Homebrew thread

[TommyTurnips]

I BET YOU DO YOU DIRTY OLD BOLLOCKS

Fills me with genuine joy and mirth to be on the receiving end of that classic line. :D

I would brew a nice Extra Special Bitter for a Christmas beer. Either that or a nut brown ale. Course, they're all nut brown ales by the time I've finished with them.

[Blue Jam]

Never made your own white ale, YOU DIRTY OLD BOLLOCKS? ;)

Not sure about doing a dirty big sparge myself but now giving serious thought to getting a St. Peter's Cream Stout kit and just chucking a fuckload of Jaffa Cakes in. Checked a few homebrew forums and can't find anyone who's done it before. Fuckit, I've had Coco Pop stout and Kit Kat stout before and they were both amazing, what could possibly go wrong?

[Ferris]

Oil from the chocco might be an issue? Maybe not though. You could do a stout and add cacao nibs and artificial orange extract which would be a rough approximation?

Vanilla stout anyway, that's the stuff you want. Stout kit, add 3 vanilla beans cut in half, very nice.

[Blue Jam]

Still got some tonka bean/cocoa nib stout to finish off here. The cocoa bitterness has been fading, been mellowing nicely. Nah, no rough approximation for me here thanks, gonna keep it real. I want to hear those yeast munching their way through the Jaffas like Auric Goldfinger's laser.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Dates are christmassy ain't they, I wonder what would happen if you fucked a pound or so of them in a brew.

[Ferris]

Still got some tonka bean/cocoa nib stout to finish off here. The cocoa bitterness has been fading, been mellowing nicely. Nah, no rough approximation for me here thanks, gonna keep it real. I want to hear those yeast munching their way through the Jaffas like Auric Goldfinger's laser.

Oh yeah the tonka bean stout! Meant to ask how that was, sounds like a banger.

Dates are christmassy ain't they, I wonder what would happen if you fucked a pound or so of them in a brew.

Would you blend them up I wonder? Maybe you could add a bottle of brandy to 5 gallons or something, nothing says Christmas like an empty bottle of VSOP and regret.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Would you blend them up I wonder? Maybe you could add a bottle of brandy to 5 gallons or something, nothing says Christmas like an empty bottle of VSOP and regret.

Hot buttered rum is a bit like pureed christmas pud. I reckon you could do that with rum/brandy and a bit of salt and the dates would just add to it. Not sure this'll help BJ given she's done a proper one already though.

It hadn't even occurred to me to blend them, I guess if you commit to that you've got to de-pip them. I reckon in a brew they'd turn to mush anyway and just leave the pips at the bottom.

[Ferris]

Re: pips, I'd definitely tell myself that to avoid fucking about with a paring knife.

Roughly chop/blend em, blanch in boiling water, throw the lot in.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Roughly chop/blend em, blanch in boiling water, throw the lot in.

This ain't to do with brewing but I wanted to cook something that involved 50g plain peanuts and it seems nowhere's selling them at the moment (plenty of salted/dry roasted).

In the end I had to get a bag of monkey nuts and break them open then blanch/rub the peels off, 50g isn't many but it was a chore.

[Ferris]

I'd rinse the salted ones with water and call it a day, but that's because I lack conviction. I applaud your discipline.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I assumed that wouldn't work what with them (i think) still being cooked and covered in grease.

[Ferris]

I lack conviction.

Don't make me tap the sign.

[ASFTSN]

Well now. I started a Munton's Porter kit that has now been in primary for almost three weeks. I've read stuff about these kits being slow and/or prone to getting stuck, could the x-purts please advise?

I took a hydro reading on Monday at it was around 1018, got a bit worried it might have stuck, so I put my trusty coat around it for cooler nights and gave the vessel a swish to wake the yeast up. After that seemed to be some increased bubbling activity this week, more than I was expecting. This morning there was still some ever so slight bubbling in the chemsan/blowoff tube contraption which did make me wonder if it was still fermenting, but I thought surely not, could just be post fermentation CO2 leakage.


Just taken another hydro reading now and it all smells pretty pungent in there, still like a porter but with more ethanol-y overtones in the back of the ol' nostrils than on Monday. The reading is 1018 to 1017-ish, if it's moved since Monday it's a tiny, tiny amount, but I still don't think it's at (or below) 1016 as recommended by the kit. It doesn't taste particularly off. The fact that it's smelling more fume-y but that hydro reading has barely changed is what's worrying me.

My original plan was to rack this on Monday, bad idea? Surely more than three weeks in primary is pushing it?

[Ferris]

The difference between 1017 and 1016 is basically zero, I'd say you're fine to bottle it (especially if it's been going for 3 weeks which is my golden standard for "fuck it, this is done"). In terms of it smelling more ethanol-like, that's just how booze is (in my experience) so I wouldn't worry about that.

Sounds like you have it exactly as it should be. Bottle it, prime it, leave it for 2/3 weeks, job done.

[ASFTSN]

Thanks Ferris! Really encouraging stuff. To be honest the "fumes" reminded me of nights in my twenties boshing pint after pint of Theakston's Old Peculier so....good thing I guess! ( ? )

[Sebastian Cobb]

You can sometimes get some residual bubbling with a bit of jostling but nothing that makes a dent in the actual readings. I have one bucket with a pretty good seal and after it looks 'done' and has been there 3-4 weeks, moving it to the bathroom ready to decant, I often do this the night before to let it settle, can sometimes cause it to start bubbling again.

[Ferris]

I can never tell how good/bad a beer will be at the wort stage. It might be that I'm just hopeless at it, but it always tastes the same yeasty/boozey 'orrible.

If you reckon it smells half decent already I'd say you're laughing!

You can sometimes get some residual bubbling with a bit of jostling but nothing that makes a dent in the actual readings. I have one bucket with a pretty good seal and after it looks 'done' and has been there 3-4 weeks, moving it to the bathroom ready to decant, I often do this the night before to let it settle, can sometimes cause it to start bubbling again.

Yeah I have that too - I think it's CO₂ that's been created but hasn't formed bubbles large enough to escape so a bit of agitation sets it free. I doubt it's a new fermentation anyway? Fucked if I know though.

[Ferris]

Opened a tester bottle of the pale ale I bottled ~11 days ago (stopped drinking on weekdays and forgot to get tinnies for the weekend so thought I'd bend the timeline on this a bit and pop one in the fridge for after the nipper is in bed).

It's alright! The hops have largely faded which is a shame, but I was under-hopping anyway and I didn't do a late dry hop addition so that's on me really. Other than that, it's a pretty ok clean sort of ale. It definitely needs more time to finish off (the yeast has settled well but some is still in suspension which gives it a slight off flavour as an ending note) but I'm pretty chuffed with it.

Another 2 weeks in bottles, I reckon it'll be a banger. I'm glad, because this is recipe is what I'm going to use my hard-grown hops[nb]will stick a few photos up of the harvest when they're ready to go[/nb] on so if it was shit I'd be a bit disappointed.

[Blue Jam]

Got my St. Peter's Cream Stout in the fermenter last night. Already bubbling pretty aggressively, which may be partly due to the warm weather but I don't recall the St. Peter's Honey (flavoured) Porter kit being this lively. Fuckton of krausen as well.

Going to bottle some of the unadulterated stout and then chuck the jaffa cakes into the rest and leave it until we have Volefinger Laser-Beam-Up-The-Jaffas Stout.

[TommyTurnips]

Got my St. Peter's Cream Stout in the fermenter last night. Already bubbling pretty aggressively

Bet you did, you dirty old bollocks!

It'd be interesting to see how this turns out. I tend to keep it very Reinheitsgebot when it comes to my home brew. Never added anything unusual to the kettle.

[Blue Jam]

Bet you did, you dirty old bollocks!

Thank you for being a total gent and not making any crude jokes about yeast ;)

Day 4 and bubbling has slowed down, aroma from the fermenter is promising. Got some authentic St. Peter's bottles to put it in now thanks to Mr Jam ordering a case of the real thing direct from the brewery, gonna keep it real-ish. Then I'll be massively breaking the German Purity Laws and putting a load of jaffa cakes into a blender, then into a hop bag, then into some boiling water, then into the fermenter. Bung a few ping pong balls in to serve as floats.

Will be interested to find out if S. cerevisiae like jaffa cakes and gobble them up as greedily as they do Christmas pudding, bunging a pud in there woke the yeast up massively. I wonder how cleanly jaffa cakes ferment...

[Sebastian Cobb]

Jaffa thing sounds quite interesting.

Bottled my Saison at the weekend, this one's always a fun one to sit the priming out because the information on priming calculators always is very low (1.5 atmospheres) or rather high (3+). I've bottled higher with Weissbier's but it there's alway a niggling sensation in the period before I get to crack one and see how it goes.

My second go at cheap wortless ginger beer came out nicely but was quite flat, despite me calculating the priming for lager levels of fizz, although with nutrient and a good bit of time in the bucket the yeast had battered it down to below 1 sg, so I think maybe the priming calculator suggestions didn't really expect that.

[Ferris]

I think for a regular saison the atm is supposed to be quite high (3 sounds about right) but there are sub-categories like guezes or berliner weisses or Flemish reds that have a carb level similar to a pint of mild (1.2-1.5?) so it's a bit of a crapshoot.

Personally I like them fizzy - the carbonic acid from the increased carbonation adds to the sourness for me, but it's a mixed bag.

In other news - I harvested the hops. What a 30 minutes that was, a real rush, fingers all oily and sticky and smelling of hops. I posted some photos in the gardening thread (I'll cross post them), and I ended up with ~250 cones I'd guess, weighed in at 5oz.

Will use them in the latest brew as a late dry hop addition on the next batch which I'll set going tomorrow, lecturing and reading/writing permitting. Loving it.

[Ferris]

Oh, and chalk me up as another curious rubbernecker re: Jaffa cakes. I don't see why you'd have issues? But yeah I'm interested as to how interested the yeast is - they're simple carbs so you might have a proper excited yeast culture on your hands but I'm guessing tbh.

Edit: hop harvest pics (currently in giant 25cm ziploc in the freezer).

[Sebastian Cobb]

Parped a Saison over the sink earlier 'cos i'd got a thirst and ran out of wine it did spit a bit of head but hopefully the fridge will calm future bottles. I'm drinking whatever's left anyway.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Those hops look lovely!

[Ferris]

Those hops look lovely!

It got a bit touch and go because I think the plant was dying on its arse (over watering? Under watering? Too much sun/plant food or not enough of either/both?) so it was a bit "last chopper out of Saigon" and they probably could have stayed on the bines and ripened for another few days but honestly I'm delighted with what I got, and the enjoyment of growing them was mad.

Apparently next year I can expect 5-7x the yield which is frankly way too much but like... yeah excited to see what next years growth looks like. I'm assuming it flies out the ground.

[Ferris]

Parped a Saison over the sink earlier 'cos i'd got a thirst and ran out of wine it did spit a bit of head but hopefully the fridge will calm future bottles. I'm drinking whatever's left anyway.

I can never resist. My absolute earliest is 10 days as a "tester", but after 2-3 weeks there no mercy on the brew. It's there for the guzzling.

[TommyTurnips]

Top of the hops! That plant would have been spending most its energy on growing roots so next time should be a bigger yield.

My kit that I made is ok, but makes me miss all grain. So when my parcel of ingredients from the malt miller arrived this morning I opened it to retrieve my pack of wet yeast (wyeast american ale 1056) in order to make a yeast starter in my conical flask. I'll let the yeast cells multiply for a few days then attempt to re-make the beer that ended up on the garage floor thanks to my co-habitee. An amber ale that is a clone of Brewdog "the physics".

[Blue Jam]

That's a lovely crop o' hops. 250 cones? Nice one Ferris, you should be very proud!