Been slow.....

Brewed a Toasted Blonde for the summer, ESB for the TCF beer pairing dinner and an Moktoberfest for the Masonic Lodge Oktoberfest dinner. Need to make something for the dead of winter stout competition.....

First wine bottled and Swheat Summer Kegged!

Sunday I bottled my first attempt at wine, a Green Apple Reisling kit. Tastes good. Yesterday I kegged my Swheat Summer, I honey wheat ale. Should be carbonated in a week or less. Still waiting to bottle my Ovila Quad clone, still get a bubble every few minutes so I wait.....

3 Fermenters At Once!

AT the moment I have a Belgian Quad (Ovila Quad Clone) in secondry fermentation. Green Apple Reisling (First Wine Kit attempt) in primary and a Honey Wheat (Swheat Summer) in primary. At the moment I have nothing home brewed to drink! Bought some Becks Black last week, not bad..... Sampled the Barrel we have been aging Russian Impierial Stout in for about a year. Sample was good. The plan is to take 5 gallons out for kegging and replace with 5 gallons to keep topped off.

Imperial Toasted Blonde

Made an Imperial Toasted Blonde, (really a IIPA) for a grad party in Mountain WI. Pulled a second runnings off the mash and made a light beer for the BMC drinkers, came out way too light so I added 3 pounds of honey to the secondary. Both beers were a hit! There were a couple of "eeww's" but they were strictly bud light drinkers.

Anyone read this ever????

Not sure if I should keep this going, I have not brewed in a while but I don't think anyone reads this even when I do update........

Russian Imperial Stout

Brewed this BIG beer as part of a group barrel project.  3 of us are brewing 60 gallons of this stout to be aged in a used whiskey barrel for at least 1 year!  Good thing it won't be kept at my house or most of it would "evaporate" before the year is up! :-)

Took two mash tuns to make this!  Needed 15.6 gallons of 175 degree water to mash all the grain for this batch and my tun is only a 15 gallon pot.  Got my old tun (igloo cooler) out of retirement and put 10 lbs of grain in it and just short of 40 lbs in the other.

After fly sparging 13 gallons into the kettle the runnings still looked quite thick so I refilled the mash tuns with hot water and let sit while bringing the big pot to a boil, then just drained the tuns to a 7 gallon kettle and still got a 1.04 OG wort from it!

Anyway, the big pot yeilded 1.12 OG and is fermenting away.

CHEERS!

MGD Lemonade

This is just too funny.  At least I know what NOT to try...  Here is a short quote from Joe Sixpacks blog,

"...You might say MGD Lemonade 64 is nothing more than an alcohol delivery device, but it doesn't do even that very well.
A 150-pound woman could commence drinking one bottle of MGD 64 Lemonade every 15 minutes, and after an hour and a half (a full sixpack!) she still couldn't get herself pulled over for DUI. She would, however, have consumed 384 calories - about the same as a McDonald's Sausage McMuffin...."



Read the whole thing for the rest of the story here.  www.joesixpack.net/columnArchives/2011/062411.htm

Born on the 4th of July!

Brewed a kit for the second time in my brewing life.  Boundary Waters American Wheat from Midwest.  I modified it a little, some on purpose, some by accident.  It is currently bubbling away in the basement awaiting the day it can be drunk in honor of the 4th!

As a was explaining the brewing process to a friend who happened by, the boil started unexpectedly and in my rush to get the first hops in I grabbed the wrong bag and dumped them in.....  soooo......  it will be an all new beer!   Put Palisade in for the bittering hops and Sterling for the flavor/aroma hops instead of the other way around.  Meant to look up the hops and see what they are but have yet to get around to that.  My guess is I will drink it when it's done.

On another note. 
The Amber Ale I brewed a few weeks ago finished its primary fermentation and I decided to try something.  I had planned on kegging half and bottling half, 10 gallon batch, and have heard allot on the uselessness of secondary.  Now I have always made very clear beers and think it's due to the secondary fermentation.  But I put half right in the keg and the other half in a carboy to bottle in a couple more weeks.  The kegged half I started drinking last week, it did not clear out very well, so I dubbed it Merriman Mud Ale.  It tastes great and has had good reviews from samplers who happen by, and has cleared a little but not much.  The big test will be a side by side comparison after the bottles are ready.

Cheers!

Brewing with the Tri-County Fermenters

Had the Tri-County Fermenters over on Saturday and we brewed up an Amber Ale while sampling Sam Adams Latitude 48's.

I must say I liked the English styles over the American style IPA's. The Hop flavor and aroma is strong but not the bitter taste I have associated with IPA beer.

http://czartcf.blogspot.com/ is the new web site for the Tri-County Fermenters by the way. Give it a look, better yet, join!

As for the brew day, it went well. The first 10 gallon batch on my new system. Glad I had help as lifting the mash tun of the rack would have hurt me by myself. Thanks to Gary for reminding me to start the timer for the mash then again for the boil, someone was paying attention. Also note to self, again, charge battery for drill BEFORE brew day or you will keep crushing grain by hand.

18# 2 Row, 5# Munich 20L, .5# Roasted Barley, 1# Honey Malt

2oz Cluster 60 min. 1oz Cascade 10 min. 1oz Cascade 0 min.

Tsp Irish Moss 15 min.

Mash 1.15 qt/# at 155' for 60 min. Sparge 170' till 13 gallons in the kettle. 60 minute boil. 2, 5 gallon fermenters with Muntons dry ale yeast.

Crying over spilled BEER!

Came home from vacation and went for a beer. Temperature controller on my keezer locked up and I had four and a half gallons of frozen beer! Cried for a little while and started the thaw, had a few bottles of porter to ease the pain and agony, worked the temp controller a few times.

Two days later the keg was thawed, placed it back in the keezer and kept checking the temp.

Had a batch ready for a friends birthday party that needed to be kegged and force carbonated so I did that but I only had one picnic tap. Took the tap off the keg in the keezer to use on the new batch. Checked the temperature again.

Got up the next morning and went to check the temp again….. apparently the o-ring on the beer post was damaged by the freeze! About 2 gallons of beer in the bottom of the keezer! (more crying)

Anyway, the beer still tastes GOOD! It’s an amber ale by the way. Going to have to invest in a good controller.

Heard the birthday beer was good, I couldn’t go, had the pager, (more crying). It was a toasted blonde with some honey malt. Had a bit of a sweet taste to it but very drinkable.

Cheers!

MAY DAY BEER!

Brewed a 'Toasted Blonde' for a friend of mine on May 1st. It's for his birthday and he is REAL OLD! Happy Birthday Mike!

Brewed it on my new rig I picked up on Friday. Should be done by his party.

Bought the rig thru the Green Bay Rackers brew club. (Thanks Randy) . The previous owner departed in March so thanks and condolences to the family. I will toast to Kelly with the first beer and use his system often and well.

Amber and something like a Porter?

Kegged an Amber Ale today. Maria said it smelled funny... tasted good though. After kegging I noticed some kind of scrunge in my auto-siphon, didn't notice it while sanitizing before use, hope it's not some kind of nasty growth....

Opened a bottle of what was supposed to be a Scotch Ale last week. Made it with a bunch of grain I needed to use up and when I put the recipe into TasteyBrew it seemed to fit a Scotch, too dark and roasty though, closer to a Porter, maybe even a Stout. Have to drink more and get some opinions to see what catagory it fits.


Next up is a kit from Midwest, haven't done a kit since my first beer. It was on sale in their newsletter, they call it 'Boundary Waters Ale'. I got the all grain version, have to see what it looks like when I get it, may modify it. :-)

Cheers!

BLUE RIBBON! 2011 BrewMasters

Won a blue ribbon for a Coffee Vanilla Stout at this years TriCounty Fermenters Brew Masters competition. This was a beer my wife "made me" brew. She normally does not care for beer but tasted this at a brew club meeting and loved it. Asked the girl who made it for the recipe and made that beer. Also entered an Oktoberfest but it did not score well, seems to have fermented too warm. Live and learn, and drink all the mistakes! :-)

Haven't posted in 9 months! Still making/drinking beer, just have not gotten around to posting....

I'll try to get an update this week to round up the year.
By the way..... Is there anybody out there?

Weisbier

Tried a German weisbier, hard time with the sparge, then the yeast did not take off so I had to add some dry yeast, not sure what this will do to the flavor. Been in the primary for a week and a half now.

The Toasted Blonde turned out GREAT, not much left, took a keg of it to a super bowl party and it was a hit. Bottled a 12 pack and have 3 left.

Next up will be either another blonde or a brown......

Toatsed Blonde

The beer I made on new years is now officially named 'Toasted Blonde' need to get it in the secondary, just can't seem to get around to it, if it's at the FG I may just keg it and skip the secondary as it has been fermenting for 2 1/2 weeks. Also sampled the 'Mort 910 Lager' a very good beer, nice and crystal clear. Could use a little more time to carbonate. I'll try some more this weekend. Cheers!

Made something?

Needed to get something in the fermentor kindof threw this togther and not sure what catagory it falls into. Kind of an american oat ale.

#3 two row pale
#1 crystal 10L
#.5 quick oats
#4 light DME
1oz cascade

Also bottled Dave's 910 American Lager. Two weeks and we will be able to see how it is, only got 4 gallons out of it, case and a half of finished beer.

Need to brew something.

Just realized I have very little beer to drink, have a beer fermenting but it's for a friend. Gonna need to get something going! Thinking a Stout or that weisbeer I keep saying I'm going to brew. Any Ideas?

10 Beers in 6 months!

Just realized after my last post that I hit double digits for brews! Thats gotta be a milestone worth noting. First brew was May 1st, number 10 was October 30th, 6 months 10 brews of about 5 gallons each, thats 50 gallons. Hmmmmm one would think to make things come out even it should have been 60 gallons, 10 gallons a month sounds right.

Must step up production and make that goal!

Three more beers and a stuck sparge!

Made an American Brown with flavor/aroma hops from a friends yard, shes not sure what kind they are but the beer is good! Kegged it on Oct 21st.

Father in law was up from GA. and wanted to brew so we made JB's Special Wheat on Oct 5th, bottled it on Oct 30th. Hope to drink it with him when we meet in TN. later this month.

Then disaster stuck! On Oct 30th I tried an all grain American lager. Used 2 lbs. of flaked corn in the mash and could not get it to drain! Took FOR! EV! ER! Sparged as well as I could but it ended up quite light. Had an OG of 1.040, shooting for a 1.050, oh well, it should still taste better than what you can buy in a can right? I'll let you know in a few months.