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Just had my first brew day. Thank you for the thread and all of the useful information. Now that I have my first brew day under my belt I have a few questions that I couldn't easily find the answer to. For reference I made a 5 gallon batch of American pale ale. First, I calculated my OG to be 1.049 but it measured in at 1.055. How badly did I miss my mark and how much sweeter will my beer be as a result? While playing with my equipment prior to brew day I noticed that 5 gallons measured with a measuring cup came up significantly higher than the lines on the side of my fermentor indicating 5 gallons. Is this a likely culprit for my higher OG? Next, I don't have my journal with me at the moment so I don't know what yeast strain I pitched off the top of my head. It's a common dried english ale yeast. Starts with an s and ends in -04. I followed how to brews recommendation of boiling 2-3 gallons water and letting it cool in the fermentor while you make your wort. Only problem is, it takes forever to cool in a plastic fermentor. TL:DR, I ended up pitching my rehydrated yeast at 80F when it's recommended fermenting temp is 58-75F. What are the potential consequences and did I ruin a days work by being impatient? Finally, I'm using a single fermentor and I plan to dry hop a week from now. I have roughly a half ounce of combined bittering and finishing hop pellets (warrior and cascade). Any downside to using bittering hops in the process and is there any way to make the pellets more effective or can I just toss them in a sanitized nylon bag and hope for the best? I woke up this morning and my concoction was happily bubbling away. Really excited to see what comes out. Thanks for any input and putting together this great resource.
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Dec 31, 2012 16:59
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Thanks for setting my mind at ease. Now I have a new thing to worry about! I got off work early today and came home to krausen in my air lock. Not filled to the brim but definite evidence of contact. I've since refilled the airlock with sanitizer as the level was definitely getting low. Is my beer ok? Should I remove the entire airlock and clean/sanitize it? I'm really not sure why this happened, I had at least 4 inches of head space and I only used 1 yeast packet instead of How to Brew's recommended 2. Currient Ambient temperature is 70F. Edit: In the time it took me to write this post the sanitizer I added to the air lock has been forced out again. I've refilled it again. Edit2: On the plus side the fumes it's emitting smell like Warrior hops which I have decided is the best smell in the world. I went ahead and cleaned the airlock in hopes that removing the gunk would relieve some of the pressure build up and help my sanitizer stay in there. Seems to be working so far. ZIGfried fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Dec 31, 2012 |
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Dec 31, 2012 20:00
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Trying hard not to be that nervous guy making his first homebrew but I need someone experienced to tell me to chill out. As a reminder I'm making a 1.055 OG pale ale with Safale S-04 yeast. I pitched at 80F, Most of primary sat at 70F and now That I've finally gotten the temp of my apartment under control it's been sitting at 60F for the past 2 days. Going by the airlock (I know not always reliable) I had a hell of a primary. roughly 7 hours of getting Krausen in my airlock and having to refill the sanitizer. After I finally got the temp under control the krausen problem seemed to go away and I had just a vigorous constant bubbling at about 14 hours into the fermentation. The next time I checked on it at about 32 hours in, bubbling had slowed to once every 30 seconds or so where it remains today in the low 60s for temp. I'm worried that it seems primary fermentation lasted for less than 48 hours. I'm tempted to take a gravity reading but my brain is telling me to wait at least a week before doing that.
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Jan 3, 2013 15:01
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Sionak posted:Okay, homebrewing thread: looking for advice again. 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. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f72/berliner-weisse-268935/
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Jan 9, 2013 16:07
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Could anyone talk about what type of beers to brew throughout the year? I just finished my first brew and I'm eager to try a lot of things but ideally I would like to keep the style appropriate for the season.
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Jan 31, 2013 16:43
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rocket USA posted:From what I had read, it seemed like fermenting too quickly produces off flavors/esters/et cetera. It's entirely possible I'm just worrying too much. You are worrying too much. I recently made a pale ale as my first batch. I pitched the yeast 10° too hot and essentially all of primary fermentation took place in the temp range you're describing complete with krausen escaping through my airlock. I bottled it two weeks ago yesterday and broke it out for the superbowl. Even though it's still very young I got a ton of raving over how good it was. No off flavors as far as I could tell. I had a brew day yesterday that went extremely well. I made an irish red that should be ready to crack open in time for st patricks day. I just barely missed my target gravity (thanks to the goon who told me my bucket was half a gallon off.) I also built an immersion chiller with copper tubing for about $35 that chilled my wort from boiling to 70F in about 15 minutes. I sipped the wort from my hydrometer sample and it tasted like really good black tea that had a ton of sugar in it and had steeped a little too long. I'm really excited for it.
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Feb 4, 2013 16:03
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A quick rookie brewer question. The recipe I'm following calls for one week in primary before racking to a secondary. Does this mean 1 week from brew day, 1 week from when primary fermentation began, or 1 week from when it ended?
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Feb 6, 2013 14:48
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bengy81 posted:Usually it means one week from brew day. What are you making? Unless you need to do something special to your beer, like fruit or spice additions, or let it sit for months on end, it probably isn't going to be worth the effort to move it to secondary. Just an extract/steeped grains Irish Red. I don't plan to do anything special beyond what is already done. I was hoping to get a nice clear beer to really showcase the red and I thought a secondary might help me get that.
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Feb 6, 2013 15:20
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I've been reading up on kegging out of curiosity and there's one thing I can't find a good answer on. What do people who keg do about conditioning? The nice part of bottling is each bottle you have is better than the last. I imagine that if you rack to a keg and begin refrigerating immediately that you would greatly slow the rate at which the beer's taste evolves. How do people work around this? Do you let the keg sit at room temp for a month or two before tapping it? Do you just drink your beer before it's fully matured? Or is kegging more for the hoppy beers with tastes that diminish over time?
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Feb 18, 2013 20:06
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Angry Grimace posted:I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. The beer conditions in the refrigerator where the keg is. Conditioning beer warm doesn't offer benefits over cold conditioning; there's a reason lagering is a thing. So say I take two bottles from the same batch that have been allowed to carbonate for two weeks at fermenting temp. If I place one in the fridge for a month and I leave the other one at fermentation temp for a month these two beers will taste exactly the same assuming all other variables besides storage temperature are identical? I have a hard time believing that if that is what you're saying. Like I said just curious if this is an issue or not and what people do to work around it. I know it's not rocket science, no need to be rude.
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Feb 18, 2013 21:56
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bewbies posted:Right now I have two batches in kegs that are lagering at their appropriate lagering temperature. I haven't carbed either of them yet. I'll probably draw a couple of bottles from each and carb those in the bottle so's I can share them with people more easily, but the rest of it will just get carbed in the keg and tapped whenever they're ready. My question revolves around the "tapped when ready" part of your post and I'm starting to realize there is no right answer for this. I was reading stories of people racking to their keg, putting it in their keezer attached to the co2 and enjoying their beer by the end of the week. This seems odd to me because in my (limited) experience my beer just gets better and better the longer it sits at room temp. When I crack one open a week after bottling it's not undrinkable but it is a shadow of the beer it eventually turns out to be. I can't imagine its taste will develop at the same pace while chilled. I feel like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle and was hoping someone who kegs could fill me in. I guess an ideal set up in my mind would be a keezer with three beers on tap and two more filled kegs sitting at room temp, conditioning, waiting for a spot in the keezer. I'm interested in kegging and I'm just trying to learn as much as I can before I decide to make the financial investment.
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Feb 18, 2013 23:20
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Angry Grimace posted:I have no clue what you're construing as "rude." Yea sorry, wasn't exactly directed at you and wasn't really called for anyways. Long day at work etc. Thanks for the answers from everyone and this thread in general. I read this thread often and I always come away with something new I want to try. The last page with the Keezer building tutorial has me really thinking about kegging and I'm trying to decide if that's the next step I want to take or if I want to start dabbling in all grain brewing.
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Feb 19, 2013 01:59
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Imaduck posted:
Congrats on your new keezer. Looks like you got it for a steal. Out of curiosity, why can't both the regulator and the co2 tank be located outside of your freezer? In my experience (non-homebrew) it's pretty common to have the regulator directly attached to the gas tank. I've started a tally of what I need to build my own keezer. The best deal on kegs I've found are pin locks for ~$36 shipped per keg. I get the general impression that ball lock kegs are preferred, any reason in particular? Also, while the collar looks awesome I was hoping to sacrifice that and serve from picnic taps stored in the freezer in order to keep costs down. Does the collar server any purpose besides giving you more room and a place to house some awesome looking taps?
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Feb 21, 2013 01:52
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This weekend I hope to finish my keezer build. I've been hastily trying to build my pipeline and I was wondering what people do to keg condition. For instance, I have a strawberry blonde that sat in primary for two weeks, in secondary on strawberries for a week, and will be three weeks in tertiary this weekend. I'm really hoping to have it ready for fourth of july so what's my best course of action once I rack to the keg? Should I add priming sugar and let it sit for the next month at room temp or should I keep it hooked up to CO2 in the keezer? Does it matter?
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Jun 4, 2013 14:57
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Quick question for those of you with keezers. I've had my beers carbing in my keezer for two weeks now and finally tapped into them. I've got my controller set to 38° which results in a bottle of water in the keezer constantly at 40°but my beer is coming out at about 49°. Is it normal for the kegs to be so much warmer than their surroundings? I'm pretty confident that after two weeks that they've pretty much hit equilibrium as far as temperature is concerned. I've begun to lower my controller setting but I'm mildly afraid of freezing my beer, particularly in the serving line. Any advice?
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Jun 24, 2013 17:45
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Looking for some home made stir plate help for the electronically impaired. I followed a pretty common stir plate build involving a rheostat that works well except the rheostat gets ridiculously hot. I housed the electronics in a cigar box and I'm wondering what I need to do to get the heat under control so I can sleep without worry of burning alive. I'm pretty sure the rheostat I bought is under sized after doing some research. I have a 25 ohm 3 watt rheostat. A 12 volt power supply and the fan pulls 0.53 amps By my math this generates 6.36 watts. If I buy a larger rheostat rated for this wattage will it stop producing ridiculous amounts of heat?
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Nov 4, 2013 16:26
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I used my new propane burner last night to boil 8 gallons of water and build up a layer of aluminum oxide on my new aluminum pot. It took about 40 minutes to get to boiling with me periodically increasing the flame as I got more impatient. When I got it to a boil I turned down the burner as low as I could while still maintaining a boil. After an hour long boil I had used 6.5 pounds of propane and boiled off 1.5 gallons of water. Is this normal? Seems like most people with a burner are reaching a boil in under 20 minutes. If it takes this much gas for a brew day I'll likely need to buy a second propane tank. I was also wondering if too hot of a flame will scorch my sugars.
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Nov 16, 2013 19:29
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When mashing I've heard two conflicting rules of thumb. Is it more important to keep a grist ratio around 1.25qt/lb of grain or try to keep your run off volumes equal? This will be for a single batch sparge.
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Nov 19, 2013 21:12
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zedprime posted:Think of the ratio as more of a minimum, I haven't heard of people being too thin. Too thick is asking for trouble. I'm actually a huge fan of calculus but yes I've decided on a single batch sparge mainly for the time and effort it saves. Here are my numbers if you would care to tell me I'm on the right track. Grain mass: 11 lbs Strike water: 4.75 gallons Grist thickness: 1.73 qt/lb Grain absorption (assuming .12gal/lb) : ~1.25 gallons Sparge volume: 3.5 gallons Runoff 1=Runoff 2 = 3.5 gallons Total boil volume = 7 gallons I boiled some water last weekend and got a boil off of 1.5 gal/hr so I figure if I make a recipe for 5.5 gal of beer I'll be able to leave a half gallon in the fermenter for trub and such. Does it look like I'm on the right track? I know I'm sperging here but I'm really excited for my first batch and want to eliminate as many gently caress ups as possible. I won't even go into my water chemistry numbers.
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Nov 20, 2013 16:14
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Brewed a red rye last week and came out 10 points low on the OG. Usually I can figure out why my efficiency takes a hit but I'm really puzzled this time. My grind was good (milled the rye twice.) Recipe was made with more than enough diastatic power. My mash stayed between 153 to 150 for over an hour. Sparge water may have been a bit hotter than usual (185) but I'm under the impression that shouldn't hurt my efficiency. Boil volume was exactly as calculated. The only thing I can think of is I didn't measure my mash pH. My meter is a jankey pain in the rear end and after several all grain batches I stopped using it opting to just trust the numbers I get from Bru'n water. It's never given me trouble before and I've always gotten good results. The resulting og is still 1.050 so it should still be a (hopefully) tasty beer. I'm just annoyed I can't pinpoint the cause in case I want to remake this one.
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Nov 1, 2014 23:53
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I'm reading up on black and tan fluid dynamics and coming across different theories on why the separation occurs. Some say it's the relative FG's of the two beers and some say it's the gas used in the beer (nitrogen on top CO2 on the bottom). Both seem to make sense. I was wondering if anyone has successfully made a home brew black and tan. I don't have a nitro set up and personally don't care for beer on nitrogen so I'm particularly interested in the gravity theory. Does anyone know what the difference in gravity Ideally should be? I've got a dry stout at 1.009 and an oktoberfest at 1.013 that I'm going to experiment on when they're both carbed.
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Nov 4, 2014 17:36
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Kegging is super easy and I highly recommend it. I started after about 4 bottled batches when I realized bottling was by far the least enjoyable part of the hobbey. The main challenge with kegging is buying or building something to distribute the beer out of. This is usually some form of Keezer or Kegerator. I just found an old chest freezer on Craigslist, affixed a wooden collar between the lid and unit to house the taps, and got a temperature controller to keep it at the ideal beer serving temperature. Homebrewtalk has a ton of guides and threads with keezer construction info. There are two types of kegs, assuming you're thinking of the 5 gallon Cornelius kegs. They are ball lock and pin lock, the difference refers to the gas in/liquid out posts and what type of quick disconnects they use. Pin locks are usually cheaper but require a special wrench to undo the posts to avoid damaging them. One can easily be fashioned from a socket and a dremel. Info for this is online too. The two types of kegs also differ in footprint size with I believe pinlock being larger. I bought my keys before I bought my chest freezer so I could see if they all fit prior to purchasing. Added bonus you can put beer in them and treat them as a secondary/tertiary fermenter during Keezer construction. Other than that you need a CO2 tank (5 or 10 pound), a tank regulator, and a manifold to get the CO2 to all your kegs and you're basically good to go. Kegging is super easy, instead of filling a bottling bucket you just rack into the keg, purge the keg with CO2, and leave the keg to get cold at your serving pressure for about 3 weeks. There's a bit more to it but that's enough info to get you pointed in the right direction. I bought my kegs used from a dude selling them in Florida. I got 8 of them for about 30 bucks a keg. I have yet to come close to having all 8 filled (in a week I'll be filling a fourth one) but one thing I noticed is as time goes on, kegs become more scarce and valuable. Because of this I didn't hesitate to go overboard knowing I'd always be able to at least make my money back.
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Nov 9, 2014 16:48
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You boiled water in it to oxidize the pot right? I just use soap and water
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Nov 9, 2014 17:22
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Thinking of dry hopping my latest batch of apfelwein. Planning on an ounce of Citra for 4 days before kegging. Anyone other recommendations for juicy/fruity hop varieties that would go well with fermented Apple juice?
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Nov 13, 2014 16:40
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Jo3sh posted:Speaking of apfelwein, I did a batch a while ago with some cranberry-raspberry juice to add color and flavor. Then the word "rhubabrb" wandered through my field of vision, might have been in this thread - or not. Has anyone done a cider with rhubarb? Two Towns cider house makes a rhubarb/apple cider called Rhubarbarian that I can get in Minnesota. It is quite tart and dry. Definitely refreshing but I doubt I could drink more than one in a sitting.
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Nov 13, 2014 19:34
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CDN DTQ450X ProAccurate Quick-Read Thermometer https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0021AEAG2/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_eYzzub0X1J9DC This worked great for me. Also Amazon has a deal from now till the new year. 20% off certain Extech measuring equipment. I was looking at pH meters after my last brew.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:15
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DontAskKant posted:You mean the yellow etekcity 0.05ph meter for $18.95? The #1 seller? Never seen that product before. Looks like for $20 you can get one that goes to an accuracy of 0.01 Anyone have experience with them? Looks like you calibrate with a screwdriver which is a bit of a pain but the price is right.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:33
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So bummed.... Tapped my Oktoberfest this Saturday and went to pour one tonight. Open the chest freezer and 5 gallons of oktoberfest in the bottom of my keezer and an empty CO2 tank. My first lager, 3 months down the drain. Still trying to figure out where it went wrong. No obvious signs of splashing or leakage. It held pressure just fine until I hooked up the liquid out quick disconnect so it has to be a malfunction on that end.
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Nov 18, 2014 03:55
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My suggestion would be to replace the lines if you can figure out how to disconnect them.
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Nov 24, 2014 05:28
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McSpergin posted:I just want to add my 2 cents on a general thing after seeing so many people on Instagram/brewing forums. Also a general guide for new Brewers. Adding to this, I just recently started developing my own recipes after making the switch to all grain a year ago. I wish I had done it from the start. Using style guidelines for OG, FG, IBU, and color it's really easy to make your version of any style. Beersmith will calculate all of this for you even if you're doing extract brews. Not all of my creations have been great but I've never made a beer that people refuse to drink. Some of my beers have been delicious and there's an extra sense of pride knowing that I built it from the ground up.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:35
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Seph posted:Just had my first sip of beer out of my new kegerator. Having homebrew on draft is a wonderful, wonderful thing. If anyone is on the fence about getting a kegerator I'd absolutely recommend it. I made the jump to kegs before making the jump to all grain. No regrets. After three batches of bottling I was so done with that part of home brewing
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Dec 6, 2014 18:56
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I was under the impression a refractometer couldn't be used post fermentation but I have admittedly not looked too deep into it.
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Dec 7, 2014 18:32
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Hauki posted:I reaaally want to get a kegging setup going in our basement pantry area, but I think my girlfriend might actually kill me. She already cracks jokes constantly about how much space I take up with cellaring & brewing as is, and I can't really blame her. You just have to convince her that she benefits from it too.
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Dec 9, 2014 05:28
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Is this for extract or all grain? A couple of thoughts: Very high sodium: This is the worst part of that first water profile. I go by the rule of thumb of keeping sodium under 60ppm. If I'm reading it correctly that water is at 193 ppm. That means you'd have to make a 25:75 tap to RO water mix just to be at the high end of my limit. At this point I'd probably just go pure RO water and build my own profile. High sodium is sour and harsh tasting and can be poisonous to yeast. Low Calcium: Calcium has a very mild effect on flavor. It's main purpose is for healthy yeast. Calcium would have to be added for just about every beer. Current levels may be acceptable for some lagers. High alkalinity: Best for dark beers if you're brewing all grain. Light beers obviously still possible with acid addition. High Chloride to Sulfate ratio: Favors malty beers as opposed to hoppy beers. All in all I would just recommend going with the second option and building your profiles from scratch. If you're doing all grain, you'll need a number for alkalinity and you'll most definitely have to add to it, especially when brewing dark beers. If you're doing extract don't worry about hardness. https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge Fantastic resource and spreadsheet I use for my water profile needs.
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Dec 10, 2014 16:30
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The yeast still do a lot of work after the initial crazy bubbling. Did the beer have a krausen when you transferred it? A week seems like a crazy short amount of time to keep in primary. How long did it stay in the secondary? Incomplete fermentation is the most likely culprit. Add others have said you'll never know for sure until you can measure your OG/FG and make sure the FG is either where you expect it to be or that it isn't changing over time. I personally don't use a secondary unless I'm doing something like a fruit addition. I say it's for sanitation purposes but it's actually because I'm lazy. Beer tastes fine to me.
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Dec 11, 2014 18:57
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Has anyone tried Odell's double pilsner? It's 8.1% abv and 100% crisp, clean, and delicious. I tried one at a beer festival and have not been able to find it in the store. Definitely a style I want to try and make.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:56
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vulturesrow posted:Yeah I should've specified, I was using a bucket. I'm soaking it in warm water and some oxiclean. Used a washcloth to get the remaining crud off that didn't rinse off. Don't let it sit too long. Water is very hard where I'm from and if it cools off/sits too long some salts start to precipitate out.
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Dec 19, 2014 19:24
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Does anyone have any tips to "doubling" a recipe? I basically multiplied all the grains and hops by a factor of 1.5 to give me an OG of 1.070 while maintaining the bitterness ratio. Planning on using a starter.
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Jan 22, 2015 15:17
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internet celebrity posted:What kind of beer is it? It might be a better idea to only increase the base malt and leave all the specialty malts the same. You'll get a significant increase in malt character just by adding base malt so it could come out overpowering if you increase everything else too. An Irish Red. Original grain bill is 85.7% 2 row. The remaining grain bill is made up of 4 specialty malts. I had considered doing just the base malt to keep the beer the same color but was worried I'd lose the malty flavor that I love in Irish reds. I'll follow your advise. I think I'd rather be on the subtle Irish red flavor side as opposed to overpowering. Thanks. I'm on point upping the hops to keep the bitterness ratio constant right? Edit: I've also lowered mash temp from 152 to 150 in order to get a predicted FG from beersmith of 1.014. This is still 2 units higher than the original recipe but I'm hoping the extra residual sweetness will work with the higher abv. I could be way off here but that's why I'm posting :P ZIGfried fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 16:41
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 03:31 |
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So I went ahead with that double Irish red yesterday and had a pretty frustrating brew day. New rollers for the mill at the home brew store and I noticed right away that the grain was milled very fine. Despite this realization I didn't think to add rice hulls which I realize now probably should have been in a recipe this big anyways. Queue impossibly stuck mash, low efficiency, and about a half gallon of grain flour in my boil/fermenter. I wanted to dump it out but being about four hours into a brew day I decided to see how it turns out. At the very least it will be a good lesson in astringency. My question is, would rice hulls really make a difference in this case and is there any reason not to throw .25-.50 pounds of rice hulls in every brew?
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Feb 1, 2015 18:32
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