Beer!

Discussion in 'Food and Drink' started by jexby, Sep 28, 2015.

  1. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    My nipple buddy @yotacowboy if you can find a way to ship the stuff legally in the US (NOT since I think your state being ABC hates that shit), let me know. I'm willing to try out things just once before I complain about it online.
     
  2. mscott58

    mscott58 Friend

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    Was that two cases of Corona, or two Corona cases? ;)
     
  3. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    The beer! Thank goodness. I have my house sealed with Flex Paste. Nothing gets in expect food and alcohol. |\/|
     
  4. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Just adding some mostly useless but kind of interesting local history related to Common Style beer, like Anchorsteam: A while back our region was hit by a derecho that knocked out the power for an extended period of time, right in the midst of 100-ish degree heat wave. One of the local breweries realized that the increased fermentation temp due to lack of A/C cooling could favor salvaging a lagered tank's worth of beer - so they ran with it and we got to enjoy the Derecho Common. Port City continues to produce it every June and July as part of their lager series.

    Long story short, thanks to an awful weather event, I now look forward to the limited release of a style of beer I had never really been very fond of.
     
  5. JohnCarter17

    JohnCarter17 Facebook Friend

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    [​IMG]

    IPA, the recipe can be googled as North Star IPA, which is supposedly the beer that became Sculpin. I didn't have the same hop bill, but used the same grains (mostly). Brewed Sunday, pitched yesterday.

    11 lbs Maris Otter Pale
    1.0 lbs Cara Foam
    .75 lb Simpsons Crystal 15
    .5 lb CaraVienne
    .25 lb Acidulated
    Mash@ 148
    5.4g Mash
    2.6g Sparge
    1 oz Nugget 13.1% 70:00
    1 oz Comet 11.3% 30:00
    Whirlfloc, yeast food 20:00
    1 oz Comet 11.3% 10:00
    1 oz Medusa 3% 00:00
    2 oz Simcoe 13.4% 00:00
    OG 1062
    Omega Labs DIPA OYL-52
    drop of sunflower oil

    1 oz Azacca % DH
    1 oz Medusa % DH

    Sours aging, soleras...

    [​IMG]
     
  6. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    [​IMG]


    Hefeweissbier | Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan

    Best Hefe there is.
     
  7. Grattle

    Grattle Friend

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    If that was in a can, you could totally pimp your Modi 3+.
     
  8. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    f**k that.
     
  9. JohnCarter17

    JohnCarter17 Facebook Friend

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    Another weekend, another brew

    Maltball stout

    [​IMG]

    11 lbs Munich I (light)
    1 lb Flaked Barley
    12 oz Carafa
    12 oz Caramel 45
    12 oz Chocolate
    4 oz Victory
    4 oz DRC

    Lactose to be added at end of boil
    1 oz Nugget for 60

    After crash, rack to secondary add Potassium Sorbate to kill yeast then add Carnation malted milk powder, otherwise the yeast will eat it all and you don't get the flavor from it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2020
  10. Regular Petey

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  11. JohnCarter17

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    If you are going to gear up, you can go burners and kettles outside, or something nice an easy like an all in one solution like a Grainfather system or Anvil foundry, which will up the price but greatly reduce the amount of equipment needed, and simplify the processes.

    That is a grainfather on the right in my pic.
     
  12. Regular Petey

    Regular Petey Facebook Friend

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    Thanks for the product names. I will look those up.
     
  13. JohnCarter17

    JohnCarter17 Facebook Friend

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    [​IMG]

    Conical cleaned, passivated, insulated and jacketed. Stand made and painted.
    Stasis glycol chiller hooked up and testing functionality.

    10G batches next.

    MUAHAHAHAHAHA
     
  14. JohnCarter17

    JohnCarter17 Facebook Friend

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    [​IMG]

    The device on top of the grainfather is a dutch baking press which is great for squeezing hop bags.
    At this point I am almost done transferring chilled wort to the fermentor through the counterflow chiller.


    Rauch Pils
    7 lbs Pils
    3.4 lbs Rauch Malt
    2 oz acidulated
    4 oz victory

    1 oz Magnum 12.8% 90
    1 oz Hersbruker 3.8% 20
    1 oz Hersbruker 3.8% 10
    1 oz Hersbruker 3.8% 00

    Fermenting with Mangrove Jack Bavarian Lager yeast.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2020
  15. Regular Petey

    Regular Petey Facebook Friend

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    Nearly 20 years ago I did a bicycle trip from Rangely, ME up to Quebec City. It was a supported trip, meaning we didn't have to carry our tent and other gear on the bikes. One of the guys I kind of knew who was doing it, his wife had ridden it with him in prior years, but she had opted to ride in the sag vehicle for the duration this time. The day we got to Lévis QC, which is across the river from Quebec City, it was Steve's birthday. His wife had bought him a cake and bought eight 0.5L bottles of La Fin du Monde, for four of us. Being dehydrated from a day of riding. I remember the four of us laughing our asses off after drinking them, like we had passed a joint around.
     
  16. Regular Petey

    Regular Petey Facebook Friend

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    How do you use the chest freezer? Just as cold storage for beer that's ready to drink, or is it to maintain steady fermentation temps (for lagers I would assume)?

    I spent a ton of time researching brewing equipment since your last comment to me. The Grainfather is definitely a nice homebrewing solution. Prices being equal, I would definitely choose it over the Anvil Foundry. It seems like the Anvil Foundry is pretty new to the market, and doesn't have the 3 year warranty of the Grainfather, although I'm not seeing much negative about the Anvil. The RoboBrew units seem good, at that lower price point, where the Anvil is. SS Brewtech and Spike Brewing seem to be making quality gear at reasonable prices, although neither offer the easy, complete system up until fermentation, that Grainfather or Anvil offer.

    I was thinking that cleaning the Anvil Foundry mash basket would be a PITA following a brew, because it certainly won't fit in a sink, although I guess it doesn't need to be perfectly cleaned and sanitized, when it will be taken back up to boiling temps during the next brewing cycle. The fermenter on the other hand does need to be very clean and sanitized.

    The stuff from Spike seems to be really well constructed and affordable, until you start adding accessories, at which point it starts approaching SS prices. I'm still thinking on all of it. I don't want to deal with carboys or 5 gallon plastic buckets. I think I would like to use corny kegs for aging and serving.
     
  17. JohnCarter17

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    All 4 chest freezers have temperature controllers. We are using Anvil on 2 and Inkbirds on 2. So the freezer plugs into them and they plug into the outlet and have a probe and depending on the model you can set high/low/temperature warning senstivity, etc, etc. So we can hold ferm temps in any range, storage temps, crashing temps, etc.

    Granfather basically pioneered the design and has the most functionality. Then came a rash of cheapies like Robobrew and a couple others that look like they come from the same chinese design, control panel, etc. The foundry gets you more grain than the base GF but isn't as integrated. It does get you 120/240 switchable out the gate though, unlike the base GF.

    Our cleaning regime is this:
    1) Use hot water and soft scrub pad to clean interior crud
    2) Fill with 3G saved cooling water (the initial warmest stuff) and make a 3G batch of PBW, heat to 125-135F
    3) Get that recirculating through the sparge arm for 5 minutes, then swap to counterflow chiller, push the trub and crap down sink, when clear recirculate it for 5 minutes.
    4) Move the PBW solution somewhere if needed (kegs/bottles/dirty carboy)
    5) Fill with 3G of saved cooling water and recirculate through both arms again for 5 minutes.
    6) Dump and put everything away.

    So that gets you down to totally cleaned and rinsed.

    I think the GF wins hands down for the features and ease of use and integration it has. You are limited to ~16 lbs max on the regular version. Also when you get above 13 lbs of grain (or use a lot of wheat) add 1/2 lb rice hulls way before mashing to get them under the grain.

    One thing that started happening about 5+ years ago is the carboy makers got their heads out of their asses when some rivals started making wide mouth carboys. Much easier to clean.

    I did get 2 anvil brewbuckets and their cooling systems, we still use them time to time. Otherwise its either a fermonster or a Big Mouth Bubbler (except those retards texterured their carboys). Plastic buckets are good for moving grain or water, not much else. Plastic carboys are light, cheap and will do you fine.

    I do like the SS Brewtech stuff, I have one of their brew kettles, but living in Houston, I have no interest in maximizing my outdoor brewtime unless its from November - March.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2020
  18. Regular Petey

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    Thanks John! That's all been incredibly helpful.

    I ended up ordering the 6.5 gallon Anvil Foundry, plus the boiler lid tube and the perforated disk for an additional $31. The Anvil pump may have worked fine, although lots of people don't seem very impressed with it, and the squeeze flow clamp seems a bit hokey. I instead ordered a pump directly from Chugger, which could be used in a number of ways if I scaled up in the future. I also ordered two SS BrewTech 3.5 gallon Brew Buckets and an additional Mini Brew Bucket base. The bases aren't actually connected to the conical bottom on the Mini Brew Bucket, which one person had commented that it makes it difficult to move the Brew Buckets around. I figured that as long as I have one extra base (for $21), it will always be easy to move Brew Buckets around, whether I have two of them or five of them. The SS Brew Bucket "Essentials" kit is currently out of stock, but I'll get an email when those are available. That kit provides the 90° 1/2" hose barb fitting for the fermenter lid, plus a bunch of 3/8" and 1/2" silicone tubing (which is way more expensive than I would have expected), all at a reasonable price. It allows for doing pressurized CO2 transfers, and also stacking of the Brew Buckets

    I was originally avoiding the 6.5 Foundry because I wanted to keg the beer, not realizing that you can buy 2.5 and 3 gallon kegs. I think the 6.5 Foundry will be ideal for me initially.

    I have a bunch of odds and ends to get, plus at least one chest freezer or used refrigerator. I did order an Apera PH20 pH meter and a bottle of KCl solution for the electrode. I'm on municipal water, which I checked out the latest water test report for - the water is quite soft and there's really nothing very bad about it. Maybe I'll get an activated charcoal filtration system, but a reverse osmosis system seem very unnecessary. Even the charcoal filtration may not be needed, since it sounds like residual chlorine will evaporate if you just let the water sit out for a day. Chloride, calcium, sulfate, magnesium, sodium, alkalinity, etc. are all quite low, so I would be adding chemicals to the water whether I used it as it is or if I was starting with RO water.

    I think I'm going to go with 2.5 gallon Torpedo Ball Lock Kegs, although I will wait to order them until I find a refrigeration unit. They come in regular and slimline. Two of the regular 2.5 Torpedos stacked on top of each other are about 28-1/2" high x 9-1/8" diameter. The slimline kegs are 8-5/16" in diameter, but two of them stacked is 30-1/2", which seems to be more than what most chest freezers accommodate.

    I need to order some Star San, and I still need to spend some time understanding the options for measuring specific gravity, which if I understand it correctly, is impacted by alcohol content, so you need to use a calculator to correct for that? I'll need to figure out where I can purchase and swap/refill CO2 tanks locally, get a regulator, etc.

    I'm feeling really good about going with the 6.5 Foundry. I think it's going to be ideal for me, allowing me to brew lots of different beers, and it also avoids some of the things that didn't quite like about the 10.5 gallon Foundry, like the perforations in the sides of the mash/grain basket. Both the Anvil and the SS BrewTech buckets seem like they will be quite easy to clean up as well.

    I'm on HomeBrewTalk now and will start with a free trial membership on Brewer's Friend. I did create a GrainFather account, although that seems fairly limited in terms of information relative to Brewer's Friend, although it obviously offers advantages to GrainFather brewers. https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf is another resource that I found through YouTube, which has a wealth of information regarding beer styles, which you should check out, if you're not familiar with it - lots of information there. Any other resources or suppliers that you favor, I'd be happy to hear about.
     
  19. JohnCarter17

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    OK, a bunch of things.

    At the point of the Stainless brew buckets, I consider them basically interchangeable. I was originally going to get SS Brewtech, but went with Anvil instead to 1) Support local brew show 2) A great deal on cooling system for them also.

    I saw those complaints about the little SS Brewbuckets regarding no attached base.

    If you are going to be looking for small kegs, get yourself on the mailing list for Adventures in Homebrewing and Williams Brewing. There are periodic sales and promotions.

    Last May, I got 2 new kegland 2.5g corneys from Williams for $65 each.
    In 7/17, I got 3 new 2.5g corneys from AiHB for $75 each.

    Water. Yeah, you can let it sit for a day and the chlorine should outgass. You are in a much better situation then the granite-hard water we have in Houston.

    For SG, get a refractometer so you can see when to stop sparging, and to check OG easily instead of dipping the hyrdrometer in the wort. You will need a hydrometer for determining FG. You are correct about FG w/ alcohol. This site is your friend and is always up on my PC
    https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/

    Hah, I see you found it.

    You might also want to look into Tilt Hydrometers. We have a bunch, they can stream BT to your phone. I have gone further, I have a pi setup to monitor them and they feed Google sheets. It a nice capability for determining what stage of the fermentation the beer is at and knowing when it stalls out, or when to raise temps to assist it finishing out.

    https://tilthydrometer.com/

    [​IMG]

    I am a BJCP judge, with a rank of Certified.

    You should look into getting a bag to go around the grain basket. We use them and it helps contain stuff better.

    If I was going to recommend 1 book (and I forget if I did it yet), get Zainisheff & Palmer's Brewing Classic Styles book. Those recipes right out of the gate get you within 95% of any style you are looking for.
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2020
  20. JohnCarter17

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    [​IMG]

    This is what I meant by a grain bag. This was originally done because of the @#$@#$@#$ gasket around the filter at the bottom of the GF sleeve, which is a pain to install and use (the gasket will come off a lot as you try and seat the bottom piece. So we use this. It catches a bunch of stuff. It also saved us once, with a grain load that exceeded what the sleeve could hold and it flexed and the bottom popped out. The bag kept it from all spilling out into the wort.

    If you look at how the GF sleeve has the filter piece seat around its rim, you will see what I mean. On the GF that did this we had 3 bars welded on the bottom so the bottom couldn't flex out and drop.

    I think the Foundry sleeve is all one piece so this issue wouldn't happen to you. And you aren't making 5g batched with 15+ lbs of grain.
     

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