Hot answers tagged techniques
5
To quote from http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm:
It was concluded that pumping compressed air through a stone is not an efficient way to provide adequate levels of DO. Traditional splashing and shaking, although laborious, is fairly efficient at dissolving up to 8 ppm oxygen. To increase levels of oxygen, the carboy headspace can be purged with ...
4
You've covered the two main likely causes, with stratification being the most significant cause of error. Another potential error is in the volume measurement - if this is out, then all the calculations to relate pre and post boil gravity will be out also. Related to that is the 4 percent shrinkage that happens as wort is chilled from boiling to pitching ...
4
I don't use hop bags anymore (unless in the keg!) but when I did, I usually tied a piece of dental floss to the bag. I would whipe the floss with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol first, I'm sure your sanitizing agent will do the trick. Use glass beads as weights, sink the bag to where you want it, leaving the floss hanging out the top and insert the bung/ stopper! The ...
3
You do need to adjust the recipe for process. However, I am sure what you are looking for is an adjustment rule to convert another brewers recipe to your process. Well there is no hard rule for that as everyone's process is different.
You need to understand your system, brew the recipe once as is. Then re-brew the recipe with changes in hop amounts to ...
3
For cleaning, I rinse bottles with hot water immediately after pouring them out into my glass. They don't need any sort of washing with soap at that point. I keep them off to the side until I have a whole bunch ready for de-labeling, which is an overnight soak in a sink full of PBW. Most labels just slide right off the next day. A quick rinse and the bottles ...
2
You can't get an object to float in the middle of the carboy without some kind of active boyancy management. A passive object will either float, from almost all above the beer surface, to until the entire object is just below the surface. Increasing the weight further will cause the object to sink, and continue to sink until it hits the bottom.
The ...
2
Be careful of metal. I once bought some ball bearings and used them to weight the hop bag. When I removed them, the formerly shiny silver ball bearings were black and corroded, the beer had a powerful metallic taste and was ruined. I now use a hop bag, and weight it with some lead sinkers that are vacuum sealed in plastic. I once dry hopped pellets ...
2
I have a buddy who did this for several years before investing in a beer fridge. Its not ideal, but it works.
The main difference to remember is that C02 becomes more soluble in liquid as the liquid drops in temperature, and less as it rises. So this means you'll need to push more C02 in to carbonate room temp kegs than cold ones.
2
Tonka beans contain Coumarin which the FDA in the US has banned the use of these beans because of hepatotoxicity (liver damage). That being said adding vanilla beans to the boil is a bad idea as the flavor compounds will evaporate off. Putting them in primary or secondary is the best plan. Have added vanilla beans to secondary an that gives great flavor to ...
1
well..... kegging would solve most of the concerns you brought up. I agree with you that bottling can take a big chunk of "brewing time". Kegging is considerably "faster". However if that is not an option to you, I would highly recommend a no-rinse sanitizer such as Iodaphor or star san. Switching to a no rinse sanitizer made a big difference in time for me. ...
1
Best sanitation practices and healthy yeast let my beers sit in primary for many months. As I tend to over pitch, the extra time is not wasted by our single cell friends. Crystal clear (I stopped using secondaries some years back) and no off flavors. Sorry, I don't know how this would affect bottling as I haven't done that in over 30 years. Agree, great ...
1
I made a vanilla stout and I found that 2T of this vanilla extract was too little for a 5G batch. Next time I make it I'll double that amount. The beer was excellent after two weeks of bottle conditioning, but by four weeks the vanilla was almost imperceptable.
1
I use something called a "china cap strainer" to strain my wort before it goes into the fermentor. These things work greater, as it fits into the funnel I use on top of the fermentor and they have a good handle to jostle the strainer to encourage the wort to work it's way past the captured hops and trub.
An example of a "china cap strainer" can be seen ...
1
I chill my wort in place on the stovetop and transfer to my primary with an autosiphon. But I transfer to a larger metal screen strainer on top of my primary fermentor that has a paint strainer bag arranged inside it. This strains out the debris (hops, whirlyfloc, and hot break) and helps with aeration. I have also used a nylon stocking and the paint ...
1
The rind of citrus is quite hardy and you could sanitize it as well as your knife / cutting board using a normal acidic sanitizing solution. Once you've floated the fruit in the solution for a while - bobbing it, you can then chop it into quarters after scoring the rind.
The rind has a lot of oils that will give a very different flavor than just the juice. ...
1
Fermcap S is far and away the best solution. Use as directed during the boil. You can also use it in the fermenter to prevent a large krausen from overwhelming your airlock, but you will need to adjust your IBU's as it will reduce hop utilization during fermentation.
You can also add a drop or two to your starters to prevent boil overs when preparing them.
1
One more option:
If you have a cylindrical kettle, you can measure the volume quite accurately.
The base formula for volume in a cylinder is as follows:
V = πr2h
So to get the height for a given volume, you need to divide the Volume by (πr2).
Since most kettles have rounded corners in the bottom, your volume will be a little off, but that amount is ...
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