Where are the good beer makers?

[Atomic Wedgy]

Well.... my Irish Red is in the fermenter. The brew day went pretty much flawlessly except for the end. I dont have an outdoor burner, so the amount of wort that I can boil is limited to approximately 15L. This means I have to top up the fermenter with water. Today, I lost concentration a little as I was talking to my kid while adding the top off water. I added too much! 2.5 litres too much.

It ended up at 1.041. I was looking for 1.050. I dumped in the last bit of the jar of honey (only about 5 tablespoons) and closed it up. I did manage to get 76% efficiency with the mash again, so I think I got that part nailed now.

I'm going to add a sugar syrup to the fermenter once the initial fermentation is over. I'm looking to boost the abv about .5%. That will get it to approximately 4.7% hopefully without changing the flavor too much.

[3rtpaper]

Ahh finally another good thread...

Currently have on tap:

Breakfast Stout
Pumpkin Ale
Scottish Wee Heavy
Centential IPA

Fermenting: Belgium Wit Beer.
Coming Soon: ??

A while back I posted a similiar thread to this and there are pictures uploaded of my tap system (in my kitchen btw). I'm currently making a huge fermentation chamber/electric power grain mill/ grain storage center in my basement. I can't wait til its done and I can control my fermentation temp a lot better than ******t room temp..

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Glad to see you join the thread 3rtpaper! I saw the pics of your setup in the other thread and was immediately jealous. Seriously, what a setup!

What is it about centennial that's so great? It just matures into hop candy so much better than cascade, I find.

What yeast are you using for the wit?

AW, that sounds like a pretty solid brew day. If you're going to add some extra food for the yeasties, why wait until the initial fermentation is over? By stirring it in, you might introduce some more oxygen and not give the yeast enough time to clean up those flavours. Just curious if you had a reason to wait rather than dive in?

I dry-hopped my Reflecting Pool pale ale a couple days ago - all cascade, 3.5 oz of it. Yum. I'm really excited for this beer, but I'm a little worried about the yeast -- it was the first time I've used 1187, and it had a very difference character than what I'm used to (heavy lumps, floating on the surface and suspended in the beer rather than just settling)... I worry that it might have gotten contaminated in the time between pitching in the dead yeast (boooo!) and pitching the 2nd pack.

Next planned brew for me is going to be a citrus-hopped IIPA: summit, amarillo, and sorachi ace. Gonna be good!

[3rtpaper]

Glad to see you join the thread 3rtpaper! I saw the pics of your setup in the other thread and was immediately jealous. Seriously, what a setup!

What is it about centennial that's so great? It just matures into hop candy so much better than cascade, I find.
What yeast are you using for the wit?

haha yeah i'm a fan of my set up.. i'm looking to expand it.. I will upload some pictures of the finished product (might be a while I need my dad to come help with the electrical portion of it)

Centenial is awesome it just works no matter where it is used. I'm going to try the same recipe with Amarillo or Willamette at some point and see how it goes.

I'm using WL400 I think. Its the Generic White Labs Belgium Wit yeast. I got a yeast cultivation kit for christmas and I can't wait to use it but I need to do a lot more reading up on it before I even attempt that.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

I'm looking to get my hands on an old fridge, a simple heater, and a temperature controller... that would give me ideal control of fermentation -- you just set the thing to heat if it's too cold, cool if it's too hot. Set it and forget it! Bit of a project, though.

Have you played with Summit much? My first take is that it seems like it could be super-flexible like Centennial, and the flavour/aroma profile is just solid.

Oh the waaaaiiiting is the hardest part!

[3rtpaper]

I'm looking to get my hands on an old fridge, a simple heater, and a temperature controller... that would give me ideal control of fermentation -- you just set the thing to heat if it's too cold, cool if it's too hot. Set it and forget it! Bit of a project, though.

Have you played with Summit much? My first take is that it seems like it could be super-flexible like Centennial, and the flavour/aroma profile is just solid.

Oh the waaaaiiiting is the hardest part!

Nope haven't touched summit yet. I run into the issue that I love IPA's but my fiance doesn't so I can't brew as many IPA's as I'd like.

Good news though.. my glacier (very underrated IMO) hops should be good and ready to harvest next year.

[Atomic Wedgy]

AW, that sounds like a pretty solid brew day. If you're going to add some extra food for the yeasties, why wait until the initial fermentation is over? By stirring it in, you might introduce some more oxygen and not give the yeast enough time to clean up those flavours. Just curious if you had a reason to wait rather than dive in?

I wont be waiting until fermanation is over, just until the initial krausen falls, which is today. I've read that it is better to leave the simple sugars out to give the yeast a chance to go after the more complex sugars first. Could be forum perpetuated myth.

I wont be stirring the sugar in. I'm thinking fermentation action will be enough of a stir. I'm going to boil the corn sugar with some water, remove the airlock and pour it in with a funnel.

A couple days ago, i noticed that it was fermenting a little hot too. 24 deg. According to the recipe, that is a bit hot. I soaked two t-shirts and put them over the fermentor. I then moved the fermentor so it would get some breeze from the HRV vent. Plus, the first night I put a fan on it as well. I have managed to reduce temperature by 6 degrees with this method. I'm quite pleased and surprised that it had that much of an effect. 18 degrees is exactly what I am looking for.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Nope haven't touched summit yet. I run into the issue that I love IPA's but my fiance doesn't so I can't brew as many IPA's as I'd like.

I'll let you know how it goes. I love the aroma profile, but haven't yet tested it out. The IPA that's coming is going to be a heavy-ass brew. Wheeeeee! It's funny, I keep my wife happy by alternating a brew I know she'll enjoy with one that I'm really keen on. She's got a pretty broad palate... just doesn't love the hop bitterness like I do. Since I spend most of my beer money on IPAs, it pretty much means I'm alternating IPA and something else. I'm thinking either a chocolate stout after this IPA or possibly a banana bread weisen (yeasty banana esters + chocolate malt + biscuit malt = banana bread!).

AW, sounds like a solid plan. My next IPA is going to have a whack of dextrose in it to provide the alcohol to support the hops without leaving too much residual sweetness.

As for temperature control, I've found that sticking the fermenter in a big tub of water is the way to go. It gives the thing a much bigger thermal mass to move when it gets hot out, and if things really get out of hand you can always just refill it with cooler water or toss in some ice.

[Atomic Wedgy]

I think I'm deciding, right now, to brew IPAs exclusively, until I can consistently brew a great IPA. This will achieve two things.

1) I can tinker with the same IPA recipe until I produce what will be my house IPA.
2) My pantry will be well stocked with IPAs.

I felt like I didn't know what I was doing with that Irish Red brew. Things may change if that Irish Red is awesome. I'm thinking it wont be though. I dont know why I feel dubious about it.

[3rtpaper]

It's funny, I keep my wife happy by alternating a brew I know she'll enjoy with one that I'm really keen on. She's got a pretty broad palate... just doesn't love the hop bitterness like I do.

Thats the boat I'm in... luckily I have 4 taps haha.
I'm looking at this for a temperature controller
http://www.dwyer-inst.com/Product/Te...unt/SeriesTSS2

Let me know when your chamber is complete I'd love to see a picture of it or something. I lucked out with my new job.. I work for a wood coatings company so we have TONS of spare wood that is typically thrown away which means I save the landfills and take it home and put it to good use. Sadly all of the pieces are typically small but I think I'm going to change my build to use these really nice 8x16x3/4 (all inches) maple boards.. can't wait to go home and work on it some more today.
That Banana bread sounds awesome.. I might be stealing that idea.

I had a roasted pumpkin wheat that looked, smelled and from the 1 sip i did have (even though it wasn't carbonated) tasted awesome. However my keg connector decided to develope a hair line fracture in it which misted the beer all over the chest freezer.. sad sad day..

AW: I had a similiar problem that I couldn't consistantly produce great IPA's (mind you they were all good but not to my typical standards). I would recommend not using base brewers malt for more than 60-70% of the grain bill. My last batch I used about 85% Pale Malt and 15% specialty malt and I got a much better tasting IPA. The brewers malt just doesn't have enough flavor to balance or accentuatethe hops i think. I personally would only do 85% Pale malt if you're trying to achieve more biscuity flavor (which I was) but even a 70% Brewers Malt / 15% Pale 15% Specialty should work nicely I think.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

It's going to be a few months before my temp control build is complete, but I think it should work pretty well. I'll put up pics when it's done.

That's an awesome looking controller.

Have at the banana bread idea if you like... you'll probably get to it before I will since my IPA hasn't been made yet and these days I'm doing about a brew a month.

As far as IPAs go, I'm finding that my current taste is to go easy on the crystal malt (too much residual sweetness for me), blend pale malt with brewers malt 50/50 for the base, add a little biscuit for the breadiness, and hit alcohol by supplementing with dextrose. My grain bill for the citrus IPA will look something like this:

6.5 lbs 2-row
6.5 lbs ESB malt
1 lb biscuit
0.5 lb crystal 20
2 lb dextrose

[Atomic Wedgy]

Looks like a ripper there HPG. I'm bottling up my Irish Red tonight. It aint red tho..... Its more like an Irish brown. Also, there aren't any Irish ingredients, so I guess its just a brown ale. haha As long as its good, I dont care.

My last beer is just about gone. It was only ready a couple weeks ago. I only have 10 out of 30 left! hahahaha It really was my best beer so far. Just a pleasure to drink.

On Saturday, I will be brewing up another IPA. Can't wait! Love brew day.

http://hopville.com/recipe/1671644

My LHBS was out of Motueka, so I subbed in Nelson Sauvin. I wish it was ready now.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

This Saturday is brew day for me too! Fresh Squeezed Citrus IPA takes its first steps. I still have a hard time making it 6 weeks from boil to taste... but the beer really does improve with 3 weeks in the bottle before you start drinking.

Nelson Sauvin is one hell of a hop - use it carefully! It's fun to get those flavours into beer, no doubt.

T-1 to brew day!

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Best. Brewday. Ever.

Buddy who brews with me and I went through the entire suite of brews we've made together - 6 of them in all. We only bottle in 1 litre bottles (we're lazy) so this means we each had roughly 9 beer over the course of the brew. Given these headwinds, we were shockingly successful in our efforts.

Bottled up the Mirror Pond clone. It had a strange finish to it - much more bitter (almost astringent) than I was expecting. I wonder if that's the result of sparging too hot? Either way it should settle in the bottle and be a solid brew.

Fresh Squeeze Citrus IPA went well. Grain bill was as planned earlier, supplemented with 2 lbs of dextrose to get the alcohol in the final beer up. The boil was pretty uneventful, but damn this was the first time I'd used hop pellets in the boil and you lose so much more wort to the crap they leave in the bottom of the kettle. I love 'em for dry hopping but it was definitely a drag in the boil. Tasted the wort - it's going to be an awesome beer. It'll easily sit in the 100+ IBU range, and is just bursting with citrusy flavours.

Gravity came through at 1.070, which was shockingly low and really lends me to think my hydrometer just reads low. I mean, 16 pounds of grain and another 2 pounds of dextrose should have had me in the 1.085 range. Either my mash and sparge were super inefficient (like 55-60%), which seems pretty unlikely, or my hydrometer is bunk. My beers have been reading really dry at the end and not necessarily tasting that way, so I'm left thinking it's gotta be the meter.

Using Wyeast 1272 for this batch. When fermented on the colder side (~16ish), it imparts -- you guessed it! -- citrus flavours. Awesome.

The dry hops will go in about a week from now: 2 oz amarillo, 1 oz summit, 1 oz sorachi ace.

Gonna be an awesome brew.

[Atomic Wedgy]

Sounds like you were building a bomber there FHG! I have never used anything but hop pellets. I wish I had an option, but my LHBS doesn't carry many varieties of whole hops. I always compensate for the wort I know I will lose. Its probably about 2-3 liters for me every time.

How does hydrometer read plain water? If its not zero, there likely is something wrong with it.

My brew day was a good one too. There are two things that I want to improve on though. How long it takes to get a boil and how long it takes to cool the wort. Both are taking me way too long. I get a wussy boil going and I cant boil more than 12ish litres.

If you were to invest some money would it be on a 30L pot and a burner or would you spend it on an immersion chiller?