What's brewing July edition

I have used this guy's technique with success.

 

Installed two taps through my fridge. Recycled the tap from an old one tap tower kegerator and bought a perlick 650ss. Left space for a 3rd tap when I get some funds. Taping the first keg, coconut IPA, this afternoon.

 

Brewing for the first time in damn near a year today! Going extract just to get back into the process after so long. Going for a hop-bursted NEIPA/Saison hybrid (I love hoppy saisons), since I can only really ferment saisons in this weather, and need to finally use up hops that have been sitting in the freezer for over a year and a half. 6# wheat DME 3# pils DME, Amarillo, Pacifica, Pacific Jade, and Crystal hops, Mangrove Jack's French Saison yeast. Might add some Brett C at bottling for shits and giggles.

Calling it True Independence not only because of the brew date, but also because it should be ready to drink around my last week at work (I gave two months notice last week)

 

I disagree. Drinking a fresh one is completely different from one that has a year + on it.

 

While that may be true, other things might be at work here, like oxidation and ester hydrolysis.

That said, The Mad Fermentationist's list has it as a beer with Brett in it, but does not give it a species or strain and that list has not been kept up to date.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/p/dreg-list.html

I've cultured and used the dregs myself and although I did not do a microscopic examination on it, the resultant beer seemed like a beer with a clean saison strain, not a Brett fermentation. I've also heard that it has not included Brettanomyces post-ABI acquisition. Again, I could be quite wrong here.

Anyone with definitive information on Sofie? Their website is not of much help.

 

I've done the same with Matilda and not gotten any Brett character from it.

 

Matilda absolutely has Brett B in it. I still sat Brett C for Sofie. Slightly funky, slightly fruity.

 

I'll be kegging an all Citra Brett IPA in the morning and reusing the bugs for a first stab at an Allagash Little Brett clone I'll brew tomorrow as well.

 

Few updates:


Got yet another yeast starter in-process of the lager strain I will be using on a repeat brew of my Pils this Sunday… This time, German Tradition and Mittelfrüh will be the hop combo (Tettnanger and Saaz on the current one on tap). The Tettnanger and Saaz combo is damn near perfect for my tastes, so I am not sure how other iterations and combinations will work, but it will be cool to keep changing those around. This is one beer I plan to always have on tap (1 of 4) so I got to always keep one in the pipeline!

Also tapped my new IPA called “Somewhere in Neverland” - 6.2%, 100 IBU. I am sooo happy with how this one came out! I wasn’t exactly sure how it would with the hop varieties used. Basically, a mash-up of all the most dank hops… Columbus, Chinook, Simcoe, Nugget, Centennial and a touch of Citra/Galaxy. But it worked perfectly! Almost like a modernized west coast IPA, with the dank/resinous notes without the pine or caramel malt flavor… Yet, some juicy qualities as well. Hint of floral from the centennial. The hop profile is very complex and it is a fun one to drink for that reason, can always pick out different flavors through the glass.

Cold crashing my bitter that finished primary fermentation, which I added the dry hop of Mittelfrüh & Galaxy the other day and will be kegging it tomorrow. I’ve noticed with this recipe (near clone of another I did) that it really took a while to condition, especially for only 3.5%... The hydrometer sample wasn’t exactly amazing, so hoping after a few weeks of conditioning it will become as good as the last batch which also took a few weeks to really become amazing. So, time will tell!


Lastly, just working on various recipes… Was planning another IPA next, but may end up doing a Rauchbier instead so I can just re-pitch on the Pilsner yeast when that’s done in 3 weeks or so. I have been wanting to do a Rauchbier for a while (for fall time), so this would be good timing to do so. I will be buying a second fermentation chamber soon for my long-term cold conditioning kegs so it doesn’t tie up my keezer or primary ferm chamber space, so I can just let that keg hang out with my new Pils mentioned at the beginning of this post until it’s ready to go on tap.

 

I have a saison ready to be bottled. I also have all the ingredients ready for a 3-gallon dark English barleywine which will get aged on some bourbon-soaked oak cubes. Maris Otter, Dark English Crystal Malt 160L, and Special B going into that brew.

 

I will be brewing a couple of batches this month, for an event coming up in September.

1. New Zealand-hopped APA, with Pacific Jade for bittering, late additions of Wai-iti and Motueka, and dry-hopped with Nelson.

2. Strong Bitter, Maris Otter and Crystal 75, single-hopped using Fuggle (bittering/late/dry). Low 5% ABV, so it should be a nice, easy-drinking beer for late summer.

Continuing June's beer:

Tank 7 clone is taking a rest before bottling, which should happen next week. This was my first experience with Wyeast 3711, and I'm impressed. Everyone says it is a beast. Believe it! Took the beer from 1.073 down to 1.004. 3711 is not f-ing around!

Biere de Garde is coming along very nicely. Lagering phase will begin this weekend. I switched this one up from the original plan. I was going to use Wyeast 3725-PC, but I realized that WLP072 (French Ale) was actually available. Talk about a fast mover! The beer reached 80% apparent attenuation in about 3 days. Currently exhibits a little bit of fruity tartness, and no phenolics to speak of. Pretty much what I was looking for from the 072. Can't wait to taste the finished product!

 

Hit vacation tomorrow. Plan is to clean out the garage so I can actually brew. Then I am doing a simple Saison grist and hop schedule with my Nectarine Blossom yeast capture. 12 gallons split to 3 4 gallon ferments, same yeast, different temps. One at 65, one at 70, the other at 75. Hope is to get a feel for flavor/aroma/mouthfeel/attenuation/alcohol differences from different temps.

 

I just bottled 5 gallons of my Oberon clone. I definitely nailed the aroma on this one at least.

 

Just measured today's hop additions for my 91-minute IPA. DFH 90 is my wife's favorite beer and her birthday is next month. I'm following the Sam's 2015 clone recipe but adding a whirlpool addition.

 

Bottled another sour today. A kriek sort of thing. With the blending and aging, I sort of blanked out on good record keeping on this one, but I believe it was an amber ale made with 100% Brett lambicus (the Wyeast strain, I believe) and probably minimally hopped, blended with what was essentially an extract Berliner Weiss (with Wyeast lacto strain), blended with Oregon fruit tart cherries (I believe I used 5 or 6 14.5 oz cans).

Anyhow, it's tasty. Sour, slight Brett thing in the back ground. You definitely know there is some fruit, amidst the sour, maybe you could pick it out as cherry.

 

UOTE="Granitebeard, post: 5524455, member: 1170932"]Just realized that is 20 gallons in a month[/QUOTE]

I won't report you ...but I think you are getting close to the Fed Limit...unless you are married or cohabitate/ have a close familial relationship

 

Brewed a porter today using MO floor malted pale malt (74.3%), dark ale malt (17.1%), medium crystal (5.7%) and black malt (2.9%). Fuggles hops, 5.9% AA (50 calculated IBUs, two thirds 60min, one third 5min). Windsor Yeast. 1.055 OG. The homebrew supply site was out of brown malt so I substituted dark ale malt. Made for a considerably different tasting/smelling wort, but tasty nonetheless. I've had some problems with my last couple of brews where the mash temperature has gotten out of hand with lower than expected OGs as a result, but this time around I ended up overshooting my estimated gravity instead by a few points. At my old place I used to keep the oven on at a low temp during mashing and it kept the kettle at the correct temp but at the new place even the lowest setting makes the temp shoot up so this time around I simply left the kettle inside the oven with no heat and that did the trick. My last porter ended up too thin and dry for my taste, this time around I'm hoping that the higher mash temperature, the use of crystal malt and yeast choice will produce a fuller bodied brew.

 

Brewed for the first time in a couple months today. A kitchen reno has been taking up all my free time lately. Decided to squeeze two batches in. Went with extract for both to make things quicker. First is an American Wheat, but using Mandarina Bavaria and Huell Melon. Second was a NEIPA, with Galaxy, Simcoe & Centennial. Trying out the WLP095 on this batch.