Brewing activities January 2016

Debating on bottling my peach and mango lambics this month. I brewed them only back last August so they aren't even 6 months old yet but they have both developed a great amount of sourness, very dry gravities (1.002), and the fruit flavor in both is amazing. The Rare Barrel and Bruery dregs I used were apparently very potent.

Thinking of doing another split batch of the Salty Doge gose, with half getting a few pounds of sour gummy worms (Salty Doge has Worms) and half going on cucumbers (Head Rubs for Cucumbers, inspired by https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3meoxr/one_cucumber_that_will_be_16_head_rubs_please/ )

 

Added my first dry hop after 72 hours of fermentation. Simcoe, Citra, and Mosaic getting into the pool. Bumping up the temp 1 degree too to hopefully keep this fermentation strong. Need an attenuation over 80% to get a FG I like.

 

I brewed a smash English ipa two days ago to give to my girlfriends coworkers, I played with the water composition and I'm hoping it turns out well.

 

I added 6# of peaches to this 100% Brett Blonde.

It was on the Brett for a little over a month, raised the temp for a week and added the peaches. Going to keep them on for 2 weeks and then bottle it. Pretty excited.

 

Have a gluten free trial run going in primary, OG came out a little low (1.032) and the color was really light, so I ended up adding some molasses and extra maltodextrin to boost gravity and darken the color. Had already pitched the yeast by the time I mulled enough to add in the extra sugar but I brought the gravity up closer to 1.045, which is still pretty weak but better. Hopped with 2oz of Chinook (1oz for 30min and 1oz for 15min) and 2.5oz of Saaz (1oz for 30min, 1oz for 15min, and 1/2oz for 3min). I used this hop combo for another beer and really liked it, hopefully it works ok with the sorghum flavor, which I'm assuming will be rather weak and that the hops don't completely overtake the flavor.

 

Let us know how it turns out. Neighbor asked me to brew a gluten free beer for their son. Hope to give it a go in the next month or so.

 

I've been wanting to go 1 gallon batches since I got into brewing but have never bought the carboys.

Well, for Christmas my sister bought me 5 one gallon carboys. I finally get to start experimenting!

I'm going to a Berliner Weiss first. Going to split it into 5 different batches and fruit them all differently.

So far I have - Kiwi, Mango chili, Watermelon Habanero, and Blueberry/Blackberry. Not sure what do with the 5th, could maybe do a traditional Raspberry or something a little more out there. Any suggestions?

 

Why not leave the last one without fruit altogether?

 

I could definitely do that.

To be honest, that never even really crossed my mind... I guess I'm just completely stuck on fruited variants. I guess a non-fruited 'base' would be smarter though. Cheers.

 

Watermelon habanero?

 

Bear with me here, I had a some Hell or High Watermelon while barbecuing one day and my friend spilled some Habanero flakes in my glass. I decided to try it. It was actually delicious.

 

Only thing I'm really not sure of is how far the yeast will drag the gravity down, the sorghum is about 75% fermentable, which excluding the late addition sugar would put FG around 1.005, rather thin bodied and weak. Depending on the results of this test batch I think I will double the sorghum for the next trial. I did a partial mash with some oats in this batch in an attempt to give the beer a little more body because a common complaint about GF beers is that they lack body. Another thing to take into consideration is that if the person you're trying GF out for has Celiac's you should technically be using exclusive GF equipment (brew kettle, carboys, wort chiller) because gluten concentrations of even 20ppm can bother them.

 

Salt goes surprisingly well with watermelon too. hmmmm... this gives me some ideas on possibly doing a watermelon gose this summer. Let us know how the berliner experiments go!

 

That is really good to know about having GF equipment. I don't want to cause any issues.

 

Brewed a Sweet Stout Tuesday. Ripe bananas (currently frozen) and cocoa powder are on standby for secondary.

 

Need to keg 10 gallons of brown ale today. My beer stockpile is finally getting back to normal after moving last year.

 

Did a commercial beer inspire the idea or is this out of left field?

 

On Tuesday I brewed the 3rd iteration of the brown(ish) ale I served at my wedding. 6# rasp/black berries and dried hibiscus flowers awaiting secondary.

 

My Centennial IPA has finished dry hopping in the keg and it's high time to put it in the keezer! Robust Porter continues to bubble away in the primary. ESB up next!

 

Left field, I guess. I want to combine chocolate and banana, but didn't want to use a hefe yeast, because I don't want clove, etc.