Regarding my SMASH recipe where I used 10 Lbs Marris Otter / 2.5 oz Willamette / Wyeast 1450

The beer tastes like some sort of octoberfest bread. Delicious but it's CLOUDY as fuck.
This was the first time I sent my grains through the store mill twice. I vorloaf'd the fuck out of this. The previous SMASH recipe is probably the cleanest looking beer I've ever made.

Is my beer cloudy because of they yeast or the crush of my grain? Or is Marris Otter just like that? (I've never used it for more than half of a grain bill before).

I’m making a Damfbier or German steam beer tomorrow. It is a style that is pretty much non-existent here in America, but a close relative to the California Common. It is an all-barley beer that is fermented with a Weizen yeast at around 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
My recipe is as followed:
Two pounds of Briess Pilsen DME at 60
Two pounds of Northern Brewer Munich LME at 45
One ounce of Crystal Hops at 45
Three pounds of Briess Pilsen DME at 20
One ounce of German Saphir hops at 5
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Yeast

It is usually has to do with a lower level of yeast flocculation or chill haze. I can't really offer up any advice besides using a higher flocculating yeast, a wort chiller, whirlfloc tablets or irish moss and making sure your beer has been aged long enough.

Can I rule out chill haze since temperature doesn't seem to have an effect?
While it's sitting in a warm bottle, you can tell that it's hazy.

I only had a krausen for a day on this one and right after that the fog sort of took the whole thing over.
It sat like that, unchanging in appearance, for over a month.

Pitched a lot of the yeast (1.4L) into some pretty low gravity wort 1.052

A permanent haze is usually caused by a high mash temperature, hop oils, over sparging and/or grist particles. I would tend to chalk it up as a combination of the copious amount of yeast and the crush of your grain, although I would think it would simply cause a ton of trub. Did it taste unattenuated? That would be the only hint about the yeast.

I haven't brewed in so damned long, sweet jesus. It is TIME.

Hooray!

Brewing buddy and I just bottled our fifth batch, so far to great acclaim (except batch 2, undercarbed). AND we got a chest freezer, which will hold our cow share come November but in the meantime has a control that means we could attempt lagering, AND the apple cider is coming out of the woodwork to be hardened, AND the mead seems a-ok, ever the sketchy buckwheat stuff! Exciting times, except that I have too many boring jobs keeping me from my hobbies (up to 3-4 depending on how you count, mostly lame).

What's the next step up in ambition that yields real taste improvements, wise ones of the thread? My step-stepkid's boyfriend's dad is super into this and I think he's going to hand down his smaller propane ring and stand for hanging out in the backyard, which should at least speed things.

Propane, yes. And a wort chiller. And you're not all-grain yet, so that's a good territory to get into (no offense, Prom.) Build yourself a mash tun like I did. Very cheap and easy, and works fantastic. Beyond that you get into water testing, pH testing, that sorta stuff.

Wort chilling seems very water intensive unless it's buying me way better flavor, not just accelerating the process.

None taken.
I'm realistic about my brewing capabilities in an apartment without a patio/deck, and I know how to make an all-grain batch, I've simply never done it at home.
As for the wort chiller and it being water intensive, there are a few short cuts/different ways you can cut down/reuse the water you use. I'd definitely use one if I had a backyard/garage to use for homebrewing. It saves a ton of time and cuts down on any chances you have of infecting your beer or having temperature related off flavors.
I don't really get into water and ph testing, but there is a great book that just came out about it. I would recommend a Brix refractometer and using Beersmith, if you aren't already. They aren't essential tools, but they make aspects of brewing a whole lot simpler if you are getting into all grain or continuing to BIAB.

We mostly brew at a place with a tiny deck but no garage. I guess I need to read up on beer chemistry to try to understand the difference between boiling up three and a half gallons of wort, adding two gallons of cold water and chilling in an ice bath for a bit, and buying a bigger kettle and wort chiller to boil 5.5 gallons and cool it all that way.

Foolishly promised someone I'd try one of those gluten free kits for them - any of y'all ever gone sorghum?

Many times. By itself it is not very exciting. Also it gets bitter quick, so use a little less bittering hop no matter what, and I STRONGLY suggest creating a sideshow of some sort - raspberries, cherries, honey, something. Also use a yeast that likes to ferment warm and leaves flavor, like saison. Dried yeast is fine.

Also you could zest 3 or 4 oranges and toss them in at flame out. That helped a lot too. Point is, on its own sorghum ain't really beer.

Finally got ingredients for the next 2 batches. Just over 30 pounds of grain made for heavy steering but once again having a semi-cargo bike just kicks ass. "Sure, I can bring that home, just gimme a box" is a great feeling.



Porter:

10# American 2-row pale
5# Maris Otter (I like maris and I want some of that flavor, but not 15 pounds of it)
2# Munich I (hint of spicey bready complexity to the malt base)
2/3# Crystal 20L (hint of honey sweetness)
2/3# Crystal 90L (rasiney caramel sweetness -- both crystals in low enough amounts not to get cloying, just to have that caramel sweetness in the background of a good porter)
1/3# Crystal 120L (darker molasses sweetness, again in a tiny amount)
1/3# Black Patent (roasty porter flavor and darker color, but not enough to make it a stout)

So that should get me a good strong porter, borderline baltic. Will mash high at 157 to give it a full body and ease up on the ABV a little. This should age well. Have a pound of Saaz, and a pound each of 2 NZ varietals in the freezer, will just have a little for bittering and maybe finish with a shot of saaz. Will make up my mind on brew day. Got 2 packs of Danstar dry Nottingham yeast, my go-to yeast for fucking shit up quickly in high grav beers where I want a british profile.


Complex Weizen

5# Organic pilsen malt
5# Local organic wheat malt from Valley Malt in western Mass, love these guys
1/2# Crystal 120L (thinking of a darker, slightly sweet wheat beer for the cold months to come)
1/2# Caramunich I (adding to the complexity and spiciness a little, should play well with wheat)
1/2# Rye Malt (curveball)
1/4# Carafa I Special (black as midnight, shouold add a roasted note and some color)

This one I will Saaz up a little more aggressively. Got dried weizen yeast for nice banana / clove notes.

Now, when the fuck to brew? Gonna need a full 8 hours to pull both off.

I haven't yet decided what I am going to brew next. I bottled my dampfbier last night, and I want to procure the ingredients for my next batch this weekend, so I'll have to try and plan it out sometime this week. I'm leaning toward a Red IPA, but I kind of want to do something with wood chips aged in cognac, and I'm not sure that is the best style to go with that idea.

Brewing now. Baltic porter is first. Mashing, hit temp exactly again. Scale is dead so I cannot weigh hops... Will eyeball it. Helps to have done it a lot before and know what an ounce of pellets looks like.

Welllllll, brewday results:

Porter

Mash went great, I hit 65% efficiency according to the Brewer's Friend handy calc page. Got 1.091% OG, which would probably net me a little over 8% ABV at the end of the day but I wanted more. So I hit it with about half a cup of nice amber B grade VT maple syrup. That knock it up over 1.100, I forget where precisely but it's in the paper log book at home. Should ferment out to 9.5% at least. Smells like heaven, looks like translucent chocolate, definitely got the porter color right. I pitched 2 packs of that ravenous Nottingham yeast, which was started with a bowl of warm water and little scoop of wort from the end of the mash. Was foaming when it went in.

I then put it in the bigger carboy, put on a blowoff hose into a mason jar with 1 inch of sanitizer water in it, and left for a dinner with Shiv and band practice.

Rye Dunkel

This was more problematic. It seems that wheat is a bitch to mash, and I had no idea, so I treated it like barley. Initial first runnings showed like 3.3% potential alcohol. ?? ... and then I realized that 3.3 is exactly half what I planned for, and that wheat was basically half the malt bill. It didn't convert. So it will have added flavor and body, but no fermentable sugars. Fuckity. Thus thwarted from my original target, I decided to just sparge well, then boil it down for 90 mins to concentrate it more. I wound up with something that will hopefully finish above 4%. Yeast was standard dry hefe, started the same way as above, fomaing when it was pitched.

Aftermath

Came in the door from band practice at 11:30pm, and heard a soft "FOOTCH" from the closet. Perfectly timed, like amazingly coincidental. Open the closet door, see a foam snake oozing down the side of Dunkel's fermentor, discern that the FOOTCH was the airlock being launched off of it after it was clogged. Porter is fairing little better -- it has foam escaping the mason blowoff jar, which now is 3/4 full of wort and water with foam chugging out the top. Cleaned it up (inlcuding two of my wifes coats AGAIN goddammit), put a blowoff hose onto the Dunkel, routed both hoses to one big 1-gallon jug with a little water in it. Both batches are spitting HARD, like ejaculating in spurts out the hoses off and on... the yeast is just getting after it. Checked again this morning and it had nearly filled the 1-gal jug with wort and foam again, minor leak but nothing too bad. Put some rags under it, changed out the water, hoping the party settles down to a dull roar today.

I know it's wrong and bad for sanitation but I'm always a bit impressed when the power of the yeast goes wild like that (it may help that my coats are not impacted). I made a bunch of gallon batches of mead for holiday gifts and whenever I used any of the buckwheat honey a friend gave me it went nuts.

My first effort at lager is burbling away in the chest freezer! Smells very fruity - not sure if that's just because the emissions are trapped in the freezer and concentrated or part of the deal.

Lager yeast "should" be pretty clean, usually, so I'd be surprised if it was really loading the beer up with fruity esters. Probably just being cooped up in a fridge.

I was at Terry's the other night after the Georgia game, Ky and totally forgot (once again) to take a picture of the "fermenting cabinet" that he made. I think he had SIX carboys in there. That guy brews a lot of goddamn beer.

Fuck I love him so much I hate him.

I'm going with the Red IPA. My recipe was inspired by Deschutes Red Chair NWPA.

One pound of Melanoidin and One pound of Carared steeped until water temperature reaches 170 Fahrenheit
6lbs of Northern Brewer Pilsen LME at 60
2oz of Cascade Hops at 60
3lbs of Munton's Extra Light DME at 30
1oz of Glacier Hops at 20
1oz of Palisade Hops at 10
1oz of Centennial Hops at 5
Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale yeast.

red chair is so good.

Ok, I found a source for unpasteurized / unsulphured cider. Going out there Columbus Day. They will fill vessels with it, $5 a gallon. So I can bring a carboy (or two?) and load up, if I wanna. Need to go research quickly to figure out how much, what level I want to tackle, etc.

Cool! Report in!

I put a gallon of cider with some extra sugar and champagne yeast in the fridge with the lager this weekend but didn't have time for anything more ambitious.

When I do have time this is basically the plan: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/caramel ... ost4477665

Post 420 (heh heh)

Seen this, btw? http://homebrew.stackexchange.com/

Bet you could answer a million questions if you were feeling benevolent.