What are you brewing?

I am getting ready to make a cream ale. And I have an American lager and weizenbock on tap.

What yeasts do people prefer for cider. I have used champagne yeast in the past but came out Way too dry.

HydroWVU said:

I am getting ready to make a cream ale. And I have an American lager and weizenbock on tap.

What yeasts do people prefer for cider. I have used champagne yeast in the past but came out Way too dry.

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I agree that the champagne yeast will dry it out. What you could do is kill off the yeast and then back sweeten it to your liking. I always use wine yeast in my cider. I still halve about half a batch left that I made in November of 2010... It has aged amazingly!

EDIT: That is if you are leaving it still. Obviously if you had all of the yeast drop out of suspension, you would not be able to bottle condition it. The only way to carb it would be to keg it.

I've been wanting to try this out but all my friends are making me too nervous saying you have to do everything perfect or you'll end up with an ill tasting batch.

NCStateFan12 said:

I've been wanting to try this out but all my friends are making me too nervous saying you have to do everything perfect or you'll end up with an ill tasting batch.

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Nah, assuming that your sanitation is good.

"Remember: Don't be intimidated. Brewing good beer is EASY. Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew." (p. 39, Papazian, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing 3rd Ed., 2003).
Learning how to do it (and then do it well) is half the fun. The other half is drinking the end product. I started with two recipes I found online: Joe's Ancient Orange (mead) and EdWort's Apple Wine.
Give brewing a try and see how it goes!

What Musical said! So long as you're a bit anal about keeping things sterile you shouldn't have any problems at all

I bought some more honey for yet another gallon of mead which turned out to be fake honey. People will try anything to make money huh? So I was left with 3lb of syrup and not much to do with it. I added 1tsp of yeast nutrient and 1lb of frozen raspberries that have all been mushed up and hopefully it'll turn out well! It certainly looks pretty cool and I should end up with a gallon of 10.5% raspberry wine

Got an email from Northern Brewer today. 15% off all beer kits March 13 to 20. Extract and all grain.

Just put my first batch together today!!! Its a amber ale. thought I would start with something I knew very well, hope all my sanitation was good! If it's bad just time to do another batch!!

Just a few more days till I get to try the brew out!!

gorgehiker said:

Just a few more days till I get to try the brew out!!

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Enjoy! If it doesn't turn out well don't be disheartened, just try again

It's not raining today for practically the first time this month so I think I'm gonna head out collecting for a batch of nettle beer!

Mead:

http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/fast-cheap-mead-making.htm

Using this method ATM and have 4 gallons (2 each a month apart)

Cannot wait until October!

Samurai-5 said:

Mead:

http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/fast-cheap-mead-making.htm

Using this method ATM and have 4 gallons (2 each a month apart)

Cannot wait until October!

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It's pretty good after 6 months I've tried that recipe and have a few bottles ageing, but I have to admit to trying a half full 'tester' bottle of it last weekend and it's really coming along nicely

I just bottled a batch of lemongrass rye saison the other day, I can't wait for it to carb up and try it! It was my second stab at a partial mash--I was pretty close to my target pre-boil efficiency, but it ended up not drying out as much as I expected (finished around 1.008 with Wyeast 3724). Still, if the gravity samples are any indication, it should be a success!

Now to decide on what to brew next... I'm thinking a snappy hopped up American wheat to session in these hot coming months?

I'm not brewing anything lately because I'm too busy with work.

But I'm currently drinking a Rye IPA that I made a while back. Phenomenal. Much better than commercial versions, even. For anyone curious, it's Denny's Rye IPA. I even botched the recipe with low efficiency. It should have been ~7% but came out to be ~4.5%.

drocu said:

I'm not brewing anything lately because I'm too busy with work.

But I'm currently drinking a Rye IPA that I made a while back. Phenomenal. Much better than commercial versions, even. For anyone curious, it's Denny's Rye IPA. I even botched the recipe with low efficiency. It should have been ~7% but came out to be ~4.5%.

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That sounds great, my first foray into mini-mashes was with a recipe that used Denny's Rye IPA as a basic blueprint (made a few changes based on grains/hops on-hand) and it was fantastic. It too, came out a bit a lighter than expected due to poor efficency (~5.5%) but is drinking great! The addition of 15-20% rye to a recipe can add a real nice layer of complexity to an IPA.

MattyV said:

That sounds great, my first foray into mini-mashes was with a recipe that used Denny's Rye IPA as a basic blueprint (made a few changes based on grains/hops on-hand) and it was fantastic. It too, came out a bit a lighter than expected due to poor efficency (~5.5%) but is drinking great! The addition of 15-20% rye to a recipe can add a real nice layer of complexity to an IPA.

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I was hoping to serve it at a memorial day party but due to the low ABV, it's not quite up to snuff so I'm drinking it. My low efficiency came from Beersmith screwing up water volumes for my first BIAB (brew in a bag) recipe. I'm still tinkering with water volumes for BIAB; the hefeweizen I made most recently came out with a high ABV (7.5%). I'll get it right one of these days. Although now I'm hoping to go electric BIAB so I'll have to reconfigure everything...

Regardless, others should try the Denny's Rye IPA. It really is as good as the reviews that it gets. Highly recommended.

My last brewing project was last year - too many work commitmentsjust now; but it was fun and easy.

Cider....

I took a load (sorry - no measurements here - old skool!) of apples and ran they through a Phillips electric juicer I borrowed from a friend. This produced about 4 lites of juice which was very cloudy with a fair bit of pulp. Heated to just below boiling and added 2 tablespoons of sugar. Transferred to a demijohn and added a sachet of wine yeast. Fitted air lock.

Fermentation lasted for about a week - I then added a sachet of finings to the demijohn and left for the instructed period of time. Then I siphoned the cider into bottles. There was quite a lot of sediment remaining in the demijohn (a result of the juicing process) but considering the highly experimental process (did I mention that this was my first ever cider production?) I was quite surprised to have produced just over 3 litres of quite drinkable, crystal clear, 7% abv cider.


Hope this inspires someone else to give it a go!


M

Montempeaux said:

My last brewing project was last year - too many work commitmentsjust now; but it was fun and easy.

Cider....

I took a load (sorry - no measurements here - old skool!) of apples and ran they through a Phillips electric juicer I borrowed from a friend. This produced about 4 lites of juice which was very cloudy with a fair bit of pulp. Heated to just below boiling and added 2 tablespoons of sugar. Transferred to a demijohn and added a sachet of wine yeast. Fitted air lock.

Fermentation lasted for about a week - I then added a sachet of finings to the demijohn and left for the instructed period of time. Then I siphoned the cider into bottles. There was quite a lot of sediment remaining in the demijohn (a result of the juicing process) but considering the highly experimental process (did I mention that this was my first ever cider production?) I was quite surprised to have produced just over 3 litres of quite drinkable, crystal clear, 7% abv cider.


Hope this inspires someone else to give it a go!


M

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I've also experimented a bit with cider, originally to appease SWMBO, but I ended up really enjoying it. It was only a one gallon batch, where I used fresh unfiltered/unpasteurized cider from a vendor at my local farmer's market. I decided to take my chances and fermented it with champagne yeast (Lavlin? I forget which strain) without heating it up or anything beforehand. I let it ferment out and clear for about 4 weeks. Added a bit of sugar at bottling, I ended up with pretty darn clear, albeit slightly undercarbonated cider. Forgot to take an OG reading of the cider, so I couldn't calculate ABV.

I'm planning on a full 5 gallon batch, and will probably heat-pasteurize it to make sure no bugs take hold before the yeast goes to town--5 gallons would be a heck of alot of cider vinegar!

Flavour-wise, I was very pleased with how the initial batch turned out. At first, I was worried after reading that champagne yeast tends to scrub away most of the apple flavour, leaving you with a very dry cider lacking in flavour. However, for whatever reason it turned out very dry (1.000) which I like, but still had quite a bit of apple character to it. There was no need to backsweeten or blend it, IMO.

Just stumbled into this section of B&B. I didn't realize all of these other forums existed until now! It's awesome!

I just got into homebrewing myself, so I only have a few batches under my belt. But my currently-fermenting brew is an apfelwein. I can't wait to see how tasty it is! (Although, I guess it'll be up to 3 months or longer after bottling before it's drinkable...)

I've just bottled 14 litres of nettle beer and need to leave the secondary ferment for about a week, then it's tasting time! And I just started a gallon of dark cherry and pasilla mead

I am partial to brews in the 1.050 range, pale ales generally. They tend to grow heavier as the season cools and lighter as it warms. I do full boils of about 12 gallons with a boil in a bag component. I split the batches into 6.5 gallon carboys and use different yeasts for fun and experience. I then keg into cornelius kegs which I serve in keezer with 4 taps. I love what I brew, most of the time, more than anything I can buy. My cost is reduced by half and my pleasure is doubled. Brew more worry less! It goes quite nicely following a wet shave. BTW, I am new here because of the DE experience. Loving it!