What I did for beer today

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broot said:
Yes i use city water, adjusted my water, but forgot the campden for the chlorine removal. I was trying to get a brew in while getting a bunch of other stuff done around the yard. Maybe it wasn't the best Idea!!
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Never brew when you're in a hurry. Who knows what can happen and distract you. For all I... I mean you...know, systems may go down right as you're starting to chill it and you have to turn it into a no-chill because of a work emergency. Wait... who said that... it wasn't me... :rolleyes: lol...
 
lumpher said:
Never brew when you're in a hurry. Who knows what can happen and distract you. For all I... I mean you...know, systems may go down right as you're starting to chill it and you have to turn it into a no-chill because of a work emergency. Wait... who said that... it wasn't me... :rolleyes: lol...
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Yeah, I know better. the worst part is it happened at the start of the brew when that was all i was doing! I'll definitely have to taste it before adding the peaches. worst case I just dump it.
 
Chlorine can give beer a phenolic flavor and aroma and not the good kind.

I use RO water and still give my water a small shot of camden to remove the residual chloramine that makes it through. I use to not add camden to my RO water as I could not taste anything but there were beer judges that could taste it.

edit: I additionally confirmed with a water test kit that there was chloramine present in the RO water. It was barely detectable but still there. I had reduce my RO system output from 75gpd to 50gpd to give more contact in the carbon filters to help reduce it too.
 
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Finally put together my keg washer! Test run today!
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Bottled 5 gallons of a Bourbon County Stout clone!

Then I made 2 gallons of sugar-wash for a seltzer that my wife requested -- so easy! Only boiled a cup of water (plus 2 grams of fermaid-K), dumped in a full 2 lb package of sugar, and then 2 gallons of distilled water, plus the yeast. Took a whole 5 minutes!
 
Brewing my 17th batch of Julius and so far so good! Managed to strike before 9 am - a miracle for me ☺️

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Onwards!

[edit] Fly sparging in progress. Haven't effed up yet!

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Ever Onwards!

[edit2] Spent grains carted to next door neighbors chickens, HLT and MLT cleaned, and BK is well into the boil.

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Have to boil off a half gallon more than usual to accommodate these two starters instead of my usual decanted pitch. Nbd, the early start helps...

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[edit3] Sure got hot here today. I'm going through extra hand towels keeping dry while whirlpooling hops...

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Shouldn't take much longer to get done today...

[edit4] Finishing up always takes longer than expected but I got 'er done.

Loading carboys...

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Pitched, gassed, hooked up and ready to go...

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In almost 20 years of brewing this is the very first time I pitched an uncrashed starter. I'm curious if "lift off" will happen quicker...

Cheers!
 
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I made the All Together NEIPA recipe from Other Half, my second attempt at one of my favorite styles. I’m still dialing in my process parameters, I just made the jump from 1 gallon to 2.5 gallon batches and my final volume was 18% less than expected which is frustrating. FG was slightly high so I think I should have topped up in the boil but I don’t have a way to measure volume reliably in the kettle yet.

Smells great though! All my last batches have had unpleasantly yeasty flavors, that’s the only way to describe it. Not esters or phenols, just tastes like yeast. Even with healthy starters and temperature control, weeks after cold crash the beers still taste like straight bread yeast. I tried to over pitch this one so here’s hoping it will flocculate out.

Cheers!
 
Kegged 5 gallons of 3-grain Saison, plus a 1L bottle I'm going to carbonate on some priming sugar.

Pulled a couple of bottles of rum barrel red rye IPA off the tap via a borrowed counter-pressure bottle filler (that's marginally too long to fit comfortably under my tap tower...) for tomorrow's homebrew club.

Had a clear out of some of my spare non-duotight type fittings that had started to go rusty.

Updated my hop inventory and cleaned out my all rounder for next week's beer




Now, do I brew the Best Bitter or Hefeweizen?
 
Sold our spare car this weekend; it's been sitting the better part of two years out on the street so needed some scrubbing (algae, anyone?). Husband got some stuff at HD called LA's Totally Awesome cleaner and degreaser, took everything off and left the car looking almost new. Yesterday we were spraying it on random dirty areas in the house to see how it does; takes stains off painted walls and leaves the paint, just does a great job. So I thought, why the heck not. The outside of my BK was completely gunked up with burnt on boilover remnants, so I tried this stuff on it with a steel wool pad. EVERYTHING came off (not the etching) and the damned thing looks like it did when I brought it home from the LHBS. This cleaner is the absolute shiznit! And cheap!! Smells to high heaven so ventilation is key when using it. Cannot wait to see what it will do to my nasty stovetop.

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Small batch brewday - so into my Utility Muffin Beer Research Kitchen I went...

Now that the sweet dried orange peel arrived from a spice vendor, I've taken another step towards BlueHouseBrewhaus' recipe and made a lager from it (I need to restock ale yeasts, but it's not worth the postage just for the yeast alone, and lager always works as well for me...). HERE is the recipe and the thread for the interested ones.

And here are some pics documenting the brewday for your pleasure.

Grinding malts:
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Mashing in:
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Lautering and first wort hopping:
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Boiling and further hops, ginger and orange peel addition:
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PS:
HM-2 said:
Now, do I brew the Best Bitter or Hefeweizen?
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Hefeweizen with the Maltase process!
 
Hard to compete will all the cool stuff in this thread lately, but I did a little woodworking project to make calibrating and using my pH meter less cumbersome.

I had a 5"x7" block of maple in the scrap bin of my wood shop. Drilled some holes in it and now I have a much less tippy place to set my cal solutions, small beakers, etc.

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I need to do something similar, the one-by piece of oak scrap I used works but at a mere 11/16" thick is just too thin to work well, even after using flat-bottom Forstner bits. Not having any thicker scrap on hand I might glue another piece to the bottom and drill the holes deeper...

Cheers!
 
day_trippr said:
I need to do something similar, the one-by piece of oak scrap I used works but at a mere 11/16" thick is just too thin to work well, even after using flat-bottom Forstner bits. Not having any thicker scrap on hand I might glue another piece to the bottom and drill the holes deeper...

Cheers!
Click to expand...

I have a similar, slightly larger scrap of maple, cut from the same slab. It's about 6" x 8-3/4" x 2-1/4" thick and weighs about 4 lbs. It's yours if you want it. Send a PM.

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