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Author Topic: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.  (Read 2003 times)

Offline scoundrel

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Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« on: April 02, 2013, 12:02:01 pm »
Hi All,

Here is a technique I came up with to brew multiple quart batches, at once, to try different ingredients.

http://www.brewgeeks.com/try-ingredients-before-brewday.html

Hope you find it useful!

Offline weithman5

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2013, 01:18:20 pm »
quite interesting
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Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2013, 04:43:50 pm »
Do I understand correctly that you are running your microwave for 60 minutes straight? How are you keeping that from boiling over? I've microwaved wort in a mason jar before and once it hits boil I have to stop it every few seconds and it never seems to get beyond that boilover stage.
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Offline tknice

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2013, 05:12:16 pm »
He is using fermcap to prevent boilovers.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2013, 05:16:00 pm by tknice »
BrewGeeks.com It's Dry Hopped and Fully Attenuated!

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Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2013, 11:16:54 pm »
He is using fermcap to prevent boilovers.

I'm still surprised he's getting no boilover even with the fermcap. I guess I am underestimating the power of fermcap.
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Offline scoundrel

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2013, 03:16:00 pm »
Without Fermcap you do have to watch it and I have had to use the stop/start technique sometimes when I don't use Fermcap, but when you get past the hot break, it's fine. When not using fermcap, I keep the volume down to about 200ml.

Offline weithman5

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2013, 03:58:19 pm »
i have been pondering this.  any particular reason to boil for so long if you don't do 60 minute additions? also i think a similar way of boiling would be just to get a canning kettle and put the beer jars into water that is boiling around them, you could probably control this a bit easier
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Offline scoundrel

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Re: Technique to try ingredients before you brew with them.
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2013, 10:27:42 pm »
i have been pondering this.  any particular reason to boil for so long if you don't do 60 minute additions? also i think a similar way of boiling would be just to get a canning kettle and put the beer jars into water that is boiling around them, you could probably control this a bit easier

Great question and I agree, in most situations 30 or even 15 minutes is enough. Jars in water will work but it takes a long time to boil. It's probably better to bring the wort to boil in a microwave and move it to a canning kettle for hop timings. Once you get the jars to boil, you're right, with a canning kettle you would get better control.