Brewing Activities (2019)

Bottled my barrel aged beers (Rye Whiskey BA Wee Heavy & Apple Brandy BA Stout) the past two days and put the Imperial Irish stout and Oatmeal stout into them. Now I have two empty fermentors to brew some more batches over the holidays! Probably a Milkshake IPA and Black IPA to help lower my hop supply currently loading up my freezer (thanks to Yakama Valley's frequent sales!)

 

Dark caramelized sugar fermentability test.

 

Imperial Oat Porter/Stout/Whatever brew today

Batch 3 of this recipe so far

58% MO
10% Munich I
10% Oat Malt
5% Baird’s Chocolate (added at vorlauf)
5% DRC
3% Crisp Pale Chocolate
3% Carastan
2% Midnight Wheat

Cold Steeped some Belgian Black Malt that I’ll add at the end of the boil. Also trying to make some invert #3 to add to the kettle as well.

2 hour boil

HBC472 in WP as well as a few ounces of coffee.

Midwest Ale Yeast

Target is 1.090.. we’ll see

 

Hard seltzer

 

Inability to sleep = time to brew. This one is inspired by ingredients on hand so maybe doesn't quite reflect how I would approach a Scottish Export or an English Brown if I were really aiming for style. Still, there is every reason to think I will like it.

3.25 gallons.
OG 1.052
IBUs: 30? (but hops are old, so probably lower).
SRM: 17? (assumes my home made dark invert is 70 SRM)

5 lbs Briess GoldPils Vienna
6 oz Avangard light crystal malt
5 oz Muntons pale chocolate
8 oz dark invert syrup
.25 oz each Perle and Styrian Aurora at 60 min
.25 oz each Perle and Styrian Aurora at 15 min
US05

Target fermentation temp 65 F.

 

Not hard seltzer. I'm considering using a not insignificant amount of caramelized sugar in a beer and want to know what it's going to do to FG/ABV.

 

Are you making the caramelized sugar?

 

Yes. Shooting for fairly strong caramel flavor, with least possible fermentability. Don't know how practical that is, but I may soon know.

 

Brewed up a CTZ and Vic Secret IPA today... OG of 1.061.

This one will likely be in the spunding/dry hop keg in 2-3 days, for a few days with 4oz of Vic Secret... Then crashed and transferred to a (well purged) serving keg much like my last IPA... Which still is holding up phenomenally. Def the way to go for IPA's with dry hopping!

 

Bottled everything up last night. It finished out at 1.010 (OG = 1.058), final ABV is 6.3%. Tasted the SG sample and I am quite happy with the results! Will report back around Christmas when we crack open a few!

 

Adding coconut and coffee to CCC stout

 

Pale Ale with HBC431 and a little Nugget yesterday.

2row/Munich/Chit/Carahell

Nugget for bittering. 431 in boil and WP, plus a little more nugget in WP.

Top cropped some yeast from the Robust porter I brewed a few days ago. Anyone here do a lot of top cropping? I would normally not harvest yeast from such a high OG beer but since it’s early in the ferment and there hasn’t been as much alcohol produced I don’t see why it would be that detrimental. Might get a little color/flavor pickup when harvesting from a darker beer but I doubt it.

431 is interesting. A little onion/garlic/earthy but some cool underlying fruit.

 

Bottled an American Wheat - basically the Jamil recipe but with big whacks of Olicana hops in. Tastes nice based on the sample although a) while the Olicana is pleasant enough it doesn't seem to be what you'd call a showstopper and b) the US-05 somehow managed about 95% attenuation and got it down to 1.003 - I noticed that the mash temperature got a bit low but that's unexpected!

 

How did you make your caramelized sugar? I did an amber recipe earlier this year, I pulled about 2 qt. of first runs and reduced in a pot over the stove. Added it to the boil at 10 minutes. Caramel flavor was pretty unreal. I actually toned it down the second time I made it. Only took 1 qt of first runs.

 

Basically, I added a little water and boiled. Pretty much like this...
https://thetoughcookie.com/2016/05/08/make-wet-caramel/

 

4 Gallons of American Stout:

- Bottling 2 gallons as is.

- racking 1 gallon onto coffee, maple extract & lactose.

- racking 1 gallon onto bourbon soaked oak chips.

 

I'd be interested in hearing how this turns out, particularly what brand of extract, how much you used, and how it tastes.

 

Got ~41% apparent attenuation, which (after adjusting apparent attenuation to real attenuation) means that roughly 2/3 of the sugar was changed into something unfermentable.

 

How did it taste and feel? Was it cloying?

 

Own its own, it was fairly sweet, with a heavy mouthfeel. In the (diluted) fermenation test, not so much. Definitely not cloying.