Going to try to get 3 more rounds done this weekend... Two for next fall and winter ( Dragons Milk and Founders Breakfast Stout). I'm aiming for 10% ABV's on both of them... Then a nice Boulevard Wheat Clone for the spring/summer... I thought I had bought a big enough mash tun for this round...... So I guess I'll be getting a bigger next round and this one can turn into a nice cooler.... Anybody else brewing here lately?
We did a White IPA (basically hoppy wheat beer) and a Chocolate Stout. Then to use up the rest of the LME should be brewing again in a couple weeks. I am still just extract and don't see that changing anytime soon. Actually got some pretty good brews last few rounds.
Well the hops are going to town. I set up a three piece section of conduit and running rope across them to get them established. But some of them are already like 7 or 8 ropes tall. I ended up splitting the batch up in to five pieces. And they all are surviving. Thanks again for the great offer Paul bunion .
8' is pretty good. They definitely survived being dug up. Be prepared, they can get up to 25 feet once they get established.
My interpretation of Dragons Milk...My first round of it, I missed my mark on several areas through the boil. But its almost gone now. This second round, I got my full grains mashout, and full boil off done. It rang out at 11.55% ABV. Ought to be interesting.
The start of my Fall Pumpkin Beer in Stout form. I did the basics of this last year in ale form, which turned out good. Sweetpotato is said to give more body and "flavor" than a pumpkin would. Most of the pumpkin flavor comes from the spices anyways. The blow off tube was a definite in this one, as it should be roughly 10% ABV. cnice_37 & Eric VW & Pallet Pete
I haven't brewed in a couple years. I got into it pretty big for a while. Then I got married, ran out of room, got busy, moved...you know the routine. My first setup was a "Brutus" 3 kettle setup. Worked great and I made a lot of beer. It was a pain to clean and took up half the garage. I sold it and made a BIAB, brew in a bag, setup. It was very user friendly and compact. I never used it much before it was sold. Pics of both below. I grew hops, ground my grain, keged everything. I had 4 taps on at all times. I think I'll get back into it once things settle down. I'm in the middle of a career change and I like hobbies to be for spare time, not a priority. I sure do miss homebrew on tap though. Love seeing all the posts.
Well my Birthday gift from myself to myself came yesterday in the mail... Northern Brewer had a decent keg system on sell. So now I have some kegs to fill. I just now need to figure them out, I was just getting comfortable with bottling for the right carbonation... Now gots to learn another thing. Questions : how long once tapped does the beer stay fresh for?
Chvymn99 first tell me how you figured out proper bottle carbonation. I am still struggling and I am an easy 2 dozen brews into this thing.
Carbonating a keg is easy. Force carbonation is fast, literally minutes, but it's easier to just set the gas to the desired pressure and let it sit and self carbonate. If you force carbonate you lay the keg on its side with the gas hooked up and the gas side of the keg down, so it's submerged. You then just rock the keg on the ground, back and forth, always keeping the gas side near the bottom. It'll burble and bubble while gas fills the beer. By the time you rock it back and forth while drinking a beer, your keg will be done. I never did bottles but you basically need a little active yeast leftover from your fermentation, an appropriate amount of priming sugar and a bottle bucket. The amount of sugar is critical unless you want bottle bombs. I always keged because it's fast and easy.
I've been using Northern Brewers or Brewers Friend calculator... My big hurdle was actual volume, temperature of the beer at bottling time, bottle resting temperature. The temperature of the beer was probably my biggest issue, as I wasn't taking actual account. But as it sits it's got carbonation already in it from the fermentation process. My stouts I tend to use brown sugar, as with my others lighter colored beers I'll use regular priming sugar or brown sugar. In the winter time my beer takes a lot longer to carb up in the basement than during the summer months ( found that out this winter) figured that out this year as I was trying to pin this issue down. If you want I might be able to compare notes..
I'm planning on just let them set to carb, not really in a rush to carb, as I've got a pipeline going now. But I guess im concerned on getting a big foam on pouring. There seems to be a lot of chatter on topics about length and diameter of the hose. Haven't really figured out that all yet. I'm planning on doing basically my wheat beer & IPA in keg form and my bottles in stout for awhile anyways...
So I'm planning on jumping into the foray after all these years of consumption, into the production class of fermented beverages - dabbled in distilled spirits years ago After making a gallon of apple hooch this past week - simple 2-3days of beasty-yeasty development, natural carbonation and chill like I did so many times in my youth with cider I want to make hard cider the way I want it. Being small business Saturday I'm going to grab a carboy, bung and air lock, possibly bottling supplies, see what they have for yeast and hope 5 gallons of cider are still available at the grocery store. Not looking for high ABV just palatable carbonated cloudy cider that I can enjoy
Suhweet basod just yesterday we bottled a winter ale and a coffee Porter and brewed a pale ale and a red ale. It is time consuming, about 5 hours for two of us for extract only. We could cut out about an hour if we had a wort chiller but I am too cheap to buy the copper.
When I get mine new one built do you want my old one? Otherwise it'll just set around collecting dust..
