Chris Plaisier

1,157 reputation

bio	website	hopville.com/brewer/plaisier
	location	Seattle, WA
	age
visits	member for	1 year, 5 months
	seen	5 hours ago
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A human geneticist and biologist that has been brewing for nearly 10 years off and on. Lately moved over to all grain and have been getting more serious about brewing. Currently working out the bugs of brewing 2.5 gallon batches using the BIAB method.

	1,157 reputation	bio	website	hopville.com/brewer/plaisier	visits	member for	1 year, 5 months
17 badges		location	Seattle, WA		seen	5 hours ago

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1d	comment	Can I steep aroma malt The Aromatic malt you cite is nowhere near the EBC @Paolo stated in the question. It is 7-21L so if you convert to EBC that would be at max 42EBC which is not the same as 150 EBC. At 150 EBC the grain will not self convert.
1d	comment	Can I steep aroma malt According to this chart: norbrygg.no/forum/… CaraAroma malt which is I assume what @Paolo was talking about has 0 degree Lintner or zero diastatic power.
May 21	comment	How much peated malt to get a hint of smoke? This Scotch ale recipe is awesome: popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/… It ends up with 2.2% peated malt. You can definitely taste it but it doesn't overwhelm. So you can definitely go above 1%.
May 20	comment	Stopping fermentation and then bottling You don't ant to do this. It has a high likelihood of ending in disaster. What you do want to do is start brewing beers in the alcohol range you want. To do that just modify the amount of sugars in your wort. Either don't add as much malt extract or if you do all grain mash fewer grains. There are great software out there that can help. Check out brewtoad.com
May 20	comment	Dropped the temperature as it was getting out of control, did I shock my yeast? There are belgian type IPAs which have estery profiles. They are pretty nice, just depends on whether they clash tastewise with your hop choice. Good luck!
May 16	comment	Fitering BIAB wort I also mill at the brew store, but they do say you get a lot less fine particles with the conditioned milling. I guess the best option for you would be a finer mesh bag. That works for me.
May 15	comment	My bottles are Conditioning underwater. Why are there bubbles on the caps on day 2 but not day 0 through 1? My first thought when seeing the bubbles was that some sort of chemical process was occurring on the lids. Oxidation or some other reaction because of the conditions inside the bottles and those on the outside of the beer.
May 15	comment	Which is the superior air-lock liquid: Vodka or Star-San? I use iodophor water left over from sterilizing other components of the brew process. Never had a problem.
May 15	comment	Fitering BIAB wort I always add whirlfloc. But based on the amount of material in my wort when I used a wider spaced mesh bag it probably is going to be overwhelmed by the particulate matter. On the other hand it couldn't hurt.
May 15	comment	Fitering BIAB wort Check out this article about wet or conditioned milling (beersmith.com/blog/2010/07/11/…). That would reduce the amount of husk particles in the boil. Otherwise I don't really know of a great way to reduce the amount of particulate matter added to the boil. You could pre-sift your crushed barley in a pine mesh screen or a collinder to get rid of the fine stuff before adding to the boil. But that might affect your efficiency a bit but probably wouldn't affect it too much. you could always add more grains to account for the loss.
May 14	comment	My bottles are Conditioning underwater. Why are there bubbles on the caps on day 2 but not day 0 through 1? Just a question but if your capping was bad wouldn't the bottles fill up with water? I mean I understand that the yeast will put out CO2, but wouldn't water get in? I find using water as a test a bit silly. Seems like the best way is to just wait and see. If they aren't capped properly there won't be any carbonation. If they are then they will be carbonated. If they are bottle bombs then you didn't finish fermentation or added too much priming sugar.
May 14	comment	What to brew in the summer? Why not a steam beer (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_beer). They say ferment with lager yeast at ale temperatures but 30C would likely work too. Or you could do a hefewiezen with a nice estery yeast and the high temperature should increase those byproducts. But you are going to want to let whatever you do brew sit and let the fusel alcohols dissipate. A less alcoholic beer should have less of those so a hefe or even session beers of many styles would be prudent.
May 14	comment	The “correct” step to add cinnamon and vanilla? @Baard Kopperud: Yeah it is especially nice when you want to titrate how much you add. If you do bottle conditioning the beer will sit with active yeast and condition for while mixing all the flavors together. Whether you would get a different flavor by using a different method I can't say. But using extracts is pretty commonly done.
May 14	comment	The “correct” step to add cinnamon and vanilla? The main flavor compounds in vanilla and cinnamon are both phenolic compounds that will boil off if added to early in the boil. I have always seen them added either 10 minutes or later in the boil. Added to the fermenter in secondary. Or soak cinnamon sticks or vanilla beans in vodka and add that to the bottling bucket. If you take that latter approach you can titrate how much you add.
May 8	comment	Can you mash for too long? When we did this we assumed 65% efficiency. So we had plenty of grain. It just took a lot of sparge water before the amount of sugar running off the massive amount of grains went below what we felt was a completed sparge.
May 8	comment	Can you mash for too long? I haven't ever mashed overnight because I have a hard time keeping temperature controlled enough for an hour or 90 minutes. So I shouldn't have said anything about that so took it out. But the comment about sparging still stands.
May 7	comment	Using pine in beer It would be smart to do a test batch with vodka flavored with the tender tis/needles/brown part first. That way if it does taste like turpentine, which I am guessing it would if you put in too much then you only have that issue with one beer. And can titrate the concentration till you get the flavor profile you want.
May 6	comment	Why an erlynmeyer flask? You are absolutely right. The bigger the better for surface area. We often use shakers instead of stir plates for cultures. The beauty of the erlynmeyer flask is that they don't spill easily when the liquid inside is vigorously mixed. Try the same thing with a beaker and you would have one major mess.
May 3	comment	How to make more beer than I can boil? A couple of alternatives to stay AG would be to use a no chill brewing cube and do two batches of mashing. Then combine the wort produced from the two batches. Another alternative would be to sparge with less liquid and add a bit more grain to hit a higher OG in a smaller volume and then dilute on the backend. I believe people do the latter often without any issues.
May 1	comment	Can Infected beer cause death or major illness? There might be an ascertainment bias. How are people supposed to report death by infected beer. I mean their dead right. ;-)