Double Brew Day (round 2)

The second beer we brewed today was an Alt, here's the recipe:

To Be Named Later Alt (12 gallons)
13lbs Pilsner Malt
9 lbs Dark Munich
2 lbs Caravienne
4 oz Pale Chocolate

Mashed for 1 hour at 153F

Hop Schedule
2 oz Magnum (14% AA) 60 min
2 oz Tettnanger (3.3% AA) 2 min
1 oz Pete's Mix* 2 min

It's currently fermenting at around 65F with Wyeast German Ale Yeast
I didn't take the O.G. but I'm guessing it's about 1.053.


*Pete's mix is a mix of Brewer's Gold and Tettnanger that he grew last year. They grew together, so he doesn't know the breakdown of the mix. We just threw it in for grins.

Double Brew Day

My buddy Pete and I brewed some beer today at his house, and since he doesn't get to brew that often (he has two kids under 3), we decided to double up and brew two different beers.

The first was an American IPA, kind of based on our Omega King, but tweaked to fit what we had on hand grain-wise, and what the LHBS had on hand hops-wise. Here's the recipe:

To Be Named Later IPA (15 gallons)

18 lbs Pilsner Malt
6 lbs 2-row
2 lbs caravienna
1 lb dark munich
1 lb special B
4 oz pale chocolate malt

Mashed for 1 hour at 156F

Hops
2 oz Columbus 60 min
2 oz Simcoe 30 min
2 oz Centennial 30 min
2 oz Cascade, 1 oz Centenial 15 min (this was supposed to be 3 oz Cascade but we goofed)
.75 oz Columbus, 2 oz Cascade 0 min

O.G. was 1.050
Fermenting with Wyeast American Ale yeast.
We'll probably dry hop it--stay tuned.

Dangerous?

According to an A.P. article today, one of my kegs, Jessica, has been named most dangerous celebrity on the web, because of the high chance of web searches leading you to a website that could be damaging to your computer. Don't worry, you won't get infected with a virus here at Noble Square Brewing, although you might catch spider mites.

This is a really bad photo of Jessica by the way, it accompanied the story I linked to, so I linked to it as well.

Omega King Recipe

I know I said I was going to post this a long time ago, but I finally dug out the recipe for my Omega King India Pale Ale because I'm thinking about brewing it again soon. Unfortunately, I only wrote the grain bill and the hop schedule down, so I'm reconstructing some of the other details from memory. So without further ado, here is the blue ribbon winning recipe:

Omega King India Pale Ale (approx 15 gallons)

15 lbs Pilsner Malt

10 lbs 2-row

8 oz Special B

8 oz Caramalt 60L

8 oz Melanoidin malt

8 oz Carapils

8 oz caravienna

Mash 45 minutes at 152F

Hop Schedule

2 oz Columbus 60 min

2 oz Chinook 30 min

2 oz Centennial 30 min

3 oz Cascade 15 min

1 oz Chinook 0 min

1 oz Centennial 0 min

Dry Hop

2 oz Columbus, 1 oz Chinook, 1 oz Centennial, 1 oz Cascade

I don't have the O.G. or F.G. but I assume that it started in the upper 1.050s and ended around 1.014. I do remember that it was around 6% alcohol by volume.

I made a gallon starter using light DME and Wyeast American Ale 1056, and fermented for about 2 weeks at 65F? I then dry-hopped in secondary for another week.

It won 1st place in its category at the B.U.Z.Z. brewoff. I'll post the tasting notes if I can find them--yes I know I haven't been organized lately.

Spider Mites!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this previously in the blog, but I grow some of my own hops. I have Saaz growing along the front fence line, and Northern Brewer growing in the back. Last year the Northern Brewer hops got infested with spider mites. As you can see from the diagram above, they are pretty nasty, and can do a lot of damage. They're invisible to the naked eye, but they leave a silk web underneath the leaves like a spider (hence the name) that is visible. I caught the infestation pretty early, sprayed them with a hand-held bottle of insecticide on two separate occasions, and harvested a decent crop of hop flowers.

This year both varieties were infested, and I may have waited too long to spray the Saaz to save them. Hop leaves are drying up and falling off the plant. I sprayed today with a bottle that you attach to the garden hose. If I remember correctly from last year, you have to spray them twice about a few days apart, because the eggs are resistant to the insecticide, so you have to let them hatch after you kill off the adults, and then take care of the new generation with another application. We'll see if the Saaz make it to harvest.

The whole time I was spraying, I had the Spider Man theme running through my head, albeit with different lyrics:

Spider mites, spider mites,
Deadly hop-eating spider mites,
Can't see them, they leave a thread,
Watch me now, kill them dead.
Look out!
I'm killing the spider mites.

Yeah, I know, I'll stick to brewing beer.