Make sure you dont have an air leak anywhere in your liquid lines. Tighten all your clamps, etc. Spray with soapy water to see if you get any bubbles.

Your first pour is always going to be about 50% foam because of the warmer beer already in the line. But your pours after that should be much much less foamy (you'll still have a little foam, which is a good thing)

8/20/2015 1:41:34 PM

Thanks, Bobby. Ended up doing it for #$350

9/1/2015 1:56:34 PM

in other news, my beer has calmed down. it was mostly too much sediment up in my post. after cleaning it about 5x, most of it has gone away.

9/2/2015 10:47:35 AM

A bunch of people cut their dip tubes a little so it doesnt pick up as much sediment. Just a few 1/8's of an inch should do fine.

9/2/2015 11:06:22 AM

I'm hopefully getting married in the spring and would like to make a couple of small batches. I don't have all of the equipment to do all-grain, or small batches, so I was hoping someone could help me out. I will certainly pay for all materials, your equipment use, and your time/training. I've got (most?) of the equipment for all-grain, but I'm not yet ready for that, so I'd like some help. Thinking about 2-4 batches, depending on the size that can be done, with maybe a trial run to start off with soon. I haven't set my mind on styles, but it would be nice if you knew enough to tweak and/or create recipes and could help come up with some potential styles to brew.

Thanks

11/23/2015 7:19:30 PM

Anyone looked at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1708005089/pico-craft-beer-at-home

11/23/2015 8:48:17 PM

^^,^Guess not

Anyone have advice for building a fermentation chamber? Looking for something with heat/cooling that is space efficient. The best solution I've seen is dismantling a minifridge and using those components in a stick-built chamber for cooling and adding a light in a can for heating. I'm just unsure of the dismantling and wiring parts.

[Edited on March 2, 2016 at 12:58 PM. Reason : .]

3/2/2016 12:58:05 PM

I mentored a senior design project for something like you are looking for. We investigated using peltier devices with heat sinks to regulate temperature controlled by an arduino that could also post updates so you can monitor the progress.

We used a giant styrofoam color as the chamber itself (it was cheaper than plywood with foam board insulation.

The system worked, but it was a lot of effort to be able to make a saison in the wintertime (for example). It is far easier to use a crawlspace and just make beers that can ferment in slightly lower temps in the winter and summer beers in the warmer months.

3/2/2016 1:33:44 PM

Thanks, but I don't see that as improving on what I do now (swamp cooler). Looking to move up, not laterally, or under my house.

3/2/2016 1:36:09 PM

I've got you covered.

I built this a few years ago. You'll see it has evolved, and I eventually mounted my temp controller directly into the face of the unit instead of being a separate box sitting on top (that gets knocked off all the damn time....)

You really don't need to completely gut a minifridge of it's components...

Essentially, just take a minifridge...remove the front door. Turn it sideways and build an insulated box around it. Easy peasy. This has been running for almost 3 years with no issues whatsoever. The minifridge is inside on the right side. The white chest freezer is not part of this contraption in any way.


Pay no attention to the arduino in the picture. I was messing around with having it constantly monitor and upload the fermentation temp to a webserver so I could access it from anywhere/anytime via my phone or computer It worked, too!



Temp controller mounted directly inside instead of it sitting on top


Pro-tips....
1)mount a fan in the top corner so it can circulate air throughout...helps regulate the fermentation temps and keeps it steady.

2)Try to find a minifridge that doesn't use the top freezer shelf as the cooling element for the entire fridge (not sure if there ARE any, but mine freezes over every now and then for whatever reason. I hadn't brewed in over a year, and when I went to open it up recently there was a football sized chunk of ice frozen around that freezer shelf. I'm assuming it was due to condensation. Which leads me to point 3...

3)Keep a container of Damp-rid in there. Keeps the funk out, and prevents ^

4)You'll want a durable, easily cleanable "floor". There WILL be spills/yeast spillovers at high krausen, etc.

5)I use a cheap lightbulb fixture mounted in there to heat it during the winter (connected to my temp controller obviously)...You can put a paint can over it if you're worried about the light ruining your beer...but from what I've read, the spectrum of light from a lightbulb is not harmful to your beer...so I typically don't worry about it.

6)tape the probe from your temp controller directly to your carboy/bucket. That way the controller is monitoring your actual fermentation temp and not the ambient air temp, and will adjust as necessary. I use a small piece of foam as insulation, and tape that over the end of the probe to the carboy.


[Edited on March 14, 2016 at 11:33 AM. Reason : .]

3/14/2016 11:16:16 AM

^sweet, thanks!


on another topic....



So this appeared to me to be nothing of concern, though these bubble rafts appeared in just a few hours. Well overnight, they've tripled in size and I've got airlock activity. Brewed about a month ago. So is this an infection or am I good? I brought this out of a cold crash on Sunday, reaching room temp on Monday morning. The rafts appeared Monday evening; airlock activity and more rafts appeared this morning...


Please tell me it's just some delayed off-gassing due to the temperature change.

[Edited on April 26, 2016 at 8:37 AM. Reason : .]

4/26/2016 8:37:23 AM

My guess is that the yeast became active again after coming out of cold storage and did some additional clean up in your beer. There may have also been some stored CO2 in the beer from fermentation during cold storage that got released as the temperature was raised (colder beer holds more CO2).

I wouldn't be too concerned as long as you have had the C02 lock in place during the cold storage.

4/26/2016 10:24:18 AM

Thanks; that's what I was hoping/thinking. Re: Airlock, I was out of town for several days and when I got back, the sanitizer level was low; I topped it off, but as soon as I saw some floaters, my heart sank. But it really just looks like CO2 bubbles.

Oh, and I didn't mean tripled in size; more like tripled in numbers (many more groups of bubbles, with the bubbles still very small).

[Edited on April 26, 2016 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .]

4/26/2016 10:30:45 AM

Does anyone have a recipe for a knockoff belgian kriek?

And by knockoff I mostly mean a recipe for a beer that is not an actual kriek but tastes similar (and takes less time to be ready to drink)? My wife is a huge fan of Krieks but not the super sweet nor super sour, middle of the road is her preference.

4/26/2016 6:02:53 PM

Sorry, never tried anything like that

4/26/2016 7:27:59 PM

On my lunch break I drove down to Atlantic Brew Supply to get my CO2 tank filled, but their filling connector is broken. So then I drive across town to American Brewmasters and they tell me that the stamp on my CO2 just expired (I didn't even know that was a thing)!



It's frustrating because I wanted to have my homebrew on tap for my 1 year-old's birthday this weekend while my college friends were in town. Debating whether to leave early to drive all the way down to garner to have the tank recertified.

5/18/2016 1:49:12 PM

UPDATE - Just bought a new tank since it takes a week to get things recertified at Simplex Grinnel and Pye Barker. Wish I would have thought to just buy the tank when I was at American Brewmaster the first time.

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5/18/2016 2:40:54 PM

The best move I've made as far as CO2 goes is to buy a used 20lb CO2 tank, and trade them in at the Welding Supply store for $25 whenever they're empty. They don't fill tanks, but they trade.

5/19/2016 9:10:58 AM

I thought about doing that, but my kegerator has the CO2 tank on the inside and 5lbs is the largest size that would fit (2 cornies and the CO2 just barely fit). I toyed with the idea of modifying the kegerator to allow for an external tank, but no way I could do it and still have beer ready for the party this weekend.

This will work for now.

5/19/2016 10:13:55 AM

Another option to think about....

You can buy CO2 refill hardware/adapters online that will let you refill a 5lb tank from a 20lb tank. Paintball folks do this all the time apparently. It's a little more dangerous, but with the right equipment (~$40) it can be done relatively safely from what I've read.

Then you would essentially be able to refill your 5lb tank for $5-6 vs. the $15-20 most places are charging these days.

5/19/2016 10:47:03 AM

ive seen plenty of questionable folks handle it at a paintball field so im sure you'd be fine.

im awaiting my first brew in my new keezer to finish up. i tried a glass a few days ago, but the pressure had somehow slipped down to 8psi while carbing so it wasnt quite there. cranked it up to 13-14 or so. we'll see if that does the trick.

5/19/2016 1:13:20 PM

My last 3 beers have been quite thin I don't know what's going on with those.

Also, my attempt at continually hopping an IPA hasn't panned out well... I mean, no good/distinct aroma, no flavors of note, not even all that hoppy either. Maybe it's too young.

5/19/2016 2:58:13 PM

could be worse. my last black IPA was so hoppy that no one would drink it. shrug. i guess i got 5 gallons to myself.

5/19/2016 5:34:11 PM