Homebrew Beer Taste Testing - Group Brew Experiment

[mts198]

that's a 3 gallon corny keg right? do you carbonate it naturally? if so do you use dry malt or corn sugar?

[steeljan]

@mts198 Yes, all my cornies are 3-gallon, because I made my kegerator out of a tiny dorm frig. I only force-carb these days. Early on, I carbonated naturally, using corn sugar, never tried doing the carb with DME, didn't cross my mind to try that, interesting. I switched to force-carbing because it doesn't tie-up my beer pipeline with the extra wait to naturally carb. When my friends come over, I want to have something in the kegerator for them, lol. Cheers!

[bigbollocks69]

what does 0 min mean ?

is this dry hopping in the brew bucket?

[steeljan]

@bigbollocks69 We put 0 in the recipe to mean "at the end of the boil" -- I actually went ahead and put mine in a few minutes before the end of the boil as did most of the other guys. One guy decided to use this as dry hopping (adding the dry hops to his fermenter bucket after primary fermentation was finished, about a week, and left them in there for about a week). Both ways turned out with equal results. Cheers!

[kgfitz23]

what kind of tap are you using?? by the way great vids. keep them comming

[steeljan]

@kgfitz23 Interesting that you should ask about the tap. It's not actually a beer tap, rather, it was made to serve coffee, lol. It was the only way I could think of to bring the keg into the kitchen. On my other testing vids, when I showed the pour at my kegerator and then brought my camera and all into the kitchen, the glass would be sweating and the head would have changed.

[moedogger21]

Yeah thats what i dont like about goldings not a fan of the earthiness. Put some food coloring in it!

[steeljan]

@moedogger21 The earthiness of the Yakima Golding is interesting, not horrible. I'll be interested in seeing what my other group brewers taste, because I think we all used different Goldings. It wasn't planned that way, it was all in what we could get in time for brew day. LOL, food coloring, hey, maybe this would be a good one for St Patrick's Day, and dye it green, leave 'em guessing! Thanks.

[loggerlance]

Good looking brew

[ACTeslaMachineDC]

Nice video jan. Did you use any clarifiers in the batch? Was wondering at what PSI are you serving at... Interesting hop method, never seen it done that way. As long as the hops are added like you did (3 phases) - I'm sure the flavor of the 3 additions of hops can be incorporated into the dme for maximum effect....Nice job jan. cheers!

[steeljan]

@ACTeslaMachineDC No I did not use any clarifiers. Ever since I built my fermentation chamber and control my fermentation temperature according to what the yeast requires, my brews have all turned out crystal clear.

I serve at 6 to 8psi at 46F. As for boiling hops in just water, it's the same thing I did in my Coopers Concocter video, took a lot of heat for it back then. But yartp consulted with a sage brewer he knew who said this was just fine to do. Cheers!

[jturie]

Interesting experiment....now that you've all tried brewing everything the same way, it might be fun to vary some of the, uh, variables.

What do you think of the Yakima hops compared to the other citrusy US varieties like Cascades, Centennial, etc.. I'm looking to expand my hop selections for my fall brews.

[steeljan]

@jturie I really expected the Yakima Golding leaf hops to give me some citrus in aroma and taste, but they sure didn't. So that would be my best guess in taste as compared to Cascades or Centennial. I've got a bunch of hops in my freezer right now, want to do some more experiments using each one to get the experience.

[hoppinglion01]

It looks exactly like mine (go figure lol). I have to give the bottles at least another 12 days before I crack one for a review. I am really excited to try it (post bottling). Oh, I used East Kent Goldings (easiest to get). What temperature did you serve it at?

[steeljan]

@hoppinglion01 I wasn't excited about this when I tasted it while kegging, sort of bland and bitter. Sure did change up though. Can't wait to see how yours tastes, if you get any citrus.

My typical serving temp is 46F 'cause I want all the flavors to show up. But the keg sat on my island for about 30 min while I was setting up for the video, so it was probably warmer than that.

[jakecpunut]

Good job there young lady... I had never heard of boiling hops in water like that.. interesting! AND, I would love to score some of those 3 gallon kegs for my 2 gallon batches!

[steeljan]

@jakecpunut Yeah, yartp (PT) consulted with an old sage brewer he knows who told him that boiling the hops in just water would work fine, so that's why we went with it. Sure did work well.

As for the 3gal corneys, they are expensive, roughly $100 used (ebay, craigslist). But I insisted on building my kegerator out of a dorm frig, probably not a smart move in the long run.

[conduct623]

Great job Jan, I agree, maybe a half pound of specallty grains would have givin it a bit more body. Have to try this one myself. Cheers.

[tgartner01]

Great vid, excellent experiment. Some more food for thought.

[PeiHomeBrewer]

6 dislikes? Looks look the trolls are bombing your channel as well. 

[steeljan]

@PeiHomeBrewer President Roosevelt (FDR) told the U.S. public to judge him by the enemies he makes. Guess we can all take a page from that.

[JJBrewing]

Great experiment. What was the group goal? An alternative to quick kits?

[steeljan]

@JJBrewing Yartp got us together for this. It was mainly to evaluate DME, what does it taste like as a baseline and how would it work in a beer if nothing else is added but hops. I'm so glad I got in on this, it really opened my imagination and experience to what is possible. And I now know what Yakima Golding leaf hops is like for bittering, taste, aroma and how much wort they absorb vs pellet hops, etc.

[CraigTube]

Thumbs UP! I wish I could have been in on this, but I don't think I can get those hops around here. Cheers Jan!

[steeljan]

@CraigTube Thanks Craig. Hope you can get Goldings, the floral is so lovely. Cheers!

[yartp]

You went high tech again and ditched the mic. You need to take a final gravity reading with a hydrometer, 1.006 is not going to be all that sweet. So what's your overall impression of DME? Jeez, 6 dislikes so far. Can't help but wonder if that's not a reflection of some recent activity.

[steeljan]

@yartp I'm trying to get used to my new Audio Technica wireless mic, it's kind of a pain to use 'cause I have to readjust the mic level everytime I turn the camera off and back on, argh.

I was surprised at DME, very rich, and maybe it's cause we used so much of it for this 3.5gal brew that it tastes sweet to me. Oh, on my refractometer readings, I run them through the morebeer dotnet spreadsheet to correct for FG.

About the neg ratings, as FDR said - judge me by the enemies I have. LOL!

[makebeer]

@yartp Awesome idea -- A Youtube homebrew club. This could really grow to something big.

[yartp]

@makebeer Thanks. One of my goals with this was to get a panel together to get some feedback on the quality of DME. I'll give my opinion when I post my review.

[MrBob714]

I learned of you from craig, you are very cool.

[MrBob714]

I'm new at this and I did'nt know what I was doing,

[beaubicknese]

Yup totally acceptable great vid

[jasen688]

Nice Video Steeljan. Cool Idea you all had. 

[ligon29]

So you you never boiled the DME at all? Also, did you guys all use the same amounts of DME or just everybody brewed how they wanted? Glad you lke it. Cheers

[steeljan]

@ligon29 Nope, we didn't boil the DME at all. Back when I did my Coopers Concocter vid, I got a lot of bashes for boiling the hops in water on the stove. But yarpt consulted with an old sage he knew who told him that boiling just the hops in water was perfectly fine. Wow!

Yes, we all brewed the exact same recipe. Exact same process too, even the 67F fermentation temperature, except it was our choice on which Golding hops and whether to bottle or keg. Thanks!

[steeljan]

@MrBob714 LOL, thanks, glad you liked it.

[steeljan]

@MrBob714 Um, MrBob, why did you remove your comment? I was quite flattered. There wasn't any problem in what you wrote.