What's brewing? July 2017 Edition

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JCastle1

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Currently finishing conditioning on my Helles, should be ready soon. My hibiscus and galaxy-hopped saisons are already in bottles and conditioning for a few weeks. Haven't made an IPA in a while so I'll be making two SMaSH beers this weekend, one with pilsner malt and Nelson Sauvin and one with Golden Promise and Azacca. Will be drinking well in the next couple weeks.
 
I'm planning on doing a Helles this weekend. Was going to do a traditional one with 34/70, but decided to try this method and see how it turns out:

http://brulosophy.com/recipes/munich-helles/

I'll probably lager it for at least a month, as my fridge doesn't seem to get cold enough for gelatin to work. First all-grain brew since my second kid was born. Hope I find time to do it by Sunday!
 
I'm planning on doing a Helles this weekend. Was going to do a traditional one with 34/70, but decided to try this method and see how it turns out:

http://brulosophy.com/recipes/munich-helles/

I'll probably lager it for at least a month, as my fridge doesn't seem to get cold enough for gelatin to work. First all-grain brew since my second kid was born. Hope I find time to do it by Sunday!
For German ales I only lager for 3 weeks. Usually at least 6 weeks for Helles using lager yeast.
 
Brewed 13 gallons of Berliner. One carboy will get peaches, one will be plain, and i am thinking lime zest for the other.

NXOtwCn.jpg
 
Having sorted out some issues, and with a ton of judging going on for my club comp, I may have time to squeeze in 1 session this month. So why not get nutty?

Plans to brew 20 gallons of Pre-Prohibition American Lager. But after sparing to the BK, I'm going to do some maths, and push over enough to be watered back and down to make an American Lite lager in a 15 gal BK I kept from my old system. I rarely toss hardware.

1 mash, 2 beers. I've never made either and I've never brewed with maize.
 
Trying to brew a NEIPA right now. Pale ale malt, torrified flaked oats and some crushed wheat I bought in a regular store. Tossing in 100 grams of Mosaic on "flameout", 200 grams more for dry hop combined with 100 grams of Nelson. Have to make do with S-04 yeast. Also added some water adjusting stuff (calcium- chloride and sulfate with approx. ratios 2:1). Batch size is about 19 liters / 5 gallons. My hopes right now is that it turns out drinkable (not too bad).
 
Just brewed 15 gallons of berliner weisse yesterday. ~5 gal will get ~64oz tart cherry juice (re-brewing this since it was so darn good the last time), ~5 gal will get a similar amount of blueberry (either juice or whole, haven't decided, but likely juice since its so easy), ~5 gal will get ~4-5# of passionfruit puree, and any remaining will go into the 2.5g keg and be drunk ASAP to make room in the kegerator!

Now to plan out and brew 10 gal of galaxy/citra DIPA...
 
Just brewed 15 gallons of berliner weisse yesterday. ~5 gal will get ~64oz tart cherry juice (re-brewing this since it was so darn good the last time), ~5 gal will get a similar amount of blueberry (either juice or whole, haven't decided, but likely juice since its so easy), ~5 gal will get ~4-5# of passionfruit puree, and any remaining will go into the 2.5g keg and be drunk ASAP to make room in the kegerator!

Now to plan out and brew 10 gal of galaxy/citra DIPA...
Curious, this mix fermentation or kettle soured?
 
Curious, this mix fermentation or kettle soured?

Short-term mixed (MTF "reverse sour" style). For the first batch I did a co-pitch of White labs new nordic yeast blend + Lacto P (Goodbelly) and got a solid level of acidity, but not quite what I was looking for. This time I cooled the wort to ~80-85F and pitched in the lacto overnight to give it a head start before cooling to ~70 (will ramp up to 75 over a week or so) and pitching in the yeast. Hoping to get the pH a bit lower (~3.4 or so) before adding the fruit (hoping that the acidity in the fruit will bring the pH down into the 3.0-3.2 range that is desirable for berliners without overshooting (looking at you passionfruit...)
 
Found time to brew over the weekend, 10 gallons of Galaxy/Citra/Columbus DIPA, came in a few points low on OG (1.073 instead of 1.076) but still working out efficiency on the higher end (new solid-sided basket brew system takes some getting used to). Grain bill was Golden promise, White Wheat, Flaked Oats, Carafoam, dextrose. Had a pretty insane whirlpool (8oz Galaxy, 6oz Citra, 3oz Columbus) with two massive dry hops to follow (6oz Galaxy/4oz Citra/1.5oz Columbus each). Also going to try out adding ~9oz of dextrose to my fermenter with my second dry hop and popping my spunding valve on to try and scrub any final O2 and carbonate at the same time as dry hopping under pressure (hooray for fermenters that can take 50PSI)...lets see how this works out!
 
Found time to brew over the weekend, 10 gallons of Galaxy/Citra/Columbus DIPA, came in a few points low on OG (1.073 instead of 1.076) but still working out efficiency on the higher end (new solid-sided basket brew system takes some getting used to). Grain bill was Golden promise, White Wheat, Flaked Oats, Carafoam, dextrose. Had a pretty insane whirlpool (8oz Galaxy, 6oz Citra, 3oz Columbus) with two massive dry hops to follow (6oz Galaxy/4oz Citra/1.5oz Columbus each). Also going to try out adding ~9oz of dextrose to my fermenter with my second dry hop and popping my spunding valve on to try and scrub any final O2 and carbonate at the same time as dry hopping under pressure (hooray for fermenters that can take 50PSI)...lets see how this works out!
What kind of fermenters do you have?
 
What kind of fermenters do you have?

They are called kegmenters, 50L sanke keg with a 4" TC cap that has standard ball lock fittings/dip tubes. There are also comparable products sold as yeast brinks (ABS systems sells one as does GW Kent)
 
Knocked out a couple session beers yesterday.

• 5 gallons Ordinary Bitter (1.035 OG, should finish around 3.5% abv)

• 10 gallons Petit Saison (1.025 OG, should finish around 2.5%)
Kegged these last night. Both finished a little lower than expected.

Saison finished at 1.001 w a modest pitch of 3724, so a little over 3% (really wanted to keep it sub-3).

Bitter finished 1.006 on gen 2 Hansens, so just around 4%.

Still have another 5 gal of the Saison that saw 3724 co-pitched w TYB184. That's going into green glass soon for bottle conditioning.

 
Brewed my first two fruit beers.

First is a table saison at 4.5% with fresh raspberrys added during secondary fermentation.

Second is a 5% wheat beer that I will be adding either Rainer cherries or raspberries to during secondary fermentation.

Optimistic that both will be good, but as these are my first two, who knows lol.
 
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