Messages

1

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: yeast re-use

« on: May 08, 2013, 01:23:08 PM »

OK cool. I will brew on!

2

Equipment and Software / sani clean slime

« on: May 08, 2013, 11:11:15 AM »

anyone else every see ropey slimy crap in sani clean after it is a month or so old?  i mix mine into distilled water and try to reuse it for 3-5 batches (for kegging only - I use star san during brewing).  but the ropey stuff has always disturbed me, although I have never had an infection or sanitation issue to date.... 

[crosses fingers] [knocks on wood]

3

Equipment and Software / Re: Monitoring Keg Levels

« on: May 08, 2013, 11:08:43 AM »

I've always gone low tech. Mark # of pints until you get ~ 40, so I don't have to lift and stir up sediment. Bigger glasses tend to throw it off quite a bit though!

+1. I have a blank spreadsheet with lines for about 10 kegs, I tick off in columns for growlers, pints, 12oz bottle fills, etc.  I usually forget to mark a growler in there somewhere... but it gets me close.

I used to use a bathroom scale calibrated at zero for an empty keg, but once I expanded above 2 serving kegs (I often have 5 or 6 on tap now) I dropped that idea.

4

Yeast and Fermentation / yeast re-use

« on: May 08, 2013, 11:06:00 AM »

any one see a problem re-using W-34/70 from a Bo-Pils that was 1.058, to a German Pils that is going to only be around 1.050?   I ask because a couple years ago I reused US-05 from a 1.066 IPA in a 1.045 brown ale....  major off flavors etc occurred, AFAIK because of the yeast dropping in gravity so much.... I am assuming a 1.058 to 1.050 drop is not such a big deal?

-red

5

Ingredients / Re: Amarillo

« on: April 26, 2013, 05:13:23 AM »

Can you even find Amarillo?  I havent been able to find any online or in stores until I wandered into a LHBS in a neighboring state that somehow had 36 oz of pellets.  I bought them all!

They're a good year+ old (been vac-packed in a -15*F freezer)

6

Ingredients / Amarillo

« on: April 23, 2013, 04:04:17 PM »

What does Amarillo go well with? I've got about 10oz sitting in the freezer doing not much of anything.  I'm thinking of it a basic American IPA. I'm a big fan of all-Centennial IPAs, what about mixing Amarillo 50/50 with Cents? Or are they best used at a certain point in the boil, like flavor or aroma? 

Other hops I have on hand (in case anyone sees anything that pairs nicely with Amarillo) are Columbus, Cascade, Magnum, Mittlefruh, Tettnang, and Willamette.  (And Saaz but that's going in my Bo Pils this week)

-red

7

All Grain Brewing / Re: Brun Water question

« on: March 22, 2013, 04:42:38 AM »

Thanks for all the answers, it's making sense now. 

Special thanks to Kai and Martin. What both of you have done to help us ignoramuses (ignorami?) with water chemistry is fantastic.

-red

8

All Grain Brewing / Brun Water question

« on: March 21, 2013, 07:04:10 AM »

Recently started using Brun Water to acidify my sparge water with lactic acid. When I'm doing a brew where I'm building water from scratch, based on distilled water, do I enter the Water Alkalinity on Tab #2, Cell B4, as zero, since distilled water plus gypsum & CaCl2 has zero alkalinity, according to Tab #3, Cell L12? 

And then when I enter a zero alkalinity into Tab #2, it tells me to use zero lactic acid in the sparge water. I guess I should believe this, but am having trouble figuring out why...  won't the distilled water still have a pH of around 7, and I'd like it to get down to 5.5?

thanks
red

9

Events / Re: noob NHC question

« on: March 12, 2013, 12:14:18 PM »

Take 3 bottles and keep 'em cold so they won't change much.  Re-brewing just doesn't seem right, and would make me more nervous than the original beer kept cold.  Many variables in brewing small batches can make a pronounced difference in a beer from batch to batch,

That is good advice on the 3 bottles stored cold. If you have your process down, you can rebrew and then compare to the stored bottles. Some styles would benefit from a rebrew, a German Wheat for example. Some won't benefit, such as a high gravity dark beer which may benefit from age.

It is not against the rules to rebrew.

Thanks all. I'll store 3 of each cold, and see what happens....

10

Events / noob NHC question

« on: March 11, 2013, 04:55:22 PM »

I'm probably giving myself mucho bad karma by even asking this ... but having never entered the NHC before, here goes....

IF one of your beers wins in the first round and you get selected for the 2nd round, do you have to send in more beer? In other words, should I be saving some of each beer that I submit to the first round, for possible submission to the 2nd round judging? If so, how much? 

Assuming I don't win anything in the first round, then I'll at least have some of each beer to drink while I ponder the 1st round scoresheets, so I guess it would be worthwhile saving some in any case...

tx
red

11

The Pub / Re: song title game

« on: March 04, 2013, 11:54:00 AM »

Run Around - Blues Traveler

12

All Grain Brewing / Re: Water Chemistry

« on: March 02, 2013, 06:54:09 AM »

High calcium is generally not a detriment to beer flavor.  It has little flavor impact.  However, the high calcium can drive the RA of the water down.  If you start with RO or distilled water, it could be possible to need some alkalinity in the water to help avoid an excessive mash pH drop.

OK.  Here's another question about Brun Water: What difference is there is adding something like gypsum to the mash vs. adding it to the boil. For instance, with my current SNPA clone recipe, if I add gypsum to my water to get around 150ppm sulfate, my mash pH is predicted to be around 5.7.  If I add more gypsum to get 300ppm sulfates, it drops my pH to 5.5.  Both of these are OK mash pHs, but if I want that higher sulfate level is it more "efficient" to add the extra gypsum to the boil? 

I guess not being a water chemist (I'm an engineer and HS physics teacher) I sometimes wonder how much of the gypsum I add to the mash is actually getting into the finished beer and how much is sort of just staying in the spent grains that I compost.... 

-red

13

All Grain Brewing / Re: Water Chemistry

« on: March 02, 2013, 05:42:59 AM »

Remember, you can't just add chloride and sulfate to your heart's desire.  At some point, you'll have a minerally beer on your hands.  I feel that keeping chloride to less than 100 ppm is always good and you can vary sulfate from 0 to around 300 ppm with no problem.  However when you really boost sulfate, chloride should be reduced well below 100 ppm.  If you want minerally beer flavor, boost chloride above 150 ppm and sulfate above 300 ppm.

However, what about calcium... if I add gypsum to my well water to get sulfates to 300ppm I end up with around 150ppm calcium.... is this going to be ok for an IPA?  my chlorides remain at 28ppm, which is what they are in the well water, giving a good 10:1 sulfate-to-chloride ratio

-red

14

Events / Re: NHC Direct links email

« on: February 26, 2013, 02:15:00 PM »

Ok I just got 3 more beers into NYC boom boom boom. something has been fixed!

15

Events / Re: NHC Direct links email

« on: February 26, 2013, 02:09:56 PM »

Well NYC has been stuck on 123 of 750 for quite a while so maybe no one is getting entries in.  I have one in NYC and I'd hate for it to sell out when I have a few more to enter and can't enter another region.

Still stuck on 123, and I am not able to sit around waiting for this to clear up...  would be nice if they would shut it down, reset it, and let us all have another go at when they are ready, even if it takes a week or so...