Rye Ale #43

Brew Date: 3/31/2019

Recipe:
12 lb 2 row
2 lb Rye Malt
1/2 lb Victory Malt
1/4 lb Midnight Wheat

Hops:
1 oz Galena
1 oz Sterling
1 oz Kent

Safale us-05

I dug up the spreadsheet and ran the numbers to mash at 148f.
Used 4 gal at 160f
Then I ran another 2.5 gal at 210f for mash out
Then for grins, I chased that with another gal of tap water
The runnings just started to clear at this point.

The down side to this is that I had a blow out form my 6 gal carboy.

So I may have lost some hoppiness, but that's OK.

Pics Later.

Oatmeal Stout #39

Brew Date: 4/8/2017

I forgot to do this post so here are the Cliff Notes.

Sky, This is the one I had you over to the house to sample.

I think I will ditch the hop bag. I don't get the full hop character when I use the bag.

I also missed Rye IPA batch #40 from 5/13/2017, Porter #17 repeat Jan 28, 2018 for batch #41.

Black hOps Rye Ale #42

Brew Date:12/15/18

Way overdue on the brew front. Black Rye Ale, nothing Pale about it!

This is a variant on batch #7. I wanted to go straight RyePA, but the variation is due to the lack of availability of supplies from my main source. It looks like the store closest to my home is closing down the brewing section. This is the continuing saga of all good things must come to an end. So now I get to drive 45 minutes to get re-supplied, or buy from the Amazon of home brew, and paid huge shipping costs.

Malts:
14 lb two row
2 lb roasted rye
2 lb rye
4 oz black wheat for color!
Hops:
Galena 13.8%
Kent (Gold) 8.9%
Amarillo 8.6%

Safale US-05

First brew store didn't have the rye so I bought two lbs toasted rye from them and then I went to the second store, on a separate mission, and figured I really need the rye. Got it, along with two more pounds of two row. So with out measuring final gravity, I anticipate 7+% in the end.

Supplies, malted and roasted barley, hops, yeast

A closer look at the Blackness.

You can't brew without having some inspiration.

 Strike water spreadsheet I found on line may moons ago. I usually go by feel these days because I use more water than the usual 1 quart per pound.  I discovered this the day I left the perforated bottom out of the mash tun. Had dough balls due to insufficient water, which I found after scooping out the mash to put the bottom in the tun.

One of my favorite aromas is from mashing malted barley. It's like you're in a bread bakery. But this only lasts for an hour and a half because once the hop addition start, the place takes a different turn, scent wise.

Pour out the wort using Wifey's pitcher, add several more gallons of 150deg F to rinse.

Hop additions every 20 minutes, Strongest in the beginning to weakest at the conclusion.

Boil for 90 Min, stirring, watching, breathing in the smells of Heaven. Because hops are a sedative, you could tell the worst news right now and I wouldn't even care.

Chill, I'm chill about right now. Too bad the heat has to go down the drain, but as I hinted earlier, I don't care.

 I use a siphone to get the beer from the boiling pot to the carboy fermenter. I've used this method just about every time and it's the simplest and easiest to clean up.

Time to pitch the yeast in a few hours after they hit room temperature. And then I wait a week.

It's been a while since I brewed that there are a few things if forgot about, like how much preparation there is. And that assumes the kitchen is ready for me to invade.

I will know in a week  just how this Black hOps Rye Ale is shaping up. Because, I always taste during transfers between primary and secondary fermentors.

Malty, hoppy, creamy, best ever recipe. Now, can I repeat this?

Brew date: 1/22/17

 #38

Adventures in Home-brewing Recipe 65-65-65-6.5

I was given the book Adventures in Home-brewing for Christmas. I looked through all the recipes and found one similar to the one I normally brew. So lets try one.

There was one hop substitution. For lack of Warrior, I chose Galena. Then, instead of 9.5 lbs of two row I went with 12 lbs. Stayed with the 1.5 lb of crystal malt and added 2 oz of black onyx. So you see, I can just do what is suggested. Unpossible. I have to make it my own.

One other thing I do. If the recipe calls for 1/2 oz of some hop, I go for the whole. I only work in whole oz in 2 or 3 varieties, as a rule.

So who knows what the secret code will be for this brew.

12 lb 2 row
1.5 lb crystal
2oz black onyx
1 oz Galena
1 oz Simcoe
1 oz  Amarillo (@7%)
US #5 yeast

Started with ~3.5 gal at 155deg F. Mash settled in around 135 for 1/2 hour.

Then Uncle Jim's mash tun valve developed a leak. So I quickly transferred all the contents of the spacious 10 gal tun to my old 5 gal tun. This only left me room to add another ~1-1/2 gal to bring me up to my 150 mark. I didn't measure the final temp because at this point I didn't care. It is what it is.

My old tun has no false bottom so how do I run off the wort? You guessed it. Time to break out the old broccoli steamer. I raise another ~4 gals to ~175 deg F and proceeded to scoop out the mash with a quart sauce pan and pouring in into the broccoli steamer. Good times. Brought me back to my roots.

Went for the one hour boil. Hop additions were 1/2 of each strong at boil, remaining halfs at 30 min. Added the 7% hop at 10 min remaining.

Chilled with wort chiller for half an hour. pitched in the morning.

Started boiling water at noon. Kitchen was clean by 5PM. First time ever brewing without a complementary beverage. I don't every hope to do that again.

While I was enjoying the wonderful aroma of mashing malt she didn't
care to much for it. Then as to boil progressed the hops filled the entire house with heavy doses of piny citrus. For me it is sedating. Four hours in and I am entering a very relaxful calm state. I don't even care it relaxful isn't a real word at this point, this is how I am enjoying the moment.





Will add pics later.

Pale Ale #37 Crashed and Burned

Brew Date: Sept 4th, 2016

12 lb 2 row
1/2 lb biscuit, 1/4 lb of 2 varieties

1 Oz Galena
1 Oz Amarillo
1 Oz Cascade

Safale #5

Mashed 1hr at 135 Deg F for one hour with ~4 gallons. After an hour, rinsed with another 4 gallons at 150 Deg F.

Boil started with ~6.5 gallons, added another 1/2 gallon at the 60 minute mark.

Tried something different today. Added hops after the 20 minute mark and then three more times every 10 minutes. Total boil was 70-80 min. The cool down took 10 minutes to heat back up.

Used wort chiller, dropped to 100 Deg F in about 15 minutes.

Put wort in conical fermenter. Will dump the hops around day 4 after the active fermentation is complete.

No roasted grains. just a straight forward pale ale. Hope it will be crisp and pale.

Update: something went horribly wrong and the batch spoiled like sour vinegar. This same thing happened with a batch of apple cider we tried to ferment. I must have neglected the cleanliness of the kitchen becasue I was in a hurry to get to it. Another thing. It was terribly warm and the fermentation occurred aroung 80 Deg F. Won't do this again. 

Rye IPA #36

Brew Date: 5/26/2016

Standard recipe, 

12 lb 2 row

2 lb rye

4 oz midnight wheat

Galena

Sterling

Kent Golding

Safe ale #5

Boiled 90 min

Add a portion of hops every 20 min, strongest to weakest. 

Mashed ~70 min at 150f. Ended around 135f

~4.5 gal + 4.5 rinse. 

Started with 7 gallon, ended at 5. 

 

Used the new conical fermenter. 

All the trub stayed below the dip tube. There is about 24 oz of beer on to of a slimy mess. 

Bottling day last Sunday evening. 

I primed this 5 gal with 5/8 cup of sugar. Want this one to have some bubbles. 

Should be ready to sample in a week or so. 

Brewing Triple Chocolate #3

Going back to my roots. Trying recipe #3 again, and right out of the gate I messed up the recipe. The Brew Store gave me some roasted barley when I asked for wheat. Shouldn't be too bad of a substitution though. I did manage to find the same hops and yeast.   

Starting with 4 gallons of water to mash my 15lbs of grain. Now that I have Uncle Jim's 10 gallon mash tun, I can also use 4 gallons of rinse water. Should end with 6 gallons in the primary fermenter. 

This is always my favorite part, adding the grain to to water. It smells like baking bread. I added another gallon because the mash was too pasty. 

This is how it should look; soupy. Now I get to wait a hour or so. 

My other supplies. Amarillo and Galena hops and U.S.-05 ale yeast. Need some nice bold hops to balance the 3 layers of chocolatety goodness.

Wort is streaming out blacker than molasses. This is going to be one thick brew. The pitcher is used to send the first running back to the tun in order to filter out the bits that make it past the false bottom strainer. 

Next, I will run another 3 to 4 gallons of rinse water trough in order to catch all the wort that is stuck in the draft, or spent grain. 

The boiling pot looks like it will be filled to the top of the  stamped side label. When the boil is complete, the level will be at the bottom of the label. 

Boil for 90 minutes while adding a fraction of hops every 20 minutes. Usually I put the stronger hops in first and  the milder ones toward the end. 

Next, I'll use the wort chiller to drop the temperature low enough so that I can transfer the wort to a plastic carboy. 

Sanitizing the primary fermenter. While the hop acid will take care of some of the bacteria, I use Star San as an extra precaution. 

Pitched yeast at 10:30. Total brew time 6.5 hrs including dinner and catching the end of a silly movie Lee put on. 

24 hrs later and a nice cap has developed on top. The CO2 bubbles float the hop leaves to the top. The aroma coming out of the bubbler is floral with a hint citrus. 

Now I can wait a week is so, after the cap settles down, indicating a slowdown in fermentation.  This is when the beer is transferred to the secondary fermenter. The hops and trub are removed and the yeast continues the convert the more complex sugars, but at a slower rate. 

Update:

8 days later, transfer to secondary fermenter. 

Doing a rinse so I can recover all the beer trapped in the trub. 

When my conical fermentor arrives, I will transfer the beer to it so I can run the sediments that made it through my transfer. Because my conical fermentor is on the way, I poured from the primary instead of siphoning. 

All Good Things Must End

Gone are those stereo components that we clung to for so many decades. Like the explorer in Windows XP, like regular gas without ethanol, like taxation with representation, all these things are broken, never to return. 

Here are our components that have just plain worn out. On top is our JVC A-X40 power amp, in the middle the JVC T-X55 tuner, and on bottom the Denon DCD- 610 CD player. The CD is the second one after my Pioneer died. Forget about the tape players, went through 3 of those. Will replace the CD when I can find a single drawer unit. 

Anyway, here is our new Onkyo TX-8020 power amp with built in tuner. above that is our Technics SL-5200 direct drive turn table. This was given to me by a friend. It replaced his little brother SL-B2. I must have changed the belt around four times. Glad to be rid of the belt drive. Did it have to by black? They don't offer silver anymore. 

The driving force for replacement of the JVC was the plated contacts were all corroded and so the turn table wouldn't deliver clean sound without fussing with the EQ selector buttons. 

Let's see how well the Onkyo holds up. Vinyl is all the rage, so I had to do it. 

Now, all I need to do is string the FM antenna, and maybe connect the TV. The Black wire to the right of the turn table is for connecting aux devices like phones, computers etc, so that's covered. 

No Time To Brew

Trying one of these Shooting Creek Snapping Turtle IPAs. 

Wifey picked up a variety 6 pack and one the these was present. 

Gonna have to try it again. 

Hanging out with Seth

D3 gets another horse so we went over to meet him.

I don't have any interest in hopping on this hay burner.

IPA #34

Brew date 5/8/15

I figure it's time for a IPA so I dropped by the shop and picked up some supplies. 

As usual I start with 10 lbs of two row, but I did switch it up a bit. Instead of grabbing the garden variety, I picked up this one:

I'm told it has a tad bit of body to it. Next I grabbed 4 oz of biscuit for the rest of the body. Just a hint. 

And then for some color, 2 oz of chocolate wheat:

Two oz of hops:

And the std us#5 yeast. 

Should be ready in 4 weeks. 

Here's a pic of Uncle Jim's mash tun:

6 glorious gallons. The mash tun is big enough and the boiling pot is big enough and a 6 gallon Carboy just makes it easier to end up with more than five gallons. 

Block Prints and Beer Flights

My daughter received a block printing kit for Christmas and so she went straight to work.

This is test print number 1. I insisted in having print number 1.

Can you see the description at the bottom? It says Terrestrial Gastropod Mollusk. 

It just happens that she is seeing this French guy. His sway on her must be pretty strong for her to start drawing and block printing snails. When she starts eating them, I'm having no part in that.

Anyway, he's an alright guy. When he came to meet the family he came bearing gifts, to me. Here is a pic of the empties. All IPA's from craft brewers in Quebec.

I elected to share this with everybody so we had two tastings, one Friday evening and the next Saturday afternoon. The Saturday tasting included cigars on the smoking porch. The craft beers were all very good and we, the beer tasters, thought they were all quite tasty.

We did throw my last brew in the flights, just to mix things up. While the black ale was a completely different style from the pale ales, it did compete.

Well that's all for now. Till next time.

The Continuing Saga

Water problems part 2.

The other day I saw a puddle on the basement floor, like the pooch couldn't wait to go out, so he ran down to the basement to do it there.   

The odd thing about it was the floor was wet behind the tank too. The well tank, to a dog must look like a hydrant, so let 'er rip. How could he resist the temptation.

I mopped up the mess and kept the pooch upstairs, but sure enough, the puddle formed again. 

So today I stopped at the hardware store to get some 3 piece couplings so I can get the well fitting off, in order to inspect the bottom tank connections.  My hunch was the plumber used insufficient pipe dope on the threaded fittings. 

In preparation, we fill two water jugs and four 5 gal buckets with water. Some for coffee and the rest for flushing. I figured there is a good chance the tank rotted through. 

Getting to 1-1/4 pipe nipple off was a real chore. The joint was so tight that I bent the bottom he tank by torquing the nipple so hard.

I cleaned up all the threads to the tank, elbow and pressure switch fitting and started reassembly when I saw this little blister on the side if the tank. I popped it like a water blister you get from raking leaves in the fall. I dried off the spot with a rag and sure enough, it wetted again. 

Son of a B! Now I have to round up a 50 gal tank at the tune of $300. 

On the other hand, Wifey is out of town so now I have an excuse to skip doing dishes. 

Black IPA #33

Brew Date 11/05/14

Once again I found myself at the brew store so I couldn't let an oportunity go to waste. On the spot I figured something dark and hoppy. 

Because I didn't have my grain bucket Chris gave me a 2 row bag. 

I started with 12 pounds. 

Then added two pounds of:

Followed up with a quarter pound of:

For body. 

Then addeded the usual suspects:

What better way to spend a blustery Saturday afternoon than brewing?

 Hops addition:
:00- 1/3 G
:20- 1/3 G, 1/3 UK
:40- 1/3 G, 1/3 UK, 1/2 C
:55 -1/3 UK, 1/2 C
 
 Wifey was needing the kitchen at 5PM, which coincided with the end of the one hour boil, so I put the pot out on the porch to cool. This gave me the idea to try something different, for me. Strain the hops out while transferring the wort to the primary fermenter. Ordinarily I leave the hops in the primary.
 
Another change to procedure was made in sparging. I started with ~4gallons of water at 170 deg which is a little hot for 14.25 lbs of grain. So I started mashing anyway and added ~1/2 gal at 80 deg to bring the temp down to the 140 deg range. Then I heated another ~4 gallons to ~150 deg and added it to the mash before running off the first pass. I ended up with ~7 gal of wort before boiling and ended with 6 gal.

Had the guys over for pool night and stogies. No one didn't finish theirs.