Okay y'all... need a little help. My brother created this cool little hop head for my logo and I decided he needs a name! I've come up with a few but I'm totally open to suggestions... so let me know what you think! VOTE BELOW!!
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Inspired by the American Homebrewers Association cover story in Zymurgy about pumpkin ales we thought it would probably be a good idea to start planning for the next change of season. Of course when the recipe suggested a split batch of with pumpkin on one side and a saison on the other I was hooked. This one took a little extra time though... there was a 10 minute protein rest, a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil! But we stuck our mash temp at 154 degrees and the cold crash only took 30 minutes so I think we are (finally) getting a little skilled at this ... only took what 10 brews!! Ah well... we haven't had a major flop yet. Just finished my first solo brew! Everything went more or less as planned ... little trouble with my mash temp but I think I've reduced it to the proximity of my hot liquor tank to the the mash tank. Which may take a significant change to either how we brew or a reconfiguration of the Brutus... I'll update you on what we decide to do. As far as the beer choice... we were originally planning on a Boston Lager clone... but it being a lager requires cooler fermentation temps and we don't have a fermentation chamber. Then it was going to be a Belgian Triple ... I've been enjoying those lately. Then John mentioned Magic Hat #9 which I've had of course and enjoyed thoroughly but it wasn't till I looked up the recipe that I was sold... secret ingredient apricots! Which happens to be my wife's favorite fruit ... so no brainer right! Here is the recipe... Magic Hat #10. After a taste test with different combinations of tangerine extract, a tangerine puree I made, and tangerine zest the consensus was the straight extract produced a tangerine taste that did not overpower the wheat beer and was not sweet and fruity like some of our other attempts at a fruit beer. This was a little surprising to me because the Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat is (in my opinion) both sweet and citrusy which is what I thought we were going for.
Our calculations were also a little surprising... 0.5 tablespoons per gallon!! I suppose we can always add more. We yielded about 11 gallons from the brew so we are splitting the batch in 3. One will get the tangerine extract, one will remain a straight wheat and the 3rd is TBD... and I'm saving my puree for that one! This was one of those too cool things I came across ... little pricey but how many people can open a a beer bottle with one hand? Not many unless you have the GrabOpener!!
Thanks to my wonderful and thoughtful wife for the Trouble Brewing T-Shirt and my talented and thoughtful brother for the logo design! You can see more of his stuff here... www.davidabbottdesign.com. T-shirts, mugs, coasters and pens coming soon... maybe!
If you're keeping up with things you know I bought some little hop plants a while back.... Well they ain't so little any more! They started outgrowing the little stake I put in their SmartPots so I had to build a trellis for each plant. Well sort of... living in SoCal we are a little restricted as to how much space we have so I built temporary poles for them to climb... and up up up they go... There are actually 5 varieties growing... Tettnanger (3.5-4.5%), Sterling (4.5-5.0%), Willamette (4.0-6.0%), Centennial (9.5-11.5%), and Zeus (13-17%). They were chosen for their specific alpha acids in an attempt to cover the spectrum.
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