Tricks of the Trade

[beerGuardin]

I just thought Id start a thread to highlight a few lessons learned from my last brewing adventure. Feel free to add your own, then maybe we can end up with a good bit of insight for any novices or people who want to step up their brewing a notch.

1. If youre brewing 2 batches, brew the one you care most about 2nd, that way you can address any issues that came up during the first batch.

2. Always check preboil volume and gravity, even in extract batches, then you can adjust top up water or the length of the boil to hit your target gravity, as well as adjusting the hops for a new volume of beer. Undershooting the gravity by 7 points when you spend a bunch of time and money planing the perfect beer sucks.

[backyard brewer]

1. If youre brewing 2 batches, brew the one you care most about 2nd, that way you can address any issues that came up during the first batch.

I feel the need to add a caveat to this point. When my brew buddy and I brew, we always brew back to back batches. We also overlap the batches and always brew the most important batch first for several reasons. The equipment is never waiting for something to be freed up, we are not multitasking as much and we have more attention on what's happening.

Now where I agree with you on this point completely is if you've made any recent changes to your brewery or procedure. In that case, always brew a simple staple house beer before trying for that 1.125 barley wine!

[beerGuardin]

I feel the need to add a caveat to this point. When my brew buddy and I brew, we always brew back to back batches. We also overlap the batches and always brew the most important batch first for several reasons. The equipment is never waiting for something to be freed up, we are not multitasking as much and we have more attention on what's happening.

Now where I agree with you on this point completely is if you've made any recent changes to your brewery or procedure. In that case, always brew a simple staple house beer before trying for that 1.125 barley wine!

hear hear! this is back to back, not overlapping, with new components introduced to the system.

[brew captain]

Number 3: Never introduce new components to your brewing system during the second of two contiguous brew sessions...

Sorry, couldn't resist. I too brew multiple batches in a single day and can see this coin from both sides. I would almost agree to brew the favored batch second so you don't let the brewer's fatigue affect batch number two. I overlap also by mashing in while number 1 is boiling. I have been contemplating doing a double mash, double boil simultaneously, but am still working on the logistics.


Cheers!

[beerGuardin]

Do you ever wash bottles or peel labels in your bath tub?

So Last week, I was doing just that, then rinsing the bottles in the sink and setting them on the counter. I had my favorite 2 liter pitcher on the counter that I use to measure out sanitizer and water and such. Anyway while setting bottles up I managed to knock the pitcher off of the counter and it fell right into the toilet! So.......

#4 keep the toilet lid closed if your working in the bathroom!

#5 I also found that Oxiclean does well to disolve all the blow-off gunk that builds up in your blow-off tubes, airlocks, and carboys. It also makes peeling most labels easy too.

[dhempy]

I love oxiclean ... been using ever since Kevin "enlightened me" at the Aug Brewday. It works really well in krausen "gunk". I've yet to try it on labels but the next time I need to do bottles, you can bet I'll be using it.

Dan

[beerGuardin]

Oxiclean kicks butt. Im soaking a carboy in it right now!

#6 So I was kegging tonight. One thing I like to do is clean and sanitize a keg soon after I empty it. I clean it, put the sanitizer in it, seal it, shake it around, and then save it for next time. Then there is one last thing you need to do when you are kegging.

Well tonight I was using a precleaned/sanitized keg and as usual I began to pump my newly fermented beer into the keg. As the beer was flowing and the keg half way full I looked inside the keg and noticed some gunk that hadnt been removed from my previous cleaning! This time im gonna relax and hope it turns out fine, but in the future........

#7 Double check your cleaning before you start transfering finished beer into anything!

[Rezzin]

That's one reason I always take apart and clean my kegs in between use. I don't blow through kegs like others here so for me it's not too bad but I like the added insurance.

[backyard brewer]

Yeah, I'd drink that fast!

[dhempy]

#7 Double check your cleaning before you start transfering finished beer into anything!

I always clean when a keg is empty (including brushing the tubes) and give a good visual. Then I sanitize right before transferring. Since I'm old, and I forget that I've already done a visual, I do it again before kegging.

Lately though, with the wedding and Oktoberfest brewing I've done, the time between cleaning and kegging has been hours, not days, weeks, months!

Dan

[beerGuardin]

Heres a lesson I ran into a couple of weeks ago.

So sometimes I'll use a blowoff setup for my carboys. And then I just leave it in that configuration until I'm done fermenting, ie not putting an airlock on my carboy. Well. I did that as usual and then decided to try cooling the entire carboy down after fermentation to see if I could get more yeast to drop out. So after droping the temp from about 68 F to 34 F, I noticed that there was no more starsan in my blowoff pitcher! I guess the large temperature drop created a vacuum inside the carboy and sucked most of it out and into the beer! Luckily I couldnt taste any sanitizer in the beer as it was only about a 1.5 cups into 5 gallons, but the lesson learned was to:

#8 Always transfer your beer to a keg before cooling it down.

I think this is wise too even with an airlock, as you end up introducing outside air (possibly contaminated) into your carboy when you cool it down.

[backyard brewer]

Doh!!

Yeah, that happens. that's why I always use cheap vodka in the airlock. If it does get sucked into the beer, it's not a problem.

[JonGoku]

#5 I also found that Oxiclean does well to disolve all the blow-off gunk that builds up in your blow-off tubes, airlocks, and carboys. It also makes peeling most labels easy too.

Be warned: The main chemical ingredient in Oxiclean is sodium percarbonate which is similar to caustic soda or sodium hydroxide which increases the PH level in water. Sodium hydroxide reacts with the silicium in the glass changing it to sodium silicate which eventually makes glass unclear.

That said, I messed up the other day(s) by not dissolving the Oxiclean in the water before adding the bottles to be delabel'd. Instead I put the bottles in Styrofoam tubs filled it with water from the hose and then sprinkled Oxiclean into the tub. Unfortunately not all the Oxiclean dissolved and where it sat on the bottles it ate into the glass and basically ruined a couple cases of bottles. I also let them soak too long (i.e. "day(s)").

I will still use it in the future, but will be sure to be more careful how long I soak the bottles and to make sure Oxiclean is completely dissolved into the solution first.

[BrewMasterBrad]

I am thinking about using some Oxiclean Free in the near future since PBW is so damn expensive. Thanks for the tips.