Fritz

[fritz]

Greetings fellow brewsters,

The purpose of this post is two-fold
...to introduce myself & share with a community I have lurked in, and learned from, for some months.
...to let newbies know they are not pioneers, they don't have to do things the hard or expensive way.

Some months ago I joined and wrote a first-post on my experiences in beginning home brewing on another similar oz forum.  I was immediately accused of being a spammer by an imbecile of a moderaor who didnt like his derogatory letter to me made public.  This will be my second and final attempt at joining a homebrew forum.

After some lengthy badgering by SWMBO's father to get me brewing my own, I finally relented and bought a kit from a national franchise along with some PET bottles.  The garden shed where I set up my humble beginnings has no power, no water, no sink, though there is adequate bench-space and storage and a fair degree of enthusiasm.

Guided by my European he-thinks-he's-a-beer-god of a mentor who started brewing in the 1960's using bakers yeast in garbage bins, I began to play around with off-the-shelf kits; typically labelled pale ales, pilsners, lagers, various kinds including alcoholic ginger beer.  No two brews were done the same but everything was recorded, the good the bad and the ugly, to assist me on this path of continuous improvement.  In the cooler months I bought and used lager yeasts instead of the kit yeasts supplied, purchased specialty kits from various outlets, added different styles of hops, made the initial mix of wort, water & other ingredients in different ways, used crushed eggshells, used different cleaning and sanitising solutions and methods and now have enough bottles to let each brew lager for a couple of months before the first opening.  I will continue this trial & error as it is in my nature.

I bought a 2nd used fermenter from a charity shop and have been syphoning off the initial fermentation and letting it sit for another 3 or 4 weeks prior to bottling.  More recently, a friend returned a favour and has given me another 24 pet bottles, 2 more fermenters, 2 hydrometers and an immersion heater he found at a garage sale.

Temperature.  It's been about 6 months now and, although potentially satisfying, I still find things a bit frustrating.   I see my biggest problem being temperature stability;  in winter, I've tried wrapping an electric blanket around the first fermenter and other times tried the blanket underneath.  In warmer weather I place each fermenter on a 450mm diameter pot plant tray, wrap a towel around making sure it sits inside the tray at the bottom.  Then I wet each towel with approx 750ml of water and let the coolgardie effect take over.  I've noticed with this in place the fermenter is significantly cooler than shed temp, cooler still if a fan is blowing on it.  Today, the OAT is in the high 30's,  fermenter temps are 22-23C.  Getting power to the shed is a problem, leads have to be brought out, not convenient but I'm working on it.  Prior to me using the coolgardie-effect, two of my beers got warm.  One, a pilsner, was so fruity as to be undrinkable early on but has settled down after a couple of months.

Hydrometers.  When fermenting the first ginger beer I had erratic readings from my hydrometer yet airlock activity continued for over 3 weeks.  Monitoring, I had no clue what to do and this was when I first attempted to join a forum.  No luck there so I read, watched and waited; nearly a month in the initial fermenter and I bottled.  Tasty & alcoholic but flat-as, no carbonation at all.  I later discovered my hydrometer had an undiscovered fine crack around a fold in it's base.  Someone wrote in an old post CO2 escaping from solution can cause ongoing bubbling; one lives and learns.

SWMBO said she wanted me to do a Corona-style for her and on the ingredients advice of a well known independant outlet I did so.  It was ok and I chose to make another for her this time using can instructions.  Big mistake, onto the garden it goes and won't be doing that again; the only batch I've discarded to date.

Bottles.  An interesting learning curve here and bottling stalwarts should look away now.  Early on I chose to use whatever bottles were at hand so long as I had the same kind throughout each batch.  For my various but mainstream beers, I used Coopers PET; same caps over and over.  For SWMBOs corona styles I used green Storm stubbies, an allegedly lightweight non-refillable bottle from Aldi; same caps over and over.  For each of the alcoholic Ginger Beers, I used Lambrusco screw-top wine bottles; same caps over and over.  See a pattern forming here?  Each of these three bottle types & caps have been repeatedly used; over and over again for purposes they were never designed.  There may be some who scoff at such habits, but it's what I've done and have had only 6 glass breakages in God-knows-how-many refills to date.  Those breakages were from my hamfisted crimping techniques early on.  Not one single cap has leaked after capping.  As an adjunct, SWMBO has recently started making a Rhubarb bubbly; she's onto her fifth small batch now; and wants the Coopers PETs to bottle it in.  There is some serious carbonation in this champagne-esque stuff.  After a few weeks the caps and PET bottle bottoms bulge out so much the bottle is unable to stand up.  Yet nothing has ever leaked or burst.  When I reclaim these PET bottles from her, I warm them up a bit then push the bottom of the bottle back up.  Simples.

Clean/Sanitise.  I have moved all over the place on this one and am still far from settled.  If anyone can be specific (very specific) about what they use and why and can quantify, it would be welcome. It seems every second post on homebrew sites is about cleaning and sanitising yet not many are clear and specific enough to enact upon; the one exception is the use of Starsan.  Retail outlets have only small expensive solutions.   Two of my fermented batches had poor head retention and I blamed it on the dishwashing powder I used.  Right or wrong, I am currently using unscented cheap household bleach as my washing agent but I am buggered if I know what dilution to use.  As each bottle is emptied, it is rinsed, drained and stored with cap off.  At bottling time, it is washed in a solution of rainwater and bleach, drained, rinsed in fresh water and drained again; I seem to be reducing that water:bleach solution each time.  A bottling tree and rinse pump/bowl helps me.  If anyone has an alternative to hand washing bottles, feel free to share.  

Where I currently live has hot summers and cold winters.  I am ready for my next move up, but unless someone can shed some light, I won't be experimenting with yeasts until I get better temperature control.  What I think I can do is start boiling up some grains to supplement the kits.  The John Palmer tutorials are worthy reading but are the ingredients he mentions valid here in oz?  Particularly to those of us without a plethora of quality HB supplies nearby.  I want to keep this whole thing relatively simple; using minimum equipment, ingredients & resources.  As far as consumables are concerned, I'm considering buying online once I know what I want; for, with one or two exceptions, the retail outlets don't cut the mustard for me.

In order to achieve greater clarity, I sometimes decant into a second fermenter & sprinkle crushed eggshells over the surface as a finings agent.  The thought of filtering has also crossed my mind but I've seen nothing viable yet.  Does anyone have experience with filtering; I'm thinking something on the inlet side of the tap?

When I was last in the European-beer-God's shed I noticed a strange horizontal line of white mould halfway up the inside of some of his lagered clear-glass swing-top stubbies.  Not all were effected but those that were were identical.  He disregards this, the beers still good but I feel this anomoly shouldn't be there.

That's probably enough for a first (& perhaps final) post.

Fritz.

[Oliver]

Fritz,

Hello and welcome. I think you take the prize for the longest first post ever. In fact, perhaps the longest post ever, full stop. I certainly hope you find things a bit more relaxed and friendly around here than your experiences elsewhere have been.

Your post is, I think, proof that there are as many ways to skin a cat as there are to homebrew and whatever works for you is (generally) OK. It's also interesting how your brewing has changed over time as you pick up tips and tricks.

First stop should be to read the stickies at the top of the Making Beer forum, if you haven't already. In particular, the Simple things to make HB better contains some great tips.

I have a few specific comments on your post:

I will continue this trial & error as it is in my nature.

Absolutely. But don't be afraid to seek the counsel of those on this forum, which will hopefully decrease the proportion of error.

I see my biggest problem being temperature stability.

Join the club! There are plenty of good tips on here about how to both keep temperatures high in cool weather and low in hot weather. These include everything from blankets to bottles of ice and dead fridges.

Hydrometers ... Someone wrote in an old post CO2 escaping from solution can cause ongoing bubbling; one lives and learns.

Correct. Once fermentation is finished the beer will likely continue bubbling slowly as the CO2 comes out of solution. The only way to tell that a beer really has finished fermenting is to use a calibrated hydrometer (the reading should be 1.000 in distilled water at 20C, provided that's what your hydrometer is calibrated to; it should say somewhere).

SWMBO said she wanted me to do a Corona-style for her and on the ingredients advice of a well known independant outlet I did so.  It was ok and I chose to make another for her this time using can instructions.  Big mistake, onto the garden it goes and won't be doing that again; the only batch I've discarded to date.

Leave the light lagers until you have decent temperature control, have worked out your sanitation arrangements (see below) and are comfortable adding other ingredients. Lagers are notoriously unforgiving of brewing faults. Stick to ales for the moment and you'll avoid feeding the garden.

... bottling stalwarts should look away now.  Early on I chose to use whatever bottles were at hand so long as I had the same kind throughout each batch.

An example of "whatever works". Investigate bulk priming, which should make using different-sized bottles a bit less fiddly.

Clean/Sanitise.  I have moved all over the place on this one and am still far from settled.  If anyone can be specific (very specific) about what they use and why and can quantify, it would be welcome. It seems every second post on homebrew sites is about cleaning and sanitising yet not many are clear and specific enough to enact upon; the one exception is the use of Starsan.

I use oxyper to clean and idophor to sanitise.

Here's a thread about my experience of cleaning bottles with oxyper: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10377&p=105153

I use idophor because it is a no-rinse sanitiser. Just wet the surfaces you want to sanitise then wait a few minutes and drain. Easy.

Sorry if you're looking for more-specific information, but you will find plenty of takes on the subject if you do a search.

What I think I can do is start boiling up some grains to supplement the kits.

I'll get in before someone else does: DO NOT BOIL GRAIN! Steep the grain in hot water then sparge with warm water. Boiling extracts undesirables from the grain. Have a read of the thread above about "Simple things to make HB better" for more information.

The John Palmer tutorials are worthy reading but are the ingredients he mentions valid here in oz?

Definitely. The world is a small place now and most of the ingredients he talks about are available here. In addition, the information you glean is invaluable.

I'm considering buying online once I know what I want; for, with one or two exceptions, the retail outlets don't cut the mustard for me.

Good idea. Probably the two most well-regarded outlets are Grain and Grape and Craft Brewer.

Cheers,

Oliver

[emnpaul]

G'day Fritz and welcome to the forum,

That was indeed a marathon post. Well done.

It sounds like you're well on your way to brewing some great beer. I've not heard of rhubarb beer before and the idea intrigues me. Perhaps one day when you get time you could post something in the recipes section?

The one piece of advice I can give you at this point is GET A FERMENTING FRIDGE. I know you can and most likely have, brewed some pretty good beers using wet towels, fans, electric blankets, sprinkles of fairy dust etc. I know it can be done. I've been there myself. I also know, from personal experience, that all that stuffing around is a massive pain in the butt. A fermenting fridge is the most expensive but also the best bit of kit I have got myself so far. Yes it cost money but the ability to brew good lagers has been a great benefit and the ability to sleep soundly at night, knowing that my brew is within 0.9 degrees of where I want it has been invaluable.

[warra48]

Welcome Fritz.
You'll find this a very friendly forum. We're all more than willing to help with any specific further questions you might have. You have some good answers so far to your first post.

[RUM57L]

G'day Fritz,
Welcome mate, no nasties here

[squirt in the turns]

Hi Fritz and again, welcome.

I missed your thread on AHB when it was fresh, but I just skimmed it and can't really work out what the actual problem was. Crucial info's probably been modded out I guess. They're extremely paranoid about trolls there (justifiably, to an extent). I've always found this forum to be far more easy going and welcoming.

Anyway, onto the important topics:
+1 to emnpaul's recommendation to get a fridge. It doesn't have to be difficult or expensive - hold out for a cheap/free one (check Freecycle, eBay and Gumtree, etc regularly) and get a $20 STC-1000 temperature controller. Your biggest problem will obviously be getting power to your shed. Leaving an extension cord running indefinitely is obviously not ideal but will do the job. The biggest objector to these kind of shenanigans is usually the better half, but it sounds like yours is already on board. Which is awesome.

If you own your place, maybe consider getting a couple of power outlets put in the shed. Almost every brewer I know is at some point on the slippery slope between between starting out with kits and extract, and a full-blown all-grain set up. I myself am almost off the deep end . When you get there, you'll probably be wanting to run an electric hot liquor tank, a couple of pumps, 7 or 8 fridges... why not just put in a dedicated 32A circuit now?

Although, to offer an alternative to the fridge paradigm: let the seasonal temperatures dictate what you brew. You could argue that this is the perfect way to experiment with different yeasts. In fact, you'll be forced to. For example, Wyeast, one of the most popular yeast labs, list ideal temperature ranges for each strain. Use a thermometer in a couple of litres of water (more stable than measuring the air) to get an idea of the temperatures in your shed over a few days, then pick a yeast in the right temperature range and brew an appropriate style. All you then need to worry about is keeping the temps stable to minimize any daily fluctuations, as opposed to outright fighting against seasonal highs and lows. Most of the methods you're already using will help with this. You'll probably find yourself brewing fruity saisons in summer, maybe Belgian or English ales as the temperature drops a bit, then American ales or faux-lagers, and true lagers in winter.

Regarding clarity: I go through cycles of giving a stuff about this and then not, usually depending on who I'm serving the beer to. I don't know anyone who uses egg shells. Does that work? I'm vegan so the idea of putting egg, or even worse, isinglass, in my beer is pretty gross to me. If I want clear beer, I filter. I don't know of any filter than you'd put on the tap inlet. This would be the way to go: http://www.craftbrewer.com/shop/details.asp?PID=720. When I first tried filtering, I had problems with the beer oxidising due to bubbles of air remaining in the filter (which can actually make the beer even less clear). I now keg, so I fill the filter with Starsan solution, then purge it with CO2, ensuring no oxygen is left. If you don't have a CO2 bottle, I suppose you could achieve the same thing by filling the filter with sanitiser, then jamming the "in" line for the filter into the airlock hole in your fermenter lid (fit an airlock initially and wait until fermentation really kicks off to ensure that air is expelled from the fermenter headspace first). Put the "out" line into a jug filled with sanitiser and you've basically got a blow-off tube with an in-line filter. By the end of fermentation, you should have the filter full of CO2 and ready to filter straight out of the primary fermenter. I might have to give that a go myself.

If anyone has an alternative to hand washing bottles, feel free to share.

KEGS!

Some people have success with putting their bottles in the dishwasher. You can also sanitise them by baking them in the oven (after cleaning!). I think most brewers hand wash with unscented Napisan/Oxyper or some supermarket equivilent. In fact, for just about all cleaning operations in the brewery, Napisan or similar is the way to go. PBW (powdered brewery wash) is great but expensive. It's basically Napisan's bad-ass big brother and you can buy it from the suppliers Oliver linked. Bleach can have a place as a sanitiser, but even at minute concentrations can produce terrible off-flavours in beer. As you're rinsing you've probably avoided this, but a no-rinse sanitiser is really the way to go.

[fritz]

Thank you for the welcome.

There is a wealth of information available to newcomers and the links you've pointed out have been read time and again by me.  

In regards to CO2 coming out of solution, does this then mean the beer will be less carbonated when bottled after being stored in a second fermenter for a month or two?  Or is there a process to counter-effect this?

A couple of days ago, temperatures here got to 47C and the two beer fermenters 28C, too high perhaps, but not as bad as I thought.  During the spate of high temperatures in the last few days, our fridge has failed after five years service.  With a replacement found and installed yesterday, I began thinking how I could fit the partially functioning fridge into the brewing shed; I even looked at the temperature controllers posted above.  I mentioned this to SWMBO who then drew the line at one wall of shelving dedicated to brewing equipment being enough.  No go with the fridge; nevermind it was her father who got me into all this in the first place.  The installation of power is not a huge issue, just a matter of getting around to it.

As far as cleaning fermenters and other equipment is concerned, I find it to be easy if not a mundane chore.  By habit, my fermenters are cleaned as soon as they are emptied.   Any waste by-product is simply poured out followed by a brushover with my water:bleach mix; it's really a no-brainer.  My earlier questions were based on what solutions and ratios as I don't want solution remnants on bottle walls to effect the next brew in any way.  I think I'm slowly realising where I'm heading with this, it's just taken 6 months to get there.

The following recipe is what SWMBO is now using for her Rhubarb Fizz.  It's not a beer but a highly carbonated softdrink which, if left bottled, becomes slightly alcoholic.

875grams of rhubarb
875g of sugar
2 lemons
160ml white wine or cider vinegar.
18 cups of cold water

Wash and chop the rhubarb into fairly small pieces. Scrub the skins of the lemon clean and chop into chunks. Throw the rhubarb, lemon (skins and all) and all the other ingredients into a clean, food safe bucket (we used a regular plastic bucket) give it a bit of a stir and cover loosely with a tea towel. Leave it to sit somewhere safe and cool for 48 hours, then strain and pour into sanitised bottles. Make sure you use bottles that can cope with the pressure of the fizz building up. We used old Coopers PET bottles and they have been ok, but a bit strained.

Store the bottles in a safe, cool place and they’ll be ready to drink in about 2 weeks though we try to leave them longer.  Be very careful when transporting or opening the bottles; open them slowly.  The fizz builds up and they can go off with quite a pop.  The Rhubarb Fizz is such a lovely satisfying pink colour and it tastes very sweet and lemony…. almost like old fashioned pink lemonade.

[emnpaul]

Sounds tasty, thanks for the recipe Fritz.

As Oliver has suggested, iodophor is a no rinse sanitiser. I have no experience with that product however so cannot comment on it specifically. Although it uses a different chemical to do the job (iodine instead of phosphoric acid) it sounds similar to Starsan (what I currently use), which is no rinse when mixed to the specified ratio, i.e. what residue remains on the bottle walls can be absorbed into your beer with no ill effect. I think either of these products could be what you're looking for.

[big dave]

Welcome to the friendly little forum Fritz.

I have an old fridge that I use for ironing out the extremes of temperature. Usually I dont even plug it in, although I also dont usually brew during the heat of summer or the coldest bits of winter. And having brewed twice with a lager yeast over this last winter, I am not sure life is long enough to brew lagers. I will be aiming for similar results from ale yeasts next time.

You should have no drama here. We had a troll here a while ago, but someone took him out the back for a talking-to, and we changed the locks while he was out.

BD