Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Crack In The Better Bottle

On August 17, 2012

In the morning before the brew session on Wednesday night, I cleaned my 6 gallon Better Bottle carboy with a solution of water and PBW (that’s Powdered Brewery Wash for those of you who hate initials). I filled it up to the top and was going to let it soak during the day. I set it up and went to work. No big deal.

When I got home, I noticed that 3/4ths of the solution was out of the Better Bottle and on my basement floor.

Wha’ happened? Did someone tip it over but put it back upright before the whole carboy emptied?

I picked it up and noticed the bottom of the Better Bottle was wet. Then I noticed something else.

There was a crack in my Better Bottle.

I tried to take a photo of it but I couldn’t get it right with the flash or the lighting.

It was good that I had that extra red arrow lying around to help point it out though.

Researching about this issue, I found some threads on discussion boards stating that excessively long soakings using high concentrations of detergent can cause cracking.

I don’t think I ever my soak go more than overnight, plus I am pretty strict on the amount of PBW I use. I don’t know. It was a real bummer and almost halted my brew session.

Thankfully, Mike had his Better Bottle carboy ready to go so the brew session went on.

Has anyone else had this problem with Better Bottles? Should I go get a 6 gallon glass carboy?

Five Years of Brewing On

By John Krochune

On August 16, 2012

In General

Although we started to post stuff in July 2007, Mike and I set the official launch date of this blog for August 15 of that year. If my math is correct, we have been doing this blog thing for 5 years.

I would have written something yesterday but we were busy, you guessed it, homebrewing. Last night, we brewed the Vienna lager.

As an added bonus, I also bottled up the Bohemian Pilsner that I had lagering in the fridge. I almost made it to the 8 week mark but it made sense to cut it short at 7.5 weeks and get it done last night.

Needless to say, there will be more posts coming on both those homebrewing activities in the next few days.

Plus, if you thought Better Bottles were unbreakable or at least uncrackable, then I have a post for you!

Now I have gotten way off topic – what I really wanted to do was to acknowledge the amount of time we have put into this site and hopefully you have found it interesting, useful, better than reading the dictionary, etc.

We appreciate your visits to the site, your comments, your messages, and everything else associated with chatting it up about homebrewing on Brew-Dudes.com and vicinity.

Thank you very much and here’s to the next 5 years.

BREW ON! (and on)

Berry Wheat Tastings

By John Krochune

On August 7, 2012

In Brew Log

I brewed a simple berry wheat extract beer for the summer party at our house. It happened to be my baby girl’s first birthday as well, which was the real reason we invited over 50 people to come hang with us. Since our two other kids are born in the winter, I think my wife and I got a little excited to be able to have a large, mostly outdoor party.

A feature of that party was the berry wheat beer. I got labels for the bottles and everything (Thanks Zumula!)

This beer had some noteworthy elements to it. It sat on 3 pounds of mixed berries for two weeks. I didn’t really know if that was too much or not. What I was trying to avoid is ending up with too much fruit taste and not enough beer taste.

The second element was the carbonation. I put in enough priming sugar to get the batch up to 3 – 3.5 volumes of CO2. My goal was to get the berry aroma up front.

When I first tasted it, I thought – too berry and too carbonated. Now, I tasted it when it was fairly warm so I hoped that the taste would be a little more mellow at a lower temperature – like ice bucket temperature.

Well, I was pleased to see that the beer was received favorably. Mike had some nice things to say – it had a nice mix of beer and fruit. He was also happy about how the Cry Havoc strain finished the beer. My friend the hop head who I was certain would like it had a good number of bottles.

I think as craft and homebrewed beer drinkers, we have some preconceived notions of fruit beer. Maybe it is because of what is available commercially. Maybe it’s because we have been taught that beer should taste like beer and nothing else.

I will type this: On a hot summer day, fruit beer is a big hit with the party crowds…and why not?

Beer is good. Fruit is good. Done right and maybe at the right time and place, fruit beer is great.

Brewing Hose Nightmare

By Mike

On August 6, 2012

In Equipment

I have too many brewing hoses. I need a hose hanger solution.
How many brewing hoses do you have?

My brew hoses dangling on the overhead gantry track in my garage.

Merkur Hops

By John Krochune

On August 1, 2012

In Hops

I was looking at some new German hops for some of the lagers I have lined up for the Master of Lagers campaign we have rolling this year. One of the varieties I came across was Merkur hops.

When I did research into Hallertau hops, the Merkur name came up as a variation of the noble hop.

Now it seems it is being sold by its own name without the Hallertau tag. The hop was released in 2000 and it is a cross between Magnum hops and another variety with the before branding name of 81/8/13. It’s another one of these Hallertau-esque varieties that is more resistant to the mold/wilt issues that the terror varieties have.

Here are the pertinent specifications for Merkur:

Origin: The Hull Hops Research Institute in Germany

Aroma/Flavor: Stronger aroma than Magnum. Earthy, floral, a little citrusy.

Alpha Acid: Typically, 12 – 15% Today, I saw some retailers had the AA% at 16.2

Typical Usage: Some say dual purpose, but looking at that high alpha acid percentage I am thinking more bittering.

Beer Styles German lagers and ales.