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!

San Diego National Homebrew Competition Entry

We packed and shipped the IPA to the National Homebrew Competition Finals! Judging is 6/11 and the awards ceremony is 6/13. We are hopeful for the best!



The IPA has Rahr 2-Row Pale, German Cara-Red (20L), Crystal 10, and Carapils malts with Amarillo, Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, Citra, Chinook, and Crystal hops.  We were pleased with the batch that used GigaYeast GY054 Vermont Ale yeast as it had less attenuation, but gave a brighter color and aroma than the Safale US-05 American Ale and White Labs 001 California Ale yeasts.

AHA National Homebrew Competition 2015

We were fortunate enough to advance an American IPA in the Nashville first round of the 2015 American Homebrewers Association National Homebrew Competition!

Since we floated the keg of that batch at a local homebrew competition, we got a chance to rebrew it with a few tweaks based on tastings and feedback.

It is a San Diego style IPA with plenty of Pacific Northwest hops.

The final round with entries placing 1, 2, & 3 in each category from each of 12 regional sites will be judged in June in San Diego at the National Homebrewers Conference.

The grains are:
US Pale, UK Pearl, Crystal 10, Cara-Red (20), & Carapils

The hops are a mix of:
Amarillo, Columbus, Chinook, Centennial, Ahtanum, Simcoe, Citra, & Crystal

Fermentors were 64 and got good attenuation. Bottled.

Honey Imperial IPA Brew Day

On Sunday, we made a batch of Imperial IPA and took some videos of the action.  Once the video is edited, we will post it here.

Batch Moving Day + Ginger Ale

Today was batch transfer day.  We had 10 gallons of Pale Ale and 5 gallons of IPA that finished in the primary.  One Pale Ale went directly in the keg with a sock of Ahtanum hops and the other went into a secondary fermenter.  The IPA with an original gravity of 1.064 went into the secondary fermenter at a gravity of 1.011, which equates to about 7% ABV with 70 IBU.  In addition to the three transfers, we made a 5 gallon batch of ginger ale with fresh ginger, lemons, sugar and water.  Here are a few shots of the action.

Dry hop Ahtanum:

Pale Ale transfer:

Washing bottles with recycled cleaning water:

Racking Pearl Malt IPA:

Ginger Ale:

Cheers!

Fawcett Pearl IPA Brew Day

Today we brewed the base malt challenge IPA for my homebrew club with 95% Thomas Fawcett Pearl malt and 5% Carafoam.  Hops are Columbus, Simcoe, and Amarillo.  The target ABV is 7% with 70 IBU.

Weighing the malt:

Heating strike water for mash:

Milling the malted barley:

Grains into mash tun:

Water into mash tun:

Vorlauft:

Lauter:

Measure hops:

Draining with first wort hops:

Boiling strong:

5 minutes remaining:

Racked into carboy and pitched yeast:

The original gravity was 1.064 and the yeast is Wyeast American Ale 1056.  Hopefully we can get it down to around 1.010.

O Rye Ale Bottling Day

Today is the bottling and kegging day for our Rye Pale Ale.  Check out our snazzy new labels.

We have 10 gallons of this Rye Ale with half on Safale US-05 American Ale yeast and half on Safale S-04 English Ale yeast.  Somewhat surprisingly, both finished with the same Final Gravity of 1.014.  The Original Gravity was 1.058, which puts this at 5.8% ABV.  The grist was Pale US 2-Row, Munich, Vienna, Rye, Biscuit, and Honey Malt and the hops were Columbus, Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, Cascade, and Amarillo, which should play well with the malts.  This will be a great beer for tailgating at the Braves home opener on April 10!

Racking to keg below:

Bottling via bucket:

Sanitized bottles:

Hop shrapnel:

Crowned and cased:

49 longnecks and 2 bombers:

Packed for competition:

Cheers!

Amber Ale bottled

47 bottles of Hopswell Amber Ale with 3.4oz sugar.

Bottle-o-rama

Briarcliff Brewing's Bourbon Barrel Barleywine was bottled in the basement by us both.  Alliteration aside, this one should be a winner.  The bourbon smell permeated the room, which should play nicely in the 11% ABV beer.

Additionally, we bottled the Northern English Brown Ale.