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LaserWash posted:Hmmm... Really depends on where you live. My Cascades and some other varieties do really well, but my Columbus conked out in the 2nd year (and didn't do all that well in their first either) We've taken to growing what we can. If you're not in the right climate, you might have to make some concessions.
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Apr 11, 2016 12:13
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After pitching a 1 gallon IPA test brew on the warm end and then having it ferment in a sunny room that was way to warm I've decided that I need to invest in some sort of temperature regulation for my brews. I'm torn on what to do. Obviously cheaper is better but I'd also like to keep it small and energy efficient as I plan on moving soon hopefully. I use 6.5 gallon big mouth bubblers to ferment in which are a bit to tall for something like that cooler case. Would my best option be a craigslist deep freeze or mini fridge and external thermostat controller or would something like a swamp cooler work just as well? I had thought about buying some foam board and framing out a box and then maybe doing something like a fan and ice pack to blow over but that seems like it'd be hard to keep at a steady temp.
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Apr 11, 2016 14:50
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Swamp cooler; you really only need it for the first few days for most ales.  JawKnee posted: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. I use a steel mesh in my racking cane, but sometimes I forget. It's a pain in the rear end.
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Apr 11, 2016 15:10
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BaseballPCHiker posted:After pitching a 1 gallon IPA test brew on the warm end and then having it ferment in a sunny room that was way to warm I've decided that I need to invest in some sort of temperature regulation for my brews. I'm torn on what to do. Obviously cheaper is better but I'd also like to keep it small and energy efficient as I plan on moving soon hopefully. I use 6.5 gallon big mouth bubblers to ferment in which are a bit to tall for something like that cooler case. Would my best option be a craigslist deep freeze or mini fridge and external thermostat controller or would something like a swamp cooler work just as well? I had thought about buying some foam board and framing out a box and then maybe doing something like a fan and ice pack to blow over but that seems like it'd be hard to keep at a steady temp. My friend uses a mini-fridge that he "built-out" with plywood and foam to create a bigger chamber. He took the door off and made an enclosure that can hold, I think, 3 corny kegs or 3x 6.5gal plastic buckets. All done on the cheap. The swamp cooler idea works well too, though it's less precise and involves more day-to-day maintenance. Whatever you do, an Inkbird temp controller will be your bestest friend.
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Apr 11, 2016 15:11
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So after 36 hours on lacto the pH has dropped to 4.5 and it has a distinct tartness, but not enough for my tastes yet. I'm going to keep it on lacto only for a few more days and check pH and flavor every 12 hours. As soon as it gets under 4 and I have the tartness I want I will pitch the yeast. This stuff is pretty fun. Much more work on the front end than distilling but interesting in its own way. I'm debating pitching Brett after racking it to the secondary just to finish out whatever could be left in it after the belle saison finishes. Any thoughts on using Brett as a "cleanup crew" per se? Edit: it's kind of fun using the hetero lacto. It's foaming lightly on the top and there is some good movement in the bubbler. The wort is already a bit drier but that may be the acid masking some of the sweetness. Smell is great. I'm looking forward to getting this thing into bottles in a few weeks and trying it out. Luckily I can distill it if there is anything off about it. Saves me from tossing it if it's bad. Errant Gin Monks fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 18:51
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JawKnee posted: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. JawKnee posted: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. I just don't like doing stuff like that that can introduce the risk of infection from more sources personally. The last time I tried it clogged up with hops and was nigh on impossible to get the bag back out of the keg. Having said that though, usually I will lager for a couple days toward the end of dry hopping and sometimes will gelatin just to try get a nice clear beer but recently my lagering fridge has fully packed it in so I can't do that any more 
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Apr 12, 2016 01:06
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Errant Gin Monks posted:Edit: it's kind of fun using the hetero lacto. It's foaming lightly on the top and there is some good movement in the bubbler. The wort is already a bit drier but that may be the acid masking some of the sweetness. Sounds like a yeast infection, heterofermentative lacto still only makes a tiny tiny amount of alcohol. If your gravity has dropped more than a couple of points I'd pasteurise/pitch.
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Apr 12, 2016 01:20
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Got my Dark Lord Day tickets today in the mail and I'm siked. Any of you dudes going, or is the Beer thread better for that sort of thing? I think I un-subbed that thread cause I'm not whalez hunting like most of those guys.
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Apr 12, 2016 01:36
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robotsinmyhead posted:Got my Dark Lord Day tickets today in the mail and I'm siked. Any of you dudes going, or is the Beer thread better for that sort of thing? I think I un-subbed that thread cause I'm not whalez hunting like most of those guys. Yeah i backed out cause of all the look what i got in the mail 200$ of beer photos.
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Apr 12, 2016 02:03
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wildfire1 posted:Sounds like a yeast infection, heterofermentative lacto still only makes a tiny tiny amount of alcohol. If your gravity has dropped more than a couple of points I'd pasteurise/pitch. Good to know. I haven't checked the gravity since it went in but I will tomorrow when I check pH again and see what kind of movement there is. Don't know where the yeast would have come from. Everything I used was brand new and soaked in another 5 gallon bucket full of Star San as I used it. When you say pasteurize/pitch you mean reheat it to a boil then pitch the belle saison?
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Apr 12, 2016 02:56
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So I got my homemade stir plate working. It is as the stir bar I got from my LHBS. It had either a very weak magnet or was just metal. These ones I got from Amazon work great. Lesson learned and wish to pass on: Definitely get strong magnets, stir bats with sting magnets, and an adjustable voltage power supply with 25 ohm rheostat. Ya gotta have that adjustability or else the stir bar goes flying. Thanks for the help guys! Edit: Left it on full power and stuff is still settling to the bottom. It's working, but I'm not getting enough to keep everything in solution. Time to adjust magnets and use a bigger stir bar I guess. yamdankee fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Apr 12, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 04:31
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Been brewing for ten years or so, on and off, and I've finally run into something weird. My last two beers have had a rather strong tart citrusy off-flavor that isn't described on the list linked last page. I've only changed two things for those brews from the last ones: lower fermentation temperatures by a few degrees, and I tried out Clarity Ferm. I don't think either of those would have caused this. During the last batch, the tartness was immediately evident during fermentation due to the smell, but once the beer sits in the keg for a month or so, it fades and isn't overpowering anymore. Last year I finally had an infected batch and replaced my bucket to be safe. I'm wondering if this isn't also an infection, perhaps in my lines?
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Apr 12, 2016 17:00
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Can someone point me toward an IPA that is fairly straight forward and hard to gently caress up? I want to make my first all-grain 5g batch. I built a wort chiller and a mash tun this weekend and am excited to test 'em out.
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Apr 12, 2016 18:19
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I'm brewing today and noticed I have a couple oz of Liberty left over. Would you guys use Liberty for the boil/bittering or for aroma? I don't know my hops very well at all. Alternatively, is there chart out there somewhere that says "use this for boil/bitter, use this for aroma, use this for dry hopping"?
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Apr 12, 2016 19:16
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Luceo posted:Been brewing for ten years or so, on and off, and I've finally run into something weird. My last two beers have had a rather strong tart citrusy off-flavor that isn't described on the list linked last page. I've only changed two things for those brews from the last ones: lower fermentation temperatures by a few degrees, and I tried out Clarity Ferm. I don't think either of those would have caused this. During the last batch, the tartness was immediately evident during fermentation due to the smell, but once the beer sits in the keg for a month or so, it fades and isn't overpowering anymore. Lactobacillus comes to mind as being a bit pernicious to get rid of once it's on the cold side of your setup. It can and does cause souring (on purpose and on accident). It could definitely be in your lines, racking cane, etc - anything on the cold side.
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Apr 12, 2016 19:40
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wildfire1 posted:Sounds like a yeast infection, heterofermentative lacto still only makes a tiny tiny amount of alcohol. If your gravity has dropped more than a couple of points I'd pasteurise/pitch. So I pulled some readings today. The pH is under 4 at the moment and there is a definite tartness to the wort. The SG had moved 0.008 from 1.057 to 1.049, which seems to be within the range of the WLP677 since it is used to ferment entire worts on its own. There was also a good amount of carbonation going on so the bubbles may have thrown it off. Regardless the pH was getting down there but I wanted a bit more sourness so I pitched the belle saison on top of it to allow them to work together, I prefer not to kill the lacto and let them run side by side until the alcohol takes them out. If this doesn't come out right no biggie I can distill it. It sure is fun and interesting to watch all these bugs work though and see and taste what they do. The plan is to save this yeast/lacto cake and pitch a pils malt on top of it to see what happens with it.
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Apr 12, 2016 20:03
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Errant Gin Monks posted:So I pulled some readings today. The pH is under 4 at the moment and there is a definite tartness to the wort. The SG had moved 0.008 from 1.057 to 1.049, which seems to be within the range of the WLP677 since it is used to ferment entire worts on its own. There was also a good amount of carbonation going on so the bubbles may have thrown it off. Lacto Delbruckei isn't heterofermentative. It needs a yeast to do the alcohol conversion. You must have gotten some other yeast in there from your equipment (most likely) or maybe from the air (less likely if you used good practices while cooling). If you're making a Berliner Weisse with it you'd also pitch a Weizen yeast for the alcohol conversion. You did a good thing by pitching the Belle Saison on top. You could easily do a simple Pils SMaSH and pitch right onto that yeast cake. L. Delbruckei doesn't like hops though, so go very very light and maybe take some out to oxidize (or just buy aged hops).
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Apr 12, 2016 20:18
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Errant Gin Monks posted:So I pulled some readings today. The pH is under 4 at the moment and there is a definite tartness to the wort. The SG had moved 0.008 from 1.057 to 1.049, which seems to be within the range of the WLP677 since it is used to ferment entire worts on its own. There was also a good amount of carbonation going on so the bubbles may have thrown it off. Pour it through a coffee filter if you want to decarbonate it.
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Apr 12, 2016 20:38
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Jhet posted:Lacto Delbruckei isn't heterofermentative. It needs a yeast to do the alcohol conversion. You must have gotten some other yeast in there from your equipment (most likely) or maybe from the air (less likely if you used good practices while cooling). If you're making a Berliner Weisse with it you'd also pitch a Weizen yeast for the alcohol conversion. You did a good thing by pitching the Belle Saison on top. It's odd because I have read that, but there are plenty of cases on forums where people say WLP677 can and will attenuate a wort. I don't know it's weird. I'm glad I did the right thing pitching the saison yeast on top. And yeah with the pils wort I plan on taking 4 gallons from the kettle after boil and cooling it dropping it on the yeast then lightly hopping the other gallon and tossing some of the yeast cake on it, mixing it after ferment and dry hopping from there. ChickenArise posted:Pour it through a coffee filter if you want to decarbonate it. This makes so much sense. Thanks.
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Apr 12, 2016 20:51
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It's probably actually easier with a press, now that I recall the last time I did it. I am pretty clumsy, though, and it should be doable without if you aren't me. h/t to Dogfish Head brewers for the tip.
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Apr 12, 2016 21:09
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Rumor is that white labs lacto will ferment wort at times because it's not always 100% pure and has had sacc or brett in it at times. When I had been asking questions about lacto, Lance Shaner from omega was very clear it should not be dropping the gravity hardly at all. (0.002 at most). Der Penguingott fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Apr 12, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 21:30
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robotsinmyhead posted:Lactobacillus comes to mind as being a bit pernicious to get rid of once it's on the cold side of your setup. It can and does cause souring (on purpose and on accident). It could definitely be in your lines, racking cane, etc - anything on the cold side. I've never used lacto (or any funk bugs) in my brews. Is it something you can just pick up naturally? I'm generally pretty good about sanitization.
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Apr 12, 2016 22:23
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Luceo posted:I've never used lacto (or any funk bugs) in my brews. Is it something you can just pick up naturally? I'm generally pretty good about sanitization. It's something that you can pick up naturally. They can hide in little scratches in your vinyl tubing and plastic buckets. They're less than half the size of yeast and stubborn, so they're a pain to remove. It's easier to just buy clean plastics.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:26
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Jhet posted:It's something that you can pick up naturally. They can hide in little scratches in your vinyl tubing and plastic buckets. They're less than half the size of yeast and stubborn, so they're a pain to remove. It's easier to just buy clean plastics. Guess I'll replace the bucket (again) and the lines. Thanks! 
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Apr 12, 2016 23:30
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Der Penguingott posted:Rumor is that white labs lacto will ferment wort at times because it's not always 100% pure and has had sacc or brett in it at times. Just watched a video on that this morning, was their Pedio strain that had a yeast infection. Could be their lacto too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a--DVtJtU4A
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Apr 12, 2016 23:52
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Luceo posted:Guess I'll replace the bucket (again) and the lines. Thanks! If you've made it 10 years without much problem, you're doing better than a lot of people. I switch out tubing more frequently, but I also buy 50' at a time. Buckets I will pasteurize with 180F water for an hour and leave in what little sun I have to keep them fresh. They don't tend to make it more than a year. The other thing to think about is the cleanliness of anything you make starters in or if you're repitching with or on a yeast cake. It's easy to pick up bacteria at many different points in the process. If the citric off-flavor goes away after a month though, it may not be lacto and it might just be some hops that are off or a yeast strain that is fruity. What strain did you use and did you use it for both batches that picked up the flavor? I'd hate for you to go buy new equipment if you don't actually need it.
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Apr 13, 2016 00:10
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The yeast was different and not harvested, and I didn't make a starter for either brew. They were totally different styles, even, with nothing common between them.
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Apr 13, 2016 01:14
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I'm hilariously lax with my sanitation and haven't had a lacto infection yet, besides the one I did on purpose. I'm hesitant to put a 'clean' beer in that carboy, but otherwise, I think it's pretty rare. If you're 10 years in and this is a first, I'd chalk that up as natural, but definitely swap out some gear. Mark that setup as a BUG BUCKET, keep it separate, and roll on.
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Apr 13, 2016 03:16
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Well after 24 hours on the yeast I'm getting a bubble from the airlock every second or two. Seems good. Last night at around 12 hours it was getting a bubble every 8-10 seconds so it seems to be revving up. I wish I could see it but it's in a bucket since my carboys and widemouths are holding dunder and rum wash. Luckily I'm distilling this weekend so a carboy will free itself up in time for the secondary.
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Apr 13, 2016 18:33
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I normally have my processes totally nailed down and can brew things pretty much just how I expect, but for whatever stupid reason I have a continuing curse in my attempts to brew a "Row 2, Hill 56" clone. First time I majorly hosed up the mast temperature and it ended up way too sweet. This time, I managed to boil off way too much, so it's basically an IPA now, and today I noticed that I set the fermenter to 57F instead of 67F, 4 days after fermentation started. What the hell. At least it still seems to be fermenting decently well. In other news, I found an 18 month old flask of The Yeast Bay's "Dry Belgian Ale" yeast in my fridge and just stuck it in a 500ml starter because what the hell. I'm expecting total death.
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Apr 14, 2016 06:51
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Glottis posted:I normally have my processes totally nailed down and can brew things pretty much just how I expect, but for whatever stupid reason I have a continuing curse in my attempts to brew a "Row 2, Hill 56" clone. First time I majorly hosed up the mast temperature and it ended up way too sweet. This time, I managed to boil off way too much, so it's basically an IPA now, and today I noticed that I set the fermenter to 57F instead of 67F, 4 days after fermentation started. What the hell. At least it still seems to be fermenting decently well. The most popular clone recipe calls for 8% light crystal and a mash temp of 68C / 154.4F. If that's what you're shooting for I have a hard time seeing how it would not be sweet.
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Apr 14, 2016 07:52
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I'm looking for the recipe for my second brew and honestly I have no clue what to do? How did you guys chose your recipe when you began? There is so many stuff on various websites... Did you choose a beer you like and just did it or did you pick easy recipes? Too many choice 
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Apr 14, 2016 14:40
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You mention 'looking for recipe' right off the bat so maybe you're looking to get more creative than me, but since you ask I'll tell you what I do. I've been brewing for about a year now, some extract but mostly all grain. Honestly I just buy pre-picked recipes of beers I know I like or probably will like, from morebeer.com or Adventures in Homebrewing. That makes it easy. They include the right amounts of grain, right hops for bittering/aroma, etc. I should start putting more thought into getting creative and learning how to make my own grain bill and recipe and stuff. If you feel like you've got the process down to you could do it in your sleep like me that's probably the next logical step.
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Apr 14, 2016 14:45
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Le0 posted:I'm looking for the recipe for my second brew and honestly I have no clue what to do? It really depends on what you want to do. Usually I want to make a beer that I enjoyed on a trip and can't get locally, sometimes I want to clone something I can buy right around the corner just to see how close I can get and sometimes I want to try something completely new and brew something I could never buy locally and never tried abroad. Personally I gave up on building my own recipes, the few times I tried it things just came out incredibly lackluster. Brew Your Own has quite some clone recipes online coming from the original brewers. This list of IPAs for example. https://byo.com/hops/item/153-attack-of-the-hop-clones
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Apr 14, 2016 14:57
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I enjoyed basically making SMaSH pale ales, then adding in some variety of hops/malt/adjunts.
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Apr 14, 2016 15:05
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I enjoy researching styles, methods, and yeasts and then trying something with the tools and tricks I've learned along the way. And then making something that looks like it should be interesting. I do a lot of the same sort of messing about when I'm cooking too, so trying things comes easily, but there are still too many choices. I think the actual answer (which is exactly your problem) is that everyone has different reasons and desires for their beer, and that's why we end up with so many different recipes. It might be helpful to decide on a style of beer, and then decide what you want out of that style: i.e. Stout -> Cream Stout -> Cream Coffee Stout. You can do the same thing with Pale Ales and IPAs if you narrow it down to what flavors you want from the hops too.
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Apr 14, 2016 16:35
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Le0 posted:I'm looking for the recipe for my second brew and honestly I have no clue what to do? The best advice is to make what you like and don't overcomplicate. That said, I like getting into it so I choose a style, then collect a bunch of data on that style such as price winning recipes, clone recipes and guidelines from brewing books. Put it all into one of my big spreadsheets and identify the key points for that style, and what sets the examples I really like apart from the others. Averaging a lot of these data gives me a place to start forming a recipe and usually they turn out pretty decent first try. They still need dialing in so you'll likely have to brew the same beer many times before you really have a recipe built for your style and equipment. Easy recipes can be perfect: 100% Pilsner malt, a saison yeast (3711 or Belle Saison would be easiest to use) and a late hop addition of any you hop you like to anywhere between 20 and 35 IBUs will give you a nice saison. Gravity does not matter much, they're all good. 100% Maris Otter malt, an english yeast (1318 or US-04 would be easiest to use) and one or more additions of an english hop to anywhere between 25 and 60 IBUs will give you a nice bitter, strong bitter or english IPA (depending on gravity and bitterness). thotsky fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 17:31
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Biomute posted:The best advice is to make what you like and don't overcomplicate. This is more or less my process to everything now. I have a beer in my head that I want to make and I google popular recipes in that style and think of what commercial beers are out there that I like in that style. I pick and choose what I think most closely resembles what is in my head and build off of that. Sometimes it's something very unique other times is is the same grain bill or hop schedule as a clone/other homebrewer's recipe. Before I had any idea what I was doing, I'd still start with a beer in my head, but I'd go to my homebrew shop and they would start me with one of their stock recipes in that style and we'd make changes to it to fine tune what I was looking for in terms of the more nuanced flavors in that beer. Really though, very few styles are overly complicated, you can brew drat near any beer style from the get go outside of really high gravity stuff or lagers (assuming you have no fermentation temp control).
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Apr 14, 2016 18:34
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Le0 posted:Did you choose a beer you like and just did it or did you pick easy recipes? Yes. Pick a beer style you like, if the process (including fermentation time) is too arduous or difficult, pick the next-best beer style you like.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:01
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Personally, I like using benchmark beers. Pick a beer you like and find a clone recipe. Brew it once and see how you're doing. Then figure out if you wanna tweak it - change the color, residual sugars, mouthfeel, etc Then you slowly learn what the difference malts do and why people use them or don't - like me, I try to avoid using Crystal Malts unless necessary. I use Brewer's Friend to mock up all my beers and there's a HUGE database of publicly-shared beers on there, with comments, ratings, and times brewed. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel, especially starting out.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:29
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