re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

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Any of you homebrewers use cold brew concentrate in beer before?

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I've done both the cold brew addition and the whole bean addition and they both work well. If forced to say which is better, the whole bean would probably get the nod but not by much.

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I was reading an article on the classic pale ale and think I may brew one. Haven’t brewed an old school west coast pale since maybe my 4th homebrew (some 10 years ago). Want to kind of take what I’ve learned from hopping hazy pales and apply some of those techniques to a west coast style pale. Chico strain yeast, no bio trans hops, but loads of whirlpool and dry hops.

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Keep us updated with results. I've brewed 2 in the last few months, and I like them both but they are both missing something. Idk what it is... I don't perceive any off flavors, it just doesn't wow me or anything... I know it's a DIPA, but I just keep thinking of how smooth Pliny the Elder is and how I still get so much hop aroma and some nice bitterness. I hopped at 60min, 1oz @ 10min, 1oz @ flameout, and put 3oz of dry hops into the serving keg and I still feel like I don't get a ton of hop character coming through. Granted it's all El Dorado hops. IDK. Maybe next time I'll do a similar recipe but bump it up into IPA range and see if I like it more.

I want to start sending some of my beer in to homebrewing competitions to see what kind of feedback I can get back. Don't know when any are though.

Did you just post on r/homebrewing? Cause if not, you should go read that thread cause it is strangely specific to your situation.

The third beer I brewed during Corona-cation was a NEIPA. I went really light with the malt, using 48% pilsner to put the focus on hops. It also had 22% pale malt, 10% flaked oats, 10% flaked wheat, #1 rice hulls, #1 lactose, & 8oz turbinado sugar. I have a HERMS so I kept the temp right around 156°F throughout the entire mash.

Once in the kettle I did not add any hops to the boil. Instead I hopped with 4oz Amarillo, 4oz Galaxy, 2oz Simcoe, & 2oz Citra for 30 minute whirlpool @ 180°F.

One carboy received 1pkg WLP095 & the other 1318. The 1318 took off within the first 12 hours but the WLP095 lagged for well over 48 hours. I was unable to measure gravity because I broke my second hydrometer in a month.

Two days into active fermentation, a biotrans addition of 2oz Simcoe & 2oz Amarillo went into each. Here's a photo of that. The 1318 on the left & the 095 on the right. Hops only went into the 1318 as the 095 hadn't started active fermentation yet.



Not sure what caused a difference in color. I guess it's possible that the lag caused oxygen to react to the wort which discolored it through oxidation?

Each carboy also received a DH of 4oz Citra & 2oz Galaxy for two days after fermentation before I started cold crashing.

I tried cold crashing for 4 days as the hops sat on the beer but they never dropped. They just floated up on top. I even tried rousing the carboy aggressively which made them fall but then they floated right back to the top.

I had trouble transferring from carboy to bottling bucket. I use a filter on my autosiphon which clogged repeatedly as the volume of liquid decreased in the carboy. As such, a lot of hop debris got into the bucket and, consequently, into the bottles.

Here's the color @ bottling...



The 1318 had a nice opaque yellow hue and a fruity hop aroma. The flavor was decent too but the beer had to be poured right. It had a tremendous amount of overcarbonation that may have been caused by hop creep. I tasted this beer everyday & after two weeks in the bottle, the aroma & color fell off but the flavor significantly improved. Aromas and flavors of grapefruit, pineapple, & passion fruit were noticeable.

The WLP095 finished four days later due to a excessively long lag phase. It also was weaker in aroma & flavor. It oxidized BAD & really went south fast. I still have 20 bottles that I need to dump...

Next time I will build a 1318 starter & maybe sub out some of the piis for honey malt & replace the 2 row with Munich to improve color & flavor.

I'm going to shelve this style until I can employ some lodo techniques like closed transfers & CO2 purging. I also need a better filtering process. I might build a 3 stage filtration system using VacMotion inline filters.

Overall, I was surprised with the success but also humbled by the failure. Definitely learned a lot for future attempts.

Awesome. That's the first store I've seen with free shipping on bulk grain.

Put some citra on sale and I'm all over it. Still might get the galaxy though

I just bought a lb of citra, galaxy, sabro, lambic, and 8 oz. of medusa. My freezer is completely empty of hops so i'll need them in the near future.

Going to conduct a double brew day this Saturday. Brewing up a blender batch for my mixed fermentation biere de garde, and likely another batch of my l'internationale saison. The saison is becoming my favorite homebrew i make. It's a simple saison grain bill fermented with sach and brett. Then blended with 1 gallon of mixed fermentation beer i have laying around. I'm becoming more and more turned off to my more acidic sours i have, and am approaching my sours now to a more balanced drinkability.

I have not, but i may next go round. I do an O2 free transfer and purge kegs already, but this couldn't hurt.

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Are you guys buying bulk grain and milling at home? What's your storage solution? What grain mill do you have

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I haven’t but the homebrew store is right down the road. I have thought about it, though. Sometimes I can’t get the exact grains I want for a recipe so I substitute.