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Our club is pretty organic - basically two groups of friends with some similar acquaintances. We generally meet at someone's house, but we have a few events each year - we brew in an outdoor pavilion at a local park as one of our "Public" events in the summer, a meet a local pizza place once or twice a year. Our dues are $25USD, about 8 of that goes into club insurance via AHA. This year, I took our saved up funds from last year and this year and bought some taster glasses with our club logo on it. Our current and past members get glasses for free and extras at-cost, and we'll sell the rest to refund the purchase price, then anything above that gets donated to charity. 
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Apr 16, 2019 13:11
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Welp, went to go bottle my first all-grain brew and start my second at my parent's house last weekend where all of my stuff is. Turns out I should have taken better stock of my equipment because the old bottling bucket I had from when I did extract was no bueno. Stopped at the home brew store which is a couple of cities in the opposite direction from my place to get some odds and ends and grain, then finally made it over there and started to clean out my bottling bucket. Noticed a dark spot at the bottom of my bucket, went to scrub it, and almost sliced my finger open on what turned out to be a rusty snapped Xacto knife blade stabbed through the bottom of the bucket. I have no idea how that even happens. I didn't have another bucket, and it would have been like 3:00 by the time I could have drove back to the homebrew store for another bottling bucket or a home improvement store for a bucket at holesaw drill bit because they live in the middle of nowhere, so I'll have to wait until next weekend.
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Apr 16, 2019 16:25
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If you have an autosiphon you can just use your brew kettle or any old pot of sufficient size as your bucket.
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Apr 16, 2019 17:38
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I do, but bottling with an autosiphon sounds like a giant pain in the rear end. I'll need more buckets anyway, so I'm fine with waiting another week.
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Apr 16, 2019 22:58
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Jhet posted:^ I'm surprised you managed to wait this long to try it. I usually can only ever wait a week if I've bottled something. I don’t know why I waited longer than a week either. Just opened my first bottle and it is absolutely amazing. The flavour is off the chart and I absolutely love it.
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Apr 17, 2019 21:09
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I was talking with a fellow homebrewer, he has brewed my Kolsch recipe twice now, using the same brand of yeast. Even fermenting at the same temperature. His brews produce a ton of sulfur, where mine are clean. I think the only difference is I use whirlfloc in my beers. Any thoughts what may be causing his sulfur production?
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Apr 17, 2019 23:29
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calandryll posted:I was talking with a fellow homebrewer, he has brewed my Kolsch recipe twice now, using the same brand of yeast. Even fermenting at the same temperature. His brews produce a ton of sulfur, where mine are clean. I think the only difference is I use whirlfloc in my beers. Any thoughts what may be causing his sulfur production? Not sure, I've used WLP029 kolsch with and without whirlfloc on the same exact recipe and have not noticed any sulfur smells or tastes.
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Apr 17, 2019 23:31
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Just asked him, he does use whirlfloc. So the only difference I can think is he uses RO and I use my tap water. We both build up to the same profile so maybe I have something in my tap water that works out better. It's not his technique as he just had a beer get to finals in the nationals from Philly. It's just this beer that is odd for him.
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Apr 17, 2019 23:38
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Hehe.. I also use tap water always.
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Apr 17, 2019 23:41
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I sent my water to Wards for analysis so I have a basic idea but  for trying to match profiles exactly. Close enough is good enough.
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Apr 18, 2019 00:51
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I’d put the sulfur down to nutrients and oxygen available. Both will make the yeast throw sulfur, so that would be my guess. Maybe you just have an environment they like better.
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Apr 18, 2019 02:11
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  Finished my tiny kegerator/ferment chamber. It'll fit 3 kegs if I put the gas outside, and easily fit a 7.9 speidel. Collar and the lid are both hinged, which is really nice when the collar is almost a foot tall.
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Apr 22, 2019 13:36
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Offset taps are the mvp. Really upset I put mine in the center as it makes loading a real pain in the rear end, but I don't wanna rebuild the collar 
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Apr 22, 2019 14:26
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robotsinmyhead posted:Offset taps are the mvp. Really upset I put mine in the center as it makes loading a real pain in the rear end, but I don't wanna rebuild the collar Yuuuuup.
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Apr 22, 2019 14:32
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I just got a chest freezer from a friend. I guess I'll be making a keezer soon?! Feel free to post your builds  Also brewed another Brut IPA last night. This time it was 1/3 wheat malt in addition to the 2row. Went classic hops because that made the beer comically cheap. Cascade Columbus and Cryo Centennial.
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Apr 22, 2019 15:52
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Casters are great for a keezer. I put 1/4" plywood around mine to make it look less man cavish. I'll have to dig up some images when I get home. It has a 8" collar which is great but a pain lifting a full keg over.
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Apr 22, 2019 19:53
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I ended up with 2x8s as well. My first collar was too short for a keg when it was up on the "hump". Mine's just framing-quality 2x8s, spraypainted black. If I did a redesign, I'd definitely spend a little more money on some nicer wood/finish, but it looks fine. I ended up using some small L-brackets on the inside to keep everything square and add a bit more strength to it. After I had finished it up, I had to basically chamfer the inside edges of the collar due to the lip on the freezer lid. All little things to keep in mind if you DIY. If I built mine again, I'd plan out some way to put handles on it. I throw a party or 2 every year at my apt and end up bringing it outside. It's not actually very heavy, but it's too large and awkward to handle without a lot of fuss.
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Apr 22, 2019 20:11
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Hey everyone. I've posted here before I think regarding doing a beer "solera"/perpetual blending using a barrel and sour cultures, but I was living in an apartment at the time and my limited space prevented it from being anything but theory crafting. Now I'm in a house and have done more in depth research and I think I'm ready to dive in. Want to make sure I'm understanding the process right, and looking for tips/potential pitfalls from anyone who's done it before. First, what is the lower end for size of barrel that is acceptable to use with regard to oxygen permeability, given the long time frames involved in such a project? Practically for me, a 15-30 gallon (or something like 50-100L) barrel would be ideal. I'd like to fill the barrel at first, age for 12 months, pull 1/3rd and top off, and then pull 1/3rd every 8 months from then on out. This gives me an average age that approaches 2 years, and packaging sizes of 5-10 gallons. Second, when it comes to fermentation schedule, is it practical to just keep all the bugs in the barrel? Like, brew and ferment beer with saccharomyces for a week - a month, and then add to barrel where other cultures are introduced? And I'm assuming I only need to add the other bugs once, as they simply live in the solera. Finally, recommendations for recipes/culture selections? In terms of grain bill, I was thinking Belgian red kind of bill. Pils, wheat, oats, spelt, special b, and some caramel/caramunich or whatever. I know hops inhibit some sour cultures, so I'm assuming hop very lightly just for bitterness, like 5-10 IBU. For yeast I'm thinking probably a Belgian strain again, maybe a saison or trappist or blend of some. As for the non-sacch cultures, I honestly have no idea haha. I've had sour beers that I like but I don't know what they used to sour them. Anyone recommend a good blend? And what about dregs, how many bottles do I need for dregs to be effective? Thanks for any input or help. I really like the idea of a continuously blended beer, I've been thinking I'd like to do all kinds of funky blending/fruiting/other stuff to each pull over the years to keep it fresh too. e: oh also what kind of gravities should I shoot for? And how do the sour cultures affect that calculation? hot cocoa on the couch fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 03:52
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Keezer talk   5 tap with Intertap Stainless taps. Bought the drip tray off of eBay. Want to drill a hole in bottom and have it drain outside of the garage through a PVC pipe, but . I've painted the keezer in Appliance Black and the collar in chalkboard paint. The customization (chalk art) is courtesy of my 2 year old.Also, some of you guys helped with my brew stand build. Behold. 
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Apr 23, 2019 12:56
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hot cocoa on the couch posted:Solera talk You've more or less got the right idea and I'd imagine that barrel size should be fine. Depending on where you get the barrel from, you might want to do a clean beer in it first, just to take away whatever character it came with and leave you with a more neutral barrel. I have a solera project going myself, but just in a 5 gallon glass carboy. I'm around 2 years in on it now. I did a 3 gallon pull of it about 6 months ago and aged that on apricot puree, backfilling with new clean beer. The two beers that I have put in have both been in the 1.050 to 1.060 range. I probably would not start high on gravity for incoming beers, just because they could inhibit your initial culture a bit. When that culture is nice and strong you can probably throw some bigger grain billed base beers at it. As for initial cultures, you can go any direction here. Most people seem to pick a lab blend and then toss in a few bottles of dregs from breweries that don't pasteurize their bottles. I started with a pitch of Sour Melange from The Yeast Bay and tossed in dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin and The Bruery. I added some more bottle dregs from Wicked Weed when I did my first pull. Speaking of, I need to do another pull soon. I think I'm gonna age the next three gallons on wood this time instead of fruit.
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Apr 23, 2019 13:17
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I share a solera with a friend and we just pulled off our first beer after 2+ years a few months back. 15 gallon whiskey barrel from a local craft distillery. He put 1-2 "clean" beers through it (A heavy stout and then a brown ale) to get the oak character out of it. After than we both whipped up as big of a batch of Flanders Red base beer as we could on our systems (like 2x 6.5g on a 5g setup) and filled the barrel, then we pitched pretty much anything we could get our hands on. I think the pitch started with a legit package of Sour Weapon, but it's been dregs from a dozen beers since then. First pull was really strange - tons of oak tannins, funky, but not sour. We're thinking about blending it back with the next round which was a golden sour base topped directly into the barrel with no other additions. One thing to remember with Soleras is that anything that goes in is hard to get out. It'd be really difficult to add fruit without introducing a likely vector for mold unless you wanna do constant punchdowns for years on end. The best advice I could probably give is to just let it ride. Don't get hung up on nailing some arbitrary OG for refilled wort or thinking too hard on what cultures to add. Once it's in the barrel, it's impossible to tell what's gonna happen. Oh, and keep the hops out of it for the most part or you could end up killing off some of the bugs.
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Apr 23, 2019 13:59
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Just started my first ever batch of mead because I don't like beer and I'm not guillotineable enough for wine. I think I might've over pitched it a bit (used maybe 3/4 of a yeast packet instead of half) but I'm hoping that's not the end of the world  Someone make the next three weeks go quicker
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Apr 29, 2019 01:58
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Spaced God posted:Just started my first ever batch of mead because I don't like beer and I'm not guillotineable enough for wine. I think I might've over pitched it a bit (used maybe 3/4 of a yeast packet instead of half) but I'm hoping that's not the end of the world Mead is definitely an exercise in patience. I wouldn't worry about the yeast overpitch. Let us know how it turns out!
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Apr 29, 2019 02:24
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So I've been out of home brewing for a little over two years, and I want to get back into it, at a much smaller scale. Brewing full-sized 23 liter batches was just too drat much for my apartment's kitchen (and for my stovetop kettle to handle), so I figure going smaller will be 1.) way easier with my existing equipment, 2.) way more efficient in terms of space, 3.) make me drink less, and 4.) let me experiment more. Before now I've only ever done extract with steeping grains, so I'll also be trying my hand at some BIAB. Anyway, I threw together this recipe on Brewer's Friend with basically no real experience in creating recipes of my own. But hey, it's a SMaSH IPA/APA, how hard can it be: quote:Target Style: SMaSH APA/IPA who knows So, the problem is that Brewers Friend says that Bestmalz BEST Pale Ale malt has 0 diastatic power. 1.) I have no idea what this means 2.) Is it a bug or something? Because I know Bestmalz BEST Pale Ale is apparently perfectly fine to make up 100% of a grain bill. Drone fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Apr 29, 2019 |
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Apr 29, 2019 15:02
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Spaced God posted:Just started my first ever batch of mead because I don't like beer and I'm not guillotineable enough for wine. I think I might've over pitched it a bit (used maybe 3/4 of a yeast packet instead of half) but I'm hoping that's not the end of the world The first time I made mead, it took 7 months to go from pitching the yeast to bottling. A smaller 1 gallon batch took 5 months. It's not a fast process. I've currently got a gallon of rosemary, thyme, and grains of paradise mead waiting to be bottled, and I started that one way back in August.
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Apr 29, 2019 15:16
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Drone posted:1.) I have no idea what this means Honestly just sub in some other pale malt into the calculation. It's gonna be 95% similar or more. BF has some limitations.
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Apr 29, 2019 15:52
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Def a bug
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Apr 29, 2019 16:18
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Drone posted:So, the problem is that Brewers Friend says that Bestmalz BEST Pale Ale malt has 0 diastatic power. Diastatic power (DP) is the ability to convert starch into sugar. Virtually all modern malts have plenty of it, enough to convert themselves and also some adjunct grains that don't have any diastatic power of their own (e.g., flaked corn or rice, unmalted wheat). That's definitely a bug. All pale ale malts have plenty of diastatic power, and Bestmalz is no exception. Here's their page on the stuff: https://bestmalz.de/en/malts/best-pale-ale/ It lists a DP of 250WK. For comparison, here's an English pale ale malt, listing a DP of 140-228WK: https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/our-malts/best-pale-ale-malt/ (look on the EBC tab) So, yeah, Bestmalz will work just fine, and it's the software that's buggered, not the malt.
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Apr 29, 2019 16:42
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Jo3sh posted:So, yeah, Bestmalz will work just fine, and it's the software that's buggered, not the malt. Neato! How about calculating (even with just a rough guess) my mash volume and pre-boil amount based on the goal of getting 3.75 liters into my fermentation jug? I'd be mashing and brewing on a stove top so I'm sure I lose a poo poo ton of water, but I don't want to overestimate things wildly either.
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Apr 29, 2019 16:45
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I recommend PricelessBIAB for mash volume/water calcs, strike temp, etc (stuff that doesn't play as well in BF). It still comes in a bit off for me, but if I do a specific recipe more than once, I can dial it in.
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Apr 29, 2019 16:58
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Drone posted:How about calculating (even with just a rough guess) my mash volume and pre-boil amount based on the goal of getting 3.75 liters into my fermentation jug? I'd be mashing and brewing on a stove top so I'm sure I lose a poo poo ton of water, but I don't want to overestimate things wildly either. You might want to get an idea of how much boiloff you will get per hour before you start brewing. Put maybe 6L of water in the pot you are going to use, and get it boiling. Get a moderate boil, but one that is definitely turning over the water. Start a timer and let it boil for one hour. Then turn off the heat and let it cool. When that's all done, measure the water you have left. The amount you lost is a pretty good first stab at your boiloff rate, in liters per hour. Let's just say, for the purposes of this discussion, that you lose 2L of water per hour. And you have to add to that some absorption. I usually figure that my mash will absorb about 1 US pint of water per pound of grain. That's very close to 1 liter of water per kg of grain - close enough for homebrew, anyway. Yours might be less if you squeeze the bag to get extra liquid out, but let's use 1L/kg for now. So then you work backwards. You want 3.75L in the fermenter. You're going to lose 2L in a 1-hour boil, and another 1L in absorption. So you should use 6.75L of water to start. Again, all these numbers will vary depending on your process and equipment, but you can get to a good starting place twith this kind of process, then tune things as you figure out how your setup works.
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Apr 29, 2019 16:59
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Spaced God posted:Just started my first ever batch of mead because I don't like beer and I'm not guillotineable enough for wine. I think I might've over pitched it a bit (used maybe 3/4 of a yeast packet instead of half) but I'm hoping that's not the end of the world The conventional wisdom I'm familiar with is that it's pretty hard to overpitch yeast enough to have problems when it comes to mead. I've got a higher gravity one coming up where I'll be pitching 5 grams per gallon.
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Apr 29, 2019 21:52
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I'm going to do a kettle sour, hopefully this weekend. My hope was to use some Goodbelly but it appears I can't find it locally. Is a good alternative I could use, like something from White labs or Imperial?
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May 1, 2019 10:45
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Just don't use any hops and you will be good with whatever lacto. Your local pharmacy/health food store probably have plantarum pills.
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May 1, 2019 12:29
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I co-pitch my Goodbelly with Swanson's L. Plantarum probiotic pills from Amazon. I'm sure you could find an approximation wherever you are. There's a lot of probiotic products out there and there are a LOT of bacterial varieties and I can't 100% tell you which ones are good/bad, but you want something that is primarily L. Plantarum.
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May 1, 2019 14:10
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My thought, which may be incorrect since I've never done a kettle sour, was to mash and bring to a boil for ~10 minutes to sterilize. Drop the temperature to ~95, and sour till what I think is good. Then do my normal boil and ferment after that. Does that sound correct? For the Swansons pills, about how many do you normally use?
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May 1, 2019 15:30
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That method will work for a kettle sour. I use 5 of the Swanson’s if they’re fresh. 7-8 if I’ve had the bottle for a bit.
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May 1, 2019 16:15
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Well, I finally got to try my my Spotted Cow clone, and it kinda sorta vaguely tastes like Spotted Cow, if you squint! For my first all-grain, I'll take it.
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May 1, 2019 19:53
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My take on Kettle Sours is that the mash process is close enough to pasteurization temperature/length to render your mash sterile. I never boil after the mash (before lacto pitch) and I stopped doing any sort of boil at all for my kegged kettle sours - 10-15min if I intend on bottling, which allows time for a small ~8ibu hop addition. Mash normally, cool to 90-100F, pitch lacto and hold at 85 (lots of people just let it freefall in a warmer room, like a bathroom, or near a heat vent). If it fermented, it goes right into the keg from there, if not, I transfer to a fermentor, then keg when it's stable.
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May 2, 2019 15:14
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I have an electric system so I can hold the temperature very easily. I'm going to shoot for 95 for the lacto, I have a bottle of L. plantarum sitting on my doorstep right now. I've been playing with a Kolsch for awhile now, the last two times I've brewed it the numbers between them were identical. I'm thinking of turning it into a Gose like beer. Toss a little bit of salt, coriander seed and lime peel at the end of the boil.
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May 2, 2019 16:25
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