What's Brewing & Doing - November edition

Bottled my zombie dust clone Friday night (and wow, does it taste great... the dry hop is extremely intense, though, but thankfully should mellow before drink time!).

Brewed a brown ale yesterday... Maris Otter, Munich, Caramunich malts dominate the bill... Some chocolate malt for color. Waiting for airlock activity now, pitched nottingham and will ferment at 60F for a week, up it to 67F for the second week and then cold crash at 34F for a week prior to bottling.

 

Watching the hot break for another West Coast IPA. Chinook, Centennial, Citra, and Nelson.

 

Presently cold crashing the first stage of a Wyeast 2112 (Cal lager) starter for my house American Brown Ale. The recipe has morphed over the years. I originally brewed it with the Chico yeast, but I have (for the present) settled on the Cal lager yeast, which really lets the malts come forward in spite of the strong hop bill. Maybe I shouldn't call it an ale, but what the heck. I hope to brew the beer this coming Wednesday.

 

Brewed 10 gallons of a Tripel with my brewing buddy yesterday.
Made a bonehead mistake though. Measured the volume after boil incorrectly, thought we had 10 gallons-only had 9.25. So he ended up with five gallons and I only have 4.25.
Oh yeah, the oxygen ran out on my split so we had to do the shimmy shake on it. Hope it does OK.

Happily bubbling away today at 66 deg.

OG 1.092 Color 6

% Amount Name
---------------------------------------
85.1 25.00 lbs. Pilsener
13.2 3.88 lbs. Cane Sugar
1.7 0.50 lbs. D-90

Hops
Amount Name
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.50 oz. Northern Brewer Pellet 10.00 70 min.
0.50 oz. Northern Brewer Pellet 10.00 15 min.
1.00 oz. Northern Brewer Pellet 6.20 15 min.
1.00 oz. Northern Brewer Pellet 6.20 5 min.

WYeast 1214 Belgian Ale slurry

 

Got my Belgium starter going yesterday and brewing a strong dark Tuesday. Currently at critical mass cause I got no bottels to fill, but, nows the time to make some cellerable brew which needs secondary time to mellow.

 

Diacetyl rest for German Pils today and tomorrow...then rack and pitch cake onto Baltic Porter on Tuesday...weather forecast for that is high of 31*F...ugh!

 

My buddy hired me to brew an IPA with a pound of lactose, so that's what I'm doing today. I'm skeptical but I get half the batch for brewing it for him, so here's hoping it's good, lol.

 

hop bill, @Soneast?

APA
IBU: 45
60: Warrior
30: El Dorado
5: Galaxy & Grapefruit zest

i dunno what i'm doing but i had some hops sitting around that needed to get boiled.

 

All citra and mosaic at the end of the boil, warrior for bittering.

 

Just pulled hydro samples on day 8 for a split batch NE IPA. One has 007 and the other Omega's version of Conan. Both came in at 1.011 down from 1.064. Very happy with that. I also added in a second dry hop dose of Equinox and Azzaca in each. Second one in the primary so far. Samples are showing promise.

 

Put the lactose in his half

 

Schlepped both of my kegs some 200km so I could serve them at a friend's 40th birthday on the weekend. They had a nice cool porch where I could leave them at serving temperature (while being protected from the wind), and we wound up with a bunch of people gathered around the "bar" chatting away and having pints. It was great fun, and I managed to kill off a keg of a pretty disappointing 80 shilling that I didn't want to drink myself anway.

Still have about a gallon of APA IPA left in my second keg, but once that's gone I'll be able to do some more brewing. Think it'll soon be time to finally tackle that bière de garde I've been wanting to make...

 

Shit, just keep doin` what you're doin`. She's obviously a beer drinker.

Edit: And the stuff he's brewing must taste pretty good.

 

Racking and swapping kegs all week long. I've played in my sours and racked a sour mead to secondary. I'll need some lacto.

I've finished off 3 cornies in my keezer and have swapped 3 into place. I'll really miss the oaked Ten Fidy that I brewed back in January. I don't redo a lot of beers. That one's a must.

Follow the bubbles.

 

Started drinking on my Smoked Porter. It's good but will get a recipe tweak if I brew it again.

 

Finally had myself a brewday yesterday. Been getting pushed to the back over and over. Made a yeast starter mid-week so I had to use it by Sunday. Nice clean out the base grain bin IPA. 1.060 O.G. London III. Load of Citra & Galaxy late additions. Bitter with Columbus @ 60 min. I'm really dialing in my brewing process as the last 3 have been very smooth with cleanup the whole time, so there isn't a shit storm at the end of the day. Was trying to avoid the Murky hop juice I brewed last time, but did not want the too clean IPA that US-05 had been giving me. Dry hop with copious amounts of Citra & Galaxy to come Wednesday.

 

So I brewed my Daikon Saison over the weekend. I had a bunch of folks tell me (as well as read) that radishes or parts of radishes can kill yeast, heard that it was a stupid idea, etc. While watching the Brew Dogs with Sam at DFH and seeing that Sam added radishes to the boil, I knew it was possible. I roasted about 5 lbs of daikons, let them cool, pureed them, strained the puree and then added the juice to the boil about 15 minutes left until flameout. I got a nice radish smell and taste with the wort (nice hit of hops too). Today, the airlock is bubbling away vigorously! Fingers crossed that all goes well.

 

Doing what you're doing just allows you to continue doing what you're doing. Flowers allow you to buy more equipment.

 

Tart of Darkness inspired sour stout tomorrow with ECY Bug County. 10 gallons IPA this weekend to use up the last of my 2014 hops, half of that will be dosed with brett at bottling.

Bottling a stout and a dark brett saison this week too.

 

Welp had a bit of an issue with my brown... Accidently *unknowingly* rehydrated my yeast with distilled water (big no no, I know that now...) and may have hurt my yeasties a bit... Over 48hrs after pitching still no activity, so after work I was about to run and get more yeast and pitch, but when I got home it just started to bubble... Checked the gravity and it went down 3 points, so I know its making progress... A few hours later, bubbling is as normal... Whew... Looks like a delayed start is all... I only hydrated for 10-15mins prior to pitching, so that may have saved it vs. longer time in contact with the distilled.

It was Nottingham, btw... I re-hydrated and pitched into 60F wort where I am fermenting it. Which I also learned, yeast should be hydrated at warmer temps... Live and learn and now I know! Won't make those mistakes again!