Hey, brewer, brewer!!

[jeffpn]

C'mon! Let's hear some chatter out there!!

 

[Nosybear]

I need some ginger (Mandarina Ginger Brown Ale) and a curd knife (Asiago cheese).

 

[jeffpn]

Did you make the cheese?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I just priced out my IIPA using the buy recipe link and wow $80 for 5 gallons of beer

 

[jeffpn]

Wow! That's almost twice my most expensive recipe. My Holiday Cheer and the Spotted Cow both cost north of $40. My cheapest 5 gallon recipe is about $21-22.

 

[oliver]

off topic, convince me to convert to 5 gallons. Personally i like the size i make now, yields 6 liters. She wants to go to 5 gal brews. But, limited on space, will need to buy all new equipment, have to spend more on recipes, etc.... my feeling towards upgrading is either brew 2 gallons or 200 gallons. or both.

 

[J A]

off topic, convince me to convert to 5 gallons. Personally i like the size i make now, yields 6 liters. She wants to go to 5 gal brews. But, limited on space, will need to buy all new equipment, have to spend more on recipes, etc.... my feeling towards upgrading is either brew 2 gallons or 200 gallons. or both.

I did 2 1/2 gallon extract batches and as soon as I started doing all-grain, I decided that mashing was a lot of work for one case of beer. I went to 5 gallons because I really don't have the room or resources to do bigger than that. My set-up is fairly minimal and slightly primitive, but I'm starting to get good mashes and figure out how to make good beer. I don't like lifting and carrying bigger carboys and buckets, but the yield for the larger batches is way more worth the work of a brew day. Of course, once you have 5 gallons of beer at a time, it starts making sense to use kegs. It's a slippery slope.

I still have the smaller fermenters I used for the 2 1/2 gallon brews and I want to do some more small batches for bottling in order to increase variety in my pipeline. It's possible to mash and boil smaller batches with bigger equipment, but not the other way around.

 

[LlewellynBrewHaus]

Off to the grocery store to purchase a box of knox gelatin. Fining O-fest in the primary today with hopes of kegging on Sunday/Monday. Finished nice and dry @ 1.008 - definitely going to reuse the 34/70 on a Helles; hopefully next weekend.

 

[jeffpn]

No such thing as off topic in this thread. I've always done 5 gallon batches. I started by doing partial boil extract, then full boil. Did that for almost 20 years before I did BIAB. In my early brewing days, I'd watch my neighbor do 10 or maybe even 15 gallon batches using a converted half barrel. I was too cheap to buy one, and too lazy to bottle a 10 gallon batch. Now that I'm kegging, I would not want to fill a 5 gallon keg up only half way.

 

[J A]

Off to the grocery store to purchase a box of knox gelatin. Fining O-fest in the primary today with hopes of kegging on Sunday/Monday. Finished nice and dry @ 1.008 - definitely going to reuse the 34/70 on a Helles; hopefully next weekend.

Parallel universe...except for the gelatin.
Pils on 34/70, ready to pull off primary, probably right into the bottling bucket for this batch, but I suppose I could decide to keg. I may pitch a Boston Lager-style directly onto the cake or hold the trub for the next brewday, depending on which batch I decide to brew this weekend and what can fit into my freezer/fermenter.
Whenever I get done with the BL in a few weeks, I'll brew an O-fest with the same 34/70 trub.

 

[LlewellynBrewHaus]

Parallel universe...except for the gelatin.
Pils on 34/70, ready to pull off primary, probably right into the bottling bucket for this batch, but I suppose I could decide to keg. I may pitch a Boston Lager-style directly onto the cake or hold the trub for the next brewday, depending on which batch I decide to brew this weekend and what can fit into my freezer/fermenter.
Whenever I get done with the BL in a few weeks, I'll brew an O-fest with the same 34/70 trub.[/quote]

Not a yeast expert J A but, everything I've read on management and reuse discourage holding yeast on the trub. FWIW If I couldn't pitch immediately or rinse the yeast for short term storage, I would leave the Pils in the primary till I was ready to put another brew in to protect from contamination and cell oxidation.

*does state of Texas know you are not brewing and drinking Shiner Bock exclusively :lol:

 

[J A]

Not a yeast expert J A but, everything I've read on management and reuse discourage holding yeast on the trub. FWIW If I couldn't pitch immediately or rinse the yeast for short term storage, I would leave the Pils in the primary till I was ready to put another brew in to protect from contamination and cell oxidation.

*does state of Texas know you are not brewing and drinking Shiner Bock exclusively :lol:

That's pretty much the way I'll play it. If I know I'm brewing the BL I'll just leave a little liquid on the cake and hold it at proper temp overnight until I can cool down the new wort.

I don't have any Shiner Bock going, but I am working on a clone of the National Beer of Texas - Lone Star.

Funny, plenty of folks still buy lots of Shiner Bock and there are lots of ironic PBR/Lone Star drinkers, but craft and micro have become so prevalent here - especially in Austin - that it's hard to find anybody who doesn't know the difference in good beer and all the other stuff we've drank for all those years. I will say, though Shiner has put out some pretty decent beers lately and kept up with the times pretty well.

 

[Head First]

off topic, convince me to convert to 5 gallons. Personally i like the size i make now, yields 6 liters. She wants to go to 5 gal brews. But, limited on space, will need to buy all new equipment, have to spend more on recipes, etc.... my feeling towards upgrading is either brew 2 gallons or 200 gallons. or both.

We are set up to brew 5-10-15-or20gal batches. Takes only a little more time for each step up. About 8hrs for 20gal vs 6 for 5gal? I miss having more brew days(we love to brew) but when things get busy in the summer it's nice to save the time for other things.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

the difference between large brews and small is cooling time and cleaning really, think about it 5 gallons takes so long to cool then multiply that by 4 and sometimes its all about trub in th last carboy it only gets bigger

 

[jeffpn]

Someday I may consider a 10 gallon brew for lagers, but I'd need a new fermenter. I'd only consider it because lagers take a long time to get to the tap. I could see my 6 taps being only 3 flavors. That might be a drawback.

 

[J A]

I'm really quite happy to stay small scale for now with 5 being my routine batch and 2-3 gallon batches thrown in for added variety.
I like the idea of brewing bigger, but I can only drink so much. If you can't sell it, you end up giving it away or having to find a way to store more, either bottles or kegs.

 

[oliver]

i think the eventual goal is to deviate from our current lives and sell our own beer.

shopping list: brewmaster, overhead... can i just lump everything into the latter category?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I just spent the day adding removable tri-clover all stainless heating elements to my system, 4 hours Im ready for a beer

you can remove the elements with one hand, clean them outside of the pot then clean the pot with no cord, been wanting to do this for a year

 

[Nosybear]

i think the eventual goal is to deviate from our current lives and sell our own beer.

shopping list: brewmaster, overhead... can i just lump everything into the latter category?

I considered this just long enough to realize all the stuff other than brewing that I'd have to take care of to sell my own beer. I'll keep my day job. I don't want to manage a supply chain, market, run a tap room, schmooze with customers, do HR and business taxes, take care of all the requirements the state heaps on alcohol producers.... I'll keep doing my small batches and worrying about how to keep trub out of my 8-gallon fermentor, happily, and wish those of you who want to go pro luck.

I think it's legal not to drink Shiner Bock or Lone Star (the true national beer of Texas), but don't you have to have a permit, or an out-of-state driver's license to buy "fru-fru beer." (full disclosure, SWAMBO is a native Texan)

 

[GFHomebrew]

Don't worry about the Trub there Nosey in my last two batches everything's gone in hope particulate, hot break everything. According to brulosophers exbeerment he did one with a side by side batch of non Trub and Truby one. the Truby fermentation was more vigorous the yeast attenuated better and here is the freeky thing the Truby brew turned out more clearer! So I no longer bother too much with filtering the wort into fermentor I just dump it in and let it sort it's self out. Time will tell if I'm wrong.