Hop Harvest 2014

Today, a coworker told me that the previous owner of his house planted hops on his back fence, and that if I wanted some, I could help myself to them. So after work, I picked up my wife and we headed out, bucket in hand, to "harvest" some hops of unknown origin or variety. In an hour, we picked enough to fill my 5 gallon bucket up to the 2 gallon mark. We then went to Chic-Fil-A for dinner because, you know, date night. Tomorrow, we plan on drying them and using my mother-in-law's vacuum sealer so I can store them in the freezer until later this fall/winter. I plan on dry hopping my California Common next week and then making a Hoptoberfest once I get some free space in the fermentation chamber. Here's a few photos of our date night hop harvest.

If you can help us identify these hops, please do so in the comments section below.

My lovely assistant, really getting in there.

Bucket view. It made the car smell great all the way home. Like fresh citrus.

Scottish Wee Heavy

Brew Day: 8/12/14

Extract kit from Northern Brewer

2 1/2 gallons of water in my 3 gallon kettle. Heated to 165, took off heat, put lid on, and steeped grains for 15 mins. Down to 160. As grains drained in strainer, slowly poured 1/2 gallon of 170 water over grain bag to rinse and bring boil volume to 3 gallons.

Grains:

8 oz UK Crystal 30L

6 oz Belgian Biscuit

2 oz UK Roasted Barley

Brought to boil. Boil time: 60 mins

6 lbs of Gold LME - 60 mins

1 oz German Northern Brewer hops 7.8% AA - 60 mins

6 lbs of Gold LME - 15 mins

1 whirlfloc tablet - 15 mins

Cooled via ice bath down to 100 in 20 mins. Aerated wort by siphoning out of kettle through funnel and double mesh strainer (keep out the hop sludge). Topped off with 2 gallons of cold water. Right around 5 gallons. Pitched yeast at 73. Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale Yeast 1.2L starter. Put in temp controlled chest freezer at 64. First batch in my 6 gallon Big Mouth Bubbler. Attached blowoff tube, as I've heard this yeast is a chugger.

OG 1.075 (19 brix)

est. IBU 24

Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale Yeast, 1.2L starter on the stir plate.

Love that hop smell.

Rolling boil.

In the Big Mouth Bubbler with blowoff tube set up, just in case. The tube doesn't seem to seal very tightly in the lid. Maybe it's the Star San that's making it slick. Hopefully when it dries it'll be a better seal.

The other brew in the fermentation chamber is my Noble Trappist Ale in secondary. The next kit in there is a California Common.

Fermentation Update: The seal held just fine, but I awoke the next day to some crazy blowoff. Here's a side-by-side. I had 1/4" of beer in the bottom of the chest freezer and foam everywhere. I replaced the little blowoff pitcher with a 5 gal bucket, and left clean up until I got home from work that night. I took me 90 mins and 3 rolls of paper towels to get it all cleaned up. I installed a bubbler airlock while I soaked the hose in PBW and gave a quick Star San dunk, and the airlock was emptied of sanitizer/water within 3 minutes. It all bubbled out. Strong fermenting yeast, for sure. I replaced the hose into the 5 gallon bucket for more blowoff caution, and kept it there for 3 days until the violent action subsided then replaced with an airlock. 2 more weeks then I'll rack to secondary. Most of homebrewing is just waiting, but homebrewing is never boring.

9/29/14 Racked to secondary after 6 weeks in primary. I was only planning on 3 weeks, but my wife was in a car accident so I've been a bit busy and preoccupied as of late. But now I'm back at it! It smells like toffee and caramel, simply amazing. It's a wonderfully copper brown color. Checked the gravity, and its down to 1.017 which should be about 7.4% ABV. I'll bottle it up in a few weeks and should will be enjoying it by early December. This will be my get-me-through-the-first-long-days-of-Minnesota-winter beer. I have until then to find a thistle glass to properly enjoy it.

1/06/15 Bottling day...finally

Finally got this thing bottled. Ended up with 34 12 oz bottles and 4 20 oz bottles. It will now need at least another month to condition. This thing better be good or it might discourage me from making long-fermenting strong brews again.

She got her degree. I made the beer.

My wife graduated from seminary this summer. So this weekend we had a party to celebrate. I started making beer for the party in April. Some of the beers I showcased were a German Blonde Ale, Bavarian Berry Weizen, Chinook IPA, Honey Ale, Saison au Miel, and a Rum Stout. I made 1 gallon batches, so I ended up with 7-9 bottles of each. Some were more popular than others. The Honey Ale & Berry Weizen were the favorites.

Have you made beers for an event? Share your story in the comments.

Noble Trappist Ale

Brew Day: 7/22/14

Recipe from Midwest Supplies. 

-obtained the extract, hops, light candi sugar from a Craigslist deal which also included a bottling bucket, 50+ bottles, siphon, hoses, hydrometer, etc.

-purchased soft candi sugar, yeast, grains from Northern Brewer store in St. Paul, MN.

2 1/2 gallons of water in my 3 gallon kettle. Heated to 155, steeped grains for 20 mins, then another 10 mins w/ no heat (per recipe instructions). 

Grains:

8 oz Caramel 40L

8 oz Carapils

Brought to boil. Boil time: 60 mins

6 lbs of Pilsen LME - 60 mins

2 oz Hallertau hops 4.6% AA - 60 mins

1 whirlfloc tablet - 15 mins

1 lb Light Belgian candi sugar - 10 mins

1 lb Soft White Candi Sugar - 8 mins (at the suggestion of the guy at NB store for higher ABV potential)

1 oz Styrian Goldings hops 3.8% AA - 2 mins

Cooled via ice bath down to 95 in 15 mins. Aerated wort through funnel and double mesh strainer (keep out the hop sludge). Topped off with 2.5 gallons of cold water. Just under 5 gallons. Pitched yeast at 62. Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity 1.2L starter. Put in temp controlled chest freezer at 66, raised to 68 after 3 days.

OG 1.069 (17 brix)

est. IBU 36


Racked to secondary: 8/04/14

I siphoned just over 4 gallons into a sanitized glass carboy, there was quite a bit of yeast and hops caked to the bottom of the fermenting bucket. Using my refractometer and this calculator, I figured out my final gravity was 1.016 (9.2 brix). Which brought my final abv to 6.4%. Thanks to everyone over the Northern Brewer forum, for helping me out with the refractometer correction factor.

That was hungry yeast. I had some in the blowoff tube within 48 hrs of pitching, but most fell back into the beer. Wyeast 3787 is a beast!

Siphoning away! The foam in the carboy is from the Star San. It's a great sanitizer, but a bubbler for sure.

Now it sits for 2-3 weeks to clarify a bit and mellow out without the yeast and hops imparting too many off-flavors.


Bottling: 10/07/14

It went way longer in secondary than I planned. My wife had been in an auto accident a few weeks ago, so the dr visits and insurance phone calls put brewing on the back burner, but today I bottled it. I got eight 1 Liter flip top bottles and 17 12-oz bottles.

I had a bunch of fizz drops left over from some small batches I made over the summer, so I used those instead of making a priming solution. 3 drops in the 1 liter bottles and 1 drop in the 12 oz bottles. I really should've waited until my wife got home before I bottled, because it would've been really nice to have a 2nd pair of hands. Bottling alone can be tricky; gotta hold the siphon, bottling wand, and find the next bottle to fill, all without spilling it everywhere. I'll let it sit for 3-4 weeks and then enjoy/share.

I used the last bit of my Brewer's Best caps, B for Belgian.

Welcome

My name is Ben. I live in MN. I am a homebrewer.

Right, now that's out of the way let's get to it. First some background information. Though I've only been brewing for 8 months, I've had some moderate success. My wife bought me 1 gallon starter kit for Christmas in 2013 and I brewed my first batch on New Year's Eve. Since then I've continued doing small batch recipes and recently upgraded to full 5 gallon batches, all on my stove top in the apartment. I enjoy stouts, Belgian ales, German beers of all kinds, and IPA's.

I will upload to this blog on brew day and edit as the process goes along for each brew.