April LAGERS Newsletter
Hello, LAGERS!
It was great seeing so many of you at our last meeting. I had some pretty excellent beers, so thank you to everyone that brought beers! Big thanks to our President, Greg for the great presentation on foam and head retention. We’ll link to it below if you missed it or just want to check it out again.
Meeting Notes
- iSpindel batteries are in, which means we now have all the parts. If you asked us to assemble them for you, we’ll be working on that soon. We’re hoping to have everything ready by the May meeting.
- We have new merch. If we haven’t been around for the last few months, we got some new tin tackers and glasses. If you haven’t gotten your free taster glass, see Brandon at the next meeting!
- Here is a link to Greg’s presentation on foam and head retention. You can also check out our full archive of presentations here.
- We are going to organize a trip to South Fork Malt, Kentucky’s only craft maltster, for this Summer. Keep an eye out for details on that soon.
Upcoming Events
- June 11th – Dekegger Homebrew Competition – Decatur, IN
- June 18th – Summer SMaSH – St Louis, MO
- July 9th – Indiana Brewers’ Cup – Indianapolis, IN
- July 23rd – Bluegrass Cup – Lexington, KY
- May 16th – LAGERS Meeting – Akasha Brewing
May Meeting
Our next meeting is on May 16th, again at Akasha Brewing. Our pal Spencer Guy, head brewer at Atrium, will be giving a talk on using fruit in beer.
Spring Bulk Grain Buy
This probably won’t surprise anyone, but grain prices and freight prices have gone up significantly since our Fall grain buy. We are working with Leah to get update pricing and it looks like this year’s Spring buy will likely be pushed to late May or early June.
April Brewer Recipe Highlight
Brewer: Nathan Muleski
Beer: Hazy IPA
Brewed: 3/20/22
Water:
100% RO with salts to match profile: Calcium 150ppm, Sulfate 100ppm, Chloride 200ppm
Grain:
South Fork Malting 2-row: 56%
Flaked Oats: 22%
Torrefied Wheat: 13%
White Wheat: 9%
Rice Hulls: Way more than you think you need.
Hops:
Citra 1 oz – 60 min
Citra 4 oz & Cashmere 2 oz Whirlpool @ 180* for 20 min
Citra 2 oz & Cashmere 1 oz Dry Hop at day 3 @ 67*
Citra 4 oz & Cashmere 2 oz Dry Hop at day 10 @ 45*
Yeast:
WLP066 – London Fog
Notes:
With this much flaked oat, you need a lot of rice hulls. I used several pounds in a 10-gallon batch. Mash at 151 for 60 minutes. Boil for 60 minutes or until desired OG is reached. For the whirlpool hop addition, I did a 20 minute whirlpool starting at 180*. Transferred to FV, oxygenated, and pitched yeast. I always overpitch, this was a 4L starter that was on stir plate for around 30 hours. Arguably the most important step for a hazy IPA is the dry hop. You want little to no oxygen to enter the FV when adding hops. I have a conical fermenter and I add negative CO2 pressure via gas post in the top of my fermenter while I’m adding my hops. My first dry hop is done during active fermentation to take advantage of biotransformation. Second, larger dry hop was done after FG was achieved and temp was dropped to mid forties. 24 hours after each dry hop, I pumped CO2 through the bottom of the fermenter to stir up hops and increase utilization. I’m careful to purge oxygen at every step. After two days of cold crash, I closed transferred from FV to kegs. Carbed to 2.3 vols.
Beautiful view when transferring from FV to kegs
