Well, I'm not doing full grain brewing yet. I use my garage because I have an external burner 1. Heats up beer way faster then your kitchen stove will. Even with a gas stove (which is what i have) I can still get 3 gal of beer to a full rolling boil in under 20 minutes. 2. doesn't stink up the house. Don't get me wrong, I love the smell. The wife.. not so much. 3. If you have a boil over, it's not in the house. See point 2. 4. Cigars + brewing = win. I don't smoke inside the house 5. My garage has cable tv, dvd, sterio, darts, bottle opener. What more do you need? (Fridge, couch, pool table.. I know. Don't really answer this question)
Just today I was trying to find a pump that would work... Suggestions? Also, do you need to make 5 gallons of sterilizer to clean out that system?
Building an all-grain brewing cart is just one more thing I could use to justify purchasing a nice 220v MIG for........ :biggrin: :yumyum: I brewed up a batch of an English Pale Ale last night, and let me tell you it takes for F-ing EVER to get 3.25 gallons of water to boil on an electric stove! :laugh: I really need to get a turkey cooker rig setup, but first I think I'll go for the kegerator...... :biggrin: -Steve
Watch home depot. I watched there for about 4 months and picked up my burner for $12. lol. Of course I bought mine right after thanksgiving and it was a floor model. Works perfect though. I think you can get just the burner for $30 or less most places. Get away from the electric burner asap. Going external burner was the best thing ever. More control and a better rolling boil faster. -Ryan
My "Brew Station" is starting to take shape. I was able to work on the garage for a bit on Saturday. My neighbor had a 120" x 20" stainless steel sink sitting in her back yard for the past three years and she let me have it for watching her dog for a couple of weekends, so I framed it up and lagged it into the wall. The plan from here is to get a chunk of stainless steel for the wall, run a hot and cold water line to a faucet and then run a trap and drain along the wall back into the house. And I transfered my red Ale "number !1one" into the carboy last night. About a week left before it goes into bottles!!! Question Does anyone have a recomendation as to how to get the labels off of bottles that I want to use for the next batch? From this: To this:
I usually peel as much of the label off as I can, then I soak the bottles in the sink with as hot of water as I can get out of it. Leave them in there for an hour or so and the glue usually loosens right up. Then use something flat and hard to scrape the label off, and scrub the bottle with a green 3M pot cleaning pad with some dish soap and rinse. Sounds like a lot of work but I can get a 12 pack of bottles clean in maybe 10 minutes tops after they've soaked. Redhook bottles are a piece of cake to get the labels off of, I've struggled with others. Once I get my kegging setup I'm going to get rid of all my bottles, it'll be at least 12-15 cleaned and de-labeled 12 packs. Seriously, you guys now have me looking into a Millermatic 211 MIG to go in the house now......thanks a lot! :laugh: The pale ale I brewed a week ago is just about ready to go into secondary, I'm going to do that some time this week as time allows. I hope it turns out better than my previous beers simply because it came out of the kettle a lot better looking. That and I actually filtered it before putting it in the primary, I had a hops/irish moss clump the size of a softball that came out of it! :laugh: -Steve
First time I de-labeled beer bottles I let them soak in the bath tub for 2-3 days before scraping and scrubbing them off. PITA! Since then I have found two key things to de-labeling. 1) Don't plan to do 50 bottles at once. You will be annoyed at the least. I try to do them before I get too many more than 10 (or whatever fits into your kitchen sink). 2) Rinse them well in hot water, then soak them in the sink submerged in hot water with a little bit of dish soap. Only a little bit of soap as you have to make sure that it is all thoroughly rinsed off the bottles before you can use them. Boil a tea kettle of hot water and when it whistles (or not, depending upon your tea kettle - a regular pot also works), pour it in on top of the soaking bottles. I try to give it at least a half hour, but sometimes elbow grease has to make up for lack of time due to the following point. Whenever the wife, yourself, or anyone else becomes annoyed about the sink being out of use, remove the labels. Some labels will pull or slide right off, others will test your vocabulary. I find for these that using bits of the label as a scraper or scouring pad works. Then I use a scouring pad (like the 3M green ones) to remove the glue that is left. That part is really easy. Rinse them off and they are ready for cleaning/sanitizing when needed. Good luck! p.s. - It isn't until you get part way through bottling that first batch that you will run through what you have done to bottle it in your mind and began to seriously consider moving to kegging soon.
Thanks guys! Yeah everyone says "this is why you start kegging sooner than later..." but isn't part of the whole process botteling for at least a little while? Gotta crawl before you can walk... haha
The other big reason why I'm deciding to start kegging is that I'm just plain impatient. I don't like having to wait another 2-3 weeks minimum for things to bottle condition before being able to drink a batch of home brew. Force carbing a keg takes at most 2-3 days and BAM you have drinkable beer on draft. :biggrin: -Steve
I tried my first bottle of home brew last night (Irish Red Ale) after it had been in the bottle for 2 weeks. It was a bit cloudier than I thought it was going to be, but I'll wait another week and open bottle number two. It wasn't bad and it didn't make me sick and did't get infected with any bacteria so I'm happy. I wasn't expecting miracles. :biggrin:
Congrats, eh! Now it's time for a second go, whatcha thinking to brew up? ...lol... I've got some sort of brown ale waiting on me to get my mash/lauter tun finished. And I am also thinking pretty seriously about trying a spruce beer since the spruces are gonna start budding really soon. In the meantime, I think I will make a trip to the refrigerator...
was this an all grain or extract recipe? did you use DME or LME? Did you pour the yeast that settles at the bottom of the bottle into your glass? Try not to pour the yeast into your glass, it adds an off flavor. this is why I want to start kegging. LME will caramelize and cloud compared to DME All grain will be cloudy if the temperatures are not right.
Congrats on the first brew! I brewed up an Irish Red for my 7th batch and its awaiting bottling. Also brewed a Simcoe IPA last Friday that decided it'd like to attempt an escape from my 6 gallon better bottle. Note to self, setup blowoff tube on 6 gallon primaries. Nearly ready to drink is a Liberty Cream ale! Just in time as my Belgian Wit/Amarillo Pale Ale are nearly gone :-(
Thanks guys! I've got a California Common (Anchor Steam) that got about a week ago and just havn't had time to boil, and this weekend is fishing opener, so it's out. Yes, I did pour the setiment that was in the bottle into the glass. I didn't know about the off flavor thing, so thank you for the tip!!! Is it better to refrigerate the bottles on standing up or laying down? I'm a lowly extract brewer for now. Maybe someday I'll go all grain but this was batch number one. I don't knwo what DME or LME are yet.
DME- Dry Malt Extract LME- Liquid Malt Extract Refrigerate the bottles upright. I did my 8th batch and have been very happy with the beers i've made and see my next step as doing full boils. You can make very good beers with extract that will rival all grain beers. From what i'm told anyway as i've only brewed extract myself. let us know how the Anchor Steam turns out, i've been tempted to pick up that kit myself.
Like Paul said, store them upright. Try to pour smoothly outta the bottle and if you have the right backlight you can see when the yeasty sediment starts to make its way toward the glass. If you can't see it, just leave an inch and a half or two inches in the bottle. You can drink the sediment if you want - it is actually good for you - but mixed with the beer in the glass it'll make it cloudy and throw the flavour; so finish it separately AFTER you have enjoyed the beer. The pros will say that extract has a distinct taste that it gives to beer. Somewhat tangy if I remember right. But I am nowhere near distinguishing it. I wouldn't be concerned about it until I could start to distinguish all the elements in my beer and track down one of them to the extract.
For sediment the best thing i've done was using a paint strainers bag. I pour my wort through one and every time I rack I strain and I usually end up with very little sediment in the bottles. Any sediment that is left there usually stays stuck to the bottom. All except for the Belgian Wit I made however that is supposed to have yeast suspended so I want to get the yeast off the bottom and mixed before pouring. I have only tasted the twang(I think) once and that was with my first batch and my temps were a bit off through fermentation/secondary. Every batch since the only off tastes were from lack of aging(a bit on the bitter side). My fault of course for having no will power to allow my beer to age. As they say the last beer will always be the best.
well, you still need yeast to naturally carbonate the beer. So you'll end up with a small yeast cake at the bottom of every bottle weather or not you strain it. I've had this same thing in my home made root beer (talk about off flavors!). If you have no yeast, you'll have no carbonation unless you force cabonate it in kegs. Straining will get out the hops and make the beer a little clearer, but you accomplish the same by racking your beer once or twice to secondary fermentors.
I strain mostly to get the hops sediment out from the get go. I have found leaving the bottles in the fridge for at least a week takes care of some of the chill haze, not that it has any effect on the beer taste though just a clearer beer.
I brewed this arrogant bastard clone last weekend. I'm going to move it to secondary in a few days. 15.5 lbs. Maris Otter Pale 1.75 lbs. Crystal Malt 120°L .5 lbs. Midwest Wheat Malt 3 oz. Chinook S-04 yeast
I put the incorrect grain info on there. It was... 11 lbs Rahr 2 row pale 2 lbs simpsons medium crystal 1/2 lb rahr white wheat 1/2 lb flaked barley. 1 ounce chinook at 60 mins 1 ounce chinook at 30 mins 1 ounce chinook at 5 minutes S-04 yeast Mashed in at 155, mashed out at 180
It worked pretty well. The only problem I had was the hose on my elbow on the false bottom to the piece on the spigot disconnected. It was a pain in the f-in asz
Well, I brewed my California Common yesterday and MAN did I botch that one. Mistakes: 1. I got excited and added the extract before I brought the wert to a boil. 2. I looked over the "1/2 extract 60 minute boil, 1/2 extract 15 minute boil" in the instructions. 3. Had my first boil over. 4. I missed the "start" button on the timer, so I don't REALLY know how long it boiled. 5. I forgot to write down the starting gravity, not I have to try to remember. 6. I know this is a bottom fermenting yeast but the instructions didn’t talk about it at all so I just sprinkled it on top and am hoping for the best. But on a brighter note, I brought in some of my Irish Red for a co-worker which I named "opener 09" so he could try it. The name came from our opener weekend where we started catching fish after enjoying a brew on the water. I made a couple of labels here at work and stuck them to the bottles.
I didn't use it this time because I havn't had time to run the plumbing out to my garage yet. Things have been BUSY on my side since we met up, but hopefully, soon, I will have time to run the hot supply and the drain back to the main line in the house.
I think your beer will turn out fine. might have added a more caramel flavor/color by adding all the malt at once, but it won't be terribly noticable. As long as you boiled it for more than 1/2 hour, you'll be safe as far as microbes and hop utilization. The boil over isn't too big of a deal, might have made your original/starting gravity a bit light. It would have been good to start your yeast with some boiled water and dme a day earlier if it was a dry yeast packet, but it should start soon and be ok as well.
Thanks pdedroske, I love you.:laugh: It wasn't MUCH of a boil over, maybe 1/3 cup of junk made it's way out of the pot. I was sterilizing my pail and heard the SHHHHH!!!! and I jumped. I don't think I would mind one bit if it had a bit more carmel flavor. How much boiled water, and dme (dry malt extract)? Do you refrigerate it after mixing it? And, so you add it after you dilute the boil to make the 5 gallons?
Oh, just a half liter or a 12oz bottle sanitized and a little bit of dme, maybe a tablespoon at most. boil the water and add the dme, boil some more and add it to the bottle, let it cool to 90F degrees max, then add the dry yeast packet. cover with foil and keep around room temp or slightly warmer (warm summer upstairs) but out of the light if possible. give it 24 hrs before brewing, then pitch into your recently prepared wort (5gallons). you can actually save your yeast cake from a recently brewed batch this way, and use it a couple more times. I've never done this because my batches can get spread out. But if your brewing similar beers (same style lagers or ales) back to back, you wouldn't have to buy yeast.
Well, the air lock is bubbling as of last night. The pail is at 66 degrees so I put it on the cold basement cement floor.
Hey boys. The water tank has been working great to keep the temp of the California common at or around 60 so I am happy about that. I've been rotating plastic water bottles into and out of the freezer every day and it's worked really well. I'm still on the hunt for a cheap full size frige. I also moved some stuff in my garage over the weekend so I am one step closer to having hot/cold water as well as the drain out in the garage so I can do all of my brewing out there. I started the Liberty Cream Ale on Monday morning and it is pretty cool to have two batches going at once. Have any of you ever dropped the yeast packet into the brew? I was sprinkling it in and it slipped out of my hands and because it spiked right thru the foam and got wet. I'm just wondering how much bacteria it takes to infect a batch. I'm sure some got in there from the paper but we'll see.
Amarillo Pale Ale -One remaining bomber :-( Liberty Cream Ale -Only 3 bottles left :-( Red Raspberry/Irish Red -just over 2 weeks in the bottle, needs another 2 weeks before its ready Simcoe IPA -just over 1 week in the bottle Up next -Either Surly Furious clone or Rockey Pale Ale
How is/was that Liberty Cream!? That one will go into the secondary either tonight or tomorrow depending on how much time I have. I don't know why (as I've never even tried it before) but I had the urge to add some vanilla to the wert just to see what happened, but I didn't. Two questions for you jokers: 1. Have any of you tried an Imperial Stout extract kit? 2. How about Oaking your beer- thoughts? I want to make a "big, strong" batch that will be done around October which is when we are expecting our 2nd son. I want to make a full, strong, buzz me up beer to celebrate meeting him. Thoughts?
The Liberty Cream Ale turned out great, I adjusted the recipe a little and did a late extract addition and lessoned the bittering hop addition. If I were to do it again i'd up my bittering hops and dry hop in the secondary for a week. I started growing a Cascade rhizome this spring so I thought i'd try brew a beer using only Cascade to see what tastes I can get when harvest comes. -never tried an imperial stout kit -never oaked Congrats on the new addition and good luck on the buzz beer. Lots of great options out there. Or maybe add a few extra lbs of extract to your favorite brew I'm looking forward to brewing the Power Pack Porter come fall.
Thanks! I'm doing some research on American Barley Wines right now, that might be a fun way to go. I will probably end up with an oaked imperial or a barley wine, but I want to get to the four firkings to get a couple of commercial examples first. For my liberty cream, the only adjustment is that I went with about 3/4 of the 1oz of Cascade that they supplied for the full 60 minute boil, and then the full ounce of Cascade for the bittering. What is "dry hopping"?
