Saturday, May 22, 2010


Lager beer! Oktoberfest to be exact (on the left). Going strong, took a couple days to get going though.
Brewed 'on the road' today. A fellow homebrewer, former classmate of Elli's (college horticulture), and friend who lives down here invited us over while he was brewing. I wasn't planning on brewing today, but couldn't resist. So I asked if I could bring my gear, and a few hours later I have ~4 gallons of Scottish 80 Schilling brewing away. :) Jamil Z's recipe, minus the honey malt and adding biscuit, and I added 1/2 pounds of smoked malt (not to style but I wanted to try it out)
The yeast cake from this batch will be used to brew this beer:
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/05/adambier-hotd-adam-clone.html
Anyway, good day of brewing and had some good beers while brewing, both homebrew and commercial.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Current closet

I haven't brewed since the end of March, when I brewed an English IPA for my graduation party. It is the same grain bill as Evil Genius II, which we brewed almost 2 years ago and was awesome. I toned down the bittering hops from 1.5 oz. of Challenger to an ounce, put in an ounce of fuggles for 15 minutes, an oz. of Saaz for 3 minutes at the end of the boil, and dry hopped with an oz. of Amarillo. I used the White Labs London yeast. The Amarillo gives a little American aroma to it but the yeast, fuggles, and lower bitterness definitely make it taste pretty English. Its 7.0% ABV (which was a little too high to serve at a graduation party it turns out). But the beer is delicious. I have 4 left that I didn't give away and they're burning a hole in my closet floor. I think it is a great beer to introduce people to some bitterness. Its right at 45 IBUs, which when balanced against the big bill of Marris Otter and some dextrin malt is not too bitter for an amateur, which is what I was going for.
I also have a liter of mead fermenting in my closet. Only a liter because I just wanted to try making a mead and didn't want to move a 5 gallon carboy to North Carolina in 2 weeks. I have a few Gary Cold-one's (Stout) and Slumbeer Millionales (IPA) left to drink, but I'm waiting on those for something special.
People gave me a lot of good beer for graduation and I can't wait to start trying it.
After we move and get settled in I'd like to try brewing a Saison or a Flemish Red. These have quickly become two of my favorite style beers.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Brew Day 5/15/10

Brewed ~6 gallons today, half will be fermented with a lager yeast (Wyeast Oktoberfest) and the other half with the Wyeast 1968 (London ESB). The grainbill is basically a Oktoberfest/Maerzen type of beer. This will be my first lager in a while, the starter was not going very strong when I pitched it, but hopefully the beer will get going soon. The idea with the 1968 portion will be to have a nice yeast cake to pitch a big English Barleywine in a couple weeks....and to have some nice English 'session' beer.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Dark Sour Saison

Basically for 5 gallons I had this:

11 lbs Pilsner Malt
1.5 lbs Wheat Malt
.6lbs Aromatic Malt
.5lbs Special B
1lbs Dark Candi Syrup D2

Any hop @ 60 minute addition for ~25 IBU's
Mash at 148-150, 60-70 minute boil, OG: 1.071(high for the style, but got much better efficiency than I was expecting)

I scaled it up to ~7.5 gallons so Adam and I could have about 3.5 gallons each.

This was put onto the yeast cake from a previous Saison using the Wyeast Saison 3724 (DuPont strain) and the dreggs of Fantome Hiver Saison (this has a Lactobacillus strain and at least one Brettanomyces strain). That Saison came out very dry and sour, a little more sour than I was hoping actually, it was done in about 5-6 weeks and bottled (it was so dry when I tasted the sample I didn't even bother checking the final gravity, had to be below 1.005 though). The Fantome Lacto strain is reportedly a very strong strain, and the Brett when used for primary fermentation does not take very long, so in this sense it is not the 'typical' sour beer that takes months and months to finish. I am most interested in trying Adam's version versus mine, his was fermented much warmer and in a bucket versus mine cooler and in a carboy. As of today 5/14/10 the beer still has a bubble or two on the surface and has not cleared, once it does I will take a sample and report back.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Update from Seth Hammond

Inaugural post, kick ass. Thanks for setting this up Ethan.

Currently fermenting:

Dark Sour Saison (brewed with Adam H): Wyeast Saison yeast and dreggs from Fantome bottle, basically a standard Saison with the addition of dark candi syrup and special B malt

Belgian Quad: this is in one of my bourbon barrels

English Barleywine: also in a bourbon barrel, came out kind of light for the style, thinking of blending with something (or possibly adding cherries)

Bottle Conditioning: English Brown Ale, sort of a mix between and English Brown, Porter and a Red Ale, brewed with Wyeast 1968, really like this yeast, saved the yeast cake for another English Barleywine which I will brew soon.