Home brewers CHECK IN please!

[Residentevol]

Two friends and I have brewed twice in the last four weeks. We did two extact kits, a Kolsh and a Saison. I don't have any pictures at this point but they are coming along nicely.

I plan on doing an all grain cream ale in two weeks with maybe a little sweet/bitter orange peel in it so there is a slight hint of orange.

I also want to do an all grain witbier with maybe with a little orange/lemon/cherry in it. I am looking for a decent base recipe. Does anyone have something they can throw my way for a 5 or 10 gallon batch?

Got this from homebrewtalk which was taken from Austin homebrew but it turned out really really good and was spot on for style so if you wanted to tweak it I'm sure it would be easy.

I would suggest making the recipe first and possibly splitting the batch to try your different flavors so you don't waste 5gal.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: White Labs Belgian Wit Ale WLP400
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.010
Boiling Time (Minutes): 50
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14
Tasting Notes: The best kit beer I have ever made. Even better than their Blue Moon Clone.


Ingredients

4.75 lb Belgian Pilsner (2 Row)
3.00 lb White Wheat Malt
2.5 lb Flaked Wheat
0.50 oz Cascade (7.5%) (30min)
0.50 oz Cascade (7.5%) (5 min)
0.50 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 15.0 min)
0.50 oz Coriander Seed, Crushed (Boil 15.0 min)
1 Pkg Belgian Wit Ale (White Labs #WLP400)

Mash Schedule:
Single Infusion
Total Grain Weight (lb's)--10.25

Mash In:
4.0 gallons strike at 163 F to obtain 152 F 60 min
Mash Out:
3.0 Gallons at 172 F for 15 min

[Dreizehn]

Homebrewed black IPA.

[KlokWerk]

Brewing an imperial IPA right now. It's a pretty simple recipe but tastes oh so good.
Second time making this brew.

Here it is about half way through the 60 minute boil. That's a 5 gal boil and Yeah, I'm a stove brewer!

[kenny301]

Got this from homebrewtalk which was taken from Austin homebrew but it turned out really really good and was spot on for style so if you wanted to tweak it I'm sure it would be easy.

I would suggest making the recipe first and possibly splitting the batch to try your different flavors so you don't waste 5gal.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: White Labs Belgian Wit Ale WLP400
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.010
Boiling Time (Minutes): 50
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14
Tasting Notes: The best kit beer I have ever made. Even better than their Blue Moon Clone.


Ingredients

4.75 lb Belgian Pilsner (2 Row)
3.00 lb White Wheat Malt
2.5 lb Flaked Wheat
0.50 oz Cascade (7.5%) (30min)
0.50 oz Cascade (7.5%) (5 min)
0.50 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 15.0 min)
0.50 oz Coriander Seed, Crushed (Boil 15.0 min)
1 Pkg Belgian Wit Ale (White Labs #WLP400)

Mash Schedule:
Single Infusion
Total Grain Weight (lb's)--10.25

Mash In:
4.0 gallons strike at 163 F to obtain 152 F 60 min
Mash Out:
3.0 Gallons at 172 F for 15 min

That looks great!

I put this recipe into beersmith and it gives me a 3.4g volume for mash in and 5.4g (added in two steps at the same temp, which is weird) for mash out based on my setup. Somehow 3.4g for 10lbs of grain doesn't seem like enough. It also says that the sparge water should be 168F but, that doesn't make sense. It won't get the grain bed up to 168F to denature the enzymes in the grains/runnings.

I want to brew this on Tuesday and keg/force carb it. Hopefully it will be drinkable by a wedding I am going to on the 24th of May.

Forgive me as I am trying to re-learn all grain brewing. I haven't done it in well over a year.

[kenny301]

Well, I ended up doing an 11gal batch of the suggested witbier recipe. Beersmith needs a little bit of tweaking as the default boil-off rate for a keggle is a little optimistic. I started out with roughly a half gallon too much of wort after sparging and I added ~15-20mins to the start of the boil to get down to 12.75 gallons from 13.75. The hour of boil brought me down further to about 11.6 gallons. I should have had 11.2 gallons left to account for trub and cold break (which I inadvertently ended up sucking into the carboys anyway). Despite the measured efficiancy of 69%, at the end of the boil my OG was 1.048 with an estimated by Beersmith of 1.050. So, that was good. I never hit the OG like that even when I was doing kits.

So, pictures!

Two ~1L starters. One has a little more in it with a slightly higher SG (1.038) due to the yeast being older. The SG on the other is around 1.030.




Nearly 14 gallons of wort! I did have one minor boil over.




Two 6.5g carboys with an embarrasing amount of cold break in them and tons of BS tracked in from the back yard. The pickup tube in my keggle was not in the right poisition. I need to get some stainless steel wool to put around the inlet to help with this.




Yeast starter magic! This much krausen roughly 13hrs after pitching!



The krausen had already started to fall by 5pm today. I may have to give the carboy a swirl when I get home in the AM. One thing I have read about White Labs WLP400 is that the yeast get lazy and some occasional agitation is needed.

[kenny301]

I didn't take any photos this time, but I did 5gals of an all grain cream ale on Saturday. Somehow though I boiled off too much wort, which killed my efficiency. However, the OG was higher than expected.

[compy222]

i'm making a cream ale...6lbs gold lme, 1/2lb carapils specialty grain, and 2oz cascade for bittering/aroma...i'm thinking about doing a light dry hop on this batch, anyone have any recommendations other than more cascade? i was thinking citra might be an interesting choice...

[kenny301]

I used
1oz of hersbrucker for 60mins
.5oz Sazz for 10
.5oz Saaz for 5. (the recipe said flame out but I had a few beers and screwed up).

[Dreizehn]

Made an American IPA last night.

[Kameirocco]

made 10 gallons of saison and 5 gallons of a hopslam clone!

here was my setup during the national homebrewers day.



there was about 1lb of hops sitting in the middle of that table and another 3oz of simcoe and 1oz of citria to toss in in about 2-3 weeks.

part of the saison.. mmmm... whirlflock floaties! haha

[Dreizehn]

Nice.

I started an Imperial Stout last night.

[H2oWerker]

I got a hops rhizome today! Forgot to ask what kind it is.... It was free though. So what the heck!


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[kenny301]

Has anyone used one of the custom tap handle vendors? I got the idea today to get one made for the witbier I brewed. It'd be a nice gesture to give to the bride and groom. However, the wedding is in two weeks so turnaround time would have to be quick.

[compy222]

just brewed a batch up. it's cooling in the ice bath now...

6.6lbs wheat malt extract (60)
1oz cascade (60)
1/2oz sorachi ace (10)
irish moss (10)
1/2oz sorachi ace (1)

wyeast kolsch yeast to be pitched shortly.

[VdubyaVR6]

I started home brewing at the beginning of this year! So far I have 3 extract batches under my belt (Carribou Slobber, Dead Ringer IPA, and a Milk Chocolate Stout). I definitely feel the need to move to all grain in the near future, so I made a mash tun this weekend out of a 70 quart coleman xtreme cooler(I like big beers ).

I've been looking around and trying to decide on a grain mill and sizes for a new brew kettle (only have a 5 gallon now) and HLT. So far i've only brewed 5 gallon batches, but I know in the future i'll want to do 10 gallon batches. I've been thinking about going with a 20 gallon brew kettle and 15 or 20 gallon HLT, any advice on picking out the sizes/grain mill? I've been looking at a Monster Mill MM2 or MM3 for a grain mill.

Anyways on to a few pics!

Mash tun! Slits are up just to show other people how they were cut...




Blichmann Burner


I think this was the Dead Ringer