Everything Homebrew!

reply to post by Druid42


Yep. I'll be posting it tomorrow with the pics.

DerbyCityLights Chocolate Oatmeal Stout:


First and foremost, you MUST decon all of your equipment. I use this:



Here is a pic of the ingredients:



Once everything has been cleaned, I add 2.5 gallons of water into my Wort pot and begin the SLOW heating of the water to 155F. While the Wort water is heating to the desired temp, I fill my Wort bags with the needed grains. I use two Wort bags for this.

In the first bag, I add 8oz of crushed roasted barley and 12 oz of crushed caramel malt. Both Brewers Best brand.

In the second bag I add 8 oz of flaked oats, 12 oz of crushed chocolate malt and 4 more oz of crushed caramel malt.

After the bags are filled and set aside on a sterile surface, I take my liquid malt extract and set it inside a sink full of hot water. This will heat the malt, making it easier to pour when you need it later.

Once the Wort water has heated up to 155F, I lower the temp and wait for the temp to settle at 155F. The temp will continue to rise once you lower the heat so you have to wait for the temp to settle. If you steep your Wort bags at 170F or above, you will leach tannins out of the grains, thus giving a raw and bitter flavor to your Wort.

Now I add the bags.



I let the grain bags steep for approximately 25 minutes, occasionally stirring the Wort and gently tapping the bags with my brew paddle.

After the grains have steeped for 25 minutes, I remove the bags from the water, letting them drain without squeezing the bags at all, then throw them in a separate bag. I reuse the grains as compost for my small back yard garden so I don’t throw them away. I have a friend that raises chickens and he feeds his used grains to them. If its the winter time and my garden is dormant, I give him my bags for his chickens.



Once the bags are removed, gently stir the mixture with your paddle and begin raising the temperature to a gentle rolling boil. You now have your Wort.



Once you have your boil, add the heated 3.5Lb of Muntons traditional dark liquid malt extract, 2Lb of Brewers Best dark dried malt and 8oz of maltodextrin. Now you need to pay close attention to your Wort. You need to continually stir the mixture with your paddle so the malt does not caramelize and stick to the bottom of the pot. Also pour the dry mixture slowly to avoid clumping in the Wort.

While stirring the Wort, slowly add 1oz of Brewers Best Cascade bittering hops. Be careful though. If your boil is to hot, you can boil over. Now make note of the time. After 45 minutes, add 1 tablespoon of Carlsons Irish moss. Let the Wort boil for another 10 minutes while gently stirring.

Now you will add 1oz of LD Carlsons Glacier Leaf hops and 1.5oz of LD Carlsons Cascade aroma hops. Boils for an additional 5 minutes.

Ok, here is where the Wort chiller comes in handy. Remove your brew from the oven and set it in your sink. Hook up your Wort chiller to your faucet and let the water exhaust tube lay in the other side of the sink. Now submerge the Wort chiller in your pot and turn on the cold water. The water removed the heat from the brew as it circulates through the copper coil. If you don't have a Wort chiller, you can fill your sink with ice around your pot and slowly stir the mixture till it cools to room temp (preferably 68-74F.)

I'm having problems getting the image imported for the connected wort chiller in the pot, but here is a pic of the chiller out of the pot and next to all the ingredients:



Now remove the chiller and set it aside. Get your first stage fermentation bucket ready. Grab the pot and slowly pour the brew into the first stage fermentation bucket. I strain mine through a nice strainer to minimize trub transfer. KEEP THE TRUB OUT! Add enough sterile water to the mix to make 5gal and stir gently, thoroughly mixing the entire bucket. Don't spill any of the precious brew as you stir or pour!

Now you slowly add a 4.5oz packet of Wyeast dark stout yeast to the bucket. Follow the directions on the package. You have to smash the bag to activate the yeast. Once the bag has swelled, it is ready to add. Stir the hell out of the brew to ensure complete mixture of the yeast. Once mixed, take your OG reading. Mine is 1.58 with a potential ABV of 7.3 according to my measurement device.

(continued)

Seal your bucket and pop in the airlock and store in a dark cool place (approx. 68F) for 1 week, then transfer to second stage fermentation for an additional 2 weeks. Once the second stage has finished, take your FG reading and prep your priming sugar. Add 15oz of priming sugar to 4 cups of water in a small pot and bring to a slow boil while stirring. Pour this mixture into your bottling bucket then transfer the fermented brew to the bottling bucket to begin bottling.

Once bottled, store the bottles in a dry cool area (again, approx 68F) and let sit for at least two weeks. I prefer around a month for further fermentation and proper carbonation.

To find your ABV, the formula is OG-FGx131.25=ABV.

Some definitions:
Wort-The beginning liquid used to create your brew. Made by steeping grains and boiling malts and sugars.

Trub-The hopps and grain refuse at the bottom of your boiling Wort.

Let me know if there are any questions.

Got the pic import issue fixed. Here is a pic of the strained trub:



Wort chiller in pot, hooked up to faucet and in action:

reply to post by DerbyCityLights


Excellent post. Very precise. Thanks for sharing with us.

It does seem like you need to upgrade to all-grain recipes. You ever consider making the step? You obviously have perfected extract brewing.

You need one more piece of equipment, a lauter-tun. I made a false bottom out of a 5 gallon pail, and I'd be happy to explain the procedure if you're interested. Takes about 10 pounds of grain, as opposed to buying extracts. Everything else is pretty much the same.

reply to post by Druid42



Im always happy to have recommendations or advice for my brewing. Id love to hear how to do it.

Edit to add: Im considering adding a light roast coffee during second stage but I havent decided yet.

Im pretty stoked. This yeast culture is the strongest I've ever had. My airlock is churning like a boil lol! Im getting about three burps a second. Never had the process react near this strong before. Here is to hoping this is a good sign!

Nice pictures, DerbyCityLights!

I have a ton of pictures myself of several brews.

reply to post by The Sword


Thanks

Here is a little something that falls under everything home brew.

Andriod powered keg

That brew looks like a winner Derby! Thanks for sharing that

I just kegged my second-ever batch last night which is a Mesquite-smoked Munich Helles. I took it out of secondary a littler earlier than I'd wanted to mainly because I want to share it with some friends at an event this weekend. I think it will be fine.

I wanted to Lager it originally using my old fridge in the garage and for the first week I dropped temp by about 3 degrees a day starting around 50 degrees but the stupid fridge wouldn't get colder than 40 lol. Soo....I just left it there and if anyone asked, it's a Lager/Ale hybrid :-)

During transfer to my corny, I got a good little taste of it and it was quite interesting. Very "malty" and a little sweet even, but in the way that Heffe's are sweet. I didn't pick up much of a smokey taste though. Hopefully the complexion will change a bit once it's carb'd

My next invention I think will be Kolsch of some sort, most likely using Cherrywood smoke

reply to post by TXRabbit


Thanks

I'll be going to second stage ferm tomorrow and reyeasting with new cultures and also adding about three cups of coffee beans. This is turning out to be sort of a Frankenstein since I have never done this before and Im not sure of the outcome, but you never know till you try. I love the Russian coffee stouts and Im a caramel and chocolate addict so what ever comes out, Im sure Im gonna love it. Ill leave it in 2nd stage ferm for two weeks then bottle. Im trying to have it all finished by June 4th. I have my best friend coming in from Texas for a week and he and I were always beer snobs lol.

Still trying to organize a brew day here. Got a friend that wants a ton of beer brewed that will pay for it but I'm trying to talk him into doing some of the work as well because it's a lot of work for one person to brew that much.

Any suggestions for all-grain kits? I want to buy a formal kit.

Me and my brother in-law have been all grain brewing for about 5 years now. We just started off our brewing season last week with our version of a cream ale, and we'll be concentrating on British styles for the rest of this brew-year. We also grow our own hops (EKG, Cascade, etc...)

We anticipate 120+ gallons brewed before end October all divied up in 5 gal. Cornelius Kegs.

Here's some of his(our) brew.

reply to post by palg1


What type of growing environment does hops require?

reply to post by The Sword


National Homebrew Day is tomorrow! Hopefully, I'll take a few pics of our group and post them up.

Yes, you need to enlist help for that much brew. I finished bottling my Cyser by myself, phew. I'm gonna take a case of it to brewday. I gave two bottles away, and got rave reviews back.

reply to post by TXRabbit


Different hops like different environments. Somelike it dry, some moist. It all depends. All you need is the ribsome, really, and you could grow them in a big flower pot.

I've been brewing for a long time. I've done everything from mead to cider to wine to beer, but I primarily brew beer.

I don't think you asked any specific questions in your OP, and I read through the first page or so but again didn't see any specific questions...

It looks like you have a basic understanding of brewing, what are you looking for?

I'm not at home right now, but I have three recipes that are big hits with everyone I know. Each one is my own recipe, and as unique as you can be while still sticking to the style - I'll post a recipe for my "neighborhood famous" oatmeal stout and perhaps show you my Tonya's Irish Red too.

reply to post by DerbyCityLights


I clicked you link thinking this was going to be some kind of sweet food recipe

For this type of misleading I believe you owe me a recipe for sweet foods

reply to post by palg1


Ooh a cream ale! Currently, there aren't many of those available commercially. I can only think of Narragansett and Genesee at this point.

My cousin does the all-grain gig too and is fairly competent. Let's just say that I'm jealous. However, this problem of mine is fairly easy to fix by upgrading my living quarters.