Brewing Activities (April edition)

Not really brewing(although I might tonight) but I added a tap to my kegerator tower using a step bit and added a perlick flow control tap. No more picnic taps for me.

 

Ok onto not brewing a New England IPA..... tonight I'm doing an English mild with what I have on hand.
Some castle pale ale malt, biscuit, crisp crystal 45, small amount of crisp chocolate.
Willamette @60
Mashing in 158 and fermenting with so4.

 

One of my favorite styles. What is your favorite yeast for mild/bitters?

 

Admittedly I have never brewed this style. I'm gonna try s04 cause it is in my fridge and I think Nottingham would attenuate too much. If this doesn't turn out well then I will prolly find some other English strain. What is your favorite?

 

Playing the weather to break out the Coolship. Fingers crossed.

 

A while back, I changed all my faucets (except on my jockey box which doesn't get used enough to justify it) to flow control. I used to change line lengths for each keg (if vols of CO2 were different from the last keg), which was necessary, but a PITA. I love the flow control.

 

It seems nice but I haven't gotten a hang of it yet. I serve most beers at 42 on 10 psi.

 

Couple of hiccups with today’s brew.

Did an experimental 3 gal batch of red rye barleywine, 60/40 Red X/ rye. It got stuck bad despite a cereal mash and full kilo of husks. Ended up burning through a BIAB bag and scorching the bottom of my kettle.




Checked on the huge stout I brewed a few weeks back. WLP001/099 has taken it down from 1.138 to 1.040 and it’s still chugging away. Smashed my hydrometer afterwards.

 

I’ve got intertap flow controls. Bought them direct from China. Not used perlicks to compare but for the price they are very good.

 

Dry hopped 2 ipas

 

Just mashed in what maybe could be called a Belgian Session IPA. Magnum, Simcoe, Cascade, Amarillo, T-58, pils, wheat, demerara, targeting 1.052. I tried to do something similar a few months back, with some fairly unfamiliar hops, Tahoma and Jarrylo. Those hops left no impression on me, but as a Belgian Pale Ale, it was nice enough. With this batch, I'm falling back on some hop varieties that I know very well, and feature in the commercial inspiration, Tank 7. Not trying for a clone, though. While calling 1.052 sessionable is a stretch, it's a far cry from the bigger Tank. The T-58 is not too familiar, as I only used it a couple times, a while back. The Basic Brewing guys featured it not too long ago, which I guess influenced me to try it again. I've been brewing mostly with dry yeast lately, for convenience.

 

Just wrapped up another Gluten Free IPA on the Grainfather. Fell short of my OG and had some pump problems. Gotta change my crush a bit.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to compare the brew from Thursday and today. They are both stripped down grain bills of only Pale millet and biscuit rice malts. Brew 1 has 18% oats with Citra, Galaxy and Mosaic. Brew 2 has no oats with Simcoe and Amarillo. Both fermenting with S-04.

There will be an abv difference due to my issues today, but should still nake a good comparison.

 

Huge flow control faucet advocate. As I have mentioned before, I use 2-3ft line length for everything and adjust perfectly at the faucet. Filling bottles/growlers with no issue as well is a nice perk with a growler filler.

The Perlick flow control faucets are everywhere here in NoCal. Almost every brewery/taproom seems to use them. Back home I see them, but not as prevelant. Very popular.

 

Culturing CMY-01 from some St Bretta dregs currently. Plan on using either the CMY, WLP648, or a mixture of both in a 100% Brett Hallertau Blanc saison soon.

 

Bottling at imperial stout tomorrow.

 

Just purchased a Blichmann Riptide Pump along with some other misc. stuff (tubing, rauch malt, fittings, etc...).

Will be utilizing the pump to aid in vorlauf/recirculating at the end of the mash, along with whirlpooling the wort post boil so the chiller can work more efficiently without me having to stir/whirlpool myself. This way I can reduce any potential oxygen on the hot side as well from my manual vorlauf, even though I am careful. So that's exciting.

Also to aid in chiling... Want to add a counterflow chiller at some point, but will give this a go with the pump to see how my cooling times are. Currently, takes me about 30-45mins to cool from boil to lager-pitch temp, and about 10-15mins or so for ale pitch temps, which isn't too bad with my stainless immersion chiller. Will be nice to have the pump be able to do the "work" though.

Brewing my hefe this weekend, so will see how it all goes!

 

Hopefully going to find the time tonight to do some mini blending sessions. I have a 5 gallon Bourbon Barrel with a Quad fermented with 3 Brett strains (no Sacc) that has been in the barrel too long and tastes more like Rum than beer. Also have a 15 gallon wine barrel full of an American Amber Wild Ale - fairly close to a Flanders Red. I need to empty the 15 gallon barrel so I can ferment my Saison in it Saturday.

Need to figure out a good blend of the two for a stronger version. Also toying around with adding some roasted cacao powder to some of it. Will be bottling 6.5 gallons of this beer into 500ml bottles with fresh yeast and sugar for cellaring. The remainder is probably just going on tap as I don't really want to do too much more than I already am with blending, cleaning bottles, bottling, brewing 20 gallons on my 17 gallon system, cleaning the barrel, kegging, cleaning, etc.

 

60% Quad, 40% Flanders, Chocolate 5 gals
20% Quad, 80% Flanders 5 gals
100% Flanders 10 gallons

 

Brewing 10 gallons of Dubbel tomorrow with half of it on plum purée.

 

Just kegged a hefe. Nothing in the fermenters...need to get something else started.