What's Brewing? (July 2018)

Brewing up a Citra, Mosaic, El Dorado Session NEIPA today. After having some success at making Milkshake IPAs figured I'd give NE a try.

 

First brew day in 6 months, and the first one on my new eBIAB system. Trying to dial it in with a simple pale ale recipe. I used Enigma and Idaho 7 hops, hoping for an easy drinking tropical summer beer.

 

Brewing another round of my always popular strawberry milkshake IPA. Mosaic and strawberry goodness for days. In the keg now, and just about ready to drink!

 

Brew day of 11 gal saison went well yesterday. Hit my target OG of 1.053 straight on! Hopped to 20 IBU with warrior and 2 oz Amarillo at flameout.

Just added motueka as biotransformation hop to the Brett Trois vrai/Drie fermenting batch

Will add white grape concentrate to the YB Saison blend I fermenting batch in another day or two, or as ferment begins to slow. Hallertau blanc dry hop on this one a few days before bottling for a white wine-ish saison

 

Well I got 110 pds of Irish malting company grain coming in today (hopefully) so I’ll prolly make a quick little beer to test the grain out. Little cascade and centennial in boil and that’s it. Ferment with Notty.

 

Have a starter spinnin' of WL German Lager for a Helles this weekend. Be my first, actually!

 

was finally able to brew this past Sunday after not brewing since some time in May. Of course by now all the yeast I had was a bit old, so had to do a starter. I have a bit of anxiety around starters since I suffered a "deep partial thickness" burn on my thumb the only other time i attempted a starter. Fortunately i had my big elbow high BBQ gloves and fermcap, so no issues this time around.

Made an NEIPA and i guess overshot my yield to 5.75 instead of 5.25gallons or so, must not have had the best boil off oddly enough. naturally ended up with a 1.050 OG, so a nice light summer drinker - provided it has some body and a decent mouthfeel.

2row, white wheat, cara, c15, 9oz corn sugar and 2oz of Acid malt. 5.35pH, calcium 120, sodium 26, sulfate 105, chloride 175.

Whirlpooled under 160 with 5oz Mosaic, 2oz 2018 Vic Secret
pitched White Labs Coast Haze - first time using it, fermenting at 68.
Biotrans hop of 2oz mosaic, 1oz vic secret. A second dry hop will come of 4oz mosaic and 3oz vic secret.

 

Ya I heard a lot of good things like plump grain and good efficiency. Looking forward to it. I got a sack of their stout malt which actually has a lighter lovibond rating than the Irish ale malt that I also got a sack of. I thought that was really odd. The sacks were ridiculously cheap.

 

How long will that and the sack of ale malt (55 lbs?) last you, and how do you store it?

 

Prolly 2 months. I store it in 5 gallon food grade buckets with a gamma lid once I open it. The sacks were 45 a piece so at sub 1 dollar a pound I brew frequently and often donten gallon batches which use 20-30 pounds of grain.

 

Thanks....Yeah, gamma lid is what I was thinking. Where did you order it from?

 

Lowe’s has them

 

Made me laugh. My bad, I meant where did you order the grains from?

 

Oh my LHBS. That’s the best deal for me cause it’s right down the street

 

Using a spunding valve for the first time. Racked a pale ale brewed 3 days ago to the keg on top of some dry hops. OG was 1.056, down to 1.020 today. Spunding at 20 PSI at 65. Should be interesting. I figure it will be 2/3 carbed if all goes well.

 

20 PSI at 65F will get you ~2.1 volumes of CO2. But if you want more, why not spund at a higher pressure? e.g. if your goal is, say, 2.7 volumes, you could spund at ~29 PSI (at 65F).

 

I bought the valve from an online brew store, and to my surprise when I opened it the instructions said that the spring would hold just a little over 20 PSI in the PRV. I have it barely cracked open and it's at 23 this morning. Live and learn. I'll use it for a while and then think about making the next one myself.

 

Get in there! 5 lbs of frozen mangos to my first milkshake ipa.

 

Brewed czech-style pils no. 6 Monday. First time using Weyermann floor malted bohemian pilsner malt. Otherwise similar recipe with the exception of an increased pitch rate to 2.5 from 2.0 and I don't plan on doing a D-rest, unless diacetyl or its precursor are still present. Didn't have any fermentation issues in the past but wanted to increase pitch rate to see if I can just leave it at 48-50 the whole fermentation.

Fermentation is going slow and steady. Normal lag time from prior experiences (about a day) and thick krausen by day 2. Sulfur is starting to get heavy, but it's always cleaned up fine with time in the past, using 2124. Looks less vigorous than prior fermentations but it's a slightly lower OG (1.044) and slightly cooler (48) than I've done in the past, also pitching rate is different...

Really excited, last batch came out awesome and I'm ready for more pilsner!