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met another guy wanting to homebrew. hoping to get enough buds together to make the dist del caribe make it worthwhile to ship in some malt extract here in homebrewless nica!!!
 
Nice to know, let us know what comes of it.

You might also want to talk to some local pastry bakers, malt extract is a great way to sweeten and add caramel taste to cookies, cakes, granola bars (malt extract can be used in stead of high fructose corn syrup, which is incidentally the devil's snot; can't say enough bad things about HFCS), etc. That might get you enough people to make the order worthwhile faster.
 
Surprising there is nothing more interesting in Nica with the increasing tourism. We were just recently in Leon and Ometepe. Two places where I expect craft brew would be well received by the tourists.
 
Hi all!

I'm a new beginner homebrewer in Guate city... With a friend we started a couple of batches, with very rudimentary equipment (boilin pots and Salva Vida water tanks...). Well, up to now it has been succesful, but we are looking to improve our skills and share experiences! So if some of you live in the capital, I hope we could meet one of these days!
 
You wouldn't happen to be Fernando C.'s friend/relative would you? If so (or even if not), ask away; I've been waiting for you guys to sign up. If not, you're still more than welcome. What is it that you'd like to improve on? Are you doing extract or all-grain?

Here's a link with a few more resources and local sources:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/groups/cerveceros-ca-4/
 
Yes, I'm Fernando's friend.

Well, i'd like to improve everything... I mean, when I said I've brewed a couple of batches, it's litteraly 2 batches (and one is still fermenting), jeje...

I brewed a 5 gallon batch from extract (a kit that I bought in the US), american wheat, it was quite succesfull, the beer was good. And now I'm brewing a 1 gallon all grain batch, brown ale... we'll see what happen with this... I'm also in the process of malting wheat. I've not been able to find barley, but I've seen you can get it at CENMA, as you said.

Well, that's all my experience about brewing! My main question are about the equipment you're using... mmm let's say the production process in general. The thing is that the beer I brewed was good, but the way I did it was quite messy. So I wanted advices on what is the minimum equipment that I need, etc... Also, acording to what you say, there's no way to get malted grains in Guate... Have you tried importing it by any way?

Alright, nice to meet you anyway! Maybe we could meet in person one of these days too, to taste our beers (I don't have any at the moment, so let's wait a little..)!
 
nsaubes said:
Yes, I'm Fernando's friend.

Well, i'd like to improve everything... I mean, when I said I've brewed a couple of batches, it's litteraly 2 batches (and one is still fermenting), jeje...
Click to expand...

Well, it really depends on how much control you'd like to have over the finished product. You can get really good basic beer with extract kits without doing much, you can go for the middle ground with a partial mash; which will give your beer a bit more character but is harder to control but doesn't require much more equipment than extract. Or you can go all out and try all grain; which gives you the most control, but the longest process and the more dependance on details like mash pH and ion content for the water (and don't even get me started on decoction mashing, took me all day to make a partial decoction mashed marzen).

Let us know what you didn't like about your last batch and we'll let you know how to improve on that, how's that for a start?

nsaubes said:
I brewed a 5 gallon batch from extract (a kit that I bought in the US), american wheat, it was quite succesfull, the beer was good. And now I'm brewing a 1 gallon all grain batch, brown ale... we'll see what happen with this... I'm also in the process of malting wheat. I've not been able to find barley, but I've seen you can get it at CENMA, as you said.
Click to expand...

Are you kegging or bottle conditioning? Did you get a reading for OG on your all-grain batch?

Yeah, you can get barley, wheat and a few other non traditional grains at CENMA. Would you care to share some notes on your malting process? I just malted 4.5 pounds of pale barley air malt with the process I described in the CA-4 group's page (care to join?), I'm running low on wheat so I'll make some next week hopefully.

nsaubes said:
Well, that's all my experience about brewing! My main question are about the equipment you're using... mmm let's say the production process in general. The thing is that the beer I brewed was good, but the way I did it was quite messy. So I wanted advices on what is the minimum equipment that I need, etc... Also, acording to what you say, there's no way to get malted grains in Guate... Have you tried importing it by any way?
Click to expand...

Bare minimum equipment for bottle conditioned extract is a large enough pot, a paddle, a small kitchen scale, a large colander, a fermenting vessel, a funnel, bottles and a capper/caps. Anything from there on will only make things easier/more controllable.

I never said you couldn't get malted grains, In fact that's why we have the home malting guide on the CA-4 group:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/groups/cerveceros+ca-4/home+malting-2651/

That being said, you can certainly import; most of us have. Because it's kilned, customs/MAGA has no reason to retain malt for quarantine. Transcargo would probably be the cheapest way, though it might take a while for it to come, being it surface freight.

nsaubes said:
Alright, nice to meet you anyway! Maybe we could meet in person one of these days too, to taste our beers (I don't have any at the moment, so let's wait a little..)!
Click to expand...

Absolutely, I currently have monday, tuesday and thursday mornings available and friday/saturday nights after 8:00 pm available. I'm currently out of beer as well, but I also have (wouldn't you know it) a partial mash northern brown ale with american hops fermenting away right now (brewed sunday), should be done by the 1st full week of may.

Let me know, I gave Fercho my number to give to you, feel free to hit me up any day during the aforementioned times.
 
About malting wheat: I followed a video from youtube, but the process they describe is very similar as yours. 1) I soak the grain for like 8 hours, air for 2, repeated this process 2 times (the grains where smooth easy to smash with the fingers, I understood that it was what I had to looking for); 2) spread the grains on oven trays, a layer of about 3 cm, I'm now watering it a bit and moving it every mornings and nights; it's now sprouting... And smelly, as you mentioned.

About my all grain small batch: I did it in a very "crafty" way. I actually didn't use a mash/lauter tun, but instead I did my mash in a pot, maintainind the tempreature on the stove. Then I just used a strainer on a pot to extract the wort and recirculate water... Unfortunately I didn't take OG readings. Then I did the boiling with hops, etc. Then put in my fermenting vessel, and pitch yeast, directly without starter.

Here comes one of my main question: how do you deal with tempreature (for fermentation)? It seems to be a bit high at my place, and the fermentation goes actually really fast: after a few hours it was already intensively bubbling, and after 2 days, no more bubbling at all (almost)... I guess I could improve it with a starter, but do you have any other advice about that?

And just another question: how do you crush your grains?

Yeah, Fer gave me you number, I'll call you one of these days, when my beer will be ready (if it's drinkable)! In which part of the city are you living?
 
nsaubes said:
About my all grain small batch: I did it in a very "crafty" way. I actually didn't use a mash/lauter tun, but instead I did my mash in a pot, maintainind the tempreature on the stove. Then I just used a strainer on a pot to extract the wort and recirculate water... Unfortunately I didn't take OG readings. Then I did the boiling with hops, etc. Then put in my fermenting vessel, and pitch yeast, directly without starter.
Click to expand...

Sounds pretty close to the way I do my partial mash, I use a 5 gal stock pot and then raise temperature stopping @ 110F for acidification about 20 minutes, then 120F for a protein rest another 20 minutes (only if I'm using home malted grains, which I do most of the time), then 155F for sacharification about an hour and then 175F for 10 minutes to mash out.
Then I transfer onto the fermenting bucket through a strainer and wash the grain with water @ ~170F from a tea kettle (I call it the ghetto sparge), then it goes back to the stock pot and onto the boil/extract/hops/finings addition.

nsaubes said:
Here comes one of my main question: how do you deal with tempreature (for fermentation)? It seems to be a bit high at my place, and the fermentation goes actually really fast: after a few hours it was already intensively bubbling, and after 2 days, no more bubbling at all (almost)... I guess I could improve it with a starter, but do you have any other advice about that?
Click to expand...

I tend to favor higher temperature wyeast strains like thames valley ale or california lager, which do well into the lower 70's (there's also saison and wild yeasts but that's a whole different y(b)east altogether). If I need lower temperatures I fill up "la pila para ropa", dunk the fermentor for the first 2 days of primary and make sure the sun doesn't hit it directly. I usually ferment at ambient temperatures though, I'm going on the 4th generation for my most used yeast strains so they've gotten a bit more used to the higher temps. I tend to favor higher temps though, 'cause it encourages ester and phenol production, which makes for tastier beer; more so with wheat beer.


nsaubes said:
And just another question: how do you crush your grains?
Click to expand...

http://www.bleichner.com.bo/productosdetalles.php?cod_prod=55&nombre_prod=Molino

With the smaller hopper

nsaubes said:
Yeah, Fer gave me you number, I'll call you one of these days, when my beer will be ready (if it's drinkable)! In which part of the city are you living?
Click to expand...

San Cristobal
 
Thanks for your inputs!

About the temperature, it's just that I read that a fast fermentation is not necesarily the best.. But anyway it works, better than no fermentation!

Given this context, how long would you consider that I should let the fermentation go (I'm planning on doing a single fermentation for this one, and then bottle conditionning... I'l try later the secon fermentation, etc.)?

Oh yeah, the handmill! I had thought about it, but I thought the crushing was going to be too thin... This mill is the kind of mill people use to crush coffee grains, and that you can find in any ferreteria, or even at the mercado, is that right?

So for the yeast, you're mostly using your own cultures?

I live downtown, zone 4
 
nsaubes said:
Thanks for your inputs!

About the temperature, it's just that I read that a fast fermentation is not necesarily the best.. But anyway it works, better than no fermentation!
Click to expand...

Lack of airlock activity doesn't mean fermentation's stopped, just slowed down due to most of the fermentable sugars being consumed. I dare say ~60F is the sweetspot for varying yeasts, on the high side for lagers and low side for ales, but not low enough that the ale yeast goes to sleep. If you're using higher temperature yeast like ales or california lager, you can bump it up to 70F with no ill effect. I like the flavor wyeast thames valley ale yeast gives my beer when fermented slightly above 70F, a bit more estery but with most of the malt backbone still there.

nsaubes said:
Given this context, how long would you consider that I should let the fermentation go (I'm planning on doing a single fermentation for this one, and then bottle conditionning... I'l try later the secon fermentation, etc.)?
Click to expand...

I always let primary go on for 2 weeks, unless there's a ton of sugar in it (> 2 pounds per 5 gallon batch) and it's OG<1.060, then cold crash and clean after another week and then carbonate for another week @ 20 PSI in a corny keg; if I bottle condition, I'll allow 2 weeks at ambient temp and then cold crash. I never bothered racking after my 1st batch, I (as far as I can tell) have never had any trouble with my beer oxidizing when transferred while cold, even with super hoppy beer.

nsaubes said:
Oh yeah, the handmill! I had thought about it, but I thought the crushing was going to be too thin... This mill is the kind of mill people use to crush coffee grains, and that you can find in any ferreteria, or even at the mercado, is that right?
Click to expand...

It's a small grain mill mostly used for corn (coffee grinders are usually smaller at the grinding surfaces), you can adjust the grinding plate spacing to suit your needs. Since I never do a proper sparge, I mill it almost into flour, since that and a thin mash gives you the best efficiency (taking care not to go too thin, >2.2 quarts/# of grain, or you'll get too much tannin from the grain husks). Yes, you can probably get one at a local "mercado".

nsaubes said:
So for the yeast, you're mostly using your own cultures?

I live downtown, zone 4
Click to expand...

I started out with wyeast smack packs and then cultured from the yeast cake off of my finished beers, I also cultured some brettanomyces sp. and other goodies out of thin air for my funky ale mix. Some strains I still have in a refrigerated smack pack waiting for a starter to... well... get them started.

Here's a copy of my yeast library:
http://www.freefilehosting.net/yeastlibrary

Feel free to ask for a sample of any of them when we get together, anyone is welcome to one (or a few).
 
Welcome aboard nsaubes. Look forward to meeting you when I get back to Guate.

Today we are in Panama City and stopped in quite by accident to a good brew pub named "Rana Dorada". They have 4 of their own craft brews on tap which were all tasty (Pils, Pale Ale, Belgian Blond, Porter) and some imports too. Nice pub like setting and good food too.
 
Pacaya: I screwed up with my first malting experiment... Here is the thing: as I told you before, I did the soaking step, then spread it on an oven tray, it began to sprout, and like the third day, I was still waiting for a decent and homogenous acrospire size... But it kind of stopped developping, and instead I guess it started to rotten/ferment... It became very stinky, and the sprouts became kind of slack, the grain more pale. Moreover there was a whiteish and kind of foamy liquid at the base of grainbed. I just threw it away the sixth day... Have you had such problems? In which place do you let the grain sprouting? Outside or inside? do you cover it, etc?

Anyway, I still have more unmalted grain and I'm gonna try again! We'll see what happens!
 
I think you might have not have moved the bed enough to evenly distribute moisture, so the bottom grain got moldy/yeasty and it just spread from there, if it smelled acidic it was probably Lactobacillus sp.

I've gratefully never run into this, the only trouble I had once was that I malted towards the end of may and couldn't sun dry 'cause the rainy season caught up with me, so I tried using the moist grains and failed epically; had to dump that batch before I even added extract.

I usually sprout my grain in a plastic soaking bucket (the kind you'd use to soak clothes in bleach) or a fermenting bucket on it's side, that way I can roll it and re-distribute moisture while breaking up the clumps. All of the germinating phase is done indoors to avoid insects and molds, I do it in my bathroom, white tile makes bugs easier to see in case your grain has weevils or any other nasties.

I never cover the grain 'cause it needs to breathe and some of the anaerobic bacteria on grain will spoil them.

My process for both barley and wheat is exactly the same with no additional details other than the ones provided on the home malting tutorial I've linked.
 
nsaubes said:
Ok, thanks for your advice Pacaya! I'll try again and hope not to be caught up by the rains for drying!
Click to expand...

No need to worry yet, the next 2 weeks should still be sunny enough, the rain we had over the weekend was a late cold front that caused a snow storm in the midwest US, another one's possibly lining up for wednesday but you should start drying on friday if you start steeping today, so it should all be good by then.
 
Just stopping by to let you guys know the EC-1118 champagne yeast that Curtis gave me is happily chugging away a 1.055 wort right now, it's just about done fermenting so I should have a viable colony soon, in case anyone would like some.
 
brewed up my first batch...finally : )
a friend had a packet of dry yeast - safale wb-06. and cascade hops. my gf recently went back to the US and brought down 5 lbs of wheat DME, 1.5 lbs of steeping grains, 40L, an ounce of hallertau hops, and cooler bag to keep the carboy(a 5 gallon water jug) and ferm temps down.
we figured we had about 4 gallons after boil off. so a Wheat IPA is what we went for.
also added about 1lb of table sugar to boost the gravity
hop schedule:
60- .75 oz hallertau, .25 cascade
30- .25 oz hallertau, .75 cascade
15- 2 oz cascade
5- 1 oz cascade

945287_10100105939712943_574411422_n.jpg
 
pacayaforhops said:
Just stopping by to let you guys know the EC-1118 champagne yeast that Curtis gave me is happily chugging away a 1.055 wort right now, it's just about done fermenting so I should have a viable colony soon, in case anyone would like some.
Click to expand...

Cool, glad it was still viable.
 
pacaya, thanks for the blog post. Will definately read that one.

My Cerveza Rosa experiment turned out well I think. A bit of sourness so my GF does not like it but I do. I learned that purging w CO2 helps prevent funk from growing on the RJ tea.
 
Hi all,

well, meanwhile I was malting some barley and wheat, and I'll soon have enough to brew some stuff with it. The process is actually pretty easy, and cheap... It just takes a little time.

Still, I have a couple more questions, pacaya: Do you have an efficient technique to get rid of the rootlets/shoots after the malting process (is it a problem if there is still some)?

About specialty grains: For darker roasted malts (e.g. chocolate) I was thinking of toasting grains in a pan on the stove, stirring them constantly... Have you tried something like that? What about cristal/caramel? did you managed to get something any close to that with homemade technique?
 
nsaubes said:
Hi all,

well, meanwhile I was malting some barley and wheat, and I'll soon have enough to brew some stuff with it. The process is actually pretty easy, and cheap... It just takes a little time.

Still, I have a couple more questions, pacaya: Do you have an efficient technique to get rid of the rootlets/shoots after the malting process (is it a problem if there is still some)?
Click to expand...

Not really, you can use a large sieve and rub them against the mesh, but it's time consuming and not as effective if the grain is not perfectly dry (<12% humidity). It's not really that much trouble if some chits are still on the grain, the only thing they mess up is clarity, but make up for it in body, so it really depends on what you want out of it.

nsaubes said:
About specialty grains: For darker roasted malts (e.g. chocolate) I was thinking of toasting grains in a pan on the stove, stirring them constantly... Have you tried something like that? What about cristal/caramel? did you managed to get something any close to that with homemade technique?
Click to expand...

Chocolate 350-400L is oven baked @ 400F for 20-30 min, it'll be much more consistent in the oven than pan-roasted. Crystal malt is green malt with over 20% humidity that's been kilned (baked) 30 min @ 175F and then you can raise the temp for another 15-30 min depending on the L degree you'd like.
I haven't tried making specialty malts, 'cause I have just about all I need, but I'll certainly give it a go once I run out.
 
Curtis2010 said:
I learned that purging w CO2 helps prevent funk from growing on the RJ tea.
Click to expand...

Doesn't really prevent funky bugs from growing in it, it just doesn't let them metabolize as fast, so you don't get a pellicle and the funky flavors take longer to develop. Anything it touches will still be inoculated with funky bugs.
 
Hi guys quick question, I found a guy in la terminal that sells barley, I want to start all grains batch...this barley needs to be malted right ¿?

He was telling me that the grain is good to go for making beer...but I am not sure, how can you tell if it is what I need in order to make beer...Thanks,
 
I'd be really surprised if it were malted much less roasted. If malted you should see signs of that (acrospire).

Regardless I'd be interested in trying some when I get back (prob. August).
 
To my knowledge, none of the barley that's commercially available is malted, you'll have to malt it. That being said, it's not hard to do if you have a large enough oven and don't mind leaving it on overnight or all day (might not be a god idea if unsupervised).

If it's been malted you should be able to take the husk off and see a clear stripe running the back of the grain, that's the acrospire Curtis was referring to; no acrospire=not malted.

It usually takes about 10-15 pounds of grain to produce 5 gallons of 4.5-5.5 %abv beer, so it's a lot of malt to make in one go; but it's doable if you dry it in the sun (might be a few months until we get consistently sunny weather for over a week).
 
Just swinging by to say hi and ask if anyone has any news or anything they'd like to share.

I for one haven't been really busy, I had an uncle come over from the US who's a certified sommelier. Tried my birthday märzen and liked it, he's more of a belgian beer guy (understandably so, from the similarities between some of them and proper wine), so I gave him a liter of my birthday wild saison (that's what I'm calling it now) to take home, (bottled the day he came, so he'll have to wait a couple of months to get the bottle conditioned character he likes).

Other than that, I just finished racking (chucking onto a bucket and back into the keg is more like it) my nance ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrsonima_crassifolia ) brown ale off the fruit (2 weeks with the fruit in it), apparently the nance had lacto and brett on it; which are a welcome addition to the yeast library. I'll let it sit for a couple of months and that should give me my first proper sour beer. Hopefully we can get together during the later half of september to celebrate my 30'th birthday and swap a few brews/yeasts.
 
Hi Wayne, good stuff going on with you, I have yet to try a Lambic or sour, so it will be a welcome experience. I myself have been rather busy too but finally got together with the wife and it has been smooth sailing. Finally got a beer going on, a french Saison with Belgian Ardennes yeast, smells delish!!! it will go into bottling this week. Next weekend I am brewing a nut brown ale, pretty basic recipe but has good reviews. And when I finally get a chance will go and do the Imperial Stout. So if we get together by Sept I will have nut brown ale and the saison for you guys to try. On this last brew day everything went very smooth and got my equipment measured and dialed in and even got a refractometer to measure wort much more easier, cost me around $25 on Amazon so awesome deal.
 
Also to Curtis, if you're still in Panama and have a Rey supermarket nearby they have a lot of good brews there, especially nice are the Chimays and Hertog Jan.
 
Hi guys, sorry for my late response. Thanks for the information. I´ve been a little busy with my business so haven´t had time to do anything regarding beer!!! Haven´t done anything in this 2013!!! because of my work!!! So I´ve set my goal to start again this month and not to stop at least for the months we have left for the 2013.

...I want to buy the barley and do the malting and for the roasting I have a couple of friends that are in the coffee business and they own industrial ovens were they roast coffee grains, I think this can help me achive the different kinds or specialities that I have read...I will try some and if you want, I can give some to whoever wants and would like to give it a try and lets know if it worked!!! I haven´t done all grain brewing but I would like to start with it once I finished with the experiment of the barley...

Please let me know your comments or suggestions!!!!
 
viso88 said:
Hi guys, sorry for my late response. Thanks for the information. I´ve been a little busy with my business so haven´t had time to do anything regarding beer!!! Haven´t done anything in this 2013!!! because of my work!!! So I´ve set my goal to start again this month and not to stop at least for the months we have left for the 2013.
Click to expand...

Not late by any means, it was actually faster than I'm used to.

viso88 said:
...I want to buy the barley and do the malting and for the roasting I have a couple of friends that are in the coffee business and they own industrial ovens were they roast coffee grains, I think this can help me achive the different kinds or specialities that I have read...I will try some and if you want, I can give some to whoever wants and would like to give it a try and lets know if it worked!!! I haven´t done all grain brewing but I would like to start with it once I finished with the experiment of the barley...

Please let me know your comments or suggestions!!!!
Click to expand...

Those "ovens" are the same as are used to make roasted barley, chocolate malt, black patent malt and the carafa type malts (carafa has been dehusked). I'd suggest trying air malt once the weather dries up in july/august (if it does...) or pale malt in the oven (hopefully your kitchen oven goes down to 175F), you can dry it @ 185F for the palest malt or a bit higher (up to 225F) depending on how dark/bready you want it to be (vienna/munich).
 
Hi all,

well that sounds great, pacaya, to have some positive comments coming from a profesional sommelier!! Also that seems to be a good idea to get together in september!

On my side I've been doing some "experiments"... First I've managed malting some grain: Something like 8lbs barley (base malt) and 4lbs wheat. Last weekend was my first brew with my homemalted grain and, as I had some wheat well, I went for a simple wheat beer, with 50/50 malted barley and malted wheat... As I used generic dry yeast it would rather fall in the american wheat category... Well, my brewing went ok, I went Brew in a Bag, for a 2.5 gallons brew. Mashing: 20 min @ 110 (acid), 20 min @ 120 (protein) and 60 min @ 152-155 (sacc), did iodine test to measure conversion; then boil for 90 min with 1/2 oz hallertau @ 60 min. But I must say that when I poured the wort in my fermenter, the sruff had a strange aspect (colour and smell), although I never brewed a wheat beer so I had no reference... Anyway, I hope it'll be drinkable and I'll update you when I'll try a sample. Aside I've been brewing some extract+steeping grain stuff, so I have a 5 gallon batch red ale than I'm drinking right now, it's good, and an IPA almost ready to bottle.

Now I'm I'm willing to buy LME at DC and on the other hand prepare specialty roasted malts, to do some other stuff... So I should have something by september to share guys!
 
nsaubes said:
But I must say that when I poured the wort in my fermenter, the sruff had a strange aspect (colour and smell), although I never brewed a wheat beer so I had no reference...
Click to expand...

Did you use any finings during the boil? Even though you did a protein rest, wheat has a metric crap-ton of it, so there's a chance not all might have degraded and it might have made some flocs in your kettle on it's own. Did you get a decent looking hot break going?

I usually just strain mine and then cold crash, most of the time I go for dunkelweizen though, so it's supposed to be cloudy/chewy. I like to take a whiff off the airlock once in a while whenever I'm making wheat beer, I love the banana/clove smell it produces with the yeast I use, but then I'm weird like that...
 

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