January brewing and doings

Did you drink your hydrometer sample? I once used 4oz Peated Malt in a five gallon batch and thought it was too much. Good luck!

 

Yes, it tasted delicious

 

Got everything I needed except an outlet hose (mine is too kinked). So I had to improvise with a bucket under the outlet. Super hard to weld with propane in sub freezing temps. Couldn't get the flame hot enough. Minor leak.

 

This reminds me of an "interesting" beer that my son recently brought back from New Zealand that used 100% peated malt. I could not drink it:

http://thebeerproject.com/blog/2011/05/the-rex-attitude/

 

I just used an old hose on mine and cut off the bad end...not a lot of pressure on the cooling water out

Hang on to your old immersion chiller It will be useful as a whirlpool stand during recirc.
Looks nice, CFCs make a lot of sense for large homebrew batches. cheers

 

• Bottling my dark mild fermented with 1318 tomorrow.
• Brewing an American stout on the cake whenever it stops raining here. Probably gonna hit it with coffee and/or vanilla at bottling.

 

I got back into the swing of things and I'm looking at brewing at least 15 gallons and 3 batches in January. I got a Dark Mild done right before the end of the year. I brewed a Nut Brown last Friday, and I brewed the Averagely Perfect NEIPA yesterday. I might actually have some beer to drink someday soon.

 

Brewed the first of three batches of that wheat wine tonight. 1lb of rice hulls to 20lbs of grain, no issues at all sparging. Efficiency, on the other hand, sucked ass. Added some dme and dextrose during boil to get things more in line.

 

65%, 13lbs

 

Brewed up an all Equinox hopped OYL200 NECDA (Northeast Cascadian Dark Ale) this past weekend and kegged a OYL200 heavy Citra hopped 9.19% NE DIPA that is already drinking very well!

 

Gearing up for an all-grain Kölsch tomorrow. Keeping the ingredients simple with Avangard Pilsner malt and German Spalt hops, so I guess it is technically a smash beer. Single infusion mash for 90 mins followed by a 90 min boil. Going to be a long brew day. Managed to track down some East Coast Yeast ECY21 at a local homebrew shop which I am very excited to try out.

 

I was going to do that but we had an ice storm two days prior and I was brewing in fresh snow. All my other hoses were frozen solid. Made it difficult to brew too, the propane tank was iced up and I couldn't get a hot enough flame to weld the leaks on the CFC.

 

Wrapped up my recipe for a cream ale tomorrow I am brewing... Will be hopped with 2oz of whole flower German Tradition hops, pitching WLP080. Really liked that yeast for my previous cream ale. Grist is typical 6-row, 2-row and flaked corn primarily with a touch of crystal malt.

Took a gravity reading on my pilsner brewed a week and a half ago, looks like it may finish right at target... Currently at 1.010, target 1.009. Will start the D-rest tomorrow while the cream ale ferments for 3 days or so, then when I take the cream ale out of my temp control freezer I will start to crash the pilsner for a few days for gelatin fining and kegging (then lager at 32F for a few weeks!).

Then I need to wrap up my recipe for my next IPA hopped with Vic Secret and Mosaic. Used Conan the last few IPA's so going back to Cali-Ale for this one, approx. 6.5% ABV and 60-70 IBU.

 

Oatmeal Stout Brewday

Cheers BAs

 

Brewed an impromptu Dunkelweizen to kill some time today. OG 1.050, wlp300

Still need to bottle my Dark Mild and brew that stout. Probably tomorrow.

 

This past weekend I kegged my first ever lager (a pilsner). I also brewed a 10 gallon batch of an American Brown Ale. I used some willamette and cascade in the boil. Split it into 2 fermenters. One will get dry hopped with a couple ounces of centennial. The other one will move into a secondary with oak chips, maple toasted coconut and cinnamon sticks for a few weeks

 

Making a starter today for a 10 gallon batch of IRS , bottleing my first mole beer tommorrow, I'm calling it "where,s my ass, molie", yep the sample I took yesterday indicated it had fermented a bit more in the secondary and its rockin in at 11.8 abv.
Also got another care package from #1 daughter. Spices direct from Bahrain, cinnamon, cartoman, star anise, fennel, and others. Now I just gotta figure out how to use them.

 

Brewed my cream ale last night, whole cone hopped with German Tradition. Wow, do those smell great!

OG of 1.050, expected FG of 1.009. 18 IBU.

Second beer in a row though that my mash pH is lower than expected by exactly .15... Different malts completely, so I'm thinking city water changed a bit. Always nailed my pH in the past and nothing has changed. So I got to adjust going forward and perhaps get my water retested.

 

Harvesting some St Bretta dregs. Perhaps some of the cleanest tasting brett I've tried. Hoping to use it in a gose soon.

This is my Jerry-rigged method for keeping a starter warm in a cold basement - a cheap Hydor aquarium heater will keep it at around 80-85F.