Beer Feeds

Just out of curiosity was wondering what the lowest FG people have ever gotten and on what beer?

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For my third brew I have decided to make the Port O” Palmer using specialty grains

http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter13-3.html only

only I have decided to use 6lbs. of Dark Liquid Malt Extract

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info…products_id=138

from Austin Homebrew Supply which claims is a “blend of 2-row, Crystal 60L malt, and Black Patent malt”. First off, I wanted to use the specialty grains from the recipie for a fresher tasting beer. The recipie calls for:

1/2 lb. of Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb. of Crystal 60L Malt
1/4 lb. of Black Patent Malt

Foolishly I ordered all of these specialty grains in 1lb incriments in case I decided to brew this beer another time and instead of getting them separately I ordered all 3 in one package mixed together. John Palmer states that using too much black patent malt will be unpleasant and 1lb is waaayyy too much for this beer.

My question is two-fold:
Firstly the Dark LME already claims that these malts are present, though to what degree I have no idea, (Austin Homebrew doesn’t give the exact percentages included in the LME). So my question is even if I were to use the specialty grains according to the recipie will the Porter be too harsh? (too much crystal, 60l, black patent)

Secondly, there is no way for me too separate the specialty grains now that they’re all mixed. Can I steep them for a shorter amount of time? I am mostly worried about the black patent and the chocolate malt since from what I have read these are to be used sparingly.

What would you do?

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Posted: by libraryspouse (22 hours ago)

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Posted: by ATPete (22 hours ago)

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The People’s Republic of Flying Dog is now in session. It’s happy hour at Flying Dog Brewery, so here is your latest dose of irreverence.Support Your Local Brewery
We here at Flying Dog love everyone drinking our award winning litter of ales but we also aren’t Beer-ophobes(TM). When 97% of beer in this country is made […]

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Posted: by simplexiton (23 hours ago)

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OK I think I have this correct but wanted to verify.

I currently have my CO2 tank in the kegorator (chest freezer) with my kegs. I keep it around 40 F, so I set the pressure for about 11-12 psi to get the approximate 2.5 volumes of dissolved CO2 in the beer.

I believe, even if the tank were out of the kegorator at room temperature, I would still keep the pressure at 11-12 psi because the beer is at the 40 F temperature.

Is that correct?

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As I was going over some recipes, I was wondering of an easier way to add flavoring to a batch. I wondered if anyone has every tried or heard of adding Kool-Aid? I know it sounds weird but stranger things have happened. Let me know.

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Interesting experiment.

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i am interested in adding oak chips to a future brew.
1) does anyone have a good recipe or style that works better with oak?
2) when are the chips added? during fermentation? secondary?
3) how long should the chips be in the beer before bottling for max flavor?

Thanks

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I’m planning a series of German Lagers Helles, Dunkel, Maibock, Doppelbock. I’d also like to brew a O’fest/Marzen. I’m planning on using/repitching WLP833 for this run. Marzen is supposed to be a very malty beer which 833 should give it, would any other 833 characteristics put it too far outside the O’fest/Marzen style?

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I want to get my Oktoberfest going, but had surgery on my shoulder and cant lift heavy objects.

Can I just boil my mash and top off in the fermenter? Sparge with just a gallon, and boil that?

Any ideas?

All ideas are welcome!!

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Notice the In-Heat Wheat in the picture from this Brewer’s Association press release. We are taking over the world one beer at a time!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
American Craft Beers featured at July 4th opening of new U.S. Embassy in Berlin, Germany
Export Development Program helps promote sales of American Craft Beer in the U.S.
Boulder Colorado. • July […]

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Hey all,
I just got into brewing at the beginning of this summer. I brewing my sixth beer tomorrow night. I’m still doing the whole extract thing and I was wondering if anyone knew the difference between dried M.E. and liquid M.E. I assume that if you used the same quantities the dried would yield a slightly higher specific gravity, because the liquid has water weight. Also I was wondering if anyone has noticed a difference in the finished product. Do these two different methods produce different tastes, or is it all about the same? Thanks for the help.
Jason

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How could you go about making a gluten free beer? I have a friend who can’t have beer because of a gluten allergy, but offered to pay for all the supplies if I made one for her without gluten. Anyone know how? Sounds like a fun experiment to me!

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There are so many different kinds of pumps, I dont want to pay a fortune for one. Is an aquarium pump worth it? Or do I need to get a fountain pump? Does anybody use this method? I need to get a pump, so please give me some feedback as to what I should be looking for.

Thanks

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A few years ago, I scored three industrial surplus 1600W heaters that fit around my polarware pot:

I initially just used them for some heating efficiency experiments, since I could measure the power input going into each heater with some accuracy. Surprisingly, just using the three heaters on the outside maintains a good boil (I was worried that the center of the pot wouldn’t boil because it was so far from the heaters; this is not the case because the convection currents in the boil cause so much mixing).

For my experiments, I was willing to be careful and not ground everything (and you’ll notice I left the 120V terminals exposed). I had a voltmeter to measure the actual voltage across the terminals to get power input from V^2/R, and I could use the voltmeter to check if the pot was shorting out before I touched anything. If this is to be my main boil kettle, I want to go a little less “mad scientist” and a little more “saftey conscious mad scientist” and electrically insulate the contacts, and ground the pot. I’m pretty sure I know how to insulate the contacts, it’s the grounding that I have questions on.

Here’s my question: I plan to plug this into three different GFCI outlets, on three different 15-amp circuits. Each heater should be electrically isolated from it’s neighbors (well, isolated until something breaks). How should I attach the grounds? If I attach each of the the three GFCI grounds to the pot, that will short the grounds out against each other, and it will take 3X the current to trip the GFCI circuit. Is this OK? Is it OK to short the grounds together at the plugs, and then have just one high temperature wire going to the pot?

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A simple question which most likely has a simple answer, but I was just curious as to what you all think.

I’m planning out the build of my HERMS and was thining about using 1/2 copper piping instead of 3/8″ copper coil. I figured that for the price of 1/2″ pipe you couldn’t go wrong (although more time consuming to build), but it was also cover mores urface areas which should make it more effective. I have seen a few (very few) brewers use this method and was woulding if there is a reason not to.

What do you all think? Posstive/negative all of the above?!?!

Dana

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Hi all,

I’m brewing a Belgian Wit tonight and am toying with the idea of adding some black pepper. This would be in addition to 1oz bitter orange and 1oz coriander for the 5.5 gallon batch. I’m looking for some subtle black pepper notes in the background. How finely should I crack the peppercorns? Anyone with any experience with this?

Thanks!

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I picked up a older smack pack of this stuff from my lhbs. The package was aready swelled and it was past the ’sell by’ date, but it was 25% off and the last packet they had, so i took the advice of the shop owner and made up an 880ml starter for it (which i would have done anyway).

I don’t have a stirplate, so i just tried to swirl it a couple times/day. Over the course of 2 days I really didn’t notice that much activity - definitely a little bit of airlock bubling and some slight foaming on top, and when i swriled it, the foam seemed to build up quite high. I guess it just seemed a bit less dramatic than the starters i’d typically make for other strains.

I’ve heard that this saison strain isn’t the most attenuative yeast out there and having never used it before i wasn’t sure if myabe it was just generally slow to get going — even in the starter?

I figured I’d step up the starter tonight and if it didn’t look any more active, i might just buy a fresh packet somewhere else, BUT, if anyone might think this to be normal, please let me know.

thanks

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I was going to brew so I made a yeast starter with light dry malt. I didn’t take an O.G. on it, just mixed 1 cup with 1 L of water. Boiled it for 15 min and cooled to 72 deg. I noticed when I poured the “wort” into the growler that it was quite brown and cloudy. I normally use Coopers extract but they were out of that so I got Muntons light extract instead. Now the mixture looks like day old coffee that has been heated in the microwave and had milk added to it. I have it on a homemade stir plate, and it took off in about 3 hours and is picking up steam. Would you guys be concerned?

The next question is I just had something come up for work, and I have to leave town on Thursday morning and won’t get a chance the brew until Monday, or most likely Tuesday. Will it keep in the house at 70-72 degrees until then? (White labs East coast ale yeast) Stir plate on or off?

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Anyone trade with these guys?

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I am new to kegging and had a question. I think I know the answer, but I want n number of opinions. Does the delivery pressure (the gas line pressure) affect the carbonation level of the beer? Lets say, does a pressure of 9 psig produce a less carbonated beer than oh, 14 psig? Or is it that the pressure used to carbonate the beer (hence drive CO2 into solution) and the pressure exerted by this (force) carbonation (ie when exposed to ambient air) less than the 9 or 14 psig and hence, will not affect the carbonation of the beer itself, but rather simply modulated the flow rate of the beer? I think it just affects flow rate and not too much the CO2 in solution (carbonation) of the beer. Is this correct?

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I’ve got a new 15 gallon kettle. My old 7.5 came pre-marked every two quarts. I would like to do something similar to this one but I’m not sure what the best way is. Anyone have experience or ideas?

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FOR BLACK PATENT MALT OR GERMAN BLACK CARAFFE MALT?

I was thinking about using it in a recipe for a 10 gal batch of Dunkel Weizen:
6 lb of 2-row
6 lb of wheat
8 lb of munich
8 oz of chocolate
8 oz of roasted barley
16 oz of 40 L Crystal
Yeast: german wheat
Does this look good?

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I went to check on my hop plant yesterday and notices there are a ton of flies that have decided they like Cascades! No idea why they picked my hop plant to congregate. One of my neighbors said that hanging a bar of Ivory soap near the plants would repel the flies - maybe worth at try. Any idea on how to get rid of them?

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I am trying to find a list of everything that I need to start kegging. Like tubing, dipensers, sizes for everything, etc. Any ideas where I could find this? I am going to be getting this stuff piece by piece as i get the money. Thanks!

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Had this beer for the first time last night at my homebrewers meeting! Amazing!! So of course as a homebrewer I am know thinking of how to make this. I am thinking of trying a small 2.5 gallon batch just to see how it comes out! I found a recipe for Aventinus in the recipe section but not sure which one its for. But at least it might be a starting point.
Aventinus Clone

At the meeting our president talked about chocolate malt being in their and he had the owners come to one of our meeting about 5 years ago, so I am assuming he is speaking from a good source. I also understand a little about the ice distilation process and would like to try it. If anyone has any recipe ideas or comments about this beer feel free to add you info. I think for my first try I would like to try DME cause I have three pounds of wheat DME and I have no other use for it!

Cheers
Adam

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Posted: by semibaked (13 hours ago)

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I brewed a wit beer about 24 hours ago, and pitched an 900 mL starter of a white labs wit II yeast. I put some starsan in my fermenter before dumping my wort and forgot to dump the startsan out!! I used a spray bottle to sanitize so I’m only talking a very thin coating on the bottom of the carboy, probably about an 8th of an inch. So i dumped the wort in the carboy with the sanitizer. I’ve heard from listening to the brewing network’s show with the maker of starsan, that it is okay to pour the wort in, even if there is starsan in there, and that it wont effect head retention either. There was a layer of what looked like oil, but I’m sure was just starsan on top. Now I am skeptical as my fermentation is 24 hours in progress, and there is no foaming at the top. Am I just being impatient? Fermentation looks vigorous, churning quite a lot, and the airlock is bubbling away. So what do you think?

Thanks

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