re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

Nice setup, and that's awesome you get to brew with your son. I keep trying to get my kids to help, but they're a little young, though my 9 year old is more intrigued than when he used to be.

Do you have a hot water heater hooked up to an RO system?

I'm still using propane. I have a side burner next to my Kamado Joe but it's not quite strong enough to boil wort vigorously. Last week, i tested out using the hot rod heat stick with the burner on high and it took about 45 minutes to go from 140 degrees to 211. The boil was a low roll. If i can figure out how to squeeze a couple more BTU's into the kettle, then i may be able to use my burner. All i'd need is pump to transfer. This would make my brew day a little more efficient and i wouldn't have to guard the brewpot from kids running to and from the house.

Pic of the hot water experiment.

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BigDropper

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I’ll shoot you an email in the morning.

Brewed again. This time an American Wheat fermented with English ale yeast. This is 20 hours after pitching. Not sure why the wort looks so dark in the photo, but its not IRL.

Brew shop between Dunham and walker

Good Morning homebrewers, or what's left of us. I figured i would dust off the thread a bit with some updates. It's been about 2 months or more since the last post.

On the brewing front, i've been brewing for competitions a lot more. I submitted a beer in the National Homebrew Competition and submitted 3 beers into Lunar Rendezbrew (Houston Comp.)

The NHC beer, was a mixed ferm sour that i finished first in category and 2nd Best of show back in a 2022 competition. My score then, was a 42. This time around, it was a 29. The big marks against was because it did not fit style. The problem with mixed fermentation is you have to state the base style of beer that was "soured". The base style, in this case, was a saison, but overall, i wasn't too concerned with base style, and typically never are. The yeast blend i used was jester king's blend from bootleg, which contained some saison sach yeast but after a couple years, those notes fell off. Anyway, the positive comments from the judges under "overall impression" is that they thought the beer was very good, and they wanted to drink more, just didn't fit the base style. It also lost a little carbonation after a couple years in the bottle.

The houston comp, i submitted a Czech Pale Lager, and 2 sours that i submitted in previous comps. Czech Pale scored a 31, got some good notes for next time. Comments about a better malt profile and more expressive hops. I used Saaz and good pilsner malt. I, personally, loved the beer. Maybe i'll do a longer decoction mash and add a bit melanoiden for next time to enhance some of that character.
Beer #2 was a mixed ferm experimental beer. It is my highest scoring beer in a competition (45), but scored a 30 in this one. Not sure if the judges understood what i was going for. I was showcasing aged hops in a beer and how much flavor that imparts in a lambic as opposed to the brett. It has some age, so i believe some of the IVA from the hops fell off.
Beer #3, was a mixed ferm grisette. This one scored a 39 and i got bronze in the category. This beer scored a 42 in a previous comp and came home with gold.

Overall, i've learned to not submit mixed ferm sours that are older than a year.

Upcoming, trying to brew a Focal Banger clone, a mixed ferm saison, and a German Altbier. My backyard hops are going nuts right now. Harvest time isn't supposed to be until late september, but i had an early harvest last week. Picked about an ounce or 2. I dried them on a box fan between some AC filters. For a few hours. We'll see how they come out when it's time to make my Fresh hop german pils.

Time for the monthly homebrew post.

Anybody still homebrewing? I have an italian pilsner just on tap, and hooking up the focal banger clone to a tap today. Bottling both and a Helles for the Redstick competition.

Next beer is an altbier. I've been reading up on the style. I gotta say, german style lagers and psuedo lagers like alt and kolsch are really interesting to me. So much history.

Both Alt and Kolsch are brewed the same with lower ale temp fermentation and lagering at the end. Alts are made in dusseldorf and Kolsch's are made in Cologne germany. Difference seems to be the darker malts used in an alt.

It's really hard to find a commercial example of an alt, locally.

I didn't brew all summer but am going to try and brew a hoppy hefe this weekend.

Thank you for resurrecting! I've been on a brewing break for years, but I got some new (to me) equipment and plan to do a batch in December. Maybe a big Christmas ale, maybe a brown or dubbel. Gotta find where to get the ingredients around Nashville.

I’m having a hard time finding anywhere to get ingredients now. Always used LA homebrew and they closed down a few years ago. Started ordering from Austin Homebrew and seems most of their stuff is always out of stock. Where do people order stuff from now?

I think brew stock closed down too.