Ended up having to start my hops indoors since the weather is so funky here right now. Already have one of the Cascade rhizomes pushing through the soil... they weren't kidding when they said these things take off fast.
I grew a Cascade hop last spring/summer here for the first time, gotta say it was the most rewarding thing I've ever grown. It was growing a couple of inches a day at it's peak. Unfortunatly the yeild was only enough for about 3 brews, I'm told this is to be expected in the first year. Apparently in the second year they've been known to grow up to 1 foot per day! Hope you have a lot of room man, they are virulent. On hops, if you guys haven't yet and get the chance get some Nelson Sauvin, the are brilliant, they throw a huge passion fruit profile.
All grain brewing with just 1 big pot and a bag? Yes you can. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4650" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/ ... php?t=4650</a>
All the Cascade's have busted through the soil and the first ones up have already tacked on another 1.5" of growth despite a lack of sun. The more I read about how big these plants get the more I'm considering moving their final home. These are "test" plants for a much larger grow but I'd like to keep them around if they prove out.
Not a brewing question but a kegerator question. Just picked up a 1/2bbl of Firestone the other day and I'm having a small issue with foam. Basically, I get a good pour for the first second (the beer that's already in the line) and short burst of foam, and then good beer again. This only happens on the first pint. If I pour 2 pints in succession, the second one is fine. Wait 30 minutes, first pint does the same thing. First pint ends up around 1/2 foam, it settles and tastes fine. I've never had this issue before, and it's bugging the shit out of me. -PSI is right around 10, doesn't flow too fast so I don't think pressure is a problem. -Keg has settled, so it's not shaken. -I've bled excess pressure off the keg, no change. -Beer line is around 5 ft and there's only a small faucet out the front of the fridge so there' no warm beer in the tower/faucet. Any advice? I was thinking it might be a temperature thing, but it's never been an issue in the past and I haven't changed anything equipment wise.
Sounds like there might be air in the line. As you wait, the bubble creeps to the highest point. Start a new pour, get a steady pour, bubble burst/foam, back to beer. Have you completely disconnected and retapped it? Are the lines clear so you can visually inspect for bubbles?
Before I tapped, I disassembled the coupler and cleaned the lines like normal. The lines are clear so I can see what's going on. Before the pour, there's no bubbles in the line at all. As I pour, I immediately see a burst of bubbles come from the keg, followed by good beer again. The good pour at the beginning is literally less than a second, but there definitely nothing in the line beforehand.
Check all your connections again. I had the same thing happen to me last summer the first time I changed out kegs and it was an o-ring that hadn't seated itself properly on the CO2 side of the kegerator. So instead of constant 10psi throughout the system you're getting bursts as the system pressurizes again. If this is the case you'll be blowing through CO2 quite a bit too.
Fixed it -- looks like the inner washer on the coupler wasn't getting a good seal to the keg top. Cleaned the top of the keg and the coupler washer and it's pouring fine.
I'm still on the n00b kits, but I have a milk stout that's bottled and just about ready for consumption, an Australian chardonnay in the same boat and a Shiraz that's about ready to be bottled. Hopefully I'll be playing with big boy stuff soon. Currently finishing a smoked porter that was rather meh.
So I posted awhile ago in this thread that I was making Hefeweisen, and that is finished and about half have been tasted (read shared with everyone I know). It was alright, but there was a lingering finish, like a cloying taste that sat on the tongue unless you either took another sip or ate something. I let it sit another week, and now that has settled and the beer tastes quite good. I'll put up a picture when I'm home today. I'm going to try another kit this coming weekend, of one of my personal favorites, American Brown Ale. I hope the kit is decent.
I've got 3 batches in primary right now that need to be transferred to kegs. The first is a Honey Hibiscus Wheat, the second is a Strawberry Lager and the third is a Biere de Garde. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that kits produce mediocre beer at best. Bullshit. Some of that opinion is beer snobbery, some perhaps based on experience with "old stock" kits that may not have been very fresh. I've gotten all my kits from http://www.austinhomebrew.com/ and its all been great. They recently expanded their business based on how busy they are so the ingredients you get are always fresh. The malt extracts come in plastic buckets, never cans. They have hundreds of recipe kits that they make "to order" so you can often find a clone of a brew that you like. Customer service has always been great and they ship any order for $7.99 or free if your order is over $100. Any questions about the basics I can answer, I do extract and partial mash brews, and I have bottled but I now use a 3 tap kegerator. I've also made my own wort chiller which works very well.
That was me sport. And I stand by it. And I was referring to the generic can's of hopped extract that you rightly pointed out are often stale. I used to get similar kits from a similar place and they made good beer also. But you can make better beer just as easily using fresh malt extract and fresh hops. Just takes a bit more time, also you get a lot more satisfaction knowing it's your own design.
Uh, guys, you are arguing about two different things. jakeblues, what you are talking about is not a "kit" in the general sense of the word. Certainly not a kit in the general sense that most homebrewers would refer to and if you call it a kit, most homebrewers are not going to assume you're getting what Austin Homebrew ships you. It's not a pre-packaged bunch of ingredients that's been sitting on a shelf for six months. Austin Homebrew sells recipes. It's a recipe where they pick fresh ingredients from their inventory of rotating, always-fresh ingredients and give you all of the ingredients that are called out in the recipe. What you are getting from AH - and I have ordered from AH many times - is exactly what LTMS is talking about. Fresh malt and fresh hops. They just happen to do you the convenience of packaging up exactly what you need for a particular recipe and shipping it out. It is absolutely no different from going into a local homebrew shop and asking for quantities of particular ingredients to make your own, AH just throws a recipe in.
My goal is to get people to try homebrewing for themselves champ. All grain isn't difficult but it also isn't nearly as easy as extract. Folks if you want easy good beer, go to the site I mentioned, order one up and I guarantee you'll be happy. Any q's I'll be glad to help.
You two guys should focus less on the brewing and more on the drinking. Power through to the "I love you, man" phase. We'd all appreciate it, I'm sure.
And I would gladly accept. After looking at the AH site I'm certain your beer would be anything but mediocre. Today I've been doing this fucking all grain bastard, so far at the 3 hour mark. I could have made 3 extract batches in the same time. It had better be at least 2x as good.
Holy fucking hell, we popped open the Chardonnay tonight with dinner to test it and splitting the bottle between us we are both heavily buzzed. I'm a pretty big drinker and could put down a bottle of normal chard myself without much noticeable effect, but I think if I took down the whole bottle I would be legitimately drunk.