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PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Anyone have recommendations for places to buy keg o-rings? I can't imagine one set costing $3.50 is right

PoopShipDestroyer fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Sep 18, 2011

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PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Tedronai66 posted:

McMaster Carr.

AS568a orings. The sizes you will need are:

Corny lid (the big one): 417 Silicone or Buna-N (half the cost of silicone) will work.
Post: 111
Dip tube: 109

All silicone would cost you roughly $1.98 per replacement (shipping is not included in this, as McM does not include shipping cost until they charge you for your order. In my limited experience with them, they put as many as they can into a box (it's just bags of orings), and it's around 5bux shipped.

Using Buna-N for the big o-ring drops that to ~$1.45 pre-shipping.

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Does anyone have any recommendations for online homebrew stores that actually let you order things by the ounce?

Brewmaster's Warehouse is cheap, let's you order down to the ounce, and has good prices on most things, but I can't keep ordering from them anymore because their orders just take too long to get out the door. I submitted an order on saturday afternoon (they're open saturdays till 6pm) and now, 2.5 full working days later, they still haven't shipped my order. I've tolerated it in the past, but I think I'm done with them.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Brewmasters Warehouse actually sent me an email a couple hours ago to inform me that one of the items I ordered was out of stock (even though the website says nothing) and that it took them 2 days to figure that out. I'll be staying away from that site for a little bit, I think.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Globochem posted:

My batch has been fermenting for about five days now and I'm very concerned about keeping the temperature down. I'm in Texas where we're still getting regular 100+ days and for the most part all I've been able to do is keep a fan on the fermenter.

I just realized I had a container that the bucket could fit into, would it be a bad idea to put the fermenter in the container with a little bit of water and an ice pack? Is it too late? Would a drastic temperature swing do more harm than good?

I can't wait until this is all over and I can learn from my experiences.

Whenever my fridge is full up with kegs, I just fill a large 15 gallon tuberware container with water and drop in my ferementer so that the water line is where the 5 gallon mark is on the fermenter. Then I cycle out ice parks / frozen coke bottles of water every so often to keep the temperature where I want it.

As for if you should do it now, I'd say it depends on how far along your fermentation is. 5 days at ~90 heat, I highly doubt it's even worth bothering with at this point.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

ifuckedjesus posted:

I imagine that everyone is already aware of this but hopsdirect is going to have their 2011 crop for sale on 10/5. Those of you that buy hops by the LB - how do you usually store it?

Every so often a deal pops up in the thread for a vacuum food sealer. Something like this came up a couple months ago for $35 or so, and everyone jumped on it instantly. A great purchase

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

BerkerkLurk posted:


You could also buy bricks of compressed grapes to make "grape juice." Also you couldn't buy wine, but grape buying flourished.

You left out the best part of this story! The outside packaging of these bricks actually had instructions written on them:

Time Magazine in 1931 posted:

Instructions came in the form of warnings against dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, adding sugar, shaking daily and decanting after three weeks. Unless the buyer eschewed these processes, 13%, wine would be produced. Vino Sano's "Don'ts" were designed to prove that the intent of each sale was not to violate the law.

edit: Found the actual text:

quote:

The grape concentrate was sold with a warning: "After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine."

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Anyone have any general water tweaking recommendations for fixing what I can really only describe as a really boring, flat hop flavor? It looks like my sulfate levels are pretty low at 15 ppm, so I'm going to try and aim for about 75 ppm in my next hoppy beer. My chloride is pretty low too - 22 ppm, so I'm going to bump that up to about 50.

Part of the problem is that it seems pretty tough to find any sources online that aren't either too general or way too specific.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Uck, secondaries - the scourge of homebrewing instructions

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
You didn't mention if you actually cleaned the actual inside of the keg you used. Did you just spray it down or did you do a proper oxyclean soak? I doubt old o-rings would impart that much flavor.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Those cornies that have only a handle and no collar should be the standard.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I'm reading this most recent BYO magazine, and I guess in last months Jamil Zainasheff posted a recipe for a maibock with an OG of 1.070 and recommended a 4 gallon starter. Someone thought it was a mistake and BYO said it wasn't:

"It takes a lot of yeast to brew a high-gravity lager.....a 4 gallon yeast starter for a 5 gallon batch of Maibock"

This is just Jamil being crazy with yeast again, right? Come on, a 4 gallon starter?

More specifically, he said "5 packages of yeast into a 15 liter starter"

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
To be clear I don't actually plan on making that recipe, I just saw the reader comments about it and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I think I'm bothered by the whole thing because, yes, I'm sure there is a lot of science behind it, but there is a difference between things that are achievable on a homebrew scale and things required on a commercial level.

With a 4 gallon starter, you're never going to be able to use a stir plate with something like that unless you have multiple stir plates. I feel like if he was just simplifying it for people who don't have stir plates / haven't gotten into yeast starters yet, why didn't he just say something like "you should brew a 1.048 lager with this yeast first, then pitch directly on top it's yeast cake."

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I think it is important to get across how important it is to get so much lager yeast, but from the looks of it, lots of people mistook "15 liter starter" for "1.5 liter starter" which is exactly what I would have done had I read that original recipe, especially since BYO makes tons and tons of typos on their recipes. One line like "brewers using stirplates can create a X liter starter instead" or anything like that would clear up the confusion.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Plastic Jesus posted:

This has been sitting in a carboy for a little over 4 weeks, at a pretty much constant temp of 65F:

code:
1 1/2 lbs 2 row
1 1/2 lbs Victory
1 1/2 lbs Cara Pils
7 lbs Dark malt extract

Yeast: Safale 05
It's still bubbling several times a day. Should I let it continue until I don't see any activity at all, or am I good to go ahead and bottle?

4 weeks seems like a long time for US-05 even at 64*, what do your gravity readings say?

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I like the idea, but to make things easier on the yeast front, why don't you just do 3 two gallon batches? One gallon is only going to net you maybe 8-9 bottles of beer if you're lucky anyways.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

the yellow dart posted:

Anyone have experience with any of the electric turkey fryers out there in terms of using them for brewing? I found a good price for this turkey fryer: http://www.brucefoods.com/mystOre/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=154&idcategory=28

I'm just unsure if it would get to the temperatures required for a boil since it doesn't note how much power the element puts out to heat the oil with. I'd love to get something like this for all-grain brewing in my apartment but I'm apprehensive given the lack of details.

I have a really weak stovetop so I spent a bit of time researching this a year or so ago. Basically, as far as I was concerned, these weren't an option. From what I understand, even though the fryer has the ability to bring oil to ~400*, it's harder to bring water up to boiling because the heat capacity for water (the amount of energy required to change the temperature of a substance) is higher than oil. Depending on the electric fryer you buy your success will probably range from complete disaster to barely manageable. This guy ran some tests with the fryer you linked and starting at 76* water temp it took him almost an hour and a half to reach boiling.

I don't know what your situation is, but there are probably two options for you:

1) Use your stove and split your batch up into two separate pots for the boil. I use two 6 gallon pots with about 4 gallons in each and split hop additions between the two of them. I also have to put the pots between two burners to get the heat I need to boil. It's all pretty ridiculous, but it works well even though you get higher evaporation rates.

2) Use your stove / buy an electric turkey fryer and supplement it with a heat stick. This seems to be really common, but I'm not really crazy about it because I don't have a good enough understanding of electricity to feel safe dropping a home-made 2000 Watt power source into a vat of water even with a GFI outlet.

PoopShipDestroyer fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Dec 6, 2011

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

indigi posted:

My turkey fryer (Bayou Classic with 7.5 gal pot) gets wort to boiling in under 20 minutes usually. That one must be a really weak burner. With all grain you're usually heating it up from ~150* to boiling, not 75*, so it doesn't take quite so long.

You're talking gas though, right? This has an electric heating coil in it.

I agree you won't be heating from 75* to boiling very often (outside of mash out water in some cases) but he'd also find himself going from 38* to 160* so I was just providing a baseline.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Speaking of books, what's the verdict on the Oxford Companion to Beer? Worth buying?

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Hey Saq, I was using your yeast spreadsheet and it looks like your entry for WY3068 is slightly off. Yours says the temperature range is 68-72 and the WY website says 64-72. I hope it's actually lower than that, because I'm fermenting this weizenbock at 62*.

Not a big deal, but I figured I'd mention it.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

tesilential posted:

I want to brew a pilsner for the spring. Has anyone tried or heard of doing an all Hallertau pils? I have a bunch of it so it would be most economical if I used them. I can also grab a couple ounces of other noble hops from the LHBS if it's really necessary.

Someone here mentioned Tettnanger is an awesome noble as well. Any experiences or opinions?

I'm no German Lager expert, but I have a feeling any sort of noble hop will work just fine with a Pilsner

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I've used aluminum pots for the last 3 years now on dozens and dozens of batches. Nothing wrong with aluminum

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Jacobey000 posted:

Pretty sure I'll be getting a wort chiller soon. I've been looking around and found pretty decently priced Stainless Steel wort chillers. Is there a performance difference between copper and stainless steel? Am lessening my impact of the chiller with stainless steel?

I would think copper is a better idea since it's a better thermal conductor. You could buy one, but I'm absolutely awful at DIY stuff and even I could make a chiller for about 1/3rd the cost of buying one by just following instructions online.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Zakath posted:

Maybe this is a stupid question, but how exactly do you vent the keg?

Pull the little pin on the top of the keg lid

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I've been having some really frustrating low attenuation problems lately despite perfect temperature controls, good mineral levels, low amounts of caramel malts, 50 seconds of pure O2, and lowish mash temperatures. As a result, I think I'm going to experiment with different mash schedules. Does anyone have any recommendations? I was thinking of doing about 45 minutes at 142*, 45 minutes at 162* and then mash out.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
What mash thickness would you recommend? I usually just do the standard 1.25 but thinning that out was another thing I was thinking about doing.

I have some yeast nutrient but it's from a couple years ago, I don't know if that stuff has a shelf life or not.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
My latest problem beer was held at 150* for 80 minutes or so at 1.25 mash thickness. Using a 1.4 liter WYeast 1028 starter (with stirplate) it went loving crazy after 12 hours of yeast reproduction and was down to 1.022 after 4 days @ 62*.

Recipe:



6# marris otter
2# munich
1# Roasted Barley
.5# Crystal 80
.5# Chocolate Malt
.5# Lactose

BeerSmith said it should come out to 1.014 but maybe I overdid it with the roast/crystal/chocolate malts. Not to mention the lactose. I ALWAYS have trouble getting beers down the the FG's I want, though. Even beers like 8# 2-row, 1# crystal with US-05 I struggle to get down as low as I want. It's rare I get a beer below 1.012

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Im pretty sure the beer was done fermenting, it had been the same gravity for 4 days. I use a hydrometer which reads tap water as 1.002 so at most I'm .002 points off and I use one of those awesome thermapen thermometers so I'm pretty confident it's reading accurately.

edit: Just checked my thermapen, both freezing and boiling are reading perfectly.

PoopShipDestroyer fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jan 14, 2012

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
In my experience, cider and any sort of yeast always yields extremely dry hard cider. I've gotten under 1.000 using both champagne yeast and US-05 and this year I tried WYeast's sweet mead and that still brought it down to .998. Cider must be nothing but fermentable sugars.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Imaduck posted:

One more kegging question: Are the chrome Perlick faucets fine, or should I shell out for the stainless steel ones?

I've heard a few times that after using them for a couple years all the chrome gets worn off and there's only one place the chrome could be going. I just shelled out the extra dough for stainless even thought it was painful to spend that much more.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Jacobey000 posted:

Quoting for a new page - want to know if i need to go to the homebrew store tomorrow for keg supplies

The infection part of the post: it's always tough to tell in photos, but nothing about that really screams infection to me. Kinda just looks like bubbles from you moving it around too much or something.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

rage-saq posted:


After that you get into a lot of really half assed inaccurate methods involving tubs of water and changing out frozen bottles of ice. Google son of fermentation chiller and you will see what I'm talking about, IMO they aren't really worth the hassle compared to the two above methods.

Unfortunately, not everyone has enough room for a massive industrial grade restaurant refrigerator

I have a small 2-keg fridge that I use for fermentation whenever my kegs are empty, but living in an apartment I occasionally have to resort to using a 15 gallon tubberware container filled with water and my fermenter placed in that. I find it's fairly accurate, works pretty well and doesn't cost me a dime.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

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.

I live in upstate NY so at this time of year it's 32 degrees outside at most and water comes straight out of the tap at 38*. My usual strategy is to keep it about 2* below where I want it with frozen old 22 oz diet coke bottles and that almost always gets me the temperature I want.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I thought I'd give a little update on the problem I had a little bit ago in case anyone else has similar issues. Basically I was getting really bad attenuation even with most of the obvious factors (low mashing temp, proper mashing time, good yeast, etc) already taken care of.

After a few suggestions I:

1) Increased the mash thickness to 2 qts / lb
2) Added 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to try and get my mash Ph up from 5.2 @ room temperature. It didn't register as being any higher, but whatever.
3) Mashed at 148*
4) Used yeast nutrient

I'm not sure which of those factors did it, but my attenuation was very good this time. 1.064 down to 1.010 and still going on my Citra IPA. It will probably stop at somewhere around 1.008-1.009 which is what I was looking for. Thanks to everyone who put in some advice!

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Local Yokel posted:

I need a good hefeweizen or wit recipe. Anyone have a recomendation?


How the hell do you narrow down the recipes that you can find to the good or great ones?
I'm looking around on hopville, and there's a thousand recipes for any given style.

I'm considering this one right now:
http://hopville.com/recipe/599129/witbier-recipes/must-be-the-season-of-the-wit

If I remember correctly, Wheat malt extract is typically a 50/50 mix of wheat and pale malt, so just do 100% wheat extract with a bit of noble hops and a hefeweizen yeast.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
If you want to go all out: from what I remember il serpente cosmico has the de-facto Hefeweizen mash schedule I'm sure someone could post.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I think I'm going to take another stab at making a lager next weekend. For various reasons related to inexperience with lagers, my Marzen turned out loving awful but it should be better this time. I'm thinking this should be pretty good for a Pilsner, right?

~10# German Pilsner
1oz Perle @ 60 minutes
1oz Hallertau @ 10 minutes
2 packages of dry S-23 or whatever dry lager yeast my LHBS has.

Should come out to 1.050 with 40 something IBU's.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
I did read a bit on HBT (*gasp*) about people complaining about S23, but I guess I thought lager yeast strains were more or less all the same and I chalked it up to the usual HBT idiocy. Maybe I'll seek out 34/70, though.

PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair

Daedalus Esquire posted:

So I'm going to enter a local homebrew competition and have to brew six beers for it. The only thing I'm having trouble with is their "Platnum" catagory:


This seems really WTF to me. They are doing a homebrew contest but want us to clone Bud Platnum?
I don't have a fridge for lagering, so I guess I could do a gallon and ferment them in some growlers in the regular fridge, but I just have zero idea on where to start because of the whole champagne yeast requirement...the only time I've used champagne yeast is for my cider which has a rather distinct champagne taste.

If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed that was a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke category. If it's real, that's pretty dumb - especially because they seriously used the word "sheeple."

I don't think fermenting in a real fridge is going to work, typical lager fermentations are in the low 50's and most fridges are around 35-38*. The champagne yeast part is just saying that you should be priming with champagne yeast which gives it a sort of super bubbly, crisp carbonation.

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PoopShipDestroyer
Jan 13, 2006

I think he's ready for a chair
Here's a neat little paper on the oxygen permeability of different airlocks from the Better Bottle people, if anyone is interested:

http://t.co/qC9ikmb2

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