Homebrewing

[Elkdog]

Here are some pics. The 1st are Neo1, the 2nd is Monitor (not as many cones as in years past for some reason) and the last are Jarbidge. Sorry, I can’t get these to rotate.

 

[psycho]

When im off hunting my gal gets bored and will try out various home brew recipes. Some are great. Some are not good and they sit in the fridge for a while. We have a grapevine that got out of control the last few years so she thought it would be fun to try wine. We did a lot of work getting it all prepped and bottled, etc. While I was away she dumped it all out without me getting to try it as she said it was terrible. Everyone has their favorite flavors so who knows if it was any good. I guess we will have to give it another try next year. Seems like a fun hobby if you have the patience for it.

 

[wytex]

Your hops look great! Hoping we get a harvest before the cold sets in, end of Sept for us usually.
Hope you get some relief from this heat soon.

 

[Elkdog]

Thanks! The last couple days have been in the 80’s and 40’s at night. So nice to sleep when it’s cooler. Hopefully we’ll stay like this.

 

[cgarner]

As a couple other folks have mentioned, you will probably have to build your own. 62-65 is pretty good, but even more control is better. My favorite builds are old chest freezers with a temperature control device (this website has a good build and links to more on electronics: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/diy-fermentation-chamber.html). What this allows you to do is ferment at the proper temperature, then up it for a couple of days to do what we call a diacetyl rest. The yeast naturally make diacetyl during fermentation, but will clean it up given enough time. The higher temperature makes the conversion easier. Temperature control will also allow you to get the best out of any yeast strain you use. But, in general higher temperature fermentation will give off more flavor (esters, phenolics) and are good for beers like saisons where you want a lot of yeast expression. It will also allow you to make lagers should you choose to go that direction.

Thanks. I may pick up a small chest freezer. I'm trying to figure out what to improve to reduce that homebrew flavor in beer. Sort of tastes like sweet malt to me or perhaps it is a residual flavor from the yeast.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

I have brewed many matches of beer. Although I stalled out a couple years ago because I wanted to get into all-grain brewing but I didn't want to spend the money to get a good equipment set up. On top of that I grow grapes and make my own wine and my small vineyard has come in to full production potential. So I have had a lot of extra work to do making wine. But I hope to get back into it one day. I love drinking wine or beer I made myself. Keep at it. It's a fun hobby.

 

[cgarner]

brewed an imperial IPA, citra IPA, and Kolsch over the last couple of weeks. The wait is killing me

 

[Pucky Freak]

Since brewing my own I hung up on commercial brands for good. No comparison.

 

[rwc101]

Polishing off a red ale now. Have a Russian imperial stout aging for a couple months with bourbon soaked oak chips. Hopefully it will be nicely aged for a November pheasant hunt.

 

[cgarner]

Polishing off a red ale now. Have a Russian imperial stout aging for a couple months with bourbon soaked oak chips. Hopefully it will be nicely aged for a November pheasant hunt.

That stout sounds delicious.

 

[rwc101]

That stout sounds delicious.

I hope so. I've never tried bourbon aging before. I'll be bummed if I waste a batch of stout and perfectly good bourbon.

 

[Kaitum]

H

I hope so. I've never tried bourbon aging before. I'll be bummed if I waste a batch of stout and perfectly good bourbon.

Hope it turns out well. I do a barrel aged stout once a year or so. Here's just a small portion of my last batch that was in a Willies Distilling Bighorn Bourbon barrel.

 

[Brauee20]

Busy next month or so prepping for harvest. I've got 450 plants up at my folks farm.

The day I brought them home.



Cut for picking. I think this was four years back. First harvest.



When the well water is too strong...



Some prep work this spring.



I love/hate these plants so much. I started with like three dozen plants for personal use about 10 years ago and then jumped in full bore about 6 years ago. August sucks now. 2 to 3 weeks of picking. Luckily the three varieties are stretched about a week apart starting usually around the 10th.

It gave me a reason to completely upgrade my brewing gear though.

 

[cgarner]

I plan to plant some hops this year.

Transferred the Citra IPA to the secondary fermenter and it smells amazing. Plan to dry hop it in 5 days and then keg it 5 days later.