Brewing Activities (2020)

Kegged my New England beer with galaxy,barbe rouge, and HBC experimental. Bulk aging my triple for a few months in the keg, and brewing a new ipa today.

Grain bill:
50%2 row
45% MO
5% Victory

Summit at 60 minutes
Summit, Glacier, and Simcoe at flameout.
Fermenting with Nottingham.
Will dry hop for 5 days with same flameout hops.

 

Have you had a chance to try this out yet?

 

Not yet. Need to motivate myself to brew an IPA.

 

This is the same idea, I just loosen the cap on the left to let the pressure out a few times. Also I have to clean after each use. But it mixes the hop pellets in extremely well.

 

Anybody know when to expect 2020 Simcoe? I know it's a later harvest, but when?

 

Which terroir?

 

Yakima

 

Brewed a 3 Gal batch of my house Saison to split into some winter fruit experiments.

Pils, Wheat, Spelt, acidulated
Hallertauer, Strisselspalt, Amarillo
My go-to yeast has been WY3726 lately but my LHBS was out so I grabbed Belle.

I have some Cali grown Albariño grapes, Cab Sauv pomace, and considering something with fresh citrus and herbs.

 

Blend of lemon and satsuma zest with fresh thyme would be dope.

 

I agree. I did this a few years back on a saison. I’m pretty sure I used 4 gal wort and 1 gal white wine must, and it turned out fantastic. It went from being ‘ok’ when fresh, to really good after a year of bottle conditioning. Would like to try this again on a batch soon

 

That sounds amazing.

I’ve had this idea for awhile to try Pomelo and Tarragon...almost like a citrus/fennel thing. I need to buy both and try them together to actually see if they’ll work though.

 

Going to brew more golden sour base for my solera barrel on Sunday, since I finally got a pump that will let me package some of the beer that's been in there since last November.

Also need to keg a sticke alt I made with the cake from my Voss pale mild.

 

Citrus and tarragon or fennel is a great combination, but you'll probably get better results with fennel seed than tarragon in beer (less green material)

 

I have to imagine white wine must could be really nice. Gamay was a good (sour, low tannin, fruity) grape, but all I've got going right now wine-wise is a Cabernet Sauvignon. Not exactly sure what beer style I could blend that into without either totally overwhelming the beer or creating an unharmonious clash. I could always just settle for putting some cab-soaked oak cubes under a biere de garde, or something.

 

Cracked a bottle of the tripel today because patience is not my strong suit. It's delicious already so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it ages. Can't take any credit from the recipe because I basically took the Candi syrup Westmalle clone recipe and dumbed it down (not that it's all that complicated to start with). No noticeable downsides to going no chill with this brew, so I may be doing that more in the future with similar styles to limit my water waste.

I ordered my Foundry a week ago but have yet to hear anything about shipping, so I might just break down and brew a small BIAB batch this weekend to give Wai-Iti hops a try.

 

Just put a split batch IPA into fermenters:

Rakua, Citra, and Sabro hops. I’m fermenting 1/2 of the batch with London Ale III, the other 1/2 is S-04.

I tried a long Mash this time because life keeps getting in the way of brewing. It wasn’t an overnight mash but I started it around 11:30 am and finished around 8PM. The only difference I noticed so far is that my SG is higher. Oh well you do what you have to to get it in.

 

First double brew day ever!

Amber went great. Its a slushy, snowy mess outside, so why not?

Second Brew:
GF Milk Stout that will eventually get coffee, vanilla & cacao nibs.

 

First brewday today since May or thereabouts. American Brown Ale with brown, dark crystal, and pale chocolate malts, Cascade hops, and Notty yeast. Cheers!

 

Bottled this extract pale today while watching Saints @ Falcons.

On ferm-day six I added ½ oz. French oak chips, after draining the 1792 Small Batch bourbon they’d been soaking in. Didn’t notice oak or bourbon in a later sample.
Two vanilla beans (scraped and chopped) had been marinating in 3 oz. 1792 bourbon for months. Strained the beans and put the bourbon in the fermentor five days ago. It ended up being 2 oz. liquid due to absorption by the v-beans and the filter.

FG sample:
Vanilla is there in aroma and taste. It’s not in-your-face but I wouldn’t use more.
Still not much bourbon presence…3 oz. would've been good for this recipe, more for a heavier beer.
The toasted French oak is detectable on the exhale as a “what is that?”, almost a faint white pepper impression.
It’s well-balanced...so far.

 

Off the pager and a big brewing week coming up.
Irish stout, hole hop IPA, smoked butternut brown and a wood aged chocolate stout.