Brewed this last night, and it was a minor disaster. I had a friend over to hang out while I brewed, got into a conversation and I totally lost track of the sparge. Sparged to over 11 gallons on a target volume of 9gal! I had to add an hour to the boil to get rid of all that water. Other than that, everything went fine. Pitched a 2L starter of 1318 and it's happily bubbling away under a big blowoff tube.
Planning to dry hop on Day 3 and keg on Day 6 if all goes well.
Will report on its progress!
1318 is crazy stuff. Filled my 6gal carboy to 5.5gal and fitted it with a blowoff tube. 24hrs post pitch it had overflowed my blowoff jar, spilling onto the chamber floor! Replaced with a bigger blowoff jar (bucket) and it's still vigorously churning away.
3 days post pitch with 1318 and I'm at 1.028. Almost done! Switched out the blowoff for an airlock and we're vigorously bubbling away. Raised temp from 63 to 65. I'm thinking I'll dry hop tomorrow (4 days post pitch) and pull on Sunday (8 days post pitch).
Dry hop plans have changed slightly...
4oz Mosaic
4oz Citra
1.5oz Columbus
I was planning for 3oz each Mosaic and Citra, but I had 4oz of Mosaic left, so I just measured it all out instead.
Right away in the gravity sample, the fruitiness of 1318 is showing through and the sample, literally, looks like orange juice. I'm reserving judgement on this until it's done, but there's a lot of reason to be hopeful. FWIW, this is nothing like 007. Not even kind of close flavorwise.
I think there are a number of keys to brewing Trillium style brews. Water additions are huge to get that soft, round mouth feel. Wheat or flaked grains at 15% or higher help to hold the hop oils in suspension. Temperature controls and limiting oxygen on the cold side are a must. A few things I am playing with now are carbonation level (think low carbonation is better) and serving temperature (higher is better in my initial testing). Keeping this beer too cold causes it to clarify and you end up with a more bland beer as the malts cannot stand alone the way these beers are built. I also think the hop selection is key. The juxtaposition of dank, spicy Columbus with the fruitier, tropical hops like Galaxy, Citra, etc. really make these beers, IMHO. Final piece of the puzzle is the yeast, and I am not sold on 007 or 1318 yet as I have not brewed this enough times to decide which I like better, if either. I think I will end up stepping this up to 10 gallons in some future brews and then doing each with a different yeast to try side by side. Either way you cannot go wrong...I am leaning slightly toward 1318.
Love how muddy that looks! Well done. Recipe?
This is my third batch of this beer, and it always tastes wheaty when its young. Even so, next time I might back the flaked wheat down to 15%.
@OdeCloner: Thinking the opposite. I am going to brew this at least two more times as an experiment. Once with wheat at 20% of the grist and once at (gulp!) 50% to see if it holds the hop oils in suspension longer. Call me crazy, but I think more wheat may be needed to dial this in. Thoughts?
@lilbova3 : The real Fort Point is kinda thin...don't know if you did a side by side or not. It is an easy drinker for sure.
Is that BYO recipe posted anywhere? Talking to JC he said there were tips in the article that I would be interested in reading...can't seem to find that article online anywhere.
Your beers look delicious! Why 31%, out of curiosity? I want to brew a beer that is highly hopped with a lot of flaked wheat...probably going to have to use the last of my rice hulls to prevent a stuck mash. Any problems with your mash at 31%?
What is the hop schedule you used for this?Tasting fantastic!
Mine was:
73.4% Two Row
15.1% White Wheat (think flaked is the way to go though)
3.4% Carapils and C15
4.5% Dex
This is a tad sweeter, great mouthfeel...soft and full. Added 3g gypsum and 5g calcium chloride as well as 5ml of 85% phosphoric, which gave me a mash PH of 5.32 and 151 chloride/ 77 sulfate. Having a glass now on day 4 and it is not falling off at all. I am also keeping the CO2 low...not still, but not going for a big head as I find the carbonic bite distracts from this beer style.
Will keg my Vicinity clone attempt tonight which I bumped up the chloride more, and the sulfate. I fermented it and carbed it in the keg. Will push via gas to a flushed serving keg with my final dry hop addition.
Future attempts? I think I will do the Melcher again in the next month or so. I will bump salts up a bit to push the envelope. I will also attempt the LODO method to see if I can really keep an IPA for over a year tasting as fresh as first kegged. Skeptical, yes. Curious, hell yeah!
What is the hop schedule you used for this?
Quick update: This latest keg is still drinking wonderfully. I think this is my most successful homebrew effort to date.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to eliminate oxygen pickup when brewing this beer. I've now brewed this three times, each time being more and more careful and the differences are stark.
For the first batch I siphoned into purged, open-top keg. No splashing, calm etc. Beer got worse with every pint. Ultimately crossed the good/bad line about a month in. By then it was also noticeably darker.
On the second and third batches, I dramatically changed things up. I began filling a keg with StarSan, purging what little headspace remained a few times and pushing out the StarSan with CO2. After that, I pressure transferred from the carboy to the keg's liquid out post, and connected a line from the gas in post to a bucket of StarSan.
I could not believe the difference it made! My third batch has been in keg for almost a month now and it's barely moved flavor-wise. It still has intense aromatics and that crazy, round hop flavor it had on day one.
I've kegged a lot of beer via siphon and never had it show this much difference. With this beer though, the difference has been insane!
Update:
We're now fully carbed up and over a week in the keg. This beer is jaw-dropping. I can't stress how much of an improvement the 1318 was over the WLP007. It's an extremely different beer because it's more floral, fruitier, and fuller on the palate. Even after I rinse a glass with water, I can still smell the hop oils stuck to the walls. It takes soap to make the glass smell clean. I think that's awesome!
The changes in this batch were the water profile (the 150/100 Chloride/Sulfate ratio) and the yeast (1318) and bumping up the Crystal and CaraPils. Together, they've provided a very rich, creamy mouthfeel that I think surpasses the Trilium beers I've tasted. I think it's actually gone a shade too far, so next time, I think I'd dial back down the Crystal and Carapils to the 3% range, keep the water and yeast where they are.
Anyway, I stand by my earlier comments that this is an incredible recipe to let almost any hop stand out front and center. Can't wait to play around with Amarillo, El Dorado, Simcoe, Centennial and the list goes on.
@stonebrewer - let me know how the wheatier version turns out!
Be well!
Thanks for all the information you and @stonebrewer have compiled!
Was wondering if you have tried harvesting any yeast from their cans? I just came back to Chicago with a couple four packs and was going to give it the old college try. Willing to share it with you guys if it works.
Also....I can not agree more with your comments on oxidation and achieving near clones. I really think this is the most undervalued statement on how to properly brew NE IPAs.
For those who bottle are there any suggestions on how to eliminate oxygen?
Do you have access to a Blichmann bottling gun?
Do you have access to a Blichmann bottling gun?
I had a brewing friend visit Trillium and found out they use Conan. They prefer 1318 but it's not as reliable and doesn't drop as well as Conan. So if you can get your hands on some Conan you'd be good to go.
That just seems counterintuitive to everything I've heard about Conan. I'd be curious what they found unreliable about 1318 of you can find out from your friend. Thx
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