Brew Batch #125 WBI.i2! (Wheat Beer Incident, incident again!)

What was to be WBI in it's purest fell consistently short yet again with an OG 1.030 +0.001@77F! As I mentally beat my head against the wall arriving at the same BE and "think-tanking" with RP from OTB, my only conclusion was to go back and check my grain. This was literally the same recipe that won gold and silver but at 38% BE. Then I read that the 20lbs of white wheat I bought from Morebeer had been mislabeled "malted" when in fact it was RAW! So the 30% or less of pilsner in these last 2 batches doesn't have nearly the diastatic power that it would need to convert the wheat! Which also explains the slightly lower numbers for Shepherdess and the fantastic opacity. So I now know to basically list it was raw barley in BeerSmith and reorder some truly malted wheat for WBI. For this batch, I added 3.15 golden LME I had in the hopes that it will at least have some body this time. But I'll be brewing this mutha again and getting it right before summer's end!

Brew Batch #124 WBI (Now known as WBI.i)

What ended up as a terribly low BE on the original WBI recipe will forever be know as WBI.i (Wheat Beer Incident, incident). FG 1.004-0.001@44F to yield a whopping 3.54%abv. So this massive brew will be split between Beat-12 and OTB to give us 2 distinct Radler's. Mine will go on 1/2 gallon of cran-pomegranate and as much pressure as I can put it on. I'll need to blow through this as the real deal WBI will be hot on it's heals into the same keg. 

Hogtoberfest 2019

This Hogtoberfest was sponsored by The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club est . 1887, not the FL comp where the FedEx lady murdered my entries like Ace Ventura 2 years ago. And in my quest for a medal in each state, I came up with (drumroll please) 3 Honorable Mentions (with a cracked neck on one entry) and 2nd place for Cabana Boy in 29A. But they were ribbons:( So my quest for metal medals will continue with Malt Madness XIII later this summer. I'm thankful after a FedEx shipping let down that they even let me compete since all of my entries were late getting there. Thanks Katie Donaldson, groundhog Prez! Score breakdown as follows, Creekbed 26, Shepherdess 29.5 (HM), Pacific Rimmer 31.5 (HM), KeeWeePee (HM) and Cabana Boy both 38.

Brew Batch #124 WBI (aka Wheat Beer Incident)

I can't tell if I forgot that extra 2 pounds of pilsner malt (during family weigh out distraction), or the mashing at 140 or if the overage in boil volume of 6.75 instead of 6.4 gallons (again, "Come look at this Matilda Jane sale") got me the OG 1.030+0.00@70F but we're about to have the first radler at Beat-12. Damn! Marriage and Procreation, they'll get you every time. Have no fear, I'll be rebrewing immediately and simply dumping right back on to that active yeast slurry. We will have BANANA.

Brew Batch #123 Shepherdess IPA

Kegged for a final 6.96% at FG 1.008-0.001@50F. I hope to have it in Hogtoberfest in Punxsutawney on 6/22 fresh! This batch was by far the most tiresome hazy I've done, I'm glad they all aren't this way or I'd go straight lagers from here on out. But every Shepherd needs a Shepherdess! Not as many hops per volume on this one and the ones used were of a softer variety than the ones in Shepherd's, but the recipe was made to match. I'll pull a trub pint tomorrow night, back it to serving pressure and hop what little hop bite seems to be apparent is gone by bottling Wednesday. From a cost standpoint this one is half the hop investment, just hop it turns twice as fast.