McAnally's (The Community Pub) > The Bar
The Brewmaster is in.
Torvaldr:
I don't brew myself. But a couple of my friends do, and there are a couple of seriously awesome micro breweries near me. One with awesome German food, and one with awesome hamburgers.
AleEvangelist:
This is actually my first post on these forums. :) I've been brewing for 7 years or so and currently have a pretty decent 3-tier, gravity-fed brew stand. I brew 5-10 gallons a month and give away most of that. lol.
I second the use of StarSan in brewing. I'll never use a rinse-required sanitizer again. Don't fear the foam!
As for sanitation, it's important, sure, but only really important after the boil. Prior to the boil, anything that gets into your wort is going to die off during the boil. It won't cause any off-flavors in your beer, and it won't infect anything. Once you've cooled below about 170F, you do need to be careful. I keep some StarSan in a spray bottle while I'm brewing, and anything that needs to be sanitized gets a couple sprays. Keep in mind you can't sanitize something that isn't clean. If there's debris or gunk on something, it can't be sanitized. So it's good to keep a couple buckets around filled with clean water. Spoons, mash paddles, etc, can be soaked in the water so it doesn't get dried gunk on there.
As for the most important tip in brewing, once you've figured out sanitation, probably the most useful thing you can do in terms of quality of the finished product is fermentation temperature control. This is because probably 90% of the finished product flavor and aroma are dependent upon yeast. Yeast is a living organism which performs well only under conditions it's been bred to like. If the temperature of your fermenting beer changes by more than a couple degrees, you're going to get a significantly different beer.
Brewing is the absolute best, and it's one of the things that caused me to fall in love with these books!
If people are interested, I can post some recipes that have done well for me. Brewing is mostly about technique. Several people can brew the same recipe on their equipment, and get vastly different results, so I don't mind sharing my recipes. :) I've got a Southern English Brown aged on Oak, which is turning out quite good!
Paynesgrey:
Yeah, share those recipes! I usually go with a basic nut brown and sometimes the odd honey brown ale, and I'm not big on hops. (Just enough to call it beer.) Want to find a recipe that uses a hint of maple.
I've also done some decent sweet stouts. But my best batch was one I didn't write down. Just threw in every odd half-pound of this or that malt I had sitting around. Dark, thick, and sweet, and I must have had some Power Super Devil Yeast, because that stuff had to be 16-18%. You could smell the alcohol coming off of it, but it was sweeeeeeet. Like liquid cake that would fuck you up....
Paynesgrey:
OK, I made a sticky for recipes and recipes ONLY! All the discussion, Q&A and such, I'd like you to transplant here, we'll use that thread just as a recipe box!
AleEvangelist:
I have a Southern English Brown that I think would be great with some maple syrup. I aged it on some oak cubes for a week, but it seems to me it would be great with 2-4 weeks on the oak cubes and then a TINY bit of maple syrup in the mix at priming time. Problem with maple syrup is that it's almost 100% fermentable, so most of your maple flavor will be gone if you add it before fermentation. If you're not careful when adding it at priming time, however, you could end up with bottle bombs. :)
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