BeerBorg

#95: Caramel-Coconut Wee Heavy

Glad to finally get a brew day in.

Soundtrack: Beatles (finally on Spotify!)
Drinks:

Coffee (was an early brew day), followed by:
Yazoo Hopry, Bell's Christmas Ale, Sam Adams Holiday Porter

Caramel Coconut Wee Heavy today, which I plan to open during the holiday season 2016. Undershot my OG by a bit . Was shooting for 7-8%, but it looks like I'll get 6%. Had two thermometers in play that had differing readings, so likely my culprit during the mash, but RDWHAHB. Will secondary this on unsweetened coconut, cacao nibs, and (maybe) bourbon soaked oak cubes. Figure I'll secondary for a month in that and then bottle and forget about until Nov/Dec next year.

Wee Heavy

Batch 2.75 gal
All Grain

Recipe Characteristics
Recipe Gravity 1.060 OG
Recipe Bitterness 32 IBU
Est Alcohol by Volume 6.0%
Recipe Color 19° SRM

Ingredients
Quantity Grain Type Use
5.00 lb Maris Otter Malt - [Nutty] Grain Mashed
1.00 lb Crystal 60L - [Body, Caramel, Head, Sweet] Grain Mashed
0.50 lb Melanoidin - [Aromatic, Malty] Grain Mashed
0.25 lb Special "B" (Belgian) Grain Mashed
3oz Cacao Nibs (secondary)
7.5oz Unsweetened Flaked Coconut (secondary)
Bourbon Soaked Oak Cubes (secondary) ?

Caramelized .75 gal of the wort for 50 min and added back to boil


Quantity Hop Type Time
0.50 oz Northern Brewer (Germany) 60 minutes
0.25 oz Tettnanger (U.S.) 60 minutes
0.75 oz Tettnanger (U.S.) 20 minutes

Brewing up a Dirty Blonde. The idea started as a Blonde Ale. I ramp up the temp towards the end of fermentation and wasn't sure I'd be able to do that at ale temps in the garage in Dec/Jan. For that reason, the ale became a lager. The basic idea was base malt with a tick of C-10 or so. I love C-120 and for that reason alone said effe it and went darker. Now my Blonde Ale was no longer an ale or blonde. An oz of Citra at 30 minutes should give me the IBUs I'm looking for as well as a little Citra on the back end just to let you know what is in there.

In remembrance of an idol of mine growing up I brewed and aptly named my cream ale, The American "Cream" Dream. Lost quite a few great people this year, celebrity status and not. Its that time of the year to hoist a glass in remembrance of those we lost!

Just bottled my Black and Tan - modified Mr. Beer CAL and modified Mr. Beer Irish Stout.

Bottled my Summer Blonde Ale w/lemon yesterday and when I removed the LBK off the top rack near the freezer I found about a 1/4 in. of ice in it. It tasted good but worried it won't carb up. Have to check the time between startup and shutoff of unit on cool down for cold crash, I had the controller set at 34 deg. but I know that the freezer unit freezes up during the run. Have to wait and see what that LBK dose, the other was fine no ice in it so I'll one case to drink that's carbed.

JohnSant wrote:Bottled my Summer Blonde Ale w/lemon yesterday and when I removed the LBK off the top rack near the freezer I found about a 1/4 in. of ice in it. It tasted good but worried it won't carb up. Have to check the time between startup and shutoff of unit on cool down for cold crash, I had the controller set at 34 deg. but I know that the freezer unit freezes up during the run. Have to wait and see what that LBK dose, the other was fine no ice in it so I'll one case to drink that's carbed.

Skim off the ice and you now have an Eisbock "Blonde Ale" Beer!

Brewing a Rye IPA. This is a modification of Dave's 100 Years War recipe. I am using more amber DME than he does, but same hops, Warrior and
Centennial. Usually comes out to about 8% in the end. Simple extract brew but tastes great.

Me? Just hanging in there with the tried and true Nong Brews. I know what I like, and it works for me. I know, I'm not EXPANDING my horizons. Well, I figure I'm phat enough and am trying to shrink said horizons. I've got two 5'verz going and plan on hooking up another one tomorrow. So, not counting the brews I've made this year (only a few) I'll be starting the year off with at least 15 gallons in Jan. ...and then start the "Fish" stories about the rest of the year.

Brewed 5 gallons of Ring Your Bell Brown, first brew of 2016.

I dry hopped my Mosaic APA last night - does that count?

Just finished My Middletown Pale Ale. expected 70% Brew house got 75%

Fermenting my very first dry cider on my "pilot batch system" (<- haha I'm such a nerd, its an old Carlos Rossi jug)
Maple apple cider
I had to change out that airlock 3 different times (very active fermentation), should have worked smarter and just used a blowoff

Be happy you caught it in time to swap it out and not have to deal with blowouts or worse - an exploded ferementer.

I'm not sure when I will get to it (this/next weekend) but I just scaled my Levitation recipe down to 3.5G so I can brew a batch soon. I hate when I have large gaps without this in the pipeline.

Given the current weather out here (rain, yeah!!) I can't set up my turkey fryer for the 5G batch so I'll just scale this back a bit. Better some, than none.

swenocha wrote:Finally a brewday... A sour cider, with WLP655 (lacto/pedio/brett/sacro blend). Will transfer to a secondary in maybe three weeks, and then forget about it until this time next year...

Well... finally transferred this today, even though the brewday was Nov 14 and I thought I'd move to secondary early Dec. It's sitting at 1.001, so we're in real good shape on that front. Taste is a bit tart and quite tasty, but time will be my friend here. Probably package it either over Thanksgiving or Christmas break 2016.