Messages

16

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Time Crunch - What Would You Do?

« on: March 29, 2013, 10:28:59 PM »

In Hieronymous' new book on hops, he quotes the brewer from Lagunitas regarding how if you keep dry hops at ~65F for 3-4 days, they will mostly have done their thing.  So why not shorten your dryhop time at room temp, maybe adding a tad more hops to compensate for the short time, and then chill cold in the keg to help drop out hop debris and yeast.  I think maturation time in the keg is important.  At least my IPAs lose their rough edges if I get at least a couple weeks maturation time after dryhopping and chilling to 35F.

17

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Quick souring method

« on: March 20, 2013, 02:07:13 PM »

Yep, as previously stated it won't sour anymore once you boil after the wort is soured.  I hope you got a level of sour you like.  I felt my 67 hours was just right for my tastes.

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Quick souring method

« on: March 18, 2013, 07:54:38 PM »

I used the sour worting procedure once, successfully thank goodness.  I had read that the malt-based lacto introduction sometimes results in a big specific gravity drop that you are experiencing by souring your mash/sparge runoff, I believe based on creating an aerobic reproduction cycle vs. anaerobic reproduction.  I'm sorry I don't recall the specifics.  It was enough of a risk, and purportedly avoidable by inoculating the starter with a commercial lacto strain (Wyeast), that decided me to use the commercial strain.  The problem is that any alcohol created by the lacto starter souring process (if that indeed occurs) is lost when you boil the wort with hop additions.  So, the starting gravity of your beer will be the final gravity after the starter is done souring the runoff, although it will increase just slightly due to evaporation during the boil.  You will end up with a low ABV beer after the beer yeast fermentation.

When I added my sour starter my runoff was at 1.053.  When soured after 67 hours, the SG was 1.050, but part of the drop I attributed to adding the 1/2 gallon 1.033 lacto starter.  For my situation I added 10 oz. of DME, and ended up with an OG of 1.057 for 11 gallons after a 90 minute boil.

Sounds like you have a good degree of sour in your wort so go ahead and boil with hop additions when you're ready, and I would calculate how much DME or LME you need to add to bring your wort up to a proper starting gravity prior to inoculating with brewer's yeast.

19

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Whatcha all drinkin on St Pat's day?

« on: March 18, 2013, 06:57:42 PM »

And I don't know home to insert images.

I maintain a free account in www.photobucket.com where I upload my images, resize if necessary, and copy and paste the "image" tag link(s) into my post.  It's easy once you learn the basics.

20

Ingredients / Re: What's the strangest ingredient you've ever used?

« on: March 17, 2013, 04:28:24 PM »

When I was a kid living in central Kentucky, maybe 1965 or so, I pulled up a huge sassafras root by the side of the road.  A couple years ago, almost 50 years later, I put some of this, which is pretty much petrified at his point, into a club project beer.  It is cool that the aroma still comes through.

You might not want to drink that.  Google "toxicity of sassafras"

http://www.drugs.com/npp/sassafras.html

21

Ingredients / Re: What's the strangest ingredient you've ever used?

« on: March 17, 2013, 03:55:39 PM »

I used saffron in the BYO Midas Touch clone and I think it is a nice beer - one of the favored taps when folks come over to visit, although it's taking awhile to kill the keg.

LOL! I didn't care much for Midas Touch so there you go!

I bought it once - $14.00 for a 4-pack of 12 oz. bottles.  I wonder if the subliminal sales pitch is that if it was the drink of choice of a king for which everything he touched turned to gold, it must be more precious than gold. 

22

Ingredients / Re: What's the strangest ingredient you've ever used?

« on: March 17, 2013, 02:47:05 PM »

I used saffron in the BYO Midas Touch clone and I think it is a nice beer - one of the favored taps when folks come over to visit, although it's taking awhile to kill the keg.

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General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Whatcha all drinkin on St Pat's day?

« on: March 17, 2013, 10:59:46 AM »

oatmeal robust porter and cherry chocolate oatmeal robust porter

24

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Yeast starter or additional yeast packs

« on: March 17, 2013, 10:33:38 AM »

Look at the yeast articles section of MrMalty.com.  Jamil has written an excellent article on how to make a yeast starter, including calculating the right amounts of water and DME.  Do yourself a favor and buy a stirplate and 2000 ml Erlenmeyer flask (maybe for next time).  It is definitely a worthwhile investment, because it speeds up making yeast starters to a workable timeframe, and improves the chances of a ending up with a problem free starter, with a substantially larger population of healthy yeast than can be had with a non-stirplate starter.

25

Ingredients / Re: What's the strangest ingredient you've ever used?

« on: March 16, 2013, 04:01:20 PM »

From a previous NB Forum thread: 

I've made the Brew-Haus chokecherry stout a couple times and it's very good. I adopted their method for using chokecherries and developed a Chokecherry Belgian Wit recipe that is also very good according to a number of people...

"Also for my recipe, I've frozen, thawed, then macerated the chokecherries (I do them bit by bit in a food processor, no more than about 15 seconds since you DON'T want to crack the pits since they contain prussic acid, i.e. poison), and stirred that well while pasteurizing them in the wort after the boil, and then strained them out prior to fermenting, rather than tossing them pits and all into the primary fermenter. This makes it easier to rack after primary fermentation. But I had plenty of cc's to work with...

I've tried both removing the stems and not removing the tiny stems and I didn't think the batch with stems came in very noticeably more bitter, although they will for wine or mead."

You can also freeze, thaw and then squish by hand the berries, but I found that the food processor is much quicker and if done right won't crack a single pit, and isn't hard at all to do without cracking pits.  I think I got the food processor idea from a blog about making pemmican or mead.  PM me if you'd like the recipe.  Since they are a strong flavored berry, they are fine for adding pre-ferment.  I checked my past batch notes and found that 1.2 pounds of ripe chokecherries per gallon of finished beer is plenty of fruit.  The brewer at the time (2006) at Blue Moon Brewing in Bend, OR helped me dial in my recipe.  You need to let this beer mature awhile, for the fruit to integrate - it's amazing the transformation it goes through after it's been in the bottle for a couple months.  I haven't tried kegging it yet.

The old Brew-Haus (they are/were in Durango, CO) recipe for Rocky Mountain Choke Cherry Stout, no longer available via a Google search (I just tried), they macerated by hand the fruit, pasteurized following the boil at ~160F for 20 minutes, and then dumped pits and all into fermenters for the entire primary.

edited to reduce amount of fruit per batch after checking past batch notes.

26

Ingredients / Re: Tart cherry juice concentrate

« on: March 16, 2013, 03:23:20 PM »

For 6 gallons of sour-worted oude kriek, based on the product's stated # cherries per serving, towards the end of primary fermentation I added 19 - 20 oz. of "Tart is Smart" 100% montmorency juice concentrate from Washington State (Othello, WA) to emulate Oud Beersel's 400g per liter of fresh cherries rate for their Oude Kriek.  Mine came out very well.  I've used this product for other beers as well (dubbel, porter), sometimes in addition to cherry puree.

It's pretty expensive though at $30 for 32 oz.:

http://www.amazon.com/Tart-Smart-Cherry-Concentrate-32-Ounce/dp/B001CFMGGI

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Ingredients / Re: What's the strangest ingredient you've ever used?

« on: March 16, 2013, 02:50:21 PM »

I've adapted a majorvices saison recipe more or less with a kaffir lime leaves and galangal (Indian ginger) saison that was great.  I also make a chokecherry Belgian wit with wild-picked chokecherries that is really good.

As for non-typical but not unheard of ingredients, one saison I did with star anise and ginger in very small amounts was probably my least favorite of my saisons but still was tasty.

28

Kegging and Bottling / Re: keg lube

« on: March 16, 2013, 02:32:56 PM »

I use just the tiniest of a smidge between two fingers, then run the big 0-ring round and round between those fingers to barely moisten the o-ring while distributing the lube equally.  Of course for the gas and liquid posts it's a fractionally relevant (smaller amount of lube) application.  Then I sanitize the o-rings via immersion in Star San prior to assembling the keg.  I break down, clean, sanitize and lube my kegs after each use.             

29

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Water, by John Palmer

« on: March 16, 2013, 02:09:47 PM »

Looking forward to this book.  I pre-ordered it on amazon a month or so ago.  I'm trying to work my way through the Hops book now.

As one has come to expect from Hieronymus, a truly excellent book!

30

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Ever have one of those beers.....

« on: March 16, 2013, 02:07:34 PM »

Kegging: Normal routine, except lid gasket decides things look better at the bottom of 5 gallons of beer.

This happened to me last week when removing keg dry hops.  Another good reason for good sanitizing practices!  I didn't bother to fish it out.