|
I'm going to be brewing my first beer this weekend from a kit. I'm pretty sure I have all the brewing equipment that I need since I had someone help me with the shopping list, but I'm planning on kegging and my helper only bottles. I picked up some ball lock kegs and this kit. Am I going to need/want any kegging equipment that doesn't come with the bare kit aside from a CO2 tank and a refrigerator? I was planning on just getting a filled tank from a local store since they do exchanges rather than fills, and I'm still deciding on what to do about the refrigerator.
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2017 00:23
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 13:42 |
|
|
Der Penguingott posted:You will want a cleaning kit to keep the lines clean. The squeeze bottle ones are fine, the pumps aren't necessary. You won't need to clean the lines more than once every few beers. Thanks. Seems like most of those kits are designed to screw into faucet shanks. Does that work with the picnic taps somehow, like does it screw into the same threads as the handle on the tap, or do I need to use them a little differently? Also it dawns on me that I don't really have a large amount of tools. Do I need much more than a wrench to take out the posts on the keg? I have a socket wrench, but I doubt I have anything deep enough to take out the posts. I should be good on screwdrivers, but I don't have much beyond that right now
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2017 03:28
|
|
|
Well that was a fun first brew. I was brewing an extract kit and everything was fine up until the end of the boil, after which I discovered: 1. My utility sink does not in fact have garden hose threads as I assumed it did. Cue lots of running back and forth between my back yard and my sink with a pot with 5 gallons of water as I run the chiller 5 gallons at a time. Fortunately it only took about 3-4 pots to get the wort down to around 100F 2. After diluting to 5g, my wort was reading less than half the brix it should ( should be ~1.053 sg, read ~5 *somethings* if brix, ~1.02 sg) 3. Just kidding, the hydrometer is estimating closer to 1.044 which is still a fair amount less than what is on the recipe. Turns out either the scale on the refractometer is not brix or I'm reading it wrong. The ~5 i was reading on the refractometer lines up with the abv scale value reading on the hydrometer. There are a bunch of reasons the gravity reading might be a bit low, won't go into those because they're boring. 4. The bucket I was planning on using doesn't seem to fit with either of the lids I had despite purchasing the bucket and a lid together. Cue dumping out the 5g of star san I had in my other bucket that I was planning on using later. Fortunately the bucket was already sanitized! 5. Turns out despite hitting the yeast pack about a million times, none of my hits managed to pop the pack inside the smack pack. The pack must have moved around when I hit it instead of popping. Whatever, can't do anything about it now just dumped the yeast into bucket and hope for the best. I will probably be doing dry yeast or some other sort of starter where it is more obvious that it has started So now I have a bucket that doesn't fit any lid, and a mixture of stuff in a bucket that may or may not become beer. Fortunately I have another kit waiting for another time gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Oct 15, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2017 05:19
|
|
|
extravadanza posted:If you diluted after boiling, it's likely that the additional water didn't mix well with the wort. I never really trust an OG reading after adding water to wort that isn't boiling. Unless you forgot to add a bag of DME, you can probably assume your OG is within 2 points of the recipe (unless the kit sucks). There was no DME in the kit, 6lb LME, bag of lactose, bag of specialty grains. I assume the actual gravity is close enough. I was more concerned about having significantly different readings from my two measurements. And yeah, I diluted after boiling since that's what the instructions said and it cooled faster which saved a lot of running back and forth.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2017 19:57
|
|
|
rockcity posted:1.044 instead of 1.053 is pretty far off, especially for extract which should be close to dead-on accurate. As someone said, it's entirely possible that your water wasn't mixed in thoroughly. The only other real possibility is that you were off on your water volume somewhere and you ended up with 6 gallons instead of 5, which would also make sense for those numbers. Could be, I was eyeballing it on the bucket since I had filled it to 5 gal previous and the instructions said 5.125gal. At this point, I'd be happy enough as long as it comes out as actual beer so it's not that big of a deal. I'll just be more careful on the next run.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2017 22:18
|
|
|
rockcity posted:Eyeballing it when? Did you fill the fermenter to 5 gallons and have some leftover? I filled the bucket with 5 gallons when I mixed up starsan and it lined up with the middle ridge on the outside so when I diluted I filled back to roughly the same place and added a little bit extra since the instructions said to fill to 5.125gal. The stuff that came out of the pot was maybe 2 gallons, started with 2.5 preboil
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2017 23:51
|
|
|
I'm getting close to needing a refrigerator to store kegs and leaning towards modding the danby 4.4 that's available at costco and throwing a picnic tap setup inside. Does this plan sound close to right? Materials: 1x Danby 4.4 all-refrigerator 1x Roll of aluminum tape 1x Sheet of corrugated plastic 1x Tube of caulk (squeeze tube) Tools: Utility knife Maybe a scraper or something Steps: 1. Remove door gasket 2. Cut around the door shelving scoring as far in towards the center of the door as possible 3. Pull until door shelving and associated insulation separates from the door 4. Cut corrugated plastic sheet to fit and aluminum tape around the edges to keep moisture out of inside of the sheet 5. Use caulk as adhesive to attach plastic sheet to door, sealing edges as necessary either with caulk or aluminum tape 6. Replace door gasket 7. Tape down or remove light switch I have no plans to do any more work to this in the future as the main reason I'm doing this is for weight and size constraints. Would this type of door panel work well enough to keep moisture out of the door insulation? Total cost is something like $170 after tax since I have the keg setup already
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2017 00:25
|
|
|
calandryll posted:Why not a chest freezer? I think mine was about 140 and didn't need any modifications. I added a collar and insulation so I could run taps. Because they all seem to be like 20+lbs heavier and that would also require a temperature controller Edit:money is not the issue or I'd get a keg king mk4 but that unit is close to 100lbs. I'd like to be able to move it myself since I have to relatively frequently gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Oct 21, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2017 01:58
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I'd probably use an insulated tape of some sort between the plastic and the door instead of caulk. Something like you'd get with weather stripping. I'd also screw it in place too. It'll be picnic taps. The plastic is just there to keep moisture out of the door insulation, so it doesn't really need to be insulated just not permeable to water. Every build picture cuts on the inside of the gasket so the gasket just goes back in place. This is what I'm using as reference except I'm not actually going all the way to installing a tower and everything, I'm just getting it to be able to fit the kegs. Old models you used to unscrew the door shelving which had no insulation and could just screw back into the same holes, but the new models you have to cut off the shelving along with the insulation inside of the shelving. I've already bought the refrigerator, and it it feels like it's between 40-50 lbs which is perfect for what I need and it's pretty easy to fit in my car, albeit on its side. I did consider a keezer because it can actually fit fermenters (the fridge can fit one if you have a shelf that supports at the compressor hump), but I'm also not too hot on the idea of lowering and lifting full kegs into them. Fridges are also a lot easier to get rid of around here In other news, one of my kegs has 3/4 in posts instead of 7/8s and I can't get one of the posts off because I can't get enough leverage with my crescent wrench 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2017 06:33
|
|
|
Der Penguingott posted:I've had to hit the end of the wrench with a mallet or hammer before to loosen up struck posts. I managed to get it off without doing this. Is it normal for kegs to have their posts tightened this much? At least a couple of the dip tube o-rings were basically cut through by the lid contact. One of the kegs also had an extra lid o-ring...at the bottom of the keg which made me chuckle. I guess that's to be expected from used kegs. Still annoyed about the 2 different sized posts. I'll probably end up replacing the 3/4 in ones even though they probably work just fine so I do everything with just one wrench
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2017 01:12
|
|
|
McSpergin posted:Basically this is the way to go. Get a hold of a decent sized chest freezer. IIRC a 360L holds 6 corny kegs easily. One of those is probably the plan once I have a more permanent home for it. At this point I'm just justifying my purchase since I've already bought it and it does basically fit my needs. I'll definitely get something bigger/better eventually. I am honestly not a huge fan of the idea of lowering heavy things into a keezer, so I probably won't do that unless I have the ability to build some sort of pulley system for it which I don't have the room for right now In other news, I did another extract kit this time except this time it went smoothly. Refractometer read 1.0459 and hydrometer read closer to 1.06 with a target around 1.055, so I think the whole dilute after cooling thing is not great for getting it mixed well. Seems like it'd basically be on target as expected with those readings since the hydrometer was taking from near the bottom and the refractometer from near the top. I'm guessing the first one I did is actually a bit light though since this time I just dumped everything through a strainer and the first time I dumped some of the liquid out along with the trub. gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Oct 22, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2017 04:25
|
|
|
Do spartanburg/firestone kegs have a different sized gas dip tube or something? I took my kegs apart and I couldn't get my gas post back ont one of my kegs until I pulled the other two gas dip tubes and found the one that fit better. I had the right posts and the right kegs, it was just the o-ring preventing the post from reaching the threads.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2017 08:16
|
|
|
I'm looking to brew this as a 3 gallon batch , but neither I nor the person I'm going to brew with has any experience making anything with such a high gravity. Is oxygenation a major issue for something like this? People are recommending pumping pure oxygen, and I really don't want to do that. Normally, I just transfer through a strainer or autosiphon and let it splash a lot in the bucket.
gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Dec 12, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2017 23:30
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:You can kind of sidestep the oxygen issue by pitching a complete fuckload of yeast. For a beer at OG 1.135 and 3 gallons, I'd suggest at least 3 or 4 sachets of US-05, maybe 5, if you're going to do this. And prepare for blowoff. I was planning on 3-4 packets and doing what I currently do for aeration. Do you think a blowoff tube is going to be necessary in a 6.5g bucket? I don't currently have one set up, but I could rig it up before brew day. I mean better safe than sorry, but 3.5g is a lot of head space to start with
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2017 00:15
|
|
|
Well, finished brew day on the BCBS clone recipe. Good news is that I hit the target gravity without any of the DME that I predicted I needed. Bad news is that my predictions for boil rate and/or water retained by the grain was off and only 2 gallons came out instead of 3 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2017 08:53
|
|
|
Does anyone have a preferred cream ale recipe? I'm thinking about making one, and my current plan is the 3 crops recipe from HBT except all corn instead of 4:1 corn:rice, but there seem to be other ways about it using honey malt instead of rice and corn
|
|
#
¿
May 4, 2018 19:58
|
|
|
Jo3sh posted:I prefer rice in mine, but corn is probably more correct. For the rest of the grist, I use half good ale malt and half good pilsner malt, to an OG of about 1.050 or 1.055. Canonically, you should use noble hops, but I think it's delicious with a light dose of Cascade. Ferment using While Labs 080, Cream Ale Blend. I was thinking of doing all corn first and coming back and doing more/all rice later so I can get a better idea of how each of them affects the final product. I'll probably do only one base malt as well just to keep things simple. So something along the lines of: 6LB great western pale malt(or weyermann pilsner) 2.5lb flaked corn 1oz cascade WLP080 or US-05 I haven't actually plugged that in to see if that hits the target gravity and IBU. gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 22:13 on May 4, 2018 |
|
#
¿
May 4, 2018 21:58
|
|
|
My LHBS, or at least the one I usually go to, doesn't list 6-row on their website as something that they carry. It doesn't necessarily mean they don't have it, so if they actually have some when I go in to buy it, I'll probably try it out with 6 row. They also don't list white labs, so yeast would be 1056/1272 or us-05
gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 22:41 on May 4, 2018 |
|
#
¿
May 4, 2018 22:37
|
|
|
Bogart posted:Friends, tell me about :
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2018 03:44
|
|
|
It depends on the filling tank to have a dip tube to push the liquid to the sodastream bottle
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2018 18:23
|
|
|
Drone posted:There's a stainless steel version for 3x the price though, not sure if it does anything "differently". It's basically a fancy picnic tap. I think they're popular in Australia That being said some tube over a picnic tap does well enough if you're bottling out of a keg
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2019 19:42
|
|
|
MistressMeeps posted:For my second ever brew, I'm working on a bourbon barrel Porter. I just moved it to my secondary after 2 weeks in a primary. My IG was 1.044 which has a potential to get to ~6% if I understand gravity correctly. I just took another gravity measurement during the transfer and got 1.024, so the beer is only at ~2.6%. I'm tempted to repitch yeast in the secondary. Is this a good idea or am I just being impatient? How did you measure it? If you're using a refractometer make sure you're using the fg calculators
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2019 23:14
|
|
|
My keg just kicked and I'm trying to come up with something fun to make next. I'm aiming for something inspired by earl grey tea cookies but am shooting in the dark as to what to actually make. Right now I'm thinking something vaguely brown with munich as its primary base malt as I've never done that before For a ~3gal batch of the base beer (BIAB): 3.5 lb 10L munich 1 lb pilsner 4 oz brown malt 4 oz pale chocolate malt 1 oz Saaz All of these are intentionally nice numbers in both pounds and ounces. After that I'm not sure how I want to add the earl grey flavoring. From what I can tell there's basically 2 ways to add the flavoring--actually making the tea and adding it after fermentation or if only the bergamot flavor is desired, add the flavoring via extract or essential oils. Right now I'm leaning towards diluting some essential oil with neutral spirits to make my own extract since it seems more repeatable. Does anyone have experience with this particular flavoring? I think it's been discussed in this thread before but I can't remember when it was
|
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2019 06:01
|
|
|
funkybottoms posted:we brew an Earl Grey brown on our 15bbl system and get a really nice flavor by throwing 2.5lbs in the whirlpool, so feel free to do the math on ratios for your own brew. for lighter beers, make cold brew and add it to the whirlpool so you don't get any tannic action If I did the math right ~1.8 grams per gallon. I ended up around 5 grams per gallon (using tea bags) steeped for 5 min post-boil which is a lot more than that, so if it turns out too strongly tea flavored I'll try cutting it back closer to 2 gram/gallon. It definitely had a noticeable tea flavor as well as tannic element before it went into the fermenter but not to an unpleasant degree. 5 min may also be too long--I use that time for tea when I'm using milk, but I usually go shorter when I'm drinking tea alone. I'm fully intending on making another round of this, but I'm not sure what I'll be changing until the current batch is done.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 1, 2019 21:19
|
|
|
Disclaimer that I am not terribly far into this eitherhonda whisperer posted:Ok stupid newbie questions. quote:Second question. I love cooking and this seems similar in that you follow the recipe, try the results, and try again with a small adjustment later. I'm not used to the ~4 week lead time to see results though. Also having 5 gallons of one style beer is a lot. Actual question, should I try another style in a week and a half so that when it's done I have variety, or suck it up, wait the 4 weeks, and see what's lacking and make another attempt on the same thing? I prefer changing things up because I have to drink most of it myself and having variety helps a lot. For similar reasons, my batch size is 2.5-3 gallons. I do still revisit recipes that I like, but it's usually not for 2-3 months at minimum because I have to empty the kegs first
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2019 00:26
|
|
|
If you came up short on an extract brew, you probably didn't add enough water and/or dumped out more than you thought with the trub. That isn't really a problem other than ending up with less beer at a different abv than you expect. Also are you sure you're not using 500ml or 16 oz bottles?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2019 02:33
|
|
|
Tea beer is in the keg carbing. OG 1.047 FG 1.007. I made the mistake of tasting it after tasting an imperial stout so I couldn't taste the tea or much of anything for that matter, but it definitely had a noticeable aroma from the earl grey. It's still chilling/carbing so I'm probably not going to try it again for another couple days.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2019 00:12
|
|
|
Pretty sure caramelization in the boil isn't much of a thing unless you're actually seeing scorched stuff at the bottom of the pot. I'm mostly curious how you're getting roasted/burnt notes out of a pale ale kit. Clearly something is wrong but I don't think a full volume boil is going to change it. Maybe when you added the extract you added it too fast and a bunch of it stuck to the bottom and burned? Not trying to talk you out of full volume by any means since I did full volume for my extract brews after the first time. Certain types of chlorine come out in the boil and certain types don't. You should be able to get that information from your water company and possibly water testing results beyond the EPA mandated ones. A full water report isn't really necessary unless you're going to be doing adjustments.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2019 02:09
|
|
|
Just curious, when you said "west coast ipa" was it "pacific coast ipa" or possibly "black ipa" (aka cascadian dark ale)? I don't see a "west coast ipa" kit on their website, and I could definitely see what you're saying out of a CDA since it actually has some decently dark grain
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2019 03:58
|
|
|
Ethics_Gradient posted:Let me know how this tastes! Not exactly apples to apples, but I am planning to do a tea addition on top of my priming sugar when I bottle my English bitter in a week or so. Just pulled a pint of this. I think I just barely get a little bit of the tea in the nose, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you I could actually taste it...or really much of anything for that matter. I might be getting a slight bit of the tea on the finish, but it's hard to tell if it's actually there or if I'm fooling myself. I gave a bottle to someone else to get their opinion, but I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm definitely doing another iteration of this with the following changes: 1. Loose leaf tea instead of tea bags with similar amount by weight 2. Probably some more brown malt or maybe some of caramel malt, probably +2 or +4 oz 3. Don't let the mash temp drop so much to hopefully keep the FG a little higher. 4. Full ounce of hops for the full boil instead of 3/4 boiled and 1/4 steeping with the tea A lot of stuff changing at once, but they're all either directly addressing what I perceive to be deficiencies in the current version or just straight substituting an equivalent ingredient
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2019 03:41
|
|
|
All of my beers sit in primary for 2 weeks regardless of gravity
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2019 21:31
|
|
|
I prefer dunking mine in sanitizer instead of boiling since mine is the clamp-on hose type, so putting it in the boil will melt the hoses. Just be mindful of how long you do this, since you're probably dunking a hunk of copper in a bucket of acid. I stir with mine, otherwise it would take even longer. Everything goes through a strainer before going into a fermenter so I don't care if things are settled.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2020 00:37
|
|
|
I've enjoyed the kits I've gotten from morebeer for the most part, and they were reasonably priced and shipped fast. Northern brewer lists whats in their kits if you want to shop there or piece it together yourself--they're not owned by AB Inbev anymore if that makes a difference to you. Basically any online or local shop probably has kits or can put one together for you, so shop wherever is most convenient during these times.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2020 08:42
|
|
|
I just had some schwarzbier, and I want to make something like it or really any dark lagerish thing. I'm usually a stout drinker, but lately, I've found most stouts I've had to be a little too heavy and sweet, so the lighter but still roastiness of the schwarzbier is appealing. I don't have the temperature control to deal with lagering--is there an ale equivalent to dark lagers kinda like how cream ale approximates 'regular' lagers? I'm thinking a cream ale base just adding some roasted malt. Am I just reinventing the wheel on something that already exists?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2020 01:30
|
|
|
thotsky posted:I switched to a stainless steel autosiphon because the plastic ones develop cracks and scratches pretty much the first time you use it. can you link or recommend one? I wouldn't mind having an nicer autosiphon even though mine currently works fine. One thing is, I'd be worried if it used the same design as the plastic one, as it would become pretty useless if you dented the body
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2020 23:41
|
|
|
thotsky posted:It's this one. You're not going to dent it, it is pretty massive. https://www.brewsensible.com/products/brewsssiphon Well I know what my brewing gear beta-tester is getting for his birthday now
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2020 00:05
|
|
|
Derpies posted:Since the barrier to entry is super cheap and my States about to go back into lock down of some sort, I was thinking of getting into some real basic brewing. From the OP I am understanding I would essentially just need to buy this: I can't tell if 'bottling setup' includes actual bottles, but you'll need those. It probably doesn't though since no other kit I've looked at does--I mostly shop on morebeer You'll need an appropriately sized pot for whatever batch size you'll do. You may also want a wort chiller but you dont' need one
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2020 00:54
|
|
|
minstrels posted:I don't have the ability to chill kegs at the moment but I'd like to start bottling from them if possible. You'd need to have pretty high pressures (20+psi) to get 2 vols of CO2 at 70F. If you can do that and have sufficiently long lines to keep flow at a reasonable rate, it might work, but I'm not sure.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2020 23:43
|
|
|
gwrtheyrn posted:I just had some schwarzbier, and I want to make something like it or really any dark lagerish thing. I'm usually a stout drinker, but lately, I've found most stouts I've had to be a little too heavy and sweet, so the lighter but still roastiness of the schwarzbier is appealing. I don't have the temperature control to deal with lagering--is there an ale equivalent to dark lagers kinda like how cream ale approximates 'regular' lagers? I'm thinking a cream ale base just adding some roasted malt. Am I just reinventing the wheel on something that already exists? Bumping this. Does anyone know if there is something like cream ale except for dark lager? Would this fall into an existing style, and has anyone tried doing it?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2020 01:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 13:42 |
|
|
thotsky posted:A dark faux-lager that's light on roast character? I don't think there's a style for this. I guess it would be a dry brown porter or brown ale, only fermented colder than usual. I was going for something more along this line. I guess I'll probably just make something up--probably going to take some schwarzbier recipe and replace the pilsner malt with a rice-adjunct cream ale base.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2020 02:27
|
|