South Carolina SC midlands area brewers

[Morrey]

Youre talking about PKs bbq? I think. Then it says a taste of heaven underneath it? At the zooms on highway 1? I drive by there all the time and it does smell good. Thats my side of town but never ate there... maybe i should try it out

Buddy of mine from Columbia is a BBQ judge with the SC BBQ Assn and has a pretty good sense of decent BBQ. The place is out on Hwy 1 past Hudson's Smokehouse on the left - and he rents a space in a gas station. His place is called Roy's Grille, and it comes recommended. They have good hash there which is something not typically found around Darlington where I live.

 

[TravelingLight]

Dude you dont like southern belly? I ate there a few times and thought it was great! I used to deliver that area near you

Haha nope never been a big fan of Southern Belly, even when it was right down the road from my house. I just think it's super lackluster. And I've seen them buy pulled pork from Publix when they've run out of stuff

 

[SHAIV]

Buddy of mine from Columbia is a BBQ judge with the SC BBQ Assn and has a pretty good sense of decent BBQ. The place is out on Hwy 1 past Hudson's Smokehouse on the left - and he rents a space in a gas station. His place is called Roy's Grille, and it comes recommended. They have good hash there which is something not typically found around Darlington where I live.

Ok cool. ill have to check that place out. I basically live in lexington. You know angry fish is just a few miles past that. I havent been there yet but i do want to go

 

[SHAIV]

Haha nope never been a big fan of Southern Belly, even when it was right down the road from my house. I just think it's super lackluster. And I've seen them buy pulled pork from Publix when they've run out of stuff

Hmmm obviously i couldnt be a bbq judge. Lol

 

[carpathia]

Follow up:

Finished the stout, and, as always, have some lessons learned.

a) The z-chiller is highly effective as a single pass through. For reasons I cannot explain, it didn't do much of anything as a whirlpool. Although the wort was flowing through the system and dropping like lead, I don't think that translated to the top layers. My inkbird said the temperature was still 190 or so. Next time, I'm going to single pass; even with mildly cold water it was below 80 into the fermentor. I will also probably get a length of silicon tubing; the vinyl hosing seemed to not like the high temperature on the outlet flow.

b) I need a hop bag. The hops coagulated on my burner, causing it to dry fry and scorch in places. No scorched flavors detected, however cleaning a scorched element is never fun.

c) I missed my gravity target by 0.06 (OG: 1.090). I'll be adding a pound of sugar. I think i missed the mark because of the burner problems dropping my boil off rate. I did hit 80% efficiency, as confirmed by hydrometer.

 

[SHAIV]

What kind of chiller did you get? Got any pics from the brewday? Yes i wouldnt use vinyl tubing with a high temp liquid
I hope you got a blow off on that beast! Haha

 

[carpathia]

Z-Chiller standard-length counterflow. I think it caused too much temperature stratification to do it as a whirlpool; the lower layers were nice and cool, the upper layers... not so much. It did its job well.

Nah, no pictures; was too busy running around (the ultra fine crush, while great for efficiency, causes horrendous stuck sparges on my RIMS system, so I had to jiggle it every few minutes for the long long mash). I wonder what people who do hoses on their immersion chillers do; rig up a silicon one? And no need for a blow off, it's a split batch between a better bottle (1/2 full) and a fermonster (at the 5 gallon mark, so 2.5 gallons head space).

On a side note, I discovered that my ceramic heat lamp will melt a better bottle (half of it looks caved in). Beer inside is apparently fine, but I guess I'll have either a large Speidel or metal fermentor in my future (for those batches, like this, where I have more final volume than expected).

 

[TravelingLight]

Follow up:

Finished the stout, and, as always, have some lessons learned.

a) The z-chiller is highly effective as a single pass through. For reasons I cannot explain, it didn't do much of anything as a whirlpool. Although the wort was flowing through the system and dropping like lead, I don't think that translated to the top layers. My inkbird said the temperature was still 190 or so. Next time, I'm going to single pass; even with mildly cold water it was below 80 into the fermentor. I will also probably get a length of silicon tubing; the vinyl hosing seemed to not like the high temperature on the outlet flow.

b) I need a hop bag. The hops coagulated on my burner, causing it to dry fry and scorch in places. No scorched flavors detected, however cleaning a scorched element is never fun.

c) I missed my gravity target by 0.06 (OG: 1.090). I'll be adding a pound of sugar. I think i missed the mark because of the burner problems dropping my boil off rate. I did hit 80% efficiency, as confirmed by hydrometer.

About a year ago I replaced all the tubing in my brewery (except draft lines and blowoff tubing) with silicone. Sure, it costs more upfront, but damn I could not be happier. It's so much easier and I feel like I get much more life out of my tubing. If they get nasty I just boil them for a while. I do all my closed transfers, racking, etc. with silicone now.

 

[Morrey]

^^^ When Whirlpooling wort right at the boiling point for flameout hop additions, silicone is the only way to go.

 

[carpathia]

To be clear the vinyl was hot cooling water discharge only; nothing touches the beer except for silicon and steel before it hits the fermenter. I'm more worried about the vinyl degrading from the damn hot chilling water to the point where a fitting brusts.

 

[SHAIV]

Oh i think my chiller has vinyl tubing on it. My hose clamp weakened over some uses but i replaced it with a screwable ss hose clamp and its been good ever since

 

[TravelingLight]

Happy early 4th, fellas. I'm about to blow out this biitch and get the Weber ready to smoke a brisket. Keezer is borderline empty, so I need to pick up some brodies as well! Y'all be safe.

 

[Lifer59]

Now that we have a runner, is anyone going to enter beers in the Dominion Cup?

 

[TravelingLight]

Now that we have a runner, is anyone going to enter beers in the Dominion Cup?

I might, depending on what I have ready. I just shipped some to Jacksonville for the First Coast Cup.

 

[Lifer59]

I’ll probably send my Saison and Doppelbock. Maybe a couple of more.

 

[SHAIV]

I might, depending on what I have ready. I just shipped some to Jacksonville for the First Coast Cup.

How do you ship it? Im just curious, I know the ups store wont “knowingly” let you ship alcoholic beverages without an alcohol license or something. Lol same with guns

 

[TravelingLight]

How do you ship it? Im just curious, I know the ups store wont “knowingly” let you ship alcoholic beverages without an alcohol license or something. Lol same with guns

Between trading and competitions, I ship a fair amount of beer. I use FedEx mostly, but have used UPS in the past. If they ask what I'm shipping, I just lie to them and say I'm shipping books, or barbecue sauce. You just have to pack your box well and mask the sound of liquid sloshing around. An easy trick to mask the sound is toss 5 or 6 pennies in the box. The pennies rattling around mask the sound of liquid.

 

[catdaddy66]

Between trading and competitions, I ship a fair amount of beer. I use FedEx mostly, but have used UPS in the past. If they ask what I'm shipping, I just lie to them and say I'm shipping books, or barbecue sauce. You just have to pack your box well and mask the sound of liquid sloshing around. An easy trick to mask the sound is toss 5 or 6 pennies in the box. The pennies rattling around mask the sound of liquid.

Wow. You are a hardened criminal! LOL!!! Just make sure you leave a few for me.

Beers, not pennies.

 

[SHAIV]

Lol yeah. You need to pack it and tape it really well! And do you put any ice packs or anything in there? I mean you cant just say its homemade soda? Lol ive thought about making some.

 

[carpathia]

Ordered a 7.9 gallon and a 3.2 gallon Speidel because, as I learned yesterday, my heat lamp apparently partially melted BOTH the better bottle AND the fermonster (though both, thankfully, in areas that aren't in contact with the beer; those areas are fine). I've been taste testing the gravity samples, and for a big stout that will age a long time, it's already shockingly good. I've now invested in a cool-touch personal heat lamp for the fermentation chamber; hopefully that won't destroy the next batch of fermenters.

 

[TravelingLight]

Lol yeah. You need to pack it and tape it really well! And do you put any ice packs or anything in there? I mean you cant just say its homemade soda? Lol ive thought about making some.

Nah, no ice packs, not worth it (unless I was shipping something that needed to stay cold as long as possible, like one of the Joose bombs from The Answer, but I digress...). Yeah, soda works too. That's what I told FedEx in Portland a couple months back when I was shipping a box of beer/wine back home to myself. But I've also heard some carriers are getting more wary of shipping liquids, so I usually say books or something generic.

ETA: Knock on wood, but, I've only had one box lost/destroyed in transit since I started shipping. But that was my fault because it was like the first time I'd shipped beer, it was growlers, and I didn't pack it well enough. Gotta fill all the voids in the box so the beer doesn't move!

 

[TravelingLight]

For those of you who have used oak cubes or spirals (or otherwise), if you're not infusing it with a flavored liquor (i.e., bourbon, tequila), and you just want the oak, are you still boiling/baking/other the oak before putting it in the beer?

 

[SHAIV]

Ordered a 7.9 gallon and a 3.2 gallon Speidel because, as I learned yesterday, my heat lamp apparently partially melted BOTH the better bottle AND the fermonster (though both, thankfully, in areas that aren't in contact with the beer; those areas are fine). I've been taste testing the gravity samples, and for a big stout that will age a long time, it's already shockingly good. I've now invested in a cool-touch personal heat lamp for the fermentation chamber; hopefully that won't destroy the next batch of fermenters.

Im just curious but why do you need a heat lamp at all?

 

[carpathia]

Im just curious but why do you need a heat lamp at all?

Dual stage temperature controller; admittedly my garage is pretty damn hot a good chunk of the time, but not during winter, and it helps prevent freezing from overshooting during cold crashes.

 

[SHAIV]

Gotta fill all the voids in the box so the beer doesn't move!

Gotta fill the voids so it can support weight without getting crushed corners that can cause tearing

So i read something somewhere about beer that is cold warming back up and and then chilling again. Like causing chill haze or something. I cant remember exactly the adverse or undesirable effects. Thats why i asked about ice

 

[Lifer59]

For those of you who have used oak cubes or spirals (or otherwise), if you're not infusing it with a flavored liquor (i.e., bourbon, tequila), and you just want the oak, are you still boiling/baking/other the oak before putting it in the beer?

I use vodka. Neutral so it doesn’t impart any flavor but still soaks the chips and sanitizes.

 

[carpathia]

Gotta fill the voids so it can support weight without getting crushed corners that can cause tearing

So i read something somewhere about beer that is cold warming back up and and then chilling again. Like causing chill haze or something. I cant remember exactly the adverse or undesirable effects. Thats why i asked about ice

If brulosophy is to be believed the way to mitigate that is to crash cool to 32 degrees and then either fine or filter, as that'll remove the chill-coagulating proteins. I can't imagine how a fully fermented beer would form new chill-haze if it was already removed from the beer.

 

[SHAIV]

If brulosophy is to be believed the way to mitigate that is to crash cool to 32 degrees and then either fine or filter, as that'll remove the chill-coagulating proteins. I can't imagine how a fully fermented beer would form new chill-haze if it was already removed from the beer.

Yeah. I like to let my beer cold crash only not fine or filter.
So I believe my last beer had yeast shock then no fermentation activity in 24 hours then pitched again. So it fermented then had some bubbles forming that looked like brett, maybe, and now im starting to think it tastes a little sour. What do you guys think I should do at this point? Its a columbus 2 row smash. Its been in the keg for about 2 weeks. Like should i let it age? Should i trash all tubing it touched and boil the stainless steel? Can i use any of this stuff again?

 

[carpathia]

Dunno how worth saving it is, but I'd use Idophor on everything. It will kill stuff that is starsan resistant, and will sterilize to hospital standards if done right.

 

[SHAIV]

Ive never used the stuff. I do know it requires a rinse. But if i use it then rinse then star san. After a hefty cleaning from good ol pbw. That may just do the trick. I also need to calibrate my ph meter to test my star san. That may be the problem anyway. That star san is pretty old. I added some more to it but i guess its time to dump it and start fresh and take apart everything and soak everything really well