The Bar Towel

phat matt wrote:I was just wondering about different peoples procedures for getting it ready. no need to be a dick about it.

Sorry, I didn't know what you meant by suggestion, my response was intended as a leading question, no dickish intentions at all.

I just throw my oak cubes directly into the keg/secondary for 3 months. I keep them stored in a sealed package and only add to strong beers that have already fermented out, so I'm not too worried about infection or over oaking. Lots of people think the raw flavour of new oak is too strong, but 3 months gives it time to extract the full flavours, as well as mellow and blend. Depending on the beer, I use 1-2oz of cubes per 5 gallons.

I prefer the heavy toast american cubes, this is what is used for bourbon production. French and hungarian oak has a much different character that is not suited for dark beer in my opinion, though they can work nicely in some belgians.

Cubes are by far my preferred choice. Chips are awful, stores shouldn't even be allowed to sell that sawdust crap, and I haven't had good results with the spirals either.

If I want to add bourbon, I'll just add it to the keg/bottling bucket until I get the flavour I want. There is really no benefit to soaking cubes in bourbon ahead of time, other than the alcohol will help santize the cubes and get the flavour extraction process started a little sooner.

My first Lager, a Bo-Pils.

I have an apfelwine, a double IPA and a dopplebock in primary, an amarillo pale ale in secondary, and I have 2 gallons of ginger beer simmering on the stove.

markaberrant wrote:

phat matt wrote:I was just wondering about different peoples procedures for getting it ready. no need to be a dick about it.

Sorry, I didn't know what you meant by suggestion, my response was intended as a leading question, no dickish intentions at all.

I just throw my oak cubes directly into the keg/secondary for 3 months. I keep them stored in a sealed package and only add to strong beers that have already fermented out, so I'm not too worried about infection or over oaking. Lots of people think the raw flavour of new oak is too strong, but 3 months gives it time to extract the full flavours, as well as mellow and blend. Depending on the beer, I use 1-2oz of cubes per 5 gallons.

I prefer the heavy toast american cubes, this is what is used for bourbon production. French and hungarian oak has a much different character that is not suited for dark beer in my opinion, though they can work nicely in some belgians.

Cubes are by far my preferred choice. Chips are awful, stores shouldn't even be allowed to sell that sawdust crap, and I haven't had good results with the spirals either.

If I want to add bourbon, I'll just add it to the keg/bottling bucket until I get the flavour I want. There is really no benefit to soaking cubes in bourbon ahead of time, other than the alcohol will help santize the cubes and get the flavour extraction process started a little sooner.

Sorry about that. sometimes things arnt clear on the net. I am definetly going to use american oak after doing some reading. I also like the idea of adding the bourbon at bottling to dial it in. I will take everyones advice into consideration. Thanks for the help again.

Brewed my 12oz of Amarillo Pale Ale batch today.

-5 lbs of dry amber malt extract. I'm going to do steeping from now on now that I am all out of amber malt extract. I added 2 lbs at the start of the boil and the remaining 3 lbs at 30 min. due to a suggestion from a friend.

-2 oz Amarillo 60 min
-2 oz Amarillo 10 min
-2 oz Amarillo 5 min.

-US-05

Going to dry hop with 6 oz of Amarillo (had originally intended 8oz in the boil and 4 in the dry hop but changed my mind) in my new glass carboy in a couple weeks. I hit my intended volume of 4.5 gallons right on the head, but my OG was a little lower than expected. ProMash said 1.051 and I got just a hair under the 1.050 mark on the hydrometer. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

Now I am out of yeast and malt extract. I do have a 1lb of Crystal Malt 10, a few ounces of Citra, a few ounces of Warrior and a 1 lb bag of Columbus though.

I'd like to try brewing a porter or stout next, but I don't think Citra, Warrior or Columbus are style appropriate for that.

Well!!!

I just tasted my IPA - from a brew kit - and I gotta say it's mighty fine - I checked the gravity and it's about at 1020ish right now, so I think I'll just keep it in the primary for a couple of days, thank ye very much!

I'm going to dry hop it with 4 oz of Willamette later.

Am I THE BEST BREWER EVER????

...possibly...

Look out Gumer Santos!!! Here comes the JEFF...

...and maybe some day I'll make my own wort!!!...

I brewed a wheat on the weekend. Pale malt and wheat with some orange and lemon zest (almost forgot to add it due to beer sampling). Almost used up the last of my homegrown cascade hops. My first time using wyeast 1010 American wheat, was slow to start then blew out the airlock last night.

A traditional Marzen 2 wks ago, then pitched the best of the cake on a doppelbock today (DEHYDrator II).

I just kegged a licorice Imperial Stout, and just got home from brewing a Mango Foreign Extra Stout.

Tonight I'm bottling an IPA with locally grown organic Cascade.

Just dry hopped my Amarillo Pale Ale yesterday before going to work. Put the hops in a sanitized bag as to avoid the painful transfer I had last week.

In my glass carboy I have a Pale Ale made with Columbus, Cascade, and Citra, and I'm going to dry hop it with Cascade, Columbus and Willamette. Fermenting with US-05.

My next batch I'll be using US-04.

Sounds like everyone is brewing up a storm for the NHC/ALES Open in April! AMIRITE?

Seriously though, we just judged our club's "extract/kit competition," and the entries were all pretty good (I gave out a couple of 40s). We have lots of new brewers, so I thought the results were very encouraging, yet I know many of them are still intimidated to enter a "real" competition. BOLLOCKS to that! You can't win if you don't enter!

Cheers,

markaberrant wrote:Sounds like everyone is brewing up a storm for the NHC/ALES Open in April! AMIRITE?

Seriously though, we just judged our club's "extract/kit competition," and the entries were all pretty good (I gave out a couple of 40s). We have lots of new brewers, so I thought the results were very encouraging, yet I know many of them are still intimidated to enter a "real" competition. BOLLOCKS to that! You can't win if you don't enter!

Cheers,

Hey Mark, just a question - still new to this and still using kits...kits like Festabrew and Brew House...do people enter competitions with these, say if they hacked them? Cause it'd be cool just to enter for fun...

Cheers and thanks,

Jeff

Yup, you bet, kits are a-ok to enter.

Derek wrote: A traditional Marzen 2 wks ago, then pitched the best of the cake on a doppelbock today (DEHYDrator II).

After one week, the doppel is at 55%AA with a SG=1.036. So this is what they tasted like around 1870... prune juice!

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2009 ... -beer.html

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CHrKKDU9290/S ... 3_2004.JPG

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008 ... vator.html

{my little friends better keep working}.