Batch No. 25 - Bohemian Pilsner

Powerful Pills

Brewed - January 8, 2011

Style - Bohemian Pilsner

Ingredients:

• 17.0 lbs. Weyerman Bohemian Pilsner
  
• 1.0 lbs. Weyermann Carahell

• 1.75 oz. German Perle (60)
• 1.50 oz. Czech Saaz (30)
• 1.75 oz. Czech Saaz (15)

• Wyeast #2278 Czech Pils (2 packs / 1500 ml starter)
  

OG – 1.054
Primary – 21 days
Secondary - 19 days

Kegged - February 17, 2011

FG - 1.016
Attenuation - 70.4%
ABV - 5.0%

Notes:

• Mash at ~ 151° for 60 minutes
• Sparge at ~ 171°
• Estimated OG was 1.050 and I measured at 1.054
  
• Only had 9 gallons of finished wort
• First Lager!!!

SODO - First Brew

Already seems like forever ago, but my first brew at "the lab" was back on January 8th. It certainly was different than brewing in my kitchen and after 9 long hours, I was exhausted. Each brew day I become more efficient in my process and by my 3rd brewday in mid-February I was brewing two beers in the time it took me to brew my first!!

The lowlight of the day was that I improperly crushed my grains with the mill, but being that I was by myself and never actually done it, it looked good enough to me b/c there were some white kernals. But in reality I had only crushed less than 50%. Right after I doughed in, Colin happened to stop in to check on me and he quickly figured out the problem. I hurriedly got some more grain crushed and was on my way. I won't make that mistake again!!

Here are some pics from the first day:

Happy Brew Year!!

Well, I'm only 2.5 months late!!!

The lack of posts hardly means a lack of news and changes in homebrewing so far this year. In fact, there have been exciting changes and I've almost brewed as much beer this year than I did in 2009 and 2010 combined!!

As many of you already know, in November some homebrewing friends found a rental/artist space on the SODO neighborhood. It's a cool spot in a big old building that used to house the Alaskan Copper Works. Kind of a big barn with separate rooms that have a bunch of cool other businesses - blacksmiths, rope makers, knives forgers, etc. It's like a super homebrew co-op kind of thing. It has water, electrical and all that and sinks and drains were put in.

After seeing the space and discussing with Colin, I felt the opportunity to expand and grow my homebrewing skills was too good to pass up. So starting in January, I was paying rent and my first all-grain beer was on January 8th!!

Many more posts, updates and recipe details to follow soon.

Here are some pics of the space:


http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e27/motsies/SODO%20Brewspace/?albumview=slideshow

Introducing the 2010 Oil Spill Series

Been a while since I did some labels, but I had some fun whipping up these up on Photoshop for my summer beers...

Top Kill Triple
Blowout Blonde
Oil Sheen Saison
Everything's Peachy Keen
Barrels of Bullsh*t

Beer Updates

Don't have my detailed tasting notes with me right now, but I'm really happy with the Saison, Belgian Blonde and Berry Wheat. The Belgian Triple is very strong and not really to style, but tastes pretty good.

I've only opened one 12 oz. of the Peach/Mango Wheat and it was WAY over carbonated. Ended up with only 1/3 of the beer after all the foaming and quick pour into a glass. Flavor-wise it didn't taste infected or anything, but I think the problem stems from the filtering problems during siphoning/bottling and maybe too much residual sugar left in the fruit. The Berry Wheat on the other hand (bottled with same amount of sugar) has a really nice carbonation level. More reports to come as I open more bottles.

Here are photos of the Belgian Blonde and Saison - both very tasty!

Eastern Oregon

A few photos from a 4th of July weekend road trip to Eastern Oregon....

Dreams of kegging......

Just finished up a bottle marathon of four batches over 3 days......four batches, nearly 20 gallons of finished product - I will keg someday, I will keg someday, I will keg someday, I will keg someday :)

A few photos of the fruit beers pre-bottling and over the samples. Huge color difference obviously from the fruit treatments. All the pulp and fruit mush gave me some trouble during bottling/siphoning, esp. all the pulpy mango and peach. They both smell and taste great - in three weeks I'll know for sure!!