It’s Beer Thirty FReepers! Time For The Homebrewing/Wine Making Thread #11 August 10, 2012

Free Republic | 8/10/2012 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time Once Again!

Happiness is a bubbling airlock!

 

BEER

Good evening/afternoon brewers and winemakers. Last week one of our members mentioned an article by Steve Bader “Boil the hops, not the malt extract”. This method is known as Late Extract Addition. In this method you add 75-85% malt extract at the end of the boil. There are several reasons to use the late extract brewing method. One is reducing over-caramelization. The beer will turn out lighter, which can be difficult to do otherwise with extract beers. It can also reduce scorched malt flavors that can result from brewing high-gravity beers, or boiling the wort in a small brewpot, where the wort is more concentrated and susceptible to scorching. This method also increases hop utilization and many brewers choose to use about 20% less bittering hops to compensate for the increased hop utilization. This saves you hops!

1)   Steep the crushed grains in 2-3 gallons of 150º F water for 30 minutes. 

2)   Remove the grain from the water (Wort)

3)   Heat wort to boiling.

4)   Add Irish moss and bittering (or boiling) hops, 1 cup of your malt extract (syrup or powder) and boil for 45 minutes to 60 minutes. Wait until the end of the boil to add the remainder of the malt sugar.

5)   Add any other hops during the boil as per your beer recipe.

6)   Remove your pot from your heat source, and add your malt sugars to the wort. Stir the sugars to dissolve into the beer. The temperature of your wort will drop to about 170º F.

7)   Let the beer sit at this high temperature for 10 minutes to sanitize the malt sugars you just added to the beer.

8)   Cool your wort with a wort chiller or by adding it to cold water. 

9)   Add yeast when the temperature of your beer is 80º F or less.

10)   Ferment your beer as you normally would from this point on.

[Red_Devil 232]

Ping

[FateAmenableToChange]

I’ll put this on my list to do as soon as I can get my hops to stop dying from the drought. Thanks for the recipe!

[pennyfarmer]

Made mead this week and decided to take a break. We have to start racking in a day or so.

[ChuckHam]

I just started brewing again so please add me to your ping list.

[Red_Devil 232]

Added

[Manic_Episode]

Drinking my honey brew right out of the bucket tonight. Bottling is a pain and just drinking it is so easy. It's quite strong and I have to chase it lol but not bad at all.

Cooked up 3 lbs of bacon and the fam is feasting on blts. Cooked up 2 chickens for fajitas and stir fry tomorrow.

So I'm walking thru a store today and a song was being played over their sound system that instantly captivated me and gave me pause.

I memorized a few lines from it and when I got home googled them and it was Adele I'll Be Waiting.

I learned it on guitar and have my blues version of it down pat and am thinking about recording it for youtube.

Well fed, jamming out and having a beer. A fun and productive Friday night.

I get paid for travel at work and that is my secret beer money that I don't tell my wife about.

I may have to start a batch tomorrow and I will not be boiling the extract!

Such a good tip.

[Red_Devil 232]

Sounds like you are having a great time. My wife really liked the Jack Daniel’s Marinaded grilled chicken we had last week so I decided to try the same marinade on pork chops this week. Will have them with some homemade pinto beans that are out of this world tasty and couple of home grown sliced tomatoes with salt a little pepper and a daub of mayo. I am having couple of the Porter that I brewed a few months ago.

Yep life is good.

[RedMDer]

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[Arrowhead1952]

Question for all the The Homebrewing/Wine Making Thread FReepers. Has anyone tried making prickly pear wine? There are a bunch of pears that have turned purple. I remember some old person when I was a kid that made wine from them. Thanks in advance.

[Red_Devil 232]

Wow, wish I could help. Just did a search and there are some people who may have allergic reactions to the prickly pear. Take care. Here is a link

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/prickly.asp

[djf]

Started a stout last night.

She’s a bubblin!

So now I got 8 days to wash about 48 bottles... I love drinkin em but hate washin em..

[Red_Devil 232]

Understand. I always rinse mine out after pouring a glass of brew it makes the wash easier. I think my next brew will be a stout. Love them!

[Stonewall Jackson]

I was just talking to one of my coworkers about this earlier today. He has been making his own wine for almost forty years now.

He is in the process of making some apple wine and will be heading down to Georgia in a few weeks to visit family and pick up a couple bushels of peaches to make some peach wine.

[djf]

I do cider all the time, if you get the right stuff, it’s ridiculously easy and the results are wonderful.

Just buy the yeast and make sure you buy PRESERVATIVE FREE cider. It can be pasteurized or unpasteurized, as long as it’s PRESERVATIVE FREE.

Did I underline PRESERVATIVE FREE??

Heck, if you buy a gallon of that stuff and leave it on the counter, it will start fermenting on it’s own without adding any yeast - that actually happened to me and is what got me into homebrew.

But those are wild yeast - you take yur chances.

Better to go to a brew supply store and pick up a Wyeast 1968 London ESB pack.

Will give you a bubbly, almost champagne-like very dry hard cider. Truly delicious!

[wastoute]

I read once if you take your hard cider and leave it on the porch when the temp goes below freezing overnight and then pour off the good stuff in the morning and throw the ice out you can get some REALLY hard cider.

[Silentgypsy]

Do you recall if anyone posted the recipe for chicken with ale sauce? The sauce is absolutely scrumptious! If it hasn’t been posted, I’ll do so.

[Red_Devil 232]

OH Yes! Please post it!

[brewer1516]

Yup, I don’t know any homebrewer who likes the bottling process. That’s why you may look into kegging. It’s not as difficult as you might think. There’s a bit of cost up front, but man, the amount of time saved is very worth it.

Also, you don’t have to wait 2-3 weeks for the beer to carbonate in the bottle. In fact, if you were in a hurry you can force carbonate a keg and have beer ready in a day! Not ideal, but I’ve done it.

[Hotmetal]

I have been planning on home brewing for quite a while now. I would like to have recommendations on brew sculptures or brewing systems. I want to go all grain eventually but will start out with extracts. I have a welder and and can build the frame for the burners but am undecided on a two tier gravity or one tier system with pumps. I have looked at a lot of different systems on line but would like to have suggestions from people already brewing on what their dream system would be and common mistakes to avoid, I would like to do it right the first time.