What’s Brewin’?

Try brewing a saison, I love Wyeast 3724. You don’t have to bake it at 110* :flushed: If you do an “open” fermentation, foil instead of an airlock…easy to brew, and I don’t tie up fermigerator space, average to warm room temp is fine with its own exothermic heat. Mine finishes @ 1.001 in about 2.5 weeks.

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Brew day tomorrow. Golden Promise, Flaked Oats and WY1318. I’ll figure hops out while the strike water is heating. Never used 1318 but I hear it plays well in the NEIPA style.

Yep, I’ve used Wyeast 1318 four times so far with neipa. Works well. I’m going to have to do another Neipa soon…kegging with low oxygen exposure made a big difference in finished product. Alas with my setup I’ll never be able to get much lower in o2 exposure.

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Czech pils today…first ever.

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Love a good Pilsner; my last one was in 2016(Saaz, Castle Pilsen malt, and S-23 yeast*). Simple and delicious. Distilled water with minimal additions.

  • some people hate this yeast but I’ve had good results.

I found some Weyerman floor malted bohemian pils…added a little best malz dark Munich…fwh with magnum…and 3 additions of saaz…very active starter of wy2278 just went in :slight_smile:

Not trying to hijack the thread again, just reporting back. The beer I talked about on the 3rd with 18% Melanoidin is on tap as of tonight. The boil hops were 48 IBU, all Mosaic with an oz. at 60, (I know, a waste.) 1/4 oz. at 20, 15, and 5. Just for giggles I dry hopped it with 1/2 of Columbus, 1 each of Mosaic and Michigan Copper. First impressions from the first pour are a fairly fruity nose with lots of what seems like Mango from the Mosaic and maybe the MI Cu along with a hint of dankness (?) from the Columbus dry hop. The body on this beer seems really solid to me with the lactose and Melanoidin giving it the mouthfeel I was after. There’s a nice lush fruit taste with just a little bite on the back of the tongue. I am very satisfied with the initial tasting and am hoping it clears as it sits in the keezer. Maybe next time I’ll back off the Melanoidin a little to see if I like it as well.

Cactus beer using 30 prickly pears (tuna) and 4 medium pads (nopales). This is one week in right before secondary transfer which was needed because there was a lot of cactus lees. Light hopping because the nopales create a bitter/sour on their own. Base malt Pilsen with 1.053 OG. The red coloration is pure prickly pear.

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1934 Kidd XXX, vintage Burton ale. Just about to mash in in a couple minutes.

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Wow, just looked that up! Sounds tasty!

Bubbling away! Looking forward to it. Did you find Kristen England’s description of this beer?

Found this: Shut up about Barclay Perkins: Let's Brew Wednesday - 1934 Kidd XXX

So I guess that’s a yes. :sunglasses:

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Fascinating! Now to look up invert sugar stuff… I’ve got a sack of Marris Otter coming… My next ESB is going to be 80% M.O. and 20% crystal 120… Thinking 2 oz chocolate just for dark color… I have 1968 London ale yeast… Hops… I’m down to a couple pounds of… cascade?.. Sneezles61

Inverting suger is pretty easy and high fructose corn syrup is super cheap at your grocer if you want to be lazy about it.

Not. The. Same.

Invert sugar isn’t too bad, but I make about 5# of it at a time and store it in canning jars. You need raw sugar, an acid, and a good candy thermometer. Digital makes it way easier. Couple of different ways to do it, make a light invert sugar and dilute some blackstrap molasses or to hold the light invert sugar at around 240°F for hours until it’s the right color.

The dilution method… meh. Kind of works. I’d use it for invert 4, but that’s about it. The traditional method, if you make enough ahead of time, isn’t that bad if you’re bumming around the house anyways.

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No your right that they are not the same but they are close enough and since all of this will be fermented out I really doubt anyone can taste the difference. I doubt I could tell much difference eating sucrose and fructose straight.
In baking there are reasons for inverting sugar but the yeast doesn’t care

Edit for some clarity:
The most widely used varieties of HFCS are: HFCS 55 (mostly used in soft drinks), approximately 55% fructose and 42% glucose; and HFCS 42 (used in beverages, processed foods, cereals, and baked goods), approximately 42% fructose and 53% glucose. Inverted sugar has a ratio of 50:50 (glucose to fructose).

But you’re not just inverting the sugar, you’re holding it at temperature and slowly caramelizing the sugars and other impurities in raw sugar and making something completely different. You can make a brown ale with nothing more than pale malt, #2, and #3 invert. That would not be indistinguishable from a beer made with just pale malt and beet sugar or HFCS. Even #1 invert starts developing candy apple and honey flavors that are not present in simple syrup. So while the yeast might not care, the drinker of the finished beer will.

Yes you are correct. FWIW you can buy dark “caramelized” HFCS for a fraction of the cost of brewers candy syrup. I’m not really trying to argue the worth of hand-crafting vs short-cutting. I guess I’m just saying that there are alternatives and most people won’t taste the difference IMO. But I could be wrong since “One taster who never chose wrong was adamant the beer made with my homemade candi syrup had the unmistakable aroma of shiitake mushrooms” from:

No it’s fine, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a respectful debate and discussion, and there’s certainly no shortage of debate on invert sugar versus cane sugar versus Belgian candi sugar. In my experience they impart a different character to the finished beer, and an ordinary bitter with a dark invert sugar will taste different than one made with Belgian candi syrup or a store-bought substitute. The process is what defines the flavor. Doesn’t necessarily make it any better, though. I just disagree (respectfully) that they are interchangeable and might not be noticeable in the finished product. It just hasn’t been my experience.

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