What's Brewing? (January Edition)

Brewing up my IPL currently, boil is about 20mins in. All going well so far.

This is my first, complete 'LODO' brew... Following all the suggested procedures... Pre-boil and quick chill to strike temps, SMB dose, underlet, mash cap, tight fittings, no splashing, etc.... Mash pH hit a little lower than expected, i'd expect given the SMB (although I adjusted for it). 5.15 mash pH vs. 5.35. Will just have to adjust next time, not worried about it. Will be spunding and all that at the end of the process. I have done most of this stuff before, expect the SMB really.

I will say... I hear all this talk of the wort tasting completely different using the LODO process that it will blow your mind.. But to me, tastes identical as always? Perhaps compared to people who abuse their wort? lol. I have always taken steps to be careful, so maybe I don't notice much different there...Time shall tell if the additional steps really make for a worldly difference, or not... Perhaps the real deal will be when it flows out of the tap.

All is going good though... The Comet hops I got from YVH smell INCREDIBLE. Not what I expected... So much stone fruit, believe it or not. Smell better than the Amarillo and Medusa I am using as well in this brew.

Excited to drink this one in a few weeks! The hop combo and lager yeast should really make for a poppin' brew.

 

Finally got around to brewing after a 7 week dry spell. NEIPA with galaxy, citra, and mosaic. Happily everything went smoothly.

 

Got a good deal on Cashmere hops so I bought 1/2 pound. Made an IPA with Summit to bitter and Cashmere to finish and will dry hop also. Anyone have experience with this hop? The aroma was interesting, not unpleasant but like a combo of a citrusy and earthy hop.

 

Got a brew day in today after a 4 month hiatus. Life gets in the way of fun sometimes. All good though. Brewed my session strength NEIPA. Re-brew of my favorite beer from last year. Hit my numbers with no hiccups on a beautiful day for January in NE.

Finished up the last of my 2016 hops and a couple new varieties for me. Yakima Valley Grapefruit and Green Machine with Vic Secret and Mosaic. Really looking forward to crushing this one in a few weeks.

 

Dry hoped my Saison with Willamette


(OG: 1.065)

and brewing an Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

 

I’m about an hour away from bottling a black IPA. The cold/crashing over the last 3 days didn’t clear up the murkiness from the dry hopping. It will have to settle out in the bottle. Next stop, Maibock!

 

Report back on this please. Now that damn near every commercial hoppy beer is showcasing tropical and citrus flavors, I've found myself enjoying other hop flavors in my homebrews.

 

The closest thing I have to a News Year Resolution was a promise to myself I would start brewing more regularly again. So far I've brewed an IPA with Phoenix hops, and I have an oatmeal stout in the fermenter. And even more importantly my daughter and her husbandish person spent a month with us and he loved my old stale homebrew so much he bought his own starter setup and has already brewed a stout. When he went back to Alabama he enlisted my nephew to help, the nephew has already bought his own starter kit and will be brewing soon.

 

Bottled all K&K Farms Empire hops ESB. I agree with all the descriptors they use.

 

A 50F degree day in late January? I had to brew. What I think is close to a Trillium Congress St. clone:
1st pic - first go with my new pH meter. Was aiming for pH of 5.3-5.4 so happy about the 5.37 reading. "Only" took me like 2 hours to figure out how to set that thing up and calibrate, etc.
2nd pic - new Brew Bucket in action. May need a fridge to harness temp control when spring/summer roll around.
3rd pic - interesting to see the difference in my temp reading between the Brew Bucket thermowell and the inkbird probe taped to the fermenter. I always knew the temp wouldn't be accurate with the probe taped to the outside wall of my fermenter but it's just good to see. And by how much.

***I need to decide how to dry hop. JC (Trillium) mentioned they do a one-hit dry hop with Congress St. (somewhere in the range of 6oz galaxy and 1.5oz columbus). I hoping to fit all that in my SS 300 micron cylinder. I'm worried it'll be a tight fit and the hops won't fully interact with the beer. Also, one of the benefits of this Brew Bucket is the big lid. I could simply unhinge it and place the dry hops in. This is convenient but will the hops get to disperse their full aroma if they just sit in there and in the SS cylinder? Up until now I've been placing the cylinder in a dry hop keg to dry hop. Each day, I would gently roll and flip the keg upside down. After another 12 hours or so I'd flip it back right side up. Would this result in a more effective dry hop?

Using only the Brew Bucket would be so much easier. I could avoid a transfer to an extra keg and simply perform a closed transfer from the Brew Bucket to the serving keg. Any tips here would be great!

 

I was planning on brewing a golden sour innoculated with Wyeast Lambic blend + S-04 + a house culture. However 10 mintues before knock out the water shut off in my apartment. Turns out the maintenance people had to fix a leak next door so they cut the water off. I hook up the wort chiller and turn it on....d'oh! Apartment living...

I've been planning on brewing some spontaneous beers over the next few months but my original plan was to take the kettle on the roof overnight when it's below 60 and not raining, something rare in Seattle this time of year and extremely difficult to coordinate. Anyways after extending the boil an extra 30 minutes waiting for the water to come back on, I decided to just throw it near my window and let it sit until it's been out more than 8 hours and is down below 70F.

Good thing is the wort was somewhat suitable for this type of fermentation. 71% pils, 29% unmalted wheat. No turbid mash but the saccharification rest was around 158 so it should be a dextrinous wort. Not expecting it to be great but it will at least be a learning point.


Hopefully the empty bottles of American geuze inspired beers will bless this wort

 

Moved the 1848 Porter to the carboy, er, I mean vat and added brett. I got about three clean bottles out as well, so it should be interesting to see how they compare as it ages.

I haven't got a picture, but it's kind of like this:
https://www.anchorbrewing.com/blog/?attachment_id=4024
but a bit smaller.

 

Nice meter. I really like the 101s/102s.

 

Going to make my first beers of 2018 this weekend by replenishing kegs of trippel and helles bock that were floated by family & friends over the holidays. Compliments of my generous brother-in-law who got me an impressive gift card to my local homebrew store as a Christmas present .

 

Last weekend I kegged a single malt / double IPA with Maris Otter, Azacca, El Dorado, and US-05. Unfortunately I had run out of whirlfloc and the final beer was quite opaque. I tried gelatin for the first time but unsurprisingly it didn't do much, since I think it's only meant for chill haze.

On Sunday I brewed the same batch but with Eureka and Ekuanot. All four hops are new to me, I got them on sale from Yakima Valley Hops. So far the aroma of Eureka in the bag stood out to me. Looking forward to tasting the two beers side by side.

 

Last weekend I racked a small batch of Imperial Stout into 2x 1-gallon carboys with bourbon-soaked oak cubes for some secondary aging. I had about 16 oz leftover that didn't fit into the secondaries, so I drank it as is. Despite being flat, warm and young, it was delicious. Probably one of the better beers I've brewed. Hopefully I don't ruin it with the oak...

 

Gravity check on my first ‘LODO’ IPL that is currently at 1.020 (from 1.051) after 6 days. Temp has been raised from 48F to 60F the past two days, bringing it up to dry-hop territory. Will raise to 64F tonight, as I plan to do the dry hop on Saturday morning, where it should only be a few points from FG. Will be getting a dry hop charge of 3.5-4oz total of Amarillo, Medusa and Comet. Then after 3 days or so, keg and add a small (1.5oz total) keg hop mix of each of those hops as well. First time doing the keg hop, curious to see how it goes. I plan to tie the paint strainer bag near the top of the keg so it pulls out after a few pints are drawn out… Will also add priming sugar to naturally carb in the keg and then lager for 2 weeks or so before tapping, just because it is an IPL... Don’t want to let it too long!

I had some sulfur (more than usual) during fermentation, likely due to the SMB added for the oxygen scavenging for the LODO stuff… However, no sign of it in the hydro sample… Just in the headspace venting out. I did about a 25ppm dose (20ppm mash, 5ppm sparge) total.

I must admit, the hydrometer sample tasted quite stunning… Even for being a bit yeasty and all that. I am getting this very bright, tropical fruit note in the aroma/flavor that I have been trying to get for some time with other hop varieties. Wondering which hop is contributing to that, because although I wouldn’t expect it, the Comet crop I got smelled the best out of all three and had a similar aroma… May have to buy another pound of it!

Now even though I was skeptical during the brew day for the LODO stuff, as the wort and everything didn’t taste any different as so many claim, this hydro sample was a step above with malt flavor (2-row, 10% white wheat, 5% light munich, 5% carahell)… Even the girlfriend was all “Wow, that is going to be INCREDIBLE!”. Obviously, waiting for the end result… But it’s promising. Not sure if the hops/recipe used this time around, the LODO process, etc… Too early to tell, but it’s exciting either way at this point. Will be brewing a LODO NE-IPA (Congress Street Clone) next weekend, which I have done before non-LODO, so it will be interesting to see the difference. That should confirm (or not) the process above my typical processes, which is not much different anyway… Basically the only additions to my typical process is the SMB addition, pre-boil mash/sparge water and the spunding and/or keg conditioning. So it’s really not much hassle either way.

On a side note… Some brewing equipment changes… Changed to a false bottom (from bazooka tube) for my mash cooler and also got a pickup tube for my boil kettle (vs. not having one at all on the ball valve), allowing me to pull less trub hopefully.

 

Someone make a what's brewing February thread you know when they brew their next beer. I was gonna brew up a saison this morning but forecast called for snow and of course it's sunny out