Who is brewing this weekend?

That's a lot of Belgian Strong!

I'm brewing 4 gallons of American Amber with sweet orange peel and fuggles tomorrow morning. Might try to pump out a version II of Juniper pale ale this week too. I have a new chest freezer with Johnson controller that's empty and needs beer to be inside of it!

This will be my first outdoor brew. New turkey fryer type propane setup ready to go.

 

Brew day went smooth, great weather and no issues!! Ended up using palisade hops in place of the crystal, was shooting for 1.044 into the fermentor and got 1.047 and tasted great. Now time for a few PTE clone beers and some football.

 

No brewing. Just watching last week's batch of Brown ale in its final throes of fermenting. Seriously trying, for the first time, what has turned out to be a malty amber ale fermented with WLP009. This yeast did all it could to remove any hop character from the beer. My first, and probably last, time with 009.

 

Bottled my Toasted Almond Brown Ale and the end of the bottling wand fell off in something like the fourth bottle
That sample tasted great though, looking forward to this.

 

Brewed up a clone of Kern's Citra DIPA today. OG of 1.078. I'm putting my new mill and pump to use and loving every bit of it. So nice to be able to buy a sack of grain and do the milling at my own leisure.​

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Brew day went smooth enough. Got my whirlpool circulation down pat. That's a nice trick to speed up the chilling process.​

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Forgot that I ran out of O2 so I pitched without adding oxygen via the oxygen stone set up. Could be worse. Trying not to let it bother me.​

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Brewed another batch today.. 2 brew days this weekend, not bad!

Fired up my attempt at cloning Oddsides Citra Pale Ale with help from the brewmaster a couple week ago. Got my info, and some suggestions, and went at it..

Hit all of my numbers exactly on the dot. Beer looked great going into the fermenter, and the best part, was it tasted and smelled great going in there too. I think I might have a winner with this one and will need to lock up the recipe in my vault..

Was pretty easy to do though! Now I'm about to keg my Chocolate Oatmeal Porter and get it on some gas to drink next weekend.

 

I was just thinking yesterday while brewing, wonder how much O2 I got left and how I should get me a back up bottle. Time to make a trip to HD.

 

Not brewing this weekend; winemaking, rather. Yup, after 10 years manning a kettle, I figured it was time to take at least one spin with our sister craft. A Sauvignon Blanc / Sancerre blend. One nice thing about the recently cool California weather -- it's the perfect temperature to ferment outside!

 

I'm teaching a friend to brew so we did 2 10 gallon batches yesterday. We did an ESB for him and a rye stout for me. Start to finish we did both batches in just under 7 hours.

 

Why did you take it so easy on him? j/k

I kegged an IPA, so that opens up a fermenter. Perhaps tomorrow I can brew.

 

Round 1 of dry hopping yesterday. Kicked my Galaxy IPA, Pumpkin Chocolate Porter is getting low. My consumption is outpacing my pipeline - not a good place to be!

 

Today I was talking to another friend I taught brewing to, when he worked with me I didn't have a motorized grain mill and hand milling 30 pounds was killing him. At least now I let them use a drill.

 

My first brewday with my new turkey fryer setup went very well. I didn't realize it, but the turkey fryer actually came with a 7.5 gallon pot, which allows me to go back to 5/5.5 gallon batches without needing to add top-up water (I can do full boils now). Had to season it first by boiling water in it, but other than that I was quite pleased with the performance of the whole setup.

Temperature is controlled with my new freezer/controller setup, which is online and running.

My mash temp wound up being a bit lower than I wanted, but only by a couple of degrees so oh well. It's only my fourth AG effort so little things shant bother me too much.

The OG was again lower than expected, but this time only by about .002 instead of .009, so that's good.

Another batch will be brewed shortly. After all, the freezer can hold two buckets.

 

First shot at a stout this weekend. This will be our 4th batch of beer, again from all grain. Attempting a chocolat stout aged on vanilla bean.

 

Anyone brewing to celebrate the 21st Amendment (Dec 5, 1933) ?

I'll be firing the hot liquor tank up bright and early Wednesday
(I need an excuse to brew beer : )

 

I did an all Amarillo IPA and it was one of the best ones I've ever brewed.

 

I smelled my brew after a few days in the bucket, holy moley was it pungent, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it comes out. I finally made a batch that I didn't botch anything (in my mind)

 

I forgot to mention that I broke my damn thermometer over the weekend (or maybe I mentioned it earlier, who knows). But yeah, I currently have no way to actually check on the freezer/controller to ensure proper temp. It was at 66F before... so I am assuming that no children have messed with it (the controller is hard to reach, and the freezer controller is still on max) and that the temp is still close enough.

Yes, I know, assume...

But there ain't much I can do about it anyway. Hopefully thursday I can pick up a new non-breakable thermometer. Hopefully I can brew another batch of beer thursday!

 

Just so you know, my first AG stout was way better than my extract stout was. My AG stout was quite delicious. It CAN be done.

I do not think aging on vanilla bean will be a big deal as long as you don't overdo it.