What I did for beer today

[seanjwalker1]

Transferred that last 2 gallons of a 3 gallon batch of brown ale to the 1.75 gal keg, washed, sanitized both kegs with PBW and then Starsan using the Mark II auto keg washer and God how I love that thing ! Kegged the Blue Moon clone. Both are cold crashing in the Kegerator, hopefully tomorrow will be cold enough to start carbonating, both have carb stones. I need this ready by Sat when my high school buds stop in town.

 

[brewbama]

Dry hopped my ‘Tropical Bitter’ this AM. It’s an Ordinary Bitter with Amarillo for bittering, 1 oz each Necteron, Moutere, Eclipse, and El Dorado in a 30 min 140°F whirlpool and 1 oz each Necteron, Moutere, Eclipse, and El Dorado in a three day active fermentation dry hop.

 

[seatazzz]

Continued on my journey titled Why I am Pissed Off at My New Fermzilla. Brewed a blonde last weekend, on Notty, that wound up with just oo-scoobs of acetaldehyde. This morning dumped some proven Notty slurry in the thing, put the airlock back on (after removing the spunding valve and post for it) and hoping for the best. The googles has LOTS of information on pressure fermenting lagers, but not much on ales; yes, probably my bad for not researching better before jumping in. After spending about $135 (with shipping) on that expensive wad of plastic, I'm going back to fermenting a lager in a keg this weekend; mainly because the blonde needs another few days to finish.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Checked the carbonation of the Blue Moon clone. Yep, she's ready !!! The orange peel mellowed out nicely.

 

[seatazzz]

Well, it happens. The Blonde ale in the Fermzilla got dumped today. It just didn't want to work; gravity got stuck at 1.020 and tasted horrible. Tried adding yeast, nope. Warmed it up, nope. Chalked it up in the mistakes column, and will start fresh on Sunday, this time in a fermonster not under pressure. Saturday I'm brewing up a lager in the fermzilla; I've had really good luck with those so far fermenting in the keg, at 12-15psi with a big starter, so I'm fairly confident it will do fine. Other than the issues with trying to ferment the blonde under pressure (probably way too high), the only other thing I can think of that may have done it in is lack of sanitation; I was in a bit of a hurry when I transferred from the BK to the fermenter and may have skimped on 1) cleaning the floating diptube completely, and 2) getting the entire lid assembly sanitized. Who knows, I'm just going to give it another go. What's the definition of insanity, again?

 

[ba-brewer]

@seatazzz, It seems if you had an contamination in your blonde it would not of stalled but would of over attenuated.

I have only done a few a pressure ferments but they seem to take longer to finish vs non-pressure ferments. I have a spunding valve with the output run into starstan so I can tell it is still slowly working for a week or more longer than my normal process.

Also the definition of insanity is a valid approach to many types of fishing.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Well, it happens. The Blonde ale in the Fermzilla got dumped today. It just didn't want to work; gravity got stuck at 1.020 and tasted horrible. Tried adding yeast, nope. Warmed it up, nope. Chalked it up in the mistakes column, and will start fresh on Sunday, this time in a fermonster not under pressure. Saturday I'm brewing up a lager in the fermzilla; I've had really good luck with those so far fermenting in the keg, at 12-15psi with a big starter, so I'm fairly confident it will do fine. Other than the issues with trying to ferment the blonde under pressure (probably way too high), the only other thing I can think of that may have done it in is lack of sanitation; I was in a bit of a hurry when I transferred from the BK to the fermenter and may have skimped on 1) cleaning the floating diptube completely, and 2) getting the entire lid assembly sanitized. Who knows, I'm just going to give it another go. What's the definition of insanity, again?

Insanity, Tazz, is an airlock that never bubbles !!!

 

[leedspointbrew]

Bottled the latest Sabro IPA.

 

[day_trippr]

Swapped out a kicked keg and swapped in two neipas that were all carb'd up and ready to go. For the first time since I started brewing again after the 18 months off for the spinal fusion thing I have all six taps in my keezer occupied by beer!

Decided tomorrow would be a good day to brew something approximating the Ballantine IPA that was my first beer 6 decades ago (I was 12 iirc and my father's brother sneaked me a full bottle ). Been trying to cobble a recipe together from fragments, hopefully it'll at least remind me of that beer. So I programmed my RO system to fill the brew rig, got all the grains ready to grind first thing in the AM, measured out the strike and sparge liquor salts, got a pair of carboys sanitized and a pair of kegs ready to purge.

Split up a 5L 1056 starter into three pitches, two for tomorrow and one to store. Three 1318 pitches are keeping them company

Wrapped up the day with the first pour of my Galaxy neipa. Came out great!

Cheers!

 

[grampamark]

Pulled FG samples of the Cream Ale and Mosaic Blonde that have been in primary for the last two weeks. Will be kegging tomorrow so I will have HB again.

 

[vtmikko]

I bottled a batch of hefeweizen. FG few points higher than planned.

 

[Ragman]

Local homebrew club did a group brew with our local brewery, an English IPA. Today i took my 5 gallons of beer and transferred to secondary - on top of hops, vanilla and Tea bags. We will see how it works out.

 

[day_trippr]

Struck at 9:30 this morning, immediately ran into 6 pounds of flaked corn gluing the mash solid. Eeep!

Stirred the heck out of the mash, then slowly restarted the circulation. Hung in there while the mash slowly clarified, running smoothly now thankfully!

[edit] Post mash-out fly sparge. So far so good!

I am so due for a time-wasting screw up!

[edit2] Pre-boil nailed and safely in the kettle, picked up one SG point along the way...

Cleanup time...

[edit3] All gassed up and ready to go!

Hit my volumes and gravities (+1 OG point) and managed to get through the whole brew without an unforced error!

Cheers!

 

[JAReeves]

Got some work done before heading to MIL's to help her out. Sanitized keg that turned out to be moldy on the inside, kegged the smoked porter

and kegged the Muscat kit that fermented on 7oz. of whole-leaf Cascade. It's like 9.5% Grapefruit Juice.

Tomorrow, clean fermenters and prep for the next brew day.

 

[T Murph]

7 oz Cascade, man I bet that gets your attention.

 

[JAReeves]

7 oz Cascade, man I bet that gets your attention.

If you didn't know it was wine+hops, you'd think I found a way to ferment grapefruit without blowing off all of the flavors. It really is amazing.

 

[day_trippr]

Not a whole lot to do for beer today. There was some Post-Brew Day "Put Things Away", some thinking about the next brew (probably another batch of Julius clone), and did take a peek at the Ballantine IPA ~18 hours post-pitch. Looks like a prototypically fluffy1056 start

Cheers! (Almost time for a beer! )

 

[seatazzz]

This morning moved the lager in the fermzilla to the kegerator to start crashing; had to take a keg out (Mosaic IPA, it's okay but not spectacular so I'm not too fussed about not having it on tap for a couple of days). No room to chill a keg to transfer it into; no problem, will just finish out the last lager and use that. Oops, bit more beer than I expected in said keg. So I either have to drink a LOT tonight (have nothing else to do but laundry) or put it off a day. 2 pints down and it's still pouring great. Hmmm.

 

[mattman91]

Newest version of my German Pils. Down to 1.010.

I did a (single) decoction mash this time vs a single infusion mash on the last one. Also lightened up on the flavor/aroma hops. Interested to see how that changes it.

 

[day_trippr]

I have to revise my earlier post as I decided to do my 15th bath of Julius clone tomorrow and spent the last ~hour getting everything ready for a morning strike...

Cheers! ("Life Is Too Short To Pass On A Brew Day" )

 

[day_trippr]

Off and running with a 9 AM strike on a Julius clone....

[edit] Made it to whirlpooling time. So far so good. Did discover unaccounted for minutes, like heating to a boil after fly sparging (almost 30 minutes)...

[last edit] Hop Stopper did another good job lautering the kettle with a crapton of hop pellets...

Filling carboys...

Pitched and gassed up and ready to rock next to the Ballantine IPA.

Only drama was I apparently murdered my trusty refract and had to drag my triple scale hydro out. Nailed volume and OG so it's all good. If the refract won't calibrate I won't be sad getting a replacement, I bought it so long ago I can't even remember...

Cheers!

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Had standing water and mold in the bottom of my keezer. I shut it down, pulled out my kegs, scooped out the water/mold (**vomit emoji**), sprayed everything down with vinegar, and gave it a good scrub. Everything is back in there, along with an industrial-sized DampRid bucket. Hopefully that will keep it dry.

I need a brew day.

 

[ba-brewer]

Kegged my best bitter and sparkling ale yesterday, today I kegged my Czech-ish lager. That fills the pipeline but I have another couple kegs about to kick so it will be short lived.

 

[hopfenstopfen]

first time using canned wort & first starter in over a year. Been enjoying dry yeast lately.

 

[Rish]

Wrong thread!

 

[grampamark]

Put together a recipe kit for a Cali Common to take to the city house tomorrow.

 

[seatazzz]

Been force carbing the PF lager the last couple of days; tonight it was ready to tap. Needs a few more days to really settle out, but besides being the lightest ABV beer I've ever brewed (clocked in at 4.9%) it's pretty good. In a bit I'll use some of the 3lbs of DME that arrived in the mail today to do a starter for Saturday's cream ale; just can't get enough of that style since I started brewing it a month or so ago.

 

[JAReeves]

Yesterday, cleaned 3 fermenters before picking up the youngest on his last day of school and having a celebratory lunch.

 

[Brandon Yu]

First time mashing with a sous-vide which I already use for cooking.
OMG, makes life so easy hitting and maintaining mash temp. GAMECHANGER! I didn't do the boil with it, but regular electric stove, but maybe next time.

 

[Beerstein]

I brewed a double IPA yesterday. Cleaned the mash pot out today.

 

[seatazzz]

Averted what might have been a major disaster this afternoon. Moved my blonde ale from the ferment fridge to the kegerator, as the ferment fridge wasn't cooling fast enough. Placed my hand on the center part of the ferment fridge when I stood up, and almost burned myself. Ouch! Quick check with the temperature gun showed 160°!!! Holy crap! So I pulled the fridge out, took off the back panel, and found the condenser fan motor to be burned out; one of the fan blades broke off and jammed it. Surprised the compressor was still working, it was so hot. Put a small fan back there to cool everything down and fridge is unplugged for the duration. Amazingly, Amazon has the correct part number in stock (have to order fan and blade separately, the fan blade attaches with a ridiculously complicated compression thingie that breaks easily when you try to take the blade off) and is costing me about $110. Will be here on Sunday, which is putting the kibosh on brewday tomorrow; but if I can fix my precious ferment fridge, I'm willing to wait. It already has an aftermarket 3-in-1 capacitor doomahatchie for when the compressor starter capacitor thing went out (don't you guys love it when I talk all tecknical and stuff).

 

[day_trippr]

It already has an aftermarket 3-in-1 capacitor doomahatchie for when the compressor starter capacitor thing went out

Stop! You're getting me all excited here!
Good for you for diagnosing and taking on the repair

Cheers!

 

[Langerz]

I finally made my way to Toppling Goliath and had an Assassin

 

[seatazzz]

Yes I already posted here today, but I'm sitting here tonight with my brain sploding. Bit of backstory; for the last several years (with a few exceptions, as when I take the brewery on the road) I've been using water from my oh-so-convenient water heater for my strike. Have gotten some cr*p for that from a few circles, but it gets me to strike temp fast and I have made many wonderful (some award-winning) beers with it. Water heater is less than 5 years old, water from it tastes good. A few brews back I got it into my head that I needed to start using cold water from the kitchen tap for brewing; had to be better. Well.....NOT. The last few beers have turned out very dry, even with higher mash temperatures (152-154) than I usually use. Even making some adjustments with what I had available didn't make a difference, up to and including 2tsp of lactic acid. Preboil gravities were several points lower than beers made with the hot water. The PF lager I'm currently sipping on is technically a good beer, but way dryer than I like. After some thinking, and much reading of previous notes, it's the water. No other changes were made to the process, or to proven recipes I've done many times before.

I'm not just saying this because these are my beers, that I tend to like a lot more than what I can get commercially; I like a fuller-bodied, maybe a tad sweeter, beer. Not sweet like sugar or cloyingly sweet like molasses, but just a tad more sweetness on the tongue. You'd think I'd get that by softening the cold water, right? Well, no. I do not know exactly what it is, but the beers I make with water from the heater are just, well, better. I'm sitting here tonight, next to my soon-to-be-repaired ferment fridge, repeating ITS THE WATER DAMMIT. I still have two in the kegerator from before I changed my water, and they are MUCH better (even the 2-month-old Wit) than the lager I have in my glass right now. Yes, lager will improve with time, but time will not change the dryness of it very much.

Damn.

 

[leedspointbrew]

Yes I already posted here today, but I'm sitting here tonight with my brain sploding. Bit of backstory; for the last several years (with a few exceptions, as when I take the brewery on the road) I've been using water from my oh-so-convenient water heater for my strike. Have gotten some cr*p for that from a few circles, but it gets me to strike temp fast and I have made many wonderful (some award-winning) beers with it. Water heater is less than 5 years old, water from it tastes good. A few brews back I got it into my head that I needed to start using cold water from the kitchen tap for brewing; had to be better. Well.....NOT. The last few beers have turned out very dry, even with higher mash temperatures (152-154) than I usually use. Even making some adjustments with what I had available didn't make a difference, up to and including 2tsp of lactic acid. Preboil gravities were several points lower than beers made with the hot water. The PF lager I'm currently sipping on is technically a good beer, but way dryer than I like. After some thinking, and much reading of previous notes, it's the water. No other changes were made to the process, or to proven recipes I've done many times before.

I'm not just saying this because these are my beers, that I tend to like a lot more than what I can get commercially; I like a fuller-bodied, maybe a tad sweeter, beer. Not sweet like sugar or cloyingly sweet like molasses, but just a tad more sweetness on the tongue. You'd think I'd get that by softening the cold water, right? Well, no. I do not know exactly what it is, but the beers I make with water from the heater are just, well, better. I'm sitting here tonight, next to my soon-to-be-repaired ferment fridge, repeating ITS THE WATER DAMMIT. I still have two in the kegerator from before I changed my water, and they are MUCH better (even the 2-month-old Wit) than the lager I have in my glass right now. Yes, lager will improve with time, but time will not change the dryness of it very much.

Damn.

That's really interesting; unfortunate for your last couple brews, but genuinely interesting. Another totally unexpected temperature-related variable to take into account.

 

[JAReeves]

Emptied out the mulch bin onto the hops and grapevines. Gonna be a stinky few days, but it's worth it!

 

[ba-brewer]

Yes I already posted here today, but I'm sitting here tonight with my brain sploding. Bit of backstory; for the last several years (with a few exceptions, as when I take the brewery on the road) I've been using water from my oh-so-convenient water heater for my strike. Have gotten some cr*p for that from a few circles, but it gets me to strike temp fast and I have made many wonderful (some award-winning) beers with it. Water heater is less than 5 years old, water from it tastes good. A few brews back I got it into my head that I needed to start using cold water from the kitchen tap for brewing; had to be better. Well.....NOT. The last few beers have turned out very dry, even with higher mash temperatures (152-154) than I usually use. Even making some adjustments with what I had available didn't make a difference, up to and including 2tsp of lactic acid. Preboil gravities were several points lower than beers made with the hot water. The PF lager I'm currently sipping on is technically a good beer, but way dryer than I like. After some thinking, and much reading of previous notes, it's the water. No other changes were made to the process, or to proven recipes I've done many times before.

I'm not just saying this because these are my beers, that I tend to like a lot more than what I can get commercially; I like a fuller-bodied, maybe a tad sweeter, beer. Not sweet like sugar or cloyingly sweet like molasses, but just a tad more sweetness on the tongue. You'd think I'd get that by softening the cold water, right? Well, no. I do not know exactly what it is, but the beers I make with water from the heater are just, well, better. I'm sitting here tonight, next to my soon-to-be-repaired ferment fridge, repeating ITS THE WATER DAMMIT. I still have two in the kegerator from before I changed my water, and they are MUCH better (even the 2-month-old Wit) than the lager I have in my glass right now. Yes, lager will improve with time, but time will not change the dryness of it very much.

Damn.

Water heaters get mineral build up over time which could make that water softer(less calcium) compared to straight from the tap. They have cheap water test kits for aquariums that would give you a basic idea on how the two waters differ.

Where I live the source of our water changes seasonally so I went with building my water from RO to keep thing consistent.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Swung by the LHBS. Picked up malted and torrified wheats, Vienna, Mittlefruh, and some WLP066. Brewing up a wheatwine, but that's a different thread.

 

[MaxStout]

Since I was in St. Louis Park for a doc appt a couple days ago I decided to stop in to Midwest Supplies afterward for a few items, including a bottling bucket. The old one is getting kind of grungy. Didn't buy a spigot as I have a couple extras in a drawer at home. Got home and found that the hole in the bucket is 7/8" but my spigot needs a 1" hole. Good thing I have a set of Forstner bits. Had to get the bucket ready because today was bottling day. I like the new bucket better, as it is more translucent and I can actually watch the beer level as I go.

Bottled 10 gallons of IPA which was split between two Brew Buckets. Just a basic IPA, using some leftover grain and hops. Pitched US-05. On brew day I racked a little under 6 gallons of wort into each. After fermentation was complete I dry hopped with 4 oz. into each fermenter. I used to use dry hop bags but this time decided to let the pellets free-range in hopes of getting better aroma. I was able to rack just under 5 gallons from each, as I was left with about a gallon of trub/hops residue in each Brew Bucket. Don't care and I expected as much. Ended up with 95 12oz long necks. I carbed a little on the low side in case I get some hop creep. Had better than expected efficiency on brew day and OG was 1.070; FG 1.011, so almost 8% ABV!

I was getting things ready for cleanup in the downstairs utility room. My wife walked in, saw what was in the bottom of the Brew Buckets and almost horked. It didn't help when I suggested we have it on biscuits tomorrow morning.

 

[WestMichiganSteelheader]

Damnit, I dropped one of my favorite pint glasses. What is even worse, it was full of beer.