Any brewers in the Conway Area?

BowAholic said:

works for me...

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Well there are a few problems. It would take about 50 lbs of grain to get us to a pretty high ABV barley wine, too heavy to lift easily, not to mention the water to grain ratio would be rather low, we'd likely get very poor efficiency. Using an actual mash tun would help, doing a sparge could help some too, but that means adding more water and increasing the boil time more.

Here's an idea, and it turns out this is what a lot of people do:
20 lbs Pale Ale Malt
6 lbs 6 Row
5 lbs Oats
5 lbs DME
4 lbs Cane Sugar

This would come out to about 14% ABV as a best case scenario, but 12-13 is more likely.

The sugar not only helps keep the cost down and get the ABV up easily, but it helps to keep the beer from being overly sweet, which is the problem I've always found with barley wines. The oats are just a suggestion, I don't have any idea what to use for specialty grains.

We could use "W" hops, a lot of these barley wines have pretty high IBUs, 50-100 is not uncommon.

What do you think?

estricklin said:

Well there are a few problems. It would take about 50 lbs of grain to get us to a pretty high ABV barley wine, too heavy to lift easily, not to mention the water to grain ratio would be rather low, we'd likely get very poor efficiency. Using an actual mash tun would help, doing a sparge could help some too, but that means adding more water and increasing the boil time more.

Here's an idea, and it turns out this is what a lot of people do:
20 lbs Pale Ale Malt
6 lbs 6 Row
5 lbs Oats
5 lbs DME
4 lbs Cane Sugar

This would come out to about 14% ABV as a best case scenario, but 12-13 is more likely.

The sugar not only helps keep the cost down and get the ABV up easily, but it helps to keep the beer from being overly sweet, which is the problem I've always found with barley wines. The oats are just a suggestion, I don't have any idea what to use for specialty grains.

We could use "W" hops, a lot of these barley wines have pretty high IBUs, 50-100 is not uncommon.

What do you think?

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works for me...just say when. Had one of the saisons today... I like them but I should have fermented that french saison yeast higher I think... no funk to it at all... I have a bag of 2 row but no 6 row...not sure how much oats I have...have some sugar, and plenty of hops!

I'll have mostly all of the grain, the 6 lbs of 6 row needs to be used up, it's what's left from that bud lite clone I brewed a while back. Sometime next month would be good for me.

estricklin said:

I'll have mostly all of the grain, the 6 lbs of 6 row needs to be used up, it's what's left from that bud lite clone I brewed a while back. Sometime next month would be good for me.

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state longbow shoot memorial weekend... nothing else planned.

Thanks for the help! I ended up frying the relay in the controller cause I wired it wrong......got the new one in and wired it and it works great! now to build the collar. Thanks for all the help!

iblandford said:

Thanks for the help! I ended up frying the relay in the controller cause I wired it wrong......got the new one in and wired it and it works great! now to build the collar. Thanks for all the help!

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Well I hate that but glad you got it working, the relays can be replaced on that circuit board pretty easily, but I realize the STCs are pretty cheap. Yes the collar, show us some pics when it's done!

Enjoying a nice Rockhound tonight.

estricklin said:

Enjoying a nice Rockhound tonight.

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just kegged a new pale ale yesterday after a week dry hopping with centennial, cascade, and citra... you'll need to try some.

BowAholic said:

just kegged a new pale ale yesterday after a week dry hopping with centennial, cascade, and citra... you'll need to try some.

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Damn you put the hops to it!

Everything Lost 40 makes it great, tried the Hunter tonight, lovin it.

I need to try some... I'm heading to the state longbow shoot at Mayflower in the morning...

New guy in Ward!

five0three said:

New guy in Ward!

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welcome

five0three said:

New guy in Ward!

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Welcome! Wadda you like to drink/brew?

So I didn't flip too far back in this thread l, so forgive me if it's been covered, but do you guys get together as a club?

five0three said:

So I didn't flip too far back in this thread l, so forgive me if it's been covered, but do you guys get together as a club?

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Don't worry, we BS in this thread a lot so don't blame you for not reading it haha.

The answer is...kinda, not really, but we'd like to. I'm hoping we finally can in January. I've also kicked around the idea of starting a homebrew club. I am decent at web design and can do some programming, so I could build a website. Other than that I am not sure what to do. Bob and I get together and brew pretty often, we swap beers a lot.

I get so thrilled when we get someone new in this thread, I started this a few years back I guess, and for a long time I had lost hope. Almost 25k hits now!

Wps

took a super nice road trip up to one of Arkansas' best natural bridges... Alum Cove. Too cool for sure... stopped on hwy 7 at Arkansas' first rest stop, Rotary Ann... it has an overlook that is so like he Grand Canyon... only green... :rockin:
Came home and brewed 5.5 gallons of y favorite Centennial IPA.

BowAholic said:

took a super nice road trip up to one of Arkansas' best natural bridges... Alum Cove. Too cool for sure... stopped on hwy 7 at Arkansas' first rest stop, Rotary Ann... it has an overlook that is so like he Grand Canyon... only green... :rockin:
Came home and brewed 5.5 gallons of y favorite Centennial IPA.

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Mannnnnn I'm not even gonna ruin that by tellin how about all the hell that water heater caused me haha.

My mustard greens have sprouted though.

estricklin said:

Don't worry, we BS in this thread a lot so don't blame you for not reading it haha.

The answer is...kinda, not really, but we'd like to. I'm hoping we finally can in January. I've also kicked around the idea of starting a homebrew club. I am decent at web design and can do some programming, so I could build a website. Other than that I am not sure what to do. Bob and I get together and brew pretty often, we swap beers a lot.

I get so thrilled when we get someone new in this thread, I started this a few years back I guess, and for a long time I had lost hope. Almost 25k hits now!

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Good to hear!

I may start a layout on a simple website for a homebrew club. Anybody got any ideas for names? I'm kinda partial to something with the name "hillbilly" in it.

Arkansas Hillbilly Homebrewers
River Valley Homebrew Club
Ozark Fermenter's Club
Petit Jean Zymurgists
I-40 Homebrew Association

Thoughts?

Been talking about this for a long time, and I think maybe we could get a small group going as the interest seems to be here now. As an actual club we could do things that we otherwise couldn't. We could have pull with local breweries, be able to organize group buys, swap beers more, buy/sell/trade equipment and ingredients among ourselves, and learn from each other.

We don't have to meet very often, every 3 months starting out would be fine for me. I think the first time we meet can just sort of be a pre-meeting. Personally, I think having the actual meetings at or near hotels would be a better idea, so that people would not have to drive. I can get an incredible discount at a nice hotel in Conway because of who I work for, and should be able to rent multiple rooms. I'm just throwing out ideas here, nothing solid.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

How bout Hillbilly Razorbacks Homebrew? Since they are 2-0[emoji203][emoji481]

twill said:

How bout Hillbilly Razorbacks Homebrew? Since they are 2-0[emoji203][emoji481]

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I thought about that, I'm just worried about getting a cease and desist letter after I spend 30+ hours on the website.

But ya I'm happy, wish we would have gobbled up our cupcake, but we still ate it. WPS!

twill said:

How bout Hillbilly Razorbacks Homebrew? Since they are 2-0[emoji203][emoji481]

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In all seriousness, if everyone wants a Razorback name, we just can't use the logo.

Eric,
Awesome Idea... I am a long ways from home but I expect to end this journey in the next 12 months. I am totally in... If you end up with start up costs for a web page or anything else associated I am more than willing to contribute..... Any name you guys agree on works.... I have a good friend who is well connected to Lost 40 Brewing Company...... If you guys launch this and want me to reach out..... I will try to make in roads with them to where we can attempt some type of interaction with them. They might be willing to allow us to piggyback with their Grain orders occasionally or host some of our meetings...... Who knows... Just throwing it out there!

Hillbilly homebrew association

Hoppy hillbillies

I sketched out a logo earlier using a banjo and the words "HILLBILLY HOMEBREWERS ASSOCIATION", and I think that could work. I'm not the greatest at graphic design but I will give it my best shot.

I shouldn't have any real costs right now. I have a few old PCs laying around and I may host the website on one of them since we shouldn't get much traffic. Of coarse I'll have to buy the domain, and probably pay a DNS forwarding service but that shouldn't be much.

I would love to have a connection to Lost 40!

I will look on the AHA website later, to find out what we need to do in order to register our club with them.

We will probably need a Facebook page as well, I will insert the feed from it into the website for those who don't use Facebook much, and I would rather just keep using this forum for the most part.

The website will be pretty simple, I write all my markup and code in simple notepad so it will be a truly custom website, though maybe not the most professional haha. Here is an example of one I built for another club I belong to:

www.ke5fsy.com

Obviously I'll use a different layout and color scheme, but if anyone has any ideas let me know.

I noticed that ever major city in the state has a homebrew club, even Russellville appears to. So it's time.

Look for some screenshots of the basic website layout and graphics this weekend hopefully. Also have REALLY got to pick a place and time. Sooner the better, even if it's just a few of us.

I realize this looks pretty boring but here a basic layout. Going to start adding content later.

cool... on a side note... I think I will brew tomorrow. Randy may or may not show up... LOL
BTW- I like just "Hillbilly Homebrewers" without the "association" tag... plain and fancy don't sound right together...

What about diamond brewers?

woo_pig said:

What about diamond brewers?

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I like that one too, I already started work on the logo, I hope everyone is ok with the hillbilly theme. Sorry I just kinda picked one, one that I thought was good, but also went with the spirits of this thread, and because I just had to pick one.

The website is looking up, have a nice color theme, some graphics and content.

I am looking for photos, any photo in this thread, I'm going to consider fair game unless otherwise stated. If anyone has any photos, I really need them. Photos of your beer, brewing equipment, bottling setup, sacks of grain, screenshots and really anything you can think of.

I still haven't researched the AHA thing, got tied up with the website but I will soon.

estricklin said:

I like that one too, I already started work on the logo, I hope everyone is ok with the hillbilly theme. Sorry I just kinda picked one, one that I thought was good, but also went with the spirits of this thread, and because I just had to pick one.

The website is looking up, have a nice color theme, some graphics and content.

I am looking for photos, any photo in this thread, I'm going to consider fair game unless otherwise stated. If anyone has any photos, I really need them. Photos of your beer, brewing equipment, bottling setup, sacks of grain, screenshots and really anything you can think of.

I still haven't researched the AHA thing, got tied up with the website but I will soon.

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we can always take photos... I'll take a couple tomorrow. Did you see my post about "hillbilly Homebrewers" without the word Association? That word just sounds too big and technical to me... Get ready...we're getting a storm in about an hour...

BowAholic said:

we can always take photos... I'll take a couple tomorrow. Did you see my post about "hillbilly Homebrewers" without the word Association? That word just sounds too big and technical to me... Get ready...we're getting a storm in about an hour...

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Thanks for the heads up and no I didn't notice it. BUT, while designing the logos I kinda figured that out. It's sorta fluff, but we do kinda need the word Arkansas in there I think. Arkansas Hillbilly Homebrewers is what I feel pretty comfortable with.

Hoping for dry weather tomorrow for my bike ride.

Looking forward to those photos. Pictures of beer pours would be great too.

"Pictures of beer pours would be great too...."
I can do that... :rockin:

BowAholic said:

"Pictures of beer pours would be great too...."
I can do that... :rockin:

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Someone must bare that burden.....

Anyone have a propane burner they're looking to get rid of?

five0three said:

Anyone have a propane burner they're looking to get rid of?

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I'm building one electric kettle, but will still use my smaller kettle and burner... I like brewing outside. Mine is all stainless and high BTU but was only $35 at Academy Sports.

I may have an extra stand but the burner had cracked. I do have some other stuff to give away, I have a 5 gallon round cooler mash tun with a homemade aluminum false bottom if your interested. I'm never going to use it again.

Pm'd you