scottish export 80

sg 1.063? overshot 1.054. i'm just good at coaxing the sugar. new thermometer with alarm thanks to inki! poured white labs 1728 english ale yeast, straight from the vial, see how she goes.

started bubbling sometime the next day. still bubbing on 25th, so yeast probably good with the no-starter.

new brown ale for inki ('emma's ale')

i'm making the 'emma's ale' kit from northern. steeped 30 min at ~160, pseudo-sparged again. following the recipe pretty much verbatim other than that since tis a new brew. OG 1.060. The yeast (wyeast 1275) was started two weeks ago (350ML) and put in the fridge because i didn't have time to do the boil. hopefully there's not too long of a lag.

northern brewer barleywine!

i did the 3.3lb LME at boil and 9.9lb LME at 15 minutes, then realized that the temp was down to 190 or so. i gave it another 15 minutes to warm back up, then timed it for 5 minutes more boil time. that should probably be in the instructions. also, the need for a bigger yeast starter should be in there too. 1.090 sg! i overshot the 1.086 sg indicated in the instructions. if the starter i prepared is any good, this could get explosive in a few hours. i put the fermenter in the basement bathtub to catch anything, should it get too active.

i have a bad feeling that i'll be going out to get another pack of 1948 neobritania, 'cause there were too many floating questions about the starter. it ended up with about 400ml of slurry plus another 400 ml of spent wort. it should be good, but i'll believe it when i see it. it seems to be the same volume as the pack was, though that was probably mostly nutrients. we'll see in the next 48 hours.

i added the dry hop bag to the hop head late last night. probably going to bottle that next weekend.

hop head double ipa

i brewed the hop head double ipa recipe from midwest: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/hop-head-double-ipa.html. i diverged from the recipe by adding the last 3.3lb of LME 15 minutes before the end of the boil. ended up boiling 1 gallon in another pot because the 4 gallon was in the boilover danger zone after adding the first 6.6lb. also tried adding 2 gallons of tap water before pouring the cooled wort. wort was snow-cooled to 90 this time, and the temp was still around 70 at pitch time. used 2 tbs of powdered sugar for the starter, hopefully the gravity difference with the super-sweet wort won't affect it. SG was 1.074, overshooting the recipe's 1.067 a little. i couldn't find the airlock that i got at midwest, so i've used an s-trap, which fits ok in the new fermenter's grommet. wort tastes like hop stew, unsurprisingly. hopefully the dry hop with leaves will give it a good aroma, not just bittering.

the english bitter is still bubbling a little since i've been rousing it daily. gravity is at 1.014. gonna wait a day or so more before bottling. i haven't fussed so much about gravity before, but i want to avoid bottle bombs and have as much alcohol as i can get out of it.

i haven't touched the inki's brown. looks like it's settled down to conditioning.

first minnesota brew

i boiled an english bitter midwest specialty grain kit. 20 minute steep at ~160 (thermometer isn't calibrated right, so i'm not sure). i tried rinsing the grains after the steep with boiling water in a strainer. goldings (5.5AA) 1oz at 60 and 1oz at 2 minutes. i broke down and got a thief and a test jar at northern brewer. sg: 1040 (recipe calls for 1035). very bitter at this point.

i used snow/salt/water in a tub outside to chill. it was amazingly fast and saved me some money, though i slightly over-chilled. pre-dilution was about 80F. used plain tap water for the first time for top-off, which brought it down to 65F. i waited an hour or so for the mixed wort to come up to 70F, the temperature of the starter. i also diverged on the starter by using some dme instead of plain sugar.

checked after 1.5 days in the fermenter, when obvious bubbling stopped. now it's at 1020. the sample was super cloudy with yeast and tasted much better than the first sample. the battle of what-to-get-next is looking like a win for a burner, since the glass-top electrical stove is super slow.

wish list: gas burner, refractometer, digital thermometer with some sort of alarm. the wort chiller won't be needed until the snow goes away.

inki's brown again

brewing inki brown tonight. eyeballed the specialty grains, dropped about 1/2 oz on the floor. nice even balanced aroma. cascade at 60, fuggles at 2. cooled wort to 100 and ran through sieve like the last batch. starter looked good and bubbly. can't go wrong (knock on wood). OG before yeast 1.045. aerated while listening to 'alligator'

2oz special B
2oz choclate malt
12 oz crystal 80L (60L?)
cascade 60 bittering
fuggles 2 aroma
3.3 dark
3.3 amber
muntons 6gm

full 5 gallons, through strainer
used same sanitizer (one step) from 9/23
plan on 3 wk primary for this one again. last one was good, but took 2wk bottle cond

BCHX

bull city homebrew experimental (BCHX)
i boiled the mish-mash brew from bull city homebrew:
3.3 breiss munich lme
3.3 breiss bavarian wheat lme
1# caramel 10 L
1# english ale 2-row malt
2 oz fuggle
1.5 oz cascade
safale us-05

fug/cas additions at 15, 10, and 5, then 1 oz cascade at 2 minutes
boil notes:
cool down took 20 minutes. added safale US-05 that had been proofed og 1.055. light-looking. not so sure about the bavarian wheat LME, but what the hay (get it?). shook the fermenter with the yeast already added (not sure there's a difference). started steeping grains at 140, up to 155 for about 1/2 hour (probably 15 on 155). grain was crushed at the store. made sure to boil after grains and before adding LME. took a long time to get back up to boiling after adding LME. had a very distinct hot break not long after hop addition. was able to avoid boilovers by stirring. only had to take off heat once. stove on 7.5-8 during boil. after cooldown, poured 1 gallon or so of water into bucket, poured wort through strainer, added rest of water to just over 5 gallons (got to have a full 2 cases this time!). started bubbling within 12 hours.
ryepa from 7/22 has been mostly ready, though there are still some green bottles even after almost a month in the bottle. i've drunk about a 6 of green beers waiting for this to condition. i suspect a combination of whirlfloc and not racking enough of the trub to the bottling bucket. it seems like there wasn't enough yeast. i'm not sold on the whirlfloc. i just don't care that much about color at this point. probably more important with the light beers.
homeade brown ale is really nice so far after bottle conditioning for 2+ weeks, though we did have a couple of volcanos at around 10 days.

ryepa in secondary, 1st inki brown

Racked rypea to secondary so i can boil the home recipe brown ale tomorrow morning or late tonight. should bottle ryepa in 2 weeksish (8/12). gravity was about 1.015. so far the most behaving brew

brewing my version of big river brown with amber DME instead of the LME. had to measure grains by volume since no scale (6T hopefully equals 2oz). munton's cheap yeast, used DME in starter for first time, hopefuly good.

midwest ryepa, brown ale first taste

yikes! waited a long time to do ryepa. followed midwest recipe pretty closely. 1.045 before yeast. Will bottle on 8/12 maybe. gonna do the primary-only for 3 weeks. i added whirlfloc at 10 minutes, we'll see whether that make a difference.

brown ale turned out good. tried a bottle after 8 days, just fine.

big river brown - first time

i boiled the big river brown ale. bubbled nicely within first day. used the yeast that came with it. followed the instructions pretty exactly this time

First Brew

midwest's 'irish red ale' kit. probably overcooked the grain. water was boiling when LME added, not at 150. steeped for 45 minutes to an hour--probably too long. OG 1.05, airlock bubbled within a couple of hours and continued until the next day.