Homebrewers

Wobbegong: can you tell me what kind of mini-fridge that is? will it fit a carboy? im looking for a minifridge that i can use to fit a 5gal carboy for lagers and summer brewing. i havent looked too hard but cant find one in the right size and would appreciate a recommendation. thanks.

-gv
 
Lot of good work being done here-
Glenlivet, I'm assuming you're dry hopping with pellets,
are you going to use something to contain them (grain bag) or just try to rack around the sludge when you bottle?
And how long did it take to bring the wort down to temp with your fancy new chiller there? (Nice work)

Wobbegong, how are the hops doing?

Bozizle- not sure i"m ready for full mash yet, but I'd like to see that Black IPA recipe. Been really digging a few of those lately. Widmer Bros is a nice one.
 
jmanic said:
Wobbegong, how are the hops doing?
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Real nice!!! Centennial here...
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Wobbegong said:
What did you use to blacken the IPA? Carafa III?
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I added a pound of Carafa II in the grain bill. A bit more roasty but I hopped the sh#t out of it. I am a hop head...


Also just grabbed 4oz of Cascade off the vines in my back yard so I may have to make a hurricane brew tomorrow
 
jmanic said:
Lot of good work being done here-
Glenlivet, I'm assuming you're dry hopping with pellets,
are you going to use something to contain them (grain bag) or just try to rack around the sludge when you bottle?
And how long did it take to bring the wort down to temp with your fancy new chiller there? (Nice work)
Click to expand...

Yeah, i'm using pellets. I have a grain sock to dry hop but in the past i've just dropped them in as well. The grain sock keeps it much nicer! I used a grain sock for the pumpkin and one for the cinnamon sticks too. The chiller worked quick! It took 5-10 minutes maybe. My water doesn't come out of the tap very cold though. Once the wort dropped to around 84* the temperature stopped dropping almost completely. I think next time i'm going to splice an extra length of plastic tubing onto the inlet side and run it through a bucket of ice water to help cool things off quicker and to a better temp.
 
Wobbegong said:
Real nice!!! Centennial here...
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Nice- next year you're going to have tons.

Glenlivet12 said:
Yeah, i'm using pellets. I have a grain sock to dry hop but in the past i've just dropped them in as well. The grain sock keeps it much nicer! I used a grain sock for the pumpkin and one for the cinnamon sticks too. The chiller worked quick! It took 5-10 minutes maybe. My water doesn't come out of the tap very cold though. Once the wort dropped to around 84* the temperature stopped dropping almost completely. I think next time i'm going to splice an extra length of plastic tubing onto the inlet side and run it through a bucket of ice water to help cool things off quicker and to a better temp.
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So did you pitch the yeast with it in the 80's? My last batch never took :cry:, and I think the issue was I took the temperature down too low.
And I was lazy and didn't make a starter.
 
Shaggz said:
Silly question, but are the hops deer resistant?
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Very. Watched them eat some of the flowers in front of my hops, didn't touch them. I often have deer in the yard too.

Not a silly question..... They can eat!


jmanic said:
Nice- next year you're going to have tons.
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Im happy that Im getting some cones in the 1st year. Wont be tons, but enough for some use..
 
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jmanic said:
So did you pitch the yeast with it in the 80's? My last batch never took :cry:, and I think the issue was I took the temperature down too low.
And I was lazy and didn't make a starter.
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No I was able to get it down to the mid to low 70's. The night before I boiled three extra gallons and put it in the fridge. Once the temp stopped dropping quickly I strained the wort into the fermented then brought it up to 5 gallons using the water I had chilled overnight.

This was my first time using dry yeast. I didn't make a starter but I used about a cup of the preboiled water to rehydrate the yeast. I did it way early and it ended up sitting around for an hour or so, palmers book recommends pitching no longer than a half hour after rehydrating. Didn't seem to affect the yeasts ability though. They started doing they're thing by the time I woke up the next morning.

I'm having trouble with the temp of the fermentation. I live in a condo so I don't have a basement. I use a central closet that seems to be the coolest place in the house. Unfortunately every time I check the temp it's around 75*. I'd like it closer to the 70*s. Not much I can do though. The only thing I have room for really is to put a bunch of ice in my bottling bucket and place the fermenting bucket on top of it. I can't tell what the temp is but it has to do something.
 
So I really should have taken some pics because this brew is the darkest i've made and it looks beautiful.

Tonight I racked my pumpkin ale to secondary and dry hopped. The final gravity was about 1.011 which should give me something close to a 6.5% abv(OG was about 1.06).

My biggest concern is the smell. It has a strong isoamyl acetate smell(banana). I'm pretty sure that if I let it sit for a while the taste/smell will mellow out. I knew the fermenting temps were higher than they should so I half expected this. I tasted the sample I pulled off for the gravity and it didn't taste to bad, it has a bit of hops in it so its a little astringent and I noticed the alcohol but that all should also mellow over time as well. I can't wait for it all to come together, should be a good beer!
 
This Weekends Project

Halloween Black IPA.


BeerSmith Recipe Printout -
Recipe: Halloween Black IPA - Dogfish Head 60 Inspired
Style: American Black IPA
TYPE: All Grain


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.10 gal
Boil Size: 6.84 gal
Estimated OG: 1.072 SG
Estimated Color: 32.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 87.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
12 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 90.91 %
12.0 oz Carafa III (525.0 SRM) Grain 5.45 %
4.0 oz Amber Malt (22.0 SRM) Grain 1.82 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 1.82 %
0.25 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (60 min) Hops 10.9 IBU
0.50 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (60 min) Hops 23.4 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (30 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (30 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (30 min) Hops 9.0 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (15 min) Hops 3.3 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (15 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (15 min) Hops 5.8 IBU
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (10 min) Hops 4.2 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (10 min) Hops 2.4 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (10 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.3 IBU
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (5 min) Hops 2.3 IBU
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.5 IBU
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (1 min) Hops 0.3 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
0.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -

1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [2000 ml Starter on stir plate for 24 hours, 12 hour cold crash and decant]

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge 153/168 degrees

14 days primary at 68 degrees
14 days secondary at 65 degrees, dry hop last 10 days.
Primed with dme and Aged in bottle 3 weeks at 68 degrees.
 
Bill and I plan to keep this thread alive!! Here is an overview of my Halloween Beer brew day: :D

Grain and water are added to the mash tun and held at a specific temperature for 1 hour. This is the process that converts starch to sugar. A modified cooler makes a great mash tun.
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You can see inside the mash tun. This screen keeps the grain from exiting the vessel when draining. Everything used inside the cooler mash tun is made from stainless steel.
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For this recipe I mashed at 153 degrees. The temp you mash at changes the body of the beer. Here you can see what the milled grains look like. The Black color in this beer recipe comes from ¾ pounds of CARAFA III. It’s the black you see in the bag. It’s amazing how much color comes from this grain, considering how it’s such a small a part of the grain bill.
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After 1 hour at 153 degrees, 1st runnings are collected in the brew pot.
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The grain is then sparged with 168 degree water. This water is collected in the pot. This is done twice with equal volumes of water. Everything is calculated to collect a pre determined amount of wort to boil.
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Now the wort is brought to a boil for 90 minutes, with hops added at specific times during the boil.
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One of seven hop additions to this batch.
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Then the wort is cooled with a chiller. Cold water is run through this copper coil to remove heat from the wort. Cold water goes in, hot water comes out.
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The wort after cooling is seen here in my test cylinder. Specific Gravity is 1.073. This should yield a beer around 7.3 percent abv. IBU’s should be around 90. After evaporation from boiling and hop absorption, my 7.4 gallons yielded 5 gallons on the nose. Exactly what I was shooting for. Nice!
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More to come………
 
Looks like blood! How'd it taste?

My kegging set up comes in next week, two weeks after my latest batch went into the secondary! Couldn't ask for better timing. I opted to go with the hand faucet for now rather then a external tap.
 
Glenlivet12 said:
Looks like blood! How'd it taste?

My kegging set up comes in next week, two weeks after my latest batch went into the secondary! Couldn't ask for better timing. I opted to go with the hand faucet for now rather then a external tap.
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Its blacker than black.

I think this is going to be a really good Cascadian Dark Ale. Bittering was strong, hop aroma was huge. This is a big beer. Its hard to sense the grain flavor through the sweetness before fermentation, but it seems subtle. Its not heavy roasted like a porter or stout. Doesnt taste like what it looks like, thats for sure.....

I use the picnic taps too. I like that they live inside the fridge, away from the eyes of the little one. He'd turn that tap on in a second if he saw it sitting up there.....
 
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