beer RocketMan goes a brewing

I have been collecting the necessary equipment to brew beer for a couple of months and Friday I picked up the last of it. The guy at the brew shop even threw in a Coopers Real Ale kit for free since I was just starting. It's a prehopped kit that will most likely not be that great but hey I thought this would make a great practice run before I brews the real thing. So on the way home I stoped by the Home Depot cause they have 5 gallon food grade platic buckets for under $3.00 and got a couple of other items and then by Wally World for some Apple Juice and now I have this in the office:



On the left is 5 gallons of what will become a dry Hard Cider. The wife can't handle malt beveragers very well but does enjoy a good Cider. It will go for about 2 1/2 months total. After a good 7 to 10 days in the primary I plan to rack it to a secondary and dry stick it with some Cinnamon Sticks.

On the right is the 5 gallons of Ale that will be ready to bottle in about 10 days and then bottle condition for another 2 weeks.

Next up is the MAIN EVENT

Tony05 was kind enough to share with me his recipe for an English Brown Porter. It's going to be a Partial Mash so stayed tuned...

Cheers ,
RM

Just curious....
Who said that the orange buckets are food grade?
I was told by the manufacturers, Encore Plastics and Argee Corp., that only white HDPE buckets are food safe.

~Dig

It's worth another look to be sure!!

Check the code on the bottom of the bucket. According to that code it's food grade. I'm not the first on here to use them. I got the idea from fineexampl's homebrew project.

Hmmm...when I called them I was told specifically...."if it's our bucket and it's white and it's HDPE...it's food safe...colored HDPE buckets are not."

I guess I'll have to call them again.

~Dig

thats why you use glass, or 304 stainless

but this should be interesting

wheebz said:

thats why you use glass, or 304 stainless

but this should be interesting

Click to expand...

Yes, I've always used glass carboys for fermenting.
I use the food grade pails for storing barley.


~Dig

I'm saving for some glass carboys. Since these are cheap and had the right code I figured what the heck give them a shot. The beer is working up a storm now and I'm watching foam moving through the blow off tube. Cider not so much. I used Champagne yeast in it and figured it may take longer to get going sinced it has to work for 2 1/2 months Also there's about a 6 hour difference between when each one was racked.

It's the next one I've been looking forward to though and I have a proper Ale Pale for it.

Cheers everyone!
RM

champagne yeast is fine, just make sure its over 68 degrees

and you realize, your initial fermentation should still only take 7-10 days, you have to rack it off to a secondary for the cider for the remainder of the time

Yes Sensei, planning to bottle the beer and rack Cider to Secondary in 10 days.

Thanks though

Have a great 4th Everyone
RM

Neat....love the air-lock method. Hope the hard cider works out, my favorite drink!

Probably the reason why they say only the white ones are safe for foods is probably because those are the only ones that they have had certified seeing how thats what most cafeterias and food storages use. The big concern of course would be is the orange dye used with the NT resin and it's affects if leached into the food, or fluid. I don't think it'll be an issue in this case. I'm not familiar with the orange dye for HDPE, I've worked with HDPE piping for 6 years and all the stuff we mold is black and some of it is used in both drinking water and sewage lines.

Found this from someone who looks like he knows what he's on about - "Here is the distinction: The "food grade" designation is determined by plastic purity by and what mold release compound is used in the injection molding process--not by the plastic itself, since all virgin HDPE raw material is safe for food. For paint and other utility buckets, manufacturers sometimes use a less expensive (and toxic) mold release compound. For food grade they must use a more expensive formulation that is non-toxic. Unless the buckets that you bought are are actually marked "food grade", (or, marked "NSF", "FDA", or "USDA" approved), then you will have to check with the manufacturer's web site"

I guess the other issue is the fact that there is a chemical reaction of sorts taking place within a fermentation bucket which may or may not react with the plastic. You could always buy those large turkey broasting bags and line the buckets, that would be cool I guess.

Personally I'd do exactly what you're doing. If I spent 5 bucks extra on a fancy bucket, knowing my luck I'd get hit by a bus the next day.

@roose That's an excellent point! and never thought about it but we have always used a food grade silicone product on our molds.

TONY05s ENGLISH BROWN PORTER

Today I'm brewing an English Brown Porter recipe that Tony05 was nice enough to share with me. The ingredients are:

Grain/Extract

4 lbs Light DME
4.5 lbs Maris Otter
13 0z Crystal Malt
9 oz Chocolate Malt
3 oz Black Patent Malt

Hops

2.5 oz Willamette AA: 4.3
.5 oz Kent AA: 5.3

Yeast

WYeast 1098 British Ale

My brew pot is only 3 gallons so last night I sanitized the fermenter and boiled 3 gallons of filtered water. After a 20 minute boil I added it to the fermenter and placed it in the fridge to cool off overnight. Not having a proper Mash Tun I decided to use a technique I read about on the Aussie Home Brew web site. They call it Brewing In A Bag. I placed the Marris Otter in a Nylon bag and into the brew pot containing 2 gallons or filtered water at 155 degrees F for 60 minutes.



It held its temperature for about 25 minutes and then I had to warm it up some. 3 times I agitated it some using just some up and down motion with a potato masher. At the same time I was steeping the specialty grains



In 2 qts of filtered water at 150 degrees F, they were steeped for a total of 30 minutes then the grain sock removed and drained well.



I also started the Smack Pack of yeast going and added it to 2 liters of Wort to get it woken up and working.

When the mashing / steeping process was complete and all grain bags were drained they were combined and the SG taken: 1.043. The wort was brought to a boil and watched for the Hot Break about 17 minutes into the boil the foam died down and no solids were noted. 2.5 oz of Willamette was added and the 60 minute boil time started.



45 minutes later I added .5 oz of Kent for the last 15 minutes of the boil



Boil complete and the brew pot was moved to an ice and water bath in the sink.



Then 35 minutes later Temp was down to 85 degrees and I added it to the water in the fermenter. Temperature was measure at 82 degrees and the OG was taken: 1.056.
Here’s a shot of the wort after the OG was taken. Taste was Malty sweet with a very heavy hoppiness.



Moved to the office where the other 2 were and:



Top: 5 Gallons English Brown Porter
Bottom Left: Hard Cider
Bottom Right: Coopers Real Ale

Lessons Learned:
1. After the boil is achieved I need to lower the setting of the burner by 2 to prevent boil over s.
2. Need to get a bigger brew pot which can handle a 3 gallon boil.

Ok wheebz, how did I do? What did I do right and where did I screw up? The good news makes you feel better but only with the constructive criticism does the bad become good and the good become the best.

Ya know RocketMan if you're sick of FL you can always move to south TX so you can brew me up some of that mouth watering goodness!!

Jonny5 said:

Ya know RocketMan if you're sick of FL you can always move to south TX so you can brew me up some of that mouth watering goodness!!

Click to expand...

Actually we just left central Texas, San Antone to move here.

haha well then!

Looking nice, RM!