What I did for beer today

[seatazzz]

Not sure what you may have tried in the past for the sheeting but I have used Bar Keepers Friend, Blue Wolf, and if the sheeting fits in the oven, stick it in there on self-clean. These I have used on old cookie sheets. Caveat being those suggestions are guided by what the sheet my be made of.

SOS pad and a lot of elbow grease got it clean. Thinking my new valve/bulkhead combo might be leaking a smidge, another project for later today.

 

[JAReeves]

Brewing the Scottish Export recipe from @Brewbuzzard. Smells so bready, I can’t wait to try this.

I’m not a fan of heavy malt beers, and I guess my past experience led me to believe Scottish beers were sickly sweet. After trying a sampling of Scottish-style beers from TotalWine, I now understand how it can be malty and dry at the same time.

so, goals.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I'd be very interested in the recipe for the Pre-Prohibition Pilz if you don't mind sharing?

I'm kinda new to the Pre-Prohibition Pils thing, I've made them in the past, but mostly forgot about the style for a decade or more. Out of boredom, I made one last winter. I liked that beer a lot, so I then spent the spring, summer and fall on a Pre-Prohibition bender. I've gone through seven iterations to get to the following recipe, it's still evolving on the margins, but I think the primary parts are in place. At this point I'm mostly just goofing around with the details, because that's what homebrewers do--we goof around with the details.

OG: 1.050-60 (1.057 seems to be the sweet spot for me, it's substantial without being "big")
IBU: 35-45 (the low side of the range will make for a more elegant beer that really shows off the malt and corn, the higher side of the range will let the Clusters shine through--despite their reputation, they're a nice hop!)
FG: 1.008-.0010

Hochkurz mash with soft water. I typically use phosphoric acid, but lactic acid seems to agree with this recipe.

80% German Pils
20% Corn (flaked or grocery store quick grits)
Clusters at 60 (1-1.5oz to match your desired IBU
.5 oz Clusters at 20
.5oz Clusters at 10
1-2oz of "best hops" at 5. Historically brewers would reserve their best (often imported) hops for the last addition. I've used Hallertauer, Spalt, Tettnanger, Saaz, and Clusters. All make a nice beer, I'm partial to the Spalt, Tett, and Clusters. Just pick one. Clusters really surprised me. I've avoided using it for years because it's always described as course, unrefined, or even just plain bad. However, if you keep your water soft, Clusters is a very pleasant hop.
Ferment with 34/70 using the modern lager method, start at 50F then ramp gradually toward 60F after the gravity hits the halfway point.

Over the summer, I made a couple with 10% rice replacing 10% of the Pils and I backed off the IBUs toward 35. This resulted in a lightened, more elegant beer, that made an excellent summer sipper.

The obnoxiously large version that I'll make next month will ramp the gravity up to 1.070, substitute 10% of the pils malt for 10% 6-row, and ramp up the IBUs to match the gravity. I may use a portion of Magnum hops for bittering just to cut down the amount of vegetable matter in the kettle.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Last night I made an English AK inspired hop bomb. Added in about a pound total of First Gold, Bramling Cross, Progress and Archer pellets. BU/GU ratio about 1.50 and calculated ~100 IBU. I'll dry hop after the initial fermentation drops down. The grist had 5% flaked corn, which in my experience can support a much higher IBU than those without.

I have a single keg set up in a fridge, so I'll bottle these in able to have one when the thirst for something hoppy strikes. My palate doesn't like the C hops or most of the new world hops, so if I want a powerful hop taste, I brew it myself.

 

[Redpappy]

After seeing that my co2 is running low on my 10lb tank, I decided to buy a 20# tank. Not sure what I’m going to do with the 10# now, but couldn’t resist- $30.00 to fill 10# up and $32.00 for the 20#.... cleaned 1 keg, getting it ready to be filed Friday with a winter spice ale.

 

[Elric]

Setup another gas connection in my keezer. So now I can carbonate my dunkel while it is lagering while I still have my three other kegs on gas and tapped.

 

[Rudeoso]

Bottled and kegged 10 gal. Batch of weizenbock and transferred 3 one gallon wine batches to secondary

 

[winestorage]

I brought my brand new Beer Fridge for my home. It works fine right now and i really enjoy my beer so much.

 

[ba-brewer]

Keg My Cloudy Beer yesterday, looked like a Hefeweizen and so did the SG hydro sample that I put in the fridge to judge if it would clear on it's own. I will give it a few weeks then see if magic happens, if not I will hit with gelatin.

Been doing a starter built up from slant for a couple days now, did the last step today. Hoping to crash tomorrow and put it to work the day after.

 

[ba-brewer]

Last night I made an English AK inspired hop bomb. Added in about a pound total of First Gold, Bramling Cross, Progress and Archer pellets. BU/GU ratio about 1.50 and calculated ~100 IBU. I'll dry hop after the initial fermentation drops down. The grist had 5% flaked corn, which in my experience can support a much higher IBU than those without.

I have a single keg set up in a fridge, so I'll bottle these in able to have one when the thirst for something hoppy strikes. My palate doesn't like the C hops or most of the new world hops, so if I want a powerful hop taste, I brew it myself.

I have multiple kegs and taps but I am thinking about bottling some beers again. I have a british yeast library like you and trying to keep all of them healthy is getting trying. I have been trying to whittle down the number but it is hard to choose so I am thinking I might start doing smaller batches I will bottle to verify the yeast is still good/not contaminated. Hoping this will help get more variation in beers too.

I have some wlp026 I am think I might use for a English IPA. Plan to use a bit more hops then my normal bitter, but I dont think I will use a pound. How large of a batch was your AK?

 

[JAReeves]

Bottled the 12 Beers of Christmas-West Coast: Honey-Ginger IPA. Tomorrow, packaging, and in the mail Thursday!

 

[kmarkstevens]

Tried my cyser experiment and found it to be good! I've been playing half assed with cysers for a few years. For various reasons, i've been trying to do a semi-sweet cyser without resorting to back sweetening or acid blends or adding tannin powder and playing with various yeasts (that all eventually ferment down to 1.000 or lower FG).

So, a month ago, the local Costco had fresh pressed apple cider with no preservatives from Oregon. I grabbed about 6 gallons. It was cheap and tasty. Also grabbed 5# of Costco pure honey. Made 5 gallons, pitched Nottingham, aerated multiple times, a dash of yeast nutrient (and some dead bread yeast), and threw it in the garage with ~50-65F ambient temperature. One month later, it was down to around 1020. So I keg it, roused the yeast and let it spund around 70F for 2 days. No noticeable carbonation and I put it on CO2.

Have had 3 glasses tonight so it ain't bad. Honestly, this is about what I have been questing for. Lightly carbonated, prolly 1015 semi-sweet, and has both apple and honey flavor. This is prolly my MO going forward, ferment down but not all the way, keg and drink as it ferments toward dry. Checks off on my palate boxes....

 

[JAReeves]

Finished boxing up the 12 Beers of Christmas for shipping tomorrow.

 

[Rudeoso]

Cleaned 4 kegs i received yesterday and brewed 19 gal batch of AHS Texas Red

 

[Rudeoso]

Correction, 10 gallon batch. Guess those Deschutes DIPA are taking a toll

 

[BrewMan13]

Kicked my milk stout, so cleaned the line, and put the Baltic porter on. This also freed up the space to put the smaller keg of wheat wine in the kegerator as well.

 

[Rudeoso]

Bottled some wine, transferred more wine and mead to secondary, dealt with some blow-off on both fermentors from yesterday's brew and enjoyed a Big Black Jack from Oakshire Vintage

 

[seatazzz]

Had major plans to do two batches of lager this weekend, but this morning decided to pass on today's brewday; I've had a monster headache since Wednesday, and Thursday started with body aches; yesterday fatigue and lassitude set in. Might be the 'rona, or just a garden variety cold; I don't have a fever, no breathing issues (except I'm a stupid smoker). I did set the ferment fridge down to 40 to start the two in there crashing, should be able to keg by tonight if I'm feeling up to it. I HATE being sick. If I'm feeling better by tomorrow I might do a rare 10g batch instead of two 5g batches; my equipment can handle it, but my back isn't looking forward to hauling a super-heavy wet grain bag out of the mash tun.

 

[ba-brewer]

@seatazzz, 1/2 is better than not being able to brew at all because of a messed up back. Hope you get well soon.

 

[JAReeves]

So far today, made a Perry and a Blackberry Cider.

 

[seatazzz]

@seatazzz, 1/2 is better than not being able to brew at all because of a messed up back. Hope you get well soon.

Feeling much better this afternoon, so went ahead and milled grain (24lbs, horey clap) for tomorrow. I can always beg the husband to help me lift the bag, or I might just scoop out as much wet grain as I can until I can lift it. Still have the headache, but no body aches anymore and less fatigue; might also be due to the fact that I just did more in one hour than the last two days, what with weighing grain, milling it, and dumping out the leftover water in the keggle from last week. Bonus, I now have two empty grain bags to dispose of the spent grain. If I wake up feeling like sh*t tomorrow I'll just leave the grain in the sealed tun and save it for next weekend.

 

[Toto's]

Hello guys,
It's been a while i haven't done any beer so today i brewed 2 batchs of beer. An Oktoberfest and an american pilsner. 5 gallons each.
Also today i ordered some upgrade pieces to add a whirlpool to my boiling kettle and so ordered as well enough ingredients to brew 3 more batch of beers!!!
I guess i am preparing for the summer lol

 

[ba-brewer]

Feeling much better this afternoon, so went ahead and milled grain (24lbs, horey clap) for tomorrow. I can always beg the husband to help me lift the bag, or I might just scoop out as much wet grain as I can until I can lift it. Still have the headache, but no body aches anymore and less fatigue; might also be due to the fact that I just did more in one hour than the last two days, what with weighing grain, milling it, and dumping out the leftover water in the keggle from last week. Bonus, I now have two empty grain bags to dispose of the spent grain. If I wake up feeling like sh*t tomorrow I'll just leave the grain in the sealed tun and save it for next weekend.

Glad to hear you are already feeling better, getting sick sucks. Especially these day when you have to worry if it is more than just a cold. Sounds like you have options and a plan for the heavier than usual grain.

 

[bracconiere]

well, i filled my shopping cart on morebeer. looked at $112 bucks. said to myself, it's been a while since i brewed with homemalt. so i knocked $100 off that, threw some barley in the old maltin' tub.

 

[Pkrd]

Exchanged 3 sodastream bottles for my rolling kegerator. Also picked up some PVC pipe while at the hardware store to make tidy mount for a bottle.

 

[BeBetterBrewing]

Brewed the Lunar Shock extract kit from more beer. Quick easy. Black Friday sale from more beer. Built the fermentation station.

 

[Immocles]

Bottled a talus hopped pale ale this morning. Impulse bought the hop from YVH awhile back and it was excellent going into bottles. I tossed a gallon into my uKeg to get to drinking it quicker, and bottled about 17. Its fruity with something I cant put my finger on completely. Something sort of wood/herb/floral. Someone with some actual skill and better process could do some serious work with it, I bet.
Also set up my TiltPi. Thank god for my wife, or I'd given up after about 10 minutes. Still took awhile, but she did the heavy lifting. Now to buy more tilts...

 

[ESBrewer]

Mashing a strong bitter right now.

 

[Leapsandbounds]

Just mashed in a cream ale.

 

[Deadalus]

About 11:30 last night I remembered that I had an idea to fit the shank collars better on the bushings of my pipe faucet tower. It's a 2"x1/2" bushing which has sort of a hex nut on the face of the bushing. The collar won't slip all the way over it. I originally wasn't sure if I liked the SS collars but thought I could put a washer to fill the gap. Anyway, I had the idea to use a bench grinder to round off the hex nut. So that's what I was diing around midnight! I guess it wasn't too loud as no family members said a word about it today. Worked out too!