Who's Brewing This Weekend? 11/14-16 Edition

Brewing my annual Christmas bottle giveaway. This year I'm keeping it simple and making an English brown ale.

 

Bottling a pale Bock/Dopple (its kinda in between, high end of bock, low end of dopple) and a Tripel/BGSA (another one I'm having trouble identifying). They both came out great, the only reason I care about the label is I might enter these in a competition early next year.

Also plan to vat a brett porter to get it off of the lees and then tuck it away for a few months.

 

2.5 gallons of a higher gravity kolsch with some midnight wheat cause it's fall and shit, and 1 gallon of a Ten Fidy Clone that I will probably put coffee into. Mashing right now.

 

Bottled my honey and brown sugar Gruit bittered with a tincture of scotch soaked wild sage and oak bark.

Went from 1060 to 1010.

This was a no boil brew. Plan on cracking these for Xmas.

 

Finishing up a sweet potato beer. Used my annual pumpkin as a base. Maple syrup at knockout. Vanilla and toasted pecans going in secondary.

 

Wracked off a Tumbler clone and a Brown ale Friday night which opened up some primary buckets for me.

Hate seeing empty buckets so Friday night I brewed 10 gals of Choc Porter that will be cut in half. In the secondary’s I’ll add roasted Pumpkin to one and Candy Canes to the other.

Sat morn I made a small 4 gal SMaSH IPA test beer using Pilsner grains and Mosaic Hops for bitters, flavors, and will be dry hopped with the same.

 

I brewed a Russian Imperial Stout yesterday for my second ever home brew. Missed my OG but it is still going to pack a whalop. Had to put a blow off tube on the carboy this morning it was shooting out the top of the airlock! In 30 days it will go into secondary with bourbon soaked oak chips for 3-4 months of aging, can't wait till spring!

 

Brewed a hoppy saison yesterday. Not sure what to expect (just my third brew) but I ended up about a gallon short. Pretty much hit mash temps and gravity though. Think I might split it up and do a clean and a funky version.

Need to get my equipment dialed in better - I've been trying to use beersmith, but just need to get a better handle on the settings. Think that's throwing me off.

 

I brewed a Vanilla Stout on Saturday night with my first ever yeast starter and it is fermenting like crazy, such a good feeling. Also brewed a Red Ale yesterday, both batches will be bottled and handed out as Christmas gifts. Brewing the Northern Brewer - Off the Topper next Saturday........

 

Nice! I was thinking of maybe adding some vanilla beans with the oak but that might be too much going on. Definitely like that idea though sounds really tasty. I was eyeing that Off the Topper kit as well, let me know how it turns out for you I might brew that one too in a few batches

 

I just bought four vanilla beans last night that I was going to prepare tonight. Any advise for a first timer?

 

Gonna try my hands on an Old Rasputin clone, infused with cold steeped coffee at bottling. We'll see if I get to it this weekend... gotta get all the stuff for it still.

 

Just cut the beans up, scrape out the innards (but don't throw them out!), and put all of the bean contents, including the skin, into a mason jar. Put in just enough vodka or whiskey to cover the beans, and let that mixture sit for a few weeks then add to secondary fermenter. Rack your beer on top of that. 4 beans would give it a LOT of vanilla flavor though, I'd stick with 2, maybe 3

 

Nice, I'm planning a big imperial stout for Thanksgiving week and that's on my short list of recipe candidates, do you have Todd's actual recipe?

This weekend I'm just continuing to monitor my Super Saison which hasn't quite finished fermenting and planning a starter for that Thanksgiving week imperial stout.

 

I have the one that was emailed by Todd and then posted on that other forum. (The letters HBT might be in it.) The recipe is somewhat open to interpretation in some areas, as the man is a brewer and not a technical writer. Brew Day was yesterday, and the house smelled like brownies baking. I can tell you from the recipe and from the wort I tasted that this is not going to be a hugely roasty stout for it's size.

 

I kegged a Two Hearted clone and then brewed a local ingredient Farmhouse Ale kit (Southeast Saison) using malts from Riverbend Malts in NC, Hops from Hazelwood Hops in SC and wild yeast cultivated from blueberry plants from SouthYeast Labs in Clemson SC...super excited about this because of using local ingredients and its the first funky/sour/wild beer I've ever brewed! Brewing a Boubon Barrel Aged Honey Porter in the middle of this week as well.

 

That's where I found the recipe as well.

 

Thanks man!

 

Brewed 5.5 gallons of Belgian Dubbel and 4.5 gallons* of porter on Saturday. It was a balmy 15 degrees F and snowing outside, which made the brew day a little miserable. Seems like things just go wrong in the cold (see below). Made the bourbon at the end of the brew day taste that much better though.

*Meant to make 5.5 gallons of porter but misread my notes and was short on sparge water, leaving us a gallon short of pre-boil wort. Suppose we could have heated up another gallon of sparge water, but by that point, we were so flippin' cold and miserable that we just said screw it. Of course, this meant a slightly higher O.G. than anticipated, so brewing partner ran to the homebrew store to pick up another vial of yeast to make sure we were covered. Still think it will turn out good, just will end up with less beer than anticipated. Have good feelings about the dubbel as well.

 

Just saw this, don't leave a beer on oak chips for 3-4 months you will end up with a huge tannic mess. With chips, you probably want to sample after about a week to see if the oak is getting close. I made the mistake of leaving a RIS on bourbon and oak for 2 weeks and I can still taste some of the tannins 4 years later.