What's in your fermenter??

JohnD · Post by **JohnD** » Wed May 09, 2007 7:52 pm

Just finished brewing a Belgian Strong Ale OG 1.085. Biggest beer that I have ever made. Batch was about 5 1/2 gallons.
5 1/2 # light DME
2# Munich malt
2 oz black patent malt
1# wheat DME
1 quart honey
1/2 oz Fuggles, 1/2 oz Tettnanger 35 min
1 oz Tettnanger 25 min.
1 oz Mt. Hood (or Hallertauer) 15 min
10z Hallertauer 10 min
1/2 oz Fuggles Dry hop secondary
4 oz maltodextrin
Servomyces
Irish Moss
Yeast fron Big Brew Belgian Combination of Trappist and Abbey yeast

5-19-07 gravity is down to 1.012-appears to be done with fermentation. Beer should be very dry(85% attenuation) and seriously "warming". Calculations figure out to 9.4% ABV.Time to rack to secondary, add dry hops, and wait for it to settle. Had to drink the few ounces I used to get a gravity reading. Really good! Very little residual sweetness, good Belgian character. I feel warm inside and suspect that if there was a pint involved, I might suffer from some temporary facial numbness.

Chris Alvey · Post by **Chris Alvey** » Wed May 23, 2007 6:50 am

I have a wheat going that is a standard Pale/Wheat grain bill with a little bit of Honey malt and Munich thrown in. Amarillo hops (in small quantities, thank you).

The yeast is the interesting part ... I had some old Wit yeast that I cultured back to life along with the dregs of an Upland Wheat that was also cultured.

So far, so good ... fermentation seems pretty standard. Now, the taste, that will be anyone's guess.

Dwayne_Delaney · Post by **Dwayne_Delaney** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:44 pm

Kegged an American Rye-Wheat made with Summit hops and a Sparkling Ginger Mead last week. Both are disappearing quickly.

psfred · Post by **psfred** » Sat May 26, 2007 4:39 pm

Finally got the fermentation started on the Oktoberfest I made last weekend -- Superior Lager yeast is NOT a lager yeast, it's inert below 60F. I gave up and siphoned off a slug of the yeast in the bottom of the Doppel yesterday and finally have some decent activity.

The Doppel is going to need to go into a keg in the next couple days (only three weeks primary fermentation on that!) so I guess I'll cook up a Vienna next. Be nice to do a normal sized mash for once.

The Oktoberfest test jar fermented down to 1.010, just a bit lower than I wanted (missed the strike temp on the conversion decoction), but it tastes great except for the esters from room temp fermentation.

Peter

Chris Norrick · Post by **Chris Norrick** » Sat May 26, 2007 9:50 pm

Well...I decided to make up a LARGE batch (6 gallons) of yeast starter and pressure can it to save time. I've not bought DME for awhile and was a little shocked by the price. So I just made my own with the pale ale grain I had on hand. It was really like a normal brew day except I only did around a 50 minute boil and had no hop additions. Nailed the mash temp. It turned out to be a long day after the brew with all the canning. Canning 6 gallons 7 quarts at a time takes a while...

Brewing another 10 gallons of the amber-red on Monday.

Justin Rumbach · Post by **Justin Rumbach** » Wed May 30, 2007 11:19 pm

Haha - six gallons of yeast starter is insane Chris! How long will those last or will they even go bad? I can see your tornado shelter now - drinking water, canned tuna, a.m. radio, batteries, seventeen cans of yeast starter....

BTW - are you going to use Irish Ale yeast in the Two Hearted clone? It is a nice fit IMO...

Chris Norrick · Post by **Chris Norrick** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:33 pm

Justin! Good to hear from you!

Well, I pressure canned it so it should be good for awhile. I use about a gallon of starter for each 10 gallon batch, so it won't be around long.

I'm still working on the recipe so thanks for the input on the yeast.

JohnD · Post by **JohnD** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:43 pm

Porter from Teach a Friend to Brew Day has really slowed down fermentation. Was bubbling like crazy! Safale 04 really took off. OG was 1.050. Won't worry about final gravity. It is what it is! Dropped my hydrometer! OOPS

Chris Alvey · Post by **Chris Alvey** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 11:56 am

The DunkelRyeZen got a bit out of hand temperature-wise (up to 75 at one point) and with the wheat grain/Hefe yeast combination definitely was foamy even with the foam control liquid added. Good news is, it's about done. I haven't tried it yet, I like to be surprised.

I think I am going to try to brew a Lager (Premium American Lager Style using Liberty hops) tomorrow. Now, I don't exactly have a lagering refrigerator, so I am going to use my fermenting cooler rig and put it in my outside closet. That should be somewhat lager-like in temperature. Maybe .. hopefully ... probably not.

Should be interesting.

JohnD · Post by **JohnD** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:05 am

I bottled porter from "Teach a Friend to Brew Day" yesterday. Primed w/ 1/2 cup of honey. Now it just needs a couple of weeks to carbonate.

sirgiovanni · Post by **sirgiovanni** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:57 am

Honey wheat Saturday.

Chris Norrick · Post by **Chris Norrick** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:30 pm

I did a all Willamette hop IPA on Sunday. I could only get whole leaf hops which clog my pump so I used every hop bag I could find. I pretty much filled the boil kettle with hop bags. Even had a hard time getting the chiller coil in there. Here is the 12 oz I used after the boil filling up a Lowe's sack. Another 4 will be dry hopped. (This is for a 10 gallon batch.)
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JohnD · Post by **JohnD** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:11 pm

Made a Chinook IPA today. Just testing out a recipe, so made a 1 gallon batch on the stove. Hope it is similar to Arrogant Bastard.

Chris Alvey · Post by **Chris Alvey** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:51 am

Firstly, I just want to commend you on this ...

I pretty much filled the boil kettle with hop bags

Secondly, I have a friend who is interested in homebrewing and we both share a great affinity for American Wheat beers (yea, don't tell anyone, it's the skeleton in my hop-loving closet.) Bell's brewery once had a series of American Wheat that they brewed with slightly different parameters and varies yeasts etc. http://www.bellsbeer.com/wheat.asp.

So, with that in mind, we have decided to start on our own Great Wheat Experiment and brew several versions of American Wheats over the course of the winter.

American Wheat v1.0
5# Pale 2 Row
5# White Wheat
2# Vienna
Liberty 1oz 60
Liberty 1oz 30
Safale US-05

About 1.050 (hydrometer broke)
20 IBU

Rather than formulating v1.1 (or 2.0) we're going to taste v1.0 and make necessary adjustments. Our target beers are somewhere in the style of Goose Island 312, Sierra Nevada Wheat, Pyramid Hefe, and Bell's Oberon.

sirgiovanni · Post by **sirgiovanni** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 7:32 pm

Here's the Wheat I did Saturday.

6 lb Weyerman's German Wheat
2.5 lb Blegian Pale
.5 lb Crystal Malted
1 lb Clover Honey
1.5 oz. Hallertau Boil
1 oz. Hallertau Finish

White Labs - Belgian Wit WLP 400

OG = 1.050
FG = 1.012