Brewing
My blog about homebrewing and beer
Recipe – Glimmer Twins – 14B & 16E
May 29th
I have been wanting to brew a Belgian IPA for a while now. I really like the style, the mix of the american hops and the belgian yeast can be quite interesting. A few weeks back, I had a brew day where the original plan fell through. One thing I took note of though was that the day I was going to brew, I had two batches that needed kegged. One was the beatification clone, the other was my penny candy wheat, That gave me an idea, I would have a yeast cake of S-05 and WLP500 available.
My decision was easy. Brew 10 gallons of wort, give half to the S-05 and half to the wlp500. I had been wanting to brew my Citra IPA again, and had all the hops and grain to do it. So I decided to go with that recipe, and split the wort for fermentation. I did have to make one change. There wasn’t enough citra hops for dry hopping. I ended up going with an ounce of citra and an ounce of cascade in each batch for dry hopping.
I just tapped these yesterday. The dry hops still need a few days to come through. However my inital impressions are quite good. At this point, I’m leaning towards the belgian as my preference, but time will tell.
As for the name, I wanted something that was ying and yang, or Jekyll and Hyde like. I wanted to show that the two were related, but different. I was talking to my wife about this, and she came up with the answer. The glimmer twins. IF you don’t know who the glimmer twins are, click the wikipedia link. Now I had the first half of the name, but needed to seperate them. I decided to go with album names for these beers. I named them after two awesome Stones albums, Sticky fingers, and Exile on Main ST. So we have Glimmer twins- exile (Belgian), and Glimmer Twins – sticky fingers (American). This could lead to a whole slew of beers. The “twins” series. Maybe next time it’ll be the toxic twins.
Specs
Brew Date:5/7/2011
Brewer:Steve
Batch Size:10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.05 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Efficiency: 70.00
IBU’s: 69.8 IBU
Est. SRM: 6.5 SRM
total hops: 13.00
grain wight: 28.00 lb
Pre-boil grav: 1.064
Est. OG: 1.072 SG
Est. FG: 1.021 SG
Est. ABV: 6.74 %
Equipment: ! – 15/15 – 10 gallon batch – cooler MLT
Style: 14B American IPA
Ingredients
| Amount | Item | Type | % or IBU |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 lbs | Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) | Grain | 75.86 % |
| 4 lbs | Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) | Grain | 13.79 % |
| 1 lbs | White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) | Grain | 3.45 % |
| 8.0 oz | Caramel/Crystal Malt – 20L (20.0 SRM) | Grain | 1.72 % |
| 8.0 oz | Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (40.0 SRM) | Grain | 1.72 % |
| 1.00 oz | Simcoe [13.00 %] (60 min) | Hops | 18.9 IBU |
| 2.00 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) | Hops | – |
| 2.00 oz | Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) | Hops | – |
| 0.50 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (45 min) | Hops | 7.4 IBU |
| 1.00 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (20 min) (First Wort Hop) | Hops | 10.7 IBU |
| 1.00 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (20 min) | Hops | 9.8 IBU |
| 1.00 oz | Simcoe [13.00 %] (20 min) | Hops | 11.4 IBU |
| 2.00 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (10 min) | Hops | 11.7 IBU |
| 2.50 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (0 min) | Hops | – |
| 2.10 tsp | Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min) | Misc | |
| 1 lbs | Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) | Sugar | 3.45 % |
| 1 Pkgs | Safale US-05 (Fermentis #S-05) | Yeast-Ale | |
| 1 Pkgs | Trappist Ale (White Labs #WLP500) | Yeast-Ale |
Mash
| Step Time | Name | Description | Step Temp |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 min | Mash In | Add 35.00 qt of water at 162.5 F | 151.0 F |
Sparge
| Amount | Item | Type | % or IBU |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.00 oz | Citra [11.10 %] (20 min) (First Wort Hop) | Hops | 10.7 IBU |
Drain Mash Tun
Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 3.96 gal of 180.0 F water
Batch Sparge Round 2: Sparge with 3.96 gal of 180.0 F water
Created with BeerSmith
Winning a cask widge float
May 15th
Coming home from work yesterday, during a woot off, I knew there was a bag of crap coming….my insticts were sure…and. well, I was right. I launch multiple tabs trying to get an elusive BOC to no avail. That site is non responsive, and the bag of crap evades me again. Damnit! I close out, grab my phone and check twitter. Oh, there is a new tweet from @homebrewfinds, winners of the contest, dare I click the link????????
I click the link, and low and behold one of the 6 winners, 6 out of 400 entries, was me. Simple old Steve won. I replaced all of the sadneess from not getting a bag of crap with elation over winning the contest. Oh yeah, I haven’t even told you what I won yet…..
I won a cask widge float. Huh, come again, terminlolgy not computing. Yeah, that was my first thought when I read about the contest, but guess what, this is actually a pretty cool item.
It was designed by these guys, as a way to revolutinize cask beer dispensing. You know what, it just might. With their system, no more casks at an angle, taking up a ton of room. You can keep your firkins at the same orientation as us Yanks keep our sankes. In the most simplist of descriptions, it is a device that floats just below the surface of the beer, and goes down as the level of beer goes down. It does a top to bottom draining of the cask, instead of a bottom to top draining.
Hmm, that’s interesting. Wonder if anyone tried to adapt that to homebrewing…..Oh wait, this post wouldn’t exist if that wasn’t the case. So on the homebrew level, there are 2 great ways this could be implemented. One is to use in the keg. Supposedly the tubing will slide over the dip tube of a keg, allowing you to dispense from the top, and not the bottom of a keg. What are the advantages? Well the top becomes carbed before the bottom. Also the first pint or two or three are full of sediment. The top of the keg will clear before the bottom due to simple gravity. Also if you dry hop in the keg, less chance of getting the dip tube clogged with this. Earth shattering, maybe not, but I wanna give it a go.
Another use, transfering TO the keg. I recently picked up a 15 gallon fermentation vessle. It is one of the containers that LHBS’s use for bulk LME. It is food grade, plastic of some kind, and was only $10, so the price was right. I got it home, cleaned it out, and then realized I didn’t have a good way to get all of the wort out of this thing. The cask widge float fits the bill. I should be able to attach it to a racking cane and transfer out into kegs with no issue. At least that is my hope.
So the guy behind homebrewfinds.com has sevearal post concerning these items, and they are worth a read. It is also worth followng home on twitter, or checking his site regularly. He posts all kinds of good deals for homebrewers. He is how I found the keg with a welded port for $99.
Perhaps the most ironic part of this is that the us distributor for these cask widge floats is ukbrewing.com. Yep, that;s right, Paul who owns the bullshead, 1 block from where I work is the US distrubutor of these items. Guess on my lunch break I could go order more if they work out.
Celebrating National Homebrew Day
May 13th
Hopefully everyone took some time last Saturday to celebrate national homebrew day. Whether it was simply talking about HB, brewing a batch, kegging a batch, or enjoying a few of your own creations, I hope you enjoyed it. I did. I brewed 10 gallons of IPA / Belgian IPA.
I brewed my Citra IPA recipe again. However this time I took 5 gallons and pitched S-05 (warning: PDF), while the other 5 gallons I pitched WLP500 (trappist ale yeast). That is the Chimay yeast. Truthfully I don’t know if that recipe lends itself well to a Belgian IPA, nor do I know if WLP500 works well to make a Belgian IPA. But I had it on hand, ready to pitch, so what the hell. Worst case scenario, it’ll be beer. Best case scenario, it’ll be beer.
The two batches have definitely fermented differently. They were both pitched with slurry from previous batches. The S05 was a very thick slurry, and I ended up pitching more than the Mr. Malty calculator calls for. It took off within a couple hours, and had about 3 inches of krausen by next morning.
The WLP500 was a different story. That slurry was much thinner, so I went a little heavy on the pitch. I thought that would make up for it, but I didn’t have any signs of activity until about 36 hours post pitch. However once it finnaly took hold, it went off the deep end. The S05 looked like a steady snow storm, while the WLP500 looked like Snowpocalypse all over again.
Take a look at the picture here. Normally walking into the fermentation room (aka the utility side of the basement), if I were to see two batches of that different color, there is no way I’d think they were from the same batch. However I assure you, those two carboys came from the same 10 gallons of wort. The wlp500 is on the left, and the S-05 is on the right. I am very intrigued to see if the SRM is any different once fermentation is done, they are kegged, and I am drinking them.
I am very excited to see how these beers progress. At this point I am thiking of dry hopping the amercian IPA, but not dry hopping the Belgian. I always am intrigued by different results from the same process. That was the thought behind what I did for my 50th batch. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I hope that doesn’t make me…nah, I’m good.
recipe: RR Beatification clone
May 12th
I feel like a kid on christmas eve. That is if you went to bed christmans eve and had to wait a year plus to unwrap your presents. I’m going to be brewing a RR Beatification clone. However it will be 12 to 18 months until it’s ready. Damn.
This is the second sour I will be doing. The first one was Denny Conns Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter with a surprise sour. While it wasn’t planned on being a sour, it was an AMAZING beer. This one is going to use the same barrel as that beer, but will be soured on purpose.
While I’ve never had beatification, I’ve read amazing things about it, and simply love sour beers. My best sour experience was at the 2009 “night of the funk” in Boston. Wow, Cable car, Cuvee de Tomme, Brutte, and Le Bleu. Yeah that was just 2 of the breweries. There were over 50 sours there.
I’ve wanted to brew sour beers, but honestly have been afraid to. I am afraid of contaminating my entire brewhouse. It can and has happened. However, with proper sanitiation, and some care, it should be a minimal risk. One of these days I’ll put my big boy pants on and brew sours in house, instead of aging them in someone else’s house.
This reicpe is courtesy of the mad ferementationist. He has a great blog about brewing. He is big into sours and has some of the better info available on brewing them.
You’ll notice I listed this as a beligian blonde. Technically is is a Belgian Enkel (or single), however that isn’t a category beersmith or the BJCP has. I had to pick something for the category, and chose that,
This was brewed a couple months ago. It looks like this coming weekend will be when we all get together to put the beer into the barrel, and add the bugs. WooHoo! I can’t wait. I need to completely forget about this beer for a year, or I will start to obsess about it.
Specs
Brew Date:TBD
Brewer:Steve
Batch Size:5.25 gal
Boil Size: 7.61 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Efficiency: 71.00
IBU’s: 23.7 IBU
Est. SRM: 4.0 SRM
total hops: 1.50
grain wight: 10.26 lb
Pre-boil grav: 1.042
Est. OG: 1.052 SG
Est. FG: 1.012 SG
Est. ABV: 5.14 %
Equipment: ! – 15/10 – 5 gallon batch
Style: 18A Belgian Blond Ale
Ingredients
| Amount | Item | Type | % or IBU |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 lbs | Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) | Grain | 77.97 % |
| 1 lbs 8.0 oz | White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) | Grain | 14.62 % |
| 6.1 oz | Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) | Grain | 3.70 % |
| 6.1 oz | Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) | Grain | 3.70 % |
| 1.50 oz | Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min) | Hops | 23.7 IBU |
| 1 Pkgs | Trappist Ale (White Labs #WLP500) | Yeast-Ale |
Mash
| Step Time | Name | Description | Step Temp |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 min | Mash In | Add 12.83 qt of water at 165.9 F | 154.0 F |
Sparge
Drain Mash Tun
Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 3.22 gal of 180.0 F water
Batch Sparge Round 2: Sparge with 3.22 gal of 180.0 F water
Created with BeerSmith
New toy…Keggle edition
May 11th
So I got a new toy recently. Adventures in homebrewing is running a special where you can get a keggle with the top nicely cut off and a ½” welded port for $99. The sale started as I was starting to look for another kettle, so I jumped on it.
The kettle was a bit beat up, but hey it’s used and abused. I wasn’t expecting brand new, as I didn’t pay for brand new. There was one thing that did concern me. There are drain holes on the bottom of the keg skirt to allow liquid to drain. One thing you don’t want to do is have your coupler near those holes. Flames will lick up through the hole heating your connection up and melting the handle. As you can see from the picture, they drilled the hole for the coupler right next to the drain hole.
The good news was they did realize the mistake. They welded a piece of stainless over that drain hole to fix the problem. I was mildly concerned about it, would it cause any issues? I’m happy to report that I used the keggle on my last batch and didn’t have any problems with it, so I think it will be fine.
The keggle came with 1 coupler welded in. I needed a total of 3 holes. I decided to use weldless fittings for the other two locations. Some people don’t like weldless, but I am comfortable with them, and have used them for everything else. I transfered the sightglass from my old HLT to the keggle. Due to the domed bottom of a keggle, the HLT doesn’t get a good reading until it hits 4 gallons.
I also added a whirlpool valve to the top of the keggle. I redesigned the interior portion of the whirlpool port. On my other kettle I used this whirlpool fitting. It didn’t work quite as well as I hoped. Since it was 1/2″ pipe there wasn’t enough restriction to have much force. I have switched to using a street elbow –> coupler –> 1/2″ mpt tp 3/8″ barb fitting. This combo works quite well. I have that setup on both kettles now. I tried just elbow to barb, but thee was too much distance between the end of the barb and the kettle wall. The configuration with the street elbow gets the barb close but not too close to the kettle wall.
For the pickup tube on the drain valave, I used the whirlpool fitting that I took off the old kettle, combined with a 45° elbow. On the bargain fittings page for the whirlpool fitting, he has an example of that configuration. It gets good and close to the center and I’d be surprised if my dead space was even 1 cup. It drains almost everything.
I anticipate my original 15 gallon kettle will become my HLT, and the Keggle will become my boil kettle. Part of the reason is that the sight glass on my kettle starts reading at 2 gallons, where the sight glass n the keggle doesn’t get a reading until 4 gallons. The ability to read the lower levels is more important in an HLT than in a BK.
