Seanywonton's Brewing Blog

Session Amber Lager (Accidental Munich Dunkel): Tasting and Recipe

2011-12-29T11:55:00.000-08:00

Wow, about 2 months since my last post! That's a record I think. One of the reasons why is that I have decided to wait to post recipes until I do the tasting too. So I have been brewing, but the posts will go up later.

For this beer, I was looking to make a beer that would be reminiscent of an Ayinger lager, especially their Oktoberfest, although once again I did not have their exact lager strain (which would be the Wyeast "Hella Bock" seasonal strain). I wanted it to be dark, melanoidin rich, and slightly sweet, with a big flavor profile but low alcohol. I wasn't looking to make a lager "to style", but I think it's a great example of a Munich Dunkel.

TASTING NOTES:

Appearance: Dark brown with a stable tan head that leaves a great lacing. Ruby highlights, clear but not "filtered" clear.

Aroma: Dark toasted breadcrusts, with a slight fruity sweetness from crystal malts. Very little to no hop aroma, slight alcohol contribution. Robust maltiness and a clean lager profile with maybe just a touch of sulfur (which dissipated as beer spent more time lagering).

Flavor: Toasty, Munich malt derived breadcrust, Moderate sweetness, low caramel flavor, but balanced more towards toasty flavors from malts. Moderate bitterness, very clean. Slight trace of hop flavor, then it ends with dry, toasty malt and clean residual bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, a little chewy, hearty enough for winter or fall but not too thick or filling. Moderate carbonation, low alcohol warmth, dry finish with just a touch of astringency.

Overall: This beer is a hit with Clarissa, who has a high appreciation for drinkable, flavorful session beers (you know, the kind us beer geeks think are "boring" and hardly ever brew). I like it a lot, and it's very close to what I was going for, but still I see room for improvement. I'd like to reduce the "bready" impact just a touch, and increase the perception of a light sweetness by dropping the IBU's just a touch. It's a great "dinner" beer, and you can have an imperial pint and go back for another. This keg definitely won't last long.

Recipe: Session amber lager

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal

OG: 1.048

FG: 1.015

ABV: 4.3%

Estimated Color: 15.5 SRM

Estimated IBU: 23.1 IBUs

Mash Efficiency: 88.00 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

5 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 61.5 %

2 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2 22.4 %

8.0 oz Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.6 %

12.0 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.4 %

3.0 oz Carafa III (525.0 SRM) Grain 5 2.1 %

17.00 g Perle [7.10 %] - First Wort 90.0 min Hop 6 19.2 IBUs

14.00 g Perle [7.10 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 3.8 IBUs

1.0 pkg Bohemian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2124) [124. Yeast 8 -

Notes:

------

4 gallons water, 1 gr. gypsum, 2 gr. CaCl, 2 gr. CaCO3

Mash in to 125F, 15 min.

Raised to 153 over 10 min, hold 30 min

Raised to 158 over 5 min, hold 15 min

Raised to 168 over 5 min, rest 5 min

sparge w/ 5 gal at 168 (no minerals)

Collect 6.8 gallons at 1.044

Boil 90 minutes, yeast nutrient and whirlfloc at 10 min.

End of boil: top up to 6 gallons (hot)

whirlpool & rest 10 min

chill thru plate chiller to 62

2 min O2

leave in garage at ambient temp (48) until visible fermentation

cooled to 50 degrees by 8 hours and visibly fermenting

fermented at 48-50 for 2 weeks

brought inside for diacetyl rest (65ish) for 1 week

11/23 Racked to keg, aged 3 weeks at 35 before drinking

Starter: 3750 ml stirplate starter 4 days ahead at room temp, decanted. Bohemian Lager yeast.

Tasting: Fresh Hop Spelt Saison

2011-11-10T15:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay on posting this. I did the Fresh Hop Spelt Saison tasting during the first week of November and I just hadn't gotten around to putting it up.

Aroma: Huge fruit profile from esters and hops: I'm getting juicy fruit, orange, tangerine, passionfruit, hop spicyness and peppery esters with a touch of alcohol warmth. A little pils malt is in the background, as well as a wheaty aroma from the spelt.

Appearance: This beer threw a big raw-wheaty haze when youger, but it's surprisingly clear after about a month in the keg. A slight haze with a light gold pilsner hue. Nice glass lacing, starts with a huge head and falls back to an even 1/4 inch head after a few minutes in the glass.

Flavor: Nice balance of bready, slightly sweet malt, with a big spicy hop flavor contribution. Bitterness is not much higher than say, Saison Dupont, which is a really nice level, as in, it's not a Belgian IPA. Like a lot of fresh-hopped beers I have tried, even my favorite professionally brewed ones, it has a slightly sticky/soapy bitterness at the end. It almost gives a bit of a "cottonmouth" after swallowing. Very drinkable, it ends dry and spicy with a touch of warming alcohol.

Mouthfeel: The raw spelt provides some big body considering the very low final gravity. It's almost creamy. Some of the soapy character I mentioned above in the back of the mouth after swallowing. Very smooth otherwise, no astringency or harsh alcohols.

Overall: I'm super impressed with how this beer turned out. The fairly moderate IBU's keeps this beer a very true saison, while the big aroma and flavor hop profile makes it a bold fresh-hop beer. It's very drinkable and I've never tasted a beer quite like it. I am a little less than impressed with the soapy quality from the hops, but it is not too high. It's more of a nuance that I would like to work out in future incarnations of this beer. I don't think there is anything to do about it except use less fresh hops, which I would be willing to cut back on slightly in the future. Working with the raw spelt was a breeze. The only drawbacks it seems to have is that it is very hard to crush, like probably any unmalted grain would be, and it requires a step infusion mash, but clearly not a cereal mash. I'd highly recommend playing around with the grain, especially in saisons or other beers that require some raw grain contribution.

Tasting and Recipe: Cherrywood Smoked Porter

2011-10-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well screw it: I was going to save this for later but after drinking half a glass of the Calypso Pale Ale, I decided I'd wash my mouth out with something I like a little better. This is a new beer I had not posted a recipe on yet: a smoked porter using Briess Cherrywood smoked malt. We have a sack of of this malt at the brewery and it smells really damn good, like a barbeque in the summertime. Pork ribs come to mind as well as BBQ potato chips, although it's much better than that. It's very tasty to eat on it's own. I was going for a well-balanced recipe, so I erred on the more reserved side as far as percentage of smoked malt, using only 12% in the grist. Well, let's get to the tasting first and then the recipe:

Appearance: Reddish-tan head, not quite black body but could pass for a stout. Nice head retention!

Aroma: Smoke, but light, slightly burnt roast character with a hint of molasses, unsweetened cocoa, and sharpness. A touch of warming alcohols, not surprisingly hardly any hop aroma. No Diacetyl, low esters. Very enticing.

Flavor: Caramel, followed by a quick hit of dry roastyness, and a subtle but lingering smokey finish. A touch of that "cherry cola" sharpness I get from certain proters and stouts. Hop bitterness is moderate, this is not a sweet beer. Finish is roasty, chocolatey, with a mild campfire-smoke that stays for a while.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied but not cloying, slightly creamy, moderate carbonation, spicy and dry roast with just a touch of roasted astringency.

Overall: Lovin' it. This beer has been a real hit so far with other people. I am in some ways tempted to tweak it (maybe dial down the black malt by just a smidge since it is toeing the line of stout, or up the smoked by a hair and the bitterness down by just a few IBU's), but then again, sometimes you start doing all this stuff and realize you had it right the first time. For now I'm just drinking it. One thing I think really works for this beer is it's smokey enough for people that are looking for a touch of smoke, but not so much that it would turn off a regular porter drinker. This keg will kick fast, and then I'll want more.

Here's the recipe:

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com

Recipe: Cherrywood-smoked porter

Brewer:

Asst Brewer:

Style: Robust Porter

TYPE: All Grain

Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal

Boil Size: 7.00 gal

Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal

OG: 1.061 SG

FG: 1.019

ABV: 5.5%

Estimated Color: 34.7 SRM

Estimated IBU: 38.2 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 78.00 %

Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

Amt Name Type # %/IBU

1 lbs 8.0 oz Cherrywood Smoked malt (5.0 SRM) Grain 2 12.2 %

8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.1 %

8.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.1 %

8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.1 %

8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.1 %

4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 7 2.0 %

8 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 69.4 %

18.00 g Falconer's Flight [10.50 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 8 27.0 IBUs

28.00 g Falconer's Flight [10.50 %] - Boil 15.0 Hop 9 11.2 IBUs

1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 Yeast 10 -

Notes:

------

Mash: 4.25 gal + 3 gr. chalk, 1 gr. Gypsum, 2 gr. CaCl

to 151, rest 45 min, fell to 146

bring up to 162 over 10 min, rest 10 min

Sparge: 5 gal at 168, no salts, 30 minutes

Collect 7 gallons @ 1.052

Boil as noted, nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 min

Whirlpool & rest 15 min

Chill thru plate chiller over 20 min to 70

oxygen 60 seconds

pitch 2nd gen Wyeast 1056 (1 week refrigerated)

Ferment at 68, then keg.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

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Tasting: Calypso Pale Ale

2011-10-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

A tasting of the dry-hopped, all-Calypso pale ale I did recently:

Appearance: Hazy burnished orange, definitely some hop or chill haze going on that I would like to fine out if it were a commercial beer, but which I'm fine with for a homebrew. Fairly resilient head and nice glass lacing.

Aroma: Hoppy, but not assertively aromatic, vaguely fruity hops with a touch of red apple, pine, and a little onion. Light grassy/bready grain background, very clean low esters and alcohol aroma. No diacetyl. Not bad, not very memorable as far as the hops go.

Flavor: Fairly balanced between bready, caramelly malts and grassy hops. A slightly rough, almost burnt quality of bitterness enters in the flavor mid-palate and seems to linger long after swallowing. Not overly bitter, but at the same time, not a clean or crisp bitterness. Dry finish, no alcohol bite or fermentation off-flavors

Mouthfeel: Medium-full bodied, medium carbonation adds some spicy, prickly character. Just slightly astringent on the gums, which I would think is hop derived rather than malt derived. Clean finish, rather easy to drink.

Overall: Some aspects of this beer I really like. I like the malty, grainy character provided by the fairly large percentage of Vienna malt and crystal malt, although if I were truly looking to design a "perfect" pale ale, I would dial them both back just a touch. The Calypso hops, I have to say, I am not too excited about. The high cohumulone percentage definitely seems to have added a rough bitter aftertaste that I think doesn't make it ideal for a bittering hop, yet on the other hand, the aroma is not really that astounding compared to the more choice American varieties like Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, or Centennial. So I don't really know where this hop finds its place, either as a bittering or flavor/aroma hop, but maybe other people will have more success with it than I did. Overall, it's a fairly good beer, but the keg is not moving very fast, which is always a sign of how drinkable it really is.

Fresh-Hop Spelt Saison with Paul Key

2011-09-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

It's wonderful to be out in the Northwest, so close to the hop fields, where every year we get to brew up a special batch (or three) of fresh-hop beer. Paul Key, my fellow homebrewer-geek, had a nice harvest of Fuggle and Columbus hops growing in his front yard right here in Portland. He was able to knock out a couple of fresh-hop IPA's, and I pitched the idea of getting together for some kind of fresh-hop saison. We kicked around some ideas and came up with this: A pale, moderately strong saison, with about 30% raw spelt in the mash (inspired by Brasserie Blaugies' Saison D'epeautre), moderate-high IBU's for the style at an estimated 30+ IBU, and brewed with a blend of commercial saison yeasts. I certainly have high hopes for it, as the spelt mash had a unique character, and the fresh hops, all added at knock-out, had an intense citrus-orange-spice pungency.

We picked most of the hops while working on a long step-infusion mash, with a protein rest. We didn't have much info on spelt as a grain, which we just bought from Whole Foods, but we assumed that because it was a type of wheat, that it would probably have a similar gelatinization point. Wheat gelatinizes at regular mash sacharification temperatures, so if spelt is the same, that means you don't need a "cereal mash" which would incorporate boiling the spelt to gelatinize it prior to adding it to the mash. I have seen a good deal of internet homebrew recipes with raw spelt that call for a cereal mash, and I don't see how it's necessary. Anything I found online suggested that it gelatinizes at similar temperatures to wheat. Anyway, we actually did an iodine starch-conversion test after our sach rest to make sure we had fully converted the mash, and it showed that we got good conversion.

Runoff was aided by some rice hulls, but we had no problems with a stuck mash whatsoever. Probably could have gotten away without them but it's always good insurance.

We bittered with pelletized hops to keep the IBU's somewhat predictable, and used a boatload of fresh hops at knockout only. These sat in the mash for 20 minutes during "whirlpool", and then an additional 25 minutes while we transfered through the heat exchanger. I think this provides a really nice hop profile and it's very close to what happens in a professional brewery.

We lost quite a bit of wort from the hops, which we forgot to consider when designing the recipe, but I don't think we could have done much about it anyway. Based on our kettle size, we made the biggest batch we could. Sometimes it is just better to collect less wort than do tricky stuff to increase the volume, and neither Paul or I are ever hurting for beer to drink. It's OK to have a smaller yield sometimes.

We decided to go with a saison yeast blend for this beer, which is the first time I have tried blending saison yeasts right off the bat. But both Paul and I have come up really frustrated with the Dupont yeast as a sole fermenter in the past, so this blend will be worth trying in a few beers. We decided to pitch both the "Dupont" strain and the "French Saison" strain, with twice as much Dupont yeast. The fermentation was started rather cool and ramped to 80 over a few days, a good compromise between the French strain which produces plenty of character at cooler temps, and the Dupont yeast which can't seem to finish out if it drops below 85 degrees. The French saison yeast will definitely help attenuate the beer faster when the Dupont yeast slows to a crawl in the last 1/3rd of fermentation.

On a side note, the French Saison yeast has been a bit bothersome for me in the past too, it definitely has its own problems. I have noticed that it tends to dry a beer out almost excessively, so that if there are any tannins from grain extraction at all, it tends to accentuate them and leave an annoying tannic astringency in the beer. We tried to alleviate that with a good dose of calcium to the mash and the sparge water, which should keep the pH low and avoid extracting any harsh tannins in the first place. I think that should help.

Well, I'm looking forward to tasting this beer and using the blend in at least one other brew. If you brewed any interesting fresh hop beers, feel free to brag about them in the comments. Cheers!

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com

Recipe: Fresh-hop Spelt Saison

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal

Boil Size: 13.50 gal

OG: 1.056 SG

F.G. 1.006

Estimated Color: 3.4 SRM

Estimated IBU: 24.1 IBUs

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

Amt Name Type # %/IBU

15 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Canada (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 66.7 %

7 lbs Spelt - Raw (1.0 SRM) Grain 2 31.1 %

8.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 3 2.2 %

74.00 g Delta [4.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 24.1 IBUs

1.0 pkg Belgian Saison (Wyeast Labs #3724) [124. Yeast 5 -

1.0 pkg French Saison (Wyeast Labs #3711) [50.28 Yeast 6 -

Notes:

-Used Paul's mash kettle w/ false bottom for mash and boil too-----

Water additions: 4 gr. Gyspum, 4 gr. CaCl to mash, same to sparge

8 gallons mash water, mash in to 126 for 20 min

Add heat & stir for 15 minutes to 147, rest 20 min

Add heat and bring to 155 over 7 minutes, rest 30 min

Bring up to 168 over 20 min

Sparge with 9 gallons at 168 over 40 min

collect 13.5

boil 90 min, additions as noted

yeast nutrient/whirlfloc at 10 min

Knock-out fresh hops:

1 lb. Fuggle

2.25 lb. Columbus

Steep 20 min while setting up.

run off probably 25 minutes, lost track.

maybe lost extra gallon from hops, about 9 gallons in fermenter, plus .5 gallon starter

chill to 70

pitch starter and oxygenate 2 minutes

Fermented at 68-70 for first 24 hours

Ramped to 80 by day 3

Keg carbonated after hitting terminal gravity

Yeast starter:

Very fresh Dupont pack: 90% Viability

Older 3711 pack: 55% Viability

Both into a 2L stirplate starter, should give approx 2:1 ratio

Calypso Pale Ale

2011-09-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted any recipes in a while, but I've been brewing a bit. For my friends Tony and Annie's recent wedding, we re-brewed a beer I was very happy with: the Belgian summer ale with lemon verbena, yarrow, and grains of paradise. The brew went off very well, and was pretty much identical to the first brew. The only thing we changed was the yarrow: it was a different varietal of yarrow (whatever is growing in our front yard, with yellow flowers), and we used the flowers as opposed to the leaves, which I think added a more floral/honey character and less of the slight aspirin bitterness that the leaves add. The beer was very well received at the wedding party, and we kicked 5 gallons pretty fast. We also bottle conditioned 5 gallons, and primed the bottles with wildflower honey. I'll do a tasting of that pretty soon for the blog.

On to yesterday's brew: We have a few new varieties of hops to play with at Cascade: Bravo, Delta, and Calypso. These are all fairly new hybrids. I wanted to do a single-hop brew with one of these, so I started by doing an aroma evaluation and checking out their information sheets. The Bravo is pretty much a high-alpha bittering hop, not much aroma going on there, so that was out. The Delta is apparently a cross between a Cascade male and a Fuggle. It has a nice, mild, pleasant aroma but it didn't seem extremely unique. I figure I'll save that for another brew, possibly an all-Delta saison or something. The Calypso is apparently a dual-purpose hop. It immediately stood out as having an intense fruity aroma, not much pine or resin, just sort of a high, almost sharp fruityness that reminded me a bit of blackberries or wine. That was definitely the type of hop that I was looking for, something with a unique character that was going to make its mark in a straightforward, hoppy pale ale.

The Calypso information claims that the hop has a "pleasant fruity aroma, with hints of pear and apple". It comes in at 12.8% Alpha Acid (which I guess would almost be considered a mid-alpha hop in today's age of many 16+% bittering varieties. The one thing that stood out was its huge cohumulone percentage: 40-42%. I don't think I have ever seen another hop this high in cohumulone, ever. It used to be widely accepted that higher cohumulone hops contributed a rougher, less refined bitterness than lower cohumulone varieties. I don't know if this is entirely true though, it seems that that theory is being challenged a bit these days. So, we'll see if this hop seems more bitter in this brew or contributes any "rough" bitter character to the brew.

Personally, I don't think assertively hopped American ales need to shy away from a slightly rough character. Grown-ups like hop flavor and bitterness. As long as there's nothing too funky or astringent in the aftertaste, I think a bit of roughness is to be expected. It's not a Czech pilsner after all, it's a hoppy American ale. In any case, I did decide to dial back by just a few IBU's just in case this hop really seemed to be more bitter than the IBU's would suggest. I also didn't fully "hop-load" the end of the boil, the time at which cohumulone doesn't have a chance to get changed into mellower compounds (don't ask me to look up what it gets changed to, if you're interested in stuff like that, check out Principals of Brewing Science, or do an online search).

Anyway, enough blabbing, here's a recipe, have at it.

Recipe: Calypso Pale Ale

Style: American Pale Ale

TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal

Boil Size: 7.00 gal

OG: 1.054 SG

FG: 1.015

ABV: 5.1%

Estimated Color: 9.0 SRM

Estimated IBU: 42.7 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 78.00 %

Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

Amt Name Type # %/IBU

7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 66.7 %

8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.8 %

8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3 4.8 %

2 lbs 8.0 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 23.8 %

25.00 g Calypso [12.80 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 15.6 IBUs

28.00 g Calypso [12.80 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 8 0.0 IBUs

28.00 g Calypso [12.80 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 10.4 IBUs

9.00 g Calypso [12.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 16.7 IBUs

42.00 g Calypso Dry hop - in bags

Notes:

------

2 gr. gypsum, 1 gr. CaCl, to mash only.

Mash: 4 gallons H20, 153 for 55 minutes (fell to 149 over that time). Raised to 168 over 10 minutes,

Sparge with 5 gallons water at 165 over 30 minutes

Collected 6.75 gallons at 1.048 = 86% efficiency.

Boil as noted, with additions of Whirlfoc & Wyeast nutrient at 10 min.

After boil: Top up to 6.25 (hot volume), Whirlpool & Rest for 15 minutes.

Chill through Heat-X, rack to carboy, and add pure oxygen for 60 seconds.

Pitched 1 qt. stirplate-starter of Wyeast 1056, a little warm at 72, came down to 70 within an hour. Ferment at 68

Keg on 9/8/11, dry hops in 2 tea bags for 3 days warm, 10 days cold.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

Better performance with Dupont Yeast

2011-07-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Ludd Lite

Since my last couple of saisons, I have had a little more time to work with Dupont yeast and get to know its performance over successive generations. I've also had the chance to work with it the pro level, with a collaboration saison I did with Ben Edmunds at Breakside.

Ben and I brewed a pretty much straight-up saison with Whitelabs 565, the equivalent yeast of Wyeast 3724 which I have been using. We brewed two 3.5-barrel batches into a 7 barrel fermenter, the second batch went in 24 hours after the first. We pitched a 5-7 bbl sized pitch of yeast, started fermentation at 80 degrees, and let it rise to the high 80's on its own. I don't remember the exact details on how long the beer took to ferment, but I think that it crunched down to 1.007 in only a week or so. That's pretty darn good. We were really happy with how the beer turned out, and it had a nice earthy Dupont-like aroma. So, there's at least one example of a good single-strain fermentation on a pro level. That's what I'm looking for. I'm betting the heavy yeast pitch was a big factor in the quick fermentation.

On the homebrew side of things, the second generation brew, "Ludd Lite", was a low-gravity beer to begin with, and dried out to a fairly bone-dry 1.005 within 3 weeks. I don't know how long it took to hit that gravity, that's just when I got around to racking it to a keg. It's a pretty decent beer, not the most complex beer I've ever brewed, but very drinkable. It's surprisingly tart, farmy, with a little corn flavor and some hops coming through. I think it could use a bit more bitterness but the hop flavor is pretty nice. This isn't a beer that would make beer geeks go crazy, but it's a light summer ale that's easy to drink and more interesting than a light lager or (in my opinion) an "American wheat". Fermentation and recipe details for that beer are here.

The 3rd generation saison was brewed about 3 weeks ago. It's a brown or amber saison that I used a considerable amount of specialty malts on, but also some D2 Candi syrup. This beer didn't dry out to bone-dry, at least not yet, but we'll see if it drops another couple points over the the next month or so hanging out in secondary. It may just be done, and if so, that's OK, because it tastes like a really tasty Dubbel made with an earthy, estery farmhouse twist. I used a very small amount of lemon thyme in the brew, but so far it hasn't reared it's head in the flavor or aroma. So we'll see, maybe I could go a little heavier than that next time.

Clarissa's Birthday Amber Saison

Saison

Type: All Grain

Date: 07/08/2011

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal

Brewer:

Boil Size: 6.48 gal

Asst Brewer:

Boil Time: 90 min

Equipment: 6 gallon - SS mashtun

Final Bottling Volume: 4.50 gal

Brewhouse Efficiency: 78.00

Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0

Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
1 lbs	Candi Sugar, D2 syrup (160.0 SRM)	Sugar	11	9.1 %
12.0 oz	White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)	Grain	3	6.8 %
8.0 oz	Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM)	Grain	4	4.5 %
12.0 oz	Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)	Grain	2	6.8 %
8.0 oz	Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)	Grain	5	4.5 %
1.0 pkg	Belgian Saison (Wyeast Labs #3724) [124.21 ml]	Yeast	10	-
21.00 g	Perle [8.20 %] - Boil 85.0 min	Hop	6	27.2 IBUs
14.00 g	Crystal [4.30 %] - Boil 15.0 min	Hop	7	2.5 IBUs
28.00 g	Crystal [4.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min	Hop	8	0.0 IBUs
2.00 g	Lemon Thyme, fresh leaves, picked (Boil 0.0 mins)	Spice	9	-
7 lbs 8.0 oz	Canadian "Super Pils" (2.0 SRM)	Grain	1	68.2 %

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.061 SG

Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG

Est Final Gravity: 1.007 SG

Measured Final Gravity: 1.012 SG

Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.1 %

Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.3 %

Bitterness: 29.7 IBUs

Calories: 200.7 kCal/12 oz

Est Color: 20.3 SRM

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out

Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs

Sparge Water: 3.93 gal

Grain Temperature: 72.0 F

Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F

Tun Temperature: 72.0 F

Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE

Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Name	Description	Step Temperature	Step Time
Mash In	Add 16.00 qt of water at 159.4 F	149.0 F	75 min

Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).

Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Bottle

Volumes of CO2: 2.3

Pressure/Weight: 100.20 g

Carbonation Used: Bottle with 100.20 g Corn Sugar

Keg/Bottling Temperature: 70.0 F

Age for: 30.00 days

Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Storage Temperature: 65.0 F

Notes

Mash 4 gallons at 160 plus 1 gr. Gypsum, 2 gr. CaCl
Mash in to 149
50 min, fell to 144.
direct heat to 154 over 5 min, rest 15 min, no mash out

Sparge 5 gal, same salts, 165

90 min boil
15 minute rest after KO, added candi syrup and whirlpooled.
Chill thru plate chiller to 75 degrees
oxygen 90 seconds
pitched maybe 100 ml saison yeast (rinsed and suspended in beer) at 75
Fermentation peaked at 95 by 24 hours (with heating pad)
After 10 days, temperature was dropped by 2 degrees per day to 85

7/26 Racked to secondary, flavor is very good. 1.012

Created with BeerSmith

I harvested the yeast once again, and if I have time I'd like to do a 4th generation saison that would be a re-brew of original recipe, to s if I can get a better yeast performance with the same base recipe. The one thing I would like to do better is to pitch the successive generations in a more timely manner. So far it's been at least 3 weeks between brews, which is not ideal for yeast health, but so far it hasn't seemed to hurt much either.

Hazelnut E.S.B. / Base Beer Tasting, and process REVEALED

2011-06-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

Finally, here's an evaluation of the hazelnut beer I made a few months ago, and details on the hazelnut product I used as well as how I used it.

First, let's discuss the process, which I kept secret at first, but I promised I would get to. The hazelnut product I lucked into is produced by Freddy Guy Hazelnuts in Monmouth, Oregon. Clarissa and I regularly stock up on their dry-roasted hazelnuts at the PSU farmers market, and they are just great nuts. We put them in salads, breadcrumb mixes, desserts, and also we just snack on them when we have the munchies. A few months ago they had a little sign up that said something to the effect of "We sell hazelnut press cake for brewers, ask about it!" Hazelnut press cake is a by-product of their hazelnut oil. After the hazelnuts are pressed to extract most of (certainly not all of) the oil, a still very flavorful and largely oil-reduced hazelnut cake is left behind. As we all know, oil is the bane of foam stability in beer, and may muddle up the beer flavor in other ways.

Fritz, one of the owners of Freddy Guy, has experimented with hazelnuts in his own homebrew. He typically uses a pound of nuts in 5 gallons, 5 minutes from the end of the boil, to achieve a good hazelnut flavor in his brews. While this would be a great way to introduce them to a recipe as a homebrewer, I am always thinking of how this might pan out on a commercial system. First off, I would worry about about small chunks of hazelnuts slipping into the heat exchanger, which could be very difficult to get back out. It seems like they might even plug up or stop a runnoff completely in a worst-case scenario. Maybe not, but it could be a risk. They could be bagged up, but that would be 30 or more pounds to bag up for a in a 10 barrel brew. My aim with this homebrew was to isolate the the hazelnut contribution by having a clean version of the beer to compare it to, so I decided to add my hazelnuts to half of the beer post-fermentation.

I added 1 lb., 2 oz. of hazelnut press cake to 4.5 gallons of the base beer. The beer had finished primary fermentation and the "clean" half was racked directly to a keg. I prepped the hazelnuts by adding them to 1 quart of boiling water to semi-sanitize them. They do soak up liquid and they soaked up the quart of water completely, so they will decrease your beer yield if they are not rehydrated in some way. Then I funneled them into a large carboy which was then purged with CO2. The beer was transferred on top of this and kept at 68-ish for 2 weeks. I would have only kept it on for a week, but then, you know, life happened, and it just sat around in my back room until I found time to empty out and clean a keg to transfer it to. I periodically spun the carboy to get the nuts back up in suspension. I did see a small trace of oil on top of the beer, but I just tried to leave it behind when siphoning to a keg. The kegged beer was not fined. I just had about 3/4 inch of the dip-tube cut off to leave any sediment at the bottom.

THE COMPARISON:

Base Beer: Nutty, carmelly malt aroma, light citrus/fruity esters from yeast and late hops, but malt-balanced. A touch of tobacco aroma at the end. Deep copper-red hue, good clarity but not crystal clear, with light bubbles. Low foam stand, probably just from lower carbonation. Flavor is malty, like a good amber ale, with plenty of caramel and biscuit flavor from malts and high level of crystal malts, but not cloying. Hop flavor is moderate, spicy, and grassy. Medium-full bodied mouthfeel, finish is dry. Nice drinking beer, not really an E.S.B., more of an American Amber. I could see having a couple of pints in a row with dinner or a yard-work session.

Hazelnut Beer: Exactly the same in appearance as the base beer, no excess haze or particulate, and both have a light wispy head. Aroma is definitively hazelnutty, but it is different than that of a hazenut-extract beer (i.e. it does not smell like hazelnut-flavored coffee or Torani syrup). There is a certain smooth, creamy, nut-buttery quality to it, a light floral perfumeyness, as well as a dry-roasted presence. It's not restrained, it's very much the dominant aroma, but still smells like beer. The hops are not as present in the aroma, and the malt plays a background role. Flavor is like the base beer, but with a sweeter presence similar to almond extract, and a slight dry-roasted nut finish. Not as bitter or hoppy (going back to the base beer for a taste it seems really hoppy in comparison) but it has a nutty dryness at the end. Overall, I think it really captures the essence of the hazenut. The flavor combination works, and I would say it's a very drinkable beer. All the same, maybe the hazelnut level is a bit (like 25%) too high, because I think after a pint of this I would be ready to move on to a different beer. The hazelnut aroma/flavor seems to be powerful enough to potentially stand up to a stronger base beer like a porter or stout.

If you are interested in obtaining some press cake for brewing, and if you do not live in the area, you should contact Freddy Guy's via their website. It looks like they have a mail-order page, and although they do not have the press-cake listed their, I'll bet they would be willing to ship it if you asked nicely. It looks like minimum orders are $25, so you might want to go in on it with some friends or buy some other stuff too. I can't say the exact price they would charge for the cake, but it is probably a pretty good deal.

Ludd Lite Saison 1.0, and first impressions of Beersmith 2.0

2011-06-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

(Above: Typical Oregon summer. You have to dress your carboys up like Kenny from South Park and, use heating pads to keep your saisons warms enough!)

This is a pretty "corny" name for a recipe...I was kind of conceptualizing a product that could be marketed one day, even though in all honesty I will probably never call it Ludd Lite (if I did I would probably get a cease and desist request in the mail from a certain macro-brewer). I have always been interested in a saison using all American ingredients, and more specifically, one brewed 6-row barley and corn. So, this was really just a daydream, but I wanted to see how the beer might actually taste: a low gravity "entry level" craft beer that is actually a saison, but takes significant influence from macro-American-lagers. I guess the real trick is making a beer that is super-drinkable but also substantial enough not to be called "watery". We'll see how it comes out. The "Ludd" part of the name is kind of a jokey reference to Ned Ludd, the legendary leader of the Luddite movement in England which rebelled/rioted against automated machinery in the workplace taking away from skilled human jobs. It seems to fit the saison/farmhouse philosophy of doing things.

I'm still pulling my hair out over this damn Wyeast 3724 (Saison Dupont) yeast. I had my first generation batch (the saison with rye) in the keg/secondary with an airlock, kept warm at 85 degrees for 3 weeks. It was bubbling slowly but constantly, so I was hopeful that it was dropping in gravity...until I pulled a sample yesterday during my brew session. It has only dropped 2 points in that time from 1.026 to 1.024! Damn, that was so frustrating I almost stopped my brew session right there. But I decided to keep going, and it did encourage me to pitch and ferment even hotter this time. So far that seems to be paying off with a visibly more vigorous ferment in the first 24 hours. I will pull about a quart off of the new beer to re-krausen the first saison, and hopefully that will do the trick in getting it going again.

Also, this is my first try at using Beersmith 2.0 for Mac. I have always used Promash in the past, even though I've had to keep a barely-working old IBM Thinkpad PC around to run it. Well, so far my opinion of Beersmith is that it's good, but in some ways incredibly over-engineered. I'm sure part of that is just getting used to a new program and figuring out how to do things, but it seems like it is trying to automate too much of the brewing decision making. For instance it is trying to tell me exactly how much water to use in my mash, when and how to do the mash steps, and I don't really brew like that. It's also trying to tell me how many days days it will take to ferment (if you know this yeast, that is even more of a knee-slapper). From the "Brewsheet" layout, I learned that on 7/29/11, I am supposed to "Drink and Enjoy", at which point I am supposed to self score my beer on a 50 point scale. It seems hard to just ignore these parts of the program, but maybe I can change my preferences or make them go away.

Also, with Promash I always used the mash-in temperature calculator to tell me what temp I should get my mash water to in order to hit my target mash temp, and it worked great within a degree every time. With Beersmith's calculator and I ended up mashing in 4-5 degrees hotter than I wanted (easy fix, just mix in a little extra cold water real fast). It is frustrating for now, but I want to try figure out these hangups before I gripe too much about it.

But...I can copy & paste the recipe reports! (Text in RED is some of the stuff that is just wrong or that I would prefer not to have automated and I don't know how to change yet.) If there's any confusion on numbers, see the "notes". They are correct.

Ludd Lite (6-Row, Corn, Crystal hops)

Belgian Specialty Ale

Type: All Grain

Date: 06/15/2011

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.70 gal

Brewer:

Boil Size: 7.21 gal

Asst Brewer:

Boil Time: 60 min

Equipment: 6 gallon - SS mashtun

Final Bottling Volume: 5.20 gal

Brewhouse Efficiency: 88.00

Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage

Taste Rating(out of 50): 0.0

Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
3 lbs 9.0 oz	Pale Malt (6 Row) US (1.8 SRM)	Grain	1	51.4 %
2 lbs	Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)	Grain	2	28.8 %
1 lbs	White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)	Grain	3	14.4 %
21.00 g	Crystal [4.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	5	12.7 IBUs
21.00 g	Crystal [4.30 %] - Boil 20.0 min	Hop	6	4.3 IBUs
14.00 g	Crystal [4.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min	Hop	7	0.0 IBUs
6.0 oz	Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)	Grain	4	5.4 %
1.0 pkg	Belgian Saison (Wyeast Labs #3724) [124.21 ml]	Yeast	8	-

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.039 SG

Measured Original Gravity: 1.038 SG

Est Final Gravity: 1.006 SG

Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG

Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.3 %

Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.3 %

Bitterness: 16.9 IBUs

Calories: 0.0 kCal/12 oz

Est Color: 2.5 SRM

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out

Total Grain Weight: 6 lbs 15.0 oz

Sparge Water: 5.06 gal

Grain Temperature: 60.0 F

Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F

Tun Temperature: 155.0 F

Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE

Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Name	Description	Step Temperature	Step Time
Mash In	Add 11.94 qt of water at 157.1 F	148.0 F	75 min

Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).

Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Keg

Volumes of CO2: 2.7

Pressure/Weight: 17.22 PSI

Carbonation Used: Keg with 17.22 PSI

Keg/Bottling Temperature: 45.0 F

Age for: 30.00 days

Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage

Storage Temperature: 65.0 F

Notes

Yeast: Generation 2 Saison. Cold stored 4 weeks. 4 Tbsp thick slurry into a 1 quart stirplate starter with a little extra yeast nutrient, 24 hours before pitching.

Mash: 2 gr. gypsum, 2 gr. CaCl. Mashed in high: 153ish. Calculation said I would mash in to 149. Adjusted quickly with cold water. Fell to 140 over 45 minutes. Heated over 5 minutes to 154. Rest 20 min and sparge.

Sparge: 3.75 gallons at 170. 2 gr. Gypsum, 2 gr. CaCl.

Collect 5.5 gal at 1.040 = 88% efficiency

Top up with 2.5 qts
Boil 60 min
Wyeast nutrient (1 tsp) and whirlfloc at 10 min
Top up to 6 gallons (hot volume) at end of boil (should be 5.75 cold volume)
Whirlpool and chill thru plate chiller to 80 degrees
Collect 5.5 gallons
Oxygen 90 seconds
Put on heating pad immediately and dialed in to 90 degrees, it was fermenting within a couple hours.

6/16 ramped to 95

6/20 decreased to 93

6/21 decreased by 2 degrees per day, down to 85, and held there.

7/7 Racked to keg, 1.005. Force carbonate.

New Saison, and Working with Dupont Yeast

2011-05-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I still love saisons. That's no big news. I still love the Dupont yeast profile the best out of any of the commercially available saison strains. It's also a serious bitch to work with! At least in my experience, it takes forever to ferment, as in 6+ weeks even at high temperatures, if you're lucky. On a commercial level, that would be very problematic. I have never used the Dupont yeast in a pro brewery setting, but one day I want to own a brewery that will have a year-round saison offering, and it needs to ferment much quicker than that. I think 3 weeks fermentation (4 weeks to a finished kegged product or 6 weeks for bottle conditioned) would be acceptable, but more than that is really pushing it. Some pro brewers report (relatively) fast results with the Dupont yeast, at least after a few generations to warm up. Others resort to other strategies, like pitching a secondary yeast for attenuation. For now, I still want to see how it performs after a few generations to "warm-up" before resorting to other methods like using a yeast blend, or pitching a secondary yeast.

The following recipe is a first-generation pitch, and yes, the yeast is being it's normal bitchy self. I racked it over from primary after 3 weeks at 80+ degrees (it peaked at 90), and it was still only at 1.026. The flavor sample was great though, it really has that complex fruityness and a sort of earthy aftertaste that I have never really found in the other commercially available saison strains. The beer is currently sitting a secondary/keg with a blowoff, wrapped in a towel and a heating blanket which is keeping it at 85 degrees. It's still creeping along, and if it hasn't dropped substantially in another 2 weeks I'm going to give in and pitch a more attenuative yeast.

I added twice the Wyeast nutrient that I usually do for this batch, and I also gave it an extra 30 seconds of oxygen. I was not able to increase the yeast pitch, because my big Erlinmeyer flask was tied up in another brew, but I did make a 1 quart, stirplate starter. On successive batches I will try pitching more yeast, and maybe even let it get up to 95 degrees, and see if that helps.

House Saison - Beta version

Brewed on 4/29/11

Recipe is for 5.7 gallons, all grain, post-boil volume

O.G. 1.055 F.G. 1.006 ABV 6.5% IBU's 33

9 lb. Weyermann Pilsner malt

8 oz. Munich 10L

8 oz. flaked rye

4 oz. Belgian Aromatic

2 oz. British C 75

24 gr. Sterling pellets 7%AA 90 min

6 gr. Sterling pellets 7%AA 15 min

16 gr. Goldings pellets (U.S. I think) 4.9%AA 15 min

42 gr. Goldings pellets 4.9% 0 min

4 gal H2O + 2 gr. gypsum + 1 gr. CaCl

Mash in to 147, fell to 142 over 40 min

Heated to 149, rest 50 min

total mash time 90 min, no mash-out

Sparge with 5 gal H2O + 2 gr. gypsum (ran out of CaCl or it would have gotten a gram) at 170.

Collect 6.6 gallons at 1.048 = 81% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes, hop additions as noted

1 tsp. Wyeast nutrient & 1/2 whirlfloc tab at 10 min

whirlpool 1 min

rest 15 min

transfer thru plate chiller over 10 min

oxygen 90 seconds

pitched 1 quart stirplate starter of Wyeast 3724 at 70 degrees

Fermentation time/temp, adjusted by heating pad & thermostat combo:

Day 1: Pitch at 70, ramp to 75 that night

Day 2: 80 a.m, 85 evening

Day 3: 87 a.m, 90 evening

Day 4-7: 90

Day 8-23 turn down 1 degree per day til at 80, then hold

Racked to keg on 5/22, 1.026. Sheesh! holding at 85 degrees.

6/15 Still at 1.024...added 1 quart of Ludd Lite at high krausen to try and re-kick off fermentation. That took it to down to 1.017...Christ.

7/24 Added some top-cropped WLP 530 yeast, which took it down to 1.012. Yaaargh...

8/10 Added 1 pint of B. brux infused Dubbel to further attenuation.

9/1 Finally, Finally down to 1.006! The Brett did well, should have added it earlier, but I was trying to get it down with the original yeast. Hasn't aged out long enough to take on characteristic B. Brux aroma profile, which is kind of nice. Chilling, carbing, and preparing to drink.

Hazelnut. Extra. Special. Bitter.

2011-04-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Looking back at some of my recent blog posts, it appears the last time I brewed was late February, about a 2 month hiatus from homebrewing! That's a lot for me, but I've been busy. I was working 6 days a week for a while, brewing and cellaring for Alameda and Cascade, and believe me, when you do that, the last thing you want to do is spend your only day off huddling over a propane burner in a cold garage while it's raining outside.

Before I get on to posting a recipe, I should get this out of the way: This month, I made the full transition to brewing full-time for Cascade Brewing. It's a bittersweet change for me, because I have really loved my time brewing for Alameda. Working with Carston, Eric, and the rest of the crew has been great, and it will always have a special place in my heart as my first job as a professional brewer. But as a 3/4 time employee, and with Cascade offering a full-time position, I had on opportunity that I just couldn't pass up. I am very excited to work with the Cascade crew, and learn in a production environment that regularly works with barrel-aged sour beers. I feel this will really make me into a strong and confident brewer who is ready to start their own brewery some day in the not-too-distant future.

This recipe that I'm about to post comes about from a few influences: First, I think I will be concentrating more on making 10 gallon batches, less frequently, of beers that are more sessionable in nature. I'm not painting myself into a corner on that one, but I feel like this is more the kind of beer I want to have on tap. I'm not into bottling or creating a lot of extra work for myself, and I can still play with variations on batches after the primary fermentation is complete. Second: I found what I think will be a really cool product that may be available to homebrewers soon. It's a hazelnut product, and I actually want to keep the nature of the product a bit of a secret for now while I am playing with methods of infusing the beer, but rest assured, it's not a bottle of hazelnut extract. It's real nuts. Of course, the problem with nuts is mainly the fact that they have a high oil content, which destroys beer head and can have an effect on flavor and mouthfeel too. This product should provide a way around the oil content problem.

So, half of this batch of a slightly maltier/less hoppy E.S.B. will get a hazelnut infusion post-fermentation, and I will reveal the product & process, whether it works well or not, when I post a recipe tasting in about a month. Since it's something that I think has potential on a pro level, it's important that I try a process that will work on a pro scale. It can't be something that, say, clogs up or detroys a heat exchanger with hazelnut bits, or requires 25 gallons of vodka to extract the flavor and aroma.

This recipe is truly based off what I already had on hand, and I wouldn't necessarily formulate a recipe for an E.S.B. like this if I were to buy everything at a homebrew shop. It's a new yeast for me too, I don't think I have used the Wyeast 1968 (Fuller's) yeast since my early days of homebrewing, if ever. Anyway, enough blabbering, here's the recipe.

Base Beer: Extra Special Bitter

Brewed on 4/20/11

12.9 gallons pre-boil, 11.6 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.051 F.G. 1.016 ABV 4.7% IBU's 30

7.5 lb. Hugh Baird Marris Otter malt

6 lb. Great Western 2-row organic pale malt

3 lb. Crisp Crystal 35

1 lb. Munich

.5 lb. Aromatic

.25 lb. Pale chocolate

35 gr. Perle pellets 8.5% AA 60 min

24 gr. Perle pellets 8.5% AA 15 min

18 gr. Northern Brewer pellets 7.8% AA 15 min

14 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.4% AA 15 min

56 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.4% AA 0 min

Mash in 5 gallons H2O + 3 tsp "Burton salts", 151 degrees for 60 minutes

Add 2 gallons 200 degree water to bring up to 157

Recirc immediately and sparge with 7.5 gallons H2O + 1 tsp "Burton salts" at 170

Collect 12.9 gallons at 1.046 = 89% efficiency

Boil 65 minutes

Wyeast nutrient and Whirlfloc at 10 min

whirlpool, rest 10 min

chill to 70 with plate chiller over 15 minutes

oxygen 2 minutes

pitch 2.5 liter stirplate starter of Wyeast 1968

Ferment at 68

Clean half was racked straight to keg after primary. For details on the hazelnut process, go here.

Also, I can't remember if I've talked about my new fermenter on the blog yet? Check it out. This was actually an old yeast brink that had been sitting unused at Alameda for quite a while. It's exactly what it looks like: A full-sized keg that has been converted with a corny lid, a gas-in post, liquid-out dip tube, and a manual pressure relief. I cut off the dip tube to leave a gallon of liquid underneath. We'll see how it goes for racking the beer to secondary/keg through the dip tube this time, and if I got the height right to not pull too much yeast through and not leave too much precious beer behind. In the photo, it's sitting in our cold back room with a heating pad strapped on the outside to keep it up to 68 degrees. It's wired in through a Ranco digital thermostat to keep it right at temp.

Tired of beer, time for a big change.

2011-04-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

This may come as a bit of a shock for some people, because I haven't really voiced these feelings here before, but I have been grappling with some very odd feelings over the last 6 months or so. I think with this last year of working a lot (sometimes too much) with brewing and going to all these beer events, yadda yadda, that beer is just getting a little...old. There, I said it. It's just like, how many IPA's or imperial stouts or even complex farmhouse ales or sours can you really drink before it all starts to taste the same?

I've been drinking a lot of nice local wines lately, and learning about different varieties, and it's been really refreshing just to taste and learn about something that's not beer for a while! I may get some flack for this, but I have always been one to speak my mind: wine just really is more complex than beer. I realized when we started the Flanders barrel project that I do want to work with barrels, it's just not beer that I want to put in them anymore.

It feels weird. It feels like I am breaking up with a girlfriend of 9 years. Will I even know how to live my life without her? Of course, but it will take a while. It's time to see other people. I'll still see her around at parties from time to time and we will have our awkward conversations, and maybe even be friends some day, but I need some time apart before that can happen.

I have been speaking with a local winemaker, a guy I met during my search for wine barrels, who says he might need some help in the fields this summer. It's a small mom & pop operation in Yamhill. Don't want to give away the name of the winery yet, but I'l fill you in with details when the time is right.

I still wish all you guys the best in your beer brewing adventures. If you're interested in reading a winemaking blog, stay tuned for future posts!

Chin Chin!

Golden Lager Tasting

2011-03-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a tasting of the "Golden Lager" I did brewed quite a few months back.

5.2% ABV, 28 IBU's

Aroma: "Beery" Lager aroma, moderate spicy/herbal hop character, slight malt sweetness, pretty big toasted bread/ graham cracker aroma from Munich malt & melanoidins. Very clean lager fermentation with almost no noticeable esters. Clean alcohol, no diacetyl.

Appearance: Very clear, though obviously not filtered, deep golden color, not a huge head but a well-retained white head that leaves a lacing. Fairly spritzy carbonation, just right for a traditional lager.

Flavor: Big malt flavor up front with a moderate caramel flavor, big toasted bready character, and moderate residual sweetness. Bitterness is moderate with a higher than average hop flavor than most German lagers of its type. Finishes malty but a touch of natural acidity helps dry the aftertaste. Bready malts come through again after the swallow. Fermentation character is very clean, no off flavors and you almost don't notice the alcohol at all.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body with noticeable dextrins give it a creamy texture. Lively bubbles. slight acidity provides more of a thirst-quenching impression

Overall: This beer really fits the bill for a Dortmunder or lighter-colored version of an Oktoberfest. This was a beer that, when younger, definitely had a bit too much finish hop profile going on, that sort of got in the way of the malt complexities. It still does have more than average hop aroma/flavor for a German style lager, but it's much better integrated. The additional lagering time has really helped round this beer out substantially (I use the word "lagering" a bit loosely since it really just sat in a keg at about 38 degrees for a few more months). My main complaint is that the Munich malt comes off as a bit too heavy, or maybe it's coming more from the carahell, but I get a little too much bready flavor in the finish that almost makes it seem earthy or vegetal, if that makes any sense. I would play around with the proportion of specialty malts a bit, perhaps lowering the percentage of both Munich malt and carahell, and adding back a little caramunich for color and residual sweetness. I would also reduce the finishing hops by a half-ounce. I like the yeast, but it also might be fun to play around with a "malty" lager yeast, as opposed to this "clean, dry" version that is admittedly a great workhorse lager strain. If I wanted to perfect this beer though, I would probably start by adjusting the malt and hop bill, and then play with the yeast later once I got that dialed in. Overall it's a very good drinking beer, quaff-able, with the overly bready character being slightly annoying and keeping me from going back for a second pint, but the lager brewing technique is very spot-on and that's what's most important.

Wontonamo Bay (batch 2) IPA tasting

2011-03-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ah, a day off. I don't get enough of these right now, and I'm enjoying it! I haven't left the house or even put on real pants for that matter. I am wearing Clarissa's pajama bottoms because mine are in the wash. But you don't want to know about that...how about a homebrew tasting?

Wontonamo Bay IPA - Batch 2

Aroma: Piney, spicy, slightly oily hops, some general citrus/fruit aromatics with a little grapefruit. Fairly dank, with a light caramel malty note, very clean/background malt aroma, no diacetyl, clean fermentation profile with clean alcohol.

Appearance: Very clear, deep copper with moderate carbonation. Wispy white head, but OK retention, would probably persist longer if carbonation were higher. The finings seem to have helped the clarity quite a bit compared to my previous hop-hazed beers (which I really don't mind at all).

Flavor: Full-on hop blast in the first sip, a lot of flavor hops going on here. I get a little onion from the summit, an overall spicy, herbacious and piney flavor, a little grapefruit. Malt is very clean, just a touch of caramel malts let the hops really come forward. Bitterness has calmed a bit since it was first brewed, but it is still has a clean, bitter, slightly woody finish with just a touch of residual sweetness. A little flavor contribution from the Carapils. I swear there is a distinct flavor to beers with Carapils, even though most people would tell you it just adds body. A bit of alcohol at the end, but hey, this is an alcoholic beverage. It's not hot or bitey.

Mouthfeel: Slight slickness or creamyness from some residual sugars, great bubblyness, crisp finish with a little hop astringency.

Overall: I think this beer has really gotten better with a little time, and it's definitely the best IPA I have ever made. But that is compared to a lot of IPA's that just seemed to be too balanced or problematic in other ways. I'm not really sure if I would change anything. I need to drink more of it to find out! It's pairing nicely with my rustic lunch of homemade bread, sharp cheddar and stilton.

In all likelihood, with my current work schedule, I won't be doing any homebrewing for the next month or so. That will be my biggest break since moving out to Oregon. So, until I get some new brews going, I'm going to try to update the blog about once a week with a beer tasting of something that I've already brewed. I hope to get back to homebrewing at least once a month by May, and really just concentrate on brewing 10 gallon batches of lower alcohol, drinkable beers, or doing sours or strong beers that I can brew and forget about for a while.

Temperanillo Barrel Flanders Red

2011-03-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

PAUL KEY

I've been wanting to get a group of homebrewers together for a barrel project together for years now, and of course the crucial missing piece of the puzzle was having someone who owned a house with a basement to host the barrel. This all changed when my friend Walker Pruett, who brews for Old Market Pub, bought a house in SE Portland with a big, dry, spacious basement. As soon as I saw it I had to ask if he was interested, and he was very excited to take on the project. I see barrel aging sours as one step above the carboy-aged sours that I have been playing with in the past. There's just something about the wood character, and the microporous environment that really seems to make a difference between a very good sour beer and a great one. My carboy sour beers have been pretty good, but seem to lack the acidity of the best commercial sours. I guess the next step beyond aging homebrew in a barrel is aging homebrew in multiple barrels, so you have blending options, and there may be some potential for that in the future, but for now this will be a great start.

The group consists of myself, Walker, Sean Burke (who is currently at Siebel taking their 6 month American/German learning program), Paul Key, Rik Hall, and Ben Parsons. I pitched the idea of a wine barrel-aged Flanders red for 2 reasons: The first was having tried an incredible pinot barrel-aged Flanders red from Mike Tonsmiere, and the second being that we already had 15 gallons of Flanders brewed that would be a source for souring bugs.

THE BARREL: LAST USED FOR 2009 EVESHAM WOOD TEMPERANILLO, MADE WITH GRAPES FROM ILLAHAE VINYARD, ALSO IN OREGON

I sourced the wine barrel from Eveshem Wood Vinyard, on a recommendation from Paul that they made excellent Pinot Noirs. However there was a bit of a miscommunication, and we ended up with a used Temperanillo barrel from them instead of a Pinot barrel. I think this will be great though; I wasn't too set on the wine varietal, I just wanted to use a barrel that had aged Oregon-grown grapes. The barrel smelled great when we got it and had already been emptied and treated with sulfur a few weeks beforehand, so all we did was give it a couple of cold-water rinses before filling. The barrel was in excellent condition with not even a tiny leak that needed patching.

WALKER PRUETT, TESTING OUR STAINLESS STEEL NAIL FOR SAMPLING

We gathered for filling the barrel at Walker's house on March 4th, the day before my 32nd birthday, and it was a great birthday gift to start a barrel project with such a fun group of talented brewers. We had brewed a total of 60 gallons, which almost topped off the barrel, and we are hoping to brew a "top-off" batch soon to fill the remaining head-space and provide filler for the "angel's share" which will evaporate off through the wood (or be diminished by taste tests!) in the coming months or years. Currently there is about a 4-inch head-space in the barrel which I would like to eliminate sooner than later, to keep any acetic acid producing bacteria from turning this into the world's biggest batch of homebrewed malt vinegar. That would take a lot of pommes frites to soak up!

RIK HALL

A LITTLE FUNK-PELLICLE ALREADY?

OUR "BARREL RACK", EVIDENCE THAT WE ARE NOT GREAT CARPENTERS, WAS MADE OUT OF AN OLD PALLET.

JOLLY PUMPKIN AND CHEEZ-ITS. YEAH, WE'RE THAT CLASSY.

BEN PARSONS

ADDING SOME COMMERCIAL FUNK

Here is what has gone into the barrel so far:

- 5 gallons of month-old "Jamil Zainacheff" Flanders Red, brewed by Sean Burke and fermented with the Roselaire strain from primary

- 10 gallons of a year-old Flanders red that Paul and I brewed using Al B (now East Coast Yeast)'s "Rodenbug" blend. This was tasting very good at one year, but my batch had definitely soured more than Paul's, I think because my batch was aged at room temp while his was aged at basement temp.

- 45 gallons of new Flanders wort based on the Wild Ales recipe, average O.G. /F.G. of 1.064/ 1.022, 12-15 IBU's, fermented with clean ale yeasts

- Dregs from 2 750 ml bottles of Jolly Pumpkin ales, 1 375 ml bottle of Russian River Supplication, 1 375 ml bottle of Russian River Sanctification (more dregs to follow, almost definitely including Cantillon / Drie Fonteinen).

The plan is to get together every 3 months or so to taste what's going on in the barrel. When we rack out, we will probably just let people collect their portion in carboys or kegs to do as they please, either adding fruit, or blending it with other batches, or serving it straight-up. We have also talked about turning this into a single-barrel "solera" project, racking out only half the beer when it's ready and adding something new. Who knows, maybe we will add one more barrel to Walker's basement too. In any case, I hope the beer turns out great (I think it will at least turn out very good), and it will be a great learning experience no matter what. I can't wait to see how it develops in the coming year!

Rest In Peace - Chick Chick Chick: 2009-2011

2011-02-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

Our little kitty passed away on Valentine's day, and we are really very sad. She was hit by a car and it looks like she went instantly, so at least she didn't suffer too much. We had to bury the poor little thing in the yard, and we only had her for one year. I wish we had had a way to keep her out of that busy street, but I don't think cats should be held hostage indoors. She was such a friendly, playful outdoor cat, hanging out in the neighbors' yards and even sneaking in their houses sometimes. She would hang out with me in the garage while I was brewing and beg to be petted or played with, which was annoying because I didn't want to get a bunch of cat hair in the sanitizer. My point is that we knew the busy road was a risk, but I believe cats should be allowed outdoors. It's just part of their nature to play outside and have adventures. So I guess we need to figure out some kind of invisible fence for the next cat if we decide to have one here, or we could just wait until we live somewhere farther off from a busy street. Damn, life sucks sometimes. I will miss her so much, she was really a great cat and she gave us a lot of joy. The house feels lonely today without her around.

Anyway, I haven't posted any brewing stuff here lately because I've been really busy, in a good way. I have brewed 2 beers: a Belgian Dubbel that I'm planning on splitting some off of and doing some experimentation with (adding quince), and I also brewed a 10 gallon batch of Flanders red that is destined for a wine barrel. I have been wanting to do a barrel-aged sour ale for a while now, and my friend Walker offered up his basement to host the project. We have 6 brewers who are in on the project, the beers are brewed, and now we need to pick up a barrel. So I'll post these recipes later when the dubbel is on tap and when the barrel is full.

Other than that, the reason I really haven't posted is I've been working 6 days a week. I'm still brewing at Alameda 4 days, and I also picked up a couple days at Cascade Brewing, which so far has been a lot of keg washing and filling, but it should be a lot of fun as we get to the more interesting things like working with barrels and all the other fun beers that they do.

So, with this much work I think I'll be slowing down on homebrewing a bit, maybe brewing once a month or something like that. I'll try to keep this blog updated, but if I really end up working my butt off, it might become fairly sporadic. Time will tell... I have decided I really want to keep this blog mainly about homebrewing and leave the pro brewing stuff at work mostly.

Anyway, happy brewing to you all. I'll try to catch up on a few tastings soon. I have the rauchbier that is tasting really nice and I need to go back and do a tasting of the gold lager, and the recently kegged IPA. Catch ya soon.

Christmas Staycation IPA

2010-12-26T17:01:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you have the week off from work and not enough dough to fly home for the holidays? Brew! That's not all I've been up to, I've also been finding time to socialize, get out on some nice hikes, and clean up around the house. But on Christmas morning, it was all about throwing on some good tunes and brewing. After coffee of course.

This recipe is really the batch two of the "Wonton-amo Bay IPA" that I did in July. The first batch was one of the only beers I have ever made that had a diacetyl problem, and sadly I didn't recognize it in time to fix it. So this time around, I aim to make damn sure it's fully fermented before I crash it, but other than that it's fairly identical. Exact same malt bill, although it's lower O.G. due to slightly less efficiency an intentionally bigger final volume (I was aiming for 1.062ish so I was only a bit below target). Slightly higher mash temp. Very similar hop schedule, but some minor adjustments were made based on what I had in the freezer. I'm adding some Chinook and Citra to the dry hops in addition to what was added last time. Should be an all-out hop bomb, but also very clean, dry and drinkable. I've got high hopes that this one will redeem me from my last flawed attempt at IPA greatness.

Wonton-amo Bay IPA - Batch 2

Brewed on 12/25/10

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.9 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.060 F.G. 1.014 ABV 6.1% IBU's 87

10.5 lb. 2-row pale malt (Great Western Organic)

1 lb. wheat malt

.5 lb. Crystal 60

.5 lb. Carapils

19 gr. Warrior pellet 15.8%AA 60 min

20 gr. Summit whole 18%AA 30 min

36 gr. Amarillo whole 8.7%AA 10 min

14 gr. Citra whole 11%AA 10 min

6 gr. Chinook whole 14.2% 10 min

28 gr. Simcoe pellet 12.2% 0 min

28 gr. Centennial whole 7.8% 0 min

14 gr. Simcoe pellets dry hopped in the primary

14 gr. each: Centennial, Chinook, Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo, whole hops, dry hopped in the keg in a "sock".

Mash: 4.5 gallons water plus 3 tsp. Burton Salts

Mash in to 153 for 60 minutes, fell to 150.

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 7 gallons at 1.050 = 79% efficiency

Boil 60 minutes, with hop additions as noted.

Added 1 tsp. Burton salts to kettle.

Wyeast nutrient and whirlfloc at 10 minutes.

Whirlpool, rest 10 minutes while setting up plate chiller.

Chill/transfer thru plate chiller over 10 minutes

Collect 5.5 gallons at 68 degrees.

Oxygen 60 seconds

Pitched 2 packages Wyeast 1056 Cali Ale Yeast

Ferment at 69

1/6/10 Primary dry hops added

1/18/10 Kegged, 1.014. Tastes and smells so freakin' good, not sure if it needs any extra hops but they were already in the keg. 2nd dry hop.

American Session Stout - for lack of a better name

2010-12-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

Wyeast West Yorkshire ale yeast. It's a new seasonal strain that I think was put out this year or last year for the first time. Jamil Zainacheff has said he really likes the way it works and the flavors produced by it. And I got a pack for free a few months ago from Owen at Wyeast (thanks again). It's still available through the end of December if you are interested in brewing with it. Here's some data from their website:

Wyeast 1469 PC West Yorkshire Ale
This strain produces ales with a full chewy malt flavor and character, but finishes dry, producing famously balanced beers. Expect moderate nutty and stone-fruit esters. Best used for the production of cask-conditioned bitters, ESB and mild ales. Reliably flocculent, producing bright beer without filtration.Attenuation 67-71%
Alc. Tolerance 9%
Flocculation highTemperature Range 64-72°F (18-22°C)

I used it for the first time in the Dark Mild I brewed with the second runnings from our Baltic Porter. It's a solid little beer. I would like to have some more malty sweetness, but that is more recipe based than anything. It's good to drink. The esters are clean, the yeast flocced out hard and cleaned up the beer nicely, both in flavor and clarity.

The yeast is said to have been sourced from Timothy Taylor brewery in West Yorkshire. I haven't tried their beers, but apparently they make some fantastic full-flavored bitters and dark milds. Not one of the beers listed on their website comes in at over 4.3% ABV, so to see beer geeks go gaga over their beers is saying something special. And according to their reviews on Beeradvocate, they are making some phenomenal beers. Not that all this can be attributed to the yeast, in fact I'd argue that's mostly to the brewers' credit.

Judging from the flavor of the dark mild, I would say the West Yorkshire strain is similar to the Wyeast London Ale III in performance and flavor, which supposedly comes from Bodddington's. I have used that in a previous mild, and it's a strain that one of the local breweries uses to make some fantastic hoppy beers. So its uses shouldn't be limited to English style ales, although that is probably what it is best at.

Thinking along the lines of session beer, and something full-flavored enough to stand up to the cold rainy weather we have been dealing with here, I decided to come up with another recipe using the West Yorkshire yeast. I wanted to keep it cheap by using only ingredients I already had. A session stout perhaps, based on the historical stout grists that you can read about on Ron Pattinson's "Shut Up About Barclay Perkins" blog. That sounded good. Maybe some woody, piney hops though. But not over-the-top hoppy. I tried to exercise constraint here with all the ingredients, to find a balance of flavors that would be complex yet drinkable. The brown malt should add some toasted bread dryness, as this malt tastes exactly like almost burnt artisan bread crusts. Some roast / coffee / espresso flavors, but not as much as Guinness or a really roasty stout. I left out the crystal, which is a leap of faith, but I want it to be a stout, not a porter.

I am really excited about this beer, but I don't really have an idea of what the final balance of flavors will be. It could be more hoppy or more stouty, or more portery. It's tempting to give it some sarcastic name like "Cascadian dark pale ale" or what have you. But it's not supposed to be Cascadian. It's supposed to be a session historical stout with an American hop twist. I'm fairly certain it will be darn tasty, but only time will tell how if the flavor comes close to my original intention.

Dilation Stout*

Brewed on 12/20/10

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.050 F.G. ABV IBU's 41

6.5 lb. Great Western Organic Pale

1 lb. Munton's Marris Otter

1 lb. Flaked Barley

14 oz. British roasted barley 600L

8 oz. Belgian aromatic malt 25 L

8 oz. British brown malt 70L

21 gr. Chinook whole 14.1% AA 60 min

14 gr. Chinook whole 14.1% AA 0 min

30 gr. Cascade whole 7 % AA 0 min

Mash, 153 for 50 minutes, fell to 149

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

the only water adjustment was chlorine removal with campden

Collect 7 gallons at 1.041 = 79% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes

Whirlfloc & yeast nutrient at 10 min

Whirlpool/rest 10 minutes after flame off

Chill thru plate chiller over 10 minutes to 60

Oxygen 1 minute

Pitch West Yorkshire 2nd generation

Ferment at 68-69 degrees

1/6/11 Racked to keg, tastes phenomenal but couldn't believe it was still at 1.024!!! WTF, that yeast dropped out super early. I'm going to take another taste, gravity, and decide whether to krausen with more yeast. I need some zwickels on my carboys to take regular gravity samples!

* I brewed this beer right after coming back from the optometrist for my yearly perscription check. The doctor dilated my pupils, to the point where I could hardly see! Check out the picture below. For the most part I had to work without my glasses and squint to see anything. Also if I went to far away from a piece of equipment I had to walk around squinting to find it again. The garden hose, which is white, looked like a glowing electric ghost-line against the ground. Despite visuals worse than any I have ever experienced with drug "experimentation" in my youth, I felt no fun side effects. Gradually the eye dilation drops wore off over 6 hours or so and I could see again. The fur hat I'm wearing in the photo was because it was a really cold day for brewing.

On Deck: Christmas Stay-cation IPA

HUGE Baltic Porter & small beer - with Sean Burke

2010-12-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

I had been kicking around some "collaboration brewing" ideas with my friend Sean Burke, and we both knew that we didn't want to do something normal. It was our first time brewing together, and we wanted to do something with some gusto. We were both enthused by the idea of a Baltic Porter, and we toyed with the idea of doing some home-smoked malt in it, before ditching that idea because neither of us has a smoker. We finally settled on trying for a huge Baltic Porter and a small beer from the second runnings. We might mess with half the batch by adding oak and/or spirits.

Neither of us knew just quite how huge the Baltic Porter would really be, and we were pretty shocked to see it is one of the highest O.G. beers that either of us have ever brewed, and a lager at that.

The brewday really maxed out my "brewhouse's" capabilities, and because of this we ran into a few classic homebrew-y snags. I found myself apologizing quite a few times for the unforeseen problems, not to mention wishing that we had Sean's march pump on hand for the end of the boil.

For starters, we mashed in a keggle with an EZ-masher, but not only did we slightly scorch the grain bed when trying to raise the temp a bit, but we also knocked loose the EZ-masher screen in the process somehow, and the result was a completely stuck mash. Luckily we had an extra cooler mash-tun on hand, or we would have been totally, completely screwed!

After transfering the entire mash to the cooler, things went pretty smooth until the end of the boil, when we found ourselves losing the siphon, losing flow through the heat exchanger! That was fixable by getting the pot higher and having someone stand up there stirring the kettle to free up any hops from the kettle screen, so it could run freely to the fermenter. This was somewhat exacerbated, I'm sure, by the incredibly viscous 1.117 O.G. wort.

Despite all the setbacks, we had a fun time and didn't get too stressed out about the little snafu's. We also managed to get a pretty decent small beer out of the process which came in at 1.030 O.G. I fermented mine as a "dark mild", pitching the Wyeast West Yorkshire ale yeast. It is already drinking pretty well after only 8 days and comes in at a sessionable 2.5%. It's a decent beer, but it could use some more caramel sweetness, without which it comes off as slightly roasty and harsh. Still, it's hard not to like a sessionable, easy to drink ale that was fast and basically free to make.

Sean pitched his portion with a lager yeast which he plans to use as a giant starter wort for another lager. It will be interesting to try the small beers side by side.

The huge Baltic Porter got a full (5 gallon batch) yeast cake pitch of 3rd generation Bohemian Lager yeast, from the just-transferred rauchbier that is tasting really nice. I did not post that recipe here, so here it is: Jamil's rauchbier from Brewing Classic Styles, brewed with 70% Rauchmalt. That's the recipe. I obviously haven't tried it fully lagered yet, but all I can say is, try brewing it. It's great. We drank a full pint of green lager that had been held aside for a flavor/gravity sample, and it already tasted super fine. 70% is not too much smoke, and seems quite gentle so far.

Our cat "Chk Chk Chk" also hung out for the brewday, but she was pretty lazy. She mostly sat around and whined, occasionally entertaining herself by jumping onto the kegerator, which I try to keep as a sanitary work surface, and leaving muddy paw prints all over it. Damned good-for-nothing cats.

A couple things about the recipe:

1) The pre-boil/post boil gravities on the baltic porter don't work out. So I'm not sure what went wrong there but the O.G. was 1.117. Possible a combination of inaccurate pre-boil reading and post-boil volume measurement?

2) As you will see with the grainbill and hop timings, we weren't really concerned with stylistic accuracy here, just making what sounded great.

Main Mash:

27 lb. Weyermann Pils

10 lb. Briess Munich 10 L

1 lb. C-60

2 lb. C-77

1 lb. C-120

1 lb. pale chocolate

1 lb. chocolate

1 lb. Carafa special II

Mash: 11 gallons at 152ish, for almost 2 hours by the time we actually got it transferred to the cooler.

Sparge: 21 gallons at 170

Continuous fly-sparge, switching over to second kettle once first kettle was full.

Beer 1: Baltic Porter

13.5 gallons pre-boil 1.090 (???Doesn't add up)

Boil 90 min:

25 gr. Magnum pellet 11.5% AA 90 min

44 gr. Warrior pellet 15.8% AA 90 min

yeast nutrient & whirlfloc 10 min

56 gr. Sterling whole 7% AA 0 min

11.5 gallons post-boil

oxygen for 2.5 minutes

pitch full yeast cake of Wyeast 2124 at 54 degrees

1.117 O.G., 68 IBUs

Fermented at 50 for 8 days, then raised to 56 when bubbles slowed down.

1/2/11 Racked to secondary fermenter, tastes very promising but still at 1.050. Looks like the primary yeast shit the bed right at 9% ABV. Looking into pitching more yeast, hoping to get it down to 1.035.

Beer 2: "small beer / dark mild"

10.5 gallons pre-boil at 1.022

Boil 90 min

8 oz. Belgian amber candi sugar rocks 90 min

28 gr. Northern Brewer whole 7.8% 35 min

O.G. 1.030

15 IBU

Fermented my half with Wyeast West Yorkshire at 68-70

F.G. 1.011, ABV 2.5%

What's on tap - Tastings

2010-12-13T15:08:00.000-08:00

Again, I am so bad about going back to do tastings of the recipes I've posted here. Sorry. I hope these are worth reading... the beers are tasting good! I pulled some samples yesterday while planning out what's going into kegs next, what's getting funk-dafied, and what's going on fruit. Later in the evening, Clarissa and I went up to the soft opening of Grain & Gristle, a new bar/restaurant in NE Portland that is a collaboration between Alex Ganum, owner of Upright Brewing, and a few other partners. The tap selection was great and the moules et frites was great too. So check it out if you're in Portland. Now for some tastings:

Saison:

Color is like a hazy pilsner, on the light side for a saison, with a thick standing head with good retention. Aroma is very "saison-like" with a good balance of fruity esters, hops, and peppery phenols, and a background grainyness from the pils malt. A little more bubblegum/clove than I usually get when using only Dupont yeast, which I attribute to the secondary addition of the DeRanke yeast. Flavor is complex, starting with a medium-full body impression from high carbonation, some sweetness from the pils malt and esters, and hop flavor that it sort of earthy. It is dry and leaves the palate with a hoppy bite that encourages another drink. Alcohol is moderate but slightly warming with no "hotness". Overall, I think it's actually one of the best saisons I have made. It is not an over the top saison, but very drinkable while still remaining complex.

Rye-Amarillo Pale Ale:

Clear copper in color with a thin, wispy white head. Hoppy, slightly lemon tea-like aroma, some grapefruit, and slight caramel/biscuit flavors from malt. Clean esters and alcohol. Medium-full bodied pale ale flavor with a fairly good balance of malt and hops. Creamy mouthfeel from the rye and fairly high final gravity. Overall, I like this beer and it's very drinkable, but I would like it to be a little drier, and I would like to mix up the hops a little bit more to get a better complexity. Very drinkable, but not astounding.

Flanders Red-Kriek:

Big frothy pink head that dies quickly, on top of a cherry-red ale with a slight haze. Aroma is full of cherries and there is a spicy quality from both the brett and the innate spicyness of sour cherries. The acidity is noticable and very clean, as in lactic acid, not acetic. It does not smell exceedingly sour, but it is noticable. A little caramel malt background, no hops, low alcohol. Flavor is clean and lactic-sour, with a subtle maltiness. Maltiness could be higher to give the cherries and sourness more foundation. Nice carbonation, nice cherry flavor that blends with a touch of burnt sugar. The brett comes through well, as well as a hint of almond flavor from cherry pits. Overall, it's great, one of the best sours I've ever made. It could still use a touch more maltyness and maybe a touch more acidity, but I am very happy with this beer. It's not up there with the best commercial krieks, but it's very good and I'm proud of it. Its clean flavor and modrate sourness almost make it a session beer. I could drink 2 pints of it, whereas I would like it to be a slightly more intense beer that you would want to drink a small glass or two of.

The Yeast Fairy came to Alameda today!

2010-12-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

A friend from Wyeast came by Alameda today to drop off a ton of free yeast packets. I picked up one of each of a lot of stuff: Trappist, West Yorkshire, Cali, some other American ale, 2 lagers, steam yeast, and I must be forgetting a few.

Sean Burke and I have a big-ass Baltic Porter brew planned out for next week. I could easily see pulling a second-runnings beer and pitching a yeast pack in that for a fun small beer. Maybe a dark mild with the West Yorkshire? Jamil Zainacheff really likes this strain, so I would like to try it.

Turkey and Beer Hoedown

2010-11-29T16:35:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is a time for family and friends, but when you don't have the money or time to travel back to family, sometimes you just have to have a "Friendsgiving". Clarissa and I spent the day with some good friends, and I will brag a little bit by saying we cooked up a spectacular meal together. Clarissa and I covered the turkey, gravy, and dressing, and our friends helped with side dishes and dessert.

The latest Beeradvocate Magazine had an recipe by Sean Paxton on beer-brined turkey with Moroccan spices. I took this as a jumping-off point for my own cooking, but I left out the Moroccan spices, concentrating on traditional Thanksgiving savory herbs. I also changed out the beer. Instead of throwing down $12 on 3 bottles of Ninkasi Believer Double Red Ale (which I would rather drink than soak a turkey in), I used some good but not exceptional homebrew. I used my Alt, which is less robust than the Ninkasi, so I used a little more of it. What I did use was Paxton's basic brine proportions, which are the most important part.

Here's what I came up with:

3/4 gallon water

1 cup pickling salt (cuz we were out of kosher)

3/4 cup sugar

bay leaves

black pepper corns

1 chopped onion

3 stalks chopped celery

6 smashed garlic cloves

- Simmer all that stuff together for 10 minutes, then cool it to refrigerator temp.

- Add 3/4 gallon beer, in this case Alt.

- Remove the innards from a 17-pound turkey, rinse, and dunk it in the brine, keeping it at fridge temp for 2 full days.

** You could probably scale the brine down and use less, if you soak the turkey in a plastic bag.

- Day of: Remove turkey, drain and pat dry inside and out. Bring to room temp over a couple hours, then roast in a 350 degree oven to 160 degrees internal temp. Roast it on a rack, or some sticks of celery if you don't have one, to keep it off the juices. This took a little under 3 hours.

- Remove from oven, rest under tin foil, while making the dressing and gravy (vague recipe provided below by Clarissa's mom is their family recipe). Carve, dowse in gravy, and eat the moistest, best-seasoned turkey you've ever eaten.

Recipes provided by Ann Hitchon:

Mama Lowe's Cornbread Dressing
1 cup celery
1 cup onion Slighty boiled ( I have also added more than this never less)
2 or 3 eggs
1/2 Turkey drippings (save the other half for gravy)
sage or poultry seasoning
salt and Watkins pepper to taste
milk to moisten
dry bread crumbs (left over bread of almost any kind--toasted)
pan of cornbread
Mix together and place in a greased pan
Bake at 400 till done (golden brown and firm to the touch in the middle)
Mother ALWAYS used a large cast iron skillet, but I have never been that brave.

Giblet Gravy

cook all giblets in enough water to cover DO NOT DRAIN
2 or 3 boiled eggs sliced
thickening/ flour or starch
drippings from turkey
salt and Watkins pepper to taste
milk
Cook the giblets and leave them in the water. When cool enough to touch, slice all giblets and clean all you can off the neck too.
Return them to the water and add sliced eggs
Return to a boil and add drippings and then starch and/or flour

All this together with some from-scratch creamed corn, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beens, and a zucchini dish made for an awesome feast.

As for the turkey, here is my opinion on the brining process: It produced by far, the best turkey I have ever had a part in. It was juicy, perfectly done, and perfectly seasoned. Even the leftovers stayed moist for days. No one was actually able to taste any beer flavors in the turkey. Since I have never done any other brines, I can't say if I think the beer contributed anything that a regular brine wouldn't have, but it was damn good. I guess this is one of my issues with cooking with beer. A lot of times I am skeptical about the actual flavor contribution of the beer. Certainly it can add flavor in certain applications, but would this turkey have been just as good with a regular-old brine?

Well, in any case, it was a great opportunity to pair a food with the beer it was made from, since I also brought a growler of the Alt to drink. However, the best beers to drink with dinner were the saison and the rye-amarillo pale ale I made recently, which reminds me I need to put up some tastings on the blog soon about those beers.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and if you had a chance to cook with beer, or found a great beer and food pairing, please feel free to share in the comments!

E-Z Lambic

2010-11-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

I brewed up my first ever batch of lambic yesterday, unless you are one of those people who doesn't consider it a real "Lambeek" unless you do a turbid mash and live in the Sienne valley, in which case I guess I did a pLambic. Close enough for me, all I know is I'm not going to spend my day off from brewing by brewing an even more time-consuming homebrew. I kept this as simple as I could! Not sure what my future plans will be for this beer, other than I want to bottle-condition it straight or blended, but not with fruit, and that I would like to pitch in some commercial dregs later on down the line.

It was a fun brewday, Ryan and a friend came over to check it out and keep me company. We had some great sour ale on tap (the kriek) and also the Rye pale ale, which is a good, very drinkable beer, but it doesn't have the flavor impact I would like (need to add a bunch more hops).

I don't see why it would be necessary to even do a protein rest when brewing a lambic this way. I didn't, because the pilsner malt has plenty of diastatic power to convert the wheat flakes. Any cloudyness or starchyess is going to be taken care of by the bugs in the next year or so.

E-Z Lambic

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.8 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.058 F.G. ABV IBU's ???-low.

6.5 lb. Weremann pils

5 lb. flaked wheat

.5 lb. rice hulls

72 gr. homegrown Cascade hops (aged 2 years at room temp in a paper bag) 90 minutes

Mash: 4 gallons + 3 gr. CaCl + 1 gr. Gypsum

158 for 1 hour, fell to 154

Sparge 5.25 gallons, same water additions as mash

83% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes

chill to 60, aerate by shaking and pitch:

1 pack Wyeast Lambic blend

1 pack Scottish ale yeast

(Thanks Owen who works for Wyeast for the yeast packs! Both these packs were 3 months old by the time I pitched them which is why I used a clean ale yeast too.)

Primary ferment at 68ish

12/14/10 Racked to secondary (corny keg). 1.019. Already developing some sourness and wonderful funk/barnyard/goat sweat character.

See? E-Z brewday. Just what you want for a beer where all the important stuff happens during the year-plus fermentation.

Any suggestions from lambic brewers for commercial dregs to throw in? My obvious choices would be Drie Fonteinen & Cantillon. Others?

Lager season opens! Golden Dortmunder-ish lager

2010-11-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

What would these guys drink? Probably not what I just brewed yesterday. It is probably too "heavy", and you might not be able to read a newspaper through it. Never the less, lager season is officially open at Chez Wonton and I felt a hunting image would do it the most justice.

Fredo! Wait, I mean, Stan, you are so melancholy and tragic, I want to dedicate a beer to you. Here it goes: A maltier than usual Dortmunder-ish beer, or whatever. A style free lager that is golden and bready, but balanced with a bitter bite. Let's forget style for a minute, brew a beer, and see how it comes out.

Check it out. I made an insulating jacket for my stainless mash tun, so I can keep it warm outside without constantly reheating it. Maybe a little overkill, but I set it on a heating blanket after I mashed in and it only lost 1-2 degrees over 60 minutes. I'll take that. This is made out of 3 layers of Reflectix and heat resistant tape, and yes, it was more labor than I thought it would be, but it's done! And seemingly working very well.

I wanted to get the Ayinger lager strain for this one (Whitelabs WLP830), but it would have taken 3 weeks just to get through the homebrew store. (Ayinger Oktoberfest-Marzen is probably in my top 10 favorite beers. I just can't get over that soft, bready and wonderful melanoidin character.) I didn't want to wait, so I went with the Wyeast 2124 Bohemian lager strain. I used the same yeast last year and had some sulfur or DMS issues in the first 2 beers. This yeast seems to kick off a butt-load of sulfur, so I will be monitoring that more closely and making sure it has plenty of time to off-gas and ferment out before capping it. I am also chilling the beers more rapidly to prevent DMS formation after the boil

Here's the recipe. Water is adjusted to emphasize the malts, hopefully giving it a softer overall profile. The bittering hops were 2008 Magnum, which were sealed in mylar. I adjusted the AA% down from 13.6% to 11.5% for age, but in reality this beer might taste like more IBU's than the recipe calculates. I'm still not sure if it is ever really necessary to adjust AA% down for time, if the hops are treated right.

Cazale Lager - Brewed 11/3/10

Recipe is for 6.9 gallons pre-boil, 5.3 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.052 F.G. 1.013 ABV 5.2% IBU's 28

All malt is from Weyermann:

4.5 lb. Pils

4 lb. Munich

1 lb. Carahell

10 gr. Magnum pellets (2008, adjusted down to 11.5%) 65 min

28 gr. Sterling whole 7.9% 15 min

Mash: 4 gallons + 3 gr. CaCl + 1 gr. Gypsum

151 for 60 minutes

Sparge: 5 gallons + 3 gr. CaCl + 1 gr. Gypsum

Collect 6.9 gallons at 1.040 = 77% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 15 min

Chill to 59 through heat exchanger

oxygen 90 seconds

Pitch 3 liter stirplate starter of Wyeast 2124 (decanted)

chilled to 50 over 12 hours

Ferment at 50 for primary

Seemed to be nearly done after only 7 days!

11/10/10 Moved inside for a D-rest at ambient temp.

11/15/10 Racked to secondary to collect yeast. VERY bready! A good deal of yeast in suspension adds to the breadyness. Some sulfur and acetaldehyde still there. Maybe a week more before I keg and crash it.

12/14/10 Racked to keg. Tastes pretty good so far. Clean lager.

Soon up, a really smokey Rauchbier al la Schlenkerla

Tasting objectively: Harder than it might seem at times

2010-11-02T13:29:00.001-07:00

Wow, I had a bit of a humbling, but very interesting experience today that I want to share. I was out in the garage, brewing my first lager of the season. I pulled a couple of tasters of some beers I have on tap: The Rye-Amarillo pale ale, and the Wontonamo Bay IPA. I was planning on doing a tasting of the IPA for the blog, which in a way this will be.

There has been a flavor to the IPA that a couple of my beer geek friends have noticed, but no one put their finger on until now, including me. It is an annoying flavor, and it's probably the reason I haven't posted a taste evaluation of it yet. I don't really like it, to be quite honest.

So this flavor was there, that my 2 beer geek friends and myself have been picking up, was being described by all of us as an overly sweet or caramelly. Even though the beer was heavily hopped, low on the crystal malt, and well attenuated to 1.012. So where was that sweet flavor coming from? I was chalking it up as an unknown, possibly a combination slight alcohol sweetness (it was fairly high in alcohol, at 7.3%), and possibly some esters (I had let the temp rise towards the end to about 72).

It took me trying it next to another hoppy beer to figure it out, and then it hit me over the head like an oversized wooden mallet. Diacetyl! Big time. Why did I not pick this out before? I know what diacetyl tastes like (artificial butter, basically), but I was not picking it out in my own beer. I have been able to pick it out in other commercial IPA's, so why not mine? Possibly, at least a little bit, because it was being overpowered to a degree by the heavy dose of hops. Possibly because I was dealing with a new hop (Citra), and I thought it might be coming from there. But more likely, most importantly, was that I have never really had a problem with diacetyl. I consider myself a pretty skilled brewer, so it never really crossed my mind! Cali ale yeast is usually a clean, hardy yeast that is not known for diacetyl production. It's not something I have had a problem with in the past. Yet, there it was, clear as day once I finally recognized it. Doubtless someone else could have picked out the problem on the first sip, which is what brings me to the important point: Sometimes the brewer is just too close to the beer to realize what is wrong with it.

It's a tough lesson. No brewer is ever good enough not to, sometimes, make a rookie mistake. I think the problem with my beer was just not pitching quite enough yeast (only a 1 quart stirplate starter) for the high gravity/ alcohol level, and not letting it finish out a little longer, which probably would have cleaned it up eventually. Also, the alcohol is just a bit too noticable, which again points to not pitching enough yeast.

I have always tried to give my beers an honest and clear evaluation. If anything, I think I err on the side of being too critical. In this case, I guess I just had my blinders on. It's something to try to look out for in the future, and I think it leads to the conclusion that now matter how good of a brewer you think you are, honest and critical outside opinion is of the utmost importance. I tend to be a little tough on other brewer's beers too, even though it is always in an effort to be helpful. For instance, when tasting any of my my friends' homebrews, I try to always be encouraging and focus on the positive, but also try to give a straightforward critique of what I am tasting. If I didn't do that, I think it would be a disservice to them as a brewer.

If I could try to evaluate the flavor of this IPA otherwise, I would say the hop flavor/aroma would be magnificent if not muddled up by a bunch of fake butter. I would have brewed it to a lower O.G., but I'm not sure that I would change anything else. Maybe this recipe deserves another shot with thsoe 2 easy fixes.

2 year old Kriek finally kegged and ready to drink!

2010-10-28T15:55:00.001-07:00

I was hoping to get a chance to homebrew this week, but alas, it wasn't in the cards. I did however get a lager yeast started on a stirplate, and next week I'll brew the first of a series of lagers that I am very excited about.

Since Clarissa's birthday is coming up on Saturday, I decided to take some samples of various things that I've had going so we could decide what to serve for her birthday beer. The first beer I sampled was the amber farmhouse ale we brewed together for her birthday, but it was obvious that it was still not ready. The brett C hasn't done much, and I'm sure it will be good, but it needs a few more months. And it might get some cherries since I still have an ass-pile in the freezer taking up room. The trippel was also pretty good, but what was really, really good was the Flanders red-kriek. So that's what we decided to put on, and when her real birthday beer is done, maybe we will just bottle it.

The kriek started off as a Flanders Red, which I brewed in Brooklyn with Ray in August of 2008. I kegged it before we moved to Portland, and even served some before deciding that it was just a little too lackluster and needed some extra souring. I still had about 4 gallons of beer, which I topped off with a little Belgian Dark Strong and some of the new Flanders red brewed with Al B's bug blend. I added a bunch of fresh cherries and some oak chips almost 3 months ago, and I am finally happy with the flavor.

Once it's carbonated I'll be sure to do a full tasting. I feel like it could use a little more malt background and a touch more sourness, but overall I am very happy with it, and the cherry flavor couldn't be better. The color is amazing, such a bright, clear cherry-red! It is probably the best sour beer I have done so far.

I also kegged up the Rye beer I did 3 weeks ago, and I honestly don't know what I think about it. It only dropped to 1.016, and i was hoping to get it at least 3 points lower. Also the hops were not that pronounced, and there was a tannic tea flavor to the beer, but I usually find that drops out after a week in the keg. So we'll see, I will try to get a tasting of that up in the next week too.

First brew in the new "man-cave": Rye-Amarillo Pale Ale

2010-10-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

My friend Ryan came over the other day to check out my new digs and help out with a batch of homebrew. He has a few batches of homebrew under his belt, but he had never seen an all-grain brewday or brewed with anyone else, so I hope he had a good time and learned a bit (and remembers it after all that drinking, man that guy is a lush!)

I'm still in the process of getting moved in and set up at the new house, but in the mean time I thought I would kick things off with a nice, simple beer that will hopefully be very tasty and drinkable. It's a recipe that, if it turns out well, I would like to pitch to Carston and Eric as something we could brew at Alameda. Even though this recipe is pretty straightforward, I just figured my best shot at getting it brewed would be to come to them with a finished product that we could scale up, and make improvements if we think there should be any.

So, this is the new man-cave. It is not attached to the house which unfortunately means that you can't gab a beer in your socks. It is also very uninsulated, and I fear that the kegerator will be quite cold during the coldest winter months, and brewing during that time might be a hand-numbing bitch. But my ultimate goal is to make it into a place where homebrewing can be a fun, relaxing hobby I do on my off days, instead of the labor-intensive brewdays I have done in the past. Including the homebrew, I have gotten in 4 brewdays this week, so when you brew for work you don't really want to be coming home to something that just ends up being a labor-some chore.

I need to put in some kind of basic sink or wash tub, and insulate my small stainless mash tun which used to fit in the oven to stay warm. After that, I might invest a small amount of cash to get my 10 gallon system a little more workable.

Here's Ryan tenderly measuring out some hops...

Rye-Amarillo Pale ale

Brewed on 10/6/10

Recipe is for 6.5 gallons pre-boil, 5.8 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.056 F.G. 1.016 ABV 5.3% IBU's 41

9 lb. organic pale malt

10 oz. Munich

10 oz. C-60

1.25 lb. Rye malt

All hops are Amarillo pellets 8.2% AA

24 gr. at 60 min

28 gr. at 15 min

28 gr. at 0 min

34 gr. dry hopped, loose in primary, on 10/11/10

Mash in 4 gallons water + 3 tsp burton salts to 152 for one hour

Efficiency 77%

Boil 60 minutes

Rest 15 minutes after flame out

transfer thru plate chiller over 20 min

pitch Alameda (Scottish ale yeast) at 70 degrees and ferment at 68

Racked to keg on 10/25/10. Initial flavor is OK, but with an annoying tea-like hop flavor. In my experience this usually goes away with a little time. F.G. was definitely higher than I like my pale ales, but I am more used to fermenting with the dryer Cali ale yeast. Let's see in a week when it's carbonated, I'll bet the flavor will be better.

Moving again: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU$#($*&K!

2010-09-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I really think I am dumb for being a homebrewer. Not just an average beer-obsessed homebrewer, but one that does not own an home and insists on brewing multiple beers that take over a year to age.

All the beers above, except for one carboy, were down in the crawlspace of our home, which meant I had to crawl down to a soot-covered, uneven dirt floor where I can barely crouch, and lift them over my head through a 2x3 foot hole above me. Luckily none of them broke and all my major arteries are still intact.

That was just the stuff in the crawlspace. There was also a large deep-freeze kegerator, a dorm fridge, various bottles both empty and full, and 9 cornies which all had beer in them. And a metro-shelf. And 3 keggles. And the propane burner, and lots of little stuff.

This is my last move in Portland, unless we for some reason buy a house. I'm seriously thinking about pairing down the homebrewing equipment to a single 10 gallon system, and brewing less often. It would seem to fit in better with the fact that I am brewing at work now.

Don't even let me get started on moving out the 3 garden beds and laying down sod! Damn, I need a beer. Right now. Cheers.

Alameda's Hop Harvest brew 2010

2010-09-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

Due to being busy with brewing at Alameda and preparing for a move to Northeast Portland, among other things, I haven't really found a lot of time to homebrew recently. I thought I'd snap a few photos on my cell phone of our fresh-hop brew at Alameda and do a quick post about that. Please excuse the low-quality photos. If you can't tell here, the hops were actually a quite vibrant green color.

Our head brewer, Carston Haney, has a bunch of hop vines growing in his front yard, with an assortment of varieties. The easiest way for us to deal with fresh whole hops at the brewery is to turn the mash tun into an insanely oversized hop-back, since we don't have a trub dam in the boil kettle to keep them from clogging up our heat exchanger. Below is Eric, dumping about 20 pounds of fresh hops into the mash/lauter tun.

Here's what they looked like before the wort went in: Very nice looking cones.

After a short whirlpool, we pumped the wort over onto the fresh hop bed. The transfer took about 15 minutes and then we sent it right to the fermenter (through the heat exchanger of course).

We also used quite a bit of pelletized hops in the boil: Columbus for bittering and Perle for flavor & aroma. According to my crude math skills, the 20 pounds of fresh hops we used in 5.5 barrels of beer would be about the same as a 9.7 ounce addition in 5 gallons of homebrew. That's pretty good, but obviously it wasn't enough to provide the full IBU contribution for this beer, even if we could have used them in the boil kettle.

The beer came in at 1.065 O.G., and the simple grainbill of Golden Promise and a smidge of flaked oats should give the hops a ton of room to shine. I'm pretty excited to try this beer as soon as humanly possible, most likely straight off the side of the fermenter after 6-7 days of fermentation.

As far as my own progess at Alameda, I have been feeling really good about getting the brewdays down. I brewed a double batch of pale ale this weekend with no help, and I feel pretty confident with my technique. Mashing in to the proper temperature was one of the more daunting parts of the learning process, but I have that locked down now. I have had some screw ups too of course, for instance one day I accidentally left the cold water valve open during mash in, and by the time I caught it, the best I could get the mash up to was about 140 (we normally mash in at 154). I'm not sure how that mash managed to convert properly, but it did. Luckily this brew was half of a double batch of IPA, so it was blended with another beer and it only came in a few points lower in final gravity than it normally does.

I could tell you about more near fuck-ups that I have done, but it might be more fun just to let you use your imagination. It can be tough; there are so many things to keep your mind on at once, and so many things that could possibly go wrong. It's just part of the learning process to make some mistakes here and there. Of course I want to be perfect all the time but that's just how it goes. The beers are turning out great, I'm learning a ton from some great teachers, and my sanitation regime has been impeccable! That's about the best anyone can ask for.

Post 100! Collaborator lab results

2010-08-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

I just noticed as I was logging in that this is going to be post 100 of my blog! That means, more or less, I've posted about 100 recipes on here too. A lot of posts do not have a recipe, but some have multiple. So let's call it just shy of 100 recipes, give or take a few (I'm not going back to count, are you?).

Anyway, I finally pleaded and begged and bugged the OBC enough to release the Widmer Collaborator lab results which should have been out a long time ago. I think the competition was in May, and the lab testing was done on May 27th. I was really excited to see the lab results come in, since I have never had any scientific QC testing on my beers, and I was curious to see if my measurements would jive with the lab-ometers. Most of them did, gladly. And there was a ton of other stuff which I was hoping they would measure, but unfortunately that did not come with the testing. I was hoping to see dissolved oxygen levels, bacterial count, and carbonation level measurements also. Well, it was all free anyway. Thanks again Widmer.

On to the results. First the Baltic Porter that Paul and I brewed, which was a finalist, but did not get picked as a Collaborator beer. I don't think I ever did a tasting of this for the blog, and I should soon. It was pretty good but not quite malty enough. But still, quite tasty.

Beer Analysis - BALTIC PORTER		LAB RESULTS	MY MEASUREMENTS:

SpecificGravity		1.0143	1.015
Alcohol(%v/v)		8.60	8.06
	(%w/w)	6.70	6.28
Original Gravity in Percent Plato		19.09	18.4
Real Degree of Fermentation		67.7	66.2
Calories		260.1
pH		4.83
Color (in Lovibond)		103.0	37.1 (SRM)
Bitterness Units (International Method)		31.9	30.2

Evaluating the results: The measurements were all quite close here, except for the color. I don't really understand that one honestly. For one thing, from what I quickly read online, SRM is the same as Lovibond. If so, then I'm way off, but color is such an obvious thing in brewing that I don't really care about ever having it checked by a lab.

On to the Saison, which was not a finalist and therefore also not picked as a winner. This was a pretty good beer, but as I mentioned it just didn't have a great aroma profile. It was just a bit subdued and not outstanding.

Beer Analysis - SAISON		Results	MY MEASUREMENTS:

SpecificGravity		1.0035	1.007
Alcohol (%v/v)		6.33	6.2
	(%w/w)	4.99	4.9
Original Gravity in Percent Plato		12.79	12.6
Real Degree of Fermentation		76.5	71
Calories		166.2
pH		4.29
Color (in Lovibond)		3.1	3 (SRM)
Bitterness Units (International Method)		28.3	28.3

Evaluating the results: It looks like I was really dead-on most of my numbers for this beer, except for the final gravity. This could have been a bad measurement by me, but more likely it was from continued fermentation in the bottle. We all know how saison yeasts go slowly but surely through their final stages of fermentation. But if that's the case, I would have expected carbonation levels that were pushing bottle bombs, and I didn't have that problem. The beer tasted as if it were carbed to about 3.5 volumes I'd guess, and that was with a pretty substantial dose of priming sugar that would have equaled 6+ oz. per 5 gallons.

All in all, I'm very happy to see I've hit my numbers on these beers. At least at the 30 IBU range, my IBU calculations are pretty close to the actuals. I would guess that they start to skew quite a bit as the IBU's go up though.

Clarissa's 30th Birthday beer: quick-sour amber farmhouse ale

2010-08-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

Clarissa and I were talking about what to brew for her 30th birthday beer recently. I really wanted to include her more on the beer recipe formulation than in past years, so we started by just talking about what kind of beer she would like. She likes sour beers a lot. They don't have to be extremely sour, but beers with less hops, a slight tartness, and high drinkability are really what she prefers. I have to be honest and say that I really wasn't that big on either of the last two beers I have brewed for her birthday. One was an imperial wit, and the other was a squash saison. Both were interesting beers, but not really beers that I was terribly proud of. So, we are keeping our fingers crossed on this year, and I think it will be at least a very interesting beer, and hopefully very complex and tasty.

We started with the idea of an amber colored beer, to evoke the feeling of fall, since her birthday is on Halloween. We quickly ruled out the idea of using squash, since I did that last year and it was a real pain in the ass to mash (and it's kind of cliche). The idea of a slightly sour farmhouse ale quickly came up, so I had to start thinking about how to get that sourness in a short amount of time. She also mentioned wanting a lemony quality to the beer, and that she really liked the spices I used in the Belgian summer ale recently.

So, I had to take all this info and figure out a recipe and technique. I hope it ends up with a flavor that is very evocative of a Fantome Automne farmhouse ale. I don't even know if I've ever even tried Fantome Automne before, but I would like to get close to the house flavor they have, with a nice tinge of lactobacillus sourness and some brett. Also, I have to credit Paul for a bit of inspiration with the technique, he had a phenomenal funky saison with lacto and brett C, so I used some of his ideas for this beer.

One more thing: Thanks for the help on the brewday Clarissa!

(Nameless beer for now...any thoughts?)

Recipe is for 6.7 gallons pre-boil, 5.6 gallons, post boil, all grain

O.G. 1.054 F.G. ABV IBU's 23

3 lb. 2-row organic pale malt (1 lb. is used in the sour mash)

3 lb. Weyermann Pilsner malt

1 lb. Munich malt

1 lb. Caramunich 60 L

1 lb. aromatic malt

1 lb. wheat malt

4 oz. Munton's crystal 180-200 L

12 gr. Magnum pellets (2008) 13.6% AA 70 min

16 gr. Styrian Golding pellets 3.5% AA 0 min

11 gr. Sterling pellets 7% AA 0 min

6 gr. Amarillo pellets 8.6% AA 0 min

3 gr. fresh lemon verbena, sliced thin 0 min

2 gr. grains of paradise, crushed 0 min

Sour Mash:

24 hours before brewday, mash 1 lb. pale malt in 1 qt. water to 105 degrees in a small pot.

covered grain surface in plastic wrap, and let sit out warm overnight. By 24 hours it was VERY sour, but not too funky or garbagy. The layer of plastic wrap really helps keep the fink down!

Main Mash:

4 gallons water, mash in to 153, rest 30 minutes

Add sour mash to main mash after 30 minutes

Heat entire mash to 158 over 10 minutes, rest 20 minutes

Sparge with 4.75 gallons at 170 over 30 minutes

Collect 6.8 gallons at 1.044 = 80% efficiency

Boil 85 minutes, hops/spices as noted

whirlfloc & wyeast nutrient at 10 minutes

Whirlpool and rest for 15 minutes before chilling

Chill with plate chiller to 68 over 20 minutes

Oxygen for 60 seconds

Pitched 1 liter stirplate starter of Wyeast 1010 American Wheat yeast

(I know this is probably not an obvious choice, but I had a few packs of free yeast laying around and since we're using a sour mash & brett, the primary yeast strain is almost a non-issue. I was looking for a subtle yeast.)

Ferment at 68 for the bulk of fermentation, then let rise to ambient (72+).

Racked to a keg on 9/13/10. 1.016. Tastes very good already, has a nice amber ale body & flavor, with a very slight tartness and lemony, fruity, peppery finish. Very nice balance on the spices. Pitched 1 pack of Wyeast Brett Clausenni to funk it up.

12/14/10. This beer has not progressed much in the brett flavor, and the Brett C has not even dropped the gravity by a point! It's still at 1.016. There is a nice little pineapple aroma though. So here's what I did: rack it back into a 5 gallon carboy, along with about a quart of the young "E-Z Lambic" for extra funk, and 3/4 ounce medium toast French oaks chips. That should funk it up and give it some of that sour farmhouse character I'm looking for. Obviously this wasn't ready for Clarissa's birthday. Maybe we will bottle condition it and serve some on her birthday in 2011!

Saison De Duas Notas So

2010-08-09T10:37:00.001-07:00

Saison season has opened! That's right, we are in the middle of Oregon's mild excuse for a summer (it's currently 63 degrees at 2:30 pm). This would typically warrant only saison homebrewing in many other cities, but here the only difference is the groundwater temp goes up a bit and it's a littler harder to chill the wort properly with your heat exchanger. I was planning on doing another Saison Dupont clone attempt, but when I went to the homebrew store, all they had was $2 an ounce, 2008 crop American Goldings sitting in a refrigerator. No way I am gonna get jacked like that, so I had to come up with a different idea.

Luckily, I had an idea earlier that week to try some Northern Brewer hops in a saison, and they had a good selection of NB from 2009. This is a hop I have hardly used at all, and I want to isolate it by using it as the only hop to try and get a feel for the flavor and aroma potential. I decided to leave everything else very predictable and clean, to really let those hops shine through. So, I went with 100% Pilsner malt and 100% Northern Brewer, and Dupont yeast. If the Northern Brewer proves to be a good hop for this, I might try to substitute some American malts next time to get a real "American" saison.

The name of this recipe comes from a play off an old Samba song called "Samba De Uma Nota So", or "One Note Samba". This is my 2-note saison.

Above: THE MAN, Joao Gilberto!

Saison De Duas Notas So

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-booil, 6.2 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.055 F.G. 1.007 ABV 6.4% IBU's 32

10 lb. Weyermann Pilsner malt

14 gr. Northern Brewer whole 7.8% AA (First Wort Hop)

12 gr. Northern Brewer pellet 9.8% AA 90 min

45 gr. Northern Brewer whole 7.8% AA 0 min

Mash: 4 gallons H2O + 4 gr. gypsum + 4 gr. calcium chloride

Mash in to 128, hold 15 min

Heat to 147 over 10 min, hold 35 min

Heat to 158 over 10 min, hold 10 min

Heat to 170 over 10 min, hold 5 minutes and begin sparging.

Add First Wort Hops to kettle before sparging.

Sparge with 5 gallons H2O at 170, over 40 minutes

Collect 7 gallons at 1.049 = 90% efficiency

(I checked my last runnings which were at about 1.014)

Boil 90 minutes, additions as noted

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 10 min

"Topped off" the kettle with some water to 6.2 gallons at the end of the boil.

Whirlpool & rest 15 minutes while setting up heat exchanger.

Ran through plate chiller over 10 minutes, to 76 degrees

oxygen for 60 seconds

Pitched a 1 liter, stirplate starter of Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison yeast.

Fermentation rose on it's own to 81 over the first 24 hours

Raised to 88 degrees by day 3, left there until day 5, when I lowered the thermostat to 84.

***Racked to secondary after about a week so I could collect the yeast. Kept at above 80 for 6 weeks total, the damn beer was still at 1.020!!!***

Alex from Upright hooked me up with a krausening wort from his fresh hop beer. I pitched about a quart of this into the beer which helped get it going. This was the De Ranke isolate.

Racked to keg on 11/8/10. The sample tastes freakin' awesome. 1.007. I also filled a growler and I am going to bottle condition it. Can't wait to do a tasting of this beer and maybe do a side-by side with keg & the bottle conditioned growler.

Sour Cherries!

2010-08-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today I brewed what I hope will be a very interesting beer: a saison with 100% Pilsner malt and 100% Northern Brewer hops. I have never tried these hops exclusively in a beer, in fact I've hardly used them at all. But more on that beer later when I get time to post the recipe. For now I'd like to catch up on a couple things that I've been doing to other beers.

I'm pretty proud to say that I brewed Alameda's second batch of Black IPA [Cascadian Dark Ale for those Cascadians with fragile egos ; ) ] with just a little help from Eric. It's probably my 4th or 5th batch I've brewed there with a little backup support, and I think pretty soon I'll be ready to brew on my own. In fact that's the plan, during the GABF I'll be the one sticking around to care for the brewery while Carston and Eric are gone. As for the beer itself, I think it's going to be a big improvement over batch one. We undershot our target gravity on the 1st batch, leaving an extremely hop-forward beer with a really spicy Zeus profile, but lacking in malt to back it up. It kind of tastes like a dry robust porter with a shitload of bitterness and pungent/spicy hops. Not bad actually, but not really what we wanted.

Batch 2 was pretty much completely reformulated. The base is Rahr 2-row malt, and we added to that small portions of Munich, Crisp C-77, Carafa, chocolate, roasted barley, and flaked oats. We got the O.G. up to a solid 1.072. The hops were Simcoe, Cascade, and Amarillo with a pretty large flameout addition, and we are going to dry hop it. Flavor samples of the fermenting beer are promising!

On the homebrew front, I picked up 25 lbs. of pitted Montmorency sour pie cherries from a processing place in Yamhill for $50. It's called Fruihill Inc, if anyone is looking for sour pie cherries. It's a pretty good deal, and although I really like the flavor my last sour cherry beer got from the pits, it would have actually cost more to get them with pits.

I pulled a flavor / gravity sample of the Flanders Red that Ray and I brewed 2 years ago, and it tastes like it is begging for some cherries. I also opened a bottle of Upright "Six" for inspiration, which has been sitting in my garage, not even refrigerated, since at least December. I wasn't sure what to expect but it actually tastes incredible with that amount of age on it, even when not handled ideally. It's good fresh, but it really comes into its own after 6 months with a very dry spicy mouthfeel, huge carbonation, and some Belgian esters blending with caramel malt and cherry-like flavors. Go try it and grab a bottle to age while you're at it.

I added 7 lbs. of the sour pie cherries, plus 2 lbs. of sweet dark cherries with pits, to my already almost 2 year old flanders red. It really seems to have improved over the last 6 months, about the time that I added AlB's bugs to the keg and topped it off with some Belgian Dark Strong, and a bit of our latest batch of Flanders. The beer itself tastes good but it could actually be a little maltier. It may turn out less of a flanders and more of a generic sour kriek cherry-bomb, which I can't really say I would be sad about. I also added a bit of French oak to the secondary, and maybe this will all get bottled in 2-3 months time.

The remainder of the cherries were frozen in quart bags. They also make great desserts. Clarissa cooked up a great cobbler last week with them. They have a really nice sourness and also a spicy cinnamon-like flavor.

Here are a couple of cocktails Clarissa and I made recently: This is just "for fun" stuff.

Googly-eyed bloody mary made with home-pickled asparagus (awesome), and some of a hot sauce that Paul made with Chiles de Arbol (in the Red Rocket bottle). We also tried some Mazi's Piri-Piri in one of them, which is a great hot sauce, but I'm not sure if you can get it out here. We got it at Murray's Cheese on a recommendation from one of the Sixpoint brewers.

This is simply fresh, super sweet seedless watermelon, crushed up with ice, mint, and Knob Creek bourbon. Might be nice to try it with Thai Basil in the future instead of mint.

"Wonton-amo Bay" IPA

2010-07-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Angelo for the politically incorrect the name. Looking for a really, really hop forward, light colored IPA that is not as strong in alcohol as an imperial IPA. First time using Citra and only the second time using Simcoe.

Wonton-amo Bay IPA

Brewed on 7/14/10

Recipe is for 6.6 gallons pre-boil, 5.6 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.067 F.G. 1.012 ABV 7.3% IBU's 85

10.5 lb. 2-row pale malt (Great Western Organic)

1 lb. wheat malt

.5 lb. Crystal 60

.5 lb. Carapils

19 gr. Warrior pellet 15.8%AA 60 min

20 gr. Summit whole 18%AA 30 min

28 gr. Amarillo pellet 8.2%AA 10 min

28 gr. Citra whole 11%AA 10 min

28 gr. Simcoe pellet 12.2% 0 min

28 gr. Centennial whole 7.8% 0 min

17 gr. Amarillo pellet 82% dry hop, loose in primary

14 gr. Simcoe pellet 12.2% dry hop loose in primary

14 gr. Centennial pellet 9.7% dry hop loose in primary

Mash: 4 gallons water plus 3 tsp. Burton Salts

Mash in to 149 for 40 minutes, fell to 146.

Heat to 158 over 10 minutes, rest 10 minutes

Heat to 170 over 10 minutes, rest 15 minutes

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 6.6 gallons at 1.057 = 84% efficiency

NOTE: Should have used a bit more sparge water to collect 7 gallons, especially since there is quite a bit of beer loss due to hop mass.

Boil 60 minutes, with hop additions as noted.

Added 1 tsp. Burton salts to kettle.

Wyeast nutrient and whirlfloc at 10 minutes.

Whirlpool, rest 10 minutes while setting up plate chiller.

NOTE: Long run off time due to hop strainer getting a bit clogged up. Took 25 minutes to run off! I think this will be good for the beer though, letting those last hop additions really soak into the beer flavor and increase the IBU's a bit.

Collect 5 gallons at 68 degrees.

Oxygen for 75 seconds

Pitched a 1 liter stirplate starter of WLP 001 Cali Ale Yeast

Ferment at 69

7/21/10 Added dry hops straight to primary on day 7, still fermenting slowly with visible krausen. Let warm to 72.

8/6/10 Crashed-cooled in the primary.

8/9/10 Racked to a keg

Wesvleteren 8 tasting

2010-07-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

My good friend Forrest told me that he was sending a few beers my way from his last trip to the Netherlands. I was expecting something cool from a Dutch brewery, but he blew my mind by sending some Westvleteren (8, 12) and Drie Fonteinen (Oude Geuze Vintage 2005) bottles! After an exhausting 13 hour day at Alameda, washing kegs and doing a beer tasting at a local grocery market, I figured I owed myself a treat, so I broke out the bottle of Westy 8.

Aroma: Lactic acid and some barnyard, dark fruit aromas like plum and prune. Light bubblegum and floral esters, some pineapple. No hops, alcohol is very subdued. Some light oxidation coming through as coconut.

Appearance: Big frothy tan head and a murky auburn to brown color. High carbonation. Some chunks made it into the glass, probably kicked up by the high carbonation.

Flavor: Rich fruity plum / caramel flavor, very deep. Some banana, some acetone flavor from higher alcohols. Significant bitterness and actually finishes fairly aggressively, but not much hop aroma or flavor.

Mouthfeel: Prickly high carbonation, medium body, warming finish.

Overall: I think this is probably not the beer in its best condition unfortunately. I would guess it has been "warm aged" in a bottle shop, because it is still displaying a fair amount of acetone and higher alcohols that would probably dissipate with time if properly cellared. There is definitely some lactic acid, most likely from a little brett sneaking in and taking over and adding a funky note that isn't bad, but probably isn't supposed to be there. Still after all that, this beer is enjoyable and it is a delight to get to try it firsthand!

Thanks again Forrest! I'm looking forward to trying the other 2 beers, and I'm hopeful that the Westy 12 and the Geuze made it in better condition!

Tastings and catching up with some random crap

2010-07-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

In a feeble attempt to make it look like I keep this blog up to date, here are a bunch of photos taken over the last few weeks, accompanied by some coffee-fueled gibberish.

Above is a sampling of all the sour beers I have in carboys right now. From left to right: Berlinner Weisse, Flanders Gold, Flanders Red, and Deliverance. The Berlinner has a lot of brett going on as well as a fairly sharp lactic twang, and also a funky menthol flavor. I'm not really sure where the menthol flavor is coming from. Maybe hop choice or one of the random bugs that made it in from the un-boiled grains. I think I'm going to keg it soon, let it cold condition for a few weeks or so and see if it gets any better. I don't think it's going to improve.

The gold is tasting really nice, quite hoppy and on it's way to becoming a nice sour in a year or so. The red is pretty clean still with lots of caramel malt, toastyness, and a little lactic zing. The Deliverance was my favorite to drink right now, having some funk and also some roasty coffee notes from the dark grains. I think this comes off as slightly metallic early on but the last batch seemed to aged this flavor out, so I'm not worried. I should probably stick them all except the B-weisse in the crawlspace soon to weather out the hot months.

Here's some pickled asparagus Clarissa and I made. It's a great garnish for bloody mary's. I wish we would have thought of it sooner as we just got the tail end of the season and just enough asparagus for 3 jars. We basically used the recipe from this site.

This is some wonderful raspberry jam we made, using some really nice farmers market berries and the recipe inside a packet of Sure-jell. It was pretty easy to make and it is probably better than the Bon-Maman stuff we usually buy, and half the cost. We need to get a pair of canning tongs, I kept burning my hands trying to get the jars out of the hot water bath! Very frustrating.

Here's a tasting of the strong brett saison I brewed in December and bottled in late March. It's come a long way in the bottle and I think it has not peaked in flavor yet.

Aroma: Brett, acidity, lemon & pineapple esters, barnyard, hop-spice, and some malt sweetness.

Appearance: Dark gold, hazy glow, nice frothy head and high carbonation. Unfortunately, it may have been a slightly dirty glass but the head fell rather quickly. Will see if that is the same in future tastings.

Flavor: Dry, spicy, hoppy with a middle candy-like sweetness that transitions into a dry, sourish finish. Hops again but well integrated into a very dry, crisp finish with some horse-hair flavor from brett. Noticable alcohol from strength but not hot.

Mouthfeel: Very carbonated, with some acidity on the sides of tongue, just a slight touch of astringency due to extreme dryness of the beer and carbonation. Some alcohol warmth.

Overall: I'm very impressed with this this beer, it seems to have a lot going on for it and it's incredibly close to what I imagined it would be. We'll see if there is a foam-stand issue on the next sampling. For now I assume it was the glass.

On a non-brewing theme, we went down to the Eureka California area for my friend Lou's wedding. After the wedding we got a day of rock climbing in with another good friend, Eli, and his girlfriend Carla.

Above is Eli leading a 5.10C sport climb. I taught Eli to climb but he has kept up with it whereas I haven't! So he is way better than me now. This is a crag out near the Trinity river about 45 minutes east of Aracata.

I followed the 5.10C, it was a good climb with a slightly tricky crux. I also lead a 5.8 which was pretty scary for be because 1) this was my first roped climbing day in about 9 years and 2) it was off vertical, on sharp rock so I really didn't want to fall!

Clarissa and Carla also did some climbing but unfortunately I did not get pictures of that. It was C's first day on a rope and I thought she did great once she got used to taking falls and trusting the rope / belay.

On the way back to Oregon we stopped in the Redwoosds and got a day of swimming / cliff jumping in on a pristine river. It really felt like vacation! When we got back to Oregon it was shitty out still, but now it seems we are breaking into our first heat wave of the summer and it is sunny, finally!

Oregon Homebrewers threatened by new legal interpretations

2010-06-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a 5 day trip to California to find a slew of new emails in my inbox over a new interpretation of Oregon laws that would effectively illegalize homebrewing competitions and ban the consumption of homebrew anywhere other than in the home. This new change has the homebrewing community in a panic, and rightfully so! I have no doubts that this law will eventually be changed, but it's not going to happen without our help. Here are a couple of articles outlining the recent happenings:

http://www.katu.com/news/97269679.html

http://lisamorrison.hoppress.com/2010/06/29/oregon-homebrew-threatened/

If you live in Oregon, please write your local representative, RIGHT NOW, and ask them to re-write the law and legalize the consumption of homebrew outside of the home, according to the same laws that commercial beer may be consumed under, as long as it is not being sold.

You can send a message to your local representative here.

Thanks & Brew Strong,

Sean

Mr. T's 30 lb. Necklace: Part 2 Sucka!

2010-06-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

Mr. T's first incarnation was pretty darn good, but it's latest incarnation will hopefully kick even more ass. It has kind of evolved from a Golden Strong ale that tasted more like a Tripel, to actually being a Tripel, and hopefully a much better one at that.

For numbers on ABV and IBU's I stuck pretty close to Westmalle, my favorite Tripel. I also used the Wyeast equivalent of their yeast. I did however use what ingredients I had on hand, so most of the base grain is organic 2-row instead of pilsner. For sugar I used sugar in the raw. I was a little worried about the unrefined sugar adding too much of an odd rummy flavor, and I considered splitting the huge sugar load between that and corn sugar, but in the end I just went for it. The sugar does have a noticeable aroma that I really like, so hopefully it will work well with the beer and not throw it too far off the style. If this beer turns out really well, I could see it being a great beer to do for Christmas presents again, because it will be even stronger and better aged by the time Christmas comes along. I'm planning on bottle conditioning this, most likely.

Mr. T's 30 lb. Necklace, Part 2 Sucka!

Brewed on 6/14/10

Recipe is for 6.75 gallons pre-boil before sugar, 5.9 gallons post boil, all grain

O.G. 1.083 F.G. ABV IBU's 38

9 lb. Great Western organic 2-row

2 lb. Weyermann Pilsner

.5 lb Munich

2.5 lbs (!) organic cane sugar, like Sugar in the Raw

30 gr. Sterling pellets 7% AA 90 min

21 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.5% 30 min

21 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.5% 3 min

26 gr. Sterling pellets 7% AA loose dry hop

16 gr. Simcoe pellets 12.2% AA loose dry hop

Mash: 4 gallons + 3 gr. gypsum + 3 gr. calcium chloride

Mash in to 148, fell to 145 over 45 minutes.

Raised to 160 over 10 minutes, rest 10 minutes and begin sparge.

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 6.75 gallons at 1.055 = 89% efficiency.

Boil 90 minutes, sugar at beginning of boil.

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 10 min

Chill with plate chiller to 70 degrees, oxygen for 90 seconds.

Pitch 1/2+ cups thick yeast slurry of Wyeast 3787 generation 2.

Chill to 65 in the next hour, slow ramp to 72 over 12 days. Left in the primary at ambient temp for 4 weeks.

7/14/10 Racked to keg, flavor sample was good but gravity was stuck at 1.020. First time I've had an under attenuated beer in quite a while! I pitched a little of a krausening starter of Cali 001 for the IPA brew into the keg, attached a blow off hose, and it seems to be slowly fermenting the remaining sugars at room temp.

8/9/10 Racked to a second keg which will be my bottling keg. This beer tastes great but the mutherfucker still won't dry out! It's sitting at 1.018 currently. Think I'm going to have to have a talk with Mr. T, maybe he is just getting too old. Next step will be to add a little Dupont yeast from the latest saison and give this sucka another month to dry out. I'm in no hurry and I won't be happy until it's under 1.012.

6/9/11 This beer was kegged off and refrigerated for the move in October but it never fell below 1.016. Must have been unfermentables from the raw sugar? The beer tasted very cloying so around February or March, I decided to pull it out, de-carb it, and add brett. Added bottle dregs from 2 750's of my strong brett saison. This dropped it to about 1.010, and tasting it tasted really good. I decided to add the dry hops, after that I'll either keg or bottle.

PCTBB Recipes & "Round Table" Tasting

2010-06-05T10:34:00.001-07:00

A few months ago my buddy Angelo, a local beer writer and founder of Brewpublic, asked me to be an contributor for the website. I think it will be a cool opportunity to add a homebrew-y perspective to an already great craft beer publication. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to write about, but I'll just write when I get an inspired idea. I don't really want to do the "Brewery X releases yadda-yadda limited release" thing, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's being done plenty well by plenty of beer writers already.

For my first piece I invited some local homebrewers to my place to do a "round table peer review" of our Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers homebrew entries. It was a lot of fun for everyone involved, and you can read the full article here, including a tasting of the 2 recipes below.

Here are the 2 recipes I submitted to the PCTBB competition. Neither of them placed, but they scored well and I am happy with how they both came out. I'm not sure how many Belgian Specialty ales were entered exactly, but it was probably around 20.

The first beer, which I entered as a "Dry hopped Belgian Bitter", was inspired by De Ranke XX Bitter, but it tastes more like a super hop-fruity saison, a lot of tangerine and citrus going on with some bitterness and also some residual sweetness.

Brewed on 3/5/2010

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.067 F.G. 1.010 IBU's 63 ABV 7.5%

6.5 lb. Great Western Superior pilsner malt

5 lb. Belgian pale malt

.25 lb. aromatic malt

11 gr. Nelson Sauvin (2008) pellets 11% AA 60 min

28 gr. American Perle pellets 7.5% AA 20 min

28 gr. Styrian Goldings pellets 3.5% AA 10 min

28 gr. Czech Saaz pellets 3.1% AA 0 min

21 gr. Hallertau pellets 3.1% 0 min

14 gr. Willamette whole 4.7% 0 min

42 gr. Sterling pellets dry hopped cold for 12 days

Mash: 4 gallons + 4 gr. gypsum + 1 gr. calcium chloride

150 for 1 hour

Sparge with 5 gallons

Collect 7 gallons at 1.054 = 84% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes, with additions of whirlfloc and wyeast nutrient at 15 minutes

Oxygen for 75 seconds

Pitch Wyeast 3724 Farmhouse Ale Yeast at 66 degrees

Raise to 80 degrees over 10 days, then finish ferment at 75

Racked to secondary after 13 days to harvest yeast for the second batch.

Racked to keg on 4/10/10 and force carbonate, also dry hop in keg.

The second brew I did was a "Cascadian Dark Saison", which is basically very similar to the "fresh-hopped black saison" I did last October. Of course I used the Farmhouse yeast strain to make it eligible for the competition, as well as lowering the amount of base grain to get the alcohol down a bit. I used all dried hops this time, concentrating on American varieties that I thought would compliment a saison yeast but also be very up-front in the aroma.

Brewed on 3/18/10

Recipe is for 7.1 gallons pre-boil, 6 gallons post boil, all grain

O.G. 1.063 F.G. 1.008 IBU's 55 ABV 7.25%

6.5 lb. Great western Superior Pilsner malt

2.5 lb. Weyermann Pilsner malt

1.5 lb. Munich malt

.75 lb. caramunich 60L

.5 lb. Carafa Special III 600 L

28 gr. Magnum whole 12% AA 60 min

28 gr. Amarillo whole 8.6% AA 15 min

28 gr. Crystal pellets 3.2% AA 15 min

28 gr. Amarillo whole 8.6% AA 0 min

28 gr. Crystal pellets 3.2% AA 0 min

Mash: 4 gallons H20 + 5 gr. chalk, 3 gr. gypsum, 1 gr. calcium chloride, 2 gr. baking soda

148 for 60 min, then raise to 160 over 8 minutes, rest 15 minutes.

Sparge with 5 gallons, collect 7.1 gallons at 1.053 = 86% efficiency.

Boil 90 minutes with whirlfloc and Wyeast nutrient at 15 minutes

Oxygen for 75 seconds

Pitch 1/2 cup thick yeast slurry of Wyeast 3724 from the first recipe.

Warmed to 74 over 3 days and left it there for 7 days.

Finished out at 80 and racked to keg on 4/14/10, force carbonated.

Just for fun here are some photos from the PCTBB event hosted at Hopworks. It was a really fun day! I got drunk. Lots of great beers to taste and a few bad ones.

Belgian Ale with lemon verbena, yarrow, and grains of paradise

2010-05-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

Herbs from top, clockwise: Lemon Verbena, yarrow, grains of paradise.

I picked up a lemon verbena plant from the farmers market recently, and its incredibly perfumey, lemon-oil aroma (Paul calls it baby wipes, but we'll have on disagree on that) had me inspired to try it out in a beer. I have only seen one lemon verbena reference in brewing, made by Ron Jeffries in his blond recipe in Brew Like a Monk. Actually I was thinking that a light pilsner base Belgian ale of not too high gravity would be the perfect base beer for this herb, and maybe I was thinking back to that recipe when I came up with my recipe idea. I also think it's a great idea for a beer to have during the supposedly warm months coming up, although I am starting to wonder if they will ever actually come...

I don't use spices or herbs much in my beers. I tend to really enjoy playing with malt, hops, and different yeast strains, sometimes bacteria and brett too, and I get a little scared of brewing failure when it comes to using other culinary spices. But I have become a much better brewer since my first over-spiced hombrew attempts, so I think I have a better chance of brewing a well-balanced spiced beer than ever before. What I tried to do was keep the spice additions low, and use complimentary spices. The lemon verbena has a high fruity note, so I looked for spices that would hit on some other flavors. I had some wonderful smelling grains of paradise that also have a lemony note, but also a spicy kick that could add a nice finish. And I had some yarrow, this is still the same yarrow that I picked at Brewery Ommegang 3 summers ago and dried for brewing use. It has been kept frozen all that time and smelled pretty much exactly the same as when I dried it: Tea-like, bitter and herbal, with also a funky slightly medicinal note.

I made individual teas of all these botanicals to get a feel for how much to add, and I kept the additions really restrained, at least I think I did, we'll see. I would highly recommend making some spice, herb, or even hop teas next time you are planning a brew to get to know your ingredients better. It can be really enlightening.

Here's the recipe, whose name comes from some funky Mambo music that came on while I was weighing out the grains.

Mambo-Mambo: Spiced Belgian Spring/Summer Ale

Recipe is for 7.1 gallons pre-boil, 5.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.055 F.G. 1.011 IBU's 21 ABV 5.8%

8.5 lb. Weyermann Pils malt

.5 lb. carafoam malt

.5 lb. turbinado sugar

17 gr. Sterling pellets 7% 60 minutes

14 gr. Sterling pellets 7% 10 minutes

2 gr. grains of paradise, crushed in mortar & pestle, 0 min

2 gr. fresh lemon verbena, finely sliced, 0 min

3 gr. yarrow leaves, dried, 0 min

Mash 4 gallons H20 + 4 gr. calcium chloride + 4 gr. gypsum

Mash at about 150 for 60 minutes, then raise to 160 over 10 minutes.

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 7.1 gallons @ 1.041 = 88% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes with sugar at beginning of boil

Wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 minutes

Spices added at flame out, with a 10 minute rest while hooking up plate chiller

Chilled to 70 and pitched a starter of Wyeast 3787 "Trappist High Gravity" (Westmalle)

Fermentation peaked at 74 at 24 hours. kept at 70 degrees after that.

Racked to keg on 6/6/10. Flavor was good, still a bit sulfury, but I think that will go away in the next week. The most dominant herb is the yarrow, which is funny because it's 1/2 the amount I used in the last batch. The lemon verbena is subtle but there. Should be interesting to see how the flavor develops in the coming weeks/months.

Oh yeah, this yeast really is a rambunctious top-cropper. I didn't use a blow off tube at first and ended up with an incredible mess! I really want to use this yeast more, I have a feeling I will like it a lot more than the "Chimay" strain.

Saison Dupont vs. THE "CLONE"

2010-05-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

(I apologize for the crappy photo. Clarissa has her camera with her in Barcelona and all I have is my 4 year old Nokia cell phone!)

It's a beautiful sunny spring day, and I just finished working a 3-day streak. Spent Sunday washing kegs for Alameda, Monday hand-bottling 8 cases of Yellow Wolf Imperial IPA with a counter pressure filler, and Tuesday helping bottle 250 or so cases of Cascade Brewing's "The Vine", a blond sour ale aged on white grapes in wine barrels.

Today I have nothing important to do. So far I've spent it buying plants for the garden, looking at free stuff on Craigslist, and playing with the cat outside. The garden supply store was right next to Belmont Station so I decided to stop in a buy and bottle of Dupont, and finally get this side by side tasting out of the way.

Before I get in to this, I can say clearly that this is NOT CLONED! That's obvious just from memory. But how do these 2 beers measure up side by side? What are the differences and how could I get my beer closer to the real thing? Is there any chance that my beer is even 90% as good (even if different) from the benchmark hoppy saison that made me fall in love with the style? Well, let's see.

Here is my "clone" recipe for reference, which I will call "566" after the yeast I used, since it's not really a clone:

Appearance

Dupont: A very light gold with just a hint of red, fairly clear. Great head on the pour, great lacing, recedes to a 1/4 inch foam stand.

566: A light straw color, with decent clarity, just a bit lighter than Dupont. Great head on the pour, decent lacing, foam recedes to 1/4 inch frothy and even.

Aroma

Dupont: Very potent funky, somewhat light skunked beery aroma literally jumping out of the glass. Bubblegum, vanilla, light clove, and spice are all there. Some light boozyness adds complexity. Wow, the aroma of this beer almost knocks my beer off the table, I might have to step away to get a good whiff of mine!

566: Light grainy aroma, pepper phenols, and grassy hops. some alcohol for complexity and a much mellower ester profile. Very, very light "funk", nothing near Dupont.

Flavor

Dupont: Some light grainy sweetness up front, with some bubblegum esters, spice from phenols combined with hops, and a long, lingering bitterness and fairly mellow hop flavor. The bitterness really sticks around. Actually it almost makes that little punching-bag shaped thing in the back of my throat hurt! Moderate alcohol in finish with some warming character, but clean, not solventy.

566: Fairly clean, pils malt character that along with the hops, comes off as very grassy. Light funky flavor, some clove and a lot of pepper phenols. A dry, fairly grainy finish. Nice hoppy flavor, but not as bitter and with more hop flavor than Dupont. Clean with a slightly tart finish and moderate warming alcohols, not solventy.

Mouthfeel

Dupont: Very dry but full-bodied from what I call "mouth expanding" levels of carbonation, where the carbonation literally expands the beer as it hits your tongue. Somewhat creamy in texture, or maybe silky is a better word. Slight tartness at finish with a very present bitter hoppy bite that lingers around the palate.

566: Very dry, very close to the carbonation level of Dupont, I'd say I got that dead-on. Not as silky-textured as Dupont, I'd say a little more thin, even though I believe they are right around the same F.G. Dry finish, slightly more tart than Dupont with a light grainy astringency.

Overall

Dupont: Still one of my favorite beers ever, but maybe it's not my single favorite anymore. It may be a short-lived crush but right now De Ranke XX Bitter has this beer beat for my favorite beer in the world. What really sells me on this beer is the complexity of the aroma, and how well it sets you up for and plays through the flavor too. The bitterness is bold, almost sending you into a "snake eating it's own tail" loop of quenching your thirst just to receive another bitter punch to wash away. The aroma is more "beery" than I remember, a flavor I somewhat liken to a stale pilsner. I'm fairly certain this is from a light-skunked green bottle, and it's the only flaw I can find in the beer, although it is more and more obvious as it warms up.

566: Recipe-wise I would only make minor tweaks, but where this beer really falls flat is in the yeast and aroma department. It's not a bad beer at all, but it's not a clone. I would be happy to drink this or even pay for it, but I'm not going to be pining for it and remembering the flavor months down the line. The grainy, grassy aroma is a little insipid and needs some help from a better yeast strain, or if it was just to be a good saison and not a clone of Dupont, maybe I could use some spices to get a better aromatic complexity. I think it is 81% as good as Dupont so I'll give it a "B-". Thats forgiving the light-skunked character of the Dupont. Dammit, why don't they just switch to brown bottles already!?

Changes / Suggestions for future clone attempts:

1) Change the yeast to either the classic saison strain, 3724 from Wyeast (not Whitelabs 565, which is infamous for under-attenuation), or pitch with the re-cultured dregs of a Dupont bottle. I would only use the dregs if I tested it for bacteria or used it after the majority of fermentation was complete, because who knows what's in there, really. Everything after this is minor tweaks.

2) Change the base malt to a European pilsner, or better yet, Dingeman's pilsner. I just can't justify buying pilsner by the pound though. I usually use Weyermann by the bag so that's probably what I'd go with and drop the Belgian pale malt completely. 100% Pils.

3) Increase the boil time to 2 hours to get more color.

4) Increase the bittering hop addition by 5 IBU's and decrease the flavor hop addition by a half-ounce.

I hope you enjoyed this side by side and if you are looking to clone Dupont, this should point you in the right direction! Just don't forget to ferment very, very warm.

Well...now I'm buzzed. Time to get these plants in some dirt!

Scottish 70 shilling: re-brew

2010-05-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

Out of the 3 beers I sent in to NHC, one made it to the 2nd round: Me and Paul's Mild that we entered as a Scottish 70 shilling. It took 3rd place out of 22 entries in Scottish and Irish ales, scoring an average score of 34.3. It was judged by 3 judges. It was interesting to see the comments and I agreed with most of them, but there was a non-BJCP judge that didn't seem to understand the style and gave it the lowest score. OK, I promise I'm not bitter about that!

Unfortunately I did not understand that in the National Homebrew Competition, they do not let you know if you advance to 2nd round in your scoresheet packet. So, assuming I did not win, I drank one of the beers that I was holding back for second round. Doh! A few days later I received an email from Fritz congratulating me on getting a beer in to the second round, and I called Paul to set up a re-brew. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't the oak-aged barleywine.

I'm not sure of the "legality" of this, but we have made some minor recipe tweaks based on ingredient availability and tasting the beer to talk about how it could be better. The original beer, even though it is a low gravity ale, has really become excellent with a few months cold storage. Here are the changes:

We had to use some regular Marris Otter malt in place of a portion of the Glen Eagle Marris Otter malt, because I was out and the homebrew shop does not carry the Glen Eagle. Tasting these grains side by side, there is a noticable difference. The Glen Eagle is much more toasty and dark, adding a lot more character. I really hope this change does not rob the beer of its wonderful complexity.
We were not able to get the London Ale III yeast from Hopworks this time. Since we were doing 10 gallons we decided to pitch one carboy with 1056 Cali ale yeast, and the other one with 1728 Scottish ale yeast which I got from Alameda. We'll enter whichever one is better.
We reduced the brown malt by .25 pounds and increased the Crystal 70 by .25 pounds. This was due to some judge comments about astringency. I do think the original beer was very grainy and had some light astringency, so between dialing back the brown malt and using the different Marris Otter I think we have tackled that problem. Also, we added a really insignificant amount of Perle hops to get the IBU's to 21, the same as the original beer.
We will probably fine this beer with gelatin to get it very clear in time to enter it into 2nd round. We have a total of 30 days for it to get in by the entry deadline.

Without further ado, here's the recipe:

Dale's Scottish 70

Recipe is for 13 gallons pre-boil, 11.5 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.040

F.G. Cali -1.010 ABV 4%

F.G. Scottish - 1.013 ABV 3.6%

IBU's 21

5 lb. Glen Eagle Marris Otter Malt

7 lb. Marris Otter malt (Crisp, I'm pretty sure)

1 lb. crystal 70

1 lb. crystal 120

.25 lb. brown malt

.25 lb black malt

57 gr. American Goldings whole 4.5%AA 60 min

6 gr. American Perle pellets 7.5% AA 60 minutes (to get the IBU's where we wanted)

Mineral additions were to get an RA of 115 for proper mash pH, and a balanced chloride:sulfate ratio.

Mash at 152 for 60 min (5 gallons of water, mineral additions were 3 gr. chalk, 3 gr. baking soda, 1 gr. gypsum, 1 gr. calcium chloride)

Sparge with 5 gallons at 170

Collect 8 gallons at 1.057 = 85% efficiency

Topped up in the kettle to 13 gallons.

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 10 min

Chilled to 68, oxygenated for 60 seconds per carboy

Pitched an appropriate slurry of Wyeast 1056 / Wyeast 1728

Fermented at 68, warmed ot 70 at end. Racked to keg on 5/16/10 and force-carbonated.

Some (grainy cell phone) photos from my first week at Alameda

2010-05-06T22:21:00.001-07:00

I've been taking some photos of things I've been doing at Alameda this week. I've been doing a lot of cellar work, preparing the weekly beer order to go out tomorrow. I kegged up a shitload of beer! (for a brewery of this size).
I set up to keg the beer outside, which is nicer than shuffling kegs in a narrow walk-in with serving tanks that also serves as the kitchen walk-in. That was Eric's idea and they have just been doing that for the couple months.
Here's a couple of shots of the fermenter room. There are 3 10 barrel fermenters and 6 grundies, which can hold 7 barrels but we just use them for single 5 barrel batches. We only have 1 tiny floor drain, so spilling stuff on the floor makes a mess! But all the essentials are there to make great beer.
After a day and a half of kegging and other projects, I had the tiny outdoor walk-in full for shipping out on Friday morning. I got a lot of practice lifting a keg on my own. Not easy, but there is a technique to it which involves squatting and lifting with your legs just enough to get the lip of the keg onto the top of the one it's stacked on.
Paul and I are doing a re-brew tomorrow of the Scottish 70 (actually Dale's Mild) that placed 3rd in category in the first round of NHC. We are going to try some different yeasts this time and enter whichever one turns out better. I have a slurry of Cali ale yeast going, and we are going to use Alameda's house yeast for the other batch which is Scottish ale yeast. I haven't brewed with it but I find it to be very clean on the esters and more malty than Cali yeast.

This just in: I'm working for Alameda!

2010-04-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

I've got some awesome news. I was recently contacted be Carston Haney, the brewmaster at Alameda Brewhouse, about working part-time in the brewery. This is really, really cool! First off I really like Carston and Eric, the 2 brewers. Second off, it's a first of sorts for me. Not my first paid work for a brewery (I've been paid to help with bottling runs at Upright and Cascade Brewing), but my first "permanent" position in a brewery. I'll be starting off at the bottom, washing a ton of kegs and doing beer transfers, CIP's, and kegging and that sort of thing. All stuff I could use the practice on, except keg washing, but I really don't mind keg washing at all. If you don't like cleaning, don't become a brewer because it's at least 75% of the job, unless you are one of those high-end suit brewers like Garret Oliver (wink).

I had to go through OLCC training, since their brewhouse sits behind the bar. I did the online course, and boy that stuff will scare the bejezus out of you! I had dreams about drunk drivers and state troopers for a couple of nights and when Clarissa went out to a "girl's night" last Wednesday I was like "call me if you can't drive home!!!" Anyway, the online class is super easy, I got a 100% on the test.

Alameda maxes out their 5 bbl system at the brewpub, so they are currently brewing at Roots in addition to meet the demand. It's not a contract brew. Carston brews the Alameda beers on Roots' 10 bbl system.

My first day on the job was spent washing a mountain of kegs at Roots. I think it was 9-10 pallets worth, and the keg washing machine is not super fast. It's a home-made job where you line up the kegs in a daisy chain for the washing cycles. It took me about 15 minutes to do 4 kegs, and I could have done them faster, but I wanted to be thorough

and make sure they were super clean.

Here are some more pics of the keg washer. It's not romantic, but hey, that's what goes into making beer. I didn't screw anything up but there was one minor almost-incident during the day. There is a long exit hose that we snake down the gutter drain to drain out leftover beer, yeast and caustic. We usually keep a keg over the end of the hose because the spray gets a little violent as the last of the liquid and air is pushed out the hose. Well on the last batch of kegs

when I was washing the keg we keep over the hose, I accidentally got the air pressure up to 50-60 psi while pushing out the caustic. I heard a loud noise, and looked over to see a geyser of hot caustic and yeast blowing out of the drain about 8 feet in the air in all directions. Imagine the blowhole of a whale as it surfaces if you are having a hard time picturing this. Well, everything was fine and it didn't make too bad of a mess, but luckily no one was standing over it!

I guess the obvious question to those of you who have been keeping up with my progress into the brewing profession is "What about Breakside?" I'm still planning on working for Breakside too, but we have not received our TTB approval so we cannot legally brew beer yet.

I've been homebrewing too. Just brewed up the 3rd batch of Meetification pale ale last week, and I'm hoping to brew an alt beer tomorrow with the yeast-cake of Cali ale yeast. I'm going to use a proven alt recipe from Brewing Classic Styles, but ferment with Cali at 60-62, and see how that works out.

Deliverance: Part 2

2010-04-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I brewed up the second batch of the "Deliverance Kentucky Sour" with my friend Forest. The beer has changed a bit this time but remains true to the original idea. First off, I'm no longer calling it a "Kentucky Sour". Taking a cue from Cascade Brewing and their excellent "Northwest Style Sour Ales", I'm simply calling it an Appalachian style sour ale. As you will see in the recipe, a few things have been done to actually authenticate this. Namely, I used aged Cascade hops that were grown in Ohio, and at least half of this batch will be aged on American oak, possibly soaked in bourbon for some extra flavor. I have 10 gallons this year so I get to play around a bit with using different oak, spirits, or possibly fruit. I used a carafa for color this time as opposed to chocolate rye, and I found a great 80-90 L crystal rye malt to use instead of regular crystal 80.

Also, I fermented this beer with the Rodenbug blend mixed by Al B. That should help it get sour and more complex sooner and better than the berlinner weisse blend I started with last year.

Deliverance: Appalachian-style sour ale

Brewed on 3/18/10

Recipe is for 12.8 gallons pre-boil, 11.4 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.064 IBU's about 17

14.5 lb. Glen Eagle Marris Otter malt

4 lb. 3 oz. Rye Malt

2 lb. 2 oz. Crystal Rye 80-90L

1 lb. Carafa Special II 550 L

2 lb. Munich malt

.5 lb. Rice Hulls

84 gr. Cascade homegrown hops (aged 1 year at room temp, guestimated at 3% AA) 60 minutes

Mash: 7.5 gallons water with the following additions:

5 gr. chalk, 5 gr. baking soda, 2 gr. gypsum, 4 gr. calcium chloride

Mash in to 153 for 60 minutes

Sparge with 8.5 gallons at 170

Collect 12.5 gallons at 1.058 = 85% efficiency

added 1 qt. top-up water

Boil 60 minutes

yeast nutrient at 10 min

Chill to 68 and pitched 1/2 cup thick slurry per carboy of the Rodenbug blend (3rd generation)

Fermented at about 68.

Racked to secondary on 4/12/10. 1.022, only a light trace of funk so far, but tastes good!

12/14/10 Racked half the batch onto 6.5 lb. seeded Montmorency cherries. It also got some of the dregs from the E-Z Lambic. 1.012, and tasting like a stout with a nice little sour cherry character already. Should be interesting.

Tasting: Parti-gyle stout / porter

2010-04-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

LEFT: Smoked Russian Imperial Stout 9.8% ABV, 91 IBU

RIGHT: Peat-smoked session Porter 4.1% ABV, 23 IBU

Time to for a taste evaluation of the "2 Stouts, 1 Mash" parti-gyle beers. I realize that I have been slacking about doing tastings of my brews and it would probably serve readers better if they knew my opinion on the final product. For what it's worth, sorry. I'll try to do better!

Smoked RIS (sampled at 55 degrees):

Aroma: Rich chocolate / sharp roasted malt up front, rich sweetness, light American hop profile, Alcohol warming and spice, and an earthy, subtle smokyness. Smells nice already but time should improve it as alcohol and hops recede a bit.

Appearance: Jet black with a light reddish-brown head, good lacing. Fairly low on carbonation, but good for style and for a slow-sipping beer.

Flavor: Rich sweet caramel malts countered by a healthy dose of chocolate and burnt character, fairly smooth for such a young strong beer. Balance is toward the malt, with a light resiny bitterness after swallowing. Some hop flavor noted. The smoke flavor is low and mainly towards the end. Clean but present alcohol warmth.

Mouthfeel: Creamy, full bodied, nice roast bite and hop resin at the end, warming alcohol. No astringency.

Overall: I'm pretty impressed with this so far. The components blend very well together. There does seem to be a slightly "meaty" aftertaste to the beer which may be from my over-addition of brewing salts in conjunction with the smoke flavor, but it is fairly subtle and I'm still hoping it goes away with time. I was expecting just to sample an ounce or 2 and pour the rest out but it's drinking pretty easily. Can't wait to see where this goes in the next 6-12 months.

Peat-smoked session porter (sampled at 40 degrees):

Aroma: Porter aroma with notes of chocolate, a lightly sharp roasty twang, caramel malts, clean fruity esters, and some peat-smoke towards the end. No hops noted. Very clean but complex aroma for such a low gravity beer.

Appearance: A very clear dark brown with red highlights when held to the light. Tan head with good retention.

Flavor: A light but complex blend of chocolate, dark-fruit caramel malts, and a woody peat-smoke funk at the end. Low bitterness, really lets the malts come through. Clean fermentation, dry finish.

Mouthfeel: Fairly dry, but some body. Enough to not be thin. nice roasty dryness at the end, but nothing I would go so far as to call astringent.

Overall: I think my own positive response to this beer has been greater than that of other people who drink it, but I love this beer! Maybe it is the fact that it is a small beer, a bonus beer if you will, that happened to turn out really great. It's so drinkable and sessionable. I drank about 3 pints of this during the Superbowl when other good commercial beer was available. Other people have liked it well enough but only a few folks have been really impressed with it. Maybe in part it's because its a low alcohol beer?

Happy Easter! (Yesterday)

2010-04-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos a really excellent meal that Clarissa and I cooked for Easter dinner. She was the chef for most of the meal, roasting the organic chicken and baking a rhubarb crisp. We are very stoked to have the PSU farmers market open again, and all the produce for this meal was bought there. I put together a classic au gratin potato dish, and a broccoli raab dish with brooks prunes, red pepper flakes, cumin, garlic, and a touch of vinegar and sugar. This might sound like an odd combo but it was really, really tasty.

I racked my first PCTBB beer to a keg while Clarissa was cooking the chicken, and took a little flavor sample which seems promising. I decided to dry hop it in the keg. Other than that, I didn't have a beer all day! We made a nice apertif cocktail with Bulleit bourbon, homemade ginger syrup, soda, and mint (I love a good bourbon cocktail). The rose was great with the main course.

Oh man, we slacked on our opportunity to make an Easter day "Cadburry Egg Nog" from This Is Why You're Fat, which we might have to do as a belated easter cocktail soon. It looks like a sugar-induced belly-ache in a glass!

Happy Easter!

I sent in 3 beers to NHC - 1st round

2010-03-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

In all my years of homebrewing I have continuously procrastinated, chickened out, or gotten sticker shock at the thought of entering the NHC. Well this year might be my last real chance, as I am hoping to be a full time pro brewer by this time next year. I brewed a lot of beer this year, but in the end, I only sent in 3 beers, which I think are really excellent. I probably would have sent in 5 or so, but my AHA membership expired and I didn't have the money to renew it at the time, so the entry fee was a whopping $14 per entry (it's $9 for members).

These beers made the final cut:

Dale's Mild: Brewed by myself and Paul, I actually entered this as a Scottish 70 shilling because the yeast is very clean. It just tasted and smelled a lot like a Scottish 70. We'll see if the judges agree.

Woody: The American oak-aged Barleywine. This was tasting killer 6 months ago, and I haven't had a chance to try it since then, since I had exactly 4 bottles left. I might get to try it if my buddy Fritz breaks out the bottle I gave him while we are in NYC this weekend. 6 months ago, there was a little too much of a harsh oaky finish on an otherwise stellar beer, so I am hoping that the time has been good for it and mellowed it out a bit.

Fresh-hopped Black Saison: The hops have faded substantially, so I called it a black farmhouse ale at 8.1% ABV. Personally I think it has only improved with age.

Other beers that almost made the cut were the Belgian Dark Strong, which is still a little too alcohol-hot and needs some time, and the Belgian Blond, which is pretty darn good, but has too much banana in the nose, and just isn't quite the easily drinkable Belgian ale that a blond should be.

Unfortuanately both the pilsner and the smoked helles that I had such high hopes for have a DMS issue, but the third lager, the Baltic Porter I did with Paul is tasting great and just went in to lagering in a corny.

Who else is entering beers? If you are on the fence, it's time to shit or get off the pot (nice mixed metaphor there)! All entries must be in by April 1st. Good luck!

Brewing for PCTBB

2010-03-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

9 full carboys! And only one open keg. Time to do some drinking! (And bottling.)

Starting at the left: PCTBB beer #2, Baltic Porter
2 cornies: Flanders Red (brewed in Brooklyn), Berlinner Weisse
Back row: Flanders Red, Berlinner Weisse, Flanders Pale
Middle row: Deliverance Kentucky Sour x2, Brett strong saison
Front: PCTBB beer #1

I just finished brewing my second beer for the homebrew side of the Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers festival / competition. This is one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen for a beer event, and one that could only happen in a brewtopia like Portland, Oregon. I will be entering at least 2 beers, and I want to keep the recipes secret until after the competition because I know of at least one local beer judge that reads this blog. Since they will be entered in the Belgian specialty beer category, I will have to specify the "style" of beer I am brewing, and I want to make sure my beers are judged without a clue of who brewed them. I'll post those 2 recipes after the competition on May 1st, along with a tasting.

My friend Forrest was in town this week, and he helped me brew a 10 gallon batch of the Deliverance Kentucky Sour, which I will post soon, along with catching up on some tastings of recent beers. I also need to try my saison Dupont "Clone" against the real thing, and let me tell you, although I'm wild about the bottle conditioned version, it's very different from Dupont.

Work is going well, I've helped out at probably 8 different breweries bottling beer with Green Bottling recently. Things are going slow but steady on opening for Breakside. We just took a look at the brewery space yesterday. The floors still need to be sealed and we need to build a temperature control room for the 60 gallon plastic conicals, since they are not jacketed. I'm going to try to find fittings for them this week so we can attach a blow off and CO2 line, drill a hole to fit a racking arm, and construct a dump valve for the bottom. We are probably going to put the stand on casters so the conicals can be moved in and out of the cool room, taken out to room temperature for the last few days of fermentation, and then crashed in the walk-in. I'll try to post some pics of the Breakside setup as soon as I get my girlfriend's camera battery fixed and the place gets a little better set up.

EDIT: If you are brewing for PCTBB I'd love to hear what you are brewing or your experience with the yeast in the comments.

Collabos with a Yard Gnome

2010-02-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

My good friend Paul and I brewed a couple batches together recently, and I'm just now catching up to posting those recipes. Once again I have to work (occasionally) which means I don't have as much time to get cracked out on strong coffee and stare at the computer screen. The job is pretty cool so far, helping out at Green Bottling, a truck based bottling line that contract bottles bombers for over 20 breweries in Oregon. It's a cool way to see the inside of a lot of breweries, make connections with the brewers, and work with some cool people. So far I have helped them bottle at Bridgeport, 10 Barrel in Bend, and Lompoc. We are headed to Ashland tomorrow for a 4 day bottling binge.

The first brew we did was a flanders red, using Al B's "Rodenbug" blend on its 2nd generation, or 3rd if you count the starter I made in between batches. The recipe is very close to the parameters set in Jeff Sparrow's Wild Brews book, although we used flaked triticale instead of corn or flaked wheat. The fermentation got a little rambunctious in the primary and blew the tinfoil off one carboy, good thing it's a sour beer.

Flanders Red, Brewed on 1/30/10

Recipe is for 12.9 gallons pre-boil, 11.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.060 IBU's 16

12.25 lb. Vienna Malt

5 lb. Flaked Triticale

2 lb. Aromatic malt

2 lb. Caravienne

1.5 lb. crystal 15

.75 lb. Special B

.5 lb. crystal 120

.5 lb. crystal 75

52 gr. Willamette whole 4.7% AA 60 min

Mash 7.5 gallons water with the following additions:

5 gr. chalk

1 gr. gyspum

2 gr. calcium chloride

2 gr. baking soda

Mash in to 156

Forgot to put in the triticale! Put in at 20 minutes, dropping the temp to 148.

Pulled .75 gallons of mash liquor and heated to boiling, adding back to mash.

This raised temp back to 158

Total mash time 75 minutes

Sparge with 8.5 gallons at 170

Collect 12.9 gallons at 1.054 = 81% efficiency

Boil 60 minutes

yeast nutrient at 10 minutes

Chilled to 70, aerated by shaking for 2 minutes

pitched a slurry of AlB's Rodenbug blend / cali ale yeast

Fermented in the mid 60's for about 3 weeks, then racked to secondary for aging. Gravity was at 1.020.

The second brew was a baltic porter, a style that we both like a lot, and Paul's first lager. We started off with an intensive baltic porter tasting at Belmont Station, but sadly most of the beers were overly aged and overly oxidized, tasting of nothing but prunes and cardboard. The best one we had is the one I have repeatedly poked fun at Paul for drinking, Black Boss, because I'm of the opinion that there's no way they could sell it for $2 for 16 oz. in the states and actually put quality ingredients in it. But actually it tastes great, striking a similar flavor balance to a Belgian Dark strong, in that the alcohol warmth helps to keep it from being overly sweet or syrupy. I'm pretty sure there are almost no hops in Black Boss , which is probably one way they pinch the pennies in making it. Either that or it's government subsidized!
We tried the Fuller's London Porter too because of a note in the BJCP style guidelines about Baltic Porters sharing some malt similarities to brown porters.

Paul took some nice photos of the brewday and you can see them here. Note the cold steep on the carafa malt. That was a first for both of us.

Unfortunately, the first 2 lagers I made this year seem to have some DMS issues, which has to be from the long time it took me to chill the wort (about 40 minutes with a plate chiller). I'm going to try to alleviate some of the corny DMS aroma by bubbling CO2 through the beer repeatedly. I'll post an update if that process helps at all. We cooled the baltic porter using an immersion chiller to get it to 90 or so to avoid DMS formation, and then ran it through a plate chiller to knock out to pitching temp.

Baltic Thunderbolt!

Recipe is for 13.5 gallons pre-boil, 12 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.076 F.G. 1.015 ABV 8.1% IBU's 30

19 lb. Weyermann pilsner malt

6 lb. munich malt

3 lb. caramunich 60

1.5 lb. crystal 120

(2 lb. carafa special 550L, steeped at room temp for 12 hours in .5 gallons water)

37 gr. Yakima Magnum whole 13.5% AA 60 min

Mash:

7.5 gallons plus:

7 gr. chalk

3 gr. calcium chloride

3 gr. baking soda

Mash in all grains except the carafa at 150 for 70 minutes

Add the cold steeped carafa and stir in, rest 10 minutes

Sparge with 8 gallons at 168, recirc 5 qt.

Collect 12.75 gallons at 1.072 = 79% efficiency

Topped up to 13.5 gallons

Boil 90 minutes

yeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 minutes

Chill to 52 degrees, using immersion chiller and then plate chiller

Aerate by hand for 4 minutes (ran out of oxygen)

pitched 1/2 yeast cake per carboy of wyeast 2124 from the smoked helles

Fermented at 52ish for 3 weeks, then a D-rest at 62 for 1 week

Racked to keg on 3/24, tastes great and none of the DMS flavors that the previous batches had.

Breakside Test Batches

2010-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

Ben and Tony getting fired up

On Saturday, the 13th, Tony, Ben and I got together to do some test batches for Breakside Brewing. We decided to start off with a test batch of the Wit, and our Rye ale, the 2 recipes we felt the least confident on how they would turn out. We also wanted to split the Wit 3 ways in order to test some different yeast strains and pick a house Belgian yeast. We don't have the stuff moved into the brewery yet, so we spent a long day hanging out in Tony's garage and doing a double batch.

The Sabco Brewmagic system is pretty awesome. It seems pretty easy to get a handle on. I don't know why they don't stick a pump in between the HLT and the mash tun, since they are at the same height and therefore not easy to gravity feed. Instead of pumping over to the mash tun you have to keep filling the HLT as you go to keep the water level above the level you want in the mash. Mash temp is held by recirculating the wort through a small electrical heating unit, and mash steps are done manually by adding bottom heat while recirculating. The boil is pretty straightforward, and we use a Therminator plate chiller with in-line oxygenation and thermometer to cool the wort.

(Tony recirculating the first runnings, which we found to be unnecessary since the mash is recirculated the whole time.)

The Wit is a pretty standard recipe using about 50% wheat flakes, coriander, dried sweet and bitter orange peel, and chamomile. We split the batch into 3, 4 gallon batches, fermented separately with Wyeast 3787 (Westmalle), Wyeast 1388 (Duvel), and Wyeast 3711 (Theriez). The 3 yeast strains we decided to use were picked for their potential to ferment many different kinds of Belgian ales, although I'm not sure the French saison yeast from Theriez is the best choice for that. Maybe we should have tried the LaChouffe strain in stead, but I thought the saison yeast would be fun to try. The unfermented wort tasted really spot-on for a wit, with the chamomile being very up-front in the aroma, but that will most likely change with time and fermentation.

The Rye recipe uses 30% rye malt, pale malt, and some honey malt. It's designed to be a blond session ale but it came out a little darker than we had expected, more of a pale ale color. We used Perle as a first wort hop and Sterling as a 60 minute addition. It seems like this beer is not really settled in its identity yet, Ben likes the idea of it being like a light English summer ale with a Marris Otter base, while I thought it should be a hoppy blond or kolsch kind of base beer, with significant hop aroma but coming from German or hybrid hops. I kind of think it will be better with some late hop additions but I also think that using only early additions in the first batch will give us a better idea of what the rye malt is doing to the flavor and aroma. We split this batch between the classic Cali ale yeast and the WLP007 "Dry English Ale" yeast. My vote is for Cali as our house "clean" ale yeast, because I think it does way better for hoppy beers and is a little more tolerant to slightly warmer fermentation temperatures.

All these beers are fermenting away in Tony's house and I can't wait to try the beers to see which yeast strains prevail. We might hold off any additional brewing until we move into the building, but I will keep the blog updated on our future brews.

Thirsting for Bamberg: Smoked Helles Redux

2010-02-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

This recipe is inspired by a singular beer: Schlenkerla Helles. This is the only non-smoked beer made by the Schlenkerla brewery, but because of the residual smoked malt from the brewing equipment and the yeast pitch, this beer has a pleasant smoky flavor. It's a perfect "entry-level" smoked beer. Many of the smokier beers like Schlenkerla Marzen are an acquired taste (and believe me, I've acquired it).

This batch is my second go around on a smoked helles, with very little changes from the first batch. I added a little munich malt for color and background flavor, and carapils for foam stability. One thing I noticed about the Schlenkerla Helles last time I tried it is a more bitter, firm finish than my homebrew. That bears out when looking at the 30 IBU's they claim. But I like my recipe where it's at, and I'm not trying to make an exact clone. The name of this beer comes from the fact that I first served it last year at my 30th birthday party. 31 is coming up!

"30 Rauch"

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 6 gallons post-boil, all grain

1.051 O.G. 22 IBU's

6.75 lb. Weyermann Pils malt

1.75 lb. Rauchmalt

.5 lb. munich malt

.25 lb. aromatic malt

.25 lb. cara-pils malt

39 gr. Halltertau pellets 3.9% AA 60 minutes

Mash: 4.5 gallons H20 + 2 gr. gypsum + 2 gr. calcium chloride

153 for 60 minutes

Sparge with 4.5 gallons + 2 gr. gypsum + 2 gr. calcium chloride at 168

Collect 7 gallons at 1.044 = 86% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes

Wyeast nutrient and whirlfloc at 10 minutes

Chill to 50 using plate chiller over 40 minutes

Oxygen for 2 minutes

Pitch .75 cups thick slurry of Wyeast 2124 from Pilsner

Ferment at 50-52 degrees

Saison Dupont "Clone", Blackeyed Blonde tasting

2010-02-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

I'm getting a little behind in posting my recipes so I'm just going to put this up with very little introduction. I've done a lot of saisons but I've never tried to clone Saison Dupont exactly. Even this is just close in the malt (they use 100% Dingemans Pilsner) and yeast (this is some sort of isolate from the Dupont culture, but I truly believe they are using a multi-strain yeast. Saison Dupont is one of my favorite beers on the planet, if not my ultimate "desert island" beer. The first time I had it, early on in my homebrewing days, was truly a life changing event.

When this beer is done, it will be fun to a side by side comparison with a bottle of Saison Dupont, even though I doubt it will be close enough to truly call a "clone". I'm going to try and bottle condition at least a six pack of this beer to see if it makes a better saison. I suspect it might, not because of the "increased complexity" from re-fermentation that a lot of people claim, but because the presence of yeast and unfiltered proteins add a lot of mouthfeel to very dry beers. When I keg saisons and they are almost crystal clear after a few weeks, they can be very "unforgiving", with little mouthfeel to bring the other elements together.

Saison DuPont "clone"

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.9 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.051 F.G. 1.007 ABV 5.8% (6.2% after bottling sugar)

28 IBU's (this would be a low estimate as the large flame out addition is not included))

7.5 lb. Great Western Pilsner malt

2 lb. Belgian pale malt

(All hops were 1 year old pellets, in sealed mylar packaging. I did not adjust AA% down)

14 gr. Styrian Goldings 3.5% AA First Wort Hop

28 gr. East Kent Goldings 4.8% AA 90 min

28 gr. East Kent Goldings 4.8% AA 0 min

14 gr. Styrian Goldings 3.5% AA 0 min

Mash: 4.5 gallons water + 4 gr. gypsum + 2 gr. Calcium Chloride

Step mash using bottom heat on stove, total 90 minutes:

126 for 15 minutes

Bring up to 148 over 10 minutes and rest 30 minutes

Bring up to 157 over 10 minutes and rest 10 minutes

Bring up to 170 over 10 minutes and rest 5 minutes, then start lauter.

Sparge with 4.5 gallons at 165

Collect 7 gallons at 1.043 = 84% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes, hops as noted. Wyeast nutrient at 10 minutes

Whirlpool 1 min

Rest 6 minutes while setting up heat exchanger

rack to carboy over 6 minutes, cool to 76

Oxygen for 60 seconds

Pitched a slurry of WLP 566 at 76, ramping to 84 over 5 days. Held steady at 80 until finished.

Bottled / kegged on 2/17/10

Dosed each 12 oz. bottle with 1 tsp priming sugar, each 22 oz bottle with 1.75 tsp.

Blackeyed Blonde Tasting:

As part of my "liquid resume" for my job search, I've been dropping off a lot of homebrew samples to the local breweries. As you can see above, I put the whole recipe on the beer label as well as my contact information. The other night I was very pleased to get an email from one of the brewers at Laurelwood that they were very impressed with the "Blackeyed Blonde", which is a Belgian Blond ale. Not only was I happy that the brewers liked it a lot, but I was touched that they actually made it a point to email me and let me know. Thanks, Hans. Ben Love from Hopworks also said he liked it, picking out a nice spicy phenol profile and very subtle alcochol.

Here's my tasting assesment:

Aroma: Big bubblegum / banana character at first, jumping out of the glass. Clove, mixed with a sweet grainy malt. Apple esters, and some warming alcohol is noticeable but not fuselly. Hardly any hop aroma. A discernible "flinty" mineral character in the finish which I think is from the beer, but might possibly be from the glass.

Appearance: Deep gold, crystal clear, medium-high carbonation. Head retention is not very good. Pretty much went away within the first minute.

Flavor: Big mouthful of sweet malt character, bubblegum esters, slight toasty & grainy pils malt quality. Clean bitterness on the end cuts away any sweetness and leaves a subtle noble hop flavor (this is pretty subtle as this beer is 4+ months old and was not incredibly hoppy to begin with). Combo of bitterness, alcohol warmth and CO2 dryness really help to dry out & clean up the finish.

Mouthfeel: Big, round gentle body with mouth expanding CO2 levels. The beer actually expands in your mouth as the CO2 comes out. Some prickly Co2 bite as can be expected. finishes dry and clean with lingering warming alcohols, not hot or harsh.

Overall: The few months keg conditioning and bottle aging have been kind to this beer, cleaning up the burst of sulphur that was apparent when I first kegged it (probably too early as I needed the yeast cake). I'm not a huge fan of the big banana character that the Wyeast 1214 throws off, and I can't say I'm a big fan of that yeast for both performance issues and the incredible amount of banana it creates. Overall this beer has a lot of complexity, and a definitive trappist signature flavor. It's also getting me a bit tipsy and it's not even 1 pm! I hope I can stay productive today...

Seanywonton's Brewing Blog is 2 years old!

2010-01-30T17:19:00.000-08:00

I was recently looking through some of my old brew logs and came upon my first post, written on January 30th, 2008, and I realized I should probably write a little something special for this blog's second birthday! I'm going to celebrate with a little tasting of some recent beers I've brewed, and also make a special announcement: I've been hired on as a brewer at a soon-to-be-open brewpub called Breakside Brewing, which means I'M GOING TO GET PAID TO BREW BEER!!! The location will be in Northeast Portland. We should be opening in April if all goes well. There are going to be 3 of us brewing our butts off on a 15 gallon Sabco Brewmagic system until the owners can upgrade to a full-size brewhouse, hopefully in the first 6-9 months. I'll be working there part-time, a 2-3 days a week at least, and I might pick up some extra work at another brewery until something becomes a full-time gig.

I'm really excited about this new opportunity. Yes, I would probably prefer to be working on a full-scale brewhouse, but I think we will get there before too long. Plus, I've already been a part of deciding what kind of beers we will have on tap, and designing recipes with the 2 other brewers, Tony and Ben. I don't think I would really get that opportunity for at least a year or two if I was working for a bigger established brewery.

If you are in the Portland area, it would be great if you could come by and support us when we open. I'll announce our opening day on the blog at some point. I'm not sure how this blog will be effected by the shift in my brewing towards the professional side, but I'll probably keep it going with mainly my homebrewing stuff and some occasional stuff about what we do at the brewery.

So to celebrate here's a tasting of 3 recent beers:

Dale's Mild Ale

Aroma: Caramel, dark fruit, grainy and toasty with a noticeable tobacco note. Characteristic English maltiness with very low esters, yeast is very restrained for an English ale. Hardly noticeable hops - OK for style.

Appearance: Very low carbonation, low to no head, OK for style but maybe I should just pour more vigorously for better head. Great clarity, pretty much crystal clear auburn color appropriate for a dark mild or brown ale.

Flavor: Full maltyness up front, with some moderate sweetness, followed by a toasty, dry, grainy finish. Very low bitterness, ester, and alcohol presence. Very quaffable.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied, low carbonation but some prickly sensation mid-swallow. Might actually be a bit over-carbonated for a mild. Dry, grainy finish.

Overall: A super-sessionable mild ale. I think that it would be more to style if the toasty, grainy flavors were reduced somewhat (maybe taking out the brown malt), and it's slightly above spec in both starting and finishing gravity, which probably make the mouthfeel a bit "big" for style. I'm very happy with the results, although in the future I might adjust the grain bill a bit, potentially playing with adding a traditional brewing syrup. I would also switch to a yeast like Fuller's that kicks off a lot of esters for a little extra aroma and English character. This yeast is too clean.

"Svenska Kotbullar" Saison (reserve strength saison at 7.5% ABV)

Aroma: Moderate esters, pear is distinguishable along with a "mystery fruit" quality. Low banana, some spice. Vanilla character from malt. Moderate alcohol is noticeable but well integrated with a grainy finish. Clean, not funky.

Appearance: Crystal clear, light gold with a 3-finger white head that dies down somewhat but sticks around at 1/4 inch (bottle version has more carbonation and longer lasting head). Sticklers might say it's too clear for a saison.

Flavor: Smooth malts with vanilla, grainy and bready, flavors, but very dry. Well integrated bitterness and a grassy, lightly spicy hop flavor mid-palate to finish. Very smooth finish, especially for the fairly high alcohol level.

Mouthfeel: Medium-high carbonation, fuller in mouthfeel than very low F.G. would suggest. Somewhat creamy and smooth, with light warming alcohol.

Overall: I'm really happy with this beer. It reminds me quite a bit of Hennepin in its malt profile and fairly smooth character for a farmhouse ale. There is a similar yeast character somehow. It is so dry, it almost seems like a golden strong ale with a more grainy finish. When this beer was young it seemed to have a rough grainy edge that faded over a couple of months. I think this is just because it's so dry. Possible improvements would be to cut down on the vienna/aromatic malt to avoid the weird grainyness that was unpleasant when the beer was young. Other possibilities could be to use some spicier hop variety in the finish, and optionally raise the IBU's a tad, but not necessarily.

Robust Porter:

Aroma: Cherry cola-like note from black malt, moderate caramel, bitter chocolate, some alcohol. Light hop aroma, fairly neutral.

Appearance: Black from afar but reddish when held to light, great clarity. Tan head with good resilience.

Flavor: Full flavored maltiness including caramel, dark fruit, grainy/toasty notes, and an excellent bitter chocolate finish. Roast is on the high side for a porter, but within style. Hops have faded since this beer was brewed. It was quite hoppy when young, and there is still a pleasant bitterness in the finish that lingers nicely, but less hop flavor.

Mouthfeel: Medium-low carbonation, creamy with a wonderful roasty bite at the end.

Overall: This is about as stout of a beer you can get and still call it a porter, if you ask me. I really like it, but I'm thinking of reducing the IBU's a bit to emphasize the maltiness and keep it away from stout territory. I kind of like the mouthfeel that the flaked barley gave it but I'm not sure if it's necessary. Another possibility is to leave the recipe alone but just brew it to a lower gravity, and IBU accordingly (i.e. leave all the ingredients the same but make a slightly bigger batch to get it to 1.059 - 1.060)

Here's a parting shot of my current Belgian / sour ales situation. Not bad, eh? The one fermenting in front is a Saison Dupont "clone" that I brewed up yesterday and I'll post about soon. Although I'm not trying to make an exact clone, I'd like to try this side-by-side with a bottle of my favorite beer in the world to see how it measures up.

Cheers, happy brewing, and thanks for reading!

Sean

Berliner Weisse- "No-Boil" Method

2010-01-23T10:51:00.001-08:00

(Hold the goofy syrups, please.)

Clarissa has been bugging me to make another Berliner Weisse for about 2 years now, since she really liked the last one (if you homebrew a lot it's important to keep your significant other happy, so they don't mind the mess and assortment of brewing gear around the house). Although it was a very nice beer, the last batch was not as sour as I had wanted. I had used the Wyeast 3191 Berliner Weisse blend, which was supposed to be a pre-balanced blend of ale yeast, lactic bacteria, and brett, but most people that used the blend had less sourness in their finished beer than is really proper for the style. I participated in a Berliner Weisse trade and online tasting with other members of the Babbblebelt homebrew forum, and this seemed to be the consensus on the Wyeast 3191. The Wyeast berliner blend is not currently available. It was a limited release and I'm not sure if they plan to re-release it.

I've been tempted to try another Berlinner, but I've been waffling on which technique to use to get it properly sour. The choices were anything from pitching a commercial lactobacillus culture before the ale yeast, to doing a sour mash, or even doing a no boil method where the lactobacillus that malted barley contains is not killed off and survives into the fermentation, producing lactic acid.

I have a sour ale strain going, the same one I used for the Flanders Pale Ale, and I thought this would be a great way to get a lot of brett into the fermentation as well as some bacteria to sour it, but I thought this would not be enough on it's own to produce the proper lactic sourness. The best Berliner of the tasting group, and the most sour, was brewed with the no-boil method. This was what I finally decided on. I thought of doing a sour mash over 24-48 hours, but the risk of getting garbagey, vomitty flavors from butyric acid producing bacteria just didn't sound good.

No-boil (well, really, part of the mash was boiled as a decoction step) is how Berliner Weisse was traditionally made in Germany. The brewing method is radically different from any beer I have ever made before. I have some ideas on how this technique could be used on a commercial system fairly easily, although you could infect your entire brewhouse if you do not sanitize your equipment properly afterwards. I used a simplified version of the old-school double decocted Berliner Weisse technique, which I will give details on in the recipe below. basically the most important point is to not let the grains ever get so hot that you kill off the lactic acid bacteria. I tried to keep everything at or under 160, and also get some extra grain dust into the wort after the mash was done.

Recipe is for 11.75 gallons, all grain diluted with water (see details)

O.G. 1.034 IBU's around 5

6 lb. Great Western Superior Pilsner malt

6 lb. Great Western wheat malt

.5 lb. rice hulls

56 gr. of hops at about 4.5% AA ( I used New Zealand Hallertau pellets & whole Willamette)

Mash: 4.5 gallons water + 3 gr. Calcium Chloride + 3 gr. gypsum

Mash in to 156, rest 45 minutes

After 45 minutes I ran off 5 quarts of mash liquor only, not a grain and liquor mix, to boil with the hops (see picture below).

I boiled this with the hops for 20 minutes. The whole step took about 30 minutes.

Then I added this back to the main mash, which brought it up to 160.

I sparged with 4.5 gallons at 160 degrees. I used my grain bucket, below, to collect the wort. I intentionally left some extra grain dust in the bucket so I could pick up some more lacto.

Here's the wort running off into the grain bucket:

I added the wort into my keggle, which contained 4.5 gallons of pre-boiled water, cooled back down to 140 degrees. This gave me my final volume of 11.75 gallons (4.5 gallons water + 7.25 gallons wort). I mixed this well and took a gravity reading, which came in at 1.034, which means my efficiency on this batch was about 85%.

I ran the wort through the plate chiller and collected 2 carboys full, at 68 degrees. The rest of the remaining wort was boiled and used for a starter for a different beer. Both carboys were aerated by shaking for 2 minutes each, and I pitched about 1/3 cup of slurry per carboy of the Rodenbug blend, which I had used for the Flanders Pale Ale I brewed over a month ago.

I used a heating pad to get the fermentation warmish. The big carboy stuck out fermentation at aobut 70 and the small carboy got up to 74. I will be very interested to see if the smaller, warmer fermented carboy comes out any more sour.

Here are the beers, pre-fermentation, hanging out with my other wild ales. From left to right, that's the batch of Flanders red from over a year ago keg-conditioning, then the 2 carboys of Berliner Weisse, then the brett saison in the orange shirt, and the Flanders Pale ale in back in the tan shirt. It's very exciting to look at these beers right now because both the brett saison and the Flanders Pale are showing visible, slow fermentation. I am trying to be patient and not sample these beers!

Only time will tell how these beers turn out. I hope they will be spectacular!

I gotta say it was a good day: Hoppy Pilsner and Carbonnade Flammande

2010-01-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

I did some brewing on Thursday, and some cooking too, and it occurred to me while enjoying some well-earned vittles after the brew session that hey, today was a good day. Just like that classic rap song from 1993, except I guess instead of playing dominoes and not having to use my AK, I just brewed a nice pilsner, and instead of getting the Fatburger at 2 in the morning, I made a fancy beef stew from Belgium. But sentimentally, it was very much the same.

I'm pretty psyched to have finally gotten lager season rolling. I usually get to do at least a couple of lagers each winter, but I got a late start this year since I had a few other yeast strains already in action. I'm planning on doing at least another batch of the smoked helles (pretty much a Schlenkerla Helles clone) and a Baltic Porter with Paul Key.

When I design a recipe, whether it's "to style" or free-style, I like to think a lot about how I want to final beer to taste, smell, and look like. I like to keep a couple of commercial examples in mind if there is anything close to what I am looking to target. For example, if you are talking about German Pilsner, you have anything from Bitburger or Radeberger pils (very light, clean, and somewhat hoppy but pretty much a lawnmower beer), to something pretty radically hoppy and aromatic like Victory Prima Pils. More often than not, there's a huge range within the style to work with. Less so for German beers for sure, but still there's a range. This is why I think it's funny that some brewers make a point to say it's below them to brew to style. It's as if they think you can't make a creative expression if you stick pretty much within a recognized style. If you think about that for more than a second, you realize that's just not true. It's like saying that a cubist or a surrealist isn't really a painter. Not that beer is fine art, or that it has to be taken so seriously, but I guess art works as a good analogy. Maybe a food analogy would work even better: Do all cheeseburgers taste the same? Of course not!

Anyway (end of rant), I wanted my beer to be more on the hoppy, full-flavored end of the spectrum, like Victory, Jever and even Sly Fox Pils. I wanted to really push the hop flavor and bitterness, and have some residual body to counter the bitterness. I had a lot of noble hops still in the mylar package from 2008, and they were smelling great. I didn't adjust the alpha acids down for time on any of the hops still in the mylar.

One issue I had with this recipe is an extremely long time to go from the boil pot through the heat exchanger. I think there was a little too much hop matter and I just had to wait 40 minutes to knock out into the carboy, but when I did, the wort was at a great pitching temperature: 50 degrees. That's the lowest I've ever pitched a lager yeast, which should make for a really clean fermentation.

The Recipe:

7 gallons pre-boil, 5.5 gallons post boil, all grain

O.G. 1.055 F.G. 1.012 ABV 5.7% IBU's 45

9 lb. Weyermann Pils malt

.5 lb. carafoam

13 gr. Hallertau (1 plug) FWH

14 gr. Perle pellets 6.5% 60 min

8 gr. Magnum whole 12% 60 min

56 gr. Czech Saaz pellets 3% 20 min

28 gr. Czech Saaz pellets 3% 0 min

28 gr. Hallertau pellets 4% 0 min

Mash: 4 gallons + 5 gr. gypsum, 2 gr. calcium chloride

152 for 60 minutes

Sparge with 5 gallons at 166

Collect 7 gallons at 1.043 = 84% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes

wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 15 minutes

Whirlpool, rest 10 miuntes. Chill to 50 degrees, took 40 minutes to run through heat exchanger! Ground water was run though a copper pre-chiller in an ice water bath.

Collected 5.1 gallons at 1.055, pitched Wyeast 2124 Bohemian lager yeast at 50 degrees.

Fermented at 52 degrees for 12 days.

Pulled into the house on 1/26/10 for a D-rest for 4 days

Pulled back out in the garage to chill to 50 and racked to a keg on 2/2/10

OK, now here are some cooking pics of the Carbonnade Flammande, and this is the recipe that I based it loosely off of. The carrots are not traditional, I just felt like adding some vegetables. I used my flanders red homebrew as the stew base, which is still a little lacking in acidity. After I pulled a sample for cooking, I added some more bugs to the keg to help sour it up, and a couple of bottle of the Belgian Dark Strong to give it a little more maltiness and sugars for the bugs to eat.

The prep...the meat is browned. Use a well marbled meat, unless you like dry stew meat.

Most of the online recipes do not specifically call for Flanders red ale, but it's best to use a sour malty ale. If you can't find that, you can probably fake it with a Belgian Dubbel and a dash of vinegar and sugar.

The end product was excellent. I think it's traditionally served with noodles or pommes frites. I used some leftover garlicky mashed potatoes.

Here's another cooking project that Clarissa and I have been getting into: the no-knead bread technique that is very popular and turns out a great loaf.

Our first loaf, above was made with all bread flour and baked at 500 degrees. It was OK but it was not entirely done when we took it out of the oven. The crust was getting very dark but the inside was a bit moist. So it steamed out the crust and made it a bit chewy, but it was still pretty good.

Here's the second loaf, where we used 1/3 whole wheat flour and 2/3 bread flour. It tasted every bit as awesome as it looks here. We turned our oven temp down to 450 so it had plenty of time to finish cooking before the crust got too dark.

2 Stouts, 1 Mash! (Safe For Work)

2009-12-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

(RIS on the right, second runnings beer on the left)

In the Mild Ale post a while back I suggested that a Mild would be a great beer to try to brew in conjunction with a strong ale, as a Part-Gyle brew. Most people know what that is, but in case you don't, it's a brewing method where the mash is run off in different batches. The first runnings make a strong beer, and as the mash is sparged out with hot water, the progressively weaker runnings make more average or even "small" beers. This technique dates from when mash tuns were made of wood (since they didn't need to exposed to a flame, it was cheaper than metal and could be built bigger than the boil kettle for economy.) The multiple runnings from a large mash tun can be fermented together or separately, or combined in a number of creative ways according to the brewer's creative urges.

I decided to take this approach on a batch of Imperial Stout. It's a longer brew day, but for the modest price of an ounce or two of hops, a second beer can be made. It's kind of a no-lose situation because even if the beer isn't great, you have hardly wasted any additional resources.

Above you can see the base mash, which was about 25 pounds of grain The grain bill is a little atypical of an Imperial Stout, as I added a little German smoked malt and peated malt for a smoky complexity to blend with the roasty and caramel flavors. After doing some research, I expected the first 6 gallon batch to come in at about 1.090, and the second batch to come in at 1.050-1.060 O.G. But as you will see, the extract split was much more dramatic with that, with the beers starting at 1.101 and 1.041 respectively. I was fine and actually very happy with those results!

Here are color samples of the first beer on the left and the second beer on the right. Flavor-wise, the first wort tasted very much like an imperial stout and the second beer tasted like a nutty, toasty and fairly peaty brown beer (so not really a stout after all). The peated malt was surprisingly much more noticable in the second beer. Of course there are less sugars and other flavors to hide behind, but I would have thought that the smoke presence would have been proportionally less in the second beer too.

Here's a better color sample of the second wort, maybe it's coming in at 20+ SRM in color.

Here's the recipe. A note first on the mineral additions for this mash: I have a feeling that the water adjustment was wack on this beer. I have some serious questions about John Palmer's water addition calculator, specifically the Residual Alkalinity it suggests for stout-colored worts. I am looking into it and there is an interesting thread here on the BN forum where I am really trying to get a better understanding on mineral additions for dark beers.

"2 Stouts, 1 Mash" RIS and peated "small beer"

Base Mash:

19 lb. 2-row pale malt

1.5 lb. British Roasted Barley 575L

1.5 lb. German Rauchmalt

1 lb . Chocolate malt 400L

.5 lb. Munton's extra-dark crystal malt 200L

.5 lb. Crystal 120L

.5 lb. Crystal 70

.5 lb. peated malt

Mash in 7 gallons of water to 149 degrees for 40 minutes, then add 1 gallon boiling water to raise to 152 for 30 minutes.

Mineral additions: 10 gr. chalk, 1 gr. calcium chloride, 12 gr. baking soda

Sparge with 9 gallons H2O at 168

First Runnings RIS:

7 gallons pre-boil, 5.9 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.101 F.G. 1.028 ABV 9.8% IBU's 91

Collect 7 gallons at 1.085 (67% of potential extract)

Boil 60 minutes on outside burner

35 gr. Chinook whole 10% AA 60 min

8 gr. Centennial whole 7% AA 60 min

8 gr. Newport whole 10% AA 60 min

5 gr. Zeus whole 14% AA 60 min

40 gr. Magnum whole 10% 30 min

Wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 min.

(This beer might get some French oak chips after fermented, depending on a flavor analysis.)

Second Runnings peaty brown beer:

7 gallons pre-boil, 5.8 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.041 F.G. 1.010 ABV 4.1% IBU's 23

Collect 7 gallons at 1.034 (27% of potential extract)

Boil on stovetop for 90 minutes

17 gr. Horizon pellets 8.2% AA 55 min

Wyeast nutrient & whirlfloc at 10 min

14 gr. Glacier pellets 4.5% AA 5 min

Both beers were chilled to about 66 degrees with the plate chiller and fermented with Cali ale yeast. Fermentation started at 60 degrees and worked its way up to 65 in the first few days.

Racked both beers to keg on 1/18/09. Second runnings beer tastes surprisingly excellent, I guess I expected it to be compromised in flavor some way but it tastes like a great brown porter with a mellow background of smokiness. RIS is pretty hardcore, not really even remotely drinkable at this point. Very sharp, almost acrid in the roastiness and noticable alcohol, although not fuselly. It probably just needs some months to age.

Here's a quick little side project that Clarissa and I did: Irish cream. We did this internet recipe straight up, and damn, it's good! We're having some in our coffee right now. The Bushmills is pretty cheap Irish Whiskey, but it's just fine for this kind of sweet, rich cocktail. You'll never drink Bailey's again after making this yourself, and it's very easy.

Cheers, Happy New Year everyone. Be safe. Don't be a cheapskate, get a damn cab!

Sean & Clarissa

Plate Chiller and Hop Taquito Tested, and a Strong Saision with Brett

2009-12-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

Because I'm a poor, unemployed bastard, I spent Christmas Eve out here on my own instead of traveling to see my family, which may not be the best way to spend the holidays, but it does make for some great brew sessions (wait til you see what I have lined up for tomorrow). Mainly this brew session was all about testing the new "Hop Taquito" as I am calling it since it's a smaller version of the "Hop Taco" I based it off of, and testing out the Shirron plate chiller that I am borrowing from Alex. He also gave me a couple bottles of Seven to take home recently, which made a nice accompaniment to the brewday.

I took some pretty detailed notes on the plate chiller's performance, and I'll post them here. I had not used it or even hooked it up to test it before the brew session, so I was expecting something to go awfully wrong, but wort cooling and straining went off without a hitch. In the winter, at least, when the tap water is cold, the plate chiller works like a charm. In the summer, I imagine you might need an pre-chiller of some sort (like running the line through a bucket of ice water to get it below 50 if possible).

I'll go ahead and set out the beer recipe and then go into the pictures and detail of the chilling process. A strong Brett-ified saison is not original in the sense that it's probably been done unintentionally for over a century, as well as currently being brewed intentionally by many breweries both foreign and domestic, but it's exactly what I wanted to brew. The commercial example I was really inspired by was Russian River Publication. If this beer turns out anything close to that or Ommegang Ommegeddon (a good bottle, not a too young or overly funky one), I'll be very happy! This should be ready in time for late spring/summer drinking.

Currently un-named Saison

Recipe is for 7 gallons pre-boil, 5.9 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.066 (effectively 1.070) F.G. 1.006 (at bottling) ABV 8.5% IBU's 40

8.5 lb. Great Western Pils malt

1 lb. wheat malt

.5 lb. torrified wheat (just something I got for free and wanted to use up)

1.5 lb. Munich malt 8-10L

.5 lb. Munton's crystal 50-60 L

.5 lb. turbinado sugar (fairly dark)

(.5 lb. Malto-Dextrin powder added after transfer to secondary)

26 gr. Magnum whole hops 12% AA 60 minutes

56 gr. Willamette whole hops 4.7% AA 0 min

Water: Going for a hoppy profile, added 3 gr. gypsum/ 1 gr. calcium chloride to the mash. Same amount to boil kettle.

Mash in 4 gallons of water, 149 for 30 minutes, then 152 for 30 minutes.

Sparge with 5 gallons at 168

Collect 7 gallons at 1.053 = 81% efficiency

Boil 90 minutes, hops as noted.

Wyeast nutrient & Whirlfloc at 10 min

(See below for chilling details)

Pitched yeast from a 2 liter stirplate starter of WLP 566, 4 month old tube. (This shit took off like gangbusters despite the age, so once again I think Jamil's yeast viability calculator is a bit on the pessimistic side. It said the tube would be at 10% viability.)

Oxygen for 90 seconds

Start ferment at 66, warmed to 83 degrees over 2 weeks.

Racked to secondary on 1/12/10. 1.008. Tastes really nice, bitter and hoppy but balanced. Removed about 1 qt. to force carbonate, just to get a sample of the clean beer with 566 only.

Added. .5 lb. malto-dextrin powder dissolved in boiling water to the secondary to give the brett some food, upping the O.G. to 1.070. Added 1 pack of Wyeast B. Brux.

2/24/10 Pulled a flavor/gravity sample. 1.006, 8.5% ABV. Brett fermentation has been active and the brett character is very pronounced. Estery, light acidity, and light alcohol notes. Flavor is bitter and hoppy with brett barnyard, but a fairly sweet malt presence at the same time. No signs of fermentation stopping yet...

3/24/10 Racked to keg, which I will use as a bottling bucket. Damn, this is a brett bomb! In a good way, but not a beginner brett beer. Definitely for the afficionado. A brassy, perfumey aroma with a sour baby diaper funk.

OK, now here's the data I collected of the cooling and straining process. I had the bright idea of attaching a "fermometer" to the bottom of the carboy to get an early reading on what temp I was running off the wort at, and that seemed to do a great job. I actually started in a little cold at 64, so I increased the wort flow out of the pot to warm it up a bit.

Final Boil Volume: 6.1 gallons (accounting for shrinkage that would be 5.9 gal after chilling)

Whirlpool stirred for: 1 minute

Whirlpool settled for: 10 minutes

Cold water temp: 44 degrees

Cold water flow rate: 1.25 gallons per minute

Hot wort flow rate: .5 gallons per minute (10 minutes to fill carboy to 5.5 gal)

Wort temp in Carboy: 65-66

Wort left over in Kettle: less than .5 gallons

Towards the end of runnoff, I tilted the kettle to help drain out most of the wort. That's what was left, and I can probably get even more if I rotate the pickup tube down a bit more. I still need to try the Taquito with pellet hops, but using whole hops, it was a tremendous success!

Oh, and one last note on cleaning an sanitization of the plate chiller: I'm sure there are numerous viable ways to do this. Since I don't have a pump, recirculating hot wort is out, but I wanted to do a "Hot Kill" phase. That could either be done with boiling water or I've heard of some people doing it in the oven. Before brewing, I took all the tubes off and did an overnight Oxiclean soak and then sanitized it. On brewday, I got a little pot of water boiling and poured it into the wort and water sides of the plate chiller and let it soak for 15-20 minutes. It really got hot, and stayed hot, which was a relief to me. No way I am trusting this thing to get sanitized with chemicals when I can't even see inside it! The tubes were soaked in the sparge water pot for 15 minutes or so, and then everything stayed in sanitizer until I was ready to hook it up. Cleaning is as simple as an Oxiclean soak and sanitizer dip.

Merry Christmas Brewers and Beer Geeks! Here's hoping you get that special bottle, or brewing equipment you've been wanting under the tree.

Senior Wonton

Hop Taco Constructed: Another brutally labor intensive project!

2009-12-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a better way to strain my wort, so that I can use the Shirron plate chiller that Alex (from Upright) loaned me to try out. I needed to make sure I'm not letting any hop particulate into the plate chiller that could stop the flow and be a real pain in the ass to clean out later.

Why change from am immersion chiller, that works just great, to a plate chiller? Well, my last batches of beer brewed with Cali ale yeast showed a little of the "ring around the bottle neck" that indicates non-beer yeast contamination. This contamination, if that's indeed what it is, isn't tastable by myself or anyone else that I've let taste the beers, but it still bothers me. It could be from the fact that I'm chilling my wort about 15 feet from the neighbor's compost heap! Or not, but it was pretty stinky the last time I brewed. I also changed out all my beer hoses in case there was any infection there.

So, once I have the plate chiller hooked up, I'll rule out the problem of wild funk floating in from the decomposing food so close to my beloved beer. I did some web research, which mainly consisted of going to the KOTMF website to check out how they made a cheap DIY version of the Hop Stopper.

I scored some cheap materials totaling less than $5, with about a 6 inch SS strainer from a thrift store, and some copper wire (medium and thin copper scored out of some electrical wiring from a metal shop. I'm hoping that this size will be fine for 5 or 10 gallon batches. The screen is not "fine". It's just regular old SS screen with maybe 1/8 inch holes.

I started by cutting out the screen from the strainer, and then bent the ragged edges in so I would have a good edge to sew shut. Then I just started at one edge with the fine copper wire and sewed it up. I couldn't figure out how the hell the KOTMF managed to get a hose clamp to attach the screen to the tube, so I just sewed around that as well as I could too.

Before I sewed the tube in, I worked in a little piece of medium gauge coper wire to keep the tube suspended in the middle of the screen. Then I just sewed the Taco shut all the way, and things looked good! We'll see how things go on brewday. The first brew will be with about 2 oz. whole hops, then I'll try pellets if that works out well.

It took me at least 2 hours to construct this thing, so be prepared if you try to make this to spend some time. It will be worth it if it works well!

I don't know if anybody cares about this stuff, but here are some pictures of me and Clarissa's "Christmas" meals. We celebrated on Sunday, since she's going home for a while to see her family. We started off the morning with some "eggs in the hole", made with some really fantastic rosemary bread that we pick up at the PSU farmer's market. We are totally addicted to this bread and we usually finish the loaf within a day of buying it. The beer is Trader Joe's Doppelbock, which is another great contract-brewed lager from Gordon Biersch. Seriously, try it if you haven't yet.

Dinner was the main attraction of course. I bought a leg of lamb at the farmer's market also, which we marinated for 1 day in some cheap wine (Smoking Loon, don't buy it!), and lots of garlic, shallots, rosemary, and thai basil. We hit it with some coarse salt and pepper and roasted that sucker for about an hour at 375, til it hit an internal temp of 120 degrees (a nice medium once it's rested for 20 minutes). The lamb turned out amazingly, and the sides complimented it well.

We served the lamb with a celery root puree, sauteed hedgehog mushrooms, and kale sauteed with raisins and whole cumin seed. The wine is from a small winery in Oregon that we actually bought in New York. It's really tasty, so if you ever see Montebruno, give it a try. We met the winemaker, who used to brew for Deschutes and helped them expand to their current (I think 50 bbl) system.

Dessert was a very rich and tasty, but ugly, chocolate mousse. No picture, sorry! I'm not a great pastry chef.

So, I'll be brewing a lightly spiced saison on Christmas eve, and hopefully a parti-gyle brew of an imperial stout/stout on Christmas day. Cheers, people, enjoy your holidays and brew strong!!!