What's Brewing & Doing - October Edition

Finishing the boil on a Grapefruit IPA. Added a little citric acid after reading posts by @Brew_Betty. Used Chinook, Cascade and Zythos. Planning on adding grapefruit zest a few days before bottling.

 

Bottled another NE IPA with Conan. Citra and Centennial, 1oz @ 60, 8 oz flameout/hopstand, 8 oz dry hop. Opening that fermentor... wow, what an aroma.

And...

My second favorite part of bottling day: cleaning out the dry hops bag. My favorite being the moment before I flip on the garbage disposal, hoping none of the marbles slipped by.

 

Bottled two batches of brew today. A grand cru, which is an equal part blend of my vanilla bourbon stout, double ipa, and belgian triple. I bulk aged the cru on syrah soaked oak chips. The other is called "after dinner" stout which has cocoa and coffee in it and was aged on cognac soaked oak chips. Also brewed today. Going to do a peanut butter and chocolate stout. Cheers.

 

Boiling a roasted pumpkin imperial porter

 

Gonna squeeze in a brew day pretty early this coming Saturday morning (got to get it all done before 2 pm). I've been really anxious to try out this new kegging system, but I don't have a lot of time these next few weekends to brew a beer to put in it!

Brewing up a Founder's Centennial IPA clone with some homegrown hops. 2 week primary, cold crash, and force carbing in the keg. Excited to taste the difference in hop freshness of a kegged IPA vs. bottled.

 

My wife wasn't a huge fan of BBQ either, until she tried the pork butt I did in our smoker! It's a lot of fun, but like brewing, you have to dedicate a good chunk of a Saturday or Sunday to doing it.

 

Yesterday / last night, I bottled from keg a pumpkin ale I made a few weeks ago. The recipe is from "Brewing Classic Styles". It was pretty good. I'd like to let it sit in bottles for another week though. I also brewed a 5 gal extract American Amber. Recipe also from BCS. And... I got to use my SQ 14 propane burner for the first time. I'm so glad I got that thing.

 

Transferred a 1yr old wild on top raspberrys last week. A pellicle formed fast then I think a mini ferm took place

 

just had my first tasting of my "Straight Outta Hopton" IPA which was brewed with Citra, Chinook and some Belgian special B.

I got impatient and opened a bottle after 8 days of priming. I think 1-2 more weeks and it might be there.
Notes below if anyone is interested:



A: honestly think I nailed the appearance on this one. Very little haze, but the beer is definitely a deep amber, almost reminiscent of a dark lager. Head is small because of short priming time, but present
S: Pretty malty up front, notes of chocolate, dried fruits, some slight citrus/pine notes. Really notice the belgian malts here, so far so good in terms of scent. I'd like a little more of a citrus hop aroma here, but maybe with time it wil get there.
T -To be perfectly honest, very similar to some belgian beers I've had. Some nice raisin/malty notes lead into very slight hoppy bitterness. Again, the hop profile here is more subdued than I would have liked, but it is there. The hops take more of an earthy tone although there are some very faint pineapple notes present. Not as bright as I would love. Some strange plasticy after taste sticks around as well. Perhaps a byproduct of early bottle conditiong.
M-Light, needs more time to carbonate if it's going to be this light. A tad on the watery side but still enjoyable for an approx 6% brew.
O-A small success so far. Definitely some retractors for this brew but overall I'm enjoying drinking it. Wish it had a little more body/crisp hop notes.

 

Brewing 6 gallons of 1.115 Imperial Stout today that will have Maple Syrup added at the end of fermentation and during kegging.

 

Brewed @FATC1TY 's chocolate oatmeal porter on Sunday. Had one little mess up. I set the temp controller to 66°, didn't realize I had it set to warm rather than cool, checked on it about 16 hrs later and saw it was already fermenting and sitting at 71°F. Set it to cool ASAP, hopefully it didn't eff it up too bad.

 

It's beautiful, mazel tov!

 

Managed to score some ECY20 so I just ordered ingredients to do a LA Cuvee de Tomme inspired sour. Basically a big belgian quad with raisins and fermented with abbey ale yeast, then thrown into secondary on more raisins and a ton of sour cherries, then hit with the ECY20. I will add bourbon (or maybe rum) soaked oak that I used in my Tart of Darkness clone down the road...

Also will be brewing the third batch of The Raisinator (sour blonde aged on golden raisins and sauv blanc french oak), and fermenting with the yeast slurry from my previous Raisinator batch I bottled last week. The slurry consists of yeast from starters grown with beatification 2+5+6 dregs, and the previous Raisinator batch dregs, so it gets more funky and sour each iteration.

 

Transferred my Jalepeno cream ale tonight. Love my speidel, it makes taking samples and transferring so easy. Zee Germans know a thing or two about engineering.



My dry hopped Jalepenos. They kinda look like I forgot to flush the toilet.

 

I thought you were brewing an IPA with M & Ms..........

 

Just finished the sparge on a Rye IPA. Easiest rye run-off yet! I mashed the rye portion (rye malt, cararye, and toasted flaked rye) seperately with a cold dough in and then a slow increase in temps to the sacc rest (152), with 10-15min pauses at 113 and 125, then added to the main (GP) mash. Ended up using less rice hulls but had a less troublesome process.
Hopping with Pacific Jade, Centennial, and Amarillo. Going for a marmalade on toast kinda thing.

 

Hit an Equinox/Cascade beer with 4oz of Ahtanum dry hops last night. No green pepper from Equinox. Cascade was more aromatic than Equinox used in equal amounts. Equinox made a unique blend of citrus and fruit. Should be a good beer.

 

I just finished carbing up my grapefruit IPA. I'd recommend the zest of at least one large grapefruit per gallon. I racked my 5 gallons on the zest of 5 very large grapefruits, and I wish I had done a few more.

 

Thanks for the advice. I have the zest of 5 with a microplane in the freezer and based on @OldSock posts, I might add a few more done with a vegetable peeler (trying to avoid the pith).

 

Just tried my Coconut Vanilla Milk Stout last night. pretty solid beer. I think I could have gone with a little less lactose, but overall I like it. The toasted coconut smell and flavor in it is spot on.