August Homebrewings and Doings

Brewed 5 gallons of a Witbier today and everything turned out well. This recipe was a recipe put together by our local brewery and we made a 1 bbl batch of it for members of the homebrew club. We all got to add whatever yeast we wanted etc... I ended up adding grapefruit and a dry hop to mine and it turned out phenomenal. I plan on repeating the same process this time again.

 

What brewery was this?

 

Bare Arms Brewing

 

Took a shot at a NE IPA today. Hit my OG of 1.068. Used Columbus for bittering and then a blend of Citra, Mosaic and Amarillo late in the boil. Will double DH with Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy.

 

And.. My German Pils just placed 2nd in it's category, it placed the same last year.

 

Finally got the Oktoberfest bottled. Super bready with some nice floral hops backing it up, and a hint of sulphur in the front of the nose that I seem to get in commercial lagers. Flat and warm, its pretty tasty. Not bad for my first lager attempt. I think I will be dialing this bier in over time. The grist is solid, hops could be more expressive, and I may try adifferent yeast next time.

 

Wanted to use up some leftover small amounts of gran I had, so decided to brew up my hop harvest IPA this coming Friday. Grist is 2-row and Munich (~90% of the grist) with 4.5% each of Cara-Pils and Crystal 40L. 1% Victory malt to finish it off.

Will be using my psycho WY1056 strain (88% attenuation) so will be mashing a little higher. Target of 6.5% ABV with OG of 1.059, FG expected of 1.009.

I will be using my homegrown cascade and chinook hops for this one. Using pellet Chinooks for bittering, but then the 30, 10 and whirlpool additions are all my hops. Dry hop I am thinking will end up being a mix of wet hop Chinook and pellet cascade.

 

Bottling a English bitter while boppin to Greg Koch and the other dangerous men. Giddy up

 

Bottled my Saison and checked gravity on my Oktoberfest Ale. Its finished and I will bottle sometime next week.

Planning on brewing Jamil's Amber Ale recipe using my first year harvest of Centennials and Cascades. Hopefully I'll have enough to do a split batch, one dry hopped with fresh hops and one without dry hopping.

 

Did a couple improvements to the setup:

1. Added plate chiller
2. Inline chiller temp gauge and O2 stone
3. Third pump
4. Hard and soft piping improvements to help pump priming
5. Pump switch box



Then I did a same mash pre-boil split making a 1.048 Allagash White clone with bottle harvested yeast and a 1.066 white AIPA. System worked amazing! Nailed both volumes and gravities, and system was so much easier to run. Can't wait to try both brews!!!

 

checked my gravity on a Gose I brewed 8 days ago. Ultimate Flora Probiotic pills co pitched with a Brett/Saison yeast blend. No hops. Beautifully tart without being overly sour which is something I need to watch out for with these pills. Started at 1.039 and is now at 1.006. Now to decide if I wanna keg it as is, or add fruit and or hops.

 

Octoberfest is done fermenting so after almost 2.5 weeks in the primary it has been kegged. Unfortunately no room in the keezer so it will have to patiently wait its turn. Next up Dunkelweizen.

 

Finally made the first batch in my new house. Got a late start and had to spend hours cleaning ahead of time (last pre-hiatus/move batch was in March?!?!?) Months of storage in hot, dusty garages is not kind to equipment that was probably put a way a bit too hastily after its last use. I'll just leave it at that.

Then, when I was finally ready to start heating strike water, I began filling my kettle from an outdoor faucet - thinking I'd try water that didn't go through the water softener first.

(Background: I only moved ~ 0.3 miles from my old house. Both houses have good well water, presumably from the same aquifer - and the water from the old house was really good - if a little on the hard/alkaline side).

So, I'm filling up my kettle using a potable water hose connected to this outdoor faucet, when all of a sudden the water goes a very murky reddish brown and mucks up my previously-spotless kettle.

Guess that's what the whole-house sediment filter in the basement is for. Seems like well scale is a problem.

Switched the hose over to a faucet in the laundry room, washed out the kettle (again) and started over. We had the water extensively tested before we bought the house, and the sodium level in the softened water came in at 108.2 mg/L. Since that seems to be well below the max recommended level 'to enhance malty body and fullness' - I decided to give it a shot without putting the softener on bypass.

Brewed a mesquite-smoked brown porter. First time trying Briess' mesquite-smoked barley (I usually use cherry or a blend of cherry and beech in my smoked porters).

Looking forward to tasting the results!

 

Finally got my sour cherry berliner on tap last night and need to get my starters going tonight for sunday brew, another IPA with a Conan/Anchor split. Got some Azacca, so thinking about giving them a try in the mix.

Edit: just had to comment…wondering how often 'Finally' is used to open our posts in the these threads...

 

So, I've got 10 gallons of a low IBU blonde ale fermented with 2 different caught wild yeast strains. Both are around a (what seems to be) stable 1.006 after 2 weeks. Now, both are showing signs of infection - white spots floating on the surface.

Not really that pissed though. Kind of disappointed that I don't get to drink them sooner, but I could have something nice and funky 5-6 months from now. Gonna transfer both to secondary with around 10 med toast French oak cubes each, along with a slurry of Brett C and blend of Brett Brux. Who knows, could be a good infection!

 

Brewed up my wet hop IPA yesterday. Loads of fresh chinook and cascade, only using pellet for the bittering charge.

 

I'd recommend leaving them alone to see what the blend does on its own. My one regret is adding dregs to mine. Yes, it won BOS and is an amazing beer, but I still wish I knew what the wild caught yeast would've done on its own.

 

Cleaned 2 kegs, 6 fermentors, and all 6 taplines today. Was going to brew but it's 100+℉ so next weekend it is.

 

Too late... Ended up transferring both to secondary on the Brett last night. Probably should have though, but the white spotting was making me paranoid. I'm with ya though - really wanted to see what the wild yeast could do on its own but if all goes well with this batch I'll try another next year!

 

Did you keep the yeast cake? If so, no need to wait until next year. Another mistake I made.