Brewing Activities (2019)

Personally, I use an insulated cabinet with a very small attached air conditioner. This setup is not all that common, though. I believe most people use a standard fridge or chest freezer with an external temperature controller, such at this one from Inkbird. Cheers!

 

Oh

wow that is cool little gadget. Never would have thought of that. Thanks

 

Bottled half of the maple syrup stout today



(OG: 1.095)



The rest would be allowed to enjoy whiskey and oak chips for a little longer

 

Brewing an American Barleywine today. Shooting for a little over 1.100 SG, 110+ IBU. Bittered with warrior and hopped with Centennial. Probably keg 3 gallons and bottle the rest.

 

Bottling another whole hop ipa

 

Just ordered a bunch of 2018 leaf hops from Hops Direct. Can’t go wrong with $2-$3/lb. if I don’t like em, oh well.

Taking a final gravity reading of the “Kolsch” I made with wlp072. Took one two days ago and was remarkably clean although the pH had bottomed out really low. Interested to see if it’s gone back up or not. Doubt it’s an infection but who knows.

Continue to slowly crash a Nelson IPL, sulphur ha a long ways to go.

Rouse a Simcoe IPA that I dry hopped yesterday.

Harvest yeast and dry hop the Galaxy Pale Ale.

Got about 25 gallons of different mixed ferment beers thy need to be bottled/fruited/blended. Been putting this off forever. Surprisingly little motivation to do this.

 

Been a busy week or so:

• Brewed a Flanders red using WLP665. Took off like a rocket and got down to 1.014 in a few days, but I mashed high, so hopefully it stays there and gives the bugs a lot to work on. The sample I drew to check gravity had a bit of a medicinal taste; hope that ages out.
• Brewed a raw farmhouse ale with Jovaru. Mecca Grade Pelton, Metolius, and Opal 44 with all Sorachi Ace hops (mash and whirlpool). Right now it's a funky, peppery dill bomb. Not bad exactly, but very weird! The Jovaru went from 1.057 to 1.022 in 12 hours and then basically stalled, contrary to anecdotal reports that it'll finish at like 1.002 even when mashing stupid high. I'll give it another week and if it doesn't budge, I guess that's it. An interesting experiment, anyway.
• Bottled half of my first solera batch plain, put the other half on plums from my garden that I lacto-fermented using the Noma method. They were pretty salty, so I guess the end result will be like a wild umeboshi gose. Pretty excited about it!
• Brewed a replacement solera batch using Pelton, Shaniko, flaked rye, malted rye, and local honey. Hopped it higher than the first batch (40 IBU, original was 25 IBU) to try to limit LAB activity and encourage funk. So far it hasn't taken off despite being pitched on the cake, so I'll probably have to re-yeast it shortly.

 

Started early today. Currently halfway through the mash on a big imperial stout. Shooting for an OG of 1.101. Going to put this in a freshly dumped bourbon barrel. First time using a real barrel so I’m excited for this one.

 

Not as far along as most of you guys but I just cracked open my first ever brew today. It’s the Chinook IPA kit from Northern Brewer. I dry hopped it with 2 oz of Citra hop pellets after 1 week of fermentation. I also added 2 oz of Simcoe hops at flame out with the Chinook hops. Turned out good. I think the yeast added a weird bread flavor?‍♂️

 

Today, I'm brewing a 7% gluten free Saison that I plan to rack onto peaches after primary fermentation.

Pale Millet
Buckwheat
Pale Rice
Flaked Quinoa
Hersbrucker & Styrian Goldings
M29 French Saison

- Also, bottling the hoppy Amber

 

9 entries into what is essentially our state homebrew comp this AM.

IPA, Pale, Czech Dark Lager, Helles, American Wheat, Porter, Saison, Brett Saison, Brett Saison with White Peach.

Porter is definitely not within the style guidelines as it's more of a strong Robust Porter at 7.5% but everything else should be close enough.

 

Just finished brewing 8 gal of bohemian Pilsner. It’s my starter batch for my festbeer in a couple of weeks. I’m a bit late brewing this.

 

Finishing up the mash for a Kveik IPA. Going to use some fresh local yeast (Oslo), which is supposed to be fairly clean, even at 95+ fermentation temps. Looking forward to comparing this to Voss (Omega).

 

Built a keezer/jockey box recirculating line cleaner thingy today.

 

Added oak maple wood, nibs and cinomon stick to Christmas stout.

Coconut tommorrow.

Bottled raspberry hefe, but could b a bust. Seems dry, yeast burned it down to 1.008. Tasted mighty dry, but smelled nice.

 

How does that work? What’s its purpose? I assume it cleans a line based on you comment but I’m new and not familiar with the term jockey box?

 

Tried to find this online today and unless you live in Canada it’s a bust. Maybe next time it’s available I can get some

 

A jockey box is a cooler that holds ice and either a stainless steel coil(s) or a special plate chiller(s) that cool beer as it flows through. Generally, it has a faucet(s) mounted on the outside of the cooler, with the shank(s) running through the wall and connected inside to the coil(s)/plate(s). On the other end, there's a connection(s) to a beer line(s) that comes from a keg(s). Jockey boxes are usually used for pouring beer at remote events.

Anyway, the way the cleaner works is that the pump sits in a bucket, submerged in (properly diluted) Beer Line Cleaner. The other end of the apparatus (see the corny keg post at the end?) attachs to the keezer (or jockey box's) beer line quick disconnect. The pump moves the cleaner through the tubing, connecting pieces, post/disconnect, and then through the keezer/jockey box's beer line, exiting from the faucet and falling back into the bucket, where it gets recirculated.

 

Yeah, they have presales from time to time. I signed up for their emails and follow them on Facebook. This was a presale last month.

 

Oh ok I know what your talking about now. Thanks man