Category: Uncategorized

March 2010

stoutmakerLeave a comment
03-12-10- Bottling the stout from 02-20-10
Finally had time to bottle up my stout batch. I am worried about this one. I seen no airlock activity ever. But I know it did ferment because the krausen is way up the sides.
And the grandkid took out the airlock and I didnt notice for a day or two. But it looks like beer and smells like beer.
Some notes

  • The color is way off more of a brown ale. I was worried about this as there is no black patent
  • very very sweet. Too sweet I think. Again with 05 yeast this should not be.
  • No distinct roast flavors,smells at all. Again will need black patent.
  • Ended up with 27 bombers.

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03-13-10 Cream of three crops
just started heating my mash water for c3c
I have 8 lbs of grain so I gonna use about 2.5 gall @170.
I didnt preheat my mashtun this time just to see how far I would miss by, and surprisingly it was only about 3 degrees off. Topped up with about 170 degree water to make up those 3. didnt take very much. But now I wonder if I will start losing temp. This is a 90 min mash so I will need to check on it.
Ok everything looks good so far. Took 7 gallons because of the 90 min boil.

Oh yea heres the recipe

  • 5.5 lbs 2 row
  • 2 lbs flaked corn
  • 1.5 lbs flaked rice
  • .5 rice hulls (need these)
  • 1 oz halletaur hops at 60 min

mash at 152 for 90 min(dont know why 90 min)
boil 6 gallons 90 min
us-05 yeast

68 degrees
OG-1.052

Fermentation went good. Kept in the box. Temps were steady 68.
Today (3-20-10) took fermenter out of box and moved to bottling area. Will leave here for a week. Temps here are 60-62. Am going to keg this batch.

3-20-10
Bottle up the graff today. Whoa this stuff tastes awesome. Used ¾ cup. Got 12 22oz and 24 12oz
going to get ready for tomorrows brew. A summer wheat. Never did a wheat so I cant wait to see how these go.
I have been having problems with my drain tube in the tun. And I think that I have too small of slits cut And going to try and open them up. Just went to SS braid, so there shouldnt be a problem

Summer wheat tonite
got recipe off of the Beer Recipator.

3 ½ lbs 2 row
4 lbs wheat malt
½ lb dextrine malt

1 ¼ oz saaz (60 min)
½ oz saaz (5 min)
½ oz crushed coriander
orange zest ( I used 4 oranges.)

made sure to get rice hulls for this one
mash stable at 150
wow new braid with no insert is the way to go. Can batch sparge 3 gallons in about 5 minutes.
I snuck in 10 black pepper corns ground up with the coriander.
Og 1.042

12 hrs later fermentation is just starting to take off. Looks good. Churning well.
Decided to put a blow off tube on. Really frothing hard and moving up to top of carboy (6 gall)

  • I think 4 oranges might be waaayyy to much zest can even smell the zest upstairs after a whole day in fermenter.
  • 3-26-10 action has all but stopped. Gonna pull it out of chamber this weekend and let it sit.


03-26-10-
kegged the Cream of three last night. Stuff is really good. Have it sitting @ 20 psi. Should be ready any time.
Was fairly cloudy. Even the SG sample was clouded. Will need to settle out for a while, Which is ok ’cause I dont plan on putting this out for a month or two so it should clear by then.
But wow is really good. Gonna have to get the next round of this going, because I dont think its gonna last to long. I also Bottled a 6 er of it. If it turns out as good as it looks like I’m gonna enter it in the Title town open. Am going to put in the last of my Chipmunk brown in also. As an American brown.

Am also starting to drink the failed oatmeal stout/porter Its carbed up pretty good for a weeks time. I know It need to age ( I doubt it will though) but the first bottle was great. Nearly what I thought it was going to be. But,, the next few bottles are watery like. The taste is sorta there in the background, but its thin. Sounds to me like just a beer that needs time.

The one thing I noticed in common with my last batch of brews is that they are all low hopped.
I had to open a bottle of 2010 Bigfoot to get some hops
So in order to counter that I ordered up some Summit hops for a nice IPA.
I’m thinkin maybe a Summit/Amarillo merger. Get some grapefruit tangerine action.

Needed to order a new pressure relief for the cornie.

Feb 2010

stoutmakerLeave a comment
02/20/10- Just got back from LHBS. Picked up stuff for tomorrows brew.
Went with an oatmeal stout. Everything was way cheaper today. Bob says he has price dropped everything because all of his suppliers are cutting prices. Sounds good to me. Full batch-22 bucks not sure is my math is right,, but that sounds like less than .50 cents a bottle.

So any way here is my final recipe for oatmeal porter.
****note**** after having the club taste this recipe we have decided that this would probably fall under the English Brown category. I’ll have to look to see if it should be northern or southern

4 lbs- pale two row
4 lbs- maris otter
.75 lbs flaked oats
.5 lbs roasted barley
.5 lbs chocolate malt
.5 lbs 120 L
.25 victory
1 oz fuggles.
Safeale 05 yeast

I was going to use kent goldings for hops but they were out. So we will see how that works. Fuggles are pretty tame so should be ok.

After a week of the graff in primary I think its slowing down. This stuff smells awesome.

I dont think I wrote down the recipe so I better right now

Notes:
-No hints of any roasty. Will need to add some black patent.
-Does not seem black. More like a deep dark brown. Either more roast barley or maybe the black patent will take this.
-really really sweet to sweet. (from bottling sample) need to dry it out. I thought the safale 05 would have done this

3-22-10- Bottled on 12th. Opened one up tonite. Did not chill. Carbed up very nicely. I am actually surprised. Turned out very nice. But definatly not a stout. Not a stout. Porter maybe. But I like it. Its very young yet, but so far it has turned out good.

english brown from now on gonna have to change name

Graff

4 gallons apple juice (cheaper the better, no preservatives though. mine- walmart brand)
1 can of malt extract ( i used light but anything is fine Normally I would have used 4 lbs of 2row)
1/2 lbs of 120 crystal
1oz torrified wheat (very optional only for head retention)
1/2 oz hops (today I used willamette)
1 package ale yeast. (normally would use nottingham, but they were out so I used safe-ale 05
basically, make a small gallon of beer.
I steeped the crystal and the wheat for 30 min @ 160 in 1.5 gall water.
removed those, started the boil added the extract. Boiled this for 30 min and added the hops. boiled another 30 min.
cooled.

Now I added 3 gallons of juice to my fermenter
added the beer wert to this
and topped up the fermenter with the last gallon of juice

pitched my yeast. we are done.

2-24-10 Sad to say that I do not think my latest stout is going to work. Its been 4 days now, and no signs of life. I thought that I would have enough heat in my basement room. I was reading about 65. No problem. But I set my fermenter on a board on the ground and I could only get close to 60.
After two days I put the whole thing upstairs in the closet where it is a balmy 70. nothing.

Nothing except that this morning when I opened the door to the closet, it smelled great, just like it was chugging away. But no activity in the air lock. So I pryed the lid open to see what was going on and it looked like everything was going along fine. It even looked like the blow off rose to almost the top of the pail.
But no Activity. I am thinkin that My lid may not have been on air tight,, so when I put it back on I made sure I had it on there right. Still nothing.Nothing.
The only thing that I can think that may have happened but its a long shot, is that I forgot about my yeast in the car for about 12 hours. Here in green bay in February that equates to 20 or less degrees. I do not know if yeast dies if frozen or not,, but seems like these did.

I will wait a few more days and if I do not see any signs at at all I gonna dump it and start over.


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