Group Brew

This was at a friends house, it was fun and 25 gallons of beer was brewed. Mike and I made a Halfway Inflated tire. We got 1.056 of an OG and everything went well, I bought a new drill. Jeremy from Northern Brewer came over, and I learned a few things. I think he brewed a Sunset wheat look a like. Ken brewed a Belgian wit AG and a cream ale extract. It was an awesome day!

This was the first use of the Better Bottle fermenters. So far, they are awesome, especially when you have to load them up in the car and drive them home.

MF Stout, ver 2.0

Brewed her on Friday April 2nd, 10 gallons OG was 1.072, which is right on the numbers. Everything went well, except for the drill.... don't ask.

Picture of the mash

Picture of the brewing crew.

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