Dylan

Its barreling day. I'm moving my 100% chestnut. Its a nice light golden color. 6 weeks in the barrel then it's off to conditioning. #glutenfree #beer #brewing

Beer update:

I'll be moving my 100% rye beer from the barrel and bottling it.

I'll be moving the chestnut beer from the fermenter to the barrel.

I'll be brewing more 25% ABV in the fermenter since 15 gallons of it spilled out in my basement (I don't want to talk about it).

Busy weekend coming up

Got my label and wax seal logo proofs ready to go. Let me know what you think:

Well, I think it's safe to say that yeast loves chestnut sugar. #brewing #beer #glutenfree

Just checked and fermentation is going strong. 2 weeks in the fermenter (end of Sept), 2 weeks in a secondary (mid October), 6 weeks in a Rye barrel, and it will be ready just in time for Christmas! #HomeBrewing #Beer #Glutenfree #Brewing

Alright. I rounded it up to 10 now. Og is 1.067 at 9.5. Should give us ~7-7.5 abv. Now to add the 6 smack packs of Belgian abbey ale II because I hate making starters.

Final 2 oz of strisselspalt after 20 min then drop temp and move to fermenter. I ended up having 9.5 gallons, which is fine by me.

Added 2 more oz of strisselspalt at flame-out. This beer is smelling proper.

Now that we are at the 15 min mark we'll add 2 oz of Strisselspalt. Now it's really starting to smell like a proper beer.

Now that we're at the 60 min. mark it's time to add 2.5 Oz of East Kent Goldings hops.

Folks, I've made dozens of batches and hundreds of gallons of beer in my life and I've never smelt anything like this before. It smells incredible. #beer #brewing #glutenfree #chestnut

Well after a bit of a struggle I've gotten it in to the boil tank. I'll be boiling for 2 hours instead of 1 just to tighten up the wort for the yeast.

And for those of you wondering, yes, that means I had to pull out my old friend, Iodine.

Well, I'm now taste-testing for pH, the good ol' fashioned way. Luckily I have a bit of experience in brewing beer before there were measuring tools.

On a side note: My thermometer also went out, but I have plenty of those.

SEBAmyl L added. I think I'll extend this to a 2 hour.

And of course, no batch is created without issues. My pH meter died and my backup wasn't calibrated, so now I'm in trouble-shooting mode to make sure I'm hitting the pH just right. *fingers crossed*

With the 30 min rest between 155 and 165 completed, I'm now letting the mash reduce temp to 145. At that time I'll measure the pH (goal is to be between 5.2-5.4) then add the SEBAmyl L. This is the traditional saccharification).

20 min down and 10 more min to go, and this is smelling AMAZING. It smells like a nutty bread. I think I'm on the right track here.

Oh, and last thing for anyone with technical knowledge that may be following along. Yes I added WAY too much Termamyl. It won't hurt the mash, I just knew clumping was going to be an issue, so I doubled it. It won't affect the final product at all, just helps more.

After 15 min the Termamyl has removed all the clumps and it looks like a proper mash.

The other cool thing: I started with 10 gallons of strike water, after adding other ingredients it increased to 15 gallons. After adding the Termamyl it's down to 13.5 gallons.

The cool thing: This happened RIGHT AWAY. As soon as I added it, I could feel a difference. It went from a porridge consistency to a much more traditional mash consistency. I've added before and after pictures, you can literally see the difference. #AmBrewing #Brewday

After the first 2 tbsp, the mash was at a pH of 5.75. The sweet spot! So next I added the Termamyl (thermo-stable amylase) that breaks down the long starch chains in to shorter dextrins. #Beerbrewing

Once it hit just above 165 I diluted the 88% Lactic acid at a 1:4 ratio, then added 2 tbs of the dilution, waited 10 min and measured the pH. #Beer #Brewing

Well, it's brew day. I'll update you where I'm at.

I started by getting the strike water to ~175. Added 2 lbs of rice hulls and ~24-25 lbs of ground chestnuts (I roasted 4 cups and smoked 2 cups to add flavor and depth. I then measured the pH (which was ~6.0). #Homebrewing #GlutenFree

If you've ever wondered what 25 lbs of ground chestnuts look like, look no further.

I'm still deciding if I want to use may own wrangled yeast or just buy some. Hops are ordered. Hoping it will be ready for Christmas. #homebrewing #beer #glutenfree

I'm at 24.5% ABV which means it's time to barrel. I'll be keeping this batch in a "Yellow Buttery Popcorn Bourbon" barrel and aging it and year. #homebrewing #beer

In the meantime, I'm trying to wrangle the yeast from the chestnuts themselves. It looks like I've got some action, so it was time to make and test the petri dishes #beer #yeast #homebrewing

Ground down further. I've got to keep the grinder cool so it crushes the frozen dehydrated chestnuts into a flour rather than a paste. #homebrewing #glutenfree #chestnuts.

i broke down and bought a new grinder. I'm about half done that bucket now...it will still need to be ground down further.

the bad news is that this took FOREVER...and it still wasn't small enough for my grinder.

well, good news/ bad news. The bad news is that the chestnuts are too big for my grain grinder. good news is, I have a mortar and pestle.