Pumpkin....I love me some Pumpkin brews. But the Imperial too...that sounds tasty as well. I am going on a cross country beer trip when I get home from Afghan...should be awesome
Homebrewers - Whats Fermenting?
- Thread starter BeerAdvocate
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Let me know when you get back from shitcanistan and I'll hook you up. I haven't been to that hell hole but Iraq was enough fun for me. Then I got sent to Turkey where I severely punished my alcohol processing facilities and smoked three or four cigars a day. Now I work at a brewery and still home brew so life is good.
So I brewed the pumpkin stout today. The unfermented wort tastes AWESOME, has a slight overly bitter edge but that will smooth out with fermentation. I boiled maple syrup, lactose sugar, and some first wort runnings down to near soft ball stage. So it was seriously thick sugar that dropped like clumps off the spoon. I ended up with just over 9 gal of wort in the fermentor 1.079. I hope my lowish mash temp makes up for the massive amount of caramelized sugars I threw into the boil. I caramelized the lactose, some first wort, and maple syrup. Then the boil got six sticks of cinnamon and a half a whole nutmeg freshly ground that went into a spice ball. I aimed for just less than 20ibus on bitterness. It smells like awesome.
The sour stout I brewed a few weeks ago went into the barrel. One batch was "normal" and transferred with no issues. The other batch was "sick" meaning extremely viscous. If you blew black snot out of your nose with a sinus infection that is what the viscosity of this beer was like. I had to basically pump it from my fermentor into the barrel using an autosiphon. The gravity of the combined batches after primary fermentation was 1.041 so it's only about 50% attenuated however, I think the viscosity is throwing the hydrometer off big time. It's probably closer to 1.035.
Just curious, What temp did you mash at? Even with a low mash temp it sounds like with the caramelized sugar and lactose addition that it will finish in the mid 1.020s. Sounds good though. I seem to remember you mentioning it before but do you use roasted pumpkin or canned?
Yeah, my first deployment was in Iraq...it was whatever. This one has been crazy for sure. You are living my dream, friend. Working in the cigar or beer industry is where I feel I belong. I am a very personable man with passion for my work. Once I am out of the army (Feb 2014) I will begin my quest to work in an industry I love. Thanks for looking out for me Smoking, gives me something awesome to look forward to when I get home.
I'm hoping it finishes in the high teens to low 20s. I went in hot on the mash like 158 let that sit for 10 min, then I went in with the pumpkin and it settled between 146 and 147. Then like I said I pulled a gallon of wort added a 32oz bottle of maple syrup, and 2lbs of lactose. I boiled it the entire time it was lautering, and boiling until it had reduced by at least half. I figured it was ready when the drops were falling as clumps off my spoon plus it was just a bubbling mass of sugar basically. I didn't realize how much pumpkin we added until this morning. I bought six 29oz cans and planned on using 4 of them, we didn't do anything but open them and scoop the pumpkin out with my hand. Then we saw how much space was left in the mash and figured we'd just throw the last two into the mash. That's over 10lbs of pumpkin in a 19lb grist. Primary has basically died down at this point and I'm past high krausen. I will take a gravity reading in a few days to see what I'm looking at. I used Safale S04 because I'm lazy and it works fine. Only thing with S04 is that you need to give it time because I thought it was finished in the past and due to its hard flocculation if/when you transfer it kicks back up a little bit and attenuates a little further. So I'll do a secondary transfer for this just to be sure it's done done.
Recipe if you guys are interested was:
68.2% Pale Malt (I used Bairds Maris Otter, due to having it on hand)
9.1% Crisp Brown
9.1% Carafa III
9.1% Lactose
1L Costco Grade A Dark Amber maple syrup (would have preferred grade B Dark but costo was priced right)
Aim for 20ibus (I used some 13%aa Nugget)
I made my water to closely resemble Endinburgh Scotland (I use RO water from a vending machine because my tap water blows donkey dick).
60min boil
My end of boil volume was 9.5 gallons and I left about a half gallon on the bottom of the pot as sedimented spices and trub. To the boil I added six whole cinnamon sticks and a half a whole nutmeg ground with a microplane. I don't like super spiced beers and this comes across as nice and reserved on the spicing.
Recipe if you guys are interested was:
68.2% Pale Malt (I used Bairds Maris Otter, due to having it on hand)
9.1% Crisp Brown
9.1% Carafa III
9.1% Lactose
1L Costco Grade A Dark Amber maple syrup (would have preferred grade B Dark but costo was priced right)
Aim for 20ibus (I used some 13%aa Nugget)
I made my water to closely resemble Endinburgh Scotland (I use RO water from a vending machine because my tap water blows donkey dick).
60min boil
My end of boil volume was 9.5 gallons and I left about a half gallon on the bottom of the pot as sedimented spices and trub. To the boil I added six whole cinnamon sticks and a half a whole nutmeg ground with a microplane. I don't like super spiced beers and this comes across as nice and reserved on the spicing.
Bottling some more of the barrel aged stout. Surprising that at 12% it actually holds foam pretty well.
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Holy chit...12%? That brew looks freaking amazing!!!
mthhurley
BoM December 2011
FYI to all the home brewers that use Midwest Supplies.
http://www.scmagazine.com/home-brewing-and-wine-making-company-website-cracked-open-by-hackers/article/309556/#
http://www.scmagazine.com/home-brewing-and-wine-making-company-website-cracked-open-by-hackers/article/309556/#
I think my last order through them was with a now expired card. I will double check though. Thanks for the heads up.
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Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2
Hydrometer sample for my smoked märzen tasted awsom! Was afraid that the smoked malt portion was a little light but turned out perfect. Waiting for the sample to degas so I can see how my numbers came out. I'm predicting a little high on the FG by maybe 2 or 3 points. But it may not be a bad thing. Clear as a bell too. Woot!
Edit:
Looks like it ended up 2 points high. Not to bad for my second lager. Was shooting for 1.013/1.014 and ended up at 1.015. I can live with that.
Edit:
Looks like it ended up 2 points high. Not to bad for my second lager. Was shooting for 1.013/1.014 and ended up at 1.015. I can live with that.
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Awesome Moldman! Congrats on the brew brother
Indeed you should. That smoke is actually on my wish list as well. Enjoy man!
Nice thread! I've dialed back on the brewing since the 2nd kid came along but I'll have to check in here from time to time.
I'm going to be kegging a Westvleteren 12 clone soon. I hope to brew an IPA this week as well. I'm lucky to have Northern Brewer down the road.
I'm going to be kegging a Westvleteren 12 clone soon. I hope to brew an IPA this week as well. I'm lucky to have Northern Brewer down the road.
I envy you all. I will get to brewing at some point...have a lot of reading to do to even know where to start