Triple Brew Day! (Pale Ale, Pecan Brown, Sweet Stout)

[Yuri_Rage]

I haven't brewed much at all this year, and I really need to get something into the kegerator. I'm doing a 15 gallon batch split three ways - a pale ale, a pecan brown, and a sweet stout. I'm not going to partigyle, just mash the base malt, then split it equally and do three mini mashes to add the specialty grains. Later I'll do three separate boils. It got late all of a sudden, so I'm just now sparging. Gonna be a long evening, I think!

This link has some discussion about the digital control/monitoring of my rig:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/monitoring-controlling-linux-cheap-240955/

Later, I may have a brief video and some pictures.

EDIT:
Today I mashed 22.5 lbs of 2 Row and 3 lbs of Wheat together for a total of 17.5 gallons of pale wort, then did another 20 minute 1 gallon mash with the specialty grains.

Pecan Brown Recipe

7.5 lbs 2 Row
1 lb Special B
1 lb Wheat Malt
1 oz Carafa Special II

Single infusion mash at 154 for an hour

.75 oz Goldings, 60 minutes

English Ale Yeast

Add Pecan Extract to taste before kegging

Pale Ale Recipe

7.5 lbs 2 Row
1.5 lbs Vienna
1 lb Wheat
0.5 lb C60

Single infusion mash at 154ºF for 60 mins

Boil one hour.

Add no hops until 10 minutes remaining, then add 1 oz each of Amarillo, Cascade, and Centennial.

Add another 1 oz of each hop at flameout.

American Ale Yeast

Dry hop with another 1 oz of each hop.

Sweet Stout Recipe

See "Black Project Stout" in the dropdown under my avatar.

 

[binkman]

The pecan stout sound intriguing. Have you made it before?

 

[Yuri_Rage]

It's a pecan brown - never brewed it before.

 

[IffyG]

Please let know how that pecan brown turns out. I might brew it up for a fall beer.

 

[unionrdr]

Looks like you'll be on the red eye flight tonight,yuri...:cross:

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Splitting the batches and beginning the first boil now. Here are the mini mashes on the stovetop:

 

[Yuri_Rage]

 

[Yooper]

Wow- you're ambitious! And here I was whining that I am low on beer and might have to brew twice this week!

Great choices on the beer types, and thanks for posting the video!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

After seeing that it was 1PM, and I hadn't even crushed grain, I almost skipped it. However, next weekend isn't going to work, either, and I really wanted to get something in the fermenters. I'm going to hop burst the pale ale in a few minutes - the second of the three boils for the day.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

2 beers in the fermenters, one halfway through the boil. Getting there!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

3 beers in the fermenters. Broke my first hydrometer. 5 years, 2 months. Dammit.

 

[Yooper]

3 beers in the fermenters. Broke my first hydrometer. 5 years, 2 months. Dammit.

That was actually pretty darn quick- if you started at 1 PM or so, you took less than 9 hours to make 3 different beers. I'm impressed.

I broke like two or three hydrometers when I first started brewing. So I bought two the last time, about 5 years ago. I haven't broken one since. That's the way it is- if you have an extra, you will never break on!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Couldn't resist sneaking a taste today. The pale ale could possibly be one of my best brews yet. I love hop bursting.

That pale sample got me jonesin' for some hops - cracking my first ever Avery Maharaja right now.

 

[bob1852]

Couldn't resist sneaking a taste today. The pale ale could possibly be one of my best brews yet. I love hop bursting.

That pale sample got me jonesin' for some hops - cracking my first ever Avery Maharaja right now.

What's the est. IBU's for your recipe? I've avoided the whole "hop bursting" craze, mainly because it seems you need to triple or quadruple the hops to get the IBUs, but 6 oz seems really reasonable for an APA.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

BeerSmith (Tinseth) says 33 IBUs. My water tends to accentuate hop bitterness, so I try to keep the IBUs low. Hop bursting makes that easy, and I dig the fresh aroma and flavor from late hop additions.

Had I wanted to do a more traditional recipe, 1 oz of Centennial for 60 minutes plus the flameout and dry hops would result in similar bitterness. However, I think the hop burst method really adds to the character of an American Pale or IPA.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Yeah, I admit...the split was uneven. Based on the volume of wort collected, I meant to get an even split between the pale and stout and undershoot the volume on the untested pecan brown, but my measuring system (eyeballs alone with a rather odd assortment of kettles and pots) was slightly flawed. So, I got lots of stout, exactly the right amount of pale ale, and a slightly smaller batch of pecan brown.

 

[bob1852]

BeerSmith (Tinseth) says 33 IBUs. My water tends to accentuate hop bitterness, so I try to keep the IBUs low. Hop bursting makes that easy, and I dig the fresh aroma and flavor from late hop additions.

Had I wanted to do a more traditional recipe, 1 oz of Centennial for 60 minutes plus the flameout and dry hops would result in similar bitterness. However, I think the hop burst method really adds to the character of an American Pale or IPA.

I like it. I may try something similar for my next APA...

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Update: all these beers are on tap right now, carbonated nicely after a little over a week at 10 psi.

The Pecan Brown is AWESOME! I added 1/2 oz of pecan extract from Austin Homebrew to 5 gallons of beer. The pecan is a tad strong, but it's mellowing. Next time I'll try 1/4 oz of the extract. The flavor profile is nice, so I doubt I'm going to mess with real pecans in the mash.

The Sweet Stout is also pretty damn good. I used Carafa II in place of the roasted barley (another inventory error), and it made this beer sort of like a Schwarz-ale. I have a feeling it's going to be a hit with my friends, but I miss the roasted barley.

The Hop Bursted Pale needs some time. I didn't even bother dry hopping - the aroma is a hop-punch in the face, which is exactly what I wanted. However, it's got a bit of a hop-soap flavor to it, surely as a result of the massive late additions. It's actually improving with every day that goes by. Next time, I may decrease the 10 minute hops to 3/4 oz each and/or skip the Cascade addition at 10 mins.

 

[November]

I'm curious about this technique of doing a big main batch and then adding wort from the mini-mashes. I've done partigyles before but have had only lackluster results. What is your ratio of main wort to mini mash and do you have to do any wierd recipe scaling? I really want to try this technique next go around.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

There is no magic here. I made 17.5 gallons of full strength wort per my first post. I collected that wort, and did the mini mashes using it (1 gallon per mini mash). I then added the results of each mini mash to the remainder of the wort, split three ways. No weird scaling, no funny math.

 

[IffyG]

The Pecan Brown is AWESOME! I added 1/2 oz of pecan extract from Austin Homebrew to 5 gallons of beer. The pecan is a tad strong, but it's mellowing. Next time I'll try 1/4 oz of the extract. The flavor profile is nice, so I doubt I'm going to mess with real pecans in the mash.

Excellent, that's all I need to hear. Hopefully I can find some time in the next few weekends to brew this one up. Any ideas if there are any other way to get that pecan extract? Rebel Brewer and my other LHBSs don't carry it and I'd hate to spend 8 bucks on shipping a little bottle of extract.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Austin Homebrew is basically my LHBS (though I order online), so I don't have a better supplier for you.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I'm planning on doing this style brew again next weekend. I've got all the ingredients for the beers as brewed a year and a half ago. I'll post any edits and certainly the results. It worked VERY well last time!

 

[amarillobrewingsupply]

And where ever did you get all these fantastic supplies to make this next volley of brews?

It was great to meet a "local" HBT member. Thanks so much for dropping in and giving us a shot. We look forward to seeing you again!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Thanks much, Shiloh! It was certainly a pleasure to stop by, chat with you and Stephan, and snag just a "few" necessities. Next time I'm gonna make you crush that grain!