What's in your fermenter? 2019

[PaddyBrew2]

The hot front we’re currently having in the West must be shifting your way.  

[Pezzza]

4 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Forecast for Northern Adelaide this week... Monday - Friday: 38°, 42°, 43°, 44°, 46°?? WTF?!! 

BoM: Chance of exceeding median Max Temp... and they're forecasting around the fire situation has been pretty accurate.

 

 

 

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

Just took a sample from the saison in the garage. Plenty of yeast still in suspension and gravity at 1.002 at day 5. OG was 1.052.

Going to kick like a camel and be drier than the Sahara.

 

[ozlizard]

Ginger beer is still bubbling  a bit after 9 days so thought I had better check the SG. Started at 1.112 and now at  1.070 so 5.5%. I think it's finished but will check again tomorrow and if it has it's bottling time! Just in time for Xmas.

[Otto Von Blotto]

That sounds extremely high for the SG readings. What was in it?

[Beerlust]

Surely you can't bottle a beer @ 1.070??

[Journeyman]

23 hours ago, Bearded Burbler said:

BoM: Chance of exceeding median Max Temp... and they're forecasting around the fire situation has been pretty accurate.

Yeah... Wait and see. The BoM is fond of making wild prophesies because they know it gets the headlines but then nobody ever checks what the actual temps got to. They've become a joke as forecasters and are criminal on handling of the actual data.

And you'd only have to drive through the bush to be able to predict the bushfire problem - lack of management via fuel reduction means ANY fire on a hot day is going to threaten property and lives.

[Lab Cat]

On 12/5/2019 at 9:18 PM, Lab Rat said:

After a bit of a break, a Pale.

BR pale ale can, for a change.

Cooper Liq malt, 500g LDM, 20g mosaic @ 15, 20g Cascade @ 10. Steep of 30g each for a hour as I had to go and do stuff.  US05 + kit yeast. Looked good on the IanH sheet for IBUs and hit the predicted OG on the button.

Just trying something out. Strained the hop/malt steep into the FV with a sanitised chux. Sparged and squeezed that and put it in the fridge. Will dry hop with it. May not do anything, hops might be spent.

I think the week of 40C has been playing havoc with my beer. This one has more haze than a NEIPA with a bucket of flour tipped in it. Never cleared in the FV, despite brewed at usual ale temps. Couldn't CC this, as I couldn't put my fridge through the effort to get it under 5C and keep it there when the ambient in the garage averaged 30C, so bottled it. Can't see through any of the bottles. This will be an interesting one.

Sample tasted very tropical, as I'd expect given the hops. Didn't bother with a dry hop in the end, as day 5 sample tasted hoppy enough for me.

[Journeyman]

2 brews for today - although I might have to count my bottles and get some more before bottling comes around.

Still playing around with ideas but the below is the basics - I'm thinking of all EKG for one and all Cascade for the other - see what differences there are in the product.

My other idea was to see what malts the LHBS has (also some extra yeast) to try on one of them. If I do that I think I'd do a short steep for 25g EKG and dry hop 25g for both FV's, and one with the extra malt and one without as a control.

If I try the malt side, any advice on what NOT to try with this recipe would be appreciated. I want to try crystal malt as it seems to appear in quite a few styles so I'd like to know what it does. 

Also I am a little confused - I steep the grain for x minutes (figured I'd watch it and see how it goes on colour) - do I then add it to the FV or instead strain it & boil the liquid first? If it is either or, what are the differences?

My ideas for the near future is to do double brews with only simple changes between them so I can learn how various options change the beers.

[Marty_G]

On 12/15/2019 at 10:47 AM, Journeyman said:

The BoM is fond of making wild prophesies because they know it gets the headlines but then nobody ever checks what the actual temps got to. They've become a joke as forecasters and are criminal on handling of the actual data.

Can't agree with any of that. I check the temp everyday to the forecast and they are pretty bloody good if not brilliant. The only thing they have a problem with is thunderstorms and that comes from the nature of the beast they are wildly unpredictable and localised. Actually the view that the BoM are bad a forecasting is a wildly outdated and old school view.  I know this is only a snap shot but the forecast temp for my next of the woods in 39^o and right now it is 38.9^o . 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Same, predicted 42 and it's 39.1 at the moment, but it usually doesn't get to the maximum until about 1:30ish. 

My ferment fridges are doing the job though. Pilsner sitting at around 2 degrees while the ESB is around 21, will throw some dry hops into it tonight, probably look to crash it Wednesday or Thursday.

[Lab Cat]

On 12/15/2019 at 8:47 AM, Journeyman said:

Yeah... Wait and see. The BoM is fond of making wild prophesies because they know it gets the headlines but then nobody ever checks what the actual temps got to. They've become a joke as forecasters and are criminal on handling of the actual data.

And you'd only have to drive through the bush to be able to predict the bushfire problem - lack of management via fuel reduction means ANY fire on a hot day is going to threaten property and lives.

The BoM is a government agency and is set up to provide scientific data - they aren't a media organisation that needs to creates headlines, or self promote for advertising or funding. They occasionally gets events wrong, but that's the nature of the science, it's unpredictable. 

Lack of bush-fire management is a localised issue, and nothing to do with forecasting. The bush-fire situation would be less catastrophic if it weren't for the low life that deliberately start them. 

[Red devil 44]

42 degrees currently here, fermenting fridge sitting steady on 18, keezer at 2, happy happy  

[Shamus O'Sean]

5 hours ago, Journeyman said:

If I try the malt side, any advice on what NOT to try with this recipe would be appreciated. I want to try crystal malt as it seems to appear in quite a few styles so I'd like to know what it does. 

Also I am a little confused - I steep the grain for x minutes (figured I'd watch it and see how it goes on colour) - do I then add it to the FV or instead strain it & boil the liquid first? If it is either or, what are the differences?

My ideas for the near future is to do double brews with only simple changes between them so I can learn how various options change the beers.

There is not really anything that I think you should NOT try with this recipe.  To put that another way, you could try any of the available malt additions that you want.  About the only thing I would suggest is keep the amounts lower until you get an understanding of what effects they have.  The Coopers Recipe pages have plenty of ideas of what amounts to use.  300g or less is a good starting point.

Crystal malt will add colour to your brew.  It will also add some sweetness because it is less fermentable than base malt such as Pale Malt and Pilsner Malt.  I think that grain additions also give the brew a slightly grainy flavour.

You strain the grain from the wort and just boil the wort.  Do not put grains into the fermenter.  They will spoil your brew.

I like your idea of doing split brews.  I have done it a number of times.  Especially when I wanted to do one of the standard kits to its own recipe to see what it tastes like as Coopers intended.  Then I will split the brew and do additions to the same wort to start to understand what different hops, grains and other additions bring.

[Norris!]

6 hours ago, Journeyman said:

2 brews for today - although I might have to count my bottles and get some more before bottling comes around.

Still playing around with ideas but the below is the basics - I'm thinking of all EKG for one and all Cascade for the other - see what differences there are in the product.

My other idea was to see what malts the LHBS has (also some extra yeast) to try on one of them. If I do that I think I'd do a short steep for 25g EKG and dry hop 25g for both FV's, and one with the extra malt and one without as a control.

If I try the malt side, any advice on what NOT to try with this recipe would be appreciated. I want to try crystal malt as it seems to appear in quite a few styles so I'd like to know what it does. 

Also I am a little confused - I steep the grain for x minutes (figured I'd watch it and see how it goes on colour) - do I then add it to the FV or instead strain it & boil the liquid first? If it is either or, what are the differences?

My ideas for the near future is to do double brews with only simple changes between them so I can learn how various options change the beers.

I agree with everything Shamus said, I would add or give you something to consider. You have a kilo of dextrose in the above brew, you could brew the brews the same with the different hops and have one with the kilo of dextrose and one with a kilo of malt extract or pale ale grains, might need 2 kilos or more to make up the difference on stove top. That difference should be stark with the dextrose brew being drier and maybe some other differences with maybe the all malt brew having better head and body and mouthfeel.

I don't use more than 5% of dextrose in my extract recipes as it can lead to a cidery smell and taste.

[ozlizard]

On 12/15/2019 at 6:52 AM, Otto Von Blotto said:

That sounds extremely high for the SG readings. What was in it?

300g ginger, 65ml lemon juice,  5 lt water, 1.3kg sugar. It's bottled now so will see how it is in about a week or so!

[Otto Von Blotto]

Open them and tip them back into a fermenter. That's nowhere near finished yet. It's practically all sugar, should get down to about 1.000 or thereabouts, not 1.070. Those bottles will die a horrible death if you leave them with that in them.

Personally I'd probably just start again or add more water to it unless you're aiming for a 14% ABV ginger beer.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Otto Von Blotto

[Marty_G]

100% concur with Kelsey, funny that as he is pretty much always on the money.  That stuff is not even 1/2 way there. To get a 5.5% ABV brew with those ingredients you need a volume of about 13 litres.  At current volumes it will be 14% as Kelsey said.  Unless of course you are after the old school ginger beer effect of generations past and want to relive their experiences of bottle bombs in the middle of the night. 

[Journeyman]

1 hour ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

Unless of course you are after the old school ginger beer effect of generations past and want to relive their experiences of bottle bombs in the middle of the night. 

My mum tried her hand at GB back in the 70's. Storage was in the laundry/shed half of a bungalow and my room was the other half. For a while the sound of exploding bottles was a common thing.    

[Journeyman]

18 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

There is not really anything that I think you should NOT try with this recipe.  ...

I like your idea of doing split brews.  I have done it a number of times.  Especially when I wanted to do one of the standard kits to its own recipe to see what it tastes like as Coopers intended.  Then I will split the brew and do additions to the same wort to start to understand what different hops, grains and other additions bring.

When you say 'split the brews' do you mean you make 11.5 L brews - I should'a thought of that and then I could have tried 4 options. (2 at a time as I only have 3 FV's and one controlled temp fridge  ) Cheaper path to learning.

I went to my LHBS and there's a CLOSED sign up - not sure if it's just for Xmas or what. Hope he hasn't closed for good. My impression is he hasn't had a lot of business - I don't go past there every day but whenever I have the place looks deserted. But then I don't know how busy normal LHBS gets and this is a regional town.

So I went with the 2 x brews, made exactly the same, with different hops, each 25g tea and I will dry hop them at maybe 4 days. The first tries with grains will have to wait till net time.

17 hours ago, Norris! said:

I agree with everything Shamus said, I would add or give you something to consider. You have a kilo of dextrose in the above brew, you could brew the brews the same with the different hops and have one with the kilo of dextrose and one with a kilo of malt extract or pale ale grains, might need 2 kilos or more to make up the difference on stove top. That difference should be stark with the dextrose brew being drier and maybe some other differences with maybe the all malt brew having better head and body and mouthfeel.

I don't use more than 5% of dextrose in my extract recipes as it can lead to a cidery smell and taste.

"I don't use more than 5% of dextrose in my extract recipes as it can lead to a cidery smell and taste" - if the amount is that low, why do you use it? also is that 5% in weight of fermentables or a percentage of can weight or some other measure?

The dextrose was partly from BE2 and partly from brown sugar. So 250g LDME from that plus 500g pack of LDME in each brew.  The use of the sugar is mostly about cost and using it to cheaply raise the ABV - hopefully soon I'll be able to forego such shortcuts. 

This morning both are running at 18° and maybe 2" kraussen on top - interestingly they don't look quite the same. 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Journeyman

[Malter White]

What's in my fermenter?

Even with the new ferment fridge, NOTHING until Saturday!

 

[ozlizard]

5 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Open them and tip them back into a fermenter. That's nowhere near finished yet. It's practically all sugar, should get down to about 1.000 or thereabouts, not 1.070. Those bottles will die a horrible death if you leave them with that in them.

Oh bugger, the numbers did seem strange! The original recipe (from YT) was 6kg of sugar in 23lt which worked out at about 260g per litre of water, so in 5 litres that would be 1.3kg of sugar. if my maths is correct. Think I might need to find a better recipe.

[Journeyman]

13 minutes ago, ozlizard said:

Oh bugger, the numbers did seem strange! The original recipe (from YT) was 6kg of sugar in 23lt which worked out at about 260g per litre of water, so in 5 litres that would be 1.3kg of sugar. if my maths is correct. Think I might need to find a better recipe.

Somebody has made Sparkling Ginger Beer Liqueur...  (if they survive  )

[Otto Von Blotto]

Maths sounds about right, would result in an OG about 1.100. Pretty ridiculous for a ginger beer really  

Considering how low they generally ferment out to, you probably wouldn't want the OG more than about 1.040, maybe 1.050 for a strong one. 

[ben 10]

1 hour ago, ozlizard said:

Think I might need to find a better recipe.

I use 6kg in my wash....

 

there is a better recipe, use the search function...