Can't wait to see how this turns out!

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Tactical-Brewer

Tactical-Brewer

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Location
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10lb American 2 row
12oz honey malt
12oz biscuit
8oz crystal 40

Mashed for 60 @ 154

Boiled for 60
Goldings for 60

8oz honey at flame out
1oz pure vanilla extract at flame out

Saf Ale 04 yeast

5 gallon batch

Gonna let it sit in primary for 4 weeks and bottle, carbed with honey
 
That sounds delicious! Post in this thread when you have some carbed up and let us know how it is!

What's the projected abv on it?
 
Build looks awesome. You will really like getting away from just steeping grains IMHO
 
That recipe looks nice, except for the vanilla extract (IMO), so I'll be interested to hear how the final beer turns out.

I always find extracts seem pleasant on first tasting ("hey, a new flavor! Yum!"), but after multiple tastings the novelty of the flavor wears off and it starts to take on a synthetic/chemical-y character that I find very off-putting.
 
Thanks mattdee1! The vanilla extract was a last minute thought on it. At flameout my SO said it smelled like cookies lol. But honestly, it's bubbling away right now and all I can think about is how much it smells identical to horse sweet feed, which smells nice, but I sure don't want to drink 2 cases of horse feed haha!

Really curious how this will end up and the "drinkability" of it. As in, is it going to be overly sweet that you can only stand just one or is it going to be an easy drinker where you can nurse two or three back to back. Either way, I'm pretty stoked.

On a side note of my build, I'm going to take some metal tie wraps and configure my manifold to stay in a circular fashion and stay on the bottom. After I was done and drained everything out of the tub, a piece of the manifold was way up top which may have killed my efficiency. Live ya learn but I was expecting a bigger beer than 1.055 from 12lb of grain and 8oz honey at flame out.
 
TandemTails said:
That sounds delicious! Post in this thread when you have some carbed up and let us know how it is!

What's the projected abv on it?
Click to expand...

Sorry bud, I just saw the question about ABV.

I plugged it all into wort, the free android brewing app, and it stated I should have hit 1.088, but only hit 1.055 (Sucks). so now that I've adjusted that, it's going to end up right under 6% I think.

My stainless mesh manifold got stirred up in the mash and I think it robbed me a lot of efficiency so I'm going to make some adjustments to it and hopefully see a lot higher efficiency.
 
Hmmm.. by all means, make the tweaks to your MT, but I’m not sure that a loose manifold explains a poor mash efficiency (or does it?).

I would think that as long as the correct-temp water is in contact with the grist for adequate time, and you do a half decent job of sparging, you should get fairly close to your target gravity even if the manifold starts to float around a bit.

I’d suspect other possible causes, like maybe improper grain crush or maybe even an incorrectly calibrated hydro.
 
+1 on mattdee's thoughts. I have a rectangular Coleman extreme with a single braided line in it. It floats around and it has a couple crushed spots in it from years of abuse. I consistently get 77% efficiency no matter what's going on with my braided manifold. That's my experience. YMMV.
 
Hmm, I have no idea.

I fly sparge (pouring water through a strainer, at 172 and took like 45 minutes.

Pre boil gravity was at 1.046 on the hydro. I have no idea but that's at like 58% efficiency which is pretty disheartening since I finally got up and running with a big guy set up. Was hoping at least in the 70s

I'll check up on how to test the hydro for sure. I mill at the hbs and dog gone it I was THIS CLOSE (small gap between pointer and thumb) to milling it twice but didn't want to be "that guy" at the hbs. But the heck with it, I guess if I'm spending the money I may as well kill it how I want it milled right?!?
 
Tactical-Brewer said:
View attachment 334961

Looks and smells delicious.

Was a little disappointed by my post boil gravity of 1.055. Was thinking it'd be quite higher with 12lb of grain and 8oz honey. Going to have to check a few things.
Click to expand...

At 70% brewhouse efficeincy it should be about 1.060 post boil. So not far off from what you should have got.

I get about the same, but it is very consistant so I am happy with that.

I plugged it all into wort, the free android brewing app, and it stated I should have hit 1.088, but only hit 1.055 (Sucks). so now that I've adjusted that, it's going to end up right under 6% I think.
Click to expand...

A grain bill like yours will not get to 1.088.

Congrats on the first AG brew
 
Thanks beergolf! That's not hooorrible. Would love to see mid 70s. But easier to swallow than mid 50s.

I plugged it into Brewers friend and it came out close to that at well. But all of this stuff confuses me like crazy. I need to just sit down with some paper and practice the formula I guess?

Any suggestions on how to get better at having an idea of where my numbers should be hitting? I've read so much about brew house efficiency and what not and to be honest, half the time I feel like I'm looking at hieroglyphics and it drives me nuts cause it's not, or should not be that hard for me to process mentally. Don't know what my hang up is though.
 
I just let the software figure it out. I set my software to 70% and it calculates what OG should be. Using my LHBS crush I get very consistant results and always within a point or two so I am good with that. Shoot for consistancy over chasing higher efficiency. I would take 70% everybtime over 60% one time and 80% the next.

It most likely is the crush from the LHBS. Most do not crush real tight. I would not worry too much. What you got was within acceptable range. Get better efficiency will only mean you have to use slightly less grain. Maybe a pound or less. So not enough to really get to worrying about.
 
Oh wow I didn't realize it would be that negligible on the grain bill.

I may run it through their mill 2x next go around just to see what happens
 
Tactical-Brewer said:
Thanks beergolf! That's not hooorrible. Would love to see mid 70s. But easier to swallow than mid 50s.

I plugged it into Brewers friend and it came out close to that at well. But all of this stuff confuses me like crazy. I need to just sit down with some paper and practice the formula I guess?

Any suggestions on how to get better at having an idea of where my numbers should be hitting? I've read so much about brew house efficiency and what not and to be honest, half the time I feel like I'm looking at hieroglyphics and it drives me nuts cause it's not, or should not be that hard for me to process mentally. Don't know what my hang up is though.
Click to expand...

I play around in Brewer's Friend a lot. Find a category you want, enter your stuff in, then where it has IBU, ABV, SRM, that - hit the "More" tab and it will show you guidelines for the style, and suggest categories your current recipe fits into. Then just change the style and see how different things are.
 
Ahhh, gotchya. It sounds dumb, and maybe shame on me, but on the grain bills I just make up, I have no idea what style I should select :-/
 
You are making what you think you'd like - nothing wrong with that! Most of my stuff is off, sometimes by a little (5 gravity points or IBUs, either way) and I don't worry. Sometimes I'm like "That's not even close".

Regardless, I have more recipes than I can make, some copies & some I made up.

:)
 
That's the coolest thing about this craft, you get to make what you think you'd like.

I like following recipes for sure so I can somewhat guess what the out come will be like, and then like on this one, I just decided I wanted to try it and see what happens. Hopefully it'll be an easy drinker that's not over the top sweet. And the plus side, is it'll get ya drunk lol
 
That's how I was with this Weird Alice Rye Pale Ale (that's what I am gonna name it!) I came up with. Someone gave me two pounds of LME, so I mini-mashed some 2-row, wheat, & rye, added some Cascade hops, here I am. I thought it was going to be too pale to actually be a, per guidelines, "American pale ale", but it might have been old light LME, as it came out at least at 6 SRM...

:)
 
Horseshoot said:
As a former horse owner, I have to say that sounds awesome! I cannot wait to hear how this turns out! Congrats on your new build, Bub!



Mike
Click to expand...


Thanks Horseshoot! Boy it sure does, or did. The entire time I was mashing and boiling. It smelled identical to sweet feed.

Hoping it translates well into taste lol. The pre boil sample was delicious!
 
Tactical-Brewer said:
Really curious how this will end up and the "drinkability" of it. As in, is it going to be overly sweet that you can only stand just one or is it going to be an easy drinker where you can nurse two or three back to back. Either way, I'm pretty stoked.
Click to expand...

No worries, It will not be overly sweet. You have few un-formentables. Nice mod on the manifold.
 
"Coor's" & "good" should never be uttered together without a "not" in the middle somewhere.

:p
 
Haha touché. I don't really know how to describe it so far. Taste like a original, full bodied beer, with just a hint sweet to it
 
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1457192378.010977.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1457192396.726605.jpg

Honey Biscuit Brew! Only a week in the bottles, not fully carbed yet, and still just a tad hazy. The aroma is definitely a floral "honey" smell, and the taste is kind of hard to pinpoint. Little sweet, notes of honey, a smidge of vanilla maybe, and some biscuit. It's definitely a sipper. Not the light "crisp" beer I was expecting it to be, but it's definitely drinkable. At 6% a six pack will last you an evening and get ya feeling good too.

I will update over the coming weeks to see how it improves etc.

If I were to do it again, I'd probably try cutting the honey I added as flame out in half. But who knows, maybe it'll clean up over the coming weeks.

Grain to glass in a month though and it's not a bad beer at all.

Tac
 
So the first two bottles of this beer, one at 6 days, and another at 7 days just wasn't enough time in the bottle I don't think.

It was drinkable, but real heavy mouthfeel, and could only literally sip it otherwise it was just too much. It also was barely carbed so shame on me for rushing it.

Now, I tried it again after a few days, and it was fully carbed and not nearly as heavy of a mouthfeel. Also it seemed a lot more mellow and all the flavors seemed to have melded a lot better.

I can't wait to give it a shot tomorrow after a full 2 weeks in the bottle.

At this point, I'd definitely make it again, with about half the honey at flame out and probably nix the vanilla extract. Also, I'd be patient and let it set for a few weeks before even beginning to think about popping one open.
 
slym2none said:
"Coor's" & "good" should never be uttered together without a "not" in the middle somewhere.

:p
Click to expand...

What about "good thing I didnt drink that Coors"
"I enjoyed Coors when I wasnt good at drinking beer"
wait....damnit. he's right. physically impossibru
 

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