What are you doing with homebrew today?

I got little notes lying everyehere in the house with "HOP" written on it.
Flying tonite and desperately trying to remember to take my hop out of the freezer and put in my bag.
Wanting to keep it cold for as long as possible!
 
I just created a badly needed beer stats page for my brew days, most times I don't follow the recipe exactly, this is the sheet you fill out after you brew, use it if you want
Stats_Sheet4-page-001.jpg

View attachment 19789

I created a better one, easier to fill out
 

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I just created a badly needed beer stats page for my brew days, most times I don't follow the recipe exactly, this is the sheet you fill out after you brew, use it if you want

View attachment 19789
Yeah BF has them too I printed a heap out but now I just scribble vitals on the back of the recipie print out usually pre post boil gravity mash schedule and final gravity tasting notes are rare:)
 
Yeah BF has them too I printed a heap out but now I just scribble vitals on the back of the recipie print out usually pre post boil gravity mash schedule and final gravity tasting notes are rare:)

unfortunately this type of sheet isn't on the drop down, this is why I created it
 
Looks great, I grabbed a copy, thanks
 
Bottled my interpretation of a Biere de Mars — can any of the Belgian experts here define the style for me? I’ve seen it described as a parti-gyle sour from a lambic mash, to a style with more in common to Biere de Garde or even saison. Hey, I brewed it in March so I got that part right!
 
I brewed a Biere de Garde a few weeks ago and I read about the style but no liquor store within an hours drive here had any to try. So I put one together and have been drinking it for a couple of weeks and it's pretty good. I have no idea if it matches or not. Just go with your results and unless you are entering a competition, it is a Biere de Mars!!!!
 
@Over The Cliff Brewing
I used a lot of wheat in the grain bill but made no attempt to sour it. I like the idea of just enjoying it this Spring regardless of style. By the way, the Wyeast Ardennes smack pack failed so I fermented with SafAle BE-134. I’ll end up somewhere between a saison and Biere de Garde anyway!
 
Pulled the sediment bulb off the fermenter and cleaned it out and reinstalled it.

This batch has a pretty thick kraussen ring. I'm hoping it doesn't fall into the batch and mess it up. Lost a couple bottles out of the last batch because of that. Looked OK but didn't taste very nice. Pretty sure it was kraussen in the bottle (could still see the chunky floaty bits) that threw off the taste, and it was only a couple bottles out of 54 that had a problem.

Anyone else got the FastFerment 7.9G conical? If so, what's your technique for avoiding air bubbles when you swap out the bulb for secondary ferment? Sanitizing isn't an issue. Quite easy, really. It's just the introduction of air into the batch as it fills the emptied ball back up that gives me pause. I like the cleaner beer it's giving me at bottling time, but I've seen an awful lot of discussion about air going through the beer like it does. FF claims there's no significant detriment because the air bubbles go straight into the blanket of CO2 on top of the beer, and since CO2 is heavier than air, automatically goes to the top. I'm not necessarily convinced, considering CO2 readily mixes with air. Just curious how those with conicals handle cleaning out the trap bulbs.
 
You'd have to flush the bulb with co2 before re attaching.
Yeah, that's where I was leaning. Maybe go ahead and get a bottle and regulator, just for that purpose. Just drop the hose in there open ended while I'm cleaning up the ball valve. It's heavier than air, so will purge out most of the air. There will still be that tiny bit between the top of the bulb and the face of the ball valve, but it'll be a tiny bit, for sure. The flange on the bulb barely clears the ball in the valve. Then, of course, the bubbles will just be (mostly) CO2.

I kinda thought about doing a closed loop rig if I do the CO2 thing. Put something on the bulb to vent it to the top of the fermenter so that liquid just forces the gas out, and use CO2 to purge, thus just putting CO2 on top of the beer in the fermenter as it drains into the bulb. Gonna be a little tough finding a bulkhead fitting small enough to avoid the radius problems on the bulb, though. It's only 1 quart (0.95L) for each time I harvest. I usually let it run for about a week before I harvest the first time, then a second harvest (which is what I keep for the yeast) I do at bottling. Last round of bottling showed me I need to flush the valve before I start dumping to the bottling bucket. Still had a bit of slurry in the valve that I didn't think about, and dumped that right into my priming sugar solution. DOH!

Still learning the best techniques with this thing. I do like the improved clarity from 'secondary' fermenting and getting rid of the goo before I bottle it. Now I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can with it to avoid spoiling a batch. Albeit, I don't see much difference in the exposure by swapping that bulb and using the autosiphon to rack it to the bottling bucket or secondary ferment. My first try on dry hopping was with buckets for fermenting, and I racked to secondary before dropping the hops to make sure the trub didn't mess with 'em. WIth this thing, I yank the bulb off, sanitize the hop basket, put the hops in the basket, put the float (also sanitized) in, put the hops in. Take the top off the fermenter, drop the hop basket, put the top back on, put the bulb back on, and open the valve to the bulb. When the bulb is full, I put the airlock back on and leave it till bottling day.

I've noticed batches seem to go dormant a LOT earlier with the conical than they did with the buckets. Maybe it's my imagination, but it almost seems I could be bottling well under 2 weeks, especially with extract brews.
 
You could put a gas post connection on the bulb that way you can flush with co2 before opening the butterfly valve.

My plastic conical style fermentation "fermentersaurus" I opted for no collection jar because I didn't want to contend with it leaking ect ect.

If dry hopping is a concern with oxidation introduce the hops whilst peak fermentation is underway or just after this will purge out any introduced o2 from dry hop from continued fermentation.
 

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