning/carb tablets dropped into them I think that if you diagnose and fix this, you'll be on track for flavor issues. Something is not going right with your yeast/fermentation.
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Apr 10, 2016 04:05
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Master Stur posted:Hrm turns out there actually is a club in my middle-of-nowhere. I'll hit them up if I get the same taste when fixing the perceived chlorine issue. Maybe just go anyway? From what I hear, beer clubs are really fun.
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Apr 10, 2016 04:54
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Drunk Nerds posted:Maybe just go anyway? From what I hear, beer clubs are really fun. They meet on a day and time period I'm almost always spoken for or I would 
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Apr 10, 2016 06:09
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-Anders posted:Personally I've been looking at the grainfather system, as that seems to do it all and yet you still get to brew exactly like you want to. Make sure to get the one with the upgraded controller as I have heard the standard version can have problems with slow ramp times etc. There's like 4 guys in our club using the GF. I'm about to upgrade to a 3v system using a 40L cooler mash tun and 50L keggle boiler cost me all of $100  Morholt posted:I did a hefeweizen but with rye instead of wheat. Also like 1% roasted barley to get a nice brown colour mostly. Pretty good I guess? Spicy but still lots of banana. I never had a commercial roggenbier though. I did a roggenbier which was about 50% rye with a touch of chocolate and caramel malts. It was super sticky/chewy but thoroughly enjoyable. If memory serves I made it for a brewing club meeting as I was on booze duty and I took maybe a growler home
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Apr 10, 2016 12:16
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Master Stur posted:They meet on a day and time period I'm almost always spoken for or I would If there's a local homebrew shop just take a bottle there and they'll be able to help.
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Apr 10, 2016 13:10
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Speaking of off-flavors, my friend's beers had a really distinct, but unnameable flavor. Batch after batch, super clean beer, malts and yeasts from everywhere, no matter. I could only describe the flavor as "RED"  Turns out, there was a wad of was appeared to be congealed red Hi-C punch hidden inside the liquid posts of 2 of his kegs - they came from.... a Coke distributor. That's all it took to throw off a hundred gallons of beer. Point is, off-flavors are a motherfucker to diagnose. It's not even a criticism about your palate , just experience. One of the big helps for people seeking BJCP Certification is actually an off-flavor kit that's just a bunch of compounds so you can figure out what's what. We also went through the garden hose/rubber flavor in beer. Fun times. Brew Clubs really help with this kinda stuff because you need to crowdsource this information.
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Apr 10, 2016 15:17
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I'm buying some replacement liquid tubing for my kegerator, and I've got a question about balancing. I put it together a few years ago and was having foaming issues with the 5' lines they included. I ask my LHBS, and they recommended upping it to 10' lines, which ended up working out. Before I went to get new tubing, I plugged my specifics into a balancing calculator (http://www.calczilla.com/brewing/keg-line-balancing/) and it gave me a line length of 2.46 feet. This seems really short to me, am I missing something? Numbers: 3/16" ID tubing 12 psi serving pressure 1.25' tap height (from center of keg) 1 psi output pressure I suppose I can test it out by cutting my current line to 2.5 feet and seeing how it pours.
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Apr 10, 2016 16:23
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There's no way that short of a length would work. Most people need 10-12ft. Look up the brewer's association draught quality manual and find the line balancing section and use that.
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Apr 10, 2016 18:28
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robotsinmyhead posted:Turns out, there was a wad of was appeared to be congealed red Hi-C punch hidden inside the liquid posts of 2 of his kegs - they came from.... a Coke distributor. That's all it took to throw off a hundred gallons of beer. He made that much beer but didn't bother removing and cleaning the posts of second hand kegs?? 
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Apr 10, 2016 20:37
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That feeling where you think you counted right while cleaning bottles only to find out you have more beer than you expected to be bottling. I'm feeling that right now. Granted, I actually have almost 1/2 gallon extra of my Rye Saison, so it's not really a bad thing when I get to drink them. Anyone ever done a Flanders Red? I'm going to still a package of Roselaire into the following recipe. It'll go into my barrel when my Scottish 80- is done in a month or so. Vienna 5lbs Munich 3lbs Flaked Corn 2lbs Crystal 60 .5lbs Special B .5lbs 1oz Striesselspalt at 60min
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Apr 10, 2016 23:25
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yamdankee posted:He made that much beer but didn't bother removing and cleaning the posts of second hand kegs?? It was 50/50 not knowing any better and believing the website that sold him the kegs saying they were steam cleaned/disassembled/sterilized. And also not having the tool to disassemble the posts (pinlock kegs use a weird slotted socket)
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Apr 11, 2016 01:02
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Josh Wow posted:There's no way that short of a length would work. Most people need 10-12ft. Look up the brewer's association draught quality manual and find the line balancing section and use that. For anyone like me who had somehow missed the existence of this when setting up their keg systems, here it is from the official source: http://www.draughtquality.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/DQM_Full_Final.pdf
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Apr 11, 2016 01:19
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I read the draught quality manual, messed around with some numbers for a bit, then said gently caress it and bought 10 feet. Pours like a dream 
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Apr 11, 2016 01:28
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Yup, I have 10(ish) foot serving lines as well. I might get a faster pour if I trimmed them to some degree, but the pour is way better than when I had 5' lines. I just coil up the excess and bundle it in loops with Velcro to keep it contained.
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Apr 11, 2016 01:35
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Jo3sh posted:Yup, I have 10(ish) foot serving lines as well. I might get a faster pour if I trimmed them to some degree, but the pour is way better than when I had 5' lines. I just coil up the excess and bundle it in loops with Velcro to keep it contained. Hmmm... All my lines are 5-6 feet and I never really have problems with pouring foam. They do pour really quickly though, so it might be worth reading that and investing in a new set of lines. I'm picnic taps fwiw. Hop growing talk: Anyone have their Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus hop start growing yet? All my hops are showing signs of life, except this one (a second year from rhizome). I'm thinking it croaked and it's time to buy a replacement, given that I made a smash with ctz and wasn't all that in love. Thinking of something Hallertauer family-ish like Liberty or Mt. Hood.
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Apr 11, 2016 02:43
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yamdankee posted:He made that much beer but didn't bother removing and cleaning the posts of second hand kegs?? Exactly my thoughts! I break mine down every time I clean and scrub everything especially after hoppy beers as I end up with chunks of hop in the post inevitably. Jhet posted:ever done a Flanders Red? I'm going to still a package of Roselaire into the following recipe. It'll go into my barrel when my Scottish 80- is done in a month or so. I used Jamil's recipe but did a traditional lambic mash. http://bergsman.org/jeremy/lambic/making.html Is a great reference. Read it till you understand it, it's essentially a multi step decoction but when you decoct mash, you heat the decoction to like 85C and add boiling water into the mash to replace and heat to the next step. Basically you have a good solid chunk of unconverted mash for your bacteria to chew on. Boil long and hard too. Like 4-6 hours long. You'll have to use some sort of advanced calculator to work it out but Beersmith can do it if you're advanced with what you're doing.
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Apr 11, 2016 04:09
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McSpergin posted:I used Jamil's recipe but did a traditional lambic mash. I'm familiar with a turbid mash, but that's not really what I'm wanting out of my mash exactly. There's a mash schedule in Wild Brews that I'm planning on giving a try. I'm using flaked corn so I can skip the adjunct mash, but I'll be mashing in at 122/20min, then stepping to 145/40min, 162/30, and 169/10 to mash out. Looking for a 2 hour boil here. I don't need what I'd need for a lambic in terms of 'non' fermentables, so I'm going to try to keep it close to what they do in West Flanders. Now I'm thinking I'll use Caramunich instead of the C60. I'm planning (don't tell my wife) to buy a full size 31 gallon wine barrel to do a giant lambic solera, and will be doing a pain in the rear end step decoction with a turbid mash for that. I'm pretty good with messing with things in Beersmith at least. Edit: I cracked open a bottle of my Whiskey Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout and it's amazing. It also isn't fully carbonated, but I expect that to not finish for at least another week or two. It doesn't taste boozy, but has some great roast flavors, some good oak and whiskey, and just a hint of dark chocolate or vanilla. There's not any chocolate malt in it, so I'm not really sure where that's coming from, but it's probably the oak. Jhet fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 05:48
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McSpergin posted:Exactly my thoughts! I break mine down every time I clean and scrub everything especially after hoppy beers as I end up with chunks of hop in the post inevitably. This has been posted several times and I still don't get it. Are you dry-hopping in the keg?
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Apr 11, 2016 06:17
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JawKnee posted:This has been posted several times and I still don't get it. Are you dry-hopping in the keg? The more hops you use, the more hop particulates you have that end up suspended by the time it's ready to drink. This can increase when you dry hop. So for super hopped IPAs, that's a lot of 'hop sludge'. I imagine if you were to use hop pellets it might not be as bad as if you're using whole hops, but I don't really know. Either way, you won't get it all out unless you're filtering which the majority of homebrewers don't do. Even with clarifiers and gelatin, it won't get everything out of suspension.
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Apr 11, 2016 06:28
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Jhet posted:The more hops you use, the more hop particulates you have that end up suspended by the time it's ready to drink. This can increase when you dry hop. So for super hopped IPAs, that's a lot of 'hop sludge'. I imagine if you were to use hop pellets it might not be as bad as if you're using whole hops, but I don't really know. Either way, you won't get it all out unless you're filtering which the majority of homebrewers don't do. I've dry-hopped heavily several times, and never had this problem - either with pellet or whole hops; generally I find just strapping a fine-mesh paint-strainer bag to my racking cane removes particulate matter nicely if it's larger than yeast.
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Apr 11, 2016 07:22
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