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jwalk4 said:
Thanks! That recipe looks like it should do nicely. Do you stick with the Wyeast Labs #1335 yeast?

I actually did a US-04 since I mainly brew small batches, I rarely do liquid yeast any more. I have a stir plate and vials to wash but they are jus collecting dust. I think the S04 did a great job on this and maybe some day ill try the 1335 but this is so smooth and creamy...wow
 
Groo said:
Brewed my 1st gallon batch the other night. Tried to go BIAB as I have done it for partial mash 5 gallon in the past but I couldn't find my paint strainer. Split the grain into two hop sacks and it ended up not working too well. Only came in about 20 points short on my OG. It's ok though since it's only 1 gallon and I like session ales!

Fermentation took off so I guess it will have some alcohol in it.

Hey Groo... Sorry to hear about the batch but like you said.. It'll be beer! Maybe you just had stratified wort and you actually came closer than you think?
 
Hey Groo... Sorry to hear about the batch but like you said.. It'll be beer! Maybe you just had stratified wort and you actually came closer than you think?

I was sort of thinking the same thing and wort tasted sweet but we'll see. I think my refractometer is off because it was at 1.020 preboil (2.25 gallons) and I added .25lb of dme then post boil I ended up at 1.030 (1.25 gallons).

Does it matter that my grain bags were packed so tight? The wasn't spread out like when I used my paint strainer.

Used some Sorachi Ace and .05 oz of coriander and this thing tasted of lemon which was delicious.
 
Quick recap. Did my very first brew on 12/31/12 morning. 1 gallon NB starter kit. Red Irish ale. Nottingham ale yeast. Used half a pack. Lost a lot during boil. Added boiled/cooled water to fermenter on 1/3/13 in the morning. Fermentation had already started prior to adding boiled water. Fermentation seemed to stop. Presently, it appears there is activity in my wort. I see little bubbles rising to top of wort!
 
This might have been answered already but what is the easiest way to take a hydrometer reading from a 1 gallon jug? I bought "the thief" and realized it was too big. Meant for 5 gal. Also the LHBS didn't have a mini auto siphon so I got a regular size. Hope it fits....
 
@truekey: When I recently bottled my stout, I used a well-sanitized turkey baster to pull out enough brew to fill my test vial, then proceeded to rack the rest to the bottling bucket.
 
I had a local shop scale down a recipe to 1G for me. Do I add the whole packet of yeast, or do I scale that back somehow?

You can scale back...I rehydrate so i make up my water and place it on my food scale. Zero it and then sprinkle the yeast into the water until I get 3 to 4 grams.

Or just add the whole pack, it won't hurt anything.
 
rawkstar320 said:
For sure!
The amarillo is basically a blonde, but I haven't decided on ibu level yet. The porter should be cool, lots of C60 to get color and body, with some chocolate malt - because coconut and chocolate were made to be together. Not sure about hops though, probably fuggles or Kent goldings...hmmm

I spent the better of two days trying to find unsweetened coconut out here and finally found it today. I didn't really plan on doing a coconut porter but your post got me thinking, So I pulled my Porter out of the fermenter and put in a coconut dry hop. I'll leave it in for 10 days And I'll end up with a split batch Porter and Coconut Porter. Thanks for the suggestion I'll send you a couple of bottles if you want to try it!

EDIT: aww crap... I just realized I forgot to toast it... Dang it!... Oh well hopefully it's still good RDWHAHB

And since I didn't toast it, it will have more oils in it and there will probably be no head retention on this one... Dang what a dummy .... and i wasn't even drinking... now i need one... Oh well!

image-1724504624.jpg
 
One thing I learned: keep the pack of yeast when you only use half. Might need it if you mess up.
 
divrguy said:
I spent the better of two days trying to find unsweetened coconut out here and finally found it today. I didn't really plan on doing a coconut porter but your post got me thinking, So I pulled my Porter out of the fermenter and put in a coconut dry hop. I'll leave it in for 10 days And I'll end up with a split batch Porter and Coconut Porter. Thanks for the suggestion I'll send you a couple of bottles if you want to try it!

EDIT: aww crap... I just realized I forgot to toast it... Dang it!... Oh well hopefully it's still good RDWHAHB

And since I didn't toast it, it will have more oils in it and there will probably be no head retention on this one... Dang what a dummy .... and i wasn't even drinking... now i need one... Oh well!

Homebrew saves the day! Had a beer and thought.. Just pull it out real quick and start over.... Duhh back on track!! RDWHAHB lol
 
How long will it last kept in the freezer

If I don't finish it in two weeks I get new yeast. Dry yeast is cheap enough so I don't risk it.

Homebrew saves the day! Had a beer and thought.. Just pull it out real quick and start over.... Duhh back on track!! RDWHAHB lol

Nice, probably wouldn't have thought of that
 
biggdaddymatt said:
Wouldnt it still leach some of the oil out of the coconut in the time it was one it?

Possibly...but I'm still better off taking a chance that it didn't. It was on for about an hour.
 
bellmtbbq said:
I keep mine for a couple months open with no problems.

I have kept dry yeast for 4 months. Once opened, I did the same. Ziplock vacuum bag and back in the fridge. If its been there a while then I just pitch up a little more but if it were maybe 6 months... i would chuck it.
 
Cool. Thanks for the response everyone. You can tell im new to this. I cant wait to try this white house honey ale. One more week in primary then 2 weeks in bottles. I need to decide if i want to bottle in 16oz swing tops or SN 12oz bottles. Any suggestions?
 
I've read a few things about Mackeoli and always thought it would be cool to try, but I'm not really sure where I could the yeast or nuruk stuff. I'll ask around a few places and that would be a fun one.
I hadn't ever heard or read either of the non-english words in this post before tonight. I found rice yeast balls at my local Asian market though. They were labeled simply, dried yeast. I've got a quart jar in my closet that is covered with white dots, and starting to liquefy. I have high hopes, but I just put it together on Monday. So, to early to tell what it will be like.
 
makegoli is wierd i have 2 badones one ok one.they were from korean families so they were homebrewed i assum. I didnt think it terrible at all. Sake is much more involved and would make for quite a few blog posts.

If you get a chance find great divide samurai beer.. its a rice beer ive been experementing on recreating and have had no luck.. at the very least itll give ya a few posts of material
 
I hadn't ever heard or read either of the non-english words in this post before tonight. I found rice yeast balls at my local Asian market though. They were labeled simply, dried yeast. I've got a quart jar in my closet that is covered with white dots, and starting to liquefy. I have high hopes, but I just put it together on Monday. So, to early to tell what it will be like.

I had read about rice wine on another site where a guy was going through making it in Korea and that is what he called stuff. Yeah I'm going to look into it and see what I can find. Sounds like that would be a fun one to try
 
I had a local shop scale down a recipe to 1G for me. Do I add the whole packet of yeast, or do I scale that back somehow?

I find the calculator at Mr Malty (find it at http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html ) helpful. If you have a food scale, it will tell you how much yeast you need (be sure to turn the tab to "dry yeast") based on how much sugar (original gravity) is in the wort.

Then again, a lot of people eyeball a half-packet and that seems to work out pretty well, so I'd say go through the trouble of measuring only if it makes you feel better.
 
Alright, all grain photo time. This was a recipe for a 3.5 Gallon Cascadian Pale Ale. I know that this is the 1 gallon thread but, I still consider this small batch brewing. Also, this is really the only thread I follow and where I get most of my advice from. So cheers to everyone on here that provided advice and inspiration along the way.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: US-05
Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 3.5
Original Gravity: 1.059
Final Gravity: 1.015
IBU: ~70
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 12 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 21 @ 66F
Tasting Notes: Amazing hop aroma, flavor, and bitterness with the malt bill to back it up.

Boil Size: 4.5 Gallons
Boil Time: 60 min
Actual Brewhouse Efficiency: 78%
Strike temp :166F
Mash Temperature: 152 F
Mash Time: 60 Minutes
Yeast Starter: none

**Efficency was calculated @ 70% ***


Heating up the strike water – 3 Gallons to 163F.


Adding the water and grains to the 5 gallon mash tun.


Hit my temp bang on, 150F. I like my pale ales nice and dry, so I mash low temps.


Keeping the mash tun insulated, stirring every 20 minutes.


Set up to collect wort.


Collecting first runnings.


My colander for vorlaufing.


Adding first runnings to the boil kettle, I collected ~2 gallons. (*edit* The veil only makes it LOOK like I'm going to marry my mush tun. But actually, its a small experiment on my part since I ran into a stuck sparge on my last all grain batch. I was hopping that lining my tun with a layer of voil would make a separation between the grain and permeable SS sleeve. Thus, an inexpensive and quick alternative to altering my tun geometry without having to some surgery.)



Heating up my sparge water, 2.5 gallons to 170F.


Adding the sparge water to the grain.


Recirculating and Vorlaufing.



Boiling space.


Boiling and hot break. The hot break was pretty crazy, if you can see through the steam the foam is all the way up to 1" of the handle rivets. I have a 9 gallon pot and was boiling 4.5 gallons of wort! That's a lot of foam!


Chilling with snow. Took about 20 mins.


Into the carboy. I wound up with 3 gallons because I didn’t account for how much boil off I would get from -5C degree weather. Should be fine though, a little stronger, but will still be good.
 
jwalk4 said:
Alright, all grain photo time. This was a recipe for a 3.5 Gallon Cascadian Pale Ale. I know that this is the 1 gallon thread but, I still consider this small batch brewing. Also, this is really the only thread I follow and where I get most of my advice from. So cheers to everyone on here that provided advice and inspiration along the way.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: US-05
Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 3.5
Original Gravity: 1.059
Final Gravity: 1.015
IBU: ~70
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 12 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 21 @ 66F
Tasting Notes: Amazing hop aroma, flavor, and bitterness with the malt bill to back it up.

Boil Size: 4.5 Gallons
Boil Time: 60 min
Actual Brewhouse Efficiency: 78%
Strike temp :166F
Mash Temperature: 152 F
Mash Time: 60 Minutes
Yeast Starter: none

**Efficency was calculated @ 70% ***

Heating up the strike water – 3 Gallons to 163F.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/189/p1010777m.jpg/

Adding the water and grains to the 5 gallon mash tun.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/p1010778l.jpg/

Hit my temp bang on, 150F. I like my pale ales nice and dry, so I mash low temps.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/203/p1010779r.jpg/

Keeping the mash tun insulated, stirring every 20 minutes.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/p1010782h.jpg/

Set up to collect wort.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/p1010784p.jpg/

Collecting first runnings.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/p1010790w.jpg/

My colander for vorlaufing.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/688/p1010805ca.jpg/

Adding first runnings to the boil kettle, I collected ~2 gallons.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/201/p1010797w.jpg/

Heating up my sparge water, 2.5 gallons to 170F.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/823/p1010798m.jpg/

Adding the sparge water to the grain.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/248/p1010803t.jpg/

Recirculating and Vorlaufing.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/p1010809e.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/339/p1010810s.jpg/

Boiling space.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/5/p1010813m.jpg/

Boiling and hot break. The hot break was pretty crazy, if you can see through the steam the foam is all the way up to 1" of the handle rivets. I have a 9 gallon pot and was boiling 4.5 gallons of wort! That's a lot of foam!
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/p1010817c.jpg/

Chilling with snow. Took about 20 mins.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/p1010818vp.jpg/

Into the carboy. I wound up with 3 gallons because I didn’t account for how much boil off I would get from -5C degree weather. Should be fine though, a little stronger, but will still be good.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/p1010821cg.jpg/

You don't top up to hit your 3.5 gallons?
 
No, I don’t like topping up with water. I know that a lot of guys do; theorizing that, if the wort is boiled away with steam there is no harm in adding water, and I know not many people report much (if any) flavor changes. I just don’t like adding it because I don’t like risking infections that come from adding tap water, and I don’t want to take the time to boil and cool top-off water.

Also, I did the calculations. My beer will go from ~5.5 ABV to ~6.5 ABV with 3.5G to 3.0G, respectively. I’ll also take an IBU hit of about 5. So, not too bad.
 
jwalk4 said:
No, I don’t like topping up with water. I know that a lot of guys do; theorizing that, if the wort is boiled away with steam there is no harm in adding water, and I know not many people report much (if any) flavor changes. I just don’t like adding it because I don’t like risking infections that come from adding tap water, and I don’t want to take the time to boil and cool top-off water.

Also, I did the calculations. My beer will go from ~5.5 ABV to ~6.5 ABV with 3.5G to 3.0G, respectively. I’ll also take an IBU hit of about 5. So, not too bad.

Nice pics and I agree. I miss my target fermenter volume some times and it just doesn't bother me any more. Looks good!
 
I decided to put together a much larger batch of rice wine today. FYI: 30 cups of dry rice cooked and fluffed will completely fill a 5 gallon bucket. I guess that was all grain. :D
 
I decided to put together a much larger batch of rice wine today. FYI: 30 cups of dry rice cooked and fluffed will completely fill a 5 gallon bucket. I guess that was all grain. :D

Nice, its on my list to brew now, but its a long list and I have to buy the yeast. Plenty of other stuff to do in the meantime. Got a fun some what double brew day coming up this week with a few interesting techniques. I'll post more about it after I figure out exactly what I am doing haha
 
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