The Great 5-Day Double IPA: Day 2

So yesterday I attempted something pretty insane.
I brewed this beer:

8 lb. canadian light malt extract
1 lb. carapils
.5 lb. caramel 40L
2 lb. corn sugar

7 oz. citra hops (added at each 10 minute interval during 60 min. boil)

irish moss @ 15 mins
yeast nutrient @ 15 mins

2x packets US-05 dry yeast

OG: 1.076
---------------

OK Dave, that's not insane, you say. Just keep reading.

The goal of this beer is to have it ready to drink by Sunday. That's FIVE DAYS AWAY. (Well, 4 days now). But I think I can do it. And here's why:

1. Corn Sugar - this shit is like crack to yeast. The yeast will chow through this without even giving it a thought and will propel the rest of fermentation to happen much faster than normal.

2. Yeast + Nutrient - Yeast Nutrient will spur fermentation much faster. Also the US-05 is a very fast acting yeast, and typically a starter isn't even needed in the case of its use. I doubled the amount added, so this should help everything along as well.

3. Heat - It's cold in Cincinnati this week. Therefore I'm using the heat in my house. The heat is set at 70* and the carboy is wrapped up and sitting right next to the main vent in the house. The heat coming out of this vent will run about 75-76*, which, I know, is a little hot for fermentation, but it will also speed up the process.

4. Kegging - Force carbonation is the main reason this will be drinkable on Sunday. A quick fermentation is very necessary, but we'll take this one out of the carboy at the last possible second, fill the keg and blast it with CO2 for a bit. That should do it.


Is this a crazy idea? Yes. Is it necessary? Not at all. But I want to have another beer ready for the Lost series finale on Sunday, and my half-keg of Mango Coconut Coffee Porter just blew on Monday night. So I figured, what the hell, right?

Since it's a Double IPA, I'm going to dry hop it as soon as these hops come in from the west coast (had to buy some at the LHBS yesterday, but sadly, ordering hops from across the country is much cheaper, to the tune of $10/lb in that light, and approx $35/lb if bought local...), and then add a monster ton of hops into the keg on Sunday. The dry-hops won't be terribly present at that point, but the keg will be in action for a month or so before it kicks, so the hops will have plenty of time to
1. do their job in the tune of hop-flavor
and 2. hopefully counteract any of the "off" practices I used during this brewing period

I'll have to keep everyone posted, but for a spur of the moment recipe... it sounds like it'll be pretty dang decent.

Until then.

The Mixup

So we goofed. It was a silly mistake, I promise you. But the result is... well, mind-opening. Mind-blowing. Mind-bending. You have no idea the scale of what has occurred. You're not ready. No one is ready. The results will be posted soon though, I promise you that.

Much Love,
Daves

What happens when you add Holy Water to your Wort?

All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment…

People! I am presently boiling a remake of our Ambermensch, an amber colored double fermented american strong ale. MMmm. It was a big hit at our homebrew party (coming in second in popularity to the Phenomagavely) so we decided to revamp the flavor profile, retain the heavy handedness of its inebriative qualities and make another batch.
This time we used almonds, rosewater and extra brown sugar to fit both the full bodied seasonal trends of winter and the strong, uber, conceptual content of its namesake. We also opted to use some roasted barley for our partial, not knowing exactly what it will do to the taste, but knowing that barley and almonds and rosewater traditionally go well together.
Half way through the boil and it looks like espresso. The color is dark dark brown and floating on top of the boil is a sandy to deep khaki colored froth that can only be described as crema. We shall see, we shall see.

And now a shameless plug:

Surly Brewery in Brooklyn Center, MN, just outside of Minneapolis, is awesome. We serve their Bender at my restaraunt and they also hosted their second "Darkness Day" this past October. This festival, much like the "Dark Lord Day" at Three Floyds, is effectively their release party for a limited edition russian imerial stout, appropriately called darkness, a limited edition special batch. Its rare and coveted. Anyway, there was a really cool turnout for the day, lots of homebrewers and beer geeks congregating in the name of brew, swapping recipes and dishing out samples of esteric and hard to find labels, bombers and swing tops. Some of us chose to camp out the night before, so there was pretty much loud and excited conversation and samplage going on all night. The owner, Omar, even brought a keg of "Coffee Bender" out into the street for us all to wake up to. The beer is good, the vibe is great. Keep it up. A+


rock it/rocket

Pics From Our First All-Grain Brew Session

Success! We brewed a Dave. That's about it. Check out a few pics (too busy doing shit to take many), and be amazed!

I'm Stupid...

...and lazy.



So in an attempt to cut two trips into one this evening just before I was planned on bottling the Bleeding Hop Bucket, I put the glass carboy into the bottling bucket. Seeing as though the bottling bucket has a draft on it, I created an air-lock and wasn't able to get the carboy with the fermenting deliciousness out. Smart guy I am, I decide to turn the spigot to let the air out... and break the spigot. Looks like the BHB will sit in secondary for 75 days instead of 70. Oh well. I really didn't feel like bottling tonight anyways.

But in other news, we're brewing again!

I'll post the recipes later, but three days, three brews:

Saturday (with caspito), we brewed a traditional Tripel, but added 4-5 lbs of granny smith apples carmelized in belgian candi sugars


Sunday brewed a pumpkin Saison with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, cardamom, coriander, sweet gale and sweet orange peel


Monday brewed a Pale Ale with mint, cilantro, lime and almonds (catch the pesto influence?) - and plan on topping it off with a few cups of some premium tequila.


Phew, what an exhausting weekend. I'll be spending this coming Fourth O' Ju-lie weekend in Pittsburgh, and will get to some much needed bottling when I return, and will brew the Honey Champagne then as well.

Once I get un-lazy, I'll post the recipes. But for now...

Just a little bit of love

The Batch 11 is getting rave review all over the country. This one from a buddy we sent one to in Mississippi:

"the one with 11 hops.

dude, you could bottle and sell that. ken shared it with me. it was freaking awesome. probably the best beer we drank that day.

big ups.

cheers"


just a little DaveDave love comin' from you to us and back atcha.


by the way, look forward to more updates soon as we do 4 batches in 5 days between june 27-july 2... including a coriander, lavender and cinnamon saison, a davedave tripel, and a few others in the works.

On The Map!

After a few exhausting last few days, we have recovered (almost...) from Dark Lord Day (amazing), and just received a BA beermail from Warren, a fellow BA we met and shared a few homebrews with at DLD, who told us that the Brickstone Brewery in Bourbonaise, IL is interested in brewing some DaveDave! I don't really know what this entails, but big congrats to Batch 11, which is apparently the *chosen* brew. Once I can dig up the recipe and hop-schedule, hopefully they'll go through with it and we'll have our very first professionally brewed DaveDave on the map! We'll keep everyone posted as to the status of this... very cool stuff indeed!

Our Ancestors Were Carazyyyy

Hit this link: Ancient Fermented Chocolate Drink.

So apparently some old timers (very old...) were making some fermented drink using the pulp from the root of the cacao plant quite some time ago. Ahead of the curve, huh?

So then with all the talk of brewing some spring ales, perhaps there is a way to create a full, rich, earthy (and i do stress the earthy) chocolate spring/summer brew? I'll do some research, but in memory of those pioneers before us, I'd like to go completely sans-hop and use some regional MesoAmerican plants/roots as bittering units. Could be interesting...

Also: What about the possibility of fermenting in a large pottery jar? Or, boiling broken pieces of an authentic clay pot and dropping them in the primary for that extra authentic hit of style... Juices flowing... ;)

Any thoughts?