Svenska Köttbullar Säsong, Meetification part 2, and a new video.

The Beerquest Pilot Video that we helped out in finally came out. Check it out! It features Sixpoint, Brooklyn Brewery, and Kelso/Greenpoint Beer Works. And...us! Enjoy. Damn, I miss my brewing brothers back in Brooklyn. I hope you guys are doing well & brewing strong.

One note on our vignette, they actually asked us to make fun of Steve and be a little standoff-ish at first, so if I seem like a jerk, it's not my fault (for once!) I'm also in the background of the Sixpoint shoot cleaning kegs.

A week ago I did a 10 gallon batch of saison with my friend Josh. This is a really straightforward saison, where I was attempting to resolve some of the problems with my first Portland brew. I wanted to remove any chloramines from the water (using campden tablets), leave out the carafa which seemed to leave an ashy taste even at 1 oz., and pitch the yeast at a more ideal 68-70 degrees, followed by a ramp up to 80 degrees. We are thinking about dry hopping one of the carboys for experimentation.

I ran out of German pilsner malt, so we switched to Great Western "superior pilsner" malt. We noticed some HUGE protein chunks floating up in the boil, which were about the size of IKEA meatballs or even bigger. They looked kind of like this:

But with a gravy on them:

That's why we named this beer Svenska Köttbullar Säsong, which translates to "Swedish Meatball Saison". I'm still not sure what to think about this North American Pilsner malt, or if I would use it in lager.

Recipe is for 13.75 gallons pre-boil, 12.3 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.059 IBU's 29 F.G. 1.003 ABV 7.5%

16 lb. Great Western Superior Pilsner malt

4 lb. Vienna malt

2 lb. flaked triticale

8 oz. aromatic malt

9 gr. Willamette whole 4.7% 60 min

30 gr. East Kent Goldings pellets 4.8% 60 min

14 gr. Magnum pellets 13.6% 60 min

56 gr. Willamette whole 5.1% 10 min

56 gr. Willamette whole 4.7% 0 min

Mash: 7 gallons of water + 2 tsp gypsum, mash in to 142.

At 10 minutes, raised to 148 using 1 gallon of boiling water.

Total mash time 90 minutes.

Sparge with 8.5 gallons at 170.

Collect 13.75 gallons at 1.053 = 87% efficiency. Either we got really great efficiency, or this is a particularly high-yielding batch of malt.

Boil 90 minutes, additions as noted.

Wyeast nutrient at 10 minutes, no whirlfloc.

Chilled to 68, collected about 5.5 gallons per carboy.

Oxygen for 1 minute per carboy, pitched an appropriate sized starter of Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast (3rd generation).

Started fermentation at 68 degrees, ramping a few degrees per day to reach 80 degrees by 1 week. Krausen fell at 6 days. When fermentation was almost negligible, I turned off the heat and let it finish out slowly. Racked to keg on 11/6/09. Tastes and smells great!

Then 2 days ago, I did another batch of Meetification, which is kind of an "extreme pale ale", if you believe in that sort of thing (I do). It's designed to be a little more sessionable than an IPA, but with an extreme dose of hop aroma and flavor. I have been craving a hopsickle lately, but I have had the Belgian yeasts going, so I just wanted to get a few batches out of them first.

I stuck with exactly the same recipe as the first time, but I mashed in a few degrees below at only 150. I really need to learn to control my mash-in temperature, as I have had erratic results using the new cooler mash tun. I changed the mineral additions on this one too, using 2 tsp of Burton salts in the mash, and 1 tsp in the boil.

"Meetification" Pale Ale

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

O.G. 1.056 F.G. 1.008 ABV 6.3% IBU's 48

9 lb. 2-row American pale malt
1.5 lb. Glen Eagle Marris Otter
8 oz. Victory malt
6 oz. British Crystal 70

6 gr. Summit pellets 18.1% AA 60 min
28 gr. Summit pellets 18.1% 20 min
28 gr. Centennial pellets 8% 15 min
28 gr. Cascade pellets 6% 0 min
14 gr. Amarillo pellets 8.6% 0 min

Dry hops: 34 gr. Amarillo pellets, 22 gr. Summit pellets in the keg (in bags), dry hopped cold.

Mash: 4.5 gallons H20 + 2 tsp. Burton Salts.

Mash in to 150 for 60 minutes.
Sparged with 5 gallons water at 180
Collected 7 gallons at 1.050 = 84% efficiency.

Boil 60 minutes

Add 1 tsp Burton salts

Whirlfoc & Wyeast nutrient at 10 min.
Chilled, racked to carboy, and added pure oxygen for 60 seconds. Pitched an appropriate-sized starter of Wyeast 1056 at 68 degrees.

Fermented at 68 degrees for 10 days, then cold-crashed to 50 for 3 days

Racked to keg on 10/26/09. Some of the dank oniony qualities are coming through from the Summit.

Beer Quest Shoots Brooklyn

Craig & Steve at the helm

This past Memorial Day weekend, my friends Jon And Kieran from Beer Quest did some filming both at Sixpoint and in Ray's backyard. I was pretty stoked for this not because I'm a media whore (which I am), but because I think a little web-available video footage would be a great addition to my brewing resume, especially when it comes to sending that resume out to breweries that are out of town. I already got a little press coverage in a really swanky beverage magazine called Imbibe Magazine this past January, and let me just say that I was the only guy featured that was wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt. Mostly Imbibe features columns about $15 mixed drinks with names that I can't pronounce, so homebrewing seemed to be an interesting and off-kilter feature for them, but I thought it was a well written article that fit the magazine pretty well.

The film crew at Sixpoint along with Kieran, Steve, myself, and Jon.

Anyway, Jon and Kieran, their crew, and their host Steve have been concentrating on the Brooklyn craft brewing scene for their pilot episode of Beer Quest. The show is going to feature a different city or region for each episode, and try to really delve into the brewing culture of each city, not just hit a few of the big breweries and call it a wrap. I wasn't filmed in the Sixpoint segment, which would have been cool even if it was just for a few seconds just to show that I was both homebrewing and doing an internship. However, when they came over to Ray's on Sunday we really got to cut loose, show them some homebrewing, and have a lot of fun. Most of the footage we shot will probably end up on the cutting room floor, or in extras because it's pretty much a bunch of dick and ass jokes interspersed with some brewing tech-talk and a little beer philosophy, and for some reason they have to keep the show pretty mellow in order to appeal to a wide range of potential channels.



Here's a short sample from the video: You can't see much homebrewing in this part, but we are sparging out the grainbed as we are cracking into our first homebrew. Shortly after the clip, I explained the importance of having a good "panty dropper" recipe in your repertoire, i.e. a beer that is around 8% and has a sweet or fruity profile that will appeal to the ladies. Then we had a little discussion on the use of corn, rice, and other adjuncts in beer, how these ingredients are being accepted by craft brewers and not the maligned substances they used to be, and also the general concept of what effect macrobrewers have had on our concept of beer as a culture. Personally I think that artisanal and local are the buzzwords of American food, and the beer scene is slightly behind the food movement in this regard but catching up quickly. Macrobrewed lagers are the Velveeta cheese of the beer world, and I'm glad to see we are stepping out of the TV dinner and canned lawnmower beer astetic that has reigned supreme for too long in this country. That being said, I did swill a tallboy of PBR at a local dive bar after my last Sixpoint shift, so it's not like they don't have their place...sometimes.

The interesting thing about filming homebrewers is that I think we really got to show them a side of brewing that would not have been available from a commercial brewery. I think because the batch size is smaller, people can relate to it more. It's not that far off from the scale of cooking a large meal. Also, instead of all our processes being inside of large stainless steel vessels and moved around by pumps, they are in coolers, carboys, and things you can look into to see what's happening inside. Everything is moved around by hand and by gravity. And because it involves drinking, having fun, and joking around, it's kind of a mix between a party and a work day. I hope in the end we got to add something to their beer experience and that it makes a great segment for their show.

Viva La Homebrew...
Senior Wonton

By the way, here's the recipe That Ray, Vlad, and I brewed on Sunday:

"BQ" IPA: Recipe is for 14 gallons pre-boil, 12.75 gallons post-boil

O.G. 1.068 F.G. 1.014 ABV 7.2% IBU's 75

27 lb. 6 oz. Glen Eagle Marris Otter malt
(Once again, this is a very dark malt at 5-6 Lovibond, almost like mixing a portion of crystal and munich into a base pale malt)

Hops: All whole hops were added in bags because we did not have a way to filter them out.

43 gr. Horizon 10.9% pellets 60 min.
36 gr. Chinook 13% whole 60 min.
56 gr. Columbus 12.3% pellets 15 in
65 gr. Amarillo 8.2% pellets 10 min.
112 gr. Centennial 8.5% whole 0 min.

Dry Hops: 38 gr. each Amarillo, Centennial, and Columbus pellets.  Added loose in the primary after 12 days and left in for 1 week before racking to keg.

Mash: 8.5 gallons H2O + 3 tsp. gypsum. 150 degrees for 1 hour.
Sparge with 170 degree H2O to collect 13.5 gallons at 1.066. This was way over our expected efficiency so we added 2 quarts of water.

Boil 1 hour with hops as noted, whirlfoc at 15 min, yeast nutrient at 10 min.

Chill to 68 degrees, whilpool, and rack to 2 carboys.
Aeration: 90 seconds of pure O2 per carboy.
Yeast: Slurry of Wyeast 1056 from a previous pale ale batch. Pitched entire slurry from a 5 gallon batch.
Ferment at 68 degrees.