Month: September 2018

Categories
DIY Homebrew Making

DIY Hops Trellis

I started growing hops at my parents’ home in Chicago in 2008.  In the summer of 2011 we moved them to Michigan and I built this trellis:

hops trellis
Hops grow from the frames on the right up the lines to the tree on the left

Now that it’s time for the trellis to find a new home, I’m writing up my design for posterity.  Notable aspects include that it can be harvested without ascending a ladder and that the top is mounted on a tree.

Each of the three hop plants (Cascade, Mt. Hood, Centennial) has its own starting frame.  It runs up the yellow chain for 5 feet, then starts climbing a line up into the trees:

closeup of wood hops frame
Overgrown vegetation shows I’ve lost interest
Continue reading “DIY Hops Trellis”
Categories
Brewing process Other fermentables

Batch 79: 2016 Dry-Hopped Plymouth Orchards Cider

Started with 5 gallons of juice from Plymouth Orchards, fermented (and left on the lees) for 2 years before tweaking what was a boring final product.

  • 2016-10-08: Pitched D47 yeast.  Can’t remember if I used sulfite/Campden tablets to knock back wild yeasts.  OG 1.050.
  • 2017-03-25: added cinnamon stick, now common practice for all of my ciders.  At low levels, enhances apple perception and does not stand out as cinnamon.
  • 2018-08-18: racked and added:
  • 2018-08-23: kegged.  I hadn’t stirred in the leaf hops and they had formed a thick layer on top, with the top half being dry.  So the practical impact of the dry-hopping will be less than 4 oz for 5 days.

The cider itself was clean but dull before dry-hopping.  To test the idea of dry-hopping, I’d pulled a 1 liter sample and added the equivalent of 4 oz Mosiac per 5 gallons.  The result was fascinating, like a white wine with tropical fruit notes.

I’ve become inconsistent with taking final gravities, especially if the batch is many months old or is being stabilized.  Here it’s both, and I never measured the FG.  Let’s assume it’s 1.000 which would be an ABV of 6.5%.

Categories
Beer Homebrew Recipe

Batch 78: Belgian Golden Sour II

Our AABG Knob Creek Barrel Project group decided to rebrew our Belgian Golden ale.  This is our first re-brewing of a previous recipe and a testament to how good that beer was.

Brewed 2018-07-18.  Yielded about 21 gallons at 1.071 OG, I was targeting more gallons at lower gravity but this was okay.  I could always add water at the end of the brewday, but it feels wrong.

Recipe was shaped by the convenience of using a full bag of malt.  It’s here on BrewToad.  I omitted the CaraPils because I didn’t have any, but would recommend it if brewing again.

The recipe was as simple as it gets:

  • 55 lbs Pils malt
  • 2 oz Magnum hops (12.5% AA) @ 75 minutes
  • Whirlfloc
  • Repitched the CCYL 129 Eagle River yeast used in Batch 77: Zingibier VI.

Had a boilover, doh.

Quick active fermentation.  Racked about 16 gallons into the barrel a few weeks later, reserving one 5 gallon share to drink clean.

One participant in the barrel project wasn’t able to participate this round, so we covered his share by adding a carboy of 2-year-old Quadrupel ale I had lying around.  It was too dull and boozy to drink and had become slightly oxidized.  This will slightly boost the SRM of the combined beer and the other 90% of the fresh beer should cover up the oxidation notes.