Cranberry Oak Bark Ale

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

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

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

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

Recipe:


9/21 BREW DAY:

10/6 BOTTLED:

10/16 TASTING:

Pumpkin Stout

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?

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

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.