Blow Out!!

The B-52 and IPA both started bubbling pretty good last night after only 5 hours. I took them out in the garage so that they could get down to around 68'F over night. Got up this morning and found this:





At least they didn't explode. I got them all washed down, and some sterilized blow off tubes put in. I'm very surprised, as I have not had to use blow off tubes since I went to the 6 gallon carboys for primaries. Guess I aerated enough...grin. The picture on the right is after only 15 minutes on the blow off tubes.

Denny Conn's Rye IPA

Jason Hoodenpyle and I got together for another brew. Jason did Skotrat's B-52 Light Ale and I did Denny Conn's Rye IPA (both 10 AG brews).





This was also the virgin run of the new temp controller for the mashtun and HLT using the new solenoids and temp controller. Let me tell you this: it worked like a dream. Set the temp, and just keep the HLT at about 10-20'F hotter than the target temp, and the controller took care of the rest. Uh, that was until the march pump locked up. About half way through the Sac rest of the mash, the magnetic drive impeller jammed. I broke it down (see pictures below) and disassembled the impeller and found a bunch of sticky-goo (technical term) on the impeller shaft. I've decided that this is simply too easy to break down to ignore cleaning, so I'm going to go through it after at least every other brew.

I managed to find enough time during the boil to clean 3 kegs, rack the oatmeal stout to one of the kegs and clean the carboy (in addition to taking the pump impeller apart). The oatmeal stout is tasting pretty chocolaty! And the pear cider tastes like champagne (uh...duh, it is running about 14% alcohol by volume and I used champagne yeast).

New Electronic Temp Controlled Mashtun

Here are the new pictures of my Ranco Electronic Temperature Controlled (ETC) mashtun. I have to thank Walt Fischer from the Homebrew Digest Forum pages for the cool idea. I've been thinking about something like this, but didn't really know where to get the solenoids. Walt's setup convinced me to try to pick up some off Ebay and see what I could do. As an electrical engineer, I had to give it a try..grin.

I got the same ETC that I'm using to control the temperature for my kegs in the keg freezer I got. I also bought some Red Hat 120V AC solenoid valves. Now, the system picks up the temp in the mashtun and bypasses if it is above the set point or sends the wort through the HLT heat transfer coils if it is too cool.

Oatmeal Breakfast Stout

I just finished up the 10 gallon AG brew of Oatmeal Breakfast Stout with the help of Nathan Rowland. Missed my OG again! Hit 62% efficiency and I left a full gallon in the boil kettle because of the willamette whole hops plugging the SS strainer. I'm ordering another false bottom today and I hope I can find some Zymico bazzoka tubes somewhere too. You can also see my awesome little brew buddy, Riley James McClain, who is just over 11 months old now.

Black Butte Porter

Here is the Black Butte Porter in a side by side. The taste is quite splendid, and has a very nice roasted tasted to it. The color is very nice, though still settling a bit and is not quite as clear yet and is a bit lighter in color (ever so slightly) than the real thing . I think I shall like this beer very much, indeed. I can only hope that the Breakfast Oatmeal Stout I'm making this weekend will be as nice.

Pappony Cider (Pear-Apple-Honey)

I have been wanting to do a hard cider for a while (actually, my wife said if I really wanted to brew something she might like, I could try matching Ace Pear Cider...sigh). Anyway, I did a little research and found a ton of conflicting comments/instructions. Some emphatically saying boil to kill native yeasts, some saying don't, the native yeasts are the best ferment. Some saying you can't use pasteurized, some actually preferring it. Some saying use beer yeast, some wine, some champagne.

Anyway, I finally just decided that the best way to figure it out was to write up my own recipie and try it out.

So, I got the following together:

• 4 gallons Apple Cider (no preservatives, but it had been Pasteurized)
  
• 6 29oz cans of Bartlett Pears in juice (again, no preservatives, but Pasteurized).
  
• 2 lbs Rasins
  
• 5 lbs Pure Clover Honey
  
• Lavlin 1118 Wine/Champagne Yeast
  

Blended the pears and honey up to a fine puree. Blended Rasins in some of the apple cider. Brought entire concoction to boil for 30 minutes.

Now came the hard part. The rasins and puree plugged every method I used to try to CFC chill it. SS scrubbies plugged, even trying to pump it was bad. So in the future, I will try using the juicer I bought just for this (but I was convinced I should be able to just blend it all and boil it for a while and get more fermentables).

Anyway, I finally just poured the remainder through a strainer/funnel into the carboy sitting in an ice bath and let it cool. Pitched yeast, and 5 hours later, it is just starting to bubble. This looks like it is going to turn out more like Apple Jack than any sparkling cider (grin) as it is very dark and looks like a Wiezen more than cider.

The taste of the original solution is great though so far...we'll see how it filters (any ideas on filtering the final ferment?.

I ended up with an OG of 1.118 (refractometer says it is 1.106). Anyway, this is going to probably be pretty high in alcohol content unless I chill it early to stop the ferment. I'll plan to rack to secondary in one week and just keep it in my beer fridge at 40'F (I know they recommend secondary fermenting at around 55'F, but I don't think I can handle drinking my beer that warm).

The pictures below are all out in my shop on my counters next to my plumbed in deep sink.

Black Butte is bubbling!!

The Black Butte Porter is bubbling away after about 30 hours of lag time. Here are some pictures of it and my little brew buddy (who looks like he has had too much...grin.