2015 Year End Reflection

@CurtFromHershey I'll be sure to try harder next year

 

I brewed less than I have in a few years, with a higher percentage of extract batches. Stupid work.

That being said, I have been getting much closer to keying in how to brew exactly what I like with the least effort on my system. That's time well spent.

 

I started brewing in January and it's been a great year on the steep part of the learning curve. Started with 5-gal extract kits and moved to BIAB after 3 brews. I started off brewing every 2-3 weeks, which is a bit too frequent for family harmony, but now have found a good rhythm with brews every 4-5 weeks. Favorite brews were a Robust Porter and a Grapefruit IPA. Last brew of the year (today) is my first lager - a Bo Pils. 50% chance of kegging this, if I can get my act together soon enough. It's a fantastic hobby, and I appreciate all the sage advice here on BA.

 

This year has been of mixed results.
All saisons came out wonderfully 6 total
A second attempt at Northern English Brown was drain poured.
The fall robust porter was the best yet of 4 years trying.
Barleywine was by far the great success of the year.
Brewed 11 batches and hope to be more efficient in the coming year
Equipment and organization is this years goal
Cheers al

 

I brewed 21 batches exactly this year. Bringing my total to 30 something brews in my career. I started to brew last November and I can't stop!! I'm absolutely stoked about my electrical brewery that I am building. I cannot wait until I'm brewing on the new system. I'll try to link some pictures of the process if I can figure out how to link the pictures onto here, (still haven't figured out the imgur, although I haven't tried very much).

 

I can't even count how many brews I've done this year (haven't blogged much this year). Lots of test batching. A few sours, some for the test batches, some not. One extract for teach a friend to brew day. Started a home brew club for our church. Did I mention lots of test batching? Lots of test batching. Had to dump one of them as my yeast reassembled the hops into some not too tasty flavors. Getting close to having the recipes locked in though.

 

1. I love to throw the kitchen sink in and I am not afraid to brew out of the box
2. Sometimes the kitchen sink is hard to filter out, and decreases my expected yield
3.Need to work on better ways to filter
4. Starting to figure out carbonating with priming sugar
5. screw priming sugar figure out how to keg in 2016
6. Expand my horizons in 2016 with different yeasts
7. Experiment with fruits, peels, vanilla, spices in 2016
8. Brew some sours in 2016! religiously every 3 months at least!

 

Well this year I started home brewing, back around July... In the past five months or so, I just brewed batch #11 yesterday to close out the year... All 5 gallon batches.

I started right from all grain after spending a few weeks reading how to brew multiple times and a few other brewing resources. Surprisingly enough, my first beer was actually really damn good (hoppy amber ale). I had no real duds at all and have been brewing many different styles (hoppy amber, hefeweizen, oktoberfest lager, milk stout, imperial stout, IPA, IIPA, cream ale, brown ale, porter).

Around batch #5 or so, I start getting into water adjustments which helped push my beers to the next level IMO. I start oxygenating with pure O2 a few batches ago... At some point I bought a monster mill so I could crush my own grain and buy base malts in bulk, along with harvesting yeast more often recently. As of last week, I built a 4-keg keezer to keg my beers in the future, which I am really excited about. Doing a quick back-to-back-to-back brewing schedule to fill up them kegs!

I feel I came a long way with my brewing in just a few months... I get a lot of compliments from people who try my homebrew (not just friends, but people I don't know that will try them at bottle shares and such) that tell me my beer is as good or better than commercial examples and are really surprised when I tell them I only have been doing it a few months. Research into building recipe's and good technique pays off, I suppose!

Looking forward to what 2016 brings... Nothing really on the plate now, but I would like to maybe do a kettle sour at some point this year.

 

started brewing in march. brewed only 4 batches but split one to make 5 different beers.
one of each:
saison
DIPA
cream ale
berliner weisse (half got hibiscus)

overall pretty happy with how each one turned out and would really like to find more time to brew this coming year. (did move and have a kid in the last 4 months so that slowed me down a bit.)

I'm pretty impressed at what i was able to pull off with full blown all grain brewing on the balcony of my NYC apartment.
My saison was excellent and i enjoyed it even more than my favorite commercial examples, i hope i can recreate it.

Kegging would be amazing, as in the apartment all the empty bottles are starting to make the missus mad.
I look forward to brewing more and increasing my knowledge of the brewing science this year.

Cheers all and best of luck in the brew year!

 

In 2014, I would sit around and share bottles with a more experienced friend while he was brewing. It was fun, but perhaps too easy to just sit back, get drunk, and let him take the lead. That continued on into the early months of 2015. Some of the beer was good, some was mediocre or bad (especially an imperial stout that got way too hot during fermentation). We weren't consistent. We were experimenting outside of our skill level. His gear was beat up and old. It was more about hanging out.

Over the summer I spread my wings and really got the process down on my own. Got 6 solo all-grain batches under my belt, all of which I was pretty happy with. I keg and it's great to have my own beer on tap. I've gotten better at creating or modifying recipes, understanding common pitfalls, etc. I have done a lot of reading on the subject.

I hope to make some small improvements in 2016:

-Yeast starters on a stir plate. Didn't have a stir plate until November, was just pitching smack packs
-force carb + bottle gun to share my kegged brews. I am over bottle conditioning
-more diligent about avoiding oxidation
-Tweaking the same recipes, trying to improve. I have a tendency to want to always be trying something new, which means I'm usually brewing a decent first attempt rather than anything truly special.

 

Let's see - wife and I had a baby boy in March, so brewing certainly took a back seat in 2015.

The good: I finally got my $hit together, bought a second pump, and installed the blichmann Autosparge I've had sitting in a box for longer than I can remember - and it's fantastic!

The bad: my chest freezer died mid summer and the new one I ordered to replace it was on backorder for so long that I ended up dumping the contents of 9 kegs (varying degrees of fullness) and starting over fresh.

More good: I got the new and improved (if downsized from 7 taps to 6) fridge assembled and filled with 12 kegs (2 kegs each of 4 lager styles and 2 ales) in time for my annual Oktoberfest.

More bad: a worn out dip tube o-ring on one of my kegs caused the 'accidental discharge' of a full keg of saison inside that brand new fridge. Discovered on Christmas morning when I went to get a growler to take to my in-laws.

More good: That leaky keg was only half the batch, so I'm drinking a glass from the other half right now.

Happy New Year!

 

This was a slower year for me brewing, only about 80gallons or so, split mostly into 5gal batches though a few made it to 10 (work was a killer)

I did though completely upgrade my kegerator to an upright SS freezer with 8 taps and a display using Raspberry pints

I also have finished the P&ID's and the ladder logic for my completely automated system. I have the pressure sensors, flow meters, kettle, MLT, MT, filter, false bottoms, RTD's, and half of the pneumatic valves, waiting on the last half (just ordered). The first half of 2016 is total dedicated to welding, wiring, and building the new rig!!

 

2015 was all about my Sour Pipeline!

I bottled 2 fruited American Sours. My Solera project has had its first pull, and then topped off. I did a 15 gallon coolship. And I have about 20 gallons of sour/funky beers at different stages of fermentation.

I also took home my first homebrewing awards this year: a 1st and a 2nd place for a Belgian Quad.

-Mike

 

Brewed about half as often this year only 12 times, but brewed more beer then typical. Mostly due to this batch..
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/im-in-a-pickle-can-anyone-help.370161/#post-4376243

I got 4 3 gal cornies this year and I love them. I've been brewing smaller batches, fermenting in a 5 gal corny and serving in the 3 gal. So I've been making more of the beers that I don't want 5 gallons of, like RIS's, dopplebocks, triple's, strong ales, experimental beers, etc.

High lights: Aged an old ale with gin barrel staves, came out great. Plan to do this again with an IPA this year (3 gal). Assembled 2 bbl system and brewed a batch on it. I plan to do this one or two times a year.

For 2016 I plan to brew less often but more variety. My normal routine is to brew 2 batches every time I brew. I'll still do this. I also plan to finally assemble a keg washer that I've been working on. This will come in handy with the 2bbl system. And I plan to brew more lagers this year.

Dave

 

Lots of things in the past 1-2yrs have coalesced into needing something like this. My time is more and more precious lately, so if I can automate the process to save some time I see it as a good thing. I already use pumps and an electric system for heating/boling so I'm already doing very little (had this for about 3yrs now). All that was left to do is make the a couple hand valves into automatic valves so I dont space out and forget about switching something around, and volume measurement

Plus, it has been a ton of fun building it from the ground up, almost a hobby unto itself, and Im getting to learn a lot more about certain automation details that I had previously ignored in my job

I'll still going to decide what malts to use, when hops go in, etc. I just wont have to worry about missing a hop addition, boiling too long, forgetting the whirlfloc, or accidentally spilling my wort on the ground when transferring to the kettle.

I think the best thing for me though will be the completely automated CIP cycle! Though the ability to brew more often (like I used to) will be great because I'll be able to experiment again AND keep lots of good beers on tap

 

amazing. just added a very strong hibiscus tea to the bottling bucket. gave the beer a nick pinkish hue and more of a lemony tartness than the base berliner.
I did this one as a tribute to my friend who runs the beer store i frequent @BeerTownNYC

 

Didnt brew as much as I wanted in 2015. Maybe 6 10 gallon batches this year. Began the year getting a couple keggles converted, and getting a sculpture set up with a pump. I learned I need to work on cooling, maybe a pond pump in ice water flowing to my IC. A couple sparges got stuck, I need to get my false bottom figured out, but for now a ss scrub pad stuffed underneath gets me through. Hop harvest was awesome this year, the wet hopped NE ipa was amazeballs. The few comps I competed in were hit and miss, coming away with a few medals and a few rebrew ideas. In the end, I wish I had brewed more, but I am satisfied with what I have gotten done. With the addition of NB temp control kit at the end of 2015 I am excited to see where 2016 takes me.