Home Brewers

#701
#701
Hopvol said:
Sam, this just came to mind when you said you bottled your IPA. Is this beer you were cold crashing? If so you may have trouble getting it to carbonate. Chilling the beer will make the yeast drop out.

I have not done a BM clone but I know Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies have Belgian Wit kits that are supposed to BM clones or if you want to come up with your own all grain recipe Beersmith and Brew Toad have some recipes you could start with.
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Yeah I read on homebrew talk how most people that cold crashed for fewer than 4 days were able to carb up without a problem. They said it took them probably an extra week or so for carbing, but was normal after that. I'll try one here in a few weeks. If it is flat, can I just pitch a tiny amount of yeast and try again?
 
#702
#702
SamRebel35 said:
Yeah I read on homebrew talk how most people that cold crashed for fewer than 4 days were able to carb up without a problem. They said it took them probably an extra week or so for carbing, but was normal after that. I'll try one here in a few weeks. If it is flat, can I just pitch a tiny amount of yeast and try again?
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If they said it worked over there you may be fine. Usually good information there. Ive never cold crashed and then bottled.

I wouldn't begin to know how much yeast to add to a bottle. I would think a little too much would make bottle bombs. No quicker way to get the wife off board with your brewing than bottles blowing up in the middle of the night. :)
 
#703
#703
Hopvol said:
If they said it worked over there you may be fine. Usually good information there. Ive never cold crashed and then bottled.

I wouldn't begin to know how much yeast to add to a bottle. I would think a little too much would make bottle bombs. No quicker way to get the wife off board with your brewing than bottles blowing up in the middle of the night. :)
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Lol. That's true. She would jump off the bandwagon really quickly in that case.
 
#704
#704
That was a lot harder than I expected it to be. It would help if I had the proper equipment for a 5 gallon brew. I ended up doing a DME with 2.5 gallons in two different pots and then transferred into 2 2 gallon fermenters and 1 1 gallon fermenter and topped off each with water. Lots of confusing proportion calculations to make sure each fermenter ended up with the same og and hop additions were tricky as well considering one pot had 1 gal and the other had 1.5 gal. The preparation of specialty ingredients (correander and zest of oranges) was also a pain in the butt. But my house has never smelled this good before. Had to chill the wort in an ice bath, so I'm just now able to pitch the yeast. With a 1.048 og, Wyyeast doesn't recommend making a starter for pitching, so I am just going to direct pitch the smack pack.
 
#705
#705
Just put a new 5 gallon single malt single hops ipa in the fermenter last night. Marris otter with cascade. Hoping for some nice citrus notes and aroma without being too bitter. Beersmith said my hop additions should put me in the lower end of the ipa bitterness range, so hopefully it is correct. My gravity was right in the middle of the ipa range. Color will be a little light for an ipa probably , but I'm OK with that.
 
#706
#706
SamRebel35 said:
Just put a new 5 gallon single malt single hops ipa in the fermenter last night. Marris otter with cascade. Hoping for some nice citrus notes and aroma without being too bitter. Beersmith said my hop additions should put me in the lower end of the ipa bitterness range, so hopefully it is correct. My gravity was right in the middle of the ipa range. Color will be a little light for an ipa probably , but I'm OK with that.
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Are you doing all grain now? Cascades are one of my favorite hops. Hops added early in the boil add bitterness and late hop additions add aroma so if you added some cascades at the beginning and more toward the middle and end of the boil it should give you what your looking for.

I've been brewing like crazy lately. I kegged a Blueberry Wheat Ale over the weekend and brewed a Mango IPA. Kegged an Amber Ale the weekend before and brewed a Blonde Ale. I'll be doing my house IPA next weekend and my house Irish Red the next. After that Ill be brewing my Oktoberfest and getting the fall beers going. :toast:
 
#707
#707
Hopvol said:
Are you doing all grain now? Cascades are one of my favorite hops. Hops added early in the boil add bitterness and late hop additions add aroma so if you added some cascades at the beginning and more toward the middle and end of the boil it should give you what your looking for.

I've been brewing like crazy lately. I kegged a Blueberry Wheat Ale over the weekend and brewed a Mango IPA. Kegged an Amber Ale the weekend before and brewed a Blonde Ale. I'll be doing my house IPA next weekend and my house Irish Red the next. After that Ill be brewing my Oktoberfest and getting the fall beers going. :toast:
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Geez that's a lot of beer! You drink it all yourself?

I am doing all grain brew in a bag on the stove top. I did a five gallon batch by doing two separate brew days. Put the first day's wort in the fridge over night. Dumped in the second day's and was pitching yeast within a couple minutes. I did 1.5 Oz hops at the beginning of the boil. Did 1.25 Oz with fifteen mins left and 1 Oz with 5 mins left. Going to dry hop 2 Oz. Beersmith has reassured me that it should at least be similar to most ipa's. We'll see.
 
#708
#708
SamRebel35 said:
Geez that's a lot of beer! You drink it all yourself?
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Mostly yeah but I have a couple neighbors that help me with it and my father in law. I have a big party planned for the 4th of July so I've been trying to stock up.

SamRebel35 said:
I am doing all grain brew in a bag on the stove top. I did a five gallon batch by doing two separate brew days. Put the first day's wort in the fridge over night. Dumped in the second day's and was pitching yeast within a couple minutes. I did 1.5 Oz hops at the beginning of the boil. Did 1.25 Oz with fifteen mins left and 1 Oz with 5 mins left. Going to dry hop 2 Oz. Beersmith has reassured me that it should at least be similar to most ipa's. We'll see.
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That kinda sounds like a pain the ass. Have you thought about getting a bigger pot? Those hop additions sound pretty good. Keep good notes in case you want to tweak the recipe.
 
#709
#709
Hopvol said:
Mostly yeah but I have a couple neighbors that help me with it and my father in law. I have a big party planned for the 4th of July so I've been trying to stock up.



That kinda sounds like a pain the ass. Have you thought about getting a bigger pot? Those hop additions sound pretty good. Keep good notes in case you want to tweak the recipe.
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It is a little bit of a pain in the ass, but using the electric eye, it is pushing really hard to boil in the existing pot. The benefit is that after the second boil, I can dump it into the already chilled wort and it will be ready to pitch soon after. I'll take notes. I was worried that I didn't do enough bittering hops, but what's done is done. All I can do now is take notes and try to enjoy the outcome.
 
#710
#710
SamRebel35 said:
It is a little bit of a pain in the ass, but using the electric eye, it is pushing really hard to boil in the existing pot. The benefit is that after the second boil, I can dump it into the already chilled wort and it will be ready to pitch soon after. I'll take notes. I was worried that I didn't do enough bittering hops, but what's done is done. All I can do now is take notes and try to enjoy the outcome.
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The only thing to watch doing it that way is sanitation of your first boil, make sure its sealed up good in the fridge. It would be real easy to get an infection in it. When I was still brewing in the kitchen it was on a flat top stove, it took for ever to boil. Getting a propane burner made a huge difference.

If beersmith says your IBUs will be where you want them you should be ok. My house IPA has 3 ozs at the beginning for a 10 gallon batch. I think your hop schedule looks fine.
 
#714
#714
Hopvol said:
The only thing to watch doing it that way is sanitation of your first boil, make sure its sealed up good in the fridge. It would be real easy to get an infection in it. When I was still brewing in the kitchen it was on a flat top stove, it took for ever to boil. Getting a propane burner made a huge difference.

If beersmith says your IBUs will be where you want them you should be ok. My house IPA has 3 ozs at the beginning for a 10 gallon batch. I think your hop schedule looks fine.
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Yes I was meticulous about sanitation. Beersmith says the ibu's are good to go. I actually produced 6.5 gallons, which was more than I was expecting. I was expecting much more boil off from previous tests I had done with the kettle. The extra volume didn't affect the og very much it doesn't seem. I ended up with 1.058 OG. Makes me curious what it would have been if I had only gotten 5 gallons to the fermenter. With the extra 1.5 gallons, I'm pitching a different yeast. I'm using bry-97. Heard it is good at higher temps and clears up nicely. Using us-05 in the 5 gallon because that's my standby. A little experimentation this go round.
 
#716
#716
Been a long time since this thread had been bumped. My brew in a bag smash ipa turned out awesome. I've got another 5 gallon batch fermenting right now. Turned out to be a bigger beer than I anticipated. Started at 1.062 and is down to 1.012 so about 6.5% abv. Also, this one wasn't quite a smash. I had a very small bit of American brown malt in the grain bill. And also I used all cascade hops during the boil, but I plan on using Citra to dry hop soon. Just experimenting little.
 
#717
#717
SamRebel35 said:
Been a long time since this thread had been bumped. My brew in a bag smash ipa turned out awesome. I've got another 5 gallon batch fermenting right now. Turned out to be a bigger beer than I anticipated. Started at 1.062 and is down to 1.012 so about 6.5% abv. Also, this one wasn't quite a smash. I had a very small bit of American brown malt in the grain bill. And also I used all cascade hops during the boil, but I plan on using Citra to dry hop soon. Just experimenting little.
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Glad to hear it turned out well Sam. I don't come over to this board much any more so I'm just now seeing this. Cascade has been a long time favorite of mine but the past year I cant get enough of Citra.

Im running a bit behind, will be kegging Oktoberfest and Pumpkin Ale this weekend.
 
#719
#719
Vol8188 said:
I'm familiar with the process. Doesn't warrant it being illegal.
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The process is much more dangerous. Brewing beer requires heating strike water to about 170 degrees and boiling the wort. There is no alcohol involved until after fermentation. No more dangerous than boiling potatoes.

Distilling requires heating an already alcoholic liquid. This then goes through a series of condensing pipes and extracts out the ethanol and the methanol. Methanol can kill you if it’s not separated. You’re also working with a highly flammable vapor. The process is very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.
 
#720
#720
Hopvol said:
The process is much more dangerous. Brewing beer requires heating strike water to about 170 degrees and boiling the wort. There is no alcohol involved until after fermentation. No more dangerous than boiling potatoes.

Distilling requires heating an already alcoholic liquid. This then goes through a series of condensing pipes and extracts out the ethanol and the methanol. Methanol can kill you if it’s not separated. You’re also working with a highly flammable vapor. The process is very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.
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Separating methanol is simple. And I've never had any issues. A little plumbers putty goes a long way.
 
#721
#721
Vol8188 said:
Separating methanol is simple. And I've never had any issues. A little plumbers putty goes a long way.
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Yeah, its no problem if you know what you're doing. Setting dynamite charges is no problem if you know what you're doing but I wouldn't suggest just anyone do it. :)
 
#722
#722
Hopvol said:
Glad to hear it turned out well Sam. I don't come over to this board much any more so I'm just now seeing this. Cascade has been a long time favorite of mine but the past year I cant get enough of Citra.

Im running a bit behind, will be kegging Oktoberfest and Pumpkin Ale this weekend.
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Yep. Tastes pretty good. I ended up not using Citra to dry hop. I did use some sort of Southern hemisphere hop that was recommended by a fellow Brewer. Turned out to have a nice citrus note anyway. Enjoying it so far. Planning a brew for next week. Any ideas?
 
#723
#723
SamRebel35 said:
Yep. Tastes pretty good. I ended up not using Citra to dry hop. I did use some sort of Southern hemisphere hop that was recommended by a fellow Brewer. Turned out to have a nice citrus note anyway. Enjoying it so far. Planning a brew for next week. Any ideas?
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My next brew is going to be something for winter. Either a stout/porter or winter warmer. Probably chocolate milk stout.
 
#724
#724
Greetings gentleman. For my 2nd ever brew, I want to brew a beer that reflects the Christmas season and will be appealing to a range of palates. I prefer something I can buy as a kit at my local brew store here in Beer City, NC. Thoughts and suggestions?
 
#725
#725
orange parmejohn said:
Greetings gentleman. For my 2nd ever brew, I want to brew a beer that reflects the Christmas season and will be appealing to a range of palates. I prefer something I can buy as a kit at my local brew store here in Beer City, NC. Thoughts and suggestions?
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I've never done a Christmas brew before, but there is a recipe forum on homebrewtalk.com where you can find hundreds of recipes of different types of beer. They have all grain, partial, and malt extract recipes.
 
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