Brewing Activities (May edition)

Brewing the first homebrew since returning from a 1 year deployment from Afghanistan this weekend inspired by my R&R trip to New Zealand back in February. Brewing a NZ IPA with all New Zealand hops: Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, and Rakau hops. Can't wait to get back into the swing of things!

 

Welcome back stateside and back into your brewhouse.

Were you inspired by brews you had in NZ or more the fact that you’d been there?
Either way it's an interesting idea, developing a recipe with the focal point being hops only from a country you’ve visited.
.....Hayden’s New Zealand BTIPA (Been There IPA).

 

i almost had my first successful pressurized transfer. It was going for an hour and I had to pop the lid on the keg to check full as the weight wasn't going up. So I shut off the flow from the fermenter, hit it with co2/purge, took the lid off of my torpedo keg and my damn lid gasket fell into the keg. I don't know if it's something with the Torpedo kegs or what, all I know is i've filled them 3 times, and twice this has happened. fortunately the gasket was sanitized and I had extra on hand. So hopefully the 2oz of cryo hops I have in the keg outshine any taste the gasket may put off. ugh.

Though to my delight, the beer finished at 1.010 so instead of a "session" IPA that i thought I may have had with a 1.058SG, I got a solid 6.3%er

 

Finshed my control interface modeling.



Oh, and got some crap delivered as well.

 

After the rain and wind foiled my first attempt, I made another attempt at catching some wild yeast on Sunday. I set out 2 cups of 1.040 gravity wort from some DME. I boiled it for 15 minutes with a couple Citra pellets to get a little protection from unwanted bugs, then covered it with a paint strainer bag and set it in the front yard on Sunday afternoon. On Monday morning, I jarred it up with an airlock on top. As of last night, it had some foam, so something is happening in there. I popped it open for a sniff, and it smells fruity. I brewed with Brett Lambicus recently, and the smell reminds me of that. I'm optimistic.

 

Brewing tomorrow and would like some input. Not sure how I would classify this beer but I think it will work.

Pale ale malt 70%
Pilsner 20%
Muntons crystal 10L 10%
Sterling at 60
Amarillo, Citra, sterling ten minutes and whirlpool
Nottingham at 58.
Thinking this would be a citrusy little pale ale without being over the top and have some spicy noble characteristics from sterling. Added pilsner to lighten the overall color and the crystal for head retention. I could do all pilsner if that would make more sense.
Open to all suggestions. Haven’t played in BeerSmith with IBU abs pounds and ounces yet.

 

I've used the 2 Omega strains...Hothead and Voss Kveik. This was the Voss Kveik and it chewed through the wort in about 2 days and kicked in (after I pitched onto a cake, not straight from pouch) in about 4 hours...pretty active, but not need-a-blowoff active. I know that you're a Funker and you know your resources, but here's the link with the specific lineages of each of those strains for convenience.
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Kveik

I brewed 3 or so Hothead IPA batches last year but pitched too high (mid-low 90's) on a couple and got straight "cheese" (taste like cheddar and the after taste of cheddar) out of both of those beers for flavor despite using distinctly different hops in each IMO (Citra and Centennial). After pitching at around 80, I got a better/more harmonious yeast profile for the hoppiness. Still a little cheese in that batch too.

Tonight I tapped the Comet Kveik brewed with the Voss Kveik strain, which was hopped more like an APA than IPA and it's pretty good to be fresh and under carbed, but I still get a touch of that cheese taste in this beer as well. Maybe a commonality between strains or possibly a difference in my gustatory abilities compared to others (I many times taste completely different things in beer compared to my wife or good friends) but just something I picked up on. I get the Comet shining through but with some of the citrus melded into a light tropical more than with a clean yeast. I plan on brewing this strain out for another 5-6 beers, so I'll keep you informed on how things evolve as I brew.

 

Personally, I'd drop the C10 and Pils. Domestic pale ale malt makes a surprisingly flavorful base all by itself, IMO. Otherwise I'd brew it as is, assuming you plan a small dry hop.

 

Thanks for the info. Cheese huh? I wonder if it has something to do with the IBUs? I sampled a kveik where the brewer claimed to ferment at 110F and I wasn’t getting any cheese, but it also wasn’t hoppy. I was getting more orange marmalade.

This Hornindal is currently tearing through my wort at around 95F. You’re right - fermentation started just a few hours after pitching. Trying not to jack this thread too much but how long do you let your kveiks condition after fermentation? I’ve heard that some only have to condition for just a few days before packaging. Just trying to gauge when I should dry hop mine.

 

I may be burned at the stake for this, but here goes:

Remember that all-Chinook "session India brown ale" I had trouble with? Long story short, WY1450 wouldn't settle out for me. I fined with gelatin, now I have yeast and strings of gelatin floating in my beer. I thought I may have to dump it, but then I remembered something my grandpa taught me about - filtering. So I bought a filtering setup. 5 microns, and if that doesn't do the trick, I've got a 1 micron cartridge I can run it through.

It's mostly an educational exercise at this point, but if it does the trick, I may give all of my beers a rough filter to keep the yeast that settles at the bottom of the keg out. That stuff is a pain if you ever have to move your kegs! It's no extra work for my process, since I dry hop in a keg and do closed transfer to a serving keg. All I need to do is put the filter in the middle.

 

Going to dry hop with sterling ,Amarillo and a pinch of Citra so it doesn’t wash out the other hop.
Can you state your reasoning for dropping the c10 and pilsner?

 

Good plan on the dry hop.

I just figured that pilsner is lighter in flavor and color than your base malt, the c10 is darker in flavor and color than your base malt. They certainly each contribute their own flavors, but it seems like a bit of a wash. I tend to favor simple grain bills, and its no secret that I'm not a fan of crystal malt. I've liked my beers better since I quit using it entirely, although that could be due to other factors.

I'm sure your recipe would work very well, but I'm a minimalist at heart.

 

I’m a huge fan of c10 for head retention. Pilsner I wouldn’t say has less flavor just different flavor.

 

I have the Kveik Simonaitis and it's an incredible yeast. It def chews through wort with a 95 degree fermen lol it doesn't take much of this yeast to get the job done as long as you use a good amount of yeast nutrient. Used it for a pale ale and a kettle sour. Both turned out amazing.

 

I've turned them over in as little as 2 weeks but this one went about 5 weeks from brew to keg. So, @Lukass and @TooHopTooHandle what styles are you making with this yeast? What are your generally grain bills for these styles? I'm looking for direction and motivation for future brews

 

I've only done 2 beers with them because I wanted to test the yeast character so I did a 2row, 8oz of idaho-7, and dry hopped with 4oz of Eldorado (6 gallon batch) then my kettle sour with only 2row which I soured with yogurt then boiled it to kill lacto and fermented it out with kveik. I used to no hops and added papaya, mangos, and guava (all fresh fruit) that I pureed to a secondary for a week. Both beers came out amazing.

 

Received my dozen or so of male and female ended quick disconnects to retrofit all my fittings from barbed to QD's, along with some new 1/2 silicone tubing as well to make some QD tubing as well. This should make utilization of my pump now a bit easier without dealing with tubing clamps and such anymore.

 

That's my next upgrade. I am currently running barb fittings with 3/8" tubing. I cant wait to switch to QDs and bigger tubing.