Brewing Activities (April edition)

Thanks. I'll let it ride. It was a 0.5 micron stone with a hardware store O2 cylinder.

 

Sweet system. Gotta cover that insulation did you read the warning? Super fire hazard

 

Just started the mash on a easy pale ale. 10lbs 2-row, 1 lb aromatic, a 5 min boil and then an ounce of Galaxy hops will go in at 180F for a whirlpool and an ounce at dryhop, kveik for the yeast at 100F.

 

More like an amber than a pale, but whatever.

 

Just wrapped up my Hefeweizen this morning... OG of 1.051, pitched WLP300 as the yeast. Will ferment at 68F. Recipe was basically what was posted by the Beerery in the Weiss topic... Pils, Wheat and Carahell.

Will do a forced fermentation test and get this thing kegged and spunded within a few days. All went pretty smoothly... The first time I actually hit my expected OG using so much wheat (ground the hell out of it multiple times!). Excited to put this on tap alongside my German Pils and Festbier in two weeks which are finished, just doing their lagering thang'.

 

I just started my starter for my Belgian brett/fruit series. I'm brewing 10 gallons of a Belgian blonde, nothing special, when it gets to about 90% of FG I will add my brett starter and rack it into 2 6 gallon fermenters. One will have crabapples, the final 12 pounds from my now dead tree. The other will have 10 pounds of frozen cherries. After a month or so, they'll go into kegs to lager until I'm ready to hit them next fall.

 

Brewed 18 gallons of 1.040 Saison wort for the barrel. Pale, Vienna, Flaked Wheat, Caravienne, Liberty. Fermenting in the wine barrel with my Nectarine Blossom blend and resident microbes. Should be a nicely tart, mildly funky, dry and effervescent 5.0% ABV in 6 months...

 

Replaced a Y shut-off valve on my cold water in the garage...definitely brewing related as it has almost ruined several brewdays...on to the next small, inexpensive part that will try to rain on my brew parade.

 

Just moved to all grain Helles to lagering vessel.
Cheers all

 

Did a somewhat brown ale w/american ale 2. Also worked on improving the whirlpool by placing the arm inside of the immersion chiller instead of outside and placing a screen in front of the ball valve. Worked great. That's 3 ozs in the middle.

 

I had an unbreakable smack pack this weekend. It was suuuuuper frustrating. I mean, I doubt it matters at all since it is just a bit of sugar water, but still!

Brewday went well. I tried my whirlpool temp (much) lower than usual. I generally go for about 170 but yesterday I went in at 140. It is for a milkshake so I thought I would really cut the bitter and I feel like the acids can't break down at such a low temp, so I am excited.

There wouldn't be any negative effects at whirlpooling that low right? It was 10oz of hops for 35 minutes.

 

Alpha Acids are Isomerized at 140F, but not nearly as efficiently as they are at higher temps. But you're correct in that you'll have less bitterness.

Well, at lower temps you'll extract less oils from the hops. OTOH, less of what's extracted will evaporate.

 

Hydro test on my Hefe brewed Saturday... At 1.021. Will be waking up early before work to get that beer in a keg and the sounding valve set. I think it will be too late if I wait until after work.

My FFT shows a FG of 1.013 but also looks like it still may be working so I'll check that in the AM as well. Expected was 1.010 but whatever it is it is. Will be carbing to about 3.5-4.0vols.

Sample tasted stunning! Even at 1.021. Finally nailed the flavor I was after... Third times a charm!

Wonderful balance of banana and clove, really nice wheat flavor, color and appearance. No sulfur, surprisingly. That came and gone quick from the blowoff.

Will be tapping this weekend for about 6-7 days grain to glass... Probably could drink by Wednesday/Thursday, but I won't rush it too much