LC stogiechat homebrew gnome Wrote:PO Wrote:Make sure you take notes on the things you do with each brew so you can look back to any mistakes you may have over looked. 
I figure I'll buy a binder and then just print out this thread. 
Not a bad idea, now I might have to do that. Better yet, BB do you have a binder already made up you can send out for future reference?
it's a shame I didn't print out the old thread, but then again, maybe a good thing
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I do need to start putting together a collection of the different beers I want to brew, so when the time comes I can pull from a more specific search. I have a few pages on the internet taged for reference, but it wouldn't hurt to cut that one a little shorter. And then there's every issue of BYO that brings even more mouthwatering choices. Oh, I may need to come back a few more lifetimes, just to get qall this brewing done.
[user=63]PO[/user] wrote: Better yet, BB do you have a binder already made up you can send out for future reference?[/quote]
the sum of my knowledge is no bigger than my love for beer.
... i do have a binder of sacred beer recipes, cataloging every brew i've done (on my fancy system, once i knew what the hell i was doing). the best thing to do is write up a recipe sheet that you can make copies of, then while you're brewing, you fill in the blanks. it should have spaces for mash temps and times, boil times, hop varieties and addition times, grain bill (types, quantities), starting and ending gravities, amounts of water used, yeast strain (and generation #), tasting notes, misc. notes, and of course, a killer name for a killer brew. brew enough and you'll wind up with a serious reference book. hell, they even have software now for keeping recipies and computing all the numbers. i guess i like the old fashioned pen and paper way. whatever. bottom line, notes are key. brain cells take vacations.
Bungalowbill Wrote:[user=63]PO[/user] wrote: Better yet, BB do you have a binder already made up you can send out for future reference?
the sum of my knowledge is no bigger than my love for beer.
... i do have a binder of sacred beer recipes, cataloging every brew i've done (on my fancy system, once i knew what the hell i was doing). the best thing to do is write up a recipe sheet that you can make copies of, then while you're brewing, you fill in the blanks. it should have spaces for mash temps and times, boil times, hop varieties and addition times, grain bill (types, quantities), starting and ending gravities, amounts of water used, yeast strain (and generation #), tasting notes, misc. notes, and of course, a killer name for a killer brew. brew enough and you'll wind up with a serious reference book. hell, they even have software now for keeping recipies and computing all the numbers. i guess i like the old fashioned pen and paper way. whatever. bottom line, notes are key.
brain cells take vacations.
You can say that again BB
[/quote]
with that in mind, I was typing up notes this morning on this brew, how it went, what I did differently from the stated instructions, intentionally or not.
Well, krausen has fallen, still got some bubbles so I know there's a little action going on in there. Beer is looking pretty good, definitely my palest brew thus far, I can actually see color other than pitch black in the carboy, more pics will be coming soon. I won't really have time to bottle until Sunday, mainly because I need to make time to both bottle AND brew, so that I can turn around and use the yeast again right away, instead of waiting to let it get contaminated and leaving me w/ out any yeast for this next batch.
Question #5,386: I used 2 packets of dried yeast in this present batch, how much of the trub do I want to move over to the next batch? All? 1/2 ? Qt ?
This will be quite interesting for me to see how using the yeast a second time works, and I will miss using the glass carboy for primary, that was really cool to watch.
Not that I know anything, but I would think you'd want to use all of it, it was ok for the first batch why shouldn't it be ok for the second? Also, I would think it would be better to use the trub from the primaryââ¬âbrewing the second batch when you rack the first (when the yeast is still pretty active)...but I don't see why the trub from the secondary wouldn't work also. Just my uneducated 2â.As always, lookin' forward to the pics!
as long as you get about 1/2 a cup or so of that trub, you should be ok. it is possible to pitch too much yeast, but you wouldn't accumulate that much yeast 'till you go 4 or 5 generations. i still would recommend using a liquid yeast if the goal is to repitch for extended brews. but the dry stuff should be alright for a couple.
well.........we could say I got at least 1/2 a cup. We could also say I probably got more than a cup. Whatever it was, I didn't think it would be too much since there was still a pretty good bit stuck against the bottom that wasn't coming up, so I figured I was getting a good ammount. Couple this w/ possibly pouring more than 5 gallons for my total wort, and what do you have- a krausen filled airlock!
Sunday was interesting. The quest was to bottle one batch while at the same time boil another so as to use the yeast a second time. I think for future situations like this I will prepare a succesion of beers that are intended for a particular strain of yeast, since the yeast type does have some affect on the beer. First thing I had to do was to create a two sided time line so that I could look at what I would have time to do at which points, basically while one task is at a point of needing less attention, what can i be doing for the other. And despite the fact that this timeline got screwed with severely, I am still glad I did it to have some grasp on where I should be. I won't bounce you back and forth as the day happened, just know that the two events were happening simultaneously.
For this day, I opened one of the last few bottles from the first batch, Gnomers in Space IPA, which was delicious.
The quick turn around beer looked pretty good, lighter in color than anything I have brewed this far, but that's cool, too. Plenty of priming sugar, boiled into some water, and cooled to an appropriate temp before combining w/ the beer. However, we did have a little trouble in paradise. You have seen my siphoning set up before, w/ the carboy up top and the bottling bucket sitting on two 2x4's on the floor. well, when I was sanitizing the equiptment, I left the nozzle for the bottling bucket open, and forgot to switch it to close (this was a fear that had finally manifested itself, I had worried about doing this so many times, and finally the day had arrived. So I go back into the kitchen to get the water w/ the priming sugar that was cooling, and as I return to the room w/ siphoning still going on, I see beer, pouring all over the floor. Crisis was resolved with the flick of a wrist and a towel that was close at hand (remember from the hitchiker's guide, don't go anywhere without your towel). the actual bottling part was decently uneventful. Getting used to the bottling cane, I lined up 16 bottles and knocked em out pretty quick. ended up with 22 of the 22oz bottles, and 4 of the 12oz bottles, which ultimately means I lost about 3/4 of a gallon to the floor earlier. Bottled now, just waiting on the right ammount of time before refridgeration.
The return to the strong brown ale was long awaited, and my first repeated brew. I actually opened several bottles of the brown ale at room temp to see how they were doing, if increaseing the temp in the room had moved along the carbonation process, and at room temp, they were well carbonated and appropriately fermented, but the one that I cooled after that didn't have the same carbonation, but still tasted pretty good.
so things went pretty smoothly, steeped the grains, removed and brought to a boil, added sugars, and added hops at four different stages like I did last time, though a total of 4oz this time instead of 4.5oz since I didn't have the extra cascade laying around. added the Irish moss and a heaping teaspoon of yeast nutrients towards the end, and then cooled, and cooled, and cooled, and aerated, and cooled, and cooled. I must have done fewer cooling baths than I normally do, because this stuff took a long time to cool. Oh, and one thing I regret not getting a picture of, is filtering the wort into the fermentor, with the flimsy little plastic hook holding on to the side, fell twice, the filter shifted a few times, it was worth taping, but hell, if I had someone there to film it, then I would've told them to hold onto the damn filter!
The next morning I wake to find yeast spouting from the airlock, the whole thing was filled w/ foam. So I pulled off 6 cups of beer from the bottom to bring down the level, thinking it was the easiest way to not disturb what was in there and still lower things a bit. Then I resanitized the airlock, after cleaning it out, and put it back in. Within an hour it had foam in it again, and I was about to hit the road, so I left it. When I came home last night, it was clogged, so I cleaned again, resanitized, and put it back on, and no more beer is leaving that vessel until it's all ready. I'm trying to bring the temp in that room down, just a bit to slow the fermentation down some. The fermentor read about 72 F when I pitched, and was reading a solid 78 F when all this was going on, the yeast was just churning like wildfire in there. As of this morning, all that has slowed down, definitely still action going on in there, but not clogging up the airlock like before.
This summer I am going to try to gear up a little to make my brewing a little easier on me. Yes you heard it, I have a few things on the list, but first and foremost is a keg system. Probably will take place of money for brewing, but when I come back to make a batch, things will be a little easier. Also want to get a wort chiller and aeration equiptment. This will probably keep me busy for a bit, but it really will add a lot of ease to the brewing process. who knows, maybe I'll find some of it on Ebay or something. but for now, one batch is bottled, another fermenting, and as always, pics on the way.
Grant, send Jim a PM, he has a keg system that he was going to sell.