What are you brewing? (September 2018)

About the beginning of the month, I signed up to enter three yet-to-be brewed beers into a comp, and then realized that the judging is at the beginning of November and not the end, so I've been frantically trying to get stuff brewed while also drinking enough to free up the bottles that I need. So I've got a spelt saison bottled and drinking pretty well, an English golden ale (extra pale Maris, Liberty Bell yeast and big whacks of Boudicea) in the fermenter, and a dark mild planned. I'm probably going to brew the dark mild with Special B and dark candi rather than regular crystal and caramel, to test a theory that you can basically treat dark mild as "session dubbel".

 

I brewed up what, by stats, looked like a dubbel using all English ingredients. Not gonna fool anybody, it's an imperial mild.

 

Got the bourbon spice tincture going for my Christmas ale.

 

Nice! I'm not saying it's an exact match, but it definitely feels like a more helpful way of approaching the style than "session porter".

 

Right on. Mine was still a very tasty beer, and I'm scaling it up a bit and adding a spice tincture for my Christmas ale this year.

 

Which spices? Nutmeg sounds good with bourbon....at least bourbon goes good IMO with eggnog, which has nutmeg.

 

Toasted whole spices: 5g Indian coriander, 5g cinnamon, 2g allspice, 2g nutmeg, 1g cloves, 1g green cardamom seed
10g fresh ginger in a big chunk
4oz Evan Williams

Going to be added at bottling to 5gal:
14# (or however much is left in the sack) TF Maris Otter
.25# Crisp 45L
.25# Simpson's 77L
.25# Simpson's Double Roasted Crystal
1# each D-90 and D-180 at high krausen
~40IBUs Willamettte
Voss Kveik

 

It's hard to describe, and I can't think of anything off the top of my head where it stands out, since it's mostly used blended with other spices in things that would be familiar to Americans. It's used a lot in Indian food and Scandinavian baked goods. I guess camphor-like would be a good descriptor. It adds a fresh quality, but is very easy to over-do.

 

Kegging my kviek and harvesting slurry. Also picked a few pounds of fun malt while st the store today.

 

Holy hornindal that Kviek gravity sample just blew my mind.

 

A California common SMaSH, with Vienna malt... I might have to try this... Thanks for the idea!

 

Just finished bottling my first all-grain....SMaSH of 10 lbs. Maris Otter, 5 oz. Styrian Golding Celia, S-04

 

Congrats! How did it taste?

 

Overshot my mash temp so I’m guessing that contributed to it being sweeter than I expected, but it does taste good. The malt aroma is just kinda, I dunno, maybe awesome is the word. Yeah, I'm jazzed even considering any known snafu's, which I'll remedy next time.
Looking forward to it getting carbed up and chilled.....and on to the next batch.

Thanks for asking.

 

I really like the malt flavor in Vienna malt and have been quite pleased with the Vienna malt SMaSH beers I've brewed in the past from a malt flavor perspective. On the other hand the SMaSH beers I've brewed have come out a bit too dry, and after trying a small amount of caramel pale in another brew found that it added a slight bump in fullness without taking away from the basemalt flavor which I appreciated.

I should probably go higher in mash temp (I mashed/mash at around 66C) but I've been scared off a bit after mashing in a metal pot previously which tended to risk overheating when trying to hit temps at around 70C. Now that that's not a problem anymore (I've gotten a cooler mashtun) I really should work more with higher temps. Additionally I've toyed with the idea of trying a decoction to see where that gets me. But one step at a time I guess.

On a side note the M54 yeast sure took its time to get going, I waited more than 48 hours to see airlock activity. But eventually it got going and is chugging along.

 

What did it finish at?

 

So when I did my yeast starter the other day that I posted about, right before I went to pitch the yeast I ran into an issue… My vials were not labeled from when I harvested last. So I couldn’t tell for certain which was my WLP830 strain or what was WLP007… Had to delay my first step and run to the LHBS to grab a new pack of both yeasts. Got that going a day later and yesterday just stepped it up to 2.5L from 1.25L for this weekend. Will have about 550-600B cells or so expected, will harvest my two vials for future batches and pitch the rest.

Lesson learned, don’t be lazy and forget to label your yeasties lol. Last thing I wanted to do was pitch WLP007 into my Dunkel this weekend… lol

While at the LHBS though, I did pick up a pound of Crisp Brown Malt (never used before). Will be brewing up an English Style Porter after the Dunkel. Will pitch WLP007 into that one, planning on something around 6%. Girlfriend wants to brew that beer start to finish, so I will be working with her to create the recipe, do the water profile and of course, brew it! I have a nice selection of British Crystal, Maris Otter and a few varieties of UK hops (Fuggles, EKG, etc…) to work with, so it should be fun.