The TBR Homebrewing thread

anyone else still brew at all?

 

Just ordered a dubbel and a pale ale. I might do the pale first - it's a Sierra Nevada clone, but I want to mess with it a little.

Also working on a recipe for a Southern English Brown, and teaming up on a Belgian brown that'll be added for one of the local brewfests.

 

Got these in.
American Pale Ale will be first, then I'll do the Dubbel with friends.

At some point, we'll team up on that Belgian Brown, too, and I'll have that Southern English Brown done for fall. Might do a christmas ale instead of the pumpkin porter, or just make a christmas porter.

After that, I really want to do a bohemian Pils. Never lagered before, personally, but have teamed up on a bock before (that I can't wait to taste in a month or so). The other hard part will be that this usually takes a decoction or step mash (I've been told that modern german barley doesn't really even require it anymore).

 

APA -
6.5 lb DME
.5 lb crystal 20L
.5 lb crystal 40L
.2 lb crystal 120L

60 min 1 oz cascade (pellet)
20 min 1 oz centennial (pellet)
15 min .75 oz amarillo (pellet)
10 min .5 oz cascade (whole flower)
5 min .5 oz cascade (whole), .25 oz amarillo (pellet)

finished at 1.052, and 55 ibu, which is lower than it could've been, I could've hopped more on the front end but didn't want to.

the ebrew deal was worth buying but I ended up going a different way with half of it. It was just a good way to get hops really. I ended up chucking aside the hallertau they wanted at bittering (1.75 oz) for a later project, and ended up buying the amarillo and another bit of cascade for it.

I also stole the centennial from the belgian at the last minute. It bothered me a little that they put centennial and glacier in a belgian or that they put US hallertau in an APA. So I need to get some Saaz for the belgian, but no worries. They also had only the 120 in there for crystal - .75 lb - which I cut in half, and it honestly didn't need. I should've left it alone after buying the 20 and 40.

 

My belgian brown's going to have five gallons going out to the masses today at beerfest. Should be awesome.

 

had five gallons of southern english brown at Charlotte Oktoberfest (ftw).


malty beers, hoppy beers, they make my house smell good. But nothing beats wit, really. The house is alive with vibrant smells. My first two wits were early on - two of my first five really. So I'd like to think I have my shit together a lot better. Designed my recipe a ways back. But my competition is in a month and it was time to get on with this (and two other batches (!)) this weekend, so one tonight and two more Sunday (an APA and a beer I designed from scratch, the Amish Breakfast Stout).

Anyway, first wit I've done using fresh ingredients. Couldn't find Indian Coriander, so had to use whatever was available at the local spice store. Ground it up a few minutes in advance. Used, instead of prepackaged orange peel, the zest of a few different citrus fruits - lemon, grapefruit, navel orange, tangelo.

Also planned on using chamommile, and forgot to put it in the boil. A full teabag was going to be too much already, IMO, so hopefully having it in the hot liquid for a few minutes but not in the boil will add aroma without too much flavor. I don't make a beer without fucking something up so that's my fuckup. It's cooling now, and maybe I can pitch before it gets too damn late.

 

Turned in the belgian brown, the wit, the coffee oatmeal pumpkin porter, and the APA turned out amber so it's entered as an amber. I'm hoping they do well at contest next weekend. A friend also turned in the SEBA above I had a hand in designing.

 

My brother-in-law's been brewing the best beers I've ever had recently. He's been all grain for a couple of years now and switched to kegging about six months ago. He makes an IPA dubbed the "tongue scraper" that he massively dry hops. Excellent stuff! I showed a buddy of mine his setup and low and behold, now he's brewing after investing a crapload in gear.

Only wish I had the space and patience. Oh well, all that beer would take away from my high end bourbon lust.

 

I'm about ready to go all-grain. Mostly for cost. Really want to keg, too, it's a pretty big pain at the end of the long wait to have to wait two more weeks in a bottle after spending an hour bottling.

The patience is the hard part, and keeping everything sanitized throughout is a pain.

 

He's go a pretty elaborate setup...so much so that he can now knock out 5 gallons in just about 2 hrs. He's got a two-tap setup on a dorm fridge that holds two 5 gallon soda kegs and the CO2. He's probably at the point now that he's beyond his investment cost and is actually saving money. He was wise about 12 months back and bought a bunch of hops and vaccuum sealed it for the freezer.