Go Hefe Yourself!

Last Sunday (8/16/08) I brewed 5 gallons of Hefeweizen, Bavarian that is...horrible parody, I know. Anyway, I brewed this beer and everything went pretty normal, by normal I mean I screw up one thing! Although, this screw up is a half full, actually one extra gallon of beer, which means it won't be as strong, but I will have a little extra! I ended up with 6 gallons, I got 70% eff, so good enough for me!

The recipe goes something like this...

5.5 lbs Weyermann Pale Wheat
4 lbs Durst Pilsen

1 oz Sterling Hops (60 minute)

I used White Labs Hefe Yeast.

OG - 1.035
FG - 1.007

This ferment was FAST, like done in 2-3 days. I was a little nervous that it was stuck, but it came out nice!

Here is a picture of it transferred to secondary...



















So, this is what's leftover, I moved most of her right into the keg. I like my hefe's like I like my girls, legal, but young! I also really love the White labs Hefe yeast, I have used the Wyeast and it never turns out as well as the White Labs, just my opinion.

I do expect this beer to be drank next weekend, so if you are in the greater milwaukee area, find me and my beer!!

Since I havn't brewed beer lately

Here are some hops pictures.

End of the vine

If you plant them, they will come

Mainly a hops update here. Real quick though, I transferred my EMAA last week and it was something else! So I checked the gravity and she finished down to 1.008, the SG was 1.055. So this little lady is going to to be 6.2%. I really like the job the dry yeast did here, I've not been doing starters with my liquid yeast lately. So I was pretty happy to see this one finish well. Although, I wasn't expecting it to finish this low. Well, I'm still going to drink it and I'm actully looking forward to a dryer beer, something a little crisp and tasty.

Hops are doing really well!






















































I think there are going to be some flowers.

Eat My Ass Amber

I brewed 5 gallons of an American Style Amber. The main reason for 5 gallons instead of 10 is to use the Hopshot I won from Northern Brewer. Which is an alternative hop product for the bittering addition of hops. It smelled really potent and the taste test was insane!! Since I have 2 IPAs brewed, I went for a lighter more simple beer. This will let the hops come thru as well.

The brew day went really well, 5 gallons AG in 5 1/2 hours is pretty good to me! Here is the recipe, this may take a while to read, it's a massive recipe...

9 lbs 2-row
1 lbs Dingemans Caravienne

1 hopshot
1 oz of Argentina Cascade

2 packets US-05 dry yeast.

So I used my large mash tun as my HLT and I brought out the bucket lauter tun. I mashed in a 20 qt stock pot and transferred into the lauter tun.














The hops and the refractometer sneaking in the pic.














Transferring into the fermenter. I am using a little do-dad I forgot I had, it fans the wort out to aerate it. This also was the first time I got to use the brew hauler! It works fantastic too!














After some more aerating, right before pitching yeast.














The next morning I have active fermentation. I had a OG of 1.055 which was a great 80% efficiency, that makes me happy! Yay!

Side oddness, I don't know what the hell this is, but it may taste likes tapioca. This was taken from the boil after it was cooled. We shall see what happens here...

In Russia beer brews you

No russian beer, just not so great brew day.

I brewed a Denny's Rye IPA on Saturday. I had a free weekend and saw everyone raving about this beer. So it's an IPA, and people like it, so I said what the hell, let's do it. I had got a great deal on some 2-row malt. 66$ for 100 lbs of base malt. When the guy across town is $50 for 50 lbs, it was a no brainer. It was a last minute brew, so I didn't really have as much setup time as I normally do. I didn't think much of it, well it turn to be a knarly brew day. Saturday morning I woke up and still groggy, pick up the first yeast packet, locate the pouch for smacking and smacked! The problem, I smacked a little too hard, because I ended up wearing the insides of the yeast packet. Well, I needed to go to the homebrew store for 3 more pounds of rye malt and another yeast packed. I had the dude at the homebrew store smack it for me. I didn't want to take any chances this time. Some of the other highlights was not finding what I wanted at home not so depot, a nice boilover, pitching yeast into way too hot of wort before I realized I hadn't slowed the flow of wort down so it could chill better and killing both of my cordless drill batteries while milling malt. I did dig out the corded, I just didn't want to, I like wireless in my life. Having a very manual system, I have decided to design a brew stand. It will be mainly out of wood and a single tier system. I have 2 pumps, so no need for gravity. I will need some better connections, I use garden hose quick disconnects and they tend to leak very easily. Probably because they are meant for garden hoses, well duh! I want to have everything mounting on the stand, that way I am not running around setting up each task while the task at hand is going on. Basically I want to be able to stand around and drink more and dick with my setup less. More importantly, lift hot vessels of fluid into the air, or have my friends life hot vessels of fluid in the air, thanks to Mike and Brian.

I know my recipe is not exactly what is listed for Denny's Rye IPA, but I went to the local shop and got what was close. It is something like this
Denny's Rye IPA (10 gallon)
22 lbs 2-row malt
6.5lbs rye malt
2.5lbs crystal malt
1 lbs cara pils
1 lbs flaked wheat

The hops is where the main differences happened. I had to patch this together, instead of Mt Hood, I got Hallertauer and I got some Columbus, but the homebrew shop didn't have enough, so I also got centennial.

The hops schedule, looks something like this
First wort - 2 oz Hallertauer
60 minute - 1 oz Columbus
60 minute - 1 oz Centennial
30 minute - 1 oz Hallertauer
1 minute - 3 oz Hallertauer
Dry Hop - 1 oz Columbus
Dry Hop - 1 oz Centennial

I used Wyeast 1056 American Ale

I hit a OG of 1.075, promash said it should have been up at 1.083. I didn't have time to make a starter, so I'm pleased it wasn't that high. I'm a little worried as it is, it's in my nature to worry. I know this was all put together rather quickly but I should relax and have a homebrew and know that I will get a product that should taste ok and get me drunk! haha!!

I used a new weapon in the aeration of the wort. I bought it from Norther Brewer and it attaches to a drill and spins. I am pleased with the ease compared to the injecting O2 into the wort. I had active fermentation the next morning in half the batch (it was the half that wasn't too warm) and so Sunday I worried about the other half. I frantically called every closed homebrew shop on sunday in the greater Milwaukee area and Brian to try and locate some dry yeast packets. I failed, no dry yeast for this kid, turns out I didn't need it. Sunday evening I had signs of active fermentation and Monday morning I had even more moving! So she was just a little slower going. I'm still cautious about the high temps and if it will affect the beer in the long run. The wort was in the 90's when I pitched. I immediately got it into an ice bath for a half hour and then left her in the basement to cool.





























That's one full mash tun!!















You can see the time difference with the color.


Hops
Hops are doing pretty good, I still have one rhizome that is not popping out of the ground. I'm in no hurry, I'll just wait it out. The one cascade is about 5" out of the ground with some other bines racing for the top. The Centennial is doing ok in the pot, I think I need to get her in the ground in the next week or two. Here are some pictures.















Cascade















Centennial

Cleanliness is next to the beer that you are going to drink and so I don't want an infection

Well it's been roughly 6 weeks since the beer has been brewed and now it's time to keg!!!! I checked the gravity of the beers and it didn't look like it dropped anymore. I had these in the basement, so it wasn't really warm enough to ferment. I choose to mix the beers to have close to the same beer and not 2 different beers. I set the pressure to 30 psi and I let that sit for a day and then down to 20 psi, I want to drink this beer now!! This will be more pictures than anything.

*Hops update pictures will come soon. One cascade has 5 bines out of the ground and the centennial is doing pretty good in the pot.

First, the cleaning of the kegs and keggerator, PWB was used here. Brewing is 90% cleaning and 10% brewing. But what a great outcome!!












Oops, I almost forgot a beer! I recommend this beer, it was really tasty!












Then sanitize the equipment (BTF Baby) and pile everything for gravity assisted transfer.












Those hops are soaked!












Gravity, it never tasted so good.












This was good! I can't wait for it to be colder and full of more carbon dioxide.












Fill er up!












More waiting...












The bloody aftermath












Nothing in primary, nothing in secondary. That will change this weekend.

Growing Your Own

So now that I have some free land, well not free, but mine, well not mine, but the banks. I choose to buy some hops rhizomes and plant them up! I originally bought 2 Centennial hop rhizomes and when I them there was still snow on the ground, so I planted them in pots. I then decided to buy 2 more Cascade rhizomes. I bought the Centennial rhizomes from Norther Brewer and I bought the Cascade rhizomes from www.freshops.com Both came in really fresh and looking really good!
Here is some pictures of the "hop garden"

All loosened up














Weed tarp














Cedar Mulch, a little much, but hey it looks and smells good...














The 2 Cascade rhizomes














The two Centennial rhizomes in the pot. One on these has not sprouted yet. I noticed it one day that it had migrated to the top of the dirt. I dug it up and it had roots, so I put it back in the pot and I will have my fingers crossed on that one.














Getting some sprouts!!














A little bit closer and more blurry.













I will post more pictures as they grow! Supposedly they grow fast! I've heard in their prime they can grow up to a foot a day! That would be cool to see!

I used mostly the dirt that was in the ground, I bought a bag of compost manure to put in the hole. I read somewhere to do this. So we will see how well it works!

For the Three Hearted Ale, it's still in secondary being dry hopped, although the hops are wet...
I plan on kegging that beer sometime this week. I howerever think it won't happen until next week. Oh well.

If hops had a vagina, I would have sex with it

And I would call it the next day to go on a date in the park and learn her first name.

So here is the Three Hearted Ale transferred to secondary fermentation. I took a FG with my trusty refractometer and she read 9.5 brix. That translates to 1.021 FG, which translates to 5.79% alc by volume. I gave her a taste and she tasted good, nice and hoppy. I can't wait to get drunk on this beer. I added another ounce of centennial hops per 5 gallons. Which will further add more hop aroma to the final product!

Here are some pictures.













Mmmmmmmm, Hops

Ferment Darn You!!!

It's Alive!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a little video of the primary action. I wish there was a smell camera for this, it smells so good! If I didn't brew for the end product and drunkeness, I would brew for this smell!!

Three Hearted Ale

My beer I keep coming back to again and again is Bell's Two Hearted Ale. Now I have been looking to get back into homebrewing ever since we moved into a house with a car hole and a hose hookup. So after a few weeks, maybe months of whining about not homebrewing, I order two 5 gallon kits from Northern Brewer, the kit you ask. I ordered their Three Hearted Ale kit.

The Kit included

Grain:
23 lbs. Rahr 2-Row
2 lbs. Briess Caramel 40
1 lbs Wheat Malt (I added)

Hops:
1.5 oz. Centennial (60 min)
2 oz. Centennial (20 min)
4 oz. Centennial (5 min)
2 oz. Centennial Hops (dry hop)

Yeast:
Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale Yeast

Mike, Brian and I started around 11:50, I remember this, because I felt it was important to drink a beer in the morning.

Started out heating the mash water to strike temp, 164 degrees, while that was going on, we crushed the grains. Mike did a few hopper fulls and then looked at the remaining 23 lbs left and we hooked up the drill.

Mashed in, temp lowered to 154 degrees, right where is was suppose to be! So now it's time to heat the hot liquor tank to around 190 degrees or so. The mash sat for an hour, we rinsed the grains of their delicious sugars and started to boil.

Let me interject here, so far, we are about 3 hours into this and Mike is hanging around. We'll all pretty well injected with beer. Not to mention the 5 liter mini keg of Bells Two Hearted Ale that we are drink along with the MGD, that helped too.

Hop addition

I notice that we are getting close to a boil, I grap the hop bags and start to cut them open, enjoying the magnicifcent aroma hitting every hair in my nostrils! It's so great! I am using whole leaf hops, it works well with my boil kettle and the false bottom. So I didn't really pay too much attention to the hop bags. What I'm getting at here is I thought they were 1oz bags when in reality they were 2oz bags. So who over hopped his beer? I did. I realized that I used all my bags of hops when I go to put the last hop addition into the boil and I have no bags left. I then look at the bag to realize my mistake. What to do? should I just stop making the beer and dump it in the lawn? No, as any hop head would do, I say sweet, refilled my beer and order some more hops for dry hopping.

So my revised hop schedule to look a little something like this.

3 oz. Centennial (60 min)
4 oz. Centennial (20 min)
4 oz. Centennial (5 min)
2 oz. Centennial Hops (dry hop) I had to buy these afterwards.

Man, I hope it's not too hoppy..........just kidding!!!!

So then after the boil, everything is sanitized and ready for some chilling! We hook up the pump, the chiller, the hose and start to chill the beer! Now that we got the beer to come out of the chiller at a good temp, it's smooth sailing. I took a SG reading after the beer was cooled, I think it was 16.5 brix, which turns out to be 1.064, which turns out to be 75% efficiency! I'll take it! Aerate the wort with some o2 and some healthy shaking. Add the delicious yeast, and then off to asexually reproduce! Wait, the beer, the beer!!

So here is a picture of the brew crew (not affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers)















Here is a picture of the freshly made beer, maybe just hours after the brewing.
















Here is the beer in height of primary fermentation.
















Krausen anyone?
















Last but certainly not least! This beer would not be the same without the help of Mike and Brian, thanks fellas! Thanks for the memories, I remember this, the question is, DO YOU?
















(click to enlarge)