Homebrew Thread

[Anonymous No.495323]

Didn't see a homebrew thread.

Come discuss your beers, ideas, set-ups, and ask questions.

>What do you have on tap/in bottles?
Whiskey Oak Porter and a creme ale, both bottled.

>What's fermenting?
Cascadian Dark Ale

>What are you brewing next?
I'm thinking an Amber ale, maybe a brown. trying to decide.

Also, anyone going to the Oregon Brewers Festival this weekend?

[Anonymous No.495335]

I like MultiMan a lot, sometimes use other managers.

[Anonymous No.495338]

yay for beer!

>in bottles:
Belgian blond

>fermenting:
Amber ale

>Next:
Dunno yet, I think a stout

[Anonymous No.495342]

>What do you have on tap/in bottles?
Basic cider
IPA dry hopped with fuggles
SMASH Pilsner hopped with saaz
Irish red ale made with roasted rye
Hefeweizen, US-05 yeast, Amarillo dry hop
Dunkleweizen
Belgian Dubble, T-58 yeast
English best bitter, S-04 yeast

>What's fermenting?
10gal batch of saison in secondary
12gal batch of saison in primary for 3 days now

>What are you brewing next?
Not sure, heat wave is making sane choices difficult in regards to ale/lager. I've got 50lb of maris otter to use but I need lower temperatures to get the best out of it but also 150lb of malted wheat which I'm struggling to motivate myself to use.

[Anonymous No.495343]

>>495342
>all dat beer

Do you own a brewery or something? Goddamn, that's awesome.

[Anonymous No.495345]

>>495342
Setup is BIAB and often partial mash. Use a 21L stainless as my mash tun which handles approx 15lb of grain tops. Have a 50L aluminium boiler fitted with a 3/4" ball tap and a 3kw immersion heater element which also sits atop my gas stove. Copper immersion chiller.

[Anonymous No.495348]

>>495345
I've been curious about BIAB. I don't have a big fancy set up, but I have a 7gal stainless steel pot. I also don't go through beer very quick so I figured making 2 to 3 gal batches would be a better way to go until I can afford a house and better equipment.

[Anonymous No.495349]

>>495343
I basically bulk buy all my ingredients and store in white food grade pails in an outbuilding. I have a freezer for hops and speciality grains which I split and vacuum seal in smaller amounts.

I heat mash water in stock pots. Mash in my stainless pot using a nylon bag. Heat sparge water in stock pots and basically 'tea bag' the nylon bag in batches of sparge water which I tie up to a suspended hook in order to drip dry. I boil in my large aluminium boiler and any extra capacity goes into the stainless pot I mashed in though I usually save that water for the extract additions.

My aluminium boiler is where I chill with the immersion chiller and then I drain through the fitted tap direct to fermenter. I have a stainless steel mesh hop strainer.

For fermenter I use white food grade buckets, drilled with taps and air locks. When I rack from primary I run straight out of the tap into secondary using a length of rigid hose to prevent splashing. Usually trub is left behind/some tilting to get the last of it and I've installed the taps at an 'average' height to rack it successfully.

Run from secondary into a bottling bucket where I bulk prime. Bottle off a gravity valve attached to a length of rigid hose the size of a bottle, makes life much easier, use a dip tube to get to the bottom of the bottling bucket installed on the other side of the tap.

[Anonymous No.495353]

>>495348
I find that making 10gal+ batches takes about the same time and is only a little more hassle than making 5gal batches so I prefer to go large but I know what you mean about consuming it all.

BIAB for me is an excellent compromise because the equipment investment is low, there isn't a great deal of extra stuff to store and it works elegantly to make better beer compared to extract only. Biggest potential issues are over extraction of tannins by zealous batch sparging of the grains vs poor efficiency by a couple of lame dips in some water. I've managed to control it fine by keeping sparge water no higher than 170F and keeping a decently low pH. You won't extract any harsh tannins with a pH below 6.5 or so. The grain itself will lower the pH enough during a sufficiently thick mash, but a little lactic acid solution for the 2nd batch sparge and a little more for the 3rd and so on, keeps the pH in check.

Of course I'm talking 2-3ml in a 10 gallon batch and we might be getting a little complex, but I regularly reach 80%+ efficiencies and don't suffer from astringent beer. Partial mash is a HUGE upgrade compared to full extract beer, the freshness, the range of options, the adjutants etc.

Even try getting a pair of old nylon tights and some speciality grains and steep half a lb of crystal malt to dip your feet?

[Anonymous No.495366]

always wanted to get some homebrew going, but working in a small brewery with beer all day long, i just cba.
I do make my own liquoer from time to time, whenever i get my hands on some drinkable 90% spirit.

[Anonymous No.497213]

Right now I'm using a two 15gallon megapots with single ball lock valves and blichmann thermomoters. Building a 25 gallon herms system with 2 march pumps..lauter tun, hot liquor and mash tun. I like to do combination of extract and all grain brewing. Have a double chocolate imperial stout fermenting made with cadsbury chocolate. Working on a chinook ipa

> pic related is what I'm currently building

[Anonymous No.497763]

Keg:
Tall Grass Velvet Rooster Clone
Orange Cream Ale

Bottle:
Caribbean shipwreck http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f74/pirate-strong-ale-318340/
Vanilla Bourbon Oak Porter
Chocolate Russian Imperial Stout
Imperial Blonde Ale
Maibock

Fermenting: None

Brewing next:
Strawberry Kolsch

In process of building a two tier full electric PID allgrain build. budgeted to be done in May of next year ($3.5K)

[Anonymous No.497801]

I have several batches of wine and mead aging and it is blackberry picking season here. So, as soon as I cool off again I'll be out picking blackberries all day.

[Anonymous No.497989]

>>497801
So jelly niqqa

[Anonymous No.498113]

>2013
>not making wine
>vintner master race

[Anonymous No.498157]

>>497801
you spelled cotton wrong

[Anonymous No.498161]

So I have a question.
I know in distilling that you need to discard the head to get rid of the methanol, but is there a way to separate it from a homebrew without distillation?
Also, is there a way to determine the amount of methanol in a batch?

[Anonymous No.498168]

>>498161
its miniscule. It only matters in distilling because youre concentrating the alcohols, both ethanol and methanol. By throwing the heads away (or into your next batch) youre removing the methanol that comes over before the ethanol


you dont need to remove it from home brew.

[Anonymous No.498366]

>>498168
I know that you don't NEED to remove it. I just wanted to know if there was a way to do it without distilling the batch.

[Anonymous No.498419]

>>498157
I don't grow cotton and trying to make a wine or mead from cotton would be pretty stupid.

[Anonymous No.499086]

I'm new to brewing and am going to start with a batch of Cider tomorrow when my supplies arrive by mail. I'll be starting with 5 gallons since that's the size of the buckets I ordered, though I realize it'd probably be smarter to start a bit smaller.

I bought a bunch of different red star yeasts, Pasteur Red, Pasteur Champagne, Cote de Blanc, Montrachet as well as 2lbs of brown sugar and 2lbs of white sugar.
Any suggestions before I go at it tomorrow when my supplies arrive?

Also, I want to try making some hard lemonade. I found some 100% natural lemonade free of preservatives and might just throw a bit of yeast in there and let it sit to see what happens.

[Anonymous No.499545]

My first home brew. It fermented pretty fast. After only 2 weeks it was ready to rack. Its at about 3 or 4 weeks now (3 i think) and i decided to give it a taste. Its not bad. It taste like an apple wine but still taste very yeasty.

Is the yeast flavor what I should expect to go away after aging? Also, I read that you should bottle when the hydrometer reads the same over at least a two day period. Is this good advice?

[Anonymous No.499546]

>>499086
>I'll be starting with 5 gallons since that's the size of the buckets I ordered, though I realize it'd probably be smarter to start a bit smaller.

You'll thank yourself later. You might need to age it for at least a year according to what I read. % gallons will be much more worth the wait. I started with only a gallon because I already had a gallon carboy and limited $$

[Anonymous No.499549]

>>499546
derp. I shifted the 5

[Anonymous No.499625]

>>499546
>a year
A year for what?

update: I just got my batch setup. I think I'm going to try to kill the yeast when I bottle it and carbonate it with tablets so I can add regular sugar to sweeten it

[Anonymous No.499648]

>>499545
Hopefully you didn't add too much yeast. Also, when you racked to the second jug, you didnt move the first jug, right? That could stir up the dead yeast leftovers at the bottom and give your cider a yeasty flavor.

http://www.howtomakehardcider.com/

[Anonymous No.499731]

>>499648

How can one add too much yeast?
The amount of yeast you use just influences how fast the process gets going. The yeast is not sterile - it will multiply itself in vast quantities, making the amount you added in the beginning irrelevant.

I agree to the rest of your suggestions though. I can only imagine the yeast was stirred up.

>>499545

usually if the fermentation comes to an end, you leave the product sitting in a cool place for some time so the yeast and any particles sink to the bottom of your container. Afterwards you use a flexible tube to get the fluid into another container while not stirring up the yeasty bottom.

[Anonymous No.499732]

>>499625
aging. If you want it to taste really good.

[Anonymous No.499734]

>>499648
>>499731

I moved it as little as possible when racking but i guess it could have gotten a little shaken up. So am I stuck with the yeast flavor or will that eventually settle to the bottom so i can leave it behind when bottling?

[Anonymous No.499763]

>>499734

You have to let it settle down and bottle it with care not to disturb the yeast paste that will sit on the bottom.

I do the same with my beer. I do a secondary fermentation in the bottles though for getting CO2 into the bottle. So there is a layer on the bottom of each beer bottle. Carefully filling a glass will result in no yeast flavour. Different yeasts form layers that differ in terms of stability.

[Anonymous No.499925]

>>498366
Since the BP of methanol is 64.7C/ 148F and the BP of ethanol is 78.4C/173F, you could probably heat your booze to a temperature within that range. Not sure how it would affect the flavor, there might be other molecules with a lower boiling point present so you should do a limited run and a taste test