Citra IPA

Who doesn't love a great India Pale Ale.  It's hoppy, sweet, malty, light in color, you can drink them all day long.  And those amazing little hop cones giving it flavors of citrus, spice, pepper, grass, bubble gum, and grapefruit.  One of the issues of the IPA is the bitterness that can become overwhelming.  Since so many hops are utilized, the beer can become bitter and that can ruin all of the other great flavors.  In my other IPA I remedy this by using Nugget hops which have a great smooth mellow bitterness.  This time around I decided to use no bittering hop, but instead add a bunch of hops at the end of the boil to give it a nice flavor, aroma, and slight bitterness.

I used a fairly traditional grain bill:

11 lbs. 2-row Barley
1 lb. Munich Malt
8oz Crystal 20L
1 lb. Carafoam
(now the fun part)
1oz. Citra 20 minutes
1oz. Citra 15 minutes
1.5oz. Citra 10 mintues
.75oz Citra 5 mintues
.75oz Citra 1 minute
3oz Citra Dry Hop

I had a great brew day and I used my propane burner for the first time a while.  And my gravity is at 1.071 so it should be a nice warming beer.  It's had a fantastic smell coming through the bubbler on the fermenter for the past two weeks as well.  I took the thief and got a sample last night and it has the amazing orange flavor with some other citrus and a good alcohol balance.  It's going to be amazing cold, I just need to get another keg empty...

Weed Puller Rye Saison

It's funny how someone can get so far into home brewing and not pay much attention to the most important ingredient.  When you think about Coors, you think about cold Rocky mountian water.  When you think about Hamms, you think about the "land of sky blue" waters.  And yet, I've overlooked the water profile of the water I've been using out of my own tap.  Beer is really just water with a few other amazing things in it.  Brewers use water to convert starches to sugars, rinse the sugars from the grain, isomerize hop acids, coagulate unwanted proteins, the list goes on.  Therefore, it is, arguably, the most important ingredient in beer.


Lincoln, Nebraska has hard water coming out of the tap.  Hard water is good for beer, there are lots of great salts and metals that aid in making good sugars and complex beers.  But when it comes to making something light and easy to drink, sometimes these salts and create off tastes.  Plus bigger cities add chlorine and chloramine in the water and that can give beer a medicinal flavor.  Here is Lincoln's Profile:


Magnesium is about 16ppm
HCO3- is 246.44ppm (alkalinity)
CACo3 is 181ppm


When I'm brewing I add a little Sodium Metabisufite (or a Camden tablet) to eliminate the Chloramine from the water.  Chlorine will eventually evaporate out of the water if you let it sit.  I've never had an issue from there until I try to brew something very light.  I get an off taste, almost medicinal and very off putting.  It ruins the light maltiness and hop of a pilsner or pale ale.  This profile is great for a stout or a porter, but not something light.  I decided to start really paying attention to what style I was brewing and my water profile.  So with this brew, a saison, I decided to go with a 50% Lincoln water, 50% Reverse Osmosis from HyVee.

I am using Rye malt in this beer to add some dryness, a little spiciness, and some peppery notes.  I used pilsner malt to lend some European taste to the body as well.  I am using a Styrian Goldings hop to give it some northern European/Austrian flavor.  I used 1.5 oz for 60 minutes to bitter up the beer and 1 oz to give it some flavor at 10 minutes.  I'm really excited to see how this ones turns out.  My Original Gravity is 1.059 and the ABV should be around 6.5%, a perfect summer beer after mowing the lawn or pulling weeds in the garden.