South Carolina SC midlands area brewers

[SHAIV]

October's PSB meeting is back at Zorba's. In November we will be at Cottontown Brew Lab.

Awesome! So im going to try to make both of those if possible. Decembers might be hard for me to make. I can request relief of overtime except the month of december. So how do i join PSB?

 

[TravelingLight]

Awesome! So im going to try to make both of those if possible. Decembers might be hard for me to make. I can request relief of overtime except the month of december. So how do i join PSB?

Here ya go: http://palmettostatebrewers.com/members-2/

 

[RevFrank]

I just joined. I'll be there in October

 

[carpathia]

Finally got my brewery set up and repaired the install on my hosehead (which looks like they shut down business for the time being) so I'll be up and brewing at the new digs in Texas in no time.

It's like SC, but somehow more hot and humid, and the water isn't nearly as delightfully soft.

 

[SHAIV]

I just joined. I'll be there in October

Awesome man! I think i should make it as well. So im going to brew on sunday, the day before. What do you guys think about an amber ale. Projected Og 1.051, srm 14, 39 ibu, 5% abv? Im gonna brew a 10 gallon batch?

 

[SHAIV]

Finally got my brewery set up and repaired the install on my hosehead (which looks like they shut down business for the time being) so I'll be up and brewing at the new digs in Texas in no time.

It's like SC, but somehow more hot and humid, and the water isn't nearly as delightfully soft.

I dont believe it. It was 100 here on friday. Remind me never to even visit texas unless its like winter. Also, are you talking about your home brewery? It sounds more like a big brewery. Ive heard texas has hard laws for breweries. Idk i saw it in a documentary once, maybe the laws have changed since then

 

[carpathia]

The average morning up until today since I got here was around 80 degrees and 90% humidity at 0630. We had 9 total days in September with a high below 95 (we had 1 day at 90). At least the Beef-based BBQ game is strong around here, though Carolina's pig-based BBQ can't be beat (we drove through Memphis on the way down and were disappointed).

And yes, home brewery; nothing too crazy yet. The SD card was corrupted in the raspberry pi controller, though another user on HBT hooked me up with a new image, and it looks like it's working fine.

 

[RevFrank]

Awesome man! I think i should make it as well. So im going to brew on sunday, the day before. What do you guys think about an amber ale. Projected Og 1.051, srm 14, 39 ibu, 5% abv? Im gonna brew a 10 gallon batch?

I'm conditioning an ale right now. Og 1.054, Srm 6, ibu 36, ABV 7 .... I guess I went a little too heavy on the grain bill [emoji848][emoji16]

 

[carpathia]

I'm conditioning an ale right now. Og 1.054, Srm 6, ibu 36, ABV 7 .... I guess I went a little too heavy on the grain bill [emoji848][emoji16]

Running the PBW up to temp to clean the BK and mash tun right now for my first Texas beer: ~5.5 gallons of a Helles Export/Bock; 1.060 OG hopped to 23 ibu with magnun/hallertau/spalt. Hoping it will finish around 1.010 over the next month.

1.054 should be a delightful amount of body.

 

[RevFrank]

PBW up to temp? Is a particular temp important?

Your Texas beer sounds fine tasting!

 

[carpathia]

PBW up to temp? Is a particular temp important?

Your Texas beer sounds fine tasting!

180; not that it's important but the heating element tends to get crap stuck on it after most boils, and I need to flush out the counterflow... Or else...

The yeast (WLP 833) is having an unusually long lag time, though it was pitched at 46/47 from the thermowell. Since my raspberry Pi's SD card was corrupted, the yeast spent about 2 weeks after the second step-ups chilling on my counter. Hopefully it starts bubbling soon...

 

[TravelingLight]

Running the PBW up to temp to clean the BK and mash tun right now for my first Texas beer: ~5.5 gallons of a Helles Export/Bock; 1.060 OG hopped to 23 ibu with magnun/hallertau/spalt. Hoping it will finish around 1.010 over the next month.

1.054 should be a delightful amount of body.

You're more diligent than I am. I rarely if ever PBW my BK or MT (or really anything on the hot side).

 

[carpathia]

Don't have much of a choice; I have a Z-Chiller, a convoluted (twisted) star-shaped counterflow. It will absolutely do a good job one-passing (when done with ice water as the counterflow) boiling wort, or will knock the full batch down to the mid 70's in 10 minutes. However, there is no way to bake it, and it will absolutely get infested if not cleaned pretty quick (I've heard horror stories...). Doing 10 minutes or so of hot PBW flowed eachway seems to do a good job getting it cleaned, and gets the crap off my heating element in the process.

I'm glad I did the mashtun as well; I had some grain somehow make it into my autosparge. The only thing I really need to break down more regularly is the ball valve on the mashtun; my only non-sanitary valve.

On the plus side; I think my main issue was my temperature controller is a bit off, and there is some tepid fermentation going off a fresh pitch of WLP 833. I have another starter going that I'll be throwing in hopefully tomorrow night as well after I can hopefully confirm the temperature of the wort. I'm back to using a heat lamp that melted a pair of my fermenters; hopefully the Speidel is a bit more heat resistant!

 

[RevFrank]

It was a great first meeting for me at Palmetto Brewers last night. I think I counted 10 sample beers passed around. That's the most variety Ive experienced in one sitting

 

[Lifer59]

It was a great first meeting for me at Palmetto Brewers last night. I think I counted 10 sample beers passed around. That's the most variety Ive experienced in one sitting

It was great meeting you last night. We have a lot of great brewers in the club. Everyone is happy to share and help if you get stuck.

 

[SHAIV]

You're more diligent than I am. I rarely if ever PBW my BK or MT (or really anything on the hot side).

I never did either till like this year. I really got my kettles to be perfectly clean and shine by cleaning with pbw then scrubbing with bar keepers friend with a soft cloth (i used paper towels lol) but my kettles havent ever been so clean

 

[SHAIV]

It was a great first meeting for me at Palmetto Brewers last night. I think I counted 10 sample beers passed around. That's the most variety Ive experienced in one sitting

Awesome man! I didnt get off work in time

 

[SHAIV]

Hey has anyone ever built a whirlpool arm? Like a drop in whirlpool tube? I have a 90 degree elbow for whirlpooling but i want to add something to my second outlet hose from my pump. I want to be able to pick it up and stick it in a fermenter to transfer wort also. I prefer stainless. Was thinking at very least i could use a piece of stainless tubing with a 90 degree bend. I could buy something from brewhardware.com for about $28 shipped which will work great im sure but just trying to see if i can get something that will work for less. Or does anyone have a tubing bender? Lol not sure if thats proper terminology. But id actually prefer as little drop as possible since my other whirlpool port is pretty low on my boil kettle. Anyway i have a stainless racking arm that i use occasionally but i also have a few extra keg dip tubes. I could potentially use something like that for free if i can bend it right. Thoughts?

 

[TravelingLight]

Hey has anyone ever built a whirlpool arm? Like a drop in whirlpool tube? I have a 90 degree elbow for whirlpooling but i want to add something to my second outlet hose from my pump. I want to be able to pick it up and stick it in a fermenter to transfer wort also. I prefer stainless. Was thinking at very least i could use a piece of stainless tubing with a 90 degree bend. I could buy something from brewhardware.com for about $28 shipped which will work great im sure but just trying to see if i can get something that will work for less. Or does anyone have a tubing bender? Lol not sure if thats proper terminology. But id actually prefer as little drop as possible since my other whirlpool port is pretty low on my boil kettle. Anyway i have a stainless racking arm that i use occasionally but i also have a few extra keg dip tubes. I could potentially use something like that for free if i can bend it right. Thoughts?

If I'm understanding you correctly, you could put a 180 bend at the top so it could just hang over the lip of your kettle. Then pull it out when you're ready to route it to the fermenter?

 

[carpathia]

That makes sense; less disconnecting to do at the tail end of a brew day.

The only caution I'd have is it seems too easy to have crap fall into your otherwise sealed brewpot during the cool down phase, especially if you remember (like I didn't last time...) to allow for a ~20 minute settling of trub. I think I'm still tramuatized from when my immersion chiller detached from it's cold water hose, adding about a gallon of water to my freshly-finished beer.

 

[RevFrank]

That makes sense; less disconnecting to do at the tail end of a brew day.

The only caution I'd have is it seems too easy to have crap fall into your otherwise sealed brewpot during the cool down phase, especially if you remember (like I didn't last time...) to allow for a ~20 minute settling of trub. I think I'm still tramuatized from when my immersion chiller detached from it's cold water hose, adding about a gallon of water to my freshly-finished beer.

Oh No! Say it ain't so! That sucks!

 

[carpathia]

Yep. Ended up finishing at about 3.2% and was oddly floral on the hops (attempted cream ale). The other issue was nearly freezing the wort as the temp probe on the inkbird was in the fermentor's headspace instead of all the way in the wort (though why the thermowell has that much of a gradient, I do not know). Did the same thing again with my first beer here in Texas. At least that one is a lager, so the yeast seemed fine and dandy with that.

 

[SHAIV]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you could put a 180 bend at the top so it could just hang over the lip of your kettle. Then pull it out when you're ready to route it to the fermenter?

Well bending stainless isnt very easy unless you have a tubing bender. Idk if im going to try it. The spincycle on brewhardware has a clip that holds it on the side of the kettle. I just bought a 1/2 inch racking cane on amazon that has a clip on it and is only bent to 90 degrees so ill stick the bent side down in the kettle and clip it at the top. So basically ill have two whirlpool arms running from both ports on my pump. Should make transferring easier and make my whirlpool stronger

 

[SHAIV]

That makes sense; less disconnecting to do at the tail end of a brew day.

The only caution I'd have is it seems too easy to have crap fall into your otherwise sealed brewpot during the cool down phase, especially if you remember (like I didn't last time...) to allow for a ~20 minute settling of trub. I think I'm still tramuatized from when my immersion chiller detached from it's cold water hose, adding about a gallon of water to my freshly-finished beer.

I already have a chiller and stuff in the top so my lid doesnt fit on my kettle very good anyway but itll keep some stuff out. Thats crazy about the water incident. Thats why i put two hose clamps on each end of my chiller. Dont want to take any chances

 

[carpathia]

Had a thought:. Would there be a downside to freezing a bunch of weight plates instead of using 40 pound bags of ice to chill my cooling water down, besides potential for rust? I have to imagine steel of an equal weight of water has a same/similar thermal mass as water, but not involving the expense of buying ice from the gas station every time.

 

[SHAIV]

Had a thought:. Would there be a downside to freezing a bunch of weight plates instead of using 40 pound bags of ice to chill my cooling water down, besides potential for rust? I have to imagine steel of an equal weight of water has a same/similar thermal mass as water, but not involving the expense of buying ice from the gas station every time.

Dude what i just started doing is refrigerating a lot of tap water since i have more refrigerator space than freezer space. I have a 5 gallon water bottle and then use a bunch of gallon bottles. We use gallon jugs for babys formula milk so i have plenty. Even used a keg full of water once. I start with a cooler full of fresh tap water then once it gets down some i add cold water. I dont recirculate till its around 100. Only use about 15 gallons to chill a 5 gallon batch with an immersion chiller

Edit
I used to freeze some water jugs and collect ice from my freezer in bags and keep extra ice in the freezer but yeah i think i like the refrigerated water better

 

[carpathia]

I have plenty of freezer space; the fermentation chamber is generally free if I'm brewing anyway. Fridge space not so much. I guess thermal mass is thermal mass though, right?

 

[SHAIV]

I have plenty of freezer space; the fermentation chamber is generally free if I'm brewing anyway. Fridge space not so much. I guess thermal mass is thermal mass though, right?

Ah yeah. I dont like having an empty ferment chamber... I still want to try no chill one of these days. i should have done that with my brown ale i just brewed. Oh well maybe ill try it with my next non hoppy beer.
Cheers, happy halloween

 

[RevFrank]

Nice brew! A question for lager brewers, can you force carbonate at the same time you are Lagering your brew or should it be 2 separate activities?

 

[SHAIV]

Nice brew! A question for lager brewers, can you force carbonate at the same time you are Lagering your brew or should it be 2 separate activities?

I think i watched a beer smith podcast with chris white about pressure fermentation like last year maybe. They were talking about traditional lagering vs pressure fermenting at around room temp. Basically they said you can make a lager quicker by pressure fermenting i think and depending on the yeast strain itll still give you the good lager character. Some yeast strains can handle pressure better than others iirc