Brewing Activities (2022)

Experimenting with some thiols. Brewed a maris otter/ Omega star party smash. 4 oz of Saaz and Cascade in the mash, and then the rest of the hops are a proprietary Michigan hop called Hydra.

 

Let me know how it goes! I just ordered star party and plan to do some sort of mash hopped beer with it. I’ve got lots of mosaic and Nelson to use up, although I’m still trying to figure out what to mash hop with..

 

Propping up some yeast tonight for a big batch of Oktoberfest. Imperial Harvest and the ever trusty Lutra

 

Will do. I debated on whether or not to dry hop, but decided to give it a light dry hop dose. I did sample before I added the dry hops, and it had a strong grapefruit flavor and aroma, in a good way.

 

I’m bummed as I won’t be able to do a Oktoberfest this year. On time anyway. Planning a wet hop pale ale next.

 

Unfortunately, my keezer died a few days ago... Have to find a new chest freezer at some point in the next few weeks and get it back up and running, bummer.

 

Well, that stinks!
Are you going to take a hit on beer?

 

Yeah! It lasted about six years or so. It was just my serving keezer, so I put two kegs in my fermentation chamber in the meantime to keep cold until I get back up and running. I'm more bummed I lost my carbonated water tap! Haha

 

On the plus side, the knowledge you've gained about your keezer preferences over the last six years should bode well for your new rig. There will be fewer, "Man, I wish I'd done this (or hadn't done that)".

 

So in the meantime while I work my keezer replacement, I did clean/flush out my lines and finished my Oktoberfest recipe for this year. Brewing it later this year than normal, but should hit right on time mid-September with a slightly expedited lager. This year, I'm going more marzen end of the spectrum with a more toasty/nutty character overall. I originally planned on two, both a festbier and marzen, but it's been hard to motivate to brew these days... Plan to brew this up early next week.

40% Munich II
24% Best Pils
20% Vienna
8% Biscuit
8% Caramunich I

28 IBU with Hallertau Magnum and fermented with W-34/70. OG of 1.054 and expected FG of 1.014.

 

That recipe looks like it will be good. Speaking of Oktoberfest beer, I wanted to do a wet hop pale ale with my cascade hops. But I really want a Oktoberfest on tap. What does everyone think about adding my small amount of Cascade hops to the whirlpool? Here is my recipe so far
7# Bestmalz Pilsner malt
3.5# Bestmalz Munich
1.5# Bestmalz Red X
12oz Weyermann CaraMunich I
8oz Weyermann Melanoidin malt
0.5oz Hallertauer Blanc 60min
0.5oz Hallertauer Mittlefrueh 15min
0.5oz Hallertauer Blanc 5min
Fresh wet hops Cascade 120ishmin hopstand
Whitelabs WLP820 Oktoberfest yeast
Here is amount of hops I will be harvesting soon.
If you zoom in you can see the amount, do y’all think this will add a weird flavor to a Oktoberfest?

 

20 min hop stand. Not 120 lol

 

Just about to get into the boil on my Marzen recipe. I haven’t brewed it in a couple of years so I’m looking forward to having it on tap when the weather turns crispy.

I also bottled up my Negroni inspired Flanders Red that’s been aging since the holidays. Bitter and sweet orange zest, juniper berries, rosemary and cab grape pomace. I’ll try my hardest not to touch that one for at least a couple of months. Planning on popping a bottle every 6 months or so. Fingers crossed on the adjuncts playing well together.

 

Got the new chest freezer on order today, being delivered on Tuesday (free ship/delivery, so why not!... Don't have a vehicle that can load up a chest freezer at the store, so instead of borrowing my parents SUV for that, let them drop it off on my doorstep.

It's a 8.7 cu-ft model (replacing an 8.8 cu-ft). Will have to make modifications to my collar to fit the new one (slightly smaller than existing), but with how I built my existing one, simply just have to remove the corner brackets, cut down to the new size, and re-assemble. So that will be nice and easy and should only take an hour or so and I should be up and running.

 

Boiled a previously soured wort (50/50 wheat malt/pilsner), adding cocoa, lactose, and kosher salt to the boil. It's now in primary with WLP001, after which it will go to a secondary with more cocoa, plus raspberries and a vanilla bean.

 

Enhanced chocolate flavor.

 

Brewing the Oktoberfest as we speak, currently about 15 minutes into the boil. Nailed the pre-boil OG (1.042) and have a 75 minute boil going. Color looks great, rich mahogany color. Excited to see what the final result looks like.

My new chest freezer was supposed to arrive today, but got notice at 630am that it was postponed until Thursday now. Last night I popped the collar off my existing keezer, sanded off all the adhesive that bonded it to the freezer itself and held the insulation wrap on the inside and cleaned it all up. Was hoping to get it back up and running today, but now that must wait.

Plan to buy some new racking hoses, yeast and a few ounces of hops to use for just the dry hop for a NE DIPA I plan to do next (plenty of other hops for bittering/flavor I have a few years old from 17' and 18', but I'd rather get some fresh aroma hops for the DH). It's been a minute since I brewed an IPA of any kind.

 

The new chest freezer arrived so I spent yesterday cutting down the existing collar (new freezer is not as wide by a few inches), installing the lid to the collar, placed the kegs/beer line/CO2 lines all back and all that fun stuff. All that is left now is installing my drip tray on the front under the taps. As of this morning back in business at 38F so we are good to go! This chest freezer is a few inches less wide, but the usable floor space is the same or greater than what I had before. Smaller/more compact compressor hump, perhaps. But I'm glad I didn't lose any capacity there.

One good change is that I mounted the lid to the collar in such a way now that it's flush to the front and no longer interferes with the custom tap handles I use (without the need for one of them angled adapters which suck to use) to clear the lid.

So back on tap at the moment is a Belgian Dubbel, a Chocolate Stout (think Storm King from Victory in hop intensity/bitterness, but with more chocolate character and a touch of vanilla from the single bean used ) and a German Ale which is a hoppy pils basically, just happened to use US-05 with that one to try it out.

As far as the Oktoberfest goes, my forced fermentation sample came out to 1.013. My bulk fermentation is currently at 1.045 so it has a few more days to ferment. Finish ABV will be 5.6% (OG of 1.056).

 

Just transferred the Motueka/Mandarina Bavaria Blonde Ale and SImcoe/Strata/Eclipse Pale Ale to serving kegs.

Today, brewing my first attempt at a GF Oktoberfest. I've committed to keeping a lager on tap for the year and have really enjoyed the Pilsners I've made thus far. Looking forward to this one...

Vienna Millet
4L Rice
Light Roasted Millet
Caramel 240L Millet (wee bit for color)

Hallertau Mittelfruh
Tettnanger

Lalbrew Diamond