Pietro

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	1,456 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 6 months
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Feb 22	comment	Diacetyl Rest on Cream Ale I suppose its more of a move to hasten fermentation. US-05 typically works quicker than this brew. I just want to make sure the beer is dry on the palette and that fermentation finishes. Once the fermenter itself reached 70 I gently shook/rocked to rouse the yeast (krausen still hadn't subsided).
Feb 15	comment	The cheapest way to start brewing Do NOT buy bottles. Anyone who wants to brew beer likely drinks beer, and has friends who do the same. A $10 container of Star San will last years and allow you to use commercial bottles. If you're particular about no labels, load up your dishwasher and take them out at the end of the steam cycle (but before the heat cycle). They will come right off. Upvoted!
Feb 15	comment	Very long primary in plastic I'd also check Craigs list for glass carboys, I am also a plastic-phobe (probably unnecessarily). I found a guy in MD who was bringing truckloads of 5 gallon carboys from his father's (sold) spring water business in NC. Got 5 of them for $40.
Feb 15	comment	What will happen to this un-sanitized batch of Wheat beer? I am just quoting what Chris White says in his book, that it is a simple step when using dry yeast that can improve flavor, and that it should absolutely be done with each batch. If he has been refuted since writing it by the folks at Brewing Radio, more power to them.
Feb 10	comment	Splitting Batches / Dilution upvote and accepted, good point on the palette developing. Also, I personally tend to be a huge critic of my own stuff, and am consistently in search of the perfect IPA. I was picking up acetaldehyde in my sorachi black IPA (side note: in retrospect, while I wanted to work with this varietal, I would not recommend it with a black IPA...lemon+roast doesn't really work), but others thought it tasted great. Also, re: extraction efficiency, typically what I will do with BTP is set up a 'recipe' that is only my mash. I basically cut ingredients in half for the individual diluted brews.
Feb 7	comment	Flaked Maize Mini/Partial Mash My understanding is using maize for a cream ale gives it a lighter body and low levels of DMS, so I would like to get as much of the character as I can. However, I am using 6 lbs of extract for this recipe, and since I am using 2 lbs of 6-row, I don't want to hit 'imperial' levels of OG. I might just do a 30 minute mini-mash at 150ish so it will be nice and dry. If I were to boil, practically speaking, as an alternative to a decoction, would I simply have one muslin bag of maize and one of 6-row, where I would remove the 6-row bag for the rolling boil per the linked instructions?
Feb 6	comment	How do you label your bottles? Great site! Now I just need to work on my Adobe Illustrator Skillz.
Feb 6	comment	Flaked Maize Mini/Partial Mash I guess this is technically a 'steep' and not a 'mini-mash' (I don't believe I've brewed with the latter method. My understanding is that flaked maize (or rice) is pre-gelatinized, so you don't need to do a cereal mash/pre-boil boil, as you state above. Is a sparge necessary, or can I just steep for one hour like you do w/ a specialty grain/extract brew?
Feb 2	comment	What to look for in a temperature controller is the thermowell just a casing for you to drill through the fridge and insert a probe? Several of the Johnson's tout that they have a 1/16" probe, so could you just put that through the lid's seal?
Feb 2	comment	No Bubbles and No Foam after 3 Days You should be excited about it. It will be a great brew. Getting off one's tucas to go to the homebrew store to pick up your stuff is the hard part. Now comes the fun/obsession (and another 'hard part' of finding time for that pesky 'work' thing) No worries on the potential repeat question (at least for me, maybe different for the site admin). Check out "Brewing Classic Styles" by Palmer/Zainasheff and "Radical Brewing" by Mosher. The former has great recipes/tools on building blocks for great styles and the latter is a GREAT start to getting creative with building your own recipes.
Feb 2	comment	WLP 566 Saison Long Fermentation as a quick follow up to this, took a sample last night (still seemed to be a good amount of yeast on the top of the fermenter), gravity was just about 1.030. Tasted great, a little cloyingly sweet, but a great nose and slight barnyardy/sweaty finish, which is what i was going for in keeping the saison yeast at bay at a lower temp. Hopefully can get this down in the high teens. After replacing the lid/airlock, visible activity continued into this morning. I'm leaving this in the primary for 5 weeks, then maybe rack it just to add some fining agents.
Feb 2	comment	US-05 Fermentation Temperatures / Top Cropping stupid follow up question, but when the yeast is krausening, the cells are actually metabolizing the sugars right? If I'm removing a few hundred billion cells from the fermentation, why doesn't that stress the remaining yeast, particularly if they have finished multiplying? Or is the krausening stage when multiplication is at its highest?
Feb 2	comment	No Bubbles and No Foam after 3 Days +1 on this. no reason to secondary unless you are dry-hopping or are obsessed with crystal clear beer.
Jan 31	comment	May be too much carbonation on the way @brewchez, this beer is growing on me. A few BJCP's in my HB club actually said it was a very close representation of the style. What throws/threw me off was an intense passion fruit/sweet nose that doesn't come through as much in the taste. Overall though, I think this will be a great beer for the summer. Not typically a huge fruit fan, but this might be a good style to experiment with some other fruits. Mosher pretty much says everything sucks except raspberries.
Jan 26	comment	Temperature Swings While Bottle Conditioning/Carbonating nope, stuck it in the freezer for 40 minutes, then left out for 10 so it wasn't ice cold. probably served at around 40 degrees.
Jan 25	comment	May be too much carbonation on the way @mdma I wasn't aware that this site required me to 'accept' answers, but per your request, I have gone to my threads and done so.
Jan 25	comment	May be too much carbonation on the way @brewchez, yeah it was a stretch. Added 12oz pureed fresh figs to the last 5 minutes of the boil. Would have probably made more sense to add to the secondary, particularly since the style is sometimes served with a fruit syrup. The final product is a bit cidery, but very drinkable and very interesting. Going to take some to my homebrew meeting this sunday and get some non-biased reviews....
Jan 25	comment	Do I truly need a wort chiller? @ Jason V, the Shirron I have can probably do the same in about 10 minutes, but I have only used it once. Not sure if it is TOTALLY worth it based on cleaning of the shirron, hooking up hoses, march pump issues, etc. I like to do everything possible to maximize 'time spent brewing:beer made' ratio, but can't tell any taste benefit from more rapid cooling. @ brewchez, are you actually running your wort through the IC submersed in a water bath (like a pre-chiller), or cold water through it?
Jan 24	comment	May be too much carbonation on the way also, here is the calculator I use regularly: tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html
Jan 13	comment	Best beer to brew that will last a long time why do you doubt the story? Hodgson had a nice little gig to brew beer and sell to East India Company so they could ship to their merchants who were installed in Karachi, Bombay, etc. The style has definitely evolved (ie with American hops), but what do you base your doubts on?