Pittsburgh/Western PA Group Buy - Round 2

[kpr121]

I agree with everything joe said. My grain only made it as far as the sun room.

Make sure you put those rice hulls to good use!

 

[fredtheseal]

Thanks big time to Dale & Dylan. That was definitely a good reason to get up early on a Saturday.

 

[hio3791]

Thank you guys for getting this organized. It was a great success!!!

 

[dand9066]

Make sure you put those rice hulls to good use!

I think I have enough to spare I'm gonna use it for mulch!! No I left some extra there and gave coyote a few pounds as well.

It was awesome to put a face to some names. Wish I was able to stick around and meet a few more of you but oh well

 

[Beezer94]

So nice to have a couple sacks of grain on hand! Thanks so much guys for taking the time and effort to set this up!

 

[coyote68]

it was great to meet some of the guys. thanks dale and dylan!! this was a success.
hopefully i'll be able to get together with dale to brew up a batch.
THANKS again for all the hard work, it is much appriciated.

 

[wyoohio]

Had a great time and appreciate the effort from the organizers.

Other than being short a pound of PBW (price you pay for being the last to show in the split haha), I had a great little road trip with the wife. Had lunch over at Rivertowne Pour House and got some growlers to go as well. For those that did not head over there, you really missed out. The pale ale on cask was awesome.

Now I just have to get some recipes together to use up these 7 bags of grain. Good problem to have.

 

[dand9066]

So I got my homemade mill today to find out that the gap I told them to make it at is turning my grain to flour. I'm gonna have to have them turn one of the rollers down a little more. Real bummed.

 

[simonh]

Yes! Thanks for putting this together!

How will I (we) know when this happens again? Will you send out an email or ?

 

[dand9066]

Yes! Thanks for putting this together!

How will I (we) know when this happens again? Will you send out an email or ?

I could probably send Mass emails. I know there are a few people that missed this one so I may start one in a few weeks. I don't plan on being on top of it every minute like I was this one but I'll organize it. I talked to DMase briefly and it's coming into his busy season so it's unlikely he could accept delivery. I have to talk to my boss but I may be able to accept delivery in Indiana. Definitely far away for the Ohio guys but it's an option.

 

[sinisterkid]

Hey guys, thanks for putting this together. It was good meeting you guys. Can't wait for the next one. Dale, ill get a hold of you for the DME.
Again, thanks alot for the hard work

 

[dand9066]

Had a great time and appreciate the effort from the organizers.

Other than being short a pound of PBW (price you pay for being the last to show in the split haha), I had a great little road trip with the wife. Had lunch over at Rivertowne Pour House and got some growlers to go as well. For those that did not head over there, you really missed out. The pale ale on cask was awesome.

Now I just have to get some recipes together to use up these 7 bags of grain. Good problem to have.

I'm sorry to hear about the PBW. I was the first one to get there for the corn split and actually weighted it before I took my split and it was only 42lbs vs the 50 it should have been. I adjusted my split accordingly so maybe that was the case with the PBW as well.

 

[kpr121]

I was a little short (maybe a lb) on DME from the leftovers of the first sack, but Dylan honestly admitted that he had spilled some while unpacking it (either that or he really needed to make a starter, JK).

I didn’t weigh what was left in the bag until I got home but it really doesn’t matter to me. I think being a lb or two off is just going to happen on these splits especially with stuff that is harder to weigh out, and it doesn’t bother me one bit. The key is that we are still getting this stuff for a fraction of retail cost.

Next time I will be doing less splitting, and just sacking up. Not because I got shorted a lb, but because it’ll be less hassle weighing it out. I went a little overboard, this being my first group buy. Im pretty sure I would be able to put a full sack of Maris Otter, Munich, and Vienna to a good cause.

 

[kpr121]

Sucks about that grain mill Dale, that thing looks pretty sweet. Hopefully you can get it to the right crush. No way for them to make it adjustable?

 

[copyright1997]

Next time I will be doing less splitting, and just sacking up. Not because I got shorted a lb, but because it’ll be less hassle weighing it out. I went a little overboard, this being my first group buy. Im pretty sure I would be able to put a full sack of Maris Otter, Munich, and Vienna to a good cause.

I have done a few group buys. On the first one, I did a sack of 2-row and a few splits. On the second one, I did a couple sacks and a sh!t load of splits. By the third one I realized (duh) that it is pretty easy to go through base grains, so I ordered over 8 sacks, mostly full sacks (only a couple splits).

Having splits for various speciality grains (c15, c40, c60, c120, c150, carapils, aromatic, amber, ...) is nice because in a 5 or 10 gallon batch you use at most a pound or so. For these, I take the split and weigh out 1# bags and vacuum seal them.

Think of it this way. If you do 5 gallon batches of a 1.050 OG beer, you are likely to have a grain bill between 9-12 pounds, most of which is the base malt. So, figuring 10#, you will get 5 or so batches from a sack....doesn't take all that long to use it up!

 

[kpr121]

Good point, and a good rule of thumb at 2 lbs per gallon of ‘session’ beer. I bought approximately 230 lbs of base malts, which means I can make approximately 115 gallons of session beer. Of course I will be making some bigger beers so I would say that number is closer to 90 or 100 gallons. Which puts me right at 6 months worth of brewing before I hit my wife and I’s annual 200 gallon limit.

Soooo we’ll see everyone again around September???

 

[wyoohio]

I'm sorry to hear about the PBW. I was the first one to get there for the corn split and actually weighted it before I took my split and it was only 42lbs vs the 50 it should have been. I adjusted my split accordingly so maybe that was the case with the PBW as well.

Not worried about it. Still a killer deal on everything as a whole.

 

[DMace]

Everyone pretty much hit the nail on the head. Especially when you're in on a five-way split, there is a thin margin of error for all involved.

For the record, I didn't spill any DME. I just had it all over my sleeves from using that little scoop. No matter how hard you try, that sh*t is messy as f*ck. My hoodie was reading 1.030 after filling my baggies.

Dale, if you're planning on brewing prior to getting your rollers adjusted, give me a heads up and I'll bring my mill into the store.

It was great meeting everyone. The hobby tends to attract a great group of people no matter where you look.

Finally, I wanted to sincerely thank everyone for your generous donations. Everything is greatly appreciated.

 

[bmickey]

DMace, thanks fort a good laugh on the DME hoodie story!

Rivertowne pour house was great as usual... We had the 14 beer sampler...

 

[fredtheseal]

So I got my homemade mill today to find out that the gap I told them to make it at is turning my grain to flour. I'm gonna have to have them turn one of the rollers down a little more. Real bummed.

I have a 7# Barley Crusher mill (http://www.barleycrusher.com/) that I hook to an electric drill. I tweaked my gap and was getting stuck mashes on the first few all grain brews. Then I stumbled across malt conditioning.

It's just a simple process of adding moisture to your grain before milling. If you are hand cranking it will make cranking a little tougher but now I get a really fine -- but fluffy -- crush out of my mill now and haven't had any problems since.

Check it out -- http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Malt_Conditioning

Just a word of advice though -- don't over do the moisture or you'll jam the mill.

 

[dand9066]

Kpr. I drew up the design. Probably not possible to make it adjustable now and I wasn't exactly sure how to in the first place.

DMace. I may take you up on the offer. Even if I don't brew for a couple weeks it should be okay.

Since I'm new I'll post a few pictures tonight of a few different handfulls of grains crushed and see what you guys think.

 

[kpr121]

Haha Dmace I’m just joshing about the DME, but it is incredible how sticky that crap gets. You should keep your unwashed hoodie and steep it in the your next batch.

 

[Beezer94]

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=CrushEval
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Malt_Conditioning

Good source for crush information. The malt condition page shows how you can get away with finer crushes when you do condition.

Kpr. I drew up the design. Probably not possible to make it adjustable now and I wasn't exactly sure how to in the first place.

DMace. I may take you up on the offer. Even if I don't brew for a couple weeks it should be okay.

Since I'm new I'll post a few pictures tonight of a few different handfulls of grains crushed and see what you guys think.

 

[kpr121]

Dale, I just thought of some things. I’ll reserve final judgement until I see some pics of your crush, but these are my thoughts:

You have all those rice hulls, you may be just fine with your crush if you are using hulls in every batch.

Also, I don’t remember if you have a traditional MLT or are BIAB. If the latter, you don’t have to worry as much about a fine crush gunking up your flow.

Thirdly, malt conditioning works really well for keeping the husk intact especially when you crank the grind down really fine, but I found it to be a pain for what its worth and adds additional time to the brewday that I usually don’t have.

 

[wyoohio]

DMace, thanks fort a good laugh on the DME hoodie story!

Rivertowne pour house was great as usual... We had the 14 beer sampler...

Bmickey, were you one of the two guys at the taller table? Hat and black turtle neck? my wife and I were sitting at the table near the fermenter room if it was you.

I am about 6' 4" and 250 lb. hard to miss me haha.

I had the cask pale ale, and it was awesome. Grabbed three growlers to go too. Thanks for recommending the place. It was great.

 

[dand9066]

Didn't get to crush any grain to show you tonight. I was to busy wiring up my temp controller. Here it is until I get a project box from radio shack

 

[kpr121]

Didn't get to crush any grain to show you tonight. I was to busy wiring up my temp controller. Here it is until I get a project box from radio shack

I love that temp controller. What are you using it on?

 

[dand9066]

Fridge that is going to be my fermentation chamber. I'll be putting a heat lamp or something of the sort in there as well.

 

[shuggy]

Thanks to Dale and Dylan for getting this done.

I do have a concern with the crystal 15 I was given. It doesn't look or smell like any light crystal I've ever used before. Plus it was a Thomas Fawcett malt and they don't even have a crystal 15. Can any of the others that shared that split chime in with what you think?

 

[DMace]

That makes sense. There is a half sack of C-15 down here with only one person left to pick up 25% of it. It's here. But that means that someone was severely shorted with their C-60.

I sincerely apologize. It was rather chaotic on Saturday. In the future, it might be easier to spread everyone out a little more.

I forget where you drove in from. I can't offer you gas money or anything, but its here if you want to swap it out... and hopefully I can get the C-60 to its rightful owner.