I'm waiting for a Blonde to finish bottle conditioning. I did straight American two-row, some light DME, and a pound of American wheat malt. No Crystal or anything else in this batch. I'm totally spacing my OG and FG but I remember that it came out to 5% ABV. I wanted something so clean that I could taste the yeast character and the hop character. I used Willamette hops and WLP008 East Coast ale yeast. I drank one of the samples last night and is super good. White Labs is right, there is a very slight tartness to the yeast. Goes very with the this super clean Blonde. I think the Willamette balances the profile very nicely. Next Friday they should be fully conditioned. From original pitching to bottle conditioning the beer has never gotten above 68 degrees and most of the fermentation was done @ 65 degrees. This yeast flocculated well enough that my sample was clear. No cloudiness that has been reported by others.
I dunno why I rambled on like that.... Anyway, I think making a Blonde ale is a good way to get everything out of the way of the hop flavor.
PFC BN Army - Tactical Hop Command Fermenting - Kolsch, Blonde Ale Kegged: Flanders Brown Aging: Brown Lambic, Chocolate Porter President and Chief Bottle Washer - HopRunner Brewing ~Ross
PFC BN Army - Tactical Hop Command Fermenting - Kolsch, Blonde Ale Kegged: Flanders Brown Aging: Brown Lambic, Chocolate Porter President and Chief Bottle Washer - HopRunner Brewing ~Ross
Not yet. I'll have to make a trip back to my parents in the next week or so to harvest. I'll brew within a few weeks, and I'll post the recipe and results.
Capt. Pushy, BN Army Corps of Engineers
(not to be confused with Push E.)
I went to my parents last night, and harvested some mystery hop. I got several pounds, and didn't even make a dent in the one plant. My parents have 4 plants. I decided on the Pale Ale, and here's my recipe:
Mystery Hop: 1.25 oz @ 60 (approx 8 oz wet hops) 1 oz @ 25 (approx 6.5 oz wet hops) 1 oz @ 10 (approx 6.5 oz wet hops) 1 oz @ flame out (approx 7 oz wet hops)
Wyeast 1056 @ 68 degrees
I'm planning on calculating the water content and increaing my ounces accordingly. These numbers assume dry hops.
Any thoughts?
Edit for DME amount
Capt. Pushy, BN Army Corps of Engineers
(not to be confused with Push E.)
Do the hops lupulin glans? How do they taste? I was thinking the other day about this. What I came up with is brew a simple beer like you have there and put in what you think will be way too many hops. That way if you go overboard, you can brew the same recipe again with less, or no hops and blend them to dial it in exactly. You may be able to get an idea of the bittering potential of the hops by making two hop teas. One with a known AA hop, and the other with the same amount of the mystery hop and compare the taste.
Call me crazy, but I think that's too much wet hops for sure. My dehydrated Hallertauer hops were 23% solids this year, 77% moisture. You might want to figure 20% to be on the safe side. At that ratio, you should only be using about 6 oz bittering, and 5 oz for all the other additions. But... I've never hopped with wet hops before so I can't say for certain. It's just an educated guesstimate.
Whatever you do, let us know how it turns out!!
Dave
"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our Maker, and glory to His bounty, by learning about... BEER!" - Friar Tuck (Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves)
I baked some in the oven, and found they were about 63% water. So I'm going to use a 6:1 ratio, so I'll use 7.25 oz for bittering, and 6 oz for every other addition.
They smell great, lots of yellow lupulin, but I don't know how they'll taste...
I'm mini mashing now, while listening to Brew Strong!!!
Capt. Pushy, BN Army Corps of Engineers
(not to be confused with Push E.)
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