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So I brewed an all centennial IPA and due to schedule conflicts with my brew-compatriots, we dry-hopped for 3 weeks instead of 1 week. After bottling and carbing, everything appeared to be well except it seemed super bitter with a weird aftertaste that I couldn't really place. I didn't notice any sanitation issues, but it just seemed like all the oils had dissipated basically. I think it was probably the over length of dry-hopping in buckets, but I can't seem to put my finger on it. Maybe it's just the flavor of loading up on all centennial. Thoughts?
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Dec 12, 2011 20:50
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:02 |
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indigi posted:Dry-hopping for too long doesn't contribute any bitterness or hop flavor (although the intensified hop aroma can lead to a greater perception of flavor), but it can add some grassy or vegetal flavors and aromas, which it doesn't sound like you got here. It could very well be high amounts of Centennial, it's a very potent hop with lots of citrus (and potentially cat piss) aromatics. I've had all-centennials before from my local microbrew that I really enjoyed. I just figured a lot of those oils that contribute the aromatics might've dissipated only leaving the bitter compounds. I dunno, maybe my amounts were out of whack and I got the negative out of it. 
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Dec 13, 2011 03:33
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Super Rad posted:How old is your beer? Are you carbing in bottles? I've noticed a lot of the greener flavors as well as some of the bitterness will start to subside once your beer has been carbonated and then chilled for a few weeks - if you've been letting them self carb and then cooling them on demand that may explain why those green grassy flavors aren't going away - refrigerate them longer. Right on. I will give that a try.
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Dec 13, 2011 17:44
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Jo3sh posted:I've noticed a lot of the brass parts for sale near me are labelled as lead-free, just as a point of interest. That probably just means they're using some other metal, like cadmium or something. I did a lot of research on parts and it seems to me that most of the lead scare from brass parts is overblown. I looked into the food safety of brass fittings and it was mostly seen as an extreme precautionary measure.
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Dec 18, 2011 14:46
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crazyfish posted:I can't find the thread, but there was someone on homebrewtalk that wanted to brew a beer with his dead wife's ashes.  I remember that. So hosed up.
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Dec 19, 2011 00:48
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Ok, so I have a stupid question that has been bugging me for a long time. I've been brewing pretty regularly for about a year--starting with 5g batches obviously. About 5mo ago, my buddies and I have moved to 10g batches and have had one hell of a time managing water volumes for mashing and boiling. I'm not sure if I am having trouble sparging with an appropriate amount of water. We regularly end up with a very close expected OG, but with much less wort volume (usually 8.5-9g out of the calculating 10). Obviously diluting with top-up water would highlight our less efficient mashing and lower abv, so we rarely do so. I'm confused as to why I end up with so much less wort while using recommended/calculated amounts of water. How do you guys refine your processes to gain accuracy with volumes? Am I just not calculating the amount of loss in my system appropriately? What is the easiest way to measure this?
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Dec 30, 2011 17:24
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Wow. Keg connection looks to have pretty awesome prices. Are those not including kegs? Their basic kits are very very cheap compared to other places. They mix/match with phone call, yes?
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Jan 3, 2012 03:28
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Bad Munki posted:Definitely yes. A friend who lurks this thread got his four-tap setup through them, and swapped out for a different regulator, perlick faucets, and all stainless shanks. Definitely yes to 'not including kegs,' or to customizability? They have a 1 keg basic kit that's like 79$ and that seems low if it includes a keg. Also--pin-lock or ball-lock? What's the consensus?
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Jan 3, 2012 04:32
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being new to kegging, they have a killer deal on kits with 20oz CO2 tanks. Is this even a useful amount of gas or should I just spring for the 5lb tank? Or bigger?
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Jan 3, 2012 05:10
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Bad Munki posted:5lb is the "normal" size for most bars, I think. You LHBS will both sell and fill 5lb tanks, almost certainly. If you buy a used one, you can just swap it at your LHBS for a full one. Your case may be different, but I'm pretty sure my LHBS doesn't do anything with non-5-lb. tanks. I don't have a local homebrew store here in charleston. I'm not sure exactly where I'd be going to fill--probably a paintball store or something. Ok not sure what kind of tank they can fill though. Hmmm.
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Jan 3, 2012 05:23
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Does anyone here have experience with weldless bulkheads for keggles? I just got a second keg to replace 10gal drink cooler as mash tun, and i'm looking to get a set of two bulkheads to put ball-valves on each. I've thought about getting them plumbed at a local welding place, but if it's easier and/or cheaper to go weldless, i'd like to do it. I just don't want it to be of lovely, leaky quality.
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Jan 3, 2012 19:36
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deebo posted:Basically just a stainless steel container with an element and tap (usually heats water for coffee/tea in catering places). It's handy as I can use a temp controller and electrical timer to preheat my strike water before I wake up, also use it to heat for mashout and then pull bag and boil. I think he's just saying that it looks more expensive and complicated than just making a mash tun.
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Jan 14, 2012 15:12
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ordered designing great beers tonight thanks to a 20$ amazon gift card from my future mother-in-law. pretty psyched to get it.
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Jan 18, 2012 04:51
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First time using WLP002....Holy chunks! I was concerned at first at the level of chunking with the yeast reproduction, but found out it was common.
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Jan 20, 2012 15:26
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rage-saq posted:Yeast produces heat during fermentation, so your in-fermenter temp will also be higher than what your ambient is, typically 6-7f. Keeping a steady and optimal fermentation temperature is one of THE most important steps when making beer. I've been using a swamp cooler for awhile, and if you do it indoors with a pretty reasonable temp (70 or so), and get an initial temp, it's really easy to maintain a solid 65-70 without interruption. It isn't perfect, but it's better than just letting it run wild.
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Jan 20, 2012 17:20
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Sirotan posted:What does this keep the temp at? And what is your air temp generally? Might have to do this the next time I want to ferment something below 70, I don't have the space or the $$$ to be buying fridges. It's pretty easy to keep temps below 70. You won't have super control over it, but it works well to dissipate the heat produced by fermentation and maintain it throughout. Put like 10 or 15 water bottles in the freezer a week before and just swap them out 5 at a time.
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Jan 20, 2012 18:27
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10gal brewday of a new brown i put together, with dark belgian candi and brown sugar. Surpassed target OG with a bit of a modified continuous sparge/batch sparge hybrid (ladled in the sparge water, but used a prescribed amount, then drained the grain bed instead of ladling until 1.008). Turned out great. No complications. Psyched to get that bitch bottled.
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Jan 22, 2012 23:53
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Story: 1) Beer Zero: Nut Brown Ale from extract. Stubbornly decided to brew in my apartment. 7gal turkey fryer pot and a cooler full of ice. We made no reasonable considerations for cooling, assuming it would be easy with some ice in a cooler. The beer turned out with tons of off flavors from lovely cooling, cardboard-like taste with the lovely extract bill and we hosed up the timing because we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. But I was hooked. 2)Beer One: Pliny Clone Huge hops, extract + steeping grains, wonderful beer. Everything turned out well, just slightly overcarbed. Decided then and there to go all grain. All Grain Bonanza....beers two (first one doesn't count) through 10 Built mash tun, got wort chiller, and continued in the 7gal for awhile. We have cranked out 8 beers of improving quality. Moved to 10g batches in keggles. Started yeast washing and making big starters--which has saved us lots of money. I did open a stray one of the first browns, and it was so bad I had to pour it out. That's when I knew we were improving exponentially with each beer. Next steps: march pumps, RIMS tube, plate chiller. Eventually I would like to save and get out West to brew school. My fiance' loves beer and loves my hobby. It's a pipe dream, but myself and my brew buddies want to eventually open a small commercial brewery. Hopefully it isn't too saturated here to do so by the time we have enough capital. LeeMajors fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jan 26, 2012 |
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Jan 26, 2012 15:31
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Jo3sh posted:Hell, open a brewery in Southern California. There's a crapload of good beer in San Diego, but everything in between there and San Francisco is a freaking wasteland. You would think Los Angeles would have a huge beer scene, but you would be wrong. There are a few tiny breweries around but as far as I can tell, each one is selling to about four accounts. The Bruery seems to be doing well in Placentia. Firestone-Walker is in Paso Robles, in the middle of the state, and that's pretty much it between Stone and Anchor. There's still a huge vacuum here in SC because the beer laws have only moved from draconian to semi-draconian. Also, while they are a few good breweries here in Charleston, all but one are in their relative infancy--including Westbrook, which was built by a rich kid's dad with no outside investors, and he regularly cranks out a thin, lovely IPA and other horrid stylistic abortions. Coast is pretty phenomenal, but hasn't enjoyed much success beyond the region. We do have the best bottle shop in the US according to RateBeer (CBX represent) and an exploding beer-bar scene. I don't know, maybe it's ripe for the taking if we can put out quality beer on a large scale.
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Jan 26, 2012 18:05
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Jacobey000 posted:^^^ 3 cups? Holy loving mother of god.  Yeah...those should've been bottle bombs at like 3hrs. All of them.
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Jan 27, 2012 03:00
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chiz posted:the gently caress is wrong with people/businesses? one oz per 5gallons of sanitized water....32 sessions. although, depending on needs, i occasionally sanitize more than 5g at a time.
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Jan 27, 2012 04:40
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global tetrahedron posted:stuff Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but the krausen falling isn't necessarily the best indicator. The only real way to tell that fermentation is complete is with a beer thief and hydrometer. Having said that, I would give that another week if it were my beer.
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Jan 27, 2012 23:23
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So I'm meeting up with this dude tomorrow that's selling lots of stuff from I guess his father's estate. Says he had tons of brewing and soda making equipment. I'm hoping to find some corny kegs, regulators or CO2 tanks for cheap. Anything else I should look out for? Pumps?
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Jan 30, 2012 00:44
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Docjowles posted:Huge disclaimer: I have only ever batch sparged. That said, I don't see a compelling reason to switch to fly sparging. You're adding like 45 minutes to your brewday in return for saving 50 cents worth of base malt, and also the chance of wrecking that efficiency with channeling in the grain bed or screwing up your flow rate. The whole process seems needlessly fussy compared to "dump in hot water, stir, drain, grats you are done". I've been using a hybrid technique...with a prescribed amount of water like a batch sparge, but sparging slowly through a perforated plate and maintaining that 2" water cushion over the grain bed. I've only done it twice, but I have exceeded my expected efficiency both times.
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Jan 31, 2012 14:53
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Jo3sh posted:I boil off almost 2 gallons an hour in my typical process, and I could do a lot more if I cranked it up. That's in a half-barrel kettle and a ten gallon batch, over a high-power burner turned down to a low but rolling boil. That's a big boiloff. I think I lose less than a gallon in a half barrel kettle with a 10g batch. I'm at sea level on the coast with high humidity, which seems to lower the rate of evaporation.
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Feb 1, 2012 21:20
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Jo3sh posted:Looks pretty good to me. I would ditch the sanitizer they include and add some Star-San and maybe some PBW - those are the best sanitizer and cleaner, respectively, on the market. Also save yourself some heartache and get an autosiphon. If you're not wedded to that kit or vendor, I think Northern Brewer has a kit that is really, really good - you might want to check that out. So true. Starsan makes sanitation a breeze--you just have to be diligent and make sure everything that touches post-boil beer touches starsan first. It is an amazing product.
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Feb 3, 2012 21:13
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TheKingPuuChuu posted:Can take less time if you add salt to the ice bath. Or do both and cut in half. Boil to 65 in less than ten with a huge ice bath and a wort chiller.
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Feb 4, 2012 16:50
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withak posted:edit: I did remember to close the kitchen window right next to the ice water bath. I always cool outside, with the lid off and have never had any infection issues.
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Feb 5, 2012 03:57
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Cinnamon Bastard posted:Oh. Right. Bottles. For bottling. The things I don't have for that thing I have to do in about two weeks. Start. Drinking. Heavily. Cures all ills. Including this one.
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Feb 6, 2012 15:00
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All grain sounds intimidating and it is more involved, but it is definitely the right move to make. I'm on AG batch number 8 at the moment (bottled tonight) and although the learning curve is high, you can make good beer. I missed my target FG bc I mashed too high by about 3*, but the beer is still delicious and I learned from my mistakes. The leap in equipment isn't huge if you can get your hands on a cooler. Early Papazian books advocated making a mash tun by stacking two buckets, with the upper having holes drilled in the bottom. You can improvise and make decent beer.
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Feb 7, 2012 03:54
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So I'm in need of a bit of troubleshooting advice. My two most recent IPAs have been hosed up and undrinkable. I brew with two friends of mine in 10g batches and tend to do things together. The first one was left dry-hopped for too long (almost a month) because of scheduling conflicts and ended up with a funky taste. We attributed it to that issue and moved on. The second one was a little thin in mouthfeel, but was fine in general. When we bottled another beer the other day, it was brought to my attention that one of my buddy's entire batch tasted the same as the first. Mine were all fine. That is, until I got home and opened my next to last one, and it tasted identical. What should I look for as a sign of oxidation? I thought it was odd that mine all tasted fine, albeit thin, when fresh--but only later tasted awful. I've looked at off-flavor guides, and haven't found anything describing exactly what I tasted. Also, I should note that we have not had this taste AT ALL with any of our maltier beers--which since then have been two browns, a red and a barleywine.
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Feb 9, 2012 00:49
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Jo3sh posted:So what is the difference in the recipes? Different base grains? Different mash process? Were the IPAs brewed after the other beers, or were they interleaved? Are there any of the maltier beers left? Big differences in malts along the way...even between the IPAs. The IPAs were sequential, but we've brewed a few since. There were no real differences other than switching to a hybrid sparge technique after the second IPA, but I'm not sure how that would affect the beer pre boil. That's what was so concerning to me--that two similar SRM and gravity beers with very different hop and grain profiles turned out exactly the same. The first happened immediately, the second was after some time. Furthermore, I would've expected a systematic oxidation or infection issue to have appeared in other beers. I'm pretty stumped. Might be doing a huge hose replacement and equipment sanitation/cleaning day soon.
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Feb 9, 2012 01:22
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j3rkstore posted:Oh wow, I'm loving their counterflow chiller. I might be picking that up soon. Are counterflow chillers a lot more effective? Do you have to recirculate back into your kettle, or how does that work exactly? Can they only work with pumps?
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Feb 9, 2012 17:21
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Angry Grimace posted:I was wondering, however, if there's something preventing you from just sticking the sanitized hydrometer right in the bucket if you're using a bucket rather than a carboy. This is what I do. gently caress wasting beer in a thief.
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Feb 11, 2012 21:04
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Do any of you guys use a banjo burner with keggles? Specifically the KAB4 or 6? I worry about the stability of the arms on top with 10g of beer and a rounded bottom.
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Feb 13, 2012 19:18
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drewhead posted:I use a KAB4 with a converted Sanke keg. The only difference in the 4 and the 6 is the 6 has a heavy duty stand built for larger pots. I think their literature says ~30G. The KAB4 is just fine for converted kegs. I'm not sure what you fear about stability. The skirt of the sanke keg fits on the arms of the burner, not the convex bottom inside the skirt. With it's low profile and four contact points it's pretty hard to get more stable than a sanke sitting on a KAB4. EXCELLENT. This is what I was hoping for. I thought it might've been the convex bottom that made contact with the stand. Good deal.
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Feb 13, 2012 20:45
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Any recommendations for cheap containers housing bulk grain? My gang and I finally jerry-rigged a corona mill. Efficiency was awesome, we just need to get bulk grains and store them appropriately.
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Feb 21, 2012 15:21
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Cointelprofessional posted:A free freezer off of craigslist? is it preferable to freeze them? if that's the case, i don't freeze anything--i could just use my regular freezer.
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Feb 21, 2012 16:22
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Jo3sh posted:I use blue poly shipping barrels with sealing lids. I got them on Craigslist in exchange for a few bottles of homebrew. I guess they are 30-ish gallons, and each holds a sack of grain nicely. right on, i've already found some locally with screw on lids.
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Feb 21, 2012 16:46
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:02 |
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mewse posted:Yeah I've caught myself explaining homebrewing a couple times where I realize the person I'm talking to has glazed over their eyes and can't absorb anymore. It took you and me a while to learn how it works, we can't expect someone else to really understand after a 5 minute talk Yeah, but it's pretty bad for them to ask specific questions, then tune you out when you start talking.
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Feb 24, 2012 16:32
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