Next Brew / a Gulden Draak clone

Next up / I attempt to brew my first Clone of the Gulden Draak beer.

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Steuben Wine 2022

There is nothing quite like HomeGrown!

after fermentation was over – 2 months old, tastes great!

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The pour sample (picture below) of our wine from this year / when it was being transferred to secondary fermentation. It came out superb in color and taste! Of course it is still not even finished, but a good sign at this stage.

Link to Steuben grapes if you are not familiar with them – https://pennsylvaniawine.com/2018/02/15/pennsylvania-wine-school-steuben/

I choose this grape when I was first starting out for their resistance to disease and able to survive harsh winters. Last two year I let it go totally wild with no Management of any kind and the more I do that, the better the wine gets!

a Quick YouTube video is below after I have transferred from Primary to Secondary fermentation…

more to follow…

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British Brown Ale – rebrew 2022

Just a rebrew of our current recipe, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? Use the Search function to look for it if you want to brew it.

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Brewing a Saison using yeast from Mute Dog Brewing

The Beer came out Delicious!!!!!

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I have not brewed any beers in at least 5-6 months, simply because it takes much longer to go through what I brew and I also drink other craft beer, since social interactions have become less frequent with people due to Covid-19 – time has come to brew a new beer!

A few good months ago now, Mute Dog brewing has hooked me up with a few different yeasts, one of them is a Abbey Culture, a wild yeast “originally harvested it from honey I got from a neighbor of mine in 2012”, other characteristics:

  • ” it’s also quite fruity, maybe leaning toward pineapple, but mostly just generically fruity, like bubblegum “
  • ” A lot of saison yeasts express a somewhat assertive black peppery phenol. Mine is more subtle, like mild clove and vanilla. “
  • ” Oh, it’s also very highly attenuative, so whatever you make with it is going to end up pretty dry. Expect FG to be 1.006 or below (maybe a bit higher if you make a huge beer, but not much higher). “
  • ” Also, it’s highly alcohol tolerant, it has produced beers of 12-13% with no problems. I used it to make a sake and it went to 20+% “
  • ” I’ve run it from 48-105°F it doesn’t seem to care. It goes a bit faster at warmer temps, obviously. “
  • ” It’s good in Saison, though maybe not as spicy as some might like it. Great in Beire de Garde, also makes an excellent Wit, Dubbel, Tripel, & Quad. Also tasty in cider. “

At first the yeast was slow, it was in the fridge for a while, so it took a few good days to come out of sleep, but once it did, it started to move nicely.

about a week later it finished and here is a quick sample from under the microscope at 400x magnification, the slide was actually dirty, but I just wanted a quick glance… btw even at 1,000x you bearly (bears, hehe) see the inside structure of the individual yeast cell, you really need much better microscope, but optical cuts off at about 1,000x without loosing quality.

Almost a month later, the fermentation is over with FG-Final Gravity of 1.006 / starting gravity SG was 1.064- this should be a solid 8% Beer! Now we are going to age them, we got a total of 10 gallons clean beer….

Here is how the yeast looks after all the beer was removed (bottom of conical fermenter), yes yeast was collected to save into some empty jars and stored in fridge for next time.

~ link to mute dog: https://mutedog.beer/

Conclusion, there are risks with Wild yeasts, but if you find the right stuff and you are willing to invest the time and effort into it, you will be beyond rewarded, life is short, take more risk!

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next Brew – Baltic Porter

On 2/12/2021 – I brewed a 10 gallon batch of Storm Surge Baltic Porter, rated at 9.6% ABV. This beer has a large grain bill, as in expense, almost $70 just for the grains.

Also reused the grains and reboiled for 30 minutes, with whole homegrown hops added to the mash tun, to get a 5 gallon batch of lower ABV beer around 5%, which is a great technique to get more beer, literally for free.

I will post the full recipe details later, but some details:

About the Mash: 90 Minute Mash at 148F, at end of Mash the temp fell to about 142F, so then slowly started reheating to mash-out temp of 165F, an extra 25 minutes.

Mash-out picture:

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