re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread

Picked up some cantillon dregs last night.

Going to mix up a starter before the games start and put these bugs to work.

Yeah, bar said they were going to toss it... I offered to save them the trouble.

I have no clue if there is actually any viable yeast/bacteria in there. Heck the keg reads like there may actually be some dry hops in there.

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That's awesome. Certainly worth a shot trying to get something going from them

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Yeah. If you manage to propogate anything out of that, i'll gladly take a vial.

Also, kegged my Bourbon Vanilla Coconut Porter. It finished at 1.020, about 5 points higher than i wanted, though i'm pretty certain that had to do with my ferm freezer tips dipping down to 60 before fermentation finished due to the cold. Didn't feel like pulling out the fermwrap. I took a few sips after measuring and this is a fantastic porter by itself. I'll definitely rebrew this again. The cal ale V yeast gives it that clean finish, as opposed to the irish ale yeast that imparts a very "english" character to it.

I toasted 21 oz. of coconut in the oven. Probably threw away about 5 oz. that were toasted a little too much, so that left me with just over a lb of toasted coconut. Also threw in the vanilla beans (red stick spice was out of puree') that were soaking in 5 oz. of buffalo trace bourbon. I could have drank just the bourbon. Smelled incredible. Put all of that in a mesh sack and had to try and fit it into the keg. I didn't take into account the amount of space all of that would displace so i had about 1/2 gallon of beer left in the fermenter after racking. I didn't have any clean bottles or i just would have bottled that up, so sadly, i poured the remainder down the drain. I probably should have just poured that into a growler until i cleaned some bottles out, but i was trying to cook etouffee' at the same time.

I force carbed at 28 psi, and will let it sit in the keg for a few days to let that coconut and vanilla permeate all of that beautiful beer. I got a feeling this one is going to be incredible.

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Put all of that in a mesh sack and had to try and fit it into the keg. I didn't take into account the amount of space all of that would displace so i had about 1/2 gallon of beer left in the fermenter after racking.

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This is why I keep buckets around...

LAHomebrew did this their coconut stout for Brew at the Zoo and end up having to clean the pop-its and faucets at least twice on site during the event. I think they were using a nitro tap so maybe that was the problem...

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I didn't have any clean bottles or i just would have bottled that up, so sadly, i poured the remainder down the drain. I probably should have just poured that into a growler until i cleaned some bottles out, but i was trying to cook etouffee' at the same time.

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LAHomebrew did this their coconut stout for Brew at the Zoo and end up having to clean the pop-its and faucets at least twice on site during the event. I think they were using a nitro tap so maybe that was the problem...

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Hmmm... i hope i don't have that problem. I spoke with Chico and he was telling me they weighted down the grain bag full of coconut. I didn't, so the bag is floating up. Hopefully the grain bag contains everything, and i believe any small particles should float to the top, away from the beer out tube.

Also, the poppets on the posts on this keg do not come out. I was messing around with it for about 10 minutes last week trying to pop those bastards out, but they are really in there.

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i poured the remainder down the drain. I probably should have just poured that into a growler until i cleaned some bottles out,

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The other night I made some fresh starter to add to my bug cultures, and couldn't bring myself to pour off the beer that was in the jugs so I could top it off, so I ended up drinking it instead. For a pure wheat DME starter with no hops and a wide variety of dregs, it's not bad



I will say this about it though, I wish I had never added Jolly Pumpkin dregs to it. One of them that I drank had this weird plastic/rubbery smell and taste that seems to have carried over into the new culture. I might end up dumping it and starting over again.

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I will say this about it though, I wish I had never added Jolly Pumpkin dregs to it. One of them that I drank had this weird plastic/rubbery smell and taste that seems to have carried over into the new culture. I might end up dumping it and starting over again.

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Plastic/rubbery smell? You mean similar to Band-Aids?

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Brewed 20 gallons of a rye ale of sorts today for Iron Brewer.

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Our team brewed 20 gallons on Saturday. Came up short on our OG for some reason, but that's probably not a bad thing for this kind of setting. And that's what happens when I build a recipe based off my system, but it gets brewed on someone else's.

Still should be a good solid pale ale with Galaxy, Citra and Wasabi.

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Galaxy, Citra and Wasabi.

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The theme of this year's event is Hot & Spicy. We experimented with wasabi powder in an IPA and it worked well. So, Hoppy Wasabi it is.