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Equipment and Software / Re: Those little red cans of Oxygen
« on: May 23, 2013, 08:32:35 am »
I thought it only takes seconds?
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Equipment and Software / Re: New MT ordered
« on: May 23, 2013, 08:01:11 am »Kind of like this. http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php
Some folks claim ten minutes from boil to pitch temp
Yup. With 50ft of 1/2" copper and 35F water pumped (with a pond pump) from a barrel I keep in a walk-in cooler, I can drop 10gal from boiling to 60F in about 9 minutes. To get a lager to 48F takes 12 min.
I don't bother recirculating, I stir gently with a spoon until it's under 100F, then stir more vigorously to get aeration started.
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Equipment and Software / Re: Those little red cans of Oxygen
« on: May 23, 2013, 07:58:17 am »
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/WILLIAMS-OXYGEN-AERATION-SYSTEM-P699.aspx
Dave
Anyone using this exact system? I'm intrigued...
How do you keep it clean though? Is the wand part difficult to sanitize?
-red
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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: yeast re-use
« on: May 08, 2013, 01:23:08 pm »
OK cool. I will brew on!
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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]
[crosses fingers] [knocks on wood]
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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.
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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
-red
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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)
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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
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
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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
Special thanks to Kai and Martin. What both of you have done to help us ignoramuses (ignorami?) with water chemistry is fantastic.
-red
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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
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
12
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....
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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
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
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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