Personally, mine went all kinds of wrong. I attempted to brew a Vienna so I can lager it for a long time, but nothing went right. First it snowed, then the wind blew the flame on my boil out (for 20 minutes because I couldn’t get it going), and despite all my pre-boil numbers being spot on I somehow came up well short for my SG…just one of those brews that despite all efforts didn’t work out. Still gonna keep the Vienna and maybe call it something else.
Not to bad here. Missed my mash starting temp by 2 degrees low. It fell a lot more then I remember it in the past. But then again I was planning on a 60 min mash and it turned into 90. So it will be interesting to see what I end up with. Started at 152 and ended at 146.
SG was to be 1.055 and I got 1.060. Never missed high before. So I’m OK with that.
This was for a brown ale. Using WLP005 for the first time as well.
Can’t wait for it to finish.
I got a lot accomplished on Friday. I brewed an 11 gallon batch of a golden ale that is lightly hopped with citra and galaxy. Half of which will be served at my wedding (High Tides Honeymoon Ale). I also kegged a barleywine that had been fermenting for about 40 days or so. I kegged a Christmas ale to she a few months for Christmas in July. This was a rebrew of a beer that I did for Christmas. It tasted way better out of the hydrometer sample. It has vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cherries in it. I adjusted those amounts and switched the yeast from 001 to 002. I also racked a cherry wheat (also served at the wedding) onto 32oz of high quality tart cherry concentrate.
The only problem that I ran into over the weekend is that the secondary fermentation was more active than expected. I didn’t have a complete explosion, but the cap off the airlock popped off. But it did keep a solid lock though. Just wiped off the bucket and changed the airlock. No big deal. WLP 320 is some active yeast.
I managed a very early prototype (more of an crude experiment) of my future 1 gallon wood burning rocket stove brew stand. Just testing concept at this point. only tangentially brewing related.
I also determined that my ryerish stout is not terribly far off Guinness from the bottle (sans widget).
Some hits and misses this weekend. I was going to bottle a Landbier that I pitched a cake of 2278 into, and found it had stalled at 1.032 (from 1.056). Had been planning on pitching that cake into a CAP. Oh well, bottled the other 5 gallons from that batch that I had pitched 833 into (finishing gravity at 1.012). Brewed the CAP on Sunday. Used Cluster and Pacific Jade for the hops. Also, realized that my hydrometer is reading way off. So, all the readings this weekend are more like good guesses.
Pretty good brewing weekend for me. Did a Flander’s Red on Saturday to replace one I just bottled last week. Pitched it on a yeast cake from a previous batch that was fermented with East Coast Yeast Flemish Ale yeast. Interested to see how it works out on the second generation. The first batch was seriously sour, but oh so good!
Sunday our brew club did an 18gal batch of Russian Imperial Stout to fill up a 15gal rye whiskey barrel we just picked up. Always fun to brew with the club!
Kegged a Kiwanda inspired Cream Ale, aroma is spot-on. I’ll carb up a sample this evening and see how it stands up to the original. Checked up on a Maudite inspired BDSA that is coming along nicely.
Brewed a Summit Ale clone out of an old BYO mag for a donation to our upcoming Habitat for Humanity Brewhaha Brewfest in May at which our very own Denny Conn will be a featured speaker.
Every batch, I seem to make some kind of adjustment to my brew set up which necessitates cutting hoses, changing connectors and generally using up enough time to make brew day really long. Yesterday was no exception. I started early but didn’t finish until just before dark. Hopefully I’m done with that and next brew day will finish before I’m ready for bed. Yeast was another issue. I pulled a 2nd gen. sample of 1275 out of the fridge from September, and though it took off great it took a lot of time and 3.5l starter to get the cell count up. That stuff is sure a great top cropper…also a bathroom counter cropper if you overfill the flask.
Results will not be in for a few weeks of course, but the session went great otherwise. Highest mash efficiency numbers to date and mash temp spot on. That kind of makes all the ditzing around worthwhile.
It’s around 165qt. We used 75 lbs of grain and just barely got everything in there, as you can see! Pretty thick mash, but we still got about 60-65% efficiency.
+1 and Silverspot IPA…I just love the Pelican. Any beer tastes better in a setting like that too. Sand between your toes and sunset over the haystack rocks. Road trip anyone?
Right now I’m having a hard time telling where the krausen begins and the wort ends.