Home Brewing (Complete Noob)

duotone

• Will let you know how I get on & if that recipe is any good. I won’t be using the dried orange peel, but fresh oranges instead.

RedRabbit

I'm about to bottle a small batch of an IPA I did with some corriander seed and dried orange peel added at flame out.  It'll be interesting to compare notes on what the orange brings to the beer.

New fridge has arrived and has been set up with inkbird and heater.  I should have paid more attention when I was ordering it though.  The salad draw is shallow and can't be cut back as all the fridge gubbins directly behind it.  Thankfully, there's just enough room for a 25l bucket and air lock sat on top of the salad box but it's close.  When I get one for the keg I'll have to be a bit more careful.

RedRabbit

Brew day plans have changed.  Was going to keg the citra IPA but decided to stick it in the new fridge and try cold crashing as it was still quite cloudy.  Don't have a spare bucket so the 23l porter is on hold.  

Might see what I can pull together and do another small batch experiment the afternoon.

hywelg

RedRabbit said:

Brew day plans have changed.  Was going to keg the citra IPA but decided to stick it in the new fridge and try cold crashing as it was still quite cloudy.  Don't have a spare bucket so the 23l porter is on hold.  

Might see what I can pull together and do another small batch experiment the afternoon.

You might need to isolate the thermostat to get the fridge to go below 5°C. 

RedRabbit

Well it's very slowly cooling.  Guess it takes a while to cool 23l of liquid.

Today's brew ended up being an attempt at a stout.  Only had cascade and mosaic for hops so I guess it's an American stout.  Hit the OG perfectly - should come in around 5.5%.

hywelg

RedRabbit said:

Well it's very slowly cooling.  Guess it takes a while to cool 23l of liquid.

Today's brew ended up being an attempt at a stout.  Only had cascade and mosaic for hops so I guess it's an American stout.  Hit the OG perfectly - should come in around 5.5%.

A chiller coil will speed things up well. And if you want to get into heavily hopped beers you're going to need one.

And after that you're going to need a pump and filter,,  but not straight away. You'll be amazed at how much wort you'll lose to the hops if you don't. 

RedRabbit

hywelg said:

RedRabbit said:

Well it's very slowly cooling.  Guess it takes a while to cool 23l of liquid.

Today's brew ended up being an attempt at a stout.  Only had cascade and mosaic for hops so I guess it's an American stout.  Hit the OG perfectly - should come in around 5.5%.

A chiller coil will speed things up well. And if you want to get into heavily hopped beers you're going to need one.

And after that you're going to need a pump and filter,,  but not straight away. You'll be amazed at how much wort you'll lose to the hops if you don't. 

Actually meant the beer I'm cold crashing was cooling slowly.  Turns out I'd left it on the highest setting not the lowest.  Bit of a brain fart there.

Already got a coil chiller - it came with the brew system I bought.  Haven't got the fittings for it yet though.

Spent quite a bit on gear recently so I'm going to get a few more brews under my belt using what I've got.  Might get a hop spider for the 30l system though.  As you point out, loss to hops can be significant.

hywelg

RedRabbit said:

hywelg said:

RedRabbit said:

Well it's very slowly cooling.  Guess it takes a while to cool 23l of liquid.

Today's brew ended up being an attempt at a stout.  Only had cascade and mosaic for hops so I guess it's an American stout.  Hit the OG perfectly - should come in around 5.5%.

A chiller coil will speed things up well. And if you want to get into heavily hopped beers you're going to need one.

And after that you're going to need a pump and filter,,  but not straight away. You'll be amazed at how much wort you'll lose to the hops if you don't. 

Actually meant the beer I'm cold crashing was cooling slowly.  Turns out I'd left it on the highest setting not the lowest.  Bit of a brain fart there.

Already got a coil chiller - it came with the brew system I bought.  Haven't got the fittings for it yet though.

Spent quite a bit on gear recently so I'm going to get a few more brews under my belt using what I've got.  Might get a hop spider for the 30l system though.  As you point out, loss to hops can be significant.

As I found out a hop spider doesn't work very well. They clog. And they still let most of the fine hop matter through. 

With a proper filter in the bottom of the kettle you whirlpool with a paddle on the end of a drill.  This gathers the hop matter to centre, but it also allows the larger particles to settle first. Then when you start recirculating using the pump the larger hop particles create s filter bed to filter out the smaller ones. 5 mins of recirculating will create a clear wort. That's why a filter mesh is really quite coarse  as you are relying on the hop particles to do the work for you. 

Then if you slow the flow towards the end of pumping it out you can get all the liquid out leaving only damp hop matter.  

Brew builder sell a decent disk filter,  the mesh I'd about 500microns i.e. 0.5mm. Just small enough to catch the larger particles. 

duotone

Today is bottling day of that Mosaic IPA beer.

MagicPigDetective

Still waiting for my delivery. They did state it would take a few days.

Realistically, how long from day 1 will it take to get a drinkable brew? A month? Much longer? Does it improve with time? 

RedRabbit

MagicPigDetective said:

Still waiting for my delivery. They did state it would take a few days.

Realistically, how long from day 1 will it take to get a drinkable brew? A month? Much longer? Does it improve with time? 

Kits are still difficult to get hold off.  Your supplier could be waiting for fresh stock.

1 month is probably minimum.  2 weeks fermenting and 2 weeks carbonating/conditioning.

hywelg

No way. In this weather, unless you have a fermentation fridge, 3 days fermenting 2 days diacetyl rest, 24 hrs dry hop. 24 hrs cold crash. Into keg 48 hrs later it willbe drinkable. So 9 days. Doesn't mean it won't improve with a bit of conditioning time. Doesn't have to be clear these days either. 

RedRabbit

hywelg said:

No way. In this weather, unless you have a fermentation fridge, 3 days fermenting 2 days diacetyl rest, 24 hrs dry hop. 24 hrs cold crash. Into keg 48 hrs later it willbe drinkable. So 9 days. Doesn't mean it won't improve with a bit of conditioning time. Doesn't have to be clear these days either. 

I suspect current temps won't last much longer but point taken.

I think @MagicPigDetective will be putting the brew into a pressure barrel so will be priming with sugar.  I've always believed this takes at least a week.  Is this not the case?

MagicPigDetective

RedRabbit said:

hywelg said:

No way. In this weather, unless you have a fermentation fridge, 3 days fermenting 2 days diacetyl rest, 24 hrs dry hop. 24 hrs cold crash. Into keg 48 hrs later it willbe drinkable. So 9 days. Doesn't mean it won't improve with a bit of conditioning time. Doesn't have to be clear these days either. 

I suspect current temps won't last much longer but point taken.

I think @MagicPigDetective will be putting the brew into a pressure barrel so will be priming with sugar.  I've always believed this takes at least a week.  Is this not the case?

Yes fermenting then into a barrel. Perhaps it has been too hot  if its meant to ferment at 18-20C. But the forecast is between 15-20C for the next couple of weeks. My house is Victorian with thick walls, so is cooler inside. The barrel will go to the cellar, where it's a few degrees cooler still. 

I ordered some C02 with the barrels, though not clear if I will need them. The two can kit states no sugar required, but I gather I will need to put sugar in the barrel? 

RedRabbit

MagicPigDetective said:

RedRabbit said:

hywelg said:

No way. In this weather, unless you have a fermentation fridge, 3 days fermenting 2 days diacetyl rest, 24 hrs dry hop. 24 hrs cold crash. Into keg 48 hrs later it willbe drinkable. So 9 days. Doesn't mean it won't improve with a bit of conditioning time. Doesn't have to be clear these days either. 

I suspect current temps won't last much longer but point taken.

I think @MagicPigDetective will be putting the brew into a pressure barrel so will be priming with sugar.  I've always believed this takes at least a week.  Is this not the case?

Yes fermenting then into a barrel. Perhaps it has been too hot  if its meant to ferment at 18-20C. But the forecast is between 15-20C for the next couple of weeks. My house is Victorian with thick walls, so is cooler inside. The barrel will go to the cellar, where it's a few degrees cooler still. 

I ordered some C02 with the barrels, though not clear if I will need them. The two can kit states no sugar required, but I gather I will need to put sugar in the barrel? 

I've got a pressure barrel but haven't used it yet.  My understanding is that the CO2 created during priming will go some way to creating the pressure needed but additional CO2 may be needed as the barrel empties.

Yes, you'll need some sugar in the barrel for carbonation.  Table sugar works fine and you don't need a huge amount.  I'm planing a porter that'll go into my barrel and the recipe calculator is saying to add 125g for a 21l brew.

victorludorum

I've done a couple of Woodforde kits, and although it was drinkable, it still had that 'homebrew' taste which is very hard to describe. I'm reading about making beer with powdered extract now, and then maybe I'll go full grain. Is there are big difference in taste going from the canned extract to powder?

RedRabbit

victorludorum said:

I've done a couple of Woodforde kits, and although it was drinkable, it still had that 'homebrew' taste which is very hard to describe. I'm reading about making beer with powdered extract now, and then maybe I'll go full grain. Is there are big difference in taste going from the canned extract to powder?

I've never used the dried extract so can't say how much of an improvement you'll get.  There does seem to be a lot of speculation that the homebrew taste comes from the liquid malt, especially in kits where it might not be that fresh.

I went straight from kits to all grain - the difference is pretty much night and day.  The homebrew "twang" is gone and I have a lot more flexibility over what I can brew.

What size batches would you be wanting to make?  You won't need a lot more equipment to do all grain with a boil in the bag method than you'll need for dried malt.  As long as you've got a pot big enough to hold the mash then all you'd need extra is the bag.

RedRabbit

Just finished today's brew.  23l of "brown porter".

Not sure how it'll turn out.  Not sure if I ordered wrong if I they sent the wrong stuff but I ended up with leaf hops rather than pellets.  I've assumed a 1:1 substitution.  Not sure if I've done right or not!?  Didn't realise until I opened the pack.

Main issue is that I usually use the tap on the kettle to transfer the wort to a bucket to cool.  The hops blocked the tap pretty quickly so it's sat cooling in the kettle until I can siphon it to the bucket and get it sat in some cold water.  Really need to sort out the fittings for the coil chiller I've got.

RedRabbit

Just cracked open a bottle of my IPA with corriander seed and orange peel.  Might have been a mistake to pair it with citra hops.  There's a distinct citrus taste but I'm not sure how much is hops and how much is the corriander and orange.

It's only been conditioning for a week but it's already very drinkable.  No hint of that homebrew taste mentioned above.  Going to try and leave the rest for at least another week as it's still a little hazy.

victorludorum

RedRabbit said:

victorludorum said:

I've done a couple of Woodforde kits, and although it was drinkable, it still had that 'homebrew' taste which is very hard to describe. I'm reading about making beer with powdered extract now, and then maybe I'll go full grain. Is there are big difference in taste going from the canned extract to powder?

I've never used the dried extract so can't say how much of an improvement you'll get.  There does seem to be a lot of speculation that the homebrew taste comes from the liquid malt, especially in kits where it might not be that fresh.

I went straight from kits to all grain - the difference is pretty much night and day.  The homebrew "twang" is gone and I have a lot more flexibility over what I can brew.

What size batches would you be wanting to make?  You won't need a lot more equipment to do all grain with a boil in the bag method than you'll need for dried malt.  As long as you've got a pot big enough to hold the mash then all you'd need extra is the bag.

Well I did the same kit twice and it tasted identical both times, so i'm guessing it's just the way it is. I'm keen on going to all grain as I don't really need to do gallons of it. I'll have a look at the equipment needed, but I think I'm just going to go for it as it seems to be pretty universal that it tastes much better that way.