Apollo - sun god

Apollo - Greek god of the sun.

I love to drink a nice hoppy pale ale on a sunny summer day. Apollo is a hop that I have never used so I fixed that today. I made a pale ale with all late hops - that is the hops were added at the flameout. I then whirlpooled and added some more hops where I started to chill.
Into to fermenter @ 1.046, so it should make a nice session beer in 5 weeks.

Still waiting on one more review for the Hefeweizen experiment...

June 30.

English or Scottish Pale Ale

The last grain order I placed I picked up a sack of Thomas Faucet Golden Promise malt in addition to the regular Thomas Faucet Maris Otter. I decided to do a double brew day yesterday and made the same Pale Ale but one mash would have the Maris Otter and the other would have Golden Promise.
I then split each one of those batches and pitched two different yeast - the normal WLP002 (Fuller strain) and WLP023 (Burton).  Based on previous experiments (Hefeweizen) I could end up with four different beers. Brew day was uneventful, just long...

While the first beer was chilling and the second beer was mashing, I ran out to get some ice so I could chill the second beer. I went to Wegman's to pick up ice, a couple Tritip roasts and then (wth) I grabbed a couple size packs. I have over 50 gallons a beer in the garage and none ready to drink. The first six pack was a Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA and the other was Acme IPA. Firestone is a great beer and I had to get the Acme because of the label.

Still waiting on one review or the Hefeweizen and I'll publish the results.

Fermenter experiment

I received feedback from Jamil Zainasheff and David Houseman on the Hefeweizen fermenter experiment. I'm waiting on Gordon Strong and I'll write everything up.
Jamil suggested a Brewstrong episode and Gordon suggested I write an article for  Zymurgy on the subject.

I'll write everything up and copy everyone and see if they think it has merit.

Blitzkrieg Mild - Father's Day

 I woke up early to brew on Father's Day. The goal was to brew a nice little mild, add some invert sugar late in the boil, and a ton of Fuggle hops late in the boil.

I set up the night before so all I had to do was wake up, heat water and mash.

Sounds like the best laid plans right?

The mash went fine as well as the boil. I decided to use my hop rocket in a new configuration - before the pump instead of after the pump - aka Tasty McDole style.  I used the hop rocket so I would be chilling with the counterflow chiller instead of the immersion chiller. Since the ground water was hot I decided to pump ice water through the chiller instead of just using the hose. Here's where things started to go wrong. 

First, I had the wrong fitting on the counterflow chiller and had to use the hose instead of the ice water.

Then I couldn't get the pump primed, then wort starts leaking  out one of the hoses. I fix the leak, and get the pump primed but spill boiling wort on my hand. The pickup tube in the kettle must have been moved so I left 1.5 gallons in the kettle. At this point I just want to get the beer in the fermenter because my parents are coming over for dinner.  Wort in the fermenter and I start to aerate the wort then my diffusion stone drops in the conical.

Ok, this batch is just a mess.
Blitzkrieg Mild seems like an appropriate name for this beer.

I checked the conical in the morning and I something ia fermenting.

I checked the conical tonight - day 2 of fermenting and the beer is @ 1.012. I can taste the invert sugar but the beer tastes a bit thin. I had amber malt in this recipe along with crystal, dark crystal, invert and maris otter. 

The process making this mild may have been a mess, but I like where this recipe could go.

Rain, Thunder, Lightning and SMOKE

Today was the second half of my brewday that was interrupted by rain yesterday.
I woke up to light rain and an ominous sky. My plan was to smoke a pork shoulder and brew a smoked lager. I made a tinfoil hat for the grill vents to keep the rain out of the smoker and then dragged the patio table and umbrella over the brewery.  The rain started and stopped, then the lightning and thunder started.  I took a break and headed inside. Thunder, lightning, and rain then subsided and I was able to complete my brewday without issue. The smoker ran a little hotter than I like but the pork shoulder still came out okay.

Redhead Lager

Today's brewday was a very hot day - humid and very sunny.  I was planning on brewing two brews today but I ended up getting a late start and only was able to get one in because mother nature didn't cooperate. So it looks like I'll be brewing again tomorrow.

I ended up brewing a German lager and used Carared. Carared is a malt from Weyermann that I have never brewed with before. 

Tomorrow is another lager but I'll be using  30% smoked malt in the grist.

But today was a red headed lager...

Hefeweizen - part 2 and part 3

HEFEWEIZEN AND FERMENTORS:

Here's this weeks brew:

50% German Wheat
50% German Pils

12 gallon batch of Hefeweizen split 2 ways at the fermentor.
All pitched with 1 and 2 smack pack of 3068 and O2 for 60 seconds.

Then brewed another batch - 6 gallon batch  of Hefeweizen.


4 gallons - open ferment
9 gallons - conical
4 gallons - bucket



Just finishing up a long day. Brewed two batches and kegged the last three batches, also made some brats, burgers, and a chicken on the grill.