Check out Homebrewtalk.com, they have a mead forum that should answer all your questions about how to get the maple flavor. Can't be of much help as all my mead experience is only in 3 batches two of which were strawberry. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
Damn, 5 minutes in and I already have found someone talking about making mead with maple syrup, thanks for the link!
No problem glad it helped. That site is a wealth of info which has come in handy more than a few times for me. Let us know how you decide to use the maple.
Jumbo Cascades Cascades are now reaching ring finger length and will be doing harvest #2 this week. Small cones on the centennial and spurs on the columbus. So i'll have a nice fresh harvest ipa on my hands when the time comes.
Paul and I put together an All-grain batch on Saturday morning. Thanks for your help, man!!! I REALLY enjoyed the process, and it was the most fun I've had brewing in a long time. I have nothing at all against extract, but this is what I'll be doing from now on. I was a bit anxious, like most considering going to AG, but it really wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be. The simple software that I have on my phone helped, but it was really quite simple. Here are the ingredients - 14lbs of grain and 13oz of Hops. I made this late on Friday night with wood that was laying around my garage and the casters from my creeper. Total time spent, about 5 beers: And here I am making the magic happen: and the Cascades:
So I had an EPA sit in second fermenter for about 4 months because I went back to school, and recently bottled it not knowing what to expect. It still has about a week to carbonate so I haven't tasted it, but does anyone know how long is too long for beer to sit before going bad? And, awesome pics BTW Gridlocked...
Well its bottled now so you'll soon find out. You're probably fine, if there was no mold or infection you could see i'm sure it'll be fine EPA. Keep us posted on how it turns out!
Spent about 4 weeks in the primary. I dont use a 2ndary anymore. Read many different articles and literature about the debate of useing a 2ndary. All its good for really is dropping more particles. I use a light filtration jerry rig setup. The beer requires less time to sit, drinks much more fresh and doesnt risk infection witht he transfer to 2ndary and all the touching of other parts etc. My beer in keg usually needs about 8 pours untill its cleared up. So this being the first pour is a bit hazey. Anyway, back on it. Spent about 4 weeks in primary. 2 days sitting on 30 psi and its fully carbed. Its drinking well. Lightly sweet upfront with some cereal grain flavors. Aroma is a tad buttery and malt is present. Hop bitters midway through with mostly pine and a touch leafy. Finish is dry. Head retention is stellar. As is lace, its thick sticky and better then what I'd hoped for. There is a mild off flavor though, cant quite pinpoint it. I'm fairly certain its due to the higher fermentation temp. My basement got pretty warm durring the last few weeks of hot weather. I think the ferment temp was around 75 degrees. Cant wait to have this weather cool a bit so I can brew all through the winter.
Looks delicious Brian! Its on my list to re-brew. As are plenty of others. Once my setup is finally operational a friend and I will be brewing a Pear Hefe on the new gear, soon hopefully. It turned out great last year and my pear tree is starting to drop its bounty. Hop harvest this weekend went well, some huge cones were picked and this is probably only a 1/4 of what is on the plant. This 2nd year Cascade plant is a monster! 1st year Centennials and Columbus's are looking good and should get a few ounces out of both of those.
So now that i've got my hands on a free keg I'm thinking about going to all grain. Might need to employee some help at some point to learn what all to do.
We all need to do a colabo brew day. Caloborate on a recipie and brew it! Would be awsome if we could do somthing like the mn beer club does on a alarger scale so we can all take some home.
Brewery ready to fire! Firing up the new setup tonight! Keggle-HLT, Mash Tun-52 qt cooler, Keggle-Boil Kettle. Brewing the yearly Pear Hefeweizen but now as a 10 gallon batch. Wish I had a full barrel setup, that would work nicely for calabo brewing. 10 lbs 2-row 8 lbs white wheat 1 lbs carapils 2 oz US tettnang 2 Wyeast Activator 3068 18 lbs of home grown pears Had to modify the brew stand so I don't have to elevate the mash tun 10' in the air. Can't wait to get a single tier stand and utilize the new lil giant pump I have
Holy $hit! 19 lb grain bill and all that sugar from the pears, that thing is gonna be freaking nuts and delicious! The perfect grains to allow the pear flavor to come out. I am reading it as a double pitch, is that correct? What does it take to get some of these 16 gallon kegs? I dont even know where to begin looking. Would like to do some garage brewing next year. It gets to hot in the basement in the summer with boiling.
Its a split 10 gallon batch so i'll be using two fermenters so each 5 gallons will have a single pitch and their own 9 gallons of pear puree(wish I had a 15 gallon conical). It turned out so good last year that my friend and I decided not to change it up and or experiment this go around. I pick the pears a lil early and it turns out slightly bitter, sooo tasty. It doesn't last long Keep you eyes pealed on Craigslist(there's currently a keggle mash tun with false bottom/ball valve for $125) and or post up in the MidwestSupplies forum brew-wineforum.com and post in the wanted/for sale section. I got one from a member there for $40 and had to drive down to Farmington to get the other for $50. All weldless hardware was purchased through bargainfittings.com
Pear Hefeweizen brew session The session went smooth, took 5 hours from setup to cleanup. Beers consumed- 21st Amendments Brew Free Or Die IPA, One of Teds Stouts, Double Hop Head IPA, and a bomber sized Paultoberfest. Oh and my friend consumed a flaming mug of flame 10 gallons of hefeweizen in the fermentation room.
Hop Harvest Update Hop Harvest Update- Currently have 11 oz. of dried Cascades in the freezer, filled another screen door full last night and still have at least a couple more screen doors full left on the plant. Centennials and Columbus are getting close to harvest. Anyone else harvesting?
My dad planted 3 hop varieties for me, spring of 2009. Last years harvest was mediocre at best. This year however was phenominal. I built some racks with him to dry the hops. He planted them and watered them for me, I had to do the harvesting, pruning, and the work was well worth it. This will save me big money for brewing, as hops are about the most expensive part of the process. I was at their house today for about 7 hours and only managed to do half of the work. Will have to go back again to finish it. But here is what I got tonight. About 5 lbs of Cascade, and 3 lbs of Centenial. Made myself a little hop vine necklace...very fashionable. Will have more pics soon when he emails them to me. These are ****ty cell pics.
VERY nice harvest, Brian! I'll also post some better pics, but here is my harvest from my first-year plants. Most of these are Cascade, the ones in the bottom right are Chinook. I've still got 50-60 cones on the vines.
Wow, nice harvests by all! Got 4.5 oz's of Cascades in a pale ale Friday night for a test batch to see how the flavor/aroma is this year. Looking forward to much better results than last years harvest.
So I know I've been quiet on here but Ted is pushing me into AG. It only took 3 angle grider wheels but I got the damn lid off. View attachment 23264
Looking more like a keggle! What are your plans for it? Keep me posted, if nothing comes up and or you need anymore let me know.
Yeah i decided to dig up that last one to check on it and it appears to have rotted in the ground. Grrrr I put it back just in case there is anything viable in there, but I doubt it.
Hefe's in the House Bottled the split Hefe batch last night and they turned out fabulous! Especially the Strawberry Hefe. Can't wait for these to carb up :yumyum: With all the yeast/trub in the pear hefe it looked like we were bottling milk.
Not always. I usually bottle with bombers(which are de-labeled) or keg my beer. Plus some of those are classic schells bottles!
TBD. Ted and I are having a brew session tonight. The keggle will be discussed, but I'll start a little discussion here. I have that keg, I have a line up on a 2nd keg, and i have a 7.5gal SS kettle that I currently use for my boil pot. I figured out last night that my home made drop-in chiller *will* fit in the keg, so that changes some ideas now. Still haven't figure out what I want to use as a MLT. When I bottled, which I'm so happy I went to kegging, I soaked the bottles in the powder sanitizer. I cannot remember what it's called now because I've moved to On-Step liquid stuff. Also I see you're also in Crystal. I wonder if I've seen you around at all. I live sort of near that Cub Foods off 36th and 100. And now for something completely different. I've been having problems getting my burner to get 6 gal of water to a boil in what I would consider a quick amount of time. It was taking 30 to 45 minutes to bring that amount of water to a boil. I always thought it was because the burner I have was built for a turkey fryer so it had these lips on the edge of the burner to keep the kettle in place. Needless to say my 7.5gal was too wide for it and I would set it on top. Well the other day while playing with the angle grinder I modified the burner. 20 minutes and I had a full boil... Maybe a little too aggressive boil... woops. My garage smells of awesome right now.
Wish I could make it out tonight but it just isn't going to happen, make sure Ted doesn't blow up the garage. I'm currently using a keggle as my HLT and Boil Kettle and am using a 52qt cooler as my MLT. Eventually i'd like to get a 3rd keggle for my MLT but for now my cooler with copper manifold is working far too well, although i've been tempted to upgrade to a 70 qt cooler. Its already insulated so there's no need to direct fire it and or figure out a way to insulate it as you'd have to do with a keggle MLT. Unless of course if you get fancy with a HERMS or RIMS system of cycling your wort. Depending upon whether or not you plan on doing 10 gallon batches i'd suggest doing the same with your setup and getting a 52 or 70 qt cooler for your mlt. All you need is a steel braid or copper manifold, ball valve and your set. I have a MLT sizing chart somewhere....Found it
Yeah, right now I'm fine with my 5gal batch size. Some of those O.G's are crazy. I don't think I've had anything above 1.070. My helle i brewed last night is a little on the strong side.. it rolled in at 1.062. OG from the kit says 1.049
Check out Teds 10 gallon mlt tonight, works great and can hold plenty of grain for a 5 gallon batch. I had the same setup for 2 batches before selling it off and upgrading to a larger cooler.
Free Homegrown Cascade Hops Free to a good home-brewer, the remainder of my Cascades that are still on the plant. All you need to do is come by and we'll cut out the plant and you haul the bush away(not the root ball just this years growth). Don't have the time to finish harvesting them and they need to be picked asap as they're starting to dry on the vine. If interested shoot me a pm! Probably 2-3 ounces dried left on the plant. Picture of said plant ->
I had a great brew session with Ryan on Friday night! Thanks for making the journey out west, Ryan! I hope you had a good time and learned two things. 1. A.G. brewing is easy-peezy-lemon-squeezy. 2. Heat up your sparge water BEFORE you're done mashing... We brewed up the sA^3 recipe: 10lbs American two-row 1lb Vienna 1lb Pale Malt- Marris Otter .5lb Crystal 120 .5lb Cara-Pills 60 min: .5 Amarillo, .5 Cascade. .5 Simcoe 20 min: .5 Amarillo, .5 Cascade. .5 Simcoe 5 min: .5 Simcoe, .5 Cascade 1 min: .5 Simcoe, .5 Cascade 7 day Dry hop: 1oz Citra, 1oz Amarillo. The OG was lower than I thought it would be, so I'll have to figure out why. Most likely because I'm a newbie and I suck at all-grain brewing, but it could have been Ryan's fault. I hit 152 for my mash temp- going for 154. Close enough for the girls I've gone out with, and this is the Starry Alignment saga anyway. Depending on how this batch turns out, I should be sticking with this recipe for my house brew. We'll see. We enjoyed: A couple pints of the White Lightning Boob1e Juice which is my version of Paul's Bombs Away IPA, a bomber of the Imperial Stout, an Oktoberfest or two, and few more Boob1e juices, I think... Good times. The menu: Ryan at Dough in: 1st Runings: WTF's Efficiency!?! (and why is everyone so concerned with it?) This is for Paul: And proof that I don't know how to use Whirlflock: But all this junk will settle out to a nice 1-2" bed after it's done.
LOL, i'm surprised that hydrometer isn't in there upside down. What was your O.G.? Did you remember to adjust for temp? I always forget that. Looks like the whirflock worked great, just in your carboy instead of in your kettle Got a pick of your finished mash paddle?
IIRC his OG was 1.038 or something like that. After the temp adjustment it was 1.044. btw, picked up my 2nd keg yesterday. Time to start cutting.
Sweet pickup, check here for weldless fittings if you're going that route- http://bargainfittings.com/ Hmm, i'm guessing the grains came crushed from Midwest. I've never been all that happy with their crush.
Yep, they crushed those grainz for me. I didn't realize the crush could make that much of a difference. I mashed for a little over an hour as I forgot to heat the sparge water, but didn't take a temp reading before the mash out. I've still need to do some learning about sparge water temps.
Just put a little over 5 gallons of a Bell's Two Hearted clone into primary last night. =D O.G. came in at 1.066. I think I've got my all grain setup dialed in at about 75% efficiency pretty consistently using a nice hot mash-out. I'm having trouble getting my boil volumes to work out properly though. Always easier to top off and back up than to take it out.... Keggerator is fully operational though! :biggrin: I just picked up another 50lb sack of 2-row at the LHBS last week and now I have an itching to turn it into beer, looking at some porters/stouts for the fall and winter coming up. Gridlocked: My efficiency went up from about 60% to 75% once I started crushing my own grains doing A.G. The settings at the LHBS to handcrank all the grain were always too loose and never consistent. I've had anything from 50% - 75% using the LHBS. I bought a Barley Crusher and never looked back to the days of hand-crank. I just hook it up to the cordless drill and let 'er rip. P.S. I bought a welder not too long ago and am looking into making a 2 or 3-tier brew stand for natural gas off of the house. :cheers2: -Steve
Steve, I have 26 bottles of that Triple IPA that never carbonated. Do you think we could try putting them in a keg and force carbonating them? Thoughts from anybody else?
