November homebrewing

Check my Brown ale today. Still slightly high so going to give it another week before bottling (today was week 2). Also brewed a Belgian Quad/Strong ale. It is an extract kit from Northern Brewer (Northy 12) was a little low on OG based on Brewcipher But well over the kits instructions. I will consider being low as I had my first, even if it was slight, boil over in 9 years of brewing.

OH, and ordered hop rhizomes today as well. Next year I will hop-fully have my own homegrown Cascade to use.

 

Rye Saison being brewed up tomorrow on the first day of my holiday break!

12 lb Pilsner
2 lbs flaked rye
1 lb light Belgian candi sugar

Hopped with Amarillo/Centennial to around 35 IBU and fermented with YB Saison Blend II. Really excited about this one.

 

Brewed my Duvel clone today, smooth brew day which is always nice.

 

Brewed up my Christmas Weizenbock yesterday. Brewday was made a little more hectic and confused than usual; I added a larger brew kettle (8 gallon Bayou Classic) and upped my recipe to 5 gallons. The combination of the two made for some interesting and creative lautering and wort chilling technique, but the beer survived. 12 hrs later fermentation was kicking in. Nothing to do now but wait!

 

Grabbed the stuff for the barleywine today... said what the hell and grabbed some pilsen and wheat dme, a bunch of saaz, and belgian saison yeast. Gonna whip up a saison the same day I do the BW. Starters already going, should be a good day!

 

After several batches with a Fubar grain mill, I guess I fixed it because my OG was 6 points over...now I have to drink an IPA that's really a Pale Ale ...life's a bitch...cheers all

 

Brewed batch 4 of The Raisinator, a sour golden blonde aged on golden raisins and sauv blanc french oak, and added dried plums this time around (used dried cherries in addition to raisins in batch 3)

 

Brewed Melted Faces and Boozy French Toast last night, an imperial milk stout. Have some vanilla beans, cinnamon, and oak soaking in rye whiskey now that will be added in secondary once I ferment out maple syrup that will be added.

 

Caught up a little on brewing and kegging in the wild and sour department today...
-Kegged a Wild Brown IPA
-Brewed a Wild Wheat version of my house IPA and added it onto the yeast cake from the Brown IPA
-Kegged my Whiskey Sour...lemon-lime sour fermented in a funked whiskey barrel (seen below)
-Brewed a base sour and added it back into the whiskey barrel and onto the bug/yeast cake (BIAB mashing in the below image too)

 

Just kegged my first "slow" sour, a blonde ale fermended with sacc, some Yazoo dregs, and the Solera Blend from Bootleg Biology. Fun learning experience. Secondary was on raspberries and oak cubes.

 

Will be trying the Barke Pils for the first time, in tomorrow's brew. Just Barke and some Carafoam, with Magnum and Huell Melon. It's my first time with Huell Melon, too. It's sort of a German Pils, but breaking from tradition in the hops dept.

 

Partial Porter using some lite DME, WLP007 and NZ Pacifica,Lemon drop, and Caliente. Nice chocolate smell in the mash.

 

Brewed up 2 IPAs over the weekend...
1. Single hopped Columbus Wheat IPA
2. Single hopped Topaz IPA

and I kegged a single hop Pacific Gem IPA as well

 

Brewed my first lager on Saturday since I finally got a temperature controller. Basically a pilsner. Looks like it came out a little dark though because of some vienna and light munich malt I added for the hell of it

 

How you liking the Catalyst? I'm on my second brew with it, and have bottled with it and loving it.

 

This is my first brew with it @stealth. I like the idea and so far it seems great. Looking forward to using it to bottle a few for competition purposes later and also looking forward to having an easier time reusing yeast

 

Quick tip - after you transfer the wort to the fermenter and get the volume and what not recorded and pitch the yeast, open the butterfly valve to fill the mason jar. Trub will collect better, and it gives it a little extra aeration and stirs up the yeast a bit. When you dump the trub and re-attach the mason jar (to collect more trub or yeast), use a thief to pull off some wort and fill the mason jar with it so it doesn't dump as much air into the fermented wort.

I used it to collect yeast from my sour I just did (and reused that yeast in a lambic I did shortly after) and it worked wonderfully.

 

Arrogant Bastard kind of beer

OG: 1.077

5% Cara Munich II
5% Special B
2% Chocolate

2 g/L Chinook @ 90, 45,15 & WP

WLP007

 

Bottled my NE IPA hopped with Citra and Columbus, a barley wine, and brewed my first Pilsner (Jamil's German pilsner recipe). Planning to brew a Jack's Abbey Framminghammer clone in a few weeks to pitch onto the pilsner yeast cake.