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Porter and fresh hopped

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Been doing a little more brewing lately since it’s cooling off. And since I like the morning brews, I’ve been out there 5am.

First was the Memorial Mild. As the name suggests, it used to be my Memorial Day beer. Small, easy going. I think it’s not quite a Porter, but not a Brown either. And brewed it Labor day weekend.

It will be getting served at an upcoming event in October.

Then we finally got to the annual fresh backyard hop brew.

This year I went with a Kentucky Common. A rustic kind of beer that more or less a darker cream ale. Doesn’t really use that much hops. Except almost everything was  Britishy..

While I do have tons of hops back there, this recipe let me get away with only picking for 1/2 hour.

2017 Backyard Hillbilly Amber 5 gal.

  • 7 lbs Maris otter
  • 12oz flaked corn
  • 4oz instant rice
  • 2oz midnight wheat
  • 1oz cluster to bitter @60
  • 1/3 bucket of fresh picked hops @5 min.
  • Nottingham yeast
  • Mashed at 152

Eureka! 

stoutmaker1 Comment

Whoops. Had most of this sitting in draft mode.  So I’ll post it up with some new stuff I was gonna post…

The brewery down the road has a beer on tap that uses Eureka hops. Wow I had to have these. Like cedar siding in the basement kind of action.

I was going to be making an Amber any way so let’s do both.

ZERG THE PINES   5 gallon

  • 10 lb 2 row
  • 1/2 lb 60L
  • 1/2 lb 40L
  • 2 oz chocolate malt (500 but probably shoulda went 350)
  • 1 oz pearl @ 60
  • 1 oz Eureka @ 5
  • Nottingham yeast
  • Mashed 154

Should be kegging this up today so will have some feed back soon.

Also managed to beat the birds to some currants this year. 

Got about 3 lbs before the mosquitos drove me out. Be looking for a reddish blond coming out soon!

The Throwback Brown Ale

stoutmaker1 Comment

This week’s brew was more of a plan ahead kind of thing. I will be brewing a barley wine in the next two weeks, so I need yeast. So, how bout a 3 gallon batch to steal the yeast cake from….

Since I will be using Nottingham yeast, why not an good old Brit Brown? Haven’t had a good British Brown ale in a long time. All the ones you find now days are too Americanized.

So I went back into the vault and found o e of my long lost extract brown ales. (Needs a new name)

Basement Brown 3 gallon extract

  • 1 can light LME
  • 12oz crystal 80
  • 8oz carapils
  • 8oz biscuit
  • 3/4oz EKG
  • 1/4oz EKG
  • Nottingham yeast

Well for some reason, I could not get Beersmith to work they way I wanted. I don’t know if I was using wrong profile or what, but it wanted me to be using 8+ gallons of water for a 3 gallon batch.
But figuring out an extract batches needs is like nothing.

3.125 gallons into fermenter
1.75 lbs grain x .12 water absorb
1.5 gallons boil off
.125 gallons kettle gunk loss
= 5 gallons water

I took 1/2 gallons of that water and mashed/steeped the grains in the mini masher while I was bringing the rest of the water to boil. Once I got boil I dumped it I to the kettle and got under way.

I did do a full boil with all of the extract. I wanted to get a little darker color since I used the golden light Lme.

Mmm the smell of a British Brown is awesome. Caramel, EKG.. Oh yea.

Sure looks like a good color going in. As the way with my first rounds of extract beers, I’ll just chuck it in the basement and let it go at what ever temp it is down there.  And right now it’s still 58.  Perfect for Notty.