What I did for beer today

[jaymosbeershack]

A homebrew first for me tonight. I judged a flight for our clubs big comp this weekend. Had old ales, strong british ale, and british golden. Went well. Judged with a guy that is pretty experienced and was close on score for most beers. Another early judging session on thursday and main event saturday.

 

[seatazzz]

Holy smokes you fixed my timestamp issue! I always wondered why the times were so weird, turns out my default time zone was set to Reykjavik.

So was mine! And here I thought everybody else here was posting stuff in the dead of night....

 

[catdaddy66]

Going to grow a starter of wlp565 (Belgian saison). Also caring for my brown ale brewed yesterday and blonde stout brewed St Patty's day.

I had krausen after 9 hours on my brown after pitching a 1.25L starter (30 hours). Happy birthday to me!

 

[aharri1]

Racked my German altbier into the keg and threw some fresh wet hops on top from the plant and put it on gas to get ready to serve for the beer festival Saturday that my local homebrew is participating in!

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

Bottled a couple of entries for the Hurricane Blowoff competition.

 

[aharri1]

Bottled a couple of entries for the Hurricane Blowoff competition. View attachment 618560

I entered that myself with my Czech black lager!! Good luck!

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

I entered that myself with my Czech black lager!! Good luck!

Same to you [emoji3]

 

[Brewbuzzard]

Attending the 33rd annual Bluebonnet Brew-off.

 

[aharri1]

Watered my plants. Comet is getting thirstier as it produces more cones!

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

Purchased taps and shanks for my not yet done Keezer

 

[seatazzz]

Ransacked the house to count how many 22oz bottles I have available for bottling tomorrow; came up with 34 if I dump a really old batch of raspberry cream ale from last year. So tomorrow will be dumping those, soaking some labelled bottles, and rinsing & sanitizing. NOW I remember why I switched to kegging as soon as I could.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Ransacked the house to count how many 22oz bottles I have available for bottling tomorrow; came up with 34 if I dump a really old batch of raspberry cream ale from last year. So tomorrow will be dumping those, soaking some labelled bottles, and rinsing & sanitizing. NOW I remember why I switched to kegging as soon as I could.

Make sure you taste a couple before you dump them! Might have smoothed into something quite delicious!

 

[seatazzz]

Make sure you taste a couple before you dump them! Might have smoothed into something quite delicious!

Two are in the fridge now. Last time I had one was a few months back, tasted okay but supercarbed. We'll see.

 

[BrewMan13]

Yesterday I helped a homebrewer I met on this forum (who lives super close to me) grind some grain so he could brew this weekend.
Today I dryhopped my red IPA, kicked the wild sour, and cleaned the keg and tapline it was on. Being that it was a sour, I was a bit more thorough than usual in my cleaning.

 

[histo320]

Brewed a Maris Otter Amarillo SMaSH. Only issue was missing my steeping hops temp by 5 degrees but I'm sure it will turn out well.

Getting over a stomach bug so this was the first time I brewed without having any brew to drink. Cant wait to break in my keg system with this one.

 

[Gonefishing]

Brewed a Maris Otter Amarillo SMaSH. Only issue was missing my steeping hops temp by 5 degrees but I'm sure it will turn out well.

Getting over a stomach bug so this was the first time I brewed without having any brew to drink. Cant wait to break in my keg system with this one.

That sounds like it might be good...have you made it before?

 

[Gonefishing]

Worked on my electric brewery today and went from maybe 90% done to 98% done. Tomorrow I'll finish it and brew a 5-gallon Pale Ale.

 

[aharri1]

My homebrew club poured a lot of our home brews to promote our group at the local beer festival!

 

[cochised]

Kegged my SN pale clone
Happy with colour I think
Had a slight off taste at first sip but diminished so think it could be a good one

 

[govner1]

Transferred my Tocobaga clone to kegs. Put in lager chamber to cold crash then cleaned fermenters and transfer equipment.

 

[CJ-3]

Grabbed another case of empty bottles from the local bar yesterday. Removed the labels and cleaned them. One more case to go next weekend.

 

[seatazzz]

Waiting on the priming solution to cool a bit, then the Great Bottling Bash of 2019 is on. Should get at least 26 22's out of it, plus three 12's to save for the Fair and one PET bottle for testing. After it's all done will try to come up with a label for it; in keeping with the brewery name, this one is Hot Road Jalapeno Amber. The boys wanted it super hot, taster nearly took the roof off my mouth. Uck but they're gonna love it.

 

[cochised]

Ordered a pH meter to finally start trying to understand mash pHs etc

 

[histo320]

That sounds like it might be good...have you made it before?

Nope. Been awhile since I brewed and wanted to dial in my process and equipment again.

Fermentation is going albiet pretty slow due to temp being 64 so I had to move vessel.

 

[JAReeves]

Waiting on the priming solution to cool a bit, then the Great Bottling Bash of 2019 is on. Should get at least 26 22's out of it, plus three 12's to save for the Fair and one PET bottle for testing. After it's all done will try to come up with a label for it; in keeping with the brewery name, this one is Hot Road Jalapeno Amber. The boys wanted it super hot, taster nearly took the roof off my mouth. Uck but they're gonna love it.

I love chili beers, so do you mind sharing the process to get so much heat?

 

[seanjwalker1]

Ordered a pH meter to finally start trying to understand mash pHs etc

Good move. I got mine a couple months back. Just find out if someone at your LHBS has a copy of a recent local water report before you fork over Mula for one.

 

[cochised]

Good suggestion.

First 2 BIABs have had bad off tastes which I think are either yeast or water related so trying to whittle down the suspects

Other partials and extracts I've done turned out fine

 

[Schlenkerla]

Searched for a good multi step mash calculator... Brewers Friend is the best I could find.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Good suggestion.

First 2 BIABs have had bad off tastes which I think are either yeast or water related so trying to whittle down the suspects

Other partials and extracts I've done turned out fine

Could be tannins from the sparge..biab is so much smaller than a normal sparge, it's easy to over sparge the grains and pull out more tannins than you want..just a thought

 

[cochised]

2 brews were full volume mashes, no sparging

Had an experienced brewer taste a Citra SMASH I did and he couldn't identify the off taste, but agreed with me that it was downright awful

2nd one was an amber, was much more drinkable but still a hint of the off taste. One could easily finish a pint of it and catch a buzz but I'm looking for a bit more than that

 

[seanjwalker1]

2 brews were full volume mashes, no sparging

Had an experienced brewer taste a Citra SMASH I did and he couldn't identify the off taste, but agreed with me that it was downright awful

2nd one was an amber, was much more drinkable but still a hint of the off taste. One could easily finish a pint of it and catch a buzz but I'm looking for a bit more than that

Was your temp spot on or withen a degree or 2? What was your water source?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Finally got an airlock on my bourbon cask ale and checked the gravity, which has dropped seven points since being transferred. No sour or funk tastes that I can detect which is good because it is not what I was going for.

 

[cochised]

Was your temp spot on or withen a degree or 2? What was your water source?

Temp usually held pretty well, within a few degrees over the hour mash

Water is a private well at my in laws so might end up getting a water test done at some stage

Saying that I used bottled water for at least one of my bad batches

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Yesterday I dry hopped my sour IPA wtih 2oz Zappa 2oz Cashmere 1oz Galaxy and 7grams Mosaic Hop Hash. Will package on Tuesday.

Also made up a batch of JAOM. Also tasted my kombucha which wasn't too tart, dropped the contents of one swanson lacto pill and we will see how she goes.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Dry hopped a Belgian IPA lemon drop... interesting choice, let’s taste what happens.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Temp usually held pretty well, within a few degrees over the hour mash

Water is a private well at my in laws so might end up getting a water test done at some stage

Saying that I used bottled water for at least one of my bad batches

Pretty good you're ticking off the possible causes..still could be a number of things..yeast condition, grains used, even sanitation. I'm a sanitation nut and I've still lost a couple of batches. Maybe take apart your spigots and sanitize the individual parts, could be some little nasties hiding out.

 

[seatazzz]

I love chili beers, so do you mind sharing the process to get so much heat?

Sure. I started with a basic 5g amber recipe (12lbs 2 row and 1.5lbs crystal 40), base beer is about 6%. I added 5 sliced jalapenos at 15 minutes to end of boil, and added 5 more as dry hop when it went into the fermenter. It fermented for 2 weeks at 64. It's still got a nice amber flavor, but plenty of heat and actually some good flavor, not just heat, from the jalapenos.

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

Got my collar stained and then one coat of varnish

 

[cochised]

Pretty good you're ticking off the possible causes..still could be a number of things..yeast condition, grains used, even sanitation. I'm a sanitation nut and I've still lost a couple of batches. Maybe take apart your spigots and sanitize the individual parts, could be some little nasties hiding out.

I'll continue to try and eliminate the various potential causes but seeing as my extracts go ok I'm still convinced its something in my BIAB method

I do need to improve how I use my yeast though so have liquid yeast coming and will attempt my first starter for next brew

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Tonight I will be packaging 5.5 gallons of Sour IPA (Moon Unit SIPA).