Topics

16

Kegging and Bottling / how long does dry hopping last?

« on: August 22, 2012, 10:33:04 AM »

I have 2 cornies of NB's Two Hearted clone (didn't but their kits but used their recipe), and I added the dry hops in a tea ball when kegging after a 2 week primary. After 2 weeks in the keg it is great, but I'm wondering how long it will taste that way? IPA is not a huge mover with my buddies and it may be mostly me drinking this, which may take a month or 6 weeks.  What, if anything, will be different in 6 weeks about the hop flavors and aromas?

tx red

17

General Homebrew Discussion / target an exact FG

« on: July 31, 2012, 01:26:36 PM »

OK I've been thinking about this for a couple days, while planning my next beer (a schwarzbier that I brewed this morning).

Say I'm trying to end up with 11gals of 1.048 wort in the fermenter... so I am dealing with 528 gravity points.... now 11gals of 50F wort is actually almost 11.5gals at 212F if you go with the 4% volume reduction, so at flameout, is my wort 1.046 (because 528/11.5 = 45.9) ? 

And so my real question is, when designing a recipe, should I be targeting a final volume of 11.5 gal, or 11.0 gal?? because for a lowish-gravity beer, those 2 points make a difference.  But perhaps I'm over thinking this or missing something.

Obviously if I'm brewing a 1.065 IPA and it comes out at 1.062 or whatever, it's not such a big deal.

-red

18

All Grain Brewing / protein rest... 122F or 133F?

« on: May 26, 2012, 03:44:09 PM »

I've had good success with my last few pilsners (German and Bohemian) by following Kai's single decoction time and temp curve as shown here: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Decoction_Mashing#Single_Decoction .  This calls for a protein rest at 133F. However in prepping for a first bash at a Dortmunder style, I ran across this procedure at Maltose Falcons http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/dort-evolution-recipe  which calls for a rest at 122F... Googling that temp seems to show that 122F is also a protein rest...  what's up with that?   or does a protein rest have a wide range that includes 122F and 133F??? 

thanks
red

19

All Grain Brewing / canning salt or table salt?

« on: May 25, 2012, 11:11:23 AM »

Getting ready to brew my first Dortmunder, and working with Kai and Martin's water spreadsheets.  Kai's sheet says "table salt" and Martin's says "canning salt."   Which is it? I know table salt is iodized and canning salt is pure NaCl. So I assume I would probably use canning salt... is that correct?

( I have it on hand, as pickle season is not far off...)

thanks
Red

20

Ingredients / difference between US and German Tettnanger?

« on: May 24, 2012, 06:27:38 AM »

Looking to order another years supply of hop pellets today, found out both North Country (at least in Champlain NY) and HopsDirect are out of German Tetts (at least in 1 pounders).  So I orders the US Tetts from HopsDirect (grown right at their farm apparently).  Will I be able to even tell the difference? I can't imagine I'll notice it, but just want to make sure.  I mostly use Tetts as a flavor or aroma hop, in Vienna lagers, Alts, a Jever-style Pils (sometimes Hallertauer Mittlefruh in that one), Bocks, etc.

thanks
red

21

All Grain Brewing / how long is too long for FWH?

« on: May 10, 2012, 06:15:10 AM »

Sometimes I need to take a break during a brew day, so I get the situation where I might have tossed the first wort hops into my kettles around 10 am, then sparged on top of that to hit my preboil volume, then I leave that sitting for maybe 2-3 hours, and only get around to firing up the boil around 12:30 or 1pm. Is that too long?  I've done it a couple times before and the beers have been fine, but just wondering what the accepted best practice is.

-red

22

Ingredients / what to put in a multigrain ale

« on: April 18, 2012, 11:51:27 AM »

So for the last 3 years I make this American Wheat based on the BCS recipe, which is roughly 50% pale malt, 30% rye, and 20% wheat, lightly hopped at 60m and flameout with a combo of Willamette, Centennial, Cascade, Hallertauer, or whatever I feel like, to about 20-25 IBUs.  I aim for it to finish around 1.010-1.012, with ABV around 5.5% to 6.0%.  It's a nice spring/summer beer.  Anyways for my buddies I make a sort of novelty/jokey label touting it as healthy multigrain high-fiber beer, blah blah blah.

So I get to thinking as I brewed it a month ago, what can I add to make it really "multigrain".   Obviously I could toss some oat malt or flaked oats in there. But who's put really weird grains in their beers, and what were the results? I'm thinking maybe millet or buckwheat? Flax is a little oily, but?  I could do corn; flaked is boring so what about popcorn? Or spelt or bulgur wheat? I'm open to experimentation if it won't totally ruin a batch. 

Crazy ideas welcome!

-red

23

Ingredients / does rye malt always have a gray-blueish tint to it?

« on: March 14, 2012, 06:08:47 AM »

Brewing with rye malt for only the second time, and it seems like it has a blue-ish gray-ish powdery tint to it, looks almost like a mold, but it doesn't really flake off or dust off; it seems integral to the grain. I can't remember seeing this before, but I only used rye last summer for the first time and may have missed it?

A quick Google image search shows some pictures with this stuff on the grain, and some without... the grain smells fine and tastes fine so I think it IS fine.... but any more knowledge on this situation would be appreciated.

BTW it is Canada Malting Rye Malt, from Rebel Brewer, got it shipped in about 2 weeks ago.

-red

24

Ingredients / water for Dortmunder

« on: March 10, 2012, 06:49:42 AM »

I've never brewed this style before and I'm looking for suggestions on water recipe. I found Blatz's which is this: Ca 107, Mg 4, Na 21, Cl 70, SO4 115, HCO3 67, RA 3 (all in ppm).

This seems really hard to me...   I can almost get there using Kai's water calculator, starting with distilled water and adding gypsum, epsom, table salt, CaCl2, baking soda, and chalk... by playing with all of those I can get a water that is Ca 83, Mg 4, Na 19, Cl 60, SO4 116, HCO3 72, and RA of -3.....  I can't seem to get all of them to line up with Blatz's numbers....

there must be a simpler way to do this, it anyways seems counterproductive to be adding gypsum/epsom/CaCl2 to a mash at the same time as baking soda and chalk, seems kind of like they are going to be fighting each other...

so bottom line is, does anyone have a good water recipe for a Dortmunder???

tx all

25

Beer Recipes / recommendations for first Dortmunder

« on: March 01, 2012, 12:18:46 PM »

Been wanting to try a Dortmunder for a few years now,  think I'll give it try in the next few months now that I have some of my Pilsner techniques down (or at least improving)...  any recommendations for a recipe?  I found Blatz's here http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/BlatzDortmunderGold which I would assume is a good one... anyone (besides Blatz) brewed it? Or have another suggestion?

-red

26

The Pub / Slate article

« on: February 24, 2012, 05:45:43 AM »

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/02/home_brew_and_the_diy_innovation_movement_.html

Best quote: "Students receive course credit for making beer at home" 

27

Ingredients / using up for melanoidin and victory malts

« on: February 16, 2012, 01:58:15 PM »

I have about 4-5# each of Weyerman Melanoidin and Breiss Victory Malt that I got for recipes that I don't plan to brew again... what styles of beers could I "hide" 8oz or a pound of these in... could I, for instance, replace 8 oz of pale malt with 8oz of melanoidin in a red ale or amber ale.... or slip some victory into a brown ale?  Any other suggestions?

28

Ingredients / question about Maltose Falcons / Drew Beechum's Excel IBU calculator

« on: February 14, 2012, 05:46:34 AM »

I've been using this IBU balancing spreadsheet http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/ibu-calculator-hop-scheduler-analysis for my last few beers as I find it better than a lot of website calculators and it has FWH which a lot of other calcs don't... I am often scaling 5 gal recipes to 10 or 15 gals....

Does anyone know what IBU formula is being used in there? It seems to give me higher numbers than both Rager and Tinseth, at least as shown on these two sites.... http://www.brew365.com/ibu_calculator.php and http://www.rooftopbrew.net/ibu.php.  In the end, I guess it doesn't matter as long as I consistently use one calculator, but I'm just interested.

-red

29

Beer Recipes / pseudo-Alt with a lager yeast?

« on: February 10, 2012, 07:21:39 AM »

I have a pretty decent recipe for a Dusseldorf Alt-style ale that I make with US-05, fermented pretty cold (59-60) and then lagered about 3 weeks. It comes close to what it should be.  Maybe not quite as fruity as it would be with a German ale yeast, but close.

However in a couple weeks I will have a nice cake of W-34/70 (same as WLP830 and Wyeast 2124, AFAIK) and am wondering if anyone has ideas on how the beer might turn out if I fermented the same Alt-style recipe with that instead. It seems to ferment best around 50-51, in my experience (I've used it for Bo Pils and German Pils, Oktoberfests, Viennas, & Maibocks, all with pretty nice results).  Would I still a get a beer in the Alt style using this lager yeast instead of an ale year? Or would it be too weird?

I'm not going to try to win competitions with this one, just want to know if it is going to be close enough...

-red

30

All Grain Brewing / how to darken up my Bohemian Pils

« on: January 28, 2012, 07:31:57 AM »

My Bohemian Pils recipe is from Jamil's book, and currently stands at 18.0 lbs Best Malz Pilsner and 1.1 lbs Weyermann CaraFoam/CaraPils for a 10gal batch.   I did a Hochkurz double decoction based on Kai's schedule (http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Decoction_Mashing#Hochkurz_Double_Decoction) - doughed-in at 144F (skipping the protein rest as Kai mentions many German brewers do), did a first decoction to get it to 158F, and then a second to get it to 170. Basically hit the curve on Kai's graph pretty closely.  I boiled each decoction about 15 minutes.   

Anyways the beer is clearly too light yellow for a Bo Pils... compared to a Pilsner Urquell it is a couple degrees off.  How do I get it a little more rich golden  and not so pale yellow?  Boil the decoctions longer? Use some kind of caramel malt or Munich/Vienna addition (I can imagine the answer is NO on that but.....)  Any tips would be appreciated.

(One other thing I was thinking about trying on the next batch is to have the first rest around 146, not 144, to get my FG a little higher than the 1.012 my last batch hit. OG was 1.055. Sound reasonable?)

-red