Smashed Cherry IPA

Grain

-------

13lbs Marris Otter 2 Row

Hops

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4oz Citra

Yeast

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White Labs Dusseldorf WLP036 (harvested from the Summer Strawberry Wheat)

Notes made before brewing started:

Want to understand and target a grist/water ratio.

Want to understand the pH of the mash - targeting a 5.2.

Mash Notes:

Was aiming for 13 x 1.5qts (1.5qts/lb) but only had to add 11 x 1.5qts (1.27qts/lb).

First mash rest temperature of 155°F.

Looked to be 5.5pH from test strips. After mash sample was taken from top of mash tun, let it cool and pH meter was 6pH. Second reading about ½ way through the mash was 5.77pH

06/28/2015 - Brew Day

PreBoil: 1.052

OG: 1.060

FG: 1.010

ABV: 6.5%

7/15/2015 - Racked to secondary, added cherry juice and 2oz whole cone dry hop.

7/25/2015 - 54 bottle yield

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Imperial Fragaria Wheat

Grain

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8lbs 2-Row

4lbs White wheat

1lb Munich Light 10L

Hops
------

.5 oz Cascade (60 min)

.5 oz Cascade (30 min)

1 oz Cascade (15 min)

1 oz Citra (5 min)

1 oz dried orange zest in packet (5 min)

Yeast
-------

White Labs WLP036 Dusseldorf Ale Yeast

Rack to Secondary and Fruit Addition - 6/9/2015

Cut 2 Quarts of strawberries into quarter pieces and freeze. Then warmed the strawberries up and added it to the carboy. Also added 16oz strawberry pure from a can into the carboy then racked the beer onto the strawberry madness. Gravity reading was 1.009

Estimated Pre Boil OG: 1.052

Estimated OG: 1.067

Estimated FG: 1.019

Estimated ABV: 6.30%

**estimations made without strawberries factored in

*Strawberries added about 1.5%

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Barney's Hopped Up

Grain

-------

7 lbs Marris Otter Pale Malt

2 lbs Quick oat

1 lbs Caramalt wheat 45L

Hops

------

.5 oz Citra (60)

.5 oz Citra (15)

.5 oz Cascade (30)

.5 oz Cascade (5)

Yeast

-------

White Labs Dusseldorf WLP036

Other Adds
--------------

2 gallon bag of frozen mulberries pressed and strained

Brew Day - 5/23/2015

Berry Addition - 6/1/2015

~.5 gallon mulberry juice was added to primary

Also added 2 cups of sugar to primary (adds .75% ABV)

~35-40 IBU

SG: 1.037

FG: ?? 

After juice and sugar, calculated ABV should be around 4.5-5%

Notes:

SG not as high as we wanted. Partially because the grain should have been milled twice and also the oat should probably be cereal mashed because I think it is not adding the sugars I was hoping for in this batch.

We processed 2 bags of frozen mulberries (harvested 2014). Straining the mulberries while we heated and mashed them on the stove. Collected about 50oz of juice. We added about ⅔ of this juice to this beer on 6/1. This same day we used the other ⅓ of juice to make another melomel.

The plan was to do some dry hopping but that didn’t happen with this batch. Here are the original dry hop additions that were planned:

1 oz Cascade (dry hop)

2 oz Orange zest (dry hop)

Handful of mulberries (dry hop)

*Dry hop ingredients sanitized in high ABV red wine (one cup?)

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Split Batch - English Yeast vs. Saison Yeast

Grain

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7 lbs. 2 row

3 lbs. Munich 20L

2 lbs. Flaked Oats

1 cup Brown Sugar

Hops

--------

.25oz. Simcoe (60 min)

.25 oz. Simcoe (30 min)

.5 oz. Kent Golding (15 min)

.5 oz. Kent Golding (5 min)

Yeast

--------

Split the batch and pitched two types of yeast.

Safale S-04 English Ale Yeast vs. White Labs Saison II

Notes

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With 70% efficiency assumed, 6.75 gallon preboil volume, 5.5 gallon post boil.

Mash Water 4 gallons, sparge 5+ gallons. 165°F

Preboil: 1.047 (1.044 before sugar added)

OG: 1.057

FG: 1.016 (5.4% ABV)

IBU: 35

SRM: 9.7

¾ cups sugar to prime at bottling

To the Saison beer, zest and pulverized orange meat from 6 blood oranges. Added this all directly to secondary when racking.

Decission was after weeks of tasting that the saison was more interesting with the character of the yeast coming through. Overall this beer could use more hop, eliminate the orange meat (add more zest alone/instead). Try to get it dryer because it was sweet. Maybe less Munich as that was adding a lot of the sweetness.

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Mile Marker 7 McCracken Saison

Grain
-------
12 lbs Belgian Pilsner
1 lb Belgian Cara 8
2 lbs Rolled Oats (325°F for 20 minutes)

Other Adds
--------------
1 lb Brown Sugar (15 min)


Hops
------
.75 oz UK East Kent Golding [A:5.7%, B:2.9%] (60 min)
.25 oz UK East Kent Golding [A:5.7%, B:2.9%] (45 min)
1 oz  Czech Saaz [A:3.6%, B:4.8%] (10 min)

Yeast
-------
White Labs WLP566 - Belgian Saison II

Mash Schedule
-------------------
60 minute mash @ 155°F @ 1.25 Quarts/Pound

Brew Day 3/14/2015
Brewed by myself, which made everything a bit more difficult, but overall it went great. I put the rolled oats on a non-stick pan and into the oven at 325°F for about 20 minutes. This cook time was all by feel. I probably could have roasted them a bit more to get a darker color. But I was happy with the results after 20 minute. 

I added the 2lbs of rolled oats to the 13 lbs of grain; mashed with the entire 15 lbs. I struggled with the mash considering the 15lbs of grain - I used the 5 gal Orange Coleman cooler which was maxed out during the mash. Targeting 1.25 Quarts/Pound required 18.75 Quarts of water at 169.4°F to be added to the grain. 

I overshot the 155°F rest temperature by about 5°F degrees so I added ice to drop it down a few degrees. I think that the raised temperature of the rolled oats affected my rest temperature overshoot. I never used the ice trick before so I learned from my mistakes. I added too much ice and undershot by about 5 degrees. So with my mash temp at about 145°F I needed to raise it back up but I didn't have any room in the cooler. So I had to scoop about a gallon of the mash out of the 5 gallon cooler and put it into a 1.5 gallon cooler. I then added boiling water to the 5 gallon cooler and brought the mash up to the desired 155°F rest temp. It took a bit of stirring to get it at the 155°F, but once it was there, I capped the cooler and let it sit for the 60 minutes. I checked it every 15 minutes to ensure I was still at the desired temperature. 

For the 1.5 gallon cooler, it had mostly water in it, but some grain too. I had to commit to doing a partial mash for that guy and get what I could out of it. I was able to add about .5 gal of boiling water until the little cooler was topped off. At that point, the baby mash temperature was hovering around 145°F - a little low, but I wasn't sweating it too much cause the larger mash was settled in at the desired temperature. 

Starch conversion test with Iodine at 60 minutes was beautiful from the main mash. The little mash didn't have as good of a reading, but overall I was happy with the result. I drained the main mash into  5 gallon bucket. As there was enough room in main mash, I poured the little mash into the main mash. After the grain bed settled a good bit, I began fly sparging with 170°F water. I was able to collect 7 gallons before I began the boil. I had 2 gallons of extra sparge water that I dumped into the mash to collect second runnings. I was able to collect 2 gallons of ~1.020 second runnings.

Pre-boil gravity reading was 1.054 SG! I was very happy with this as it is 70% efficient!

OG: 1.070

Racked into Secondary 3/21/2015
FG: 1.012

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Chocolate Pecan Porter Bread

Ingredients

--------------

3 Cups Flour (sifted)

3 Teaspoons Baking Powder (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1 Teaspoon Salt (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
12 oz bottle of Chocolate Pecan Porter (or a  substitute beer)
1/4 Cup Melted Butter

Directions
-------------

1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. Mix dry ingredients first. Once the dry ingredients are mixed, add the beer. Rinse the beer bottle with a little cool water and shake around to get the most out of the bottle
3. Use a spoon to scoop equal amounts into a muffin trays. (Note: the size of the muffins will vary the bake time depending on size of muffins)Pour into a greased loaf pan.)
4. Pour melted butter over each muffin.
5. Bake 8 - 10 minutes at 375°F
6. Serve warm, or let cool before putting in refrigerator.

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Flemish Red

The weekend was planned to be this: brew a beer that would eventually be the first sour beer to age for ~6 months, or until flavor profile developed. Additionally, Brett and I talked about making another Mead (this time adding mulberries). In some future posts there will be detail of what this weekend turned into.

Grain
-------
4.00 lbs. Belgian Pilsener
3.5 lbs. American Vienna Malt
3.00 lbs. Belgian Munich Malt
1.00 lbs. Wheat Malt
0.5 lbs. CaraMunich Malt
0.5 lbs. Aromatic Malt
0.5 lbs. Special B Malt

Hops
-------
1 oz Czech Saaz (60 minute addition)

Yeast
--------
Wheat Yeast harvested from Barney's Back primary fermenter

Mash Schedule
--------------------
Sacch Rest 40 min @ 147°F.
Sacch Rest 30 min @ 162°F.

Notes
--------
3/6/2015
Preboil gravity reading was only ~1.035 so we added 3 cups of sugar to the boil. We are not happy with our mash efficiency! Boiled down to a little over 5 gallons. OG was 1.048. Yeast pitched from washed wheat yeast -- harvested from the primary fermentation of the Barney’s Back (no berries were exposed to this yeast because berries were only added into secondary). This was a lot of yeast! Put carboy in the ~60°F pantry overnight with an ‘S’ airlock.

3/7/2015 - It was raging in the morning with visible movement/current in the beer. Came home around 5:30pm to find a blown out airlock and a still raging beer -- converted to blowoff tube and put carboy in the 40°F basement to slow down.

3/8/2015 - Moved carboy and blowoff tube back up to the 60°F pantry

Plan to move this into secondary on 3/13/2015 but the date might change dependent on the activity of the primary. Going to add White Labs Sour Mix 655 to the secondary and let alone for 6 months!

OG 1.048
FG 1.007 (estimated)
ABV 5.43 %
IBU 19.7





The $8 dollar oak barrel trick was used for the first ~4 months, but then I had freshly picked sour cherries I wanted to add. So I removed the oak dowel rod and filled the headspace with the cherries you can see in the above photo.

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