Jump to content

The Brewing Thread


MKnight82

Recommended Posts

6 minutes ago, swoosh said:

A friend told me that Cold IPA's were the next big thing, but he didn't really know what they were. I tried one from Wayfinder and didn't find it to be anything special, but after reading your description I'm interested in trying more. 

Oh man, I could go on for a bit about Cold IPAs. They are definitely the newest upcoming trend in beer. Cold IPA, IPL (India Pale Lager), India Pale Cold Ale, they are all the same thing: IPAs with a bit of corn (or rice) in the grain bill that use lager yeast instead of ale yeast. That's it. I have no idea how they come out so good, but they do.

The best one I've had is called Glacial by SweetWater brewing in Georgia. It helps that they use cryo hops as well (which is a whole other thing that I could go on for a while about), but it is so flavorful and delicious and refreshing. Insanely good. Besides that, a local brewery near me made one that was good, not great, and another homebrewer I know made one that was pretty good, and he made it quick as like an afterthought just to try it out.

They are going to catch on quick. They are a really nice compromise between your really basic domestic lagers and hipster IPAs.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The Cold IPA is a success. Had some weird stuff happen with this one between brew day and kegging, which doesn't normally happen. Regardless, it turned out great in my opinion. I still have yet to get a second opinion, but will soon. It is incredible what that lager yeast does. All the bitterness is stripped away and you get a really smooth beer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

My kit got some major, major upgrades. I've moved from a glass carboy fermenter to now a stainless steel bucket fermenter complete with temperature regulation apparatus, ability to dry hop without introducing oxygen into the beer, and the ability to do oxygen free transfers to the keg to keep my beer fresh for longer.

I'm also now brewing on an all-in-one system, which is great. The temperature regulation is really nice and I'm able to brew inside, which means I can brew during these cold months. It's also a lot easier to clean (although it wasn't this first time; I made really just 1 mistake that bit me in the butt pretty hard when it came time to clean).

I've got a hazy IPA fermenting right now at a steady 94-95 degrees that is going crazy. It should be done in a few days. Then it will be kegged and carbonated just in time for our friend's New Years Eve party.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Oh man, I may have outdone myself. I brewed up an American Pale Ale for my buddy's bachelor party this weekend. I wanted something more expensive tasting than your normal Miller/Coors/Bud, since that is mostly what everyone is bringing, but I didn't want it so fancy or boozy that it wouldn't get drank by the end of the weekend. I decided on an American Pale Ale with spruce tips, since we will be up in the mountains and it felt appropriate. I experimented with the biotransformation of Chinook hops, which I've never used in that manner before. I heard it had some really cool results, and I was already using it for bittering and flavor to accentuate the pine-y flavor of the spruce tips, so I figured why not.

I think I may have struck gold. The flavors I got from the dry hopping of Chinook during active fermentation are out of this world. I ended up getting a really beautiful looking 6% ABV pale ale that has slight notes of pine paired with crazy stonefruit flavors, in particular peach, and even more specifically, peach ring candy. It is so, so good. I actually poured myself a glass before it was even carbonated and chilled because it was that good. My wife did the same, so it was good to have that concurrence from someone who doesn't have exactly the same beer preferences I have. It isn't necessarily what I was expecting to get flavor wise, but the end result is even better than I hoped. I hope the guys like it as much as I do. I'm bringing a 5 gallon keg to the house we are staying at, and it needs to be gone by Sunday or I'll be upset lol.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, minutemancl said:

Oh man, I may have outdone myself. I brewed up an American Pale Ale for my buddy's bachelor party this weekend. I wanted something more expensive tasting than your normal Miller/Coors/Bud, since that is mostly what everyone is bringing, but I didn't want it so fancy or boozy that it wouldn't get drank by the end of the weekend. I decided on an American Pale Ale with spruce tips, since we will be up in the mountains and it felt appropriate. I experimented with the biotransformation of Chinook hops, which I've never used in that manner before. I heard it had some really cool results, and I was already using it for bittering and flavor to accentuate the pine-y flavor of the spruce tips, so I figured why not.

I think I may have struck gold. The flavors I got from the dry hopping of Chinook during active fermentation are out of this world. I ended up getting a really beautiful looking 6% ABV pale ale that has slight notes of pine paired with crazy stonefruit flavors, in particular peach, and even more specifically, peach ring candy. It is so, so good. I actually poured myself a glass before it was even carbonated and chilled because it was that good. My wife did the same, so it was good to have that concurrence from someone who doesn't have exactly the same beer preferences I have. It isn't necessarily what I was expecting to get flavor wise, but the end result is even better than I hoped. I hope the guys like it as much as I do. I'm bringing a 5 gallon keg to the house we are staying at, and it needs to be gone by Sunday or I'll be upset lol.

Do you have a friend application I can fill out? 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Just kicked the keg of my pineapple IPA that doesn't actually have any pineapple in it. I NAILED replicating pineapple smell and flavor with just hops, which I was super happy with. However, I think my adjunct to base malt ratio or something was off and I got a much weaker bodied beer than I wanted. It sucked for me, but my family, especially my wife, loved it. It was much more drinkable and accessible than I wanted it to be, but maybe that was overall a good thing. It tasted more like a wheat beer than an IPA. It had a smooth, limp aftertaste instead of a strong, floral one.

The beer I've got going now I am kind of excited about. A friend of ours has a birthday coming up soon and is a big Harry Potter fan, so I'm brewing a butterbeer for her birthday. I'm excited about it because I'm getting more into cocktails now, and this is basically just a cream ale spiked with butterscotch schnapps. The cream ale is carbonating right now, but tasted really good out of the fermenter warm and uncarbonated. When it is finished carbonating, I'll do a few tests to find the ratio of beer to schnapps I want and add the schnapps straight to the keg. It should be good!

For father's day, my wife got me a new tool that is a hydrometer that you just drop into your fermenter and it gives you real time readings of the gravity and temperature via bluetooth, which is awesome. I was able to track the gravity down to the second, which meant I could take the beer off the yeast at exactly the gravity I wanted, which is huge for beer like a cream ale where you want to leave some residual sweetness. A bone dry cream ale isn't as good as a sweet, malty one. The yeast was working hard still when I decided to transfer to the keg, so if I let it go as long as I normally would, I would have gotten a bone dry beer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, minutemancl said:

Just kicked the keg of my pineapple IPA that doesn't actually have any pineapple in it. I NAILED replicating pineapple smell and flavor with just hops, which I was super happy with. However, I think my adjunct to base malt ratio or something was off and I got a much weaker bodied beer than I wanted. It sucked for me, but my family, especially my wife, loved it. It was much more drinkable and accessible than I wanted it to be, but maybe that was overall a good thing. It tasted more like a wheat beer than an IPA. It had a smooth, limp aftertaste instead of a strong, floral one.

The beer I've got going now I am kind of excited about. A friend of ours has a birthday coming up soon and is a big Harry Potter fan, so I'm brewing a butterbeer for her birthday. I'm excited about it because I'm getting more into cocktails now, and this is basically just a cream ale spiked with butterscotch schnapps. The cream ale is carbonating right now, but tasted really good out of the fermenter warm and uncarbonated. When it is finished carbonating, I'll do a few tests to find the ratio of beer to schnapps I want and add the schnapps straight to the keg. It should be good!

For father's day, my wife got me a new tool that is a hydrometer that you just drop into your fermenter and it gives you real time readings of the gravity and temperature via bluetooth, which is awesome. I was able to track the gravity down to the second, which meant I could take the beer off the yeast at exactly the gravity I wanted, which is huge for beer like a cream ale where you want to leave some residual sweetness. A bone dry cream ale isn't as good as a sweet, malty one. The yeast was working hard still when I decided to transfer to the keg, so if I let it go as long as I normally would, I would have gotten a bone dry beer.

How are you carbonating the keg? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, minutemancl said:

Force carbing. This one will get about 10-12psi of CO2 for about a week through the IN of a sixtel keg. 

Have you carbonated in bottles before?  I use a canning machine and my carbonation can be all over the place.  I add priming sugar to the batch before canning but idk what the best method for it is. How do you distribute the priming sugar throughout the batch before bottling/canning? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, MKnight82 said:

Have you carbonated in bottles before?  I use a canning machine and my carbonation can be all over the place.  I add priming sugar to the batch before canning but idk what the best method for it is. How do you distribute the priming sugar throughout the batch before bottling/canning? 

I've carbed in bottles before. I use priming sugar. I've experimented with a few different options (all natural honey, regular honey, cane sugar, corn sugar, priming drops). When I've bottled, my batch size was never more than like 2.5 gallons, so I didn't have to use too many bottles and I did it all by hand. I found best results using either priming drops of just regular cane sugar; just add those to the bottom of each bottle before filling.

Adding priming sugar to the entire batch before bottling could definitely get you some weird results. You don't actually know how much sugar is getting into each bottle or can. Also, the yeast will start eating that sugar immediately, producing CO2 and more alcohol. By the time you get to the bottom of the batch and are filling your last bottle, who knows how much sugar is even left.

https://www.amazon.com/Mangrove-Jacks-Carbonation-Drops-approx/dp/B071NFXV1M/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=carbonation+drops&qid=1687536779&sr=8-2 60 drops for $10 is a decent deal. Prevents you from having to measure out a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar or whatever each bottle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, minutemancl said:

I've carbed in bottles before. I use priming sugar. I've experimented with a few different options (all natural honey, regular honey, cane sugar, corn sugar, priming drops). When I've bottled, my batch size was never more than like 2.5 gallons, so I didn't have to use too many bottles and I did it all by hand. I found best results using either priming drops of just regular cane sugar; just add those to the bottom of each bottle before filling.

 

Ya I always add it to the whole batch, and I had like a 5-6 gallon batch. 

4 minutes ago, minutemancl said:

Adding priming sugar to the entire batch before bottling could definitely get you some weird results. You don't actually know how much sugar is getting into each bottle or can.

Yes exactly.  I had some cans super carbed up and others completely flat. 

4 minutes ago, minutemancl said:

https://www.amazon.com/Mangrove-Jacks-Carbonation-Drops-approx/dp/B071NFXV1M/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=carbonation+drops&qid=1687536779&sr=8-2 60 drops for $10 is a decent deal. Prevents you from having to measure out a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar or whatever each bottle.

This is good advice I'll give these a shot. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Brewed an Allagash White clone for my son's first birthday party in a few weeks. First off, OYL-030 fermented faster than any yeast I've ever used before, including when I've used Kveik @ about 90-95 degrees. Absolutely insane. It took the beer from 1.048 to 1.010 gravity in under 72 hours, and that was at room temperature. I kegged last night and was able to give it a sample, and the taste, color, and alcohol are all pretty much dead on. Allagash White is a hazy yellow, 5.2% alcohol, 13 IBUs with a wheat body and a coriander spice and orange finish. My beer is a hazy yellow, 5.25% alcohol, 16 IBUs with a wheat body and a slight coriander spice and slightly sweeter orange finish. This is going to be a hit, I think. I wish I was able to add more coriander, but I ran out short of what I wanted to add. I also was only able to get my hands on navel oranges rather than curacao oranges. Next time, I'll spring for some more fresh coriander and find some curacao oranges. I think those 2 slight adjustments will have this clone dead on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Heimdallr said:

I brewed my first ever batch (a pale ale) a few weeks ago, and get to pop the first bottle tonight! Based on the gravity measurements it only came out at around 4% ABV, but whatever. 

Nice, man! Congrats! How did it turn out? Did you use a kit?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...