BeerBorg

After a very late start on Saturday (and some serious brain-farting on Friday when running numbers), I got in a brew day and did another round of the Simply Simarillo Session IPA (ala BlackDuck/Beer-lord). It's a great beer as the weather starts to warm.....awwww who am I kidding...I lover this beer year-round.

I do plan on doing a blind Session IPA tasting session with some friends this Spring and I will use this one along with my favorite commercial offerings.

I am in high on my OG (not a complaint), but since I wanted to keep this beer sessionable and to-recipe, I diluted it down to end up with close to 6 gallons in the fermentor. The LARGE dry hop additions will add to the trub, but when the time comes I should still end up over 5G so I'll bottle some, too.

Was your higher than expected gravity due to your brain farting while running numbers on Friday?

No, that was the discussion via text about water volumes.
The higher OG was just because I am awesome.

All kidding aside, I've just been hitting my numbers or higher for a while now and after my stuck sparge I'm starting to use 1/2 rice hulls in every batch to help with extraction/sparging.

I am currently fermenting a blonde that will be bottled with strawberry extract. Yes, it's simple, but Pete's Wicked was my gateway craft, and I like to reminisce sometimes.


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Pete's was awesome! My favorite was Pete's Wicked Winter!

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Bottled NE IPA attempt #1, now with Brett C.

I brewed a Honey Rye Pale today, partial mash. It went pretty well until I dropped the lid plug into the 90 degree wort. I'm think/hope I sanitized it first.

Brewed 5 gallons of Michigan Red on 4/17/17.

Today I dry hopped the Simply Simarillo Session IPA. Gravity is at 1.012 after 8 days (first time I checked it). It's cloudy, so the US-05 hasn't quite settled yet and the 5.5oz dry hop isn't going to help any!

THis should be clear by the time the dry hop is done and I cold crash it, though.

Bottled 5 gallons of Ann Arbor Red on 4/18/17.

I brewed 2.6 gallons (was going to be 5.2 gallons but one of my fermenters exploded) of the same PM Levitation like clone I made and am drinking that had Farmhouse Brewing blend hops, except that I used U1/108 experimental South African hops as all the hops. I know what the grain bill tastes like and love it, so I will likely use it as a single hop experiment base quite often, especially with fruity hops.

These hops have been described as having strong tropical fruit flavors with citrus, guava, lychee, lemongrass, mango, stone fruit, coconut, and butterscotch.

Should be fascinating.

I also have a batch of "Levitation Juice" in my fridge now, since I couldn't use all of what I made. So now I can just add some LME and make another 2.6 gallon batch of levitation clone with a different kind of the South African hops when my other fermenter is available. That can't be a bad thing. Right?

Nope, not a bad thing - except for the dead LBK.

Butterscotch - really? I'm not sure how I feel about that in that combo.....I'll be very interested to hear about those hops once you taste them.

Some places say butterscotch, some say coconut (nobody seems to say both). I think how it is perceived maybe depends on how much and/or what kind of caramel malt in in the grain bill. At least that is my guess. We will see. If I think they are weird here maybe I try them in a single late hop addition Saison with just pilsner and wheat .

I Brewed a Bastard Stepson Root Beer, a 5G Extract recipe from Northern Brewer, today. I've had several requests for it as it's supposed to be a hard root beer similar to some well known brands. It's basically a stout recipe with added lactose making it a cream stout and then after a couple weeks fermenting, adding the root beer flavoring and sweetener. So we'll see how it turns out.

Brewed up a batch of Drop Kick Nate for a friends May 20th crawfish boil. They loved it last year and asked for it again as it really does pair perfectly with seafood. It may not clear by that time but who cares, I'm donating it so shut the hell up!