|
Skellyscribe posted:I'm really impatient and even after a couple years of brewing, I always open a bottle after like 4 days. It's usually not all the way done but I like to taste every step of the process. It was a 15L batch, I’m just gonna put one in the fridge and give it a go then. Might give me a better idea on how long to wait next brew.
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 19:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 17:51 |
|
|
LochNessMonster posted:It was a 15L batch, I’m just gonna put one in the fridge and give it a go then. Might give me a better idea on how long to wait next brew. Yeah totally. There are a few variables that affect carb timing like the yeast strain, total volumes you're aiming for, and the temperature they're stored at. Using French saison yeast and carbing in my closet in July got me fully carbonated beer in 5 days
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 19:18
|
|
|
With regular ale yeast I find it takes about 2-3 weeks. You'll generally have a good amount of carbonation at the two week mark, but the impression at the 3 week mark seems cleaner somehow. You should totally open one and make up your own mind though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 19:26
|
|
|
One of my few one-trick pony tools is a carb cap. It's a ball lock gas fitting that acts as a screw-on bottle cap for a plastic bottle. You can pour fresh/flat beer in it and force carb it in like 5 minutes and try out your stuff early. Only works if you have a gas/kegging setup, but man is it sweet when you're feeling impatient about your beer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 19:31
|
|
|
Well this was my first brew and I used a beginners set with a bucket. Definately not in keg territory yet. I did taste it and I think it needs a little bit longer. It’s got some co2 but definately could use a bit more. It was a special ipa starter package and while I’ve tasted plenty of of ‘normal’ ipa’s this one tastes a lot different. Totally not as hoppy and way more sweet as I had expected and it’s actually a lot more like a belgian double or triple. I have to get used to this one a bit since it’s completely different than I expected but I really love the fact that I made this all by myself and it doesn’t taste like crap.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 21:32
|
|
|
LochNessMonster posted:Well this was my first brew and I used a beginners set with a bucket. Definately not in keg territory yet. Congrats on your first brew! If it's not done carbing maybe there's a little unfermented sugar making it taste sweeter. You mentioned a beginner's set - were the hops very fresh? If they were at room temp or exposed to air for a while that can dull the hop flavor and bitterness.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 21:57
|
|
|
robotsinmyhead posted:One of my few one-trick pony tools is a carb cap. It's a ball lock gas fitting that acts as a screw-on bottle cap for a plastic bottle. You can pour fresh/flat beer in it and force carb it in like 5 minutes and try out your stuff early. Only works if you have a gas/kegging setup, but man is it sweet when you're feeling impatient about your beer. Or a Sodastream  Is not perfect but a nice option to have.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2018 22:39
|
|
|
LochNessMonster posted:How long do you guys wait for carbonizing your beers after bottling? I read somewhere between 10-14 days and it’s been 10 and I can’t wait to taste my first batch. Should I be more patient and wait a few more days to be sure? I find mine tend to be carbonised after 2 weeks but still green tasting. I'm much happier with them if I wait a month after bottling. But if you have bottles to spare do open one a week until you're happy with the result, that way you get to taste how the beer develops.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 00:20
|
|
|
I just started my first brew of Cider and I'd appreciate any feedback on what other people would do differently. I started with 5 gallons of fresh pressed unpasteurized cider from a local orchard - Soergal's, which I'd highly recommend if you're in Western Pennsylvania. Rather than heat pasteurizing, I used Campden tablets and let it sit for 24 hours. Afterwards, I used pectic enzymes about an hour before pitching. I used K1-V1116 and Yeast Nutrients, and I'm planning to probably bottle it still. Here's my questions/invitations for discussion: the Internet seems to universally agree that unpasteurized cider is the best if you can get it, but there seems to be a pretty big disagreement between using heat versus Campden tablets. The Campden tablets seemed easier, especially as I'm getting things set up at the new house, and probably what I'll stick to in the future... but I wouldn't mind hearing other people's thoughts. As a side effect of this, I also didn't add any sugar or honey like some recipes suggest. I'm not worried about achieving a higher alcohol content, but there could be more to it. Alternatively, does anyone have experience with brewing with the wild yeast that naturally occurs in the must? I was really tempted because it seems very exciting and unique, but ultimately passed on it because this was my first batch. The pectic enzyme (and to the lesser extent the yeast nutrient) were most used on lark. They weren't expensive and I wanted to try them out - do you feel like it's worth it? Finally, the yeast. I went with the K1-V1116 along with the yeast nutrients because I hadn't tried it before, but also because it seems like Cider can be a more harsh environment for the yeast and I didn't want to deal with any stalled starts. Combining V1116 with nutrients could be overkill though. It seems like there's a million and one different suggestions for Cider yeast, so I'd love to hear other people's preferred strain for cider. Finally finally... Cider seems like it should be bottled still to me, but I'd love to hear otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 05:07
|
|
|
I'm edging further and further from the campden camp lately. It hasn't worked all that well for stabilizing my wines in the long term. I don't see why a resilient wild yeast couldn't survive, too. Edit: if you want sweet or semi sweet carbonated cider, you'll have to stabilize, keg, (optional: backsweeten,) force carb, THEN bottle. Have fun with all that. I haven't even started kegging. Alternatively, you could let it dry out, add artificial sweeteners, and carbonating sugars. DISCO KING fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Oct 11, 2018 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 06:18
|
|
|
I brewed an IPA using a fuckload of whole Azacca hops. Unfortunately when I brewed it, I was kinda sick and couldn't tell by smell that the unopened bag of 2017 Azacca hops from YVH was completely devoid of aroma other than a hint of cheese, so I ruined an entire batch. It's been a long time since I did that. Ordered a pound of 2018 from hopsdirect ($12?!?) and it smells loving fantastic in the makeup beer I brewed today. Now I'm excited.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 06:58
|
|
|
Glottis posted:I brewed an IPA using a fuckload of whole Azacca hops. Unfortunately when I brewed it, I was kinda sick and couldn't tell by smell that the unopened bag of 2017 Azacca hops from YVH was completely devoid of aroma other than a hint of cheese, so I ruined an entire batch. It's been a long time since I did that. Azacca is good stuff, one of my go-to's is a SMaSh of Azacca and American two-row, with a big whallop of a dry hop.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 07:58
|
|
|
Jhet posted:Good timing maybe, unless you're in Canada like the Canucks are. http://www.homebrewfinds.com/2018/10/ends-soon-inkbird-itc-308-dual-stage-digital-temp-controller-29-75-w-coupon-hands-on-review.html  I am, took a look there earlier anyhow and discovered I couldn't get around it
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 08:22
|
|
|
Tibalt posted:I just started my first brew of Cider and I'd appreciate any feedback on what other people would do differently. I use unpastuerized cider straight from an orchard, but that's because I'm lucky. You can get away with using fresh pressed cider from the store, just make sure it's not stabilized with sorbates. The stuff we get from the orchard is pressed for making fermented product, and it's ideal because of the mix of varieties. The clear stuff in the store doesn't have as much of the tannins and malic acid you'd get from the fresh pressed stuff, so it can get a little thin in flavor when it's finished. Your fresh cider was probably about 1.056 or about which should be high enough to be shelf-stable without hops. Adding sugars is okay, but not entirely necessary. I've had good luck with the wild microbes from that orchard, but not all orchards have the same microbes, so what you get might be good or might not. Using heat to pasteurize is to my mind really stupid. Even cider suppliers are switching to UV pasteurization because it damages the product less. KMS and SMS are common use substances for killing microbes in must in wine making too, so why go to the hassle of heating up 5 gallons of it when you can just mix in however much KMS (do the simple math) to more consistent results. Pectic Enzyme I use every time. It helps eliminate chill haze from the pectins that would be otherwise suspended and giving you haze. It's not necessary for anything but a pretty product. I don't use nutrient, but it would help keep down any off flavors from the yeast. I just tend to age mine for what's essentially too long because we only take delivery once a year. I've used about a half dozen yeasts at this point (Red Star's Montrachet, Cote des Blanc, and Pasteur Blanc, along with French Saison, Wyeast 1214, and just wild). The white wine yeasts are nice, but I avoid champagne yeasts for it now and won't use Pasteur Blanc again because that's what it is. I'd use any wine yeast that is good at accentuating the fruit character. Still ciders are also nice, but tend to carbonate mine in kegs. Prior to that I also bottled with carbonation so I didn't have to sulfite to combat O2 damage.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 14:41
|
|
|
Jhet posted:Still ciders are also nice, but tend to carbonate mine in kegs. If you had a nitrogen bottle, you could easily pour still cider from kegs. Don't they do something like that for bulk wine as well?
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 15:49
|
|
|
I really like Nottingham yeast for cider. It preserves the apple aroma really well and maintains just enough sugar to not be bone dry. I bottle carbonate so cant back sweeten.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 16:39
|
|
|
Tibalt posted:I just started my first brew of Cider and I'd appreciate any feedback on what other people would do differently. I just started my third batch of cider using the same orchard's unpasteurized cider and every time I've used sodium metabisulfite (basically campden tablets) to knock back the wild yeast. I added honey the first time but went just juice last year; it came out so drat good that I'm not planning to add any sugar again this year. I didn't use pectic enzymes, but this year I'm definitely going to use bentonite to clarify before bottling because it worked beautifully last year and didn't seem to detract from flavor or color at all. I've used S-04 yeast every time and it's maintained a beautiful apple flavor. I do use yeast nutrient. Every time, it's taken a full day between pitching the yeast and getting actual airlock bubbling, so be patient if it's not started yet. As with my mead, I'm planning to add a few smaller doses of nutrient spaced out as the fermentation slows down. Still cider is great. That's how I did it the last two times, bottled into 750mL wine bottles with corks. This year, though, I'm thinking I may also get some of those carbonation drops and put some of it in beer bottles.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 16:55
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:If you had a nitrogen bottle, you could easily pour still cider from kegs. Don't they do something like that for bulk wine as well? They do, but I don't want to spend the $200+? on a nitrogen set up right now. I remember the small Nitrogen canisters being about $150 when a friend of mine bought one. The next big upgrade will be a larger keezer setup with actual taps and an electrician to do some new circuits in my basement (and upgrade the stuff that hasn't been yet). The other thing I'm doing with the cider right now is just blending with other unfermented juices and/or syrups in the glass, so the bubbles work pretty well.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 18:52
|
|
|
Speaking of ciders, I started my cold crash on mine today. Went down to .999 with S04. It still has a pretty apparent sulfur aroma though. It’s not so much on the tongue, just the nose. I still have a week to let it mellow before I need to serve it so hopefully that settles down a bit. I am going to backsweeten with apple juice concentrate which I am hoping also adds in some more apple aroma as well. Outside of the aroma the taste is pretty solid. A little dry for me, but there is a nice kind of green apple bite to it being that dry. I’m going to taste it as I sweeten it next week and maybe dose a little malic acid as well. Overall I’m mostly happy, definitely won’t be my first go at this.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2018 22:53
|
|
|
If you’re using it to sweeten, bear in mind that apple juice concentrate may already contain malic acid.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2018 19:30
|
|
|
eviltastic posted:If you’re using it to sweeten, bear in mind that apple juice concentrate may already contain malic acid. Yeah, the malic acid would be after sweetening.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2018 21:31
|
|
|
Skellyscribe posted:Congrats on your first brew! If it's not done carbing maybe there's a little unfermented sugar making it taste sweeter. The hops were dried and vaccuum sealed but pretty old. Guess that might have had a bit of an impact. Morholt posted:I find mine tend to be carbonised after 2 weeks but still green tasting. I'm much happier with them if I wait a month after bottling. But if you have bottles to spare do open one a week until you're happy with the result, that way you get to taste how the beer develops. It’ll be 2 weeks exactly tomorrow. I’ll crack open another one and will just keep doing that each week so I can get a bit of a feel how beers age after bottling. I’ve got 20ish 0.5L bottles so I won’t run out soon. Next brew is planned for next weekend. Gonna make an Irish Red from scratch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2018 22:32
|
|
|
Question for the mods / IKs - I'm writing a thesis on themes of cooptition in the homebrewing scene, and limiting factors to homebrewing. For part of this I want to gather some primary survey data from current homebrewers. When the survey complete is it cool to post here?
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2018 16:22
|
|
|
Red Oktober posted:Question for the mods / IKs - I'm writing a thesis on themes of cooptition in the homebrewing scene, and limiting factors to homebrewing. For part of this I want to gather some primary survey data from current homebrewers. When the survey complete is it cool to post here? Doubt it would be a problem as it's not really off topic. Come back and share your thesis when it's done? Some of us would probably be interested in your findings.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2018 21:24
|
|
|
Oh, 100% - it’s an area that’s only been very lightly touched on, but as someone who brews in a collaborative environment and has even found himself giving tuning advice to people entering the same competition as me - and seen others do the same - I’m aware that the home brew space is quite... weird and a good subject.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2018 23:29
|
|
|
I had an interesting experience on Friday night. There's a Winery / Cheese Factory nearby and they decided to get into the beer game. Instead of hiring a brewer, they basically bought $40k worth of kit and told the girl who makes the cheese to have at it, so her first beer EVER was made on a 3bbl system. It's a really slick setup (Brewha), all electric with like an all-in-one concept with an overhead crane. The beer was not good, but there was nothing particularly WRONG with it - it just wasn't very good. We got to talk to her for a good 20min or so and tried to give her some tips and advice without being like condescending? about it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 00:46
|
|
|
robotsinmyhead posted:I had an interesting experience on Friday night. There's a Winery / Cheese Factory nearby and they decided to get into the beer game. Instead of hiring a brewer, they basically bought $40k worth of kit and told the girl who makes the cheese to have at it, so her first beer EVER was made on a 3bbl system. Did they actually buy brew kits? The ingredients could have been sub par and old.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 00:59
|
|
|
Tibalt posted:Jesus, that sounds like a nightmare introduction to brewing. Straight into All-Grain. Luckily, it's electric with a nice controller on it, but she has a very tenuous grasp on how to achieve balance for a style. Either that or they way underpitched their batch. The first offering was a pale ale that was overly sweet and muddy looking, which could be a dozen different things, but the hop profile on it was nonexistent. edit: I realize I used the word kit as in 'gear', not as in beer making kits. Sorry for the confusion. robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Oct 15, 2018 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 01:02
|
|
|
I've got a gallon of beer that I've had sitting on Brett for a few months, I'd like to bottle it but I've had previous problems with my Brett fermented stuff taking ages to carbonate. What's the usual procedure for adding fresh yeast at bottling time? A lot of websites seem to recommend throwing my priming sugar and a small amount of yeast into another container/bucket and racking the beer into that before bottling it but this seems like a great way introduce extra oxygen. I'm thinking I could instead make up an appropriately concentrated sugar/yeast solution and syringe a couple of mL into each bottle instead. I usually just use carb drops cause I'm lazy
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 17:42
|
|
|
I usually throw in some wine yeast, wait a week. This lets the wine yeast eat any possible sugars that would have messed up my priming calculations. Then I add priming sugar and bottle.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 18:06
|
|
|
Ok, I dry hopped my pale ale a couple of days ago. It had started clearing up a bit, so I thought it was time. The pellets dissolved on top of the beer and made a few mm of green sludge on top. Now bits of hops are aimlessly floating up and down inside the fermenter. Does this sound about right? Will it just take a little for the fermentation to finish and the hops to settle out on the bottom?
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 23:05
|
|
|
Pro brewers talk of "hop creep"; how large amounts of dry hopping can drag out or restart fermentation, leading beers to also attenuate more than usual. Wait it out and you should be fine, if you find you don't want to leave it on the beer any longer (at say, day 5) you can cold crash and keg.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2018 23:28
|
|
|
Biomute posted:Pro brewers talk of "hop creep"; how large amounts of dry hopping can drag out or restart fermentation, leading beers to also attenuate more than usual. I looked it up, that’s fairly interesting. Earlier I described how I accidentally got the wrong malts for steeping so it very well may have picked back up again. In particular, hops apparently have a small amounts of starch converting enzymes (one of which is active at room temp). So maybe they’re breaking down a bit of the residual stuff from my grain steep. I didn’t add that much though - 0.2 oz to my gallon. I’ll probably let it ride until it settles down, I’m going to bottle it since this is my first brew in half a decade. I probably want it well settled before adding the priming sugar.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 01:54
|
|
|
Finishing up a spontaneous brewday. 10 gallons in which I definitely cheated on mashing by just doing it hot (160+) for 15 minutes and then mashing out with 195F water. Conversion is fine, hopefully I get enough long strand material that it works well. I added some whole wheat flour to the boil for additional help, but who knows? I needed 10 gallons on a 5 gallon system for cooling rates, so there wasn't any ability for me to do 2 turbid mashes today. I used some 2 year old 1.30% AA Streisselspalt for at most 4 IBU fresh, so it should be pretty close to what I need. I should have between 44F and 36F overnight, so wish me luck and nice microbes!Eeyo posted:Ok, I dry hopped my pale ale a couple of days ago. It had started clearing up a bit, so I thought it was time. The pellets dissolved on top of the beer and made a few mm of green sludge on top. Now bits of hops are aimlessly floating up and down inside the fermenter. Does this sound about right? Will it just take a little for the fermentation to finish and the hops to settle out on the bottom? That sounds right. There's some sugars that you'll ferment out, but really it's good because of the hopefully additional contact time with the material. Hops don't really have sugar exactly, but they will agitate and can restart things from the agitation. Swirl them up and they'll settle back down and hopefully take the additional material with them. Plus, you'll get better oil extraction. *Don't quote me on this, but I vaguely recall something about hops having some tiny ability to convert some of the medium length chains into fermentables, but I could be completely wrong and am remembering how that works incorrectly. They do something, I just don't remember exactly how it works (because my brain stopped working after I finished my 2nd sparge). E: And you've already found it, so my tired brain did remember right.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 02:03
|
|
|
Okay this is a weird question haha. So there is a brewery in Chicago that makes a Belgian Stout. Basically it seems to be an imperial stout recipe with abbey yeast. But the abbey yeast is more like an accent to what is clearly a stout. To accomplish that do I need to suppress ester creation by using a big starter + fermenting in the low 60s?
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 03:09
|
|
|
ChiTownEddie posted:Okay this is a weird question haha. So there is a brewery in Chicago that makes a Belgian Stout. Basically it seems to be an imperial stout recipe with abbey yeast. But the abbey yeast is more like an accent to what is clearly a stout. To accomplish that do I need to suppress ester creation by using a big starter + fermenting in the low 60s? That would help things. Wyeast also has a Belgian Stout yeast that might do something similar in their Private Collection (I think ritebrew might have some in stock incidentally but I think it's labeled wrong on the website). Medium esters and low phenolics. Fermenting lower will mute the esters. Which brewery? I would like to try this.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 03:26
|
|
|
Jhet posted:That would help things. Wyeast also has a Belgian Stout yeast that might do something similar in their Private Collection (I think ritebrew might have some in stock incidentally but I think it's labeled wrong on the website). Medium esters and low phenolics. Fermenting lower will mute the esters. Of course when I go to pull up BA to link you it says it combines Belgian and English yeast. lol. I legit love this beer though, wanted to try and get something similar-ish going for the winter. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/32615/108005/
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 03:35
|
|
|
ChiTownEddie posted:Of course when I go to pull up BA to link you it says it combines Belgian and English yeast. lol. I legit love this beer though, wanted to try and get something similar-ish going for the winter. Definitely blending yeasts will get you to a similar place. Just be prepared for the Belgian attenuation. Now I need to come up with a reason to drive to the west side of Niles. I could swear I've had something from them, but I don't really keep notes when drinking beer unless it really blows my mind. That's my excuse for not taking notes, yep.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 03:51
|
|
|
Allagash had a Belgian stout that I bought a bottle of at the brewery a few years ago, I forget the name of it though. poo poo was good. It had a thinner but still very silky mouthfeel and a softer roast note. It was nicely chocolately with some subtle fruit and spice. Edit: Apparently it’s called Black. It has belgian dark candy sugar and oats in it which is probably also part of the thin yet soft mouthfeel. rockcity fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Oct 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 05:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 17:51 |
|
|
Well, I hit my cooling well enough over night. This is the strangest feeling, but so very entertaining. 10 gallons of spontaneous into fermenters. I'll probably brew another few gallons of the base, ferment it with something that throws plenty of esters/phenols and then leave it for topping up. I have one more batch to do in the next week or two, probably an ESB but maybe an oatmeal stout. I'm very happy it's cool enough to brew without feeling like I'm standing in the mash while doing it. E: Top off definitely necessary. I forgot to account for evaporation while it was cooling and lost about 1.5 gallons overnight. Way less than expected into the fermenters. Jhet fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Oct 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2018 14:50
|
|