Wednesday, May 2, 2012

89 IPA and Kegerator update

Sunday I brewed my first all-grain batch in about 7 months. It was one of the better brew days in a long time. Everything went as it should have. I brewed an IPA which I am calling 89 IPA. The IBU total is 89 and it is a test batch. The recipe is as follows.

7.5 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs Munich (light)
.25 lbs Dextrin
.25 lbs Caravienne
.25 lbs Caramunich
2 oz Centennial (1 @ 60 mins, 1 @ 15 mins)
2 oz Magnum (1 @ 30 mins, .5 @ 0 mins, .5 dry hopped 7 days)
1 oz Amarillo (.5 @ o mins, .5 dry hopped 7 days)
White Labs WLP001 California Ale yeast

Mashing the grain 
Sparging
 My father in-law took the spent grains and made homemade dog biscuits and pretzels.The recipe for those are as follows.
2 cups spent grain
1 cup flour
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg

Mix everything together and bake at 350 for 30 mins, reduce heat and continue baking or 2 hours to reduce moisture.

Jeff and Julie's dog Thor begging for a taste test.

I picked up a 5 gallon corny keg, and changed out the fittings on the kegerator so it will now take 5 gallon kegs. I am also in the process of making a grain and hop tap handle out of the yeast vial. I will post photos of that process.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Kegerator!

The kegerator came today! It will hold two kegs of home brewed goodness. Here are the pictures.




Thursday, April 19, 2012

Sasquatch Red & OSP Pale Ales

The Sasquatch Red has a great malty caramel flavor balanced by the Northern Brewer hops and the Willamette hops give a very herbal, woody, and earthy aroma. I think I will brew this again in a few weeks but add just 1/8 lb roasted barley to darken it up a little and to give the flavor profile a tad bit of roast.

The Oregon State Parks Pale Ale flavor profile is what I wanted it to be its has a woods, almost evergreen flavor to it brought out by the Northern Brewer and Willamette hops. The aroma is a mild floral citrus from the Cascade hops. Overall a very good beer. I'm excited to see how well they both compete  at the Oregon Gardens Homebrew Competition in a few weeks.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Kegerator!

So I will be getting this kegerator in about a week:

It will hold one 1/2 barrel keg or two 5 gallon corny kegs. I intend on it holding the two 5 gallon kegs, one will be a commercial and the other homebrew. I know that it only has one tap and I have thought of that. If I were to buy a unit with a second tap I would be looking at another $250 at least, and if I were to buy a new tower I would be looking at $130. So,I will modify the tower that it comes with so I can add a second tap, costing about $40-$45 using this to modify it:
I will post through out the process!






Sunday, March 18, 2012

Bottling and Basketball

On Saturday we bottled both the Sasquatch Red and the Oregon State Parks IPA. My original plan was to be done with everything by 2 pm, but with college basketball on and being tired of bottling we didn't wrap it up until 8 pm or so. I wish there was a way I could take my beer to a brewery and put it in their bottling line and just have the process automated.

But I took all the help I could get and once the ball finally got rolling the whole process really went by quick. I had some help with capping and labeling from my father-in-law and brother-in-law (hell even the neighbor lady came over and capped a few).























Sasquatch Red first tastes: Strong malt presence balanced with the hops. There was a sweetness up front and hop finish at the end.

Oregon State Parks IPA first tastes: Strong hop presence with an underlying malty sweetness throughout.

I can't wait to see how much these two beers change in two weeks. I will send them both off to the Oregon Gardens Home Brew competition next weekend for judging in April and we'll see how they do.

I'm sentimental about the beers that I make and hesitant about changing a good recipe.  However, I personally think that this revised 'Red' recipe is better than my previous award winner. This may also be one of the best IPAs I've made in a long, long time.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Thankful beer transfer

My father in-law did a great job transferring the beer over to the secondaries. The Pale ale had a pretty active ferment. I wish I could have been there to help out, but a job well done.
The Oregon State Park IPA is on the left and the Sasquatch Red is on the right. Both of these will be bottled this weekend.


Thursday, March 1, 2012

Brewing Again!

Well this weekend after a five month hiatus (busy being a new parent), I will be brewing two extract brews, a Sasquatch Red Ale and a Oregon State Park IPA(OSPA). Both of these will be themed around the Pacific Northwest. Both beers will be using Wyeast, they are located in Hood River, Or.

The Sasquatch Red should have an abv of 6% and around 65 IBU's. I'm using Northern Brewer as my bittering hop and switching it up with Willamette finishing hops instead of the normal English Fuggles I go with. I've decided to call this one Sasquatch because a typical Irish red only has an IBU rating of about 20, and since this one more than triples that the name should only fit!
The OSPA will be a test batch, I normally use Magnum and Simcoe in my IPAs but the Simcoe were hard to come by this year, so I am switching up the hop profile. It will now have Northern Brewer, Cascade, and Willamette. With the hop character profiles of these three hops I'm really trying to put "The Oregon Outdoors" into this one. We should have an evergreen/woodsy flavor from the Northern Brewer and the Willamette and a floral citrus from the Cascade. The Crystal and the Munich malts will round it out nicely.I have calculated the IBUs on this one to be about 95 and th abv to be about 6.2%.

Oregon has inspired a lot of my brewing aspirations and it seems only fair that I should pay tribute. In fact I will be naming all my beers with Oregon in mind. Coming this summer MT. Hood Hefeweizen and/or Willamette Wheat!