Homebrewers

[Glenlivet12]

Check this out:

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/olive-oil.html

Basically the argument is adding an extremely small amount of olive oil to your cooled wort is just as good if not better then oxygenating. Yeast need oxygen to reproduce and create unsaturated faty acids(UFAs) which help them maintain a strong cell wall. Olive oil is very high in UFAs about 55-85% according to the article. By supplying these to the yeast they can strengthen their cell walls and reproduce w/o having to create their own UFA's and all the sterols as a biproduct. It also helps the yeast create more esters and stabilizes the flavor longer. The amount you need to add for a five gallon batch is miniscule 0.000085mL or 0.085microliters. Unless you have a lab grade pipette you're not going to get it exact. Its suggested that dipping a toothpick in olive oil then into your wort works just fine. The downside to this is a slightly slower fermentation but the final gravity will be the same. This was all tested at New Belgium Brewery on a large scale and I guess has been around for a while but is just getting mainstream notice.

I might try this before dropping $65 on a oxygen regulator.:hmmm:

 

[bozizle]

Check this out:

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/olive-oil.html

Basically the argument is adding an extremely small amount of olive oil to your cooled wort is just as good if not better then oxygenating. Yeast need oxygen to reproduce and create unsaturated faty acids(UFAs) which help them maintain a strong cell wall. Olive oil is very high in UFAs about 55-85% according to the article. By supplying these to the yeast they can strengthen their cell walls and reproduce w/o having to create their own UFA's and all the sterols as a biproduct. It also helps the yeast create more esters and stabilizes the flavor longer. The amount you need to add for a five gallon batch is miniscule 0.000085mL or 0.085microliters. Unless you have a lab grade pipette you're not going to get it exact. Its suggested that dipping a toothpick in olive oil then into your wort works just fine. The downside to this is a slightly slower fermentation but the final gravity will be the same. This was all tested at New Belgium Brewery on a large scale and I guess has been around for a while but is just getting mainstream notice.

I might try this before dropping $65 on a oxygen regulator.:hmmm:

I have tried this a couple times and I can say I have never noticed any difference especially since we are brewing small batches that are much easier to ensure proper fermentation. For heavy beers I use a good yeast starter and I use a fish air pump for 10 mins or so to oxygenate the wort. Ales and lighter beers I also use the pump but don't always use a starter. I regularly wash my yeast and reuse it with no issue.

 

[lou_b_83]

I got this and I am trying to make my first batch. I have ten days to go before I bottle. The only thing I hate is I have no clue what all the stuff I was putting in it other than the brewers yeast. One bag said booster and the can just said pale ale on it. Can some one do a brake down (maybe with pics) on how to make a true home brew for noobs.

 

[bozizle]

I got this and I am trying to make my first batch. I have ten days to go before I bottle. The only thing I hate is I have no clue what all the stuff I was putting in it other than the brewers yeast. One bag said booster and the can just said pale ale on it. Can some one do a brake down (maybe with pics) on how to make a true home brew for noobs.

Ahhhhh Mr Beer...also known as the gateway drug

All their kits are Malt extract (syrup you missed with water) and possibly hops unless the malt was already hopped. The yeast booster helps the yeast fedd and grow better. You can find lots of videos and information on the web by looking at Malt Extract Brewing...all grain is many more steps. If you enjoy it with a few bucks spent on some fermentation buckets you could be doing extract 5 gallon batched in no time.

 

[Glenlivet12]

Youtube is your friend here, lots of tutorials on everything u could want to know about brewing. If your really interested pick up a book, how to brew by John Palmer is good and his first edition is free online but hes updated and made a lot of changes since the first edition. There are other books out there but thats what i used. Also homebrewtalk.com is a great site for any question u have. Be careful, it's like biking. The more you read up and research the more you end up buying.

 

[lou_b_83]

So I have learned that the bag that said booster was dextrose suger. Now to try to figure out how to make malt (if I can). I want to be able to make my own flavors.

 

[Glenlivet12]

So I have learned that the bag that said booster was dextrose suger. Now to try to figure out how to make malt (if I can). I want to be able to make my own flavors.

Google all grain brewing! TONS of info out there on it. If you really want to control your beer flavors its the way to go.

 

[ArmyOfNone]

Google all grain brewing! TONS of info out there on it. If you really want to control your beer flavors its the way to go.

Yes! Soon Soon It will be done!

Last night moved my black ipa into secondary over some tasty cascade hops.

Darkness!

The yeast certainly did their thing! Gravity was at about 1.030 just about 8.5% :drooling:

Still prob another month till its ready to drink. 🙁 But it will be worth the wait!

 

[lou_b_83]

What do you guys use for sanitation?

 

[jmanic]

Not sure what the pros here are using, but I use Star San (no rinse) for carboys and buckets,
B-Brite (rinse) for implements and such.

 

[Wobbegong]

What do you guys use for sanitation?

Star San and Oxy Clean..

 

[Shaggz]

+1 on Star San

 

[Glenlivet12]

Star San and Oxy Clean..

^^This

Oxy clean gets all the debris and organics off your stuff(if you soak bottles in in it it'll take the labels off) and Star San to sanitize.

 

[lou_b_83]

Thanks guys. Everyone says to use different stuff.

Found this to be a good read. AND they will send you a free magazine

http://www.byo.com/newbrew

I can't wait for payday to get here so I can go to the brew store that I found 20 minutes away from my house.. 😀

 

[lou_b_83]

Doing my first bottling tonight. I was told to put a pinch a suger in each bottle. Anyone else do that? Any other tricks I should know?

 

[Glenlivet12]

I wouldn't put a "pinch" in each bottle. To much and you get a bottle bomb to little and its not carbed correctly. I forget how much priming sugar is used for a 5 gallon batch but usually you boil x ozs. of sugar in 1-2 cups water and let it cool then mix that in to the whole bucket of beer, then bottle. This way all the bottles get the same amount of sugar and its been boiled so you know you're not introducing any bacteria into your brew.

Somone chime in w/ the correct amount of sugar for a mr. beer set up.

 

[Wobbegong]

1 oz corn sugar per gallon of beer will get you there. A bit less for a lighter carbonation.

3 parameters affect the final carbonation outcome. 1. Amount of fermentable sugar remaining in the beer at time of bottling 2. Amount of co2 dissolved in the beer at time of bottling and 3. Amount of fermentable sugars you add to the beer before bottling. If you verify the beer is completely fermented out with a hydrometer, you have 2 remaining variables. I use beersmith to do this calculation.

Here is a web app to do the math. Shoot for 2.4 vols.
http://www.kotmf.com/tools/prime.php

 

[lou_b_83]

15 days of waiting. 10 22oz bottles (they will be replaced before next round).

 

[lou_b_83]

Got another quuestion for you guys. How much water should I expect to lose to my grains? If I use 6 gallons do I get 4 back as wort?. Thanks

 

[Glenlivet12]

Blood Orange Hefe

Last night I brewed a blood orange hefe...We'll see how it comes out. The orange "tea" I made smelled great but i'm concerned w/ how malty the LME smelled when boiling. I had a bottle from the last hefe I made and wasn't a fan of how malty it turned out. This one smells a lot like that one does, hopefully the orange flavor cuts the malt a bit.


I think I got a little too cocky knowing I'd be using fermcap-s and added more water then I normaly do to the kettle. After adding all the LME to the kettle the liquid line was about a half to a quarter inch below the rim. If you look at the pictures the liquid covered all the rivets holding the handles onto the kettle, you can kind of make out where the line was. So I had to ladel some out into smaller pots. Luckily enough boiled off towards the end that I was able to dump them back in for the last 10-15 minutes of the boil. The Fermcap-s worked great though! I put a few drops into the water before adding the extract and even at the high level there was no signs of possible boil over just nice rolling wort...

I used 5 blood oranges. They were zested then supremed(thanks to Lisa! I wouldn't have the patience for that) and placed in a muslin bag. That was dropped into 2L of boiled water cooled to ~180-170* and covered then allowed to steep.

I left it on the stove to cool for about 30-40 min then put it in the fridge to cool. In the future I might just plop the bag into the boil at the end but w/ the hop spider and chiller there is already alot going on in there. Man those fermcaps work great! i had the heat cranking and the kettle level high and not one bit of foam. Plus the hop spider kept everything in its bag so straining into the fermenter took about 30 seconds.



After adding everything to the fermenter and topping off w/ some cooled water the OG was about 1.046, recipe says should be about 1.050 so i'll take that. I was expecing to be higher since I added a bit more malt then the recipe called for( brewers apprentice sells by the quart not the pound) Probalby topped off a little too much so the gravity is a tad low.

So the yeast...I texted Wobbegong last night just to see what he thought about the starter. When I stuck it in the fridge there was still some foam on top of the starter that I thought would settle out, most of it did. When I took it out of the fridge yesterday and decanted most of the liquid off I noticed what looked like either a small clump of foam or infection...I shot a pic over to jay and his reaction was what I was thinking but didn't want to admit, No f'ing way would i pitch that...

So I left the starter off to the side and forgot about it during the brew. By the end of the night what was small clumps of foam or bacteria got larger and foamier.

Kind of looks like fermentation so I left it over night in the morning there was a fairly thick layer of white foam on top. I know I didn't let this ferment all the way out when I made the starter so maybe it is just fermentation foam.

After thinking about it more it definitely doesn't look like or act like an infection so i think i'm going to go w/ it:getsome:. This brew ended later than i wanted to so i didn't cool all the way to pitching temps. I put the bucket in the closet which stays around 65-70*. It should be perfect temp by the time I get home. I'll pitch when i get home and should have some tastey beer in a few weeks. It'll probably ferment for about 10 days. I'll bottle this and let it carb naturaly for 2-3 weeks just in time for the May heat...😀