re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

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I'm not going to lie, you got me excited with your description of yours. Glad i bought 1/2 lb of that stuff.

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Yeah, I bought a whole pound after I tasted it!

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I'll brew up 6 gallons of a saison or golden ale, then split into 2 3 gallon fermenters and pitch different brett strains/LABs, etc...

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You ever play around with any more complicated grain bills? Is Vienna something you’ve ever used? Maris Otter? Flaked adjuncts to counter potential thinness in sour beer? Any adjunct malts? Or is it usually pretty close to 50/50 2-row & wheat?

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I have no idea what matcha is

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It’s super fine green tea leaf powder. Used to make green tea. Really high grade stuff is absolutely delicious. Super earthy and grassy in the best way possible.

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Did we order the same hops at the same time?

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I think so!

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It's Friday. What's on tap? What's in the Fermenter? And what do you have planned in the homebrew world?

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On Tap:
Letitia - Vanilla Coffee Porter

For the record, this beer is now completely different. The original pictures definitely had just a ton of yeast in the beer. It looks black now and tastes like cold brew coffee. I still want something more fuller bodied, but this tastes good. J Murdah thinks its my best brew yet.... Also my buddy made a ballin label for me.

Fermenter:
Nothing

Planned:
1) Praline Porter (winter/early spring) - Planning to brew soon. Want to take advantage of the last couple of cold days.
2) NEIPA (spring) - Never tried this style, but after reading all of you guys comments on them, I think I am ready to give it a shot.
3) Kolsh (summer) - Typically not my favorite style from commercial brewers. However I tried another homebrewer's kolsh last year during the summer and it was perfect. I have been dying to make one myself for this summer.





Here is what I am thinking for my Praline Porter. This is the first recipe I have created on my own. I looked at a bunch of different homebrew recipes on brewersfriend for ideas, I tried to follow some of the grain bill guidelines on LA Homebrew, and I also looked at people's comments on Deep Ellum's Praline Porter. I know they use pecans, lactose, molasses, and vanilla. I then researched a bunch to figure out the best ways to add those flavors.... So all that to say here is what I have so far. I really want y'alls opinion/advice:

BIAB
Mash:
11 lb Pale 2-row
1 lb Crystal 60
1 lb Chocolate
1 lb Flaked Oats
10 oz Roasted Barley
6 oz Black

8.125 gals water
154 degrees
60 min

Boil:
60 min
2 oz fuggles @ 60 min
1 lb lactose @ 10 min
6 oz molasses @ 10 min

70% efficiency should put me at 1.068 OG before the molasses and lactose, but I am not real sure how to calculate what it should be with them.

Yeast:
London ESB ale yeast (Wyeast 1968) - This is where I really don't know what to choose. This is what I used for my last beer which was a similar style. I also had problems, but that was probably more on the brewer

Primary - 21 days

FG - Would love something in the 1.018 range based off 1.068 OG, but again not real sure how to adjust for lactose and molasses additions.

Secondary - 1 day
Vanilla extract to taste
Pecan extract to taste

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You ever play around with any more complicated grain bills? Is Vienna something you’ve ever used? Maris Otter? Flaked adjuncts to counter potential thinness in sour beer? Any adjunct malts? Or is it usually pretty close to 50/50 2-row & wheat?

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I've done all sorts of things. I've used the rare barrel golden sour recipe before.

6 lb 10 oz (3 kg) Pilsner
1 lb 2 oz (0.5 kg) Wheat malt
9 oz (0.25 kg) Aromatic malt (e.g., Franco-Belges)
9 oz (0.25 kg) Flaked oats
9 oz (0.25 kg) Spelt malt

However, my local homebrew store longer carries spelt, sadly.

My base saison grain bill is 56% Franco Belges Pilsen, 38% Franco Belge Belgian Wheat and 5% Carapils. This has been the majority of my sours. However, grain bill for my solera is:

44% Chateau Pilsen
35% 2 row
8% Golden naked oats
7% flaked wheat
6% wheat malt

Did some research on solera's and there was recommendations for adding some adjuncts due to how long the beer is in the solera so it doesn't get too thin. Also, this grain bill is like a shortcut around a geueze. I want to make a traditional geueze one day, but not excited about a 3-5 hour boil. Found some recipes that impart some characters of a geueze grain bill. Next time, i'll add some melanoidin in there too.

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It’s super fine green tea leaf powder. Used to make green tea. Really high grade stuff is absolutely delicious. Super earthy and grassy in the best way possible.

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I like stuff like this, for sours. Plan on going to the produce market and spice shop this weekend and find some fruits/herbs/teas to try and use them in my blending session next week. Having some friends and family over that enjoy sours and we're doing a tasting to determine blending proportions.

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pics?

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Yep. I want to name all my dark beers after streets that have some importance to me... This one is based off a house I lived for at for a year in the Garden District. Really shitty house, but the location was money and good times were had.



He also designed my logo at the top of the label. The hat is based off an LSU straw hat that I wear to every LSU tailgate.


I definitely under-pitched the yeast the first time. Probably going to go with 3 packets this time around and make a starter. Is that overkill?

I have a similar opinion on stouts I like, but this one I think I want to be more sweet and less smokiness. Probably more like that coconut porter. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah, he makes awesome labels for me. He wanted to make it look a little less like Abita's Shotgun label, but the front or side elevation of the house was really too boring to do anything else with it. I think I it came out different enough...

That looks damn good. Do you make that yourself?

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Man, that’s awesome!

I’m making a Golden Stout here soon, but with coffee, so sure I’d love to take a look at what you’re grain bill was for a Golden Stout!

That saison sounds fantastic, as well!

Thanks.

Also, this will be the first time I use a carboy. Using a hydrometer, how do y'all typically get a gravity reading from the carboy? Turkey baster? Could I just leave the hydrometer in there after fermentation settles down a bit?

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I’m making a Golden Stout here soon, but with coffee, so sure I’d love to take a look at what you’re grain bill was for a Golden Stout!

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I couldn't find it so I'll post it tonight. It was a pretty normal recipe for a blonde ale, then we used a pound of whole coffee beans for 2 days to give it the roasty stout flavor, then some chocolate extract and vanilla extract. For the raspberry we used a can of raspberry puree.

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I couldn't find it so I'll post it tonight.

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I had my brew partner email it to me. He had the recipe in BeerSmith.

5 gallon batch. OG: 1.056, FG: 1.010

Ingredients
3 lbs Fruit - Raspberry Puree
10 lbs Maris Otter
1 lbs Barley, Flaked
1 lbs Oats, Flaked
4.0 oz Caramunich II
4.0 oz Honey Malt
1.00 oz Admiral [10.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz First Gold [6.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.50 oz Endeavour [8.40 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1.00 oz Sonnet Golding [4.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool
1.0 pkg London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318)
6.00 oz Coffee Beans (Secondary)
1.00 Items Vanilla Beans (Secondary 10.0 days)
100.00 ml Cacao Nibs tincture (Bottling)

Mash
154°F for 45 minutes

It was 6 oz. coffee beans, not a pound like I originally thought. For the chocolate, I made a tincture out of 3-4 oz. of cacao nibs. That didn't give us enough chocolate flavor so we added a 4 oz. bottle of chocolate extract also. The vanilla was homemade vanilla extract. We added the chocolate and vanilla to the keg. The chocolate and vanilla amounts were chosen by taste through trial and error.

The only thing I'd change is that I might make it a little sweeter and give it more body. So increase the flaked grains and add a little more crystal malt. Maybe increase mash temp.