Make a wort chiller. They run off the kitchen sink - but you probably know that. They sell kits at most homebrew stores, you just buy the copper pipe. I wrapped it around a 5-gallon bucket quite easily; just make sure whatever you wrap yours around fits inside your boiling pot.

Alternatively, you could try using less water in your sparge and add ice when you finish your boil. I've never done that myself, but I don't see how it would hurt.

At the brewery, I get my wort chilled to about 90F with my heat exchanger as it goes into the fermenter then use the glycol system to get me down to target temperature. I pitch yeast once I break 70F as long as I feel everything is working correctly.

I've got a 25ft prechiller and a 50ft immersion chiller. In 100F heat in Tennessee summer, that just doesn't cut it. A big box from Harbor Freight with a 1/2hp clear water pump just arrived yesterday, so being able to pump ice water through the 50ft should - should - be able to get me down to lager temps and scoff at ale temps.

I spent yesterday morning dumping yeast out of my 40bbl batch of IPA and then dryhopping it: 20lbs of cascade and 20lbs of citra for dryhop. It gets filtered Friday and probably packaged the following Monday. I'm pumped!

This is pretty much what I do. 50' IC with a 25 footer as a pre-chiller; run about 20 gallons of tap water through that (dumping effluent in washing machine for laundry) then switchover to icewater with a pond pump (just through the 50' IC, prechiller out of circuit). Still takes me ~30-40 minutes to get down to 70* F depending on how much I stir it. Stirring/moving the wort around the coil makes a big difference.

Ate breakfast at Bouchon (ate at bar) the other day and the bartender was a homebrewer. He gave me a free sample of Delerium Tremens which I thought was good. Had a burger at Burger Bar in Mandalay and they have a great craft/import beer selection. Had the Youngs Dbl Chocolate Stout (nitro/draught) and a liter bottle of Spaten Optimator.

Stole a pour of a Strong Scotch Ale I kegged 3 months ago. It's my first SSA and I think it's really good but I don't know anything about Wee Heavies. Very malty/rich but not sweet.

Hey that things not bad.

I think the differences in prices for the ingredients is that you all-grain while i extract. Im hoping Ill be doing only all grain recipes by next summer.

Seeing Ineedaride dig up that (four? year-old) post reminded me that even though I used to really like Flying Dog pale, I haven't had one in years. That made me want to go through an APA tasting, so I went to the store and got five different pales. I had my gf pour them into taster glasses and then bring them in to me on a tray so I wouldn't know which was which. Not quite Wookie blind style, but close enough for me. A quick disclaimer: since I work for Yazo, I'm not at all impartial and was able to pick it out without even tasting it. I'll still give my notes, but as a coworker says, "This beer tastes like work."

On to the beers. The five American pale ales I bought were Stoudt's, out of PA, Flying Dog, out of MD now, Yazoo, from TN, BBC, from KY, and Saranac Brewing, from NY.

Here they are as arranged and tasted.



The far left is Yazoo. It had the least head and head retention. The aroma is mildly of hops and also some sweet malt. The taste starts with the malt, a lightly toasty, kinda bready flavor. Then the hops mingle in and balance with bitterness and a bit of citrusy flavor. The finish is fairly dry with the hops cleaning things up. Even when the fridge is full of beer from other places, a lot of times I'll still reach for ol' Yazoo pale. It's just a nice, very sessionable APA.

Second from left, without ID since I didn't know either. Not much hops in the aroma, a touch of cascades maybe? and not a whole lot else. Taste is definitely on the sweeter side, with an almost caramely malt note. There's bitterness there, but not a whole lot of it. The end is also some lingering malt sweetness. In case you can't tell from the pic, its definitely darker copper in color than the one before it.

Middle beer, maybe a touch darker than the previous in color, but the two are close and the two darkest. Aroma is strongly of hops, with a lot of pine/woodsy smells and maybe some background citrus. Taste is overwhelmingly hoppy. The bitterness is right upfront, lasts though, and is borderline astringent. The malt makes a brief appearance on first contact, but that's about it.

Fourth beer is the lightest in color. The smell is pretty nice, a mingling of toasty malt and American hops. The taste is right in line with the aroma, a very nice malt flavor to start, like taking a bite out of a golden-light brown piece of toast, that flows into the balancing bitterness of the hops. Not overly bitter, but enough to start erasing the malt flavor some and bring out grapefruit and pine flavor. The beer finishes fairly dry and the hops bring enough flavor to help clean the palate. Really drinkable.

Fifth and last beer, darker than fourth for sure but overall middle of the road. Aroma is fairly similar to the last beer, though, with both malt breadiness and American hops in there. Taste also is somewhat similar, although the malt seems to take a bit more of an assertive role in this one. A touch sweeter, as it doesn't seem to finish as dry, and a touch maltier, deeper toast/biscuit flavors. That might also be a bit less bitterness from the hops, though. Overall a good beer for sure.

So in summary, I practically subsist on Yazoo, so yeah. Beer two was definitely the most malt-focused, with the hops being pretty background, from bittering to flavor to aroma. The third beer was the complete opposite. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say IPA with the bitterness and hop aroma. Fourth beer, really well-balanced, pleasing and drinkable. Fifth beer, pretty close to the same as the fourth, with the difference being in malt/hop balance.

And now, the reveal:



From left to right, the bottles match up with the tasting order. Nice to see that even though they've moved, and even though it has been years since I've had one, Flying Dog still makes a really nice American pale.

Good review RDH, Ive never had Yazoo, if I see it around I'll be sure to give it a go.

Im a fan of the Stoudts APA myself.

Not me in the pic, but a coworker. At GABF this past weekend:



23 entrants in the category, Alaskan Smoked Porter took Gold.

Right on. Nice work!

+1 on making a wort chiller, there are some good guides if you use google. I just made a 50 foot one with 1/4" OD copper tubing for $45 (they are $85-100 retail) this weekend and it cooled a five gallon batch under 80 degrees in about ten minutes. probably took me about an hour to make the thing.

Just had Terrapin - Golden Ale. I'm not terribly impressed with this. In fact, I'm probably being a little more generous than usual because they're from Athens, GA, and I have a soft spot for them.

I'll keep this short. The first swallow was a little too bitter, and oddly enough, each swallow after that has been a little too sweet. It's definitely drinkable, but it just tastes.....off. Somehow. I'll give it a 3.

Edited to add: Once you get half way through one, it gets a lot better. This is decidedly odd.

Had been looking forward to trying some Terrapin for awhile, so I traded for some a few months ago.

Wasnt impressed at all with Hopsecutioner. Among other things, I thought it was too boozy. Much more so than you want or expect from a ~7% beer.

The Coffee Oatmeal Imp. Stout was good enough. Nothing spectacular though.

I did however really enjoy the Hop Karma brown ale. Not a style I drink often, but quite nice. I think it is supposedly a Brown Ale/IPA hybrid and it completely met my expectations based on that.

Congrats RDH!!

How was GABF? Id love to get out for that some day.

A quick question for the more experienced brewers ITT regarding water quality. Do you recommend always buying bottled water to brew with or does tap water suffice for a homebrewer?

I only do 3G boils atm, can I just top off with bottled water? Does the boil "clean" out anything that could affect the taste of our beer.

you should be able to get by with just boiling your water. if you're feeling deluxe, maybe you install a filter on your kitchen sink? Mainly what you want to remove is chlorine, and between boiling and filtering, you should be fine.

Just be careful if your water has chloramine. If you have chlorinated water the chlorine is easily removed but if it has chloramine, not so much. Yeast do not like chloramine.

I've noticed that tons of beers have been reviewed in this thread, so instead of just adding a review, I'm going to continue to search and add my review to an existing review. I'd add all the reviews, but I'm about a lazy bastard and that's a lot of work.

Anywho, here's my (big ass) pic:




To add to Wookie's review, this beer cost me $9.99 for a 4 pack, so fairly expensive. But worth it.

I'm sure there are stouts that are better than this. But I would like to say that compared to my prior stout - Guinness - this beer is an 11 on a 1 to 5 scale. Although the taste was better and more defined (which I crucified Guinness for in my last review) I think the area where Samuel Smith scores the most points is mouth-feel. SS has great body to accompany the flavor, which Wookie has already described more than adequately.

I give it a 4.5, and again, the only reason I won't give it a five is because I don't know what a 5 is yet.

My new beer quest is to find a better stout than this. I welcome all recommendations.

Also, my home brew seems to be coming along nicely. As of 5:00 pm tomorrow, it will have been in primary for 2 weeks. I don't plan on racking it to a secondary, so I think I'm going to give it 1 more week (again it's a Fat Tire clone so I think 3 weeks should be good) and then bottle it up.

Checked the gravity Monday and it was approx. 1.16, from an OG of 1.6. One more week should be ample. It smells great.

I've got about 3 cases of beer bottles soaking in my tub as we speak, and I'll be de-labeling and cleaning those up tonight. Shipping and all, that seems to be about 50 or 60 dollars worth of bottles if I were buying bottles online. That's outrageous.

Lastly, should I start a home brew thread here, or bump one? I feel like I'm cluttering this one up with semi-tangential posts....

I've wondered that too, but I think we can leave it up to Wookie to split out homebrew stuff if it's getting in the way.

Hint for bottling: make sure your dishwasher has a heat dry setting, and run your bottles through the dishwasher - NO dish soap - on heat dry. It'll steam sanitize them. Then, on bottling day, put your bottling bucket on the counter above the dishwasher, and bottle on the opened dishwasher door itself. Helps keep any spills contained within the dishwasher instead of on your floor.

Another tip: buy bombers. Lots and lots of bombers. Having to fill 28 22oz bottles is a lot easier than 50 12oz bottles or whatever.

I'd LOVE to have a bunch of 22 oz bottles. I've been too cheap to just buy some as of yet, but I may after determining how badly I hate bottling. I'm also thinking of getting a 2.5 gal keg and kegging part and bottling part.

Also, I don't have a bottling bucket yet. I was planning on transferring to my carboy and bottling out of that. Is this ok, or should I go ahead and buy the bottling bucket?

i love having bombers for bottling, but i really dont like having to drink a full bomber when i wanna grab one of my beers, so it's a bit of a tossup for me between sizes. oh and +1 on the filling the tub to de-label bottles for home brew it makes me appreciate breweries that have labels that come off pretty easily once soaked like bells.

oh and a bottling bucket with a spigot is very handy. i would guess it saves me like 20 minutes while bottling, as opposed to using the bottler and tubing that came with my original kit.

have only had terrapin rye squared and gamma ray wheatwine, so i dont know a bunch about their whole lineup, but i highly recommend gamma ray.

I'm drinking my last Terrapin Golden Ale now and I must say, they are way better when they follow three other beers.

I hate to ask this, but could someone link what I would need to set up a bottling bucket from Northern brewery or Austin Home Brew? From what I can tell, I may have to buy more than one piece, like the bucket, the spigot, the tubing, and the piece that goes on the end of the tube. I'd hate to buy it and then realize I don't have what i need come bottling day...


Edit: Also, I hear ya on the labels. I'm loving Flying Dog right now. Their labels slide right off.

Bucket, spigot, tubing, filler.

you gotta get the bottling bucket itll make your bottling life much easier. I just got the filler RDH linked to, it has really made it sooooo much easier.

I needaride, check your gravity again today. Ive read that if your gravity stays the same 3 days in a row then fermentation has pretty much stopped. I know NB calls for 1 week primary and 2 weeks secondary but the 2 weeks secondary is just for clarifying the beer.

Am I wrong in saying this? I am still a newb, 5 batches under the belt.

Im brewing 3 batches today, lol, Im doing a Brown Ale here at my house then heading to my buddys house to do the follwing 2 batches.

Blood Orange Hefeweizen

Ginger Saison

Thanks thanks thanks and thanks.

I'll check my gravity again. I think you're correct in what you're saying, but at the same time my understanding is it doesn't hurt (and could help) to leave the beer in the primary a little longer. I'm really in no rush, and I gotta wait for my bottling bucket anyway.

I've got another batch of the same stuff I may cook tomorrow and put in the carboy. Gotta get my pipeline filled.