Getting started again after 10+ years

I'm not exactly a beginner, but I feel like one again. I used to brew partial-mash ales, but somehow lost interest in it. Time to dust off the equipment and get back in. I have a 2.5 gallon batch of "Skeeter Pee" lemon wine bubbling away in a bucket, and next I want to make a 1 gallon batch of hard apple cider. Then get back into beer brewing about the time winter sets in. That gives me a few weeks to do research and order supplies. Maybe it'll all come back to me when I get started, but for now I can't remember much of anything.

Couple of questions:

I should probably throw away all my old hops in the freezer *except* for the Chinook pellets, right? Or are even the Chinooks stale by now? I'm also going to buy fresh hop pellets; probably Palisade because it's not too expensive and can do double-duty as bittering and flavoring.

I want to brew English-ish ESB's, but the local homebrew shop only has American 2-row malt, plus a great selection of specialty malts from all over the world. The 2-row is cheap, and the specialty malts are kind of expensive. All the SB and ESB recipes I see call for UK malts, especially Maris Otter. Will using American 2-row make much difference? I don't care if the style is a little off as long as it tastes good. Maybe add just a little victory or biscuit malt and call it good?

I'd like to use the local hard water for everything except sparging. They're using chloramine now instead of chlorine. What's the best way to dechlorinate the water, since chloramine doesn't evaporate out? (for some reason I think a Campden tablet will drive out chloramine but I don't know where I got that)

I was doing partial-mash because my pasta cooker lauter tun can only hold about 5 pounds of grain. That's probably where I'll start again. I suppose I could do all-grain and reduce the recipe down to 3 gallons...

That's enough for now

Thanks,
Bob in Minnesota

If your hops are really old, probably best to discard them... or use them only for aroma additions (if they still have any aroma left)... Their bittering potential is probably minimal at this stage (depending on age, storage method, and original alpha acid %)

You can emulate (but not completely replicate) Maris Otter by adding some Victory or Biscuit to your 2-row. I do it all the time. Is it authentic ESB? Not really. Does it work? Hell yes!

My understanding is that campden tabs are very effective (and practically instantaneous) for dealing with chlorine and. chloramines. Add to water and by the time you're up to strike temps, all is good.

Since you've been out of the game for a decade or so, you should look in to the current thinking on secondary (not needed), length of time in primary (3 weeks or so), BIAB (Brew in a Bag) all grain methods, No-chill techniques, yeast pitching rates (starters, dry vs liquid, yeast rinsing/washing, etc.

It's all here on HBT, you just have to find it

Lots of folks here willing to give their opinion too!

Thanks, I've been reading about BIAB. When I first encountered it in a recipe, I didn't pay much attention because I assumed the efficiency would be terrible. (no sparge) But people are talking about getting efficiencies of 80%.

Still reading. It seems the art has progressed quite a bit while I was out of it.

I'm also intrigued by open fermentation, perhaps using a 10 gallon aquarium for a fermentation tank. (I have one that's not being used) But I'm not going to try that for a while.

I get the bulk of my ingredients from MoreBeer who recently began carrying Maris Otter LME. I do partial mashes and before that used golden light LME with Maris Otter grains and a little bit of Belgian biscuit. It didn't turn out as authentic as I wanted, but it's still good.

I do BIAB and sparge by using a large colander and pouring the water on the grains and using a cup to press the liquids out. I usually get 75% efficiency if I have enough sparge water (I've made mistakes before).

You may want to read the free online book How To Brew to shake some cobwebs…

If those hops are 10 years old I'd think they were likely stale. Open one up and see if it smells like cheese.

You could also boil out the chloramine from what I understand. I use a filter on my sink.

The trick to good efficiencies with BIAB is getting a really fine crush on your grain. There's no worry about a stuck sparge, so almost flour works well.

If you crush at your LHBS, run it through the mill twice. If you crush at home tighten your gap.

From what I've read here, Chlorine will dissipate on its own or through boiling but chloramines are tougher to get rid of. Campden tabs make it super easy.

Also take a look into the No-chill method for cooling wort if you don't have a chiller. It's a viable alternative to ice baths or buying/making a chiller or for places with drought or warm ground water. According to the Aussie's who pioneered it, once you put your hot wort into a container, it'll keep for months until you're ready to pitch your yeast.

I do stove-top BIAB with no-chill (overnight chill for me, really) and am having good luck with it.

I've never tried an open ferment...

rodwha said:

You could also boil out the chloramine from what I understand.

Click to expand...

...if you've got a couple of days, and the landlord pays your gas bill.

Chloramines are highly resistant to evaporating out of water (even when that water's boiling) – this is why a lot of municipal water supplies use it, once they've treated the water, they don't have to worry about it becoming un-treated again just sitting around.

On the other hand, one campden tablet will treat up to 20 gallons, and your LHBS will sell you a pouch of 20 for a couple of bucks.

I still have a copper wort-chiller that I made 15-or-so years ago, when copper was cheap. Glad I didn't get rid of it 'cause I couldn't justify the cost now.

OTOH, just pouring the hot wort into a stainless steel corny-keg, cleaning the kitchen, and dealing with the wort tomorrow (or next weekend) has some appeal. So DMS is just an imaginary problem in most ales? I guess the CO2 bubble scrub most of it out...

I do partial boil, partial mash brew in a bag on my stove with aftermarket heating elements. I mash as much as 6lbs+ in up to 2 1/4 gallons of spring water. The dunk sparge in a kettle of 1 1/2 gallons of same @ 170F for 10 minutes. This allows me to stir the drained grains in the sparge water to get more out of them. So I wind up with about 3 1/2 gallons of wort to do my hop additions, adding the extract at flame out. Since the wort's still boiling hot & pasteurization happens in seconds @ 160F, Bob's your uncle. Straining the chilled wort into the fermenter gets excess gunk out & aerates it too. I top off to recipe volume with water chilled in the fridge a day or two before brew day. Getting the wort chilled to 75F or so, then topping off with the cold water gets it down to about 65F. Very doable in the average kitchen. DMS needs to boil off, so leave the lid off the kettle during the boil.

The best information I have found about chloramine and chloramine removal for human purposes comes from the SF water department:
"Chloramine is not a persistent disinfectant and decomposes easily from a chemistry point of view (Valentine et al, 1998) but for water supply purposes chloramine is stable and it takes days to dissipate in the absence of substances exerting chloramine demand (Wilczak et al., 2003b). Therefore, it is not practical to remove chloramine by letting an open container of water stand because it may take days for chloramine to dissipate. However, chloramine is very easily and almost instantaneously removed by preparing a cup of tea or coffee, preparing food (e.g., making a soup with a chicken stock). Adding fruit to a water pitcher (e.g., slicing peeled orange into a 1-gal water pitcher) will neutralize chloramine within 30 minutes. If desired, chloramine and ammonia can be completely removed from the water by boiling; however, it will take 20 minutes of gentle boil to do that. Just a short boil of water to prepare tea or coffee removed about 30% of chloramine.... If desired, both chlorine and chloramine can be removed for drinking water purposes by an activated carbon filter point of use device that can be installed on a kitchen faucet. If desired, both chlorine and chloramine can be removed for bathing purposes by dissolving Vitamin C in the bath water (1000 mg Vitamin C tablet will neutralize chloramine in an average bathtub)"

I'm not sure why you feel days and/or help paying a gas bill is necessary for boiling out chloramine.