Pale Ale Brew Day

I was the co-brewer today.

Pale Ale with some great hops. 1.052 with Conan yeast.

Cheers!

Brew Day Video

At long last, I filmed shots of brewing an all-grain batch of a Honey Double IPA and strung the clips together into an 8-minute video on YouTube.  It illustrates all the steps involved in brewing a batch of beer from milling the grains through pitching the yeast.

The beer turned out great and the honey flavors really shined through.
Cheers!

Carboy and Keg Washer

We got a new piece of cleaning equipment and it works great.  It is the Mark II Keg and Carboy Washer and is basically a pump attached to a sprayer tube with a basin and stand.  I ran the primary fermentors from the Pale Ale through it with some hot water and Oxy Clean Free and was pleased with the results.  It still requires using a carboy brush for the caked on yeast from the krausen, but saves time and water and I am pleased with it.  There are some attachments that allow you to run cleaning solution through hoses as well that I will test out soon.

Here's a shot of the 10 gallon batch of Pale Ale with split Conan (Alchemist) and Pacman (Rogue) yeast in the secondary fermentors.

They both clocked in at 1.010 from 1.052, which will be 5.5% ABV.  I used 90.3% Rahr American 2-row base malt with 2.2% German Carared (24L), 3.2% American Caramel-10, and 4.3% American Carapils malts.  The hops are a "clean out the freezer" method with some Apollo, Centennial, Citra, Simcoe, Pine Fruit, Jarrylo, and Columbus.

I will dry hop these for a week and get them into kegs once we kick the leftover Rye Pale Ale from our field party.

Cheers!

Kegerator 2.0

Our newest project is to keg more beer!  I have a new Blichmann Beer Gun that I need to get in the practice of using.  In upgrading the kegerator, I am going to move the CO2 tank and regulator to the outside of the refrigerator, drill a hole for the air tube line, silicone seal around it, affix the gas distributor to the inside of the fridge where it will be easy to access, and have extra room for a fourth keg to condition or possibly a carboy to cold crash on the inside.  I will also shorten the extra gas tubing as it typically gets all tangled up and confusing for what goes where.  It will also be a good opportunity to clean the beer lines and faucets as well.

One recent issue I have been having is hop debris from dry-hopping clogging the dip tube and post, causing a blockage in the flow.  To combat that, I thought of cutting the dip tube, but decided to test out just bending the tube so it is not touching the bottom of the keg.  So far, so good on that experiment as I rescued a half-full keg of Rye Pale Ale leftover from our last big party.  We carefully transferred an IPA and an Amber Ale into kegs and they are awaiting a place in the newly configured beer fridge.

Note: Accidentally drilling through the electric line and having to splice a copper line makes this project a lot more difficult!

Tank on the outside:

Kegs on the inside:

Snake in the yard:

Cheers!

Brewery Update

Due to the lengthy summer vacation absence and our computer being in the repair shop, it has been a while since our last post.  Here's a new logo I have been working on:

Keg Party

The Rye Pale Ale and American Pale Ale were successfully served at a party in Maryland on July 13.  They both tasted great and we had many compliments from the Bud Light crowd.  I had several issues with the liquid dip tube and post clogging continuously on one of the kegs, so we had to improvise and rest the keg on it's side.  I will be evaluating options for fixing the issue, such as a dip tube screen or stainless steel scrubby pad over the end and possibly shortening the tube an inch.  We camped out at the party, but somehow lost our air mattress pump, so having the CO2 tank proved valuable as it was used to fill the mattress!  It is amazing how much gas is in that 5 pound tank.

Fermentors

There is beer in three of the secondary carboys.

1. Imperial Stout made on 6/7 with an OG of 1.090
2. American IPA made on 6/23 with an OG of 1.071
3. American Amber Ale made on 7/2 with an OG of 1.057

Next week, we will dry-hop the IPA and Amber and prepare some secondary additions for the imperial stout.  I am thinking cacao nibs, some mild chile peppers, and possibly some cinnamon.

There is beer in two of the primary carboys.  This was a 10-gallon batch split with different yeasts with a 1.052 original gravity.

1. American Pale Ale brewed on 7/4 with Giga Yeast GY054 Vermont IPA yeast
2. American Pale Ale brewed on 7/4 with Wyeast Pacman yeast

Because I turned off our A/C during our week-long trip, the basement temperature rose from it's typical 64F, which will influence the amount of dissolved CO2 in solution and therefore the amount of priming sugar needed for bottle conditioning.  Because of that, I plan to keg as many of these as I can and may either CO2 force carbonate them or do a combination sugar carbonation and CO2.

I will be working on my brew day video soon.

Cheers!

Peach Pale Ale Bottled

Wheat-Pale Ale with 7 pounds of GA peaches added to the secondary fermentor.

45 bottles + 2 to Chattanooga for the Fugetaboutit! competition in the Fruit Beer category.

Looking forward to this batch!

Pale Ale Brew Day

Today was a big brew day. Back to back Vienna Rye Pale Ale and a Maris Otter Pale Ale with American hops. I am low on the 2-row, so these are unique in their base malt with the German and English barley, but it should come out nicely, albeit more bread crusty, which I like.

Rye was 1.054 with American Ale II

Maris was 1.056 with California Ale

They should get down to 1.012 - 1.014 and be good ~5% brews. Excited for the new malt experiment!

These will be kegged for a field party in July!

Cheers!