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DIY Beverages...


Jakedoza

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Jake, the attention to detail about sterilization and wayward bacteria is similiar to the sterilization required on making phytoplankton. You go boy.

I remember when I worked on drilling rigs and drillships. Sometimes catering personnel would set up stills for making home brew on the ship. As I would make my rounds as a rig mechanic, I remeber the distinctive smell of the home brew fermenting. It was big time different then the smells of disel fumes.

Patrick

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And the trub will be consumed by the yeast as well. I didn't know you HB'd Jake. I did quite a few all-grain batches before my son was born. I hope to get back into it after he is a little older and doesn't want to touch everything (especially a propane burner)

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Alright guys.. sorry about the lack of updates.. I had a hockey game last Tuesday night and tore my ACL, cartilage, and meniscus.. It has not been a fun week..

Here is where we are at.. Looks like the fermentation has pretty much stopped, so I am going to take a gravity reading..

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It looks like we have a gravity of 1.014 at 72F. The calculated gravity at that temperature is 1.015. What do I know from this reading?

Remember when I took the initial reading? Here is where it is important.

According to the calculations from my first reading our yeast is at 76.19% Attenuation. And according to the yeast chart, this yeast has a 72%-76% attenuation rate. That means that this yeast is pretty much exhausted and this beer is ready to keg.

With our gravity readings I can also calculate the Alcohol By Volume (ABV) of this beer. It looks like it is sitting at 6.28% which is a whole 1.28% higher than Bud and a whole 2% higher than Bud Light.. It may not seem like much, but if you aren't used to it.. It will hit you.

Here is the color and what the beer looks like in the glass

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The nose is of cloves

It is of med/full body and has a clove and citrus flavor.

It is smooth and not dry at all.

Now it is time to move it to the keg. I will sanitize the keg and the theif (the device used to siphon the beer to the keg) and then move it over.

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Here is the cardboy empty with the yeast cake at the bottom..

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Yeast cake..

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I save part of the yeast in a sterile baby food jar so I can use it the next time I make a beer similar or the same as this one..

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more yeast cake

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clean up time..

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Now the beer will remain in the keg conditioning for a couple of weeks, and then I will apply Co2 to carbonize it.

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Making beer can get WAAAY complicated, but it will only get as complicated as you make it.

There are guys that do their own water chemistry

Homebrewing is my other hobby, even though I haven't made a beer in a long time. I still have 3 kegs full from when I made 80 gallons in a month. ohmy.png This was 13 months ago when it was actually cold... I hate brewing in the heat. Chilling wort is a pain and the bees won't leave me alone when I'm outside. Bees freak me out. haha

I modify my water every time I brew, to match the water from the location I'm trying to style emulate. Distilled water is my friend because my tap water is awful. But the water chem mods are not that big of a deal, Beersmith works most of that out for you.

One suggestion I will make for you. Try using plastic buckets from Home Depot instead of carboys. They don't break, food safe, they weigh less, cost less, have handles, easy to clean, prevents hop skunking as it blocks UV, and you can stack them when they are not in use. I used to have many carboys but now only use them for long aging of meads and wines where oxidation is a concern. Few beers stay in the carboy for oxidation to be a concern (barley wine). The rumors of scratches harboring bacteria are way overstated.

I know I sound like the plastic-bucket police but I know 3 guys who have dropped carboys, of which 2 required medical attention. Glass carboys are accidents waiting to happen.

Be safe.

Grog

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So its not carbonated yet? I thought that was part of brewing. I've learned a lot. Didn't I see you liked NASCAR? Did you watch the race tonight? Crazy things happened.

It is not carbonated yet..

I am watching the umm... red flag .. lol yeah, it has been crazy... Too bad Jeff's engine blew.. Maybe Jr can finally break his streak..

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The rivers that flow near Junctin, Tx had abundant clear flow last Easter. While I was fishing at the state park, a man went into a deep pool that we had fished with no luck. He brought back a picture of a cat fish bigger than you, Jake.

Patick

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