Two batches and transfer another. Call me if the Norks launch.
Update:
20 minutes left in the boil of the Bitter, flavour hop addition added.
70 minutes left in the mash of the Porter.
Update:
Bitter is in the primary carboy
Almost done sparging the Porter.
Update:
And done. 11 hours. Not bad.
So what kind are you brewing today?
Bitter on the second split of Wyeast 1068
Porter on the lees of a Bitter with Wyeast 1068.
The second bitter is transferred to a secondary.
Ah, another homebrewer on SDA! I’ve been making my own beer since the mid-’90s. I bottled some draft 2 weeks ago and I plan on starting a batch of lager this coming weekend.
I’ve used kits to save money, but now that I have my inheritance, I’ll be making more batches from scratch. There are a lot of recipes in Charlie Papazian’s book that I’d like to try.
Easy on the sampling! Oh … nevermind. I need to get back into the garage and finish my auto repair/maintenance today. Finish replacing the electric water pump and thermostat … and changing the automatic transmission filter, pan, and fluid, and do a routine oil change. Got the hard parts done yesterday, but need to finish up today. Damn! Replacing the water pump and thermostat in my 2011 BMW 335i is like a surgeon doing a heart/lung transplant. A total of 6 hoses (major blood vessels) and two electrical connections (nerve bundles) to remove and replace. And it is all buried deep in the engine compartment, virtually inaccessible requiring multiple wrench extensions and universal joints … and had to remove the convertible frame bracing, sway bars, and oil cooler lines … just to get at the parts. Whew! What a project! At least I will know how to do it … when the water pump goes out in another 50k Miles … which appears to be the BMW standard lifespan for this contraption. Maybe it’s time to buy a Honda … in my old age … ha! Not. gonna. happen.
If you’re looking to save money, Sewer Rat, you need to get into all-grain brewing. Way cheaper than extract if you have the time. I don’t brew to save money, but to enjoy the hobby and have good beer, however I’d be a fool if I didn’t recognize the cost savings.
Here it is itemized:
A bushel of N.American pale malt (25 kg) costs about $60. I have my own mill so I don’t need it crushed. I make a batch of bitter with 2.5 kg. So, that’s 10 batches. Somewhere between 540 and 580 bottles. A porter uses about 3.5-4 kg depending.
I split the $9 WYeast packs twice, then pitch a larger beer on the lees of the primaries meaning I get four batches off the same yeast, but I’m only splitting it once.
Can’t really cheat on the hops or adjunct grains, it is what it is and they’re not that cheap. Actually, you can kinda cheat on the hops. You can buy really high AA% hops and use small amounts to get the same bitterness that more traditional hops would provide. Can’t do anything about flavour or aroma additions though.
All in, the ingredients in the batch of bitter I’m doing right now costs $14.60 not including propane or equipment costs.
I’ve long since paid off the equipment (maybe $300-$400 total) and even if you include the 1.5 hours of propane to boil 28 litres (8 gal) down to 20 litres (5 gal), what’s that? $10 total on the high end? For 2-24’s and a six pack.
Nope, the most expensive thing is the time and no one is paying me right now.
If you grew your own malt barley you could roast it yourself and get the cost of the malt down to about 6bucks a bushel, of course you would need a $700k tractor $1.2m airseeder, $750k sprayer unless your going to grow organic, wait organic guys use sprayers to, never mind, and $850k combine. plus seed, fertilizer and chems. and diesel, plus now carbon tax and pst on crop and hail insurance. maybe $60 a bushel is cheap after all.
Or, I could just call any one of the hundreds of barley farmers around here….
But then I’d have to test it for protein levels and extract potential and batch malt it. I don’t think Kate would let me do that as it would make for a very aromatic kitchen. 🙂
We have a brown ale (done all-grain) fermenting now, may be ready to keg next weekend. After that it may be time for another gose – last one we did won gold at the local home-brew competition.
I used to make my own beer at brew on premises places when that was a new thing and you did it from all grain in their kitchen. I even did it at home for a while, but with the amount of beer I drink these days it’s not worth the effort any more. I wish I still could but my tolerance for alcohol has become almost non existent over the past decade.
If you’re looking to save money, Sewer Rat, you need to get into all-grain brewing.
That would be something to consider if I had the room. Living in an apartment rather restricts what I can do with homebrewing.
The closest I’ve come to that is to cook barley and malt extract, adding boiling hops towards the end. It allows me some freedom to experiment with adding different ingredients to change the colour or the taste of the brew.
The last time I made a batch that way, I estimated that it cost me well under $20/case, which is cheaper than buying it in the grog shop. A kit, by comparison, is around $18, but it includes all the ingredients.
I have rarely tasted home brewed beer that doesn’t taste like it was filtered through a horse, but if each of you guys will send me a couple of quarts, I will test them and humbly apologize if required.
Our home brew saga. My wife made wine for years. She is now 73 years. She has a glass of wine everyday at 4 PM and sometimes things get crazy and she has two glasses!! ☺ ☺ In Oct 2016, she had a hip replacement. By February 2017, she was walking straighter and more painless than in years. All good. On March 4, she was going to bottle a new batch of wine. She shifted the 23-L carboy and slipped and fell. The 60-pound carboy fell and judo chopped her femur (new prosthetic leg) and the femur was shattered with many breaks. By late summer she was allowed to put weight in the damaged leg. In later September, the main break (there were many) separated and it was completely rebuilt again on October 1. There are two titanium plates (one 55 cm long), assorted screws and titanium zip ties. She might be allowed partial weight by February 2018 and she might walk without a cane by summer…or always need a cane.
BTW, when she was in hospital last March, there was a lady in ortho ward that I waved to on occasion. I saw this lady one day in a wheelchair and she had no legs. It is all about perspective. My wife will walk again.
Anyway, that’s our home brew story. She now drinks Coppermoon Shiraz from a 4-L box which works out to about $6.30 per 750 mL bottle. All the wine making gear is long gone.
Good luck with the beer Lance …. and everyone. HO HO HO.
Two batches of wine to rack and stabilize tomorrow, plus a third batch hitting the carboy after its week in the primary. (pinot noir, port, and a raisin wine based off the dregs of the first two)
Best wishes to those who make beer instead, all my beer results have been so bad I stick to wine now. Mostly kits, but my dandelion wines are starting to be consistently good. Sometimes the raisin-leftover batch doesn’t turn out right. Then I freeze it and throw away the ice. I couldn’t ever get that part right with a bad batch of beer.
I bought a home brew kit from a supplier in either Vanscoy or Delisle in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Maybe that was you Lance.
If you’ve a balcony, you can do it. I did. Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with extract brewing, BIAB or kit brewing. Relax, don’t worry, have a home brew.
I wasn’t ever a fan of the kits, but full-wort DME/LME brewing worked really well with the tea-bag for adjuncts.
Back then I used two 12litre dutch oven pots to make up the full work on the stove top and cooled with the tub before pitching liquid yeast.
Heh. No. I was a bit young at that time…and not in Delisle.
Your wife sounds like a tough lady. Best wishes for a full recovery.
At risk of sounding like a wet blanket, I’ve never found a home brew beer that I actually enjoyed. For those of you who are able to get rid of the yeasty taste, I commend you. That was my struggle with wine. I’ve done okay with my reds, but I could never get a white wine to taste like a second glass with the first sip. I always had a yeasty taste that just doesn’t cut it.
I also take 6-8 bottles of my red, and blend them 50-50 with a nice Moscato or Piesporter, and you get a nice red that’s great for outdoor eating. Chill it slightly, and have it with a nice steak on the deck.
Relax, don’t worry, have a home brew.
Exactly.
I’ve seen kits that aren’t hopped, so one can do some experimenting with those. I might try one some time.
Unfortunately, there aren’t too many places in Edmonton that handle beer-making supplies any more. There’s apparently a large store located on the other side of downtown and I might make a trip there some time. It sounds like it has quite a selection of not just ingredients but kits as well.
I used to make sparkling apple cider from a kit but I was told that there was no market for it in the city. I found that rather hard to believe as not only is it a nice alternative for beer, it’s often stocked in the liquor stores. Once in a while, I look for a recipe for it on the Internet, but I haven’t found anything that seems to match it.
home brew must be like a hand job, not quite the real thing!!!!
The number one cause of the yeasty flavour is…yeast.
Assuming everything is sanitized and you aren’t introducing wild yeast and bacteria then it is the yeast that is the problem. It’s either one of those dry, pre-packaged, modified from bread yeast kit jobs or you’re not ageing it long enough to settle it out.
Use cultured liquid yeast, any yeast that comes with a kit, be it wine or beer should just be tossed in my opinion.
Pick the right yeast for the beer or wine. look at the choices from Wyeast. Pick the right one.
Ferment at the right temperatures. If you can’t get down to 3C, don’t do a lager, pilsner or any other bottom fermenting beer. (notable exception of a California Common, but even that is cooler than room temperature).
I haven’t had any problems with the yeast that comes with the kits that I’ve bought. It’s always produced a thick layer of foam once it starts reacting, usually within hours of pitching.
Since I live in an apartment, fermenting at cooler temperatures isn’t possible.
I siphon the brew from the primary fermenter into the carboy and then I leave it to clear. I might have to rack it once or twice before bottling.
I’ve produced more than 60 batches, usually either lager and pilsner, and they’ve been smooth with no aftertaste. The first ones I made were OK but not terrific, but, as I gained experience with each new batch, I’ve had consistently good results.
I make sure that I sterilize everything and, once it’s in the carboy, I check the brew at least once a week. I make sure that the airlock has enough water in it to prevent any outside contamination from coming in. I also keep the carboy well inside my apartment so it isn’t exposed to direct sunlight.
Thanks snopercod. She will walk again and life will go on for a few more years hopefully. ☺ ☺ Looking forward to 2018 and renewal.
Don, I used to make one called Muntona Blonde, ignore the spelling. It was great and tasted like my favourite light beer with more carbonation.
Bill, one nice things about kits is that they walk you through the steps. Kits are like cars, there are good ones and there are cheap ones. If you buy a $200 Yugo then don’t expect to be winning any races. If you want good results up front, treat yourself to a good one for a test drive. That’ll give you an idea of how they should turn out. If you find out that you can’t stand the Yugo after driving the F-100 or Toyota, then that says more about the Yugo than it does about you.
The first important step I learned from wine kits is that the wine shouldn’t stay in the primary more than about 10 days, or you can start to get things growing on the top (which kill any chance of a good batch very quickly). Usually after seven days you’ll want to have it in the carboy with an airlock on it so there’s reduced oxygen at the surface. This means the yeast you’ve selected can proceed in making alcohol without competition from other bacteria and contaminants that also like sure water.
Two weeks into a good wine kit you add a couple of things, in order, with lots of stirring. The first one is Potassium Metabisulphite to kill the yeast. After you add it, they say to stir vigorously for a couple of minutes. (I’ve moved away from the drill based stirrers to a stout dowel that can get the whole carboy spinning after a couple of cycles.) After 5 minutes of solid stirring there will be no more live yeast. The second batch of chemicals at this point is swim bladders or shellfish extract to clarify the wine that is done the same way with a good mixing (which is not important for your question/problem).
Live yeast wines like dandelion or a sparkling wine don’t get the yeast killed off. If you pick up a bottle from storage and hold it up to the light, does it have a lot of cloudiness swirling around (not hazy – that’s a clarifier issue – cloudy with visible swirls)? If so, the main advice for them is to chill and store on its base for at least a day before opening, and don’t pour any of the cloudiness into your wine-glass! If there’s a glass or so left in the bottle that’s cloudy, pour it into a tall glass and leave it in the fridge overnight, the cloudiness and coolness will settle it. Always get out one more bottle than you’ll think you’ll need with this kind of wine, because in each bottle there’s a half-a-glass to a glass that’s undrinkable because the shape of the bottle mixes the yeast-poop into the main liquid. Pour carefully to minimize.