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!

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.

Classic Ale Brew Day

American Amber Ale

Pale Malt as the base

Caramunich for sweetness/maltiness 

Melanoidin for maltiness 

Chocolate as a pinch for color/flavor

Warrior, Simcoe, Citra, & Amarillo hops 

pine, citrus, tropical fruit, orange, etc.

Mashed at 154

Heating sparge water

Next we lauter to the kettle

Going with a single batch sparge

Sparge water a little hot, mash to 175

Vorlauft and drained

spent grains

Bringing it to a boil

Warrior addition made

Next is 45 minutes of boil

Flameout, Chilled, Racked to Carboy fermentor, & Aerated

Helper Cat Arlo

Original Gravity is 1.061

Pitched yeast & added blowoff tube just in case.  Fermentation will begin shortly!

Yakima Valley Hops

Today we received a great package from our friends at Yakima Valley Hops!  This should last a little while.

• Cascade 2014
• Chinook 2014
• Citra 2014
• East Kent Goldings 2013
• Amarillo 2014
• UK Fuggle 2013
• Some yeast
• Whirlfloc tablets
• Gypsum
• Bottling tablets 

Brew on!

Citra IPA Brew Day

Today, we brewed an all Citra Hop American IPA. This is batch 9 of this recipe, with small tweaks along the way.  The last batch scored second place for American style IPAs at the Music City Brew Off AHA BJCP homebrew competition in Nashville on 11/8/14.

The malt in the recipe was American 2-row Pale Malt as the base with Munich for breadiness/maltiness, Crystal 10L for light sweetness, Carafoam for body & head, & Melanoidin for sweet toastiness.  The hops were of course all Citra added as First Wort Hops, then 60, 15, 10, 5, 0, & Dry Hops.  The mash was a single infusion which rested at 152F.  We did a single batch sparge and 60 minute boil.  After chilling and racking to the carboy, we pitched Safale S-04 English yeast at 9pm into the 1.062 original gravity (OG) wort.

Black Rye Ale Brew Day

Today was an experimental brew day.  We took our Rye Pale Ale recipe and painted it black.  During the mash and sparge process, we had an esteemed guest stop by.

This was a 10 gallon batch, which tested the limits of our system.

Grist:

1. Pale Malt
2. Rye Malt
3. Vienna Malt
4. Biscuit Malt
5. Honey Malt
6. Crystal 75L
7. Melanoidin Malt
8. Carafa II Special (added to mash tun prior to sparge)

Hops:

• 60: Warrior
• 30-15: East Kent Goldings
• 15-0: Amarillo & Cascade
• Dry: Amarillo & Cascade

Yeast:

1. American Ale
2. American Ale II

Notes:
American Ale showed signs of finishing at about day 5, where American Ale II still had krausen, but little airlock activity at day 7.  This turned out pretty dark; hopefully it gives a touch of roast like a black IPA.

Extra Special Bitter Brew Day

We brewed an English Pale Ale (aka ESB) today using White Labs 005 English Ale yeast.  The color looks great and we can't wait to try the finished product.

This is the kettle with the chiller and auto-siphon after racking was complete.

The color looks very caramel/toffee:

We are looking forward to this one!

Safale Battle: S-04 vs. US-05

The showdown!

I have made several beers with both Fermentis Safale S-04 (English Ale) and US-05 (American Ale).  Typically, the type of beer style matches with the choice of yeast because it will produce appropriate qualities to the beer type.  English yeast will attenuate less, leaving a higher final gravity for a more malt-focused beer and American yeast will attenuate more, resulting in a lower final gravity for a dryer beer.

In the spirit of experimentation, I wanted to compare the characteristics attributable to the Safale S-04 and US-05 yeast strains in the same wort.  This would also give me a chance to try out some 10 gallon batches on my system.  I split the grains into two mashes and combined the wort from them, boiled for the hour, then cooled it with an immersion chiller.  I split the wort into two 5 gallon class carboy fermenters, and pitched the American strain in one and the English strain in the other.

I have done this with the last two batches of homebrew, using two of my most established recipes.

• Citra IPA with OG of 1.058
• Amber Ale with OG of 1.050

Both of these are currently still in the carboys, but I am already noticing big differences in the yeast characteristics.  These were both originally American Pale Ale/IPA styles, but I am hypothesizing that the use of the English yeast will push those versions into the English IPA and English Pale Ale/Extra Special Bitter (ESB) style.  Two brew days will ultimately result in 200 bottles of 4 different types of beer!

I will post the findings of my experiment, focusing on these attributes:

• Color - big differences, including a "color swap" during fermentation
• Attenuation - comparison of the final gravities
• Flocculation - how did the yeast drop out of the beer?
• Fermentation activity - English was way faster and had a much larger Krausen
• etc.

I should be bottling the IPA in about a week and the Amber about a week after that.  I will share the results at a later date.

English on the left and American on the right.

American on the left and English on the right.