Shoshin Pico-Brewery   Notes on our homebrewing adventures

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP090
Yeast Starter: 2.5L Starter
Batch Size (Gallons): 7
Original Gravity: 1.0
Final Gravity: 1.0
IBU: ~50?
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: ~DARK
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

13# 2-row
9.25# Maris Otter
1.5# Roasted Barley
1.5# Chocolate Rye
1# Special B
1# flaked Barley
8oz C120
4oz DH Carafa III

3.5oz Northern Brewer – 60 min
2oz Northern Brewer – 15 min

1# Amber DME added to the boil

Used the 10-gal igloo cooler. Was originally shooting for 13# M-O , but we couldn’t fit the final 3.75# into the mash. Mash got nearly stuck almost immediately. With a bit of finagling, I was able to get a trickle through the recirculator, and with a bit of extra water was able to get the mash temps between 146° and 148° – this will be sufficient for our monster beer, and help it to dry right out, and maybe make up for whatever sugar was lost in the 3.75# M-O that didn’t make it into the mash.

took 9 gallons of wort to boil, yielded ~7.5 gallons of finished wort split between two carboys, and the final running of the mash, along with a separate mash for the 3.75# left-overs became a SMALL BEER!!

Batch 85 (Irish Red Ale) yielded an additional ~3/4 gallon, which I had pitched with S-04 into a gallon jug. That all (beer, yeast, and trub) were pitched into the small beer. I will never be able to recreate this, but whatever – I hope it’s good!

Following the recipe at The Electric Brewery (converted from 12 to 6 gallon batch), partly because I have nearly all of the ingredients (or decent subs) on hand!

https://shop.theelectricbrewery.com/pages/irish-red-ale

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: 1 packet
Batch Size (Gallons): ~5.5 gallons?
Starting Gravity: 1.028
Original Gravity: 1.041
Final Gravity: 1.008
IBU: ~22
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: Red
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10 days
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

8.5# Maris Otter
0.25# C40
0.25# C120
0.17# Roasted Barley

FWH – 0.5oz Green Bullet (12.7% AU, sub for Hallertau)

Tried to mash in at 152°, and began at 137° but the HERMS wAYYYYYYy over shot the mark, getting up to 162° – I pulled the herms coil from the boil kettle to try to cool it down. Hit 152° around 945a, brought it down to 145, and then back up – bounced around quite a bit. I need to calibrate my HERMS system.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: 1 packet
Batch Size (Gallons): ~5.5 gallons?
Original Gravity: 1.051
Final Gravity:
IBU: ~50
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: straw to pale orange
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

12# Maris Otter

FWH – 1oz FF (10% AU)
10 min – 0.5oz FF (10% AU)
5 min – 0.5oz FF (10% AU)
flameout – 1oz FF (10% AU)
whirlpool (179°) – 1oz FF (10% AU)

mashed in at ~130° (unintentionally!!), set up a recirculating mash and brought the temp up to ~148° over the course of about 45 minutes, then mashed at 148 for 45 minutes, raised temps to 160 over the course of about 20 minutes, mashed out

whirlpooled right below 180° for 30 minutes, then upon transferring I learned that the hop stopper had become dislodged. So, I transferred (~126° by now) and will leave it overnight to cool.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Safale S05
Yeast Starter: 1 packed
Batch Size (Gallons): ~3 gallons?
Original Gravity: ?
Final Gravity: ?
IBU: ~25
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: ?
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

4.5# Maris Otter
3.5# 2-row
2# C40
4oz C120
2oz Pale Chocolate

0.75oz Northern Brewer FWH
0.5# lactose (15 min)
1 Whirlfloc (15 min)

Mashed in, held at 155°F, captured ~5 gallons, yielded ~3 gallons, transferred and pitched yeast – didn’t even bother checking gravity, need to try again here.

need to add chai tea (maybe at packaging?)

It worked last time … let’s try again? Crushable session ale.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: 2 packets
Batch Size (Gallons): 
Original Gravity: 
Final Gravity:
IBU: ~
Boiling Time (Minutes):  75
Color: ~7 SRM?
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

Yeast Starter: 1L starter, pitched at high krausen
Batch Size (Gallons): 10.5
Original Gravity: 1.056
Final Gravity: ??
IBU: ~32
Boiling Time (Minutes):  75
Color: ~7 SRM?
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

12# 2-row
8# Wheat
1# Rice Hulls

2oz Cascade FWH
1oz Cascade 15 minutes

2oz Cara cara orange peel @ flameout
2oz crushed coriander seed @ flameout

Mashed in and held 148* straight for 60 minutes. Collected ~13 gallons from the mash, had a minor boil-over (my first on this system .. woohoo?), and we let the boil go about 10 minutes longer than planned. Wort was used to sanitize the conical, and after transferring, we needed to recirculate a little longer to get temps down. I pitched the yeast starter at high krausen and at 65°, and left things to work themselves out in a chilly basement. The next morning before work, I checked and found a nice krausen forming in the fermenter, and exactly 10.5 gallons of wort in the fermenter. Can’t beat that.

One of the best dark beers I’ve brewed was inspired by the inauguration of our 45th president (see here). I’m at it again, with a 10 gallon batch 🙂 Let’s see if we can recreate the magic!

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP001
Yeast Starter: 1L starter, pitched at high krausen
Batch Size (Gallons): 11
Original Gravity: 1.0
Final Gravity: ??
IBU: ~
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Color: ~38 SRM?
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

24# Maris Otter
3# Special B
1.5# Carafa II Special
1# C60

2oz Northern Brewer 90min
1oz Northern Brewer, 1.5oz Falconer’s Flight
1oz Nugget, 1.5oz Falconer’s Flight @Whirlpool (after cooled below 180*)

Mashed in and held 148* straight for 60 minutes. Starting gravity with ~14 gallons of wort was 1.058 (1.050 at 108°). Boil began at 4:10p. didn’t keep good notes on the process, but we recovered 9 gallons of wort in the fermenter. I had questions about the yeast cake from falconer’s revenge, so I started a new 1L starter of WLP001 at the time I would have pitched. The starter was sluggish since it was rather chilly in the basement, so the wort stayed sequestered in the conical for 2 days before I pitched at what I thin was high krausen for the starter. Fermentation took off, and we had krausen for at least a week and a half.

Brewing the SMaSH(ish) with Falconer’s Flight got me thinking about how this hop blend would taste with a bit more Umpfh … so we’re brewing a double IPA with FF, to open it up and see what it can do.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP007
Yeast Starter: 1L starter created from 1 packet, spun on the magnetic spinner for 3 days then chilled for another 3
Batch Size (Gallons): 11
Original Gravity: 1.0?
Final Gravity: 1.014
IBU: ?
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 6? (it’s darker than that)
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 61-64°
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):

26.5# Maris Otter
2# Quaker Oats
0.5# C60

3tsp Gypsum in the mash, water was straight from the tap

mashed in around 4pm at ~130, then filled up the HLT with hot tap water – dropped down and started to rise again to 142 by 4:30, was up near 150* in places by 4:45, mashed until 5:30. Set to 168° for mash-out, achieved at

2oz Falconer’s Flight (11% alpha) FWH
2oz Falconer’s Flight – 10 min
2oz Falconer’s Flight – 5 min
1 whirlfloc – 10 min
2oz Falconer’s Flight – whirlpool at 180°

a folly of errors ensued. Took too long to get to temperature for the mash, mash out was horrendously slow, only recovered about 9 gallons for the boil, 7 for fermentation, and to top it off, I turned on hot water rather than cold for the plate chiller, and only brought my wort down to a paltry 125° in the conical. I let it sit overnight and then pitched the next day. And I forgot to get a gravity reading. We shall see…

UPDATE 4/17/19: kegged after dry-hopping with 2oz FF for just over 2 weeks. It is darker than I expected, sweeter than I had originally planned, but fragrant and aromatic. Once chilled and carb’d, this might work out.