Base Talk...
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:12 am
Friends of the Bob and Tom Show have a special smile on their faces but I'm talking about the dry hopping of a base (B-A-S-E) beer.... had to spell it out in case it attracted the attention of any bass players.
I just joined yesterday so if you'z mug'z covered this last week I apologize for not going back very far. And if I'm in the wrong thread, speak up or move this and let me know.
About a year ago I started F'ing around with my favorite base beers, Russian River's Blind Pig IPA and their Pliny the Elder DIPA. My system can run 24G at a shot as long as the grain bill in each MT (2) is less than 30# and just for clarification, each MT has a false bottom that is then used as a BK once the MT is dumped... 10-4?? So I brew a 24G batch of BP, a tasty, straw colored, left coast favorite thru the recipe.... then the fun starts. This gives me roughly 5 full kegs to mess with. I ALWAYS leave one as the constant, I ALWAYS hit one with 1 oz Nelson and 1 oz of Galaxy (the old Enjoy By recipe from Stone... the house fav), one with 2 oz Mosaic (SN's Tropical), normally one 7C's (now I think you could do 10 C's) and so on. The idea... 5 different beers from one. I know I'm not alone in this, right? Right? Then Firestone Walker introduces Luponic Distortion and I slapped my forehead till it was red. Many of FW's beers taste very similar to me and I can normally pick out a proprietary yeast to credit that to... in FW's beers, its their hop profile. My wife has A beer every night. She likes FW Easy Jack. I bought LD last weekend and I smelled it in her cup tonight and couldn't smell the difference between it and Easy Jack... can't taste, on-call. What bugs me about LD and its hop profile change every 90 days on this base beer is that they don't say whats in each hop profile change. Other words, if you REALLY like it and your nose isn't tuned to hops, you'll never recreate it. It's BS and I'm writing them tomorrow!
My greatest experiment thus far was a 10G batch of Elder I ran thru the recipe, then dry hopped each 5G kegs with the same amount of Mosaic and Equinox (2 oz pellets each).... head to head tasting of Jekyll and Hyde! The Mo lasted throughout the keg and was tropical fruit strong (my fav hop right now) and the Eq was a little spicy but got lost in the big beer.
I saw a cool hop comparison... grab the same # of pellets in each of your experimental hops, pop the top off a light wheat beer (mine would be Old Chico from SN) add the hop pellets and quickly re-cap it. Wait a week and go thru them to see what you like and dis-like.
This has been Base Talk with RD.
PS- 1 bottle Kirkland vodka soaked in a large jar with 1 lb of candied ginger for a month, then mixed with a little lime juice and ginger beer or OJ... you have to try it!
OMG, I just saw you guys have a BBQ page... this is better than Disneyland... and I'm a Barbecutionalist (my word, don't use it or Trump will sue you, too!).
I just joined yesterday so if you'z mug'z covered this last week I apologize for not going back very far. And if I'm in the wrong thread, speak up or move this and let me know.
About a year ago I started F'ing around with my favorite base beers, Russian River's Blind Pig IPA and their Pliny the Elder DIPA. My system can run 24G at a shot as long as the grain bill in each MT (2) is less than 30# and just for clarification, each MT has a false bottom that is then used as a BK once the MT is dumped... 10-4?? So I brew a 24G batch of BP, a tasty, straw colored, left coast favorite thru the recipe.... then the fun starts. This gives me roughly 5 full kegs to mess with. I ALWAYS leave one as the constant, I ALWAYS hit one with 1 oz Nelson and 1 oz of Galaxy (the old Enjoy By recipe from Stone... the house fav), one with 2 oz Mosaic (SN's Tropical), normally one 7C's (now I think you could do 10 C's) and so on. The idea... 5 different beers from one. I know I'm not alone in this, right? Right? Then Firestone Walker introduces Luponic Distortion and I slapped my forehead till it was red. Many of FW's beers taste very similar to me and I can normally pick out a proprietary yeast to credit that to... in FW's beers, its their hop profile. My wife has A beer every night. She likes FW Easy Jack. I bought LD last weekend and I smelled it in her cup tonight and couldn't smell the difference between it and Easy Jack... can't taste, on-call. What bugs me about LD and its hop profile change every 90 days on this base beer is that they don't say whats in each hop profile change. Other words, if you REALLY like it and your nose isn't tuned to hops, you'll never recreate it. It's BS and I'm writing them tomorrow!
My greatest experiment thus far was a 10G batch of Elder I ran thru the recipe, then dry hopped each 5G kegs with the same amount of Mosaic and Equinox (2 oz pellets each).... head to head tasting of Jekyll and Hyde! The Mo lasted throughout the keg and was tropical fruit strong (my fav hop right now) and the Eq was a little spicy but got lost in the big beer.
I saw a cool hop comparison... grab the same # of pellets in each of your experimental hops, pop the top off a light wheat beer (mine would be Old Chico from SN) add the hop pellets and quickly re-cap it. Wait a week and go thru them to see what you like and dis-like.
This has been Base Talk with RD.
PS- 1 bottle Kirkland vodka soaked in a large jar with 1 lb of candied ginger for a month, then mixed with a little lime juice and ginger beer or OJ... you have to try it!
OMG, I just saw you guys have a BBQ page... this is better than Disneyland... and I'm a Barbecutionalist (my word, don't use it or Trump will sue you, too!).
