Big Bad Barrel #4

I brewed a beer for our club barrel yesterday. This is intended to be a clone of Hill Farmstead's Mimosa. This is a 10 gallon recipe with a target OG of 1.077. I'll do the primary at home then it will go into the barrel for extended aging/souring.

16.0# 14oz Avangard Pilsner
7.0# 12oz Flaked Wheat (or equivalent raw wheat)
1.0# 4.8oz Vienna Malt
56g Aged hops (60 min)
Wyeast Nutrient
Brettanomyces Claussenii
TBD dry hop with Citra and Galaxy - before packaging
18g Fresh tangerine zest - before packaging

Mash at 160F, 90 minute boil, ferment at room temp

Water: Nothing fancy, carbon filtered tap water diluted with distilled at a ratio of 4.5:1.

Brewing Notes
Gravity came in a bit low at 1.070. No other issues

Update 8/8/2017
I got started on the yeast starter a little late, so I didn't pitch the yeast until about 24 hours after filling the fermenters (so last night). There seemed to be some acetic character in the starter which isn't unheard of when brett is exposed to lots of oxygen. I decanted as much starter liquid as possible then split the remainder between the two fermenters. Some people report longer lag times with brett, but I've also seen some of it take off like crazy (e.g. Inland Island Brett Barrel Yeast III). This morning I'm seeing positive pressure in the airlock so hopefully I'll see more active signs of fermentation by tonight.

Update 8/9/2017
Things didn't look much different last night when I got home from work; just positive pressure in the airlock. However, this morning there's a nice 3/8" if krausen in both fermenters.

Read more...

Luptastic DIPA

DIPA time again. This is the second beer in my back to back brew sessions today, and as such, it's a shorter post. Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it.

6# 5 oz Great Western California Select 2-row
3 oz Crisp Crystal 60
2 oz Gambrinus Honey Malt
0.33# Corn sugar (10 min)
16g Hop Hash (mash hops)
1.5ml Hop extract (60 min)
20g Hop blend (20 minutes) - The hop blend consists of 5g of each of the following: Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy pellets)
20g Galaxy (10 min)
Yeast Nutrient
Whirlfloc
30g Lupulin powder blend (0 min) -10g each of Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe
US-05
30g Galaxy (Dry hop)
15g Amarillo (Dry hop)
15g Mosaic (Dry hop)
15g Simcoe (Dry hop)

Mash at 150F, 90 min boil, ferment at 64F.

Water Profile - Tasty's

Brew Notes
So...I had some issues here. I pulled a bonehead move and left the ball valve open on my BK while I was running off the mash. I ended up losing about 2.25 quarts on the garage floor. I debated doing another mash, but ended up adding some DME and RO water to bring the pre-boil gravity up where I needed it to be. The beer should still turn out ok, but no question it won't be exactly as it would have been without the mishap.

Update 8/12/2017
Dry hops were added today.

Update 8/19/2017
This beer got kegged today. It also got an experimental treatment with a new piece of equipment, a Blichmann QuickCarb. I added 1.3g of Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe CryoHops while carbing.

Read more...

Pale Ale 2017

One of the really cool things about homebrewing is experimentation. I recently did an experimental IPA using hop hash in the mash. I liked the results enough to incorporate it into today's beer as well. Today I'm going to try an American Pale Ale based on Joshua Veronee's NHC gold medal winning recipe, Rainy Day American Pale Ale. Besides adding the hop hash, I'm experimenting with Cryo Hops Lupulin Powder. The ultimate goal is to infuse some bright hop character into this beer. I'm also making some minor tweaks to the grain bill, so it's not exactly the same as Joshua's. The recipe as I'm brewing it today is as follows. This is a small batch recipe, so approx 2.5 gallons will go into the fermenter.

1# 14oz Rahr US 6-row

1# 14oz Great Western California Select 2-row

6.5oz Briess Victory Malt

6.5oz Crisp Caramalt

6.5oz Crisp Torrefied Wheat

0.5oz Hop hash (mash hop)

0.5ml Hop extract (60 min)

7.0g Mosaic (20 min)

7.0g Centennial (20 min)

14.0g Mosaic (10 min)

14.0g Centennial (10 min)

Wyeast nutrient

Whirlfloc

7.0g Mosaic Lupulin Powder (0 min)

7.0g Citra Lupulin Powder (0 min)

7.0g Mosaic (Dry hop, 7 days before packaging)

7.0g Citra  (Dry hop, 7 days before packaging)

7.0g Mosaic (Dry hop, 3 days before packaging)

7.0g Citra  (Dry hop, 3 days before packaging)

Mash at 153F, 90 minute boil, ferment at 65F

Water = Tasty Water

Brewing Notes
No real issues. My folter almost clogged during the whirlpool. I'd put the lupulin powder right in the kettle as opposed to going in the hop spider. Gravity came on a few points low at 1.052, but still well within style guidelines.

Update 8/12/2017
Dry hops were added today.

Read more...

Rob's Smoke & Wood III

Another quick post today, because I haven't had the time to write lengthier posts lately. Today I'm brewing up the third version of Rob's Smoke & Wood, the Imperial Porter inspired by the Smoking Wood beers from The Bruery. Like last year, this is a 3-ish gallon recipe. The biggest change is I went with Munich II (9L) and the smoked malts consist of a 50/50 blend of Briess Cherry and Mesquite smoked malts. Previously, the smoked malt consisted of 50/50 blends of either Mesquite/Rauchmalt or Cherry/Rauchmalt. Both cherry and mesquite smoked malts are more intense than Rauchmalt, so hopefully this change doesn't throw things off too much. The previous two versions both won gold medals in competition, so I'll be crossing my fingers for this one.

4.80# Crisp Maris Otter
1.20# Weyermann Munich II
0.75# Crisp Brown Malt
0.75# Briess Cherry-wood Smoked Malt
0.75# Briess Mesquite Smoked Malt
0.75# Crisp Crystal 77L
0.45# Crisp Pale Chocolate (sparge)
3ml Hopshot (60 min)
8.4g EKG (10 min)

US-05

0.25 Whirlfloc
0.25t Yeast nutrient
1" per gallon HoneyComb Barrel Alternative (Secondary)

Mash at 154F for 60 minutes, 90 minute boil, ferment at 60F

Same water profile as last time, Beersmith London.

Brewing Notes
No major issues. The boil-off seemed a little higher than normal. As a result, my volume is a tad under 3 gallons and my OG is 21.6 (1.088). I tasted a small sample and I think the smoke level is still going to be ok, not overpowering.

Update 7/11/2017
I was seeing signs of fermentation yesterday morning and by last night there was a full inch of krausen. So things seem to be moving right along.

Update 7/20/2017
I decided to try aging this version on sassafras wood. This one has the potential to be quite different, so I'm hoping in meshes well and doesn't clash. Black Swan describes it as Vanilla, Sage/Spice, Root Beer, Mint. Smelling the sassafras, I'm getting a nutty toasty aroma. I'm hoping for more vanilla character than mint...only time will tell. As usual, I'mbeer steaming the HoneyComb Barrel Alternative to sanitize. I'll give it a few days before I start pulling daily samples to taste.

Update 7/24/2017
I talked with a buddy of mine at work that's really into whiskey about the sassafras wood. He'd experimented with leaves and said he got a lot of mint from it. Wood and leaves may be different, but it made me nervous so I added some oak cubes to this beer. I pulled a sample yesterday and it's a pretty good beer. Like previous versions, the smoke is there but not overpowering. The wood character is still very subtle.

Update 8/20/2017
So I kegged this up but hadn't tried it since carbing it. I dropped it off today as one of my entries for Beehive Brew-off, but didn't taste it carb'd until after I'd dropped it off. Unfortunately the sassafras is coming through big time after carbing. The taste isn't too bad, but the aroma combined with the smokey phenolics is just bad in my opinion. Lesson learned, I doubt I'll ever try to incorporate this into a beer again.

Read more...

Solera #5

Just a quick entry today. I brewed another contribution for my sanke-based solera. Today's version was very similar to the last and is as follows:

8.0# 11oz Pilsner Malt
1.0# Special Aromatic Malt
2.0# 3oz Spelt Malt
28g Aged Hops (60 min)
Brett Barrel III INISBC913

Mash at 160F, 90 min boil, ferment at room temp

Read more...