Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Brew Updates

The Alpha to Wazoo brewed really well, assistance thanks to Pemmet. We hit our target gravity of 1.071, which is a little above expected. It's fermenting away nicely now. The plan for Wazoo juice was adding 1.5 bottles in the boil (1 at 30min and 1/2 at 5 min), as a similar plan for hops, let some parts boil down, some just hit flame, and I'll then add 1-1.5 bottles into the secondary to flavor to taste.

Jamaica Me Crazy was bottled, and hit a final FG of 1.009, which is good. I was worried about it as it still tasted very sweet when I racked it to the secondary and added the coffee, but now it tastes great. We'll see how the bottle conditioning does. The final abv is about 7.4%.

More brews coming up in the coming weeks. Soon to come: Grey Lady Clone #2 (gonna rename it now that it's not really a clone anymore), Smoked Rauchbier, Tropical IPA, Monster Mash heavy stout.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Brew #13 From Alpha to Wazoo

I promised Dr Gonzo that I would brew up a special beer with some Gonzo product by the next event, which happens on June 13th. So I am limited in time to do so, so decided to brew today. Brewing will commence around 4:30-4:45 when I get home from work. Brewing will be my own design called From Alpha to Wazoo, alpha being alpha acid of lots of hops, and Wazoo being Dr. Gonzo's own Wazoo juice. It'll be a big IPA brewed with Wazoo juice. The Wazoo has lots of ginger, pineapple, citrus, and heat. I've blended it before with commercial IPAs, and it seems to blend well with a big IPA, so this is an experiment to see how it brews with it.

Also, at the same time I'll be bottling the Jamaica Me Crazy Nut Brown #2. So come by if you are free.

Friday, May 7, 2010

National Homebrew Day, Brew #12

So National Homebrew Day was last Saturday, and it included a brew on site day at Strange Brew in Marlborough. I re-brewed the Jamaica Me Crazy Coffee Nut Brown. A couple minor issues occurred, first the stainless ball valve on the mash tun somehow cracked... so I duct-taped it for the time being and caught all the leaky wort and I'll have to replace that before the next brew session. Next the digital thermometer on the same mash tun ran out of battery, so I had to use the manual temp measurement. At the end we brewed a good beer though. It got to 1.065 OG which is pretty good for our shot at 1.070. It's fermenting away now. I'll cold infuse the coffee into the secondary again and bottle condition it. Once done I'll drop a few bottles off at Strange Brew.

I also had some help thanks to Chris Haskell. I'll give him a 6-pack or something of the finished beer too. Next up, bringing the rig to the South Shore Brew Club club brew-off, which we are all sharing the load to brew a 55gal batch of a Kate the Great clone and throw in a commercial 55gal bourbon barrel. Can't wait.