OT: MGOBrewers, who's been busy homebrewing?
I'm an avid homebrewer and these last 4 weeks, I've managed to brew a batch a week. I have a Koelsch in the mashtun right now. I have been struggling to get ingredients, I had to meet with the local craft brewery owner clandestinely to buy a 50 lb. bag of base malt. Planning a couple of IPA's if I can get the hops, I'm trying to order from Adventures in HB and Austin HB.
I am looking forward to the warm weather of summer and enjoying the fruits of this self-distancing labor. Are any of you brewing in your extra home time? Are you having difficulty getting brewing ingredients? Cheers and happy fermentations to all homebrewers. Good health to all MGOBlog readers.
Ponyfreak.
I brewed a vienna lager 3 weeks ago when this all started. About ready to bottle
Probably will make a Mosaic IPA next, then maybe a berliner weiss after that.
Getting a new garage fridge/freezer combo delivered this week, so will move all yeast, hops, etc out there - will make the wife happy.
Going to try to make some hop soda and keg it once the fridge gets here. Need something cheaper than running thru 4 lacroix per day while homebound!
Ingredients haven't been an issue yet since I have about 50 pounds of base malt, and a pound or three of various specialty malts, and at least 6 pounds of hops in the freezer. After the first executive order I ran to the local liquor store and bought a handful of dry yeast packs just in case. Good thing too, now they are closed at the owner's discretion
I brewed a trappist single last weekend as the German pils keg just kicked. My brewing has slowed to a trickle over the last year or two, so it has been nice to brew a couple batches over the last few months.
For both batches I've split it over two days, mashing in the evening and boiling the next day. Makes it easier to find time to do it around the family schedule, and for the Pils at least I saw no ill effects.
I managed to get my 15 year old son to help out here and there but I'm afraid it's a little too much cleaning in the process. It's a skill he'll thank me for when he goes off to college.
He did all the sparing himself on the Koelsch today, sadly I lost him to Xbox during the boil.
It starts off innocently enough, maybe stealing a beer from your dad's cooler when you were in high school. But for some, it goes to tragic lengths: they are reduced to secretly buying malt in a parking lot, hand-to-hand-to-the-man. Straight to the (hop) slammer!
You paint a vivid picture. I would say I feel dirty about the illegal meeting but my hands are raw from washing.
i think this stuff is very cool, just never done it myself. and i'm the guy that bought all of his groomsmen beer brewing kits as gifts, but didn't get one for myself. not the brightest bulb on the tree....
have thought about planting grapes here at the farm, even have a south-facing, somewhat sandy slope to plant them. just been too busy with other farm and life stuff to learn what i need to know to make a real stab at it.
In my experience it's way easier to make high quality beer at home than it is to make high quality wine--especially if you go the all grain route or at least make sure you get fresh malt extract. Malt tends to keep pretty well until you grind it, and hops usually come vacuum-sealed. Good quality grapes are hard to get, and I suspect they're a lot of effort to grow.
Although to be fair I never made wine from a kit--they usually use concentrate and I'm not a big fan of either concentrates or malt extracts.
My hops are starting.
galena and centennial
I grew Centennial, Cascade and Williamette (I think) for about three years (until we sold the place). I got a little Centennial, a lot of Cascade and practically none of the Williamette.
Was growing hops difficult? I have thought about trying but some of the resources I found online made it sound a bit daunting.
I just finished bottling a wheat ale, jumped on here and saw your post.
In Soviet Russia, brews bottle you!
I've got a dry hopped ginger saison fermenting. We shall see. First batch in 2 years.
Root beer in the near future.
Planning on a black walnut IPA. Have ingredients but busy atm. Plan on firing it up in about a week
Made my first all-grain batch a couple weeks ago.
Did a roggenbier - a rye dunkelweiss. Turned pretty well for the first full batch
April 11th, 2020 at 10:00 PM ^
I have about 3 gallons of honey left from last spring that I'm planning to make mead with when time permits before honey starts this spring.
April 11th, 2020 at 11:01 PM ^
I have an Oktoberfest ready to go and also a Red Ale. I ordered everything as soon as I was told we were going to be working remotely, figured it was going to get tougher as soon as things started to get shut down. I am looking forward to brewing the Oktoberfest next weekend and the ale after that.
I think I have enough bottles. I have a nice rubber gasket growler that should also work great for a party batch. A post-Corona party. These are going to be special beers.