Inventory Day

 Homebrewing  No Responses »
May 192011
 

Image of many bags of brewing hops

No, not a drug bust...just inventory day

After suffering through the ridiculously harsh winter we just experienced, I am officially opening the 2011 brew season – better late than never. Following an absence from brewing, I have some rituals I go through to get back on track. I go over notes from my last few brews to see what issues I was trying to deal with. I clean my equipment and replace anything that is past its useful life. And I update my inventory.

That last one is a pain. Last year, I accumulated a lot of ingredients I didn’t get a chance to use. I prefer to use fresh ingredients, but as long as the grain has been stored dry and the hops haven’t left the freezer, I figure they’re good to go. I might make an exception when brewing a really delicate style, but since I haven’t gotten into lagers yet, that hasn’t been an issue.

So, I broke out the scale and notebook and spent an hour or so recording what I have on hand. Here, without further ado, is the starting lineup of the 2011 season:

Grain

Ingredient Quantity
Aromatic malt 1.00#
Black Patent malt 0.50#
Crystal 20L malt 2.00#
Crystal 40L malt 3.00#
Crystal 60L malt 1.75#
Crystal 120L malt 1.00#
Chocolate malt 2.00#
Halcyon 2-row pale malt (UK) 44.50#
Munich malt 6.75#
Pale Chocolate malt 1.25#
Pilsner malt (Germany) 22.00#
Special B malt 1.00#
Special Roast malt 1.50#
Victory malt 1.50#
Vienna malt 4.00#
Wheat malt (Germany) 15.00#
White Wheat malt 0.25#
Hops

Ingredient Quantity
Amarillo hops 2.00oz
Cascade hops 4.00oz
Centennial hops 2.00oz
Chinook hops 2.00oz
Citra hops 2.00oz
Cluster hops 2.00oz
Columbus hops 4.00oz
Fuggles hops (whole leaf) 5.00oz
East Kent Goldings hops 1.25oz
Hallertauer Mittelfrueh hops 4.00oz
Magnum hops 2.00oz
Mt. Hood hops 2.00oz
Northern Brewer hops 6.50oz
Pearle hops 3.00oz
Saaz hops 3.00oz
Tettnang hops 8.00oz
Vanguard hops 1.00oz

There you have it – 114.75 pounds of grain and 53.75 ounces of hops. That’s certainly enough to keep me busy. Let’s hear some recipes to help me get rid of this overstock!

Oregon Fruit Purees

 Homebrewing  No Responses »
May 192008
 

Cans of Oregon fruit pureeHere’s a picture of the cans of Oregon fruit puree I use for my fruit beers. They come in 3 lb 1 oz containers and most homebrew shops sell them for $15-20, depending on the flavor. I’ve seen them in cherry, blackberry, blueberry, peach, and apricot varieties. The blackberry is destined for a future wheat beer, while the blueberry will become the secret ingredient in my Leinenkugle’s Sunset Wheat clone planned for this weekend.

They are sanitized and seedless, so I just sanitize the outside of the can, open them up, and pour them into my clean and sanitized secondary fermentor. I rack my fermented beer right on top of the fruit and let it sit for a few weeks (I’ve found two weeks seems to impart a good flavor to a five gallons of a light-bodied beer, but your mileage and taste may differ) before racking off the fruit for kegging/bottling or further conditioning.