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We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.
Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!
What're you brewing right now?
Made a Vanilla Oatmeal Stout, first time adding vanilla. Used an entire bean, scrapped the inner seeds with a knife. Sanitized the scrapped bean, and the seeds in a shot of spiced rum before adding them to the primary fermenter. Bottled it and then aged the bottles for a month now; tried a bottle the other day, and I can't taste the vanilla. So I'm thinking I need to add more vanilla. But I don't know how much, I think I'll try 3 vanilla beans next time.
Any one have experience brewing with vanilla beans, and know how much a 5 Gallon batch can take before the vanilla shows through? Just looking for a nice vanilla flavour or finish. Do you think 3 is the right amount?
Any one have experience brewing with vanilla beans, and know how much a 5 Gallon batch can take before the vanilla shows through? Just looking for a nice vanilla flavour or finish. Do you think 3 is the right amount?
- markaberrant
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1664
- Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:28 pm
- Location: Regina, SK
vanilla in primary is the wrong way to go, 1 bean in secondary for a month and you would have been fineGuybrush wrote:Made a Vanilla Oatmeal Stout, first time adding vanilla. Used an entire bean, scrapped the inner seeds with a knife. Sanitized the scrapped bean, and the seeds in a shot of spiced rum before adding them to the primary fermenter. Bottled it and then aged the bottles for a month now; tried a bottle the other day, and I can't taste the vanilla. So I'm thinking I need to add more vanilla. But I don't know how much, I think I'll try 3 vanilla beans next time.
Any one have experience brewing with vanilla beans, and know how much a 5 Gallon batch can take before the vanilla shows through? Just looking for a nice vanilla flavour or finish. Do you think 3 is the right amount?
- grub
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1403
- Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:16 pm
- Location: Biergötter Homebrew Club, Brantford
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generally, yes, but with big beers you're often limited by the size of your mash tun. you also generally get worse efficiency with big beers, so sometimes a little something extra to bump it up to your target gravity is necessary.atomeyes wrote:i still don't understand the addition of DME to big beer.
can't you get away with upping grains to get the same OG?
big beers are why I have more tuns than I need - double them up for big brews. though once I finish the manifold for my new 120qt monster, I'll be able to stick to a single lauter tun at least...
@grubextrapolate // @biergotter // http://biergotter.org/
didn't think of mash tun size. whoops.grub wrote:generally, yes, but with big beers you're often limited by the size of your mash tun. you also generally get worse efficiency with big beers, so sometimes a little something extra to bump it up to your target gravity is necessary.atomeyes wrote:i still don't understand the addition of DME to big beer.
can't you get away with upping grains to get the same OG?
big beers are why I have more tuns than I need - double them up for big brews. though once I finish the manifold for my new 120qt monster, I'll be able to stick to a single lauter tun at least...
brewing a barley wine in august for the first time, so it was good to see that little attention to detail.
if my recipe had been all grain it would have been 21lbs of grainatomeyes wrote:didn't think of mash tun size. whoops.grub wrote:generally, yes, but with big beers you're often limited by the size of your mash tun. you also generally get worse efficiency with big beers, so sometimes a little something extra to bump it up to your target gravity is necessary.atomeyes wrote:i still don't understand the addition of DME to big beer.
can't you get away with upping grains to get the same OG?
big beers are why I have more tuns than I need - double them up for big brews. though once I finish the manifold for my new 120qt monster, I'll be able to stick to a single lauter tun at least...
brewing a barley wine in august for the first time, so it was good to see that little attention to detail.
- markaberrant
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1664
- Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:28 pm
- Location: Regina, SK
Brewed 10 gallons of "dark lager" yesterday... We'll see how the finished product tastes, but my process and ingredients are not authentic enough to call it a Munich Dunkel at this point.
Split it with 34/70 and S-23. Both were given to me by other homebrewers. Jared Carlberg (far and away the most successful homebrewer in Canada the last few years) has made award winning lagers with the poorly reviewed S-23, so figured I'd see for myself.
This is only the second lager I have ever brewed, and the last one was 5 years ago (a tasty 100% munich malt Vienna/Marzen).
Split it with 34/70 and S-23. Both were given to me by other homebrewers. Jared Carlberg (far and away the most successful homebrewer in Canada the last few years) has made award winning lagers with the poorly reviewed S-23, so figured I'd see for myself.
This is only the second lager I have ever brewed, and the last one was 5 years ago (a tasty 100% munich malt Vienna/Marzen).
Brewed up an Alt last night,
American - Pilsner 58.5%
American - Munich - 60L 29.3%
American - Caramel / Crystal 80L 4.9%
American - Wheat 4.9%
German - Melanoidin 2.4%
Hit all my numbers on the dot, OG 1.061. Using Wyeast 1007 to ferment, first time doing a German ale so excited to see how it turns out.
American - Pilsner 58.5%
American - Munich - 60L 29.3%
American - Caramel / Crystal 80L 4.9%
American - Wheat 4.9%
German - Melanoidin 2.4%
Hit all my numbers on the dot, OG 1.061. Using Wyeast 1007 to ferment, first time doing a German ale so excited to see how it turns out.
- markaberrant
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1664
- Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:28 pm
- Location: Regina, SK
Is the 60L munich a typo?ritzkiss wrote:Brewed up an Alt last night,
American - Pilsner 58.5%
American - Munich - 60L 29.3%
American - Caramel / Crystal 80L 4.9%
American - Wheat 4.9%
German - Melanoidin 2.4%
Hit all my numbers on the dot, OG 1.061. Using Wyeast 1007 to ferment, first time doing a German ale so excited to see how it turns out.
Haha, yep. Just regular ol' 9L Munich Malt.markaberrant wrote:Is the 60L munich a typo?ritzkiss wrote:Brewed up an Alt last night,
American - Pilsner 58.5%
American - Munich - 60L 29.3%
American - Caramel / Crystal 80L 4.9%
American - Wheat 4.9%
German - Melanoidin 2.4%
Hit all my numbers on the dot, OG 1.061. Using Wyeast 1007 to ferment, first time doing a German ale so excited to see how it turns out.
- markaberrant
- Seasoned Drinker
- Posts: 1664
- Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:28 pm
- Location: Regina, SK
6 months ago, i managed to get my paws on some East Coast Yeast Flemish Ale. made a Flemish red with it with, i believe, your recipe you sent to me (with a few tweaks) and the sour stout.markaberrant wrote:What are you using for critters?atomeyes wrote:brewed a sour stout.
2-3 weeks of fermenting in primary, then 6 months in secondary. 8.1% abv if the yeast cake of bugs i re-pitched is still healthy and fun.
sour stout had some wood chips soaked in Wild Turkey 81 added to it. tasted it a month ago and it was absolutely incredible. like, you'd go nuts if you could buy this commercially. and i give all the credit to the bug mix. it is spectacular.
i took the yeast cake from secondary, added a starter of WLP's abbey yeast to get the high attenuation and let it ride.
fermentation was nuts after 1 day in my basement.
if you want to risk it, i'll send you some of the primary yeast cake. but the amount of sacc versus bugs means that you'd have to build a starter and be patient for it to balance out.
if you want it, let me know.