Any Home-brewers?

[MileHighGrowler]

(09-10-2020, 01:21 AM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: I first brewed in 1989, 4 batches helping a friend and 5th batch all by myself. All of them were Honey Ales and they were not bad but definitely tasted like home brew. This was only 10 years after Jimmy Carter signed the legislation to approve beer brewing at home so there wasn't much of a market or choices for equipment or ingredients. After realizing all of the equipment was out of my budget and I couldn't keep a space warm enough to ferment consistently without jacking up my gas bill, I gave up and I didn't brew again until about 7 years ago. Well, I can tell you, holy shit has the quality of equipment and ingredients exploded. All we had back then was dry yeast and absolutely NO European style Hefeweizen yeast. But now, it's completely different.

Lucky for me, my favorite beer, Bavarian Hefeweizen, is the cheapest and one of easiest recipes to brew. That's like a friend of mine whose favorite food of all time is a cheese pizza. Pretty much every pizzeria he goes to, his favorite meal is the cheapest on the menu. All I use is 6 lbs of Alexander's Wheat Malt Extract with no grains in a bag, 3/4 of an oz to 1 oz of hops and White Labs Bavarian Hefeweizen yeast. I haven't tried Imperial yet but I do know that EVERY Wyeast Hefeweizen yeast leaves an aftertaste that I'm just not that crazy about. I'm not sure how they are for other beers but when it comes to Hefeweizens, White Labs is heads above Wyeast.

White Labs Hefeweizen IV and Bavarian are the two that my friends all go "Yeah, Dude! That's that Franziskaner flavor right there." They are both very different reacting when they are fermenting. Hefeweizen IV will easily overflow more than any beer I've ever brewed. You might even lose up to a gallon of beer . . . 6.5 gallon primary fermenters are an absolute must when brewing with this yeast. I call them "sticky bubbles" that keep piling up until they blowout. The Bavarian, however, has what I call "watery bubbles" because they keep collapsing on top of each other and the krausened rarely gets more than two inches high on first ferment . . . if you put fresh wort on the yeast cake after kegging or moving to a secondary fermenter, it MIGHT blowout but most of the time it won't. If you are only going to have a single use of the yeast, you could easily use this yeast in a 5 gallon carboy and not have to use a blowout tube.

I might buy one or two of these here 7 gallon beauties before the end of the year. It would be great for my Hefeweizens. No more brushes or filling the whole thing to soak it. Just use a little bit of soapy water, a rag and wipe it all down. Big Mouth Bubblers are the future of home brewing, IMO. Currently $53.45 on sale(no idea on shipping) and it's normally $66.81. The strap comes with the carboy.
https://www.beveragefactory.com/draftbeer/home-brew/sd-7340j-glass-jar.html

Just in the years since I started brewing, the equipment and ingredients have grown leaps and bounds.  The hobby grew immensely for a while there, which also contributed to all the nano and microbreweries you see everywhere now.  

I love a good hef.  I'm not a big clove flavor fan in mine, preferring the banana notes.  I use White Labs 300 or Wyeast 3068 and ferment on the warmer side of what I'd ususally do, at low-70s (compared to mid-60s).  Wherever I'm fermenting smells like banana bread.  Heavenly.  I use a combo of wheat malt and pilsner malt (grain).  Switching to grain, your already cheap beer could drop another few bucks per batch!  Have you ever considered trying all-grain?  The "brew in a bag" method is a great way to give it a test run if you're interested! 

Speaking of yeast and fermentation... I've got a wit fermenting at the moment in my favorite carboy (more below).  It's an 8 gallon fermenter holding 5.5 gallons of beer, and the krausen on that yeast routinely hits the top.  It also takes a good 7-10 days to ferment, compared to a lot of ale yeasts that are mostly done in 3-4 days.  

I switched to the Spiedel carboy about 5 years ago.  Like the big mouth, it's got a, well, big mouth.  It's plastic, handles on the sides.  I swapped out the plastic spigot with a stainless spigot.  It's all super easy to clean, easy to move around, never have to worry about breaking it, don't have to siphon.  It's been awesome.  When I keg, I put the Spiedel on the counter, run a hose straight down into my keg and I'm done in just a few minutes.