Who's Brewing This Weekend? (21-23 Dec edition)

Have a coconut porter chilling down now. I finally feel like a real homebrewer - I broke my first hydrometer.
It's a bummer too because this is my second partial mash batch and I forgot to take a OG for my last one, so I have no idea how my conversion is. Then it occurred to me that I put a bottle of that last batch in the fridge on Thursday. Taste test: success!

 

I'm going to do the King Henry clone. I'm going to try and do all first runnings. Basically I'm going to cram my 15 gal MT with about 38 lbs of malt and see what happens.

 

No decoction, hit only 73% extract eff, added 1/2# Brown sugar at end of boil and got 1.075 OG. New wort chiller ripped my wort down to 65 in about 15 mins. 5 gals @ 7.5% ABV should be good for me.

 

Almost finished lautering. About to start a 2 - 2.5 hour boil. That will leave plenty of time to bottle my DIPA.

Enjoying a beautiful late December day. Couldn't ask for nicer weather in December!

 

Just chilling down a black rye double IPA now. The grain bill is from a Wookey Jack clone, and 5oz each of Citra and Galaxy went in between late boil and flameout additions. I'll dry hop with some Centennial and Nelson.

 

Completed the Helles, HFB Abner for a celebratory pint.

Cheers

 

I finished my Adam clone around 5PM yesterday. 2.5 hours was a long boil, but it allowed me time to bottle my Citra DIPA, so that was a plus.

I ended up overshooting my OG quite a bit. I was aiming for 1.094, but ended up at 1.106 (pre-boil gravity was 1.072 @ ~8.15G's). My mistake, I believe, was sparging. The original recipe planned on single infusion @ 60% efficiency. Since my MLT cannot accommodate 31 lbs of grain and 46.5 qts of strike water (1.5qts/g ratio), I cut 5 lbs of the pale malt and sparged with 2 gallons (8.5G strike, 1.33qts/g).

Here's the (modified) grain bill:

20lbs Pale
2.5lbs Munich
1.75lbs C40
.5lb Peated Malt
.5lb Chocolate malt
.25lb Black Patent

Hops = N. Brewer and Tettnanger hops

Initially, I thought I would have to add some DME to make up for the 5 lbs I cut. Boy, was I wrong!

What's curious to me is the original recipe planned for 60% brewhouse efficiency. I plugged my numbers into an efficiency calculator and saw that I ended up at 63%. If the difference between efficiencies is only ~3%, why the huge difference in OG's? The only thing I can figure is my rudimentary volume measuring tool (PVC pipe with holes drilled (i.e. calibrated ) at one gallon intervals) is not up to snuff. Might be time to install a sight glass, huh?

If it gets down to 1.020, this will hopefully resemble Adam, just 2% stronger. I pitched a healthy starter, so I'm crossing my fingers (2 vials Edinborough strain from White Labs in a 1.5 ltr starter, o2 added, stirred intermittently & decanted).

 

Was just sitting around yesterday and decided to brew about 2pm. Was all done by 8 with the yeast pitched. Brewed a 1.101 Belgian Dark Strong with 3787 slurry. Also been spending a lot of quality Ike with my new Foodsaver my wife for me for Christmas. LOVE that thing! I highly recommend it for all of you.

 

Did your Barleywine get turned around in time?

 

I turned my barleywine around in time for Christmas. I kegged it 15 days post brewday. Alot like Brooklyn Monster.
It may not see the New Year. Damn this is good. Would it be better/different next year? Yes, but it is so good right now it will never get there. So it can be done if you have the skillsand equipment.

Brewed up the Apollo hopburst IPA and have a starter chilling for some more Porter.

May keg the other half of this Weizenbock so I can wash the yeast for an "Obscenity" where we take the nice light character of wheat malt to the darkside. Mmmuuhaaaa.

Or I could mow the lawn or take a nap.

 

Just purchased a Food Saver myself. Bought bulk hops for the first time this year, so it was a necessity. My kitchen freezer has been commandeered by an army of cones and pellets! That lone bag of frozen peas never stood a chance!

 

Brewed a Citra/Amarillo IPA yesterday + we transfered our Black Mama Stout to secondary

 

Both variants are gunned and in bottles, but as far as it exhibiting tasty barleywine caramel-goodness, both need a couple months to come together. The hoppy version, dry hopped on 2 ounces of special hops, is actually pretty tasty fresh, but the non-mind bending version needs some time.

Jealous of the foodsaver.

 

Can't help you with why the OG was overshot, but did you think of diluting with sterile water down to the desired gravity? I've also brewed an Adam clone (twice) and the recipe provided by HotD brewer Alan Sprints recommends the top off with water. Just a thought. The OG should actually be a couple points higher at 1.096 if you want a 10% ABV beer with a FG at 1.020. Seems to be an error in the recipe I noticed.

I see you cut the peat malt. I didn't cut the peat at all and have no regrets. If it's a personal taste thing then I totally get it but I find it tastes pretty similar to the real thing fresh and expect it to mellow in the bottle just as well. It's up to you but consider upping the peat next time. If you like that beer as much as me, you'll be definitely brewing it again. I'm already planning my third batch!

 

I didn' really taste the peat malt in the gravity samples. Already wish I didn't cut it!

 

When brewing high gravity small changes in volume have a big effect on the final gravity. Not saying that is what happened to you but it happened to me recently when I did not account for the volume of candi sugar in a BDSA and ended up 10 points low with too much wort.

With a preboil gravity of 72 and 8.15 gallons you have 586.8 gravity points.
If you wanted OG of 94 then 586.8/94=6.24 gallons
You have OG 106 so you have 5.5 gallons.

Measuring 8.15 gallons I assume you are pretty accurate with your volume measurements. Regardless of the problem, you had the information you needed to correct this pre boil.

 

Absolutely right. I knew well ahead of time that I would be over my desired OG. I didn't want to cut the boil any shorter as the recipe called for 3 hours and I already planned on doing just 2.5 hours. Definitely a volume issue.

And my dip-tube is incredible accurate. That said, my next boil kettle will have a sight tube.

 

Honey Mead, OG is 1.121 with more yeast pitching today, accelerator and more honey. Using WPL099. This one will have to age a long time.