Home brewing

[Scubanomad]

Just a thread for all of those slowly adding to our gut, watching money fly away, and enjoying the love of homebrewing

Figured we'd start an area to share our brewing setups, what we have on tap, questions, pictures, etc.
I'll start it off

Setup: mix of (3) 15 gallon brew kettles for all-grain and (2) 7 gallon kettles for 5 gallon expiremental batches.
Method: go back and forth between extract, partial, and all-grain depending on how much time we have and what we're going after
Currently Fermenting: Bohemian Black Pilsner
On Tap: Camel Spit Brown Ale, He Who Shant Be Named Tripple IPA, Sticky Fingers Honey-Infused Saison (left over from summer, bottled), and our standard Oktoberfest, Pumpkin Ale (bottled)

I use a Mr. Beer Home Brew Kit

 

[boulderjohn]

I stopped brewing a few years ago, and I sold my setup a month or so ago. I hope you are having as much fun with it as I did when I was doing it. I am going to ask some nitpicky questions--don't take them too seriously. I am especially going to play games with the name of the beer you are brewing. I am guessing the name of the beer you bought is from Mr. Beer, in which case I am picking their nits, not yours.

I don't understand the phrase "Bohemian Black Pilsner." The words Boheminan and Pilsner seem to me to be redundant. If it is a Pilsner, then it is Bohemian, isn't it? (I see they make a Bohemian Czech Pilsner, too--the trifecta of redundancy.)

Next, isn't the class of beers called Pilsners defined in part by their light, golden color? How can you have a black Pilsner? I would think the results would be more along the lines of a traditional Munich dark lager, kind of like Negro Modelo. I recently had the same thoughts when I was in a restaurant that served a locally brewed "Black IPA." How in the world can you have a black India pale ale? When a local Boulder brewer named Charlie Papazian made roughly the same thing for a local brewer's gathering, he called it an IBA--India black ale.

Are you making this Pilsner as a lager? If so, how are you controlling the fermentation temperature? (You don't mention that in your description of your setup.) Since Pilsners are lagers, if you are using ale yeast at ale temperatures, is it really a Pilsner?

What hops are you using for this brew? (Pilsners usually stick primarily or even exclusively to Saaz.)

Again, all of this nitpicking is lighthearted and not meant to be critical.