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Are the Better Bottle plastic carboys really a better bottle? I've brewed 2 gallon batches a few times, splitting them into couple of 1-gallon carboys for fermentation, but I'm looking at moving up to a 5-gallon. And I'm not sure if I should go glass or plastic? Is there any difference besides the weight?
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Nov 9, 2011 22:29
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:39 |
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Toebone posted:Better Bottles don't shatter into a million pieces if you drop them, so there's that. Any reason you don't want to use a bucket? I thought carboys were "better" for some reason? I have a five gallon bucket with a spigot that I bottle from. One problem I've had with it is that once I get above 4 gallons or so, the seal around the spigot begins to leak a little. I guess they make fermenting buckets without the spigot, though? Honestly, I hadn't thought about it because I normally hear about carboys.
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Nov 9, 2011 23:28
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Over the summer, I had a local brewery's Earl Grey Tea infused beer, and it was really tasty. I've been thinking about doing something similar with some Roiboos tea. I know I could just boil the tea and add that to the fermentor at the end of the boil, the same as coffee. But I was wondering about fermenting, moving to a secondary fermentor and cold-infusing the tea in the secondary. If you've never tasted the difference between boiled tea and cold infused tea, you get a much subtler, cleaner flavor from cold infusion. I was looking at using a box or two of regular old teabags, the same as you'd make a cup of tea with. Considering they're sealed up pretty well, do you think I'd be safe cutting the strings off and throwing them in the secondary before racking over the beer? Or I could cut open the bags and add them all to a sanitized muslin bag or something. I guess what I want to know is: do you think any nasty stuff could be hiding in those dried tea leaves that could gently caress up the beer?
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Nov 11, 2011 20:37
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Cool. I thought that they'd be fairly safe, but that's positive reinforcment. Guess I know what I'm doing next weekend.
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Nov 11, 2011 21:20
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Just finished brewing my Roosbois tea ale, just a straigh LDME + Czech Saaz recipe. Did a 2 gallon batch, split between two 1 gallon carboys for fermenting. Brewed and poured the tea into the first one, and dropped the tea bags directly into the fermenter on the second one. Not sure if that was a great idea, but it's an experiment...
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Nov 19, 2011 21:29
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Stove-top brewing: canning pot or stock pot? I use a stock pot now, but it can't handle more than a gallon.
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Nov 24, 2011 06:34
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porkface posted:I did a test brew on the stove awhile back where I had all 4 burners going with 4 separate pots. Interesting, guess I'm gonna order a canning pot.
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Nov 28, 2011 17:08
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Bottled my Roisboos tea beer experiment yesterday (1 gallon w/ brewed tea, 1 gallon with tea bags cold infused). The brewed somehow came out to exactly 7 bottles so I didn't try any of it, but I had some leftover of the cold infused and tasted it. Very, very dry and lots of tannin. The tea flavor came through, though. Looking forward to trying the 2 side by side in a couple of months.
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Dec 5, 2011 15:54
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Jo3sh posted:When you do taste it, I'll be curious to hear about any chill haze you see in the beer. Made an evernote on it, hopefully I'll remember to post about it.
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Dec 5, 2011 19:28
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RiggenBlaque posted:Speaking of books, what's the verdict on the Oxford Companion to Beer? Worth buying? I just got it last week and I think it's awesome. It is just a list of entries though. Were you the kid that liked reading encyclopedias? Then you'll love it.
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Dec 13, 2011 17:17
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Cracked one of my coffee stouts I bottled 2 months ago, and it's pretty delicious. A little bitterness at the end that I think will mellow out with some more age. The coffee aroma is super strong, while the taste is smooth, with hints of chocolate and vanilla. Wish I'd made more of it, cause I'll be giving most of it to friends on New Year's.
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Dec 26, 2011 02:19
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Got my new brewpot and realized that I don't have enough empty bottles to actually do a larger batch with. Now I have to go buy some beer to drink so I can brew more beer to drink. And that's why this is the greatest hobby.
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Dec 28, 2011 23:36
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Got a copper immersion chiller from a friend for Christmas, awesome. Now I just need to do a batch big enough to need a chiller.... Passed out bottles on New Year's from my first brew in over a year, and got rave reviews for my coffee stout. And of course, that's the recipe I didn't write down loving anywhere, so now I can't remember what hops I used. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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Jan 3, 2012 21:42
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Docjowles posted:Is there much hop character to it, or is it all coffee and dark malt? If it's the latter it probably doesn't matter much what you use as long as it's mild and inoffensive. East Kent Goldings or Fuggle might be a good choice. I think my recipe was shooting for an IBU of around 40. Yet another thing I don't remember cause I didn't write it down. It was pretty mild, so I'll probably be safe doing whatever. I'm thinking I'll try redoing it this or next weekend as my first 5 gallon batch.
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Jan 4, 2012 21:59
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kitten smoothie posted:I assume I could just start out finding a recipe that looks promising to me, and cut the grain/hop bill in 1/5? Would a gallon jug wine bottle (only the finest from E&J Gallo) be adequate for fermenting if I used some fermcap to keep things from growing too much? I've had problems with blowouts on 1-gallon carboys w/ 1-gallon batches in them, so you might consider a blowout tube instead of just an airlock. I actually started doing 1.5 gallon batches and splitting them into two 1 gallon carboys for fermentation, which worked much better for me. Plus you can try a couple of different infusions at a time if you want.
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Jan 5, 2012 16:40
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Did my first 5 gallon batch on Sunday, along with my first attempt at mini-mashing. Also got to use my immersion chiller for the first time, although I found out too late that it only has a spigot connector and not a indoor faucet one. So I ended up standing there for 15 minutes clamping it onto the faucet as tightly as I could with my hands. That was a pain in the rear end. Crappy image of immersion chiller and my rubberband rigging system which didn't hold any pressure at all. Having the big canning pot was so much nicer. Did a 3 gallon boil volume (and I'm pretty sure my stove wouldn't be able to get much more volume boiling) and I had no problems with boilovers from it. Also, the canning rack makes a great sparging rack for a mini-mash. The fermentor was already bubbling away this morning, so now I just have to drink and clean enough bottles for 5 gallons of beer...
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Jan 16, 2012 15:30
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Sirotan posted:I've got my fermentation bucket in a closet, where my thermometer reads 66 degrees. However, the thermometer on the bucket says its 72, and ideally I'd like to get it down to 68. I don't have a basement or anything temp controlled that I can put this in. Is there anything I can do to drop the temp short of turning off the heat in here? I've even considered sticking it in my drafty window because its a whole 0F outside today. Wrap it in a wet towel or tshirt, turn a fan on it. Not terribly accurate, but it'll cool it down. Then you just have to keep re-wetting it every couple of hours...
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Jan 20, 2012 17:11
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Popped one of my Roiboos tea beers today. Interesting. The tea flavor comes through up front, with a real strong unsweet tea taste. However, the finish is extremely bitter. I threw together this as a 2-gallon experiment with leftover stuff, so it was just a couple of pounds of light dry extract, some teabags, and some Saaz hops. It really needs some sweetness to balance out the bitterness of the tea. I may try it again with something like an English brown ale. Jo3sh, I think you asked me to post about the chill haze. This is from the gallon in which I put the bags directly in the fermenter to cold infuse, instead of brewing the tea beforehand.  Pretty hazy. Haven't tried one of the brewed tea beers yet...I think it may be really, really bitter, because I put 7 bags of hot brewed tea in that gallon, vs. 5 bags of tea in the fermenter of this one.
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Jan 29, 2012 20:01
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Bottled my first 5 gallon batch yesterday, a strong APA. Now I'm looking at corny kegs and a kegerator, because that was a time-consuming endeavor! The beer smelled great (2 oz. Citra) and tasted pretty good straight out of the bucket. Can't wait for it to be ready.
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Jan 31, 2012 04:14
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Jo3sh posted:The rest of the year I feel satisfied with the size of my equipment, though. 
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Feb 7, 2012 15:36
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I actually just cracked open the first bottle of a beer I brewed a few weeks ago w/ Citra and 2# of Canadian Honey Malt + 7# DME, and the honey flavor does come through nicely in it.
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Feb 15, 2012 03:44
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Splizwarf posted:Like I said, not trying to fight about it, still honestly confused coming from a world of full-price deposits for equipment rentals. It sounds like keg deposits started out as a token thing back in the day, rather than a calculated part of the business model? Or maybe they were part of the business model but people were generally nicer and more reliable in Olden Times, so the loss figure being lower meant the much lower deposit still covered any costs? Any store selling kegs in or near a college town is doing a huge chunk of their business on cheapass beers sold to frats and other college parties, and most of that clientele aren't going to put up a $100-150 deposit on a $50-60 keg of beer AND are on the other hand nearly guaranteed to bring the keg back to get their fifty bucks back. So that's probably one factor on the really low deposit amounts.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:04
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For small fridges, if you have a college nearby, start looking on Craigslist around the time school lets out for the summer. You'll usually find a ton of them for cheap then.
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Apr 13, 2012 19:07
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Anyone know of a clone recipe for Southampton's Biere de Mars?
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May 17, 2012 16:12
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Ball or pin lock? And does it matter, other than sticking to one or the other? I screwed plenty of stuff up on my first batch, but I just kept telling myself that medieval peasants managed to make this stuff in wooden barrels, in their barns, with no notion of sanitation, and the fact that I touched my beer with something that hadn't been washed, rinsed, boiled and Star-Sanned probably wasn't that big of a deal.
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May 23, 2012 16:13
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Awesome, thanks. Putting together my buy list for a 2-tap keezer with collar, so height shouldn't be an issue (until I inevitably want to expand to 4 taps and put some cornies on the hump...)
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May 23, 2012 16:28
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:39 |
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ZIGfried posted:Someone posted a recipe on homebrew talk for basically a cheater berliner weisse from extract that's ready to drink in about a month. Should give you plenty of time to brew it and see if the groom likes it. Whoa, that's awesome, I know what I'm brewing next!
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Jan 9, 2013 17:01
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