Messages

1

Beer Recipes / ESB suggestion - Victory or no?

« on: May 21, 2013, 01:17:40 pm »

So I'm brewing an ESB tomorrow morning. For the longest time I was planning a simple grain bill of 93% MO and 7% English Extra Dark Crystal. But I woke up this morning and the idea popped in my head that I should add some Victory. On one hand I like the idea of letting the MO stand on its own, but a little extra toastiness could be nice here. Anyone have any strong thoughts or experience either way on this?

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: dry yeast temp shock

« on: May 20, 2013, 03:41:04 pm »

Since no one else has said anything yet - You can always just sprinkle it right in the wort...

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All Grain Brewing / Re: Re: Collecting Cooling Water for Future Brews

« on: May 20, 2013, 03:37:43 pm »

We lose power so many times during most winters that it's become SOP for me to fill a few kegs with water.  We have a well, so no power=no water.

Same here. In the 3 years we've lived in this house we've had at least one multiday power outage every year. If they predict a potential outage I fill my carboys with water in advance. Think I'm going to pull the trigger on a whole house generator this year though. No water and no heat royally sucks.

4

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First beer taste

« on: May 19, 2013, 05:42:51 am »

Generally I find that hoppy beers give you a good picture of how they're going to be right out of the bottling bucket. Other beers are tougher to get a read on. My last brew was a small saison that kinda worried me while it was flat, but once it carbed up it turned out great.

5

All Things Food / Hop chocolate bar

« on: May 17, 2013, 07:43:54 pm »

I just ordered a couple of these bars. I'll post an update once I get to taste them. Lake Champlain Chocolates put out some top-notch chocolates, so I'm really excited to give this a try.

http://www.lakechamplainchocolates.com/bebop-hop-chocolate-bar.html

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Ingredients / Re: 3 hour dry hop?

« on: May 17, 2013, 11:39:56 am »

I've been thinking about trying out a short dry hop in the bottling bucket, but I think you need some steady circulation to max out your extraction in such a short time frame and I don't really have the means to do that. I have an ESB on deck, and I was on the fence on whether I wanted to dry hop. Maybe I'll try this out instead.

7

Ingredients / Re: How to Sanitize Sugar Addition

« on: May 17, 2013, 11:10:10 am »

Add me to the "just dump it in" camp. Sugar is highly hygroscopic, so not much is able to grow on it.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing this Weekend - 5/18 edition?

« on: May 17, 2013, 11:05:30 am »

This weekend I will be hopefully be replanting the tomatoes & peppers I lost to the surprise frost we got this week. I also need to rack my blackberry melomel one last time and tonight I will be be taking that first step into the wild and pitching some Brett into my Biere de Garde.

I wasn't planning on brewing for a while, but I have some free days over the next couple of weeks. I'm thinking I might go for a simple ESB.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Most and Least

« on: May 17, 2013, 10:39:37 am »

For me the most important process improvement was patience. The only time I'm even in the same room as my fermenters between pitching and bottling is if I'm adding dry hops. Otherwise I just let the yeast do their thing and come back in 2-3 weeks to claim my booty.

As far as equipment goes the most valuable piece for me was my grain mill. Prior to that my efficiency was all over the place from high 60's to low 80's depending on who milled my grain. Not I'm pretty much solidly in the 84-86% range.

The second most useful piece of new equipment is actually a silicone oven mitt. I BIAB, and this lets me squeeze the snot out of my bag (without burning my hands) to get most of the wort out of the grains. In conjunction with my grain mill this has really helped me hit a steady efficiency, because I can get both a consistent crush and a consistent squeeze.

Least valuable for me has been whirlfloc/irish moss. I stopped using it about a dozen batches ago and haven't noticed any difference in my finished beer by the time I'm ready to start drinking it.

One of the most important things is the mop and bucket.

For me it's my "brewery towel" - same idea.

10

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: 1968 in No-Crystal AIPA (Mash Temp Help)

« on: May 16, 2013, 11:49:10 am »

Mash low and long. I don't think sugar is a necessity if you ferment low, then rouse and ramp up. Emphasis on rouse. If you take care of it I think you can hit the 1.012-1.016 range with 1968. It may not be single-digits Pliny-dry, but it will be plenty good for a beer like this (especially with no crystal malt).

I'd be tempted to throw in a little Biscuit or Victory just so that there's something else going on in the malt bill to provide a little balance to the hops.

11

Beer Recipes / Re: suggestions - summer ale?

« on: May 16, 2013, 10:40:42 am »

I think it will be just fine as-is. If I were to tweak it for my palate I'd ditch the 60-minute addition, move the 20-minute addition to FWH and move the 5-minute addition to flameout. But the way you have it is perfectly fine. My way may end up closer to an APA in hop aroma, but that's just my tastes.

I agree with Mort on the wheat. Any beer that has a halfway decent amount of hops is going to get more head retention from that than wheat malt. It certainly won't hurt, but I think you can safely omit it.

What kind of earthiness are you looking for in hops? Something like Fuggles or Willamette will give you that "forest floor" kind of earthiness. If you have access to Caliente you can get that same kind of earthy note along with some fresh peach/plum type stone fruit notes. Either way, I prefer to have my earthy hops as a flavor addition and my fruity hops as aroma when I'm mixing them. I'd do Willamette as FWH and Amarillo at flameout if I went that route.

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Beer Recipes / Re: Amarillo IPA

« on: May 16, 2013, 07:09:57 am »

I'll second Denny's recommendation to move the 15 minute addition to FWH. If it were me I'd also drop the 30-minute addition altogether and do a hot whirlpool/hop stand. I find that I get the most hop presence from extended contact with hot/sub-boiling wort (FWH and whirlpool, basically), so as time goes on I keep moving more additions to before and after the boil. It may just be in my head, but I also find that hop character fades more slowly in beers with FWH and hop stand additions.

13

Ingredients / Re: 2011 NZ Rakau hops

« on: May 15, 2013, 09:31:30 pm »

I was given 4 oz of 2011 NZ Rakau hops last week.  Does it play well with C hops?  What is the best use for it?

It's in the same vein as Cascade, but I got some weird savory notes when I brewed a single-hop IPA with it (the malt bill may have contributed to that though). I think it would work with any of the usual suspects for IPA's, such as C hops, Citra, Simcoe, etc.

Just realized that I got Rakau mixed up with Riwaka. My bad.

Here are my tasting notes from a single-hopped Rakau Pale Ale. In summary, it was OK, but didn't wow me. Got a rather indistinct "sweet fruit" note, and a touch of cinnamon as it warmed up. Bitterness was sharp, in the ballpark of Chinook/Columbus. I think it would be nice in combination with a more citrus-forward hop, so C hops or Nelson would be perfect.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=13485.msg171212#msg171212

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: British Yeast Recommendation

« on: May 15, 2013, 09:19:26 pm »

Out of curiousity what would be the effect of pitching at too high but dropping the temp over time? I know this is bad practice. I don't as much control over my beers as I would like right now due to a different location and brewing partner...long story...

Depends on how far it drops. Diacetyl would be my main concern if it was just a few degrees, but if it was a big drop the yeast could stall out early.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: When did you switch to all grain?

« on: May 15, 2013, 09:11:51 pm »

My first batch was an extract kit, and then I pretty much dove headlong into designing my own recipes. Right after that I realized that there was no reason I had to brew in 5-gallon increments, so I started brewing 3 gallon batches. Then I learned about BIAB, and said "that's for me!" and jumped into all-grain.

My first extract brew was in January after I got a kit for Xmas. My first all-grain brew was in August. I'm glad I made the jump to AG so quickly. Even though the brew day is a lot longer, I enjoy the brew day, the process, and the end result a lot more. I end up brewing more often, too.