It has been many years now that I haven't bottled whole batches of beer. I still bottle occasionally to send to competitions. And more often I will just fill a growler if I want to transport a bit to sample by a campfire with some good friends, something that I hope to do very soon. Like with bottling, kegs need to be cleaned and sanitized. Kegs are awesome and have made this hobby easier, but how do you clean these things? What if it's a new keg, or new to you, keg? Either way you'll need to get some Oxiclean, water, dip tube brush, and a wrench.
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If you use liquid yeast, at some point you have made a starter or harvested yeast for another batch. Buying a new vial or smack pack for every batch can become expensive so it just makes sense to propagate existing yeast you have already used. There are a number of methods and here's why yeast washing is not the best method.
There is a certain amount of cool factor growing your own hops. When it comes time to harvest unless you have a hop harvester, which is something I'm guessing very few people have access to, you spent considerable time picking the flowers off the bines one by one. You want to get them dried out quick so you can use them in a brew. But, maybe you don't have a tonne of room to spread them out somewhere out of the sun, now what?
For whatever reason we started brewing beer. There are number of reason why people get into the hobby, for me, I wanted a change from the typical mass produced crap available at that time. And typically like a lot of people I started with kits. This is going back 20+ years now and what I produced was really not that great. I used to brew my beer in a cheap pot and some buckets. Don't get me wrong, many great beers are made this way, just not mine. So why am I still brewing beer?
So how often do you clean your beer lines? It doesn't really take too long so why do we wait? Great questions. For me I think it's partly the hassle and maybe, a little laziness.
My process, until recently, was using a keg with about a gallon of beer line cleaner to force cleaner through each line and waiting. I would then force more through each line and I would repeat this process a couple times until the line cleaner came out clear. This would take me about an hour. I found a better way that is easier and quicker. When people first start brewing beer, they want everyone to try it. Sometimes it takes some effort to get people to have that first glass but you’re just looking to get some feedback and hey everyone wants to hear that their beer is good, great, excellent, right? Once they try your beer it can be difficult to get honest feedback. Maybe you made a stinker and they don’t want to hurt your feelings, or maybe its just ok and they only have that one glass. So, unless you have someone who can be brutally honest when sampling your beer, you might be left guessing what to do next. Entering your beer into homebrew competitions might be the answer.
I was finally able to brew recently on my regular system (propane 10gal), which is outside in a shed. During the winter months it can be a challenge to match up the weather with a weekend that I have time to brew. I have been using my robobrew inside when I can't brew outside. I thought I would post an update on how the robobrew brew day is going and the things I've learned, quirks, and mistakes I've made.
What started with me trying to get my friend into brewing ended up with me convincing myself I needed a robobrew v3. Now, I know what you're thinking, I already have a 10gal propane fired herms system, why buy the robobrew? Well, I didn't really need too much convincing and I'll tell you why.
As the weather warms up it should get easier for an outside home brewer to brew beer. However, what I’m finding is, although easier, read the hose doesn’t freeze, in the summer I have less time to do so, especially on the weekend, which is when I typically brew if not on vacation.
My taps are running dry, now what? During the first few brew days with my herms system I noticed an issue while recirculating the mash through the herms coil and back again. The pump was open full to allow the mash temp to be maintained. The issue with this is where the hose was placed in the mash tun a large cavity would develop caused by the flow. It actually formed a hole right down to the false bottom.
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