What came in the mail for you today?

[Bramling Cross]

2lbs each of EKGs and Fuggles arrived earlier this week. After looking at satellite pictures of the UK and thinking that "this green and pleasant land" looked a lot like Eastern Oregon, I decided to top up my stocks. Coupled with what is already in the freezer, I should be good for two seasons of enthusiastic UK brewing, four if I mind my hops and lean on Willamette, etc.

I also received 6lbs of #3 invert sugar. I'm not proud of that. I realize that I should be making my own, but I hate doing it and I'm a grown up and I make enough money that I'm okay with wasting fifty bucks (yes, I spent fifty bucks on sugar) to avoid that onerous task. Yeah, I admit it, I'm a weenie. You're welcome to call me names and laugh at me. I deserve it.

Lastly, ascorbic acid powder arrived. I've become a big believer in this stuff at kegging time. Now that I've become used to it, I recently kegged a blonde w/o it, just to check. Yeah, there's a difference.

 

[TwistedGray]

An awesome porch bomb from @Section1 with homebrew and commercial offerings. Unfortunately one of the cans blew its wad along the way. I’ve never seen that happen before.
Thank you so much. I like your new labels too.
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Fruited beer?

 

[Smudgey]

Nothing. And it's 10 weeks since I ordered an RO system from a very legit looking site. On googling 'Tru Water Scam' there are dozens suckers like me still waiting

Against all odds this RO arrived recently! I'd given up on it, and it was getting close to the 4 month charge-back cut off. I guess Cheap, Fast, Quality: pick 2 holds true. It's good enough. 4 filters and takes a morning to fill 10G and produces about 16G waste at my tap supply pressure, which is less waste than I expected. My TDS measures 60 on the tap, 2 after filtering and the waste about 140 so it even seems to work!
Water isn't high minerals to start with, it's just variable and a variable I want to get rid of!

 

[grampamark]

Base malt from Morebeer. 50 lbs each 2 row and Pilsner. Another box, with some Munich and Caramel is supposed to arrive tomorrow.

 

[Squirrels]

A 15 gallon barrel came today for me!

 

[grampamark]

The rest of my grain order from Morebeer showed up a few minutes ago. Was supposed to be here 2 days ago. That’s FedEx’s fault, not Morebeer’s. When there are only 1 or 2 deliveries this far out in the weeds, their contract drivers don’t want to drive the extra 50-60 miles round trip. The tracking report shows “unexpected delay, no estimated delivery date“

Morebeer did screw up the order, but not enough to be worth fussing about. I had ordered 50lbs of Pilsner and 25lbs of Munich. I received 45lbs of Pils and 30lbs of Munich. None of it will go to waste.

 

[Section1]

Received a great surprise in the form of a box on my porch today from @camonick today. Really appreciate it and thank you. They are all in the beer frig cooling now.

 

[Beekeeper]

Yes, this is what I received TODAY. Only a year and a half past its expiry.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Actually they can say it's not expired. It only has a Best By date, not an expired date. Nasty little way companies get over.

 

[Section1]

Got some grain in today, there was some yeast but not pictured as its in the frig.

 

[grampamark]

This came on Friday. A hydrometer and refractometer to replace the two hydrometers I managed to break last week.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I’m curious as to how well that thing works. It looks and sounds interesting! Please let us know once you use it and how you like it. That’s neat

I installed the kegstopper keg edition in the 6gal Torpedo keg yesterday and racked the beer out of the cold crashed fermenter and onto the loose hops in the Torpedo/kegstopper dry hopping keg.

Right away I realized that things were compromised. The bottom of the Torpedo keg is domed upward into the vessel. This isn't ideal as the kegstopper is designed to lay flat on the bottom of its vessel. Here’s the dome with the keg’s spear bent into the center of the keg to accommodate the hopstopper filter.

I opted to go ahead. Here is the kegstopper filter installed against the domed bottom of the Torpedo keg.

I filled the keg with idophor and pushed it out with CO2, then tossed in 1oz each of Cascades, Amarillo, and Citra. Tried to get a picture, but all you can see is a cloud of CO2 gas.

I pulled a sample just a few minutes ago. What was a semi-clear WCIPA yesterday has become an unintentional NEIPA. Thankfully, the beer appears to flow. Whether or not a full five gallons will flow will have to wait until tomorrow or Tuesday.

Fingers crossed.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I’m curious as to how well that thing works. It looks and sounds interesting! Please let us know once you use it and how you like it. That’s neat

I gave the WCIPA in the 6gal Torpedo keg equipped with a hopstopper keg edition a try when I got home from work today and decided it was time to push it into its serving keg.

To my relief, this went off without a hitch. I racked the beer over as slowly as my manifold would allow. When it was clear that I was going to get the fullest keg of dry hop beer I have ever managed, I decided to give it the beans, just to see if I could clog the filter. It ran at 20psi for about 15 seconds before it blew beer out the PRV.

I've killed the white whale, I've managed to overflow a keg with dry hopped beer.

With the transfer over, I realized that there was still a reasonable quantity of beer left in the 6gal keg. "Looks like I get to have a little treat tonight," I thought. I poured a pint off the 6gal keg...and that's when it struck me. This isn't like guzzling bonus beer off the bottom of the fermenter on kegging day. This beer is kegged! I can give it some gas and enjoy it for as long as it lasts. Neat!

Here's a picture of the pint that I drew off the dry hopping keg:

Stuff I think I've learned, albeit after only one run on this rig--which means I'm a total expert:

1) Heavily hopped beers aren't very efficient, but the 6gal keg/hopstopper rig makes them more efficient on the cold side of the brewing process by limiting cold side losses to hop absorption and eliminating the limits imposed by a 5gal dry hopping keg. Hop absorption can't be helped, but given that the keg's spear needs to be kinked to accomodate the hopstopper when installed in a Torpedo Keg's domed bottom, that's a pretty big dead space, in keg terms. Maybe 2-3 pints? Still, it's a tangible gain over the other methods I've used. By using a 6gal keg, I blew dry hopped beer out of a PRV! That’s amazing!

2) Unfortunately, this rig sucks off the bottom of the dry hopping keg. I'm not sure how you don't lose some clarity with this method, unless you really cold crash your fermenter for a week or more. This beer was cold crashed at 38F for three days prior to transfer and turned into an unintentional NEIPA.

3) I made a mistake when I racked off the cold crashed fermenter by adding finings to the dry hopping keg. I did that partially out of habit, but I also figured that anything that I could fine in the dry hopping keg was material that didn't need to be fined in the serving keg. That's floating dip tube thinking. In retrospect, that was dumb. I think you're just wasting finings in the dry hopping keg. Unless you can get the hopstopper to float.... Yeah, I'm thinking about that.

4) Based upon my experience with the hopstopper kettle filter, I'm confident that the keg filter will work, going forward. This is, by far, the best dry hopping rig I've ever used.

5) The beer is wildly hoppy, both in flavor and aroma. I think having free-swimming hops makes a difference.

 

[Hammy71]

What came in the mail? Latest Hop Direct Order... Woohoo

 

[earachemyeye69]

And a sack of barley

 

[BongoYodeler]

Not today, but a few days ago, Mr Fed Ex delivered the Jaded Hydra I ordered. Looking forward to using it.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Not today, but a few days ago, Mr Fed Ex delivered the Jaded Hydra I ordered. Looking forward to using it.

Been reading about those for a couple of years. Too big for my 3 and 5 gal batches. My little ol Silver Serpent does the job.But Sweet !! Congrats

 

[Section1]

Got this in the mail today. Ranked up to Proficient Brewer on the Master Homebrewer Program.

 

[SlobberinDog]

Not today, but a few days ago, Mr Fed Ex delivered the Jaded Hydra I ordered. Looking forward to using it.

I LOVE my Scylla!!! It’s amazing how quickly that thing takes heat out of wort

 

[SlobberinDog]

Got this in the mail today. Ranked up to Proficient Brewer on the Master Homebrewer Program.
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That’s no small feat! Congrats! I might join this as well, it’ll force me to get over the crippling fear of having my beers judged lmao!!! Have you found it difficult finding comps to submit your beers to or how do you go about it?

 

[Section1]

There seems to be plenty of comps and they are listed on the AHA website and also on MHP website. It's been fun entering the comps but at least with MHP the beer score counts even if I didn't medal. Also get me brewing beer I would probably not have done before. I've enjoyed it.

 

[bleme]

Not today, but a few days ago, Mr Fed Ex delivered the Jaded Hydra I ordered. Looking forward to using it.

I timed mine a couple weekends ago and it went from boiling to 180F in 1 minutes, 130F in 2 minutes, 108F in 3 minutes. I have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and when I was brewing with him a few months ago, his pump went out so he couldn't use his plate chiller. We popped in my hydra and he was blown away by how much faster it worked. Sometimes I wonder if there is magic in play...

 

[BongoYodeler]

I timed mine a couple weekends ago and it went from boiling to 180F in 1 minutes, 130F in 2 minutes, 108F in 3 minutes. I have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and when I was brewing with him a few months ago, his pump went out so he couldn't use his plate chiller. We popped in my hydra and he was blown away by how much faster it worked. Sometimes I wonder if there is magic in play...

This time of year our tap water is around 81 degrees. While I'm sure that the initial temperature drop will be quite quick, getting down that last 15-20 degrees will take some creative thinking.

 

[bleme]

This time of year our tap water is around 81 degrees. While I'm sure that the initial temperature drop will be quite quick, getting down that last 15-20 degrees will take some creative thinking.

Definitely! Though the summer I used kveik yeast so only needed to get down to 100F. The rest of the year, I usually stall around 85F and move it to a freezer to chill the rest of the way. I have considered using a pre-chiller but that would mean severely throttling my flow unless I splurged on another hydra. My next attempt, I think I will loop my hose (about 50 ft) in an ice bath. I have no idea how much heat will transfer through the hose, but it is worth a shot.

 

[seanjwalker1]

My 1.4 gal siphonless Little Big Mouth Bubbler for mad scientist brew Experiments. And for just bottling 1 gallon batches instead of kegging all the time. Have not bottled much in 3 years. Tons of glass and PET bottles feeling left out and forgotten.

 

[Gusso]

This was in my mailbox today...

 

[DBhomebrew]

Wife bought herself an inflatable hot tub. Meh. Wife subsequently bought a decent pH meter for said tub. Score!

 

[JAReeves]

Wife bought the wrong bag of rice at Costco, so when life gives you lemons...

 

[z-bob]

A new hummingbird feeder that I ordered 2 weeks ago from Amazon. (the old one was getting overrun by bees and yellowjackets, mostly yellowjackets, so I wanted one they can't get into) I think the last hummer left a couple of days ago; that's the last time I saw her. But it's satisfying seeing the insects trying to steal the nectar and can't get to it I will leave it up for another week or two in case there are stragglers migrating through.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Definitely! Though the summer I used kveik yeast so only needed to get down to 100F. The rest of the year, I usually stall around 85F and move it to a freezer to chill the rest of the way. I have considered using a pre-chiller but that would mean severely throttling my flow unless I splurged on another hydra. My next attempt, I think I will loop my hose (about 50 ft) in an ice bath. I have no idea how much heat will transfer through the hose, but it is worth a shot.

I also deal with hot ground water and while I've never tried that...that isn't going to work.

Here's how I fixed the issue, cheaply.

Buy a cheap immersion pump, this is the one I use.

Next, locate a five gallon bucket. You're a homebrewer, you have many of these. Last, you'll need some tubing and the appropriate fitting to connect the output side of your pump to the input on your chiller.

On brew day, you chill as normal with your hot ground water until you approach diminishing returns. Once that is accomplished, you place your immersion pump in your five gallon bucket, then run just enough waste water off of your chiller into your bucket to prime the pump. With this done, fill your bucket with the appropriate volume of ice.* Next, you place the exhaust hose from your chiller into your bucket of ice water and attach the pump to the input on your chiller. Lastly, you turn on your pump.

You're now chilling your batch with a closed loop of recirculating ice water. Your temps will plummet, especially if you have a whirlpool rig. It's really easy to overshoot your pitching temp, especially with ales.

I hope you found this useful. It's an issue that I struggled with for years and now that I'm using this method, I feel like I'm getting away with a fast one whenever I brew in July or August.


*During the summer, when I keep the faucet of my shower all the way to the left, I use 10lbs of ice to chill to ale pitching temps and 20lbs of ice to hit lager pitching temps. That's an added 3-5 bucks per batch. That's not an inconsequential figure, but I'm happy to pay it if it allows me to use the yeast that I want to use, pitch that yeast without delay, and brew the beer I want to drink.