AlwaysBroken

Yeah it starts around 1.050 and ends just below 1.010 IIRC.

I don't bother rinsing the yeast, I just get all the beer off the top of it and pour the apple juice over it from a few feet up so it stirs up all the sediment. It usually starts bubbling vigorously within half an hour.

The hefe yeast gives a nice mouthfeel and a bit of fruity character to the taste. It's cloudy with a sort of white bubbly head. I prefer it over US05, champagne and belgian trappist that I've tried so far. It's still quite dry, but I found with dry hopping that the hop character cancels out the dryness and makes it much more drinkable. With the lime zesting, it's completely transformed and I literally can't stop drinking it. It's scary how good it became. Without dry hopping or other additions, it tastes like a dry dessert wine.

My wife tried it and although she doesn't always approve of my cider experiments, she loved it as well.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

I'm in mystic CT, and I just downed this:


Best beer I've had all year. Hands down.
Now to walk back to the b&b...

Monk

iTrader: (3)

Update:
The walk was actually uneventful because my liver has been exercised to peak performance, and buzzes wear off quickly.
However, I am back, and attempting to push my liver's performance into sclerosis territory.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

¡Vaya con Dios, Señor Monje!

Excellent choice on the Curieux, I do love me some Allagash when I can get it. The regular Tripel is also very good. Surprisingly I've noticed the White on tap in a few places here on the left coast.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

I'm also trying something called "them apples". I don't know who makes it.
It's sweet. Too sweet. High ABV though.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Sounds like hangover fuel, or a panty dropper

AlwaysBroken

Brewed some beer today, made some pictures:
Grains. Some 2 row, some wheat, a lot of rye.

Grinding the grains.

The grain basket for mashing.

Mashing.

Draining the wort out of the grains.

Boiling the wort. The bag is full of hops.

Yeast bag inflating nicely.

Counterflow chiller.

Pitching the yeast.

And done... give or take a week.

hankclaussen

iTrader: (5)

I like your mashton better than the cooler a buddy and I used to use.

This is decent.

Likeahdocta

Big craft beer drinker here, but all I have on hand is some barely a ipa blue moon.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

I was going to say, that's quite the mashing apparatus. How does your process work for something like that? It reminds me a lot of BIAB but without the bag. I'm curious about your batch size, mash-to-water ratio, and like do you batch sparge to 'rinse' the grain while its hanging out over the pot to bring it up to 5g? What kind of efficiency do you get?

It's an incredibly compact setup, I like it a lot.

hankclaussen

iTrader: (5)

I think it would work exactly the same as the ton I used to use but requires a steady application of heat to maintain the temp instead of insulation. Then sparge with whatever the recipe you've concocted or are following calls for with another pot of water already brought to the correct temp. It's similar to mine just lots less chance of clogging but needs maintenance heat added.

AlwaysBroken

It is brew in a bag, but with a much fancier bag.

I usually just put in enough water to cover the grains and make them stirrable and then boil down to 5 gallons. Efficiency is great normally. This mash volume was huge because it's heavy on the rye and rye is horrible to brew with. So there is also a huge amount of rice hulls to help with the rye. The result is shitty efficiency, rye beer is a huge work in progress.

I will sometimes sparge the bed with hot water or with the mash water. This time I didn't go crazy with adding volume because my mash volume was already pretty high.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

Please don't quote all those pictures. You can always edit some out.

hankclaussen

iTrader: (5)

Edited; I was just too excited about his mash basket

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Pain in the *** though it may be, I love me some rye. In both whiskey and beer.

AlwaysBroken

Yeah the wife insists I make rye beer. She loves the taste and aroma. I am thinking of making some sort of imperial version if I can figure out how to make the mashing work. Maybe a rye eisbock? Dunno. I don't work with lager yeast.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

I've been kicking around an idea for a beer/cider hybrid using something with rye in it, but apple tends to be so delicate that its overrun pretty quickly.

Rye whiskey and fresh cider however is pretty dangerous as far as cocktails go.

AlwaysBroken

Brew rye beer, use some of it to start a cider? Cider is very neutral and mild. Anything you mix with cider will cover the cider flavor. Even yeast character will overwhelm it. Most of what we think of the taste of cider isn't inherently part of the flavor profile, it's due to additions and back sweetening. Are you looking for fruit notes in a rye beer? The taste of apple pie? There may be ways to accomplish it.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Oh yeah I know what you mean, its like the whole pumpkin thing. Pumpkin is gross and its gross in beer. What people actually want is the flavor of pumpkin pie spices, not pumpkin alone.

There is a thread on HBT about something called 'Graff' that someone cooked up based on a description from a Stephen King novel. I've made it a couple times and it is tasty, but I'd like to make it with rye and something else rather than just a couple pounds of DME.

AlwaysBroken

You could brew a six gallon rye beer and only rack off five gallons before pitching your Apple juice. That's basically what I do (except I only leave a tiny amount of beer) and it usually turns out fine.