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Archive for September, 2009

Pumpkin boil or Mash

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

To get the most favor of Pumpkin should you mash (w/ Rice Hulls) or Boil.
Thoughts?

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Primary ferment in carboy?

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

I’ve always fermented in plastic buckets for no other reason than that’s how I started and just haven’t ever looked at other options, but I see the advantage of doing your primary ferment in glass carboys.

My question is, for a 5 gallon batch, do you just use a 6.5 gallon carboy? Seems like anything smaller would cause blow-off problems. Or do you use a 5 gallon carboy with a blow off tube?

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Chai Christmas Tea

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Has anyone used Chai in a beer before? I am looking to make a spiced beer for a homebrew club event we have coming up. Its in november so aging isn’t really an option. I am thinking like a chai porter or something like that. I guess I could do an amber as well. Does anyone have any experiance with this? I would be getting my tea from Tevana so it would be real tea not a pre-mix like a lot of chai is. Any info would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers

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Chocolate Stout, with a twist

Monday, September 21st, 2009

I have been thinking this over for a while and have now brewed CocoaKrieky. It is a sweet chocolate cherry stout. Here is my recipe and a few pics.

Recipe Specifics
—————-

Batch Size (Gal): 5.50 Wort Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 13.00
Anticipated OG: 1.061 Plato: 15.01
Anticipated SRM: 52.3
Anticipated IBU: 48.4
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
—————————————————————————–
76.9% - 10.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) - America - 1.036 - 2
15.4% - 2.00 lbs. Chocolate Malt - America - 1.029 - 350
3.8% - 0.50 lbs. Black Patent Malt - America - 1.028 - 525
3.8% - 0.50 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt - - 1.033 - 2

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
—————————————————————————–
0.75 oz. Columbus Pellet 13.00% 41.3 60 min.
0.25 oz. Columbus Pellet 13.00% 7.0 30 min.

Yeast
—–

DCL Yeast US-05 Ale Yeast

Actual O.G. was 1.062. I will be adding 1/2 Lb of cocoa nibs to secondary along with a TBD amount of cherry puree.

Brew Pot image

~Phillip

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Rebuilding my Malt Mill

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

I’ve been having problems with my JSP malt mill and want to rebuild it and I have some questions.

I bought it used (from someone who said it was hardly used, and it looked in fairly new condition when I bought it even though it was originally purchased years before I picked it up) and I don’t know if it’s in original condition or if someone might have taken it apart and forgot to put something back.

The problems I’ve been having are that sometimes the drive roller turns but the other one does not. It still has the O-ring but it has a flat spot on the O-ring and I think it may be causing it to stop turning when it hits the flat spot (I know I should probably just get rid of the O-ring).

Are there supposed to be any washers between the rollers and the end plates? (There are circular marks on the inside of the end plates where you can see there has been metal on metal wearing.)

What type of grease or oil should I use in the bearings?

The adjustment thumb screw broke off, any idea what size the thumb screw is or what the threads per inch is? (the thumb screw broke off the last time I was trying to use it, had to go back to the Corona mill to get the job done)

Any thing else I should know or look for?

Thanks.

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Beer stone

Friday, September 18th, 2009

It may be a very well known thing, but just figured out that star-san can easily remove the beer stone from your kettle. I used some star-san solution (recommended concentration) in my kettle, left for 30min and later realized that the beer stone that was there for a long time started to come out very easy.

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super, super smooth stout

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Okay - I was up in Cleveland last weekend and got to the Rocky River Brewing Company. I tried their Oompa Loompa stout and it was fantastic. One of the smoothest, creamiest beers I’ve ever had.

I found this old recipe from BYO and the greenboard, but I’m not convinced that anything here will make this beer as smooth as it was at the brewery.

Any ideas on how to up the smooth? Oats? Higher mash temp?

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtop…;hl=rocky+river
http://baderbrewing.com/store/product.php?…=398&page=3

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Suggestions

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Sunday I brewed up 11G of what I now call Detonation Porter. My son went to the basement last night and told me the floor was wet and the liquid was brown. In the basement bathroom where once there where three carboys, now there were two. Of the two that were left, one had blown the airlock and stopper across the room. It was fun cleaning up 1.066 OG 26 SRM wort and hundreds of shards of glass. Good times.

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Should I cold crash a 1.074 OG Belgian

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I made a Belgian Blonde recently & it’s been sitting on the primary yeast for 2 weeks now. Took a reading and I got 1.011 on the hydrometer. This is my first bigger beer and I was wondering whether I should:

1) cold crash for a few days then rack to secondary and age for a 1-2 months, then bottle
2) no cold crash just rack to secondary, age for 1-2 months then bottle
3) cold crash for a few days then keg (right now it sits at 8.2% alcohol by volume-not really a session beer in my opinion)

What do you recommend?

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Whats your favorite recipe to serve on cask?

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Hi All,
Looking to get some of your best recipes for a good english pale, bitter, mild, etc that would be tasty served from a beer engine (as well as from standard co2 tap). I plan to brew 10 gal and then have it both on standard tap and when i know folks are coming over i will pour out a gallon or 2 into another vessel and serve from the beer engine.

Thanks all,
JD

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CBR: SAVOR Interviews

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Greg made several interviews during SAVOR with the aspirations of editing them into a NPR type story about the small brewers tax differential and the brewers association qualifications to be a craft brewer. The idea never came to fruition, but he wanted to share the interviews none the less. Enjoy the Lost SAVOR Interviews.

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CBR: SAVOR Interviews

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Greg made several interviews during SAVOR with the aspirations of editing them into a NPR type story about the small brewers tax differential and the brewers association qualifications to be a craft brewer. The idea never came to fruition, but he wanted to share the interviews none the less. Enjoy the Lost SAVOR Interviews.

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CBR 144: Virginia is for Beer Lovers

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

We do a Virginia vertical show, almost getting it right. We learned at publishing that one of our beers actually came from South Carolina. But what matters is the beer, right? Let’s call it a northern-southern corridor show.

Beers:

Rankings

  • Jeff: rapadou, ironbound, evil 8, Bell Ringer, springhouse
  • Greg: evil 8, rapadou, ironbound, bell ringer, springhouse

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