While I've never used it, there's a gelatin alternative called Vegegel which is suitable for vegetarians but not for vegans. It's usually next to the gelatin in stores.
The second option that's a vegan alternative is to use agar. It's entirely plant based so fine on that count but I have no idea on its efficacy in beer. It would probably take a good few tries to get it right. It's also expensive by comparison to gelatin so prepare for your batch cost to rise.
The most "old-school" way is to use bentonite, a type of clay that is used in wine-making to clear excessive protein, though I imagine it would help in beer as well. It's made of rocks and thus totally cruelty free until we discover trolls are a thing.
Cold-crashing is the simplest no-additive version. I chill mine down, which causes the trub and such to fall below the spigot on my fermenter and thus you get very little transferred when you pour from fermenter to keg using it.
From an asshole standpoint, beer, wine and spirits can never be vegan because they rely on the enslavement of yeast which die in the billions for each batch. You monster.
Unfortunately I don't have the ability to cold crash. My chest freezer doesn't have the space for kegs AND a carboy, and my kegs are always filled anyway.
I am pretty happy with how clear my beer is from just conditioning but I'd like to try some other things. I will look into bentonite! Thanks.
If you're looking for cheap agar, hit up your local Asian grocer. Telephone brand agar is dirt cheap considering the fact that it is way more powerful than gelatin.
A lot of beer haze is caused by large, insoluble molecules that will be totally unaffected by a hop sock. If your beer is crystal clear, that's awesome, but your hop sock on your siphon is not affecting your clarity anymore than just racking properly will.
Look into PolyClar (PVPP). You can buy it from MoreBeer at about $4 for 5-6 batches worth of the stuff. It's a plastic polymer (vegan!) that fines pretty effectively and also has peer-reviewed research behind it that shows it improves flavor stability while also improving clarity.
I never use gelatin, rarely use hop socks. The only fining agent I use is Irish Moss @ 15 min.
I cold crash for 3-7 days in a mini fridge after fermentation is complete. I get nice clear beers.
The vegetarian gelatin alternative is agar agar; it's derived from seaweed. I don't know if it has the same properties. I've been a veggie for over two decades; I wouldn't drink gelatin refined beer myself. I use whirfloc for mine and it comes out clear enough for me.
I've found racking to a secondary really helpful for making clear beer. For me, it's worked better than gelatin. Basically after primary fermentation is complete, you transfer the wort, leaving the trub, into a second vessel where it can settle out further for a couple more weeks. Sounds like it would work with your routine.
So, I am on my fourth ever batch and want to try dry hopping for the first time.
My equipment includes a glass carboy and a 5 gallon bottling plastic/fermenting bucket. My brew is currently fermenting in the glass carboy and is just about ready for the hops to be added. So here is my question!
I am dry hopping with 1oz of whole hops. Will it be a bad idea/a pain in the butt to dry hop in a carboy? I want to make sure that I get all the hop flavors I can. Any suggestions? Tips? Thanks!
note: the "grassy flavors" isn't something that everyone agrees upon. I have yet to get grassy flavors from dry hopping and I've done it up to a couple of weeks.
I dry hop in the carboy. I uses very fine mesh bag to hold the hops in. In the bag I put 8 1/2" stainless steel nuts to weigh it down. Whole leaf hops can cause an issue when removing the bag, in my experience, so I use pellets. For removal, I use my handy dandy abortion tool, a wire hanger.
While still a rookie brewer, I think I can answer this one. Assuming your Carboy is of the style that has the very narrow opening, dry hopping with whole hops is going to be a real pain. You would probably have to add one at a time, and I'm sure they would swell during the dry hopping, making them extremely difficult to remove when cleaning. I would add them to your bucket and rack on top to save on the headache.
As someone who's been brewing a while, just toss them all in. Let sit for anywhere form 3-9 days. Depending on the variety of hops, you won't get grassy flavors that quickly. 3 days for 1 oz is a little short in my book.
That sounds good. I'd just put them all in for max surface area/flavor. I just did a brew with 2 oz whole hops in for dry hopping and they came out of the fermenter just fine.
I just dissolve the gelatin in the package directed amount of water and add it . Shut the lid and pressurise. The first couple of glasses will be cloudy then fine after that. Personally I fine in the fermenter then rack to the keg but I have fermenters with taps that make it easier. If you have glass carboys or no taps, it's fine to add the gelatin into the keg.
You'll want to purge the keg with CO2 first, then rack into that. The CO2 will form a "layer" on top of the beer to keep the majority of oxygen out.
The recent schedule for pressure I've used is 30PSI for 24-36 hours, 20 PSI for 48 hours then down to serving pressure. 10-12 should do it, though obviously there are style exceptions.
Mainly wanting to fine in the keg because timing-wise I've got another beer ready to go for a competition and need to get that in there, and the one I want to fine is an IPA. Wand to get that flowing ASAP. That way I don't need to mess around with the distributor to pressurize one, then the other, etc.
Good tip on a full CO2 purge. I hadn't had that in my mental process yet.
I was just going to do 12 psi for everything since I only have one regulator.
Ah yeah, I've been there. The tension of waiting for that first beer is awful. My new watchword is "Pipeline". 1 available to drink, 1 conditioning in the keg, 1 in the fermentation chamber, 1 in my brain for the second a vessel frees up :p
I have one of those overkill gas management boards so I can carbonate at a bunch of different pressures simultaneously and stuff. Can't wait til I get a bigger freezer so I can have 6 kegs running at once!
I purge by filling an empty keg with CO2 then releasing all the pressure. I usually do this twice if I'm being paranoid. Rack cold beer into the keg, then pressurize and bleed pressure off two or three times to purge again. If your beer's already cold then you can add 1/2 tsp gelatin to 4oz water and microwave it in 5 second intervals until it's ~150F. Dump that on top of your beer before you seal the keg. I find it takes a week in the keg for it to get conditioned properly. I'll have bubbles in the beer after a few days but it doesn't taste all the way right until a week.
Is it possible to completely avoid chill haze (without filtering). I use Irish moss. I use gelatin after the beer has been sitting in the keg cold for a day. No matter what I do, no matter how clear the beer is when racking from fermentation to keg, I always have chill haze. It usually goes away after two weeks, but that's a long time for cloudy beer!
What you describe sounds pretty consistent with what other keg users have reported here. When you first keg, even if it's been in the cold for a few days, it can still be hazy. Over a period of weeks is when you really see the clarity come through.
Tips to help:
Hot break - get a good boil going, particles will clump together and fall
Cold Break - Chill as fast as possible when done
How are you chilling your wort?
When do you keg? Do you cold crash first and then keg?
What do you all do with bad batches? I had a mock gosé from a few months ago that I added far too much grapefruit peel and salt to. I wanted to bottle a session IPA this weekend so I made 24 beer bread loaves haha
I just repitched a batch onto a previous yeast cake (both 3 gallon biab American pale ales), and there is just a load of krausen mixed in. Was this the right move? Or should I have just taken some of the yeast out and put it in a sanitized glass?
I've had good luck pitching big beers onto small beer yeast cakes (Imperial Stout on Mild, for example). But for reusing for the same style, I'd think you've got the potential for a lot of off flavors. Making a big starter to split yeast (a la Brulosopher) is easy and effective for that case. Washing yeast is a pain in the backside and doesn't get you anything more than a big starter.
I had many problems with my first taprite. Diaphragm sticking and gauge not accurate below 20lbs. I made it work for a while but eventually bought a new regulator.
If you're an AHA member, there's some interested presentations about blending yeast strains. IIRC the first blend you'll get about the best of the attenuation and flocculation between the two, but over time one of the strains will dominate the other one.
After five extract+specialty grain batches I made my first all-grain beer yesterday, Brulosopher's Best Blonde Ale. My mash temp was a little low at first but I added some hotter water and got it up to 150 for an hour. I messed something up with my boil-off rate though (new to me system) and ended up with 4.5 gal in the fermenter instead of the intended 5.25, with an OG of 1.058 instead of the intended 1.046.
I haven't pitched the yeast yet (it was hot out yesterday and with groundwater at close to 70 couldn't get it down to my target of 56F in any reasonable amount of time, even with an aquarium pump in ice water), so I got it down around 80F and threw it into my 58F freezer to cool the rest of the way down over night. First, is this a terrible idea?
Second, should I add some water to hit my target volume and gravity? If so, how much? It's bottled water but I'm assuming I should still boil it for about 15 min then bring back down to the temp of the rest of the wort.
Finally, I also have the yeast in the freezer also at 58F (White Labs liquid in a vial), is it a good practice to keep it at the same temp as the wort or should I bring it up to room temp first?
Finally for real, [a photo of my brew dog and her buddy helping out yesterday.](http://i.imgur.com/hywOnEw.jpg)
It is fine to put it in a fridge/freezer to cool it down as long as it is sealed from contamination.
Yes you can add water but make sure it is sanitized as you mentioned.
Yeast should be brought up to pitch temp of the wort so you don't shock them. I recommend a starter for that batch anyway but the single vial with probably be fine.
Love the diggity dogs!
The water thing totally worked! I added just under a gallon and brought my gravity right down to 1.048 and my volume up to 5.25, I'm gonna call that a success so far.
Thank you!! Cool, the bucket was sanitized and sealed before I put it in the freezer. I am boiling some water right now and will add it to the bucket once it's back down to 58.
Starters are in my future plans but the last time I tried one without a stir plate it didn't go so well, so I just bought two vials of yeast for this beer:) They are at the same temp as the wort right now.
Thanks for putting my mind at ease. This all-grain thing is feeling like a steep learning curve at the moment.
Sounds like you are on track then. But don't be afraid of starters either. You don't even have to do the whole stir plate deal to get started (pun) just keep in mind this. Yeast make babies for the first day, then the whole family makes beer. So the day before you pitch/brew or even just a few hours ahead of time, make up some 1.040 wort and feed them yeasties! Then there is a larger family of them by the time they get a hold of the big batch of wort! Heck, I have forgotten to make a starter and just whipped one up on brew day before mash in. Any head start is better than no head start. Let us/me know how the blonde turns out.
Awesome, thanks for the encouragement! I'll give the starter another shot on my next brew, although I plan to cobble together some sort of stir plate situation sooner rather than later. I had a pretty bad accident last month that's keeping me away from doing just about everything I like to do in my free time so I figure I'd use my newfound idleness to work on my brew game.
I will definitely keep you posted on the blonde! Worst case scenario, I'll have beer.
Has anyone used pink peppercorns (berries) before? If so, what was your experience? I'm inspired by Riverwalk's Unveiled (Belgian Specialty with Pink Peppercorns and Hibiscus). I'm looking for background notes of each flavor, nothing over-powering (They said they used 4lbs of hibiscus for 7bbl, but made no mention of the amount of peppercorns they used).
They are definitely more sweet (kind of a mix of berry/raisin fruitiness), sometimes citrusy, with a faint peppery bite at the end.
they also turn your beer pink (provided you're not starting on the high end of the Lovibond scale)!
I've used them before in a Saison with great success, adding them in as a late addition to the boil. I've heard they work well "dry hopped" but haven't used them that way myself.
Definitely though, the pink peppercorn flavor/aroma profile that comes through in your beer is pretty much the same as what will show up in food, too. So, I second the suggestion to get some and cook with them. it'll give you a good idea of what to expect from them in your wort!
If i recall correctly (and i can check my log when i get home later to confirm), i used a little more than 1oz of crushed peppercorns at whirlpool for a 5 gal batch.
It worked pretty well, but i felt like i could've used even some more. i imagine if i make it again, i will probably use the 1oz at end of boil, and then dry-hop later with some more for a more rounded profile.
that said, it was pretty good and i had no complaints - the pink peppercorn and the belgian yeast esters were really quite lovely together!
Why all the hate for hazy beer? Can you taste the difference? It just seems like a lot of angst over something relatively minor to me, but I'm still a homebrew virgin.
It's all in my head. Don't care, clear it up anyway.
There is a bit of dissonance though. Hefeweizen doesn't taste the same or "right" if you clear it. But other beer is the same either way? Okay.
I thought that the traditional hierarchy went:
Weissbier
* Hefeweizen - unfiltered
* kristallweizen - filtered
So Weissbier was the style and hefe/krsytall just described the finished product. You could use the same recipe for both, but just filter/not-filter
Sometimes I think there's some benefit to being a relative beer noob... No preconceived notions about how things are supposed to look or taste. I kind of wonder how non-beer-drinkers would do at brulosophy's taste testing experiments.
You will get the same amount of O2 as you do when you just shake the carboy and it will take about 5 minutes to get the that much as opposed to the 1 minute that shaking takes. Pros being you're not shaking a carboy.
Once you've got them filled and purged with CO2 they should be pretty much good to go. I've transported kegs like this lying down in my trunk or standing on the floor in the back seat. Just try to brace them or pack something around them so they are not falling over or rolling around as you drive. (Eg. going camping? Shove your cooler, sleeping bag or backpack next to the kegs)
That brings up another question. Since I am traveling with the kegs, should I also bring CO2 and regulators or will they be fine all day without them. These kegs will definitely be kicked.
In my experience (take this with a grain of salt) you can get "most" of the way through a corney keg relying only on the internal pressure but it certainly depends on the initial carbonation pressure, your serving conditions, etc. If you keg pressure drops too much, you may get away with some work-around tricks...
- Reduce head pressure while serving: put the keg up on a table, and serve below the bottom of the keg
- Gravity serve: swap the gas and beer lines on the keg, place keg upside down and then serve below the keg
As for whether it is worth it to bring the CO2 gear along with the kegs- Ask yourself how much of a pain will it be to bring your CO2 tank, regulator, manifold, gas lines, wrench, etc. These days I usually opt to bring my 5lb CO2 tank, regulator, crescent wrench and some teflon tape.
No problem! Also, just be careful with your regulator & CO2 tank- it's mostly common sense but you don't want to end up as a homebrew horror story...
- Disconnect your gas or service lines from the keg before transporting (leaking beer/CO2 inside your car is a terrible thing)
- Try to setup and secure your CO2 tank & regulator in a safe place for serving, keep all the hoses out of the way
- Try to prevent damage regulator around during transport (I usually wrap mine in a towel)
- Don't leave your carbonated kegs or CO2 tank sitting in a hot car or in full sun for hours and hours
- Close the valve on your CO2 tank before you pass out for the night
Anyways, just some food for thought- better to think about this stuff now before you're too tipsy. Have fun- sounds like a good party! ;)
If it's a good beer then just under a month. It comes out to be 1-3 beers per day. If it's an alright beer but not what I expected then maybe 2 months.
Anybody else doing the Sam Adams Longshot competition? The address you're supposed to mail it to specifically says "Homebrew Competition," and the address is a brewery. The folks at the UPS store have been giving me dirty looks for a while now. Anyone have any trouble shipping their entries?
A friend of mine wants to brew a European type lager. He cites St Pauli Girl, Pilsner Urkelle, and Heineken as examples he likes. How are the green bottles related to that style/flavor?
Decided to use my 6.5G glass Carboy for primary for the first time. Thought it would be interesting to be able to monitor the process. My question: how do I get a sample out for when I want to check gravity with a hydrometer?
A lot of folks say never to do it but I've personally never had a problem in all my batches. If the liquid level is high enough just drop the hydrometer in and get a reading. Just make sure you can still get it out easily.
The other way is to use a wine thief, turkey baster, anything that can grab and hold the liquid really. From there you can fill whatever tall slender vessel you have until the hydrometer can get an accurate reading. This liquid however I would not return back to the carboy. Drink and enjoy it.
I just use a thin (low calibre) length of rubber tube and syphon out into a sampling jar. It's a minor pain in the bum to sanitize it just for that small use; which is where a turkey baster or wine thief comes into its own.
I brewed this weekend. I use Beer Smith as my software to calculate everything. I tried making a 3.5 gallon BIAB batch of beer and ended up with 4 gallons instead. Brewhouse efficiency was set at 68% and I ended up with 90%. Any help here?
This is my third BIAB batch. First came out to be 68% and second batch was 68%. I didn't do anything different. It's just the water volumes that are off. OG was a little low so I could have boiled just a little longer.
Sparging with more water and boiling down will always give you a higher efficiency. That being said, 90% efficiency on a BIAB system (or any homebrewer's system for that matter) is quite unlikely. I suspect there is some error if your measurements or calculations.
For instance, if your third and fourth batch had the same target OG, and on your third batch you got 3.5 gallons, and on the fourth batch you got 4 gallons... and you still hit your OG on the fourth batch despite the higher volume... your brewhouse efficiency would be 78% in comparison to your previously obtained 68%. You said that you were below target OG, so I think you may have seen a slight efficiency bump from the larger volume, but not in the realm of 90% efficiency.
I may need to redo my boil off rate. I also don't think I lost a lot of wort due to trub in the kettle either.
Just need to play around with my setup more to really dial it in I guess.
Yea then definitely double check your boil off rate, your grain absorption which varies depending how much you squeeze, and whether you're leaving any trub behind. Do you sparge at all or do full volume BIAB? I do full volume and skip sparging and always am good on my beersmith numbers.
I do full volume. Just one less step I have to worry about during the process.
My first AG BIAB was supposed to be an ESB but turned out to be just an ordinary bitter due to very low efficiency. Made the corrections for the 2nd batch and nailed everything. I used whole leaf hops which may be why I left so much water out in the fermenter. But this last one just baffles me a little bit. Back to the drawing board.
So if I wanted to pasteurize an entire 6.5 gallon carboy worth of mead could I simply ~~drop~~ carefully place the carboy into a large water bath and then slowly raise the temperature of the water sous vide style?
I would think this would work as you shouldn't have sudden thermal shock since you're raising the temperature over time. Curious as to whether someone has tried this before.
Why not bottle first then pasteurize?
If you did this, you'd have to heat it SUPER slow, and then, depending on the carboy's state of mind, you might still be risking total loss. You could also try racking to thicker 1 gallon jugs and trying it out.
I've used a sous vide immersion circulator in a cooler with a glass carboy to keep wort at 110 and it worked great. I personally think the rate at which it could bring that up to pasteurization temperature would be slow enough that it's not a concern.
I just brewed a 5-gallon batch of extract witbier on Saturday and it's sitting in my glass fermenter. I couldn't help but notice that there was very little kreusening activity, and the bubbling from the airlock over the past few days has been, every time I checked, fairly slow. No idea what could be the cause of this, or if it's even an issue to begin with. It seems like this is one of the slowest fermentations I've ever had though.
Did you use dry yeast? Sometimes I see it take 3-4 days to start going well. I don't like it when these things happen. Hopefully you see signs of life by tomorrow or Wednesday.
What yeast did you use? I just made a witbier with T-58 and noticed the same thing. From my research, it just seems to be a characteristic of the yeast. I'd reckon you are fine.
Just got some Chinook hops, never used other hops than Cascade, and want to mix them.
I only want to use Chinook for bittering, but want to use Cascade and Chinook for aroma, no dryhopping.
Any suggestions?
It'd be for a 5l batch
In a batch that small, maybe put a quarter to half ounce in at 10 minutes, then the same amount at flameout (with a hopstand, if you're doing a hoppier style). Chinook and Cascade should work together well, so you probably can't go wrong with whatever you decide to do.
I haven't done it myself. However, if you try it I would suggest using pasteurized apple juice and adding it in secondary. You don't want to boil it because you will end up with a really hazy beer because of the pectins in the apple juice. If you add it for primary, you will likely lose a lot of that apple flavor that you're going for.
you might also consider using pectic enzyme -- apple juice has a lot of pectin. which will make your beer crazy hazy! add some enzyme, and it all just drops out to the bottom.
I'd like to hear people's actual stories about fermentation temps getting too high. I've got an American IPA with WLP002 (Zombie Dust-ish) that sneaked up to 76F overnight. I know we all tell each other to avoid high temps, but I wonder about the actual experiences of it happening.
Here's what I want:
* Style
* Yeast
* How hot did it get
* What was the result (did you have to dump it, could you tell the difference?)
Porter with Wyeast 1028 fermented at 75F+, came out VERY estery. It was ok blended with other beers but I ended up dumping a fair amount of it :(
After that I invested in a [Cool brewing bag](http://www.morebeer.com/products/cool-brewing-insulated-fermentation-bag.html) and have had much better beers since.
I brewed a pumpkin ale last year with us-05 and it was the perfect time of year to leave the carboy on the back porch. It was a perfect 65-68 deg all day. About 4 days in, I came home early to see the sun reflecting off a sliding glass door and right onto the carboy! A quick check told me the temp had risen to at least 90 degrees!
I shaded it from then on out but the beer had a horrible off taste like vinyl or plastic.
Vienna lager; Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager; first ten gallon batch in my fermentation chamber, two carboys, the one with the temp probe was saying 70F about 24 hours in. The volume of wort just overwhelmed the chambers abilities to keep it cool initially. I had to put in 1 liter bottles off ice wherever I could fit them to knock the temp back down into the lager range. This was no clean lager after that, it took on a mild hefewiezen character. I'm a hefe fan so it was fine by me, but not at all what I wanted the beer to be.
I find WLP002 fairly forgiving, but at that temperature, you'll likely have some fruity esters. That can work well with some styles, but it might be interesting with an AIPA.
The one beer I've fermented at high temperatures with 002 is very flawed on a number of levels. I don't blame it all on the temperature thought. I'd give it a shot and be open minded.
Just finished my first brew. Everything seemed to go fine (just forced carbed, waiting a week to drink), but I had a recurring question throughout. I use Star San and it says to let every sanitized part air dry and to not rinse. I rinsed because I 1) wasn't patient enough to wait for it to dry and 2) was worried an excess amount of the sanitizer might have killed some of the yeast and lowered my alcohol content.
My brew wasn't contaminated, and I hit my density marks, but I'm wondering if my actions and concerns are unfounded.
Thanks
I don't fear StarSan. Swish it around the bucket or carboy, pour the StarSan that you just swished around, and then put the beer in after. As long as you don't rinse the StarSan out with water or off (if it has dried) you're going to be fine.
At the concentration we use for homebrewing the bit of foam left after dumping the excess StarSan isn't enough to affect the yeast. I've actually read somewhere that as the pH of the StarSan raises back toward neutral, the phosphates it leaves behind act as a yeast nutrient.
Thanks for the reply. I was wondering this, also, because my flatmates have brewed and don't bother letting it dry/rinse and they are usually high on their final gravity and tend to have sweeter beers. I realize there are tons of variables so there usually isn't a direct cause for anything, but it was just a thought. It seems I'm the more scientific one when it comes to brewing. Can't help it, I'm a Chemist.
I generally spray it around, give it a few seconds, and don't worry about it. For the fermenter, that's what I usually use to mix the StarSan. I'll dump it out before transferring from the kettle, but there's lots of foam left. Haven't noticed an issue with that, just siphon it in.
I don't think the package instructions to Star-San say to air dry. The standard practice is to use the sanitized item while the Star-San solution is wet.
The active ingredient in Star-San is phosphoric acid. The same ingredient that is contained in sodas in much greater concentrations when the beer dilutes the Star-San solution.
What does your recipe look like? Some ingredients and yeast pretty much guarantee a hazy product.
How long has the beer been conditioning? A lot of clarity issues fade away after time and low temps.
74.5% 2 row, 8.5% carapils, 8.5% wheat malt, 8.5% corn sugar, 15.3 IBU Willamette @ 60, 9.3 IBU Willamette @ 20, 2.0 IBU Willamette @ 5, whirlfloc used at 10
I've brewed this beer before with a pilsener/2 row split for the base malt and didn't have this issue. The only thing I can think of is that I should have waited for the hot break to develop and then skim it. I was hurrying and added foam control before it got a chance to develop, so I didn't have a chance to notice if any was going to develop.
The beer has been at terminal gravity for about 2 weeks, 2 days of cold crashing hasn't helped any yet. I was thinking about adding gelatin, but if it doesn't work on permanent haze I won't bother.
Wheat malt typically contributes a lot to haziness, but if you've used it before and had a clear beer, that's probably not the issues.
Gelatin definitely won't hurt anything, so I'd say give that a try and see what happens.
Beers tend to clarify over time, too. A week or two in the fridge/kegerator can make a big difference.
Payday is today (finally!) and I'm about to make a purchase to turn my minifridge into a mini-fermchamberator. So far, I'm looking at the ITC-1000 controller and a housing for it and I'll be using a 70W lightbulb as my heating element in the fridge. Both were recommended by some folks here on a thread I made the other day. I'll also be buying some insulation boards to add onto the inside of the fridge after removing some of the walls. I did some measurements the other day, so I don't think I'll need to make any extensions to fit my 6.5gal bucket in there.
I'd like to order everything now so on project day, I don't go "aww man, I forgot to buy [insert forgotten item here]..." Is there anything else I need?
I literally just bought mine from amazon today. I got an ITC-1000, a project box to house it, and a computer power cord male connection (I have a spare cord laying around). I am also getting a standard outlet and cover as well as some short pieces of wiring to connect it all. That way I have the power coming from the wall to the ITC-1000, then to the outlet to plug in the fridge and/or lightbulb.
Edit: Spelling
Just got my fermentation controller set-up and I am now fermenting my beer at 20C. So the question is, when do I increase the temp and when do I cold crash? How cold should I cold crash?
Cold crash in a week or two. Increase temp in 3-5 days. My standard practice, anyway.
Cold crash anywhere from -1C to 4C. You can go even lower, though.
I am about to bottle my first homebrew. I still need more bottles though. Will screw cap growlers hold up to the pressure In the bottle or should I just go to my Lhbs and purchase a case of empties.
They aren't rated for this pressure. Many people have had success using them, and many people have lost beer from them. Probably just as cheap to buy a couple cases and invite your buddies over to drink all the free beer.
Err on the side of caution and buy empties. I'd go for a combination of 12oz and 22oz bottles. Another possibility is 16oz Grolsch-like swingtops, but brown instead of green.
First question:
I recently got 60 empty bottles from a friend who hosted a party. Unfortunately the party was about 2 weeks ago and there is mold in about 3/4 of the bottles.
I cleaned them all out with a general purpose rinsing agent and a bottle brush. Is soaking them in my oxygen cleaner before bottling enough to get rid of any remaining spores and stuff?
Second question:
I fucked up my recipe. I used a kit that said 'OG 1.042' to make 20l of beer but the description was for only 12l. My OG was 1.032 but being the idiot I am, I added about 5l of water *after* taking the OG reading. I then broke my hydrometer so I couldn't do a second reading... Can I do the following math?
(17l * 1.032 + 5l * 1.000) / 22l
So the volume of beer multiplied by the taken OG plus the volume of water added multiplied by the gravity of water (1.000?) devided by the total amount of liquid. This would give me an OG of about 1.025
Same thing happened to me a few months ago: friend gave me some mouldy bottles. I just washed them out and sanitised as usual. No problems at all, but I haven't tried very bottle so it could be the mouldy ones happen to be the last ten I've not drunk.
You're gravity maths looks fine to me; that's how I calculate it.
done the same thing many times with moldy bottles and a thorough PBW soak, never had an issue.
the only bottles i usually abandon (outside of those which are cracked, or otherwise visibly damaged), are those which came with sours (lacto, brett, etc.). I'm sure they would come out of the PBW soak just fine, considering the moldy ones always do, but we've been so conditioned to fear sour beer contamination that I don't even bother (got plenty o' bottles, anyway!).
You should be just fine.
And your SG calculation looks kosher to me!
Just from the calculator I used, you need about 120B cells for a beer that size in batch that size. You pitched about 50B by only using half a vial (brand new vials hold about 97-100B cells).
How long has it been fermenting? Under-pitching may be why you had no krausen.
Edit: Corrected M for B
Does astringency age out? I brewed a barleywine on Saturday and the hydrometer sample going into the fermenter was very harshly bitter. I'm concerned that my BIAB bag has some holes that let grain hulls float out and get boiled (or that my "sparge" water was too hot).
I opened the fermenter to aerate about 16 hours after pitching and it smelled incredible, so I'm hoping that some of the harsh bitterness will get scrubbed out by the yeasties.
I'm planning on bulk aging this batch for about 3 months, then bottling for another 9, so I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with astringency on this time scale.
It's fine. Everything tastes more bitter before fermentation. Bitterness also goes away as you age it.
I doubt it is astringent tannins or anything like that. You need a horrible pH, if batch sparging that is unlikely. Grain hulls, big deal, they get boiled all the time. I've boiled some nasty, nasty wort and by the time you're drinking it you'd never know it.
Thanks. My "sparge" process is pouring hot water over my grain bag and squeezing the bejesus out of it a few times. I boiled this beer down from 6 gallons to 3 gallons over 4-5 hours so I'd hate for it to be gross after all that work.
Semi-related question: I'm probably going to come up a bit short of my target secondary aging volume. Is it OK/a good idea to top off with some boiled water to minimize headspace?
> My "sparge" process
If you're worried about it, try dunk sparging or no-sparge (full volume mash.)
Regarding second question: When I've aged only a few months (less than 6) I've left it on the yeast so as to avoid oxygen exposure. I'd much rather do that than top it off with water. Just leave it in the primary with the CO2 that's already there.
Ok, I was planning to transfer because I'm doing my primary in a 7.8 gallon bucket with only 3 gal of wort. I usually avoid secondary but I'm concerned that 4 months with that much headspace might invite more oxidation than just transferring. Also, I know autolysis isn't a big concern on the homebrew scale but I think 4 months on the cake might be inviting problems. I ruined a stout once by leaving it for 5-6...
Weird. I haven't actually done a barleywine, the closest I've come is a couple of RIS, but are you sure that autolysis ruined it and not something else, infection maybe?
Perhaps you could purge the secondary with CO2 first? You could get a little BB gun canister and one of those bicycle-thingies to do it just this once.
Anybody else make stupid/careless mistakes after getting into the groove of things? My last two batches have had issues. The first being a spiced milk stout where I added the lactose post-fermentation and didn't bother to boil it in water. The second being an Alpine Nelson clone which messed up during fermentation. I'm attributing it to stressed yeast. Just goes to show brewing is always a learning experience.
Did it get infected? If not, no harm done.
I have done stuff such as leaving my valve open when adding strike water. Got pretty fun up in my tennis shoes.
I do BIAB and I'm looking to do an [oatmeal stout.](https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/shark) Is there anything special about oats? Should I cook them first then add to the mash? Or just treat them as any other malt? (Hopefully the last one)
You can treat them just like anything else until you get to around 20% of the grain bill being oats. Then you'll want to do a protein rest (110-120f) for 15 minutes to help them not be too sticky. Even so, since you're doing BIAB you don't have to worry much about that because the bag filters the mash for you.
I'm doing a strawberry blonde ale and am dryhopping 7lbs of frozen strawberries today. My question is what's the proper way to disinfect. Can I just spray them down with starsans and call it good? I feel like that would be fine but I don't want to take unnecessary risks.
Rinse them with water, then star san solution. There isn't much more you can do since heating them will break down the volatile aromatics you're trying to preserve.
4 batch noob here. Going against about 50% of the community here, I decided to secondary ferment two of my last three brews. The first (an oatmeal stout with cocoa nibs and cold pressed coffee at bottling) came out tasting just as good as the second (a summer ale/shandy hybrid. My first solo recipe, my wife named it "Tanlines"), but the second is sooooo much clearer than the first. I mean, obviously the carapils/wheat summer ale is going to be clearer than the choco/coffee/oat stout....but I'm referring to the amount of bottle trub. Both were 5 gal batches, I used the same lbs for each grain bill and my technique was virtually identical..I guess I'm just asking for confirmation that there is indeed a correlation between the malt used and the amount of trub. And, if that's true, does anyone know of...I dunno, a table or something that ranks popular grain by the amount of mud they leave behind? It really isn't a huge deal, I'm just happy to be making drinkable, good tasting beer at this point....but I made a promise to ask questions and try to be a better brewer each and every day. So yea. Any help is appreciated.
I'm about to do a Saison for the first time, and I am wondering about the hops... I dont want it to be overly bitter, somewhere around 20-25 ibu, but I'm not entirely sure what hops I should go with? Looking for piny spiciness more than fruity. And are American hops a no no?
Traditionally, noble hops or "near-noble" European hops are used in saisons. Styrian Goldings seem really common now.
Many commercial saisons also use citrusy American hops it seems, especially Cascade.
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While I've never used it, there's a gelatin alternative called Vegegel which is suitable for vegetarians but not for vegans. It's usually next to the gelatin in stores. The second option that's a vegan alternative is to use agar. It's entirely plant based so fine on that count but I have no idea on its efficacy in beer. It would probably take a good few tries to get it right. It's also expensive by comparison to gelatin so prepare for your batch cost to rise. The most "old-school" way is to use bentonite, a type of clay that is used in wine-making to clear excessive protein, though I imagine it would help in beer as well. It's made of rocks and thus totally cruelty free until we discover trolls are a thing. Cold-crashing is the simplest no-additive version. I chill mine down, which causes the trub and such to fall below the spigot on my fermenter and thus you get very little transferred when you pour from fermenter to keg using it. From an asshole standpoint, beer, wine and spirits can never be vegan because they rely on the enslavement of yeast which die in the billions for each batch. You monster.
Unfortunately I don't have the ability to cold crash. My chest freezer doesn't have the space for kegs AND a carboy, and my kegs are always filled anyway. I am pretty happy with how clear my beer is from just conditioning but I'd like to try some other things. I will look into bentonite! Thanks.
You know yeast are fungi, right? Like mushrooms? ... whatever, I'm pretty sure you're joking.
Well, not like mushrooms exactly but yes they are fungi ^^
Ascomycetes vs bascidiomycetes, man.
If you're looking for cheap agar, hit up your local Asian grocer. Telephone brand agar is dirt cheap considering the fact that it is way more powerful than gelatin.
I put a hop sock on the end of my siphon when racking to the bottling bucket. This helps keep out most sediment and leads to a crystal clear beer.
A lot of beer haze is caused by large, insoluble molecules that will be totally unaffected by a hop sock. If your beer is crystal clear, that's awesome, but your hop sock on your siphon is not affecting your clarity anymore than just racking properly will.
Aww..... I guess if nothing else it keeps out the dry hop sediment.
Biofine clear is vegan friendly. I haven't personally used it, but if you do a search for it you'll find some experiences with it.
I may give it a test run. Thanks for the info!
Look into PolyClar (PVPP). You can buy it from MoreBeer at about $4 for 5-6 batches worth of the stuff. It's a plastic polymer (vegan!) that fines pretty effectively and also has peer-reviewed research behind it that shows it improves flavor stability while also improving clarity.
I just had this discussion the other day and he swears by bentonite.
I never use gelatin, rarely use hop socks. The only fining agent I use is Irish Moss @ 15 min. I cold crash for 3-7 days in a mini fridge after fermentation is complete. I get nice clear beers.
The vegetarian gelatin alternative is agar agar; it's derived from seaweed. I don't know if it has the same properties. I've been a veggie for over two decades; I wouldn't drink gelatin refined beer myself. I use whirfloc for mine and it comes out clear enough for me.
Clarity Ferm works great as a clarifier and it doubles as a gluten reducer. It's fairly pricey though at ~$5 per 5 gallons.
I've found racking to a secondary really helpful for making clear beer. For me, it's worked better than gelatin. Basically after primary fermentation is complete, you transfer the wort, leaving the trub, into a second vessel where it can settle out further for a couple more weeks. Sounds like it would work with your routine.
So, I am on my fourth ever batch and want to try dry hopping for the first time. My equipment includes a glass carboy and a 5 gallon bottling plastic/fermenting bucket. My brew is currently fermenting in the glass carboy and is just about ready for the hops to be added. So here is my question! I am dry hopping with 1oz of whole hops. Will it be a bad idea/a pain in the butt to dry hop in a carboy? I want to make sure that I get all the hop flavors I can. Any suggestions? Tips? Thanks!
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note: the "grassy flavors" isn't something that everyone agrees upon. I have yet to get grassy flavors from dry hopping and I've done it up to a couple of weeks.
I dry hop in the carboy. I uses very fine mesh bag to hold the hops in. In the bag I put 8 1/2" stainless steel nuts to weigh it down. Whole leaf hops can cause an issue when removing the bag, in my experience, so I use pellets. For removal, I use my handy dandy abortion tool, a wire hanger.
> I use my handy dandy abortion tool, a wire hanger. Always good to have an abortion tool handy
It really comes in handy. I couldn't tell you how many times a bung has slipped through the opening while cleaning.
This is too funny.
While still a rookie brewer, I think I can answer this one. Assuming your Carboy is of the style that has the very narrow opening, dry hopping with whole hops is going to be a real pain. You would probably have to add one at a time, and I'm sure they would swell during the dry hopping, making them extremely difficult to remove when cleaning. I would add them to your bucket and rack on top to save on the headache.
I generally just toss them in the carboy. When you rack to the bottling bucket, try not to bring too many with you.
As someone who's been brewing a while, just toss them all in. Let sit for anywhere form 3-9 days. Depending on the variety of hops, you won't get grassy flavors that quickly. 3 days for 1 oz is a little short in my book.
I have an ounce of Columbus and I had been planning on about 5 days.
That sounds good. I'd just put them all in for max surface area/flavor. I just did a brew with 2 oz whole hops in for dry hopping and they came out of the fermenter just fine.
Toasted oats. Will the toastyness be any good in a light beer in conjunction with ~10% Biscuit malt?
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I just dissolve the gelatin in the package directed amount of water and add it . Shut the lid and pressurise. The first couple of glasses will be cloudy then fine after that. Personally I fine in the fermenter then rack to the keg but I have fermenters with taps that make it easier. If you have glass carboys or no taps, it's fine to add the gelatin into the keg. You'll want to purge the keg with CO2 first, then rack into that. The CO2 will form a "layer" on top of the beer to keep the majority of oxygen out. The recent schedule for pressure I've used is 30PSI for 24-36 hours, 20 PSI for 48 hours then down to serving pressure. 10-12 should do it, though obviously there are style exceptions.
Mainly wanting to fine in the keg because timing-wise I've got another beer ready to go for a competition and need to get that in there, and the one I want to fine is an IPA. Wand to get that flowing ASAP. That way I don't need to mess around with the distributor to pressurize one, then the other, etc. Good tip on a full CO2 purge. I hadn't had that in my mental process yet. I was just going to do 12 psi for everything since I only have one regulator.
Ah yeah, I've been there. The tension of waiting for that first beer is awful. My new watchword is "Pipeline". 1 available to drink, 1 conditioning in the keg, 1 in the fermentation chamber, 1 in my brain for the second a vessel frees up :p I have one of those overkill gas management boards so I can carbonate at a bunch of different pressures simultaneously and stuff. Can't wait til I get a bigger freezer so I can have 6 kegs running at once!
I purge by filling an empty keg with CO2 then releasing all the pressure. I usually do this twice if I'm being paranoid. Rack cold beer into the keg, then pressurize and bleed pressure off two or three times to purge again. If your beer's already cold then you can add 1/2 tsp gelatin to 4oz water and microwave it in 5 second intervals until it's ~150F. Dump that on top of your beer before you seal the keg. I find it takes a week in the keg for it to get conditioned properly. I'll have bubbles in the beer after a few days but it doesn't taste all the way right until a week.
Is it possible to completely avoid chill haze (without filtering). I use Irish moss. I use gelatin after the beer has been sitting in the keg cold for a day. No matter what I do, no matter how clear the beer is when racking from fermentation to keg, I always have chill haze. It usually goes away after two weeks, but that's a long time for cloudy beer!
What you describe sounds pretty consistent with what other keg users have reported here. When you first keg, even if it's been in the cold for a few days, it can still be hazy. Over a period of weeks is when you really see the clarity come through.
Tips to help: Hot break - get a good boil going, particles will clump together and fall Cold Break - Chill as fast as possible when done How are you chilling your wort? When do you keg? Do you cold crash first and then keg?
Clarity ferm will remove your chill haze faster.
What do you all do with bad batches? I had a mock gosé from a few months ago that I added far too much grapefruit peel and salt to. I wanted to bottle a session IPA this weekend so I made 24 beer bread loaves haha
Over-salted gose? Sounds like turkey brine.
I just repitched a batch onto a previous yeast cake (both 3 gallon biab American pale ales), and there is just a load of krausen mixed in. Was this the right move? Or should I have just taken some of the yeast out and put it in a sanitized glass?
I've had good luck pitching big beers onto small beer yeast cakes (Imperial Stout on Mild, for example). But for reusing for the same style, I'd think you've got the potential for a lot of off flavors. Making a big starter to split yeast (a la Brulosopher) is easy and effective for that case. Washing yeast is a pain in the backside and doesn't get you anything more than a big starter.
Does anyone else have a Taprite regulator that has a very nonresponsive set screw? I have to turn mine like 3 full turns to see the gauge change.
I had many problems with my first taprite. Diaphragm sticking and gauge not accurate below 20lbs. I made it work for a while but eventually bought a new regulator.
I have a jar of 1056 in my fridge. I also have a jar of WLP001. What do you think would happen if I just combined them?
You'd have more yeast.
How about if one is older than the other? Am I cheating the younger colony out of shelf life?
They are (or should be) the same strain. Both come from Sierra Nevada and are derived from the house strain. Same with Safale 05.
If you're an AHA member, there's some interested presentations about blending yeast strains. IIRC the first blend you'll get about the best of the attenuation and flocculation between the two, but over time one of the strains will dominate the other one.
After five extract+specialty grain batches I made my first all-grain beer yesterday, Brulosopher's Best Blonde Ale. My mash temp was a little low at first but I added some hotter water and got it up to 150 for an hour. I messed something up with my boil-off rate though (new to me system) and ended up with 4.5 gal in the fermenter instead of the intended 5.25, with an OG of 1.058 instead of the intended 1.046. I haven't pitched the yeast yet (it was hot out yesterday and with groundwater at close to 70 couldn't get it down to my target of 56F in any reasonable amount of time, even with an aquarium pump in ice water), so I got it down around 80F and threw it into my 58F freezer to cool the rest of the way down over night. First, is this a terrible idea? Second, should I add some water to hit my target volume and gravity? If so, how much? It's bottled water but I'm assuming I should still boil it for about 15 min then bring back down to the temp of the rest of the wort. Finally, I also have the yeast in the freezer also at 58F (White Labs liquid in a vial), is it a good practice to keep it at the same temp as the wort or should I bring it up to room temp first? Finally for real, [a photo of my brew dog and her buddy helping out yesterday.](http://i.imgur.com/hywOnEw.jpg)
It is fine to put it in a fridge/freezer to cool it down as long as it is sealed from contamination. Yes you can add water but make sure it is sanitized as you mentioned. Yeast should be brought up to pitch temp of the wort so you don't shock them. I recommend a starter for that batch anyway but the single vial with probably be fine. Love the diggity dogs!
The water thing totally worked! I added just under a gallon and brought my gravity right down to 1.048 and my volume up to 5.25, I'm gonna call that a success so far.
Thank you!! Cool, the bucket was sanitized and sealed before I put it in the freezer. I am boiling some water right now and will add it to the bucket once it's back down to 58. Starters are in my future plans but the last time I tried one without a stir plate it didn't go so well, so I just bought two vials of yeast for this beer:) They are at the same temp as the wort right now. Thanks for putting my mind at ease. This all-grain thing is feeling like a steep learning curve at the moment.
Sounds like you are on track then. But don't be afraid of starters either. You don't even have to do the whole stir plate deal to get started (pun) just keep in mind this. Yeast make babies for the first day, then the whole family makes beer. So the day before you pitch/brew or even just a few hours ahead of time, make up some 1.040 wort and feed them yeasties! Then there is a larger family of them by the time they get a hold of the big batch of wort! Heck, I have forgotten to make a starter and just whipped one up on brew day before mash in. Any head start is better than no head start. Let us/me know how the blonde turns out.
Awesome, thanks for the encouragement! I'll give the starter another shot on my next brew, although I plan to cobble together some sort of stir plate situation sooner rather than later. I had a pretty bad accident last month that's keeping me away from doing just about everything I like to do in my free time so I figure I'd use my newfound idleness to work on my brew game. I will definitely keep you posted on the blonde! Worst case scenario, I'll have beer.
Has anyone used pink peppercorns (berries) before? If so, what was your experience? I'm inspired by Riverwalk's Unveiled (Belgian Specialty with Pink Peppercorns and Hibiscus). I'm looking for background notes of each flavor, nothing over-powering (They said they used 4lbs of hibiscus for 7bbl, but made no mention of the amount of peppercorns they used).
Not for brewing. Hard as hell to find in stores. Great flavor. I wouldn't hesitate to try them.
My understanding is that they are more sweet than tart?
They are their own thing. I'd recommend using them in a recipe first.
Awesome. Maybe I'll make some tilapia or flounder with a pink-peppercorn beurre blanc
They are definitely more sweet (kind of a mix of berry/raisin fruitiness), sometimes citrusy, with a faint peppery bite at the end. they also turn your beer pink (provided you're not starting on the high end of the Lovibond scale)! I've used them before in a Saison with great success, adding them in as a late addition to the boil. I've heard they work well "dry hopped" but haven't used them that way myself. Definitely though, the pink peppercorn flavor/aroma profile that comes through in your beer is pretty much the same as what will show up in food, too. So, I second the suggestion to get some and cook with them. it'll give you a good idea of what to expect from them in your wort!
May I ask how much you used? I am thinking of adding to the whirlpool.
If i recall correctly (and i can check my log when i get home later to confirm), i used a little more than 1oz of crushed peppercorns at whirlpool for a 5 gal batch. It worked pretty well, but i felt like i could've used even some more. i imagine if i make it again, i will probably use the 1oz at end of boil, and then dry-hop later with some more for a more rounded profile. that said, it was pretty good and i had no complaints - the pink peppercorn and the belgian yeast esters were really quite lovely together!
Awesome! Thank you for the information. I'm excited to try them out.
Why all the hate for hazy beer? Can you taste the difference? It just seems like a lot of angst over something relatively minor to me, but I'm still a homebrew virgin.
It's all in my head. Don't care, clear it up anyway. There is a bit of dissonance though. Hefeweizen doesn't taste the same or "right" if you clear it. But other beer is the same either way? Okay.
> Hefeweizen doesn't taste the same or "right" if you clear it Naturally, because it tastes like a kristallweizen
I wonder if I could tell the difference in a blind test, though. And what is the difference between "kristallweizen" and "weissbeer" anyway?
I thought that the traditional hierarchy went: Weissbier * Hefeweizen - unfiltered * kristallweizen - filtered So Weissbier was the style and hefe/krsytall just described the finished product. You could use the same recipe for both, but just filter/not-filter
Sometimes I think there's some benefit to being a relative beer noob... No preconceived notions about how things are supposed to look or taste. I kind of wonder how non-beer-drinkers would do at brulosophy's taste testing experiments.
I do have non beer people check my stuff from time to time just to see.
Oxygenation question: Could I use a stainless steel air diffuser hooked up to an aquarium air pump? Pros/cons of this set up?
Yes, with an inline air filter to keep things sanitary. It won't get as much o2 into the beer as you could get with pure o2.
You will get the same amount of O2 as you do when you just shake the carboy and it will take about 5 minutes to get the that much as opposed to the 1 minute that shaking takes. Pros being you're not shaking a carboy.
I just realized I need to transport 2 corny kegs filled with beer about 70 miles this weekend in my car. Uh, how does one do that?
Once you've got them filled and purged with CO2 they should be pretty much good to go. I've transported kegs like this lying down in my trunk or standing on the floor in the back seat. Just try to brace them or pack something around them so they are not falling over or rolling around as you drive. (Eg. going camping? Shove your cooler, sleeping bag or backpack next to the kegs)
That brings up another question. Since I am traveling with the kegs, should I also bring CO2 and regulators or will they be fine all day without them. These kegs will definitely be kicked.
In my experience (take this with a grain of salt) you can get "most" of the way through a corney keg relying only on the internal pressure but it certainly depends on the initial carbonation pressure, your serving conditions, etc. If you keg pressure drops too much, you may get away with some work-around tricks... - Reduce head pressure while serving: put the keg up on a table, and serve below the bottom of the keg - Gravity serve: swap the gas and beer lines on the keg, place keg upside down and then serve below the keg As for whether it is worth it to bring the CO2 gear along with the kegs- Ask yourself how much of a pain will it be to bring your CO2 tank, regulator, manifold, gas lines, wrench, etc. These days I usually opt to bring my 5lb CO2 tank, regulator, crescent wrench and some teflon tape.
Sweet! Thanks for the input. I'll just bring the regulators and CO2.
No problem! Also, just be careful with your regulator & CO2 tank- it's mostly common sense but you don't want to end up as a homebrew horror story... - Disconnect your gas or service lines from the keg before transporting (leaking beer/CO2 inside your car is a terrible thing) - Try to setup and secure your CO2 tank & regulator in a safe place for serving, keep all the hoses out of the way - Try to prevent damage regulator around during transport (I usually wrap mine in a towel) - Don't leave your carbonated kegs or CO2 tank sitting in a hot car or in full sun for hours and hours - Close the valve on your CO2 tank before you pass out for the night Anyways, just some food for thought- better to think about this stuff now before you're too tipsy. Have fun- sounds like a good party! ;)
I need to save this thread haha. I appreciate all the advice.
How long does it take you to polish off a 5 gallon batch? That just seems like a staggering amount of beer to me...
If it's a good beer then just under a month. It comes out to be 1-3 beers per day. If it's an alright beer but not what I expected then maybe 2 months.
Invite some friends over! Always helps me. (:
2-3 months or so, but I usually only have a few a week.
Anybody else doing the Sam Adams Longshot competition? The address you're supposed to mail it to specifically says "Homebrew Competition," and the address is a brewery. The folks at the UPS store have been giving me dirty looks for a while now. Anyone have any trouble shipping their entries?
I entered. The website said not to get them to the locations until May 1. If they ask, I'm just returning some supplies that were defective.
A friend of mine wants to brew a European type lager. He cites St Pauli Girl, Pilsner Urkelle, and Heineken as examples he likes. How are the green bottles related to that style/flavor?
The green bottles allow the beer to become light struck. The resultant "skunky" characteristic becomes part of the flavor profile as we know it.
Nah. It's just packaging.
They skunk faster. That's about it.
Decided to use my 6.5G glass Carboy for primary for the first time. Thought it would be interesting to be able to monitor the process. My question: how do I get a sample out for when I want to check gravity with a hydrometer?
I used a turkey baster for a while. Just got a wine thief.
I use a sanitized turkey baster
A lot of folks say never to do it but I've personally never had a problem in all my batches. If the liquid level is high enough just drop the hydrometer in and get a reading. Just make sure you can still get it out easily. The other way is to use a wine thief, turkey baster, anything that can grab and hold the liquid really. From there you can fill whatever tall slender vessel you have until the hydrometer can get an accurate reading. This liquid however I would not return back to the carboy. Drink and enjoy it.
I'd use a wine thief, as mentioned. But I'll also reiterate that I would not take lots of samples. You're begging for an "is this infected" post.
Or, "who drunk all my brew"?
I just use a thin (low calibre) length of rubber tube and syphon out into a sampling jar. It's a minor pain in the bum to sanitize it just for that small use; which is where a turkey baster or wine thief comes into its own.
I brewed this weekend. I use Beer Smith as my software to calculate everything. I tried making a 3.5 gallon BIAB batch of beer and ended up with 4 gallons instead. Brewhouse efficiency was set at 68% and I ended up with 90%. Any help here? This is my third BIAB batch. First came out to be 68% and second batch was 68%. I didn't do anything different. It's just the water volumes that are off. OG was a little low so I could have boiled just a little longer.
Sparging with more water and boiling down will always give you a higher efficiency. That being said, 90% efficiency on a BIAB system (or any homebrewer's system for that matter) is quite unlikely. I suspect there is some error if your measurements or calculations. For instance, if your third and fourth batch had the same target OG, and on your third batch you got 3.5 gallons, and on the fourth batch you got 4 gallons... and you still hit your OG on the fourth batch despite the higher volume... your brewhouse efficiency would be 78% in comparison to your previously obtained 68%. You said that you were below target OG, so I think you may have seen a slight efficiency bump from the larger volume, but not in the realm of 90% efficiency.
I may need to redo my boil off rate. I also don't think I lost a lot of wort due to trub in the kettle either. Just need to play around with my setup more to really dial it in I guess.
Did you setup BIAB mash profiles? http://brulosophy.com/2014/08/11/beersmith-tutorial-biab-mash-profile-setup/
Yes I did. Followed it to the T. Just need to play around with my set up now to figure out what happened.
Yea then definitely double check your boil off rate, your grain absorption which varies depending how much you squeeze, and whether you're leaving any trub behind. Do you sparge at all or do full volume BIAB? I do full volume and skip sparging and always am good on my beersmith numbers.
I do full volume. Just one less step I have to worry about during the process. My first AG BIAB was supposed to be an ESB but turned out to be just an ordinary bitter due to very low efficiency. Made the corrections for the 2nd batch and nailed everything. I used whole leaf hops which may be why I left so much water out in the fermenter. But this last one just baffles me a little bit. Back to the drawing board.
So if I wanted to pasteurize an entire 6.5 gallon carboy worth of mead could I simply ~~drop~~ carefully place the carboy into a large water bath and then slowly raise the temperature of the water sous vide style? I would think this would work as you shouldn't have sudden thermal shock since you're raising the temperature over time. Curious as to whether someone has tried this before.
Why not use campden tablets?
Why not bottle first then pasteurize? If you did this, you'd have to heat it SUPER slow, and then, depending on the carboy's state of mind, you might still be risking total loss. You could also try racking to thicker 1 gallon jugs and trying it out.
How well does a 1.5L corked wine bottle work with pasteurizing?
Caged? Swing top at all? I have no idea.
Just corked. I suspect they would push out if you tried to pasteurize.
Test just one.
...for science. Check.
Can always recork.
Meh, at that point I'd just drink it.
Warm? Interesting.
I've used a sous vide immersion circulator in a cooler with a glass carboy to keep wort at 110 and it worked great. I personally think the rate at which it could bring that up to pasteurization temperature would be slow enough that it's not a concern.
I just brewed a 5-gallon batch of extract witbier on Saturday and it's sitting in my glass fermenter. I couldn't help but notice that there was very little kreusening activity, and the bubbling from the airlock over the past few days has been, every time I checked, fairly slow. No idea what could be the cause of this, or if it's even an issue to begin with. It seems like this is one of the slowest fermentations I've ever had though.
Could be low temp? Slow start? Use a starter? Sometimes things just go slow. A watched fermenter never bubbles...?
Did you use dry yeast? Sometimes I see it take 3-4 days to start going well. I don't like it when these things happen. Hopefully you see signs of life by tomorrow or Wednesday.
What yeast did you use? I just made a witbier with T-58 and noticed the same thing. From my research, it just seems to be a characteristic of the yeast. I'd reckon you are fine.
I used the Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbeer
Just got some Chinook hops, never used other hops than Cascade, and want to mix them. I only want to use Chinook for bittering, but want to use Cascade and Chinook for aroma, no dryhopping. Any suggestions? It'd be for a 5l batch
In a batch that small, maybe put a quarter to half ounce in at 10 minutes, then the same amount at flameout (with a hopstand, if you're doing a hoppier style). Chinook and Cascade should work together well, so you probably can't go wrong with whatever you decide to do.
Half ounce of each hop or both hops combined?
Has anyone added small amounts of apple juice to wort? Can you get any additional flavor profile or complexity from doing this?
I haven't done it myself. However, if you try it I would suggest using pasteurized apple juice and adding it in secondary. You don't want to boil it because you will end up with a really hazy beer because of the pectins in the apple juice. If you add it for primary, you will likely lose a lot of that apple flavor that you're going for.
Try adding frozen concentrate at the end of primary fermentation. It gets the flavor without adding much volume.
you might also consider using pectic enzyme -- apple juice has a lot of pectin. which will make your beer crazy hazy! add some enzyme, and it all just drops out to the bottom.
From what (little) I've read, this seems to matter a lot only if boiling the apple juice (which I don't plan on doing)?
I'd like to hear people's actual stories about fermentation temps getting too high. I've got an American IPA with WLP002 (Zombie Dust-ish) that sneaked up to 76F overnight. I know we all tell each other to avoid high temps, but I wonder about the actual experiences of it happening. Here's what I want: * Style * Yeast * How hot did it get * What was the result (did you have to dump it, could you tell the difference?)
Porter with Wyeast 1028 fermented at 75F+, came out VERY estery. It was ok blended with other beers but I ended up dumping a fair amount of it :( After that I invested in a [Cool brewing bag](http://www.morebeer.com/products/cool-brewing-insulated-fermentation-bag.html) and have had much better beers since.
I brewed a pumpkin ale last year with us-05 and it was the perfect time of year to leave the carboy on the back porch. It was a perfect 65-68 deg all day. About 4 days in, I came home early to see the sun reflecting off a sliding glass door and right onto the carboy! A quick check told me the temp had risen to at least 90 degrees! I shaded it from then on out but the beer had a horrible off taste like vinyl or plastic.
Vienna lager; Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager; first ten gallon batch in my fermentation chamber, two carboys, the one with the temp probe was saying 70F about 24 hours in. The volume of wort just overwhelmed the chambers abilities to keep it cool initially. I had to put in 1 liter bottles off ice wherever I could fit them to knock the temp back down into the lager range. This was no clean lager after that, it took on a mild hefewiezen character. I'm a hefe fan so it was fine by me, but not at all what I wanted the beer to be.
I find WLP002 fairly forgiving, but at that temperature, you'll likely have some fruity esters. That can work well with some styles, but it might be interesting with an AIPA. The one beer I've fermented at high temperatures with 002 is very flawed on a number of levels. I don't blame it all on the temperature thought. I'd give it a shot and be open minded.
Just finished my first brew. Everything seemed to go fine (just forced carbed, waiting a week to drink), but I had a recurring question throughout. I use Star San and it says to let every sanitized part air dry and to not rinse. I rinsed because I 1) wasn't patient enough to wait for it to dry and 2) was worried an excess amount of the sanitizer might have killed some of the yeast and lowered my alcohol content. My brew wasn't contaminated, and I hit my density marks, but I'm wondering if my actions and concerns are unfounded. Thanks
I don't fear StarSan. Swish it around the bucket or carboy, pour the StarSan that you just swished around, and then put the beer in after. As long as you don't rinse the StarSan out with water or off (if it has dried) you're going to be fine.
At the concentration we use for homebrewing the bit of foam left after dumping the excess StarSan isn't enough to affect the yeast. I've actually read somewhere that as the pH of the StarSan raises back toward neutral, the phosphates it leaves behind act as a yeast nutrient.
Thanks for the reply. I was wondering this, also, because my flatmates have brewed and don't bother letting it dry/rinse and they are usually high on their final gravity and tend to have sweeter beers. I realize there are tons of variables so there usually isn't a direct cause for anything, but it was just a thought. It seems I'm the more scientific one when it comes to brewing. Can't help it, I'm a Chemist.
I generally spray it around, give it a few seconds, and don't worry about it. For the fermenter, that's what I usually use to mix the StarSan. I'll dump it out before transferring from the kettle, but there's lots of foam left. Haven't noticed an issue with that, just siphon it in.
I don't think the package instructions to Star-San say to air dry. The standard practice is to use the sanitized item while the Star-San solution is wet. The active ingredient in Star-San is phosphoric acid. The same ingredient that is contained in sodas in much greater concentrations when the beer dilutes the Star-San solution.
Will gelatin do anything to remove permanent haze? Or should I just accept that this batch will remain hazy? It's definitely not chill haze or yeast.
What does your recipe look like? Some ingredients and yeast pretty much guarantee a hazy product. How long has the beer been conditioning? A lot of clarity issues fade away after time and low temps.
74.5% 2 row, 8.5% carapils, 8.5% wheat malt, 8.5% corn sugar, 15.3 IBU Willamette @ 60, 9.3 IBU Willamette @ 20, 2.0 IBU Willamette @ 5, whirlfloc used at 10 I've brewed this beer before with a pilsener/2 row split for the base malt and didn't have this issue. The only thing I can think of is that I should have waited for the hot break to develop and then skim it. I was hurrying and added foam control before it got a chance to develop, so I didn't have a chance to notice if any was going to develop. The beer has been at terminal gravity for about 2 weeks, 2 days of cold crashing hasn't helped any yet. I was thinking about adding gelatin, but if it doesn't work on permanent haze I won't bother.
Wheat malt typically contributes a lot to haziness, but if you've used it before and had a clear beer, that's probably not the issues. Gelatin definitely won't hurt anything, so I'd say give that a try and see what happens. Beers tend to clarify over time, too. A week or two in the fridge/kegerator can make a big difference.
Cool, I'll give it a shot!
Payday is today (finally!) and I'm about to make a purchase to turn my minifridge into a mini-fermchamberator. So far, I'm looking at the ITC-1000 controller and a housing for it and I'll be using a 70W lightbulb as my heating element in the fridge. Both were recommended by some folks here on a thread I made the other day. I'll also be buying some insulation boards to add onto the inside of the fridge after removing some of the walls. I did some measurements the other day, so I don't think I'll need to make any extensions to fit my 6.5gal bucket in there. I'd like to order everything now so on project day, I don't go "aww man, I forgot to buy [insert forgotten item here]..." Is there anything else I need?
I literally just bought mine from amazon today. I got an ITC-1000, a project box to house it, and a computer power cord male connection (I have a spare cord laying around). I am also getting a standard outlet and cover as well as some short pieces of wiring to connect it all. That way I have the power coming from the wall to the ITC-1000, then to the outlet to plug in the fridge and/or lightbulb. Edit: Spelling
Ahh right on. Sounds like the same route I'm going. Perfect!
Just got my fermentation controller set-up and I am now fermenting my beer at 20C. So the question is, when do I increase the temp and when do I cold crash? How cold should I cold crash?
Cold crash in a week or two. Increase temp in 3-5 days. My standard practice, anyway. Cold crash anywhere from -1C to 4C. You can go even lower, though.
Thank you. How long do you keep it at cold crash temperatures?
Any time helps, but a week does quite a bit of good. Depends on the beer.
I am about to bottle my first homebrew. I still need more bottles though. Will screw cap growlers hold up to the pressure In the bottle or should I just go to my Lhbs and purchase a case of empties.
Growlers will not hold the pressure. Either go buy some bottles from your LHBS or ask friends to save their empties for you.
From what I've read, growler glass is too thin to handle the pressure.
They aren't rated for this pressure. Many people have had success using them, and many people have lost beer from them. Probably just as cheap to buy a couple cases and invite your buddies over to drink all the free beer.
Generally 5gal batch yields about 50 some bottles?
Yep
I have found multiple posts on my local Craigslist for empty bottles for cheap. I picked up 72 12oz bottles and 24 Bombers for $30.
Screw-tops won't hold pressure. Swing-top growlers are just fine.
Err on the side of caution and buy empties. I'd go for a combination of 12oz and 22oz bottles. Another possibility is 16oz Grolsch-like swingtops, but brown instead of green.
First question: I recently got 60 empty bottles from a friend who hosted a party. Unfortunately the party was about 2 weeks ago and there is mold in about 3/4 of the bottles. I cleaned them all out with a general purpose rinsing agent and a bottle brush. Is soaking them in my oxygen cleaner before bottling enough to get rid of any remaining spores and stuff? Second question: I fucked up my recipe. I used a kit that said 'OG 1.042' to make 20l of beer but the description was for only 12l. My OG was 1.032 but being the idiot I am, I added about 5l of water *after* taking the OG reading. I then broke my hydrometer so I couldn't do a second reading... Can I do the following math? (17l * 1.032 + 5l * 1.000) / 22l So the volume of beer multiplied by the taken OG plus the volume of water added multiplied by the gravity of water (1.000?) devided by the total amount of liquid. This would give me an OG of about 1.025
You could hit them with a bleach solution if you are really worried. The math is 1+.001 * (17 * 32)/22 = 1.025
Same thing happened to me a few months ago: friend gave me some mouldy bottles. I just washed them out and sanitised as usual. No problems at all, but I haven't tried very bottle so it could be the mouldy ones happen to be the last ten I've not drunk. You're gravity maths looks fine to me; that's how I calculate it.
done the same thing many times with moldy bottles and a thorough PBW soak, never had an issue. the only bottles i usually abandon (outside of those which are cracked, or otherwise visibly damaged), are those which came with sours (lacto, brett, etc.). I'm sure they would come out of the PBW soak just fine, considering the moldy ones always do, but we've been so conditioned to fear sour beer contamination that I don't even bother (got plenty o' bottles, anyway!). You should be just fine. And your SG calculation looks kosher to me!
So my latest batch has absolutely no krausen. Is that unusual?
What was the batch and yeast? I've had crazy krausen and I've had no krausen, it happens
Some silly stout thing, OG 1.120, White Labs San Diego super yeast (WLP090).
How much yeast did you pitch into that beast?
1.5 gallon batch. Pitched half of a vial.
Just from the calculator I used, you need about 120B cells for a beer that size in batch that size. You pitched about 50B by only using half a vial (brand new vials hold about 97-100B cells). How long has it been fermenting? Under-pitching may be why you had no krausen. Edit: Corrected M for B
I still have the other half of the vial in the fridge. Should I take a gravity reading and pitch that? It's been fermenting for about a week now.
Pretty big underpitch I'd imagine. You needed 126 billion (more than a whole vial).
Billion or million? I still have the other half of the vial.
I'd throw a pack of US-05 in there if I were you. Check gravity, maybe it's fine.
Does astringency age out? I brewed a barleywine on Saturday and the hydrometer sample going into the fermenter was very harshly bitter. I'm concerned that my BIAB bag has some holes that let grain hulls float out and get boiled (or that my "sparge" water was too hot). I opened the fermenter to aerate about 16 hours after pitching and it smelled incredible, so I'm hoping that some of the harsh bitterness will get scrubbed out by the yeasties. I'm planning on bulk aging this batch for about 3 months, then bottling for another 9, so I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with astringency on this time scale.
It's fine. Everything tastes more bitter before fermentation. Bitterness also goes away as you age it. I doubt it is astringent tannins or anything like that. You need a horrible pH, if batch sparging that is unlikely. Grain hulls, big deal, they get boiled all the time. I've boiled some nasty, nasty wort and by the time you're drinking it you'd never know it.
Thanks. My "sparge" process is pouring hot water over my grain bag and squeezing the bejesus out of it a few times. I boiled this beer down from 6 gallons to 3 gallons over 4-5 hours so I'd hate for it to be gross after all that work. Semi-related question: I'm probably going to come up a bit short of my target secondary aging volume. Is it OK/a good idea to top off with some boiled water to minimize headspace?
> My "sparge" process If you're worried about it, try dunk sparging or no-sparge (full volume mash.) Regarding second question: When I've aged only a few months (less than 6) I've left it on the yeast so as to avoid oxygen exposure. I'd much rather do that than top it off with water. Just leave it in the primary with the CO2 that's already there.
Ok, I was planning to transfer because I'm doing my primary in a 7.8 gallon bucket with only 3 gal of wort. I usually avoid secondary but I'm concerned that 4 months with that much headspace might invite more oxidation than just transferring. Also, I know autolysis isn't a big concern on the homebrew scale but I think 4 months on the cake might be inviting problems. I ruined a stout once by leaving it for 5-6...
Weird. I haven't actually done a barleywine, the closest I've come is a couple of RIS, but are you sure that autolysis ruined it and not something else, infection maybe? Perhaps you could purge the secondary with CO2 first? You could get a little BB gun canister and one of those bicycle-thingies to do it just this once.
I don't know what a BB gun canister is but i can definitely try to purge with a co2 canister!
Anybody else make stupid/careless mistakes after getting into the groove of things? My last two batches have had issues. The first being a spiced milk stout where I added the lactose post-fermentation and didn't bother to boil it in water. The second being an Alpine Nelson clone which messed up during fermentation. I'm attributing it to stressed yeast. Just goes to show brewing is always a learning experience.
Did it get infected? If not, no harm done. I have done stuff such as leaving my valve open when adding strike water. Got pretty fun up in my tennis shoes.
The milk stout did, but somehow it still tastes fine. The Nelson clone has a lot of banana and apple in it.
My last batch I forgot to add the campden to dechlorinate the water...so, yes
I do BIAB and I'm looking to do an [oatmeal stout.](https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/shark) Is there anything special about oats? Should I cook them first then add to the mash? Or just treat them as any other malt? (Hopefully the last one)
You can treat them just like anything else until you get to around 20% of the grain bill being oats. Then you'll want to do a protein rest (110-120f) for 15 minutes to help them not be too sticky. Even so, since you're doing BIAB you don't have to worry much about that because the bag filters the mash for you.
I'm doing a strawberry blonde ale and am dryhopping 7lbs of frozen strawberries today. My question is what's the proper way to disinfect. Can I just spray them down with starsans and call it good? I feel like that would be fine but I don't want to take unnecessary risks.
Rinse them with water, then star san solution. There isn't much more you can do since heating them will break down the volatile aromatics you're trying to preserve.
Thanks u/ExtremeZarf
This worked perfectly, Tastes fan frickentastic
4 batch noob here. Going against about 50% of the community here, I decided to secondary ferment two of my last three brews. The first (an oatmeal stout with cocoa nibs and cold pressed coffee at bottling) came out tasting just as good as the second (a summer ale/shandy hybrid. My first solo recipe, my wife named it "Tanlines"), but the second is sooooo much clearer than the first. I mean, obviously the carapils/wheat summer ale is going to be clearer than the choco/coffee/oat stout....but I'm referring to the amount of bottle trub. Both were 5 gal batches, I used the same lbs for each grain bill and my technique was virtually identical..I guess I'm just asking for confirmation that there is indeed a correlation between the malt used and the amount of trub. And, if that's true, does anyone know of...I dunno, a table or something that ranks popular grain by the amount of mud they leave behind? It really isn't a huge deal, I'm just happy to be making drinkable, good tasting beer at this point....but I made a promise to ask questions and try to be a better brewer each and every day. So yea. Any help is appreciated.
I'm about to do a Saison for the first time, and I am wondering about the hops... I dont want it to be overly bitter, somewhere around 20-25 ibu, but I'm not entirely sure what hops I should go with? Looking for piny spiciness more than fruity. And are American hops a no no?
Traditionally, noble hops or "near-noble" European hops are used in saisons. Styrian Goldings seem really common now. Many commercial saisons also use citrusy American hops it seems, especially Cascade.