Home Brew Questions

One thing I was reading about on this topic is that in many homebrews there is a bit of sediment (extra yeast) at the bottom of every bottle and often times you need to leave that be because it will definitely give you the shits.

[quote]bloodygonzo wrote:
One thing I was reading about on this topic is that in many homebrews there is a bit of sediment (extra yeast) at the bottom of every bottle and often times you need to leave that be because it will definitely give you the shits.[/quote]

That’s actually true of many beers…home brewed or otherwise. It’s generally associated with beer that is bottle conditioned. But even beers that are not bottle conditioned but are unfiltered can also have yeast sediment.

Some people swear it gives them the runs…but I don’t have that issue. Much like anything else, it can affect different people in different ways.

Here is a link I found

http://dl.btjunkie.org/torrent/Froth-The-Science-of-Beer/43586f3bce3df794fd334253c034f762bb7103c780a2/download.torrent

^the file

http://btjunkie.org/torrent/Froth-The-Science-of-Beer/43586f3bce3df794fd334253c034f762bb7103c780a2
^site that hosts it

Enjoy

Thanks a lot dirtbag!

[quote]Alpha wrote:
Thanks a lot dirtbag![/quote]

I don’t drink a lot but I think it would be a fun hobby to pick up. But then I might start to drink more LOL I know I can make some Pale Ales. That would go good with a grilled chicken baked potato dinners.

After reading this book I posted on the subject has anyone ever filtered there brews. Cause from my reading beer snobs think that filtering takes away from the taste of the brew and just makes it look pretty to laymen. If you have filtered how did you do it and what materials and cost did you use?

[quote]dirtbag wrote:

[quote]Alpha wrote:
Thanks a lot dirtbag![/quote]

I don’t drink a lot but I think it would be a fun hobby to pick up. But then I might start to drink more LOL I know I can make some Pale Ales. That would go good with a grilled chicken baked potato dinners.

After reading this book I posted on the subject has anyone ever filtered there brews. Cause from my reading beer snobs think that filtering takes away from the taste of the brew and just makes it look pretty to laymen. If you have filtered how did you do it and what materials and cost did you use? [/quote]

Cheese cloth…I kid…I have no clue how to.

Cheese cloth is a completely acceptable solution if you’re doing extract/grain or all grain brewing, but it will be very tedious. The benefits of moving to an all grain setup is that the grain bed acts as a filter when you begin the mash out (just run a couple pints through it first by letting it run off in to a pitcher and then pouring the wort back in the top of the mash tun to recycle it).

What I’ve learned so far is that a yeast strain can make or break your beer. Picking the right yeast for a particular beer style can turn a beer from “good” to “great”. Also, I marvel at this guys set up; it’s so money.

http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/Alenuts.html

[quote]patience wrote:
Cheese cloth is a completely acceptable solution if you’re doing extract/grain or all grain brewing, but it will be very tedious. The benefits of moving to an all grain setup is that the grain bed acts as a filter when you begin the mash out (just run a couple pints through it first by letting it run off in to a pitcher and then pouring the wort back in the top of the mash tun to recycle it).

What I’ve learned so far is that a yeast strain can make or break your beer. Picking the right yeast for a particular beer style can turn a beer from “good” to “great”. Also, I marvel at this guys set up; it’s so money.

http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/Alenuts.html[/quote]

Man that way to advanced for me

I was thinking of using this method for starting out with a malt extract and seeing if I like doing it.

Here he is tasting it

Here is his method from start to finish

@dirtbag:
yeah man i have seen that guy before and I think what he does would be an excellent way to start your first brew. honestly mine was just a little more advanced than this…

BTW i am bottleing this weekend! Yeah! only a few more weeks of conditioning and i will be drinking my own beer!

I began hating the taste of beer about 10 years ago. It’s more of the yeasty aftertaste that killed it for me.
Recently my wife’s nephew began brewing in his basement, brought a batch over last Christmas to share with us all. It’s the best damn beer I’ve ever had! Great smooth texture, flavor, and no aftertaste at all.

I’ll try to find out what his ingredients were.

[quote]Alpha wrote:
@dirtbag:
yeah man i have seen that guy before and I think what he does would be an excellent way to start your first brew. honestly mine was just a little more advanced than this…

BTW i am bottleing this weekend! Yeah! only a few more weeks of conditioning and i will be drinking my own beer![/quote]

I am guessing you were doing a mash and adding your own hops with boiling the wort at difference temps as in stages?

I am kinda lazy and as you said wanna start of small. I think where I might differ is in using glass self cork bottles at around 1 Litre each. But I think I am going to get my supplies when I get paid next.

Good luck with your beer Alpha! Make sure to let it bottle condition longer than you need to. For most beers I move them into the fridge for the final week of conditioning…it makes them clearer and taste better.

A couple people asked about getting “the runs” after drinking homebrew. This could be a contamination issue, but more likely it has to do with opening a beer before it has finished conditioning. One of the purposes of conditioning is to re-activate the yeast with a simple sugar…the yeast eats the sugar, produces CO2 (thus carbonating the bottle) and becomes inactive again. When you open a bottle prematurely, there is still active yeast digesting the sugar that was added, and enough active yeast + your GI tract = unbelievable diarrhea. This is another reason to be patient and let your beer finish conditioning.

Most beer contaminations result in either gushing after opening (although this can also be a result of adding too much sugar to the bottle for conditioning), or no carbonation at all. If a beer is contaminated, you’ll know it…a couple sips and you’ll pour it down the sink.

I think that sterility is important, but not AS important as some make it out to be. Keep in mind the Belgians, Germans and Czechs of 500-1000 years ago didn’t have access to IodaPhor or Hydrogen Peroxide…they didn’t even know what a microbe was, and were still able to brew incredible beer.

I have just begun fermentation of a hard cider. I read a lot of conflicting instructions on the best way to do this and I kinda combined what I read to the following process.

  1. heat up 2 gallons of non-pasturized apple cider from the local orchard.
  2. add 3 pounds of honey as the cider heats and stir it in.
  3. add 3 gallons of cool/room temp cider to the 6 gallon carboy
  4. after heating (not boil) finished add 2 gallons to the carboy
  5. add the last gallon of room temp cider to the carboy
  6. allow the mixture to reach room temp.
  7. add belgian yeast and apply airlock

So far things are going well. There was an initial foam up but that has deflated and the airlock appears to be working well.

I am planning on bottling the cider in 3 weeks.

My concern is how to make the cider slightly sweet while also making sure it is carbonated. I was reading a few blogs where people added 3/5 teaspoon of sugar to each bottle as well as some Splenda to sweeten the cider. If I end up with a crisp dry cider I won’t be disappointed but I would like to experiment with a few sweeter bottles.

Thanks so much for any suggestions you guys can offer.

-BloodyGonzo

Pimpbot: thanks man, i am definitely going to try what you said with the conditioning.

well i just tasted it…it turned out AWESOME! i am More than surprised!

but i already have new ideas for my next batch…i think i may be addicted