Brewing Activities (2022)

After a hiatus from brewing, with my last one brewed back in November, I am kicking back off today with a German "faux" Pils, using US-05. But it's basically a hoppy pils, otherwise. Have some other goodies planning in the coming weeks to replenish the keezer, but otherwise I don't plan to brew at the pace I did before (every 3 weeks or so, give or take) and space things out a bit more with less taps utilized. I actually switched over one of my four taps to carbonated water, so less taps to fill for one will help.

In the 'to brew' pipeline, I do plan on brewing a Porter/Stout of some sort next in the coming weeks, followed by two Oktoberfest (Marzen and Festbier) for late summer. Probably an IPA dumped in there at some point, depending.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaand I’m back. Yes, the doc gave me clearance to brew soooo, Irish stout it is. Dam tired of factory brew, tho I did have some pals in the buiz drop me off some fresh 4 packs, and some home brew to boot.
Gotta keep by better half happy so bring on the roasted barley

 

Just to update from this morning... Wrapped up the German Ale just now and got all cleaned up.

Finished with OG 1.053 and pitched the US-05 at 66F. Will keep it there for a day or so and then ramp it up to 67-68F to finish. Will be kegged/spunded in a few days and allowed to sit at that temp for another few days before crashing down for a few days of cold conditioning before tapping on the 28th, give or take.

Super smooth brew day.. Efficiency or boil off was really good, so while I expected 1.050, ended up a bit higher. No biggie. I don't really check gravity anymore until after the boil, so not sure if it was just a higher mash eff or boil off was higher than usual.

 

Having some issues with excess bitterness in my last few beers (all IPAs with similar malt bills), so went back to a beer that has always come out well for me. Aside from producing a good beer, I'm hoping it will provide some clues whether the bitterness is a process or a recipe issue.

5-Liter Vanilla Stout
560g Maris Otter
440g Pale Ale Malt
200g Oatmeal
200g Chocolate Malt
200g Munich Malt
200g Abbey Malt

4g Simcoe at the start of the 60-minute boil
1/2 pack of Nottingham
1 tsp of (very good) vanilla extract added at the yeast pitch

 

And not losing any time at all, brewed a message received,reduced, ipa and today, the first spruce ale of the season. Feels good to get back to brewing. Now if I can keep those dam bears away from my brewery.

 

Gorm, seems like both you and @JackHorzempa brew a spruce tip ale annually. What type of spruce tree? I'm guessing y'all forage or get them locally from a friend/contact?
This part of NC is Christmas tree capitol of the world and just about everything here is Frazer Fir.

Side bar:
In an episode of Moonshiners this past week they tried to recreate Spruce beer from a recipe by Ben Franklin, which used molasses as the fermentable. Sounded like they might have had reasonable success in the re-creation, but being moonshiners they ended up distilling the beer into Spruce shine.and were pretty proud of the results.

 

I have only brewed using the tips of Blue Spruce (my next door neighbor's tree). There are two types of Spruce trees in my neighborhood: Blue Spruce and Norway Spruce. I ate the tips of these two trees and the tips from the Norway Spruce tastes astringent (and not pleasant) for my palate so I decided not to brew with them. Does that mean that Norway Spruce tips are not 'good' for brewing? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cheers!

 

Rrrrrrriper, yeh every year I like a spruce ale or 2.

ya gotta love brewing because I was told blue spruce was the worst to use, And Norway spruce was the best, hahahahahahaahahaha

I have Norway spruce right out front of the house and I use them.

sidebar,, a commercial brewer I use to help liked my spruce ale and me having done it befor him, boldly stated that his blue spruce tips would yield a nasty beer. So we picked a bunch of my tips and he made a fine beer. Latter on he dropped of a bottle for me to try and it was excellent. I told him how good it was and he told me it was his third batch and he had used the blue spruce growing around his home. So,,,,, I don’t know which is best but both work.

perhaps I will make the second batch with the blue, but I find no astringent taste using a pint jar of the tender, not yet dark colored Norway spruce at the last 10 minutes of boil.
Have fun.

I bet the spruce shine was nice.

 

Ours likes to steal sunflower seeds

 

I was randomly inspired to brew some sort of no-boil, hoppy sour.

Going with 100% 2-row (because it's all I have right now) mashed at 154F
Sour worting with Lacto
Cryo Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe whirlpool addition at 180F for 20 minutes
More Cryo Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe during 2-stage dry hop

Fermenting with Lallemand Verdant Ale which I've never used before. Should be a good time!

 

Mid-boil on a chocolate stout that will utilize 4oz of cocoa nibs from a local chocolate shop in VA when on vacation a few weeks back. Also a single vanilla bean and bourbon (tincture) that will be added to primary along with the nibs.

OG expected is 1.080 (thinking it will run over given the check pre-boil!), but will see in the next hour where it ends up. Tons of specialty malt in this one, kind of cleaning house if you will!

Maris Otter is the base malt (45%) along with flaked barley (10%) and Rahr 2-row (10%). Some Victory malt (6%) and malted oats (5%). The rest is 60L & 120L (7% combined), roast barley, chocolate malt, black malt, chocolate rye and carafa special III. Final SRM ~ 60.

Hopped with Nugget (FWH, 90min) to ~90 IBU. Mashed at 156F and expecting FG of 1.018-1.022 give or take. Hoping the 156F mash temps and specialty malts keeps the US-05 at bay attenuation wise.

I tend to like my big stouts with a bit more IBU behind it to balance the fuller body and sweetness. Plus with the cocoa nibs and vanilla bean which will accent the sweetness, trying to counteract that a touch.

Should be a good one, though. I only do maybe one stout a year, usually a big one in the 11-14% range, but dialed it back this time to make it a touch more approachable so we could enjoy some larger pours of it this season.

 

Really tasty Pilsner Kolsch. Crisp, refreshing. Nice hop.

In a 4L volume, 2.5 lbs Weyermann Pilsner (95%), 2 oz Crystal 15L, 144-147F mash 90 mins. 0.2 oz Mandarina Bavaria and 0.2 oz Centennial for 60 mins, 0.2 oz Centennial for 5 mins. Kolsch WY2565 yeast.

 

Brewing a 4L stout not much unlike this one soon. Actually designed the recipe a few weeks ago and it's the same gist (yes I meant gist, not same grist ) Love the vanilla addition idea. Please let us know when you take your first sip and how you like it. I'm curious to know what you mean by bitterness. Might be hard to explain but I wonder where in the taste profile you get that?

Also getting ready to acquire WLP500 Monastery, a yeast which I've liked before but lost, and WLP670, which will be my first foray into sourness.

 

Today will be filled with breaking down, soaking/cleaning my faucets and replacing beer line on my remaining 3 taps (1 tap I already had done converting over to just carbonated water).

 

It's a Stout I've brewed a few times before, with slight variations here and there. So if it comes out "as normal", it will help narrow down my recent bitterness issues with the other beers. I can only recommend the vanilla addition, though the amount is one of the things I have varied, looking for the right balance.

As to the bitterness itself, imagine rubbing a rusty screw in an ashtray and then dropping it in your IPA. Something like that.

 

Brewed up a not so pale ale today. Everything went smooth and this one is for the Hops in the Hills festival coming up June 25th. OG was 10.050 so I was little off.

 

Pulling out the gear tomorrow for the first time since last fall for a hoppy saison.
GP, wheat malt, GNO
Pacific Jade throughout boil
El Dorado, Pacific Jade, and Amarillo in WP and DH
BE-134, House brett blend at bottling if it dries out enough to be safe

 

Brewing the burton light Friday, Saturday brewing IRS light.
Both are half the abv of the non light version which are 10+ Abv.

 

Brewing a gf IPA, racking the philly sour onto fruit and transferring the NZ Pils to serving keg to lager in the fridge.

4L Rice
Ivory Teff
Caramel Millet 5L

Columbus
Mosaic

Verdant