The Beer Thread

[MartyS (Gromit)]

The yeast is Safeale WB-06.  Just noticed the WB probably stands for wheat beer or weissbier.   
I've never had wheat beer, the yeast is supposed to produce esters and phenols that give clove and banana flavor, we will see if what I end up with tastes like that.

[ihavemyreasons]

I'm personally not big on wheat beers. But unlike the limes they put in Corona to hide the skunky flavor, serving an orange slice with wheat beer does usually make them better to me.

[ihavemyreasons]

My lager is carbed and ready. Used a pale ale reciepe I like a lot, but with lager yeast due to the temp in the basement. Good, but somewhat like a hoppier Miller Lite and very different than when made with ale yeast. Gonna last awhile, but I usually have 3 different beers on tap for variety and only have 2 right now, so today was brew day.
Didn't have time to run to my local supplier this week so ordered ingriedients off Amazon and cut it close. Malt extract got delayed and didn't get it until today.
Despite the basement being the perfect temperature for lagering right now, I made a couple of ales- an IPA and an ESB. Have a couple of carboy warmers with thermostats to keep them at the right temp for ales.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Batch #2 is bottled and tastes very good, just what I was hoping for, a slightly darker, sligtly more bitter version of Yuengling lager.  Can't wait to see what it tastes like in 2 weeks.

Since I made the correct volume this time alcohol came out to around 5%.



If I was doing 12 oz. bottles I would have gotten one more bottle, but I'll put this in the fridge and drink it tonight flat.

Edit: I thought I was wasting $5 buying that handle for the carboy lids, but I needed it today so I'm glad I got it.

[ihavemyreasons]

Bought a couple of Coopers pre-hopped extracts for the 2 batches I made on Saturday and used the ale yeast that came with them. Was a little worried about the yeast still being viable due to coming from Amazon and being left outside for a few hours after they arrived (and the yeast that comes up the Coppers extract is only 7 grams when most yeast packs that you buy are 11 grams). Worries were unfounded. 2 days in and it's fermenting like crazy like I typically get within 24 hours when using an English ale yeast. Will keep it in the fermenter for 2 weeks, but will really probably be done in a week.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Bought a couple of Coopers pre-hopped extracts for the 2 batches I made on Saturday

I guess I never noticed those before since they don't make smaller cans of those liquid extracts.  I think they would be very hard to split into 4, and once the seal is broken the aromatics from the hops are going to start leaving so they probably don't store well once opened.

Do the liquid extracts taste better than dry?

[ihavemyreasons]

Do the liquid extracts taste better than dry?

Unhopped liquid malt extract doesn't really taste any different than dry. You have to use more of it due to the water content.
1 lb dry = 1 1/4 lb liquid.
Liquid will also get darker as it ages (not after it's been fermented, but as it sits unused in the container).

Hopped liquid malt extract does taste different obviously due to the hops they put in it.

Coopers also makes those Mr. Beer small cans of prehopped extract for the Mr. Beer 2 gallon kits. You have to add a lb of malt extract to those small cans to get to 2 gallons, so I'm guessing a small can without any added extract would be about right for a 1 gallon batch. Problem is those little cans aren't that much cheaper than a big can. I've bought them before and used 2 cans plus 3 lbs malt extract to make a 5 gallon batch, but I bought them on sale at a local store- some stores like Wal Mart and Fleet Farm carry them around Xmas and then mark then down after Xmas. Didn't see them at Wal Mart this year and never made it to Fleet Farm around the holidays this year.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Started my next batch of beer:

1lb. CBW Pilsen Light
10 oz CBW Goldpils Vienna
2 oz CBW Traditional Dark

4g cascade hops 60 min.
4g cluster hops 20 min.
2g citra hops 5 min.

1tsp yeast nutrient
tiny drop of olive oil

4g US-05 yeast

sg 1.046 at 6 quarts.

Should be just a little more hopy, a little less bitter, and a little less dark than the batch I bottled last weekend.

Been reading that a tiny amount of olive oil can help the yeast grow better, not needing as much aeration of the wort.

I'll probably bottle my wheat beer Sunday.

[ihavemyreasons]

Never heard that about olive oil. But about the only time I've had fermentation troubles was when either using really old well past it's expiration date yeast or when using saison yeast (which is notorious for starting really strong but just stopping after a couple of days for no known reason).

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Some experiments have been done using a very small amount of olive oil instead of oxygen and people claim it works.

Here's one article on it:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/8073/extra-virgin-pale-ale-why-some-brewers-have-tried-adding-olive-oil-to-beer/

[ihavemyreasons]

The yeast is Safeale WB-06.  Just noticed the WB probably stands for wheat beer or weissbier. 

The Safale WB-06 is a yeast for wheat beer.
The fermentis yeasts are usually the cheapest Rite Brew sells, so they're the ones I use most often (Safale-04 their English Ale yeast and Safale-05 their Ameircan Ale yeast are the ones I use the most).
Their website is great for details about their different strains:
https://fermentis.com/en/fermentation-solutions/you-create-beer/

There is a lot of debate on whether it actually does much, but I think I've used their SpringFerm yeast nutrient product in every batch I've made since starting brewing again a couple of years ago.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 Bottled my wheat beer, it is very bland, not bad, just kind of meh.  Maybe it will improve a little in the next month.

It would probably make a good base for something like ginger beer.  Next time I harvest some fresh ginger from the plant in the greenhouse at work I may use this as a base.

Maybe the complaints I read about that 06 yeast are true, it doesn't make the flavors a true wheat beer yeast is supposed to make.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

After only 4 days my wheat beer was fully carbonated, so tried a bottle, it does taste better cold and carbonated but still bland, maybe it will improve more in a few weeks.



Tasted my wine and it's pretty harsh, as is to be expected for only a month old, it's clearing so I'll be bottling it soon and in the fall maybe it will taste like wine.

[ihavemyreasons]

Brew day tomorrow. Have a couple of errands to run in the morning, but came home and spent a few hours doing everything I needed to do around the house this weekend (including kegging my IPA and my ESB). Making an Irish Stout and a Cascade Lager (and some slow cooked pork, which I'll smoke for an hour on the grill and finish in the oven because it's far too cold out to cook start to finish in my smoker).

[ihavemyreasons]

Slept later than I normally do (which was good because I needed the sleep) and didn't feel like shoveling snow until after the plow came through, so brew day became brew morning.  My last attempt at an Irish Stout didn't turn out so well, so I went with a can of Coopers extract as a base this time. And then I remembered what my last Irish Stout was missing- the sour note you get from lactobacillus which I was using in Irish Stout until the last batch.
http://www.ritebrew.com/product-p/837605.htm
You boil a pound of malt extract with a gallon of water, cool it, add the lactobacillus, let it sour for 3 or 4 days, reboil it to kill the lactobacillus, bottle it in pet bottles, and then freeze until you need it to sour a batch of beer.
Too late for this batch (which will still turn out fine thanks to the Coopers base), but I'll prepare some before I make my next Irish Stout.