Steve- What recipe did you use for your Belles Two Hearted clone? Let us know how it turned out. Also post pictures of your brew stand progress. Looking at picking one up myself from these guys in the future- http://brewersequipment.com/ pbedroske- If you don't mind floaties you could open them and drop some carb tabs in, that should do the trick. Brewed a 5 gallon batch of Amber Ale from Brewing Classic Styles last night. Went very well, hit my OG dead on and was around 75% efficiency. Smelled delicious, was tempted to eat the mash for breakfast.
I've tried adding table sugar to a few bottles. I've agitated religiously. I set one in the garage the entire month of June hoping the warm weather would activate the yeast/sugar. Still, I have only carbonation on the tongue, no head no bubbles. So I'm not entirely convinced it's sugar related (carb tabs are essentially dextrose correct?). Tastes great, but would be better to have head and bubbles for aroma.
Sounds like you've tried it all. If you have the equipment I say keg and force carb it. What was OG/FG? I brewed a 1.220 Imperial IPA and its just not gonna carb in the bottle enough to get a nice head to it. Its like drinking cough syrup
Meh, I've dumped a TON more trub into the carboys for a good number of my brews and I've never had a problem Plenty of hop contact. ha. It settles out in the primary and the beer tastes delicious - ask Ryan about the IPA that I have kegged right now. MMM good stuff. It just looks like a lot in that piture because it was just after I finished filling the carboy.
We can sure give it a shot. Only problems is that I have all 6 of my corny kegs occupied at the moment.....:biggrin: Once the first one floats we can give it a shot. We'll have to be real careful with sanitation because if the yeast went dormant, there might not be much floating around to fight back against contamination is all. I'll be sure to post pics in here once I manage to get around to building the brew stand. :biggthumpup: -Steve
My recipe (AG) for the Bell's Two Hearted was: (this was found online, it is not mine) 10lb 2-row Pale malt 2lbs Vienna Malt 8oz Carapils/Dextrine 8oz Crystal 10L Mash at 150* for 60 minutes. Hops Schedule (all centennial, this is adjusted for what I had) 42g Centennial (6.0%AA) 60 minutes 30.4 IBU 42g Centennial (6.0%AA) 15 minutes 15.1 IBU 42g Centennial (6.0%AA) 5 minutes 6.1 IBU 42g Centennial (6.0%AA) 1 minutes 1.3 IBU Total IBU ~52 Feel free to adjust for what %AA you have of Centennial. I bought 2 lbs of several hops a couple months ago so I had a ton lying around. -Steve
This is what I'm brewing with today. 10lbs 2-row 1 lb vienna .5 lb cara10L I havnt used whole cones yet, I got a **** ton of them from friends this year. One of my good friends dad is ill due to heart/ kidney problems and this is a recent thing. So she harvested all his hops with him, to give to me. Pretty generous and I feel I need to brew somthing big and good for the favor and return some bottles to him to enjoy when he can drink again. His name is Tom, so I plan to call this beer Tom Foolery. What I have: 1 ounce of Northern Brewer pellets to go in at 60 From her, about 8 ounces, maybe more, of Northen Brewer cones. I dried several ounces and left a couple ounces semi dry, yet still a little sticky. My plan was to add the sticky cones around 30 or 20, keep them in for 10 minutes and remove. Then add the rest. Now, due to the large vlume of cones and using a 9 gallon pot for a 5 gallon batch, I probably will have to add the remainder at intervals and remove from the kettle to add more.
How long does the barley last? How do you store it? I am brewing up my first all grain batch next weekend
Reached my target mash temp of 152. 2nd runnings of 165 and 3rd runnings of 170. 30 mins into the boil and over half the hops added. Will throw in the last of the cones at 15 mins. According to beertools, this should be around 120 ibus and 6%
From what I've read the uncrushed grain will last about a year and the crushed grain will last a few months at best before it starts to go stale. I've used some pretty old grain doing partial mash and didn't notice any ill effects. All Grain is really where it's at brewing IMO. You get a ton more adjustability making the beer. There are a couple more steps to get used to but overall I think the beer definitely tastes better. I don't get the 'extract twang' anymore that I always picked up on in my extract beers. Plus AG is way cheaper! (if you don't count the extra equipment... ) Buy your hops in bulk at www.hopsdirect.com I placed an order for about 15 lbs of hops a little while ago and the package came to me almost 2.5 POUNDS heavy, not a single 1lb package weighed less than 18 ounces, 18.5 was the average. Get a few different kinds and start experimenting. Now that I've gone all grain I'm not looking back, only way I would is if it's the dead cold of january or february and I just can't get it in me to freeze out in the garage boiling water for an hour. :biggrin: -Steve
OG of 1.051, so appx 6.3% abv. And......its 160 ibus. The wort is extra hoppy bitter. Took me 6 hours to brew and cleanup, about 2 hours more then usual. Thanks to the extra time consuming workload of the cones. What a pain in the assss. but will be well worth it imo.
Yeast starter question: What did I do wrong? I transferred a batch from primary to secondary last night, and then harvested the yeast from the bottom of the primary. This batch had virtually no hop trub since I hopped with all wet cones and strained them out on the way into the primary. I put what I collected in my growler (about 1.5 pints worth) and then added my starter wort which was 2.5 pints water and 1 cup of dry malt extract. I didn't add all of this, I filled the growler maybe 70% full and then put the airlock on. Within an hour it was completely spewing out the airlock. Obviously, the growler needs to be a little less full, but it seems like it would over spill even if 50% full.... Did I make the wort too high gravity? Here is a pic:
That's just blow-off from pitching enough yeast to ferment 5 gallons of beer onto a few cups worth of wort. :laugh: Totally normal, and it really just means you have a healthy starter ready to rock. Next time you can use a blow-off tube to keep it from making a huge mess. -Steve
Thanks for the kind words, now when I go to pitch tomorrow, should I siphon off the wort that has separated out on the top, and just pitch the yeast and stuff at the bottom?
Wish I had some input for ya but have yet to attempt a yeast harvest myself. Looks like good fun though. I'm sure you were laughing like a mad scientist as it bubbled out the airlock.
My first all grain batch was Denny's Wry Smile Rye PA. I have been wanting to brew a rye beer for a long time, but I don't think anyone makes a rye extract. I will duplicate the recipe here, with my changes (see below). Results: I used a home built rectangular cooler mash tun, with a cheap stainless toilet supply line for a filter. Strike water was 175, and I achieved mash temp of 153, mashed for 60 minutes, mashed out at roughly 162 or so (I underestimated the amount of water to get up to 168), then I batch sparged with 185 degree water. I don't think I stirred the sparge well enough, after doing some follow up reading today. My gravity came out at 1.061, which is about .011 low, bringing my mash efficiency down to 62 ish percent, according to beertools pro. For my first all grain, I am happy with the gravity, but I would like to get that efficiency over 70% next batch and above 75% eventually. For yeast, I pitched my harvested yeast from a double IPA brewed 2 weeks ago, and the ferment took off, I even took a video: Hops were 1 oz of columbus pellets, and then around 4 oz of fresh cascades from a friend who just moved to Yakima. I dried them upon arrival and froze them, and used them as first wort hop, in addition to a 30 minute and flameout. Overall, I am very happy with the all grain setup, and I have 2 kegs I am picking up to convert to keggles, looking forward to that. Recipe: Denny Conn's Wry Smile Rye IPA Brewer: Me Asst Brewer: Style: American IPA TYPE: All Grain Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Batch Size: 5.00 gal Boil Size: 6.41 gal Estimated OG: 1.073 Estimated FG: 1.013 Estimated Color: 12.7 SRM Estimated IBU: 63.7 IBU Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 % Boil Time: 60 Minutes Ingredients: ------------ 10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) 3 lbs Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) 1.25 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 8.0 oz Wheat Malt 1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (60 min) Hops 39.3 IBU 1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (Dry Hop) Hops 1.00 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (FWH) Hops 2 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (30 min) Hops 2 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (Flameout) Hops 1.00 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) Misc 1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
So my first all-grain batch was also supposed to happen this weekend, but the acute bronchitis got the better of me. Forced me to lay on the couch watching 2 r-tards (lions and vikes) fight over which team sucked more. I picked up all the goods from midwest to do a Redhook ESB clone. Maybe next sunday I'll rock this thing out. Saturday is ABR, so i'll be drunk. Question for you all: I have brass fittings for my mash tun. I noticed from some pics people have stainless. Do you think brass will be an issue? -Ryan Oh, on a side note.. I did the math on my current batch of helle which had the massive over-boil.. APV should be right around 6.66% How appropriate for halloween.
Whoops sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. You can either pitch the whole thing into your beer (small amount of fermented wort and all) or you can pour off the wort and just pitch the yeast cake. I would just pour off most of the wort leaving a little on top, then when you are ready to pitch give the thing a good stir/shake to re-suspend the yeast and chuck it in. Hope everything went well!
No problem I ended up doing exactly what you described, it seemed like the most reasonable thing to do Everything went great, I can't wait to try the batch.
Homegrown IPA Brewed my homegrown IPA with a 9 oz mix of Columbus, Centennial, and Cascade. Have some better non phone photos but have yet to pull them off the real camera. This is what my 1 min addition looked like, really had to force the hops in there at this point
Next time you use allot of cones, put them in a strainer bag. You can wring out the liquid. I just learned this a few batches ago after loosing almost a gllon of liquid to the very large amount of cones I threw in throughout the 60 minute boil.
Wow, that blows...literally. Sorry for the pun P I usually use about a pint of liquid for a starter, gives you plenty of head space. You can cover the lid with a piece of tinfoil. The bubbler is overkill and does not allow any air to enter. You want the starter to be able to breath. Oxygen is actually good for it.
I guessed on the amount that would be absorbed by the hops and built it into my recipe and somehow magically nailed my final post boil volume in the fermenter of 5.5 gallons. Might have affected my O.G a little but i'm happy with the outcome. A strainer bag also would have been in the way of my immersion chiller and being that I love my flame out hop additions I want to leave the hops in during the cool down instead of having to pull them out. And some more photos from the homegrown ipa session.
PaulasaurusREX where did you get the kegs for making the keggles if you don't mind me asking. I had burned some extract to the bottom of my aluminum turkey pot, so I left some cleaning product just in the bottom for a couple of days. The little water that was in there dried up but there were still crystal's of oxyclean. Turns out where the crystals were it put holes in my pot!!! So now I am in search mode for a keg. Thanks, Erik
Depending upon what direction you wanna take check craigslist and brewing forums(midwest supplies has a forum) for kegs and check here for great deals on kettles both aluminum and stainless. http://www.waresdirect.com/ Bummer bout your kettle but good reason to upgrade! Just saw this morning that someone is selling a keg in Anoka for $50, better jump on it fast! http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/for/1989338157.html
Also, the dude I bought mine from is a farmer up in Hugo and said his neighbor has like 5 or 6 of them in his shed, that he would let go for a similar price, I can ask him on saturday about them.
I have an 8 gallon keg that I never returned to a store that is now closed lol. If anyone wants it, I'd be willing to trade for misc beer making tools, or sexual favors. I start my next long stretch of work tomorrow and need to get a few things done before I do. Today I will be bottling and kegging Tom Foolery (my 120 ibu ipa) Also picked up some grains to brew with in a few days. 9# Marris Otter .5# English chocolate 1# pale/ light english chocolate 1# Flaked Oats .5# Peated Malt .5# cara 80L 2 ounces willamette 2 Chipolte peppers 1 Jalapano Safale S-05 It will be a lightly smokey chipolte porter. Should get some thicker feel from the oats and what not. Havnt done any calculations on it yet, but I expect abv to be in the 8% range. Hope to have it ready to tap around the 1st of november or so. Will be perfect for the colder temps.
I took delivery of my first 16 gallon keg last week for $20, and am getting two more from a buddy (for free) on Monday night. Time to figure out and weld up a brew sculpture with Paul. And the FedEx guy just dropped off the stuff for my next batch: White Lightning Boobie Juice v.2: 12lbs Pale Malt 1lb Golden Promise 1lb Maris Otter* 1/2lb Cara-Pils 1/2lb Crystal 50-60 2oz Centennial, Amarillo, Citra 1oz Chinook, Simcoe, Ahtanum
Woot! I don't know much about welding but i'm sure it takes A LOT of beer to even get the welder up and running
Number one got cut last night. The $20 Craigslist kettle. The plan was to relieve the pressure with a 7/8" box-end wrench. The towel was to control the spray because I had no idea how much pressure was inside the keg. Turned out to be VERY little. I hooked the end of the wrench under the little tab that the tap usually slides around and pressed down. Very simple. I pulled out the dip tube because the plan was to make a jig that fit into the hole to use as a rotation point. This was amazingly easy. Pull out a retainer clip and it slid right out. This is when I found out that five-year-old Bush Light doesn't smell the best. Don't get me wrong, it tastes better than it smells, I'm just sayin... My jig construction failed so I took off the neck so that I could get a good line drawn around the lid I am going to use. Rather than using the big clumsy angle grinder, I decided to use the dremmel tool and take my time. I went through three or four of the metal cutting discs that I had but I'm pretty pleased with the cut. Both my boys were sleeping so the blue sound barrier was employed to keep the noise down. Advantages of being in the industry. The lid didn't quite fit because I wanted to cut the hole a little too small rather than a little too big. I spent a few minutes with the angle grinder and took off most of the sharpest edges and widened the hole a little bit. I still need to sand and smooth out the cut, but overall I'm pretty happy with the work.
Whats the diameter of the opening there? Bigger the better for getting in there to clean. I've found that no matter how much I smooth down the edges I have to be very careful not to slice my arm off when cleaning. HLT not so much as issue as it never gets dirty. Looks great! Can't beat a 15.5 gallon stainless kettle for $20.
I don't know, I didn't measure it but I can. I had thought about that and one thing I considered was some kind of thin, high-temp "C shaped" plastic that would be slid over the sharp edge and help the lid make a better seal... I have another lid that I could use but it would require a plasma cutter to get that close to the outer edge of the top.
could you guys get some edge trim from napa or something to put around the opening to help prevent your arms from being cut off?
It gets pretty hot near that opening and I wouldn't want anything melting. Plus it looks cooler without anything there for protection It could also harbor some nasties over time, especially in a boil kettle. I usually don't have to climb in too far to clean the boil marks off the sides, especially when doing 10 gallon batches.
I hope to get a pretty smooth finish on the edge when I'm done. Maybe I'll slit my old auto-siphon silicone tubing and wrap that around the edge only when cleaning or storing it.
Great idea there Ted. Next time you upgrade your autosiphon go for the big one, its so much faster! Love it! <--- stuck at 666 Posts. This means something....
Anyone here use gelatin as a clearing agent? Planning on adding some to my homegrown ipa to help clear and hopefully remove any vegetable like flavors left behind by the massive homegrown hop load that went into the batch. Will add to the keg then run it off after its had a few days to do its thing in the kegerator. Would like to hear your gelatin experiences if you have any.
