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As someone who is always looking for hidden meanings (paranoia), I was trying to dissect Jim’s veiled reference to Simpatico beer (a really awful Mexican Lager, IMO). Fess up, Jim, there must be some story behind this like waking up in a South of the Border village with a really bad hangover and maybe other things.
Jim:
Yes it is only in 8 oz bottles.
But there is an alternative – Tractor Supply sells a Milk Stone remover – which is the same thing as beer stone (calcium oxalate) – It is $15 per gallon at tractor supply. If it is good enough for the dairy industry it is probably okay for the brew industry.
It is about 50% phosphoric acid so it is may be aggressive.
Sounds like a subject where there is little information on. I wonder what the breweries do to clean the equipment.
Jim:
No first hand experience but Five Star makes a beer stone remover that gets good reviews. Sounds like nasty stuff. Keep us updated.
Jim, I hear you. It gets to be a conundrum when you can brew beer in a $15 brew bucket to think of spending that type of money on a fermenter. But the other way I look at it is I do not really have other hobbies that take a lot of money – skiing and bbqing. I have friends that collect cars, have boats, etc. Heck, I don’t even have a mistress.
That is how I rationalize spending a little extra on my brew hobby. Like my wife says – if it makes you happy don’t worry about it.
Obviously it depends on the style of Beer. IPAs and beers that depend on hops for their character and flavor need to be drank “fresh” as the hop oils will break down over time.
I think in my case, the beer had some fusal alcohol which the yeast did not yet go through when we tasted it last year (the beer was too young). The bottle aging in that case allowed the yeast to slowly work on those compounds causing the off flavor.
I was reading up on this and one article said that chocalate malts can cause this (which waa used in my dubbel) and that aging fixes the problem.
Just an anecdotal data point. I made a Belgium Dubbel for our Belgium style last year. I do not even know where the original recipe came from. I bottle primed the beer. It was not good and it came in at second to the bottom of the taste testing for dubbels. It seemed to have an astringent flavor to it. I packed the bottles away in my brew room which stays about 64-66 degrees, in the basement. I was cleaning stuff out the other day to start brewing and went to lift a case of what I thought was empty bottles and discovered my two cases of Dubbel bombers. I decided to chill one down and taste it. It was a lot better than I remembered (maybe I was desperate for a beer). These bottles have been setting there for a year.
I will try a couple of more and see how they taste – if they appear okay I will bring one to our next meeting whenever that happens.
Jim:
How do you feel about fermenting, aging and carbonating in a unitank? You can dump the yeast after the primary time ( I usually do that at 10 days). Then prime it right in the tank. I am using my chiller to control the temp in the unitank. I was thinking of trying this using your Krausening approach. The advantage I see is being able to let some of the priming yeast settle out.
Chuck
Aaron:
I have a standard 5 gallon ball lock you can borrow. You may need to check the O rings – it should be good as I know it holds pressure.
Chuck
Be sure to make your pretzel necklace the night before. Sam’s clubs pretzels work the best. I should be on the 9:27 train. 9:12 is a little too early.
Be sure to test your app so the tickets come up on your phone before you get there.
I would recommend downloading the GABF app and putting your breweries on there.
Some of the top breweries have just a table so their are long lines – 3 Flyods and Russian River for example. Others will have big displays so they may be crowded but the lines move fast.
