Hefeweizen and Fermentors:

I want to brew the same beer and ferment it with 6 different fermentations to see if there is a difference.
6.5G carboy
6G better bottle
half 14G conical
full 14G conical
open shallow square ferment
6G bucket

Here's this weeks brew:

50% German Wheat
50% German Pils

12 gallon batch of Hefeweizen split 3 ways at the fermentor.
All pitched with 1 smack pack of 3068 and O2 for 60 seconds.

4 gallons - 6.5g carboy
4 gallons - 6g better bottle
4 gallons - 14g conical

NY, NY for the day

I was in NYC for the day for work - Amazon Cloud Summit. Good stuff, if only I could get the company to invest it. But I digress, this blog is about beer.
On the way back to Penn Station, I was able to stop for a pint or two.
I stopped at Stout on 33st. Bunch of kids, had a lot of beers on tap but nothing really interesting for me.
Wait a tick, is that Brooklyn Lager I see on tap? I just happened to have a hoppy lager fermenting at home.
Ah, just what I needed after a long day, a refreshing beer with noble hops in the finish, I liked it., and I hope my latestlager turns out as good. Like I said Stout - too many kids for me,  so I move on to Penn Station. Wait, I have a few minutes to spare and I'm hungry. I decided to stop at Rattle and Hum. Decent tap list, friendly bartender  and decent food. I order a Bear Republic Black Racer - cause Racer 5 is one of my favorites - cause Speed Racer is the best. 8 oz. Black Racer on cask - small ipa and to be honest small flavor.  Sampled (1oz) of Bear Republic IPA (Apollo, Delta) - Delta no flavor , Apollo I think I picked up some hops. I'm making an Apollo pale ale in a few weeks, I can't believe this hop was tame - these beers must have been old. I order a pint of Bear Republic XP pale ale. Little bit of grapefruit, but I must be spoiled with the low alcohol pale ale hop bombs I've been brewing. Ordered 2 chicken sliders and they were tasty, a bit hot, and tiny. I'd go back to Rattle and Hum, nice little beer bar.
Off to the train, I make the  express with 15 minutes to spare. As I was waiting in Penn Station, I thought to myself, I could have stopped at another place and tried another beer. Oh well, work tomorrow and then off to Vegas for the week for work.
I'm sure I'll be stopping at Vegas Gordon Biersch for a Hefeweizen on Saturday. That should get me in the mood for my Hefeweizen yeast experiment the following weekend.

Go Flyers!!!

Czech Please

Brewday - For something different, I decided to fly sparge today's beer. About half way through  I remember why I don't fly sparge on my system. I have a hard time maintaining the temperature in the mash tun.  I bailed half way through and batch sparged. I ended up getting more than I needed for my initial volume. To remedy,  I boiled longer before I added my first hop charge. I'm going to try to fly sparge again when it's a little warmer.

My next two brewdays will be dedicated to my yeast experiment regarding German Hefeweizen. I need to stick to my repeatable process for those two sessions.

Czech Pils

I decided I'm going to brew this weekend. I need a nice Pils for summer time visitors, but something with some hops.

Czech Please
Pils mat, handful of carapils, handful of carafoa, lots of Satz hops.

No "bittering hops" Citra Pale Ale

I just tapped my Citra Pale Ale. This is the first time using Citra hops as well as using a technique where no bittering hops and all hops are added at flameout. The wort is then whirlpooled for 20-60 minutes.
I used 56 grams at 0 minutes and then a whirlpool for 30 minutes. After the wort had completed fermenting it was dry hopped for 7 days on 28 grams of Citra.
Impressions -
No DMS - the extended whirlpool did not produce any DMS precursors.
The Citra hop has  similiar characteristics to Summit (high myrcene level issues- citrus, onion). I must be sensitive to these characteristics as I picked them up inititally, but as the beer conditioned they faded.
Beer had enough bitterness to carry the malt, but was not bitter and was very smooth - I like the 0 minute technique.
I would use Citra again but would blend with another hop - maybe something piney to go with this hop.

The Masters

This week is one of my favorite 4 days of golf - The Masters.

My son is a high school junior and a decent golf player in his own right.  We both enjoy watching the show in Augusta, GA. I talked to a Division 1 golf coach today (think blue and white) about how to help my son pick a school and get schools interested in him. It was quite an eye opener on how much work it is to get things lined up.

Anyway back to the Masters - who's going to win?

History of Dunleavy Brewing

Reading my favorite blog "Shut up about Barkley Perkins" I wondered if there was ever a Dunleavy Breweries in Ireland or England  in the past. Well, I did some research and the answer is....


Nope.

Citra Pale Ale

After 7 days of dry hopping my first"hop bursted" pale ale was off to crash.
Citra hops used in hop bursting - 30 ibus target and then 1 oz of Citra dry hop.
We'll find out how it tastes some time next week.