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Homebrew thread

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

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Ferris

One of my very first beers was a treacle stout. Quite an odd beer, but that's because it was my second or third batch and I did all sorts of things wrong. Lots of unfermentable sugar so it's probably quite nice if done correctly.

A friend of mine bought a pico brew (a grainfather equivalent). It was shit, no fun, broke regularly, had a load of proprietary parts, and is now no longer supported. Avoid with a passion. It's like cooking something nice versus throwing a rustlers in the microwave. They're both technically food, but one is much more satisfying to have made and will likely be much, much better unless you really made a mess of your recipe.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 09, 2021, 03:06:40 PM
I actually want to have a crack at pruno.

A friend has a Polish father in law and for Christmas he just used to chuck a load of berries and sugar in the massive pickle/saurkraut jars they get over there. Got banned from it in the end as he was just spending 2 weeks twatted.
Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 09, 2021, 03:06:40 PM
I actually want to have a crack at pruno.

A friend has a Polish father in law and for Christmas he just used to chuck a load of berries and sugar in the massive pickle/saurkraut jars they get over there. Got banned from it in the end as he was just spending 2 weeks twatted.

Looking up pruno now. This sounds fucking mega to be honest, love a bit of no nonsense brewing.

TrenterPercenter

Anyone seen/used these new fangled hipster brewing machines?

https://thegreatergood.co.uk

Blue Jam

£75 for the kit and £13 for the refills seems pretty cheap. A one-step fermentation process but for much less than the cost of a Grainfather, I could be tempted.

This however:

QuoteFresh Beer is better beer, it's that simple.

Beer in bottles and cans is very often packaged months before being sold. Much of the flavour degrades over time

...is bollocks.

sirhenry

Quote from: Blue Jam on January 11, 2021, 11:31:29 AM
£75 for the kit and £13 for the refills seems pretty cheap. A one-step fermentation process but for much less than the cost of a Grainfather, I could be tempted.

This however:

...is bollocks.
Even they admit that on the site: the packaging says 'Brew: 4 days, Condition 3 days' but the site says
QuoteFermenting Public House IPA for an extra day, (5 days in total), and conditioning for up to 7 days in total will increase clarity and dryness and produce a more rounded flavour.

So "In just 7 days!" or 12 if you want it drinkable.

Blue Jam

Also £13 for ten pints may be cheaper than going to the pub but it's not that cheap. Buying your beer from Lidl would be cheaper- and the beer would probably be better too.

Ferris

It's a small extract kit, with a pressure barrel and a lot of slick marketing.

Back of envelope calculations, it is ~4x more expensive than regular homebrewing (and more so if you were thrifty with your homebrew ingredient buying), and I suspect the beer is not great - you're diluting and brewing a concentrate. You're also up the creek when the company making the cartridges goes under.

All that said, I'm sure at that price point it'll find a market, and it looks very straightforward which is to its credit. It must be using some turbo yeast (my money on kveik) to ferment and condition within 7 days and without a boil (ie so quick that bad stuff doesn't have time to grow so it is consistently safe). Fair play to them, but not for me.

Blue Jam

I'm being reminded of that Bruce Robinson anecdote about the time he and Vivian "The Real Withnail" McKerrel went to a pub that was closing down and asked the landlord if he had any wine in. He ran down to the cellar and came back with a dusty bottle of Margeaux or something and charged them a stupidly tiny amount for it. They then asked if they could buy up the entire stock and the landlord said: "Are you sure? It's very old wine..."

I'm keeping some of my Xmas ale "packaged for months in the bottle" and I don't think I'm making a mistake here.

Sebastian Cobb

Does anyone know anything about the Philips Perfectdraft system? It seems to be a chiller that takes 6litre kegs.

It seems the kegs actually have a foil bag of beer inside them, a bit like a box of wine and it dispenses by pumping air between the bag and the keg. It seems some homebrew people have had success with refilling them by rinsing/sterilising them and refilling them with their own brews by using their own air pumps to empty/refill the bags.

Seems like it could be a good system as it refrigerates it.

Blue Jam

That's very interesting. All I know is that BeerHawk often have offers on them:

https://www.beerhawk.co.uk/perfect-draft-range/perfect-draft-kegs

Could be good for cold-crashing. I would try this if I had a bigger fridge.

Sebastian Cobb

I just put an order for a couple of kits and added this ginger beer kit to bump it into the free postage.
https://brew2bottle.co.uk/products/ritchies-simply-40-pint-beer-kit-ginger-beer

One of the recommendation said to add chilli and cardamom to it which put me on to this guide to adding spices:
https://www.brewcabin.com/adding-spices-to-beer/

It's clearly for grain/extract brewing rather than using premade wort. If the spice instructions are 'add 5/10 minutes before the end of brewing up' could I get acceptable results simply by boiling them in the sugarwater I need to add to the kit for that length of time?


Ferris

Yeah I reckon that would do the trick, though I reckon that's just to sterilize them?

I'm not an expert, but any time I've added spices it's been towards the end of primary fermentation rather than as part of the boil.

Blue Jam

Just bottled some of the roasted stout. Got 7 bottles of Vole Porter II conditioning now. To the remaining 20 litres I have just added 500g of lactose dissolved in boiling water, 200g of roasted cocoa nibs and three grated tonka beans- they were a bit smol and the cocoa aroma was overpowering the tonka so I added a third. Chucked a few ping pong balls in the bag to act as flotation devices and steeped the whole thing in boiling water for five minutes before chucking it into the fermenter. Will take regular samples for quality control purposes and will get the tonka out of there if I decide it's becoming too bitter.

Tried a small sample of the unadulterated stout. Very dark and bitter, but nice enough and should mellow a bit after a week or two. Think I needed to get some lactose in there for the cocoa/tonka-adulterated batch. Oh well, here we go...

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on January 21, 2021, 03:27:50 PM
I'm not an expert, but any time I've added spices it's been towards the end of primary fermentation rather than as part of the boil.

Ah that might make more sense... Just chuck them in with a week to go like I do with my hops?

Ferris

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 21, 2021, 08:33:33 PM
Ah that might make more sense... Just chuck them in with a week to go like I do with my hops?

That's been my ticket to success[nb]for a very limited definition of "success"[/nb], but I'm not an expert with them so I'd give /r/homebrewing a google search and see what comes up.

Blue Jam

Just had a taste of the Vole Miner* cocoa and tonka milk stout. Think the tonka is bang-on, slight coumarin bitterness but in a nice way, not overpowering everything like the bison grass I put in the Prairie Vole was. The tonka flavour is a bit more pronounced than the cocoa though, could be tempted to chuck the remaining 100g of cocoa nibs in. Fuck it, it's not like I'll find any other use for them.

Hop taste is a bit bitter, exactly like it was in the stout I bottled before adding the cocoa and tonka. The lactose has offset that somewhat but not completely. Could be just me though as I don't like overly hoppy beers and I don't get as excited about hops as other homebrewers seem to.

I am slightly concerned that there has been some kickstarting of fermentation though. Bottled the Vole Porter II plain roasted stout after getting two SG readings of 1.011, which is exactly what it should have been, but after adding the cocoa nibs, grated tonka and lactose there has been some bubbling- not a huge amount, but airlock activity has gone from completely dead to a bit of bubbling once every 30-60 mins. What the hell could be happening in there? I'm pretty sure there's no contamination, the beer looks clean and is tasting pretty great so far. Do cocoa nibs contain any fermentable sugar? Homebrew forums say no but something's going on in the fermenter.

*Gonna make labels with a Vole driving a Tonka truck full of cocoa nibs looking a bit like coal

Ferris

Nice one on the tonka stout! The hops will fade as the beer ages so it sounds like patience and you'll have a really good beer.

There must be some sugar coming from somewhere, maybe bottling re-suspended the yeast and it found the last little bits of sugar to finish up? I don't think cacao ferments but I have no idea if that's the case

Sebastian Cobb

1.011 sounds a bit high but I've been using dextrose which is quite pure and the yeast can eat it all leaving nothing behind so it goes to about 1.006, I think thinkgs like DME finish with a higher SG.

Bottled my bitter this afternoon. Also tasted a bit hoppy but already quite dark and clear and the 3/4 of the pint left that wouldn't fill a bottle went down well.

Blue Jam

1.011 does sound a bit high but the spreadsheet at the Mangrove Jack's website said "1.009 for pure dextrose, 1.013 for malt extract and I was using a 1:1 mix of both, the hydrometer reading wasn't budging so 1.011 sounded about right.

I just cracked open one of the bottles to check I didn't have bottle bombs and nope, if anything it's a tad undercarbonated. Hop flavour has mellowed though and there's a nice bitter treacle flavour. Very pleasant. Should be even better with age. Hope the hop flavour fades a bit more for the tonka/cocoa batch though, if it does I should end up with a nice dessert beer.

Sebastian Cobb

#618
I've fucked up and forgot to peel the yeast sachet off the bottom of my bag of wort before chucking it in hot water.

There's plenty of stuff online about too hot water killing yeast, but little about whether dry, not yet activated yeast can get harmed by heat. The sachet also has sweetner and stuff in there as it's a flavoured brew. I guess I'm just going to have to go for it and chuck some more yeast in if it does nothing aren't I?

On second thoughts will abort and buy some more 'ginger ale' yeast off ebay. Better not to wait a few days after pitching to find out it's dead anyway.

Sebastian Cobb

Cracked open my bitter today. Not bad, quite dark and hoppy. Will be better in a week but very utilitarian.

I mentioned a while back I sent a selection to a mate for their birthday. Over christmas they got round to drinking them and sent me a review that came out like poncey tasting notes "quite fruity and hoppy... this one is less hoppy although still quite nice" (actually it was a lot better than that but I've lost the message after reflashing my phone) and they wouldn't have been shy about saying if they didn't like it, which I really quite enjoyed getting as another frame of reference since, given I made it, I'll force it down me if I have to.

Ferris

I used to have a brew club with friends across Canada, one of my brown ales made it to the Arctic circle! Then Canada post said it was illegal to mail beer and threatened me with a fine which was the end of it. Bastards.

Glad it's working out though. Did you pull the trigger on the spices in the ginger beer?

Sebastian Cobb

Sort of, if you look upthread I fucked up and started warming the wort in boiling water with the yeast sachet still stuck to the bottom. I've reordered more yeast but am waiting for it to turn up.

I lobbed in a bag of frozen garlic chunks (would've normally gone fresh but this is a guaranteed lb without fucking about) with my last grocery order and will stick some cayenne and chilli flakes in, I think I'm probably going to take your advice and do it for the last week of brewing so will food process the garlic then add spices etc and let it sit in some boiled water for 10 minutes before lobbing in the bucket.

It's quite hard to send beer legally isn't it? Most couriers don't allow it, Royal Mail do but only up to a litre. So I just lied and said it was crockery. The pack I sent my dad was packed tight just due to the box I used and was fine, but the one I sent my mate was less tight and had more bubble wrap, but one of the bottles got shook enough that half of it leaked out. Other 3 were fine though.

I'm sure I could have just used hermes to send it and they wouldn't have noticed but I think they'd have gotten smashed to fuck.

Ferris


Sebastian Cobb

I was going to ask, how does stuff with a corny keg work, I get the gas bottle just instantly fizzes it, so no secondary fermentation, but do you have to leave it pressurised to finish for a few weeks?

I'm thinking I'll piss about with a rotokeg (which needs secondary priming with sugar as the gas is just for ejection) but eventually upgrade to one of them.

Ferris

Yeah exactly. Beer goes into the keg, there's a CO2 line in and a tap line out. You hook up the CO2 and set the gauge on the line in to the desired PSI/beer carbonation level, and leave it for 5-7 days.

Leaving the beer tank pressurized forces the CO2 into the beer because it can't escape (and sometimes you hear it called force-carbing for that reason). You can get clever with it by burst-carbing (crank the pressure for a day, turn it down, turn it back up) or cool the keg down because that helps with the CO2 dissolving but that seems like a load of work and the reason kegging appeals is because I'm a lazy bollocks.

After it is all done (and I don't know how you check that), you close the valve to the the CO2 tank and turn the pressure waaaay down. Then you open the line out, and apply a small amount of CO2 pressure which replaces the liquid and forces the beer out the keg, through the line and into the waiting pint glass. When you're done, you're left with a keg full of CO2 and no beer.

That's all theory though, I've never done it myself (aside from 2 batches in a micro keg which was explicitly not for force-carbing but fuck tha police I did it anyway and it was alright). I can answer questions if you have em, but I'm only going off my own understanding because as much as I love the idea of the monster mega I don't know if I'll make the investment any time soon because I'm enjoying dry January and having gallons of beer in the gaffe will take me on a one-way trip to wasteman city.

Sebastian Cobb

Yeah, I was just wondering about the finishing time really.

I know rotokegs don't pressure enough for forced carbing, so you have to dump sugar in, then the sparklet or adaptor to soda stream bottle is used just to force co2 into it to pump out (as they have a tap with a float on a tube rather than bottom tap).

Something like this looks good: https://www.angelhomebrew.co.uk/full-keg-setup-kits/489-1505-single-faucet-kegerator-kit.html

Bit steep, but a 2nd hand old fridge and I'm sorted. Turns out there's a place that'll rent co2 bottles right round the corner from me.

Sebastian Cobb

I added citra to my high strength IPA today. I've only used hop pellets before, it's weird stuff the dry hops. Almost looks like chipboard, and the 40 grammes I mixed with boiling water to brew in a pint mug expanded and enveloped the whole mug and looked like wet sawdust.

Ferris

Oh interesting, I've only ever used hop pellets, dried hop flowers (looks nice but ultimately pointless and hops are better), and that waxy hop oil stuff that was trendy about 3 years ago that I forget the name of.

I wonder if it was just shredded pellets? Bet it smelled good though, Citra is an amazing hop.

Sebastian Cobb

I think it's the other way round - the pellets are a ground up and pressed version of this. There was definitely more of this. It did smell nice. I divvyed up the rest and shoved it in the freezer but will take a photo if I remember next time I use it.

Ferris

...yeah that's obvious in hindsight, my bad.