Beer Feeds

Hello all.

So sometime this week i am hoping to do my first 10 gal batch, an oatmeal stout with various leftover bits of speciality grain. No rice hulls or 6-row, however. Oat are about 7% of the total grist. I’ve heard about how oats can cause a stuck runoff, and that coupled with it being my first 10 gal batch to run through my new MLT, has me a little worried.

I read here, BYO oatmeal stout that you can do a Beta-glucanase rest to minimize the gums produced by the oats. My MLT is a converted cooler with an SS braid, and so far it done me very well, in fact I’ve never had a stuck runoff.

THe problem here is that I don’t know the best way to go about it. I what is the target temp for this rest? The article says 104-122 but this is a pretty big range. Secondly, I don’t have a direct fired mash tun. My thought was I could do the mash in a 7 gal pot on my burner: after the beta rest I could apply flame and get the temp up to 152ish, then dump into the MLT, and proceed as normal. Is this a good solution or is there a variable i’m forgetting?

Lastly, is there anyone who thinks the rest is completely unnecessary? That I should just brew as normal, because I think that might be what I wanna hear.

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After brewing multiple batches of pale ales and IPAs with both Wyeast 1056 and Safale 05, I would STRONGLY DISCOURAGE USING SAFALE 05. I have now had multiple batches of beer fermented with this yeast that were not worth drinking. This yeast tends to dry out the beer so that the flavor is bordering on astringent. While I have had some good batches with this yeast, the results have been extremely inconsistent, and several batches have been dumpers for me. Maybe it might serve a useful purpose in fermenting a barleywine, but IMO THIS YEAST SHOULD NEVER BE USED! BREW AT YOUR OWN RISK WITH THIS YEAST!

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Hey everyone,
Today is day 16 on my first batch so I decided to check the SG for the first time and I planned on bottling this Sat. I found it strange that my SG was still at 1.020 and the abv was around 3. Do I need to think about pitching more yeast or just keep waiting?

It is a Hefe and the FG is supposed to be 1.010-1.012 at around 5.2% abv

Thanks for any info

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George

I was trying to search your website today and it seems that it might be malfunctioning. No pics and some crazy line shooting through the pages.

What’s happening

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I’ve got a kit to make English Ginger Ale. It’s ale not soda. I’m not doing all grain brewing yet. I want to try to make a gruet, and am wondering if I could just not use the hops that come with this kit, and add more spices to it. I’ve got some all grain recipes for gruet, but am nervous about trying to convert them to dry-malt, so thought maybe I could start with a kit, and adjust it. Alternatively a Scottish Ale kit might work, but I don’t already have one.

The kit I’ve got has: 5lbs of Light DME, 2oz ginger root, 2 cups each of choclate malt and crystal malt, to make a 5 gallon batch.

One all grain gruit recipe that I think might work with those grains is this:

Grain bill
13 pounds / 6 Kg english pale malt
4 pounds / 2 Kg crystal malt
3 pounds / 1.3 Kg German pilsner malt (roasted at 350°F / 175°C for 20min)
2 pounds / 1 Kg German Munich malt

Extra
¾ cups corn sugar for priming
1 tbs. irish moss

Herbs
2 onces / 50-60g of Yarrow
2 onces / 50-60g of Wild rosemary
2 onces / 50-60g of Bog myrtle

Yeast

I’ve got some liquid yeast from White labs to go with this kit,I’ll have to look at which one.

What do you think? It’d be beer, but would those herbs be too much or too little with those kinds and amounts of DME?

M

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I stumbled across this on their website. If your a customer check it out!

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Did a batch of pumpkin beer two weeks ago. Had it in the primary one week and have had it in the secondary a week. Did use any pumpkin meat but just went with adding the spices. I’m worried that if I leave the brew too long in the secondary, the spices will overwhelm….thoughts?

Planning on doing to a gravity reading tonight…

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Posted: by jtrockchalk (12 hours ago)

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Posted: by beergynt (12 hours ago)

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Posted: by pweis909 (14 hours ago)

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What styles have the same/similar ingredients with the exception of the yeast?
I want to do a 10 gallon batch and split so that half is an ale and half is a lager.

ideas?

I really want to see what yeast and fermtemps do to change a beer all else being equal - but I also want products that are reasonably within an identifiable style guideline.

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I bought a water heater element that looks like this http://www.plumbingsupply.com/elements.html from lowes. There are connections for negative and positive but no ground. Where am I suppose to connect the ground?

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I brewed a 10 gallon batch of beer, and split it up in to two ~5 gallon batches. On one of the carboys, the brew spewed up through the airlock, and eventually blew it off. I wasn’t sure what to do. I ran out of sanitizer (another story in and of itself), so I wasn’t sure what to do to keep things sanitary. I cleaned the airlock off in the kitchen sink and put it back on the carboy as fast as I could. Now the beer in the bad carboy is a lot darker than the other. Any idea what may have happened to it? Any idea why the two acted so differently?

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I was looking at doing an extract batch of a Belgian Amber Ale, and was wondering what would the outcome be if I substituted the flavor and finishing hops (fuggle) for some fresh Cascade I have acquired.
Thanks for the help and thoughts.
Also, I have been reading that you use around 6x the amount of fresh hops of that of pellet. Is this an accurate assumption?

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Of course none of us on here are below 21 , but this looks interesting. Personally, I say drop the drinking age and make the DUI penalty massive. But at the same time, DUIs should be taken case by case…thoughts?

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Can you guess the number one consumer of beer in the world?

linky
www.cnbc.com/id/26789471

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I’m brewing a american/english pale/IPA this weekend. Can’t make up my mind what to use for it. I have 3 oz of Simcoe Hops at 12 percent alpha. 2oz are pellets and 1 ounce are plugs. I also have 1 oz. of williamette pellets just sitting in my freezer. I’m looking for a good aroma and hop flavor in this batch. what would be the best hop addition schedule for this style with what i have?

Heres what i got so far for 5 gallons:

Malt Bill:
7 lbs Marris Otter
2.75 lbs of american 2 row
.5 of 60L crystal

I have 3oz of simcoe hops, 1 oz of williamette. I have us-04, windsor, and also us-05 all on hand.

How can I get a good hoppy pale ale with what I have?

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Posted: by zeff80 (14 hours ago)

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Well, I recently kegged 5 gallons of what was supposed to be a Guinness clone, right down to the flaked barley.

Crystal 75 3/4 lb.
Black Patent 1/3 lb.
Roast Barley 1/3 lb.
Flaked Barley 1/3 lb.

Dark Malt Extract 6.5 lb.

Northern Brewer - 1 oz. at boil
Fuggle 1 oz. at 45 min
Irish Moss 1 tsp. @ 45 min

Total 60 minute boil, and all went well through the steeping and the boil (e.g., no boil-overs, and the steeping temp. was well-maintained at 150-160 degrees).

Irish Ale Yeast pitched at 76 degrees.

OG: 1.050

Primary was 14 days. Didn’t take a gravity at this point, but the wort tasted pretty good; a nice hearty stout with a good lingering aftertaste and nice hoppy flavor overall. Things were looking great at this point.

I then moved it to the the secondary, for 4 days, then to the keg.

FG: 1.020

Good sanitization was observed throughout the process.
Upon kegging, I noted a bit of a foul aroma. Not good, to be sure.

I fast-carbed for 3 days at 20 psi on beer gas, and to get this process done quicker, I put it on straight CO2 for maybe 18 hours at 20 psi.
Yesterday I pulled a small glass, and…. UGH! The aroma is still present… it’s somewhere along the lines of sweaty gym socks… SOMEONE ELSES.

I sampled the glass, and by the time I finished it (4 or 5 ounces) the taste seemed OK - not great, not gut-wrenching, but just OK, which was a bit of a disapointment after having tasted the wort. The appearance is quite good, actually - a nice, dark stout, excellent head retention, with a nice, creamy foam. I’m using beer gas to push it through a genuine Guinness faucet.

Has anyone else had this experience? It’s a bit tough to bring myself to drink it, simply because of the funky odor… for obvious reasons I’ve ruled out the beer gas or CO2 being the problem, because the odor was present as I was kegging it.

Anyone that could shed some light on this, please?

Signed,

Discouraged.

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Yesterday I made an IPA and an APA from one mash. Sort of like a partigyle, but a bit more precise, I think. I mashed 27 pounds at once and ran off 12 gallons. I used 7 gallons for the IPA and 5 gallons for the APA, adding water to get to preboil volumes. Two separate boils to get the right hopping schedules. The 5 gallon part hung out the in the HLT cooler until I was ready for it. It was still above 150F when I pumped it into the kettle for the second boil. I ended up with the IPA at 1.062 and the APA at 1.042. I’d been shooting for 66 and 46, but the efficiency wasn’t quite what I expected - I usually hit 80% with the HERMS, but I guess I didn’t use enough water. Next time.

Anyway, there was nothing whatsoever hard about the process. I recommend it when you want to fill the fermenters quickly.

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Does anyone know of a good type of quick disconnect that can be adapter for corny kegs and sanke keg connections? I have my keggerator set up for cornies right now and occasionally i will probably be putting a sanke on and was looking for a more convenient method of swapping out the fittings than removing the ball lock posts back and forth.

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Posted: by TheDoorman (21 hours ago)

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It’s been a while since I used my immersion wort chiller. Any tips on cleaning this bad boy?

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I wanted to make another batch of SNPA but my local store didn’t have crystal 60 or perle hops so I made a one off with what was available .
What do you think ?

10 Gallon Extract Batch

2lbs of Caramunich III
1 oz Magnum 60 minutes
1/2 Oz Perle 1/2 oz Amarillo 30 Min.
1 oz Simcoe 10 min.
1 oz Simcoe @ flameout

S-04 yeast

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Why does it take so long to get scorsheets form some competitions? I would think that BJCP should have a time limit on this for sanctioned events.

KD

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I am brewing a Barley Wine today and need to increase my preboil gravity by 14 points. My anticipated gravity should be 1.078 and I am at 1.064. How much Dme should I add to 8 Gallons of wort? This is an AG Brew by the way, and I have about 1 pound of Dme in stock.
Thanks

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I have noticed an off flavor in all of my beers lately and am wondering what is causing it. I know it is difficult
to diagnose on line and my descriptin may not be as good as i would like but maybe someone else has had the same thing and found a fix…

The best way I can describe it is kind of a sickly sweet undertone. Almost bile-like? Now the beer is drinkable so it is not
putrid but i can still taste it. My wife can too. To be honest it kind of reminds me off a coopers pale ale-like flavor hint in the background.

I’m wondering if it is just something that needs to be cleaned or replaced, or if it is oxygenation or something along those lines.
I use a shirron CFC and I do keg. Have not replaced the beer lines but have run BLC through them each keg change.
I do temperature control ferment in a bucket in a chest freezer. No secondary, just primary for 14days then keg. Same bucket for a couple of years. Doesn’t SEEM like it needs to be changed… I do use is a copper tube stuck into the primary for a thermowell. Is that really that bad?
Naturally I try to keep things clean.

Hope someone else has had a similar flavor and can relate. It’s starting to irritate me.

TIA,

Andy

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I was at the asian market today trying to find some jaggery. I happened upon something called “date molasses.” I bought a 24oz jar on impulse with the thought of using it in a beer of some sort.

Does anyone have any experience with date molasses? I didn’t find any immediately useful information with a google search.

It certainly doesn’t taste like regular molasses. I am unsure as to what the gravity contribution would be if I added 24oz of this stuff to 10g of beer. The label says that an 18g serving has 14g of carbs with 12g of sugar. I am also curious as to what the flavor impact would be. I am considering adding this jar to a batch of belgian ale of some sort…a dubbel, perhaps.

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5 pounds white wheat
4 pounds pilsen malt
1 pound vienna
.5 crystal

2.5 ounces hallertauer 60 minutes
1 ounce Saaz 30 minutes
1 ounce tettnanger 10 minutes
.5 ounce saaz at flameout

White Labs German Hefe yeast.

S’gonna be good.

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So i’m in my LBHS and i restock with $133 worth of ingredients. I gought a bag of grain and some hops, yeasts… ect. The three yeasts i got were dry US-5, Windsor, and a smack pack for a tripple. The US-5 is for an american barleywine and i told him the windsor was for an english barleywine. He started giving me some attitude about how crappy my choice of windsor yeast was.

I’ve used it on a barleywine before and i had quick starting time, vigorous fermentation, very good attenuation and great taste. I know this yeast can get a little fruity if the temperatures get up but i think it’s a great yeast.

How do you all feel?

Is there any problem with using dry yeast for a barleywine instead of liquid yeast? Is this guy just trying to get the extra $7 bucks off me?

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