Beer Feeds

Posted: by pimpp (17 hours ago)

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I just built a stir plate and decided to practice yeast farming before I start to brew all grain. I couldn’t get a pack of yeast that day (I really didn’t want to spend the money either seeing as I don’t plan to use this yeast in beer.), so I decided to try this out on a Hennepin. The yeast is growing nicely, but when I opened the flask tonight to put in new wort it smelled a little funky. The only way I can describe it is a little like compressed butane. I’ve been using pretty healthy doses of wyeast’s yeast nutrient and I know that has a weird smell to it. I’ve tried to be very careful about contamination, but I’m not sure now if I’ve been careful enough. Can anyone here comment on the odor I’m getting?

edit: misspelling in the topic description.

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I am planning on brewing and IPA called Threshold IPA. I want to brew a beer a beer that is as big (hop wise) as the human taste buds can handle!! If 200 IBU is the human taste buds threshold then I want to brew a beer with 199 IBU’s. Does anyone know what this threshold is? Has a number ever been put on it? Any info is welcome!
Cheers

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My 5 year old floating dairy thermometer blew up in the boil last batch, so I need a new one to measure strike and sparge water temps in the while heating them in the kettle.

Any suggestions for a thermometer? I have a turkey fryer thermometer but would like to upgrade, maybe to digital.

A Mart of Wal special would probably be best since I am a cheap ….. and I need it next Saturday. However I will consider online suppliers as well.

So what thermometers work for you? Know of any good deals?

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Posted: by papat444 (24 hours ago)

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For this show we had the privilege of attending the release party of Upland Brewing’s “Schwarz Bier”. The two brewers, Caleb and Eilene, sat down with us for this show. We consumed the black lager along with “Ard Ri“, their hoppy imperial red. The rest of the show talked about lambics. […]

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I just poured 2 more 5 gallons batchs from the secondary down the drain. Again!

I’ve been having this problem for the past few months. I’m at about a 50-50 chance of getting a drinkable beer. I’ve been brewing for about 3 years now, and have never had this problem until recently.

After doing hours of reading and researching I’ve finally determined my problem is Chlorophenol. Took me a while to come to this conclusion because I forgot what bandaids smelled like, but today I remembered. This beer reeks of bandaids. When I poured it down the drain the entire basement smelled of it. So, anyway, to find the cause and a solution. So, let me tell you what has changed and what I believe has something to do with it.

I brew AG and until recently, I always used either , A.) Bottled water that I bought from the grocery store, or B.) Boiled my mash and sparging water from tap. I was told by a few other people that it was a waste of time and that I could just use tap water because the wort is going to be boiled anyway. Made sense and I liked the idea of saving time and propane, so that’s what I did. Now it’s just tap water heated to 168F or so depending on what I want my mash profile to be.

I’ve always used Star-San or Iodophor as a sanitizer and until just recently started using a tiny bit of bleach because I thought the bug in my beer was immune to the others, however I do give proper rinses to the parts in contact with bleach. Since then things have seemed to get worse.

Now, here is something I do not do, and have never done. According to the instructions on Star-san and Iodophor you are supposed to soak the sanitized item for at least a minute or five, and then go for a proper drying. I soak for as long as I need the item, and then just shake off the remaining sanitizer. I’ve never let the item dry because I think that just allows time and surface for a bug to land on and start it’s little colony. Not to mention, I don’t have anything that I can hang a carboy upside down on. Does everyone allow for their carboys and hoses to dry off completely?

Another thought would be that maybe my town in South New Jersey upped their chlorine content in the tap water.

Note that I do NOT notice this problem until about the 5-6th day in the secondary. Everybeer ferments fine in the Primary and smells fine during racking, it’s only until I’m ready to keg the beer do I truely notice this off flavor. Oh, except one thing that is tale tale sign. Once the beer is in the secondary there is always a bit of tiny bubbles flowing to, and settling at the top. Even after a test of holding an infected in the secondary for 2 months there was activity with the bubbles and if i shook the carboy, they would violently rise to the top and even reach the airlock as it was bubbling like wild fire.

Anyway, I’m lost… Other than throwing away all plastics, soaking all carboys for a few days, and going back to bottled spring water or boiling all tapwater, I don’t really know what to do… It’s to the extent that I considered giving up my passion for brewing today… Pfft, but no way in hell am I going to let something like this beat me. Any advise, suggestions, insults, or questions are welcome as I want to solve this mystery before I lose my mind. Thanks All.

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I just transferred the saison that I brewed on November 12th using this yeast. I started with an OG of 1.073 and it fermented down to 1.006. The taste was unbelievable. Lots of grapefruit, some pepper and that silky mouth feel that Wyeast had advertised. I can’t wait to see what this is like when carbonated. I don’t think it is tap eligible at 8.8%. I know that Tripel666 had a beer going with this yeast. Are there any other reports? FWIW, here’s my recipe:

Amount Item Type % or IBU
26.40 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 78.6 %
4.20 lb Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 12.5 %
0.60 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 1.8 %
0.60 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 1.8 %
4.20 oz Styrian Goldings [4.90%] (90 min) Hops 27.6 IBU
0.60 oz Styrian Goldings [4.90%] (15 min) Hops 1.8 IBU
0.60 oz Strisslespalt [4.00%] (15 min) Hops 1.5 IBU
0.60 oz Saaz [4.00%] (2 min) Hops 0.3 IBU
0.60 oz Styrian Goldings [5.40%] (2 min) Hops 0.3 IBU
1.80 lb Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 5.4 %

I subbed Mt. Hood for the Strisslespalt because I couldn’t get my hands on the French hop.

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Posted: by Erdinger2003 (12 hours ago)

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Anyone use something like this?

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate….amp;item=347033

1200W, indoor/outdoor electric heater. I was thinking of mounting this on the wall where I brew for comfortable winter brewing.

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We did not have a Fall 2007 or Winter 2007 Community Brew. I enjoyed making the Spring 2007 and Summer 2007 Community Brews. I thought I would take the initiative and start a New Year’s 2008 community brew recipe.

My intention is we brew this as close as January 1, 2008 as we can. To get the ball rolling, I will propose a recipe theme.

I expect 2008 will go down in Homebrew history as the year of the hop shortage.

With this in mind, I propose we come up with a recipe that is HOP AGNOSTIC. The recipe will not specify a specific hop type. In keeping with the hop shortage theme, the recipe will be intended to be hopped with a single type of hop.

If all you have is Amarillo you can use this recipe. The brewers with a pound of Centennial in the freezer can use the same recipe.

We can come up with different generic hop schedules for brewers to chose from.
Examples:
A hop agnostic IPA schedule
A hop agnostic Hopburst schedule
A hop agnostic Pal Ale schedule, etc.

There you have it. What does the community think?

zymot

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I’m sure someone has done this.

Filled a tub with water, put the carboy in the water and used a temp. controller to turn on and off a 120 volt water heater element to keep the temp where I want it. At this time it is 72 deg. for a oatmeal stout with Coopers Ale yeast. Could develop a parts list if anyone was interested. Oh by the way I’m a electrician who builds controls for a manufacturing plant. so I know these things work.

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First time using StarSan… Racking from secondary to keg as the beer being siphoned pushes the foam out of the keg…

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If you have a 6 gallon wort and you boil for 45′
what would the change in gravity -approximately of course
say you have a 1.045 pre-boil
thanks

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OK,

I have started on a project to keep a small inventory of basic brewing ingredients on hand and am asking for your advise. I would like see what ingredients most people keep on hand for “experimenting”… I have 2-Row Pale Malt, Munich and Pils Malts onhand already.

Again, this is a query for specialty grains only.

1. Caramunich
2. CaraPils
3. Crystal 10L
4. Crystal 55L
5. Crystal 120L
6. Oatmeal
7. Black Patent
8. Chocolate Malt
9. Flaked Barley
10. Wheat Malt

Carafa?, Roasted Barley? Victory, Special-B?

Many thanks to you all on the mighty green board… Please feel free to chime in w/ suggestions.

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Attempting the Kotbusser from Radical brewing. I mashed for an hour at 122F and then an hour at 152F. Total grains 11.8 (1 # flaked oats, 4 3 malted wheat and the rest Pils) and 20 Qt of H2O w/ 4 gm of CaCl2 added to increase the Ca++ content. It’s still cloudy after an 2 hours. I drained off 10 Qts and heated to 152 and added it back to the mash, thinking it needed some more heat.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

Why hasn’t conversion happened???

Thanks for the help.

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I think fat tire is an amber, would a brown ale work with this yeast?

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I posted something about this in another thread, but that thread was more directed towards wort being saved for 2 weeks.

I poured off some wort mid boil and with no hop additions, into a sanitized mason jar and let it sit with the lid on loosely while it cooled. Once it was cooled down I tightened the lid and threw it in the fridge.

About 4 days later, I pulled the wort out and let it warm up to room temp, and then pitched some yeast to get my starter going. The starter seems to be going okay and I had planned on pitching it into my next batch on Monday.

I never even considered that there could be any danger of botulism, but after doing some searching on this forum there seems to be some mention of contamination if wort is not canned in a pressure cooker. I don’t really understand the biology side of this stuff, and am quite content to stay out of the know as long as I don’t have to find out about it the hard way — Is 4 days in the fridge a short enough amount of time that nothing nasty would have taken over, or should i chuck the starter and make a new one?

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Hi All,

What tool do you all use for the star shaped in post on corny (ball lock) kegs? I know my 7/8 deep socket won’t work for this side.
Thanks,

g-

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I like to clean with oxy clean then sanitize with bleach.

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I was thinking about cold crashing my beer al a howtobrew.com to make a very clear beer. however my question is, will there be enough yeast in there to bottle carbonate the brew if i do this?

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Unfortunately over the holiday I had to go to my FIL’s funeral. While there I was given 2 of his old homebrew books(sadly he never got to taste my brews). Both books were written in 65 and it is amazing the difference in brewing knowledge for homebrewers in just 40 years.
The first one is ” Home Brewing without failures” by H.E.Bravery…………….all the rcipes have 3+lbs of sugar.
The second is “An Essay on Brewing, Vintage and Distillation together with selected Remedies for Hangover Melancholia or HOW TO MKE BOOZE” This one is just strange.

Has anyone ever heard of these books

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Today I tasted my Irish Dry Stout after bottling it 11 days ago. Here’s a link to the recipe -

http://www.northernbrewer.com/docs/kis-html/1101.html

FYI the recipe I had used Kent Goldings at 60 and 20 minutes, Not the Magnum hops!

The problem is that it appears to be a bit, well, flavorless. There’s not that classic stout “bite” that I was expecting. The beer is as dark as night, but tastes like a budweiser. Here’s a few things I’m concerned about:

- Did I use too much water? I started with 6.5 gallons, and ended with 5 gallons in the primary carboy. Hit all my gravities.
- Did the Nottingham yeast I opted to use with it’s vigorous fermentation wipe out all my flavor?
- Should I just chill out and be patient, the flavors will develop?

Let me know what you think……..I’m drinking this beer, it just don’t taste like I’d expect a stout to taste!!

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I brewed an American Amber today and my efficiency dropped significantly from my last batches. The most obvious culprit is the American 2 Row since this is my first time using it (last batches were Halcyon). Could American pale malt have affected my efficiency from percents in the low 70’s to high 50’s?

I batch sparge and everything went okay. I crush my own every time, so that hasn’t changed. What do you think?

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Hello all,

I was getting ready to bottle and noticed mold in some of my bottles. I have decided to just soak all of them in bleach to be safe. Will a mixture of 1 1/2 teaspoons bleach and 5 gallons of water for an hour do the trick? Thanks.

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I’m just starting out and am considering joining a club for the wealth of knowledge (and fun) they seem to offer. Just curious what percentage of the brew board belongs to a club.

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I’ve been experimenting with taking yeast from bottle conditioned beers. I have three yeasts currently in bottles containing 100ml of wort. The first yeast I took was from one of my own bottles, and it’s the Safale T-58 strain. The sample I took is fermenting well and I will shortly try to grow it up into a larger volume before plating.

The second yeast I took was from a bottle of Freeminer Bottle Conditioned Ale. After a slow start I thought I could see the beginnings of some activity, but now it looks as though the yeast has all clumped together and dropped out of solution. So now the wort is pretty clear but with a load of fairly large (5mm across) clumps at the bottom. I’m not really sure what’s happened here, and my gut instinct is to ditch it. What do you all think?

(For the record, the last yeast was taken from a couple bottles of SNPA - I only took the sample last night so it’s too early to see what’s happening).

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Posted: by redneckchugger (17 hours ago)

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After waking from my post turkey nap I’ve been enjoying this brew so much I had to share:

12 Gallons post boil

23# Maris Otter
2# 10oz Flaked Oats
1# Roast Barley
1# Chocolate Malt
10oz Special B
1# Special Roast
13oz Crystal 75L
3.5oz Black Patent

125 minute boil

2oz Northern Brewer 60 min
1.5oz Willamette 40 min

1.5oz Willamette 20 min
1.5oz Northern Brewer

1.5oz Willamette 5 min
1.5oz Northern Brewer

2oz Willamette 0 min

WY 1272 Slurry
1.067 OG
Mash in the mid 150s

The only possible improvement could be to sub out some of the MO for Munich…but if it ain’t broke, just drink it.

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Making a double IPA this weekend — debating whether to use 2 packs US-05 or a cake of 1056 I have from a pale. I usually like 1056 better (I know, I know — they’re the same, yadayada), but I do usually get a few more points out of US-05.

What are you guys using in your recipes?

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