Toast Beer / Homebrew Thread

Player most likely to be a beer snob

  • Sam Butler

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • Andrew Gaff

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • Jack Watts

    Votes: 3 30.0%
  • Brant Colledge

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Jonathan Giles

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • Total voters
    10
  • Poll closed .

SpaceClef

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I think Carapils will boost your gravity though without it being fermentable, so you'll notice a few more points on your hydro than usual.

I'm kind of leaning towards only using dark steeping grains for colour and roasty flavour when doing extract brewing cos i'm sick of overly syrupy beers.

I can definitely see the appeal of using crystal/cara when doing all grain though, or if you use sugar/corn sugar, which has no body
 

Hairy Lager

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An update on the Ginger Beer, gravity reading at 1050 for the last 3 days.

Thick 1 inch scum that looks like you could roll your chicken pieces in and get instant KFC....num, num.

Smaller bubbles now, still tastes awesome, a little less sweeter each time I taste it.

So the question is should I bottle this, this weekend or continue to brew for one more week.

Will it go off if I continue the brew process in a Cooper Brew vessel without an airlock?
 

Hairy Lager

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One other option is a pre made kegerator.

The Keg King stuff is pretty good and the set ups work well. Might have to extend the serving line to balance the serving pressure/pour but that's about it.
They have options from $400 and up.
$600 will get you everything except the gas and the kegs. So you'll be at $900 pretty easily.
http://kegking.com.au/keg-couplers-and-keg-disconnects/kegerators.html
Great advise, really finding the Keg King set up sexy as, the chrome taps and the portion control has me feeling
like the first time I managed to pull a drive-in date in my Gemini Station Wagon.

So I think a hybrid keganator with cheap as kegs is the go...so the next question is gas...

I like to use the toilet first thing for this to keep the Mrs happy...oh wait...

...off track...CO2 my friend, how much in cashola and what would a beer champion like yourself recommend to a mere beer novice like myself?
 
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Great advise, really finding the Keg King set up sexy as, the chrome taps and the portion control has me feeling
like the first time I managed to pull a drive-in date in my Gemini Station Wagon.

So I think a hybrid keganator with cheap as kegs is the go...so the next question is gas...

I like to use the toilet first thing for this to keep the Mrs happy...oh wait...

...off track...CO2 my friend, how much in cashola and what would a beer champion like yourself recommend to a mere beer novice like myself?

I get mine for a local fire prevention shop. The guy is great to get along with and each year I drop in a couple of long necks of brew and he fills my 6kg bottle up on the spot and has a chat. Last year I gave him a bottle of that ginger beer and he called me a week later wanting the recipe :D

So about 6 years back I got a full trsted and repurposed C02 fire extinguisher full of gas for $150.
Its a 6kg bottle but I think they fill it with 4.5kg for $30.

You can buy a brand new bottle from kegking for more than double the price but * that.

Do a Google search for where the local brewers go for their gas. Shouldn't be too hard to find out.
 

Hairy Lager

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:thumbsu::thumbsu:

No airlock. No worries.

Didn't I reply to this already?
How long has it been now?
What's the gravity read at?

2 weeks brewing now...Gravity at almost below 1000...is at 1003....sweet little bubbles now and tastes wicked.
1005, 1008, 1003 last 3 readings.
Will it hurt to continue on from here, will it go off?
 
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2 weeks brewing now...Gravity at almost below 1000...is at 1003....sweet little bubbles now and tastes wicked.
1005, 1008, 1003 last 3 readings.
Will it hurt to continue on from here, will it go off?
Wont go off unless it's already infected.
The key to almost any beer is to stop fermenting it when you get two consecutive readings.
Test it again tomorrow. If its still 1.003 then you can shut it off. Still wont hurt to leave it a few more days or cold crash it.
 

DanWCE

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Cold crashing is subjecting your beer to a sharp change in temperature from high teens/low 20s (ferment) to zero or near on. This puts any yeast still in suspension to sleep and forms a solid base off krausen and yeast on the bottom of the fermenting bucket.

Then you can get all the nice clear beer off the top.
 
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One more sleep until I get to try a full glass of properly carbonated IIPA :thumbsu: :fire:
Screenshot_2016-11-03-13-21-43.png
 

Hairy Lager

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Cold crashing is subjecting your beer to a sharp change in temperature from high teens/low 20s (ferment) to zero or near on. This puts any yeast still in suspension to sleep and forms a solid base off krausen and yeast on the bottom of the fermenting bucket.

Then you can get all the nice clear beer off the top.
Would you guys recommend this with every brew you do.
 
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Lads, hope all things brewing is going well.

I have a Euro Lager doing its thing at the moment. Want to give it a couple more days before I keg that mofo. Tastes pretty good thus far. I used a Saflager s189 yeast and like what its done.

I have washed a yeast before and re-used, but it was a pain in the arse. I got the info on how to do it off the net a while ago.

I've heard some people talk about dropping another brew on the same yeast cake. Was thinking I might like to give this a try, given I am still trying to catch up on my swilling stocks.

Have you guys done this before? Is it a viable strategy? Is this yeast strain worth re-using? It was around $8 so not really that expensive (and I do have another packet for use) just thought I'd like to try re-using given I'm putting a few brews down in quick succession.

Are there other less painful methods to re-use yeast? What flavour issues should I look out for, ie, do I essentially need to drop the same recipe down on that yeast to avoid any weird flavours? (I'm happy to do this btw). I'm happy to re-use it straight up, ie, get another brew down as soon as I need to, in order to use the yeast, without too much fartarsing around.

My recollection with the one I washed was that I didn't particularly want to use it straight away, perhaps thats why I went with the washing method.

Cheers
 
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Lads, hope all things brewing is going well.

I have a Euro Lager doing its thing at the moment. Want to give it a couple more days before I keg that mofo. Tastes pretty good thus far. I used a Saflager s189 yeast and like what its done.

I have washed a yeast before and re-used, but it was a pain in the arse. I got the info on how to do it off the net a while ago.

I've heard some people talk about dropping another brew on the same yeast cake. Was thinking I might like to give this a try, given I am still trying to catch up on my swilling stocks.

Have you guys done this before? Is it a viable strategy? Is this yeast strain worth re-using? It was around $8 so not really that expensive (and I do have another packet for use) just thought I'd like to try re-using given I'm putting a few brews down in quick succession.

Are there other less painful methods to re-use yeast? What flavour issues should I look out for, ie, do I essentially need to drop the same recipe down on that yeast to avoid any weird flavours? (I'm happy to do this btw). I'm happy to re-use it straight up, ie, get another brew down as soon as I need to, in order to use the yeast, without too much fartarsing around.

My recollection with the one I washed was that I didn't particularly want to use it straight away, perhaps thats why I went with the washing method.

Cheers

Different flavours, faults caused by yeast handling, methods of madness and procedure.
There's a lot of what ifs and most of it is BS.

I have literally just made a beer, cooled it down to 20C ish then racked it straight into the sane dirty fermenter with the last yeast cake in it.
Original beer out to keg, new beer into fermenter, set fridge temp to a suitable fermentation temp, walk away.

Is there issues with overpitching and autotoylisis etc yeah maybe but you probably wont notice it and youll get exactly what you were aiming for which is beer.

The other option is to shake the fermenter to loosen up the yeast cake (trub, hops and all)
and pour it into a sterile container, make the beer then pour all or even better just half the yeast cake straight in and walk away.
Both will give you a decent result and make beer :thumbsu:
 
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Different flavours, faults caused by yeast handling, methods of madness and procedure.
There's a lot of what ifs and most of it is BS.

I have literally just made a beer, cooled it down to 20C ish then racked it straight into the sane dirty fermenter with the last yeast cake in it.
Original beer out to keg, new beer into fermenter, set fridge temp to a suitable fermentation temp, walk away.

Is there issues with overpitching and autotoylisis etc yeah maybe but you probably wont notice it and youll get exactly what you were aiming for which is beer.

The other option is to shake the fermenter to loosen up the yeast cake (trub, hops and all)
and pour it into a sterile container, make the beer then pour all or even better just half the yeast cake straight in and walk away.
Both will give you a decent result and make beer :thumbsu:

Thanks Mate.

After I posted that, I had a bit of a trawl through on YouTube to see if there was much on pitching a beer straight on a yeast cake. Surprisingly, I could only find a few that were specific to throwing a new batch on a yeast cake. But what I did find gave me enough confidence to give it a crack.

A few of the issues that were mentioned (as you did) was to be good with sterilising/sanitising as if there is a hint of an infection in the first it can multiply in the next batch through (so you end up with two infected batches). There can be some flavour transfer depending on beers (not an issue for me as I'll do pretty much the same recipe). A few recommended not putting a lighter style on a heavier style yeast cake, which seems common sense to me. But the opposite is ok obviously. Some have even done a half batch lighter style first up and then dropped their heavy beer on the yeast cake (essentially doing a big ass yeast starter that yields a half batch of beer). Another point was to probably not drop a new beer on a beer that had a high starting gravity as the yeast could possibly be to stressed from the work done to be effective on the next batch.

Pretty much as you said, rack off original beer to secondary/keg/bottles and have the next beer ready to drop straight on it. Give it a good Whirlpool, shut the lid and walk away. A small advantage of this method would obviously be that ferment will kick off pretty quick you would think given the volume of yeast and the fact they have essentially started and are good to go.

As I said, I'm playing catch up at the moment and with summer knocking on the door need to get some easy drinking stocks in the kegs.

I have been fermenting at around 16-17, not particularly low for a lager I know, but if I just maintain this for the new batch it should be all good right? Should I pitch at a slightly higher temp (say 18-19)?

Also (and I won't do it for this one), but if I was to cold crash the first batch to rack off would that present any issues to re-using the yeast cake, or is it just a matter of getting thatbsucker back up to temp with the new beer on it?

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
 
Sep 3, 2005
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Thanks Mate.

After I posted that, I had a bit of a trawl through on YouTube to see if there was much on pitching a beer straight on a yeast cake. Surprisingly, I could only find a few that were specific to throwing a new batch on a yeast cake. But what I did find gave me enough confidence to give it a crack.

A few of the issues that were mentioned (as you did) was to be good with sterilising/sanitising as if there is a hint of an infection in the first it can multiply in the next batch through (so you end up with two infected batches). There can be some flavour transfer depending on beers (not an issue for me as I'll do pretty much the same recipe). A few recommended not putting a lighter style on a heavier style yeast cake, which seems common sense to me. But the opposite is ok obviously. Some have even done a half batch lighter style first up and then dropped their heavy beer on the yeast cake (essentially doing a big ass yeast starter that yields a half batch of beer). Another point was to probably not drop a new beer on a beer that had a high starting gravity as the yeast could possibly be to stressed from the work done to be effective on the next batch.

Pretty much as you said, rack off original beer to secondary/keg/bottles and have the next beer ready to drop straight on it. Give it a good Whirlpool, shut the lid and walk away. A small advantage of this method would obviously be that ferment will kick off pretty quick you would think given the volume of yeast and the fact they have essentially started and are good to go.

As I said, I'm playing catch up at the moment and with summer knocking on the door need to get some easy drinking stocks in the kegs.

I have been fermenting at around 16-17, not particularly low for a lager I know, but if I just maintain this for the new batch it should be all good right? Should I pitch at a slightly higher temp (say 18-19)?

Also (and I won't do it for this one), but if I was to cold crash the first batch to rack off would that present any issues to re-using the yeast cake, or is it just a matter of getting thatbsucker back up to temp with the new beer on it?

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

That's some good researching.

The difference between 16-19C is feck all. Just set it to whatever feels good.

I've put beers straight on cold crashed yeast cakes before but normally just keg the beer, have beer, glad wrap back over the fermenter, have beer, turn off fridge, have beer, make beer, have two beers, chill beer then beer onto recently warmed up yeast cake, set temp, have beer, walk away, walk back for another beer, have said beer etc.
 
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