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I agree very quiet around Iowa on here, I just started back in November though.
 
I've been thinking about hosting a local brewers brew day, just a thought at this point, but a fun one.
 
Think I have noticed 1 person from North Liberty on here. Other than that I would def agree. Thought about reaching out to any of the beer clubs? I know there is one in Cedar Rapids
 
Oh sure, there's lots of local clubs, but just thought a HBT get together would be real fun.
 
we're almost close enough to be IA... but we're not. but if any of y'all are coming up this way, let me know ahead of time and we'll exchange home brews!
 
Ha ha, and all of a sudden this blows up! How are all you folks tonight? Brau, Sloan tell us about your selves!
 
Long time brewer (18 years)...... probably spend to much of my time dedicated to beer, but what is a guy to do. Love drinking APA's, IPA's and Hoppy Ambers. But, also really enjoy brewing and drinking light lagers (Helles, Bo-Pils, Dortmunder), British bitters and milds, Scottish 70, alts, and often have a porter on hand as well.
 
I've randomly come across some great deals on used gear locally here, but Cedar Rapids has a local group with a moderately active forum for local stuff that I also read.
 
Yeah, I think the CR area tends to have more stuff on CL. I always am finding what I'm looking for all the way over there. I watched three kegs go for $10 each in the CR CL here about two months ago. Damn!
 
Welcome loan tree! It's fun to get it going, but it's us that had to keep it going. I for one would love to buil up the "local" section of HBT. Just think how fun it could be.
 
no rig really, turkey fryer, 8 gallon pot, and an idiot in a lawn chair surrounded by snow. I've got an IPA (Chinook) and a coffee stout ready to be bottled. and a winter warmer on deck that the wife bought me for x-mas. cheers
 
I started like most doing extract on the stove, graduated to partial mash, eventually all grain with pots and iglo coolers all over the kitchen. I was lucky that my wife was really into my brewing and also really wanted me out of the kitchen ...... so, 15 years ago I bought a Morebeer 3 tier gravity system (10gallon pots). Still using it now. When we built a new house a number of years ago, my wife also wanted me out of the garage:) Only logical thing to do was put a brew room in the basement. So, now I get to keep warm (or cool in the summer) when brewing. Still the same system, but hooked up to natural gas now.

You? I saw the Galactic Geonauts Brewing page - pretty cool.
 
EZCyclone said:
So what is everyone's brew rig like?
Click to expand...
Used to have this and sold it and now just use a simple cooler MT and BK.

smugshot_1615585-XL.jpg
 
Braufessor said:
...... so, 15 years ago I bought a Morebeer 3 tier gravity system (10gallon pots). Still using it now.

You? I saw the Galactic Geonauts Brewing page - pretty cool.
Click to expand...

Thanks, The Galactic Geonauts thing is lots of fun. When I started brewing I was part of a Mars mission, and doing heavy planetary science research. So with that and my geology background it just was fitting and geeky enough for me. I do full marketing materials for every brew, (well most of them) six pack holders, cases, bottle labels, posters etc. I have glasses, signs, coolers, all kinds of merchandising crap. It's just part of the fun for me.

As far as brewing right now I'm doing the cooler Mt and 13 gallon BK. But I can't hit my mash temp to save my life. I don't know why, it's very frustrating. So I've been dreaming on a new mash system, and one not to do things like others have been thinking of some sort of NiChrome wrapped metal stock pot then wrapped in kapton tape and heavily insulated. So it would be like those cigarette lighter plug in coffee mugs. I donno what I will do with it.

I'm definitely thinking of building an all electric software driven brew rig, I've got a pretty solid background in systems engineering and the software to do this very thing. I built a arduino controlled hot tub here a year ago and that's basically a giant brewing system.

Right now I run my BK on a built in professional wok burner I set up in my outdoor kitchen. It's plumbed into NG which is wildly convenient and cheap. It also is great for woking up some food for entertaining. Not to mention watching the fat guy (me) trying to man handle a 24" wok!

I built a grain mill from scratch utilizing my machine shop equipment and have a thread going about that now. I wound a double coil .5" in-kettle worth chiller out of 80' of soft copper. I ferment small batches in 7 gallon ferm buckets from the LHBS and for big batches I have 3, 15 gallon and 1, 30 gallon fermenter. I can ferment just more than 145 gallons at once. Although sadly I have not been running full bore for some time. In fact I think I only have about 20 gallons running now.

I started out brewing with all my school buddies that were in the same geology program as me, but most have moved away now.

That said I'm brewing a chocolate milk shake stout on Friday.
 
So I'm planning to brew a stout this weekend, well Friday. I'm going for a seriously sweet dessert beer. It will be a Chocolate Milk Shake Stout, that I hope comes out more milkshake than beer.

The plan is to do something like this:

3.0lb 2row
0.5lb Chocolate Malt
0.5lb Chocolate Wheat Malt
0.5lb Honey Malt
0.25lb Crystal 40
0.1lb Lactose @5min
0.5lb cocoa powder @5min
0.5tsp vanilla @5min
20oz malted milk powder

Mash at 154F for 60min
10min mashout at 168F

Hops:
0.5oz Hallertauer @60min

Yeast: US-05

I'm going to soak 0.25lb of cocoa nibs and 2 vanilla beans (scrapped) in water and ethanol to make a extract. Basically to give it all a head start.
Then pitch it and the beer over into a secondary and adjust anything else needed then, like sweetness etc. I'll secondary for a week and then get this in the keg under high pressure on beer gas. Then run it through a creamer faucet.

Should be mind blowing. lol

Who what's to try out the finished product?
 
90% of what I brew is straight forward, quick and dirty sessions, but every once and a while. I get squirrely.
 
I generally also always brew pretty straight forward stuff too, basically to style. I have brewed a lot of "experimental" beers, but I find 9 times out of 10 I would rather reach for a good old hoppy pale ale, pilsner, dark mild or porter. My "crazy" beers usually end up collecting dust because I never feel like drinking more than one.

That said - I do love sampling all kinds of beer and would gladly sample that stout if the opportunity presents itself. Sounds like a good beer on a cold day.

"Vitamin C IPA" is on my brew schedule for after work today. All 7 C's hops. Going to use some Conan yeast I stepped up from Heady Topper cans. Hoping to get a helles brewed soon and also a basic american ale soon... somewhere between a blonde and an APA that I keep on tap for easy drinking.
 
See, I'm not a hop guy. Like at all. I know I know, that's home brewing sacrilege, I'm just not into hoppy bears. I can drink about half a Fresh Squeezed before I'm hopped out, and that's on a really good day.

That said, I don't brew to "style". I brew "Evan" style. I use tap water, we have really great water for brewing here in Ames, I don't get crazy worrying about ferment temps. Like at all. I brew a batch, and throw it into a bucket and place it in my basement where it sits about 68deg year round. I used to go yeast crazy with all the different types and style correct yeasts, but now have slowly ditched all of them for Us-05. I brew exclusively with it now. I find more people like it and the swmbo started enjoying more beer outside of the BMC clones I was making for her.

Now I do enjoy changing around ingredients and trying things that way, but it allows me a much simpler brew experience. I brew about 50-75 batches a year, although I'm way behind right now, and can't keep the beer I brew around, so I guess it's working.

Brau, you make a trip down after the brew is done and you are sure o have some. Might even have you bring me something I want to buy that's up in your area. lol
 
Braufessor said:
I generally also always brew pretty straight forward stuff too, basically to style. I have brewed a lot of "experimental" beers, but I find 9 times out of 10 I would rather reach for a good old hoppy pale ale, pilsner, dark mild or porter. My "crazy" beers usually end up collecting dust because I never feel like drinking more than one.

That said - I do love sampling all kinds of beer and would gladly sample that stout if the opportunity presents itself. Sounds like a good beer on a cold day.

"Vitamin C IPA" is on my brew schedule for after work today. All 7 C's hops. Going to use some Conan yeast I stepped up from Heady Topper cans. Hoping to get a helles brewed soon and also a basic american ale soon... somewhere between a blonde and an APA that I keep on tap for easy drinking.
Click to expand...
I used up a pound of Falconers Flight 7C's last summer on a variety of brews. Good stuff
 
The fresh squeezed clone I did this summer had Falconers Flight 7C's in it. they are very very fragrant and full of mango.
 
Well I brewed the Asthenosphere last Sunday. Well ok I mashed it last Friday, then found I had none of the hopes I wanted, so I just stuck the BK into the garage and let it sit till I got around to it on Sunday. That was nice, 25 minutes on the fire and I had a boil, tosses in my hops and sanitized the gear. Pre Boil Gravity was 1.030, post boil grav...1.084. Granted this is including a pound of Lactose in a three gallon batch. I pitched in a full packet of US-05 and it was bubbling in a few hours. Now I really wanted a closer to 4% beer, but after the test today it is sitting at 6.04%. @SG of 1.038 So, I need to put a halt to this. Trying to decide if I want to pasteurize, then crash and move to secondary, or crash and then heat to 175 to sterilize and drive off some ethanol both. My plan is to back sweeten and adjust flavors in secondary. Vanilla, a bit more chocolate and something for body.

I wonder, maybe should I stabilize with Sodium Met. instead of a pasteurize? Hmm
 
Okay forgive me if I'm wrong here cause I've only done about 10 beers but if you try and stop fermentation now to keep it around 4% and you've Already added lactose isn't it going to be a really sweet beer? I've used k-meta for wines and had really good luck at stopping fermentation.
 
Lone Tree, I've already rocketed past 4%, and it's currently sitting at 6.04%. Most of the sweet is gone anyway, but it's hard to tell, because it's so so fusel. As far as the Lactose, it does not ferment anyway, it was added to make this beer a very very sweet beer. It's a dessert beer. Chocolate Malt Milk Shake Stout. Called Asthenosphere. All of my beers are geology themed, I'm a geeky scientist after all.
 
Welcome Gwapo!

Ok so I took and heated the beer to 160 then set a timer for 2 minutes and when I killed the heat the beer has risen to 172. I added my chocolate extract I made, and man is it tasty! Now just time to let it rest for a few weeks and see if it's tamed down any.

What's everyone else brewing this week?

Also does anybody have any extra cornies they would like to sell? I'm in need of three.
 

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