What're you brewing right now?

atomeyes · Post by **atomeyes** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:50 pm

i don't have a CO2 tester.

i will try that. unsure about the venting for CO2 pressure, but i'll wing it.

grub · Post by **grub** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 4:22 pm

atomeyes wrote:i don't have a CO2 tester.

i will try that. unsure about the venting for CO2 pressure, but i'll wing it.

yeah, most folks don't have one as there's only a couple of times when you'd want to use them. fairly easy to build one though (I did recently). Built mind as a combo vent/pressure tester with a shutoff to the gauge so I can use it for this and also to slowly vent when pushing carbonated beer around.

what are you unsure about? the idea is you're probably overcarbonating it via shake and bake, so you vent a little to bring it back down to serving pressure. But you want it high to begin with to really force it into solution quickly. It's a bit of trial and error without a keg pressure tester, but that's your only real option if you want carbonation in a hurry.

atomeyes · Post by **atomeyes** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 4:26 pm

grub wrote:
what are you unsure about? the idea is you're probably overcarbonating it via shake and bake, so you vent a little to bring it back down to serving pressure. But you want it high to begin with to really force it into solution quickly. It's a bit of trial and error without a keg pressure tester, but that's your only real option if you want carbonation in a hurry.

yeah, the "error" part of "trial and error" never excites me. don't want a frothy mess on my hands for the party, but your directions were a lot less volatile than the "rock and roll" one i'd used before.

grub · Post by **grub** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 6:02 pm

atomeyes wrote:yeah, the "error" part of "trial and error" never excites me. don't want a frothy mess on my hands for the party, but your directions were a lot less volatile than the "rock and roll" one i'd used before.

well, that 4-6hr rest before serving is to help it settle, and if you have err'd on the side of over carbonation, venting a little more should help. And if you're really paranoid, vent it way down, then throw it on gas at serving pressure for that last 6hr or so. might be a happy medium.

atomeyes · Post by **atomeyes** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:35 pm

getting around to pulling samples of my wild yeast collection i did in the spring.
it's taking time to thief samples. at the 9 month mark of capture. tasted 3 of the 4 samples i wanted to try tonight. 2 are promising and like no strain of brett i've had before. closest one would be would be to brett anomalus. smells like horse, compote and overripe strawberries. palate-wise, very little funk or flavour. it's all in the nose. a bit of citrus on the palate.
the other was neat. nose and palate was similar to Bastogne yeast. apple and pear nose, a bit of phenol. apple and pear taste and a bit tart. would be great for a secondary for a blonde or saison.

of course, the assumption is that these are brett strains. w/o a microscope, agar and a microbiology degree, i have no clue what these would do.

J343MY · Post by **J343MY** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:54 pm

atomeyes wrote:of course, the assumption is that these are brett strains. w/o a microscope, agar and a microbiology degree, i have no clue what these would do.

Only one way to find out.

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 10:55 pm

J343MY wrote:
atomeyes wrote:of course, the assumption is that these are brett strains. w/o a microscope, agar and a microbiology degree, i have no clue what these would do.
Only one way to find out.

Not quite. I happen to have a friend with all of those things who could tell you if you have Brett if you really want to know. In fact I just asked him how easy it is and this was his response:

Yeah, I could look at it under a microscope and see if there was any Brett in it. Brett looks a bit different from Saccharomyces. If it's a wild isolate there's probably more than one kind of bug in there, and I don't know if there's any way of identifying individual species of Brett, but seeing if some kind of Brett exists in your sample wold be a pretty simple job.

Edit: I don't actually know if he has agar, I'm just assuming that part. But if you really want to know if you've got Brett or not, I'll bee seeing him in a couple of weeks so if you get me a sample before then I'm sure he'd do it.

atomeyes · Post by **atomeyes** » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:15 pm

squeaky wrote:
J343MY wrote:
atomeyes wrote:of course, the assumption is that these are brett strains. w/o a microscope, agar and a microbiology degree, i have no clue what these would do.
Only one way to find out.
Not quite. I happen to have a friend with all of those things who could tell you if you have Brett if you really want to know. In fact I just asked him how easy it is and this was his response:

Yeah, I could look at it under a microscope and see if there was any Brett in it. Brett looks a bit different from Saccharomyces. If it's a wild isolate there's probably more than one kind of bug in there, and I don't know if there's any way of identifying individual species of Brett, but seeing if some kind of Brett exists in your sample wold be a pretty simple job.

Edit: I don't actually know if he has agar, I'm just assuming that part. But if you really want to know if you've got Brett or not, I'll bee seeing him in a couple of weeks so if you get me a sample before then I'm sure he'd do it.

he is correct. i assume they have lacto as well.
the problem is that finding out that it is brett really doesn't do much, since it may be a species of brett that's already out there.
i appreciate the offer, though. supernice.

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:37 pm

I'm sampling my stout now. It's not bad, but I'm finding the vanilla a little overpowering. Will that fade with time? I think it still needs a little more bottle conditioning to be at it's peak, so I'll probably try another on the weekend sometime.

J343MY · Post by **J343MY** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 7:47 pm

squeaky wrote:I'm sampling my stout now. It's not bad, but I'm finding the vanilla a little overpowering. Will that fade with time? I think it still needs a little more bottle conditioning to be at it's peak, so I'll probably try another on the weekend sometime.

Yeah, vanilla will fade eventually. How much vanilla did you use by the way?

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 9:55 pm

J343MY wrote:
squeaky wrote:I'm sampling my stout now. It's not bad, but I'm finding the vanilla a little overpowering. Will that fade with time? I think it still needs a little more bottle conditioning to be at it's peak, so I'll probably try another on the weekend sometime.
Yeah, vanilla will fade eventually. How much vanilla did you use by the way?

2 beans in the secondary of a 5 gallon batch. It had to stand up to 8 oz. chocolate nibs and three cups of coffee.

I did the coffee by cold brewing it and only dumping the extract, not the grounds, into the secondary. If I were to do it again I would want more coffee.

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:39 am

squeaky wrote:2 beans in the secondary of a 5 gallon batch. It had to stand up to 8 oz. chocolate nibs and three cups of coffee.

I did the coffee by cold brewing it and only dumping the extract, not the grounds, into the secondary. If I were to do it again I would want more coffee.

Best way to add coffee is to coarsely grind some beans and toss in a hop bag/cheesecloth directly into a cold keg (I just leave them in there until the keg blows). Secondary would also work, probably only needs a couple days.

And use the best, freshest beans you can get. 4oz/5gallons is plenty, you may even want to cut back to 2oz to start with.

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:41 am

Just finished up another batch of kombucha. This one has raspberries and mango.

atomeyes · Post by **atomeyes** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:45 am

markaberrant wrote:Just finished up another batch of kombucha. This one has raspberries and mango.

my first batch is ready this sunday. i assume the 1st is a dumper.
we're starting plain and then adding fruit. kind of excited.

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:52 am

markaberrant wrote:
squeaky wrote:2 beans in the secondary of a 5 gallon batch. It had to stand up to 8 oz. chocolate nibs and three cups of coffee.

I did the coffee by cold brewing it and only dumping the extract, not the grounds, into the secondary. If I were to do it again I would want more coffee.
Best way to add coffee is to coarsely grind some beans and toss in a hop bag/cheesecloth directly into a cold keg (I just leave them in there until the keg blows). Secondary would also work, probably only needs a couple days.

And use the best, freshest beans you can get. 4oz/5gallons is plenty, you may even want to cut back to 2oz to start with.

That was my original plan, but I read around on various forums and a bunch of people were pushing just adding cold brewed coffee instead, so I gave it a try. Next time I'll just toss the grounds in.