Brewing Activities (2020)

Added nibs, bourbon from nibs and vanilla bean to imperial stout. When I opened the fermenter I got a big hit of Magnum hops (which the recipe called for). Worried it might be too hoppy, even if I halved the charge for the 1/2 recipe.

I learn a little bit more after every batch, and the lesson from this one is to calculate boil off rate. I used half the water called for, but ended up with 1.3 gallons instead of 2.5. While I will get fewer than 15 bottles from this, it did, given my efficiency issues, allow me to nail the target OG of 1105. I will drink a few this year and, as others here suggested, cellar a few for next year.

Have a good one!

 

Kegged my Raspberry sour a couple of days ago. Tasting great so far, hoping the carbonation level will be right for Thanksgiving, which it seems like it will be.

I will be kegging my Barleywine this weekend. My sample came out a little lighter in color than expected but the flavor was right where I want it to be so far.

I installed a sightglass on my boil kettle last weekend and will be better dialing in my boil off rate this weekend. I keep missing my gravities and I suspect it's because my boil off rate assumption has been nothing better than a complete guess.

 

Imperial Brown tomorrow

OG 1.080
87% TFGP
2.9% each DRC, TF Brown, TF Crystal II, TF Pale Chocolate
1.4% TF Chocolate
40 IBUs Merkur to bitter, Amarillo Late and dry
Voss Kveik

Going for a chocolate and orange thing

 

With coronavirus keeping me from making an annual holiday trek to PA to be with family, what's a lone homebrewer to do on Thanksgiving? Answer: Chocolate Porter, with a ridiculous grain bill that includes every dark malt in my inventory:

Est OG 1.064 , Est batch size 3 gallons

66.3 % Maris otter (Crisp?)
10.6 % Opal 22 (Meccagrade crystal)
6.6 % flaked oats
5.8% Carafa I (dehusked)
4% Black malt (Briess)
4% Pale Chocolate (Crisp)
2.8% Chocolate (Briess)

Perle hops (~25 ibus, bittering)
Cocoa powder (not sure what kind, some sort of organic Dutch process), probably only have about 3 oz, end of boil.

S-04
Cocoa nibs in near the end of primary, probably have about 4 oz.

 

@pweis909 Happy Thanksgiving, next year will hopefully be better for all Americans.

 

Thanks! To clarify, I have not been diagnosed with coronavirus, but my parents are in a retirement community that has a quarantine restriction, and travel would feel kind of iffy in any event. But I made beer and tacos and played with my dog in the snow, and all that feels like a pretty good way to spend the holiday.

 

Just mashed in on a gf NEIPA. Decided to try out one more character malt as I continue to fine tune this recipe. Dialing back the IBUs as well.

Biscuit Rice 4L
Goldfinch Millet
Quinoa
Oats

Riwaka/Citra hot side
Nelson/Riwaka/Citra dry hop

Verdant

Also bottling an American Brown Ale that I'm super excited about. The sample is delicious!

 

For my 5th anniversary of brewing I'm doing a milky coco/coffee porter or stout. Made a cold brew with 1oz each of the coffee that I'll add before racking. Curious how the GP will work out and also using wlp002 and fuggles.

 

That TFGP is awesome, I use it as the base for everything.

 

brewing more irish stout tomorrow. subing the L 60 with British crystal 50/60 for the bite.

 

Bottled my saison, took 10 days to reach fg, got 86% aa. Half was the base beer, other half I added brett c. First time using oyl-042, which I think is the same as wy3726. Sample tasted fantastic.

 

Looking forward to a side by side pic when it’s done and in the glass

 

Brewing a stronger saison today. Using a new to me yeast on this batch, ECY46 Farmhouse 2. Looking to make this batch in the 7.5% to 8% range which is a big change from my usual 4% to 5%.

Had a Fantome Primtemps for the first time in years last weekend and wanted to try to get a base beer down before playing around making a bigger funky/tart saison.

 

brewed the irish and bottled the drunkin king IRS. not entirely pleased with the king due to the lack of bourbon taste. nibs and coffee came thru nice as did the oak/maple flavor. perhaps i should have added bourbon along with the bourbon soaked wood, but its what it is.

 

Bottled my no-chill tripel today. It finished at 1.006 for an ABV of ~8.6%. The sample I took before bottling tasted great so I can't wait for it to carb. In the meantime, I'll be drinking the rye saison that I bottled a few weeks back. It's gotten a lot better over the past week or so. I'll post a pic of it once I take one that doesn't look awful. I'm also trying my hand at spent grain bread for the first time, so we'll see how that turns out once it's out of the oven.

I ordered an Anvil Foundry, a bunch of water adjustment chemicals, and entirely too many hops this weekend, so my deep dive into brewing is officially underway. Now I just need to find more people* to pawn my beer off on....

*preferably people who will actually rinse out my bottles and give them back

 

Good luck with that

 

Gorm says "no return no refill". Works most of the time.

 

Took some White Labs London Ale yeast I harvested in January last year out of the keezer and tried it in a starter. Hoping it comes back to life. We’ll see.