Bedazling Brown

7 Lbs Caramunic Malt I
4 Lbs Caramunic Malt III
1/2 Lb Chocolate
1/2 Lb Roasted

1 oz UK Golding hops

British Ale Liquid Wyeast

1 lb of the above grain mix was toasted. Then mashed at 125F for 45 minutes, at 145F, 45 minutes. Sparged to create 5.5 gal volume. 45 minute boil. 1/3 oz bitter hops at 30 min left in boil. 1/4 oz flavor hops at 10 minutes left in boil. Remaining hops at 1 minute for aroma.

Trying the Tripel

3# Cara Hell
4# Light Munic
5# Maris Otter
3/4 oz Hallertau Bittering Hops
1 1/4 oz Hallertau Flavoring Hops
3/4 oz Glacier Aroma Hops

1/2# Candy Sugar (used later)

Trappist High Gravity

Took 1/2# mixed malt and toasted it at 350F for ten minutes

Mashed with 2.5 gal at 125F for ~40 minutes (some reading I'd done concerning Tripels said that longer mashing should occur at the lower temperatures to ensure the beta conversion makes the beer exceptionally dry). Added 1.25 gal at 200F which raised the mash to 150F; held for 30 minutes. Sparged with 2 gallons (should have had more). Boiled at light boil (again, in congruence with reading) for 1 hour, starting with bittering hops, adding flavor hops at 15 minutes remaining in boil, and adding aroma hops at last minute. Let it seep for about 20 minutes. Cooled with 30 lbs of ice. Pitched yeast at about 75F.

OG: 1.045

Put candy sugar in smallest sauce pot (.5 qt?) and filled to one inch above sugar. Boiled for five minutes constantly stirring. Cooled in bath in sink until cool to touch. Poured into carboy after the fermentation started to slow. Next time will try more water, too much sticky stuff left in pot after I tried to pour it into carboy. Started to aggressively ferment about 12 hours after addition of sugar.

FG: 1.010

Tasted during racking. If I was just tasting the beer, I would very much enjoy it... But... Too hoppy for the style, as well, most of the esters I expected to taste did not come through, so I would consider it a stylistic failure, but a tasting success

Don's Daring IPA Suplemental

The change in specific gravity was completely unexpected. The brew fermented for over two weeks. The yeast was pitched on a Saturday afternoon. Come Sunday it began to burp. For the next few days it fermented agressively. On Thursday I removed the blow control air lock and replaced it with a simple air lock. It continued to produce CO2 for another week and a half until two weeks and a day had passed since the yeast was originally pitched.


The smoked malt came throw very strong and hit the pallet first. Much more subdued the hops comes through. The finish is lightly hopped.


We dry hopped it with an ounce of Mt Hood and an ounce of Chinook. About a half gallon of beer was lost during kegging due to that which was absorbed by the hops (forgot to set up squeezing rig) and the sediment at the bottom of the carboy. The tasting during kegging showed that the smokie flavor was beginning to subside, and the hop note was much stronger, with only a mild increase in bitterness. Still struggling with clarity.

Don's Daring IPA

7 lbs Pale,
2 lbs Caramunich I
1 lb Caramalt
1/2 lb Smoked
1 oz Cascade (added before being brought to boil)
1 oz Mt Hood and 1 oz Chinook (added at 10 minutes to end of boil)
1/2 oz of Mt Hood and Chinook (added at 1 minute to end of boil)
Northwestern Liquid Yeast

Mashed at 130F, and 150F. We added water at about 190F, which was less than what Papazan said we should use. It resulted in a post-immersion temperature of 140F, necessitating some use of the turkey boiler to raise temperature. Next time we'll just boil water, and let it cool a minute before using it to raise temperature. Sparged with ~1.5 gal, creating 6 gal batch. We boiled for 1 hour. We were advised be a very experienced home brewer to try adding our flavor hops at 30 minutes to end of boil, but we thought that was too long. We used 30 lbs of ice to cool wort down to about 70F.

OG: 1.042
FG: 1.006

Douple Dunkle

4# Pils Malt
3# Munich 2 Malt
3# Wheat Malt
2 oz Black Patent Malt
1/2# Chocolate Malt
1/2 oz Hersbrucker Bittering
1/2 oz Hersbrucker Flavoring
1/4 oz Hersbrucker Aroma
Belgian Yeast

Two temperature mash, 135, 155. Sparged with some hot water, and hot tap water. Boiled for 1 hour. Cooled with 20 lbs of ice and everything else cold in my freezer.

OG: 1.040
FG: 1.015

Revised Name: Cloud of Confusion Pale Ale

The strawberry taste is not very strong in this beer, so I felt like it would be misleading for it to have the same name as my previously successful strawberry pale ale. I decided to go with a preppy name since most of my beers have not been named that way. The beer is cloudy (hence the name) I think that I did not wait for the wort to cool enough prior to putting the strawberries in. This light bodied beer has a much more delicate taste than the previous beer, but with well pronounced hoppy earth and light spice tones. It does not have the same malty flavor that I tasted at racking, but finishes clean. It did not turn out exactly the way I wanted, but it tastes good non-the-less and so I shall declare it a success.

Strawberry Spit Pale Ale Racking Tasting

Racked the ale today and WOW! I am very excited. It has a light sweet and hoppy smell. Its light bodied, with a complex malty and earthy tones flavor. I did not get the strawberry flavor out of it that I wanted, but perhaps it will be ready when I tap it this weekend.

FG: 1.008 The lowest of any brew I've ever made, that puts the estimated ABV at ~5%

Strawberry Spit Pale Ale

8 lbs MTN Maris Otter

1/2 lb Caramunich 1

1 1/2 lb WYM Munic I Light

2 tsp Gypsum

1 oz Domestic US Goldings (2005, loose, 5.3%)

1 oz Williamette (Pellets, 5.1%)

1 oz UK Phoenix (Pellots, 10%)

2 lbs (previously) frozen (now thawed) strawberries

American Ale Liquid Yeast

Using turkey boiler, brought 10 qts of water to 145F. Put grains in. Held 140F for 30 minutes. Raised to 155F. Held for 1 hour. Iodine test to confirm complete conversion. Sparged with 2 gallons of water. Added sufficient water to raise total volume to 5 gallons. Roaring boil for one hour. Goldings thrown in at 20 minutes into boil. Williamette 50 minutes into boil. ½ oz Phoenix at 55. ½ oz Phoenix at 59. Let steep for a five minutes. Put strawberries in and let steep for fifteen minutes more. Strained out hops and strawberries. Ran through wort chiller with ~ 4 gallons of ice. Didn’t have enough ice. Suggest 8 gallons next time. Added water to raise total volume to 5 gallons.

OG: ~1.045

Final Results from Psuedo Porter

The porter turned out to taste good, although , like I said, it lacked body and alcohol. My friends liked it, and took some home with them after the unveiling party. It tastes great with a little Baileys, or vodka mixed in.

The kegerator works out great too, almost so cool, it wouldn't matter what I was putting through the tap.


Lessons learned from first carbonation:
The keg I got was kind of dirty, so it took me a while to clean it out.

My CO2 bottle some how emptied itself (I need to make sure I always store them upright and with some sort of support to ensure they stay that way).

My kegerator came with different hose sizes than my cornelious keg needs. (3/16 and 5/16 for beer and CO2 respectively for the kegerator, and 1/4 for the keg itself)

Racking first all grain

The racking process took a little longer tonight than I expected, an hour from setup to cleanup. The beer color is good, except it leaves an odd green tint behind. I tasted it while I siphoned it to the other carboy (naturally) and... It did not turn out as expected. It confirmed my specific gravity readings, unfortunately. The favors were great, a nice blend of hoppiness, bitterness, and chocolate as I wanted. The body was not not what I wanted, nor was the alcohol content (virtually undetectable). I believe this occurred because I did not mash long enough. I did not have iodine to make sure I had completed the process. The next beer batch I do, I'll check the mash with some iodine. The measured racking specific gravity is: 1.015

A friend of mine, Nick, made a very successful attempt at his first all grain. I won't call mine a failure, I'll just say it is a learning experience.

Equipment review

I just built my lautertun while I was mashing. My old primary fermenter is a 6 gallon bucket I got from a Brewers Best brewing kit. I put a few hundred holes in it with a 1/8" bit. I put that in my old bottling bucket (also six gallons, they nest nicely). The spigot is placed almost exactly as Papazian discusses in Joy of Homebrewing.

My wort cooler is fifteen feet of 3/8" copper tubing that I run through my sink filled with ice.

And, of course, my favorite latest purchase: my kegerator.

First All Grain: Suplamental

30th at 10pm: Its good that I'm not graded for spelling. I pitched the yeast at 4am this morning. Its now been over 12 hours, and there is absolutely no activity. I am concerned. If come Tuesday there is no activity still, I'll pitch another bag of yeast. I think the wort was hotter than I was guessing.

31st at 10pm: I've looked at the wort again, with big hopes that the yeast was just strangely dormant. My hopes have been fulfilled, and the yeast has started working.

1st at 10pm: The yeast was not very active during this run, coinciding with the low OG taken. Hopefully it still tastes good, even if it doesn't have a decent kick.

First All Grain

6 lbs WYM Caramunich III

1 lb 120L Crystal Malt

½ lb MTN Black

½ lb WYM Smoked

1 lb of potatoes

3 tbs Peet's Sumatra Coffee

2 oz Northern Brewer

1 oz US Fuggles

British Ale Yeast

I chopped up the potatoes and put them in the water as it warmed up to steeping temperatures. All the malts (and potatoes) soaked with 2.5 gal of water at 155F for ~1 hr. Dumped into Lautertun, sparged with 3 gallons of water. Could not bring it to rapid boil on burner. Started with Fuggles at beginning of 30 minute boil. At 20 minutes into boil I put in 1 oz of Northern Brewer. At 29 minutes into boil, I put in the other oz of Northern Brewer. I pulled it off after the thirty minute boil, and threw in three table spoons of Peet's Sumatra coffee grounds. I let that sit for about five minutes while I got the wart chiller set up. I poured the wort into my old bottling bucket through a strainer. I connected the spiget of the bottling bucket to the wort chiller. As the wort ran through the chiller, it heated up the sink pretty quickly. I emptied all of the cold items in the freezer to try to keep the temperature down. I had to empty the sink a few times, and stop flow a few times to keep the temperature down. I even put the carboy my large stock pot and poured cold water over it to try to help keep the temperature down. I don't know the final pitching temperature. But it felt cool to the touch (guessing ~70F). I pitched the yeast, and threw the carboy in the closet.

OG: 1.025

I am concerned with the above specific gravity. I have not brewed a beer with such a low specific gravity. I am hoping that something happened during the measurement that has caused the value to be wrong, but I can't really think of anything.

Welcome

This blog is to help spread information about home brewing, and specifically to follow me through my home brewing attempts. I've been home brewing for about 4 years, off and on. Up to this point I have used recipes entailing extracts only, and partial mashes, and I have always bottled. A few weeks ago I purchased a kegerator. I bought a cornelius keg off of the internet. I did not realize that the two would not instantly get along. The kegerator had a sanky connection (like a commercial brewery keg), and the cornelius had the regular Pepsi connections. I've ordered the Pepsi connections and hope to create a system that will allow me to return to the sanky connection when I feel like it.

With the new kegerator, I went to the brew store and bought a few things...