Kolsch, Hefeweisen, and Wit Brew day Pics

Trying to keep the kolsh mash warm on this cool day.

Heating up the sarge water.

STP enjoying some house blue.

STP being an awesome co brewmaster and dumping the grain.

Kolsch mash came out at 1.040 SG.  Very light color.

The Kolsch in the brew kettle.

The bittering hops for the Kolsch.

Almost boiled over.

Several beers and discussion latter, and we are cooling.

Brats a dip for brewing fuel.  The dogs think they need some as assistants.   The  guest dog is STP's new puppy.

And now into the bucket.

Which must mean it is time to have another.  Mash .

STP adds the flaked wheat.

Got a little rain.

Is this not the manliest dog you have seen?

Please do not turn to glue.

Ah the sun and its not glue!

Getting ready to mash out. 

The wheat hit 1.040 also.  Nice and cloudy. 

The wheat bittering hops.

Our guest finally got comfortable.

Kolsch, Hefeweisen, and Wit Recipes

So these would be styles 6, 15, and 16 if we were doing brewing for this.  However, with is just me and "Stronger than Plastic" brewing to brew.  The WTBH share of the kolsh will join the second runnings porter from last week as a donation.  The Brewmistress wanted a clone of Hoegarden, so the wit is my attemp.  The other Kolsch and Hefe are for STP.

Kolsch Recipe
I have used this Kolsch recipe several times.  This German ale style makes a great summer beer.

10 gallon batch size

14 lbs American 2 row Pale Malt

1 lbs Wheat Malt

1 lbs Pilsener Malt

0.5 lbs Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt

8 HBUs Tettnanger pellet hops @ 60 mins

2 oz Sazz pellet hops @ 5 mins

2 wyeast 1007 packs 

1 tsp Irish moss

carbon filtered tap water

5.2 mash buffer

Hefeweisen and Wit Recipe

10 gallon batch size

9.5 lbs Belgium 2 row Pale Malt

7 lbs Wheat Malt

2 lbs Flaked White wheat

1 lbs Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt

Normally I use rice hulls as a filter aid, but I forgot them.  It happens.  Hope we do not get glue.
8 HBUs Hallertauer pellet hops @ 60 mins

1 wyeast 3944 pack for the wit and 1 wyeast 3068 pack for the Hefeweisen

1 tsp Irish moss

carbon filtered tap water

Seperately I boiled a extra gallon of water in the last 15 mins with 

1 lb clear Belgian Sugar Candy

0.2 oz coriander 

1 oz bitter orange peel

Pics of RIS and Second Running Porter Brew day

We did a two step mash.  Starting at 138 F and then jumping up to 155 F.  Nice rainy day to brew.

Pulling out 6 quarts to boil to heat the mash up to 155 F.

The grains are already creating magic.

Pulling off  another 7 quarts to heat up for mash out.  You can see how dark the wort is already.  

I am not done yet. 

And so yummy.

The brewmaster agrees.

Night is not this black. 

Yes, I need another.

Alright between the sampling and the rain, we have actually  created  7 gallons of  1.078 SG wort.  Natedog had the brillant idea of photographing the hydrometer (thats the glass stick thing) against the same background.

There is the RIS wort in kettle, with plenty of head

The collection of bittering hops for the RIS.

The hop break was massive. 

We have two umbrellas up to keep us dry, but still the  quite  dog finds a place to get dripped on.

While the RIS is boiling away, we started boiling the second runnings.  This wort came in  at 1.020 SG.   

The flavor and aroma hops.

Getting ready to cool the porter.

And now the quite one has been dripped on  by tasty wort.

The RIS is ready for the fermenter.  

Cooling the Porter.  We are done and have ten gallons to ferment.  

Russian Imperial Stout (RIS) Recipe and the second runnings Porter

Here is the Russian Imperial Stout (RIS) recipe we used.  I have been using some version of this recipe for 6 years.  

5 gallon batch size
14 lbs American 2 row Pale Malt
1.5 lbs Roasted Barley
1.5 lbs Chocolate Malt
1 lbs Belgian 2 row Pale Malt
1 lbs Biscuit Malt
1 lbs Wheat Malt
1 lbs light Munich Malt
1 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs CaraMunich 60 L
0.5 lbs Black Patent Malt
0.5 lbs Special B Malt


11.5 HBUs Fuggle pellet hops @ 60 mins

12 HBUs Perle pellet hops @ 60 mins

21 HBUs Magnum pellet hops @ 60 mins

1 oz EKG pellet hops @ 10 mins

0.5 oz Ahtanum plug @ 0 mins
0.65 oz homegrown Cascade whole hops @ 0 min

1 wyeast 1968 pack - This is the london ESB yeast.  One of my favorites.

1 tsp Irish moss

carbon filtered tap water

5.2 mash buffer


We have found that there is extra sugar, flavor, and color left, we make a porter with the seconds.  This is in style 12.  This one is for the benefit, so we will be rebrewing the style later.


2-4 lbs DME as needed to beef up the starting gravity


8.7 HBUs Magnum pellet hops @ 60 mins
1 oz EKG pellet hops @  10 mins

1 wyeast 1318 pack.  I went with the London Ale yeast, since Fermentations only had one 1968.  I could have gone and propogated the ESB up, but sometimes I am lazy.

1 tsp Irish moss

carbon filtered tap water

Style 13 - Brew Day is here!

So it's a rather dreary, drizzly day today, but beer must be made anyway! The umbrellas are up to protect the mash and flame from rain (and ok, the brewers don't mind shelter from the elements either). Somehow, the Brewer managed to burn his neck already. 11 years of brewing, and this, I have to say, is a first. As the doting wife, I probably don't want to know exactly how it happened, although it undoubtedly would make great YouTube footage, most likely. We are currently mashing, and the wort can best be described as "liquid chocolate at this point. That's doubly excellent because not only do we want this RIS to be full bodied, thick, and inky black, but we need enough malt and roasted character to pull the makings of a Porter after we've mashed out the gallons required for the first beer.

Pics of brew day and recipe to follow!

Style 13 - Stout

So this weekend, it's time to continue on our brewing adventure, and we'll be playing double duty. We'll be tackling style 13 with one of our favorites - Russian Imperial Stout (RIS). This beer is a staple in our home keg rotation, and we are dangerously low. With the fermentation and aging time required for this beer to mature, it's high time we get started. To keep things interesting, we're going to make a porter off the second runnings of the same mash used for the RIS. We've experimented with this once before, and it actually turned out pretty well.

We've been graciously asked to provide brew for a charity event at the end of July. There will be a nominal minimum donation requested for each quaff, with all funds going to a local charity that supports victims of domestic violence. Who can argue with that cause? We're thrilled to be asked, and looking forward to the opportunity, but it tasks us with brewing for not only our quest to conquer the BJCP guidelines, but also increase our stash for this worthy cause.

We've never turned down a brewing challenge, so bring it on! I love it when our house smells of malted barley and I trip over fermentation buckets in the middle of the night!

Brewing details, recipes, and pics to follow later. BTW, a 'Happy Birthday' shout-out to our dear friend "Natedog" as he joins us for this particular brew day! Everyone raise their glass and wish him happiness as we create the black satin liquid that is Russian Imperial Stout!

Pic of Lambic brew day

Brewmaster adding grain.

The grains mixing with the mash water.

The title dog.  He demanded the fashion to cover his zipper.

"I need sunglasses"

Brewing a lambic.  Drink a lambic.  This bottle is imported from NE.

We started the mash at 122 F for 20 mins.  Used an infusion to raise the mash T to 148 F.  Sadly the mash only got to 138 F.  I am sure the cloud city techs fixed my promash.  Did two decoctions to bring the T to 148 F. Left it there for 60 mins.  Mid way through, I did one more decoct to keep the heat up.  Infused to bring the mash up to 165 for mash out.

Recirculating to filtering the wort.  Thanks to Don for the pump loan.  

Sparging and collecting the wort.

Ah chessy hops

The three sources of yeasts and beasts.

The assistance brewers share the Brewmistress' trippel. 

Title dog makes sure to keep an eye on the transfer.  He needed to the flow stopped three time.

Adding the inoculated wood chips. 

Close up of the lambic bottle.

Our first two tone beer.