Topics

16

All Grain Brewing / more efficiency questions...

« on: January 22, 2013, 09:57:25 am »

Hi All. So I brewed an all munich pale ale yesterday and overshot my average efficiency by about 10 points and got my highest efficiency ever. I have a feeling it may be due getting my grain from a different shop. Their mills seem to be set to a smaller gap width since it took a lot longer to mill the grain. This aside, I have some process questions and how much they contribute to efficiency.

My mash water and sparge water volumes were almost identical. I have heard that this can increase efficiency. Any truth to this?

I batch sparge. When adding 180F sparge water the mash stabalized at 168. I try to hit 168-170 regularly but sometimes am not successful.

Any feedback would be much appreciated as I am going a bit crazy. My last batch was at about 66% efficiency while yesterday's was about 79%. It has become hard for me to predict my OGs which is really throwing a wrench in recipe design.

17

Ingredients / Lemongrass

« on: January 16, 2013, 09:56:36 am »

I am hoping to get some advice on how to prepare and how much lemongrass to use for a 5 gallon batch. My initial idea is to chop up about an ounce and throw it in with 5 minutes remaining in the boil.

I have not used lemongrass in any way before so any advice would be great. Are there certain parts I should use and others I should not?

18

Ingredients / briess special roast

« on: January 10, 2013, 05:37:57 pm »

Hey all. I have brewed what I call a black ale that is very similar to a robust porter using about 8.3% special roast. After a month in the bottle, there is a slight whisky and raisin like character that is present. It almost takes like it was barrel aged or something. Although this characteristic isn't bad it also isn't what I intended.

After looking at the description for special roast, it includes sour and tangy so I assume it is coming from that.

Has anyone else experienced this when using special roast? Also, would brown malt be an acceptable sub to get rid of this flavor but keep some of the biscuit/nutty notes?

19

Ingredients / midnight wheat yield

« on: December 28, 2012, 05:18:12 pm »

Anyone know what the extract potential or yield is for midnight wheat? I have seen everything from 1.025 to 1.032 and Briess doesn't list it in their pdf specs.

20

Ingredients / hop blends - Zythos

« on: December 21, 2012, 05:35:23 pm »

I have a basic question about hop blends and Zythos in particular. Since they are blends are they pretty consistent year to year? I would assume that like normal hops, the AA changes but the characteristics are meant to stay pretty consitent.

Sorry I don't have any experience with hop blends but gearing up to do a Zythos pale ale soon. If they are good, I am thinking abou using them a lot in place of the hops that are expensive or hard to get that I love so much.

21

Kegging and Bottling / bottling small amount from full batch

« on: December 11, 2012, 02:46:05 pm »

What is the best way to only bottle a six pack or so from a full batch? I am taking the batch to my friends to keg for a New Year's party but want some for myself in order to get good tasting notes, etc.

I am thinking about transferring the full batch to the bottling bucket and adding priming sugar as normal then bottling enough to get the remaining volume to 5 gallons. I will have to clean and sanitize the fermenting bucket then transfer back to it for transportation. I don't have a lid for the bottling bucket... The 5 gallons will be transferred to keg and conditioned in a fridge so I don't think the priming sugar will affect much. Is this a bad idea? I think it will be easier than measuring an amount of priming sugar for such a small amount of beer. I could see having difficulty with the final product's carb.

Any thoughts?

22

Kegging and Bottling / using gelatin when bottling

« on: November 14, 2012, 09:57:17 am »

Hey guys. In the past I was advised not to use gelatin when bottling due to possble carbing issues. I am sure this topic is posted up here somewhere but I was too lazy to look around.

Honestly, I have more issues keeping the settled yeast out of the glass but I was just curious as to what the consensus is with this. When I was kegging, I would use whirlfloc at the end of the boil and gelatin when racking to the keg. This gave great results. Now that I am back to bottling, I just use whirlfloc. My clarity is actually pretty good but always looking to improve...

Any input or advice?

23

All Grain Brewing / bitterness ratio question

« on: November 09, 2012, 11:58:58 am »

I am trying to duplicate a pale ale that I brewed a few months back. It had a bitterness ratio of .700. When brewing this I am pretty sure my efficiency will be lower than it was that time due to location changes. I would actually prefer a lower OG so I am okay with that.

My question is should I adapt the recipe to matching the bitterness ratio or just try to match the IBUs? With my estimate efficiency the new attempt would be .745. I am kind of afraid to drop the IBUs in case my efficiency is higher than I expected.

Should I even worry about it? Will a change in .050 even be noticeable? Trying to be able to duplicate recipes to the tee which is the only reason I am even worried about it....

24

Beer Recipes / American Saison

« on: November 08, 2012, 11:32:45 am »

I think I have decided to go with a more normal saison instead of the saison de noel which I had previously posted about.

70% Pilsner
10% Munich
10% wheat
10% table sugar

14 g Centennial FWH
7 g Magnum 60 min
14 g Columbus 15 min
14 g Centennial 10 min
14 g Cascade 5 min
14 g Goldings 0 min

WY3711 French Saison

OG 1.059
IBUs 37
SRM 5

I know the hop scheduled is probably overly complicated. I want to conserve some types and not use them all up at once which is kind of why I chose to do it this way. I have about 2 oz of goldings that I never use so I just decided to throw some in at flame out. Obviously going for an "american" saison here.

Any input?

25

Ingredients / Bravo Hops?

« on: November 01, 2012, 12:00:32 pm »

Anyone have any experience with them? I am looking for replacement hops for Simcoe and Amarillo.

I just bought 2 oz of Zythos and Bravo since the descriptions seem similar

26

Beer Recipes / Saison de Noel part II

« on: November 01, 2012, 10:56:52 am »

I see a post was started earlier so this is related. I am planning to do a Saison de Noel next. I have never brewed a Saison of any type so any help would be appreciated. From what I undestand, Saison de Noel is just a higher gravity, maltier, darker version of a Saison. Is this correct? I wasn't sure what to use for guidelines so Biere de Garde seemed close... How does this look so far?

10# Pilsner
1# Munich
1# Wheat
1/2# Caravienne
1/4# Carafa III
1# table sugar

OG 1.067
IBUs 36
SRM 16

I know the wheat may be out of place but seems to be okay. What about the caravienne?

I plan to mash at 148-150 for 75 minutes and use WY3711 with the goal of getting it to finish below 1.010

Any input?

27

Yeast and Fermentation / Wyeast 3711 French Saison

« on: October 30, 2012, 02:50:52 pm »

Hi All. Thinking about doing a Saison de Noel before xmas. I have never done a saison of any type so I am wondering about WY3711. Can anyone who has used it give me their impressions? Would you recommend it over the Belgian Saison strain? What kind of attenuation should I expect? The average is listed at 80% and I want to get as much as possible.

Would you recommend any other yeast to brew this style?

28

Yeast and Fermentation / short term yeast storage

« on: October 26, 2012, 10:39:06 am »

Hi All. I am bottling a batch today and brewing another tomorrow. I would like to use the US05 yeast cake for tomorrow's batch. After racking into the bottling bucket, I plan to put the lid back on the fermenter bucket and put it in the fridge until tomorrow afternoon. I don't really want to take the time to put it in a mason jar for such a short period of time. I don't see any issues with this as long as I keep the yeast away from the open air for too long...

Anything I should be worried about? What temp would be best for the yeast for a bit over 24 hours?

29

Beer Recipes / basic amber ale recipe help

« on: October 23, 2012, 02:42:25 pm »

So I have never brewed an Amber Ale for some reason. I was given some homegrown pumpkins recently so I decide to do a pumpkin ale with a pretty simple Amber as the base. I am going for something reasonably light colored and sweet. I will only be using bittering hops due the "pumpkin/spices" aspect of the beer. I am going lighter on the spices than usual as well due to the lighter nature of this beer.

The basic recipe is:
77% two row
13% crystal
5% honey malt
5% flaked oats
bitter to ~27 IBUs with Nugget

Estimates
OG 1.054
IBUs 27
SRM 12.5

I know the oats probably aren't normal which is fine by me. I was going to decrease some of the crystal and add a small amount of pale chocoloate for mostly for color. I am trying to avoid any dark/roasted character in this beer. My other thought is possibly subbing some of the two row for munich. Any thoughts on the grain bill? I am trying to keep it relatively simple which is why am debating on whether or not to add the pale chocolate or munich.

30

Ingredients / spices for Holiday Ale?

« on: October 23, 2012, 12:00:18 pm »

Can anyone recommend some spices to use for Holiday Ales? I am actually brewing a pumpkin ale but since it is pretty late, I was thinking about adding some additional spices to give it have a "holiday" influence.

I was thinking about using the normal spices for a pumpkin ale and adding some sweet orange peel and maybe some star anise or something. I am doing a pretty light colored amber ale as the base beer with no dark or roasted malts. The goal is to have a pretty subtle spice influence so I am cutting the amount of spices pretty much in half from the pumpkin porter I did last year. Any input?