I will try to explain what I think happened a little better.

I had brewed a couple batches with a Pilsen LME with some Light Carastan..steeping grains....palisade as the bittering hops and then columbus/centential as the later hops. It's a simple and delicious pale ale. I would say even a tad underhopped-but a real crowd pleaser.

Switching out only the base malt to an Organic LME...(not an Organic Pils LME. Made from some type of "Organic" grains that are not listed on the packaging) made a world of difference. It tastes like a moose drool meets a two-hearted. Not necessarily what I was looking for. I saw pretty typical fermentation times... I would assume anyone using the same ingredients would come up with something very similar. Also, tasting it while brewing was a night and day difference.

Also, just drank a Lift Bridge "Minnesota Tan" here at work. I was excited we had something like that, but I switched to red wine right away. It was like stale fruit to me. I may have to own up to just not liking most Begian styles after all. Maybe it's not a good example of the style and maybe you're not supposed to drink it from the bottle.

Ok, I looked up the organic LME on Northern Brewer, and they don't say whether it's 2 row or 6. But they do call it a base malt, and MOST base malts are 2 row, so I would guess that both base malts in question were 2 row. However, the colors should be different. The Pilsner Malt would be a few degree Lovi lighter in color, so it would have less of a roasted grain flavor / smell to it. And believe it or not, the origin of the grain can make a big difference in flavor too. Your "normal" pilsner malt could well be German grown, or at least EU somewhere, and the organic version is probably grown in the US. Similar to hop types that are grown here AND in their homelands (fuggles, goldings, etc), malts really honestly do taste pretty different depending on where they were grown. Slight differences in the strain, plus the soil and water differences... and essentially what you're doing is distilling and highlighting those flavors and smells and putting them on display.

Ie, the two malts probably really do taste that different.

Glad to see you're mini-mashing.

yep. i know better now and i thank great-white-baby-jesus that time has made it a drinkable batch... in a weird way i've even started to enjoy it.



I've done some bigger-mashing also. I do the all grain batch sparge method with the cooler in the bottom of the picture i posted.
I don't have that process down yet, but to be honest I'm not sure if I enjoy that that type of brewday. I don't mind the extra time but I do mind the extra work. Having to take things in and out of the house, making sure I have enough propane, bringing my tunes outside, trying to clean as I go but cleaning happens inside. I'll probably only do that for real special occasions or if wifewilleatyou or other people are up for helping out. I really like to clean up as I go and still relax, but I never seem to get enough relaxing in this way. I might feel different about it if my house was more suited...like an attached garage with convenient hose/sink sort of scenario. I recently took my 10g kettle back and returned for a 7.5. I could still do the batch sparge (though I it'll be close to the rim) but this kettle also is narrow enough that I can keep it inside and try the brew in a bag method.

Hoping to get out of work early enough to brew tonight. I'm way nervous about the election and this will keep me calm and centered.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, space and familytime prevent me from easily brewing when the wife and kid are even home. I need them both at work/school to be able to do anything. And on those days where I "work" from home, partial-mash means I can actually brew 2 batches and clean it all up (while drinking) and be done before 6 when they get home. I have to get up and get hustling by 8, but I can do it all in the kitchen unless I'm making something that NEEDS a long boil, in which case it requires the back porch and the propane burner.

drinking New Belgium 1554 tonight.

No brewing last night. Had an appointment go long and couldn't make it to the shop.

BUT while electioning I tasted my "Rye so dark?"


It's a straight RyePA kit from northern brewer. http://www.northernbrewer.com/documenta ... /RyePA.pdf

I didn't want to mess with any recipes because I was taking some risks with the yeast. My first attempt at saving reusing yeast that had been in a previous batch. I made a couple mistakes I think. There was the water/almost beer on top of the yeast that had been in my fridge for a month. After reading a bit, I should have decanted that...instead I swirled it right up...into the starter it went. 2/3 of the yeast from previous batch went into the 1L starter. It took off really nice and I pitched it after 24 hours. I also did not let that sit and decant...though I never do. 15 hours into fermentation I saw zero activity so I punted and pitched the remaining 1/3 yeast. This time I did remove the water/almost beer from the top first. But, maybe five minutes later the initial yeast pitch started taking off. So...there was quite a shitload of yeast in there. I would also like to mention that in the previous batch I had saved the yeast from I had lost a thread attached to a dry hopping bag...into the carboy and I never found it again. My hypothesis is that it was consumed, by me or the yeast. Anyways, after fermentation kicked off it had nice krausen for 7-9 days straight. I've never had it like that. Beautiful grapefruity smells coming from the airlock. The color really went from a light red to a reddish-black over the course of the next few weeks. I was not expecting that to happen. I was also real buzzed when I finally bottled this, I had to mop the house afterwards. Big ole mess...I will never let that happen again.

Now it's been bottled for 2.5 weeks. It's tasting so nice.
It's a very interesting heavy rye flavor, can't really taste the carmel malt yet. Also, I am missing the palisade aroma I was planning to experience. Maybe it will come out as this carbonates better. My basement is staying just below 60 now and I notice that carbonation is happening much slower than it was in the summer..I'll try and stay out of this batch for another week or two. I've got fizz in the beer, just no head (yet).

I followed it up by tasting a local American Rye beer


It's really clean and crisp. More like a lightly hopped pale ale. Sort of taste the rye. I wanted another of my own immediately.

Founders Red Rye turned me onto rye beers but unfortunately, I may never find a better one.

I was truly impressed by Day time and the Imperial Stout at the Lagunitas tap takeover and I had to ask one of their brewery reps if they used Belgian Yeast in the stout due to the raisin and fig tastes. They did not, which leads me conclude that they used a crap ton of Special B malt in the grain bill. It is a big beer, I should have never had more than one watching election returns, but I got one for free from the brewery reps.

Dude you never turn down free GOOD beer. I had about half a bottle of Affligem Dubel, plus half a can of Heady Topper, and then some normal schwag during election night. I biked most of it off on the way home but I had that "...do I smell like booze?" moment the next morning at work.

Gaaaah... my buddy in Germany just got his 2 cases of Westvleteren 8 from the brewery. 10 hour round trip from his place.

Doing my first all grain brew in a bag right now. 6.25 gallons of strike water and 11 lbs of grain. Managed to nail my mash temp and my 7.5 kettle is right at the brim. Hoping for a 4-4.5 gallon batch when it's all done. I have no idea if my kitchen stove can boil this much..but I have the pot over two burners which definitely got me up to my strike water in record time.
Fortunately, 75 minute mash means plenty of time to relax.

Post pics, mang.

double post doh

okay.
i've already learned some important lessons. unfortunately i wasn't taking pictures of them.

1) there's no way in hell you are going to hold 11 lbs of wet grain over the kettle while it drips out. because it's gonna weigh a lot more. I managed to find a couple wooden rods to span the kettle and hold the bag over like that. i gave it a few good squeezes (squeezing these bags is highly debated because some tannins might get out..im gonna go with it's probably okay.. you can quick use a strainer and get out some tannins if that is the case)..so in this case i lost a little wort in the panic trying to figure out the solution... next time around i will have a rack to set it on. I actually think a baking/cookie rack would work perfect. I just don't know if they make a strainer big enough. I sure don't want to buy one if they do. I balanced it over the kettle for a few minutes on the wood rods and then I had to piss so I put the grain bag in the trash bucket. When I went to dump out the grains in the compost I tipped the trash out to see that I lost maybe 1/4-1/2 gallon of wort.

2) I can not raise the temp of this big of a load without having both burners on full blast. As a result I didn't raise the temp for a "mashout"... I was too freaked. I would scorch the bag with the burners going full blast. Maybe next time i'll just go for it. the mashout in the BIAB is really optional but it would have gotten me a little more efficiency i'm sure.

3)

Never put your plastic mash paddle near the burners.

FUCK! Though, I'm kind of suprised I hadn't already done this.


The good news is that I can do full boils indoors with this kettle.


Two burners one kettle.


My fifteen minute addition.
.5 oz each of palisade/cascade/columbus


The starter all waiting to go. I used a pilsner DME since I'm just dumping in the starter beer too..and I have pils in my malt bill. Not sure if it matters..but WTH.

oh shit. i accidentally got shewilleatyou's sex toys in that last shot.

well. 1.060 OG.... so my efficiency was just below 60% ?.... i was actually expecting about 60% and an OG of 1.061...so I'm completely happy.
I can do a better job next time. Also I'll get a couple more pints out of the batch. I do realize it's bad efficiency compared to batch sparging... but the amount of equip I used and the effort I put in... really worth it IMO. Real easy way to get a 4 gallon batch of 1.060 beer. Tasting update in like 2 months.

okay. so scratch the indoor thing. that will get your carbon monoxide detectors to go off ...while you're cleaning up. which might make anyone you live with hate homebrewing. just do this way outside.

I thought this would be the place to ask... I just got an iPhone5 and am looking for a beer-centric app. Maybe something I can log my faves and not-so-faves into, and it could give me info about the beers.

EDIT: I dnld'd Untappd, but if you know of any better apps, let me know

We're gonna need a separate homebrewing thread.

Untappd is the best one I know of.

Straight to Ale Monkeynaut IPA in cans FOR THE WIN!

Pintley is a decent website for beer tracking, some local kids made it. Donno about an app?

Also Cats I'm gonna go nutso on this thread tomorrow when I have time. Somehow I'm getting over 70% attenuation also indors on a stove. Smaller amounts, tho...

I don't even bother with efficiency measurments as an extract brewer. I simply want to know the OG and FG for ABV numbers and to guage whether or not I actually brewed it to style.

Sometimes I calculate it, to see how shitty my technique is.

but then yeah, you said "extract," which means... you don't control attenuation. Someone did that for you, no?

careful dude. bloor says you're gonna need a new thread for homebrew. DUDE IS A MODERATOR