Author: stoutmaker

Getting ready for winter

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With the winter coming some brewers pack the brewing equipment up for the season. I, how ever am the opposite. Winter is my favorite time to brew. Even more so now that I have been gravitating to electric.
I actually started electric brewing, just so that I could brew more often. The new set up was set up for 3 gallon batches. But now with several electric batches under my belt, plus the need to build something, I am feeling the need to go full 5 gallon electric batches.
It sounds like this means another money dump and a bunch more of things to buy. But when I think about it,, this is not the case.
I have decided to stay with the mash tun instead of the BiaB. (for no reason other than I am just used to my cooler mashing. BiaB is perfectly fine otherwise) So no extra equipment there At all.
I have finally gotten around to getting the counterflow chiller working, so again there is nothing extra to buy there.
The only place I need to spend a few bucks is on the actual boil kettle. But even here, all I need to do is build and install two more elements into my current 12.5 gallon kettle.
While using my 8 gallon kettle for the 3 gallon batches, I always felt like those two 1500 watt elements were a bit of over kill. So I upped to 4 gallon batches. This meant a boil volume of 6 gallons
 
I see almost no difference from the 5 gallon boil.
I see no reason why the two elements wont boil one more gallon just as well. But my small kettle wont handle a full 7 gallon boil. I will need to build the bigger one and hope it works. But I don’t see a problem. If there is, I think extra insulation would be enough to help it.

Update: Wet Hop

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Just an update on the 2015 Mt Hood wet hop IPA (?) 

It’s been kegged and carbonating for a week now. So of course we need to be tasting it. 
If you have an IPA in your glass, you know it. This is not an IPA. (But then again, in today’s beer world it might very well be.) 
Everything was right on track the way I had intended it. Bitterness, taste, look, numbers,, but aroma failed. 
Very little aroma at all. But the beer it’s self is good.
But with the new Guidelines I think it fits squarely in British Strong Ale. 
Decent beer, just not how I expected the hops to react. But I do think the base beer is perfect. Work on the hopping. 

Dark stouty Graff

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Bryan asked if anyone wanted a yeast cake from a Brit beer he just kegged. Of course I won’t be home and have zero time to brew. 

But screw that, we can still use it. 
I have been meaning to get a cider going anyways and already have the ingredients sitting here. 
But I also wanted to make another Graff. The last one was so good. But wanted a different one. I have in my head that a darker roaster taste with maybe a bit more hop would go with cider. So I had this idea. Why not make a dry stout, but use apple juice instead of the water. (Pretty much what a Graff is anyway)
Two things. I don’t have any time. And I don’t wanna boil the juice. No problem. I went and got a prehopped stout extract kit. 
I just opened the can mixed it in about 3/4 gallon of water and dumped in the fermenter.  There was of course a layer of extract at the bottom of bowl, so kept pourin some of the juice in and kept stirring and dumping until it was all mixed in. 
Poured in the rest of the 4 gallons of juice along with the very active yeast cake
The Graff/stout stats:
5 gallons 
OG- 1.065
IBU- can says 37-51
Not sure what the estimated final would be but like most English ale yeast in this range I’m guessing we will be in the 1.012 range. That puts us in the 7%. 
(On a side note. This extract stout kit smells and tastes like hopped molasses. And I usually put molasses in my ciders any way)