Phriendly Phil's Velociraptor Pharm n' Pettin' Zoo

A few months back, I took a gallon of the plain mead I made in the spring of 2009 and dumped in a package of frozen Berry Medley (a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.)  This sat a couple of months, and turned out really nicely.  I had about 2.5 gallons left, so I have tried more infusions:

• .25 oz whole peppercorns into 1/2 gallon
• .5 oz coriander and .5 oz orange zest into a gallon
• 1 tsp gunpowder green tea into .5 gallon

I’ll test them out in a couple of months to see how they are.  The coriander and orange is the one I think will be the biggest hit, but the others should be interesting.

Well, the brew day went pretty well, but it was long.

Pros

The new false bottom for the kettle worked pretty well, all told.  Brewing ten gallons with twelve ounces of hops, including a half-pound of pellets, I got all but a quart of wort out before the pump just couldn’t pull any more out.  The underlet space was jammed with pellet particles.

Also, the time I spent the night before thinking about what I was going to be doing paid off in fewer trips up and down the stairs, and more time off my feet.  This left me a lot less worn out than on previous days.

Cons

My efficiency was terrible (65%.)  I think my crush was not all that great, but even worse is that I suspect that I had dry spots throughout the mash.  My tun volume is small compared to the amount of grain I was mashing, and I did a fairly stiff mash to boot.  These conspired to make stirring difficult.

My burner is wimpy.  It takes too long to get mash water heated, and to get the wort to a boil after the sparge.

Chilling took too long, although part of that was due to low flow rate at first — I wanted to catch some hot water for cleaning.

It took me from around 9:00 AM till 4:00 PM to make this batch of beer.  A plate chiller would probably knock half an hour off that, and a higher-output burner would probably knock another half hour off.  When I get the bucket heater on a timer, I will be waking up to a Gott cooler full of mash water on brew day, which will probably shorten my brew day by an hour.

An American IPA for when the “kiss of the hop” just ain’t enough. Think of it as a celebration of the easing of the hop shortage.

22.00 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM)
2.00 lb Caramel Malt – 20L (Briess) (20.0 SRM)
2.00 oz Magnum (US) [12.28 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop)
2.00 oz Cascade [4.05 %] (30 min)
2.00 oz Cascade [4.05 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Williamette [3.44 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Sterling [6.43 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Williamette [3.44 %] (2 min)
1.00 oz Sterling [6.43 %] (2 min)
2.00 oz Cascade [4.05 %] (2 min)
0.55 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)
2 Pkgs SafBrew Ale (DCL Yeast #S-33)

Beer Profile
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.060 SG (1.056-1.075 SG)
Estimated Color: 5.8 SRM (6.0-15.0 SRM) Color [Color]
Bitterness: 68.4 IBU (40.0-70.0 IBU)

Mash as a stiff single infusion at 154 F.

UPDATE: Measured specific gravity was 1.052!

Well, the hops are coming up like gangbusters.  Since I’m expecting them to grow quite high this year, I’ve built a trellis out of electrical conduit and twine.

 The crossbar is 10 feet long, and around 12 feet high.  The poles are driven three feet beneath the ground to avoid frost heave.

I’ve trained a couple of bines up from each plant, and pruned the others.   You can sort of see them in the photo, but the light isn’t all that great.  I’ll have more photos as the bines grow.

An adaptation of my old Summer Ale recipe, with a little more malt, and a little less honey.  I named it Bachelor Ale because Jasper and I were living the bachelor lifestyle the weekend I brewed it.

Brewed 3/22/2008

11 gallons

9 lb Dry extract,Pilsner Light (Briess)
2.00 lb Caramel Malt – 80L (Briess)
1.00 oz Magnum (US) (old 2) [12.5 %] (60 min)
2.00 oz US Goldings [4.65 %] (15 min)
2.00 oz US Goldings [4.65 %] (2 min)

Fermentis US-05 yeast /Nottingham Ale yeast (split batch)

Measured Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Est Bitterness: 31.8 IBU
Est Color: 10.7 SRM

I used a hop bag for the hops this time, which helped immensely in getting the wort into fermenters this time.  I hope it won’t lower the utilization too much.

12 Pounds Clover Honey
3 Pounds Mesquite Honey
4 tbsp bread yeast (boiled to provide yeast nutrients)
2 packages Red Star Montrachet yeast

Estimated OG: 1.126

It’s bubbling away with none of the sulfurous notes noted in the pyment-cyser last year, which seems to indicate that the bread yeast makes a good nutrient.

They’re chugging along.  Three bines (Cascade, Sterling, and Willamette) appear to be flowering.  If the Japanese beetles don’t do too much damage, the others should be well-established next year.

Note that the poles in these photos are about 6 1/2 feet high.