Brewers Brewing this Weekend? 3/21-3/23

I appreciate it, you know, you hit one wrong button and *BAM* I'll be an entire degree off.

 

I've got a Kolsch lined up for this weekend.

 

No brewing but cold crashing my sour brown base that has fermented out. Then transferring it to the secondary and adding ecy01. Let it ride a few days then adding tart cherries, an oak spiral soaked in Pinot for the last month and the Pinot it was soaking in and letting it ride!

 

If the beer hasnt soured yet then I would not add the cherries until maybe 2 months before you are ready to bottle the beer.

 

Going to start serious work on designing (and hopefully constructing) a thermal jacket for my mash tun. I also need to decide if I want to transfer my pils to another keg and give gelatin another go. I have a feeling that getting the beer off the trub that has collected at the bottom of the keg might help. This beer is still super cloudy, even 10 days after adding gelatin. And with any luck, I may get the update on my brewing log sheet close enough to where I want it for next weekend's APA IPA redux.

Maybe I should simply go back to extract and magazine recipes...

 

Going to do a brew-along with my bud for his 50th birthday. He's a Brit, so we'll be brewing up a traditional ESB,
3.5 gallon batch:

93% Maris Otter
7% Medium Crystal

Mash @ 152 for 90 min

0.5 oz EKG @ 60 (20 IBU's)
0.75 oz EKG @ 20 (19 IBU)
0.75 oz EKG @ FO

WLP 013 London Ale Yeast, frement @ 65F

This will be the first time he's seen an all-grain brew - I'm trying to get him re-hooked on brewing by showing him the ropes and how easy it can be with very limited equipment. Should be a blast!

Yield should be just over a case, which he gets to keep.

 

I am doing 8-10 gallons of Dopplebock & 5 gallons of Hopbusted Amber Ale with the second runnings. We'll see how the efficiency is with a tun that is filled to the brim...

 

19g batch of saison. 1/2 fermented with French saison yeast. 1/2 fermented with ecy bugfarm. 1/2 of each 1/2 receiving tamarind simple syrup in the keg (when cold so the small amount of sugar in the syrup doesn't ferment out and takes the edge off of the saison dryness plus tamarind tartness.

 

I brewed yesterday since I had the day off. It was 60F outside and amazing. I brewed 2 batches, and racked 2 batches to keg during down time. I got a dry stout and a lager going. There was a 90 min mash and a 90 min boil in there and I still got done in under 6 hours. I'm pretty impressed with how rocky things started.

Is oaked cider any good? I know my other ciders have been lack-luster, but I didn't cellar them long enough. Oak has to be the missing flavor.

I spilled half my grains on the carpet while crushing. The mill kicked. Again. I had to salvage most of it. It's a stout, so it's allowed to be a little gritty.

I also forgot to add campden to my strike water for my first batch. Too busy cleaning up my first mistake, I suppose.

Is this your first parti? For me, I find that my efficiency doesn't go up that much. You don't get something for nothin`. I just try to be flexible with the second batch and an amber or a porter is allowed to be a little extra malty or a little thin and hoppy and still very enjoyable. This chart works surprisingly well for my batch sparge system: http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/moshertable.html

 

I said to hell with brewing.. 74*, sunny, light breeze. Put in stone landscaping borders and a bunch of other crap today. Chippin' golf balls in the backyard while drinking a brett saison.

 

I'm brewing a hop happy Red Ale. I also racked a summer ale I brewed last weekend into the secondary.

Cheers!

 

Sounds like the perfect Saturday! Makes me want to grab the clubs and rack up the bogeys! Ha ha. I need serious work on my long game.

 

My long game is fine, my short game and putting have gone AWOL since the kids were born. I'll be happy with mid 80's tomorrow, I'm lucky to play once a month these days. Used to be a single digit!!

If there aren't any groups coming through after dinner tonight, I'll probably head out to the green to putt and chip a little tonight before I play tomorrow. That, or I'll toss the chicken in the smoker and hit a few shag balls while dinner cooks.

 

Nice! Have any tips? I just moved and now have a pretty decent nine hole a few miles down the road, that I have yet to hit. The bummer is, none of my close friends golf.. I have a decent short game, not bad with my irons, and fairly good at pitching/chipping. As for driving... I shank it hard in both directions! I can't correct it for the life of me. Thus, I use irons in place of woods often.

 

If you miss both ways, it's your hands are probably doing it. Probably slice it first, and then over correct thinking you left your hands open, when more than likely you are swinging out to in, and cutting across the ball. Get a strong grip, and feel like you take it straight back while making a good turn. Lead with the left leg, and dropping your right elbow down will put you in the slot to come back to the same position at impact. Imagine hitting it to right field, but while doing that swing through and finish left.

If you can hit irons okay, then try choking down at first, or get a shorter driver shaft.

That said- it's easy said than done, with most things.

 

Not brewing, but I am bottling my vanilla oatmeal stout tomorrow. Two weeks ago I pulled a gravity and I'm hoping it dropped a little from 1.026. I overshot mash temps going from target 156 to 160. Oh well, gravity tasted pretty good and that sure as hell matters more than ABV and body.

 

I've had a couple that were interesting. The oak kinda overpowered them. This is my first attempt at oaking. For this one I caramelized 3 cans of frozen apple juice concentrate and added that to 3gal of cider. Sorta like the boiling down first runnings trick. I'm hoping the boost in gravity and the toffeeish flavors of the caramelized concentrate will give the cider a little bit something more to stand up to the oak.

 

Brewed a brown ale for our first home brew. It is in the bucket and the air lock is bubbling.

 

Roadbeers. Homebrew that are allowed to have sediment in them.

Imperial cider. I like where this is going.