The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: tomq04 on February 22, 2014, 08:49:22 PM
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Did some searching and saw no dedicated home brew thread, thought this might start. Direct me elsewhere if i'm wrong.
I did a batch of basic "hopped up" Amber Feb 1 and racked it today into it's keg, will start carbonating Monday (ran out of co2) and will be drinkable next weekend.
Was a bit watery, hoping that the extra week will fill it out.
What are you guys brewing?
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I've got a first attempt at wine making going on. Starting with a Zinfandel: https://plus.google.com/118377364589183354775/posts/eKY4znh2hZg (https://plus.google.com/118377364589183354775/posts/eKY4znh2hZg)
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Thanks for starting this! The Want to Buy Beer thread got me curious about some of the cost-savings strategies like reusing yeast. We've home brewed off and on for a few years now, but have been a little disappointed in the cost savings. Last spring I planted hops, and got enough for a 5 gallon batch, which did cut costs. Taking another $7 off for the yeast packet would make it pretty cost effective.
I am actually liking doing hard cider more than beer, lately. It's easier and cheaper, and I like my dry cider better than the mostly sickly sweet stuff available in the stores (Crispin is the only one I like now that I'm a cider snob). Once my apple trees mature, cider will be a VERY cost effective beverage. One of my trees is a bitter cider variety, so I'm excited to see what it will produce.
Current homebrew waiting to be bottled is an Imperial stout. This will be the third batch of more or less the same beer. I like it because A) it is cost effective when considering how much a 4 or 6-pack of comparable beer costs, and B) it ages really nicely. I'm still a malt extract brewer. One of these days I will make myself a mash tun and get into all-grain... maybe...
The one I'm drinking right now was supposed to be and IPA, but it turned out more like a cross between Fat Tire and maybe a nut brown ale. It's actually kind of nice, but not at all what I was expecting. However, I'm too cheap/lazy to follow most recipes to the T, so I'm open to variation and surprises.
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I tried a batch of home grown cider from a co-worker (spent all day picking and pressing...somewhat fun!) and I ended up with 5 gallons of the most delicious apple cider vinegar ever (i just threw it all out today :( ).
I believe my problems occured due to sanitation of the carboy and lack of a proper airlock... go over the steps in case i'm dumb.
1.) Sanitize fermenter
2.) Add cider (if using store bought, ensure it doesn't have any bad additives)
3.) Add fermenting sugar & yeast, and cinnamon if you are so inclined.
4.) Wait 2 weeks
5.) Keg or Bottle
6.) Wait 1 more week
7.) enjoy?
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You might try pasteurizing the cider first. I think it's 160F. Then cool it and add the yeast (I use champagne yeast). Put on the airlock. I ferment mine long and cool - like 2 months in primary, then rack into secondary with some fresh apple juice, and let it go for another couple months in secondary.
The batch I did this year, I did not pasteurize, and had no problems. Year before I did pasteurize. Product is about the same.
I do my sanitizing with white vinegar, but it sounds like you might have more wild yeasts where you live, so perhaps a bleach solution is needed to ensure sanitation.
Too bad you threw out the ACV. Raw, organic ACV is a great health food and costs like $20 a gallon!
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I tried a batch of home grown cider from a co-worker (spent all day picking and pressing...somewhat fun!) and I ended up with 5 gallons of the most delicious apple cider vinegar ever (i just threw it all out today :( ).
I believe my problems occured due to sanitation of the carboy and lack of a proper airlock... go over the steps in case i'm dumb.
1.) Sanitize fermenter
2.) Add cider (if using store bought, ensure it doesn't have any bad additives)
3.) Add fermenting sugar & yeast, and cinnamon if you are so inclined.
4.) Wait 2 weeks
5.) Keg or Bottle
6.) Wait 1 more week
7.) enjoy?
if your booze has turned to vinegar, it's because bacteria have eaten the alcohol and turned it into acetic acid.
ethanol + O2 -> acetobacter -> acid +H2O
Obviously you want to keep the alcohol, so get rid of the bacteria by pasteurizing (so long as you don't mind killing the wild yeast from the apples) and sanitizing, and minimize contact with air
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We pasteurized at the same time we pressed, cooled it, jugged it, brought it home and placed in sanitized carboy. I suspect my problem involved my air hose. Went and checked it week 2 and it had been "blown out" and the car boy sat with no lock for who knows how long, week worst case. Tasted good to me at that point, but I thought it needed more time. Couple months later it was vinegar. Should have kegged it, but likely would have had same result at that point.
What's the best way to keep it semi sweet? Or perhaps re-sweeten it? My first thought would be just to add a pump of simple syrup to the glass after pouring so I don't have I deal with reactivating the yeast.
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I work professionally as a brewer and thus rarely brew at home anymore, but I'm more than happy to try to help with any questions (keep in mind though, I'm no expert...yet!).
I made this post a little while back with the specific thought of doing home brew as economically as possible.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/opened-my-first-batch-of-brew-and-it-was-good/msg182573/#msg182573
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Cross linking two previous threads on cost effective homebrewing:
- https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/help!-i-want-to-buy-beer
- https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/fzzzz-the-sound-of-the-stash/
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Ok gang, I need some kegging carbonation help. I need the beer mentioned previously carbonated by Saturday. It's kegged and sealed, I'm going to go buy co2 tomorrow, in theory I need it to be at 12 PSI for my style and temperature and hose length. Do I set it to 12 and forget it? Or set to 30 and rock it a few times and then set to 12 for the rest of the week?
12 until Friday and taste, if weak then force carb? I'm really unsure since I've never done this at all.
Thanks for pointers
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has anyone tried to make their own vodka? I have fructose malabsorption so I have been thinking about trying my hand at my own potato vodka. Any tips?
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has anyone tried to make their own vodka? I have fructose malabsorption so I have been thinking about trying my hand at my own potato vodka. Any tips?
tip #1, don't tell anybody 'cause it's pretty illegal
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a quick web search turned up this which appears to be pretty informative:
http://homedistiller.org/
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a quick web search turned up this which appears to be pretty informative:
http://homedistiller.org/
NSA'D!!!!
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OW, MY RIGHT TO SECURITY AGAINST UNREASONABLE SEARCH!!!!
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Homebrewing is cool because you choose your own degree of difficulty. Most extreme-mustache would be all-grain brewing on equipment you made yourself. But all you need to do to get started with a cider is dump AJ in a sanitized carboy and let the yeast do its magic. I think the juice itself matters a lot less than it does with wine.
The hardest things to do are to make a cider sweeter, and an extract-brewed beer drier. You can use great ingredients and great recipes, but you can't control fermentation like the commercial operations.
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Ok gang, I need some kegging carbonation help. I need the beer mentioned previously carbonated by Saturday. It's kegged and sealed, I'm going to go buy co2 tomorrow, in theory I need it to be at 12 PSI for my style and temperature and hose length. Do I set it to 12 and forget it? Or set to 30 and rock it a few times and then set to 12 for the rest of the week?
12 until Friday and taste, if weak then force carb? I'm really unsure since I've never done this at all.
Thanks for pointers
Since you have several days I would just set it to 12 psi (maybe 15) and rock it for a minute once every day except for Saturday.
Pull some off at the end of the day Friday to see how it is. If you really need more carb, then you can bump the CO2 pressure up and give it a good few minutes of shaking and let it settle overnight before serving on Saturday.
The biggest problem with starting high is that it is just very imprecise. Your beer will have some residual CO2 just from fermentation and at 35 degrees and 30 psi of CO2 you can easily get the beer up to 3 volumes of CO2 pretty quickly. Sometimes you can eventually get a 'feel' for it, but I still prefer slow carbonation.
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Homebrewing is cool because you choose your own degree of difficulty. Most extreme-mustache would be all-grain brewing on equipment you made yourself. But all you need to do to get started with a cider is dump AJ in a sanitized carboy and let the yeast do its magic. I think the juice itself matters a lot less than it does with wine.
I was experimenting with this over the fall, and I got better results with fermenting store-bought cider than with store-bought apple juice. I was bottling and drinking it green, though; it's possible if you age it until dry that the taste would be harder to distinguish.
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Im' super tempted to try cider. I'm in the Okanagan Valley in BC, surrounded by orchards. I can get some of the best juice in the world right next door, so why not give it a shot?
Just started a batch of win fore the first time too...we'll see how it turns out. I inherited all the equipment from my dad so start up cost has been basically zero.
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I haven't done it in a while, but from what I remember, to make the best hard cider from store sources, its best to look for unpasteurized and preservative free. It might just need to be preservative free for best results.
Apple juice or cider bought right from an orchard or farmers market might be your best bet.
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I haven't done it in a while, but from what I remember, to make the best hard cider from store sources, its best to look for unpasteurized and preservative free. It might just need to be preservative free for best results.
Apple juice or cider bought right from an orchard or farmers market might be your best bet.
What I did was wild-ferment the pasteurized juice and cider I bought by sticking slices of apple in it. This should reintroduce the enzymes and bacteria that were killed off by pasteurization. I didn't check on how much preservatives were in the apple juice (pretty sure it was organic though for what that's worth), but the cider I bought later was definitely much better quality.
I'm not sure where you'd buy unpasteurized cider other than straight from an orchard:
Unpasteurized cider + time + airlock == hard cider.
Unpasteurized cider + time == apple cider vinegar.
Unpasteurized cider + time + seal == bomb.
...so it's not something easy to store.
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I haven't done it in a while, but from what I remember, to make the best hard cider from store sources, its best to look for unpasteurized and preservative free. It might just need to be preservative free for best results.
Apple juice or cider bought right from an orchard or farmers market might be your best bet.
What I did was wild-ferment the pasteurized juice and cider I bought by sticking slices of apple in it. This should reintroduce the enzymes and bacteria that were killed off by pasteurization. I didn't check on how much preservatives were in the apple juice (pretty sure it was organic though for what that's worth), but the cider I bought later was definitely much better quality.
I'm not sure where you'd buy unpasteurized cider other than straight from an orchard:
Unpasteurized cider + time + airlock == hard cider.
Unpasteurized cider + time == apple cider vinegar.
Unpasteurized cider + time + seal == bomb.
...so it's not something easy to store.
The only time I've bought unpasteurized is from farmers markets and orchards. I guess you probably can't get it in stores.
Organic juices/ciders can probably still have preservatives in them, unless your buying preservative free.
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The hardest things to do are to make a cider sweeter, and an extract-brewed beer drier. You can use great ingredients and great recipes, but you can't control fermentation like the commercial operations.
I think that's a misleading statement. Those things may pose problems for some novices but I wouldn't say they are the hardest things in brewing by a long shot.
You certainly can control fermentation like the commercial operations, and in fact homebrewers can have MORE control because brewing at home doesn't have to be profitable. Some commercial operations (DFH for example) will take risks on one-offs that may or may not make money, but they still have to prop up their bottom line with the staples that are more or less guaranteed to bring in enough money to keep the lights on. In mainstream breweries, the thought of introducing wild yeasts, lacto, brett, etc. is verboten--too much liability for contamination of other product lines. Not so in a homebrew setting where you can simply have a $10 bucket dedicated to sours and keep it away from your conventional brews.
Sweetening cider can be accomplished a variety of ways. If the cider is already finished, you can backsweeten--just add Splenda (or some other non-fermentable or partially-fermentable sweetener). If fermentation is chugging along and your desired residual sweetness has been achieved, add potassium sorbate to halt fermentation. If you are still in the designing phase you can simply select a more appropriate yeast with a lower alcohol tolerance so that fermentation will cease while residual sugars still remain. Or, conversely you can add less-fermentable sugars such as molasses, dark brown sugar, etc. which will leave some sweetness behind when fermentation has been completed. You can reduce fermentation temperature to reduce attenuation, following up with Campden and/or filtering to keep yeast from reproducing in the packaged product and continuing fermentation. Or any combination of the above.
Getting better attenuation from extract brews is also not insurmountably hard. Even if you are forced into using a yeast with low attenuation due to recipe guidelines, there are workarounds. Supplemental yeast nutrient, proper wort oxygenation, fermentation temps, etc. all factor in and are not just matters of chance. For problematic recipes that tend to finish too high, I often increase temperature after the initial surge of primary fermentation. This keeps the fruity esters down at appropriate levels for the style (most of these would be produced during the peak of fermentation activity), but allows for more complete fermentation. There is also no shame in adjusting a recipe and replacing some of the extract with more highly fermentable sugars if getting a lower FG is a priority. Many people will add yeast with a super high attenuation at the tail end of primary fermentation to shave off those last few gravity points, while still getting the flavor characteristics from the primary yeast.
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Search EDWORTS APFELWEIN...MMM (yummy, not MR MONEY MUSTACHE). Age it six months in the primary and then bottle. Backsweeten or just mix with sprite for sweetness. Cold crash is enough, or pasturized after 2 months or so to allow some sweetness to remain.
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I've got a first attempt at wine making going on. Starting with a Zinfandel: https://plus.google.com/118377364589183354775/posts/eKY4znh2hZg (https://plus.google.com/118377364589183354775/posts/eKY4znh2hZg)
I'd like to hear a report. Zin is my favorite. (I'm assuming you mean real, proper Zin here and not pink Zin). I made one batch about 15 months ago. I started tasting a bottle a month at about 6 months time. It was a little over a year before it even remotely tasted like Zin. It's still "not great" (though... that could be my own pilot error, too).
We mostly drink very inexpensive wine and have mostly decided that for the cost of the wine kits we like, we can buy wine cheaper. Our plan from here on out is to stick to experimenting with stuff we grow (berries and fruits ... mead if I ever get around to starting a bee hive).
...but ... if you had a decent Zin turnout for a decent price.... I might change my mind. ;)
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I have a 1 gallon batch of hard cider fermenting now, started on Feb 16th:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-245z2osMkH4/UxAHTd2uzBI/AAAAAAAAAFY/AflxYqqDkkU/w655-h492-no/Cidar_Homebrew_Feb_2014.JPG)
I never tried wine making but this seems a lot simpler to me anyway than swiper's setup.
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This is what i'm going to fire up the weekend after next:
Goose Island Summertime Kölsch
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.046 FG = 1.010 IBU = 18 SRM = 4.5 ABV = 4.7%
Ingredients
7 lb. 11 oz (3.5 kg) 2-row pale malt (1.9 °L)
1 lb. 15 oz. (0.87 kg) wheat malt (2.5 °L)
2.0 AAU Mt. Hood hops (60 mins) (0.4 oz./11 g of 5% alpha acids)
3.0 AAU Czech Saaz hops (15 mins) (0.75 oz./21 g of 4% alpha acids)
2.5 AAU Mt. Hood hops (15 mins) (0.5 oz./14 g of 5% alpha acids)
Wyeast 2565 (Kölsch) or White Labs WLP029 (German Ale/Kölsch) yeast
Step by Step
Mash at 145 °F (63 °C) for 40 minutes, 152 °F (67 °C) for 45 minutes and 170 °F (77 °C) for 10 minutes. Mash pH 5.4–5.5. Boil for 60 minutes. Wort pH = 5.2. Aerate to 8 ppm O2. Pitch rate = 20 million cells per mL. Ferment at 56–58 °F (13–14 °C). (Note: Goose Island adds the final two hop additions in their whirlpool.)
My buddy used to brew it every year, but he moved to the wrong side of the state, so i'll have to do it myself! This is amazing when done proper! Would recommend to anyone, I don't love kolsch's, but this is a top notch brew. I'm actually going the partial mash route for $5 more, my LHBS helped swap to the partial recipe.
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That sounds good, I like Kolsch a lot. What is the reasoning though behind moving the 0 minute hops up to 15? You're going to get a lot more IBUs and less aroma. I've never used Mt. Hood, but I like it for Koslch based on the profiles I am seeing online. Lastly, do you have a way to cold crash the beer? Kolsch/Alt yeast really does benefit from at least 2 weeks and probably more like 4 weeks on cold (35-40F) after primary fermentation is done.
Here is a Schwarzbier recipe I did at work last week for those with the ability to do lagerbier. I also did a hoppy saison, but with 1.5# hops/bbl (about 5 oz in a 5 gallon batch), it isn't really an economical drink.
Adjust for your system's size and efficiency for a starting gravity of 1.052/13P
47% Weyermann Pilsner
47% Weyermann Munich I
6% Carafa III Special
Mash the Pils and Munich together at 152F for an hour. Take a decoction of thick mash (about 20-25% of total) and boil for 15 minutes. Add crushed Carafa III Special to the top of the mash, then add the decoction back to the mash. Recirculate the mash until clear and runoff as usual.
Hops (scaled to a 5 gallon batch with 6.5 gallons starting boil volume, scale up or down as necessary). The bittering addition can really be anything you have on hand that is neutral. The 15/0 hops you can change around in a lot of different ways depending on what you like, but you want noble or noble-esque hops to keep it traditional.
1/4 oz Perle 8.5% AA at 60 minutes
1/2 oz Tettnang 5.4% AA at 15 minutes
1 oz Tradition 6.8% AA at 0 minutes
We use Augustiner lager yeast at work, as far as I know White Labs and Wyeast don't currently offer this yeast. You can use Wyeast 2206 or White Labs WLP830, but just about any clean lager yeast you have available will work fine.
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I've been into homebrewing for a few months now. Been doing mostly extract based recipes and did one partial mash. Me and a buddy recently made a DIY mashtun to try to transition into all grain. Can anyone recommend a good imperial IPA recipe that won't break the bank?
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I've got a first attempt at wine making going on. Starting with a Zinfandel: https://plus.google.com/118377364589183354775/posts/eKY4znh2hZg (https://plus.google.com/118377364589183354775/posts/eKY4znh2hZg)
I'd like to hear a report. Zin is my favorite. (I'm assuming you mean real, proper Zin here and not pink Zin). I made one batch about 15 months ago. I started tasting a bottle a month at about 6 months time. It was a little over a year before it even remotely tasted like Zin. It's still "not great" (though... that could be my own pilot error, too).
We mostly drink very inexpensive wine and have mostly decided that for the cost of the wine kits we like, we can buy wine cheaper. Our plan from here on out is to stick to experimenting with stuff we grow (berries and fruits ... mead if I ever get around to starting a bee hive).
...but ... if you had a decent Zin turnout for a decent price.... I might change my mind. ;)
I'm in Canada, so not much in the way of "cheap" wine here. It'll be a few months, but I'll report back on how it goes. Assuming I'm impressed, a bottle may be in your future...
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I have a 1 gallon batch of hard cider fermenting now, started on Feb 16th:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-245z2osMkH4/UxAHTd2uzBI/AAAAAAAAAFY/AflxYqqDkkU/w655-h492-no/Cidar_Homebrew_Feb_2014.JPG)
I never tried wine making but this seems a lot simpler to me anyway than swiper's setup.
yo, Looks like that area is probably normally dark, but might be worth mentioning to watch out for light. Could be a good idea to wrap a towel around that carboy. nice color!
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For godsakes get it away from the water heater!
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I've been into homebrewing for a few months now. Been doing mostly extract based recipes and did one partial mash. Me and a buddy recently made a DIY mashtun to try to transition into all grain. Can anyone recommend a good imperial IPA recipe that won't break the bank?
Imperial IPA will always break the bank because it requires more grain/extract than other brews (it's imperial!) and lots of hops (it's an IPA!).
If you find hops on sale, that's probably the best way to save $.
Plus you'll need a lot of yeast cells to get proper fermentation for an IIPA. So either make a starter or buy extra yeast... adds to the cost! I never see yeast on sale except for the expired ones which you definitely don't want to use for an IIPA.
That being said, there's a great recipe here in 'Brewing Classic Style' for an IIPA. It's the same recipe as Russian River's Pliney the Elder. You can most certainly find that recipe online if you don't have the book.
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For godsakes get it away from the water heater!
LOL. I wasn't even thinking about the heat looking at the pic. All I could think was "hey, that catch pan has a drain in it that drains to the floor."
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For godsakes get it away from the water heater!
I'm confused, this time of year it seems like placing it in a location where it should stay a couple degrees warmer would be a good thing. I have terrible trouble getting things to ferment when the temp is in the mid 60s F.
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The hot water heater is insulated, almost brand new and you don't feel any heat outside of it (or it is so little to be noticeable). This particular batch is using a lager yeast that likes a slightly lower temp than normal. Other yeast like warmer temperatures, just look one on the package of whichever one you choose
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Well then for godsakes crop your photos!
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Bottled up my imperial stout tonight. This is my third batch based on the recipe from The Joy of Home Brewing. I say "based on" because I sort of used whatever hops I had out of the garden, and made up for the deficit of malt extract with a few pounds of honey. From some rough calculations, this batch ran me around $42 for 35 12-oz bottles plus 5 or 6 22-oz bottles, which sounds like about $90 bucks worth of beer. And I'm obviously not a proud person, because it tasted good enough flat that I poured the leftover after bottling in with another homebrew for a black and tan. Couldn't stand to throw it down the drain!
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I've been into homebrewing for a few months now. Been doing mostly extract based recipes and did one partial mash. Me and a buddy recently made a DIY mashtun to try to transition into all grain. Can anyone recommend a good imperial IPA recipe that won't break the bank?
Imperial IPA will always break the bank because it requires more grain/extract than other brews (it's imperial!) and lots of hops (it's an IPA!).
If you find hops on sale, that's probably the best way to save $.
Plus you'll need a lot of yeast cells to get proper fermentation for an IIPA. So either make a starter or buy extra yeast... adds to the cost! I never see yeast on sale except for the expired ones which you definitely don't want to use for an IIPA.
That being said, there's a great recipe here in 'Brewing Classic Style' for an IIPA. It's the same recipe as Russian River's Pliney the Elder. You can most certainly find that recipe online if you don't have the book.
I've brewed a DFH 90 min IPA (close enough to a double for me) and it was still cheaper than a commercial bottle of the same stuff. I can't remember how much I paid for that batch, but it wasn't the $2.50 a bottle the liquor store is charging.
Buy your hops by the pound and reuse your yeast. I can get 10 brews out of a single package of liquid yeast. Also, try not to get too hung up on everything being perfect, or having a completely repeatable product. If you were brewing for a commercial operation that's important, I'm just brewing for cheap brew and as long as the flavors aren't really off, I don't care that the 3rd generation of yeast is a little different than the first. It's kind of fun actually, and most of my small beers are cheaper than a can of coke.
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Also, look up a few recipes on homebrew talk if you want to brew cheap. I really like the BeeCave Hefeweizen. It tastes just like Paulander and it has a super cheap grain and hops bill. On a 10 gallon all grain batch I'm saving about $100 over buying six packs in the store. Also, I can't think of a beer that has better thirst quenching properties than wheat beers, and if you dig the banana/bubble gum/clove aroma, the German wheats are the tops. You can save just as much with an American wheat though, and your non-beer drinking spouse/friends will love you for it.
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Currently on tap:
Cranberry Wheat (cranberry juice was the result of a successful dumpster dive)
Redfield Cider (bought in bulk from a local orchard)
German Pilsner
On deck:
Chai Tea Brown
ESB
Kolsch
Altbier
Gratzer
Long term aging:
Imperial Stout
Maerzen/Octoberfest
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Wow, I just came to the DIY forum to specifically post about homebrewing, and here's this thread.
I started homebrewing back in 2006. I did three extract batches then started all-grain. I brewed a fair number of all grain batches that turned out great. But life happened and I got out of the hobby. However, as of this week I'm back in business.
Yesterday I built a new cooler mash tun with a 48 quart cube cooler and a CPVC manifold (photo attached). Cost me less than $20 and 2 hours for the whole thing.
My planned brewing schedule
Wednesday - Dark English Mild (nobody brews these any more and they are awesome, so I plan to master the style)
Mid-March - Oatmeal Stout (pitched onto the Dark Mild's yeast cake)
Late March/early April - Maibock (I've got good lager fermenting temperatures in the basement)
Late April or May - Orval clone (I love Orval, but at $5/bottle, that's just too much to have more than just occasionally).
Depending on how the Orval clone goes, I may do another one on the previous yeast cake, or at least harvest some for later use.
In terms of brewing while keeping costs down, I will be doing lots of Milds. First of all, it's less ingredients, second it's quick to brew, thirdly I can keep re-using yeast for a few generations, especially if I top crop (hard to do with a carboy though, but I figure I can manage with a racking cane and tubing). I've also made an arrangement with a local restaurant to get bottles for free. I also plan to let no ingredients go to waste. I'm using home made or cheap equipment, so that cost is pretty low. A friend of mine is also growing hops and apparently there are far too many for him to use. I may be able to acquire some for free, but they may limit my style selection.
I'll post some photos here when I have some batches going.
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(I've got good lager fermenting temperatures in the basement)
How do you lager it once it's done fermenting? Refrigerator?
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(I've got good lager fermenting temperatures in the basement)
How do you lager it once it's done fermenting? Refrigerator?
Yeah, when we brewed our Oktoberfest we lagered in the bottle in a fridge. We also have a spare refrigerator we never have plugged in that we could potentially use sporadically for lagering in a carboy.
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Wednesday - Dark English Mild (nobody brews these any more and they are awesome, so I plan to master the style)
A friend of mine is also growing hops and apparently there are far too many for him to use. I may be able to acquire some for free, but they may limit my style selection.
Surly Brewing in MN does a great English Dark Mild. Its one of their seasonal rotations, but its currently on rotation. I am also a big fan of this style. Scotch Ales and English milds mmmmmmm
Just remember with homegrown hops its a little more sporadic as to how much acids they actually have. I think the typical transfer rate is 1oz pellets ---16oz fresh. The people I know who grow and brew with their own hops typically use the home growns for the late additions. Although if you are going for something not very hoppy, they still might provide enough bitterness to be used exclusively.
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Gratzer
Do you have a recipe worked up for this one yet or have you already done it before? This is one I would love to do, but probably not on a commercial scale. We did a Lichtenhainer last year using a portion of the Weyermann Oak-Smoked Wheat and co-pitched ale yeast and lactobacillus. Let's just say that it moved...slowly.
I do love the flavor and aroma of the Weyermann Oak-Smoked Wheat malt though, and while Bamberger Rauchbier and smoked beer in general are some of my favorite beers, I'm not sure how the hoppiness of Gratzer would blend with the smoke. Might have to get a chunk of Lublin hops and just do a homebrew batch to find out.
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I just recently got into home brewing. My first batch brewed in late November, bottled mid-December and cracked the first bottle Jan 10. It's a nut brown ale that we added local buckwheat honey to (4 lbs). When sampled during bottling it had an awesome heavy honey flavor to it. After bottling, the first week or so they had good honey flavor, too, but as it's been aging it's been losing honey flavor. A bit disappointed with it now, although everyone that tries it loves it (even if it isn't very honey flavored).
Hoping to brew a milk stout soon, trying to decide on a basic extract recipe. Since this will be my 2nd brew I want to keep it simple.
Glad to hear about jdoolin's arrangement with a restaurant for bottles, I've been thinking of doing the same thing.
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I've been into homebrewing for a few months now. Been doing mostly extract based recipes and did one partial mash. Me and a buddy recently made a DIY mashtun to try to transition into all grain. Can anyone recommend a good imperial IPA recipe that won't break the bank?
Imperial IPA will always break the bank because it requires more grain/extract than other brews (it's imperial!) and lots of hops (it's an IPA!).
If you find hops on sale, that's probably the best way to save $.
Plus you'll need a lot of yeast cells to get proper fermentation for an IIPA. So either make a starter or buy extra yeast... adds to the cost! I never see yeast on sale except for the expired ones which you definitely don't want to use for an IIPA.
That being said, there's a great recipe here in 'Brewing Classic Style' for an IIPA. It's the same recipe as Russian River's Pliney the Elder. You can most certainly find that recipe online if you don't have the book.
I've brewed a DFH 90 min IPA (close enough to a double for me) and it was still cheaper than a commercial bottle of the same stuff. I can't remember how much I paid for that batch, but it wasn't the $2.50 a bottle the liquor store is charging.
Buy your hops by the pound and reuse your yeast. I can get 10 brews out of a single package of liquid yeast. Also, try not to get too hung up on everything being perfect, or having a completely repeatable product. If you were brewing for a commercial operation that's important, I'm just brewing for cheap brew and as long as the flavors aren't really off, I don't care that the 3rd generation of yeast is a little different than the first. It's kind of fun actually, and most of my small beers are cheaper than a can of coke.
You don't need liquid yeast anymore for an IPA, the Safale US-05 is the same as Wyeast 1056 strain, and it's cheaper with a lot more yeast cells. And then get you some Citra hops, you can make really floral, hoppy IPA's with less ounces than some other varieties. I'm using 2 oz at flameout, and 2 more to dry hop and getting great hop aroma. Use something else (chinook) for the bittering hop. Ditto on reusing yeast, washing yeast is easy, but a little time consuming. I'm making 6 gallon double IPA's for less than $25 not including propane costs. FWIW, I buy grain by the 50 lb bag, and hops by the pound. I've also had great results pitching a new beer on the old yeast cake, but that means bottling and brewing day are the same. Lots of good info on homebrewtalk.com.
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I haven't used dry yeast for a long time. But, I normally brew less hoppy beers where the yeast flavors really matter. My wife is almost exclusively a hop-head, so I try to keep some IPA on hand for her. I'll have to try some of the dry yeasts.
I haven't had a lot of luck finding citra for a decent price, where are you buying yours?
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That sounds good, I like Kolsch a lot. What is the reasoning though behind moving the 0 minute hops up to 15? You're going to get a lot more IBUs and less aroma. I've never used Mt. Hood, but I like it for Koslch based on the profiles I am seeing online. Lastly, do you have a way to cold crash the beer? Kolsch/Alt yeast really does benefit from at least 2 weeks and probably more like 4 weeks on cold (35-40F) after primary fermentation is done.
I can cold crash it, plan on doing 3 weeks in primary and 2-4 in 2ndary in the cold. Then finally carbonating it. I may cheat and just rack it into the keg instead if a 2ndary in a carboy and just let it age a month. I'm not sold on clarity at the moment, just want a decent beer and to remember how this whole process works.
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Gratzer
Do you have a recipe worked up for this one yet or have you already done it before? This is one I would love to do, but probably not on a commercial scale. We did a Lichtenhainer last year using a portion of the Weyermann Oak-Smoked Wheat and co-pitched ale yeast and lactobacillus. Let's just say that it moved...slowly.
I hadn't made gratzer before. I took the guidelines from the Nov/Dec 2012 article on gratzer in Zymurgy and customized their process for my equipment using Beersmith. The most complex aspect of this beer was the multi-step infusion mash. I hit the strike temperatures at each rest pretty closely (+/- 2 degrees F), though, so I'm expecting decent results.
Lacto can take a *long* time!
I pitched this beer onto a washed bed of Wyeast 1007 (pseudolager yeast) from a Kolsch so there was practically no lag time.
I do love the flavor and aroma of the Weyermann Oak-Smoked Wheat malt though, and while Bamberger Rauchbier and smoked beer in general are some of my favorite beers, I'm not sure how the hoppiness of Gratzer would blend with the smoke. Might have to get a chunk of Lublin hops and just do a homebrew batch to find out.
The aroma from the oak-smoked wheat malt was amazing. I love smoked beers. This recipe worked out to be about 20 IBUs, so not bitter at all. It will be interesting to get a sense of what flavor contributions the Lublin hops provide.
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What a great thread! I just took my first dive into homebrewing this weekend. I talked to a friend of mine who had previous brewing experience and he showed me the ropes. It also helps that he has all of the equipment so no cash needed for that.
We're both hop heads so we made a 6 gallon IIPA extract batch. We used 13 lbs of dry malt extract and 4 types of hops, Amarillo, Cascade, Citra and Centennial. Hops were added at 60 mins, 30 mins and at the end of the boil. We also dry hopped with about 4 oz in the fermenter. OG was 1079 and we're expecting to go down to 1019. We're trying for something similar to Southern Tier 2XIPA. ABV should be close to 8% and IBU's near 100.
I think the total cost for the ingredients was about $90 which will give us 64 12-ounce beers. Not a huge savings compared to retail, but being a double we used a ton of malt which added to the cost. We're expecting fermentation to end in about 6 more days and then we'll move it a 6 gallon carboy for a secondary fermentation. Hopefully all goes well and we have some good tasting beer in about 3 more weeks.
Great info DB, I'll have to look into that as I learn more....
You don't need liquid yeast anymore for an IPA, the Safale US-05 is the same as Wyeast 1056 strain, and it's cheaper with a lot more yeast cells. And then get you some Citra hops, you can make really floral, hoppy IPA's with less ounces than some other varieties. I'm using 2 oz at flameout, and 2 more to dry hop and getting great hop aroma. Use something else (chinook) for the bittering hop. Ditto on reusing yeast, washing yeast is easy, but a little time consuming. I'm making 6 gallon double IPA's for less than $25 not including propane costs. FWIW, I buy grain by the 50 lb bag, and hops by the pound. I've also had great results pitching a new beer on the old yeast cake, but that means bottling and brewing day are the same. Lots of good info on homebrewtalk.com.
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What a great thread! I just took my first dive into homebrewing this weekend. I talked to a friend of mine who had previous brewing experience and he showed me the ropes. It also helps that he has all of the equipment so no cash needed for that.
We're both hop heads so we made a 6 gallon IIPA extract batch. We used 13 lbs of dry malt extract and 4 types of hops, Amarillo, Cascade, Citra and Centennial. Hops were added at 60 mins, 30 mins and at the end of the boil. We also dry hopped with about 4 oz in the fermenter. OG was 1079 and we're expecting to go down to 1019. We're trying for something similar to Southern Tier 2XIPA. ABV should be close to 8% and IBU's near 100.
I think the total cost for the ingredients was about $90 which will give us 64 12-ounce beers. Not a huge savings compared to retail, but being a double we used a ton of malt which added to the cost. We're expecting fermentation to end in about 6 more days and then we'll move it a 6 gallon carboy for a secondary fermentation. Hopefully all goes well and we have some good tasting beer in about 3 more weeks.
Great info DB, I'll have to look into that as I learn more....
Not to be a negative nancy, but you won't get six gallons unless you have already accounted for the following factors. You lose about 12 ounces of beer per ounce of hops. You also lose beer to the trub. I'll be mildly surprised if you get more than 52 or so bottles.
I'd also discourage anyone else from making such a beast of a recipe their first attempt. Your first beer is probably going to turn out just fine, but it will hopefully not be your finest work. Did you mash any grain for this recipe? For best cost efficiency, I'd recommend at least partial mash (if not all grain) on something like this - it will save you money for only an hour of your time. A partial mash can be done with no additional equipment aside from a thermometer.
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What a great thread! I just took my first dive into homebrewing this weekend. I talked to a friend of mine who had previous brewing experience and he showed me the ropes. It also helps that he has all of the equipment so no cash needed for that.
We're both hop heads so we made a 6 gallon IIPA extract batch. We used 13 lbs of dry malt extract and 4 types of hops, Amarillo, Cascade, Citra and Centennial. Hops were added at 60 mins, 30 mins and at the end of the boil. We also dry hopped with about 4 oz in the fermenter. OG was 1079 and we're expecting to go down to 1019. We're trying for something similar to Southern Tier 2XIPA. ABV should be close to 8% and IBU's near 100.
I think the total cost for the ingredients was about $90 which will give us 64 12-ounce beers. Not a huge savings compared to retail, but being a double we used a ton of malt which added to the cost. We're expecting fermentation to end in about 6 more days and then we'll move it a 6 gallon carboy for a secondary fermentation. Hopefully all goes well and we have some good tasting beer in about 3 more weeks.
Great info DB, I'll have to look into that as I learn more....
Not to be a negative nancy, but you won't get six gallons unless you have already accounted for the following factors. You lose about 12 ounces of beer per ounce of hops. You also lose beer to the trub. I'll be mildly surprised if you get more than 52 or so bottles.
I'd also discourage anyone else from making such a beast of a recipe their first attempt. Your first beer is probably going to turn out just fine, but it will hopefully not be your finest work. Did you mash any grain for this recipe? For best cost efficiency, I'd recommend at least partial mash (if not all grain) on something like this - it will save you money for only an hour of your time. A partial mash can be done with no additional equipment aside from a thermometer.
I'd agree with Skunk on the amount you are going to get. You will lose alot with that much hops, and to the trub, and more if you have any overflow during fermentation.
I would also suggest letting the secondary go longer than 2 weeks. Most high gravity beers I have done I usually end up going secondary for atleast 6 weeks. But, check the gravity as you go to make sure you hit your mark. Fermentation is a tricky beast that varies for a number of reasons.
Then if you are bottle conditioning, this could take another 4-6 weeks.
My longest secondary I did was an Imperial Stout, took around 5 months in the seconday to hit its gravity mark. This was mostly because it was a wee bit cold in my basement. Bottling took another 4 weeks for it to carb up.
Also, since this is your first foray in home brewing. I would suggest doing some simple beers. Single grain, single hops (SMaSH) are fun to do. Not everything needs to be a triple double ball slamming hop fest. The way I see it, learn the process. Learn what different time hop additions actually do to the beer. If all grain, learn what a higher or lower mash temp does to it.
Doing SMaSH will help you learn what brewing is all about. Then you can melt your tongue on some ball slamming hoppy beers. Although nothing says you can't do two (or more) beers at once!
Thats just my take on brewing, cheers.
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Those of you that buy malt by the 50lb, do you buy base malts in that large quantities and specialties from the local brewshop? what about bulk hops? The last recipe I did had 3 or 4 different hops, I don't think I brew enough to keep 3 or four pounds of hops on hand.
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What a great thread! I just took my first dive into homebrewing this weekend. I talked to a friend of mine who had previous brewing experience and he showed me the ropes. It also helps that he has all of the equipment so no cash needed for that.
We're both hop heads so we made a 6 gallon IIPA extract batch. We used 13 lbs of dry malt extract and 4 types of hops, Amarillo, Cascade, Citra and Centennial. Hops were added at 60 mins, 30 mins and at the end of the boil. We also dry hopped with about 4 oz in the fermenter. OG was 1079 and we're expecting to go down to 1019. We're trying for something similar to Southern Tier 2XIPA. ABV should be close to 8% and IBU's near 100.
I think the total cost for the ingredients was about $90 which will give us 64 12-ounce beers. Not a huge savings compared to retail, but being a double we used a ton of malt which added to the cost. We're expecting fermentation to end in about 6 more days and then we'll move it a 6 gallon carboy for a secondary fermentation. Hopefully all goes well and we have some good tasting beer in about 3 more weeks.
Great info DB, I'll have to look into that as I learn more....
Not to be a negative nancy, but you won't get six gallons unless you have already accounted for the following factors. You lose about 12 ounces of beer per ounce of hops. You also lose beer to the trub. I'll be mildly surprised if you get more than 52 or so bottles.
I'd also discourage anyone else from making such a beast of a recipe their first attempt. Your first beer is probably going to turn out just fine, but it will hopefully not be your finest work. Did you mash any grain for this recipe? For best cost efficiency, I'd recommend at least partial mash (if not all grain) on something like this - it will save you money for only an hour of your time. A partial mash can be done with no additional equipment aside from a thermometer.
I'd agree with Skunk on the amount you are going to get. You will lose alot with that much hops, and to the trub, and more if you have any overflow during fermentation.
I would also suggest letting the secondary go longer than 2 weeks. Most high gravity beers I have done I usually end up going secondary for atleast 6 weeks. But, check the gravity as you go to make sure you hit your mark. Fermentation is a tricky beast that varies for a number of reasons.
Then if you are bottle conditioning, this could take another 4-6 weeks.
My longest secondary I did was an Imperial Stout, took around 5 months in the seconday to hit its gravity mark. This was mostly because it was a wee bit cold in my basement. Bottling took another 4 weeks for it to carb up.
Also, since this is your first foray in home brewing. I would suggest doing some simple beers. Single grain, single hops (SMaSH) are fun to do. Not everything needs to be a triple double ball slamming hop fest. The way I see it, learn the process. Learn what different time hop additions actually do to the beer. If all grain, learn what a higher or lower mash temp does to it.
Doing SMaSH will help you learn what brewing is all about. Then you can melt your tongue on some ball slamming hoppy beers. Although nothing says you can't do two (or more) beers at once!
Thats just my take on brewing, cheers.
On those fermentation times - make sure you dry hop at the end! Don't leave the hops in for more than 10 days before bottling, and drink that thing as soon as it's carbonated. You lose hops flavor very quickly. My DIPA is only at it's best for a couple of weeks before it starts losing flavor.
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I buy 50# of US 2-Row Pale and 55# of Maris Otter every year, which handles the majority of my base malts.
Highly-kilned malts last pretty long in storage so I buy them in 1-10# quantities (things like Crystal 40L, Munich, and Roasted end up getting a lot of use in my recipes). One-off stuff that constitutes less than 1 or 2% of grain bills or rarely gets used at all I buy by the pound (melanoiden, special B, etc.).
Hops I buy certain varieties by the pound (Centennial, Magnum, Goldings) and vacuum pack them and deep freeze them. Specialties I'll pay the ripoff /oz price because the rest of a pound would get wasted anyway.
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I buy 50# of US 2-Row Pale and 55# of Maris Otter every year, which handles the majority of my base malts.
Where do you buy them? I'll be inclined to do the same after a few batches under my belts.
Have you ran the figures on your commonly brewed beers?
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I usually buy the bulk sacks from my LHBS, but sometimes when I know I won't be able to get to the store anytime soon I'll buy from Northern Brewer. There are also group buys for pallets of grain periodically on the HBT website. I've never participated, but the pricing is very attractive.
For hops, I've gone to HopsDirect/Puterbaugh Farms, and FresHops for most of my bulk purchases. LHBS for small purchases. All this may change now that my LHBS is pretty damn big, carries more bulk stuff, and has a web presence. I also grew my own hops at my old house, so a few of my late summer hoppy beers had "free" Cascades and Centennials in them (only the late additions since I didn't want to guesstimate the IBUs). Whenever we finish building and landscaping around our new place, I'll get some rhizomes and start growing again.
My BeerSmith software tracks all my brew prices but I don't have access to it at the moment (on another computer) and I'd have to double check that I entered real dollar figures when I put the items in inventory. Cost went WAY down when I went all-grain and bought in bulk... going from memory, base malts come out to $1-1.50 per gallon brewed or something like that. You still have to factor in specialty malts and hops, plus depreciation on equipment, non-recipe consumables (water treatments, cleaners, sanitizers), energy cost, etc. but suffice it to say if you are going to brew your own, you can beat commercial prices even brewing extract brews, and with all-grain it's a no-brainer.
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Skunk and Crom, good advice, I agree I/we went a little over the top with my first homebrew. Like I said luckily my buddy has experience so it made it seem relatively simple (silly noob). I'll definitely take into account the fact that we should let it ferment longer in secondary and that I'll want to let it bottle condition for a while as well.
As far as the amount we'll get, we had a full 6 gallons go into the primary so I expect we'll get a decent amount out of it, but you are correct we'll lose some in the trub which I didn't account for. We started out with 6 gallons of fresh water, but added a gallon of "tea" that we made steeping some grains for 30 minutes. That's why we were able to get 6 gallons out of the wort and into the primary. Sorry I don't have all the details on what we did, all the info is at my buddy's place.
Hopefully it turns out well, I'll let you know. We're already discussing another beer and are talking about going all grain with a simpler recipe. Thanks for the comments, there's a hell of a lot to know about brewing, now I know that.
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Brewing your own oatmeal stout can be very cost effective. My oatmeal stout is every bit as good as a Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout, which costs about $2.50 a bottle. I brewed an entire fifty bottle batch for under $30. Some of the fancier English style ales don't really take all that much grain or hops, and can be made with the excellent nottingham dry yeast on the cheap.
For instance, doppelbocks, by comparison, cost about the same amount at the liquor store but are much more expensive to brew. The ingredients I would require to brew an ayinger celebrator clone would cost $70 from my homebrew shop. They require much more grain, a lot of yeast cells, as well as a means of accurate temperature control for both fermentation and lagering, which can take months for such a high gravity style.
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It's Brew Day!!
My mash/lauter tun cooler conversion worked magnificently and I've currently got 6 gallons of wort coming to a boil.
I also tried something I'd heard about called a "hot scotchie", where you mix a little bit of Scotch (I had some Glenlivet on hand) with some of the sweet wort right out of the mash tun. I will ALWAYS do this from now on. That was delicious!
So anyway, 90 minute boil coming up. Two hop additions. Pretty simple recipe. But man it's good to be back in business.
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there's a hell of a lot to know about brewing, now I know that.
Aint that the truth.
People always harp on the big producers bud miller etc, but with how many variables that go into the process, its pretty impressive they can produce such a consistent product. Add in that its made in different locations on top standard brewing variables it becomes even more impressive.
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there's a hell of a lot to know about brewing, now I know that.
Aint that the truth.
People always harp on the big producers bud miller etc, but with how many variables that go into the process, its pretty impressive they can produce such a consistent product. Add in that its made in different locations on top standard brewing variables it becomes even more impressive.
If only the beer were as impressive as the effort put into it. :-/
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there's a hell of a lot to know about brewing, now I know that.
Aint that the truth.
People always harp on the big producers bud miller etc, but with how many variables that go into the process, its pretty impressive they can produce such a consistent product. Add in that its made in different locations on top standard brewing variables it becomes even more impressive.
BMC does an excellent job producing the stuff they make. It's actually not easy to clone a bud light. They are making exactly what they want to make, and that's difficult. The problem is that they're not trying to make anything that I want to drink.
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there's a hell of a lot to know about brewing, now I know that.
Aint that the truth.
People always harp on the big producers bud miller etc, but with how many variables that go into the process, its pretty impressive they can produce such a consistent product. Add in that its made in different locations on top standard brewing variables it becomes even more impressive.
If only the beer were as impressive as the effort put into it. :-/
Well, you get what you pay for. At 17.99 for 24 16oz cans what do you expect?
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there's a hell of a lot to know about brewing, now I know that.
Aint that the truth.
People always harp on the big producers bud miller etc, but with how many variables that go into the process, its pretty impressive they can produce such a consistent product. Add in that its made in different locations on top standard brewing variables it becomes even more impressive.
If only the beer were as impressive as the effort put into it. :-/
Well, you get what you pay for. At 17.99 for 24 16oz cans what do you expect?
Expanding on that.
I've always wondered why the industry went to lager's as the staple beer. Its more expensive and time intensive than standard ales..
Anyone know the history on this?
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I've always wondered why the industry went to lager's as the staple beer. Its more expensive and time intensive than standard ales..
Anyone know the history on this?
If I recall correctly it was due to a few things: the ability to dry malt that was pale in color, the ability to create transparent glassware, and the availability of refrigeration that not only allowed easier production of lagers, but to serve cold beer that was refreshing to the palate.
So a combination of technology improvements and a taste for "a cold one" that looked really pretty in a transparent glass.
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Not to mention that AB isn't exactly lagering for 4-6 weeks blindly. Hell, they filter the grain bed instead of traditional 60-90 minute lautering to speed things up.
They brew high gravity, they ferment hotter to speed up primary fermentation, they lager for less time. Their oldest, most inefficient brewery in Saint Louis turns over the annual production (~3500bbls) of the brewery where I work in 2-3 hours. They have a 20+ single horizontal lagering tanks with a capacity as big as our annual production. Then they have a dozen more of these facilities across the country.
Grain to glass is probably under 4 weeks. Keep in mind also, that almost all of their product is coming from a single wort stream. Bud Light is the same wort as Bud Select, just less diluted. Less tank juggling to worry about when you're only making one beer.
As for why they chose lager though. Probably simply because that's what was popular at the time (late 1800s). They weren't going to try to blaze a new trail, they were simply going to do what all of the local and regional breweries were doing at the same time, just faster. The German brewing tradition took hold in the mid to late 1800s, before that English styles were popular, but mostly done as a domestic chore or an outsourced domestic chore (view the pub as a traveler's house first and a bar second). It wasn't until the time of the Industrial Revolution that beer became something that could be industrialized.
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Everything went very well today. The mash/lauter tun worked great as I said before and my chilling setup was pretty effective for how much I paid for it. I have a home made immersion chiller (that I made before the price of copper shot through the roof) and a utility sink that I filled with very cold water. This combination brought the temperature down from boil to 66 degrees in a half hour. I was VERY happy with that.
So, primary for a week, secondary for long enough for the isinglass to do it's job then bottle conditioning. Now I need to order ingredients for the oatmeal stout that I plan to rack onto the yeast cake.
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The more I read the more I think a minimum of 2 weeks in PRIMARY(edited to what I meant) is wise. Just some food for thought. I am moving away from 2ndary all together, but will do one for my kolsch this weekend.
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In general I am getting away from secondaries. Lately I've been doing a longer 2 or 3 week primary and then direct to bottle. I've never had any off taste and if anything the product is just as good or better than the brews I've done with a secondary.
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Changed my post above to say what I meant, in general 2 weeks in primary, minimum, and totally avoid 2ndary unless you are doing something specific.
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As I've said in prior versions of this thread, I do brew-in-a-bag all grain and make wine and cider. We've got a cider, a barolo, and a sparkling sauvignon blanc in carboys and a barleywine that just finished carbonating in bottles.
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As I've said in prior versions of this thread, I do brew-in-a-bag all grain and make wine and cider. We've got a cider, a barolo, and a sparkling sauvignon blanc in carboys and a barleywine that just finished carbonating in bottles.
Any tips for getting a barleywine to attenuate? I've never tried one but I'd like to some day.
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Nope, ours came out way weak. Still a tasty beer though.
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You can mash lower, but I guess it depends on what you mean by getting it to attenuate because to me barleywines are sweet beers. You just have to use a good chunk of hops to bitter it appropriately for balance.
A beer that starts at 1.100 and finishes "high" at 1.020-1.024 is still about 10%ABV.
Yeast health is important in high gravity brewing. Build a yeast starter, 1L or so and brew a medium strength beer 1.050 or so with the yeast you will use for your barleywine. Harvest a lot of that yeast and make up a 2L or bigger if possible, starter again and brew your barleywine. Yeast nutrient would be helpful, for cheap nutrient you can take some spent yeast and throw it into the boil right at flameout. Proper aeration is essential although most homebrew setups won't allow for using pure oxygen and shaking the wort can't get atmospheric O2 into solution at a rate that yeast likes.
When I'm back at work I can post a recipe for a black barleywine that we did recently that turned out great, but with 1.100 wort and a ton of hops it isn't a budget friendly beer.
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I've always wondered why the industry went to lager's as the staple beer. Its more expensive and time intensive than standard ales..
I suspect one reason (in addition to what everyone has said) is that lagers take better to cheap adjuncts than ales.
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brewed today:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/104773/extract-kolsh
Everything went perfect, hadn't done an extract in ages...it's amazingly easy :) Hopefully it's still good. Hoping to figure out how to harvest this yeast and re-use it, looking for any ideas, would have to brew in april ish.
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I've always wondered why the industry went to lager's as the staple beer. Its more expensive and time intensive than standard ales..
I suspect one reason (in addition to what everyone has said) is that lagers take better to cheap adjuncts than ales.
It's all about increasing consumption. Light-bodied low-alcohol beers increase sales of both beer and salty high-markup snack foods. Try sitting on your butt watching a football game and putting away more than 3 pints of heavy ale. You'd get quite full and pretty drunk. Meanwhile, the guy at the sports bar has put away 10 Lites and eaten $30 worth of nachos and wings and still feels good enough to drive.
And yes, the fact that the average light lager trades off a substantial portion of barley in the grain bill for cheaper things like rice and corn is definitely influential.
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Those of you that buy malt by the 50lb, do you buy base malts in that large quantities and specialties from the local brewshop? what about bulk hops? The last recipe I did had 3 or 4 different hops, I don't think I brew enough to keep 3 or four pounds of hops on hand.
I buy my bags of grain at either Northern Brewer or Midwest Supplies when I'm in Minneapolis or have family coming to visit. In general, try your local shop to get a quote on a bag (might also be able to come back to mill, which could be a benefit over buying a mill) or a local home brewer's group to see if they do group buys. Shipping on bags from the online distributors will be more expensive, but still might be better than per-pound costs.
I've usually just purchased base malt (2-row and wheat), but I think I'll buy some C20 as well in my next purchase.
If you bought a pound each of a classic German, English, and American hops, you'd be in a good place to brew a pretty wide variety of beers. This has been my strategy. I've purchased from Nikobrew.com and from this ebay seller (http://www.ebay.com/usr/hausotterted) to keep my hops prices around $10/lb (shipped).
If you have a brew buddy, you could order a larger variety and split them.
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As I've said in prior versions of this thread, I do brew-in-a-bag all grain and make wine and cider. We've got a cider, a barolo, and a sparkling sauvignon blanc in carboys and a barleywine that just finished carbonating in bottles.
Any tips for getting a barleywine to attenuate? I've never tried one but I'd like to some day.
two suggestions. 1) Pitch on a yeast cake from a previous brew. 2) Make a big ass yeast starter, probably around 3L.
Pitching on the yeast cake will be your best bet. For the yeast starter I would make it by doing a double brew...as in brew one batch mix for a day, drain off "beer", add another batched of wort, mix for a day, then add to barleywine wort.
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My kolchs primary fermentation seems to have finally slowed enough for me to put a normal airlock on it, it was going NUTS! I'll leave it to hang out for 3 weekends (4 weeks in primary) and then i'll have to decide if I want to 2ndary, or just keg and let sit for a couple weeks before adding the co2.
I'm excited!
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My first attempt at hard cider. Was worried about the krausen at first, but that happened on the first day of full fermentation. It's been nearly a week and I switched the airlock once. Looking forward to finally drinking some of it.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-hVAmiOlZMjc/UyNnYvMquZI/AAAAAAAADHM/ylx9QOr9EOk/w718-h957-no/IMG_20140310_194439.jpg)
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The Dark Mild has been bottle conditioning for a week, so I plan on testing one tomorrow.
Then Sunday I embark upon a new homebrewing journey: the quest to clone Orval. I'm calling my recipe "Mathilda" after the legend that Princess Mathilda lost her ring in the spring near the current Orval abbey and had it returned by a trout (the current Orval logo).
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I'm kegging and brewing april 11, a full 5 weeks after starting the kolsch, home brew store guy said not to worry. Reusing the yeast cake in a hybrid German Steam Altbier, until then my CPA studies await, test on April 8.
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We're looking to get into homebrewing. What would you recommended for equipment in the beginning? Any particular online (or MA/NH) store you'd recommend?
DH's bday is in June so I thought I might get him something beer making related as a present.
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We're looking to get into homebrewing. What would you recommended for equipment in the beginning? Any particular online (or MA/NH) store you'd recommend?
DH's bday is in June so I thought I might get him something beer making related as a present.
You need a fermenter, a 5 gallon pot, and a siphon at minimum.
I bought a starter kit from austin homebrew, but it did not come with a pot. Polar ware 20 qt pot is pretty reasonably priced, and I don't recommend an aluminum kettle.
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Any particular online (or MA/NH) store you'd recommend?
Austin, Williams, or Midwest online. Modern Brewer in North Cambridge for B&M.
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Any particular online (or MA/NH) store you'd recommend?
Austin, Williams, or Midwest online. Modern Brewer in North Cambridge for B&M.
Second Modern Brewer (now called Modern Homebrew Emporium). Great resource for advice/help, and worth a visit.
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We're looking to get into homebrewing. What would you recommended for equipment in the beginning? Any particular online (or MA/NH) store you'd recommend?
DH's bday is in June so I thought I might get him something beer making related as a present.
You need a fermenter, a 5 gallon pot, and a siphon at minimum.
I bought a starter kit from austin homebrew, but it did not come with a pot. Polar ware 20 qt pot is pretty reasonably priced, and I don't recommend an aluminum kettle.
Hmm, I disagree with the aluminum. Cheap, quick to heat, no off-flavor. I use this pot for brew in a bag:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/IMUSA-Tamale-and-Seafood-32-Quart-Steamer/13370045
I say start with 7-8 gallon pot at least so you can expand in the future if you want (doing 5 gallon boils, large mashes, etc).
@CommonCents
As far as starter equipment, I use all of this stuff (except for bottling related items because I keg) regularly today:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/essential-brewing-starter-kit.html
I prefer to use these 6.5 gallon buckets vs carboys because they're easy to clean (so long as you don't scratch them, they will host infections), lighter, bigger, cheaper to replace, easier to move, easier to reuse yeast, blah blah blah. I always primary ferment in these guys. Plus that auto-siphon is top quality.
Cheers!
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We're looking to get into homebrewing. What would you recommended for equipment in the beginning? Any particular online (or MA/NH) store you'd recommend?
DH's bday is in June so I thought I might get him something beer making related as a present.
You need a fermenter, a 5 gallon pot, and a siphon at minimum.
I bought a starter kit from austin homebrew, but it did not come with a pot. Polar ware 20 qt pot is pretty reasonably priced, and I don't recommend an aluminum kettle.
Hmm, I disagree with the aluminum. Cheap, quick to heat, no off-flavor. I use this pot for brew in a bag:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/IMUSA-Tamale-and-Seafood-32-Quart-Steamer/13370045
I say start with 7-8 gallon pot at least so you can expand in the future if you want (doing 5 gallon boils, large mashes, etc).
@CommonCents
As far as starter equipment, I use all of this stuff (except for bottling related items because I keg) regularly today:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/essential-brewing-starter-kit.html
I prefer to use these 6.5 gallon buckets vs carboys because they're easy to clean (so long as you don't scratch them, they will host infections), lighter, bigger, cheaper to replace, easier to move, easier to reuse yeast, blah blah blah. I always primary ferment in these guys. Plus that auto-siphon is top quality.
Cheers!
I second the bucket. I've got a heavy glass carboy, and it's horrible compared to my bucket.
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I had a curious happening that I had never seen before, and unfortunately never took a pictures.
My carboy had a ton of white streaking down the sides, then today, it was gone. My father (parents just showed up for the weekend) admittedly moved the carboy across the room by slowly "wiggling" it so he likely stirred something up, but not sure how that would make it completely go away. Any ideas what it was? The beer has been in there since March 8, so 3 full weeks this Saturday, plenty of time to have been done fermenting, but I haven't checked that yet, planning on letting it sit another week before kegging.
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Interesting. Thanks for the tips! Hopefully DH's grad school experience in sterilizing equipment will come into handy for home brewing. :)
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Interesting. Thanks for the tips! Hopefully DH's grad school experience in sterilizing equipment will come into handy for home brewing. :)
Sterilization is probably overkill! The yeast are hardy enough to overcome some small level of contamination.
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Interesting. Thanks for the tips! Hopefully DH's grad school experience in sterilizing equipment will come into handy for home brewing. :)
DH started us on the homebrew adventures, and was meticulous with the sterilization. I am much lazier, and just swish my carboys with white vinegar, and boil the caps in water for bottling. FWIW, my brew results have been > his. Once I learned that off flavors are about the worst that will happen with haphazard sanitation, I didn't worry too much, and although I keep things clean, not worrying about sterility has kept the homebrew process simple, cheap and enjoyable.
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Interesting. Thanks for the tips! Hopefully DH's grad school experience in sterilizing equipment will come into handy for home brewing. :)
DH started us on the homebrew adventures, and was meticulous with the sterilization. I am much lazier, and just swish my carboys with white vinegar, and boil the caps in water for bottling. FWIW, my brew results have been > his. Once I learned that off flavors are about the worst that will happen with haphazard sanitation, I didn't worry too much, and although I keep things clean, not worrying about sterility has kept the homebrew process simple, cheap and enjoyable.
Shhhhhh....
He doesn't do the dishes too often at home, darned if I'm going to give a green light to a hobby for him, where he also doesn't do the work of cleaning up and I end up having to do it...
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I found an ounce of hallertauer hops from 2 years ago, properly stored in the freezer, when I was going to do a kolsch batch. I just did a kolsch batch (i've been mentioning the past month), would dry hopping with those old nastys be ok? Or is anything good left in them pretty well gone?
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Really depends on what you mean by 'properly stored'.
Were they vacuum sealed in an impermeable foil bag that was flushed with nitrogen? If so, they should be fine.
If they were just in the freezer in a ziplock, they probably aren't.
Can't hurt to open them up and give them a good smell either way. Stale hops will smell of isovaleric acid, more specifically they might smell like sweaty socks or aged hard cheeses. You don't really want this in your beer, but if they smell good, they'll taste good.
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Why would you dry hop a kolsch?
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Trying my question re: home brewing here first, before starting a new thread...
Can anyone give me a ball-park figure for what the ingredients would cost to brew a batch of amber? My soon-to-be BIL is a home brewer, and I'd like to ask him to make a commemorative beer for my wedding. I'm pretty sure he'd be happy to do it if I fronted the costs. But he's too nice to ever give me a price, and I don't want him to pay for this himself.
He already has all the equipment, including a 6 gal carboy, and more bottles than he can shake a stick at.
Ballpark figure anyone?
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Ballpark figure anyone?
Depends on his setup. $20-$45 for a 5 gallon batch. It would cost me probably $35, but I have to buy the water as my well water is horrible for brewing.
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Does he do all-grain brewing from crushed barley, or does he use extracts that come in a big jug? All-grain will run towards the bottom of that range, extract towards the top.
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Brewing your own oatmeal stout can be very cost effective. My oatmeal stout is every bit as good as a Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout, which costs about $2.50 a bottle. I brewed an entire fifty bottle batch for under $30. Some of the fancier English style ales don't really take all that much grain or hops, and can be made with the excellent nottingham dry yeast on the cheap.
For instance, doppelbocks, by comparison, cost about the same amount at the liquor store but are much more expensive to brew. The ingredients I would require to brew an ayinger celebrator clone would cost $70 from my homebrew shop. They require much more grain, a lot of yeast cells, as well as a means of accurate temperature control for both fermentation and lagering, which can take months for such a high gravity style.
For first time home brewers, something with strong flavor like an oatmeal stout might be a good idea, because if you make a mistake that throws the flavor off slightly, it's less likely to be noticed.
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Does he do all-grain brewing from crushed barley, or does he use extracts that come in a big jug? All-grain will run towards the bottom of that range, extract towards the top.
He uses crushed barley - is a member of a home-brew coop. He definitely knows what he is doing and has made several dozen batches over the last few years. But he's cut back because he can't justify the added beer in his fridge or added to his wasteline. that's why i think he'd love the opportunity to make a batch (or three) if it was no cost to him.
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Opened the first of a batch of hefe grantmeaname helped me brew a few weeks a go. Flavor is bang on, but I ended up with more on the counter than in my glass upon opening. Here's hoping a night in the fridge will fix it!
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Opened the first of a batch of hefe grantmeaname helped me brew a few weeks a go. Flavor is bang on, but I ended up with more on the counter than in my glass upon opening. Here's hoping a night in the fridge will fix it!
Sink=biggest glass in the house?
Keep track of whether they're all consistently overcarbonated or if bottle-to-bottle is inconsistent.
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Keep track of whether they're all consistently overcarbonated or if bottle-to-bottle is inconsistent.
why?
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It'll let you know whether it's the intended amount of sugar being used or with the consistency between bottles.
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oh gotcha. intended amount of sugar should be fine since I used the same amount I use for everything else. I think most likely is that I got impatient and didn't let it ferment out fully before bottling.
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Why would you dry hop a kolsch?
I might ask you, why not?
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It just doesn't seem like something in the style of a kolsch. It might make a good beer, but if you've already hopped it during the boil and you dry hop it now you'll end up with something more like a weak IPA and not much like a kolsch IMO.
EDIT: looks like dry-hopping doesn't contribute as much bitterness as I thought. Nevermind, it's probably not a terrible idea.
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Does he do all-grain brewing from crushed barley, or does he use extracts that come in a big jug? All-grain will run towards the bottom of that range, extract towards the top.
He uses crushed barley - is a member of a home-brew coop. He definitely knows what he is doing and has made several dozen batches over the last few years. But he's cut back because he can't justify the added beer in his fridge or added to his wasteline. that's why i think he'd love the opportunity to make a batch (or three) if it was no cost to him.
It'll be closer to $20 then. If he uses tap water, has his own yeast stockpile, and buys bulk grain, it will be even less.
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EDIT: looks like dry-hopping doesn't contribute as much bitterness as I thought. Nevermind, it's probably not a terrible idea.
Bingo, I'm not trying to bitter just add some more aroma. I did it this morning, with nothing go compare to, I'll let you know if it tastes good.
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I itemized the cost for brewing the Dark English Mild. Which, by the way, turned out very well as a good drinkable beer, but not quite where I want it for the style. It's a bit too dark, too roasty/chocolate (that chocolate malt is powerful stuff), needs more sweetness and I'd like some more of the fruity English ale esters. So I'm reformulating and brewing again in a few weeks.
Anyway, the cost of the mild is somewhere around $17 for the 5 gallon batch, which works out to somewhere around $0.33 per bottle. That's one reason I'm hoping to make milds my "flagship" beers.
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I itemized the cost for brewing the Dark English Mild. Which, by the way, turned out very well as a good drinkable beer, but not quite where I want it for the style. It's a bit too dark, too roasty/chocolate (that chocolate malt is powerful stuff), needs more sweetness and I'd like some more of the fruity English ale esters. So I'm reformulating and brewing again in a few weeks.
Anyway, the cost of the mild is somewhere around $17 for the 5 gallon batch, which works out to somewhere around $0.33 per bottle. That's one reason I'm hoping to make milds my "flagship" beers.
Do you like hefeweizen? They are similarly inexpensive.
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It'll be closer to $20 then. If he uses tap water, has his own yeast stockpile, and buys bulk grain, it will be even less.
Ok, that's awesome. I'm beginning to understand the appeal of brewing one's own beer :-)
So (excuse the noob question) in a 6gal glass carboy a batch of beer might cost $20 and yield about the same as a half-keg (168 bottles?) I know that there is some header space in the carboy, but how much beer would it ultimately yield? $0.33/bottle (jdoolin's estimate) sounds so much better than the ~$1/beer from a half-keg.
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It'll be closer to $20 then. If he uses tap water, has his own yeast stockpile, and buys bulk grain, it will be even less.
Ok, that's awesome. I'm beginning to understand the appeal of brewing one's own beer :-)
So (excuse the noob question) in a 6gal glass carboy a batch of beer might cost $20 and yield about the same as a half-keg (168 bottles?) I know that there is some header space in the carboy, but how much beer would it ultimately yield? $0.33/bottle (jdoolin's estimate) sounds so much better than the ~$1/beer from a half-keg.
More like 50-60 bottles.
Still much less than $1/bottle. Neglecting the cost of the bottles, which is not insignificant. Don't throw away the bottles.
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It'll be closer to $20 then. If he uses tap water, has his own yeast stockpile, and buys bulk grain, it will be even less.
Ok, that's awesome. I'm beginning to understand the appeal of brewing one's own beer :-)
So (excuse the noob question) in a 6gal glass carboy a batch of beer might cost $20 and yield about the same as a half-keg (168 bottles?) I know that there is some header space in the carboy, but how much beer would it ultimately yield? $0.33/bottle (jdoolin's estimate) sounds so much better than the ~$1/beer from a half-keg.
6 gallons of glass is like 5 gallons of usable beer, a little headspace, and a little sediment that gets tossed. 5*128=640 ounces, which is 53 12-ounce regular bottles or 25 25.6-ounce bomber bottles.
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I sell bottles on Craigslist for $.125/bottle or $15 for 48
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You could also try knowing college students. That's worked well for us in the past.
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or old people who like beer. I got like 40 bottles from the last old person party I went to.
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Old people have parties?
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Or you make an arrangement with a local restaurant like I did. I have a steady supply of bottles forever now. Between the restaurant (which I do patronize on occasion), a co-worker and myself, I'll never lack bottles and they are effectively free.
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If anyone is near Pittsburgh, I've got a pallet of bad glass up for grabs.
We've got a total of just over seven layers of bulk glass...sooo 450 bottles per layer would mean a total of just over 3150 bottles.
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Old people have parties?
crazy right? just picked up another 15 at one tonight!
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Old people have parties?
yes. They just end before the news comes on.
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The 5 o'clock news or the 8 o'clock news?
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More like 50-60 bottles.
Still much less than $1/bottle. Neglecting the cost of the bottles, which is not insignificant. Don't throw away the bottles.
ok - good to know. Maybe we'll try two different batches. I'm looking foward to it - he's letting me "help" - basically he'll do the brewing but I get to learn.
Bottles are not a problem. His DW nags him occasionally of having too many empties, but he always wants to have enough in case he wants to do multiple batches (like now). Last time I was over there I did a quick visual count and he's got well over 200 all washed and stacked in crates, plus dozens of larger bottles (maybe 22oz and some wine-bottle sized ones). He basically has his own brew-room in his basement with industrial shelves on all sides, a huge sink and a central drain in the floor.
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More like 50-60 bottles.
Still much less than $1/bottle. Neglecting the cost of the bottles, which is not insignificant. Don't throw away the bottles.
ok - good to know. Maybe we'll try two different batches. I'm looking foward to it - he's letting me "help" - basically he'll do the brewing but I get to learn.
Bottles are not a problem. His DW nags him occasionally of having too many empties, but he always wants to have enough in case he wants to do multiple batches (like now). Last time I was over there I did a quick visual count and he's got well over 200 all washed and stacked in crates, plus dozens of larger bottles (maybe 22oz and some wine-bottle sized ones). He basically has his own brew-room in his basement with industrial shelves on all sides, a huge sink and a central drain in the floor.
Make sure they aren't twist offs. If they are and you use them you are in for a bad time.
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Got to try my hard cider tonight, absolutely delicious. My 94 year old grandmother tried some when I transferred to secondary and told me to not leave the bottle out near her. I have two more batches which I have been starting 2 weeks apart (all 1gal jugs) and trying to collect enough bottles to store everything. I've been collecting bottles as I come by them, anybody use wine bottles for sparkling cider?
Today I had a neighbor on our neighborhood facebook mention that she does wine demos and has the leftover demo bottles from the day before, I got hooked up with two bottles of chardonnay which were both over half full. I was thinking of saving these as the backup for me running out of 12 ounce and pints. With cider I don't mind it going flat as long as it doesn't turn to apple vinegar and I have those plastic caps which come with those sparkling cider bottles that I use to recap them.
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I've been collecting bottles as I come by them, anybody use wine bottles for sparkling cider?
I haven't because champagne bottles use bigger caps than beer bottles and I would mind flatness. For mead (and cider back when we used to bottle it), I like the 12oz clear bottles that Newcastle and Strongbow come in, but the color doesn't matter. Are you having trouble getting enough bottles period or enough that are clear?
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Kegging my kolsch, brewing an extract dusseldorf Altbier.
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style07.php
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/123634/extract-alt-bier
So far smells great, excited for kolsch!
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Haven't really tried hard to collect bottles, and I may be coming up on a shortage with my next batch coming out and another in two weeks. Might have to start drinking faster or brewing slower. The trick is to match consumption, brewing, and the number of bottles. I might try a shout out on Facebook on our neighborhood group to see if I could scrounge up some bottles. It can be hard in Oregon sometimes because of the 0.05 deposit, but my neighborhood seems to be fairly affluent and not so mustachian so I may get some good finds.
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if you are planning to brew long-term, it may be worth the money to buy some 1L swing-top style bottles. These are nice because there is less sanitizing and no capping. Personally, went I drink, I don't drink just one 12oz bottle anyway so these work out nice.
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if you are planning to brew long-term, it may be worth the money to buy some 1L swing-top style bottles. These are nice because there is less sanitizing and no capping. Personally, went I drink, I don't drink just one 12oz bottle anyway so these work out nice.
ha I like my swingtops for the exact opposite reason... I don't usually drink a full 12oz all at once, so I like being able to easily reseal them
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if you are planning to brew long-term, it may be worth the money to buy some 1L swing-top style bottles. These are nice because there is less sanitizing and no capping. Personally, went I drink, I don't drink just one 12oz bottle anyway so these work out nice.
If you are planning to brew alot and drink alot, I would go CO2. I haven't been brewing a whole lot lately, but back in the day when I would regularly do 10gal per weekend, having CO2 for that amount would have been awesome. It would have saved me so much time.
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Perfect option for those who want to recap beers. Google DIY carbonator caps. Reusing 1L or 2L soda bottles and installs a tire stem valve in the cap. I have an output from my co2 tank fitted with an automotive air chuck. Fill the bottles off the kegs, top off with co2 and they will stay carbed for weeks. Also, if you don't finish you can top it off again and put the partial bottle back in the fridge.
I started making them after breaking 2 growlers hitting a bump on my bicycle. But main driver was to reduce the weight during biking to parks and camping.
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Did my first solo brew the other day. My 2nd brew altogether. It's a Left Hand Milk Stout clone, extract. Well, the recipe was an extract conversion of the Left Hand Milk Stout clone, and then I flubbed the recipe some...LOL. So who the hell knows what I'll end up with. But I took really good notes just in case I like it!
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So who the hell knows what I'll end up with.
I know! It will be beer. Probably.
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So who the hell knows what I'll end up with.
I know! It will be beer. Probably.
Haha, good one. I hope so!
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We just bottled a Barolo yesterday. It's sad to think that I won't get to see it for four months.
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We just bottled a Barolo yesterday. It's sad to think that I won't get to see it for four months.
The real question is which side do you stand in the Barolo wars?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barolo
Sounds like a nice wine.
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I made it from a kit so I'm gonna go with "modern".
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Rain the the forecast for this weekend, and now this thread has me itching to brew. But what?
Anyone have a good red ale extract recipe (Imperial red, ideally)? Would love to make something similar to Bridgeport Kingpin...
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My wife complained today that most of our beers (except the IPA) taste a little "funky" and she misses the commercial brews. Anyone have any idea what she could be talking about? I'm apparently not sensitive enough to this off flavor as I can't tell what she means.
Maybe she doesn't like the yeast in the bottles?
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Funky to me, would usually indicate a contamination with wild yeast or bacteria. But this would be apparent in strong sourness, or some barnyard-y funky Brettanomyces character, or a whole host of other indicators, including the likely formation of a pellicle on top of your fermenting beer.
If you otherwise taste clean beer it is possible that she is talking about the yeast bite from unfiltered beer. You could take a bottle that has been in the fridge and settled clear for at least a week. Carefully decant the first half into one glass. Then, swirl the remaining liquid to rouse the yeast and pour that into another glass. Ask her if one or both samples taste 'funky'.
Is she drinking the beer straight out of the bottle? If so, after the first drink sip sediment will be stirred up from the bottom of the bottle.
If it turns out she doesn't like yeast in the beer, you can make sure she uses a glass and that she is not pouring the last 1-2oz out of the bottle, or you can use finings before your transfer to the bottling bucket to further clear the beer after fermentation. There is some stuff called Biofine Clear that is vegan friendly and works incredibly well.
Taste paneling is a very difficult thing to do. Vocabulary is different, not to mention tolerance thresholds for different compounds. So it is entirely possible that you have a brewing/fermentation issue, say with high levels of diacetyl or DMS, but if you aren't sensitive to it, you won't notice it.
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Funky to me, would usually indicate a contamination with wild yeast or bacteria. But this would be apparent in strong sourness, or some barnyard-y funky Brettanomyces character, or a whole host of other indicators, including the likely formation of a pellicle on top of your fermenting beer.
If you otherwise taste clean beer it is possible that she is talking about the yeast bite from unfiltered beer. You could take a bottle that has been in the fridge and settled clear for at least a week. Carefully decant the first half into one glass. Then, swirl the remaining liquid to rouse the yeast and pour that into another glass. Ask her if one or both samples taste 'funky'.
Is she drinking the beer straight out of the bottle? If so, after the first drink sip sediment will be stirred up from the bottom of the bottle.
If it turns out she doesn't like yeast in the beer, you can make sure she uses a glass and that she is not pouring the last 1-2oz out of the bottle, or you can use finings before your transfer to the bottling bucket to further clear the beer after fermentation. There is some stuff called Biofine Clear that is vegan friendly and works incredibly well.
Taste paneling is a very difficult thing to do. Vocabulary is different, not to mention tolerance thresholds for different compounds. So it is entirely possible that you have a brewing/fermentation issue, say with high levels of diacetyl or DMS, but if you aren't sensitive to it, you won't notice it.
Hmmm. I doubt it's an infection as I haven't noticed any pellicles. And she likes to pour most of it in a glass, and then drink the yeasty beer left in the bottle first.
I think you may be right about the DMS. I brew on a stove top with 2x 5 gallon pots, and I leave the lids about halfway on. Is it possible that I need to leave the lids off, or that I'm not boiling hard enough? And what would cause diacetyl, is that a fermentation temperature thing? I use a chest freezer with a temp controller so I know I'm fermenting at the correct temperatures.
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My wife complained today that most of our beers (except the IPA) taste a little "funky" and she misses the commercial brews. Anyone have any idea what she could be talking about? I'm apparently not sensitive enough to this off flavor as I can't tell what she means.
Maybe she doesn't like the yeast in the bottles?
Give her a blind taste test (literally, blindfolded - ensuring temp, glasses etc the same for each brew) of commercial and homebrew. See if the 'funk' is real or derived from some kind of bias :-)
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I made beer that tastes good!
I brewed a very small batch of basic English brown ale back in early March. Tried a couple bottles 2 and 3 week after bottling and thought it was over carbonated and yeasty tasting. I cracked the third bottle last night after leaving it in the fridge for a couple days and it was delicious!
I brewed a couple more batches that are bottle conditioning now and can't wait to try them. I've got a red Irish blackberry ale and an Edelweiss that just need to age a bit more.
For anyone wanting to get their feet wet with home brewing, I'm really enjoying the 1 gallon recipes in this book http://www.amazon.com/Brooklyn-Brew-Shops-Beer-Making/dp/0307889203/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398448912&sr=1-1&keywords=brooklyn+brewing. My local library has a copy.
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Funky to me, would usually indicate a contamination with wild yeast or bacteria. But this would be apparent in strong sourness, or some barnyard-y funky Brettanomyces character, or a whole host of other indicators, including the likely formation of a pellicle on top of your fermenting beer.
If you otherwise taste clean beer it is possible that she is talking about the yeast bite from unfiltered beer. You could take a bottle that has been in the fridge and settled clear for at least a week. Carefully decant the first half into one glass. Then, swirl the remaining liquid to rouse the yeast and pour that into another glass. Ask her if one or both samples taste 'funky'.
Is she drinking the beer straight out of the bottle? If so, after the first drink sip sediment will be stirred up from the bottom of the bottle.
If it turns out she doesn't like yeast in the beer, you can make sure she uses a glass and that she is not pouring the last 1-2oz out of the bottle, or you can use finings before your transfer to the bottling bucket to further clear the beer after fermentation. There is some stuff called Biofine Clear that is vegan friendly and works incredibly well.
Taste paneling is a very difficult thing to do. Vocabulary is different, not to mention tolerance thresholds for different compounds. So it is entirely possible that you have a brewing/fermentation issue, say with high levels of diacetyl or DMS, but if you aren't sensitive to it, you won't notice it.
Hmmm. I doubt it's an infection as I haven't noticed any pellicles. And she likes to pour most of it in a glass, and then drink the yeasty beer left in the bottle first.
I think you may be right about the DMS. I brew on a stove top with 2x 5 gallon pots, and I leave the lids about halfway on. Is it possible that I need to leave the lids off, or that I'm not boiling hard enough? And what would cause diacetyl, is that a fermentation temperature thing? I use a chest freezer with a temp controller so I know I'm fermenting at the correct temperatures.
Yes, you should be leaving the lids off completely. DMS is driven off during the boil. If you were to capture and condense the steam coming off the pot, it will smell like corn flakes. Ideally you want to boil off about 10% of your kettle volume.
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Funky to me, would usually indicate a contamination with wild yeast or bacteria. But this would be apparent in strong sourness, or some barnyard-y funky Brettanomyces character, or a whole host of other indicators, including the likely formation of a pellicle on top of your fermenting beer.
If you otherwise taste clean beer it is possible that she is talking about the yeast bite from unfiltered beer. You could take a bottle that has been in the fridge and settled clear for at least a week. Carefully decant the first half into one glass. Then, swirl the remaining liquid to rouse the yeast and pour that into another glass. Ask her if one or both samples taste 'funky'.
Is she drinking the beer straight out of the bottle? If so, after the first drink sip sediment will be stirred up from the bottom of the bottle.
If it turns out she doesn't like yeast in the beer, you can make sure she uses a glass and that she is not pouring the last 1-2oz out of the bottle, or you can use finings before your transfer to the bottling bucket to further clear the beer after fermentation. There is some stuff called Biofine Clear that is vegan friendly and works incredibly well.
Taste paneling is a very difficult thing to do. Vocabulary is different, not to mention tolerance thresholds for different compounds. So it is entirely possible that you have a brewing/fermentation issue, say with high levels of diacetyl or DMS, but if you aren't sensitive to it, you won't notice it.
Hmmm. I doubt it's an infection as I haven't noticed any pellicles. And she likes to pour most of it in a glass, and then drink the yeasty beer left in the bottle first.
I think you may be right about the DMS. I brew on a stove top with 2x 5 gallon pots, and I leave the lids about halfway on. Is it possible that I need to leave the lids off, or that I'm not boiling hard enough? And what would cause diacetyl, is that a fermentation temperature thing? I use a chest freezer with a temp controller so I know I'm fermenting at the correct temperatures.
Yes, you should be leaving the lids off completely. DMS is driven off during the boil. If you were to capture and condense the steam coming off the pot, it will smell like corn flakes. Ideally you want to boil off about 10% of your kettle volume.
You also want to chill quickly after the boil. What yeast are you using?
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I work professionally as a brewer...
Who do you brew for, if you don't mind sharing?
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Funky to me, would usually indicate a contamination with wild yeast or bacteria. But this would be apparent in strong sourness, or some barnyard-y funky Brettanomyces character, or a whole host of other indicators, including the likely formation of a pellicle on top of your fermenting beer.
If you otherwise taste clean beer it is possible that she is talking about the yeast bite from unfiltered beer. You could take a bottle that has been in the fridge and settled clear for at least a week. Carefully decant the first half into one glass. Then, swirl the remaining liquid to rouse the yeast and pour that into another glass. Ask her if one or both samples taste 'funky'.
Is she drinking the beer straight out of the bottle? If so, after the first drink sip sediment will be stirred up from the bottom of the bottle.
If it turns out she doesn't like yeast in the beer, you can make sure she uses a glass and that she is not pouring the last 1-2oz out of the bottle, or you can use finings before your transfer to the bottling bucket to further clear the beer after fermentation. There is some stuff called Biofine Clear that is vegan friendly and works incredibly well.
Taste paneling is a very difficult thing to do. Vocabulary is different, not to mention tolerance thresholds for different compounds. So it is entirely possible that you have a brewing/fermentation issue, say with high levels of diacetyl or DMS, but if you aren't sensitive to it, you won't notice it.
Hmmm. I doubt it's an infection as I haven't noticed any pellicles. And she likes to pour most of it in a glass, and then drink the yeasty beer left in the bottle first.
I think you may be right about the DMS. I brew on a stove top with 2x 5 gallon pots, and I leave the lids about halfway on. Is it possible that I need to leave the lids off, or that I'm not boiling hard enough? And what would cause diacetyl, is that a fermentation temperature thing? I use a chest freezer with a temp controller so I know I'm fermenting at the correct temperatures.
Yes, you should be leaving the lids off completely. DMS is driven off during the boil. If you were to capture and condense the steam coming off the pot, it will smell like corn flakes. Ideally you want to boil off about 10% of your kettle volume.
You also want to chill quickly after the boil. What yeast are you using?
I have been leaving one of the pots on low while I chill the first one. Most recently I've used WLP300, notty, and belle saison.
I'll be doing another brew either this weekend or next (belle saison this time), so I'll try it without the lids. I'm concerned that they don't boil hard enough without the lids, but I have been boiling off about 2 gallons from the 7.5 (estimated) that I start with.
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Funky to me, would usually indicate a contamination with wild yeast or bacteria. But this would be apparent in strong sourness, or some barnyard-y funky Brettanomyces character, or a whole host of other indicators, including the likely formation of a pellicle on top of your fermenting beer.
If you otherwise taste clean beer it is possible that she is talking about the yeast bite from unfiltered beer. You could take a bottle that has been in the fridge and settled clear for at least a week. Carefully decant the first half into one glass. Then, swirl the remaining liquid to rouse the yeast and pour that into another glass. Ask her if one or both samples taste 'funky'.
Is she drinking the beer straight out of the bottle? If so, after the first drink sip sediment will be stirred up from the bottom of the bottle.
If it turns out she doesn't like yeast in the beer, you can make sure she uses a glass and that she is not pouring the last 1-2oz out of the bottle, or you can use finings before your transfer to the bottling bucket to further clear the beer after fermentation. There is some stuff called Biofine Clear that is vegan friendly and works incredibly well.
Taste paneling is a very difficult thing to do. Vocabulary is different, not to mention tolerance thresholds for different compounds. So it is entirely possible that you have a brewing/fermentation issue, say with high levels of diacetyl or DMS, but if you aren't sensitive to it, you won't notice it.
Hmmm. I doubt it's an infection as I haven't noticed any pellicles. And she likes to pour most of it in a glass, and then drink the yeasty beer left in the bottle first.
I think you may be right about the DMS. I brew on a stove top with 2x 5 gallon pots, and I leave the lids about halfway on. Is it possible that I need to leave the lids off, or that I'm not boiling hard enough? And what would cause diacetyl, is that a fermentation temperature thing? I use a chest freezer with a temp controller so I know I'm fermenting at the correct temperatures.
Yes, you should be leaving the lids off completely. DMS is driven off during the boil. If you were to capture and condense the steam coming off the pot, it will smell like corn flakes. Ideally you want to boil off about 10% of your kettle volume.
You also want to chill quickly after the boil. What yeast are you using?
I have been leaving one of the pots on low while I chill the first one. Most recently I've used WLP300, notty, and belle saison.
I'll be doing another brew either this weekend or next (belle saison this time), so I'll try it without the lids. I'm concerned that they don't boil hard enough without the lids, but I have been boiling off about 2 gallons from the 7.5 (estimated) that I start with.
Hmmm, what kind of time frame between when you're ending the boil and when the second pot is chilled enough to pitch yeast? Ideally you want under an hour of total time to go from 212 to ~65F.
It seems like you're boiling plenty of liquid off that DMS shouldn't be present in noticeable amounts. Brewer12345 is onto something with the cooling aspect because DMS continues to be created once you stop boiling until the temp is under ~160F.
I work professionally as a brewer...
Who do you brew for, if you don't mind sharing?
I work for the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA. A brewpub housed in a 100+ year old former Catholic Church.
(http://s3.amazonaws.com/trazzler-images/af/45124/Untitled-1.jpg)
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If you don't mind me tooting my own horn...my kolsch is awesome. I believe the recipe is somewhere on the first page. I also dry hopped with some 2 year old hallertauer I found in the freezer, which were the flavor hops in the recipe.
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I work for the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA. A brewpub housed in a 100+ year old former Catholic Church.
oh man I love that place! I used to live in Pittsburgh and went there probably around 2003-2004. The imperial stout was one of my favorites, I have fond memories of going there, getting drinks, and the really good cheesy pizzas. I remember a few years back we tried to go right around Christmas when I was visiting family but the place was swamped with people, it seems that word got out about it
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I work for the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA. A brewpub housed in a 100+ year old former Catholic Church.
Awesome! What size system you brewing on; looks to be 10-15 bbl maybe from the pic?
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I work for the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA. A brewpub housed in a 100+ year old former Catholic Church.
oh man I love that place! I used to live in Pittsburgh and went there probably around 2003-2004. The imperial stout was one of my favorites, I have fond memories of going there, getting drinks, and the really good cheesy pizzas. I remember a few years back we tried to go right around Christmas when I was visiting family but the place was swamped with people, it seems that word got out about it
Yeah, you certainly need to pick the times right to visit or you'll end up with an hour wait for a table or a jam packed bar, neither of which are really my favorite things.
I work for the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA. A brewpub housed in a 100+ year old former Catholic Church.
Awesome! What size system you brewing on; looks to be 10-15 bbl maybe from the pic?
It's a 15bbl steam fired brewhouse with a combination mash tun and kettle, separate lauter tun, so that we can do decoction style mashes.
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My wife complained today that most of our beers (except the IPA) taste a little "funky" and she misses the commercial brews.
Are you doing extract or grain? Extract often has a flavor that's been described a zillion different ways, as "corn" or "a bit funky" or "metallic". Some people notice it more than others.
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My wife complained today that most of our beers (except the IPA) taste a little "funky" and she misses the commercial brews.
Are you doing extract or grain? Extract often has a flavor that's been described a zillion different ways, as "corn" or "a bit funky" or "metallic". Some people notice it more than others.
AG. Oddly, the brew that she liked best and that did not have any of this flavor was a partial mash.
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My wife complained today that most of our beers (except the IPA) taste a little "funky" and she misses the commercial brews.
Are you doing extract or grain? Extract often has a flavor that's been described a zillion different ways, as "corn" or "a bit funky" or "metallic". Some people notice it more than others.
I bottled a hefeweizen Wednesday night. I nor her could detect any funk, but I'm afraid that was because of the overwhelming banana! Too much for a hefeweizen. I think I'll call it my banana wheat specialty beer and act like I meant to do that. WLP300, pitched a vial no starter, didn't aerate really, and fermented at 68F, so I guess not too surprising that it's a banana bomb. I wish there was a good dry wheat yeast so that I could be lazy and still get a proper wheat beer.
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I think I'll call it my banana wheat specialty beer and act like I meant to do that.
^ lol I do this all the time
This week in homebrew adventures I overhydrated my sourdough starter so the yeasty alcohol byproducts would separate out. Pitched that into apple juice + caramel, hoping to get something like those sour apple lollipops with the caramel in the middle.
Also bottled a gallon of honey lavender wheat, although the little taste I had wasn't very lavender-y so I may or may not tell people it's in there ;-)
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Hello. I decided not to post in the no alcohol thread.
Instead, it seems more suitable to post here.
In general (due to time/equipment restraints) I brew from a kit - which I pimp with sugars/hops.
A couple other things that I do:
Ginger Beer
4lbs ginger
8lbs - 10lbs sugar (brown & dextrose)
1L pineapple juice
1 cup fresh lime
1 cup fresh lemon
1/2tsp cayenne
yeast
water up to 20 liters
Mince ginger in food processor, add it to stainless pot with sugar and 5 liters of water - brought to a boil, turned off and let steep for an hour. Added juices, cayenne and seived through cheesecloth. Wrung out all the juice (ended up with 2lbs of ginger fibre). Put in fermentor (bucket). This is a really delicious, and I dare say nutritious, beverage that everyone LOVES.
Hard Lemonade
I more or less followed Skeeter Pee. This is my first time brewing this stuff. Instead of the concentrate he suggest, I used 9 tins of minute maid frozen concentrate and dextrose. My OG was 1.07 - last night I was at 1.002 and still going (should get to .996-8). I will stabilize then backsweeten with more concentrate to about 1.016. Will let you know how this goes!
I keg everything in two corny kegs in my home converted mini fridge.
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Hello;
Just had to respond to your frugal home brewing. GREAT way to get fruit juices to alcohol CHEAP. I've been brewing beer for a while now and I'll NEVER go back to 'pour it into a bucket...mix and ferment'. Yes, the beer wort takes about 2 hours to get to the fermentor, and then more time for racking and bottling so there is an investment in time and equip. but we don't have bottles of $1 beer anywhere at anytime around here. HOWEVER --- here is another way to cut down on brewing times for those that like shortcuts but truly enjoy the flavor of beer ~~~~ not fruit juices. Get a can of malt beer (such as Coopers, Brewers Best, Munctons, etc) usually costs about $15-26 per can depending on variety. Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil, slowly add entire can and leave at a soft boil for 15-20 min. Allow to cool to 80-90 F, pour it into a 5-gal bucket (clean of course), add sugar, amount will vary upon taste, and additional water to get to you desired quantity (don't cheap out and try adding more water) you won't like the results. Stir sugar vigorously for 3-5 minutes, then add yeast that came with the beer malt. Stir again vigorously for 3-5 min. and bottle using E-Z Caps (DO NOT USE REGULAR BOTTLE CAPS) into 2 liter PLASTIC pop bottles or equivalent. The entire project should take about 60-90 min. Here is a website that explains this entire process and you can purchase the proper caps from them. This works out to around $.35 - $.45 per 12 oz bottle. This is the only method I've tried that does NOT have the "home brew" taste, some of mine would rival any micro-brewery. Here's a favorite that most MISTER Mustaches will love --- Double Indian Pale Ale !!!
Cheers,
PT
MOD EDIT: Spam link removed.
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Hello;
Just had to respond to your frugal home brewing. GREAT way to get fruit juices to alcohol CHEAP. I've been brewing beer for a while now and I'll NEVER go back to 'pour it into a bucket...mix and ferment'. Yes, the beer wort takes about 2 hours to get to the fermentor, and then more time for racking and bottling so there is an investment in time and equip. but we don't have bottles of $1 beer anywhere at anytime around here. HOWEVER --- here is another way to cut down on brewing times for those that like shortcuts but truly enjoy the flavor of beer ~~~~ not fruit juices. Get a can of malt beer (such as Coopers, Brewers Best, Munctons, etc) usually costs about $15-26 per can depending on variety. Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil, slowly add entire can and leave at a soft boil for 15-20 min. Allow to cool to 80-90 F, pour it into a 5-gal bucket (clean of course), add sugar, amount will vary upon taste, and additional water to get to you desired quantity (don't cheap out and try adding more water) you won't like the results. Stir sugar vigorously for 3-5 minutes, then add yeast that came with the beer malt. Stir again vigorously for 3-5 min. and bottle using E-Z Caps (DO NOT USE REGULAR BOTTLE CAPS) into 2 liter PLASTIC pop bottles or equivalent. The entire project should take about 60-90 min. Here is a website that explains this entire process and you can purchase the proper caps from them. E-Z Caps http://e-z-caps.com/purchase.html
This works out to around $.35 - $.45 per 12 oz bottle. This is the only method I've tried that does NOT have the "home brew" taste, some of mine would rival any micro-brewery. Here's a favorite that most MISTER Mustaches will love --- Double Indian Pale Ale !!!
Cheers,
PT
Is this an advertisement post for EZCAPS Moderators?
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feel free to report it if you think so
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My wife complained today that most of our beers (except the IPA) taste a little "funky" and she misses the commercial brews.
Are you doing extract or grain? Extract often has a flavor that's been described a zillion different ways, as "corn" or "a bit funky" or "metallic". Some people notice it more than others.
I bottled a hefeweizen Wednesday night. I nor her could detect any funk, but I'm afraid that was because of the overwhelming banana! Too much for a hefeweizen. I think I'll call it my banana wheat specialty beer and act like I meant to do that. WLP300, pitched a vial no starter, didn't aerate really, and fermented at 68F, so I guess not too surprising that it's a banana bomb. I wish there was a good dry wheat yeast so that I could be lazy and still get a proper wheat beer.
There is a dry Weihenstephen yeast on the market. Can't remember who makes it, but I have used it and it makes great weizens. Chill your wort to low 60s before pitching and you will tone down the bananas.
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I'd be interested to know what dry yeast you speak of. The Danstar Munich dry yeast that I used previously didn't turn out very well. The banana has mellowed out a bit from the wlp300 and it tastes great.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
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Safbrew WB-06 by fermentis: http://www.fermentis.com/brewing/homebrewing/product-range/
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Ginger Beer
4lbs ginger
8lbs - 10lbs sugar (brown & dextrose)
1L pineapple juice
1 cup fresh lime
1 cup fresh lemon
1/2tsp cayenne
yeast
water up to 20 liters
Mince ginger in food processor, add it to stainless pot with sugar and 5 liters of water - brought to a boil, turned off and let steep for an hour. Added juices, cayenne and seived through cheesecloth. Wrung out all the juice (ended up with 2lbs of ginger fibre). Put in fermentor (bucket). This is a really delicious, and I dare say nutritious, beverage that everyone LOVES.
That sounds really good. I'll give it a try soon as my carboy free up. Do you consume after the primary fermentation? Got a link to more detailed steps for your recipe?
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The hotel I was staying at this week had a Lemon Ginger wheat beer on tap from McCall Brewing. I was skeptical because I don't usually like wheat beers, but damn was it good. Really crisp and refreshing, without the usual cloudiness of a hefe. I thought I was done with brewing for the summer once my Imperial Red Experiment got bottled, but might have to take a crack at something like that.
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That sounds really good. I'll give it a try soon as my carboy free up. Do you consume after the primary fermentation? Got a link to more detailed steps for your recipe?
This is damn good stuff. no link...it is a composite recipe form a bunch of sources I've long since forgotten. To clarify...I used 5.5# of dark brown and 2.5# dextrose. Add another pound of each (which I do now) and you end up with 9.5% ginger beer. If you don't use fresh lime or lemon...make sure you use something that doesn't have sorbates in it. i.e...the minute maid frozen lemon or lime juice is good to use...if you didn't want to squeeze lemons/limes. For example, I would throw in 1 frozen lemon and 1 frozen lime concentrate. You might want to lower the dextrose by a pound when you do so...since there is a lot of sugar in the concentrate (or don't ;-)). I pitch EC1118 yeast. My starting gravities are up near 1.095. Now, I don't let it run dry...I halt fermentation around 1.014. This leaves enough residual sweetness.
Swiper, bear in mind that I brew to corny kegs and carbonate with CO2. Thus, halting fermentation with sorbate at 1.014 is not problem. If you bottle, you will probably ferment to dry, backsweeten with lactose to 1.014 and bottle as usual (with X tsp of sugar to carbonate).
Please let me know if you want more direction.
Total cost to make 20L (I have 19L corny kegs) is $25 for all ingredients.
P.S. make sure you pineapple juice doesn't have any sorbates also!
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Hard Lemonade
I more or less followed Skeeter Pee. This is my first time brewing this stuff. Instead of the concentrate he suggest, I used 9 tins of minute maid frozen concentrate and dextrose. My OG was 1.07 - last night I was at 1.002 and still going (should get to .996-8). I will stabilize then backsweeten with more concentrate to about 1.016. Will let you know how this goes!
I keg everything in two corny kegs in my home converted mini fridge.
This was wicked awesome stuff!
I'm brewing my second batch now.
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That sounds really good. I'll give it a try soon as my carboy free up. Do you consume after the primary fermentation? Got a link to more detailed steps for your recipe?
This is damn good stuff. no link...it is a composite recipe form a bunch of sources I've long since forgotten. To clarify...I used 5.5# of dark brown and 2.5# dextrose. Add another pound of each (which I do now) and you end up with 9.5% ginger beer. If you don't use fresh lime or lemon...make sure you use something that doesn't have sorbates in it. i.e...the minute maid frozen lemon or lime juice is good to use...if you didn't want to squeeze lemons/limes. For example, I would throw in 1 frozen lemon and 1 frozen lime concentrate. You might want to lower the dextrose by a pound when you do so...since there is a lot of sugar in the concentrate (or don't ;-)). I pitch EC1118 yeast. My starting gravities are up near 1.095. Now, I don't let it run dry...I halt fermentation around 1.014. This leaves enough residual sweetness.
Swiper, bear in mind that I brew to corny kegs and carbonate with CO2. Thus, halting fermentation with sorbate at 1.014 is not problem. If you bottle, you will probably ferment to dry, backsweeten with lactose to 1.014 and bottle as usual (with X tsp of sugar to carbonate).
Please let me know if you want more direction.
Total cost to make 20L (I have 19L corny kegs) is $25 for all ingredients.
P.S. make sure you pineapple juice doesn't have any sorbates also!
Thanks for the details. I'll try it dry in a small 4L growler (before i commit to larger batch) and sweeten before consuming. Would love to try one of yours before that though ... when is that next Ottawa MMM meetup :)
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Thanks for the details. I'll try it dry in a small 4L growler (before i commit to larger batch) and sweeten before consuming. Would love to try one of yours before that though ... when is that next Ottawa MMM meetup :)
hah ha! Unfortunately, I make that more in the winter...and have none at the moment. Currently a 10% hard lemonade and a 5.5% bitter on tap! Next meetup..good question..last year was 20 July....I can certainly take a growler of whatever I'm brewing at the time for a sampler. Now you've got me thinkin' I should make a summer ginger beer. Perhaps it isn't just apt for winter after all.... :-)
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Somebody talk me out of buying a $400 kegging setup. Includes 3 kegs (2x 3 gallon, 1x 5 gallon) co2 tank, kegerator, everything for a kegging setup. Local guy on craigslist.
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pretty sure you could do your own for like half that
acid chat: So I brewed some caramel apple cider with my sourdough starter in an attempt to get a sort of sour caramel apple beverage. Have been tasting along the way and it was going surprisingly well (sweet, tart, tasty) but I let it go too long and now it's hella sour. Like almost undrinkably so. Two questions: (a) Is there anything I can do to fix what I have? It's only .75 gallons so I don't mind dumping it, but if there's some easy solution I wouldn't mind trying it. (b) I'm familiar with methods of stopping yeast fermentation, but what can I do to stop both the yeast and the lactobacilli. Or even better, just the lacto and leave the yeast alone, but I don't think that's a thing.
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pretty sure you could do your own for like half that
acid chat: So I brewed some caramel apple cider with my sourdough starter in an attempt to get a sort of sour caramel apple beverage. Have been tasting along the way and it was going surprisingly well (sweet, tart, tasty) but I let it go too long and now it's hella sour. Like almost undrinkably so. Two questions: (a) Is there anything I can do to fix what I have? It's only .75 gallons so I don't mind dumping it, but if there's some easy solution I wouldn't mind trying it. (b) I'm familiar with methods of stopping yeast fermentation, but what can I do to stop both the yeast and the lactobacilli. Or even better, just the lacto and leave the yeast alone, but I don't think that's a thing.
It's my understanding you can either use campden or pasteurize it, but that'll kill both.
The other thing to do is blend that beer with another one that is not sour. Make sure to kill the lacto first. The other beers yeast can take over at that point.
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pretty sure you could do your own for like half that
acid chat: So I brewed some caramel apple cider with my sourdough starter in an attempt to get a sort of sour caramel apple beverage. Have been tasting along the way and it was going surprisingly well (sweet, tart, tasty) but I let it go too long and now it's hella sour. Like almost undrinkably so. Two questions: (a) Is there anything I can do to fix what I have? It's only .75 gallons so I don't mind dumping it, but if there's some easy solution I wouldn't mind trying it. (b) I'm familiar with methods of stopping yeast fermentation, but what can I do to stop both the yeast and the lactobacilli. Or even better, just the lacto and leave the yeast alone, but I don't think that's a thing.
It's my understanding you can either use campden or pasteurize it, but that'll kill both.
The other thing to do is blend that beer with another one that is not sour. Make sure to kill the lacto first. The other beers yeast can take over at that point.
Oh man I can't believe I didn't think of blending it... thank you for that. I have another more mellow caramel apple that I did with S-04 that should be done this weekend, so I'll pasteurize the sour and mix it with that. Hopefully it isn't so sour that it ruins both :-P
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pretty sure you could do your own for like half that
acid chat: So I brewed some caramel apple cider with my sourdough starter in an attempt to get a sort of sour caramel apple beverage. Have been tasting along the way and it was going surprisingly well (sweet, tart, tasty) but I let it go too long and now it's hella sour. Like almost undrinkably so. Two questions: (a) Is there anything I can do to fix what I have? It's only .75 gallons so I don't mind dumping it, but if there's some easy solution I wouldn't mind trying it. (b) I'm familiar with methods of stopping yeast fermentation, but what can I do to stop both the yeast and the lactobacilli. Or even better, just the lacto and leave the yeast alone, but I don't think that's a thing.
It's my understanding you can either use campden or pasteurize it, but that'll kill both.
The other thing to do is blend that beer with another one that is not sour. Make sure to kill the lacto first. The other beers yeast can take over at that point.
Oh man I can't believe I didn't think of blending it... thank you for that. I have another more mellow caramel apple that I did with S-04 that should be done this weekend, so I'll pasteurize the sour and mix it with that. Hopefully it isn't so sour that it ruins both :-P
I suggest you mix it to taste. Mix some in, give it some gentle stirring, give it a little bitty taste.
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bottled a gallon of Lemon & Black Pepper Wheat today. OMG so good
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I got lazy with the bottle cleaning on the wheat, and about 1/4-1/3 of the bottles are horrible.
Bottled a saison and was much more careful, got a surprising amount of spiders, mold, goo, etc. out of the bottles. Must be why the wheat sucked.
Doing a doppelbock soon that I'm going to try pitching on a yeast cake from my irish red lager which is now lagering. I'm a little concerned about the yeast cake as it will have been lagering in primary for a month+ by the time I pitch the new beer. Any thoughts on whether there will be too much autolysis?
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If your fermentation was healthy and sanitation good, I would not worry about autolysis. I have repitched on ale yeast cakes that have been sitting for 3 weeks in the primary and had zero issues (aside from explosive ferments).
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It really depends on how long the yeast has been stored and at what temperature, but generally for lager yeasts repitching after more than two weeks becomes more and more detrimental to the overall health of your yeast. Viability goes down, autolysis goes up.
You also should probably not repitch the entire yeast cake, even when you're stepping up from a red lager to a doppelbock. Not sure if you have the ability to wash yeast or at least collect it in a sterile fashion and repitch an appropriate amount of slurry.
Of course these are all points on a spectrum of how nit-picky you want to get and it just comes down to what you're willing to accept or capable of doing with your equipment. Homebrew is often much more flexible because you'll be drinking it fresh.
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I don't know if anyone on this thread is from (OK), but I'd love to find a fellow brewer in the area. Otherwise: Great topic!!!
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I'm in OKC.
I don't know if anyone on this thread is from (OK), but I'd love to find a fellow brewer in the area. Otherwise: Great topic!!!
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Thanks for all the suggestion guys! I really want to try different types of brew.
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not exactly brewing, but I just finished an expermental batch of apple bacon liqueur. It's pretty friggin' good
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not exactly brewing, but I just finished an expermental batch of apple bacon liqueur. It's pretty friggin' good
Ummm what? I'm slightly queasy, yet intrigued.
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apple liqueur (http://www.guntheranderson.com/liqueurs/!apple.htm) (unspiced) finished in the freezer over cooked bacon for 24h. It's more of a slight smoky flavor really, too bacon-y and I can imagine it tasting very very bad.
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I'm bumping this guy.
Question:
I made an AMAZING red with a wonderful maltyness. Over the course of 3 weeks the sweetness went away and my very low bitter beer turned into almost a nothing + bitterness. I suspect the keg must be hosting an infection? If that's the case, what's the best way to clear said infection up.
Before I kegged, I filled with sanitizer and let sit for 5-10 minutes shaking vigorously, I do not think I pushed co2 through the line...would that be the culprit? I do think that there had been in the beer previously.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/103183
note* I would drop the chocolate malt and add the same volume to the Red X, it was a little to dark as I was trying to get it to be RED not cloudy red. 2nd substation was changing the Munich - Light 10L to Red X.
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I'm bumping this guy.
Question:
I made an AMAZING red with a wonderful maltyness. Over the course of 3 weeks the sweetness went away and my very low bitter beer turned into almost a nothing + bitterness. I suspect the keg must be hosting an infection? If that's the case, what's the best way to clear said infection up.
Before I kegged, I filled with sanitizer and let sit for 5-10 minutes shaking vigorously, I do not think I pushed co2 through the line...would that be the culprit? I do think that there had been in the beer previously.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/103183
note* I would drop the chocolate malt and add the same volume to the Red X, it was a little to dark as I was trying to get it to be RED not cloudy red. 2nd substation was changing the Munich - Light 10L to Red X.
I would suspect an infection. Bleach all of your equipment and rinse thoroughly.
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"all equipment" means anything that is used to transfer and or store beer?
Auto syphone, keg it self, beer lines? Anything else i'm missing?
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Hydrometer, thief, whatever goes in the beer on the cold side.
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Anyone done SMaSH's?
I was pondering starting with maris otter + hop of choice, doing small batches and learning what I can. I listened to a pair of great podcasts from beersmith to help get the ball rolling. Just curious of others experiences.
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apple liqueur (http://www.guntheranderson.com/liqueurs/!apple.htm) (unspiced) finished in the freezer over cooked bacon for 24h. It's more of a slight smoky flavor really, too bacon-y and I can imagine it tasting very very bad.
I never did. Just bought a kit and jumped in with an extract clone recipe.
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Anyone done SMaSH's?
I was pondering starting with maris otter + hop of choice, doing small batches and learning what I can. I listened to a pair of great podcasts from beersmith to help get the ball rolling. Just curious of others experiences.
I haven't done a true SMASH, but have done some really simple beers. My favorite lately is a Session IPA with 50% Maris 50% 2-row and a mix of hops (really just using up excess) to get to about 4.5% ABV 45IBU. Its so good, and better than most of the IPA's I can get in town. We crushed through a keg in a week with the help of our friends.
If you're part of a homebrew club start suggest to do some experiments as part of your meeting. We did a dry hop one where we took bud light and dry hopped it with 20 different hops so we could sense the change in aroma. Much easier to get variety as a group than trying to do it on your own because everyone is likely to have 1/4-1/2 oz of a random variety of hops.
I think we are also planning to do the same for bittering hops in a few months.
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(I've got good lager fermenting temperatures in the basement)
How do you lager it once it's done fermenting? Refrigerator?
As a matter of clarification, lagering is the fermentation. The fermentation takes place at cooler temps. As the fermentation progresses, the temperature is (typically) lowered.
Personally, I find it hard to justify a third fridge (1 - food, 1 kegerator) to make lagers. I only brew ales. Currently, I have an all-grain Oktoberfest (aled, not the traditional Marzen/lager) and an all-grain oatmeal stout in the primary. A second Oktoberfest is lined up to start this weekend.
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(I've got good lager fermenting temperatures in the basement)
How do you lager it once it's done fermenting? Refrigerator?
As a matter of clarification, lagering is the fermentation. The fermentation takes place at cooler temps. As the fermentation progresses, the temperature is (typically) lowered.
Personally, I find it hard to justify a third fridge (1 - food, 1 kegerator) to make lagers. I only brew ales. Currently, I have an all-grain Oktoberfest (aled, not the traditional Marzen/lager) and an all-grain oatmeal stout in the primary. A second Oktoberfest is lined up to start this weekend.
This brings up a bad point I made. Lagering in a homebrew setting is done after fermentation.
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So I've recently had to start brewing without any helpers. My efficiency has dropped from 75% to a consistent 57.5%. WAT?!! Seriously three batches in a row at exactly 57.5%. Luckily except for the first one I adjusted the recipe accordingly and nailed the OG anyway. Except that first one, the doppelbock recipe turned itself into more of a bock.
I have no idea why going solo would do this. I'll explain below my process that I used last night. Recipe - 13.5# 2-row, 3.5# flaked corn, 6 oz white wheat, 5 oz amarillo at various times. 7.5 collected and 5.25 into bucket (all exactly as expected, except .25 gallon low into bucket. Phone turned off mysteriously and lost my boil timer.) OG 1.071, yeast belle saison pitched without rehydrating.
Anyway on to the process. 12 gallon coleman cooler with a kinda beat up stainless steel braid for lautering. Heat up mash water, add grain, stir, mash in at 148F with 6 gallons water. 20 minutes later, add 1 gallon boiling water to bring up to 157F until sparge water heated (15 minutes or so.) Stir again. Vorlauf, drain into kettle lined with grain bag. Add 175F 2.75 gal sparge water, stir, wait 5-10 minutes, drain (standard batch sparge.) No vorlauf on the sparge, I had everything including the pitcher full of wort already so just filtered with the grain bag. I boil in 2 kettles so I tried to take an average of the 2 kettles to get the boil gravity which I calculated at 1.056 which was obviously off since I ended up at 1.071 @ 5.25 gallons. Didn't think refractometers needed temp correction. 90-ish minute boil.
There's of course some dead space and some water left over in the grain, but it should be pretty weak wort left behind right? Is there something intrinsically wrong with the way I'm sparging, should I break it up into multiple steps?
I don't know if anybody can see anything wrong in this description, but I figured since I can't figure it out I might as well ask here.
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Are you doing a 5 or 5.5 gallon batch? Your mash and sparge volumes seems way off compared to what I normally do. I usually mash with about 4 gals and sparge with 5. Plugging in your numbers to my calculator give me a mash volume of 5.8 and a sparge of 3.8. This is assuming a desired mash thickness of 1.33 qts/lb.
If you calculate your volume numbers correctly and know what your equipment bias is you should be able to drain the entire sparge volume into your boil kettle. Generally when the sparge water gets to a gravity of 1.008 you've extracted everything you can and the sparge is done.
Also, consider stirring at 15 minute intervals during the mash but not right before draining. (stir at 60,45,30,15) This will let the grain bed set and act as a filter along with keeping an even mash temp throughout the tun. Rice hulls are a huge help with this and I always use at least a pound. Otherwise I find that my mash temp varies too much depending on where the thermometer is.
How long do you drain your sparge for? You should shoot for 30 minutes minimum. 45 minutes is ideal. Going too fast will hurt your efficiency.
I started with the braided hose and got tired of replacing it. Once it gets kinked up badly its probably time to replace it. A decent false bottom is worth the investment and the risk of a stuck sparge much less. You'll notice a small rise in efficiency too.
The last time I had a massive efficiency problem the thermometer on my kettle was way off. So I was mashing in at a temp 12 degrees much higher than desired.
Hope this helps
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Are you doing a 5 or 5.5 gallon batch? Your mash and sparge volumes seems way off compared to what I normally do. I usually mash with about 4 gals and sparge with 5. Plugging in your numbers to my calculator give me a mash volume of 5.8 and a sparge of 3.8. This is assuming a desired mash thickness of 1.33 qts/lb.
If you calculate your volume numbers correctly and know what your equipment bias is you should be able to drain the entire sparge volume into your boil kettle. Generally when the sparge water gets to a gravity of 1.008 you've extracted everything you can and the sparge is done.
Also, consider stirring at 15 minute intervals during the mash but not right before draining. (stir at 60,45,30,15) This will let the grain bed set and act as a filter along with keeping an even mash temp throughout the tun. Rice hulls are a huge help with this and I always use at least a pound. Otherwise I find that my mash temp varies too much depending on where the thermometer is.
How long do you drain your sparge for? You should shoot for 30 minutes minimum. 45 minutes is ideal. Going too fast will hurt your efficiency.
I started with the braided hose and got tired of replacing it. Once it gets kinked up badly its probably time to replace it. A decent false bottom is worth the investment and the risk of a stuck sparge much less. You'll notice a small rise in efficiency too.
The last time I had a massive efficiency problem the thermometer on my kettle was way off. So I was mashing in at a temp 12 degrees much higher than desired.
Hope this helps
Thanks for the suggestions. I think my mash numbers were virtually the same as yours, as I used 6 gallons and you used 5.8. Checked the thermometer at your suggestion, seems good. Likely culprits seem to be mash PH or the too-fast sparge, perhaps dough balls. Will try and fix all that next time out and see how it goes.
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First thing to check is always mixing the mash well. Paint mixer on a power drill fixed my original issues with low efficiency. Found the paint mixers gets all the grain incorporated without dough balls in 1-2 minutes. Its also much easier to lower the mash temperature with it. Mix on high for one minute usually can lower the mash temp ~.5F. Are you hitting your mash temps? That's the other main thing that can be a big factor. Maybe you are doing everything with the same temps and forgot something like preheating your mash tun?
Also, getting to a lower gravity on sparge only applies to fly sparging. If you are batch sparging in a cooler it doesn't really mean anything since everything should be mixed very well there would be no reason that the end runnings would have a lower gravity than the beginning runnings of the same batch.
Also, good trick I found to fix my stainless braid... Added a piece of copper tubing inside the braid with slits in it. Great filter, never gets clogged even when I'm in a hurry and pump out my mash/sparge instead of draining.
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First thing to check is always mixing the mash well. Paint mixer on a power drill fixed my original issues with low efficiency. Found the paint mixers gets all the grain incorporated without dough balls in 1-2 minutes. Its also much easier to lower the mash temperature with it. Mix on high for one minute usually can lower the mash temp ~.5F. Are you hitting your mash temps? That's the other main thing that can be a big factor. Maybe you are doing everything with the same temps and forgot something like preheating your mash tun?
Also, getting to a lower gravity on sparge only applies to fly sparging. If you are batch sparging in a cooler it doesn't really mean anything since everything should be mixed very well there would be no reason that the end runnings would have a lower gravity than the beginning runnings of the same batch.
Also, good trick I found to fix my stainless braid... Added a piece of copper tubing inside the braid with slits in it. Great filter, never gets clogged even when I'm in a hurry and pump out my mash/sparge instead of draining.
Good idea on the drill. I have been nailing mash temps. I actually don't pre-heat anymore, I've found that I can nail it if I just account for the room temp thermal mass of the cooler. My only trepidation on the drill is my way-too-long braid getting mixed up in it. If I do the copper tubing I may try out the drill mixer thing.