Topics

1

Kegging and Bottling / Beer won't Come out of Keg :-(

« on: March 13, 2015, 06:31:58 PM »

Hello All,

I'm not sure what I've done wrong with my keg system.  I kegged my beer a week ago and put in on gas to carbonate.  Yesterday I connected the tap and opened it, and only a little dribble comes out.  The keg has been at 11psi for a week and seems to be keeping a good seal.  The connectors seem to be on correctly.  I disconnected everything, let the gas out of the keg, reconnected and waited 24 hours, and today I still have the same problem.  Any ideas what to do? 

2

General Homebrew Discussion / Adjusting Hops in a Stout

« on: May 28, 2013, 03:55:05 AM »

hello all.  I have a question about adjusting hop bitterness in a small batch with late extract additions.  In a few days I'm gonna brew a small all-grain 2 3/4 gallon batch of sweet stout, in my effort to experiment with a sweet chocolate stout. 

If I were to mash all the grains at once and boil full volume, I need about 3.6 gallons water pre-boil, and my recipe calculates to 31 IBU, according to Beersmith.  However, I was planning to take a gallon of water and cold steep my dark grains, and add it to the boil with 15 minutes or so left.  So I'd start with 2.6 gallons, and I'm guessing I'll end up fairly close to my final volume when I'm done. 

So I adjusted my batch size in Beersmith to 1 3/4 gal, and it changed my predicted IBUs to 41.  I'm not looking for a strongly hopped beer.  Should I reduce my hop additions to get back to 31 using the smaller boil, or just leave them as-is?  Am I going about the calculations in the wrong way? 

3

General Homebrew Discussion / Blow-Off Tube Laziness

« on: July 11, 2011, 05:06:33 PM »

So, over the past few months I've been getting lazy with my beer in the fermenter.  I always seem to need a blow-off tube, but instead of replacing it with an airlock afeter a couple days, I've gotten to the point where I don't feel like messing with it and I've just been letting it be until I'm ready to keg.  My question is, is it okay to continue to be lazy, or should I get off my butt and switch them when I should?

4

General Homebrew Discussion / Nice Compliment on my Beer!

« on: February 06, 2011, 09:13:02 PM »

So tonight I took a pitcher of german pils (Jamil's Myburger recipe, a clone of Bitburger) to a neighbor for the super bowl.  None of them had tried my brew yet and I was concerned about the reaction.  One guy poured a glass, took one sip and said "This tastes just like Bitburger!"   Don't think it gets much better than that.

5

General Homebrew Discussion / Warrior and Amarillo in an IPA?

« on: January 15, 2011, 06:46:51 AM »

Has anyone used these two hops in making an IPA?  I like both separately, and so I was thinking of making an IPA using warrior as the bittering hop, and using amarillo in regular additions from 30 minutes to flameout.  I'm curious if anyone's had success or failure using these two together.  thanks!

6

General Homebrew Discussion / Aerating with a Mix-Stir

« on: January 11, 2011, 06:14:09 PM »

Hey all.  I recently picked up a mix-stir and was going to start using it to aerate my batches.  Up 'til now, I've been using an aquarium pump and a beer stone, which has worked well if I let it run for while.  My question is, is there a correct length of time to run the mix stir for good aeration?

7

General Homebrew Discussion / Lager in a Keg?

« on: December 16, 2010, 07:57:35 PM »

Hey y'all,

I brewed a german pils a couple weeks back, and I'm thinking about how to go about lagering when it's time.  I was thinking of xferring it to a keg and lagering it in my kegerator for a few weeks.  Think this will work?  I'm guessing the right thing to do would be to put it on gas just enough to purge all the oxygen out, but should I lager it under a little bit of pressure, or just purge all the gas and let it be?  When I'm done lagering, should I transfer it again to a fresh keg, or can I serve straight from the secondary?  I wasn't planning on using any clarifiers, mostly because I've never used them before.  Thanks!

Dave

8

General Homebrew Discussion / Too Cold?

« on: December 07, 2010, 07:30:00 PM »

Last week I decided to brew a German Pils using WLP830, just as a cold snap hit our area.  Everythign went well with my brew, except that my fermenter is in the garage and it's so cold my fridge can't keep the wort above 50.  Right now it's at 48 degrees inside my fridge.  The yeast is going, although the lag time was a little long.  I'm not sure if I need to do anything to raise the temperature a little.  Is 48 degrees too cold to make good beer?  I thiink White Labs says the minimum temp for that yeast is 50. 

9

General Homebrew Discussion / Dry Hopping and Cold Conditioning

« on: October 15, 2010, 06:56:43 PM »

I'm making a clone of DFH 60-min IPA, and the recipe I have requires dry hopping.  I was also going to cold condition it for a few days just to help everything settle out before kegging.  Can I do both at the same time or should I dry hop at fermentation temps and cold condition toward the end of the dry hop time?

thanks in advance

Dave

10

All Grain Brewing / Lautering Time

« on: October 12, 2010, 05:46:16 PM »

Hello all,

I was wondering how much time I should be taking to get the runnings from the mash.  I batch sparge and make 5 gallon batches.  I haven't really timed it, but I guess it takes me 15 minutes apiece on the first and second runnings, maybe less.  Is that too quick?  Usually I'm itching to get on with boiling by the time I have my second runnings draining.  I've only had one stuck mash in about 3 years of all-grain brewing.  Does going slow provide any benefits other than reducing the chances of stuck mashes? 

Dave

11

Yeast and Fermentation / Is S-04 supposed to smell like...

« on: May 25, 2010, 08:32:37 PM »

...farts?  I just bottled half a batch of a best bitter made with that yeast (made the other half with 1968), and when I was rinsing out my carboy the yeast had a mild stank to it.  Not rotten eggs, but definitely smelled like butt gas.  Any reason for that?  My beer looked perfectly normal prior to bottling, and tasted fine.

12

General Homebrew Discussion / Souping up a Pale Ale into an IPA?

« on: March 21, 2010, 09:13:34 AM »

Recently I made a columbus-simcoe-amarillo pale ale based in part on the advice from the forum here.  It came out really awesome, and now I'm thinking of kicking it up to IPA or perhaps DIPA range.  Looking for feedback on the best way to do this - just adding more grain/hops to bump up the OG and IBUs, or is there a more subtle/artful approach? 

Here's the recipe for the pale ale.  OG was 1.056, IBUs calculate at 49, SRM is 7.1.  Ingredients were:

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 92.7 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.3 %
0.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00%] (60 min) Hops 12.8 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (60 min) Hops 11.9 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (20 min) Hops 8.5 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (20 min) Hops 7.2 IBU
0.50 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (5 min) Hops 4.7 IBU
0.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00%] (5 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
1.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc 
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale 

13

Ingredients / Flaked Barley?

« on: January 22, 2010, 06:12:16 AM »

This is probably a dumb question, but if I'm using flaked barley in a recipe, I don't have to mill it first, right?  I'm assuming it goes in the mash tun as-is.

14

Yeast and Fermentation / Can I use yeast nutrient without a starter?

« on: January 11, 2010, 12:06:36 PM »

Hi y'all.  I was wondering if it would be helpful to add yeast nutrient to my wort before fermenting.  I've been using US-05 lately, so I haven't had the need to make a starters.  I wonder if adding it would help the yeast, or just mess up the beer. 

15

General Homebrew Discussion / Simcoe And Amarillo in a Pale Ale?

« on: January 09, 2010, 11:55:52 AM »

Has anyone tried combining Simcoe and Amarillo together in a pale ale?  I was thinking of make one, using simcoe for bittering, then simultaneous additions at 20 min, 5 min, and flameout.  I had to scale down the simcoe to try to keep the IBUs in range for pale ale.  Right now I've got 45 IBUs calculated.  Here's what I was going to try:

9.5 lbs 2-Row
.75 lbs Crystal 40L
.5 oz simcoe 60 min
.5 oz amarillo and .25 oz simcoe at 20 min
.5 oz amarillo and .25 oz simcoe at 5 min
1 oz of each at flameout

 If anyone has tried this combination and has suggestions or advice, I'd appreciate it.