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Started By
Message
Homebrewing: Step by Step Extract brew
Posted on 1/13/13 at 1:06 pm
Posted on 1/13/13 at 1:06 pm
I'm making a Mexican Praline Porter. Brew day music is Pink Floyd.
I toasted 1/2 pound of pecans and added them to my steeping grains. Heated two gallons of water to 165 degrees, shut off the heat and dropped in the grain bag. I decided to steep the grain inside today because its cold out and I didn't feel like sitting out there yet, and didn't want the water to cool too much while steeping
Steeping finished, I added 2 gallons of water to the boil pot, poured in the water from the steep, and rinsed the grain with another gallon, and added that to the boil pot for a total of 5 gallons. (Less whatever the grain absorbed). Crank up the burner and bring to a boil.
Once it comes to a boil, I kill the burner and add the fermentables, in this brew, 8 lbs amber LME, 1 lb Steens and 1 lb Piloncillo
Turn the burner back on, and return to a boil, stirring frequently to prevent the sugars from scorching or burning
Once you get a good rolling boil, set your timer for 60 minutes and add you bittering hops. I am using Cascade hops in this batch, 1 oz at 60 minutes, the .5 oz at 30 minutes and .5 oz at 10 minutes
Now it's time to kick back, have a beer and enjoy the day
At 15 minutes left of the boil, its time to go to work. Put your immersion wort chiller in your boil pot to sterilize, and go ahead and sterilize everything that your beer will touch after the boil, like funnels, fermenter, hoses, screens, etc
So now the boil is done, time to cool the wort. I use a cheap submersible pump, plastic tote, and tub for a ice bath. I put frozen gallon water jugs in the tote. I put the boil pot into the tub and pour ice around it. Bring wort temp down to between 70 and 80 degrees. This set up will do it in 10 minutes or so in September, shouldn't take long today
Once the wort is at the right temp, transfer to your fermenter, pitch the yeast, and top off to 5 gallons. Take a sample for OG reading. Put airlock/blowoff tube on fermenter and put away for fermentation.
And 24 hours later, we have beer
I toasted 1/2 pound of pecans and added them to my steeping grains. Heated two gallons of water to 165 degrees, shut off the heat and dropped in the grain bag. I decided to steep the grain inside today because its cold out and I didn't feel like sitting out there yet, and didn't want the water to cool too much while steeping
Steeping finished, I added 2 gallons of water to the boil pot, poured in the water from the steep, and rinsed the grain with another gallon, and added that to the boil pot for a total of 5 gallons. (Less whatever the grain absorbed). Crank up the burner and bring to a boil.
Once it comes to a boil, I kill the burner and add the fermentables, in this brew, 8 lbs amber LME, 1 lb Steens and 1 lb Piloncillo
Turn the burner back on, and return to a boil, stirring frequently to prevent the sugars from scorching or burning
Once you get a good rolling boil, set your timer for 60 minutes and add you bittering hops. I am using Cascade hops in this batch, 1 oz at 60 minutes, the .5 oz at 30 minutes and .5 oz at 10 minutes
Now it's time to kick back, have a beer and enjoy the day
At 15 minutes left of the boil, its time to go to work. Put your immersion wort chiller in your boil pot to sterilize, and go ahead and sterilize everything that your beer will touch after the boil, like funnels, fermenter, hoses, screens, etc
So now the boil is done, time to cool the wort. I use a cheap submersible pump, plastic tote, and tub for a ice bath. I put frozen gallon water jugs in the tote. I put the boil pot into the tub and pour ice around it. Bring wort temp down to between 70 and 80 degrees. This set up will do it in 10 minutes or so in September, shouldn't take long today
Once the wort is at the right temp, transfer to your fermenter, pitch the yeast, and top off to 5 gallons. Take a sample for OG reading. Put airlock/blowoff tube on fermenter and put away for fermentation.
And 24 hours later, we have beer
This post was edited on 1/14/13 at 5:14 pm
7
Posted on 1/13/13 at 1:17 pm to LoneStarTiger
I will be interested to see if steeping the pecans will add flavor
Posted on 1/13/13 at 1:31 pm to swampdawg
I'm adding a half pound to the secondary too, so I won't know for sure what added the pecan flavor
Posted on 1/14/13 at 7:20 am to LoneStarTiger
Thanks for doing this so thoroughly. I have a hard enough time keeping notes much less taking pictures and typing all of this up. Will bookmark this thread for future questions regarding homebrewing. 
Posted on 1/14/13 at 7:53 am to swampdawg
quote:
I will be interested to see if steeping the pecans will add flavor
I always did it for the praline dubbel recipe, seemed to work.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 8:42 am to LoneStarTiger
quote:
I put the boil pot into the tub and pour ice around it.
Nice write up. It is always interesting to see what people do. A bit of advice on the cooling. You should add water to your ice bath. If you just add ice a heat gap forms and the ice doesnt come in contact with the keg as much. You can always add salt water to make it really cold.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 8:50 am to Fratastic423
quote:
You should add water to your ice bath. If you just add ice a heat gap forms and the ice doesnt come in contact with the keg as much.
I noticed that and poured water into it after taking the picture. During the summer I use a lot more ice, and try to fill the tub as much as possible, but I wasn't in too much of a hurry yesterday, and it was around 40 degrees anyways.
I ended up changing my plans on the fly and decided to go with a full boil rather than a 3 gallon boil I had been doing. When I did the 3 gallon boils, I put two gallons in the fridge/cooler to get them good and cold and poured them into the boil pot when cooling the wort.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:07 am to LoneStarTiger
I have a question regarding your use of ice water to run through your immersion chiller. I'm getting one this week and was wondering if I should do something similar, or if running through the sink faucet would be sufficient?
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:09 am to gabe311
quote:
or if running through the sink faucet would be sufficient
The issue with using water to chill the wort down is that you are only going to be able to get the wort as cold as the water. So typically our water in LA is hot as hell, the only option being chilling the water before it goes through the chilling system. Hence the prechiller, or running ice water through the system.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:12 am to gabe311
quote:
I have a question regarding your use of ice water to run through your immersion chiller. I'm getting one this week and was wondering if I should do something similar, or if running through the sink faucet would be sufficient?
one hose on my chiller has a fitting to go onto a garden hose in case I want to go that route. The initial reason to switch to a pump and recirculate system was to conserve water. It may take 15 or 20 minutes of running tap water through the chiller to cool the wort, and I didn't want that much water wasted. Then once I had a tub full of water, no reason not to make it colder with blocks of ice.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:13 am to gabe311
quote:
I have a question regarding your use of ice water to run through your immersion chiller. I'm getting one this week and was wondering if I should do something similar, or if running through the sink faucet would be sufficient?
The tap water should be sufficient in the winter, but not during the summer.
Like Frat four two three said, it can only cool as cold as the water temperature, and it's regularly in the 80s during the summer here.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:16 am to LoneStarTiger
quote:
When I did the 3 gallon boils, I put two gallons in the fridge/cooler to get them good and cold and poured them into the boil pot when cooling the wort.
This is what I do now. I think I'll try a couple of different methods with the chiller & see what results I like best.
Thx for the responses guys.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:33 am to LSUBoo
quote:
it's regularly in the 80s during the summer here.
My water coming out of the tap was 89 degrees last summer. Utterly worthless for chilling.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 9:57 am to BottomlandBrew
I use the water out of my tap until the wort reaches about 95 degrees (usually about 15 minutes). I then hook up an aquarium pump to pump ice water to drop it the remaining 20 degrees (usually about another 10 minutes).
During the winter, I don't have to use the pump if I don't want to, but it is faster to use the pump.
During the winter, I don't have to use the pump if I don't want to, but it is faster to use the pump.
Posted on 1/14/13 at 5:14 pm to RedHawk
And we have fermentation
Posted on 1/14/13 at 6:55 pm to LoneStarTiger
Thank you
And
Bookmarked
And
Bookmarked
Posted on 1/14/13 at 8:39 pm to gabe311
I've posted this quite a few times now but it works and it was simple to make.
Small coil goes in an ice chest and comes out super cold into the main immersion chiller. Run the water slow through the coil and hope not to waste too much.
Posted on 1/27/13 at 9:35 pm to LoneStarTiger
So it's been two weeks since I brewed this beer
Tonight, I racked the beer into a secondary fermenter, and thought I'd update this thread
First, pour a beer.
Second, sanitize everything! Sanitize the carboy, the auto-siphon, tubing, airlock, everything
Next, I toasted half a pound of pecans.
I also used half a package of Spirit of Texas rum soaked oak cubes
Put the tubing on the auto-siphon and start the magic
Probably want to take a sample for testing the gravity to check fermentation. Mine went from 1.068 down to 1.016. Target FG was 1.021, so it's already lower, but probably won't drop much more, if any.
After the transfer is done, put on the airlock and put back in the closet for a couple more weeks
To be continued...
Tonight, I racked the beer into a secondary fermenter, and thought I'd update this thread
First, pour a beer.
Second, sanitize everything! Sanitize the carboy, the auto-siphon, tubing, airlock, everything
Next, I toasted half a pound of pecans.
I also used half a package of Spirit of Texas rum soaked oak cubes
Put the tubing on the auto-siphon and start the magic
Probably want to take a sample for testing the gravity to check fermentation. Mine went from 1.068 down to 1.016. Target FG was 1.021, so it's already lower, but probably won't drop much more, if any.
After the transfer is done, put on the airlock and put back in the closet for a couple more weeks
To be continued...
Posted on 2/8/13 at 9:48 am to LoneStarTiger
so I pulled a sample last night. In the FBD thread I posted that it has a great nose, smells like a piece of candy with hints of vanilla, pecan and sugar. The rum is pretty over-powering right now (though after a couple sips you don't notice so much). I think this will end up being a pretty good beer
I still have a problem with a weird after-taste though. I have a tough time describing it, it's kind of bitter I guess, and I don't think it ruins the beer or anything, but I don't care for it and don't taste it in other beer.
I've made 4 batches, 4 different styles, but all of them seem to have that same taste in there. Maybe it's something that ends up filtered out and since I don't filter the beer it's left in there. I thought maybe it's the water, but I used gallon jugs of purified water for every batch.
Was planning to go to a homebrew meeting this weekend and have them taste some to see what they thought it might be but I'm not sure I can make it.
I still have a problem with a weird after-taste though. I have a tough time describing it, it's kind of bitter I guess, and I don't think it ruins the beer or anything, but I don't care for it and don't taste it in other beer.
I've made 4 batches, 4 different styles, but all of them seem to have that same taste in there. Maybe it's something that ends up filtered out and since I don't filter the beer it's left in there. I thought maybe it's the water, but I used gallon jugs of purified water for every batch.
Was planning to go to a homebrew meeting this weekend and have them taste some to see what they thought it might be but I'm not sure I can make it.
Posted on 2/8/13 at 10:49 am to LoneStarTiger
What yeast are you using?
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