Brewing Activities (2019)

Kegged that "West Coast" pils and should be drinking it mid-week next week. Psyched for my first kegged beer.

Not sure when I'm going to brew next, still waiting on the replacement board for my Robobrew (and no guarantee that'll fix it). If it doesn't, I'll probably just buy a 10 gal kettle and brew on my induction burner.

 

Emptied my bourbon barrel on thursday night. Bottled one gallon of the BA RIS base beer, split the rest up between an Hunahpu treatment (vanilla/cacao/cinnamon/chili), Coffee, and oak cubes I soaked in rye whiskey THEN maple syrup (mimicking a "maple rye" barrel). I've also got 2.5 gallons of an imperial breakfast stout that I'm kegging with some maple syrup tomorrow. Submitting the BA RIS and the breakfast stout to NHC.

 

Making some hoppy cream ale. Or maybe it's pale ale. Or session IPA. Anyway, something in the part of the Venn diagram where those styles overlap. I'm splitting the wort in half and will conduct two boils, yielding about 2.5 gallons each of two single hopped beers (Huell Melon and Hallertau Blanc).

 

It's getting close to sugar in time, soooooo, making EGS or eds grain store which is a low abv, low hopped pale ale. Obviously the boys want\demand beer for sugar house work nd now have requests. Bastards, hahahahaha.

 

Considering brewing my (ever evolving) winter lager tomorrow. I keep waiting for a little heat wave here, but doens't look like one's coming. So I think I'll ust bite the bullet and do a brew in the cold.

Pils and MO, plus a good dose of various darker specialty malts. This time it's looking like it will be W Munich II, D Aromatic, D Special B plus D-180 Candi Syrup. Going with W 34/70.

Cheers!

 

WC inspired IIPA today
1.074
Admiral Pils
Carafoam
Carastan
Touch of oats
Dextrose
10ml hopshot @60
Columbus/Amarillo @ 20
Citra @ 5
Strata/Columbus/Amarillo WP
1056

Wort going into the FV is crystal clear!! Stoked on that at least.

Last brew for a few weeks unfortunately.

 

Bottled 8 gallons of my Chocolate Rye Porter that's been in a barrel for 3 months (3rd beer in there). It was tasting great with the perfect amount of bourbon/oak flavor. After letting some whiskey soak the barrel I then put in a Barleywine in there that will likely age for 6 months or more and will likely be the last use of that barrel.

It'll be nice to only have one barrel to worry about filling at a time! Two has been a real pain especially since they are both over my 5 gallon brewing capacity meaning I have to brew double batches every time.

 

So I’m all set for my brew day this weekend. Girlfriend decided she wanted a smoked beer for her birthday tapping (mid-March) so I am going with Kolsch yeast fermented cool (58 and ramped up to 62 to finish) as my current Kolsch is as clean as a lager with that fermentation profile.

We are big into super smokey Schlenkerla stuff, so instead of my typical Helles-style Rauchbier with 60% Beechwood smoked malt, going for more robust smokey grist.

45% Beechwood Smoked
24% Cherrywood Smoked
24% Mesquite Smoked
4% Caramunich I
3% Acidulated

Expected OG of 1.055, FG of 1.014 - Approx 5.4%

IBU of 20 with single FWH of Hallertau Magnum

Will be brewed low oxygen like all my lager, spunded and put into a keg with a floating clear beer tube system. So pours should be decently clear with a short lager period, i'm hoping.

Looking forward to this rich, smokey beast!

 

First iteration of a red ale recipe using Vienna and Red X.
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Local yokel 100% malt and all local hops...will use probably 2 #s of backyard hops and 20#s of local 2 Row with 4.5 #s of local semi-carmalized wheat...should be a unique and tasty IPA...with of course a split batch gamma amylase addition somewhere... just because

 

I just tried a few glasses of this and I thought I should share a few observations in case someone wants to try the same approach. It landed 2% but does not feel thin. However, I got some diacetyl after fermentation. This is not a flavour I usually get, so i was a bit surprised. Thankfully it is not overpowering and I am able to convince myself it was supposed to be like this, since this was not made to fit any style guideline. Perhaps the S04 was stressed or hop creep was involved? I also noticed that there was less activity in the air lock than normal, but then again that was kind of the point. Not my best beer, but interesting, and I guess with far less consequences per glass than most other beer

 

A couple days ago I added 4 Swanson's Probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum caplets to some canned wort. I checked in last night, and it did not seem sour. It looked like the powder from the caplets had mostly settled out. I was a little worried that the probiotics lost viability. I gave it a shake, to better dissolve the powder, and checked in with it this morning. Definitely got a little tarter overnight, so there was some viable Lacto . Jacking the heat up to 90F today to encourage more growth. The goal is a sour wheat beer, with Mandarina Bavaria dry hops after letting it ferment and sour. I'll add some Brettanomyces clausenii to part of the batch at bottling.

 

A woman who likes rauchbier!? You’ve got a keeper

 

Just finished up a hoppy kveik. Letting naturally cool overnight before I pitch Hornindal in the morning.

12 lb golden promise and 1 lb oats.

Chinook, comet and cascade added throughout, and will be dry hopping with more of these. Hoping to get this one in a keg in the next 10 days or so.

 

Belgian single today, 100% dingemans pilsen, hallertau and saaz hops, OYL Belgian Ale W

 

The wort for my sour wheat is coming to a boil

As a bonus, during the mash I blended a gallon of organic apple juice from the supermarket with a gallon of locally pressed juice that has been in my fridge for about a month. The local juice had a fair amount local microflora activity going on, having been somewhat carbonated. I pitched some Belle Saison directly

 

Version 5 IPA. Threw some victory in to darken it up and will be adding a bunch of hops including one i haven't tried called Exp-6297. Whirl-pooled at 135 for 40 mins so it should be interesting.Also turned the starter off because the OYL-052 was ready to blow out.

 

Dig the label. And the eye!

 

Absolutely! Not only likes, loves… To add to that, for our first trip to Germany in a few months, she asked me if we could add another day in Bamberg… We are in a hotel a 5min walk from Schlenkerla… I’m not complaining one bit! That is the spot she is most looking forward to on the trip!

So the brew day for the rauchbier went great, aside from the power outage at the end of the brewday. Good thing I didn’t need electricity to finish, though. Just made temp control a bit more tricky as the power was out for some 7 hours. I pitched the WLP029 at 54F and it was still 54-55F or so 8 hours later due to me moving the fermenter in/out of the house. Once the power came back on though, back into the chamber it went to get up to its desired 58F, which didn’t really happen as my basement is cool. So added some heat this morning to aid it’s temp rise… Will ramp it in a day or two to 62F to finish up before spunding a few points from FG.

Mash pH came in quite low… I targeted a higher 5.45 as I expected the smoked malt would be more acidic, but it was more than I thought. Came in at 5.1, so I added a little baking soda to raise it up to 5.2-5.25. My water profile had the wiggle room for the additional sodium added, which I have been elevating lately for my malt-forward beers and loving the end results. No issue there!

The color of the finished wort was beautiful. Around 8-9 SRM or so, but man the hue is beautiful. Bright orange/amber.

Wort tasted phenomenal. Love the smoke character in this one, the mix of malts made for a delicious flavor. Once those sugars ferment out, the end result should be awesome I’d expect.

Now planning my next beer… Likely that Pils I wanted to do a few weeks back but delayed. Have plenty of beer in the pipeline, so minus well get another lager going so it can just lager a few weeks until a spot opens up.