Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts

[BrewHound]

All,

I would like to nail down the topic for next months tech meeting early so that I am prepared. My personal thought is with so many of us growing hops and harvest coming up right around the corner. A Hop Oast would be just the ticket for the August 4th Meeting, however, I will let the masses make the call. Below is a list of topics please reply with your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices.

Here is a sample vote:

1st - DIY Hop Drier
2nd - Yeast Profiling
3rd - Home Grain roasting

Here are topics, voting will close on July 26th to allow time to prepare for the next activity.

DIY Stir Plate: For the DIY meetings we would need to find someone who would like that item. They would provide the required parts for the build, and then we would assembly the item with the expertise provided by another in the club who has done this already. The person who provides the parts would take home the item after the meeting. This would help people who are not technically savvy with hands on demonstration of how to build one.

DIY Counter flow Chiller: For the DIY meetings we would need to find someone who would like that item. They would provide the required parts for the build, and then we would assembly the item with the expertise provided by another in the club who has done this already. The person who provides the parts would take home the item after the meeting. This would help people who are not technically savvy with hands on demonstration of how to build one.

Yeast Culturing: While I know of no one yet in the club culturing their own yeast I have plans to start here soon, after I have finished modifying my new setup. This meeting would go over the required items to culture yeast. Preventing contamination, developing your own yeast strains and storage of yeast.

Decoction Mashing: A demonstration would be done of decoction mashing. There are many advantages of this, primarily, this accentuates and increases the flavor of malts. Which is highly desired for your maltier beers. For this meeting a mini brew would be done and the decoction cycle would be performed as a demonstration. We would go over how the calculations are performed to achieve different rest cycles and what those cycles contribute to the beer.

Grain Roasting: A demonstration and discussion of home roasting procedures. This would include a how to determine the Lovibond of your grain when roasting. Roasting profiles used to roast your grain and how those profiles impact flavor. This will also include how to building a malt Lovibond calibration kit.

Home Grain Malting: A practical discussion and demonstration of how to malt your own grain. Discussion and demonstration of sprouting grain and handling.

Yeast Flavor profiling: A practical tasting demonstration of different strains of yeast. This would involve pre-build wort broken down into smaller units with different yeasts pitched. These would then be tasted to identify different yeast esters and what they contribute to the beer.

Hop Flavor profiling: A practical tasting demonstration of different hops. This would involve pre-build wort broken down into smaller units with different hop varieties used to flavor. These would then be tasted to identify different hop flavors and what they contribute to the beer.

Water Testing and modification: Getting to the nitty gritty of your water and how to simulate other famous waters. This will include where to obtain accurate cheap test kids, testing your water, modifying your water. Also a practical discussion on what different elements contribute to your brewing water and impact taste

DIY hop dryer: We will build a hop dryer. This will be a start to finish demonstration for drying the hops that some brewers grow.

Wort Canning: Ever wanted to can wort. This will be a demonstration on proper canning procedures for canning wort. Canned wort is very practical for easy on hand storage for creating starters or to have for propagating and slanting yeast for farming.

Grain Crush Characteristics: Practical discussion about crushing grain what is gained by a finer crush on your grain. Ways to get a finer crush without a stuck sparge. Also will include discussion on Water/Grain ratio and what this has to do with brewing.

Tips&Tricks: Here is your chance, bring forth your greatest tips and tricks, so that others may revel in your cleverness and share in you prosperity. This will be a practical discussion of tips and tricks, that will include a complied circular mailed out to club members.

Batch Vs. Fly Sparging: A discussion of the pro’s and con’s of both methods of extracting sugars from your all grain mash.

Grain Profiling: A discussion and tasting of different grains and what they contribute to your beers. Grains will be mashed isolated in small scale and a tasting will be conducted of different grains. This will help the average brewer build better recipes and know what flavors are being contributed through different additions.

[daveR]

1st - DIY Stir Plate
2nd - Yeast Culturing
3rd - Decoction Mashing

[HowBrewed]

1st - Yeast Culturing
2nd - DIY Stir Plate
3rd - Counterflow Chiller

I made a DIY immersion chiller but would be willing to provide the research have already collected and build a counter flow chiller. I think for about five to ten bucks more that the immersion chiller I could have made a very effective counter-flow chiller.

There are also a couple of differences with a counter flow chiller such as lack of cold break that we would also have to include.

I would build one prior to the meeting and then build another that someone else can have.

[carrisr]

1st - Yeast Culturing
2nd - Hop Flavor
3rd - Water Testing

[carrisr]

I'll throw another possible DIY project into the pot. I've built two digital dual zone temperature controllers that I could either show or build. The parts cost around $50 if you buy everything new. Less if you reuse things you already have.

[kjball]

1st Water testing
2nd Grain profiling
3rd Hop flavor

[JimF]

1st - Yeast Culturing
2nd - Water Testing
3rd - DIY Stir Plate

[Mr T]

1st - Yeast Culturing
2nd - Water Testing
3rd - DIY Stir Plate



From: JimF [mailto:brew-meetings@crbeernuts.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:11 PM
To: brew-meetings@crbeernuts.org
Subject: Re: August 4th Tech Meeting Ideas and voting thread


1st - Yeast Culturing
2nd - Water Testing
3rd - DIY Stir Plate




Jim Fuller

Life is good, when the beer is too...

Post generated using Mail2Forum (http://www.mail2forum.com)

[jjbuck]

1st - DIY Counterflow chiller
2nd - Yeast flavor profiling
3rd - Batch vs. Fly sparge

[johnnyik]

I want to get into decoction mashing for all my german lagers. I would love to go through this in a tech meeting but lets save it for the fall sometime.

[DrPaulsen]

[Matt F]

1st - Water Testing and Modifications
2nd - Yeast Culturing
3rd - DIY dual zone temp controller - Randy

[kurtford]

I've got 6 bottles of beer that I skunked on purpose. 1hr, 2hrs, 4hrs, 8hrs, 12hrs, and 16 hrs in sunlight with green bottles. I did it with a cream ale and wasn't sure if anyone was interested on trying them in case you wanted to get that eastern European skunky lager taste. Worse comes to worse, might just open up that first bottle and dump the rest if it's really bad. Let me know if anyone would be interested on me bringing these to the tech meeting on Wednesday.

[TappedOut]

1 yeast profiling
2 hop profiling
3 yeast culturing

[tompb]

Rob (the guy with the flasks) is planning on being there. If anyone knows what size flask they want I can put in an order for Wednesday. He is going to bring a friend that is interested in joining also.
Let me know what you want and I'll try to get prices. He is pretty reasonable.