Back yard Hops - Pictures of the day-

           Here are some pictures of my back yard cascade hops. I can't wait to put them in a beer.

Home grown Cascade, Nelson Sauvin, Citra and Galaxy IPA

Beer: 7-11 IPA
Style: IPA
Brewed on : 7.11.15
Kegged on: 7.27.15
ABV: 6.8%
OG: 1.060
FG: 1.008




Appearance: Dark gold, hazy, medium head
Smell: Peach, grapefruit, citrus, white wine
Taste: Earthiness, peach, citrus, white wine
Mouthfeel: Thin body, low carbonation, smooth in the middle with a small bite at the end

--Recipe--


5 gal, All grain
Mashed at: 153 F for 80 min
Fly sparged at: 160 F for 40 min
Fermented at: 70 F

Malt

84% - 10 lb 2 row
8% - 1 lb Munich light
8%  - 1 lb Carmal 40

Hops

60 min - .5oz Home grown Cascade

45 min- .5oz Nelson Sauvin

30 min- .5oz Galaxy
             .5oz Citra

5 min- .5oz Galaxy
            .5oz Citra
             .5oz Nelson Sauvin

7 day dry hop- 1oz Galaxy



Yeast 

Wyeast 1056

HOPS TO BOIL TIME CHART.

Have you ever stopped to think about why you are adding the hops to the boil when you do? 60 minutes, 45 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, flame out and into fermentation (dry hopping).

The point of adding hops  at different points of the boil is to get the various qualities of the hops in your beer. Hops contain Alpha acids located in the Lupulin gland. The longer your hops are in the boil the more Alpha acids you will extra from the hops. The more Alpha acids in your brew the higher your IBUs will be.

All your hop additions change from one beer style to the next. Why?  I will give some examples.

Brown ale will have most of the hop additions at the 60 minute mark and few at the middle and end of the boil. But why is this, you ask.  Brown ales have a profile emphasizing on the malt over the hops. Lower hop additions in the middle and end give a lower to no hop flavor and aroma.

India Pale Ales are big on bitterness, hop flavor and aroma. IPAs may have a 90 minute hop addition to extract as much of the alpha acids as possible. For the flavor there will be large hop additions and for the aroma the additions can be from large to mammoth amounts of hops. IPAs will be dry hopped to bring the aroma to the next level.


Below I have put in a chart so you can know when to add your hops on your next brew day.

Citracada , The end of summer IPA

Citracada

The end of summer is near and here in North Carolina that means Cicadas. On this brew day I was brewing a Citra IPA. Here is my brew day in photos. 

Brew today See you tomorrow.

Fresh Citrusy IPA Brewday

Lately we have had some of the best tasting IPAs. Both brewed by  Lagunitas, Daytime IPA and Little sumpin' sumpin' a Wheat Pale ale. Both tasted so good and drank so easy I decided to brew my take on them. They were very fragrant of citrus and light pine and tasted just the same. I picked these hops to help drive it home.

1. Cascade 
2.  Centennial
3.  Simcoe
4. Citra

Here are some picture of the brew day.

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

The Unnamed One. Stout Porter.

Take a step back in time with me. Imagine we are in Ireland in the late 1700's and we want a dark strong beer. All the street and river porters are drinking these amazing looking beers. We ask one man what he is drinking and he says " Oh this is a Porter".

 So today I will brew a Stout Porter.  I used European grains  with the addition of Flaked Oats.  I did "Mericaize" it.  I use American Hops, Mount Hood pellet and Centennial whole leaf. 

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

Give me one of those Hop Candies!

I went in to my local brew supply shop Homesteaders Brew Supply to get a few things (Star san and a bottle filler).  If you did not know today was my Bottling day. I know f***ing awesome. My 1610 Brown Ale is now bottled and conditioning, But I will do a follow up blog on that later.


Anyway, To todays topic. I was in the brew shop talking to the owner about recipes when candy caught my eye.  It was Hop candy, Made with real hop oils. The company that makes them is B Hoppy Candys. They have a few hop flavors , Like Cascade, Nugget, and East Kent Goldings.  As I was looking at them I asked him if they are any good. He reached under the counter and pulled out 4 or 5 sandwich bags with smaller sample pieces and said try them. So I did and WOW  I don't know which one I tried first but it was very hoppy but good.  If you like IPAs then you will like this candy.

B Hoppy Candies

They come in bigger pieces than what is in the picture. This is some sample pieces that I took home and I broke in to smaller chunks so my wife and kids could try. Lets just say they were not the biggest fans.  My three year old said in his words " its Buscusting". Ha ha I think they are an acquired taste that I have acquired.




In the picture Below is the packaging they come in.

Photo from Northern Brewer
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/cascade-hop-candy-4-oz.html

Brew today, See you tomorrow

Recipe 1610 Brown Ale

1610 Brown Ale

5 Gallons 

Partial Mash

Target OG 1.065

Target FG 1.018

ABV 6.13%

IBU 38- 39

Malt

6 lbs Amber DME

4 oz UK Chocolate

4 oz UK Crystal 60L

2 oz UK Black Patent 

2 oz Belgian Biscuit

   

Hops

1 oz East Kent Golding @ 60 minutes

1 oz Mount Hood        @ 45 minutes

1 oz Styrian Goldings    @ 15 minutes

Yeast

Safale American Ale Yeast  US 05



Brew today, See you Tomorrow

Brew Day. I'm thinking 1610 Brown ale.

I got all my ingredients needed for my partial mash brew Brown ale, I got all my grains and DME from my local brew store, HomeSteaders Brew supply.  This being my third brew I wanted it to really work and taste like BEER.  My first batch was a Mr. BEER kit, Good to get my brewing passion going, but no good as far as beer. Next as you can see here  I brewed an all grain California Ale. I jumped right in to the deep end and could barely swim. My Cali. ale came out as beer, but was weak. It hardly fermented and tasted very young.

This time I...

This time I did a lot of watching youtube and after all of that I feel I have a good idea on how to brew.   I knew I wanted to brew a Brown Ale.  So I want to my local brew supply shop in town and picked up my LME, my barley grains, my hops, and my dry yeast.   My 1610 Brown Ale is ready to brew. I got the recipe from local brew supply shop, I told the owner what I was looking to brew and he helped me tweak the recipe to my liking. 

 

 After that...

After that it was time to brew .

Getting that right Temp. to pitch the yeast

That's it.

OG 1.065
Now it's in it's fermentation bucket and bubbling away.