I have never used StarSan, but my go to sanitizer was always BTF Iodophor both for home brewing and in the microbrewery.
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Been Homebrewing since 2007. You’ve got some great books, and some great advice from fellow brewers.
If all else fails, follow the advice of the great Charlie Papazian: relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew!
…also: sanitize, sanitize, sanitize!Last edited by Santamarina; August 14, 2022, 11:28 AM.Comment
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This weekend is the bug weekend for me. I am brewing my first Small Barth of beer. Got my kit, started a few sanitizes last night. And ingredients are in the fridge and ready to go. Likely Sunday brew day! Wish me luck.
I wondwr what i should cook and eat while brewing. Suggestions?Comment
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You can count on your first brewing session throwing you a curveball or two. Personally, I'd suggest not multitasking it, you might end up having no fun on either part...Comment
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Brew #1 us in the books. Fermentation started on this day 9/11/22. And now for the wait.....will it be a tasty beer or a round file beer? Stay tuned!!!Attached FilesComment
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jfmorris there is a ton of headspace. Also my initial readings were not impressive. But it is my first batch and even if it tastes like beer I still made a beer. I am already looking at a new recipe for my next batch. Likely going to be a SMaSH.
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I hope you are keeping it in a dark place, or at least covering it up with something that blocks light during fermentation, to avoid skunking the beer?
I ferment in a refrigerator with a temperature controller, but the times I've fermented at room temp, I covered the fermenter in a couple of layers of old beach towels or other fabric to block stray UV from skunking the hop compounds in the beer.
I've got an Old Ale that was racked onto a full yeast cake from an English Porter last Thursday night, and due to the massive amount of yeast already in the fermenter after kegging the porter, the Old Ale has dropped from 1.115 to 1.028 already, and is pushing 11% ABV. I expect it to stop shortly, as the WLP013 yeast is nominally only tolerate up to 10% ABV.Last edited by jfmorris; September 12, 2022, 09:30 AM.Comment
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I’m going to brew something next Friday…..I have a half day at the office. A saison.Comment
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mnavarre these days most of my online orders have been with Morebeer. I needed some hops a few weeks ago, and made my first order from Northern Brewer in about 5 years, and they confirmed my decision to give most of my business elsewhere. Placed an order for IN STOCK hops on September 3rd, and they did not ship until September 13th. -
I’ve been ordering my hops and most supplies from Yakima Valley hops. But for liquid yeast when I need it I will go to my local Brew store. There used to be a few other HB stores in and around Chicago but they closed.
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I stopped using liquid yeast years ago and use US-05. My local HB store near my office sells liquid yeast but it’s expensive and I don’t like washing yeast. Big fan of the dry yeast.Comment
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Dry yeasts had already come a very long way by the time I hung up my mash paddle almost ten years ago now. Really impressive, clean products. At least for the styles I tended to brew (mainstream ales, none of those weird additives, sour beers, and suchlike), they worked really well, and I'd also given up the Wyeast smak-paks by then.Comment
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And the beer was a raging success. Amazing flavors and plenty of alcohol. Best part was taking a sample to my LHBS and getting a thumbs up from them on the beer. They even asked for me to brew it again sometime in the future for them. Also I took a bomber to my other job yesterday and shared it with some members and they wanted more. I guess I am finally getting things figured out.Attached FilesComment
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I just dropped $100 on Morebeer.com for yeast and other non-grain supplies, now that the weather has cooled down and I can get liquid yeast here. I have a $10 credit at Northern Brewer, but they say they will take 10 days to get it here? I don't like worrying about something like yeast in transit that long.
Based on some other discussion above, I was really close to pulling the trigger on just switching to a bunch of dry yeast, as its almost half the cost, but the issue when I started looking at it hard, is that while it is convenient, for much of what I am brewing (higher gravity beers), I would need TWO packets of dry yeast per 5 gallons, and I am normally brewing 11 gallon batches. I can step up a pack of liquid yeast in a 2 stage starter on the stir plate and cover the needed yeast. But taking 4 packs of dry yeast and pitching will end up costing twice as much.
Basically, the dry yeast is cost effective if you are brewing standard gravity batches, and only need one pack per fermenter. Or if you harvest and reuse it, but I don't see much on the internet about either doing starters or reusing dry yeast strains, as the entire point is to avoid the hassle of starters and such.
If the US-05 and S-04 I sometimes use were still just $3.99 a pack like it was just 2-3 years ago, it would be a different story.Comment
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jfmorris There's no problem making a starter with or repitching dry yeast. In fact Fermentis actually recommends growing up yeast in a 10P wort for high gravity beers. There's no problem as long as you work clean. Also ask local breweries if you can get yeast from them, most will be happy to. Heck, I just dumped ~15 gallons of K-97 down the drain because I needed to dry hop a beer and didn't need to harvest the yeast. Oh, and Fermentis and Llalemond aren't the only game in town for dried yeast anymore, AEB is about half the cost for a 500g brick as what I'm paying for US-05, and they've got some strains that Fermentis doesn't have. And they sell home-brew sized packs too.
For hops check out hopsdirect.com. Quality product and really, really stupidly good pricing (Cascade 2019 crop at $1.95). I buy almost everything from them except Simcoe. Also Yakima Chief and BSG both sell home brew sized hops and other stuff, too.
And MoreBeer is expensive, Northern Brewer is even worse, and your Friendly Local HomeBrew Shop is probably just marking up stuff from MoreBeer...Comment
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Yeah - I know the owners at a couple of breweries here, but the bigger one is so busy and their fermenters now so huge (Straight to Ale) that whatever they are pulling out of the bottom of the conical can't be too healthy due to the pressure its under. I may check with my brewpub owning friend though.
I'll look at those other dried yeasts and read up some more on them. And I've bought from hopsdirect.com in the past, but had forgotten about them. I'll go check them out - thanks
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for some price references, here are prices at a store near me:
Hops: https://www.microhomebrew.com/products/hops/
Yeast: https://www.microhomebrew.com/products/yeast/
Malt and Grains: https://www.microhomebrew.com/produc...cialty-grains/Comment
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jfmorris I am pretty happy with my small batches. I can try a bunch of different things. For now, I like the small batch as well as if I screw things up I am not highly committed to a large batch. Eventually I will do a large batch. Might be this first recipe I did. The other reason I am doing small batches is my wife is not a beer drinker. And because i don't have too many friends. LOL 😆Comment
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Hey - if it makes you happy, ain't no problem with it! I just know it takes about the same length of time for the process to brew 1/2/5/10 gallons of beer. When you find a recipe you like is when to consider making more. I would only be doing 5 gallon batches except my son in law bought a kegerator and expects to take home kegs of beer every time we brew, so I had to step it up to 10 gallon batches. Now my son is talking about a kegerator, and I sure don't have capacity for 15 gallon batches!
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