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Kegging and Bottling / Dry hopping in keg with pellet hops?
« on: December 06, 2009, 02:56:11 PM »
Anyone do this? Do you put the hops in a bag of some sort, or just suck them out with the first couple of pints?
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Kegging and Bottling / Bottling after lagering. Add fresh yeast?
« on: November 29, 2009, 10:09:55 PM »
I've got a doppelbock in the primary right now and plan to lager for three or four weeks. When bottling should I add some fresh yeast or will there be enough left in the beer to metabolize the priming sugar?
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Other Fermentables / Re: I need a "making cider for dummies"
« on: November 29, 2009, 06:18:23 PM »
1. obtain unpasteurized apple juice.
2. adjust gravity with table sugar (boil in a little water to dissolve then add to juice)
3. Add rehydrated Nottingham ale yeast
4. Add pectic enzyme to help with clarity and yeast nutrient to help fermentation.
5. wait
6. wait
7. wait.
8. bottle or keg.
I've made 8 or 10 batches of cider. For the last two, I've skipped the campden tablets entirely and suffered no ill effects. In fact the campden free cider is the best cider I've made. It may be a bit of a gamble, but I don't like the flavor that the sulfate adds to the cider.
I've also taken to cold-crashing the cider before kegging it. When the SG reaches the residual sweetness you want (for me, that's 1.012 to 1.015), rack the cider off the yeast and rapidly chill it to as close to 32 F as you can get. This won't work if you're bottling as the residual sugar will ferment if the temperature comes back up.
2. adjust gravity with table sugar (boil in a little water to dissolve then add to juice)
3. Add rehydrated Nottingham ale yeast
4. Add pectic enzyme to help with clarity and yeast nutrient to help fermentation.
5. wait
6. wait
7. wait.
8. bottle or keg.
I've made 8 or 10 batches of cider. For the last two, I've skipped the campden tablets entirely and suffered no ill effects. In fact the campden free cider is the best cider I've made. It may be a bit of a gamble, but I don't like the flavor that the sulfate adds to the cider.
I've also taken to cold-crashing the cider before kegging it. When the SG reaches the residual sweetness you want (for me, that's 1.012 to 1.015), rack the cider off the yeast and rapidly chill it to as close to 32 F as you can get. This won't work if you're bottling as the residual sugar will ferment if the temperature comes back up.
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Beer Recipes / Re: Looking for a recipe: Bohemian dark lager
« on: November 29, 2009, 05:59:24 PM »
I'm not able to get Carafa special where I live (I know! I need to move to a new city!). So I'm using a mix of black malt and chocolate to get the color. It's going to be roastier than a schwartzbier made with debittered black malt, but what else can I do?
Here's what I've got so far:
7.00 lb Pilsner (2.0 SRM) Grain 67.44 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 19.27 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 9.63 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.41 %
0.13 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.25 %
1.75 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (60 min) Hops 24.5 IBU
1 Pkgs Bohemian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2124) [Starter 4000 ml] Yeast-Lager
Here's what I've got so far:
7.00 lb Pilsner (2.0 SRM) Grain 67.44 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 19.27 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 9.63 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.41 %
0.13 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.25 %
1.75 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (60 min) Hops 24.5 IBU
1 Pkgs Bohemian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2124) [Starter 4000 ml] Yeast-Lager
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Beer Recipes / Looking for a recipe: Bohemian dark lager
« on: November 28, 2009, 07:04:33 PM »
I'd like to brew a dark Czech lager, like the one at U Fleku. I think the generic name for this beer is Cerny Pivo, but I can't find any sample recipes.
I'm thinking of a grain bill that's 90% Pils, 8% caramel, and 2% roasted, Saaz hops in a single addition to 20-25 IBUs and WYeast 2124 (Bohemian lager). Target OG 1.045, target FG 1.011
Comments?
I'm thinking of a grain bill that's 90% Pils, 8% caramel, and 2% roasted, Saaz hops in a single addition to 20-25 IBUs and WYeast 2124 (Bohemian lager). Target OG 1.045, target FG 1.011
Comments?
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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Blowoff tube vs. airlock. Does it affect bitterness?
« on: November 27, 2009, 12:40:39 PM »I've made three beers this way. The two I've tasted so far, a dry stout and an IPA, are some of my best beers yet. There's a Scottish 80/- just about ready to keg that I've not tasted yet, but I have high hopes.
The interesting thing about the IPA is that I brewed it to 50 IBUs, which to my palette is very bitter, but the taste is much less assertive than I'd expected. I attributed this to the fact that I did FWH for the first time with this beer, but now I'm wondering if the bitter krausen removal had something to do with it.
Interesting process you bring up. Be careful in making this conclusion though. It is my understanding that when you use the FWH process, what you found is what is supposed to happen.
Therefore, I would be a bit careful in expounding that to the krausen process. Maybe isolate the factors?
If I had the dedication to the craft of someone like Kai, I'd be in my garage right now preparing 6 one gallon batches, each of which varied from the others on a single parameters. In three weeks I'd be comparing the results, creating excel spreadsheets and performing regression analysis on the results.
But I'm me, so I'll just keep making beer and wondering why some is good and some is not.
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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Blowoff tube vs. airlock. Does it affect bitterness?
« on: November 27, 2009, 11:19:33 AM »
I've made three beers this way. The two I've tasted so far, a dry stout and an IPA, are some of my best beers yet. There's a Scottish 80/- just about ready to keg that I've not tasted yet, but I have high hopes.
The interesting thing about the IPA is that I brewed it to 50 IBUs, which to my palette is very bitter, but the taste is much less assertive than I'd expected. I attributed this to the fact that I did FWH for the first time with this beer, but now I'm wondering if the bitter krausen removal had something to do with it.
The interesting thing about the IPA is that I brewed it to 50 IBUs, which to my palette is very bitter, but the taste is much less assertive than I'd expected. I attributed this to the fact that I did FWH for the first time with this beer, but now I'm wondering if the bitter krausen removal had something to do with it.
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General Homebrew Discussion / Blowoff tube vs. airlock. Does it affect bitterness?
« on: November 27, 2009, 09:01:40 AM »
I've started top cropping yeast from my ales using a blow-off tube to move the krausen into a sterile jar. After two or three days, I've collected around 200ml of pure yeast, which is sitting under a liter of beer. My procedure has been to pour the beer off the yeast, add some distilled water, swirl and transfer to a clear jar.
This is all working fine, but I've noticed that when I taste the beer that was sitting on top of the yeast, it's insanely bitter. I'd guess that along with the yeast and beer, hop residue is being pushed through the blow off tube.
My question is this: if the blow-off tube is removing bitterness from the beer, isn't it obvious that the beer left in the fermenter is less bitter? If I were to use an airlock instead of a blow-off tube all all that hop residue would settle back into the beer, increasing the overall bitterness. Has anyone ever quantified the effect of removing krausen on the overall bitterness of the beer?
This is all working fine, but I've noticed that when I taste the beer that was sitting on top of the yeast, it's insanely bitter. I'd guess that along with the yeast and beer, hop residue is being pushed through the blow off tube.
My question is this: if the blow-off tube is removing bitterness from the beer, isn't it obvious that the beer left in the fermenter is less bitter? If I were to use an airlock instead of a blow-off tube all all that hop residue would settle back into the beer, increasing the overall bitterness. Has anyone ever quantified the effect of removing krausen on the overall bitterness of the beer?
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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: The Blurred Lines Between Styles
« on: November 25, 2009, 06:20:09 PM »So what is an English IPA, really? I don't even know if the style needs to exist.
Well, there's an historical argument here. The IPA style originated in Britain as a way to ship beer to the colonies in India without it going bad. Extra hops and elevated alcohol content ensured that the beer survived the voyage by ship. The American version came about later emphasizing the hops and alcohol even more than the British original. It's gotten a bit ridiculous, I think, that American IPA's are typically pushing past 6% ABV and 60 IBUs.
Mostly I ignore style designations unless I'm specifically brewing a beer to enter a competition. I try to brew beers that my friends, family and I like to drink. IMHO people get too caught up in classification.
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