What I did for beer today

[seatazzz]

Not today but last night, homebrew club meeting was a lot of fun. Got to try some awesome beers made with rye (one by our own @doug293cz, was very very good), learned more about bottling, and volunteered for our Iron Brewer challenge due in August. Going to try a wee heavy for the first time in several years. Took my Mosaic IPA for others to try, got some good feedback on it. This morning brewing up a NEIPA with HBC586; made a small batch a while back that was quite tasty. This time using Imperial Loki kveik to see what that yeast will add to it.

 

[Langerz]

Brewing my first stout today. My first brew in true summer heat.

Anyone know a water chemistry calculator that accounts for human sweat dripping into the mash?

 

[Cameronl]

Today I made a hopper for my new Crankandstein grain mill.

The mounting board is from my Barley Crusher which recently gave up the ghost. Had to add a scrap of plywood between it and the mill as the hole for the BC is bigger than the Crank.

The next step is a stand and to add a motor. I have an old general purpose motor with a 10:1 gear reduction for a nice, slow grind.

 

[Knightshade]

Pushed up my new hop inventory into brewersfriend. I didn’t bother getting specifics but this is probably around 80oz of hops that i only paid $10 for. 2022 crop. 4 of those 8oz cans are lupomax varieties.

No..we won’t talk about the cost of homebrewcon, hotel, food, etc., etc.

 

[lumpher]

I let beer live. I'm killing some cider to compensate

 

[seatazzz]

Made some limoncello last weekend and bottled it today. Very tasty, and POTENT. Used some 80 proof Smirnoff vodka instead of everclear (expensive stuff) but just sipping it on ice has me a bit tipsy tonight. Just added a touch to my current lager, and it's delicious.

 

[hout17]

Doing some light reading tonight. Found a nice '39 Boddington's mild recipe lurking among the pages.

 

[leedspointbrew]

Scored a bunch of gear, 1). some known, 2). some with a learning curve and 3). some light reading.

 

[MaxStout]

Ordered some stuff from Midwest. I had recently received a "20% off any single item" card in the mail. But the promo is so riddled with exclusions, I ended up saving a whopping...get ready for this...50 cents!

Hooray for me, I guess.

The grain isn't eligible, so the discount went to the hops. And it was deducted from only one unit of the hops, as I was ordering 4 x 1oz packages (they were out of the larger sizes). So I received 20% off one of the ounces of Saaz--technically one item.

 

[Cameronl]

Ordered some stuff from Midwest. I had recently received a "20% off any single item" card in the mail. But the promo is so riddled with exclusions, I ended up saving a whopping...get ready for this...50 cents!

"What's included in the sale?"

 

[fourfarthing]

Brewed a saison. Then co brewed an IPA with our Homebrew Club at Captain Lawrence on their pilot system.

 

[seatazzz]

Today was a sad day. As so many of us have had to do, I dumped not one but TWO beers; one kegged, and one that never made it out of the fermenter. Kegged beer was my own stupid mistake; the carb stone I had on my carbonation lid was clogged, so I swapped it for another line with a stone on it; that had a questionable hose clamp on it. Beer tasted of nothing but bad metal. The one in the fermenter is another story altogether; I've been plagued with acetaldehyde issues ever since I got the fermzilla. Most likely culprits are too much pressure too early, and temperature a bit high. Both keg and fermzilla now soaking in some warm oxyclean, and I'm drowning my sorrows in grapefruit vodka and sprite. Had grand plans to sneak in a quick brewday tonight but it's too warm out here.

 

[Dgallo]

Today was a sad day. As so many of us have had to do, I dumped not one but TWO beers; one kegged, and one that never made it out of the fermenter. Kegged beer was my own stupid mistake; the carb stone I had on my carbonation lid was clogged, so I swapped it for another line with a stone on it; that had a questionable hose clamp on it. Beer tasted of nothing but bad metal. The one in the fermenter is another story altogether; I've been plagued with acetaldehyde issues ever since I got the fermzilla. Most likely culprits are too much pressure too early, and temperature a bit high. Both keg and fermzilla now soaking in some warm oxyclean, and I'm drowning my sorrows in grapefruit vodka and sprite. Had grand plans to sneak in a quick brewday tonight but it's too warm out here.

That’s a shame. You should invest in temp control, it’s such a night and day difference in your beers. With temp control, you’ll really have no reason to pressure ferment either. You’ll be killing two birds with one stone

 

[seatazzz]

That’s a shame. You should invest in temp control, it’s such a night and day difference in your beers. With temp control, you’ll really have no reason to pressure ferment either. You’ll be killing two birds with one stone

I do have temperature control; a nice ferment fridge with a bayite temperature controller, with a heat lamp. Except for fermenting a bit too high (71°), I don't think that's it. I made an absolutely fantastic pressure fermented lager in a keg fermenter a month or so ago, at 71°, that had no issues whatsoever; and it went grain to glass in 6 days. So all fingers are pointing in the direction of the fermzilla, or too much pressure that stressed the yeast. I can only keep trying!

 

[DBhomebrew]

Got the first step going on waking up a 3-months past date packet of WLP066.

 

[Dgallo]

I do have temperature control; a nice ferment fridge with a bayite temperature controller, with a heat lamp. Except for fermenting a bit too high (71°), I don't think that's it. I made an absolutely fantastic pressure fermented lager in a keg fermenter a month or so ago, at 71°, that had no issues whatsoever; and it went grain to glass in 6 days. So all fingers are pointing in the direction of the fermzilla, or too much pressure that stressed the yeast. I can only keep trying!

Yeah, 71*f shouldnt be an issue especially if your fermenting underpressure.

Acetaldihyde cleans its self up, so I don’t think it’s the pressure or the fermzilla. I think going grain to glass in 6 days is most likely your issue. After pressure ferms I would suggest reducing pressure and still performing a solid d rest, that should clear it up for you.

Either way, hope that issue clears up for you. I used to have acetaldihyde issues early on when I was brewing brewers best kits and listening to their directions to pull my beer off the yeast to a secondary fermenter after 5 days.

 

[hout17]

I do have temperature control; a nice ferment fridge with a bayite temperature controller, with a heat lamp. Except for fermenting a bit too high (71°), I don't think that's it. I made an absolutely fantastic pressure fermented lager in a keg fermenter a month or so ago, at 71°, that had no issues whatsoever; and it went grain to glass in 6 days. So all fingers are pointing in the direction of the fermzilla, or too much pressure that stressed the yeast. I can only keep trying!

I really want to get a fermzilla at some point. I love the functionality they have from what I've read! I'm looking at the new tri-conical over at morebeer. At some point I'll pull the trigger lol.

 

[Rish]

Pasteurized a batch of bottles so they'll be ready for my next bottling day

 

[seanjwalker1]

Yeah, 71*f shouldnt be an issue especially if your fermenting underpressure.

Acetaldihyde cleans its self up, so I don’t think it’s the pressure or the fermzilla. I think going grain to glass in 6 days is most likely your issue. After pressure ferms I would suggest reducing pressure and still performing a solid d rest, that should clear it up for you.

Either way, hope that issue clears up for you. I used to have acetaldihyde issues early on when I was brewing brewers best kits and listening to their directions to pull my beer off the yeast to a secondary fermenter after 5 days.

Sound advice

 

[fluketamer]

not today but for tomorrow i have a busy day planned in the brewery.
1 rack 2.25 gallons of mexican pilsner to the keg. after cleaning sanitizing and purging it.
2 raise temp of my lager to 70 degrees for dar rest
3 dry hop my other pilsner
4 encourage myself to rack my cider to another clean sanitized and purged keg its been on the yeast for at least 3 weeks now
5 drink some beer
6 if all that is done place the brined tuna in the smoker (not beer related but beer associated loosely - smoked tuna tastes great with beer)

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Kegged my American amber ale. The uncarbonated sample was a little more bitter than I was hoping for, but hopefully that will settle out after some time in the keg.

 

[Knightshade]

My first inkbird controller died. Cooling doesn’t work, better than the fridge dying tho. Was for the mini fridge I have in the patio. Glad I checked it prior to making another small batch of tea.

So I ordered another one, some pH calibration fluid, pH probe electrolyte storage liquid and..a TDS meter.

And after listening to the bubbles in the garage ferm chamber, I had to take a peek.

 

[seatazzz]

Raced home from work to get started on the sneaky weeknight brewday. Trying a step mash for the very first time; I've had the ability to do one for quite a while, just haven't been brave enough to try it. And wonderful husband got me the below shirt at Costco; wish we could go!!

 

[day_trippr]

Took a lightning strike wicked close to the house this morning and lost power for a moment which took pretty much everything down. Over the next five minutes or so everything seemed to come back, but when I went to pull a pour from my keezer this afternoon I saw the RaspberryPi that controls the entire cold side of my brewery (3 fridges, a keezer and my tap list) was as down as down gets. SD card had crapped the manger and needed replacement.

Fortunately, I maintain backup cards for all of my (14) RPi systems, and any files that get programmatically updated in place (like my tap list) get backed up to my NAS. So I was able to clone a backup SD card for this system and boot it back to life, then copy back the tap list mysql database and its log files and the other data files that had been updated since the last SD card backup, and everything is back on line.

Clearly, I need to spend an afternoon refreshing my collection of backup cards. Some of the systems have been running without a burp for many years now and the backups are getting stale (2018 last time many were cloned). On the upside, they all share a common base image so it wouldn't be difficult to cobble a card regardless...

(RASPI8 and RASPI10 are deployed at our mountain house doing security camera and environmental monitoring).

Cheers!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Sort of doing something for beer. Found a bag of cashmere cones in the fridge not freezer, and a half oz of lemon drop in the freezer so I’m making my first batch of HB hop water. Bitter AF right now but I can always water it down. LOL.

The smaller pot is the lemon drop “hop dip” More Beer has a video on the process.

 

[mac_1103]

Finally brewing my chocolate milk stout. Made a bunch of dumb mistakes with water chemistry (I need a better scale). And even though this was a "use up all the leftover grains" recipe, it's probably too heavy on the dark malts even for a stout. But I'm thinking it will still be beer.

Edit - My efficiency must be a lot higher than I thought. SG is 1.120! Target was 1.086. Guess I'll top it off a bit. Took a sip of the hydrometer sample, and it really does taste like hopped chocolate milk.

 

[Sammy86]

Made a 3L starter for my annual Birthday Brew on Friday (Birthday isn't until Tuesday).

 

[kurds_2408]

Made a starter this morning. Gonna try a Douglas Fir tip beer I came up with on Friday. Hope it goes well.

 

[day_trippr]

Prepared my carboys for a soft-crash and programmed their BrewPi controllers for 50°F beer temperatures so I can dry hop them Thursday afternoon.

A few hours later I noticed both fridges had decided to do defrost cycles at pretty much the same time, which is weird given the defrost cycles are kicked off by independent thermo-time switches. But we did have that power outage yesterday which would have reset their timers, and there's a good chance they use a standard timer component even though they're different brands, so I guess it makes sense...

Cheers!

 

[Rish]

Bottled a test batch of gingerbread brown ale for 12BOC. Almost done capping when I realized I didn't put the spice blend tincture in the bottling bucket. Guess it's an ungingerbread brown ale now!