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I haven't brewed in a couple months - for shame :/ I still have like 10 oz of vacuum packed 'brewers gold' hops in my freezer (that I won in a brew competition) that I don't know what to do with. I've read a lot that IBU kind of maxes out at some point, and you can add as much of hops as you want and it won't really make it any more bitter - guess I could just throw them all in a test batch and see what happens...
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Sep 17, 2011 08:12
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alright, I haven't brewed in like 6 months, which was really getting me down. my kegerator had a pool of water at the bottom and was getting moldy, I had 4 empty kegs I'd been putting off cleaning, my tap hoses were filled with solid gunk, my fermenting buckets had been sitting half full of water in my closet for ages - it was shameful. spent about 5 hours cleaning everything yesterday, and went out and bought grain. I spent some time deciding what I wanted to brew, and I came up with a spiced rye ale for x-mas time, and a flemish sour, because I've never done anything like that before. so, I'm just sort of winging the recipes. looking for feedback, comments, whatever. spiced rye ale posted:4 lbs Pilsen Malt; Dingemans info oud bruin / flemish sour ale posted:14 lbs Pilsen Malt; Dingemans info I don't really know what I'm doing with the sour ale, I'm basically using http://www2.parc.com/emdl/members/apte/flemishredale.shtml as a guide since none of my brewing books talk about sour ales. I was planning on finding a bottle with active cultures and adding them to my secondary after a short 5-7 day primary with safeale 05? dunno
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Nov 27, 2011 19:26
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hey has anyone had monk's cafe flemish sour ale before? it's stellar. wondering if anyone knows anything about how its made?
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Nov 28, 2011 18:57
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SweetSassyMolassy posted:However, what's the best way to dispose of 3 gallons of soda syrup? pour it in someone's gas tank
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Dec 1, 2011 00:19
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I don't fuss too much with yeast starters, but wondering if I might have messed something up. I normally use dry packet yeast because it's cheap and easy and I've found a favorite in safale 05, but I had a year old packet of danstar windsor, and sprinkled that into my 1.090 (lol) flemish sour wort, and it took off like a rocket. I bought a brand new safale 05, and sprinkled that into my 1.050 rye ale wort, and it's still sitting there at 65F, not doing a goddamn thing (brewed sunday). I've raised it up to 70F in hopes it will start, but I think that's the longest I've ever gone without fermentation starting. I did accidentally mix the yeast into the wort (had to add 2 gallons of sterile water to hit my gravity mark), whereas normally I just sprinkle it on top and let it sit there - but surely that can't be that big of a deal, right? also, just want to express my joy at all grain brewing. I've officially been all grain for about two years, but I just remembered back in the day when I was doing partial grain, and thought it would actually be more work to do all grain. it isn't, and I'm so happy I made the transition!  finished these two beers (in one day! on one stovetop! with 1.5 pots! with one 5gal mashtun!) in 6-7 hours brew time start to cooled wort and cleaned counters, a new record for me (if you figure ~3hr per brew)
mindphlux fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Dec 1, 2011 |
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Dec 1, 2011 17:59
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noone is probably interested, but regarding my safale problem a page back : I looked at my bucket, and realized I was using a new airlock I have no experience with - it's the kind that has like a round chamber, with a smaller round 'cap' that sits on top of a spout coming straight up out of whatever you plug it in to. Normally I use the kind of twisty Z shaped one piece bubblers. anyways, I hadn't put enough water in, so air could escape without the little thing bobbing up and down and creating bubbles - so turns out my ale was probably fermenting fine all along, and I just couldn't tell. I filled the thing up with a little more starsan solution, and it started bobbing per normal, so some co2 producing action was happening all along.
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Dec 3, 2011 09:45
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I need some advice, pretty quickly. For this flemish sour I'm trying to brew, I think my primary is about done and I'm ready to secondary and throw some bugs in. I don't want to use 'strains' or whatever out of packets, I'd much rather use the dregs from a sour beer and pitch that in to my young beer. I was inspired to brew a flemish sour by Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Red Ale (brewed by Van Steenberge), and I have a bottle of this on hand. I need to know if it has live cultures though and am finding conflicting information. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html This page, in particular, says it has live bugs, but then in the comments section there is some debate. any way I can tell? If not, anyone have a recommendation for a sour ale to use for this purpose?
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Dec 3, 2011 20:27
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well, the guys at my homebrew/beer store scared me out of making my ale sour.  I mean I knew brett was a beast to work with, and had already planned on sacrificing one of my buckets to be forever the 'sour beer' bucket, but they made it sound like basically no matter what I did, all my equipment would be contaminated. the room it sat in, even.so, I have a relatively neutral heavy ale (14lb pils, 2lb white wheat, 2lb crystal 80l, ale yeast) that I need to make more interesting in secondary. I could add fruit I guess, but anyone have any more interesting ideas? I have a spiced beer going, so that's out...
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Dec 3, 2011 23:54
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god damnit
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Dec 4, 2011 00:31
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Jo3sh posted:All you guys who use counterflow or plate chillers, how do you clean them after use, and how do you sanitize them before use? I'm curious about this, but a step further. how the heck do breweries with fixed pipes and CIP systems really get clean? it seems like any enclosed system where you can't run a brush through would be a magnet for gunk - I mean even let's assume you transfer off a primary fermentation from a vessel to some secondary tank, and yeast sludge, trub, etc is going through those pipes. Even if you cleaned it immediately, I can't see having many thousands of dollars worth of beer on the line and just trusting that a flush of PBW and starsan or whatever cleans your tubes. same goes for plate chillers, where protein rich wort is flowing through nook and cranny ville.
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Dec 4, 2011 07:05
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Josh Wow posted:Hot enough water and the right chemicals will clean anything. For example to clean and sanitize our bottle filler we run about 40 gallons of hot water (at around 180*F), recirculate a hot caustic solution for 20 min, run 40 gallons cold water, recirculate a phosphoric acid solution for 20 min, run 40 gallons cold water and then run 40 gallons paraacetic acid. do you work for a brewery? don't think I ever realized that
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Dec 5, 2011 04:40
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kitten smoothie posted:Every batch I make is a new lesson to learn. Granted this is just my fourth batch. I learned alternate versions of this lesson this year : any solid chunky matter in your beer is to be AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. I made a version of my blackberry ale a while back that used pureed frozen blackberries, and the seeds from that poo poo COMPLETELY hosed my entire world up. the beer was so goddamn delicious, but inevitably I got seeds stuck in the poppits in the out valve of my kegs. I ended up having to autosyphon my beer out of a keg, through a sieve, and into a bottling bucket, before racking back to another keg. I expected the oxidation to kill my beer, but it was still delicious for another week or so, which allowed it to be drunk. but jesus christ I will never allow solid matter beyond the boil kettle again. I had some cloves escape my cheesecloth in this last round of brewing, and though I think I found them all, I'm deathly afraid of repeating that prior situation.
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Dec 5, 2011 08:27
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Josh Wow posted:Yea I work at Terrapin on the bottling/kegging line. oh awesome. I'm just over in Atlanta, so I'm well familiar - though have never gone out for the tour. thanks for answering the sanitizing question, that has boggled my mind about commercial breweries forever.
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Dec 5, 2011 23:54
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I went ahead and just semi-aborted my sour ale attempt. I don't know, maybe once I have a bigger place with a shed or something I'll go full steam on the sour ales, but I don't want to accidentally innoculate my fermentation fridge or equipment with bret, so I'll play it safe for now. I realize I'm probably being ridiculous. I bought a couple pounds of frozen tart cherries and some cranberry juice concentrate, and added that to my heavy rear end ale in secondary along with some citric acid and pectinase. so, I guess maybe I'll have something sort of tart and sour... maybe? :/ I also thought about going through an extra bottling step, and adding some bacteria then... dunno. blerg. all said and done, it's really good to be brewing again. I have sort of gotten frustrated with my work recently. I have an IT company, but it basically doesn't 'produce' anything - we just mainly support other companies and their ability to run a functional business. not that their businesses actually produce anything either, but it's really grounding to actually get your hands dirty and create/produce a tangible 'thing' from raw materials every now and again. I really should figure out how to make this my job...
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Dec 7, 2011 09:42
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Smeef posted:Does anyone have experience or recommendations for importing hops/barley/yeast/wort in a cost-effective way without damaging the end product? I'd imagine so long as whatever you are having shipped is vacuum packed, freshness won't be too much of an issue, even with some variance in temperature. just use the internet, and maybe send some suppliers e-mails asking how they ship their stuff, and explaining your situation. the homebrew market is small enough that I imagine you'll get a personalized response to whatever issues you raise...
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Dec 9, 2011 09:52
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Jacobey000 posted:Bottling from a keg is a pain. I couldn't get the pressure right, turned it way down (9psi) and it was still just coming out all foam. Tried the picnic tap with bottle filler for a while and that was serious trouble 90%+ foam. Eventually I just used the tube rammed into the regular tap and the pressure finally died down enough to fill the bottles okay. protip : make everything cold as poo poo, and drop your keg to ~2.5psi. I use a party tap to bottle from a keg, which I very cleverly attached to the hard plastic part of a bottling wand. it's amazing, but the wand I had just magically fits snugly into the black plastic spigot of my party tap, so I just jam it up in there, and it works without any leaks. I basically have a bottling gun for free!
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Dec 9, 2011 22:56
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Jacobey000 posted:I read everyone else's replies and thanks - I think all of you were on the right track. Bottles were at room temp, Keg wasn't degassed. I bought a party tap just to use for the racking cane trick thingy, but alas I was getting huge head. oh, were you already using the 'stick a bottling wand into the party tap' method? (aka 'racking cane trick'?) I was so happy when I figured that out, I had hoped I was just ultra clever and noone had ever done that before in any case, degassing kegs is like, the bane of my existence. I can't even serve out of my normal taps without degassing, otherwise it's complete foam for everyone. I feel like that's something I must be able to fix, but I have like, a keg fridge at 38deg, some perlite taps with 5-6ft of hose between them and the kegs, and my desired level of co2 for most kegs is like 10-15psi (@40deg) still though if I don't vent and drop them down to ~2-5psi before a party, everyone is just like 'wahhh my beer is all foam'
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Dec 10, 2011 06:34
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tesilential posted:If you are getting nice pours at 2-5 psi, your setup is unbalanced. You need at least 10 feet of 3/16" hose to have decent pours with 14psi. Even then you'll have a few inches of head. I'd do 14' personally. I've been meaning to buy some of these, and tried to tonight from Grainger. but, I wasn't sure if I had the right ones, and it ended up being like 25 bucks after shipping, which didn't seem right for some little plastic things, so I cancelled the order. where should I get these insert things? which ones are the best?
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Dec 10, 2011 08:43
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Jo3sh posted:Here's the guide I used a while ago to put some together - it includes a part number to order from McMaster-Carr: thanks, I'll take your advice. in unrelated news - am I being insane with my keg cleaning regimen? unless I've had 0 issues with a beer tasting off, and haven't let a keg sit empty for months (rare that the latter doesn't happen), I completely disassemble my posts and diptube and everything, let it soak in 160deg PBW, rinse the everliving gently caress out of all of it, let everything soak in starsan, reassemble and lube, and then fill the keg with ~1gal starsan, toss it all around, and call it a 'ready to go' keg. some comment on this page or the last I think someone said something about not disassembling their kegs when cleaning.  either I'm insane, or they're insane
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Dec 10, 2011 21:10
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Hypnolobster posted:I do this every time beer goes into a keg. I actually get so obsessive that I disassemble everything in the whole serving line as well, including removing faucets and soaking them, the tubing and posts. oh, I don't think this is ridiculous at all. anyone think this is ridiculous? I mean I don't know about your guys serving setups, but when I disconnect my lines from a keg, there is immediately an air bubble inside the line between my faucet and keg. If I let that sit more than a day or something, there's solid gunk inside that line due to residue hardening or whatever. although, what I had taken to doing is having a keg of starsan, and running that through my lines immediately after I disconnect them from an active keg - then just leaving the hoses/faucet sitting with starsan until I'm ready to hook up a new keg. I'm pretty confident that's an acceptable alternative to completely disassembling them after every use. but yeah if you just have beery faucets/lines sitting around for weeks - totally called for to clean them before tapping a new keg, in my book.
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Dec 11, 2011 00:27
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Biohazard posted:So this has probably been asked a bunch of times, but I'm thinking about alternatives to bottling. It's obviously my least favorite part. I'd love to just have a keg system, but between he initial investment and electricity of a second fridge, I don't see that happening right now. If I wasn't kegging, which you should be if you can justify the expense in your mind (file under 'entertainment', skip going to a few nice dinners and nights out for a month or so) I would totally be using growlers. buy five 1 gallon growlers, and just go through the effort of cleaning those and whatever. you'd have to drink a gallon of beer every time you wanted some homebrew, but I can think of worse things, and the saved effort over 30-50 tiny rear end bottles would totally make it worthwhile.
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Dec 11, 2011 22:40
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Prefect Six posted:At what temperature do you guys generally keep your serving fridge? mine is at 37-42. but, I don't have much of a reason for that - other than that's about as cold as I could set it without having my kegs randomly get frozen. Josh Wow posted:Growlers may or may not burst if you try to carbonate beer in them, I haven't seen definitive proof one way or another. The glass isn't rated to hold a carbonating beverage though so they definitely could shatter. Plastic soda bottles would be a better choice if you wanted to go that route. Interesting to note, but do you have any idea why? I'd not assume this one by default - I mean at least let one explode before you write them off. All the growlers I've seen have been pretty thick looking glass. also, in my case, my only growler is a giant 2L brinkhoffs bottle I bought from a random fleamarket in the germany countryside. I think I could drive a tank over this thing without it exploding. in fact, it's so awesome that I have to take a picture of it for you guys.  Jo3sh posted:Still, ask all the guys here who keg if they would sell back their kegging rigs and go back to bottling - I'd bet you get no takers. I know that it has made brewing much more enjoyable and worthwhile for me. I have probably spent around 900-1100 on my kegging set up, from co2 tank to serving line to converted freezer to 5 ball lock kegs to wood for my collar, blah blah blah. but, like jo3sh said, it has totally reinvigorated my interest in brewing, made my house parties a lot better, gotten me exposure in local homebrew scene, saved me tons of time - and most importantly, made me take brewing just a little bit more seriously. I wouldn't trade back my stuff, even if you were gonna give me double the money back. edit : because I'm posting pictures anyways, and I love my lil guy -  
mindphlux fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Dec 11, 2011 |
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Dec 11, 2011 23:41
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I'd estimate $10 a month for my freezer... Never measured, but I do have a killawat thing. I'll hook it up tonight.
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Dec 12, 2011 01:54
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If I had to do it all over again, I would never have bought a glass carboy. shits the devil, and so ridiculously unnecessary...
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Dec 13, 2011 07:42
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Daedalus Esquire posted:I love watching my beer ferment in a carboy I love watching beer ferment too... and not having to lug around 15 extra lbs of easily breakable glass. http://www.better-bottle.com/index1.html I've never broken my carboy, and I don't find it unusable, it's just a much better, lighter weight, cheaper solution exists. and why not use it? mindphlux fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Dec 13, 2011 |
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Dec 13, 2011 08:19
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alright, this beer I'm making, which is pretty much the heaviest OG beer I've ever done (1.097 I think) has sort of plateaued at 1.029. it was there when I racked it from primary to secondary, and I added fruit in secondary. fermentation took off like a rocket so I thought it would keep on falling, but I just racked it to a keg (tertiary?) and it's still at 1.029 - I'm on day 16. could the alcohol level be inhibiting the yeast? surely not, or fermentation wouldn't have started up again when I added more sugar. Is it likely if I just leave it sitting in the keg at around 65deg that it will slowly attenuate? the beer just tastes young as poo poo, and definitely needs more time.
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Dec 13, 2011 19:37
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Docjowles posted:Gonna need more details like recipe, mash temp, fermentation temp, how much yeast you pitched, how well you oxygenated etc. But you got 70% attenuation which isn't terrible on a beer that big. You need to start using tricks like mashing real low and subbing out 10-20% of the grist for simple sugars to get a monster beer to still finish out dry. yes this is that one maybe the world is just crying out at me to make it sour. except now its in a keg, and I don't want to occupy my keg for a year. :/I posted the recipe earlier, 14lb pils, 2lb white wheat 2lb 80l crystal. mash as follows : 122 30 min rest 149 30 min rest 158 30 min rest 167 mash out sparge with 176C yeast was just a packet of danstar nottingham, I wasnt worried too much about that because I was originally planning on pitchin brett. oxygen was just splashing vigorously into the bucket, all I ever do.
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Dec 13, 2011 21:23
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mewse posted:why... what... why... ugh I thought I had a safale 05 at home, so I didn't buy one, and didn't discover my mistake until it was yeast pitching time. I was like 'gently caress' and just pitched what I had, figuring I'd add other yeast in like a day, which never happened. I'm just as disappointed in myself / this beer as you probably are, I assure you...
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Dec 13, 2011 22:09
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awesome, I think I got more compliments on my spiced RIPA than any other beer to date. vodka tinctures really work!
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Dec 19, 2011 02:01
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uhhh so, I left a killawatt hooked up to my kegerator for a while, and took a reading 139 hours 2.66kwh used. I think that translates to like 15 cents? that can't be right...
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Dec 20, 2011 21:42
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Hypnolobster posted:This seems right to me. I have an absolutely gigantic very old chest freezer and a 10" tall uninsulated collar for my kegerator and I was drawing dramatically less power than any other fridge or freezer in my house. It only kicks on a few times a day. well, I guess that settles the debate about the actual fridge portion of a kegerator being a major cost consideration!
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Dec 21, 2011 06:04
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a lot of my notes aren't dated for some reason, so I think a couple of these were technically 2010. mindphlux 2010-2011 brewlog
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Dec 29, 2011 10:48
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so basically I brew german beers and american ales with fruit in them hi nice to meet you
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Dec 29, 2011 10:49
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after my horrible blackberry seed incident that took me like 5 hours of nail biting and grueling messy labor to resolve, I've learned never EVER to put large-particulate matter into a keg. worst decision ever.
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Dec 30, 2011 01:45
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haven't brewed since December really - wow. group of friends going to rent a beachhouse on memorial day, we got drunk last weekend, started talking about it, and it clicked in my head that I could brew a keg in record time for our trip. picked up grain today and brewed a batch of relatively generic wheat ale - 6lbs 2row, 3lbs white wheat, 1lb 10l crystal with about 1.5oz a mix of cascade and hallertau hops. 1.048 on the dot, and two packs of safeale 05 are doing the job at 62deg. (hope this isn't too low for a quick ferment...) I meant to add coriander and lemon zest to my brew - guess it's too late for that now though! anyways, good times ahoy - the brew took just 3.5 hours, minimal mess, no stuck mashes - I've got this poo poo down to a science. feels good to get back in the swing of things, and I look like a champ with mah bros. god bless home brewing!
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Apr 24, 2012 07:26
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zerox147o posted:
I bought reconditioned kegs, and poppits were a big issue for me. All of mine had the second type you linked above, and you should definitely get them. But, on my kegs, the feet of the poppits were slightly bent, and my kegs never really sealed properly until I replaced almost all my poppits, redid all the o-rings, and on one I even had to change out the beer out diptube. Don't hesitate to get new parts if you think they might be causing an issue. worst case scenario, you spent 4 bucks and ensured the safety of a $40 batch of beer.
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Apr 24, 2012 16:45
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whatever any of you plan on doing, never, EVER use a vertical 5 or 10 gallon mash tun without a false bottom or filtration set up or anything. the worst brew days of my life involved stuck mashes due to a lack. my current set up is a toilet braid wire mesh thing, and then a cheap metal pot lid false bottom that goes on top and fits the diameter of my cooler perfectly. I just used a dremel to cut little slits in it, and it works amazingly well for 5 bucks. before I had the double safety guard against grain clogging my tubes though, I won't even describe the horrors I had to deal with after 15 pounds of 153 degree grain got stuck and wouldn't drain.
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Apr 25, 2012 03:27
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I need some advice on co2 tanks. I have a 10lb co2 tank, and a couple of old paintball 20oz tanks. I also have a spare adapter like this for my paintball co2 tanks : http://www.discountpaintball.com/Empire-Universal-Paintball-Fill-Adapter-Pro-Gas-Fitting_p_5090.html I'm trying to figure out the cheapest (safe) way I can rig up a connection between my 10lb co2 tank and my paintball tank using that adapter. There are some cheap kits on ebay - but they include the fill adapter - http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-RAGE-Pa...=item2ebfe693f5 - and also I'm not sure what kind of braided metal line they're using there. I obviously don't want to jury rig something that is going to explode in my face the minute I subject it to the pressures in my large co2 tank - and I don't know much about the PSI ratings of various tubing/connectors/etc. Can I pick up some poo poo from homedepot and pull this off?
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May 2, 2014 22:16
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mindphlux posted:I need some advice on co2 tanks. anyone?
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May 6, 2014 03:12
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 17:26 |
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Zaepho posted:Filling a tank from a bulk tank (i.e. in your 10# tank) requires a Dip Tube in the bulk tank to fill the destination tank with liquid CO2 instead of just pressurizing the destination tank with gaseous CO2. You then measure weight as suggested previously to ensure you don't overfill (Also vent the destination tank fully before filling and preferably chill the destination tank to reduce the back-pressure from the gaseous CO2 boiling in it's new found low pressure environment thereby getting you a better fill). Your point about the liquid co2 did occur to me. But, I've seen videos of people using bulk tanks which almost certainly don't have dip tubes installed. or, how do I know if I do have a dip tube installed? would a co2 tank purchased from a homebrew company use one? I am guessing not based on your regulator comment. All that said, my main question I guess is about the type of hoses OK to use with bulk co2 tanks. IE, those braided ones that look like toilet lines - is that ok to hook up to a giant loving 10lb tank of co2 under pressure? If not, what is? can I buy this stuff from a hardware store, or do I need to go specialty shop?
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May 7, 2014 05:08
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