Monday, February 2, 2015

Calculator

James at Basic Brewing asked his listeners in the Jan 22, 2015 episode if they would share their experiences with software. I wrote a fairly lengthly email explaining how I use them, but generally that I'm not a fan of any of the available programs, save perhaps Wort on Android.

I then thought perhaps I could create a google document that would function how I would want the calculator to work, and it's multi-platform as well!
The sheet can be found here.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Double Brew Part 2: WIPA #2

The 1 gal WIPA galaxy hop beer was soo good, and it'll be such a long time until I can drink the Pilsner I thought I'd also make an Ale to get me by on those cold hard lagering days.

2.5Gal BIAB

2.5 lbs Wheat Malt
3 lbs 2-Row
6 oz Crystal 80L

Mash 150F for 1 hour using 1gal Distilled water and charcoal filtered for the rest.
40 minute boil

Hop Schedule
0.5 oz Magnum @ 40 min
0.3 Galaxy @ 10 min
0.3 Citra @ 10 min
0.3 Galaxy @ 0 min
0.3 Citra @ 0 min

Using a bucket fermenter for this one
Fermented out by Wed so added dry hops at 9pm.
0.3 oz Citra
0.3 oz Galaxy


Double Brew Part 1 - Pilsner

I meet a very kind German expat in Livermore earlier this month, and I dared to continue my bashing of Pilsners as weak watery substances. We discussed this over many great IPAs since examples of 'good' pilsners are apparently rarer than unicorns. In my typical argument the gentelman I was discussing this said pilsners can be quite hoppy. Yah? I'll give that a whirl then.

Upon returning:

This is a BIAB 2.5 gal batch.
4.5 lbs Floor Malted Bohemian Pilsner
4.8 oz Melanoiden Malt

Used a mixture of distilled and charcoal filtered tap water.
Start mash at 118F, slowly raising to 144 over 30 min.
Rest at 144F for 40 min.
Slowly raise to 150F over 30 min.
Raise to 160F for bag pull, the colected wort was 14.2 plato at 2.6gal collection.
Rinse w/ hot water standing by up to 3.5 gal.
Boil for 90 minutes to get bad stuff out.

Hop da shite out of it:
1 oz Saaz @ 60 min
0.3 oz Saaz @ 25 min
0.3 oz Saaz @ 10 min + Whirlflock tab

Since this is going to sit for a LONG time, I was careful to remove as much trube as possible, using two steps.

Pitched WL800 Pilsner Lager Yeast
Keeping it around 40-55F by placing it outside occasionally and keeping it behind the curtains.