Who's Brewing This Weekend 2/28-3/2

I'm going to boil up my sour wort Berliner tomorrow, and probably do my DIPA.

Hopshot, Apollo, Columbus, Simcoe, and Amarillo in the boil. Will probably dry hop the hell out of it.

Gonna toss it on the cake of 1217 West Coast IPA again, and see what I get..

Other than that... nothing else to do at the moment. Bought a blichmann beer gun to get some kegs of aged beer into bottles, so I'll probably do that next weekend to clear some kegs out.

Need to get to drinking.. APA Stout, Berliner, IPA and DIPA in the pipeline, along with a BA scotch ale ( i will bottle some @JohnSnowNW for ya when ready! )

 

Traditional ones just come across as too dry and bitter to me, plus not a huge fan of the very phenolic ester profile either. I have liked a couple of the Hill Farmstead saisons and some non-traditional ones with American, NZ, AU or Japanese hops, but as a whole, its not a style I seek out.

 

Agreed, but I rarely want to let that cat out of the bag.

I brewed one with 3711, and some GNO's in the mash, and used Galaxy to flavor/bitter. It was good, and 3711 has a restrained ester profile, but still not something I want 5.5 gallons of around.. I'd rather a sour, blonde or IPA to quench my thirst!

 

I'm brewing 5 gallons of wheat beer that I'll ferment with a pure Brett strain I isolated from hackberry fruit. Small scale fermentations are very encouraging.

 

I'm taking off Monday and Tuesday and I'll be brewing a Northern English Brown on Monday and a Honey Cream Pumpkin ale on Tuesday. Actually it's a Honey cream butternut and acorn squash ale but that's hard to fit on the label

 

I am brewing an abbey ale using Wyeast abbey II; 2-row, vienna, special b, pale chocolate, caravienne grains and fuggles and goldings hops. Going to add 1 lb of brown suga to boil and 1 lb of belgian candi sugar to primary after a few days

 

Brewing what I guess would be an American ESB. Golden Promise with a bit of black malt for color and single hopped with Kent Holdings. US-05 yeast. Can't wait!

 

Ha! I can take a picture of mine anytime!

 

Local brewery ( TEXIAN ) is having a contest for Irish Red Ale. I will be brewing that on Sunday. Submissions deadline is April 11. Have a recipe worked up .. anyone here ever brew a red ? I havent ... BJCP Category 9.

2.5 lbUnited Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale
2.5 lbUnited Kingdom - Golden Promise
4 ozGerman - CaraRed
3 ozAmerican - Caramel / Crystal 120L
2 ozAmerican - Roasted Barley
4 ozUnited Kingdom - Dextrine Malt
4 ozAmerican - Munich - Light 10L

0.5 ozFuggles
45 min- IBU> 14.69

0.5 ozEast Kent Goldings
15 min- IBU> 8.82


WL004 Irish Ale Yeast.
153 mash Ferment @ 65

 

I am mashed in on my "Big DIPAH" just a while ago..

84% 2 Row Pale
4.8% White Wheat
3.2% CaraPils
1.6% C-40
6.4% Corn Sugar

Tossed in 5 ounces of Chinook Leaf to the mash, at 148-149*. Smells nice despite the leaf being a bit yellow, which is the reason I used it up in the mash.

I've got 105 IBU's of hop extract going in at 90min, and then no additions until 5 minutes, with Simcoe and Apollo leading the way into the kettle, followed by some Amarillo, Centennial, Columbus and more Apollo.

8.5 ounces total in the boil, hence the reason for the 10mL of hop extract.

Beersmith has it around 1.080 OG, and a laughable 140 IBU's. I doubt I'll get that, as it's figuring I'll get close to 30 IBU's from the mash hop alone.

Anyways.. we will see.. Boiling my berliner right now while I mash the DIPA.

 

How's that smell? First 5 mins can be a bit unpleasant....

 

Not bad actually. There's no real disgusting smells that I incurred during the entire process. Once the boil was just about to get going, and the "scum" that was trying to bubble got moving around I got a little teary eyed from the sour smell coming off. But it's gone now and smells nice. Doesn't smell like anything I've boiled before, thats for sure.

That said.. it's damn fine tasting. Great sweet bready malts and a sharp lactic aroma with it. Taste so far.. it's sour for sure, but not make your jaw lock down sour.

Some how, I ended up getting 1.039 OG though.. So it's a bit bigger than I wanted.

 

Yeah never any off-putting smells per se, but once the boil first gets going there is that really strong sour lactic aroma that does indeed make the eyes water a bit.

Did you measure the gravity prior to souring? Are you now measuring with a hydrometer or refractometer? You can't really get accurate hydrometer readings with the presence of lactic acid unfortunately. A refractometer will give you the true OG.

 

See, I remember getting around 34 points with the hydro BEFORE I soured the wort.

I have a refrac.. Maybe I'll grab a dab before I pitch the yeast on it and see.. 15 worth of boiling isn't gonna chance it too damn much.

I'll keep that in mind about the lactic acid causing it to read off, never heard that.

 

There are a couple really long Berliner threads over on HBT that talk about inaccurate gravity readings due to presence of lactic acid if you are interested. Lots of other solid info in those threads as well, definitely worth taking a few hours to read through all of it.

 

Will do!

Refract reading was 9.8* brix. I got 1.039 on the hydro. Both give me the same reading. This is going into the fermenter.

I think I had 1.034 OG before I soured.

Anyways- not a big deal. Something to note for the next batch.

By the way.. The wort taste damn, damn good. Spalt Select to toss in around 5.5-6 IBU's for a 15min boil. It was tasting and smelling nice! Plenty of sour, kinda of a bready funk going too, not just a wheat beer with warheads in it.

EDIT: So it appears that lactic acid has a similar density to sugar. Which would mean it WOULD make my hydro reading go off, as well as making my brix refract off as well due to reading higher sugar.

Only real way I think you could figure out the acid content would be a NaOH titration. Not worth my time! Hah!

I think I was pretty damn close.. 1.032 was my estimated OG. I'll stick with 1.034 as I normally go a bit over.

 

The mash on the stout smelled pretty dang good, didn't it?

Mines still fermenting from last week, as I've kept it pretty cool, around 62-63* to ferment. I personally ain't crazy about the fruity esters of the Irish Ale. That and I split the batch to use some US05 that we were all so hell bent on using, and not using to keep it, "american".

 

Interesting that you did that with the dark grain.. Did so, so you could split off some runnings, I guess?

I think we should have a trade thread for the APA Stout. Can include extras from locales.