Brewing Activity March 2016

That looks so gross. They look like pale horned worms. Freakin me out

 

Thought of @stealth the other day. Saw a carboy filled with pink marshmallow peeps. Haven't seen that one before.

I can't wait to see how your worm beer comes out!!

 

How do you get it to carb so fast... a few hours?

 

I brewed up the barley wine recipe that I inquired about several weeks back. On a last minute decision, I ended up adding 1/2 lb of Caramel 60L to the recipe for a little more malt character, and I went with 1028 yeast at the suggestion of @Brew_Betty. I brewed an English Pale Ale using 1028 a few weeks ago, bottled that, then racked the barley wine right onto that yeast cake. There was a lot of activity the first 48 hours, though I never did get the blow off that I was expecting. I'll take a reading later this week to see how it's progressing. I lost a few points due to an epic boil-over and the fact that my volume ended a little higher than intended, but I should still end up with at least a 9.5% ABV barley wine if all goes well.

 

Damn those things look like thick cut french fries sitting in there... nice! I've also got that same flight glass set behind your carboy.

As for me... testing out my newly constructed stir plate (built from a cigar box) with a starter of the Ardennes strain that I'll be using in a Belgian IPA this weekend. Just bottled my batch of hoppy rye saison that was fermented with Brett C. Saved a few jars of the brett slurry to use on an all-mosaic Berliner weisse fermented on apricots. Pictures to come, I am sure. Trying to keep the pipeline moving.

 

I have a hoppy red ale I want to do sometime soon as well as maybe a pale ale or saison for the Spring months.

 

If you put a worm in each bottle you could market that in South America.

 

Brewing a hybrid bopils thing. WLP800 and Saaz, but also have some Mittelfruh in there. The style guidelines do not cover an abomination like this. I hope it doesn't explode.

 

Just cut all my tap lines down to like 6"-12" long after testing it out with my Perlick 650 flow control faucets... No need for the longer line when tested, even my 3.0 vol Berliner... Now I just need to cut down my gas lines a bit to really clean it all up inside the keezer as some of the lines are a bit longer than needed.

 

@stealth

Very happy with them!

I was not happy with the beer that sits in the lines (tried three different lines that were not supposed to impart any off-flavor, but I am super sensitive I guess)... Currently have the bev-seal ultra tubing with the john guest fittings, but even those I have to purge the first two ounces or whatever out of them as the beer doesn’t taste as intended. Before, I had my lines at about 7ft.

I then went to a 10-12” line a few days ago to test on my highest carbed beer (berliner) and the pours were just fine… So then I swapped another line on another beer, with still great results… So then I just did them all. Lines range from about 8” to maybe 18” depending where the keg is in the keezer. Now far less beer (relatively speaking) sits in the line and now I don’t really have to purge the lines at all as the volume of beer that sits in them is marginal to even a sample sized pour which I do a lot of.

If anything, it actually reduces foam even more because the CO2 would come out of solution in the beer line in multiple spots… Even with an air-circulation fan and such to keep the temp even inside… So when I would pour I would get a few bursts of CO2 out of the faucet from the bubbles in the line. Now that is practically eliminated due to the line length, so I don’t get those bursts. All in all, it appears to work better all-around having the shorter line length with these faucets.

Plus I also like that they are really easy to clean as you can do them in place per Perlick without disassembly supposedly… I just ran beer line cleaner through them using an aquarium pump connected to the beer line, with another line from the faucet back to the bucket. Once the cleaning was done, you could tell the faucet was squeaky clean inside with how easily the adjustment valves worked and such.

The only downside I found is that the rumors are true about low ph ciders/sours causing a sulfur odor… However, the faucet that I am using for the sour seems to have gotten a lot better compared to when I first tapped the keg… It used to be super strong odor but now I don’t really pick up on it anymore… So perhaps it just needed a break-in lol

Hope this helps your decision!

 

Naturally carbonating a Saison Dupont clone attempt in the keg, to simulate as closely as possible the 6 weeks (or so) of bottle carbonating/warm conditioning (without actually bottling) that Dupont does. Should get up to about 3.9 volumes, and based on room temp PSIs, it looks like it's at 2.2 vols after a week or so. Should finish at ~50 PSI, so I'm interested to see if the pressure relief valve objects at some point.

 

Revamping my chiller this weekend, using a fountain pump to recirculate ice water through my immersion chiller. Also I will be putting a thermos ell in my trusty brew bucket lid and will test run my temperature controller to possibly brew a Pilsner this month. Maybe a saison... Or an American pale.

 

Prickly Pear IPA getting prepped...currently removing spines with needle-nose pliers ...seriously, picked up some Prickly Pear Cactus Syrup from We B Jamin Farm in Tucson recently to add to primary on day 3. A little worried about the pectin, but I'm not heating it, so...we'll see. Leisurely day milling grain and reviewing brew plan on tap. Cheers

http://www.jamdiva.com/

 

Just bought supplies for my first attempt at BIAB. 4.5% APA with Pils, Wheat and Oats, bittered with Columbus and smacked with a heavy-ish dose of Amarillo and Simcoe.

 

Started a new sour solera yesterday.

I still have a vial of wlp611 from the vault that I need to use. I'm thinking a hef, split batch with 3068 for comparison.

Bottling an English SMaSH (MO & Pilgrim with wlp007) and I'll be using the yeast on a barleywine.