Messages

1

Homebrew Competitions / Re: NHC Competition question...

« on: March 17, 2013, 03:42:00 PM »

I told you I was blind.     

Thanks.

2

Homebrew Competitions / Re: NHC Competition question...

« on: March 17, 2013, 01:49:47 PM »

I must be blind...
I registered a beer and a mead, all paid up, no edits required... but I just want to print the labels so I can ship my entries.  Every link from the rules/regs goes to http://www.brewingcompetition.com/
No link to login on that page, and the few generic guesses I tried didn't work, ie. http://www.brewingcompetition.com/login

Anybody have a better link?

3

Ingredients / Re: Post your water report

« on: October 09, 2012, 11:05:56 AM »

Thanks for the replies.  The sample submitted was out of the kitchen faucet, and that is the water that goes through the softener, so it may be that the sodium level is being increased quite significantly from that.  I may submit a sample with pure well water from the outside tap.

The well is hardrock (granite) drilled at about 240 foot depth.  The well was drilled in 1974.

We have talked about getting an RO system, but the majority of them are so inefficient.  I did find that Costco carries a 'no-waste' RO system, but I haven't looked into it all that much.  Any recommendations on RO systems?

4

Ingredients / Re: Post your water report

« on: October 02, 2012, 08:34:54 PM »

Finally got my well tested at our new (well, it's old... built in 1924) house in the foothills west of Denver.  Anyone care to give a brief opinion of the water?  This is a new aspect to brewing that I will have to focus in on in the months to come.

pH 8.3
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 774
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 1.29
Cations / Anions, me/L 12.5 / 13.3
Sodium, Na 243
Potassium, K 4
Calcium, Ca 19
Magnesium, Mg 11
Total Hardness, CaCO3 93
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1
Sulfate, SO4-S 106
Chloride, Cl 56
Carbonate, CO3 12
Bicarbonate, HCO3 285
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 254

5

Other Fermentables / Re: Mead shelf life

« on: August 02, 2012, 03:06:36 PM »

I recently opened a 15 year old bottle of mead, and it was beyond fantastic. 
That said, in general I never open a bottle of mead until it is 5 years old. 
10 years is even better.

What kind of corks do you use for aging that long?

6

Other Fermentables / Re: Bottled when I should have racked again??

« on: July 23, 2012, 01:01:48 PM »

1. Do nothing

The only downside is that you have a pea-sized powder dusting and you'll get a slightly cloudy pour at the end of the bottle.  Who cares?  Appearance is just a pretty-factor.

7

Beer Recipes / Re: Dark Fig Saison

« on: July 23, 2012, 08:48:43 AM »

I've mentioned this before....a great way to use figs is to wait til fermentation is done.  Then caramelize the fogs in a super red hot wok and deglaze with some of the beer.  Put all of that in a secondary fermenter and rack the beer onto it.  Let it go a couple weeks.

This was my method with a dubbel.  Fantastic result.  I used rum to deglaze.

8

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Bottling Frenzy

« on: July 23, 2012, 08:42:23 AM »

Done.

The wife and I had an epic high-five afterward.  The kid had no response... so lame. 

9

Beer Recipes / Re: Golden Belgian-Style Recipe

« on: July 19, 2012, 01:03:13 PM »

A friend of mine suggested there might be too much crystal malt in the recipe. 

The recipe:

    2 lb. crystal malt, 10° Lovibond
    2 lb. Belgian aromatic pale malt, 3.5° to 5° Lovibond

That is an awful lot for belgian style golden ale.  I understand you don't necessarily want to subscribe to the bjcp styling, but that's going to finish fairly sweet.  I'd knock that combination to a pound combined at most.

10

Beer Recipes / Re: Golden Lemongrass Farmhouse

« on: July 19, 2012, 12:58:24 PM »

Seems like an awful lot of lemongrass... I've not used fresh though, just dried, so I'm unfamiliar to a certain extent.  It doesn't seem like there's that large of a difference though.  I've used a matter of teaspoons dried...

11

Ingredients / Re: Cherry saison?

« on: July 19, 2012, 12:53:56 PM »

Cherries and brett are wonderful in saison.  I did a split off my lime saison with sour cherries and brett lamb and it was and still is stellar.  I called it cherry limeade.  Fantastic stuff.

12

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Bottling Frenzy

« on: July 17, 2012, 06:20:50 AM »

Glad it's all working out. I'm guessing you don't watch much TV these days.

Never really have.  It's amazing how much time you can waste sitting in front of one of those things.

13

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Bottling Frenzy

« on: July 16, 2012, 08:05:08 AM »

What, no Rune-ation IPA? :-D

I really have no idea how I didn't think of that.  We just drank a bottle of Ruination 10th Anniversary last night, and that did it... I'm going to have to brew Rune-ation IPA.

Only 5 gallons left!  And we don't move for another 2 weeks... I've been quite efficient.

14

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Bottling Frenzy

« on: July 12, 2012, 07:26:26 PM »

Life is crazy!
We had a baby boy on July 2! 
The delivery didn't pan out as we had planned for... we transferred to the hospital due to his heart rate dropping a little too much during contractions.  Still had a natural, unmedicated birth though, so we were happy about that.  Poor little guy couldn't breath right away and had lungs filled with mucus and some air pockets between his lungs and chest cavity (pneumothorax).  So, he had a 5 day stay in the NICU.
We cracked a bottle of Rune's Barleywine in my wife's recovery room on July 2 to celebrate.  It didn't turn out quite as I had expected, but is absolutely delicious.  Kinda like Rune... not born as we had planned for, but is just as wonderful as you could possibly imagine.

We've been home for almost a week now and all are doing well. 

I've been packing and bottling every day.
I only have 10 gallons to go!!!  A rhubarb cider and key lime mead.

So, I'm trying to understand how you had the money for 100 gallons of beer/cider/mead  supplies and fermenters and nothing to bulk package them in?  Only two kegs? Really? You must LOVE to bottle!

Accumulation over the years...  I don't love to bottle, but the cost of kegging is high compared to a nearly free supply of bottles from friends, family, recycling center, etc.  The vast majority of this 100 gallons was long age type stuff... sours, meads, ciders.

What do you have like 20 carboys?  Or large high volume conicals?  Maybe this has already been addressed, but I'm just trying understand your process.

I have a lot.  I think around 10 glass carboys, 2 or 3 of which are 6 gallon, which is the largest volume fermenter I have.  Lots of buckets..

I can't imagine the scenario where 100+ gallons of fermented adult beverages is a problem!

It takes up a lot of space.  Not a problem, just have to find creative solutions. 

15

All Things Food / Re: Oh man, I've been doing Thai food wrong

« on: June 28, 2012, 11:50:55 AM »

We were told this fact while my wife and I were in Thailand by some friends.  Now we know why the curry paste we get from the Asian market says to fry the paste and coconut milk.  We experimented with lowfat coconut milk and it's not quite there.  Still tasty and a little lower on the calorie side, but not the same.
We enjoy that blog.  Lots of good information there.

Edit: We use the same curry paste as she has linked in her post, Maesri.  As far as I'm concerned, it's very high quality.  Our Thai friends (that live here in CO) use that paste as well.