/ck/ - Food & Cooking

I've got the "Cream of Three Crops" cream ale recipe from homebrewtalk in primary. Trying to cheaply fill a empty keg fast. Ought to hold me over for a while so I can keep my hands off something that needs more aging.

>>5226433
I've never made a belgian-style, but that seems kinda cold if you're looking for belgiany esters. I've read about people trying to keep the fermentor above 80F to get dem esters. Are you going to warm it up further? What yeast are you using?

>>5226687
Oh yeah, I plan on bringing it up to 80s within a week. Keeping there to assure good attenuation. Using wyeast 1388 Belgian strong ale saved from a previous batch. It's giving off a ton of pear/apple smells from the airlock now.

Sorry if this is stupid, but if I just get a bottle of preservative free apple juice, mix in a pack of brewers yeast, and rubber band a napkin across the opening of the bottle, will the results be drinkable at all?

What if I used pear juice (because pears have undigestable sugars)

>>5226774
Its horrible.

>>5226739
Ah I see. How are you warming it up? Any idea what might have gone wrong on your first one?

I ask because I want to try to make one, maybe I'll try it after the temperature rises a little.

>>5226774
I don't think that'll work, I'm not a super exoerienced brewer but there's some serious sanitarion risks that go into that process.

>>5226777
Nice trips.

For now my ambient temp is around 72-73, so just gonna wrap towels over the fermenter overnight. It's already at 69-70.

other than that I'm using an electric heating pad, with a 3 stage resistor built in the heating pad (low, med, high).

Will insulate within a towel, then a towel over everything to keep heat in.
I plan on keeping it on an auto timer once I figure out what temps the low, and med settings produce over a long period of time (with insulation)

>>5226774
airlocks are less than $2 where I live, drilled rubber stoppers the same.. If you can't sink 5$ into an investment.. dunno what to tell ya

>>5226774
If it's a gallon bottle, shake in between 1/3 and 1/2 a pound of sugar, make sure there's at least an inch or so of space at the top, use a balloon with a couple holes poked in it instead of a napkin to cover the top, pitch some lower-alcohol wine yeast like Montrachet (or bread yeast if there's no other option). Leave it alone for like 6 weeks, then stick it in the fridge a couple days, then siphon the cider off of the crap at the bottom into some bottles/sealable containers, leaving very little airspace at the top. Or just drink it fast.

I've never used that ghetto method, but I dunno why it wouldn't work, I've done the same thing except in a 6 gallon glass bottle with an airlock, and it was dry but decent. The container it comes in should be decently sanitized enough, just try to minimize contact between the juice and anything not clean and sanitized.

>>5226687
Almost all my recipes are from homebrewtalk... never made a cream ale, but have edwort's Oktoberfest ale on tap right now gelatin'd.. Crystal clear and 6.5% abv, very delicious beer. And if you make bread with the spent grain that's the batch to do it with.

>>5226810
How important is the airlock? What happens if air gets into the mix?

Also wouldnt the released co2 displace the o2?

>>5226963

Yes, but after a while the co2 production slows and o2 while find a way to settle in. Also, the airlock keeps foreign yeast/bacteria from entering and infecting your batch

>>5226963
Yeah, CO2 pushes out all the air during fermentation. As long as your brew is sitting with a layer of CO2 over it, you're golden. If there's no CO2 and there's oxygen, you have a danger of oxidation if there's too much exposed surface area, which might make it taste a bit stale. If air can get in and out then it can carry wild yeast/bacteria that can infect your brew and make it gross (but not poisonous).

After fermentation, the airlock ensures that CO2 stays inside, since there needs to be pressure inside the bottle for the CO2 to get out. A pinpricked balloon fills the same basic purpose but it's just less reliable I guess. A napkin doesn't really do anything except keep crap from falling in.

>>5226777

>>5226774
You can create hard cider with a similar method, buy some apple cider, I like trader joe's but anything without preservatives will work. Mix in some yeast and sugar. Wait a couple of weeks and you have hard cider. You can take it a couple of steps further if you're interested but you can setup a basic batch in no time at all.

>>5226433
Currently have an imperial stout in primary right now. Inspired by Even More Jesus from Evil Twin.

Just bottled a five gallon batch of APA today. cascade hops are the best smelling thing in the world to me. supposed to come out 7.2% but the heating in my apartment blew for a few days so Im worried it fucked the yeast over

>>5227042

7.2's breddy hi for an APA. I'd call that an AIPA. Fucken jelly m8. I'm still waiting for some cash money so I can set myself up with some new equipment.

Hankering for some hops right now.

>>5227127
What equipment do you need?

>>5227169

I just moved cities, and took the plane, so EVERYTHING.
Probably just do kits and bits or BIAB.

What are brewdudes' favourite blogs?

I reckon some of the English ones are great.
Ron Pattinson in particular.
>barclay perkins at the spot of blogging dot cawm dot ay you
>fucking filter

I though the introduction of The Barbarian's Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe was a bit bitchy, until I started reading some of the blogs from writers who take their primary research a bit more seriously.

>>5227389
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/ is pretty easily the best beer blog to be honest.

Imma bump this so it's still here when I get back from uni

>>5227531
Plenty of recipes, well-written, loads of theory and loads of sours/belgian stuff. Love it.

Sitting on two beers in secondary right now.

First is an "American Strong Ale" that was brewed to DIPA levels of ABV and hops with some agave nectar thrown in the boil. Hopped it exclusively with Nelson Sauvin with a massive flame out addition. Sitting on oak chips that I soaked in mezcal and even poured some straight in. Called it Mexican Christmas before I realized how much time it needed to balance out all the hops.

Second beer is a Roggenrauchbock. Much simpler and tastes just what you would expect it to- spicy bananas and smoke.

I fucking love brewing so much. Once you really get the hang of the basics it's so satisfying to play around with flavor profiles and construct radical beers.

I asked this in the last brewthread and never got an answer:

I want to make a cyser with green apple juice so it'll have a nice tart bite to it. What's a good ratio of honey to juice that won't make it sickeningly sweet?

bump

Just got the application form to start a club at uni.
Need 15 students at the uni to get me some sweet grant money.

Good luck, the homebrew club at my uni had to shut down last year due to low interest.

>>5235610

My uni has a fairly boozy clubs day, so with the low overheads of homebrew I can bribe memberships with cheaper booze than anyone else.

it's finding motivated committee members that will be a problem.

>>5235718
Basically the reason why it shut down. The club had 2 dedicated homebrewers and the rest of the members just wanted to drink free beer.

Have an american rye ale in fermentor at day 5 (literally just took a basic wheat beer reciper and substituted rye for wheat) pictured with a pint of my last beer a helles lager. Lighting makes it look much darker thann it actually is. Still it turned out darker than a lager should be.

Haven't seen a healthy homebrew thread here in a bit. Thanks op.

>>5229914
I'd suggest making a wort with the honey that will equal out to about the same gravity of the juice which should be between 1.055 and 1.06.

That is just my thoughts on the fly though. I've never made one myself.

Had a friends once that had been aging in secondary for almost 2 years. was heavenly but gave me the weirdest dreams

>>5226963
>>5226979
>>5226983
seriously whats up with first timers wanting to go without an airlock? I've been brewing regularly for about 3 years now and I have to field this question way too often. It is literally the cheapest piece of equipment in a brewers set up. Get several.

>>5229885
>Roggenrauchbock
sounds awesome. Smoke grains yourself? have been wondering how easy that would be to do on my own.

Speaking of radical brews I'm trying my first oddball this weekend. Cider meets ale. This was inspired by a New Glarus one off that was part brown ale, part cider and had some delicious late hopping.

Actually I've been curious as to what my ratio of beer wort to unfermented cider should be here. Instead of 1:1 I'm going 3:2 to reduce the acidity in the finished ale. Anyone have experience with something like this?

>>5226433
>realise i left a carton of orange juice out all week
>sniff it
>smells familiar
>realise it smells of belgian beer

also what's homebrewing like? worth the effort for a filthy casual? or difficult, niche, yet rewarding hobby?

>>5226774
it may well work, but it certainly won't be top tier cider by any means. there's also a chance that you'll just end up with a fuckton of bacterial sludge, but if you're careful it probably won't and it will be pretty obvious anyway

>>5226963
you need the yeast to repire anaerobically for them to form alcohol (and co2)

>>5235204
>tfw excited
>tfw realise at my uni it's 12 to start a society
>realise there's no chance you're at my uni

>>5237584
Curious as well. What are some good websites I can read up on? Is it e pensive to start?

>>5237860
the ingredients for one batch of beer (5 gallons or about 2.5 cases of 12oz bottles) run from anywhere between $30 to $50 most of the time. thats the cost you can expect for each beer you make.

however the one time cost of necessary equipment usually about $150 to $200 so its not too bad. However this could go up quite a bit if down the line if you decide to get all grain or kegging equipment.

http://www.howtobrew.com/ this site is where I started, lays out the basics pretty well

>>5237911
Thanks bro, I'll take a look at this.

>>5237860
It depends on what you want to make and what your budget is. For starting with 5-gallon beer batches the minimum equipment I would recommend would be this:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/essential-brewing-starter-kit.html
plus a pot that can boil 3 gallons on the stove (you may or may not have that).
If you could spend a little more, get a wine thief and hydrometer and maybe a secondary carboy. If you can't buy that much crap, you could salvage/DIY some stuff, or try doing smaller batches. Or you can try something that doesn't need a boil, like cider or wine or mead.

>>5238341
I've looked over pretty much everything and the big ticket items I'll need are a stock pot(10 gal or more) a fermentation bucket or two and a mash tun, decided to go with full grain because it doesn't look too hard and seems easy enough to build. Everything else seems cheap or not needed until its time to bottle.

Cheers.

>>5238385
Cool, yeah you can build a good mash tun out of a cooler pretty easily, there's all sorts of instructions out there. The other things you gotta consider for doing a 5gal all grain full boil are:
-How to have your first runnings in your big brew pot while simultaneously heating sparge water (I use another pot on the stove to heat up the ~4gal sparge water)
-How to boil your brewpot (you probably need an outdoor propane burner unless you have one seriously heavy-duty stove)
-How to cool it quickly after the boil (a copper immersion chiller is the recommended way to do this for cheap, though there are better/pricier ways too. A simple ice bath might work but it puts your wort at risk longer than is ideal. I've done that for half-boils but would not want to do that for a full boil.)

For a 5 gallon batch and 60 minute boil you'll probably have about 6.25gal in your pot. So don't get a pot any smaller than 8 gallons, but 8 should be OK. 10 gives you plenty of room.

>>5237860
Most of what you'll need is quite cheap, but there are some expenses you'll have to cover if you want to make better beer or just make it easier in general. Like kegs, a mill for crushing grains, immersion chiller, bigger pots, a keezer.

>>5238497
You don't need a burner to do a 5 gallon batch.

>>5238497
When I didn't have an immersion chiller I would cool it by dropping it into an ice bath and dropping frozen disinfected water blocks into the wort. Much more hassle than a chiller but it would cool it in about the same time, sometimes faster.

>>5238509
I have an electric stove and the thing felt like it was going to break and barely got it going for a 3 gallon boil when I did extract (actually the coil did pop out once). I wouldn't even try to put 6.5 gallons on there for a full boil. Some stoves, maybe, but definitely not mine... I guess you could split it into 2 also.

>>5238524
Strange, I've done 10 gallon batches on my electric stove top without any problems.

>>5237372

Don't really have a good way to smoke the grains myself, so I just bought some rauchmalt from the homebrew shop. Beech wood smoked malt is the typical malt used for Rauchbeer so it felt right to use it.

The buddy I brew with is co-owner of a BBQ restaurant so we're looking into using his gear to smoke malt with different grains but haven't done it yet.

As far as your beer/cider goes I can't really tell you what to do as it's a preference thing. As long as you have fermentable sugars and yeast you'll get some kind of alcoholic beverage. I am curious about what your base beer will be. I'd love to do that with a pretty simple pils base and use a saison yeast for the fermentation. Maybe even brett brux trois.

Just saw this video, might be interesting to anyone casually interested in making a bit of beer or short on time - it's a 45 minute brew day from start to finish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs7ntKQrMf4