What's Brewing - June '17 edition

Got 2 kegs of Saison and am going to dose one with Rooibos Tea this weekend.

 

Brewed a Brett brown ale today. I'm fermenting it with OYL-212, and will secondary this one in a used bourbon barrel for a while, with the possibility of adding peaches (we'll see).

Next week I'll be brewing an amber mexican lager. This will probably be my last batch for a while, (summers get busy). However, i do have a pretty solid pipeline of beer to get me thru the summer. Cheers.

 

I've got 10 days next week of being kid-less and wife-less. Gotta take advantage of this time. I'll be brewing around 17 gal of beer.

Splitting an 11 gal batch of citra pale ale between imperial organic A24 yeast and Brett C. Also doing a 6-gal batch of Berliner weisse and adding a bunch of pulverized freeze dried blueberries at flameout. We'll see what happens! I haven't been able to find a lot of information out there on brewing with freeze dried fruit.

 

I brewed an IPA on Memorial Day. 65% pearl and 35% oats (split between naked and flaked). Hopped with Citra and Denali all between 10 minutes and flame out. More Denali for bio hops this morning at 2.5 days in. Should be about 7.2%.

 

That sounds like a great beer. I used Denali for the first time about a month ago in a pale ale, and I was impressed. It's a pineapple bomb! Paired with Citra should be awesome.

 

Pina Colada IPA (maybe double)
Stout Malt, Oat Malt, Dextrine, flaked Wheat
El Dorado/ Denali
WLP644 fermented warm
Mash High
Raw Wildflower Honey
Toasted Coconut in Secondary
Maybe lactose in secondary if it needs it

Sort of a crazy take on El Dorado Cutting tiles. That beer was straight Dole Pineapple juice when you cracked it. The El Dorado mixed with the wildflower honey aromatics did something to it. My clone attempt was actually very similar which I was pretty surprised at. I really I don't want to use pineapple but get all the pineapple from yeast and hops (Denali, El Dorado).

 

Been brewing like crazy for my friend's wedding. Right now I'm fermenting 2 batches of a NE IPA:

• 2 Row
• White Wheat
• Carapils
• Flaked Oats
• Flaked Barley
• Simcoe/Citra/Mosaic/Amarillo (10 min addition and a huge dose at flame out with Simcoe slightly favored)
• London III yeast
• 6oz biotransformation hops added a few days ago and 6 more being added when I hit FG
• ~7.5% ABV

First batch turned out great, so these are just duplicates. Also fermenting a Saison:

• Pils
• White Wheat
• Caramunich
• Flaked Oats
• Sorachi Ace and Fuggles at 30 and 15. FWH bittering addition.
• Orange blossom honey and cracked pepper at 5 min
• 3711 French Saision yeast
• ~7% ABV but that yeast is a monster, so the first batch is closer to 8%. Got down to 1.006!

 

What strain of yeast did you use? That sounds like its going to make for a juicy IPA

 

1318
Im trying so hard to find a yeast that works better in a juicy IPA and I can't.

 

Re-brewed a favorite - Citra/Mosaic IPA. Yet it was plan "B". Rather than rely on the Brew shop's mill, I had purchased a mill last month and set the gap to be what I thought was .04. I used some feeler gauges I had since the last century and I think I ended up much more fine than I intended. So after two stuck sparges and 82% efficiency (I was looking for about 70), she is in the fermenter. I guess those feeler gauges were better suited for distributor points and spark plugs.

Boil-off is still a problem for me. I started with 7gal in the kettle and ended 5 in the fermenter with a 75min boil. The recipe was for 5.5 gal. So with the increased efficiency and the reduced volume, there will be a little more horsepower in this one than it is supposed to have.

I've since re-adjusted the gap in the mill. I used the combination of various cards from my wallet and measured from my vernier calipers (.04). I once did a beetle tune-up using four folds of a dollar bill and that worked great. So I hope my new technique is a similar improvement.

I hope to make a Hefeweisen next (a lawnmower beer). Not sure if it will be German or American. I might have considered this right now -it was originally plan "A". But the recipe I had called for flaked wheat and the brew shop didn't have any.

 

Just mashed in a batch that's quite an experiment (for me at least), and I'm not sure what to call it. I used a grain bill from an Irish red kit (more beers), but dropped a couple of ounces of special b, and added 2 lbs of rye. Then for hops I wanted to try something from new Zealand, so I have 2 ounces each of motueka and wakatu, and just because that wasn't enough I'm using danstar abbeye for the yeast. I've never used rye before and never even tasted a beer with NZ hops, so I really don't know what to expect here. The recipe ends up looking like this:

10 lbs 2 row
2 lbs rye
1 lbs c120
.5 lbs caramunich
.5 lbs aromatic
4 oz roasted barley

OG should be around 1.065 and the FG around 1.013 for about 7% abv

Mash at 152 for 90 minutes

.25 oz each motueka and wakatu @30
.75 oz each @15
1 oz each @5
For a total of about 40 ibus

I ideas what to call this? Belgian style hoppy red? A complete mess?

 

My first brew today in what must be 7 months. I decided to keep it simple and just do a golden ale to try out my homegrown hops

OG 1.046
88.4 % Pilsner malt
8.4 % carahell
3.2 % Torrified wheat

15g warrior@ 60mins
50g Hallertau mittelfruh 20mins
50g Hallertau mittelfruh 5mins


Step mash, 60mins@ 61c 45mins @ 71C

BRY97

 

Brewed princetigator, a west coast sculpin like clone, while enjoying paw check pale, a hoppy wheat pale ale (which made it to semis for best of show in a local home brew comp today). Also kegged a kolsch a few days ago

 

Bottled the spruce on cherrywood and the spruce on citra ales, bottleing wake up dead clone on nibs tommorrow.

 

Another double brew day is almost in the books.

Today it is 2 pilsners. Exact same OG, yeast, hop bill, and targeted SRM. The only difference is in the grist. One has a small amount of biscuit malt and the other has a small amount of dark munich malt.

 

I would think the roasted barley and NZ hops wouldn't go too well together, but who knows. I've had black IPAs before with a roasty/fruity character that just seems to work IMO. Never used the abbeye strain but I'm sure it'll put out all sorts of esters. Along with the nz hops, rye and other specialty malts it'll be interesting for sure!

 

Kegged the Ariana single hop with Dryhop yeast. Not as exciting a hop as I was hoping but it's only been in the keg for 3 days. Also decided the Hefeweizen half of the batch will get a dose of lactic acid and become a Berliner weisse

 

Just bottled my second batch - ever- a gallon batch of wheat ale with Constant Comment tea. Also racked my third batch, a Tripel, to secondary last night. Both extract recipes. The house still smells pretty great.

 

Brewed my BPA today. Belgian pilsner, Caravienne and a hint of Aromatic. Boosted by D45 candi syrup which I havent heard of anyone using before. 3522 is working on it as we speak.

Only hitch of the day is my fermometer finally died so i have another one coming today.