A Tale of Two Pilsners

It's spring! It's snowing! My cellar is still 53F!

So, because I know how tasty a bitter pilsner can be on a hot summer day, it's going to be a pilsner brew day. And because I've been crazy busy, it's going to be a 10 gallon partial mash. Most of the time I make my pilsners with the classic ingredients. Today, because I'll do two fermentations side by side, I'm pitching two different yeast: Czech Pilsner and Pilsner Urquel. But maybe today it's a good time to get out of my Saaz/Hallertauer rut. Maybe its time for a Chinook & Cascade Pilsner...

This is a pilsner from December. Yum. Good food photography is harder than it looks.

Unexpected present

My plans today were to make a 10 gallon partial mash. An altbier as the base wort, then a separate grain tea to make a porter out one. Well, last night, at a very fun St. Patty's day party, I was given 5 gallons of reverse osmosis sap. OG 1.030 What to do?
So I'm turning the all grain grains into an old ale. German pale ale, dark munich, 4 different crystal malts, some East Kent Goldings and a blend of European ale and London yeasts. Starting gravity looks like the mid-70's so I think I'll add all the yeast that I was going to use for the 10 gallons. That's the plan....boiling right now.

Red Rye Lager

Long time no blog, but I've been brewing.  Brewed and gone: Irish Red ale & a dry Stout.  In the keg now, American Pale Ale and a German Pilsner is up next.  Did a 10 gallon partial mash of a brown ale: American ale yeast/hops upstairs and a pilsner blend in the cellar.  Not sure what either one is, probably just homebrew. 

Today is a reddish lager with 30% rye.  I use malted rye, flaked rye and just a couple of ounces of chocolate rye to redden it up. Hops will be leftover odds & ends from the fridge.  Will try to go moderate, maybe 35-45 IBU's.  Usually wait to make up the hop schedule once I have a reading on the starting gravity after the sparge.

So after the brew is over, it's done, pitched, in the can.  Used Bullion, US Hallertau, and Liberty.  Yum Yum.  The "keller" is 47F...so I pitched a huge jar of slurry.

It's all good.

Hoppy Brew Year!

Okay, it's harder than it looks to blog consistantly. But it's a new year so what the heck, let's try again.

So today is a two-fer: I have a Ringwood slurry and a Pilsner blend slurry. The pils blend is three yeasts, all pils strains. So in a hurry to get a recipe put together I did this: Dark Munich, Dark wheat, German pale ale, UK pale ale, cara munich III and chocolate rye. Also 5.82 pounds of light dry malt. Hopping for the lager is all Northern Brewer : 1 oz @ 60, 2 oz @ 30, 1 oz. @ 2. Got a bit more creative on the ale: pretty steady hopping with moderate amounts of: Centennial, Sorachi Ace, Cluster, Galena, Yakima Magnum and Willamette. All leftover hops so a good way to use 'em up. So eventually 10 gallons of homebrew: done the partial mash way. In spite of the different hop schedules and yeast, it'll be interesting to see how the same wort can be manipulated to give you two different beers.

Forecast is for more snow....I baked a loaf of bread and the windows are all steamed up. My family is home from parts far away and I'm looking forward to seeing some GOP ass getting kicked in 2008.

Life is good...

Not such a good blogger, am I?

I have been brewing more than I've been blogging.  Since the last post, I've brewed an American Brown ale, a Rye Amber ale and a pre-prohibition pilsner.  Yum...

The pre-pro is actually a bit of a tradition here.  The basement is still in the 60's, not quite cold enough to lager.  But if I'm careful I can ferment in the 50's by using either the garage or my deck. 

Just got a ribbon for my last German pilsner from last spring, 40 points, not bad. 

Time to start planning my holiday ale.  Taking into account the crisis of hops prices/availability, I'm thinking it might be time to rediscover "session" ales from England.  So I think I'll do a hearty Strong Dark Mild ale. 

Saison update

Still fermenting............down to 1.018ish. Hard to read cause there is still some krausen on top. Still bubbling and it smells good.

Redemption Beer

Well, I never thought it could happen to me.................but two tries to sparge an overnight sour mashed beers (with flaked maize) were totally and completely stuck solid: looked like glue, unbelieveably frustrating and it made me very determined to brew again. So with the beautiful American Wheat #1010 ready, I brewed this one yesterday. A copper colored American wheat: UK pale, US white wheat, and cara-wheat. I used some leftover No. Brewer, Cascade, Simcoe and Columbus, in that order. Didn't bother to calculate the IBU's. But, thankfully, a smooth mash and an easy sparge. Probably helped by spending an hour with a toothpick to poke out the goo from the holes in my false bottom. But this is the next morning and the yeast is really going crazy. It's the kind of floculation that can keep a brewster entertained for..............minutes at a time. Like little meteors hurtling through space. Tried to post a movie but it's not as bright as the picture. And Blogger, despite it's claims that we can post video, tried and failed three times to do so.

But, we will return after Labor Day, for another sour beer. Maybe a smaller sour mash and/or souring the wort overnight. We'll have to think about this (we, as in me and my brew buddy T.H., not just me speaking royally).