Peachy Keen Nut Brown

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: british straight infusion
  
• Date: 01/10/2009
• Size: 5 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

• 9.75lb pale 2 row malt
• 0.75lb Special Roast
  
• 0.5lb Victory
• 0.5lb Crystal 40L
  
• 0.25lb Chocolate (350L) - this was a little darker than we had wanted, prefer pale choc, but what you have is what you use..
  

Yeast:

• Danstar Nottingham dry
  

The Mash:

• Add 190F water to 152F rest 60 minutes (I used the remnant sparge water from the Lambicus Insanitus batch since I had planned this as a filler brew ot kill time while it was boiling)
  
• sparge with 180F
• collect 7 gallons
  

The Boil (60 minutes):

• 1.2oz US Goldings (5.1aau) @ 60
  
• 0.5oz US Goldings (5.1aau) @ 5
  

The Finish:
OG: 1.055

The Fruit:

• 6 lbs of defrosted frozen peaches saved over from last spring pitched into primary after initial fermentation had taken off (next morning around 11:00).

Notes:

This is a beer I've made variations of several times before with slightly different base recipes, the nut brown tends to compliment the peaches sort of like an inverted peach cobbler where the savory and nutty components of the beer are complimented by the peaches and residual malt sweetness.

Chocolate Cherry Stout

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: Straight infusion mash
  
• Date: 12/14/2008
• Size: 5.75 gallon post-boil after cherry addition

Grain Bill:

Main Mash

• 9.4 lbs 2 row malt
• 0.5 lbs black roasted
  
• 0.75 lbs 350L chocolate malt
• 0.5lbs 80L crystal malt
• 0.75lbs victory malt
• 0.5lbs oatmeal (actually quick oats - pre gelitanized) lightly toasted in a 300F oven until just barely showing color and nicely aromatic.
  

Yeast:

• Coopers Ale yeast (dry)
  

The Mash:

• Dought in to protein for 10 minutes (not totally intentional, I was a little short on hot water - Doh! indeed)
  
• Brought up to 154F with roughly 4 gallons of 180F (+ a little at 200) water (I put two pots on at once and it was getting a little thin so I dumped in some of the hotter water. I blame the weather for the slow rise, it was 17F outside, yeah I was in the garage but the door was mostly open to keep from poisoning myself. Brrr)
  
• Mash until conversion is complete about 1hr and 30m. Iodine test showed happy grain time.
  
• Sparge with 180F
• Sparged to 6 gallons
  

The Boil (60 minutes):

• 1.5oz US goldings 5.7AA @ 60
• 4oz of Penzeys dutch process (22% butter fat) coaco powder (dutch process is less bitter), I had saved a little (~1 quart) of the tail end of the wort (after having poured out a cup for the celebratory post sparge drink) and whipped that with the coaco powder to make a medium thick paste (looked like frosting)
• Added 2 cups of hot wort to the coaco mix and then stirred into beer @10. Hopefully just long enough to izomerize the oils, but not long enough to kill the flavor. It took about two minutes to get back to a roiling boil, so full boil with coaco for only about 8 min.
• Cooled to roughly 80F (yes it was freezing, I had to pour the saved sparge water on the drain hose to unfreeze the immersion chiller drain. The new chiller - 40' or 1/2" copper worked awesomely though, down to 80 in about 5 minutes, which is damn good even considering how cold it was out).
• Pitched in 5lbs of pitted bing cherries I'd gotten from a buddy over the summer and froze for just such an occasion. I realize that this is earlier than most people add fruit, but I'm shooting for an rich cherry undertone with less of the fruity up front and based on past experiences I think the CO2 scrubbing from the primary will do what I want.
  

The Finish:

• OG: 1.060 with cherries (stupidly I didn't take OG w/o cherries - I think I was suffering from a mix of carbon monoxide poisoning and brain freeze at this point). Either way its going to be a nice thick beer. Tastes delicions already!
• Pitched yeast on Dec14 at 8:00PM
  

The Polish:

• One vanilla bean, split open added evening of Jan 2
  

The Dog Cookies:

• 2 whole eggs (shell and all)
• two medium apples chopped
• one giganormous spoonful of peanut butter
• blend in food processor until fully blended
• 6 cups spent grain
  
• 2 cups fresh ground brown rice
• 4 cups flour
• enough "grain juice" from the bottom of the sparge vessel to make a stiff dough (may not take any)

The cooking of the cookies

• Mix well, and form into deliciously shaped cookies (press into a flat and then cut with a pizza wheel works for me.
• Put on a cookie sheet, leaving some space between the cookies helps them dry faster/better.
• Bake in 350F oven until dry on the outside (45m-1.5 hours)
• flip over
  
• lower heat to ~250F and leave for a couple of hours until pretty dry
• crack oven door open and leave to dry fully overnight
• Enjoy (err I mean - the dogs will enjoy, yeah thats what I meant)

Double Play Wheat

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: hybrid cereal mash
  
• Date: 12/15/2008
• Size: 9.5 gallon post-boil

Notes:

• Mash based on Ryan's Wit
• To kill two birds with one stone, I made a large batch of a wheat beer... the first half fermented with a American wheat yeast and will have apricot puree added to it to make a fruit beer. The second half received a pound of Belgian blonde candi sugar and some funky Belgian yeast (read: brettanomyces)
• Hops were all homegrown
  

Grain Bill:

Cereal Mash

• 3lb unmalted wheat
• 2lb Briess organic 2-row

Main Mash

• 3.5lbs red wheat malt
• 4.5lbs white wheat malt
• 6lbs Briess organic 2-row

Yeast:

• Wyeast 1010 - American Wheat™
• Wyeast 3278 - Belgian Lambic Blend™

The Mash:

• Dough in both mashes to a protein rest
• Let cereal mash sit 15 minutes
• Raise cereal mash to 154F via direct heat (STIR!!)
• Let cereal mash sit 30 minutes
• Raise cereal mash to a boil (STIR LIKE MAD!!)
• Boil cereal mash 15 minutes (STIR LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!)
• Add cereal mash back to main mash, this should raise it to 154F, add extra water if necessary, but if you do your math right this is not needed
• Mash until conversion is complete
• Sparge with 180F
  

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 2.0oz Tettnanger @ 60
  
• 1.25oz Tettnanger @ 10
• took half of the wort for batch #1 after 90 minutes
  
• then added 1 pound of blonde candi sugar and boiled another 10 minutes for batch #2
  

The Finish:

• Batch #1 OG: 1.048
• Batch #2 OG: 1.058
• Apricot puree will be added to batch #1 in secondary.