Homebrew thread

[YojimboMonkey]

Wow, that's awesome! How much does an old whisky barrel go for?

This one cost us around $100 I think. Funny, right after we bought it, Goose Island announced it would be selling off some barrels they had used in aging Bourbon County Stout for $30 each. Of course, our barrel came direct from the distillery (with a bit of whiskey still in it I understand) but the timing was kind of funny. I've heard of other distilleries letting theirs go cheaper as well. But hell, I'm not going to be able to fill a barrel with beer on my own so this collaborative project seems like a pretty great way to go.

[elpollodiablo]

I wanna try some wood aging experiments. Was thinking maybe of an oaked rye saison or something.

[elpollodiablo]

The caps turned out nicely! Kind of a shitty photo tho

That is one boozy rye IPA, too. Third batch, same recipe (approximately). Gonna be excellent with a few weeks' bottle conditioning, I think.

[Greg Nog]

Ah, the caps are great!

[YojimboMonkey]

Very nice! You make me want to settle on a fake brewery name so I can get some of my own!

[elpollodiablo]

Thanks guys!

I'm enjoying the very last bottle of my Simcoe SMaSH at the moment. Gotta do another one of these; this was probably my favorite out of a year of brewing. Was also, incidentally, the cheapest and the easiest

[YojimboMonkey]

Transferred my Oud Bruin to a keg today, pressurized it, and poured myself a taste. It's sour!

[elpollodiablo]

Guess who got a new kettle today

http://www.blichmannengineering.com/boilermaker/boilermaker.html

[elpollodiablo]

Brewed a milk stout with cocoa nibs today. Tastes delicious, though I overshot my OG by more than 10 points. Going to be about 7% instead of ~5.8% ABV.

[YojimboMonkey]

There's a big malt supply place a town or two over from me. They don't take new accounts from homebrewers but there are some guys in my homebrew club who have longstanding accounts there and every so often one of them will do a group buy. So basically I just got a 55lb sack of Maris Otter for supercheap and I'm gonna be brewing a fuckload of beer.

[elpollodiablo]

How much?

[YojimboMonkey]

Altogether I paid $45.10 for 55lbs of Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter

[elpollodiablo]

Yeah, that's pretty good! I bought a 50lb bag of 2-row for $55 recently and considered it a pretty good deal.

[YojimboMonkey]

Hey here is that piece of oak I'm using to age my old ale, along with the little information sheet that came with it.

[YojimboMonkey]

Meanwhile this old ale is fucking ON man, I'll have to sample frequently over the next few weeks 'cause it's great to begin with and I'd hate to overwhelm such a good beer with that toasted oak. Though I brewed it specifically to try out this thing.

[YojimboMonkey]

I just bottled the old ale after 5 weeks of oak aging. I think this is going to be a special beer.

[Greg Nog]

Can't wait to hear how it is!

[YojimboMonkey]

Also I picked up a pound of Citra at my last homebrew club meeting so I'm thinking my next brew might be a Citra RIPA

[elpollodiablo]

I've made a couple of IPAs with Citra! If you like big citrus notes in the nose, that's a good one. Most of my RIPAs have tended toward more spicy aromas, but I recently experimented with some citrusy hops, too.  RIPA I made two weeks ago was bittered with Warrior and had huge Amarillo, Simcoe and Cascade late additions.

[YojimboMonkey]

Yeah see I like using Simcoe in a RIPA and usually do, I thought I'd try combining the rye spiciness with the Citra though and see what happened.

[YojimboMonkey]

FYI a guy from my homebrew club HoPS! (and also a founding member of Square Kegs, a new homebrew club in my old neighborhood on the north side--busy guy) is blogging the process of going pro, if anyone is interested in reading about it, at http://panicbrewing.com/

[YojimboMonkey]

let's see, what do I have onhand today, ingredient-wise? Got that big-ass bag of maris otter, only used about half of it so far, and oh yeah I bought a pound of citra hops. 

Looks like I'm brewing a SMaSH today.