Brewing Beer

of course the biggest problem is trying to get Blakus go for it.... its pretty crazy that he and his wife make well over 60K per year but never seem to have money and RD and i make less than 1/2 what they do and usually seem to have a little extra.

ok, well, its been 7 days since i brewed up the new oatmeal stout and the standard ale. the standard ale is still fermenting nicely and the oatmeal stout has slowed down but hasnt stopped yet. so i may hold off bottling til wednesday. and i WILL HAVE to bottle em then no matter what cause ill be leaving thursday and will be outta state til sunday. so they both better be DONE!!

Penthesilea wrote:

I saw this and thought of Rudas...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3266819.stm

beer is good for ya! ive been saying it for years!

of course, that spokes person seems to be kind of an idiot saying that alcohol causes blood clots. perhaps she doesnt realize that alcohol thins the blood. just like aspirin. duh!!

cant remember if i said this here or elsewhere on the forum, but i am going to stick to the Safale -05 yeast from now on. it works perfectly every time. not to mention its also one of the best yeasts to use for brewing anyway.

ok, i just cracked open my latest attempt at an oatmeal stout....

and OMFGs!!! talk about close runner up with my dark maple cream ale in tastiness and awesomeness!

of course, like i figured, its not quite as dark as a stout, its more of a deep dark brown color and you cant really taste the oatmeal therefore i will be changing the name.

im thinking about calling it "hazelnut brown ale". as its more fitting to the flavor and color.

definately a keeper in the recipe book, aka "The Holy Brewble" Rudas Starblaze!

im really wanting to brew again as its been a while since my last batches. but at the same time, its just too damn hot this time of year to be standing over a stove for roughly 2 hours. i spose we can always brew the way Craig does it, it doesnt take but a few minutes his way. and it would be far cheaper far ingredients. ill have to bring it up to Blakus and we'll have to mul it over.

i brought it up with Blakus the other day and hes all for trying the super easy way of brewing. guess we'll just have to figure out a time to go make the necessary 3 hour round trip.

an update that i was honestly not expecting!!:

well, my "RS pale ale", that i nicknamed "rum ale" a few months back has taken a turn. grant it, i will prolly lose most everyone whos unfamiliar with the scientific nature behind brewing... but, the long chain (or high chain as its sometimes referred to) alcohol strains that was produced during the fermentation several months ago has apparently started breaking down into the normal short chain alcohol chains which is more fit for human consumption. i wasnt for sure that this was actually taking place until just before i got back on here this evening as i was pretty shitfacedhammered drunk friday night when i cracked one open. but on the side i wasnt expecting, this ale is turning out quite godly! the alcohol content must be up to close to 20% i would imagine as the FG reading said it was 10.3%ABV with the long chain. now, ive come to the conclusion that i, in the past, have not been calculating my readings right. especially since my brother who is a mathmatical genious and holds a masters degree in mechanical engineering said i was WAY lowballing the readings and calculations. anyway, take into account that each pound of sugar (or DME/LME) equals 1% of alcohol. im not sure exactly how much sugars are seeped from the grains while doing the partial mash that i do, but this batch of beer had 15lbs worth of sugar products and an aditional 1.5lbs of grains. so my FG should have came out to atleast 15% to begin with not including what the grains would have added....

but, it is officially turning out FUCKING AWESOME!!
potent as a muthafucka, but awesome!!

Blakus and i brewed some more batches of beer the easy way but decided to complicate em a bit more. right now my fermenter is going hyperactive so i removed the airlock and put on a blow off tube so i dont have to keep babysitting it every hour. we're hoping Blakus' fermenter wont go crazy this time otherwise i will just put a blow off tube on it as well.

i know i said i would prolly brew again tomorrow or thursday but im starting to lean more towards tonight. i guess we'll see eh.

oh, and an update on a standard ale i brewed almost 4 months ago.

back when it was bottled, the sample was nasty. let it sit for a couple weeks and tried it, still nasty. but now that its aged for the last few months its finally starting to taste better. i imagine by this winter it should be alot better.

i am currently about 1/2 way through re-creating my irish red ale!

i did do it a bit differently than before though. this one will be a bit more bitter/hoppier than the previous one. which will be awesome by my standards. i used a much higher AA% hops for the bittering this time. plus its all malt. so basically, it will be brewed 100% accordingly to the german purity law. but since im an awesome brewer, it will be better!

tis currently fermenting nicely!

Rudas Starblaze wrote:

tis currently fermenting nicely!

speaking of fermenting check this out:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Minibrew-100-Gallon-Fermenter-Beer-Wine-Making-/170521512902?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0

just for the hell of it



http://cgi.ebay.com/GROEN-stainless-tank-500-gallon-dish-bottom-open-top-/250677502174?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0


http://cgi.ebay.com/Home-Brewing-System-All-grain-Beer-Micro-Brewery-/140436492782?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0

awesome!! now if i had the money to get (especially the top one) that would kick ass! of course, where to put it if i did have it is another question all together.


i will prolly be bottling tomorrow. would do it today but i have my neice's b-day party to go to in a couple hours and then we're off to Blakus' house this evening.

Rudas Starblaze wrote:

awesome!! now if i had the money to get (especially the top one) that would kick ass! of course, where to put it if i did have it is another question all together.

well so far the bidding ended for it . and not surprising no one bidded on it. also you have to go there and pick it up. the seller wouldn't mail it. so far he didn't relist it.


BTW hope your niece had a good b-day.

that doesnt surprise me either that nobody bid on it. hell, a 100 gallon fermenter would require a right good sized room thats kept cool at prolly around 65*F with preferably a concrete floor for it to stand on while it was full! Blakus and i are only brewing 10 to 20 gallons at a time right now anyway. we do have 2 brand new 22qt brew pots though, so far the biggest we've ever had! we still need to get the kegging system though. with extra kegs of course! we've already found a great system for a nice low price through kegconnections.com i think it was.

update on brews:

friday will be brewsday for us but we're only making 1 batch each and then saving the 2nd batch of ingredients for the weekend after i think.

the next 2 batches im gonna be brewing are gonna be lite beers. since everyone around here are sissies and dont drink anything made of good quality and flavor.

Blakus on the other hand is gonna remake his brown sugar ale and his attempt at bell's amber ale with some ingredient changes for both.

just got done bottling. my lite beer seems to have turned out pretty good so far. hopefully the sissy drinkers in the area will like it.

Blakus' brown sugar ale turned out awesome IMO even though he said he wasnt too thrilled with it. this was his 3rd attempt at it, his first one i thought turned out awesome, but he didnt like it. the 2nd one i didnt like but he did even though it was explosive. so far, this 3rd i think is the best. but its not carbonated yet.

we brewed last night and that went well. this lite beer that i brewed will prolly be a bit darker than the one i bottled today.

ok, well, my 3rd attempt at making an oatmeal stout has definately worked! its currently fermenting along nicely. i much more prefer the method i used this time as oppossed to the previous times. grant it, the ABV% should come out to around 5 to 5.5% which will be the lowest alcohol content beer ive ever made, but its a stout and most stouts arent meant to be high alcohol.

Blakus's "mixmatch batch" came out smelling awesome and the sample tasting of it before we put it into fermentation was amazing. we decided to call it "mixmatch" because we used 2.5lbs of various left over grains from several of his previous batches.

on an even more awesome note, Blakus's last attempt at creating Bell's Amber Ale turned out to be beyond incredible! IMO, it blows Bell's Amber Ale outta the water!

just curious. has anyone tried to age the beer in wooden caskets? if so does it effect taste like other liquors.

Lightdragon wrote:

just curious. has anyone tried to age the beer in wooden caskets? if so does it effect taste like other liquors.

i havent done it, well, yet anyway. to buy a brand new oak cask costs like $150. to buy a used one is usually 3 to 5 times as much. alot of bigger breweries like michelob, sam adams, dogfish head, bell's, and many more do though. those breweries usually put out whats known as a "winter cask ale" once winter hits thats been cask aged for a year or so after fermentation. and usually this style of beer is pretty pricey. they typically use used bourbon casks, more than likely bought from jack daniels distillery as jack daniels actually makes more money per year selling their used oak casks than they do selling their standard jack daniels.

when aging beer in oak casks, if its a new cask, the beer (or whatever alcoholic beverage) will pull alot of the flavors out of the wood. when using a used bourbon cask, the beer not only pulls out flavors of the wood, but aditional alcohol and favors left over by the wiskey that was once stored within.

now the bad thing about using oak casks, is that theyre not perfectly sealed and some of the final product will be lost.

so all of that in combination is what makes "winter cask ales" a bit more expensive to buy and why theyre seasonal.

for the home brewer though, there is an alternative. using oak chips in the fermenter. typically theres only like 2 cheap options though, a lightly chard (scorched, burnt) and medium chard. or theres the more expensive option of used bourbon cask oak chips. which either way, the homebrew supplier we've been going to is always out of both.... but i haz idea to remedy that as i have access to plenty of oak wood.

oh well.

I asked because i saw this and got me curious.

https://www.dresslikeapirate.com/scart/rum-barrels-large-aging-cask-p-559.html

the 3 liter one might prove to be a novelity at best.

holy shite!! the 5 gallon one would be AWESOME! and $100!!! bloody hell!!!
im gonna have to show this link to Blakus!!