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Just bottled some Block Party Amber Ale, this is my first batch ever. I hope everything turns out great!
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Quoted: Welcome back :) https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--bFOXx0nD--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/ldcfphmjhr7u7hzhcwsp.jpg View Quote |
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I’m a week into my Idaho Pilsner , going to brew either a smoked beer next and a Gose soon , I just picked up the Gose book , wasn’t planning on Gose this year but a no boil kettle sour Gose sounds great for summer .
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Got the stout done last (well 2 weekends I guess) weekend. Tasted like shit when I put it in to ferment(went big on the chocolate malt) acrid, tried it yesterday now it taste real good and smoothed out nicely.
Made a lacto starter 3 days ago whole pilsner grain for inoculation (2.6ph in 12hrs, started at 4.8. using phosphoric acid, used my sous vide machine to hold a water bath at 109 in my 2L flask). Made berliner weiss mash 2 days ago parked it in my smoker at 110 for 18 hrs after hitting it with 1.5L of lacto starter (kettle sour) came out yesterday at 2.8Ph (16hrs). Did the boil and started to ferment at 60 deg, yesterday. So far so good. Maybe some sort of lager will be next I havent done one but now my keezer freezer I got got christmas will allow me to do that.( use one of my 3 wine fridges for a ferment chamber but since its electrostatic cooled it doesnt go much below 58) Either that or a real true to style Kolsch might be next, not sure. I've done a kolsch before but that was years ago back in the days of lazy brewing, it came out pretty good anyways. Picked up 2 more 2.5gal kegs that showed yesterday. Also my water analysis went out to ward labs today. |
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Well , just got everything togeather for my rauchbier ! Next weekend it’s a go !
I’ll use this as a placeholder for my soon to be marzen rauchbier ! It was a success , 1.050 starting gravity , sitting at 52 degrees right now. Was 50 percent beech wood smoked malt ! Attached File |
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I did a SMaSH IPA on Saturday. Maris Otter and Mosaic hops. It is my first SMaSH so I am hopeful it turns out.
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Ward labs finished my water profile today. I'm using softened water (resin beads), and it was pretty enlightening. Sodium is a bit high as you would expect but not too bad at 153ppm. I was surprised at my total alkalinity being up at 277(I guess I shouldn't be since I have a softener), but that explains why I need so much acid to move the ph. Softener is working pretty damn well tho.
I'll post this in case others are using a softener to give you some idea what might be going on. K = <1ppm Ca = 0 ppm MG = < 1ppm Total Hardness = <1ppm Nitrate (NO3-N)= <.1ppm Sulfate = 12ppm Chlorite = 3 Carbonate = <1 Bicarbonate = 336ppm Phosphorus = <.01ppm Iron = <.01ppm Plugged all this into the water profile calculator in Beersmith and I've been pretty good on my Gypsum additions but turns out I also need some of calcum choloride and epsom salt. Kind of excited to see what getting a real brew water profile is going to do for that last few % of improvement. Also got my small pot setup for doing re-circulation this weekend which is going to get me more accurate mash temps. |
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This past weekend I started a Banana mead.
15 lbs of organic bananas ~6 lbs of organic raw honey This one will be on the lighter side at about 9-10% ABV Going to Add PB2 later to make it a banana peanut mead. |
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Friday I brewed a 2.5gal batch of IPA. Used Pale ale malt + Munich Malt and some flaked wheat for grain. Azacca with a touch of Mosaic and Citra, no bittering hops all late addition and whirlpool. And pitched Imperial A38 "Juice" I had saved from my last batch starter. OG was 1.058 and Re-circulation worked great at keeping the temp steady throughout the mash at 149, put in fermenter and fermenting at 64 degrees.. Dry hopped yesterday with an ounce of azacca during active fermentation and will probably go with another 1/2oz in the keg. Hoping to cold crash on Thursday and get it in the keg Friday or Sat.
I also kegged my Berliner Weiss friday while I was waiting on the boil of my IPA and also has some extra so I filled 2 750ml bottles for the spring. Saturday after reloading 1500 rounds of 9mm I made peach and raspberry syrup for the berliner weiss and got to have some on sunday. It came out great ABV is around 3.8, nicely sour with a hint of funk on the aftertaste. Surprised the head retention is good, with a bright white head and its got the light golden color with hazy appearance. Its great with the syrups (That I primarily made for my wife) but I have been just drinking it plain for the most part and will definitely make it again for the summer maybe even a 5 gallon batch. |
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I brewed an all-Citra IPA on Saturday. The previous week I had brewed an all-Mosaic one with the same grain bill. For the most recent one I just racked it onto the yeast cake of the first batch, after that one was transferred to secondary. It'll be interesting to drink the two side by side.
Temps were in the low 30's to upper 20's. My hoses were almost froze up when I went to hook them to my chiller. |
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Quoted:
Friday I brewed a 2.5gal batch of IPA. Used Pale ale malt + Munich Malt and some flaked wheat for grain. Azacca with a touch of Mosaic and Citra, no bittering hops all late addition and whirlpool. And pitched Imperial A38 "Juice" I had saved from my last batch starter. OG was 1.058 and Re-circulation worked great at keeping the temp steady throughout the mash at 149, put in fermenter and fermenting at 64 degrees.. Dry hopped yesterday with an ounce of azacca during active fermentation and will probably go with another 1/2oz in the keg. Hoping to cold crash on Thursday and get it in the keg Friday or Sat. I also kegged my Berliner Weiss friday while I was waiting on the boil of my IPA and also has some extra so I filled 2 750ml bottles for the spring. Saturday after reloading 1500 rounds of 9mm I made peach and raspberry syrup for the berliner weiss and got to have some on sunday. It came out great ABV is around 3.8, nicely sour with a hint of funk on the aftertaste. Surprised the head retention is good, with a bright white head and its got the light golden color with hazy appearance. Its great with the syrups (That I primarily made for my wife) but I have been just drinking it plain for the most part and will definitely make it again for the summer maybe even a 5 gallon batch. View Quote |
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Well apparently something happened to the stout for my friend I brewed and it somehow got a sour twang. I'm thinking it might be related to setting my mash paddle into a plastic bowl I used to weight grains at the start of the brewing process and then using it to aerate the wort before pitching. Oh well, apparently I now have 2 sour beers. Haven't dumped it might just store it in the basement and see what happens, or use it as a mixer for other batches to add complexity.
So after that fail I tweaked the recipe a bit and re-brewed it on Sunday, this one tasted amazing going into the fermenter so hopefully this works out. I'm really hoping fermentation doesn't change it much. Also kegged up my IPA from last week (70% Azacca and 15% each Mozaic/Citra in the kettle and 100% Azacca Dry hop). Came out pretty good smelled just like orange or tangerine zest really orange aroma. Taste was my typical NEIPA with upped IBU. Mostly citrus mainly grapefruit/guava/slight mango no pineapple in this batch, good but not life-altering. I may be done with the A38, I'm just not getting the hop taste shining through I get with 1056 and its a few days slower, might try some English strains next. I'm becoming a big fan of dry hopping with Azacca, I think thats where this hop belongs for my taste. Maybe pair it with Amarillo/Mandarina Bavaria for an orange bomb. Not sure what is next for the IPA keg, I do have a pound of Medusa I need to use for something. Apparently my wife and I killed the Berliner Weiss already (which is funny because she "Doesnt like beer" very much). I may just rebrew that one at 5 gallons if I can figure a good way to sour that much. |
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I really want to try a Berliner Weiss soon. I think my next batch is going to be a Saison that I'll sour with a Brett/pedio/lacto mix in secondary for several months. View Quote Sour Saison sounds great and I have also thought of doing that one. I keep going back and forth about doing the entire true sour thing since you kind of need a few batches to blend and the extra equipment, space and time it takes. Pictures from the "sour" ppl and thier 20 carboy's makes me think maybe I shouldn't. Although I do have some lambic blend yeast in the refrigerator so.... |
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Decided to try something a bit different today, I took my coffee stout recipe and eliminated the coffee and altered the grain bill a bit to up the gravity. I then added in ~1qt of red currents that I picked at my parents old house a year or so ago. I added them into the kettle as you would first wort hops. https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/199178/20190216_134730-848529.jpg https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/199178/20190216_154833-848528.jpg Also, the cat decided to help https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/199178/20190216_114407-848530.jpg OG came in at 1.078 View Quote |
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Quoted: I've got 2 large currant bushes next to my house, we generally pick them and do vodka martini's with them but this is interesting. I think the cat wants you to carpet the stand. View Quote |
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If you kettle sour the BW or even if you don't it seems like ppl that use grain to provide lacto seem to have the most success (I would say thats aside from those that actually buy the lab created stuff). Sour Saison sounds great and I have also thought of doing that one. I keep going back and forth about doing the entire true sour thing since you kind of need a few batches to blend and the extra equipment, space and time it takes. Pictures from the "sour" ppl and thier 20 carboy's makes me think maybe I shouldn't. Although I do have some lambic blend yeast in the refrigerator so.... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
I really want to try a Berliner Weiss soon. I think my next batch is going to be a Saison that I'll sour with a Brett/pedio/lacto mix in secondary for several months. Sour Saison sounds great and I have also thought of doing that one. I keep going back and forth about doing the entire true sour thing since you kind of need a few batches to blend and the extra equipment, space and time it takes. Pictures from the "sour" ppl and thier 20 carboy's makes me think maybe I shouldn't. Although I do have some lambic blend yeast in the refrigerator so.... I've read conflicting accounts of whether you really need to blend true sours, but I figure if it's not sour enough I could just do a quick kettle sour to blend in, or if it's too sour I can brew up a standard Saison. |
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I was thinking I'd buy a lacto blend to kettle sour the BW, rather than take the chance of the wrong bacteria infecting the wort. I'm actually thinking I'll rack it out of the kettle after a short initial boil to a carboy and add lacto at that time. I just bought a carboy heater so I can keep it warm to ensure good lacto growth. After it's soured then I'll rack it back to the kettle for the boil. I've read conflicting accounts of whether you really need to blend true sours, but I figure if it's not sour enough I could just do a quick kettle sour to blend in, or if it's too sour I can brew up a standard Saison. View Quote |
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I was thinking I'd buy a lacto blend to kettle sour the BW, rather than take the chance of the wrong bacteria infecting the wort. I'm actually thinking I'll rack it out of the kettle after a short initial boil to a carboy and add lacto at that time. I just bought a carboy heater so I can keep it warm to ensure good lacto growth. After it's soured then I'll rack it back to the kettle for the boil. I've read conflicting accounts of whether you really need to blend true sours, but I figure if it's not sour enough I could just do a quick kettle sour to blend in, or if it's too sour I can brew up a standard Saison. View Quote What I did (since I was also a bit apprehensive) was take my 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask I use for yeast starters and sour a starter I made with DME with the pils grain and then use that to inoculate the wort. I figured that way I could just dump it and start over if something went wrong before I went on to do the entire batch. Similar process used for yeast starters (except no stir plate (you want anerobic conditions) and I kept it at 109F). Or just get the lab stuff :) I ended up doing another batch this weekend that also turned out very good so far (I dont expect much to go sideways since its fermenting now, souring process worked great). Same basic timing as my first try. I also tried experimenting with increasing the gravity in the mash, souring that (since space is a premium for me on 110 degree souring space. I just toss the wort into a 3.5 gallon SS pot with a lid (purged with CO2) into an electric smoker set at 110) then this time I diluted the wort down to the correct gravity with lactic acid PH'ed water prior to boiling. Surprisingly it too was done souring at the 24hr timeframe down to a 2.85Ph from 4.6starting PH. It looks like I should have about 4.25 gallons of Berliner Weiss out of this batch (I usually do 2.5 gallon batches on my indoor system and put those into 2.5gal kegs). I dont think its something you have to do so much as if you get into making a lot of sours and you want create something specific by taking from the various batches. I tend to go overboard with my hobbies so I'll have 20 of them before long if I let myself. I'd be interested to see how your Saison comes out. I'll probably do a lambic when the weather warms up some and I can use one of my larger brewing systems since it takes so long I'd rather have a good sized batch. |
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This weekend was brewing another Berliner Weiss, bottling (yuck) the stout I make for my friend and cutting up a tree that blew down in the wind storm.
What I learned this week -> Pro Tip: When bottling, make sure you have a bottle capper. After filling the bottles and going through my tub to retrieve my bottle capper, tearing apart the basement looking for it then realizing I gave it to my cousin 6 yrs ago when he started homebrewing because "why the hell would I need a capper since I keg all my beers". After realizing I'm not going to pour them all back into the bucket, clean and sterilize the 20 flip top bottle and briefly entertaining the desperate idea of finding a socket and rubber mallet to see what might happen. I ended up making the 1hr round trip to the LHBS and buying a damn bottle capper. I also reinforced why I keg beer these days. I don't miss cleaning bottles at all. |
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Brewing my first sour , a mixed fermentation Gose . Wish me luck !
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Well I brewed the Gose , mashed , drained to kettle , with a Pre boil OG of 1.036 ( perfect ! ) ......but I got to 196f and poof , no more propane . Luckily I already had my chiller in the kettle because this was going to be a 15 min boil . Was able to keep pasteurization temps for 15 min and off to the fermentor it went at 1.036 . So I brewed a true no boil beer lol .
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Spent the day today decoction mashing a Marzen
Should be ready for the rehearsal dinner for my wedding in august |
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Brewed my Saison on Saturday. It's bubbling away in the basement right now, with the carboy heater set to 74 degrees. I've been bumping it up a little at a time, I think I'll go 76 tonight and 78 tomorrow. Don't know if it matters or if I should just go straight to my final temp, but I thought maybe it would be easier on the yeast to gradually increase it. I'm using Wallonian Farmhouse III from The Yeast Bay, which supposedly doesn't need to ferment as high as other Saison yeasts.
Going to leave it in primary for a couple weeks, then rack it to secondary and add Yeast Bay Melange (Brett/pedio/lacto blend) and let it go for a few months. Once I like the level of funk and sourness I think I'll bottle half and rack the other half onto some apricots for a month or so. |
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Brewed my Saison on Saturday. It's bubbling away in the basement right now, with the carboy heater set to 74 degrees. I've been bumping it up a little at a time, I think I'll go 76 tonight and 78 tomorrow. Don't know if it matters or if I should just go straight to my final temp, but I thought maybe it would be easier on the yeast to gradually increase it. I'm using Wallonian Farmhouse III from The Yeast Bay, which supposedly doesn't need to ferment as high as other Saison yeasts. Going to leave it in primary for a couple weeks, then rack it to secondary and add Yeast Bay Melange (Brett/pedio/lacto blend) and let it go for a few months. Once I like the level of funk and sourness I think I'll bottle half and rack the other half onto some apricots for a month or so. View Quote |
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Racked the Saison off to secondary and added the Melange today, then brewed another saison with the same recipe (but more hops) and racked it onto the yeast cake from the first batch. Batch #2 won't be soured. I plan to leave it in primary for 2 weeks, then go a month or so in secondary.
Batch #1 fermented all the way down to 1.002 in primary. I'm a little worried there won't be enough residual sugar for the bugs to do their funking and souring. I figure I'll wait 3 months then take a sample and see where it's at. |
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Oh, and for the Melange I made a 1 pint starter. It smelled fantastic. If my finished beer ends up like that I'll be tickled pink.
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Just checked my fridge and freezer . My rauchbier is perfectly clear now , been about 2 months since I brewed it . My Gose is finally clear and looking good , excited to bottle 20 gallons of beer at once ! Then 20 gallons of Pilsner to brew soon!
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Got a weird brown IPA thing boiling now. Basically a strong brown ale, with a little brown sugar added, and hopped the shit out of it. Should be interesting.
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Did my standard ale today (4-6-19), gonna bottle the cervesa tomorrow.
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Earlier this week I got some juice on clearance at wally world for 1 buck a gallon. Pumpkin pie spiced apple cider.
This morning I put 2gal in a sanitized water bottle, added 2.5 cups of table sugar, some nutrients, pectic enzym and some bentonite. Shook it all up, and added a pack of US04. OG was about 1.07. Gonna be good! |
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Didn’t brew , but just kegged 20 gallons . 10 rauchbier and 10 Gose ! Also installed a second tap on my fridge and got a second CO2 bottle to keep around ! Now I need a second chest freezer . I’d like to have a 40 gallon capacity.
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Berliner Weisse is kettle souring (ok, I actually racked it to a carboy so I could use my carboy heater) right now. I used Swanson's Lactobacillus Plantarum capsules, as a lot of folks online have had good luck with them.
I did a short boil last night after mashing to kill any wild bugs in the wort, then added acid to drop the wort ph down to 4.5 or so and then pitched the lacto. Going to take a sample tonight and see if it's sour, but it may need to go until Sunday. After I'm happy with the sourness I'll do a full boil with a very light addition of hops, then pitch some Wyeast 1056. I wanted a clean yeast to let the malt and the lacto flavor shine through. |
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Berliner Weisse is kettle souring (ok, I actually racked it to a carboy so I could use my carboy heater) right now. I used Swanson's Lactobacillus Plantarum capsules, as a lot of folks online have had good luck with them. I did a short boil last night after mashing to kill any wild bugs in the wort, then added acid to drop the wort ph down to 4.5 or so and then pitched the lacto. Going to take a sample tonight and see if it's sour, but it may need to go until Sunday. After I'm happy with the sourness I'll do a full boil with a very light addition of hops, then pitch some Wyeast 1056. I wanted a clean yeast to let the malt and the lacto flavor shine through. View Quote |
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Just started the Brewer's Best mini-mash kit New England IPA.
Finished a bit ago. Kit came with US-04, but I had a fermenter with the trub from a BB cream ale with Nottingham yeast, so I poured the wort onto that. We shall see. |
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I did this with my Gose , but no hops , and no boil . I took my wort , added Swanson's lacto and transferred to carboys. After 48 hours it was nice and tart I chilled it and added my yeast . View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Berliner Weisse is kettle souring (ok, I actually racked it to a carboy so I could use my carboy heater) right now. I used Swanson's Lactobacillus Plantarum capsules, as a lot of folks online have had good luck with them. I did a short boil last night after mashing to kill any wild bugs in the wort, then added acid to drop the wort ph down to 4.5 or so and then pitched the lacto. Going to take a sample tonight and see if it's sour, but it may need to go until Sunday. After I'm happy with the sourness I'll do a full boil with a very light addition of hops, then pitch some Wyeast 1056. I wanted a clean yeast to let the malt and the lacto flavor shine through. Also kegged the brown IPA thing I brewed three weeks ago. I kegged a Saison last week, and I have two kegs already in the kegerator. I need to start drinking more. |
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