Brewing Activities (2019)

What’s the relative composition of a beverage like this? I have some pressed juice that needs fermenting

 

This past one was using 1 can Briess Rye LME and about 3oz Willamette to make 1.5gal barleywine or what have you. 15 minute boil. Chill, pitch yeast, once it shows activity, add 4gal juice. Let it ride. Yeast nutrient and pectinase are key. Bottle using frozen apple juice concentrate.

 

Taking a stab at a pastry style imperial stout today. Trying to mirror something like a s'mores. Victory and honey malt for the graham character, simpsons DRC and a little special B for some dark crystal fruitiness to accent the chocolate. Keeping the roasted malts smooth and chocolatey with chocolate rye, carafa special iii, and a little black patent for a char/roast character. Using cocoa powder in the boil and planning on hitting it with cacao nibs and vanilla in secondary. I usually use whole vanilla beans but they are so damned expensive right now that I'm planning on hitting it with some quality vanilla extract at packaging.

 

Finished my auto hop dropper today.

 

@TheBeerery it's doubtful I'll ever have something like it, but that doesn't detract from the coolness factor, IMO. Looks like something inspired by Lee Precision.

Curious:
What's below the turntable...just a platter with a hole?
I'm guessing the hops holders are PVC? How is the rest of the contraption sealed off between the PVC pipe and the neck coming from the fermentor?
Anything been done to minimize letting O2 in during the short time the hops leave the tube and enter the tank?
This is unlikely, but would there ever be enough pressure in the fermentor to require venting before dropping? (Tank pressure blowing hops up from the tube could make for an exciting first run. )

It'll be interesting to hear what snags you encounter and what you do to overcome them.

 

Here's a video from a couple guys at Northern Brewer. About 1:50 in gets you past some fluff.

.....first time trying to embed a video, so if it doesn't work, click the bold text below and scroll down to the video under "How To Brew Graf"

Here's kind of a Cliff Notes version and a basic grain/juice bill:
https://www.westcoastbrewer.com/beer-recipes/graf-graff-hybrid-beer/

 

Thanks.


This is my boil kettle and not a fermenter.

 

My bad. I read into it "dryhopping", which wasn't there and was wondering how you sealed it off considering your avoidance of oxygen at certain points.
That only makes it a little less cool, but not by much.

 

CMY-01 and Jolly Pumpkin dregs are happily fermenting in a warm starter. Gonna decant some into a vial, and pitch the rest into a no-boil berliner weisse, pronto!

 

Nice. I've always thought about using a digital automatic fish feeder for adding hops in the boil. Does this mean you're going to do a IPA.

 

Test batch for some different Brett strains.

Gonna split 6 gallon into 6 different 1 gallon containers after primary and pitch 5 different Brett strains and see how they compare.

1.043
Best Pilz, Mecca Wheat, Munich
Magnum, Saaz, Wakatu
35 IBUs
3522

5 different Brett strains from TYB.

I’ve been using 184 and 207 a bunch but interested to see how they compare to the others.

 

120. Go big or go home.

 

I can't wait to see the automated flaming napkin thrower.

 

Brewed a hallertau blanc 2row smash last Friday as part of a brew club hop experiment. 2nd 5 gallons were dryhopped with grungiest. Combo inspired by @honkey. First time using hops from hophead farms but they look and smell delightful.
I had bought dme for the hop experiment in case I didn’t have time to brew all grain so today I brewed an extract dipa with wildflower honey and centennial. First time using extract for a beer in years so I hope I’m not too disappointed

 

This Saturday I'm going to be brewing a big-ass pastry stout to fill a 5-gallon bourbon barrel I just picked up. Aiming for ~1.120 OG, based on this award-winning recipe discussed on Experimental Brewing: http://experimentalbrew.com/podcast/brew-files-episode-44-crumby-stout

I do BIAB in a Robobrew, which can't handle the grainbill for 6 gallons of this with my usual no-sparge method (brewing extra to top up, and to bottle a few bottles w/o oak), so I'm either going to do a reiterated/polygyle mash, two concurrent mashes, or give in and do a sparge on the whole grainbill (though I don't have a winch and I'm not sure I can lift 23lbs of wort-laden grain). Not sure which yet, but leaning polygyle.

Anyway, plan is to bottle a few un-oaked samples, oak the rest for 1-3 months, then bottle some and further age some on toasted coconut and vanilla bean.

Beyond that I've got a Golden Milk Golden Ale (British golden ale w/ turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, and lactose), a west-coast pils (a la Highland Park Brewing's Timbo Pils), and a golden sour (planning to pitch dregs from a bunch of commercial bottles) lined up.

 

You mean an Italian Pils..

Tipo Pils is the beer that’s based off of

As well as

Pivo (Firestone)
Bibo (Creature Comforts)
Terrifico (Wayfinder)

And numerous other super dry very hoppy Pilsners

 

Nah, HPB makes a variety of pils. They have Pleasant Pils, which is what they call an Italian pils, and Timbo Pils, which is what they call a west-coast (or SoCal) pils. They provided a homebrew recipe here: https://beerandbrewing.com/highland-park-brewery-socal-pils-recipe/

Basically it's an aggressively dry-hopped pilsner using the kind of hops you'd typically see in a modern IPA. Timbo uses saaz, opal, and saphir in the kettle and then nelson and mosaic in the dry hop.

Edit: I guess you could call the WC/SoCal pils an extension of the Italian pils. Just bigger and juicier, sort of halfway to an IPA.

 

Never heard of it. Just got educated:
http://www.newschoolbeer.com/2018/10/emerging-italian-style-pilsner-makes-portland-debut-cans.html

Seems like dry and hoppy is here to stay for a while.