Recent content by philosofool

Yes, I keg. I think I see where this is going.

I racked a czech amber lager to secondary about 15 minutes ago and then realized there's way too much headspace. I only got about 4.5 gallons, so there's over half a gallon of space in the carboy. That's going to oxidize the beer during lagering, which I obviously don't want. My options: (1)...

Esters in beer are formed by the combination of an alcohol and an organic acid. Thus, for example, ethanol plus caproic acid and the right yeast can make ethyl caproate (aka, ethyl hexanoate, an apple/pear ester) and isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid can produce isoamyl acetate. Since the esters...

I made my first WLP 644 (Sach. Bruxellensis Trois) beer. I racked to a keg today and tasted the hydrometer sample. The beer had a lot of mertis that suggest a good-start recipe, but the beer had a lot of fussel alcohols. I'm not talking a little sharp, I'm talking burning sensation at the...

Can I get some recommendations on a San Diego pub to visit for brett, sour and barrel aged type beers? Any other recommendations for craft beer experiences that are a must-do in San Diego will also be appreciated.

I have seen other studies that show much better oxygenation from shaking. In fact, from Wyeast: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm 40 seconds to 8ppm... You don't have to pickup the fermenter to shake it. Just tip it on its base and rock back and forth vigorously. (I use steel or...

I have a sour that's been in secondary for 15 months. It's time to bottle! However, it's a sour and I don't relish the idea of getting it all over my usual bottling setup (from a corny). So, I was thinking of bottling using my old bottling bucket. That bucket is almost 11 years old. It's...

In Yeast, Chris White and Jamil Zanisheff offer different numbers. 8ppm is the upper limit for vigorous shaking and aquarium pumps with a stone. Splashing during transfer gets up to 4ppm. Pure O2 can go higher. In that book, they state 12ppm as the optimum.

Hah! Looks like I'm totally paying attention... Anyway... for those following along at home, it is more CO2 efficient to purge more times at lower pressure. The general form of the equation is 80*(x/(x+atmos))^n * V= ppm O2 Where atmos is atmospheric pressure (11 where I live, 14 for most)...

1. I think it is more fun. It smells better. You have a greater range of ingredients (though the difference gets smaller all the time.) You have more control of fermentability, which matters for a few styles. It saves money--you need about 10 to 12 pounds of base malt for a typical beer, and...

This is in reference to the image of purges to ppm O2 chart posted above. (I don't know how to make the image copy here.) I think the image is flat out wrong; the decrease in O2 as a funtion of purges should be an exponential decay. If you were to set you regulator to atmospheric pressure (14...

Are you using a stir plate? I frequently get nasty smells from my starter, including phenols (smoke, plastic) It think it's just a combo of the massive over pitch and high oxgyen levels. I make good beer and never have fermentation problems.

PB&J with Dunkelweizen. I'm not kidding.

Well, it's been almost a year and I tasted it again. The beer has defintely developed more sourness, but clean lactic, not acetic, and some brett funk. That seemingly vinegar note is either gone or simply not detectable amid a stronger acid. I am going to give it a couple more months before...

This sounds like the right solution to me. Assuming you're batch sparging, you should probably roughly split it 50/50 between the mash and sparge. Equal volumes of extract from each sparge gets the highest efficiency, or so I've read. Note that you will probably need to lower your system...