What I did for beer today

[grampamark]

Not something I did for beer, but, because beer.

Had to run some errands in the big city of Harlem, MT (pop 800) this morning and grammamark gave me a grocery list. Picked up the stuff at Albertson’s and headed home, to find a half gallon of milk leaking when I took it out of the bag. Geez, now I have to quickly find a half gallon container…oh, yeah! Downstairs to the brewery and-problem solved.

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Not something I did for beer, but, because beer.

Had to run some errands in the big city of Harlem, MT (pop 800) this morning and grammamark gave me a grocery list. Picked up the stuff at Albertson’s and headed home, to find a half gallon of milk leaking when I took it out of the bag. Geez, now I have to quickly find a half gallon container…oh, yeah! Downstairs to the brewery and-problem solved.

View attachment 757244

"Ah, beer! The cause of and the solution to all of life's problems!" -Homer Simpson

 

[ba-brewer]

On bubble watch again today, brewed a danish pale lager yesterday and made use of some yeast I build about month ago. Figured it would be OK but was glad to see it was working already this morning. It is a 4gal batch I plan to put in a 5gal keg so I am purging the receiving keg to save some CO2. Make bubble watching more interesting too.

Also checked gravity on a dark mild I brewed a few days back. Should be ready to keg in a couple days.

 

[gromitdj]

Love the blowoff ingenuity.

 

[Elric]

Not something I did for beer, but, because beer.

Had to run some errands in the big city of Harlem, MT (pop 800) this morning and grammamark gave me a grocery list. Picked up the stuff at Albertson’s and headed home, to find a half gallon of milk leaking when I took it out of the bag. Geez, now I have to quickly find a half gallon container…oh, yeah! Downstairs to the brewery and-problem solved.

View attachment 757244

Is that one o them newfangled milkshake ipas the kids keep talkin bout these days?

 

[seatazzz]

Kegged the lager & the IPA that have been crashing the last few days; yeast from the IPA stayed in the fermonster, and I'll rack a Strata Pale Ale onto it tomorrow.

 

[JAReeves]

Cold crashed and dry hopped the Rye IPA. If there’s time after work, I plan on starting a passion fruit cider and some Sauvignon blanc.

 

[Knightshade]

Boring..but necessary. Gave the fermenting keg a couple rounds in homemade keg washer HD bucket. Thought about harvesting the yeast, but didn't do it (I have yet to move past thinking about it). Just dug a small hole in the side yard, thanked them for their work, covered it and proceeded with cleaning.

 

[seatazzz]

Had an absolute brainstorm during brewday today. Did a Strata Pale with a small bittering addition but some bigger late additions. I have a hop spider, but the only bags I have that are long enough are the Wilser bags that came with my BIAB bag. I do love them, but there's so much flour in there from the finer crush that they get gummed up pretty quick and the wort won't drain out of them. So went with an old bigger mesh bag that I had, just isn't long enough from the spider to the wort in my 15g kettle. At flameout I dropped the hop bag down to get what I could out of it, and pondered on how to get it to drain without burning my hands; that's when Ninkasi told me to look up, and see the dangling bag hoist. Attached that to the hop bag, and voila! Fast drain of the wort from the hop bag, and since suspended used my fancy silicone spatula tongs (if you can find these get them, they are amazing) to squeeze all that hoppy goodness out. Until I can find, or make, new hop boil bags, this will be my go-to. Still patting myself on the back.

@wilserbrewer , if you read this, I absolutely love my BIAB, but I would suggest making the hop boil & dry hop bags out of a bigger mesh? They probably work great for leaf hops, but for pellets not so much, at least not for me. If someone has a suggestion I would appreciate it!

*edit For today's brew I coarsened the crush to try to avoid as much flour but didn't help much. Just throwing that out there.

 

[ba-brewer]

@seatazzz, have you tried conditioning your grain? A little spritz of water about 10 to 20min before you mill the grain helps to reduce flour and keeps the hulls more intact.

I forget the exact amount of water needed as I have a mark on the water bottle but I think it is like 3 or 4oz of water for about 10lbs of grain.

 

[seatazzz]

@seatazzz, have you tried conditioning your grain? A little spritz of water about 10 to 20min before you mill the grain helps to reduce flour and keeps the hulls more intact.

I forget the exact amount of water needed as I have a mark on the water bottle but I think it is like 3 or 4oz of water for about 10lbs of grain.

I have done that a few times in the past, just not since I started BIAB. I will give it a shot for the next one. And this is why I love HBT; other people think of things that I should have!!!

 

[grampamark]

Pulled a gravity sample of the Altbier I brewed last Saturday. After a week, it’s at the predicted OG and quite clear already. I’m in no hurry, so I’m gonna give it another 5 days, or so. Sample tasted very Alt-ish.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Racked my New Year's 11-11-11 Gunstock Ale to secondary. A little oak, a little EKG dry hop, a little brett. Lots of time.

 

[Sam_92]

I bottled my doppelbock and my witbier. The doppelbock tasted great and I'm really excited to try it after it conditions.

With the witbier I tried something new, I added coriander, lemon zest, and Juniper berries to the priming sugar solution and steeped it for about ten minutes and then added it to the fermenter straining out the solids so they wouldn't gum up my siphon. I tasted a sample and I could definitely get the botanicals but they were subtle, I'm hoping carbonation makes them pop a bit more.

It's been forever since I have done a witbier and I forgot how strong (and not very pleasant) Belgian yeasts can smell!

 

[Beermeister32]

Kegged my 1/1/22 Bavarian Pilsner. I’m naturally carbonating the keg with a 4 oz charge of corn sugar and added 1 tsp ascorbic acid to clean up any residual O2. I’m dropping down to 4 oz from my usual 4.3 oz, I’m liking them a bit less carbonated. I’ve noticed when I hit them with gelatin the carbonation has been rising. I think it is the gelatin doing this.

 

[Bramling Cross]

On bubble watch again today, brewed a danish pale lager yesterday and made use of some yeast I build about month ago. Figured it would be OK but was glad to see it was working already this morning. It is a 4gal batch I plan to put in a 5gal keg so I am purging the receiving keg to save some CO2. Make bubble watching more interesting too.
View attachment 757273

Also checked gravity on a dark mild I brewed a few days back. Should be ready to keg in a couple days.

Thank you for the bungee cord around the keg trick. I will remember that.

 

[jcav]

Kegged my Dunkelweizen and I am already digging this recipe. The sample had nice wheat malts, spicyness from some rye, chocolate, some honey, and a big banana aroma and finish, due to stressing the yeast. Can't wait until it's carbed.

John

 

[Bramling Cross]

Busy day in the brewery, today.

Transferred the Cascades/Amarillo/Citra pale ale that I brewed to avenge my crappy, fruity X-mas pale ale (Spat! Curse that insipid swill!!!!) this morning into the dry hop keg. Oh, boy, it's going to be goooooood. I actually did a little happy dance when I pulled a sample. Revenge is best served cold, so it's into the fridge with the dry hops at 30F.

I brewed a German-style pils today with a dumb amount of Mt. Hood hops and kegged the last of my scheduled Panther Piss beers to make room in the fermenter. Panther Piss Paleo Vulgaris, a 1.060 all 6-row, corn, rice, and Clusters monster is looking really good. The yeast is still obscuring the interesting bits of the malt bill, but the Clusters are standing front and center, as designed. There's a trace amount of acetaldehyde on the nose and the finish, which I found really pleasant. I think I'll really miss that in the finished beer. It' going to be a winner in a few weeks.

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Modified my keezer to move my CO2 tank to the outside. Now I have plenty of room for six kegs.

 

[JAReeves]

Took everything out of the keezer and gave it a good cleaning. Decided to finish yesterday's plan and miss some of the football game: so we mixed up some apple cider and added the dregs from our last wild-fermented cider batch in the hopes that we'll capture some of the same flavors. We also put together a Sauvignon Blanc kit. Didn't realize it was a super-cheap kit and contains apple juice?!?!?!? WTH! Since it's not going to be a pure grape wine, decided to get crazy and threw in a #10 can of blackberry puree. Maybe we'll go all in on the crazy and carbonate it! All three fermenters are full; the glycol chiller is finally working at capacity.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Green with envy, JAReeves.

 

[deuc224]

Doing my first pressure lager and used whirlfloc for the first time, holy mother of god why did it take me so long to find this?!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Dgallo]

Used my homegrown Columbus, cascade, and Cashmere hops for the first time…technically it’s “what I did for beer, yesterday”

 

[sibelman]

Bought yeast for the next Imperial Scottish Ale (a DIPA with Imperial Tartan), 'cuz that keg is the next one to kick and it's SWMBO's fave. Gotta move my (65th) Birthday Best Bitter from the fermenter to its fermentation-purged keg.

 

[seatazzz]

Since I can now actually TASTE the beers I have on tap, made the decision to enter three of them into SheBrew this year. I've meant to do it in the past, but life gets in the way sometimes, and the closest entry dropoff is in Vancouver Wa. This year the husband has made the decision for me; we're going to go down to Portland on Saturday the 12th, drop off entries, and find a nice place to have early Valentine's Day dinner, then come home early on Sunday in time for the game.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Had an absolute brainstorm during brewday today. Did a Strata Pale with a small bittering addition but some bigger late additions. I have a hop spider, but the only bags I have that are long enough are the Wilser bags that came with my BIAB bag. I do love them, but there's so much flour in there from the finer crush that they get gummed up pretty quick and the wort won't drain out of them. So went with an old bigger mesh bag that I had, just isn't long enough from the spider to the wort in my 15g kettle. At flameout I dropped the hop bag down to get what I could out of it, and pondered on how to get it to drain without burning my hands; that's when Ninkasi told me to look up, and see the dangling bag hoist. Attached that to the hop bag, and voila! Fast drain of the wort from the hop bag, and since suspended used my fancy silicone spatula tongs (if you can find these get them, they are amazing) to squeeze all that hoppy goodness out. Until I can find, or make, new hop boil bags, this will be my go-to. Still patting myself on the back.

@wilserbrewer , if you read this, I absolutely love my BIAB, but I would suggest making the hop boil & dry hop bags out of a bigger mesh? They probably work great for leaf hops, but for pellets not so much, at least not for me. If someone has a suggestion I would appreciate it!

*edit For today's brew I coarsened the crush to try to avoid as much flour but didn't help much. Just throwing that out there.

I BIAB using a long handled food service slotted spoon for a mash paddle and the fine mesh nylon bags for hops. I clip the hop bags to the kettle and press the wort out using the back of the spoon. I get them pretty dry that way and no burnt fingers.

 

[Knightshade]

More boring stuff...somehow managed to turn a 15 minute job into 30+, but that is just how I roll.

This is adding on the new catch handles to the Anvil Foundry so I don't have to rely on the stupid ring that may or may not stay in place when lifting the basket.

 

[ba-brewer]

Brewed a 10gal batch of Strata-Galaxy golden ale that I split to ferment half with wlp007 and the other half with wy1318. I fought with a stuck/sticking mash for almost 2hours before I remembered I had some rice hulls. About two handfuls was all it took to get the mash running and clearing.

Also kegged my dark mild, really wanted to put this off but I needed the chamber for one of the new beers.

 

[pshankstar]

Brewed my first beer of 2022 & finished cleaning up minutes ago. Wanted to brew Sunday but things didn’t work out so a late night brew night. I thought I had more Citra in the freezer but I was wrong. So I went Comet heavy with Bru-1 & Galaxy to complement the Comet. The wort is in a sealed keg in the basement to finish cooling & I’ll pitch the Imperial POG yeast tomorrow. If it wasn’t in the low teens tonight I would have let it cool in the garage but I don’t want it to get too cold. I can always move it to the garage in the morning for an hour or two if needed.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I jumped the revenge beer that I brewed in response to my insipid X-mas beer out of the dry hops keg and into the serving keg.

I racked it onto the dry hops on Sunday, then pulled a sample yesterday. Holy smokes! I decided to give it an extra 24hrs.

I should've jumped it into the serving keg yesterday--all kinds of orange and grapefruit. Today's sample showed a lot more pine-sol and maybe some hop burn, we'll see.

Damnit!

It's still going to be a great beer and there's a ton of gunk that needs to drop out and that'll put the focus back on the citrus and take the bite out of the pine. All the same, I know this lesson! I've learned it many times before. I need to be brave and run my citrus focused dry hops for only 24hrs at 64F going into the fridge, then rack off the following day.

I'll get it right next time!