Brewing this weekend? Anyone?

wyeast 3522 Belgian ardennes

 

I planned on doing a double batch, but my temp controller won't get here until Monday. Thought about doing it anyway and swamp cooling it until my spare fridge was ready to go but eh

 

Do you have a recipe you can share? I was going to brew a Two Hearted clone I found for Beersmith. Curious how it compares.

 

The robust porter is really rocking right now, the fermentation took off in 4 hours which is my new record! Excited to see how this turns out.

 

Gonna head up to my LHBS and pick their brains about back pressure issues in my kegs. I'm also buying some cooling fans for the keezer and considering shortening the bev lines in my keezer. I'll play around with mineral additions for cherry wine and If I'm really productive I'll throw together a Berliner weisse. It's a lot to do in one day.

 

Did you seriously make homemade screens for drying hops? That's a lotta work!

 

Yep, I went to Lowes and bought 7 2X4s 8' kiln dried Fir, and had them cut to 23" pieces. Drilled them together at about 3 mins per tray. Laid them out 2X3 and put the screen over them, stapled the screen on then cut the screen with a box knife. Left one tray w/o screen. Put the spare blocks from cutting under the fan for lift, set the non screen tray on top of it to keep back pressure down, stacked the other trays filled with hops on top. Just about 2 days to dry. Put a space heater next to it today and ran bulk of the day to add some heat for the finish.

Today I packaged 2 - 1/2# packs of a mystery blend (guy bought a house with hops growing in the side yard and doesn't brew), 7.1oz Blisk, 5.6oz Tardif de Bourgenone, 9oz Galena, 0.4oz Willamette, and 0.3oz either Columbus or Magnum. I still have 2 trays each of Chinook and Cascade/Centennial blend in the dryer to package up yet. Add that to the 2oz Centennial and 10.8oz Chinook I packaged last weekend. I just might be set for the year... now I need to find time to brew a double IPA!

 

I was ordered to brew a fruit beer for my wife after I took her to New Glarus last weekend. I'll split the batch after primary and try different fruits with each one.

 

A friendly reminder this is a VERY similar setup to how Alton Brown would have you make beef jerky. Food for thought.

 

Brewed a low gravity Scottish ale w/ heather tips at flame-out. Had to go back to partial mash due to new small apartment. MO base with some pale chocolate & carastan, should make a killer session Scottish ale.

 

And after I make beers from next years harvest I post a new thread... Why do all my beers taste like salty meat?

 

IPA
Rahr 2-row
Carahell
Warrior (B)
Centennial (F; dH)
WLP002
IBU 100+
OG 72

 

Rauchbier!

 

Just bottled up an experimental 2-ish gallon batch done in my old Mr Beer keg. It had amber extract, some base malt and crystal malt in a separate mini-mash, and T-58 yeast. I have no idea what to expect from it. Raw data was that I had made beer, but whether I made tasty beer won't be decided for another couple weeks. I totally don't know what to expect from T-58. Oh yeah, I used a fair quantity of tettnanger hops too, and a smidge of willamette.

Next experimental batch will use the dreaded extra dark DME. Maybe I'll try something crazy and use 3711 too.



From reading some threads on here, I suspect that because of my choice to use a non-extra light dried extract, there's a pretty good chance the earth is going to come to a screeching halt and stop turning just after I brew it.

 

Pretty nice hop. I brewed a wheat beer with them a few months ago, that my g/f couldn't get enough of, but sadly don't have the notes from that one to share. HOWEVER, this morning I bottled a Wit that I brewed a couple months ago (8 weeks in primary @70 degrees, using White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit strain) where I used the remaining stash of Pacifica pellets I had on hand. For that brew my additions were .90oz @ 60 minutes, and .30oz @ 2 minutes, and let me just say this, this beer smelled awesome going into bottles. Now its' time to sit on those bottles for the next 6-8 weeks. If they taste 1/2 as nice as the beer smelled this morning, I'll be very pleased. By the way, those were the ONLY hop additions I used in making this beer. Cheers!

 

Just starting the boil for my New World Porter clone. This might turn out a much bigger beer than anticipated...1.060 pre-boil OG...oh my...

 

Almost SMASH IPA. Maris Otter and Chinook, but trying Magnum for bittering to see if it has less harshness than all Chinook. Also, split into 3 fermenters with different yeasts: Conan (YG001), Chico (US-05), and the harvest from a bottle of New Glarus Berliner Weisse.

Had my wine buddy over to help, and he was definitely impressed and interested in what goes into brewing beer.

Also, went to Goose Island with wife and son for dinner yesterday to celebrate 20th anniversary, and drinking a GI Espionage from a growler now!

 

I'm sure Extra Dark DME is the stuff they jackhammer off the bottom of their vats at the end of the day. If you don't use all of it, I need to reseal my driveway and I'll take it off your hands.

 

I am not planning to start my fall brewing of beer until it gets cooler ~mid Oct I kick off the brews, bottling 3 beers that sat through the summer as an experiment in secondaries. I will start brewing quickly and up to the equipment limits once I go to get rid of these grain kits and specialty grains.

Months ago realized I was out of bottles. months later made some room, today too of a wee heavy!

 

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When did you start throwing Oats in your beer? better head performance, ah breaking the ~Reinsgebart rules. I just bought 4 AG kits with 8oz oats, eat one for oatmeal. Looks like a nice simple blonde ale with lighter hops.