Belgian Bobcat Blonde Ale

After going through my dead yeast issues on the previous batch, I wanted to get a second run out of the yeast to cut my losses.  It’s hard to craft a recipe before even sampling your previous effort, but I went ahead and did that anyway.  It’s only time and money, right?

I crafted this recipe based on some of the Blonde Ales I’ve made in the past.  I figured that seemed like a solid base to compliment the Belgian yeast, as it was light and fairly simple.

All-Grain Recipe: Belgian Bobcat Blonde Ale

Ingredients:

• 8 lbs. – German Pilsner
• 1 lb. -  Munich Malt
• 8 oz. – Carapils/Carafoam
• 8 oz. – White Table Sugar
• 8 oz. – Flaked Wheat

Hop Additions / Boil Additions:

• .4 oz. – Norther Brewer (8.6%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .7 oz. – Saaz (3.3%) – added during boil, boiled 20 min
• .5 oz. – Hallertau (8.6%) – added during boil, boiled 20 min
• 1 Whirlfloc Tablet – added during boil, boiled 15 min
• .8 oz. – Saaz (5%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• .5 oz. – Hallertau (8.6%) – added during boil, at flame-out
  
• .5 oz. – Saaz (5%) – added end of boil, at flame-out
  

Yeast:

• Reused from previous batch: WYeast 1581 Belgian Porter (dead yeast) & WYeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale

Additional Details / Notes

• OG 1.062 / TG 1.008
• 7.04% ABV | Color: 4.63 °SRM | 28.8 IBU’s
• Brewed 07/28/12, Secondary 08/18/12, Bottled 09/02/12
• Mash Temp: ~152°, Thickness: 1.35 qt/g, Efficiency 80%

Brewing the Belgian Pale Ale

Everything for this batch went pretty smooth, aside from my super low efficiency.  I’m not entirely sure that my program handles gravity from table sugar correctly.  Otherwise, I must have weighed my grains wrong.  I way way off.

The Mash. Called for 3.4 gal. of strike water at 164°, using 1.35 qt/lb to get the temp to 152°.

The Boil. Nothing too exciting here.  Added the Wort Chiller and Whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil.  Added sugar at flame out.

Cooling. Used the wort chiller hooked up to the outdoor spigot.

Fermenting. Reused yeast from the previous Belgian Pale Ale.  Racked the Pale off the yeast as I was cooling the Blonde, and strained directly on to the same cake.

Racking to Secondary & Bottling. Racked to the secondary 3 weeks after brewing.  Bottled this entire batch, as I had some of the other Belgian already in a keg.

Drinking the Preseason Belgian Blonde Ale

This one took a while to settle in.  It suffered from most of the same issues as my first Belgian did, too.  It was a little too sweet and full bodied, and the yeast profile didn’t work that well with the grains used.  Both Belgians suffered from a slight green apple flavor at first, that faded for both over time.  Not a recipe I will revisit, and really a second round of discouragement in my Belgian beer experiment.  I’ll likely swing back this way someday… but it’ll be a while.

Overall: The longer it aged, the better it got, but it was never a great beer.  Bad balance of ingredients, and not really even a starting point for future recipes.

Preseason Belgian Pale Ale

There’s a brewery in Billings, MT that makes my favorite Belgian Pale Ale.  It may or may not be true to style, but I am obsessed with it.  This love led me to want to see how close I could get in a beer of my own.  I love Belgians, but I’d never made one.  It seemed like the time to try it out.

I like a sweeter, maltier Belgian more than the dry, thin ones.  I crafted my recipe with that intention.  Other than that, I didn’t have a clue…

The name comes from when this beer was to be enjoyed, just before football season.  (Go Bobcats!)

All-Grain Recipe: Preseason Belgian Pale

Ingredients:

• 4.5 lbs. – Belgian Pale
• 3.5 lbs. – Belgian Munich
• 1.5 lbs. – Belgian Aromatic
• .6 lbs. – Belgian Caravienne

Hop Additions / Boil Additions:

• 1 oz. – Norther Brewer (8%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• 1 Whirlfloc Tablet – added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 1 oz. – Saaz (5%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• 1 oz. – Saaz (5%) – added end of boil, at flame-out
  

Yeast:

• WYeast 1581 Belgian Porter.  Dead Yeast
• WYeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale – used 2 days later.

Additional Details / Notes

• OG 1.065 / TG 1.016
• 6.4% ABV | Color: 13.76 °SRM | 38 IBU’s
• Brewed 07/07/12, Secondary 07/28/12, Kegged & Bottled 08/05/12
• Mash Temp: ~152°, Thickness: 1.35 qt/g, Efficiency 92%

Brewing the Belgian Pale Ale

This was the second batch after moving, so things went decently smooth.

The Mash.  Called for 3.4 gal. of strike water at 164°.  I got the water a little too warm, but used it anyway.  Had to cool with ice, but got the temp to about 153°.  I let this sit for an hour, recirculated 3 gallons, then started the sparge.  Used about 5 gallons of sparge water at 170°, tried to sparge for about an hour.

The Boil. I tried something new for the boil on this one.  I trained the mash tun in to a pitcher, then started the boil after the first gallon of wort was drained off.  This enabled me to cut some time by getting it under a flame sooner.  Just used low heat, not trying to boil.

Not many hop additions on this one.  Added the Wort Chiller and Whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil.

Cooling. Summertime cooling takes a bit.  This was about 45 minutes.

Fermenting. Strained the wort in to the fermenter, then pumped in about 30 seconds of Oxygen.  Next I added the first round of yeast.  I say the first round, as this yeast packet was DOA.  The first indication was when the yeast packet didn’t inflate at all over the course of the day.  I didn’t have a backup, so I pitched it anyway.

Two days later, I purchased a new smack pack of yeast.  I wasn’t able to get the same stuff, so I went with the closest thing I could get.  The new yeast was rolling quickly.

I started with the ferm fridge at about 60°, so this batch fermented around 65°.  I brought that up to about 68 after the first few days.  Total fermentation was 2 weeks.

Racking to Secondary & Kegging. Waited 3 weeks to get to the secondary.  Bottled and Kegged 2 weeks later.  Half bottles, half kegged.

Drinking the Preseason Belgian Pale Ale

Right out of the gate, this beer was way too sweet.  My grain choices didn’t really make for the base I was hoping for.  I wanted a heavier body, but not so much sweetness.  The Belgian yeast was also very downplayed at first.  Not terrible, but not something where you really want a second round.

Over time things got better.  I didn’t have a backlog of beer, so I forced myself to enjoy this beer.  Toward the tail end of it’s run, the beer actually got kind of good.  The sweetness faded in lieu of a little more dryness, which balanced things much better, and complimented it’s Belgian yeast a little bit better.

Overall:  Not a success, but not really a failure.  Not one to repeat, though.

Batch 42 : “What The Fruit” Pale Ale

I moved to a new city in May of 2012.  This really put a kink in my brewing schedule for the better part of 6 months.  I wasn’t able to have anything in the fermenter or secondary when I left town, and it took some time before I was settled in to the new city before I was ready to try a new batch.  Once I was finally ready, I opted to make a batch using supplies on hand and some basic grains.  It’s fairly random, but I had some honey I wanted to use, some crystal grains, and various hop leftovers.

When it was all said and done, I had a boring batch of beer, but a good one to get me back in to the swing of brewing.  The brew day and batch of beer turned out just fine, but I still felt like I needed to play with things.  I’d come across a bottle of Apricot extract at a homebrew shop.  The use of homegrown hops meant that this Pale had fallen a little flat, and it wasn’t an interesting beer.  When it came time to keg, I decided to make things interesting, adding in some Apricot flavoring…. and “What the Fruit” was born.

Ingredients: What the Fruit?

All-Grain Recipe

• 10 lbs. – American 2-row
• 16 oz. – Carapils
• 8 oz. – Crystal Malt 60°L
• 4 oz. – Crystal Malt 80°L
• 33 oz. – Honey
• Whirlfloc Tablet – added during boil, boiled 15 min

Hop Additions

• .9 oz. – Cluster (6.8%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• 1 oz. - Cascade (6.4%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min
• .5 oz. – Cluster (6.8%) – added during boil, boiled 15 min
• .5 oz. - Cascade (6.4%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• .7 oz. – Centennial (10%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• .5 oz. – Cascade (6.4%) – added end of boil

Yeast

• Safale S-05 Dry Yeast

Additional Details / Notes

• OG 1.061 / TG 1.006
• 7.22% ABV | Color: 11.23 °SRM | 62 IBU’s
• Brewed 06/03/12, Secondary 06/16/12, Kegged 06/30/12
• Mash Temp: ~152°, Thickness: 1.35 qt/g, Efficiency 62%

Brewing “What the Fruit” Pale Ale

My first batch in a new city.  Fortunately, the water in PDX is said to be great for brewing, so I’m done goofing with water (at least for a while).  The first time brewing in a new location is an undertaking of it’s own.  It was a challenge to find everything, and another challenge to figure out how to use everything in the confines of my new space, but things went well enough.

The Mash.  Used about 3.5 gallons of stike water at 164°.  It ended up a little warm, so stirred until it was 151°.  1 hour Mash, then recirculate 3 gallons of wort and Sparge with 5 gallons of water at 170° for ~1 hour.  Drain off about 6 gallons in to the boil pot.  Generally do more, but didn’t have enough hot sparge water to pull 6.5 gallons.

The Boil.  Nothing too exciting here.  I used a mix of store bought hops, and some that I had grown myself.  The Cascade and Centennial additions are mostly from my garden.  Tossed in Whirlfloc and the Wort Chillers with 15 minutes to go.

Cooling.  Summertime ground water is warm.  This took about an hour.

Fermenting.  Straining the wort in to the fermenter went poorly.  Too many whole cone hops, which held on to a lot of the liquid.  I ended up having to top off with about 1/2 gallon of water.

Racking to Secondary & Kegging.  Upon racking to the secondary, I was unexcited about this batch.  Combine that with my inability to ever leave well enough alone, and I decided to add some fruit flavor to the batch.  I had picked up lemon extract and some Apricot flavoring.  I used about a cap of the lemon and about 2.5 oz of the Apricot stuff (half the bottle).  More on this decision below…  After a couple of weeks in the secondary, I kegged this whole batch.  One less step to worry about.

Drinking the Fruit Pale Ale

Fruit might have been a cute idea, but I went way too far with it.  The apricot dominated, while the lemon wasn’t really a factor.  I don’t know that the batch would have been very good to begin with, but it wasn’t great with the added flavor, either.  The fruit was pretty obnoxious.   The base beer was smooth and easy drinking, so in the end all 5 gallons were consumed.

Though not a winner, this was the second batch in a row without any contamination (with many successes to follow), so at least there is that!

Batch 41 : Relocation Black IPA

Around February of 2012, I made the decision to leave MT and relocate to Portland, OR.  I’d been brewing a LOT, and I’d finally shaken my contamination issues, so I wanted to get one last batch in before I left.  Sometimes it’s good to dig up an old recipe that worked, which is what I decided to do for this batch.  My original Black IPA is still one of the better beers I’ve ever produced, so I wanted to make something similar again.

I made a few small recipe changes, but can’t remember exactly why.  Hard to say… Either way, this has a little more Chocolate Malt and less Carafa III than the first time around, and the Chinook was replaced with Warrior, which I probably had on had.

Ingredients: Relocation Black IPA

All-Grain Recipe

• 12 lbs. – American 2-row
• 8 oz. – Crystal 80
• 3 oz. – Carafa Type III
• 6 oz. – Chocolate Malt

Hop Additions

• .5 oz. – Tomahawk (16.5%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .3 oz. – Warrior (16%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• 1 oz. – Centennial (9%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• .8 oz. - Cascade (5%) – added during boil, boiled 6 min
  
• 1.1 oz. - Centennial (9%) – added end of boil

Yeast

• Safale S-05 Dry Yeast

Additional Details / Notes

• OG 1.070 / TG 1.012
• 7.68% ABV | Color: 23.32 °SRM | 67 IBU’s
• Brewed 4/11/12, Kegged 04/28/12
• Mash Temp: ~153°, Thickness: 1.25 qt/g, Efficiency 80%

How to Make the Relocation Black IPA

Smooth brew day on this one.  I hit my mash temp a little high, and stirred it down from 160° to settle in at 153°.  For my strike water, I used a blend of tap and RO water (3 gal / 2 gal ).  I used 4 gallons of that, then heated 5 additional gallons of RO to use for the sparge.  I also added 1tsp of gypsum, as I was experimenting with my water.

I drained off 7 gallons before the boil, which is a little higher than I normally do, but I let it stay at a rapid boil for 30 minutes before starting any hop additions.  One note about the hops, I used pellets for the Tomahawk and Warrior, but the Cascade and Centennial were grown in my garden.  I got some great use out of those!

I tried something a little different for chilling on this batch, running the hose through a bucket of ice, in an effort to cool the ground water a little extra and cool faster.  It didn’t matter much.

Once cooled, I strained the wort though a wire mesh strainer, added 50 seconds of Oxygen & 1/2 tsp of Yeast Nutrient, and pitched the Yeast at 69°.  Very happy with the efficiency on this batch.

Drinking the Black IPA

FINALLY!  Finally I made a good batch of beer!  I already knew I liked this recipe, but it was great to finally make a batch without contamination (the first of many).

If you’re a fan of Black IPA’s (or CDAs, as they’re called here in Portland), this is a great recipe.  As time goes on, I’m enjoying this style less and less, but this recipe is as close to what I once loved about them as anything I’ve drank.  Not overly hoppy (but close), and a nice balance of coffee notes, without the two doing full on battle in your mouth.  Smooth drinking and tasty.  A nice Fall or Winter Ale.

Batch 40 : C-Bomb Pale Ale

Sometimes you end up with a bunch of leftover hops.  That was the case when it came time to brew this beer.  Ultimately, this is the same receipe as I had used for the Crosstown Pale that’d I’d made, but with modifications based on existing materials.  I needed to get rid of some hops, so I wanted to go kinda hop heavy, too.

The name for this one comes from all of the “C” hops used.

Ingredients: C-Bomb Pale Ale

All-Grain Recipe

• 9 lbs. – German 2-row Pilsner Malt
• 7 oz. – Crystal 15
• 6 oz. – German CaraMunich
• 5 oz. – Crystal 60

Hop Additions

• .4 oz. – Columbus (13.9%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .4 oz. – Chinook (11.2%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min
• .4 oz. – Centennial (8.7%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• .3 oz. – Columbus (13.9%) – added end of boil
  
• .5 oz. - Chinook (11.2%) – added end of boil
• .6 oz. – Cascade (5%) – added end of boil

Yeast

• Safale S-05 Dry Yeast – reused from Crosstown Pale Clone

Additional Details / Notes

• SG 1.056 / FG 1.009
• 6.05% ABV | Color: 10.79 °SRM | 38.1 IBU’s
• Brewed 2/25/12, Secondary 03/11/12, Bottled 03/18/12
• Temps: ~153° Mash, ~65° in Primary

Brewing C-Bomb Pale Ale

The brew day on this one went pretty straightforward.  I had mashed in at 165°, then cooled a little too quick, so added hot water to get to 153°.  This made the mash pretty watery to about 1.4 qt/lb, but it was okay.  As I’d recently started doing, I did a 3 gallon vorlauf after the 60 minute mash (recirculate the wort one gallon at a time through the grain bed until wort draws clearer).  Drew about 7 gallons to boil.

Once the wort came to a boil, I let that run for about 30 mintues before I started my hop additions.

After the completion of the boil, I ran the wort chiller for about 30 minutes, then added 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient and 35 seconds of oxygen.  I strained the boiled wort in to the fermenting bucket that had just contained my previous batch, so the yeast cake was good and fresh.

For some reason my efficiency on this batch was crazy high, which probably means one of my grain measurements is off, but close enough.  After 2 weeks in the primary, I racked to the secondary.  At this point, the batch was GREAT.  As has been my M.O., that didn’t hold.

The first week after this went in to the bottles and keg it was great, then that damn contamination set it…

Drinking the Pale Ale

What was probably a great batch was yet again ruined by my contamination issues.  I think this was the last batch that went bad.  Either way, I had plenty of able drinkers to take care of this less-than-perfect Ale.  Ultimately, the contamination just made the beer extra dry and over carbonated.  Not the end of the world.  Would love to revisit this recipe someday.

Batch 39 : Crosstown Pale Clone

Back in January, I took a trip out to Portland, OR, where I was able to visit a bunch of breweries.  One of my favorites was a place called Hopworks (HUB).  While sitting at the bar, I was able to see the ingredient list for a beer that I absolutely loved, called Crosstown Pale Ale.  I made several changes, based on items I had on had, and I totally guessed on all the ratios, but the end product was “inspired” by the Crosstown Pale.

Ingredients: Crosstown Pale Ale

All-Grain Recipe

• 9.5 lbs. – 2-row Pilsner Malt
• 9 oz. – Crystal 15
• 6 oz. – German CaraMunich
• 3 oz. – Crystal 60

Hop Additions

• .5 oz. -  Centennial (10%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .6 oz. – Cascade (5%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min
• .6 oz. -  Centennial (10%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
• .5 oz. – Cascade (5%) – added during boil, boiled 0 min
• .3 oz. -  Centennial (10%) – added during boil, boiled 0 min

Yeast

• Safale S-05 Dry Yeast

Additional Details / Notes

• SG 1.053 / FG 1.009
• 5.78% ABV | Color: 9.53 °SRM | 35.8 IBU’s
• Brewed 2/11/12, Bottled 02/25/2012 (no secondary)
• Temps: ~153° Mash, ~65° in Primary

Brewing Pale Ale

Due to a recent move, I’m waaaaaay behind on my last few batches.  I have to work from memory and my notes, so this one will be shorter than usual.  For this batch, I played a bit with my mash water.  I used 1 gal. tap water and 4 gal. RO with 1stp (.1 0z) gypsum added.  I added 3.8 gallons of this water to the grains for my mash, settling in at a temp of 153.3°.  Over the course of this hour long mash, I heated the sparge water, which was composed of 1 gal. tap water + 3 gal. RO + 1 gal. of leftover mash water.  I heated the sparge water to about 166° for the HLT.

After getting to brew at a real brewery in January, I had learned the power of the vorlauf.  I think this was the first batch where I really paid attention to it.  I recirculated 3 gallons of the wort (1 gal. at a time) back over the mashed grains.  I’d always done one or two, but the third is where you really see a difference in the clarity of the wort.  Doing the vorlauf serves to set the grain bed and provide much better filtration.

I ran off 7 gallons of wort in to my brew pot.  Boiled for about 30 minutes before beginning my hop additions.  Ended with ~6 gallons of wort in the kettle, which was cooled and strained in to the ferm bucket.  30 seconds of oxygen were infused, and dry yeast was sprinkled on top.  24 hours later, decent rolling bubble in the airlock at 65°.

I wanted to see how quick I could go from brew to keg on this batch.  I kegged the entire batch, doing so only 2 weeks from the brew date, and force carbing for a party I was having.

Drinking the Pale Ale

First off, 2 weeks wasn’t enough time to age this one.  As I had used hops grown in my garden, the beer needed some extra time to mellow.  For whatever reason, my garden hops generally have a pronounced tangy flavor that ages out after a month or so.  This batch was super tangy and sweet upon first drink.  It was green beer, and tasted like green beer.  No real shock.

As time progressed, this turned out to be a pretty nice beer.  There’s nothing super about it, but it was a fine,  if a little boring Pale Ale.  The pilsner malt gives a nice sweetness that I like over regular 2-row.  Beyond that… I don’t really remember much about this beer.  Ha!  That’s what I get for waiting so long to do the write up…

Batch 38 : Chocolate Milk Stout

The Red I’d made previously was an all-grain kit from Northern Brewer, which was mostly purchased so that I could buy this Chocolate Milk Stout kit, too.  So much easier to buy this pre-measured kit than to buy the Cocao Nibs, Lactose, and other ingredients piece by piece.  I’d been fascinated by this brew, not only because of the Lactose addition, but even more because of the Cocao Nibs used to give additional Chocolate flavor.

Ingredients: Chocolate Milk Stout

All-Grain Recipe

• 8 lbs. – Pale Ale Malt
• .75 lb. – Pale Chocolate Malt
• .25 lb. – Extra Dark Crystal
• .75 lb. – Carafa Type III
• 1 lb. – Lactose (added to Boil)
• 4 oz – Cocao Nibs (added to Secondary)

Hop Additions

• .75 oz. – Cluster (7%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .5 oz. – Cluster (7%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min

Yeast

• WYeast 1056 American Ale – Reused from IPA, Nut Brown, and Red Ale

Additional Details / Notes

• SG 1.063 / FG 1.020
• 5.62% ABV | Color: 30.25 °SRM | 29.1 IBU’s
• Brewed 12/11/11, Secondary 12/28/2011, Bottled 02/04/2011
• Temps: ~152° Mash, ~63° in Primary, ~70° Secondary

Brewing the Stout

This beer came at a crazy time for me.  I ended up being away from home for almost the entire month of January, which meant I was able to start this brew normally, but it was going to age for a longer time than I’d usually age a beer, it also meant that the cocao nibs were going to get their full use, sitting in the secondary for a long time.

This was my first time using both the nibs and the lactose, and I was excited to see how both would work out.

The brew day went really standard, I pulled 6.5 gallons from my mash tun and let it boil 30 minutes before my first hop addition.  I’d added another 1/2 gallon around the time of my first hop addition because i wasn’t happy with where my gravity was reading (not really sure why).

Adding the Lactose was the most interesting part of the boil.  Not sure if I added it correctly, but it was kind of curdled milk-ish when it went in.  It simmered, and bubbled, and kind of smelled odd.  That went away, though, and everything seems to have gone alright.

As I left town for a month, the Cocao Nibs had a LONG time to sit.  Probably too long… but more is always better, right?

Drinking the CMS

First things first, I managed to NOT contaminate this batch.  This was in the middle of a bad run for me, and it wasn’t over yet, but this time around I managed to get things sanitized.  I’ve since managed to find the source of my pain, but we’ll get to that in a later post.

So how was it?  Really interesting…  I think a month was too long on the nibs.  The brew had a taste of baker’s chocolate, super dark chocolate bitter tasting.  It wasn’t horrible, but not really awesome, either.  I’m not completely sure, but I felt like the texture of the beer was a bit chalky from the lactose.  I may not have succeeded with my new ingredients, but I’d like to give them both a whirl again in the future.

Overall, this beer was good, not great.  I don’t think I’ll make it again, but it had nice elements.  As a regular stout it would have been totally fine.  Nice color, body, and flavor.  I didn’t always love this beer, but when I was in the right mood, it wasn’t bad.  It was a great ‘homebrew’ kind of beer.  One to show people, and talk about the chocolate and just be adventurous.

Batch 37 : Hoppy Red Ale

One of my favorite sites for finding recipes is Northern Brewer.  They have a wide assortment of all-grain kits to purchase, but they’ll also let you download the recipe for each of the kits they sell.  I’ve had great success with recipes from the site, so I check it out on occasion.

I wanted to make a Stout this Winter, and the Chocolate Milk Stout from NB was something I really wanted to brew.  It was one of the rare batches where buying the pre-measured kit was quite a bit cheaper than buying all of the ingredients myself.  To fill out the order, I added their kit for the Lakefront Red Ale Clone, which I ended up brewing before the Stout.

I’m a big fan of Lakefront’s beers, and the Red was one that used a variety of hops, which ultimately proved to be cheaper ordering the kit vs. buying extra from my LHBS.

Ingredients: Red Ale

All-Grain Recipe

• 11.25 lbs. – American 2-row
• 1.25 lbs. – Caramel 60L
• .5 lbs. – Belgian Special B
• 1 Tablet – Whirfloc – added to during boil, boiled 10 min

Hop Additions

• .5 oz. – Columbus (13.9%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .5 oz. – Chinook (11.2%) – added during boil, boiled 20 min
• .5 oz – Cascade (6.4%) – added during boil, boiled 5 min
• .75 oz – Centennial (9.0%) – added to secondary
  
• .75 oz – Chinook (11.2%) – added to secondary

Yeast

• WYeast 1056 American Ale – Reused from IPA, and Nut Brown

Additional Details / Notes

• SG 1.065 / FG 1.012
• 6.94% ABV | Color: 19.11 °SRM | 40.2 IBU’s
• Brewed 11/26/11, Secondary 12/11/2011, Bottled 12/28/2011
• Temps: ~153° Mash, ~63° in Primary, ~70° Secondary

Brewing the Red Ale

This brew day went okay.  I had a couple of issues, but hit my marks for the most part.  I mashed in with water at 153° and let it go for an hour.  After that I drained off a gallon and poured it gently back over the top, then a second gallon.  (the vorlauf).  After that I drained off my usual 6.5 gallons.

As this was only the second batch with my new brew pot and burner, I didn’t yet know the power of the heat source I was using.  I wasn’t watching my pot very closely and I boiled over, a LOT.  I ended up pulling a little more from my mash tun and adding it to the pot so I wouldn’t end up too low.

I wanted to try something new for this batch after the boil.  I’d read a few places where people use a whirlpool effect to get the hops to the center of their boil pot before siphoning their wort to the fermenter.  I generally pour through a strainer, but I was curious if I could get a clearer final product if I left behind more of the hops and hot/cold break.  Well, the whirlpool didn’t work for sh*t, but I ended up letting it sit and settle for a while instead.  I siphoned off the clear wort and left a lot more of the sediment than usual.

I didn’t brew the Red the same day as I racked over my Brown Ale, so I had saved a couple of jars of the yeast to wash for this Red.  I should have probably used a yeast starter for this Red to get the yeast back up to fighting weight, but I didn’t.  The fermentation was slow to start, I ended up adding the yeast from my second jar to get things going better.  Removing the hot/cold break wouldn’t have done me any favors for yeast nutrients, either.

I racked this over to the secondary after a couple of weeks, adding a hop bag after the first week.  I wasn’t overly excited about the flavor before dry hopping, but I liked it a little less afterward.

Drinking the “Hoppy” Red Ale

After bottling and waiting about a week, it was time to drink.  And… another damn contaminated batch.  Awesome….  There’s something in my process that’s not being done right, but I’ll be damned if I can track it down.  I’ve got it pretty well narrowed down to Bottling, but I haven’t had consistent success or failure enough to narrow it down yet.  I will…

Basically, the contamination I’m stuggling with is a mild one.  It basically dries out the beer, and adds an extra level of carbonation.  Bottles don’t explode, but the pour is very fizzy.  The sweetness of the malt is basically gone, and the beer comes across as overly hoppy — probably because that’s the dominant flavor that’s left.  There’s a smell I can associate with it, but it’s hard to describe.  It’s almost a light metallic smell.

As I know this batch was doomed, I hate it.  Ironically, a lot of people have really enjoyed it.  Some people even love it.  Go figure.

I like the concept of this beer, so I’ll likely give it a shot again at some point.  I don’t know that I’ll dry hop, but the rest will be similar.  The citrusy hops are awesome in a Red, I just missed the mark too far for them to work correctly.

Brewing Better Beer, by Gordon Strong

I read a lot of brewing books.  Some are much better than others.  Brewing Better Beer by Gordon Strong is easily one of my favorites.  Most brewing books are aimed at beginning brewers, and spend a lot of time on the basics, without taking that next step.  Brewing Better Beer is a great book, aimed at intermediate or advanced brewers.

In Brewing Better Beer, Gordon Strong takes more of a first person approach to the brewing process.  He shares stories of (mostly award winning) batches that he has brewed, and shares nuggets of wisdom from the process of creating those batches of beer.  This book is like having a conversation with an expert brewer.  As the title suggests, it isn’t about “how to brew”, it’s about how to brew BETTER.  As an intermediate brewer who still runs in to complications (more often than I’d like…), this book is exactly the type that I’d like to read. Gorden shares tips and concepts that can help you improve the beer you’re already making.

Brewing Better Beer covers most every step from the mash, the boil, fermentation, and bottling.  Through each step, he suggests things that could be done in that step, why you might do them, and how they’ll change your beer.  Gordon doesn’t take a scientific, dry approach, but rather a very conversational, anecdotal approach.  It’s like having a pro along for your brew day — which I think is great.

If you can’t tell, I’m a huge fan of this book.  After reading so many dry books that seem to say mostly the same thing, it’s nice to read a book that is truly unique.  Living in a smaller city without a homebrew club, it’s nice to feel like you’re getting advice from an expert brewer, and not just making it up as you go.

As much as I liked it, it did take me a long time to get through.  I felt like it could wander occasionally, and would lose my attention.  I had to be in the right mood to read this one, but it’s still one I’ll be reading again and again in the future.  There is quite a bit of reference to competition brewing, as well, which I don’t currently care much about.

Brewing Better Beer is currently going for less than $12 on Amazon, which is almost too cheap not to check out.  If you’ve been brewing for a while, and would like to pick up some extra info that might help your batches improve, or even your processes – this one is worth picking up.

Batch 36 : Nut Brown Ale

My favorite brewing book, Radical Brewing, has a recipe for a Nut Brown Ale, using actual nuts.  This sounded like a damn cool concept for my 2011 Winter Ale, so I decided to try it out.

The recipe given in the book I used was pretty vague, with items like “Mild Ale Malt, Biscuit/Amber Malt, & Brown Ale Malt” that are open to some interpretation.  I’m not in the business of interpreting, but I let the guy at my LHBS pick my malts for me based on this.  I had some Walnuts in the cupboard, so I roasted Pecans and Walnuts.  I just used some leftover hops, as they’re not a major factor in a Brown Ale.

Ingredients:  Nut Brown Ale

All-Grain Recipe

• 8.5 lb – Maris Otter Malt
• 4lb – Biscuit Malt
• .5lb – Brown Malt
• 1 tsp. – 5.2 pH Stabilizer
• 1 Tablet – Whirfloc – added to during boil, boiled 10 min

Hop Additions

• .7 0z – East Kent Goldings (6.7%) – added during boil, boiled 90 min
• .4 oz – Willamette (4.7%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
• .5 oz – Willamette (4.7%) – added during boil, boiled 20 min

Yeast

• Cold Break

  WYeast 1056 American Ale – Reused from IPA

Additional Details / Notes

• SG 1.063 / FG 1.012
• 6.72% ABV | Color: 17.14 °SRM | 29.5 IBU’s
• Brewed 11/05/11, Secondary 11/20/2011, Bottled 12/11/2011
• Temps: ~154° Mash, ~63° in Primary, ~70° Secondary

Brewing the Nut Brown Ale

I started my brew day by crushing and roasting some nuts.  This took longer than I wanted it to, and I probably rushed it.  I turned the oven on as low as it’d go, and let the crushed nuts roast a bit.  I alternated removing pans of nuts and crushing them with paper towels to soak up the oils.  I’d read a few places where the nut oils can destroy the final beer – at least the head retention, so I did the best I could to soak off oils.

I had water heating while roasting the nuts so that I could pour my strike water as soon as I was happy with the nuts.  The nuts went right in to the mash with the grains.  I used 170° strike water, and settled in about 153-5°.  5.2 pH Stabilizer was added to the mash water, as I like to try to keep the pH in check.

After an hour, I recirculated 2 gallons of the wort (vorlauf).  I’d originally done about 1 gallon, but decided to move to two around the brewing time of this Brown.  At the time of writing for this post, I’m currently doing 3 or 4 – circulating until the wort changes colors and visibly clears up.  I heated my sparge water to 165° and let that go for about an hour.

This part is exciting.  I got a new boil pot and burner!  Both were ordered from Amazon for a great price and are in the sidebar on the right side of this page if you want to check them out.  The stainless steel pot is great, and the burner is a bad ass, gets the water to a rolling boil so fast I have to make sure it’s not turned up too high.  I’ve had more than one pot boil over.  I loved my old turkey fryer setup, but this was a massive step up, for a decent price.

Boil went fine.  I made the mistake of not measuring gallon lines on my new pot, so I had NO idea how much wort I collected to boil.  I ended up grabbing what I thought was a bit extra, then boiling longer to get thicker malt.  Added Whirlfloc and the Wort Chiller with 10 minutes left in the boil.

Cooling in the middle of the Winter goes pretty quick.  I was able to run hose water AND keep the boil pot in a snow pile. After cooling, I added about 40 seconds of oxygen and poured the wort in to the same bucket I had just racked my previous IPA out of.  This would be the second of 4 batches on this yeast.  I popped the bucket in the ferm fridge to ferment at about 63°.

Drinking the Nut Brown Ale

This beer was technically okay, but it’s by far the most boring beer I’ve ever made.  I’m assuming the grain bill needed to be spiced up a bit.  I also think that the flavor from the nuts conflicted with the malts.  The nuts weren’t exactly apparent, but I’m sure the Walnuts were a bad choice – they’re not exactly a nut you would normally be excited about for flavor.  The malts were also probably too boring for a brown.  Overall, not a beer you won’t drink, but not one you’re excited to have again.

One nice thing about this beer is that it mixed really well with other beers, especially an upcoming Chocolate Milk Stout.  The decently high alcohol content also helped.  After a couple, it doesn’t matter how it tastes!

Washing Yeast

I wasn’t ready to brew on the day I racked the Brown Ale to the secondary, so I saved the yeast in a couple of boiled jars.  I just scooped it from the bottom of the bucket and put it in to a pair of jars that had been boiled and cooled.  I then added boiled and cooled water to fill the jars.

After a good mix, I left them in my beer fridge to use for the next batch, which is a Red Ale.  This went ‘okay’, but I think poor yeast health had adverse effects on the Red.  More to come on that…