Messages

3346

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Help me decide

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:33:16 am »

hows that disertation coming along there tom?

3347

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Do you give your beers a name?

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:31:48 am »

you could add some grains of paradise.

Brilliant!  I have some in the cabinet.  I'm not sure I want that flavor in this beer though.

Hmmm . . . time to start a new thread. 

how about angelica?


**EDIT** I am just thinking about the names of these herbs not the flavours. They might well be disgusting.

Fair enough   Grains of Paradise are nice in some beers, but I want the pale to be about the hops since it's my first time using the Falconers.  I've never specifically had angelica, but from what I just read about it I think it might be good in a wit or other light wheat beer.

Final highjack...

apparently it tastes sort of like sweet celery. hmm.  it also can cause disgust for liqour. that's no good! http://www.altnature.com/gallery/angelica.htm

3348

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Do you give your beers a name?

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:12:46 am »

you could add some grains of paradise.

Brilliant!  I have some in the cabinet.  I'm not sure I want that flavor in this beer though.

Hmmm . . . time to start a new thread.  

how about angelica?


**EDIT** I am just thinking about the names of these herbs not the flavours. They might well be disgusting.

3349

Equipment and Software / Re: Cracked Carboy

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:11:56 am »

Yet another reason to just go with plastic brew buckets (with or without spigots--I personally like the spigots, even on my primary fermentors--makes racking ridiculously easy).  Safety, ease and convenience of cleaning, transfering, lifting and storing fermentors, and low cost are all good reasons for considering plastic buckets.

So I just bought a couple of plastic bucket fermenters and although I asked for without spigots I got with. it made me wonder if, after the initial vigourous mernetation was done, If I gave it a little swirl just to kick the yeast up again and then let it settle at a 45 degree angle with the spigot down if I could not just open it for a bit to dump my yeast. I would have to build a little cradle for it so it could set at that angle but...

3350

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Do you give your beers a name?

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:07:15 am »

you could add some grains of paradise.

3351

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Excessive krausen

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:03:54 am »

I wouldn't worry to much. If it stalls you can raise the temp later and even rouse the yeast if need be. sounds like you've got a good healthy fermentation going.

3352

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Undercarbonated bottles

« on: May 19, 2011, 10:01:47 am »

isn't 'a couple' 2 cups? or am I being pedantic?

3353

The Pub / Re: Hummingbirds are smart critters

« on: May 19, 2011, 08:01:00 am »

The wife and I took our dogs out for their daily walk over the weekend and we encountered two adult Canadian Geese along the way. As we approached them we noticed they were not flying away as they normally would. The dogs started running toward them yet they still didn't fly away until they had gotten right on their tails. We then noticed baby goslings tryting to run away. Thankfully I have my dogs trained to the point where they didn't instinctively snatch the baby goslings up. A close call but we allowed the goslings to get away unharmed.

how did you know they were canadian ehh?

3354

Kegging and Bottling / Re: Priming sugar options? Your preference?

« on: May 18, 2011, 09:19:33 pm »

Honestly I use table sugar. I have organic evaporated cane juice type sugar as my everyday cooking baking sugar and I just use that. I have used honey and that was fine, a little slow but fine. I have used malt extract a few times cause I was all excited about being 100% malt but now a days, unless I am up to something particular, it's the plain old table sugar. a few ounces (I use beersmith to tell me how much) in a cup of water, boil and cover the night before bottling and add to bucket.

I used maple syrup for a batch of barley wine I recently bottled and got spooked by the amount I figured out I would need so used less and ended up with a really nice low soft carbonation.

3355

Ingredients / Re: First Wort Hopping

« on: May 18, 2011, 01:15:18 pm »

So dumb question # 2.  What would happen if I put leaf hops in a bag and put them into the mash for the duration.  Then, took them out and added the bag to the boil. 
Just wondering.

If yo udo this don't make dog biscuits with the spent grains. Hops can be dangerous for dogs.

3356

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: 60 deg to cold to ferment American Pale ale????

« on: May 18, 2011, 01:07:38 pm »

mswilliams, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER WHILE BREWING IS....

relax. 

Worst case scenerio you have to dump a batch. much more likely you get some esters you weren't expecting which might just turn out to be yummy. 99 percent of the time you will make beer. Maybe not great, world class, award winning beer. but beer that will likely make your friends and family say something along the lines of 'wow, you should brew profesionally' I am a fairly lazy brewer. I have made a few starters but ussually under pitch. I do notice some esters that probably shouldn't be there but it's still good beer and fresher and more fun to drink than anything I buy in the store. If I am making a really big beer I will try to have a batch of smaller beer finish up near when I am going to brew so I can use the yeast cake but other than that I don't worry to much. particularly when you are starting out. Focus on cleanliness and patience. Pitching rates, water chemistry all the 'baking' type stuff can wait until you are good and hooked by the hobby. Think of it as 'cooking' instead of 'baking' and you will have a good time while you learn.

3357

All Grain Brewing / Re: Electric stove-top: how far can you go?

« on: May 18, 2011, 12:56:26 pm »

It really depends on your electric stove and how many burners your kettle spans and how big/powerfull the burners are. I currently have a little apartment size gas stove that wouldn't work at all for 5 galon boils (6.5 or 7 to start with) except that my kettle spans two of them. I have brewed on electric stoves in the past and if youc an get two elements under your kettle or if you have one of the big new boiler elements it would probably work fine. The big problem is when the boil is done and you want to chill it will take a few minutes for the element to cool down. Also if you start to get a boil over there is no option to kill the heat and let it settle you just have to stir like mad.

3358

Beer Recipes / Re: Non carbonated beer.

« on: May 16, 2011, 07:51:48 am »

Its too bad I didn't bottle one of my bottles in my last batch of barley wine with no carbonation. I'm going to experiment and see if I can make a tastey non carbonated beer without getting a cask by bottling one bottle without any priming sugar.

I think this would be a little different than cask conditioning. I wonder, if you bottled in a swing top type bottle and popped the top daily as it worked so only a little carbonation remained if it would be somewhat like cask conditioning.

3359

Beer Recipes / Re: Non carbonated beer.

« on: May 14, 2011, 10:27:21 pm »

As it happens I just cracked open a bottle of barley wine I bottled about 6 weeks ago and it was very low carbonation and tasted just lovely. It only gave the slightest psst when opened but had a nice little lacing around the edge of the glass. It was lower than I intended because a) I didn't add fresh yeast at bottling time and it was already 11% and b) When I did the calculations on how much maple syrup to add to get desired carb levels I got jumpy cause it was so much (like 9 ounces) so I added less.

Luckily it worked out well for me and I might suggest a big barley wine as a place to look as well.

3360

Wood/Casks / Re: The Angels are giving back their share

« on: May 14, 2011, 10:18:32 pm »

It's a miracle!