What I did for beer today

[Imhoppy]

Kegged 5 gallons La Petite Orange (an extract kit brewed partial boil) 28 days after yeast pitch. O.G. 1.056, F.G. 1.014, ABV ~5.5%. Thus excellent results using Safale BE-256 dry yeast. Purged with CO2 and placed in kegerator to chill. Will set-and-forget carbonate (12psi @ 42F) as soon as my in-service keg kicks, probably in a week. Cheers!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Not for beer, but for mead. Harvested dandelion flowers, picked off the petals and poured boiling water over them.

 

[Immocles]

Brewed a small batch dunkelweizen. Hadn't used a higher % of wheat in the grist before. Even with a corona mill, I should have crushed finer. Came in with one of my lower efficiency to date. Nothing completely out of hand (1.043 v 1.050), but still irks me a little bit. Next time!

 

[day_trippr]

I have been milking the last pours across four of my six tapped kegs so I could swap them out and clean them in one fell swoop.
Last night I finally kicked those four kegs (thank you, RaspberryPints! ) and as today was too friggin' chilly for yard work I did the swapping and cleaning, refilled the rinser water keg, and emptied and washed out the rinser/drip tray catch keg.

After letting the keezer get chilled back down I have been treating myself to a flight of 6 ounce pours across all six taps...

Cheers! (It's a wonderful thing )

 

[seatazzz]

Finally went out to the backyard and cleared most of last year's bracts away from the newly sprouting hops. One is almost a foot long already, debating trimming them down again and seeing what comes up next. Gave them some water and will give them fish fertilizer tomorrow. Need to string new twine for them too.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I grew Cascade, Chinook, Centennial and Fuggles for 7 years, and always cut the entire crown's worth of first sprouts right down to the dense crown each spring. When the next set of sprouts got to around 8-10 inches I picked out the soundest looking four to string and chopped the rest back.

By the time you get to the third season the crowns get crazy antsy early and inevitably will send out a bunch of bull shoots on the first round. Wiping 'em all out provides for much tamer shoots in the second round.

The last season was nuts - 7 yo crowns sending hundreds of shoots up. I'd have to trim the rogues off daily for a month allowing the energy to go into the four Chosen Ones

Cheers!

 

[cochised]

Bottled an NEIPA kit and dry hopped an AG pale.
Slight astringent taste off the pale but only a week in so hopefully clears up

 

[SirHC_]

3/15, cancelled church so I mashed 10g cream ale. Had some stalled and over sweet corn wine in the basement so I used a gallon of that at the very end of the boil to pasteurize and kill the wine yeast without boiling off all the alcohol. Half of the batch got boiled Sunday
3/16 Pitched with US05 on Monday (I do mostly no chill)
3/17 The second half got boiled yesterday after kettle souring for a couple days. Added 1/4 lb each of C120 and black malt to steep for a KY common. Also got 1g corn wine. I'm hoping the corn wine makes up in the flavor for the smaller portion of flaked corn I used this time.
3/18 Today I will pitch the yeast into the common.
All the while drinking beer!

Results from above experiment. Both turned out great!

 

[Jonakr]

Calibrated my new refractometer, went to my LHB store and stocked up to help keep them in business.

 

[govner1]

Received 2 bags of grain. 1 ea. 2 row and Maris Otter, swapped out 20lb CO2 tank( w/ socially distanced help), tapped my Wheat IPA, ordered hops for Big Brew

 

[grampamark]

Brewing a Weissbier. About 10 minutes left in the boil. While brewing I kegged the Bullwinkle Brown Ale I brewed a couple of weeks ago.

 

[SirHC_]

Brewed a 1.2 g extract batch of honey ESB. Trying a new to me yeast, looked like pudding when I opened the package... well within the 5 month advertised date.
1.045og I've had the ground mini mash grains for almost 2 yrs, forgot about them in the bottom of a bin. May taste stale but didn't smell off or anything.
Using it as a starter for a 100yr old recipe from SUABP. I'll be doing an old ale/mild partigyle of the 1920 Southwarke Ale, hopefully in time time to enjoy the mild over the month of May.

 

[SirHC_]

Not for beer, but for mead. Harvested dandelion flowers, picked off the petals and poured boiling water over them.View attachment 675957

How many dandelion petals did you end up w per gallon? I was thinking of doing the same thing but w the surprise snow, my "flowers" haven't popped yet.

 

[blulight]

First post! Today I inspected my first brew, an amber ale, currently on day 3 in secondary, day 10 overall. Seems to have cleared a good amount since transferring it, which is nice! When I tasted it after being in the fermenter for 7 days, it was unfortunately very fusely and had quite heavy alcohol flavors, which I attribute to ferm temps being much too warm on day 1 and 2 (75f+ when the yeast is only rated at 62-72. Oops!). Precisely why I'm getting a small chest freezer and temp control this weekend for batch 2.

It's been very fun so far. Just wanted to say to whomever is listening that this site has been such a vast and lively resource, and is surprisingly very active despite its apparent age. A true gem of a place I've stumbled upon here! Happy brewing everyone.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Finally went out to the backyard and cleared most of last year's bracts away from the newly sprouting hops. One is almost a foot long already, debating trimming them down again and seeing what comes up next. Gave them some water and will give them fish fertilizer tomorrow. Need to string new twine for them too.

Curious how you do it since you're in the Seatac area. My learnings after a few seasons are:
1. cutback every shoot at least thru April fools
2. Let one bine go around mid april for each plant (for the seattle area)
3. let a second bine go around end april
4. more than 2 bines and they seem to crowd each other out on my set up
5. I do fresh hop ales only. Found the fan dried hops were mediocre, took up freezer space, and I never really used them.
6. by letting the bines go 2 weeks apart, the harvest is also a bit staggered so I can end up doing 2 fresh hop ales per plant. I have N Brewer, Tettnanger and East Seattle Goldings. Net net, that is 3-6 fresh hop ales per season. Fits my bill.

Your mileage may of course vary but these are my learnings.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

How many dandelion petals did you end up w per gallon? I was thinking of doing the same thing but w the surprise snow, my "flowers" haven't popped yet.

I’m going to collect a pint by volume for a gallon batch. This is my first time doing this so I don’t know it it will be enough or not.

 

[JAReeves]

fwiw, I grew Cascade, Chinook, Centennial and Fuggles for 7 years, and always cut the entire crown's worth of first sprouts right down to the dense crown each spring. When the next set of sprouts got to around 8-10 inches I picked out the soundest looking four to string and chopped the rest back.

By the time you get to the third season the crowns get crazy antsy early and inevitably will send out a bunch of bull shoots on the first round. Wiping 'em all out provides for much tamer shoots in the second round.

The last season was nuts - 7 yo crowns sending hundreds of shoots up. I'd have to trim the rogues off daily for a month allowing the energy to go into the four Chosen Ones

Cheers!

Some of my 3rd years are going nuts like you describe and I have already cut some bull shoots. I strung the coconut fiber twine from the roof a few weeks ago. My neighbors are giving me the hairy eyeball over it, and they will just have to deal. I am going to have to look out for rogue shoots, thanks for the advice!

 

[JAReeves]

Bottled the imperial stout and put the wild fermented apple cider with cranberry juice primer into the keezer.

 

[BrewMan13]

Rigged up a VERY temporary solution for my new mill. It was enough to get the job done today, and boy is the new mill a monster! Can't wait until the dedicated station is done. Used it to grind grains for tomorrow's brewday; should be interesting to see the efficiency...

 

[fourfarthing]

Moved 5 G of Chardonnay to a barrel to set until I have a beer worthy of some wine barrel aging.

 

[Dave Sarber]

Moved 5 G of Chardonnay to a barrel to set until I have a beer worthy of some wine barrel aging.

View attachment 676361

I usually presoak mine with bourbon. Got a pretty interesting dark Belgian Brut conditioning right now! Did you make the stand?

 

[ba-brewer]

lazy week finally brewed yesterday, did a double brew day a german pilsner and Belgian pale ale. Did one on my normal electric setup and the other using my original propane and cooler setup. Ran them both at the same time so it did not really add much time. Might do this again or possible do 10gal of a base and spit before boiling.

Today woke up to happy yeast bubbling away. Chipped ice out of the beer fridge freezer, inventoried and organized my hops. Thought I had more 2018 but it looks like they are almost all gone, a few odds and ends and just 8oz of tettnang unopened. Next beer to be brewed will be an odd and sods IPA followed by maybe a kolsch or two.

 

[Dave Sarber]

Found a new variety of Duvel today. Was planning on a Duvel clone brew tomorrow, maybe I need to scrounge my hop freezer for some Citra!

 

[fourfarthing]

I usually presoak mine with bourbon. Got a pretty interesting dark Belgian Brut conditioning right now! Did you make the stand?

Got it for 10 bucks. I think at Williams Brewing.

 

[seatazzz]

Finally got down to my former brewboss' brewpub today, 200+lbs of grain in the back of my SUV to mill for him this week. As payment, I got a growler of his Pineapple IPA (delectable), some lager yeast from what he currently has fermenting (gonna be a good one), a few pounds each of the grain I'm going to mill for him (white wheat and roasted barley), and two, count them, TWO, 7-gallon Fermonsters that he bought a while back for yeast starters, and didn't need anymore; all I have to do is mill his grain this week, and bring him back the 7.5g glass carboy I got from him 2 years ago. That thing scares me to death every time I clean it, so no great loss. The fermonsters don't have spigots, but I have plenty extra and will drill holes in them later this week. I don't deserve such a great friend/mentor. Had a great time catching up and seeing what he's doing for upgrades during his mandatory closed time. And hoping to get down there next weekend to help brew a batch of his Blonde in hopes of re-opening by mid-May.

 

[Robert65]

@seatazzz, it always warms my heart to hear of one more glass carboy being taken out of service!

 

[BrewMan13]

Kicked the Irish red, cleaned the keg and tapline, kegged and tapped the DIPA, brewed up the latest batch of wild ale, and used a gallon from the wild ale to top off the gueuze project. Next April I can finall taste the fruits of my longest beer project Missed the efficiency by just a couple of points with the new mill; settings aren't as obvious, but nothing some tweaking won't fix. Also, as for the new DIPA: I don't know why I don't just use mosaic in every IPA - gravity sample was so good and attenuation was great as well.

 

[seatazzz]

Kicked the Irish red, cleaned the keg and tapline, kegged and tapped the DIPA, brewed up the latest batch of wild ale, and used a gallon from the wild ale to top off the gueuze project. Next April I can finall taste the fruits of my longest beer project Missed the efficiency by just a couple of points with the new mill; settings aren't as obvious, but nothing some tweaking won't fix. Also, as for the new DIPA: I don't know why I don't just use mosaic in every IPA - gravity sample was so good and attenuation was great as well.

I know there's some Mosaic haters (dislikers is more like it) out there in HBT land, but it's my go-to for a tasty easy-drinking IPA. Cannot go wrong with that hop. Bet yours will be a great one!!

 

[JAReeves]

Started a 6G batch of mead, 1.110 OG, using D47 and the AIH mead additive kit, since last year's mead was a fail (1G batch JAOM, used as adjunct sugar for my ales).

Tasted the Red Sour, Pale Sour, and Buckwheat beers. The sours are ready for the bottle, the buckwheat is still strangely funky and may add complexity as a blender to another beer (maybe one of the sours). Anyone else make a buckwheat beer before? I'd appreciate some tips.

 

[grampamark]

I know there's some Mosaic haters (dislikers is more like it) out there in HBT land, but it's my go-to for a tasty easy-drinking IPA. Cannot go wrong with that hop. Bet yours will be a great one!!

I really like Mosaic. I brew a Maris Otter/Mosaic SMaSH once or twice a year and a Mosaic APA is one of my “house” beers (just kicked a keg of it a couple of days ago).

 

[ba-brewer]

Peoples dislike of Mosaic must be something that runs in the family, I see people commenting about Simcoe too. I have a Simcoe & Mosaic session IPA that is about to kick.

I like both of hops by themselves or combined with other hops. I have only got one batch of mosaic which had a arm pit type aroma, the rest have been just fine.

 

[christopherfraze]

Moved 5 G of Chardonnay to a barrel to set until I have a beer worthy of some wine barrel aging.

View attachment 676361

I used one of those to age my last bourbon. Currently it is filled with maple syrup

 

[Dave Sarber]

After yesterday's Belgian Golden brew, I have approximately a gallon leftover of 1.020 wort, not boiled or hopped (last runnings from the MT). I'm thinking about heating it up, maybe adding a bit of sugar and hops, and doing a small batch of lawnmower Belgian.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Not for beer, but for mead. Harvested dandelion flowers, picked off the petals and poured boiling water over them.View attachment 675957

I make dandelion wine every other year. But for some reason the pickings in the fields near me have not been good the last 2 year's? Like a dandelion shortage for some reason..strange

 

[seanjwalker1]

Off topic, but has anyone heard anything about the HBT App going back up any time soon?

 

[Dave Sarber]

Bottled my Belgian Brut for the third time this morning, I'm getting ready to call this stuff Yeastkiller. Using EC1118 this time, hoping third time is a charm.
Other than that, have 4 fermenters going with Belgian ales and barleywine. Whenever I take a break from doing dishes, doing a fair bit of bubblegazing.
And I'm down to the last 15 puzzles in my sudoku book.

 

[JAReeves]

I'm religiously following the schedule for feeding and degassing the mead and getting ready to bottle our first wine kit (viognier) this weekend. I appreciate my coworkers and friends who are coming by for porch trades-empties for fulls-and a little socially-distanced interaction.

 

[Dave Sarber]

After yesterday's Belgian Golden brew, I have approximately a gallon leftover of 1.020 wort, not boiled or hopped (last runnings from the MT). I'm thinking about heating it up, maybe adding a bit of sugar and hops, and doing a small batch of lawnmower Belgian.

Actually, this turned out to be 7 quarts. Added enough sugar to bring gravity up to 1.052. Hopped with Tettnang and Saaz, I was out of Styrian Goldings. Fermented with BE256, and it's already dropping and clearing. Grav check this morning was 1.004, so about 6.3%. Duvel lite!

 

[luizartur]

Kegged my Red IPA and started forced carbonation!

 

[NitrogenWidget]

I biab on propane outside.
I've only seen two day's above 50 this month and I couldn't brew on those days.
if it isn't cold and windy and snowing it's cold and windy and raining.

I know, "suck it up buttercup".

but, i'm going to do a gallon test batch of mango habanro IPA tonight using tropical IPA yeast.
may need to stick the fermenter in a cooler near the wood stove to keep temps in the 90's though.