Topics

61

General Homebrew Discussion / Fining With SuperKleer

« on: February 02, 2011, 08:44:19 AM »

I know gelatin is the most often used fining agent in beer, but there are a number of other products on the market.  I tried fining a rye APA with Superkleer, a two part product consisting of kieselsol and chitosan.  The negatively charged kieselsol (silica gel) is added to the beer and stirred, then after awhile you add the positively charged chitosan and this results in charge interaction and coagulation.  It seemed to work well on this beer, and it cleared within a few days at room temp (60F right now).  I've used this stuff on my wine before, which is why I had it on hand.  You might be able to just use the chitosan since most of the stuff you want to drop out (protein, yeast) is negatively charged.  I think the kieselsol does help speed the process though.

62

General Homebrew Discussion / Gap in the BJCP Weizens?

« on: January 27, 2011, 04:44:33 PM »

I was checking out the BJCP style guidelines  The weizen has a color range of 2-8 SRM, the dunkelweizen has a color range of 14-23.  I hadn't noticed this before.  Where does a German wheat beer that has a color of 10-12 SRM fall?  Is it "take your pick"?  What other characteristics can I use to decide what category to enter a beer? 

63

General Homebrew Discussion / Brewing Salts Content of Briess DME/LME

« on: January 24, 2011, 02:50:10 PM »

This came up recently in a discussion of extract brewing and water treatment.  No one seemed to have the answer offhand so I emailed Briess and asked the question.  They were kind enough to reply with the following information:

"We do not regularly test our products for these salts, but we do
occasionally test the water used in our mash. Sulfate is around 63mg/L
and Chloride around 28 mg/L. Since we produce 16 Plato wort (Gravity
1.064), you can calculate that for every 1 Plato increase (Gravity .004)
from extract you use you will be adding approximately SO4=4mg/L and
Cl=1.8mg/L to your brew. The water that we use is of moderate hardness,
but since we make high gravity brews, the hardness will be lower if you
brew a beer below 1.064 using distilled water."

I thought this was good information and wanted to share.

64

All Grain Brewing / Aging or Getting Used To a Flavor?

« on: January 22, 2011, 03:24:07 PM »

It seems that I always start out a keg with a crticism or two.  Then as I drink along, it starts getting better and better.  The latest was a pils style, the first few beers had a hint of diacetyl (in spite of a generous rest) and was slightly sweet.  Now I'm halfway through the keg (3gal to start with) and its really growing on me.  This beer had a three week lager (including an unintentional freezing) and was super clear right out of the gate.  Now the diacetyl seems to have subsided (if that was what it was) and the beer is just wonderful.

This happens with a lot of different styles so I'm wondering if its just me becoming accustomed to the new flavors.  Not complaining, just wondering why this is the case.  I've read that other people can tell when a keg is starting to kick when it really tastes great.  Is it aging/clearing or just pyschological?

65

General Homebrew Discussion / Shotgunning a Competition?

« on: January 20, 2011, 09:18:48 AM »

I'm a complete newb at comps, and I heard this term "shotgunning" ahwile back.  I gathered at the time it described someone who had multiple entries in a comp, and that it was frowned upon to some extent.

My question is, what is proper etiquette regarding number of entries for a beer comp?  Or is it really no big deal?  Any other constraints, like not entering more than one of a particular style?

I was going to enter two beers in an upcoming contest, but I have probably four or five that might be worthy (still evaluating, thats tough work).

66

Kegging and Bottling / Stupid Leaky Poppets

« on: January 14, 2011, 05:18:15 PM »

I moved a picnic tap off my wonderful Best Bitter, and tonight I see a good half gallon of this brew in the bottom of my keezer.  Darn! X10.  Should I be replacing the poppets in the beer out side, or should I be inspecting the metal exterior of that connection?  its a ball lock keg.  I took one out of service not that long ago for this same reason.  Maybe I should buy more picnic taps and take the leaks out of the picture.

67

All Grain Brewing / Rice Hulls?

« on: January 13, 2011, 07:42:15 PM »

Do these work for you?  I've used them and never thought they did anything but soak up more wort.  I don't get many stuck mashes, and if I do I'll just stir and vorlauf again.  I also have good luck raking the top of the grain bed.

68

General Homebrew Discussion / Swirling The Contents of Your Carboy

« on: January 13, 2011, 06:32:12 AM »

I am a self-confessed yeast rouser.  When I see a lovely 4" krausen on a fermenting wort I just have to go rouse it by swirling the carboy.  I don't agitate wth caviation but the cicrcular action is enough to get the settled material off the bottom and moving.  I didn't used to be so moved to partake in this practice, but in switching from buckets to carboys I now have a great visual that triggers my OCD.

I know htat rousing yeast can be a technique for getting better attenuation in big beers, but do you think it has any negative (or positive) effects on an average beer? 

69

General Homebrew Discussion / Frozen Lager

« on: January 07, 2011, 04:44:32 PM »

I'm just using a smal firdge to lager, and after a few days of not opening it the temp dropped below 30F and apparently that was enough to freeze my two German lagers.  Does this do irreperable harm?  I have the corny kegs out thawing and will put them back after adjusting the thermostat (knob with numbers).

70

General Homebrew Discussion / Da Vinci Syrup for Fruit Beer

« on: January 07, 2011, 10:14:13 AM »

My wife likes fruit beers and its something I brew now and then to keep her happy.  They are kind of unstable though, you invariably get a second fermentation and while thats going on they are yeasty, and when its over some of the nice aromas are gassed out.  I actually have a cream ale I'm brewing now, that I'm going to dose with fresh strawberries and put in my serving fridge to prevent refermentation.

We had some Da Vinci sugar-free raspberry syrup in the cabinet and when I poured her a hefe I thought it would be interesting to add a touch of this.  I'd used it once before on a Berlinner Weisse and enjoyed it.  Well she really liked it so I now have a good way of making her fruit beer while keeping the base beer drinkable as well.  I also think that since its sugar-free, you could add it and bottle or keg and it would remain stable.  It tastes quite a bit better than extracts I've used.  There are a lot of flavors of these syrups too.

71

All Grain Brewing / Batch Sparging With Distilled Water?

« on: January 07, 2011, 10:05:21 AM »

I did this for the first time a few days ago when I brewed a cream ale, so I don't know if there was a negative effect.  I used my tap water and salts for the mash, but didn't have bottled water until my wife got home from the store.  I wanted the final salt levels to be what I'd already added so I batch sparged with the distilled.  My rationale was that the mash still had salts in the bound water, so I wouldn't leach tannins.

Any experiences or advice concerning this approach?  Obviously it would have been safer to blend the  tap and distilled for both mash and sparge.  I'll report back when I taste this batch.

72

General Homebrew Discussion / Dornbusch's Advice for Alt?

« on: January 01, 2011, 06:56:12 AM »

I've now read his altbier style book written in '98 and noticed he espouses some dogma that is now being questioned (eg, hot side aeration.)  I have a couple of questions regarding his advice, that I was hoping to solicit opinions on.

First, he spends a good deal of time emphasizing the need for a protein rest, and lays out some good reasoning.  I have been under the impression that today's malts, even the German malts, are well-modified and as such no longer need to have this protein rest and that it can even be detrimental.  Is this the case, or should I be doing a protein rest for this style?  Not sure how much German malting methods have changed in the last twelve years.

Second, he mentions the need to lager on yeast.  I have been reading that people typically keg and force-carb prior to lagering, which would seem to be at odds with his advice (although he does call for racking a time or two during lagering).  I am doing a diacetyl rest on my alt right now (low 60's after 10 days at 56F), should I lager the primary or rack to keg and lager in that?  His reasoning seems less intuitively appealing on this, since the idea of yeast doing much metabolism at 40F and lower seems unlikely and reduction of gasses like H2S would occur slower since the solubility of gas is greater at lower temps.

I'm not badmouthing this book, in fact for a style book it has a lot of excellent information on general brewing (mash pH, calculating SRM/IBU) as well as great info on alts.  Just looking to do the right things to get a nice altbier.

73

General Homebrew Discussion / How Do You Balance Late Additions?

« on: December 23, 2010, 07:41:30 AM »

I know to use AAs to calculate IBUs for bittering, but in another thread it was mentioned that the super high-alpha hops have a lot of oils in general and can overpower other hops from a flavor/aroma standpoint.  I'd never considered that there might be concentration effects in late additions.  When I use combinations of hops for the 15 and 5min adds, its generally just equal amounts.

My question is, do you adjust the amount of each according to AAU, or do you look up total oil content, or do you just use amounts based on taste experience?  And do you think certain combinations are good simply because they are similar AAs along with complementary flavors?

74

General Homebrew Discussion / First Pull Off My Solera

« on: December 22, 2010, 05:12:47 PM »

Last March I bottled a zin wine that I had in an 11gal Hungarian oak barrel, and decided that I'd try to make this into a solera.  I added some fresh-brewed wort, some lambic blend, and periodically added some dregs from a few commercial lambics/krieks.  Today I pulled 3gal out of this barrel.  Its just 9 months old but the beer has some complexity and no major flaws.  Some tartness, a nice funk and a distinct sherry note that is obviously from the wine residue.  I'll bottle the beer tomorrow using champagne style bottles and corks.  I refilled the barrel with some beer newly fermented with Roeselare and topped it up with a 3mth-old lambic brewed from a Boon Oude Kriek dregs that was already quite tart.

This pull was bound to be good, as time goes on it'll be an open question whether this method produces an interesting and tasty wild brew.

75

General Homebrew Discussion / Picking This Year's Pale Ale Hop Blend

« on: December 20, 2010, 06:12:16 PM »

Last year ('09) for late additions I used a blend of Sorachi Ace, Simcoe, Amarillo, and Columbus.  I mostly bittered with Magnum, and those were some some tasty APAs.

This year I used Summit, Centennial and Citra for my late additions, and switched to Chinook for bittering late in the summer.  I don't think I've made an APA that I really liked as well as last year's blend.  Its more harsh yet lacks depth of flavor, I think it is maybe a lack of piney flavor that I'm missing.  I'll be ordering up a new batch of hops for the coming year and I'll probably go back to some of the varieties I enjoyed in 09, possibly keeping Chinook as my bittering hop since my last purchase is still fairly fresh.

What are some of your favorite blends for APA's?  I'm considering my options for the new year.