Greenfield Brew Crew - American Wheat Ale

Well, it's been over 10 years since I've posted - mostly because I brewed only a handful of times in those ten years.  But it looks like I'm back in the saddle so hopefully with my new brew crew the brewing will be more consistent...

I’ve had a several year hiatus from brewing, but was at a Kentucky Derby party in our new neighborhood and it came up that I am a home brewer (once a brewer, always a brewer, right?).  One of my new friends also used to brew.  He recently retired and was looking for an excuse to brew again.  I have another longtime friend that has also moved to our neighborhood and also wanted to get in on the action.  Over the next few weeks we discussed our brew day and it became clear that we had three very different tastes in beer.  I cautioned that we wanted to make an easy beer first to get our feet wet.  Everyone ended up compromising a little and we decided on an American Wheat Beer.  I based it off my previously brewed Amarillo American Wheat recipes, however those were basically session White IPAs and one of my co-brewers is not a fan of bitter beers, so I was trying to keep the bittering in check targeting 30 IBUs.

I have pounds and pounds of hops (that have been kept properly sealed and stored at sub-zero temperatures) in my freezer.  Although I’ve kept them stored properly, you have to assume some degree of degradation of the alpha acids.  I think I over estimated that degradation because this beer is much more bitter than 30 IBUs – it drinks likes it’s in the 50 range.  I’d brew it again in a second because it is a perfect White Session IPA, but it just wasn’t what I was aiming for (I guess I’m out of practice).

It was a pretty long evening of brewing, but honestly it went fairly smooth for not brewing for several years.  It was nice to have friends to brew with.  I had never brewed with others before and I think I could get used to it.

Brew Date: 6/7/2026
Beer Number: B54
Beer Name: Greenfield Brew Crew Wheat
Type: American Wheat
Primary Fermenter(s): Eric’s 6 gal. glass carboy (12 days); 3 gal. glass carboy(12 days); 3 gal. PET carboy (12 days)
Secondary Fermenter: none
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.010
Expected IBU: 30 (actually drinks like 50+)
Expected SRM: 4
Alcohol %: 5.4%

Ingredients:
9.25 lbs. American 2-row malt
9.5 lbs. white wheat

4 oz. acid malt

25g Warrior pellet hops (x.x%AA) 60 min.

56g Amarillo pellet hops (x.x%AA) 15 min.

28g Liberty pellet hops (x.x%AA) 15 min.
56g. Amarillo pellet hops (x.x%AA) 5 min.
28g. Liberty pellet hops (x.x% AA) 5 min.
56g. Amarillo pellet hops (x.x%AA) 1 min.

28g. Liberty pellet hops (x.x% AA) 5 min.
Safeale US-05 – 2 packets in 2L starter

Yeast Starter (2026-06-04):

1. Boiled 200ml in 2L of filtered water in Erlenmeyer flask;
2. Covered with sanitized foil and allowed to cool ~2 hours;
3. Boiled 1c. filtered water and transferred to coffee cup to cool;
4. Once cooled, added 2 packets US-05 (dated 2025-03) to coffee cup to rehydrate;
5. Placed starter flask in refrigerator and until temperature dropped cool to touch (75F estimate);
6. Pitched wort from coffee cup into flask and placed on stir plate at ~2PM;
7. Plate was intermittently throwing the stir bar; Until 2026-06-05 at 7AM, estimate starter was stirred roughly ½ the time;
8. At this time, adjusted stir bar and speed to better handle the spin;
9. Approximately 8AM, high kreusen and “yeast over”
10. Left on stir plate until 6/7 ~8AM at which point it was placed in the refrigerator to cold crash.
11. While bringing wort to a boil, collected approximately 1L of wort from grain bag in separate pan and boiled for ~5 minutes.  Cooled in an ice bath(allowed it to get down into the 40s by mistake) and then transferred to the starter flask, swirling regularly to wake up the yeast;

 Wort

1. Morning of brew day, collected 14 gallons of soft Reedville water and treated with 1 camden tablet;
2. Double-crushed grain in Barley Crusher;
3. Heated 48 qts. strike water to @155F;
4. Added grains to grain basket (in gain bag) and stirred – temp. settled at @149F, added heat periodically to keep temp between 149 and 151;
5. mashed @ 60 min;
6. Took a refractometer reading which showed preboil gravity to be ~1.049;
7. Added ~2 gallons of pre-collected/treated water to bring refractometer reading to ~1.045;
8. Pulled grain basket and allowed to drip into kettle while bringing up to a boil;
9. Had a small boil over before adding hops;
10. Boiled for 60 minutes, following the hopping schedule above;
11. Using wort chiller, cooled to 80F in @ 30 min.;
12. Kettle drain clogged and used sanitized pitcher to transfer wort split into 3 fermenters;
13. Pitched yeast from starter;
14. Placed into kegerator set to 63F (fermenters were 76F when placed into the fermentation chamber);
15. At approximately 12 hours, first visible signs of fermentation seen in the 6 gal. fermenter, followed by the two 3 gal. fermenters within 3 hours;
16. On day 5, ramped temperature control to 65F;
17. On day 7, ramped temperature control to 68F.

 Kegging/Bottling

·       On Day 12, transferred contents of all three carboys to 2 sanitized kegs – Approximate yield 9.5 gallons;

·       Set CO2 to 30 psi for 1 week and then bled pressure and reduced to 12 psi;

·       24 days after kegging; filled numerous bottles for my co-brewers (due to foaming I have concern about oxidation in some of the filled bottles.

Tasting

And the beer is fantastic.  We took a keg to a 4^th of July party and it was the hit of the night.  The keg was over carbonated and not using my kegerator for many years, it’ll take a while for me to dial in my system, but practice makes perfect, right?  The beer itself is a light straw color (it is 50% wheat after all).  It pours hazy but clears nicely in the glass.  The nose is incredible.  I love the Amarillo-Liberty combination – great citrus notes with a little bit of spice from the Liberty to make it interesting.  The flavor follows the aroma exactly.  It’s highly carbonated with a light mouthfeel.  It’s easy to drink several pints of this beer.  The wheat definitely brings a bready note.  We used a clean yeast at a low fermentation temperature, so I wasn’t expecting any yeast character and it is definitely as expected. Although the beer wasn’t exactly what I was targeting, it is definitely a winner and I’m going to be disappointed when the keg kicks (although it will allow the kegerator to be a fermentation chamber for the next beer.

 

My brew team is already planning our next beer.  Since we’ll be brewing at the beginning of September, it’s looking like a quick turn-around Marzen for Octoberfest.

Beaverdam Brewery - 2012 The Year in Review

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Carroll, Keith D Normal Carroll, Keith D 2 31 2013-01-02T23:22:00Z 2013-01-02T23:22:00Z 1 198 1129 Philip Morris USA 9 2 1325 14.00 <![endif]

I wanted to take a look back at my brewing from this past year.

Number of batches brewed: 6 (down from 8 in 2011)

Number of gallons brewed: 38 (down from 47 in 2011)

First brew day: 2/3/12 (97 days earlier than 2011)

Last brew day: 10/5/12 (43 days earlier than 2011)

Batch with highest alcohol: 7.5% B24 Hoptologist IPA (down from 7.7% in 2011)

Batch with lowest alcohol: 5.1% B23A Citra Ass Down APA and B23B Citra Funky Ass Down 100% Brett APA

Weighted average ABV of all batches: 5.623% (up from 5.36% in 2011)

Favorite batch to brew: B26 Man Down! Hefeweizen

Favorite batch to drink: B22 Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back (Dry Irish Stout)

Worst brew session: B24 Hoptologist/B25 Redneck Saison/B26 Man Down! It was a triple-header brew day and it lasted forever.

Favorite name: Hoptologist IPA

Amount of grain used: 87 lbs 9 oz. (down from 97.2 lbs in 2011)

Amount of hops used: 20 oz. (down from 29.65 oz. in 2011)

Biggest equipment upgrade: The faucets, manifold, etc. from my keezer

Biggest trend: brewing with wild yeast and bacteria; this started in 2011 but I currently have 4 carboys filled with lambic, flanders reds and an IPA that has been bretted

Goals for 2013:

1. Brew two more times than 2012
2. Brew my first temperature-controlled lager
3. Brew flavorful session beers

Non-Brewing Brew Weekend

Summer is a busy time with my children on swim teams, but now that the summer swim season is over, I’m finally getting the chance to get back into the swing of things. The wife and kids were out of town this weekend so I thought I was going to have the opportunity to brew. I’m planning to brew a Flanders Red, but I couldn’t get my hands on Wyeast’sRoselaire blend, so I decided to postpone that brew session until a later date.

Although I didn’t brew, I did a number of brewing related activities that I had been putting off.

I bottled my saison that I brewed back in April (yes, the summer is busy). My original plan was to bottle half of the batch straight and add some Brett C to the other half, but when I took a gravity ready it had attenuated all the way down to 1.000. I’ve had meads do that, but I had never had a beer get that low, and with a notoriously lazy saison yeast too. Needless to say there aren’t many sugars for the Brett to chew on, so I called an audible and decided to bottle the entire batch straight.

I kegged my Hopslam inspired IPA (brewed the same day as the saison). Even after 4 months, that thing is super hoppy. I can’t wait to keg hop that bad boy once it is ready to serve. My yield ended up being 5.75 gallons, so I racked the extra into a growler and added a slurry of Brett C. Hops and funk – yum!

I also had a small batch of Citra pale ale that was fermented with Brett C. I went ahead and bottled that this weekend too. It was a lot more funky than I thought it would be, but I think I like it.

I’ve had a lambic sitting in the fermenter that I brewed 10 months ago and I wanted to get a gravity reading and sample it. It has attenuated down to 1.001 but still not very complex. It is a lot more sour than it was a few months ago but the funk really hasn’t taken off. I pitched a few ounces of Brett C slurry into it to try to funkify it a bit.

I also did some kegerator cleaning, and this is where I shed some tears. I had some liquid down in the bottom of my chest freezer so I pulled all of the kegs out to clean it. Among the kegs was a hefeweizen that I kegged about a month ago that I had drank 1 pint. When I heaved the keg it was completely empty. It had emptied onto the floor of the kegerator. Needless to say several 4 letter words were uttered. I can’t understand how the keg could have drained but my bottle of CO2 didn’t keep pushing gas until it emptied. Once I dry my eyes, I’ll post the tasting notes from that one pint. I did the tasting alongside a bottle of Weihenstephaner and the homebrew compared very favorably.

Taps are Mounted

Over the weekend I drilled my collar for the taps and gas line. I stuck the taps on and they look pretty good. I still need to buy a 4^th tap and assembly and of course stain and mount the collar, but progress is being made.

Keezer Status

A couple of weekends ago, I started building the collar for my kegerator. I went to Home Depot and purchased a 2’’x6’’, stain, pre-stain treatment, brackets and some weather stripping. I had decided that I wanted to make 45^o cuts because they typically look nicer. Well, unfortunately these looked like crap. For some reason my cuts were not straight from top to bottom. I’ve never cut anything larger than baseboard trim on this miter saw, but I’ve never had trouble with angled cuts before. Regardless, the best I can do right now is to make straight cuts, so I bought another board and proceeded to cut my four pieces and bracket them together. I now just need to drill holes in the front for the taps, in the rear for the thermostat and gas line, stain it, insulate it, and mount my manifold, shanks and taps. Hopefully there will be beer on tap in the next two weeks.

More Keezer Parts

I ordered or procured the rest of the parts for my keezer build this week. The main part that I was missing was the CO2 manifold. I previously purchased most of my parts for the keezer from Austin Homebrew Supply, but I was not enamored with their manifolds. I was looking for one that I could expand in the future, if I wanted. The four-way manifold at MoreBeer fit the bill. It will allow me to serve four kegs on tap, but also give me the flexibility to expand if I feel the need in the future.

I also went to Lowes over the weekend and bought 2x6s, stain, angle brackets and weather-stripping in order to build the collar for my keezer. I have two kegs ready to go in, so I really need to get on the stick so that I can start serving some hand-crafted draft beer.

Keezer parts are in

I’m trying to get ramped up so that I can get my keezer put together. I placed my first order with Austin Homebrew Supply and among my goodies are most of my kegerator parts. I keep hearing that the Perlick faucets are the only way to go, so I went ahead and bought 3 Perlick forward sealing faucets as well as my 4” shanks and the liquid and gas disconnects for my pin lock kegs.

I now have 1 ball lock keg (I purchased the single keg draft system from More Beer a couple of years ago) as well as 9 pin lock kegs I bought from some folks that failed to get their cidery off the ground. My plan was to put 4 kegs on draft, but I measured my keezer based on the size of my ball lock keg and the pin lock kegs are a bit fatter, so I’ll probably just put 3 on draft to start. If I acquire another ball lock keg down the road, I might add a 4th tap.

To complete my keezer, I still need to build the collar – my tentative plan is to go with 2x6s to get some height in case I want to stick a 4th keg or a fermenter on the compressor shelf. I also need to purchase a gas manifold and the gas and beer tubing. Hopefully I can find some time this weekend to get started.

Bottling…Bah Humbug

For quite a while I have been eyeing the 7 cubic foot GE chest freezer that Home Depot carries. They’ve put it on sale a couple of times but the sale price was only $15 lower. The day before Thanksgiving I was in the store picking up a few things and I thought I’d swing by the appliance area and stare longingly at my kegerator to be. This is when I noticed that it was on sale for about $150 (a $70 savings off of the normal price). I quickly called the lady over and purchased it. I got it home and fired it up to make sure it worked (as a freezer). Now I need to build a collar (I don’t want to drill through it in case I need to use it as a freezer in the future) and order my faucets, shanks and hoses and I’ll be in business.

The one drawback to this keezer will be the number of kegs I can get in there. I had planned to have four kegs on draft (including a keg of soda for the kids). Unfortunately since most of my kegs are pin lock (read short and fat), I may only be able to get 3 on tap. If I switch all of my stuff over to ball lock, I know I can fit four, but I already have 10 pin lock kegs so I have a decision to make.

Hopefully we’ll christen this thing sometime in January.

Best Laid Plans

Well, my father showed up with my kegerator last week. It is not a chest freezer, it’s a small apartment-sized upright that’s about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide and about 2 ½ feet deep. No problem, I can still make this bad boy work (I’m thinking to myself). I’ll just put my taps in the door like people do with refrigerators, and I’ll probably only be able to get my CO2 bottle and 2 or 3 kegs in there – I can live with that for now. We carry it down to my basement and plug it in and it fires right up. I then go to pull out the shelves and they don’t budge. Evidently the coolant lines run through the shelves and they aren’t removable. My dream of having beer on tap in the next couple of weeks goes down in flames. On the bright side, I have a freezer full of hops and Bambi and in the process have made the warden (err wife) happy by making lots of room for her in the inside freezer. On to plan B, I guess…