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Homebrew thread

Started by Blue Jam, March 24, 2020, 06:20:38 PM

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Ferris

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on October 29, 2020, 03:41:35 PM
Maybe it's just because they've got a vested interest in punting you kits?

Ok yeah that seems obvious in hindsight. Case closed.

Quote from: Blue Jam on October 29, 2020, 03:41:50 PM
It was Danstar Nottingham Ale Beer Brewing Yeast, and ooooh look, there's a datasheet!

https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/docs/products/tds/TDS_LALBREW_PREM_NOTTINGHAM_ENGLISH_DIGITAL.pdf

Apparently it's a pretty neutral yeast which "allows hop character to dominate". Not much in the way of fruity esters then, rightio.

Got no idea what the original strain in the kit was, just that it was sensational for making bread!

Honestly the amount of nerdery that goes into brewing is one of my favourite things about it. The amount of data available on yeast strains (especially in the last few years) is really cool.

Sebastian Cobb

I use that calculator and went low in the recommended range at first just in case, but found it could do with a bit more oomph and have been going to the high end now.

Also skews the readings a bit, I was going with a nominal 20c but it's probably more like 18 now which makes a noticeable difference to the amount recommended.

However I've had some of my older, flatter beers I did with drops out of some I kept back and they were more heady than I remember, so perhaps it's just something that develops a bit more after the grog is drinkable?

Blue Jam

Quote from: Ed Sholda-Sneezuntows on October 30, 2020, 10:48:02 AM
Opened the first bottles recently and it tastes great, but is completely without any head. There's a good bit of fizz to it, just looks like a glass of coke. Not the end of the world by any means, but obviously not how it should be. Any idea what I've done wrong?

Any chance it could be the glasses you're drinking it from? Got any with more etching on the bottom? Maybe that's a stupid question, but it's one thing to consider. Maybe try a lager or wheat beer glass?

5g priming sugar per litre should be fine, that's about the most I have ever added to my beer and it's been fine.

Bottled the Prairie Vole last night and added 45g of sugar to 10 litres of beer, used the priming sugar calculator Ferris recommended and I'm sure it'll be fine. Never had any flat beer and had no exploders or gushers either.

Ferris, I had another sip of the Prairie Vole and I think it'll be fine. It's not great but it's still drinkable as it is and if it mellows like the last batch did it could still be really nice. I'm not a huge fan of over bitter hoppy beers but I can still drink them, and the worst case scenario here is that I'll end up with a load of something like Dead Pony Club but costing 50p a pint. Get in.

Ferris

^if your beer is tasting alright when it goes into the bottle, it'll likely be excellent by the time it comes out. Fingers crossed!

Blue Jam

Cheers again Ferris!

Put the Belgian dubbel on last night. This Festival Ales kit is a bit more technical but also more idiot-proof. It includes a sachet containing the exact amount of priming sugar required, plus a bag of hop pellets to add on Day 5. The instructions say to just chuck them in and let them break up but would it do any harm to put them in a muslin bag first? Or would that be pointless? I just want to make the beer reasonably clear.

Blue Jam

^^^just found the kit includes a hop bag, so I guess that putting the pellets in it is what I'm supposed to do, d'oh.

Ferris

Quote from: Blue Jam on October 30, 2020, 02:46:26 PM
Cheers again Ferris!

Put the Belgian dubbel on last night. This Festival Ales kit is a bit more technical but also more idiot-proof. It includes a sachet containing the exact amount of priming sugar required, plus a bag of hop pellets to add on Day 5. The instructions say to just chuck them in and let them break up but would it do any harm to put them in a muslin bag first? Or would that be pointless? I just want to make the beer reasonably clear.

You could put them in a muslin bag if you like, I'm just a lazy bollocks and don't bother. One - I like cloudy, oily, hoppy beer anyway so if throwing them in without a bag makes a difference to clarity (and for the record I don't think it does) then it won't bother me anyway. Two - a week or two in primary, the vegetal matter will have dropped out of suspension and be stuck in the trub/yeast at the bottom anyway.

You can use hops in basically two ways* - if you heat them up, they release bittering oils depending on how long you heat them - so when you are doing all grain brewing and you boil hops as part of the recipe, you'll get different levels of bitterness (measured in IBUs) if you put them in for an hour vs 2 minutes.

If you add them after the beer is cooled, you are basically only getting hop aroma but no actual bitterness. Basically you boil the bejesus out of them, you'll get lots of hop bitterness but very little aroma, and vice versa. You are adding aroma hops, so there won't be any actual bitterness, just nice hoppy smells. If you decide you don't like the aroma, leave in the fridge for two weeks and it will have dissipated a lot.

Now because I've explained that, I'll go off topic in a way that is hopefully helpful in a general beer sense. Some hops are naturally (or designed to be) better for one use than the other. Typically hops with a high alpha acid percentage tend to be used as bittering hops, and doubly so if their aroma (ie their other potential use) is naff. As a result they are cheaper - if I can't get magnum then who cares, I'll use warrior or target because they are only imparting bitter hop oil and not much else.

Aroma hops usually smell dead nice, and have lower AA% (but not always). If you see a "single hop" pale ale, it's usually something like chinook that will do both because it smells nice and has a higher AA% so you don't need tons of it to get a decent IBU count. Sometimes hops will give you their B% also but that's not really necessary. It also tells you how "good" a hop crop is - I've gone to my local store and spurned their cascade because it was a weedy 4% AA, for example.

Aroma hops tend to be quite a lot more expensive. Two (well, three) reasons for this - if you want an azacca pale ale, then you can't substitute for chinook so demand is more inelastic = higher price. Two - they are typically only grown by specific producers who limit production and also charge shipping's costs - fresh hops mean more expensive delivery methods so in the UK hops that are cheaper for me are more expensive for you (and vice versa - fuggles hops are quite expensive in Canada last I checked though they grow like weeds in parts of the UK).

That didn't all have a point, I just thought it was interesting and will help you be a beer bore next time you are in the battle cruiser and see a beer make reference to IBU or dry hopping or whatever.

(*as with all things brewing, this is disputed. It is a bit old hat to put hops in at the beginning of the boil these days. You see trendy brewers making hoppy IPAs that are theoretically 0 IBU - dry hopping does add some residual bitterness without heat, but nowhere near as much. It's how people make those gloopy fruit IPAs that were so popular for a hot second without them being a horrible bitter vanilla experience - huge late additions, no hops in with the grain bill, loads of dry hopping = lots of hop aroma, almost no bitterness at all.)

Thanks for the suggestions and advice.

It's odd, the carbonated-yet-headless stout, but it tastes so good I'm probably going to adopt Ferris' genius 'Craft Mild' ploy and not worry about it.

I'd planned to save it till Christmas, as I'd read it really improves with time. No chance, it'll be gone in a couple of weeks at this rate. I'll get another batch on the go sharpish and see if it's any different.

Cheers all!

Blue Jam

Fascinating stuff Ferris. I too love all the homebrew nerdery. Datasheets!

Meanwhile at the Northern Vole Nanobrewery the Belgian dubbel is fermenting like a mofo. This is a lively one and no mistake. Been gurgling every 5-10 seconds since yesterday morning!

Couldn't get a proper starting gravity reading as the extract settled to the bottom of the fermenter and I was a bit concerned that it wouldn't all dissolve but I can see the yeast are steadily eating their way through that layer of sugar. Should be about 8.5% ABV when it's done.

Think the Christmas pudding ale will be Voël Voël and the unadulterated batch will be Woelmuis, the Flemish word for vole. Can't think of any Belgian things that rhyme with "vole".

Ferris


Blue Jam

Was thinking of Hercule Poirvole for the Belgian dubbel but that doesn't really work. Tintin In The Land Of Black Voled works but I'm not naming a beer after Tintin, the massive racist.

Dex Sawash

Some German/Jamaican hybrid called Jah Wohl

Edit- maybe with breadfruit in

Blue Jam

How about a hybrid of Belgian dubbel and Tennant's Super? Purple Tintin?

Blue Jam

Opened a bottle of Prairie Vole prematurely because it's that kind of night. It's still a bit bitter but nicely so, it's already mellowed nicely into a complex hoppy floral beer. Really pleased with it and can imagine it will only get better with a few more weeks of ageing.

Bison Grass + Beer = Good call.

Calistan

I'm going to bottle my Coopers Irish stout tomorrow so today I'm going to bung my bottles in the dishwasher for the first time. What's the best way to go about it? I must have a look at the different cycles but I know to avoid using detergent. After drinking I always give the bottles a good rinse and today I spent a little while soaking the bottles to peel off the labels. If I don't have enough room I might stick a few bottles in the oven too.

Blue Jam

Pitched the yeast for my Festival Belgian-style ale on Thursday last week, the airlock was gurgling very aggressively for about 48 hours and while it has since slowed down we are still getting a big healthy gurgle every 20 minutes or so. Is that to be expected with high ABV brews? This one should be 8.5% ABV and the kit included a bag of dextrose, presumably for strength rather than to add any flavour.

Going shopping for adulterants today, in the form of a couple of small Xmas puds. Going to look for some containing port and brandy but no cider or currants, don't want to end up with snakebite and black here. Whatever I choose, the sugar should get the airlock going for a secondary fermentation before I bottle it and get a tertiary fermentation going.

Sebastian Cobb

I'm sure I read somewhere that the bulk of the work gets done in about 72 hours.

I've just bottled my DIY high strength brew (cheap kit with way more dextrose than required then a hop bag for the last week). Should be about 7%. The trial jar and leftover~300 ml I couldn't bottle taste nice and have given me a bit of a buzz,so that's promising. I'll probably do another one in time for Christmas but will save this one.

Ferris

Quote from: Calistan on November 07, 2020, 02:44:17 PM
I'm going to bottle my Coopers Irish stout tomorrow so today I'm going to bung my bottles in the dishwasher for the first time. What's the best way to go about it? I must have a look at the different cycles but I know to avoid using detergent. After drinking I always give the bottles a good rinse and today I spent a little while soaking the bottles to peel off the labels. If I don't have enough room I might stick a few bottles in the oven too.

I do mine in a hot wash and set the timer for an hour. That's as good as boiling them I reckon, leave em to dry in the rack then on you go. If you're filling bottles, do it on the side over the dishwasher with the dishwasher door open, any splashes or drips go on the inside of the door and you can close it up when you're done and nothing to clean up. Textbook!

Sebastian Cobb

I used to use a push-down cleaner with vwp, but then I realised by dropping my grill tray to the lowest rack in the oven I can get 20 500ml bottles in there, so do two batches of that at 160c for 15 minutes.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Calistan on November 07, 2020, 02:44:17 PM
I'm going to bottle my Coopers Irish stout tomorrow so today I'm going to bung my bottles in the dishwasher for the first time. What's the best way to go about it? I must have a look at the different cycles but I know to avoid using detergent. After drinking I always give the bottles a good rinse and today I spent a little while soaking the bottles to peel off the labels. If I don't have enough room I might stick a few bottles in the oven too.

Can't answer your question, sorry (don't have a dishwasher anymore) but is that the Australian Cooper's who also make Sparkling Ale, or is it one of those Cooper's kits you can buy at Wilko? Was in Wilko looking at those only yesterday. I thought they'd be cheap but they're about the same price as most other places. Might try one of the Cooper's kits when I've got through the Prairie Vole and the Belgian ales.

My local branch of Wilko had also sold out of a lot of their homebrew kit, I guess everyone else here is also getting their Christmas brew on/prepping for another lockdown.

Ferris

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 07, 2020, 04:00:54 PM
I'm sure I read somewhere that the bulk of the work gets done in about 72 hours.

I've just bottled my DIY high strength brew (cheap kit with way more dextrose than required then a hop bag for the last week). Should be about 7%. The trial jar and leftover~300 ml I couldn't bottle taste nice and have given me a bit of a buzz,so that's promising. I'll probably do another one in time for Christmas but will save this one.

Yeah alcohol production is logarithmic - after a few days, the airlock should calm down a lot.

Blue Jam

Oh yes, I know microbial growth is logarithmic (life scientist here! Posting from the lab where I have just been quantifying the growth rate of human blood vessel endothelial cells, got a nice logarithmic curve going here, phwoargh) but with my last batch the English Golden Ale yeast shot its load in a day, while this Belgian Ale Yeast is still going strong after nine days. As much as it's slowed down this beer is evidently nowhere near being ready to bottle. Is that because of the yeast strain or more because there is just more sugar for it to clean up?

Not got a data sheet for this yeast strain because it came with the kit. Just interested because I am a nerd and I am enjoying learning all about yeast here :) Incidentally you do get a lot of life scientists who are into baking, brewing, coffee nerdery and growing chillies. Those things seem universal across all labs.

Ferris

Oh of course, sorry! Didn't mean to be patronizing.

It may well be that the strain is uber powerful and the curve is steeper than with a more sedate yeast. We've reached the end of what I know about microbes here.

sirhenry

Yesterday's mince pie mead is bubbling away happily.

Blue Jam


sirhenry

Quote from: Blue Jam on November 07, 2020, 07:10:47 PM
Tell me more...
There's not much more to tell really - all your talk of Xmas brews made me jealous so I mashed up 4 mince pies, added 2 pounds of honey, dissolved the lot in half a gallon of water and when it had cooled enough, some mead yeast.

Nothing clever, accurate or careful about it, but hopefully in 7 weeks I'll be able to siphon it out into 4 pint glasses and die in a happy diabetic hyper. It's what Santa would have wanted.


It may have had something to do with being rather blotto on bochet (caramelised mead) that tastes just like Cinzano but a little bit sweeter.

Blue Jam

Quote from: sirhenry on November 07, 2020, 07:59:00 PM
Nothing clever, accurate or careful about it

Sounds bloody lovely though! Cheers, enjoy!

Calistan

Quote from: Blue Jam on November 07, 2020, 04:21:51 PM
Can't answer your question, sorry (don't have a dishwasher anymore) but is that the Australian Cooper's who also make Sparkling Ale, or is it one of those Cooper's kits you can buy at Wilko? Was in Wilko looking at those only yesterday. I thought they'd be cheap but they're about the same price as most other places. Might try one of the Cooper's kits when I've got through the Prairie Vole and the Belgian ales.

My local branch of Wilko had also sold out of a lot of their homebrew kit, I guess everyone else here is also getting their Christmas brew on/prepping for another lockdown.

Not soo sure about Wilko as we don't have them in Ireland but it's this one: https://www.lovebrewing.co.uk/coopers-international-irish-stout/#:~:text=A%20rich%2C%20dark%20brew%20displaying,barley%2C%20flaked%20barley%20and%20hops.

Most of the reviews seem decent. I bottled it today. Thanks Ferris for the tip about filling it over the dishwasher door, that saved my floor. I did a mixture of bottles from the oven and dishwasher. Silly old me, I overestimated the amount of bottles I needed so I just put foil over them and will use them for my Grapefruit IPA which I might get around to next weekend. Hoping the stout will become half-decent by Christmas time.

ZoyzaSorris

Quote from: Blue Jam on November 07, 2020, 04:27:58 PM
Oh yes, I know microbial growth is logarithmic (life scientist here! Posting from the lab where I have just been quantifying the growth rate of human blood vessel endothelial cells, got a nice logarithmic curve going here, phwoargh) but with my last batch the English Golden Ale yeast shot its load in a day, while this Belgian Ale Yeast is still going strong after nine days. As much as it's slowed down this beer is evidently nowhere near being ready to bottle. Is that because of the yeast strain or more because there is just more sugar for it to clean up?

Not got a data sheet for this yeast strain because it came with the kit. Just interested because I am a nerd and I am enjoying learning all about yeast here :) Incidentally you do get a lot of life scientists who are into baking, brewing, coffee nerdery and growing chillies. Those things seem universal across all labs.

Was a bit confused here - as I thought surely microbial growth is exponential (doubling each generation) rather than logarithmic which is the opposite, that is slowing down over time, but after a google it seems for some reason in microbiology there is a confusing convention to sometimes call this exponential growth the 'logarithmic growth phase' because they are usually expressed logarithmically to give a straight line.

I think with the alcohol it probably is a mathematically logarithmic response to a certain extent though, as the increasing alcohol inhibits growth and then stops it entirely - that is the production of alcohol speeds up rapidly before slowing down and then stopping. That's my understanding of the above anyway, I could be wrong.

Ferris

I understood many of those words.