Beer Feeds

Greetings brewers. I am about to brew my third batch using extract with steeping grains (an American Pale ale). I have noticed various recipes say to steep for 30 minutes. My guess is that 30 is sufficient for character grains like Cara-pils, but would not be long enough for base malts. I am using American 2-row and Maris Otter. Technically those need to be mashed, right? So do I need to steep for an hour? Or is 30 minutes enough? Here’s my grain/extract bill for a 14L boil (22L /5gal. final vol):

1 kg Maris Otter
500 g American 2-row
400 g Cara-pils
300 g Crystal 40L
2 kg Light DME

Your input is highly appreciated!

Mark

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Was too lazy to make actual recipe. I just bought this and cooked it. It tastes great two weeks in. I’ve never mixed in wheat. Is it even an IPA? Wheat maybe?

3lbs-XLight DME
3lbs-Bavarian Wheat
1lbs-Corn Sugar

Belgian Strong Ale Yeast 1388

2oz-Galena (bitter)
1oz-Columbus(Dry)

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Posted: by snpub540 (22 hours ago)

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I’m going to give this a try next month and just wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions on recipe.

20lbs Maris Otter Pale
4lbs Biscuit Malt
2lbs Vienna Malt
2lbs Crystal 60
2oz Centennial (60)
1oz Sorachi Ace (20)
1oz Sorachi Ace (2)
WLP009 Australian

Lookin for a very nice, smooth malty brew with a hint of lemony yumminess. Not even sure if there is a style of guideline for this type of brew.

Thanks for any help!

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Posted: by garuda (23 hours ago)

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I recently picked up a pony keg that I was going to use as a fermenter.

I cleaned it several times using oxyclean and then once using pbw and I boiled some water in it as well.

I was going to use it for a fermenter on the beer I brewed with weekend but I ended up just using the 6.5gal carboy I usually use.

The reason I ended up not using it was that when I shined a flashlight into it I noticed that there were scratches on the bottom that have stains that look like rust streaking out of the scratches.

I think the scratches were from the bottle brush I used while cleaning it initially.

I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is the keg rusting or if it’s a little bit of metal from the bottling brush that rubbed off on the SS and that is what is causing it.

Any suggestions on how I can clean this and be sure it’s clean before using as a fermenter?

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So I recently aquired some 15 gallon corny kegs and unfortunatly, the dip tube are useless…
I really don’t know how they used it before I buy them but they have diptubes way to short. Some are 12″, 18″, 24″ but none of them are enought long to hit the bottom of the keg. Those beast are huge so I need something about 36″ long and I really don’t know where to buy this or if there’s a DIY to built them but I want them to be usable for sure!

Suggestions?

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Posted: by BRob (10 hours ago)

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I brewed my first brew last thursday, a Pale Ale. The fermenter cap bubbled for about 2 days then tapered off to a very slow bubble. I didn’t spend the night at my house last night and I fear the temperature in the room where the fermenter is dropped to around 55 degrees. Will this inhibit fermentation? I am going to bottle my brew tomorrow. Very excited!

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I also snagged a 50 lb bag of grain.

I got 5 different yeasts on hand at the moment, and all of my equipment has been performing marvelously.

Tonight we brewed 5 gal of a light lager, all barley, aiming for 98.4 calories and 4 % alcohol
we used Budwiser lager yeast, and did a double decoction mash, we did 60 min sac. rest @ 140 f hoping to get this thing nice and dry with amylase enzyme on hand for the secondary.

sorry to be bragging a bit, I am just really happy to be brewing so much!

I also brewed up a brown american wheat.
100% wheat malt. carafa I crystal 90 and special B

got an irish dry on carbing up and clearing

and an APA, with an uber helping of hop aroma and flavor

here are the questions… Is the extra enzyme in the secondary necessary?
should I add extra enzyme to the wheat bear?
I found that 8 lbs and a lb each of roast malt and flaked barley was a bit plain… what do you like to do to spruce it up?
I used lots of 3 oz of amarillo 2 oz of cascade, and an ounce each of wilamette and goldings. What do you like in your APA?

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Got my Brutus=style system up and am testing it. It’s not the same exact set up, but the controller and pump orientations are the same. I am using three SP10 burners with the 25 gallon mega pots sitting on them. When testing today, I set the temp to 80 F and the burner fires up (it was 42 F outside today) the the system is working pretty well up to this point. Once the temp hits 80 the burner gas turns off. The temp keeps creeping up, and up to finally hold at 84 F. It holds this temp for a very long time before starting back down. I was working with about 10 gallons of water in the pot.

So, this goofs me up. Perhaps mega pots are not the best pots for this type of system with the copper-layered bottom holding heat? Perhaps the SP10 burner stand holds to much heat from direct fire of the burner? Maybe I need to turn the burner way down (this doesn’t seem reasonable…it’d take all day to heat water.)

Anyone else experience this kind of trouble with a Brutus-style set up?

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Posted: by cmurren25 (54 minutes ago)

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I’m going out for a pint tonight and I was originally planning on attending a tapping of Deschuttes The Abyss, where the keg will only last an hour or two. But then I saw that Yeti Imperial Stout is on tap at another pub. Can’t decide where to go!!!

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Has anyone tried Citra or Sorachi Ace hops before? Citra is suppose to have a killer (and little different) citrus aroma. The Sorachi is suppose to have a very strong Lemon Aroma with high bittering value.

I’m pretty stoked about the descriptions and am thinking of a killer Pale Ale with Citra for my dry hoppin and a few different ideas for the Sorachi (maybe a lemon honey wheat)

Thanks!

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I brewed this weekend.
One thing that I noticed is that my methods for recirculating the mash, transferring to the boil kettle and cooling the boiling wort all involve splashing and possible hot aeration.
1) Is hot side aeration real? Do I need to worry about this? (I’ve read conflicting opinions)
2) Is there a temperature cut-off above which I want to watch out for splashing, et al.?
3) What flavors can HSA contribute? Could this contribute the acetic/winey flavor/aroma that I sometimes pickup?

Basically, I have an infrequent periodic flaw. It tastes like you took a beer and mixed it with some wine. The flavor takes a long time to subside (not sure if it will ever completely disappear). Most batches are completely free, however, every once in a while it pops up and makes a batch less-than-perfect.

I had blamed cleaning and or sanitizing in the past. However, I completely revamped my process over the last year and in fact, I was meticulus before. Now, I disassemble everything for every brew. I clean, sanitize and autoclave all fittings. I reassemble wet in a class-100 laminar flow hood. I replace my tubing often (every 2-3 brews). Only SS and silicone ever touch the wort/beer. I use gloves and masks whenever near a “sanitary” part, etc… I probably spend 5 times longer to clean than to actually brew.

I think I’ve got the sanitation down so I’m looking for other areas to address which could possibly cause this off flavor. Perhaps HSA?

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I recently aquired a 5 gallon better bottle thats ported. I got it for a good price so I was happy about that. I have been looking up the prices for the valve that goes on the bottle and its more than I paid for the better bottle in the first place. ########? Anyways, I was hoping for some options for a different valve or sealing the port and just using a standard racking cane. It seems that the opening is 3/4 inches and most other valves used for ale buckets are 1″. I wouldn’t mind finding a clever way to install a different valve in the opening but I think it would be a pain to increase the size on the port hole and don’t want to mess up the bottle. Anyone out there know of a 3/4″ valve that I could get my hands on that would be fairly inexpensive. I’ve also thought of using a rubber stopper to seal the port but I’m afraid it would come out or leak. Any other suggestions. I appreciate the help.

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Posted: by SpeedwayJim (24 hours ago)

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Posted: by outamind81 (57 minutes ago)

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Posted: by faernt (2 hours ago)

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I have made about 8-10 extract brews, some from kits and some not. However, I want to start all-grain brewing but am having trouble find some ingredients. The recipe calls for american two-row pale. I can not find that at my local store or at my online site. There are a couple others recipes that i have been looking at with similar problems. How do you know what can be substituted for what. Help please reading all-grain recipes.

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I have a chest freezer dedicated to long term cold storage and cold conditioning. I typically keep it at 29 degF to cold crash my beers for a week before filtering and kegging. My question to you lager gurus is. Is 29F too cold to lager effectively? Or will it just take twice as long as 34F?

Dave

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quick general question i haven’t gotten a solid answer to. Is it ok to clean copper fittings with beer brite?

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I am thinking about entering my first competition and I had a question about what style to enter my beer under.
It is a milk stout base, but finished sweeter than style guidelines, at 1.030. It sounds cloyingly sweet but the twist actually makes it very drinkable. I aged this beer on habenaros for 2 days to give it some nice heat.
My question is whether this gets entered under the sweet stout category, or if it goes into specialty beer category.

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Posted: by jneiswender (1 day ago)

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I took a sample out of my Sabco Fermenter and some white/milky/snotty kinda stuff came out with the liquid. Anyone have any ideas? I don’t have my cam with me so I cant take a pict. Just wondering if anyone has came acros that before.

thanks

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Posted: by Pigwings6 (9 hours ago)

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I fired up the ol’ propane burner to heat up strike water this morning. A few seconds after it was lit, a small gout of flame shot out from the air inlet regulator and began burning a bright yellow. I quickly turned off the tank and gave the hose and inlet a visual inspection and couldn’t see anything. I relit and it happened again, and this time I simply blew the flame out. It burned fine for a minute or two, and then the flame at the air inlet reappeared. It seems like the more air I give it, the more likely this flame is to pop up. If the air inlet shutter is almost all the way closed, it looks like it doesn’t happen.

Is there a crack in the hose or inlet somewhere that I can’t see? If not, what’s going on? Any possible fixes, or should I be resigned to buying a new burner?

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I have all the materials to make either an immersion chiller or a CFC. I am brewing 12 gal. batches, but not sure what kind of wort chiller to make. For my 5 to 6.5 gal. batches I was using an IC made from 30′ of 1/4 OD tubing, but that just doesn’t cut it for my larger batches. I may even have enough tubing to make both, or even make both and link them into one system; I could connect the drain from the CFC to feed the IC (not sure if there is any advantage to this, however). My ground water runs about 45F. Any input is appreciated. TIA.

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i am thinking of building a kegerator from the haier model hnse05vs-01. i have seen how to convert with the sanyo model but what i want to know is if you can drill through the top safely so you can put in the tower? this compact refer has a small area at top inside to put ice trays. looks like it is just a piece of plastic shield that can be removed with a thermostat wire connected to it. by the way the size is 4.52 cu ft. also why do you need a fan for the tower? by the way the model # might not be correct but it was the # on the price card at BEST BUY.

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Posted: by dciBA (27 minutes ago)

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