[user=75]LC stogiechat homebrew gnome[/user] wrote:
Quote:Bungalowbill Wrote:[user=75]LC stogiechat homebrew gnome[/user] wrote:
Quote:I am once again having carbonation issues, some of the bottles just don't have the carbonation level I want, but if they start to get better I'll send ya some for tasting
talk dirty to the bottles. sometimes that improves carbonation. 
(i once again praise the power of the used soda keg. you can adjust carbonation levels all over the place and the beer will taste even better)
you mock my pain!ÃÂ Teacher, not you........
Yeah, I know, kegs rule, I finally figured out how to work my keg the other night, though it is still holding beer that I don't think tastes very pleasing, so my next dark brew will go in there.ÃÂ In fact, IÃÂ belive I may be recieving some blessings from the beer gods pretty soon, and PART of that will be (I think)ÃÂ a few more kegs.ÃÂ We shall see.ÃÂ
But in the mean time, not tha tI am doing any damn thing w/ this stout, the last time I fucked w/ already bottled beer it was more of a headacheÃÂ than worth, and this batch actually did carbonate, just not consistantly from bottle to bottle.ÃÂ Some are great, other barely at all.ÃÂ This only happens when I brew dark beer, none of my pale ales have done this.ÃÂ
strange... only with dark beers... i must travel to the mountain top and meditate on this.
fear not, grasshopper, for the answer is, and always has been, at the bottom of the glass.
(as for the keg beer tasting funny, i hope you replaced all the rubber gaskets and valves (springy things). the dr.pepper syrup smell simply cannot be cleaned out of those things. spare parts for kegs: williams brewing.)
Bungalowbill Wrote:(as for the keg beer tasting funny, i hope you replaced all the rubber gaskets and valves (springy things). the dr.pepper syrup smell simply cannot be cleaned out of those things. spare parts for kegs: williams brewing.)
They were all changed, it's not the keg on that one, it tastes exactly like the first batch I did of that same beer, I just thought I screwed up the first time, turns out I either screwed up both or it just tastes like that- oh well. I had a friend come in town a few months ago, she loved it, so go figure, I can't stand it. Just not the brown ale taste I wanted.
I did read something interesting the other day, though. An article that, among other things, mentioned that only certain grains can be "steeped". Let's go with some definitions and that should clear up some questions marks.
Not sure if I'm getting this right, but this is how I understood what was said:
Mashing- usually involves a water/grain ratio near 1.5qt/ lb of grain. This releases starches.
Steeping- less strict on ratio, even sometimes 3/4gal for a lb of grain, this tends to release more sugars.
LC stogiechat homebrew gnome Wrote:Not sure if I'm getting this right, but this is how I understood what was said:
Mashing- usually involves a water/grain ratio near 1.5qt/ lb of grain. This releases starches.
Steeping- less strict on ratio, even sometimes 3/4gal for a lb of grain, this tends to release more sugars.
Mashing does not release starch. Amylase enzymes in the barley husk automatically convert starch into sugar in a liquid enviroment between 145f and 157f. There are two kinds of amylase -- alpha and beta. Alpha creates more maltose and beta creates more disaccarides. Since ale yeast cannot break down disaccarides, a higher mash temp will give you more unfermentable sugars. Sometimes this is desireable for mouthfeel. But you want to limit disaccarides in pilsers and other "dry" beers.
Basically, you want your mash to be around 150f -- that's the magic temperature where both kinds of enzyme are working, but it favors alpha.
The 1.5 qt/lb ratio will give you the best extraction rates.
Steeping is just "lazy man's mashing" where you're just looking to add some body and mouthfeel to an otherwise "all-extract" product.
You don't want any starch in your wort AT ALL. Yeast cannot break starch down but bacteria can. Undermashing is probably the biggest mistake novice brewers make. They're creating a breeding ground for bacteria.
A helpful tip -- if you're having problems with too many unfermentable sugars, just drop a powdered Beano tablet into your fermenter when you pitch. The Beano will break EVERYTHING down into monosaccarides.
I can't really help you with extracts because I've never used them. I consider extracts to be woefully inferior to an all-grain mash.
thanks, Scoop. I think I can see what I misunderstood now that I read your post. And I can't wait to go all grain, it will be a very proud moment for me.
I have been looking for a calculation that could show me how much extract is equal to how much grain, then I think I could at least start increasing the ammount of grain I am using, even though I still don't have quite enough of a set up to go all grain.
once you go all-grain there's a wonderful book called "designing great beers" by ray daniels, which became a bible of sorts for my experimentations. it gives you the math and parameters of almost every style of beer, so you can really get a feel quickly for what constitutes the grain and hop bills for each kind of beer. from that starting point you can then tweak recipies to your own preferences. usually i'd nail a good recipe within 2-4 batches, owing much to that fine publication. much better than starting out blind.
btw, my brother just found an old bottle of homebrew i made back in my novice days, must've been at least 15 years old by the time i popped the cap. amazingly, it was drinkable and not horribly sour or infected. not good, mind you, but drinkable. in fact it still had that extract taste which i guess never goes away (slightly tinny taste). talk about a blast from the past. looked like a brown ale, even a porter, though i think i was trying to make a "double amber" at the time... whatever that was supposed to mean.
Let me second the Ray Daniels book.
That is THE BEST book for homebrewers out there.
Skip the last two-thirds of recipes and read the first third of brewing procedures over and over and over again.
Read the first 50 pages 10 times. Seriously.
This is one of only a handful of books I return to -- the style guidelines are invaluable.
Then, if you can handle the math -- "Principles of Brewing Science" by George Fix. Borrow a copy if you can, because this is a TOUGH read unless you have a chemistry background.
not much of Chemistry background, but I am an admitted math geek, so I will look for both of those.
well, like many parts of history, a tragedy has occured and is being followed by great things. Yesterday I realized I left my thumb drive in a computer at school- the only thing not backed up onto another computer was actually, MY HOMEBREW RECIPIES!!!!! I also had some on the home computer, but the ones on the thumb drive were the ones where I had actually been playing with the numbers and would have been a little more my own creation. Fortunately, I had a clone for Avery's IPA, which looks fantastic and is set up for a 6 gallon batch, which I am wanting to do. So I am off to get my grain, hops, yeast and such; as well as cooler and parts for making a mashtun, I'll post a link for that later, but it is a rectangle cooler with a tube of hi temp wire mesh tubing, looks like a good set up.
here's the brew set up:
(as copied from somewhere)
From Promash given 68% efficiency setting
6 Gallons
13.25# US Pale Malt
0.75# US Munich Malt (10L)
5oz Crystal 120
0.5oz Simcoe leaf (13%AA) FWH
0.5oz Centennial leaf (10.5%AA) FWH
0.5oz Crystal pellet (LHBS doesn't have whole crystal) (4%AA) FWH
1.0oz Columbus leaf (15%AA) 60 min
0.5oz Simcoe leaf (13%AA) Dry Hop Secondary (probably for 2 weeks)
0.5oz Centennial leaf (10.5%AA) Dry Hop Secondary
(I'll probably end up throwing that extra 1/2oz of crystal in with the dry hops too)
WLP001/US56 Yeast, fermented at 68-70.
OG--1.058
FG--1.012 (guessing)
~6% ABV
8.0 SRM
69 IBU
Oh lord this thread is awesome. If I start doing this, I'm a gonner. Thanks for sharing your passion.
Brew Day!!!!!!!!! Totally psyched to have the day to brew. I'm getting ready to go out and get my water and the ice for the cool down. The owner at the brew shop suggested I didn't use the design I brought in for a mash tun, and was he said made a lot of sense, basically that I could use that design, bur (I would be re-making the thing later on down the road, and I really only want to build it once.
So I am doing a mini mash, abou 6 pounds of grain and 4 pounds of extract. I also will be using 2 kettles for my boil. I really want to get better hop utilization and for a 6 gallon batch I didn't want to do a 2.5 gallon boil. This will equate to a little more effort at cooling time, but I am OK with that. I haven't done anything special with the yeast, so I hope that isn't an issue, just one vial of WL yeast, coming out of the fridge now and pitched as is in a few hours.
Avery IPA clone - mini mash
6 Gallons
5 # US Pale Malt
3/4 # US Munich Malt (10L)
1/3 # Crystal 120
4 # Dry Malt Extract
0.5oz Simcoe leaf (13%AA) 60
0.5oz Centennial leaf (10.5%AA) 60
0.5oz Crystal pellet (LHBS doesn't have whole crystal) (4%AA) 60
1.0oz Columbus leaf (15%AA) 60 min
0.5oz Simcoe leaf (13%AA) Dry Hop Secondary (probably for 2 weeks)
0.5oz Centennial leaf (10.5%AA) Dry Hop Secondary
White Labs 1056 California Ale Yeast,
OG--1.058
~6% ABV
8.0 SRM
120 IBU
well, normally have problems w/ pitching temp being high, this time it was a little low, 66 F. a nice 6 gallon batch done in two pots, and a serious 120+ IBU's. I tossed in the extra 1/2 oz crystal hops for 15 min of the boil. I also drank a good bit of the stout from the last batch, so I am actually pretty nicely buzzed at the moment. well, time to clean up and get dinner strted, a homebrewer's work is never done. I'll probab;y do something to raise the temp of the primary since it is a little low.
see ya.