Parti-Gyle Tiny Beer AKA Hop Water

I got the idea for this from a Clawhammer Supply video where they took the spent grains from a regular beer, re-sparged and used the wort to make a hop water. Seemed worth a shot so I used my 100% Pilsner spent grain from making a Trappist Single. I got way more out of it than expected! 

Here's the TL;DR

• 2022-6-22: brew day
• Malt: Weyermann Pils (2nd runnings)
• Hop: Galaxy (10g hop stand < 70°C)
• Yeast: Lallemand Köln
• OG: 3°P; FG 0.77°P; ABV: 1.2%
• 2022-6-29: tapped

Bag of grains from the previous brew 

Sparged until I got 20L or so in the kettle

Left the chiller in there...

Tried adding some lemon juice but it didn't do anything for the pH. I'll try more next time.

Full boil probably not necessary so I held it at 82°C for 5 min before chilling.

added a bit of saved yeast (Lallemand Köln)

Hop stand with 10g of Galaxy at < 70°C

Got much more sugar out of those grains than expected. In the video they were suggesting 1.005 (1.3°P) starting gravity.... oops.

2022-6-29 (+7): Next time I'll wait 24hrs before trying to sample. This was just spitting out foam for the first 12hrs or so. 

Starting to calm down and pouring pretty good with much less foam. 

2022-6-30 (+8): Next day we have hoppy "Tiny Beer!" Taste is good - still a bit yeasty and cloudy but hopefully it will clear up in the next week or so. 

2022-7-6 (+14): Still cloudy but clearing up. No longer taste like yeast and there's no hop bite at all. This is rather pleasant to drink on. 

2022-11-27 (+159): well there it is: I should have packaged the entire batch. Nearly 5 months after canning this is a very good hop water, as in, commercial quality. Mild hop aroma and flavor, decent amount of body, and a hint of tartness. If I do this again it will definitely need to condition a long time before serving. 

29B - Fruit and Spice Beer - Lime Gose

BJCP Style: 29B - Fruit and Spice Beer

This Gose has the standard coriander and salt additions (spice) along with some lime juice and a tequila tincture with lime zest (fruit). 

Full Recipe is on BrewersFriend but here's the TL;DR

• 2022-5-25/26: brew days
• Malts: Wheat and Pilsner about 50/50
• Hop: Magnum
• Sour funk: Yakult Probiotic Lacto (2 shots)
• Yeast: K-97
• OG: 11°P; FG: 3.8; ABV 3.8%
• 2022-6-2 (+7): keg secondary; 30ml lactic acid added; lime tincture added
• 2022-6-7 (+12): sample and gravity check: gravity went from 4.4 to 3.8 and this is still producing pressure. I'll give it a few more days. Tasting good, lots of limeade character and a slight tartness which might be fine - probably won't add more LA. I can even pick up some saltiness at this point. 
• 2022-7-5 (+40): This carbed up and conditioned well but the stinky cheese smell never totally went away and remained off-putting. Too bad because the beer itself was quite tasty: slightly tart and loads of lime flavor - very much a limeade beer with a touch of salt. Next quick sour I do I'm going back to Philly Sour yeast and can adjust with Lactic Acid. Don't skip the sanitizing step before adding lacto, kids!

5lbs/2.2kg of wheat malt

All crushed up

The last gose I made wasn't very salty so I bumped it up from 18 to 25g. 

EDIT 6-3: this is still not noticeably salty like I think a gose should be. One brewer online suggested using 1.4g/L of salt which for my 24L batch should be about 34g. If (big if) I do another gose I'll try that. Or maybe shoot down the middle and go for 30g.  

starting mash temp

Took a break while the mash cooled to enjoy Kölsch Service up at Fritz brewing. Delicious!

There should have been an extra step here where the wort is boiled, then chilled before adding the lacto in order to keep out any unwanted bugs. I didn't do that so we'll see what happens....

How it started: looking somewhere between 5 and 6 which is pretty typical mash pH

Will hold at 45°C while the lacto does its thing

2022-5-26 (+1): lacto did things! and wow is it stinky!

How it's going: after soaking overnight, pH looking 4-ish... not low enough but it's got another few hours to go

12g of coriander to be added late in the boil

hmmm... still not low enough but it looks like this is all we're getting. Really wanted that block to get a bit darker and closer to 3 than stuck at 4-something. 

just a bit of Magnum

on with the boil and the gym sock/barf smell is finally fading. now it smells like cheese farts. 

Floor Manager Steve

Post boil and chill check with the digital pH meter. This thing is a piece of shit and should probably go in the trash. very unreliable and kept bouncing all over the place 

checking with some different strips. left is the gose wort, right is water. Pretty confusing - they both look like 4...

FG came out to 11 which is right on. 

about 18g of lime zest

added to a tincture with tequila

then juiced the limes and added about 200ml to the fermenter

away we go

2022-6-2 (+7): racked to keg secondary and adding things. This is the lime zest tincture in vodka after a week. smells limey!

strained and into the keg

sourness from the lacto bugs was... lacking. still in the 4+ pH range so I'm adding 1oz/30ml of LA to adjust. On a past brew, this worked well to bring a sour up to where it should be. 

Might need to hang out in there a while and properly mix but this is a reading after kegging and it's STILL too high. Taste is... eh.. still not sour enough. Can always add more later. 

FG came out rather high at 1.017/4.4°P. I'll check it in a week and see where it is. 

2022-6-8 (+13): Checked yesterday (see note in main section) and this was still building pressure. This morning I tightened down the spunding valve and it seems to be stable; could go on tap later today. 

2022-6-9 (+14): 24 hrs+ sample. Still has a hint of stinky cheese but the taste is ok. I'll give it some time to condition. Could be salvageable! 

2022-6-15 (+20): Mostly carbonated. Taste is good; like limeade with a hint of saltiness. Smell is... getting better. If I dump a couple of pours before sampling it's mostly gone so hopefully in another couple of weeks this will be cheese-free.

29C - Specialty Fruit Beer (Berry Stout)

BJCP Style: 29C - Specialty Fruit Beer

Specialty Fruit is a fruit beer with an alternate sugar. For this one I'm doing molasses in the late boil and a berry blend after primary fermentation is mostly finished. 

Full recipe is on BrewersFriend but here's the TL;DR

• 2022-5-17: Brewday
• Malts: Pilsner base, Black barley, c120
• Other fermentables: Molasses, berry blend (black/blue/straw)
• Hop: Nugget
• Yeast: Verdant (London III/Boddington's)
• OG: 14.2°P (pre fruit); FG 3.5°P; ABV 5.8%
• 2022-5-26 (+9): transferred to keg secondary
  
• 2022-5-29 (+13): tapped

Crystal 120 and Black barley on a pilsner (Weyermann) base 

Heated up for mash

Mash temp

Floor Manager Steve

Rolling boil...

Wort sample

OG higher than expected but still in range for the base American Stout style

Away we go..

2022-5-19 (+2): Berry mix going in

I decided to omit the strawberries. Not what I was going for and they would add extra bulk. Turned out the blackberries and blueberries were about what I had intended which was 1kg of berries. 

Bringing to a boil

NINJA TIME

What was left after straining the seeds and other gunk: 1.1L of fruit puree 

Brought the fermenter volume up to 26L

Really weird doing a refractometer reading on t h i c c c fruit goop but after tasting it's probably pretty close; I was surprised there was not a lot of sweetness, but hopefully the berries will add some nice flavor to the final product. 

2022-5-26 (+9): FG check and transfer to keg secondary

2022-6-4 (+18): This seems to be ready. Maybe a bit more carbonation but it's tasting nice. The berry character is subtle but unmistakable. Molasses is also lingering in the background. Up front it's a standard American stout but dig deeper and some extra flavors are hiding.