Bradinator.com » Home Brewing

Homebrew – Moved to Secondary, added oak chips

bradinator — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:12:49 +0000

The lid on one of my plastic fermenter buckets is not the best. It does not make a seal so I am always hesitant to leave my beer in it for longer than a week. This is a good reason to move my beer to the secondary carboy, which will give me a cleaner looking final product.

I decided to take this as an opportunity to pitch 1/2 oz (about 10g) of french oak chips I had sitting in my bag of ingredients. I could not begin to guess how old they are, but being wood I doubt they go bad.

The gravity reading was a perfect 1.010. By the time I return from Japan this beer will be ready for bottling… Though I doubt I will have the energy to do this after the long flight….

Brew Day – Mild Manner PM

bradinator — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:46:21 +0000

It feels like its been a very long time since my last homebrewed beer. So before I leave on vacation I figured I would get another English Mild ready. By the time I come back it should be ready for bottles and shortly thereafter ready for drinking.

Here is the recipe

3.75lbs of LME (Draught)
1 cup of Light DME
1 cup of Demerara Sugar
1/8lbs of Black Patent Malt
1lbs of Vienna Malt
0.5lbs of 2-Row Malt
0.5lbs of Brown Malt
Tettnanger Hops @75min
Liberty Hops @75mins
1/2tsp Irish Moss
1/2tsp Yeast Nutrient
11g S-05 American Ale Yeast

As this was an attempt at a partial mash, I sparged the grains as best as I could though I doubt I really gained much extract from this attempt. The sparge was done at 80c, for 30 minutes. According to Beersmith my efficiency is still below 40% which is terrible.

Everything else went according to plan. Pitched the yeast dry at around 26c. Original gravity was 1.036.

Bottled Mystery Cider

bradinator — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:56:08 +0000

I completely forgot about this one. Its been sitting in its fermenter since the end of May and I finally got around to bottling over a month later. This is the very first (and possibly last) beverage I have created by simply dumping the mixture straight on top of the yeast cake of recently bottled beer. If this turns out to be a drinkable cider I may start doing this for all of my finished beers.

I primed it with about a 1/2 cup of demerara sugar and managed to squeeze about 20 pints and 10 bottles of this odd-ball cider out of it. The final gravity was 1.000, giving it in ABV of about 5% and a very low calorie count of about 160kcal a pint.

Next week I will pop one of this concoctions into the fridge and try it out.

Bottling Day – Molasses Porter and English Mild

bradinator — Sat, 29 May 2010 21:41:59 +0000

Just a quick update on my last two home brews. I racked both of them today which required me to use every single bottle I own. I could not begin to tell you how many bottles I got, but its probably around 70 pints between the both of them.

Too be honest I kind of rush both of them and did not take an accurate measurement for the priming sugar. It should have worked out to about 1/2 cup of dextrose each, but I kind of eye-balled it.

Molasses Porter –

Born May 2, Secondary May 16th, Bottled May 29
Original Gravity: 1.056
Final Gravity: 1.020 (S-33 SafAle yeast sucks)
ABV: 4.7%, Calories/Pint: 250kcal
Cost per pint: ~$1.00-$1.25

English Mild –

Born May 8, Secondary May 16th, Bottled May 29
Original Gravity: 1.034
Final Gravity: 1.009 (S-04 SafAle yeast rocks)
ABV: 3.2%, Calories/Pint: 150kcal
Cost per pint: ~$0.70-$0.80

Finally I will give both 7-14 days to bottle condition. I have so much beer downstairs right now I do not even know what to do with it.

And here is the real crazy thing… I created an experimental cider today too. I used 2 gallons of cranberry cocktail, 1 can of frozen pineapple juice concentrate and topped it with water. Worst of all I just pitched this on top of the yeast cake from my molasses porter! What was I thinking!? Original gravity is 1.038 and god have mercy on my soul for this monstrosity I am creating.

Brew Updates – Dark Tower Graff Bottled and Molasses Porter moved

bradinator — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:49:34 +0000

Today I spent the last two hours cleaning, bottling, cleaning, racking, cleaning and finally more cleaning. All for the sake of beer.

I decided to rack the Dark Tower Graff to bottles early for two reasons. First was that I want to have them ready for drinking before the long weekend, which happens to be the next weekend. Secondly I wanted my other glass carboy freed up so I could move the stagnant Molasses Porter into it.

The Dark Tower Graff read a final gravity of 1.010 which is no change from when I moved it to its secondary one week ago. The ABV is 5.5% and its 230k/cal a pint. I managed to get 37 and a half pints of graff from this batch which works out to about $1.10 a bottle. That is a guesstimate at best as I did not track how much the ingredients actually cost me for this batch. That 1/2 pint will most likely be ‘tested’ tonight as there is no point in carbonating a half-bottle as there is too much air space, which will leave it flat anyway.

I still have high hopes for the Molasses Porter. I am hoping that racking it to the secondary will awaken the yeast and get me at least a few more points of gravity. I want to see it hit a final gravity of 1.010 to 1.014, but that is a long way off in the world of home brewing. This will be getting at least two weeks in its new home as I will not be racking anything next weekend, rather I will be busy drinking my work.