What's Brewing November Edition!

Going mad crazy this weekend. 72# of Grain, 3 mashes, partigyle to 2 boils. Gonna start milling on Friday night to get most of it ready for Saturday. Keggle MLT and 2 cooler MLTs almost maxed out. Still trying to figure out how I am going to get all the sparge water heated for the second runnings.

Shooting for 12 gallons of 12%-13% Imperial Stout with the first runnings. Will pitch 2/3 Vermont and 1/3 Cal Ale to get a nice mouthfeel and some peachy esters but yet finish attenuation strong. After fermentation 4 gallons will go pure, 4 gallons will get charred oak and bourbon, 4 gallons will get charred oak, bourbon, and Chocolate Habaneros.

Second runnings will get boiled with a hit of Amarillo at the end, 6 gallons run through the chiller to a Better Bottle containing Lactose for a Milk Stout, pitched with Vermont. The other 6 will get the boil kicked back up and a few Oysters added for 10 minutes then chilled to a Better Bottle pitched with Cal Ale.

 

Other than adding the second dry hop and kegging the IPA I brewed last weekend, I don't think I'll be doing much brewing the rest of the year. I'll probably brew one more batch to fill my second keg when it kicks. I'm thinking a single hop pale lager with Golden Promise and some pale chocolate malt. Haven't decided which hop for sure, but I'm thinking Legacy might be a good one to try out. That may happen this month or next, depending on how quickly we consume what we have. Lots of visitors will probably keep me busy until next year.

 

Getting my first batch in about a year going in a couple of days. Just going to be a medium strength amber ale. I’ve done this brew a couple times before with several hops variations like Amarillo, northern brewer, chinook, Columbus, cascade, hallertau, and centennial. Anyone want to shoot off some other hop recommendations for an American Amber?

 

Just threw in three ounces into the pale ale with oats During high Krausen. My s04 slurry never worked in the starter so I threw in two packets of s-05 I had on hand. Disappointing cause I dislike Chico for hazy beers but fermentation must happen and the homebrew store was closed yesterday.

 

Sterling or willamette if you aren't looking for pine.

 

Brewed up 20 gallons of hefe. Splitting yeasts between our go to WLP 300 and the Omega Hefe strain.

 

Just picked up 1lb of 2016 centennial for $6.66 and a 8oz of comet for $6. Will definitely be trying my hand at some two hearted in the next coming weeks.

 

Did my winter stout with my brother. His recipe this time. But I do have a question.

The recipe:
Golden Promise
Pale Chocolate
German Munich
Medium British Crystal
British Chocolate
Carafa III

Crazy good chocolate flavor sampling after the mash. Shocking considering we didn't use any cocoa at all. Anyways, get it in the kettle and boil for 90 minutes. Sample after the boil has an interesting smokiness to it. Still a lot of chocolate! But not really what we wanted. And we're not really sure where it came from. I'm wondering if anyone has an idea with the malts given? As we age it, will that note disappear?

 

I brewed attempts 3 and 4 at a Czech inspired pilsner. #50 is all Skagit Valley pilsner malt, #51 is 95% SV pils, and 5% munich. Step mashed with a 5-10 minute 120F rest followed by a 40 minute 154F rest. Both are hopped with Czech Saaz hops to around 35 IBU's, with a reasonable hop stand addition. Fermented with Wyeast 2124 Bohemian lager (34/70). Pitched plenty of yeast according to rough estimates on cell calculators. 2 hour boil. OG is 1.047 and 1.052 respectively.

They are happily fermenting away at 50F 48 hours in.


The plan is to leave them at 50 then slowly raise it up to room temp as fermentation slows and let it finish off there and hopefully clean up any diacetyl. I don't want to transfer them to another carboy for lagering for fear of oxidation/loss of hop aroma and I only have 2 corny kegs so I'm just going to transfer them into corny kegs after fermentation and lager in the serving vessel for 2-3 weeks. I'm not really concerned if any yeast makes it into the glass initially. Dip tubes are not cut.

 

It might help to see your percentages used for each malt. Off the top, though, I have gotten lots of chocolate flavor in a porter from pale chocolate malt.

 

Could be the slightest hint of scorching in the boil kettle?

 

Weird, I had it in there... maybe my phone is dumb? Anyways,

79% Golden Promise
6.6% Pale Chocolate
4.4% German Munich
3.3% Medium British Crystal
3.3% British Chocolate
3.3% Carafa III

It was very chocolaty... more of a dark chocolate but it was great! The room smelled like we were baking chocolate chip cookies to be honest. I'm not sure if my smoky-ness is coming from a grain?

 

I thought so too but I don't think we really messed with the burner more than we normally do and I haven't had this happen before. Maybe since I wasn't doing any boil hop additions, I didn't really stir it towards the end like I normally do? But I always assumed a good boil will naturally stir. Possible though. I'm interested if we'll lose that after fermentation or after some age?

 

My money is still on the pale chocolate, especially since you used the most of it.

As for the smokiness, what yeast did you use? WY1728 is known to put out some smoky phenolics at low temps, for instance.

 

@MorningDew72 How did you get those glass carboys in there?! That's a top loader, right? I'd be afraid my grip would slip or my back would give out as I lowered a full carboy in there.

 

I do the same, and even at my young age its tough to lower them in there. I fold a towel in the bottom to pad it in case of a rough landing. One of these days I'll pay for my insistence on using glass fermenters.

 

I have the same setup. Just use a brew hauler to get it in there. A little awkward to lift but I could always use a step stool if I needed to.

 

I used glass in the same set up
For 3 years and switched to buckets cause it's cheaper and safer. Will never go to anything else besides maybe fermenting in cornies.

 

Got a starter going of my Pre-ordered WY 1469 West Yorkshire from Ritebrew . Great wsy to get super fresh yeast if you plan and have patience.
Brewing an Imperial Milk Porter this weekend.
Just kegged up a Cascade/ Centennial old school pale ale.