Bayou Beer

All about beer brewing and drinking in South Louisiana.

May American IPA

May 24th, 2016

Brewing up a small IPA / Big pale ale. Hopefully going to be a great drinker. The last one I brewed with 50/50 munich/pilsner was decent but not great. Brew day went fine with around a 1.058 OG. Had a short boil so we’ll see if the whole DMS thing comes to fruition. I doubt it with this beer.

Update July 4, 2016
Although this beer came out great I didn’t get near the hop aroma I want out of an IPA. So research research research and I came upon an article from BYO on hop aroma. Well I realized I’d been creeping my dry hop additions up further because of an article I read in Zymurgy concerning Sierra Nevada adding dry hops during fermentation to get more fruitiness and less grassy. Pro brewer advice from a few notable breweries(Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River) in the BYO article seem to indicate that you lose a lot of oil that way and can in fact hurt your aroma.

So the beer is half gone and I enjoy it. So I bottled a few and now I’ll be dropping some dry hop in to the keg. I figure 1 ounce of Citra for roughly 2.5 gallons should do fine. Using these tea balls I have hanging around should keep them from stopping up the out on the keg. Will update this again around July 15th!

The BYO article was “Advanced Dry Hopping”. Google it. I don’t link to outside sources because they tend to go away over time.

Update 7/5/2016
So I went ahead and dropped a tea ball with one ounce of Citra in my Hippidy Hoppidy rebrew from a couple of months back. The beer was just meh on hops likely due to the same reasons posted above. Well give it roughly 24 hours and the beer is much better and now something I like to drink. The Citra is very pronounced in the aroma and the front of the flavor. It smooths out in to that hop flavor that was there from the late boil additions pretty nicely as a transition. That beer like this IPA exhibited little hop aroma despite getting a nice charge of dry hop and knockout hops. I’m currently convinced a post gelatin fining addition is necessary to produce maximum aroma and flavor. I added the one ounce to the Citra IPA and we’ll see what it’s like in a few days.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.5 gal 30 min 57.1 IBUs 9.4 SRM 1.058 1.015 5.6 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American IPA 21 A 1.056 - 1.07 1.008 - 1.014 40 - 70 6 - 14 2.4 - 2.9 5.5 - 7.5 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsner (2 Row) Ger 7 lbs 58.95
Munich 10L (Briess) 3 lbs 25.26
Carapils (Briess) 8 oz 4.21
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 2 oz 1.05
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L 2 oz 1.05
Special B Malt 2 oz 1.05
DME Golden Light (Briess) 1 lbs 8.42

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Galaxy 1 oz 30 min Boil Pellet 15.2
Centennial 2 oz 5 min Boil Pellet 10
Amarillo 2 oz 3 min Boil Pellet 9.2
Amarillo 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 9.2
Centennial 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 10
Simcoe 1 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 13

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Lactic Acid 8.00 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 6.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 6.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 153°F 75 min

Harley of Barley 2016 Edition

April 13th, 2016

Time to brew the American barleywine again. This year it was a little different in that I modified the recipe to brew 10 gallons at once. I also brewed it earlier in the year so it’ll be perfect come October.

Additionally there were some recipe tweaks this year.

  1. I removed the little bit of chocolate malt I used.
  2. The gravity has also been reduced in order to reduce some of the alcohol based on multiple competition feedback.
  3. The hops have been increased based on multiple competition feedback.
  4. Because we’re using DME which wouldn’t finish as dry as my 142F mashed all grain work, I’m using a pound of table sugar to dry this out some.

Update: 4/23/2016

Fermentation is complete at 1.017 so quite dry. The beer tastes like you’d think a young barleywine should taste. It’s pretty abrasive and the alcohol is more pronounced that I wanted. Probably going to leave the table sugar out next time but this time next year this beer should be great.

Update 4/30/2016

This beer is already quite clear and you can certainly see it’s potential to be a great beer. Extremely hoppy going in to the keg. Will carbonate and bottle in about a week. I’m pretty excited given that I just tried one of the doppelbocks I bottled after correcting my carbonation issues. I think this will be the best version of the barleywine yet. Carbonation has always been an issue and I think I finally have it down.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
10 gal 120 min 83.7 IBUs 18.7 SRM 1.100 1.021 10.5 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Barleywine 19 C 1.08 - 1.12 1.016 - 1.03 50 - 120 10 - 19 1.8 - 2.5 8 - 12 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Malt (2 Row) US 15 lbs 33.33
Munich Malt 12 lbs 26.67
Rye Malt 6 lbs 13.33
Cara-Pils/Dextrine 2 lbs 4.44
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 1 lbs 2.22
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L 8 oz 1.11
Special B Malt 8 oz 1.11
Light Dry Extract 7 lbs 15.56
Sugar, Table (Sucrose) 1 lbs 2.22

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) 2.25 oz 90 min Boil Pellet 18
Challenger 2 oz 90 min Boil Pellet 7.1
Bramling Cross 1 oz 90 min Boil Pellet 6
Amarillo Gold 4 oz 0 min Aroma Pellet 8.5
Citra 4 oz 0 min Aroma Pellet 12
Galaxy 4 oz 0 min Aroma Pellet 14
Simcoe 4 oz 0 min Aroma Pellet 13

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Lactic Acid 15.00 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 10.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 5.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Safale American (US-05) DCL/Fermentis 77% 59°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 143°F 90 min

Notes

Pitching on Safale 05 yeast cakes from previous American Pale Ale batches. One had an American porter in it also. Unlike previous years I am not adding the cane sugar. Recurring judge note was that the alcohol could be a little more restrained.

Guardians of the Galaxy Amber

March 20th, 2016

So Deadpool Stout came out sucking pretty bad. It’s muddled, it’s astringent and it’s a little offensive.(sort of like Deadpool I guess) So serving it for Zapp’s has been deemed a bad idea. I’m going to age it a couple of months and see if it straightens out to drinkable. But I still have to go to Zapp’s in two weeks and have been craving an Amber. So I’m brewing a version of Jamil’s amber.

Brew day 3/22/2016
Brew day went extremely well. 30 minute mashing, 30 minute boil and this new Hydra chiller from JaDeD brewing took 10 gallons down to pitching temperature in 15 minutes which is excellent given the relatively warm ground water here. Completely blew away what I thought was sold as a 10 gallon chiller I purchased for $100 a couple of years ago. It’s certainly work the money.

From start to closing the garage doors took me 3 hours which is a new record for me. Pitched the yeast right then and there and had a healthy fermentation going this morning when I peeked in the chamber. Original gravity was high at 1.070. I did a last minute change in additions changing the 1 ounce additions for finishing hops to .75 ounce to avoid over-hopping. This beer will be extremely tasty.

Update 4/23/2016
A good beer no doubt but not something I’ve been able to drink a bunch of. If I brew another amber it’ll be less caramel.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
11 gal 30 min 35.2 IBUs 16.2 SRM 1.051 1.010 5.5 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Amber Ale 6 B 1.045 - 1.056 1.01 - 1.015 20 - 40 11 - 18 2.3 - 2.8 4.5 - 5.7 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Malt (2 Row) US 18 lbs 74.23
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L 2 lbs 8.25
Munich Malt 2 lbs 8.25
Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L 1 lbs 4.12
Victory Malt 1 lbs 4.12
Carafa I 4 oz 1.03

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) 1 oz 30 min Boil Pellet 15.5
Centennial 1 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 10
Galaxy 1 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 14
Centennial 1 oz 0 min Boil Pellet 10
Galaxy 1 oz 0 min Boil Pellet 14

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Lactic Acid 10.00 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 5.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 5.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Safale American (US-05) DCL/Fermentis 77% 59°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 150°F 75 min

Bayou Beer

All about beer brewing and drinking in South Louisiana.

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