Category: stout

Prelude to a Disruption

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Making big beers, really big beers, is not something that I have done a lot of. 

Done a few “bigger” ones like the Black Feather stout and the Woot!zenbock (which reminds me, I need to re brew that one) 
Just a few months ago we did a barleywine that has been bulk aging for a few months, and is ready to be bottled up. 
But nothing as big as the one we have planned for tomorrow. The 11.5%, 93 IBU Imperial Stout known as Disruptor. 
Looking back at one of my failed attempts at a big stout, I found that you really really need to have a fully active, ready for action yeast cake ready to attack. As big as the yeast needs to be, a starter is a waste of time. So I made a small Ordinary Bitter just to produce the yeast cake needed. 
I didn’t wanna get too big and stress out the yeast. So I kept it small. I went with:
6.75 lb 2row
.5 lb 120
.5 oz target hops @60
.5 target hops @10
Windsor yeast
That’s it.
Put her in the fermenter about 2 weeks ago so she is ready to keg right before we dump tomorrow’s stout on the cake. 
I am worried about an active Windsor cake with this much food for it. We may have thermo nuclear meltdown

Last minute updates

stoutmakerLeave a comment

I thought I posted a few things here since November.. Guess not. Lets do a quick catch up.

I got the Blackfeather stout kegged up already. Remember this was my revised American stout. And it came out fabulous. The changes I made were minimal, but came out rather drastic. I moved the mash temp down 6 degrees and mistakenly didnt add the chocolate malt. (only a 1/4 lb)

What came out of this was a beer so different from the original, I think a name change may be in order. So different, but so good. And did everything I wanted it to do. It dried it out quite a bit, and why it bittered up like it did I dont know, but it fits the category more I think. Am going to keep this version as is for a while.

To my horror one night, I discovered that I was out of beer. And Christmas and New Years is a coming. I needed something quick. I chose a recipe that I wrote out a while ago. A Southern Brown. Having never had one, and not knowing anyone else who had one either, I guessed, and used American style ingredients.
  • 7lbs 2 row
  • 1/2 80L
  • 1/2 lb 120
  • 1/4 roast barley
  • 1 oz fuggles @ 60
  • 05 yeast
I wanted a sweeter raisiny kind of beer. And I couldnt have been further off. I was sooo expecting to have one kind of beer, that when I got another,, I hated it. But after I relaxed and drank 4 or 5 of them I came to realise that this may be the best damn beer I drank in a long time! I’m not sure what it is yet. (will need to drink,, I mean research more). A mild brown? A mild stout? Not sure yet, but after all of the beers I’ve considered,, this may be the closest to becoming the “house” beer.
 
And finally a cider update. I have not bottled yet, but have had a few Hydrometer samples. And this cider is damn good. The 04 left it sweet and appley, but it with all of the sugar and molasses its coming in at a 8%.
This was only a half batch, so it will bottle quickly. Which is good, because the next batch of it will go in almost immediately.
 
Got the ingrediants for a Schwartz and could be brewing tomorrow, definatly within the next few days. Gotta dry hop the 20Plato brown for the TTO. And start bottling up the rest of the entries. I got a busy week coming up.
 
 

Cold Crash

stoutmakerLeave a comment

Currently have both the Vanhelsing brown and the Walter Wheat in the fridge. 

The wheat is a beer that I brewed for an event coming up in a couple weeks and and letting the yeast settle before jumping it to the serving keg. 
Thought I had another month, but I guess the event got moved up. Luckily it’s wheat so a little yeast is ok. 
The Vanhelsing is our Halloween beer. It’s been sugar primed so it’s ready to go, but I am going to take a sneak peek growler off of it tomorrow so it’s in its final resting place a bit early. 
We now are moving into a different phase for 9stripe. 
We have decided while we do enjoy and brew just about any kind of beer, we started this brewing hobby to make the best stout we can. While we like to think we make some damn fine stout now, we think we can do better. And are going to put the majority of our focus on the stout (and possibly porter) style. 
We will keep different styles on hand, but will be in limited “mini batch” styles. 
We intend our new “Stoutery” to produce the best stout beer that Green Bay has ever seen. And to kick off the change over we are brewing our annual and award winning Black Feather American stout next week. 
As tradition we brew this in October every year. And it looks to be perfect brewing weather coming up.