What'cha brewin'? (Homebrew thread)

[CaffeinePowered]

That looks delicious

[Evil Cheese]

Brewed my Oktoberfest/Marzen lager today. I did a multi step infusion this time and I achieved a much better conversion efficiency from my mash. Watching temps and crunching the numbers beforehand really helps. This utility was extremely helpful for calculating strike water and infusion temps. I actually ended up a couple of points above my intended original gravity which I think is because I boiled a little too much water off. I probably ended up with about 5 2/3 gal. when I was aiming for about 5 1/2 gal. Anyway, so far so good.

[Chooly]

My girlfriend's work signed up toy participate in the 'Samley Cup' (Sam Adams home-brew competition,) so we get a Brewer's Best starter kit and dive in. The kit was decent quality (I'm assuming,) had all the necessities to brew as well as ingredients for an 'American Style Lager.' We had problems during the boil because we used an electric stove that wasn't quite strong enough to get a good, rolling boil in. After flameout & chilling the wort was finished, we racked into the primary fermented and took starting gravity which was spot on what the recipe suggested, which I assume was a good sign... Currently sitting in the basement at day 4 of fermentation and there is very little activity going on in the air lock.. I timed for two minutes and not a bubble..

Needless to say we aren't gunning for first place for this prize, but we get to keep the kits we were given and had a good time making the batch, and are already planning for our next one!

[Evil Cheese]

Nice! Glad to hear you got into it. I have to say I've had a lot of fun with this hobby since I've started homebrewing. What sort of yeast did your kit use? Was it dry or liquid? Did it have any branding or identification? Did you check the expatriation date? If it was a true lager yeast then your basement was probably a little too warm for it. Most lager yeasts like to ferment between 48°F/9°C - 58°/15°C. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, it should still ferment either way. My first lager took a few days before it started fermenting vigorously and it turned out fine.

[Chooly]

Nice! Glad to hear you got into it. I have to say I've had a lot of fun with this hobby since I've started homebrewing. What sort of yeast did your kit use? Was it dry or liquid? Did it have any branding or identification? Did you check the expatriation date? If it was a true lager yeast then your basement was probably a little too warm for it. Most lager yeasts like to ferment between 48°F/9°C - 58°/15°C. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, it should still ferment either way. My first lager took a few days before it started fermenting vigorously and it turned out fine.

Wow, that's much colder than I had expected, the instructions didn't mention fermentation temp iirc.
The Yeast was dry, but tbh I can't recall the brand (but it definitely was branded.) And not sure on the exp. date.

One thing I'm kind of worried about that we did, (partly due to our own ignorance, and some confusing instructions) was to add appx a gallon of clean water to the wort before fermenting, because we had went from 5 gallons to 4 due to evaporation... The instructions made it seem as though if you ended up with less wort than you intended you could add water for more volume no problem..
Our OG was originally spot on (1.051 I believe,) but after we added the water it went to around 1.044.
Live and learn I suppose..

[Evil Cheese]

Yeah technically your OG is the gravity reading you've taken after you reach your desired volume (in this case 5 gal. which is the standard batch volume most homebrew recipes use). So that includes the water you add to your wort to reach 5 gal. It is a common practice to boil your extract with less water then add water later to bring it up to the final volume. I'm curious how you ended up low though. Was your kit extract only or did it include grains and other adjuncts?

[Chooly]

It contained a cheesecloth bag and grains that we steeped for appx 20 minutes before the boil, then discarded.
Everything else came in either pellet or liquid form.

It's entirely possible that the reading my girlfriend took with the hydrometer was wrong, and I'm seeing people using beakers to perform the hydrometer readings, we just plunked the thing right in the fermentation bucket.

[Evil Cheese]

Steeping grains adds a bit more complexity to the equation. The grains and the bag they were in will absorb a good bit of water. The sugars from the steeped grains and the types of grains can also affect what your OG will be. It's hard to pinpoint the cause of the gravity deviation for sure without knowing the types of grains used, temp they were steeped at, the amount of malt extract that was included, etc.

As for the gravity reading, I don't see why taking it straight from the bucket would be a problem as long as you remember to sanitize your hydrometer. I use carboys so I have to pull a gravity sample into another container or else I'll loose my hydrometer.

[Chooly]

So it isn't a Lager at all,
I was explaining this post to my girlfriend and she reminded me that we are in fact making an ale...

In any case, it had appeared to have stopped fermenting about 3 days ago, so I attempted to take a finishing gravity to compare to,
15 minutes after doing so and replacing the lid for the bucket, the water seal is bubbling again. We figure that the yeast went dormant, as the concrete floor of our basement might have brought the yeast cake temp down too much. Today we'll be taking another stab at a finishing gravity, and hopefully now it'll be legitimate.

Is it aright to stir/agitate the wort if it has appeared to stop fermenting, or is that not a good idea?

EDIT: FG 1.012, good stuff! On to the secondary Fermenter :-)

[Evil Cheese]

If you're using ale yeast then you should be fine temp-wise. Ale yeast ferments closer to room temps than lager yeast does.

As far as agitating your fermenter goes, I've heard that it can stir up the yeast and kick them back into gear, so it's worth a shot. That being said, keep in mind that the more exposure to air your young beer gets while it is fermenting the more likely it is to develop off flavors via oxidation. If you decide to agitate it, try to do so with the lid on and don't go overboard with shaking it. If agitating doesn't seem to help and your gravity readings don't seem to be changing much, then you can try adding more new yeast if you figure out what kind you were using and if it's readily available. Try to give a bit of time between gravity readings as well, a few days at the least. I know it's tempting, but try to resist the urge to tinker with it too much. It might take a bit longer, but you're still likely end up with beer at the end even if fermentation takes a bit longer to get going.

Another possible cause for the slow fermentation is lack of aeration, which sounds a bit contradictory I know. Aerating the wort (often done by shaking your fermenting vessel vigorously) once it has cooled and before you pitch the yeast to it is a good thing as yeast does need some amount of oxygen to begin with in order to reproduce. Introducing oxygen to the young beer after the yeast begins fermenting is bad as it can cause oxidation which produces off flavors.

EDIT: Nice! Sounds like everything is working fine then. Sometimes the airlock isn't the best way to tell if fermentation is taking place. Good luck!

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Plans in the works now that it's cooling off again. Partial mash imperial pumpkin ale and an Non-Alcoholic (probably extract) IPA as a test to see if I can do it (kinda a complex process)

[Chooly]

Karrde link=topic=6750.msg271628#msg271628 date=1379568434]
Plans in the works now that it's cooling off again. Partial mash imperial pumpkin ale and an Non-Alcoholic (probably extract) IPA as a test to see if I can do it (kinda a complex process)

The brewpub nearby does one of the best pumpkin ales that have ever graced my tastebuds.
Godspeed good Karrde!

Also, just racked into the secondary fermenter this morning and the beer is still very cloudy. I'm hoping that it clears up by the time we're ready to bottle.

[Evil Cheese]

Karrde link=topic=6750.msg271628#msg271628 date=1379568434]
Plans in the works now that it's cooling off again. Partial mash imperial pumpkin ale and an Non-Alcoholic (probably extract) IPA as a test to see if I can do it (kinda a complex process)

Nice! I'm going to be brewing a pumpkin ale on Sunday as well.


On an unrelated note, would anybody else be interested in doing a little homebrew competition at ACEN? We can pick a style to brew and participants can do their version of it then we'll pick a few people to judge them. Preferably a style that you don't need specialized equipment for, so nothing adjunct heavy, no lagers, no "big" beers that take 6+ months to condition, etc. Just a thought.

[at0m]

I don't know anything about homebrew, but I'll help drink them.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

[quote author=[fr31ns]Karrde link=topic=6750.msg271628#msg271628 date=1379568434]
Plans in the works now that it's cooling off again. Partial mash imperial pumpkin ale and an Non-Alcoholic (probably extract) IPA as a test to see if I can do it (kinda a complex process)

Nice! I'm going to be brewing a pumpkin ale on Sunday as well.


On an unrelated note, would anybody else be interested in doing a little homebrew competition at ACEN? We can pick a style to brew and participants can do their version of it then we'll pick a few people to judge them. Preferably a style that you don't need specialized equipment for, so nothing adjunct heavy, no lagers, no "big" beers that take 6+ months to condition, etc. Just a thought.
[/quote]

This would be wicked fun I think.

[Goffin]

I'm completely in love with this thread.    You guys make it sound so delicious. 


side note -

http://now.msn.com/hair-of-the-dog-dave-...or-2-grand

I will stick this here but not for being 2 grand a bottle,  but for the freeze process which I've never heard of before.    Wouldn't freezing it completely flatten the beer?    Regardless, pretty amazing. 

[Evil Cheese]

Freezing is probably the most common way of getting unnaturally alcoholic beer. By the time the alcohol levels reach what is mentioned in the article, the beer becomes too toxic for the yeast to survive. So instead of adding alcohol via fermentation they freeze some of the water out of the beer, which will also increase the percentage of alcohol by volume. It's kind of the same vein as distilling, but instead of separating the alcohol from water via increased heat, it's done by reducing heat instead. As for the carbonation, most breweries (even on the craft scale) filter out the yeast and force carbonate their beer as one of the last steps.

[at0m]

The Tactical Nuclear Penguin (which is something like 40+% ABV because of a multi-step freezing process) was actually really good, but _definitely_ shouldn't have been done as a shot.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Just upgraded some of my gear.  Now have a dark start burner that will make it so I'm not stuck cooking the christ out of my apartment and driving the heat up.  Also picked up an oxygen injector, some yeast started gear (really erlenmeyer flask and a pourous cork) and some bits and pieces.  Gonna do the partial mash pumpkin this week.  I'll have a recipe and method up eventually.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Ok so the aggresive primary fermentation on this thing has settled down after nearly a week of going nuts   Gonna give a few more days to knock the krausen down and then rack to secondary.