Double Pale Ale & Hop Update

Yesterday we brewed our 3rd installment of the Double Pale Ale. Everything went pretty smoothly considering it has been about 3 months since we last made a beer. Having a hose around was definitely an improvement and allowed me to clean up outside instead of the kitchen, which Elise appreciates greatly. Unlike my last post said, I did actually brew just outside the garage instead of the back yard. I decided to stay in the garage because all of my equipment is right there and I can just bring the hose around the side of the house to where I need it. This side of the house is also a bit more shady and therefore cooler which doesnt hurt.

I wasnt sure how the change in elevation or humidity would effect our boil off rate, so I turned the burner up a little bit and ended up with 4.75 gallons instead of our normal 5. Other than that minor issue, our numbers were similar to previous versions of this beer which is nice to see as it means we are brewing consistent beers.

We haven't exactly decided when we are going to brew the Black IPA, my guess is probably the weekend before I start working. If that is the case we will probably be down to 1 beer on tap, or even 0 before the new beers are ready. During our graduation/baptism weekend with all of the guests in town we drank a lot of beer and killed the Schwarzbier and Double Pale and put considerable dents in the Brown and Belgian Pale Ale. I'm hoping we can have the Double Pale on tap before we completely run out, but it will be a few months before we've caught up again and have 3 beers on tap together.


I snapped a couple of shots of how the hops were progressing:

Above is the Newport. It is growing a bit slower than the Centennial (below), but it has 1 good bine going that in a week will probably be long enough to train on to the trellis.

The Centennial is growing very well so far and I have been able to train 2 bines on to the trellis. Once they were put on to the trellis they seemed to start growing even faster and they probably make a complete rotation every 1-2 days depending on how much sun they get. I have high hopes for the Centennial giving us at least a couple of ounces of hops to use in a beer, the Newport on the other hand may only give us a couple of cones. We'll see


#TeamDietrich