Messages

31

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing This Weekend - 4/7 Edition

« on: April 05, 2013, 03:32:56 PM »

Lets see, this week I brewed a hefeweizen, a best bitter, an altbier and a bock.  I bottled two IPAs, a Berlinner weisse, an American lager anda a Vienna lager.  I have another American lager I need to bottle, and my friend and I are going to keg 15gal of Cali common on Sunday.  I'm catching up on my brewing after workng a lot of overtime in feb.  Focused on lagers while the basement was nice and cool.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Brewing supply store startup

« on: April 03, 2013, 11:59:41 AM »

A guy in the next town over just started one in his wife's curio shop last fall.  He basically set up an account with LD Carlson and started ordering stuff monthly.  Once I met him I tried to steer him to stuff I thought would sell.  He's steadily expanding his line and says his sales are decent even though he's finding out that the markup isn't as good as he's gotten on some of his other business endeavors.  He has also set up a deal for a pallet order that lets our club members order stuff on sale when he's placing an order.  He does this because he pays a flat rate for a pallet so he can order more often and what he does make helps defray shipping costs.  I think he sells a lot of equipment kits, carboys and bottles.  He isn't moving many wine kits, some beer kits, and he is now stocking malt and I don't know how fast that is moving but I buy 10lb every time I make it up there even if I don't really need it.  I really hope he makes a go of it because its a valuable resource for a homebrewer to have in a community.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Brett in Berlinner?

« on: April 02, 2013, 02:48:31 PM »

Guess I should've read the style guidelines a little closer.  Thanks for the replies.  I just bottled a dozen champagne bottles of this stuff as well as six 2L soda bottles.  I think its at least a year old.

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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.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Had to Dump Beer

« on: March 26, 2013, 08:21:04 AM »

Hey, I like Monk's Table. Might steal that!

Glad I could help save a large batch of beer from destruction.  Monks would definitely not approve.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Had to Dump Beer

« on: March 25, 2013, 10:31:52 AM »

Did you purge the kegs of O2 w/Co2? Did you primary ferment in a bucket?

If it makes you feel any better I have 15 bbls of Dubbel that I missed my OG with and can't figure out what to do with. It was my dumb fault for targeting 13 bbls on recipe and brewing it to 15. Tastes fine but boring and not to style and I don't have anything to call it so it's probably going to be dumped. Stuff happens.

NO!  Call it a Belgian Single, or Monk's Table.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: AHA GC Election

« on: March 25, 2013, 10:29:59 AM »

You also need your AHA member number once you get logged in.  I managed to remember my password finally and voted yesterday.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Had to Dump Beer

« on: March 25, 2013, 10:22:01 AM »

Kinda cidery means acetobacter, since its both kegs I'm guessing it happened prior to kegging.  I think the acetic acid must mess with head retention since most sour brews have little head retention.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Using my Homebrew to raise money for charity

« on: March 25, 2013, 04:53:21 AM »

I know fesitvals have been shut down in both IL and MO.  This isn't the same as an individual donating a case of homebrew for a charity auction.  Plus, I asked if anyone has been fined, and these festivals were shut down in advance when a permit was sought.

Agreed, but why subject the charity to a potential problem?  The laws should be relaxed and then we wouldn't have a worry about things that are at most a petty nuisance..

Agreed.  I do think theres a difference between donating something for later consumption, versus pouring beer at an event.  Certainly the latter has more complicating ramifications as far as changing laws.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Using my Homebrew to raise money for charity

« on: March 24, 2013, 05:15:09 AM »

I know fesitvals have been shut down in both IL and MO.  This isn't the same as an individual donating a case of homebrew for a charity auction.  Plus, I asked if anyone has been fined, and these festivals were shut down in advance when a permit was sought.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Using my Homebrew to raise money for charity

« on: March 22, 2013, 02:18:07 PM »

Of course its not legal in most states.  But I would ask, does anyone know of a person who was arrested/fined for this?  As a one-time donation to a charity auction it is really limited and not worth a law enforcement officer's time or effort.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Brewing Class Picking Up Steam

« on: March 22, 2013, 06:09:16 AM »

Another Homebrewing and Beer appreciation class is in the books.  Week 3 we did a mash demo, a bottling demo, and did a tasting of homebrews made by me and a couple other people.  Then last night we finished up with a tour of the local 10bbl microbrewery and a tasting of six of their beers.  I had them take a stab at writing a BJCP judging evaluation on a couple of the beers, that didn't seem to enthuse too many of them but I hope it gave them some insights into what aspects of a beer to think about when assessing a beer.  All nine people seemed to enjoy themselves and wrote positive comments on the course eval forms.

I keep thinking about ways to change up the course.  I might leave this one as is, and maybe offer a second advanced brewing course where I go more into malt selection, hops selection, reusing yeast, water chemistry, mashing techniques, and kegging.  Not positive how many people would sign up for this, but a second course would be a way to recycle some of my previous students.

I am also thinking about having a beer appreciation course where I would purchase classic examples and we would get together and taste them.  That'd be a lot of fun too.  Of course the problem there is that no alcohol is allowed on premises at the college but we could do this at the local homebrew shop.  I could even do this as a one-off thing where we would do a specific beer style once a month and the participants would just pay for the one session.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Contact time for Potassium Metabisulfite

« on: March 20, 2013, 02:01:46 PM »

I've done many sours/lambics, and cleaning with PBW plus sanitizing with Starsan has always worked for me.  I do keep a separate autosiphon for them but thats about it.  I've successfully sanitized plastic buckets, Better Bottles and certainly glass carboys.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Contact time for Potassium Metabisulfite

« on: March 20, 2013, 10:35:21 AM »

Kmeta won't work in beer because you need a pH below 4.0 for it to produce any decent quantity of SO2.  Above that it is ineffective.  some wines are up close to 4.0 and you have to add a rather large dose of kmeta for it to produce enough free SO2.

As for a sanitizer, if you add some acid to your mix it will work fine.  Be careful of the fumes, it'll smell of sulfur from the SO2.  A couple spoonfuls of acid blend or even viniegar, of course you'll have to rinse afterwards.  You could probably use phosphoric and not rinse as long as you drain it well.  Typically a concnetration of 1% kmeta in acidified water is used as a sanitizer for winemaking.  as for contact time, a few seconds is all it'll take to sanitize.

I use starsan, much easier.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Mississippi homebrew bill clears house and is sent to Governor's desk to sign

« on: March 20, 2013, 05:54:17 AM »

Congrats to MS homebrewers, I'm sure its easier to RDWHAHB when its legal to do so.