What I did for beer today

Bottled a barrel aged sour blackberry quad.

Last night took the oak chips and bourbon that had been soaking for 2 weeks and added them to my stout.

Ordered 50 pounds of Mecca Grade Lamonta Malt and 10 pounds of Opal 44.

Technically it was yesterday...

Brewed a NEIPA at Manyunk Brewing for the (first annual) Delaware Valley Homebrew Community Pro-Am Beerfest. Awesome!

Edit: Assisted with I should say.....

Washed a whole heap of pots n pans after a 12,5h work day at 0:30 so I can get straight to mashing tomorrow when I get home from work, and straight to sparging and hop boiling right after the boys go to bed.

Today I pondered the use of Opal hops.

beermanpete said:

Ordered 50 pounds of Mecca Grade Lamonta Malt and 10 pounds of Opal 44.

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I'm really interested in how you use opal and what you think of them, I bought a pound on a whim and don't quote know what to use them in.

I haven't found much online about this hop, but so far I tried them for bittering a Saison with hallertau hersbrucker for aroma. Not sure I like how bitter it turned out even though the predicted IBU was appropriate for the style.

Jayjay1976 said:

Today I pondered the use of Opal hops.



I'm really interested in how you use opal and what you think of them, I bought a pound on a whim and don't quote know what to use them in.

I haven't found much online about this hop, but so far I tried them for bittering a Saison with hallertau hersbrucker for aroma. Not sure I like how bitter it turned out even though the predicted IBU was appropriate for the style.

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The Opal 44 is a caramel malt made by Mecca Grade Malts. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

https://www.meccagrade.com/malt/

Bottling Day Today!

I love bottling day because it's the last hurdle to good beer.

5 gallons of Oatmeal Stout going in, carb for 2-3 weeks then condition for a month or so.

SWMBO doesn’t like the smell when I pressure can starter wort so, when she went for a girls’ night last night, I fired everything up and canned enough for at least 8 starters. That’ll hold me for a while.

Bottled my first IPA, it's a brewer's best kit, but must have done something right cuz it tastes pretty good flat. Also pondered kegging...

Worked on building a cooling tower so I can save some water when cooling the wort on brew day.

beermanpete said:

Worked on building a cooling tower so I can save some water when cooling the wort on brew day.

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Good on you, but once you get that built you gotta start calling yourself 3 Mile Island Brewing.

Sure. The line-up will include Plutonium Isotope IPA, Heavy Water Weissbier, and our famous Steam Beer.

Cleaned out several kegs by running hot PBW through my keg washer system and rinsed. Now they are ready to be sanitized on kegging day. Also took a gravity reading on my London Pride clone that is just about finished fermenting. Lastly, I am enjoying my Munich Helles lager that came out absolutely awesome and everyone here is raving about it. The pumpkin ale also came out very tasty and the spice is balanced and not over done. You can also actually taste the pumpkin in the finish and it makes the beer in my opinion, compared to others I have had that only use pumpkin spice and not actual pumpkin.

John

Kegged up the latest House IPA and dug around in my bins to find my good bottling wand. Fixing to bottle up 3.5 gallons of my Holiday ale to be ready for presents. By "fixing" I mean trying to motivate myself to clean twelve dusty 22's and actually get down to bottling. Haven't done it in over a year. Ah well, the sister is cooking tomorrow so maybe will get to it in the morning. Oh look, HBT.....

moved a RIS that I brewed yesterday to primary

Took delivery of some Sassafras root then promptly almost burnt my house down attempting to toast it.
P.S. Sassafras when chipped for use in tea is shockingly highly flammable and will combust in a toaster oven.

Brewed 20 gallons of an amber ale!

Moved a bunch of brew stuff out of the kitchen so I can cook Saturday for Thanksgiving!

Brewed 5 gallons each of a pale ale and amber ale. Going to harvest the yeast for 15 gallons of imperial stout to be brewed after Christmas.

Kegged a Black Butte clone I brewed a few weeks ago. Finished at 7.6 ABV! Sample tasted great.

Built a rack to hold CO2 cylinder that hangs from shelf support in fridge.

Brewed Centennial Blonde last night and finished cleaning this morning. Football and brews for the rest of the day.

Measured and crushed the grains for 10G batch of undead guy. Grain bill is in the MT, waiting patiently. System all connected and ready to rock. Hopefully Ill get a fairly early morning start. Just heat my strike water and go.

Bottled my brown ale and getting ready for brewing tomorrow.

Ok, this post is a day late, but ordered my kegging starter system from kegconnection. 2 faucets, 3 kegs, dual body regulator with carbing line, 5# co2. It's gonna be here before I know it, gotta get the old fridge out of the garage, cleaned up and into the basement, Stat!

cleaned a keg and kegged a foreign extra stout. and assembled my new spike conical!

In the garage brewing an Irish red with 10% rye while experimenting with blending an overcarbed Maris Otter/Azacca SMaSH with an undercarbed bitter.

The brew is my first with my new brew bag and is going exactly according to plan, which is scaring the hell out of me. The bag is great quality, but I'm going to have to make quite a few mods to the brew stand around it.

The bitter was overcarbed until, appropriately, one of the bombers I bottled it in exploded, so I rebottled it as I'd rather have less carbonation than shards of glass. Maybe I'm just prissy like that. The blends are working quite well, but I'm not prissy when it comes to drinking beer so they may all be garbage.

Pulled the trigger on the 3 gallon FastFerment today. MrBeer doesn't have it on a crazy deal but 5 or 20 bucks off plus a combo with one of their extract recipes. Not thrilled with it but free not-beer-yet is good to spruce up any deal for someone in desperate need to replace their LBK

Made a starter from american ale ii for a brew tomorrow

Went to LHBS for a few things, and added strawberry to a small 1.5 gallon batch I have going.

Bottle soak n wash day yet again (I really should take up the habit of rinsing out the bottles right away...) three beers waiting to be bottled in the fermenters so need muchos bottlos.

Cashed in my LHBS credit for 24 bottles. Switching from grolsch 16oz flip tops to standard 12oz bottles has been taxing on the liver and the wallet. Luckily STL Wine and Beer Making has a loyalty program, spend 150 bucks and get 15 in store credit. I'm gearing up for next year in hopes of doing more and bigger batches and to start kegging. Next on the list is more bottles, more bottles, a turkey fryer setup and to finish out my mudroom brewery.

Dried spent grain, turned it into flour using a coffee bean grinder, used some to fry chicken.
And yes, it’s good. I just need to work on my frying skills.

Davevjordon said:

Dried spent grain, turned it into flour using a coffee bean grinder, used some to fry chicken.
And yes, it’s good. I just need to work on my frying skills.

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That is an amazing idea, I've been spreading it in my yard to help the grass grow I think I'll do this too. without sidetracking too much on this thread, can you taste the different malts in the fry? say I did a chocolate stout. could you taste chocolate in the "breading"?

WFox93 said:

That is an amazing idea, I've been spreading it in my yard to help the grass grow I think I'll do this too. without sidetracking too much on this thread, can you taste the different malts in the fry? say I did a chocolate stout. could you taste chocolate in the "breading"?

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Well, the biggest thing to watch for is just that you use a low temp in the oven and dry them slowly (spread on a cookie sheet). I didn’t mess mine up, but if you use a higher temp, you’ll notice the grain becomes more “toasted”, ending with a darker color and more nutty, toasted taste.
I once brewed with a 1/2 lb of chocolate rye, I tasted the grains and they just taste like they’ve been roasted. You will get more of that toasted flavor from those chocolate grains. I don’t know how much you’ll notice it in the fried chicken, I just liked the fact that it tastes different than using plain, white flour. It’s worth a try, you’ve gotta do it.
The other thing I did is I used dried grains to make a couple batches of granola bars.
THIS IS A MUST for homebrewers!

Kegged 11 gallons of house ale and washed fermenters so I can brew later today or this weekend(leaning towards Saturday brew day). Get another batch of house ale made and kegged then get a batch of lager brewed now that they are forecasting lower temps next week so my pantry will be high 50's f to low 60's for fermenting. I had 4 kegs set back but my niece came by and asked for 3 of them for my grand nieces wedding dance... now I am low on beer again!

Took delivery of the specialty grains, hopps, yeast for the next couple batches. Getting some more choc. stout in the pipeline!

Took the Christmas Beer out of lagering and into the serving fridge. It’ll be ready to go right on time.

Doing the hardest part of home brewing. Emptying kegs so I can package tomorrow. At least there is good food and a slate of football games to keep me occupied while I labor over these pints.