re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

Not really. I had one container get a few flies, but nothing a grain mill and 60 minute boil couldn't take care of.

So guys.... i have a confession to make....











I really like the Costco Kirkland Brand Citra Hopped Session IPA.

Th slight bitterness, with the Juicy of the Citra hops makes the a great beer to knock back. Its 19.99 a case. i was hesitant the first time i bought a case, but i think im about 10 cases in now.


Thanks i had to get that off my chest.

In other homebrewing news, my german pils scored a 33. Not great but not terrible. Common theme was "not enough hop character". I followed a traditional german pils recipe so i'll up the hops on all my pils next time.

My West Coast IPA scored a staggering 25/50. Lowest score i think i've ever received. For both beers, i got comments about low carbonation. I bottled these directly from the tap, so that may be the issue. Also, some of the notes stated "needs more hop aroma". I used more hops in this IPA than in any IPA i've ever made. It was a pliny clone, but i reduced the ABV. Had about 5-6 oz. in the dry hop, 6 oz. in the whirlpool, and 5 oz. or so in the boil. I think most of these issues are due to low carb.

I'll be brewing an Octoberfest today with 34/70 Saflager yeast. Also have some bootleg biology yeast coming in some time later this month or next month, and i'll be brewing up a Czech Pilsner.

What are you submitting too? i have always wantd to just never done it.

as far as my hops the main vines has a ton of cones but the heat killed them all... but the past 2 weeks a have a ton of laterals coming off. i think i needed to harvest those cones that flowered but they just burned up.

My hops had a rough year. I had tons on the bines, but we had a drought and heat wave hit and it nuked them. Cooked to a crisp. I was too busy this summer to give them the attention they needed. Ah well, that's how it goes some years. I'm thinking about really expanding my production next year.

quote:

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german pils scored a 33. Not great but not terrible. Common theme was "not enough hop character"

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I didn't think a German pils was supposed to be hop foward? Why would you need more hop character for a traditionally malt forward beer.

Finally brewing a hoppy hazy saison I bought ingredients for in June and then got the Covid.

Ice Ice Baby!

I brewed up a Biere de Garde Friday. Accidentally ordered double the Pilsner malt than what my recipe called for. So had to scoop out 7 LBs of malt. Color still looks good. It won’t be to style but it will be used for blending a Biere de Garde that has been aging for 2 years (mixed culture version).

Homebrew Update:

It's friday, let's talk beer! What's going on in your homebrew worlds?

My biere de garde is chugging along nicely. Had to clean up a mess in my fermenting freezer yesterday from blowoff. I'm either gonna add brett to the beer now, or blnd then add the brett at bottling.

I am on week 2 of lagering my oktoberfest. Going to Disney next week, so by the time we get back, it will have been lagered for about 4 weeks. May let it ride another week or so after that.

My next beer is another czech pilsner, but with Bootleg biology's Czech Unpasteurized lager yeast.

I also need to brew an IPA to use up some of the hops in the freezer, and also want to brew a best bitter.

My hops are almost ready to pick, but i only have like 8 cones so i doubt i'll use any of it in a beer unless they are ripe at the time of brewing. They shouldn't impact the beer any.

Whevener it gets colder, i'm going to brew batch #5 of my turbid mash Lambic. I currently have a lambic from December 2020, June 2021, December 2021, and February 2022. I may try to brew another in march or so and keep the pipeline going, then will blend the batches in Winter of '23, and then bottle my first Gueuze. After that, i may start significantly reducing the sour beers i make, and stick only to lambic/gueuze and maybe 2 or 3 others and make that the permanent sour pipeline rotation.

I currently have about 10 or 11 carboys full of sours in the sour closet:

1) 12/20 Lambic - Turbid Mash
2) 06/21 Lambic - Turbid Mash
3) 12/21 Lambic - Simple infusion
4) 02/22 Lambic - Turbid Mash
5) Solera Sour from 2018. This thing needs to be blended. Just need time to brew a blender batch between all my other planned beers.
6) Biere de Garde from 2020. This will be blended with the biere de garde that is fermenting.
7) L'Internationale Saison V. 4.0 - Brewed in may of this year. Should be close to ready for blending.
8) Bring on the Funk V. 3.0 - also brewed in May. This is a 100% brett beer, but it has some acidity. Not sure if it's coming from the oxygen, or if there is some residual mixed culture from a blend in a previous version.
9) Jester King La Petite Prince Clone - A slightly more alchoholic La Petite Prince clone from JK, using bootleg's sourced JK dregs. LPP is a 2.7% table beer. Mine is around 4.3%. This was also brewed in May.
10) Belgian Farmhouse Saison - Saison fermented with Bootleg's Belgian farmhouse blend, and brewed with aged hops. This is more of an experiment to see how much of the funk carry over from some of my favorite lambics is brett derived or if it's from the aged hops. Brewed in early June.

My sour closet is getting full so i really need to start bottling some of these. It would have another fermenter in there if i didn't decide to add a 3rd tap to my kegerator and dedicate that line to sours.