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It's been a beer I've wanted to try for ages, but they don't distribute Elysian brews here, so I guess I'll just have to give it a go myself!
Home Brew Discussion
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It's been a beer I've wanted to try for ages, but they don't distribute Elysian brews here, so I guess I'll just have to give it a go myself!
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Haven't had internet for nearly a month. First all grain batch came out pretty well (did that Elysian Avatar clone mentioned above), bottled it last weekend, so will have a picture or two of it soon.
Went ahead and made my own wort chiller, cost was about 30 bucks:
The videos online made it seem a lot harder than it was as far as bending the pipe into the right shape. Didn't use a pipe bender or anything as a mold and it came out well I think. Really helps. The Avatar clone already looks to be quite a bit clearer, though I did use some Irish moss too.
There's the mash tun I made as well. Spent about 10 bucks on that, not counting the cooler.
Went ahead and made my own wort chiller, cost was about 30 bucks:
The videos online made it seem a lot harder than it was as far as bending the pipe into the right shape. Didn't use a pipe bender or anything as a mold and it came out well I think. Really helps. The Avatar clone already looks to be quite a bit clearer, though I did use some Irish moss too.
There's the mash tun I made as well. Spent about 10 bucks on that, not counting the cooler.
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I got impatient:
already seems like it's turned out ten times better than the first batch. Way hoppier than I would have guessed when I sampled before bottling. The jasmine was quite strong before, but now the hops take center stage. The jasmine is almost non existent unfortunately.
already seems like it's turned out ten times better than the first batch. Way hoppier than I would have guessed when I sampled before bottling. The jasmine was quite strong before, but now the hops take center stage. The jasmine is almost non existent unfortunately.
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I got impatient:
already seems like it's turned out ten times better than the first batch. Way hoppier than I would have guessed when I sampled before bottling. The jasmine was quite strong before, but now the hops take center stage. The jasmine is almost non existent unfortunately.
was that four separate hop packets? or two kinds but four packets? Wish we were neighbors
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If I can recall correctly there were 2 oz german north brewer, 1 oz glacier, 1 oz ahtanum (substituted because they were out of amarillo). I think the recipe called for 1.5 oz nb and like '5 oz of the ahtanum.
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Welp. My oktoberfest isnt great so far. I am going to give it some time to meld. Still seems a bit green apple-y. Just brewed a spiced rye dunkleweizen on Tuesday. The last two times I used wyeast I blew off my airlock, so I made a blow-off tube. I keep checking it waiting for the blowoff tube to be jam packed with krausen and of course it is the quietest fermenting beer I have ever made. While I was sanitizing everything I thiefed a bit of my 3 month old ancient orange mead. That sucker is going to be awesome. I think I might try a braggot next. Anyone ever done one of those?
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How long did you have the Oktoberfest conditioning? Will probably bottle my pumpkin beer this weekend.
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What's the temp where you're fermenting? From my experience, a quiet fermentation produces bad batches.
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I kegged it about a month ago. I had it in the primary for 2 weeks or so. and in a secondary for about 3. Just had a glass. Not terrible...but certainly not great. My chili beer just tapped out
Gonna have to make another one. I had a brother in law offer to pay me for a keg and to have it shipped to TX and back when empty. I always have to have that on tap at my house. People love it.
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It is about 70F. Yeah, I think it might be ok because it has held strong at its current fermentation. I will keep checking it. I think that my extra fridge may have partially frozen my yeast, which cant be good. I dont know how many yeast that kills, but not a good thing obviously. We'll see. Its got some spices going in with it in the secondary so maybe that will mask any imperfections. Anyone accidentally freeze yeast?
But BEARS win! So I cant complain!
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I kegged it about a month ago. I had it in the primary for 2 weeks or so. and in a secondary for about 3. Just had a glass. Not terrible...but certainly not great. My chili beer just tapped out
Ah well that's a bit of a bummer. I would imagine that after all that time it would be pretty much ready to go. So far I haven't had much of a problem with a week in the primary, a week in the secondary and then two weeks after bottling. I think my first batch was all gone after a month or maybe even less.
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Well done. polishing off your first batch! I think I need more friends to help me finish my beers.
Yeah, it should be conditioned enough by now. Probably will just have to choke it down (or it might be good for beer brats!) I generally go 10-14 days primary. and then 7-14 in the secondary depending on if I am adding anything to the secondary. I know the guys that work at a small brewpub. They make two 1/2 barrels a day. For the majority of their beers, they have them on tap 14 days later. I find that my beeers taste young that early, but I guess I guess some people get away with it.
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Aha, not such a big accomplishment when I'm involved. Actually I shared quite a bit of the first batch. Gave my dad a six pack to take with him to work (to share with coworkers), shared with my band mates, brought a sixer over to a friend's bbq, my girlfriend and her brother drank a few, and then I pretty much downed the rest myself. I think I'd prefer to have the problem of needing more friends to drink my brews, I get too anxious when one batch is running low and I'm waiting for another to finish.
Ah I'm sure I'll run into that problem sooner rather than later, it's bound to happen. I've only made pale ales so far so perhaps that's why I've gotten away with it being ready to drink so soon. The pumpkin ale spent a week in the primary and is now going on two in the secondary we'll see how this one turns out. Perhaps it'll need more time than the others.
Have you decided on the braggot?
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No, not yet. I think I need to get a replacement chili beer in the works first. And then I need to look up some recipes since I have never made a braggot. Tasted my Ancient Orange Mead this week and I think I might keg it and put a bit of carbonation on it. Very tasty right now though. One good thing about finishing my chili beer is that now I have another keg available!
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Oh. and I dont think I have heard your band yet, have I?
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What's that chili beer like? Sounds strange to me personally, just that chili and beer seem like an odd combination.
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Don't know if you have. I think I posted it once or twice on the cbmb.
[video=vimeo;12311719]http://vimeo.com/12311719[/video]
There's a live track anyway. Mixing the album now and it's almost done with that I think.
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I meant chili as in peppers, not the hearty soup. I put 6 sliced in half, steamed serrano peppers into the secondary with a lighter beer that I make using a low temperature ale yeast. The base beer is more flavorful than typical American lagers, but really light to allow the flavors of the peppers to come through. The first batch was perfect in heat. My band drank a ton of it during practice once and I swear we were all hallucinating. It was crazy. The second batch was said to be too spicy by a lot of people. I got bronze in a beer competition with it (in a yellow beer category, not just chili beers), but got docked a lot for it being too spicy. My most recent batch that just tapped out only had a slight tingle of heat. Not near enough for me. Im not much for creating beers over and over, but this is the best chili beer I have ever had and people love it, so I keep making it.
Why does the spell check want to put "u"s in everything! I am not British!
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Awesome man. Would really like to hear it in a studio recording. Let me know when I can get my hands on it. I play in a melodic metal band. My wife is the lead singer. She has a lot of classical experience singing, but is really starting to get into the screaming now. Unfortunately, all of our recordings are prior to her getting comfortable screaming. Our recordings are pretty crap too since we tried to have a friend do the mastering and it is terrible. Need to have them redone. We havent done much recently since I travel so much for work. We have a tone of songs in different stages of recording. We tend to just put out songs as they finish instead of an album.
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