What are you brewing? (September 2018)

The brown malt is nice. I’ve used it once before and if you scroll up you will see it lined up in the recent 1 pound secondary malts I just picked up yesterday. Hope my beer turns out as good as yours.

 

FG = 1.009, OG = 1.045 (predicted @ 1.053)

 

Sweet Stout racking sample. The rest is now dry-beaning in a corny.

 

+3 to brown malt. Amber malt is another good one along the same lines, but less roasty flavors.

 

Brewed the barleywine. OG 1.089, a few points shy of where I wanted it

Pulled hydrometer samples from the rice vs. corn pre-prohibition lager experiment. The Mangrove Jack California Lager strain really attenuated these beers 1.056--> 1.005 (corn) and 1.055 -->1.006 (rice). Perhaps I made the wort too fermentable (mashed at 151F). Visually, I couldn't discern a difference between the two samples. Hop character is disappointingly absent. I used clusters, from 2016. The smelled OK but maybe lost their bittering mojo. Supposed to be 38 IBUs, but the samples taste too sweet for that. The beers had 23% of the respective adjuncts and 6 row malt. The corn version seems sweeter than the rice version, but otherwise the overall character is about the same.

Reviewed returned scoresheets from a regional competition. 2 beers, 2 meads, scores ranged from low to high 30s. Old Ale with Brett rated a second place. Comment sheets had the vagaries and contradictions that come with three people doing blind tastings, but were also, at times, helpful.

 

Just mashed in my Munich Dunkel. Grist is 52% Barke Munich, 22% Munich I, 26% Barke Pilsner. I have 4oz Carafa III cold steeped in water overnight which I am adding at flame out for color. German Tradition being used for hopping. Pitching WLP830.

 

Sweet Stout. Post dry coffee beaning xfer to serving keg.

 

A week or two behind @VikeMan, current chilling a 5.5%ish stout that I plan on dry beaning for the last couple days before bottling. Going to reuse the yeast for this monster. During the mash, bottled a simple pale ale that came in at 4.5% and used up a lot of 2016 hops from the freezer. Got a nice breeze flowing through the apartment now that it's finally cooling off a bit, so there's a crockpot full of chili going as well. Good day for food and drink!

 

Brewing up a Cascade hopped Special Bitter. Not all according to plan. I was 3 degrees high on the mash (157 F to start, 155.5 average), which may have had something to do with getting less than my usual efficiency (that, and MO as the base grain, perhaps). This has lead me to trying to boil off a gallon of wort befoe my one-our boil with the hops. I neglected to purchase propane yesterday, and so I may run out before it is all over (at which point it will be over!). In the end, though, it'll be beer and I'll likely drink it. First-world problems! Cheers, y'all.

 

Just finished up a brew day. Brewed 2 batches 3 gal each using a malt grown and malted locally. Just simple PA's, to get an idea how the malt is.

Everything was going perfectly until I measured the OG, waaaaayyyy off. I didn't mind the gap, my roller mill slipped, killed efficiency. Missed by target by 15 pts.

So now I have a couple of session PA's.

 

I haven't ever done keg to keg transfers. Can you explain how the pressure gauge at the bottom is coming into play? I think I have a feel that it is bleeding out displaced CO2, but could probably use the explanation on the setup and function.

 

All Galaxy IPA today, well some Magnum for bittering, Galaxy at 20,5,170. Rahr 2 Row/Weyermann Pale/Carafoam/Carahell.
Imperial Juice

Hope to do my first mixed ferment Saison with bacteria this week. Sacc, Brett, Lacto brevis from the get go.

Also looks like temps are gonna get down into the 30s later this week. Might try my first few spontaneous ferments.

Gotta keg a whit beer. Gonna split it and condition in one of the kegs with some Brett C.

 

Yes, that's the idea. It's a spunding valve, set to about 2 PSI. (Anything lower than the transfer push pressure would work.) The displaced CO2 bleeds out, without allowing air back in. Here's an old picture of it (or one like it). Note the swivel/flare nut on the end, which connects to a corny keg gas quick disconnect.