Lets Talk Brewing

[alexander]

So, I know some of you brew, so i know i am not the only one here that would be interested in discussing brewing, (and those of you who do brew, and i know you do, juuuust reminding you, I'm watching you )

Lets talk wine, beer, mead or any combination of thereof, discuss ideas, thoughts, ingredients. If you have questions on something, something not coming out, or you aren't sure about something, ask

For myself, i just did a batch last night. 3 gallon batch, 3.3lb of liquid dark barley malt, a cup of dry wheat malt, 2 types hop pellets - a British and Belgian fuggle about 1-1.2 oz in total, dried apricots, black currant raisins, and some golden raisins(about a cup and a half of coarsely chopped apricots, about a 1/2 cup (or a pile) of both currant and golden raisins, i'll have to get back to you on the yeast i got for this one, it's a dark ale yeast thought, 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

so why the ingredients:
dark malt - darker beer with carmel overtones
wheat wart - i wanted to give the beer a level of bitterness, and this also contributes to a fuller body
hops - get a british base, and flavor it from there
fruit - add to the aroma and the complexity of beer
yeast - well, adds to soo many factors

bring water to 170F take off heat, mix in the malts, mix well, put back on fire and bring it to a boil, when it comes to a boil, add a few pellets of hops (this will prevent the common running of the wart when hops are added), boil 5 more minutes. Mix all of the british fuggle in at the beginning of the boil ( set timer for 60 min at that point), 15 min to to the end, added brown sugar, 10 minutes, all the dried fruit, 5 minutes belgian hops were thrown in to seal the fate (not 10 minutes, because i wanted to have more aroma, flavors will come from other things) (by the way british hops seemed really kind of down to earth feel, really not super aromatic or a bright green color, but felt really down to earth basic british ale starter hops, belgian ones were very aromatic, really bright green in comparison with the other ones) I added about a half to may be 3/4 of an oz of each, because it's planned to be a 2-stage ferment, with more sugar added, i needed to balance it all out, and well, 1-1.5oz was the goal here...

well it went to the primary this morning (about 2 hours ago) we'll see where this batch goes

[alexander]

Oh, i'm kind of excited, i really want to see how this comes out and the next one i will also make a part grain...

[alexander]

found it, i'm using a Safbrew S-33 yeast

[alexander]

Ok, so a week into it, and a few things happened. I have replaced my broken equipment and i now have a new graduated flask to measure gravity in. In 3 days of active fermentation the gravity was down to 1.02 (i dunno where it started). The fermentation died rather rapidly, leading me to believe that perhaps not enough yeast got into the reproductive stage, so i added some yeast energizer, pitched another packet of S-33 in. I also added more fermentables, about 3-4oz of maple syrup and about 4-5 oz of Lyle's Golden Syrup (partially separated into glucose and sucrose cane sugar syrup).

I just racked the (now beer) into a glass carboy to clear, gravity is once again down to 1.02, i'm going to see the beer will clear up before i bottle it (it's a porter with noticeable fruity overtones, so far pretty pleasant to smell )

[Boerseun]

Cool!

I'm waiting for winter to settle over here so I can make a Lager again. It's generally too hot in my neck of the woods to go summer-brewing.

Dried fruit in your brew? Now that's a thought! I might chuck in a some fruit when I get down to brewin' again in a few week's time, but wouldn't you run a greater risk of infection when pitching fruit? I mean, dried fruit is bacteria heaven, not so?

In a previous thread about home brewing, you mentioned your plan to make a russian honey brew. Any luck with that?

What do you expect your final gravity to be with this mix?

[alexander]

Dried or fresh fruit is awesome in your brew, especially if you are brewing a light beer, it gives you aromas that you normally wont get in those beers and adds complexity. You don't want to do it for everything, you certainly don't want to over do this, but adding fruit can be a good thing. As with any beer, sanitation is a MUST, so precautions should be taken with the fruit. If you are planning to use dried fruit, it's a good idea to get it as fresh as you can from your local whole foods store or something, they will not be the cheapest, but they will likely be the freshest. If using normal fruit, try to pick it up from a local farm, if you can't then once again, whole foods place or a farmer's market is your best bet. Thoroughly clean the fruit and cut it up. Lastly, you are generally adding fruit at the end stage of the boil, generally between 10-5 minutes to the end, generally a the gentler flavors will go in towards the end, like berries, and boiling wart is a pretty good sanitizer as well, so as long as you are not introducing the fruit after the boil, you should be OK. Also some fruit, mainly berries, you should strain out the solids when you are putting it in your primary

I'm working out some kinks i had with that particular project. I will be making some more honey-based drinks over the summer, next honey-based project in line is waiting for first local raspberries, making a raspberry wine with honey (lots of raspberries, some honey, a couple of spices, mmmmm). I did learn good lessons from my first attempt, namely, its a good idea to keep the gravity in the sane zone... Super high gravity != fun.

As for gravity for this batch, it's going to end up in 1.015 range somewhere (probably wont be 1.010 like what you are looking for for lighter beer). For alcohol content, it's likely somewhere around 4-5% mark, pretty much on the dime for a porter

Not sure what i am making next... thinking maybe a triple chocolate stout or chocolate-coffee stout in the 6-7% mark, or maybe something very lite, like a proper berliner weiss (a very sour wheat beer 2-3% per volume, meant to be drank with a syrup of some sort)

[JMJones0424]

I used to home-brew quite a bit, but now I live quite a distance from the nearest brew supply shop, so I only do it for special occasions. One thing I got in the habit of doing is adding Irish moss (which is neither Irish, nor moss) to aid in clarification of the wort. It doesn't affect taste, and helps quite a bit of the suspended proteins settle out of the wort before transferring to the primary fermenter.

I brew almost exclusively ales, as I don't have a refrigerator large enough for a carboy, and my favorite by far is a nice chocolate porter with a hint of coffee. I also make a porter on occasion with a tiny bit of mole poblano.

I think it is worth the cost to use glass carboys, and also worth the hassle to use two, one for primary fermentation (for about a week), then transfer to the second for finishing and to allow more settling (for about another week) prior to bottling. Another thing to consider is to make sure the pot you use to boil the wort in is non-reactive (not aluminum). Large stainless steel pots can be two or three times more expensive than aluminum, but I think there is a difference in flavor. And NEVER use your expensive 6.5 gallon pot for anything other than making beer. I found out the hard way after a crawfish boil. The next few batches of beer had a distinct seafood hint to them.

[alexander]

Yes, you definitely can add Irish Moss to the boil to clarify the wart, when you don't care, if it's a stout or a porter you just don't add it, but if you are brewing a lighter beer, irish moss is your friend (it does not add flavor, and you generally throw it in about 20 minutes to the end of the boil)

I would also recommend using stainless, enameled pot for the boil. I also recommend washing everything you are going to be using with B-Brite, it's a little expensive, but it's the best cleaner on the market today, it kills ANY odors too, so with your crayfish story, it would totally kill those odors (yes it's that good)

I use plastic primary and glass secondary, i find it easier to work with a bucket for primary, and there are no plastic flavors added

[GAHD]

If you want to keep more of the flavour in that beer, lower the pressure in the brewing container. This lowers the boiling temp, reducing the destruction of those tasty complex molecules.

[alexander]

You mean mashing container? That or i am not understanding you...

Brewing container, there are a few things that can go into that:

mashing pot (its ran at around 150F to break the starches in barley and/or wheat into sugars) It's generally simmered, but it's not often under any pressure.

boiling pot - something that generally isn't even covered, its where you boil your malt for a period of time with spices (hops and what have you) to sterilize the malt, kill any wild yeast/bacteria that may be there after mashing (if you mash your own) and to infuse those flavors all together.

Carboy - this is the vessel that has some internal pressure, it's formed by the CO2 that is produced by the yeast as a byproduct of fermentation, some internal pressure is there because the airlock has water in it, and it takes some pressure inside to get excess CO2 to escape. But you cant keep a lower pressure here, nor does it have anything to do with boiling, because the contents go and hopefully stay in the carboy at 55 degrees for lager and around 68-70 for ale.

Now what i think you mean is a still, in which both of what you have said is very true, but we havent talked about anything that needs distilling yet... But it is true, you do want to keep a low pressure in the still to keep special flavors .