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Oh hell yeah. My FIL says the hops he planted for me are ready. We're picking on Saturday! What should I do for my wet hoped beer? Just like a bunch of 2row then LOLHOPS?! Also, has anyone here used their own grown hops? How...much do I use? Its a vine of cascade and a vine of centennial.
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Sep 1, 2020 21:25
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ChiTownEddie posted:Oh hell yeah. My FIL says the hops he planted for me are ready. We're picking on Saturday! What should I do for my wet hoped beer? Just like a bunch of 2row then LOLHOPS?! Wet hops are ~6x heavier than dry, so you'll need a lot. I would basically only use them late, since you don't really have any idea what the AA% is. Doing a simple IPA like that would work fine, but you can do whatever you want that you might want a lot of late cascade/centennial flavor. I've done a "harvest red" type of thing before: For 5 gallons: 79.6% Maris Otter 7.6% Munich 3.8% American Crystal 40L 3.8% UK Crystal 120L 3.8% Victory 1.4% Pale Chocolate 38 IBU Warrior @60 1oz Centennial @10 1lb Fresh Cascade @whirlpool for 20 minutes dry hopped with 4oz dried whole homegrown Cascade I apparently used Wyeast 1217 for that, but whatever west coast yeast is fine.
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Sep 1, 2020 21:54
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Take your favorite IPA or pale ale recipe and just toss a bunch in for whirlpool. Be careful that you don’t squeeze them as the beer can quickly taste of chlorophyll. Cascade and Centennial will make a good blend, and you may end up using all of it for one brew. Be forewarned that they will soak up you volume too.
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Sep 1, 2020 23:06
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So my pear wine, which started primary fermentation on August 4, then secondary a week later, still looks kind of bubbly. Without moving the carboy around or anything, there's a steady little head of bubbles on the outer edge, and throughout the wine I can observe new bubbles forming. The airlock also gently burps every couple of seconds. I had expected all this activity to stop by now. This is my first time doing the secondary in a separate container, so it's possible my other batches were like this too, and I just couldn't tell because there was also a bunch of must in there. I'm not intending to make a sparkling wine. Should I just go ahead and bottle it, as long as the gravity reading is good? Is it better to wait? Because I certainly can wait. It's not like I have suppliers breathing down my neck or something.
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Sep 2, 2020 02:59
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What’s your estimate of gravity reading being good? Fruit wines can finish near 1.000 or below even, but the carbonation isn’t going to just go away until you degas it. If you’re aiming for still, I’d make sure it’s fully done fermenting, and there’s not activity for a few days at least. If you have a lot of lees still after the second round has settled, you can go for a third or use a fining agent too if you want super clear. The additional transfer will help knock out more residual carbonation too, but same for when you bottle. Just take care to not oxidize unless you have a way to protect against it (like sulfites).
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Sep 2, 2020 04:08
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Just harvested my Beta grapes (concord hybrid) and am steam juicing them down. Happy Pyment Season!
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Sep 6, 2020 16:57
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Made a belgian, trappist, quadrupel, blueberry. For some reason, it attenuated a lot, and I missed my target FG by a lot. 1087 to 1017 ended up to be 1082 to 1005. With priming sugar I math it to around 10,4%. Ought to be 9,3. Bit on the harsh side, so I'll let it rest for 6 months and then we'll see.
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Sep 7, 2020 11:45
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Nice piece of fish posted:Made a belgian, trappist, quadrupel, blueberry. For some reason, it attenuated a lot, and I missed my target FG by a lot. 1087 to 1017 ended up to be 1082 to 1005. With priming sugar I math it to around 10,4%. Ought to be 9,3. Bit on the harsh side, so I'll let it rest for 6 months and then we'll see. What yeast?
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Sep 7, 2020 13:44
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thotsky posted:What yeast? Mangrove Jack's M31. E: Though to be fair, I did gently caress up and did a lovely wrong-temp rehydration, but I would have figured that would gently caress up the yeast, not help it attenuate.
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Sep 7, 2020 15:26
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My red ale is in the fermenter now! I decided to try out no-chill since I'm incapable of doing things the normal way. Process felt easy except for the HDPE container I bought, while nice and sturdy, was slightly too big (maybe a half-gallon or more of headspace) and nigh-impossible to pour from nicely. I just pulled a siphon to get the first bit out which worked well. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a nice sanitized container of wort going directly into the fermenter; I'll have to find a better 2.5 gal container if I want to try it that way again.
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Sep 7, 2020 18:04
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Nice piece of fish posted:Mangrove Jack's M31. Thats a very attenuative yeast. It's the equivalent of WLP570, which has the STA1 gene (diastaticus), so the attenuation potential is huge. With these yeasts it becomes very difficult to predict where you will end up without nailing your process and knowing how your recipe performs with that process. Is this the first time you have brewed this recipe?
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Sep 7, 2020 20:55
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thotsky posted:Thats a very attenuative yeast. It's the equivalent of WLP570, which has the STA1 gene (diastaticus), so the attenuation potential is huge. With these yeasts it becomes very difficult to predict where you will end up without nailing your process and knowing how your recipe performs with that process. Is this the first time you have brewed this recipe? Oh yeah, I got it all off a brewolution kit that I simply went and added blueberries to, I don't have the knowledge to put something like this together myself yet. gently caress doing malt math. It's an important lesson about all grain kits though.
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Sep 7, 2020 21:21
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Nice piece of fish posted:Oh yeah, I got it all off a brewolution kit that I simply went and added blueberries to, I don't have the knowledge to put something like this together myself yet. gently caress doing malt math. It's an important lesson about all grain kits though. Fruit is also pretty much straight up simple sugar; it will make any yeast attenuate a bit more than usual.
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Sep 7, 2020 21:46
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thotsky posted:Fruit is also pretty much straight up simple sugar; it will make any yeast attenuate a bit more than usual. That might absolutely have contributed. I guess I'll wait and see, I didn't immediately detect any off flavours or smells other than very present alcohol, and I bought a few bottles of Chimay Blue to compare.
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Sep 8, 2020 07:30
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Scarf posted:After 5 years of brewing I'm attempting my first pale ale... a good buddy of mine asked if I'd brew him an APA after seeing the Dubbel I did for the wife. Figured it was about time. This turned out really well. Very pleasant and drinkable. Hop schedule ended up being: 1oz Columbus @ 60min 2oz Jester @ 15min 2oz Olicana @ 0min 0.5oz Jester @ 0min 0.5oz Columbus @ 0min Also gave me a chance to try out the Blichmann Beer Gun I picked up a few weeks ago. Aside from a small leak in the CO2 connection at the handle, it worked fantastically.
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Sep 8, 2020 15:35
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So I have a cider thats finishing up. It's my first one so I put literally nothing in it. I've moved it 3 times and its below 1 gravity and has been going for about 6 weeks. Is there a chance there is still enough yeast floating around I'd be able to bottle it without issue after adding priming sugar or might it need some yeast?
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Sep 9, 2020 23:24
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With a beer you would be fine...
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Sep 9, 2020 23:49
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Depends how long it’s been done fermenting. I’ve been fine after 6 months and longer but it was mixed fermentation cider. It may just be slow to condition in the bottle, so add yeast if you want it done fast.
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Sep 10, 2020 00:46
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I'm considering trying to make mead next. Most of the recipes I've seen have been extremely simple (which is definitely a perk). However, some call for the addition of a yeast nutrient. What exactly does that do? Beyond that, is there a specific yeast I should seek out?
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Sep 12, 2020 23:36
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I don't make mead, but using lots of yeast nutrients and other additions (often multiple staggered additions) combined with other high-intervention techniques such as degassing is very common. I'd even go so far as to say there's a certain orthodoxy around mead-making. With the rising popularity of natural wine and funky beers, as well as people having access to lots of honey generally being pretty down with low intervention/organic food/farming there seems to be more people wanting to find an alternative way of doing things, but that has proven somewhat controversial. Every award-winning mead-maker seems to swear by the staggered additions and stuff. My own experience with tasting meads not following that route is that they're generally pretty volatile... lots of nail polish / glue types aromas, and often boozy. Apparently some of this ages out, but then you run the risk of oxidation. I definitely get the appeal of getting a more drinkable product in a few months rather than having to sit on the stuff for a year or more. Check out "Chop and Brew" on YouTube; Chip has done some episodes with award winning mead-makers that have strong opinions on the issue. thotsky fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 23:55
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Yeah, I would find a routine for nutrients and work on it and then adjust for what you need from there. Honey doesn’t have a lot of what yeast needs to grow and ferment happily, so giving it what it needs on schedule is pretty important. But just like brewing beer, start with something standard, before branching out and you’ll have a higher proportion of success to begin as there are more controlled variables than you’d want to try to control without the knowledge.
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Sep 13, 2020 00:04
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Honey, unlike wort, does not contain all of the macro and micronutrients that yeast need. The yeast nutrient adds all of that in. Thotsky is right, the best way to do yeast nutrients is staggered additions. I forget the exact amounts but it should be somewhere on homebrewtalk or reddit. Another simple mead that I absolutely love is a bochet. Take the honey and boil it, some people do it to really dark but I pulled samples out till I hit a caramel point I liked.
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Sep 13, 2020 00:05
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The Strangest Finch posted:I'm considering trying to make mead next. Most of the recipes I've seen have been extremely simple (which is definitely a perk). However, some call for the addition of a yeast nutrient. What exactly does that do? Beyond that, is there a specific yeast I should seek out? So far my personal experience has been mostly positive, but dry high-alcohol meads need storage regardless, so I would recommend planning on storing dry meads for a year regardless of what else you do. Otherwise, degassing is for sure very important but should be done very carefully to avoid adding oxygen. Making mead is simpler, but easier to gently caress up, and honestly with the relatively high cost of quality honey you really super do not want to gently caress up sanitation. Speaking of honey; quality raw ingredients are important. Having just started with meads I'm already noticing huge differences between mostly cheap, standard and unpasteurized specialist honey. Quality matters a lot. I recommend trying out a bunch of small batches to see what you like best. So far my best results have been going fairly traditional, 12-14% meads with either chopped boiled raisins or yeast nutrients to help out - I find the raisins simpler overall. Really easy shorthand is two parts water for every one part honey, but obviously there are a lot of very specific recipies out there to try. My last mead was an amazing success:   This is nagoonberry sweet mead, 12% ABV and came out a perfect blend of sweet and tart, extremely berry forward and very pleasant to drink. I think after storing a while it will make an amazing dessert wine for some sort of berry dessert. E: Oh yeah, about mead yeasts. You can do fine with a basic decent universal wine yeast, but Wyest Dry and Sweet mead yeasts are great. I'm particularly impressed with the Sweet mead yeast, so I recommend making both dry and sweet meads to see which you like more for any particular recipe, unless the recipe is very specific to a type. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 10:37
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I'm putting together a Tripel recipe to brew for a friend, are these specialty malt additions over the top? I want a bit more malt complexity than just Pils, wheat and sugar 4.1 kg (82%) Light Lager/Pils 150 g (3%) Aromatic Malt 150 g (3%) Biscuit Malt 100 g (2%) Wheat Malt 500g (10%) Table sugar? make a light invert syrup out of it first, or chuck it straight in at the end of the boil? Bittering up to 35ibu with pacific jade, then a 20 min hopstand addition of pacific hallertau to try and get some spicy/pepper flavours going on I'm thinking fermentis be-256 for yeast, pitch at 20c, then bump it up towards 24c over the course of a week
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Sep 13, 2020 12:30
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The Strangest Finch posted:I'm considering trying to make mead next. Most of the recipes I've seen have been extremely simple (which is definitely a perk). However, some call for the addition of a yeast nutrient. What exactly does that do? Beyond that, is there a specific yeast I should seek out? The meads I have ongoing did not need added nutrients. The cyser is made up of apple juice and honey, and the pyment is made up of grape juice and honey. Plenty for them to feast on. I did the cyser first and purchased a 10 pack of V1-1116 yeast. With an alcohol tolerance of 16abv, I plan to just use it for all I do, and back sweeten if need be. Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 15:05
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El Pollo Blanco posted:I'm putting together a Tripel recipe to brew for a friend, are these specialty malt additions over the top? I want a bit more malt complexity than just Pils, wheat and sugar Your malt bill looks fine to me. In the past I’ve gone with more wheat, but I’m not sure how necessary it is. The others are in the range of adding without taking over, so I’d expect it to work pretty well. Looks like it’ll be good to me.
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Sep 13, 2020 17:11
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If one loads up on pils I think specialty malts, including wheat should be unnecessary. If the gravity is slightly on the lower side wheat and even oats are interesting if used relatively subtly, like in Karmeliet. I guess small amounts of Vienna/Light Munich would be acceptable too, since we are basically talking about a super saison grain bill. That said, that looks perfectly acceptable to me. 10% sugar is a nice amount too.
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Sep 13, 2020 17:26
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Campden Tablets: Sodium metabisulfite or potassium metabisulfite? The pyment I am working on calls for a half tablet upon racking to ensure the yeasies have gone to Valhala, but amazon shows both under the heading “Campden Tablets”. Whats the dealio?
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Sep 13, 2020 20:32
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It can be either, the Na or K are what is making the metabisulfite the salt. The metabisulfite is the more important part.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:43
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calandryll posted:It can be either, the Na or K are what is making the metabisulfite the salt. The metabisulfite is the more important part. Browsing the reviews of each I am seeing things about smells and tastes they impart. Is one preferable as a yeast killer in an already-brewed mead?
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Sep 13, 2020 22:39
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Hasselblad posted:Browsing the reviews of each I am seeing things about smells and tastes they impart. Is one preferable as a yeast killer in an already-brewed mead? KMS (and sometimes NaMS) is used in winemaking to guard against oxidation and to help with stability, as well as in still mead making I would imagine. I wish I’d done the math a few years ago making a strong still cider thing as after a couple years it’s oxidized a bit much. (Probably the crappy synthetic corks as much as anything else, but still.) If you are going to use it as an anti-oxidative addition, get the powdered KMS, it’s easier to be precise and you don’t need to smash the tabs and make a mess.
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Sep 13, 2020 23:12
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Jhet posted:KMS (and sometimes NaMS) is used in winemaking to guard against oxidation and to help with stability, as well as in still mead making I would imagine. I wish I’d done the math a few years ago making a strong still cider thing as after a couple years it’s oxidized a bit much. (Probably the crappy synthetic corks as much as anything else, but still.) I am pretty careful with the syphoning. It’s more a measure to make certain the yeast are killed off prior to backsweetening, such that I am not creating bottle bombs. In any event it turns out I have the potassium version, so I just need to figure out how much powder equates to half a campden tab (that the recipe calls for)
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Sep 14, 2020 04:36
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I finished my keezer build! It's painted with chalkboard paint so that I can write the tap list and let people scribble on it / bless it with a dick'n'balls at the wedding. And I bought a czech dark lager fresh wort kit and combined it with a 5g pitch of dried Voss kveik then fermented at 40C (104f) and 15 psi - it hit FG within 36 hours. Dry hopped with 30g of tettnang for 6 hours at the high temp before cold crashing  It's really something, keen to see how it ends up once carbed and conditioned for a week. Dude Sweet fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Sep 15, 2020 |
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Sep 15, 2020 09:03
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I have a Czech Dark Lager fermenting at 10 °C now myself. I shot for 13 °P and 30 IBUs of Saaz but did not boil off as much as expected (12,3 °P) so I am a bit worried it will turn out too bitter. 67,5% Pils 22,5% Light Munich 4,5% Caramunich II 4,5% Carafa Special II 1,0% Simpsons Black I am happy with the color, although maybe I will favor Munich slightly more in the basemalt blend next time (something like 60/30). I went with two packets of 34/70, but I am also considering a starter of WLP833 or a Czech lager strain next to reduce lag time.
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Sep 15, 2020 09:39
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thotsky posted:I have a Czech Dark Lager fermenting at 10 °C now myself. I shot for 13 °P and 30 IBUs of Saaz but did not boil off as much as expected (12,3 °P) so I am a bit worried it will turn out too bitter. Nice! How does boil-off affect bitterness? Like if it doesn't have enough gravity, the bitterness becomes more pronounced? E:saaz sounds like the ideal choice as well Dude Sweet fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Sep 15, 2020 |
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Sep 15, 2020 10:46
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Dude Sweet posted:Nice! How does boil-off affect bitterness? Like if it doesn't have enough gravity, the bitterness becomes more pronounced? Basically. Also you get better hop utilization with lower sugar content in wort during the boil. So my guess is I ended up with, let's say 32 IBU which ain't much difference thanks to the increase in utilization, but since the OG was lowered the ratio between the two has actually moved quite a bit. Like, maybe the balance is now more like if I had gotten 13P/35 IBU. Makes sense? I am sure it will be fine, and it's another datapo int for me trying to dial in my system.
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Sep 15, 2020 22:36
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I just started my first cyser/melomel. Some nice quality apple juice, honey, raspberries and blueberries. For nutrients I boiled up some leftover kveik, white labs nutrient and a few raisins. Added everything up front with pure O2. Fermenting it with Saison Dupont yeast. I will be doing punchdowns for a few days, and then maybe add some oak cubes that have my mixed ferment on them.... Maybe.
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Sep 15, 2020 22:40
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I'm going to be picking up some local cider over the weekend. I'm going to assume it is not pasteurized would I need to bring it to a quick boil or would it be safe to toss in my yeast? Last time I made cider was from a concentrate.
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Sep 15, 2020 22:45
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It you can get unpasteurized apple juice you might want to let it just do its thing. In any case I would definitely not boil it. If you wanna add only your own yeast just sanitize the juice with campden tablets/metabisulfite. But yes, if you add a big healthy culture of yeast it will likely outcompete whatever is in there, although any brett/bacteria will still pose a risk (or reward).
thotsky fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Sep 15, 2020 |
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Sep 15, 2020 22:49
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thotsky posted:I just started my first cyser/melomel. Some nice quality apple juice, honey, raspberries and blueberries. For nutrients I boiled up some leftover kveik, white labs nutrient and a few raisins. Added everything up front with pure O2. Fermenting it with Saison Dupont yeast. I will be doing punchdowns for a few days, and then maybe add some oak cubes that have my mixed ferment on them.... Maybe. Very nice. I got one brewing that ought to be ready for bottling in about a month (Gravenstein, lynghonning) with meadowsweet and using just boiled raisins for a nutrient kick but I'm really not sure it needs it, it's been extremely active and turned active after a very short lag phase. I know punchdowns are the recommended thing for melomels, but I've been thinking I might just use glass sink weights instead. Easy to sterilize and use, should be fine right?
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Sep 16, 2020 06:45
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