The Beer Thread

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Well, I think this grape juice I got might have preservatives even though only bisulfite is listed in the ingredients, after 2 days no yeast activity.  I dumped the mix into a big pot and warmed it and aerated the heck out of it, if it's only sulfites that should lessen them a lot, they react with oxygen fairly quickly.  Made a starter with yeast from the same package and it started foaming so the yeast is OK.  If I don't get any fermentation by Sunday I'll just toss the batch.  Should have payed a few bucks more and got Welch's instead of the generic brand.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Picture of my beer at exactly 2 weeks:

[MartyS (Gromit)]

That experiment with grape jelly tastes way better than I thought it would.  Probably something I could refine into a really good "something".  What would it be called, it's not wine, not beer, it's carbonated... "hard soda"?  What ever you'd call it I might try it again someday.

The pectin from the jelly with the carbonation gives it an interesting feel, taste is like a dry grape soda, going by the ever so slight buzz I'd say it's 2% alcohol.

[ihavemyreasons]

It looks nice and carbonated. Haven't ever tried to made a soda- hard or otherwise.

Kegged my last batch of light lager today. I have some heaters that I can use to hold a carboy at the right temp for ales in the winter, but decided to concentrate on a couple of lagers this winter since the basement in the perfect temp for lagering this time of year.

Found a half gallon glass jug that I had used to bottle some excess stout that I made last winter in the basement. I remember not really liking it when I made it. Chilled it and drinking a glass now. Age helped it greatly.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Bottled my cream ale today, I was off in my markings on the carboy, so I actually made 8 quarts instead of 6, that's why my SG was a little low.  Bottled eight 24 oz bottles of it, drank about 20 oz.  Room temp and no carbonation it tastes just like Budweiser, hopefully it will improve a little in the bottle.  It is beer, so I'm calling it a success!

My wine from juice experiment is just starting to bubble, so I'll let it go to term.

Started my 2nd batch of beer, here's what I cobbled together as a recipe:

1 lb. CBW Pilsen Light DME
8 oz. CBW Goldpils Vienna DME
3 oz. CBW Traditional Dark DME
5g cascade hops 60 min.
4g cluster hops 20 min.

SG was about 1.042 at 6 quarts.

4g Safeale US-05 yeast

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 Got plenty of fermentation happening, took a video, youtube compression kills the detail but if you watch in 1080p you can sort of see the flow of tiny bubbles in the wine jug:

[ihavemyreasons]

Stout that I found in the half gallon jug in the basement had lost a lot of it's carbonation, so I ended up pouring it out after a glass and a half (tasted good, but can only drink so much flat beer and after opening it it was only going to get flatter).

Lager batch I made before the one I kegged last week is carbonated and ready. Light body (intentional) and heavily hopped with cascade hops (I tend to like single hop beers better than beers with multiple hops and cascade is one of my favorite).   

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I chilled one of my first batch bottles and tried it, only been carbonating 4 days so it was only mildly fizzy.  The stuff I tasted on bottling day was similar to bud, now it's even closer.  My next batch is going to be very different with the dark malt and different hops.  It's looking so dark I may have overdone it even with only 3 oz., and I may have overshot on bitterness as well, but that's the nice thing about making small batches, not much wasted other than time if it turns out badly. 

[ihavemyreasons]

Yeah, I've made that cream ale kit before (although it was 5 gallons) and it wasn't my favorite. Guessing the corn syrup solids contributed greatly to it's Budweiser-ness.
I typically use 1/5 cheap corn sugar to 4/5s malt extract in my recipes, but a big part of the reason I use corn sugar is to keep the carbs down a bit (used brown sugar in my pumpkin ale instead).
(For a number of years I tried all grain batches, but when I started brewing again I didn't want to devote that much time to it- all grain brewing makes for a 8 to 10 hour brew day opposed to 2 to 3 hours with extract).

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Yeah, I've made that cream ale kit before (although it was 5 gallons) and it wasn't my favorite. Guessing the corn syrup solids contributed greatly to it's Budweiser-ness.

Also the fact that I made a few quarts more that I planned for so it's watered down about 30%, I'm sure that is also contributing to the budness. 

My house has a bar in the basement that I used for general storage and building models, I had noticed some beer glasses that the previous owners left behind when I moved in but today I looked at them again and noticed they are double walled, searching through images on google I found one place that still sells them and they are crazy expensive (I have 5 of them):

https://www.staples.ca/en/trudeau-duetto-dw-pilsner-glasses-16-oz-2-pack/product_2806992_1-CA_1_20001

They have super thin glass, feels like you could crush them in your hand.

I'll never do all grain, that's just too much time to spend on small batches, I'm doing this just for fun and that seems more like work than a hobby...

A week in and my wine is still fermenting like crazy, beer batch #2 is calming down at 6 days.  Think when the wine is ready I'll put half in the plastic bottles and let it carbonate, and the other half I'll add some potassium sorbate to stop the yeast and put it in some wine bottles I have and let age properly.

[ihavemyreasons]

Never seen double walled glasses like that. Amazon has some that are slightly cheaper, but still expensive. These pint ones are tempting:
https://www.amazon.com/Insulated-Tumblers-Stainless-Princeton-Wares/dp/B01AX06W94/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1546109850&sr=8-7&keywords=double+walled+beer+glasses
But I have a ridiculous number of standard pint glasses with logos from different breweries printed on them. Had them lined up behind a bar that was in our first house, but have no place for them in our current house so most are just taking up space in the basement. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Here's a pic of my bud clone in one of the glasses, it does keep the beer cold, picking up the glass it's not even cool on the outside.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Starting a batch of the wheat beer, partial grain.

Using my crock-pot to steep the grains:



Just watched a video of someone in England making wheat beer from flour, what a mess, but he said it tasted really good.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

That wheat beer looked like it was boiling the yeast was so active after only 12 hours, it's already slowed down a lot.  I guess it makes sense, yeast does love to grow on wheat, most people that make sourdough bread make their starters by simply mixing water and flour and then letting any yeast floating in the air grow naturally.

[ihavemyreasons]

Not sure what yeast you used, but I find English ale yeast (Danstar Nottingham and Safale-04 being the English ale yeasts I use most frequently) always start and finish quickly.