It’s Beer Thirty FReepers! Time For The Homebrewing / Wine Making Thread #25 December 21, 2012

Free Republic | 12-21-12 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

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

Happiness is a bubbling airlock! And a Cold Brew

 

Irish Stout Yum!

Good evening/afternoon brewers and winemakers. There was too much going on last Friday for me to post the thread. I wish every Freeper a Merry Christmas. I will be popping the swing top on a bottle of my Cranberry Mead this Christmas. Now that we have survived this Mayan Doomsday 12-21-12 nonsense we can all get back to planning and making our favorite Homebrews and Wines and go off the cliff in style.

I hope all of you and your Brews and Wines are doing well. Stop by and share what you are brewing or let us know what your favorite brew, wine or spirit is.

[Red_Devil 232]

My mead was 12 lbs(1 gallon) of honey to four gallons of water. Your champagne yeast will be perfect. You should add a yeast nutrient to the mead the honey by itself does not provide enough for the yeast to thrive. You are basically making a Honey wine and an acid blend may be needed, same stuff wine makers use. By balancing the acidity, it makes it easier for the yeast to ferment properly. Acid blend is made up of 50% Malic Acid, 40% Citric Acid, and 10% Tartaric Acid.

[knews_hound]

Fruit in beer?

Try as I might, I have never been able to develop a taste for them.

A slice of lemon in a Hefe is about as fruity as I can stand.

Hmmmm, a Hefe might be nice tho. If I ferment it cool it will have very little esters and the clove/banana flavors would be muted.

That might be just .the ticket actually. I still need something else to make though.

40 gallons means I need to have a lot of ideas....

Cheers,

knewshound

[Betis70]

Thanks for the advice a week or two ago. Still looking into all-grain brewing, and think a 10 gallon system makes the most sense, but in the meantime did my first partial mash for a Newcastle style brown. Racked to a secondary fermenter earlier this week while I get my kegging system together.

Also made an extract + speciality malt Porter (my fav style of beer). Should be ready for kegging around Christmas.

I’ll be starting the New Year right with some home brew on tap! Gonna look into making a keezer, big enough for at least 4 kegs.

[knews_hound]

You can score a fridge for free off Craigslist. Haunt the Free section. I see them on there all the time.

You have to be quick tho, they go fast.

BTW, for a low/medium gravity beer like a Newcastle, there is no need for a secondary at all. Ferment as usual, let it sit for a few days once its finished, cold crash it if possible and rack it.

Secondary’s are really only needed for high gravity or lagers/pilseners. Standard ales really don’t need the secondary at all. It adds time to your pipeline that you really don’t need.

Just my 2 cents. YMMV.

Cheers,

knewshound

[Betis70]

Yeah I just transferred to the secondary so I could put the Porter in the primary. I would have kegged it immediately, but needed to get new gaskets for the soda kegs. Should keg today or tomorrow, so it will only have been in there a few days. Normally would have just bottled, but I am off the bottle drudgery from now on.

[knews_hound]

Isn’t kegging a joy compared to bottles?

When I think of all the time I spent filling bottles ....

I could have been drinking that brew, not spending hours sanitizing, cleaning, filling and capping bottles.

*Shudder*

Truly one of the best things I ever did in home brewing.

Cheers,

knewshound

[Sarajevo]

I’m still waiting on my batch of cider. It has a yeasty flavor, so I’m going to let it age some more. It’s about an 8%.

[Coffee_drinker]

Congrats, we just finished bottling our 4th batch. I like your lables, does anyone have a good recommendation for getting lables?

tia

[Hotmetal]

This is what I use, www.beerlabelizer.com it’s really easy. Just fill-in the blank, then print. I use cheap paper I got at walmart on an Officejet printer and glue it on with a purple glue stick. The labels come off easy with a little hot water for next time.

[djf]

Curious if there are any Puget Sound homebrew FReepers out there.

I have a ton of Grolsch bottles, some with, some without gasket sealers and would be happy to donate them to someone who needs them.

So FReepmail me if you think you can use them.

Note: These bottles (or actually brown bottles, same configuration) can be bought at a local homebrew store... but they cost over 12 bucks for a six pack... so I might charge a couple bucks for gas/transport.

Thanks!

The reason is I only use 30-40 max at any one time and probably have over 100, so need the space...

[Coffee_drinker]

Thanks for the pointer, I’ll check them out.

[Red_Devil 232]

I have become a big fan of those Grolsch bottles with the swing top! If I lived near by I would buy all you want to sell!

[djf]

Well, like I said they’re over 12 bux for a six pack new.

But I can buy a Grolsch for $2.09 + tax....

Then I get to drink it also! It is a very fine beer, but not as good as my stout.

Since I started home-brewing, I think I might have tossed two Grolsch bottles, because there were bubbles in the glass and I didn’t want to risk it.

The only drawback is it’s hard to get the carbonation consistent.

[Red_Devil 232]

I bottled my Cranberry Mead in Grolsch bottles and they carbonated nicely. Like a champagne. I opened one for a party my wife had for her family a few days ago. And I only have one bottle of my mead left, they drank a few and took a few with them as gifts! They were all told to return all the bottles to me! We will see who turns out to be naughty or nice!

[djf]

Lol!

It’s actually a misdemeanor in Washington state to give someone some of your homebrew to take home with them.

The brewing clubs are trying to get the law changed. It’s a dumb law. My neighbor can come over and drink a brew with me in my front yard, but if he walks back into his yard, somebody just broke a law!

Stupid is as stupid gets, eh?

[knews_hound]

Believe it or not, I use MS PowerPoint.

I made this one a few years ago and loved it.

Sorry for the link to another forum but this iPad does not support grabbing image locations or HTML.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f46/lump-coal-stout-2007-a-48418/

I print them 4 to a sheet and cut them out with siccors then glue them on with a glue stick or just milk. Yes, milk.

It actually works very well.

Cheers,

knewshound

[RKBA Democrat]

Happy brewing! I just bottled a wheat beer. The autumn ale that I put up a few weeks ago is still on the youngish end, but I decided to get into it and it was pretty nice. Still young but very drinkable.

A question for y’all. A good source for mail order kits? Who do you like and why? Not looking to do all grain just yet. LME/DME plus grains and hops at this point.

[Red_Devil 232]

I have been using Midwest Supplies for my extract kits. Excellent service and the kits are complete and good. I like that they have comments on the kits from users. There is a lot of info supplied by the users including tweaks and brewing experience using the kits.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/homebrewing-ingredients/recipe-kits.html

[RKBA Democrat]

Thanks!

[Hotmetal]

Getting ready to brew this, this afternoon. This is my second brew, wish me luck.

SPECIALTY GRAIN
— 2 lbs Belgian Aromatic malt
— 1 lb Canada Malting Pale Ale malt
— 0.75 lb English Medium Crystal
— 0.75 lbs Belgian Special B
— 0.63 lbs Simpsons Golden Naked Oats
— 0.25 lbs English Chocolate Malt
FERMENTABLES
— 3.15 lbs Gold malt syrup
— 2 lbs Golden Light dry malt extract
HOPS & FLAVORINGS
— 0.25 oz Willamette (First Wort Hop)
— 0.75 oz Columbus (60 min)
— 2.5 oz Willamette (0 min)
YEAST
— WYEAST 1335 BRITISH ALE II