Blaaaaddddoowww

Brewed up a Rye Pale ale that came out pretty well. Nice and smooth and clear too. Made a citra hop heavy pale too but it came out weird. VERY lemony / citrusy, possibly overcarbed but it lightened up over some time.

SMASH #2

10 pounds Maris Otter Pale Malt Grain, mashed at 155 Fahrenheit

4 ounces of Willamette hops with 2 ounces @ 60 minutes, 1 ounce @ 20 minutes, and 1 ounce @ 5 minutes.

American Ale Yeast, and no gravity readings as I didn't have the hydrometer. Oh well. Vicious fermentation though, the krauzen clogged the air lock and I only yielded 4 gallons this time!

I'm going to buy a motorcycle

Two in the bottle

Bottled the SMaSH 2-row & Northern Brewer beer, and the Extra Pale Ale. Nailed the efficiency which I think is the mash tun. Augie says its the grain bill but fuck him. Tall bastard. Anyways, on the EPA I notched down the hops in the bittering and added it to the flavoring side to give a little more twinkle in its step, nahi'msayin?

=6.7% ABV with 48 IBU to the SMASH
=6.1% ABV with 42 IBU to the Extra Pale

Next up: Maris Otter / Golding IPA & Another stab at the stout with some Rye in there

SMaSH Brew: 2-row & Northern Brewer

mash tun is beauty.

11# 2-row gain

Hop schedule: Northern Brewer
.5oz @ 60 minute
1oz @ 15 minute
1oz @ 10 minute
.5oz @ 5 minute
1oz @ 1 minute

American Ale II Yeast

Last weeks:

8# 2-row base
2# german vienna
.5# crystal 10l

hop schedule: Cascade
.75oz @ 60 minutes
.5oz @ 30 minutes
.5oz @ 15 minutes
.25oz @ 5 minutes

Rogue Pacman Yeast pitched @ 68F

BU:Gu .64

And now for something completely different.

NAHBS, Goat, Beer

I'm going to the NAHBS this year. To the non-dorks, the grand ol' opry of expensive bullshit, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Works sponsoring part of it, and Ali got my tickets for my birthday. Awesome.

Working on the mash tun, hopefully it will be operational soon.

Ordered my scratch & dent Nomad Carbon today.

Might do the Colorado Trail this summer. 300+ miles between Durango & Denver. soon...

haven't brewed shit

but I received 5 pounds of hops from my brother so some hop hounds are in store for this winter. Hopefully Two Dummies will be brewing soon again. The co-brewmeister in charge built a mash tun, and maybe we can make a sparge tank too. GET SOME.



Brews I've been keeping myself busy with. The Lagunitas beer is GREAT. Try it if you find it.

No one knows where Osama Bin Hidin'

I've been busy working 2 jobs and riding bikes and shit, so I haven't had time to waste my time updating this.

Bottled the Frankenbeer (it's horrible tasting), made a Russian Imperial Stout that missed its mark making it just a Russian Stout and Augie and I made a Milk Stout (not fukken vegan!)

The RIS was pulled from a Stone clone recipe...

15# 2-row
1# amber malt
1# roasted barley
1# black malt

buncha hops, look up the schedule.

I only achieve an original gravity of 1.064, and if I had decent efficiency (mine was 50%) I'd have gotten around 1.085. Oh well, so it's not imperial. Still 90 ibus, and 5.6% abv.

The Two Dummies Witbier didn't work so well. It got a stuck fermentation. Oh well. We fell about 5-7 points short on our final gravity, with a 1.023 final. We bottled it and it tastes good.

Both should be ready in two weeks since they've been bulk aging for a while now.

Third beer is a Milk Stout brewed 3 weeks ago. and it's got lactose in it. Weird and not vegan! bwahahaha

7# munich malt
2# wheat malt
1# crystal malt
.75# roasted barley
.5# chocolate malt

3/4 oz of simcoe hops @ 60 minutes, and you're bumping. toss in some stout or irish yeast and you're ready to go. ends up probably around 4% abv. a light stout, by any ideas. but yeah, this one will get bottled in a week, so then the true nature of the abv will be told!

anyways, while you're drinking, watch the follow me video. you can find it online but you should buy it.nobody rides alone.

Personal Brew #006 - Frankenburper

I had a bunch of stuff lying around that I guess shouldn't be kept lying around. That's cool, I didn't have shit to do on Friday anyways. So I fired up the brew pot, and got mashin'.

Punched it all into hopville's calculator . A great little web application.

5 pounds Pale Malt, Maris Otter
1 pounds American Two-row Pale
1 pounds German Wheat Malt Dark
1 pounds German Rauch Smoked
8 oz Belgian Special B
8 oz American Chocolate
8 oz Belgian Caramel Pils
8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
5 oz American Crystal 60L

Batch size: 5.0 gallons

Mash: 4 gallons of water @ 115F (15 minutes) then 150F or so (tried to keep it between ~149 and ~153) so that I get a good amount of fermentable but still some body. I figure it being super dark will give it enough flavor without it being motor oily.

Sparge: rinsed with about 3 gallons of 185F water to give me a pretty full brewpot.

The citra dryhop will be dropped in to give it a little zest once it's finished off. I'm debating putting it into a secondary. I'm somewhat interested in doing a primary only since it'll be dark the light yeastiness won't be as big of a deal.

OG: 1.054 (Actual measured) (range: 1.050 to 1.058)
FG: 1.014 (Expected) (range: 1.012 to 1.015)
Color: 24° SRM / 47° EBC (Brown to Dark Brown)
Mash Efficiency: ~75%

hops:
boil 60 mins 1.0 oz Columbus
boil 10 mins 1.0 oz Willamette
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Citra

Bitterness
57.8 IBU / 12 HBU
Alcohol
5.6% ABV / 4% ABW
Calories
184 per 12 oz.

Pitched a Belgian Abbey Ale II liquid yeast pack, and it's been bubbling since Saturday at 1:15am. A really dark krausen on it, but who knows.

Up next: Two Dummies: a witbier. god knows when though since I am working 60+ hours a week now. Then I'm going to think about brewing a bigger beer or something for brew not bombs. I'm maybe thinking an all grain version of the English Mild recipe, or something akin to RustWagen beer.

Red Rye Ale, Two Dummies Brew #005

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Boil Size (Gallons): 6
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.051
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 1 week
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2 weeks


Grain:
7 lb. American 2-row
1 lb. American Munich
8 oz. American crystal 120L
4 oz. Belgian CaraMunich
2 oz. Belgian Special B
1.5 lb. Flaked rye
1 lb. Rye malt

mash 60 minutes at 150-158

1 tsp irish moss at 15 min.

Hops:
.5 oz. Columbus (13% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Columbus (13% AA, 20 min.)
.5 oz. Columbus (13% AA, 10 min.)
.5 oz. Columbus (13% AA, 2 min.)

Yeast: Nottingham

Augie got this recipe off homebrewtalk.com, and this is the first all grain we did. We used my new 7.5 gallon SS pot, courtesy of 3333 N Kimball's Joong Boo Market. It was good. We did 4 gallons mash water which is right around the 1.25 quarts water / pound of grain. Then we heated up extra water to sparge with. The rinsing way is better than letting it sit in the water. We rinsed the 2-row with 2 gallons, and the specialty with 1 gallon. We actually beat the expected original gravity which was 1.050, and ours was 1.051. Good to know our efficiency is proper. Cooled it down in the tub, pitched the yeast, and we're set to go!

About 16 hours later, and the krausen is just starting to form.

IPA clone of Burning River Brew #004

Type: Partial Mash
Date: 3/19/2010
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Brew Pot (3 Gallon)
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.15 %
1.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 10.05 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 50.25 %
0.63 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.33 %
0.19 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 1.91 %
0.13 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 1.31 %
0.75 oz Cascade [7.40 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.25 oz Northern Brewer [10.40 %] (60 min) Hops 20.3 IBU
1.25 oz Northern Brewer [10.40 %] (45 min) Hops 18.6 IBU
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [10.40 %] (30 min) Hops 6.2 IBU
1.25 oz Cascade [7.40 %] (1 min) Hops 0.6 IBU
5.00 gal Chicago, IL Water
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


Mashed real grain for the first time, and I'm dryhopping this guy too. The fermentation is going crazy with a nice smooth roll going on in the fermenter. Hope to get it into the secondary by Friday for another week with the dryhops. Ready to drink May 1st.

English Mild, Brew #03

#1: American Pale Ale is pretty gone. We both have 1 22oz bottle left. It's finally hit its stride though, really good and balanced as far as it can get.

#2: Imperial Blonde is done fermenting. Just need some more bottle caps and it'll be good to go. Should clock in around 8%.

#3: English Mild with more grain usage. Using more specialty grains in this one, hopefully it'll be good. This is the first non-kit we have tried. Also a low alcohol beer so it's more about the flavor in this one. I had to substitute in Brown Malt for the Briess Special Roast Malt which might lend itself to being a little different tasting, but the brown malt is supposed to be smoky and delicious too, so we shall see.

beer, bikes, broads

Going to be doing the third or fourth brew soon. The Imperial Blond is ready to be bottled. Letting it sit in the secondary for a few days to age it proper. An English Mild or Porter or Stout is probably coming up next.

I'm thinking up a Barleywine for my brother's wedding which is about 6 months away. It will include fancy labels, waxed caps, and 6 months of aging.

Other news: I came home from Connecticut to see a new hardtail frame sitting for me. A 1996 Schwinn Homegrown series. Made either by Yeti in Durango, or Control Tech in Seattle. Some of the last USA-built schwinns to ever exist. Sick!

Checked out Revolution Brewery last night and it was pretty good. Some of the beers need more personality but whatever. It made me want to brew a English Mild, which is like a tastier, less strong version of a porter. Not as grody mouth-slime taste as a porter, which I usually don't like. Their stout is eh, I liked their IPA but it needs a bigger glass. Fuck this sniffer BS.

Whoever wants to be part of the 24 hour race team this summer, get at me.

Stride into the quarter

I'm like, 24 and stuff now man. That is, if you believe in time. It's all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.

Video Nasties #1 hits stands soon. needs probably 10-15 more titles. then I'll get it made up.

Anyways, here's to planes that land properly & free pizza.