Brewing Activities (2023)

Hahahahaahhaa

 

Following up on my Helio Gazer batch.

I bottled (and bottle conditioned) some of the batch and dry hopped and kegged the remaining to do a comparison.

First note: The amount of tropical fruity aromas and taste from the primary ferment was amazing. I was truly taken aback. I used cascade in the mash and then a cascade, citra and amarillo WP. I've brewed this recipe before (without the mash hopping & Helio) and have never gotten aromas like this, truly amazing. So my first data point seems to say to me there is definitely something with thiolized yeast.

I've also compared the bottled to the DH kegged version. And again to my surprise the bottled version with no DH is definitely more intense than the DH keg version. It's strange, after two weeks of conditioning, the keg version is no where near as intense as the bottle. The keg does seem to have better mouth feel (I hate that description, but it's appropriate) than the bottled version. The bottled version seems to be a touch drier and thinner feeling. I don't know if it's the DH that reduced the intensity (counter intuitive to me) or that there is no yeast in the keg. Perhaps the fact that the bottles have yeast sediment, and that is contributing to the flavor? I guess more investigation is needed. Lower the WP and DH amounts? Purposely transfer some of the yeast into the keg?

btw: I've been sharing samples with others and its about a 50:50 split, between liking the bottled version or the keg version. My preference is the keg even though it's not as intense.

@Supergenious I saw you did a Helio batch recently. Did you notice anything like this?

 

Interesting experiment with the bottle conditioning and kegging. You might be right with the extra yeast in the bottle. I did recently use Helio Gazer, but only kegged. I too was happy with my results. Turned out to be one of my better hazy IPAs. There is definitely something to all the thiol hype. Will probably take some more experimentation. The next time I use this yeast I was thinking of doing something along the lines of an American wheat and no dry hopping.

 

Kegged a NEIPA for upcoming brewfest. Citra/Galaxy/El Dorado. Pic is FG sample.

 

Brewed a Belgian split batch! I got an extremely high mash efficiency. 87%, compared to my normal 75%. Think it's gonna be ok?

I made 3 changes to my normal BIAB routine.
+I milled my own grains for the first time
+Higher water:grist ratio in the mash
+90- versus 70-minute mash time

Kinda worried...but I didn't change anything else. DWHAHB

72.1% Maris Otter
26.3% Bries Pale Ale
1.6% Flaked Barley

Split with WLP500 and a commercial Belgian yeast I harvested

 

Kegged finally. 5 years was just long enough.

 

Brewed up the Brown ale that I done back in February again. This is the one I took a competition and got 2nd place. I named it Catastrophe as everything went wrong last time from equipment failures to bad ingredients and having to change the recipe on the fly. Well it lived up to its name again this time. My little Anvil pump died during the mash recirculation and I had to that manually and sparge manually. Also, during milling my grain the hopper came loose from the rollers and I spilt several pounds of grain in the garage floor. But it’s fermenting away now. Plan to brew another barleywine and let it ferment on this yeast cake. The barleywine in the bourbon barrel is ready to come out and I need to refill it. The Brown ale came in at 1.053.

 

You know, piles of spilled grain laying around are possibly some of the earliest beginnings and precursors of beer...maybe. So I think the beer gods are really speaking through you with that Catastrophe brew!

 

I just hope the barleywine brew day goes smoother in a couple weeks. I don’t sparge with that recipe as I use both Anvil systems to mash in all grains then run the little anvil’s wort through the big ones grain basket. A lot to go wrong on that one lol

 

My Sierra Nevada Tumbler clone….. 5 years in the making

 

Is it worth the wait?

 

Yes it is. I don't know why I took such a long time to brew this again.

 

Breaking in the new 6.5Gal Anvil Foundry tomorrow. Brewing a 3 gal batch with wheat and oats, moderately hopped with Rakau and cascade. Fermented with Omega tropical IPA (WLP644 equiv). The plan is to add some passion fruit purée I’ve been hanging onto for a while.

 

Smoked Imperial Porter tomorrow, using home-smoked malt (blend of apple and cherry) for the first time! Heavy-ish on brown malt, a bit of black to give it the ashy bite, some amber and crystal to round it out.

 

Back to brewin after a 2 month wait.
This week RIS with nibs and coconut, hole hop ale with cascade, comet and Columbus

 

Brewed a Mexican Lager today in preparation for Memorial Day weekend. Washed some kegs for tomorrow because I’m going to empty the barleywine from the barrel and transfer barleywine #2 into the barrel. I’ll post some pics of that tomorrow. Super excited as this lager is the first beer into my new Spike fermentor. So here is the recipe I came up with and tweaked in the fly.
8# Weyermann Floor malted Bohemian Pilsen malt
2# Oaxacan Green Corn from Sugar Creek malt co.
.5# Barke Vienna malt
1.5oz Saaz hops 2.9AA 60 min
.5oz Saaz hops 2.9AA 30min
1oz Saaz hops whirlpool
.25 Citra hops whirlpool
2 packs of Baja yeast from CellularScience that I made a 1500ml starter with.

 

This sounds interesting. Just enough to show up in a beer this light. I'm intrigued.

 

Brewing an easy drinker for summer. American Lager- Pils, flaked rice, carafoam. Hopped with Triumph, 34/70 yeast, and some lime zest at the end of boil.