Tastybrew User Journals
The homebrewing journals are designed as a way for you, the homebrewer, to let us, the Tastybrew users, know what you're brewing or what you're drinking (or most anything else). This is a good way for other users of Tastybrew to learn more about other homebrewers and enhance the community feel. So share whatever is on your mind. (Website registration required to add journal entries.)Recent Journal Entries
| By Joseph Pinachio on Feb 7th 2010, 2:03 am | Permalink |
| I just brewed my version of an Imperial Stout. Im still new to homebrewing. My question is after I bottle I want to leave it bottled for many months, i have heard this improves the taste. So after bottling should I leave at room temperature for conditioning or put in the refridgerator? Any help would be greatly appreciated. | |
| By Stephen Porr on Jan 9th 2010, 3:01 pm | Permalink |
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I started the new year out with doing my very first "all grain". I built my mash tun from a 50 qt cooler and used the manifold method with cpvc pipe to drain. I researched on YouTube for the build and it worked quite well. Alot better than I thought it would. I used a the "batch sparge" method for sparging by heating up my water to 170 degrees while mashing and put that water into a old 5 gallon Gott cooler I had. It held the temp right at 170 until I was ready to sparge. I used a recipe submitted by Nate Bourne on 10/29/07 called Screaming Viking Ale from this site. I also used a wort chller I built to cool my wort that worked fantastic. It only took 10 minutes to cool it down enough to pitch my yeast. I am also using a "blow Off tube" that I made as my bubbler. The recipe is on this site but I did make a few changes to it. The are as follows: 2 oz Hersbrucker pellet in place of the Crystal hops 1 oz Hallertau pellet 2 lbs. Light DME instead of 1 lb. It says in the recipe 8 days in primary only. But I will be racking it into a glass secondary to clear. I do not use Irish Moss in my brews. I usually let in secondary for 2 weeks or until they look clear enough to keg. |
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| By Duke Geren on Jan 8th 2010, 12:32 am | Permalink |
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Just added my starter to my American Stout. Should be a big beer. OG came in at 1.086. Which is odd since the recipe calculator thought I should have come in around 1.071. Have to figure out where those extra points of gravity came from. Recipe was: 1lb. Black Barley 3/4 lb Chocolate 3/4 lb Crystal 40L 10 lbs Light DME 1.5oz Magnum whole leaf (60 minutes) 1.0oz Centinal pellet (10 minutes) 2qt WLP001 starter. Guess we'll see how she turns out. |
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| By vistabeerdrinker on Dec 7th 2009, 10:38 pm | Permalink |
| i was wondering if any one had dechutes jubeale clone reciepe | |
| By Stephen Porr on Dec 5th 2009, 5:03 pm | Permalink |
| I am actually trying to find as much information as I can from an old brewery that was located originally in Germania PA. It was the old Schwarzenbach Brewing Company, started in Germania and then moved 7 miles north to Galton PA. I believe it was closed in 1933 and moved to New York. I do have some information but it is very hard to come by. I would love to see what the style of beer it was that they brewed and even possibly try to recreate one of there brews. I am very familular with the Germania area and have a good idea where the original brewery was located. My parents currently live in Germania and are retired. Any information at all would be greatly appreciated. | |
| By Kurt (OneHoppyGuy) Bergman on Nov 29th 2009, 12:17 am | Permalink |
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Hullo... I use to do a lot of chatting and advice giving years ago with my other favorite hobby - old Mopars (that's Dodge and Plymouth for the uninitiated). About 6 years in to brewing now. Bought a kit for a buddy and it sat there. So I did a brew and loved it so much I have been at it since. Mother's Day of this year my wife insisted I brew her a batch.... I told her she had to help, now she too is hooked. We do mostly ales. IPAs more specifically. My wife loves Moylans Kilt Lifter and is still trying to get her version to come out right. But she is starting to become a hop head so I wrote a recipe I call Hop Scotch. If she likes it I will post it. We use a 15 gal pot for HLT and Boil and a 10 gal Rubbermaid cooler for mashing. We brew about every 2 weeks (5 gal batches) We live less than 2 miles from MoreBeer's Concord showroom http://morebeer.com/ and I think I get frequent flyer miles...  Photos: http://cid-d9a39c6d04b091a1.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Man%20Cave%20a.k.a.%20Brew%20House http://cid-d9a39c6d04b091a1.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Brew%20Day |
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| By lowell on Nov 8th 2009, 1:33 am | Permalink |
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Hi, this is my first entry in the journal. I just made a starter for a steam beer. (Wyeast 2007 pilsner.) I plan to brew with a freind,we only have 1/2 day wo I will do an extract. I just tapped my last brew, my own recipe, just 11 lbs, MO and 1&1/2 lbs Munich, the hops were Kent goldings and Cascade. I was trying something less bitter. It turned out a little too bitter anyway, I think because I had too much volume and boiled so too long. I'm will be trying to use my Son Of Fermentaton chiller in the winter to warm instead of cool. I will put a small light bulb in the main chamber to heat it and then let the fan and ice cool it back down. It worked great in the summer, it held the temp at a steady 68 deg contiunually. Hope it works to heat as well. |
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| By Trob on Nov 5th 2009, 9:40 pm | Permalink |
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Today I brewed and did some experimenting. 1. I put my grain bed in in a fine bag to help keep sediment out. I thought it wasn't working after my first runnings so I took it out and ran it again. Second runnings were significantly cloudier, but I might try this again with a larger bag as mine was packed to the brim. It would make cleaning much simpler. 2. Added 11 ounces of baked acorn squash to my mash. Initial wort tasting had a very pleasant taste. 3. Washed my first yeast cake. This is very new to me, but I want to start getting more miles out of my yeast. So now I have three half-pint mason jars in the fridge and in a day or two I will drain the extra water off the top. Soon I will graduate to slants and dishes, but one step at a time. 4. Pressure canned nine mason jars of wort for yeast starters. This just seemed too cool for some reason. I'm ashamed to say that I've brewed nearly 125 gallons since I started in february and I've never done a yeast starter. My problem is I never have yeast or wort before brewing day because I'm too antsy to wait a day. Hopefully having some canned wort and eventually some stored yeast will bring my brewing to the next level. Exciting day so far. I'll keep ya posted. |
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| By Jonathan Cahoon on Nov 1st 2009, 6:33 pm | Permalink |
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Yesterday was my first attempt at an all grain, not everything went according to schedual but I got what I wanted. I mashed for nearly two hours at 158' sparging at 170' sparched quickly about fifteen minutes. I went with a little different technique, I had bought a large mesh hop bag large enough to fit my ten gallon cooler. I convertend the cooler as everyone else has to have a controled outlet, but I fitted the bag to the tun and deposited my grains and added the mash wated 171' giving me a solid 158' mash temp. I then proceeded as normal, the bag made clean up a snap I desposed of my spent grains in the yard as "bird feed" that time of year you know. My yield is what ended up short was only three and a half gallons I brought the volume up to five gallons and began my boil. First hop addition immediatly was a 3/4 oz 11.4% Chinook boil began about 15 min later after 30 min, second hop addition of 1/4 oz Chinook 1/2 oz each of 6.3% Challenger and 4.4% Vangaurd 15min more remaining 1/2 oz each of Challenger and Vangaurd 15 more min boil. Chilled down to 100 degrees and transfered to fermenter allowed to cool to 80 degrees. Pitched White Labs English Ale Yeast started night before and put in pantry. |
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| By adam H on Oct 17th 2009, 6:35 pm | Permalink |
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Hello, to all.. waiting for a 6.5gall Black IPA to bottom out for dry hopping (brewed last sat. oct.17th) will post the recipe after I try it 16lbs AG OG 1.062. it was a modified cream stout recipe from Bend Brewing(Tonya) right now I'm going fly fishing on the middle Dechutes |
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| By Alaina McDourty on Sep 28th 2009, 4:20 pm | Permalink |
| I am new to the brewing world as my hubby has decided its better tasting and cheaper that the nasty "yellow piss beer" lol. So by default I am now a brewer. Im not sure If ill get the hang of it as my hubby is mostly a do'er and not much of a show-er. He has made his first batch of ale which is cool. I want to be involved and supportive. I just hope it doesnt consume most of our relationship.. the long hours he spends looking up recipes, hobby yes... i get it, I just hope I can get more involved with out making him feel I am intruding.. I guess we will see. | |
| By Marc Daoust on Sep 19th 2009, 6:37 pm | Permalink |
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Made my first attempt at a spiced apple cider last night. Still no name for it, but I'll think of one later. Here's the recipe; 4 gal Allen's canned apple juice (16 cans @ 1.2 L) 500 g pure white clover honey (about 1 lbs) 400 g light brown sugar (little less than 1 lbs) 1 tsp allspice 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp nutmeg 1 gal water (give of take) 2 packets Lalvin EC-01118 yeast Boil 1 gal of water, disolving the honey and brown sugar. Be sure to skim off the protein scum from the honey that floats to the top with a spoon. Put the spices in a coffee filter and tie off with an elastic, place in 1 cup boiling water for about 10 to 15 minutes. Rehydrate yeast, Add everything to primary and mix in apple juice. Pitch yeast after taking temps and OG. Primary - plastic for 4 weeks Secondary - glass for 6 weeks Bottle condition - 3 weeks or more |
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| By jdavidpenn on Sep 11th 2009, 12:54 am | Permalink |
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email me a bunch of jokes about drinking Thank you Jdavidpenn@live.com |
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| By Lenny Wroblewski on Sep 3rd 2009, 12:38 am | Permalink |
| Brewed my first AG and lager, a doppelbock even did a decontion mash evryy thing went smooth hit all my temps right on the money. Gravity came ouy good as well 1.080. Hope the lagering process goes well. | |
| By Aidan Friesen on Aug 30th 2009, 2:45 am | Permalink |
| Just brewed my First AG. in a cheap and easy mash tun. it went beautifully. perfect, almost. exept i had a bit of a stuck runoff -_- i still need to figure that one out. i think it may be that theres not enough slits in my manifold. but i put it through a mesh strainer into another boil pot and its gonna be alright(: its a scottish 60, 3.1 percent | |
| By Marc Daoust on Aug 29th 2009, 12:48 am | Permalink |
| Bottled my stout yesterday, should be ready to drink in about 3 weeks. Looks like it's going to be a really good stout. Thanks to everyone here who offered advice, I'll drink one for all of you. Cheers! | |
| By david f on Aug 17th 2009, 2:55 am | Permalink |
| SINGLE WIDE IPA | |
| By david f on Aug 17th 2009, 2:53 am | Permalink |
| test | |
| By Aidan Friesen on Aug 13th 2009, 9:23 pm | Permalink |
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so i checked my mail today, the september edition of BYO came out, The front page read: Fermenting Success: Understand and take care of your yeast, Build a cider press and hard cider tips, Homebrew Flavour experiment, Making Berliner Weisse. Anyways, Last week, my and my uncle decided we were building a cider press, and my last 3 forums were about Yeast blends, Cocoa Flavour, and Lambic (in this forum, sombody suggests i brew a berliner Weisse.) crazy, eh? |
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| By Marc Daoust on Aug 10th 2009, 11:38 pm | Permalink |
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Brewed my stout on Saturday (Aug 8), and it looks like it's going to be a good one. Just one thing changed from the original recipe, I had to use Wyeast London Ale instead of Irish Ale. My supplier was out of stock, so I subbed the London Ale for my original order. In the mean time, my BrewCanada Pils is ready to drink. It's not bad for an all extract kit beer, but I'm still exited about my first partial extract sitting in the basement right now. |
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