Well.... my Irish Red is in the fermenter. The brew day went pretty much flawlessly except for the end. I dont have an outdoor burner, so the amount of wort that I can boil is limited to approximately 15L. This means I have to top up the fermenter with water. Today, I lost concentration a little as I was talking to my kid while adding the top off water. I added too much! 2.5 litres too much.

It ended up at 1.041. I was looking for 1.050. I dumped in the last bit of the jar of honey (only about 5 tablespoons) and closed it up. I did manage to get 76% efficiency with the mash again, so I think I got that part nailed now.

I'm going to add a sugar syrup to the fermenter once the initial fermentation is over. I'm looking to boost the abv about .5%. That will get it to approximately 4.7% hopefully without changing the flavor too much.

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Ahh finally another good thread...

Currently have on tap:

Breakfast Stout
Pumpkin Ale
Scottish Wee Heavy
Centential IPA

Fermenting: Belgium Wit Beer.
Coming Soon: ??

A while back I posted a similiar thread to this and there are pictures uploaded of my tap system (in my kitchen btw). I'm currently making a huge fermentation chamber/electric power grain mill/ grain storage center in my basement. I can't wait til its done and I can control my fermentation temp a lot better than ******t room temp..

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F:RNH, Backes, Tavares, Landeskog, E.Kane, Yakupov
D: Green/OEL
G: Schneider/Rask

Glad to see you join the thread 3rtpaper! I saw the pics of your setup in the other thread and was immediately jealous. Seriously, what a setup!

What is it about centennial that's so great? It just matures into hop candy so much better than cascade, I find.

What yeast are you using for the wit?

AW, that sounds like a pretty solid brew day. If you're going to add some extra food for the yeasties, why wait until the initial fermentation is over? By stirring it in, you might introduce some more oxygen and not give the yeast enough time to clean up those flavours. Just curious if you had a reason to wait rather than dive in?

I dry-hopped my Reflecting Pool pale ale a couple days ago - all cascade, 3.5 oz of it. Yum. I'm really excited for this beer, but I'm a little worried about the yeast -- it was the first time I've used 1187, and it had a very difference character than what I'm used to (heavy lumps, floating on the surface and suspended in the beer rather than just settling)... I worry that it might have gotten contaminated in the time between pitching in the dead yeast (boooo!) and pitching the 2nd pack.

Next planned brew for me is going to be a citrus-hopped IIPA: summit, amarillo, and sorachi ace. Gonna be good!

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haha yeah i'm a fan of my set up.. i'm looking to expand it.. I will upload some pictures of the finished product (might be a while I need my dad to come help with the electrical portion of it)

Centenial is awesome it just works no matter where it is used. I'm going to try the same recipe with Amarillo or Willamette at some point and see how it goes.

I'm using WL400 I think. Its the Generic White Labs Belgium Wit yeast. I got a yeast cultivation kit for christmas and I can't wait to use it but I need to do a lot more reading up on it before I even attempt that.

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2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 2,G | G, A, PPP, +/-, PIM, BS, W, GAA, SV%
H2H Keeper League [5F, 1D, 1F/D 1G]
2013 - 3rd
2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D,1 Ult, 1 G -H2H Daily Start - G, A, +/-, Hits, BS, PPP, SHP - W, SV, GAA, SO
F:RNH, Backes, Tavares, Landeskog, E.Kane, Yakupov
D: Green/OEL
G: Schneider/Rask

I'm looking to get my hands on an old fridge, a simple heater, and a temperature controller... that would give me ideal control of fermentation -- you just set the thing to heat if it's too cold, cool if it's too hot. Set it and forget it! Bit of a project, though.

Have you played with Summit much? My first take is that it seems like it could be super-flexible like Centennial, and the flavour/aroma profile is just solid.

Oh the waaaaiiiting is the hardest part!

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Nope haven't touched summit yet. I run into the issue that I love IPA's but my fiance doesn't so I can't brew as many IPA's as I'd like.

Good news though.. my glacier (very underrated IMO) hops should be good and ready to harvest next year.

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2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D,1 Ult, 1 G -H2H Daily Start - G, A, +/-, Hits, BS, PPP, SHP - W, SV, GAA, SO
F:RNH, Backes, Tavares, Landeskog, E.Kane, Yakupov
D: Green/OEL
G: Schneider/Rask

I wont be waiting until fermanation is over, just until the initial krausen falls, which is today. I've read that it is better to leave the simple sugars out to give the yeast a chance to go after the more complex sugars first. Could be forum perpetuated myth.

I wont be stirring the sugar in. I'm thinking fermentation action will be enough of a stir. I'm going to boil the corn sugar with some water, remove the airlock and pour it in with a funnel.

A couple days ago, i noticed that it was fermenting a little hot too. 24 deg. According to the recipe, that is a bit hot. I soaked two t-shirts and put them over the fermentor. I then moved the fermentor so it would get some breeze from the HRV vent. Plus, the first night I put a fan on it as well. I have managed to reduce temperature by 6 degrees with this method. I'm quite pleased and surprised that it had that much of an effect. 18 degrees is exactly what I am looking for.

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I'll let you know how it goes. I love the aroma profile, but haven't yet tested it out. The IPA that's coming is going to be a heavy-ass brew. Wheeeeee! It's funny, I keep my wife happy by alternating a brew I know she'll enjoy with one that I'm really keen on. She's got a pretty broad palate... just doesn't love the hop bitterness like I do. Since I spend most of my beer money on IPAs, it pretty much means I'm alternating IPA and something else. I'm thinking either a chocolate stout after this IPA or possibly a banana bread weisen (yeasty banana esters + chocolate malt + biscuit malt = banana bread!).

AW, sounds like a solid plan. My next IPA is going to have a whack of dextrose in it to provide the alcohol to support the hops without leaving too much residual sweetness.

As for temperature control, I've found that sticking the fermenter in a big tub of water is the way to go. It gives the thing a much bigger thermal mass to move when it gets hot out, and if things really get out of hand you can always just refill it with cooler water or toss in some ice.

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I think I'm deciding, right now, to brew IPAs exclusively, until I can consistently brew a great IPA. This will achieve two things.

1) I can tinker with the same IPA recipe until I produce what will be my house IPA.
2) My pantry will be well stocked with IPAs.

I felt like I didn't know what I was doing with that Irish Red brew. Things may change if that Irish Red is awesome. I'm thinking it wont be though. I dont know why I feel dubious about it.

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O&B Dream Team
Bill Barber - Bobby Clarke - Tim Kerr
Mark Howe - Chris Pronger
Bernie Parent
Farm: Giroux

Thats the boat I'm in... luckily I have 4 taps haha.
I'm looking at this for a temperature controller
http://www.dwyer-inst.com/Product/Te...unt/SeriesTSS2

Let me know when your chamber is complete I'd love to see a picture of it or something. I lucked out with my new job.. I work for a wood coatings company so we have TONS of spare wood that is typically thrown away which means I save the landfills and take it home and put it to good use. Sadly all of the pieces are typically small but I think I'm going to change my build to use these really nice 8x16x3/4 (all inches) maple boards.. can't wait to go home and work on it some more today.
That Banana bread sounds awesome.. I might be stealing that idea.

I had a roasted pumpkin wheat that looked, smelled and from the 1 sip i did have (even though it wasn't carbonated) tasted awesome. However my keg connector decided to develope a hair line fracture in it which misted the beer all over the chest freezer.. sad sad day..

AW: I had a similiar problem that I couldn't consistantly produce great IPA's (mind you they were all good but not to my typical standards). I would recommend not using base brewers malt for more than 60-70% of the grain bill. My last batch I used about 85% Pale Malt and 15% specialty malt and I got a much better tasting IPA. The brewers malt just doesn't have enough flavor to balance or accentuatethe hops i think. I personally would only do 85% Pale malt if you're trying to achieve more biscuity flavor (which I was) but even a 70% Brewers Malt / 15% Pale 15% Specialty should work nicely I think.

__________________
2010-2011 League Champion
2012-2013 Runner Up
ROTO
2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 2,G | G, A, PPP, +/-, PIM, BS, W, GAA, SV%
H2H Keeper League [5F, 1D, 1F/D 1G]
2013 - 3rd
2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D,1 Ult, 1 G -H2H Daily Start - G, A, +/-, Hits, BS, PPP, SHP - W, SV, GAA, SO
F:RNH, Backes, Tavares, Landeskog, E.Kane, Yakupov
D: Green/OEL
G: Schneider/Rask