405 replies to this topic

[mig50]

hmm...the recipe says to cook the pumpkin for an hour at 300 degrees, or until the meat gets mushy.

its been in the oven for probably 45 minutes now and its not even close to mushy. hmmm....

i guess if overcook it i've got the other half to try.

[mig50]

the pumpkin ale is now in the fermenter.

i tasted a bit of it and it was super sweet, followed by pretty bitter.

i have no idea how this is going to turn out.

[mig50]

yeah, i'm an idiot. after i posted that i realized that i tasted the wort before i added water to it, so it was super concentrated.

anyway, now i wait for it to ferment.

[mig50]

the airlock is a-bubblin!

woo!

[mig50]

oh my god...

my room smells WONDERFUL!

if this scent is any indication of how the beer will taste, it should result in the best tasting beer ever known to man.

[mig50]

here's a big difference i've noticed between my two batches thus far:

once the doppelbock started fermenting, bubbles would come through the airlock every 10-15 seconds or so. they were really forceful and actually caused about half the water in the airlock to come out.

the air coming out of the pumpkin isn't anywhere near as forceful, but its coming out at much quicker intervals (every couple seconds).

i'm sure there's some explanation for the difference between the two, but i have no idea what it is.

can anyone give me any insight? i'm not worried or anything, just interested/curious.

[Shervz0r]

I've learned a lot about pitching yeast and temperature maintenance in the past few weeks.

Basically, pitching temperature (and subsequent temp maint) is CRUCIAL! Usually at higher temperatures organisms tend to metabolize faster, but obviously there are hard limits and different grades at which an organism will be "happy". Along the same lines, pitching an ale yeast and a lager yeast in identical batches of wort will produce two very different types of beer.
One cool type of beer that I'm really loving is the altbier which is almost nonhopyy (no aromatic or bittering hops) and is fermented on a cooling temperature gradient (start at like 65 F and move down to 50 something). This helps produce this very unique type of beer.

Oh, back on topic...anyway, what I've noticed is that it's preferable to have a yeast which is fermenting steadily (not ferociously) and over a longer period of time than one which goes nuts and is done withint a day or two (had a brew like that, it wasn't bad but it definitely had some intersting bannanny flavors). With regard to your brews, mig, what kinds of yeast are you using? Different yeasts act differently. Are you keeping the right temp range? Do you remember what temperature the wort was at when you pitched?

Sorry to hear about the pumpkin death brew, Doc...that's really unfortunate

argh, annoying ludlow girl won't shut up

[mig50]

i racked the pumpkin ale to secondary last night.

there was a pretty nasty layer of scum that formed on the top. under that, however, was sweet sweet beer.

i tried a little of it and i must say, once this beer mellows out a bit (and gets some carbonation), i think its going to be fucking delicious.

i'm hoping to get it bottled before i go to phx, but i'm not sure if that will happen or not.

[mig50]

oh fuck!!!!

apparently my beer vomitted into the airlock.

this is bad. help.

Attached Files

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[DoctorShumway]

Ah yes! The old "needed a blowoff hose". Basically you had too much active beer in too small a space. You can take the airlock out of the stopper, rinse it out, re-sanitize and replace it and the beer will be fine. The gas is pumping out of there so regularly that you shouldn't compromise your beer in the 5 minutes or so the airlock is out.

This happened to Colin's beer on my watch and it turned out fine. I even had to clean and replace the airlock everyday for a week, so I wouldn't worry too much about this. Not really a big deal.

Are you using a 5 gallon carboy? If so, you should always use a blow off hose for the first two days or so to avoid this, especially a beer like this with lots of material for the yeast to break down. Pumpkin in addition to malt extract makes for some active ass yeast.

[Shervz0r]

I went over to Aaron's to pickup 5 gallons of cider that he bought in Northampton on the 5th, aka Cider Day. He got three different blends of cider, but I know nothign of the drink so I just took what he gave me. He added some yeast supplements (to help them grow) and some sulfates to keep the cider from being infected by other nasty organisms....so now the cider is at my place and it's bubbling like a volcano! While I enjoy regular apple cider, hard cider's a nice treat every now and then but I'd rather stick with beer....except THIS time I'll be making...apple jack! mmmmm

[mig50]

Ah yes! The old "needed a blowoff hose". Basically you had too much active beer in too small a space. You can take the airlock out of the stopper, rinse it out, re-sanitize and replace it and the beer will be fine. The gas is pumping out of there so regularly that you shouldn't compromise your beer in the 5 minutes or so the airlock is out.

This happened to Colin's beer on my watch and it turned out fine. I even had to clean and replace the airlock everyday for a week, so I wouldn't worry too much about this. Not really a big deal.

Are you using a 5 gallon carboy? If so, you should always use a blow off hose for the first two days or so to avoid this, especially a beer like this with lots of material for the yeast to break down. Pumpkin in addition to malt extract makes for some active ass yeast.

i have two airlocks, so my beer was only exposed for about two seconds.

yeah, i kind of freaked out at first, then realized that this is probably normal for the beer i'm brewing. if i have to change the airlock every couple days, so be it.

thanks for the wisdom, shums.

[mig50]

hmm...i really don't think i'm going to have time to bottle this before i leave for phx.

this means the beer will be sitting in the carboy til after thanksgiving.

i don't think there will be any problems with this, but is there anything i should be worried about?