Author: stoutmaker

Brew day at Matt’s place

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Got an email that Matt (or @revmra) up Oconto falls was going to be brewing, so called up Tim from TCM and we took a road trip.
He was making and all grain Alt with spalt hops. I guess this was his first brew in almost a year, but still had his technique down.

One of the reasons I like to watch others brew is learing other techniques. Matt’s sparge is kinda a batch sparge and sorta fly sparge. kinda batch because he pulls the wort fairly quickly, but kinda fly like because he is topping off the tun every now and then. And as you can see, thats some seriously clear wort coming outta there.

When we get to the boil, we got to enjoy the smells of the spalt. Dont think I have smelled hops like this before. Somewhere between a Fuggle and a Christmas tree. Pretty much made my mind up right there that I am going to be using these hops in the near future.

Speaking of hops. While the boil was going on he was showing off his awesome hops. Goldings. Got a bunch of good growing tips that we are gonna incorporate, and we were able to get a couple of stray roots from him. More hops is a good thing.

Kinda rainy, but it was another good brew day, and of course great samples. Road trips are great. Thanks for the great day Matt.

Zerg Rush

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Time to get the Zerg Rush Steamroller into a keg. Looks really clear so far. I took the FG reading as 1.008 so the crunched down quite a bit. The OG was 1.047 so we are looking at about 5.2%

I have been drinking a few of the Fogger Stouts, and have decided 2 things. I sorta like it, but I’m not sure its what I would call a stout. Seems a bit thin. not black, a bit sweet and not roasty enough.
I do like the taste direction its taking with the roasted barley, so I will brew this again, but with a bit of black Patent to fill in the gaps. Maybe some sugar to dry it out, but I think thats all it will need.
One last bit, Getting ready to rack the Ginger mead. Just not confident in my 3 gallon corny. She is scratched up pretty good from the brush. Gonna giver a good soak in bleach first, but i dunno if I like it. might have to replace this one

6-1-11 the Bock and Steam

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The bock seems to be just fine so far. Dont think I have seen a better ferment so far. Pitched the dry Munich as I was goin to bed, and by morning she was just about to the top lip. Had to install the blowoff. She chugged away at top speed for almost 3 days. Finally fell and is still going pretty good.

Although I am getting the banana smells from it, Its sitting at 64 degrees so I dont think i need to worry about getting those flavors, but the style does allow for them. Which is ok because I am planning on entering this recipe.
She was also qite dark going into the fermenter, but as everything is starting to drop out now, its getting to the color I was hoping for. more twards the 20 ish SRM instead of the black that it was.

The Steam beer has finally stopped airlock bubblin. I think it needs one more week before I keg it. Hard to get a good look at it as the carboy is in a bucket, but it really looks clear.

Starting to plan out my first 10 gallon batch. Its gonna be the upscaled Cropcircles It will need to be another partial mash because of mash tun size, but thats ok. But I really need to up size my cooler pretty soon.