Beer Feeds

So I just ordered 6 oz each of cascade and columbus hops which i will be using for my next three brews. I want to use the first beer, an ipa, to build a yeast cake for an imperial coffee stout. I will be using s-04 for the two beers mostly because i want to use it for the stout and partly because i want to try it in an ipa. Ambient temp is mid-60s so I figure it will be pretty clean anyways. So I have the hops and yeast set, but i cant think of a good grain bill for it. So far I was thinking munich and caravienna would be good.

OG: ~1.055 IBUs: ~55

Grain bill: ??

Hops:
.5 oz Columbus (15%) 60 min
1 oz cascade (5%) 15 min
0.5 columbus 10 min
2 oz cascade 1 min
1 oz columbus/2 oz amarillo 0 min

Yeast: S-04

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I have been looking into doing a keezer conversion for a couple of months, and I am hoping with some holiday money that I will be able to afford buying the equipment for it. I am looking to eventually have at least 4 taps on it, and already have plenty of used corny kegs that my friend got from a bar he used to work at. I have been looking at some 7 cf freezers from sams club and lowes, and they look large enough to hold 4 cornys and a CO2 tank. However, when it comes to lines, disconnects, shanks and faucets - I have no idea what to get. My funds will be a bit limited, and I may have to get parts for one line at a time, but I want to get parts that will last a long time.

Anybody have suggestions on what to get and from where?

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Haven’t brewed in over a year until yesterday. Wort turned out great, nice dark amber color 1.054. Pushed the limits of my 10 gal gatorade cooler mash tun, but yielded 10 gal of wort.

15 lbs munich type II malt
7 lbs 2 row
2 lbs caramunich

Took awhile and lot of messing around with the HLT, but we hit nailed out 153 mash temp for an hour.

Hop schedule:

2 oz Hallertau pellets 60 min
2 oz whole Perle 30 min
2 oz Cascades 15 min

right around 54 ibu

German Kolsch yeast - 029

Great boil day, now comes the wait……

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i do not have the equiptment for AG recipe and was wondering if anybody can give me the conversion. all input is welcome.

grain bill is as follows: 10 lbs pale malt (2 row)
1 lb cara-pils/dextrine
.05 lb caramunich malt
.05 lb munich malt - 10L

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Anyone had a problem leaving beer in the primary this long? It was a pale ale with 1056. The beer had a bit of sourness to it. There was no visual evidence of an an infection. I doubt it is an infection since I’ve been brewing for 7 years and I’ve never had an infection so I think I have good sanitization practices.

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I have an Imperial Stout almost ready to rack to the secondary and I’m thinking of adding some anise (licorice herb). Has anyone tried this? Will it work? And how much? I enjoy the subtle licorice flavor present in many Imperial Stouts (The Abyss) and would like to add a little to this one. Or would I be better off just wait for the next time I brew an Imperial Stout and add the Anise to the boil?

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I was just wondering if there were any preferences betwwen the two yeast out there. I usually use 1056 but was thinking of trying wpl001 on some of the same beers. I may try them head to head but was curious about others expirences.

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This recipe is for a 4 gallon batch of barley wine

pale malt 6.5#
mesquite honey 2#
Vienna 1.5#
Flaked Barley 1#
Special B .5#
Crystal 80 .5#
Crystal 60 .5#

I would like to have an apparent but not dominating Maple flavor and hoped the added sugars would push the beer up to the 100 GU range.

my efficiency is about 65% so I am expecting 1.071 from the bill above. My calculations say that about 3.5 # of maple syrup will get me near the gravity I want but I don’t know how much will be appropriate.

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Hi All,
I am trying to think of a quick and easy way to get a temperature probe into my igloo cooler to be used to control a bucket heater. Basically, I have a temp controller with nice thermocouple and a bucket heater and an igloo mash tun that I want to be able to fill up with strike water the night before, toss in the bucket heater and tell the temp controller what temp to keep it at…..all thats missing is a way to actually get the temp probe in there safely, leak free, etc.

Any ideas or thoughts would be super helpful.

Thanks all,
JD

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I moved back to the UK from the States nearly a year ago, and I’ve just decided it’s time to start brewing again. I sold *everything* when I left, so I’m rebuilding from the ground up. I don’t have a lot of cash, so to begin with, I bought a fermenting bucket, some sanitiser, a “Bitter-in-a-tin” style kit, and a kilo of corn sugar (kilo? really?). Just done it - quite different from AG brewing - and now I’m thinking about how I’m going to dispense it in a couple of weeks. I want a kegging system. In Texas, I had a chest freezer with 3 corny kegs and a CO2 cylinder, but that’s not an option here because a) money’s tight, and that kind of stuff’s hard to find. I found one place online - a corny keg is £50, not including postage. With postage, it’ll probably come close to $80/keg. Not happening. So I was wondering if there are any British brewers here who might be able to tell me about their kegging setups? I’m noticing a lot of places sell these King Keg plastic barrel things with some kind of gas injector. Presumably with those, you can’t regulate the pressure in the barrel. Rough deal. I’ve just not had any luck finding any kind of a homebrew community here, so I’ve got no one to ask.

Any help would be massively appreciated.

Dan.

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Great news that Eagle Rock Brewery is finally up and kicking. I am going to trek over there and check it out, and I plan on joining the head brewer with some other maltose falcons for a brew day on Sunday.

Has anyone tried their beer yet? I am going to learn their dark mild!

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Posted: by Jonny (15 hours ago)

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i just got a upright freezer and want to get a temp controller for it but have no clue what to buy… please help

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First time poster here and newby home brewer. I just want to tap into the great wisdom of this forum. I have the opportunity to buy a set of two used, clean, and functional 3 gallon cornelius kegs for $140. Based on the supply and demand of these little buggers, this seems to be a reasonable deal. What say the collective home brewer wisdom?

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Posted: by TripT (23 hours ago)

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Posted: by AdamsSam (16 hours ago)

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It seems most people on here are from the midwest or east coast. Anyone from California? Just curious?

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Hey All,

I ran across this product while ordering baking supplies. Has anyone used it for a chocolate coffee stout or porter? Its Callebaut chocolate, so its a decent quality product. Just not sure if it would be good for throwing into the boil as some recipes recommend. Anyone with experience?

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/…ee-chunks-16-oz

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For the longest time I have just put my fermenters on the floor of my basement and let them go. Air temperature is about 68 F. I don’t know what the floor temp is. The beer was about mid to high 70s when pitching. I have had no issues with the results. However, I am concerned that I am fermenting my beer at the top of the recommended temperature range, and maybe above. I have always had healty ferments, which could be adding to the temperatures.

For my latest batch I decided to see if I could lower the temperature. I put a Fermometer strip on the side of the fermenter. Pitched a large starter of yeast at 74 F and put it into a large bucket. The batch is 6.5 gallons. Around the fermenter I poured cold water (the first water out of the tap was measured at 60 F, but could have been lower after running for a while. I poured about 8 gallons of this cold water into the bucket so that the fermenter is sitting in a bath of cold water which comes about half way up. Obvious fermentation was going by next morning, and over the space of 24 hours, fermentation was healthy and the fermenter temperature went down to 62 degrees. This is the 4th day and it is still at 62 degrees. There is about an 2 inches of karusen on the beer, and it is bubbling away nicely.

Yeast is 1056.

I am hoping I am going to get a nice clean beer. Not sure what improvement I am going to detect, but hope there is something obvious. However, I am now getting concerned that I might be fermenting at too low a temperature. Is it possible to ferment too low? It is not much extra effort to do this - is it worth the extra little step?

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Hello all! I got myself an early Christmas present: a kegging setup complete with a low profile D coupler for my favorite commercial beers. I was plannning on simply cleaning the lines by loading a keg with cleaner and letting the PBW do it’s magic - but I can’t figure out how to clean the coupler. I’ve found instructions on cleaning/disassembling the regular couplers - but nada for the low profile setups. Am I stuck with dropping some more $ for one of the pressurized cleaning bottles that’ll let me attach the coupler and let me run cleaner through the coupler, or is there a better way?

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Posted: by BeerutalTruth (11 hours ago)

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Posted: by ImperialStoat (16 hours ago)

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I’m heading to Spain for the holidays. I plan on sampling lots of local food and wine. Haven’t found much in the way of brewpubs or craft brew there.

Does anyone have some local beer recommends in Madrid, Granada, Sevilla, or Barcelona??

Thanks in advance.

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New all grain brewer here (2nd batch in primary). Brewed up a Belgian pale ale, following the Jamil Z. recipe from his book. I used Wyeast 1388 (2 smack packs), OG was 1.060. Don’t know what temperature I pitched at (probably ~65 F). About 3 hours after pitching, signs of fermentation were there (lots of bubbling out of the blow off tube into some sanitization solutuion). Came home today, about 24 hours since pitching, and seems to be no activity. My first AG was a simple APA, which went primary 7 days, secondary 7 days, then keg. Was expecting the same kind of schedule, but after a little research on 1388, I see that it may be a slow mover. Temperture stick on the carboy is saying 70-74, so I think temperatures are alright, and the rise from ~65 to 70+ would have been gradual, not a huge swing. So my question is, is it really this slow (after being so fast) or is it stuck? And if it is stuck, what are my choices to get it moving again?

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Fellow hopheads please provide your thoughts on this tragedy of becoming a hophead. The world is a different place for me now. Suddenly the vast universe of beers has been reduced to me searching for something with some power. I used to love a whole array of brews now I find myself going from DFH 90 minute, to Green Flash’s West Coast IPA, to a local Iowa Pale Ale. If something has less than 40 IBU’s I’m bummed. I usually seek out something in the 80+ IBU arena. I find myself a stranger in a strange land when I go out to eat, and all too often when I’m at the supermarket looking for a 6 pack. Life can be miserable when one is pigeonholed into loving a single strain of brew. I used to love all varieties. Now just one. Anybody else in the same boat???

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I saved your post on keg lids long ago. Today I tried to bend the bail legs on a couple of lids. I used channel locks but I don’t think I bent them at all. Any pointers other than eating some spinach?

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Quick question on smack packs. Since I always do starters now, I was thinking I could just smack the wyeast activator pack and divide the yeast. I pitched one half into 3liters of starter and put the rest in the fridge for a later batch. Will this be a big enough starter for 5 gallons of 1.05 beer or should I step it up again? Thanks for any input. Trying to save some money.

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Posted: by HerrFaust (13 hours ago)

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I am wondering if anyone has built their own jockey box. If so, if you wouldn’t mind sharing what worked what didn’t etc, it would be appreciated.

I tried doing a forum search but I guess I didn’t hit on the right keywords.

Cheers,
Sean

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Posted: by markaberrant (21 hours ago)

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