Todd_Sails
Member
I am currently brewing my grain/extract version of toppling Goliaths 'Lightspeed'.
I'm drinking some of the last batch as I go, he he
I'm drinking some of the last batch as I go, he he
I haven't brewed since last late Oct./early November. I have a recipe ready for a Fluffernutter Sammie Stout, but I haven't a way to control fermentation accurately and I think I have my stout fails down to S-04 yeast and temps in the mid 70's as the culprits in the tangy, metallic flavors and eventual overcarbing issues. I keep putting it off, because I have access to an old, small chest freezer that I could convert...but SWMBO isn't happy with any possible spot to locate it. Ugh.
Yeah, I could rig up something...I just want something consistent, where I can set a thermostat and it stay there. The house is usually 70-72F, so fermentation could be upper 70's or more at times. I really want to make a nice, smooth, sweet stout that never overcarbscand doesn't taste sour, astringent, or metallic. I've tried to lower my primer more and more, left the fermentation longer to ensure complete attenuation, and cleaned, sanitized the crap out of everything from start to finish. So, now I'm down to yeast selection and fermentation temps. Sometimes I have trouble with mash temp and consistently maintaining it, but I've gotten better at it.Does your fermenter fit in anything you can add water then a couple trays of ice every 12hrs or so? My metal trough spring a leak Wednesday, ended up using a mop bucket, the 7.9gal bucket barely fit in. Better then nothing..
Yeah, I could rig up something...I just want something consistent, where I can set a thermostat and it stay there. The house is usually 70-72F, so fermentation could be upper 70's or more at times. I really want to make a nice, smooth, sweet stout that never overcarbscand doesn't taste sour, astringent, or metallic. I've tried to lower my primer more and more, left the fermentation longer to ensure complete attenuation, and cleaned, sanitized the crap out of everything from start to finish. So, now I'm down to yeast selection and fermentation temps. Sometimes I have trouble with mash temp and consistently maintaining it, but I've gotten better at it.
That's an interesting set-up...hmmm. I've been doing 5 gal batches, but SWMBO wouldn't complain about smaller batches. I have the pot, I have a stainless wort chiller coil, I could use just about anything for the chiller ice-water bath. So,I would need a pump, some tubing, and I think Hello has a controller I can buy very reasonably. Not sure about a housing for the controller, but that wouldn't be a big deal either way. I really want to get a good batch of this stout recipe. But if it turns out really well, I'll wish I had done a full batch! Decisions. We have a bathroom nobody uses and I could use the tub, ice bottles, t-shirt & fan, .... There are times that I miss my 2500 sq. ft. house with the garage and big deck. *sigh*My easy relatively cheep setup. Boil kettle, copper tubing in ice bath, SCT1000 temp controller turns on/off Home Depot aquarium pump to recirculate chilled water around the bucket. Definitely a change in flavor after doing this. Usually control water temp around 60-62f.
Brewing up 5 gallons of Austin Homebrew Supply's "Shot In The Dark" tomorrow.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/A-Shot-in-the-Dark-Mystery-Recipe.html
How did it go? I brewed my shot in the dark kit last weekend..I am calling mine Magical Mystery Brew, and I have a thread documenting it here..I think I am going to brew up the other 'mystery' kit I got Wild Card Ale...
Hey! Glad to see I am not the only one who brewed it up!
I liked it, and I think it is going to be a Blonde, it's pretty light in color and has just a bit of a bite, but I will know more in 4-6 weeks when it's done though.
I'm sticking with the Shot In The Dark name just because I find it amusing.
Very cool! Nice logo! Mine turned out pretty dark, even with the light DME..It was the grain bill on mine that did it...Going to rack it to secondary not this coming weekend but next weekend(20th-21st)...Going to go through the ingredients on the Wild Card Ale to see if I can discern beforehand what it will shape up to be..
Well, I was planning on brewing a Munich Helles this weekend...
Also, the high here forecast for Saturday is -6° F, so postponing the brew day isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Well, I was planning on brewing a Munich Helles this weekend, but when I received the ingredients in the mail from my preferred supplier, I noticed that the yeast (Wyeast Munich Lager 2308) was packaged on August 27, 2015. According to a couple of different calculators, it has a viability of somewhere between 10 - 25%. Nevertheless, I made a 5L starter last night and put it on the stir plate. This morning, not many signs of life. If it's showing activity (in the form of CO2 bubbles) by the time I get home today, I'll let it finish out, then crash it and feed it another 5L. Otherwise, I'll have to come up with another plan.
Well, crap.
I came home last night, and after 2 days on the stir plate, there was no significant activity in the starter. To be sure, I took a gravity sample: 1.041. So the yeast is dead. I turned off the stir plate and left the flask to be dumped and cleaned when I had a little more time.
I checked it this morning and it's fizzing like it's carbonated. This is *without* the stir plate being on. So it's definitely fermenting. My question is, is this going to be healthy yeast, or will they have been stressed from pitching so few viable cells into such a big (5L) starter? I'll leave them alone to finish, then taste a sample of the starter wort, I guess.
Still not sure if I should use this yeast or not.
What size batches are you brewing that you're doing 5L starters?
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