ExPo Homebrewers

[Black Dog]

Its a good thing I didn't give it to my pup then! I'm always worried when I go out hiking because we have a lot of chicken ******t people who leave ground up meat mixed with xylitol out in the woods for wolves, I'm afraid my dog will find a pile some day and chow it down before I can stop her and then I have to carry a dead dog out of the woods.

My off after taste was just weird, not really metallic or anything. It did actually get better as the bottles conditioned on the counter and in the fridge. What I was reading was that the vinegar-like odor I was getting is normal and it would go away, which it did, and I also read that the taste I am getting might just be a weird left over taste from the hops in the trub that got picked up when I siphoned into my fermenter. The next batch I made I tried to eliminate that problem by using a secondary fermenter and a bottling bucket instead of trying to not siphon up any of the gunk from the bottom of the primary fermenter on bottling day and so far it seems to be working. The little sample I took tasted pretty good even without any carbonation. I'm letting this batch sit on the counter longer and then I'll put it in the fridge longer before I open any to see how it is after conditioning.

I had to make one change that I'm hoping won't bite me in the butt though. I used PBW sanitizer at first because it came with the kit and when that ran out I went to the wine shop in Sandpoint ID (didn't have time to run to the beer shop in CDA) for some Star San but all they had was IO Star. The bottle didn't say I would need to rinse everything off after cleaning and the lady in the shop said she never does, but it just seems to me like if there was any left over diluted iodine in my bottles or anything that it might kill off my yeast and ruin carbonation. So next time I'm in town I'm going to pick up some proper sanitizer and be worry free.

 

[mike r]

I notieced you mentioned leaving them on your counter. I hope you are keepeing then out of sunlight.
The best way i found is to keep then in the twelve bottle boxes to the uv rays dont make your hops taste skunky and keep them in dark room

i would also always condition your beer out of the fridge.

 

[Black Dog]

The fermenter I kept between the fridge and a bunch of cook books so it was pretty much as far away from any windows as you can get in my house and totally out of sunlight. Then the bottles I'm using are the shorter stubby 12 ounce bottles that come in a nice 6 pack box so they are out of sunlight also. The first batch I made I opened a bottle after 10 days and it was carbonated so I moved that to the fridge, but the first bottle or two that I drank tasted really sweet and sugary and the rest were good, so I don't think they were completely done yet. The batch I've got conditioning now has been on the counter 11 days and I'm going to wait until next weekend before I move them into the fridge, then wait another 2 weeks before opening any.

 

[Jiggity]

I've done a couple of caribou slobbers myself and each one was different. I highly recommend going the secondary fermentation route. I've noticed that getting the beer off the original yeast cake alleviates the harshness. I think it also helps that the slight agitation transferring into secondary helps the yeast ferment a little more as it settles out.

When you bottle and you add priming sugar, do you put the sugar or the beer into the bottling bucket first?

 

[Black Dog]

On mine I used the priming tablets that came with the kit, they look like little cough drops. I filled each bottle then dropped one in and capped it.

 

[Mike_rupp]

I started making wine last fall. I've got about 300 gallons in barrel and tank.


Untitled by rupp62, on Flickr

 

[mike r]

When you bottle and you add priming sugar, do you put the sugar or the beer into the bottling bucket first?

its best to add the sugar to some water and bring to the boil before adding it to the beer to sterilize it

 

[Black Dog]

I started making wine last fall. I've got about 300 gallons in barrel and tank.

If this is how you make wine, I'd like to see your garage. And your bathroom.

I couldn't resist and I opened the Dead Ringer IPA and it is amazing. I still got a little bit of that weird taste like I had in the Caribou Slobber so I'm wondering if its either in my technique or if its hop bitterness, so I killed two birds with one stone yesterday. I brewed the Chinook IPA and after doing the specialty grain steep I brought the water to a boil then stirred in the malt syrup, then waited for the water to come back to a nice full rolling boil before adding the hop pellets. I figure if it is hop bitterness that is causing that weird taste the extra few minutes between not-boiling and boiling might make a difference. One thing I did notice with the Dead Ringer is that I got more of that taste when I drank from the bottle than I did from a glass. I got almost none of it from the glass, it was just barely there.

I also started a teeny tiny little experiment. 'round my parts huckleberries are the fruit du jour, and you can get honey mixed with huckleberry puree at pretty much anywhere that has a cash register. So I bought a huckleberry honey bear and poured it into a (sterilized) quart sized bottle, added some water and the left over dry yeast from my Chinook brew, and topped it off with a balloon airlock. I think with the ratio of water to honey that I have in there it will make a fairly sweet melomel.

 

[Mike_rupp]

That is my garage. . The cars have to stay outside now. The wine is more important.

 

[Black Dog]

Fermentation on the Chinook IPA is going STRONG! The other two kits I made it seemed to die down after the third day, but I got up this morning and had to do an emergency sterilization of some stuff to make a blow off tube because the bubbles and foam have risen up into the airlock.

 

[Black Dog]

Ok! I bottled the Chinook IPA today and I'm not hoping for much. When I brewed it I thought the hops looked a little scant and meager. I weighed each packet-they were supposed to be 3.5 grams each but they didn't even register on my scale. The final hop addition was two 3.5 gram packets but it only weighed 1 gram. When I bottled I had a little left over and it was waaay under hopped for being an IPA (the hop flavor\bitterness\aroma was almost not even noticeable). But I'm going to go ahead and let it bottle condition and see what happens. Even if it is only a fraction of the bitterness it is supposed to be I can still dump it all into a bucket and make malt vinegar, so it won't go to waste if it doesn't turn out as planned. I'm chalking that one up to industrial packaging error.

Also last week I ordered two more recipe kits: The Sierra Madre Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada clone) and the White House Honey Porter, as well as some champagne yeast and yeast nutrient and a bottle of Star San so I can make a proper batch of mead. That stuff is scheduled to arrive tomorrow and I'm thinking I'll have brew day on Friday or Saturday. This is too much fun. When I upgrade to five gallon batches I think I'm going to fore go the whole bottling hassle and just "hop" straight into kegging. Pun intended. Even with a one gallon batch, sanitizing and capping bottles is a PITA, I can't begin to imagine how it is with five gallons.

 

[mike r]

Bottling about 48 bottles is a pita but it's better than buying beer, question... How would your turn beer into malt vinegar? .wine maybe..even cider can be fermented in to cider vinegar but I really haven't heard of beer..that would be cool

 

[Black Dog]

I think the technique for making malt vinegar is to just pour it all in a bucket and put a towel or cheese cloth over it to keep the bugs out. What ever bacteria is in the air will get in and do the work for you, just taste test it every once in a while and when it is to your liking rebottle it in steralized bottles. I'm sure you can get bacteria starters too but the is the cheapo way. I do know that you want a less hoppy beer so that the malt stands out more, so this will work out great since it only has like 1/7 the amount of hops that were suppose to be in it.

 

[Carlyle]

 

[Carlyle]