So who's brewing this weekend?

Brewing an American Style, (read: lazy) Berliner Weisse. First sour beer, will be using the co-sour method outlined in the Modern Souring techniques thread. Equal parts Briess Pale/Briess Red Wheat, single infusion mash at 150F, 60 minute boil, (old habits die hard,) no hops until after fermentation, pitching US05 and Swanson's L. Plantarum. Excitement!

Had a long day on Saturday, I bottled 5 gallons of a Watermelon Wheat and then Brewed 5 gallons of Vanilla Porter on Saturday.

Not a good brew day last night. Took me forever to find my grain mill, then my drill battery was dead so I had to find the handle and crush by hand. Not the end of the world, but kind of set the tone for the whole session.

-First time messing with water chemistry. Discovered that BeerSmith 2 is severely lacking in this area. Still don't know what the hell my pH was.
-First time doing a full volume BIAB. Hit 75% efficiency, so not terrible. Will probably do it more often.
-I hadn't planned this brewday (wife just sprung it on my Saturday) so I hadn't brought home ice. I chilled it down to 150F pretty fast but it took forever to get it from there to 90F. JaDeD Hydra is definitely in my future. I'm sick of ice baths and feel like chilling is really the worst part of my whole process.
-I want to harvest this yeast (Aurora) so I used my brew bag to filter going into the fermentor. That clogged up and my hands got a lot more intimate with the wort than I wanted. I had just been up to my elbows in a fresh batch of Star-San so keeping my fingers crossed on that.
-Ended up with about 2 extra cups of wort in the fermentor and I'm a little concerned that my 3 piece airlock will be able to keep up but by that time it was 11:30, I have to get up at 5:30, so I didn't feel inspired to put together a blow-off. Just keeping my fingers crossed (again!).

THEN, my smoke detector goes off at 2am. The mute button doesn't seem to be working and it has one of those 10-year batteries that I just can't disconnect so I end up wrapping it in towels and stuffing it in an ice chest just to mute it enough to go back to sleep. It was still going off when I left this morning.... UGH!

In the end, I guess the good news is that I made beer. Just too much finger crossing for my liking.

Brewed 5 gallons of an experimental ale (the best way to describe it).

10 pounds Belgian pilsner, 1 pound Belgian aromatic, 2 pounds jaggery sugar near end of boil. Loral hops throughout. Using Javoru Lithuanian Farmhouse yeast.

We'll see how it goes. In the words of the philosopher Denny Conn, "It's still beer."

Not the weekend, but a good time to brew. Cali Common.

Done and cleaned up. Beersmith predicted .052.

Usually don't brew 2 weekends in a row, but I've got 4 days off coming up, so why not? Looking to do a historical German style called a Mannheimer braunbier from here: Historic German and Austrian Beers for the Home Brewer:Amazon:Books
Changing up a couple things from the book recipe to hopefully cater more to my tastes. The style is basically an altbier with ginger and juniper.

Zythos Maosaic pale ale down tonight.

Gravity a little low but volume a little high, never complain about too much beer. Think my boil off was a little low.

Did 10 gallons of my "Curtapalooza Common" this past weekend. I had drawn up the recipe about a year ago for a friend's birthday camping trip and it was so damn good it made it into my regular rotation.

Brew day was probably one of the smoothest I've ever had... Which is a bit surprising considering I'm still breaking in some new equipment. I feel like I'm finally getting down the ins-and-outs of my pump. Also was the first time using my new 70qt mash tun. Heat retention was amazing and had a good bit of head-space. Granted this is a pretty low-to-moderate grain bill at 1.054... but it's nice to know that I've got plenty of room for bigger brews.

It was also my first time using a hop-spider (Hop Spider) instead of my bazooka filter. Worked fantastically, and made the flow to-and-from the pump a whole lot better when whirlpooling and transferring to the fermenter!

Honey Irish Red Ale

Good brew day but long. Honey Irish Red was spot on with og gravity 1.067. 3 weeks till kegging.

Brewed up a Amber Ale today. Weekend is close enough and I have to work this weekend.

Brewing a Belgian Golden strong Ale tomorrow.

dochawk said:

So loose hops. It got 8 ounces of 8.7% Amarillo, and an ounce or so of 13.7% nugget that was left in a bag.

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we're now drinking this, my first batch in more than a decade .

I hit my target--my friend thought it was a heavy , high alcohol beer--but only 22 pounds of grain for 15 gallons. I used a heavy hand with the cara pils (4 lbs ?), and about 4 lbs of milled oats (I meant to use oatmeal, but wasn't thinking clearly at Winco, it seems). And an IPA level haploid, with about an ounce of cascade in a cheesecloth bag sunk at the bottom of the keg.

a nice beer, and only the yeast and oat les than a decade old . . .

Currently mashing a nordic pale ale. Harvested some spruce tips from my backyard last night and will be throwing them in with the last hops addition. excited to see how this one turns out.

Brewing a batch of Yooper's hoppy American amber tomorrow. First time trying this recipe, I'm pretty stoked to give it a go!

Woke up and decided, let’s try a Doppelbock with Voss Kveik. Should be the second and last brew in my condo on the stove. Anvil Foundry should be here next week.

I'm guessing you would be pretty stoked no matter the recipe!

riceral said:

Brewed 5 gallons of an experimental ale (the best way to describe it).

10 pounds Belgian pilsner, 1 pound Belgian aromatic, 2 pounds jaggery sugar near end of boil. Loral hops throughout. Using Javoru Lithuanian Farmhouse yeast.

We'll see how it goes. In the words of the philosopher Denny Conn, "It's still beer."

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It's always still beer. That's one of the beauties of the hobby.

wetmk said:

It's always still beer. That's one of the beauties of the hobby.

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Took a gravity reading today. Went from 1.066 to 1.006 in 6 days.

Peppery taste. Hazy, like a NEIPA. Deceptively easy to drink for a 7.8% beer. I will probably clear it up with some gelatin, then keg it.

Gonna be good on a hot day.

Belgian Pale Ale w/ Wyeast 3522 Ardennes.

Also experimenting with a quick sour, pitched 0.25 gallon Wyeast 5335 Lacto Buchneri starter, will hold at 90F until pH reaches 3.2-3.4. Saved 1 gallon of wort and reboiled/hopped w/ Mt Hood hops. Once pH is reached gonna cool to 65F, and pitch Wyeast 3711 French Saison w/ the hopped wort. We'll see if it turns out drinkable.

And we're off! May had been going for about 20 minutes. I usually brew indoors when my family is at work and school because they hate the smell. Today, I am brewing in the garage to be courteous to them. Brewing outside sucks!

Coastalbrew said:

And we're off! May had been going for about 20 minutes. I usually brew indoors when my family is at work and school because they hate the smell. Today, I am brewing in the garage to be courteous to them. Brewing outside sucks!

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Lol my wife hates the smell too! Even though I usually brew when she's out, open the windows and sliding door, she still complains when she gets home....but a brewer has to draw the line somewhere!!!!!

Brewing a “leftovers” batch. 55% Maris Otter, 45% Munich 10. Centennial early, Cascade late, about 40 IBU. An 8lb grain bill, should be a 1.040-ish OG Amber Ale.

seanjwalker1 said:

Lol my wife hates the smell too! Even though I usually brew when she's out, open the windows and sliding door, she still complains when she gets home....but a brewer has to draw the line somewhere!!!!!

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Never again will I brew in the garage. That was the worst brew day ever, and if the beer actually turns out it will be a miracle! My money is on wicked contaminated, and I will end up with some kind of undrinkable science fair project. Good thing I just stocked up on commercial beer!

Just finished mocking up the recipes for this weekend; a nice IPA on Saturday with Citra & Mosaic, and an Irish Death clone on Sunday, if I can get out Saturday after brewing for the adjunct grain. This Sunday will be my first one off since my last day at 2nd job is this Friday, so needed something special to celebrate. First brew on the new improved brewstand last weekend went beyond well, so I'm looking forward to a couple of easy brews this weekend. That new kegerator won't fill itself...

Coastalbrew said:

Never again will I brew in the garage. That was the worst brew day ever, and if the beer actually turns out it will be a miracle! My money is on wicked contaminated, and I will end up with some kind of undrinkable science fair project. Good thing I just stocked up on commercial beer!

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Hey! I brew in the garage!

Watch it, sir!

Brewed a simple all Cascade PA/IPA with 50 IBUs worth.
for a 5 gal batch
4 lb German Pils
4 lb am 2 row
.5 lb am c60
.5 lb Aromatic
1 pouch of SA05 fermenting at house temps of 70ish.
2 oz at 60
1 oz at 20
1 oz at WP
1 oz at pitch

Did a similar beer with 34/70 and Diamond that turned out great.

brewed 15gal of neipa yesterday. was gonna start in the morning but was hungover from sundays beer drinking fun. so started late, was a couple points low because i used to much sparge water, brain function was slow so that was on me. i did a 90 minute boil to help compensate. pitched a24 for the first time so im excited to see how it does.

cheers!

Robust Porter

My plan is to get a IPA with Kveik bottled Saturday and brew a new one and put on the cake and see where it goes. Well not the whole cake I don’t want an explosion

Stand said:

Hey! I brew in the garage!

Watch it, sir!

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More power to you man! I've got no water access in my garage, so I was constantly back and forth to the kitchen, was constantly shooing insects away from my kettle and even a freaking bird several times. Next time it's back to the kitchen for me. But if the garage works for you.... Rock on!

Coastalbrew said:

More power to you man! I've got no water access in my garage, so I was constantly back and forth to the kitchen, was constantly shooing insects away from my kettle and even a freaking bird several times. Next time it's back to the kitchen for me. But if the garage works for you.... Rock on!

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Me for garage brewing as well. I get a lot of flak from others for using water from my hot water heater (less than 3 years old, nothing weird in it, great water for brewing, use campden every time, and gives me a jump start on heating for the strike and sparge) but my garage is my woman cave. Got my laptop out here, good speakers for tunes while I'm brewing, and plenty of room for the brewdogs and brewcats to stay out of the way. I used to brew on the front porch but it got to be too much of a hassle. I just prop the garage door open with a brick (keeps it low enough so overadventurous young cat can't get out) and a fan going to keep me from fainting, it's heaven out here when I've got something boiling. Across the street neighbors have told me they can smell it in their house, fortunately they love the smell as much as we do.

It's so funny how there doesnt seem to be a grey-area with brewing smells... people either love it or hate it.

Me and my wife love the smell of the mash and the boil. My step son HATES it. Like to the point of almost gagging

3toes said:

It's so funny how there doesnt seem to be a grey-area with brewing smells... people either love it or hate it.

Me and my wife love the smell of the mash and the boil. My step son HATES it. Like to the point of almost gagging

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Lol. I know what you mean. I'm the only one in my house who likes the brewing smells, everyone else hates them. My wife has actually come home and had gagging fits if the boil is still going. She usually likes the finished beer though.

Luckily my wife loves the smell of boiling wort. I only do the occasional small batch brew indoors, my 5+ gallon batches are brewed out on the back patio. She'll usually sit out there with me, partly because she loves the smell.

On another front I recently (half jokingly) asked her if she'd be interested in brewing a batch by herself, with just me advising. To my surprise she jumped at the chance!! I worked with her on Beersmith putting a recipe together and she'll soon be brewing a small batch of Imperial Coffee Stout.
Benefit - If she gets hooked it should make it much easier for me to buy upgrades going forward.

Brewing a Pale Ale using the A43 Loki Kviek strain. First time using this and can’t wait to see what it does at 90o+ fermenting temps.

Edit: pitched at 82

Edit 2: After ~4 hours thefermentation is going strong

hopkincr said:

Brewing a Pale Ale using the A43 Loki Kviek strain. First time using this and can’t wait to see what it does at 90o+ fermenting temps.
View attachment 682502
Edit: pitched at 82

Edit 2: After ~4 hours thefermentation is going strong

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I bought my first pack of Kveik today; LHBS was out of the A43 so I got the Kveiking blend. Dunno yet what I'm going to use it for first, but can't wait to see how it does.

I've been brewing this week. Started a kettle sour Wednesday morning and it should be sour enough today to finish up with a hopstand and chuck it in the fermenter.

seatazzz said:

I bought my first pack of Kveik today; LHBS was out of the A43 so I got the Kveiking blend. Dunno yet what I'm going to use it for first, but can't wait to see how it does.

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The yeast really took off much earlier than others (which was what I had heard about this). Seems to be slowing quite a bit after 16 hours. Hoping to capture an reuse This a lot since my LHBS didn’t have it and had to pay for shipping. Also, in the summer I can cool wort to 90 pretty easy, but getting to 65 is a challenge with my wort chiller, so this, hopefully, will be my go to yeast.