$80 bucks for the stainless steel pot at Midwest. http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6043 I (or Ryan) will let you know what I think of it after a couple of uses, but the 5 gallon stainless pot that I have has been awesome.
Well, I squeezed in a quick 3 gallon batch of Ginger Cider on Sunday night. We'll see how it turns out. The test batch turned out pretty good last winter, but I ended up doing this differently. Rather than boil down the juice to concentrate the sugars and having the ginger in the boil, I used concentrate (you know, frozen juice) and threw the fresh ground ginger in with it. I used two shots of vodka (or thereabouts) in the processor when I ground up the ginger - one at the beginning, one at the end - to hopefully deal with anything that I didn't want getting into the fermentor. It krausened all of yesterday and into today and has now settled and is rolling quite pleasingly. I probably used too much ginger but that actually has me pretty excited, too. Details: 12 cans Cascadian Farms Organic Apple Juice 17 cans Water (juice cans) 2 large, fresh Ginger Roots, peeled and processor-ed (easier than hand grinding) w/ above mentioned vodka OG: 1.074 A nice thing about cider is you can really drink it at any time during the process and it is enjoyable. And it will be ready to bottle anytime between this Friday and two weeks from now. Depending on how this turns out, I may do several different ciders now that apple season is upon us.
Brewed a American style wheat yesterday that I meant to brew about 2 months ago. Also after tasting some of my friends homebrew, I think my kettle is the reason why i have a weird taste to all my beers. I think though the owner of the kettle (on of my friends who moved away) said it was stainless steel, I think it's really aluminum.
Have you used this thing yet? How'd it do? I do my boils on a range, coil style oven type. Would this thing fit on there, or is this one best for the outdoor gas burners? I've got the money now to pick this thing up. Just curious how it worked for you.
I know ted hasn't used it yet. I was going to use it but our schedules didn't match up. Brian if you aren't using an external burner yet.. you gotta get one. That's one of the best things i've got. I just have a "crappy" one from home depot made for turkey frying. It was the floor model and came with a small pot (maybe 1.5 gal) with a basket which will be great for frying chicken wings during the football season. I got it for $12. Best $12 i've spent. What the local home depot or lowes just after thanksgiving and you might find a great deal like this.
That does sound like a good idea and I'd love to do outdoor boils. But how does it hold up in sub temps say in January and such? I'm a year round type brewer and like to have the creature comforts of inddor heat. Although the steam in the basement is somthing I'd like to illiminate by doing a more controlled temp outdoor boil. But lugging my pot up stairs and outside filled with 7 gallons of wort I mashed in the basement would not be fun. Then bringing its boiling hot contents back inside and down the steps again. In the summer months though I might have to do this, it gets too hot downstairs to boil in the summer. Heres what my basement brew setup looks like. This pic was taken a couple years ago before I was doing all grain, so the tuns are not around yet.
I do all my work out in the garage. It took one brew inside before the wife really pushed to move it somewhere else. As much as I love my house to smell like a brewery, she doesn't. Also if you have a boil over, like I did for the first time yesterday, it's nothing to worry about. My garage is insulated, so it's not super warm, but not super cold. When you get the burner going though it heats up so it's nice. Another thing nice about winter brewing is instead of using the coil drop in cooler, i just set the kettle in the snow bank. Hope that helps. If you want to just borrow my burner one time to try it out, i have no problems with that. I'll tell you that i can get a full rolling boil with no problems at all. I actually have to have my gas pretty low, which is why i boiled over yesterday. I had the gas too high, which it was barely on. My burner just uses the normal propane tank like what it hooked up to the grill. -Ryan
Brewing tomorrow, heres what I came up with for a recipe I put together. 7 lbs Rahr 2 row 4 lbs Vienna 1 lbs Caramel 20*L 1 ounce Centennial @ 60 2 ounces Cascade @ 20 Wyeast 1028 Projections indicate: 62% Attenuation, which is lower then I'd like. 6% abv 70 IBU's OG in the range of 1.058
I modified the recipe a bit when I was at Midwest this afternoon. 6 lbs Rahr 2 row 5 lbs Vienna 1 lbs Cara 20* 1 lbs Munich 2 oz Cascade @ 60 1 oz Cascade @ 20 1 oz Centennial @ 20 Hop additions are also going to be different, I dont want too much pine in this, so the centennial is going in at 20 They were out of 1028 wyeast, so I went with S-o5 dry stuff. Also picked up 8 ounces (half a lb) of Cascade for only $10. This woulda been almost $30 at northern brewing.
Recipe looks very tasty! I use US-05 in just about every batch I brew. Just wrote up this recipe for an Oktoberfest that is lager like in ways but will ferment at a higher lager temp. What ya think? Steeping/mock partial mash grains 1 lb. Munich 10L Hop Schedule 1 oz Hallertau @ 60 .5 oz Hallertau @ 45 .5 oz Hallertau @ 30 Malt 3 or 6lbs Munich LME(from Northern Brewer) 3lbs Pilsen LME Yeast Wyeast Activator 2112.(must keep 58-65 F)
I'm getting fatter from just sitting here thinking about all of the delicious brews you guys are making. :yumyum:
From now on, I'm rinsing the Starsan out of my Carboy before I fill it. :laugh: I don't think I'll have a problem with a lack of O2. I sneeked in an Oktoberfest Lager last night. I've finally got a way to control the temp. This kit was given to me and if the font/style of the Midwest Supply instruction sheet is any indicator, it was pretty old. We'll see how it turns out, I'm not expecting miracles. I probably won't get this bottled until November-December with the way my schedule looks.
Here is the new cart up and running and fully functioning. Currently still doing extract but moved to full boils. Plans in the works for a counterflow chiller mounted above the propane tank are in the works. Along with some other small mods here and there. 2 brews completed so far with the new setup, Surly Furious clone and my Homegrown Cascade Pale Ale, both bubbling/dry hopping away. Next up is an Oktoberfest :yumyum:
Would you guys be interested in having an inter-club brewing contest? For instance, we would all try to brew the same style / type of beer and either have a tasting, or everyone meets, swaps bottles and then submits their favorite? Most votes wins? Awesome cart, Paul!!! I hope to plumb my garage sometime this winter. ** AND, do any of you have a packet or two of Lager yeast laying around that I could buy? **
I'd be down for swapping bottles, always down for trying new beers. Thanks Ted, it does the trick nothing fancy but if i'm gonna be brewing in the garage I might as well have a nice ticked out setup, or a bunch of screwed together 2x4's. No lager yeast but I have a packet of Safbrew T-58 just chillin in the fridge. Leftover from a batch of witbier.
Turns out I don't need the yeast. I went down to check on the status this morning to see if I needed to get online and order some when I found this: This is the first lager-type beer that I've done and the kit is probably at least a year-and-a-half old, so I was not sure about the status of the yeast. I pitched it and there was still no action as of last night so I thought the yeast was bad or something. On Sunday, I started the ferment cool ~60 degrees as the instructions stated (60-65) but that didn't produce anything. Tuesday, I let it creep up to about 70, still nothing. Wednesday, I threw some Christmas lights around it to warm it up just a bit more, nothing. Wednesday night I unplugged the lights and left it at room temp which was about 68 degrees overnight. I put the carboy back into the tank on Thursday night and added the one meesly water bottle that I had and some ice cubes as I FINALLY had some airlock action. The instructions say to keep it between 60-65 degrees for 3 days, let it warm up to room temp and then lager it in the fridge for 3-12 weeks. As I've said, this is my first lager, so outside of those instructions, do any of you have suggestions or tips? -ted
Sure looks like a healthy fermentation to me. What yeast did you use? What type of beer? I'm collecting ingredients for my Oktoberfest and plan on using Saflager 34/70 and i'll have to keep the temps around 53 degrees F for fermentation. I plan on using a bath such as yours with a couple ice bottles rotated out and a fish tank pump circulating the water for good measure. Hope I can reach my temps and keep it fairly constant. Keep us posted on the brew. My Homegrown Cascade is smelling fantastic thus far. Was a bit worried with the grassy odor during the boil but it seems to have the typical Cascade odor now. The 3oz dry hop should do it wonders :yumyum:
The kit is a Midwest Oktoberfest Lager kit, and it just had the packet of generic, dry Lager yeast. When I pitched it, I dumped it into the funnel after about 1/4 of the beer was in the carboy. The foam was so bad, I was not sure how much yeast actually made it into the tank, so I stole the yeast that is in the OTHER old kit that I got (European Pilsner) and pitched that after the foam had subsided, so there are ~2 packs of dry yeast in there. I used the water tank method for my California Common that I did for my 2nd batch and it worked pretty well. I would swap a total of 8 water bottles 2x a day, once in the morning and once at night. I don't think you will need to circulate the water, the water does a pretty good job at self-regulating, and dropping the bottles in 2x a day stirs it up enough, I think. It will be a lot easier in the winter if the deal is on your basement floor. If I did it again in the summer, I would use a sleeping bag or some kind of thermal wrap to keep the tank cooler.
I'm sure those yeasties are having the time of their life right now, probably better than valley fair :laugh: Did you also secondary the California Common in the ice bath? I'll have the ice bath container in the basement bathroom(fermentation room) so i'll do whatever it takes to keep the temps low so a sleeping bag or other insulation might be necessary. I'll have to keep an eye on the temp and see how it goes. I have the pump lying around so figured why not use, can't hurt.
Tomato Wine A friend of mine whipped up a 5 gallon batch of Tomato Wine using 16lbs of fresh tomatoes from my garden. Should be ready to drink in 1 year.
No offense, but I don't know if I can think of anything that sounds worse than Tomato Wine. I flippin hate tomatoes. Ah, right on! Yeah if you have it on hand, go for it. I just thought that the pump might actually heat the water up as it moves it. Dunno, just a thought. It was pretty easy to keep it within range once I got the timing down for swapping out the water bottles. I actually kept the California Common in the tank for both the first and secondary stages, but I am going to keep this one in the primary for the whole time. If you use the basement in the fall/winter it will be uber easy. If you've got the time, throw some water into the carboy a week or two before hand and use that to regulate the temp so you've got it down once you're ready for the ferment.
Dam, that long of a wait can result in some bugs. I hope not, but take a few pints down of that before letting anyone else drink it. Do you usually use blow off?
I would love to do a brew off. As long as non of you get me diarhea with somthing infected. I dont bottle though, but I'd be willing to transport a keg and pour a few pints. I actually refuse to bottle anymore. It was the biggest PItA.
What kind of bugs? Nope, I've never used a blow off- just the air locks that you see in the pic. Why? I was thinking of re-pitching the yeast that I used for my Oktoberfest Lager when I brew my European Pilsner kit which I also got free, but now with the "bugs" thing I'm worried because I won't be able to try it until well after the Pilsner is on it's way... I suppose a couple of bucks for new yeast might be worth it. Have any of you guys re-pitched yeast or wracked on top of a previous batch?
Since I haven't seen this mentioned, maybe it is under everyone's radar: there is an AHA (American Homebrewer's Association) Rally at Surly on Sat, 10 Oct. Omar and Todd will both be there, and there will be a VIP Tour, free pint glasses, drawings for stuff and possibly some free wort. Admission is FREE for AHA members, or else it costs a membership (except for designated drivers, it seems). Since I just got another email about this today, I guess there are still openings to RSVP. http://www.beertown.org/email/aha/rallies/surly09.htm http://www.examiner.com/x-241-Beer-...-ale-wort-giveaway-at-Surly-Brewing-AHA-rally Sorry I forgot to mention this earlier (if any of you care). Maybe see ya there.
If there are bugs, you will probably notice when you go to bottle. Racking on top is easy. Description and instructions for how to do it are the same: rack on top. Some folks like to wash the yeast or do other steps to clean it up, but you'll have to research that a bit. Also, some folks who do large batches, 20+ gallons, will make a "starter" by doing first a 5gal batch and then racking onto that yeast cake. If there is an off-flavour, obviously do not use the yeast cake from the out-going beer for the incoming wort. I also do not know off-hand if the same yeast is used for marzen/oktoberfest beers as for pilseners. Lastly, typically people will use yeast cakes from similar beers and move lighter to darker in this process. But no matter what, the yeast cake from your oktoberfest will definitely ferment the pilsener (make sure to aerate the wort). You just might not get what you were shooting for when it's finished. You can also store yeast from the yeast cake. I scoop it into a mason jar and put it in the fridge. Check it every day at first to release any pressure, then every few days and then maybe week or so, and then I forget about it until I need it. By this time it has gone dormant. Drop it into a starter a day before you need it and yer good to go. Eventually the yeast will mutate so you'll want to start fresh sooner or later. And to be sure, a couple bucks for new yeast is simple and can be necessary peace of mind or insurance sometimes. Follow your joy.
I came up with a wild idea to make a triple or even a quadruple IPA. The thought is to start with a Double IPA extract recipe or Hop Scare IPA, then add 1-2 lbs DME or up to 3 lbs LME and an extra 1-2 oz. of some variety of citrusy hops. Does this sound feasable? Has anyone tried something like this? and would an American Ale Wyeast activator kit be able to handle all the sugar/alcohol?
Do it. Sounds awsome. Just dry hopped my Homegrown Cascade pale ale last night with 3 oz of homegrown. Its jammed to the top of the 6 gallon carboy:laugh: Its glorious
If you want an ipa you will need more then 2 ounces of hops. If you want a double, better plan on doubling the hop schedule I'm posting. Most doubles have around 10+ ounces of hops per 5 gallons. Which gets crazy expensive. I recommend checking out northern or midwest, there is a sale right now for a lb of Cascade for $20, which is a steal. Usually you can find it for $2-3 an ounce. Depending on your hop schedule, I'd do an ounce at the follwoing incriments: Centennial@60 Cascade@30 Cascade@20 Cascade@10 Cascade@5 Cascade@flame out 2 ounces Cascade dry hop. That thing would be terrific and juicy with great citrus character and bitter resin flavors.
You do realize that I stated that I would be STARTING with a double IPA recipe and adding malt and 1-2oz hops with it, right? I get my supplies from Midwest. Hops are ususally around $2/oz, so adding an oz. or two wouldn't set me back too much.
I just brewed up a quick and dirty batch of a 'cider' recipe I found online. My pale ale that I just bottled should be ready to start testing in about a week or two, the brown ale is in secondary now and ready to bottle when I choose. I have a blonde on deck to brew as well, and start a batch of 'Apfelwein' (apple juice and dextrose, Montrachet yeast, ferment for a month). I'm finally getting back into the swing of brewing again now that I'm a little more settled in the house. PS: I'm thinking I need to craft a recipe for this: (it's all cascade from a friend's garden) :eek4: :biggrin:
Wow. I had heard that hops used to be used in eye pillows for relaxation or stress or headaches or something like that, but a whole hop bed... Strange Brew dreams all night long, eh? Maybe call the recipe something like Hopbirnation (hop + hibernation)?
So i'm back from Beer heaven (Bavaria region of germany). Oktoberfest beer out there is very different. Also I really want to brew their "Hell" style of beer, which reminded me a lot of Herkimer's Sky Pilot. After meeting my friend's friend from seattle, I think it's time for me to take the next step... All grain. I will be visiting the homebrew store today and I might come back with some new toys. I'll keep you all up to date. Edit: This! http://www.paulaner-kundenportal.de...ml?PHPSESSID=54e78e5b8d8ee85d50b259e29eb347f7 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Nice hops bed Steve! Just started an oatmeal stout yeasterday. Threw in some home-made maple syrup for good measure. Sure smelled good! I'm more apt to brew when the weather is cooler, so maybe I'll get that triple IPA started in the next month or so. I have some other ideas for interesting brews I hope to try soon too.
Nice Cascade bed there! Here's my Homegrown Cascade Pale Ale recipe. Currently 1 week dry hopped and counting. 6lb gold/light lme 1lb light dme 6 oz homegrown cascade steeping grains- 1lb of crystal 40L US-05 hop schedule 60 min- 1.5 oz. 45 min- .25 oz. 10 min- 1 oz. 0 min- .5 oz. Dry hop- 3 oz. Surly Furious clone- 1 week in bottle Homegrown Cascade- 1 week dry hopped Paultoberfest(oktoberfest)- primary Porter-on deck Orange Raspberry Mead- 2 months secondary Strawberry Mead- 3 months secondary
No, I did not realize that. Sorry. Mind posting the full recipie? I love me some x2IPA. Gonna brew a blond today, except its going to be more on the imperial end of the spectrum. Going to try to keep it around %8 and 40 or so ibus! I'm brewing it for my b-day bash the wife is haveing for me. My plan is to brew somthing see through, that actually has some flavors and alcahol to convert people into craft brew drinkers!
Heres what I decided to go with. It will be a light pale ale. 13# Rahr 2-row 2# Cara 20*L 2# Vienna 1# pale malt 1 ounce cascade @60 1 ounce fuggles at 15 1 ounce fuggles @1 1 ounce cascade @ flame out US-04 dry yeast Wyeast yeast nutrient @15 Irish moss @15 Stats: predicted ABV 8% IBU's 40 13.92 °SRM 1.090 OG Attenuation 76.2 % Boiled first running 3 hours for some extra redish color and caramel notes. Had extra liquid off the mash and didnt calcaulate the added grains for water correctly. So I added too much water and also had to add cool water to nail down my mash temp at 149. Full boil was an hour with current hop schedule, giveing me a boil time of 4 hours.
I'm out here in montana right now at my aunt's ranch. I figured i'd take this time to pick up some family wheat. Now I need to figure out what to brew with it. Also trying to get my hands on some 2-row barley. Depending on how much wheat I can get my hands on I can bring some back for all of you.
I can think of a few things. My mash tun took a **** on me. The damn thing buckled and cracked down the side. I'm so pissed off. I've got to return this thing to Northern and see if they will exchange it withput a receipt. I did less then 10 batches with this thing too. So angry right now.
Just got back home from being up in the Cities for the AHA Rally at Surly Saturday. It was a blast. I guess there were somewhere around 400 home brewers there. Drawings for lotsa books, t-shirts and hats and the two grand prizes were a 15 and a 20 gallon brew kettle. Plus free Surly/AHA/Northern Brewer pint glasses and fills during the event. And everyone who wanted it and brought a carboy came home with up to 5 gallons of an imperial brown ale wort. And free yeast from Northern Brewer. Completely aside from the goodies, it was a good party. AHA National Conference is this coming June in Minneapolis.
Ryan, my vote for what to do with the wheat is a weisenbock based on just having some a friend of mine brewed. :cheers2: But, y'know, follow your joy.
