Blog Update and DIPA!

My wife and I welcomed our newest member of the family on July 10th, Greta Gail is doing great and getting older by the second. I have neglected this blog because time is very short these days and brew days are harder and harder to come by. But SWMBO was extremely kind and gave me and afternoon to do some brewing. I had no warning so it was a run to midwest and make something up sort of deal. I wanted to use up some of the simcoe hops that are in the freezer, so I opted for my first DIPA. Here is the Grist:
13 lbs Rhar Two Row
3 lbs Golden Promise
1 lb Golden naked oats
1 lb Crystal 50/60
.5 lbs Cara Pils
Hops: Mash Hops 2 oz simcoe whole leaf - since I have an abundance of simcoe I decided to throw some in the mash.
First Wort 1 oz Chinook Pellets
First Wort .33oz citra .33oz simcoe .33oz cascade
60 1 oz Simcoe
20 1 oz Chinook
10 1 oz Cascade
10 .75 oz Citra
1 2 oz simcoe
1 oz chinook
Dry Hop 10 days with
2 oz simcoe
2 oz chinook
1 oz cascade
Pitched 2 vials of WLP007 Dry English Ale This yeast is new to me, but it sure looks like it is a great strain. My og was 1.070 (63% eff) which was way low, but it will make good beer! The yeast went from 1.070 to 1.020 in about 36 hours which was pretty impressive, a very aggressive fermentation, fermentation was at 68 with a brief spike to 73 until I got it into the cooler and it is now at 66. I am really curious how this will turn out, but so far so good. Look for some pictures and updates as the beer gets into the bottle. Cheers!

Orange Rye IPA Tasting and Pour

I got a chance to give the Orange Rye IPA a proper tasting. While this beer is young, word has it that it is best fresh, so here we go:

The Pour:



Nice Orange/Copper, it does remind me of the trees in the fall. A nice two finger head on the pour.

The Nose starts with some simcoe fruitiness but then you can really pick up the citrus from the centennial and the orange peel. It also has a slightly sweet aroma, think candy and caramel, and a nice bready undertone from the rye

The mouthfeel is full, the fullest mouthfeel of any of the beer that I have brewed. Carbonation is spot on. The taste is Bitter/sweet, Assertive on the sides of the tongue but also a nice sweetness that is not overpowering. The centennials @ 60 was a really with the simcoe FWH. It is smoothly bitter and it lingers and coats the mouth. The later hop editions shine.

A c-hop resin finish with some lingering bread y spice from the rye and a hint if alcohol.

Over all I am very pleased with this beer. I would mash lower next time and maybe try hops that are near the same ibu level but are a little less potent, maybe something of the traditional english IPA. I do think that with another week or two of aging, this beer will be even better as it smooths out. Keep an eye out and I will try to write a review of it then.

Orange Rye IPA

Since I have consumed almost all of the simcoe single hop IPA, it is time to brew more beer as I am running out! I brewed up an orange rye ipa that I think will be really tasty. It is a combo of several recipes, from denny conn and don osborn with my own hop twist. Here is the grist and hop schedule:

12lbs rhar 2 row
3 lbs Rye Malt
1 lb crystal 40
.5 rhar white wheat
.5 carapils

Mash 180>156 for 1 hour (mashed high as I knew this was going to be really bitter and I wanted enough sweet left over to balance it out. Sparge at 167 for 30 min.

FWH 60+ 1oz Simcoe 12.7
60 1oz Centennial 9.7
30 1oz Centennial 9.7
15 1oz Sweet Orange Peel
5 2oz Simcoe 12.7
2oz Simcoe 12.7 Dry hop

Yeast starter of 1056

OG 1.070!
FG ?

68% brew house efficiency

Brew day was split into two, I mashed and sparged friday night and heated the kettle to 185 covered it in blankets and let it sit over night. Woke up @ 6am and the kettle was @ 170, added FWH and brought the kettle to a boil.

I am hoping that this works out just fine as I rarely have time to fit in a brewday and if I can keep splitting it up I think that I will be able to brew more as I am not spending a whole day brewing. Stay tuned for updates! Cheers to good beer.

Brewclub Single Hop IPA

My contribution to the great hops experiment is in the fermenter. I did the simcoe edition. Here is the grist:

10 lbs Rhar 2 row
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb crystal 60
.5 lb cara-pils

Hop schedule (All Simcoe Hops)
.75 oz @ 60
1 oz @ 20
1 oz @ 10
2 oz @ 1
2 oz Dry Hop for 7-14 days

OG 1.056

Brew day went smooth, mashed at 152 for 1 hour, sparged 167 for 30 min. I did a much better job hitting my temps with this brew so I am excited about that.  I also had some efficiency gains taboot. I got 6.75 gallons of wort, all of the simcoes in the boil at the right times, and I also got my wort really nice and chilled down and fast, I guess that is the one advantage to MN in the winter! Got it cooled down to 68 in 20 min and pitched my starter of 1056. I pitched around 5 and there is slow activity now @ 9:20 and the fermenter is 66 degrees. Looks like it will be right on track. Also a big shout out to SWMBO for the time!! Check back for the latest on the Nordeast Brew Clubs single hop experiment.

NE Homebrew Club Single Hop Brew Off..The Great Hops Experiment

So my next batch will be for the Northeast Homebrew Club's first ever single hop brew off. There are five of us in the club that will be brewing the same grist and using a single hop for all of the additions. I am excited about this and Dank Brewer and I have talked about doing this for awhile on our own so it is very cool that there are more people involved. I am obsessed with hops and I am really excited to see how different all of the beers turn out. Here is the grist:

10 lbs American 2 row
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb crystal 60
.5 lb carapils

Hop Schedule is:
@ 60min  1.0 oz Simcoe
@ 20min 1.0 oz Simcoe
@ 1min 2.0 oz Simcoe
Dry Hop 2 oz Simcoe
 
I will be using simcoe! Real excited about that as that is my favorite hop and one that I have wanted to do a single series on for a while and now I have a reason to do so. The other hops in the mix for the other four people are:
 
Sorachi Ace - Really interested to try this one as it is a newer variety that I have never tried
Fuggles
Citra
Saaz
 
I will report back with brewday updates and also tastings sometime in January.  Cheer to good beer!

Homegrown Hop IPA Brewday Update - Updated

This is kind of odd, I have not had a fermentation like this yet, here is the deal. As you can see in the video below the fermentation was really active and some krausen had formed. The video is about 14 hours into fermentation and I pitched on Saturday night. I went and checked it yesterday morning (10/26) and the krausen had already fallen. So I sat there and scratched my head as I usually have fairly long fermentation's and the krausen takes a while to fall for the majority of my beers. Also this was a fairly high starting gravity so I was really surprised. So I sanitized the thief and pulled a sample and took a gravity reading and this beer went from 1.075 to 1.025 in about 60 hours! Whoa! I am using two strains of yeast in this thing and I don't have any experience with either strain. I used Notty and WLP051.  I think the Notty took off early and then the WLP051 took over as I could definitely tell the difference in smell from the first time I checked it and how it smells this morning. Since I mashed high I am thinking that this beer is almost done, I am expecting it to finish around 1.020 - 1.015 so five to ten more points to go. I will leave it in primary and rack to secondary this weekend and start the dry hopping. Another thing that I found interesting is that when I tasted the sample of the cooled wort right after the brew session it tasted really super sweet, not a huge suprise but I thought that I would get more out of the 2oz FWH with the homegrown magnums. I did not get any bitterness in the first tasting. When I tasted it yesterday I defiantly got the bitterness, not quite as bitter as I wanted, but still enough to balance out the amount of sugars form the grist. I still have my fingers crossed but I think that this beer will turn out just fine! It tastes a little hot from the fast fermentation but it is not bad and it should mellow fairly quickly. Be on the lookout for more updates soon! Cheers.

P.S. Also congrats to Dank Brewer on getting his single tier set-up up and going! Cannot wait to see that thing in action!

SO the homegrown hop ipa is brewed up and happly fermenting. The post below has all the details, I will just tell you that brew day went extremely poorly, I started late and was rushed, but I know that I will end up with beer so it should be alright. My gravity is nice at 1.075ish and it is really sweet wort. I mashed a little high so there should be some nice sugars left over. The homegrown magnums did not get the bitterness that I was looking for but I will let you know how it turned out in about a month. Below is a pic of the sweet wort out of the kettle and a video of fermentation. Cheers!

All Grain Black IPA

I love dark beer and I love hoppy beer so why not put them together. It is worth a shot, oh to be drinking a dark but hopalicious beer in the fall time in MN! Here is the bill for the Black IPA:

12 lbs Rhar
.5 lbs carmel 80L
.25 lbs dehusked carafa III
.25 lbs chocolate malt

Hops:
1 oz Summit 60
1 oz Simcoe 15
1 oz centennial 10
1 oz cascade 5
1 oz amarillo @ flame out steeped until 140 degrees

WL001 saved/washed yeast from Amarillo Pale!

Mashed for 1 hour @ 154
Sparged a little cool ended up with 8.5 gallons of wort (Uh Oh)...

So this beer went better than the first all grain, but I still need to get my efficiency up I am hovering in the low 60's and want to get to 70-75 (barley crusher here I come), I ended up boiling the extra 2 gallons in another pot in the kitchen. I knew that I collected too much wort so I did a mini batch and used all home grown hops in this and pitched the same yeast.  I am anxious to see how that turns out! I am expecting it to be much more malty as I have no idea what the AA content of the homegrowns are, but I threw in two handfuls (getting scientific here!) of Magnums for bittering and three of cascades at flame out.

Here are some pics of the brew day:

All of the ingredients

Draining the first runnings

Look at that color!

All grain trinity, from the left, Amarillo Pale Ale, Black Bitter with homegrown hops, Black IPA

Homegrown Hops in NE...Update

My hops EXPLODED over the past moth or so. Two of the bines went absolutely nuts.  Two did not produce at all.  I planted Willamette, Cascades,Magnums, and Nothern Brewer. I did not expect this many hops for first year bines so I am quite happy. Some of them are ready for harvest and some are getting close, I think that I will pick and dry some in the near future. I used some of them on Monday in a brew which you will hear about asap.  Here are some pics of the hops.

First All Grain Batch in the Fermenter!

UPDATE:
I am going to transfer from primary to secondary tonight as the brother in law and I are bottling the celebration stout. I took a gravity reading last night and it finished off at 1.008! Some great attenuation from the WL001!  I tasted the hydro sample and it tasted really really good, the bitterness is nice and the maltiness is nice as well, I am super excited to try this. Only about 3-4 more weeks and this beer will be in the belly and I cannot wait! I will update the post with some pics when the racking is completed.

Sweetworts first all grain batch is in the fermenter. I brewed an Amarillo American pale here is the bill:

10 Lbs domestic two row
8oz carapils
8oz crystal 60

Doughed in mashed at 152 for an hour, only lost one degree!
Collected a little over 2 gallons
Sparged with 5 gallons and collected 6.75 gallons of wort

1/2oz chinook first wort hop
1/2 chinook @ 60
1oz Amarillo @ 20
1oz amarillo @ 5
1oz amarillo @ flame out
1oz simcoe dry hop

I had a few issues but that is to be expected as this is the first go at all grain.  It took only 4 hours so it was not that bad.  My gravity was a little low at 1.048 but I am positive that had to do with my sparge, I used too much water and it was too hot as well so I sparged really fast and collected my first runnings a little too fast as well.  I also pitched a 1/2 gallon yeast starter of WL001! Here are some pics of the brew day!

Grain Bed

First runnings

The boil

Fermentation at 24 Hours

All in all it went well and I am happy, I cannot wait to taste this tasty beverage!  I will report back in about a month with the tasting!

Celebration Ale in the Fermenter!

If you want to just read about the beer skip to the third paragraph.

On Friday I had quite the day.  First off I took a few hours off of work to get everything ready but was thrown a curve ball when I got home.  I entered the yard and my dog Marley greeted me as he usually does, then I was sitting on the deck with SWMBO and the dog started to have a seizure.  Now this is not totally out of the norm, my dog has had two of them before about a year a part and it has been about a year of so since his last one.  The odd thing was that once the seizure ended he ran around the yard for about a minute or two, came back up on the deck and immediately started having another, more intense seizure.  This made me quite nervous so off to the vet we went.  To make a long story short he is fine and after spend a frw hundered dollars at the vet they basically said to just keep an eye on him.  He has seemed fine since then so I am not too worried, I just hope he continues being well!  Here is a picture of him with Dank Brewer's yellow lab Nala:

Crazy thing part two is that I encountered quite the road rage incident that same time on the way to pick the dog up at the vet.  I was the recipient of the rage and it was quite the specticle.  I was ducking through some neighborhood street on the way to the vet.  I came to a stop sign (this is in NE Mpls) STOPPED and looked, there were cars on both sides of the street, I did not see any cars comming and I preceeded through the intersection.  Another SUV was going through the residential area at a pretty good clip and I had to gun it to avoid it.  I gave a wave as an apology and was greeted by a nice long rip of a horn, no big deal I thought...how wrong I was.  This person got on my bumper, pulled along side me and gave me the business.  I calmly stated that I didn't see them and that I am sorry, it is not like I want to get into an accident.  I have never in my 32 years seen such rage, I was called every name in the book and threatened.  When they reached into the glove box I took off with abandon, only to have them keep pace on the wrong side of the street, I stopped and told them that I did not want any trouble, and I still got screamed at so I told them to go and blank themselves.  This was crazy and the first time that I almost got the cops involved, they followed me for a few miles to the vet then ducked off so the cops were not called.  Whew, that was NUTS!

THE BEER...that is what we are here for anyways right!  The Champ, Spanky and I brewed up a celebration stout for Spanky's coming offspring.  The brew went off without a hitch and smelled really awesome, some really nice roasted aroma along with some caramel and coffee notes.  Man those dark ones always smell the best to my nose!  One little boil over that was corrected quickly and all of the hop additions went smooth and chilling went smooth as well.  Cooled the wort down to 75 and pitched around 72.  Fermentation was active and smelling nice the next morning.  We will most likely flavor a small portion during bottling as an experiment.  I will let you know how that goes!  Cheers!

Wheat Summer Ale - With a twist - UPDATE

UPDATE Part 2:
The lemon basil wheat is in secondary conditioning.  It has cleared well.  When I took a sample for a gravity reading and to see where the flavors were at it tasted pretty good.  The lemon was there in the background but I could not taste the basil at all.  I have since soaked the zest of 4 lemons in 4 oz of vodka, I also soaked about 20-30 basil leaves in vodka as well. I let that sit for a few days and added some of the lemon and basil extracts and that will sit until next week at some point.  I will then batch prime it and give it a taste and add more extract as appropriate to get the taste that I am hoping for.  I am not expecting that this beer will win over everyone, but this was a really fun experiment and it seems that so far it has gone well.  I will do a full tasting and let you know.  Cheers!

UPDATE:
The Lemon Basil wheat has been brewed.  This is the first time that I felt like I actually got everything done with ease!  I steeped the grains for 45 min in 1.5 gallons of water on the stove while the other 4 gallons was heating up on the propane burner outside.  I mixed in the extract and brought it to a boil and added the 1 oz of palisades hops.  Boiled for 45 min, added the chiller and also added the zest of two lemons along with 20 or so basil leaves and let that boil for about 10 min and then added the aroma hops and steeped for another 10 or so.  Chilled the wort down to 75, racked into a 6 gallon better bottle and pitched some US-05.  Fermentation started about 12 hours later and I now have a nice 2 inch and growing krausen.  A side note here is that I was intending to pitch a smack pack of Wyeast 1010 American Wheat, but after giving it more thought and consideration, I went with US-05.  The 1010 is a voracious fermenter and I didn't feel like cleaning up a mess also I was concerned with the flavor profile.  I know that 1010 is a really clean wheat yeast, but it does have a tendency to get sulfur and also can impart the faint wit flavor.  I was thinking that I want the lemon and basil to come through but not be overpowering so I went for the clean and neutral US-05.  I am planning on making an infusion with more lemon and basil via the vodka method and add some in secondary and also add some at bottling.  I want to be careful to not over do it, bit I also want to be able to detect both flavors in the background.  I hit my OG right on and tasted the hydgrometer sample and I didn't pick up the lemon or basil, but I think it was because the hops were so prominent.  I will add the tasting to this post in about 3-5 weeks!


I have always loved to cook.  There are many new food trends every summer.  This summer it seems that it is all about infusions or herbs in drinks.  This made me think, what about beer.  Summer has inspired me to try something a little out of left field.  I am going to be brewing a wheat summer ale with basil and lemon.  If you have ever had basil lemonade then you know what I am shooting for.  I am going to steep about 20-30 basil leaves at 5 min until the wort is cool.  I am also going to add the zest of 1.5 lemons to that steep.  Then in secondary I am going to add the same amount of basil and lemon after a nice soak in some vodka to kill anything that may give me trouble in secondary.  There will be a full report of brew day/night and a full report on the tasting.  Cheers to different beer!

Grand Cru in the Fermenter

I was able to get the Grand Cru brewed last night 6/16.  The process was smooth and I am getting more efficient with y processes so that is a good thing.  This was my first time using DME and I wasn't all that happy with it.  It is messy, scorches easily and is just harder to deal with in my opinion. This was also my first time using honey as well, I used a little over a pound of honey! I hope the results are good though.  No big hiccups to report with this batch.  Got the wort cooled down and pitched some S-33 and has vigorious airlock activity this morning.  My OG was right where I wanted to be @ 1.058. Cheers

Cream Ale in the Fermenter - Updated with Video

So I got the Cream Ale brewed last night.  This was the first time I brewed completely outdoors in the garage.  What a night, minus the light rain that began falling about half way through!  The boil went well and I really boiled it hard, it was a huge rolling boil.  My thought here was increased hop utilization.  I love hoppy beer and I was brewing this one for people who aren't really into the hoppy stuff, but I still wanted it to have a kick that lighter commercial ales don't have.  I ended up with the following hop schedule:

1 oz Cascade 7.5% AA @ 60 min
.5 oz Cascade 7.5 AA @ 20 Min
.5 oz Cascade 7.5 AA @ 5 min

I just went with the flow, I intended to split it into thirds for the aroma hops, but I dumped a few too many in at 20 min so I just thought go with it.  I ended up with a SG of 1.044 which is right about where I wanted to be.  I will be dry hopping this with  2 oz Cascade whole leaf and 1 oz of centennial whole leaf hops!  I hope that they really come through.  The only thing that I am worried about is that when I started the chiller I started the water really slow, too slow, so I ran back to the hose and cranked it up, when I got back I had water leaking off the intake of the chiller into the sweet wort!  I am thinking that I am a sanitation freak and that all will be well but keep the finger crossed. I need to get another worm clamp on the hose of the chiller so I don't have this problem again. I didn't have this problem last time so it caught me off guard.  I also used my new aeration tool last night, I bought a paint mixer and hooked it up the the drill and aeration was a snap, no more pouring and shaking!  Got the wort chilled down to 78 and pitched a smack pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale.  Fermentation was extremely active this morning and I am thinking that I may need a blow off tube for the bucket by tonight but we will see.  Cheers!

First Brew Day...

Here are some pictures of the first brew day.  I definately learned quite a bit and now I wish I would have done an easier brew for brew number one, but hey, as long as there is no contamination it should be at the minimum drinkable.  The biggest thing that I learned is that my kettle only hold 7 gallons.  I was shoot ing for 6.5 and forgot to factor in the amount of extract that needs to get put in so I over shot the water which lead to a much lower gravity than I was hoping for as I was not able to get all of the mixed extract in the kettle, painful lesson but I definately will never repeat that mistake again.  Fermentation started just fine and was active the next morning so I think it will be alright.  Here are the pics:

Steeping the Crystal 50/60

Hops all ready to go

The boil..bad pic it was rolling but looks flat here

Racking to Primary and getting ready to pitch

The sweet wort is aerated and yeast has been pitched.

All in all it was successful, the wait is killing me but hopefully I will know in about a month if I did alright!

First brew day this weekend

I am going to attempt my first brew ever.  I am brewing the ferocious extract kit from midwest.  I am anxious to get it done and get a brew under my belt.  A big thanks to Dank Brewer for all of the advice and being patient will all the questions.  I will send an update with pics when the brew is completed.