The Beer Nerd - what are you drinking / brewing thread

I picked this before I left Louisiana. It’s aiight!

 

It's tasty

 

Thanks to Covid, they are sending these down from Vermont to Mass.

 

Broke into my private stash

 

Well, my Hazy IPA brew day didnt go so hot today... It seems my temp sensor is on the fritz, as it was saying my water that was sitting in the garage overnight was in the high 90s, a few odd numbers during the mash, and then 236 degrees at the end of my mash. Overall, the gravity came in pretty low compared to my expected number, so it'll be about 5.5% instead of about 7%. I'm guessing the temp was either lower than it was supposed to be, or higher, or both at different times, which gave me a less than stellar conversion. Oh well.

Shopping homebrew stuff now, and debating if I want to drop the coin on a stainless fermenter like the cool kids.

 

Sure, blame it on the equipment

 

Yeah yeah yeah.... I had issues a few brews back with the temp going nuts, and realized the system won't work if there's any issues with the temp probes, I can't even do it manually. Got a new sensor and it seemed to be fine, but today it wen't only a little haywire. Still really frustrating. Guess I just need to brew another one....

 

Eh, I’m sure you’ll still have beer in the end.

Can the probe(s) be calibrated?

I may still go stainless down the road, but I just picked up a Fermzilla All-Rounder to try my hand at pressure fermentation. That seems to be a bit of a divisive topic in the homebrew community but I figured I’d give it a shot. Especially now that I’ve got my kegging system almost up and running.

 

I've never really looked into it, I checked it when I got it and it was pretty close so I never bothered. I think the mash n boil piece probably has a calibration offset you can use. The problem with this is it just goes erratic. It always reads high, but it varies from like 15 to 200 degrees high. It's not consistent. I've got an email out to the vendor for advice.

Bonus of fermenting this harvested Omega Tropical IPA yeast? It takes off in hours, and it likes warm temps so I put it on my dining room table, so the whole house smells like a juicy IPA

Also I looked at the Chapman brew buckets and SS brewtech/Spike and decided Chapman seems too cheap, but the others are just too pricey for something I just don't feel like will make THAT much of a difference. Prove me wrong @Beer:30

 

For me, the stainless fermenter was one of those things I didn't realize how much I needed (or would appreciate) until after I had it. Like you, I couldn't justify $200 or more for a glorified bucket, so I didn't buy one. But one Father's Day, my wife needed an idea for a gift so I said, "well, there's this stainless steel fermenter I've been eyeballing" and that was that. As far as a fermentation vessel goes, I don't know if it produces beer that's any better than you get using a plastic bucket, especially since I tend to go from grain to keg rather quickly, but where it really shines is in being able to do CO2 transfers to the keg and back-filling with CO2 when cold crashing. Without a doubt these two things have improved the freshness of my brews. My IPAs tend to still have great hop flavor and aroma after several months of being on tap. You could also get these features using glass carboys, but I stopped using those years ago because I'm concerned about breakage and they're a PITA to clean. If I were to add a 2nd fermenter to my stash, which is something I've been considering, I wouldn't even consider anything but another SST Brewbucket.

 

That's kind of what I'm seeing is really one of the main benefits, because I don't feel my beers have suffered from any bad ferments due to plastic, it's really just that I feel my brews really change pretty quickly, generally for the worse, which i'm thinking more and more is attributed to the 02. I'm going to do my best to purge this keg out before filling it, because i spent some $$ on the hops to make a hazy, and I want it to be tasty for more than a week or two. The chapman buckets are appealing, since they're half the price, but they seem to lack the quality control and some of the features of the nicer ones. They also don't seem immediately ready to pressure transfer, but neither does the SS brewtech really... The Anvil seems like a nice compromise, I forgot about that one.

In other news, the vendor i got my system from said to just pop out the EZBoil controller and pop it back in to see if it fixes it..... Don't touch connections or anything, just....unseat the thing and re-seat it... I asked how that might help things, so we'll see!

 

Just sell your motorcycle you never ride and buy yourself a new fermenter

 

Stop buying new turn signals for your bike and buy a brewing system

 

Trying to whip out a double brew day. I just mashed in a “light” lager that’s 50/50 Munich and Pilsner with a little sugar for dryness. It should come out to about 3.8% abv.



After that, I am hoping to work in a table saison with my Mad Fermentationist mixed-culture. 70/20/10 pils, wheat, and rye for the grist. This one should hopefully end up around 4.2% with 100% attenuation.

 

You just need the right angle fitting and you can do CO2 back fills right out of the box with the Brewbucket, and pressure transfers should also theoretically be possible (the connection is there, anyway) but the included flat lid supposedly doesn't have the strength. I never tried it with the flat lid before I added the Chronical fermenter domed lid (stronger) and some Tri-Clover fittings. If you're careful with the pressure, the flat lid might work all right, but I think you'd still bleed a lot of CO2 out thru the seal. Even with the domed lid you have to be careful and only pressurize to a couple PSI or you'll blow off the lid (ask me how I know) and it also bleeds CO2 out the gasket, so you can't just leave it under pressure with the tank valve open and forget about it or you'll soon find you have an empty CO2 tank. The clamps that hold the lid on are not all that robust and they will give out if you put too much pressure on them. Also, if you have any plans on going with a spunding set up to ferment under pressure, you'd need an actual conical fermenter, as the Brewbucket is not designed for that. It won't come anywhere near holding the 15 psi that you need for spunding.

 

Nope. Don’t have the space to store a brew system. And I get near daily use out of my bike. Money better spent

 

Some Numb Numb Juice

 

Leffe

 

Your beer glass is awesome!