I planted my hops rhizomes last week and the little sucker has started to sprout some vines:
We had a few warm sunny days last week and I have been watering the ground frequently. Not bad for one week.
Now, if it can survive the frost tonight (I have it covered…literally), then we should be ok for the rest of the summer.
Full disclosure: I do not have a green thumb. We’ll see if I can keep this plant alive.
Flame out is a term used to describe additions made to the kettle after the heat has been turn off of the kettle. If you are talking about hops it is usually the time for getting a big addition of aroma hops into the kettle.
Other things like orange peels, coriander, chocolate nibs and goats can be made in this addition as well. The termination of the rapid boil slows the rate of precious volatile oils from all these additions leaving the kettle, which could be bad in the case of goat, because you might want to drive those aromas out.
However, there is still considerable heat in the wort, that you are able to nearly sterilize anything you put in the wort at this point.
(A good thing in the case of goat additions. You certainly want sterile goat in your wort).
As opposed to adding spices, for example, in a secondary; where I have had occasional infection occur because not all spices are that clean as they often sit around your kitchen for ages before you use them.
Flame out is that time frame between turning of the heat and starting the chill. In some pro applications, this time frame is also when the kettle wort starts to get whirlpooled to draw break material to the center prior to run off. So the flame out can last several minutes to just seconds depending on the scale of your operation and other post boil activities (additions vs whirlpool).
When it comes to dry hopping, I have to admit that I am a virgin.
GASP! I know.
I have been brewing for over ten years and I have never dry hopped a brew.
I tend to use big hop additions at 1-minute or flame out when I want good hop aroma. However, I am really beginning to feel like I am missing out on something. Recently, I enjoyed on of my favorite commercial brews Troegs Nugget Nectar. Man, that’s tasty and hoppy. However, most of the hop profile is in the flavor and aroma end not in the bitterness end; and I like it that way.
I am also not a big fan of over the top citrusy American hop flavors. I like solid hop flavor, just not grapefruit ripping dryness. The weird thing is that I love the aroma that hops like Cascade, Columbus and Centennial bring to the table.
So with that said, maybe my German inspired Amber Ale needs a blast of cascade in dry hop. I was thinking 2 oz of whole leaf hops in the keg may be in order. I’m concerned that cascade aroma may not sit well with the late Tettnanger additions I made in the recipe though. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I am likely to just go for it though after I get a taste of the finished beer on its way into the keg. Maybe I’ll split it into two batches and dry hop half of it.
Here is the Amber Ale Recipe:
7 gallon boil, 6 gallon final, 5.5 gallon in fermenter.
| Amount | Item | Type | % or IBU |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.50 lb | Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) | Dry Extract | 43.16 % |
| 3.30 lb | Briess Munich LME (8.0 SRM) | Extract | 40.69 % |
| 0.50 lb | Caramel/Crystal Malt – 80L (80.0 SRM) | Grain | 6.17 % |
| 0.25 lb | Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) | Grain | 3.08 % |
| 0.06 lb | Roasted Barley (525.0 SRM) | Grain | 0.74 % |
| 0.50 oz | Magnum [14.00 %] (60 min) | Hops | 21.4 IBU |
| 1.00 oz | Tettnang [4.50 %] (30 min) | Hops | 10.6 IBU |
| 1.00 oz | Tettnang [4.50 %] (10 min) | Hops | 5.0 IBU |
| 1.00 items | Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) | Misc | |
| 0.50 lb | Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) | Sugar | 6.17 % |
| 2 Pkgs | American Ale (Fermentis #US-05) | Yeast-Ale |
|
Est Original Gravity: 1.050 SG |
| Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG |
| Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.61 % |
| Bitterness: 37.0 IBU |
| Est Color: 14.0 SRM |
Well I finally brewed in 2010. I brewed up simple Amber Ale with all German inspired hops (I’ll post the recipe eventually). Actually I had planned to brew up the Extract Brown Ale. But when I was crushing my specialty grains, I accidentally knocked the hopper off of my mill and spilled all but a small amount of grain in the floor of the garage. I stood there looking at the mess and almost called it quits; it just wasn’t meant to be I figured.
However, I rallied and changed gears. I was out of chocolate malt for the brown ale, but I had plenty of crystal 80L, 120L and some roasted barley. So I went ahead with my back up brew the amber ale. I used the same WLP001 yeast starter that was intended for the brown ale and all went well.
The next near miss came yesterday. I came home to a blown off stopper and foaming yeast climbing down the side of the carboy. Thankfully, I was able to run to the garage and get a cap and blow off tube set up pretty quickly. Funny thing was that the foam wasn’t even down to the floor yet, so it must have just popped off before I got home from work.
I pitched the yeast at 66F, the cool basement brought the beer down to 64F. It’s now comfortable fermenting at 68F under its own residual heat. This should be one clean tasting ferment at those low temps.
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