Beer Measurements

Goatmeal Stout
So the FG of the Goatmeal Stout was 1.010, and by my estimations of adding the brown sugar brought it up to 1.061 which would give it an abv of 6.7% before the bourbon/oak infusion. So the bourbon soaked oak chips added a really big bourbon flavor to the beer, and a touch of oak. I don't think it helped that I used Wild Turkey 101 and some Old Weller, which are both strong flavored bourbons. It still tastes great if you like bourbons, which I do, and I'm pretty sure it upped the abv a bit. I wonder how the bourbon flavor will settle with carbonation and age. Being a full 5 gal batch too, this should last me for a while.

Bitches Brew
The brew went well. Started with about 6 gallons or so in the kettle. However, when boiling, I'm assuming do to the high sugar/protein content, it kept boiling over, even before the hops were added. So I had to keep the cover off partway. With the 90min boil, cold weather, and hop absorbtion, I think I lost quite a bit of beer and ended with a 3 gallon batch. I also forgot to add the maple syrup, so the SG was at 1.092 instead of the 1.100. I pitched most of the yeast starter but saved a bit and made another starter to help as the yeast start getting killed off. In order to add the maple syrup and increase the yield, I decided to add 1 gal of water to the secondary, as well as 1 qt of the maple syrup and pitch the second round of yeast. This will give some more kick to the beer and add volume. The color and taste were good to start as well.

Also, I think this is the last brew for the winter. I'll post updates here and there. See you in the spring.

New Brew Planned: Bitches Brew

This Saturday Nov. 28th will be brew #10. For the 10th beer brewed at Robot Monkey Brewery it will be another crazy one. A possible 10% abv Barleywine. The est SG=1.100, with est IBU=57.6. The grain bill on this beast is 18.75lbs for a 5 gal batch! Crossing my fingers to not get a stuck mash. It will also require extra mash and boil time. This new beast of a brew will be called Bitches Brew in honor of 40th anniversary of Miles Davis's crazy awesome album, which was released in April of 1970. When this beer is done in the secondary after a month or so, I will keg half to drink through the winter, and throw the second half in a tertiary fermenter with some oak and "release" that beer in April.

Also on Saturday, I will keg the Goatmeal Stout and get the final measurements etc. A good day for beer.

Goatmeal Stout update

This time was my first attempt with dry yeast, since they were out of the regular. After a week nothing had even started, so I gave up on that and bought a regular Irish ale yeast, and things got kickin! I also decided at that point to make a heavier beer for the winter, so I added 2 lbs of light brown sugar right to the primary fermenter. It was bubbling there for almost 2 weeks! A quick estimate brought the OG up to 1.061, which is a nice start. Friday night I put it into a secondary, just so I could add some oak chips. I measured it to be 1.012 at this point, so a good finish as well. I wonder how the brown sugar in fermenter will affect the flavor. I also soaked a bag of oakchips in bourbon and threw them in, so that should be a nice experiment as well.

I have noticed a theme as well. The beers that I brew with grains from one brew store always seem to have a much lower OG than expected. The color is usually fine, as well as taste. And this specific brew shop, all the specialty grains are crushed on site, but the pale malt comes pre-crushed in big bags. If their crush isn't up to snuff, that would give me a much lower yield. I wonder if this is throwing me off. I'm going to do the same steps next brew with same temps/times, etc, and see how my yield is with grains from the other brew shop.

Speaking of which, this coming Saturday right after Thanksgiving should be the next brew. Not sure what will be brewin, but an announcement should come later.

Goatmeal Stout

So I was bored this weekend, and decided to whip together some beer. I needed something that would hold up to winter, and fill out my kegger for a while. "How about an oatmeal stout," I thought to myself. So here it is. A lighter version. OG was 1.045. Brewing went well, although the color could have been a little darker. It's in the fermenter now. And when I grabbed the ingredients, he only had dry yeast for Irish Ale, so this will be my first experiment with dry yeast. I'll see how it goes.

Pliny the Elder Clone

Bottled/kegged the Pliny clone. Pete took his half in bottle form, so I was able to brush up on the bottling technique. I kegged my half. It finished with a FG of 1.016 giving it a slight sweetness as Pliny typically has, and 9% alcohol. Russian River claims they started at 1.071OG and 8% abv, so I'm not too far off. The original recipe was designed by Tasty McDole from the Brewing Network, but I had to tweak it a bit to equal the hops I currently had. Either way without carbonation it tasted amazing!

Next brew probably in a month or so and will probably be the last one of the winter. Planning on a Westy 12/St Bernardus 12 clone.

Brew #8 Pliny the Elder Clone

So as it rained this weekend, I had some last minute free time. I stopped at the brew shop Saturday and decided to pick up some supplies and make a clone of one of my favorite beers, Pliny the Elder. This is also helpful as it's not available around here and I have to trade for it. The brew went pretty smoothly and I ended up with an SG of 1.085 and my goal was 1.084 so that's great. It already fermenting like crazy, so it should be good. Oh yeah, this has an estimated 196.7 IBUs, yeah that's correct it's not a typo! And being dry hopped with 4 more oz of hops for 5 gal batch. Pliny is a crazy bad ass West Coast style Imperial IPA and it shows. This will also help me clear out some of my hops to make room for the new batch I just received. Can't wait to try it.

Beervana

Last Friday night I helped volunteer at Beervana. It was a great time. Lots of great beers, good people, very well organized, and best of all I made out like a bandit with beer. Not only did I get to sample everything I wanted for free (including some very rare beers) I also got to take home about 10 great beers (Duvel, Ommegang, St Fuellien, and more) and I got a growler of Smuttynose Big-A IPA cask and DFH 75min IPA dry hopped with Vanguard. I also got to sample the other two Johnny Cask 75min IPA dry hops which were Warrior and I forgot the third one. I then listed to interesting speeches by Rob Todd of Allagash, and Sam Calagione from DFH. At the end of the night I helped Rob pour his awesome Allagash beers while he did an interview, and then accidentally broke hit tap handle while I was taking it off the keg at the end. He was a great guy and just told me to take it home as a souvenir! I'll def be going back next year.