New year, new brewing activities thread. Share what your up to in your homebrewhouse. After a slow year in my homebrewery in 2021, I brewed my first beer of 2022 on New Year's Day. It's a rye pale ale with Cluster for bittering, Azacca and El Dorado finishing. The grist was US 2-row, Maris Otter (15%), Rye Malt (6%), and Golden Naked Oats (4%). 1.050 OG. The recipe was designed primarily to get rid of the malt I had on the shelf from 2021. Lallemand Voss Kveik.
Brewing a gluten free NEIPA today. My last couple attempts have been bitter, so I'm reducing the IBU's and sulfate a bit. I've also removed the quinoa from the grist and increased the amount of oats in hopes of a better mouthfeel and to see the impacts on flavor. 4L Rice Flaked Oats Caramillet Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic Verdant
For 2022, I’m brewing a style that I’ve never tried making, a Baltic porter…or robust porter after you see my yeast choice. Munich, with touch of carafa special, British crystal, special roast and pale chocolate. 9% abv, 35 IBU with Columbus. Fermenting with lutra kveik around 70F. My last go round using this yeast was awesome - very lager-like, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more vigorous fermentation!
I brewed a stout with Bootleg Biology's "Oslo" kveik, which I think is similar to Lutra. It worked very well. I wasn't aiming for a lager-like beer, and to be honest the beer was flavorful enough that I'm not sure I could have distinguished the yeast character from a clean ale yeast. Either way it was a tasty beer.
I'm on the road (driving from FL to OR in the Miata I just bought from my dad!) but I've got a big ol' doppelbock fermenting back home. Once that's finished in the ferm chamber, I need to brew something for my club's Q1 club competition (BJCP Cat 15, Irish Beer—haven't settled on which style yet). I also need to remove about 5 gallons of my solera golden sour from the barrel and package it, then add back 5 gallons of fresh beer to age for the next year. Then there's the Belgian dark strong I brewed for a club barrel project that has to get kegged and delivered to the barrel location by the 14th. And finally I need to package my Flanders red, which has been fermenting for 2.5 years at this point (1.5 years in glass and 1 year in oak). At some point I need to do the split batch kolsch experiment I discussed in the 2021 thread, but the pipeline's a bit jammed up at the moment.
Cool, I’m brewing a special mess, not to b confused with the chocolate mess Marries, roasted barley, black malt,dark Munich, dark chocolate, victory, 50/60 crystal, L10, and I think the last bit of brown malt. Gonna use notty this time and oak it ROCK
Yea I've heard Oslo is very similar in character – this is good to know! At first I wasn't sold that kveik could produce 'lager-like' beers, but this last pilsner I used lutra on had me fooled. So crisp/clean. This sounds awesome, I'm still deciding if I'm going to oak this batch or not. I'm always tempted to try out new oak/liquor tinctures when I brew strong beers haha
I will be brewing a West Coast IPA tomorrow. Pale Malt, Dark Munich, Dark Wheat, Caravienne, sugar, Comet, Falconer's Flight, Simcoe, CTZ, West Yorkshire yeast. Aiming for 6.5% ABV, 65 IBUs, 1.009 FG - Aiming for big pungent resin, pine, grapefruit, and pineapple notes over a lightly toasted malt base, peachy esters, and dry, bitter, crisp finish.
This is what I always aim for on my IPAs. 1:1 BU:GU, clear pale orange color, FG under 1.010, West Yorkshire yeast, malty backbone, and big hops - no melon, no haze. I aim for a blend of SoCal/NorCal IPA. My current Winter Warmer has almost the same hops and yeast, similar grist (except the WW has 1# Pale Chocolate), so I'm confident this will hit exactly how I want it to.
I could see how that might be odd. Dark Munich is 10L vs 6L for normal Munich. Dark Wheat is 6.6L vs 2L for standard German Wheat malt. The two together add a nice orange hue to the beer as well as a hint of toasted bread crust.
Gotta try this after I brew a brown ale next. Resin piney IPA’s are my favorite. Well besides brown ales lol. Planned on brewing yesterday but a cold took me out and I slept 18hrs straight.
Going to brew a Brett IPA this week. Pils, flaked wheat, malted oats, and carahell. Hopped with Idaho Gem and El Dorado. Going to give OYL211 (Bit O Funk) a try.
Over the last year I have been using El Dorado with Azacca in my Pale Ales and love this combo. I have also used them with Cascade. Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as I do! Take care!
I've used them before and liked the combo. I've used them as a pair, with centennial, and maybe with cascade. Because I didn't brew much in 2021, I used some old hops with this one, so maybe it won't sing to me the way I remember but should still be OK.
Kegged my Belgian dark strong that's destined for our club barrel project. Also kegged about 3.5 to 4 gallons of golden solera sour and added 100g of 2020 El Dorado pellets. Will also add some El Dorado hop terpenes from Oast House Oils before bottling. Refilled the barrel with about 6.5 gallons of solera sour base. Evaporation's a bitch, eh?
Racked the special mess added 2 oz oak, going to let it soak for 2 months, perhaps add a touch of cinnamon
Purchased a grain mill, food storage bins, and built some extra shelving in our laundry room. Going to finally start buying my base grain in bulk. Can’t believe I’ve waited this long..
Got in the brewing groove after work today. Did a Brown Ale. Tasted the Kolsch I brewed last month. I let it age on Oak spirals and it tastes fantastic. I was shocked at how good it taste. Used East Coast’s Kolsch yeast. Brown ale stats 9# Marris Otter 4oz Chocolate malt 2oz Pale Chocolate 2oz 120L CaraMunich 2oz 60L CaraMunich 1oz Fuggles 60min .5 oz EKG 30min .5 oz both at flameout White Labs Edinburg Yeast
First brew of the year will be a Russian imperial stout that will be conditioned til my 2nd baby boy is born in the end of may, just finalizing some tweaks here and there to the recipe.
Kegged my azacca and el dorado dry hopped voss kveik-fermented pale ale. I tasted a lot of pineapple in the under-carbonated sample I grabbed .
Request beer Nut brown for my son in law then Where’s my ass molly mole brew for #1 daughter Monday it will warm so brew time
Brewing a gluten free "Heady Topper Clone" based on posts from this thread. I'm not expected Heady results, but I do anticipate a big, dank, IIPA. I'm also kegging a NEIPA and Red IPA (that is not so red). Hops are good 4L Rice Goldfinch millet Quinoa Dextrose Hop Shot Apollo Centennial Comet Columbus Simcoe Lalbrew New England
Just mashed in on a big ol imperial stout. Target of 1.131. Pale malt, oats, roasted barley, chocolate, black patent, C-40/60/120, applewood smoked malt. Columbus for bittering. Two hour boil. WY1728 Scottish for the ferment. The epitome of a labor of love.
Fruiting (in secondary) a homebrew club "grocery store challenge" beer. Details temporarily withheld, because some of our club members read these forums.
Kegged up the Kolsch I brewed about 3 weeks ago using the ECY Kolsch strain. Will lager for about 4 weeks then hopefully it will be ready to go.
Mine has been lagering for about 2 weeks now. Plan to take it to my buddy’s birthday party 2nd week of February. Hope it clears up by then.
When I poured a glass with some of the extra from transferring, it was very clear already. I hope yours comes out the same. I would imagine 4 to 5 weeks of lagering should leave yours in good shape.
Yeah I made extra with the yeast starter and it dropped clear in a day in the fridge. I even used some bio fine in the keg. I think I have chill haze maybe. Not sure but it doesn’t matter a great deal as it taste awesome and will go fast.
I received an oxygenation kit and some lallemand aromazyme for Xmas, so I will be putting them to use in brewing a gluten free NEIPA. I'll be co-pitching Verdant for the esters and BRY-97 for the biotransformation potential (lallemand says this is the yeast with the highest b-glucoside activity). This is also my first time using pacifica hops. 4L Rice Flaked Oats Caramillet Citra & Citra lupomax Amarillo lupomax Pacifica Verdant & BRY-97
I used to use Pacifica hops quite a bit in my house saison. It's delicious and very underrated. I always got a ton of mandarin orange. My LHBS stopped getting fresh drops so swapped it out for Amarillo. I need to revisit it this summer.
I have a question for you guys. I’ve decided to bottle the Belgian Strong Ale I have in my 5 gallon Apple Brandy barrel. It’s has been in the barrel almost 4 months now. My question is what yeast would y’all recommend to use to bottle condition it? I was thinking US-05 but I don’t want to change the flavor of it. I used a liquid Belgian strain in primary.
My opinion is, after 4 months, you don't need any new yeast. Just bottle condition as you normally would. The one caveat is the barrel probably affected the amount of dissolved CO2 but it's something I have no experience with, maybe someone else can help with that. Edited to add: Unless US05 is more attenuative than the original yeast, I wouldn't worry about changing the character of the beer - the character you're going to get from the refermentation in the bottle is not going to be noticeable. So if it makes you feel more comfortable, you could pitch some US05 or whatever. Personally I wouldn't but it's not going to ruin your beer.
If you want some insurance, use a little bit of Lalbrew CBC-1. It's very neutral, and it doesn't ferment maltotriose, which means (for these practical purposes) that it will only ferment the simple priming sugar you add.
I have used CBC-1 many times with excellent results, especially when I have high abv beer in the secondary for 2 months or more.
