Big Brew Day Pics

•May 11, 2009 • 3 Comments

Well, Big Brew Day on Saturday went pretty well.  We had about 8 or 9 batches going, and quite a few people there.

I hit all the numbers on my recipe, but had a few mishaps.   First, I ran some extra sparge water off into one of my Better Bottles…bad idea (don’t really know what I was thinking).  It shrunk up pretty good and I had to borrow a fermenter from O’Fallon (thanks Dave).

I also forgot sunscreen. It didn’t feel hot, but man, I got roasted.  Lessons learned.

Anyway, below are a bunch of pics of the festivities.  I’ll post the recipe down the road, after the beer has been tasted.  It’s quite a departure from my previous APA recipe.

Posted in Brewday pics, General Brewing

Hops, 05/06/2009

•May 8, 2009 • Leave a Comment

I will be taking pictures of the hops I planted periodically to show their progress.  I have 4 Cascade rhizomes going.  A few got off to a slow start due to being stressed, but they are starting to really take off.

Posted in General Brewing, Hops

Big Brew Day

•May 8, 2009 • 2 Comments

Big Brew Day is being held at O’fallon Brewery this Saturday.  Around 10 members of the Garage Brewer’s Society (including myself) are going to be brewing this year.   It is a great time every year, and highly recommended if you have an interest in homebrewing.  Details are here.

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Brewday Pics

•May 4, 2009 • 1 Comment

So, we brewed another 20 gallons on Sunday.  I made the Witbier recipe I posted last week, and Jim made a Cream Ale.

Things went well, although I goofed up with one of my grains.  The recipe called for 2 lbs of Flaked Oats.  The ones I snagged were the Old Fashioned Quaker oats and not the instant (pre-gelatinized).  I didn’t notice this until I had already mashed in.  Since this made up some of the potential fermentables, my OG suffered 4 points,  1.048 instead of 1.052.

Still, everything else went pretty well, and I’m excited about the beer.

One last thing.  If you have ever fermented with WLP400, you know that it needs a lot of headroom.  I have never made a beer with this yeast and NOT had to use a blow-off system.  It is a top fermenting yeast in the truest sense of the word.

Check out the pics below.

Posted in Brewday pics, General Brewing, Uncategorized

Wit Recipe

•April 30, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Here is the recipe I’m brewing this Sunday.  I have brewed this recipe before, and it is one of my favorites.  It is Jamil’s recipe from Brewing Classic Styles, except I substitute Bitter Orange Peel for fresh citrus zest.  I’ve made it both ways and I personally prefer this variation.  This recipe won a Gold at the 2008 MBO competition.

Some things to note…this is for 11 gallons, 80% efficiency, and IBUs are calculated using the Tinseth forumla.  As always, adjust to fit your equipment/techniques.

Wit

Wit
Witbier

Type: All Grain

Batch Size: 11.00 gal
Boil Size: 14.22 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 45.57 %
8.25 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 41.77 %
2.00 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 10.13 %
0.50 lb Munich Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2.53 %
2.50 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (60 min) Hops 15.2 IBU
0.06 oz Chamomile (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.80 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
3.00 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Belgian Wit Ale (White Labs #WLP400) Yeast-Wheat

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.24 %
Bitterness: 15.2 IBU
Est Color: 3.5 SRM Color:

Color

Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 19.75 lb
Sparge Water: 10.42 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.4 PH

Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 24.69 qt of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F

Posted in General Brewing, Recipes
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Handy Promash to BeerXML converter

•April 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment

I use BeerSmith, and a lot of recipes out on the web are in ProMash format.  I found a handy converter that will convert ProMash format recipes into BeerXML (works with BeerSmith and Beer Tools Pro).  Thought I would share:

Promash Recipe File Converter

Posted in General Brewing, Tools

St. Louis homebrewing community

•April 28, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Here in the St. Louis area, the interest in homebrewing and craft beer in general has skyrocked in recent years (This is thanks in no small part to all the great local craft brewers, but that is a topic for a different post).  We have an amazing community, and I thought I’d point to some great resources in the area:

http://www.garagebrewers.com/
This is a great site, and a great brewclub.  There is lots of great info on the forums, and lots of great brewers.  The club meets in O’Fallon

http://www.stlbrews.org/
Another great brewclub and forum.  Lots of great info and brewers also. The club usually meets in Fenton.

http://www.brewd00d.com/
Outstanding mash tuns for a great price.  I’ve been using one for years, and I routinely get 75%-85% efficiency.

http://www.stlhops.com
This is the place to go to find out about beer events in St. Louis.  A great community too, the forum is always full of interesting beer stuff.  Highly recommended for homebrewers and beer enthusiasts.

http://wineandbeermaking.com
Great little homebrew shop.  Has pretty much everything you can think of.  The owners are always happy to help.

http://missourimaltsupply.com/
Bulk grain ordering.  Great deals on bulk grain, extract, White Labs yeast,  and equipment.  Get on the mailing list for the monthly grain palette order.

If anyone has any others I may have missed, feel free to post links in the comments.

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Lemon Coriander Wheat Recipe

•April 27, 2009 • 2 Comments

Here’s the recipe for this one.  Volumes/temps/efficiencies are based on my equipment, so please adjust accordingly.  If you desire the recipe in some other format (like beerXML), hit me up in the comments.
Lemon Coriander Wheat

Posted in General Brewing, Recipes
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Sunday Brewday

•April 27, 2009 • 2 Comments

Had a good brewday on Sunday.  I didn’t boil quite vigorously enough, so missed my OG on the Lemon Coriander.  Hit around 1.050, was shooting for around 1.056.  Ended up getting 15.5 gallons instead of 15, so efficiency for that volume is still around 77%.   Pre-boil gravity was right on for 83%  efficiency @ 15 gallons, so need to crank up the boil next time.

We had a small boil-over on the Vienna Lager.  It came out at around 1.053, was shooting for 1.051, so a good efficiency day there.

Overall, a great day to brew.
Kinda forgot about pics until later in the brewday, so there isn’t a whole lot:

Posted in Brewday pics, General Brewing
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Big Yeast Starter part 2

•April 24, 2009 • 2 Comments

So on to the next steps.

Here it is after about 9 hours on the stirplate:

Crausen

Even on the stirplate, it still puts up quite a bit of crausen.

After 36 or so hours, it has died down, and the yeast have consumed all of the sugars and effectively quadrupled in numbers:

Finished

I have gotten the amount of yeast I want, but I don’t want to pitch 1/2 gallon into each carboy.  This is why I got the starter going with some time to spare before brew day.  I can now put the container in the fridge, and by Sunday all the yeast will have settled to the bottom.  When I’m ready to pitch I can then decant all the spent wort save about 1 liter and split that between the two carboys.  Depending on the flocculation properties of the yeast, this can take anywhere from 1 to 4 days or so.  This particular strain is very highly flocculative (is that a word?), so it will drop out relatively quickly.

That’s all for now.  I will be posting the recipe that I’m brewing on Sunday along with some pics of the actual brew day.

Posted in Brewing Techniques, General Brewing
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