Made a black ipa yesterday laden with Amarillo and Citra hops. Have to include dark malts to buffer my water.
Homebrewers - Whats Fermenting?
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If you know your water profile, check out bru'nwater. It's an excellent spreadsheet you can download for free that helps you with your water chemistry. Some chalk in the mash would probably really help you out. Anymore I use r/o water and build up the minerals for the profile I'm looking for. AZ water is barely acceptable to drink, let alone make good beer.
First attempt at wine was a success. A bit yeasty (bakers yeast) but have on order glass gallons, airlock (instead of balloon), and wine yeast.
My goal is to make simple, cheap table wine with as few additives as possible. I don't plan on aging it into anything fine or extraordinary, just everyday drinking.
My goal is to make simple, cheap table wine with as few additives as possible. I don't plan on aging it into anything fine or extraordinary, just everyday drinking.
Bakers yeast doesn't flocculate or drop out of suspension very well. If you can fit your container in the fridge for a day or two, the cold will help everything drop out clear. You can also purchase a product called sparkloid that you boil with some water and add and that makes for very clear wine too. Winemaking.jackkeller.net has a ton of recipes. You can pretty much make wine out of anything.
I'm more into drinking beer than brewing beer. Incidentally found that tossing a handful of dark malts into an otherwise lighter beer helped to reduce off flavors.
Been losing interest over the last few years fighting the same intermittent issue. Get nasty bitter taste like crushed insects. Happens less in bigger beers. Doubt infection but replaced plastics and bleached everything twice. Problem persisted but intermittently.
Suspected something with the mash, so tried city water from a friend's house lake Michigan source. Did similar batches, one grain, one extract. Both turned out well. So repeated same two batches, used my well water. Grain batch with the off flavors (did use the dark malt) and extract was fine. Repeated the grain one using bottled water from the store, bad batch.
Think I'd ruled out contamination and water, so I thought maybe there was scale buildup or something in my brew pot or mash tun. Used some harsh chemicals, mechanical scrub, and hot pressure washer to brighten the keggles. Shiny new metal. Brewed two of the same again, this time using my converted kegs for one, and my old megapot and cooler tun for the other. Both turned out well....
Now I'm suspecting I'm the problem. This last batch I made there, used all my normal equipment and deviated from my normal process by dropping my strike temp from 175 to under 165. Had been starting high, in uninsulated mash tun, and finishing around 152-155. So this time I heated to under 165, threw in the grain and stirred, had a fairly uniform 153-155. Checked it every 10-15 minutes and heated briefly a couple times to hold 152. Mashout at 170 for 10 minutes.
If this does it, and I suspect it will, I may get back into brewing more frequently and more stringent on my controls. I built half an electric brewery indoors but that was about the time I started having issues. Didn't want to finish until I figured it out.
Makes sense to me, bigger beer more grain, needs higher strike temp to get it up to temp. But smaller beers with less malt would overheat and extract tannins not unlike insect flavor. I'm really leaning toward temp control in the mash being the issue.
Sorry for filling the thread, if you'd like to take it to PM, shoot me a message
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I think this thread is the perfect place for things like this. Water chemistry and brewing science are where I focus a lot of my attention. One thing I would do is make sure your thermometer is calibrated. I don't use anything but a digital probe thermometer, the analog ones are easy to read wrong or go out of calibration. Make sure it reads 212f for boiling water, and that it reads 32f for a bowl of ice water. If you have the funds for a chugger pump, it makes mashing in a keg much easier by recirculating the mash liquid promoting even heating where if you direct fire your mash without that it is easy to superheat the mash and cause astringency and also kill off your mash enzymes.
I use a digital probe thermometer and its on. I really think I was overheating the mash after eliminating so many other factors. The thing I'm still a bit confused on is why it suddenly started. Been brewing for over 5 years, steadily for the first 3. Never been a stickler for details, because consistency across batches wasn't ever a concern as long as I made decent beer.
I'd never re fired the mash tun. Ever. Always just started high and finished low. Obvious issues of efficiency aside, beer tasted fine. Then suddenly it didn't, but only sometimes. Thinking back though, very well could have been what I said earlier with larger grain bills. Then once I started having issues, I was buying cheaper recipe kits to experiment and therefore smaller grain bills which led to greater overheating....
We'll know for sure in a couple weeks.
I'd never re fired the mash tun. Ever. Always just started high and finished low. Obvious issues of efficiency aside, beer tasted fine. Then suddenly it didn't, but only sometimes. Thinking back though, very well could have been what I said earlier with larger grain bills. Then once I started having issues, I was buying cheaper recipe kits to experiment and therefore smaller grain bills which led to greater overheating....
We'll know for sure in a couple weeks.
Got a pump, controller, solid state relay, temp probe ready for when I figure out my brewing and buy some nice kettles to finish my electric brewery setup.
If temp control is my issue, that will be a nice tool to have.
Step mashing is your friend. A 15 minute protein rest before going to mash temp does wonderful things for head retention. Sounds like it will be a killer system when you get it finished.
Well, I had my first official hot scotchy. And yeah, pretty good.It'll be easier than you think. The malty sweetness goes so good with some cigars. Like a Headley Grange or a JV-13 for example.
Although , if you pair it with a full size Jason you'll be sweating for reasons other than the heat.
Yall know anyone using a grain father brew system? I've been brewing biab and partial grain kits for 6-7 years and like the fact my equipment fits into 3 cabinets on the back porch ( and the results as well lol) want to go AG but stay in the same equipment footprint. Thus the question about the grain father. Seen the threads on hbt, but wanted to know from the cigar guys 
That's not true. You're forgetting the major minerals and vitamins that are provided in Arizona water. Such as; arsenic, cyanide, chlorine, chloramine, various heavy metals, radioactive materials and faecal mater.