Summer Fruit Beer Series

Summer is quickly arriving (as it's raining as I type this...).  Summer means warm weather (usually, this is Portland afterall...), BBQ's, and sitting on the porch in the evening enjoying life.  So to go with all three of those, I'll be brewing up some fruit flavored beer.  I typically don't really enjoy these too much, but a lot of other people do, so I'll brew them up to show good hospitality (and to keep their hands off my IPA's).  I decided to do the Trixie again that I did last year that turned out really well.  I also wanted to try something new, so I'll be splitting the batch (10 gallon) in half.  Half with be Trixie (raspberry flavored beer), and the other half will be halved again.  One (2.5 gallons) will be aged with whole strawberries on secondary, the other half will be grapefruit.  I think I'll throw in some amarillo or summit hops with the grapefruit to really try to highlight the grapefruit.  This will be an experiment.  It could be awesome, or it could be horrible, the good thing is that it's only 2.5 gallons and cost me all of $3 or so for the 2.5 gallons.  Total cost of this recipe to me is probably $2 for the beer ingredients (thanks to a kind gift of a 50 pound grain bag on my ledger at Brew Brothers from a good friend) and it'll be another $12 or so for the fruit I'm guessing?  I hope to use real Oregon Strawberries which will really up the quality!  So $14 cost to me isn't too shabby.

Recipe:
10 gallons

Grain:
20 lb GW 2-Row

Anticipated ABV: 5.0%
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.013
Strike Water: 7.5 gallons @ 163 degrees
Sparge Water: 9 gallons @ 183 degrees

Hops:
1oz CTZ (16.8%) for 60m

Yeast:
1056 slurries

Extras:
I'll boil 24oz of raspberries in 1/2 gallon of water for about 30 minutes, strain out the chunks, and add that to the secondary for the Trixie (Mcmenamins Ruby Clone) portion.
I'll add a half pound or so of whole strawberries to the 2.5 gallons of one of the experiment fruit beers.
I'll add a couple grapefruits cut into slices to the secondary of the other 2.5 gallons of experiment beers plus maybe an ounce or so of summit or amarillo (probably summit because it's way cheaper than amarillo).

Notes:
Brewed last weekend (5/26/12) and everything went fine.  Fermenting nicely.  Should be ready to transfer to secondary in about a week.  Also I was able to break out the grain dryer only to have it start pouring like I've never seen in Portland a few hours later.  Most of the grain dried pretty well though, so at least there will be something for the chickens!
Update 6/19/12: Sorry for the delay on the update.  I split one bucket into two buckets at secondary.  One I added a grapefruit cut into eighths with 1oz of Summit Hops.  The other got a pint of whole Oregon strawberries (so much better than California or anywhere else).  I let those sit for a week or so and then bottled them last night.  The other buckets I racked to secondary along with 24oz of frozen raspberries that I boiled for 30 minutes, then strained and chilled.  Those have been sitting about a week and will need to be bottled shortly.  I'll update again when I taste each of them.
Taste Update: The early tasting on the raspberry one is that there's a funky flavor.  It's one I've had come up before so it's got to be from the yeast.  Time to get rid of all the 1056 slurry's I have since it's definitely from that.  The flavor isn't bad, it's just not as good as it should be.

Total Domination (Warrior Edition)

So when I brewed the Total Domination from Ninkasi I had no idea how awesome that recipe was going to turn out.  The flavor was pretty spot on other than the aroma hop flavor, which I might say I "Totally Dominated" over Ninkasi's version.  So all that to say that I wanted to brew it again.  I headed down to Brew Brothers (the greatest homebrew store in the world and they will ship!) and reloaded on grain, hops, and some new yeast.  Grain, check.  Yeast, bought one new vial of White Labs California Ale WLP001. Hops, this is where the warrior comes in...they were out of Crystal, so I substituted Warrior since I like the flavor that gives.  We'll have to see how the end product comes out.  Here's the details...

Recipe:
11 gallon

Grain:
22 lb GW 2-Row
3.2 lb GW Munich Light
1.6 Weyerman's Carahell

Strike: 10.1 gallons @ 163 degrees F
Sparge: 6.8 gallons @ 182 degrees F
Based on 75% efficiency

Hops:
2 oz Summit (15.8%) for 60m
1 oz Summit (15.8%) for 30m
2 oz Cascade (6.2%) for 5m
2 oz Warrior (17%) for 1m

2 oz Cascade (6.2%) for 7 days in secondary
2 oz Warrior (17%) for 7 days in secondary

66 IBU

Yeast:
White Labs WLP001 California Ale in one bucket
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Slurry in the other bucket

Starting Gravity: 1.068
Final Gravity: TBD
ABV: TBD


Notes:
Smooth brewing, although it was a long day overall.  After brewing we had our church service so I had to go set up, preach, and then clean up afterwards.  That plus brewing takes more out of me that I had anticipated!  Once again, since I was brewing it had to rain.  I need to get some grain dried out for my friends who have chickens, so hopefully next time I brew it's dry for a few days to use the grain dryer again.  Gotta re-use as much as possible, especially if it means the chickens get great high protein food!
Update 5/30/12: I racked one of the buckets to a keg and added an ounce of Cascade and an ounce of Warrior Hops.  I would normally do that in secondary, but our IPA rations are really low and I couldn't wait to get it on tap.  I'll charge it today.  Hops were in a bag.  I also bottled 5 22's with what was left.  I'll rack the other bucket to secondary and do a proper dry hop in the next few days and I'll try to time it so that as the first keg runs out I can put the second on tap.