Topics

1

General Homebrew Discussion / Happy Big Brew Day!

« on: May 04, 2013, 04:38:16 AM »

Headed up to the LHBS to do a brew demo.  The owner is brewing an extract batch, then an AG.  Both Two Hearted Ale clones.  I'm going to brew a small batch of roughly the same beer using BIAB and no-chill.  I did a no-chill Southern brown recently and it camr out really good.  I'm curious how a hoppy beer will turn out.  I think I'll add some hops right at knockout, or possibly even after the beer cools to 180F.

2

General Homebrew Discussion / Brett in Berlinner?

« on: April 02, 2013, 09:12:57 AM »

I had a Berlinner weisse that was just not getting very tart so I added some dregs from a really tart lambic I had on the shelf.  After several months I am now getting a nice tartness but also some Brett character.  Is this out of style for this beer?

I also intend to make some woodruff syraup from the Zymurgy recipe.

3

General Homebrew Discussion / Suggestions for Beer for Cinco de Mayo

« on: February 18, 2013, 05:03:41 AM »

I suppose I should make a Vienna lager?

4

General Homebrew Discussion / Brewing In Sunlight

« on: February 04, 2013, 01:22:24 PM »

I've been brewing on my deck, and I was wondering if I could skunk a light-colored beer if it is in full sun.

5

General Homebrew Discussion / Fun at FOAM Cup

« on: November 19, 2012, 07:21:22 AM »

Made my first journey to Tulsa to judge at this event.  I've seen lots of FOAM members medal at other comps, wanted to get a sense of what their club was like and meet a few of the members.  Judged with some very experienced people and learned a lot.  They had about 750 entries but thanks to some weekday flights things weren't chaotic on Friday and Saturday.  In fact it was a very well-run comp.  My compliments to Dave and Desiree.

I didn't enter anything this time, just thought I'd see how that felt.  I think I'll go back to entering a few beers, it gives you a little more to look forward to.

6

General Homebrew Discussion / German Beer Brand ID Help!

« on: October 05, 2012, 10:56:26 AM »

I have a friend who is fond of telling a story about a German friend of his who had a favorite beer whose name, loosely translated, meant "fart a$$ bang". I've attempted to figure out what brand/style of beer this is to no avail. Word of advice, don't simply google the three words unless you want addys for porn sites. I tried translating each word and searching that way and haven't come up with anything.

Any help?

7

Yeast and Fermentation / Pitch Lagers Warm and Chill?

« on: August 16, 2012, 05:35:20 AM »

I was reading this last issue of Zymurgy and saw the recpe for Ofest that was BOS of the Boneyard Brewoff.  The guy said he pitched at 60F and then chilled to 50F after a day.  That struck me as being a little unconventional, but its hard to argue when his beer won BOS at an established contest like the Boneyard.  anyone else doing this successfully?

I was bummed not to be able to judge last year's Boneyard, they moved it to January and I had already made plans.  Good bunch of people in the BUZZ club and they bring some excellent judges.

8

General Homebrew Discussion / Boulevard Hits the Big League

« on: July 09, 2012, 02:15:47 PM »

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/craft-brewer-hits-home-run-193322604.html

9

General Homebrew Discussion / Berlinner or Lambic?

« on: April 30, 2012, 06:34:13 AM »

I've been making sours lately and thought I'd try another Berlinner weisse since the first one was fairly well received.  I did some things though that I think may have put the beer more into a lambic category.

First of all, I used mostly unmalted wheat (4lb + 1lb malted wheat).  I like the flavor of unmalted wheat and it gives a really light color.  The remainder of the grist was German pils (5lb).  I see most recipes call for wheat malt.

Second, I mash-hopped 3oz of Saaz.  I read that on a recent thread here, but later I found another thread that said Lactobacillus Delbreuckii is very susceptible to hops.  This was a no-boil batch so maybe I'm OK.  But I wonder if I messed up by mash-hopping since BJCP guidelines say no hop aroma either.

Third, I got scared the lacto might not take and poured in a bottle of a really sour lamibic I made back in '10.  This is going to give it a little Brett, hopefully not too much.
 
Fourth,  my OG came out at 1.040.  I'm not too worried about this although it is above style guidelines.  I can dilute if I need to.

I used a no-boil approach and pitched a vial of Whitelabs Lactobacillus while the wort was still at 100F.  It was still somewhat warm this morning.  I didn't make a lacto starter but was thinking I'd give the lacto a head start of a day or two.  I'm not seeing any activity though and that is a little worrisome.  I'll be pitching a blend of WLP300 and WB06 for the Sacch.

So do you think this is going to be a lambic or a Berlinner?  I hope its the latter since I've brewed three lambics in the last couple of months.

10

Equipment and Software / DC Water Pump Review

« on: April 10, 2012, 06:13:51 PM »

I saw these for sale at greatbreweh.com, researched and found they are a small pump designed for use in solar hot water heaters.  Pump body and impeller are Ryton, with brass inlet/outlet.  They are made to run off a solar PV so they work on a range of DC voltages.  I bought a Pumpsflo 15 that is supposed to pump 3gal/min.  I am wanting to use it for whirlpooling with an IC, so I plumbed it up for this and gave it a run tonight.  Heated water in my kettle while running this little pump, went to 97F and measured flow.  It was 2gal/min, enough for a nice whirlpool from what i could tell.  Primed itself nicely although I didn't start it when the water was already hot.

I bought this for $61 from ebay (free shipping), the ones from the site mentioned above are about $84 with shipping ($70 apiece if you buy two) and they come with an AC converter and the brass is mostly coated with Ryton.  If I build a brew stand I'll probably buy a March but these things are a nice alternative.  Its less than half the price and has less than half the flow, seems fair.

11

All Grain Brewing / Hitting A Color?

« on: March 23, 2012, 12:05:47 PM »

I don't use brewing software, just a calculator and a few equations to get my IBUs and OG.  I generally just wing it as far as color, but what would I need to do to determine this empirically?  Average the L values of the malt?

I ask because I've made a few brown ales lately and I haven't been making those much, and its been kind of a seat-of-the pants thing to get the right level of "brown".  Not that it matters that much.

12

General Homebrew Discussion / Brewing Class Picking Up Steam

« on: March 06, 2012, 12:34:53 PM »

Last fall I pitched the idea of a brewing and beer appreciation class to the local community college.  They don't do much by way of advertising other than put out a course schedule, and I admittedly didn't help with flyers or anything.  The first class had only 3 students but I went ahead and taught because I figured it might help get the word out so to speak.  Recruited one person to our homebrew club out of that group so it wasn't a total waste.

I was scheduled to teach it again this month but as of yesterday I had three students who had paid and I was going to have them cancel the class.  I was whining to the community education director about how I was surprised there wasn't more interest in brewing given the seeming popularity in many areas of the country.  Then this morning one more person signed up and paid so the class is on.  Right after that I get another email that two more are signed up.  Don't know if they paid but if so that might be six people.  That would be a great class size, enough so they will fill up some of the time with questions and relieve me of talking for two hours straight.  They'll still get some individual attention too.  The class is four sessions on consecutive Thursday evenings.  The last class meets at the local brewpub for a brewery tour and a flight of their beers, they had something like ten last time so its a nice platform for tasting and discussing beer styles.

13

All Grain Brewing / Gelatinizing Raw Wheat

« on: March 05, 2012, 09:26:00 AM »

I made a lambic wort yesterday and used raw wheat in the recipe.  I wanted to gelatinize it so I'd get a better recovery of starches.  My first attempt involved putting 6lb of wheat and 3lb of pils malt in a kettle with 1qt/lb of water, starting at 125F for a protein rest and then ramping to boiling (per Wyeast mash in Sparrow's Wild Brews).  This was a disaster because I scorched the grist when I put the heat on (a induction cooktop on high is a bad idea).  I could smell burnt grain so I pitched this out and started over.

Rather than risk another scorch, I boiled 1qt/lb of water and then added the crushed wheat, the resultng temp was 180F which I think is enough to gelatinize.  This stuff turned to a thick solid after 15min, but it certainly seemed to gelatinize.  Took awhile to mix into the main mash of pils malt, but it seemed to do the trick.

It was a long day making the lambic but the wort came out well.  Used plenty of aged hops, it gave the wort a nice sour aroma early in the boil.  I got a terrible efficiency but then between the raw wheat and Old World Pils malt, there was a humongous protein break and the large whole hop charge didn't help matters.  Fortunately I made a large batch so I managed to eek out 5gal.  The Wyeast 3278 lambic blend smelled wonderful.

14

Wood/Casks / Wood Barrels for Presentation Purposes

« on: February 27, 2012, 12:43:55 PM »

I got a 3gal wooden barrel for Christmas (a request).  I intended to use it for an authentic take on cask conditioned ales.  I have not yet done the full Monty on this, but I did use it for the first time on Saturday's brewclub meeting.  I used my beergun to fill it with ESB.  I ran into a few things htat I thought I'd pass along so you don't make the same mistakes (you can make different ones instead).

First, I got the beer cold by placing it outside overnight.  I also put the keg out in the cold since you want the container to be at the same cool temp as the beer.  The outcome of this was that  the wood shrank a bit and the spigot became loose as well as one of the end hoops.  I found this out as I filled and beer ran out on the kitchen floor.  A quick malleting fixed both loosened items.  I continued to fill until I got foam coming out the bung, then I plugged the hole with the hard bung.  This resulted in beer starting to ooze out of a few places in one of the heads, and around the spigot again.  I ran it out on the porch and pulled the bung to relieve the pressure.  I left the bung off for fifteen minutes as foam oozed out of the barrel.  Once that subsided I replaced the bung and then drained some of the beer (into a glass) to pull a slight vacuum.  This worked well, and I drained a little more every so often so as to keep the barrel sealed and to keep my whistle wetted.  By the time the barrel was transpoprted to my friend's house for the meeting, it had lost a couple of pints and there were no further leakage problems associated with pressure.  The beer was a hit at the meeting, although there was no oak character detectable from such a short residence time.

I've learned some valuable lessons from this experience that should allow me to get a nice cask conditioned ale from it soon.  Most importantly, I'll use a minimum of priming sugar as well as some leaf hops and gelatin.  And I'll keep it in a plastic tote as secondary containment.  I think the gradual increase in pressure is more likely to allow the seals to be maintained, plus there will be no shrinkage of the wood until its time to give it a very modest chill.

Anyone else done this before?  I know wood kegs were the norm some time ago, this has given me a new appreciation for whats involved with that.

15

Ingredients / New Hop Varieties

« on: February 27, 2012, 06:48:27 AM »

I've seen a lot of new varieties (or at least new to me) show up at the places I buy from this year.  I'm always interested in trying new stuff.  So far I've brewed with Whitbread Goldings, Pacific Jade, and UK Pilgrim.  I have several more in the freezer waiting their turn.  Herkules is one I'm anxious to use.  Last year I tried the Falconers Flight blend and liked it, I just used it again as well.

Anybody taking advantage of the new varieties?  I really haven't tried any of the beers above jus yet, most are bottled and will be ready in a couple of weeks.

And on a related topic, I'm not sad that theres a shortage of certain hops and I think by the time the growers ramp up production we brewers will be on to the next hot hop.