What I did for beer today

MT's AZ Ale Haus said:

Yeah, not sure, that's just what the manufacturer states.
Even at 100 gallons, its still damn affordable.

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I agree with that, just seems low for me. Anyway, its a good way to use tap water. I'm happy with the filter. Thanks for the info!

Put together a 3 Gallon Honey Amber recipe to try out the new 4 gallon Anvil, and a 5 Gallo recipe for Strong American Amber ale, ordered a dark malt Amber kit from Northern Brewer as a base for my strong Amber. Waiting for my #7 undrilled rubber stoppers to come today or tomorrow. Dreaming of the day I punch the button on a Kegland Kegerator...heavy sigh....one day soon

I brewed my first all-grain batch (Graham Wheeler's London Pride recipe) and had a ton of fun. Had much higher efficiency than I expected, so I'm very happy with that. Wort sample was very tasty.

Installed another pole and rerouted some bines on my hop plants! Starting to see some flowering [emoji16]

aharri1 said:

Installed another pole and rerouted some bines on my hop plants! Starting to see some flowering [emoji16]View attachment 613989

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Whoa! Aharri and the Beanstalk!

Made up a starter for the rauchbier I plan to do this weekend. First time using a bigger stir bar with my 5L flask, but it doesn't seem to stay in place too well.

Bottled 6 gal of Velvet Hammer clone.

Sanitized the equipment then bottled the piwo.

Filled 20 bottles with Doppelbock. 8 for future comps and 12 for sharing.

Organized my ingredient inventory. Recorded additions to the running totals. Planned my next two brew sessions and prioritized the order of my next 7 batches.

Collected the results of Fuller's yeast/Muntons extra light spray malt test fermentations @10days.

OG @ ~1.063

Colony 1 - 1.011
Colony 2 - 1.012
Colony 3 -1.0125

FG & rate of flocculation followed the same pattern, colony 3 flocculating most rapidly @RT and this might have caused the slightly higher FG. All these colonies produced nice esters and I would say the wort fermented with colony 3 tastes best (expressing intensive esters in a small flask @ambient 19-20°C). On the other hand, it could be that it tastes brighter cause the flocculation was so complete (I did not cold crash these tests). So no apparent differences between these clones but I think I'll prefer nr 3 for brewing. It was nice to see the yeast character without hops or specialty malts. It brings quite a lot of aroma and flavor to the neutral malt.

jaymosbeershack said:

Filled 20 bottles with Doppelbock. 8 for future comps and 12 for sharing.

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Yummm

Cooked up a starter of Irish ale yeast

aharri1 said:

Installed another pole and rerouted some bines on my hop plants! Starting to see some flowering [emoji16]View attachment 613989

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We have had overnight freezing temps for the last two weeks here in my part of Los Angeles, so I am still waiting for my hops to wake the heck up!

JAReeves said:

We have had overnight freezing temps for the last two weeks here in my part of Los Angeles, so I am still waiting for my hops to wake the heck up!

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Oh wow we had that about 3 or 4 weeks ago, now it's been in the upper seventies and eighties for 2 weeks and unfortunately it will get a lot warmer soon LOL.

Tried to bottle my mead-turns out it did not ferment at all in 4 months. Brix and hydrometer both confirm the sugar level is still off the charts. So the yeast that was supposed to work-JAOM recipe, and has no trouble raising bread-completely failed here. Now I have almost a gallon of orange-flavored honey that needs to be used for something...

Maybe an industrial-strength blonde ale?

I may have stepped in over my head but we shall see...

My home brew club is having a "fantasy" brew competition and tommorow is the "draft". 14 members (I got entered after an original dropped out) will pick ingredients from a prepared list of base malt, hops, yeast, flavorings, special additions, etc and we will have about three months to come back for judging the final products. We pick 8 overall ingredients and are required to use 6.

Think of a cooking show where contestants are gifted a bunch of ingredients to use creatively. Except we have a bit of control over some of our choices.

It's a fun challenge but I am admittedly nervous as a newbie to this type of exercise. Oh well, let's dive in and check it out.

JAReeves said:

Tried to bottle my mead-turns out it did not ferment at all in 4 months. Brix and hydrometer both confirm the sugar level is still off the charts. So the yeast that was supposed to work-JAOM recipe, and has no trouble raising bread-completely failed here. Now I have almost a gallon of orange-flavored honey that needs to be used for something...

Maybe an industrial-strength blonde ale?

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Just re pitch some new yeast, maybe a standard brewing yeast this time. And this time do a gravity after 30 days to make sure. All is not lost!

Packaged a small batch of mulberry mead.

Bottle primed a small batch triple, and a strawberry Brett (mixed fermentation)

2nd BIAB, an American amber mash kit from HBS store here in Ireland

Hit numbers pretty well but hiccup at the end with fermentation bucket.
Hopefully won't be crucial but be annoying if it ruins the beer.

Anyway, happy enough and think it'll be fine

cochised said:

2nd BIAB, an American amber mash kit from HBS store here in Ireland

Hit numbers pretty well but hiccup at the end with fermentation bucket.
Hopefully won't be crucial but be annoying if it ruins the beer.

Anyway, happy enough and think it'll be fine

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How odd - today, I BIAB'd an Irish red ale here in the USA [emoji12] BTW, congrats on beating Italy.

shetc said:

How odd - today, I BIAB'd an Irish red ale here in the USA [emoji12] BTW, congrats on beating Italy.

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Cheers, but I must admit I care not an ounce for rugby, even though I played it in my youth.

Still, keeps them alive in the 6 nations so will keep people happy

cochised said:

Cheers, but I must admit I care not an ounce for rugby, even though I played it in my youth.

Still, keeps them alive in the 6 nations so will keep people happy

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There is hope for you yet [emoji6]

Filled kegs with xxIPA rev.2.0

Tipa looking right after a week. Tastes even better!

Found out my regular stout acquired an infection. It didn’t taste too bad, though, so I threw in some more sour culture and will check it in a few months to see if it gets better.

Bottled the Imperial Stout, though the yeast pooped out at 9.3% (1.040).

Brewed 18 gal of barleywine with the crew.

JAReeves said:

Found out my regular stout acquired an infection. It didn’t taste too bad, though, so I threw in some more sour culture and will check it in a few months to see if it gets better.

Bottled the Imperial Stout, though the yeast pooped out at 9.3% (1.040).

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Sour Stout? A new category? Hummm...or maybe secondary with your favorite fruit to sweeten it up a bit? I'm not one for sours, but interested to know how it turns out! Keep the faith!

Bought a Freezer to start the Keezer! Woot Woot!

Bottled up my Hi Nelson Saison, 60 bottles total, not too bad.

seanjwalker1 said:

Sour Stout? A new category? Hummm...or maybe secondary with your favorite fruit to sweeten it up a bit? I'm not one for sours, but interested to know how it turns out! Keep the faith!

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There's a brewery near me that did a really good sour stout aged on a bunch of different stone fruit. It worked well.

Received a free fridge from a co-worker who has a few rental properties. Apparently the tenants told him it wasn't cooling properly. After some extensive cleaning and elbow grease and some bug removal it was ready to be plugged in. Works like a champ and even better is the cost ($0). Extra Fridge or Fermentation chamber all the way.

Picked up this crowler to share with a good friend who loves beer just as much as we do! The next time he’s near by, we will crack open this bad boy and enjoy it! This brewery has been on his list to stop at and I figured why not bring some back for him to enjoy before he can make the next trip.

Built my keezer....


Got my first all grain under my belt with my recently acquired equipment...


Installed ball valve and thermostat on my kettle and combined two chillers to make a double wort chiller with prechiller.... kind of hard to see in pictures.... learned my lesson on adding ice too soon to the bucket as one of them froze and I had to pull the coils out and thaw it....

Recovering still from the weekend...

Busy man

Received my 5 gallon Phat Tyre Amber ale all grain kit from Northern Brewer [emoji16]. But it has to wait, gonna do a Honey Amber this weekend with supplies from LHBS.

seanjwalker1 said:

Received my 5 gallon Phat Tyre Amber ale all grain kit from Northern Brewer [emoji16]. But it has to wait, gonna do a Honey Amber this weekend with supplies from LHBS.

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Two Ambers? How are you ever going to manage two strippers?? It'll be a catfight every night! Lol

catdaddy66 said:

Two Ambers? How are you ever going to manage two strippers?? It'll be a catfight every night! Lol

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Lol! [emoji1]. 3 gallons of Honey Amber, 5 of plain Amber. 3 Gallons a tad sweet how I like my brew..malty, sweet and strong. Thought about making the 5 gallon Phat Tyre honey too...don't know yet...

Home sick from work (food poisoning, so I can't fly for 3-4 days)

Took a sample of my Hefewizen.. 1.045 to 1.012 in three days. At 62F, that's one helluva fast ferment. WLP300, it's always this quick.

I'll let it sit for another day or two and then keg it.

Spent the afternoon cleaning the garage/brewery up, since tomorrow is trash day.. Been hoarding random wood scraps and other crap leftover from construction projects, and decided to clean house.