Messages

406

Extract/Partial Mash Brewing / Re: Is old malt extract safe?

« on: August 08, 2010, 12:57:44 pm »

...had a "woody" taste to it...kind like chewing on toothpicks.

Perfect description of what oxidation tastes like.  Others describe it as "papery" or "cardboardy".  Personally I detect it as an unusual "sinking feeling" about midway through gulp.  It's as though when the beer first enters my mouth, it tastes just fine, but then a half-second later, it loses what was delicious about it, and with successive gulps, becomes distracting to the point that you figure out that at one time, this beer might have been pretty good, but has gone stale and just isn't quite right anymore.

407

Beer Recipes / Re: shooting for a Pete's Wicked ale clone

« on: August 08, 2010, 12:46:42 pm »

Pete's Wicked Ale is one of my old favorites.  I haven't brewed it yet, but a couple of years ago I got my hands on what was supposedly the REAL recipe.  Here's how that one looks.

6.625 lb Maris Otter malt
5 oz Chocolate malt
1.75 lb Crystal 60
0.75 oz Brewer's Gold (60 minutes)
0.75 oz Brewer's Gold (10 minutes)
Danstar Windsor ale yeast

Here's how your recipe and mine differ:

Mine is obviously all-grain.  Yours is partial mash.  Are you comfortable with mashing?  The 2-row malt in your recipe must be mashed.  If this is your first time mashing, it's pretty easy -- keep a thermometer in your kettle and "steep" the grains at about 150 F for about 40 minutes before removing the grains, heating up, and adding the extract.  The mash will convert starches to sugars.  Without mashing, your beer will be more of a starch soup, sort of like when you overcook rice or potatoes and it turns into glue.

Your recipe has special roast.  This should give a very pleasant roastiness.  It's not a bad ingredient, but possibly would not be authentic for a true clone.  I don't get a big roasty flavor when I taste Pete's Wicked.  Big sweetish caramelly malt, but not roast.

Your recipe also has a lot of hop additions.  I don't think Pete's Wicked is nearly that hoppy in character.  It has enough bitterness and a little hop flavor to balance out the big malt flavors, but it's not big on hoppiness IMO.

Finally, your choice of yeast will be more attenuative than mine.  My recipe would finish higher in gravity and be more sweetish, with alcohol by volume of around 5%, whereas yours will be more dry and have a bigger kick at about 6%.  This, I think, is a matter of personal preference.  But might be worth looking at a bottle of the real stuff to see how much alcohol theirs has -- I'm not sure.

Any way you go, you will have yourself a very tasty beer.  Wishing you the best of luck with your clone attempt.

408

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Ok to move to secondary?

« on: August 06, 2010, 02:11:06 pm »

Secondaries cause more harm than good.  I don't do secondaries anymore.  Even with my lagers, I just leave them sit in primary for a couple months, with no ill effects.  The beer will finish and clear perfectly fine in the primary.  Otherwise, it's literally like ripping the carpet out from under the yeasty beasties, and they occasionally get confused and stop eating off-flavors such as diacetyl and acetaldehyde.  Might as well leave them alone and let them do what they want.  That's my opinion.

409

Extract/Partial Mash Brewing / Re: Is old malt extract safe?

« on: August 03, 2010, 07:16:35 am »

I think it will end up tasting pretty terrible.  Oxidation not only darkens the extract, but gives it a nasty twang.  But who knows -- and if you consider that you have the option of adding a ton of hops or spices to it, it could still turn out drinkable regardless.

410

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Gushing bottles

« on: July 28, 2010, 02:43:17 pm »

I can absolutely guarantee three things that will fix your carbonation problems once and for all:

1) The extra time you allocate for secondary conditioning?  Yeah -- Just leave it in the primary the whole time instead.  My experience proves that you can leave a batch in primary for up to 3 months with no ill effects.  Ignore the rubbish about "yeast autolysis" -- it rarely if ever happens with homebrewing.  Leaving your beer in the primary gives the benefit of letting the yeast do what they want to do, rather than you swiping the carpet out from under them, so to speak.

2) Use regular table sugar for ALL carbonation purposes.  You need 2/3 cup for 5 gallons.  Don't worry about weighing the sugar -- I don't care how much it weighs -- if you use 2/3 cup table sugar for 5 gallons, carbonation will be perfect every time.  DME is far too unpredictable.  Same goes for honey, maple syrup, you name it.  And corn sugar is just a waste of money.  Table sugar will get the job done, cheap, easy, and reliable.

3) Don't rush it.  Give the yeast plenty of time to do their job.  Sometimes a batch will ferment entirely within 2 or 3 days.  Sometimes it takes 2 months.  Just leave them be until fermentation is obviously done.  Check gravity when you think it's finished, then wait 3 days or more, then check again, just to be certain.  If you bottle too early, it's gusher city.

I speak the truth.  I've been brewing for 11 years and had to learn all these things the hard way.  Take heed.

411

Ingredients / Re: Rye Malt

« on: July 27, 2010, 11:43:38 am »

The so-called "spiciness" of rye must be under my threshold then as well, AND under my friends' thresholds.  I have used 40% rye malt in an American rye ale and while I did get the motor oil and huge creamy head (there's nothing else on earth like it), I got no spiciness -- just breadiness.  Very pleasant, and worth making again sometime.  But not spicy in any way, except maybe from the Hallertauer hops.

Yeah, that's right -- I'm the jerk who thinks everyone else's perceptions are wrong.  But it's not entirely your fault.  You must all be looking so hard for pumpernickel and caraway seeds that you can imagine that it is there.  I don't know........

412

Ingredients / Re: Rye Malt

« on: July 27, 2010, 05:17:03 am »

I think you're confusing roggen with rauch.  Roggen is German for rye.  Rauch means smoked.

413

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: specific gravity questions

« on: July 27, 2010, 05:10:14 am »

You are very lucky.  Exploding bottles aren't just messy -- they are dangerous.  I thought for sure you had bombs on your hands.  If you are already experiencing full carbonation, you need to get every single bottle into the refrigerator RIGHT NOW, TODAY to prevent them from becoming bombs in the next week or two.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

414

Beer Recipes / Re: 1776 Porter from Radical Brewing

« on: July 26, 2010, 08:08:00 am »

I'm betting that it would convert just fine.  Just mash for 75 to 90 minutes, or even longer, if you are concerned.  And even if it doesn't convert as well as you might hope... do you think the people in 1776 knew what the word "conversion" even meant?  Nah... they just threw it in there and hoped for the best.  Right??

415

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: WLP 820 rate of Fermentation?

« on: July 26, 2010, 05:23:31 am »

"Yeast energizer" should do the trick.  It has saved many batches for me.  This is not exactly the same thing as "yeast nutrient".  Look for the energizer.  It takes a long time to ferment out, but it is very likely to help.

416

Beer Recipes / Re: American Rye?

« on: July 26, 2010, 05:20:33 am »

Looks really good -- go for it, you'll love it.

In my American rye, I used 40% rye malt.  I also added just a hint of honey malt and honey.  The result was very thick, almost syrupy, and had an enormous head on it, both of which came as a pleasant surprise to me.  It was one of the best beers I have ever made.  I need to make it again soon.

417

Beer Recipes / Re: Balancing a recipe

« on: July 22, 2010, 04:26:10 pm »

Also, check this out:  http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rohw0009/homebrewing/calculator/bvcalc.htm

418

Extract/Partial Mash Brewing / Re: Homebrew contest scores?

« on: July 22, 2010, 04:22:56 pm »

Good God... I think about 99.9% of homebrewers would like the same answers to the same questions.  Myself included.  I think it's just an iterative process.  Keep on researching what you can do to improve, and then do it.  Over the years, your beers WILL get better and better if you learn from all the feedback from contests and from reading a lot.

419

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Splitting a yeast starter

« on: July 22, 2010, 04:20:11 pm »

Hell yeah!  Do it.

420

Ingredients / Re: Home grown Cascade

« on: July 21, 2010, 03:07:43 pm »

Last month I made 3 gallons of IPA with 4.1 ounces of homegrown Cascades (from 2009), all hopbursted at 16 minutes left to boil.  This was my first hopbursted beer and it turned out fantastic -- I couldn't have asked for any better.  The bitterness is just about exactly what I expected, maybe just barely on the lower end but that sure doesn't bother a malt-head like me.  I still get plenty of hop aroma and flavor, as well as a smooth but firm bitterness.  As you'd expect, I get a lot of grapefruit from mine.  Not anything I would really consider tropical.  Who knows -- perhaps if I had used these back in 2009 when they were still fresh, the result might be a lot different.  But even after a year of aging, I am still very pleased with the result.  Vacuum packing and refrigeration obviously works very well in preserving hop character, including alpha acids.

Regarding differences in flavors from standard expectations, besides aging, I bet it also makes a considerable difference where the hops are grown.  I'm in Wisconsin, a good 150 miles or so northeast of Gorst Valley, for whatever that is worth (probably nothing).  But what I can tell you is that based on my own hop plants, it seems that we in Wisconsin are lucky in that our hops are always very much duplicative to what is commercially available, i.e., my Cascades taste very much like they could have come from Cascadia, and my Hallertauers are as spicy and herbal or better as what you'd expect from old world Germany.  But the same rhizomes grown in other locations or continents might not end up anywhere close to the same expectations.  I haven't tried them yet, but for example, it has been said that the Argentinian Cascades are quite different from the Pacific Northwest.  Same definitely holds true for English vs. American Goldings, American vs. German Northern Brewer, etc.