Brewing Activity February 2016

Thanks for the post. I know it's not a lot - we made the starter and double pitched it with another vial of 644. Fermentation took off within 12 hours, it was beautiful.

The beer itself though... man, it was a disaster. We had two boil overs, forgot the sparge water (mash time went from 60 minutes to about 70), and while we were chilling it the clamp came off and we got hose water in the wort! All in all a fantastic brew session... I figured at this point we may as well see what happens so we pitched the yeast.

We also brewed a Berliner Weiss right afterwords to get the rancid smell of failure out of mouths.

 

Sierra Nevada Torpedo clone about to explode. First time using oxygen and had the first bubble 4 hrs later.

 

After hitting my numbers and actually getting a higher yield on my Super Saison, and a successful transfer to my Balcones barrell, I was sitting in the brewery, enjoying a beer, and looking for something to do. So I finally pulled the trigger on my 41 month old Lambic that I didn't want to bottle so left alone in the corner. I racked it all into a keg, then moved 3 gallons back into a 3 gallon Better Bottle for longer storage and possible blending. It is now in the keezer carbing up. Initial pulls are very complex, lemon sourness, big barnyard, bitter funk that I usually get from traditional Geueze, mild fruit, hint of acetic, leather, oak tannins.

 

I've done it a few times. Work quickly. I've stared down an impending maelstrom in the keg more than once but have managed to close the lid without liquid escaping each time.

 

You must have cat like reflexes. This has gone south on me more than once.

 

Sounds delicious. My oldest current batch is only 16 months and I've never made it past 42 months.

 

bottling ipas, no brewing due to sugaring overload

 

Brewed up my Red IPA using Belma and Mosaic last night...working off the red visual theme and trying to complement it with some berry-centric hop aromas. First time using my Conan yeast that I stepped up from Heady Topper dregs a month or so ago.

My 4th all-grain batch...still working out some process inconsistencies so my mash efficiency wasn't as good as I hoped...ended up boiling off a bit more water than originally planned and ended up only missing my OG into the fermenter by a couple points.

Still trying to come up with catchy names for the brew...so far I have:

-Belmosa Red IPA
-Conan the Barberryian

 

Bottled a Heineken clone. Praying to the beer gods in a month it taste just as good as the sample.

 

Lambic inspired golden sour finally took off.



Tried to ferment with just grown up Tilquin gueuze dregs but the Sacc apparently wasn't viable enough. After a week of no visible activity and no significant drop in gravity I added some US 05. The starter did smell better than any starter I've ever grown and I am very excited to taste the results in 18-24 months.

6lbs Castle Pilsner malt
4lbs Rahr White Wheat Malt
2 ounces Maltodextrine

Single infusion mash at 159 for 60 minutes.
1 hour boil

3 ounces aged whole noble hops at 60min.

24 hour cool in brew kettle on cool basement floor. Pitched 750ml of Tilquin Oude Gueuze starter(3 steps) grown from 2 375 bottles from 2014. 7 days later I sprinkled one packet of US05 into the fermenter.

 

Was just scanning through my Facebook feed and hit an MTF post and said, "Hey, I just read that 30 seconds ago on BA".

 

I've recognized a few of you guys on there. @stealth apparently has a sweet Factory Five GTM.

 

Lots of Double D's . . . but no hooters in sight.

Brewed two lagers in two days. First was Rauchbier with a Double Decoction. Today was a Pilsner (with technical assist from @utahbeerdude , thanks) that had a Triple Decoction. That's five D's in less than 24 hours . . . proof that some brewers are slow learners . Tomorrow I scrub some kegs for relaxation . . .

 

Brewing an imperial mild during a weird February thunderstorm.

 

Had first sample of ESB that I kegged last Saturday. Not bad but not great either. It's just starting to carb so I'm hopeful it will be good for my sons 10th birthday party on Saturday. It's for the adults, not him!

 

Would that then be a "spicy"

 

Commercial calibration tourism in Asheville NC.

 

Pulled samples of the cucumber gose and sour gummy worm gose! Cucumber is extremely on-point. One more week and it should be perfect. The gummy worm gose is pretty fucking tasty. Warhead level sour, very obvious gummy worm flavor, yet still distinctly gose. Awesome.

cucumber:

sour gummy worm:

 

Cool to hear the sourness from the gummies came through after fermentation

 

Kegged a hoppy red tonight. Smelled pretty good so I'm excited to see how it turns out. Drinking some altbier to kickoff the weekend too



And this is a new one for me. I'm clearly too powerful