Let hear how your weekend brewing ended up?

[Echoloc8]

Brewed the CYBI clone recipe for Wells Bombardier ESB.

Flawless brew day. This was my second RO water + salts beer, adjusted to get close to the water profile they mention on the CYBI episode, and that worked great too. Hit my step-mash temps, hit my preboil SG, hit my OG nearly perfectly: 1.051 when I was aiming for 1.050. :rockin:

Poured through a paint strainer bag to strain out the hops and break, which gave me great aeration. Sprinkled in dry S-04 (couldn't get the Wells yeast this time of year), and it was bubbling like crazy this morning. Wish they all went so well!

-Rich

 

[johngaltsmotor]

Well, nothing fantastic, but better than some folks it seems.
Brewed 5gal of a Yuengling inspired Lager. No major catastrophes or problems. Actually seemed to be my smoothest brewday yet (this makes up for the boilover in the flask while making the yeast starter on Thursday ) Racked some of the starter into a vial to store for next time (1st attempt at culturing yeast for storage).

And I managed to have a flawless brew day while drinking the IIPA made with 100% homegrown hops (dislocated shoulder from patting myself on the back).

 

[elleric]

The plan was to brew an ESB but somehow the wife convinced me to bring her to a vegan food festival. I was a stranger in a stange land.

 

[diodeart]

"Brewed" a ryepa. Doubled the rye, used tons of rice hulls, everything got REALLY gummy. Way stuck sparge, had to empty both my maxxed out mt's and kind of mini batch sparge. Took forever. Then the filter on my bk got slow and gooey, took forever to pump through the chiller. Got flustered forgot to pitch yeast till hours later. Also the sewer backed up at a rental, i had to pretend i worked at willy wonka's chocolate factory.

I also drank my yeast starter. It was in the fridge in a big clear beer bottle, the yeast was collecting on the bottom. Looked like a home brew. Wondered why it was so flat.

 

[daksin]

Got all but 2 stands finished for my 6 110g fermenters. Lots of drilling 1/4" plate steel makes ya sore. If only I had a real drill press.

 

[mikescooling]

I messed up, I started the brew day cleaning the boil over from my last brew (stout), then ground the grains for the day. By this time It's 2pm, I'm moving slow. I do my first ten gallons by 7pm, then take a break and let the BK cool off before I clean it out for the next batch. Took a break for an hr, then walk back and turn on the pump without cleaning the BK, so now my next brew has 2x hot break/hops and stuff, oops. The BK drained SLOW into the plate chiller. Then after the 2nd 10 gallons I pitched the yeast and my stir bar into the carboy, Oops! Some how I boiled off an extra gallon, so one carboy looks (low) all jack-up. I may not do double brew days any more. On the up side, this was the first brew I took notes on. I still have to clean more stuff.

 

[stvo]

I also tried one of these for the first time in my mash tun and it worked out great. My SS braided hose was so worn that it would collapse after stirring the mash, leading to stuck sparges.

Good to know just put one in my tun, round cooler had to curl up the end about 1/2" for it to fit.

After reading Revvy's post having it rain/drizzle on an off for the last half hour of my boil doesn't seem so bad!!!

 

[tgmartin000]

Brewed my second lager, a maibock, and pitched it onto the cake from my munich helles I brewed 2 weeks ago. It's my first time pitching onto another yeast cake. The sparge was super sticky, and for some reason my boil off was way high, and I overshot my gravity about 3 points, due to an 85% mash efficiency. So the overboil was a bit annoying....and it took an hour to chill to 47....

But when I racked my helles, it tasted freakin fantastic at only 2 weeks. I used the white labs 860 munich helles platinum series. It gave me 82% attenuation, can't wait to try the helles (after 4 weeks lagering) and the maibock (in about 3 months). So overall, it went well.

 

[Bazaar]

Brewed a blonde and a smoke IPA at the same time. I had been paying so close attention to the IPA that I didn't really notice that my blonde had been steady at about 147 for 40 minutes. I kept adding water, but then I'd have to adjust the Ph and I couldn't get the damn thing to get any higher than 147. I mashed for like 100 minutes, then focused my attention back to the Smoke IPA. When I started boiling the two, I underboiled the blonde and as I cooled it with my backup chiller, the darn thing broke and was slowly spilling hose water into my beer. I chucked the chiller and had to go ice bath + stirring like a madman. The smoke was completely fine, but the blonde came in too low in OG (1.042 as opposed to 1.047). I'm not convinced the starch converted fully, but at least now it's furiously bubbling in my fermentation closet. Who knows how that'll turn out. Bleh. So much for multi-tasking. I had made two batches at once before, but never without help. I'm getting up to try it again right now. Haha. Wish me luck.

 

[pannell77]

Brewed a IIPA with an IBU of 118 and got 90% efficiency when I was planning on 70%...should be fun when it comes time to drink.

Also brewed my car bomb stout, only got 60% efficiency on that one for some reason.

Smoked some ribs while I was at it, all in all a great saturday afternoon.

 

[Malty_Dog]

Brewed a 3 gal BIAB Stone Ruination clone Friday and came to realize midway through mash that my thermometer's "mercury" had split and the mash was about 10 degrees higher than originally thought. Glad that happened though because on Sat a buddy and I brewed up a Rye IPA and a saison, and those were the beers I wanted to make sure we got right. Great time was had, brewing, moderate drinking, grilled burgers, kids running around...my idea of real fun. Fermenters now bubbling away and smelling SWEEEEET. Hope that Stone IPA turns out OK. US-05 ripped through it in 3 days it would appear based on airlock anyway.

 

[unionrdr]

I brewed my PM NZ IPA last Sunday,& the brewday went off like clockwork. I just wish I'd have had the spigot on the ale pail cleaned & sanitized already by then. The BK/MT was in the ice bath at that same time. So by th time I got done & sanitized the FV,the wort was down to 60F,about 3.5G worth. So I strained it into the FV to get the gunk settled out by the super moss seperated. Some left in brew kettle,maybe 2C worth all together.
By the time I topped it off with cold spring water,the temp was down below the 64F on the bottom of the temp strip. I pitched the US-05 anyway.
I took until monday to get it warmed up to 64F again,so I swirled it & changed to an airlock filled with cheap vodka. It's bubbling Steadilly even yet,a lot like the German ale/kolsh yeast did on the last two batches.
But the temp is up to 75F,the high end of US-05's ideal temp range. Which is 59-75F according to midwest's site. And I have gotten clean tasting beer after the temp going that high before. so it's all good. But the airlock wiffs are still sweet smelling.
English pale & marris otter malts among others. I also had to add 1lb of demerara sugar to get the OG up into American IPA range according to BS2.
I didn't have anymore DME & the car exhaust was fubared,so demerara was brought to bare. I've been wanting to use a pound in a batch anyway,as it has a light brown sugar laced with honey kind of flavor to it. It also gives a slight bit of color,not unlike the usual orange amber pale ale colors. Fermenting as strongly as it is,it should turn out fine.

 

[Echoloc8]

Brewed a honey-malt Kolsch recipe of my own for the first time. Expected 72% efficiency, got something like 85%, so despite underboiling and having an extra gallon of wort, my OG was spot on. This means my hops' and specialty grains' effects will be diluted, but in a Kolsch I'm hoping it'll all work out.

The yeast is taking its sweet time. It's working, but one of the least energetic fermentations I've had in a long while...

-Rich

 

[ColeR]

Brewed a IIPA with an IBU of 118 and got 90% efficiency

nice, with that high of a IBU, you can almost pass the brewing and just put the hops right in your mouth, btw dont try that, they dont taste very good off the vine... :cross:

and nice Eff...

 

[ColeR]

For the Big Brew weekend i made My Honey Basil Ale, this year i added a bit of lemon zest.

Smells Ohhh so good,

Got my Eff of 89.8% before i added the honey. i finished out at 1.066

MMmmm a summer beer to say the least...

 

[ColeR]

well i brewed 20 gal this weekend

i did 10 gal of a Kolsch on Saturday. 81.9% eff
and
did 10 gal of a Shocktop on Sunday. 82.8% eff

all i have to say is that's a lot of cleaning to do..

the Kolsch is in the ferm chamber and the shocktop is sitting next to the ferm chamber. MMmmm not thinking proximity to the ferm chamber is helping

also learned what Decoct means (lucky ME!!) right before i messed up the Kolsch. you know you're going along and something doesn't feel right, its right there i stopped and decided to look it up..

Decoct doesn't mean add boiling water to the mash, it means boil X amount of the mash in a separate pot.... then add back to the mash !!!!!

now i just need the sun to come out.
CR-

 

[unionrdr]

It was a good weekend. Bottled my Maori IPA Saturday,brewed one of two PM Berlin Wheats Sunday with WY3056 bavarian wheat blen activator packs.
Cleaned up the brewhause today. whew,tired & sore. but my dark hybrid lager will make it all better while I watch the airlock...

 

[daksin]

Productive weekend- got the cold box 100% built and brewed an ESB and Ordinary Bitter (experimental batches) which have the same grist by %, but in different weights. We'll see which one makes the better beer and tweak the other.

 

[Jbird]

Weekend went well. Brewed 1 gallon of a strawberry blond and 5 gallons of a smokin hot blond. Should be two very nice beers.