Official Beer and Wine making Thread

[Murf'n'surf]

Yum..... I need to move closer to you!

 

[Big Shasta]

Yum..... I need to move closer to you!

The Keg is always open if your in the area.

 

[Big Shasta]

Yeah, should have used a blowoff tube. Hasn't been a problem with this 6.5 gallon primary. Super aggressive fermentation is good though.

 

[elcue]

Shasta my cousin started out as a home brewer like you. She was always bringing beers to holiday parties and family gatherings for us to try. They were all pretty good and thought it was a nice little hobby. She now owns the third largest brewery in NJ, Forgotten Boardwalk. She left the finance world and took off with her passion seems to be doing pretty good so far. If you ever in NJ stop by we meet for some beers.

 

[RiverRat]

I haven't brewed since spring. I'll have to stop in at Northern Brewer one of these days(since their Milwaukee store is 10 minutes from me) and pick up some supplies. I'm a hop head, so I'll likely brew up some sort of over the top IPA.

 

[RiverRat]

Kegging a batch of "Zombie Dirt." A close match to the elusive Zombie Dust by Three Floyds. A pale ale with 8 ounces of Citra hops for all 5 gallon batch! The aroma alone is enough to make this hop head get excited!

 

[Murf'n'surf]

Love the sticker placement!! Sounds yummy!

 

[veedubtek]

I don't think that bud light margarita thing has many hops there @RiverRat .

 

[RiverRat]

@veedubtek agreed. That's why they've been there longer than I can remember!

 

[Big Shasta]

Anyone brewing any awesome summer beers? I just ordered the stuff to make a orange vanilla cream ale again I call it "Creamsicle Ale". Hopefully it comes out as good as last time.

 

[BobJohnson]

Just tapped a keg of Hefeweizen last night I made 4 weeks ago. I've had the keg on co2 for just 5 days , so the beer needs more time to just sit and carbonate. Gonna be a good one for hot weather though.

 

[Big Shasta]

Just tapped a keg of Hefeweizen last night I made 4 weeks ago. I've had the keg on co2 for just 5 days , so the beer needs more time to just sit and carbonate. Gonna be a good one for hot weather though.

Normally I'll force carbonate for 2-3 days. first 2 days at 25-30psi then evaluate. If it needs more, usually just one more day at 20-25 is enough.

Also, I cold crash at the end of the primary/secondary so when it hits the keg for carbonating, it's already cold which helps.

I never do that shake/roll BS. Just time and pressure. Make sure you're forcing through the serve port. (Don't mean to insult if you already know this, just pointing out my process)

I Love a good Hef....Wheat....Belgian....Saison...cream ale...

Not a hops guy...hop flavor ok..... hop bitterness, no thanks.

 

[Bill D]

@Big Shasta that creamsicle ale sounds awesome!

 

[BobJohnson]

Normally I'll force carbonate for 2-3 days. first 2 days at 25-30psi then evaluate. If it needs more, usually just one more day at 20-25 is enough.

Also, I cold crash at the end of the primary/secondary so when it hits the keg for carbonating, it's already cold which helps.

I never do that shake/roll BS. Just time and pressure. Make sure you're forcing through the serve port. (Don't mean to insult if you already know this, just pointing out my process)
....

no, I don't carb through the out post, I do it on the in post. no offense taken by your comment at all. Always learning new techniques. Makes perfect sense to carb through the out post. I might give that a go, but would mean some hose/ball valve connector changes I need to make to my kegging system. Not a huge issue though.

My normal plan is to cold crash like you said. transfer to serving keg and put that new keg in my main beer fridge hooked up to CO2 at serving pressure (usually 10-15 psi). I will let that keg site 8-10 days and it will 99.9 % of the time be fully carb'ed and ready to go after that 8-10 day time. I just got antsy on this one and took a pull after 5 days.

 

[Big Shasta]

no, I don't carb through the out post, I do it on the in post. no offense taken by your comment at all. Always learning new techniques. Makes perfect sense to carb through the out post. I might give that a go, but would mean some hose/ball valve connector changes I need to make to my kegging system. Not a huge issue though.

My normal plan is to cold crash like you said. transfer to serving keg and put that new keg in my main beer fridge hooked up to CO2 at serving pressure (usually 10-15 psi). I will let that keg site 8-10 days and it will 99.9 % of the time be fully carb'ed and ready to go after that 8-10 day time. I just got antsy on this one and took a pull after 5 days.

Not sure what you have on your setup but mine are the standard ball locks and corny kegs. They are pretty clever with the fittings. The CO2 one will fit on either side but the serve fitting will only fit on the serve side. Crank that pressure up and cut your carb time way down. I get antsy...especially with a beer like the creamsicle ale that sits in secondary for 10-14 days....I want it to carb up quick! But I'm still not impatient enough to use the rock and slosh method...too much room for error there if you ask me.

 

[Big Shasta]

@Big Shasta that creamsicle ale sounds awesome!

Thanks...It really does come out awesome....3 pounds of orange blossom honey (which is a fermentable sugar) at flameout and then in the secondary I put the zest of 3 oranges and make an extract with 10 madascar vanilla beans and a very small amount of vodka. Sits in secondary for 10-14 days. Last time it came out to about 8%abv. The honey really kicks it up. I need to look at my notes, I think I added some bottling sugar in the primary too...have to be careful though, too much and it dries out the finish. It's sneaky...goes down easy but kicks you in the butt.

 

[NoProb]

Just kicked my keg of the black IPA that I brewed over the winter. My plan was to have one ready for when it kicked, but then we decided to buy a new house and move, so all my brewing gear went into the storage unit 3 months ago! We move Aug 5th, so hoping to get one going once we settle there.

There's also a new homebrew store that opened recently that offers on-site brewing and storage for fermentation. They were also talking about setting up a lagering area, so may have to give that a shot.

 

[Big Shasta]

Just kicked my keg of the black IPA that I brewed over the winter. My plan was to have one ready for when it kicked, but then we decided to buy a new house and move, so all my brewing gear went into the storage unit 3 months ago! We move Aug 5th, so hoping to get one going once we settle there.

There's also a new homebrew store that opened recently that offers on-site brewing and storage for fermentation. They were also talking about setting up a lagering area, so may have to give that a shot.

That's a cool idea for folks that don't have room at home to make big batches. Could be really cool for assistance when newbs like me go to all grain brewing....but I told myself I won't do it without a good conical fermenter setup like this. http://www.ssbrewtech.com/collections/fermenters/products/chronical-14-gal-fermenter-brewmaster-edition-1

 

[NoProb]

Yeah, I got the brew bucket from them for christmas last year, perfect for my 5.5 gal batches. The black IPA was the first batch that went through it. The only downside is you don't get to 'see' the beer brewing, but it is a well built fermenter.

I want to get the temperature stabilizer that goes with it to make sure that I keep my temps correct (had a couple of off beers that I think were due to that).

 

[BobJohnson]

yeah, temp control during fermentation is probably the # 1 thing that made my beer become consistently good. I use a small 5 cu foot chest freezer and a johnson tempreature control unit to hold my fermenting temps right where I want it. I too use to love watching the carboy during fermentation but have moved onto a 10 gal corny keg to ferment in. It is nice because once my beer goes into it with the yeast, the beer never sees Oxygen again (unless I need to drop in dry hops). I hook a blow off tube to the in post on the fermenter. When time to rack to a serving keg, I do it via tubes. Use CO2 to push the beer out of the fermenter into the serving keg.