It's going to be a few months before my temp control build is complete, but I think it should work pretty well. I'll put up pics when it's done.

That's an awesome looking controller.

Have at the banana bread idea if you like... you'll probably get to it before I will since my IPA hasn't been made yet and these days I'm doing about a brew a month.

As far as IPAs go, I'm finding that my current taste is to go easy on the crystal malt (too much residual sweetness for me), blend pale malt with brewers malt 50/50 for the base, add a little biscuit for the breadiness, and hit alcohol by supplementing with dextrose. My grain bill for the citrus IPA will look something like this:

6.5 lbs 2-row
6.5 lbs ESB malt
1 lb biscuit
0.5 lb crystal 20
2 lb dextrose

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Looks like a ripper there HPG. I'm bottling up my Irish Red tonight. It aint red tho..... Its more like an Irish brown. Also, there aren't any Irish ingredients, so I guess its just a brown ale. haha As long as its good, I dont care.

My last beer is just about gone. It was only ready a couple weeks ago. I only have 10 out of 30 left! hahahaha It really was my best beer so far. Just a pleasure to drink.

On Saturday, I will be brewing up another IPA. Can't wait! Love brew day.

http://hopville.com/recipe/1671644

My LHBS was out of Motueka, so I subbed in Nelson Sauvin. I wish it was ready now.

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

This Saturday is brew day for me too! Fresh Squeezed Citrus IPA takes its first steps. I still have a hard time making it 6 weeks from boil to taste... but the beer really does improve with 3 weeks in the bottle before you start drinking.

Nelson Sauvin is one hell of a hop - use it carefully! It's fun to get those flavours into beer, no doubt.

T-1 to brew day!

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Best. Brewday. Ever.

Buddy who brews with me and I went through the entire suite of brews we've made together - 6 of them in all. We only bottle in 1 litre bottles (we're lazy) so this means we each had roughly 9 beer over the course of the brew. Given these headwinds, we were shockingly successful in our efforts.

Bottled up the Mirror Pond clone. It had a strange finish to it - much more bitter (almost astringent) than I was expecting. I wonder if that's the result of sparging too hot? Either way it should settle in the bottle and be a solid brew.

Fresh Squeeze Citrus IPA went well. Grain bill was as planned earlier, supplemented with 2 lbs of dextrose to get the alcohol in the final beer up. The boil was pretty uneventful, but damn this was the first time I'd used hop pellets in the boil and you lose so much more wort to the crap they leave in the bottom of the kettle. I love 'em for dry hopping but it was definitely a drag in the boil. Tasted the wort - it's going to be an awesome beer. It'll easily sit in the 100+ IBU range, and is just bursting with citrusy flavours.

Gravity came through at 1.070, which was shockingly low and really lends me to think my hydrometer just reads low. I mean, 16 pounds of grain and another 2 pounds of dextrose should have had me in the 1.085 range. Either my mash and sparge were super inefficient (like 55-60%), which seems pretty unlikely, or my hydrometer is bunk. My beers have been reading really dry at the end and not necessarily tasting that way, so I'm left thinking it's gotta be the meter.

Using Wyeast 1272 for this batch. When fermented on the colder side (~16ish), it imparts -- you guessed it! -- citrus flavours. Awesome.

The dry hops will go in about a week from now: 2 oz amarillo, 1 oz summit, 1 oz sorachi ace.

Gonna be an awesome brew.

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Sounds like you were building a bomber there FHG! I have never used anything but hop pellets. I wish I had an option, but my LHBS doesn't carry many varieties of whole hops. I always compensate for the wort I know I will lose. Its probably about 2-3 liters for me every time.

How does hydrometer read plain water? If its not zero, there likely is something wrong with it.

My brew day was a good one too. There are two things that I want to improve on though. How long it takes to get a boil and how long it takes to cool the wort. Both are taking me way too long. I get a wussy boil going and I cant boil more than 12ish litres.

If you were to invest some money would it be on a 30L pot and a burner or would you spend it on an immersion chiller?

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

I try and get 6 gallons (~23 litres) in the primary so I can get 20 solid bottles. It's often hard, and there was a whole lot more gunk that was transferred into the fermenter just because of the hop mass. With whole hops you can just stick a sanitized strainer at the liquid level in your kettle and none of it transfers. I guess it'll settle out in the primary and hopefully won't make it through the secondary into the bottle.

I've been too lazy with my hydrometer... and just because it reads zero at zero doesn't mean it's right, either. True test would be to do two known solutions like a 1.000 and a 1.090 or something like that.

If I were to upgrade my gear, I'd get a big pot and a burner. You'll get better utilization out of your hops since you won't have to dilute the wort coming out of the primary.

In place of a chiller, you can just be a little short on your liquid level and add a block of ice. Seriously, it works wonderfully in a pinch.

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I've used a block of boiled water to cool the wort before. It did work well. I forgot to freeze some water this time. Didn't think of it until the morning of brew day, which is too late. I'll do it again the next time before buying a chiller.

I'll start looking around for a good burner and a 30L pot. I think that is the way to go. I can move to a full boil instead of using so much top up water.

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

Hello lads, I asked the guy at the LHBS if I could use glucose syrup to dry out my beer a little bit. He said that I could do that or I could use a packet of dry enzyme. In my ultimate wisdom, I did both.

I checked my gravity last night, on my 1.063 OG beer, after it had been fermenting for 14 days and it read 1.002!

I tasted the sample and it actually wasn't that bad. Thing is... its still going. I'm still getting bubbles out of the airlock after 14 days. Its the first beer I've had that went for that long.

So my question is... can I use maltodextrin to beef it back up a bit?
If I do, how should it be used? What quantity and how do I get it into the beer?

Thanks for any advice.

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

Well the last beer turned out ok. Didn't use maltodextrin. I think it would have been converted and fermented anyway.

Had a brew day yesterday. Tried a no chill technique. I did a 30 minute rest and added about 3.5 ozs of hops after flameout. After adding the top off water, the temp was 39. It took 6 hours outside to get it to 24. I pitched the yeast and left it outside overnight. It was bubbling and at 22 this morning. Perfect!

In case yer wondering, you guys know I'm an addict... It's an IPA of course. 350 grams of hops... 27 litres.

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

My last batch didn't carb up properly. Even tho it's only been 9 days, I'm worried that the next one is gonna be flat too. Tried one last night. Flatter than the Ferguson girl.

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