What are you doing with homebrew today?

RoadRoach said:
Thanks for the flowers. Bottling ain't for everyone. There's a lot of labor in it. The only advantage to bottles that I can think of is being able to keep several different brews on the shelf to keep the taste buds amused. All I need to do now is brew more often.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Longer shelf life?
 
@Trialben
No drill. Limited electricity and milling just a couple kg by hand is no issue.

@RoadRoach
No pics yet. Still in design stage in my head ;)
 
Collecting water for tomorrow's Not So Blonde Ale:p!
20220121_185731.jpg

30.5 kettle volume No Sparge this brew.
I've no idea what I'll get efficiency wise I'm usually 80-85% set the bar at 75%.

Plenty of wriggle room.
I've decided to do a mid boil 30 min addition of Willamette to see if this brings anything depth wise to the hop flavour.
Don't worry I'll be telling you all about it;).
 
In the end, I came up with a real easy plan.
I got 3 planks under my sink.
I shortened the middle one and pulled the outer ones a bit further out to fit the mill.
Secured all the planks to the frame and liberated 2 clamps from my sausage stuffer, and done ;)
It's a bit low, but very doable for the amounts of grain I need
IMG_20220121_105055.jpg


IMG_20220121_131002.jpg
 
Nosybear said:
Longer shelf life?
Click to expand...

Shelf life has not been an issue;), so I never thought about it that way. But, maybe. Dunno how long it'll last in a refrigerated and pressurized keg. Not sure I'd brew up a batch to put on the shelf and wait to see how long it takes to go bad, either. Baddies can't go in as long as there's positive pressure. I'm sure that there is a limit to the seal on the homebrew caps. Guess I could put a bottle on the shelf and wait for it. Might be pretty good stuff if I still couldn't wait out the time for it to go off. Most of what I've read suggests about a 6 month shelf life for homebrew because it isn't Pasteurized but didn't specify bottle or keg. Boiling on the brew gets rid of most of the problem, but drinking it before the rest of it becomes a problem is the key.:D

I'll assume that ANY impurity will eventually affect the beer in a negative way if left long enough, and as far as I know, the only way to make that go away 100% is filtration. Now we're talking commercial production hardware. A bit outta my budget.
 
Zambezi Special said:
In the end, I came up with a real easy plan.
I got 3 planks under my sink.
I shortened the middle one and pulled the outer ones a bit further out to fit the mill.
Secured all the planks to the frame and liberated 2 clamps from my sausage stuffer, and done ;)
It's a bit low, but very doable for the amounts of grain I need
View attachment 19077

View attachment 19076
Click to expand...
Don't let anyone give ya any shyte about that. It may not be the purtiest or fanciest, but, you grind your grist and you make your beer. Job done. I actually like the potential of making that slide in and out of it's little storage space under the sink. Slide it out, grind, slide it back.

Out of curiosity, does anyone/everyone wash out their mill after each use, or is contamination from other malts a non-issue? What about extended storage? Will mold/bacteria/critters get to the malt residue and chaff? Considering a mill to see if I can knock a little cost out of doing this hobby. Just wanna try to figure out how much labor it adds versus ROI. Right now my LHBS grinds the grist for me for all my needs except stuff like coriander or paradise seeds. I just crush those with a rolling pin on a cutting board. My primary go-to beer is so simple if I do it with DME, it would be hard to justify doing it with all-grain. I've done it all-grain a couple times, and point blank, I find the extract better.

Guess I better pull the sediment bulb off the new fermenter today and see how big a mess I can make. Put a plastic tub under the bulb before putting it on, so should be fairly simple. Best be taking a towel though. Gonna capture the yeast for another round of this stout after I do another try of the LA Mud Puddle. Let's see if I've improved anything in another week or so when it's time to bottle. Think I'll get some of the Cooper's tablets and try bottling straight from the conical. I'll need a sample to check for clarity first, though.
 
As far as I can see, no real need to clean the mill.
At one point in time it looked like some grains where caked to the rollers and I tried cleaning with a toothbrush. Didn't work real good. Then the weather changed to less humid and the rollers were ok.
I suppose running dry rice or something through them wil clean them.
I got the mill so I can buy bulk as I don't have access to a homebrew shop
 
RoadRoach said:
Shelf life has not been an issue;), so I never thought about it that way. But, maybe. Dunno how long it'll last in a refrigerated and pressurized keg. Not sure I'd brew up a batch to put on the shelf and wait to see how long it takes to go bad, either. Baddies can't go in as long as there's positive pressure. I'm sure that there is a limit to the seal on the homebrew caps. Guess I could put a bottle on the shelf and wait for it. Might be pretty good stuff if I still couldn't wait out the time for it to go off. Most of what I've read suggests about a 6 month shelf life for homebrew because it isn't Pasteurized but didn't specify bottle or keg. Boiling on the brew gets rid of most of the problem, but drinking it before the rest of it becomes a problem is the key.:D

I'll assume that ANY impurity will eventually affect the beer in a negative way if left long enough, and as far as I know, the only way to make that go away 100% is filtration. Now we're talking commercial production hardware. A bit outta my budget.
Click to expand...
I finally started kegging last year. If I'm brewing a beer to age it goes in bottles. I have five year old beers that were bottle conditioned and are still quite good. Likewise, my Hefes go into bottles. Higher carbonation and a chance to rouse the yeast. There are reasons for all the stuff we've learned. Sometimes packaging makes a difference.
 
A small warning to mill users, when I was done milling last time I noticed one of the nuts inside the grain tub had worked loose. Had it come all the way off the rollers would not have liked it. I reinstalled them with Locktite. Should probably do the same with the screws holding the sides together
.
Rollers2.jpg
 
Moved my fermenter keg to the garage. Gravity at 1.007 for 3 days so I’m going with finished. Super fresh over pitch of slurry mixed with lower gravity, and good temp ramp after hitting 50% made this pretty fast. I’ll transfer this keg to a serving keg next Friday. Saturday I need it for new wort.
 
west1m said:
A small warning to mill users, when I was done milling last time I noticed one of the nuts inside the grain tub had worked loose. Had it come all the way off the rollers would not have liked it. I reinstalled them with Locktite. Should probably do the same with the screws holding the sides together
.View attachment 19097
Click to expand...
Bit of a design flaw I reckon.
Good catch
 
So trying out pushing out Sodium Metabisulphate mix into another keg to purge keg. I've heard that this is better than phosphoric Acid as less o2 humph will see.
20220123_162140.jpg

Loom at this for 6hrs post pitch
20220123_162204.jpg

But look at this little Bast@rd!:oops::(
20220123_162204.jpg

Yup i was transfering into the fermentor this morning usually ill stick the hose inside the mouth of the fermentor and cover with alfoil.
But now with the higher edge on the cabinet it don't quite reach.
So as I'm transferring the wort this little fly starts hovering around I've got one arm leaning the kettle forward the other hand is on the hose trying not to spray wort all down Inside the chamber and this fly just hovers over to the wort streaming in then whoop in it goes:mad:!

At first I was thinking oh maybe it's just buggered off but just now after checking on fermentation activity that up there is what I saw.
I scooped it out now but ah man I'm not so confident now lol

Ah well cross your fingers lady's and gents I don't want another dumper.
Well I def won't save the yeast but I'm just hoping the quick start to fermentation and me spotting it and scooping it our I pray might mitigate any bast@rd bugs establishing themselves in the ferment.

Whatdyas rekon dumper comming up?

Or she'll be right mate stop ya winging?
 
Last edited:
west1m said:
A small warning to mill users, when I was done milling last time I noticed one of the nuts inside the grain tub had worked loose. Had it come all the way off the rollers would not have liked it. I reinstalled them with Locktite. Should probably do the same with the screws holding the sides together
.View attachment 19097
Click to expand...
How about turning them around?
With the nut on the outside? Easier to check.
I will now go to my mill and check ;)
 
(Edited as quite a garbled message was posted, due to missing parts)
Cleaned the rollers of my mill and put it back together.
Now brewing a belgian ale.
I forgot about Archimedes. Luckily the pot just didn't overflow.
Managed to get the pot into the cooler box for mashing without too much issues
And luckily managed to lift it out ok as well.

The wort is now cooling....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Copyright © 2007-2024 Brewer's Friend, Inc. - Send Feedback - Terms - RSS Feed - Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Back
Top