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Club Meeting Thursday March 20

What’s the craic PG! Happy March!  It is leprechaun season with a lot of fun to be had!  This Thursday 3/20 will be our monthly club meeting at the usual time and place:

March Monthly Meeting; Thursday 3/20/2025 at 7:30 PM
Tortugo Brewing Co.
916 W. Hyde Park Blvd.
Inglewood,  CA  90302
(424) 227-9963

Being it is only a few days after St Pat’s, there will also be some St Patrick’s Day type goodies provided by Club Chef Ian and Club Monkey Parker.  It is possible there MAY even be a leprechaun sighting…

This Saturday 3/22 will be our 2025 Monster Brew at Smog City – you wouldn’t want to miss it (even if you don’t need wort)!  – details below.

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Smog City Monster Brew March 22

Monster Brew 2025 at Smog City – Sign Up Now!

Porter has once again graciously offered to host a monster brew at Smog City Brewing Company.  This will be our 9th Monster Brew with Brewmaster, Jon Porter (and 14th if you count the ones he hosted previously, going all the way back to his days at Tustin Brewing!).  These events are always a highlight of the year’s activities and an unreasonably huge amount of fun, so please come out and join us!

Date:  Saturday, March 22, 2025
Time:  ~7:00 AM Mash-In
~12pm Fermenter Filling
Location:  Smog City Brewery 1901 Del Amo Blvd, Torrance, CA 90501

If you have never participated in a Monster Brew, here is how it works:

  1. FOR THE NON-BREWER – this is an exclusive once a year opportunity to hang out behind the scenes and do tours and tasting with the owner and brewmaster of Smog City Brewing while a batch of beer is being brewed for the group. We’ll explore the brewing process from grain to glass and taste through super limited and small batch experiments for the most in depth exploration of local craft beer ever offered.
  2. FOR THE HOMEBREWERS -Pay now with Paypal.  Use the following links for the amount of wort you want:
    For 5 Gallons of wort click here.
    For 10 Gallons of wort click here.
    For 15 Gallons of wort click here.
    An inside tour of the brewery and tasting experience is included!   If you do this your reservation is good to go.
  3. Plan out your modifications  ahead of time.  I strongly suggest you purchase yeast and any ingredients desired for modification to the wort – I suggest supporting local South Bay Brewing Supply (call ahead to verify stock)
  4. Arrive at the Monster Brew with a clean plastic or metal fermenter (NO GLASS!) which we will fill with UNFERMENTED wort.
  5. Take it home and modify as desired and pitch your yeast
  6. Ferment until ready for bottling or kegging.

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Smog Monster Brew Modifications

This Month’s Question: How do I modify my wort from the Monster Brew at Smog City Brewing?

Answer:https://www.smogcitybrewing.com/
Regardless of wheterh you are a homebrewer or merely a craft beer aficionado, I hope you are all planning to join us at Smog City Brewing Company’s ninth Annual Monster Brew, Saturday, March 22nd, 2025, from 7:00 AM to noon hosted by our very own Jon Porter. We’ll explore the brewing process from grain to glass and taste through super limited and small batch experiments for the most in depth exploration of local craft beer ever offered. We’ll be brewing up a batch of wort based on the recipe for Little Bo Pils. Where it goes from there is up to you! We’re hoping to have as many variations on the theme as possible for upcoming events such as club meetings, Southern California Homebrew Fest, and the summer party.

First of all SIGN up NOW!
Hombrewers, sign up here to get wort

For 5 Gallons of wort click here.
For 10 Gallons of wort click here.
For 15 Gallons of wort click here.

The recipe for the wort can be found below. The wort will be a blend of Pilsner malt with a bit of carafoam and acidulated malt to round out the grain bill. Apart from that, the recipe is light-colored and minimally hopped. Consider this a blank slate. This gives YOU the opportunity to spice it up, using your own creativity as broadly as possible. The wort will have a starting gravity of 1.050, with 27 IBUs of bitterness and a color of about 3 SRM. A lot of different beers can be made out of this. With a bit of tweaking, you can make just about anything. Here are some ideas on what to do.

1) Pick a yeast. The wort comes unpitched, so at a minimum, you have to get some yeast for brewing day. As formulated, the wort will make an some of the lighter lager styles or cream ale if you pitch with an American lager yeast such as White Labs WLP840, or Wyeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite. Of course, this means you need to have a lager fridge or other cooler to pull this off. But, you can also pick something like a German ale yeast and make a Kölsch or an American ale yeast and make a blonde ale. Whatever style you go for, I suggest making at least a 1 quart starter a few days before the Monster brew.

2) Boost the bitterness or hop flavor. You’ll have to do this if you want to get to IPA range, and I also recommend it for Pale Ale, ESB, Robust Porter, Altbier and several other styles as well. Boil up a small amount of water and add hops to make a hop tea. Boil for at least half an hour with high alpha hops to raise the IBU level, and for best effect, use pellets rather than whole-leaf hops. To calculate the bitterness, use these numbers: Each ½ oz of 12% AAU pellets will boost the bitterness by 15 IBU. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes with your favorite hop variety to boost the flavor. Note that this will boost the IBU level by a smaller amount.

3) Make it weaker. If you are into session beer styles such as Bitter, the gravity will be too high. You can cut the gravity by adding some water. This is a great way of increasing the yield of your brewing day, and you may need a second fermenter to hold the extra volume. Note that the dilution will drop the bitterness level too, which will fit some, but not all of the lighter styles. So, to create the perfect session bitter you should boost the bitterness as noted above. For best results, the water should be sterilized by boiling ahead of time for a few minutes.

4) Dry hop it. The recipe this year has a low level of Mandarin Bavaria finishing hops, which has a noble but slightly citrusy tang. It will not be enough for the citrusy American styles. You can go American for American Pale or Amber Ale, British hops for ESB, or you can go with Continental Noble hops for something like Saison.

5) Make it stronger. Styles such as Maibock or Belgian Tripel can be made by adding some malt extract or Belgian candi sugar. Just boil up a small amount of water and extract and boil for about 10 to 15 minutes, to make sure it is sterile. Cool, and add to your fermenter.

6) Make it darker. Pick a dark grain like roast barley, Special B, chocolate malt or Carafa. Steep in hot water, then strain out the grains and boil the liquid. Voila, instant dark beer! I made a great porter and Schwarzbier the past couple of years with this approach.

7) Make it malty. Discover the magic of melanoidin malt to make some of the malty German lagers styles such as traditional Bock, or Munich Dunkel. I’d even recommend a bit if you are making a Maibock.

8) Make it Hazy.  Try steeping some malted oats.  In addition, pick a yeast with lower attenuation.

9) Do combinations of the above. Suppose you want to make an American Barleywine out of the wort. Boil up some malt extract, add some hops to boost the bitterness and flavor during the boil. Cool and add to the fermenter. Then, dry hop in secondary.

The attached table has a list of some of the interesting combinations you can do. I came up with 20 variations without even breaking a sweat. You can probably come up with even more.
You’ll want to pitch your yeast as soon as you get your wort home. For most of the variations, you should plan on adjusting the wort at the same time, though you could wait a day or so. Make sure you get it going before primary fermentation is done, since the yeast will need to work on the additional materials.
So, start whipping up your recipe now. Hope to see you on the 9th.

Smog City Monster Brew #9
Recipe for 17 Barrels (527 gallons):
• 770 lbs Pilsner Malt
• 27 lbs Carafoam
• 27 lbs Acidulated Malt
• Pahto 37 oz (FWH)
• Mandarin Baviaria 48 oz (15 minutes)
• Mandarin Baviaria 48 oz (Flame Out)
• Target OG – 1.050
• Target SRM – 3
• Target IBU – 27

To sign-up just pay by PayPal:
For 5 Gallons of wort click here.
For 10 Gallons of wort click here.
For 15 Gallons of wort click here.
An inside tour of the brewery and tasting experience is included!

Guidelines for varying the beer:

Beer Style Yeast Grain/sugar Hops Fermentation
German Lager Lager Cold
Bohemian Lager Lager Cara-Pils Saaz Cold
American Lager Lager Cold
Vienna Lager Vienna Munich or Vienna Cold
Oktoberfest Oktoberfest Melanoidin Cold
Maibock Bock Melanoidin, LME Cold
Traditional Bock Bock Melanoidin, LME Cold
Doppelbock Bock Melanoidin, LME Cold
Munich Dunkel Munich Lager Melanoidin, Munich Cold
Schwarzbier Munich Lager Carafa Cold
Kölsch Kölsch Cool
Cream Ale Cream Ale Cool
California Common CA Lager Crystal Northern Brewer Cool
Altbier German Ale Crystal Tea/Hallertauer Cool
Blonde Ale American Ale Med
Amiercan Pale Ale Amer Ale Tea/Dry Amarillo Med
American Amber Amer Ale Crystal Tea/Dry Amarillo Med
IPA AM Ale or Eng Crystal Tea/Dry Amarillo Med
Hazy IPA AM Ale or Eng Malted Oats Tea/Dry Galaxy Med
Brown Ale English Crystal, Chocolate Med
Porter English Chocolate Med
Dry Stout Irish Roast Barley Med
Export Stout Irish Roast Barley, LME Med
Imperial Stout Irish LME, Roast barley Tea/Goldings Med
Old Ale English LME Tea/Fuggles Med
Barleywine AM Ale or Eng LME Tea/Centenniel Med
Wheat beer Weihenstephan Wheat malt Warm
Wit Wit spces:  Corriander & Bitter orange Warm
Belgian Pale Ale Antwerp Bel Biscuit Warm
Belgian Dubbel Abbey Dark Candi, Special B Warm
Belgian Strong Dark Trappist Dark Candi, Special B, CaraMunich Warm
Tripel Golden Light Candi Warm
Saison Saison Dry-Saaz Warm

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Next Event

17apr7:30 pm- 9:30 pmClub Meeting7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Tortugo Brewing Company

Time

(Thursday) 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Location

Tortugo Brewing Company

916 W Hyde Park Blvd, Inglewood, CA 90302

Organizer

Parker Waechter

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