What's Brewing - April '17 Edition

Kegged my Rye RIS tonight. FG of 1.013 which is quite a bit drier than I expected, I believe from 1.096 (final ABV was 10.8%). Last year a similar recipe had a FG of 1.032 but since I also had vanilla and bourbon in that variant, it worked really nicely. That OG though was 1.116 or something though last year.

The WY1056 munched thru this time! Now it will age in the keg until Sept/Oct. Will be brewing a new IPA in a week or two.

 

I used six lbs frozen blueberries in a wit two years ago. No blueberry flavor, so I added a can of vintners harvest blueberry puree. The flavor was still lacking. If I ever do blueberries again I will opt for extract for flavor plus frozen for color. The vintners harvest left a canned flavor in the beer, I won't be using that again. Hope this helps!

 

I used 2+ lbs in the smoky blue Boris IRS. Great flavor for 3 weeks then some flavor not strong. Perhaps the blue berry is not long lasting.

 

I haven't brewed anything since last year. Back in action last night, yeast starter for ESB that I'll be brewing this weekend.

 

During a week off at the end of March, I brewed 5 batches (Focal Banger clone, Blind Pig clone, Waimea single hopped Rye IPA, a Kolsch dry hopped with Azacca and Tropical (Omega 200) IPA with Columbus, Chinook and Centennial) in 7 days so I could hopefully not brew again until the semester was over at the beginning of May...that didnt work as planned I decided to go ahead and keg the Kolsch for a club comp this weekend and wanted to reuse the yeast cake, so I brewed another Kolsch yesterday to add on top of the cake. I also kegged the Blind Pig a few days ago, so I went ahead and brewed up an Alpha King clone on Sunday as well. I'll also keg one of my barrel sours today and end up doing a no boil batch to add back into the barrel either today or tomorrow.

Yesterday's Kolsch was the 3rd batch I've brewed on the Brewer's Edge Mash and Boil unit and after a little adjusting to the unit, I really like it! It takes longer to heat strike water and hit the boil (maybe adding 45 miuntes or so to my total brew time...4.5 hours vs 3.5-4 hr brew days with my previous methods), but that gives me a more relaxed brew day than I've been accustomed to over the years.

Cheers!

 

Blueberries must not have a very enduring flavor. I did a 1 gallon batch of melomel recently with 20 oz of blueberries, and the blueberry flavor was indistinguishable when racking to secondary.

 

I have not tried fruit extracts yet. I've tried Vanilla extract and much prefer using beans so I leaned towards using the real thing with these two. Let me know how it turns out because blueberries are expensive (blueberries cost more than the rest of batch!) so I may try extract if I brew this again!

 

This year I'm a gonna make a Belgian raspberry with 3 or 4 quarts.
Made the blueberry version last year which was super, again, for 3-4 weeks, then faded. This year I will make the blueberry version as well, just a half batch so we can finish it at it's best.

 

Just ordered # 2015 Simcoe & # 2015 Mandarina Bavaria, and 2 bags of Pale Malt and 1 bag of Pilsner malt. Getting ready for some more fun. Glad to be back brewing for fun and personal taste again.

 

Like IPA's much?

 

Just a teency bit

 

Brewing an IPA with Galaxy, Citra, and Simcoe. Beautiful hot and sunny day but the continuous raining of pollen from the trees is making for an interesting brew day

 

Making two beers from one mash.
85% Belgian Pils, 7.5% Oat Malt, 7.5% Wheat malt.

Beer 1. Old Sock Saison. Half the mash to be boiled for 90 minutes with no hops. Upon cooling, I'll acidify with some lactic, and then pitch the Mad Fermentationist Blend from Bootleg Biology. Will evaluate for dry hopping post fermentation. Thinking Jarylo

Beer 2. NOVA Pale Ale - This one will use the Saccharomyces arlingtonesis strain from Bootleg, which has been described as kolsch-like at cool temps and producing subtle fruity citrus esters at high end. I think I'll go high 60s. Brewer's gold bittering addition. Waimea whirlpool.

 

I've not been able to brew for months due to building an extension, but there was an easter sale at an online homebrew shop here that had as much as 40% off some products, so I have filled my boots and ordered enough for about 6 brews. Will hopefully get a brew on the go at the end of the month, if not it'll be May.

 

Weiz with banana in the mash

OG: 1.057

50% Wheat
40% Pils
5% Munich Light
5% Cara-hell
25 g/L banan

Columbus @ 60 min(30 IBU)

WLP300

 

I won't be brewing for a few months. Hopefully no longer.

We're getting our house ready to sell by May, so in an attempt to reduce clutter we have put a ton of stuff in storage, including all of my brew equipment. So until we find a new house...no brewing for me. That said I did manage to build up a three keg pipeline, a Mixed-berry Grisette, Wenceslas Pilsner, and a Vic Secrete/Ella NEAPA, plus a couple cases of Raspberry Brett Saison, and Bread Pudding Quad, so that should hopefully hold me off through this process.

 

Blonde Ale today with Jittery Joe's Wake-n-Bake coffee. Fermentation beaned, for science.

 

I'll be brewing the 26th iteration of my Xmas Solera brew this weekend.
Last year, I doubled my batch size, so this year the new brew will be going on top of a full 2 1/2 gallons of accumulated reserve.

 

Got my 1st of 2 steps of my starter going with my Conan strain for my IPA this weekend.

It will be a near-clone I came up with for DDH Congress Street (my favorite IPA ever). Lots of Columbus and Galaxy goodness. Will step the starter up from the 1.25L to the 2.5L on Wednesday to be brewed/pitched on Saturday. The yeast was about 4-months old since last use, so had to build it up quite a bit so I can also harvest from the starter as well. So overgrowing just a bit for this reason.

Grist is 2-row, flaked wheat, light 10/20L crystal and a little sugar... Keeping it simple.

 

Brewed the brothers ipa yesterday. 11 oz of citra galaxy and simco in the boil, 5 oz citra in the dry hop. Guess brother likes his hops!