What's Brewing - April '17 Edition

Brewed a NE style pale on Sunday.

10 lbs Pale 2 Row
2 lbs flaked oats

Apollo (60 minutes)
Citra and Mosaic (whirlpool/dry hopping)

 

Brewing a Citra pale ale with golden promise and WY1272 in the next few days. Really craving some Citra lately, been too long since I used any.

Also, going to start building up a starter with Oberon dregs in hopes of a Oberon like brew in the near future.

 

Smoked Baltic Porter

 

Showing some friends how to brew in 2 weeks. Doing a cascade IPA, since I've got 14 oz of cascade pellets from my cousin's farm. I'm leaning towards golden promise, oats and a bit of carapils. Columbus for bittering and hitting it hard with cascade for late additions/flameout/dry hop. Gonna try out imperial organic yeast's A24 dry hop blend. I've always wanted to try a strain from these guys.

 

A little Columbus late in the game never hurt anybody either

 

Bottled the Averagely Perfect NE IPA last night. I succumbed to a temptation to add 4 oz of lactose at bottling for a little extra body. It smells amazing.

 

American Wheat with Prickly Pear Juice now that I have room in my cold storage facility

 

Accelerating my brew day some. From what was going to be end of the month to now. Brewing something weird. Wanted a dark yet strong ale. 2 row, rye, dark crystals, and a little debittered dark black malt and earth hops. Not sure it will turn out good, but just something I am trying.

End of month brew day still might happen. Looking at a Imperial Breakfast Stout with oak spirals, but am still trying to plan that out.

 

Have to rack my Rye Imperial Stout to a keg for a few months of aging. Still deciding if I should split into two kegs and add cold brew coffee (and perhaps vanilla) to one later on closer to tap time.

 

Mashing in on an English Porter. Maris Otter, brown malt and a little black patent. 23ibu. It will be the first thing on tap in the keezer I'm building.

 

Brewed a Wheat Ale on Friday with Wyeast 1010. Will be adding blueberry extract just before kegging in about 5 weeks. First time doing a fruit beer but the Mrs. requested it so I obliged

 

Kegged my first attempt at a NEIPA & brewed a cream ale today.

 

Just kegged a Galaxy & Simcoe NE IPA. This is a re-brew from about a year ago, and it's really good. This gives the AP NE IPA a run for its money.

I got a bit more out of this batch than I was expecting and overfilled the keg. I remembered hearing that you're not supposed to fill past the gas dip tube, but couldn't remember why so I kept on filling. And now as I watch beer flowing through the gas tubing toward the CO2 tank, I understand why. Live and learn.

 

Brewed 10 gallons of my honey blonde ale after not brewing for 4 months. Had to dust off some cobwebs off the electrical system, but got it done. Had pretty much a stuck mash and slow sparge. First time using my barley crusher and I milled the grain through twice at a .037" spacing. What spacing are you guys setting your mill to?

 

I feel sick,,,,,,, better call in for a sick day,,,,,,,



Double batch brew day, yahooooo. First Irish stout, second star anise/vanilla stout.

It's good to be sick

 

Brewed an Altbier, kegged a Hefe, and planted a couple hop rhysomes!

 

Just finished primary (and the 70% fermentation dryhop step) and yesterday kegged with 2 ounces (for about 3-3.5 gallons) of galaxy for 4-5 days before carbing.

This batch came out great (third try with moderate tweaks here and there). the taste (so far) is still bitter, huge green hops. I'll need to be more precise with my first dry hopping addition to make sure it really was at 70% and not further along. the Wyeast 1318 flew through this beer in about 2 days.

Edit: there was a picture I tried to post but I clearly have no idea how to do it...

 

That's what I brewed yesterday as well! Planning to put 4lbs of Blueberries after I move it to a secondary. This is my second fruit beer as I did a 1 gallon batch of Strawberry Cream ale a few months ago that came out great. Going to do a 5 gallon batch of that next weekend and add some Vanilla beans to help mellow the tartness of the strawberries. Very easy drinking summer beers!

 

Have you ever used fruit extract? I long debated whether to do 5lbs of frozen blueberries in the secondary or just use the 4oz extract but heard it may not do much to the flavor and more just make the beer purple. Insights/thoughts appreciated

 

My NE IPA is winding down slowly. Over a week in and it is still only at 67% app att. I blew CO2 through the tasting port aimed at the bottom to try to rouse the yeast, bumped up the temp to 25C, and added the dry hops. A few more days with CO2 rousing of hops and yeast and I will crash it out for kegging on Saturday.