Lots to do.

I picked up grain bills for two more beers.  I'll be making a Cascade Pale Ale this week as well as another batch of the Stone IPA which turned out rather amazing.  Both of these are for my friend Kelly O'Brien's upcoming nuptials.  I also finally picked up the grain bill for the Two Hearted and will be brewing that up sometime in the next week and a half.  I should also bottle the oatmeal and coconut stouts this week, probably thursday or friday.  It'll be a busy week, but I am done with school and only have one exam.  I'm gonna have a lot of beer in the basement.

-Foodstyle.

Exposure

I brought some of my beers to a party tonight, the Apricot Wheat and the B.O.T.  I was pretty nervous due to the fact that I don't really know what taste in beer most of the people have, and also am not horribly close to anyone who attended the party other than my wife, who doesn't drink beer.  Happily, I received very positive feedback, and encouragement that I am welcome to bring more of my beer to future gatherings.
Hooray for ego boosts!
-Foodstyle

A few notes on Parti-Gyle

I have previously alluded to using the English Parti-Gyle method of sparging, not necessarily on purpose, but more because of lazy calculations.  For a good article on Parti-Gyle brewing, follow this link.  Or this one.  I don't really follow a hard and fast method for parti-gyle brewing, but my "invented" style usually nets me about two gallons of extra beer to experiment with.  I have so far made three secondary small batches in this way.  The first was an Apricot Wheat which went along with the B.O.T., my first all-grain.  Next I brewed a Strawberry Blonde from the second runnings of the Stone IPA, and finally I have about two gallons left over from my Oatmeal Stout that I will be turning into a Chocolate and Toasted Coconut Stout tomorrow.  The nice thing about this brew method is that it raises my efficiency significantly, and allows me to satisfy my desire to experiment, without risking the loss of a whole five gallon batch of beer if something goes horribly wrong.

I also usually end up with six to seven and a half gallons of beer for the price of one five gallon batch, and it provides immediate usage for any hops that I don't use in the main batch.  Since I usually reclaim my yeast I have extra on hand to pitch and don't spend any extra money on a potentially costly ingredient.

Anyway, just my two cents on an easy way to get some extra life out of your grain and give yourself some low-cost beer to experiment with.

-Foodstyle

Oatmeal Stout

Nick and I brewed an Oatmeal Stout on Thursday.

Grain Bill

• 9 lb. Pale Malt
• 1 lb. Roasted Barley
• 1 lb. Rolled Oats
• .25 lb. Rice Hulls

Hops

• 1.75 oz. Chinook (60 min.)

Yeast

• California Ale Yeast

OG: 1.050 FG:

Had to use a two-stage mash in this one, and had to mash-out.  I hit my target temp for stage one exactly on, but missed my temp for stage two by at least 5 degrees.  Not really sure how this will affect the beer, but I am not too worried.  I also missed my target gravity by .004.  I was a little bummed about that since lately I have been overshooting my target gravities.  I am not worried that this will have too terrible of an impact on the beer though, just a little less alcohol, but if I were going for alcohol content I would have made another IPA.

Anyway, here are some pics.

Here Nick is prepping the strike water.

Here I am adding the grain bill.

Here I am adding the strike water.

First Runnings.

Hops Addition.

Chilling the wort.

Filling the Carboy.

Yeast pitched and airlocked.

The smaller carboy is leftover second runnings, I will siphon it onto toasted coconut in a week just for fun.

Had a lot of fun making this one, can't wait to taste in about a month and a half.

-Foodstyle

Hefeweizen

I brewed a Hefeweizen for a friend last Friday.  It went well, here are some pics.

Adding the strike water.

Stirring the mash.

Mashing.

First runnings.Hops.Yeast.

Left to right: Hefeweizen, Stone IPA, Bloody Orange-Tastrophe, and Strawberry Blonde.

Bottling the B.O.T.

I bottled the B.O.T. yesterday, here are a few pics.

The final gravity reading, 1.004. 

Filling the bottling bucket.

Bottling.

Roll down your pant legs you hipster doofus!

Transferring Stone IPA to Secondary

Transferring the Stone IPA from the primary to the secondary fermentor, as well as my dry hops addition, 2 oz. of Centennial.

Close up of the secondary.

Fully transferred.

The beer I used for the gravity reading, delicious!