405 replies to this topic

[Jacki O.]

I just brewed an English bitter. it turned out good.

my sister found an old book of beer recipes and there's a Shlitz recipe and i think i'm doing that next.

[John MFer]

I just brewed an English bitter. it turned out good.

my sister found an old book of beer recipes and there's a Shlitz recipe and i think i'm doing that next.

So you're going to try lagering? How are you going to keep the temperatures low enough for the yeast?

[Jacki O.]

I just brewed an English bitter. it turned out good.

my sister found an old book of beer recipes and there's a Shlitz recipe and i think i'm doing that next.

So you're going to try lagering? How are you going to keep the temperatures low enough for the yeast?

I've done lagering before. My 2nd batch ever was a honey lager. I fermented it in my fridge, i.e. threw out a bunch of food to fit that carboy in there. not very practical but it was delicious.

[Shervz0r]

It's funny, I keep resisting the move to all-grain because of my ignorance...but there are so many resources online that it's an easy transition! Anyone brewing all grain?

This sat I wanna do a marzen/oktoberfest brew...but I'm not equipped to lager Dammit!

[John MFer]

I've seen it done. It looks pretty easy as long as you have a few essential pieces of equipment. Mike and I went to this brew shop open house a long time ago and there were some serious enthusiasts who had some really impressive rigs.

The tough part for me would be doing a full five gallon boil. We always have done a 2 gallon concentrated boil then watered it down in the primary fermenter. Having a pot large enough for a 5 gallon rolling boil would be a unitasker in my house that would be space-eating to store.

[Shervz0r]

Ugh, I didn't even realize that much volume is needed...I have an electric range with no real way of using a propane burner to do outdoor brewing and it takes long enough to get the mini mash boiling. Bah, maybe when I move...or maybe I'll just do 2.5 gallon batches?

[DoctorShumway]

I've seen it done. It looks pretty easy as long as you have a few essential pieces of equipment. Mike and I went to this brew shop open house a long time ago and there were some serious enthusiasts who had some really impressive rigs.

The tough part for me would be doing a full five gallon boil. We always have done a 2 gallon concentrated boil then watered it down in the primary fermenter. Having a pot large enough for a 5 gallon rolling boil would be a unitasker in my house that would be space-eating to store.

The upside is that a pot that big gets a lot of use. I use mine for stock, soups, dissolving body parts in acid.

[Shervz0r]

So I ended up making a dubbel (recipe 14 here https://www.beerbrew.com/?path=Recipes) and my OG was waaaaaaay lower than the 1.057 the recipe lists...I was around 1.036 or so without temperature correction. I wonder if it's due to some poor mixing on my end...I poured the wort into an empty carboy (I know, I know, bad idea to do with hot stuff in general but I had cooled it to 90F) and then topped off with water, then took a sample with the Thief from the upper layers of the wort. I'm thinking that it MAY be possible that most of the sugar-heavy wort, being far more dense than water, simply stayed at the bottom of the carboy and didn't mix completely so I ended up not sampling from a homogenous solution. When I pitched the yeast I gave it a good shaking. Any thoughts?

What's embarrassing is that it didn't occur to me to try taking another reading post mixing...and now it's been 2 days of ferocious yeast activity.

[John MFer]

Any thoughts?

Bottle it, age it and drink it in good health!

[mothrock]

real talk-

 

I found 2 cans of sparks plus in my pantry. I am thinking I should transfer them over to a glass vessel before the aluminum gets eroded by the high acidity of the sparks. We cracked one open about 2 years ago and it was still fine, but I am thinking I should get these things in glass if I want to keep them for 20-30 years .

 

Has anyone done this? Tips? pointers? I have a capper, but I've never transferred already done booze into a new vessel. Do I add priming sugar?

[unluckycharm]

Does Sparks have carbonation?  That could be a problem if you're transferring.  I think?  I dunno, I'm not a Homebrewwa.

 

I would think the best thing to do is drink the 2 Sparks and videotape the proceedings to keep the memories for all time.

[mothrock]

It does have carbonation, but that isn't a big deal usually. Everything I ferment has carbonation. How that is achieved is adding a little bit of sugar to the beer/cider at bottling and the remaining yeast eats that and puts just a hint of co2 in the brew . With sparks , it's tricky as that yeast has probably been dead a long time, if there is any remaining in it all. Also, the sweetness. If I were to add some live yeast to ensure carbonation I could either have 1 of 2 disasters. 

 

1. the yeast eats the corn syrup and multiplies and puts out way too much co2 - bottle explodes

2. I do nothing and end up with flat sparks that doesn't taste like eroded aluminum

 

It's getting down to crunch time I feel. The cans are already about 7 years old. They stopped real sparks in 2008 right?

[jvincion]

With something like Sparks, they likely force carbed it after the fermentation process was done - so, they added CO2 to the Sparks after most of the yeast dropped out and most of the rest was cold-crashed out.  It's unlikely you'd get any further fermentation if you added priming sugar, though if you did throw yeast at it, you might get a little additional fermentation - I have no idea what the specific gravity of Sparks Plus would be, which would indicate how much sugar is still remaining in the liquid.  Do you have a hydrometer sitting around from when you do your ciders?

 

If you want to guarantee carbonation, you could get a CO2 tank and a stone that allows gas to flow through the holes in the stone.  I have no idea what PSI Sparks is force carbed at, though I know we hit our kegs down at the brewery with about 20 PSI.  That seems like a lot of work for a couple cans of Sparks Plus! 

 

I know that I'd grab some yeast and see if I could push the gravity down a little bit further (assuming the SG is high enough) - I've been able to get homebrews up to 13.3% ABV before with wild yeast strains (good ol' Brettanomyces).  It could be worth a shot!

[mig50]

omg sparks bret

[jvincion]

You'd need the right Brett strain though - brux would just be weird, lambicus could be nice with its pie cherry notes to get a chorange-like thing going, but claussenii would probably work best since it would complement the orange-like flavor of Sparks with its citrus notes.  We have some chilling in a carboy in our walk-in cooler that we don't have any plans for...