Messages

91

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Tips on keeping wort cool?

« on: April 02, 2013, 07:12:46 AM »

If you're able to keep it steady around 68-72 you're doing pretty well with it and trying to keep it a perfectly even temperature might be very difficult, especially while you are at work or asleep. As ynotbrusum pointed out, you really only need temperature control during the first 48-72 hours, assuming you pitched an adequate amount of yeast so fermentation is starting shortly after you pitched. If you underpitch and the yeast are building their numbers for the first 48 hours you need to account for that additional time.

I couldn't ever get really great results with the bucket of water and ice packs method. It gets way too hot in Texas, even with the AC running because we're just not going to set the AC down in the 60s because it would be way, way too expensive. It's also too humid to do the swamp cooler thing with the t-shirt and a fan. It would just get muggy around the fermentor and it seemed to make it warmer instead of cooler. You probably don't have as serious of humidity but depending on the part of California you might have much hotter days ahead of you. With most ale yeast I wouldn't want it to get over 70-72 so unless you can keep it cooler during the hotter months you'll either have to brew with strains that do better with warmer temperatures or take a break from brewing until it cools off.

One way you can help cool off the fermentor is to drape a towel or shirt over the fermentor so it sits in the water. As the water soaks up into the cloth the air current in the room with blow through it and create cool air. You may need to set your AC to blow on it or use a fan to blow air in that direction. It won't work if you have a lot of humidity but you might have better luck than I did.

You can also enclose the fermentor and the bathtub or a smaller tub of water in insulation with an AC vent. If you have vents on the floor you can put the fermentor next to the vent and box both in together. If you have AC vents in the ceiling you you would have to get creative about how to direct that cold air down to the fermentor. Not sure if that would get it too cool but it certainly would keep it cooler than ambient temperatures.

Ultimately you will probably ditch the water method if you're having a hard time keeping it cool but for your first few batches it doesn't hurt to go with the economical system and work on improving other parts of your brewing technique.

92

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: What's your home yeast lab look like?

« on: April 02, 2013, 06:53:37 AM »

I'm not very sterile, I just operate in my kitchen with the HVAC turned off and lots of star san getting sprayed on everything. I use the typical flask and some two and four dram vials that I use both for freezing yeast and for growing up very small cultures. Mason jars (covered with foil) are used as small fermentors for testing out new strains and I can bottle six to eight ounces of beer as a tasting sample.

If I had the space and the money (both I hope to have available in coming years) I'd follow the advice in Yeast and set up a nicer system. Given how fantastic some of the brew stands and mash systems some homebrewers are working with, I expect to see some very nice yeast labs in this thread.

93

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Brett Saison and bottle conditioning

« on: April 02, 2013, 06:45:29 AM »

Brett will also work on the esters, hop compounds and alcohols once it eats the remaining starches and sugars. I do not believe it converts the esters, hop compounds or alcohols to gas but you will get some flavor compounds out of them.

I would go in with the assumption that brett will ferment out the last two points. It might take some time (maybe even months) before the remaining sugar and starches are fully fermented so depending on your expected timeframe for drinking the beer you may not want to fully discount the priming sugar for the remaining two points. Personally I like to keep some of those brett beers around to see how they evolve but I bottle them in sturdier glass than the typical 12oz bottle.

94

Classifieds / Re: "BrewFlex" home brewery made from SoloFlex

« on: April 01, 2013, 06:56:54 AM »

Dang that is a fantastic system. I'm sure you'll have no problem selling that.

95

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Craft beer sociology

« on: April 01, 2013, 06:45:03 AM »

There's a lot about the craft beer movement and homebrewing that's tied to larger social movements away from the industrialized, one-size-fits-all production that dominated the twentieth century. The craft beer industry is only driven by those trends. It's also driven by market trends. Right now there's still a lot of demand for more beers and plenty of people who can be converted to craft drinkers. As a result, there's a lot of competitors in the market but not a lot of direct competition between brewers for market space. As regional markets reach saturation through either a sufficient number of competitors and/or expansion of existing breweries we'll see if the cooperative attitude remains, how many breweries fall off and how many breweries expand into a larger role.

96

Beer Recipes / Re: Check my recipe?

« on: March 28, 2013, 09:59:13 AM »

Definitely too much going on. Based on your desired flavor profile I'd strip the grain bill down to the MO, C80, use C40 or C60 instead of C120. Only use enough of the chocolate malt to get the desired color. You could keep a little honey malt if you want it almost cloying but I think you will have enough sweetness from MO and crystal malts.

97

Beer Recipes / Re: Vienna/Wheat/Pale

« on: March 28, 2013, 09:54:47 AM »

I'd also move the orange to flame out. There's no need to boil the essential oils in the zest and the heat at flame out is still hot enough to pasteurize it.

98

Ingredients / Re: ACIDULATED MALTS

« on: March 28, 2013, 09:36:29 AM »

Just for the sake of reassuring you, acidulated malt is just regular ass malted barley will acid sprayed on it. It's no more dangerous to your brewing equipment that if you sprayed some of your grain with star-san (which is acid-based).

I'd question why you're buying the acid malt at all. I understand you want the sourness but acid malt is more expensive than regular grain although the premium you pay on the grain is just for a very small amount of acid. If you're just adding the acid malt at the end of the mash you're basically buying grain just for the benefit of rinsing off the acid during the sparge. You could avoid the whole grain part of the acid and save yourself a little cash.

If you're a little more adventurous you could do a sour mash/sour wort to get that sourness but if you just want to buy a product to get sour I think your money is better spent buying a small bottle of lactic acid. It's cheap and it will last you a long, long time. You can avoid worrying about your mash ph with the acid malt by adding the lactic acid in the kettle before the boil or even after fermentation ends so you can adjust to your taste preference and not worry about any harm to the fermentation (not that a gose is sour enough to really worry about that). The only thing you might want to think about when you add lactic acid post-boil it's going to add some of that tangy lactic acid flavor that you may or may not want. Adding it pre-boil tends to produce a more neutral acid flavor because the boil drives off the flavor compounds from the lactic acid.

99

Going Pro / Re: New Texas law?

« on: March 28, 2013, 09:28:29 AM »

I deplore that they have tied all the bills together but I think on balance we are better off seeing the whole package passed than the whole thing fail. Brewpubs will get a chance to distribute, which hopefully will encourage growth of more brewpubs in the state, and production brewers will be able to sell a limited amount of beer on site. For the brewers as a whole I think that's a bigger win than the loss on the distribution rights issue.

The craft brewers are already planning a judicial attack on 639 after it goes into effect. I'm not sure they will win the day on that one considering the storied history of monied influence on the state judiciary but they can always try to fix it through the legislature.

100

Beer Recipes / Re: Drunkey Monkey

« on: March 27, 2013, 02:16:50 PM »

You will get more than enough banana with 3068 on its own if you ferment in the upper 60s or lower 70s. Above that it starts to develop some undesirable bubble gum flavors (strawberry and banana).

101

All Grain Brewing / Re: build water from distilled

« on: March 27, 2013, 08:02:53 AM »

You see a lot of people trying to target the water profile of certain locations for certain styles (e.g. Burton, Pilsen) which isn't always the right technique. Certainly the water of an area contributed to the selection of preferred style and ingredients in a given location (at least for European brewing) but you can't just assume that the water profile is perfect for a given style. Often brewing water is adjusted by salt additions or techniques to make the water appropriate for the beers brewed in the area. It's ok to use those geographically-based water profiles as long as you know what additional adjustments need to be made for the water.

The easier route is to use those standard profiles in brunwater and make adjustments from there once you have a good understanding of the brewing salts.

102

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Can't clean fermenter

« on: March 27, 2013, 07:55:50 AM »

I agree with trying hot water rather than cold water with the oxyclean.

103

Beer Recipes / Re: Doppelbock recipes

« on: March 26, 2013, 03:13:31 PM »

I am looking forward to brewing a doppelbock as soon as I can get this damn lager yeast at a proper pitching volume. I am working off a slight variation of Kai's recipe and using the same strain as the ECY festbier but I'm having to grow it up from a very pissy group of cells. It's taking forever and a day. It's my first time playing with a lager strain (and my first attempt at a lager) so I'm just trying to be patient and let the yeast do what they are supposed to.

104

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Preparing the yeast

« on: March 26, 2013, 03:05:55 PM »

I wouldn't worry too much about a slight underpitch on S04. It's a very hardy yeast and will tear through a beer like it's pissed off. I used some slurry off a 5% porter in a 11% barleywine and it reached FG after about three days. It took the barleywine down like it was nothing, except I did have a bit of blowoff.

105

Beer Recipes / Re: British Summer Ale

« on: March 26, 2013, 07:18:17 AM »

I had a beer at the beginning of the month dubbed a "NZ session ale" that was basically a blonde ale with some of those fruity New Zealand hops in the late boil and probably some knock out or dry hop additions as well. It was a really good beer.

You could sub out some of the wheat for a lighter crystal malt but you're fine using the MO with wheat for a slightly drier flavor. If you do want to toss in some light crystal malt you could get away with using a basic two row/pale malt instead of MO.

EKG will be fairly neutral with some grassy and floral notes so that is what you are looking to pair with. I think cascade or amarillo will give you the most refreshing character to the beer but any would work well.