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Homebrew Board - Recipes

429,827 Views | 3354 Replies | Last: 3 mo ago by Chipotlemonger
Moxie
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I actually found them online. Thanks
62strat
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chicompany has all the parts you need. You need:
*Bulkhead (pick a length based on what you need)

For the outside, you need two pieces:
*1/4"FFL x 19/32"-18 adaptor
*Gas In adaptor (link is in description of the item above)

inside, you can do a few different ways. On my straight in, I found Female Flare Coupling Union (female flare thread to male pipe thread.. get a nylon washer), which threads on bulkhead, then threads right into a manifold.

Or you can do a swivel nut off of bulkhead in order to put a valve inline, then into manifold.


Another piece of advice, get those john guest fittings. You see them in my pic. They are a no tools required connection point. When you are setting up a keezer, dealing with those worm clamps can really take some time.

Ritebrew.com has really good prices on faucets. I went with intertap flow control, only $37. They have the JG fittings as well, and really cheap shipping. (It was like $2 on my faucet order)

Another tip - see if you have a grainger store near you. You can buy replacement orings on line (for kegs, faucets, etc) and pick them up. Most of those little orings are a few bucks for 25 or more on grainger, whereas, in a homebrew store, you'll spend $.50 a piece. If you buy bulk online to ship, you'll spend more on shipping than the oring pack.

If you go intertap brand faucets, you can get one of these:


which makes it easy to clean your lines (put one on each faucet and daisy chain with some hose and QDs), also makes it easy to fill bottles/growlers.

Moxie
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Again, great info. Thanks!
fav13andac1)c
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62strat said:

Moxie said:

I know alot of y'all keg so looking for advice. I have the freezer and temp controller and plan on making the collar myself. Looking to piece together everything else so tips are appreciated and let me know if I'm missing anything.

Kegs - used online
CO2 tank - found used 5# on Amazon and exchange locally
Regulator - dual body? Plan on having 4 kegs in the freezer so will need different Vols and possibly carbing up at the same time
Gas splitter - same reasons, looking at 4 splits
Lines and connectors - new
Faucets - probably go cheaper online

Missing anything?
Don't get cheap faucets.


Gotta say, that is a beautiful setup. Well done, sir.

Second not getting a cheap faucet.

I use these and love them. Cheaper than Perlick, but built like a tank.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/intertap-beer-faucet-stainless-steel.html

Here's a reputable review as well.

http://brulosophy.com/2017/01/12/intertap-forward-sealing-faucets-product-review/

edit: I see 62strat mentioned intertap..whoops
62strat
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fav13andac1)c said:


Gotta say, that is a beautiful setup. Well done, sir.

Second not getting a cheap faucet.

I use these and love them. Cheaper than Perlick, but built like a tank.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/intertap-beer-faucet-stainless-steel.html

Here's a reputable review as well.

http://brulosophy.com/2017/01/12/intertap-forward-sealing-faucets-product-review/

edit: I see 62strat mentioned intertap..whoops
Thanks.. of course in my eyes it's not done! I anticipated staining the whole collar, putting insulation on, cleaning up the manifold mount (that 2x4 was the first thing I picked up off the ground to temp mount it while I installed bulkhead).. etc. I still need a drip tray.

Moxie, don't put the beer on tap until you're 100% done with the build! Otherwise, you start drinking it, and it's too easy to say, 'well it works for now'

Yeh intertaps are great.. and not to knock your link, but ritebrew.com which I mentioned earlier has that SS Intertap for $27 compared to morebeers $33. ($48 vs. $38 for flow control). I looked high and low, ritebrew has the best price on those.

Moxie, you can't see it, but another cool feature, I have two sets of hinges on that keezer. One to open like you see it, but another set to life the whole collar up. Makes it was easier to get kegs in and out and be able to reach the bottom to clean or whatever. That's a 12" collar, so it's heavy, I did that size to utilize the hump. When I lift the collar, all the hoses kind of get out of the way as well, which is nice for rearranging or swapping kegs.

62strat
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Another tip; two sets of ratchet tie downs makes building the collar a breeze. Dry fit your 4 sides, throw two straps around it, one at top one at bottom, tighten up and fasten however you want to. I did pocket screws for mine.
G. hirsutum Ag
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Any of y'all put calcium carbonate in your brew water? Holiday ale I'm doing tonight needed 15g of calcium carbonate along with some other minerals to get the water right. Water is pretty cloudy. I figure it will fall out of suspension especially after a cold crash. Just curious if anyone else has any experience with it.
Chipotlemonger
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I've only brewed a few batches ever and have mainly used just ozark water for it. First batch I used a Brita on my hose water. Need to probably move back to using the tap water once I get a pH meter and do more grain brewing.
G. hirsutum Ag
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I use glacier RO water from Walmart. Little pricy but it's easy
Chipotlemonger
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My buddies in Nashville used an in-line filter off of their garden hose. I can't recall if they had to treat the water much after that. But they did 5 and 10 gallon batches so I think it made more sense to do that. 10 gallon all grain batch takes a lot of water.
Ornlu
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15g of chalk in 5 gals is a lot. That's probably above the solubility limit. There's a method out there where you can carbonate your water before brewing because the carbonic acid presence radically increases the chalk solubility (500mg/L instead of 20mg/L). It's a lot of work tho.

I've started just adding the salts to my grain before doughing in. That way my stirring to keep grain mixed also keeps salts mixed in.
Chipotlemonger
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Ornlu said:

15g of chalk in 5 gals is a lot. That's probably above the solubility limit. There's a method out there where you can carbonate your water before brewing because the carbonic acid presence radically increases the chalk solubility (500mg/L instead of 20mg/L). It's a lot of work tho.

I've started just adding the salts to my grain before coughing in. That way my stirring to keep grain mixed also keeps salts mixed in.
Remind me not to drink your 'coughing in' beer
Ornlu
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D'oh. Doughing*
62strat
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Man my belgian dubble only had a day or two at high 60s.. it got damn cold and it slowly dropped to 60 from day 3 or so to day 5. I put a heating pad on it and a shop light, was able to get it up to 65 for a brief period, but back down to 62/63 it went, now it's 59, 11 days in.

Gonna be an interesting one. It looks like it's done at 1.02, a little bit higher than it should be coming from 1.072. I wonder if I could get it inside if it would be roused again and finish up? I'd like it to get down to 1.015

I really need to reconfigure my fermenting. I have my eye on a spike conical and an upright freezer. Ultimate temp control.

I'm hoping to be relatively close to an even swap by selling this cooled more beer fermenter. It's just not working for the garage in cold weather. It needs to live inside again, where it can ale all day and lager easily.
Ornlu
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Alright, all set to brew a Duvel clone tomorrow night. Should be a delicious 55 degrees outside.
Ornlu
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62strat said:

I'm hoping to be relatively close to an even swap by selling this cooled more beer fermenter. It's just not working for the garage in cold weather.
Tell me more.
62strat
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Ornlu said:

62strat said:

I'm hoping to be relatively close to an even swap by selling this cooled more beer fermenter. It's just not working for the garage in cold weather.
Tell me more.
I want this one, plus the $75 gas manifold and $40 racking arm, so I'm at $740. I'm confident if I keep looking, within the next few months I can come across an upright freezer on CL for under $100.

So call it ~$825.

The conical I have is this one (an older one that doesn't heat), and I hope to sell it for $650-$750. It works in the garage great from about late march to october (in Denver), but otherwise it gets too cold. It's too big to put in an upright, so I just need to do a little swap. I'm hoping to find an indoor/basement brewer; this would be perfect as you could lager anytime of year, and while basement is typically good for brewing ales, with this you could cold crash, or bring it to low/mid 60s if your basement wasn't that cold. My basement is about 68-70.

Just need to find the right buyer. I'm in no rush, so I have time on my side to find that buyer and a freezer (I can begin that search now). My uncle says 'just brew lagers in the winter!' well yeh works great, however I can't raise the temp for diacetyl rest. I did my octoberfest in late march, and by diacetyl rest time, I got lucky and had a few 80 degree days in a row, so I wheeled that puppy out in the driveway and let it sit in the sun. Worked like a charm and got my 57 degree wort up to 68.

A conical in an upright freezer with a ceramic bulb will give me ultimate control and flexibility regardless of weather. I can brew a lager or ale any day of the year, and get to diacetyl rest when needed, plus cold crash any beer to 38 at any time.
Ornlu
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Nice. Makes my super-ghetto equipment jealous.

What if you just added a drum heater? https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED-Silicon-Rubber-Htr-3CDD1

That's designed to keep a 55-gallon drum at ~40-F in Alaskan temperatures.
Chipotlemonger
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My garage fridge is hitting below the set point of 68 right now (66-67). Think I'll move my 1 gallon batch indoors tonight for the next few days at least. I'm staying at a constant 69 inside.

Going forward I may use a space heater to warm the area around my fermentation fridge. May have to get one of those ASAP too, as I plan on brewing an IPA tomorrow and it's gonna be cold all weekend.

Have seen a lot of indoor heating suggestions (light bulb in a paint can hooked up to a temp controller, reptile heating equipment). Besides setting up a space heater next to my fridge, what do y'all recommend?
62strat
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Ornlu said:

Nice. Makes my super-ghetto equipment jealous.

What if you just added a drum heater? https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED-Silicon-Rubber-Htr-3CDD1

That's designed to keep a 55-gallon drum at ~40-F in Alaskan temperatures.
I currently can slightly heat it (more like slowing down cooling) with a heating pad, problem is, between the heat sink fans and all the outlets/openings and a support/frame on each side, there really isn't room to place a wrap around it. The conical also wrapped in 2" insulation which is not removable making it even harder to wrap something around it. (I can remove the insulation, but would not be able to put it back without a bunch of duct tape holding it together. W/o insulation, I'd likely have the opposite problem.)

For hopefully not much more than that $120, I can have upright freezer with conical inside for 100% temp control. My current conical is on a 2'x2' stand with wheels, so the footprint would be the same with an upright.
Two stage temp controller (or 2 single stages, which I have extras of as it is) can kick on freezer if beer is too warm, or kick on a ceramic bulb if it gets too cold.

I came across this guy's setup on homebrewtalk; it's perfect.



AAAND in a few years and kids are out of daycare and I can start blowing money again, I may spring for something like this, which is super sexy
Ornlu
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If you're brewing a clone, it's mandatory to drink the original.

Chipotlemonger
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Brewed my first IPA today. Also using Irish moss for the first time. The wort sample for my gravity reading was very damn tasty.
Moxie
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Good luck! I am to have oxidation issues with bottling IPAs so make sure to keep all oxygen out post fermentation. Hopefully kegging will reduce that.
Chipotlemonger
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Will do. I've normally used a carboy for my other beers but this go round I have it fermenting in a bucket to make the dry hopping less painful.
Ornlu
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Chipotlemonger said:

Also using Irish moss for the first time.


Crap, your post just reminded me that I forgot to add whirlfloc.

I can still use gelatin finnings right? I want this super clear.
fav13andac1)c
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Ornlu said:

Chipotlemonger said:

Also using Irish moss for the first time.


Crap, your post just reminded me that I forgot to add whirlfloc.

I can still use gelatin finnings right? I want this super clear.
Super cold+Gelatin=clear

http://brulosophy.com/2015/01/05/the-gelatin-effect-exbeeriment-results/
G. hirsutum Ag
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American light lager turned out fantastic, exactly what I was looking for! Has great flavor even with FG of 1.001
Moxie
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Officially in kegging now as I kegged my cider that was poured on the yeast cake from the 2-Hearted clone. It tasted awesome and finished at 1.001.
AlaskanAg99
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Seven: if it's great I'd put it into competition. If no diacetyl (butter) or acdehydahyde (green apple) off flavors then you have a pretty good shot at medaling.
aTm '99
AlaskanAg99
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Moxie said:

Officially in kegging now as I kegged my cider that was poured on the yeast cake from the 2-Hearted clone. It tasted awesome and finished at 1.001.


Did you have the keg purged with CO2? Just curious if it was your first time.

You remind me I need to keg my own cider shortly to get it on tap for next week.
aTm '99
Moxie
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Yeah I purged it pretty good I think. I hooked up the CO2 tank to the keg to check for leaks since I just got them cleaned a few days ago, sanitized, purged again, filled, pressurized then blew off ~5 times.

Having to wait until Christmas for the faucets in my keezer unfortunately so currently using picnic taps to get beer/cider out.
AlaskanAg99
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Cool, sounds like you didn't right. Just don't want to oxidize the beer going into an empty keg.

I have a big setup and I still use picnic taps. They're great in a pinch.
aTm '99
G. hirsutum Ag
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Anyone want to try some samples? Ive never done the competition thing. I don't taste any off flavors but I'm pretty ignorant on that. Tastes good to me.
AlaskanAg99
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Where are you located? I'd always look up a local club and bring some there for comments. It won't be "judged" but getting some feedback never hurts.
aTm '99
G. hirsutum Ag
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Victoria. There aren't any clubs within a reasonable distance from me sadly.
 
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