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robotsinmyhead posted:should I do RIMS, HERMS, or try something else? I would look at this question from the direction of how much heat can you apply over a given time, and how quickly does that mean you will be able to change temperatures? For me, I am able to apply more heat with gas than with electricity, and this leads me in the direction of HERMS over RIMS. I'd stick a coil in the hot liquor tank and use a PID to control a burner under that, with a stirrer of some kind to keep the water moving and a pump to keep wort moving. YMMV, of course. If you have the ability to use a high-wattage element, electric may work better for you, whether RIMS or HERMS. I'd choose HERMS if I had any concern about scorching the wort via direct contact with the element.
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Jul 1, 2018 23:50
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Jo3sh posted:I would look at this question from the direction of how much heat can you apply over a given time, and how quickly does that mean you will be able to change temperatures? For me, I am able to apply more heat with gas than with electricity, and this leads me in the direction of HERMS over RIMS. I'd stick a coil in the hot liquor tank and use a PID to control a burner under that, with a stirrer of some kind to keep the water moving and a pump to keep wort moving. Like I said, it's direct-fired gas burners. Unrelated to this: I'm bad at planning and realized I took a 5-day weekend and will likely be brewing Thursday/Friday/Saturday. I almost always have US-05 on-hand, but I'm brewing with a friend again and need a decent Amber Ale yeast and something that would work well in a Chocolate Black Ale. Dry preferred. Who's a decent vendor who can ship quick to Indiana?
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Jul 2, 2018 02:53
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robotsinmyhead posted:Who's a decent vendor who can ship quick to Indiana? Normally ritebrew, but he's closed this week. Next best I'd go with morebeer (shipping quickly from PA) or Adventures in Homebrewing (who are in MI). Either is probably fine, but the holiday on Wednesday might screw up delivery and you'd get it Thursday anyway.
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Jul 2, 2018 03:43
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robotsinmyhead posted:Like I said, it's direct-fired gas burners. You could order from one of the Indianapolis area stores like Great Fermentations which are more limited by processing time than shipping. If you're actually close to Indianapolis you could also stop by said stores (GF in the NE, and W, Final Gravity on the southern part of the city) Adventures in Homebrewing ships out of Michigan so it should be relatively quick too. kirtar fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jul 2, 2018 |
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Jul 2, 2018 06:08
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Went with AiH - wanted to try some new yeast anyway. GF is awesome, but it's a 4+hr round trip to get there. My normal LHBS is closed all week, and the new one that popped up only has bare essentials.
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Jul 2, 2018 13:15
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Double Post Time since it's dead at work. Kinda settled on a HERMS setup. Weldless fittings, 2 pumps, controllers. I'm down to deciding on if I want to build a HERMS mashtun, or buy that (and just build the HLT/BK, since those are easy). I found a weldless 50' HERMS coil on Aliexpress, but I'm gunshy about them and the coil seems to be the most difficult piece of this puzzle. From there, it's deciding where to drill the holes in the other vessels.
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Jul 2, 2018 14:30
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Skellyscribe posted:I just got done bottling my latest batch. SMaSH with Mecca grade pale malt (I think Lamonta?) and 007 hops, which my wife bought for me and I've never had before. Smelled good in the fermenter though. I chilled and opened a mostly carbonated bottle this evening because I'm impatient and am really impressed with the 007 hops. Saw tasting notes online suggest a minty note and that's not far off.
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Jul 3, 2018 03:16
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Hey all. I've been reading a lot about 'fermenters,' and that they're different from carboys. But near as I can tell they're just sanitary buckets. Why would I use a fermenter over a regular old gallon jug? The Compleat Mead Maker isn't being too clear, just that they're separate things.
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Jul 3, 2018 15:08
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Zero functional difference
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Jul 3, 2018 15:22
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It's like buying a 'coffee pot' What makes it different from a regular pot is largely inconsequential. At a certain size, a fermenter is a specific, potentially custom made device for manufacturing. But that's like, 50+ gallons.
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Jul 3, 2018 15:37
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So I tasted the beer in question and it's still pretty bitter with just a layer of fruitiness on top of it. No sourness yet unsurprisingly. This bitterness was the original reason for adding the frozen fruit. I think it's coming from the fact I used older hops in it. Again this was just a "hey you never get funky with your beer let's try all sorts of things with these leftovers" sort of thing. If it comes out decent, great! But I was bottling mode yesterday (1 year aged stout in rye whisky barrel) so I used a few leftover bottles and sugar to package some of the (hopefully) sour. Thanks again for all suggestions and help! We'll see what the carboy looks like in the coming weeks and I'll open one of the bottles in a couple months.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:28
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Stuff like your gross moldy beer and some of the recipes I've seen posted make me want an SA homebrew beer exchange program very badly. Surely there must be some way we can actually taste each other's beers without leaving our basements?
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Jul 3, 2018 18:06
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I'm down for an exchange. I have an infinite supply of styrofoam shipping coolers and boxes thanks to work. The beer might come in a box that previously held a human organs, so that's kinda fun too, right? robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jul 3, 2018 18:12
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robotsinmyhead posted:I'm down for an exchange. I have an infinite supply of styrofoam shipping coolers and boxes thanks to work. Finally, offal flavored brewskis
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Jul 3, 2018 18:27
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im salivating
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Jul 3, 2018 19:46
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Napoleon Bonaparty posted:Stuff like your gross moldy beer and some of the recipes I've seen posted make me want an SA homebrew beer exchange program very badly. Surely there must be some way we can actually taste each other's beers without leaving our basements? We've done a few swaps in the past. I know I participated in two of them.
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Jul 3, 2018 20:09
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I would send in something but I'm still not satisfied what I have cooking is not mildly poisonous.
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Jul 3, 2018 21:14
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Bogart posted:I'm still not satisfied what I have cooking is not mildly poisonous. So... it's got ethanol in it? Can't have any of that around here! (says the guy who just brewed a 1.107 beer).
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Jul 3, 2018 21:33
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Fair.  Poisonous in a different way.
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Jul 3, 2018 21:36
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I could send a very sour mixed fermentation Berliner Weisse with raspberries and blackberries. Shipping to/from Norway would probably be a bit expensive tho.
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Jul 3, 2018 22:00
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I'm legit down to get things moving. I know a lot of ppl don't have access to easy shipping options, I'd be willing to send out some seed boxes which can be reused. Non-us might need their own loop though.
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Jul 4, 2018 03:06
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Chopped the poo poo out of 5 lbs of cucumbers this morning. Which gave me about 4 cups of juice.  I played around with tasting and came out to about 1 cup of juice in 5 gallons. I'm hoping it doesn't diminish too much once it carbs up. Also hoping the the 1/4 tsp of metabisulfate I put in there should be enough. I ordered some rosewater from Amazon. Holy mother of god is it overpowering. I put in 2 drops and couldn't get the taste out of my mouth.
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Jul 4, 2018 16:59
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^1/4 tsp is plenty. robotsinmyhead posted:I'm legit down to get things moving. I know a lot of ppl don't have access to easy shipping options, I'd be willing to send out some seed boxes which can be reused. The way the person before me and I have done the swap is you don’t ship across country lines because legality reasons. Yeast samples are different than finished product and have their own regulations. So if there are two or more in a country they get to ship to each other and leave potential international incidents out of it. I don’t know how the EU views these things, but if someone wants to explain it than I’m more than happy to randomly distribute that info between people too. US shipping needs to occur via anything except USPS as I’d advise against breaking the law. I’d be happy to throw up the spreadsheet and form again if there’s enough interest. It would take a few minutes but I won’t get to a computer to do it until tomorrow night.
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Jul 4, 2018 17:00
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I love it when a plan comes together. BJCP just put 4 new styles on their provisional list and my go-to Blueberry Kettle sour now has a name AND a specifi judgeable catergory: X4 Catharina Sour. They also added Burton Ale, New Zealand Pilsner, and NEIPA.
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Jul 5, 2018 19:35
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What, a slightly stronger (0,5-1,5%) florida weisse? I hope this gets the bin.
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Jul 5, 2018 20:17
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robotsinmyhead posted:I love it when a plan comes together. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean the majority of people judging will know how to judge most of those. I can see NEIPA being useful because of how excessively popular it's been, but the entire sour/wild categories need a bit of an overhaul and adding just one isn't probably going to help that too much. They have to add Burton Ale because it spans English Barleywine and Strong Ales (because why not add an entire category when you could just increase the ABV limit of an existing historical style). And NZ Pils is basically a CZ Pils or a Kolsch using NZ hops. But why not try to categorize everything? I think I've made this argument before, but trying to find a category for everything is just a losing battle. Every time it gets a category, there's just as many new styles popping up that are related to other styles because of how fast brewers push the envelope of what they can do. Not everything works, but enough of them will for who knows how long and something else will be new and interesting and we'll end up with 200 styles that no one can do a good job judging.
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Jul 6, 2018 01:37
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https://www.kegconnection.com/four-pack-pin-lock-keg-bundle/ Is it just me or is this a pretty good deal? I will be able to set up a 4 keg keezer when I move in 3 months and already feel bad that I bought a chest freezer on sale for 120 bucks that will be collecting dust in the mean time. Oh and are pin lock kegs really that undesirable?
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Jul 6, 2018 22:19
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 Small scale recipe tests. On the left, spiced apricot tea mead. On the right, cranberry raspberry orange mead. I mean, technically they're both melomels, but who the gently caress outside of mead nerds knows the term? Testing out my recipes for this year's Christmas gifts in half-gallon form. 1.5lbs honey per half-gallon so should be semi-sweet, the cranberry sweeter because it's based in juice instead of water.
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Jul 7, 2018 07:10
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I started making apple cider and while the results have been drinkable, Im very disappointed with the quality of juice I can get in the south. Considered blending fruit from the store but there is no such thing as a bittersharp apple on the shelves. There is good local honey though so Ive got a batch of mead fermenting. Going for dry bottle conditioned, should end up around 17.5%. I've also noticed something I cant quite explain. When racking into secondary the cider is completely flat, but after a few weeks it forms light carbonation. Not enough to move an airlock, but if you swirl it bubbles form readily. Siphoning out of secondary is sometimes a pain because it forms bubbles in the tubing. Also, Im having to be careful not to create bottle bombs. SG is < 1.000 when primary is over, so there is nothing left to ferment. What gives?
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Jul 7, 2018 15:37
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Acelerion posted:I started making apple cider and while the results have been drinkable, Im very disappointed with the quality of juice I can get in the south. Considered blending fruit from the store but there is no such thing as a bittersharp apple on the shelves. Sometimes you get a little aeration when racking, and that can kickstart a little more fermentation if the yeast is on the edge of their envelope. Nothing to worry about, but (along with clarification) part of why I like to age in secondary rather than bottles.
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Jul 7, 2018 16:13
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Acelerion posted:SG is < 1.000 when primary is over, so there is nothing left to ferment. What gives? You sure about that? A fermentation that can go to .995 isn’t done when it dips below 1.
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Jul 7, 2018 20:41
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If there's a lot of alcohol involved you can get SG/FG below 1.0 just fine. I just tried a bottle of my recently bottled Biere de Miel, and while I was not enthused about the way it tasted or smelled at bottling just a couple of weeks later and it is really drat nice. The mix of tart and bitter with my mixed culture and about 24 IBUs reminds me a lot of Bam Biere. I'm starting to learn that my culture tends to throw off either sulfur or medicinal aromas when it's young, but that this gives way to dry spicy hay flavors with hints of Belgian fruitiness when its given enough time to age. I think this will beer will really shine with 6 more weeks in the bottle, but I doubt it will last that long.
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Jul 7, 2018 21:35
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I'm going away for a few weeks, but I've still got a batch of mead going and another carbonating. People will be at the house, but they are not brewers and they don't have the interest or education to notice/fix problems. I figure my slow batch of sweet mead will be fine, but I am concerned about the high pressure of the champagne I'm bottle conditioning in my flip-tops. I was thinking of instructing my roommates to open one in a week or two, but what could they even do if they were overcarbonated? Just open them all, hope they don't blow up and recap? I also think I'll have them refrigerate it for a day before opening, but it's going to be upwards of 4 vols. I tried this successfully with similar bottles earlier, but it's freaking me out a little that I'm leaving these unattended for weeks.
DISCO KING fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jul 8, 2018 |
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Jul 8, 2018 04:56
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Why are you trying to bottle condition champagne mead in flip tops in the first place?  That seems like an absolute recipe for bottle blowouts.
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Jul 8, 2018 05:18
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it's hot at the moment. really loving hot. i was interested in doing a gallon of belgian mead but what yeasts would be happy around an average of 27C-ish? there's that terrifying one that's happy up to like 35C but that apparently sticks all the time if you don't keep it really hot
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Jul 8, 2018 10:58
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I'm pretty dumb and it works if I don't gently caress up?
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Jul 8, 2018 15:57
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eviltastic posted:You sure about that? A fermentation that can go to .995 isn’t done when it dips below 1. I mean its pretty much done and primary does not gas it up, only after its been racked. Its only an irritance
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Jul 8, 2018 17:15
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robotsinmyhead posted:Double Post Time since it's dead at work. I used to have a HERMS but I thought it was too fiddly so I just went coil-less and isolated my mash-tun to do normal infusions. I don't do steps anyway. The biggest quality of life boost is having a big HLT with lots of power to it, it really speeds your brewday. Pumps are awesome as well. Get an oversized mash-tun at least 40% bigger then your BK or you'll have trouble with big beers. If you can get both your heating helements to power on at the same time, it really helps with double brews.
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Jul 8, 2018 19:14
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Yesterday I did my first brew day on my Grainfather Connect and I definitely learned a lot doing it. In case anyone was considering one here are some early takeaways. 1. There is a good bit of dead space at the bottom of the unit. Definitely take this into account with your batch size. 2. Even with doing a 4 gallon batch with a 5.5 gallon boil, the 1600W Element could barely get a boil going at all. It was at 212 for sure it just wasn't all that vigorous so my boil off was only half a gallon over the full 60 min boil. Because of that I undershot my OG by a decent amount. I will be buying the insulated jacket for it to help and maybe a secondary heat stick. Heat up time was actually not terrible all things considered though. 3. Cleanup is a lot easier than my two cooler setup and I like that everything fits inside the unit for storage. 4. I put the return pump tube too deep in the unit and was basically just chilling the bottom wort. The temp probe got all the way down to 90 during my chill so I went to run it off into my fermenter to chill the rest of the way in my fermentation chamber. As I went to drain the temp started ramping up dramatically as the hot wort got lower inside the unit. The top wort was sitting around 140. I checked the wort in my fermenter and it was at 105 overall. I'll probably design some kind of elbow on the wort return that I can create a pseudo low speed whirlpool to help avoid this. 5. Overall I like it. The app interface is real straight forward and if you load in your recipe it has the mash and boil steps all pre loaded for you. The alarms at each step are plenty loud and go off until you turn them off so if you walk away you'll drat sure know it is time to do something. I also appreciate that the spent grain cools way faster when it isn't in an insulated cooler. I always had to wait 6 or 7 hours to empty my cooler tun unless I wanted to melt a garbage bag or burn myself.
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Jul 8, 2018 23:58
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tripwood posted:I used to have a HERMS but I thought it was too fiddly so I just went coil-less and isolated my mash-tun to do normal infusions. I don't do steps anyway. Would you mind expounding a bit? I'm still in the planning stages of this with regards to the vessels. The stand is complete - all gas burners with PID controlled valves and pilot relighters with 2 pumps. If I can avoid using a coil, I would love it. I decided to go middle-ground with the vessels. I had planned on buying finished vessels, then decided to build my own with keggles, and now I'm splitting the difference - buying inexpensive vessels (Bayou Classic, ie) and building them up with a decent tri-clad boil kettle. robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 01:29
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