115th Dream Hopbursted Imperial Double IBA v2 : "Deuce Juice"

Doing 10 gallons this time. This is what happened last time. I didn't even read the write-up prior to this batch. Should have!

Didn't steep in anything  - this kit is all extract: 12 lbs. Amber Malt, and 12 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Bitters: 8 oz. Cluster pellets (7.5%), 24 0z. Hopbursted (proprietary) mix
Yeast: two packets of Safbrew S-05, which I only wetted prior to the boil, last time I started on bottling-sugar water 16 hours prior, and that would have been good.

10 gallons of water, once boiling we put in half the Amber and half the Gold extract (not paying close attn), brought it up to a boil and tossed in 4 oz of Cluster.
30 mins later, the rest of the extract and 4 more oz of Cluster.
15 mins later, 6 oz of hopbursted pellets. 10 mins, 6 oz, 5 mins, 6 oz, flame out, the final 6 oz and 3 lbs of botting sugar. Kept one pound back just because we didn't want the final product to end up too dry.

After chilling, we ran the wort out through a butterfly net into the corneys, then back through the net into the boilkeg, then finally into the corneys through the tight mesh funnel. All the while gleaning off glops of green diarrhea-hop-scrunge. Thus, the deuce juice moniker.
Pitched in the safale (kinda more into one than the other), shook it all up and set it to task in the big industrial sink. This time of year in there, it's going to be about 72 degrees - a little warm, but I'm hoping the yeast just go rabid.

Wort gravity: 1120+ on about 6.5 gallons - yes, that's what you see in the picture above! Added in about a gallon of good ol' Bakersfield tap via the hose for about 4.25 gallons per corney. Added an approximation of that to the hydrometer and we have a bestguess OG of 1084. That's strong medicine, my friends.

Day 7: Looks like fermentation's done, into the chiller before racking. FG: 1032 - which seems like a lot of residual sugar. 7% alcohol in there.

Day 19: No hurry on the racking. Gravity down to 1021, and the color is a nice rusty walnut. Great hop aroma. Transferred as much as possible into the grey-marked corney (4.9 gallons) and the rest was poured over into the lime-marked (2 gallons, say) and racked back after settling. This is to say that both corneys are a mix from the original two, but the low filled got handled a bit rougher - and I didn't de-oxygenate any of the tanks before racking.

Week 10: Carbonated at 30# for a day and a half, then shook the corney and still it sucked gas from the bottle. So left it on for another 24 hours at 30#. It's pretty well carbonated, but I'll shake it one more time when it's on ice this Sunday for NFLredzone and brewing (upcoming: Honey Brown).
Hops are definitely up front, but there's enough residual sugars to assure me that this will be a much mellower beer in 2 to 3 months. We'll drink the first 5 gallons this week and age the second corney. Wins: Enough body to balance out that 8.5% alcohol this one's packin' and a lot of good hop aroma. More notes after the drinking/brewing session. Gravity still at .1021.

Two weeks later: Honey Oatmeal Brown brew session/brats/NFLredzone Sunday. Yeup, kept the Rosa's milk jug half full all day long, and that 8.5% kicked me in the head. We floated the 5 gals, but I had enough at the end of the night to send a bomber to Rabideau (which got its own proprietary label, but FedEx won't allow me to ship). This is a well-balanced Imperial - balanced between body and the alcohol, sugars and the hops. They're still at opposite ends of the teeter-totter though. They're both there in balance, but distinct. We'll give the second 5 gals a few months to see if they come back into line in combination.

8 month mark, to the day: The second five gallons disappeared amongst the wreckage of hot wings and montecristo. Clarity was great to the bottom of the corney; color darkened to complete Halloween black. 
Tapped the bottle up next to our Honey Oatmeal Brown from November (which kinda transformed itself into an IPA), and between the two, the Deuce Juice tasted downright hops-neutral. Half of that is saying that the Brown sprouted an additional hop-kick from nowhere, but also that the additional conditioning time for the Deuce Juice allowed the hops to dovetail into the malt to balance out (most of) the alcohol, with only the alcohol coming out slightly stronger than the others. Never would have predicted that. After shoveling two pounds of hops into the batch, I would have laid money down that this was going to be the hoppiest beer ever. Time heals all wounds, and, like a wine, barrel aging brought an insane amount of hops into line with residual sugars from a perfectly stopped fermentation - good thing the Safale petered out (something an aggressive Nottingham might not have done). Holding back on the second dose of bottling sugar was a good call as well. Maltywine trumps barleywine everytime.

RyePA

With a reddish-golden hue and a good balance of firm body and lingering bitterness, this brew is a showcase of both hops and grain. The fruity/floral notes of Palisade hops are a perfect complement to the spicy flavor of rye malt.

Steep:
.5 lbs. Oats
.5 lbs. Briess Caramel 80

9.15 lbs Rye malt extract (70% two-row, 20% rye, 10% caramel 40)

Hops
17.6% alpha, 5.4% beta Summit pellets 1 oz. (60 mins)
7.8% alpha, 7.43% beta Palisade pellets 1 oz and 1 oz (15 and 0 mins)
8.9 alpha, 6 beta 1 oz Cascade leaf (.5 @ 30 mins, .5 @ 0 mins)

Started the water in the evening in anticipation of the UPS truck coming with the ingredients - just couldn't wait to get this goin. Beefed up the recipe with the oats (as an afterthought) and the Cascade (just because). Also, I messed up and was supposed to add only half the second Palisade at 0 mins, and dry hop with the second half oz, but I just put it all in. I'll either neglect to dry hop, or just get more.

Not much head space. Pitched Safale 05. Again, I don't have an OG reading, dropped and broke my hydrometer, and didn't remember to order a refractometer with this kit. It's nice to know the OG/FG, but it kinda doesn't matter, yah?

Cheered on by the end of a Sequoia Big Horn Red IPA growler and Hop Ottin's.

Day 5: Stopped the tailed off fermentation.

Day 7: Racked out and back off the yeast and hop dust.

1 Month: Taste test says it's still tight. A few more weeks of conditioning, at least.

115th Dream Hopbursted Imperial IPA

Yeah, so you brew beer. You hop it up. Buy the pellets instead of the petals. But nothing's prepared you for this. This is off the charts.

Prior to all the fun, I used a good amount of the bottling sugar to get a Safale-05 yeast starter going. 16 hours of preparation, you yeasties are still not gonna be ready for this.

Okay, here's the brewday schedule, which I messed up. I put in half of the boiling hops, and half of the near-aroma hops, because, dang, I'm not used to putting this much in!

4 gallons of water in, boil it up. Then put in 3# of amber extract. 30 mins later, in goes the first 1 oz of Cascade pellets (all at 7.5%). It should have been 2 oz. but that's Crazy!

30 more minutes, you're at the full-hour protein break. In goes another 1 oz of the Cascade, which should have been two.

15 minutes to the end of the boil, the first quarter of the 12 oz of the Hopbursted mix (from Northern Brewer) goes in to begin as aroma hops. Here's where I realize what I'd missed, and we drop in the other 2 oz of the Cascade.

So, we let the boil run and added the next two 3 oz batches of hops at 10 and 5 minutes out. Shut off the heat and added in the remainder of the 2# of bottling sugar and the final 3 oz of the Hopbursted mix.

The wort chilled quickly, but it was so full of gunk from all the hops, running it through the funnel with the microscreen took forever. Came away with about 2.5 gallons of super-hopped wort at ... get ready for this ... .1150 original gravity. Poured in the cook-pot of yeast. The garden hose provided the aeration for the next 2 gallons.

Didn't steep in anything this batch.
Extract: 6 lbs. Amber Malt, and 6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Honey: .5 lbs. Clover
Bitters: 4 oz. Cluster pellets (7.5%), 12 0z. Hopbursted (proprietary) mix
Yeast: Safbrew S-05, started on bottling-sugar water 16 hours prior

Good luck all.
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5 day update:
Gave the corney a swirl and didn't get any exhale from the relief valve, so I popped 'er into the fridge. It's a low 40's in there. 5 days at approx 68-70 degrees should have done all the fermenting that is fermenting. I'll pull a final gravity when I rack here in a day or two.
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14 day update:
Okay, finally got around to racking over from the leaker fermenter into the dispensary. Did I say a day or two? I meant a week or two.
Haven't racked in a few batches, I've just been letting the brew sit on the yeast for a couple of weeks, then pushing yeast off the bottom with the Co2 and drinking it clear. My racking cane is in my guts. But not this batch. Still, it's been sitting on the yeast for long enough.

Put 30 lbs of Co2 on it with some shaking, until no more pumped in. Now I'll just let it sit for a couple of weeks. No original gravity reading, and I didn't take a final either. I'll get a final at drinking time, maybe. What a brewmasterscientist I've become.
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33 day update:
Checked for final gravity (1006) and drinkability. Bud Light, you can suck it! It's hoppy - duh! - but surprisingly balanced for IPA-on-steroids. See you in 4 weeks, muthafukas! I predict a win.
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The Bottom Line:
Took this out to the Amgen bike race tailgating party with a bunch of lite beer drinkers ... and it disappeared. Gnarly hoppiness, but man, so good.

Walker IBA

Walker does pull down his pants and show his bared arse now and again, but this has nothing to do with that.

We're looking to make an unholy offspring of an Englishy Brown Ale and an India Pale. So, we're going to have some honey/meady smoothness, a sweet finish (FG above 1012, we hope) but with some lots of high-alpha Cascade for a long boil for India hoppiness and a touch of bitter. That's the plan.

* approx 1.5 lb. Quaker Oats (steeped)
* 1 lb. Crisp Brown Malt. 60-70° L. Green and cracked, hopefully with the high alpha Cascade, will add a touch bitterness to the final product, hopefully. (steeped)
* 6 lb. Briess Sparkling Amber DME 13L
*. 1.5 lb. clover honey
* 2 oz. Cascade Pellets 6.3% alpha. 1 oz (Boil - 66 mins.), .5 oz (Boil - 36 ), .5 oz. (Finishing - 6 mins, plus another 20 during chill, bah)
* a pair of Sabrew s-33s (EDME). Optimum temperature: 64-75° F, but I'm gonna have a hard time maintaining that with this new fridge. I'm gonna miss my in-line temp controller.

Shooting for an OG of 1044ish / FG: 1012+.

Got the yeast going in a couple of cups of honey and sugar water. We stuck in in the oven to hide it from prying hands.
Steeped up the Malt and Oatmeal in some old panty hose (where did that muslin bag go?) 50 mins from 100 to 155. It shure did impart some dark color to the wort. Dunno the lovibond, think soda brown.
Added the extract and the honey, 1 oz of the Cascade - 30 minutes.
Dropped in .5 oz of the Cascade, 30 minutes.
The finishing hops - .5 oz - 6 mins.
Took out the boiling hops, but left the tea ball with the finishing hops at the bottom durning chilling. Just didn't fish it out, but in keeping with the IPA nature of this IBA, we'll just let the bitters do their thing. 20 mins to chill down to 80.

...good thing Walker was here to help heft the boil keg, that sucker felt heavy. He earns his namesake this time. Poured back and forth into the two corneys (one of which blew out of the In valve overnight, and has a stuck fermentation after a day - bah number 2).
Rooted out the yeast from the stove, where it had bloomed out of the measuring bowl and gooped up the stove innards like pancake batter. Pitched the very happy yeast half and half into the kegs (about 4 gals each) and put them into the fridge.

OG of 1042. Fudging a bit at 75 degrees, reading at that temp was 1040. So, maybe a 1043, but we're right in the range. The amber extract (and the light yeast, granted) brought the pre-fermentation color back to a maple sugar brown. Happy days!

Day 3 update: Fridge is running cold - 60 - and try as I might, can't get it to get up to 65+ without just shutting down. Corney #1 is blowin' and goin', #2 was leaking pressure, so on day 3 I've swapped into #2 another corney with a good, oxygenating pour. Fingers crossed on #2!

Day 5: Corney #1 is done fermenting; 1011. Nothing ever happened with #2. Every pull on the relief valve has only ever produced a faint burp. I've got 5 gallons of ready-to-condition beer, and 5 gallons of still-waiting-to-ferment wort. Okay, so I have a great idea. I'll chill and carbonate #1 and rack off the yeast to #2. I know that the yeast from #1 is good - if it can wake up and get #2 going, all will be well, right? So, I rack off what's there into #2, put #1 into the chilly fridge, and wait until morning.

Day 6: Just as a thought before running the yeast from the #1 to the #2, I thought "why not run a hydrometer on #2? ... Has it fermented 25%? 50% ... at all?" So I did. It wasn't fermenting at all because it was done fermenting. 1011. Go figure. If it did all it's work in the first day and a half when the valve was leaking, so much the better. But geez.

Now on to conditioning. Day 7, running the C02 at 30 lbs for 3 hours at 45 degrees. Both show really strong coffee overtones and a backbone of honey sweetness.

Day 8: Racked yeast off the bottom of both corneys and blew off the loose C02 to let the ale rest. Bottled up a couple for Walker to try, after I tasted my way through the gradations of sediment. One day of conditioning for #2, 2 days for #1. What a difference a day makes! Both exchanged all the honey flaves for a round nuttiness, with just a splash of coffee surviving. Where did that nutty brown come from? Oatmeal, I reckon - Quaker Oats FTW? Or those cracked green malts? Time to do some brew testing in upcoming batches.

Now to really do some waiting and see just how brown this green beer can be.
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The Bottom Line: What happened at last? Well, the fast-fermenting can grew worse with age. The mutations didn't condition out. The slower-fermenting corney was a brew for the ages, though. A perfect nutty-brown with a little hop kick. It didn't last long, although we tried to parcel it out a pint at a time.

Lesson learned: I'm just using Nottingham from now on. I want a fast fermentation, with no worries. Git 'er done! I'll leave the subtlety for the sweet mead-yeast when we bust some must.