Brewing Activities (2020)

Did you purge that wee bit of O2 from the tubing?

 

Of course.

 

Is like to know more about this gelatin solution. I’m going to keg my lager in a month or so and would like to try this.

 

I would only use gelatin as a last resort, and lagers don't usually need it, because they clear during the lagering time, but...

There are various ratios/methods you can find out there, but here's what I did, for a 5 gallon batch...

- 1/2 tsp gelatin in 1/4 cup (spring) water
- allow to bloom for 10 minutes
- heat in microwave to at least 160F
- add to top of keg of cold beer
- wait a couple days

 

Transferred my pilsner to the keg. Came out darker than I thought, but it tastes good. Another 2-4 weeks of lagering will do it.

Now to research good helles recipes.

 

Prepurged keg? U should have it connected to gas as well in my opinion

 

I filled it with sanitizer and gas, then pumped the sanitized out under pressure. I put a gas connect on the gas post to let the pressure out as I pumped the beer straight into the beer connect. Not a perfect under pressure transfer, but there should be little to no oxygen touching the beer at any point.

 

brewing another ground hop ipa today.

 

This is how I do it, too (though usually from a spigot on a ported fermenter). Never had an obvious oxidation issue.

 

NEIPA with Ekuanot, mosaic and citra is tasting really good off the tap right about now. Bottling a saison tomorrow. Just got a lb of Enigma for a great deal off Yakima’s site, so will be doing some sort of single hop IPA with these soon!

 

Here's my simcoe, amarillo, and centennial IPA two days off dry hop. Still needs time as she's green as all get out but this is a citrus fruit cup. Not sure I can pick out one citrus or the other right now with it being so young. Nice hop saturated, oily body without being heavy. At 6.1% abv, very drinkable. In that respect, exactly what I'm looking for. After my transfer SNAFU, I didn't taste any immediate oxidation issues. Time will tell there.

A "probably way too early" critique. I pitched 1318 at 63 and allowed to free rise to 66. This was my first time doing that with LA3 and I'm detecting a slight boozy note I haven't had before. Not sure if it just needs time or that is a result of free rising this yeast. Not sure I'll do that again.

BTW, all three hops were from YCH this year. All the hops were great but this simcoe was freaking bomb.

 

My usual process has been to pitch two smack packs in a vitality starter I make with left over runs from the sparge. I don't have a microscope but calculations put me in a Kimmich-esque underpitch. I either set it at 68 and leave it or push temps up to 72 throughout fermentation. Great results with both. This time I didn't do my starter and direct pitched two smack packs at 63 and let it go. I'm wondering if all the above were too much stress or it's just too young yet. Like I said, probably way too early of a critique or it's all in my head. Time will tell.

 

Totally anecdotal evidence here to support your theory... I mostly brew IPAs and I mostly use Wy1318 for them. A year ago, I tried to cut corners for 3 brews in a row and just pitch 2 snack packs without a starter...and I had the same booze flavor you’re describing. I went back to making a starter with 1 smackpack (and with the Propper Starter canned wort) and I haven’t noticed that flavor since.

 

Yeah, I'm brewing up a couple beers for my state fair homebrew comp coming up here. I won't be cutting that corner again. I did have another pull last night and it's already mellowing out.

 

@VikeMan Question on your cypher file. Love it by the way. One thing I'm trying to figure out is the sparge/boil water additions. I understand that if you add salts to the sparge, you're going to lose some to water left in the tun and grain which is accounting for in the file. But if you add it directly to the boil, you shouldn't see those same losses right? Am I thinking of that correctly?

 

The program computes the concentrations as if adding to the sparge water before sparging. But I personally prefer to add them to the kettle. And if you do the latter, the concentrations will be a little higher.

 

Pulled the FG sample on the pale ale - 1.007. Fruity NEIPA character from the German hop trio. Swapped in a ClearBeer draft system on an empty keg, added a dry hop sack (same hops), and kegged.

 

That ClearBeer system works amazing. I bought one and use it in my fermenter (kegmenter).

 

I bought one a few months ago and after two batches with it, decided to get three more.