Brewing Activities (2020)

Mash water is heating for Easy Red, a simple American amber ale I started thinking about the last time I drank a bottle of Celebration, back in December. Not a clone. Grist is 94% Viking pale malt, 4% Viking Caramel 100 (38L?), 2% Viking pearled black malt. I pulled out some Nugget, Centennial, and Azacca. Aiming for 1.049 OG. Software says 41 IBUS coming from 60 min Nugget, 15 min and whirlpool of Centennial and Azacca, which will also be used for dryhops. US05.

 

Brewed a kolschy golden ale to use up more hops from last year, all homegrown hops.

og 1.048
21L batch

75% crisp extra pale ale malt
25% crisp best pale ale malt

step mash, 1 hour @64c, 30 mins @ 72c


75g Hallertau Mittelfruh first wort, 75g HM @ 30 mins


K-97 yeast

 

Got delayed a weekend, but tomorrow morning brewing up my 2020 Oktoberfest. When that gets moved out of the fermenter in a few days, I'll be pitching on that yeast cake my next Rauchbier, which I just finished smoking the 7lb of dark munich malt on the smoker a few hours. Will now dry it out another few hours on very low heat in the oven (shown below) to ensure any remaining moisture is dried out and will brew that up next weekend.

 

I’m kinda messed up. Making something? Daughter was pouring in a mixture of 2 row, Munich, wheat, and oats from various buckets as I ground it up(unknown amounts) Mashed in with 7.5 gallons of filtered water with Camden and a dash of calcium sulfate and chloride. Plan I’m hopping with 1 oz willamette at 60 and a whirlpool of centennial and eroica then pitching my hornindal kviek vitality starter. Will dry hop with eroica and centennial.

 

Before you think I’m a fuck up check out the happiness on her face

 

Ha this is great. My 4-year old daughter had the same look on her face when she thought it was a good idea to throw some rocks into the boil on my last batch. Thankfully all was sanitized and it was a damn good IPA in the end

 

Update: the beer finished at 1.011 in 2 days OG was 1.062. Dry hopped at 60 degrees for 2 days and kegged. Really happy with this yeast! Big citrus and orange notes

 

@Buck89 Which kveik strain? Looks good!

 

Did you wet the grain prior to smoking? We just won a Traeger and I was thinking about doing something similar with a smoked Red X lager (50% home smoked malt).

 

Lallemand Voss dry yeast. I pitched all 11 g dry into the wort at 90 and activity started in 2-3 hours. I may use 1/2 a pack next time.

 

First time using an iSpindle on my golden ale. quite interesting seeing the beer react to temp changes etc I've not calibrated it yet so it was a couple of points high to begin with. I didn't rehydrate the k97 yeast, apparently it starts a lot quicker if you do.

 

Yes, I basically just dump distilled water into a bucket with the grain to moisten. If I had to guess, for 7# of malt, maybe a cup of water? I just dump and mix until it is evenly wet. The first time I lightly spritzed with water but the smoke didn't penetrate as much as I want, as you need the moisture. So my past few batches, I just dump in until it's pretty saturated.

I then load the grain into my Green Mountain smoker (basically, a Traeger) and put it on cold smoke mode. That just runs the fan, nothing more. You could just leave the smoker completely off if there is no such mode on he Traeger, it just helps circulate the air.

I use two perforated pizza pans with holes in the bottom to help smoke penetrate. This time, I added a 3rd tray with another thin layer as I did more malt than usual. Doing smaller, thinner trays of malt is important as you get better contact with the smoke. I then fill a smoke tube I use for additional smoke usually (from Amazon) with pellet, light it up and let it go. It's about 3.5-4 hours of smoke with a single tube. This way, the heat level is very low.

Once done, I put in the oven on "warm" mode, in which I cycle that off/on to keep it just warm enough to dry any residual moisture for a few hours, likely between 100-150F tops. Then put malt back into a brown paper bag or bucket and let sit a week or so before use in the basement near the dehumidifier.

Smoking my own malt has made for a huge increase in the quality of my rauchbier. I have tried the rauch malt from weyermann, various briess varieties, etc... They do the job, but miss a bit of depth/complexity, likely due to freshness alone. For my smoked Helles/Kolsch, I use around 40-50% of the grist as smoked. For Marzen or more intense styles, 60-75% or so. It's pretty intense stuff!

As soon as I start doing my own, big difference in quality IMO. Reminds me a lot more of the goodness residing in Bamberg!

 

Do you have a favorite character wood to use?

 

Bigger sand dunes than I thought in the Bahamas.

 

Honestly, I have not been able to tell the difference between them. Just make sure to use a quality pellet (if using pellet) that is 100% hardwood, not the cheaper brands that supposedly use alder/oak with flavor "oils" of the character wood, I believe Traeger pellets are like this. Pellets that are actually the wood noted are Lumberjack pellets, Pitboss, etc... You want the natural stuff, obviously. For meat or smoking malt!

A few batches I did apple/oak, then tried a "competition" blend of hickory, maple and cherry. My last batch currently on tap was a hickory/oak blend and it's phenomenal. Using it again for my upcoming one this weekend.

I've been doing BBQ for many years... Pellet smokers, charcoal and hardwood lump, kamado style, electric, etc... It's hard to tell the difference, honestly, between various fruit woods or hickory/pecan/etc... Except maybe for say, Mesquite? It all just tastes smokey and delicious to me, as long as you have a good quality smoke it will be delicious!

 

Sounds good. My fiancee went nuts and bought bags of just about every varietal (mostly from Bear Mountain but also Pit Boss), so I'll just pick something.

 

Got at a flee market.....
what do I do after I clean it up....

 

Ferm chamber IMO.