What are you brewing?

[hopingmadinZam Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hopingmadinZam]

Very interested to hear the conclusion to this experiment

Ditto! thanks Snyp for the efforts and reporting.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

would be nice to know how much!!

Spoiler: A LOT. For a lot of people it doesn't matter, but as you grow accustomed to homebrews and you start to pick up flavours, it's VERY easy to distinguish between the same beer made with different yeasts. I, for one, used to ferment with only one or two types of yeast, and made everything with it. I usually bought my yeast by going to the yeast page of my online store and sorting via price, buying the cheapest. For some styles it worked. For others - not so much.

Now I know. I'll rather buy a packet of yeast that suits the beer I want to make and harvest some to store for the future than stuff up a batch with the wrong yeast.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Alright, so my brew that's going on now. Pitched the Kveik yesterday at 9:00. At 9:20 the airlock was moving. At 13:00 I had such a rich krauzen I decided to top-crop, and sterilized two 125ml purity jars (baby food jars). I sanitized a spoon and scooped each jar full off the krauzen. After the foam settled down the jars are each about half full of liquid, of which half looks to be beer. The rest should be the pitchable yeast, right?

Anyway, the gas escaping from the airlock smells amazing. I'm running it inside the electric blanket, but with one side open. Temp seems to sit between 26 and 28 degrees, so it's on the cooler side of things. The smell from the airlock reminds me a lot of commercial beer smells, specially Windhoek Draught, so it's promising. It'll go down well with the Castle drinkers at the baby shower, I think.

OK on to this beer. I let it sit until last night, when I had to clean up the area where it was standing. I found a colony of ants made their nest under the fermenter where it stood wrapped in the electric blanket, so I had no choice and had to move it. I decided to use this time to give the airlock a whiff and got a fairly strong fruity smell from it. Doesn't smell off, but it is definitely not what I had hoped for in this beer. I'm guessing that's the fruity note of Voss people were mentioning. At this stage the airlock was dead quiet and the krauzen had dropped, and the fermenter temperature sat at 30°C.

So I moved the fermenter to the fridge and it's currently cold crashing. I'm going to leave it at cold crashing temp until the weekend, when I'll probably fine it with gelatin and then I'll keg it as soon as my only keg is empty. It's amazing how much enjoyment one can get out of a keg, I'm totally in awe of this system, picnic tap and all.

If I don't kick this keg this coming long weekend I'm going to have to have to either buy a new keg or borrow one from somewhere. I need to get that beer on tap on Monday latest. I have discovered a HUGE difference in the carbonation of my Marzen currently in the keg after leaving it for a few days. Force carbing worked, but it's like the bubbles didn't "stick" to the beer. It was foamy and bubbly but this weekend I poured a lot of these beers and they were all lighter, with fine bubbles rising on the inside (which wasn't there with the force carbing). So yes, again, time makes it better. So I want that beer in the keg for at least 3 days before serving to the guys at the party.

Oh yes, and I also bought the malts for a Munich Helles. I'm entering a homebrew competition (totally non-BJCP style) that a local brew shop is running and I can't wait for it.

[Snyper564 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Snyper564]

Spoiler: A LOT. For a lot of people it doesn't matter, but as you grow accustomed to homebrews and you start to pick up flavours, it's VERY easy to distinguish between the same beer made with different yeasts. I, for one, used to ferment with only one or two types of yeast, and made everything with it. I usually bought my yeast by going to the yeast page of my online store and sorting via price, buying the cheapest. For some styles it worked. For others - not so much.

Now I know. I'll rather buy a packet of yeast that suits the beer I want to make and harvest some to store for the future than stuff up a batch with the wrong yeast.

100% agree my friend made a SMASH beer just with pilsner malt and used Mangrove Jack wheat beer yeast and I wont lie it tasted so similar to a wheat beer that I couldnt believe there was not 1 gram of wheat in the beer.

[jakeslouw Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jakeslouw]

C'mon jakes! "I'm just wondering WTF you seem to want from this forum?"
Aren't you the pro brewer on here that can't get out of the homebrew scene?
Are the other pro-brewers not taking you serious over there?
Looking for inspiration or recipes maybe?
Or for some form recognition?
What do you want from this forum?

1) I'm not a pro brewer or distiller, never claimed that, never will, plenty of people here and elsewhere that are years and miles ahead of me
2) I'm still technically a home brewer, I haven't sold much commercially at all. Toxxyc probably has sold more beer to the public than I have
3) Since I'm no pro brewer or distiller, not by a long shot, I still pick up amazing insights from other brewers.
4) As for putting back: my mantra on this forum is that there no such thing as a stupid question: we take some, we give some.
5) if you are bored with brewing, yourself and it seems, your life, please don't transpose that here: MOVE ALONG

That's my last response to you. You're a sad little individual and you are correct, there is no way on God's earth that I would EVER sit and drink a beer with you.

[Dewald Posthumus Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dewald Posthumus]

Brewed my Tangerine (pseudo) Pilsner again this weekend, what a nice beer to drink.

Pilsner Malt, some Munich Dark, Carapils

Magnum for bittering, Mandarina Bavaria for aroma, fermented with Kveik Oslo.

Coming in at 4%, it's a really nice easy drinking beer.

Also dry hopped my Pale Ale for the Saturday Session yesterday, so I'm cutting it really fine in hoping that my beer will be ready and carbonated for 10 April as I still have to cold crash and fine in between.

As a sidenote, I took some time out on Saturday and visited the Brewcraft store in Jet Park, lots of new brewers around which is a good thing to see, the more the merrier is my take on brewing, and in all honesty I would much rather visit someone and have some homebrews than store bought beers. They are running low on specialty malts, so hopefully they have an order on the way.

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

100% agree my friend made a SMASH beer just with pilsner malt and used Mangrove Jack wheat beer yeast and I wont lie it tasted so similar to a wheat beer that I couldnt believe there was not 1 gram of wheat in the beer.

That is why they say the taste in wheat beer comes 50% JUST from the yeast

[Dewald Posthumus Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dewald Posthumus]

Quite small due to social distancing rules etc. Some guys had excellent examples using Kveik, others missed the mark, but nothing was undrinkable.

I forgot to ask, anyone used Midtbust at the meet? I have used Midtbust twice now and jeez, I cannot get over the esters produced by the yeast, I have a granadilla bomb Blonde Ale that is undrinkable, and the Pale Ale I made with it was so fruity that I battled to drink it. It was really horrible, I'm trying to gauge if it was just my beers or whether other guys have the same issues with Midtbust..

[AlexBrew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close AlexBrew]

Finally getting a chance today to brew my stout. This the brew recipe:
Wheat Stout.jpg
I swapped out the roasted barley with black wheat and 'original' recipe wanted 250g brown sugar but I'm swopping that out w 500g blackstrap molasses.

[Snyper564 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Snyper564]

I forgot to ask, anyone used Midtbust at the meet? I have used Midtbust twice now and jeez, I cannot get over the esters produced by the yeast, I have a granadilla bomb Blonde Ale that is undrinkable, and the Pale Ale I made with it was so fruity that I battled to drink it. It was really horrible, I'm trying to gauge if it was just my beers or whether other guys have the same issues with Midtbust..

doing a batch with it now, but using it for a NEIPA and wanted to make use of alll those fruity esters but ill provide feedback when tasting

[Dewald Posthumus Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dewald Posthumus]

doing a batch with it now, but using it for a NEIPA and wanted to make use of alll those fruity esters but ill provide feedback when tasting

Can't imagine using it for anything BUT a NEIPA! It was just waay to much for my liking, I dumped 20 litres of it, just couldn't drink it anymore.

[RudiC Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RudiC]

Brewed a British Golden Ale yesterday and starting to get the hang of it now. Now I need to tune my efficiency slightly and the volumes.

Anyway my recipe included Extra Pale Malt, Maris Otter and Extra Light Crystal 100. The hops were Chinook @45min, Cascade @30min, Southern Passion @15 and @5min.

1) According to Brewfather my pre boil gravity would be 1.032, what I got was 1.032 @ 49c (1.040 @ 20c with temp correction)
2) Today when I transferred took measurement 1.040@ 29c (1.042 @ 20c). Brewfather's OG according to recipe is 1.038 OG.

Am I right in thinking that the Brewfather figure would be a temp corrected reading? Which would mean I overshot it quite a bit and would have to up my efficiency by a few percent, right?

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

OK I have to get planning on my Helles. I entered a homebrew competition and I'm entering my first attempt at a Helles. I've got Pilsner malt, Diamond Lager yeast and Perle hops. I'm planning:

5kg Pilsner
370g Munich Type 2 (or closest I can get at the store)
110g Melanoidin (or closest I can get at the store)

Mash at 66°C for 90 minutes. The idea is to mash full volume, and to get as much out of the malt as possible. I also want a very fermentable wort here, without going too dry. I've done 61°C mashes before but I ideally don't want the beer to end up at 1.003 when it's done fermenting.

I'm planning my first full-volume mash this time, but I will shoot a tiny bit low on the volume. I want to take a pre-boil gravity reading to calculate the post-boil gravity accurately. I have to hit these numbers as this homebrew competition is both a "best of the day" competition, judged by fellow brewers and people visiting on the day, and there are also going to be BJCP judges there. I've never done this before so I said I want to do this one to see what the judges have to say about my beers. That also means I must hit my gravity numbers accurately, so I'm actually going to be thinking about this one properly.

Onto the boil, I'm planning a combination of Perle in the boil and the last bit of Mittelfrueh I have around (about 10g) in the last 5 minutes. It'll be a no-chill brew, and I'm planning for that. I'm aiming for 19 IBU in total (so very low, as per the style) and I'm hoping to hit a 1.046 OG into the fermenter. This is NOT a hop-forward beer so I don't want to overdo it with the hops at all.

After the no-chill cubing, I'm planning to make a nice big starter of Lallemand Diamond Lager yeast. Yeast pitched at 11°C, ferment this at 11°C for 7 days, then ramping up the temp to 15° at one degree per day. It'll stay at 15°C for 3 days (works well in my experience on lager yeasts), after which I'll ramp up to 18°C for a day, cold crash and lager on the yeast cake (works well for me, I've seen now) for as long as possible. I'll probably fine it sometime at the start of the cold crash to make sure I get the clearest beer possible into the keg.

What'll go into the keg will be the clearest beer I can get, and I'll keg it at least 3 weeks before the competition. I've got just under 12 weeks for this beer. Most malt is purchased, I just need to see where I can get Melanoidin ASAP.

So yeah, that's the plan. I'm hoping to score at least 30/50 for this. If I hit 30/50 I'll be happy.







Oh yes, and also, alongside that, I stupidly entered a dark spiced rum. So that's something I have to do as well. Yay. Planning a nice molasses and brown sugar wash, distilled and the best of the hearts captured, oaked for as long as possible and then spiced right before the event. I've used the following spices very well to date:

Per liter of rum at drinking strength (around 45% ABV):
3 allspice berries
1 whole clove
1 pinch of anise
1 tiny pinch of cinnamon

And then on top of that I'm also planning on adding a small amount of coriander. I have no idea how I'm going to do the dark part yet. Guess I'll have to start playing with backset.

[Snyper564 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Snyper564]

OK I have to get planning on my Helles. I entered a homebrew competition and I'm entering my first attempt at a Helles. I've got Pilsner malt, Diamond Lager yeast and Perle hops. I'm planning:

5kg Pilsner
370g Munich Type 2 (or closest I can get at the store)
110g Melanoidin (or closest I can get at the store)

Mash at 66°C for 90 minutes. The idea is to mash full volume, and to get as much out of the malt as possible. I also want a very fermentable wort here, without going too dry. I've done 61°C mashes before but I ideally don't want the beer to end up at 1.003 when it's done fermenting.

I'm planning my first full-volume mash this time, but I will shoot a tiny bit low on the volume. I want to take a pre-boil gravity reading to calculate the post-boil gravity accurately. I have to hit these numbers as this homebrew competition is both a "best of the day" competition, judged by fellow brewers and people visiting on the day, and there are also going to be BJCP judges there. I've never done this before so I said I want to do this one to see what the judges have to say about my beers. That also means I must hit my gravity numbers accurately, so I'm actually going to be thinking about this one properly.

Onto the boil, I'm planning a combination of Perle in the boil and the last bit of Mittelfrueh I have around (about 10g) in the last 5 minutes. It'll be a no-chill brew, and I'm planning for that. I'm aiming for 19 IBU in total (so very low, as per the style) and I'm hoping to hit a 1.046 OG into the fermenter. This is NOT a hop-forward beer so I don't want to overdo it with the hops at all.

After the no-chill cubing, I'm planning to make a nice big starter of Lallemand Diamond Lager yeast. Yeast pitched at 11°C, ferment this at 11°C for 7 days, then ramping up the temp to 15° at one degree per day. It'll stay at 15°C for 3 days (works well in my experience on lager yeasts), after which I'll ramp up to 18°C for a day, cold crash and lager on the yeast cake (works well for me, I've seen now) for as long as possible. I'll probably fine it sometime at the start of the cold crash to make sure I get the clearest beer possible into the keg.

What'll go into the keg will be the clearest beer I can get, and I'll keg it at least 3 weeks before the competition. I've got just under 12 weeks for this beer. Most malt is purchased, I just need to see where I can get Melanoidin ASAP.

So yeah, that's the plan. I'm hoping to score at least 30/50 for this. If I hit 30/50 I'll be happy.







Oh yes, and also, alongside that, I stupidly entered a dark spiced rum. So that's something I have to do as well. Yay. Planning a nice molasses and brown sugar wash, distilled and the best of the hearts captured, oaked for as long as possible and then spiced right before the event. I've used the following spices very well to date:

Per liter of rum at drinking strength (around 45% ABV):
3 allspice berries
1 whole clove
1 pinch of anise
1 tiny pinch of cinnamon

And then on top of that I'm also planning on adding a small amount of coriander. I have no idea how I'm going to do the dark part yet. Guess I'll have to start playing with backset.

Best of luck! What comp ypu entering? keen to try my hand at a few of these but not sure where to look

[Dewald Posthumus Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dewald Posthumus]

Nice Toxxyc,

It is nice idea to take your beers to the next level - your friends drinking free beer are not always that honest about your efforts. That's why I like the Saturday Sessions from Brewcraft (or any other open day for that matter), share your beers, let strangers drink it and comment - as for BJCP guidelines, I'm too much of a cowboy brewer to try and stick to specific styles.

Good luck with the brew and the entire process, I am yet to present a beer that I am 100% confident in to one of these meets. Homebrewers all have the same problem with consistency, it's not that easy to brew consistent beers every time. Fact of life I suppose...