Messages

1426

Homebrew Competitions / 2nd Annual Delaware Battle of the Brews

« on: January 06, 2012, 07:42:45 am »

For the second year, the Delaware Department of Agriculture and Delaware State Fair will host the Battle of the Brews on July 21. This will again be an AHA/BJCP sanctioned event. Join us from 5-8pm for a public event with sampling from commercial Delmarva breweries and wineries, a 'People's Choice' award for the commerical beer/wine, music, and presentation of competition awards.

Details, printable flyers, etc. can be found at http://battleofthebrews.webs.com, but here are the most important things to remember: You must register at http://www.delawarestatefair.com between April 2 & June 1, 2012 and then deliver your beer (in person or by mail - see website) by July 10. To maximize your beer karma, make sure you use plain bottles labeled with BJCP Bottle ID forms (attach with a rubber band please).

Cash prizes will be awarded for Best of Show winners and category winners will be honored with fame, notoriety, (and ribbons).  And we’ll have and craft beer education and sampling activities going on during judging.

Prizes -
Best of Show - $250 and free National AHA Competition entry
Second BOS - $150
Third BOS     - $50



The response to last year's competition was great with over 200 entries! Also several hundred participants turned out during the competition for free beer sampling from 3 Delaware breweries (Dogfish Head, Fordham/Old Dominion, and Twin Lakes). The local homebrew shop (Xtreme Brewing) also poured samples and the craft beer bloggers from Fermented Artistry came to talk to participants. We also had a homebrewing demonstration the following day in the Department of Agriculture's building, which has a demonstration kitchen. We brewed a State Fair Pale Ale.

The Delaware State Fair submitted the 2011 Battle of the Brews competition to the International Association of Fairs and Expositions competition for agricultural and competitive exhibits and won third place in its size division for ‘New or Unique Competitive Exhibits.’

1427

Other Fermentables / Re: Gonna do my first cider Saturday.

« on: January 06, 2012, 06:44:17 am »

I've never used a lager yeast, but I use cold tolerant wine yeast and have found that cold fermentation is wonderful. It helps retain volitile flavor and aroma compounds that can get blown out during fermentation. So I think lager yeast in the basement is a good idea.

I have used yeast nutrient in the past, but I've been moving away from it and using less each year. This year I didn't use any and fermentation is fine. I've read that most cultured orchard apples will have plenty of nitrogen from the fertilizers used, but that obviously will vary. You can always add nutrient later if fermentation is struggling.

You can take the gravity of the cider just like wort. All of the sugar will ferment out, so if you have a triple scale hydrometer look at the 'potential alcohol' scale to find the final alcohol content. The cider I get usually ferments to around 6%. Depending on the apples it can be as high as 7-8%. If it is much below 6% I would add sugar to help with stability, plus I like alcohol. 6% alcohol = 1.050 gravity.

Don't heat it. Heating is an obsession of brewers who want to make cider and try to apply their brewing techniques, no self respecting cidermaker would do it. It's like trying to take a photograph with a chef's knife.  Sulfite is a better option if you want, but with a batch of fresh yeast I'd just pitch.

Expect fermentation to take a while, a couple weeks or more.

Are you kegging or bottling?

1428

Beer Travel / Re: Oahu or Maui?

« on: January 05, 2012, 11:41:44 am »

Early April is blizzard season in Hawaii, just stay home.

1429

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Failed carbonation ....?

« on: January 05, 2012, 11:37:49 am »

Do you stir the sugar into the wort? I used to just put sugar solution into the bottling bucket and rack on top and had very inconsistent carbonation. Now I stir the wort (gently, but thoroughly) and don't have those problems.

1430

Beer Recipes / Re: belgians for ageing

« on: January 05, 2012, 11:32:34 am »

I made a dubbel with date syrup and ginger. It also has an ABV around 9%, higher than average for dubbel, but I intended to age it. I used about 1/2lb of ginger which was strong at first but aged and mellowed very well.  This was bottled in 2007 and I had one a few months ago, it was great. The flavor now is mostly dates and ginger.  We remade this in 2010 and added blended some of the old batch with the new batch at bottling (about 3% old).

1431

The Pub / Re: What's the Weather Like Where You Are?

« on: January 05, 2012, 09:41:12 am »

so does lava count as weather? I guess you gotta take what you get

If not, the weatherman would report a volcanic eruption about to obliterate a town as 'overcast.'

1432

Other Fermentables / Re: Cider Yeast options

« on: January 05, 2012, 06:59:00 am »

There is very little difference in residual sugars between yeast strains. Apple sugars are all simple and very fermentable, and the sugar content is low so there is no chance the alcohol content will max out as with wine or mead. Cidermakers trying to retain residual sweetness naturally do things contrary to yeast health in beer brewing - such as stripping out nutrients, underpitching yeast, and racking before fermentation is complete.  Other than that, the only option for most is killing the yeast, sweetening, and force carbonating.

Fresh cider from down the road is the best place to start. Taste the sweet cider, the better it tastes, the better the finished product.

Some apples are better than others, but that is a complex topic and the best varieties aren't widely grown anymore. Try here for more information.
http://www.ciderworkshop.com

1433

Zymurgy / Re: Zymurgy online?!?!

« on: January 05, 2012, 06:44:39 am »

[We'll also be adding additional back issues this year, giving members access to a large archive of Zymurgy content.

That will be great!

1434

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Ferment 3 gal batch in a 5 gal bucket????

« on: January 05, 2012, 06:36:44 am »

The problem is you are going to only be drinking 3 gallons of beer. 

Nailed it.

1435

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First time brewer needs help!

« on: January 04, 2012, 12:43:13 pm »

Oh, and ignore anything about secondary fermentation, just leave it in primary the whole time.  Three weeks is good, like ynot said.

Yes! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Distilled water is better for extract beers than spring water - the extract already contains the needed minerals, so if you use spring water you're adding more minerals.

I never thought about that, but it makes sense.

1436

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First time brewer needs help!

« on: January 04, 2012, 12:35:49 pm »

i had thought about using distilled, so yea ill use that.

Spring water is OK, but distilled water is not. Beer (yeast actually) needs certain dissolved minerals in water that distilled water won't have.

Edit: Of course then I read Euge's original post and maybe I'm wrong for extract beers.

1437

Equipment and Software / Re: Rebel Brewer:Cheap Flasks

« on: January 04, 2012, 09:25:08 am »

As for the feedback system, you left feedback anonymously and negative anonymous feedback rarely makes it through unless it is very constructive. Since the conclusion was that the broken flask was an isolated incident not indicative of the quality, we didn't want misleading information to dissuade potential customers of the flask. Things get broken in shipping sometimes and that does not warrant a 1 star negative review of the product. Especially when we have sold hundreds of the flasks without incident.

Tom, respectfully, this statement does not impress me. If you don't allow want anonymous feedback then your site shouldn't allow it. I do understand that sometimes reviews reflect something beyond the control of the seller, but web consumers are very good at sorting that out. Reviews that are censored are just that - censored reviews.

1438

Other Fermentables / Re: Cider Yeast options

« on: January 04, 2012, 06:56:09 am »

My experience is that yeast strain doesn't make nearly as much difference in cider as it does in beer.  I've made and tasted ciders made with Belgian strains that can have a lot of character on beer, but in cider you'd never know it was a Belgian yeast.

I agree. I've tried many yeasts and the characteristics listed for yeasts, wine or beer, don't really apply when fermenting something different, like apple juice. Those characteristics must depend on the presence of certain sugars and other compounds in wort or grape must.

1439

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: non boiled all grain

« on: January 03, 2012, 08:02:27 am »

It seems to me that if you sparge at 165, then you've already heated the wort to pasteurization temp. Though I guess the entire wort has not been heated to that temp, but it is probably close depending a bit on the rest temp. You could also boil a small portion of the wort with hops to extract alpha acids, then add that back to the wort to raise it to a pasteurization temp while maintaining the bulk of the wort at a no boil temp.

1440

Other Fermentables / Re: Cider Yeast options

« on: December 31, 2011, 08:17:44 am »

I like Red Star Premier Cuvee and fermenting around 45-50F. Cold fermentation helps maintain the aromatics from the apples and premier cuvee is very cold tolerant.