Batches 014, 015, and 016: AKA The Brewganza

About two weeks ago at work, we got a shipment from White Labs with a random variety of yeast strains for us to sell.  We got a vial of Berliner Weiss and were thinking that it would probably just sit in the fridge until one of us bought it.  So I did.  Now, one vial is too much for a 1 gallon batch of Berliner Weiss, but I could reseal the vial and pitch into two different batches.  I thought that if I did this I would have to brew them fairly close together to lessen the risk of the yeast going bad, which had been opened and exposed to the air.  So I bought the yeast and enough grain for what I thought would be two batches.  I messed this part up.  I had written in my notes that I needed 1.5# of Pilsner malt and 1.5# of white wheat.  When I went to bought them I thought that was for 1 batch and bought two sets of those ingredients.  I was wrong.  I only needed 3/4# of each for a 1 gallon batch.  So I upped my batch size to 1.75 gallons.  I also combined my bags of grain and split them into 2# batches (1# of wheat, 1# of Pils each). So Saturday I brewed my first batch.

Batch 014: Icht Bin Ein Bierassenseiter (I am a beer outsider)
Berliner Weiss beers are fairly simple to brew.  Equal part of wheat and pils, keep it around 8 plato (~1.030 sg), and hop as little as possible, in this case 5 IBU's.  I used Hallertau Hersberker hops since they are the lowest alpha acid we had (and frankly I have ever seen) at 2.3%.  I mashed at 154 for an hour.  Now for the different part, boil for 15 minutes.  Thats it.  Hops go in at the beginning of the boil and pitch the yeast blend when it is cool.  You want this beer to be as light as possible and any issues with DMS from the pils in such a short boil will be counteracted by the lactic bacteria in the yeast blend.  So I pitch half of my vial of yeast and set it back in the fridge until the next day.

Batch 015: Icht Bin Ein Bierassenseiter II
Thats right, I brewed the exact same beer the next day.  Everything went exactly the same except for one small hiccup.  I didn't realize it had started boiling when it did, so it boiled for an extra 5 minutes or so resulting in it being half a degree plato higher in OG.  Not an issue.  This one will get a fruit addition in secondary, I just haven't decided yet.  Anyone have any suggestions?  It may just come down to walking around the market for what looks good at the time I rack.  I used the other half of the vial of yeast and set this next to the other to ferment and sour.

Batch 016: Hunter's Harvest
This was one of the first beers that I ever brewed.  I am thinking it was my 4th batch.  I had read of this recipe online and wanted to try it.  I loved the result so I am finally getting around to rebrewing this with a couple tweeks.  I used the same grain bill that I used for the last two brews because that is what I had on hand and it fit the style.  I did lower the batch size back down to the normal 1.25 gallons to up the gravity a bit though.  Now the fun part about this is that this is a hefeweizen, but with blood oranges in it.  For those who don't know blood oranges are a cross between oranges and grapefruit and are a deep ruby color and are packed with antioxidants.  They are a very nice berry flavor and fit perfectly with the hefeweizen style.

I mashed this one a little lower at 152 and measured out some more Hersberker for hopping.  As the wort was boiling I started dissecting the fruit.  I used two oranges, which is more than the original recipe called for, but if I put fruit in a beer, I want to be able to know that its there.  I want it to be balanced, but I don't want to have to search for it.  First thing you do is to zest the oranges.  Be careful to avoid the pith (tough white rind) as it is really bitter tasting and will bitter your beer.

 Next you peel the oranges and separate the sections.

 After I separated the sections I butterflyed them open to make getting the flesh out easier.

 As you can see there is still a skin like membrane around each section.  I pulled the fruit out of this to make it easier to extract the flavors and colors into the beer.

 All of the flesh and zest gets added to a small pot with a little bit of water and heated to about 165 to sanitize it.  Avoid going higher than 170 or else you will just make orange jelly.  I let this mixture steep in the pot while the wort finished boiling.  When it was ready to cool my wort I poured the flesh into a nylon bag and added the water and fruit to the wort and cooled the whole batch.  The fruit will remain in the beer during primary fermentation.  I will not be doing a secondary on this so the oranges need some time to impact the beer.

So for now, all of my primaries are full, and so are most of my secondaries.  I need to bottle up the Killer Bee this week along with the Triple Berry Cyser.  Now that I have knocked a decent chunk off of my to-brew list, I need to come up with some new ideas.  I still have a long list, but am always looking for something else that is fun.  If you have heard of any fun beers lately, let me know in the comments below

Until I bottle later this week,
Cheers

Recipes: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/icht-bin-ein-bier-aussenseiter
http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/hunters-harvest

Bottling, racking, and finning.

So I missed a week of brewing, but I will be making that up this week.  I was sick and made up some work on my day off so my schedule got mixed around.

Anyway, on to what I did tonight.  I bottled up the GF brown (Alterna) I brewed up a few weeks ago.  A lot of honey flavor left from the caramelizing process and a bit sweet, but I'm surprised how much flavor is it for what it is.  I also racked my honey IIPA (The Killer Bee) to secondary with dry hops and gave it a taste.  Wow, its amazing, everything I could have hoped for.  Really bitter, super hoppy and with a twinge of honey flavor still peaking through.  Lastly, I added some Chitosan to my Triple Berry Cyser (Berry Cyser).  A few more weeks then bottling for that.

I will be brewing tomorrow night and possibly Sunday night as well.

Until tomorrow,

Cheers

Batch 013: The Killer Bee

Fair warning, this is going to be a really long post.  I decided it was time to go through and document the whole process from start to finish so there are a lot of pictures and there will be a lot of explanation behind them.

A week ago I was harvesting honey from the combs in preparation to make the next batches of mead at work and was talking to my boss about honey and beer.  He mentioned that it would be nice to have a honey IPA out there that showcased the honey.  I brought up Bell's Hopslam, but he was thinking even more honey forward than that.  So I accepted the challenge and a week later I was brewing up The Killer Bee Honey IIPA.

The recipe: Being honey forward that is where I started.  I really enjoy the taste of orange blossom honey so that is what I went with.  I wanted half of my fermentables to come from the honey so I grabbed a pound and a half of honey.  This will give me 47 points or 1.047 if I only put the honey in.  Two pounds of pale ale malt will give me the rest of my fermentables with 4oz of crystal 40L and 4oz of cara-pils to boost the body.  I am mashing high to get me a lot of body, which is usually avoided in IIPA's, but due to the amount of honey that is in this and how dry honey ferments I am trying to keep some body to the beer.  At this point I am throwing an obscene amount of hops at this beer with a calculated IBU of about 140 which I still thought was slightly conservative.  White Labs WLP001 will hopefully work its way through this beast.

The process:

 First things first, gather all of your ingredients and, if available, some inspiration beer.

 I started heating up 8qts of strike water to 162.5F, almost there in this picture, just a little farther.

 When you reach your strike temp, add your bag to the pot and toss in your grains.  Make sure to stir very well to wet all of the grains, which isn't as hard when doing a full volume mash.  Check your mash temps to make sure you hit your numbers.  Aiming for 156F, so I am happy with this.

 Place the lid on your pot and tuck the extra bag on top for safe storage during the mash.

 The pot then goes into the oven, set to warm.  If you put the pot directly on the bottom of the oven it will heat up too much, but if suspended on a rack it will hold its temperature for the whole mash.

 During the mash I go ahead and measure out my hop additions.  I use butter tub lids as weigh trays.

 60 minute bittering addition: half an ounce of Centennial and half an ounce of Simcoe.

 Left to right: 60 min(1/2oz Centennnial, 1/2oz Simcoe), 10 min(1/4oz Simcoe, 1/4oz Citra), Knockout(1/2oz Simcoe, 1/2oz Citra), and dry hop(1/4oz Simcoe, 1/4oz Citra).

 I weigh out my dry hops while weighing the rest so that I don't have to dig them out of the freezer when it comes time to dry hop.  So I bag them up then too.

 I take that bag and put them into a clean White Labs vial and place them on my freezer door for easy access, but still storing them cold and sealed to keep them fresh.

After an hour long mash, the pot comes back out of the oven and gets stirred up one last time.

  Pull the grain bag out and place it on a strainer to drain for a few minutes.  After it has drained you can discard the grains and begin heating to a boil.  Stir very well at this point.

The reason to stir very well is the make sure that your wort is uniform and will allow for a more accurate gravity reading.  I had a pre-boil gravity of 9.5P when I was expecting 8.7P.  A little high, but that's alright for this beer.

 As we reach a boil the first hop addition gets thrown in.

 Yummy hop break.

 Don't forget to start your timer.

 Pull the yeast out of the fridge to warm up to room temperature.  Since it is only one gallon, there is no need for a starter, but we will need the whole vial of yeast to fight the Killer Bee.

 During the boil is a good time to clean and sanitize your fermentor.  In this case a 2 gallon bucket that will allow for plenty of kreuson without blowing the lid off.

 If you can drink something similar to what you are brewing, the beer gods will look kindly upon you for this.

 10 minute addition of hops, my house reeks of Simcoe by now and I'm loving it.

 Knockout hops, kettle off and lots more hops going in.

 The kettle goes into a sink full of cold water to chill.  Stir the inside while moving to the pot to keep both the water and the wort moving.  When your sink is full leave it sit for 5 minutes.

 After 5 minutes the sink water should be hot, so drain it and replace it with fresh cold water.  Also this is the time to add a sanitized lid to keep the wort safe while it chills.  I usually change the water 2-3 times to chill a batch down to below 80F.

 Below 80F, good enough for me.

 Time to check the gravity again.  It is now up to 13.5P, with an estimated OG(pre honey) or 12.3P.  So I did overshoot my gravity, but as I said before, that isn't exactly a bad thing for this beer.

 Now I rack to my fermenter and try to leave the massive amount of hops and break material behind in the kettle.

 Nice cake of hops left in the bottom of the kettle.

 Time to get the honey ready.  A pound and a half of orange blossom honey going in.

 Make sure that everything is sanitized, including the container that the honey is in.

 Mix the honey in with a whisk and while you are doing that so ahead and aerate the wort like crazy.

 Last gravity check.  23P or 1.094 SG.

 Pitch your yeast and watch out for the exploding vials.

 Finally tag your fermentor so you don't loose track of what is in each bucket.

Don't forget to take notes.  Here is my note sheet that I use.

Crazy brew night for sure.  Nothing went wrong and finally got a step by step walk through of my brewing process for anyone interested.  Bottling two batches this week, adding clearing agents to my berry cyser and impatiently waiting on this and Alterna to finish.

Got the stuff to brew a few more batches up, but I am currently stocked up in the fermentor department so once I bottle I can brew again.  Time to check on the bottle supply.

If anyone has any questions about how I brew, or just want to leave a message, hit the comment button below.

Until next time,

Cheers everyone!

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/the-killer-bee

Batch 012: Alterna Gluten Free Brown

This week I am taking a step away from the grain, away from all grain actually.  I am brewing up a gluten free beer for a friend of a friend.   I was asked if it was possible to do and I took it as a challenge to not only do it, but make a great tasting beer in the process.  I spent a good portion of the working life in kitchens and dealing with gluten allergies is becoming more and more common.  It is tough to be sure that you are actually getting gluten free food and drinks and taking a chance on whether or not it is can be risky.  I did a fair amount of research before even looking at recipes for other gluten free beers.  I learned a lot just reading up on how to do and I am sure I will learn more as this brew ferments.

The recipe:  Well this was an interesting one.  Luckily Briess makes a sorghum extract that is used for brewing gluten free beers.  I grabbed myself a can of that and started searching for what else would go in.  Through reading online I found a fair amount of posts describing how to caramelize everything from quinoa to millet to add color and a bit of flavor.  I knew a pale beer would be hard to do without it tasting like it was gluten free.  I wanted to make a gluten free beer that tasted like beer, not sorghum.  Looking through my cabinets I found the molasses I had used from St. Nick's Nog and noticed the gluten free tag on the label.  That's when I decided I would go for a brown/porter depending on the color I got out of it.  Honey is also gluten free and a tasty ingredient so 12 oz were put in.  Near the end of the boil I am adding 3oz of maltodextrin to increase the mouthfeel and thicken it up a little bit.  I looked up maltodextrin about 4 times to make absolutely sure it was gluten free and it turns out that it is so processed that it can come from wheat or barley but by the time that it makes it to the finished product it is gluten free. (reference: http://www.glutenfreeliving.com/ingredient.php#maltodextrin )  I took a similar approach to the hoping as I did with the Brew Year Brown.  I put a small charge of Centennial in just for bittering and finished off the Willamette I had for flavor.

The process: This is where things got a little interesting.  I applied a few past lessons from my burnt mead and threw the honey and molasses in the bottom of my pot with a splash of water and turned up the heat.  I cooked the honey and molasses together for about 45 minutes caramelizing the honey and molasses to give me more flavor and residual sweetness.

After it had cooked down I added back 8qts of water and started my boil.  I added 1.5 pounds of sorghum extract at the beginning of my boil and away I went.  I decided to make a larger batch (1.5ish gallons) so that I could send more than just a few bottles out and still keep a couple for myself.

 

 Everything went really well and I put the wort in a new bucket to ferment with Fermentis S-04 English yeast.  Here is the other interesting thing about gluten free ingredients.  Dry yeasts are gluten free, White Labs vials are just over the limit, but if pitching into 5 gallons of wort will dilute down to acceptable levels(if you are willing to chance that depending on the severity of the allergy), but Wyeast is not gluten free.  The liquid used to store the yeast and propagate it is a standard starter wort and thus, not gluten free.  I went with the safest option and have no problems using dry yeast.

Sidework: While brewing I also racked my American Wheat Tattoo'd Graffiti to secondary and added the first dry hop of Citra and Amarillo.  It smelled amazing and is only getting better with the hops added. I will add more next week and bottle the week after that.

This brew was important to me and I am a little upset that I kept pushing it back.  People can't control the cards they are dealt in life and I really respect the people that take it in stride and do the best that they can with what they have.  Something such as being celiac or gluten free doesn't mean you have to hide in a clean room and shut your life down.  If you want something you just have to take the extra step to find a way to make that happen.  By brewing this I hope that I can give people a nice craft beer that someone that is gluten free can enjoy, but also that someone who isn't gluten free would like to.  Below is a list of the ingredients that went in to this along with suppliers so if there is any question to whether or not something is gluten free you can know before getting sick.

Cheers!

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/alterna

Briess White Sorghum Syrup 45HM Link
Brer Rabbit Full Flavor Molasses Link
Great Value Clover Honey Link
LD Carlson Maltodextrin Picture (see above link about being gluten free)
Fermentis S-04 Brewing Yeast Link
Hop Union Hops (Centennial and Willamette)

Batch 011: Brew Year Brown

I realized I said my next brew would be something special that would challenge me, this isn't that beer.  This was a fairly unexpected brew day and didn't have the money on hand to pick up the necessary stuff to do it. Anyway, on to what I actually DID brew.

Brown ales are a bit of a sore subject for me.  90% of the commercial brown ales that I have tried just taste kind of muddy with no clear purpose.  There is one brown ale that I have had that defied that though from Crown Brewing in Crown Point, IN. My hopes in making this is to make something as rich as that.

The recipe: I started off with Maris Otter as the base malt to accentuate the maltiness with special roast for some nice toasty flavors and chocolate malt for color and flavor.  I used Willamette hops for a mild hop flavor.

The process: I upped my batch size from 1.1 to 1.25 gallons with this batch.  I doughed in with 8 qts of water at 161F for a mash temp of 154F.  I kind of overshot the temp so I had a bit of stirring to do, but it was down to 154F within 5 minutes so I'm not too worried about it.  60 minutes later I checked my gravity and had a pre-boil gravity for 7.5 Plato when I was expecting 9.3 Plato.  I checked two more times and it was the same every time.  I lautered anyway and brought the wort to a boil before checking my gravity again and making a decision on adding DME to bump up my gravity. I checked again and it was at 9.2 Plato so I continued with the boil.  What happened was the the wort stratified and basically the sugars sank.  The boil stirred everything up and unified the wort allowing me to take an accurate reading. One more reason to not freak out about every detail while brewing.  I also tried upping my boil rate to match what I have in my software other than trying to match the software to my process.  I realize that is kind of backwards, but it was just something to try before trying to figure out what my burner was at and repeat it every time.  Knowing my burner is at 100% is easier to repeat.  At the end of the boil my gravity was 13.5 Plato when I was expecting 13.2 so I am pretty happy with the results.  It wasn't exact, but a lot closer than past brews.  Over all this brew day had a hiccup or two, but turned out to be one of the best ones yet and a great way to start the New Year in brewing.

While brewing I also racked over my berry cyser to secondary and added more fruit to it: raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.  The color was awesome and the taste was good too.  Tart and dry so I added sulphites and sorbate so that I can backsweeten later.  Two more weeks for that one until it gets racked to tertiary and sweetened. Excited for that one.

So, next week I will finally get around to that challenging brew.

Until next time, cheers!

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/brew-year-brown

Batch 010: Tattoo'd Graffiti

One long overdue post tonight. I brewed up my latest batch on Christmas night.  I had a couple of hours free and decided there was no better time. I went with a hop aggressive American Wheat in the vain of Three Floyd's Gumballhead. 

The recipe.  This beer is one pound of pale malt, 1 pound of white wheat malt, and 4 oz of cara-vienne.  The 50/50 base of wheat and barley will give me a nice wheat forward beer.  As for the hops I threw citra and amarillo at it like they were candy.   A dose of citra for bittering than then a blend of the two at 10 and flameout with 2 dry hops in store for this when it hits secondary.

The process.  This beer went off with no problems, hit my preboil gravity dead on and began the boil.  Those hops make everything smell amazing.  I was a bit shy on the OG which means I didn't boil off as much as I had anticipated, but that is another thing for me to work on.  Since beginning I have moved my beers from 1 gallon to 1.1 gallon to account for trub loss, but after this I am thinking that it should be close to 1.25 gallons.  Maybe for the next batch I will try that

As for the next batch, it's going to be a little different.  I am going to challenge myself and make a type of beer for someone that I haven't tried to make before.  That should be a fun brew day.

Cheers!

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/tattood-graffiti

Batch 008: The Wee One

Today I decided to brew something a little lighter than my previous batches.  I looked in my closet and realized that almost everything I had brewed was high gravity and knew this would be a good time to brew a nice session beer.  I am aiming to make this as low in alcohol as possible while still having it seem like beer.  So I went with a Scottish 60/-.

The beer. This beer is low in alcohol, but not in flavor.  There are two schools of thought when it comes to making Scottish ales.  You can carmalize your first runnings to give you more flavor or you can use specialty malts.  I went with the specialty malts.  Doing BIAB doesn't give you the option of just taking your first runnings without a few extra steps thrown in.  So I went with a small amount of Maris Otter as a base with a bit of light Munich, crystal 40L, and chocolate malt.  A small bit of Kent Goldings at the beginning of the boil will balance out the residual sugars.

The process.  Today's brew session went very well.  I mashed in at 158 and hit my strike temp perfectly.  While mashing I managed to rack my bochet into secondary and bottle my cider.  I added some acid blend to the cider and over did it a bit unfortunately.  Some of the cider was bottled still and I carbed others.  I also tried out two different carbonation levels.  So I can see what works best with the ciders.  My mash temp held through the mash and the boil and cooling went off without a hitch.  Nothing really out of the plan happened.  I did try something new today and that was straining my cooled wort through a sanitized fine mesh bag while putting it into the fermenter to reduce the amount of trub in primary.  It amazed me how much material the bag caught.  For only .2oz of hops there was about a tennis ball sized amount of break material that was filtered out.  Hopefully this helps with a small soapy flavor in my of my beers.

The stream.  I did stream again today, with only two small hiccups.  The first being that I wasn't connected to my wifi for the first hour and had to restart the stream after I switched that on.  The second when I dropped the phone I was using as my camera and had to put it back together.  Luckily the people watching were understanding.  There were a few people watching a chatting with me while I was brewing.  This made things a lot more enjoyable.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love to talk about beer and love answering peoples questions about it.  I walked people through a bit of my process and answered some basic questions.  Thanks to everyone that tuned in and asked questions.  I hope I will be able to do this most weeks I brew.  I love being able to help people make beer while I am making beer.  Plus, it forces me to step up my game a bit if people are watching and asking questions I should be able to answer them.

Once again, thank you to those who watched the stream. I should be making a cider next week, but I am not entirely sure yet.  Until next time....

Cheers

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/the-wee-one

Batch 007: Ryezenbock

Another brew day come and gone.  Thanks to those of you who tuned in for the short time that I was streaming.  I had some issues with the sound and caught myself rambling to the camera about random things and figured that was enough.  Hopefully next time I will be a little better organized when it comes to that and will actually stream the whole thing.

Today I decided to brew something a little different.  I took the idea of  weizenbock and subbed the wheat for rye.  I figured if I would have any chance at doing this, it would be with a brew in a bag system so I went with it.  I was mainly just experimenting with how far rye can go.  I made an old ale last year that was 30% rye and it came out super thick and super sticky, but delicious.  I went over 60% this time.  Now I am not a huge fan of the banana and clove flavors that get put off by the hefeweizen yeast that is normally used to ferment these so I went with the more neutral American Hefe yeast from White Labs.

The beer.  I have already mentioned most of it, but I went with 2 pounds of rye malt and 1 pound of light Munich malt as my base with 4 ounces of Special B to give it some color and melanoidin flavors.  A quarter once of Palisade at 60 minutes will give it just enough hops to combat the sweetness from a 17 Plato beer.  The American Hefe yeast will ferment this out and hopefully leave me with a spicy yet fairly clean beer.

The process.  Over the last few weeks since I started brewing small batches I have found issues and then fixed them and was always ready to take on the next issue.  I knew that if I kept fixing any issues that were coming up I would be learning from my mistakes and making better beer in the long run.  I have learned how to keep my mash temps perfect on this system.  I doughed in with 7.5 quarts of water and hit my mash temp of 151F right on.  After an hour I was still at 151F.  I have solved my temp control issues.  Then I took a gravity reading to check my preboil gravity.  I came up with 13 Plato and spent the next few minutes testing and retesting my wort, sure that there must have been a mistake to come up so short.  I placed my mash back into the oven for another half hour thinking that there might not have been enough enzymes in the unusual grist to fully convert in only an hour.  After half an hour I check my gravity again and it was still at 13 Plato.  About this time I realized my mistake.  I had written my predicted original gravity in my predicted pre boil gravity field on my brew sheet.  I went to the computer and pulled up BeerSmith and everything matched up just fine.  Boiling, hopping, cooling, and pitching all went off without a hitch.  Kind of frustrating that I would let that mistake slip, but at least nothing was ruined and everything else went alright.

Today was also the 2 week mark for Batch 001 in bottles and I opened one this evening.  This beer is amazing.  It is everything I was looking for and I am very pleased with it.  I can't wait to take one or two to some other people and get their thoughts on it.

Next week, I am thinking a super session Scottish 60/-.  The week after that is my non-beer week.  I have to decide what I am going to make, but I have a few idea that will be fun.

Thanks for reading.  If you have any comments, questions, or just want to say hi comment below.

-Cheers

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/american-ryezenbock

Batch 006: Keep Calm and Barley On

This brew was a few days late due to some shifting work schedules and the holiday, but its done.  Have been wanting to brew a barleywine for a while now, but wanted to have the quirks in my system figured out first so I finally got to brew it last night.  I went for an English barleywine this time. A heavy base of Golden Promise and a bit of dark Munich for color and a bit of flavor to round it out will make this a fairly simple barleywine, but I'm keeping things simple to show my flaws so that I can fix them.  Once I know for sure, that I can control my beer I will start playing with recipes more.

The beer.  When doing an English beer you really want to use English malts.  So I have a base of Golden Promise(comparable to Maris Otter).  The dark Munich will give me just a bit of color and flavor, but not much.  As for the hops I went English again with Kent Goldings and threw them at the beer like crazy.  1 oz of hops at 60 mins, doesn't sound like much, but this is 1 gallon.  I threw half an once in with 5 minutes left for a bit of flavor.  I mashed at 147 for 90 minutes.  Since the temperature was so low I wanted to make sure there was enough time for the enzymes to work.  Then I boiled for 90 minutes to concentrate the wort down.

The process.  I decided to stick with the full volume mash with this beer as it would be similar to only taking the first runnings in a normal mash vessel.  I had a strike volume of 9 qts and 4.75# of grain.  This led to a very full kettle for me.

I hit my mash temp dead on and placed in it my oven for safe keeping for the next 90 minutes.  The mash held the temp the whole time so I am quite happy with my mashing.  Now I had calculated a 60% efficiency due to the high gravity of this beer and and bought a pound of DME to make up for missed numbers.  I had an estimated pre boil gravity of 15 Plato.  When I lautered and took my reading I was at 16.8 Plato.  I was really, really happy to see that so I put the DME away and began my boil.

I boiled for 90 minutes with the appropriate hop additions.   This went off without a hitch.  I think I could have had the heat up higher because I don't think I boiled off as much as I was calculating.  I checked the gravity at the end of the boil and had 26.2 Plato.  After cooling this number dropped a little bit and I'm not sure why exactly since it is such a small volume measured it cools to room temp very quickly.  My only thought was that it was still evaporating and condensing slightly between pulling the sample and reading, but I'm not worried about it.  After all was said and done I had a little more than 1.1 gallons in my fermenter and a gravity reading of 25 Plato.

Can't wait to try this, but it will be a while before I can.  I am looking into getting a case of 187ml bottles and waxing them so that I am less likely to burn through all of it quickly.  20 bottles will last me a while longer than 10 will.

Now just to decide next weeks brew.  Leave any suggestions in the comments below.

-Cheers

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/keep-calm-and-barley-on

Batch 003: Howl at the Moon

Another brew day come and gone.  This time I had to come up with a recipe using ingredients I had on hand.  I had some US-05 left along with a stash of Columbus, Centennial and Cascade in the freezer.  Those just scream IPA to me, but having just brewed Papa's Pale Ale I wanted to mix it up a little bit.  While unpacking some boxes at the store I noticed a giant box of priming sugar.  Everyone has seen these pre-portioned 5 oz bags of corn sugar to use for bottle conditioning and I laughed thinking to myself "I won't have to use a whole bag of this for a while".  Then an idea, instead of an IPA I can make an imperial IPA and 5 oz of sugar should be just the right addition to dry it out.  Not a Eureka! moment, but I liked the train of thought that brought me to this.  I tossed a handful of midnight wheat in along with the standard pale malt to make it a black IPA because I've had a few black IPA's recently that really hit right with me.  So first round with this recipe, we'll see how it works out.

The beer.  Keeping things simple again I used pale malt for my base with a splash of midnight wheat to give it that awesome black appearance.  The 5oz bag of corn sugar will be thrown in at the end of the boil to boost the gravity, dry out the beer, and make up for lower efficiency in a higher gravity mash.  As for hops, I gave it a healthy shot of Columbus at the beginning of the boil for a nice dank hop bitterness to combat the bit of roast coming off of the wheat.  Once again, I am a huge fan of holding off all late addition to a whirlpool addition and tossed in some more Columbus and a bit of Cascade in for a 30 min whirlpool.  When I rack to secondary it will get another charge of Columbus and Cascade.

The process.  Things seemed to go a bit smoother today than the last couple days with only a slight hiccup that I expected walking in.  I decided to go full BIAB and do a full volume mash with no sparge.  I expect to loose a bit of efficiency, but kept all my calculations the same since I wasn't sure how much I would loose.  To fight against that I also double crushed my grains to get better extraction.  I mashed in a bit hot and tossed in an ice cube to cool it down to my rest temp of 148.  I wanted this to dry this beer out as much as possible so I mashed low to create a more fermentable wort.  Temp held just fine for an hour and I pulled the bag out and let it drain for a few minutes.  I did give it a few presses to squeeze out some more sugars.  (I know, I know, don't squeeze the bag you will extract tannins!  But I wasn't pushing nearly as hard as the bottom of a 15 gallon mash tun is being pushed on by the weight of the grain above it so I think I'm safe.)  I started my boil and the rest went off without a hitch.  I ended up with just over a gallon of wort at the end so I am happy with my boil rate now.  I was about 3 plato short on my gravity, but without the sparge I could see that happening.  Trying to decide if I will stick to the full volume mash or if I will return to sparging next week.  Any ideas from anyone reading would be nice.  While mashing I transferred Papa's Pale Ale (Batch 001 ) to secondary and dry hopped.  I lost a good amount of beer to hop and trub loss.  That was expected though based on the last attempt to brew it.

Everything is bubbling away nicely and now I have to decide what to brew next week.  Decisions, decisions.

Until next week, Cheers.

-Mike

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/howl-at-the-moon

Batch 002: St. Nick's Nog v2

It's that time of year again, time to brew a Christmas beer.  Last year I was a little behind and ended up bottling on Dec 21.  Not really in time to enjoy for Christmas (that and a recipe mistake made it undrinkable until about April/May).  So this year I am doing it on time and will be enjoying a bottle on Christmas day.  This is a complete rewrite of the St. Nick's Nog I brewed last year.  I wanted a med-light brown with some spice.  Everything was going great and with 10 minutes left in the boil I add 1# of honey, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 3 cloves.  I thought those spices would be about right for a 5 gallon batch.  I was wrong.  When I tasted it on bottling day there was barely any cinnamon flavor and way too much clove.  I smashed up another cinnamon stick and added to my priming sugar as I heated it on the stove.  I bottled and set them aside hoping that all would work out.  Three weeks later I opened the first bottle.  There was a great cinnamon smell and it was pretty murky, but I assumed I had gotten some sediment while pouring.  The flavor floored me.  All I could taste was clove and it penetrated every taste bud.  After only a few sips my mouth was beginning to numb and I was pouring it into the sink.  I decided to just hold on to it and see where it went.  Months later the cloves faded out and now (10 months later) it is a pretty nice beer.  So I scraped that recipe entirely and went with the following.

The beer.  Again, you can find the recipe at the bottom of this post.  I simplified my grist and decided to let the beer do its own thing instead of forcing flavors into it.  There is a handful of chocolate malt giving me my color and hopefully some nice chocolate flavors.  I am adding some dark molasses near the end of the boil.  Looking for a really deep caramel flavor and some sweetness too. I went dark to try to leave some unfermentables in the wort.  One cinnamon stick will also be added to the end of the boil.  After a 2 week primary, I will rack to a secondary fermenter and add another cinnamon stick to age for 1 week.

The process.  This week went much smoother than the last.  I mashed in fairly high at 155F to leave it sweeter.  Some of the molasses will ferment and dry this out so I compensated with a high mash temperature.  Held a steady mash temp unlike last week and proceeded to the sparge.  Last week I hit my preboil gravity, but was short on my OG.  I assumed I had just not boiled off as much as I had told my software that I would so I dropped that down this week.  I sparged to 1.25gal and started the boil.  A small bittering addition at 60 will help balance the sweetness. With ten minutes left in the boil I added my 2oz of Full Flavor molasses and one stick of cinnamon.  After cooling I took a gravity reading and overshot my estimates by about 17 points.  I then realized I was also a quart short.  I added some water to get me back to the 1 gallon mark and measured my gravity again.   After topping it up my gravity was dead on.  I have to figure out my boil off rate and get that nailed in.

So overall, I fixed my mash problems and found a boil off rate issue.  Next week that will be fixed and we will see what pops up then.

Until next week, cheers.

-Mike

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/st-nicks-nog

Batch 001: Papa's Pale Ale v3

Today was my first brew day on my 1 gallon stove top system.  I brewed up a beer that was made as a dedication to my friend and brewing partner's grandfather after a rough hospitalization that unfortunately took his life.  This beer was created not as something that would be used to mourn his death, but to remember the little things that make life what it is.  While I never met Papa, I have to say that I thought of him while brewing this.  I had heard many stories of him teaching my friend how to cook on Saturday mornings.  When I decided to start brewing in my kitchen again, I thought of this and knew that Papa's Pale Ale had to be the first beer brewed.

On to the beer.  The recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.  It is an American Pale Ale with outstanding hop flavor.  I start with a base of 2-row pale malt and supplement it with a bit of crystal 40.  This gives it a bit of sweetness and color without it being a sticky pale ale that happens when people randomly toss crystal malts into their brews because that is what you did when you were steeping grains.  This is on the third iteration of the hop schedule however.  The first batch we did was a single hopped cascade pale.  The next batch I was experimenting with hops isomerizing after knockout during the whirlpool and attempted to brew it with no hops added in the boil.  Only a 45 min whirlpool addition and a dry hop addition were added, each a blend of cascade, centennial and columbus for that punch you in the face American profile.  This batch tasted great, but with no bittering addition tasted very unbalanced and the flavors dropped quick with no bitterness to hold them up.  The latest version took that whirlpool/dry hop theory and just added a small bittering addition to help pump it up.  Depending on how things go it will either get a 7 or 14 day primary with a 7 day dry hop in secondary.

The process.  This was my first 1 gallon batch, my first BIAB(brew in a bag), my first using this kettle and stove, and my first trying to keep my mash temps without a cooler to insulate things.  I heated up my strike water(a measly 3qt) and added my grain to my vinyl bag and doughed in.  It took a minute to make sure that there were no clumps, but when I checked my temps I had hit my mash temp of 152F dead on.  Absolutely stoked that I hit my mash temp on the first try I put the lid on my kettle and placed it in my oven which was set to warm.  I checked the temp again 30 min later and flipped when I saw 167F come up on my thermometer.  I pulled the kettle out stirred it around for a minute and it was back down to 152F.  I think I may have just temped a hot part of the mash or even touched the kettle while temping, but I reluctantly replaced the kettle in the oven, turned off the oven and waited another half hour for my mash to complete.  Mash ended at 149F and I placed the grain bag in a strainer and began to sparge.  Sparged up to 1.5gallons and checked my gravity.  My estimated preboil gravity was 1.037 and my actually gravity was 1.039 so I am fairly optimistic that I didn't completely screw up my mash.  The boil went on without a hitch.  My only complaint is that I have to buy another scale because the one I have is only accurate to within 0.1 ounces or 2 grams.  When doing 1 gallon batches some of my hop additions are at 0.05 ounces.  So time to buy a jeweler's scale and try to not look like a drug dealer in the process.  After the whirlpool I chilled in my sink with cold water and a bit of ice, pitched 1/3 of a packet of US-05 and placed it in a dark closet to be ignored for a week.

Today was a learning experience, but if I didn't learn anything what's the point?  I have some spent grain bread in the oven as I type this and will be enjoying that all week until I get to brew again.  Next brew up? St. Nick's Nog v2 Christmas Spiced Brown Ale.

Cheers

Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/papas-pale-ale