Another noob “test batch”

[Big_D]

I know as a noobie, I‘m supposed to stick to simple, straight forward brews until I “get the hang of it“. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to go with the ”status quo”.

Given my resilience to conform, I’ve been contemplating/planning a brown ale with a bit of uniqueness to it. I had an open fermenter and very little (I mean I made some) free time over the weekend, so what the hell… brew day!

This was definitely my most involved brew to date, which I know pales in comparison to some, but it was a good 6 hours start to finish that had several learning experiences along the way. Enough talk.. on to the pics (yes, I’m more of a visual person).



Dishes are done.. time to get dirty!

 

[Big_D]

It took the G40 about 20 mins to get the strike water up to temp, 8.56 gals at 159F.

Then it was time to dough in. Not a huge grain bill, came in at 24.5lbs.

 

[Big_D]

Got all of the biscuits broken up, started the mash!

 

[Big_D]

Ok, so when the mash was finished and I had mashed out, it was time to lift the barrel to let it drain. Let’s just say that was “interesting”, and there are no pics available! That 24 lbs of grain gets pretty heavy when it’s wet, and doing a vertical row with it on the other end is a bit challenging!

On to the sparge. I decided to use my older G30 to heat the sparge water. It was a good thought, but a little late by the time the sparge reminder went off. It took the G30 almost an hour to heat the 6.02 gals of water to 167F. Next time, I will start this when I start the strike water. The nice part of using the G30 is I was able to use the pump and recirc tube to disperse the sparge water.. worked great (again no pics, sorry).

On a side note, my wife came out during the sparge process to see what I had going on. She said, wow.. this looks like some expensive equipment. I asked her which piece she was talking about, she pointed to the G30.. I laughed and said yeah, but I traded a guy for it (not a lie) and carried on.

 

[Big_D]

On to the boil. This is when it gets a little interesting. I decided to go for a peanut butter banana brown ale. I read a lot of threads on adding both the banana and the peanut butter flavor. For the bananas, I decided to add fresh bananas during the first 15 mins of the boil, and then go with a Hefeweizen yeast for fermentation. For the peanut butter side, I‘ve had a little experience with it in a chocolate peanut butter porter, as well as a chocolate almond porter. For both of those I used powdered nuts as most do, but only on the secondary side of fermentation. This time I‘m going with both, in the boil (last 5 mins) and on the cold side. I also added lactose at the end of the boil for body and mouth feel.


Here‘s the additions. I used 9lbs of bananas cut into chunks in a hop spider.

edit: that’s not a stain or crap on the counter, it’s a rust colored area inherent in the granite.

 

[Big_D]

Here’s the beginning of the boil. After 5 mins or so, I used my mash paddle to break the bananas up even more until they basically became a mush.

Pretty much at the limit of the G40 boil wise, 12gals.

 

[Big_D]

Other than the additions, the boil was thankfully pretty uneventful. I did a couple hop additions, but I kept them low on this brew to keep the IBU’s down so they don’t mask the flavors I was after. Ran it through the counter flow chiller (after sanitizing of course), and then transferred over to my Spike’s CF10 through an oxygenator setup. Got it completely cooled down to pitching temp with the chiller, then pitched Wyeast 3068 at 72F.


The OG came in bigger than I was expecting at 1.078, I’m know the banana and peanut powder were major contributors to that. Crossing my fingers on this one to see how it plays out.. hopefully it’ll be worthy of drinking as it was a bit of a chore!


I pitched the yeast about 30hrs ago, it’s got plenty of action going on now.

 

[Beermeister32]

Wow, for a Noob you really have a setup!

 

[bwible]

The company below makes flavors specifically for the alcoholic beverage industry. I think commercial breweries who would make beers with these flavors (peanut butter and bananna) would use flavorings added at bottling rather than put actual peanut butter and bananna in the beer. There is one company who makes a very well known beer with peanut butter who supposedly uses this flavoring.

Please let us know how this turns out. But in general, you want to avoid fats, proteins, and oils in your beer. They go bad quickly and produce off flavors (rancid). They will also kill the beer’s head.

Apex has several hundred flavors for beer, wine, cider, seltzer, mead, etc. I have used quite a few and really enjoy their products.

You’ll find peanut butter under nuts and bananna under tropical. This would be the same for a chocolate beer. You don’t just put chocolate bars in the boil. I’ve used their chocolate flavor and its very good too.

https://www.apexflavors.com/Beverage-Industry/Craft-Brewing

 

[Gunkleneil]

Sounds like a good experiment. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out

 

[Big_D]

Wow, for a Noob you really have a setup!

Appreciate it! I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade, we like having good tools! Most of it I've traded/bartered for second hand.

 

[Big_D]

Please let us know how this turns out. But in general, you want to avoid fats, proteins, and oils in your beer. They go bad quickly and produce off flavors (rancid). They will also kill the beer’s head.

Appreciate the heads up! I did a LOT of research before putting the wheels in motion on this brew, hopefully it'll turn out ok. I found a lot of posts where folks used bananas in their recipe, but they all seemed to use them at different points in the process and none of the posts had pictures. If this batch turns out good, I can always come back to this post to see how to duplicate it.

As for the nuts and chocolate, I've had a couple successful brews thus far (porters) that turned out great using pure cocoa powder and powdered nuts. Haven't had any issues with head retention or them going bad.. guess they haven't lasted long enough.

 

[grampamark]

I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade

 

[Big_D]

Sounds like a good experiment. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out

That's one thing I love about this hobby, experimenting and enjoying what I make.


It's down to 1.039 now, still a little worried where it'll end up. I under pitched the 3068, found on Wyeast's site that under pitching will help produce more banana esters.

 

[Big_D]

View attachment 771850

LOVE IT!!!

 

[Alan Reginato]

Nice hardware! Let us informed about the next steps!

 

[grampamark]

LOVE IT!!!

I’ve been fooling around with small airplanes for 50+ years and my SIL is an A&P/IA.

 

[Big_D]

I’ve been fooling around with small airplanes for 50+ years and my SIL is an A&P/IA.

Nice! I'm a supervisor now.. but I still love walking around them and taking in all of their awesomeness!

 

[Big_D]

Nice hardware! Let us informed about the next steps!

Will do.. even if it's a flop!

 

[Big_D]

Decided to pull a sample when I got home from work to give it a look.

The pic makes it look bigger than it is (that’s what she said!). It’s only a 6 oz glass so it’s about a 1.5 oz sample. I was happy with the color, and I was amazed at how good it smelled for it’s age (or lack there of). Definite aroma of banana with hints of bread and nut, but masked somewhat by alcohol. I figured what the hell, gotta try it.. and when I did all I could do was laugh! It tastes fantastic! I would have absolutely no problem crashing this, carbing it up and drinking it as is even though it’s still green.. it tastes great!

I can only hope that it continues to get better as it ferments out and conditions!

 

[Big_D]

I’m really hoping it settles somewhere around 1.026 or so, don’t want it to go much lower than that. Haven’t really looked into it yet, but I’m assuming I can just crash it around that if it looks like it’s going keep going lower? I usually just let them do their thing and crash around 10-12 days after they stabilize. I would think that’s one of the benefits of being able to cold crash though.. you have more control (alas-time for more research).

Progress (yes, this thread is really me taking notes for future reference )

 

[superiorsat]

You could crash before it is finished because you keg ( no bottle bombs ). How ever you will be skipping the clean up stage that the yeast will do and could potentially have off flavors because of it. Mainly diacetyl but it might blend right in with the peanut butter and banana flavor if it happened.

 

[Big_D]

You could crash before it is finished because you keg ( no bottle bombs ). How ever you will be skipping the clean up stage that the yeast will do and could potentially have off flavors because of it. Mainly diacetyl but it might blend right in with the peanut butter and banana flavor if it happened.

Appreciate the reply, I was actually headed over here to update my post. It appears that it’s not the best practice. Like you mentioned (bottle bombs), sounds like it won’t completely stop the fermentation. I found mentions of adding various things like gelatin or potassium sorbate and sulfite in addition to the crash.. not a fan of adding a bunch of crap though. Looks like I’m riding it out and we’ll just have to see where it ends up.

 

[superiorsat]

The yeast would go dormant at serving temperature. I have few beers that have juice added at kegging You have to use a ton of fruit ( some more some less ) during fermentation to get the flavor to come through 1+ pounds of fruit per gallon of wort. The juice at the end just adds to that flavor but I have to mash low to avoid the beer being too sweet after the juice addition. The remaining yeast are not a problem since I keg and they are too cold to go back to work. I always use natural flavors because I just don't like artificial flavoring for the most part. The big breweries have to use artificial flavors just due to shear volume needed to achieve flavor in such large batches and their shelf life has to be maximized as most distribute there products that need an extended shelf life. The smaller craft breweries still get the edge over the big boys on fresh beer with the most natural flavorings in my opinion.

Edit- I gelatin every beer including dark beers except Neipa, or historically cloudy beers. Speeds up the maturation process IMO to where the beers is past the green stage 10 to 14 days after kegging and the flavor profile will remain until empty or the beer ages past its prime.

 

[Big_D]

I always use natural flavors because I just don't like artificial flavoring for the most part.

Agreed.. same here

I gelatin every beer including dark beers except Neipa, or historically cloudy beers. Speeds up the maturation process IMO to where the beers is past the green stage 10 to 14 days after kegging and the flavor profile will remain until empty or the beer ages past its prime.

Hmm.. very interesting! Looks like I’ve got more researching to do.

 

[superiorsat]

I am going to switch to Biofine Clear at some point but haven't gotten around to it. Easier to use but just have to make sure it mixes well.
Edit- If I didn't have plans on opening a brewery I would probably stay with gelatin for ease of purchase at the grocery store and it is cheap also.

 

[Big_D]

Easier to use but just have to make sure it mixes well.

Would you just add it to the keg before transferring over, or would it require some sort of mechanical agitation?

 

[superiorsat]

Seems like most on a pro level add it inline when transferring to the brite tank. I have heard of guys using the spray ball instead and rousing the tank with CO2 from the racking arm to churn the tank to mix it. I remember a few others using unitanks use a pump to recirculate and inject inline. If it doesn't mix well enough you will get little white cloudy nasty floaties in the beer. If waiting until kegging then yeah I would think put it in the keg first and add beer to mix. Pretty sure a homebrewer on here had said he just dumped it in the fermenter but that was a long time ago so take that with a grain of salt. I actually got a 6 pack of beer where the white floaties were in it and sent it in to the brewery and they sent back a bunch of merch. They gave no explanation but I figured out later what the deal was.

 

[Big_D]

Edit- If I didn't have plans on opening a brewery I would probably stay with gelatin

I’ve got some on the way.

 

[Big_D]

Liking this plateau!!