Who's Brewing 9/15-9/21

I'm not brewing beer but my apples are ripe, im brewing a cider with wild yeast, recipe I got from the book American Sour ales. I add some dark fruit usually and a Belgian style yeast for dark fruit esters. It's a Wild Cider I guess. super simple and fun and holidayish.

 

Last night I stepped up my RR Deviation dregs starter. Looks like I'll have enough yeast to ferment a full batch with. Should be interesting to see how that turns out. I'll brew a belgian blonde this weekend and add the deviation starter to it then.

Tonight I pulled the stainless dryhopper full of strawberries (few months old now) out of my strawberry petite saison keg and dumped the berry mush and added a pound of rhubarb. There's ~2 gal. left so it will be interesting to see if it influences the flavor much.

 

Yesterday I brewed up a Weihenstephan dunkelweiss clone, and a big Belgian amber with WLP545. My neighbor brought me a beer that was infected but was crazy delicious so I saved the yeast(I think Brett) in a jar to build up tomorrow.

 

No brewing but I may do one or more of the following. (1) Keg my NE IPA which is only at present a NE PA as I have yet to dry hop it. (2) Actually dry hop the NE IPA and keg then it next weekend. (3) Harvest, dry, and package my Cascade hops. Cheers!

 

I'm going to brew today, for my first time! As a matter of fact, I just posted a question that I would love some help with - http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...zing-question-need-answer-asap-please.336537/

 

Going to brew a Munich-Saaz SMASH beer tomorrow. My entire freezer is filled with ice for the wort chilling stage, and I'm ready to spend most of tomorrow trying to convert the Munich malt into fermentable wort. Let's brew this thing.

 

What brand and color Munich is it?

 

Have never brewed one, but I might: http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Sticke_Alt.html

 

I also am moving already-brewed batches along. Dry hopping / peppering a habanero IPA as it goes into secondary (two weeks in primary).

Also considering whether to move a hoppy saison brewed last week into secondary or just let it sit there for two more weeks and then bottle. A sg check and taste will help the decision.

Sterilized some mason jars and water in case I do a yeast harvest (or two).

 

Why would you move it to Secondary at all?

 

Just finished bottling my 5 gal mosaic pale ale. Smelled like a dream and tasted great as well. Looking forward to trying this im two weeks!

 

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering about the go/no go criteria myself.

 

Yesterday I brewed a slightly beefed up Pilsner. 18 lb Pilsner and 4 lb Vienna (10 gal batch) bittered to 40 IBUs with Hallertau finishing hops at 15 minutes.

I also racked a kolsch style ale over to secondary for bulk aging.

 

Pitched on a Gose last night at 9pm. Happily fermenting by 8am this morning. Pretty much followed the BYO recipe to a T.

 

Think I'll brew the belgian blonde that I will ferment with the Deviation dreg yeast starter tonight. Really curious to see what is still alive from those dregs!

 

My brew/bottling day went fairly good on 9/19... I did my imperial stout and was the first batch I adjusted water and used my new mill (instead of the LHBS). My mash got stuck a few times which was a pain (perhaps due to oatmeal) but the sparge had no issue what-so-ever. I also had my first boil-over when I added my first hop addition which was a bit of a mess... I ended up falling short on my OG (1.08 vs. 1.088) but I did add 4-5 cups of water to cool the mash at some point that diluted a bit... Not a big issue though, I should still end up at 8% ABV if the yeast does it's thing well, which is fine with me.

So not super smooth this time, but no real big issues either. I also noticed no activity with my blowoff tube after 24hrs which concerned me, yet I smelled the beer... Found out my blow off tube had a crack in it, so I swapped that out and within about 20mins the bucket pressurized and I am getting 2 bubbles a second at least... Very lively (1-3/4 packets of Nottingham, rehydrated, in about 6-gallon). I have it at 61F right now and will leave it there until after vacation, about a week, before raising it to 65F a few days and then finish at 68F before transferring to secondary for a month at least to mellow/age. I will likely cold crash the stout a week before bottling, just to drop more crud out of suspension.... I saved about 1/4 packet of yeast which I will re-add at bottling just to be sure there is something to do some carb-work!

Bottled my Oktoberfest while boiling the Imperial Stout... Just finished it's 4-week lager at 34F. The clarity is fantastic and flavor is wonderful. Can't wait till it finishes up in 3 weeks or so in the bottle! Super impressed with my first lager, well worth the wait... I have had a LOT of Oktoberfest's in the past few weeks and I would put mine up against any of them... Fits right in!

 

First time brewing with whole cones this weekend. They are a bit of a pain to deal with.

 

i brewed my pumpkin ale and by far, i think this was my most successful brew to date. my process was a little more lengthy as i took my time draining my mash tun. i was able to achieve 70% plus efficiency. ended up with about 5.25 gallons while leaving behind .25 gallons of trub. i was extremely pleased with the brew day.
on another note, i kegged my chocolate oatmeal stout that was aged in vanilla beans, coffee, and a balcones bourbon whiskey barrel. The beer sat in the barrel for exactly 3 weeks. I did not want to give the beer a huge and over powering oak/whiskey notes. The sample was nothing short of amazing. There is a nice aroma from the (buffalo trace) wiskey that i used while the coffee comes through along with it. In taste, the coffee is the icing on this beer. very complex flavors of chocolate and coconut coming through in the coffee with a little bit of the vanilla. 6.6% of sweetness sitting in a keg in a closet getting some more age. I plan on putting this on tap in about another month or two. cheers!

 

Sunday was 1st ever Pumpkin attempt. OG came out much higher than anticipated. We'll see.

 

So...the thought behind moving it to secondary is to get it off the yeast cake so that hop oils don't get sucked up. However, the sg is only 1.042 after a week vs. OG=1.054, and it still tastes sweet. Looks like it's stuck. I was kind of suspect because the fermentation seemed to be over with in just a couple of days. I guess it's time to make a starter and kick it over.