Any Home-brewers?

[MileHighGrowler]

(01-23-2021, 06:13 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: Just the yeast is different on this current first round. The next American Hefeweizen that I'll make in a week or so, I'll change it closer to the American recipe as I just followed the Bavarian recipe this time. I only use a secondary fermenter when I need beer sooner than two or three weeks apart and I'm re-using the yeast. Other than that, it just means more cleaning and more chances of an infection so I usually just use the primary from start to finish. One of my mentors when I first got back into brewing calls the secondary the "Clear Tank" to make a less cloudy beer, but, since I'm mostly just interested in the Hefeweizens, he said I probably wouldn't need to use one at all.

Most of my beers are 5% to 5.5% alcohol. I tried the higher gravity route for awhile when I first started up brewing again but once I made a beer that more or less followed the normal recipe, it tasted much, much better than my higher gravity versions as I did ye olde "side by side taste test". So now, I just shoot for the 6 lbs of extract and stay there. I'm in the process of putting together a cooler Mash Tun and already have the Hot Liquor Tank ready to go. I need to drill, sand or file the opening just a wee bit to match the fittings for the Mash Tun.

I've made around 175 batches the last 7 to 8 years and 130 to 140 of those were Hefeweizens (it's why I started up brewing again). I've MAYBE checked the gravity on 12-15 beers but that was only because friends asked me to make certain styles for parties or backstage gatherings at concerts and I knew people were going to ask. I rarely drink enough to get drunk so I just assume that I'm making the same 5% to 5.5% that I did when I measured them before. I bought some guy's kit a few months ago and he had a refractometer in there. I'll check these with that once they're all done because all of these will be in my office kegerator. It holds six corny kegs and I have a mini-fridge that holds two more. I want to have all eight slots full to have a variety at my office/recording studio for our radio station KEGR, The Kegger. I call it "Alaska's Homebrew". My next usage of the Bavarian yeast will most likely be a Dunkelweizen.

I've made four batches over the years that were pretty high gravity. Two Chaparral Red that were 7.9% and 8.1% and two HAC(High Alcohol Content) Honey Ales that were 11.4% and 12.9%(just shy of a Barley Wine). All of them except for the 7.9% were surprisingly smooth(left the hops in too long for that one) but the HAC were too much alcohol, took too long to make(well over a month for both) and cost almost twice as much to brew. I also got annoyed from waking up hours later in my recliner with half of a warm, flat second glass of beer next to me. I have too much of my German blood in me. My Mom took me to Germany when I was 15 and I learned from my relatives VERY quickly while recovering from my first hangover. . . "Germans don't like hanging around drunks. Just get a buzz and maintain it and then EVERYBODY has fun."

Using a little irish moss and doing a cold crash before kegging I've never had an issue with clarity on the beers that need it (Vienna lager, for example).  But the wheat beers and hazy IPAs are wonderful to not even have to give it a thought.  

Funny you mention gravity checks.  I like to check mine when I brew a new beer, to see how the recipe might need some tweaking or to check efficiency with a process mod.  But if I brew it twice and the OG comes out the same, I rarely check it again if I keep brewing it.  When I was doing extract it was outrageously consistent from one batch to the next no matter what.  When I switched to all grain it's a little more fickle, because the moisture content in the grain can vary, the age can make a difference, etc.  And when I moved to 6,000 feet elevation after living at sea level, that made a big change to my processes as well, because the boil point is lower, so it changed the hop utilization and boil-off levels.  I've been in Colorado for 5 years now, though, so I've gotten consistency back and all of my old recipes updated. 

I've gone back and forth over the years with big beers and small beers.  When I started, I know it was the "cool" thing for a while to see how big you could brew beers.  I wanted to buck that and make session beers with the same level of flavor.  So I was doing stouts, IPAs, etc and keeping all of them between 4.5 - 5.5%.  People could come to the house, sample everything I had on tap and still drive home after.  Then I spent some time learning higher gravity beers.  I don't brew them super often, but I've a russian imperial stout I brew which clocks in at 12.8% that I do different things with (I've done maple coffee and coconut bourbon - the maple is VERY much on point to Bell's Canadian Breakfast Stout), and I've done triple IPAs and some Belgians that over 13%.  

I've cut back considerably on my alcohol consumption lately so I'm not brewing every few weeks like I was.  Maybe a few times a year now.  But I love brewing with the seasons, or for events.  I just like having total control over what I'm drinking.