Welcome to Detroit Sports Forum!

By joining our community, you'll be able to connect with fellow fans that live and breathe Detroit sports just like you!

Get Started
  • If you are no longer able to access your account since our recent switch from vBulletin to XenForo, you may need to reset your password via email. If you no longer have access to the email attached to your account, please fill out our contact form and we will assist you ASAP. Thanks for your continued support of DSF.

Beer catastrophe

redandguilty

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 3, 2011
Messages
5,227
I've really enjoyed learning to brew and the beer always disappears quickly, but I'm tired of brewing in 1 gallon batches (limited by my 1-gallon carbouy/fermenter). So far, I've been brewing all-grain recipes and I boil in a bag. My stock pot can handle nearly 2 gallons, so I went to the beer store with the dimensions of my beer cupboard looking for a bigger fermenter so I could move to 2-gallon batches.

Turns out, a 5 gallon carbouy fits in my cupboard, so I buy one and start brewing twice as much as I did before. About $20 in ingredients and 5 hours later I've got 2 gallons of yeast and wort in a 5-gallon carbouy with a tube running to a cup of Star San to act as a blow off. That's a fine strategy most of the time...but what I had introduced to the system wasn't just an extra gallon of wort, I added 3 gallons of air. And as night cooled things off, just a little, that air contracted and sucked some of the Star San into the fermenter. I'm guessing nobody wants to drink beer with sanitizer in it.
 
Can you make some root beer for me?

I made root beer from an extract once. It's pretty easy: mix extract, water, sugar, and yeast...wait...cool..serve. Simple. No cooking.

Of course making the real deal isn't so easy.
 
I think I'm going to bottle it. It sounds like it's safe. Many forums out there say it's safe so I asked a Duke chemist and he said it's safe too.
 
I didn't realize you were doing such small batches, red. Moving up to a bigger carboy is definitely the right move and like I said before adding a secondary fermentation carboy would be a good idea too. I think you'd be a lot happier with your beer, especially the clarity.
 
I didn't realize you were doing such small batches, red. Moving up to a bigger carboy is definitely the right move and like I said before adding a secondary fermentation carboy would be a good idea too. I think you'd be a lot happier with your beer, especially the clarity.

I have to grow my system. Doing all-grain brewing takes the same amount of time whether it's 1 gallon or 5. (What's funny is that my wife, who doesn't even like beer, has gone a bit beer snobby and doesn't want me to break down and try extract brewing, not even partial mash. Partial mash might be a good strategy for my current setup.) When you consider bottling and going out to buy ingredients, it works out to about an hour of labor per beer. (So, I guess at 5 gallons, that will only drop to around 12 minutes per beer...but if I keep worrying about $/beer and manhours/beer, I'll eventually reason myself into starting a brewery.)
 
what's the name of the kit you're using?

I just had a co-worker recommend one, and he said he was amazed how well his brew turned out, even from the first batch.

he assumed it would take a while to get up to speed.
 
I dove right in when I started with all grain too. Some of my buddies do extract and partial and I must admit that their early beers tasted a lot better than my early endeavors, but I was doing everything from scratch while they had kits and what not. More fun the all grain way in my opinion. Let me know when you open the brewery...I'll be happy to join the team :)
 
I dove right in when I started with all grain too. Some of my buddies do extract and partial and I must admit that their early beers tasted a lot better than my early endeavors, but I was doing everything from scratch while they had kits and what not. More fun the all grain way in my opinion. Let me know when you open the brewery...I'll be happy to join the team :)

Hmmm...I'm obviously not expert enough to know why your extra work didn't pay off from the start. Did you figure it out? I do know that while temperature is important, I err on the cool side while mashing, that is, my mash temps are about where they belong near the bottom of the pot, but the sides and top are cooler than recipes generally call for. My understanding is that cooler mashing leads to fuller-bodied beer with less efficiency (less alcohol for the amount of grain you used) while higher mashing temp gets you all the alcohol, but lighter-bodied beers. I like full-bodied beers, so I use lower temps and mash extra grain to boost the alcohol to where it belongs (probably means my beers are higher in calories.)
 
Hmmm...I'm obviously not expert enough to know why your extra work didn't pay off from the start. Did you figure it out? I do know that while temperature is important, I err on the cool side while mashing, that is, my mash temps are about where they belong near the bottom of the pot, but the sides and top are cooler than recipes generally call for. My understanding is that cooler mashing leads to fuller-bodied beer with less efficiency (less alcohol for the amount of grain you used) while higher mashing temp gets you all the alcohol, but lighter-bodied beers. I like full-bodied beers, so I use lower temps and mash extra grain to boost the alcohol to where it belongs (probably means my beers are higher in calories.)

There was nothing wrong with what I did and the beer I made wasn't "bad." But I was making my own recipes; ingredient-wise, hop schedules the whole nine, while they were all buying Fat Tire clone kits, Sierra clone kits, etc. So their beer was coming out tasting more or less how it should, whereas I had some batches where I realized I had to maybe add or subtract something, maybe use a different a hop. Didn't mean to give the impression that it didn't pay off, I just wasn't necessarily always getting what I was aiming for...
 
I started with this (Christmas present) and bought a large enough grain bag for several pounds of grain.

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/beer-making-kits

Some interesting flavors there....

If you're going to bottle I think Grolsh or other sling-tops are the way to go...

Have you bought a wort chiller, red? That's my next purchase although with your gallon batches it probably cools a lot quicker...
 
There was nothing wrong with what I did and the beer I made wasn't "bad." But I was making my own recipes; ingredient-wise, hop schedules the whole nine, while they were all buying Fat Tire clone kits, Sierra clone kits, etc. So their beer was coming out tasting more or less how it should, whereas I had some batches where I realized I had to maybe add or subtract something, maybe use a different a hop. Didn't mean to give the impression that it didn't pay off, I just wasn't necessarily always getting what I was aiming for...

I see. I haven't worried about hitting any desired specs yet, I'm just trying stuff and seeing what I get. Mostly recipes...and since I up the grains, it always comes out darker than the style would normal call for, but it's still good beer. Even my 1st "garbage pail ale" was a hit.

Regarding a wort chiller...as I step up to larger batches, I will have to get one. 1 gallon cools in a sink of ice pretty quickly, just using ice from the refrigerator ice maker. 2-gallons takes much longer and almost melts all the ice. So clearly, I'll never make it to 5 gallons.

Also, I started with grolsh-style bottle, but ended up buying a capper anyway. I keep an eye out at the beer store for 22oz and 7 oz bottles on sale. I like both having fewer total bottles and having a couple 7oz samplers around.

I put in a new shelf in my garage for more equipment and ordered "Designing Great Beer" so I can figure out what I want to do going forward.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top