Today I brewed the 2nd edition of my “Gimp Biscuit” ESB. Changes from the first version include:
Reduced base grist weight to reduce OG. Reformulated hop additions to keep BU/GU near .8. Substituted Fuggles in place of Challenger as the aroma addition. Continue reading
Today I racked my Hoppy Gnome IPA off the yeast cake and onto the substantial amount of dry hops. It’s almost reached the target FG, looks great, smells great, tastes great. The citra hops smell amazing. This is going to be a good one. In about two months….
I had a pint of this (Volume 1: Foreign Stout) on my recent visit to Rattle N Hum. I am completely in love with this beer. I literally had a dream about it the other night. Thick head, big malty front end, thick but not syrupy, and a long, boozy, peppery finish. And peppery. Did I mention peppery? One of the nicest beers I have ever had. Kudos to the folks at Left Hand.
Today I brewed the first version of my Hoppy Gnome IPA. It’s a modified version of a Green Flash West Coast IPA clone that I made a few months ago (the clone was actually my first all-grain batch and was very successful). I dropped the amount of 60L crystal to lighten the color a bit, and swapped out some of the late hops for Citra. I hope this will give it a softer hop profile. Continue reading
I finally got around to bottling my oatmeal stout this week. Because I have been sick and still don’t have a lot of energy, I split the bottling work between two days (one half-batch per day). Continue reading
The Oatmeal Stout brew also gave me a chance to try out my new maple mash paddle, which was a birthday gift from my in-laws (thanks again to Don and Carolyn). It worked much better than the long-handled plastic spoon I’ve been using, with less stress on my wrist and much less incidents of dough-balls and hot spots. I highly recommend!
Today I brewed my Ghostly Juror Oatmeal Stout. The brew went very well. I missed the mash-in about a degree and a half on the low side (meaning the beer will end up a little boozy). But I hit my target gravities and volumes dead-on. Continue reading
I finally got around to bottling the Bavarian Dunkel. Looks great, clear as a bell, and tastes fantastic too (which is, of course, far more important). Got a pretty good yield out of it, too, just shy of five gallons total. I finally feel like I’m getting my system dialed in.
Got a yeast started going this morning for my upcoming Bavarian Dunkelweizen brew. I’ll be using the SafBrew WB-06 wheat beer yeast. Continue reading
