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nsaubes said:
I'm using the same system to ferment: salvavida 5gals bottle+stopper+airlock... Works great but yes, these are 4 gallons batches, 4.5 if you use a blowoff tube.
About the sanitizer: I use a vegetable cleaner that I buy at the supermarket, it's called Biocyde... It says it's made of salts of: Poly (hexamethylene biguanide) and alkyldimethil benzyl amonium. 16.40 gramos por 1000ml... This sounds like chinese to me but you guys know about chemistry... I would actually be interested to have your opinion about the product!
Click to expand...

That's what we use to disinfect veggies we plan on eating raw, it's a quaternary ammonium and PAPB; as Patzaquel said though, you need to rinse them off with soap or run the risk of ingesting benzylic compounds which aren't really good for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyaminopropyl_biguanide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium#As_antimicrobials
 
nsaubes said:
Curtis: that works for me. About specialty grains I was thinking Chocolate, Black patent, crystal 10, crystal 60, about 3 pounds each..
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Ok, I will put together a list w qty, cost, and how much for who and post a draft here for you guys to review.
 
Hola, everybody.

I finally got around to brewing a Moza clone yesterday- based off of recommendations from Pacayaforhops. The color looks right, the yeast is bubbling- I'll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks.
 
Delano said:
Hola, everybody.

I finally got around to brewing a Moza clone yesterday- based off of recommendations from Pacayaforhops. The color looks right, the yeast is bubbling- I'll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks.
Click to expand...

Cool. Bring some to the reunion.
 
here are my first 2 nicabrews. a brown ale and wheat IPA. the brown is solid. the wheat ipa is a little funky, a little too spicy/hot from the yeast for my taste, kinda clashes with the citrusy hops.

recipe for the brown(4 gallon batch) - 5 lbs of light DME & 1 lb of amber DME. steeped 6 oz of chocolate malt, 8 oz of brown, 2 oz of black roasted barley. 1 oz of warrior for bittering, 1 oz of EK Goldings for flavor. S-04 yeast

942474_10100156648746633_1143638431_n.jpg
 
hopbrad said:
here are my first 2 nicabrews. a brown ale and wheat IPA. the brown is solid. the wheat ipa is a little funky, a little too spicy/hot from the yeast for my taste, kinda clashes with the citrusy hops.

recipe for the brown(4 gallon batch) - 5 lbs of light DME & 1 lb of amber DME. steeped 6 oz of chocolate malt, 8 oz of brown, 2 oz of black roasted barley. 1 oz of warrior for bittering, 1 oz of EK Goldings for flavor. S-04 yeast
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Cool, we will be passing thru Nica soon if you are interested in sharing! :)
 
This has been the worst week ever for me (beerwise), I had the mini-keg explode in my room while I was at work, coating EVERYTHING in beer that hadn't fermented completely yet, so it was all a sticky mess; happened monday and I just got done scrubbing the furniture/electronics yesterday.

Then yesterday my co2 decides to call it quits and explosively decompress, causing the beer to foam up and back up into my regulators (2nd time it's happened ever), not that I mind cleaning my regs, but by the time i noticed, my saison was flat again; good thing I have a backup co2 tank.

On the upside, my room smells like the abbey ale I was fermenting in the mini-keg, the downside is I don't want to leave my room any more and just soak the smell in :cross:.

Lessons learned:

  • Ferment in a mini-keg with airlock and then carbonate with the original stopper/valve.
  • Get a couple of pneumatic check valves for the carbonation rig.


I weep for my abbey ale...

On an unrelated note, looking good hopbrad, let us know how the DC LME works out for you.
 
today me and my buddy are bottling an IPA and plan on brewing up a 2 gallon test batch, 2 oz of cascade, half bottle of the DC LME, 1/4 lb of sugar and some of the leftover s-04 from the IPA.

i am about an hour and 15 from Rivas which the pan am runs thru.
nice little beach town. most people know the area b/c of the Rancho Santana resort. i can share. or better yet, a trade!
 
pacayaforhops said:
For a quick turn around I'd suggest a premium bitter, I've just made a couple with DC extract and mid/low alpha hops, lots of brown sugar though, chilling the beer as gravity comes to about 1.010

5 lbs DC LME
2 lbs light brown sugar
in 5 gal water

0.5 oz 5% AA hops @60 min
0.5 oz 5% AA hops @15 min

Add the last 0.5 lbs light brown sugar after primary and let it ferment to taste, I like mine with a bit of residual sweetness.

Should still come to about 5% ABV
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Do you think the Qiunfica hops would work with this? I have no supplies left at all, but my GF will be ordering from Quinfica in the next week or so, so I should be able to get their hops. I should be able to get the LME shipped out to me too. Another question, in your opinion would subbing the sugar for panela work? (Incidentely was told a few months ago to always boil panela up and strain to get out the dirt/rocks/bugs. So usually I make it up as a syrup between 68% and 80% panela depending on how much water I let boil off, but weigh it before and after to know the concentration)
 
hopbrad said:
today me and my buddy are bottling an IPA and plan on brewing up a 2 gallon test batch, 2 oz of cascade, half bottle of the DC LME, 1/4 lb of sugar and some of the leftover s-04 from the IPA.

i am about an hour and 15 from Rivas which the pan am runs thru.
nice little beach town. most people know the area b/c of the Rancho Santana resort. i can share. or better yet, a trade!
Click to expand...

We should be passing thru the Rivas area in a few days. Not sure exactly how our schedule will work out, but we see if I can find something interesting to trade between here and there.
 
Patzaquel said:
Do you think the Qiunfica hops would work with this? I have no supplies left at all, but my GF will be ordering from Quinfica in the next week or so, so I should be able to get their hops. I should be able to get the LME shipped out to me too. Another question, in your opinion would subbing the sugar for panela work? (Incidentely was told a few months ago to always boil panela up and strain to get out the dirt/rocks/bugs. So usually I make it up as a syrup between 68% and 80% panela depending on how much water I let boil off, but weigh it before and after to know the concentration)
Click to expand...

What is Qiunfica?
 
Curtis2010 said:
What is Qiunfica?
Click to expand...

A place that sells hops/extract here in Guate, it's been updated to the supplies in Guate thread in the CA-4 group for just under a week.


Patzaquel said:
Do you think the Qiunfica hops would work with this? I have no supplies left at all, but my GF will be ordering from Quinfica in the next week or so, so I should be able to get their hops. I should be able to get the LME shipped out to me too.
Click to expand...

Yes quinfica hops should work, try to get "triturado", it's chopped dried hops, extract will give you substantially less aroma (this is one of the bigger issues with cervecería centroamericana's brews), if there´s no alpha % listed, you can assume 4.5-5.5 AA% as they seem to be "bavarian hops".

Patzaquel said:
Another question, in your opinion would subbing the sugar for panela work? (Incidentely was told a few months ago to always boil panela up and strain to get out the dirt/rocks/bugs. So usually I make it up as a syrup between 68% and 80% panela depending on how much water I let boil off, but weigh it before and after to know the concentration)
Click to expand...

Yes you can sub brown sugar for panela/syrup, I've done it myself; mostly with darker beers, it lends it a somewhat candied sugar smell and slight caramel taste.
 
Great, thanks for the help and advice. They offer whole or powdered hops, I'm guessing I'll have some chopping to do as the powdered stuff will be too fine to sieve out.
 
Whole leaf is even better, no need to chop it. If you're on a budget, you can use extract to bitter and whole leaf for flavor/aroma, it should turn out about as good as straight whole leaf hops. Powdered is probably still coarse enough to strain in a large plastic small grid strainer, that's what I use with for pellets, which are just about powdered and pressed; the good thing is they expand as they take moisture in. Whatever's left sediments when I cold crash.
 
hopbrad said:
today me and my buddy are bottling an IPA and plan on brewing up a 2 gallon test batch, 2 oz of cascade, half bottle of the DC LME, 1/4 lb of sugar and some of the leftover s-04 from the IPA.

i am about an hour and 15 from Rivas which the pan am runs thru.
nice little beach town. most people know the area b/c of the Rancho Santana resort. i can share. or better yet, a trade!
Click to expand...

Right now I'm fermenting 4 galons of an IPA made of strictly DC LME (looks like yours): 6.5 lbs LME, 0.5 lbs cane sugar. It came at around 0.060, after 1 week it's now at 0.016. I added: 1oz chinook @ 60, 0.5 cascade @ 20, 0.5 cascade @ boil off, I'll dry hop for 7 days with 1oz cascade. Fermented with Coopers. I've tried a sample yesterday and it's pretty good, the color looks fine for an IPA, not too dark. I think this could be a good way to make a simple and cheap IPA in CA (well, 3oz hops is not that cheap, but, eh!). Well, I'll update you when it's done... You guys from Guate can try it when we meet!:mug:
 
About the meeting: I'm actually working hard on the project of opening a small pizzeria/restaurant, and we are hoping to open it by the beginning of september... If it's the case, well it's gonna be hard for me to assist at the at the reunion at Cheers Z.10, as I will be working at the restaurant. The good point is that we could move the reunion to my place, it would totally be homebrew friendly of course... Well i'm just throwing that right now but I'll keep you updated so that we can take a decision. Anyway it's gonna be in Z. 4, in 4 grados norte, which is pretty close from Z.10 (5-10 min car ride).
 
nsaubes said:
About the meeting: I'm actually working hard on the project of opening a small pizzeria/restaurant, and we are hoping to open it by the beginning of september... If it's the case, well it's gonna be hard for me to assist at the at the reunion at Cheers Z.10, as I will be working at the restaurant. The good point is that we could move the reunion to my place, it would totally be homebrew friendly of course... Well i'm just throwing that right now but I'll keep you updated so that we can take a decision. Anyway it's gonna be in Z. 4, in 4 grados norte, which is pretty close from Z.10 (5-10 min car ride).
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan, good luck with opening; let us know, I'd be down with a location switch.
 
Curtis2010 said:
Working on it. Traveling now but will post to confirm soon.
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I was going to mix speciatly grains in w this order but I'm thinking now for our first test of just ordering the 60Lbs of 2-row. There is not much cost savings on a few Lbs of specialty grains anyway.

If no objections, I will go ahead and place the order in the next few days.

I will PM my BAM account unfo to those who want some of the grains, you can deposit your share of the order there and we can sort out final TransCargo shipping costs later.

OK W you guys?
 
Re Quinfica.....cool....we can now get LME and hops in Guate. I will read the updates.
 
What would be a good translation of "homebrew" and "homebrewer"? "Cerveza de la Casa" y "Cervecero de Hogar"?
 
Curtis2010 said:
I was going to mix speciatly grains in w this order but I'm thinking now for our first test of just ordering the 60Lbs of 2-row. There is not much cost savings on a few Lbs of specialty grains anyway.

If no objections, I will go ahead and place the order in the next few days.

I will PM my BAM account unfo to those who want some of the grains, you can deposit your share of the order there and we can sort out final TransCargo shipping costs later.

OK W you guys?
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me!
 
ORDER PLACED!

60lbs 2-row, $93.99 including USA shipping, bagged in 6 x 10lb bags..so $9.40 per bag. Final TransCargo cost TBD when shipment arrives.

Allocation: Rappy: 20lbs, Nsaubes: 20lbs, Curtis: 20 lbs. Correct?
 
Curtis2010 said:
ORDER PLACED!

60lbs 2-row, $93.99 including USA shipping, bagged in 6 x 10lb bags..so $9.40 per bag. Final TransCargo cost TBD when shipment arrives.

Allocation: Rappy: 20lbs, Nsaubes: 20lbs, Curtis: 20 lbs. Correct?
Click to expand...

Cool! Thanks Curtis! If you let me now your banking info I could make a 32$ (256Q @ 8Q = 1$)....

Thank you Curtis!
 
rappyfreak said:
Yep 20lb for me is good. Let us know the bank account #
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PMs sent.

Re amount lets go w $32 for now and sort out the details later. The account is a Q account, but Im not going to bother w diffs in exchange rate...just go with whatever the rate is that day.
 
So my hops have arrived! Q38 the pound from Quinfica, powdered this time, no whole flowers for a couple of months apparently, so I hope they swell enough to strain out. I had a trip to the airport to pick up a friend, which gave me just enough time to get some LME from DC too. Yeast I harvested from my last batch, washed and refrigerated, so I'm hoping it will be OK. I'll wait until Tuesday for the full moon as I will take all the help I can get! The thing I am really missing is a hygrometer, so I'll follow the recipe and hope for the best. At worst it will be a loss of Q100 of ingredients.
 
Don't sweat not having a hydrometer, it's been years since I've used mine, just run the LME as dark LME in this calculator and call it done:
www.powersbrewery.com/mastercalc/mastercalculator.html

I know how well my yeast will attenuate, so I run the estimated OG and my yeast's attenuative capabilities (1.006-1.008 FG for the more aggressive non-funky ones) and base my ABV on that. A more conservative estimate would be 1.010 with an OG of 1.054-1.056 with most english ale yeasts, 1.008-1.010 FG for american ales and just about the same for most lagers. Belgian yeasts and funky yeasts can bring it down to under 1.000 for the mid gravity brews, though 1.002-1.004 is more common.
 
Thanks very much for your input, this is an exciting time :D I'm relieved about the hydrometer. The calculator looks very interesting, I remember using similar programs (in MS-DOS) about 20 years ago to calculate predicted molecular weights of polymers. I found one here too, where I can switch to metric http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/ as I just can't get my head around Imperial, especially US Imperial!

Another question which I hope won't sound too stupid. My biggest pot is about 8 litres. I have been making 11.5 litre (20 English pint) batches up until now, using premixed wort syrup from a kit. My fermentation bucket is the standard 18.9 litre (5 US gal) type. Will I get away with say a 6 litre boil of LME/panela/hops diluting it to lets say 15 litres with water, or should I just bite the bullet and get myself a 15 litre stainless steel pot (or what passes for it ;) ) and make a bigger mash?
 
Patzaquel said:
Another question... Will I get away with say a 6 litre boil of LME/panela/hops diluting it to lets say 15 litres with water, or should I just bite the bullet and get myself a 15 litre stainless steel pot (or what passes for it ;) ) and make a bigger mash?
Click to expand...


Ideally you will want to get a 20L pot so you can do a full boil, but yes you can do a small boil and then water it down, I'd recommend not adding the LME until the end of the boil and running the calculator assuming the full volume, that way you'll get close to the calculated IBU's and have less kettle caramelization and more hops utilization with less dissolved sugar taking up the hops' space.

None of my 5 gal batches have ever been a full boil batch (I have a single 15L enameled stock pot), but they still come out good; don't take my word for it though, hopefully you'll get to judge that at our meet.
 
I've had good luck with the calculator I posted, but I ran my numbers on the one you posted and it's quite a bit more accurate (though a bit more laborious to fill out); stick to it, I'll be using it whenever I need a more defined character in my beer.
 

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