re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

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Yakima Valley Hops for hops, the rest I just get at any of the number of brew stores online,

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I ordered some hops from Hops Direct and was very impressed. They threw in, without asking, and extra 8-16 oz of hops and a belma hop shot.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Happy Friday homebrewers! What's are your 2024 homebrewing goals this year?

For me, i want to continue entering in homebrew competitions and try to medal on styles that aren't sour. Just about every homebrew sour i've entered has medaled, and i don't feel right about entering in something that has already medaled, at least not in the bayou circuit, seeing it's basically the same judges. Right now, i have 3 sours that are bottled that are ready for a comp, so i'll try and find an out of state comp or maybe enter them in the NHC.

I'm also upgrading my draft tour in the outdoor kitchen from the 3" tower, to a T-style tower. This will allow me to use the CM Becker faucet i got for christmas.



Upcoming Brews:

IPA - Brewing an NEIPA, utilizing a more neutral water profile. Trying to use up the large amount of hops i have. Using Equinox, Mosaic, Idaho 7, and Cryo Pop blend.
Pilsner - Getting a later start on my pilsner than when i wanted but soon after the IPA, i'm going to brew a czech pils. This will replace the Czech amber lager that is currently on tap.

I also have 3 mixed ferm sours that need to be blended and bottled and/or kegged. I have 2 solera fermenters, the base beer and the brett blender that are ready to be blended. Once blended they will be bottled and i will not rebrew this beer anymore. Too much to keep up with.
I have 2 batches of my L'internationale Saison that needs to be blended. Half will be either kegged or bottled, and the other half will be set aside waiting for another batch to be brewed and blended.
I also have 2 batch of "Bring on the funk" mixed ferm, which is more brett forward mixed ferm. Inspiration came from NOLA Sauvage. This beer, and l'internationale will be the only 2 sours i keep in the pipeline outside of the Lambics.

Gueze Project:

As seen in the previous post, i was finally able to bottle my first gueuze from the lambics i started 3 years ago. 5 gallons of the 23 gallons i had were bottled. The remainder was spread amongst the other fermenters and topped off. I brewed the new lambic on bottling day 12/29/23, so that refilled the empty fermenter. I'm going to start playing with different lambic strains, and also some spontaneous fermentation as well. I think tomorrow, with the cold weather coming around, i'm going to try some wild capture of a yeast starter and see what happens. If this starter turns out to be viable/drinkable, i'm going to massively step up the starter, and then brew another lambic and innoculate solely with the wild capture. I have bootleg biology's yeast wrangling kit also, so i may ship it off to them and see if they can bank it for future use.

With the bottled gueuze, i have 8 months or so until it's ready to drink. However, i think i'll crack one open next month just to see how it's coming along.

I haven't done anything since LAhomebrew closed. Seen on FB the guy in denham is expanding his shop. Once I get this root beer out of my keg I'll probably start again.

So i've planned the next few beers i'll be brewing. Some i may not be able to get to, but i'll put forth an effort. I will likely switch around brewing order to coincide with beer competitions

Batch #121 - Budvar Czech Pale Lager (Czech Pilsner) clone
122 - Italian Style Pilsner version 3.0
123 - Bring on the Funk version 4.0 - Mostly all-brett beer
124 - The Alchemist Focal Banger Clone - NEIPA
125 - Idyletyme Helles Brook Clone - Helles
126 - Belgian IPA - Inspired by Green Flash Le Freak
127 - German Pilsner
128 - Idletyme Zog Pale Ale Clone - Pale Ale
129 - Festbier
130 - California Common
131 - Saison
132 - IPA/Pale Ale with grapefruit hops
133 - Flemish Red
134 - Lambic

Trying to keep this thread alive!!!

On the homebrew front:

I switched out my kegerator tower from the 3" straight tower to a 3-tap T-style tower so i can incorporate one of my christmas gifts into the tower. In-laws got me the CM Becker V10 Flow control w/ creamer faucet.



I had to move my kegs to my garage cooler for a couple days while i worked on the kegerator. Screws connecting the tower seized up. I eventually, got the towers switched out. Brought the kegs back to the kegerator and let them sit for a couple hours. I currently have the V10 and 2 nukatap flow control faucets in this tower. Well, i poured off some foam from the nukatap with the flow on low. This will take a day or more for the beer to settle out. However, the lager i had connected to the V10 poured every bit as clear and with the right amount of foam even after the keg was sloshed around a bit. The V10 uses 5/16" tubing and you can use whatever line length you want, the flow control regulator inside the faucet is what regulates your beer.

Anyway, all of that to say these V10's are awesome and i may end up replacing the other 2 faucets eventually. I think i've now got 2 perlicks and 2 intertaps that aren't being used, so if anyone is looking to get some new faucets, hit me up.

Also, brewed a Czech pale lager with Imperial Urkel yeast. Had a brain fart and only cooled the wort down to 60 before i pitched and left it there for 48 hours until i realized I was about 5 degrees over my desired ferm temp, so i cranked it down to 55 in the middle of the night. It should be fine.

Bonus: Label for my latest IPA.

Going to brew for the first time in over 3 years.

My son is enrolled in a Food Science degree and is taking beer brewing as one of his electives, so he asked me to brew a beer with him.

Will be firing up the HERMS this week to take advantage of his enthusiasm. Going to do a 10G Robust Porter then split it and age one with cocoa and the other coffee.

The idea being that we can get four beers out of one brew, a robust porter, chocolate porter, coffee porter, and a chocolate coffee porter.
I just hope I still remember how to brew…

He's at UGA.

Surpirisngly, my LHBS us still in business. He's closed today so I'll be stopping by tomorrow morning to get my grain.

Goin to try to brew with ingredients I have on laying around the house. There's plenty of US-05 in the freezer and, although unconventional, I have a few cenntential hops to bitter with. Hopefully everything goes as planned.

I am always impressed by your beer souring and mixed fermentaitons so it's interesting that you are doing lagers now. I guess that's the beauty of beer, so many different styles to enjoy.

PSA: Avoid using Northern Brewer for ordering anything. I ordered grains 11 days ago and i "may" get my order by Monday (14 days total). They don't have anyone live to answer phones, so you are directed to a robo-answer, and even the emails they send out are all automated.

Morebeer, on the other hand, delivered my ingredients in 2-3 days last order. I should have used them this time. Lesson learned.

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I appreciate you keeping this thread alive.

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I won't let it die. LOL.

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- A "kitchen sink" NEIPA, using up all my old hops. I had a bunch of bags of hops with like an oz left. Figured I'd brew something to get rid of them. It's carbing right now, excited to try it.

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I've got pounds of hops i need to do this with.

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- A bohemian pilsner which will be my generic crowd pleaser for those who just like light beers.

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German and czech lagers are becoming my favorite styles to drink and brew. I was supposed to brew a Munich helles this past weekend but my grains won't be delivered until today, so i'm brewing next weekend.

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I'll probably also put the rest of my Imperial stout on tap, although I don't expect anyone to go for it. I had brewed it last summer, let it age for 6 months, with high hopes of bottling it with some adjuncts and waxing the bottles... Turned out really dry for an imperial stout. Since I didn't love it, I didn't go through the hassle of the rest of the process. I'll just try that again next year.

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Had similar results with my Hazy IPA i just brewed. I was going to submit it into Boot Brewfest along with my czech amber lager, but it did not turn out as expected. The recipe was initially for a west coast ipa, but somewhere along the way of recipe building i confused it with a hazy. So the malt bill is darker than what i wanted, and i also suffered hop creep for teh first time. Finished way too dry (1.010) for a hazy. I'm forcing my way through it but as soon as my czech lager and helles is ready, i'll dump it pretty quickly and get something else on.

I started studying for the BJCP exam. I know they always need help judging and it's a good way to help improve my beer. I attempted to judge Agile's Vienna Lager, and self-judge my czech amber lager. I'm just starting out on my reading material, but it's sort of fun evaluating beers. I self-judged my czech amber lager at a 41, but then knocked off 3 points for inexperience at judging. So if i score around a 38 i'll be happy. The difference, however, between the bottle submitted, and what i poured may subtract some points. My new CM Becker faucet makes any beer taste great. The foaming action on that thing is unbelievable and gives beers a perfect creaminess to it.