Beer Feeds

Posted: by Jmamay22 (21 hours ago)

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I’ve had a love / hate relationship with this strain for 3 years now. I’ve not found a better English strain that gives the nice fruit esters. However….I’ve had VERY inconsistent results with attenuation. I’ve seen results as low as 55% and as high at 74%.

I’ve tried mashing low and mashing higher. I figured that mashing low (like 148F) would help me get close to 70% attenuation. Sometimes it would…sometimes it wouldn’t. When mashing low…..I could still get “high final gravities” that still seemed thin when it came to mouthfeel.
I “do everything right” in the sense that I pump oxygen in the wort with a stone and pitch proper quantities.

The one thing I have not really done when using this strain is focusing on my temp toward the end of fermentation. I usually pitch around 70 degrees or slightly less and hold it in that range. I rarely swirled the carboy.

My latest batch was an ESB that crapped out at 1.025. I was not happy with this so I put a space heater near the 68 degree carboys and warmed up the beer to 74F. I spun the carboys to lift the yeast off the bottom of the glass to see if I could get these guys going again. It’s been a little over a day and it appears that fermentation has taken off again. I will keep it warm a few more days and take a gravity reading.

I wonder if I just need to focus on keeping this strain warmer near the end of fermentation and off the bottom. I hope I’ve found the key to success with this yeast…

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Once again we are joined by the sweet sound of “Midwest Hype“. This seven piece local band is releasing a brand new album called “Colorful Love” and the GBS is proud to kick it off. Check them out at SonicBids and MySpace. The last song which I failed to mention… imagine that […]

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What is required to see your beer?
Are there different requirements for selling kegs to bars then bottles and pints to consumers?
Do you need to be certified?
What are the first steps?
What does it take to open up a brewery, and are there less requirements if you dont have a brew pub?
Surely someone has done this and knows what it takes.
FIll me in!

Thanks!

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From William Brand’s excellent Beer Blog “What’s On Tap”

At last! Sam Calagione just e-mailed me with the news that Dogfish Head
beers are headed to California. They’ve lined up distributors and the
first shipment’s on its way –hopefully to a store near me (and you.).
Here’s his note:

It is now even better to be on the West Coast.

zymot

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I tilted my tun after everything was drained and collected about 1/2G of wort.

Can I boil this and use it to make a starter?

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just started the mash on a Leap Year IPA. going to try fly sparging today to see if my efficiency improves. Will also be my first use of whole hops ever.

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Posted: by soulgrowl (9 hours ago)

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It has been a little while since I bought anything, but in the last week or so I noticed a decent jump in prices here. A 6 of Sam Adams or Schlafly (local brewery) was usually 6.99 regular price with sales typically being about 5.49-5.99. New Belgium was 7.49. Looks like everything went up about a dollar to 7.99-8.49 a six pack, and any sale that I saw was maybe 50 cents instead of the usual dollar off.

I am thinking this is only the start.

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I wasnt planning on brewing this weekend, but I AM!!

Now I’m going to make a Nut Brown Ale and have a vile of WLP002 English Ale yeast. ( thats what they sent me ) Evidently I dont have time to make a starter, plus I dont like the way it looks. Looks like puke! All chunky no matter how much I shake it.

What other yeast could I use. I have some Windsor and Nottingham available. (dry)

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i just kegged on saturday. the 23rd. and its now thrusday the 28th.. and noone has really drunk any except me.. my mom had like 3 glasses and my step-dad one or 2…other than that its just been me.. i’ve had 4-6 every night.. and a few for breakfast. (only one a day for breakfast not to get drunk just love the flavor. [mod edit] coffee.) and well m corny is almost empty allready. ha ha would u say im an alchy? or would u say welcome to the other half of homebrewing? ha ha ha. the best part of it is…i check my phonebook because i forgot the number to the LHBS. below the number was a number for alcoholism disease…must be a common homebrewer symptom . sorry for bad grammer im quite buzzed as i write this…and as u all know i normally have bad grammar anyways.

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I’m brewing right now. I just added my aroma hops (pellets), and was just thinking about how I might go about getting them out? It’s about -1 out, and I don’t have a wort chiller, so I’m just gonna stick my pot in a snow bank. Will the hops settle out with the cold break, or do I need to strain them when I siphon to the fermenter?

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It’s going to be 50df outside so I really want to take advantage of the weather. Problem is I forgot to order any ingredients. I’ve got a semi HBS here. I was thinking a simple wheat beer I can get Wheat DME there. If I remember right they only have two types of yeast there, Nottingham and Windsor yeast. I am assuming that those wouldn’t be too great for a wheat?

There is one hope for another store. I’ve tried going to this store 3 times (it’s an hour away). Every time I’ve been there they’ve been closed for one reason or another, so I have no clue what they have.

Any ideas? I think it might be sans specialty grains also because I don’t have a mill.

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Brewing a smoked porter this weekend. Plan on using both smoked malt and peated malt. Grain bill is Jamil’s Smoked Porter recipe. Plan is to use 1.5 lbs of smoked malt and .5 lbs of peated malt instead of the 3lbs of smoked malt that Jamil uses. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Don’t want it overly smokey.

Thanks

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From all I have been researching so far the answer I have is……sort of, but not really. What are other people’s experience with this?

Brewed NB’s Scottish 80 and Dunkel kits back in mid-January. Both have been bottle-conditioning for about a month now. Tasted the Dunkel and its good, but has a really sharp bitter bite to get over before you get to the real flavor. The Scottish, well, bitter bite that just never goes away. I’m thinking this is probably astringency. I have gone over my notes to try to figure out how I might have gotten this. The Dunkel looks like I sparged with 180 degree water, which I normally only go 170-173 so maybe that was it for that one. I added 5.2 stabilizer to both mashes but didn’t bother to actually check the Ph of the mash nor did I modify the Ph of the sparge water at all (usually don’t and never had a problem). Mash times and temps for both was 60 minutes in the 152-154 degree range. Boil times were both 60 minutes. Dropped both to 64 degrees before pitching Wyeast Activator packs. Fermented both at ambient temp of 64 degrees for 8 days (activity stopped after 5 and FG was at about what I figured) then dropped the temp down to 45 for another 5. The only other thing I can think of that I did differently than other brews I have done, without this flavor, is used the new barley crusher I got for Xmas. I got what I believe to be a proper crush with the factory setting, and yes, I ran about three pounds of test grain through beforehand and then wiped the rollers out with a dry brush before using it “for real”. Could it be I crushed too much and the astringency is coming from that? Just wondering where this flavor might have come from and if the Scottish has a chance of getting any better or if I’m sitting on 2.5 cases of drain water. I figure I’ll give it another month before I make a final call.

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I’m looking to make a beer that showcases rye malt so I can get a really good idea of what it contributes to flavor. Also I was recently reading about local history, and it seems the German settlers grew quite a bit of rye around here back in the old days. Also, there was a decent honey business here. So then I was thinking… what might the Germans have been brewing way back when, with the use of a high proportion of rye, and perhaps a bit of honey? I’m not saying that they truly used these ingredients for brewing 150 years ago… but I’m thinking that they very well might have since there was no doubt plenty of it laying around. So…… I came up with an idea for a German-American rye beer recipe, which I plan to make a little later this year. What do you all think? Will this taste any good? Will it be nasty? Have you tried anything similar? My thought was to use about 50% rye malt, and add a few specialty malts and spicy hops, and a clean yeast, which would all accentuate but not overpower the character of the rye. Do you think this recipe will accomplish that goal? Most important of all, will it taste any good? Without further adieu, here it is:

Honey Rye Beer
3 gallons

OG=1.051
ABV=5%
IBU=24
SRM=8

2.75 lb Rye Malt
1.5 lb American 6-row
0.625 lb Amber Malt (home toasted from American 6-row)
0.625 lb American Munich
0.3 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt
0.3 lb Wildflower Honey
1 lb Rice Hulls (avoid a stuck mash)
0.75 oz Tettnanger (4.5% alpha, 60 minutes)
0.25 oz Tettnanger (4.5% alpha, 15 minutes)
WLP029 Kolsch Yeast

Mash at 151 F. Add the honey after the boil, at flameout. Might throw in some homegrown Hallertauer hops in place of some of the Tetts. Ferment at 65 F. Prime as normal.

Thoughts? I’m all ears. Thanks in advance.

–
Dave

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Hey Guys…

I’m sure you’ve all seen my numerous posts and questions about kegging and my future keggerator. Well… Just got my FedEx email stating that my Keggin Kit from Midwest will be arriving tomorrow… So..I was getting all excited about the prospect of setting this all up tomorrow afternoon and Carbing up my Cream Ale..

Low and Behold, my Wife just called saying she thinks she’s going into Labor… Damn Kid is already screwing up my beer plans..

I’m just kidding of course…. Wish us luck!

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Hey all, I just wanted to talk about DFH and their beers a little. I know there are a lot of DFH lovers on here, my point isn’t to trash DFH. I think their beers are OK, nothing great for me. One thing I get with all their beers is a house flavor. I don’t know if its caused by the malt, hops or yeast they use, or a combination of everything (do they use the same yeast in all their beers).

I find that their beers tend to be cloying, which is why I am not a big fan…but they also have a lot of similar flavor characteristics. To me, its almost as if they use the same base beer for everything, then depending on what the end product is going to be they tweak it during the boil. Maybe I’m crazy, you can feel free to disagree.

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Made a bourbon vanilla porter OG was 1.082, FG 1.022. Added 2 cups of jim beam black to the secondary. Will I be correct to assume this will now change the gravity to a lower FG, and calculate as normal? Or does the alcohol addition dilute differently?

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So, does anyone have a good reason why i should go to all the effort to build a mash lauter tun with a false bottom or braids?
I’ve been using grain bags for a while now and I dont understand why everyone doesn’t. Its so convenient.
Are there any drawbacks im not aware of?

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Posted: by JBStith (20 hours ago)

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I am looking at doing the kit from NorthernBrewer called the british bitter. Sounds very interesting! I know this sounds horrible but I can take this recipie from the site and buy the ingredients from my local brew supply store and not have to pay for shipping. I was wondering what you guys thought of this recipie.

Specialty Grains

* 0.5 lbs. Simpsons CaraMalt

Fermentables

* 3.15 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
* 1 lbs. Golden Light DME

Boil Additions

* 1 oz. Kent Goldings (60 min)
* 1 oz. Kent Goldings (1 min)

Yeast

* Wyeast #1098 British Ale Yeast. From Whitbread. Ferments dry and crisp, slightly tart, fruity and well-balanced. Ferments well down to 65° F. Flocculation: high. Apparent attenuation: 68-72%. Optimum temperature: 64-75.

Thanks

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Here are some pics of my new batch. It has been in the secondary for a week and I need to know what to do before I bottle beause I do not know why it looks like this. Please help!!!

Visit My Website

somebody fixed the link please scroll down to view

thanks

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I saw a post where someone had made a fermentation temp control with a cooler and a pump running cold water into a container with the carboy. They used a temp controller to run the pump and keep the temp constant. I did a search but did not see it.

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http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI…N:IT&ih=002

I bought one on a whim and was wondering if anyone had any experience or could tell how to wire it up correctly. I figured it would be a cheap way to turn a freezer into a kegerator.

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so I’m gonna keg condition my brews. I also of course dry hop. so I was planning on primary 3 weeks then racking to keg and dry hopping in keg to cold condition a week. now…should I just leave un- carbed while dry hopping? that way I can open the keg to get the bag out? or would you say its ok to just force carb while cold condition/dryhopping, and just leave my hops in the keg until I drink all the beer?

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I have 2 of these “ale-pails” that after a year or so of hard use, have been put in storage for the last 5 weeks. I guarantee they were put away very clean and very dry. Oxi-clean, bleach solution, and then spritzed with iodophor for good measure. However, there is a persistent, mild funk eminating from them that just won’t go away. I’m not real concerned, because they’re obviously cheap and easy to replace, but it just defies logic in my opinion. I have a better-bottle also, but I’ve never had a problem with it, only the buckets. What gives?

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I have some store credit for more beer that I want to use - how does this ESB recipe kit look? http://morebeer.com/view_product/18332/102178

I’d like to use dry yeast - should I use S-04 or would another dry yeast be better?

This will be my first kegged beer

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Alright, so I make up my own water profile when I brew from distilled water and a variety of water salts/minerals. I’m going to make an order at Amazon.com and found that I can get Epsom Salts through there instead of Northern Brewer. The Epsom Salts on Amazon are 16oz for $1.99 and marketed as a holistic remedy for aches and pains. The Epsom Salts on Northern Brewer are obviously aimed at Brewers and is $3.99 for 2 oz. Both say they are magnesium sulfate, which it should be.

Does anyone see any objection why I shouldn’t get the salts from Amazon for the better price and quantity??

Thanks!!!

Al

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-World-Plu…2203&sr=8-3

http://pivo.northernbrewer.com/nbstore/act…amp;x=0&y=0

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Posted: by dancinwillie (11 hours ago)

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