Saturday, November 11, 2017

High Grav. Beer


This morning, I brewed up a high-gravity brew based on the Diablo Black Ale (aka DOZE Black IPA) developed by Club DOZE, my homebrew club. 1.141 OG!!

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Hazy IPA


Ingredients:
Extract
8 lbs. ultralight liquid malt extract

Steeping Grains
1 lb flaked oats
1 lb flaked wheat
8 oz. Carapils malt
8 oz. wheat malt
4 oz honey malt

Boil hops
1 oz. Centennial hop pellets (8.5% AA) @ 60 min.
1 oz. Citra hop pellets ( % AA) @ 5 min.
2 oz. Mosaic hop pellets ( % AA) @ 0 min.
1 oz. Citra hop pellets ( % AA) @ 0 min.

Dry-hop additions
2 oz. Mosaic hop pellets ( % AA)
1 oz. Citra hop pellets ( % AA)
1 oz. Mosaic hop pellets ( % AA)
2 oz. Citra hop pellets ( % AA)

Yeast
2 vials White Labs California Ale yeast, WLP001


Procedure:
Brought 3 gallons water to 160F, turned flame off, and added grain bag.
Steeped grains for 30 mins. Removed grain bag and returned to boil.
Added bittering hops - 1 oz. Centennial.
After 30 mins, turned off flame and  added LME. Dissolved and turned flame back on.
Returned wort to boil and added flavor and aroma hops at prescribed times.

Cooled, and racked to fermenter with addition of enough distilled water to make 5.5 gals.

Aerated wort and pitched yeast at 79F.

8 hrs later yeast actively fermenting.

10/14: Added 1 oz. Citra hop pellets & 2 oz. Mosaic hop pellets

OG: 1.068
FG: 1.015
ABV: 6.7%



Saturday, August 19, 2017

Coffee Porter

Ingredients

5 lb MoreBeer! Traditional Dark Liquid Malt Extract (a blend of 2-row, Munich, caramel 60, and black malt)
8.3 oz coffee malt
34 g Fuggles (3.57% AA) hop pellets @ 60 min
12 g Fuggles (3.57% AA) hop pellers @ 15 min
12 oz cold-brewed coffeee @ 0 min
12 oz. cold-brewed coffee @ kegging
1 tablet Whirfloc @ 0 min

2 vials White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

Procedure

Brought 3 gals water to 126*F. Added coffee malt in grain bag.
Removed grains at 195*F
Brought liquid to boil and added the bittering hops.
At 30 mins from end of 60 minute boil, added liquid malt extract, and returned wort to boil.
At 15 mins from end, added aroma/flavor hops.
At end of boil, added Whirfloc and coffee.

Cooled to 83*F and pitched yeast.

9 Sept. 2017:
Kegged with addition of 12 oz cold-brewed coffee.


OG: 1.038
FG: 1.015
Aprox. IBUs: 22
ABV: 3%

Way too light-bodied, not enough coffee flavour. Too little body to handle carbonation, thus ended up with a bit of a "carbonation bite" to it.  Recipe needs some work.

Dumped the batch.

Friday, August 11, 2017

The last of the Mamut

On my last day in Lima last week, we pulled out the last bottle of my Mamut Barley Wine, which had been aging in the fridge there for a year.

It aged nicely. It was flavourful, and some of the very overt hop bitterness that had been so evident when it was young had softened into something rather pleasant and more rounded.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Abbey Ale

I helped my friend and fellow club-member, Vito, brew an all-grain batch this morning. It was to be a pilsner, but because I don't have temperature control in my fermentation space, I pitched Abbey Ale yest into my share of the wort.

Ingredients  - for 15 gals. post boil

28 lbs German 2-row (2.0 SRM) Pilsner malt
2.8 oz Perle hop pellets (8% AA) - at 60 mins
1.5 tabs Whirfloc - at 15 mins
1.4 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker pellets (4 % AA) - at 15 mins
1.4 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker pellets (4 % AA) - at 0 mins

Ingredients - Fermentation of my 5-gal share

2 vials White Labs WLP 530 Abbey Ale Yeast


Procedure - 17 gal. boil

RO water, 5.3 ph
Single recirculating infusion mash
Sparged with 14 gals 168°F water
90-minute boil


Pitched Abbey Ale yeast at 70°F.


We used the specs sheet from Vito's previous brew of the recipe as the guide:


Oct. 2017: The beer was weird. The Belgian flavor was there, alright, but one could tell that the grain bill was all off for that yeast.  It could only be described as a hybrid beer, and a not very good one.  I'm afraid that I wasted Vito's perfectly good wort.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Housekeeping time ...

So, today I did the long-overdue chore of thoroughly cleaning the keggerator. I even unscrewed and took up the metal plate that protects the floor of the fridge portion, and cleaned and sanitized underneath that.

I also replaced the gas lines with some of those Brew Ultra spiral-curled PVC-free gas tubing.  It sure makes the inside of the kegerator a lot tidier!