Cut for a Cause

This weekend the brewmistress and I will be serving Beyond the Pale (IPA), Hoosier Red, LongTail Kolsch, and SR Porter at EM Salon for "Cut for a Cause".  The event is Saturday 3 to 7 pm.  The ladies at EM will be cutting hair for donations.  All donations go to Sheltering Wings.  For more information see:
http://www.shelteringwings.org/events/events-new/view/1745

Em salon http://emsalon.com/#/the-salon/
em Studio Salon,
1460 North Green Street Suite 500,
Brownsburg, IN 46112

Come out, get your hair done, enjoy a beer, and help a great cause.

Slight Hiatus Coming Up

So you can see that we've been brewing quite a bit over the past six weeks. We knew we had to because June was going to be a very busy month for us, and brewing would be minimal. Don't expect a lot of posts strictly regarding brewing, or recipes, etc. I should point out that yesterday was the Brewmaster's birthday. Happy 37th, my darling Brewmaster! I'll drink a pint to many more!

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!