Independence Day + Weekend Brewing?

Bottled my raspberry wheat and need to bottle my saison to (maybe Sunday). I have Monday of so I may brew then I will have to make up my mind on this soon!

 

We all know outdoor cooking is a tradition on the 4th of July. We'll get to the burgers soon enough. But for now this little backyard grill has a more noble task. It's brewing beer! This should turn out to be a couple of gallons of a nice refreshing hefeweizen when the dog days of summer roll in here next month.

 

Sorry to threadjack here, I'm interested in how this cut your brewing time. I'm always interested in refining my process. Can you elaborate on how this helped?

Oh - and I'm brewing a Helles tomorrow since the first one went so well.

Prosit!

 

Brewing my first PTE clone this weekend. All of our fireworks got rained out last night so tonight is 5th of July fireworks!

 

I'm finally getting around to brewing my first saison of the summer. A mesquite-smoked saison. I'm brewing later tonight while I do some work (lame, I know) or tomorrow afternoon.

 

I was originally brewing on a stove, so it cut my time down in raising water temps and boiling. I am also able to fly sparge with my new set up which I feel saved me some time over batch sparging.

 

No brewing this weekend. Just bottled up my big brown. It was supposed to be a bender clone, but I was 10 gu's over my estimated 1.060. I let it ride and tasted great at bottling. Once I get my kolsch bottled up all of my fermenting, bottling, and racking gear are getting a bleach soak. I think brett has taken up residency either in my racking canes or bottling bucket. Either way I'm gonna kill those little putos.

 

FYI - it won't be your last.

 

Went haphazard mad-scientist tonight with a pair of 2 gallon fermenters. Made a sour mash-blended Northern English Brown. It will in all likelihood be terrible, but I've never been prouder of a name.

"North and Sourth."

Tomorrow I'm brewing my first saison, in a more restrained and reasonable fashion.

 

Definitely making another batch of elderberry wheat in the morning. The starter's been stepped up several times now, I think it's ready. It needs to be brewed too, I'm fresh out of summery beers, and it's been hotter than hell a few days around here lately.

Will pick up grains for another Munich smash as well, might get to that one too if things go smoothly enough. This time it's gonna be 12 lbs of munich and citra hops, made to be a CITRA BOMB from hell. I'm purposely gonna make a helluva hopped citra bomb, just to say "I did it," and so I can see who "goes there" on the whole cat pee thing.

I don't fear the citra bomb, as I know damn well I'll drink every one, even if I used 12oz of Moar brand citra hops in a five gallon batch. What? Me Worry? I'm not worried. Technically it won't be a perfect smash tho, because I'll probably toss a half ounce of bravo in at FWH for a bittering charge. I have less than a pound of citra, so I'll be conservative with anything that's not a late addition (also for fear of the citra police).

I dunno, maybe I'll come to my senses and just mix citra and bravo in more reasonable amounts, for a citra-y smash-esque version of my favorite smash yet (which was the bravo/munich one I keep bragging about).

Only way I'll change my mind on the brews is if they have something new and interesting at the LHBS that makes me want to change my plans. Last time they only had a few base malts, standard ones. If golden promise is available, the whole thing could completely change. I would probably buy 12 lbs of that, and hop it on the fly according to whatever hops I happened to reach for first when I went to the freezer.

BTW, has anyone tried that widmer citra blonde (or whatever it is, it's citra-something, blue six packs, either a lager or blonde or something light). I'm curious. If it's halfway decent I would at least have a baseline commercial beer to blow out of the water with my citra-bomb.

 

Biere de Garde using White Labs Platinum French Ale strain....Just found my stuck mash, it was like concrete!!! Fortunately I had gotten 90% of the runnings out of it first....

 

Well, didn't get to the munich/citra bomb today. Did get the elderberry wheat brewed tho. Used serebrianka hops this time, a touch more than I usually use. Should add a little flavor, but is unlikely anywhere near enough to turn it into a "hoppy wheat." We'll see how it comes out (but I know it will come out good).

 

American barley wine is boiling away. Trying out my new brew rig and man I am digging it. 9 gallons to boiling in under 20 min, on the small burner. Its speeding things up but a 2 hr boil is still time consuming.

 

thought I'd be brewing a saison and doing some kegging/bottling but I cannot shake this post-NHC bug. No energy. Hopefully next weekend.

 

Decoctions were brutal in 95*F w/ 99.99% humidity

 

Ended up brewing this:

5.5 Gallons O.G. 1.055 IBU 49.0
7# ESB Malt
3# Rye Malt
.5# Carapils
.5# Crystal 80
.5# Carastan
.25# Chocolate

.5oz Columbus (90 min)
2oz Cascade (10 min)
2oz Cascade (0 min 170 degrees)
2oz Amarillo (0 min 170 degrees)
1.5oz Citra (Dry)

US-05 Yeast

Video - www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PyMGC1Wugc