What I did for beer today

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Today was a light day in the humble brewery: I cleaned a pair of carboys after an overnight OxyFree soak. No big whoop ;)
I have 10 gallons of beer fermenting but no empty kegs, so it's gonna be a little bit before I can brew again.
I'm jonesing already :oops:
Sure. Where's my invite? I could put a sizeable dent into one of those kegs 🤣
 
I stopped by a new brew pub in Mexico Beach Fl. They are just getting set up and started. Not brewing on site yet but they had a blond ale and an IPA that were contract brewed using their recipe. The blond was, well a blond mild clean and refreshing. But the IPA is very Citra hop forward and quite frankly may give other Florida IPAs a run for their money. Citrus nose and aroma with a nice malty balance. I will be checking them out once they get fully up and running.
 
I stopped by a new brew pub in Mexico Beach Fl. They are just getting set up and started. Not brewing on site yet but they had a blond ale and an IPA that were contract brewed using their recipe. The blond was, well a blond mild clean and refreshing. But the IPA is very Citra hop forward and quite frankly may give other Florida IPAs a run for their money. Citrus nose and aroma with a nice malty balance. I will be checking them out once they get fully up and running.
I'll be on the opposite side tomorrow, opposite side of the state I mean.
 
Today was equipment cleaning day. The system decided to do an unauthorized floor washing too.
 

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I remembered Australian Sparkling Ale.

Twenty years ago, that was a summer favorite and for whatever the reason, I just sorta stopped brewing the style and eventually forgot about it. No clue why, it just kinda happened along the way.

Anyway, that'll soon change. Wheels are in motion, gears are turning, and Pride of Ringwood Hops have been located. I'm not going to bother with the Cooper's strain--it's a real shame it's not a year round strain anymore. I've got plans for Whitbread and it's a good enough proxy if I run it around 70F.
 
Bottled my "archive sample" from last weeks batch from the amount of leftover I did my fermentation test with:
After transferring the wort from the boiler to the fermenter, there's always the trub cone and some wort left in the vat. I filter this through a coffee filter and then use it for a fermentation test. The result is usually close enough to whats really in the fermenter.
I do not want to mix the filtered wort into the fermenter, it's to risky to get an infection this way. But especially for my archive bottle it's close enough.

So... I endend up with a decent amount of Weissbier yeast (WB-06) in the erlenmeyer flask ... and then decided to pour a bottle of apple juice onto this yeastcake. It's probably not a "compost bucket sour" worthy story ... but hey, there is some active yeast and who am I to keep these tiny fellas from digesting some sugars ... ?

Oh, and I preserved some wort from my previous batch into separate glasses, to have some starter.

Saved amount from the trub loss:
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preserved wort:
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apple juice on Weizen yeast:
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Took my Assistent Braumeister to our LHBS for supplies for our next brew, courtesy of her as a Father's Day gift:
55 lbs of Montana Craft 2-row as base malt (long-term supply)
3 lbs of flavor grains (Pilsner/Wheat/40L Munich)
1 oz each of Nugget and Magnum hops for bittering
12 22oz bottles to replenish walk-aways
144 American Flag design oxy-liner caps (because we're planning on our second consecutive 4th of July brewday!)

We're planning a slight tweak to the Summer 24 American Amber Ale, which has been my favorite brew so far, and which, sadly, there are only 3 1 22oz bottles left... (snif!)

Oh, and I caught up on a bunch of posts in this thread, too!
 
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I am brewing a warm fermented American light lager atm and having a Crew Republic - Trooper progressive lager. That brewery never let me down. The only German brewery I know of that manages to marry American and German beer styles constantly in a marvellous way.

This one is basically a quite bitter helles with a pleasant dose of American hop aroma. Very well balanced. Perfect bitterness, perfect malt, perfect hop aroma with a very subtle sweetness underneath. It's perfection. Sold at Aldi :D
 
Making my first sour, a traditional kettle-soured gose. Hit my pH after 24 hours and boiled it; it smelled very unpleasant. It wasn’t any of the infected off aromas, definitely wasn’t cheesy or butyric, but it was kinda like yogurt, spaghetti, and tomatoes with a horrible sweetness. Adding coriander and hops plus boiling it seemed to help, so maybe that’s normal. Either way the apartment reeks.

I put it in the fermenter and pitched US-05, still waiting 24 hours later for any activity. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!
 
Cleaned up the remaining residue of my WCIPA leak 😞

Sorted out my hop fridge so I at least have my New World and Old World hops stored together. Updated my Brewfather inventory so that it's vaguely accurate.

Put in a big Malt Miller order, circa £120. Mostly hops- Amarillo LupoMAX, Azacca LupoMAX, Citra LupoMAX, Columbus LupoMAX, plus some more Strata and Sabro. I also picked up a selection of WHC yeasts including some of their new biotransformative low attenuating session hazy yeasts and their thermotolerant yeast which I'm going to give a try in a mountain style DIPA.

Wrote recipe for said DIPA. Targeting 8% and 1.014 FG. 85% base malt, 7% invert, 6% Munich and 2% Crystal T50. Columbus and Citra LupoMAX in the boiler with Citra, Columbus and absolutely tonnes of Strata in the whirlpool and dry hop, targeting 8-10g/L for each.

Also wrote a recipe for an Amarillo hopped Strong Bitter which I suspect might be a fun riff on my usual First Gold based ones. 5%, 1.012 FG, 88% floor malted MO, 5% wheat, 5% T50 and 2% biscuit.


Later I'll clean up a couple of kegs and my all rounder which I lazily left the trub of my Westie in for two weeks. One keg had Brett Brux in it for six months and everything that's gone in it since has picked up a slightly funky edge when stored on the warmer side so I need to give that one a properly deep clean.

I also need to replenish my Sodastream supply. I really should move to a big CO2 tank and save myself some money...
 
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Yesterday put my helles in the can and brewed a 2gal batch of best bitter that will be fermented with wlp059 Melbourne Ale yeast.

Today brewed a Marzen which is fermenting with the helles yeast cake. Got my boil off and grain yield fixed in beersmith and came in within 1 point of the estimate.
 
It's 7:05 and my strike water is heating.

Strike water for what? That will depend on when DPD arrive with my order of hops. Given the glorious weather I'm rather tempted to do a hopfenweisse. Shoot for 6.x% with 55% wheat, 35% pilsner, 10% Munich with about 30 IBU of Hallertau and 2-3oz split between Strata and Amarillo in the whirlpool and dry hop
 
I bottled 31 litres of maltese procedure Weizen (FG 1.008, ABV 5.3%), while there was a decent note of ripe bananas present in the room.
Carbonated to ~7 g/l with sugar syrup. Now another week waiting and then the bottles will go into the fridge, further conditioning. I'm very looking forward to the tasting in 3 weeks from now.
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And I tasted my traditional style Helles (Hacker Pschorr Clone v2) under special conditions yesterday: I carried it up to the summit of the Weinkogel (Austria) and savoured it with a view of Lake Mondsee, and mom-style pasta salad (the best!) as well as some salami sandwiches as sides.
Delicious!
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Just transferred 24L of hopfenweisse wort into a fermenter. That was probably one of the most difficult mashes I've ever done. Total nightmare.

Way short on rice hulls so I YOLO'd it with maybe 100g instead of the ~250 I'd normally use. Terrible idea in a beer that's 55% wheat. Twice I had to pull the grain basket, transfer all of the wort to a spare fermenter and clean the bottom because a big cake of flour from the wheat malt was dropping through the holes in the grain basket and congealing over the temp sensor, meaning all all my mash step temps were totally out of whack. Think the mash took nearly 3 hours to get to my 1.055 preboil target.

It's far from the cleanest looking worts but all the wheat fragments will settle out in the fermenter. Kept IBUs low, 20ish, but hopped with a mix of Hallertau Mittelfreuh, Azacca and Luminosa in the whirlpool. Should make for a nice summer beer.
 
I bottled 31 litres of maltese procedure Weizen (FG 1.008, ABV 5.3%), while there was a decent note of ripe bananas present in the room.
Carbonated to ~7 g/l with sugar syrup. Now another week waiting and then the bottles will go into the fridge, further conditioning. I'm very looking forward to the tasting in 3 weeks from now.
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And I tasted my traditional style Helles (Hacker Pschorr Clone v2) under special conditions yesterday: I carried it up to the summit of the Weinkogel (Austria) and savoured it with a view of Lake Mondsee, and mom-style pasta salad (the best!) as well as some salami sandwiches as sides.
Delicious!
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What a gorgeous view! What a picturesque spot to enjoy a beer and snack, so jealous!!
 
Yesterday I brewed 20 litres of Sussex Best Bitter
3400g Maris Otter
200g Flaked Maize
150g Medium Crystal
60 minutes boil
25g Progress at 60
25g Bramling Cross at 15g
20g Fuggles at 5
20g EKG whirlpool 20 minutes at 80C
Nottingham yeast
What temperature do you ferment at for this recipe? Harvey's Sussex Best is a top 3 beer for me but I can't get it locally and I've never really been able to brew a good homage. Harvey's yeast character is elusive.
 
Warm day, low 90s. Dogs like the brewshop’s cement floor and portable evaporative cooler. Andy, Corgi and Tinker, Aussie are my crew. We have a Pilsner grist mashing in the E-BIAB, hops are set up (upper left hanging bags) and the timer’s running. Did a 2L starter of WLP 800, hopefully a clean slurry for some frozen vials. I’ve found 50ml vials with glycerin works really well.

Tapped the Bunny Bitters for visitors this week. Be safe everybody, Happy Fourth!

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Yesterday I washed a few bottles, transferred some and packaged some apple/pear cider (Mangrove Jacks kit) then poured a gallon of pear juice with nutrients and added sugar on the partial cake for a new world perry. Planning to brew soon, and tomorrow I’ll find out what I need to brew for an HBC club competition. Once that draw is decided I can plan out my next 2 brews.
 
Three cheers for the red, white and BREW!

ABM and I got the Summer 48 into the fermenter with no injuries or casualties that we know of. I'm trying out a fermenter cooler bag with massive frozen gel packs to try and control temperature. We'll see how it works -- there's a lot of dead air in that bag around my dinky little 6 gallon fermenter...

Didn't quite hit the 1.053 I was looking for, but I may have mashed in just a bit hot at 164, which only dropped to 154 when I got the grist into it. We'll see how the final numbers come out.
 
Dry hopped an NEIPA with 5oz of Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe. Then got a starter going for a weekend Witbier brew session.
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Would you mind telling more about your hop dropper process? Like me, it looks like you don't have adequate space in your fridge for the dropper to ride on your brewbucket throughout the fermentation. Looks like you installed a butterfly valve on your brewbucket lid, then you hook up the dropper? How'd you pull that off? I'm eager to learn about this!
 
Would you mind telling more about your hop dropper process? Like me, it looks like you don't have adequate space in your fridge for the dropper to ride on your brewbucket throughout the fermentation. Looks like you installed a butterfly valve on your brewbucket lid, then you hook up the dropper? How'd you pull that off? I'm eager to learn about this!
So…2” TC Bulkhead thru the lid attached to a 2” butterfly valve. That always stays on and fits in my chamber with no issues. When my fermenter is in the chamber, I have a TC blank above the butterfly valve.

When it’s time to dry hop. I take the fermenter out of the chamber, take off the blank, and place the hop bong onto the butterfly valve. Add my hops. Hook-up CO2 to the bong, and purge. I open and close the bong and do a number of cycles to try and rid myself of as much O2 as possible.

Open the butterfly valve, drop hops, close butterfly valve, take off hop bong, place blank back on and put fermenter back into chamber.

This was my maiden voyage with this process. It may not be perfect, but it’s got to be a heck of a lot better than opening my lid and throwing hops in.
 
@ garzlok I like you process using a blank cap on top of your valve. Enabling you to remove the hop bong offers flexibility moving the fermenter in and out of your fermentation chamber and allows it to fit into shorter space. I like that and I'll be copying your process. Thanks for sharing.
 
Checked in on my Summer 48, and I've got kreusen and 67° 12 hours after loading it into my cooler bag. Had to change out the frozen gel pack at zero-dark-thirty this morning, but so far the system (Cool Brewing bag and Cooler Shock large gel packs) seems to be working as advertised to control fermentation temperatures.
 
Dry hopped my Hopfenweisse with 40g Luminosa, 30g Azacca Cryo and 20g Hallertau Mittelfreuh.

Dosed my bretted Saison with some extra fermentables, in the form of a 1:2 sugar syrup made with 250g clear candi sugar and 500ml water.
 
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