Brewing Activities (2025)

Kicking off the thread for the new year!

 

Yesterday I did brew my first of the year (batch #115!)... A big roasty imperial stout with a 'kitchen sink' of specialty malts to use up a bunch of what I had in my inventory... Pretty typical of my big stouts.

The base was 70% base 2-row with 4% flaked rye... The balance was all roast and caramel malts which looked like:

7.8% Roast Barley
5.8% English Crystal 75 (Bairds)
3.9% Chocolate
3.2% Carafa Special II
1.9% Black Patent
1.9% Crystal 120
1% Special B
0.6% Chocolate Rye

Hopped to 60 IBU with Hallertau Magnum. Fermenting with US-05. SRM ~80.

Maxed out the mash ton with 26 pounds of malt. A bit messy, but was prepared given I've done a few of these in the past.

OG ended up at 1.097 and expecting a FG somewhere around 1.020... We will see where US-05 takes us attenuation wise.

I was targeting a mash temp of 158F, but given just how thick the mash was and all that, it's hard to get a good temp as you stir temps swing quite a bit. But I did use the appropriate strike temp and all that, but I measured around 153F when I checked.

Plenty of pickling lime to control the mash pH to ~5.5.

The wort tasted incredible, really excited to see how this turns out. Will get this into the spunding keg within a few days depending how fast things go and probably have on tap in 3-4 weeks.

First pic was during mash out I believe, which is why it's literally not to the brim ready to spill over any chance it could! haha

 

It is pretty wild how slow things have become. But that being said, I also feel the forums in general are much slower than they used to be. On reddit at least, the homebrew forum is still very much active although I really don't participate there and only lurk. Social media has really killed most forums I have been apart of over the years for cars, beer, amusement parks, etc...

That being said...

Racked my stout into the spunding keg yesterday, but I may have missed the ideal time as the FG was fairly high (which I wanted, but it was a little higher than expected) and I thought I had more time, but I think its done already. According to my last readings, FG is somewhere between 1.030-1.035, but the beer is so viscous and tends to get 'stuck' in the tube so it's hard to get a definitive reading which is a first for me. Did some adjusted refractometer readings as a backup and it was coming up to about the same FG give or take a few points.

The higher FG is balanced well by the bitterness when tasting it at this point, so it does not come across sweet or anything. I have high hopes for the finished beer once it conditions a bit and the flavors meld.

I still have some of the beer in my fermenter which I will re-check in a week or so and get the final FG, but I do think it's probably done (putting it around 8% ABV). Keeping an eye on the spunding valve to see if the pressure goes up, but so far it's holding steady.

 

Got everything ready to brew up another Czech Pils tomorrow... This is "Mark II" if you will, with changes from the batch I did last November in which the keg just kicked the other day. Just making some improvements based on the end result of the previous.

This time, no double decoction. Same water/malt/hop/yeast bill and but upped the IBU by 5 and added melanodin malt (4%) in lieu of the decoction mash.

Otherwise, should be a fairly straightforward brew day.

 

Got my Czech Pils in the keg (spunding) and it's doing really well. Almost fully carbed at this point... It took 5 days from yeast pitch to be a few points from FG and man, it's tasting unreal. This batch will for sure be better than my last, it's giving me the "fresh Pilsner Urquell at the brewery" vibes in terms of the malt and Saaz character. Very high hopes for this one.


@imtroy703

Honestly, I would assume if your brewing this just for competition and you don't like smoked beer, if you can, smoke your own malt. I've done a bunch of Rauchbier from 25% up through like 80% of the grist and ever since I start smoking my own grain vs. the commercial stuff, the difference is huge. It's like being in Bamberg!

The quality and flavor of the smoke just has so much more depth... In a category where everyone will likely be using the same grain and have a similar smoke flavor profile, this would be one way you could stand out if you are able of course.

 

Currently mid-boil on my Pale / American IPA.

It's been quite a long time since I brewed an IPA (2022!)... OG target is 1.055 and ABV of around 6.2% (FG ~ 1.008-1.009).

Just 2-row, 40L and Acidulated malt wise. Hopped to about 75 IBU with CTZ, HBC-586, Citra and El Dorado.A nice high sulfate water (300ppm) profile.

Just using good old Chico for the yeast strain.

I will probably let this beer ferment almost fully to FG, then move into my spunding/dryhop keg (with floating screen diptube) and allow the beer to naturally carbonate/dry hop. Then crash it cold after a few days and transfer into a serving keg (maybe with another very small dose of keg hops? Just to punch up the aroma in the keg.