So I'm two for two on my goal of brewing one batch each calendar month so far. Knocked out a hoppy pale that is all base malt 60-30-10 Pilsner- Vienna- White wheat. Simcoe and citra at the 5min Mark and pitched a good starter of 1056 harvested from last months batch. Nailed my target OG 1.052! I'm really excited about brewing this year and even more so with the prospect of switching to a base malt with more character from the discussion in random brewing thoughts thread.
Fuck it’s February already! I was totally looking for the January thread to post this. Double brew day here. Mashed in at 6am on a hoppy pale ale, TF Pearl, just under 20% rye and a touch of crystal 10. Cascade, Cashmere and Azacca. Will ferment w my backyard Yellowjacket culture. Currently running a Saison into the kettle. Floor malted Pilsner, rye, wheat and spelt from a local maltster. This will get the hoppy iteration of my Allagash Belfius culture.
After pulling samples and tinkering with ratios, I took 2 carboys with lower fill levels and blended them last night. One was a turbid mash mixed ferm sour fermented with TYB's sour blend brewed in June and the other was a saison with the DuPont strain & brett c brewed in August. Both beers are pretty young, but I guess I talked myself into blending them out of concern to the fill levels of the carboys and the pellicles they'd grown. The saison has developed a slight barnyard/pineapple funk but is otherwise clean, whereas the mixed ferm sour is already pronounced in tartness but has a Welch's grapejuice/medicinal nose going on. I blended it to be approximately 60/40 saison to mixed ferm sour, hopefully some more time will do them well.
Had a saison I was planning to age for a minimum of six months before fruiting this summer. Went to take a sample today and it tastes like some 2015 era sour beer with weird apple funk. Very disappointed, gonna let it ride out for at least another month as the weather is far too terrible here to brew outside yet. Punched down a bunch of blackberries though in another saison and it smells amazing. Win some lose some.
Somewhat on a whim I decided to Brew some life this morning. Loosely based on HotD Matt. Two base malts, two crystal, two roasted, two candi sugars, and two smoked malts. Simpsons peated malt has me intrigued guess I need to start drinking some Islay pre-boil is sitting at 23.4p!! Let's see how the rest of the morning goes.
Just bought a second fridge so I don't need to ferment in my kegerator anymore, now I can finally ferment and serve at the same time. I'm breaking it in with a Centennial Blonde this weekend.
Life update checked my force ferment sample and it's down to 6.6P! Double checked with my hydrometer and sure enough 1.026! More excited that both of my measurement tools match up. Probably going to rely solely on my refractometer from here on out. Feel like this is a whole new start for my brewing this year.
