Brewing Activities (May edition)

Blueberries

 

Strawberries! Whichever fruit you add I'd recommend adding some vanilla or lactose to reduce the tartness a bit. Did strawberries with one vanilla bean once and it was quite refreshing

 

Yes I chose pineapple and I cooked it down, puréed, and froze with lactose yesterday.

 

on the topic of fruits, think i'll try my first "smoothie" NEIPA this coming extended weekend. Probably use my base NEIPA malt bill (which i actually haven't tried a beer from yet, oh well), whirlpool, bio trans, and second dry hop with a combo of mosaic and el dorado. I'll add some lactose to the boil, secondary on roughly 1lb:1gallon of frozen blueberries and a (tahitian) vanilla bean.

Still trying to figure out if I want to just dump the frozen blueberries in whole, or puree them -- if I go puree route, what's the best way to sanitize them? Never really used fruit before.

 

Brewed a simple hoppy easy drinkin’ Saison yesterday. Everything went well except I officially confirmed my PH meter probe is screwed.

Rahr 2-row
Malted Spelt
Flaked Wheat
Belgian Aromatic

Bravo/Mandarina Bavaria
WLP566
- sort of open ferment with just some aluminum foil loosely over the carboy mouth. Never used this strain before. Sounds like it’s diastatecus so hopefully it gets bone dry.

Dry hopped two Pale Ales yesterday. Went a new route this time and let them cool to 45 for three days, dumped as much yeast as possible, then let them warm back up to 60 ambient and added the DH dose. Going to resuspend with CO2 a couple times and crash after two days. One was 1272 with Citra/Galaxy. Other is just 1056 with Strata/Citra/Columbus. I did add a small Galaxy charge as fermentation was winding down with the 1272 but 1056 is straight traditional, no DH during fermentation.

 

Finally getting some stuff together for a modified juicy bits beer. I'll be using citra and Nelson 2:1 with @Tarheel4985 grist. Hopefully it works out.

 

I've done a few milkshake ipas so maybe I can give you some pointers.
I would recommend using 2 or 3 vanilla beans. I tried 1, 2, and 3. I found 3 to be the balance needed for the fruit. I slice them open, scrape out the inside, and chop up the rest of it in pieces and put it in an empty white labs screw top yeast container then fill with vodka and let soak while primary firm takes place then dump the whole thing into the secondary with the fruit. I always use frozen fruit and I have dumped in whole and pureed it. I found pureed works better and gets more surface area to the beer. Also it doesnt float as bad as the whole pieces and when you cold crash it before kegging it all sinks to the bottom. Before I puree my frozen fruit I fill my blender with a water and the proper amount of starsan and let it run for a minute. I have never had an infection doing this.

 

Just transfer 15 gallons of stout to the fresh dump bourbon barrel tonight.

 

Ah yeah, imI'only going with 1 since it's a half batch, this will be filling a 2.5g keg, I've used 2 in a stout at this volume and it was just very over powering. So I figured 1 will be better. If it works out I'll def do 3 in a full batch.

Good call on sanitizing the blender, I think I'll go that route. Thanks for the tips

 

Oh yeah 1 should do the trick for a 2.5g batch! Good luck with your brew. Cheers!

 

Have a yeast starter of 2206 going (5th or 6th gen) so will be my last pitch until I pickup a new fresh pitch to use… Will be using it in a Helles-Style Rauchbier I am brewing this weekend. 85% Rauch Malt, 9% Pils, 3.5% Acidulated and 2% Caramunich I. 22ish IBU. OG of 1.052. FG target of 1.010 for 5.5% ABV.

Tonight I plan to rig up my new quick-disconnect tubing. Bought all the fittings, just need to rig on my kettles, pump, tubing, etc…

Following this Rauchbier, I have 10lbs of smoked wheat from weyermann to use (sent on accident when I ordered my rauchmalt)… Planning to make a smoked wheat ale (using the chico or a kolsch strain) and throw it into my whisky barrel I currently have a stout in and let it age for a few weeks/months. Thinking of targeting 6.5-7.5% range, so will be throwing in some other character malts to build up something interesting. Just going to wing it, no real style in mind. Planning to work on that recipe today.

 

Bottling 4 gallons of a honey blonde tonight. Gonna take the last gallon and dry hop some Citra on it. It probably won't suck once it is carbed

 

Making a starter for a blonde ale. Exciting stuff.

 

Brewed an APA with Simcoe and Amarillo in which I BIAB'd (I normally fly sparge), primaried for three days, then racked into serving keg with 2oz of loose Simcoe pellets and a floating dip tube to spund. I managed to hit 25psi at 68 degrees, then I moved the keg to the keezer and put it on gas and cold crashed for three days.

Just tapped this beer last night and first pour was completely clear of yeast / hop debris and tasting great. 10 days grain to glass is a new record for me, and great for cranking out light summer session beers.

 

Speidel and us have been working together working on a low oxygen brewing setup for the Braumeister so I have been logging a lot of R&D brewing sessions with that. Things are looking good with that. On the bench setup ( inline realtime.. pH, DO, gravity, flow, temp, and volume) the mods are performing well.


Meanwhile still working on my new control panel for my new system

 

Decided to brew a Foreign Extra Stout (instead of a Porter) for my semi-annual base beer...to be dryhopped with roasted Hatch chiles...because my 2 sachets of ESB are MIA...gonna sub in some US-05 so I increased the non-fermentables/grainbill to hopefully compensate.

 

Early brew day to start the weekend. NEIPA using a little red wheat (from a recipe I saw @EvenMoreJesus discuss). Hop combo of Mosaic, Azacca, and Columbus.

Planning another early morning small batch pale ale on Monday, single hopped with El Dorado.