Take on Dogfish 120

[boasist]

So I decided to go for it. I've been kegging for some time now, yet I wanted something I could bottle and age. So I remembered a few bottles of DFH 120 I had a few years back that I kept around and enjoyed them with time. Now it's my turn. A little brewblog...

Ingredients and everything come in great, I decided to push the grainfather to the limit and put all 21# of grain in, I had just a little over 6.3-4 gals of water in the mash. Went great, put some Saran Wrap around the mash basket holes to prevent grain from falling down. Mashed at 147-149 for 78 minutes, conversion complete.

I had to get out a step ladder to lift the mash basket out! 21# of grain was now soaking wet and was a beast to lift straight up, so I got smart and the ladder saved me.

Slow sparge as usual while letting the boil come up - pretty standard on this unit.

Boil kicked off nicely and I started hopping every 3 minutes with 3 grams of the hop blend, which I found to be about 3/4 teaspoon.

Time to load up the CFC and sanitize it, start the circulation, no problem. OK, so now I transfer to the chronical, coming out right at 64 which is right where I want it. let it continue to fill up while I grab the starter slurry. Nice thick pile of yeast on the bottom, a good stir and it's beautiful.

Hit it with the O2 for 65 seconds just for good measure. Pitched the yeast and off we go.

Not more than 2 hours later this brew is bubbling away. Next morning the sight glass is showing amazing activity and I'm pumped.

Today, I'm slowing ramping up to 67 (thanks brewpi) so I can hit it with more O2, and pitch the high gravity yeast and start the dextrose additions. I'm pretty pleased with everything.

Biggest problem is - both my hydrometer and refractometer broke on me, so I have no idea what numbers I'm using. I'm flying blind and having a good time doing it!

More to come as the ferment progresses.

Stay tuned.

 

[tjosborne]

Did you use a hop spider or something in the Grainfather?

 

[Joe_K]

Awesome! Are you doing the sugar additions?

 

[boasist]

Did you use a hop spider or something in the Grainfather?

I do have one with an adjustable arm so I can get it down in there. But I didn't use it this time. I just have this feeling the utilization goes way down as the grainfather doesn't boil very vigorously to get the hops inside of the spider really moving.

So this brew I just dumped them in.

 

[boasist]

Awesome! Are you doing the sugar additions?

Thank you!

Just did the first one right now.
Pitched the 099 yeast starter
Hit it with O2
Added in 12.2 oz of dextrose

I'll do the second batch tonight and go from there.

 

[boasist]

Going great still. It's been a real experience to just brew without expectations and only feeling. Before I was always concerned about each detail, so it's actually nice to just create. Even if this is the single most expensive brew I've ever done at over $130 for the pieces and parts.

That said, it's been great to brew in the chronical. I dump from the very bottom daily for the sugar additions, which helps to stir up the mixture, and then I just add in on the top port once the sugar is mixed. It's great and it keeps the mixture moving up and down daily. I should think about something like this in the future when dry hopping other brews.

 

[isomerization]

I would strongly recommend getting a hydrometer for this brew. You should be adding sugar twice a day and monitoring for gravity change. Once it stops dropping, you're done.

 

[hlmbrwng]

I would strongly recommend getting a hydrometer for this brew. You should be adding sugar twice a day and monitoring for gravity change. Once it stops dropping, you're done.

Could there be an issue with too much residual sugar after adding one of the additions of sugar? For example, once it drops to, let's say 1.028 and you add more sugar so that it is over 1.050, then it drops again to 1.028 and you add more sugar....this happens a few times. Then it drops to 1.028 and you add sugar, but the next time it doesn't go past 1.045, for example. So you end up with an overly sweet beer. Of course, one would probably expect a high FG in order to have enough sweetness in this type of beer, but how does one hit the FG they are going for?

 

[isomerization]

Could there be an issue with too much residual sugar after adding one of the additions of sugar? For example, once it drops to, let's say 1.028 and you add more sugar so that it is over 1.050, then it drops again to 1.028 and you add more sugar....this happens a few times. Then it drops to 1.028 and you add sugar, but the next time it doesn't go past 1.045, for example. So you end up with an overly sweet beer. Of course, one would probably expect a high FG in order to have enough sweetness in this type of beer, but how does one hit the FG they are going for?

Yes, this is certainly an issue. You can circumvent this by not adding sugar until you're down around 1.020 and then only adding 6-8 oz, so that you aren't stuck with a super high FG (which if it's simple sugars will taste way too sweet).