Maybe deck the Helles with boughs of holly?
I brewed today!
- Thread starter The Brew Mentor
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Maybe deck the Helles with boughs of holly?
I like that! Haha. Alright Helles brewed. Yeast will be pitched when temp drops a few, which will go nicely in my 45F garage.
are you using Harvest on this one?
Nice. I'm still waiting to see how my dark lager with Harvest turns out after some fridge time. Have you brewed with it at 45F before? That's awesome. I'm hoping to reuse the yeast cake with the red lager I'm brewing tomorrow, which will probably ferment in the 55-60F range (if i'm lucky. thank goodness for spunding valves)
Never that cold. Usually in the 50s.
Checked my data from the Dunkel I brewed last. I fermented at 48 the first day or so and then low 50s before I warmed it up a few. I harvest on that one.
Brewing Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Previous recipe had Crisp Pale Ale. LHBS switched it do Maris Otter. Sure smells nice. Wort has a much maltier taste, but I'm thinking that may have been mashing technique. Started off low (120F) and went up in three 15-minute steps to 160F then held that for about 30 minutes. Ran recirculation through the entire mash. This recipe could probably benefit from rice hulls. I love the taste of Maris Otter, but it seems to clump a bit worse than the 2-Row pale. Also used the recirc pump for stirring while heating to boil, just for grins and giggles.
Hope I didn't hose up the mashing, but just wanted to try something a little different by sneaking up on full mash temp. Just gonna have to wait now and see. Using a re-pitch of WLP-004 that I had from November. I decanted most of the beer off it, leaving about a half inch covering the yeast cake (about 250 ml). Still smelled good and went active as soon as it rose to ambien (55F) temperature. Apparently the beer still had a bit of sugar in it.
Hope I didn't hose up the mashing, but just wanted to try something a little different by sneaking up on full mash temp. Just gonna have to wait now and see. Using a re-pitch of WLP-004 that I had from November. I decanted most of the beer off it, leaving about a half inch covering the yeast cake (about 250 ml). Still smelled good and went active as soon as it rose to ambien (55F) temperature. Apparently the beer still had a bit of sugar in it.
Unfortunately, looks like my yeast cake from the prior Chocolate Oatmeal Stout wasn't usable. I shook it up to loosen the slurry, then took the lid off. It wasn't a sulphury/rotten smell, but something just didn't seem right to the nose. So, I tossed it and put in a fresh smack pack of WLP-004. I may lose a few points on the FG, but it just wasn't worth 'poisoning' the batch. Still no activity this morning as of 10:00, but I'm used to fresh WLP-004 being a 'slow learner'.
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Well, yesterday actually.
Cream Ale. There is something to be said for the ease of brewing these simple beers. Just Pils and corn, and probably the palest looking beer I ever made. Very relaxing brew day.
Cream Ale. There is something to be said for the ease of brewing these simple beers. Just Pils and corn, and probably the palest looking beer I ever made. Very relaxing brew day.
What did you use for hops? My last cream ale was Maris Otter, corn, and Citra Hops. Super simple, and VERY tasty.
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Saaz. I was going for that "noble" (whatever that means) hop presence. Clean, light aroma, lager-like...
I do like the idea of Citra as the star in a very simple beer. I did that once and it was a grapefruit bomb, in all the best ways!
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Brewed this
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1351628/ginger-beer
Ended up using some crystallised honey a friend gave me ages ago
3kg of this and .9kg cane sugar.
The boil had a persistent break that took 15 mins to desolve back in
130g of blitzed ginger in the boil
Added 20g cryo pop to no chill on the kegmenter with the wort
Will juice 100g of ginger through the cold press juicer and add this as a dry hop
Knocked this one out in 2hours
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1351628/ginger-beer
Ended up using some crystallised honey a friend gave me ages ago
3kg of this and .9kg cane sugar.
The boil had a persistent break that took 15 mins to desolve back in
130g of blitzed ginger in the boil
Added 20g cryo pop to no chill on the kegmenter with the wort
Will juice 100g of ginger through the cold press juicer and add this as a dry hop
Knocked this one out in 2hours
Ben, did all your equipment mods help with the GF brewing? Sure hope some of it will getcha some bennies to lessen the sting of having to give up malts.
How long did you “cap the mash” with the small amount of Carafa 3? Did you stir it in, or just leave it on top?
Added it with 10 minutes to go in the mash with the pump recirculating. Let it recirculate as is for about 5 minutes until I saw a change in color in the tubing. Then stirred it in and started heating for mashout. Won't know for certain until it's in the glass, but I probably could've added a smidgen more. This might be a brown IPA, which also sounds good to me
