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Homebrew Board - Recipes

429,550 Views | 3354 Replies | Last: 3 mo ago by Chipotlemonger
jock itch
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quote:
WLP002 English Ale yeast, 2L starter


I like the choice of yeast. Do you have a stir-plate? Only reason I ask is 2L from a single vial is going to likely be a slight under-pitch without a stir plate. If you just shake/rouse the flask, I'd recommend using 2 vials to build the starter with or using a slightly higher volume of wort if possible. Last thing you want is to under-pitch a beer this big!
Kyle98
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AG
What should I be shooting for on IBUs? Brewer's Friend gives me 78. I've seen some recipes as high as 100, though.

And yeah, I did quite a bit of malt research in formulating this one, and looked at a bunch of RIS recipes on the Internet. I like what I read about what the Special B adds to it.

On the yeast, yeah, planning on doing two vials.
jock itch
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Good call on the two vials.

70-80 IBUs should be fine, but just remember that calculated =/ actual. Most of the recipes that claim 100+ would probably be more like 70-80 if tested since IBU calculations become increasingly inaccurate over about 80 IBUs...especially in a higher gravity wort like an RIS.

You also should take into consideration how the particular hops you're using have been stored and for how long. If they're reasonably fresh, been stored under inert gas/vacuum sealed, stored cold (preferably in the freezer), and a variety that stores well...your existing hop bill should be fine. If any of the above is questionable, I'd go ahead and bump it to 100 IBUs calculated or even slightly more.

And just to demonstrate the above (and my personal pet peeve w/ breweries marketing calculated IBUs vs actual), our Double IPA was calculated at 120 yet came back from the lab at 72 IBUs (and it's definitely plenty bitter). All our other beers have hit the target within a few IBUs and hop storage has been reasonably optimal.
Kyle98
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AG
Awesome, thanks for the tips!
Scriffer
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AG
Looks like the beer made it. Transferred to the secondary tonight, added 2 oz dry hops and four hatch chiles. I let the chiles soak in star san for awhile, so hopefully that was good enough.

Side question: How do y'all clean the rubber tubes? The blowoff hose was so gunked up I just tossed it rather than clean it.
jock itch
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Just soak it in some kind of hot, alkaline cleaner like PBW basically.

Good to hear the beer is turning out! The Star-san soak should be fine. Only other option I can think of is to pasteurize them in a small amount of water and dump the whole thing in, but not sure how that would affect the flavor extraction. Could see it being good or bad.
Kyle98
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AG
quote:
Just soak it in some kind of hot, alkaline cleaner like PBW basically.

Yep, that's what I do, works like a charm. Gonna have to setup the blowoff tube for the RIS for sure! Got all my ingredients last night, so I'm all set for this weekend!

Glad to hear the beer made it, Scriffer. You'll have to let us know how it turns out.
WorkBoots09
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AG
quote:
Looks like the beer made it. Transferred to the secondary tonight, added 2 oz dry hops and four hatch chiles. I let the chiles soak in star san for awhile, so hopefully that was good enough.

Side question: How do y'all clean the rubber tubes? The blowoff hose was so gunked up I just tossed it rather than clean it.
Many of the pepper beer recipes I've seen say to soak the peppers in vodka or some neutral spirit. I have a porter recipe that I'm thinking about putting some hatch in, so I guess my question is: Wouldn't star-san give a weird off-flavor as opposed to the vodka? I have no experience with pepper beers, so I'm trying to narrow in on my process.
Scriffer
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quote:
quote:
Looks like the beer made it. Transferred to the secondary tonight, added 2 oz dry hops and four hatch chiles. I let the chiles soak in star san for awhile, so hopefully that was good enough.

Side question: How do y'all clean the rubber tubes? The blowoff hose was so gunked up I just tossed it rather than clean it.
Many of the pepper beer recipes I've seen say to soak the peppers in vodka or some neutral spirit. I have a porter recipe that I'm thinking about putting some hatch in, so I guess my question is: Wouldn't star-san give a weird off-flavor as opposed to the vodka? I have no experience with pepper beers, so I'm trying to narrow in on my process.
no idea
dave99ag
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Don't fear the foam.

I have Star-San coming out of my carboys when I transfer to secondary. Heck, even in my kegs. I try to wash out as much as I can, but I usually don't worry too much.

I pretty much always use a blowoff for primary and Scriffer's blow out mess confirms it. Luckily he didn't have a beer bomb.
farmer2010
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quote:
Side question: How do y'all clean the rubber tubes? The blowoff hose was so gunked up I just tossed it rather than clean it.

I usually soak in PBW, then force a little paper towel plug through the line a few times with an autosiphon, which really helps to clean out all the gunk. Then I rinse well and sanitize as normal. Whenever I buy new tubing, I rotate the old tubes to blow-off duty.
RedlineAg08
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I just run some dish washing soap through the tubes, rinse well, sanitize. I also waste a lot of beer because I don't siphon all the gunk at the bottom. Once I get to that level I just pour what little liquid is left out with the gunk, so I don't really have a lot of stuff built up in my tubes.
Kyle98
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Ok, quick question on yeast starters. Can I do a 2L starter in a 2L erlenmeyer flask in one step? If not, can someone let me know if this would be the correct process of stepping up a starter?

I have 2 vials of WLP002 and a 2L flask. Would I basically make a 1L starter with the 2 vials, wait till it finishes, cold crash, then decant and then add another liter of wort and let it ferment out, then cold crash, decant and pitch?

I'm brewing Sunday, so I need to get the starter going tonight, probably, if I'm going to do two steps.
jock itch
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This is a great resource for stepping up starters:

http://www.yeastcalculator.com/

Looks like a single step to 2L w/ 2 vials (assuming decent viability) should be fine. Just make sure to swirl/shake it up whenever you get a chance.
Kyle98
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Cool, thanks. Got it going last night, shook it pretty good every time I walked past. Didn't have any problems with the last starter I did, but it was a much smaller beer than this.
Echoes97
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Hey guys, what are you all using for your carbonation priming calculations? We're having issues w/ carbonation, and it's gotten frustrating. It's really inconsistent, some of our beers are perfect, and some are quite undercarbed (a citrus lager and a brown ale), and we just had a stout that is slightly overcarbed.

I've been using Brewer's Friend's online calculator here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

It takes temperature into consideration, which I thought would yield us even more precise priming, but it has not. The lager that was undercarbed was bottled at ~40 degrees (post lagering), so the calculator said to use much less priming sugar. Unfortunately that did not create enough carbonation.

I use a scale to measure out the priming sugar to the 10th of an ounce. We're also mixing in the sugar water thoroughly, so I'm not sure why we're having issues. Anyone have a more tried and true calculator or method? This seems so rudimentary I'm almost embarrassed to ask.
Kyle98
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I use the one over at Northern Brewer.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/

The only time I've had problems was when I did a Magic Hat #9 clone, and I didn't take into account the sugar in the apricot extract that got added at bottling time. I haven't bottled anything right after lagering or cold crashing, though, so all my calculations have used room temp basically, which is the temp they end up conditioning at.
Sooner Born
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Just kegged an APA with a ****load of fresh hops that were whirlpooled in at flameout...at least I think that's what it's called. Really good beer. Not too bitter but a ton of that hoppy smell/taste on the front end.
WorkBoots09
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Nearly done with my mash for a robust porter. Crossing my fingers, I drew this recipe up myself to see if I'm any good at thinking my own thoughts about beer recipes. I'll report the results! Here's the recipe:

8.5lb pale 2 row
2lb c-60
1.25lb flaked oats
1lb chocolate
.5lb carafa I
.25lb roasted barley
.25lb Mexican brown sugar

Mashed a little high on accident, 158

1oz fuggles at 60 min
1oz perle at 20 min

I'm trying out mangrove jack British ale for this batch. I heard good things, so I'm going to give it a shot.

I'm also thinking about using hatch chiles to finish it up, so well see!
No Bat Soup For You
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I have a pumkin stout aging in secondary. I used some of the ingredients for SAINT Arnolds pumpkinayor. If it is any good I'll share the recipe.
No Bat Soup For You
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If I don't have a freezer with a temp controller could I lager a beer just in my garage when the temperature drops or will it fluctuate too much?
Kyle98
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Brew day for my RIS yesterday went pretty well. I also mashed a little high, 156, so we'll see what happens there. Hit 1.095, shooting for 1.097, so not terrible. My thermometer broke, so had to depend on a meat thermometer since that's all I had handy, so I think I pitched a little warm, around 78*. It was under 70* this morning, though, so hopefully there aren't too many ill effects from that. Still rocking the swamp cooler and rotating frozen water bottles. Craigslist is really letting me down on the chest freezer front.

Going to let it ferment out, then I'll transfer it over to a keg, hit it with some CO2, then let it age for a few months at room temp.
Cyprian
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Cool - great thread. I'm about to start biab for the first time in the next couple weeks. Waiting on a shipment and I'll have all I need to get started. Doing a saison due to high ferm temps ill be dealing with.

Any one have a good online source on biab recipes?
jock itch
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With a saison yeast, I'd keep it very simple to let the yeast be the star.

- 100% Base malt (preferably Pilsner)
- Saaz or something similar like Sterling (although almost any noble or American variety would work honestly)

Since nobody ever seems to trust my recommendation to go simple, you could add a little Munich or Crystal 10 (say 3-5% of the grist) as well...but definitely not necessary to make a fantastic beer.
Kyle98
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Hehe, half the fun of homebrewing is experimenting! I keep telling myself I'm going to do a simple beer soon, though. I think I'm going to do a simple Bavarian Hefeweizen next, to make the wife happy.

Cyprian, try http://www.biabrewer.info, it's a good source for BIAB. I use their BIABacus quite a bit in conjunction with Beersmith and Brewer's Friend.
No Bat Soup For You
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I brewed a Belgian Witbier to make my wife happy and she drank maybe one bottle total out of 5 gallons. I didn't mind.
Robert C. Christian
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quote:
Any one have a good online source on biab recipes?
I would check Homebrew Talk. They have a pretty extensive recipe base of everything from Extract to All-Grain in all styles.
Kyle98
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The RIS is fermenting away nicely. Glad I used the blowoff tube, though, as it was really active the first 24 hours! Got it down to the mid-60s pretty quickly, and I've been able to hold it between 62 and 68 since. Going to let it go another week, then get a gravity reading, see where it is.
Kyle98
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So, a while ago I started blogging about my homebrewing. Thought I'd share it here. I'm not a writer by any stretch, but I enjoy doing it.

http://texasalecompany.blogspot.com/
WorkBoots09
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Very cool Kyle98! I have a blog also, though I mainly set it up in case people from the homebrew competition wanted to keep up with us. I wasn't getting that much traffic, so I've slacked off the last few weeks. Anyways, if y'all are interested, here's my page:

New Main Brewing
Kyle98
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Yeah, I don't get a whole lot of traffic either, mostly just Facebook and Google+ friends. I'll check yours out!
Cyprian
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Thanks fellas. The shipment I alluded to ealier has recipe for my first. I ordered an all grain kit, then an extra pound of grain, I wasn't sure if that was necessary but I was told efficiency is a bit lower so some extra grain helps balance that out. Ill keep track of the outcome and use software later but my plan was to start there for now.
WorkBoots09
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AG
Well it figures the first time I try to use my brand new temperature controller to keep my porter steady we get the wind storm of the decade. Our power is out and Oncor has no estimate of when it will come back on. Last I checked, there were a few power poles snapped in half.
Kyle98
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AG
DOH! We got lucky, I guess. It rained pretty hard for about 10 minutes, and the wind blew, but no downed trees or power outages or anything.
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