Batch 300! Must be an important milestone or something.
Anyway, just another pale ale, nothing special.
5 gallon batch
11 lb. 2-row
8 oz Biscuit
Mashed at 156F for 60 minutes, started recirc at 45. Did math to decide how much for the second sparge, apparently I can still do math. I did nothing about the pH.
1 oz Mosaic, FWH
1 tsp Irish Moss, 15 min
1 oz Cascade, 5 min
1 oz Mt Hood, 5 min
60 minute boil, collected 5.5 gallons in the fermenter, yay!
Wyeast 1272 from last batch.
Back in Baja, first brew. It went pretty well, overall. I was going to brew on Thursday, but there was a water leak on Wednesday, which took until Friday to fix. Anyway, it was a good brew day, volumes and numbers came out as expected.
5 gallon batch
12 lb 2-row
8 oz crystal 60
4 oz biscuit
2 oz chocolate
I forgot to take a temp on the mash, but the mash water was at 170F, so I'm guessing I hit mid-150s. I did not adjust the pH, all I have here is the little test strips and they don't seem accurate at all. Did math, collected 6.5 gallons.
60 minute boil
1 oz Mosaic, 12.5% AA, 60 min
1 oz Mosaic, 12.5% AA, 5 min
0.8 oz Citrs, 12%AA, 5 min
That's the last of the Citra that I have, hence the odd amount.
Wyeast 1272 that I brought down to Baja from my last brew.
Since water is at a premium here, I didn't chill, rather, I filled the fermenter bucket and put it in the freezer over night, then pitched this morning.
9 years! A couple of months ago, I found a half case of these stashed in the bottom of a closet along with a few other beers (prickly pear mead, jalapeno porter) that I'd forgotten about, so I put some of them in the fridge. They are, in fact, delicious! This is a nice, strong beer, still has a good solid head, and strong alcohol flavor. This is so worth making every decade or so. Hmm, wait, I don't think I have a lot of decades left, maybe I should do it again soon? I'm about done with this bottle, I think I'll open a second one and take a picture...
Finally! It seems like ages since I've been able to brew a decent Panama Red. We're packing up for a trip, leaving tomorrow for a few days, but I wanted to get this brew in so it could ferment while we're gone. It should be done when we get back.
It was a rough brew day, the temperature here peaked at about 104F (40C for you more normal minded peeps) , so the brew shed was HOT!. Two window fans, plus the ceiling fan, but still, very HOT!
Some work to do today, needed to get the last batch into kegs, that was 3 kegs to clean and fill (2 Bell's, 1 berry cider). Moved a lot of kegs around, there were some emptied in the brew shed and the garage, and of course, the brewing.
10 gallon batch
22.25 lb 2-row
1.5 lb Crystal 60
1.5 lb White wheat
4 oz Chocolate malt
Mashed at 154F, adjusted pH to 5.23 (almost fucked that up, I was measuring a teaspoon over the mash tun and the bottle slipped. The meter said 4.3 then as I stirred, it came up to 5.23, whew!) 12 gallons in the boil kettle.
90 minute boil
2 oz Mt Hood, FWH, these were pellets, I usually use leaf
2 oz Centennial, 60 min
2 oz Cascade, 30 min
2 oz Cascade, 5 min
2 oz Mt Hood, 5 min (pellets again, we'll see, I tend to not like pellets as much as whole cones)
Wyeast 1272 from last batch
The usual stats on this, hmm, where are they?
I ordered some hops on line, and got way more than I ordered. I received 3 pounds of Centennial, so I thought to do this recipe since it's all Centennial. I've made this before, and it's always come out pretty good. As brew days go, this one kind of sucked:
Oh, and in the end, I missed the OG by 5 points.
10 gallon batch
27 lb 2-row
12 oz Crystal 60
Mash at 148F, adjusted pH to 5.2, collected 5 gallons, second sparge got 7 gallons for 12 gallons in the boil kettle.
2.5 oz Centennial, 60 min
2.5 oz Centennial, 30 min
5 oz Centennial, 5 min
60 minute boil.
Wyeast 1272 from last batch, so very fresh yeast.
OG: 1.060, 1.056 actual
FG: 1.016
ABV: 6.1%
SRM: 6.5
IBU: 77
I also made a berry cider at the same time, 5 gallons, the usual recipe.
Red Seal is one of my favorite beers, so I'm attempting a clone. I found this clone recipe somewhere on the internet - actually, I found several and sort of combined them to come up with this recipe.
10 gallon batch - I'm back north, so I'm brewing on my 10 gallon system in the shed in my backyard.
23 lb 2-row
1 lb 6 oz Crystal 60
1.6 oz Roasted barly
7 oz wheat, because that's all I had
Mashed at 154F with 8 gallons, collected 4 gallons, sparged with an additional 8 gallons.
2.5 oz Centennial, 60 min
1.5 oz Centennial, 10 min
2.5 oz Cascade, 10 min
90 minute boil. After fermentation, my plan is to cold crash, transfer the beer to another fermenter, and dry hop with 1 oz Cascade for a day or so.
Wyeast 1272, American Ale II.
OG: 1.055, hit it dead on
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 41
SRM: 11.2
Calories/12 oz: 181
Moved my Baja brewery to another location, much larger, and it's all mine, not shared, so I feel a little better about setting things up more or less permanently.
5 gallon batch
12 lb 2-row
8 oz biscuit
Mashed at 150F. Got interrupted, ran off the first batch, then dumped the sparge water in the boil kettle. Oh well, I just scooped some of the wort out of the BK and ran it back through the mash tun for the second batch.
2.5 oz Doug, 60 min
5 oz Mt Hood, 5 min
It went pretty well, other than I'd left a lot of stuff at the house, so there were several trips back and forth.
I thought I'd do the same recipe again to help me figure out what I need to do to improve. I discovered a semi-serious issue last time, the gap was too wide on my grain mill. I don't have a feeler gauge handy, so I used a credit card and I thought that the grind might be too fine, but it worked out with no problems. Another issue I discovered this time is the SS braid that I have in the boil kettle is too tight, the wort won't go through it. Good to know.
5 gallon batch, pretty much the same as last time.
12 lb 2-row
5 oz white wheat (I'm out now)
5 oz crystal 60, just to cut down the sweetness and color a bit.
Mash water at 175F got me 150F in the mash tun, so that's okay. No stuck sparge, which I thought might happen. I measured the water carefully, so I did get 6.5 gallons in the boil kettle, and ended up with 5.5 gallons in the fermenter.
Same hops as last time:
2 oz Belma, 60 min
4 oz Belma, 5 min
Yeast from the last batch, about a pint of reasonably thick slurry.
Still forgetting to update this blog. This batch is done and gone, it was decent. I went with a simple brew to help me figure out my system here. I got a new grain mill, it turns out the gap was too wide, so I missed my numbers, 1.040 OG instead of 1.052. Oh well, it was a good beer anyway. I also ended up about a gallon short, so just under 4 gallons in the keg, which was a little disappointing.
5 gallon batch
12 lb 2-row
8 oz white wheat
6 oz crystal 60
Mashed at 148F, about the same as last time. Mash water was at 170F so I'll go a little higher next time to hit that mid-150F range that I'm aiming for.
2 oz Belma, 60 min
4 oz Belma, 5 min
This turned out pretty good, and it's all gone now.
I guess I'm just getting lazy, I'm three brews behind on updating this blog. This is my first batch in Baja this season, I'm still trying to get a grip on my system here. I brought a lot (a LOT) of dry yeast down, so I figured I'm good to go. I should not have bothered with doing a guava IPA first, I really should have done something simple and easy just to get used to the system again and to get some fresh yeast going.
Anyway, I forgot to write down anything, this is pretty much like what I've done before:
10 lb 2-row
1 lb wheat
1.1 lb guava paste (added after primary fermentation is complete)
Missed my temp, got about 147F instead of the 155F I was aiming for.
2 oz Citra, 60 min
2 oz Citra, 5 min
Overall, it was barely drinkable. I used a lot of yeast, maybe 5 packets as it just didn't seem to want to take off. It was beer in the end, so there is that.
