My Electric Build...Finally....

[hammis]

ok so cleaned a pile of bottles on the weekend and i think i will probably bottle this tomorrow evening, SWMBO has a bit of a honey-do list for me tonight, lol. I tasted it once it carbed and i must say i think it has turned out very very tasty, nice malt notes and just slightly hoppy, definitely easy to drink. I'm thinking what i might do is bottle 1/2 of it and then maybe dry hop the rest for a couple days and see what happens.

 

[hammis]

So I seem to be having an issue while bottling. I use biermunchers method of the picnic tap with a broken racking cane in it. The issue I'm having is the beer really foams up while I'm bottling (i force carb my beer). I followed the directions exactly like they're written (only thing I didn't do was chill my bottles). Basically what was happening was I would fill a bottle about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way and the rest would be foam, this then kills the head and carbonation of my beer. What I resorted to doing was adding priming sugar and fresh yeast to each bottle prior to filling. This seems to have given good results, but I'd still like to figure out what's going on, plus i dont like having to wait 2-3 extra weeks for bottle conditioning to take place when I've already "aged" my beer for 2-3 weeks in a pressurized keg. Thoughts?

 

[hammis]

For anyone who is interested, the porter turned out excellent. I would highly recommend this recipe (found earlier in my thread) I also just bottled the Belgian IPA this weekend, so I'm going to give it a week or so before tasting, I'll keep you guys posted.

 

[Coldies]

For anyone who is interested, the porter turned out excellent. I would highly recommend this recipe (found earlier in my thread)QUOTE]

I think im gonna give it a try. I have only done BM's beer gun once and it turned out great for me. Try cooling the bottles next time.

Edit: Also is this "2 and 6 row Pale blend (50/50): 4.88 lbs" 4.88 lbs total? or 4.88 lbs of 2 row and 4.88 lbs of 6 row?

 

[hammis]

Coldies; it's a 50/50 blend, 4.88lbs total

 

[Tandor]

From what I have read chilling the bottles is pretty important. The temp difference between the cold beer striking the glass bottle causes alot of co2 to be released from solution and foaming of the beer.

 

[EarthBound]

IMO, JB Weld is brewers duct tape

 

[hammis]

Cracked a bottle of the Belgian ipa yesterday, and not to pat myself on the back or anything, but WOW did this ever turn out amazing. Solid mouthfeel, perfectly carbonated, some nice spiciness and nice subtle hop flavor, VERY drinkable. Even SWMBO who was apprehensive loved it.

 

[McCuckerson]

a couple pictures from my brewday:

I LOOOOOOVE the way you use LocLine for the diffuser . Seriously, ?i'm stealing that idea!

 

[McCuckerson]

They have water proof JBWeld. I used it on my aluminum kettle because I just don't trust weldless fittings.

Is JB Weld food grade? I don't know if I would want it touching my wort.

 

[hammis]

Thanks for the compliment mccuckerson, though I can't take credit since it was someone else's idea. As for the JB weld, none of it touches my wort, the locknut which was JB welded on initially has now been replaced with a coupler fully welded.

 

[hammis]

did a little work last weekend, cut down my old false bottom to replace the stainless braid i had in my MLT (it got crushed during the last brew). I havent decided yet if i want to remove my HERMS coil from my HLT, i had played around with the idea since i wasnt getting good flow from the braid, but now with the false bottom it might be a different story, so we'll see. I ordered a couple panel tags to spruce up the control panel, still working on a design for the main tag and label, but that should be done shortly.

On another note we had great success with the first batch of the Belgian IPA that we decided to brew another during the Thanksgiving day weekend (canadian), i'll be filtering it off the yeast today and then letting it age for a few more weeks.

 

[hammis]

ok so the second batch of Belgian IPA turned out a bit different than the first, more hoppy less spicy, i'm thinking the yeast was "traumatized" during shipping and didnt perform the same way as the first go around. Its still a mighty tasty beer, just with fewer spicy notes.

since my last post i also figured out how i can set myself up in the kitchen (with SWMBO's approval, well actually her recommendation) so that i can keep brewing during the winter months (it snowed 8 inches yesterday alone). Last weekend we brewed a small batch of a harvest ale and i'm thinking of doing a snow day or jubelale clone this weekend.

 

[hammis]

POW! i entered the Belgian IPA in the Canadian Amateur Brewers All About Ales competition and it won 1st in the Belgian category, soooooo pumped right now

 

[hammis]

ok guys so the latest update:

brewed a Belgian cherry Dubbel in late November. Brewday went well and ended up bottling it last weekend while hungover on newyears day, lol. Tasted it 2 days ago and it turned out pretty good, though a strong taste of alcohol. This was to be expected since i used T-58 yeast, all the reviews say it takes a few months for it to mellow, which is fine.

As for some new brewing toys here's what i've got. Finally going to start work on the conical i've been talking about. Ordered a TIG welder and all relevent supplies last week and will have our senior welder at work teach me how to weld (pretty pumped!). Also changing up the hosing on the rig to thermoplastic, getting tired of the kinks in the silicone stuff. Since we started brewing in the kitchen we've had a problem with chilling the beer post boil (too many hoses to bring inside to use the CFC) so i'll be building a small immersion chiller this week sometime (bought all the parts at HD this weekend). But the most exciting news is that SWMBO has given the go-ahead on getting/building a kegerator, so right now i'm trying to figure out which route to go, build or buy.

 

[hammis]

so here's the new immersion chiller i quickly made up for use while im brewing inside (pic 1) and my new TIG welder (pic 2). I started learning to TIG weld today, pretty pumped. Its going to take some practice before i can weld some stuff for a fermenter, but it'll be fun practicing

i think we're going to brew this weekend. a snow day clone perhaps, that beer is mighty tasty.

 

[hammis]

Alright, so some bad news, last weekend (2:30am saturday morning) we had a sewer back up in our apt (i guess i know how John Beere feels now, though his flood was just a "little" more intense). We live in a townhouse style apt, 2 floors, living/dining/half bath/office upstairs and 3 bedrooms/main bath/laundry and brewery storage downstairs. So 4-5 inches of raw sewage came up through the laundry room drain because the city utility services are retarded and the plumber who did all the work at our apt installed the backflow preventer in the wrong spot (seriously its not that hard). So pretty much everything downstairs was covered in 4-5 inches of poop, including my brewing set-up. Everything will have to be tossed, brewery included, i guess i could try and clean it all but i dont know how i would feel about consuming a product which had been made in a vessel which was covered in poop. Thankfully we have insurance and most stuff will be covered, its a HUGE pain in the A$$ but at the same time i guess i get to build a new brewery.

 

[IrregularPulse]

I know it'd be hard to get over brewing with poop, but it's Stainless. Put on a charcoal filter mask, disassemble everything, and clean. First step would be hosing it off from a distance of course

 

[DustBow]

Yeah, it might be more mentally than chemically problematic for the stuff that is stainless....could give them some serious cleaning like BKF and other acids as opposed to the normal oxy/PBW soak.

 

[hammis]

Only problem is two of the keggles have a 4 inch rubber coating on the bottom and are wrapped with foam pipe wrap insulation. Im not sure if that can be properly cleaned.

 

[lschiavo]

Only problem is two of the keggles have a 4 inch rubber coating on the bottom and are wrapped with foam pipe wrap insulation. Im not sure if that can be properly cleaned.

I'll pay shipping if you send it all to me.

 

[hammis]

I wish that was the case. Unfortunately it was all removed and destroyed by the clean-up company we hired. But such is life, ins cheque should be coming soon and my new build will be underway. I picked up the wood to build a new stand this weekend and i was able to save 2 of my original 15 gal keggles from the first build. So i'm thinking of doing something similar to the countertop brutus build with a few small changes. I've started a new thread and will probably begin working on the syetm after labour day weekend. The new thread can be found here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/my-all-new-electric-bcs-460-brewery-349777/ . I hope to have a lot more control with this new build and up the level of automation.