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.