To answer the thread question, AG or Extract can make good or bad beer. If I could give my younger me advice, I would have told me that temperature control usually makes the biggest difference in beer quality. Invest in the cold side.
I think lower temp fermentation would be the bigger factor with 1056. If I want more esters I ferment at 68-70. For profiles that are less estery (esb, stout) I aim for low 60s.
Temp during fermentation to me impacts fruitiness in conjunction with yeast. A different yeast will give different...
Hey all, I have a final beer in my 15 gallon barrel before I move the barrel into a Solera sour project.
For those who have done this, what advice would you give your future self?
I'm planning on starting with a Dupontesque Saison as the beer going into the fermenter after clean fermentation...
The shed beer. It turns out that 50 degree temperature swings results in really bad beer.
It was a saison. It ended up tasting like metallic mango. Just weird.
Cheapest? In college I made hard cider by drilling a hole in the cap of a gallon of cider, pitched dregs of a bottle of beer and made an air stop out of a straw and plastic cup held together with super glue. I think the whole thing cost me under 5 bucks...
I do a two vessel biab hybrid. It works pretty well. I heat my water in one kettle, mash in the other.
7 years doing it this way and pretty satisfied with it.
To close the loop. I let it ride. Got 12.5 gallons of goodness out of the barrel that tastes fantastic. Just in time for xmas.
Next beer will be filling the barrel shortly.
Yeah, think I might just see what happens, but I'm leaning towards brewing a small batch to top it off. 16 gallons was in the fermenter and I learned that I lost a lot more to yeast sludge than I thought I would. Next beer I think I'll brew two 10 gallon batches, fill the barrel and then bottle...
It's a fresh barrel from a distillery (journeyman). I blanketed it with co2, but barrels are permeable.
It's a 11%ish stout so it should be able to handle a bit of funk. Plan is for this to only sit in there a couple months since I think it will absorb the flavor I want by then.
Hey all, first time using a barrel and when filling it we came up a bit short. In the 15 gallon barrel I think we got to 13 or so gallons. Lot of trub in the fermenter. We racked pretty well with little aeration.
How much will the head space hurt? The barrel is mostly waxed. Just the front face...