budget brew... brewing off the beaten path

We let our pipeline run a bit dry while we focused on getting the brew shop up and running. Yesterday we brewed some welches wine and today it was "budget beer"


We just used a few partial bags that we hadn't moved in a week, so that was our grain bill.

Dark munich 5lb
US 2 row 5lb
Melanoidin 1lb
Caramalt II. 1/2 lb

Hops we had left over from previous batches. All fruit-flower-spice style hops:
Sorachi ace 1oz 60min
Horizon. .5oz 30 min
Sterling. .5oz 5 min

Also tossed in some citrus peel, since the hops seemed to point that direction:

1/4 oz sweet orange peel
1/2 oz. Tangerine peel
Last 10 of boil.

Yeast was Burton Ale WLP023 one we had too many of. It also had some fruit and floral properties.which sounds like it will go along with the hops and citrus.

Gravity was 1.054

We'll see where it goes...

Cool

we did something akin to that at a buddy's house. took all the grain he had, as well as all the hops (mostly were 1oz packs, as well as a few partial packs) and made a belgian with it.

Another friend asked if we made the recipe off the "top of our heads" and he said "no-- off the bottom of the fridge "

We just transferred this one on sunday. Interesting beer. It finished Very sweet 1.018 which suprised me. I figured it would easily hit 1.010 or lower.

After tasting our gravity sample I have thoughts... this beer is thick, full body and Very sweet. It has alot going on in it. Nothing bad, just very complex and sweet. This makes me think that I might want to bottle half of it in 2 weeks then transfer the remainder to an appropriately sized fermenter and SOUR that beer!

It seems like the perfect starting point for a great sour!

All that residual gravity for the funkies to work on And all that extra complexity to be thinned out leaving behind a slightly simpler beer with a face-twisting bite and a barnyard edge....

I do need another sour in the pipeline.....