I've brewed two recipes from the bbs book that call for a cinnamon stick; apple crisp and the pumpkin dubble. Both have come out with a strange plastick soap undertone and I believe it's from boiling the cinnamon stick for entire boil.
I've looked at several other recipes that call for cinnamon and it's usually added in last 15min or end of boil.
I've brewed another pumpkin beer with spice addition at last 15 min and I'm hoping that does the trick. The bbs pumpkin beer has a great flavor besides that strange undertone. With the apple crisp beer it did melow out after a couple months. I have read that it may have to do with the long boil causing certain tannins being released from the cinnamon stick (it is a piece of bark after all). Any others have had similar experiences?
Happy brewing
ps- brewed up the bbs winter wheat yesterday, smelled amazing!
MB - my instructions for BBS's Oatmeal Cookie Stout say to add the cinnamon stick at 30 minutes; it might be worth it to try a batch of some cinnamon-flavoured beer at 30 minutes and a second batch at 15 minutes (all else equal) and compare.
If you do, I'd be interested in the results....
Ron
I'm about to make the Hard Cider Kit and was wonder if I threw in an extra cup of RAW sugar what would that do other than maybe bump up the ABV? Or would you advise against it?
So I ended up adding a cup of light brown sugar and nutrient to my batch and it was fermenting in 30 mins! Hope this turns out good!
Would love to know how that cider turns out when it's ready. What juice did you use?
Brewed the Coffee and Donut stout (from the recipe book) two weeks ago - grains purchased at LHBS.
The mash and initial fermentation smelled delicious but had a couple of issues:
OG was way too low to achieve the 6.5% ABV (resorted to adding sugar to get it up).
The S-33 yeast bummed out at 1.020 giving me 4% ABV - visible fermentation stopped entirely 10 days in. Tasted so-so at this point - obviously a little green and too sweet & lacking body.
Rousing the yeast + upping the temp didn't help (over 2 days) so pitched in a wee bit of S-04 and it's back to active fermentation.
Looking forward to a new gravity reading on Sunday to see where it's at.
I'm curious about the addition of fruit. I liked the idea of the cranberry winter wheat recipe, but had a hefeweizen kit. So I made the hefeweizen but added cranberry to the last 10 minutes of the boil, 1 cup. The Winter Wheat recipe had the cranberry added at flame out. Any thoughts on what I'll get?
Did you add Cranberry juice or just cranberries?
If you just added cranberries, I doubt you'll get very much from them.... you might look at the Lemon Lime Hefeweizen recipe here in the recipe forum... with that you add limeaide from simply limeaide after fermentation has settled down... maybe adding pure cranberry juice... or something with just pure juice and sugar would give you more flavor... it would also change the color too.. You could also try adding cranberries in a hop bag into the fermenter for the last week or so... and seeing what happens... I think I might crush them a bit first... or maybe boil with a bit of sugar.. letting them cool and then adding in a bag to the fermenter....
These are just ideas... I've added blackberries this way to good effect.
I brewed the Everyday IPA two weeks ago and bottled today. My ABV clocked in at 8.2% which seems to be very high for this beer.
Pre boil gravity was 1.043
post boil was 1.075
when it came out of the fermenter it was 1.036 or 9 brix on the refractometer, which when put through calculations comes to a 1.012 FG. I mashed in at 160 and it held at 145 for the hour long mash. everything was followed to the instructions for the kit.
Any idea why my ABV is so high? is it a fermentation thing? or a mash efficiency thing? Ive seen that people have gotten around 5-6% from this beer.
Anyone else have this issue or know why this is happening? This is my first ever brew and I've always been a little confused my gravities, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure out if I've done something wrong and what it might be
Please help!
I brewed a BBS Beyond Blonde, which is bottled for another week or so.
I also have a BBS Warrior Double IPA sitting in the primary.
they both smell wonderful, took a sample of the blonde at racking, and it tasted / looked good. The IPA looks good in the carboy.
I've brewed two recipes from the bbs book that call for a cinnamon stick; apple crisp and the pumpkin dubble. Both have come out with a strange plastick soap undertone and I believe it's from boiling the cinnamon stick for entire boil.
I've looked at several other recipes that call for cinnamon and it's usually added in last 15min or end of boil.
I've brewed another pumpkin beer with spice addition at last 15 min and I'm hoping that does the trick. The bbs pumpkin beer has a great flavor besides that strange undertone. With the apple crisp beer it did melow out after a couple months. I have read that it may have to do with the long boil causing certain tannins being released from the cinnamon stick (it is a piece of bark after all). Any others have had similar experiences?
Happy brewing
ps- brewed up the bbs winter wheat yesterday, smelled amazing!
I think their recipes are a work in progress that change as they get feedback. They recommend one thing in the book, but a year later, they offer different advice. Try it multiple ways!
Number 6 bung but I found out the hard way that the 3/8 blow off tune will not fit inside the bung.
I love BBS! I've done 6 batches of their stuff: Everyday IPA, Blueberry Red Ale, chocolate maple porter, simcoe IPA, rye pa, and their light American ale, which I added lime zest to.
Do you follow thier instructions on priming and use honey? I was thinking about trying them but was gonna use priming sugar. Don't want to fool with honey. Also so you use a strainer or a grain bag?
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