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

Ruby Clone (10 Gallon Batch)

So just did forty gallons last saturday and am now getting around to posting. The new system works great, no big hangups but a couple of tweaks to make still. I can't wait til I can get the rest of my quick disconnects and finish my RIMS.

First batch of the day. This is made with 2 row instead of Pilsen like McMennies does. 2 Row is cheaper and I like it better. Raspberry will be added in secondary.

Ingredients-

Grain:
23 lbs 2 Row

Hops:
1.0 oz of Unknown Ricey smelling @ 60
1.0 oz of Unknown Ricey smelling @ 10

Yeast: Safale-05 American Ale

OG- 1.053

Basic IPA (10 Gallon Batch)

The grain on this is the same as the Burnt Mallow. Hops are different.

Ingredients-

Grain:
28 lbs 2 Row
2 lbs Crystal 40
1 lb Crystal 20
1 lb Munich

Hops:
2.0 oz CTZ @ 60
1.0 oz CTZ @ 45
3.0 oz Cascade @ 30
2.0 oz Cascade @ 15
2.0 oz Cascade @ 3

Yeast: Safale-04 English Ale

OG- 1.073

Pepperalia (10 Gallon Batch)

This was the third beer of the day. This beer I did previously and it was a recipe that Randy and I did last minute a while back. We had already done multiple batches that day and went to the home brew store and just started picking out grain. Then we added fresh pepperoncinis from my backyard and it ended up being my most favorite home brew I have ever done.

This time I decided I would do a very similar recipe. I used the same grains, different hops which I had on hand, and switched to Jalepenos instead of pepperoncinis.

Ingredients-

Grain:
20 lbs 2 Row
4 lbs Honey Malt
2 lbs Crystal 60L
2 lbs ESB Malt
2 lbs Vienna Malt

Hops:
2.0 oz CTZ @ 60
1.0 oz Cascade @ 30
1.0 oz Cascade @ 15

Jalepenos:
4 Whole Jalepenos @ 45
1 Broken Jalepenos @ 45

Yeast: 1/2 with Safale-04 English Ale, 1/2 with Safbrew T-58 Spicey/Peppery yeast

OG: I forgot to take on OG on this one but most of the other brew this day were pretty close to target. Target was 1.070 so probably somewhere around there.