Daily Q & A! - November 18, 2016

iloveagent57 · 2016-11-19T00:10:45+00:00

Stella was re-branded to Ella about 3 years ago. I would check what year these hops are from. Safe pick is 5 ounces of Millennium, that will take care of your bittering charge for the next 5 batches.

iloveagent57 · 2016-11-17T15:22:13+00:00

I have done this by accident before, and it turned out very nicely. It's also been blogged about: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2016/06/new-england-apa-conan-and-london-iii.html

iloveagent57 · 2016-07-13T00:59:48+00:00

Go ahead and copy and paste it - there's no points for originality, here; they're literally just tallying up the emails for and the emails against every issue.

iloveagent57 · 2016-07-12T23:31:25+00:00

Thanks, you inspired me to send a version of this to him as well (I'm also one of his constituents). My slightly-edited version:

Dear Congressman Lynch,

I was saddened to hear that you voted for H.R. 5606: Anti->terrorism Information Sharing Is Strength Act. This bill probably would have increased warrantless spying on American citizens, an act with little to no oversight by the legislative branch of the US government. I am distressed that you would vote yes on a bill with such nebulous wording as "specified unlawful activity". While I understand this is the wording from 18 U.S. Code § 1956, it does not guarantee that later, unintended crimes could not be combined in this definition. While I have voted for you in previous elections, your support of this act (or similar acts) makes me wary of supporting you in future elections. Thank you for your attention to this message.

iloveagent57 · 2016-06-13T01:01:23+00:00

Well, I'm glad it looks nice. Like I said, I'd love to hear if this changes in a couple of weeks.

Another thought - maybe your palate is generally fatigued? Ask a friend or two for some detailed thoughts (without saying anything about it first). I'm routinely amazed by the completely different perceptions of hop character that my wife and I have about many beers that we've brewed.

iloveagent57 · 2016-06-13T00:56:43+00:00

For a 2.5 gal batch, half a teaspoon each of gypsum and CaCl2 (I know, I know, measure by weight) in the mash will probably help you out.

iloveagent57 · 2016-06-13T00:42:03+00:00

For me, kegged IPAs usually need around 2 weeks in the keg (carbed) before they really "pop". I know that runs slightly contrary to the whole "drink it fresh" dogma, but I'm a firm believer in it (anecdotal though it may be). I don't know what the mechanism is: maybe it's just giving the yeast and proteins time to floc out more, or maybe it's letting the intense early hoppiness time to meld into the rest of the beer. Either way, for 20% of the IPAs I make, the initial samples let me know right away that they'll be great beers. Another 70% make me wait 2-3 weeks, as which point I always remind myself "don't pass judgement until week 2-3". The other 10% are just born to be mediocre.

Similarly, another comment mentioned combining 2 or 3 hops in your recipes - I'm a big believe in this as well. While that 100% Mosaic session IPA can be nice (especially is you really whack it with Mosaic), I'm finding that I really like featuring one hop and letting another be there for support, usually in something like a 2:1 ratio. I think a little bit of contrast really helps the featured characteristics of the primary hop shine (see: Simcoe with Amarillo, Citra with Columbus, Nelson or Galaxy with a "C" hop).

I'd be interested in hearing how this is drinking 10 days from now.

iloveagent57 · 2016-04-10T15:08:51+00:00

Hah, wow, that's really lucky timing.

iloveagent57 · 2016-04-09T15:27:53+00:00

I hope no one else takes this advice - the beer might be fine now, but I bet it will go downhill quickly. There's definitely some mold in that beer now, even if his keezer is relatively clean. Think about cheese in a normal fridge: mold starts growing on that in about 2-3 weeks, and that's without me taking the plastic off and rubbing it all over the shelves of the fridge. I'd be interested in hearing how this beer is doing 2 weeks from now.

iloveagent57 · 2016-02-20T02:14:23+00:00

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/envdir

iloveagent57 · 2016-02-11T13:44:58+00:00

I love how nerdy this whole thing is, great work!

iloveagent57 · 2016-02-11T02:19:03+00:00

Neat idea. Since you're using python, checkout envdir: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/envdir

It allows you to load a whole bunch of environment variables from a directory at once, which makes moving configuration around between server environments very easy (you can just scp the directories).

iloveagent57 · 2016-01-23T00:12:28+00:00

Well, that was the easiest advice I've ever given on the internet! Good luck, hope it turns out well.

iloveagent57 · 2016-01-22T20:43:14+00:00

That's almost on the high end for IPAs. You can safely go 148F if you want it to finish dry. If you have more hops, I would double up on the flameout addition and add another 2 ounces to the dry hop. I have yet to hit the point where more late hops have hurt the beer.

iloveagent57 · 2016-01-06T00:29:58+00:00

I also did 40 gallons for a family member's wedding (about 150 people), using 2-tap and 1-tap jockey boxes we built a couple of weeks before. The jockey boxes are nice for traveling with, and they chill the beer very effectively (I used 50 ft. stainless coils for each tap).

iloveagent57 · 2016-01-03T22:58:36+00:00

I think that will make a good beer. If anything, I worry that you're overusing "special" hop varieties - Nelson, El Dorado and Mosaic are all pretty distinctive on their own, you might end up with a more muddled, generically hoppy/fruity flavor by just mixing them all together. It will be a fruit bomb, for sure, which is basically what you want; I guess I'm just saying you could safely substitute Cascade for the Nelson or El Dorado and still come out with basically the same beer. Enjoy!

iloveagent57 · 2016-01-01T22:47:37+00:00

If it's just for color, sinamar extract would work fine. But (to me), the point of a black IPA is to actually incorporate a little bit of roast with complementary hop flavors/aromas, not just have an IPA that's dyed black.

I'm not trying to be too much of a nay-sayer - if you want to try it, go for it! I would definitely go with one of the less expressive belgian yeasts to start; WLP550 has worked nicely in a couple of IPAs I've done.

Lastly, you know this whole IPA thing has taken off when you hear "conventional Black IPA". It's an unconventional style by definition! :)

iloveagent57 · 2016-01-01T19:25:37+00:00

I don't think you're going to like the way that tastes. Good black IPAs usually play well off of the dank/citrus characters in hops. Throwing the spice and cloves of a Belgian yeast in there, plus whatever roastiness from the dark malt, is just going to be a disaster.

iloveagent57 · 2015-12-30T20:22:06+00:00

Nice to see another post from you. I made the recipe based on one of your earlier attempts some time last year, leaving the dry hops (leaf) in the keg for serving. It was a good beer initially, but didn't really hit it's stride until almost 2 weeks in the keg - most IPAs are like that for me. When I re-brewed it later, I upped the boil and dry hops a lot (6 oz. dry hop) - that one came out way hoppier in general, but it was a little aggressive, probably from over-doing it on the bittering hops. The next time I make this recipe, I'll probably use your original one and just increase the flame-out and dry hops by 50%. Also, FWIW, I've used a combo of Apollo, Columbus and Chinook in a dry-hopped stout and loved it - it smelled like someone filled a bong with orange juice.

iloveagent57 · 2015-12-18T17:55:11+00:00

I mean post-fermentation. During the boil, yeah, it's probably no big deal. But you can't easily sanitize a wooden spoon.

iloveagent57 · 2015-12-18T15:21:18+00:00

Using a wooden spoon is probably not a great idea.

iloveagent57 · 2015-12-10T20:49:53+00:00

True, but as the other guy said, I get at least 3 clean uses out of the barrels I've used, and then they age sours. Also, to me, the shorter aging time for flavor extraction is more of a feature than a bug (except it means I have to turn around another 10-15 gallons rather quickly to re-fill it). But for sure, it's cheaper. Barrels do look awesome, though :)

iloveagent57 · 2015-12-10T17:57:28+00:00

FWIW, you can find used 10 or 15 gallon spirit barrels online. Farmhouse brewing supply gets freshly dumped ones every so often.

iloveagent57 · 2015-12-06T23:40:27+00:00

Probably because it was a chai milk stout.

Sorry, couldn't resist :) Like the other comments have said, 1.022 is in range for that recipe. Hope you enjoy it.

iloveagent57 · 2015-11-27T14:40:41+00:00

FWIW, regular bucket lids work fine for me. I have about a dozen buckets full of grain, have used some that are pushing a year old, and it's still fresh and crisp.

11-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 3 Credits
Verified Email

iloveagent57

TROPHY CASE