Ryan Brews

Candy Syrup the Right way (Hint - We've been doing it Wrong!)

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:55:11 PST

(sorry in advance for the long post......)

Edit - Before you read this I would like to say that the mixtures in this post should not be taken as a "recipe" to make the candy sugar. Rather it is more of a lessons learned to guide you. Heating temps, boiling times, and other things will be specific to your stove, pot, amount of sugar, etc. So you should do a trial batch yourself before you go all in. Amounts of sugar and nutrient should scale linearly, however the amount of lime should not be altered

So for quite some time now I have been thinking about candy sugar. I mean I love the stuff (I brew a lot of Belgian beers) but its been difficult to get lately and its quite expensive. Now Ive seen a ton of posts out there about how to make it, and Ive even done one myself in the past. The recipe always is ....

Sugar + Acid + DAP + heat = Candy syrup

I'm here to tell you that is completely and utterly wrong, well I guess that is if what your shooting for is something like D2, if on the other hand you want some burnt sugar your right on track.

Thinking about the chemistry involved in the above recipe always bothered me. The acid was supposedly added to the sugar to help the sucrose split into glucose and fructose. Well, OK, that's fine and dandy, that may be faster and more complete but sucrose splits into those two sugars when its simply heated (sucrose itself can act as a weak acid). So the addition of the acid really isn't doing anything for you. In fact I'm here to tell you that its actually harming your candy sugar quite a bit. Especially since when making beet syrup, inverting sugar is something that is avoided at all costs. Think about it, if sucrose is split into glucose and fructose, that's basically less final product they end up with (sucrose)

Now Belgian candy syrup is made from sugar beets, and supposedly the syrup we all buy is simply the left overs from the sugar extraction. Its said to be made by repeated heated and cooling of the sugar and extraction of sucrose. Technically this is actually true, but the devil is in the details. There are quite a bit of other things that are happening during this process and things that are added that aren't really considered ingredients, as such you wont find them on any food label.

If you google the sugar beet extraction process you'll probably pull up one of a couple different sites that detail the method. Basically beets are chopped, pressed, and the syrup goes through a couple stages of what are essentially filtration steps to remove all the crud from the syrup. The big step that we are all missing is what is done during these intermediary steps that has a big, no GIANT impact on the final product.

Now before I delve into what we really need to be doing, I wanna jump into a tiny bit of chemistry, I'll keep it fairly basic, but if your interested and you wanna really get into it shoot me a message and we can discuss all the nerdy details.

Caramelization and maillard reactions are the reason we get the great flavors from the dark Belgian candy syrups. Caramelization is very different than maillard reactions, caramelization is a type of pyrolysis. Essentially what is happening is we are carbonizing the sugars, this if taken too far results in the characteristic burnt sugar flavor. If controlled and done correctly caramelization will essentially results in solely color formation (if its not take too far) However, with everything Ive read out there, the way we are currently making homemade candy syrup isn't the right way.

Maillard reaction are more responsible for the flavor development in candy syrup, but they requite a source of amino acids. Maillard reactions are a result of the amino acids reaction with a reducing sugar to form several intermediary compounds that go through several rearrangements (amadori, enolization, etc,etc) to form melanoidins (among other things) These melainodins are what give use the great flavors we desire in our candy syrup. The reason we add DAP or yeast nutrient when making candy sugar, is that normal table sugar doesn't have any of the necessary amino acids for form the melanoidins. Unfortunately for us, the type of amino acid plays a large role in the flavor development, with different amino acids resulting in different flavors. Sugar beet syrup will have a complex mix of amino acids that we are not likely to recreate (glutamine, lysine, threonine, serine, etc). So this will limit our flavor development somewhat.

Now if you read up on the beet sugar processing method you might notice that I'm going to wave my hands a bit and sort of ignore a couple things they do. That's because they have a different goal than we do. I might also overlook some of the more complex chemistry (very high pH + sucrose = saccharates) because well, maillard browning and caramelization are not understood well by people who spend their life researching this stuff, let alone me. And because when they make beet sugar they head down a similar path, but we need to deviate slightly for our purposes..

Making beet sugar they add slaked lime to increase the pH. This also binds up the sucrose until it is gassed with CO2 to precipitate chalk. Doing this help to remove suspended non-sugars. However, even after the chalk is precipitated, the pH is still fairly high (9-11). This high pH is what we want when we make our sugar syrup. In particular it helps us avoid the burnt sugar flavors that are not in the dark candy syrup

To determine what might be a best set of conditions i set up a relatively large number of trial. Each set had a different starting mix. Some of the various things I tried are below, eventually I would like to try to vary the concentration of each and see where that can get me, but it takes a loooong time to do any of these. I did quite a few more than I'm showing either in the picture or in tasting. This is because several of my early attempts helped me to find the correct range for adding lime. Too much and it was quite medicinal/minerally (saccharates?) which ruined the flavor of the syrup.

When doing this my procedure was as follows.

Measure and add 1 cup sugar
Measure and add 1/4 cup water
Add in each of the trial specific chemicals

1/2 tsp Lime
1/2 tsp Lime + 1/2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/8 tsp Malic Acid
1/8 tsp Malic Acid + 1/2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
1/2 tsp Chalk
1/2 tsp Lime + 1 tsp Treacle + 1/2 tsp Yeast Nutrient

Begin heating the mixture on high until boiling (note all times in table are from the start of the boil)
Add small amounts of water when the sugar mixture becomes too hot - you can tell because it will boil up and become much more frothy and normal. This helps to prevent scorching, but the more it is in this frothy stage the darker the color becomes and the more flavor development there is.
Take small samples and allow to cool at regular intervals to determine flavor development

Candy Sugar Experiment
Time	Lime	Lime + Nutrient	Baking Soda	Acid	Acid + Nutrient	Chalk	Treacle Nutrient Lime
5	Very sweet, no other flavor	Sweet, but as much as Lime, tastes just like frosted flakes (melanoidins!)	Less sweet, than Lime nutrient, otherwise tastes like sugar	slightly tangy, otherwise tastes just like sugar	Sweet but less so than acid, not as tangy either, slightly fruity	Sweet, tastes like sugar	Sweet, caramelly, some hints of frosted flakes
7	Very sweet, hints of caramel in the finish	Frosted flakes, biscuity?, caramel, and much more rich than the 5 min	Sweet, caramelly	sweet, tastes like sugar	Burnt sugar, toffee, still slightly tangy	Sweet, tastes like sugar	sweet, toasty, still hints of frosted flakes, reminds me almost of a buttered piece of toast sprinkled with sugar
10	Sweet, frosted flakes, cotton candy finish	Chocolate! and caramel,tastes like a tootsie roll, very good, I could eat this on its own	Sweet, reminds me of cotton candy	Sweet, burnt sugar dominates the flavor	Burnt sugar, stronger than 7min, slightly tangy	Sweet, and slightly biscuity	Toasty, caramelly, hints of toffee?
15	Sweet, slight bit of cotton candy, and slight minerally finish	Chocolate, seriously all I can taste it tootsie roll	Sweet, some hints of caramel, slight medicinal finish/cotton candy	Burnt Sugar flavor, still sweet, hint of tanginess	Burnt sugar, slightly fruity and bitter, slightly tangy finish	Sweet, slightly biscuity	Hints of chocolate, and dark fruit, very caramelly
20	Sweet,a very slightly minerally finish	Chocolate, some hints of coffee	Sweet, slightly minerally- medicinal finish	Burnt sugar, slightly more intense, hint of tanginess	Strong burnt sugar flavor, slightly bitter, slightly tangy	Sweet, hints of frosted flakes	Chocolatey, strong caramel and toffee flavor, slightly buttery
25	Sweet, slightly minerally and slightly chalky	Lighter chocolate flavor, strong toffee and caramel flavors	Sweet, slightly minerally- medicinal finish	Burnt sugar, tanginess has faded	Strong burnt sugar flavor, slightly bitter, hints of coffee	Sweet, but a bit more color	Chocolately, lots of toffee, very buttery
30	Sweet, slightly minerally and slightly chalky	Toffee, chocolate, some slight hints of burnt sugar like creme brulee	Sweet, slightly minerally- medicinal finish	Burnt sugar, slightly bitter	Burnt sugar, slightly bitter, roasty?	Sweet, no other flavor	Mostly toffee, hints of dark fruit and chocolate, slightly buttery
35	Sweet, slightly minerally and slightly chalky	Toffee, and caramel, hints of burnt sugar (not acrid though)	Sweet, slightly minerally- medicinal finish	Strong burnt sugar flavor, slightly bitter	Burnt sugar, bitter and roasty, slightly acrid	Sweet, no other flavor	Toffee, dark fruit and slight hint of chocolate
40	Sweet, slightly minerally and slightly chalky	Toffee and dark fruits, hints of burnt sugar (again not acrid or bitter)	Sweet, slightly minerally- medicinal finish	Strong burnt sugar flavor, slightly bitter and acrid	Burnt sugar, bitter and slightly acrid	Sweet, no other flavor	Fruity, strong dark caramel flavor, has a hint of tanginess in the finish
Notes: 1. All times listed are from the start of the boil: 2. Amounts of each chemical for the mix are listed above in the text. 3. Timing for flavor development is specific to my stove/pot/etc your mileage may vary a little. 4. Amounts of lime added are likely not going to scale linearly, you may have to play around slightly if you do a larger batch. 5. Wyeast Yeast nutrient likely isn't the same as DAP, flavor development may be different if you substitute 6. Each time the sugar syrup began to boil up too much small amounts of water were added to cool the temp down a bit

Notes/Observations
Lime + Nutrient

Off gassed ammonia when it started boiling
@7-8min: smells like cherries and chocolate
@16-17min: begins to boil very strange - very frothy
@19min: smells like cherries/almond extract

Acid + Nutrient

No ammonia smell
Less vigorous(frothy) boil than alkaline sugar syrup

What Ive learned from Each Additive

Lime - Stops the burnt sugar flavor from happening. This is because the alkaline environment, inhibits dehydration reactions of the sugars which normally cause the burnt flavor as the sugars burn. Color formation is increased when compared to acid addition, but it should as, unless you are below pH 3 both maillard and caramelization reactions are hindered. Too much lime causes a medicinal, minerally flavor that ruins the flavor of the sugar. This is quickly gauged by doing a small test batch of say 1/2C sugar along with the lime, within 5-7min you can taste they syrup and see if it has that off-flavor, if it does reduce the lime and try again

Acid - hampers color formation, the lowering of the pH provides prime conditions for dehydration reactions to occur. These dehydration reactions are the cause of the burnt sugar flavor, as water is removed from the sucrose/fructose/glucose the sugars begin to burn.

Baking Soda - Increases color formation, as with the lime too much results in a minearly/medicinal flavor, additionally baking soda adds a slightly salty flavor, especially when too much is added. The only reason I tried baking soda is that most people have it readily available. I would advise against using it, and instead getting some pickling lime.

Chalk - Similar to baking soda, although doesn't have the salty flavor. Much more like lime (no sodium), although color formation seemed to be slower with the chalk. Most likely this is due to the limited dissociation of chalk (doesn't like to dissolve) which probably impeded the raising of the pH. This one was again used because I thought it might be something lots of homebrewers would have on-hand (water adjustments). As with baking soda, I recommend using pickling lime.

Suggestions for Doing this Yourself

If you attempt to do this yourself, I would suggest doing a small test batch. You can follow the basic recipe & size that I used in the trials to gauge flavor and color development for yourself. This is an important step because the time necessary to get different flavors will be specific to your stove, pot, etc. If you still want to do this on the fly, what you can do is get a bowl of ice water to drop the sample in. This way it is rapidly cooled for you to try.

Also, I should mention that when scaling a batch you should increase all ingredients EXCEPT the lime. If you make a batch and it has a strange medicinally/minerally flavor you used too much lime.

To reiterate.

1 - Do a trial batch
2 - If you want to taste on the fly grab a bowl of ice water for dropping samples into
3 - When scaling batch size, DO NOT INCREASE THE LIME, everything else should scale normally

Good Reading and Resources
If your interested good resources for reading about all of this (aka another way to become confused)

Sucrose degradation in alkaline environments
Base-catalyzed sucrose degradation studies
Mechanisms of alkaline degradation of sucrose
Model compounds from alkaline degradation
Chemical destruction in hot alkaline process juices (syrup) and liquors

Overview of Maillard & Caramelization reactions
A Good Overall Understanding of Caramelization and Maillard Reactions

Sugar Methods
Beet sugar handbook
Food Chemistry - This ones a pretty good read for all kinds of things
A handbook of sugar analysis - very good but a bit dated

D'Artagnan Perry - Carbonated Version Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:29:05 PST

Appearance - Dark golden, great clarity you could read a newspaper through it, no head, but a constant stream of bubbles breaking at the surface

Aroma - Tons of pear and apple, slightly sweetish, with hints of something else that's hard to put my finger one, maybe hints of honey?, overall very fruity with a small hint of a cellar-like quality

Taste - Sweet and tart apple/pear-like flavor, soft acidic finish, it has a very cellar-like quality that is difficult to describe. It has the same type of finish as a relatively fresh Basque cider.

Mouthfeel - Very high carbonation that is quite prickly on the tongue. Generally I dislike high amounts of carbonation, but it suits this perry very well

Drinkabililty - I really love this perry, it has a nice touch of sweetness to balance the acidity and the high carbonation suits it extremely well. Its definitely a thirst quencher!

Oaked Version review - 9/12/2011
Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 11/15/2010

Gravenstein Cider 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:28:49 PST

Recently I've been brewing quite a bit of cider. However, if you exclude the last two months or so it actually has been quite a while since I did a cider. I'm guessing it was probably a year or so ago that I brewed a cider that's currenlty ready f and that batch as with all the previous ones used regular apple juice from my supermarket. Those batches were pretty good, but lacked the strong appley flavor I really like in an English Scrumpy or a Normandy Cidre. Now this is unfortunately due to the complete lack of cider apples in my part of the US. I do have access to great fresh local Gala, Red Delicious, and I actually have Anna and Dorsett Golden in my yard, but while many of these are great eating apples they really lack punch once fermented.

To brew up a truly great hard cider (English style) you really need a balance of bittersweet, sweet, and sharp apples. I hope to one day be lucky enough to live somewhere that I can easily source fresh juice or grow cider apples myself, however until that happens I'm hoping that Ive come up with a good short term fix (cider experiment - as many varietal ciders as I can make)

One of my all-time favorite eating apples are Gravenstein. They are truly an amazing apple! They are to apples what Royal Blenheim are to apricots. Gravensteins unfortunately don't keep particularly well, so you don't see them very often as whole fruit in the market. To add insult to injury much of the acreage of this variety has been torn up over the years and replaced with things like Gala, Golden Delicious, etc, just because they look nicer and keep longer. Which from a commercial standpoint is great, but as far as my taste buds are concerned its a tragedy. Lucky for me though, much of the Gravenstein crop finds its way (especially in the last few years) into a varietal juice available at places like Trader Joes or Whole Foods.

This year I decided to clear out my local Trader Joes of all of the Gravenstein Juice and (hopefully) make a great appley cider, or at least something that will blend well with my other cider endeavors recently (Fuji, Granny Smith, Grimes Golden)

For yeast I decided, mostly because I have copious amounts of it around right now, but party because Ive heard/tasted good things about it, to use White Labs English Cider Yeast. I'm hoping the yeast, as White Labs claims, will accentuate the apple flavors in cider. Another addition that I'm up in the air about is whether or not I will add malolactic bacteria. Ive read bits and pieces about using it in ciders but no one seems to have done a side by side comparison to see how much it impacts the final cider. So if anyone knows of any good info about this I'm all ears!

Amt	Type
Gravenstein Cider 2012
3gal	Gravenstein Juice
3/8tsp	Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
Yeast	WLP775 English Cider (Slurry)
Stats
Volume	OG	FG
3.0gal	1050	-
Notes: Its happily bubbling away at about 60F; Nutrient was boiled in a small amount of water and added to the juice prior to adding yeast. I did this because I've noticed lots of hydrogen sulfide production in my last few ciders, and none in my starters.

Fuji Varietal Cider
Granny Smith Varietal Cider
Grimes Golden Varietal Cider

Old Fuzz - Fortified Version Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:28:40 PST

Appearance - Deep golden with orange highlights, perfect clarity, no head or carbonation

Aroma - Leathery, very sweet nose, over-ripe bananas and buckwheat honey, finishes with hints of bretty phenolics

Taste - Malty and strong honey sweetness initially, they fade to over-ripe banana nut muffins and a lingering horsey/leathery finish. Some oxidation with mostly butterscotch and sherry notes that fit the sweetness. Alcohol is very well hidden, but there is a slight warming of the belly with each sip

Mouthfeel - Very smooth and full bodied, this one really has some legs on it! With all that residual sugar from the honey though it should. No carbonation, but it really shouldn't have any

Drinkability - Definitely a sipper, something to drink as a cordial before or after a meal. Since its very sweet I prefer afterwards. Not something I could drink a lot of, but that's mostly due to the extremely high alcohol content (17%abv+)

Notes/Thoughts - An interesting beer and one of my earlier attempts with brett. It has blended fairly well together, it is slightly too sweet for my tastes, but then I like to have a full pint when I can, and with this one a full pint would put you out. The beer reminds me of an an extremely over-ripe banana nut muffin with a bit of funk, and a sweet finish

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 2/23/2009
Fortified Version Update - 3/22/2009

Sweet Pineapple Cider - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:29:14 PST

Appearance - Golden yellow, just like you'd expect pineapple juice to be. Extremely clear, no head what so ever, and only trace amounts of carbonation showing

Aroma - Pineapple mixed with a very meaty yeast autolysis smell, the smell is slightly off putting

Taste - Loads of pineapple up front, which the sweetness from the xylitol really helps to round out. There is however, a flavor from the autolysis that lingers and really distracts from the pineapple flavors

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied, very slick on the tongue which is quite nice. A moderately high level of carbonation that prickles the tongue as you drink

Drinkability - Its OK at best, the pineapple flavor is much better paired with the slight sweetness of the xylitol, but the flavors/aromas from the yeast autolyzing as a HUGE distraction. If this cider didn't have any of the meaty-yeasty flavors it would be outstanding, as it is its OK at best

Notes/Thoughts - This cider has the potential to be outstanding, provided that I can get rid of the autolysis flavors that are completely ruining the cider. Its still drinkable but isn't something I crave. In my first attempts at pineapple cider I detected a hint of the autolysis in the flavor, but just a hint, this one is full blown. I'm not sure if this time has to do with the xylitol, which can kill yeast/bacteria, or if I let it sit on the lees too long. I will have to do another quick experiment with and without the xylitol and see if that is the culprit.

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 12/5/2010

Pineapple Cider 1.0 - 1/18/2009

Cochise Stronghold - Cider & Malt

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:27:44 PST

With all my interest recently in cider, I purchased far too many apples and have a ton sitting around. I had about 80-100lbs of the local apples I used to press the Arizona Homestead cider, and I really wanted to use them for something other than apple sauce. However, I knew that I really didn't want any more cider.

Then I remembered an idea that I had come up with during the middle of the summer, malt cider! Now, it wasn't a new idea at all, in fact I've already attempted this before. Unfortunately the results were middling at best, but I didn't really put the same level of effort into that beer. I used DME and only did a half-hearted steeping of the crystal malt. I also used an ale yeast, something that Ive began to shy away from in many beers recently but that's another topic altogether.

With this beer/cider I really wanted to do something a bit different. One of the techniques Ive always advocated is boiling down the first runnings to a thick syrup. When you boil down the first runnings, you increase the malt depths immensely. This approach also retains more of the sweetness of the malt, as caramelization and maillard reactions result in compounds that aren't fermentable by sacch. So not only do you get more malt depth, but you retain a hint of sweetness as well, both things I really think were lacking in my first attempt at malt cider

What I wanted was a cider/beer that retained a lot of sweetness along with the apple flavor. I think many fruits once fermented just don't taste quite right without a hint of sweetness to round out the flavor. To do this I did two things, 1 - I boiled down ALL of my runnings into a thick syrup, 2 - I used a generous portion of crystal malt in the grain bill, 3 - I used Maris Otter.

When I brewed the beer I took all of the runnings, that's right ALL of the runnings and boiled them down to ~1gal. I did this not only to increase the malt depth and sweetness, but because I wanted to make sure my OG was sufficiently high. Doing this allowed me to use a lot of malt to balance the acidity of the apple juice, and I was able to dilute the syrup with the apple juice to get to my desired batch size. I didn't run off a lot of wort prior to boiling down (wanted to minimize boil time) but I ended up with ~4gal of wort that I boiled down to 1gal. I don't recall exactly how long that took but it took quite a while! As a result of pulling so little wort I ended up with a terrible efficiency for the batch (58%), but I figure you win some and you lose some.

One last thing I decided to add to the brew was a bit of Dark muscovado sugar. Ive used this stuff before in a a couple other beers, and I really love the dark/chocolatey rummy flavor it provides and thought it would be a good addition to this beer. I also liked the idea of drying out the beer ever so slightly, I do have a TON of crystal malt in there after all.

One final thing I did was split the batch between two different yeasts, WL English Cider and D47. I'm hoping to retain a good deal of apple flavor/aroma with the cider yeast, and the D47 I'm hoping to retain a bit more of the malt sweetness.(wine yeasts cannot ferment maltotriose). In a nod to where these apples came from I decided to name the beer after the dragoon mountains, which were the hideout of a famous Apache chief named Cochise.

Chochise Stronghold

Amt (lbs)	Type
Malt-Juice Bill
7.0	Maris Otter
1.5	Crystal 60L
1.0	Crystal 10L
0.5	Dark Muscovado Sugar
3.25gal	Grimes Golden Juice
0.75gal	Granny Smith Juice
Hops
Amt (oz)	Type	Time
1.0	Sterling (7.9%)	120
Mash Schedule
Temp	Ratio	Time
156F	1.0qt/lb	60
170F	1.8qt/lb	15min - vorlauf
Yeast	English Cider WL775 (2.5gal) Lalvin D47 (2.5gal)
Stats
5.0gal	OG	1089
58% eff	IBU	11?
4gal Boil	FG
Notes: Thinking about it now, I'm a bit worried I mashed too high - Going totally blind I think I would drop the mash temp to 150F if I could do it over again

Tapioca EIPA - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:27:55 PST

Appearance - Slightly hazy golden color with some copper highlights when held to the light. A nice two finger head to start out that dissipates to a fine layer above the beer and leaving significant lacing all over the glass

Aroma - Tangerine and other miscellaneous citrus mixed with a earthy fruitiness from the yeast, with hints of toast/biscuits

Taste - Perfectly balanced between the malt and the hops. Great estery/fruity yeast flavors hit your tongue first , followed by the sweetness and breadiness of the maris otter barley, a very smooth bitterness finishes off each sip.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied, all that MO really provides a great mouthfeel to the beer, moderately low carbonation to really allow the flavors to shine

Drinkability - I picked this beer as my favorite of the year, so the drinkability is very high. Its very easy to session or have with just about any dinner.

Notes/Thoughts - Really great beer, but its hard to beat Maris Otter, amarillo, or simcoe hops in just about any beer. Tapioca starch did a good job thinning the body slightly (even with the moderately high mash temp 154), and it converted just fine, its definitely an adjunct I plan on using again (sooo much cheaper than sugar)

Brewday - 10/22/11 - Recipe & Notes

The Year in Review - Brews and Favorites

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:50:25 PST

Another year has completely flew by, and just now I realized I really didn't brew a whole lot this year! I saw on another blog I frequent from time to time a little recap of what he did and didn't accomplish throughout the year and I really like the idea. I think a little reflection on what I have or have not accomplish this past year is definitely worthwhile. But for now lets stick with the good....

Brewed

Write ups Coming Soon

Mazarin - Sour Cherries, Mahleb and Sherry Flor
Chochise Stronghold - 4hr+ boil, apple juice and muscovado sugar
Ashley's Sour Peach - wild fermented pale with ripe peaches

Favorite Brews for the Year

Well since many of my beers from last year are still fermenting! I don't have a whole lot to chose from, so I think I will include anything I reviewed in the past year. That's when it was drank after all

1. Tapioca EIPA - This beer was just so smooth and fragrant the keg kicked in record time. We had a Christmas Party and even though I had 4 beers on tap, and this was the only full keg. This is the only one that kicked! The malt depth from the MO and the light body (the tapioca) really make this my favorite beer of the year (hopefully its not just because of how recent I was drinking it!)

2. Schwarzbier Redux - Another favorite, although this one was from quite awhile ago. The malt depth and the hints of chocolate were great in this beer. I definitely think I need to brew another up

3. D'Artagnan a Parry - I like both versions of this perry (unoaked, oaked) but I by far prefer the oaked portion. There isn't much oakiness in the cider, but it has a nice vanilla note and a hint of astringency that balances the other flavors and gives it great depth. Definitely something that will be brewed again

Its strange that I don't have any sours in the top 3 this year, but unfortunately my pipeline was dry this year. Although I brewed up a couple I really didn't have any new batches ready for drinking this year. Next year should definitely be much more productive in that respect

Arizona Homestead Apple Cider

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:28:04 PST

Ive really been diving into cider recently, and in my hunt for interesting flavors and apples I was able to source some very interesting local Arizona apples. Even though I'm very close to downtown, the part of Phoenix I live in is actually fairly rural, and horse ranches, cotton fields, and the mountains surround me on all sides. It wasn't until recently though that I realized what a boon that could be for me.

I have been endlessly hunting apple varieties to use in the cider experiment. Essentially what I am trying to do is get a handle on the flavors of many different types of fermented apple juices. I figure that when you understand each component it makes blending much easier. Strangely I really haven't been able to find anything in the way of detailed descriptions of flavors and aromas of different apple varieties once they are fermented.

Anyway, in my hunt for apples I came across a horse ranch less than 4blocks from my house that was selling local apples. These weren't just any apples though. They were from an old homestead in the mountains in eastern Arizona dating back to the late 1800's! Talking with the owners, they believed the apples were golden delicious, and I must say that they do bear a strong resemblance to that type of apple. However the dates just didn't match up. Golden delicious apples didn't become a commercially developed variety until around 1915-1920. Grimes golden on the other hand was very prominent in the late 1800's and into the early 1920's. The strong resemblance for these apples to Golden Delicious is no coincidence either, as Grimes golden is a parent of golden delicious.

The final nail in the coffin that really makes me think that these are Grimes is the flavor. These apples are richer and have a hint of spiciness that Ive never tasted in Golden Delicious.

A couple more great things about these apples are that they are completely organic and no fertilizers were used on them. When apples are grown without any type of fertilizers the resulting juice is very low in nitrogen. The low nitrogen in the juice leads to a very long, very slow fermentation which helps to preserve apple flavors. This can also lead to a cider that ends up slightly sweet. If your careful about your process you can also bottle the cider in a way perfected by the French to produce a naturally sweet, carbonated cider. Some of my favorite examples of cider come from Normandy and use low N apples or a process called keeving that achieve the same results.

Now I'm not going to go that route, and I wont probably rack very often either (soon I will attempt that though) For now I'll be happy with just the normally fermented juice.

Amt (lbs)	Type
Arizona Homestead Cider
52	Grimes Golden? Apples
5/8tsp	Sodium Metabisulfate
Yeast	WLP775 English Cider (2L starter)
Stats
Volume	OG	FG
4.75gal	1054	-
Notes: Yeast was added ~24hrs after sulfiting, fermentation took off rather slowly and has continued very slowly, a small nutrient addition ~1/2tsp was added 2days into fermentation. Its been happily bubbling away at about 60F

Kotbusser - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:23:44 PST

Appearance - A very hazy golden yellow, with a dense slightly off-white head (at first) that dissipates to nice lacing in the glass.

Aroma - Cloves! hints of banana, and a floral honey quality, not too much treacle in the nose unless your really really looking for it. Hops are very restrained as they should be

Taste - Just like a hefeweizen, with hints of oats and treacle, and a nice sweet honey-like finish. The cloves are definitely dominating in this beer, and I really like it that way. The treacle and honey provide additional layers of complexity to the beer and really round out the flavors. Its really great with a twist of lemon or orange in the glass, as the acidity really makes all of the flavors pop

Mouthfeel - This one has some legs on it. It is very milk-shake like due to the grain bill essentially being that of a witbier. Medium carbonation

Notes/Thoughts - This time I think I made something much better than my first attempt at a kotbusser. The change in yeast strain and different fermentation temps (cooler) really helped to blend the malt and phenolics better. I ended up adding the treacle and honey just before I kegged, and at first they seemed to clash with the beer. A few weeks in the keg and everything melded quite a bit.

Its not everyday you taste a hefeweizen with a substantial milk shake like body, but it really fits the cooler days in the fall/winter. Basically this is a heartier version of what you like to have during the hot summer months.

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 11/5/2011

Brown Porter Brewed with Korean Roasted Barley Tea

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 12:55:26 PST

I should start with the fact that this beer ended up entirely different than I had originally intended. I was planning to squeeze in a nice brown porter over the weekend and really wanted to make something along the lines of the Toasty English Pale I brewed up a month or so ago. I really liked the subtle roasty notes that the coffee malt lent to the beer and thought that a slightly darker and maltier base would work well in a porter. However when I finally got around to digging through all of my specialty grains I realized that I didn't have any coffee malt or special roast, so I was a bit limited with what I could do.

Luckily though, earlier in the summer during one of my trips to a large ethnic grocery store here in town, I picked up something I had planned on using in a beer. A common summer and winter drink in Korea and other parts of Asia is roasted barley tea, or Boricha. To me Boricha is a very nice, nutty coffee alternative for cold days during the winter, or chilled during the summer. Essentially it's roasted barley, but it's not quite as dark as you would typically think. Boricha is probably somewhere around, and I'm purely guessing here, 165L. This is from eye-balling it and thinking about the recent coffee malt I used, which is roughly the same lovibond.

My options were now, use the Boricha in a porter-ish beer or just not brew. I think we all know the route I took. I had really wanted to try using this in a beer anyway, and this seemed to be a perfect opportunity. To balance out the flavor I added a bit of crystal malt, which I generally shy away from. I was worried though that the boricha might need a bit of sweetness to round out its nutty and coffee like flavors when it is in beer form. Finally to make sure that I had a beer that would actually be dark enough to be considered a porter I tossed in a tiny bit of Carafa III to get it dark enough.

Boricha Brown Porter #2

Amt (lbs)	Type
Malt Bill
8.0	Marris Otter (Muntons)
0.75	Boricha Roasted Barley Tea
0.75	Crystal 10L
3.0 oz	Carafa III
Hops
Amt (oz)	Type	Time
1.00	Sterling (7.9%)	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Ratio	Time
153F	1.0qt/lb	60
170F	1.8qt/lb	15min - vorlauf
Yeast	Thames Valley WY1275
Stats
5.5gal	OG	1052
81% eff	IBU	26
6.5gal Boil	FG

Toasty English Pale - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:53:09 PST

Appearance - Opaque light brown, very cloudy even after some time in the kegerator, 2 finger head that leaves very sticky lacing down the glass

Aroma - Like you would expect from any EPA, bready, slightly sweetish malty nose with a bit of caramel. Subtle earthy hoppiness rounds out the nose

Taste - Very balanced between the malt and hops with a lingering bitter finish. The beer has the great flavors you expect from a hefty portion of Marris otter, but the normal sweet malty taste is cut by a nice roasty flavor (the coffee malt). It doesn't taste at all like coffee malt though, it reminds me a lot of special roast, with out the tangy sour bread flavor. The roast flavor blends perfectly with the sweet bready flavors and balances them very well.

Mouthfeel - Silky and smooth, with medium-low carbonation

Drinkability - A very good EPA, and fairly distinctive from the hint of roast. The roasted edge cuts the sweetness every so slightly and makes it very easy to drink a lot of these.

Notes/Thoughts - I was unsure of what I'd get from the coffee malt in this beer when I put together the malt bill. Now that I've tried it I am very happy with the results. In many of my EPA's I like to use Special roast for its hint of roast, and the tangy sourbread flavors, coffee malt IMO is a slightly stronger special roast without the sourbread taste. I think its going to get a lot of use in the future....

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 9/25/2011

Granny Smith and Fuji Hard Cider

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:46:53 PST

I put together my DIY apple press a couple weeks ago now, and I just this past weekend finally got around to putting it to a good use. Ive been on the lookout for all types of apples lately for pressing into cider, and I managed to get my hands on a bushel of both Granny Smith and Fuji Apples. (I will be posting a small blurb with some pics of my DIY apple grinder soon as well)

I was mainly interested in the Granny Smiths for their tartness, and I picked up the Fuji's on a whim. From the tidbits Ive picked up searching the web Fuji's don't hold up well to fermentation. However no one seems to give specific details about how varietal juices taste, they just repeat over and over again that blending is the key. Well to me without knowing what the individual juices taste like when they are fermented on their own its seems strange to mix a bunch of apple varieties together an hope.

Now I'm not saying that I think blending is bad, far from it actually. I always advocate blending, I think that's one of the most under utilized techniques in a brewers arsenal. In this case though I think that understanding the finished flavors of each variety could lend some much needed insight into getting a blend right to start with.

That is why I am pressing and fermenting each of these juices without blending. I then plan on posting tasting notes for each of the finished varietal hard ciders, and a suggested blend. To make sure that the flavors of each variety aren't significantly different once carbonated I also plan on bottling a case or so of each varietal juice for tasting down the road. I will as they come available to me, also press other juices and ferment the same way. Eventually I would like to build finished hard cider profiles for as many apple varieties as I can, so that I can easily tweak a blend to begin with.

Why even attempt this? Why not just always ferment varietal juices and blend post-fermentation? Im not totally against this method, especially as apples will vary from year to year, and yeast tend to not always produce the same flavors, both of which would make blending after the fact easier to produce a perfect product every time. However, I am tying up quite a few carboys in the process, and will most likely have some varieties that I use very little of. Now if that variety is great bottled on its own, then that is wonderful, but I'm guessing that will be the exception rather than the rule.

Blending pre-fermentation allows me to conserve carboys, and adjust how much of each variety I have to purchase. Saving me space and keeping $$ in my pocket. Eventually I hope to be able to taste un-fermented juice and be able to envision what it will be like as hard cider, and I'm guessing there are people who can do this, but for now and for all the other cider newbies like myself out there I think this will be a good way to understand how to make a quality homebrewed cider from scratch

For yeast I chose to go with White Labs 775 English Cider yeast, after having tasted an aged mead made with the yeast. The description also mentions that it preserves apple flavors in finished ciders! I also spent some time searching the web, and found little on the yeast except one post on the greenboard. Most of the references to cider yeast seemed to be talking about Wyeast's version, which is thoroughly disliked. That greenboard post though made me feel good about the yeast choice, as there were two tastings with a variety of yeasts. In the first round relatively quick after fermentation 775 scored pretty low, however, with a year aging it blew all the others out of the water.

Amt	Type		Amt	Type
Apple Cider 2011
Granny Smith Cider			Fuji Cider
42lbs	Granny Smith Apples		40lbs	Fuji Apples
3/8tsp	Sodium Metabisulfate		5/16tsp	Sodium Metabisulfate
Yeast - WLP775 English Cider			Yeast - WLP775 English Cider
Stats
Volume	OG	FG	Volume	OG	FG
3.25gal	1052	-	2.5gal	1052	-
Notes: Yeast was added 24hrs after sulfiting, however fermentation did not take off very quickly (likely too much sulfites in solution from low pH) so I added more yeast about 48hrs after initial yeast pitch. Fermentation then proceeded moderately quickly			Notes: Yeast was added 24hrs after sulfiting, and fermentation has proceeded fairly slowly, which I hope helps to retain a lot of apple flavor. No nutrients were added to either juice.

From the top left clockwise.

1 - Granny Smith apples prepped for grinding (halved, stems and bad spots removed.)

2 - Fuji's Prepped and sitting on the grinder, a dowel was used to push them down in.

3 - An apple "cheese" being made using a cut down 5gal pail and some cotton cloth.

4 - Apple pomace left after pressing, nice and dry. Great for dog treats or in the compost pile

Black Currant Melomel - Recipe & Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:48:35 PST

Appearance - Dark Burgundy some ruby highlights when held to the light, extremely clear but should be after 3yrs in the bottle

Aroma - Dark Fruit, hints of leather, currant and blackberry, with a honey-like sweetness lingers

Taste - Tart, bursting with the flavor of black currants, slight bit of alcohol like you get in most red wines, and a very dry tannic finish that lingers on the tongue. Slight warming feeling as you drink more

Mouthfeel - Very full bodied and velvety

Drinkability - Nice dry red wine that pairs well with a rich meal, and I typically don't like dry red wines.

Notes & Thoughts - I actually like this now that it has aged quite a bit. Early on it reminded me of acidic tomato juice, and I was always on the lookout for ways to use it up (cooking/vinegar/etc). I'm glad that a couple bottles survived and I got another chance at tasting this. I think this is something I might do again in small batches, so that I can forget about it and occasionally pull out a bottle. I really think that a smaller amount of juice in the batch could make this one age a bit faster and soften the acidity which would improve the taste. So If I were to brew it I would halve the amount of currant juice.

Ombres Tombent Melomel

Amt (lbs)	Type
Ingredients
6.0	Wild Flower Honey
32 oz*	Black Currant Juice (Knudsens)
Yeast	Lalvin K1V116
Stats
2.5gal	OG	1111
~13% abv	FG	1013
Notes: * - I would suggest using half this amount of juice, as I feel that the currant is a bit too strong in the batch as it was made

DIY Apple Cider Press

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 12:25:06 PST

Ive recently been becoming more and more interested in cider making. In most of my past experiences Ive used store bought juice like TreeTop or Cider from WholeFoods or Trader Joes. While the ciders come out OK they have always sort of lacked the punch I hope for.

I have always wanted to use fresh pressed juice, but there really aren't any orchards nearby me that press juice. Contrary to what you might think though, there actually are quite a few apple orchards in Arizona, and a few located within metro-Phoenix area. I actually have a fairly heavy bearing apple tree in my backyard, I just have always seemed to be out of town when harvest time comes around. And when I get back the birds have decimated my crop.

All of this aside, I recently picked up quite a few apples from orchards in and around Arizona, and I needed a way to press them. Ive always been a do it yourself kinda guy, many times the build is more fun for me than using it....

Googling around there are some good ideas out there for easy to build apple presses. So by no means is this an original design, but I thought Id do a post anyway to show just how easy it is to put on together.

For my press I decide to go the hydraulic jack route for both ease of construction and efficiency. The whole press is pretty simple to put together and required less than an hour of my time once I gathered all the materials. In the end I think it totaled somewhere in the range of $70-80 for everything so quite a bit cheaper than many commercial presses out there.

DIY Apple Cider Press

4"x8" x 6ft
2"x4 "x 20ft
2"x6 x" 6ft
1/2" x 12" x2 Hex Head Bolts + nuts
1/2" x 8" x2 Hex Head Bolts + nuts
1/2" x8 fender washers
Bottle Jack 2tons+
HDPE catch basin
Followers (I used scrap plexi-glass)
Scrap Steel plate
Plastic Tray for Catching Juice - I used a grout mixing tray

The dimensions on my press were worked out after I determined how far my jack could extend (~13"), and taking into account the wood followers and how thick I might make the apple cheese's. So if you decide to build on of these you have to take that into account as well.

Essentially What I did was cut all of the wood to length using my table top miter and when that was finished I laid all the pieces on top of each other and clamped them together. I was then able to stand all this up and check if it was level, and finally drill holes through the supports that would take the 1/2" hex head bolts. I found it much easier to start by tapping a screwdriver into the wood where I wanted to drill, and using a 1/2" paddle bit to drill through the wood. After I drilled the holes I fed through the bolts and tightened the whole thing down. I placed a couple steel plates on the pieces of wood that would be in contact with the hydraulic jack. I did this so the jack wouldn't tear up the wood much. Eventually I also found a thick piece of aluminum in my garage that I used for this same purpose as well.

The overall dimensions of my press are 36" side to side. It is 42" tall and the press opening is 30".

To make the apple "cheese's" I cut a 5gal pail so that it had about 4-5" of the sidewall left. I then place a square pieced of cotton cloth (40x40") into the bucket, dump the ground apple in and tied the top together.

For the followers (what goes between "cheese's" instead of going with hardwood, I instead used some scrap plexi-glass I had lying around. It was 3/4" thick so it held up well and has worked like a charm in the press. It was also much much cheaper than buying several pieces of solid white oak! I also used this for the top of the press where they hydraulic jack sits, however I added some wood on top of it to spread the force a bit. A picture can describe what I did much better than I ever could and I attached one below.

Kotbusser - German/Polish White Beer with Treacle and Honey

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:25:20 PST

With the holidays coming up soon I decided that I need to get brewing something that would mesh well with all the food I'm planning on absolutely stuffing myself with. A couple years ago, I brewed up a batch of a historical beer style called Kotbusser. At the time I had been reading Radical Brewing, and Mosher's description of the style really got me interested. I googled around at that time and there really wasnt any other references to it. Even now, there still isn't much out there about the style either. It really makes me wonder a bit where he dug up the info on it to begin with..

At any rate Kotbusser is a German/Polish white beer that relies heavily on wheat and oats, with a small addition of both molasses and honey. To me that combination sounds wonderful! A Witbier-esque grain bill with a hefe yeast, and a pinch of molasses and honey for flavor. To me at least that combo of flavors and aromas instantly makes the think of Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie!

During my first attempt with the style, for the most part I went with Mosher's recipe (with a few grain bill tweaks). After everything was said and done, the beer was interesting but the flavors didn't mesh well at all. Looking back at the recipe, I think the biggest issue was the suggested hopping schedule. There were quite a bit of flavor and aroma hops, and I think that the IBU's were a bit too high. For my tastes, the combination of too many IBU's, the molasses twang and yeasty phenolics was quite harsh on the palate. Eventually the keg I kicked the keg, but it stuck around for quite some time, and made me very hesitant to rebrew the style.

I have become a much better brewer since the last time I made this beer and I'm at a point where I think I could go back and fairly easily fix the problems that I had the first time around. One of the biggest improvements to the beer I hope to make is giving it a sweeter base.Im betting that a hint of sweetness could really help blend and accentuate the molasses and clove from the yeast. Tying those flavors together would really help make the all of the other flavors in the beer a bit more harmonious. I also think that a moderately high mash temp will help to really thicken the beer and leave it velvety smooth, and will compliment the honey and molasses.

I also decided after some further experiences with molasses that I really don't ever want to use it in beer again. Once fermented out it has an extremely metallic taste that really ruins a beer for me. However tasting and playing around with treacle has me much more optimistic about getting that molassesy flavor in a beer. Some have argued with me that Treacle is simply molasses with cane syrup, and for some brands that could be the case. However, I don't think I will ever be persuaded, as the flavor difference between the two once fermented is immense. I have even gone as far as mixing cane syrup into molasses in an attempt to recreate the flavors of black treacle and it doesn't come close. There are tons of discussions about the difference on discussion boards across all types of hobbies, and even wikipedia articles on both treacle and molasses.

There is a lot of dissension about this topic, and while I will admit the flavor of the two are similar, especially when not fermented, there are distinctly different in a finished beer. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it, but fermented molasses has a strongly metallic edge and black treacle does not. Ive never used or tasted the Ragus Treacles linked above, but I'm guessing that its not quite the same as Tate & Lyles. In the end though I will never be convinced that they are the same, and I probably wont ever use molasses or the Ragus treacle in a beer, to me its just not worth ruing a batch.

Kotbusser the Guzzler (Name for some reason made me think of the Ghost Busters)

Amt (lbs)	Type
Malt Bill
4.0	Pilsner
2.75	White Wheat
1.0	Flaked Oats
0.25	Honey Malt
7.5 oz	Mesquite Honey (after primary Ferm)
2.0 oz	Black Treacle (after primary Ferm)
Hops
Amt (oz)	Type	Time
0.75	Fuggles (6.0%)	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Ratio	Time
155F	1.0qt/lb	60
170F	1.75qt/lb	15min - vorlauf
Yeast	Hefeweizen IV WLP380 (1L Starter)
Stats
6.0gal	OG	1043 - 1047(sugar additions)
85% eff	IBU	14
7gal Boil	FG	---

Review - 12/20/2011 - Notes & Thoughts

Fermented Smoked Jalapeños

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:23:20 PDT

Its been chili time around the desert SW for the past month or so and we have been inundated with Hatch Chiles, jalapenos and all kinds of other peppers that are being harvested. In my own garden I'm picking the third or fourth harvest of jalapenos, serranos, and Cayenne peppers. Normally I just dry them and save for grinding into fresh chili powder throughout the year, but I was feeling a bit inspired when prepping them this year.

Ive long been really interested in smoked meats, but I'm usually so busy with my other three hundred hobbies that Ive never really given it a try. I do a lot of grilling, but nothing low and slow. Well I recently came into a lot of pecan and hickory wood and really needed to find a good use for it. Honesty after thinking about it I couldn't find a better one than smoking a pork shoulder! I grabbed a few tips from one of my favorite BBQ blogs, and stole the great idea of a using a sour beer for the mop!

Well how does all that tie into fermented peppers?

So all day long I'm picking and prepping chilies, and the amazing aroma hickory smoke and slow cooking pork was making me salivate. Then an idea occurred to me, why not smoke my chilies? and ferment them? The thought of tangy smokey jalapeno slices on top of tacos, nachos and everything else sounded far too good to pass up. So I grabbed about 4lbs of jalapenos (2lb whole, 2 sliced)and tossed them in the barbecue along with another couple pieces of hickory. I'm betting that the jalapenos will add some of their flavor to the shoulder as it smokes as well.

Now these wont quite be chipotle peppers, as those are typically cold smoked or over very low heat (140-160F) and I'm smoking them around 250F. Chipotles are also typically mature jalapenos (red) and are smoked for 12+ hours to dry them out, which I wont even try coming close to. I want some moisture left in the peppers so that they hopefully hold their shape, if not I will blend them and make a sauce.

After smoking for about 1hr, I pulled the peppers out and let them cool on a tray. I then added them to a jar and topped up with a weak brine solution. I didn't expect really any natural bacteria to be left on the peppers after smoking at 250F, so I added the lees of some fermented pickles I had on hand. The peppers will ferment for about a week or so before I lid them up and toss in the fridge.

Pickled and Smoked Jalapeños

4lbs Green Jalapenos - chopped
2.5% Salt brine - ~25grams of salt per quart of water

Chop jalapenos
Smoke over a hickory fire for ~1hr
Allow to cool to room temp
Add to quart sized jars and top up with brine
Add lees from another fermented vegetable
Place a heavy weight on the jalapenos so that none are within 1" of the top
Cover with a zip lock baggie to protect from fruit flies etc
Ferment at room temp (<80F) for 1 to 2 weeks
Refrigerate and Enjoy

English IPA with Tapioca Starch

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:49:15 PST

I don't brew many super hoppy beers like most homebrewers do, but from time to time I really crave a nice fresh homebrewed IPA. This time around I decided, somewhat last minute, to brew up an English IPA. Since the batch was sort of spur of the moment and I was feeling a bit lazy, I didn't want to run to the homebrew store. So this batch was limited to what I had on-hand.

I just recently grabbed another sack of Marris Otter, and Ive been using MO quite extensively as of late. This time around though I thought it would be nicer to have something that was a bit lighter bodied than your typical MO or MO + crystal beer. Ive just tapped the keg of the Toasty English Pale I brewed up a month or so ago, which was MO + crystal, so I was especially motivated to try and change up the malt profile a bit. I wanted something a bit lighter bodied and a bit less malt punch, something that would be tipped toward the hops and and easy drinker.

As I said I was feeling extremely lazy so I scrounged around my kitchen for miscellaneous ingredients to thin the beer a bit. I did have some flaked corn laying around, but I'm saving that for another attempt at a Kentucky Common, so that was out. What I did have though, was a full bag of Tapioca Starch that had been sitting on the shelf waiting for me to find it a good use. (I buy lots of random ingredients from Ethnic stores, and they tend to sit around waiting for me to be inspired). Immediately I knew I wanted to use this in the beer.

I jumped on my computer and googled up tapioca starch in homebrew. Somehow it only came up with single hit. It was a thread on HBtalk and frankly it really didn't have any information on using tapioca starch. The entire thread most people were trying to talk the OP out of using it in a beer! I never was able to find out if the guy actually tried it or not, but going blind has never been something to stop me.

I'm really not sure why everyone was so hesitant to use the tapioca starch, but many times things or ideas that are new or unheard of make people nervous. Well, Ive never been skittish to try something new, so in the mash it went! I did google around a bit to find the gelatinization temp of tapioca starch, and luckily it is in the normal range of mash temps 65-70C aka 149-158F, so no crazy step mashes or pre-gelatinization needed. I don't think I could have lucked out any better!

I'm expecting the starch to be completely converted to fermentable sugars and provide next to no flavor, but only time will tell. It could very well be extremely potent flavor-wise and dominate the beer, which could be pretty interesting in its own right.

I'm wasn't really sure what to make of it for potential gravity, but I assumed it was roughly the same as sugar at 46pts/lb. The tricky thing was entering it into Beersmith. I'm pretty sure that conversion of the starch is 100% so its essentially like adding sugar. So, if its entirely converted to glucose mash efficiency should really affect the extractable sugars, which means you really cant enter it as a malt. Unfortunately entering it as a sugar in Beersmith omits it from mash calculations. So I estimated the gravity by entering it as sugar and entered it as a malt for mash calcs.

Now your saying why not just add some sugar to the kettle to accomplish the same thing? Well Ive really never liked adding sugar to beers, except in the case of a very flavorful sugar, and using Tapioca starch is something that it seems no one has really tried. Tapioca starch is also extremely cheap, I bought the roughly 1# bag for 40¢ which is a quite a bit cheaper than sugar around me. For these reasons it seemed a great choice for adding fermentables to a beer when its only purpose was lightening the flavor and body.

When adding the starch to the mash I mixed it in thoroughly to the grain before adding water. I think you could probably also make a thin slurry of starch and water as well to add to the mash. Mixing everything together gave me a few more dough-balls than normal and was a bit thicker but it wasn't much of a problem. Within 15min the mash had thinned considerably and looked more like normal. Within 30minutes it was negative for starch, buy I still waited 60min (laziness). Tasting the runoff it was extremely sweet, much more so than usual.

Tapioca English IPA

Amt (lbs)	Type
Malt Bill
8.5	Marris Otter (Muntons)
0.5	Tapioca Starch
Hops
Amt (oz)	Type	Time
0.25	Simcoe (12.7%)	60
1.00	Amarillo (9.3%)	15
2.00	Simcoe (12.7%)	10
1.00	Amarillo (9.3%)	<170F
1.75	Simcoe (12.7%)	<170F
Mash Schedule
Temp	Ratio	Time
154F	1.0qt/lb	60
170F	1.8qt/lb	15min - vorlauf
Yeast	Thames Valley WY1275 (Slurry)
Stats
5.5gal	OG	1054
85% eff	IBU	51
6.5gal Boil	FG

Review - 1/7/12 - Notes & Thoughts

Fat Washing - Using Fatty or Oily Foods in Homebrew

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:41:21 PDT

So, I've been meaning on writing up a post about fat washing for sometime now, but I just haven't had a batch of beer recently that needed to use the technique. While I was traveling last week for work though I had a bit of a brainstorming session on beers I hope to brew up in the next few months and one I really wanted to use sweet almonds in.

Ive never been one to use extracts, however I do from time to time like to make something myself that can be used in a beer. I feel that there is quite a bit of a difference in making it yourself versus buying something off the shelf. Too many of the extracts that Ive bought in the past have a very artificial taste to me, and adding that to a carefully crafted homebrew never really sat well with me. So using store bought bitter almond extract in this beer just didn't seem right.

Fat washing is a technique that allows you to extract the strong flavors and aromas from any type of fat that you wish. If you frequent any homebrew boards you'll most likely come across at least a few posts that want to be able to use nuts, oils, or even bacon in a brew! Very rarely though does someone suggest trying to fat wash the ingredient, and instead it is ground up and tossed in the mash or in the secondary. The problem is that with this approach you almost always have a very thin layer of oil to deal with post-fermentation, and as well all should know oil kills head retention and can make a beer go rancid fairly quickly.

Instead of dealing with the oil post-fermentation when it is a very thin layer and covers all your fermentation equipment, it is much easier to deal with before the ingredient is ever added to the beer/wine/mead. Fat washing is a very simple technique that can extract all of the flavor and none of the headaches from any of these flavorful oily ingredients.

To begin fat washing an ingredient it is necessary to have a strong neutral alcohol (I prefer Everclear), a mason jar - preferably one tall and narrow, and if the ingredient isn't an oil and is something like almonds or walnuts you should have a stack of coffee filters, and a way to grind the ingredient up as well.

Fat Washing

Your first step to extracting all the great flavors is to prepare the ingredient that you wish to use. So if you want to use bacon you should fry it up and drain the fat off to use, if your using nuts, roast them if you wish and grind them up. Oils are the most simple and require no additional processing.

Take the oil (bacon fat, butter, sesame oil, etc) or nuts/etc and place them in the mason jar.

Cover the oil, nuts, or whatever your using up with the everclear or vodka. I prefer everclear in that it is cleaner tasting than a cheap vodka , I will then dilute it with distilled water to make an extract with roughly the same alcohol content as vodka. Its best to use no less more than a 50:50 mix of alcohol to ingredient. So if your using something like bacon fat the more fat that is used versus the alcohol the stronger the flavor can be.

Wait......How long is up to you. In general things like sesame oil or butter require much less time than nuts or other larger ingredients. Ive done butter and sesame oil in about 1-2days but nuts can take a few weeks. You should swirl the jar whenever you can to keep the ingredients mixed up, or better yet toss it on your stir plate!

After you feel enough time has past, strain out any large ingredients like nuts and allow the ingredients to settle. Slowly a layer of oil will separate itself from the alcohol and float on top.

Once you have a layer of oil on top place the jar into the freezer with a straw placed into the jar. This should freeze the oil layer and allow you to extract the alcohol underneath. Pull the straw out and a hole will remain in the oil, you can now pour the alcohol out through the hole. This process may need to be repeated 2-3times before there is no fat layer left. This step becomes much much easier with a tall narrow jar, as it helps to concentrate the fat into a thicker layer allowing for easier separation.

I like to give one pass through a coffee filter for any extract before I use it. In my experience it has the tendency to catch any last little amounts of oil left in the extract and removes any small bits as well

Use your Extract!

Ive used this on many different types of ingredients. I have included a list below that I will update as I try more ingredients. One thing that I have noticed about using these extracts is that some like bacon fade considerably with time, while others like sesame oil or butter never loose their punch.

Sweet Almonds - TBD?
Grapefruit peel - Tends to be very sharp and the extract actually makes my tongue numb
Orange Peel - Sweeter and softer than grapefruit
Lemon Peel - floral like lemon flavor
Bacon Fat - Strong bacon flavor very little needed, but does fade with aging
Butter - Strong buttery flavor, never fades. I used this in the Hot Wing beer
Walnuts - Nutty flavor, great for adding to porters!
Sesame Oil - Intense sesame flavor that does not fade
Walnut Oil - Stronger than using just walnuts, but not quite as aromatic
Soon! - Cocoa Butter - Hopefully will give me a great dark chocolate flavor!

Almond Extract/Liqueur Recipe

4oz Raw, unsalted Almonds

1.5C Vodka or equivalent Everclear + Water

Now I'm actually doing two versions of this extract for additional flavor. One will use the raw almonds as is, the other I am home-roasting the almonds. To roast the almonds I am layering them on a baking sheet and roasting three times at 400F for about 12min. After each roasting I remove the almonds from the oven and place on paper towels to cool and remove some of the oil (something Ive picked up from DIY nut liquer recipes)

After Both sets of almonds were ready (2 x 4oz) I ground them to a fine powder using a coffee grinder.

The almonds are then placed into separate jars (I'm making 2 separate extracts) and covered with the vodka or everclear mix.

I am planning on leaving the nuts in the alcohol for about 3-4wks at which time I will filter and extract the alcohol from the oil layer. When it is finished I will post updated pictures of the final extract along with a small review of the taste of each. After I use these extracts in an upcoming brew, whatever remains will get a small addition of simple syrup to make these into (hopefully) a delicious aperitif.

Sauerkraut Gose - First Batch Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:36:55 PDT

So I've finally gotten around to opening and reviewing my experimental Gose. Tasting this beer I don't think anyone would even come close to guessing it was fermented with a yeast/bacteria culture from sauerkraut!

Appearance - Hazy golden yellow, very clear pour for the first half of the bottle, all of the haziness came from the bottom half (left lees in bottle though). Next to no head formation though there is light amounts of lacing.

Aroma - Sour nose mostly lactic, though there is a small hint of acetic acid. Maybe slightly lemony, but overall not too strong/complex of an aroma.

Taste - Very wheaty, berliner weisse-esque. Nearly perfect amount of lactic sourness, salt is present and maybe slightly stronger than would be ideal, but it fits the overall taste well. Nice lemony finish.

Mouthfeel - Very slick and luxurious mouthfeel, I'm guessing this has to be bacteria/yeast derived as my berliners never have this mouthfeel and while salt may help Ive never experienced it doing so in this way. Carbonation is moderate and while at first I was worried about it, now I'm quite pleased with the CO2 level. In my b-weiss beers I always feel that the prickliness and Co2 bite take away from the light flavors.

Drinkability - Very high, salt level does knock it down a notch, but that's easy enough to fix in a future batch, and actually when I did the full batch trial I did just that, although maybe not as much as I should have?

Overall - I'm very pleased with this beer! Without a doubt this is going to MY GO TO METHOD for light sour beers like gosebier or b-weiss. The flavor is great, nicely tart and otherwise very clean, honestly its not something I expected and I'll get to see if it will be repeatable with the pickle dregs I used in the full batch.

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 9/10/2010

Full Size Batch - Brewday - 4/22/2011

Dark Belgian Table Beer - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:54:45 PDT

Appearance - Dark brown, slightly hazy with reddish highlights when held up to light. Off-white 1 finger head that lingers with only small amounts of lacing. Slightly lighter color than I had hoped for, but still good looking

Aroma - Mild spice and pear, maybe a hint of the chocolatiness of the D2. Not really any hop aroma

Taste - Its kind of a difficult beer to describe. The yeast character is definitely restrained, there is noticeable Belgian yeast character in the finish though. The D2 syrup really drives most of the flavor profile, there is a bit of chocolatiness that lingers throughout the flavor. It has a finish that is sort of Coca-Cola-like. The bitterness balances it fairly well, although I definitely think that a bit more residual sweetness would really help the flavor of the beer overall.

Mouthfeel - Medium to medium-light body, somehow I manged to over-carbonate the beer a bit (for my tastes at least) to about 2.8vol. I'm slowly lowering this but to compensate I have been swishing the beer quite a bit to lower it down to what I'm guessing is around 1.2-1.5vols. At this level it meshes a bit better with the flavor

Drinkability - I'd actually have to say that this is one of the easiest beers to drink that Ive ever made. I'm owing a majority of this to all the sugar in the beer lowering the FG and making it something that you can drink a lot of without getting filled up. Which was sort of a reason for doing it, and is the hallmark of many bigger Belgian Beers

Overall - Probably the least favorite of mine of the three versions of Belgian Table beers Ive brewed. I do think that it deserves another look though, as I mashed a bit lower than I think I should have and I believe a touch of residual sugar (maybe from a crystal malt?) would really round out the flavors. All in all its a great way to really understand the flavor impacts of D2 syrup.

Brewday - 4/10/2011 - Recipe and Notes

Toasty English Pale - Fall Restocking

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:54:11 PST

There isn't too much of a why or how I'm brewing up this beer, basically I need to replenish my stocks for the fall and winter. For the first time in a long time I almost, didn't have a keg ready for each of my taps! So I thought what is a quick turn around very drinkable beer? Well I'd be hard pressed to think of something that hits the spot better this time of year than a nicely balanced English Pale.

I took a couple slightly different approaches this yeas versus what Ive done in the past. I left out the dark crystal malts, well sort of, and changed up my yeast selection. I also decided to eliminate any late flavor hopping and go solely for bitterness and aroma, I may also dry hop in the keg. I also purposely kept the OG fairly low and mashed high. I did this to keep the alcohol down a bit so this can be a sessionable beer to enjoy as the weather cools.

In many of my EPA's I like to use C120, its hard to beat the nice way it meshes with earthy hops and English yeast. This year though I decided I wanted to make it a tad darker and use a new malt for me. Coffee Malt. It supposedly adds a nice coffee flavor, although from reading experiences from it, Id bet that its not so much coffee like and more toasty. I mean really how many people can pick out 1/4lb of a toasted malt in a stout? Tasting the wort after the brewday I'm thinking its really more of a toasted flavor. I did add special roast to this beer as well, I really like the bit of toffee and sourdough that it adds to any beer.

For whatever reason I also decided to switch up my yeast selection on this beer as well. I decided that I didn't really want the Fuller's character in this beer and was going back and forth between a couple yeasts before deciding on Thames Valley. I'm hoping to use this one a couple times in the near future so I hope I chose well.

Toasty English Pale

Amt (lbs)	Type
Malt Bill
7.0	Marris Otter
0.5	Coffee Kiln Malt
0.5	Special Roast
Hops
Amt (oz)	Type	Time
1.0	Fuggles (6.0%)	60
1.0	Fuggles (6.0%)	5
1.0	Fuggles (6.0%)	KO <170F
Mash Schedule
Temp	Ratio	Time
157F	1.0qt/lb	60
170F	1.9qt/lb	15min - vorlauf
Yeast	Thames Valley WY1275
Stats
6.0gal	OG	1043
86% eff	IBU	22
7gal Boil	FG

Review - 12/3/2011 - Notes & Thoughts

Corn Kolsch - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:14:48 PDT

Appearance - Pale Golden yellow, extremely clear (pic doesn't do it justice, I was shuffling around kegs and stirred up the lees before I pulled the pint) One to two finger head that dissipates to leave nice amounts of lacing.

Aroma - There are hints of corn in the nose, but strangely the hops dominate the aroma!?! Which is weird given I didn't add any late hops, only a bittering addition. Some mild fruity esters round out the aroma.

Taste - Nice sweetness from the corn along with that bready sweetnes that pilsner malt is great for. Slightly more bitter than I would like a Kolsch to be, and a bit less fruity than I would like. Unfortunately its more lager-like than Kolsch like.

Drinkablilty - Well, I had a couple people over the day I tapped the keg and I'm about to pull the last pint off it soon, so its pretty drinkable. Very smooth, corn sweetness up front with a lingering hoppy bite leaves you wanting more.

Overall - A good beer, not very Kolsch-like, but very much like a lager. I guess that bodes well for the lager version of the beer! Its strange to me how much the hops came through in the beer even with just a bittering addition.

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 1/16/11

D'Artagnan Perry - Oaked Version Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 03:09:00 PDT

Appearance - Dark Gold, superb clarity. No head formation

Aroma - Hints at its sweetness, an appley/pear aroma that really hits you in the face, with a wisp of oakiness in the finish

Taste - Moderately sweet, fairly strong apple/pear flavor. I could easily pass it off as either. A bit of acid in the finish along with subtle oak tannins cutting the sweetness. It seems to have a very low level cellar-like quality that makes me think there may be a brett presence in the cider.

Mouthfeel - Moderately full, even with next to no carbonation. This is from all those unfermentable sugars in pears and it really makes the mouthfeel quite silky.

Drinkability - Great first attempt at a perry. Both versions are quite different from one another (other one is very fizzy) Each definitely has a different time and place. This version is great with a nice dinner or as a sipper on its own

Overall - Somehow this perry could be considered the best apple cider Ive ever brewed! I really like the sweetness of the pears and how the subtle oak perfectly balances. The low carbonation fits the flavor profile very well, and I'm very interested in seeing how this one progress, provided there is really brett in there

Brewday - Recipe & Notes - 11/15/2010

Wandering, Translating, and Drinking.......

noreply@blogger.com (Ryan) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:19:43 PDT

The posts have been few and far between this summer. Somehow I think it's gotten hotter here in the Desert this year, and it can be tricky to brew when your tap water is pushing 85F! Let alone wanting to deal with standing around a propane burner when its 115F. Luckily I was traveling a lot for work and pleasure this summer AND had managed to stock up on beer during the spring.

Unfortunately I'm running really low on homebrew (well at least on tap!) and I need to get out and brew. In all my wanderings this summer I had a chance to try a myriad of different brewpubs and interesting takes on different styles. All in all it was a good experience and all the different brewpubs I tried really help to get the creative juices flowing again. I cant recall all the names any longer but there were quite a few (Chicago, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Pinedale WY, Salt Lake City, Lihue HI, Flagstaff, Cheyenne, Daytona Beach, Waimea HI, Los Angeles, Layton) . What can I say I'm a sucker for a brewpub!

While I may not have done much brewing, or drinking of my own stuff (yet it all disappeared) I was somewhat busy with brewing related activities. Ive been working on a translation of a brewing text from the late 1700's. Admittedly its going a tad slow. But I'm hoping to step up the translation processes a bit in the next month or two. Its a dissertation on the method of brewing a type of sour beer style that seems to have died out or been absorbed into other styles, however it does have a few very interesting and unique properties. I will give a teaser below, eventually I will offer a full download of the translated text for anyone interested.

I'm hoping to brew up at least one new beer in the next week or so. I will be traveling a bit again in the near future so I'm guessing that lots of beer reviews will be popping up soon (Sauerkraut Gose, Corn Kölsch, Dark Table Beer, Smoke Sticke, Kriek, Unblended lambic)