Pumpkin Ale

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brown Rice Lager

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

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

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

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

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

2010 Brew Calendar

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

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

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: