• 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.
Hung out at the LHBS for a couple hours while they did the weekly instructional brew session and shared a couple bottles of a trappist style ale I made. Came home with fresh ingredients and brewed an american pale ale. (Used 1oz Chinook @ 60 mins, Chatoe Rogue @ 15 mins, and will dry hop 1oz Cascade in secondary). During boil, racked my coffee stout into secondary. Will be clearing space in the closet tomorrow for all these bottles that a buddy gave me.
 
Unpacked an order from Amazon containing a Taylor Panel Mount Digital Thermometer, a Johnson Controls Electronic Temperature Control device and seven books: How To Brew by John Palmer, Designing Great Bees by Ray Daniels, Brewing Classic Styles by Zainasheff and Palmer, Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski, as well as three more from Classic Beer Styles Series - Altbier, Mild Ale andGerman Wheat Beer. In addition I also cleaned several bottles which were returned to me. Then I began reading the Designing Great Beers book.
 
Unpacked an order from Amazon containing a Taylor Panel Mount Digital Thermometer, a Johnson Controls Electronic Temperature Control device and seven books: How To Brew by John Palmer, Designing Great Bees by Ray Daniels, Brewing Classic Styles by Zainasheff and Palmer, Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski, as well as three more from Classic Beer Styles Series - Altbier, Mild Ale andGerman Wheat Beer. In addition I also cleaned several bottles which were returned to me. Then I began reading the Designing Great Beers book.


Watch out for the Taylor thermometers. They're pieces of junk.
 

So...the idea was to transfer from the cold-crashed, fancy new stainless brew bucket through the liquid post on the keg directly onto the hot gelatin mixture after co2 blanketing the keg...relief valve open...blah blah blah.

Blanketed the keg, bled the liquid side line of air, snapped it onto the keg without venting the keg pressure from the last blanketing and with the fermenter valve open. I instantly kicked up 5 ounces of settled hops, yeast, crap and shot the gelatin into my fermenter. Flipped the relief valve and hard clogged everything!

I had to back pressurize the keg into the fermenter three different times and also pressurize the fermenter to get it unjammed and flowing.

Would have been a clear beer...
 
Brewed the MoreBeer Pliny the Elder kit. I thought the house smelled as great as it ever has; pure hoppyness. My wife did not agree. To each their own, I guess.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Toasted 2-row malt. I attempted to replicate a Golden Malt, by toasting dry malt at 350°F for 15 min. I also attempted an Amber Malt, by toasting dry malt at 350°F for 25 min. Both toasted malts, have a pronounced nutty aroma/flavor.

I recommend more people try this at home, when you have the time. For my next attempt, I will try less heat, or less time, but either way, I'm excited to try them soon. The more roast/toast, the longer they need to rest before being used. The recommended rest time is a month, to two months, in a brown bag. This helps rid the off-flavors, from toasting.

P.s. I saw this on a few different blogs, and followed the instructions on barleypopmaker's beer blog. "home toasting your malts".

IMG_0718.jpg


IMG_0722.jpg


IMG_0720.jpg


IMG_0740.jpg


IMG_0739.jpg
 
Similar to toasting above, I tried to make some crystal/caramel malts, also. I soaked the grain for a few hours, then mashed them for an hour, and finally toasted until dry, to create a sweet caramel malt.

I steeped the grains to show me the color, and flavor, to be expected.

IMG_0723.jpg


IMG_0729.jpg


IMG_0731.jpg


IMG_0735.jpg


IMG_0736.jpg
 
I got some strategic early birthday gifts (see pic). Time to stop underpitching yeast. My future sister-in-law, a bona fide scientist, says the flask is too large to leave unattended on the stir plate. So I'm thinking of building a little wire cage to keep it secure and centered.

1392677607578.jpg
 
Finally tweaked my practice amp stirplate to work perfectly. Almost ripped my hair out in the process but for a grand total of about 8 bucks to build I can't complain ( minus the the flask and stir bar) so stoked!!

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Home Brew mobile app

1392680266744.jpg
 
Bought ingredients for the RIPA I'll be brewing on Saturday. It's going to be a cascade+citra+apollo bomb.
 
Not done yet but about to be.

I'm heading to the brew shop to grab some carboy dryer/stands, fermometers, and an American Light (I know) kit. Also gonna grab some soda pop flavours, gonna experiment with adult hard soda pops.
 
/complain

I bottled a schwarzbier. While my wife was cleaning bottles, I tried to rack it to the bucket, first time I did that without an assistant. While aiming the hose, I shoved the siphon down into the trub and rubbed it along the bottom of the bucket. Now my beers are full of trub and hop ****. Sigh.
 
/complain

I bottled a schwarzbier. While my wife was cleaning bottles, I tried to rack it to the bucket, first time I did that without an assistant. While aiming the hose, I shoved the siphon down into the trub and rubbed it along the bottom of the bucket. Now my beers are full of trub and hop ****. Sigh.

Well, next time you do that, and you likely will, you can put a lid on the bottling bucket, let the trub settle a bit, then start bottling. Leave the trub behind. I have never ever had help with any part of the brewing process. It just takes practice really. The time I hit trub, I just sat for about 10 minutes and let things settle. I did not end up with a bunch of trub in my beer bottles.


@ fin, I haven't created labels. I'm waiting on someone to get to my house. They're now only 4 hours late.
 
Rinsed out the last batch of bottles that have yet to be de-labeled & put into rotation. Bottles from Columbus,The Brew Kettle,Kona,Wernesgruner. And a bomber from Ranger IPA for my collection.
 
Finally ordered the last ingredients to do two batches of beer. Been procrastinating for too long on that. Got setup with brew day math stuff so there is no reason not to brew.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app
 
I'm counting the days till the 28th when I get paid to order some ingredients. That new fermenting bucket is calling to me. Just finished getting all those bottles rinsed.
 
Finished off a keg, cleaned it out, sanitized it, then racked in a fresh batch of IPA. Hydro sample was delicious, f.g. is at ~1.013-1.014.
 
Cleaned and sanitized about 100 bottles.. man I need to start kegging! ! I bottled my roasty parity Gyle... bottled my blueberry hefewiezen and made a yeast starter fir a hoppy wheat I plan to brew Friday. I also cleaned a carboy and fermentation bucket and dropped more bottles into pbw for label removal

Also took a gravity reading from my imperial stout and its phenomenal! About to rack it off on bourbon soaked oak after about a week of clean-up
Sent from richard simmons' living room
 
Kegged my first beer tonight. Even easier than racking to a bottling bucket and done. That's nice. Of course, I don't have to worry about cleaning taps and beer lines either as I am donating it to the Lions Club. I guess the downside is that I don't get to drink it...
 
Cleaned out the keg from my Foothills Hoppyum clone & racked my Porter to a keg for conditioning then cleaned the fermenter.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
My Buddy has this coworker, who is a home brewer, and was given a really nice sour beer. It was barrel aged, and I know it must have been hard to make...

So my Buddy wanted to give him something back, for being so generous, and asked if I'd give him one of my home brews. I said, "Of coarse," and gave him a bottle of my most recent APA. Nothing special, especially when compared to this guy's sour beer, but still I gave it to him anyways.

Turns out that he's a beer judge, possibly bjcp, and he filled out an entire form for me. He gave me a score of 38/45. I was excited to get an opinion, other than the typical "oh, that tastes pretty good". He was spot on, by saying "there was too much malt presence" makes sense because I used two full lbs of Munich, instead of my usual one pound, for 6 gal.
 
I started working on a PM version of a red ale in the recipe forums yesterday afternoon. I think the fella's name is maltilicious. Looked & sounded good for AG. Didn't want to do e/sg,so I puttered around with a pb/pm biab style of the recipe. Got a bunch of new bottles rinsed & dried,so I gotta get these plain bottles de-labeled to add to rotation after removing 4 cases worth of SA bottles.
 
Back
Top