Double IPA

Dry hopping 2 oz simcoe, 1/2 amarillo, & 1/2 citra

THE PLAN:
My friend Geoff brought a couple bottles of Bell's Hopslam to our last beer tasting... holy cow... I must brew a clone.  This DIPA has a powerful hop aroma, but only about 66 IBU's, so not intensely bitter.  It also uses a healthy dose of honey that adds to the flavor, and is dry hopped with 2 oz of simcoe and a 1/2 oz of amarillo to give it a nice citrusy hop bouquet.

RECIPE:
SG: 1.087
FG: 1.010
ABV: 10%
13# 2-row
1/4# Aromatic
3/4# Crystal 60L (darker than I wanted, but only had access to 10, 60, 90, and 120)
3# Honey (from Honey Gardens Apiary, Ferrisburgh VT)
2 oz Simcoe 12.7% (75)
1 oz Willamette 5.2% (60) (substitute for glacier)
1.5 oz Centennial 10.5% (20)
1 oz Willamette 5.2% (15) (substitute for glacier)
1 oz Homegrown Saaz 3-5% (10) (in place of vanguard)
1 oz Crystal 5.6% (0)
1 oz Hallertau 4.2% (0)
2 oz Simcoe (dry hop 1 week)
1/2 oz Amarillo (dry hop 1 week)
Big starter of Wyeast 1056

Mash at 152 (or 148) for 60
Boil for 75
Ferment at 68F

11/19 YEAST STARTER:
Almost forgot to get a yeast starter going ahead of time.  I smacked an Activator pack of Wyeast 1056 last night, was nice and ready this morning... made a 2.2L starter this morning (after consulting Mr. Malty's yeast pitch calculator), chilled to 70, pitched the yeast, and put on a stir plate.  I'm not planning on pitching until noon-ish on Saturday, so that will give it 28 hrs or so to get going, which is about where I like it (31 seems to be my magic number).

11/20 BREWDAY:
Going back to single infusion batch sparge since its getting a little too cold outside to use my 3 tier kettle system (that leaks a ridiculous amount of heat).  Looking to mash around 152, although some people are saying 150 or even 148.  I'm thinking I could go as high as 152 and still leave space for the honey in the boil.  Target mash - 14# grain, 17.5 qts of water... target is 152.
17.5 qts @ 169, added to pre-heated cooler, temp down to 164.5
4PM - doughed in, temp @ 150 (wanted 152, but this was fine) I wrapped the cooler in three blankets, and had to leave to pick Jen up from work.  By the time we got home, and I got back to the cooler, it was a little over 90 minutes since I doughed in and the temp was still right on the money at 150.  Awesome.
6PM (time kind of got away from me) I started collecting my first runnings, and got a quick gravity reading - Brix 21.6/1.090.  Sweet.  Unfortunately I only collected about 2 gallons... pretty weak.  I had about 4 and a half in there to start.  Darker than I expected, but not bad.  Nice and sweet, with a little roast flavor (Crystal 60?).

I had been heating up 3 gallons of sparge water to 170, so I added that, collected another 3 gallons to get right around 5 gallons total, and the 2nd runnings were 8.4/1.033.  I needed a little bit more so I heated another 2 gallons and added that, collected about 1.5 gallons, to top off about 6.6 gallons.
Pre-Boil is not lookin good - reluctantly, I'm calling it about a 12.4/1.050, :-\

Looking back, I should have accounted for the 1/2 gallon of yeast slurry I'd be pitching into this, so I'll be boiling this down a little longer than I originally planned... probably 90 minutes instead of 75.  The last two additions I feel like came out really bitter or astringent or something.  I'm wondering if washing the grains pulled out some unwanted tanins.  I'll be pissed if I screwed that up.

I'll blame the wind, but this thing took forever to boil - finally started about 9:10, so I'm doing a 95 mintues boil, and adding the hop addtions starting at 75 minutes left.  I'll be using almost all whole hops, primarily from Freshops.com, love that place.  I'll also be using an ounce of homegrown Saaz in place of Vanguard.  I'd love to be able to brew indoors and cut the propane burner out of the equation... but I'm just not set up to do so unfortunately.  Someday...

Well, in a kind of on-the-fly decision, I moved indoors just now and am trying to do the rest of this brew on the stovetop.  It's not a great place for it since its an electric range, but, it's doing the job so far.  It's actually boiling harder in here than it was outside.  Which makes me think that I'll need to be cautious of boil-overs.  As long as Jen can tolerate the aroma, then this might just be the new method.  We'll see.

(note: I have more to add from brew day, just haven't gotten around to it yet)

12/4 SECONDARY:
Prior to racking to 2nd, I pulled a sample to check the gravity - Brix 8.2/1.001... this seems highly unlikely.  I may pull a bigger sample and do a hydrometer reading.

Some tasting remarks:  Dark gold color, slightly hazy but not bad.  It smelled of grapefruit, had a pretty bitter bite, but but the honey really smooths it out.  A bit of an alcohol burn, but really not bad at all.  I was thinking about letting this sit for another week in primary before dry hopping it... we'll see.

12/16 GRAVITY CHECK:
After a friend and fellow brewer politely slapped my hand for using my refractometer post-fermentation... I thought I better dust off my trusty hydrometer and get a better gravity reading.  I begrudgingly pulled out a 3 or 4 ounce sample, gave it a spin and it leveled out about 1.008, maybe 1.007.  That's a little more normal than the 1.001, and it puts the beer at just over 10%.  Smells and tastes fantastic, I can't wait to bottle this up!

12/18 BOTTLING:
Two weeks with dry hops and I say it's ready to roll.  I was able to bottle 17 22 ounce bombers, as well as a 12 pack of 12 ounce bottles.  I can't get over how crystal clear this is... and the amazing grapefruit nose from all the hops.  It hits you with a mild bitter up front, then finishes very smooth from the honey.  Wow... I can't wait for this to be ready to drink!  This is really the only beer I've enjoyed while bottling.  I usually pour a small 2 or 3 ounce sample to check gravity and clarity... ended up enjoying that one that I poured two more samples.  Lovin it.

12/27 TASTING:
While we were back in PA visiting family for the holidays, I had a couple friends over and did a small sampling of 4 or 5 of my homebrews.  I decided to try this one out, it had been 9 days since bottling, so there should be some sort of carbonation present.  Well, I was way wrong.  This stuff was dead flat.  I'm hoping that it just needs more time rather than more yeast :-S

1/5 RE-PITCHING:
After chatting with my friend Matt who had also had a flat bottle, and trying one of the 12 ounce bottles which was also dead flat... I decided to open all of these, add a pinch of champagne yeast, recap, and wait.  I started with the 12 ounce bottles... when I noticed that they were actually popping a bit.  I re-pitched yeast in about 6 bottles, and by the 7th, it gave a decent pop so I tried pouring it into a glass.  Surprisingly, it actually had some carbonation.  Not really enough... but more so than a week ago.  I stopped the uncapping process and decided to put them in a warm spot and wait another 2 or so weeks.  14 days from now would make it about 1 month from when I bottled... which is about right.  Shouldn't have rushed it!

Sugar Plum BSDA

THE PLAN:

Not sure where this idea originated from, but over the last month I've been thinking about a new Christmas ale that I wanted to try out - a Belgian strong dark ale that smelled and tasted of plums and candi sugar, among other things. I've been scraping every inch of every book and internet page for more ideas. I tried a few beers too to get a feel for that style. I tried Rochefort 10, which I definitely did not enjoy; way too much scotch flavor. I tried Chimay Blue and that was nice, closer to what I would like, but not quite on the mark; I'd like to have more Belgian yeast bouquet, and definitely more dark fruit & sweet malty aroma. I did stumble on Corsendonk Christmas ale... something I've had quite a few times, and actually still have 2 bottles on in my "cellar". I'm hoping to try these and nail down any additional changes to my recipe I need to make, and collect the yeast for a starter to be used for this batch. If it works out, then I will have a great Christmas beer, which I plan to cork in 750mL Belgian beer bottles and save for our trip back to PA for Christmas. I'm excited :-)

RECIPE:
12# French/Belgian Pilsner
3# Munich
1# Flaked Oats
1/2# Special B
2# candi sugar (homemade)
star anise
cinnamon
coriander
Wyeast Belgian Abbey II - 1L starter for 30 hours on stir plate then another 1L of starter added and another 48 hours.

11/6 - BREWDAY:
Ohhhh, what a mess... but unbelievably turned out gigantic. I hadn't used my 3 tier set up in a while, so I thought what the hell. Well, that's the last time I use it. It is so effin hard to control my mash temperatures... I was even using 3 different thermometers and they were all giving me different readings. And as soon as I would turn off the burner, it seemed like it would drop 20 degrees... and as soon as I would turn it on, it would jump to like 160. I was was getting so pissed and frustrated that I almost gave up on the whole thing... until... I decided to check the gravity. In some crazy way, the conversions had happened and I had a huge gravity reading. 1.086. I decided to try and collect as much wort as possible, and ended up collecting 4 gallons of 1.086 wort. Couldn't believe it. So I sparged another 2 gallons and ended up with a pre-boil gravity of 17 Brix/1.070.

11/9 - CHECK IN:
Just a quick check in while switching the large blow off tube for the regular one.  Fuzzy reading, between 16 & 17 Brix = 1.035-1.042; Not as dark as I had hoped, fruity aroma, almost OJ, high alc taste + dark fruits... this is gonna be great!

11/13 RACK TO SECONDARY:
Fermentation has slowed way down, so I decided to rack to second today.
Brix 15/1.028, almost down to my target final gravity of 1.024.  WOW, it tastes amazing.  Dark fruits are there, some sweetness, malt, and alc.  I decided to pull off 8 oz and take to the beer tasting tonight.  Can't wait for this one to be ready.  Corks & hoods are ordered, should bottle this up the first weekend in December, but I may do it next weekend, which will have given it 2 weeks in secondary, and give it close to a month in the bottle before Christmas. 

12/4 GRAVITY CHECK:
Decided to pull a small sample to check the gravity, test the sinamar coloring extract, and do a tasting.  Poured a dark amber color, definitely not as dark as I was hoping for, but pretty clear... possibly crystal clear, just couldn't tell very well with the small sample.  Wreaked of fruits... plums, raisins... so cool.  Tasted the same... with hints of sugar and alcohol warmth.  I wanted the fruits to be big in this, and they were... it will change with time, but I'd say already that I would tame that back just a bit to allow some of the other stuff to come out.  Oh yeah... gravity was Brix 14.8/1.026... so not much different from 11/13.  I was hoping for it to go down a little more... but this is pretty dang good.  Rocking out at 11.6% now :-)

12/5 BOTTLING:
Bottling went well... added 1/2 pack of champagne yeast, rehydrated and pitched in bottling bucket after priming sugar and beer was added.  In hindsight, I think I should have pitched a belgian yeast instead of the champagne yeast... but whatever, we'll see how it goes.  I managed to get 19 750mL bottles corked, as well as 5 8.5oz bottles and 5 12oz bottles capped.  My buddy Dave has made a drawing for the label, so we'll be scanning that in soon and adding the name and other text to it.  I have high hopes for this one, keeping my fingers crossed!

12/16 CARB CHECK:
Christmas is nearing, and a couple people at my work won't be in next week that I wanted to gift a bottle of this to... so I thought I better check to see how the conditioning is going.  I chilled one of the 750mL bottles for a couple of hours, unwound the hood, and ended up having to use a wine opener because the cork was so cemented in there, I was never going to get it out by hand.  Big pop, so that was a great sign, I poured out into a goblet and definitely got about a 1/4" of soft off-white head.  I'd say that's a great sign, but I'm guessing it will take another 3 weeks for it to be fully primed... but, it should be good by Christmas.  Definitely not as strong of a plum smell as before, but still present.  The head dissipated rather quickly, but its to be expected at 10 days in.  Alcohol is definitely present, but has a pretty smooth finish.  Big fruit flavor, like biting into a plum - a little over the top, but hey, it's called Sugar Plum Fairy!  That being said, I would definitely cut the Special B in half if I brew this again.  Next up... labels!

12/20 LABELS!

Dave finished up the artwork, so I picked it up, scanned it in and started putting the final touches to it.  Here is the finished label in all its glory.  Nice job Dave!  This is technically the second beer I've put a label on, but the first one was just for fun and ended up looking nice.  I kind of hacked at the size until it fit on the bottle nicely, then sprayed with Elmer's spray on glue, and slapped them on!  Not much to it really.  Everything looks as good as I had envisioned it, now I just hope the beer lives up to it!

12/27 TASTING:
While we were back in PA over the holidays, I had a few friends over to my parents to taste some of my brews.  We saved this one for last, popped it open, and it poured nicely.  Everyone dug it, and none of the stuff I was worried about (over the top plum flavor, strong alc presence) were present, so I probably wouldn't change the amount of Special B or anything else in it.  Time will tell if I should alter anything in the future.  Only thing I would have liked more was a fuller carbonation.  Chances are, it will get there soon, but until then, this has turned out nicely... and to think, I ALMOST dumped it way back when I was mashing it!  Definitely has driven the point home to never give up on a brew.

Next update will be after the VT homebrew comp in May.  Want to sponsor this beer?  :-)

And a review from Mr. Don Osborn (starts at 3:33):

2010 Chapin Cider

THE PLAN:

Cider season is here again! I went out to Chapin Orchard in Essex and collected 6 gallons of their latest crush - a mixture of McIntosh, Cortland, and Macoon. Apparently I missed the main hard cider crush, but whatever, I didn't have much time to go get it. Last year's cider that I made turned out great... but honestly, I'm not trying to wait 11 months to drink it. This year, I'm using some different yeast, which will hopefully leave it a little sweeter and less dry, and also am going to try and keg it quicker to enjoy over the winter. I *may* go back and grab another 5 gallons to do some tests on... I'd like to separate it into 5 - 1 gallon jugs and sweeten them with different ingredients: honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, and maybe either plain white sugar or some clear candi sugar if I get around to making some. In addition to hoping this new yeast will stop before it becomes too dry, I'm hoping that I won't have to add potassium sorbate to kill the yeast, so that I can bottle condition some of it. I have a few champagne bottles saved specifically for this.

10/24 CIDER PICKUP:
The family rolled out to Chapin Orchard with me to pick up this year's cider. I got 6 gallons of the crush, which consisted mostly of McIntosh, Cortland, and Macoon. When I got home, I siphoned a little over 5 gallons into a 5 gallon carboy on top of 5 crushed campden tabs, and I put a 1/2 gallon in a growler.
SG: 1.048/11.8 Brix

10/25 PITCH YEAST:
I had smacked my Wyeast Cider smackpack about 2 days prior to this, it took awhile for it to expand completely, and it actually wasn't fully expanded, but I pitched anyways. The 1/2 gallon growler I just put an airlock on and I'm going to see if it naturally ferments. Hope the Wyeast Cider bugs do a good job.

10/29 CHECK IN:
We were headed out of town for a 4 day weekend, so I thought I'd do a check in with both ciders to see how the fermentation was going.
Cider 1 (w/ wyeast cider yeast): Brix 10.8/1.041 - smelled really yeasty.
Cider 2 (natural fermentation): Brix 11.5/1.045

11/3 CHECK IN:
Looked like the cider was still fermenting, so I checked the gravity to see where it's at:
Cider 1: Brix 9.75/1.034 - still smelled really really yeasty.
Cider 2: (will check tonight, 11/4)

11/10 CHECK IN:
Cider 1: Brix 7/1.017 - smells... AWESOME!  Tastes great too... both are cider-ish.
Cider 2: (will check later)

12/4 CHECK IN & RACK TO KEG:
Cider 1: Brix 4.2/0.999 - I was kind of surprised that it got this low... certainly doesn't taste like it.  Still has a bit of a yeasty smell/taste to it, but very slight.  Will disappear with carbonation.  Gonna rack this to a keg tonight, cold crash it, and let it sit for awhile before carbing it. 
Cider 2: (will check later)

HALLOWHEAT!!!

THE PLAN:
Last Fall, we visited the Alchemist in Waterbury for dinner and some drinks. One of the great beers they had on tap was a pumpkin weizen. It was delicious! So, I vowed to try making one this Fall. I figured I'd go with a very light wheat base, use lots of pumpkin, and add some vanilla and ginger to the mix.

THE RECIPE:
6# Canadian 2 Row Pale Malt (1st use of bulk grain purchase)
6# Wheat Malt
1# Flaked Wheat
8# pie pumpkins (de-seeded, cubed, sprinkled with brown sugar, baked @ 350 for 45 minutes)
2# butternut squash
1# acorn squash
Wyeast 3068 - Bavarian Wheat
1 Vanilla bean for secondary.

10/16 BREWDAY:
First time splitting my brew into 2 days. I mashed on Friday night (with help from my buddy Ash), sparged and collected 7 gallons, threw blankets over the kettle, then boiled, cleaned, chilled, and pitched on Saturday morning. Seemed to go fine!
So this was a "fun" batch... first I had a mess dealing with my now defunct grain mill; had to have a friend bring his over (thanks Matt). I was also using a new malt for the first time, which may have contributed to some low gravity numbers... but also could have been from missing a couple mash temps.
Planned a 3 step mash:
Protein rest at 122 for 30 minutes
Sacch rest at 154 for 30 minutes (ended up about 148)
Mash out at 168 for 10 minutes (ended up about 160+/-)
Sparge at 168 (low sparge #'s)
Pre-boil gravity at 70% efficiency was supposed to be about 1.069, mine was 1.059
Second day went well... wort was at ~119F the next morning, only took about 45 minutes for it to start boiling. Simultaneously, Jen and I prepped the squash and roasted it in the over for about 45 minutes before adding it to the boil. After doing so, I boiled for an additional 45 minutes (90 total). I had added an ounce of Hallertau at 60 minutes, and left it alone after that. Whirlpooled and racked about 5.5 gallons into primary, shook for 60 seconds, then added the yeast slurry. I took great care in trying to keep the fermenting temp right at 62 the whole time. It did creep up to 66 or maybe 68... but not for long. Once I saw that, I soaked a towell in cold water and wrapped it around the carboy. It brought the temp down to 62 and stayed there the remainder of its time in primary.

10/24 - RACK TO 2ND/Vanilla Addition:
First I minced 1 vanilla bean ($0.79 @ Healthy Living) and stuck it in the freezer for awhile, then threw it in the secondary fermenter and racked 5 full gallons on top of it.
Gravity was a little hard to read, but was somewhere around 6.75 Brix/1.009. Interesting that my OG was 10 points lower than the estimate, and the FG was 10 points lower as well.
I had a taste of it... the main things that caught my attention were 1) not much pumpkin flavor at all :-S 2) I'm noticing the same type of astringent presence that was in my brown ale, and others from early this year... which I attributed to my water. I know that this was the first time I used tap water since purchasing the new water filter. I really hope it's just my imagination. That would suck.
Planning on leaving it on the vanilla bean for 5-7 days. Then I'll bottle it. Can't wait. It'll be about 2 weeks late, but oh well. I should really try to have my pumpkin ales done for the Fall (September/October). This one won't be ready until mid-November... barely in time for Thanksgiving.

11/3 CHECK IN:
This puppy's been on the vanilla for about 10 days, and is ready to be bottled, so I got everything ready to bottle and found I had less than a 1/2 cup priming sugar, so I'll need to pick more up and bottle tonight or Friday night. Gravity was at 4.75 Brix/0.997 which does not seem right. I'm going to double check it against a hydrometer reading tonight. Smelled like a wheat, no pumpkin aromas noticeable. Tasted very much like a weizen, no pumpkin, vanilla came through nicely in the finish - just the right amount. Also had a strange kind of pop rocks taste to it... almost like a seltzer or champagne... which I'm sure will go away with priming in bottles. Debating about adding some pumpkin pie spice or throwing some canned pumpkin in for an extra day or two. Really want the pumpkin flavor in there balancing with the wheat.

Water Woes, part II

So I've been battling with my brewing water again. I have been getting sick of paying $10 every time I want to brew for clean water. I've done a lot of research on water quality, filtering, getting reports, etc. It seems like the problem my tap water has is high amounts of chloramine, which is similar to chlorine, but not the same... and can't be treated the same either. I looked into a few different solutions, but the one I decided on was an under-sink carbon filter. It's like a big Brita filter that you never see. Apparently a carbon filter will filter out the chlorine taste and odor. I'd still kind of stuck with the chloramine, but I may try pre-boiling my brew water, or, I might just fill up a kettle and let it sit overnight. I guess a lot of the chloramine will evaporate.

Anyways, I looked into several different kinds, but I finally decided on one from Lowes. It was ~$35, came with a filter, it should filter up to 2000 gallons (which the box says is 6 months) and new filters are about $12. So in a year's time, I would spend about $50 (And only $25 the following year(s)), where if I was still buying spring water, and brewing once a month, I'd be spending $96, but most likely that would be higher because I generally brew twice a month, using 8 gallons each batch.

So I got it all installed, let it run through for about 5 minutes, filled a glass and it tastes pretty good, but not great. I still feel like I can taste like wet paper towel stringiness on the back of my tongue. I feel like that's the chloramine. But who knows. This will at the very least allow me to fill up my kettle the night before more easily than measuring everything out quart by quart like I did in the past. The bottom line is this... water is the largest ingredient in my homebrew, so it better taste good going in, in order for it to taste good in the end!

Kegging 101... again

In my former brewing life, I had acquired some 5 gallon corny kegs, a CO2 tank, regulator, and even purchased an old fridge on ebay for $1. Here is that kegerator, circa 2005:


I left that behind when we moved up to VT in 2007. At the time of our move, I wasn't sure if I'd be brewing again, but I kept the kegs, I found out the CO2 tank was past inspection so I gave that away, but kept the regulator, and I also kept the one faucet and shank that I had for the old fridge. Since it's been a year since my brewing resurrection last summer, I opted to get back into kegging, starting with an Oktoberfest that I brewed back in April. Well... it wasn't smooth, and here is what I've learned (again):

1) Designate some time. Kegging your beer used to mean to me that conditioning was quicker. This is not true. You can get some carbonation in your beer very fast, but it lacks quality. A week is a good place to start, but I'd plan on 2 or 3 weeks, depending on the style, to reach an optimal CO2 volume.

2) Get the proper equipment - down to the right size & length of lines. It makes a difference. A big difference. Make a check list of the following:
Kegs - make sure you know if you have a pin-locks or ball-locks.
O-rings - 5 of them per keg, and make sure you have the right rings for your keg: pin-lock vs. ball-lock
Posts - These are the two pieces you'll screw onto the keg, and what you're disconnects will attach to. There are pin-lock and ball-lock types, as well as liquid and gas types. You'll need one gas and one liquid for each keg.
*A word to the wise - it seems as though pin-lock equipment is getting hard to find... if you're just starting out and are selecting these things from scratch, I would consider going the ball-lock route.
Poppets - These are the little spring-loaded pieces inside the posts, so you should get them with the posts. Their job is to open the valve when the disconnects are attached, and keep it closed when its not.
Disconnects - Again, pin-lock or ball-lock, and also gas vs. liquid... there's a difference. This attaches the proper line to the proper post.
A link for posts, poppets, and disconnects
CO tank - Choose between 5, 10, or 20 pound tanks. The initial purchase kind of sucks, but it's fairly cheap to refill. I found a 20# tank on craigslist for ~$60, got it filled for $25, and now I'm set for awhile.
Regulator - Typically, you'll want a dual guage regulator with a shut-off valve; this regulates the amount of CO2 that goes into your beer... how it works is that you set the PSI, if fills the headspace with that precise amount, and as the beer absorbs the CO2, it lets more in.
Gas lines - Should be 5 feet of 1/4" or 5/16"... I personally use 5/16" because my regulator has a large barb ;-)
Liquid lines - depending on your set up, they should be ~5' in length, and 3/16"... some people use 1/4" too, but I don't advise it.
Taps - you can get a cheap picnic tap or get yourself set up with a faucet for a fridge. Lots to choose from. If you want the faucet, you'll also need a shank, and a tailpiece.


3) Condition at dispensing temps. Gas is more soluble in colder temps. I have my fridge set at 35 right now, but I'm thinking I'll bring it up to 40. In any case, you can use whatever temp you want, just know what it is, you'll need that number when selecting the carbing PSI (#5 below).

4) Select the volumes of CO2 that is desired. This is selected by style, here is a good chart indicating each styles range: (click on image for actual website)

5) Select the PSI to be set at. Do this by taking your temp + your volumes, and locate your PSI on this chart: (click on image for actual website)

6) Put it all together, be patient, relax, have a homebrew. Hook up your gas line to your keg, turn your CO2 tank on, set it at your selected PSI, then sit back and wait.

The Details:
So, now you have the overview, let's get into details. This involves different carbonation methods, troubleshooting, maintenance, and best practices.

Carbonation Methods:
There are really two methods, but a third one that is middle of the road.
1) Set & Forget - This is where you find your ideal PSI, (lets say 11PSI for dispensing) set it there, and let it reach an equillibrium naturally. Should take 2-3 weeks.
2) MegaBurst Carb - This uses a much higher initial pressure, let's say 30PSI, and even some gas diffusion techniques such as rocking or shaking the keg to achieve a quicker solution of the gas. If you leave this on too long, you'll over shoot your ideal CO2 volume, overcarb your beer, then you'll have to start troubleshooting.
3) Burst Carb - This is the in-between way... but really it's a burst carb done right. It's still a tricky and a little risky since you have to make an educated guess. One way is to set it at 3 x's the ideal PSI for 24 hours, then drop it down to the ideal setting, purge the headspace, and let it equalize.

Here is a helpful chart that a guy on HomebrewTalk put together: (click to go to actual page)

Troubleshooting:
Hopefully you won't encounter any problems, but if you do, here are a few troubleshooting tips that might help resolve your kegging problems.
Overcarbing - If you're beer is spitting at you, then most likely you have overcarbonated it. But that's not always the reason. The first time I had this happen, I found out that my beverage line (from the keg to the tap) was too short - at 2.5". You need the proper line resistance in order to keep the gas from breaking out of solution. Even the diameter of the line was off... I was using 1/4" line, and I ended switching to 3/16". My air line was still 5/16". So check your lines.
If you did overcarb, then you basically will need to take the air off of it, and purge the headspace a few times throughout the course of a day or so. After that, hook the line back up... you can either do 12-24 hours of high PSI then switch to regular PSI... or just set it at your ideal PSI and let it alone for a few days.

Maintenance:
more info later - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwbuqNS458c

Best Practices:
more info later - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwbuqNS458c

Pumpkin Ale

THE PLAN:
Let's make another pumpkin ale, shall we? Remember last year's?

RECIPE:
8# pie pumpkins (de-stemed, de-seeded, and cut into chunks)
2# butternut squash (same as above)
1# acorn squash (same as above)
9# US Organic Pale Malt
1# Vienna
1# Munich 10L
1/2# Crystal 60L
1/2# Flaked Wheat
1/2# Light Brown Sugar
1/4# Maple Syrup
1 oz Mt. Hood (60)
1 tsp ginger root (de-skinned and grated)(10)
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (10)
1 oz Homegrown Fuggles (0)
Wyeast 1056 - 2L starter, 30 hrs on stir plate

9/19 BREWDAY:
I'll have to add more notes, but:
1st runnings: Brix 13.5/1.055
Pre-boil: Brix 12.6/1.051
SG: Brix 14.5/1.059

9/26 CHECK IN:
Gravity: Brix 6/1.003 (??? What? Gotta be off)

10/13 BOTTLING:
Bottled 20 500mL bottles, 12 12 oz bottles, and corked 1 750mL bottle for long storage.
Gravity: Brix 6.4/1.005

10/28 TASTING:
500mL bottle, poured a deep copper color, damn near crystal clear, not a ton of carbonation, still needs a little time, even after 2 weeks in the bottle. Smelled of squash, ginger, and alcohol. Uh oh. Tasted of the same elements. Tasted very high in alcohol. Gravity suggests this is about 7%, seems to be higher. Ginger and squash are over the top. Too much of each. I'll need to go back and check how much ginger I used last year, because it shouldn't be that different from last year. My recipe for this year says 1 tsp, but I think I put in 1 oz. Hhmmm. Hoping that these flavors will mellow with some time. Same with the alcohol. Will check back later in a month or so.

Nittany Amber Ale

THE PLAN:
Last year an old fraternity brother and fellow homebrewer alerted me that Midwest Brewing Supplies had a stash of Nittany Ale bottles, which came from a now defunct brewery in Philly called Independence Brewing.  Having lived in State College PA for 12 years, going to Penn State, and pretty much growing up on it, this was a no-brainer.  I ordered 2 cases, and had hoped to brew something for football season. I also have been having a desire to try and brew a nice balanced amber ale, so I thought the two would go well together and here we are...

I had the opportunity to steward our local homebrew competition in May, and the first category I helped with was American Ale, which includes American Pale, Amber, and Brown ales. I've never really thought about amber ales too much, but they are awesome. They're a great balance between hopiness and sweet maltiness. It's an overlooked style, not too many commercial examples, although they are often referred to as a red ale, which I feel like don't have the hops that amber does. My recipe is based off of Jamil's brewing classic styles recipe, with a few changes due to availability at my local homebrew shop.

RECIPE:
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.63%
IBU: 33.46
SRM: 14.6
9.25# US Organic 2 Row Pale Malt
1.00# Munich (10L)
0.75# Crystal 60L
0.25# Crystal 90L
0.25# Special B (150L) (in place of a 120L Crystal)
0.5# Victory
0.5 oz Columbus (60)
1 tsp Irish Moss (15)
0.5 oz Cascade (10)
0.5 oz Centennial (10)
0.5 oz Cascade (flame out)
0.5 oz Centennial (flame out)
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
Mash: Single infusion, target strike temp - 154/156, 60 min mash
Boil: 60 min

8/22 BREWDAY:
Tried to start around 8AM, but had a lot of problems getting my initial strike water at the right temp (heated too high, then let go too low, then reheated, then too low when added to heated mash tun, etc)... so I finally doughed in about 10AM. My initial temperature was also low, about 148, and I really wanted to get up around 154 or 156. I added 3 qts boiling water, which only brought it up to about 151, then added 5 qts boiling which raised to 158, so I added 1 qt room temp water and we settled at 156. This all happened over the span of 30 minutes, so each addition was a mini-step. The first was 15 minutes in, so I'm sure a lot of conversions had already happened before it raised to 151, then another 10 minutes went by, and finally sat on 156 for 30 minutes.

I collected 4.25 gallons of first runnings, BRIX - 14.75/1.060. I added 3 gallons of 182F sparge water, and surprising the temp only got up to 158... which was 10 degrees off of where I wanted to be. Next time - 190F at least. I let that sit for a few minutes, then collected a total of 6.25 gallons. Pre-boil BRIX - 13/1.053. Target was 1.050, so I hit it.

Boiled for 60, added 1/2 oz. Columbus at 60, 1/2 oz. Centennial & 1/2 oz. Cascade @ 10, Irish moss @ 5 (should have been 15, but forgot, almost forgot completely), and then 1/2 oz. Centennial & 1/2 oz. Cascade @ flame out.

I whirl-pooled the wort before starting to chill, and I will absolutely do this every time now, it really worked well. I've never had such clear wort come out of my boil kettle. Only a little hop gunk at the beginng (which went into a separate pan) and some at the end. Ended with 4.75 gallons... not as much as I was hoping, but oh well, close enough.

I never had time to make a yeast starter, and embarrassingly enough, I had my Wyeast 1056 packet popped and expanded for almost a week... which is way too long. I figured it was contained and we'll just see how it works. I chilled the wort to 70, shook the carboy for 1 minute, then added the 1056. I checked this morning (8/23), only 12 hours after pitching and there was activity going already. Sweet.

Hoping to transfer this quickly, and get it bottled by Friday or Saturday of this week... more later...

9/1 GRAVITY CHECK - TRANSFER TO 2ND:
The goal was for this beer to be ready for Barrett's b-day party & Penn State game against Alabama (September 11). I know I need a week to 10 days to let it condition in the bottles, so today is the day. Gravity checked in at 7.4 Brix/1.013... that's 1 point below the estimate. Perfect. Aroma was mildly hoppy, a little malt... taste was wicked bitter! But that subsided and a nice smooth malt flavor finished... nothing too sweet either which was a concern of mine. The only issue is clarity. This is a very muddy beer. I could possibly run it through a filter before I bottle... but that might be too complicated. If clarity ends up being the only issue, that's fine by me. This is definitely tastey!

Jen helped me bottle these babies... got about 44 Nittany Ale bottles filled, and 3 regular brownies in case I submit to any homebrew comps, so 47 in all. Not bad considering I only racked about 4.75 gallons. And now we wait...

11/27 TASTING:
Time has gotten away from me... lots of stuff happening in the Fall, so this is the first I've had time to post my thoughts.  I am very pleased with this.  Classic amber ale, crystal clear, balanced hop aroma and bitterness with malt flavor and sweetness.  I have a few bottles of this left and I'll savor every one of them.  This has definitely made its way into my annual line up.  On this day (11/27) we played our last game of the season and I watched Michigan State clean up on us.  I took the pic above too.

Next update will be after the VT homebrew comp in May.  Want to sponsor this beer?  :-)

2010 Hop Harvest, year 4

Year four of my homegrown hops is just about over. I've been working on getting my hops harvested this week, probably should have done it at the beginning of August, but, this was the first chance I was able to. Even still, I've doubled everything that I harvested last year.

2010 Hop Harvest #'s
Tettnang: Wet - 19.25 oz.; Dry - 4.5 oz. (77%)
Fuggles: Wet - 13.0 oz.; Dry - 3.25 oz. (75%)
Saaz: Wet - 4.5 oz.; Dry - (1.25?)

Compared to 2009:
Tettnang: Wet - 9.0 oz.; Dry - 2.125 oz.
Fuggles: Wet - 5.125 oz.; Dry - 1 .25 oz.
Saaz: Wet - 2.5 oz.; Dry - 5/8 oz.

I did grow the same hops in 2007 & 2008, but since I wasn't brewing much at all then, I did not keep track of my numbers. I had big plans to expand my "hop yard" to include four new varieties: Chinook, Mt. Hood, Hallertau, and Goldings. I had them in planters, never got a new trellis set up, so they never got in the ground and eventually ended up in the compost pile. One big thing plaguing my plans is whether we are staying at our current location or moving. We have been looking to buy a house since March so that has postponed all permanent projects. Hopefully I'll know before the ground freezes, I'd like to get my current hop plants out of the ground and into their new spot so they can rock out in the spring, and be able to get my trellis set up and set (cement in the ground before it freezes). We shall see!

Heather Ale

The Plan:
Not sure where I heard about Heather Ale's first - Sacred & Herbal Healing Beers, or through my wife's Scottish roots. Either way, I stumbled on Fraoch last fall and really dug it. Was going to brew one last year, but for some reason decided to wait and brew one at the end of this summer to have for the fall... and for the Quechee Scottish Festival! The biggest issue with this beer is sourcing the heather. The Fraoch recipe calls for 1.25# of heather blossoms. I only have access to dried heather tips. I know that the blossoms would probably taste a heck of a lot better... but I decided to go with the dried ones for now until I can source some fresh ones.


Check out this YouTube video about the brewing process of Fraoch:




THE RECIPE:
10# UK Pale Malt
1# Crystal 60L
1# Biscuit
1/2 oz Cascade (6%)(90)
1/2 oz EKG (15)
8 oz Dried Heather Tips
1 oz Sweet Gale
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale


8/1 BREWDAY:
Mash - 15 qts @ 153F for 90 min.
(No mashout) Collected
Sparge -
Collected
Pre-boil gravity: Brix 13/1.053
Boil: 90 minutes, with the following additions:
@90 - 4 oz. heather, 1 oz. sweet gale, 1/2 oz. Cascade
@15 - 1oz. heather, 1/2 oz. EKg, 1 tsp Irish moss
@5 - 1 oz. heather
@flameout - steep 1 -oz. heather for 1 hr.
Collected 5.0 gallons
SG = 14.2/1.057

8/22 BOTTLING:
FG: 7/1.010
I was in a bit of a rush to get these ready for the Quechee festival... I really should have transferred this to secondary and let it rest for another week... and I really should have had some more conditioning time under it's belt because it wasn't ready on the 28th like I had hoped.
With some help from Jen, we bottled 24 22 oz bottles and 14 12 oz. bottles.

Rhubarb Berliner Weisse

The Plan:
Earlier this year, I started getting more into sour ales. Not completely, but a bit here and there. I think it started with Magic Hat's Odd Notion this past winter. Long story short, I was thinking about brewing a sour ale when I met Amy, a friend and relative of one of my wife's co-workers. She's into beers and brewing and actually works at Magic Hat now. She had an idea to pair rhubarb with a sour ale given its tartness. I liked the idea, and when I started researching to see what a good style would be, I thought something sweet might be best. Almost right away, I landed on a Berliner Weisse, and of course when I punched in "Rhubarb Berliner Weisse", I found a few people had already come up with this pairing, go figure. Oh well, we'll give it a shot anyways!

Amy had access to a bunch of rhubarb so she grabbed a few pounds and froze it. I did some research on the best way to brew a berliner, and came up with a few options: decoction, single infusion, sour mash, no boil, short boil, full boil, lactobacillus + US-05, wyeast berliner blend, add lactic acid at end, etc. Lots of ways to do this. I decided I didn't want to mess with a sour mash because I didn't want to contaminate my cooler with any little buggers. I kind of liked the idea of just using the Wyeast blend eventhough a bunch of people said the '08 version didn't give enough tartness. I'm hoping that the 2010 version has corrected that, so I'll put my trust in them. I pretty much based my recipe off of Jamil's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles, and would just add some rhubarb to secondary when the time comes.

THE RECIPE:
5 Gallon batch
OG: 1.032
FG:
ABV:
IBU: 7
SRM:
4# German Pils
4# German Wheat
1 oz. Hallertau
3# Rhubarb, cut into 1/4" chunks and frozen, to be added in secondary
Wyeast 3191 - Berliner Blend (Private Collection)

7/23 BREWDAY:
This was a pretty busy day. Dave came over and so did Amy. We started the day off with bottling the saison into a bunch of 750 mL Belgian beer bottles, corking them, and winding down a wire basket on top. While we were doing that, I started heating the strike water.
Mash:
Single Infusion, mash @ 149/150 for 90 minutes
Strike - 10 qts @ 164
After 60 minutes, temp had slipped to about 146, added 3 qts 180F to raise up to 149.
After 90, collected 2 gallons, first runnings Brix 14/1.057
Sparge w/ ~4 gallons @ 168, pre-boil gravity - 8/1.032
Boiled for 15 minutes, added the Hallertau right at the beginning of the boil.
Chilled, took temp readings every minute... got to 69.9 in 31 minutes.
Did not make a yeast starter this time, figured the Activator pack for this low of gravity would be enough. Pitched about midnight.
Checked @ 10AM the next day, absolutely flat.
Checked @ 6PM, clean white froth forming.
Checked @ 11PM, comletely blew out of blow tube... so it's working :-)

More later...

4/27 RACKED TO A QUICK 2ND:
Wow, it's been a long time since I brewed this.  Just over 9 months now.  I finally had a taste of a real Berliner (1809) and was happy to see a lot of similarities.  The main areas that were different were color - the 1809 was a shade darker; and tartness - again the 1809 was a little more tart.  I went through a lot of scrambling to try and doctor mine up a bit using lactic acid.  I also still had the idea of making rhubarb syrup to include with the bottles for the homebrew competition, but was told at length why logisitically it wouldn't work.  So in the end, I decided to go back to the original idea of the Rhubarb Berliner.  I thawed out the rhubarb I had int he freezer, compressed and collected all the juice.  I sanitized a keg, threw the juice in, then racked the beer on top.  This is only going to stay in here for a day or so, really not a lot of time to infuse, but it's got to be bottled and submitted to the homebrew comp by Friday.  Gulp.  The beer itself, with the rhubarb, is almost perfect now.  The tartness of the rhubarb has helped out with that aspect greatly.  The one thing that I'm worried about now is carbonation.  I'm assuming that 9 months has dropped out all of the viable yeast.  I'll have to do some more research before I bottle, knowing whether to add some additional yeast or not.

A review from Mr. Don Osborn:

Cranberry Oak Bark Tripel

THE PLAN:
Last year I tried something crazy... I brewed a 1 gallon experimental batch of an oak bark ale, based off of a recipe in Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. I liked how it turned out for the most part... with some minor adjustments, I think I could make a really killer 2nd version of it, all grain and 5 gallons this time. I decided that the base beer I'd use was a Belgian Specialty Ale or maybe a Belgian Tripel... very close styles. I used some cranberries in it last time to balance out the dry oaky taste, and I plan to use them again. With the oak, I thought I'd use some oak cubes in the secondary to add a little more oak flavor to the mix. So here we go...

THE RECIPE:
15# Belgian Pilsner
3/4# Caravienne
1/4# Aromatic Malt
2# Table Sugar
1 oz Fuggles (60)
1/2 oz Willamette (15)
1/2 oz Fuggles (10)
24 oz Craisins
24 oz Fresh Cranberries
Lightly Toasted Oak Chips (not sure how much I'm adding)

7/10 BREWDAY:
Brewday was mayhem. I nailed my strike temp, and it stayed exactly where it was supposed to be for the full 90 minutes. BUT, somehow my gravity was way way lower than what was projected, even at 65% efficiency. I was freaking out a bit. But, I chilled, collected 7 gallons of wort and decided to do a 2 hour boil, plus I still had 2#'s of table sugar to add.  Pre-boil gravity was 1.044, after 2 hr boil and addition of 2#s of sugar, SG was 1.082

7/23 RACKED TO 2ND:
Time to get this puppy on the oak & cranberries. I added 24 oz. of craisins, 24 oz. of fresh crushed cranberries, and about an ounce of light toast french oak chips to the bottom of a freshly sanitized carboy, then racked the tripel on top. Planning on keeping it on here for about a week. Gravity check before adding it on top of the cranberries was 8/1.002... whoa!

7/31 GRAVITY CHECK: Rose to 10/1.015, so the cranberries did add some sugar!

8/1 RACKED TO 3RD:
Another gravity check shows that it went down to 9.6/1.012, racked it off of the cranberries and oak. This tastes amazing! Still a little sweeter than I wanted, but has a nice warming dry finish. Can't wait for Thanksgiving!

8/7 GRAVITY CHECK: Down to 9.2/1.010

8/22 GRAVITY CHECK: Down even further now - 8.2/1.003
Planning on bottling soon, going to do the 750mL belgian corked bottles like I did for the saison. And then we'll keep our mitts off of these until Thanksgiving!

9/19 BOTTLING:
Was brewing my pumpkin ale today and had some time to bottle this batch.  I tried to used as many Belgian 750mL bottles as possible, and a few 12 oz.

11/10 TASTING:
Did a thai dinner tonight with Dave & Megan and decided to pop one of these open to see how it's coming along.  TRAGEDY... it appears that they're not carbonated at all.  :-(  Did something happen or did I pull a major faux pas and forget to add priming sugar before I bottled :-S  Oh god, say it ain't so. 

11/11 RE-TASTING:
Tried another bottle, this one was a 12 oz capped bottle - same result... nothing at all.  BARNACLES!!!  I'm going to test one more and see if it produces the same results.  If it does, then I'm going to have to do one of two things: 1) open every bottle up, throw some carb tabs in, then recap/recork and wait another couple of weeks.  2) open every bottle up, mix up some priming sugar, and distribute between all of them OR pour them all back into the racking bucket and re-rack to bottle, cap/cork, and wait a couple of weeks.  I would just choose the former of the two options, but I've experienced some problems recently with the carb tabs I have.  I carb tabbed some Oktoberfests and Brown Rice Lagers and they came out flat and had chunks of the tabs floating around.  Then there's the question of adding more yeast.  Oh, and there's the added bonus of not having enough corks and hoods to re-cork this batch.  I'll have to either drive an hour to Plainfield to buy more, or order some online.  Did I mention how much this sucks?

Saison de la Dolan ;-)

THE PLAN:
The gameplan for this one was top secret for awhile... our friends Rob & Kristina were getting married in August, and had asked my good friend Dave to cater the wedding. He came to me with the idea of brewing a beer for the wedding, not for the whole wedding, but for the bride, groom, wedding party, and cooks. Additionally, I suggested we cook with the beer too. He went through his projected menu and I thought the best style for the event & menu & time of year would be a traditional french/belgian saison. I also thought it would be a great chance to try corking some 750mL belgian beer bottles too. The biggest obstacle I knew we were facing was time. That style is known for a tricky yeast that usually take 4-6 weeks to finish fermenting, and needs super high temperatures too. I also knew that we would need 2-4 weeks of conditioning time for those bottles to carbonate properly. Well, to my great pleasure, everything turned out great.

THE RECIPE:
9# Belgian Pilsner 2 Row Malt
2# Vienna Malt
1# German Wheat Malt
1# Rye Malt
1/2# Flaked Wheat
1/2# Flaked Oats
1/2# Light Brown Sugar (wasn't planned, added it on a whim)
1/2# White Sugar (whim again)
1 oz. Perle (60 minutes)
1 oz. Styrian (10 minutes)
1 oz Styrian (5 minutes)
1/4 oz fresh grated ginger
1/8 tsp paradise seeds
Wyeast 3724 - Belgian Saison (1 L starter for 12 hours on stir plate)

6/11 BREWDAY:
Planned a low & slow mash for this one... 90 minutes @ 148-150F. 90 Boil as well.
17.5 qts @ 162F --> doughed in, temp adjusted to between 146 & 150. Covered up and checked at 3 x 30minutes intervals, temp was right on the money the whole time... I love this mash tun (48 qt. igloo cooler).
Tried to mashout with 11 qts of 200F water... temp only raised to about 165F. Let go for 10 minutes, then started sparging with 1/2 gallon of 180F water... didn't raise the bed temp up at all... and it all pretty much got absorbed. Collected about 5.5 - 6 gallons, Brix @ 12/1.048... target was 1.054. Sparged another gallon, collected 1/2 gallon to get 6.5 total gallons.
Added 1/2# light brown sugar and 1/2# white sugar to raise gravity. Brix now @ 14/1.057.
Boiled for 90 minutes, with hop & spice additions.
Cooled with IWC, Brix @ 18.25/1.075, target was originally 1.065. I went back and added the sugar into the program and now it gave me SG as 1.074, so still right on the money.
Cooled to 75, pitched yeast slurry, put to bed, and cleaned up.

I'm planning on fermenting this one out for about a month, in an upper bedroom where the temps get nice and toasty - usually in the 80's during the day, and stays in the 70's at night. It's not constant, but it's the best I can do for now.

7/10 GRAVITY CHECK:
It's been a month, so I thought I'd check in to see where the gravity is. 13 Brix/1.039... damn. This really didn't get far. After some discussions on the BA Homebrew board, I decided to put this puppy out in the garage for another week of hot and steamy temps that will hopefully kick it back in enough to finish it off. I also sanitized my hands and shook the carboy for a couple minutes to get the yeast stirred up. The people on the boards said give it another 2 weeks... but I'm running out of time, so we'll see.

7/16 GRAVITY CHECK:
10.5/1.022 - Still not where I want it, but getting closer. I have to source some corks and hoods for the 750mL bottles I plan to use, so I'll let it go a little longer.

7/20 GRAVITY CHECK:
10/1.019... it might be under 10 a bit... but it's getting close now. I think the estimated FG was supposed to be around 1.016, so if it dropped 3 points in 4 days, then hopefully it will finish off by Friday (the 23rd), and if not, I really need to bottle these to have them ready in time for what their original purpose was - a wedding gift!

7/21 CORK CHECK:
I had decided that I wanted to bottle this batch in 750mL Belgian Beer bottles that would also need to be corked. With some quick research, I saw that a bag of 30 corks was about $8, wire hoods to tie down the corks were about $15 per 60, and I would need a floor corker in order to make this happen. Shit. That's about $25 extra bucks plus I'd have to find a floor corker. It was a little unreasonable to try and buy a floor corker just for this batch... they run anywhere between $75 & $150. I did some searching and was able to borrow an Italian floor corker from a guy in the Green Mountain Mashers. There was still a little finagling on how to position the corker right so that only half of the cork got inserted. Ended up just putting the metal disc to the bottom of the bolt, then adding a #6.5 holed-stopper on the end. It took about 6 tries to get the depth correct though. I also ended up driving out to Plainsfield to visit Local Potion, since they had the right type of corks and VT Homebrew did not. While I was there, I also discovered they had some used Portuguese floor corkers from a local winery that they were selling for $20. The Portuguese corkers are a little smaller than the Italian ones, and seem like they are really only for wine bottles/corks. We tested a few with no luck, but I still got it hoping I could make it work somehow. Turns out, after about an hour of hankering, the hole that's between the cork and the bottle is sized for a wine cork. It looks like I could drill a larger hole, enabling it to work for the bigger belgian corks. But, for this batch, I'll use the larger Italian floor corker and mess with the other one later... or trade it back in towards an Italian corker they have there as well.

7/23 CORKING:
Even with all the trials and tribulations with the corkers, the actual corking process went fast & smooth. I had Dave helping fill the bottles, I would put the corks in, and our friend Amy was putting the wire baskets or hoods on. We got about 19 bottles corked, they looked awesome! So now we wait.

8/6 FIRST TASTE:
The wedding is tomorrow, so I decided to bust one out and see what it was like. I had it chilling in the fridge for about 4 or 5 hours. It poured beautifully! And the taste was spot on! Doin the happy dance :-)

8/7 THE WEDDING:
I was excited to give this to the happy couple, and what a day it was. Perfect weather, amazingly beautiful scenery overlooking Lake Champlain on the historic Shelburne Farms Brickhouse. Dave decided to use the beer with the mussels, and I opened a few bottles for the bride & groom. They loved it! I stashed one away for them to open on their anniversary next year, it will be exquisite.

Nit Wit

THE PLAN:
One of my favorite beers is Victory Whirlwind, a PA brewed Belgian Witbier. I made a pretty damn good wit last summer as an extract batch, and so this year I was going to do the same thing, but decided to go all grain at the last minute. Why not?

THE RECIPE:
6# Belgian Pils
4# Weyerman Ligth Wheat Malt
1# Flaked Wheat
1 oz. Hallertau
1/2 oz. Saaz (homegrown)
1 oz Sweet Orange Peel
1 oz. Bitter Orange Peel
Zest of 1 Orange
Wyeast 3944 - Belgian Witbier, 1L starter on stir plate for ~ 36 hours.

5/16 BREWDAY:
Decided to do a double infusion mash schedule...
9.9 qts @ 132F --> 120-122 for 30 min.
8.8 qts @ 198F --> 152-154 for 30 min.
7.7 qts @ 206F --> 168F for 10 min.
Sparge w/ 1.38 gal. @ 205F --> 168F
Collected 6.5 gallons
First runnings - 11/1.044
Pre-boil - 10/1.040
Boil - 60 min, hops @ 60 (Hallertau), 10 (Saaz), orange peels @ 10
Post boil/OG - 12/1.048

6/9 PRIMARY to BOTTLE
Happy 9 months Bear! Well, Brix is down to 6/1.010 which actually exceeded my estimate by about 3 points. Nice! Smell and taste were right on, color was maybe a smidge darker than Whilrwind, but, man this will be good! Can't wait!

6/22 FIRST TASTING
I had the supreme pleasure of first trying this beer with the one and only Don Osborn when I went out to MN for a work conference. Don was gracious enough to invite me over for some homebrews, and I brought with me a few VT beers as well as some homebrews, this being one. I was a little worried that it hadn't carbonated much since I had only bottled it 6 days prior, but it poured fine, even though the head dissipated pretty quickly. It was pretty good, sweet, light, a little tang from the orange peel... still not quite where I wanted it, but will be able to tell better when I sample it with a Whirlwind and my last bottle from the one I brewed last summer.

Way back Archive

I was re-organizing my brew book (a binder full of recipes), and I found a bunch of stuff from when I started brewing. These are some recipes I tried the first time around, 2001-2008:

2001:
2/01 - IPA (kit)
7/10/01 - Wood's Edge Berry Wheat (ended up like a framboise, but w/o the belgian funk)
9/9/01 - Whirlwind clone
9/16/01 - Blueberry Ale
9/23/01 - IPA
9/30/01 - Granny Smith Cider

2002:
2/23/02 - IPA (AG)

2003:
10/5/03 - Phil & Brian's Cider
10/5/03 - Boo Berry Ale
10/17/03 - IPA (AG)

2007:
4/29/07 - Weirdo Witbier (had choc & crystal malts in it)
4/29/07 - VT Maple Cider

2008:
4/20/08 - VT Maple Cider
4/23/08 - Whirlwind clone
8/18/08 - Pumpkin Brown

I really didn't have that great of a handle on what I was doing back then. I also complicated things by jumping into all grain too soon. A lot of these batches ended in frustration, and so it was hard to keep moving forward. I worked/volunteered part time at a homebrew shop, my pay was ingredients, pretty good trade off. Another thing that I see now is that my setup had a lot of problems, and I didn't have that many resources available as I do today. But I'm glad I started then and kept my gear. Now the timing is right for me to start up again, and I'm enjoying it.

Dandelion EXPs

THE PLAN:
One brewing goal I had this year was to make use of my yard full of dandelions that pop up in late April/early May. I've heard good things about dandelion wine... and I have two books that have some dandelion beer recipes in them. So, I think I'll bust out my gallon experimental jugs (5 of them), and do some experiments with these dandelions.

1 gallon dandelion wine, based off of Don Osborn's recipes.
1 gallon dandelion beer, based off of the same Don Osborn recipe, but just making a few adjustments to make it a beer.
1 gallon dandelion bitter, from the Homebrewer's Garden book
1 gallon dandelion bitter, based off of the above recipe, but doing a clone of Luna Sea ESB from Empyrean Ales.
1 gallon dandelion beer, from the Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers book. There are actually 3 recipes in that book, but they're all pretty much the same, so I'm combining them all.

Dandelion Wine

4/25 - picked about 800 dandelion flowers, still only picked about a qt. Had to go to a house-hunting meeting, so I decided to freeze... they actually took to freezing pretty well.

4/30 - My buddy Dave and I picked another 600... and it seemed like double the amount that I picked on Sunday. Waited until later at night... but put all of the dandelions (both fresh & frozen) into a pot, added 5 qts water and boiled for 12 minutes. Cooled til morning, but allowing to sit for about 48 hours to let the flower flavor & aroma soak in.

5/2 - Strained boiled flower mixture, added zest of 1 lemon and 2 oranges, and 1 tsp of yeast nutrient. Boiled for 10 minutes, added juice of lemon & oranges and kept boiling for another 2 minutes. At the end of boil, removed from burner and added 2.5# of sugar, allowed to dissolve then gave an ice bath. Brix = 21.2/1.088, I was shooting for over 1.1, but this'll do I suppose ;-)
I took a packet of Red Star Cote de Blanc and rehydrated in 105F water, pitched when the yeast mixture equalized in temp with the water... which happened to be about 85/86F. I actually poured the mixture through a strainer into a 2 gallon bucket, then added the yeast.


5/5 BEERS (BITTER & "ALE"):
I started by weeding out the garden of all dandelion plants, weighed it, got about a 1/2#... need a full #, so I walked around yard and tried to find some good volunteers. Jen helped wash off the dandelions until all the dirt and muck were off, stripped the fibrous roots off, and plucked any white flowers.
Bitter OG - 18/1.074
Ale OG - 13.5/1.055


5/15 RACKED ALL TO 2ND's:
These are some crazy elixirs! Very interesting to say the least. I'll be anxious to see if any of these are even drinkable when complete. The wine is most promising, although it looks more like orange juice right now than anything. It was spritzing like it was already carbonated. Pretty smooth taste, aside from the tang of the zest in it. The wine yeast was apparent, not overwhelming though. The ale was pretty blah... and it looked more like lemonade than beer! The bitter was also kind of questionably blah. Nonetheless, I took some readings, racked them over... added a pound of golden raisins to the wine, capped with an airlock and no we wait a little longer. I'll probably try to bottle the beers in a week or two.
Wine - 6.5/0.989
Bitter - 9.5/1.016
Ale - 4.5/0.997

Ecktoberfest

THE PLAN:
I had a goal this year to brew an Octoberfest for our Halloween party this fall... I probably should have brewed it in March if I were going to stay true to the style, but oh well... next year. So, I got together with my friends Ernie Kelly and Dave Magnanelli to brew this bitch up. I based the recipe off of one made by Don Osborn called Better Late Than Never Oktoberfest... I just rounded up the grain bill since my efficiency is still pretty low (60%?), and I used Wyeast 2633 Octoberfest Activator pack (2L starter + 36 hrs on a stir plate) rather than the Bavarian Lager strain. Ernie schooled me on a double infusion & fly sparging... up til this point I have just been doing batch sparging.

THE RECIPE:
5# 2 Row Pils (Ger)
4# Munich (Dark)
3# Vienna
1# CaraMunich
1 oz Hallertau (60)
1 0z Hallertau (30)
1 oz Tettnang (homegrown) (10)
Wyeast 2633 - Octoberfest Lager Blend

4/16 YEAST SLURRY:
Used a big Activator 2633 Octoberfest yeast pack from Wyeast... 2L starter. OG was around 1035-1040. Stir plate til brewday.

4/18 BREW DAY:
Double Infusion Mash, engineered by Ernie
11.7 qts @ 140F --> 125F for 20 min.
0.3 qts @ 205F --> 140F for 20 min.
10.4 qts @ 198F --> 155F for 20 min.
Sparge - 1 gal @ 188F --> 168F
First runnings - 13/1.053
Pre-boil gravity - 9/1.036
Boil - 60 minutes, hops at 60 (Hallertau), 30 (Hallertau), and 10(Tettnang)
Post-boil/OG - 11.5/1.046

5/16 RACKED TO KEG FOR LAGERING:
While brewing my wit, I cleaned and sanitized another one of my ancient kegs to lager the oktoberfest in. Brix reading = 5.5/1.008... whoa! Nice!

Took pic at left. The OG was a little low to begin with, so this is actually right on the mark. Color was very orange, almost like a pumpkin, kinda wishing it was more red than orange. Very cloudy, I could see sediment whirling around in it, hopefully that will all clear out. Taste was very nice, smooth, very balanced, no astringencies or anything.... this will be good, can't wait til October!

Funky Monkey

The Plan: I've got an idea. In "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers", I read a recipe for a banana beer. Seemed interesting, but not enough that I would act on it. Recently I had Well's Banana Bread Beer, and holy shit was it tasty! Additionally, on the Beer Advocate Homebrew forum, someone was asking about making a Spongebob Ale. A lot of people were pointing towards some sort of a pineapple beer, or using Citra hops which give a bit of a pineapple taste and aroma. So, I've decided to whip all of this stuff together and make a German style Hefeweizen with bananas, some hefe yeast to add to the banana flavor, citrus hops to give a little bit of pineapple flavor and aroma, throw in some sweet & bitter orange peel (which I use in my Wit), and top if off with a slice of orange when served. Let's brew!

Recipe:
OG: 1051
FG: 1009
ABV: 5.47%
IBU: 16.8
SRM: 4.2
5# Pale 2 Row
5# Malted Wheat
3/4# Pilsner 2 Row
3/4# Flaked Wheat
1/2# rice hulls
1oz Hallertau (4%) (60 min boil)
1oz Citra (11%) (flame out aroma)
1oz sweet orange peel (10 min to go)
1oz bitter orange peel (10 min to go)
4# banana (pre-peeled) for primary
2# banana (pre-peeled) for secondary
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephaner

3/28 BREWDAY:
Poland Spring Water this time... 5.3 pH
Mash water: 3.6 gallons/14 qts @ 165, target temp of 152 for 60 minutes
No mash out
Sparge water: 5 gallons/? @ 178
Hitting my strike temp is tough. I threw my mash water in the cooler @ 165. Left it in the cooler for about 5 minutes, and it dipped down to 160. I doughed in, and it sunk to 145 in most parts, 150 in high parts. I took out 2 qts, boiled, added back in and everything was around 150. Took another 2 qts out, boiled, added back in and hit about 152. Mashed for 60 minutes.
First runnings -
Second runnings -
Total gravity - - booooo
Boiled for 60 minutes, added 1 oz. Hallertauer pellets at the start of the boil, added 1 oz. sweet and 1 oz. bitter orange peels with 10 minutes left in the boil, added 1 oz. of Citra whole hops at flame out.
During boil, I weighed out 4pounds of bananas, peeled them, sliced them, and added to the primary. Once wort was cooled, I filtered it on top of the bananas, gave it a good shake, and pitched the yeast starter. And off we go!

4/2 RACK TO SECONDARY:
The initial fermentation slowed down Thursday night into Friday, so I decided not to wait too long and get the beer off of the first dose of bananas. I weighed out 2 pounds of bananas, peeled, sliced, and chucked into the secondary, and then racked the beer onto the bananas. The gravity was at 5.5 Brix/1.009... whoa! Not bad :-) I also probably won't keep this going too long, hoping to bottle it soon too.

4/11 BOTTLED:
Racked to bottles - 4.5 Gallons = 24 500mL bottles and 11 12oz. bottles. Brix was 5.5 still. Taste was a little funky... hardly any banana flavor at all which I can't seem to understand, had kind of a bite to it like cider, and it had alcohol warmth which seems a little strange if this is only about 5.5%ABV. Oh well, they're bottled so the time is near... 2 weeks hopefully!

4/18 TASTING: Ernie and Dave came over to brew an Octoberfest, while we were wrapping up, I decided to try one of these even though it had only been in bottle for a week. It carbonated just fine, and we all liked it. Ernie asked if I had submitted it to the homebrew comp (deadline to submit was the day before), and I said no. He said "too bad", which coming from a certified beer judge, I'll take that as a nice compliment. I think the hops were a good idea but I wouldn't use them next time, or I'd at least cut back on them. It definitely masks the hefe & banana flavors.

4/23: (took above pic) Took 6 bottles in to work to pass out... ended up only passing one out and bringing the rest home. I knew this would go fast and I wanted to salvage as many of the bottles as I could. This is definitely turning out nice, still wishing I hadn't hopped it that much, but the banana aroma is much better now. Very very tasty!

5/7: Took a bottle over to my buddy's for a beer tasting. The banana aroma was awesome. Everyone seemed to like it. I am definitely very happy with how this one turned out. I'd chalk it up to the best all grain batch I've brewed yet, and probably one of the top 3 that I've made ever (pumpkin ale & wit being the top 2). I think the hops are important to have in there to some degree, they definitely balance out the bananas. I just need to cut back the amount next time.

Water Woes

Damn damn double damn... I've screwed myself.

Last summer & fall, I used spring water for all of my homebrews. Then I started boiling 7 or 8 gallons of tap water the night before, and letting it sit overnight to cool. Both of these worked well... the spring water beers definitely were the best of all of them, that could just be coincidence, or it could be factual.

Recently I started all grain brewing... and for some lazy-ass reason, I used tap water. I've now noticed that my chocolate stout, dunkelweizen, AND brown ale all have the same bitter taste to them. Unfortunately, the last batch I did, the brown rice lager, also used tap water. Well... never again. I'm either going back to boiling it the night before or just ponying up the $ to buy spring water each time.

Having the right water really does make an enormous difference... go figure, your beer is mostly water in the end, so it really should be one of the most important ingredients.

Brown Rice Lager

The Plan:
Had an interesting beer at Magic Hat over the summer... a brown rice lager, based after a Budweiser clone, using brown rice instead of regular white rice. Doing some research I soon realized this is all based off of a Japanese lager style. I had some trouble locating a clone recipe for Budweiser, surprise surprise... and found plenty of good jokes about brewing Bud. But in the end, I based my recipe partially off of Kirin (pic @ right), partially a guess at Budweiser, partially off of a plain rice beer I found, and also ended up getting the Magic Hat grain list after I got all the ingredients, so I went and got more. I figured this would be a great beer to server at one of our sushi nights (hopefully to start again soon!)

Recipe:
7.5# Weyerman 6-Row
2.5# Muntons 2-Row
1# Rye Malt
1/2# Rice hauls
1/4# Crystal 40L
4# Brown Rice
1oz Saaz (60)
1oz Saaz (5)
Wyeast California Lager 2112 (Activator, 2L starter)

3/4 Yeast Starter:
2L water, 2 cups DME, 1 tsp yeast nutrient. Boiled for 10 minutes, yeast pitched, covered w/ foil, put on stir plate. Took off stir plate Friday night (3/5), put in fridge, decanted this morning, let out at room temp ready to pitch.

3/6 BREWDAY:
Wanted to try and get some stuff done today, so I got up at 7 to try and get started early. Rice was boiling by 7:45. Beersmith called for 19.79 qts of mash water, that seemed like a lot, so I used 4.79 of those in with the rice, then the other 15 I heated up separately for mash in. Rice needs to boil for an hour, mash water needs to be about 167.
Ended up adding 2 or 3 additional quarts of water to the rice starting at 38 minutes left... got rightup to the top of the kettle... should have used a bigger kettle, so the rice could have been on a hard boil the whole time. Gravity reading at 60 minutes was 5 Brix/1.019 or so. Booo. Had a hell of a time adjusting all the temps so that the initial mash water/rice temp was 167. Never hit that... closest I got was 165 after taking a few qts out and reheating. After adding in all the grain and rice hauls, temp was 152. Close enough.

3/28 RACK TO KEG:
Thought I'd rack it into a corny keg so that it would fit into my fridge a little easier so that I can start lagering (a little late). I got roughly 5 gallons, light color, maybe a little lighter than I wanted, but pretty much right where I wanted it. Tastes great! Very very faint taste of that shitty bitter tap water taste. Hopefully it won't be there. Gravity was 6.75/1.010 which was lower than expected, with an estimated ABV of 5%. Keg fits snuggly in the fridge, holding steady at about 35 degrees or so. Looks like it should be ready by end of May or so.

Brown Bear Ale

The plan: My wife's sister lives out in Omaha Nebraska and every year for Spring Break we'd go there to visit her and her family. One of the first breweries we fell in love with was Empyrean Ales in Lincoln NE. They have some phenomenal beers; some our favorites are Third Stone Brown, Lunasea ESB, and Darkside Vanilla Porter. Every spring, usually around mid-March, I get a wicked craving for these beers since that's when we'd always visit them. They have a very limited distribution, so it's damn near impossible for me to get their beers anymore, so I decided to try to clone them! After some thought and shitty correspondence from the brewery (what a let down), I decided to clone their Third Stone Brown, off of the basic info I had. On our first trip to the brewery, we got their sampler, which came with a paper mat that detailed each of the beers (shown at left). It showed "Stats" (5% ABV, 13.1 OG, 14.5 IBU's), "Ingredients" (Pale 2row, Carastan, Special, Victory, Chocolate, Vienna; Willamette hops (aroma); Ale yeast), and "History of Style" (blah blah blah... Northern England).

This would be my 3rd all grain batch, and so I still really didn't know what the hell I was doing, so I looked at the grain bill and tried to figure out which were base grains and which were specialty grains. I also looked into Clone Formuation on BeerAdvocate.com's Homebrew forum, as well as a sweet article in BYO. I plugged the ingredients into Beersmith, converted the OG, and played around with grain percentages until it looked good. I posted the guesstimate on BA and a couple people concurred, so I went with it. Later I went back to Empyrean Ale's website and realized that they had changed the recipe since I had that sampler... well eff'em, I'm gonna brew the Third Stone I fell in love with!

Recipe:
OG: 13.1 Pluto converted to 1.047
FG: to achieve 5%, FG needs to be 1.012
IBU's: 14.5
6# Pale 2-row (UK)
4# Vienna
1# Crystal 60-L (no Carastan, which could be substituted for Crystal 30L, but no 30L so I just used 60L, which just made it a little darker)
1# Victory
1/4# Special B (no Special, so used Special B, just a little darker)
1/4# Chocolate Malt
1 oz. Willamette 4.4% (45 min)
1 oz. Willamette 4.4% (flame out)
Wyeast 1098 (British Ale), starter 48 hours prior to.

2/6 BREW DAY: Using my old cooler, this time sealed with the right, food safe, water sealant. :-) Worked great. I heated 15.65 quarts of water to 170, added to cooler, let sit for 5 minutes then doughed in. Stirred and broke up clumps (something I didn't do before) and hit 154. Closed it up, wrapped with 2 blankets, and let'er simmer. 60 minutes later, checked temp - 152. Sweet! I had heated up 2.33 quarts to boil, then added it to the cooler for mash out. Stirred it up, temp = 168. Let it settle for 10 minutes, collected vorlof, then collected first runnings. ~4 gallons, Brix = 15/1.059. I had been heating up 2 gallons of water, so I added 1 more and heated it all up to 185, then added to cooler. Stirred up good, let sit for 10 minutes, and then collected second runnings. 6.5 total gallons, total Brix = 12/1.047. Threw the kettle on the burner, took about 1/2 hour to get to boiling, added 1 oz. Willamette @ 45 min, then 1 oz. @ flame out. I decided to try to use the washing machine water source to pump through my chiller. Worked great... except I forgot to check it and the damn thing overflowed! So I had to halt it, drain the washer, then restart the chilling. What a mess. It just barely filled up a second time by the time I hit ~65F. I stopped it, ran it out the spigot through a sanitized hose, into a sanitized funnel w/ filter, and into sanitized carboy. Got about 5.25 gallons, Brix = 14/1.055. I had my yeast slurry ready to go, it was at about 64/66F, I swirled it up and pitched it all in, about 1000mL worth. Capped it with a blow off tube, and proceeded to clean up. Total time... 8 AM started to heat water, doughed in about 9/9:30, pitched yeast @ 2PM. Not bad!

2/13 RACK TO SECONDARY: Racked the brown ale over to secondary after bottling the Dunkelweizen. I almost filled the 5 gallon carboy, I had to stop short. I took a sample to check gravity, Brix=7, I used BeerSmith first and it said I had a 1.026 which seemed pretty high. I used the morebeer refractometer tool and it says I was at 1.011. I decided it was time to bust out the old hydrometer to see who the hell was right (and I was hoping it'd be the morebeer sheet). Hydrometer reading = 1.018. Not great. I bet I'll go down a point or two in secondary and priming, hopefully. Regardless, it has a nice color, smell and taste were a little hard because of a bad cold I had... had faint tastes of sweet, nutty, malty, carmely flavors. This is gonna be good, can't wait :-)

3/10 BOTTLED: I got around to bottling this much later than I wanted, no big deal though. I've been saving up Sierra Nevada bottles for a while now, since they're the closest things to Emyprean Ales bottles. I was able to 1 &3/4 cases of 12 oz bottles, plus 6 22oz bottles. I'm hoping to be able to drink these by the time my sister-in-law and niece & nephew show up the week of March 21st. We shall see.

3/20 TASTING!: 10 days in, why not give it a shot. First bottle, flat flat flat. Tried another on Wednesday the 24th, still flat. Ruh roh. I'll try another in a week. Hoping that they're not all flat.

4/19 SECOND TASTING: Pulled another bottle out when Dave & Megan came over for dinner. This time it poured with carbonation. Phew! I think what happened is that the bottles I had priming upstairs turned out fine, they primed at around 65F. The ones in the basement I think went dormant because the temp down there was around 50-55F. I pulled them all upstairs and hopefully they'll kick in.

5/1 HOMEBREW COMPETITION: Upon the suggestion of two beer judges I'm acquainted with, I decided to submit this to my local homebrew comp. I was a little worried because still only half of the bottles were opening up with carbonation. This was tasting better with time, but I was still getting a little bit of that astringency like I found in the stout and dunkelweizen. Below are the score sheets..
.