Brewing Activities (2020)

That does not look like the Bahamas.

 

nope, but it sure looks nice

 

Hahahah, so where is it???

 

My guess is Provo River.

 

Busy last couple of days: cleaned and sanitized up four kegs, cleaned up the beer fridge, organized the hops freezer, kegged my German pils, and brewed up a hoppy lager. Cheers!

 

Finished up Tepache beta-v1.2 at work. No real hurry on R&D right now, as it'll only really be feasible to make regularly once things fully reopen. Much more happy with the results this time: tart and refreshing! Would like a bit more pineapple flavor, and a touch more sweetness.
I figure next time I'll cut up the pineapple more to increase surface area, freeze and then thaw to break down cell structure, and also keep a bit better of an eye on how it's coming along. I thought it was good yesterday, but wanted to see the difference another day would make. Lost the touch of sweetness.
I think gravity readings are kinda useless for this, as I would be taking readings on actively fermenting fruit. I am I wrong in this line of thought?

 

Yeah, the problem with gravity readings on fruit fermentation is that you never really have a good baseline reading, because the water and carbs from the fruit aren't instantly homogenized with whatever liquid the fruit was added to.

 

Beautiful place. Did some fishing videos the last two months for sm/lm bass which i why i haven't been brewing. I have a fly rod but it's too much work. lol

 

I want to eventually move to using a juice base for this instead of fruit so that I can standardize it a bit more, but right now I'm saving a quart of each batch to re-pitch in successive batches to build up a mixed culture along with a smidgen of bread yeast (which we use everyday, anyhow, and doubtlessly makes it's way into anything I'm fermenting in the space), as traditionally, Tepache is just fermented from the yeast/bacteria on the pineapple skins.

 

The birth of my Rauchbier, brewing up next weekend!

5 lbs of Vienna over Hickory and Oak. Will become a smoked Helles, blended with Pils.

 

Just fruited 11 Gallons of kettle sour with 7lb Fresh macerated frozen strawberry purée , 5lb of frozen strawberry and 4lb of frozen mango chunks.

 

Pale ale yesterday
11 lbs Maris Otter
Styrian Golding 2.6 AA%; 1.25 oz @ 60 and 6.75 oz hopstand 45 minutes (185° start, 155° end)
S-04 to ferment at ~ 64°

 

Busy brewing weekend for me. 11 gal Enigma IPA batch brewed yesterday, lacto fermentation underway for hoppy kettle sour, and a strong apfelwein with EC-1118 all chugging away as I work down in the basement.

I did wake up this morning to the US-04 fermenting the IPA a little too hot (somewhere between 72-74F), so I built a quick swamp cooler for it. Hopefully this saves it some. With all the brett, saison, and kveiks I've been making recently, I forgot that some yeasts don't like it warm

 

I'm curious how this one goes. I don't believe I ever took this yeast this high.

 

Ha yea... I'll keep you posted. It is now at around 64F with the swamp cooler and fermenting along steadily. It was only in the 72-74F range for the first 8 hours of fermentation – still not ideal, but much better than it could've been.

The last IPA I made was with Omega's Tropical IPA (sacch trois I think?) and I took that one up into the low 80s. It's been a while since I've played with these lower temp strains !

 

I reserved some of the spent grains from the last batch with the intent to dry and pulverize them into flour, thinking I might use them in some bread à la @deadwolfbones. Ended up being 6.3 oz dry weight, 3 cups.

It presented a good opportunity to inspect the results of the 0.038 mill gap setting used for crushing the Maris Otter. For the most part it looks good. There were a few, but not many, whole grains. I’ll probably tighten it just a tad, maybe to 0.035. It also showed me that I need to slow down when adding the finer portions, as there was a sparse scattering of dough balls about the size of a dime.

eta: BTW....spent grains start getting rancid and stinky very quickly.....like overnight.

 

Bottled 1.25 gallon batch of a Dirty Bastard Clone this morning.

Now brewing a Scotch Ale recipe I keep tinkering with.

Cheers all!