What I did for beer today

[seanjwalker1]

Transferred that last 2 gallons of a 3 gallon batch of brown ale to the 1.75 gal keg, washed, sanitized both kegs with PBW and then Starsan using the Mark II auto keg washer and God how I love that thing ! Kegged the Blue Moon clone. Both are cold crashing in the Kegerator, hopefully tomorrow will be cold enough to start carbonating, both have carb stones. I need this ready by Sat when my high school buds stop in town.

 

[brewbama]

Dry hopped my ‘Tropical Bitter’ this AM. It’s an Ordinary Bitter with Amarillo for bittering, 1 oz each Necteron, Moutere, Eclipse, and El Dorado in a 30 min 140°F whirlpool and 1 oz each Necteron, Moutere, Eclipse, and El Dorado in a three day active fermentation dry hop.

 

[seatazzz]

Continued on my journey titled Why I am Pissed Off at My New Fermzilla. Brewed a blonde last weekend, on Notty, that wound up with just oo-scoobs of acetaldehyde. This morning dumped some proven Notty slurry in the thing, put the airlock back on (after removing the spunding valve and post for it) and hoping for the best. The googles has LOTS of information on pressure fermenting lagers, but not much on ales; yes, probably my bad for not researching better before jumping in. After spending about $135 (with shipping) on that expensive wad of plastic, I'm going back to fermenting a lager in a keg this weekend; mainly because the blonde needs another few days to finish.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Checked the carbonation of the Blue Moon clone. Yep, she's ready !!! The orange peel mellowed out nicely.

 

[seatazzz]

Well, it happens. The Blonde ale in the Fermzilla got dumped today. It just didn't want to work; gravity got stuck at 1.020 and tasted horrible. Tried adding yeast, nope. Warmed it up, nope. Chalked it up in the mistakes column, and will start fresh on Sunday, this time in a fermonster not under pressure. Saturday I'm brewing up a lager in the fermzilla; I've had really good luck with those so far fermenting in the keg, at 12-15psi with a big starter, so I'm fairly confident it will do fine. Other than the issues with trying to ferment the blonde under pressure (probably way too high), the only other thing I can think of that may have done it in is lack of sanitation; I was in a bit of a hurry when I transferred from the BK to the fermenter and may have skimped on 1) cleaning the floating diptube completely, and 2) getting the entire lid assembly sanitized. Who knows, I'm just going to give it another go. What's the definition of insanity, again?

 

[ba-brewer]

@seatazzz, It seems if you had an contamination in your blonde it would not of stalled but would of over attenuated.

I have only done a few a pressure ferments but they seem to take longer to finish vs non-pressure ferments. I have a spunding valve with the output run into starstan so I can tell it is still slowly working for a week or more longer than my normal process.

Also the definition of insanity is a valid approach to many types of fishing.

 

[seanjwalker1]

Well, it happens. The Blonde ale in the Fermzilla got dumped today. It just didn't want to work; gravity got stuck at 1.020 and tasted horrible. Tried adding yeast, nope. Warmed it up, nope. Chalked it up in the mistakes column, and will start fresh on Sunday, this time in a fermonster not under pressure. Saturday I'm brewing up a lager in the fermzilla; I've had really good luck with those so far fermenting in the keg, at 12-15psi with a big starter, so I'm fairly confident it will do fine. Other than the issues with trying to ferment the blonde under pressure (probably way too high), the only other thing I can think of that may have done it in is lack of sanitation; I was in a bit of a hurry when I transferred from the BK to the fermenter and may have skimped on 1) cleaning the floating diptube completely, and 2) getting the entire lid assembly sanitized. Who knows, I'm just going to give it another go. What's the definition of insanity, again?

Insanity, Tazz, is an airlock that never bubbles !!!

 

[leedspointbrew]

Bottled the latest Sabro IPA.

 

[day_trippr]

Swapped out a kicked keg and swapped in two neipas that were all carb'd up and ready to go. For the first time since I started brewing again after the 18 months off for the spinal fusion thing I have all six taps in my keezer occupied by beer!

Decided tomorrow would be a good day to brew something approximating the Ballantine IPA that was my first beer 6 decades ago (I was 12 iirc and my father's brother sneaked me a full bottle ). Been trying to cobble a recipe together from fragments, hopefully it'll at least remind me of that beer. So I programmed my RO system to fill the brew rig, got all the grains ready to grind first thing in the AM, measured out the strike and sparge liquor salts, got a pair of carboys sanitized and a pair of kegs ready to purge.

Split up a 5L 1056 starter into three pitches, two for tomorrow and one to store. Three 1318 pitches are keeping them company

Wrapped up the day with the first pour of my Galaxy neipa. Came out great!

Cheers!

 

[grampamark]

Pulled FG samples of the Cream Ale and Mosaic Blonde that have been in primary for the last two weeks. Will be kegging tomorrow so I will have HB again.

 

[vtmikko]

I bottled a batch of hefeweizen. FG few points higher than planned.

 

[Ragman]

Local homebrew club did a group brew with our local brewery, an English IPA. Today i took my 5 gallons of beer and transferred to secondary - on top of hops, vanilla and Tea bags. We will see how it works out.

 

[day_trippr]

Struck at 9:30 this morning, immediately ran into 6 pounds of flaked corn gluing the mash solid. Eeep!

Stirred the heck out of the mash, then slowly restarted the circulation. Hung in there while the mash slowly clarified, running smoothly now thankfully!

[edit] Post mash-out fly sparge. So far so good!

I am so due for a time-wasting screw up!

[edit2] Pre-boil nailed and safely in the kettle, picked up one SG point along the way...

Cleanup time...

[edit3] All gassed up and ready to go!

Hit my volumes and gravities (+1 OG point) and managed to get through the whole brew without an unforced error!

Cheers!

 

[JAReeves]

Got some work done before heading to MIL's to help her out. Sanitized keg that turned out to be moldy on the inside, kegged the smoked porter

and kegged the Muscat kit that fermented on 7oz. of whole-leaf Cascade. It's like 9.5% Grapefruit Juice.

Tomorrow, clean fermenters and prep for the next brew day.

 

[T Murph]

7 oz Cascade, man I bet that gets your attention.

 

[JAReeves]

7 oz Cascade, man I bet that gets your attention.

If you didn't know it was wine+hops, you'd think I found a way to ferment grapefruit without blowing off all of the flavors. It really is amazing.

 

[day_trippr]

Not a whole lot to do for beer today. There was some Post-Brew Day "Put Things Away", some thinking about the next brew (probably another batch of Julius clone), and did take a peek at the Ballantine IPA ~18 hours post-pitch. Looks like a prototypically fluffy1056 start

Cheers! (Almost time for a beer! )

 

[seatazzz]

This morning moved the lager in the fermzilla to the kegerator to start crashing; had to take a keg out (Mosaic IPA, it's okay but not spectacular so I'm not too fussed about not having it on tap for a couple of days). No room to chill a keg to transfer it into; no problem, will just finish out the last lager and use that. Oops, bit more beer than I expected in said keg. So I either have to drink a LOT tonight (have nothing else to do but laundry) or put it off a day. 2 pints down and it's still pouring great. Hmmm.

 

[mattman91]

Newest version of my German Pils. Down to 1.010.

I did a (single) decoction mash this time vs a single infusion mash on the last one. Also lightened up on the flavor/aroma hops. Interested to see how that changes it.

 

[day_trippr]

I have to revise my earlier post as I decided to do my 15th bath of Julius clone tomorrow and spent the last ~hour getting everything ready for a morning strike...

Cheers! ("Life Is Too Short To Pass On A Brew Day" )

 

[day_trippr]

Off and running with a 9 AM strike on a Julius clone....

[edit] Made it to whirlpooling time. So far so good. Did discover unaccounted for minutes, like heating to a boil after fly sparging (almost 30 minutes)...

[last edit] Hop Stopper did another good job lautering the kettle with a crapton of hop pellets...

Filling carboys...

Pitched and gassed up and ready to rock next to the Ballantine IPA.

Only drama was I apparently murdered my trusty refract and had to drag my triple scale hydro out. Nailed volume and OG so it's all good. If the refract won't calibrate I won't be sad getting a replacement, I bought it so long ago I can't even remember...

Cheers!

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Had standing water and mold in the bottom of my keezer. I shut it down, pulled out my kegs, scooped out the water/mold (**vomit emoji**), sprayed everything down with vinegar, and gave it a good scrub. Everything is back in there, along with an industrial-sized DampRid bucket. Hopefully that will keep it dry.

I need a brew day.

 

[ba-brewer]

Kegged my best bitter and sparkling ale yesterday, today I kegged my Czech-ish lager. That fills the pipeline but I have another couple kegs about to kick so it will be short lived.

 

[hopfenstopfen]

first time using canned wort & first starter in over a year. Been enjoying dry yeast lately.

 

[Rish]

Wrong thread!

 

[grampamark]

Put together a recipe kit for a Cali Common to take to the city house tomorrow.

 

[seatazzz]

Been force carbing the PF lager the last couple of days; tonight it was ready to tap. Needs a few more days to really settle out, but besides being the lightest ABV beer I've ever brewed (clocked in at 4.9%) it's pretty good. In a bit I'll use some of the 3lbs of DME that arrived in the mail today to do a starter for Saturday's cream ale; just can't get enough of that style since I started brewing it a month or so ago.

 

[JAReeves]

Yesterday, cleaned 3 fermenters before picking up the youngest on his last day of school and having a celebratory lunch.

 

[Brandon Yu]

First time mashing with a sous-vide which I already use for cooking.
OMG, makes life so easy hitting and maintaining mash temp. GAMECHANGER! I didn't do the boil with it, but regular electric stove, but maybe next time.

 

[Beerstein]

I brewed a double IPA yesterday. Cleaned the mash pot out today.