Homebrew Beer Thread.

[NCR600]

Anyone else (apart from MJS, who I already know makes his own beer) homebrew?

I did a fair bit of it years ago, mostly from extracts with mini mashes of specialty grains and hop additions, and I'm just getting into it again now my taste has outgrown my wallet. I've done one similar brew (an IPA) from extract and was pretty disapoint, so I've bit the bullet and I'm gonna do a Brew in a Bag style all-grain brew. I've modified a 36 litre stock-pot into a Hot Liquor Tank/Mash Tun;


With false bottom so the mash bag doesn't burn on the element


Element, Filter and Temp Probe.

Been trying to make it so as it's temperature controlled and I don't need to throw old blankets on top while the grain is mashing, but the second hand temperature cuntroller I nicked from work was a dud and blew up while I was testing it tonight, so I'm stuck with lagging the pot while the grain mashes. Good thing I made the element run off a standard three pin plug.

I'm making an American style IPA using New Zealand hop varieties with Australian grown Barley, so I guess it'll be a Pacific Rim India Pale Ale!

Recipe:

Bongin Bongin IPA #1a (American IPA)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.068  (°P): 16.6
Final Gravity (FG):    1.017  (°P): 4.3
Alcohol (ABV):         6.66 % (The Number of The Yeast)
Colour (SRM):          14.7   (EBC): 29.0
Bitterness (IBU):      62.0   (Average)

82.8% Pale Malt
8.28% Crystal 60
8.28% Vienna
0.64% Black Malt

1.5 g/L Super Alpha (12% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L D Saaz (5.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L Nelson Sauvin (11.5% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1 g/L Pacific Gem (13.7% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
2 g/L D Saaz (5.4% Alpha) @ 7 Days (Dry Hop)

0.0 g/L Whirlfloc Tablet @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 19°C with Safale US-05


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

I'll post up pictures of the burned fingers, spilled wort and swearing in a couple of days.

[RageofKlugman]

I still homebrew occasionally, but not as often as I used to because of a lack of time. I've generally gone for using extracts with some additional grains and hops, but with mixed results. The beer I've ended up with has generally tasted pretty good, but always seemed to lack a bit of body.

I'm impressed with your mash tun by the way! Curious to hear how it turns out.

[MadJohnShaft]

Wow! So that's a 10 gallon pot?   I have to think that through - the whole dealio is done right in there?

I really wanted to try one all-grain but Fall is running short and I may have to wait until next year.   I saw some folks on TV that ran smaller partial mash batches - like 2 gallons at a time - which seems sort of appealing but then I figure as long as you've gone through all the setup bother you might as well do the full 5+.

[Volume]

Nice. I've been planing to do some home brewing with a friend of mine. He's a chef and we could do it at the place he works, to begin with at least. We just haven't gotten around to it, too much work and too hot summer. I was also planing an IPA btw, using extract and Amarillo and Citra hops.

[NCR600]

Wow! So that's a 10 gallon pot?   I have to think that through - the whole dealio is done right in there?

I really wanted to try one all-grain but Fall is running short and I may have to wait until next year.   I saw some folks on TV that ran smaller partial mash batches - like 2 gallons at a time - which seems sort of appealing but then I figure as long as you've gone through all the setup bother you might as well do the full 5+.

It's 7 gallons, so it's a bit small for full 5 gallon brews (but might just be ok for some lighter beers with less grains). I got 4 gallons in the fermenter from this one. The mash and boil are done in the one vessel, which makes it pretty simple to do. Lots of guys use a tea/coffee urn instead of a stock pot like mine. I just wanted to make something. You should have a go.





The only issue I had was clearance over the pot. Had to dig some grain out with a slotted spoon and put it in another bag . 14lbs of grain weighs about 40 when it's wet!





I got more out of the grain than I thought I would. Looks like this one will be close to 8% when finished

A bit dark for an IPA. I might be able to call it a Red IPA or something. It even tastes good, but very sweet right now. That'll change when the yeasts have done their work.

[MadJohnShaft]

So take ~5 gallons and then you steep all the grains 'Single step Infusion at 66°C' (150F) for an hour, then pull them out and do the full one hour boil with the hops per usual?

How do you get away without doing the lauter turn and sparging and all that? Pick up the grain bag and few times during the hour? What makes the water run through the grain?


What is the blue bucket for and all the green hoses? Emptying to the fermenter and cooling the wort?

What's the pump and the blue hose for? Just filling with water?

[NCR600]

The bag is a really fine mesh, so water gets in just fine. The mash needs to be stirred initially to ensure it's all at the one temperature, but apart from that, it just gets left alone for an hour (or in my case 90 minutes, I wasn't quite getting the gravity I needed) you can just squeeze the bag to sparge, or hold some hot water back in a cooler and dunk the bag up and down in that and add it back into the boil. I did a sparge with hot water, but some folks think it's overcomplicating things. Then you just boil and make your hop additions over the next hour.
The blue bucket is just a convenient height to have the cooler, and the pump is an airbrush compressor I was experimenting with to aerate the wort.

Have a look here: Explains the process better than I can.

The fermenter is now bubbling away nicely, and belching out hoppy Carbon Dioxide! I'll rack it to a secondary vessel on the weekend, and probably have a sneaky taste while I'm at it.

[MadJohnShaft]

Makes sense - that's what I've been doing with grain and syrup, minus the syrup, all along. I'll have to try it with just the grain, suprised it works so well.


I have a bulk grain crusher that can be powered with a drill that I haven't used yet. Nifty.


"And sit it on the concrete in the garage so it's heat gets drawn out. By tomorrow morning it'll be ambient (20C) and ready to be poured into a fermenter with some yeast"

Yikes!  Matey needs to buy a wort chiller, have one and it is awesome.

[rayinreverse]

I do partial mash brewing with extract and have great results.
Currently drinking a Porter recipe I came up with that kills, and an IPA that I am pretty happy with.
I have a double IPA bottle conditioning right now, but the jury is still out on that one.

[NCR600]

Makes sense - that's what I've been doing with grain and syrup, minus the syrup, all along. I'll have to try it with just the grain, suprised it works so well.


I have a bulk grain crusher that can be powered with a drill that I haven't used yet. Nifty.


"And sit it on the concrete in the garage so it's heat gets drawn out. By tomorrow morning it'll be ambient (20C) and ready to be poured into a fermenter with some yeast"

Yikes!  Matey needs to buy a wort chiller, have one and it is awesome.

No-Chilling is popular here. I used to chill my wort by sticking the pot in the bath for a while when I was doing partials. Lots of guys transfer the wort to a plastic Jerry-Can or just put glad wrap over the kettle and leave it overnight. It kind of buggers up your hop calculations, but if you go up to my OP and click the brewmate link, there's a box you can check for No-Chill and it'll sort it out for you. I love my plate chiller though! I need a grain mill. The place I buy from will mill the grain for you if you ask, but they'll only do small quantities.

Hey yaR? what's your porter recipe?

[NCR600]

Gonna bottle the IPA this weekend. Should be carbed up and ready to drink by November.

Got another brew on last weekend, A single malt, single hop ale using Maris Otter malt and Nelson Sauvin hops. Should be a good summertime session beer.

[NCR600]

Cracked the IPA tonight. Pretty pleased with how it came out, except it's not an IPA in the orth American sense of the term anyway


Plenty of bitterness, very malty (in fact the malt is the first thing that hits your nose after a big sniff) but not enough up front hops for my taste. Calculates out at about 6.8% ABV.



Pretty clear hey? Nice red colour too! I'm brewing it again tomorrow,so will add more late addition hops and up the dry hop addition in the fermenter. Not the beat beer ever, but holds it's own in a back to back tasting with Sierra Nevada IPA. If someone wants to organise a secret satan this year, someone will be  (not WillB) scoring a bottle!

[NCR600]

#2 down the hatch!

90% Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter Malt, 10% Wheat and bunch of New Zealand Nelson Sauvin Hops.

Very drinkable. Passionfruit aroma 5.6%abv. Quite dangerous.

[NCR600]

Up to brew #6 now! No fucks-up yet either!

This coming weekend, I am putting down an Imperial Spiced Porter made with the water we're boiling the christmas puddings in (very late to be doing this I know) and possibly an addition of the rum soaked dry fruit depending on how it tastes during/after the boil. I haven't worked out the grain bill yet, but it'll be made of leftovers that I already have and hopped with some Pacific Gem hops I have left over. That way I've wasted nothing if it turns out to be undrinkable!

Aiming for about 9% ABV, quite sweet with a Christmas pud spice/rum background and 12 months in the bottle for next Krampusmass.

I have no idea how this will turn out!

[tossom]

I put a batch on for the first time in months on saturday night, I use the idiot proof kits for now - but looking to move up to a half mash kit next year.  Have a cousin who, like you guys, "makes it properly" (as he says) so will be learning from him.

Did a dark brown ale kit by Tom Caxton, have done it before and it usually works out ok.

[NCR600]

Good on you Tossom. The kits can work well, especially if you can leave them to sit once bottled for a couple of months, I can't. All grain is pretty easy, but takes a lot more time to do, my brew day would take 7 hours from go to cleaned up enough to stop the missus stabbing me to death with a chopstick. I really need to get out of this flat and into a place where I can do 60-120litre brews. 7 hours for 20 litres of beer is a lot of effort. 7 hours for 120 litres, not so much.

Been experimenting with cider lately. Bought a 2litre of Weston's Old Rosie Scrumpy and pitched 1.5 litres of cloudy apple juice straight onto the yeast sediment. Tastes very tart and dry, but carbed up in the bottle with a bit of brown sugar ok. I've got another one on now made with clear apple juice pitched onto the same yeast and with some brown sugar and currants added, which will hopefully have a fair bit of unfermentable sugar and sweeten it up a bit.

[NCR600]

Tasting pack of Homebrew for my mate's 40th.
/personal beer blog

[libertycaps]

Another cool thread. Thanks for all the details. Gotta say home brewing scares the shit out of me.

[Lumpy]

Is that your home? Because that looks like a pretty sweet setting.

[NCR600]

Is that your home? Because that looks like a pretty sweet setting.

Yeah man, at least it's where I pay rent to live anyway. The way the tax breaks are set up here, apparently it's profitable to rent out an investment property for an amount that wouldn't pay half the mortgage on the joint. I can't afford to buy a fibro shack in the suburbs anywhere near Sydney, but I can afford to rent a million dollar apartment right on the beach. It's bullshit, but seeing as I'm happier here than I was in any of the other shitholes I've lived, I'm not complaining. Any time you're down here man, drop me a line and you can have a beer and admire the view!

Liberty: It's a piece of piss. Nothing to be scared of. Follow the link I posted up there somewhere and you can get into it for under $30. Anyone who likes beer should try it at least a few times!

Got a brew day tomorrow, putting down a Pale ale, and am bottling the first full sized batch of cider I've done. Cider is the easest thing ever. Cheapshit apple juice, a bit of non fermentable lactose and recultured yeast from a bottle of Weston's Scrumpy.

[khoomeizhi]

it's not beer, but we just bottled two batches of homebrew wine today, started last year. dandelion and sumac. they're already fucking delicious, betting a few months aging will make 'em even better. wild cultured yeasts, fed w/ honey (so maybe technically they're some kind of mead, but that usually suggests a sweet product, and these are dry and fuggin' crisp). as good as i was hoping, much better than they could have been. (representing the 2nd and 3rd times i've done wine).

5 more (mostly pretty tripper) kinds still bubbling away...

pictured are just the clear bottles.

[NCR600]

What the fuck do those taste like man? I know what dandelion tea tastes like, and what sumac tastes like, but can't imagine either as wine!

In other news, I'm submitting a bottle of my Motueka/Pacifica IPA to a local brewpub who are running a competition to find a beer to go into their current taps. Should be interesting to get some subjective feedback whatever happens.

[sleestak]

What the fuck do those taste like man? I know what dandelion tea tastes like, and what sumac tastes like, but can't imagine either as wine!

In other news, I'm submitting a bottle of my Motueka/Pacifica IPA to a local brewpub who are running a competition to find a beer to go into their current taps. Should be interesting to get some subjective feedback whatever happens.

Nice! Make sure to post their comments accepted or not.  Best of luck.

[khoomeizhi]

What the fuck do those taste like man? I know what dandelion tea tastes like, and what sumac tastes like, but can't imagine either as wine!

the dandelion is both floral (duh) and slightly tannin-y and fairly dry, the sumac is more tart (as one would expect) and even drier. the two mixed in a glass is pretty good, too. i'll be saving at least a bottle of each for as long as i can (witnessed the awesomeness that was my parents uncorking a bunch of bottles of home-wine that they bottled in the early seventies [which they decided were pretty terrible at the time] a couple of years ago - they were all startlingly good, one they called 'jungle juice' that they made from beets, apples, and carrots was like a top of the line sherry)...anyway, give a call if and when you're in the states, you can tell me what they taste like.

next up, bottling within the next month: nettles-lapsang souchong-cacao nib wine, made partially with honey that ants had gotten into and died tar-pit style in. i have no idea what it's going to be like, or exactly what i was thinking when i made it, but i bet it'll taste awesome in 2049.

[RAGER]

#2 down the hatch!

90% Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter Malt, 10% Wheat and bunch of New Zealand Nelson Sauvin Hops.

Very drinkable. Passionfruit aroma 5.6%abv. Quite dangerous.

that looks delish but I have to say at 5.6% It doesn't seem dangerous to me.  that's about what we call a session beer.  here in the Pacific North West we think a big beer is around the 8% mark.  We imbibe 7% IPA's  and belgians all day.