2021 Brewing Goals

Yep, forgot this one.

I also want to figure out some "house strains" and keep cultures going/maybe get into yeast ranching (in the freezer).

 

My goal is ambitious this year. There is a homebrew competition in Johnson City TN. and on Feb. 1st I can apply for a spot. Only 75 spots and 4 people in my homebrew club have dibs from last year since Covid canceled it. If I get in I want to take a NEIPA or Brown Ale. First place is $5K I could get a lot of shiny equipment with that much mula. It’s the Hoppy Possom beer festival. Wish me luck

 

1. continue my run and gun tradition of brewing( kinda hard when folks cant come around).
2. Have a vaccine beer blast at some point with 15 different beers.
3. keep the war dept happy with making a 3.5% coffe stout she likes.

 

Good luck!
I thought to myself, "Johnson City.....I can be there in 90 minutes so I'll toss my name in the hat and get a few bottles together, if picked." Then (if I read correctly) I saw that they require 10-gallons!
My new thought is to possibly cheer you on in person.

 

Lol yes 10 gallons. They say you don’t “have” to bring 10 gallons but that you may not make it through the general public vote to the judges vote. If your out of beer for the judges vote than that’s not good . It would be nice to meet you there @riptorn although I maybe a spectator as well if it fills up before I get in. The 10 gallon thing is also an excuse for me to buy another Fermzilla so I can have both batches fermenting at the same time.

 

Definitely some of this for me. Although for me it's probably a hoppy Belgian table beer, a dark mild, a hazy, a classic saison, a hoppy session pale and a porter that are really getting iterated on.

Yep, I'm on Team Bitter, too. It's a really hard style to brew well IMO - it's so dependent on getting "just enough but not too much" of things andd a little bit of inconsistency can turn something really good into something a bit "meh"...

This too. Having a small baby in the house isn't conducive to too much tripel-chugging!

 

Another thing I'd like to do would be to figure out Jovaru yeast. Just how to best use it and appreciate it for what it is, cause it seems cool, but it sure as shit isn't a saison or kveik yeast.

Edit: I kinda feel like they'll stop selling it before I figure it out, since there really isn't any sort of established style, no matter how tentative, associated with it. But it is a cool yeast, and I encourage everyone to play around with it. I'm thinking that doing something like grisette with new world hops would be the ticket.

 

I'd like to brew more - I think I only got 3 brews in this year, not counting 2 more from last December that were ready for this year. I have a small pale ale / table beer, IPA that I think I'm finally dialing in after all these years (who'dathunk that leaving out crystal malt would help that much...) A tripel that |I did a couple months ago that, while good, I wish had fermented warmer to get those spicy esters out. A Scottish 80 +/, schwartzbier, stout and maybe one or two others on the docket.
kicking around the idea to get one going either this week or next - |I'll have to see.
I want to get better with yeast harvest and storage - I have a bunch in the fridge - don't know how viable they are at this point. I like keeping them in the back where it's colder, but SWMBO keeps moving the vials to the door. I've explained why I want them in back but no good.
I want to try kveik yeast, come summertime. I had an IPA summer '20 that, while good, had a couple things going on - fermented warmer than I'd like, and when I opened it to dry hop, I forgot to turn off the fan that was blowing on it for the swamp cooler. I drnk it relatively quick, but I was catching some slight oxidation by the end.
last would be to having more ingredients, especially grain, on hand. I have enough for a couple of brews, thanks to my LHBS going out of business last year - nothing to do with COVID; he closed down a month or so before that. I wonder if he'd stuck it out would he have done better with the shutdowns?

 

IIRC @deadwolfbones has experience w/Jovaru.

 

@riptorn i have experience with Jovaru. Not a fan at all. Maybe if I made a traditional Beer with it but it was boring as a saison yeast.

 

1.) Brew more, but also give away more beer. This year I brewed 26 five gallon batches, and brought beer to people any chance I got. With Covid, I started doing contact free growler fills (leave an empty, take a fully). Just this Christmas I gave away 16 growlers of beer to friends. This is a great way to brew more frequently and spread the goods around. Also keeps me on my toes trying to brew the best beer possible.

2.) Brew a Pils that I can be proud of. I have started working on this already, but in 2021 I'm hoping to get some reasonable facsimile to the delicious, albeit a little stale Euro Lagers I love getting from the store. (Never been to Europe)

3.) Always brew with thorough planning and intention. I got burned a couple times this year brewing on a whim and not putting a ton of effort into the proper planning, recipe formulation or procuring the proper ingredients.

 

Jovaru is definitely an odd one. I didn't love the beer I made with it, either, though it was admittedly a weird one by any measure: https://brew4fun.wordpress.com/2019/09/15/jovaru-alus-raw-ale-sorachi-ace/

I'd suggest using it in a wheat beer, probably. (My least favorite style, coincidentally.)

 

I used it once before, thinking it would be along the lines of a saison yeast. Definitely isn't, but I did like what it was. I think it would make a great summer beer that would land somewhere between a saison and American wheat ale. If that doesn't work, I'll figure something else out.

 

Two of my favorite beers I kegged last year were a British Mild and Oktoberfest. They were both endlessly drinkable, and it was the first time I didn’t sit and try to pick them apart the entire pour. My goal this year is to bring my hoppy beers to that level. I’m hoping my closed transfer kit will help, I’m also playing around with my water chemistry a bit as it’s helped enormously with my saisons and lagers.
Also...more saisons and lagers!

 

Strongly recommend messing around with floating dip tubes/keg fermenting/serving from the fermentation keg if limiting oxygen exposure is what you're after. My lagers have gotten much better since I switched over.

 

I would like to find a good grain bill for an Oktoberfest. I’ve only tried it once and I wasn’t impressed with what I put together.

 

So... what was your grain bill, and what was it about the beer that you didn't like? (Also, mash parameters and yeast strain?)

 

Sorry I’m at work right now so I don’t have it. I’ll look tonight and get back. I can remember thinking it was too sweet and grassy. Maybe grassy isn’t right more like if you smelled a hay bail then chewed on it. I did use new to me malts Riverbend Malt company. I think I used their Heritage. I remember that smell was there when I mashed in and that’s what I tasted in the final beer. I think also I need to work on getting to finish dryer.