Random Brewing Thoughts

[coldcrash1]

$153 sounds like a decent price for a used two faucet jockey box right?

...renting a jockey box for the weekend, called lhbs where I've rented before, theirs isn't available so I get referred to a liquor store that apparently has one. I call:

Me: "so what's the rental rate?"
Him: "it's 153, but you get 100 back when you return it."
Me: "oh, so $53 w a $100 deposit?"
Him: "sure"
Me: "ouch. How many days is the rental?"
Him: "as many as you want. You could keep it forever if you want."

Can't wait to see this thing. I'm fearing the worst

 

[TripleSixHoppia]

$153 sounds like a decent price for a used two faucet jockey box right?

...renting a jockey box for the weekend, called lhbs where I've rented before, theirs isn't available so I get referred to a liquor store that apparently has one. I call:

Me: "so what's the rental rate?"
Him: "it's 153, but you get 100 back when you return it."
Me: "oh, so $53 w a $100 deposit?"
Him: "sure"
Me: "ouch. How many days is the rental?"
Him: "as many as you want. You could keep it forever if you want."

Can't wait to see this thing. I'm fearing the worst

You could make one for about the same price.

 

[coldcrash1]

You could make one for about the same price.

Yeah. I don't even really want to own one, just looking to turn that ridiculous rental fee into a halfway reasonable investment- since he "offered."

I guess it depends on how it's constructed and what kind of shape it's in. I'll find out tomorrow when I pick it up. Guy didn't seem to give much of a ****. Probably wouldn't rent from him if I had any other option...

 

[Vogt52]

Anyone have a tried and true stout recipe they'd care to share? Would like to brew a stout in the 7-8% abv range and want to finish it on coffee beans and maple syrup.

 

[JCastle1]

Anyone have a tried and true stout recipe they'd care to share? Would like to brew a stout in the 7-8% abv range and want to finish it on coffee beans and maple syrup.

I do, had this written down in my notebook:

Ca2+ 100
Mg2+ 5
Na+ 35
Cl- 60
SO42- 50
HCO3- 265

Mashed at 68, aiming for 19 Plato:

70% pale malt
10% flaked oats
5% Munich malt
5% chocolate malt
4% roast barley
3% debittered black malt
3% caramel 120

Hit it with 45 IBU at 60 min (Magnum or Nugget), then 5 at 30 min, and 5 at 15 min (Willamette). Fermented with US-05.

I've done a bunch of variants of this one, including peppers, coconut, coffee, chocolate, the usual suspects. For the coffee and chocolate I like to pull off about a pint of wort during boil to make a liquor and add it back during the whirlpool. I'm just not a fan of boiling the coffee.

 

[Vogt52]

I do, had this written down in my notebook:

Ca2+ 100
Mg2+ 5
Na+ 35
Cl- 60
SO42- 50
HCO3- 265

Mashed at 68, aiming for 19 Plato:

70% pale malt
10% flaked oats
5% Munich malt
5% chocolate malt
4% roast barley
3% debittered black malt
3% caramel 120

Hit it with 45 IBU at 60 min (Magnum or Nugget), then 5 at 30 min, and 5 at 15 min (Willamette). Fermented with US-05.

I've done a bunch of variants of this one, including peppers, coconut, coffee, chocolate, the usual suspects. For the coffee and chocolate I like to pull off about a pint of wort during boil to make a liquor and add it back during the whirlpool. I'm just not a fan of boiling the coffee.

Thanks!

 

[FTowne1]

Thinking about selling off all my equipment. It's been a long time since I've brewed and the desire just isn't there anymore. Plus, I'll be moving again this upcoming summer more than likely and I'd rather not move all this crap again. I'm assuming that my best bet is a Craigslist ad, unless someone has a better idea.

 

[Ziggy]

Any idea what might cause some overbarbonation in a bottled beer that was sitting in a fridge for a long time? Brewed a Hefewiezen, and it carbed up nice, stuck it in the fridge, didn't drink it for a few months, and i recently pulled it out and cracked it and it was 100 percent head. It was ridiculously carbed to the point where it may have exploded, and was undrinkable. Will a bottle keep priming even when cold, or referment cold like that? I have no idea. I was under the impression that refermentation is delayed drastically in a cold, 34 degree environment.

 

[dimensionx]

Any idea what might cause some overbarbonation in a bottled beer that was sitting in a fridge for a long time? Brewed a Hefewiezen, and it carbed up nice, stuck it in the fridge, didn't drink it for a few months, and i recently pulled it out and cracked it and it was 100 percent head. It was ridiculously carbed to the point where it may have exploded, and was undrinkable. Will a bottle keep priming even when cold, or referment cold like that? I have no idea. I was under the impression that refermentation is delayed drastically in a cold, 34 degree environment.

Fridge temps should drastically slow refermentation but it might not stop it all the way. If it was already carbed and fermentation had finished, it could be some dirt/gunk/junk in that specific bottle. If they are all overcarbed the first option, just the one and it is probably the second.

 

[Beerontwowheels]

Thinking about selling off all my equipment. It's been a long time since I've brewed and the desire just isn't there anymore. Plus, I'll be moving again this upcoming summer more than likely and I'd rather not move all this crap again. I'm assuming that my best bet is a Craigslist ad, unless someone has a better idea.

Your zero ***** given attitude always inspired me. Your beers were always awesome. Please don't quit, baby.

 

[reverseapachemaster1]

I see DFH and BA are getting together to write a new Extreme Brewing. Sure to be the most douchey brewing book ever written.

 

[reverseapachemaster1]

I see DFH and BA are getting together to write a new Extreme Brewing. Sure to be the most douchey brewing book ever written.

Wow this book is awful. Have you ever thought, "I wonder if Sam Calagione has changed his mind about constantly shilling how 'exciting' DFH is and at the same time wondered what the Alstrom idiots think about homebrewing EXTREME beers?"

Yeah, me neither.

It's just a rewrite of Calagione's Extreme Brewing with BA garbage thrown in and a new set of recipes and many more pictures of Calagione. Once you work past exciting DFH/BA collabs like a maris otter base malt saison and a pilsner base barleywine there are a few commercial recipes that aren't so bad. Would not buy this book for a set of fairly predictable gose, berliner and barleywine recipes.

 

[dimensionx]

Has anyone tried killing Brett/Bacteria with heat or chemicals?

I was thinking about blending a mature sour with a high gravity Sacc only beer and bottling, but I would need to kill the brett and bacteria in the sour to avoid bottle bombs. The bottled beer is not intended to be aged for long periods of time.

Heat looks like a potentially viable solution but I'm not sure that it would kill Pedio and Lacto which I assume are present in the sour.

I found this on Probrewer
http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?12782-time-temp-Killing-beer-bugs
"While not recognised as true pasteurisation, 145 F for 30 minutes, followed by rapid cooling, is widely regarded as adequate among "low risk" foods, of which beer is one. Indeed, 145 F (63 C) for 10 mins is probably good enough for beer. You only need a more aggressive regimen if you have a high bacterial/fungal load to begin with (infection, dirty brewery), or if you are trying to achieve shelf stable beer for a year or more."

I need to look into it a bit more but using Camden Tablets and Potassium Sorbate is another option. That being said, I would prefer to use heat rather than chemicals if possible. Now that I think about it, Maybe heat + Potassium Sorbate would do the trick?

 

[Beer52]

Also very useful for preserving fresh fruit.

word!

 

[reverseapachemaster1]

Has anyone tried killing Brett/Bacteria with heat or chemicals?

I was thinking about blending a mature sour with a high gravity Sacc only beer and bottling, but I would need to kill the brett and bacteria in the sour to avoid bottle bombs. The bottled beer is not intended to be aged for long periods of time.

Heat looks like a potentially viable solution but I'm not sure that it would kill Pedio and Lacto which I assume are present in the sour.

I found this on Probrewer
http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?12782-time-temp-Killing-beer-bugs
"While not recognised as true pasteurisation, 145 F for 30 minutes, followed by rapid cooling, is widely regarded as adequate among "low risk" foods, of which beer is one. Indeed, 145 F (63 C) for 10 mins is probably good enough for beer. You only need a more aggressive regimen if you have a high bacterial/fungal load to begin with (infection, dirty brewery), or if you are trying to achieve shelf stable beer for a year or more."

I need to look into it a bit more but using Camden Tablets and Potassium Sorbate is another option. That being said, I would prefer to use heat rather than chemicals if possible. Now that I think about it, Maybe heat + Potassium Sorbate would do the trick?

New Belgium uses heat inline to pasteurize their sours/brett beers so it's obviously an effective strategy. I did have some old bottles of the brett beer they did that had clearly continued fermenting in the bottle but have not seen the same issue with Clutch (which is blended sour/clean beer) or La Folie.

I tried the cold crash/campden/gelatin technique in the past. Despite reputable people having good luck with it, I never did. I think you need to be able to put the sour beer through a long, cold crash to get everything to drop out which I wasn't able to do when I tried it. I think if you could crash for a long time in addition to campden you could get enough of the microorganisms to drop out. I don't love the idea of adding more salt to the beer but in a blend it probably won't make much of a difference.

I think either approach would work for what you need. Both might be overkill. I dunno, maybe cold crash and then heat?

 

[dimensionx]

New Belgium uses heat inline to pasteurize their sours/brett beers so it's obviously an effective strategy.

I had not considered cold crashing but that is something that I can easily do so I will take a look. I'll try to find some additional research. Thanks!

 

[anteater1]

Thinking about doing a reiterative mash on a barleywine next weekend. Basically I'm thinking I'll collect my pre-boil volume with a mash & sparge on half the grain, and then run that wort through the mash tun again with the other half of fresh grain. Anyone had luck with this? Seems like it might be easier than trying to cram 30lb of grain into a 10 gal mash tun.

 

[JCastle1]

Thinking about doing a reiterative mash on a barleywine next weekend. Basically I'm thinking I'll collect my pre-boil volume with a mash & sparge on half the grain, and then run that wort through the mash tun again with the other half of fresh grain. Anyone had luck with this? Seems like it might be easier than trying to cram 30lb of grain into a 10 gal mash tun.

I've read about people doing it but never done it myself. I'd be worried about that mash pH, especially if you plan on making a darker barleywine.

 

[anteater1]

I've read about people doing it but never done it myself. I'd be worried about that mash pH, especially if you plan on making a darker barleywine.

That's exactly the part I don't know how to approach. And I don't even have a ph meter, I just plug into a spreadsheet and cross my fingers.

 

[dimensionx]

That's exactly the part I don't know how to approach. And I don't even have a ph meter, I just plug into a spreadsheet and cross my fingers.

You could just do it partigyle style and skip the sparge. Mash 15 lbs of grain, collect first runnings, toss grain. Then do it again with the other 15 lbs.

Then boil the **** out it.

The max that I can only do is about 23-25 lbs of grain in my 10 gallon Blichman and that is not very efficient.

 

[FTowne1]

Thinking about doing a reiterative mash on a barleywine next weekend. Basically I'm thinking I'll collect my pre-boil volume with a mash & sparge on half the grain, and then run that wort through the mash tun again with the other half of fresh grain. Anyone had luck with this? Seems like it might be easier than trying to cram 30lb of grain into a 10 gal mash tun.

A 55 qt cooler makes a nice, cheap mash tun that will hold 30 lbs of grain and enough water that you can make a 5 gallon batch without sparging.

 

[JCastle1]

Just saw an oatmeal stout recipe on a random dude's blog, calls for

5.5 lb pale malt
2 lb oatmeal (wut)
1.5 lb roasted barley 550 lovibond (double wut)

Is it just me or does this sounds crazy to anyone else???

 

[SirDickButts]

DeFalcos sucks. That is all.

 

[Phischy1]

DeFalcos sucks. That is all.

What happened?

 

[SirDickButts]

What happened?

They don’t calibrate their grain mill.

 

[Phischy1]

They don’t calibrate their grain mill.

Probably not. And you need to adjust for different grains. I upgraded mine from single adjustable to double and saw a remarkable increase.

 

[reverseapachemaster1]

Just saw an oatmeal stout recipe on a random dude's blog, calls for

5.5 lb pale malt
2 lb oatmeal (wut)
1.5 lb roasted barley 550 lovibond (double wut)

Is it just me or does this sounds crazy to anyone else???

Oatmeal = flaked oats, not really a weird recipe. Lots of older stout recipes are just pale malt and roasted barley. It's a very simple recipe but nothing wrong with it.

 

[JCastle1]

Oatmeal = flaked oats, not really a weird recipe. Lots of older stout recipes are just pale malt and roasted barley. It's a very simple recipe but nothing wrong with it.

Oh yeah not referring to the ingredients but the ratios. 22% oats and 16% roasted barley sounds kinda wrong to me. I know it's possible but I've used up to 10% roasted barley and get heavy roast notes, can't imagine more than that.

 

[SirDickButts]

Probably not. And you need to adjust for different grains. I upgraded mine from single adjustable to double and saw a remarkable increase.

i bought and milled grains from farmboy Friday and my efficiency increased 15%, compared to DeFalcos.
i knew something was wrong when my 4 previous batches were 10+ points off.
i guess its time to invest in a mill.

 

[Phischy1]

i bought and milled grains from farmboy Friday and my efficiency increased 15%, compared to DeFalcos.
i knew something was wrong when my 4 previous batches were 10+ points off.
i guess its time to invest in a mill.

Make sure it's double adjustable. I bought a new one and saw a spike in efficiency.