Brewing Activities? (March Edition)

Just brewed a hoppy wheat Sunday. It is sitting fermenting away now for the next 7-10 days.

Pretty straight forward grist - 2 row, red wheat and a splash of caravienne for funsies.

Little warrior at the start of the boil then a few hits of Amarillo through the rest of the boil, may or may not dry hop it with more Amarillo as well.

The last beer I did (which is on tap now) was my first foray into yeast blending. I pitched them all at the same time at the same temp, which I think was a mistake, because you clearly get the heffe notes and not so much the dry ale notes. It was fun and I plan on screwing around with it more coming up.

 

Update:
I spent the weekend peering a totally inactive airlock, Googling for "WLP500 lag time" and trying to RDWHAHB. Shouldn't have worried - on Sunday evening, about 48 hours after pitching, it suddenly woke up and now it's going like the clappers.

 

Figuring out my closed transfer system with a Stone Arrogant Bastard clone. It worked great except for the leaky hole I drilled through the rubber stopper for the racking cane. Those things are a pain to drill! Managed to rack the beer still, just a tad slower than I’m used to.

 

Decided to skip the blonde ale and citra lager and go for a NE IPA cause I got too many lagers conditioning right now. Grist is pilsner, MO, little c10, wheat malt, flakes oats. Distilled Water treated with gypsum and calcium chloride.
Hops will be Nelson, Hallertau Blanc and maybe Amarillo/Citra.

 

I'm gonna end up using both in IPA. But I will get more.

 

8lbs 2 Row
2lbs White Wheat
.5lb Flaked Oats
4oz Carastan
.75 oz Mosaic @45
1 oz Mosaic + 1 oz Amarillo @15
1 oz Mosaic + 1 oz Amarillo @Flameout for 30 minute hopstand/whirlpool
1 oz Mosaic + 1 oz Amarillo @15 minutes into the 30 minute hopstand/whirlpool
1 oz Mosaic + 1 oz Amarillo @biotransformation hopping (2 days into fermentation)
1.5 oz Mosaic + 1.5 oz Amarillo @keg hop
04
I got 80%efficiency so OG for the 5.2 gallon batch was measured at 1.062 and I'm predicting an FG of 1.012 or so for an ABV around 6.48% with 68.61 IBUs and an SRM of 4.92

I haven't been very happy with the 15 or so batches I've brewed with London 3, Vermont Ale and Omega DIPA so I went back to 04, which was the first yeast I used in NE IPAs years ago and the best yeast IMO (for what I want out of the final beer) for the style.

 

Brewed a small batch of Marzen(ish) lager at the weekend. ~90% Munich and ~10% GNO (thrown in as they were surplus to an IPA recipe and had already been crushed so needed using up) Main temp controlled FV has a 1.115 imperial stout still 10pts shy of the forced samples FG so the Marzen is fermenting at about 18*C ambient, currently pumping my spare bedroom full of sulphur. Yeast is Saflager W-34/70, interested to see first hand how it comes out at Ale temperatures.

 

@DrMindbender i started using s04 when making New England ipas and will be going back if this batch of Vermont yeast doesn't perform.

 

Bottleing a lager and moving the brewery back to the farm this weekend.

 

I bottled a 100% Brett Sour on Sunday. I have nothing else in the pipeline at the moment. I'm planning out a few recipes for my next trip to my LHBS.

I'm thinking about doing a very low-gravity Citra pale ale that I'll ferment with all of the trub from the Brett Sour. There's lacto still in that trub, but I'm counting on the IBUs to keep it from doing anything.

I was also thinking about doing a Hefe, but I might try a 100% Vienna Dampfbier instead because nobody brews those, and I like to be an elitist.

 

Was this the first pitch of that culture (lacto included?). I have a brett culture that definitely has some lacto in it's souring power has been proven near indestructible in the presence of high hopping rates (although IBUs are only in the 30's). However, my culture is multiple generations old now and I suspect has built up some IBU/hop tolerance.

But hey, either way sour IPAs are all the rage now-a-days! I'd image a tart tang would go well with a citrus-forward hop like citra.

 

Sorry for the double post...

But where are you sourcing your Nelson? I can't get my hands on any for the life of me without paying $4+ per ounce.

 

Homebrew store sells it. He gets it from BSG. I actually only pay 2.50 an ounce.

 

My forced fermentation test on my Festbier resulting a FG of 1.011... Have been dropping the fermentation temp from 48F to 46F the last 24hrs to prepare for kegging/spunding. Will pull a hydro reading from the fermenter today to see where the main batch is at.

OG was 1.053 (came in 2 points lower than expected), so this Festbier is a little on the lighter side at 5.5-5.6% ABV. Hit my pre-boil gravity, but my post-boil was what was off which was weird. Usually always spot on with my ~10% boil off rate. Target was 1.055 OG. Tasting really, really good though! Can't wait for May to dig in.

 

Brewing my 13th installment of Reiff Bros Brown, an American Brown Ale. Currently the sparge is running off. Such malty goodness! Cheers!

Edit: I'm going with MJ's M54 yeast this time. Decided to try it as it's a dry yeast version of Cal Lager.

 

Belma is a pretty weak-sauce hop in that it's not particularly aromatic. It's actually probably best as a bittering hop. I was not very impressed with some that I bought a while back. Cheers!

 

My experience was that any beer I put Belma in, it dominated. Not because I would consider it particularly strong or pungent, but maybe because it occupies such a unique space in the flavor/aroma wheel? I used it as a single hop in a saison, which I think worked well. In a NEIPA, I used it along with the usual suspects, and I think they complimented each other. I also dry hopped a cider with it, but I've yet to give that a proper tasting. It's also the only hop I've ever used that I believe contributes to mouthfeel. All four beers I used Belma in had this slick yet full mouthfeel that I've never had any of my other beers. Maybe I'm full of it, but I swear its there.

Sounds like a great choice for a strawberry milkshake IPA to me. Of course, I've never brewed or consumed such a beer, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

Yeah, it was the first pitch of lacto plantarum (via a carton of Goodbelly).

That surprises me that it would be that resilient. You always hear of people suggesting to keep IBU's below 10 for Berliner Weisses and the like because lacto can't tolerate it. I figured IBUs in the 30's would keep me safe. I guess it will be a fun experiment either way it turns out.

 

Boiled up a ~2 gallons low gravity wort made from pale DME. Transferred to canning jars. Will use my electric biab system to maintain a 100 degree water bath. Added lactic acid to help preserve. In the morning, when wort has equilibrated with water bath, will pitch some Good Belly in each jar. After a week, will stop souring by raising temp. Plan to blend in a fermenter with wort from English porter/dark mild and sour cherries + cherry juice to make a low gravity kriek-like beer.

 

So last night, I was checking the gravity of my fermenting Festbier (~1.032 currently, still a few days to go until spunding).

However, I had a blowoff on and wanted to switch to a standard bubble-airlock for ease of taking samples (not sure why I didn’t just have the s-airlock on anyway from the beginning). So I removed the stopper installed in the top of the SS Brewtech bucket I have, and reinserted the stopper back in the lid. Well, pushing the S-Airlock into the position, because I had sprayed sanitizer on top, the stopper pushed through and dropped right into the beer. Thankfully, I had a spare grommet to install and use (which does seal), but hopefully nothing bad comes out of the stopper falling in… It’s silicon, so I don’t expect any flavors or anything. More-so, just contamination risk. But given the alcohol content and everything now, I assume very low risk. I tried to gently fish it out with a sanitized spoon, but no luck finding it…

Tis’ a new one for me, though! Will just have to retrieve it when the beer gets transferred into the keg soon.

On a side note, also got four of my kegs cleaned, modified (cut dip tubes about 1”) and all rebuilt with new gaskets. Bought my o-rings in bulk from eBay/Amazon and got 50-100 gaskets for like $5 each of each type (dip tube, disconnect, keg lid, post).

I have four other kegs that will need rebuilt as well once they are empty, as all four are currently in my keezer now.