Homebrewing thread

>>963791

Pretty gay tbqhwyf

>>963806

Quality comment.

What are you brewing?

>>963806
>to be quite honest with you faggot
Is my interpretation correct?

>>963828
Family

>>963791
Nice. I have a freezer just waiting to be converted. What was the most difficult or expensive part of the build?

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>>963791
Op, I built one of these about 4 years ago and it's still going strong. It is a two tower (total of 4 tap) top opening system. Not much to say about your endeavor, but here are a couple of random comments about things I've learned.

When mounting the towers on top, cut the smallest hole necessary to accommodate the tubing going in to the keggerator. You may have to cut off the sanke connectors to get the tubing through the holes, but you can just reconnect them on the other side of the door. A smaller hole means less loss of cold air and slightly better efficiency.

When mounting the towers on top, mount them as close to the front of the freezer as possible. I mounted them with just enough room for a drip tray in front of each, yet even though they are pretty far forward, I can't tell you how many times I have opened the top, only to hit one of the tap handles against the wall behind it, and beer starts pouring out of the faucet and dripping behind the keggerator.

On that note, remove the tap handles if you are going to open the top. Same reason as above. You *will* spill beer behind the thing, it's just a matter of how many times.

If your freezer doesn't have an automatic feature to keep frost from building up (that is, it's designed so that you have to defrost it from time to time), then do yourself a favor and go get some damp rid. Even though you won't have to worry about frost per se, there will be a lot of humidity in there that will eventually start to pool and start rusting things. I just stick a container of damp rid in there and it'd good for a month or two.

Don't forget, one of the nicest features of the freezer style keggerator is that you can get the temp lower than a refrigerator. It's perfect for lagering beer. I just did two batches of American standard lager, and they came out great! Granted, you can't fit kegs in there at the same time, but it works for lagering much better than a standard refrigerator.

(Cont)

>>963869
(Cont)

You can expect to replace the temp controller about once every two years. They wear out fairly quickly because they are switching all the time. I'm on my second one now, and it feels like it can give out at any time now.

Top opening freezers are the best because you can pretty much drill anywhere in the lid without worrying about hitting a refrigerant line. Don't drill through the side unless you know exactly where those lines are. If you hit one with a drill, the whole thing is pretty much useless.

Mine has a switch to turn off the audible alarm that indicates over temp. Most of these have an alarm to tell you that your freezer isn't cold enough, and it's really nice to have a switch to turn it off, since you will never be getting it cold enough to turn off the alarm.

If you're storing your co2 tank inside the keggerator, and you run out of gas, you can get a little more pressure by removing the tank and letting it warm up. It's not that much extra gas, but it's enough if you're hosting a party and run out in the middle of everyone drinking.

Back to work, but I'll try to think of some more observations and check back later.

I wanna brew some JOAM (http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=45152)

I have a one gallon carboy but I want to step it up to a 5 gallon one.
The problem is, glass carboys get fucking expensive, and I need to buy two so I can rack one to the other

Are plastic carboys any good?

>>963889
My phone won't open your link, but isn't the joam recipe the one that calls for bread yeast?

If it is, I would strongly advise against that. Just get some beer or wine or champagne yeast. I've bought champagne yeast for $0.75 per packet at my local homebrewer store. Bread yeast is designed to produce lots of carbon dioxide and not much alcohol. Brewers yeast is designed to produce alcohol with less carbon dioxide.

Tldr, if you use bread yeast, it will finish very sweet and be about 2%ABV. If you use literally any kind of brewers yeast, it will finish much drier and be 5%ABV.

>>963948
oh I have lavlin wine yeast that I really like for mead, no way in hell I'd use bread yeast.

I really just wanted info on the carboys

>>963993
Ah, excellent.

As far as the plastic carboys go, I've had several of them, and I have 3 glass ones as well. I would totally recommend the plastic ones for most people getting started; especially if you're on a budget, since you can get them for cheap from the grocery store, and already filled with water too!

They would work for you too, but the only reason I hesitate recommending to you is because you're probably going to have a long secondary fermentation. Plastic is no problem for primary fermentation that only lasts a week or so. They are even ok as a secondary for a month or maybe two. But if your secondary is going to be several months long then the batch may leach a plastic taste out of the container.

The optimal solution for you, imho, is to get one 5 gallon plastic and one 5 gallon glass carboy. Use the glass one as your secondary and you won't have any problems no matter how long the secondary fermentation is.

You wouldn't happen to live near chicago?

>>964006
I'm gonna have to wait until payday but I think your way's the best. It's just damn expensive, but that comes with the hobby.

Maybe I'll just downscale to two 3 gallon carboys, I might not even like the stuff (but it sounds good)

>You wouldn't happen to live near chicago?
Ugh, I wish. Stuck in Florida though.

>>964024
Ha. I'm actually moving back to fla in a couple of months. Maybe we'll run in to each other, say excuse me, and keep walking ;-)

I recently bottled some mead in beer bottles that fermented for about 3 months. Is there anything I can do to condition or improve the taste of the mead now that it is bottled, or is the flavor set?

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>>963889

I use old antique water jugs. Just go to a few antique stores and you can find them from 10-15$. They may be lead glass, so clean them out pretty good before each use. Or you can just pony up the 30$ is costs for a carboy online. Or you can find a brewing setup on craigslist.

>>964443

Let them sit in a cool dry place for about a year. That is why I make a new batch of mead every 3 months or so. Flavor will change drastically over a year, and year 2 even better.