Messages

2491

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Pressure Canning Wort For Starters

« on: January 16, 2010, 10:45:01 AM »

I also disagree.  I always let it cool down completely on it's own until the little pop-up thingy drops back down (No cheating by removing the weight early).  Even then, when I take the jars out, the liquid inside them continues to bubble and boil for another 10-15 minutes.

2492

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Yeast Culturing

« on: January 16, 2010, 08:23:24 AM »

Thirsty monk what is the shipping from cynmar if you don't mind me asking..

Just looked at my cynmar order from back in August.  Shipping was $9.95 on $59.15 worth of stuff which I don't consider overly steep.  And yeah, like Kai says, their quantities are geared toward bigger orders.  That's not a bad thing, though, as I've found tons of uses for the 12-pack of 150ml beakers

2493

Ingredients / Re: Base malt for irish red ale

« on: January 15, 2010, 08:51:07 PM »

Marris Otter for mine too.  Brewing my Irish Red this Sunday as a matter of fact.

2494

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: cleaning

« on: January 15, 2010, 12:41:11 PM »

What type of cleaner is Bar Keepers Friend?

It's a powdered non-chlorine cleaner for all surfaces.  I primarily use it for cleaning stainless steel (ie. my brew kettle).

You can find out all you want to know at...

http://www.barkeepersfriend.com/

2495

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Pressure Canning Wort For Starters

« on: January 15, 2010, 12:07:30 PM »

do you have to chill the starter wort before putting them in the mason jars and pressure canning?  While I realize the jars can handle boiling temps, would the jars be able to handle the shock of putting near boiling wort in them?

If you read the instructions closely on the step-by-step of pressure canning, most recommend that you put your empty jars in room temp water and bring that to a boil and then remove them and fill them with your hot stuff.  I suppose that's their way of avoiding the shock.  That said, though, I've never done that as it seems too many extra steps and I've never had problems with thermal shock from mash temp wort.

2496

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Yeast Farms

« on: January 15, 2010, 11:14:15 AM »

I've only just started so I've only got five varieties.  I keep three slants of each (probably going to back that down to two per).  As far as space, each vial that holds the slant isn't a whole lot bigger than a chapstick.

2497

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing this week: weekend of Jan 15

« on: January 15, 2010, 08:38:35 AM »

yep, the only point of the "swelling" is to verify that you've got viable yeast in the smack pack.  If you're making a starter (which you should pretty much always do), you'll verify the viability with it instead so no need to wait for the swelling.

2498

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing this week: weekend of Jan 15

« on: January 15, 2010, 08:06:01 AM »

Started stepping up a slant of WY1084 to use in the Irish Red I'll be brewing Sunday.

2499

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Pressure Canning Wort For Starters

« on: January 15, 2010, 07:30:58 AM »

I used to be one of them and pressure canners are not necessarily cheap.

Here's mine, I'd put $80 close to the "cheap" category, especially since you can also use it for regular canning.

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-23-Quart-Aluminum-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B0000BYCFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1263565577&sr=8-1-spell

2500

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Zymurgy Prize Giveaway Contest

« on: January 14, 2010, 07:50:47 PM »

I'm in too..   that was easy!

2501

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: US-05 Yeast

« on: January 14, 2010, 10:09:17 AM »

I brewed a blonde ale 11 days ago and pitched two packages of the yeast after rehydrating in a half cup starter. The thing kicked off extremely fast. I had full fermentation within 12 hours or less

Also, 12 hours??? What temp did you pitch and ferment? I pitch US-05 fairly cool (low 60s, high 50s sometimes) nd keep very cool fermentation temps. I use it regularly and for me this is a slower fermenting strain. Overpitching and pitching warm can certainly accelerate fermentation - but 12 hours is crazy short. As you probably know an extremely short fermentation does not necessarily make the best tasting beer.

Major- looks like you dropped his next sentence when you quoted him.  The full quote should be

I had full fermentation within 12 hours or less. In three days the vigorous fermentation stopped.

Sounds like he's saying fermentation was going full-speed in 12 hours but didn't complete until three days.  That sounds a little more reasonable.

2502

Ingredients / Re: Correctly reading ph test strips

« on: January 13, 2010, 08:30:40 PM »

Nope - what's being said is that the strips read the same at room and mash temp (no difference) and read 0.3 low, so the 5.3 likely is 5.6.

Dang, forgot the 0.3 low.  How's this?  The reading on the test strip, whether tested at room temp or mash temp, will correspond to the "mash temp ph" which should be targeted to be between 5.1 and 5.4.

Then his 5.3 is a good reading.

2503

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Yeast Culturing

« on: January 13, 2010, 08:21:30 PM »

At least the loop is really small also.  You can get a lot of "loopfulls" of yeast off of one slant 

2504

Ingredients / Re: Correctly reading ph test strips

« on: January 13, 2010, 08:15:09 PM »

If I get lucky my mash with colorpHast at room temp reads 5.3.
Normally it reads 5.0

So, if I understand all this discussion, the strip reading 5.3 at room temp (means 5.0 at mash temp) is lower than you would want.  Have you ever experimented with adding chalk or baking soda (both of which I think would raise the ph) to get your reading into the 5.4 to 5.6 range at room temp?

2505

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Recipe ownership?

« on: January 13, 2010, 07:43:48 PM »

Are we just talking about something like what I did with one of mine?

http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/PigHoleRobustPorter