sw michigan utopia brewday

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eriktlupus

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hey title says it all
this will be brewed north of battle creek off of M-37 (not quite halfway to hastings) on sat jan 8th 2011. cuinrearview is hosting but since he doesn't have a membership direct all pm's to me plz.

anyone who is interested in watching this or in brewing up a beer of your own is welcome. regular michigan predator rules apply ie bring food and beer to share plz.
 
hey title says it all
this will be brewed north of battle creek off of M-37 (not quite halfway to hastings) on sat jan 8th 2011. cuinrearview is hosting but since he doesn't have a membership direct all pm's to me plz.

anyone who is interested in watching this or in brewing up a beer of your own is welcome. regular michigan predator rules apply ie bring food and beer to share plz.

Like I said in the PM, I don't think I have anything going that day. I should be able to make it. Does he have some place large enough to get everyone inside? It's going to be damn cold.
 
The brewing will take place in my two car attached garage so dress appropriately. There will be room inside the house to warm up and keep the food. I may be able to source some heaters to take the edge off a bit, and there's always the SQ-14 to huddle around! Besides, that's where the kegerator/beer fridge lives so why would we want to get too far away from that? Last year we did it all inside and it took FOREVER to boil down from 14 gallons to ~6. I think doing it outside will be a huge plus. I also just added a wireless network so if anyone wants to do a web stream or take pictures throughout the day that'd be cool.
 
The brewing will take place in my two car attached garage so dress appropriately. There will be room inside the house to warm up and keep the food. I may be able to source some heaters to take the edge off a bit, and there's always the SQ-14 to huddle around! Besides, that's where the kegerator/beer fridge lives so why would we want to get too far away from that? Last year we did it all inside and it took FOREVER to boil down from 14 gallons to ~6. I think doing it outside will be a huge plus. I also just added a wireless network so if anyone wants to do a web stream or take pictures throughout the day that'd be cool.

Are then any motels nearby for those of us who might be able to come long distance?
 
The brewing will take place in my two car attached garage so dress appropriately. There will be room inside the house to warm up and keep the food. I may be able to source some heaters to take the edge off a bit, and there's always the SQ-14 to huddle around! Besides, that's where the kegerator/beer fridge lives so why would we want to get too far away from that? Last year we did it all inside and it took FOREVER to boil down from 14 gallons to ~6. I think doing it outside will be a huge plus. I also just added a wireless network so if anyone wants to do a web stream or take pictures throughout the day that'd be cool.

Boil from 14 to 6? I've only done that once and with an SQ-14 it took 6 hours. Had an OG of 1.150. :drunk:

I'm fine with in a garage, just don't want to be out in the driveway. lol
 
Are then any motels nearby for those of us who might be able to come long distance?

Nearby? Heh, I know that by nearby you don't mean nearby in the U.P. sense of the word, but that's how close they are. There's really not anything close. Probably 30 minutes to K-zoo or the south side of Battle Creek. There IS a little dive motel about 15 minutes away in Hastings though. I can probably get some contact info. for you if you're seriously interested. We have an extra bedroom but no bed since it's the office I'm sitting in right now:p.
 
Boil from 14 to 6? I've only done that once and with an SQ-14 it took 6 hours. Had an OG of 1.150. :drunk:

I'm fine with in a garage, just don't want to be out in the driveway. lol

Yah I think that's about what it took last year only we had a different burner. I'm hoping in the cold with me cranking it up a bit we can knock an hour or two off that.
 
The fourteen gallons was just the first runnings from 57lbs. of grain:D. We only did one parti-gyle, which came out as a 9% black IPA:rockin:. I know we had one or maybe even two more five gallon beers in there, but we were definately breaking new trails (at least for us) so we cut our losses. I think in total our extraction efficiency was something in the 60's but Erik would be better to speak on the numbers. We only had two cooler MLTs and that presented a problem as far as volume went. Hopefully someone in attendence this year would loan us a third to make things a bit easier. For us, at least for me, it was just one of those "whatever happens, happens, let's just go BIG and brew all f'ing day" days. We started drinking, I mean brewing, around 10am and finished drinking....er cleaning about 12 hours later. I was exhausted but when I woke up the next morning (still mid-hangover) I thought to myself "I cannot WAIT to do it next year". We were shooting for 25% in the end product, mid .160's OG before syrup additions. We fell short. We just bottled last weekend a beer that is near 20%. It's sweet, alcoholic, and AWESOME becuase we made it. There were lessons learned that will hopefully make this year's batch much better. For sure some will be around on the 8th. I'm going to brew the five gallon starter of WLP099 next weekend. I want it around 9-12% and am open to suggestions. Thinking a stronger English Barleywine to keep things fairly neutral.
 
I'd love to come. I'll check the schedule and the boss and see what's happening on that weekend. And look for my old snowsuit!

Hah! Living up there you have to wear your snowsuit all the time. I know I grew mine during my freshman year at Ferris which, coincedentaly, is when I began brewing. Hmmmm...... I'm pretty sure micros and homebrew were a good part of my freshman 15:rockin:. That and the egg rolls in the cafeteria in Masselink Hall:cross:.
 
Fortunately, I went to Ferris after getting married and owning a home here in RC. I never had the "pleasure" of attending a Dorm (Although I did hang out at my wife's dorm at Central a bit, which wasn't half bad ;)

Maybe by the time the brew day rolls around I'll be aclimatized. I just gotta remember that it's nothing like being in da UP, eh!
 
Yah, well....... I did a batch last night and I need a little conditioning myself. Started about 3:45 in my sweatshirt and by 7:00 it was carhartt coat time. Never put the gloves on but had my hands over the boil quite a bit. Cleanup after 8:00 got my mitts pretty icy as it was all in the driveway on the end of a hose from inside the brew room. By the 8th I'll have a utility sink installed in the room adjoining my garage(brew room) so it'll all be good. The ice rink in the driveway this morning from the runoff helped grease the wheels with SWMBO on that one;)
 
hey troy, can you see if rachel would be able to join us?

is this all we're gonna get? c'mon people ya'll should be used to winter in michigan by now. it'll just be better when we're brewing if we have more burners going. the bar is just the other side of the garage wall anyway.



cu, any extra thoughts on modifying the recipe for this yr?
here's what we did last yr.
35.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 57.85 %
11.50 lb Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.2 SRM) Grain 19.01 %
3.00 lb Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 4.96 %
2.25 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 3.72 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3.31 %
1.00 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 1.65 %
1.00 lb Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 1.65 %
0.75 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 1.24 %
4.50 oz Nugget [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 140.8 IBU
1.50 oz Hallertauer [3.20 %] (15 min) Hops 5.7 IBU
1.50 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.6 IBU
4.00 lb Maple Syrup (35.0 SRM)


i still think we should just drop the crystal and change it to all 2row rather than mixing 2row and 6row. i'm sure also that we didn't get 146 ibu's either(the nugget was from '08) but i think the number is about right for a target but i'd like to change the finishing hops to something a little citrusy or maybe use something spicy like ctz. thoughts people plz
 
I sort of mentioned it to the boss, but I didn't get much of an answer. I don't think there is anything in the way, so I'd count me in at this point. I told her I was going to brew tomorrow, which got me a "I thought you were done brewing til after Christmas!!"

ha ha, so I'll "back out" of brewing tomorrow (which wasn't really happening anyway) and postpone it til January. Then when I bring up the brew day I can tell her that I never got to brew in December, so I'm due!

That is, if I bring my stuff. I probably ought to. I'll be ready for more beer by then, and the extra burner will keep us warm.
 
hey troy, can you see if rachel would be able to join us?

is this all we're gonna get? c'mon people ya'll should be used to winter in michigan by now. it'll just be better when we're brewing if we have more burners going. the bar is just the other side of the garage wall anyway.



cu, any extra thoughts on modifying the recipe for this yr?
here's what we did last yr.
35.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 57.85 %
11.50 lb Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.2 SRM) Grain 19.01 %
3.00 lb Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 4.96 %
2.25 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 3.72 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3.31 %
1.00 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 1.65 %
1.00 lb Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 1.65 %
0.75 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 1.24 %
4.50 oz Nugget [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 140.8 IBU
1.50 oz Hallertauer [3.20 %] (15 min) Hops 5.7 IBU
1.50 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.6 IBU
4.00 lb Maple Syrup (35.0 SRM)


i still think we should just drop the crystal and change it to all 2row rather than mixing 2row and 6row. i'm sure also that we didn't get 146 ibu's either(the nugget was from '08) but i think the number is about right for a target but i'd like to change the finishing hops to something a little citrusy or maybe use something spicy like ctz. thoughts people plz


Agreed on dropping the crystal malt Erik, plenty of caramels built during the long boil. I'll fart around with Beersmith today and make a proposal. More Munich will be one of the changes. As far as hops go I'll look at that too. I have a good quantity of about 10 varieties right now so it's wide open.

A couple of thoughts for attendees who don't want to mess with brewing:

We are in need of one more cooler MLT to ease the process this year. We mashed pretty thick last year and still had trouble cramming it all into a 40 and a 48 qt. cooler. If someone could bring one along that would be great. I think even a 20 qt. would do it but having something close to the size of ours would allow me to split the grain bill by three and hopefully have a little better control over the mashes than last year.

Erik and I will take the first and part of the second runnings for two five gallon batches. After that if anyone wants to make a beer with some of the second, third, and possibly fourth runnings that's fine with me. There's plenty of sugars to go around:ban:. The ABV of the second beer last year was over 9%. A fourth beer may be pretty weak but with an extra mash tun so things fit better and an even split of the grist between all three I'm hopeful that we will get better conversion and extraction. If you plan on getting some wort you'll want to bring water with you. I'm on a well here and the tap water is not suitable for brewing. Erik and I will only have the 22:drunk: gallons of water to get what we want from the mashes.

I'm so pumped just typing and thinking about it.

Edit: Alright did it sooner rather than later. Here's the grain bill I came up with and am pretty happy with:

39lbs. 2-row
9lbs. Munich 10L
3lbs. Rauch
3lbs. Rye malt
2lbs. Victory
1lb. Biscuit

And the 4lbs. Maple Syrup. Is Herschel providing that this year or am I going to need to source it? I almost wish we were doing this closer to the Syrup Festival in April so we could get it fresh. Something to ponder for another year.

Hops are still a work in progress. I'll be using Warrior to bitter. Probably 2 oz. An oz. of Columbus at 20, 10, and 0 minutes. An oz. of Sterling at 20, 10 and 0. Beersmith says 140.5 IBU. I think that combo of citrus and spice might work. Anyone used CTZ and Sterling together? Besides those varieties I have on hand Citra, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Mittelfruh, Willamette, and homegrown Cascade.

Definately diverging from last year's beer but I guess that's the fun part!
 
Well if I have to bring water I'll just do an extract brew then. I can bring my 80qt mashtun if that would help you out. If I had a truck and trailer I could bring my 1bbl system and just let you use that. Can't fit a 55 gallon MLT in the trunk of a charger.
 
cu's water is similar to mine in that it's hard and iron rich. good for stouts and other darks but not for anything pale.

course even then i'd filter it and maybe cut it with ro




we won't need the maple syrup till march/april anyway.
 
Well if I have to bring water I'll just do an extract brew then. I can bring my 80qt mashtun if that would help you out. If I had a truck and trailer I could bring my 1bbl system and just let you use that. Can't fit a 55 gallon MLT in the trunk of a charger.

You're making me feel guilty Troy. I'll make sure I have some water here if you want to plan on doing a beer with some of the second and third runnings. All of my faucets pour softened water except for an outside spigot which will be frozen. And yes I'll definately take you up on the offer of your MLT. Erik with that big bastard MLT you should be able to leave yours at home. A Belgian yeast for the third beer sounds interesting but it's totally up to you Troy. I don't know what you have in the pipeline. I have no way of guessing what kind of OG it'll be but it should be at least 1.060. Kind of reminds me of the Bell's competition where you didn't know what you got until you got it and had to just throw something together. I'll have the beer I entered in that here as well. It's different.

So I popped the first bottle of last year's batch last night as a night capper. Thoughts of this thread got me curious. It's interesting. I've never had anything like it. Very sweet, melonoidin rich, and malty. I liken it to drinking mash runnings with alcohol. The alcohol is still pretty prevelant. I won't do 12 oz. again by myself. It's too good and must be shared. I'll have bottles on hand to share on the 8th. Surely THAT should get some more interest in coming out!


No comments on the proposed recipe?
 
You're making me feel guilty Troy. I'll make sure I have some water here if you want to plan on doing a beer with some of the second and third runnings. All of my faucets pour softened water except for an outside spigot which will be frozen. And yes I'll definately take you up on the offer of your MLT. Erik with that big bastard MLT you should be able to leave yours at home. A Belgian yeast for the third beer sounds interesting but it's totally up to you Troy. I don't know what you have in the pipeline. I have no way of guessing what kind of OG it'll be but it should be at least 1.060. Kind of reminds me of the Bell's competition where you didn't know what you got until you got it and had to just throw something together. I'll have the beer I entered in that here as well. It's different.

So I popped the first bottle of last year's batch last night as a night capper. Thoughts of this thread got me curious. It's interesting. I've never had anything like it. Very sweet, melonoidin rich, and malty. I liken it to drinking mash runnings with alcohol. The alcohol is still pretty prevelant. I won't do 12 oz. again by myself. It's too good and must be shared. I'll have bottles on hand to share on the 8th. Surely THAT should get some more interest in coming out!


No comments on the proposed recipe?

I'll plan on bringing my MLT, one burner, kettle and enough water for a 5 gallon extract batch.
For me to do all grain I would nee way more stuff and I don't have a way of getting it there. So that's what I'll do.
 
I should be able to make it, I just saw this today. I have two 60q cube MLT I could bring if needed but you also got an offer, so either way.

I'm also planning to go through Vermont before the brewday so I could pick up some maple syrup there if you want. I've heard people recommend grade B over A for beer? Let me know if I should pick any up.

I don't think you'll need to worry about 140 ibu, you can't really get above 100 especially with this gravity, so you can probably throw as much bitterness as you want at it without restraint, just like an IIPA.

I'm hoping to bottle a wide sampling of my homebrew from kegs this month so I should have a selection to bring.

I can't really comment on the grainbill, I'm not very experienced in the perception of grains yet. carastan is yummy though, I could snack on it dry. If you think of grain or hops you want to use that you dont have, I have a big selection and would be willing to donate some to the cause. I have a good amount of 2row that I hardly ever use too.
 
I'll plan on bringing my MLT, one burner, kettle and enough water for a 5 gallon extract batch.
For me to do all grain I would nee way more stuff and I don't have a way of getting it there. So that's what I'll do.
you can use some of the runnings from the batch if you want. we do it partigyle style. we'll take the 1st runnings for the main batch and the first rinse for a cascadian style IIPA after that you guys are welcome to use any thats left
I should be able to make it, I just saw this today. I have two 60q cube MLT I could bring if needed but you also got an offer, so either way.

I'm also planning to go through Vermont before the brewday so I could pick up some maple syrup there if you want. I've heard people recommend grade B over A for beer? Let me know if I should pick any up.

I don't think you'll need to worry about 140 ibu, you can't really get above 100 especially with this gravity, so you can probably throw as much bitterness as you want at it without restraint, just like an IIPA.

I'm hoping to bottle a wide sampling of my homebrew from kegs this month so I should have a selection to bring.

I can't really comment on the grainbill, I'm not very experienced in the perception of grains yet. carastan is yummy though, I could snack on it dry. If you think of grain or hops you want to use that you dont have, I have a big selection and would be willing to donate some to the cause. I have a good amount of 2row that I hardly ever use too.
dont worry about the syrup yet. we usually don't need it till march/april anyway and then we can get fresh local stuff for it. the target before syrup addition is somewhere in the 1.160-1.170 range.
 
I'll plan on using the 3rd runnings for a 5 gallon batch then. But I'll bring some extract in case I want to bump it up some. I'll also bring a bunch of different hops and yeast and figure out what I'll use after I see the wort.
This should be fun.

Another question. What do you have for cooking on? I wont have room to bring a cooker (unless I get Mike to go and he drives) so that will determine what food I make.
 
Unfortunately Troy I'm just starting to think about somking. I have a propane fired grill, that's it. I could probably get my hands on my Dad's stand up Brinkmann ECB smoker but it's completely unmodified and would have to stay that way. Other than that it's the typical household appliances. You are welcome to any of those.

One thing to think about as well. Not sure what size pot you're sportin' but you can always sparge more and boil down. Ten gallons of a session beer will be an option as well. The refractometer will be our friend here. The main batch will be a good six-eight hour boil so not like we'll have anything to do, unless you want to shovel my 100 yards of driveway:D
 
Unfortunately Troy I'm just starting to think about somking. I have a propane fired grill, that's it. I could probably get my hands on my Dad's stand up Brinkmann ECB smoker but it's completely unmodified and would have to stay that way. Other than that it's the typical household appliances. You are welcome to any of those.

One thing to think about as well. Not sure what size pot you're sportin' but you can always sparge more and boil down. Ten gallons of a session beer will be an option as well. The refractometer will be our friend here. The main batch will be a good six-eight hour boil so not like we'll have anything to do, unless you want to shovel my 100 yards of driveway:D

I told Mike about this tonight and he wants to come. Now once his wife hears about it that could change. So If he comes he will drive and I can bring a cooker. Now if you got a pot big enough I run two burners under mine and in my big kettle (55 gallons) I get about 6gal/hour boil off. You would just need a kettle that is large enough in DIA to give you a lot of surface. and some side wall that would keep it in with that much heat going to it.
 
we used a sq-14 last year with a keggle. i think after doing a couple more batches on that burner that the gas was choked on that particular burner. also being indoors fully i'm pretty sure it saturated the air with moisture and extended the boil by al least 2hrs.

this yr we'll be able to run the utopia on a dedicated line with the IIPA on it's own as well. that alone should cut our total boil by another 1-2hrs( we boiled the second runnings down from 9g to 5g in i think 4hrs on the 10g polarware).

think it's time to start looking through the hops to see what i can come up with for a hop bill. after xmas i'll get the stirplate running (need to see if i can find some wlp 060). hey anyone got a slant of pacman available??? never used it but i hear it'll eat through a lot of sugar.
 
IMG00110.jpg


First sack of grain to ever enter my home:D. Take 11lbs. out and everything else there is the grist. Who else thinks that vial of WLP099 looks like the skinny kid cornered in the locker room in high school?

Some suprise substitutions to the grain bill as well! The Red Salamander was out of Victory, so I subbed more biscuit and, lol, some rice! Suggestion from the guy there I like. I asked for "one more thing" and he laughed and suggested a lb. of rice. I like his style. Anyway, the only other sub was cherrywood smoked malt for the rauch. That stuff smelled like bacon in heaven!!
 
Nice, I just crushed up 38 pounds of grain tonight for a blonde ale brew in the morning. Making 25 gallons, 10 for me, 10 for Mike and 5 for another friend. Mike wanted to do 35 gallons but then I have to use the big MLT. 25 gallons I only need the 80qt tun. Have to use the 55 gallon kettle but that's fine.

Hope you make one hell of a big starter. My BW that started at 1.150 I used 5 packs of dry us-05 in a 5 gallon batch. It still crapped out at a 1.040.
 
I just checked, I could go back and forth to Key Largo twice for what it would cost me to go to Kalamazoo and brew with you guys.

Let me think about it.


Uhhhh, no.

(It took approximately 6 billion times longer to type that out than it did to actually make the decision.)

PTN
 
I just checked, I could go back and forth to Key Largo twice for what it would cost me to go to Kalamazoo and brew with you guys.

Let me think about it.


Uhhhh, no.

(It took approximately 6 billion times longer to type that out than it did to actually make the decision.)

PTN

wow...i knew it was expensive to fly into kazoo but i didn't realie it was that bad.

sux you won't come in ptn but i'll be sending you a bottle this week so you can imagine anyway
 
I just checked, I could go back and forth to Key Largo twice for what it would cost me to go to Kalamazoo and brew with you guys.

Let me think about it.


Uhhhh, no.

(It took approximately 6 billion times longer to type that out than it did to actually make the decision.)

PTN

Too bad. But you could send your avatar in your stead...
 
hey bdsx can you bring the stuff to do a webcast? or if not you someone else then?




tim i'll be going to bells this week for yeast for the 2nd runnings beer. need me to pick up anything?
 
Nothing that I can think of Erik but I'll be going there myself since Santa brought me a gift certificate to the General Store:D.
 
So, we're in the car, coming home from NYE weekend at friend's house up north, right? I ask about what's going on this week. "Nothing." says the wife. "Nothing going on this weekend either, but next weekend we have that wedding."

So I says, "Oh yeah, but this weekend is that brewday down by Battle Creek...??"

So starts the discussion about how I never said anything, yes I did, maybe you did, but you didn't remind me, yada yada yada.

If I don't say anything, I am not a good communicator. If I remind her, then I'm obsessed. (Well, we already know I'm obsessed, it just annoying to her to constantly hear me talking about brewing. I'm trying to be better about it!)

At any rate, I mentioned it to a friend who lives in Ann Arbor. He might be joining us as well.
 
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