Home brewers CHECK IN please!

[SurferbobGolf]

A few pages back I was talking about how my Tupelo Honey-Juniper Berry beer wasn't carbonating. 7 months later, wow this beer is delicious.

[Genuine Rolla]

Racked my pumpkin ale into Secondary yesterday. OG was 1.060, FG is 1.002 = 7.7% alc. abv

[Village Idiot™]

Home made license plate hopper:

[Kameirocco]

^^^^^^^^


that sir is badass

[rdubVr6]

Racked my pumpkin ale into Secondary yesterday. OG was 1.060, FG is 1.002 = 7.7% alc. abv
[/IMG]

wow, was that using extract? thats a low FG for a pumpkin ale

i made one this past weekend. 1.066 OG hoping for 1.011 FG for some body

[Village Idiot™]

^^^^^^^^


that sir is badass

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the Budwieser box we were using previously.

[Lurkin bunny]

Figures it was about time I checked in here. My names Travis and I was home brewing for about 2 years before I got a Job at a brewery in MA. Let me just say...it's awesome!

Anyways today we brewed our last GABF beer, and it was an experience. It is just a small 12bbl but it has tons of different grain. 250lbs of pils, 130 lbs pale ale, 50 lbs of victory, 50 lbs of wheat, 12 lbs of carafoam, 19 lbs of biscuit(yes it's different from victory), 30 lbs of rolled oats right into the mash, 19 lbs of chocolate malt, 25 lbs of cara-pils, 19 lbs of kiln coffee malt, 19 lbs of caramunich II, 15 lbs of special B, 10 lbs of black prinz, 16lbs of cararoama, 31 lbs of specialk and 30 lbs of cara munich I.

For hops we are using 34 oz of hallertauer, 32 oz of cluster, 22 oz of chinook, 20 oz of chinook. Throwing those in at 60 min and every 15 from then on out. BUT it's a two hour boil so we are adding some of these!



Fresh hops from our brewmasters best friends farm. They are cascade, we've got about 40 lbs going into the boil at the end, we are drying out 20 lbs for when it goes into cold conditioning.

I'll get pictures when I get back to the brewery, tomorrow we'll all be at the mass brewers fest if anyone wants to stop by. Pm me and I can give you our info.

If anyone is going to GABF pm me and I'll give you our info, we'll have 7 of our beers there.

[3dw]

More label action.







And a glory shot of sorts.

Hmm, I should try and meet this fellow. I live on Finn Hill, prob a neighbor of mine...

[Genuine Rolla]

wow, was that using extract? thats a low FG for a pumpkin ale

i made one this past weekend. 1.066 OG hoping for 1.011 FG for some body

That was with all grain. I was talking to a fellow brewing buddy and he suggested I calibrate my hydrometer and figure out the readings from there.

[Genuine Rolla]

Kegged my pumpkin ale on Saturday:

[classick59]

a couple pics
http://www.gotmead.com/forum/album.php?albumid=34

an old pic from November of last year

[Lee420]

Thanks for sharing.

Rutherford health center

[patrikman]

Howdy brewers, how is everybody? Been a while since I popped in, haven't been brewing. I had a Belgian Trippel in the primary earlier this summer, but my son is walking now. One morning I was hobbling to the pisser and stepped on the airlock. I was too late.

So yeah, I gave it up for a while. We bought a house though, finally getting settled in and love it so far. I tried to transplant my Cascade plant but it didn't survive. Oh well, I'll plant two instead of that one. I've a nice spot picked out facing the south where they can get as big as they want.

Despite such mishaps, morale is still positive. I need to brew soon though.

Thanks for sharing.

Rutherford health center

Take your spam and choke on it until you ****ing die.

[SurferbobGolf]

It's been the same for me, until yesterday, I hadn't brewed since January.

But I went to the Homebrew store and just told them I wanted to make a Vanilla Oatmeal Stout. I plan on adding the vanilla bean in the secondary, but is there anything I should do first? Soak it in vodka or something? Or just throw it in there?



One of the things we drank yesterday, not too bad.

[Village Idiot™]

Went to the Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, MD this weekend for their Support Local event. I got a hookup with some local hop growers for fresh hops.

[Genuine Rolla]

Yesterday I kegged NB's all grain Dead Ringer IPA and had a tasting - it's pretty damn good!

It's been carbing in the kegerator since Sunday.

[Kameirocco]

so here is what i was doing over the weekend




this is supposed to be a manual brutus 20, however, i dont have a false bottom yet... that is on it's way soon enough. hence why my cooler is still going strong



made a 1080 weizenbock...wasn't supposed to be that potent, but im going to take it!

also, i ended up taking my bday off this tuesday, so i'm going to make a double or triple IPA and use the second runnings for a small session farmhouse/saison. (maybe 3% i'm hoping)

and btw, don't be so tired after brewing that you fall asleep on your couch and leave your fermenting carboy in your car overnight...



at least i got most of the smell gone... need to do another shampooing

[Village Idiot™]

Ordered a 210,000 BTU burner and a flase bottom for the keggle. Screw waiting over an hour for boil on a burner that doesn't want to stay lit because we rigged our way past the saftey cutoff.

I may need a bigger propane cylinder now though... If I move into a new place I'll buy a bigger one.

[Kameirocco]

made a barleywine and a saison 2 days ago.

1.120 OG on the BWINE
1.090 on the saison... haha
good god

which 210k burner did you get??

[Village Idiot™]

Making out Smokin' Snow Porter again but with some tweeks.

[Genuine Rolla]

Yesterday I ordered my grain bill and hops for my SN Celebration Ale Clone. Pretty stoked for it, as it's my absolute favorite beer. Can't wait to have 5 gallons in the kegerator! Should be able to brew it next weekend when my order arrives.

[Village Idiot™]

Very cool. I just might have scored four cornies for $100. The homebrew club on the other side of the state has a hookup for kegs apparently. 4-$100, 15-$300. I'm almost tempted to get 15, but I don't have a big enough freezer for that yet.

[flytech78]

Just found this forum i am a new brewer looking to get some of all your knowledge. I hope to brew a ipa here in the next couple months......
I am a hop head but what do you think is a good first time beer to brew?

[Village Idiot™]

Just found this forum i am a new brewer looking to get some of all your knowledge. I hope to brew a ipa here in the next couple months......
I am a hop head but what do you think is a good first time beer to brew?

One with alcohol!

[Genuine Rolla]

Just found this forum i am a new brewer looking to get some of all your knowledge. I hope to brew a ipa here in the next couple months......
I am a hop head but what do you think is a good first time beer to brew?

Northern Brewer's Dead Ringer IPA is quite the IPA crowd pleaser for sure. Easy recipe that'll impress friends.

Last night I dry hopped my Celebration Ale clone with centennial and Cascade. First time using cascade and I liked the dankness of it. Definitely not as bright as centennial.

Here's the lil video I made - Did the video by the seat of my pants so please excuse the choppiness.

[Kameirocco]

Just found this forum i am a new brewer looking to get some of all your knowledge. I hope to brew a ipa here in the next couple months......
I am a hop head but what do you think is a good first time beer to brew?

IPAs and pale ales are actually some of the most simple brews to make (recipe wise)

[deadguy]

It's been a while, have quite a few big beers under my belt, and have always bottle-conditioned (carbonated) my beers unless I drank it from a keg.
So, I was hoping to venture into he world of bottling carbonated beer.

Anyone here doing this? Basically, you just carb in a keg like usual, (a brewery calls it a Brite Tank), and then use a counter-pressure bottle filler.. Pretty much, eh?

Any tips?
I have an imperial stout that is almost ready to carb, it has been aging in a used bourbon barrel for 3 months now.. I don't think it is going to carb by itself, so we figured we'd start bottling.

[firstorbit84]

Bourbon imperial stout sounds amazing. But sorry I don't even know what a counter pressure bottler is

[Village Idiot™]

Our Bubonic Porter gets kegged this weekend. Something about dead mice...

I'm going to work with a LBHS to put on a home brew competition and invite local clubs from around the area and even the guys from the other side of the state. Should be fun.

[Kameirocco]

Anyone here doing this? Basically, you just carb in a keg like usual, (a brewery calls it a Brite Tank), and then use a counter-pressure bottle filler.. Pretty much, eh?

Any tips?

tips? don't buy a beer gun or counter pressure bottle fillter, over priced IMHO.
i've been bottling off of the kegs for awhile now,
all you need is a racking cane and a cobra tap.

Here's a proven method for bottling your beer from the keg without an expensive beergun. I've been doing this for over a year and bottled dozens of cases this way. Every beer I've ever entered into a competition has received consistently high scores for carbonation.

Go ahead and keg the entire batch and get it to your desired carbonation.

To do this, you'll need a liquid hose with a picnic (cheap plastic) tap attached. The longer the liquid hose the better. I use about 7 feet. This provides adequate pressure to prevent foaming. The end of a racking cane fits very snuggly into the picnic tap nozzle. (Make sure the cane is pushed all the way into the nozzle of the tap) Go to your local HBS and buy a drilled stopper (I think it is a #2) that will fit over the other end of your racking cane. The end tip of the racking cane should be cut at an angle to allow free flow of the beer.

You now have a racking cane extending from your picnic tap with a stopper about midway up the cane. The idea is that this racking will go to the bottom of your bottle and the stopper will slide down snug onto the neck of the bottle.

It will help to chill your bottles ahead of time. Giving them a quick rinse in cold water will also keep foaming down. Recently, I've taken to just rinsing the bottels and have zero foaming problems.

Now follow these simple steps:

1. Shut off the gas to your keg momentarily and open the (keg) relief valve to bleed excess pressure from the the keg.
2. Turn the PSI on your regulator down to about 5. This needs to be a slow gentle process.
3. Go ahead and open the tap and drain some beer into a waste bucket. This will prime and cool the lines.
4. Now place the bottle filler into the bottle with the stopper pushed down snug onto the bottle neck. Open the picnic tap to the locked position.
5. The bottle will begin filling but slow to a stop as the pressure builds
6. Gently push the side of the stopper to allow the pressure to "burp" out of the bottle and the beer will begin to flow again.
7. Continue the fill until beer (not just foam) begins overflowing and turn off the tap.
8. Quickly move the rig to the next bottle and repeat.
9. When all the bottles are full, give each one a quick "burst" of beer from the tap to top off.
10. Move the bottles to your capping bench and place a cap on each bottle.
11. Before locking down the cap on each bottles...tip the bottle on its side and back (holding the cap on with your finger of course). This will cause the beer to begin to foam.
12. Place the capper on the cap loosely and as soon as the foam begins to overflow...lock down the cap.

This last step is important because capping on foam means you've purged the oxygen from the bottle and it will store much longer.

It will help to contain the mess if you load all of the bottles into a short five gallon bucket. I can usually fit about 13-15 bottles into one.

It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Very easy and you can get a sixer filled in about 5 minutes. Move the bottles to a fridge and open when ready. I just opened a porter this afternoon that I bottled this way about ten days ago and it was perfect.

From here on, I will keg everything and bottle off a twelve pack or so for keepsake and travel.


I recently (10/14/07) openned another Porter from my March bottling session and it was still just perfect. Nice puff of CO2 cloud in the neck of the bottle. Good foaming action during pour. Good thick head...and the beer laced nicely all the way through.

Notice the angled cut of the racking cane. Very important.

this has been working fine for me for quite awhile now

[deadguy]

what's the shelf life of bottled beer like that? bottle-conditioned beers can go years without spoilage, does the same hole true with this method? I suppose it all depends on your sanitation, but I'd think that the shelf life might be slightly less.

[Kameirocco]

it all depends on sanitation... i can't see it being any different from any normal craft brews. they are doing the same exact thing, just on a production level.

i've opened some that are 6mos old and all were perfect

[rdubVr6]

Finally got around to brewing a BlackIPA recipe this weekend, sweet lawd did it smell amazing when boiling w/ colombus & nugget hops

i was suba-brewing

[Village Idiot™]

what's the shelf life of bottled beer like that? bottle-conditioned beers can go years without spoilage, does the same hole true with this method? I suppose it all depends on your sanitation, but I'd think that the shelf life might be slightly less.

Beer has a peak and doesn't necessarily age like wine. Flavors will mellow out and meld together and at some point, start to fade leaving the beer past it's peak and with a different flavor than intended. This is especially noticeable in strong hopped IPAs. Taste a new IPA vs an IPA that's set for 4 weeks, vs one that's say for 3 months. You'll lose bitterness from the hops.

[firstorbit84]

We let most of our beers age at least 3-6 months depending on the complexity of the flavors (more complex = longer aging).

Once fully aged, I'd say they're good for another 6 months to a year before really losing flavor. I have definitely tried 2 and 3 year old beers that were way past their prime.

Meads will easily be good that long or longer since they are closer to wine tho