Brewing Activities (2019)

I haven't posted on BA in years, in fact I don't even remember the name of my old account. Oh well, here we go;

Recently brewed a Golden Stout with my fiancee. Going to make a tincture with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans this weekend to add in two weeks. Going to also add coffee beans the same weekend.

Kegged up a hoppy pilsner. Just waiting for it lager before I tap it.

Brewing a Stout with hazelnut and vanilla this weekend. Also going to be brewing a hazy IPA with Vic Secret and Citra. Brewed that one several times and it's one of my favorites.

Looking forward to brewing and posting again!

 

Doing something different. Did an overnight BIAB mash with 67% pils and 33% rye, and did an overnight mini starter from a 1 g packet of Mysterium Ehwaz Nordic yeast flakes. Will hop with US Tettnang and ferment warm. Contingencies plans are US-05, Mandarina Bavaria, and Huell Melon, depending on what the yeast does. Beer name will have to be Rye Kveik, because it sort of sounds like the way I say Reyjkavyk, and because Iceland and Norway are like cousins, and because stupid beer names are my thing.



Mini starter = half pint low gravity wort in Mason jar (birds eye view)

 

Brewing outside the box today.

Chocolate Oatmeal Stout:
2-row
Flaked Oats
Chocolate Wheat
Pale Chocolate
Carafa 1
C-60 & DRC-120

Pitching Safale-04. Added 4 ozs. of Cacao powder in the whirlpool. I’ve got a tincture of an ounce of Cacao nibs and vodka waiting to be added. Not sure if it’s enough but it was recommended to me by the LHBS. Shot for only 25 ibu’s. Mashed high with a 1085 OG. So I’m interested to see how it turns out. I’ll post when it’s done.

 

Brewed up my strawberry vanilla cream ale today. Simple recipe of 2-row, flaked corn, and honey malt and fermented with 1056. Got to get those summer beers ready to go as summer is bound to show up sometime.

Also had a taste of my coffee stout that is sitting in a 10 gallon barrel. Tasting quite good so planning to add a bunch of vanilla beans tomorrow and will bottle in a couple of weeks.

 

Brewed a Ginger Kolsch with wyeast 2565. OG was 1.062 in about 6 gal.

2 row
Crystal 75L
Briess Aromatic Malt
A bit of Rye

Hops/spice:
0.5 oz fresh ginger @ 15 mins
El dorado
Hello Melon
Sterling

 

It doesn't have much going on that is Kolschy (the yeast), but looks like it could be really tasty. I'll be curious to hear more about this. I could see myself doing one of my cream ale riffs with a similar hop & yeast combo (and, yeah, people might tell me it doesn't look much like a cream ale).

 

Since it's not made in Cologne and has a darker munich malt and a bit more hops, it's really a Kolsch Style-Style Ale. But it's delicious so far!! 0.5 oz of ginger is light but certainly perceptible. I could go up to 1 oz next time to make it stand out. As for the yeast, it's definitely a great one.

 

Brewed a grisette using this really interesting-sounding yeast yesterday. Lotta pils and a little red wheat. 1.043 OG, which given this strain's supposedly lower attenuation should still yield a nice 4%ish. Bittered with Magnum and used Hallertau Blanc for the aroma additions (up to about 25 IBU).

Starter tasted and smelled great, very saison-like.

 

Washed 6 kegs, 2 cases of bottles and plate chiller this weekend.

Gearing up for my next brew sessions, next brew will mostly likely be the APA American Brown recipe. I've picked up all of the ingredients, now waiting for the final recipe/process to be completed.

 

Brewed another one already. Wanted to create a unique beer and use up some ingredients so I brewed this up. It's has orange, toasted wood, oats, and lots of hops. I think it has things it doesn't need, but I know it's going to be a good, strong ale.

OG = 1.085 in 6 gallons. I added WLP500 (Monastery yeast). Should be about 9%.

Maris Otter
1 lb Victory
1 lb Dextrin malt (meant to put in 8 oz!)
10 oz Special B
2.1 lb 5-Grain Oats, steeped and rinsed separately (added the rinse after boil)
3 lbs cane sugar added end of boil

--Hops / spice
1 oz orange peel (added to primary after major fermentation)
1.5 cup (4.5 oz) toasted wood cubes in boil and primary
2 oz Nugget @ 60 min
2 oz Mandarina Bavaria @ 30 mins
1 oz Willamette @ 20 mins
1 oz Willamette @ 15 mins
2 oz Kent Goldings @ 5 mins
1 oz Heull Melon @ 1

 

I just kegged a Vienna Lager and successfully completed my first truly closed transfer. ~2 PSI of gas into my BrewBucket and pushed into the keg. No issues with the lid thankfully...

 

Wow, that cacao yeast took my beer from 1.043 to 1.008 in ~36 hours and seems to be done already. 81% AA.

 

Going to attempt one of the modern Sour IPAs that places like Rare Barrel and Hudson Valley are brewing. I’ve had both recently and it’s amazing how different they are yet similar at the same time.

Hudson Valley FG is 1.024-1.030 and pH is closer to 3.5-3.6. They’re also using lactose. Rare barrel I had was 1.011 pH and 3.87 pH, I don’t believe there’s lactose in their’s. Both breweries are supposedly blending barrel aged sour beer into an IPA. I’ve got some really sour beer that’s been again for a year that I could use but I think I’m just going to brew a kettle sour and blend that in.

Plan is to brew two separate 6 gallon beers, one standard heavily hopped IPA and one heavily fruited kettle sour. When all is said and done blend some samples to see how much sour beer I need to add to get the balance correct then blend that into one 5 gallon keg. Remaining beers will go into two separate 3g kegs. So I get one Sour IPA, one heavily dry hopped IPA, and one heavily fruited kettle sour.

Going to attempt to split the difference gravity and pH wise. According to Rare Barrel they have to dry hop at 8lbs per barrel to get any hop presence to come through when blending in acid beer. Probably won’t go that high but maybe...

 

I got substantial hop character in a sour saison at a fraction of that level of dry-hopping. If I recall correctly I used 3 ounces of Mandarina Bavaria in 5 gallons of beer. It was, if anything, too much hop character for me.

 

What was your FG? What was your pH? Keep in mind I’m not dry hopping a sour beer. The reason these breweries are doing it this way is the odd character you get when dry hopping a low pH beer. I’m dry hopping a normal beer then blending in acid beer after the normal beer has been removed from the hops.

 

I'll have to look up my FG when I get home, but it was fairly low, being a saison. I rarely measure the pH of my beer and I didn't record the pH of this one, but I would guess in the neighborhood of 3.4 or 3.5 based on similar beers I've had.

Good point on the methodology, though, I didn't read very carefully. Still, assuming a 1:1 blend, that's 4 pounds per barrel of finished product or ~10 ounces for every 5 gallons. A lot of hops.

 

Just kegged a blonde ale and added 1 liter of pineapple juice to the keg to have on tap for upcoming hot days and the beer honestly needed something . Tastes pretty nice now.

 

That's way higher than what you might expect from the White Labs website. They say it's 65% - 70%. It's good though?

 

Update: the brewery tapped this last night. Despite the intent to make a West Coast IPA, it's super hazy despite use of whirlfloc, suggesting that the Kveik behaves like London III, etc. at least when dry-hopped. No oats or wheat in the grist, just 2-row, Pilsner, and Carapils. Hops included 15 IBU of Warrior, and then Citra/Amarillo/Simcoe all at flameout with 1oz/gal DH for 7 days. It is the most citrusy beer I've made, and the yeast clearly added strong orange/tangerine esters which seemed to complement the Citra. Dry with moderate bitterness. Not as piney as expected but really interesting. I'm planning on tweaking this on my home system next month, and I'm excited to play with Kveik some more.