What's Brewing & Doing - December Edition

Finally finished up my most recent project: filling my newly acquired chest freezer with lagers for the winter.

6 gallons of Maibock- brewed last weekend
5 gallons of Doppelbock- brewed yesterday and pitched just before the photo
1 gallon of Rye Pilsner and Munich Dunkel- both brewed two weekends ago

After the Doppelbock finishes up these will be taking a nice slumber for a couple of months minimum.

 

Brewing another NE hop bomb. Probably gonna be hazy. 86% pale malt, 14% flaked wheat, so4 and trois pitch.

Not sure on hops yet.

Maybe Citra, Galaxy, Chinook, and Appollo.

Have 1/2 pounds of Nelson, equinox, exp grapefruit, and exp lemonnaughty that might make an appearance.

 

Brewed a Comet, Centennial, Pacifica IPA. Wanted to use Lemon Drop, but the mylar bag lost its vacuum seal. So I dumped it.

Excited to try Comet. The hops in the bag were potent. They smelled like grapefruit and dank without onion or cat pee.

 

Yesterday I kegged up my Brown Ale and set it to carbonate while I'm in Minneapolis for work this week. Looking forward to coming home to some freshly prepared brew.

On Friday I bought grains & hops for an ESB that I'll probably be brewing one of the next two weekends. Homebrew store guy commented it's pretty rare he sees anyone brewing an ESB. I figured it'd be fun to try something a little different. I'm excited to use Maris Otter for the first time.

If the ESB turns around quick enough I'll have all four tap lines going for once: Imperial Stout, American Brown Ale, ESB and Citra IPA.

 

Wednesday is brew day an it's a gonna be another bad ass burton ale. Only 3 left from the last batch and with a 6 month minimum age time, I best get to it.

 

Brewed my first original recipe today, a Northern English Brown Ale. Hit my target OG and the hydrometer sample tasted decent. But the real victory was mowing the yard during the mash. Yes, you have to mow your yard in December when you live in Central TX.

 

Right now I have Spicy Holiday Ale, Oatmeal Stout and a IPA that's about to kick on tap. I have a Nut Brown Ale carbonating and I just brewed a SMaSH Session Ale on Friday which is bubbling away nicely! Going to brew my 2nd IPA next which should come out better than the first as I'm going to dry hop in the keg this time.

 

This weekend I brewed up my first Kolsch, dry hopped a Brett Saison with a few ounces of El Dorado, kegged and tapped a Waimea single hop IPA and I'm brewing up a Gumballhead clone this afternoon.

 

I was not impressed at all with Comet...it gave me a spicy wild hop flavor and aroma with a slight bitter citrus note (no dank hardly at all), that didn't do well in a single hop IPA and I thought it detracted from an IPA I did with Comet and several other hops. There's been a lot of hype about it lately, but at least for me, I'm not really sure why.

 

Brewed 5.5 gallons of a NE IPA yesterday. Mostly 2 Row pale with 8% white wheat, ~4% crystal 20 and ~3% Dextrine. 2L starter of 1056
60min 1/4oz Columbus
10min 3/4oz Columbus
Hopstand 180F 30min 2oz Galaxy
Dry hops will be 3oz Citra, 3oz Galaxy and 1oz Columbus

 

Brewed a 3 gallon BIAB rendition of a NE IPA this past weekend using Columbus and HBC-438 hops. Similar hops to Trillium Fort Point clone and what @sts9fan is doing

2 Row~85%
Rolled Oats ~ 10%
Carapils ~ 5%

60min 0.2 oz Columbus
10min 0.4oz Columbus
Hopstand 180F 30min 1oz HB c-438
Dry hops 1 oz HBC + 0.5oz Columbus

Wyeast London III

 

Oh great. Way to take a dump in my homebrew sandbox.

 

Brewed a prickly pear Berliner weisse. Soured with Omega Lacto blend for 2.5 days and now hoping us-05 starts to ferment it.

 

Sorry Betty...who knows, could have just been the batch I got? Some folks love it, just didn't strike my fancy.

 

I use the pH paper for now...its not super accurate, but it will give you a good enough pH range (within a .1-.2 or so) that I haven't seen a need to buy a digital one yet. $4.50 for a bottle of 100 pH strips at my LHBS vs. ~$100 for digital = better decision for me. I'm sure I'll get a digital one sooner than later, but for only brewing a handful of sours a year, this is good enough for me right now.

 

Milwaukee MW102 ph and temp probes. works swell.

 

Spent quite a bit today on kegging stuff... Still have to pick up my freezer, CO2 tank and a few other misc. components. Oh, and brew a beer to get in those kegs once they arrive! Hope to have a beer or two ready to go by the end of January. Will be a 4-tap system to start, but I could expand and increase if need be. I look forward to kegging.

 

Right now I have 4 out of 5 taps serving home brew. It's friggin' great and goes over really well when people come to visit.