CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Bummer man. Was curious how that one was going to turn out for you.
I've lost another co2 tank to a leak. I think I had more than one to begin with. I moved my nut brown ale into the second keg and hooked it up to the regulator yesterday. Today tabj was totally drained. I know it's not the keg because I bubble tested it before racking. Whe. I was disconnecting the regulator I noticed that the nut that attached to the gas coupler was loose. Since I wasn't using that line the first time I was testing leaks, I wouldn't have found it out.
So now that I've tightened it and replaced all the plastic clamps with metal ones, I'm hoping that's it for leaks. I don't want to have to lay out another $30 for gas!
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
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spec2Painted in my tiger skinEspecially in MichiganRegistered Userregular
I'm cross-posting with the other beer thread, but I just wanted to let the homebrewers know that if y'all want some standard 32 oz growlers to personalize, paint, or etch with your brewery name and/or logo, Mississippi Mud comes in a standard mini growler for about $4. I think it's distributed nationally, too, cause I've seen it in both Louisiana and Michigan.
@spec2 You mentioned you've experienced a big brew batch that missed its targeted OG. Did you ever try brewing the same recipe again with a different result? If this reformulated recipe turns out great but misses on the ABV, I'll plan on making it again with an increasing amount of Pale 2 Row or more added sugar.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
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spec2Painted in my tiger skinEspecially in MichiganRegistered Userregular
@Cincitucky I haven't tried to recreate it yet, nope. More malt or sugar would probably work just fine. I was actually planning on beefing it up with some pale extract on my next attempt.
Took a gravity reading from that cider (after a week in the fermenter)
0.998 from an OG of 1.054
It's occurring to me now that using cloudy apple juice means I can't use the yeast dropping out of suspension as a guide to whether there is still fermentation going on. In any case we're already north of 7% abv
Actually tastes OK. Maybe a bit tart and acidic, but apparently cider will mellow with time. Going to give it another week in the fermenter at least and then a couple of weeks in the bottle with some carbonating sugar. See if time, fizz, and chilling will help.
Time to bottle my Two Hearted Ale clone, my first all grain attempt, which is a pain in the ass in a small apartment. The OG was a bit low, so we'll see how it goes.
My last batch of strong ale turned out almost totally uncarbonated, I think the alcohol killed off the yeast. Anyway to get those carbonated outside of a multi-month wait or CO2 tabs?
Here's the mango ale after going through the primary. Its been racked to a secondary to sit on mango and Amarillo hops. Smells wonderful and has a nice grapefruit/reddish tint.
Actually tried a different approach with the hop schedule, making them all late hop additions instead of early in the boil. Used a combination of Columbus and Cascade in the following schedule:
.5 oz of Columbus at 30 mins
.5 oz of Columbus at 20 mins
1 oz of Cascade at 10 mins
1 oz of Cascade at 0/flameout and let stand for 20 minutes for cooling
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
1.045 OG, 4 points steeped crystal malt, rest light DME
10 IBU Northdown for 60 minutes
20 IBU Bramling Cross for 15 minutes
(I have a lot of Bramling Cross to use up, plus I've liked it in everything I've tried it in so far)
Opened the first one of these
It is really, really, good
I think I might make a couple more batches of this to have on hand
Edit: on to the porter
Really pleased with this as well. Really strong vanilla notes for some reason. When I tasted it at bottling I was a bit worried because it had a really acrid burnt aftertaste, but it's mellowed wonderfully
Okay, so I've been wanting to get back into homebrewing the past couple of years but I've never really had time because of work. I went rummaging through my gear and lo and behold, I found bottles of a beer I made 4 years ago. It was a amber ale kit that I let get way too warm during fermentation (it hit 85) and ended up tasting like banana nut bread in a bottle. It was just plain nasty. I decided to let it sit for a while all those years ago...
I just had my first glass of it in nearly four years! And it was damned amazing! It went from an estery mess to malty sweet brown liquid. I've never had anything like it before. It tastes like a sweet bread with butter. It's amazing what time will do!
I am now planning a simple IPA for my first batch in nearly 2 years.
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Yeah I'm attempting a cider just now and the one piece of advice I've seen everywhere is that they take time.
I've been tasting my gravity samples from the fermenter and it's gone from nail polish remover to incredibly dry to significantly more mellow over the three weeks it's been in there.
I'm planning to bottle and give it at least a month before drinking it.
Interesting, well I have almost 5 gallons bottled and in the closet. I guess I should let them just sit there then. I bottled once gravity hit 1.000, so I thought it would be like beer and ready to drink. The taste isn't horrendous; it's just not good and not something I'd want to share with anyone.
Thanks for the tip!
While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm always put off trying a cider. All the advice I've heard is its at least a 6 month ageing period, and I'm an impatient dude.
So, I was going through my cabinet and I found a box with about 10lbs of Pilser/Pale LME from 2012 (at least that's what the receipt said). Could I get any use out of those?
EDIT: I also found 10lbs of Munich LME from 2010. All the bottles have been stored around 55-65 F and have not been opened. They've also been kept out of the light as well.
Soggybiscuit on
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What impact does fruit in a starter have on a brew batch? First time I've seen/read that.
It probably wouldn't affect much if you pitched something like an activator. Might throw in some off flavors in later on once the other microbes took over.
But I didn't pitch a commercial yeast, so that fruit IS my source of yeast (and other microbes). The starter was pretty thin, probably 1.020 or so.
I stepped it up to about 1.7L today, so hopefully by tomorrow I will see some airlock activity.
What impact does fruit in a starter have on a brew batch? First time I've seen/read that.
It probably wouldn't affect much if you pitched something like an activator. Might throw in some off flavors in later on once the other microbes took over.
But I didn't pitch a commercial yeast, so that fruit IS my source of yeast (and other microbes). The starter was pretty thin, probably 1.020 or so.
I stepped it up to about 1.7L today, so hopefully by tomorrow I will see some airlock activity.
Just starting this up for the first time thanks to a birthday present from my lovely, indulgent wife.
I'm lucky to have a homebrewing store in my town, so I picked up the equipment and a Brewer's Best amber kit there. I'm even trying the whole secondary fermentation thing from the get-go.
Everything seemed to go well for the brew, though when I put the airlock in the hole in the lid, it felt a little loose. Eventually I figured out the grommet fell into the wort. I was too paranoid to take the lid off and fish it out, so I just taped the airlock into place and attempted to make a decent seal. Now it's two days later, and I'm just seeing small, stationary bubbles in the airlock rather than, well, mad scientist-style bubbling. Things are going okay, right? And having a cleaned and sanitized grommet floating in the wort isn't going to harm anything, right?
You'll be fine with a sanitized grommet in the brew. I've actually pushed a bung into the brew after getting it into the carboy and it fermented without any issues. Regarding the fermentation CO2, stationary bubbles would indicate the yeast are working. It'll take time before you get steady CO2 flowing through the airlock.
Patience and don't mess with it. Also, welcome to homebrewing.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
Sealed up an attempt at a Lime IIPA last night, giving Wakatu hops a try. Haven't seen many recipes that use it yet, but it's supposed to have a strong lime profile. I'm hoping with some lime rind addition into the secondary will ensure the fruit flavor survives fermentation.
Thanks to some miscommunication, my collaborator brought 9lbs of LME instead of 9lbs of grain for the brew, so I didn't end up using the grain I bought. Thinking of doing a single hop standard IPA to rack onto the yeast once I transfer the lime beer. Anyone have any interesting hop ideas? I've had good results from Amarillo and Chinook.
What impact does fruit in a starter have on a brew batch? First time I've seen/read that.
It probably wouldn't affect much if you pitched something like an activator. Might throw in some off flavors in later on once the other microbes took over.
But I didn't pitch a commercial yeast, so that fruit IS my source of yeast (and other microbes). The starter was pretty thin, probably 1.020 or so.
I stepped it up to about 1.7L today, so hopefully by tomorrow I will see some airlock activity.
Didn't understand the blueberry were to use wild yeast versus the store bought packages. Is that starter making any noticeable progress?
Tried what little mead leftover from bottling. Can see why others described the flavor as "hot," was medicine/cough syrup like.
Oh yeah, it's going great! It has a nice mini-krausen going. It started off kinda slow about 18 hours after I pitched the original starter in, but it's picked up quite a bit in the last 12 hours and is fermenting like mad now. I've been smelling it a couple of times a day to try and guess what I had. It started off as funky, moved to lambic like, and this morning it had a buttery smell (aka diacetyl). I'm guessing that I have Brett and probably some Lactobacillus/Pediococcus in there (It formed a pellicle initially). I'm going to attempt to control the bacterial growth in the next step by making a starter around 1.040 and 30 IBUs and then using a stirplate to aerate it. That should help control the growth of the Lactobacillus/Pediococcus bugs at least initially.
I made another starter out of some berries from the same bush, but using a different method. I threw them in a clean bottle, shook them to crush the berries, and let this bottle set in my vehicle for a day. It had a strong yeast smell by the end of that day. I diluted the liquid a bit with some distilled water, and pitched this to a new 600ml starter around 1.020. It spent most of it's time on a stir plate. Its cold crashing in the fridge now so I can pitch it to a larger hopped starter tonight (same as I'm doing with the other one).
I'm going to try a wheat beer with the first starter as soon as it gets big enough, and then I'm going to do a hoppy pale ale with the other one once it is big enough.
Sealed up an attempt at a Lime IIPA last night, giving Wakatu hops a try. Haven't seen many recipes that use it yet, but it's supposed to have a strong lime profile. I'm hoping with some lime rind addition into the secondary will ensure the fruit flavor survives fermentation.
Thanks to some miscommunication, my collaborator brought 9lbs of LME instead of 9lbs of grain for the brew, so I didn't end up using the grain I bought. Thinking of doing a single hop standard IPA to rack onto the yeast once I transfer the lime beer. Anyone have any interesting hop ideas? I've had good results from Amarillo and Chinook.
Saw a IPA recipe that uses Amarillo and Simcoe for dry hopping and reading the characteristics of Simcoe peaks some interest in using it for future batches. beerlegends.com/simcoe-hops
Just used Amarillo in the latest batch for dry hopping and never had such a great strong fruit smell before this. Great hop that unfortunately isn't always available at the LCBS.
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
Stirplates are bliss. 3rd growth cycle and it looks to be at pitchable quantities. Wheat beer, here I come!
It's hard to describe the smell. I kinda reminds me of a strawberry. It smells very sweet, but also has some green apple tones to it. I also get a few lemongrass notes in it. Very hard to describe, as I've never quite smelt anything like it before. I'm set to brew tomorrow with this yeast.
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I just tried my wild yeast/bug beer and it's amazing! It needs some age. It has a hint of sourness and a lot of fruit up front. It's pleasantly sweet as well, even though it's at 1.011. Bitterness is pretty low, around 20 IBUs or so. Very pleasant flavor. Some of the yeast hasn't settled yet, so that may change the flavor once that happens.
These bugs made a lot of sulfur during fermentation. That part was not pleasant.
I will never use a bucket for a fermenter again, it sucks not being able to see what's going on.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Tomorrow, I brew W00t Stout.
I'm a bit foolish though, because the target OG is 1.108 and I only have one packet of dry yeast, no oxygen stone, no starter and only plastic carboys.
I've been told 3-4 months in plastic is no biggie. Also no starter isn't a problem if I get two more packets of yeast (using Safale US-05), which I'm hoping my local has in stock tomorrow morning. I'm also going to see if they carry some sort of O2 infusion device. Wish me luck!
If I'm able to scare up 3 yeast packets, and I rehydrate them properly, how vital is injecting O2? Or can I just shake the carboy to stir in oxygen? I've read that shaking along isn't enough to get the necessary amount of oxygen into the wort.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
I'm a bit foolish though, because the target OG is 1.108 and I only have one packet of dry yeast, no oxygen stone, no starter and only plastic carboys.
I've been told 3-4 months in plastic is no biggie. Also no starter isn't a problem if I get two more packets of yeast (using Safale US-05), which I'm hoping my local has in stock tomorrow morning. I'm also going to see if they carry some sort of O2 infusion device. Wish me luck!
If I'm able to scare up 3 yeast packets, and I rehydrate them properly, how vital is injecting O2? Or can I just shake the carboy to stir in oxygen? I've read that shaking along isn't enough to get the necessary amount of oxygen into the wort.
That's pretty high for the OG. I'd look into getting some yeast nutrients as well as a couple of extra packets of yeast. I think shaking is perfectly fine for lower gravity beers, but once you go high gravity you need an oxygen stone because oxygen doesn't dissolve as well in the wort. Just don't do what I did last weekend for my maple porter. I didn't have the stone fastened well enough and blew my brand new stone right into 5 gallons of wort. I spent 30 mins trying to aerate the wort with a vinyl tube, which I don't recommend trying.
I went and picked up my cider yesterday from the orchard. It's currently in the early stages of a ferment right now! And my maple porter looks to be about done, maybe another 2 or 3 days in the primary and it will be good to go into the secondary. I'm thinking I need to get my hands on some oak chips for my wild yeast beer. It still looks like it's fermenting, but it smells great!
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
I ended up buying 2 more packets of yeast, so pitched three rehydrated. Also bought a stone and pump, so ran that for a while to inject O2. Had bubbles by the end of the night and a little krausen today. Not taking off like mad, but that might change tonight.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
I ended up buying 2 more packets of yeast, so pitched three rehydrated. Also bought a stone and pump, so ran that for a while to inject O2. Had bubbles by the end of the night and a little krausen today. Not taking off like mad, but that might change tonight.
Hope you have a blow off tube!
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Always.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Hm. Well, I brewed the amber beer to specifications (one week in primary, two weeks in secondary, three weeks in bottles) and... it tastes like I put a shitton of oregano in it. Also, despite the decent carbonation, it seems to have slightly less ABV than O'Doul's. So... what happened?
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Did you put any oregano in it?
What was your recipe and OG?
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Posts
I've lost another co2 tank to a leak. I think I had more than one to begin with. I moved my nut brown ale into the second keg and hooked it up to the regulator yesterday. Today tabj was totally drained. I know it's not the keg because I bubble tested it before racking. Whe. I was disconnecting the regulator I noticed that the nut that attached to the gas coupler was loose. Since I wasn't using that line the first time I was testing leaks, I wouldn't have found it out.
So now that I've tightened it and replaced all the plastic clamps with metal ones, I'm hoping that's it for leaks. I don't want to have to lay out another $30 for gas!
0.998 from an OG of 1.054
It's occurring to me now that using cloudy apple juice means I can't use the yeast dropping out of suspension as a guide to whether there is still fermentation going on. In any case we're already north of 7% abv
Actually tastes OK. Maybe a bit tart and acidic, but apparently cider will mellow with time. Going to give it another week in the fermenter at least and then a couple of weeks in the bottle with some carbonating sugar. See if time, fizz, and chilling will help.
My last batch of strong ale turned out almost totally uncarbonated, I think the alcohol killed off the yeast. Anyway to get those carbonated outside of a multi-month wait or CO2 tabs?
Actually tried a different approach with the hop schedule, making them all late hop additions instead of early in the boil. Used a combination of Columbus and Cascade in the following schedule:
.5 oz of Columbus at 30 mins
.5 oz of Columbus at 20 mins
1 oz of Cascade at 10 mins
1 oz of Cascade at 0/flameout and let stand for 20 minutes for cooling
Opened the first one of these
It is really, really, good
I think I might make a couple more batches of this to have on hand
Edit: on to the porter
Really pleased with this as well. Really strong vanilla notes for some reason. When I tasted it at bottling I was a bit worried because it had a really acrid burnt aftertaste, but it's mellowed wonderfully
I just had my first glass of it in nearly four years! And it was damned amazing! It went from an estery mess to malty sweet brown liquid. I've never had anything like it before. It tastes like a sweet bread with butter. It's amazing what time will do!
I am now planning a simple IPA for my first batch in nearly 2 years.
And here is a picture of the 4 year old glory!
Fresh brews can have a jet fuel taste to them. Let it age a couple (Or few) months so the flavour can mellow.
Unless it's a different bad, like, just plain bad.
I've been tasting my gravity samples from the fermenter and it's gone from nail polish remover to incredibly dry to significantly more mellow over the three weeks it's been in there.
I'm planning to bottle and give it at least a month before drinking it.
Thanks for the tip!
EDIT: I also found 10lbs of Munich LME from 2010. All the bottles have been stored around 55-65 F and have not been opened. They've also been kept out of the light as well.
LME is basically sugar syrup, I can't envisage it really ever going off. If it's hopped then the aroma might have deteriorated a bit, though.
Its unhopped. Since its fairly aged, i'm going to try something with it I've never tried before.
I made a starter and picked a few ripe blackberries and tossed those in. I'm going to see where that takes me.
And I see bubbles in the now fermenting wort
It's not going very fast, but hopefully it will pick up more and more over the next day so I can pitch it to a larger starter vessel.
It probably wouldn't affect much if you pitched something like an activator. Might throw in some off flavors in later on once the other microbes took over.
But I didn't pitch a commercial yeast, so that fruit IS my source of yeast (and other microbes). The starter was pretty thin, probably 1.020 or so.
I stepped it up to about 1.7L today, so hopefully by tomorrow I will see some airlock activity.
The goal of the experiment is to see if the yeast local to my backyard can make a palatable beer. I used Bootleg Biology and the Lambic & Wild Brewing forum @ homebrewtalk.com as inspiration. Seemed like it would be something neat to try.
Didn't understand the blueberry were to use wild yeast versus the store bought packages. Is that starter making any noticeable progress?
Tried what little mead leftover from bottling. Can see why others described the flavor as "hot," was medicine/cough syrup like.
I'm lucky to have a homebrewing store in my town, so I picked up the equipment and a Brewer's Best amber kit there. I'm even trying the whole secondary fermentation thing from the get-go.
Everything seemed to go well for the brew, though when I put the airlock in the hole in the lid, it felt a little loose. Eventually I figured out the grommet fell into the wort. I was too paranoid to take the lid off and fish it out, so I just taped the airlock into place and attempted to make a decent seal. Now it's two days later, and I'm just seeing small, stationary bubbles in the airlock rather than, well, mad scientist-style bubbling. Things are going okay, right? And having a cleaned and sanitized grommet floating in the wort isn't going to harm anything, right?
Patience and don't mess with it. Also, welcome to homebrewing.
Thanks to some miscommunication, my collaborator brought 9lbs of LME instead of 9lbs of grain for the brew, so I didn't end up using the grain I bought. Thinking of doing a single hop standard IPA to rack onto the yeast once I transfer the lime beer. Anyone have any interesting hop ideas? I've had good results from Amarillo and Chinook.
Oh yeah, it's going great! It has a nice mini-krausen going. It started off kinda slow about 18 hours after I pitched the original starter in, but it's picked up quite a bit in the last 12 hours and is fermenting like mad now. I've been smelling it a couple of times a day to try and guess what I had. It started off as funky, moved to lambic like, and this morning it had a buttery smell (aka diacetyl). I'm guessing that I have Brett and probably some Lactobacillus/Pediococcus in there (It formed a pellicle initially). I'm going to attempt to control the bacterial growth in the next step by making a starter around 1.040 and 30 IBUs and then using a stirplate to aerate it. That should help control the growth of the Lactobacillus/Pediococcus bugs at least initially.
I made another starter out of some berries from the same bush, but using a different method. I threw them in a clean bottle, shook them to crush the berries, and let this bottle set in my vehicle for a day. It had a strong yeast smell by the end of that day. I diluted the liquid a bit with some distilled water, and pitched this to a new 600ml starter around 1.020. It spent most of it's time on a stir plate. Its cold crashing in the fridge now so I can pitch it to a larger hopped starter tonight (same as I'm doing with the other one).
I'm going to try a wheat beer with the first starter as soon as it gets big enough, and then I'm going to do a hoppy pale ale with the other one once it is big enough.
Saw a IPA recipe that uses Amarillo and Simcoe for dry hopping and reading the characteristics of Simcoe peaks some interest in using it for future batches. beerlegends.com/simcoe-hops
Just used Amarillo in the latest batch for dry hopping and never had such a great strong fruit smell before this. Great hop that unfortunately isn't always available at the LCBS.
Stirplates are bliss. 3rd growth cycle and it looks to be at pitchable quantities. Wheat beer, here I come!
It's hard to describe the smell. I kinda reminds me of a strawberry. It smells very sweet, but also has some green apple tones to it. I also get a few lemongrass notes in it. Very hard to describe, as I've never quite smelt anything like it before. I'm set to brew tomorrow with this yeast.
These bugs made a lot of sulfur during fermentation. That part was not pleasant.
I will never use a bucket for a fermenter again, it sucks not being able to see what's going on.
I'm a bit foolish though, because the target OG is 1.108 and I only have one packet of dry yeast, no oxygen stone, no starter and only plastic carboys.
I've been told 3-4 months in plastic is no biggie. Also no starter isn't a problem if I get two more packets of yeast (using Safale US-05), which I'm hoping my local has in stock tomorrow morning. I'm also going to see if they carry some sort of O2 infusion device. Wish me luck!
If I'm able to scare up 3 yeast packets, and I rehydrate them properly, how vital is injecting O2? Or can I just shake the carboy to stir in oxygen? I've read that shaking along isn't enough to get the necessary amount of oxygen into the wort.
That's pretty high for the OG. I'd look into getting some yeast nutrients as well as a couple of extra packets of yeast. I think shaking is perfectly fine for lower gravity beers, but once you go high gravity you need an oxygen stone because oxygen doesn't dissolve as well in the wort. Just don't do what I did last weekend for my maple porter. I didn't have the stone fastened well enough and blew my brand new stone right into 5 gallons of wort. I spent 30 mins trying to aerate the wort with a vinyl tube, which I don't recommend trying.
I went and picked up my cider yesterday from the orchard. It's currently in the early stages of a ferment right now! And my maple porter looks to be about done, maybe another 2 or 3 days in the primary and it will be good to go into the secondary. I'm thinking I need to get my hands on some oak chips for my wild yeast beer. It still looks like it's fermenting, but it smells great!
Hope you have a blow off tube!
What was your recipe and OG?
I went by a kit, with the directions here. My OG and FG seemed in line with the range listed.