• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

What I did for beer today

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
No brewing this weekend, this morning, I emptied the trub
from my session IPA and added the dry hops.. took ingredience inventory and
I chilled a "few" home brews ( coffee porter, dry stout, Irish red , black Ipa and citra/ mosaic Ipa) in anticipation of my grandsons and son inlaw coming for Easter dinner, the good news, the hard liquor didnt get touched, the better news is I'm going to have brew next weekend- i dont know what until I inventory my losses!
 

Attachments

  • 20250420_181058.jpg
    20250420_181058.jpg
    729.2 KB
Brewing a 5% ABV version of my 8.5% all-Citra hazy today. Mash volume is so small I had to add an extra 2 quarts of strike liquor to reach the MLTs Brewmometer...

20250422_091051.jpg


Onwards!

[edit] Pushed the recirculating mash duration until it wasn't gaining gravity points, now doing a quart per minute fly sparge.

20250422_114954.jpg


[edit2] Runout went really well, end of runnings gravity was just 7 points (pH held below 5.4 to the end). Pre-boil at 40 points vs predicted 37.

HLT and MLT cleaned and buffed, on to the boil!

20250422_131837.jpg


[edit3] Whirlpooling hops @170°F, all is still going good!

20250422_142024.jpg


Should be home free! 😊

[wrap up]

My Hop Stopper V2 earned its keep today, kept the hops out of the carboys without causing issues of its own.

all_your_citra_session_1_5.jpg


Carried the bonus points all the way to the carboys, the forecast 47 point OG ended up at an even 50, for a theoretical 5.4% brew - if the FG hits the predicted 1.009.

Pitched, ionic-zinc'd, gassed up with O2, and stuffed in chamber 1 and ready to rock!

all_your_citra_session_1_6.jpg


Cheers!
 
Last edited:
Got some faucet covers for the summer to keep the fruit flies at bay (along with a few cool traps, apple cider vinegar, some chopped fruit, and a few drops of dish soap in a ramekin or small cup with Saran wrap, punched with holes).

Put together a six gallon Czech Premium Lager recipe and weighing grains... (Milled. READY! ).
 
Last edited:
Getting ready to bottle tomorrow night, washed a bucket full of bottles and sanitized 56 of them with Idofor, prepped the botteling station, just need to sanatize my botteling bucket, caps and related gear tomorrow night..
Bottles are washed with PBW on the outside and scrubbed with a brush internally and placed in a rack in a slop sink, then rinsed with a low pressure hot water wash inside and out.after their rinse, They are then dried externally with a dish towel and placed on the bottle rack where a pump sprays a warm mixture of idafor for 3 or 4 minutes in them 8 at a time,once done, they are moved to the botteling staging area to dry internally and be filled..as equiped, botteling is a pretty straight forward and painless process.
 

Attachments

  • 20250423_195547.jpg
    20250423_195547.jpg
    688.2 KB
  • 20250423_194842.jpg
    20250423_194842.jpg
    443.1 KB
  • 20250423_191411.jpg
    20250423_191411.jpg
    507.7 KB
  • 20250423_191206.jpg
    20250423_191206.jpg
    664.2 KB
Got some faucet covers for the summer to keep the fruit flies at bay (along with a few cool traps, apple cider vinegar, some chopped fruit, and a few drops of dish soap in a ramekin or small cup with Saran wrap, punched with holes).

Put together a six gallon Czech Premium Lager recipe and weighing grains... (Milled. READY! ).
"Put together a six gallon Czech Premium Lager recipe." What is the difference between a non-premium and your premium?
 
"Put together a six gallon Czech Premium Lager recipe." What is the difference between a non-premium and your premium?
Using BrewFather software and read thru the lengthy description of the style.
This was the top match of my recipe to a defined style. Basically .. a little more bready, complex, malty than basic Czech Lager... ABV for the style is 4.2-5.8%. Bitterness is healthy but not over powering.
 
Knocked out a 5.5 g batch of Czech Lager - excellent brew day, finished before 11:15 am. All of it including clean-up and storage. And it began to drizzle at 11:30am.

Also saw a used 50 L Speidel Braumeister on FB marketplace. (V2, not current model). Crazy deal. Includes a Jaded chiller, Speidel fermenter and 2 SS BrewCube tables ... For $600. About 15 min away. Anyone have experience with these Mercedes level AIO systems from Germany? The new ones go for +$3000. Yikes.
 
Knocked out a 5.5 g batch of Czech Lager - excellent brew day, finished before 11:15 am. All of it including clean-up and storage. And it began to drizzle at 11:30am.

Also saw a used 50 L Speidel Braumeister on FB marketplace. (V2, not current model). Crazy deal. Includes a Jaded chiller, Speidel fermenter and 2 SS BrewCube tables ... For $600. About 15 min away. Anyone have experience with these Mercedes level AIO systems from Germany? The new ones go for +$3000. Yikes.
No experience with one, allz I know is Speidel doesn’t make crap. I’d grab it up, if I didn’t already have a gently used grainfather.
 
No experience with one, allz I know is Speidel doesn’t make crap. I’d grab it up, if I didn’t already have a gently used grainfather.
Just sent him a text to check it out over the weekend. I wanna see one in the wild at the very least - and also figuring I can sell some of the accessories and lower the total outlay. I think I will also want the smaller mash pipe and the low oxygen kit which bumps up the price by $500. Add wifi? Another $432? Really?
 
Hm, yeah. With Wi-Fi one doesn’t have the hassle of staying in the same room as the rig, or going back to check on it in person. What a pain, why even brew?
The wifi add-on makes it easier to update the controller. Some of the older models had issues with not being in Celsius and kicking temperature errors. Easily fixed with the update. Via wifi. D'oh.
 
The wifi add-on makes it easier to update the controller. Some of the older models had issues with not being in Celsius and kicking temperature errors. Easily fixed with the update. Via wifi. D'oh.
I apologize if my sarcasm was perceived as an insult in anyway. That was not my intention. Over $400 seems pretty steep for the conveniences I had mentioned. Updates would be pretty important. 🍻
I’m going on a walking brewery crawl today, so I’ll call it research for upcoming brews. Later I’ll be injecting gelatin into a keg that’s been lagering. That’s the plan anyway.
 
I apologize if my sarcasm was perceived as an insult in anyway. That was not my intention. Over $400 seems pretty steep for the conveniences I had mentioned. Updates would be pretty important. 🍻
I’m going on a walking brewery crawl today, so I’ll call it research for upcoming brews. Later I’ll be injecting gelatin into a keg that’s been lagering. That’s the plan anyway.
I wasn't insulted at all. More a matter of sharing why I might be foolish enough to get a $400 wifi unit. Haha.
 
Brewed up a different version of the House NEIPA this morning; nothing but flameout hops, then will get a hefty dry hop addition after a few days. Brand spanking new wilser bag got a hole in it, from the long brewvision probe; very tiny hole that I can fix, but made me cranky. So I dug through the random brewery parts bucket and found the shorter probe, that unfortunately does not thread into the thermowell of my BK. Hmph! Off to the local hardware store for a 1/2" to 1/4" reducing bushing, and voila (french for 'look I did something') no more pokey-out probe to make holes in my amazing wilser bag. Tested with 8g of water and the stick thermometer, no leaks and it jives. Now I just need more grain....
 
Washed a couple kegs, installed a Flotit 2.0 in my remaining keg that still had a conventional floater, kegged the Panther Piss Bum Strength, remembered that fresh pitches of dry yeast off the Balentine/Chico family tree are kinda laggy, but growled at the fermenter containing yesterday's APA anyway.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, so after all the consumption of adult beverages yesterday, rather than injecting gelatin into a lagering keg I promptly took a nap once home. So that’s what I did today and put away fresh malt from an East Coast maltster. I’m eager to do some side by side SMASH brews to compare these, with others (not too old) I have on hand.
 
Today I brewed a wheat beer called Day Tripper (I.e. got a good Weizen) to use up my grains in Brixham.
15 litres
1500g Maris otter
1000g Wheat malt
300g Biscuit malt
300g Carapils
50g Acid malt
25g Challenger at 45m
25g Cascade at 15m
1 protafloc at 15m
150g Dextrose at 10m
CML Gretel at 24C
OG 1.053
Did you ask @day_trippr, to use his Handle for your beer name?
What Wheat malt did you use? I want to use unmalted wheat for my next weizen, but the long cereal mash needed and the time it takes... But then, I do not seem to be happy with the use of Flaked Wheat in the past, as I never hit my OG expected as I do with all other 100% malt beers.
I'm looking for a Forum here that brewers compare different wheats and the end results..... Came across this one
 
Did you ask @day_trippr, to use his Handle for your beer name?
What Wheat malt did you use? I want to use unmalted wheat for my next weizen, but the long cereal mash needed and the time it takes... But then, I do not seem to be happy with the use of Flaked Wheat in the past, as I never hit my OG expected as I do with all other 100% malt beers.
I'm looking for a Forum here that brewers compare different wheats and the end results..... Came across this one
I used malted wheat as I do in all my wheat beers. I use Torrefied wheat in bitters for head retention but only 200ish grams.
 
I finished the Maibaum decoration after the sandstorm passed. The theme is beer, nothing else. Many German towns may also celebrate different trades.
 

Attachments

  • Maibaum 2025 (2).jpg
    Maibaum 2025 (2).jpg
    502.2 KB
  • 20250428_210356.jpg
    20250428_210356.jpg
    989.8 KB
  • 20250428_205842.jpg
    20250428_205842.jpg
    1.3 MB
  • 20250428_205509.jpg
    20250428_205509.jpg
    824.6 KB
  • 20250428_205318.jpg
    20250428_205318.jpg
    1.3 MB
  • 20250428_205235.jpg
    20250428_205235.jpg
    918.8 KB
  • 20250428_212537.jpg
    20250428_212537.jpg
    1.3 MB
Super busy beer morning. Cleaned all the beer lines and got faucets soaked, sanitizer and detailed. Sparkly clean.

Bottled up an English bitter that had low efficiency issues on brew day (ended w. pre-boil gravity of 1.03 vs expected 1.04) . That'll happen when you are adding too much sparge water misreading the markers on the kettle. Thankfully ... I calculated what I needed to fix it in the boil (added brown sugar) and got it dialed at 1.039 post boil gravity. Yes. Anyway ... All kegged up and cooling one corny, the other conditions in the closet with his buddies Mr & Mrs Stout.

Took the final OG of the bitter and it came in where I like, 1.003. Nice and dry. ABV right on target.

I have been without my English "must have" brown ale for 10 days. Should be enjoying it fully carbed in a few days.
 
Last edited:
Super busy beer morning. Cleaned all the beer lines and got faucets soaked, sanitizer and detailed. Sparkly clean.

Bottled up an English bitter that had low efficiency issues on brew day (ended w. pre-boil gravity of 1.03 vs expected 1.04) . That'll happen when you are adding too much sparge water misreading the markers on the kettle. Thankfully ... I calculated what I needed to fix it in the boil (added brown sugar) and got it dialed at 1.039 post boil gravity. Yes. Anyway ... All kegged up and cooling one corny, the other conditions in the closet with his buddies Mr & Mrs Stout.

Took the final OG of the bitter and it came in where I like, 1.003. Nice and dry. ABV right on target.

I have been without my English "must have" brown ale for 10 days. Should be enjoying it fully carved in a few days.
You're busy, I haven't even had coffee yet! Still trying to wake up.

Good for you though, keep busy!
 
Kegged up my Hazy DIPA. Warm sample smelled absolutely stupendous, so hopefully it's going to be a great been in ten or so days when the worst of the hop burn has mellowed out.

Sadly was a bit down on volume, lost quite a bit more than planned to my 240g dry hop! Something about super powdery Strata seems to absorb a huge amount of liquid and drop down very slowly compared to both the Nelson and Citra.
 
I decided that it's okay to get mad at MoreBeer's Cellar Science house label. I brewed a 1.047 APA on Saturday and pitched a single satchet of Cellar Science CALI. Monday rolls around and nothing is going on. No biggie, it's a Chico yeast, they're a little slow on the first pitch. Tuesday rolls around and still nothing, so I pitched another sachet. On Wednesday night nothing was still happening, so I tossed in a third sachet. When I got home tonight, I was greeted by no movement on the gravity and zero activity, so I pitched a sachet of Verdant in an effort to rescue this fiasco.

In Cellar Science's defense, all three sachets were one year past their expiration date, but when is that ever an issue with dried yeast? Their Baja yeast ruins beer and their CALI yeast can't chill in the fridge for five years. They won't be earning any further sales from me. Why use CALI when you can get BRY-97 for almost a buck cheaper at Label Peelers?
 
Back
Top