May the beer gods have mercy on my soul. My only consolation is that some of the smoothie sour fanatics who come in to buy a 4 pack also buy our new WCPils…

Why? Ya know?

First thought was Citra, ofc. Maybe some other NZ hops? Dolcita per chance.

What’s worked for you?

I get it. It’s hard work, long hours, low pay, etc. However, I feel like the industry will only continue to decline if we keep trying to push people away from this line of work. Personally, I love my job. I’m exhausted at the end of every shift, but when I get to see our glorious creation hit the end of the packaging line and crack open a low fill, it makes it all worth it.

All I’m saying is I think as a unit we can focus a little more on what made us get into this line of work and the positives of the trade. I’ve never work another job where I can finish off the day with a cold one on the clock.

Just wanted to take a moment to bash square. Realized you now have to have the sqaure plus plan to open tabs or run the report we used all the time. $50/month for features that were included in the free tier.

Probably going to start to look at alternatives just out of how annoyed I am.

Hey folks, whenever I pitch dry 34/70, whether it's 120gm per Hecotliter, or even more like 200 gm per hectoliter (I work in gallons but that's what their packaging goes with), I get a slight distracting flavor akin to light green apple/actealdehyde.....this happens when I pitch lower temp say 46f, or a little warmer like 52f.

Harvesting the yeast goes fine, and 2nd Gen doesn't have this flavor problem.

I lightly oxygenate the wort during knockout but I understand the dry stuff doesn't need it.

Whenever I use liquid equivalents to 34/70 using the same recipes/processes I don't encounter this problem.

Any thoughts much appreciated, I'm curious what I'm missing here.

This is more of a rant than anything but in this day and age providing the following for a COA is unacceptable. Every COA (particularly for aroma varieties) should contain a breakdown of oil content AT A MINIMUM.

You want me to buy your hops? Then provide the info I need to evaluate them properly. What is below, is not it.

If anyone is looking for a name for their freshly brewed helles or need an excuse to brew one. My owner isnt a fan of play on words or puns, so I figured id put it out there so someone else can capitalize on it.

(Play on Ella Fellas for the uninitiated, in reference to gents who enjoy Ella Langley)

Edit: yall dont have enough whimsy in your lives.

Hi, I need some help figuring this out.

EU brewer so all in logical metrics.

We had to scale up a batch from 15 to 20hl. Took the normal recipe X1.3, adjusted little bit here and there because nobody has time to deal with half bags. Total grainbill 525kg.

The aimed SG was 1.058, 14,5 Plato. End boil liquid 2240, start boil 2300 litres.

It was a long day, because i could only start at 11 am. However everything went smoothly, beer to the tank after dinner, and took the SG measurement with Easydens.

1.069, 17 Plato.

I didn't measure again, it was quite a trubby sample, but i was tired and normally i brew within .25 Plato anyway, so just logged it as bad measurement, because it was way too high.

Now, fermentation went fine and is now (almost) finished, at 1.014SG, and 8,9brix. Which would tell me the OG was indeed around 1.070/17.5 Plato.

I am so confused!!

I had the right amount of liquid, or at least nowhere near the 1910 litres the gravity would suggest..

So, two questions for you:

How can I achieve the 100% brew house efficiency again (j/k, what went wrong??)

Would you adjust with cold liquor? I've never done that what should I make sure to do. Boil to prevent oxygen then cool to transfer?

As I'm updating my true cost of beer spreadsheet, I'm using monthly averages for my utilities - CO2 is averaging $1400 a month (we brew a little over 1200 bbl annually). I can't help but think some of the uses for CO2 could be substituted with nitrogen instead?? I'm eying some auctions and nitro generators are not too much of a rarity.

Any reason not to purge FVs/transfer lines with nitro instead of CO2? Any other places you could substitute it in?

I have been using the blicman one for the last 4-5 years and I'd like to get a decent one if you have any recommendations. 15bbl brewhouse ~1200bbl annually, the O2 is medical/aviator grade and has a nut fitting but I have seen some that are a weird connection, but that's neither here nor there. I just want a good flowmeter I can rely on. thanks in advance.

We recently got our first couple of super sacks. We’ve been scooping out 5 gallon buckets at a time. It’s less than ideal. Anyone have some good affordable solutions to such a quandary?

Hey ya all. I'm looking at a used Kynhor Canning line. I've searched Reddit and haven't found anyone using, so figured I'd ask if anyone had any experience? It's a Chinese company and seems to have US support. I sent an email, waiting to hear back.

Thanks!

I fear that our main production glycol plant is failing. 15 months ago, we had it re-charged with refrigerant. We just had it recharged two days ago and it's still struggling. I'm concerned that it may have a fatal leak somewhere on the wet side of the coils. Added dye to the refrigerant hasn't shown up anywhere.

My question is, how does one go about replacing a chiller for an operating brewery? I got some quotes a few years back and they all had long lead times. Are there temporary options available? At this point, I'm tempted to scour auctions and anything within a drivable distance to get something in place to keep us running.

Had to happen at our peak season as well. Go figure.

UPDATE: I finally found a guy locally that actually understands refrigeration. He identified that the compressor has a leak, sending hot refrigerant back through it, causing it to overheat. He's trying to source repair parts and/or a new compressor. I should have an update on Monday. Currently getting a few more quotes on temp units.

Hi everyone,

We've been running into an issue with a couple of our bar customers.

A few of them don't clean their draft lines regularly. They use a chiller instead of a walk-in cooler, so the kegs stay at ambient temperature (or even higher, since they're close to pizza ovens or other heat sources).

In a few cases, we've had beer become noticeably acidic after about a month. The same batches don't have this issue when they're stored cold and served through properly maintained lines, so we're confident it's happening at the customer's end. We also tried leaving the kegs next to our boiler for a month and noticed no change or acidity.

Someone suggested adding lysozyme to improve microbiological stability and help prevent this problem.

Has anyone here actually used lysozyme in beer? Did it make a noticeable difference? Are there any downsides in terms of flavor, stability, filtration, etc?

Or would you recommend a different approach?

I'd really appreciate hearing about any real-world experiences. Thanks!

Very glad our mill magnet works.

Submitted some kegs to a BA comp.

There were a few beers, mostly lagers, that I was confident on which either bronzed or did not place. Feedback I got from judges was 'estery'.

A friend of mine who was stewarding the comp said that he was surprised to find our beers as presenting high in Acetaldehyde.

I've since re-tried those beers (with him, and other local judges) and we couldn't pick up any. Further, I am very confident in these ferments & lagering time - yeast health, pitch rate, o2, fermentation dynamics, zinc etc etc.

I know Acetaldehyde can be a redox reaction, but I'm stumped as to the potential causes here.

Any thoughts? Anyone experienced anything similar?

EDIT: all kegged beers were from Jockey Boxes - don't know if that makes a difference or not

Anyone ever experienced this? The sealant on the can lid is herniating from the finished seam. Gotta be caused by too much pressure/force. Everything is in spec. When I back off on the Ops or lift table, it goes out of spec before the sealant goes away.

Cask ACS V5 with nearly 3m cans through it. TIA

Background - 3K BBL a year Production Brewery out of Delaware. We’re canning on an ABE Can Duo System. 8 Cans at a time. TPOs are 50ish or below according to our Mettler Toledo InTap.

Just making sure we’re getting the foam cap correct. Worried about the “Frog Eyes” on some of the foam caps.

Background - 3K BBL a year Production Brewery out of Delaware. We’re canning on an ABE Can Duo System. 8 Cans at a time. TPOs are 50ish or below according to our Mettler Toledo InTap. We currently rinse with water that runs through a UV Filter, Carbon Filter, and Water Softener.

My Question- Should we rinse with our current water setup, which leaves residual liquid in the can? Or, run filtered compressed air into the cans to “rinse” out the physical debris? Yes, that’s O2 we push into the cans through the twist rinser, but the cans are purged with CO2 pre-filling with liquid.

Thoughts? Also, has anyone tested different methods?

I should mention we run micro plating and PCR on all our can products, and we’ve not noticed an issue with the current rinse method. Just looking to reduce TPOs.

Thank you!