Brewing Activities (2020)

I'll pull another sample from the fermenter before I decide, but we are of different minds on the issue of dumping homebrew. If I don't think it has a chance of turning the corner, I dump. I've been brewing for a while now and can say that I have had beers get better with time, but I have not had beers change from something I didn't want to drink to something I liked.

 

Finally getting around to brewing the Nelson saison again.
Wheat DME
Bottled water
Nelson at flameout and some more as a dryhop addition.
Yeast bay saison 2 for grins.
Shooting for 1.055ish OG. Should be a beer when it's done.

 

Kicked my HBC 472 pale ale (very weird hop!!) so I put the home-smoked Red X lager on that's been chilling in my garage fridge at 34F for a month. I think moving the keg to the keezer kicked up a lot of sediment and foam inside the keg, because last night it was pouring pure foam and ultra hazy once the foam subsided. I was afraid I'd gotten the spunding really, really wrong.

But today at lunch it poured a lot better and there wasn't as much sediment, so hopefully after another couple weeks it'll drop clear (again?).

Anyway, it tastes fantastic (very smoky but balanced) and is indeed quite red.

 

Oh wow this sounds delicious. Gonna bottle a Saison tomorrow. My first one

 

Kegged my sour that was brewed with WildBrew Philly Sour and conditioned on 3lbs of raspberries for 2 weeks. I added both a lemon and vanilla tincture to the keg. It contains 1lb of lactose, the sample tasted of lemon raspberry sherbet.

 

Any thoughts on this yeast? I'm planning to use it in a couple of weeks.

 

Outside of the amazingness of brewing a sour with my non-wild process, it produced a nice fruity aroma even prior to the fruit addition in secondary along with a pleasant clean sourness. But yeah, the show was brewing with my everyday equipment and process. I did hold it at ~75F and feel it was fermented out within 4 days or so.

I went pretty standard with this beer but would like to use it again with a co-pitch after a few days. Maybe a sour IPA or saison next go around.

 

Money shot

 

Brewing my riff on Black is Beautiful this weekend.

I've got like 15lbs of blackberries in the freezer, so I could do Blackberry is Beautiful, or add some nice coffee in secondary and go for Black Coffee is Beautiful. Not sure I'll really do either, but playing with ideas.

 

Blackberry & coffee?

 

Astringency is Beautiful.

 

Time for an American Amber (gf), my favorite beer style for Fall weather. I've scrapped my old recipe and created something that reflects my new rice based process.

Biscuit Rice 4l
Caramel Millet
Roasted Buckwheat
Red Wing Millet
Caramel 120L Millet
James' Brown Rice
Columbus
Simcoe
Left over Cascade/Citra/Strata
US-05

 

Brewed a English brown ale today. The guys at work had Amazon deliver bottles to my house as a hint lol I managed to get the recipe from a local brewery called Smoky Mountain Brewery who puts out a brown ale called Black bear ale. So I cloned it and they use Wyeast Scottish ale yeast in theirs so I’m giving it a whirl. Only thing is I did some Cascade hops in a whirlpool for 20 minutes at 180°. I don’t know why I did it but I did. It was an impulse. I also filmed it again on a time lapse. When ever I put it in my pc I’ll post it.

 

Goose Island released a beer awhile ago called Vainglorious. It was an imperial stout aged in red wine and bourbon barrels aged on blackberries and coffee. My sister tried it at FOBAB and said it was one of the best beers of the fest. I’ve been wanting to try to make something similar for years, just haven’t pulled the trigger. I think the flavors would go great.

 

Mashing in on a Belgian something or other, not quite to style for a Belgian Pale Ale or Blond, and yet somewhat intermediary. Will do a split batch dry yeast comparison, with Lallemand Abbaye and Fermentis BE-256.

 

Brewing up a schwarbier.
7lb pils, 4lb Munich, 4oz C40, 8oz Carafa III.
Bittered with magnum and got HMF at 15 minutes.
Pitching with way too Much WLP830 slurry I just took my centennial/summit lager off of today which tasted great.

 

Harvested my wet cascade hops this afternoon and mashed in on a saison project I’ve been thinking about for awhile. 60% Golden Promise 40% Wheat Malt. Fermenting with Omega Farmhouse.

I’ve been aging the past few years of Cascade hops so my plan is to blend a little of each year plus the fresh wet hops. Hoping to obtain a little extra Belgian/lambic funk in the aroma.

In a few weeks I’ll blend a portion of an aged solera blonde sour into half of it for a Biere de Coupage. The remainder will go back into the Solera for next years batch. Hoping for the best!

 

After dropping out the yeast, I dry hopped a NEIPA w/ Mosaic & El Dorado and dry hopped a Chinook SMasH pale ale. I wasn't too excited by the Chinook, so I tossed in my remaining Strata to liven it up a bit.

 

First brew day in a few weeks... Currently 20mins left in the boil for a WC IPA.

Will be around 6% ABV and 70 IBU. Utilizing hop shot for bittering and mid and late hopping with Idaho 7 and Enigma.

Will get a dry/keg hop primarily with cryo Citra and Simcoe, with a touch of Idaho and Enigma.

 

Checked in on these. Both appear finished at 1.007. Abbaye appears to have flocced more than BE-256 at this stage (Day 7). Both have some fruity characteristics, with Abbaye seeming brighter and more typical for a Belgian yeast. I get a little pear, maybe? BE-256 fruit is dulled by an earthiness, which could just mean it needs more time for yeast to drop. At this stage in my split batch experiments I usually decide whether to blend the batches in a single 5-gallon corny or keg them separately as 2.5 gallon batches. I'm leaning towards keeping them separate. I find the Abbaye batch agreeable, and think it is a new tool for my dry yeast arsenal. I am not yet decided on BE-256. I used it once before and dumped the batch as it had seemed that oxygen got the best of it , but maybe I just find it uninteresting? Nothing egregiously wrong here, so I'll see if it improved.

For the record, 5.5 gallons
6.63 lbs Dingeman Pils,
1 lb Weyermann Munich 1,
2.3 lbs invert syrup (23L).
1 oz Styrian Aurora, 60 min
0.75 oz Sterling whirlpool 20 min
0.5 oz Crystal whirlpool 20 min
Single infusion, 152 F.
OG 1.055
FG 1.007
Est Color 8.3 SRM.

OG 1.055, FG 1,007.