I just got the ingredients to do an IPA and the brew store dude suggested adding 1 oz cascade hops to the secondary fermentation. I love a hoppy beer and the more hops the better as far as I'm concerned but I hadn't heard of doing this before is it common?
Speaking of which... anybody grow their own hops? I've grown and used my own, but am just shooting from the hip -- I have no idea what variety they are or what their alpha content is. I tried a little protocol to boil equivalent amounts of both my unknown and some knowns to gauge AAs, but it didn't quite work. I wonder if there's a testing service out there...
If thats your goal, skip the heatstick and go right to a keg. The heatstick will burn your mash. Mounting an element on a keg is easy and cheap. Its actually easier than making a heatstick.
I'd love to be able to buy a sankey keg for conversion. But haven't been able to find any for sale locally that I could afford. Whereas the turkey frier I already have. The biggest challenge for me will be finding the flange/nut to screw the element into the pot - the hole I can make.
Got one free shiner shell from the father in law (the guy who is forcing me to store and ride his honda cruiser) and two budweiser(?) shells from my brother for $30. Hell of a deal. IMHO- if it doesn't smell delicious while cooking, fermenting, etc. something is wrong. Called "dry hopping". Some words for the wise- adding ANYTHING to the brew after the boil (including hydrometer or sampling equipment) is a dangerous practice concerning contamination with bacteria, etc. Surely you are getting sterile, vacuum-sealed hops. Sanitize the package before opening it (and your hands anytime you open the fermenter). Non-sterile, unpackaged hops are ok during the boil. I like to use a muslin bag for dry-hopping. In this case, boil the bag in some tap water for 5-10 min to sterilize it before adding it to the fermenter (sterile hops in sterile bag with sterile hands). See where I'm going with this? For sanitizing anything I can't boil (like siphoning gear, bottle caps, fermenters, etc.) I use Iodophor. Honestly, I don't really boil anything anymore except maybe a muslin bag and the beer of course. Cheers. :slurp Tried a pale ale tonight (only 7-day bottle conditioned). Pretty complex flavor, but too green and not enough bubbles yet. Gonna be good.
In 18 years of homebrewing, I've never had a sanitation issue dry hopping, and I probably dry hop at least 1/2 of my beers. Remember, there are two things going for you at that stage; alcohol and hops natural antiseptic properties. I agree, things like chunks of Stainless to weigh a bag down should be sanitized, but hops? I just open the bag and dump them in.
Maybe you are right. I'm certainly less experienced than you. It's just good to take sanitizing as far as possible. Agreed? I've been to half ass beer stores where the hops were just sitting out in the open in a serve-yourself type of manner under a table with the dust bunnies and whatnot.
The natural antiseptic quality of the hops is why the brew dude said it was ok to dry hop the secondary. I plan on brewing the IPA this week and will let you know how it goes. The stout I did has been in the bottle for 10 days and it already tastes great. I have a pale ale thats about 6 weeks old and keeps getting better. Unfortanately I've been consuming it too fast to allow much aging Maybe we should have a home brew subfest at Cro Mag campout this year!
I have one bottle of wheat left that is probably 1.5 years old. Homebrew definitely gets better with age. It's my wife's favorite, so I had to squirrel away a box of it where she wouldn't see or reach it. I took a 6-pack of my Short Bus Stout to SLAP last year as a rally prize, but unbeknownst to me, it was just casually given away and cast aside (not even as a prize). It broke my heart.
Weldless bulkhead fitting: easy peasy. Buy parts and put it together yourself, or buy one ready to go: Search "weldless kettle" or try one of the brew forums: MoreBeer Northern Brewer Kegs can be had pretty easy, but try to get one legal-like. Maybe the junkyard. Don't just rent one and not return it.
Here is an interesting how to on opening a sankey keg for personal use. http://www.schoepski.com/states/illinois/keg/sankey.htm Icewalker- If you're interested, I'll give you one of my kegs for the cost of shipping. I have no idea what that will be (or if it's legal to ship), but I can check.
You can get the proper threaded nut from McMaster-Carr but you have to get somebody that welds stainless to attach it for you. The other problem is, your turkey fryer is probably too thin to weld anything to. If you are set on the turkey fryer you will need a slight different direction then a welded nut and thats a bolted on adapter. http://plumbing.hardwarestore.com/5...ir-parts/water-heater-adapter-kit-289678.aspx No big deal though, the adapter is cheap and you can install it yourself and be brewing in the big time right now. Then, start looking for a keg and have that welded. Ask at the breweries if they have any retired kegs they will sell. You can check the scrap yards but they dont always have them, much less sell them back to people. Of course you can always have a keg party and you get to keep the keg for that extra $10 .
That's what I did. Get the hands clean to be sure, cut open the vacuum pack of hops, dump them right in. Never had a problem.
Thanks for all the input everyone .... And thanks for the offer DirtyDog. I'm going to take a trip down to the hook later today to see if they have any retired kegs.
I have a few extra kegs kicking around down at the brewery If you are ever up this way stop on by. I have been dry hopping forever and have had no problems since the 70s. I use my homegrown hops most of the time no problems. I also do yearly green hop brew and use them right off the vine. A yearly event to celebrate the hop harvest as I supply a few of the local brewers we make a day of it. Chaos
