beer ASK WHEEBZ
- Thread starter frydad4
- Start date
RocketMan said:
Those festivals are both at massively busy times of year for me ...
We service the state, and the time of the one he's mentioning conflicts w/ some Tour of Homes weekends for communities we do a lot of stone for - making me a game-time decision at best for that one ...
It's a better chance that I could hit the I like it Hot one, unless it's a year where the tourist season starts really early (again) ... I guess it got colder, earlier this past year, because we were already rockin' hard by the time school restarted ...
No matter, I still think it would be fun to just have a bunch of folks over at some point ... maybe the weekend of the Suncoast Offshore Race, actually ... it's half-decent fun around town for a weekend, once a year ...
If all goes well, I'll have a lot of beer, a lot of pods, and a lot of inches^2 of grate space
ASK WHEEBZ -
What are some Google terms for me to poke around for finding fun stuff to brew and which don't require fermentation below say 74F? ...
I rejected the concept of making larger batches for a while, because I want to make more things, but it would be nice to make some stuff that doesn't necessarily require cold fermentation, if it exists ...
And if it really doesn't, than I guess we know where I'm at ... about to buy a fridge or freezer ...
What are some Google terms for me to poke around for finding fun stuff to brew and which don't require fermentation below say 74F? ...
I rejected the concept of making larger batches for a while, because I want to make more things, but it would be nice to make some stuff that doesn't necessarily require cold fermentation, if it exists ...
And if it really doesn't, than I guess we know where I'm at ... about to buy a fridge or freezer ...
Not digging the cooler and water bottle method?
I used the cooler bags for a year before getting a freezer. Won a few medals using them bags.... just sayin. It works with out the expense of a fridge or freezer.
I used the cooler bags for a year before getting a freezer. Won a few medals using them bags.... just sayin. It works with out the expense of a fridge or freezer.
could end up w/ a small chest freezer just to have space for two-liters for multiple bags ...
HigherThisHeat said:
i'm plotting making a spindle shaped structure/shelf to put inside one, so that you can get 8x gallon fermenter's per bag, and a small freezer to manage bottles ...
Lol 8 one gallon... lol just brew a full batch. You're officially out of control with the brewing...... I love it 
We'll definitely have to have a homebrew share when yours are done.
My girlfriend is from and still works in Sarasota, and travels to and from daily... Random fact. So the drive ain't no thang
We'll definitely have to have a homebrew share when yours are done.
My girlfriend is from and still works in Sarasota, and travels to and from daily... Random fact. So the drive ain't no thang
HigherThisHeat said:Lol 8 one gallon... lol just brew a full batch. You're officially out of control with the brewing...... I love it
We'll definitely have to have a homebrew share when yours are done.
My girlfriend is from and still works in Sarasota, and travels to and from daily... Random fact. So the drive ain't no thang
Absolutely ...
Hope the beer "comes out" ... kind of reminds me of dark room processing (film) ...
Well, yesterday I came home with
5 Gallons of Apple Juice
3 Cans of Frozen Concentrate
2 pounds of Orange Blossom Honey
2 Fresh Galas
2 Fresh Granny Smiths
I turned the fresh apples into Apple sauce and dumped it all into an Ale Pale along with a packet of Cotes De Blanc and today it's bubbling happily along. Oh, it had an OG of 1.066.
Might throw a Vanilla Bean or 2 into the secondary, maybe a Cinnamon Stick.
5 Gallons of Apple Juice
3 Cans of Frozen Concentrate
2 pounds of Orange Blossom Honey
2 Fresh Galas
2 Fresh Granny Smiths
I turned the fresh apples into Apple sauce and dumped it all into an Ale Pale along with a packet of Cotes De Blanc and today it's bubbling happily along. Oh, it had an OG of 1.066.
Might throw a Vanilla Bean or 2 into the secondary, maybe a Cinnamon Stick.
wheebz said:
cool, thanks. i was reading about saison dupont last night, actually ...
places opening up like crazy around here ... now there's a WOB downtown, Mandeville Beer Garden opened up across from Darwin's, and I just read about another place opening up in a week or two in that new mall out University ... coupled w/ Beery, WOB (Univ), and Cock & Bull, plus the 3-4 breweries in B-town ... it's like you got a little sumpin' started ...
http://www.bradenton.com/2015/04/08/5733133_gallup-wellbeing-bradenton.html?rh=1
lol.
RocketMan said:
For one batch, or two? ...
RocketMan said:
Cool.
I didn't want to be the guy who ignores all tradition straight away, but the bucking is definitely coming ...
I'm going to make batch of wort (~3 gal) and recirculate it through the grain bed a couple of times (pour through bag), and then divide it into a pair of 2 gal SS pots to run a pair of boils for 1 gal each, and run different hops or different hopping schedules, or one flavored vs not, etc for a while ... one in cold fermentation, one at room temperature ... That way I can have a mash size that works w/ sous vide equipment and run 90 min so I can steal back that time for work-work, and get 2 gals from a session (and a built-in learning experiment each time, so there's always a way to experiment) ...step mash vs constant, etc ...
I can't help it, I love the side-by-side's ...
ASK WHEEBZ (VERIFICATION EDITION) -
I have drawn some conclusions from listening and reading all over the place these past two week, and I want to pass them by you in an effort to not lay down wrong conclusions early ...
1) decoction mashing is kind of a remnant from a time when grains weren't malted as well, or as long, and the use of hot'r water was integral in helping get the starches from the protein matrix. TL;DR - unless you know why you are decoction mashing, don't ...
2) in a modern setting, using modern procured ingredients, it's probably not necessary to have a protein rest in the 115-130F range either, unless you are doing a wheat beer or something that requires it specifically. TL;DR - just do single-infusion mashing between 150-158F unless you know why you are doing otherwise ...
3) there are calculators, but for the most part your initial water should be about 15 degrees higher than your desired mash temp, to be in the ballpark generally speaking ...
4) oxidation is perhaps the next important consideration behind fermentation temperature, and if you aren't kegging and blowing off the oxygen w/ CO2, one might want to remain in primary and only move the beer minimally to bottling bucket w/ sugar-water solution right at bottling ... this one i'm less sure of, but asking it in ? format to learn the answer ...
5) you want to pitch a healthy yeast starter that's well oxygenated because the wort has been fairly depleted by the boil, and you want the yeast to establish itself as quickly as possibly once you move the wort to primary, to decrease the chances of a different organism getting much foothold ... and that yeast nutrients are probably a good idea, not just another product ...
6) in a pinch you can brew across two days if you take the wort to a quick boil for a few minutes, but then pause it overnight, and resume the following day at the boil once more ...
Thanks in advance!
It's shitty when you learn something wrong at the foundational level, early on ...
I have drawn some conclusions from listening and reading all over the place these past two week, and I want to pass them by you in an effort to not lay down wrong conclusions early ...
1) decoction mashing is kind of a remnant from a time when grains weren't malted as well, or as long, and the use of hot'r water was integral in helping get the starches from the protein matrix. TL;DR - unless you know why you are decoction mashing, don't ...
2) in a modern setting, using modern procured ingredients, it's probably not necessary to have a protein rest in the 115-130F range either, unless you are doing a wheat beer or something that requires it specifically. TL;DR - just do single-infusion mashing between 150-158F unless you know why you are doing otherwise ...
3) there are calculators, but for the most part your initial water should be about 15 degrees higher than your desired mash temp, to be in the ballpark generally speaking ...
4) oxidation is perhaps the next important consideration behind fermentation temperature, and if you aren't kegging and blowing off the oxygen w/ CO2, one might want to remain in primary and only move the beer minimally to bottling bucket w/ sugar-water solution right at bottling ... this one i'm less sure of, but asking it in ? format to learn the answer ...
5) you want to pitch a healthy yeast starter that's well oxygenated because the wort has been fairly depleted by the boil, and you want the yeast to establish itself as quickly as possibly once you move the wort to primary, to decrease the chances of a different organism getting much foothold ... and that yeast nutrients are probably a good idea, not just another product ...
6) in a pinch you can brew across two days if you take the wort to a quick boil for a few minutes, but then pause it overnight, and resume the following day at the boil once more ...
Thanks in advance!
It's shitty when you learn something wrong at the foundational level, early on ...
1. correct
2. true, although those temperatures are a little on the high side, and every degree counts with the scale between 145 and 160
3. True, but there are a bunch of factors. On our pilot system, I see a 19-21 degree drop, on our large system, I see 7 to 9 degrees depending on time of year
4. Excessive oxidation can be pretty much prevented by purging out the vessel you are transferring to. I always recommend purging your bottling bucket as well as your bottles, and if you can afford a Beer Gun, get one. Alwayss purge your kegs as well before you transfer to them. Unless you are using sulfites, you still have binded oxygen even after force carbing
5. True, although you want to re-oxygenate your wort as well once it is cooled down before you pitch that starter.
6. That is just asking for HUGE problems on the homebrew scale. I am actually doing it right now for a beer I purposely kettle inoculated with my house "creepy crawly" strain, but I took a lot more measure than just boiling it really quick and letting it sit, and there are A LOT of other factors that go into doing something like that. Summarily, just don't do it unless you want your beer to taste like diapers and cooked corn
2. true, although those temperatures are a little on the high side, and every degree counts with the scale between 145 and 160
3. True, but there are a bunch of factors. On our pilot system, I see a 19-21 degree drop, on our large system, I see 7 to 9 degrees depending on time of year
4. Excessive oxidation can be pretty much prevented by purging out the vessel you are transferring to. I always recommend purging your bottling bucket as well as your bottles, and if you can afford a Beer Gun, get one. Alwayss purge your kegs as well before you transfer to them. Unless you are using sulfites, you still have binded oxygen even after force carbing
5. True, although you want to re-oxygenate your wort as well once it is cooled down before you pitch that starter.
6. That is just asking for HUGE problems on the homebrew scale. I am actually doing it right now for a beer I purposely kettle inoculated with my house "creepy crawly" strain, but I took a lot more measure than just boiling it really quick and letting it sit, and there are A LOT of other factors that go into doing something like that. Summarily, just don't do it unless you want your beer to taste like diapers and cooked corn
slowly getting setup for once I'm through the kits and rolling my own recipe/grain bill in a couple of weeks or so ...
i know i'll be getting a chestie for ferm chamber within the month or what not, but i'm trying to figure out whether i'll want a pair of smaller one's to be able to have two temp's, or a larger one and use devices per carboy within one larger one ...
this weekend i plan to do some spring cleaning, and figure out what kind of space i really have or don't, for it all ... inside vs outside etc ...
because i know myself well, i'm trying to purchase the pieces of kit which work at small or large (homebrew large) scale straight away, so i don't end up w/ a bunch of starter kit taking up space and w/ no re-sale value ...
i will probably go the recirculating chiller + pump route straight away, actually, since it'll be useful for wort chilling regardless of containers/brew method ... time is always my biggest enemy ...
so far i've added a stir-plate and oxygenating tank/regulator/wand, and now a beer gun too =) ...
i know i'll be getting a chestie for ferm chamber within the month or what not, but i'm trying to figure out whether i'll want a pair of smaller one's to be able to have two temp's, or a larger one and use devices per carboy within one larger one ...
this weekend i plan to do some spring cleaning, and figure out what kind of space i really have or don't, for it all ... inside vs outside etc ...
because i know myself well, i'm trying to purchase the pieces of kit which work at small or large (homebrew large) scale straight away, so i don't end up w/ a bunch of starter kit taking up space and w/ no re-sale value ...
i will probably go the recirculating chiller + pump route straight away, actually, since it'll be useful for wort chilling regardless of containers/brew method ... time is always my biggest enemy ...
so far i've added a stir-plate and oxygenating tank/regulator/wand, and now a beer gun too =) ...
good on the stir plates, just make sure you keep it sanitary
oxy is good too
if you want a legitimate wort chiller, find a counterflow plate chiller, expensive but the best thing you could get, might run you 100 bucks, and your ground water there in florida wont cut it, gonna have to figure out a way to get your counterflow water below 50 degrees if not down to 35 or so
temp control is good, although now that I have been doing beers for the past 2 months with no temp control, although all my stuff ferments at 65 in one space, 75 in another, and like 90+ in the boiler room, its not as huge of a deal as long as you do other things right, and thats contradictory compared to everything else I have thought until now
temp control is STILL huge, dont underestimate that, but there are ways to avert that and still make good beer
oxy is good too
if you want a legitimate wort chiller, find a counterflow plate chiller, expensive but the best thing you could get, might run you 100 bucks, and your ground water there in florida wont cut it, gonna have to figure out a way to get your counterflow water below 50 degrees if not down to 35 or so
temp control is good, although now that I have been doing beers for the past 2 months with no temp control, although all my stuff ferments at 65 in one space, 75 in another, and like 90+ in the boiler room, its not as huge of a deal as long as you do other things right, and thats contradictory compared to everything else I have thought until now
temp control is STILL huge, dont underestimate that, but there are ways to avert that and still make good beer
wheebz said:
interesting ... we had a similar experience at my work when we decided to start to make some of our stuff by hand and to not use the CNC's for it ... seemed counter-intuitive, but now we're able to scale our capacity in much more dynamic ways because, well, people are much more dynamic than machines ... "freedom in constraint" is a popular saying in computer programming, and it sounds like you are getting a little bit of that up there ...
as for the chilling etc, i figure the pumps and spigoted MLT/kettle etc are part of leveling up for when i increase my batch size to 5G and transition to kegging ... i have a lot of stuff i want to do side-by-side in small batch format to figure out some of the basic parameters early on, so i think i'll be doing gallons for at least a month or two more - probably all summer, really ...
i need to poke around for some recipes using it, but i picked up my first pack of standalone yeast, one that might work for higher ferm temp stuff: Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
ok, next time ... i haven't used either so i have no preference whatsoever yet ...
i'm planning to make sterile starters, in a pressure canner ...
i know you can make 7x 1L jars in the 23 qt presto in one pass, and i have to figure out pressure-canning anyhow (for peppers) ...
i think, though, that i might end up wanting to make smaller mason jars of it for the size brew i'm doing, more like a pint, probably ...
that will be really handy, i think ...
the other thing i do plan to utilize is my sous vide equipment for mashing ...
i finally checked it out a minute ago, and in the sous vide supreme, i need to have 7 quarts of water, and should keep it less than 12 quarts ... to be within the parameters the temperature controller is setup around ...
that's going to help a lot w/ having good repeatability so that i can experiment and learn the difference between the body/mouthfeel etc of a recipe run w/ a 144F mash versus a 152F mash ...
since there is in fact a marking on the inside, that corresponds w/ 12 qts, I figured i'll be able to make 3 gals of wort by placing a muslin of grains in the machine and letting it mash for 75 mins, and then pulling the bag out and placing it in a strainer over a bottling bucket and sparging the grain bag enough to have the water to top off the sous vide supreme back up to the 12 qt (3 gal) line after the grains have been yanked, and then recirculating the wort by pouring it out of the sous vide supreme (it's square, with handles) through the grain bag once more into the bottling bucket and giving it a good swirl before ultimately pouring 1.5gal each into two 2gal SS pots and running a side-by-side where I can run two different hops or hopping schedules, or different flavors etc ...
it's really easy to run a nice 90 min BIAB-recommended mash in the sous vide supreme - there's nothing to do accept maybe visit it to dunk it a few times ...
the idea is to get it such that i can brew beer while still doing my real work, only having to stop for an hour on and off to do the parts that require my senses ... and not be a human pid controller ...
somewhat fortunately, i have a double-bowl sink, too
i hope there's a reverse-bbq thermometer out there w/ a probe and an alarm that goes off when a low temperature is reach, or perhaps actually, i might be able to set the bottom edge alarm on the temp range for a BBQ dome temp monitor and have it "go off" when the temp of the probe dips below it - which would be telling me what i want to know - that the wort in the ice bath is down to like 70F or what not ...
hmmmm ... i'm going to figure out how to brew while i'm here working, and that's going to be cool ...
my goals aren't the same as a lot of the folks posting on the forums, since i don't want to brew every kind of beer (because i don't like a lot of kinds of beer), and aren't trying to make beer to have inexpensive drink, and a lot of the other reasons i see posted ... i'm more interested in figuring out what makes the beers i like, what they actually are ... and also, i hate pay walls and any kind of access gating ... i hate that programmers i follow on twitter post about pliny and goose island stout and i don't have the shared experience ...
i also drink stout year round, and it's annoying when the beers come and go w/ the seasons ... especially since the season here it hot for like 45-48 weeks of the year =)
i'm brewing to be able to have the beer i want, when i want it, without needing someone else to say it's OK ... lol.
anyways ... i'm going to turn off my internet so i can focus on working my ass off tonight, to be able to brew a pair tomorrow instead of one tonight ...
have a good one, and thanks for answering ?'s online - very cool.
CHEERS!
i'm planning to make sterile starters, in a pressure canner ...
i know you can make 7x 1L jars in the 23 qt presto in one pass, and i have to figure out pressure-canning anyhow (for peppers) ...
i think, though, that i might end up wanting to make smaller mason jars of it for the size brew i'm doing, more like a pint, probably ...
that will be really handy, i think ...
the other thing i do plan to utilize is my sous vide equipment for mashing ...
i finally checked it out a minute ago, and in the sous vide supreme, i need to have 7 quarts of water, and should keep it less than 12 quarts ... to be within the parameters the temperature controller is setup around ...
that's going to help a lot w/ having good repeatability so that i can experiment and learn the difference between the body/mouthfeel etc of a recipe run w/ a 144F mash versus a 152F mash ...
since there is in fact a marking on the inside, that corresponds w/ 12 qts, I figured i'll be able to make 3 gals of wort by placing a muslin of grains in the machine and letting it mash for 75 mins, and then pulling the bag out and placing it in a strainer over a bottling bucket and sparging the grain bag enough to have the water to top off the sous vide supreme back up to the 12 qt (3 gal) line after the grains have been yanked, and then recirculating the wort by pouring it out of the sous vide supreme (it's square, with handles) through the grain bag once more into the bottling bucket and giving it a good swirl before ultimately pouring 1.5gal each into two 2gal SS pots and running a side-by-side where I can run two different hops or hopping schedules, or different flavors etc ...
it's really easy to run a nice 90 min BIAB-recommended mash in the sous vide supreme - there's nothing to do accept maybe visit it to dunk it a few times ...
the idea is to get it such that i can brew beer while still doing my real work, only having to stop for an hour on and off to do the parts that require my senses ... and not be a human pid controller ...
somewhat fortunately, i have a double-bowl sink, too
i hope there's a reverse-bbq thermometer out there w/ a probe and an alarm that goes off when a low temperature is reach, or perhaps actually, i might be able to set the bottom edge alarm on the temp range for a BBQ dome temp monitor and have it "go off" when the temp of the probe dips below it - which would be telling me what i want to know - that the wort in the ice bath is down to like 70F or what not ...
hmmmm ... i'm going to figure out how to brew while i'm here working, and that's going to be cool ...
my goals aren't the same as a lot of the folks posting on the forums, since i don't want to brew every kind of beer (because i don't like a lot of kinds of beer), and aren't trying to make beer to have inexpensive drink, and a lot of the other reasons i see posted ... i'm more interested in figuring out what makes the beers i like, what they actually are ... and also, i hate pay walls and any kind of access gating ... i hate that programmers i follow on twitter post about pliny and goose island stout and i don't have the shared experience ...
i also drink stout year round, and it's annoying when the beers come and go w/ the seasons ... especially since the season here it hot for like 45-48 weeks of the year =)
i'm brewing to be able to have the beer i want, when i want it, without needing someone else to say it's OK ... lol.
anyways ... i'm going to turn off my internet so i can focus on working my ass off tonight, to be able to brew a pair tomorrow instead of one tonight ...
have a good one, and thanks for answering ?'s online - very cool.
CHEERS!