Wild Berry IPA Recipe

Another experimental beer in the carboy. Today(10/13/19) brewed a wild berry IPA, using the wild berries(some people call them wine berries) from my parents property. After the pumpkin beer was a partial success, hoping this one will be better!

Recipe:
7 lb pale malt
1 lb 5oz 10 row barley
~2oz nugget fresh leaf hops
~0.5oz cascade fresh leaf hops
1oz chinook pellet hops
~6 cups reduced wild berrys
1 wirflock tablet
White labs Belgian strong ale yeast

60min: chinook, 1/4 cascade/nugget mix
45min: 1/4 cascade/nugget mix
30min: 1/4 cascade/nugget mix
15min: wirflock tablet, 1/4 cascade/nugget mix

Racked beer on top of wild berry juice.

Pumpkin spice beer

This past Saturday(10/6/18) I attempted my first pumpkin spice beer. Cant wait to try it!

Update: Doesn't taste like a pumpkin spice beer but definitely a good IPA!

Recipe:

• 7 lbs Light Malt Extract
• 1 lb Crystal 20 L Malt
• ~2oz Fresh Leaf Nugget Hops
• 1 29oz can of Pumpkin Pure
• 1 14oz bottle of Maple Syrup
• 1 Whirlfloc Tablet
• Whitew Labs Belgian Strong Ale Yeast

Homebrew in the carboy fermentation vessel

Improved hop garden

So last year the hops were over growing the current setup. Time to invest and fix that. Now I'm going with the more professional approach, having the hops grow vertically instead of horizontal. When it comes time to pick the hops, just cut the vine, none of this pick them when there ready horse shit.

Started with 50 dollars in materials, a picture of what I wanted. And... after 2 days of digging we have a 4 foot hole. As you can see in the pics, the hop t stand was roped in a vertical position and cemented. It was only 5pm and pitch black out 😑. But I ain't gonna let no sun hold me back.

Back to Beer Brewing

Now that the robot competition is over. Back to working on the beer stand. I'm at the point where I'm throwing it together real quick just so I can make some beer! Finished installing the screen panel to the cart and the temp sensors to the m12 cables.

Rig ready to brew beer with control panel tilted out.

Close up of back panel where I installed easy access HDMI and USB connections for RPI.

Made new temperature sensor cables.

That use the new M12 connectors 

First brew of the year

The weather was so nice I just had to make a beer! This is a pale ale made with the last pickings of last year's hops, which was about a 2-3oz combination of cascade, nugget, and brewers gold whole leaf hops. Combined this with 6 lbs light malt and an American ale yeast. Gonna be delish...

Chopped the brewstand

The brew rig was getting to be over 7 ft tall, a bit hard to use. So I chopped the bottom shelf off. Overall it looks better and it will be easier to use. Success

Small Batch Watermelon Beer

Decided to make a fruit beer! Started by juicing 2 watermelons then substituting the water to make beer with that juice.

2 months later the beer was a minor success. It kind of has a wine like flavor to it, but not too sweet. The watermelon flavor hits you at the end of your sip, though it's not really a subtle fruit flavor. When you try it you know it's watermelon.

New brew pot!

Upgrading from a 4 gallon pot to a 10 gallon. This helps sooooo much. Also added a mesh hop block on the inside of the pot.

Brew Rig Progress

The brew rig in action! Pump is mounted on the side and everything else is just resting on the shelves. Only problem now is the rig is about 5 ft tall. Planning on chopping the lower section off and finding a new place to put the worth chiller.

Bottling day for the Belgian Trippel

After siphoning the beer into the bottling bucket. I tried the uncarbonated brew, it's delicious. You can taste that it's a higher alcohol beer(7-8%). Then sanitized the bottles, added the priming sugar and started filling them up. The batch yielded 40 bottles of various sizes.

Beer Brewing Computer

1. 
   

   
         This is a project I have been working on for the past couple of months. I needed a way to keep my beer boiling at a certain temperature for an extended period of time. What better then to use a computer to do that for me, so I don't have to physically throttle the propane burner. This brew computer is raspberry pi controller and uses multiple ds18b20 1-wire temperature sensors to monitor the beer temperature. Then using the RPI GPIO I can toggle a mosfet to control a solenoid valve on the gas line.
   
   

   

   Prototype

   
   

   

   Laser cut front panel to identify the potentiometers. I wanted some physical interface to set the temperature. 

   
   

   

   Custom graphical interface which is done in python. These python scripts are ran on boot up, so no need for an X server.

Loading

Send feedback

Bottlecap Table

Made a mancave end table from scratch. One spare plank of wood(from an old table) and some 2x2  wood from homedepot for the legs, then about $60 of resin and many hours of beer drinking :)