Home Brewing / Micro Brewery / My own beer

[Toxxyc]

Oh.. and does anyone know how big @Toxxyc wort cubes containers are? 20 or 25l ?

They are packaged at 20l, but the containers will hold around 25~27l, I haven't tested.

 

[abudabi]

lol.. facepalm.. read through everything except that line.

 

[abudabi]

They are packaged at 20l, but the containers will hold around 25~27l, I haven't tested.

Thanks man. Your sales picked up a bit with the new ban ?

 

[Toxxyc]

Thanks man. Your sales picked up a bit with the new ban ?

Slightly, but not a lot. I'm not actively advertising tho, so that might be it. I didn't expect another ban so I'm not stocked too high.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

I’m a huge fan of my fermentrack implementation. Love being able to keep an eye. What you will see as you learn it, you can pretty much track fermentation progress by how hard the fridge is working to keep it cool.

Yeah Im seeing that from the duty cycle, its been 30+ here for the last two days and its been kicking in the compressor fairly often.
I think it might be time to build an iSpindel to add to it, I might also add an ambient temp sensor although I can just check home assistant as I have a BME280 on another ESP in the same garage.
So far Im loving it, not even remotely sad that I went through the setup.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Very nice.

I'm also currently on the lookout for a fridge/fermentation chamber. I might be getting an old used fridge from my uncle.

Can you elaborate on the setup / how you connected the pi to the ESP8266 and what is controlled by which part?

I'm gonna have a look at Fermentrack now.

Yeah its 100% worth it if you can pick up an old fridge, this one was my inlaws fridge from about 15 years ago, still does a perfect job.

There are a few parts to setup but its all pretty easy.
1. Install Rasbian on the PI.
2. Run this from the command line: curl -L install.fermentrack.com | sudo bash
3. Connect an ESP8266(ESP32 support isnt great) via USB to the PI and flash it from the Fermentrack web interface.
4. Connect a dual relay board and 2x DS18B20 temp sensors to the ESP8266.
The Pi can connect to the ESP via wifi or via USB cable, I went with USB because they are in the same container and it didnt require a second power supply.
5. Take one of the temp sensors and dunk it in a glass of cold water, that way you can tell which sensor will be for beer temp and which for fridge temp.
The two sensors are for the PID to figure out how much the temp in the fridge should be to keep the beer at the correct temp.
6. From the Fermentrack page select each sensor/relay and assign it a function as shown in my second screenshot.

After that its done, you can pop your fermenter in and set a temperature or create a fermentation profile. I have mine at a constant 19.5 for now with US-05 fermenting an APA but will add a step profile to raise the temp by a degree or two when its close to done.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Tongue Testing a little 330ml Coopers IPA that I bottled 11 days ago
Not too bad, a little bitter, not sure if it's too young or if this is just the taste of the IPA flavour which I haven't had before until today

 

[Kola_CT]

Tongue Testing a little 440ml Coopers IPA that I bottled 11 days ago
Not too bad, a little bitter, not sure if it's too young or if this is just the taste of the IPA flavour which I haven't had before until today

View attachment 988530

It needs more time, 4 weeks + and that IPA will be really nice.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

It needs more time, 4 weeks + and that IPA will be really nice.

Thanx, yeah I generally wait 4 weeks
Still have lots of Coopers Stouts that I bottled 7 months ago and they're super smooth but not an ideal summers day beer

 

[Kola_CT]

Thanx, yeah I generally wait 4 weeks
Still have lots of Coopers Stouts that I bottled 7 months ago and they're super smooth but not an ideal summers day beer

Had Coopers I forgot about (yes I know, who the F forgets they have beer...) and it was really great after somewhere longer than 6 months after bottling.

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Had Coopers I forgot about (yes I know, who the F forgets they have beer...) and it was really great after somewhere longer than 6 months after bottling.

Don't feel so bad
After Level 5 and Level 4 lockdown when we were allowed to go back into bottle stores again I did a massive cleanup in my garage and found a case of Jupiler beer from 2012. How the **** did I not know it was still there?
Anyways, I cracked 1 bottle open and poured it into a beer mug.
Its very dark
Still tastes like beer

So now I have 23 mini beer bottles of beer to still drink if times get bad (ie. Before I resort back to pineapple beer again)

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Tongue Testing a little 330ml Coopers IPA that I bottled 11 days ago
Not too bad, a little bitter, not sure if it's too young or if this is just the taste of the IPA flavour which I haven't had before until today

View attachment 988530

An IPA is supposed to be bitter, it's sort of the point of an IPA.

They also should be drunk fairly fresh before all the hops oxidise out. Enjoy!

 

[Toxxyc]

An IPA is supposed to be bitter, it's sort of the point of an IPA.

They also should be drunk fairly fresh before all the hops oxidise out. Enjoy!

No an IPA is supposed to be hoppy, not all IPAs are IBU bombs. But they should all be hop-forward.

However, IPAs shine when you do late addition or dry hopping. IPAs from kits are...bad. Really really bad. They totally miss the mark.

 

[GrootP]

No an IPA is supposed to be hoppy, not all IPAs are IBU bombs. But they should all be hop-forward.

However, IPAs shine when you do late addition or dry hopping. IPAs from kits are...bad. Really really bad. They totally miss the mark.

Exactly my feeling. I enjoy a hoppy beer but it needs to be in balance with the malt and never to bitter.
If one feel the need for bitter alcohol, take a swig of Angostura Bitters!

 

[Toxxyc]

Problem with kit IPAs is that the process they use to dehydrate the wort before canning is what kills all flavour and aroma. It works fine as a base, and some flavours carry through well (like roasted flavours), so it works for stuff like stouts and porters, but it's completely the wrong thing for styles like IPAs.

 

[Dimpie (COMPUTEK)]

8-10 years ago the IPA from tin was the berries. It's the last couple of years when everyone started late hopping, whirlpool, dry-hopping, that gave IPA a whole new meaning | taste.

If this was still 2010, that tin IPA would be loved by all

 

[Russell S]

I can very much recommend the Belgian wort mix from boerbier.com

Tastes like a well balanced IPA. Looking forward to making their blonde ale after my Mangrove Jack's Pilsner gets bottled.

 

[SykomantiS]

I can very much recommend the Belgian wort mix from boerbier.com

Tastes like a well balanced IPA. Looking forward to making their blonde ale after my Mangrove Jack's Pilsner gets bottled.

It's funny that you can buy the kits with all the bits and bobs (plus wort) for ~3x the price of the wort kit only, but the wort kits are "sold out"

 

[SykomantiS]

Yeah its 100% worth it if you can pick up an old fridge, this one was my inlaws fridge from about 15 years ago, still does a perfect job.

There are a few parts to setup but its all pretty easy.
1. Install Rasbian on the PI.
2. Run this from the command line: curl -L install.fermentrack.com | sudo bash
3. Connect an ESP8266(ESP32 support isnt great) via USB to the PI and flash it from the Fermentrack web interface.
4. Connect a dual relay board and 2x DS18B20 temp sensors to the ESP8266.
The Pi can connect to the ESP via wifi or via USB cable, I went with USB because they are in the same container and it didnt require a second power supply.
5. Take one of the temp sensors and dunk it in a glass of cold water, that way you can tell which sensor will be for beer temp and which for fridge temp.
The two sensors are for the PID to figure out how much the temp in the fridge should be to keep the beer at the correct temp.
6. From the Fermentrack page select each sensor/relay and assign it a function as shown in my second screenshot.

After that its done, you can pop your fermenter in and set a temperature or create a fermentation profile. I have mine at a constant 19.5 for now with US-05 fermenting an APA but will add a step profile to raise the temp by a degree or two when its close to done.

Thought I'd start by playing around with Fermentrack on a raspbian vm, just to see what's what with the installation and interface, but this thing just refuses to install correctly/fully. Can't get it to run. I'm not usre if it's due to the image I'm using for the vm, or the installed dependencies or their versions but this thing is just not having any of it. I don't have an extra memory card to do a clean install on my actual pi, and I'm not ready yet to nuke what's currently on the pi. So far, this has not been fun.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

No an IPA is supposed to be hoppy, not all IPAs are IBU bombs. But they should all be hop-forward.

However, IPAs shine when you do late addition or dry hopping. IPAs from kits are...bad. Really really bad. They totally miss the mark.

Definitely this! I cant imagine an IPA that isnt dry hopped being all that great, regardless of any late additions in the boil.