Messages

46

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Berliner Weisse fermentation help

« on: January 14, 2013, 10:40:30 AM »

How do you know you are not getting action?

have you taken gravity readings?

+1.  Also, I'd bet that it is actually done.   Either fermentation occured and you didn't notice (it would have occurred quickly in a low OG beer) or it fully fermented during the 4-day sour mash (maybe some yeast got in there). So the big question is - What is the current gravity?
 
How does it taste?

If that was the case, then the alcohol might all be gone after that 20 minute boil. It would explain why the US-05 didn't seem to do anything.

47

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What were your gateway beers?

« on: January 11, 2013, 03:42:02 PM »

Back in the 80's if we wanted to go upscale we got Canadian beer because it was generally accepted to be better, and they made beer to 5% alcohol while in the US we had that wimpy 3.5% beer (we really didn't understand that percent by weight vs volume thing).  I always had a penchant for darker beers so I always tried to pick up Michelob Dark, Guinness, and when visiting relatives in Pottsville, PA, Yuengling Black and Tan (or the Lord Chesterfield Ale if I wanted something hoppy but not dark).  The beer I noticed that was a real gateway for most of my friends was Sam Adams in the early 90s.

I can't say I ever really had a gateway brew, or one that opened a door to a whole new vista for me.  I love variety in food and drink and I've always liked beer, so I typically try out new styles when they come out and put the ones I like into my drink bullpen.

48

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Hop production in North Carolina

« on: January 10, 2013, 07:56:25 AM »

I will be interested to hear what varieties they grow successfully.  I'd like to try planting something that is more sunlight neutral because I have so much shade around my house.  My cascades yielded only about a dozen cones this year.  In practice I can probably only grow hops as ornamental plants.

49

Ingredients / Re: Hops storage

« on: January 10, 2013, 07:06:49 AM »

Just remind her that hops are food!

50

All Grain Brewing / Re: Fly Sparging

« on: January 09, 2013, 03:32:53 PM »

How the heck does one lauter grain that has been hammer milled?  I'm trying to picture a 200 barrel vessel using the brew-in-a-bag method.

It is pressed not lautered. This may help. Squeezed horizontally and the liquid drains out the bottom.
http://appellationbeer.com/balancing-nature-tradition-and-progress-in-alaska/

Here is another brand.
http://www.micronicsinc.com/filter-press-sale2.htm

Excellent article.  Thank you.

51

All Grain Brewing / Re: Fly Sparging

« on: January 09, 2013, 12:12:24 PM »

How the heck does one lauter grain that has been hammer milled?  I'm trying to picture a 200 barrel vessel using the brew-in-a-bag method.

52

Ingredients / Re: To Hop Stand or not to Hop Stand?

« on: January 08, 2013, 02:00:23 PM »

You can also reduce the temp to 80 C (~180F) for the hop stand. That will limit isomerization and DMS production.

That's what I do.

Kai

Is there a minimum effective temperature?  Could you cold steep the hops overnight like some do with roasted grains?

53

Other Fermentables / Re: best wine book for a beer brewer?

« on: January 05, 2013, 03:04:42 PM »

Jack Keller's web site has a load of great info as well as some book recommendations.

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/

54

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Change for the worse in Star San longevity? At least in my new bottle...

« on: January 04, 2013, 08:44:40 AM »

When I make it with distilled water it stays cloud-free as you'd expect.  It just struck me interesting that when I make it with tap water it clouds up much much quicker than before, and just like mugwort this seemed to have happened coincidentally after using a new 32oz bottle.

Does StarSan lose its acidity over time in storage and perhaps the stuff in my old bottle was "old"?  It takes me a very long time to go through a 32oz bottle.

55

Ingredients / Re: Need more hop "nose"

« on: January 03, 2013, 09:11:51 PM »

Since I have it in front of me, some additional data points from Hieronymus' Hops book (pp 215-6):

Stone dry hops between 1/3 and 1.25 lbs per barrel (0.17 oz to 0.65 oz per gallon, 0.86 to about 3 oz per 5 gallons)

Lagunitas between 0.5 lbs and 1.5 lbs per barrel (1.3 and 3.9 oz per 5 gallons)

Brewers all seem to agree that more is not necessarily better.  Marble Brewery (p. 28) got better flavor and aroma after they decreased their hopping schedule, and there is also a point of diminishing returns on the upper end:  Rock Bottom saw very little difference between 1/2 lb and 1 lb per barrel (1.3 oz and 2.6 oz per 5 gallons), New Belgium found their ceiling to be 0.9 lbs per barrel (2.3 oz per 5 gallons).  Then again, I would bet that the ceiling is different when you're working on a homebrew scale.

Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River is a believer in multiple dry hopping (put half in for three days, remove them and put other half in for three days) while Jeremy Marshall of Lagunitas Brewing thinks multiple additions is a waste of time.  Firestone Walker does two additions at about 1 lb per barrel for Union Jack IPA, but strongly believes that short contact time is key: no more than three days.  On the other hand, Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale dry hops with only 1/2 lb per barrel but keeps it in for 21 days.

One of the big points made in that book is that though hop bittering is pretty well understood, nobody really knows what is going on with aroma.  It depends heavily upon hop variety and, for now at least, there is no easy answer as to how to get more/better/etc. aroma in beer.  If you find a method that really works for you, remember what hops you used it for because it just may not work for you with a different kind.

56

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Change for the worse in Star San longevity? At least in my new bottle...

« on: January 03, 2013, 03:45:37 PM »

This is very interesting because I am in exactly the same boat as you.  I suddenly noticed that my buckets cloud over very quickly, like within an hour or two, whereas before it would go for several days before clouding up.  I also switched to a new 32 oz bottle.  I didn't think to associate it with the StarSan.  I had assumed that the mineral content of my water had changed going from winter into spring, or whatever the seasons were at the time.

57

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Carbonation quandry

« on: January 03, 2013, 11:00:29 AM »

80% by volume, for sure.  Not sure about weight.  And the 80% is just a swag.  Maybe it really is more like 87%.  It's somewhere in there.

The 87-percent calculation is certainly only applicable for weight.  I could convince myself it would be less by volume since corn sugar can be fluffy.  That being said, my guess would be that unless you're shooting for really high or low carbonation levels, short of doing a side-by-side one wouldn't notice a 10-percent difference in carbonation levels anyway.

58

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Carbonation quandry

« on: January 03, 2013, 10:21:02 AM »

If you have a scale, you'll want to use do it by weight for consistency.  Corn sugar can be fluffy.  Table sugar can be very consistent if you use the same brand, so if you can get by measuring by volume if you find a certain amount that works well for you.  However, if you switch brands from time to time, you can get different grain sizes that will pack differently so your volume measurement can change.

I wholeheartedly agree about using table sugar.  It is cheap and easy to get.  I target a certain CO2 level I want, then weigh out the amount of table sugar I need.  I'll use a bag of corn sugar if I have it, such as if it came in a kit, but I'll still weigh out how much I'd want to use.  To do the calculation, for simplicity I use Palmer's nomograph, but there are plenty of online calculators for that.

As for the differences in amount to use, table vs. corn, the math is that for every gram of sucrose you use, you generate 0.51 grams of CO2; for every gram of pure corn sugar you use, you generate 0.49 grams CO2.  Most likely if you get your corn sugar from the homebrew shop, it will be glucose monohydrate, which has water bound to it to keep it from clumping.  In that case, for every gram of that you use, you'd generate 0.44 grams CO2.  The upshot to this is that if you are normally using corn sugar and you want to switch to table sugar, you should use something like 87-percent table sugar (0.44/0.51).  This all assumes that the sugars are 100-percent fermented, which is a pretty good assumption, but you can see that when you move to other priming agents (DME, LME, brown sugar, molasses, etc.) you start to get more hand-wavy because now each of your grams of priming agent has more and more unknown unfermentables in them (water content, probably the biggest).

One reference for more geeky background on this is http://www.byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/21-carbonation/1276-priming-with-sugar, or even better, http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/2497/Math_in_Mash_SummerZym95.pdf

59

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Growth of Homebrewing/Microbreweries

« on: January 01, 2013, 10:45:49 PM »

It is a combination of good beer, friendly owners and staff, nice atmosphere, all in an area that has the population, but few breweries within a 20-30 minute drive.

Don't forget that you also need to set up in a region with beer-friendly laws.

60

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Belgian Dubble, where have you been all my life?

« on: December 27, 2012, 07:29:47 AM »

If you liked the dubble and want to try something a bit bigger, I can recommend the Corsendonk Christmas Ale.  It is a Belgian Strong Dark Ale.  I received a bottle as a gift and it was very tasty.