OVHA Chat

I'll start things off......

5 gals. in the carboy of my first traditional mead made with some clover honey purchased from Hunter's Honey Farm in Martinsville, IN; http://www.huntershoneyfarm.com.

I also plan on making an Oatmeal Stout this weekend:

8.00 lb Pale Malt (Marris Otter)
1.00 lb Barley, Flaked
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 50L
1.00 lb Oven-toasted Oats
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt
0.75 lb Chocolate Malt
0.50 lb Wheat Malt
1.50 oz Sterling Leaf [6.5%]
1.00 oz Sterling Leaf [6.5%]
Safale SO-4

Note: This is a new recipe, any feedback??
Too little/too much roasted malts?
Anybody used or heard anything about Sterling hops?

That reminds me, I have two gallons of mead that are probably ready to bottle, or maybe rack one more time.

Well, just did my first AG batch today. Whew...what a day. I did totally mess up my recipe by getting over excited and putting in ALL the grain I bought, instead of measuring out what I needed on the specialty grains. I had the grains for over a week and forgot the amounts I ordered didn't exactly match my recpie. It's an Anchor Porter clone, which now has double the amount of recommended Black malt (.5 lb) and about 833% more Light Roasted Barley (.5 lb). Plus slight increase in the other four malts. It is very burnt. Hopefully it will mellow out in a few months.

Here's a link to the recipe as it was supposed to be: Anchor Porter Clone #20
And this is what I ended up with:Anchor Porter Clone ACTUAL #20a

I can't believe how low my efficiency is, about 65%. Guess it's a good thing I had 15.5 lbs of grain! My strike water wasn't hot enough so I did struggle to get that up, not leaving me with much water for the batch sparge... might have something to do with it.

It was a day of firsts, first time using a yeast starter, first time using the newly constructed cooler mash tun, first time using my new SS turkey fryer (only had a very small bubble over), first time using a 6.5 g GLASS primary fermenter. Even had a few friends stop by and I showed them what I was doing.


The oatmeal stout I did was Extract, so I can't help you out much there.

-Chris

Some Pics:


p.s. We need to get more members on this board. If you have their email, send them a link.

Had to add a blowoff tube this morning!



This thing is working up a storm!

-Chris

Your setup is pretty much identical to the one I have. My efficiency into the boiler has been running around 72%. I picked up around 4 to 5 points on my efficiency by using MAGIC POWDER.(aka 5.2 ph Stabilizer) Good stuff!

I brewed the Oatmeal stout today with the help of my friend Mike. No pictures. Things went pretty smoothly. I used Safale S-04 without a starter; had activity in the airlock after a couple of hours.......I really like that yeast. Can't beat it for a dry yeast; very clean.




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We have extract Brown Ale in secondary. I made counter flow chiller from article in BREW IT mag. It worked fine. Only took about 30 min. to construct and cost about $50.00

Getting things together to make Irish Stout Monday evening. Extract w/ grain. Need to add some maltodextrin to this batch, judges at Brewers Cup thought body could be bumped up a little. Will bring last batch to January meeting

My first attempt at making lager is in secondary now. Started out to be very german but didn't have right kind of hops, so now have German/American lager w/ Cascade finish hops. Basement temp is right at 50 F so fermentation went fine. Did diacetyl rest 4 days at 60 F(upstairs bathroom temp) Racked to secondary and will bottle next week.

Ugg, I turned the heater back on in the garage (aka the brewery) this morning since the temp when south, again, and mistakenly plugged it into a switched outlet... which turns off when I shut the lights off. So it was a nice 54 when I got home after work. Still bubbling through the blow-off though. This is an Ale, not a Lager!

-Chris

Hey JohnD, what is this Brewers Cup you speak of?

-Chris

2005 Indiana State Fair Brewer's Cup Homebrew Division Results

HB Sweet, Dry and Oatmeal Stouts (13 Entries)
1 Mark Schiess Carmel IN Black Eye Dry Stout
2 John Dippel Evansville IN Beer Belly Stout Dry Stout
3 Mark Schiess Carmel IN Fireplace Sweet Stout


Good Job John!!!!!

2005 Indiana State Fair Brewer's Cup Homebrew Division Results


HB Special and Extra Special Bitters (11 Entries)
1 Paul Edwards Indianapolis IN ESB #1 Extra Special/Strong Bitter
2 James Thompson Ft. Wayne IN Extra Special/Strong Bitter
3 Kenny Lucas Evansville IN Blue Tool Ale Special/Best/Premium Bitter





Good Job Kenny !!!!!

Brewed a 3 gallon batch of Chief Niwot Mead. First try at mead but if it turns out like what I had at Steve Woods' I will be a happy brewer(in about a year!) Bubbling like crazy. It does haveabout 2 1/2 lb honey per gallon of mead so there are a lot of fermentables. Now all I need is patience!

If I don't brew this weekend (planning on doing the BAR Pale Ale from BYO Sept 03), I think I'll bottle my Mead. I have 1-gal of Orange Blossom, and 1-gal of Clover. I'll have to check my notes when I started them, I think is was early summer. They've been racked at least twice and are very clear and pretty. The Orange Blossom one is really a lot 'orangier' than the Clover. I've got a pic somewhere, I'll dig it out.

I also have a Elderberry and Elderberry/Blueberry that need racked. That is some nasty stuff to mess with. I doubt I'll be making it again unless it's really, really, really good.

Everything is set up for All-Grain Batch #2 tomorrow. Decided to something nice and simple this time so maybe I won't screw up so bad. A Pale Ale from BYO Sept 03:

BAR Pale Ale
9.75 lbs Breiss Pale Malt
0.80 lbs Carmel 40 L

11.5 AAu Centennial (bittering)
8 AAU Mt. Hood (flavor)
1 oz Willamette (dry hop)
1 oz Kent Goldings (dry hop)

Wyeast 1098 (British Ale)

I really wanted some Amarillo hops, but there were out of stock.

I made this oak mash paddle last night because my old nylon spoon was too flexible to move that grain around. I may have went a little overboard 4 foot long... subconsciously expecting 10 gallon batches in the near future???

Well, got the brewing done in between the rain drops. Had fewer screw-ups this time, but still had some.

1. I've been trying to make a yeast starter in a 1000 ml flask, but I keep boiling it over on the stove, so I'm going back to a small SS pot for that.

2. I'm still having problems hitting my mash temp. I put about 2 qts boiling water in the cooler tun to heat it up and raised my strike to 168, but was still low. What do you guys strike at? I'm afraid to go over 170 because I've heard that temp leaches tannins, maybe I'm incorrect on this since I'm not hitting 152 anyway and had to add some boiling water about 20 mins into the mash.

3. I calibrated my big boil pot and 6.5 carboy with gallon marks. Turns out my batch sparge calculations actually work! I wanted 6 gallons to boil, and I got 6 gallons! Pot really won't hold much more. Problem was I had lots of trub so only got 4.5 gallons to ferment. I was on target as far as gravity goes so I didn't want to dilute it.

4. Oh, and I forgot to add half my flavoring hops (I even had both packets labeled and siting together, rain messed with my usual procedure), so they went in the fermenter with the other dry hops.

I've only done stouts and porters. This is the first beer I can see through. It is nice and straw in the sample tube, but really dark red in the fermenter.