IPA

 Ingredients-

Grain:
12 lbs 2 Row
1 lb Munich
1 lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
A lot of cascade and some nugget for bittering. I have no idea on the amounts.

Yeast: Wyeast 1056 American Ale (Brand new packet)

OG: 1.058

05MAY2012: This was done at BigBrew held on National Home Brew Day. It was really fun and there were a lot of people out. It's nice to have so many brewers together and to see all the cool system designs.
As far as my brewing for the day, things didn't go so well. Ended up with a stuck mash again and realized my new false bottom I had constructed was not very good. I ended up running to Ace, getting some supplies and building a new one on the fly. After that things went better but because of all the headache my efficiency on both brews was way down.

The picture here was actually early in the day and barely had anybody in it. The place was way more crowded later on and the other half of the parking lot not pictured was filled as well.

12MAY2012: Gravity down to 1.006 for an ABV of 6.5%. Transferred to keg and currently carbing.

15MAY2012: Carbed and pouring, had a glass this evening. Refreshingly citrus taste, smooth and easy drinking.  It tastes really good but I don't even know how to describe it. Even my wife likes it (she usually hates IPA's)

Double IPA

Ingredients-

Grain:
16 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
2 lbs Crystal 60L
1 lb ESB Malt

Hops:
I didn't write any of the hops down on this one, I think it was something like:
2.3 oz CTZ @ 60
2 oz CTZ @ 40
2 oz Cascade @10
3 oz Cascade @ 5
(rough guesses except the first addition, I remember that one.)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 American Ale (brand new packet)

OG: 1.076

05MAY2012- Brewing didn't go so well this day, this was the second batch and went much smoother than the first. But I was kind tired and frustrated and wasn't super exact so my efficiency was super low.Oh well, 1.076 still makes a pretty good IIPA.

21MAY2012- Down to 1.012, transferred to keg.

Raspberry Ale (for Colin)

Ingredients:

Grain- 12 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt

Hops-
1 oz Cascade @ 60
1 oz Cascade @ 5

Yeast-
Safale-05American Ale (slurry round 1)

 OG- 1.066

15APR2012- Stuck mash totally sucked. I change my equipment around and tried not using the strainer, apparently that was a bad idea. Tried fly sparging this round and it worked great. Between fly sparging and mixing the mash better my efficiency is higher than is has been. Up to 76% now. This one is for Colin and Whitney, they came over to help and it was nice to have it since the mash stuck.

22APR2012- Down to 1.010 for an ABV of 7.3%. 19 oz of Raspberries added. The box said 24oz but I'm sure they just dried out a little bit after being packed. We'll let it sit for a week and then bottle.

Workhorse IPA Clone

Ingredients-

Grain:
16 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
1 lb Carapils
1 lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
1.0 oz CTZ @ 60
0.5 oz Nugget @ 60
1.5 oz Citra @ 15
1.0 oz Cascade @ 5
1.0 oz Northern Brewer @ 5
1.0 oz Citra Dry Hop X 7 Days
0.5 oz Cascade Dry Hop X 7 Days
0.5 oz Northern Brewer Dry Hop X 7 Days

Yeast: Safale 04-English Ale (slurry)

OG: 1.070

10MAR2012- Had Gary over for this one. He wanted to check out the brewery and the brew process. Had a great time, caught up on things and chatted a bunch. Everything went pretty well with no major hangups. Excited to see how this brew turns out.

01APR2012- Down to 1.016, transferred to Keg. Tastes great, can't wait for it to be conditioned. ABV 7%

Widmer Hefeweizen Clone aka The Stepheweizen

Ingredients-

Grain:
5 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
5 lbs Wheat Malt
12 oz Munich
8 oz Crystal 40L

Hops:
0.35 oz Nugget @ 60
0.6 oz Cascade @ 20
0.5 oz Cascade @ 10
0.5 oz Willamette @ 5

Yeast: Wyeast German Ale 1007

Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.033 (adjusted for temp)

OG: 1.050


04MAR2011- Brewed a beer for my wife Stephanie today. This is supposed to be a clone of Widmer's Hefeweizen. Randy gave me the idea of naming it Stepheweizen after I had told him, "I'm making a Hef for Steph." I looked up on Widmer's site for the ingredients and just took my best guess at it. I chose not to try and match their Alchemy blend, and just went with nugget as that is what I had on hand so it brings the price down a little.

I had been bummed about my previous low efficiency so I decided to use a little more water for sparging in an attempt to pull more sugars off the grains and then boil longer to to evaporate more and obtain a higher gravity. I bought more grain than I would need to make sure I wasn't under gravity on this. But as I did better on my temps and insulated well to get the best conversion I ended up being just a few points higher on gravity than Widmer's.

I used the Wyeast German Ale yeast for this as I have read the American Hefeweizen yeast is what lends to the banana-ish flavor. This should be closer to what Widmer uses but they don't list that so I can't be sure.

14MAR2012- Down to 1.012, ABV 5.1%

22MAR2012- The Stepheweizen is pourning now. I still ended up with more esters than I had hoped, lending to the banana-ish flavor. But Steph loves it and that is who it was made for anyways.

Bought a 22oz and did the side by side this evening. My version is a lot darker so I will have to lighten it up the next round. Also, I'll look into a different style fo yeast that hopefully will not leave so many esters behind.

Update on the New System

So here are some pics of the new system with Quick Disconnects installed. These are from bargainfittings
They have the best prices, the best customer service, and really fast flat rate shipping. Check them out. Also, the thermometers, bulkheads, ballvalves and sight tube are from them as well.

I moved the pump down to the bottom and flipped it over. It works much better down there and I don't have problems with cavitation anymore.

I also drilled a hole in the lip above the opening of the boil kettle and installed a quick disconnect there.

I put in an elbow so now when I fill up the boil kettle from the mash I can just connect into the quick disconnect and the elbow drops it straight down into the bottom of the boil kettle. Eventually all the copper will be replaced with stainless, but its expensive so copper will have to do for now. Haven't done any work on the RIMS equipment for a while. Hopefully I can finish that by the end of summer.





 

Hoptastical IPA

Second brew day on my new system. Only doing one 5 gallon batch this time.

Ingredients-

Grain:
17 lbs American 2 Row
2 lbs Crystal 20L
2 lbs ESB Malt

Hops:
2.0 oz Nugget @ 60 (pellet)
8.2 oz Mystery @ 25 (this stuff is wet, therefore the huge weight)
1.5 oz Cascade @ 5
1.3 oz Cascade @ Dry hop
4.1 oz Mt Hood @ Dry hop

Whirfloc @ 10

Yeast: Safale-04 English Ale (slurry)

OG: 1.074

24FEB2012- Everything went pretty well. I was able to get my quick disconnects in this week and set everything up which made things a lot easier. Also, I was able to brew in my enclosed front porch, which made everything easier as well. This was especially true of set-up and clean-up. I'm really excited about how things went and glad to have done only one batch in a day. I moved my pump down and flipped it over as I was having some problems with cavitation last time I brewed. I read that those pumps are designed to have the motor downwards and it worked a lot better this round.

03MAR2012- Down to 1.024, transferred to the keg. 6.7% ABV