Mike over at themadfermentationist recently posted an extraordinarily-informative post entitled "Maintaining Brett and Lacto Cultures."
The Bruery received over 100 new bourbon barrels today. Who wouldn't be excited about that?
Modern Cow (aka alfrantzell of Beer Advocate) has a gut-wrenchingly-hilarious series of comics regarding Tomme Arthur of The Lost Abbey.
Showing posts with label Homebrewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homebrewing. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Daily Beer Digest
Here is the first installment of Daily Beer Digest, which I hope will be a recurring event.
I had a few extra minutes this morning, so I added the dry hops to my Bitter Beer Face American Bitter, which I brewed on March 6. Thanks to all those on the Beer Advocate Homebrewing forum for helping out with this one. This was my first time adding dry hops in the carboy--rather than in the keg--with unwaxed dental floss used to hold the hop bag in suspension. The procedure was easy enough, and hopefully it yields good results.
Upland Lambics went on sale at 12:00 PM EDT this afternoon. This round Upland offered the Blackberry and Cherry Lambics with a limit of 1 per style per person at $20 per bottle. Amy and I were each lucky enough to grab an allocation of each style. Looking forward to it as the Blackberry is the only variety I haven't been able to try yet.
Deschutes has finalized expansion plans that will eventually result in a capacity increase of 105,000 barrels, responding to an increase in demand for their products. Good news has been coming from Deschutes lately, as they also recently announced that they'll be pasteurizing their beer that comes out of barrels after having infection issues with 2009 Abyss and 2009 Mirror Mirror. Amy and I were luckily spared with The Abyss, as none of our 6 bottles were infected. We're hoping for the same for the 3 bottles of Mirror Mirror I gave Amy for Christmas, as this it's one of her favorite beers. We opened one that was infection-free just after Christmas, so we're hoping that the rest are the same and have the refrigerated just to be safe.
The beer menu for SAVOR was announced. Overall, some very good things to try, though some breweries are a bit disappointing. I'd especially like to see Cigar City be a little bit more adventurous. I wasn't particularly pleased with them offering off-the-shelf bottled beers at this year's Night of the Funk, especially with the knowledge that I had passed on this year's Hunahpu's release and its crazy draft lineup in favor of the Night of the Funk / Extreme Beer Fest combo.
Hoosier Beer Geek put up an interview with Barnaby from Three Floyds, detailing some information about this year's Dark Lord Day. Judging by the picture in the post, this year's wax color with be yellow.
In other absolutely fantastic Three Floyds news, Zombie Dust (formerly Cenotaph) will apparently be released in six packs.
Founders' new bottling line is up and running.
Brew Your Own posted on article on reading malt specification sheets.
Alaskan Brewing will be headed to Minnesota starting in May. Great news for me, as now I should be able to order their beers when I make my online Surly purchases at France 44.
I had a few extra minutes this morning, so I added the dry hops to my Bitter Beer Face American Bitter, which I brewed on March 6. Thanks to all those on the Beer Advocate Homebrewing forum for helping out with this one. This was my first time adding dry hops in the carboy--rather than in the keg--with unwaxed dental floss used to hold the hop bag in suspension. The procedure was easy enough, and hopefully it yields good results.
Upland Lambics went on sale at 12:00 PM EDT this afternoon. This round Upland offered the Blackberry and Cherry Lambics with a limit of 1 per style per person at $20 per bottle. Amy and I were each lucky enough to grab an allocation of each style. Looking forward to it as the Blackberry is the only variety I haven't been able to try yet.
Deschutes has finalized expansion plans that will eventually result in a capacity increase of 105,000 barrels, responding to an increase in demand for their products. Good news has been coming from Deschutes lately, as they also recently announced that they'll be pasteurizing their beer that comes out of barrels after having infection issues with 2009 Abyss and 2009 Mirror Mirror. Amy and I were luckily spared with The Abyss, as none of our 6 bottles were infected. We're hoping for the same for the 3 bottles of Mirror Mirror I gave Amy for Christmas, as this it's one of her favorite beers. We opened one that was infection-free just after Christmas, so we're hoping that the rest are the same and have the refrigerated just to be safe.
The beer menu for SAVOR was announced. Overall, some very good things to try, though some breweries are a bit disappointing. I'd especially like to see Cigar City be a little bit more adventurous. I wasn't particularly pleased with them offering off-the-shelf bottled beers at this year's Night of the Funk, especially with the knowledge that I had passed on this year's Hunahpu's release and its crazy draft lineup in favor of the Night of the Funk / Extreme Beer Fest combo.
Hoosier Beer Geek put up an interview with Barnaby from Three Floyds, detailing some information about this year's Dark Lord Day. Judging by the picture in the post, this year's wax color with be yellow.
In other absolutely fantastic Three Floyds news, Zombie Dust (formerly Cenotaph) will apparently be released in six packs.
Founders' new bottling line is up and running.
Brew Your Own posted on article on reading malt specification sheets.
Alaskan Brewing will be headed to Minnesota starting in May. Great news for me, as now I should be able to order their beers when I make my online Surly purchases at France 44.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Batch III - Kukulcan Imperial Mayan Stout Redux
01.11.2011 - Trying again--hopefully without a massive blowoff experience this time. Made a starter of 3 quarts of tap water along with 10 ounces of DME. Boiled for 15 minutes with 1/8 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrient. Split the volume into two growlers and pitch a room-temperature vial of WLP001 into each. Covered with aluminum foil.
01.15.2011 - Brewday activity and recipe:
01.15.2011 - Brewday activity and recipe:
Monday, January 10, 2011
Batch II -- Kukulcan Imperial Mayan Stout
01.05.2011 - Made a starter for the imperial stout. boiled 7 ounces of DME with approximately 64oz of water to replicate Zamil Zainafheff's formulation in "Yeast." Also added 1/4 tsp. of Wyeast yeast nutrient. Boiled all of this for 15 minutes. Had to deal with a few early boil-overs, but it settled shortly after. Split the mixture into two growlers. Placed outside to cool and pitched one Activator of Wyeast 1056 into each growler. The packets: (1) MFG 30NOV10 (1534327) and (2) MFG 14DEC10 (1104347). Not thinking squarely--though it ends up not mattering--shook the growler with the older packet added right after adding the yeast. Placed sanitized aluminum foil over the top and left out overnight on the kitchen countertop.
01.06.2011 - After approximately 21 hours, the kraeusen has fallen quite a bit after being fairly high on both this morning around 8 hours in. The growler with the yeast that is approximately 15 days older appears to have finished quite a bit quicker. The kraeusen on that one never got quite as high. This morning, yeast was swirled and shaken at approximately the 7-hour mark and the 9-hour mark. This evening, yeast swirled again at the 21-hour mark.
01.07.2011 - After approximately 30 hours, the kraeusen has fallen to to a thin layer of foam on top of the beer. There is a layer of slurry on each one about half-and-inch thick. Interestingly, the older smack pack currently has a larger cake at the bottom. Whether this is due to the initial shaking or just because the yeast flocculated out quicker, we'll have to see. Placing both in fridge to flocculate out all the yeast so the wort can be decanted the morning of brewday.
01.08.2011 - Brewday. Mashed at 156F for ~70 minutes. Mashed in a 1.25 quarts/pound. Added 6 gallons and 42 ounces of 173F water. Mash a bit too high at 160. Added 32oz. of 45F water to bring to 156-57F. After 60 minutes, added 3 gallons sparge to bring to 170F. Volume dropped too low during boil, so added 1 gallon filtered water toward end of boil. Original gravity of 1.097. Got a little less than 5 gallons into the fermenter (6-gallon better bottle). Pitched yeast at approximately 6PM. The grain bill was altered as Northern Brewer delivered 10 pounds of Rahr 2-Row instead of Maris Otter. Recipe:
01.09.2011 - Disaster strikes. Blowoff tube into growler was a bad idea. Ended up losing quite a bit of beer. Cleaned up around 2AM when it was discovered. Unfortunately, left temperature probe outside of freezer so temperature dipped down to near freezing. Luckily, nothing froze and this served batch i quite well, as it dropped everything out and made kegging easier. Later in the idea, on the advice from Humbard, I siphoned what remained to a 3-gallon better bottle. Plenty of yeast in suspension came with, so no need to repitch. This was done at approximately 4PM. Ended up with approximately 2 gallons of 1.090 beer. By 11PM, a nice kraeusen has developed and the blowoff bucket is showing plenty of signs of activity. Temperature is sitting between 62 and 65F.
I will be brewing this again next weekend and will hopefully have better results. I am excited that I'll actually get to use all Maris Otter instead of the Rahr 2-Row this time, and after tasting the samples from Saturday's batch, I'll definitely be scaling the Columbus 60-minute addition down to .75 ounces or maybe a bit more.
01.11.2010 - Took a sample this evening while switching over from the blowoff assembly to an airlock. Gravity is down to 1.028. A quick taste brings some malt but mostly a strong alcohol bite. Hopefully this subsides and isn't related to stress caused during the overflow fiasco.
01.06.2011 - After approximately 21 hours, the kraeusen has fallen quite a bit after being fairly high on both this morning around 8 hours in. The growler with the yeast that is approximately 15 days older appears to have finished quite a bit quicker. The kraeusen on that one never got quite as high. This morning, yeast was swirled and shaken at approximately the 7-hour mark and the 9-hour mark. This evening, yeast swirled again at the 21-hour mark.
01.07.2011 - After approximately 30 hours, the kraeusen has fallen to to a thin layer of foam on top of the beer. There is a layer of slurry on each one about half-and-inch thick. Interestingly, the older smack pack currently has a larger cake at the bottom. Whether this is due to the initial shaking or just because the yeast flocculated out quicker, we'll have to see. Placing both in fridge to flocculate out all the yeast so the wort can be decanted the morning of brewday.
01.08.2011 - Brewday. Mashed at 156F for ~70 minutes. Mashed in a 1.25 quarts/pound. Added 6 gallons and 42 ounces of 173F water. Mash a bit too high at 160. Added 32oz. of 45F water to bring to 156-57F. After 60 minutes, added 3 gallons sparge to bring to 170F. Volume dropped too low during boil, so added 1 gallon filtered water toward end of boil. Original gravity of 1.097. Got a little less than 5 gallons into the fermenter (6-gallon better bottle). Pitched yeast at approximately 6PM. The grain bill was altered as Northern Brewer delivered 10 pounds of Rahr 2-Row instead of Maris Otter. Recipe:
01.09.2011 - Disaster strikes. Blowoff tube into growler was a bad idea. Ended up losing quite a bit of beer. Cleaned up around 2AM when it was discovered. Unfortunately, left temperature probe outside of freezer so temperature dipped down to near freezing. Luckily, nothing froze and this served batch i quite well, as it dropped everything out and made kegging easier. Later in the idea, on the advice from Humbard, I siphoned what remained to a 3-gallon better bottle. Plenty of yeast in suspension came with, so no need to repitch. This was done at approximately 4PM. Ended up with approximately 2 gallons of 1.090 beer. By 11PM, a nice kraeusen has developed and the blowoff bucket is showing plenty of signs of activity. Temperature is sitting between 62 and 65F.
I will be brewing this again next weekend and will hopefully have better results. I am excited that I'll actually get to use all Maris Otter instead of the Rahr 2-Row this time, and after tasting the samples from Saturday's batch, I'll definitely be scaling the Columbus 60-minute addition down to .75 ounces or maybe a bit more.
01.11.2010 - Took a sample this evening while switching over from the blowoff assembly to an airlock. Gravity is down to 1.028. A quick taste brings some malt but mostly a strong alcohol bite. Hopefully this subsides and isn't related to stress caused during the overflow fiasco.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Batch I -- Apollo India Pale Ale
I brewed my first batch of homebrew on Sunday January 2, 2011 after getting all the gear I needed from Amy for Christmas. Brew was done with the assistance of the Matts--Humbard and Geist. Here is the recipe and notes on the process:
01.02.2011 - Brewday. Mashed in at 1.25 quarts/pound of water to reach a mash temperature of 149F. Held there for 90 minutes. Collected a bit under 5 gallons, chilled to 69F, and pitched two vials of WLP001. Placed in chest freezer at 65F. Initial gravity reading is 1.046.
01.04.2011 - Couldn't help myself and took a gravity reading after the blowoff tube hadn't shown much activity. Down to 1.022. Still fairly sweet, but quite bitter with plenty of tropical notes.
01.07.2011 - Took a final gravity reading after no change in activity for over a day and the kraeusen had fallen. Gravity now at 1.010. Beer is significantly less sweet and quite bitter.
01.09.2011 - Early AM temperature was dropped down to 35F to settle sediment. Added 2 ounces each of Citra and Amarillo to the bottom of a sanitized keg purged with CO2. Transferred approximately 4.5 gallons to the keg. Started carbonating at 10psi at 36F to get approximately 2-2.5 volumes of CO2. Smell is pretty strong, though not nearly what I would like it to be--hopefully the dry hops help there. The 100+ theoretical IBUs are very noticeable; it's going to be one extremely-bitter session beer.
01.10.2011 - Went to check on the keg and realized the CO2 tank had kicked at some point during the first 24 hours of carbonation. Switched to a new tank at 8-10psi. Pulled a sample of the beer and it was quite cloudy. Apparently, this is not from the yeast as I chilled a sample for quite some time without any of the haze falling out. I don't think this is chill haze as it was not present earlier. The nose is great--stronger hop aroma than yesterday. The taste, however, is a bit chalky and seems to have changed during the day in the keg. I'm investigating the cause of this but hope it's a normal part of the process and/or will fall out in a few days during carbonation.
01.02.2011 - Brewday. Mashed in at 1.25 quarts/pound of water to reach a mash temperature of 149F. Held there for 90 minutes. Collected a bit under 5 gallons, chilled to 69F, and pitched two vials of WLP001. Placed in chest freezer at 65F. Initial gravity reading is 1.046.
01.04.2011 - Couldn't help myself and took a gravity reading after the blowoff tube hadn't shown much activity. Down to 1.022. Still fairly sweet, but quite bitter with plenty of tropical notes.
01.07.2011 - Took a final gravity reading after no change in activity for over a day and the kraeusen had fallen. Gravity now at 1.010. Beer is significantly less sweet and quite bitter.
01.09.2011 - Early AM temperature was dropped down to 35F to settle sediment. Added 2 ounces each of Citra and Amarillo to the bottom of a sanitized keg purged with CO2. Transferred approximately 4.5 gallons to the keg. Started carbonating at 10psi at 36F to get approximately 2-2.5 volumes of CO2. Smell is pretty strong, though not nearly what I would like it to be--hopefully the dry hops help there. The 100+ theoretical IBUs are very noticeable; it's going to be one extremely-bitter session beer.
01.10.2011 - Went to check on the keg and realized the CO2 tank had kicked at some point during the first 24 hours of carbonation. Switched to a new tank at 8-10psi. Pulled a sample of the beer and it was quite cloudy. Apparently, this is not from the yeast as I chilled a sample for quite some time without any of the haze falling out. I don't think this is chill haze as it was not present earlier. The nose is great--stronger hop aroma than yesterday. The taste, however, is a bit chalky and seems to have changed during the day in the keg. I'm investigating the cause of this but hope it's a normal part of the process and/or will fall out in a few days during carbonation.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
High ABV Beers
Great post from Ryan_Brews on getting a pretty high alcohol level for a recent RIS homebrew.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)