Brewing, anyone?

[mushka]

Only thing around here I brew is coffee.

 

[Ames]

And coffee stout.

 

[Wawyasto]

Does anyone have an interest in mead?

I've made a gallon or few, got into it just before Kung Flu hit.

First batch is still aging, 5 pounds honey, 1.5 gallons water and K1-V116. it hit near 18% abc and is just now after 2 years starting to not taste like jet fuel. Last couple batches have been a more sane 3 pounds local honey, 1 gallon water and D47. Occasionally it'll get some strawberries or blueberries added to the secondary with some pectic enzymes depending on my mood.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

First batch is still aging, 5 pounds honey, 1.5 gallons water and K1-V116. it hit near 18% abv and is just now after 2 years starting to not taste like jet fuel.

WOW

Yeah that K1-V116 yeast will go that high fur shur...,
you might consider running it through some activated charcoal on the day that you bottle it. Might knock it down to 16.5% abv but should take out some of that "harshness".

LD

 

[Loyalist Dave]

St. Patrick's Chocolate Stout
(makes one case of 12 oz. bottles or 12 pint bottles. )
3.5 gallons distilled water
3 lbs. liquid dark malt extract
1 lb. Bries Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb. torrified wheat
1/4 Black Patent malt
1 oz. Crysal Hops
Safale S-05 dry yeast
After racking and topping off, abv is about 4.6%

Wart 1.5 gallons. Steep the grains in a large grain sack in warm water. Remove and press to extract as much from the water logged grain, and add that back into the wart. Top off to 1.5 gallons and boil. Add hops and boil for 1 hour. Pour into fermenter, and add second gallon of water, chilled. Should be 2.5 gallons in fermenter. Pitch when wort has cooled to room temp. Ferment two weeks, then rack, add distilled water to bring amount up to 3 gallons, and age two more weeks. Prime with 1/4 cup priming sugar, and bottle. Age condition for 2 more weeks at room temp.

This will have a nice head and a sour note like other stouts due to the use of the torrified wheat. Note that like some stouts there are no "aroma" hops added in the last 20 minutes or so of the boil, and no clarifying agent like Irish Moss...it's a dark stout. The chocolate grain gives it tones of chocolate and coffee.
If one doesn't like English levels of bitterness, use only 1/2 ounce of Crystal hops.

LD

 

[Brokennock]

St. Patrick's Chocolate Stout
(makes one case of 12 oz. bottles or 12 pint bottles. )
3.5 gallons distilled water
3 lbs. liquid dark malt extract
1 lb. Bries Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb. torrified wheat
1/4 Black Patent malt
1 oz. Crysal Hops
Safale S-05 dry yeast
After racking and topping off, abv is about 4.6%

Wart 1.5 gallons. Steep the grains in a large grain sack in warm water. Remove and press to extract as much from the water logged grain, and add that back into the wart. Top off to 1.5 gallons and boil. Add hops and boil for 1 hour. Pour into fermenter, and add second gallon of water, chilled. Should be 2.5 gallons in fermenter. Pitch when wort has cooled to room temp. Ferment two weeks, then rack, add distilled water to bring amount up to 3 gallons, and age two more weeks. Prime with 1/4 cup priming sugar, and bottle. Age condition for 2 more weeks at room temp.

This will have a nice head and a sour note like other stouts due to the use of the torrified wheat. Note that like some stouts there are no "aroma" hops added in the last 20 minutes or so of the boil, and no clarifying agent like Irish Moss...it's a dark stout. The chocolate grain gives it tones of chocolate and coffee.
If one doesn't like English levels of bitterness, use only 1/2 ounce of Crystal hops.

LD

Ooooooh

 

[Wawyasto]

WOW

Yeah that K1-V116 yeast will go that high fur shur...,
you might consider running it through some activated charcoal on the day that you bottle it. Might knock it down to 16.5% abv but should take out some of that "harshness".

LD

I had planned to let it age and back sweeten, I give it a taste every 6 months or so and gets better every time.

I'm also dabbling with fruit wines. My late grandfather did a lot of brewing beer and wine, he kept pretty good records in a journal that I stumbled across a couple years ago. Unfortunately everything's written in German and some of the details are lost in the translation. I did make 2 gallons of strawberry wine from his books, it was a hit at Christmas.

 

[morehops52]

Does anybody have any old-school beer or hard cider recipes or methods they could and would share?
I prefer ales (not IPAs, can't wait for this IPA fad to end), stouts and porters.
Have an extra special fondness for Octoberfest beers.
Ciders I prefer unfiltered and on the tart side.

Care to share?

Oh that darn IPA fad. It's only been going on since the 1820's or so Enjoy your brews.

 

[Brokennock]

Oh that darn IPA fad. It's only been going on since the 1820's or so Enjoy your brews.

The style may have been around since the 1820's or so, but, 4 years ago one could go to the package store, or brewhouse restaurant, and have choices beyond an untold number of IPA's.
For the past few years that seems to be the vast majority of what microbreweries are making. Good luck finding a good brown ale, a simple good stout, or a well done old school porter. They are out there, but, one might find one of those to every 7 or so IPA's.
Worse, now that it seems to be starting to loose it's grip,,,, it seems to possibly be getting replaced with fruit sours.
I guess that is still better than pre-owned beer like Buttwiser, PBR, and MHL.

 

[Wawyasto]

The style may have been around since the 1820's or so, but, 4 years ago one could go to the package store, or brewhouse restaurant, and have choices beyond an untold number of IPA's.
For the past few years that seems to be the vast majority of what microbreweries are making. Good luck finding a good brown ale, a simple good stout, or a well done old school porter. They are out there, but, one might find one of those to every 7 or so IPA's.
Worse, now that it seems to be starting to loose it's grip,,,, it seems to possibly be getting replaced with fruit sours.
I guess that is still better than pre-owned beer like Buttwiser, PBR, and MHL.

If you haven't already you might check out Boulevard Brewery's Smokestack line of stouts and ales. They're out of KCMO, about a 90 minute drive up I-35 for me. I've been drinking their Boulevard Wheat for going on 3 decades now.

 

[Brokennock]

If you haven't already you might check out Boulevard Brewery's Smokestack line of stouts and ales. They're out of KCMO, about a 90 minute drive up I-35 for me. I've been drinking their Boulevard Wheat for going on 3 decades now.

Thanks.

 

[Ponderosaman]

If you haven't already you might check out Boulevard Brewery's Smokestack line of stouts and ales. They're out of KCMO, about a 90 minute drive up I-35 for me. I've been drinking their Boulevard Wheat for going on 3 decades now.

These are my favorite bottles to save for packaging. The smokestack shape makes cleaning much easier for sanitizing. And the beer is amazballs.

 

[Ponderosaman]

From experience grohlsh style bottles loosen up and allow CO2 to leak during priming. I like a nice fizzy beer. These type bottles need a lot of TLC to consistently prime over several batches.

 

[morehops52]

The style may have been around since the 1820's or so, but, 4 years ago one could go to the package store, or brewhouse restaurant, and have choices beyond an untold number of IPA's.
For the past few years that seems to be the vast majority of what microbreweries are making. Good luck finding a good brown ale, a simple good stout, or a well done old school porter. They are out there, but, one might find one of those to every 7 or so IPA's.
Worse, now that it seems to be starting to loose it's grip,,,, it seems to possibly be getting replaced with fruit sours.
I guess that is still better than pre-owned beer like Buttwiser, PBR, and MHL.

I don't know how beers are in CT but I got my first taste of an IPA in 1987 or so. It was Victory Hop Devil from eastern PA. and it was a revelation. I've never looked back after that. I enjoy most types of beer and here in W. PA I can drive 10 min in any compass direction and find stouts, brown ales, porters, etc. Yes, the fruit sours are promoted for our younger (too young ?) drinkers who will eventually get tired of sweet drinks and discover the wonderful world of hop bitterness. There are so many styles of beers because there are so many differences in tastes. I do hope wherever you go for a brewsky that you find one to your liking.

 

[Brokennock]

I used to enjoy an occasional IPA. My 1st was Dogfishhead, not sure how many years ago, 15 or 18? Was never a preference, but was enjoyed occasionally. Still is sometimes. The market just seems oversaturated to me, and has been for a few years.

 

[Shooter1]

So many great beers at the local breweries here, I don't even try to compete. Now a little wine may perk here occasionally.

 

[Wawyasto]

Has anyone tried this yet? I'm kind of interested.

https://skeeterpee.com/recipe

 

[Ponderosaman]

Has anyone tried this yet? I'm kind of interested.

https://skeeterpee.com/recipe

Heard its pretty good, but I prefer dry brews, so wouldn't do the kmeta or add sugar after the fact except to make it fizzy, which this recipe would make a still brew. My version would take a shorter time and I would feel confident that it wouldn't taste hot because I made a "seltzer" once with high sugar content fermentation (corn syrup) and it turned out very nice.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Oh that darn IPA fad. It's only been going on since the 1820's or so Enjoy your brews.

It's NOT really an IPA fad...it's now an APA fad (American Pale Ale)

So about 20 years ago, I'm told, Anheuser-Busch tried buying up all the hops they could get, to run the micro brewers like Sam Adams out of business. Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada had seen this coming and had secured some farms and were growing hops so they survived, but some smaller concerns went under. The home brewing hobby took a massive hit, and a lot of the homebrew stores went under.

Farmers found that hops was a pretty good cash crop, so farms started converting over. To safeguard against another Big Brew attempt to corner the market on hops, American hop farmers started looking for strains with much higher Alpha and Beta acids than the traditional hops from Europe. So American hops began to be cultivated in new strains having Alpha acids in the 8-14 range, while something like a Kent or Hallertau in Europe or USA would be in the 4-7 range.

What that meant was that instead of using two pounds of hops for bittering and aroma in an 80 gallon barrel of regular ale..., using the higher Alpha acid hops developed in America, meant one could use half or even less the amount for the same amount of ale. Which meant that acre per acre the usefulness of the new hops effectively doubled the crop yield.

THEN folks discovered that using equal amounts of the new hops as one would the traditional hops, gave the brewmaster a bitterness and hop flavor akin to an IPA..., but with a marked flavor difference. When the hops in America were hybrid to increase Alpha and Beta acids... the citrus flavor really became pronounced. HENCE such ales are now called APA as the flavor is distinctly American.

I don't particularly like an APA but I do like an IPA with British hops...., APA's are, in my experience, grapefruit ale... The only time I want grapefruit in my adult beverage is in my Paloma or Greyhound cocktail

LD

 

[Brokennock]

Very interesting, thanks Dave.