Brewing Activities (2021)

Got a dual regulator, so am able to have two taps running finally. Kegged some sparkling mineral water filtered through our Berkey. Makes for a good recovery beverage. The keg of coffee stout is going fast, so ordered ingredients for a rye saison/rye pale ale of sorts, split batch. Pils, flaked rye, white wheat. All Amarillo, and the pale ale will get 2 oz Nelson as dry hop. Let’s hope for a great 2021!

 

Just ran my new mash and boil with a little circulation pump during the mash. Made a Pilsner with 100% pils, distilled water with 8 grams of calciumchloride, 7 grams gypsum, herbsbrucker throughout the boil. Pitching 34/70 slurry I made a starter with yesterday.

The mash and boil was programmed to have the water at strike temp when I woke up. It was amazing. Got right up to a boil no problem. Easy to clean. Loved the whole day. Then put it into my brand new anvil bucket fermenter.

 

Just mashed in on the first beer of 2021, a Maibock!

Will be complete with a Hochkurz step, double decoction mash. OG expected at 1.072. Large pitch of 2206. Hopped with Gr. Magnum, Perle and Tettnanger.

First time I have done a decoction in years, I'm excited to see how the end result comes out.

 

Meant to add some pics... But missed the edit window!

Below is the boil of decoction #1.

 

^ It looks like you are boiling wort (sans grains)?

 

Just realized I had uploaded the wrong pic, that was right before I scooped some of the grain in there. First one I was doing quite thin. Second one will be thicker.

So yeah, basically just wort at that point in the picture, haha. Oops!

 

I always assumed you had some fancy electrical system. Beautiful kitchen btw

 

First brew of the year, first brew on my Foundry. Sitting here waiting for it to reach a boil right now.

For 5.5 gallons:

~10lbs Maris Otter
~1.5lbs malted oats
1oz Wai-Iti at 60/10/FO

Splitting the batch - half will get US-05 and the other half Philly Sour.

This was supposed to be 50/50 Maris Otter and white wheat, but my local shop was completely out of wheat so I haphazardly adjusted the grain bill to the above. Measurements are best guesses because their mill broke down partway through the crush, so I took the uncrushed grain and topped it off with mostly Maris Otter. Thankfully my own mill arrived the day after I went to the shop so I was able to use that.

Between that whole situation and this being my first go with the Foundry, I'm gonna name this beer "Tempered Expectations" - seems fitting.

 

Just wrapped up the brew day... My final OG ended up being 1.082 (10 points higher than expected!). Really good efficiency, as expected, but I still missed the mark there even throwing extra margin on the efficiency due to decoction. Also, boil-off was higher as well (pre-boil was 6 points off, post was 10). Fun fun!

Probably looking at a finished beer in the range of 8-9% ABV when it's all complete. Will pull my FFT tomorrow and have the results of that in a few days. Curious how this one turns out, will find out when I tap the finished product in early March!

 

Cleaning and sanitizing my three kegs today, in anticipation of filling one tomorrow with Brown Ale, and brewing up a DIPA, which will go onto the Notty yeast cake of the Brown. Cheers!

 

Just finished up a brew day attempting to perfect my house pale ale.

1.051
Golden Promise, Wheat, Oats, C10
Centennial, Amarillo, Simcoe
Omega DIPA/WY1318

Also transferred a wild fermented cider onto sweet/tart cherries and cab grape skins.

 

Just tapped the new IPL!

5.2% and 37 IBU.

This was hopped with Ella and a touch of Nelson in the dry hop only. Really love these two hops together (first time). While I was nervous using so much Ella (given I didn't love the aroma out of the bag) they really proved me wrong. This is quite epic, extremely happy with the end result!

Fermented with 830.

 

I kegged the beer that I brewed on Christmas. FG was 1.008; batch size 2.5 gallons. The nearly 2 year old dried kviek (which got stepped up in a small starter from 1g of dry flakes of Mysterium Ehwaz Nordic strain) seemed sluggish after pitching into the wort, with little activity after 48 hours, so I direct pitched 1g of dry flakes of Mysterium Sowuli Lithuanian strain. In 12 more hours, it was chugging away.

Final gravity tasting thoughts:
I took ~3/4 cup of uncarbonated beer to measure FG. The Metolius malt is dominant, so it really does not come across as a cream ale. I don't pick up on the corn, but the air-popped popcorn did seem to convert in the mash, so maybe I'll try it again in a cream ale with just a 2 row pale malt. There are slight licorice and peach note. My perception of the peach could be biased by the yeast descriptions. I wondered if the licorice is yeast derived as I thought I tasted it in another kveik strain brew. Given that licorice flavor is a plant-derived essential oils, I might have thought it would have to do with hops, but the hops between the two beers are different and licorice seldom comes up in hop flavor descriptions. One other time I have described licorice flavors was in an old ale fermented with Windsor and Brett C.

 

brewed first light stout on the first.
8 lb marris otter
.5 lb roasted barley
3 oz black patent
4 oz bairds chocolate malt
3 oz dark munich
4 oz L40
northern brewer 1 oz @60 and 10
notty slurry
Starting gravity 1.052

3 oz nibs, half a k cup of dark magik coffe and 2 oz each of sugar maple and oak soaked in bourbon in the secondary for 5 days.

 

New blarg up on my pale mild w/ Voss and Amarillo.

 

In other news, I've got a rye wine that I made a couple weeks ago. I used Voss slurry from a batch 2 weeks prior and it took off like gangbusters but stopped around 1.030 (from 1.096) and has been sitting there for more than a week. I've tried rousing, heating, and adding some US-05, and it's stayed put. I'd really like to get it down to 1.020 or lower. Any other suggestions?