Brewing Activities (2020)

Gonna dry hop my West coast/SoCal pils this evening. Started 1.052, ended 1.010. Adding 100g leaf Citra and 75g pellet Galaxy for the DH. Already tastes amazing, can't wait to see what it's like in a few days.

 

Ah I see what you are saying, No my plan is to have a gas QD on the fermenter post, going to liquid out on a keg to purge during fermentation. Spunding valve on that keg, or just a QD tube to bucket o' sanitizer

I was also thinking i could save even more CO2 by setting up a gravity drain from the fermetner ball valve to keg, then run the keg out to the gas post on top of the fermenter. So many options!

 

That should work nicely.

Interesting. If you try this, I look forward to hearing about how it works out.

 

I've got the house to myself today.

Kegging a Galaxy/Amarillo/Columbus IPA & an American Amber.

Brewing a super dank IIPA w/ Simcoe, Apollo, Centennial, Comet & Columbus.

Cleaning various kegs & fermenters

 

No sap to boil, so, time for the message recieved IPA made with maple sap. Never tryed it with a IPA, may not matter since it's a citra bases brew, but what the hell, it's spring.

 

Today I mashed and boiled a base(no hops) for a second kettle sour I’m doing. Pilsner, wheat, oats, flakes rice. Souring with Goodbelly Mango for 3 days at 95F. Will reboil Sunday, lightly hop with willamette for 10 ibu and pitch US-05. Will add raspberry and blackberry purée on day 7. Keg day 11.

my first sour was a success and according to my family and friends who tried it one of the best beers I ever made so I hope this is just as good.

 

Unsolicited advice... If you're bittering just because "every" beer has some IBUs, consider not doing it. IMO, bitter (even 10 IBUs worth) and sour flavors clash. I don't usually hop "kettle" sours at all.

 

Thanks for the advice. I will try it. I didn’t notice any hop or bitterness in my first sour. Feels sacrilegious but you’ve been brewing longer than me so I will certainly try it.

 

Will be kegging my ordinary bitter this evening. Excited to see how it came out. Never made a beer this "weak" before.

 

I think you will find that it disappears more quickly than most other beers you have made. I absolutely love the taste of a well made bitter, and they're super crushable.

 

Hoping so! I made it for a club competition that covers the whole category of bitters. Knowing most everyone else would brew ESBs, I decided to go the other way. Tasted great at kegging!

 

I'm planning out a couple brews coming up. I got a bunch of grains and hops from my LHBS what's going out of business (25'lbs pale 2-row, 12lbs pilsner, 5lbs munich and a couple light crystal, plus a half pound cascade, a pound of citra and a couple oz simcoe)
The pils and some of the cascade are going to my kiddo's birthday beer, so I have a couple more IPAs on deck - just have to find time to brew...

 

Brewed a citra/galaxy NeIPA today... 3rd batch on with my new direct fire BiAB Spike kettle.

This batch was partially a test of the absorption rate of flaked grain with my new stuff. First batch was a SMaSH, so I knew the water loss rate due to base grain. I added 5lbs of flaked oats and ended up calculating 0.242 gallons lost per pound of flaked oats during the mash. I’m not sure if this is somewhat universal to most brew set ups or if it varies based on use of bags, coolers, sparge methods, etc...

pitched the starter and have slow bubbles after about 2.5 hours

 

My kitchen/brewery remodel is complete, so I’m planning to get brewing next weekend once again after my two month hiatus or so. Put in a big order with More Beer to replenish a bunch of malt (Belgian Pils, Golden Promise, Flaked Rye/Barley, Maris Otter, Floor Malted Maris Otter, Red and Raw Wheat, Pale Malt, English Crystal, etc… )… As well as a few new yeast strains since I’ll be dumping out my existing stash of yeasts.

Picked up Voss Kveik, WLP002 (English Ale), WLP029 (Kolsch) and WLP400 (Belgian Wit). Have US-05 and W34-70 on hand as well.


First brew will be a Belgian Wit, a style that I have never done before. Have the bitter peel and Indian coriander ready to go! Be a perfect Spring beer, looking to turn it around in a week grain to glass, easy enough!


Hoping the first brew days go smoothly. Planning on the Wit, followed by a Kveik Pale. Need to fill the pipeline, so will be brewing nearly every weekend I’m thinking for a few weeks once I get going.

 

Kegging my SoCal pils tomorrow after a week spent crashing.

 

Schools are closed and I'm home with the kids. Time to brew!

Gluten free NEIPA using same process and grain bill as last time. Hops will be Idaho 7 & Amarillo with a touch of Bravo. Voss Kveik @ 90°.

 

So my wife wants me to brew a gluten free beer for her. How do you accomplish this? All the ones she has tried so far “bought from a store” taste horrible. Would you mind sharing your secrets with me?

 

Sure man. The mash is the issue. The rest is normal. Here's a write up I did last year that will give you an overview.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/gluten-free-brewing.610778/

If you wanna shoot me a pm and let me know what style she would like I can give you more straight forward advice. And she's right, the store bought stuff sucks.

 

Brewing a Czech Dark Lager today. Really no examples I am basing this off of, just read about them and they sound really interesting. Sourced some information online and from BJCP guidelines to take a shot.

56% Floor Malted Bohemian Pils
24% Munich (9L)
16% Caramunich
4% Carafa II added when sparging

Czech Saaz to about 21 ibus spread evenly by weight between bittering and aroma/flavoring additions additions.

Saflager 34/70 - first time using this yeast. Fermenting at 52 degrees.

Wanted to build water up from distilled but apparently people are buying stores out of that too... My water tends to do well with darker beers so I just added lactic acid to get to a mash pH of 5.3.