| By Norm J on Sep 4th 2006, 6:21 pm | Permalink |
| Brewing Saturday: My Dortmunder this will be my fourth lager brewed with the W23/70 dry yeast. The first three are all very good. The bock even took a gold medal at the SC Regional Homebrew Championship. This Dorty is a 2nd generation which I am tweeking to dry it out a bit and give more balance between hops and malt. The first was more like a Helles than intended. Pitched slurry from Marzen just kegged. I used a combination of Hallertauer and Tetnang this time instead of all Hallertauer. Also paid better attention to water ph and minerals than last time (added CaCl and gypsum to mash and used phosphoric acid to lower pH of sparge water). The Marzen tastes really good, it has that nice up front malty sweetness and finishes semi dry. | |
| By Norm J on May 9th 2006, 6:03 am | Permalink |
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Brewed a bock this last weekend for big brew. Had a coworker over who was interested in what homebrewing was all about. So he got to try my Saison and Glacier IPA (which has come along nicely developing some real character after two months) as well as a couple of real good examples of Dopplebock (Ayinger and Weihenstephaner). Kept my recipe simple: Durst Munich (55%) Castle Pilsner (31%) Caramunich (5%) Flaked Barley (5%) Aromatic (3%) Carafa Special (~1% for color adjustment) Mashed at 154 degrees. Used all Hallertauer Mit hops. Pitched on W34/70 yeast cake. If I get a Weihenstephaner character I will be real pleased although my bock is in the lower end of the range at 1.066 OG (I want it to be more drinkable than a dopplebock) |
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| By Norm J on Apr 24th 2006, 8:29 pm | Permalink |
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Brewed a Dortmunder Export this weekend. 1.052 OG with 26 IBU from Hallertauer and Saaz. Recipe as follows: 4lb Belgian Pils 2lb 2 row 1.5lb Munich 0.5lb Crystal 15 5 oz flaked barley 1.5 oz Gr. Hallertauer 4.0 60min 0.75 oz Gr. Hallertauer 4.0 20 min 0.5 oz Czech Saaz 3.6 20 min 0.5 oz Gr. Hallertauer 4.0 2 min 0.5 oz Czech Saaz 3.6 2 min Chilled overnight to 46 degrees F. Racked off trub and pitched 2 pkts of W34/70 on about 4.25 gallons aerated wort remaining. Plan is to do a non traditional ferment by allowing temp to rise to 60 degrees once activity starts to enable it to ferment out in two weeks and allow it to be cooled back down to about 48 degrees on May 6 to allow brewing a bock which will pitch to the yeast cake of this beer. I will also postpone the lagering of the Dortmunder until the bock is fermented out. Hopefully, the Dortmunder will still lager properly. From what others have said, the ferment from this free rise hopefully should leave the beer clean flavored with little if any fruity flavors. Supposedly, most fruity esters would be produced right at the start of active fermentation and with the cold start that would be prevented. |
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| By Norm J on Mar 7th 2006, 7:13 pm | Permalink |
| Brewed an IPA over the weekend. It is a modest 1.065 OG IPA. I brewed it with all Glacier hop additions. I've used Glacier in flavor additions before but wanted to get a better feel for it. What better than an IPA! However, using 4.8 AA hops in an IPA required 6 oz of hops (2.25 oz @ 60 min, 2.0 oz @ 20 min, and 1.75 oz @ 2 min). This was the first time I used whole flower hops loose in the wort. They plugged up my copper outlet pipe in the brewpot and I had to siphon the wort out. Think I'll bag em in the future. | |