Brewing Activities (2020)

@wasatchback So, no pressure to answer this at all, but... do you just drink an ungodly amount of beer, have a lot of beer-drinking relatives/friends, or make really small batches? Seems like you're brewing every day.

 

Also that beer sounds great.

 

Continue on with your edgy self and chill down some Pepsi.

 

Buy an Inkbird and turn it into a fermentation chamber for lagers and such. Or just stock it full of beer and drink at will.

 

I imagine there's plumbing running through the side walls. If so, a keezer is probably not a great idea, and fermentation fridge is probably a good use. Or a bottle fridge, if you have a lot of bottles.

But if the plumbing is only in the back wall, I'd be tempted to turn this into into a unique keezer, with faucets in one sidewall.

 

Prep, since you keg, I'll go with the farm chamber, tho a display of bottled beer in a variety of bottle and vintage would be cool.

Nice pic with daughter

 

Bottling Irish, raking Burton.

 

Making some starter wort for WY2565 ("Kolsch-vid 19") and some lacto (mango ginger sour). I'll do the AP Kolsch on Sunday, I think, and the sour later in the week.

 

Bottled various brews off kegs to bring on vacation #2. All kegs are now empty and clean. Gonna do a little August dry out, but I'll be brewing to have beers on tap for September.

 

Bottled my kolschy golden ale. Tasting really good, should be nice and pale if the k97 ever clears.

 

My only recollection of k97 was a split batch cream ale in which I compared it to US-05. US-05 was the <ahem> clear winner.

 

Don’t worry that will clear in 36 weeks .

 

While this Averagely Perfect batch is cooling to pitching temp, I kegged (and keg hopped) the red ale from the previous week.

This red is my first time keg hopping naked with the clear beer draught system. I've been afraid to not use a hop sack, but the last time I did, the float got tangled up with the hop sack and that obstructed me from getting at the last several pints. However, pre-keg hop (and uncarbonated), I have to say it has the makings of a really pleasant amber ale. Finished at 1.010, with a touch of lingering malt.

 

Brewed up the new Rauchbier today and kegged the Oktoberfest. Pitched the Rauch on the Oktoberfest yeast cake. Be my final brewday for a while as my inventory will be stocked up for a bit!

 

Guess I'll have to turn into a haze bro, for golden ales instead of the usual NEIPAs

 

I was just surprised that US-05, not known for dropping clear, won on that particular front. I was unable to perceive other differences between the two beers. As clarity isn’t make or break for me, I was happy to have twice as much tasty beer.

 

I got a bit of yeast esters from the beer when I as packaging it, something that I don't get from US05. Although whether or not I'll get that in a couple of weeks I don't know.

The clarity was similar to US05 when packaged and that does tend to take a few weeks to drop bright for me when I've used it in the past - I never fine but tend to have a fair bit of calcium in the beer

 

I smoked 2 lbs of wheat malt over hickory for around 3-4 hours. Added to a Weisenbock and it was delicious, but I might dial it back to 1 lb next time, or just not smoke it as long. Hickory is a strong wood, and it was a meaty beer! Thankfully I had it on tap in the dead of winter.

 

Yeah, hickory is about as strong as it gets. We have a bag of hickory powder in our spice cabinet and you can't smell anything else.