Your current / planned brews

Devi

sharingan wrote: »

Note that for doing BIAB, you will lose a lot of volume to the grain. For a 33L boiler you will struggle to get to 18-20L of final volume if you are not doing post boil dilution, or wort recovery from the grain bag.

May not sound like much, but it is a big issue if you are doing high gravity beers.

I use a 40L buffalo boiler, which has enough head room to overcrowd it with grain during the mash. I can get 25L final volume with it even for big beers, with wort recovery only (no dilution). I regularly get about 24L into the fermenter when I am doing mid strength beers (gravity in the forties).

So your mashing in a bag in the boiler is it?

sharingan

Devi wrote: »

So your mashing in a bag in the boiler is it?

Yup. Lined with voile and secured with a bungee cord.

Pot stand at the bottom between the element and the bag.

Thermostat gets me into the ballpark for strike temperature, and I double check, or correct with a mash thermometer. However I am not overly fussed with mash temp in general, though I do aim to get a proper temp probe.

Grain additions will take me down to mash temp, and I wrap it up in a blanket and secure it with another bungee.

Its about as ghetto a mash as you can get, but it makes for good beers, and I am happy with my efficiency (hovering around 65-70 for full mash).

I often recover wort from the bag by allowing it to drain into a spare fermenter, and douse it with water from the kitchen kettle (technically diluting). I like getting a high final volume more than a high final gravity.

Devi

sharingan wrote: »

Yup. Lined with voile and secured with a bungee cord.

Pot stand at the bottom between the element and the bag.

Thermostat gets me into the ballpark for strike temperature, and I double check, or correct with a mash thermometer. However I am not overly fussed with mash temp in general, though I do aim to get a proper temp probe.

Grain additions will take me down to mash temp, and I wrap it up in a blanket and secure it with another bungee.

Its about as ghetto a mash as you can get, but it makes for good beers, and I am happy with my efficiency (hovering around 65-70 for full mash).

I often recover wort from the bag by allowing it to drain into a spare fermenter, and douse it with water from the kitchen kettle (technically diluting). I like getting a high final volume more than a high final gravity.

Ah right, never heard of this before, learn something new every day. Is there any advantage on the non-BIAB mashtun method?

Herb Powell

Added a bit too much water to the Diabolo, so the gravity is a bit low, fuccked in a whole sachet of the T-58 to get the FG. Very scientific process altogether.

Mr Benevolent

Quick update on:

Cider. 4.5L pressed Aldi apple juice with 500g caster sugar, a cinnamon stick, a touch of proper vanilla essence, a clove and a few chopped raisins. OG 1.072, looking for 8-10%. 2+ months.

Cyser. 4L pressed Aldi apple juice with 1kg honey and a few chopped raisins to liven it up. Looking for 12-14% with an OG of 1.095. 3+ months.

Both have fermented out now, the cider to 0.994 and the cyser to 0.996, giving 10.4% and 13.5 % respectively. The cider is dry and the cyser is very dry. Thought they were sour at first, but a bit of sugar showed it was just dryness. I'll sweeten with Splenda once I've done the second racking.

Any suggestions on how/when to dilute down to 6% or so?

BeerNut

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

Any suggestions on how/when to dilute down to 6% or so?

At serving. Half and half with apple juice will save you having to do any sweetening in advance.

sharingan

Devi wrote: »

Ah right, never heard of this before, learn something new every day. Is there any advantage on the non-BIAB mashtun method?

Have never done 3V so I cant give a first hand comparison, between BIAB and 3V, I can only recite from research.

Main advantages is that I can brew and cleanup on a weeknight. BIAB is very *tidy* from a mess point of view.

Experienced BIABers say the beer turns out the same, but many people who have tried both, say the wort comes out more cloudy from a BIAB setup. Thought many experienced BIABers have tricks that clear that out.

Big advantage to BIAB is no stuck sparges (pumpkin ales not withstanding). You can do 100% wheat grists for instance.

Mr Benevolent

BeerNut wrote: »

At serving. Half and half with apple juice will save you having to do any sweetening in advance.

Yeah, I suppose carbonation is out the window now. Oh well, cider is better without it. Maybe some applejack...

BeerNut

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

Yeah, I suppose carbonation is out the window now.

Why so?

Mr Benevolent

BeerNut wrote: »

Why so?

If I dilute the cider just before drinking it'll lose most of its carbonation, surely?

BeerNut

Proportional to the amount of apple juice you add, I'd have thought. Carbonate it sufficiently beforehand and it should be fizzy enough with the apple juice in. The effect is easily tested by adding juice to anything already carbonated and see how fizzy it ends up.

Mr Benevolent

BeerNut wrote: »

Proportional to the amount of apple juice you add, I'd have thought. Carbonate it sufficiently beforehand and it should be fizzy enough with the apple juice in. The effect is easily tested by adding juice to anything already carbonated and see how fizzy it ends up.

Thanks, my brain's not firing on all four synapses today!

Herb Powell

Checked the gravity, had a sneaky sip.

Beer does not usually taste this good after a week. Can't ****ing wait to see how this turns out.

Khannie

Herb Powell wrote: »

Beer does not usually taste this good after a week. Can't ****ing wait to see how this turns out.

Hehe. I had similar with my stout there the other day. It was in primary longer than it should have been (about a month). Checked the gravity (1.016, possibly 14) and had a sneaky taste. Delicious! Can't wait to taste it after some conditioning time.

blueshed

hope to brew Friday or Saturday, got some of the Finlandia dark ale kits and plan on hacking them.

have the following to use

can of LME
medium spraymalt
Wheat spraymalt
Carafa III
Amber grain
Chocolate malt
Carapils
Bramling X
Bullion
EKG
Fuggles
Challanger
plus 5 or 6 other hops.

Tube

Doing an Irish Red Ale, brewed by one of our members, which took Gold Medal in the National Brewing Championships 2013.

Mr Benevolent

Racked the cider, cyser & mead, the mead is very slow to ferment as usual, but since there's a lot of potent tasting things in it (cloves, cinnamon, oranges, raisins etc) I don't want to totally overwhelm the honey.

How many rackings should I do for each of the above? Until the racked bottle shows no sediment?

Tube

Another gold medal winner, a Black IPA, on Monday. I'll post the recipe if anyone wants it, otherwise just check the forum.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Considering I've started brewing only less than two months ago I'm not doing too bad.

I've a batch of Woodfordes Admirals Reserve conditioning in the bottle.

A demijohn of Wurzels Orange Wine is clearing out nicely. Need to leave some sulphur gases dissipate but it tastes nice and strong.

Last Friday I put on some Coopers IPA with LME. Dry hoping with Cascade when the time comes.

Next up is a strong Stout using Coopers Irish Stout with a recipe similar to the infamous Ditch's Stout.

Just before the stout I might do another Orange wine.

Well into the future I'll do a wheat beer using the Muntons kit, wheat spraymalt and sugar.

T'is a fecking great hobby lads! :-)

rhonin

Going to kick off Munton's Premium Gold Santa's Winter Warmer this evening.

Anybody try this before?

baron von something

sterilising my fermenter getting ready for my next brew.its a brupak brewers choice bavarian weissbier.very unlike the other kits i've made.i guess its somewhere inbetween dry-hopping and standard kits.it comes with little 'tea-bag' pouches of hops and grains to be boiled which makes straining easier.should be interesting.comes with a bag of dried malt extract and i'm adding a coopers wheat lme

irish_goat

baron von something wrote: »

sterilising my fermenter getting ready for my next brew.its a brupak brewers choice bavarian weissbier.very unlike the other kits i've made.i guess its somewhere inbetween dry-hopping and standard kits.it comes with little 'tea-bag' pouches of hops and grains to be boiled which makes straining easier.should be interesting.comes with a bag of dried malt extract and i'm adding a coopers wheat lme

You shouldn't boil any grains that come with it. Just steep in warm water (around 67c) for half an hour.

baron von something

irish_goat wrote: »

You shouldn't boil any grains that come with it. Just steep in warm water (around 67c) for half an hour.

woops.yeah i just noticed the instructions said put boiling water in for 20 mins not boil for 20 mins.will that have an effect on my end result

blueshed

did a finlandia dark ale kit last wend with carafe III, chocolate, plus bullion and fuggles hops. tomorrow plan on brewing the same kit with different hops and grains plus dry spraymalt instead of the can of LME.

Mr Benevolent

My 5L of mead has stalled at 1.040, down from 1.115 after 6 weeks. Any ideas? I used EC1118 as the yeast, should be capacble of bringing it to 0.995. This is the second racking though, maybe repitching is a better idea?

evolving_doors

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

My 5L of mead has stalled at 1.040, down from 1.115 after 6 weeks. Any ideas? I used EC1118 as the yeast, should be capacble of bringing it to 0.995. This is the second racking though, maybe repitching is a better idea?

Zounds thats a high pitch...1.115 ! does that mean you are looking for abv of more than 20%..? Any how I'm no help except maybe try yeast nutrient, although your yeast is probably well knackered from gorging on all that sugar...I did something like this before with too much sugar at the start..stalled at 1.020.... Next time I think you might have to feed in the sugar/honey over a few days...

Anyways... I'm gone back to basics..no adjuncts..{defo no more caffiene}

5 litres worth of Granny Smith apples + few cookers + yeast..SG 1.050

evolving_doors

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

My 5L of mead has stalled at 1.040, down from 1.115 after 6 weeks. Any ideas? I used EC1118 as the yeast, should be capacble of bringing it to 0.995. This is the second racking though, maybe repitching is a better idea?

Zounds thats a high pitch...1.115 ! does that mean you are looking for abv of more than 20%..? Any how I'm no help except maybe try yeast nutrient, although your yeast is probably well knackered from gorging on all that sugar...I did something like this before with too much sugar at the start..stalled at 1.020.... Next time I think you might have to feed in the sugar/honey over a few days...

Anyways... I'm gone back to basics..no adjuncts..{defo no more caffiene}

5 litres worth of Granny Smith apples + few cookers + yeast..SG 1.050

00833827

bottling a brupaks Black Moor Stout tomorrow I hope. have a berry cider fermenting. its a gallon of cloudy apple juice, with blackcurrent ribena, strawberry ribena, grape juice and sugar all boiled up with raisins and teabags. i did a rhubarb cider this way a while back, first botte was rough, 2nd was much improved. might try another late next week se how its going.

Mr Benevolent

Armelodie wrote: »

Zounds thats a high pitch...1.115 ! does that mean you are looking for abv of more than 20%..? Any how I'm no help except maybe try yeast nutrient, although your yeast is probably well knackered from gorging on all that sugar.

It's currently at 10%, EC1118 is capable of 20%, I was aiming for 1.000 which would be 15%, so it's not pushing the limits of the yeast.

Herb Powell

Shnakey test of the Diablo there, I somehow managed to get it to taste almost exactly like Chimay triple. Can't. Fuccking. Wait. To see how it is when it's properly matured.