Homebrewin' thread

Not to mention you never want to be sanitizing anything last minute, because that's a pain. I usually sanitize the day before brew day, and I think through the whole process step by step and make a list of everything that needs to be sanitized so I don't forget anything.

Yeah, we've always spent a good hour making sure we've got everything in order and sanitizing it first before actually starting. Mise en place is very helpful for this process.

Beer Names Subthread

Okay so mine aren't clever or funny, but I have fun doing it. My two favorite hobbies are beer and metal music, so I name all my beers after metal songs that I like. The names usually have at least a tangential relationship with the beer, so it's not completely random, but mostly I pick them because I love the lay of the words. They stand alone as cool phrases to me. Here's what's hit the bottle over the last year or so:

Name   (band)
Style of beer


Mother Puncher   (Mastodon)
Amber Ale

Your Troubles Will Cease and Fortune Will Smile Upon You   (All Shall Perish)
Russian Imperial Stout

Dry Bone Valley   (Mastodon)
Caramel Apple Cider

My Famed Disappearing Act   (Thank You Scientist)
Spiced Brown Winter Ale

Porcelain Judas   (Diablo String Orchestra)
Belgian Tripel IPA


The chocolate stout has turned into two beers, so I'll need names for both, but I haven't decided that yet.

Awesome.

So far we've had the Daylight Saving Ale, a pecan brown ale (bottled on DST day last year); the Naddafinga! Peppermint Porter, and this year's Bestie Blood Orange Ale.

We also named our "brewing company" the [LastName] Alchemists Brewing Co because it sounded cool.

A few years ago I was toying with the idea of naming my brewery Cthulbrü, and have each beer named after something Lovecraftian, but then I read somewhere else (maybe even here, I don't remember) that someone else came up with that idea separately.  So now I think I'll go with something a little more punk rock/abrasive, like Fuck You Die brewery.

All my tap handles will be big floppy dildos though, nobody better steal that idea.

We put down a kit-brew but slightly pricier kit-brew (and with us adding some hops) Irish Stout yesterday. We haven't put down many recently, so a chunk of what I photographed before has been worked through, although still not all of it.

Still hasn't taken off, so, based on past experience, it could be about a week or so before it even really starts. It was at the right temperature when the lid was put on and the barrel was put in the converted cupboard, and that converted the hot water cupboard is a temperature controlled environment courtesy of a thermostat hooked up to an incandescent bulb, so we know it's likely not that, but rather it's probably the yeast, as one thing with a kit is that you're not necessarily sure how 'fresh' something like the yeast is, especially if a pricier one has been sitting on the shelf for a while.

I would love to know what the ABV of our bestie blood orange ale is, because it definitely seems a lot higher than the peppermint porter. There was a decent amount of Belgian candi sugar in it, and the yeast kind of went nuts. One bottle and you could feel lit.

Snape, your stouts sound awesome.

I'm in a homebrew club in my state, and last thursday was an internal competition (we do these quarterly). This time it was Belgians. In the past, we'd just taste them all and figure out which one we liked best. But to make things more official, we followed the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) guidelines. So the category was 16 (A-E), and submitters had to pick a category.
Let me tell you, drinking beer has never been so taxing. Trying to be fair, and marking the beers against their category descriptions is tiring. There were 10 submittals, and by #8 I was ready to go home. The scoresheets are onlne, and they're judged by Aroma, Appearance, Flavor, Mouthfeel, and Overall. Since you have to mark a beer by it's category, what I thought was the best beer was one of the lowest scoring. It would have been a great wheat beer, but it was under the pale ale category, and got negative marks accross the board. (It was golden, cloudy, a lot of head, and had a banana taste, where it should have been clear, not much head, copper colored, and can taste like fruit, but not bananas). Very cool to do, though.
I plan on making something light very soon. It's been almost a year since I homebrewed.

Introducing:

Blood in the Ink  (The Black Dahlia Murder)
Imperial Raspberry Chocolate Stout

The same chocolate stout with a full pound of raspberries which I cooked down to a syrup and added during secondary. I can say with all humility that this beer is phenomenal. Probably the best I've made yet. The richness of the dark stout mixed with the slightly sweet tang of the raspberry, it's everything I wanted it to be. As usual, my crappy phone camera doesn't do it justice. Both the foam and the beer have a faint red hue that glows in the light. I love it.

Did you happen to save your recipe? Would love to try to replicate.

I think our next beer will be very similar to the last one (another blonde ale) but with actual fruit/fruit syrup instead of orange peels. Maybe strawberry or blueberry.

Here's the base recipe. You may recall it started life as a Southern Tier Choklat clone: www.brewtoad.com/recipes/southern-tier-choklat-1

Notes/Tweaks:
1. Obviously this is a 5 gallon recipe, so size down as needed

2. I used a combination of semisweet chips and 90% dark chocolate bar (I already had it) which I chopped fine, about half and half. The result was rich and bitter, which I like, but I think using nearly all semisweet may result in a more traditionally chocolatey taste.

3. This is a BIG beer. Mine landed around 9.2% but the recipe boasts 11.4%. That's fun, but presents challenges. I recommend giving everything a little more time. More time to ferment, more time to condition, more time to carb. Your patience will be rewarded. I also used a yeast starter to give it a fighting chance against the high gravity. Also recommended. If you're not familiar with this, here's a simple guide.

4. For the raspberry flavoring, I boiled 24oz of frozen raspberries with a quarter cup of sugar until it basically turned into a sauce and all potential pathogens were for sure dead. After allowing this to cool, I added it to my bucket which I then racked the beer onto for secondary. So, I added raspberries after primary fermentation. Stir well but gently so as to not add too much air, since this is post fermentation. That's 24oz of raspberries to 2.5 gallons (320oz) of beer. I'd recommend keeping this ratio, as I feel I nailed the balance of the raspberry flavor. It shines, but it's definitely a stout.

5. For priming, use less sugar than you normally would, because there will be some natural sugar left from the raspberry plus what you added when boiling the raspberries. You'll still need some priming sugar. Mine is a little over-carbed, so I'd recommend priming with 1-2oz of dextrose (corn sugar) at most. I think I used 3oz, and I wish it was a little less bubbly.

6. Finally, you'll need to strain seeds and fruit must at some point. I do this by racking into my bottling bucket through a strainer held very close to the surface of the beer. I had to pause a few times so Mrs. Snape could dump the seeds, but overall it wasn't much of a hassle (with two sets of hands).


Edit: Oh, and your next brew sounds intriguing. I think blueberry would stand up better to the process. Plus just thinking of the color

Yet another friend and regular taster of my beer gets the bug and starts expressing interest in homebrewing.

*gets excited*

Friend: "So, like, assuming you've got all your equipment and stuff, how much does brewing one batch cost?"

Snape: "That really depends on what you're trying to make."

Friend: "Like, if I wanted to make Bud Light."

*dies inside*

I'm sitting on 15 liters of my latest - a pomegranate Belgian golden ale - that I brewed in celebration of our pending move. It's been drinkable for 2 weeks now, though, so I can't wait to finally taste it this weekend.

Pictures incoming.

And of course, introducing:

Luck as a Constant (Periphery)
Pomegranate Belgian Golden Ale, 8.6% ABV

Brewed in celebration of the remarkable luck and good fortune Mrs. Snape and I experienced hunting, buying and finally moving into a new home that we love. From the fat and completely unexpected raise I got just a couple weeks into the search, to a seller who's timing needs fit with our contingency, to the tidy profit we turned on our own house purchased for cash, to random stuff like the previous occupants selling us a good fridge for $25 and a crazy good formal dining set for $1200, to them just leaving us a (working) TV and a nice bookshelf. Like, it's been a good two months, guys.

As for the beer, the pomegranate hits for about two seconds and fades, but fortunately what remains is a really good Belgian, like a slightly hoppier Chimay Grand Reserve. We both approve. Also, 'dat color.






***Yes, that's a wild Mrs. Snape in the background.