I need your support - brewing one beer a day for a year!

[matthewmurray]

Good luck in your completing your goal. One thing you might try is repitching the same or very similar beer onto a yeast cake and see if the taste profile is different, just food for thought

I am definitely going to repitch at some point. I was considering re-pitching the same beer multiple times to see what the effect will be on each generation. Can you imagine a yeast cake reused for the 10th time? Not until you've tried it!

 

[markstache]

To harness community support, perhaps we could start a group on brewtoad.com for everyone to contribute recipes? Then start a google spreadsheet to collect which recipes others are going to measure and send.

I'd be happy to spend an evening with my food saver to measure and vacuum seal hops. This suggests that it would be convenient to use the same hops during a week period, at least for bittering.

I think the area where we should concentrate our brain power right now is bottling. It takes you just as long to wash and sanitize a bottling bucket for 5 gallons as it does for 1. Perhaps we can find a way to cut these time costs. For example, could you bottle in 2L soda bottles.

 

[coyote68]

I say try the sanctuary Gose recipe under the sour recipe section.. a nice quick gose.
good luck and enjoy

 

[Cyclman]

Sounds like a winner. Can you add a link to the recipe in your profile? Maybe I should culture the yeast for a quad!

Easy recipe: 12 lb pale, 1lb Carafa I, 1lb Munich, 1lb Wheat Malt; 1 oz Warrior 75 min., 1.5oz Styrian goldings 5 min.; Trappist Yeast of your choice (big starter) 2 lb. Dark (as dark as you can cook it) Candi Sugar after 3 days fermentation; Mash Profile: 147.2 F for 50 min 154.4 F for 20 min 163.4 F for 15 min Sparge 167.0 F

In secondary, rack over Dark Cherries (2-6 lbs. depending, I do the low end), for a month, add Med. Toast Oak Spirals soaked in good bourbon for a week, leave spirals in 3-4 weeks. Rack into tertiary or bottle 3-6 months it's wonderful, my guess is it would age nicely for years.

I think I'm going to drink one of these tonight!

 

[matthewmurray]

To harness community support, perhaps we could start a group on brewtoad.com for everyone to contribute recipes? Then start a google spreadsheet to collect which recipes others are going to measure and send.

I'd be happy to spend an evening with my food saver to measure and vacuum seal hops. This suggests that it would be convenient to use the same hops during a week period, at least for bittering.

I think the area where we should concentrate our brain power right now is bottling. It takes you just as long to wash and sanitize a bottling bucket for 5 gallons as it does for 1. Perhaps we can find a way to cut these time costs. For example, could you bottle in 2L soda bottles.

I am blown away at your offer to help! Are you local to the Charlotte area? Either way, I would appreciate help in any area.

I really like the brewtoad.com idea. Would it allow polling or voting? Maybe we could do that here. For example: if I do a series on yeast and make the exact same beer but with a different yeast each time, which beer style would everyone most like to see as the control. Or if I do a series on mash temps, which style? Leaving that up to popular vote would save my perfectionist mind a lot of time.

Bottling really isn't a time consuming thing for me. I can easily sanitize 10 bottles in a 5 gallon bucket of sanitizer and I bottle using a mini bottling bucket and a bottling wand. The number of beer bottles that I will need is expensive, but I don't think that I want to consider bottling in anything else.

However, if anyone can think of a great, cost effective, way to batch prime without boiling priming sugar, that could shave some time and an extra pot on the stove. Is there a sanitary way to premake a priming syrup? Freeze in ice cube trays? Would you trust adding dextrose directly to the batch without boiling?

Also, I do need to come up with a quick way to chill. I currently use an ice bath. I can make a small immersion chiller, but I am interested in finding a way that doesn't waste so much water (or make a mess in my kitchen). I know this has been discussed a lot on here, but I want to try a reverse immersion chiller where I run tubing though a 5 or even 10 gallon cooler filled with ice water (could be reused over and over?) and run the wort through that. I think that a one gallon batch might be a good candidate for this type of thing. I am open to any other suggestions!

 

[matthewmurray]

Easy recipe: 12 lb pale, 1lb Carafa I, 1lb Munich, 1lb Wheat Malt; 1 oz Warrior 75 min., 1.5oz Styrian goldings 5 min.; Trappist Yeast of your choice (big starter) 2 lb. Dark (as dark as you can cook it) Candi Sugar after 3 days fermentation; Mash Profile: 147.2 F for 50 min 154.4 F for 20 min 163.4 F for 15 min Sparge 167.0 F

In secondary, rack over Dark Cherries (2-6 lbs. depending, I do the low end), for a month, add Med. Toast Oak Spirals soaked in good bourbon for a week, leave spirals in 3-4 weeks. Rack into tertiary or bottle 3-6 months it's wonderful, my guess is it would age nicely for years.

I think I'm going to drink one of these tonight!

I will definitely make this at some point. I'm not a huge fruit beer fan, but this sounds really fun to make if nothing else. I am not sure it qualifies as an "easy recipe" though, but thanks for the post!

I will let you know which day I will decide to brew this. It sounds like a good winter beer, so maybe early on in the YOB.

 

[matthewmurray]

I say try the sanctuary Gose recipe under the sour recipe section.. a nice quick gose.
good luck and enjoy

I've never had a Gose. How do you pronounce it... like the bird or like "ghost" without the "t"?

 

[Cyclman]

I will definitely make this at some point. I'm not a huge fruit beer fan, but this sounds really fun to make if nothing else. I am not sure it qualifies as an "easy recipe" though, but thanks for the post!

I will let you know which day I will decide to brew this. It sounds like a good winter beer, so maybe early on in the YOB.

Especially with the lower range of fruit beers, it is subtle- you could very easily leave out the cherries.

 

[HomebrewCraig]

I've never had a Gose. How do you pronounce it... like the bird or like "ghost" without the "t"?

http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Gose.html
Pronunciation guide for English-speakers:
"Gose-uh" as in "rose" plus "uh"

 

[JayUnt]

I've only done one small batch, but to cool it I used my immersion chiller hooked up to a utility pump that was in a bucket of ice water. The ice I made by freezing water in an empty milk carton. It went really fast and I didn't waste that much water because I recirculated the water right back into the cooler.

 

[TAK]

However, if anyone can think of a great, cost effective, way to batch prime without boiling priming sugar, that could shave some time and an extra pot on the stove. Is there a sanitary way to premake a priming syrup? Freeze in ice cube trays? Would you trust adding dextrose directly to the batch without boiling?

I've only done a few 1-gal batches, but when I did, I found it pretty convenient to bottle directly from the primary, using a mini-autosiphon with a racking cane on the end. I used those little priming tablets. A second pair of hands helps, but one person can do it. You just need to wedge the autosiphone in the top of the jug to keep it off the yeast cake; I used a short cut of tubbing. The other odd part is starting the autosiphone while depressing the racking cane, but that's only the first bottle. The cost of the priming tablets might be the biggest deterrent though.

 

[tripplehazzard]

Are you going to use a house yeast and keep a starter going at all times?

 

[matthewmurray]

I've only done a few 1-gal batches, but when I did, I found it pretty convenient to bottle directly from the primary, using a mini-autosiphon with a racking cane on the end. I used those little priming tablets. A second pair of hands helps, but one person can do it. You just need to wedge the autosiphone in the top of the jug to keep it off the yeast cake; I used a short cut of tubbing. The other odd part is starting the autosiphone while depressing the racking cane, but that's only the first bottle. The cost of the priming tablets might be the biggest deterrent though.

I don't think that the tablets are cost effective. But I did bottle out of a jug with an auto siphon before I bought a bottling bucket. It isn't a bad setup, but I did transfer from my fermenter to another empty jug and batch prime in that before I bottled.

Again, bottling quickly and cheaply is currently my biggest focus.

 

[matthewmurray]

Are you going to use a house yeast and keep a starter going at all times?

Considering it! But I think that I will mostly use dry yeast because it is so stupid easy. Plus, the most popular wet yeast in use is available dry and performs like a champ. For a small batch brewer, it is incredibly easy to scale dry.

This week I am going to practice mixing yeasts. I will do several identical beers with S-04, US-05, and Nottingham, and one or more with a mix of the yeasts. Any suggestions? I'm thinking 50/50 on the Safale yeasts will be a fun experiment.

 

[CUrchin]

Another thing you could do is 1/2 gallon batches rather than 1 gallon batches. You are going to have to do a bunch of measuring either way. You could ferment in recycled plastic juice containers rather than glass demijons. Might save some money and transition times (heating up, getting to boil,chilling,etc.). Only drawback might be holding temps with BIAB. And you'll only end up with 1800 beers.

 

[markstache]

I am blown away at your offer to help! Are you local to the Charlotte area? Either way, I would appreciate help in any area.

I'm in Illinois, but it would be easy to ship.

However, if anyone can think of a great, cost effective, way to batch prime without boiling priming sugar, that could shave some time and an extra pot on the stove. Is there a sanitary way to premake a priming syrup? Freeze in ice cube trays? Would you trust adding dextrose directly to the batch without boiling?

I once forgot to add priming sugar when bottling. I noticed the next day when I found the bowl of measured sugar sitting on the counter. What I did was to boil up the sugar in 10 * number of bottles ml of water. I then used a small plastic syringe to measure 10ml and add it to each bottle. You could do something similar to avoid a bottling bucket and bottle right from primary.

As for not boiling, you could probably microwave it instead of using the stove top. Boiling not only kills germs but makes it easier to get sugar into solution. I think you'd want to have hot water for this one way or another.

 

[matthewmurray]

New recipe posted on www.Facebook.com/breweveryday and www.breweveryday.com

 

[matthewmurray]

I picked up some Victory malt this weekend. Anyone have a recipe that highlights it?

 

[RobertMuldoon]

By the end of all this you'll be a brewing master! Best of luck, friend. I'll be keeping an eye on your blog.

 

[matthewmurray]

Thank you!

 

[matthewmurray]

I don't want to lose momentum of the of all of the kind posts earlier in this thread, so please check out Facebook.com/breweveryday for updates. Maybe I should start a new thread that isn't in "Introductions".

 

[matthewmurray]

9 days until the Year of Beer begins!

 

[eaglerisingbrew]

Neat idea. I liked your Facebook page and visited your blog. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

 

[matthewmurray]

Thank you! It's getting close! The site needs a serious update... Not even worth visiting right now. I will spend some time on it in the next few weeks. I look forward to having some good results to share once some of the experiments are bottled.

 

[matthewmurray]

Am I missing any good caramel/crystal malts for the the first series?

 

[OzzyBrew]

Have fun with your adventure. Don't use your pasta spoon in your wort and don't forget to prime.....again!! Very jealous of your adventure, have fun.

Ozzy

 

[matthewmurray]

I'm sure I will do a lot worse over the course of a year. Nothing so far that couldn't be repaired...

 

[MikePote]

Good luck!

 

[matthewmurray]

Six days until it begins! Getting organized!! (those boxes are NOT full of Bud Light)

 

[matthewmurray]

I just finished with day 25 of the Year of Beer. I am still looking for ideas for future series and experiments!