What I did for beer today

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Bottled the 12 Beers of Christmas-West Coast: Honey-Ginger IPA. Tomorrow, packaging, and in the mail Thursday!
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Tried my cyser experiment and found it to be good! I've been playing half assed with cysers for a few years. For various reasons, i've been trying to do a semi-sweet cyser without resorting to back sweetening or acid blends or adding tannin powder and playing with various yeasts (that all eventually ferment down to 1.000 or lower FG).

So, a month ago, the local Costco had fresh pressed apple cider with no preservatives from Oregon. I grabbed about 6 gallons. It was cheap and tasty. Also grabbed 5# of Costco pure honey. Made 5 gallons, pitched Nottingham, aerated multiple times, a dash of yeast nutrient (and some dead bread yeast), and threw it in the garage with ~50-65F ambient temperature. One month later, it was down to around 1020. So I keg it, roused the yeast and let it spund around 70F for 2 days. No noticeable carbonation and I put it on CO2.

Have had 3 glasses tonight so it ain't bad. :) Honestly, this is about what I have been questing for. Lightly carbonated, prolly 1015 semi-sweet, and has both apple and honey flavor. This is prolly my MO going forward, ferment down but not all the way, keg and drink as it ferments toward dry. Checks off on my palate boxes....
 
Kicked my milk stout, so cleaned the line, and put the Baltic porter on. This also freed up the space to put the smaller keg of wheat wine in the kegerator as well.
 
Had major plans to do two batches of lager this weekend, but this morning decided to pass on today's brewday; I've had a monster headache since Wednesday, and Thursday started with body aches; yesterday fatigue and lassitude set in. Might be the 'rona, or just a garden variety cold; I don't have a fever, no breathing issues (except I'm a stupid smoker). I did set the ferment fridge down to 40 to start the two in there crashing, should be able to keg by tonight if I'm feeling up to it. I HATE being sick. If I'm feeling better by tomorrow I might do a rare 10g batch instead of two 5g batches; my equipment can handle it, but my back isn't looking forward to hauling a super-heavy wet grain bag out of the mash tun.
 
@seatazzz, 1/2 is better than not being able to brew at all because of a messed up back. Hope you get well soon.
Feeling much better this afternoon, so went ahead and milled grain (24lbs, horey clap) for tomorrow. I can always beg the husband to help me lift the bag, or I might just scoop out as much wet grain as I can until I can lift it. Still have the headache, but no body aches anymore and less fatigue; might also be due to the fact that I just did more in one hour than the last two days, what with weighing grain, milling it, and dumping out the leftover water in the keggle from last week. Bonus, I now have two empty grain bags to dispose of the spent grain. If I wake up feeling like sh*t tomorrow I'll just leave the grain in the sealed tun and save it for next weekend.
 
Hello guys,
It's been a while i haven't done any beer so today i brewed 2 batchs of beer. An Oktoberfest and an american pilsner. 5 gallons each.
Also today i ordered some upgrade pieces to add a whirlpool to my boiling kettle and so ordered as well enough ingredients to brew 3 more batch of beers!!!
I guess i am preparing for the summer lol
 
Feeling much better this afternoon, so went ahead and milled grain (24lbs, horey clap) for tomorrow. I can always beg the husband to help me lift the bag, or I might just scoop out as much wet grain as I can until I can lift it. Still have the headache, but no body aches anymore and less fatigue; might also be due to the fact that I just did more in one hour than the last two days, what with weighing grain, milling it, and dumping out the leftover water in the keggle from last week. Bonus, I now have two empty grain bags to dispose of the spent grain. If I wake up feeling like sh*t tomorrow I'll just leave the grain in the sealed tun and save it for next weekend.
Glad to hear you are already feeling better, getting sick sucks. Especially these day when you have to worry if it is more than just a cold. Sounds like you have options and a plan for the heavier than usual grain.
 
Bottled a talus hopped pale ale this morning. Impulse bought the hop from YVH awhile back and it was excellent going into bottles. I tossed a gallon into my uKeg to get to drinking it quicker, and bottled about 17. Its fruity with something I cant put my finger on completely. Something sort of wood/herb/floral. Someone with some actual skill and better process could do some serious work with it, I bet.
Also set up my TiltPi. Thank god for my wife, or I'd given up after about 10 minutes. Still took awhile, but she did the heavy lifting. Now to buy more tilts...
 
About 11:30 last night I remembered that I had an idea to fit the shank collars better on the bushings of my pipe faucet tower. It's a 2"x1/2" bushing which has sort of a hex nut on the face of the bushing. The collar won't slip all the way over it. I originally wasn't sure if I liked the SS collars but thought I could put a washer to fill the gap. Anyway, I had the idea to use a bench grinder to round off the hex nut. So that's what I was diing around midnight! I guess it wasn't too loud as no family members said a word about it today. Worked out too!
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Kegged 5 gallons of Kolsch, an extract kit from Northern Brewer. 28 days in primary and crystal clear beer - about 4.5% ABV. First taste of room-temperature left-over uncarbonated beer were awesome. Nice and crisp with the German Tradition and Hersbrucker hops coming through for a smooth and refreshing taste. To heck with carbonation and chilling so maybe I should drink it all gone as-is, lol. But I'm going to resist the urge....and wait it out.
 
Kegged my first beer! A Mosaic dry hopped saison. Carbonating and chilling now, wow kegging is fun!!!

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Also pulled a sample of a raspberry sour that has been on the fruit and some oak for 2 weeks. Awesome clarity and the color is neon in person. And it’s going to be tasty in a month or so...
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Dan
 
Put together the must for a Red Wine Blend (Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvèdre), moved the Scottish Export to a keg (FG picture below), and made my first lager.

The lager came in with way more potential alcohol than I expected, so much for a session lager! I hopped it at 60, 15, WP 190F, HS 150F, and plan to dry hop it as well-All El Dorado hops. Theoretically it'll be about 35 IBU and 7% ABV. First time I made a yeast starter, as well, though the stir plate doesn't work very well. Pitched the yeast at 59F and plan to keep it at 50F for two weeks or so.

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