The Triple IPA has still failed to carbonate after adding 1/8 tsp of sugar. So I'm entering an Oatmeal Maple Stout just to get some experience entering a beer in a contest. The Contest information is at http://betweenthebluffsbeerfest.com/2010/ in case anyone was interested in entering or even better attending! I like beer and cheese!
Picked up my rhizomes friday from midwest. I got Centennial, Cascade and Chinook. Also grabbed some grains, going to brew somtime this week. It is too nice to do it this weekend. I cant sit in the basement for 5 hours when its so gorgeous outside. This is a pale ale 7# American 2 Row 2# Honey Malt 1# cara 10 L 1# Crystal Rye 1# Vienna Safale US-05 2 ounces Amarillo ( 1 @ 60 and 1 @ 20 ) According to beertools it should ring in about 5% and 50 ibus
Picked this up yesterday and am on the hunt for another. If anyone has one they're looking to get rid of let me know. Brewed a lawn mower session beer last night. Used the grain mill for the first time and it worked great, after a few adjustments. The new mash tun also worked pretty good, ended up with around %70 efficiency with a very shallow grain bed.
Partigyle A photo from the chaos that was the partigyle brew session. Turned out 5.5 gallons of 1.110 IIPA and 5 gallons of 1.040 Pale Ale. I really need to setup a 3 tier sculpture. Or get a pump. Either would be better than manual moving pots and coolers around.
This thing is drinking exceptionally well! abv is hidden nicely by hops and the 1/3 lb of lactose I added. Smeels like caramel rish fruity pebbles. Taste is similar with a good bitter bite at the end. Mouthfeel is on par with the style and foam stability is very pleasing. I think this could be one of the best beers I've brewed and recipes I've come up with. Very happy with the end result. btw, pleasure, thats a nice little setup you have. You should google some tier schematics and weld it up. If I could weld I'd have one, but I do not have the know how. But the design is out there. I would love to do somthing like this down the road. But for now my basement setup works well. I have it down to a science, as it looks like you do with moving things around. I can get my 9 gallon pot to a rolling boil on the range with no problems.
What was your reason for adding the lactose? Just curious. It is getting more manageable but soon to be thrown all outta wack again as I'll be moving up to 10 gallon batches with a keggle setup. I have plans for a single tier Brutus like setup but not quite sure on specifics yet. I need a bigger brewery or I mean garage. A basement brewery sounds pretty sweet as well.
Brew Session Brewed up Midwests Honey Bee Ale for the wife since she'll soon be able to consume alcohol again and my Bombs Away IPA. Honey Bee Ale is happily bubbling away this am Pictures show the 8 oz. of hops that went into the boil for the IPA, it was a hop mess in the kettle. Just plain delicious. 2 oz Citra dry hop to come, total IBUs- 84. Also, last brew in my 10 gallon kettle. Pics of its replacement will come later down the road when I have the chance to put it all together.
The idea came from milk stouts. I know it increases mouthfeel by a good amount too. The higher abv was where I wanted the transition from milk stout to ipa to take effect. Because in the past my higher abv beers have been a little 'hot'. The abv was now, not noticeable due to the sweetening. Also I wanted some increased intensity from the fruitier hops from a little of that sweetening. That was the main reason. So it hid the heat and accentuated the fruity pebbles.
Weihenstephaner Hefe-weizen clone starting today! expected Values OG: 1.059 FG: 1.015 IBU: 24 (@30min boil, 16 @20min boil) SRM: 3 ABV: 5.7%
I decided a few weeks ago to stop buying so much beer. I have spent more money then I care to admit, especially with the release of Deschutes, Great Lakes, Odell, Lagunitas, Founders, to the state. So today, with no plans to brew, I decided to brew lol. Gotta keep those kegs filled. Just emptied my 9% double ipa and filled the next keg with a 7% apa. Time to brew... Decided to go with a english brown. Havnt done one since back in the extract days. 11# Marris Otter 3 # Rahr 2 Row .5# Cara 60L .5 # 2 row Chocolate .5 # English roasted barley Hops: 1 ounce Nugget 1 ounce Chinook 1 ounce Hallertau Schedule: .5 nugget @ 60 .5 chinook @ 30 1 ounce Hallertau @ 20 .5 Nugget @ 10 .5 Chinook @ flame out Yeast is White labs liquid WLP002 I'm currently about 20 minutes into the mash, this according to beertools. 8% abv with about 55-60 IBU's and color should be a light to dark brown @ 25.52 °SRM
Sounds delicious! Keep us posted on how the brown turns out. Took a sample yesterday of my Imperial IPA. Currently 11.2% but could still drop a few points. Just dropped my 10 gallon kettle off with Ted, its in good hands. Now to get some fittings ordered up for the keggles!
Thanks for the info. I used extract in a raspberry red and wasn't too impressed with the taste that it gave the beer, (medicine like) even though it was loved by everyone else. If im going to flavor a beer i'd prefer to use real fruit every time. Lactose would be perfect to add some sweetness back in. I'm sure my current IIPA could benefit from some sweetness to balance the high abv, we'll see what the 2 oz simcoe dry hop adds first though.
Post Your Brewing Sculpture Anyone here use a single tier setup? Currently putting together my keggles and have plans for a brutus like single tier setup down the road. So let this be a Post Your Brewing Sculpture request. I'll start with my setup. Kettle in the middle and burner in background are my buddies. My kettle on the right and has moved on to a new owner one of my keggles is on the left. Started off with a 10 gallon beverage cooler but now have a 52 qt. max cold cooler for my MLT.
Just popped a bottle of mead that I brewed almost 4 years ago, holy crap that stuff has gotten good! I have 5 left from that batch and a couple cases of another that I made with an Indian Spice called Gulkand. Haven't tried the Gulkand stuff in almost two years, maybe it's time to drag that out and give it a try.
Those keggles look badazz, nice job. This beer is drinking well. Heat is not present, mouthfeel is slick and creamy. Chocoltge flavors are very noticeable and the charred robust flavors that I feared would show up are not present. I am really digging this beer. Hops are a but muted though, so I threw in a teaball of .5 cascade for aroma as a keg hop. I also added an ounce of Hallertau at flame out.
Thanks, the keggles are a work in progress as I still need to fabricate dip tubes and get my immersion chiller ordered up. Little Giant pump is on its way! Recipe looks great, teaball of hops in the keg you say? That sounds mighty tasty, does the flavor change the longer the teaball is in the keg? Itching to get the first 10 gallon batch boiling but parts along with a newborn are slowing my progress. Working on gravity readings with my 20 month old daughter, daddy drinks the samples though. Good thing I have a stocked pipeline My Bombs Away IPA turned out fantastic! 84.9 IBU's 6.8% abv and a hearty 2 oz. dry hop of citra.
Pump Woot! Ordered up a little giant 2-md for moving sparge/mash water. Currently in route to my brewery! Pump and 50' x 1/2" immersion chiller have arrived! So shiny :yumyum:
The hop garden. 2nd Year monster Cascade on the left(already has flowers), 1st year Centennial on the right trellis and 1st year Columbus on the right climbing the ropes tied to the Centennial trellis. Horizon should be on the far right but didn't make it. I really need to weed my garden, I do have vegetables in there somewhere :laugh:
I haven't brewed in 2 freaking months, holy hell! I have a week off from work starting Thursday and I plan to brew 2 to 3 things. Want to go with a fruity ipa and a couple smashes. Looking for recommendations on successful ipa's any of you have brewed.
The Simcoe Select IPA from Midwest is really good, especially with a 1-2 oz dry hop. At 1-2 weeks its a grapefruit juice beer which mellows in 3-4 weeks. I also have a Two Hearted Clone that I brewed which I called One Fish Two Fish and turned out fairly close to the original. Or I have my favorite to date, my Bombs Away IPA. The Bombs Away uses 10 oz of hops 2 oz of which are a Ctira dry hop, mmmmm. Let me know if you'd like any of the recipes. The Simcoe Select and One Fish Two Fish would work as SMASH recipes. Also need to get my brewery up and running, been far too long since my last session. Hoping i'll find time end of July to fire up the keggles.
I finally got some water into the pot for my Starry Alignment *_2 on Saturday. It felt good to brew again and I realized how amazingly fast you forget stuff. Keeping in stride with the name of the beer I made some in-stride adjustments. Rather than the late hop addition (because both boys woke up from their nap early, I added the 3lb of dry Breiss and 6lb of Gold Barley after the steep. And, Although I started with 6 gallons of water, I had a full gallon of boil off/grain and hop loss so I had to add a gallon of water after the wort was in the carboy. Sad. I know Paul's hop plants make mine look like seedlings but they seem to be doing well:
Didn't notice that Citra dry hop before, looks like a winner fo sho. Next round you should give hop bursting a try with your Starry. Was very happy with the results from that technique on my Bombs Away IPA. Plants are looking really good, i'll have to get some updated pictars of my plants up. Cones plumping up nicely. Here's a crappy phone pic for now.
Yeah, the first Starry I had the Saaz hop left over from a European Pilsner kit that got munched by a mouse - you pin-pointed that flavor when you had some. I swapped that out for the Citra and figured I'd dry hop with it.
Yes it does change with time. I recently did this with an APA. The aroma was awesomely intense for the first few days, but it tapered off. After a week it was slightly 'grassy'. I used pellets, I think plugs would probably work better for a more consistent flavor/aroma level. On second thought home grown would probably be BEST! I may have to try that this fall with my cascades!
Pleasure, Im really interested in the one fish two fish. Want to keep the hops flavorful, but too a minimum for cost reasons. Simcoe is a delicious hop, would also be interested in that.
I'll have to get the One Fish Two Fish recipe posted later today as well as the Simcoe Select IPA. The Simcoe Select recipe should be on Midwests website but I can get a hop schedule for ya, not sure on the grain bill as i've only done that one as extract. I'm sure if you gave them a call they'd be more than happy to fill you in on the grain bill. Here's the quick instructions for the extract Simcoe Select recipe. Again i'd ad at least a 1 oz. dry hop for 7 days. Quick Instructions 1. Steep crushed grains for 10-30 minutes at 155 degrees. 2. Add malt extract while brew pot is off the burner. 3. Bring to a boil and add 1?2 oz Simcoe bittering hops. (60 Minutes) 4. Add 1/2 oz Simcoe flavor hops for the last 40 minutes. 5. Add 1 oz Simcoe flavor hops with 20 minutes remaining. 6. Add 1 oz Simcoe aroma hops for last 2 minutes then remove from heat. 7. Cool, top up to 5 gallon mark and add yeast. 8. Ferment and bottle. (2 stage fermentation is recommended) 9. Keep Gridlocked away from beer stash. See below.
you forgot step 9. 9. Give a couple bottles to Gridlocked because they are delicious and he likes delicious beer.
One Fish Two Fish(Bells Two Hearted Clone) Batch Size- 5.5 gallons O.G- 1.055 - 1.060 F.G- 1.010 - 1.014 IBU- 52.6 Color- 5.6 10 lbs Pale Malt (2 row) US 2 lbs Vienna Malt 8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt Mash at 150 F 60 min- 1.00 oz Centennial 15 min- 1.00 oz Centennial 5 min- 1.00 oz Centennial 1 min- 1.00 oz Centennial Dry Hop(7 days)- 1.00 oz Centennial Yeast- US-05 This clone came out nearly spot on for color, had a fresher hop flavor/aroma, but was a little short on body when compared side by side with the bells two hearted.
Hop Garden The hop garden as of last night. Cascades should be ready to start picking in a couple weeks. Centennial has buds and the Columbus is close behind.
This looks good. I'll give her a try. I probably wont do the extract, not a fan on the taste. Thanks for the recipes!
Your welcome, let me know how they turn out. Couldn't find the grain bill for the Simcoe but I think some 2-row with a lb or two of Golden Promise and some crystal for color would do the job nicely.
I modified the 2 hearted just a bit. Mostly after you said id didnt have the body, so I upped the mouthfeel and retention grains a little. Also forgot to grab 5 ounces centennial and only got 4 lol 10# 2 row 2 # Vienna 1# cara 10L .5# cara 20L .5# cara pils Centennial I'll do 1@60, 1@20, 1@5 & 1@ flame out to get the most of the bitters in my lack of 5 ounces. Probably will throw in an ounce of cascade at 5 mins to get back some of the lost hop.
It takes beer to make beer. Drinking the cheapy summit ipa. boiling the first and 2nd runnings on the range, 3rd running draining into 2ndary pot. quite a bit of hop trub in the strainer Still alot of hop haze on it as it cools, dumping the warm water into the washing machine.
The wait First harvest is close but decided to let them ripen a few more days before snipping off the ripest cones. Still a tad green I think but some cones have some brown tips. Lupulin looks school bus yellow and smells like good ol cascades.
Hey guys, I know most of you are beer maniacs, but have any of you brewed any mead? I have brewed mead a couple of times before with (mostly) good results. I made a plain sweet clover mead (incredible) and then tried adding in Gulkand (a rose petal paste from India), but it turned out a bit on the bitter side. So, the wife and I (well, mostly her) are having a kid in September and in order to commemorate the event, she has asked that I brew up a special batch of mead. She wants a Maple flavored mead. I have thought about how to make this happen, but I know I don't want the maple syrup to ferment, and I want it to be a prevalent maple flavor. So, do any of you know how I could achieve this without having to worry about the Maple flavor being eradicated by fermentation? Or what it would taste like if I did allow the syrup to ferment?
