Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 08:45:19 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Homebrew thread

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

Previous topic - Next topic

TommyTurnips

Had myself a brew day today! Here's a small selection of pics.

I tried to post images but when I clicked preview, the pictures were ENORMOUS! So I put them as urls so that they don't mess up the whole thread.

My keggle that works as my mash tun/brew kettle
https://imgurupload.org/files/20210914-105037.jpg

End of boil and transfer to wort chiller
https://imgurupload.org/files/20210914-144402.jpg

And into the fermenter.
https://imgurupload.org/files/20210914-181226.jpg

Ferris

Quote from: TommyTurnips on September 14, 2021, 07:14:17 PM
Had myself a brew day today! Here's a small selection of pics.

I tried to post images but when I clicked preview, the pictures were ENORMOUS! So I put them as urls so that they don't mess up the whole thread.

My keggle that works as my mash tun/brew kettle


End of boil and transfer to wort chiller


And into the fermenter.


you can type [img width=400***][**/img] (but remove the asterisks!) around the images to set the width. I usually use 400 pixels because that works on mobile but you can set it to whatever you like.

Looks amazing, very jealous of the keg set up - do you ferment in the keg also?

I set 6 gallons of pale ale going last night actually, planning to dry hop with the cones I harvested last week. Let's see how that goes...

TommyTurnips

Figured it out Ferris, I went back in the thread and saw what code you used. Thanks! Gravity ended up higher than it should be at about 1052, should have been 1048. Ah well. Next time I won't bulk out the malt bill as my efficiency seems to be where it should be nowadays (I think) thanks to a longer mash time. This is an amber ale hopped with Amarillo and Bramling Cross.

I ferment in the grainfather conical fermenter pictured above, but I know you can ferment in a corny keg. You need something called a spunding valve for that though.




Ferris

Just realized I forgot to take an OG reading and its going like the clappers now so wont be accurate. Shit.

Nice wort colour on that - I've tried to move away from hops I rely on and do something different, amarillo is on my list actually

TommyTurnips

I've definitely done that before. I've forgotten to take an OG reading and then taken a reading after I've pitched the yeast. No brewday is perfect though, for example, today my scales ran out of battery and my spray bottle broke.

I made this beer before and I didn't order enough of the dark malts so it ended up more like an amarillo pale, but it tasted lovely though, real summery beer. Which is why I was then gutted when my co-habitee left the tap on and the remainder of the keg ended up on the floor. Hopefully I'll be second time lucky though with this batch.

Those homegrown hops should go down a treat. There are wild hops out this year but they are unpredictable. I made a beer with them before and they didn't do much and they were probably some musty tasting English hops. Bet those ones you are growing are a tasty North American variety.

Ferris

I've done an initial dry hop with 2oz of centennial (a hop I've never used actually), then will dry hop again in two weeks with the last oz of centennial pellets in my freezer and the 5oz of Chinook I grew. I'd love to try and forage for wild hops but they aren't native here. A friend's dad had them growing wild at the bottom of his field and I never got around to taking some and brewing with them, a missed opportunity.

I'm enjoying having pale malt, weirdly. I was an avid proponent of maris otter for years, but I think the extract I'm using is basically just 2-row. I've been changing the hopping routine and adjunct additions to see what impact it has. This is as interesting as it gets when you have a small child and are doing grad school and have no free time.

TommyTurnips


Three weeks later and a force carb in the keg and it is now beer! I already have the ingredients to make a punk ipa clone which I will brew on Sunday. Instead of paying £8 for another pack of wet yeast I had a go at washing the yeast from the brew pictured above. I followed the instructions online and pitched the yeast into a starter today and by jove, if it wasn't bubbling and frothing away like a banana cunt. That yeast sure was raring to go.

I'm wondering how Blue Jam got on with the jaffa cake beer. I'm curious to know if it's possible to get drunk on jaffa cakes.

Ferris

20 litres of a very aromatic pale ale bottled this afternoon.

Its the one using the hops I grew so no pressure but if it is bad I will cry.

TommyTurnips

I'm sure it'll be amazing, just to be able to get buzzed on something you grew in part by yourself.

I took a sample of my punk ipa clone from the fermenter and it already has that familiar punk ipa bite of bitterness, and I haven't even added the dry hops yet. I have high hopes for this one. I had to buy six different varieties of hops for this beer and I'm going to have loads of left overs. So when this beer is kegged I'm going to use the left overs to make the old version of punk ipa which is very similar but all kettle hops and no dry hops. Then in December I want to make Hoppy Christmas which is a 7.2% simcoe ipa to share with the family. Then I will be at full capacity as I have three kegs and only two taps to serve it from. So maybe then I'll relax on the home brewing a little bit. Or not. I'll see how I feel.

Ferris

6 kinds of hops in one beer?! I don't think I've ever done more than 3! And most of the time I use 2 max because I'm a lazy bollocks.

Still very jealous of the kegging set up - 90 minutes of sanitizing and bottling today was a right pain. I dread it if I'm honest and would love to be shot of it given half a chance. Must work out where I can get some taps set up in the gaff.

Should get a Christmas ale going really. Any ideas? I'm thinking gingerbread this year - dark brown ale with ground ginger root and spices. If I can start this week it'll be ready to go for the big day...

Ferris

And nobody else will care, but walking to university I went through the main gates (never usually bother but had to divert to get a coffee) and realized the gates are weighed down with hops. Like, very well established plants 3+ years at least. Some cheeky fucker has planted bines on both of the big massive gates and they've gone mad all over it.

The cones are exactly ripe too. I picked one and chucked it in this brew as a very late dry hop addition just for giggles but I might go back and collect the rest because in another week they'll be past ripe and no good. No clue on variety, but googling "[university] + hops + gate" or similar gives fuck all results so I'm assuming it is somebody's unofficial project.

Dex Sawash

I have wanked on about cheddar with hops in it being good (Trader Joe's sold an English Cheddar with hops but quit during the hops fuckdown of 2015ish)  Sprinkle some shake from bottom of yer hop baggie on a cheese sandwich if you remember.

Ferris

Quote from: Dex Sawash on October 21, 2021, 12:13:11 AM
I have wanked on about cheddar with hops in it being good (Trader Joe's sold an English Cheddar with hops but quit during the hops fuckdown of 2015ish)  Sprinkle some shake from bottom of yer hop baggie on a cheese sandwich if you remember.

Do you mean the dried ones? Because I fished 1/2 lb of hop cones out of my fermenter today and it was... fine, I suppose, but not going to put them near a cheese sandwich.

I'm not convinced about the dried ones either - consuming the dried hops used to be an "old man catching the young guns out" thing to do ('go on lad, eat a few of these hop pellets hurr hurr hurr'). I never fell for it, but several old blokes in shops have tried over the years. When you are as handsome and vigorously youthful as I am, it breeds resentment.

Not suggesting that's where you're coming from, but I am a bit suspicious of the practice of adding it to cheese, to put it mildly.

Dex Sawash

Fuktifino,  cheese just had some little gritty bits in it like. Herby dry flakes.
Not so different than the texture of that dutch cheese with caraway seeds in it that mother likes.

Ferris

Cheese with caraway seeds? Ban This Sick Filth.

TommyTurnips

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on October 20, 2021, 10:39:17 PM
6 kinds of hops in one beer?! I don't think I've ever done more than 3! And most of the time I use 2 max because I'm a lazy bollocks.

Still very jealous of the kegging set up - 90 minutes of sanitizing and bottling today was a right pain. I dread it if I'm honest and would love to be shot of it given half a chance. Must work out where I can get some taps set up in the gaff.

Should get a Christmas ale going really. Any ideas? I'm thinking gingerbread this year - dark brown ale with ground ginger root and spices. If I can start this week it'll be ready to go for the big day...

Yep, six varieties, including 10 grams of Amarillo at the end, which means buying a 100 gram bag to use only a tiny bit of it. I suppose I could have left it out of the beer, but I wanted to follow the recipe, and it will get used eventually in a later brew.

The kegging thing is nice if you can do it. It's expensive, but I decided to go for it because I had just moved into a house with a garage and got way too excited about having a man cave and I got so sick of bottling. I work about 12 hours a day and so putting aside a few hours on my day off for cleaning/sanitising/filling bottles was becoming tedious, so I decided that I'd rather pay extra for the convenience of not having to bottle. Nowadays I rack straight into a cleaned and sanitised keg and then force carb.

The hops at the university is an exciting discovery. I wonder who put them there and if they still attend the university and would they mind if you took some. I guess you could just leave a note saying "Hi, I took some of your hops before they turned brown, soz, hope we can still be friends, thanks, love, Ferris".


Quote from: Dex Sawash on October 21, 2021, 12:13:11 AM
I have wanked on about cheddar with hops in it being good (Trader Joe's sold an English Cheddar with hops but quit during the hops fuckdown of 2015ish)  Sprinkle some shake from bottom of yer hop baggie on a cheese sandwich if you remember.

I would definitely eat the fuck out of some hopped cheese. Of course I would have to learn how to make cheese first. I think first I will try making a toastie with some hops sprinkled in there.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on October 21, 2021, 02:31:26 AM
Cheese with caraway seeds? Ban This Sick Filth.

Agree, she's 81 so should be too much longer

Ferris

How are the breweries going folks?

Some friends wanted to learn how to brew so I (we?) made a double batch of a pretty unambitious amber ale in December just to go through the procedure. I dry hopped the shit out of one fermenter with 12oz of chinook I needed to use up. I left the other vessel untouched and will likely give that beer away along with the vessel and bottles because I have too much spare shit already.

Both batches ready at the peak of omicron so I volunteered to bottle them both on my own. An absolute bastard (I hate bottling, must buy a keg) but looks like my hoppy batch is an absolute belter, and the hops have totally changed the characteristics of the beer - colour and clarity both very different to the point I would have guessed they had completely different grain bills.

I'll save a few bottles of the regular amber and will compare against the hopped batch once I get past dry January.

Since our (me and my brother) first brew, Russian Imperial Stout in August we've done 2 more RISs, a juicy IPA, a Xmas Porter, a Belgian Golden Strong, a Tripel, a Dubbel and we have 34l of a Double Chocolate Milk Stout in fermenters that we brewed on Saturday.

The game changer was electrifying our kettle. We now boil off around 1.5 gallons an hour and get up to strike temperature in 15 minutes when filling from the hot tap so it's a far quicker process.


Ferris

I bet you do you dirty old bollocks I bet you fucking do

TommyTurnips

Glad this thread is still going!

Those homegrown hops should be sprouting again soon eh Ferris? Should yield a good harvest this year. I ultimately want to grow some hops but first I need to turn my patio'd garden back into a proper garden that I can actually plant stuff in. If you have the means to get all the equipment then I definitely recommend kegging. Now that I have a kegerator I want to brew much more now that I don't have the bottling day. Last summer I went a bit crazy with my kegged brews, I had a good brewing schedule where I had two beers on tap and one bubbling away in the fermenter at any one time for when a keg was empty. It was a bit hectic. Now I like to think (a bit) that I've got over the excitement of having beer on tap in my garage. It is so much easier though, instead of a bottling day I can just transfer to a keg before I go to work and then force carb at around 40 psi for a day and then turn it back down to 10-15 psi  serving pressure and it's pretty much ready to drink.

I'm still wondering how Blue Jam got on with that jaffa cake stout. Still haven't heard anything.

My recent brewing has been my dry hopped simcoe IPA that I brewed in December and went down a treat with my family at Christmas. I filled up two large growlers with it and it was all gone before we sat down to have dinner. Glad they enjoyed it but damn!

Today I brewed a clone of Brewdog 5AM Saint amber ale. Five malts, five hops. It's the second time I've brewed this. The first time I think it ended up too dark so this time I didn't add the crystal malts until the sparge stage of the brew so that hopefully the dry hops will have a chance to shine through.

After that I think I want to brew a clone of Pliny The Elder. I've had it on tap in San Diego and I think it was worth the hype. I found the recipe and hopefully I can do a good copy.

Ferris

You can grow hops in pots! Buy some rhizomes and your patio can be a decent mini hop yard! From memory you need 160 days without frost and they grow like bastards as long as you give them sunlight and loads of fertilizer.

I grew mine on my back deck (garden was a state this time last year but we've had work done since). Make sure you get big pots though, mine were 5 gallon ones and they did the job, trailed them up a railing which looked nice. I'm not going to pop mine in the ground until March or April realistically though, Canadian winters take their time even by the coast, but yeah year two they go ballistic apparently.

I'm torn by kegs - as much as I'd like the convenience, I think I'd drink a lot more because it would be so easy to do, and I'm trying to have a healthy year. Covid has meant not inviting people over as much so there's nowhere to point fingers after a batch is gone (though I did give away that amber ale, what a nice lad I am).

Blue Jam

Jaffa cake stout was good :) Will do a proper update later

TommyTurnips

Quote from: Blue Jam on January 26, 2022, 02:26:23 AMJaffa cake stout was good :) Will do a proper update later

Glad it worked out. It sounds like delicious anarchy!



Quote from: Ferris on January 26, 2022, 01:04:27 AMYou can grow hops in pots! Buy some rhizomes and your patio can be a decent mini hop yard! From memory you need 160 days without frost and they grow like bastards as long as you give them sunlight and loads of fertilizer.

I grew mine on my back deck (garden was a state this time last year but we've had work done since). Make sure you get big pots though, mine were 5 gallon ones and they did the job, trailed them up a railing which looked nice. I'm not going to pop mine in the ground until March or April realistically though, Canadian winters take their time even by the coast, but yeah year two they go ballistic apparently.

Well that's settled then. I'm going to grow me some hops! They will be confined to pots until the patio gets turned back into a garden and then they'll go in the ground when ready!

Blue Jam

Northern Vole "Laser Beam Up The Jaffas Stout" then: Was drinkable on bottling, aged this for a while and found the cake flavour is nice and strong, and there's a surprising amount of chocolate flavour given how thin the chocolate layer on jaffa cakes is. No orange flavour at all though, just a slight acidity but one that is actually very pleasant, like a bit of a saison character.

Cake, chocolate, orange... two out of three ain't bad, as someone used to sing until very recently. Might have another go at some point with some chocolate extract and orange flavouring. The St. Peter's Cream Stout seems to work as a base so I'll probably go with that kit again.

Blue Jam

Wilko fans: Anyone tried this?



https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-stout-brewing-kit-18kg/p/0468416

I picked up one of these kits up on a whim a few months back, think it cost me £16 rather than £19 though. Reviews seem mixed, some say the chocolate taste is strong, some say it's a bit wimpy, but most say it's still a very nice stout. Will get on it when we've got through the jaffa cake stout and have some space.

TommyTurnips

I've made that kit! I was tempted in by that epic label but it wasn't that chocolatey. It was still a nice stout but disappointing by chocolate stout standards.

Ferris

Sounds similar to my plan last year! Once they're going, stick em in the ground the following year and you're laughing I reckon.

If you're buying rhizomes, get 2 because occasionally the cutting you get is from a weaker plant and takes a bit too long to get going. I had one good plant (was growing a few inches a day by June), and one duffer (managed about 2 foot total before giving up and zero hop cones). I'll plant them in the ground in April and expect they'll both go like rockets though.

I was a bit worried about them surviving winter but I found some growing "wild" on some gates near me - they seem completely untended (in fact, no one else seemed to notice them and the hops went unpicked) and it hasn't done them any harm.

It's ludicrously exciting once they get going. You can follow my progress from last year in the old gardening thread. I found picture resources like that hard to come by which is part of the reason I posted so many images in there.

Ferris

It's hard to make a bad stout, the grain bill is so robust as long as you're not malting your own grain over a fire or some mad shit it'll taste nice.

Blue Jam

Quote from: TommyTurnips on January 28, 2022, 02:25:55 PMI've made that kit! I was tempted in by that epic label but it wasn't that chocolatey. It was still a nice stout but disappointing by chocolate stout standards.

Heh, it is a good label isn't it? Some of the reviews suggest ageing it for 6 months+ to get the most of the flavour. I could always just try brewing it and adding chocolate extract if it doesn't seem strong enough.

Got one bottle of the Voël Voël Christmas pudding Belgian-style dark beer left, bottled that in December 2021 and it tastes amazing now. Can't keep it forever though, might have to savour the last of it with the box of minced pies we have left.