What's brewing July edition

Got hosed again with a hbs sending me 4 month old liquid yeast, so I'm decanting and stepping up a cold crashed starter with the goal of brewing an averagely perfect esb on Sunday.

 

After my Pils last weekend, I likely will be “off” from brewing the next few weekends while we do a lot of painting work in the house we just took over. Thankfully, a lot of beers “on deck” so I won’t be short on beer for a while.

Got my new bitter that is just waiting for the session IPA to finish.

The new Pilsner brewed last weekend will replace the current Pils on (which I still have probably 60-70% left of the current one)

Then my 10.8% rye RIS for when my Marzen kicks… That will likely last almost all through winter, given how quickly I drink beers that big, haha.

Then I am thinking in 3-4 weeks when I brew again to do a Rauchbier and just pitch right on my Pilsner yeast cake, just so I can avoid doing another starter for that.

The plan after that is to follow the rauchbier up with a IPA (or IPL collab with a buddy of mine) that will replace the current IPA I got on… So that would get all four taps accounted for with backups for a while. I am about to get a second fermentation freezer going, so I can do long-term lagering without tying up keezer space with sitting kegs. So that will be nice! Just need to buy a new food freezer so I can take over the smaller one we currently use

As far as actual activity, yesterday I did do my bi-monthly line cleaning for my taps… But going forward I think I may switch to monthly. I am just going to rig a line cleaning system that will attach to all four taps at once (currently I can do two at once), so I can just attach once to each line and let run for 30mins or so and be done. I run from a submersible pump now, so it can just constantly recirculate which is nice with the BLC. I just need to make a nice manifold that will allow for four now to make it even easier!

 

Last night moved 10 gallons of imperial stout into a maple syrup-bourbon barrel, and filled two kegs with a northern german style Pils, one keg with dry hops and one without.

Tomorrow is my club brew day up at a local pond, so pulled together all my ingredients to attempt my inaugural milkshake IPA...

 

Getting geared up for July brewing now...

Cleaned 12 cornies and prepped for filling.
Tore apart and cleaned the yearly gunk build up out of my chugger pumps.
Created all the recipes I have planned for next weekend in Brewcipher
Still need to procure a few odds and ends and then I'll be brewing a Pilsner, a Saison and some wort to top off my soleras after I bottle a few gallons out of each.

I'm toying with the idea of a smash pils and saison.
Anybody here try that before?

 

You gonna brew the same base wort and split for for fermentation? High quality pils, noble hop of your choice, giddiup!

 

You could try splitting off like a gallon with some of the puree, let it go for a week and see what it ends up like...3711 will take care of business just like any other brewers yeast should with the simple sugars that the fruit will provide (fructose).

 

Almost, I'll be splitting after the mash. One big 100% pils mash, then split to three kettles, kettle 1 - quick boil with no hops for the soleras, kettle 2 - tiny bit of hops for the saison, and kettle 3 - regular amount for pils.

 

I'm super excited to brew a Märzen for the first time.

I love this style and can't believe it isn't available year round, I get the tradition; well now as a homebrew it can be haha.

Doing a two step starter, starting tomorrow night; I need around 400 billion cells.

 

Bottled a golden ale today. FG was 1.008, so co pitching the Crossmyloof pale ale yeast worked to ensure the London ESB yeast didn't finish too high . However even after a full ten days chilling, it is still very hazy. Taste is nice and fruity, decent body to it too although it's not carbed obviously. I think it's a bit low on the IBUs too, probably closer to 25.

 

OK...Wit to boil...but wife is pickling beets...I miss the smell of brew day

 

Completely agree! Have a Marzen on right now (has been for about a month and a half now). Had one earlier in the year as well. Wish they were a bit more "year-round" in general as well, so I suppose we have to brew our own... Darn!

 

Brew date on the Heffe I mention got pushed back a week. First time using a 1 liter starter, and what a mess.... Will try a starter again, but if it goes like this one did, I won't bother after spending half an hour cleaning the kitchen counter tops.

Brew day seemed flawless, but in the end end up under 5 gallons and about .01 under predicted OG (only 57% efficiency according to Brewcipher...). Thought the low SG reading might be my hydrometer so did a water test... and it is not... Not sure what happened here.

 

Boddingtons used to be very bitter and golden, but that changed during the late 70s/80s when it started getting darker and crapper. By the 1990s it was being pushed nationally so as with all things pushed to the masses it gets dumbed down and cheapened.

The BJCP guidlines for it are good, basically it's a well hopped bitter with no or little caramel malt. Some of the best ones are SMASH . Simple beers for drinking really They are nice cask conditioned especially

American Blonde ale might be similar, although I think golden ales are more bitter/hoppy, usually.

 

Absolutely crazy last few weeks, so I've had to put brewing on the "back burner"...but I finally got a chance today to keg 2 Citra Wheat IPAs with the same grain bill and hop schedule that were fermented with different bugs. One was fermented with Omega Tropical yeast and the other with Omega Bit O Funk. Both tasted great going into the keg onto the keg hops, but the Brett in the Bit O Funk definitely adds a nice funk that lingers on the palate.

 

I got to wondering why I've spent so much money on brewing, but still controlled fermentation temps with a bucket of water and frozen bottles. So I went out and got myself a chest freezer and a temperature controller.

I could not think of a better beer for my new fermentation chamber's maiden voyage than a flavorful American Lager. (Thanks to the macro lager tasting thread in Beer Talk.) Fermenting at 50° now, and I plan to ramp it up toward the end before kegging and conditioning. I'm hoping to be drinking it in 3 weeks with the "fast lager" method.

Next, if all goes well, I plan to harvest some of the WLP850 Copenhagen Lager yeast I used and put it to work on an IPL version of one of my past IPA recipes. Just can't decide whether I should go WC or NE with it.

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...g-april-17-edition.501673/page-2#post-5394375

Well, we sold our house, and have an accepted offer on our new house, hoping to close by August 11th. If all goes well I'll be back to brewing by the end of August. I can't wait! Getting sick of drinking all this store brought crap, lol.

 

Finally bottled up my Saison with Brett last night. Wasted a couple bottles worth of foam until I got the gun to flow right. I filled bottles, the wife dosed with Brett, capped, marked, put away. I had 6 strains and was shooting for a 6 pack of each. Hit 4 6 packs and the keg blew (partial keg). Pulled the other keg that was on tap and had the same foam issue (highly carbed) but got 4 bottles from it. That gave me 5 of the 6 strains which was fines since the 5 I got were the individual Cantillon isolates. Didn't get @CASK1 Brett a in there, but will bottle off a couple of my next farmhouse ale with that one.

 

Have you bottle dosed with Brett like this before? With that many different isolates, I'd be wary of vastly different levels of carbonation.

 

I'm not too worried. The FG with the Saison yeast was 1.001. Fined and carbed, then bottle gunned from the keg. Few drops of single strain per bottle. There shouldn't be any variation in CO2 since there isn't really any sugars left for the Brett to eat. Looking for flavor development from the Brett transforming the existing Phenols and Esters from the Saison strains.