General homebrew discussion, tips and help on kit and malt extract brewing, and talk about equipment. Queries on sourcing supplies and equipment should go in The Store.
pacman wrote:Just bottled the best beer yet from either my HB or microbrewery endeavours. A microbrew outlet recipe, with hops adjusted to hopefully suit my tastes, as follows:
Remember, this is a 50L brew.
4.5L Lager malt
3.0L Ultra light Malt
Into kettle containing 50L simmering water & boil for 15 min.
Hops additions were 15 min apart. Boil ceased at 60 min, and transfer to fermenter about 10 min later via heat exchange unit (reduces temp from approx 90degC to 18degC).
Added 25g hydrated Safbrew S33 yeast.
Fermented at 18degC for approx 14 days & then conditioned at 1degC for a further 14 days prior to kegging & gassing 1 day before bottling.
Result: Crystal clear pilsner style with pronounced Saaz hops. As good as the best Central European pilsners I have enjoyed.
Labour: 2.5 hours of my time. No cleaning duties. Hooray!
Cost: $160 for 50 litres. Yes, HB much cheaper. But for me this is offset by no cleanup and far better quality, and I still don't get a hangover.
Idare you to go over to AHB forum and tell them it`s far better quality.
Some of those fellas over there are convinced they`re Gods Gift to brewing
{I don`t doubt it is better by the way, bearing in mind the equipment and the gear the micros are using compared to us piddling around with plastic buckets and spoons.
Sounds like a ripper beer anyway Pacman, and like Kev said, that`s a lottttttt of hops
Yes TL, you can keg at the joint I patronise. You don't normally rack, as the end product is triple filtered from fermenter to keg and gassed prior to bottling. No bottle conditioning, hence no sediment in the bottle.
However, you can bypass the filtration and rack and bottle (or keg) condition in the traditional manner if you wish.
Yes Kevinlis, it is a lot of hops. I can smell them when I open the bottle, and the taste effect is patently evident. But there again, i am a bit of a hophead
Just because the beer has been "triple filtered" does not mean it can not be bottle conditioned. Yeast will still get through, and unless you use campden tablets or pasteurisation they will continue to do what they do, albiet much more slowly than if you had not filtered
...but seriously, they're handy for the beer drinker who hasn't got the kit and wants to make his or her own beer for fun. I wonder how many become home brewers after a while? I'd soon lose the support of the missus if every second weekend was spent at the brewplace and not at home running around the yard with the kids and a footy while the mash is on???
Sorry ryan, didn't mean to ignore your post, but it was on next page which I didn't see until this visit.
Better than MY HBs was all I was saying. Can't compare with the experts' brews.
Guys, I agree, these places are not for everyone. Suits me fine at the moment due to lack of time to do my HB efforts justice.
The only way to find out is to visit one of these places and put down a brew. Saying that, it is much like visiting a HB shop. You get the good, the bad, & the ugly. Have heard some horror stories about some of the Ubrew shops, as you do about HB shops.
For me it is a great option whilst I am short of time. Have learned a lot from my UBrew4U about boiling, hops, grains, & yeast utilisation that I will be able to put to good use when I eventually do another HB.
I am very confident that my next HB, whether it be this year or next, will be my best ever, thanks to what I have learned in my visits to my Ubrew4U shop.
I haven't got half a million for set up, or another 200 grand working capital to last me until break even time arrives. I also have no desire to relocate to an area that does not have this type of facility.
Actually, as I understand, these operations are not franchises. You pay the copyright holder a set up fee of about half a mill, for which you finish up with an operation ready to go on premises you either own or lease. You are then on your own, with no additional licencing or franchise fees payable. You do your own advertising and promoting.
You also probably receive a guarantee that the copyright holder won't set up another operation in your area. No guarantee that an opposition copyright holder won't set up another operation in your vicinity.
Now, if I were 20 years younger and had the money?
Thanks TL. I should learn to word my contributions more carefully.
The franchise operation you have referred to does not have an operation in my area, although it does sound very similar.
The operation I patronise is a Ubrew4U outlet and is one of a number of loosely knit sites. They contact each other for advice & ideas, but source their supplies independently, unlike any franchise operations I have dealt with. I know because my company transports some of the local's supplies which come from various sources.
Be interesting to see how franchise & non-franchise operations stack up against each other.
Had one of my son's UBrew4U bottles the other night. A Cooper's 740ml HB bottle. When I poured the last glass, I noticed a few minutely fine particles floating slowly to the bottom of my glass. Beer tasted great, and had been bottled 5 weeks previously and stored downstairs at room temp.
Checked with my UB man today. Secondary fermentation was the answer. Avoidable by storing at or below 8degC.
The beer is transferred from fermenter to keg via triple filtration unit (5.0micron followed by 1.5 & 0.5 micron filters). No pasteurisation. So yes, some yeast remains.
Will experiment with a couple of bottles from my next bottling session. From experiences to date, no noticeable change in taste is anticipated. Will be interesting to see how much sediment forms.
I am fortunate in that the site I patronise is very close to where I work, and I pick up 1 or 2 cartons at a time, with free storage @ 1degC for the rest of my beer. Not ideal for all, but I don't really think this is a big issue.
All that said, I think a "fact sheet" handed out by the operators would clear some muddied waters.
Bottling next weekend, so will keep a small number unrefrigerated until drinking time for a comparison every now and then with refrigerated bottles from the same batch.
pacman, the thing you need to realise is that some beers are "stopped" before they finish fermenting and are either chilled right down or pasteurised. If these beers were allowed to ferment fully it would completely change the profile and balance of the beer! I would recommend following their recommendations.
Quizzed my son about his brew Kevinlis. He is of the opinion that his brew improved over the five weeks in question.
The refrigeration recommendation is obviously designed to prevent any bottle conditioning whatsoever, regardless of whether or not it will prove to be beneficial to any particular brew. And that is an understandable approach if you consider the enormous variety of recipes available. Plus, one of the pitches is "crystal clear beer, with no sediment".
Apart from the image projection, I would venture that it is not possible for each of the two hundred plus recipes to improve, thereby reinforcing the refrigeration requirement/suggestion.
In any case, it's not a big gamble on my part. Just 4 X 500ml bottles. And the likely change in profile? Slightly up or slightly down. Won't know until I try.
I guess my point was more that it may be unsafe to do so. It may cause bottle bombs which are unsafe to open, or may just foam everywhere and make a mess.
pacman wrote:
Checked with my UB man today. Secondary fermentation was the answer. Avoidable by storing at or below 8degC.
....yes, for ales. For lagers, you need to store at or below 0 degrees C to send lager yeast dormant. 8 degs C is a good fermentation temp for many lager strains.
pacman wrote:
The beer is transferred from fermenter to keg via triple filtration unit (5.0micron followed by 1.5 & 0.5 micron filters). No pasteurisation. So yes, some yeast remains.
....if they're truly using triple filtration and going down to 0.5 micron, there should be stuff all yeast left in the beer, and some would argue that the flavour profile is being stripped to some extent as well. I would doubt that there would be a significant change to the flavour profile at all after a period of room temp storage (ignoring hot rooms and light struck beer issues) - more a matter of wishful thinking!
Mind you, putting the odd batch or two of brew in cans is a decent conversation starter when you're at your next barbie!!
The more I look into this brew on premises scene, the more impressed I am with the research backing these operations.,
0.5 microns the absolute minimum for filtration. Will not filter all yeast, hence the refrigeration requirement.
A concept that caters for a specific sector of the market. Mostly, I suspect, HBrs like me who are short on time, or HBrs like me who are just plain damn lazy!!
Cans? Yes, some of these operators have canning lines. At an additional cost to the customer, which is fair enough when you find out how much a canning line costs.
