Bii's Brew Log

Burly Fire

2011-11-13T10:01:00.000-05:00

The Vermont Pub & Brewery has been having these small batch/experimental beers every Monday, and with all of my BJCP exam studying, I have been getting really sick of looking and analyzing styles, so I came up with a few really bizarre beers. I had met one of the guys from VPB this summer at the VT Brewers Festival, so I threw the idea out to him about collaborating for one of these small batches, and they seemed to like an idea I had about a hot wing beer, which is basically a smoked beer with an ancho pepper in 2nd, along with a healthy dose of fruity american hops. We met recently and hashed out a recipe, I decided to push to make it more of a fire beer than hot wing since no smoke will taste like chicken. They also had smoked chipotle peppers that were really nice so we're going with those. When discussing a base beer, I thought their Burly, an Irish Red, would be good. It has a nice malty backbone that smoke and heat could pair well with, and Irish Reds sometimes have a diacetyl which could aid in a buttery character that is a major component in wing sauce. Planning on brewing in December with a January release, should be interesting!

RECIPE:
I think we're shooting for a 10 gallon batch (12 brewed, 10 into kegs), and this is what we have so far:
Batch #42
60% Pale Malt
30% Beechwood smoked malt
8% Crystal (not sure what L yet)
2% Roasted Barley
3 oz Citra pellets (60)
4 oz Amarillo (0)
X oz Citra/Amarillo (dry hop)
2 Yeasts: 1) Wyeast Denny's Fav & 2) VPB House yeast
Smoked/dried chipotle peppers in 2nd (not sure how much yet)

12/10 - BREWDAY
Brewday set for Sat. 12/10.
More later!

Lewis Creek Brownie

2011-10-26T09:46:00.000-04:00

I've been bitten by the smoked malt bug. Over the last couple of months I've sampled a few really really nice beers that were lightly smoked. Too much smoke is a terrible thing in my opinion. I hate smoked beers that taste like smoked salmon, which is ironic because I named this beer after a brown trout, go figure. Anyways, beers that are lightly smoked can have a pleasant campfire aroma and flavor to them that is really nice. So, I've had this idea to make a lightly smoked brown ale for the fall. Getting a little bit of a late start, but whateva.

RECIPE
Batch #41
8# pale malt
1# Weyerman Beechwood smoked malt (mild smoke character)
1# Best Malts Smoked malt (strong smoke character)
1# Aromatic
1# Crystal 60L
1# Golden Naked Oats
1/4# Chocolate Malt
1/2 oz Willamette (first wort hops)
1/2 oz Columbus (60)
1 oz Willamette (0)
Safale s-04

10/26 - BREWNIGHT
Single infusion mash @ 153F, batch sparge.
60 minute boil
This was supposed to end up at 6 gallons, but got boiled down a little too far, so I ended up with 5.75 gallons, SG 1.060

11/1 - gravity @ 1.020, some sweet smoke in the aroma as well as some fruity esters; opaque, light brown; flavor consists of sweet malt & mild smoke, a little bitter as well. Going to stir it up, and move it upstairs to finish off.

11/9 - 1.018, gonna rack to a keg. Carbed a 1L bottled for sampling.

11/14 - took the 1L bottle to the November Mashers meeting. I. Am. In. Love. Wow, I'm so happy with this one. Back the fuck up if you don't like it. It surely won't be to everyone's taste, but I nailed what I was shooting for. Booya.

Mystery Rye PA 2011

2011-09-18T13:05:00.000-04:00

Two years ago I brewed a partial mash version of this recipe for the AHA teach a friend to brew day, and it turned out nice. Won a 3rd place in the specialty beer category for the 2010 VT homebrew comp. A friend of mine, Bill Mares, dropped off a good bit of hops from a friends yard but didn't know what kind they were. To me they smelled pretty mild. I figured it would be perfect for another mystery hopped beer.

RECIPE
Batch #39
10# Pale Malt
3# Rye Malt
1/2# Crystal 60L
1 oz. Chinook (60)
1 oz. Mystery hop (60)
1/2 oz. Chinook (30)
1 oz. Mystery (0)
1 oz Mystery (dry)
Wyeast 1056 (used 2 tubes of my 1056 that I collected and stored. Made a 750mL starter and added two tubes to it. )

Yippee, let's brew.
9/17 BREWDAY (night)
Brewing time has been really hard to find this year with Barrett getting older and Jen working more weekends. Didn't end up starting this until 8PM.

Mashed in with 18qts water @ 166F, doughed in, temps leveled off around 154/155. Target was 154.
Stirred at 30 minutes, temps down to 152ish.
At the next 30 minutes mark, temps were at 151/152, and after an addition 15 minutes of waiting, added 10 qts of mash out water @ boiling. Seemed to be a little too much, temps were like 175. Added some ice cubes, got it down to 168/169 and let it set for about 15 minutes.
First runnings: 5.5 gallons (whoa), @ 13 brix/1.052.
Added 1.5 gallons sparge water, collected a total of 7 gallons.
Pre-boil: 7 gallons @ 12 Brix/1.048, target was 1.049 @ 70% efficiency
It was 11PM by the time I collected it all, so I covered it all up with blankets and will boil in the AM.

9/18 BREWDAY pt.2
60 minute boil, added 1 oz Chinook & 1 oz Mystery hops

10/2 - transfer to 2nd, added 1 oz Mystery hops, and a 1/2 oz of Chinook for dry hopping.
Smells fruity, and like a hef. Gravity - 1.015

10/16 - Kegged - 1.014 - Not a huge hop aroma, but definitely sweet and bitter. Could be a little drier.

11/5 - This is going fast, probably only a couple pours left. Had a glass while watching the Penn State vs. Nebraska game. I'm enjoying this one quite a bit - nice blend of fruity hop flavors and aromas, good bit of bitterness, and a decent malt backbone. Still think it finished a little sweet, but, still a good one in my book.

Pumpkin Roggenbier

2011-09-17T23:19:00.001-04:00

Pseudo decoction, w/ roasted pumpkin

I've made a pumpkin ale the last two years, as well as a pumpkin stout (2009), and a pumpkin wheat (2010). This year, I'm not really feelin a pumpkin ale. I have a keg of Oktoberfest, and I will have a keg of rye ipa soon... and a keg of cider... so really, I didn't want two more pumpkin beer kegs. Anyways, long story short, I did decide on doing a pumpkin roggenbier. I had a roggenbier on my sights to have ready for the fall, and the more I thought about it, the more I saw that they could fit together (the pumpkin and the beer). Roggenbier is a German concoction that is like a dunkelweizen but instead of wheat, you primarily use rye. The big difference is that rye gives off a slightly spicey character. I felt like this could potentially pair well with the pumpkin/spices. Additionally, the traditional yeast for Weizens/dunkelweizens and roggenbiers, is the german wheat yeast which, when fermented at lower temps (62ish), can highlight a clove note rather than the banana esters that are present when fermented in the upper 60's low 70's. I love the banana flavors in these styles, but I figured the clove might pair better. For the pumpkin, I'll stick with what I'm familiar with - I typically use 8#'s of pie pumpkins, 2#'s of butternut, and 1# acorn. I dice them up, top them with brown sugar, and bake them for 45 minutes. When that is ready, I throw it all in the boil along with some spices. At the very least, this should be interesting.

RECIPE:
Batch #40
5# Rye malt
5# Pale malt
1# Flaked rye
1# Munich
1# Caramunich
1 oz Carafa I
1 oz Tettnang (60)
1 oz Saaz (0)
Wyeast 3068

9/18 BREWDAY
And so it begins. Was really trying to do this the same day as the rye ipa, but I just got started way too late. (will add brewday notes later)

10/2 - transferred to 2nd, added 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice.

10/16 - kegged. 1.014. Smells like a German wheat beer. Definite clove/banana yeast esters are present. Body seems thick, but the FG is right. Definitely get a litle spice, both is up front flavor as well as finish.

10/26 - Still unsure about this one. I think the pseudo decoction I did created the thickness that I'm not liking in this. I think a little bit of a decoction would be great, I just think this was overdone. Also, I probably should not have added any spices. There is definitely enough spice with the rye and the low fermented yeast notes of clove to pair well with the pumpkin side of it. I think this would be a great beer if I took those thing into account for next time.

2011 Hop Harvest

2011-08-28T13:23:00.000-04:00

2011 Fuggles

Not a great year for my hops.

Fuggles: 18 oz wet, 5.25 oz dry.
Tettnang: 6.25 oz wet, 2.625 dry.
Saaz: 4 oz wet, 1.75 dry.

One positive note on this is that my Fuggles came out pretty good this year. Highest numbers so far for them and they were very green. The others kind of tanked.

Here's a little graph of what I've kept track of over the last couple of years, apparently I don't have any data for the first few years. Kind of strange.

The chart is a little difficult to read, I'll need to improve on my excel skills... but there are two numbers for each year, one for wet and one for dry. The three different lines are the hop types.

Tettnang took a huge hit this year. I know one reason was that I accidentally clipped one of the vines, and the top of another one broke off early on. Not sure those two could account for that much of a loss, but I'm sure it was a significant loss.

Funky Monkey

2011-08-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

A year or so ago I brewed a bavarian weizen and added six pounds of banana to it, I also hopped it with Citra hops, and unbelievably, it was pretty balanced, almost tipped towards the citra. I've been wanting to brew that again, but chillax on the hops so that more banana comes out, but I also wanted to do it without and bananas this time. So, with my joint homebrew club picnic a week away, I'm going to try to crank this batch out. I am also fiddling with the idea to do a decoction, and possibly a sour mash in order to get a little more complexity out of it. But, I'm also leaning towards doing this one as a single infusion batch sparge and foregoing the sour mash, then maybe doing the former of the two ideas when I have some more time.

RECIPE:
Batch #38
6 Gallon batch
5.5# Weyerman Pilsner
5.5# Weyerman Light Wheat Malt
1 oz. Hallertauer (60)
1/2 oz Hallertauer (1)
Wyeast 3068, 1L starter, pitched at high krausen.

8/5 BREWDAY

Jenny's Cream Ale

2011-08-03T22:00:00.000-04:00


A preliminary label idea...

Thought I'd try doing a cream ale for the picnic I'm hosting in August, in addition to the second batch of watermelon wheat I'm hoping to do as well. And if I'm going a cream ale, why not name it after Jen. This should be a fun, easy, and quick rendered batch. Here's to summer and it's lawnmower beers!

THE RECIPE:
Batch #37
This is based off of a Jamil recipe, but he likes to use rice, I've chosen to use corn.
4# Pale Malt
4# Pilsner
1.75# flaked maize
.75# Honey Malt
.25# Biscuit Malt
1oz Cluster (60)
Wyeast 1056

7/30 BREWDAY:

Tim Tim Dubbel Raymond

2011-07-31T23:48:00.003-04:00

Tim, pitching the yeasties

My hometown friend, and Bucknell Chemistry professor, Mr. Tim Ryamond has exquisite taste in beer, and an interest in learning how to brew. He visits VT once a year for a week with his family, and so we planned on doing a batch together. I gave him the freedom to choose any style and he decided on a Belgian Dubbel, not unlike Chimay Premiere. This will be a pretty straight forward recipe with the goal of opening up a corked bottle of it at Thanksgiving. Thanks to Jill & Jen for taking the kids swimming while we brewed!

RECIPE:
Batch #36
11# Belgian Pils
2# Munich
1/2# Caramunich III
1/2# Aromatic
1/2# Special B
(yes, I forgot to add sugar)
1 oz Pearle (60)
1 oz Styrian Goldings (0)
Wyeast 1214

7/31 - BREWDAY
Single infusion mash - 149F for 60 minutes, batch sparge.

8/1 - FERMENTATION LOG

7AM - small krausen, temp of water was 64, temp on carboy looked like it was 66 or 68. Will probably take it out of the water this evening and let it raise.

9PM - temp of water was about 70, so I removed the carboy from it, looked like it was right around 70 as well, perfect for 24 hours in. I'm gonna let it ramp up, we'll see how quickly it does now.

11PM - temp at 72, totally kickin now.

8/2 - 7AM - going full throttle, temp at 78

2PM - still chugging, temp at 78 or higher.

9PM - noticed bubble had slowed/ceased, temp around 78.

8/3 - 8:30AM - no bubbles, temp at 74.

8/31 - Kegged to be lagered. Will sit in the fridge for a month now.

Corked and ready to prime

11/9 - BOTTLING - 1.016 - Twenty 750mL bottles corked, and a few 12 oz bottles as well. Only 2 weeks until Turkey day, hoping that they'll be primed by then.

Black Heart RIS

2011-06-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

THE PLAN

Been wanting to brew a Russian Imperial Stout... I blogged about one recipe I was thinking about earlier this year - Bourbon "Barrel" RIS. I've put it off for 2 reasons... 1. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough room in my mash ton. 2. I couldn't decide on a recipe. It's been long enough, this thing needs brewed, and I have some emotion behind it right now, so it's time. Black Heart symbolizes exactly what you'd expect... the loss of love. The label I'm working on is the three of swords from the tarot deck, another interest of mine. I'm aiming to "release" this on Valentines Day 2012.

THE RECIPE

Batch #35

22# Pale Malt
3# Munich
1# Crystal 90
1# Choc Malt
1# Roasted Barley
1/2# Crystal 60
1/2# Special B
1/2# Black Patent
2 oz Citra (60)
2 oz Tettnang (60)
1 oz Fuggles (10)
1 oz Willamette (10)
2 oz Willamette (0)
Wyeast 1028

Single Infusion mash, ~154, 90 minute boil.
Ferment at 67
Secondary for 6+ months

Just about maxed out my 48 qt mash tun

6/26 BREWDAY (acting as summer solstice)
- Have been putting this off for so long because I wasn't sure if my mash tun would handle it. Had to go with a 1:1 ratio for grain:water. 12 gallon cooler, 7.5 gallons of water, 6+ "gallons" of grain... yikes.
- Heated 30 quarts to about 175, added to cooler, waited 5-10 minutes, temp down to about 170.
- Doughed in all of the grain... little by little, and holy shit, it fit! Stoked.
- Starting temp was right around 152, but I saw things from 149 up to 158. All good.
- At 15 minutes in, I decided to add another 2 quarts of boiling water just to make sure it was staying up. The temp now was about 154. Cool.
- Checked at 45 minutes, stirred a bit, temps still above 150, so I'm good.
- Heating 20 qts of sparge water to 180F.
- Going with a 75 minutes mash to account for sparge water time.
- First runnings: 4.5 gallons, 1.106

9 gallons of black love

- Pre-boil: 9 gallons, 1.074
- Boil down to 7.5 gallons, then add first addition hops... leaving a little more in there since I'm using 6 ounces of whole hops which will suck up quite a bit of the wort.
- Added 1 ox Fuggles, 1 oz Willamette, irish moss, and chiller with 10 miunutes left.
- Added 2 oz Willamette at flame out.
- Chilling... down to 9- degrees... and kaplooey. 1/4 gallon water in the kettle from the chiller. Gonna have to fucking boil again. God damn it. I guess I can tell all the non beer geek peeps it was "double boiled". One plus for having to do this was that I filtered out the hops.
- After 2nd boil (which was about 30 minutes), I chilled to 64. Gonna wait until morning to pitch yeast, hoping it will have built up a little more by then.

6/27 -pitched 1000mL starter & leftover rinsed yeast from oatmeal brown around 8/9AM.
By midnight, noticed krausen was 2" high and bubbles off the big blowoff tube were about once every second and a half or so.

6/28 - 7AM - Krausen is out of the blow off tube and has filled the first bucket. Wrapped some cold towels around it to try and bring the temp down a bit, was pushing 74.

6/29 - 1:30pm - things have slowed down, took a gravity reading... sitting about 1.058, so still a ways to go. Might pitch some more yeast to help it finish out, but I may wait a bit.

6/30 - 5:30p - switched to a regular airlock last night... bubbling every 4 seconds right now. Hoping that gravity gets to where it needs to be.

7/1 - 7pm - bubble every 8 seconds.

7/3 - 10:30 pm - bubble every 17 seconds. Gravity at 1.042. Still not where I want it, but it's getting there. I have a feeling this probably is about finished though. That's pretty high... but if I do remember correctly, Bourbon Co. Stout finishes at 1.043... wouldn't that be funny. Taste is pretty... regular. Everything seems pretty balanced at the moment... no fusels, not as much fruity flavor as I wanted.. but its there. This has promise.

7/24 - had a good reason for drinking some of this tonight, checked the gravity too. 1.040, boo.

9/3 - built up the blow off yeast, pitched in at high krausen. No activity at first, but definitely got some bubbles.

9/21 - gravity check - 1.035! Wuhoo!

9/27 - took a liter out to carb w/ new carbonater tool to take in to work for the stout ice cream. The flat beer was kind of bland. Just tasted like stout without much else.

9/29 - took it in, had a tasting and it tasted amazing. That blandness was gone. It was very rich.

9/30 - withdrew 2 more liters to take to work for the ice cream. Noticed the

10/1 - transferred about 4.5 gallons to another carboy. Going to decide if I want to oak/bourbon it or just go with it by itself. If the latter of the two, then I'll keg it and throw it in the fridge.

10/3 - The micros test passed, so we will officially be scooping this imperial stout ice cream this Thursday! http://ow.ly/6MeYy

Hoppy Father

2011-06-10T21:00:00.001-04:00

Tried finding a hoppy monk picture,
but this was more interesting, and fitting.

THE PLAN
I brewed a Patersbier earlier this year, which turned out great, but as I was drinking it, it dawned on me that this would be a fantastic base beer for a Belgian IPA. So, here we are, and I'm ready to do it. As luck would have it, my parents were visiting us, so I thought this would be an appropriate beer to brew with my dad, seeing that it's close to Father's day and he is my dad... even though it's a different kind of father we're talking about here.

THE RECIPE
Batch #34
9# Belgian Pils
1.5 oz Citra (60)
.5 oz Citra (5)
1 or 2 oz Citra (dry)
Wyeast 1214

6/10 BREWDAY (3rd summer hours batch)
Actually ended up brewing this with my mom... my dad was off doing business stuff.
Single infusion mash, batch sparge
11.25 qts @ 162F, target = 147F
After dough in, 147F (146-149) for 75 minutes
After 45 minutes, temp down to 143F, added 1 gallons of ~ 180F and got temp back up to 147F
After 2 hours (had to leave), temp down to 135. Added 9 qts boiling water, hit mashout of 164F.
Collected 4.5 gallons, Brix 12/1.0
Boiled, added hops, chilled to 66 and pitched yeast starter.
Hydrometer: 1.060, maybe 1.058
Refractometer: 13.8 = 1.056
Gave it a taste (from hyrodrometer), really really bitter, almost a little too bitter for the balance.

6/12 FERMENTATION CHECK-IN
Things are better than yesterday. Last night the temp was about 68, and there really wasn't much going on but a thin krausen. I stirred it up a bit. This morning there was some activity, temp about the same. I decided to move it up to the kitchen. Over the coarse of the day, it has risen to close to 74 (as of 10:30pm). I wish I kept notes of the last fermentation, I vaguely remember it hitting upper 70's. I probably won't let it go that high, but we'll see.

6/13 FERMENTATION CHECK-IN
Temp as of 8am was 76. As of 1pm, bubbling has slowed, krausen has dropped, and temp is now 74. As of 5:30pm, bubbling has pretty much stopped and temp is down to 72.

6/15 FERMENTATION CHECK-IN
Gravity down to 1.012, gonna rack to 2nd and add dry hops. Taste is still pretty bitter. Hardly any of the Belgian flare coming through.

7/4 KEGGING
Racked to keg, filtered with coffee screen, gravity @ 1.010
Still really bitter, and now a citra aroma bomb as well. Damn...

7/5 TASTING
It's only been in the keg for a day or so... but already my suspicions have been upheld... lots of hops, not much Belgian. :-\ Oh well... lesson learned. Next one will rock. And it may get better if I gave it a little time to let the aroma hops die out a tad. But, I'll just enjoy this one for what it is.

Watermelon Wheat

2011-06-03T17:01:00.003-04:00

THE PLAN
I've had 2 watermelon wheats in the past and I've enjoyed both. I'm not sure what triggered my recent interest in brewing one, but whatever... it's gonna happen.

THE RECIPE
Batch #33
Following a simple American Wheat recipe from Jamil
6# Pale Malt
6# Flaked Wheat
1 oz Hallertauer (60)
Wyeast 1010 American Wheat
3# Watermelon (seedless, diced, and pureed to about 1 gallon)

6/3 BREWDAY (2nd summer hours Friday)
This should be a fairly easy batch. Single infusion batch sparge. Target is 152 for 60 minutes.
13.75 qts @ 166 (in cooler) -> 154, added an ice cube, temp down to 151/152
Mashout w/ 9 qts @ 200 -> 163/164
Collected 4.3 gal, Brix (will add)
Sparged w/ 12 qts
6.5 gallons total collected, pre-boil brix:
We decided to hit up Jazzfest, so I got it boiling and then shut it off and wrapped in blankets.

6/4 Got up and checked the temp around 8:30, still up around 143, not bad for 14 hours. Got it on the burner and got it boiling fairly quickly.
Chilled to what I thought was around 64/65, but after getting it intot he carboy it was close to 70. I thought I'd seal it up and see if it would drop since the ambient temp that day was like 63. Well... it only did by a few degrees, and that was after 12+ hours...

6/5 8:30AM - temp still up around 68, but decided to get this thing pitched anyways. A little nervous that I brewed this Friday, boiled Saturday, and now I'm pitching on Sunday. I hope that doesn't screw it up. I've been careful with keeping it sealed, so I would think it would be safe.

6/7 Fermentation appears to have finished... settled at about 66F in the basement, bubble every 7 seconds. Will still let this go until Friday, then I'll transfer to 2nd on top of the watermelon.

6/11 RACKED TO SECONDARY
Hacked up 2 seedless watermelons, pureed them, and put 1 gallon of the puree into my fermentation bucket. Racked the beer on top. Gravity is at 1.015.

6/18? KEGGED
Kegged this bad boy today, I tried to filter things out by running the siphon tube into a sanitized grain bag. Worked ok, I figure whatever sediment is left will settle at the bottom.

6/19 - First tasting
A little flat yet, but it has only been a day. Great flavor, cloudy, great aroma. Can't wait for this to be completely carbed.

6/25 - More Tasting
This is a good one, and a quick one. Will have to brew again!

Wits End

2011-05-27T18:30:00.001-04:00

THE PLAN:
The basic plan is to brew another Belgian Wit, reminiscent of Victory Whirlwind. Such a great summertime beer, can't wait to have this one available.

RECIPE:
6# Belgian Pils
5# Flaked Wheat
1 oz Hallertauer (60)
.25 oz Tettnang (didn't have any Saaz)
Bitter & Sweet Orange Peel
Wyeast 3944 Belgian Wit (1L starter made ahead of time)

BREWDAY 5/27 (first Friday of summer hours):
This has been put on hold for close to a month now... hoping the grains are still fresh.
(will add notes later)

Dirty Dozen

2011-04-29T20:51:00.004-04:00

It's almost May in VT, and that means fiddleheads, dandelions, and homebrew competitions. I brewed around 18 batches last year, and am already up to 7 batches this year... and not that they all rocked, but I did have a hard time narrowing down my entries. I narrowed it down to around 10, then somehow a couple other crept in there... I had a hard cutting any, so I went with 12 in the end. Here's a list with a few comments, I'll post an update once the competition (May 14th) is finished:
Maple Red Ale - amber ale brewed with 100% maple sap instead of water, maple syrup added at bottling. I bottled it 2 weeks ago and it's still hardly carbonated, so hopefully by the time the competition happens, it'll be good. Hopefully.
Berliner Weisse - an old German sour ale, 3.5%, light, tart, and with the rhubarb addition, even more tart. I'm really hoping this does well, but I think it might get flagged for being a little too light. It tastes pretty watery to me. I also bottled it last night, and I'm hoping the yeast held out and do their job now. I also added a tiny bit of champagne yeast, probably so tiny that it won't make any difference.
Amber Ale - a nice solid amber, I wasn't particularly fond of one of the hops I used, but that won't hurt. It's also got a little chill haze, and last year this category was judged in the morning, so there's a chance it will still be cold and hazed, but hopefully not. I think this one has potential to place, but it could go in any direction.
Saison - brewed this for my former drummer's wedding last August, getting a little old, but still solid.
Oktoberfest -brewed this a year ago. Borderline too old, but... whatever. Still a solid beer regardless.
[Update 5/4 - had one of these last night at a BJCP study group session, it seems as though the ones I bottled are infected with something. We found a ring inside the bottle just where the beer stopped in the neck. We also found that it was quite oxidized, which in the end was good for us all to experience. Kind of embarrasing on my end, but it sounds like it could have been the carb tabs that caused it. I checked the only other bottle I had and it also had a ring. I'm going to check the brown rice lager bottles too to see if they have it since I bottled them all the same night. In any case, I'm going to try and pull this from the competition.]
Double IPA 1 - this was my HopSlam clone, could be good, who knows. I was a little down on this beer before, but when I finally did a side by side of an actual HopSlam, I was pretty surprised how similar the aroma, flavor, and mouthfeel were. The biggest difference was in the color and clarity. Appearance is only 3 points, so I'm guessing I get a 1 or 2.
Double IPA 2 - most recent one... actually, so recent that aside from 4 bottles that I capped today, the rest of it is still sitting in secondary! This is definitely on the lighter side of the imperial IPA category, but still meets all the criteria aside from color... this one was purposely brewed to be very light in color (and it still has a nice malty body). If this thing carbs right, I'm one lucky SOB. What a afro-engineered job I did.
Patersbier - This one has probably my highest hopes, although the category its in is a competitive one. I also worry about carbonation since I bottled this out of a keg with my nifty little homemade beer gun.
Honey Rye - This one I love. Period. But, this was brewed for a mashers style competition and got thrown out early because it had a vanilla taste to it... I was a little peeved about this because I don't think they considered that I used a Kolsch yeast which is what they were tasting. But, nonetheless, a few other people that brewed beers for that are also submitting and we're waiting to see if they'll be judged similarly. As much as I was not into this style (6D - American Wheat or Rye beer) I absolutely love this creation. Perfect spring beer.
Cranberry Oak Tripel - This was probably the most debatable of the bunch as to whether I should enter it. It's got some age under it now, so things have mellowed out a bit, but I have been to hell and back trying to tie this thing up. I'm going to try some more tonight, but last time I had it I thought that it was a little too dry of a finish. I could definitely taste the cranberry and oak, but that damn champagne yeast I used just effed it up. When I brew this again, I will repitch with some of the original yeast I think. Anyways, this got submitted to the Specialty Category, pretty much the catch-all, so we'll see how it does. My Rye IPA placed 3rd in this category last year.
Belgian Strong Dark - Ah yes, the good old Sugar Plum Fairy. I think that this achieved what I set out to do, and I'm particularly proud that I got such a great plum-like flavor just from the grains... but really it was all the grain's doing. I think this finished a little thick, a little sweet, but still pretty solid. One thing that has really come out with age is the spicing, which may throw this out of the category I submitted it in - 18E - Belgian Strong Dark. The judges that score this could throw it out because of this quality and say that it should have been in the Belgian Specialty category or the Christmas/Winter Specialty beer category. It would be a shame if this got tossed because of a logistical thing like that, because I think it pairs well to style.
Doppelbock (x2) - As Jack Skellington once said "And the best, I must confess, I have saved for the last..." My friend and brewing cohort Matt joined me in brewing 2 different doppelbocks a few months ago - one was a 3 gallon double decoction batch, and the other was a 3 gallon infusion batch. We both feel that the infusion batch is much better, but we decided to enter both just to see what the judges come up with. Should be interesting.

So, as I'm about to try and enjoy a rare evening at home, I have my thoughts on these babies of mine that are now in the care of some fellow brewers. The next 15 days will be a little difficult, but I'm confident in my brewing, and should see some success. But ya never know!

5/26 UPDATE
The comp didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. Most of my beers were major failures, and there were definitely some questionable reviews... like my saison, it got a 12 out of 50. My Sugar Plum Fairy got a 40 out of 50, which is outstanding, but when it advanced to a mini best of show for that category, 3 beers with lower scores ended up taking the top 3 places. Kind of effed, but what can I do? Nothing. In addition to that, one of our doppelbocks took 2nd in the bock category... the interesting thing about that is that the decoction took 2nd... not the infusion. Still to this day, we both agree (as do a group of peeps we do tastings with) that the decoction is off mark... it's hot, and quite the cherry bomb. The infusion is much nicer. Who knows what happened. Most of the other beers dropped somewhere in the middle, some scored a lot lower than expected. Definitely not a good day, and I could feel it coming. Oh well. Tough lesson learned. I definitely wanted that credibility or validation, and I fell way short of it. It hurts the old self esteem a bit, I feel that I'm a better brewer than what I was scored at. I think part of it was getting skunked on a few things, but I can also confirm that I held on to these beers too long. I also never brewed any of them to style, I really was creating my own recipe, and dropped them into categories they may fit into. The judging is so subjective and entries live or die by the pallets of two particular people doing the judging. I stewarded the event, and it was definitely interesting to see how different people tasted things. I first helped out with the American Ale category, the two judges I was assigned to covered brown ales, and a couple pales. They both really liked a brown ale that was (in my opinion) way over roasty. They didn't think so, they advanced it to the mini best of show for the category, and as soon as two elder judges tried it, they flagged it for being too roasty. At least I got some validation for my own judging. Needless to say, the whole experience kind of turned me off of competitions. I can certainly say that I will not be submitting a dozen beers next year. Maybe a couple. That was just effin stupid on my part.

Soulshine DIPA

2011-04-17T23:57:00.022-04:00

THE PLAN
Another double IPA attempt. This one - lighter & more balanced between malt sweetness, hop bitterness, and hop aroma/flavor. Planning on using citrusy hops, I used simcoe last time - 2 oz bitter, 2 oz dry hop... and the beer came out smelling and tasting a little too much like grapefruit. Using Centennial and Citra this time. Hoping that will give me the profile I want. Also using honey again, but a little less this time, only 1# compared to 3# last time.

Yeah I know, the name is cheesy, but whatever.

THE RECIPE:
14# Pale Malt
1# Crystal 10L (would like 40L but I only had 10 & 60 to choose from)
1# honey (late boil addition)
2 ounces Centennial (60)
1 ounce Citra (0)
1 ounce Citra (dry hop)
Wyeast 1056

4/17 BREWDAY
God this took too long to get brewed. Time is hard to find these days.
General: Single infusion mash, mashout, and batch sparge. 90 minute boil.
Targets: 15 total pounds x 1.25 = 18.75 qts @ 166 (target = 152), 60 minute mash,
pre-boil 6.43 gallons @ 1.060
Actuals:
Preheated mash tun with 2 pints boiling water, held for 15 minutes while strike water was reaching temp
18.75 qts @ 176 (to account for cooler - can always decrease temp, very hard to increase it)
Added strike water (176) to cooler, after 5 minutes temp @ 172, added 6 ice cubes, temp now @ 167
(~2PM) Doughed in immediately, temp @154 (a few spots at 152, but this was perfect)
After 30 minutes, I opened, temp @ 154 still, stirred up a little, temp still @ 154
After another 30 minutes (60 total), I started to vorlof (*I skipped a mashout this time and I'm regretting it. I got 10 qts 1st run, and 15 qts 2nd. That's not right. Should be equal or the other way around. The pre-boil gravity is lower than expected because of this. Probably left some sugar in the grains, which would have been washed out at a higher temp.)
1st runnings: Collected 2.5 gallons (10 qts), Brix 20/1.083 - total mash absorption = 8.75 qts
Added 15 qts sparge water @ 180, after addition temp @ 158 :-( target was 168/170
2nd runnings: Collected 15 qts, Brix 10/1.040
Total pre-boil - 6.5 gallons @ Brix 14.5/1.059
Boiled for 90, and added water at the end to top off at 5.25 gallons.
Hop additions:
2 oz Centennial (90)
1/2 oz Amarillo (45 - supposed to be 60 but the clock got away)
1 oz Citra (0)
Also added Irish Moss at 15 left, and 1.5# honey at flame out before I added the Citra.
The gravity (even after adding the extra water) was Brix 17.4/1.071.
Chilled to 66 degrees via immersion chiller
(~8PM) Pitched Wyeast 1056 yeast starter (~8PM)

FERMENTATION LOG:
4/18 8AM - a bubble every 10-20 seconds or so, temp @ 68F

4/19 2AM (yes, 2AM) - bubbling about twice a second, temp @ 70F, decided to soak a towel in cold water, wring it out, and wrap around carboy. That will hopefully maintain the temp around 68-70.

4/19 8AM - bubbling has slowed a little, temp @ 68F, took wet towel off and put t-shirt back on. Kinky.

4/24 - RACKED TO 2ND
1.012 Nice color, pretty good aroma already, great balance of bitterness and sweetness. Added 1.5 oz citra dry hops (whole). Can't wait for this to be done!

5/9 - BOTTLING
With the help of Jen's dad, got twenty-six 12 oz bottles and thirteen 22's. Sunshine on the caps.

5/22 - FIRST TASTING
Decided to try to open one of these while we were away on a 4 day weekend excursion. Popped open one of the 12 ounce bottles, just about completely carbed, not quite there, but enough to enjoy it. Definite citrusy & honey aroma. Wow, can't believe how much of the honey comes through... I'm having aromatic recollections of my honey rye, interesting. Everything is pretty much where I'd hoped it would be with the body, color, mouthfeel, and the whole nine. Will try another one next weekend and give it a full review.

A review from Mr. Don Osborn (starts at 3:24):

How Wheat It Is

2011-04-15T16:22:00.003-04:00

In light of my pending wheat brews (wit, hefe, wheat saison), I've been doing some in depth research on the various kinds of wheat malts out there, and thought I'd write a brief post explaining the differences.

What IS wheat anyways?
It's a grass, and is the leading source of vegetable protein in human food, the others being corn and rice. It originated in the "Near East", aka the Middle East, but cultivated world-wide today. Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and steamed breads, biscuits, cookies, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, noodles, couscous and... beer! Enough, for more info see Wikipedia.

Grains Varieties
There are probably more types of wheat than any other brewing grain. There's raw, malted, torrified, flaked, red, white, winter, etc.
Raw (unmalted) wheat - The raw wheat has a higher protein content (which will make the beer much hazier, and mash harder to lauter and requires a cereal mash) and does not contain any enzymes. However, it's quite a bit cheaper due to not being malted. It's also thought to help beers age longer (such as gueuze or lambic) than malted wheat.
Flaked & Torrified wheat - Flaked and torrified are types of raw wheat that are easier to handle than the little grains of raw wheat, which are hard, tiny and huskless (i.e. difficult to mill). Torrified is just puffed wheat, and flaked wheat is cooked and pressed. Both of these are generally easier to work with then plain raw wheat.
Wheat malt - This, of course, is just malted wheat. You can find light wheat malt, dark wheat malt, carmel wheat, etc.
Red vs. white - The grain of wheat used in brewing is either white or red (either can be of course malted or raw). White is generally softer, and that is preferred, but it also is what gums up the mash. But it's not always softer.

Typically, the general rule when selecting wheat base grains is this:
For German wheat beers, use malted wheat.
For Belgian style wits, use unmalted wheat (either raw, torrified, or flaked).
In both of these instances, they are typically 40-60% of the base grain total, the other % being malted barley (either pale or pilsener malt).

Beer Styles
If the number of wheat grain types was not enough, there's also a variety of beer styles that have something to do with wheat. Wit, Witbier, Weiss, Weissbier, Weizen, Hefeweizen, Dunkelweizen, Kristalweizen, Weizenbock, American Wheat, Berliner Weisse, etc. All of these can really be broken into 2 main categories (Weiss & Wit) with 2 smaller categories (Sours & American Wheat). Here's a quick and dirty guide to all.

Belgian Wit

Hefeweizen

American Wheat

Weissbier, short weisse: these terms are used almost exclusively in the southern German state of Bavaria. "Weisse" is German for "white".
Weizenbier, short weizen: these names are used to indicate the same thing, but the choice term for Western & Northern Germany. "Weizen" is German for "wheat".
Hefeweissbier or hefeweizen: "hefe" is the German word for yeast. The prefix is added to indicate that the beer is bottle-conditioned (unfiltered) and thus might have sediment.
Kristallweissbier or kristallweizen: if the weissbier is filtered, the beer will look "clear" (or "kristall").
Dunkles weissbier or dunkleweizen: a dark version of a wheat beer ("dunkel" is the German word for "dark").
Weizenbock is a wheat beer made in the bock style originating in Germany. An example of this style is Aventinus, made by the G. Schneider & Sohn brewery in Kelheim, Germany.
Witbier or simply wit: Dutch language name for the Belgian style of wheat beer.
La bière blanche: The French language name for this type of beer.

So, happy wheat brewing... like I mentioned, I'll be brewing a wheat trio next: a wit, a banana hefeweizen, and a wheat saison. Pysched for all..

Cheers!

Maple Red Ale

2011-03-06T15:29:00.007-05:00

THE PLAN:

Somewhere along my way, I wondered about using maple sap as a substitute for water in brewing a batch of beer. After a google search, I see that others have tried this, and it seems to work fine, but doesn't really add a ton of maple flavor to a beer. When I think of a maple beer, typically a maple porter comes to mind for whatever reason. I like those, but I want to shy away from that I think. I finally decided on an amber ale... but evolved into a red ale, which is pretty much the same thing. I am getting some sap from my friend Simpson who works at the VT Audubon Center in Huntington. They tap about 500 trees and make syrup for educational purposes. I'm also going to use some maple syrup in the boil, and probably some in secondary if needed, as well as using it for priming. So here we go... Vermont Maple Red Ale!

THE RECIPE:
7+ Gallons of VT Sugar Maple sap
9# Pale Malt
1# Crystal 10L
1/2# Crystal 40L
1/2# Vienna
3 oz Roasted Barley
1# Maple syrup to end of boil
1 oz Chinook (60)
1/2 oz Cascade (10)
1/2 oz Centennial (10)
1/2 oz Cascade (0)
1/2 oz Centennial (0)
Wyeast 1056 (starter made with maple syrup)

I also plan to add more maple syrup at bottling/kegging time to taste.

Can't wait for this one, but timing will be interesting seeing that I have to wait for a run of sap before I start going! Hoping I can brew on VT Maple Open House Weekend, March 19-20.

3/17 BREWDAY: (night)
The sap started running this week, and since I was collecting sap from 2 sources, Thursday, St. Patty's Day, turned out to be the day that I would get the sap from both. So, Thursday night, I celebrate with brewing this batch. I was given 7 gallons of sap from each source, and flirted with the idea of boiling all 14 gallons down to about 8 or 9... but I took a gravity reading of the sap and it was already 1.012, so I really felt like it was unnecessary.

Single infusion mash, target temp about 154 so that I can leave plenty of unfermentables in there to produce a nice body and sweet taste. Even though I decided against boiling the total volume down, I did boil the sap for about 10 minutes before using. I boiled 9 gallons and split it up into 3 pots: 14 quarts for strike, 7 quarts for mashout, and 14 quarts for sparge. The sap was pretty discolored and cloudy, and made everything smell like cotton candy. Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. I was letting the strike water settle down in temp to about 170 before pitching in the cooler, and I had already added a quart of boiling sap to the cooler,... but this is where things took a bad turn. I poured the sap in when it was about 169. After 5 minutes, the cooler has sucked the temps down to 163. Ouch. Not good. I know that adding the grains will take another 10-15 degrees, so I took the whole batch and poured it back into the kettle to raise the temp up again. This time, I poured in when it was 171, and it still sank to 165. Not happy, but I had already wasted an hour chasing strike temps. I doughed in all the base malts first, then the specialty malts, mixed it all up, then added some of the roasted barley on top. I mixed it up more, added a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, and let it sit for a few minutes. Temps seemed to be around 153 which made me happy, since my target was 154. I checked it again about a half hour later and the temps had sunk to 150 and below. Not good. AND I had to leave to go pick up a part for our car, pick up Jen, Barrett, and get my propane tank filled since it ran out while I was boiling the remainder sap. I knew this wasn't ideal, to leave those temps sink below 150, and to leave it for another hour at those temps. Beta Amylase will have its way, making a more fermentable, lighter bodied, drier beer. Damn damn double damn!

So, I got back and the temps were between 143 and 146. I heated up the mashout sap to boiling, threw that in, and the temps only rose to about 158. I let it set for about 15 minutes, and then I drained for first runnings. I got 3 gallons, 17.2 Brix, or about 1.070. I had been heating up the sparge water at the same time, so I got the first runnings on the burner, and I poured the sparge water in - 14 quarts @ 180, still only brought the temps up to about 165. Oh well. Second runnings - 3.25 gallons - Brix 10, or about 1.040. Pre-boil was about 6.25 gallons, 1.058. Shooting for a 60 minute boil.

Boil went fine... added 1/2 ounce Chinook at 60 minutes, 1/2 ounce Centennial & 1/2 ounce Cascade at 15, along with a teaspoon of Irish moss, and threw my immersion chiller in to sanitize. Also added about 6 ounces of maltodextrin at the end of the boil too, to help resolve some of the body issues caused by the lower mash temps. I also threw in a few ounces of maple syrup with about 5 minutes to go. Getting ready for knock out.

Collected 5.25 gallons of wort - Brix 14.5, or 1.059. I had to add some water so that I wasn't way way over. I think my initial reading was 15.something/1.066. I really wanted this to land around 5.5%.

4/16 BOTTLED
I guess I missed an update when I transferred to secondary... but today was a good day to get this batch bottled. Gravity was sitting pretty at 1.010, and everything cleared out very well. Even though I never put any maple syrup in the boil or secondary, I can still taste maple. Everywhere I read about using sap said you won't get any maple flavor, but I tell you I do! In any case, I decided to use maple syrup to prime the bottles with rather than corn sugar. I found a few things online (one from Mid West Brewing Supplies) that says to use 1 & 1/4 cups of maple syrup with a pint of water, so that's what I went with. I'm really liking the taste of this already, I would say the hops do come on a little strong... if it were a straight forward amber ale, I think it would be perfect... but I really wanted the maple character to come out on this so the hops do kind of prohibit that from happening. Hopefully using the maple syrup for priming will add more aroma and flavor. The only thing I really worry about is overcarbing it. Ended up with 2 dozen 12 oz bottles, and a baker's dozen of 22's.

Next up... tasting! And a video of the entire process!

And a review from Mr. Don Osborn (starts at 2:53):

Honey Rye

2011-02-24T07:15:00.019-05:00

THE PLAN

Recently I started participating in a local homebrew club here in Vermont called the Green Mountain Mashers. They're holding an internal club competition on style 6D - American Wheat... but substituting the wheat with rye, or at least a portion of it. I'm kind of late in the game, but I think I can squeeze a batch in before the night they're judged, just about 6 weeks from now. After looking into the style, I decided I'd do a 40/20/20/20 split of pale malt/wheat/rye/honey. I'm hoping the honey will add a little complexity to the the wheat and rye, but we'll see. I'm also opting to use a Kölsch yeast instead of an ale yeast, just to play around with the style a bit. All in all, this should be a nice crisp spring time beer that we can enjoy!

THE RECIPE
4# Pale Malt
3# Rye Malt
3# Wheat Malt
1 oz. homegrown Tettnang (60)
1# Honey (@ flameout)
10g Citra (@ flameout)
Wyeast 2565 - Kölsch

2/23 BREWDAY (night brew):
Need to get this brew ready for the 4/4 club competition, so I couldn't wait til the weekend to brew. Shooting for a single infusion batch sparge to make things simple.
10# grain - 12.5 qts strike water - target mash temp = 152, did some scrambling with initial temps, but finally got it there. After 60 minutes, I added 7 qts boiling water for mashout. It only brought the temps up to 163 which I was a little disappointed in. But whatever, not a big deal. After 10 minutes, I did first collection:
1st runnings - collected just under 3 gallons, Brix 13.3/1.054.
Added 15 qts sparge water @ 170, after 10 minutes I started the 2nd run off.
2nd runnings - collected 15 quarts, Brix 5.25/1.021 - this seemed very very low... so I decided to only add up to 6 gallons for the boil rather than all 15 quarts.
Pre-boil - 6 gallons, Brix 8.9/1.035. Not great, but whatever.
Boil was set for 60 minutes, added 1 oz. homegrown Tettnang at 60. Added wort chiller with 10 minutes left. At flame out, I added 1 pound of local honey, and 10g of Citra hops.
Chilled to 60F, collected 4.75 of 1056 wort, decided to add a quart of water to bring it up to 5 gallons.
SG - Brix 12.3/1.049, 5 gallons, fermenting at 60 degrees. Plan on doing this for a while, then lagering for a while as well. Maybe 4 weeks for primary, 2 weeks for lagering? Other way around? Not sure yet. Actually I don't think I have that much time, so hopefully this will finish fermentation quickly!

2/25 FERMENTATION WATCH
Been checking in on this guy... it's rockin steady in my basement at 58F. Started bubbling within 24 hours, and is steadily chuggin away. Hope this will finish out within a week or two so I can start lagering soon.

3/6 TRANSFER FOR LAGERING
It was nasty out today, so I decided to transfer this bad boy from primary to a keg today start lagering for the next 3 or so weeks. Used my new hydrometer - 1.016... not bad.

Golden-straw color, hazy still, pretty bland aroma... a little yeasty yet... really everything is pretty subtle. Nothing really pops at this point. Taste is fairly clean, crisp, a little sweetness from teh honey & malt... getting right to where I want it. This could turn out pretty good. At least a nice crisp Spring beer.

3/27 BOTTLING
Decided I better get this thing bottled if I want it to be ready for April 4th. Gravity said 1.018, but then again it was just out of the fridge, so probably 36F or 38F. Smells crisp from the Kolsch yeast, a tiny bit of spice, wheat, and hops... very subtle though. The yeast is definitely overpowering everything else at this point. Haze, straw color, might clear up a bit as it warms. Taste is similar to aroma - very crisp at the front, smooths out to a balanced mix of hops, wheat, and maybe a little spice from the rye. Honey really isn't overtly present, kind of hidden in the texture. Used a little less than a cup of corn sugar to prime, collected twelve 22oz bottles, and a case of 12 oz bottles. Wish I had a warm room to condition these in, but until I do, they'll be upstairs in one of the bedrooms next to the baseboard heater. A week should be good enough to provide some strong carbonation, so we'll see... will probably test one a week from today. This will definitely be a great beer to enjoy on a warm Spring day. Lookin forward to it!

And a review by Mr. Don Osborn:

Collaborator - Double Decoction Doppelbock

2011-02-17T11:05:00.004-05:00


Mmmm, Celebrator.

THE PLAN:
My friend and brewing co-hort Matt and I have many things in common, but one of them is that we are suckers for Bavarian Doppelbocks. We have been talking about doing a batch of beer together, and simultaneously, we have been talking about experimenting with a historical brewing style called decoction. Doppelbock happens to be one of those styles that was traditionally a decoction mash, so we decided to not only do a decoction mash for a batch of doppelbock, but we would do two mashes, one as a double decoction and one as a single infusion batch sparge. The main idea is to brew both identically in every way except the mash styles, and then compare the final results.

THE RECIPE: (this is for a 3 gallon batch, we'll be using this for each), basically taken from Brewing Classic Styles.
7# Munich
2# German Pils
1# CaraMunich III
3/4 oz Hallertau (60)
1/4 oz Hallertau (30)
2 Activator packs of Wyeast Hella Bock 2487, 2L starter on stir plate, stepped up to 1gal, refridgerated and decanted. Had about 1&1/2 cups of yeast for each 3 gallon batch.

2/13 BREWDAY:
What a freakin day it was. The infusion mash went smooth, the decoction mash... not so much, but they both ended up fine.

Infusion Mash
Decided, after much debate, to do a single infusion mash rather than a double infusion for sake of time and effort. 12.5 qts to 10# grain, strike @ 155 for 60 minutes. After an hour, we only lost about 2 degrees. Collected ~3.5 gallons first runnings @ 16 Brix/1.065, collected another gallon or so at 9 Brix/1.036. Total pre-boil volume was about 5 gallons (1/2 gallon more than what we were shooting for) and our pre-boil gravity was 13.8/1.056. We boiled down to 4 gallons, then threw in our first hop addition and proceeded through to knock out. Chilled down to 48F, pitched the yeast, and let sit outside for about a 1/2 hour to chill down a little more. Only went down about 2 degrees. It's now sitting on the floor of my basement (ambient temp is 53F +/-) and seems pretty steady at 52F. 2.75 total gallons, OG Brix 19.4/ hydrometer 1.084. Doughed in at 11AM, pitched yeast at 5PM.

Decoction Mash

Good gravy, this was labor intensive and not completely rewarding, but we managed to get through it, and it was a great learning experience. We planned out a double decoction, and the basic gist is to put all of your grain and all of your water (minus sparge water) in at a low temp, take out a 1/3, raise it to a sacch rest, then raise to boiling, then repitch into the whole batch raising it's complete temp up to a sacch rest. That's one step. You then take another 1/3 out after the rest is completed, raise it to a higher sacch rest, then to boil, then repitch raising the whole batch to a mashout temp. Sounds easy, right?! Well, we got 2 out of 3 right. When decocting, you typically (depending on who you talk to) use a thinner water:grain ratio, like 2:1 rather than 1.25:1. We doughed in with 20qts water @ 122 for our first rest. After some time we were ready to take out the first 1/3. We ran into our first problem here... how do we determine how much to take out AND do we strain the grain or take out the whole mash? There was a BrewStrong podcast about decoction, hosted by Jamil, John Palmer, and Denny Conn... and they said you strain it and just heat the grain. We had also read and talked to some people that said you take everything. We kind of went middle of the road and took the grain plus some of the mash water. But, apparently we didn't take enough because when we pitched it back in, it only rose about 15 degrees, where we needed 30 more. Before that though, during out first decoction step, we learned how labor intensive decocting really is. You have to stir continuously, and that shit was thick. The temps were all over the damn place, and when we finally hit out sacch rest temp, it didn't stay there long unfortunately. We finally got it up to boiling, and like I said earlier, when we pitched the boiling heap back in, the mash temp in the cooler was at 116 and only rose to about 130, we needed to raise to 149 or so. We pulled out a bunch right away and started heating our second decoction step, same as the first - 158 then boiling. If this was done correctly, then the mash in the cooler should have been resting the whole time at 149, instead it was sitting at 130. Not much we could do, so we continued and tried to get this one (a much bigger chunk of the mash) up to temp and pitched back in. It still took a long while, can't recall exactly how much longer, but we finally got it up to temp, pitched it back in and still fell a little short, so we added a few quarts of boiling water and had the whole heap up at 160-ish. Our first collection was roughly 3.5 gallons @ 14.8 Brix/1.060. We ran a small sparge amount through and collected another 2 gallons when it was all said and done, second runnings were 10.2/1.041. Total pre-boil volume was 5 gallons and pre-boil gravity was 13.4/1.054. 2 points lower than our infusion mash. We followed the same boil & hop schedule as the infusion mash, throwing in first addition at 60 minutes left (when it hit 4 gallons), and then 2nd addition at 30 minutes left. Ended up collecting between 2.5 & 2.75 gallons, chilled down to about 49/50, pitched the yeast, set outside for about 15 minutes, then down to the basement. Last I checked it was sitting pretty at 52F. Close to 2.75 total gallons, OG Brix 22/1.092 (a bit of a surprise). My hydrometer broke, so I had to rely on my refractometer for the reading, but should be about right, and I ended up checking three different times throughout the collection to make sure it was right. Time: doughed in about 11:30/11:45, pitched yeast at 8:30PM.

Brewday thoughts:
What a long day, we started milling grains and measuring/heating water at 9:30 AM, and I pitched the 2nd yeast at 8:30PM and still had an hour or more of clean up to do. So easily 12 hours. Matt projected a 10 hour day, and I was like "no waaaayyyyy, we got this in 6 or 8 easy!" Errrr, big swing and a miss, B. There are a lot of numbers up there in those two mash schedules, but not much description of what was going on. The infusion mash seemed like any other mash, sweet, bready malt aromas and typically colors. The decoction was pretty interesting to watch, smell, and taste. The wort got really dark and cloudy. Lots of caramel aromas, chocolate, etc. It looked & felt thick, even though it was a 2:1 ratio. The starting gravities were about 10 points different which is a little disappointing, but that's fine. Our biggest frustration was how to figure out what exactly 1/3 of the total mash looks like, and in turn not hitting getting our first step to raise the overall temp up to where we needed it to be. I think if we could figure that out, I'd be interested in doing this style again... I think. We may be perfectly happy with the results we get with the simple single infusion batch sparge method too that took 4 hours less time. If the decoction produces a far superior beer (which I'm doubting), then I would probably opt to do it for the styles that lend themselves to it - bocks, hefs, etc. We shall see! But honestly, I'm thinking about what to do next with this style.

2/21 CHECK-IN:
Activity has slowed way down, but still some churning going on. Temps are about 50. I took a small sample of each out this morning to test gravity. My hydrometer broke during the last brew, so this is just a refractometer reading that's been adjusted using one of these worksheets I have.

Infusion - Brix 13.6 = 1.039
Decoction - Brix 13.6 = 1.032

I retested them twice since I got the same reading for both, which is pretty crazy. The infusion one smelled great, just like Celebrator. The decoction one really didn't. I have a bit of a cold still so my smells are a bit off anyways, so I wouldn't put too much stock in my sense of smell right now.

3/27 RACK TO KEG (LAGERING)
Many moons passed due, I finally got around to racking these two to kegs in order to lager them a bit. I pulled a few samples for hydrometer readings, and for some taste evaluation as well. The infusion one was fairly nice - clear, dark ruby, smelled and tasted to style. The decoction... not so much. Not sure how to describe it, but it didn't taste great. It was much hazier too... and there was a lot of junk floating around in there too... grain & hop trub, proteins, etc. Gravities of each were kind of surprising: Decoction = 1.020; Infusion = 1.031. The decoction's was right one (even though it tasted awful), but the infusion batch's (which looked, smelled, and tasted great), was pretty high. It should be around 1.025 or 1.020. Matt and I will have to put our heads together and think about this a bit.

More later...

Bourbon "Barrel" Imperial Stout

2011-01-22T06:58:00.003-05:00

THE PLAN:

Last summer, I had the pleasure of visiting Minnesota. One of the great places I visited was the Happy Gnome, a cool little pub in St. Paul. While I was there, I asked for a glass of an imperial stout they had on the menu from Goose Island called Bourbon County Stout. When I said to the bartender "I'll try the BCS" he said "yes you will..." Holy mole, it knocked my socks off. Since then I've tried as many bourbon stouts and baltic porters that I can, and I am now taking a stab at my own creation.

Since I'm only brewing 5 or 6 gallons at a time, and actual wine or bourbon barrels are typically 59 gallons... I'm using oak spirals and will be soaking them in bourbon first, then adding to the secondary fermenter for 100 days.

The result will be a 13% monster. Expected to be ready early summer, which isn't the greatest of times for an imperial stout... I'd rather be enjoying it in the fall or even dead of winter, but that's how it worked out, so whatever. This will be one that will be even better at this time next year!

THE RECIPE:
22# Pale Malt
4# Munich
1# Crystal 60L
1/2# Chocolate Malt
1/2# Roasted Barley
1/2# Black Patent Malt
8 oz Willamette
2 oz oak spirals
16 oz bourbon (tbd)
Yeast cake from oatmeal brown ale (wyeast 1028)

1/30? BREWDAY:
Hoping to get this brewed before the end of the month!

Patersbier

2011-01-17T20:00:00.005-05:00

THE PLAN:

3 samples from brew day:
first runnings (left), second runnings,
and pre-boil (front)

Last summer I learned about a type of Belgian beer called Patersbier, brewed by monks, that never makes it to the public. When I think of Trappist beers, I think of styles like tripels, dubbels, and strongs - both dark and gold. Apparently the monks would make a "father's beer" that was like a tripel, just low in alcohol, usually around 4%, and keep it to themselves. It sounded interesting, so I did as much digging as I could find, and put together a pretty easy recipe. Goal is to have an easy drinking table beer, clean, clear, and still have that belgian quality to it.

RECIPE:
9# Pils (Franco-Belg)
1 oz Hallertau (60)
1/2 oz Goldings (10)
Irish Moss (10)
Wyeast 1214

1/17 BREWDAY:
Single infusion 90 minute mash w/ mashout & batch sparge.
Target temp: 148F
Target pre-boil gravity: 1.035
Target strike water: 11.25 qts @ 168 (5 degrees for cooler absorption, 15 degrees for grain absorption)
Target mashout water: 9.4 qts @ 200 (target temp = 168=170)
Target sparge water: ~2-2.5 gallons @ 168-170
-----------------------------------------------
Strike: 11.25 qts @ 168, 163 after added to cooler (preheated), 147-150 after dough in, avg = 148
At this point, the mash went longer because we had left and came back, temp down to 142/143F.
Mashout: 10 qts @ 200, added to mash, overall temp now 165-168... avg 165/166.
First runnings: collected 4.25 gallons @ 13.4 (Brix)/1.054
Sparge: added 2 gallons @ 186, added to grains, overall temp now 165/166 - still short of 168/170 target.
Second runnings: collected 2 gallons @ 6.75 (Brix)/1.027
Pre-boil totals: 6 gallons @ 11(Brix)/1.044
-------------------------------------------
Boil for 60 minutes, additions are Hallertau @ 60 minutes, Goldings @ 10 minutes
------------------------------------------
Chilled to 64 degrees, pitched Activator pack of 1214
SG: 5 gallons @ 13(Brix)/1.052

More later!

NOTES:
1/17 - This is a very simple, straightforward recipe, with the yeast being the star of the show. I'd like to brew this again... even at this early stage, and split it up and ferment with different strains of belgian yeasts.
1/17 - Eventhough the single malt grain bill was simple to put together, I put much thought into the hops. I norrowed it down to three: goldings, hallertau, and saaz. I definitely did not want this smelling or tasting anything like a pilsner, and I happened to have both an ounce of hallertau and a 1/2 ounce of goldings, so that's what I used!

And a review from Mr. Don Osborn

Oatmeal Brown Ale

2011-01-07T18:00:00.034-05:00

The Plan:

When I was visiting Minneapolis in June this past summer, I snagged a can of Surly Bender and Coffee Bender to bring back to VT. It wasn't until November that I opened the Bender at a beer tasting. I honestly didn't even look to see what the style was. I think I must have looked at some point, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was an oatmeal brown ale. It... was... amazing. The aroma alone was enough to make my eyes roll into my head. Extremely tasty. Since I don't have access to it, I am going to try to make something similar. This my take the place of the Third Stone Brown I do each year, which is a clone of Empyrean Ales' beer.

THE RECIPE:
SG: 1.057
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.24%
IBU: 56.3 (this is a little higher than what they say on the surly website, but I'm ok with that)
srm: 22.6
---
7# pale malt
1# aromatic
2# flaked oats - kind of high on the oats, but whatever :-\
3/4# crystal 60L
3/4# crystal 90L
1/2# chocolate
1 oz zeus 14% (60)
1 oz willamette 5.5% (5)
Wyeast 1028 London ale (going to pitch an imperial stout on this yeast cake next batch)
---
mash @ 152
90 minute boil
ferment @ 67

I've been wanting to brew this for a month now, but this is the first real time I've had to get it done. Was trying to rock this out Friday night (12/3) or Saturday AM, but it didn't happen... and then was shooting for Sat. night/Sunday AM... but our little dude puked a few times, so my focus was diverted. Then I started getting sick, so it's been pushed back again.

1/7 BREWDAY: (first batch of 2011!)
Single infusion mash, batch sparge:
Estimates:
15.2 qts @ 172 --> 167 (when added to cooler) --> 152 (after dough in) for 60 minutes
Actual:
15.2 qts @ 176 added to cooler (preheated with kettle of boiling water) --> 168.5 (after 10 minutes)
After dough in --> 149-153, mostly around 152.
After an hour, temps still between 148-152, most around 150.
Added 8.7 quarts boiling water for mashout --> temp up to 172, added tray of ice, temp now at 161 :-( (should have just added a couple ice cubes, not a full tray)
First runnings - Brix 14.2, collected 4 gallons.
Added 2.5 gallons sparge water @ 175.
Second runnings - Brix 7.4
Pre-boil gravity: 10.8/1.043
Decided to do a 90 minutes boil, hop addtions at 60 and flame out.
Collected 4.75 gallons, starting gravity: 13.6/1.055

1/10 FERMENTATION CONTROL:
I had made a starter about a month ago... kept it in the fridge, decanted it, and let it warm up to room temp before pitching in this. A day went by and nothing happened, so I decided to get an Activator pack of the same yeast and add that. The next morning, it was bubblin away. I'm pretty sure that the original yeast would have kicked in at some point, but I didn't really feel like waiting to see. Initial starting fermentation temp was around 64, which is a little low. I checked it last night (1/10) after roughly 36 hours and it was 70. I wrapped in a towel soaked in cold water, and it brought it back down to about 66. My target was 67. I think the fact that it got a little hotter than I wanted will probably just give it a few more fruity esters... not a big deal. Now we wait for it to finish fermentation, go for a week of secondary, and then this puppy will get kegged.

1/17 SECONDARY:
Decided to brew today... got the whole way to the last 15 minutes of the boil and realized I didn't have my main carboy empty. Time to rack this thing to 2nd to make room for the patersbier. One somewhat tricky thing I have to do is sterlize some equipment to collect the yeast from this batch. I'm intending on using it on an imperial stout I plan to make next.

I ended up collecting about 4.5 gallons... pretty cloudy still, very dark... smells of coffee and chocolate, tastes the same with some bitter from the choc malt. Hopefully I can clear it up a bit, but this will definitely be a good one.

As far as the yeast... I left a little beer in the bottom to swish up the yeast with. Seems like I didn't leave quite enough... but I did manage to get about a growler's worth, maybe a little less. I'll put this in the fridge for now and kick it in a starter a few days before the imperial stout is brewed.

1/30 CHECK IN:
I really wanted to keg this beast this weekend, but just didn't get around to it. I did manage to pull a sample to add to the line up of beers I had that night - Smuttynose Old Brown Dog and Wolavers Oatmeal Stout. I was a little disappointed in what I found... more hop aroma than I would like, and more roasty/bitter notes from the dark malts. Damn. Hardly any oat aroma or flavor. Double damn. And when compared to the Wolavers, it was very close to the same color. Triple damn. I could live with it being darker than I projected, especially since Bender is on the dark side... but I really wanted the oat aromatics to be overwhelminly great.

Next up... bottling/kegging

Double IPA

2010-11-19T10:00:00.053-05:00

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

2010-11-06T22:24:00.011-04:00

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

2010-10-24T14:24:00.004-04:00

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!!!

2010-10-17T00:01:00.001-04:00

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

2010-10-10T22:02:00.002-04:00

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

2010-10-06T12:50:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-19T23:49:00.001-04:00

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

2010-08-23T00:00:00.005-04:00

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

2010-08-17T20:36:00.001-04:00

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

2010-08-01T21:00:00.000-04:00

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

2010-07-23T23:00:00.001-04:00

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

2010-07-10T20:44:00.003-04:00

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 ;-)

2010-06-12T02:00:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-17T13:56:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-15T21:00:00.000-04:00

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

2010-04-25T12:12:00.000-04:00

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 Garde n 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

2010-04-18T20:40:00.001-04:00

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

2010-03-24T14:26:00.000-04:00

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

2010-03-16T23:08:00.001-04:00

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

2010-03-06T11:00:00.000-05:00

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

2010-02-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

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..
.

Dunkelweizen

2010-01-17T16:14:00.000-05:00

The plan: I wanted to do a winter wheat, and I thought I'd try an all grain clone of Weihenstephaner Dunkelweizen. If you haven't tried it, do yourself a favor and go get some! Later, I think I wished I would have cloned the old Magic Hat St. Gootz... that stuff was so good, it's a shame they stopped making it.

Recipe:
5# Pilsner 2row (Ger)
5# Wheat Malt (Ger)
1# Honey Malt
1/2# Special B
1/2# Rice Hulls
1oz Mt Hood (in place of Hallertau)
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephaner Weizen

1/17 BREW DAY: This was my 2nd all grain batch, 1st in the cooler, and we were gonna have some company over while I was brewing, not optimal, but oh well. Heated up 15 quarts of tap water to 170F, added to cooler, then doughed in. Hit my mash temp of 153, covered with 2 blankets and let sit for an hour. I did open it up a few times to check the temp since it was the first time I had used the new cooler mash tun. By 60 min, I only had lost 2 degrees, so this thing rocked! I heated up about 8.5 quarts of water to almost boiling, added it to the mash for mash out, stirred the shit out of the mash, then let sit for 10 minutes. Vorlof'd back in, then collected first runnings. Brix = 11.5/1.045... hmmmmm, that's not that great. Estimated pre-boil gravity was 1.051.. and the first runnings didn't even hit that... eesh. (I later realized that I didn't stir it enough and I think there were some pretty big clumps in there). After first collection, I had about 3.5 gallons, and I want 6.5 total so I heated up 3 more gallons to 190 and added that to the grains. Hit my 168 temp, vorlof on top, collected second runnings, total Brix now = 9.75/1.038. Shit! Ended up with 6.5, threw on the fire and brought to a boil. Added my hops when boil started... let the boil go for 1 hour. It was actually warm enough (high 30's maybe 40) that I was able to use the outdoor hose, so I used the IWC and got it down to 65 in about 15/20 mins. SG BRix=10.5/1.042... target was 1.059 for 75% efficiency, so I came in low, around 53%... oh well, what can ya do... it was only batch #2. Pitched the yeast slurry started a day before, and called it a day (aside from cleanup).

It started a pretty vigorous fermentation the next day, to the point that it looked pretty crazy. You could actually see it swirling around in the main body of the carboy. I may have seen that once before, can't really recall.

1/29 RACK TO SECONDARY: I got a bit weirded out while transferring to secondary. Some unknown substance got into the batch and there was a huge "thing" on the inside wall of the carboy (see pic). Freaked-me-the-eff-out. I took a sample, Brix=6/1.014 which hit my target, and I tasted the sample. Hmmm, not sure about this one. I took this pic in to my LHBS, and they were a little weirded out by it too, BUT she suggested that I keep moving forward with it and see how it turns out. Oooookay! I will try.

2/13 BOTTLED: Ehhh.... this still has a weird taste to it... although I can smell the banana of the yeast, which is cool.

2/23 TASTING: No carbonation at all... which makes me wonder. Plus it really did not taste good. I'm so ready to pitch this into the garden and start over. I'll wait it out a little bit longer, but there should have been some sort of carbonation in there by now.

4/4 TASTING (AGAIN): Took pic at top of post, carbonated just fine, but it did take a while. Still has this strange aftertaste. I've looked into it a bit and it sounds like its an astringent taste. Like having paper towel on the back of your tongue. I don't like it. It does look and smell great though. I have a feeling I messed up with the mashing somewhere and got some unwanted tannins... and speaking of, I had a nice chat on Beer Advocate Homebrew Forum about it - Unwanted Tannins

5/1 HOMEBREW COMPETITION: Upon the suggestion of two friends and certified beer judges, I submitted this one to the local homebrew competition. It faired better than I thought, but still not great. My astringency suspicions were supported by both judges that tried it. I'm thinking it was a combination of using crappy city tap water along with a sloppy sparge. I will definitely make this again, but I do want to tweak some stuff, and make it more like the Magic Hat St. Gootz. Below are the two score sheets.

2010 Brew Calendar

2010-01-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

The Plan: I have been enjoying brewing again, and I definitely feel more confident than my first go at it back in 2001/2002. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, and not very many people to turn to... and there was nothing online yet. So, I was going to wait for a full year before doing all grain again, but I thought... it's a new year, what the hell! While I am traveling, I decided to try and write out a tentative brew calendar for the year, based off of what I would like to be drinking at a particular time and how long it'll take for it to be ready. I also have a hefty goal of trying to brew every other weekend... not sure how long that'll hold up, but it's worth a shot! So here we go....

4/11 - CHECK-IN:
I thought I'd check in with my brew calendar and maybe adjust a few things since I've fallen a bit behind as well as switched a few things around. So far I've brewed: Chocolate Stout (plus chili & mint EXPs), Dunkelweizen, Brown Ale, Brown Rice Lager, and Funky Monkey (my banana hefe concoction). All have been all-grain, and so far the chocolate stouts, dunkelweizen, and brown ale have had this weird after taste... but apparently it's me because others have tried them and don't taste it... go figure. I blame it on using tap water, and all were brewed using tap water except the last one - funky monkey. It's a little odd that I have nothing in any carboys right now, well aside from my cider that is still chillin.

The Mash Tun Project

2010-01-05T16:54:00.000-05:00

1/3/10 - Good lawd this thing has stressed me out somethin awful! I have a sweet 3 tier system (on the left - circa 2003), but the damn thing has such a problem with heat loss that I have decided I just cannot use it. Even in hotter outside temps, it just doesn't do well. I had had enough of it, and I was ready to start all grain brewing for good, but I knew I needed to get this thing fixed or else I'd be screwed.

First Option - Wrap That Rascal
I had seen some people wrapping their mash tun kettle with water heater insulation. I went to Lowes and looked at a couple different types and decided to use the one with the higher rating. Well, what I didn't take into consideration was the friggin insulation (dumb ass). When I actually went to cut out the piece to wrap the kettle, and also a circular piece for the lid... I realized that choosing the one with the fiberglass insulation was a HORRIBLE idea. That shit got everywhere, and I was so pissed at myself. What a waste of $25. Well, I made it work for that first batch, but proceeded to throw it away right after. And the thing still didn't retain heat... it dropped 10 degrees in 45 minutes. WTF???

Second Option - Convert The Old Family Cooler.
This seemed very promising since a lot of people have done this, PLUS it would allow me to brew indoors during the winter which was a huge bonus. So, I needed to fix a crack on the inside, find the right size tube to fit through the hole, a stainless steel toilet supply line, and an in-line valve outside of the cooler to control the flow. Well, for the first attempt with this one, I decided not to fix the crack on the inside... it seemed sooo small and insignificant... big mistake. Well, maybe not big, but it did leak quite a bit through the course of mashing and lautering. The toilet supply line was easy, and finding the the valve setup locally was a little challenging but I got it worked out. I could've just snagged a valve from Northern Brewer... but I like to make things difficult for myself apparently. So, 2 1/2" (shanks) and a 1/2" valve switch later, I was in business. Since I had the leak, I tried caulking the outside of the hole, but that just slowed it down a little and made a gooey mess. Between my 2nd & 3rd batch, I got some food safe water sealant and sealed the shit outta the inside and out and it has worked wonderfully.

So, option #2 is the big winner for now... I do love my 10 gallon stainless steel kettles... and I hope to maybe make a 5 gallon version of the Brutus 10 someday with them. I have shitty burners, and smaller kettles, but I think it's possible. Just need to build the stand, get some pumps, and build the controller and I'll be set. I will still have the issue of heat loss with that effin thing, so we'll see. But for now, I'm loving the resurrection of my old cooler. We used to make a huge vat of jungle juice in that thing for parties, so it's probably loving this retirement plan. :-)

Cheers

Chocolate Stout EXP

2010-01-03T15:53:00.000-05:00

The plan: I have had this idea in mind to try a few chocolate stout variations. We grow 3 varieties of mint at our house, and I thought it might be interesting to try to make a chocolate mint stout. We have peppermint, spearmint, and applemint, and I saved (froze) about an ounce from each at the end of the season. I also wanted to try to make a chocolate chili stout... using a cayenne pepper to spice it up. I brew in 5 gallon batches, so I've been working on buying 5 - 1 gallon jugs to split the batch up. I have the needed equipment and so at the beginning of 2010, I thought I'd try it out.

Recipe:
I've been sampling chocolate stouts over the past 2 months to see which would be a good recipe to base this off of. I settled on Young's Double Chocolate Stout. If you haven't tried it, do yourself a favor and go grab some. While researching a clone recipe for this, I decided that this would be a good time to move to all grain brewing. I was fairly confident that I could do this, but what I was worried about was my mash tun. It has had a horrible heat loss problem, so I needed to figure something out with that first. I have another blog entry detailing this process.
Ok, on to the recipe:
OG- 1.053
FG- 1.013
IBU-28
SRM-35
7# Pale 2-row (UK)
11 oz Crystal 60
13 oz Choc malt
12 oz Lactose
8 oz Invert Sugar
4oz Cane sugar
6 oz Cocoa powder
.33 oz liquid chocolate extract
1.4 oz Fuggles (60 min)
1/4 oz Kent Goldings (15 min)
Wyeast 1318 London 3

SO, I made some changes to this, I substituted Malto Dextrin for the Lactose... which I regretted later. It's not a huge deal, but I think it would have added a sweeter mouthfeel to compliment the chocolate in the recipe. Oh well, I was looking at the price of the two instead of what they did ($1.99 for 8 oz MD, $4.99 for 1# of Lactose). I also could not find Invert or Cane sugar, so I used 1# clear candi sugar instead. I did locate the liquid chocolate extract at a health food grocery store, but I forgot to add it to secondary, so it was a waste.

1/3 BREW DAY: OK, first all grain in 7 years, so pretty much my first all grain. I worked on wrapping the mash tun with a water heater insulation... big mistake, but I made it work for this one. Heated 11 quarts of water to 170, dumped in mash tun, waited a minute or two, then doughed in. Temp reading = 153... perfect. Now I would pray that it stayed there. I waited about 45 minutes and took another reading... 145. Shit! I decided to use the decoction method and I drained about 2 quarts and heated it up to almost boiling. I added that back in, took a temp reading.. 149. Shit! Took another 2 quarts out, boiled, added, temp reading = 150. I did this one more time, and then left it alone for the remaining 10 minutes or so before mashout. I added 3.25 qts of 206F, stirred then drained immediately (another mistake). Took a sample, Brix=9/1.036... target was 1.051. Collected about 4 gallons, so I heated 2.5 gallons to 196F, added to grains, stirred and took temp - 180... way too high. Held for 10 minutes then drained, collected 6 gallons, added another 1/2 gallon water. So.. I was so excited about all of this, and the use of the cocoa, candi sugar, etc... that I accidentally dropped ALL of it in at the beginning of the boil. DOH! I was supposed to wait until 10 minutes left in the boil. Shit, oh well. Somehow with the candi sugar I was able to hit my target gravity after the boil, actually go over it. My target was 1.056, and I got 1.062.

1/15 RACK TO SECONDARY: Between the brew day & moving to secondary, I had the pleasure of traveling to the Dominican Republic for work. We got to tour a cacao plantation where they harvest cacao seeds, ferment them, roast them, and make cocoa powder. I was able to bring some cocoa balls back with me, which are nothing more than organic cocoa powder in a hard packed form. The first step was to break the 5 gallons apart into 5 one gallon jugs. After that, I'd add one cocoa balls, in powder form, to each jug. I wanted to have 1 gallon of plain chocolate stout to compare tastes to, 1 gallon with a single kung pao chili pepper de-seeded and cut up, and 1 gallon of each mint - peppermint, spearmint, and applemint.

1/29 BOTTLED: Time to bottle... I decided since I only had a gallon of each, I would bottle in as many 12 oz. bottles as I could. I walked away with 8 plain, 8 chili, and 2 each of the mints + 3 22 oz. bottles of the mints as well. And I think maybe 1 22oz bottle of each the plain & chili. So, I will TRY to wait a couple weeks, maybe even until Valentines day... but man I'm stoked to try these. I think the chili one is gonna rock.

2/13 - TASTING!!! I have been looking forward to this for sooooo long now. I dreamed up this idea back in November, 3 months later it has come to fruition. On this night, I popped open one of the chili stouts... definitely not ready yet, hardly any carbonation at all... but the taste was pretty good. The heat was perfect. Nailed it! Hope the bitterness of the chocolate mellows out a bit with age.

2/18 - TASTING: Tried one of the Choc Spearmint Stouts while Ash stopped over to watch the Olympic women's halfpipe comp. Great head poured, but disipated quickly, over the course of 10 minutes or so. The mint was definitely too strong, but not too bad. Definitely not great, and I think if I tried this again (IF), then I would use, at most, half as much as I used this time... maybe even less. Concentrate on the choc stout and just add a hint of the mint. The other two mints are probably gonna turn out awful since this was my pick of the litter, we'll see.

2/23 - TASTING: With the good show of carbonation on the mint stout, I thought I'd crack open one of the plain chocolate stouts tonight after dinner to see how it faired. Well... the head was great, the aroma was nice, the initial taste was nice... but wow, horrible aftertaste... yuck. Definitely disappointing. Maybe it'll mellow over time... but I just launched in to thinking about all the shit that I did wrong that could have made that bitter aftertaste, and I'm not talking about hops. I don't remember getting that aftertaste with the chili one, but I did catch a faint taste of it with the mint one. Seems like I tasted that in the Holiday Cheer too... but that was definitely the clementines, and was a different bitter. I'll give these a little more time, probably try the chili one again this weekend for Mardis Gras and see how it is.

Cranberry Oak Bark Ale

2009-11-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

The plan: I was consulting my "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers" book and found an interesting recipe using oak bark. Yes, bark. We happened to have a fairly young oak tree in our back yard and I noticed the bark could be chipped off easily. I did some more reading and decided what the hell.. let's do a 1 gallon batch and see how it turns out. As I was putting the recipe together, I thought I should add something to balance out the dry earthy taste the oak bark would most likely give. First thing that came to mind was cherries... I figured the tartness of them might pair well. After an internet search for Cherry Oak... I discovered that Widmer Brothers had already made a Cherry Oak Dopplebock. Shit! Oh well... was actually still going to go through with it, and I went to the grocery store to get the supplies but I could not find any fresh cherries. What I did see though were fresh cranberries. I grabbed a pound of those and also a bag of dried cranberries and headed home to brew.

Recipe: (1.5 gallon batch)
OG: 1.074
FG: 1.019*
2# Pale LME
2oz Oak Bark
Cooper's Ale (dry)

11/18 BREWDAY: This was easy - I put on 1.5 gallons of tap water, brought to a boil, added the extract, dissolved, then added the oak bark and left on a low boil for 45 minutes. I pulled it off the stove, gave it an ice bath to 70, strained it into a 2 gallon bucket, checked gravity - Brix=18/1.074, then pitched 1 gram of yeast and let go. By the next morning it was showing fermentation. We left soon after for Thanksgiving, so the plan was to rack to secondary & add the cranberries when we got back from our trip back to PA.

12/5 SECONDARY: Before racking, I pulled a sample and checked gravity - Brix=9.9/1.019. Sweet... already rockin 7%. I also took a little sample to taste. Color was darker than I expected, very sweet... but wow was it tasty! I first added the dried cranberries to a 1 gallon jug, I think about 3 oz. I racked the beer on top... then realized that the dried cranberries would probably just make it sweeter, rather than tart. I pulled out the fresh cranberries, crushed them up a bit, and then added those in as well. Over the next couple of days a bit of a re-fermentation started happening. I made the mistake of not taking a gravity reading after I added the cranberries... it seems like the dried ones have added more sugar. I let it go until the 11th and then prepared for bottling.

12/11 BOTTLED:

Chapin Cider 2009

2009-11-11T09:56:00.000-05:00

The plan: Oh yes... it's cider time. I have tried to make a hard cider probably 3 or 4 times now. This year I restarted my homebrewing hobby, and went about things a little smarter. I think this one has a chance! Wuhoo!

I signed up for a fall crush from a local orchard. A fall crush is a special apple collection of a huge variety of apples that they crush together for a good mix to be used for hard cider. I rolled out to Chapin Orchard in Essex VT and collected 5 gallons. I also bought 2 cider donuts (couldn't resist), and a (ahem) "control" quart of their cider for ... you know... scientific purposes. (wink wink). In actuality, I wanted to sample their cider without using any of the cider I'd be using for the hard stuff. It was exceptionally great!

When I got home, I took a gravity reading (1.046), crushed up and added 5 camden tablets, and let it sit for 24 hours. I was a bit worried about these tablets working, because they were oooollllldddd. I got this particular bottle of them back in 2001 (gulp) in a purchase I made from a guy selling his 3 tier system and everything else in his brewing locker. So who knows how long he had them. Not sure if something like that can weaken or go bad over time. However, it seemed to work.

A day later, I warmed up some water, added 2 cups of brown sugar, and a little maple syrup, cooled the mixture to 100, then pitched some Red Star Champagne yeast and let it settle/activate for about 10-15 minutes. I racked the cider out of the 6 gallon bucket and into a glass carboy, then added the yeast, water, sugar, syrup mixture.

Throughout the following days, I got a little worried. It looked like it started to ferment, but then got this strange looking krausen on top -

10-09-DSLR 815
Originally uploaded by Pocket of Light Pictures

It went away by the next day, and then it started doing this totally funky fermentation again where it swirled in random patterns... check out the vid:

I confirmed with some more advanced brewers, that everything looked ok, and went on.

11/7 SECONDARY: While I was racking, I pulled a sample to check the gravity... 0.998!!! Holy schnikes! It tasted tart, was yellow and almost clear. I overshot where I wanted the fermentation to stop... damn. Deceiving little sucker! In the past, I've had the trouble of my ciders NOT fermenting... this time it fermented too much, which is a good problem to have I guess.

So, I racked to secondary, added some potassium sorbate (to halt the fermentation), and put it out in the garage where it will live for the next month at least... maybe longer. I may rack to a corny keg and stick in my fridge. This puppy needs to age, I just hope it has stopped fermenting. I do plan on adding 1 or 2 pounds of brown sugar, some honey, and maybe some maple syrup... hoping to sweeten it up. I'm not a big fan of dry ciders, and this thing was super dry.

1/29 THIRDARY: I had moved the cider out of the garage and into the 50-55F basement because I noticed ice building up on the inside of the carboy... not good! I'm sure it wouldn't really hurt, but I didn't want it happening. I took a gravity reading and we're still sitting pretty around 1.000. The taste had definitely mellowed out a bit, still dry, but not as bitey as it was back in November. I put about a quart or so of newly purchased cider into a saucepan, heated it up, then added 2#s brown sugar, 8oz maple syrup, and 8oz honey. Kept stirring until all dissolved, then added to thirdary carboy. I racked the cider on top, gave it a good shake, and capped it with an airlock. I left it there overnight to check for any possible fermentation start up. 24 hours later, nothing happened, which was good and bad. I really would like this to have some carbonation, but with no yeast left, I wouldn't have any. This would be a great one for a keg... hmmm... maybe I'll have to get that kegerator put together soon... ;-)

Mystery Rye IPA

2009-11-07T15:11:00.000-05:00

The plan: Saturday November 7th was "Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day" by AHA... so I invited some friends over and put together a little IPA partial mash recipe for the day. Turns out, we didn't get much brewing done that day while everyone was there... but we did bottle my Holiday Cheer, and move my cider to secondary... so they learned quite a bit from that.

Recipe:

11/7 BREWDAY:

11/18 SECONDARY:

12/13 BOTTLED:

12/18 TASTING!!!

Pumpkin Ale

2009-09-21T16:18:00.000-04:00

The Plan: Let's make a pumpkin ale, shall we?

Recipe:

9/21 BREW DAY:

10/6 BOTTLED:

10/16 TASTING:

Pumpkin Stout

2009-08-16T15:52:00.000-04:00

THE PLAN:
So I had this idea to make a pumpkin brown... I did some searching online for some recipes, and one of the ones was a pumpkin porter. I printed it out way back in 2003, but it wasn't until this year (2009), 6 years later, that I pulled it to use it as a base recipe. Well to my surprise, I knew the author. I couldn't believe it, so funny. Anyways, I changed a few things around from his original version... and my pumpkin brown ended up becoming a pretty damn good pumpkin stout.

THE RECIPE:
OG 1.050 (estimated)
FG 1.018

6.6# Pale LME
1# Choc Malt
1/2# Victory Malt
1/4# Crystal 10L
1/4# Crystal 40L
1/4# Crystal 60L
1/4# Crystal 80L
2/3 oz EKG (60 min)
2/3 oz Homegrown Tettnang (60 min)
1/3 oz EKG (15 min)
1/3 oz Homegrown Tettnang (15 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss
Pumpkin Mix: (baked @ 350F for 45 min prior to boil)
45 oz canned pumpkin
1 T pumpkin pie spice
1 c. Brown Sugar

8/16 BREWDAY:
I made a yeast slurry on 8/15, and put on stir plate for 24 hours. Started brewday off with making pumpkin mix and put it in the over @ 350 for 45 minutes. I also added the specialty grains to the water and started raising the temp to 150F.

8/26 RACKED TO SECONDARY:
Racked 4.5 gallons to secondary. Gravity =1.014. Bitterness was gone, pumpkin aroma & taste was hardly noticeable Tasted very much like a porter. Added another 1 T of pumpkin pie spice.

9/18 BOTTLED:
Dark, looks pretty clear, spicey aroma, enticing, tastes pretty good, only better with bottling!

10/16 BEER TASTING:
Decided to pull a bottle out and try it at our Fall beer tasting. And although it poured a little flat, I had everyone try it, and there were mixed opinions of which people liked better... my pumpkin ale or my pumpkin stout, but everyone enjoyed both. Two particular people that attended, Ernie & Paul, were a beer judge and local micro brewer (respectively). They both thought this would do well with some aging.

10/1 SECOND TASTING:
Ahh... nice tan frothy head this time. Almost all pumpkin flavor has been masked by malts. Definitely needs some more time.

10/30: Took a 22 oz bottle to Cape Ann Brewing Co. I tasted their Pumpkin Stout for the first time and I really couldn't believe how close mine was. Jen and I brought home a growler of it, and did a blind taste test to each other. We both got them wrong, we really couldn't tell them apart. I asked the guys at Cape Ann to write to me with a review, even upon asking again they didn't send anything. :-(

5/1 HOMEBREW COMP: So I had two 22oz bottles left and I decided to enter one of them into the local homebrew competition. Glad I did because it placed 3rd in category 21A, the Spice, Herb, and Vegetable Beer category! Attached below are two judges scoresheets/comments. I still have 1 bottle left and plan to open when I brew it again this summer.

Wit Did You Say?

2009-07-28T14:39:00.000-04:00

THE PLAN: Being from PA, there are some great craft brewers in that state that I fell in love with. One of them being Victory, based out of Downington. Many moons ago, I attended my first microbrew festival in State College, my friends and I couldn't get over one of Victory's beers called Whirlwind. It was so refreshing, sweet, and light. We wore out our welcome at their booth. I actually was doing a little bit of brewing back then so I knew enough to ask some recipe questions, of which I have saved a napkin with these items written on them. I always wanted to try to clone this beer, so this wit was my attempt.

THE RECIPE:
OG 1.054
FG 1.018
ABV 4.69%
IBU 15.1

6# Wheat Dry Malt Extract
3/4# Pilsner 2 Row
3/4# Flaked Wheat
1 oz Tettnang
1 oz Tettnang
1 oz Sweet Orange Peel
1 oz Bitter Orange Peel
Wyeast 3944 - Belgian Witbier liquid yeast

7/28 BREWDAY:
Pretty straight forward extract brew. Steeped the pils/flaked wheat at 160F for 15 min. At boil I added 3# of the wheat DME, and 1 oz Tett. With 10 minutes left I added the other 3# of wheat DME, 1 oz Tett, and 1 oz of each bitter & sweet orange peel.

8/11: So this thing fermented like crazy! I made the mistake of putting it into my 5 gal. carboy, should've used the 6... even w/ the 6 I think this thing would have run off the same way. Anyways... the krausen blew out the blow off tube a couple of times... and even after 2 WEEKS!!! it was still bubbling every 7 or 8 seconds. A friend told me to still rack it to primary after a week no matter what. I shall listen next time.

8/12 RACKED & BOTTLED: (skipped secondary, was getting anxious). G was around 1025/1030... not great after all that freaky fermenting that happened. Tasted kinda blah.

8/18 TASTING: This was the night of the 1st beer tasting... I opened a bottle ahead of time to see if was worthy of sharing, eventhough it had only been bottle the Wednesday before, so 6 days. Holy shit! So freakin awesome!!! Sweet aroma, sweet taste, color was beautiful... not as white as whirlwind but very nice. A little longer in the bottle and this thing will be phenomenol!!! I had everyone try it at the tasting and they all liked it. A friend, and more experienced brewer, thinks I could have improved it by fermenting at a lower temp. But what a great first attempt!

8/26: Found 3 bottles w/ bottoms broken out and beer drained. Taste is still pretty stellar. Overcarbonation sucks though.

8/30: FG: 1.018 not too shabby.

Baby Brew Pale Ale

2009-06-19T14:13:00.000-04:00

THE PLAN: I was hanging out with my friend Jamie, he was interested in learning how to brew, so we just went to the homebrew shop on a whim and grabbed some stuff to make a pretty generic pale ale. Other than three or four scattered attempts over the last 2 years I had lived in VT, it had been a good 6 years since I really brewed. So this was kind of a restart for me with brewing.

THE RECIPE:
OG 1.040
FG 1.010
IBU 28.4
ABV 3.9%

6.6# Pale LME
1/2# Crystal 60L
2 oz Tettnang (homegrown) (60 min)
1/2 oz Cascade (15 min)
1/2 oz Fuggles (15 min)
1/2 oz Fuggles (5 min)
1/2 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss
Munton dry ale yeast

6/19: BREWDAY:
Nothing super special about this other than actually brewing. Pretty straight forward extract batch. I see now (May '10) that my hop schedule was pretty lame. I'll definitely change that around for the next pale ale.

6/23 RACK TO SECONDARY, maybe bottled:
No memory of this lol

7/20 TASTING:
Good stuff! More malt next time for sure, more hops, use liquid yeast too.