Got depressed looking at the January brew weekend thread.
May 4 brewing a Bing Quadsby
14 lbs German pils
1 lb special B
1 lb cane sugar
1 lb D180
Wyeast Trapist High Gravity
Secondary on 5 lbs fresh Bing Cherries that are local and bloomed a couple weeks ago.
Ought to be tasty fun. First brew in the new Spedel 30L.
Waiting on an old friend to show up who wants to learn about all grain.
Got a Bo Pils on deck for Monday and Doppelbock the following week. That will be it for lagers for a while. Things will probably slow down with my brewing in general as well. I’ll probably do a bunch of easy 1-gallon batches here & there, but as the weather warms up I’ll be spending more time in the garden than the brewery.
Just kegged a Motueka Pale last night that seems very promising. Just something I threw together with ingredients on hand. 50/50 Crisp MO/Weyermann Pils, Summit bitter & Motueka late. Nice bright yellow gold color, Fresh lemongrass and spice hop aroma and flavor. Medium-light body that comes in around 5.8%.
I’m slowing down too, sort of. Going to go back to one batch per brew day and use the thermal probe attached to fermentor under insulating method so the temp is more precise. I’m curious to see if there’s a noticeable difference
Brewed a sour wheat ale yesterday that is 5.5% and has a little special roast malt and melanoidin, so I don’t dare call it a Berliner Weiss. It took a lot of restraint to not add any hops to the boil which made it a relatively melancholy brew day.
Brewing test batch 1 of wedding saison right now
72.5% pils
12.5% Munich
7.5% malted wheat
5% Caramunich III
2.5% aromatic
33 IBUs
1oz sterling at 0
.75oz sterling at 15
~1oz sterling at 60 (depends on the ibu contribution from the 15 minute addition)
WY3711
Darkest saison I’ve made.
Brewed Rye IPA yesterday (surprised?). I’m hoping to find more time to brew soon!
Just finished 5 gallons of Spit Open and Melt. I’m a dy late on the big brew day, but life gets in the way. Its my third AG batch, and efficiency is getting better. I really dont know my system well enough yet to make projections on eff: batch 1: 65%, batch 2 67% and 68.8% today. I hit my target OG but was half gallon short. Still trying to work on thta, but probably wont do more than another 2 batches or so before my new BruGear kettle shows up in June. Then I will have to start over dialing that in. But its all brewing right, I should not complain. It was a beautiful morning and afternoon. I even remembered to make myself a hot scotchy, so that was about a pint off my missing volume…It was well worth the volume loss, delicious! Hope everyone else has had a great weekend!
Edit: and apparently I’m an assistant brewer now, had not been paying attention since moving past “First Kit”
Brewed an IPA today. I think I have about 3 more brews left until hiatus for the summer. I’m thinking a Burton ale, another IPA, then a German lager of some sort. Maybe a braggot as well.
Need to use up those hops.
I did a Pale Ale yesterday with Mrs. R for Big Brew. It was 5 gallons, and was the “Hop 2 It” recipe that was used at the Stan Hieronymus talk at Seattle. Empire hops were used at 6.7% AA. This is a new variety from northern MI, and are thought to be a leftover strain from long ago when that area was producing hops. The strain was found and propagated. The aroma was similar to Cascade, but some that have used it say it has a peppery note. I will post later what I get from the beer, probably in a new thread.
Ended up with 66% brewhouse at 1.082 OG. I’m ok with that. I’ll have to mental note that for future big beers.
That’s a great reminder Jim. My brew was projected at 1.099, so I think I will take my 68% eff, had not even thought about just how big it was!
First, that recipe looks good and tasty. And I always lose a little efficiency on big beers, especially the closer you get to 1.100. That’s a beer that’ll age nicely - if you have any left by New Year’s it’ll be killer. Also, ‘Bing Quadsby’ is a pretty solid name !
I was going to run it at 64° but panicked at the last minute and upped it to 66°. I over chilled it. Its at 59° right now, ubber oxygenated and pitched. I set it at 66° so the heater is on. I’m going to step it up 1° per day to 78°. When I hit terminal I’ll rack it to 5 lbs Bings.
Sounds pretty solid. BTW, that yeast ferments like it’s losing its mind on a beer that big, so be prepared !
It’s in a 30L Speidel I’m hoping it stays in there.
Ditto to more time in the garden this time of year. On the other hand I can pretty much only do AG outside so no slowing down. I’m currently drinking my first 2014 AG, a DIPA with tequila. I’m a few days into 13 days off to work around home which includes putting in 1,000sq ft of malting barley, expanding the hops yard, planting veggies, and cutting down trees for next year’s fire wood and splitting and stacking it. At the end of my time off I’m having friends over and brewing a Spencer Abby Clone.
For Big Brew I went back to the roots and did an extract kit for 5 gallons - it was my LHBS Gold medal winner from a few years back - a smoked honey wheat… Holding off on the honey add until high krausen and I had to bring my fermentor inside from the garage due to cold temps (50’s). My first swamp cooler of the year (I was heating ales in the garage all winter). I hope the 1332 yeast didn’t chill down too much!
That’s awesome! Did you order them from Empire Orchards directly? I am excited to hear how this turns out.
A guy in the club is starting a brewery. He got a box of them from Empire Farms, and offered up 8 oz. to maybe 8 or so on first come first served basis. I will share a few bottles with him.
http://empirehopsfarm.com/about-the-farm/
FYI, the Federal License should be approved next week, and he will start brewing. The location is Brighton MI, and the name is Brewery Becker.