Good Bad & The Monkey
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Prince of Fatness
they tend to evolve.
This I believe, and was told so by my local brewery. But they were talking more along the lines of the corked bottles, where they add more sugar so I guess you are getting more fermentation over time. So I guess I can see where the same thing would happen with the capped bottles too, maybe on a smaller scale. I had planned on taking several bottles from each batch and stashing them away for another time, if for nothing else just to have one on a special occasion down the road.
MTA: And I wasn't referring to a beer going stale per se, just that I have heard that some will not evolve in a favorable way.
Not at it at all.
Well, the champagne makers use metal bottle caps until they are ready to remove the yeast and then insert the corks only right before market. Regular wines, which do not have yeast in them, have corks primarily to allow microscopic amounts of oxygen into the bottle over the years, adding to the evolution process. This is likely to do little in a yeasted bottle and over the 1-3 years you might hold onto a beer. And corks are a bitch to put in, especially corn n cages for champagne bottles. AND corks often cause spoilage, which is why many wineries are now going to metal caps for their wine. So I ain't buying corks in homebrew beer.
The little bit of fermentation from the sugar added at the end is for carbonation, not for any added alcohol or flavor.
I totally agree with storing a couple of bottles. Totally.
Get off my porch
Yep, as long as the rubber gasket is soft.
Oldman, where do you buy your stuff?
All Seasons. Brewing Kit and first ingredient kit and case 1 liter flip top bottles.
Rebel Brewing. floating thermometer and 2nd ingredient kit (pulled together as we waited)
Mom. case Grolsch flip top bottles 16 oz and case of fischer pils flip top bottles 750 ml and 5 gallon glass carboy.
All Seasons was not in Green Hills when I drove by today. Looks like maybe they moved to 8th Ave.
Found it. I now possess: 5 lbs 2 row American Malt 5 lbs Maris Otter Pale Malt 1 lb Chocolate Malt 1 lb Roasted Barley 1 lb 60l Crystal Malt 2-3 lbs unmalted wheat a bunch of steel cut oats 2 oz Hallertau 2 oz Golden 2 oz Cascade Wyeast British Ale II yeast
So you are doing the oatmeal stout. Hard to go wrong with that. Will that yield a 5 gallon batch?
5 gallons is the goal. That amount of grain will nearly fill my mash tun/5 gallon pot. To compensate I will probably let it steep for more than an hour and bring the temp up slowly to allow maximal amylase action. I may get 2-3 gallons out of the primary mash and another 2-3 out of the sparge. Apparently I will need to let it sparge for a long time as well. More time to drink last batch, I guess.
Now I am thinking of a rye for the next batch, perhaps a rye saison like Yazoo recently offered (yum!).
Don't you get boil overs using just a 5 gallon pot? Mine is 21 quarts and I think that I want a bigger one for when I go all grain.
I really like the two bucket setup. It sounds easy and cheap.
I think it is actually 5 1/2 or 6 gallons.
For the boil, I usually put a gallon or so into another pot and boil it seperately. Boilovers are fun. And then I get to do some cleaning.
My updated wish list...
1 5 gallon glass carboy
1 8 - 9 gallon SS stock pot (cheapest price I found is $75)
2 5 gallon food grade buckets for zapap (my son works in the pharmacy of a grocery store with a bakery .. may be able to score these for free)
1 spigot
1 floating thermometer
This should get me to all grains I think. Anything else?