OT: Beer Thread

[nobody important]

Time to chill out. Wrong time of year to do lagers, our water isn't cold enough. It will have to sit in the freezer for a while to get it down to pitching temps. If you're wondering what that little globby is on the left, that's break material that's floated up. All the bad stuff I've spent the last 90 minutes filling the house with steam (and annoying my wife, she hates the smell) to separate out from the good stuff.

View attachment 91775

 

[HannuJ]

Time to chill out. Wrong time of year to do lagers, our water isn't cold enough. It will have to sit in the freezer for a while to get it down to pitching temps. If you're wondering what that little globby is on the left, that's break material that's floated up. All the bad stuff I've spent the last 90 minutes filling the house with steam (and annoying my wife, she hates the smell) to separate out from the good stuff.

View attachment 91775

i've brewed a lager once. i let it ferment in my cellar/cold room. 53 F. it's the only way i'd do a lager, since i don't want to build a ferm vessel.

only 1 kind of lager yeast for me. urquel.

 

[nobody important]

And so we arrive at the end of our brew day journey. The finished product full of sugars to be served to billions of hungry yeast...

View attachment 91777

... all tucked away in its cozy, frigid little cocoon for the next couple of months.

View attachment 91779

It's a great hobby, it really is.

Hannu, love to see your setup. Post some pics of your brew day?

 

[HannuJ]

Hannu, love to see your setup. Post some pics of your brew day?

i'd rather post pics of my cellar. but sure

 

[tacogeoff]

very nice guys! next spring I will be starting a small hops field with just Cascade, Fuggles and Centennial hops to start. Have a lot of room for growth on the acreage (perks of living in SW Manitoba ) and am going to steer away from fruit plants next season.

 

[HannuJ]

very nice guys! next spring I will be starting a small hops field with just Cascade, Fuggles and Centennial hops to start. Have a lot of room for growth on the acreage (perks of living in SW Manitoba ) and am going to steer away from fruit plants next season.

nice. i made a wet hop (cascade) saison from my yard hops. likely kegging it tomorrow.

 

[tacogeoff]

nice. i made a wet hop (cascade) saison from my yard hops. likely kegging it tomorrow.

awesome. I have not dipped my hand into brewing but that is something I am aspiring to reach in year two. if all goes well year one I should be able to give a majority of dried hops away and play with the rest to determine best method for drying, packaging and storage.

 

[nobody important]

nice. i made a wet hop (cascade) saison from my yard hops. likely kegging it tomorrow.

Did you add them into the boil at some point, or into the fermenter as a "dry" hop? How would you characterize them compared to using regular dried hops or pellets?

I suppose if I got off my butt and brewed again soon, I could throw together a hop monster of some sort and include some backyard hops fresh off the bine.

 

[nobody important]

awesome. I have not dipped my hand into brewing but that is something I am aspiring to reach in year two. if all goes well year one I should be able to give a majority of dried hops away and play with the rest to determine best method for drying, packaging and storage.

With winter approaching, I took the screens off the windows and set them up on supports to provide a raised drying rack that gets air all around. When dry, package them in vacuum bags (everyone has a FoodSaver, right?) and store in the freezer.

I would only use them for late additions because you won't know the alpha acid content. You can guess based on typical values for a variety, but I don't want to chance having an under- or over-bittered beer.

Edit: And why wait till you have your own hops to start brewing?

 

[HannuJ]

Did you add them into the boil at some point, or into the fermenter as a "dry" hop? How would you characterize them compared to using regular dried hops or pellets?

I suppose if I got off my butt and brewed again soon, I could throw together a hop monster of some sort and include some backyard hops fresh off the bine.

they all went in at flameout.
will tell you how it tastes once carbonated.

 

[tacogeoff]

With winter approaching, I took the screens off the windows and set them up on supports to provide a raised drying rack that gets air all around. When dry, package them in vacuum bags (everyone has a FoodSaver, right?) and store in the freezer.

I would only use them for late additions because you won't know the alpha acid content. You can guess based on typical values for a variety, but I don't want to chance having an under- or over-bittered beer.

Edit: And why wait till you have your own hops to start brewing?

I have a lot of hobbies (fishing/hockey/photography/snowmobiling/camping etc.etc.) but if I grow them, then I am forced to use them or it is waste in my eyes

hitting a specific level could be an issue with the generic range they can produce but there are some places to get assessments done.

 

[nobody important]

Just to illustrate the difference vacuum sealing makes. These hops are several years old. The ones on the right were left to go like that intentionally. They are "cheesy" hops for lambic brewing.

View attachment 91817

 

[tacogeoff]

Just to illustrate the difference vacuum sealing makes. These hops are several years old. The ones on the right were left to go like that intentionally. They are "cheesy" hops for lambic brewing.

View attachment 91817

that's different. I like how you can add fruit to the lambic brew.

 

[Hobby Bull]

...just warning you all months in advance... you can use the fresh growth of spruce tips in place of hops in your brew.

Thank me later.

p.s. If the beer thread is about beer, where do we discuss Laine?

 

[HannuJ]

...just warning you all months in advance... you can use the fresh growth of spruce tips in place of hops in your brew.

Thank me later.

i'm not an arbourist, but i'd rather use renewable vegetation like hops than something that, if i understand correctly, contributes to the healthy growth of a tree.

 

[nobody important]

@darkjet
Nothing wrong with Steigl. Decent German Pils, it was collateral damage in my carpet bombing attack.

As for Beck's and Heineken, they both suffer from being characterless beers that are overwhelmed by the hop skunking that comes from the green bottles.

Sticking to German Pils, canned products are your best bet. Warsteiner, Bitburger, Krombacher. Nothing special but they won't be lightstruck. My personal fave at the moment is Hacker-Pschorr Munich Gold. Bavarian style Helles, more malt, less bitterness than a Pils. Delicious. The LC seems to be on a bit of a Helles kick of late. They have added another one, Benediktiner. I'll post a review when I've had a chance to try it.

 

[darkjet]

@darkjet
Nothing wrong with Steigl. Decent German Pils, it was collateral damage in my carpet bombing attack.

As for Beck's and Heineken, they both suffer from being characterless beers that are overwhelmed by the hop skunking that comes from the green bottles.

Sticking to German Pils, canned products are your best bet. Warsteiner, Bitburger, Krombacher. Nothing special but they won't be lightstruck. My personal fave at the moment is Hacker-Pschorr Munich Gold. Bavarian style Helles, more malt, less bitterness than a Pils. Delicious. The LC seems to be on a bit of a Helles kick of late. They have added another one, Benediktiner. I'll post a review when I've had a chance to try it.

Excellent. Always looking to expand my catalogue and I will definitely be trying more than a few of these. Thanks

 

[nobody important]

Excellent. Always looking to expand my catalogue and I will definitely be trying more than a few of these. Thanks

Further to Warsteiner, really like their Dunkel (dark lager) but their hoppy version in the green can... meh. Just seems gimmicky, trying to cash in on the hophead craze without actually appealing to hopheads. Much like Guinness coming out with a pale lager. Like, the world didn't have enough of these.

 

[HannuJ]

german beer tend to not be my thing, but i remember not minding ERdinger wheat and Erdinger dark.

on the homebrew side:
i used an interesting yeast to brew a beer. Sigmund's voss kveik. http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/sigmunds-voss-kveik

i used it to make a simple blonde ale, but i used juniper berries in the mash and let it ambiently ferment in my shed during the hot Toronto summer. shed temps got over 30 C. usually that causes the beer to produce hot tasting fusel alcohols that you associate with spirits, but not this guy.

just to add some complexity, i then took some oak cubes i'd been soaking for a year in tequila and added them to the carboy and let it sit for 2 months. sampled it yesterday and it's really darn tastey. you get the juniper aftertaste with a slightly fruity yet crisp, slightly tart beer. will rack to keg and carbonate.

 

[nobody important]

german beer tend to not be my thing, but i remember not minding ERdinger wheat and Erdinger dark.

on the homebrew side:
i used an interesting yeast to brew a beer. Sigmund's voss kveik. http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/sigmunds-voss-kveik

i used it to make a simple blonde ale, but i used juniper berries in the mash and let it ambiently ferment in my shed during the hot Toronto summer. shed temps got over 30 C. usually that causes the beer to produce hot tasting fusel alcohols that you associate with spirits, but not this guy.

just to add some complexity, i then took some oak cubes i'd been soaking for a year in tequila and added them to the carboy and let it sit for 2 months. sampled it yesterday and it's really darn tastey. you get the juniper aftertaste with a slightly fruity yet crisp, slightly tart beer. will rack to keg and carbonate.

Fascinating. We so need a White Labs distributor here.

 

[TheDeuce]

Most of the beer talk around these parts is a bit highfalutin for me but I just wanted to share last night's beer experience. We were having buddies over to watch the game so I grabbed a case of Coors Banquet - in the old school stubby bottle.

Forget the beer, I like the bottle. Stubbies went away before my beer drinking days so it was cool to try it out. Found the beer foamed up less, imho.

Anyway, back to your hops and Gergenfrugen imported ales etc...



Go Jets Go!



m.

 

[HannuJ]

enlightening.

 

[HannuJ]

Fascinating. We so need a White Labs distributor here.

i have another strain at home in my fridge that i'll keep until next summer. i was sent it from a Norwegian brewer. no clue what the kveik strain will do, but using it in ales should be fun.

if you want yeast that you can't get (e.g. East Coast Yeast), just ask me or anyone else. that's how this stuff gets around.

 

[nobody important]

PEG Beer Co seems to be strongly hinting on their twitter that their beer will be flowing shortly. Looks like some sort of information was emailed to their groupies yesterday.

 

[nobody important]

Checked the PEG site, and they are now serving their own brews.

http://pegbeer.com/beer/

Now, if they could just get past this fascination with flatbreads and learn how to cook up a burger or two...