Any brewers in the Conway Area?

[MoodyLane]

Support your local brewers!

 

[BowAholic]

support your local brewers is right!

 

[MoodyLane]

That's about as local as it gets! Mine's not done yet so I'm trying out every craft brew I come across

 

[estricklin]

Well....tried .you Irish red for the first time today. It tastes good, but not much head. It's not flat, but what can make it have a small head? It's been bottled for three weeks.

Also, got the banana vanilla stout brewed late Friday evening. Saw some activity in it late this morning. I added dehydrated bananas and a vanilla bean to the primary fermenter just to see what it does.

What successes and failures have you all had with adding things to the fermenter?

Low carbonation can be a factor in head. Although extract and partial mash brews are known for producing beers with "less" head. A chemical that I've used to help with this problem is called "Biofoam". It's cheap and you just mix a little in at bottling time.

I have a big spill about carbonation on several other threads that I'm somewhat infamous for, but I need a break from computer programming (have been writing code for my upcoming electric brewery build) so I will use the keyboard. I only go on about this because I must have had about 50 batches that weren't carbonated for crap, and I hate seeing others beer not turn out as good as it should. Hopefully this will help:

1. A lot of folks worry about adding yeast at bottling time, but it's really not necessary in my experience. I've even left beers in primary for months, a year, they always carbonate although it can take a bit longer. Most of my beers are carbed up nice in 1-2 weeks, though some take up to 3.

2. Keep your bottles at room temp, if they are cooler it will take longer for them to carb.

3. Never use DME to prime with! Corn sugar works better. Use a carbonation calculator such as the one in beersmith or any online one, you can even use the charts, I believe John Palmer has one. The temperature it asks for is the highest temperature your beer has reached. I bring all my beers to room temp or near it, at some point before I bottle them so I use 67-72F for that. That number is used to help calculate residual C02 in the beer left over from fermentation. Your volumes of C02 should be something like 2.5-2.7. Those numbers will get you to something like what your used to from store bought beer.

4. Measure your beer volume! Your bottling bucket should have graduations, if you have a homemade one you can use a magic marker to mark some. I try to get to the 1/10th of a gallon, but getting within 1/4 is good enough honestly. So after you've transferred to a bottling bucket, look at the amount you have and plug that into the calculator. If you think you have 5 gallons and you actually have 5.75, your beer will always be nearly flat!

5. Use a long sanitized spoon to stir the priming solution in. The mixing action of bottling PROBABLY does this well enough, but why take chances with beer?

6. Table sugar works equally as well as corn sugar, and costs WAY less. The conversions I've read say something like "use 12% less", but I have found personally that 8-10% works better. So if the calculator says to use 4.4 oz of corn sugar, I'd use 4.0 (using 8%). Brown sugar converts the same.


I've added lots of stuff to fermenters. Bourbon Barrel chips, fruit, and hops have been all equally good. Peanut butter being one that was, well not good. Just try it, if nothing else you'll have learned something.

 

[estricklin]

Some eye candy from my electric brewery build.

 

[BowAholic]

get it built and get the bugs out...then we will build me one.

Doesn't Cathy's beer (above) look nice...

 

[estricklin]

get it built and get the bugs out...then we will build me one.

Doesn't Cathy's beer (above) look nice...

When you've been working 14 hour nights in the oilfields for over 7 days in a row and STILL have 7 more to go, a LOT of beers look nice, but yes that one looks really tasty in particular. The Diamond Bear would be ok now too though. Fossil Cove is my favorite local brew, that or Stone's Throw.

I will get everything worked out eventually, if you ever decide you want one don't worry about parts, since everything I ordered came in lots of 10-100 I have a few extra needless to say.

Sigh.......guess I'll sip my coffee out here in the COLD.

 

[BowAholic]

When you've been working 14 hour nights in the oilfields for over 7 days in a row and STILL have 7 more to go, a LOT of beers look nice, but yes that one looks really tasty in particular. The Diamond Bear would be ok now too though. Fossil Cove is my favorite local brew, that or Stone's Throw.

I will get everything worked out eventually, if you ever decide you want one don't worry about parts, since everything I ordered came in lots of 10-100 I have a few extra needless to say.

Sigh.......guess I'll sip my coffee out here in the COLD.

I'm drinking coffee too... if that helps any...

 

[iblandford]

Thanks for all the info! Good luck with the build!!

 

[estricklin]

Working on programming the electric brewery now. Notice the PID number goes up to the "max" of 255, this is because there are no sesnors connected (still waiting on them to arrive) and the PID thinks the temp is -196, and the setpoint is 165F. Anyway it proves that the program does work though, or should. I wanted to add more hop timers but there isn't enough room on my display for many more functions. I may move some things around. Think I'll take a break from staring at code tonight and have a brew.

https://youtu.be/RjiZxESuDL8

 

[BowAholic]

Working on programming the electric brewery now. Notice the PID number goes up to the "max" of 255, this is because there are no sesnors connected (still waiting on them to arrive) and the PID thinks the temp is -196, and the setpoint is 165F. Anyway it proves that the program does work though, or should. I wanted to add more hop timers but there isn't enough room on my display for many more functions. I may move some things around. Think I'll take a break from staring at code tonight and have a brew.

https://youtu.be/RjiZxESuDL8

sounds like you're about to have a real deal eBIAB system very soon. I was about to pull the trigger on a bulkhead PT100 RTD, but I'm thinking about just getting one with a sensor that I can put through the hole in my lid. I'm already worried about basket clearance once I add an element, and I'm not sure the temp sensor needs to be under the basket next to the element...? I'm not in a hurry...

 

[estricklin]

Tomorrow I'm going to start drilling and soldering!

 

[estricklin]

Best IPA....Go!

Mine is a tie between Green's Flash Road Warrior and Tommyknocker IPA and a half.

 

[BowAholic]

Best IPA....Go!

Mine is a tie between Green's Flash Road Warrior and Tommyknocker IPA and a half.

what IPA are you talking about?

 

[estricklin]

what IPA are you talking about?

Whatever you think the best is.

 

[BowAholic]

Whatever you think the best is.

Two Hearted Ale - Bell's Brewery, Inc.

Resin - Sixpoint Brewery

NB Dead Ringer- my version...

Road Warrior- Green Flash Brewing

 

[hawgwild81]

Mothers Lil Helper and Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin are my go to IPAS. Heard Bells should be in the state in the next few months.

 

[estricklin]

Anything Lagunitas is good for me. Looking forward to being able to buy some 2 hearted though.

 

[BowAholic]

Anything Lagunitas is good for me. Looking forward to being able to buy some 2 hearted though.

my copy is about 2 1/2 weeks old now... I'll dry hop this coming week and kegging should be in about 10 days from now... and you know you get some...

 

[estricklin]

I'll take you up on that.

Getting some code wrote today! The boil timer works, the hop timer works, the alarm works, the pump status is displayed and I went ahead and programmed manual PID mode for the Boil function. I started to solder everything together on a proto board this morning.

 

[BowAholic]

I'll take you up on that.

Getting some code wrote today! The boil timer works, the hop timer works, the alarm works, the pump status is displayed and I went ahead and programmed manual PID mode for the Boil function. I started to solder everything together on a proto board this morning.

fancy smancy... I like it! :rockin:

 

[MoodyLane]

Best IPA....Go!

Mine is a tie between Green's Flash Road Warrior and Tommyknocker IPA and a half.

Two hearted ale is a good one but believe it or not, my favorite is Single-Wide IPA from Boulevard Brewing Co. out of Kansas City Mo. Its got an excellent clean finish and they add a touch of yeast to the bottle for a killer taste that I'm really liking at the moment. If you haven't tried it I highly recommend grabbing a sixer.

 

[estricklin]

I have actually been using that as my "default" IPA for a long time. I buy it pretty regular, in fact one of the few beers I do buy over and over. The double wide is good too, and if you get a chance to grab a sampler from them I would.

 

[estricklin]

Thanks Bob for helping me get started on the hardware and drilling the hole in my kettle. I worked some yesterday evening and today and got a pretty good start on assembling everything.

 

[BowAholic]

looking good... but please cover those ugly scratches that I made! LOL.

I may have come up with a money saver... I have a 25' 10 ga. twist lock cord for my camper... I will just need to buy a couple of 30 amp plugs and get one 50 amp plug.

 

[estricklin]

Yeah then you can just use the same cord for 2 different things, 1 mostly for brewing, the other for camping haha.

How much are those 30 amp females at Lowes? I am gonna go look on ebay like you said I think the twist are cheaper.

 

[hawgwild81]

Thanks Bob for helping me get started on the hardware and drilling the hole in my kettle. I worked some yesterday evening and today and got a pretty good start on assembling everything.

That's awesome! I wanted to go all electric but I don't have the talent to wire a panel or the capability to read a wiring diagram lol. I finally just broke down and bought an edelmetal burner instead.

Looking forward to seeing some pics of that bad boy in action.

 

[iblandford]

Looks awesome!

 

[MoodyLane]

One step closer to a kegerator today! Picked up a large mini fridge (ironic, huh) big enough for a corny and a 5lb bottle, for $20! Picked up a barely used 5lb Airgas bottle on eBay today for dirt cheap also. Not sure it matters but it was marked "food grade". Now just need some ball lock connectors and some tubing and I'm set! Well I still gotta brew another batch to fill one of my kegs..

 

[BowAholic]

being able to pour a cold beer any time you want could get you in trouble...