What I did for beer today

Yesterday planted the rhizome and the already growing hop plant my co-worker gave me...the rhizome hasn't sprouted yet but the plant grew at least 1/2 inch today, I swear. Gonna have me some fresh hops this year! Mt Hood and either Sterling or Perle, he wasn't sure on the rhizome but who cares!

I have to clean bottles so I can bottle my saison this weekend. Then I will weigh out my grain bill to take to the lhbs for grinding. Then I have to begin a starter for my honey pale ale using a new yeast for me, wlp041 (Pacific ale).

I am as excited as a little gurl!!

Looked at fermenters, thinking about my next brew. My sour finally developed a pellicle. Been a couple months since i added the bugs.

seatazzz said:

Yesterday planted the rhizome and the already growing hop plant my co-worker gave me...the rhizome hasn't sprouted yet but the plant grew at least 1/2 inch today, I swear. Gonna have me some fresh hops this year! Mt Hood and either Sterling or Perle, he wasn't sure on the rhizome but who cares!

Click to expand...

In May and June it will grow a foot a day until its about 30ft long. I grew cascade and nugget.

See my signature for making an easy to make hop oast.

There is nothing like having copious amounts of hops to dry hop with in the fall. People will be jealous and ask you a billion questions.

Drank some.

Schlenkerla said:

In May and June it will grow a foot a day until its about 30ft long. I grew cascade and nugget.

See my signature for making an easy to make hop oast.

There is nothing like having copious amounts of hops to dry hop with in the fall. People will be jealous and ask you a billion questions.

Click to expand...

That is a fantastic idea, thanks! I hadn't yet got to the point of thinking about how I'm going to dry them, but that looks quite easy and within the budget.

Today I kegged ten gallons of beer for my friends' daughter's wedding which is in two weeks. Also got some ingredients for a cool Belgian Wit recipe I am brewing next week (if my schedule lines up). Happy Saturday everyone!

John

cleaned, sanitized a keg to put 1/2 of q 10 gal batch of choc. stout, other 1/2 went into a bucket for a bud to take home to bottle. Measured out the hops and crushed the grains for his first all grain biab attempt...

Brewed what will become a Brett IPA.

Took hydro sample on my first NEIPA. Started at 1.074 finished at 1.010 so it's at 8.4 ABV. Added 4 oz of Citra for dry hops and will bottle next week.

Some gear my wife will use to make cheese arrived at our place today. I ordered that stuff for her.

I'm not the only who ferments stuff as a hobby in our house, she just ferments milk rather than malt or fruit juice.

And you have to be fair about it. I spend plenty on beer brewing and wine/mead making. So, can't be afraid to spend a little on cheese making once in a while. Keeps everyone happy.

Plus, fresh cheddar curds are fantastic...

Cleaned a keg that kicked last night and prepared it for the mild i will keg tonight.

Drank my NE IPA watching the masters. Hometown boy won.

Added gelatin to fine a Blonde Ale.

Boiled a huge IIPA for three hours.

Checked gravity on a Belgian wit, and a NEIPA which smells great and is tasty. Then dry hopped the NEIPA with cyro mosaic for the second round.

Cleaned a fermentor

Checked gravity on a quad, and washed bottles.

Built a recipe for a Kolsch. Coworker is getting married in August, he's a homebrewer as well and I want to get him into all-grain. A nice simple easy drinking ale will be just the ticket.

Making Classic Stout tonight from 100% pale malt....

The black, 120L crystal, and maple smoked malt are all homemade from pale malt.

Drank some, and had another taste of the Pliny clone that just got it's second dry hop addition yesterday....don't care if it wins anything when I enter it later this month, it's already a winner in my book. Come on Saturday (kegging day)!!!!

Primed and bottled my wit. (Yesterday)

Today I ordered more homebrew supplies
starsan, yeast nutrient and whirlfloc.
Whould be here tomorrow for weekend brewing activities .

No grains or hops in this order. Plenty of hops in the fridge and pleanty of grains. 20kg of ale malt plus 10kg of Maris otter and variaous amounts of crystals and other malts.
Having a lot on hand means a brew day can be pretty last minute decision. So it pays to have the basics available hence this order.

I have 17 packs of expired late last year S04 left I got for a good price which are giving a cheap and easy way to brew teat batches. Still plenty of viability in the yeast especially for 10L and 19L batches

Drank another glass of an mangrove jacks luckey goat pale ale extract beer i am not a fan of the taste but i have 22L of it to drink and i want thd keg free one day... its not too bad with food but compared to the all grain milk chocolate stout on the other keg i would take the stout any day.

Checked on my fermentor containing 19L of my expirimental motueka hopped pale ale with toffee malt. Its on my table without temperature control so it got to 25C and was pitched at 20C.. the last few days have been mostlly below 10C outside although my house without any heating is staying warmer than that which I attribute to recladding and adding batts in the walls. The fermenter is back down to 20C today so major fermrntation done in 4 days. I want to leave it maybe 10 days from brewday (last sunday) but drop in dry hops 4 days before 10 days are up.

Lastley I went to work because without going to work there would be no homebrew equipment or consumables.

Inspired in part from reading American sour beers, yesterday I ended up starting a colony of bugs using dregs from recent sour beers, with the intention of adding more every time I have a decent sour, to be periodically fed and used as appropriate. Also made a trip to the beer store to pick up some sours to add to said mix.

Gonna get my yeast starter going tonight for a pale ale I will brew Sunday. It's my house recipe and haven't had it in over a year!

Then I have to locate a sufficient quantity of empty bottles to package my cream ale the same day.

Started the day yesterday with a nice $100 win on a scratch ticket...first thought in my head was "YAY!! Full bag of grain, adjuncts, hops, and yeast to brew two batches this weekend!" Started crashing the Pliny clone last night to keg it up tonight. And heading to the LHBS in a few minutes to spend that $$...oh and did I mention I went home "sick" from work today so I can get started? I am a bad puddy tat. And Ninkasi apparently thinks so as well, sitting here in my garage doing some research (and ordered a pH meter from Amazon that will arrive this afternoon) when I hear something like water running....look at the kegerator and beer is quickly dripping out the bottom. The "out" post on one of the kegs got loose. So, it's a GOOD thing I went home "sick" otherwise there would have gone 5 gallons of APA.

We're finally getting a decent spring day here in Western PA, so I finally brewed a pale ale that I've been sitting on the ingredients for...first time using Cryo hops! This is the best time of the year here to brew...nice temps, but ground water still cold as flocc, and can get temps down to below 60*F with immersion chiller...no need to resort to ice bath for the last few *F. Cleaned a few kegs, and my kegerator lines to boot...got ambitious and went ahead and kegged one of the 1 gal cider batches I had sitting ready for consumption. Not a bad day, altogether!

Used the "roll n shake" method to force carb the Pliny clone, and just poured a glass. Not quite carbed up yet, but the smell and flavor are off the chart. Color is great too. Put it back on force carb for the rest of the day, hope to get the husband to try some later today. Success! And brewing my first attempt at a blonde lager right now. It's a great weekend to be a homebrewer!

Cracked open one of the Raspberry Cream ales I bottled last weekend and chilled yesterday...yeah a bit early, but glad I did. Fully carbed up and magically delicious. Nice fruity/floral nose and the raspberry is not overpoweringly sour, just a nice fruity flavor. Moved the rest of the bottles out to the garage to avoid bottle bombs.

Made some...
Drank some...
Bottled some...

Kegged my Rauch Me Gently.

Gave my fermenters a shake to wake the yeast up after temps in the pantry dropped to 45 during a power outage during the height of the snowstorm. Got power back and it took 12 hours to get the fermenters back to 64... I had to close the pantry off to conserve heat from the pellet stove...

17 inches of snow, 6 foot drifts.... someone send me some global warming!

Brewed a lichtenhainer yesterday, bubbling away nicely this morning.

Checked on the blonde lager this morning that I brewed Saturday. First one I've ever brewed, and used 34/70 yeast. Temperature has been pretty steady at 56-57, it's in a swamp cooler with a fan blowing on it. This morning finally seeing some yeast rafts on top, oh thank heaven. Was scared it wasn't going to start up. 48 hour lag time has me a bit concerned, but my sanitation is close to the obsessive level so I'm not TOO worried....yet.

Brewed a 6g AG Robust Porter worn my daughter

Aside from tending to my new batch and the last batch, I planned my next 2 brews for the last weekend in April and the first one in May (for National Homebrew Day!). The first will be another pale ale followed by a Dark Mild.

Cleaning, cleaning, drinking, cleaning....

Dry hopped my motueka toffee pale ale brew. Should be ready to keg saturday which is good since I think my milk chocolate stout keg must be pretty low.

Checked on my Nelson sauvin SMaSH in the newly commissioned fermentation chamber. Still holding 18.1C for 18C so good considering a few 24C peak days and about 11C nights in my unlined uninsulated garage where the chamber is.

The smash airlock has slowed down to nearly nothing now. The fermenter reads 18.5C on an indrpendant thermomter so stc1000 is correct so probably done. Pitched S04 yeast 3 days ago and it got off to a reasonable start in the first day.

Started reading up on belgium triple recipes as now I have the fermentation chamber I think I will give one ago.

Ordered 25Kg of gladfields german pilsner malt.
Also ordered hops and yeast for the tripel.

Came home from work to find a nice pretty layer of krausen on the blonde lager. Took it three days to get there but I'm not scared anymore. Drinking some more raspberry cream ale to celebrate. It's only 4.5% so I can have a lot....

Stepped up my lager starter to 4 liters after realizing i screwed up on pitching calculator. It was at high krausen after 24 hoursso im looking good for brewing tomorrow