Homebrewers - Whats Fermenting?

[smokinghole]

Bottled up my rye saison today. It finished at 6.4% abv and I ended up with over three cases worth. I'll be dropping some of this off with other beer for a Belgian beer competition. I can drop off at a somewhat local store which is the only reason I'm entering.

 

[smokinghole]

I was able to finally try the finished product of my Olde Ale that I brewed back in November. I bottled the beer in May I believe. Well this weekend I grabbed a case of it and a few of my flip top bottles. It is awesome beer. The brettanomyces character makes for a very interesting beer. It's malty, with a smokey leather taste. The beer is ever so slightly tipped to the bitter end of the scale. In another six months or so it will be almost perfectly balanced. At that time the brettanomyces should also bring additional character and flavor forward.

Now I need to do a stout with this stuff that will take 6-8 months until I can bottle.

 

[smokinghole]

It's about goddamn time but I will be brewing either tomorrow or sunday! First up is 11gal of pumpkin ale that I'm splitting between a Scottish Ale yeast and a Belgian Ale yeast. WLP028 and WLP510 respectively. I thought it'd be interesting to try a belgian yeast at lower temps to see what it does. I baked 3 Fairy Tale pumpkins in the oven yesterday and scooped all the pulp out. I have probably 6lbs of pumpkin to go into the mash. Grain consists of Maris Otter, brown malt, touch of cherry smoked malt, caramel wheat, and flaked oats. Spiced with whole cinnamon sticks and fresh nutmeg at the end of the boil.

I may get around to brewing a second beer which would be 8 gal of IPA.

 

[mthhurley]

Brewing tomorrow after a loooong break. Might try and pull off a double brew too.

#1 is IPA recipe that I got from Adam that looks darn tasty.
#2 might by my Firestone Walker Union Jack clone. My first attempt at this was dead-nuts on and sadly, my wife loved the beer too. Easily the best clone recipe I've pulled off so I need to try it again to see if it was an accidental success or if I can replicate it.

 

[smokinghole]

HOLY HELL my mash tun is full. In retrospect I should have gone with between 1 and 1.25qts per lb of grain. I have a 13gal tun and I'm brewing up what I hope will be an 11gal batch of pumpkin that will get split between two different yeasts. I will have to let the grain convert remove some liquor and then add the pumpkin because of how full I have this tun. 28lbs of grain YUM!

 

[mthhurley]

Just heating up water....in chat and got the cam going.

 

[smokinghole]

Here's some pumpkin roasting for my pumpkin ale I brewed up on Friday. I used fairy tale pumpkins and roasted them in the oven until they were nice and soft. Then I scooped out all the bright orange flesh into a giant bowl.

Lastly there is my entirely too full mash tun. Next year I hope to have either A) a bigger mash tun, or B) go with only 1qt/lb of strike water because 1.25qt/lb didn't leave room for the pumpkin until I ran off 3 gal worth. The way I remedied that was to run off some of the wort into a separate 4gal kettle I use for misc. things. Then I tossed in some amylase enzyme and waited for room in the mash tun. Then I heated it up to stop enzymatic action and I dumped it into the mash to begin actual my sparge.

I have two fermentors cranking away. One english yeast and one belgian.

 

[smokinghole]

Well a little homebrew competition update. I entered my Witbier, Dark Strong and Saison in a Belgian style only competition. The saison lacked proper carbonation. That's fine I can take that. I bottled it with intention of the brett taking up the rear and providing additional carbonation after 3-4 months in the bottle. That didn't place.

The wit took third in the category which was good considering the showing at the first competition I entered the beer. The previous show it was a best of show (not entirely sure why but it was).

My Belgian Dark Strong that took second overall in the last competition took first in the dark strong category. Now for a little suspense. When I showed up I met one of the judging stewards at the door. He introduced himself, I introduced myself as Adam, he said "Adam Cole?". After I found the bathroom, while I was pissing Ithought to myself, one of my beers made an impression whether good or bad, because he knew my name. Long story short my dark strong won best of show for the entire AHA sponsored event with a grand master judge present. There were 93 entrants and some how by some dumb fucking stroke of luck I ended up on top!

Booyah!

 

[JRL]

Congrats on the win. That is no easy category to win and that is a lot of entries. You should do Pro Am next year at the GABF.

I have the IPA fermenting right now and also version 2 of the pumpkin ale. Should be able to bottle that next weekend.

 

[W.B.]

Best in show, congrats Adam!

 

[cvm4]

Way to go Adam!! Now get to bombing us all with the winners :rofl:

 

[mu_brian]

Congrats, Adam. Huge result!

 

[smokinghole]

I have to make the best of show winner again. The dark color and complexity I acheive is due to a very very simple recipe. Two pale malts and a dark candy syrup. The syrup I used is from a new company and they had a contest for people to enter homebrew competitions. They would give 10lbs for first place in the category and 20lbs of syrup for a best of show win. I'm their first customer to take a best of show so I'm getting 20lbs of syrup. That's $5/lb sugar at their manufacturer price. The retailers that carry as secondary retailers sell it at $7/lb. Once I get a new batch done up I'll certainly bomb a few guys here!

 

[smokinghole]

Well I bottled up half of my pumpkin ale brew. Last night I bottled up my Belgian yeast half ending at 9.2%abv. I also bottled up a red wine, the juice was Chilean Charmene (transplanted merlot). I need to check my starting gravity with that but it's north of 12% I'm sure.

 

[smokinghole]

New photo of my closet. There is only two boxes in there that contain bottles I bought. There's almost 10 cases in there with 5+ to be bottled this weekend. There's three cases of homemade wine. The red turned out pretty good, the white wine sucked I think. The white wine grape juice was the cause for the poor flavor.

I am thinking I'll be brewing again tomorrow I'm just not entirely decided on what to make. My big fermentor is full of IPA waiting to be bottled off.

 

[smokinghole]

Bottled up the English half of my pumpkin ale. It ended up at 1.010 which gives me 9.2%abv. I had hoped it would have finished at 1.020 but whatever it tasted good warm and flat. So in three weeks or so I should have a finished product to try. The interesting thing is it's sort of a blessing in disguise that it finished at about the same terminal gravity as the Belgian half. It gives me an almost 100% head to head comparison of the yeast.

Next in the bottles is a IPA once I get some caps.....

 

[JRL]

I just dry hopped the the IPA Friday. I will bottle it sometime next week. It is tasting really good right now. I started at a 1.068 and was reading a 10.18 at dry hopping. I think that is where it will finish.

Did another version of my Belgium Pale Ale last week and will probably start on a hard cider this week. Sounds like easy stuff to do.

 

[smokinghole]

Just got my 20lbs of free syrup from Candi Syrup Inc. as the additional prize to my Best of Show win at the Belgian only comp. I see lots of Belgian brewing in my very near future.

 

[vivalanation734]

If anyone wants to trade beer for cigars let me know. I'd love to try a few homebrews. I like everything except for Wheats/Wits.

 

[smokinghole]

Did a system upgrade this weekend. I installed a 3/4" ball valve on my kettle. In order to feed my new brewing pump. The big reason I got the pump was because I have burned myself in the past lifting hot water. So at the very least I can just pump hot water from my kettle to my hot liquor tank (cooler with ball valve). I might be brewing with it tomorrow.