What are you doing with homebrew today?

Megary said:
That sounds awesome. Did you age it in a bourbon barrel?
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That would be awesome! But no, I soaked medium-toast oak cubes in Marker's Mark Bourbon for a week. Then added the bourbon, minus the oak cubes, at the start of secondary. (Oak cubes are too difficult to remove through the neck of a standard carboy.)
 
How bout oak pellets for smoker machines?
 
west1m said:
How bout oak pellets for smoker machines?
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If you already have them for a smoker that would probably work. And the per ounce/gram price would have to be cheaper than getting them from the homebrew store. You'd have to put the right amount of toast/char on them, but that doesn't sound too difficult.
 
We had a great time. I did have to complete with some “kit instructions” and Mr. Beer sanitization packet. I took a fresh pack of Us-05 since he had his yeast at room temp over a year. The hops didn’t smell fresh like they should, also left out a year. His basement brewing setup is awesome. Can’t believe he did all that work and waited in me to brew with.. A buddy of his who also “brews” the Mr. Beer kits with him came. They liked my Bitter and Mild enough they didn’t reach for anything in the fridge.
 
I'm watching my smash ferment and marveling at captured yeast by product...the time between before and after is 1 hour..
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Sunfire96 said:
I've had SO4 ferment that fast before, especially in a low gravity wort. That's one of the reasons I love that yeast :D
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Yeah, you oughta try a repitch of S33. Holy smokes that stuff's violent. Fast, but violent. It'll push an 8-9 inch layer of foam out of my FastFerment 7.9 conical on a low gravity (<1.044) beer. No idea what it would do with a higher gravity beer. I'm scared it may move us out of the house.
 
Mashing in a batch of my LA Mud Puddle, which is a Kona Big Wave imitation/knockoff/plagiarism, whatever you wanna call it.
All grain, so not much hope of doing this in the Missus' kitchen. Kettle's too tall on the stove and too much drippy work. So, relegated to brewing on the deck. GEEZOPEET IT'S HOT OUT HERE!. Was 76F at 0600 when I had my first cuppa and started getting stuff out to brew. Is now 92 at 0930, and muckin' fuggy to go with the heat. Looking for a heat index of 105 this afternoon. Drenched in sweat already this morning. Won't be a dry thread on me in another 10 minutes, and I don't sweat much. Unfortunately, too early to drink beer while I brew, so I'll have to rust the pipes with plain ol' water to keep my core temp down.

Mash/Sparge done, just waiting for the grains to drain. Nice looking, smelling, and tasting wort. Still too hot to get pre-boil gravity. LHBS recommended I add bittering with Galaxy Hops. First batch was made with Mosaic as a substitute. This time I got Galaxy for flavoring and dry hopping and another .5 oz of Citra to go with the Galaxy (0.5 oz) for the flavoring. Using .34 oz of Magnum for bittering (4 AAU). Hoping the beer tastes as wonderful as the Galaxy hops smell. As soon as collection is done, gonna go ahead and drop the bittering and flavoring hops and let 'em soak while I clean out the kettle. I still don't have a mash tun in my arsenal, so have to mash, drain to a bucket, rinse the kettle, then transfer the wort back to the kettle. Rinsiing the kettle and removing the torpeodo screen is really the only steps that adds to the process, so really can't justify another vessel that I have to clean after each brew. The stainless kettle is a lot easier to clean because I don't have to worry about scratching it, but neither do I have to worry about goozies on the hot side. Afterall, I'm about to boil the heck outta this stuff.
 
RoadRoach said:
Yeah, you oughta try a repitch of S33. Holy smokes that stuff's violent. Fast, but violent. It'll push an 8-9 inch layer of foam out of my FastFerment 7.9 conical on a low gravity (<1.044) beer. No idea what it would do with a higher gravity beer. I'm scared it may move us out of the house.
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I decided to just live with it at 1.022, 2.7%. It sure did move fast at 68F, then kinda stopped. The resulting beer (Josh's bitter) isn't sweet as I'd expect, it tastes OK. Perhaps not as bitter as I'd want, but that's a hops thing.
 
Ward Chillington said:
You sound like a BIAB candidate to me Rochie! No tun needed just something to hoist the bag out of the kettle!
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Yeah, that's an alternative. I do some extract base stuff which lets me bag the flavoring/coloring grains in muslin, and it sure is convenient to just mix the extracts into the kettle after lifting the grains out. Solves the problem with the rinse on the kettle, but that really isn't too bad. I'm outside anyway with all-grain recipes and most extracts too, so I just take the water hose to the kettle after mashing. It's gonna get hot again, so I don't worry much about sanitizing. I sorta use that time for first wort hopping, too. I drop the bittering hops in the hot wort after sparge and cover the bucket until I get the kettle rinsed out again. It didn't even offer to boil over doing that on this latest batch, and this recipe is one of the worst because of large hop doses. Still gotta dry hop it too. It's a Kona Big Wave imitation. That's some yummy stuff, especially after a hot day in the yard.

My kettle is an 8 gallon stainless kettle. The only thing I can snag a bag on it is the probe on the thermometer which isn't sharp, IF I don't use the torpedo screen. I've ripped a few muslin hop bags open on that because of some stray wires from the screen that I can't seem to remedy. BIAB is probably a much cheaper option, too. Guess I'll see what's available and get some ordered. Any recommendations? I'm guessing 12 pounds of grain (my biggest beer) won't be too stupid heavy. What, 25 lbs or so with absorbed water? If I can carry a full fermenter (5.5 gal), I should be able to lift the bag outta the kettle. I can probably fab up a good rack to sit the bag on for draining, or a hanger of some sort that sits on top of the kettle and attaches to the handles. My monster burner is pretty stable, especially with the weight of the kettle and its contents, so I don't think I'd have to worry too much about it tipping.
 
Pitched yeast in the Base Jumper MO, added the spunding valve about an hour later, and tried to clean up some yeast slurry with water but it was as clean as its gonna get apparently lol
 
RoadRoach said:
Yeah, that's an alternative. I do some extract base stuff which lets me bag the flavoring/coloring grains in muslin, and it sure is convenient to just mix the extracts into the kettle after lifting the grains out. Solves the problem with the rinse on the kettle, but that really isn't too bad. I'm outside anyway with all-grain recipes and most extracts too, so I just take the water hose to the kettle after mashing. It's gonna get hot again, so I don't worry much about sanitizing. I sorta use that time for first wort hopping, too. I drop the bittering hops in the hot wort after sparge and cover the bucket until I get the kettle rinsed out again. It didn't even offer to boil over doing that on this latest batch, and this recipe is one of the worst because of large hop doses. Still gotta dry hop it too. It's a Kona Big Wave imitation. That's some yummy stuff, especially after a hot day in the yard.

My kettle is an 8 gallon stainless kettle. The only thing I can snag a bag on it is the probe on the thermometer which isn't sharp, IF I don't use the torpedo screen. I've ripped a few muslin hop bags open on that because of some stray wires from the screen that I can't seem to remedy. BIAB is probably a much cheaper option, too. Guess I'll see what's available and get some ordered. Any recommendations? I'm guessing 12 pounds of grain (my biggest beer) won't be too stupid heavy. What, 25 lbs or so with absorbed water? If I can carry a full fermenter (5.5 gal), I should be able to lift the bag outta the kettle. I can probably fab up a good rack to sit the bag on for draining, or a hanger of some sort that sits on top of the kettle and attaches to the handles. My monster burner is pretty stable, especially with the weight of the kettle and its contents, so I don't think I'd have to worry too much about it tipping.
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Block & tackle. Use pulleys and ropes to lift it. Just need a place higher up to put a pulley. 25 pounds of HOT seeping grain can be, er, a little unwieldy.
 
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