Topics

1

Yeast and Fermentation / First Stuck Fermentation

« on: June 01, 2013, 06:58:17 PM »

So a friend and I made an American barley wine with an OG of .095. We pitched 2 packs of Wyeast 1332 in a 1 liter starter and 4 days later we poured in a vial of wlp545. During this time we kept the temperature at 60ish for 3 weeks and then raised the temperature to 70F for one week then placed the beer into a secondary. Once we moved to the secondary we took another hydrometer reading and only had a drop to .047. I was hoping for at least .030. We were planing on doing the following. Crash the beer to 50F for two weeks to get everything out of suspension and then raise the temperature back to 60 and place in another starter made from 1 vial of wlp545 along with yeast nutrients. After a week do another diacetyl rest and then bottle. Good idea?

2

The Pub / Cellar decided to become a sauna

« on: May 21, 2013, 04:14:41 PM »

So, the place I cellar my beer, the only place in my one bedroom apt that stayed near 60F year round, has decided to jump to 82+F ! I have some beers in there and never had this happen before. They did some remodeling outside so I am wondering if that affected things. Really new to the cellaring of beer. I can just now afford it...kind of. Would you guys recommend....

A) don't worry about it. It's dark the beer can stay in there.
or
B) when I visit my parents place this Friday bring the beers with me to store there. They have air conditioning but the beer won't be readily available.

I don't know why but the only place in my apartment that use to stay a constant temperature is doing so no more. I was able to get my hand on a few nice beers I wanted to age and of course I am now having this problem. The only reason I am aging them is that I was saving them till I truly wanted them or for a special occasion. If the temperature influx has probably already caused spoilage I have no problem drinking them now I just don't want to.  Just wondering what you guys would recommend.

3

Other Fermentables / Still semi sweet mead taste like pyment?

« on: May 19, 2013, 05:21:33 PM »

So...my mead taste good but not to style. I can't figure out how my mead taste like a pymnet? It has a very nice, but not what i wanted, winey taste along with the honey.  Is it the honey? I used WLP007 yeast as well. It smelled as I wanted it to taste but had a winey taste.  All I did was take 5 gallons of water and drop in 10 lbs of honey. Then just added oxygen, yeast nutrients and the starter and left it alone for 4.5 months. Any help would be appreciated because I have no idea how I did that without affecting the smell by just mixing together yeast, water and honey.

4

All Grain Brewing / Better beer through knowledge.

« on: May 13, 2013, 08:19:44 AM »

Yesterday I basically made a brew out of some left over grain I had hanging around so I could really play with my equipment and understand it and try to raise my efficiency. Did not really care about the brew as much as understand how much dead space I really had, how much truly boiled off in an hour, yada yada. During the brewing process I realized that when I do my decoction mash I never hit my wanted temp. I was usually off by 5F. Is there a formula out there to know how much mash you should pull and what temp to heat it up to so you get the right temp you are looking for? Just wondering how other people do it and preferably do it right. Just in case you need to know, I had roughly ten lbs of grain in 3.25 gallons of water and pulled 4 quarts of mash to do the decoction.

5

General Homebrew Discussion / Time to brew....coffee

« on: April 21, 2013, 06:11:37 AM »

I was going to brew my morning coffee and while I was filling my pot with tap water it came to mind. I spend all this time and energy understanding brewing water for beer. What about coffee and tea? I hoped on google and maybe it was the frustration of trying to do research on a Ipad but I could not find anything. Do we have any coffee geeks who can ansewer this question? Does checmical composition of your brewing water for coffee and tea have an overall effect on the outcome of your cup of coffee or tea?

6

General Homebrew Discussion / Need to clean bathtub...

« on: February 20, 2013, 05:04:31 AM »

The only place I can sanitize my keg, fill it with water, is the bathtub using the shower head...the joys of homebrewing in a small apartment. Anyways, I now have all these scuff marks in my porcelain (I believe it is porcelain. Just a regular white bathtub)  bathtub from the bottom of my corny keg. Is there something I can buy at Wal-Mart to get rid of these? I tried a few items and nothing seems to get rid of them.

7

General Homebrew Discussion / Can't understand water....thats why I drink beer

« on: January 11, 2013, 06:51:50 PM »

I am starting to get into creating my own water and need to know if this is suppose to happen. When I put brewer's chalk into my water it settles to the bottom. I thought it was suppose to dissolve more into the solution. I only put in roughly 2.5 grams for five gallons. The best solution i came up with is stir it up. When that failed I went to plan B which was to stir it up again longer and faster...that also failed, is chalk suppose to settle out or stay in suspension?

8

All Grain Brewing / Dough-In

« on: July 26, 2012, 09:32:20 AM »

Finally making the leap to AG. Decided to make a Southern Brown Ale since that was the first recipe I created to get away from kits. I have been googling and searching for an answer to a question and I don't know if I'm using the wrong words but I can't find anything on this subject that I trust. For AG what is the proper water temp for dough-in? I am basically going to do a simple one-step Saccrification mash for my first batch, so I can learn how to use the equipment and the the like, and don't know were the dough-in temperature comes into play?

Also, has anyone else looked at an old recipe and said to themselves "what the hell was I thinking?!" while remembering how proud you were of that said recipe?

9

Kegging and Bottling / Kegging and Temp Changes

« on: May 15, 2012, 09:38:16 AM »

My friend received a Kolsch kit for Christmas from his brother.....but no equipment to actually make the beer. Being a good friend I said he can use mine and will help him in the process. Anyways, the beer is finished and the keg has been in my fridge for a while now taking up space and I want to move it. Right now it has been forced carbonated to 2.7 at 43F. I want to move the keg to my storage location in my apartment that can have a range of temperature from 50 to 75. Should I relieve some of the pressure and maybe set it at 5 PSI or is keeping it at 16 PSI better? I'm new to kegging and have never ran into the problem of having a keg of beer I had to store. I'm basically trying to do what he wants without ruining his first batch of beer he made and is going to share with his family. Also, I don’t know if this makes a difference but there is only 1.5 gallons in the corny.  He wanted to bottle most of it. He should be picking up everything by June 9th. I forgot to add this but I take it the the change in temperature will have an affect on the C02 in the headspace and the beer itself during storage.

10

General Homebrew Discussion / Any suggestions for an odd problem

« on: March 05, 2012, 03:43:11 PM »

I have a weird problem with my stouts and southern brown ales. When I first take one out of the fridge (46 F) they taste extremely sharp and almost as crisp as a pilsner. If I remove it from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature (68ish F) for about 25 to 30 minutes it taste a lot better...and I mean a lot better. I actually kept track of the temperature and once the stout hits 55 F they taste good. Not great but good. I use water from Pittsburgh, make my beer using partial mash and I do bottle ferment; however, the bottles don't enter the fridge till after they seem fully carbonated. The only other beer I learned to make so far without a kit is a trippel and either that sharpness is being disguised or does not happen to that style of beer. Has anyone else had this problem or know how to resolve it? I would like to just have my stout or brown ale without having to decide how many I want and when they should leave the fridge to cool down after a hard day of work.