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Hey Chuck, great find on the Sterosol Milkstone product. I plan to listen to Colter’s podcast this week with the Five Star rep, but at first glance, this looks like it would certainly do the trick. From what I’ve found online, the commercial brewing industry do all kinds of different stuff to clean, sanitize and re-passivate their stainless equipment; some of it involves caustic cleaners. I’ll do a bit more reading on the Milkstone Remover, but at $15 per gallon, this is a MUCH more affordable price than the B.S. Remover from Five Star (8 times cheaper to be exact!).
Yep, Five Star makes all sorts of stuff Chuck. I love Five Star products and have used Acid 5 (carefully). Nate Meister turned me on to it as he has used it on his equipment for some time. Now THAT is nasty stuff and you really need to wear PPE when using it!
I purchased some beerstone remover (B.S. Remover from Five Star). But it only comes in 8 oz. bottles (at least that’s all I have found). Wasn’t sure how well it would work since I wanted to mix up about 3G for each conical, then recirculate it through my CIP system. So that would be 12 fl. oz. of product for all four of my fermenters. Probably need another bottle.
Colter – I’ll be listening to your podcast with Five Star this week. Good move to host them for one of your sessions! THANKS.
Great find Chuck. I’m tempted and would REALLY like to find a glycol chiller, but working from home and not knowing what the future will bring financially, I don’t think I would feel comfortable springing for any of this stuff right now. VERY nice looking equipment however!
Well, it wasn’t really ‘smoked’, per se, but it was the first lager of the season last year and I wasn’t as attentive during the mash-cooking phase as I should have been…and I scorched the mash a little. Even though it was a minor scorching, with something as light and clean as a Helles, there really was no place for that scorched flavor to hide (might have gotten away with it in a Doppelbock). The running joke was that I made a smoked helles which, believe it or not actually exists (though not created by scorching the mash! LOL)
Aaron – I’m sure your hops (and everyone else’s) are really taking off right about now. That winter weather we had back in mid-April was a real head-slap to mine (the first 2 to 6 inches of each vine died back). I ended up just clear cutting to the ground and starting over. I snapped this pic a little while ago…..barring any heavy hail today, they look like they’re back on track.
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True comment Chuck regarding the “drinking the bier fresh”. My only point was that improvement might be found in ALL styles of bier (lagers, ales, strong or otherwise) if aged on the yeast as opposed to simply force-carbonating. After all, there are commercial examples of all styles still carbonated/conditioned in this way. But I guess I’m venturing down a slightly different path with that notion, albeit a parallel and closely related path.
….perhaps another argument for conditioning bier naturally, on the yeast? Its a strange thing since in my experience there seems to be a “sweet spot” for aging bier. Knowing when it has reached it’s peak is a moving target, but it sounds like your Dubbel is somewhere near the peak Chuck.
Interesting information on the botulism, curing salts and nitrogen/nitrates thing. Regarding pH. I have a bench-top pH meter, and for mash or wort readings, I submerge the tip into a small amount of product (mash or wort) that has been cooled to about 75F. So it’s a direct contact thing with the probe ‘bulb’. I know meat is a solid and of course greasy, so doing that to an expensive meter probe would probably be stupid, but it seems there’s got to be a way to check the pH. ….but I’m one of those canaries in the coal mine. If anyone would die from even a slightly tainted product, it would be me! Still, those slices look tasty enough to make the risk worth it! LOL
The whole process is fascinating.
Nope. Looks like bind weed. Hops generally come up looking sort of like an asparagus shoot at first, then they pop out little side leaves that kind of look like marijuana leaves (actually they are close cousins to marijuana).
Agreed….I’m ok with no note taking/recap. No home brew available, no problem. Join-in regardless! I have a feeling this will be no bigger than a December meeting at the most. Hopefully we’ll get a bunch of OTMP’s, but by the looks of who is currently active on this site, I’m thinking attendance will come in at about nine at this point.
Hey Sam…..Ben Fitzsimmons was selling some 2.5G casks a while back. I bought two of them from him, but I think he had maybe 4 to sell. The price was right, so might be worth checking in to see if he still has them.
Chuck, I see no reason why it couldn’t work (at least in theory) to ferment to completion in a unitank. The key is getting the bier off the yeast and allowing it to develop conditioning. I know some of the newer conicals are able to hold higher volumes of Co2 than my old first-generation Blichmann units, so (again, in theory), you could almost turn the fermenter into a brite tank and serve directly from the conical by the time the bier is finished! Note, this is my thinking for ale production, not sure if that would work too well for a lager. Maybe it would, but lager yeasts are infamous for “hanging around” and often require moving to a new container to truly clear, and lagers should really be QUITE clear to be at their best. Just my 2 cents, so still worth giving a try, even if for a lager….that’s part of the fun!
Awesome Ben, thanks!….just added the extension. This will make the meeting much less chaotic I think.
