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Just drank a couple of bottles of the most drinkable ale I've made so far - a Mosaic Kveik ale. It's going down almost too easy, and I only started it on the 22nd of February. 16 days from boil to glass, and it's fabulous. I bought some Voss Kveik yeast on a bit of a whim as it's supposed to be super quick to ferment and my stash was getting very low; it's marvelous stuff. I drank a crafty pint straight out of the fermenter while I was bottling (which was kinda under-carbed for my tastes but otherwise delicious). 1.5kg Amber DME 1 kg Pale DME 1.5kg Maris Otter Malt (steeped in 15l water at 68*C for about an hour; didn't bother sparging as I was feeling lazy). Added roughly 5-6l extra water to the pan before the boil. 30g Mosaic (45 minutes) 1 Whirlfloc and 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 minutes) 70g Mosaic (0 minutes) 4g Voss Kveik added at ~40*C Fermented around the 28*C mark (wrapped two brew bands around it - I was hoping for nearer 35*C, but it's been cold recently and my brewing nook isn't in a warm bit of the house). Bottled after 6 days. Next time, I'll probably skip steeping the Maris Otter (I threw it in because I had it lying around), and just pop in another kilo of pale DME. And do a half-hour boil. An hour's effort for a beer this good seems like a good return on investment. Anyone who mostly makes extract or part-extract beers should definitely check this one out.
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Mar 9, 2021 22:27
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Kraftwerk posted:
Thanks for the lead on these recipes. There's actually two partial grain recipes archived for a honey ale and honey porter listed on whitehouse dot gov....how cool! While I haven't brewed these (yet), I'd assume there's already room for tinkering with the recipe. At a glance, I'd probably look into that gypsum addition and adjust it to my local water profile, moreso to keep a chloride/sulfate ratio in style. From 2012 to now there's been a huge increase in yeast availability, too - swap that Danstar Windsor yeast for something else, but otherwise they look pretty approachable. When local honey is back in season, I'll give the Honey Ale recipe a go this year. Cheers!
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Mar 9, 2021 22:40
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Danstar Windsor comes from Henley of Thames. It’s about the same as Wyeast 1275 and WLP Burton. I’d guess the gypsum for matching closer to the Burton water profile. The recipes look good too, but I’ve never gotten around to brewing them myself.
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Mar 9, 2021 23:02
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Hope I'm not too late for english ale posting but i highly recommend everyone make this: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2017/03/lets-brew-1946-tetley-mild.html. It's such a nice easy drinker, easy bill of ingredients and my favourite of the old recipes I've tried.
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Mar 10, 2021 02:23
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boba fetacheese posted:Hope I'm not too late for english ale posting but i highly recommend everyone make this: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2017/03/lets-brew-1946-tetley-mild.html. It's such a nice easy drinker, easy bill of ingredients and my favourite of the old recipes I've tried. haha, I haven't even started to brew yet so you're going to have to hear about them for a while  I put in an order for the Anvil burner and I picked up a propane tank today. I'm still on the fence about what to do about a fermenter, I keep talking myself in circles. The Anvil brew bucket is super affordable but I see some complaints about the valve being non-detachable and hard to clean (and they are out of stock at the moment). The SS Brewtech brew bucket has a much more pronounced bottom like a real conical and probably a nicer valve, but still not butterfly. The Spike Flex+ is really growing on me, $400 to get started with something I could upgrade with a temperature-control jacket and do pressurized transfers in is really a pretty solid deal. You can get it upgraded for less than the Chronical BME, and the Chronical doesn't do pressurized transfers. The BME does have a trub dump but that's a mixed bag since it increases the height of the unit, you could put a Flex in a freezer but the Chronical is so tall that's never going to work, you have to use the temperature control system. And of course you can go all the way to the unitank, which does have a 14 gallon option, which mitigates some of the expense I think (1 fully upgraded unitank is about as much as two fully upgraded Flex+), and it's overall still a nicer unit. I don't really want to spend the dough for a unitank right out of the gate, but the Flex+ is sounding really attractive when I look at what you're getting in terms of features, and two of them is also more flexible than one big tank if I want to do two different beers at once. Or just buy the Anvil and move up later. Or the SS Brewtech. Or the flex+... (thinking the flex+ sounds nice overall, maybe I'll talk myself into it as a tax season splurge. Really wish they'd offer it in a 14 gallon version though, that would be perfect, maybe they will sometime later and I can get one of those too and share accessories.) Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 09:06
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You can do pressurized transfers with any of the SS stuff, even the brew bucket, just keep the pressure really really low.
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Mar 10, 2021 09:52
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Paul MaudDib posted:I'm still on the fence about what to do about a fermenter, I keep talking myself in circles. This is exactly what I’m wondering as well. Right now I’m looking pretty heavily at the Blichmann Cornical Unitank because you can drain the trub and then just flip it over, screw on a bottom, and turn it into a corny keg. I like the idea of getting a minifridge and turning it into a keg fridge to control fermentation temperature and reduce contamination risk from transfers. I also really like that inkbird temperature controller tater salad posted a page or two back. This is something I’m really enjoying and want to get better at so I can do more interesting things, and I’m really trying to learn what I can control with better equipment that would pay dividends right off the bat. more falafel please posted:Personally I use a minifridge with a temperature controller and a reptile heating pad. It's not perfect, because I can only temp control one batch at a time, and only certain fermenters fit in it, but I've been using it for 8 years or so. Are you using the inkbird controller to intermittently power the heater element and fridge from on probe feedback? I’d just like to know more about your setup... The more I read and understand this seems like the way to go, and the next step up is glycol jacketing with very expensive fermentation vats?
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Mar 10, 2021 22:43
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OSU_Matthew posted:This is exactly what I’m wondering as well. Right now I’m looking pretty heavily at the Blichmann Cornical Unitank because you can drain the trub and then just flip it over, screw on a bottom, and turn it into a corny keg. I like the idea of getting a minifridge and turning it into a keg fridge to control fermentation temperature and reduce contamination risk from transfers. I also really like that inkbird temperature controller tater salad posted a page or two back. This is something I’m really enjoying and want to get better at so I can do more interesting things, and I’m really trying to learn what I can control with better equipment that would pay dividends right off the bat. Yeah, it's not an inkbird, it's a hack-job STC-1000, because the inkbird didn't exist (or at least wasn't common in homebrew internet) at the time. But if I did it again, I'd absolutely use an inkbird. The temp controller turns on and off the fridge and heater as it needs to, and it works really well. The reptile heat pad is cheap and only puts out a little bit of heat, so I'm not worried about it as a fire hazard or anything, it really just gets warm. In an insulated minifridge, a little heat adds up pretty quickly.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:41
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Reptile wire also works great and allows you to spread the heating over the entire chamber. I think I bought a 15 ft one that can easily get my minifridge up to 90 degrees.
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Mar 11, 2021 00:16
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where do people generally shop online for this and that? I have an Adventures in Homebrewing locally (and of course I can order online) and the prices seem OK especially when they're running one of their 20% off-ish promos (currently $20 off $100, I've seen $10 off $50, etc) but a lot of the big-ticket items like Blichmann, SS Brewtech, kegerators, etc are not allowed on those promos. For other stuff it seems like Morebeer has pretty good prices?
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Mar 11, 2021 00:50
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Those are both good. If you have AiH close, you’ll win on the big items because of not paying for shipping. You might be in the ritebrew speedy delivery area too. For ingredients you could branch out, but you’re pretty much covered for it already. I’ve always been able to find everything except unique and special release yeast/bacteria from those places. But if you’re not into mixed fermentation or very specific yeasts then they’ll have you covered. Otherwise you may need to find the specific shops that carry those specific strains. Regular ale and lager yeasts are basically everywhere, so no harm going with the closest.
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Mar 11, 2021 01:01
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AIH has a points system that you can use to get some discounts on Blichmann, etc. I'm not local to AIH but I have ordered a lot from them. I like RiteBrew, MoreBeer, and Williams Brewing, etc. https://www.homebrewfinds.com/ lists sales from the big homebrew outlets, as well as random stuff like Amazon sales for minor equipment like fittings/o-rings and random stuff that's useful like bus tubs, spray bottles, etc.
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Mar 11, 2021 03:08
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Paul MaudDib posted:where do people generally shop online for this and that? I have an Adventures in Homebrewing locally (and of course I can order online) and the prices seem OK especially when they're running one of their 20% off-ish promos (currently $20 off $100, I've seen $10 off $50, etc) but a lot of the big-ticket items like Blichmann, SS Brewtech, kegerators, etc are not allowed on those promos. For other stuff it seems like Morebeer has pretty good prices? I just ordered a Blichmann G2 Kettle from MoreBeer, though it hasn’t shipped yet. I signed up for their newsletter and got a 10$ coupon code, and I also noticed that if I checked out as a guest vs signing in, shipping was 13$ vs 30 something (YMMV). Which, speaking of newsletter coupon codes, protip for gmail havers—if you’re signing up for something that you think is gonna be spammey, you can put +whatever at the end of your id (before @gmail) and it’ll still go to your inbox while ignoring the + and anything after it, so you can apply rules to filter. Eg myname+newsletter@gmail.com resolves to myname@gmail.com, and you can just tag and auto archive everything sent to that +address. I like doing it to see who sold my email, eg myname+vendor coming from something else entirely is always fun. Anyways more falafel please posted:Yeah, it's not an inkbird, it's a hack-job STC-1000, because the inkbird didn't exist (or at least wasn't common in homebrew internet) at the time. But if I did it again, I'd absolutely use an inkbird. The temp controller turns on and off the fridge and heater as it needs to, and it works really well. The reptile heat pad is cheap and only puts out a little bit of heat, so I'm not worried about it as a fire hazard or anything, it really just gets warm. In an insulated minifridge, a little heat adds up pretty quickly. Do you have the fridge drilled for a keg tap, or is it just intact for controlling fermentation temps? So I’m trying to learn more about carbonation in a single vessel fermentation. If I were to use a single vessel for fermentation, would I switch from an airlock to a spunding valve after draining the trub? Would that generally carbonate the beer without the need for priming sugar after fermentation or forced gas carbonation, or is a bit of either still necessary?
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Mar 11, 2021 03:36
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more falafel please posted:AIH has a points system that you can use to get some discounts on Blichmann, etc. I'm not local to AIH but I have ordered a lot from them. I like RiteBrew, MoreBeer, and Williams Brewing, etc. nope, anything with a minimum advertised price is completely excluded from accruing rewards points. quote:Rewards Program hence me asking about pricing at other places, because despite their hardline stance on MAP, other places are often cheaper, so if you aren't even getting rewards points you might as well shop around. Just wondering if there's any places that are reliably cheap for non-perishable stuff - really doesn't matter if some spare airlocks or whatever take a week to get to you. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Mar 11, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 03:45
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Not sure about your specific stuff but maybe williams? They had my anvil stsinlesst fermenter for less than anyone else (and also had it in stock)
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Mar 11, 2021 12:05
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So it looks like brew in a bag is the way to go for getting started with all grain, right? Reading a bit about stuff and trying to understand things like efficiency, is it common for people to eventually get their own grain mill and process grains themselves, or do most people just stick with what they get from the lhbs? Once our new fridge comes in I’m hoping to convert the old one into a temperature controlled fermentation chamber, though I think the next batch is just going to get plopped in the basement for now. I ordered the cornical fermenter and spunding valve from MoreBeer, but there’s no telling when that or the G2 will be coming in... just crossing my fingers and hoping it’ll be before the next brewday. I’m looking at hop spiders right now, and I was wondering if there were any recommendations for how to best contain hops? I see stuff like dip tube filters, hop blockers, or screened hop spiders, and I was wondering if there was any consensus on standouts or benefits between the types? Or would it be better to skip hop spiders and whirlpool to collect hops and detritus in a cone before transferring to fermentation? Does an immersion chiller cause issues with whirlpooling? What’s the best way to accomplish it? Very interested to know what other people do... I love IPAs and once I get some recipes under my belt the plan is to go up to my eyeballs with hops.
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Mar 13, 2021 06:56
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OSU_Matthew posted:This is exactly what I’m wondering as well. Right now I’m looking pretty heavily at the Blichmann Cornical Unitank because you can drain the trub and then just flip it over, screw on a bottom, and turn it into a corny keg. I like the idea of getting a minifridge and turning it into a keg fridge to control fermentation temperature and reduce contamination risk from transfers. I also really like that inkbird temperature controller tater salad posted a page or two back. This is something I’m really enjoying and want to get better at so I can do more interesting things, and I’m really trying to learn what I can control with better equipment that would pay dividends right off the bat. that's some out of the box thinking, and I think it's technically pretty sound. I will note that while the transfer is oxygen-free (CO2 is heavier than O2 and "falls" into the bottom of the "cup" formed by the keg), it's also atmospheric-pressure, so you will blow all your keg pressure after you dump the trub and unscrew the bottom. Think of it like opening a bottle of soda - it doesn't necessarily go flat instantly, but you do lose a big blast of pressure there. And $130 per keg is pretty pricey overall even at the 2-3 kegs scale. I feel like the real contenders are the Anvil BrewBucket as the "shut up and brew" option, and the Flex+ as the long-term buy. I kinda suspect the right answer is to suck it up and get the flex+. The brew bucket can be temp controlled too, you just put it in a keezer. Which adds about $160 plus whatever the thermostat and heater add, so not all that much less than a temp control kit for a flex+. You can potentially get more multipurpose use out of a keezer vs a plain old temp control kit, like putting kegs in there to chill and so on. The brew bucket is cheaper, but the Flex+ is a technically nicer unit with pressure fermentation and butterfly valves and so on. The Flex+ is closer to the unitank models in a lot of practical aspects. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Mar 13, 2021 |
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Mar 13, 2021 08:13
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OSU_Matthew posted:So it looks like brew in a bag is the way to go for getting started with all grain, right? I've just started BIAB so maybe not the best for these answers. Yes you may lose some efficiency doing a BIAB since you aren't sparging, I tend to still "sparge" since I've got a kettle with a drop in BIAB cylinder. I pull the cylinder up and out of my water and then slowly pour some water heated on the stove over it. I've had decent results form my LHBS grinds but it will 100% be dependent on the grind from your LHBS. I felt like why not get a grain mill too, because GADGETS! I grabbed "the Crop duster" from austin homebrewing, it was 80bucks so after I mill like 400lbs I'll have saved my money on the .20/lb surcharge my store charges for grain. Mostly I got it so I can buy base grains in bulk and save a little / store it for longer Tip for BIAB: Keep a pound or two of dry malt extract to style (pale or dark usually) so if you miss the target gravity just add some DME it to hit it. No clue on hop spiders I just usually add with a sock or toss it in since my kettle has a ball valve on the bottom that helps me keep the junk on the bottom when I transfer to fermenter.
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Mar 13, 2021 14:41
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OSU_Matthew posted:So it looks like brew in a bag is the way to go for getting started with all grain, right? BIAB is a fine method, but you can start with any system you put together. You’d never need to ‘upgrade’ with BIAB, so it depends how you want to do things long term. There’s rarely a perfect piece of equipment either. There are lots that work, and lots that do what they do well, but only in certain situations. It’s a matter of finding out what works best for you and your budget and that’s a much more difficult proposal. Like for IPAs with a ton of hops, a hop spider may not work as it’ll only hold 3-4oz of hops maybe. So to go up to your eyeballs suggests that you’ll be using half a pound and they won’t fit. So maybe you’ll want to find a whirlpool method to get your hops to mound in the center of the kettle and away from your valve. Or maybe you stick a false bottom in to catch as much as possible too. What works perfect for me may not for you. But here’s my method: I have a mash screen that catches a lot of the pellet hops and protein break and the whirlpool stacks up most of the rest. When I use leaf hops it catches almost everything. My kettle screens are heavy gauge and were made by a LHBS owner that closed, so you might not like the one you have for it and just use the whirlpool. My immersion chiller doesn’t get in the way, but it’s home made loose copper coil version too. So maybe if you have a really tight coil that doesn’t let stuff into the middle then maybe yours might a little. There’s ways around all these things, but it’s part of the learning process to find the one that works for you.
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Mar 13, 2021 16:20
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I’ve been thinking about kegging a bit. My problem is I don’t really want to get a dedicated keg fridge/freezer since I’m in an apartment. Not that I can’t, it’s just I’d rather keep things simple in my apartment for now. One thing I was thinking of doing though was splitting up my 2.5 gal batches into two smaller kegs, since I’m pretty sure I can fit one of the small 1.5 gal kegs in my current fridge in one of my crisper drawers or something. The problem would be that I’d end up keeping the other half at room temp. I’m sure that’s not good, but would it be much worse than keeping bottles at room temp after priming? The other problem would be the gas handling. It would be nice to not have to get two tanks, two regulators, etc. I don’t know much about kegging though, would it be possible to prepare one of the kegs for room-temp storage after disconnection? Anyway I don’t know much about kegging so I thought I’d ask for feedback on that idea.
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Mar 13, 2021 16:30
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I squeezed a keezer into a small Brooklyn apartment. It's not easy, but it was better than giving up grocery space in my apartment fridge, for me. I have a friend who does the mini keg thing in his apartment fridge, and is happy with it. Honestly, I'd do that and just make small batches. The more I brew the less I want 5 gallons of the same beer. Storing finished beer in a co2 purged keg at room temperature should be totally fine. I think (but don't know) that's how many bars get their beer. Either way, I am pretty sure most of the worst off flavors come from temperature swings during fermentation. Someone please tell me if I'm way off.
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Mar 13, 2021 18:44
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Warmer temps will speed all processes other than clarification, basically, so if you've got a lot of oxygen exposure, keeping the beer at warmer temps will cause it to oxidize faster. All things being equal, cold is better than warm, but storing a keg at room temp is not a problem if you're being careful about O2, purging the keg with CO2, etc.
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Mar 13, 2021 20:37
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I finshed up my blue moon clone this sunday, ended up bottling all five gallons. I was gonna split it and fruit 2 gallons in another pail, but didn't realize I only had one top. That one is being taken up by my orange wine that just wrapped up primary fermentation. The orange wine taste pretty good so far! It's still got alot of months of conditioning to go, but it hasnt gotten any of that vomit taste I was warned about.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:28
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Johnny-on-the-Spot posted:I finshed up my blue moon clone this sunday, ended up bottling all five gallons. I was gonna split it and fruit 2 gallons in another pail, but didn't realize I only had one top. That one is being taken up by my orange wine that just wrapped up primary fermentation. The orange wine taste pretty good so far! It's still got alot of months of conditioning to go, but it hasnt gotten any of that vomit taste I was warned about. Very glad to hear that! Butyric Acid is nasty stuff to smell and taste. It sounds like you managed your process well enough to not have bacterial or oxygen issues that might have caused it. The only time I've smelled it in my brewing was when some of the mash got left somewhere and I found it a couple days later. Keep it tight and away from oxygen and I hope you have a great product at the end of it.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:13
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Settled on the whirlpool master paddle from Norcal Brewing Solutions. Figure I’ll just spin it up after chilling, pop the kettle lid on, and drain to the fermentation vessel after 15-20 minutes. I especially like the idea that it’ll add aeration to the wort, and it should be easier to clean than a hop spider I feel like I’m so impatient to brew another batch... I’ve no idea when the my larger kettle or conical fermenter will come in, so I’m thinking I’ll just pick up another extract batch this weekend to make something... I’d love to do a Saison or Belgian style. Even though I have a smaller kettle Imma try stopping boilover on hopping by cutting the heat altogether. Still trying to figure out where to store everything and set up a good brewing space, especially for cleaning large vessels that don’t do well with the kitchen sink. I’ve got a plastic utility sink I could set up outside and thread into a garden hose adapter... would this be sanitary enough to do an initial clean of the dishes and fill up a bucket for Star San for sanitation? Do you guys have any recommendations on unscented dish soap to use for general cleaning equipment that won’t film or leave flavors?
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Mar 17, 2021 15:44
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Oxyclean Free. It’s in the laundry detergent section of your stores. It works similar to pbw and can be used on all stainless and glass. It will cause copper to react, so don’t leave copper to soak in it. I like that whirlpool device too. Just go slow with it and don’t aerate your hot wort. Once it’s cooled go nuts and get that air inside it. That stainless mesh looks like what my false bottoms are cut out of too.
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Mar 17, 2021 16:04
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What happens if you aerate hot wort?
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Mar 17, 2021 18:16
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honda whisperer posted:What happens if you aerate hot wort? It can cause oxidation (cardboard yum), but isn’t guaranteed to do so. One of those things that can depend on scale a bit. A little isn’t going to destroy the beer but it’s also not going to hurt to be a little more gentle for 5-10 minutes with the $30-40 and 6 hours spent.
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Mar 17, 2021 18:34
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Thanks, going to be a bit more gentle cooling wort next time. Learn something new everyday.
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Mar 17, 2021 18:48
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honda whisperer posted:Thanks, going to be a bit more gentle cooling wort next time. You're pretty safe once it gets under 130 if I remember right? It's when it's very hot and you've just boiled out all the oxygen where you want to be careful as it'll be able to take more than it can when it's closer to fermenting temp. A sufficiently vigorous and quick fermentation is going to probably use all the oxygen you add, but a slow yeast, or underpitching is more likely to leave the oxygen in longer and may cause issues. So using healthy and enough yeast cells will do a good job helping protect against the possibility of oxidation.
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Mar 17, 2021 19:38
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Uh isn't it the opposite? You can get more gas into water the lower the temperature is which is why colder beer needs lower pressures to get the same carbonation level. If you're going to try to get air into your wort, may as well do it when it will actually hold it. Either way, oxidation (and many other things) is largely overblown in the homebrewing community simply because industrial brewers do it that way. People will complain about to much oxygen in their beer while simultaneously pumping pure o2 into their wort. Unless you're making some massively hopped ipa, you'll probably never notice
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Mar 17, 2021 19:59
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gwrtheyrn posted:Uh isn't it the opposite? You can get more gas into water the lower the temperature is which is why colder beer needs lower pressures to get the same carbonation level. If you're going to try to get air into your wort, may as well do it when it will actually hold it. Either way, oxidation (and many other things) is largely overblown in the homebrewing community simply because industrial brewers do it that way. People will complain about to much oxygen in their beer while simultaneously pumping pure o2 into their wort. Unless you're making some massively hopped ipa, you'll probably never notice I think the argument about hot-side aeration is that the oxidation reactions take place faster at higher temperatures, so there's significant oxidation that happens before pitch, even before boiling and driving off oxygen. I'm willing to believe it's possible, but I'm not going to do all the wacky LoDO poo poo to try to mitigate it.
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Mar 17, 2021 20:08
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more falafel please posted:I think the argument about hot-side aeration is that the oxidation reactions take place faster at higher temperatures, so there's significant oxidation that happens before pitch, even before boiling and driving off oxygen. I'm willing to believe it's possible, but I'm not going to do all the wacky LoDO poo poo to try to mitigate it. Yeah, it binds at a different rate instead of being dissolved in solution. I try to always say it “can” instead of it “will” too, so if I missed one then read it generously please. The reaction is possible, but the comment about extra hoppy things is why it can, but even there the temp and amount is going to be important, as too a bunch of other variables. It’s not something difficult to minimize to reasonable levels either, but going full LODO isn’t necessary. You really can just do things like not use a vigorous whisk in your boiling wort right at flameout and realistically you’ll be fine.
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Mar 17, 2021 20:44
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I know one guy who goes full LoDO for lagers, and he does make very good lagers, but he made good lagers before he started doing that, too. He also spunds and does closed transfers, so there's no O2 exposure after pitching, which seems like it would have much more of an effect.
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Mar 17, 2021 20:48
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Jhet posted:You really can just do things like not use a vigorous whisk in your boiling wort right at flameout and realistically you’ll be fine. I mean even if you do you'll probably be fine. Many practices we take for granted come from commercial brewing where things like throughput and shelf life are extremely important from a business perspective, but at the homebrew scale are just not all that relevant. It may be "better" to do so, but in most cases, if you don't feel like doing it, you will never notice the difference at the scale and time you'll actually be drinking it. At the end of the day, it's hobby and you should do it however you want--if you think it's a pain in the rear end just don't do it, but if you want to go all out and try to make everything perfect that's fine too. Like all of my beers are "underpitched" by commercial standards, and I'd imagine that's extremely common in homebrewing yet people make great beer all the time. I'm likely to never change this--basically everything I make gets a pack of of dry yeast, usually us-05, and that's it.
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Mar 17, 2021 21:06
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Jhet posted:Oxyclean Free. It’s in the laundry detergent section of your stores. It works similar to pbw and can be used on all stainless and glass. It will cause copper to react, so don’t leave copper to soak in it. Awesome, thanks! Thanks for being perpetually helpful with all my stupid questions. This thread has been a really great resource and I really feel like I’ve already learned a lot since last brew day a few weeks ago. Gonna run out to the lhbs tonight and pick up some odds and ends and an extract kit for this weekend since I don’t know when the new kettle and fermenter will ship to try BIAB. I just ordered an Inkwell regulator and am gonna use the last of my menards rebate funbux to buy a chest freezer this evening. 5 CF is adequate for 3 corny kegs and C02 canister on the compressor hump, right? Figure Imma be fermenting in Corny kegs with the cornical and long term I’ll probably do a keezer conversion for serving. I’m excited by the wifi Inkwell, gonna try and see if I can feed the logs into my local splunk instance and create a dashboard with some reminders and alerts  I’m glad I wasn’t getting into this a year ago when chest freezers were impossible to come by
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Mar 18, 2021 17:37
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OSU_Matthew posted:Awesome, thanks! Thanks for being perpetually helpful with all my stupid questions. This thread has been a really great resource and I really feel like I’ve already learned a lot since last brew day a few weeks ago. I don't think 5CF will get you 3 kegs, typically, unless one of them is on the hump and you build a tall collar. This thread on homebrewtalk has specs of most chest freezer models and various layouts of kegs/carboys/gas tanks: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/chest-freezer-specs-and-layouts.377518/ Also, if you're building a collar, you can keep the CO2 tank outside the freezer and put a hole for the gas line(s) through the collar if you want to save space inside. Actually now that I'm reading that, the Danby 5.5CF freezer does apparently fit 3 ball locks on the floor, juuuust barely.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:43
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I took a brewing hiatus kinda, but I finally got around to bottling my first try with Philly Sour and I'm pretty impressed with it. 2 of my standard 'beers' that are really popular and easy to make is a really simple 60-40 Pale/W. Wheat base that I have been souring normally with Goodbelly + Plantarum pills, then either co-pitching, pre-pitching, or post-pitching with whatever clean yeast I have on hand (US-05 usually). This method worked great, but the pellicle was a little gross to deal with and the beer always had a very detectable "bacterial" smell when first opening it. Philly fixed all those issues. Although it's a slower yeast than a standard pitch, it's faster than the ferment + sour schedule I used before, comes out without a pellicle, and doesn't have any noticeable off-flavors. I kept it in my bathroom (so in the 72F range, where the house is at about 66F) but other than that, I didn't do much with temperature control. The finished beer spent 8 days in a secondary bucket with peels from 7 limes and an oak spiral that was soaked in Resposado Tequila. It's definitely the best fermented thing I've ever made, but I still stall at calling a beer because there are no added hops and it wasn't boiled. Almost Seltzer-like with very little residual malt sweetness, tart-but-not-sour, a just a touch of reminder of the tequila and oak.
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Mar 19, 2021 16:08
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more falafel please posted:I don't think 5CF will get you 3 kegs, typically, unless one of them is on the hump and you build a tall collar. I went to look at freezers and pick one up last night and I see exactly what you mean! Unfortunately width constraints pushed me to the smaller chest freezer, but I’m going to have to build almost a foot of collar anyways to fit the Cornical in there, so a regular corny should fit on the hump with that adjustment. I’m hoping it’ll be awhile before I get to multiple kegs and C02 anyways... at least 1-2 weeks at the rate I’ve been going  In the meantime, I’m working to get the freezer set up to ferment tomorrow’s batch! Picked up a saison kit and also a pack of centennial hops with the idea of dry hopping it for something slightly different. Since the advice is to skip transfer to a secondary fermentation chamber, what is the process for dry hopping? a.) Should I just sprinkle in the hops after primary fermentation finishes and hope they settle into the trub so the racking cane doesn’t clog up while transferring into the bottling bucket? b.) Should I star san a muslin bag, sprinkle the hops in that, and drop the bag in after primary fermentation? If I do this, should I add a sanitized marble or two so the bag remains submerged? Would too many marbles sink the hops into the trub? Is there a detriment for leaving dry hops in the secondary fermentation for more than 3-5 days? Eg should I add them right after primary fermentation or time it to x days before bottling? I’ve got two containers I can ferment in, a larger plastic ale pail bucket and a 5 gallon glass carboy that came with a kettle I bought on Craigslist. I’m assuming the larger 6+ gallon pail would be the preferable fermentation chamber so I don’t have to worry about excess krausen and swapping in a blowoff tube? I plan on making roughly five gallons which I figure doesn’t leave much headspace in the carboy. Thanks in advance!
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Mar 19, 2021 16:16
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OSU_Matthew posted:I’ve got two containers I can ferment in, a larger plastic ale pail bucket and a 5 gallon glass carboy that came with a kettle I bought on Craigslist. I’m assuming the larger 6+ gallon pail would be the preferable fermentation chamber so I don’t have to worry about excess krausen and swapping in a blowoff tube? I plan on making roughly five gallons which I figure doesn’t leave much headspace in the carboy. Controversial advice - ditch the carboy and don't even look at it. It's useless for 5gal batches, they're kind of a pain to clean, they're heavy, and they break easily. I have one that I exclusively use for mead. Spend the $8 next time you can and just get a proper bucket + lid with a port. Even if you only do one at a time, I think it's wise to have batch count +1 at all times so you can do things like Secondary, clarification, bottling, etc.
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Mar 19, 2021 16:23
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