What's brewing October edition

Brewed a NEIPA today with a twist.
1318 and Funk Weapon #2 pitched together.

I haven’t been able to finish kegs as quickly these days, so I thought this would be interesting as it ages.

Golden Promise, Oats and Carapils
Mosiac and Citra

Cheers!

 

10-8-17: Split batch of Pilsner base for Bayou Beerfest, half will get 3724 and raspberries and half will get 029 and coconut.

10-21-17: NEIPA with locally grown jasmine rice and a little midnight wheat thrown in for color, gonna be referred to as Rice & Gravy NEIPA, also for Bayou Beerfest

At Some Point in Oct: Blend/bottle/keg/age from 1 brett (YB Lochristi) and 2 sours (YB Melange repitch and ECY Bug County) that are ready to process

 

Starting the batch sparge on the Dark Strong Saison now. Ended up with just two pounds of GP in the sack, so added them to the grist. Might as well push the limits on this one.
Decided to just age on the frozen sour cherries I picked up while in Michigan to get the cherry flavor instead of trying to get it through Brett L.

Other October stuff: trying out Michigan hops! I got MI Centennial, MI Crystal, MI Empire, and MI Vojvodina to play around with. Should be fun.

 

To add to my continuingly mundane brewing schedule, I will be brewing yet another NE DIPA the weekend after next. This one will heavily feature Amarillo and Equinox with a little Cascade thrown in just for good measure. Grist will be Maris Otter and red/winter wheat. Thrilling, I know.

 

Brewed NE IPA with citra, mosaic, cascade, Amarillo, el dorado. Just threw in the dry hops for some biofermentation. I added some honey malt this time to try to get that nice orange hue. My last one was too yellow for my liking.

 

Brewed an English Mild yesterday, hit pre boil gravity dead on, but my burner was acting up and I couldn’t get the vigorous boil I usually do.

Was shooting for 1.037 and hit 1.032 ! Should be an easy drinker, and definitely the smallest beer I have ever brewed.

Based on a Mosher recipe,
Mild ale malt
Brown malt
Crystal 80
Rostmalz

Challenger hops.

At least with this beer I can avoid hangovers!

 

Did a "calibration" on my mill, resetting the gap to 0.30" since I start conditioning grain. Going to see if I can bump up my efficiencies any. I'll have rice hulls at the ready if things get sticky. Likely will be a Munich Dunkel in about two weeks.

Tomorrow I will be buying a big order of bulk grains. Another 55# of Weyermann Pils, 50# of GW 2-row, 5# of Munich, 10# of GW White Wheat and a few pounds of aciduated and Carafa Special III. Current inventory is nearly depleated.

 

Brewed an Irish stout last night while planning a blueberry mead.

 

Quick sample of my new DIPA still chugging away in primary. Flavor and aroma is top notch! Will hit with DH #2 tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.

 

Hoping to brew a couple of times this month.

A few months back--when it was available--I bought an extra wlp072 French Ale. Since I don't want to waste the yeast, and since I had an issue with my Biere de Garde last time, I figured I'd give the style a shot again. So that's beer # 1.

For beer # 2, I'm planning to do a Belgian-ish Golden Strong ale. Nice and dry, along the lines of Russian River's Damnation; which I love. Looking forward to this one.

 

Placed a nice large order with MoreBeer yesterday to replenish all my grain inventory… 55# sack of Weyermann Pils, 50# of Great Western 2-row (never used before), 10# white wheat, 5# acid malt, 5# dark munich, 2# carafoam, 1# carafa special III. Since they are so close, even with shipping the bulk grains are cheaper than what I can get them for at my LHBS.

Then I also picked up (2) yeasts for my upcoming brews that I have finalized… WLP029 for a Kölsch and WY2206 for my next few lagers.

This will be my first time brewing a Kölsch… Grist will be 85% German Pils, 6% Carafoam, 5% Vienna, 4% Acid Malt. Will pitch around 58F and allow to ferment the first few days at 58F before rising to 62F, then to ambient (64-65F) to finish before lagering. Expected 4.8% ABV.

Dunkel will be 70% Munich II, 20% Pilsner, 5% Carafoam, 3% Acid Malt and 2% Carafa Special III. Expected 5.1% ABV.

 

Can I ask, why you are adding carafoam?

 

Mainly just as a test. Have not used this type of malt in my pilsners and such before, but I am curious if I notice anything (positive or negative). So yeah, simply just curiosity.

 

Never used this malt, myself. What is it supposed to bring to the table?

 

Cool, just as good of reason as any.

 

Body and foam, but the foam part is false. It's actually pretty foam negative. While I do subscribe to the thought process of buy your cara's and don't try to make them. I would rather use process over using this malt personally.

 

I have used carapils before in a few beers... The only one similar being a cream ale, which ended up with incredible head retention and lacing. Being relatively similar "styles" minus the corn and such, I figured in this style it would be worthwhile to check on. Never really had any issue with head retention on any of my beers, except that some have been more "whippy" and creamy than some others, typically when using wheat more than anything. But my lagers have been carapils/carafoam free, so I figure it's worth trying just to see how it changes the end result, if any. If no difference (or worse) then I just go back to eliminating it and keeping what I have leftover for some big stouts or something...!

 

Since we are speaking of head retention, I just wrote a blog post about it.
Maybe your cream ale used some of these other processes instead to benefit the foam.

http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/uncategorized/foam/