What I did for beer today

seanjwalker1 said:

I will thanks! Only smoked I've ever had is Schlenkerla, their beechwood and hickory. I love pistachio and sounds interesting. I can't imagine though you are getting much of a pistachio flavor without using the actual nuts??

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It's not strong by any means it's really very mellow. Nutty/smokey is the only way I can describe it. Truth be told, I think the Dante description kinda sets that thought in motion. I detected it in the taste. It's not like oh it's pistachio. As if it was Pistachio Ice Cream. You would not know, it's that subtle.

The roasted malt might have more of impact. Smoking the malt gives some roasted taste. For my process it's probably about 20-30L color potential. I get some really dark grains in my smoker basket. It's more random peppering of dark barley kernels. Others seam unaffected by the smoking process.

JAReeves said:

How does this work for your efficiency, possible overnight souring, or other variables? If I could do this, I might make more beer.

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Not sure yet - first time giving it a shot. I BIAB. I wrapped the beer up in a 0° sleeping bag. It sat for about 4.5 hours. Strike temp was 159°. When I unwrapped the pot, it was at 140°. I'm making a simple blonde (two-row and a small amount of crystal 10, plus one hop addition), so anything that goes wrong should be pretty noticeable. Estimated OG was 1.051. Actual was 1.057.

I'm trying this out, because with a two year old, a 5 hour brew day can be difficult. I put the pot on to boil at 8 am, and was done cleaning by 11 am. Only difference I noticed so far was that it seemed more cloudy than usual, but I'm hoping it settles out.

seanjwalker1 said:

Beechwood and oak Schlenkerla, not hickory. Thanks for the smoke list!

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I wonder if you bought undried unroasted pistachios and roasted them at home without salt , crushed them, then stuck them in a hop bag last 10 min of boil or in the primary or secondary if it would give a more pistachio flavor? Maybe might try it in a 1 gallon batch as a test... Pistachio nut Brown sounds awfully D-lish...but might taste like crap!!

Dry hopped my Fantasy Draft Brixit Hopfenweizen with 1 oz each of Fuggles and EKG [emoji12]

ISS IT Guy said:

I dig the Buc-ee's stickers! Gotta make sure you keep brewin' to feed the beavers!

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Yes! Was waiting for someone to recognize the beaver!

Double duty today, should bottling close to 100 today... Just finished bottling 4.5 gallons of a limey Mexican ale. Sampled a lot better than I expected.
Bottling another 5 gallons of a tangerine pale ale after lunch and errands. Thankfully I get a decent WiFi signal in our dungeon basement to catch up on 2 missed weeks of wrestling haha.

Got a starter going for my first brew of the weekend. Yeast was on the old side, so we'll see how it goes.

Added all these guys to secondary for my halo halo Filipino style dessert milkshake IPA. 2oz of homegrown comet and 1oz centennial whole leaf hops. Racked RIS onto cacao nibs and vanilla beans that have been soaking in vodka also!

I will be bottling my "Miller Lite" after work tonight.

aharri1 said:

Added all these guys to secondary for my halo halo Filipino style dessert milkshake IPA. 2oz of homegrown comet and 1oz centennial whole leaf hops. Racked RIS onto cacao nibs and vanilla beans that have been soaking in vodka also!View attachment 630093View attachment 630094

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Love the labels on your carboy...

meesterparker said:

Love the labels on your carboy...

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Check out the vinyl labeling that Brewhardware sells: https://www.brewhardware.com/category_s/1830.htm

Cold crashed my Kolsch, getting it ready for the keg

Got my last batch in the bottle this am! I was jonesing to get that done. Now I have 3 empty fermenters and two batches of grain all ground up with plenty of places to become alcohol.

Wheee!

Trimmed the leaves and shoots off the base of some hops (Shaddock, Old Mission).

Moved my Burbank Sour into 3-1 Gallon carboys: blueberry-pomegranate, kiwi, and cranberry. It wasn’t sour enough, so I am hoping the fruit helps it along.

Starter not showing sufficient activity for my liking, but brewing is happening tomorrow regardless. Got everything else ready to roll.

Quick trip to HD this morning for the right size barb, and got my new regulator hooked up to the co2 tank; the old one for some reason wouldn't go above 20psi. This one goes as high as I want, so force carbing will be much faster from now on! And with a 20lb tank, the sky's the limit....

Bottled my GoodWood caramel-muscovado syrup-toasted juniper infused strongale. Clocks in at 7.5%, you can clearly taste both the wood and the caramel malts as well as the licqorice aroma of the syrup. Gonna let these have a good sit before cracking em.

I tested a couple of 1-gal jugs of cider and put them in the fridge to cold crash before bottling.

I also cleared out this closet to use for HB storage: equipment and supplies are on the right, and I'm planning on a wire shelf on the left wall for filled bottles, with room for carboys or buckets underneath the lowest shelf.

Brewed up my first Belgian strong dark ale (somehow I've never done this style in ~15 years of brewing), got stuff ready for an amber IPA, a club competition brew.

DIYer said:

I tested a couple of 1-gal jugs of cider and put them in the fridge to cold crash before bottling.

I also cleared out this closet to use for HB storage: equipment and supplies are on the right, and I'm planning on a wire shelf on the left wall for filled bottles, with room for carboys or buckets underneath the lowest shelf.

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U sure a wire shelf can take the weight of filled bottles? My conditioning shelves are made from 10mm plywood and they clearly flex under full load.

The

BikerMatt said:

U sure a wire shelf can take the weight of filled bottles? My conditioning shelves are made from 10mm plywood and they clearly flex under full load.

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The weight limit per shelf is 300 lbs (even the cheaper ones are 200 lbs), and folks in winemaking use them with 750-mL bottles stacked 3 high, so yeah, I think they should be ok.

How wide are your plywood shelves and are they supported on all 4 sides, with supports periodically along the length?

Many kinds of wire shelves exist my initial thought was some sort of laundry baskets that we have in some closets which flex enough to collapse on the lower one creating a cascade effect if if loaded too full. My plywood shelves are nothing more than offcuts with two arms under each Just making sure you know what you're doing and by the looks of it the answer is yes.

This is what I did... spruce tips and molasses (colonial inspired) not loving the flavor, hoping cold and carbed will change it for the better.

Organized the aging closet. The small jugs are sour experiments.

Inventoried the empty bottles. There are some available for free pick up in SoCal, I posted in the free bottles thread. Msg me if interested.

Just boiled oak cubes and started the soak in red wine for a future Flanders Red.

BikerMatt said:

Many kinds of wire shelves exist my initial thought was some sort of laundry baskets that we have in some closets which flex enough to collapse on the lower one creating a cascade effect if if loaded too full. My plywood shelves are nothing more than offcuts with two arms under each Just making sure you know what you're doing and by the looks of it the answer is yes.

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I appreciate your concern for the well-being of my brew. :-D This is the one I went with:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071NZC4CD/

I decided to use the smaller space at the back of the left-side of the closet instead of along the left wall--it would have stuck out too much into the space and made it difficult to move stuff around. I will put carboys/buckets on the floor in front of it.

This 24-in wide rack should hold 6 wine bottles across each shelf, then 5+4 on top of those, for a total of 90. I plan to anchor it to the wall, and rig up something on the sides (to keep bottles from rolling sideways) and front (to keep the necks tipped downward).

I’m just over a week away from moving and even further from being able to brew again. But I spent the last 2 hours planning my first 3 brews, trying to maintain some efficiencies for hops and grains.

Drank till smacked.
Thought about filling and few kegs of ipa #10 that is cold crashing but not very motivated.

You know you’re a Homebrewers when...

Beernik said:

I’m just over a week away from moving and even further from being able to brew again. But I spent the last 2 hours planning my first 3 brews, trying to maintain some efficiencies for hops and grains.

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Brewed up the amber IPA, got GREAT efficiency. Kicked the NEIPA, so that keg/line were promptly cleaned.
Also the BSDA is churning like a beast; my worries about the old yeast were clearly unfounded (resilient little buggers).

Did a little hop bine trimming today.

Brewed a bitter, cleaned a keg, took inventory. Pretty productive day. Tried to clean house a bit too! I probably should get more base grain ordered. Only have one brew left. Now I'm working on a recipe to use up a bit more inventory.

Saturday but close enough. Brewed an American Wheat

Brewed a Belgian wit today.

Adding 4lbs of dried cherries and a brett blend to my dark saison. Will let it go about a month on the fruit then package.

......Realized the importance of complete disassembly and cleaning of a tap that is really old..... noticed stuff growing on the wood where the tap was installed..... been awhile since I noticed.... then a closer look today... OMG there is fuzz growing out the spigot!!!!

Well needless to say I pulled this tap and switched the beer line to one of the two new taps I had installed..... preparing to keg 10 gallons of a Vanilla Porter this evening and this is what I actually ended up doing...

Made some invert sugar for a cream ale

Cleaned my pump, BK ball valve, and MLT ball valve.

Twisted some strands of light sisal twine into something more rope-like to give my hops room to grow up into the 2nd floor balcony. Sorry, no picture yet.

Next year I plan to hang eye bolts from the eaves with thick sisal so the hops can just go straight up the entire growing season.

Cold crashed my halo halo milkshake IPA and added a vanilla bean and more pureed fruit for flavoring.

1) Packaged up my Mesquite Rauchmalt. Smells Great.

2) Took a video of my culture of Schneider & Sohn's Yeast banging away on some Schlenkerla Weizen Pistazie Rauchbier Wort. Ok, its the blow of with a view of the keg purging. It's going gangbuster's.

Pistazie is German for pistachio.