Your current / planned brews

feylya

I've an azacca oatmeal IPA that's overdue a bottling, with a dark saison and another batch of strawberry blonde to go. Hopefully I'll get them done this month.

Lovely Bloke

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

So, tomorrow is the brew day for the beer that will be drank over the festivities.

Milk Chocolate Stout.

Opened a bottle tonight, we purposely went low with the carbonation on this one to enhance the creamy mouthfeel - perhaps a shade too low for some people.

Lovely choc aroma from the husks and the lactose is doing what it's supposed to.

Nice beer.

calnand

I tried my beer made with the husks after 2 months in the keg, and it's improved hugely. Lovely chocolate flavour and nicely balanced with the roasted barley. I put in lactose as well but it probably could have done with more, it's still a bit bitter from the husks. I'll definitely be trying it again. I've 5L of the beer aging in a carboy with whiskey soaked vanilla pods and cocoa nibs, I'm looking forward to trying that one when it's ready. I've two other beers made with the husks from other Brewers so I need to compare them to mine as well.

RasTa

I can't believe this thing got over $1m in crowdfunding

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/161302347/fizzics-waytap-untap-the-full-taste-of-beer-with-s

feylya

feylya wrote: »

I've an azacca oatmeal IPA that's overdue a bottling, with a dark saison and another batch of strawberry blonde to go. Hopefully I'll get them done this month.

Bottled the oatmeal IPA. Tastes fantastic up front until I get to my usual off flavour. Need to get a water filter for the house!

The blonde tastes fantastic - insanely clean, lovely maltiness, and it's really clear. That's been racked on top of ~2 kilos of strawberry puree and 30g of vanilla extract. Looking forward to that.

The dark saison was done today. Grains are still giving me grief with efficency, but thanks to spray malt extract, I got 22 litres at 1.080. Hopefully it'll turn out well...

Now, to clean the Grainfather

loyatemu

loyatemu wrote: »

have an American Amber in the fermenter, didn't really hit my mash figures though, so it's going to be 4-4.5% rather than 5%. Also had issues with hops pellets clogging my tap so there's now a lot of hop debris sitting at the bottom of the fermenter. Might use hop bags the next time, every brew is a learning experience...

bottled this yesterday, tasted really good. I was aiming for something along the lines of Wicklow Wolf's AA, and it seemed pretty similar. Bottling is a pain in the nuts though, never seems to go smoothly

also a word of advice about fermenter taps - disassemble and clean them each time you use the bucket as they accumulate crud. I couldn't believe the gunk in my bottling bucket tap yesterday - previously I've just run some sanitiser through it but I'll be taking it apart each time from now on. You can generally remove the spigot by pushing/knocking it out of the tap body for a better clean.

feylya

Got bored so I've planned out a few more brews:
2 different East coast DIPAs
A bretted East coast IPA
Imperial Stout
Barley Wine
Citra SMaSH
Citra IPA

That should see me through til June or so :eek:

blueshed

today im brewing an Ordinary Bitter with some wlp002 from an Oatmeal Brown ale hopefully i bottle this evening.

i've also got a Mild that i brewed over the xmas almost ready to bottle.

jenearl

blueshed wrote: »

today im brewing an Ordinary Bitter with some wlp002 from an Oatmeal Brown ale hopefully i bottle this evening.

i've also got a Mild that i brewed over the xmas almost ready to bottle.

I'm also looking to brew a mild - any tips?

Lovely Bloke

Doing an Irish Stout on Saturday, for the nationals. About 5% ish. Simple grain bill (Pale, choc and roast), and some Kent Goldings at 60 and 10. Irish Ale yeast.

Also received an Inkbird and brew belt recently and will be getting a fridge on Saturday, so my first time with proper temp control. Hopefully that can iron out a few issues we've had with fruity esters the last while.

RasTa

Spent the day doing a milk stout, really not arsed brewing it either so everything was rough. No idea how much lactose I added, think the boil length was roughly 75mins. Magnum at 75 and EKG at 10.

Might throw some frozen raspberries in before kegging.

1065 with 23L

I'd love to get a grainfather type device.

Lovely Bloke

I've a Bulldog you're welcome to see in action tomorrow if you'd like.

beans

I cooked a 'single-hop' IPA with simcoe pellets on Sunday, only to realise that I had under-estimated how much hops I'd need. Ended up using an old vac-pac of cascade flowers at the 5 minute mark to compensate... here's to unintended consequences!

18L @ 1057 OG
Wyeast 1056

BeardySi

Bottling my ESB tonight, brewing some of Greg Hughes' Spring Beer tomorrow.

Lovely Bloke

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

Doing an Irish Stout on Saturday, for the nationals. About 5% ish. Simple grain bill (Pale, choc and roast), and some Kent Goldings at 60 and 10. Irish Ale yeast.

Also received an Inkbird and brew belt recently and will be getting a fridge on Saturday, so my first time with proper temp control. Hopefully that can iron out a few issues we've had with fruity esters the last while.

So the yeast was pitched into this on Monday evening (23rd) and using the inkbird and fridge held at 18.3c, it was down from 1050 to 1020 by thursday evening, raised the fridge up a degree for a couple more days, then up another degree on Monday coming, bottle late next week for the nationals.

Should be grand.

dasdog

Stuck on a batch of turbo cider for the summer. 23L LIDL Cloudy, 2L Pomegranate Juice (Rubicon), 3 teabags/small box of raisins. Has a brownish commercial look to it courtesy of the pomegranate which I'm hoping may counter some of dryness.

blueshed

Going to brew a Scottish heavy 70/ today with Wyeast 1728, hopefully in a few weeks i'll brew a Wee heavy with the harvested yeast.

feylya

Big New England IPA mashing atm. I started this way too late, but ah well.

Lovely Bloke

Rye IPA tomorrow

5kg Pale
1kg Rye

Going to bitter this with 50g Huell Melon, then put 45g Belma in for the last 10 mins

Dry hop for 4 days
80g Hallertauer Blanc
50g Styrian Goldings
40g Pacific Gem
15g Mosaic

That's a collection of left over hops from various brews over the last few months.

Lovely Bloke

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

Did a Black IPA on Saturday

6kg Maris and 400g Carafa Special 3, simple grain bill
75min mash at 66

30g Vic Secret @ 10min
100g Ella 1hr Hop stand after flameout
100g Galaxy & 70g Vic Secret Dry Hop 4 days

Should be ready to drink at Xmas

Got all 2016 Southern Hemisphere hops off Geter Brewed.

Won Bronze for this in the 1st leg of the Nationals today.

Delighted

beans

beans wrote: »

I cooked a 'single-hop' IPA with simcoe pellets on Sunday, only to realise that I had under-estimated how much hops I'd need. Ended up using an old vac-pac of cascade flowers at the 5 minute mark to compensate... here's to unintended consequences!

18L @ 1057 OG
Wyeast 1056

Got 15L bottled from this. Dry-hopped with 100g simcoe pellets for 7 days. Finished @ 1012. Simcoe is such a great hop!!

Lovely Bloke

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

Doing an Irish Stout on Saturday, for the nationals. About 5% ish. Simple grain bill (Pale, choc and roast), and some Kent Goldings at 60 and 10. Irish Ale yeast.

Also received an Inkbird and brew belt recently and will be getting a fridge on Saturday, so my first time with proper temp control. Hopefully that can iron out a few issues we've had with fruity esters the last while.

Bronze for this one too.

Three beers entered, and two bronze medals, decent haul.

aaronm13

Brewed a Left Hand Milk Stout clone yesterday and whole thing went really well, finally. First time using my new set up of a Coleman Xtream cooler and copper manifold. The Coleman is a fantastic cooler to use as a mash tun. Didn't loose a degree over the 75 minute mash.

My ikea digital thermometer went really screwy towards the end so looking online today for an alternative and none of the submersible probe ones seem to be any good. The acid in the Nash seems to mess them up. Like the idea of being able to constantly monitor my temps but with this mash tun I don't think I need to, that's just the control freak in me. Can anyone recommend a really good thermometer, preferably one with a probe but if they're going to fail I might as well just get a Thermapen.

BobMc

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

Bronze for this one too.

Three beers entered, and two bronze medals, decent haul.

Can I ask how you got on with the inkbird and brew belt, will be doing my first brew with a brew fridge soon, so any advice re fridge set up be appreciated

Lovely Bloke

BobMc wrote: »

Can I ask how you got on with the inkbird and brew belt, will be doing my first brew with a brew fridge soon, so any advice re fridge set up be appreciated

Won a medal for the first beer I brewed in it!

I don't know what to say to you, the wires on the inkbird are thin enough to mean you don't need to bother with drilling holes or anything.

Are you 100% sure your FV fits inside comfortably?

BobMc

Yep, got it off donedeal, brought a fermenter with me to try for size before I paid him for it, have tube heater on the way but have a brew belt already to hand

Lovely Bloke

IPA tomorrow, simple enough grain bill, pala malt and a bit of caramalt, mix of Amarillo, Mosaic and Citra at different points (middle, end and dry hop), also going to add some citrus juice and skin into the boil and "dry hop".

hooplah

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

also going to add some citrus juice and skin into the boil and "dry hop".

I have read of people doing this in a couple of ways - from dried peel, to vodka soaked peelings, pulp etc.

How do you do it?

Lovely Bloke

First time doing it, but I'll be going juice and zest into the boil, last 5 minutes.

then more juice and zest boiled together and added at the same stage as dry hopping.

hooplah

Cool, I'll be interested to hear how it goes.