Have to say I was (pleasantly) surprised to see our hops return for a second year. Funny thing is that these hardy customers have come back even though we didn’t bother to harvest any rhizomes last fall. They seem to be sprouting very quickly this time out – the picture above is a couple of weeks old and these are getting up over a foot long. Really hoping for a more plentiful harvest this year, as well as hops with more alpha than the 2009 batch.

I also got another brew day in recently. I had a pretty good stash of citra leaf hops that I wanted to use before they started to lose too much of their potency, so the lot went into this batch. “Citracide”, as I’m calling it, clocks in at well over 100 IBU. It’s currently dry hopping and goes into the bottle in a few days.

Citracide Ale Recipe

6 lbs. 2-row
6 lbs. Maris Otter
1/2 lb. Crystal Light
1/2 lb. Cara Amber
1/2 lb. Wheat
3 oz. biscuit
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 60 min.
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 30 min.
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 15 min.
1 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 10 min.
2 oz. Citra (leaf) @ 5 min.
1/2 oz. Citra (leaf) @ flameout
2 oz Citra (leaf) dry hop
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 15 min.
Mashed at 150°F for 60 min.
OG: 1.058
FG: 1.010
Est. ABV: 6.3%
Est. IBU: 122

We all know that commercial breweries get a substantial price break on raw materials because they buy from their suppliers in huge quantities that dwarf those of the homebrewer. However, when a group of homebrewers pool their collective resources for a group buy it’s possible to achieve bulk pricing discounts that would be out of reach for the solitary buyer. And when homebrewers band together to go big, the results can be impressive.

This was the case this past weekend when I took part in my first group grain buy with the Southern Ontario Brewers - (or SOBs for short). I really must tip my hat to the  guys in the group who put this together as we were able to take delivery on a staggering 162 bags of grain (each bag contains 55 lbs. of grain, so if you mulitply by that by 162 you get, well, a hell of a lot of grain. Definitely more than you could get in the back of a ‘77 El Camino).

This was by far my largest personal grain buy so far – something on the order of 150 lbs. of grain (mostly pale ale malt and maris otter, along with smaller quantities of a number of specialty grains). I was also able to collect five pounds of hops – also part of another SOB group buy - that had fortuitously arrived in time for the grain pickup. All this took place on the grounds of the Amsterdam Brewery, which generously donated space for this event.

Now it’s up to me to figure out what to brew with all of these ingredients. There’s definitely enough to keep me going for a few months. I guess this is what happens when you go from buying by the bag to buying by the pallet!