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Fell off the brewing slippery slope

Congrats looking forward to following along. That site u got stuff from is nothing short of amazing.
Did not know u could buy small home coffee roasters and green beans from all over the world. Kudos to web and online shopping expanding opportunities to dabble like this.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 
Rob Keeble said:
Congrats looking forward to following along. That site u got stuff from is nothing short of amazing.
Did not know u could buy small home coffee roasters and green beans from all over the world. Kudos to web and online shopping expanding opportunities to dabble like this.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
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Rob,

Of you're interested in coffee check out http://sweetmarias.com They sell all sorts of coffee related paraphanelia and coffee but more interestingly they also have a fairly good bit of information about home roasting and techniques. Start here: http://www.sweetmarias.com/tradition.php. Of you're feeling diy look here: http://www.homeroaster.com/intro1.html

We started out with a popcorn roaster but loml eventually bought a behmor because she needed more volume. I can't actually drink much coffee (I get really tired) but the boss lives on the stuff so we go through a fair bit. I'm not convinced it's worth it if you have a decent roaster locally, but we don't really.

The enabler strikes again..
 
Today was Brewing day. Had a couple of unplanned things happen, first I didn't get any corn sugar, so substituted some cane sugar in the cider. then a little issue with the cooling coil leaking fresh water into the cider batch while cooling. I pulled the coil out and reheated the batch back up to kill off any bacteria that may have been induced, fixed the line and re-cooled the batch. Other than that, every thing seemed to go well. Guess we'll see how it turns out in a couple of weeks.
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For the hops on the red ale, I saw youtube of someone using the paint strainer bags to put them in, the bag worked well, the majority came out with the bag and the fines mostly settled before I moved the batch to the fermenter.
 
:beer: :headbang: Rock on!

Will be interested to hear what you think of that cider kit... I've only ever used fresh juice (having the luxury of having it occasionally available) although I have done some kit wines which are kind of similar. The corn sugar adds less flavor generally, whereas table sugar can add a bit of a cidery note (at least to beer), likely just fine here (and I haven't added table sugar to my beer in 15+ years but grandpa did up until he passed, unless he was making "special double malt" beer where he'd put two cans of concentrate in.. Ah how far we've come ingredient wise in the last 20 years out so).

You can also buy hop "socks" and bags which are about the same idea but I think are perhaps a smidge finer. It definitely makes moving the beer over a lot easier, although it doesn't help much with pellets.

I actually did a boiled cider once where I cooked 5g down to 2.5g and then topped back up to 5g with more fresh juice to make an extra strong cider. It was.. interesting.. anyway :D. I kind of liked it but I was using fairly tart apples so it was a bit of a puckerfest.
 
Ryan Mooney said:
I actually did a boiled cider once where I cooked 5g down to 2.5g and then topped back up to 5g with more fresh juice to make an extra strong cider. It was.. interesting.. anyway :D. I kind of liked it but I was using fairly tart apples so it was a bit of a puckerfest.
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That sounds like it. It had a sweetener pack, which you either leave it out or add as much as you want. I didn't have to ask my wife, I just put the whole thing in. ;-) Good to know that the cane sugar may make it even sweeter, she'll be happy. :wave:
 
Darren Wright said:
That sounds like it. It had a sweetener pack, which you either leave it out or add as much as you want. I didn't have to ask my wife, I just put the whole thing in. ;-) Good to know that the cane sugar may make it even sweeter, she'll be happy. :wave:
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Well more cidery flavor but not sweeter I don't think. The table sugar should pretty much ferment out and might make it ever so slightly drier but mostly just boosts the booze level.

Not positive what would be in the sweetener pack but it's likely to be some sort of long chain sugar that's short enough to taste sweet but long enough to not ferment very well (although it could also be an artificial sweetener). Were there any ingredients listed on that packet out of curiosity?

The one caution on using much long chain sugars is that there are some stomach bacteria that can ferment them with some.. noticeable side effects later. The two that commonly show up in beer are lactose (think cream stout) and dextrin (not super sweet but adds body to the beer). The former affects some folks as we know, the later has a habit of being expressed as a gas post consumption if used in excess. The more I think about it the more I'm leaving towards it being an artificial sweetener.
 
Ah, OK, that makes sense that they would use an artificial one. Checking some of the sugar charts, it looks like ferment-ability of cane sugar is 100%, where as corn sugar is 95%, so my guess is that 5% won't make a huge difference, except with maybe being a bit dryer. I'll have to get the package out of the trash later tonight and see what ingredients were in there.

I checked this morning and the cider was burping away, not much activity on the beer yet.
 
I checked the gravity on the cider yesterday and today and it was right at where the instructions said it needed to be and hadn't changed. Checking between the starting and ending gravity readings it was about 3.86% ABV. I kegged it and sat it in the kegerator to start cooling, will do a force carbonation on it tomorrow or Tuesday. Gave a sample to my wife and she thought it was good. I also boiled a batch of water and kegged it for carbonating to use as seltzer water.

This guy arrived Friday as well, so will be installing it this week.
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Ryan Mooney said:
Just out of curiosity, whats the tap water like out there?
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It actually tastes fine. I also went to the city's water report site and got the numbers and put them into one of the online calculators for brewing, it said it should be fine for brewing. Though I did use a half of a campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) with it to remove the chloramine taste.
 
Darren Wright said:
And it is...
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Looking good! :thumb:

Nice taps :D

My only real complaint with that setup is that replacing lines can be a bit of a pain, the space conservation compared to alternative kegerator setups is compelling though. In light of that, might I suggest: http://www.amazon.com/Faucet-Hygiene-Plug-Set-3/dp/B00IYSXCOQ (also available at various purveyors of fine beverage dispensing systems) in order to help keep the boojums out of your taps when not in use..
 
Ryan Mooney said:
might I suggest: http://www.amazon.com/Faucet-Hygiene-Plug-Set-3/dp/B00IYSXCOQ (also available at various purveyors of fine beverage dispensing systems) in order to help keep the boojums out of your taps when not in use..
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Thanks, odd to think having the brush up in there would be good, but guess you can dip it in some starsan first.

Last night I noticed the kegerator wasn't getting below 55 and running often. After some research it seems the bottom hinge on these gets loose and the door seal has tiny gaps around it. After tightening the bottom hinge, which did have some wiggle, the paper thin gaps I saw prior were sealed up and it seemed to cycle less. Will check the temps tonight and see it it's resolved, but I think I may need to defrost the cold panel inside though to get some efficiency back since the leaks have allowed some humidity in.
 
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Darren Wright said:
Thanks, odd to think having the brush up in there would be good, but guess you can dip it in some starsan first.
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You can also get just wrap over things as just a dust cover: http://www.amazon.com/Beverage-Factory-Faucet-Spout-Plug/dp/B00B7FMH3U

Not sure actually which is better in the grand scheme, can understand your concern about the brush although it'll also pull crudd out. I saw the plug setup first at work and it seems to have helped keep the taps cleaner for sure. The tap there is only used ~1-2 times per week (TGIF and sometimes another event) so it sits idle a lot. If its a tap you're using every day its probably not worth it cost/benefit wise.

Darren Wright said:
Last night I noticed the kegerator wasn't getting below 55 and running often. After some research it seems the bottom hinge on these gets loose and the door seal has tiny gaps around it.
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:eek: Hope you got that fixed.
 
Ryan Mooney said:
:eek: Hope you got that fixed.
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Was only 46* (liquid temp) when I got home last night, so pulled the kegs and put them in my deep freeze while I defrosted the kegerator. When I plugged it back in, I pointed a desk fan at the rear coils to help cool them and speed up the cool down time again. Before putting the kegs back in I force carbonated them, will purge them tonight and then hook up the co2 to sit for a few days. This morning it measured 40* in the glass of water I left in the bottom. Will check it tonight to see if it's the same and holding or cooler. I'd like to get it down a little cooler yet, like to 36* - 38*, but may have to live with this for this batch. We've got some freezer techs here at work I'll check with to see if one of them can check it out before doing the next batch. I've also got some draw latches for the door on order to keep the door sealed tight, which I need to add anyway since the grandson will be mobile soon. ;)
 
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