Brewing Activities (2021)

Getting ready to brew a dark saison, to let sit until fall. One will be a 'clean' version, and the other will get brett/cherries in secondary. Will report back on how it all goes!

 

Thanks for the support, all! I'm stoked I finally got it. It was a challenge and it was worth it.

 

I brewed up the first 5 gallons of a Octoberfest for the Hoppy Possum festival. I have to brew a 2nd 5 gallon batch when this one is done and hopefully have 2 identical kegs to take to the festival. I wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on a idea I have to get this done. Since my keezer will only ferment 1 fermentor at a time, I was thinking I could keg this batch and ferment the 2nd batch on this yeast then when it’s done, take half of the first keg and pressure transfer half of it to a second keg. Then pressure transfer the 2nd batch into both kegs until both are full. My thinking is by blending them they will be the same beer in each keg? Then let them lager in my beer fridge until the end of September for the festival. Here is some pic of color

 

Brewing a RyePA. Pale malt (from local maltster), rye malt, and caramel rye. Hopped with Ekuanot, CTZ, and Azacca. Fermented with WLP007.

 

I don’t see how else you would do it. It seems that you would essentially have the same beer in both by blending the two. There could be some variable that might make the two different but as long as it isn’t perceptible, who cares.

 

That was my thoughts. The way this competition works is the festival patrons get 3 votes during the course of the event. At the end the top 3 beers move to judging by a panel of certified judges. 1st place is 5K 2nd is 2500 and 3rd is 1500. “ Supposedly “ it will only be 75 Homebrewers. No professionals. I’m so excited to attend. I just wish I had a bigger deep freeze/keezer to put both fermentors in lol.

 

Well, 5k can buy a pretty nice freezer.

 

I currently have a Tropical Wheat ale that I brewed using Citra and amarillo in the whirlpool and dry hop, on tap... a very nice summer crusher! Also brewed a cascade blonde ale for an experiment my local homebrew club is doing, will dry hop on the 13th and keg on the 16th. Should be ready to enjoy by the end of the month. The boil smelled amazing so I can't wait to try this one!

That Oktoberfest photo reminded me that it'll be time to brew a batch of that shortly!

 

Bottleing a whole hop ipa.

 

And a lot of other new equipment lol. I think my wife may have other plans for it if I win though. One other member from our homebrew club is going and he turns out amazing beers so I’d say there will be a lot great brewers there who have been doing it for a long time. So I’m just focusing on having a great time and considering it a fun date with my wife.

 

90 degree summer days call for big imperial stouts to be brewed in preparation for fall! This one will get vanilla beans, bourbon, and oak cubes added to it. Was my toughest brew session in a while as I had a boil over when I got distracted and had a hose on my immersion chiller spring a leak mid cooling. Used the chiller for over 150 beers and never had that happen. Good news is that beer was still created with just a bit more work involved.

 

Back from vacation and doing a double brew day.

I'm moving back to rice based recipes. Some of you may remember there was an off flavor I was struggling with in my rice beers (and from my gf brewer friends). Many suspected hot side aeration, but It turned out that it was a fermentation by product caused by low FAN production from the rice malt. Increasing yeast nutrients has solved this issue....an easy fix.

NEIPA w/ Ekuanot & Amarillo - Biscuit Rice 4L base - Verdant

IPA w/ Simcoe, Centennial & Amarillo - Biscuit Rice (different than 4L) base - US-05

 

Brewing up Oktoberfest 2021! Currently recirculating the mash after the decoction.

 

Our club poured at a local BrewFest yesterday. A "BrewFest" is one of those beer events that used to happen frequently before Covid.

We finished 3rd out of 24 "breweries" in the attendee voting. We were one of only two homebrew clubs there. First place was some spiked lemonade maker that was serving some kind of alcohol soaked cherries with their drink. I heard they were tasty, but I'm not really sure why they were even included in the contest, since they weren't serving beer. Second place was a brewery notorious for cheating at this type of event (having friends and family vote online even though they are not at the event). We consider the third place to be a moral victory. Waaaah.

 

Worked with fruit for the first time and it went smoothly!

A bit over 10 pounds of deliciously ripe Masumoto Flavor Crest peaches into a mixed ferm (Saison Bernice-esque grain bill with Bootleg SP, ECY01 Bugfarm, and Bernice dregs) that's been going for almost 8 months. I'm aiming to leave this on fruit for a couple months. Cheers, friends!

 

Just kegged an Altbier. Excited for this one.

 

Finally feeling like my guts are all back in the correct place and not going anywhere after getting an emergency appendectomy back in May, so I'm brewing a hoppy amber ale with Columbus and Chinook today.