Homebrewers - Whats Fermenting?

[smokinghole]

So like normal I didn't get started until after 1pm because my wife is the great blocker of things I like to do. I was going to get water last night and refill two propane cylinders. Well instead she all of a sudden wanted to go out. So I didn't get to go get water and stuff last night (my tap water blows). I got to do that after she finally left to go to a friends house this morning after 9am then I hit stupid traffic. I bullshitted with some guys at the B&M when I stopped to grab some smokes. I figured my early start was already blown by the wife the night before. I swear the minute she hears I want to brew she does everything in her power to fuck up my brewday. She starts the day before and if she's home she does her best to fuck it up while she's here. If someone's over she attempts to make it a lunch party or some shit. I don't know why she doesn't get it that I just want to sit out side and brew beer, drink beer, and smoke cigars. It has to be the vagina and lack of common sense.

Here's an awesome example of the convoluted way a woman's mind works. She got rid of our dish drying rack that sat next to the sink because "I have a tendency to leave stuff in there". So instead of a rack we have a drying mat now. How the mat is different than the rack I don't know, well other than the physical shape. She'll still leave dishes sit on the mat and I will end up putting them away. Sheesh women, if they didn't fuck there'd be a bounty on their heads.

Rant over!

 

[MoldMan]

A lot of sympathy man. And a couple of choice quotes in there. :headroll:

 

[smokinghole]

Well I'm all cleaned up from today's brew. I am leaving everything set up for a early morning crack at my second batch of this beer. My efficiency was a bit low because of the midnight wheat I used and I bumped the gravity on this batch up to 1.090 using a pound of malt extract. I ended up a little short still but that's okay I'll make it up on tomorrow's mash. I now know that my efficiency is going to suck compared to my normal 83%. Must be a combo of the midnight wheat, roasted barley, and briess goldpils vienna as a base. I'll have to basically max out my mash tun for this next mash and jam 36lbs of grain into this thing or maybe I'll take the easy road and buy a 3lb thing of DME. I think I'll just jam the grain in and drop my infusion water a bit. This will be a seriously thick mash and I will be sure to sparge with a bunch more water and then boil the snot out of the wort. The cool thing is while these type of tactics could end up in a poorly attenuated beer, this is a good thing for me brewing a sour stout. I might end up with more body and sweetness than if I didn't brew in this fashion. My last beer I brewed and fermented with ECY02 had apparent attenuation at 83% so if I go there on this brew I will end up near 1.017 which would be about perfecto.

 

[MoldMan]

My bet is you lost it with the Briess Vienna. Is it a malt you've used a lot of? If you have, maybe the extract numbers for that bag were different from the previous ones. Sounds like your going through a bag and a half at least. Unless your getting it from work. Then maybe your straddling different lot numbers. Or I could just be pulling all this out of my ass. Lol

 

[smokinghole]

This is the first time I used this malt as a base or anything for that matter. So I'm sure it's the malt. I tend to use dingeman's or franco belges pils and a fawcett or bairds maris otter. I think briess's base malts are okay, I was intrigued by this goldpils vienna hybrid or whatever it is.

This second mash is super thick. It was a bitch to mix in but I got it with no dry spots. I'm heating up my sparge water now and will begin draining and sparging in 20-30 minutes. I will sparge the living hell out of this mash and boil the wort for at least three hours to get to my target volume. Last night's wort got a dose of Lactobacillus plantarum on its own and will be pitching two packets of t-58 shortly along with some ECY02. This should be an interesting beer if nothing else. I'll have a lot of it in 8 months to a year so I hope it don't suck.

 

[smokinghole]

All done. I have a kettle to clean and some grain to deal with. Gravity on the second batch was 1.100 so I balanced my lack of gravity on the first batch. It was a super long boil at over 3 hours.

 

[MoldMan]

Wow!:eyequiver Over compensate much? Lol You must have sparged the hell out of that batch to boil 3hrs. Makes me want to brew a big stout when the weather cools. Raising a Wookie Jack to a job well done.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Loved reading about your brewing Smoking...but I am so fucking lost lol. Fascinated by homebrewing, only have done it once with a brew kit. So all the terminology and product names...over my head lol. I do understand what gravity is

 

[smokinghole]

If you have any questions just ask. Most of the numbers and codes are just yeast strains or blends in some cases. Then there is the name of a few malt companies and types of malt I mentioned.

I sparged about 3.5-4 gal more than I needed for my designed boil volume. The gravity issue I knew I had could only be taken care of with more sparging and a long boil off. The mash tun was packed to the gills with 36lbs of grain. Its a 52qt
Coleman rectangular cooler to give you an idea of how packed and thick my mash was. Looking forward to what should be a sweet and sour stout at about 10% abv.


Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

ok...some ignorance on my part here. What is "sparged"?

 

[smokinghole]

Rinsed the grains with water to get the malt sugars from the mash out of the grain bed and into your kettle or other collection vessel.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[smokinghole]

I should have known better. I left the first batch of this imperial stout to ferment with an airlock using a large quart sized jar. I even squirted some Antifoam in the water in case it started krausening out rather early. Well I didn't put a small tub or place the jar in a bucket and it made a damn mess. So I now get to so a little black as night stout stain removal from my guest bedroom closet. Nothing some carpet cleaner and a shop.vac cant fix though. The second batch got a bucket with the stupid jar sitting in the bucket.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

sounds like fun lol

 

[MoldMan]

Those BIG stouts tend to go off like a rocket. I've done a few at 1.120sg and was very glad I used 1-1/2" dia. blow off tubing. Had an active blow off for days.

 

[kenstogie]

I brewed an Imperial Stout over the winter. Ended up being 12.5 abv. That thing made a helluva mess when it started fermenting and ferment it did for nearly 2 months. It turned out awesome though (potent too )

 

[Mikes]

Got nb sunshine wheat clone and a stone ipa colne that I caught on special at my local hb store (Austin home brew). Both are 7 days into the primary with 7 more days to go before I rack them out to the kegs and dryhop.

Currently on tap outside I have: dfh 90 min ipa and blind pig ipa

Inside on tap has : Guinness stout, Founders all day ipa, Ahs pumpkin ale, 3 Floyd's zombie dust, Ruthless Rye Ipa, Ahs budget ipa, Simco pale Ale, Citra Ipa

 

[smokinghole]

Well I think I might true my hand at a pumpkin stout this year. Ive made pumpkin beers in the past with great success but haven't in a year or two. So this year I will brew a 1.070 basic stout recipe, with caramelized maple and lactose sugar added. It will get only cinnamon, and a little nutmeg with a vanilla bean or three in the fermentor after it fully attenuates.

Bottling my 1.120 stout from last year that spent 4 months in a barrel. Then I will transfer some of this most recent stout into the barrel that is cleaned and ready to go.


Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Smoking...please let me know when this is ready to go and I will gladly make a trade for some

 

[smokinghole]

Which? Pumpkin, sour stout, or imperial stout.


Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[MoldMan]

And here I was happy to be brewing my watermelon wheat today. All right. With all of this talk about big stouts it's time for the Black Friday stout to return. An imperial stout that starts at 1.120 and finishes at 1.020-1.025 with the judicious use of brown sugar and palm sugar. Now to start making plans.