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Homebrewing Beer

I ferment with fruit in primary all the time. Especially my pumpkin ales (this is a bitch to clean out after though).
 
bym051d said:
Sit in the keg at room temp for a couple of weeks before chilling/carbing. Your first glass has whatever settled yeast in it and everything else after is wonderful.
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I dont think I could ever use this method. I'd hate to have to throw that first beer out. If it wasnt obvious when I had a meltdown losing the last batch, I'm very protective of my homebrew. It pains me to lose a single drop.
 
dot com said:
I ferment with fruit in primary all the time. Especially my pumpkin ales (this is a bitch to clean out after though).
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I do now after I read up on it. At first I was freaking out thinking my beer was going to be bad. Also, the seeds got stuck in ferment lock, pressure built up and blew the ferment lock off and I had raspberry seeds all over my ceiling. Now I use a blow off hose when I ferment with fruit.
 
tsywake said:
I dont think I could ever use this method. I'd hate to have to throw that first beer out. If it wasnt obvious when I had a meltdown losing the last batch, I'm very protective of my homebrew. It pains me to lose a single drop.
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There's plenty of loss when you siphon anyway. That's how I justify it.
 
tsywake said:
I'm heading by this afternoon. Since the website isnt very specific, I'll see if I can take some pics to share.
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The place is pretty nondescript, tucked away in a strip mall. When you walk in, there is nothing but beer and wine brewing equipment and supplies. Overall, they were a little more expensive than City Beverage, but had a much larger selection and the ingredients looked fresher. Dan was very happy to talk to me about brewing and offered up some tips on my next few batches. I loved the place, but its a haul from my house, so I'll have to save up and maybe go every 3-4 brews. As promised, here are some pics.

yty6ygyr.jpg

naveqaje.jpg
 
tsywake said:
The place is pretty nondescript, tucked away in a strip mall. When you walk in, there is nothing but beer and wine brewing equipment and supplies. Overall, they were a little more expensive than City Beverage, but had a much larger selection and the ingredients looked fresher. Dan was very happy to talk to me about brewing and offered up some tips on my next few batches. I loved the place, but its a haul from my house, so I'll have to save up and maybe go every 3-4 brews. As promised, here are some pics.

yty6ygyr.jpg

naveqaje.jpg
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Whoa. That dude has "I run a homebrew store" written all over his personal appearance. Central casting on line one.
 
Apricot Amber in the secondary keg. Going to buy a third keg (for my two-tap system) to serve as the tertiary vessel to serve. Hoping ABM has an IPA kit.
 
Brewing two batches tomorrow. I'm going to try the Tallgrass that we liked so good last time without racking it to a secondary. Just going to leave it in the primary an extra week to see if I can taste the difference.

Wort chiller is chilling at the Greensboro UPS depot. It will arrive Monday.
 
Drunken real talk.

The Haylcon Tallgrass recipe from NB is seriously one of the greatest beers I've ever had, not just my homebrew. If you follow their recipe, you won't be disappointed. I promise.

Good talk.
 
tsywake said:
The place is pretty nondescript, tucked away in a strip mall. When you walk in, there is nothing but beer and wine brewing equipment and supplies. Overall, they were a little more expensive than City Beverage, but had a much larger selection and the ingredients looked fresher. Dan was very happy to talk to me about brewing and offered up some tips on my next few batches. I loved the place, but its a haul from my house, so I'll have to save up and maybe go every 3-4 brews. As promised, here are some pics.

yty6ygyr.jpg

naveqaje.jpg
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Good enough review for me. Doesn't look nearly as cluttered as Triad Homebrew, and Dan sounds like a nice dude. I'll check it out sometime.
 
When you go, prepare to stay and talk for a while. Dan loves to talk beer with customers, and a guy I went to high school with also works there part time.

My wort chiller arrived today. I'm hoping to try it out later this week. I want to take the next step towards all grain brewing soon, and the vicious spending cycle continues.
 
Going with my first midweek brew this afternoon. I love the drain valve on my pot, but I always end up with 3/4 gallon left in the bottom of the pot, so I'm adding a 90 degree elbow to the port to help pickup the rest of the wort without having to tilt the pot. That coupled with the wort chiller, I'm hoping to drastically cut down the amount of time it takes for me to brew.

Here's the pickup I'm going to build:
 
I'm going to upload the pics now, and give the recap tomorrow. Too many brews drank while brewing tonight.

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tsywake said:
I'm going to upload the pics now, and give the recap tomorrow. Too many brews drank while brewing tonight.

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Here's a recap with better pics.

I added a 1/2" brass 90 degree elbow pickup to my ball valve drain. It sticks up about 1" above the bottom of the kettle, so I'd end up with upwards of a 1/2 gallon of wort that didnt drain out. By adding the elbow, I dropped it down to 1/8". Since I use a hops spider for my grains and hops, there's very little remnants in the bottom of the kettle after the boil, and those just settle along the bottom with any excess DME. It worked wonderfully.
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I read all the hype about wort chillers, but didn't believe it until I saw it for myself. Here's a pic of my setup. Before I'd use an extreme amount of ice to chill the kettle, but I only needed this small cooler full of ice and water. I hooked up a small pond water pump to it and flowed the ice water through the chiller and back into the cooler. At the end of the chill, I still had some ice left over, and it only took 15 minutes to go from 200 degrees down to 60. Well worth the money.
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Here's what I'm working with now. Tallgrass Halycon in the left primary, WH Honey Ale in the middle primary, and a Speckled Heifer in the secondary on the right. I'm going to bottle the Heifer this weekend and put the Honey Ale in the secondary. The kegs are reserved for the Haylcon and Honey Ale.
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