Like so many other industries, the homebrewing industry changed a lot during and after the recession. Where there used to be few dedicated local suppliers of homebrewing equipment and ingredients, now there are many (though this may be changing). And while we have had a handful of online suppliers for quite some time (MoreBeer comes to mind), there are plenty of suppliers who are either new or who upped their online game considerably (e.g., Williams Brewing used to be primarily a catalog business). When I started brewing, there was one local shop I went to and I bought everything from them. I no longer live in California, but I still love this shop, especially for the people who work there and who helped me get into this great hobby.
But once I got really into the hobby, I realized that there was a better way to get certain supplies. And while buying whole sacks of base malt is great, I can appreciate the hassle that it represents. However, keeping dry yeast in the fridge and buying hops in bulk has saved me money, time, and has made it easier for me to get ready to brew on a moment's notice. I recommend keeping 2-6 sachets of dry yeast on hand (US-05, S-04, BRY-97, London ESB, Belle Saison, and Abbaye are all good options). I keep base malt on hand, too, so I am always ready to brew SOMETHING, even if I am alone and the LHBS is closed. If you are an extract brewer, it won't hurt to start buying dry malt extract in bulk, provided you don't let it go stale.
This is my guide to buying and using hops in homebrew for the casual brewer. Now, I am going to assume for the rest of this blog that everyone is brewing 5-gallon batches of beer, even though I brew 12-gallon batches. I am also going to assume that everyone brews once per month. If you brew more or less than this, consider changing the numbers I am recommending.
You will need to have an answer for these questions:
1. What kinds of beers do I generally brew?
2. How much freezer space to I have?
3. What kind of hops (whole/pellet) works best with my system?
First of all, everyone should be buying their hops in bulk online from hop retailers like Hops Direct and Yakima Valley Hops. There used to be a few more hop farms I recommended in the past, but today these are the two I find the most reliable and affordable. In general, Hops Direct has better prices and Yakima Valley Hops has better selection. I recommend you buy from either or both. And get a decent kitchen scale to measure your hops. Anything digital that goes to grams will work - it will also make you a better baker and coffee brewer to have one of these around.
Not only will this save you considerable money (I can pay $2.25/oz for Cascade at my LHBS or buy a pound for $9.60 at HopsDirect), but having the hops on-hand will allow you to brew whenever you want. No worrying about what they have available at the LHBS and no more getting not-too-fresh hops delivered from the online homebrew supplier. You will build your recipes (or sub when necessary) with all the ingredients you have.
Secondly, everyone who brews hoppy beers or high gravity beers should be buying a CO2-extracted hop resin. You can get the bitterness you need from these guys and not waste the kettle space with wort-absorbing hops. This is especially important if you are a whole hop brewer or someone who brews more than 100 gallons per year. That said, if you fill up some cappable oral syringes with the resin, then you put those filled syringes in a freezer bag and toss it in the fridge, they will keep very well for several years without losing much bittering potential and they take up very little space. If you're suspicious, just try one tube for your next batch and see how you feel about it. FWIW, I would describe the bittering of this resin to be similar to Warrior or Magnum.
If you are not planning to get a CO2 extract for bittering, then get an extra lb of nice clean bittering hops. Magnum, Warrior, Nugget, CTZ, and Apollo are all excellent choices in most circumstances. Magnum, Warrior, and Northern Brewer are very neutral and will leave very little aroma when boiled 60 or 90 minutes. CTZ may be a slightly bolder bitterer and has some lingering aroma, but this will rarely be a problem for a novice brewer. I would recommend Apollo over the others for most novice brewers because you can use less of it and it keeps very well and can double as an aroma hop. If you're only really into lagers and European styles, I would recommend Magnum.
Third, North American and European hops are harvested in the autumn (usually September and October) and they are usually available for sale in October and November (whole hops are typically made available before pelleted hops). Hops from the southern hemisphere (mostly New Zealand and Australia) are harvested during their autumn, and usually become available for purchase in March and April from the above hop distributers. You should plan to buy your hops accordingly. Buying one year's worth of hops in the fall works, but if you want to be guaranteed the freshest southern hemisphere hops, putting in one order in April and one in November is also a decent way to go.
Now, what kinds of beers do you brew?
If you brew mostly hoppy styles of beer like IPA, American Pale Ale, and Arrogant Bastard-inspired strong ales; you will need about 8 oz (6-12) of bold new world hops per batch. Planning for 8 oz per batch means you can buy 5-6 lbs of hops per year in bulk. If you run out before August (when the next year's US crop becomes available), you can always order a pound or two of Australian and New Zealand hops (Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin are my favorite "down under" varietals), since they are harvested in February/March and typically only available in April.
Since you're looking to buy 5-6 lbs of hops, you will want 3 lbs each of bold aroma/dual use varieties you know you love for your hop-forward beers. You will also want 1-2 pounds of pleasing "everyday" American hops for pale ale, brown ale, and stout. And it won't hurt to have 1-2 lbs of "noble type" or "English-type" hops for styles that just won't taste right with fruity new world hops.
If you brew only lagers and other continental styles of beer like Belgian ales, Altbier, Kölsch, Weissbier, and related American styles (California Common comes to mind), you will use less hops per batch. In this instance you could likely get by with 1-3 lbs of hops, and you should choose all Noble or English-style hops. Frankly, 1 lb of Northern Brewer and 1 lb of Hallertauer or Tettnanger would likely keep the lager brewer happy for 10-12 batches, but an additional lb of Sterling or Saphir wouldn't break the bank.
If you brew mostly balanced English and American ales, with the occasional lager or IPA, then you will need 1-2 lbs of great bold hops and another 1-2 lbs of everyday US hops. It would help to have a lb or two of English or Noble-type hops too. 1 lb of Citra, 1 lb of Mosaic, 1 lb of Cascade, 1 lb of Centennial, and 1 lb of Crystal would probably do you fine, but you could use more traditional "C" hops or more bold "IPA hops" like Simcoe and Apollo if you wanted. If you tend to brew more Likewise, going with more "English-style" hops can help build a nice balanced hop profile for a number of beers (Cascade + Willamette is a classic blend). Or you could just buy up 5 lbs of cheap, delicious cascade and probably brew a lot of great styles with just that.
If you don't know what you want to brew, then I would recommend you get yourself 2 lbs of bold new world hops, 2 lbs of everyday American hops, 1 lb of a genuine European noble hop (I like Tettnanger) and 1 lb of an American-grown Noble/English-type hop like Willamette. Mosaic, Citra, Cascade, Chinook, Saaz, and Willamette will probably allow you to brew whatever you want for a year.
Bold New World Hops: Personally, I would go with Simcoe, Mosaic, and Amarillo. I also adore Nelson Sauvin and Galaxy, so I would shoot for choosing at least 3 of those five varieties, depending on availability. Citra, Apollo, Summit, Chinook, and CTZ (Columbus, Tomahawk, or Zeus) are also all solid options, but they are less universally-enjoyed, so only choose them if you like them.
Everyday American Hops: These hops will also work well for IPA, but their use in moderation will also work great for more balanced beers like a clone of Mirror Pond or a nicely balanced American porter or stout. Cascade, Centennial, and Amarillo are all great everyday hops. You can use these in almost any US-style craft beer and they will taste great. Use them in the boil, at flameout, or dry and they will work well. Cascade is also cheap, easy to find, and one of the easiest hops to grow yourself, should you ever try that hobby out. Personally, I try to always have Cascade on hand.
Noble or English Type Hops: There are two schools of thought here. Some people like to buy genuine European hops for brewing European styles. Others (like me) like to buy American hops that taste and smell similar to European hops to brew those styles. If you're from the former camp, consider that the Belgians use hops from all over Europe in their classic beers and that British brewers rely mostly on English hops for traditional ales (though they are increasingly using American and Oceanic hops). Germans prefer German and Czech hops and so on.
For versatility, I would choose from these continental varietals: Tettnanger, Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, Spalt, and Saphir. Any of these would be perfectly at hops in a lager or a Belgian ale, and they would also do well in a crisp blond ale or something like a Kölsch or Altbier. And no one will complain if you are using any of these as a subtle addition to a brown ale or stout, regardless of intended national "style origin."
For bitters and other British styles, and just about any Belgian ale (or as a "back up player" in an American style), these are good choices: East Kent Goldings, Fuggles, First Gold, or Styrian Goldings are a few good options.
If you are looking to brew an authentic Czech lager, you need Saaz.
For the latter camp (like me), and you want US-Grown Noble or English-Type Hops, I like to choose from these varieties for lagers, Belgians, and English-style ales: Mt. Hood, Ultra, Sterling, or Crystal. The best choices for English-style ales, which also work in American style ales are: Crystal, Willamette, Glacier, and US Goldings. Sterling is my recommendation for attempting a Czech pilsner without buying European Saaz hops. This is also a variety where I will frequently try something new rather than going with an old standby.
For what it's worth, this season I just bought Willamette, Bravo, US Goldings, Mosaic, Simcoe, Amarillo, and Chinook.
If you have a ton of freezer space, you can brew with whatever you want. If you want to stick to 100% whole hops, go ahead. But if you are limited in your freezer space, you will want to stick to pellet hops. They take up much less space, though they can be difficult to use with some systems. Basially, filtering out pellet hops can be hard. You can use a hop bag or another fine mesh steel instrument to encase the pelletized hops, but that reduces contact with the wort (reducing effectiveness of the hops). You can also run a whirlpool post-boil to try to corral most of the hop matter into the center of your kettle, but this is far from foolproof.
If you do not use a pump, then simply using a pickup tube of some kind and using hop bags or muslin bags will work. Or you can use a filtered pickup of some kind, like a kettle screen or a false bottom. With a filtered pickup system and whole hops, you will do great just letting the hops go free, provided everything is gravity-fed and there is no pump. Once you start using a pump, things get more complicated. You will need to use some combination of filtration and hop containment and you may decide you like one style of hop better for certain situations. For dry hopping, either works well, but you will need some sort of racking cane screen to filter whole hops out of your beer when you bottle or keg. Dry hops may take a long while to fall to the bottom of your fermenter if you can't cold crash them.
Friday, December 9, 2016
The Fun Factor (or, Keeping Homebrewing Approachable)
Not only have I found I rarely have the effort/energy/time to blog about brewing anymore, but there are a ton of way better homebrewing blogs out there, like Brülosophy that a "general experience" homebrewing blog like mine doesn't seem very relevant anymore. I love this current crop of homebrew blogs. For a decade-long brewer who deeply enjoys both the scientific and culinary aspects of this hobby (not to mention the deeper historical and cultural impact of beer in the western world), I find these popular blogs to be 100 times better than mine ever was and I don't believe I would ever be willing to devote the time and energy (let alone keg space) to producing a blog that could even approach the quality of Brülosophy or Shut Up About Barclay Perkins.
And so, I let my blog wither away without caring too much about it.
Then when I read about the homebrewing industry hitting hard times, and when longtime online homebrewing supply store Northern Brewer was purchased by AB-InBev, I started to worry about the health of this hobby in a future where AB-InBev controls our homebrewing supplies. And so now I wonder if the blogs that appeal to a seasoned brewer like me might not be a little intense for a newbie brewer or a casual (couple times a year) homebrewer. Obviously the health of this hobby relies on maintaining a steady supply of new and casual homebrewers joining the party. So while many newer, better blogs aim at improving brewing results through the use of science and controlled experimentation, they don't always focus on improving the experience of the homebrewing process by keeping the hobby inexpensive and easy. In part, this can be because successful bloggers often get equipment and ingredients for free or at a discount.
Since this hobby is recessing a bit right now, and keeping casual homebrewers is an important goal, this blog will be primarily focused on the fun (and cheap) aspects of the hobby. I don't know if I will be able to produce more than a few posts a year, but my goal will be to produce one post every month, either about brewing or about craft beer, generally.
And so, I let my blog wither away without caring too much about it.
Then when I read about the homebrewing industry hitting hard times, and when longtime online homebrewing supply store Northern Brewer was purchased by AB-InBev, I started to worry about the health of this hobby in a future where AB-InBev controls our homebrewing supplies. And so now I wonder if the blogs that appeal to a seasoned brewer like me might not be a little intense for a newbie brewer or a casual (couple times a year) homebrewer. Obviously the health of this hobby relies on maintaining a steady supply of new and casual homebrewers joining the party. So while many newer, better blogs aim at improving brewing results through the use of science and controlled experimentation, they don't always focus on improving the experience of the homebrewing process by keeping the hobby inexpensive and easy. In part, this can be because successful bloggers often get equipment and ingredients for free or at a discount.
Since this hobby is recessing a bit right now, and keeping casual homebrewers is an important goal, this blog will be primarily focused on the fun (and cheap) aspects of the hobby. I don't know if I will be able to produce more than a few posts a year, but my goal will be to produce one post every month, either about brewing or about craft beer, generally.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Brewing a White India Session Ale
It's been over two years since I updated this blog. I've brewed plenty in that time, but I haven't felt like I had enough free time to justify blogging about it. I can't honestly say how often this blog will get updated this year or in the future, but I would like to further educate enjoy this hobby online.
My wife and I just moved into our new (109 year-old) house and we're having a housewarming party real soon. So, I figured I would brew up a couple beers for the event. Since I don't have much time (the party is in 8 days), I decided to brew a beer that would ferment quickly and would be acceptable cloudy. I decided to go with a wheat beer base and late hop it like an IPA while bittering it like an American pale ale, to keep it reasonably balanced.
Rather than using primarily unmalted wheat, as in a witbier, or entirely using wheat malt, as in a hefeweizen; I decided to use mostly wheat malt, supplemented with some unmalted (torrified) wheat and some flaked oats. And since I had some American (Great Western) Pale Ale malt leftover from my last 50lb sack purchase, I opted for that rather than the more traditional pilsner malt of a witbier or hefeweizen base. I shot for a 1.040 base, but somehow ended up with about 1.032, which is fine for a session ale, but surprisingly low efficiency and a great deal smaller than I was shooting for. In this way, my malt bill is a hybrid between a bitter, American pale ale, witbier, and hefeweizen. In addition to a strange malt bill, I used a strange (for me) mash schedule, called a Hochkurz Mash. I mashed for 60 min at 144 and then for 30 min at 165. I assumed this would give me a dextrinous and highly fermentable wort (ideal for a session wheat beer), but my efficiency was stupid low, which makes me think I might have been better off with a single 152F infusion (of course the smallish percentage of pale ale malt compared to the massive amount of wheat malt and unmalted oats and wheat could have something to do with the low efficiency). The good news is a smaller beer ferments faster, so I may well be able to turn this around in the 8 days I have before the party.
As far as hopping this beer, I originally wanted to feature Ahtanum hops, with small amounts of Amarillo and Citra to give a bold, fruity aroma. But then my wife's coworker (and our new neighbor) brought over some freshly-picked wet hops - a mix of American varieties (mostly cascade, I believe). This is just the right amount of fresh hops for a nice flameout addition of a hoppy beer like the one I'm brewing today, so I altered the whole recipe, simplifying and using mostly Amarillo and cascade in the kettle, with the plan to dry hop, ever so briefly, with Amarillo and a touch of Columbus and Citra. Aside from the wet hops, all these hops are 2014 harvest stored in ziploc bags in freezers.
So here's the recipe (~11 gallons):
8 lbs Great Western White Wheat Malt
7 lbs 12 oz Great Western Pale Ale Malt
1 lb Great Western Torrified Wheat
1 lb Flaked Oats
4 oz Weyermann Sauermaltz (Acidulated Malt)
60g Cascade (8.8% AA) 90 min
50g Cascade (8.8% AA) 10 min
70g Amarillo (7.3% AA) 10 min
680g Wet Cascade (?% AA) 0 min (whirlpooled at 180F for 45 min)
90g Amarillo (7.3% AA) dry
30g Citra (12.3% AA) dry
Split - half fermented with Imperial A15 Independence at 64-66F and half with Imperial B45 Gnome 68-70F.
I am going to reuse these yeasties soon. I think a straightforward Mosaic/Ahtanum IPA is in order, followed by a Belgian Blond or maybe a singel.
My wife and I just moved into our new (109 year-old) house and we're having a housewarming party real soon. So, I figured I would brew up a couple beers for the event. Since I don't have much time (the party is in 8 days), I decided to brew a beer that would ferment quickly and would be acceptable cloudy. I decided to go with a wheat beer base and late hop it like an IPA while bittering it like an American pale ale, to keep it reasonably balanced.
Rather than using primarily unmalted wheat, as in a witbier, or entirely using wheat malt, as in a hefeweizen; I decided to use mostly wheat malt, supplemented with some unmalted (torrified) wheat and some flaked oats. And since I had some American (Great Western) Pale Ale malt leftover from my last 50lb sack purchase, I opted for that rather than the more traditional pilsner malt of a witbier or hefeweizen base. I shot for a 1.040 base, but somehow ended up with about 1.032, which is fine for a session ale, but surprisingly low efficiency and a great deal smaller than I was shooting for. In this way, my malt bill is a hybrid between a bitter, American pale ale, witbier, and hefeweizen. In addition to a strange malt bill, I used a strange (for me) mash schedule, called a Hochkurz Mash. I mashed for 60 min at 144 and then for 30 min at 165. I assumed this would give me a dextrinous and highly fermentable wort (ideal for a session wheat beer), but my efficiency was stupid low, which makes me think I might have been better off with a single 152F infusion (of course the smallish percentage of pale ale malt compared to the massive amount of wheat malt and unmalted oats and wheat could have something to do with the low efficiency). The good news is a smaller beer ferments faster, so I may well be able to turn this around in the 8 days I have before the party.
As far as hopping this beer, I originally wanted to feature Ahtanum hops, with small amounts of Amarillo and Citra to give a bold, fruity aroma. But then my wife's coworker (and our new neighbor) brought over some freshly-picked wet hops - a mix of American varieties (mostly cascade, I believe). This is just the right amount of fresh hops for a nice flameout addition of a hoppy beer like the one I'm brewing today, so I altered the whole recipe, simplifying and using mostly Amarillo and cascade in the kettle, with the plan to dry hop, ever so briefly, with Amarillo and a touch of Columbus and Citra. Aside from the wet hops, all these hops are 2014 harvest stored in ziploc bags in freezers.
So here's the recipe (~11 gallons):
8 lbs Great Western White Wheat Malt
7 lbs 12 oz Great Western Pale Ale Malt
1 lb Great Western Torrified Wheat
1 lb Flaked Oats
4 oz Weyermann Sauermaltz (Acidulated Malt)
60g Cascade (8.8% AA) 90 min
50g Cascade (8.8% AA) 10 min
70g Amarillo (7.3% AA) 10 min
680g Wet Cascade (?% AA) 0 min (whirlpooled at 180F for 45 min)
90g Amarillo (7.3% AA) dry
30g Citra (12.3% AA) dry
Split - half fermented with Imperial A15 Independence at 64-66F and half with Imperial B45 Gnome 68-70F.
I am going to reuse these yeasties soon. I think a straightforward Mosaic/Ahtanum IPA is in order, followed by a Belgian Blond or maybe a singel.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Encountering Old Problems (or, How I Dealt With Two Blowoffs in a Row After Nearly 3 Years Without Needing One)
It is a common occurrence for the novice homebrewer. You boil your wort, add some hops, and chill it down to a pitchable temperature, then you add your yeast and check up the next day after work, to see if the fermentation has started... only to find that the beer has fermented so aggressively that yeast and beer are literally shooting out of the airlock and all over your closet. Sometimes the ferment is so great that the airlock and rubber stopper are sitting on the floor while a bubbly mess of muddy-looking yeast is spewing out of your carboy like some horrible Irish volcano.
This is called a blowoff, and it is a relatively avoidable problem. Blowoffs are caused by an active fermentation, as the CO2 produced by the yeast attempts to come out of solution by bubbling out the fermenting beer. This foamy yeast layer on the top of the beer is called krausen, and it is normally a sign of a healthy ferment. The more sugar and protein in the wort, the bigger and foamier the krausen will be. High pitching rates, warmer fermentation temperatures and certain yeast strains have also been known to cause foamier, messier krausen. As long as you are fermenting at your desired temperature with the correct amount of the proper yeast strain, the size of the krausen will not affect the beer. The trick is keeping the beer (and accompanying yeast) in the fermenter and out of the airlock.
The first time I experienced a blowoff was when I brewed my second homebrew after having taken a year-long break from the hobby (when I lived in NYC, I didn't have the space or the proper equipment to brew anything more complicated than a french press coffee). The year was 2008, I was living alone in a new city (Portland, OR), and I was spending a lot of time on homebrewing forums like Northern Brewer's Forum because I hadn't made many friends. I read about this technique called "reusing yeast" which took the yeast from the bottom of the fermenter and used it to make a fresh batch of beer. I had no idea how much I would utilize this technique in the future, but boy did I do it wrong the first time.
I proceeded to pour the fresh 72º wort from my ~1.070 chocolate stout directly on top of the full yeast cake left by my ~1.058 Amber Ale, which had just been racked to secondary. I let that stout it ferment at ambient, which was a pretty tame 58º F. Then I went out that night (because it was Halloween), came back home and cranked the heat up to 70º (because I had guests spending the night), and checked how the beer was doing the following morning. I found the airlock on the floor, a yeasty mess on the carpet, more yeast on the walls, and a sufficiently disgusting carboy. I then decided to use a blowoff to control the mess (basically a PVC tube going from the airlock hole directly into a 750L bottle filled with sanitizer and water). The next day the bottle was overflowing and making more of a mess. I then used a big 1 gal jug, which worked just fine.
Later I learned that the only guarantee to needing a blowoff is small headspace + high gravity wort + high protein grain bill + giant yeast pitch + warm fermentation temperature. I had several more blowoffs over the years, one even occurring in secondary (I guess fermentation picked back up when I racked to secondary). I would even plan for blowoffs whenever I would brew a high-gravity beer or I would leave less than 25% of the fermenter for headspace. But once I started controlling fermentation temperatures, I noticed something. When I fermented cooler (≤62º F), I wouldn't ever need a blowoff. The ferments lasted longer, but they never got out of control. And the beers ended up cleaner, too (even with "estery" English yeasts). So I started fermenting nearly everything ~2º under the recommended minimum listed on the wyeast/white labs/fermentis/danstar website. It worked. My beers improved and the messes were minimized.
Then something else happened: I stopped brewing high-gravity and high protein beers. My DIPA's got replaced by India Session Ales and APA's. My ESB's were replaced by Best Bitters. My Porter shrunk from its original 1.066 OG to a mere 1.052. I stopped brewing witbiers and Dubbels. My stouts were no longer Imperial. And my liver was thankful. No doubt this was in response to the Imperial-everything trend, and the fact that I found a nice IPA easier and easier to buy (and a fine session ale increasingly difficult to locate). But then I started brewing with someone else, and we started to retread the old trend of bigger, bolder beers. Our first co-brew was a big West Coast IPA, followed by a Rye APA, then we went on to do a Tripel, followed by a 1.062 version of my Grey Skies Porter, and not long after that, we did an Imperial Stout.
It was inevitable. I was going to brew up another blowoff. It was the Imperial Stout that did it. My kettle was filled almost to the brim with high gravity wort, and I pitched a tremendous amount of fresh yeast slurry. The blowoff started less than 8 hours after pitching the yeast. I had to build a blowoff for the first time since 2010. It was balls.
My very next brew was one I had been planning for a long time - I wanted to do a Black IPA with sinamar as the sole "roast" agent. But I ended up somehow putting nearly a gallon more wort in my fermenter than I typically do. Somehow I had boiled off 40% less than expected fascinating, I know. I proceeded to pitch about a pint of thick, hoppy slurry I got from Reuben at Triple Rock. So what happened? More blowoff. This time fermentation began within 8 hours of pitching (wort was 60º F when I pitched the yeast, and the fermentation chamber was set to 56º F). One hour after I noticed fermentation began, I found it had begun to blowoff. I quickly built a new blowoff setup and went on my merry way.
So the lesson in all of this? Yeast is alive and humans are forgetful. Try to remember that, just because you haven't had a brewing mishap for a while doesn't mean you'll never have it again.
This is called a blowoff, and it is a relatively avoidable problem. Blowoffs are caused by an active fermentation, as the CO2 produced by the yeast attempts to come out of solution by bubbling out the fermenting beer. This foamy yeast layer on the top of the beer is called krausen, and it is normally a sign of a healthy ferment. The more sugar and protein in the wort, the bigger and foamier the krausen will be. High pitching rates, warmer fermentation temperatures and certain yeast strains have also been known to cause foamier, messier krausen. As long as you are fermenting at your desired temperature with the correct amount of the proper yeast strain, the size of the krausen will not affect the beer. The trick is keeping the beer (and accompanying yeast) in the fermenter and out of the airlock.
The first time I experienced a blowoff was when I brewed my second homebrew after having taken a year-long break from the hobby (when I lived in NYC, I didn't have the space or the proper equipment to brew anything more complicated than a french press coffee). The year was 2008, I was living alone in a new city (Portland, OR), and I was spending a lot of time on homebrewing forums like Northern Brewer's Forum because I hadn't made many friends. I read about this technique called "reusing yeast" which took the yeast from the bottom of the fermenter and used it to make a fresh batch of beer. I had no idea how much I would utilize this technique in the future, but boy did I do it wrong the first time.
I proceeded to pour the fresh 72º wort from my ~1.070 chocolate stout directly on top of the full yeast cake left by my ~1.058 Amber Ale, which had just been racked to secondary. I let that stout it ferment at ambient, which was a pretty tame 58º F. Then I went out that night (because it was Halloween), came back home and cranked the heat up to 70º (because I had guests spending the night), and checked how the beer was doing the following morning. I found the airlock on the floor, a yeasty mess on the carpet, more yeast on the walls, and a sufficiently disgusting carboy. I then decided to use a blowoff to control the mess (basically a PVC tube going from the airlock hole directly into a 750L bottle filled with sanitizer and water). The next day the bottle was overflowing and making more of a mess. I then used a big 1 gal jug, which worked just fine.
Later I learned that the only guarantee to needing a blowoff is small headspace + high gravity wort + high protein grain bill + giant yeast pitch + warm fermentation temperature. I had several more blowoffs over the years, one even occurring in secondary (I guess fermentation picked back up when I racked to secondary). I would even plan for blowoffs whenever I would brew a high-gravity beer or I would leave less than 25% of the fermenter for headspace. But once I started controlling fermentation temperatures, I noticed something. When I fermented cooler (≤62º F), I wouldn't ever need a blowoff. The ferments lasted longer, but they never got out of control. And the beers ended up cleaner, too (even with "estery" English yeasts). So I started fermenting nearly everything ~2º under the recommended minimum listed on the wyeast/white labs/fermentis/danstar website. It worked. My beers improved and the messes were minimized.
Then something else happened: I stopped brewing high-gravity and high protein beers. My DIPA's got replaced by India Session Ales and APA's. My ESB's were replaced by Best Bitters. My Porter shrunk from its original 1.066 OG to a mere 1.052. I stopped brewing witbiers and Dubbels. My stouts were no longer Imperial. And my liver was thankful. No doubt this was in response to the Imperial-everything trend, and the fact that I found a nice IPA easier and easier to buy (and a fine session ale increasingly difficult to locate). But then I started brewing with someone else, and we started to retread the old trend of bigger, bolder beers. Our first co-brew was a big West Coast IPA, followed by a Rye APA, then we went on to do a Tripel, followed by a 1.062 version of my Grey Skies Porter, and not long after that, we did an Imperial Stout.
It was inevitable. I was going to brew up another blowoff. It was the Imperial Stout that did it. My kettle was filled almost to the brim with high gravity wort, and I pitched a tremendous amount of fresh yeast slurry. The blowoff started less than 8 hours after pitching the yeast. I had to build a blowoff for the first time since 2010. It was balls.
My very next brew was one I had been planning for a long time - I wanted to do a Black IPA with sinamar as the sole "roast" agent. But I ended up somehow putting nearly a gallon more wort in my fermenter than I typically do. Somehow I had boiled off 40% less than expected fascinating, I know. I proceeded to pitch about a pint of thick, hoppy slurry I got from Reuben at Triple Rock. So what happened? More blowoff. This time fermentation began within 8 hours of pitching (wort was 60º F when I pitched the yeast, and the fermentation chamber was set to 56º F). One hour after I noticed fermentation began, I found it had begun to blowoff. I quickly built a new blowoff setup and went on my merry way.
So the lesson in all of this? Yeast is alive and humans are forgetful. Try to remember that, just because you haven't had a brewing mishap for a while doesn't mean you'll never have it again.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Remembering a Lost Recipe (Old School IPA)
About a year ago, I was looking at some older (pre-2005) homebrew and craft beer IPA recipes because I remembered hating IPA so much when I was in college, and I wondered if I would like those same beers today (sure, many of them are still brewed, but the breweries were taken over by big beverage comglomerates, so the beers are of a lower quality than they once were). So I went to brew something along the lines of a 2002 American IPA, or an American IPA from the time when IPA was the next big thing and not the dominant best-selling style of craft beer (remember, this was even before "Imperial" meant anything to the average beer drinker...how far we have come in ~10 years).
I noticed that many (most?) of those older recipes had 1 lb of wheat malt per 5 gal batch. Often the notes were odd, saying something like, "a little bit of wheat to make the beer clear better" or "some wheat to ensure proper carbonation," but nonetheless, the wheat was there pretty consistently. In fact, it seemed like every recipe from that time was 1.060-1.065 and had ~1 lb of wheat, ≥1 lb of carapils, and ~1 lb of other crystal malt (usually 40L or 60L). While I find that much crystal malt excessive in a standard IPA, and the hopping rates in most recipes were not what I would want, either - mostly 60-15-0 and 60-30-15-0, with dry hopping seemingly optional - I decided to take what I learned and synthesize an "Old School IPA" recipe. I actually lost that recipe when my last laptop was stolen, but I remember the basic premise well enough.
I ended up going with a malt bill of (I think) 80% 2-row, 5% wheat malt, 5% crystal 60, 5% carapils, and 5% Munich 10L. I shot for a 1.063 OG and I believe I hit 1.062. I mashed at 150-152F (I don't recall exactly), and I employed a 90-minute boil. I used a hop schedule of 60-30-15-0-dry and I bittered with Columbus, used Centennial at 30, Cascade and Centennial at 15, and Cascade and Columbus at 0, and dry hopped with Cascade (and maybe columbus). I don't recall amounts used, but I do remember the flameout was 3 oz of hops (more than used at the time), and that the 15 min addition was just 2 oz of hops. Most of the IBU's came from the 60 min addition, and at least half of the remaining IBUs came from the 30 min addition. I bittered it to a mere 60 IBUs. The volume of dry hops was just 1 oz per 5 gal. I used WLP001 slurry.
The recipe went against a lot of my typical thinking when it comes to brewing IPA, and it came out great. It was the kind beer where I would drink 4 pints without realizing it. And despite that high volume of crystal malt, it was extremely refreshing. It wasn't the kind of "sit and think about it" IPA like Ballast Point's Sculpin or Alpine's Duet, but it also wasn't noticeably less hoppy-tasting than Racer 5 or Lagunitas IPA, and the maltiness was definitely less in-your-face than Lagunitas. The bitterness was tamer than West Coast IPA or Racer 5, but not by as much as I expected. It was a great beer for drinking, and sessionable despite its ~6.4% ABV. What I took from this brew were two things: Cascade and Columbus are incredible aroma hops (I have since used them a lot more than I did at the time), and a little wheat now goes into every hoppy beer I brew. I have since brewed similar beers with more contemporary hop profiles and less crystal malt, and I always notice the increased sessionability that I get from the the smooth texture a little wheat malt provides. And all that crystal malt made less of a difference than I expected. I think a lot of the problems people have with crystal malt in an IPA is actually a problem they have with high mash temperatures, mello bittering hops (like Magnum), poor yeast management (1 smack pack into a 1.070 IPA spells trouble) and DARK crystal malt.
So now I add crystal malt freely if I want a caramel flavor (of late I am rather fond of Carahell for hoppy beers). I use a 2-1 ratio of easy-to-buy cascade and columbus as aroma/dry hops in anything where I am shooting for a "C Hop" aroma, and I freely bitter with Columbus in any American style of ale. Do I still love Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra in an IPA? Sure. But I am happy to spend $18 on a keg of great IPA with a "C hop" aroma and flavor than $40 on a similar IPA with a great fruity "new school" hop aroma.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Perfect BJCP Guidelines [UPDATED]
I recently had the opportunity to judge some beers at the World Cup of Beer. I judged beside David Teckam, one of the most active beer judges in California. We talked a bit about the BJCP guidelines needing a little edit in the near future, and I told him about my older post about problems I saw with the guidelines. That got me to thinking: just what do the perfect guidelines look like? So here is my take on what the BJCP style list looks like.
EDIT: I have already realized an obvious flaw in my first go at this, so I will discuss it here and edit out the problem. American Pale and Amber Ales and IPA make sense to merge together from an apples/oranges perspective, but there are just too many entries in those categories to keep them tied together. So my decision is to split them up.
Category 1: Pale Lager
1A. Global Pale Lager (this includes Classic American Pilsner in addition to Light, Standard, and Premium American Light Lagers; as well as adjunct-heavy Asian and Latin American pale lagers)
1B. European Pale Lager (think "green bottle" European beers and all-malt American pale lagers, as well as dortmunder lagers)
1C. Munich Helles
1D. Pilsner (Bohemian and German)
Category 2: Amber and Dark Lager I believe that these styles can be fairly compared against each other and so they should merge.
2A. Mexican Amber Lager (note that this replaces Vienna Lager, calling it what it is)
2B. Oktoberfest
2C. California Common Lager
2D. Munich Dunkel
2E. Schwarzbier
2F. Bohemian Dark Lager (rare that I feel the need to add a missing style, but this is just obvious)
2G. International Dark Lager (this includes American Dark Lager as well as a variety of dark lager styles from places as varied as Mexico and other parts of Europe).
Category 3: Strong Lager
3A. Traditional Bock
3B. Maibock/Helles Bock
3C. Doppelbock
3D. Eisbock
3E. Malt Liquor (yes, there is a place for it in the guidelines)
3F. Baltic Porter (finally placed where it ought to be)
Category 4: Hybrid Ale
4A. Blond Ale
4B. Cream Ale
4C. Kölsch
4D. Altbier (there is no good reason to specify N. German/Dusseldorf/Münster)
Category 5: British and Irish Pale and Amber Ale
5A. Ordinary Bitter
5B. Strong Bitter
5C. Extra Strong Bitter
5D. Irish Red Ale
5E. Scottish Ale (60/-, 70/-, and 80/-)
Category 6: American Pale and Amber Ale
6A. American Pale Ale
6B. American Amber/Red Ale
6C. American Specialty Ale (this would specify clean yeast profiles and hop-forwardness, so as to be inclusive of "hoppy beers" that have no unusual adjuncts or non-beer ingredients, like Double Red Ale, India Session Ale, and Black IPA. ≤8%)
Category 7: India Pale Ale
7A. India Pale Ale (6.0%-7.9%)
7B. Imperial IPA (8%+)
Category 8: Brown Ale
8A. Mild
8B. English Brown Ale
8C. American Brown Ale
Category 9: Porter and Stout This merge is a serious no-brainer
9A. Porter (combining robust and brown)
9B. Dry Stout
9C. Sweet Stout
9D. Oatmeal Stout
9E. Extra Stout (combining foreign extra stout and American stout)
Category 10: Wheat and Rye Beer
10A. American Wheat Beer
10B. Weissbier
10C. Dunkelweizen
10D. Weizenbock
10E. Roggenbier
Category 11: Belgian Ale
11A. Witbier
11B. Saison
11C. Belgian Blond Ale
11D. Dubbel
11E. Tripel
11F. Quadrupel (replacing dark strong ale)
11G. Belgian Specialty Ale
Category 12: Sour Ale
12A. Berliner Weisse
12B. Flanders Red Ale
12C. Flanders Brown Ale/Oud Bruin
12D. Straight (Unblended) Lambic
12E. Gueuze
12F. Fruit Lambic
12E. Specialty Sour
Category 13: Strong Ale
13A. English Barleywine
13B. American Barleywine
13C. Scottish Strong Ale
13D. Imperial Stout
13E. Specialty Strong Ale (8%+)
Category 14: Flavored Beer
14A. Fruit Beer
14B. Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer
14C. Winter Ale
14D. Rauchbier
14E. Wood-aged Beer
14F. Specialty Flavored Beer
Category 15. Specialty Beer
EDIT: I have already realized an obvious flaw in my first go at this, so I will discuss it here and edit out the problem. American Pale and Amber Ales and IPA make sense to merge together from an apples/oranges perspective, but there are just too many entries in those categories to keep them tied together. So my decision is to split them up.
Category 1: Pale Lager
1A. Global Pale Lager (this includes Classic American Pilsner in addition to Light, Standard, and Premium American Light Lagers; as well as adjunct-heavy Asian and Latin American pale lagers)
1B. European Pale Lager (think "green bottle" European beers and all-malt American pale lagers, as well as dortmunder lagers)
1C. Munich Helles
1D. Pilsner (Bohemian and German)
Category 2: Amber and Dark Lager I believe that these styles can be fairly compared against each other and so they should merge.
2A. Mexican Amber Lager (note that this replaces Vienna Lager, calling it what it is)
2B. Oktoberfest
2C. California Common Lager
2D. Munich Dunkel
2E. Schwarzbier
2F. Bohemian Dark Lager (rare that I feel the need to add a missing style, but this is just obvious)
2G. International Dark Lager (this includes American Dark Lager as well as a variety of dark lager styles from places as varied as Mexico and other parts of Europe).
Category 3: Strong Lager
3A. Traditional Bock
3B. Maibock/Helles Bock
3C. Doppelbock
3D. Eisbock
3E. Malt Liquor (yes, there is a place for it in the guidelines)
3F. Baltic Porter (finally placed where it ought to be)
Category 4: Hybrid Ale
4A. Blond Ale
4B. Cream Ale
4C. Kölsch
4D. Altbier (there is no good reason to specify N. German/Dusseldorf/Münster)
Category 5: British and Irish Pale and Amber Ale
5A. Ordinary Bitter
5B. Strong Bitter
5C. Extra Strong Bitter
5D. Irish Red Ale
5E. Scottish Ale (60/-, 70/-, and 80/-)
Category 6: American Pale and Amber Ale
6A. American Pale Ale
6B. American Amber/Red Ale
6C. American Specialty Ale (this would specify clean yeast profiles and hop-forwardness, so as to be inclusive of "hoppy beers" that have no unusual adjuncts or non-beer ingredients, like Double Red Ale, India Session Ale, and Black IPA. ≤8%)
Category 7: India Pale Ale
7A. India Pale Ale (6.0%-7.9%)
7B. Imperial IPA (8%+)
Category 8: Brown Ale
8A. Mild
8B. English Brown Ale
8C. American Brown Ale
Category 9: Porter and Stout This merge is a serious no-brainer
9A. Porter (combining robust and brown)
9B. Dry Stout
9C. Sweet Stout
9D. Oatmeal Stout
9E. Extra Stout (combining foreign extra stout and American stout)
Category 10: Wheat and Rye Beer
10A. American Wheat Beer
10B. Weissbier
10C. Dunkelweizen
10D. Weizenbock
10E. Roggenbier
Category 11: Belgian Ale
11A. Witbier
11B. Saison
11C. Belgian Blond Ale
11D. Dubbel
11E. Tripel
11F. Quadrupel (replacing dark strong ale)
11G. Belgian Specialty Ale
Category 12: Sour Ale
12A. Berliner Weisse
12B. Flanders Red Ale
12C. Flanders Brown Ale/Oud Bruin
12D. Straight (Unblended) Lambic
12E. Gueuze
12F. Fruit Lambic
12E. Specialty Sour
Category 13: Strong Ale
13A. English Barleywine
13B. American Barleywine
13C. Scottish Strong Ale
13D. Imperial Stout
13E. Specialty Strong Ale (8%+)
Category 14: Flavored Beer
14A. Fruit Beer
14B. Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer
14C. Winter Ale
14D. Rauchbier
14E. Wood-aged Beer
14F. Specialty Flavored Beer
Category 15. Specialty Beer
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Brewing a Classic American Craft Beer Style: American Amber Ale
While the American macro-brewing tradition traces its origin to German immigrants attempting to recreate German pale lagers with domestic American ingredients, the modern American Craft Brewing tradition more closely follows the British ale-brewing tradition. Starting with New Albion, Anchor, Sierra Nevada, Portland Brewing (now owned by a large beverage conglomerate and operated by Pyramid), Roaring Rock (now Triple Rock), and the Hopland Brewery (now Mendocino Brewing Company); the first post-prohibition US craft beer styles were American takes on English pale ale (bitter) and porter.
Early on there was no distinction between Pale and Amber ales. The term "amber ale" came about to account for the difficulty found by some brewing pioneers marketing a copper-colored "pale ale" to people who were used to straw-colored beer. The breweries all had different ways of marketing their products. While some breweries (notably Anchor and New Albion) simply called their Pale Ales "Ale" with the understanding that customers would associate an ale with "pale ale" due largely to the renown of Bass Ale from England (truly a hallmark of the style for over a century until some beverage conglomerate took over and reduced the brand to its current state). "Amber" slowly came to define those beers that were deep gold and copper-colored beers, while "Red" came to define those that were between copper and light brown. An today "red" and "amber" are basically synonymous (~SRM 10-16) with "pale" usually being reserved for light or deep golden-colored beers (~SRM 4-8).
By the time I came of legal age (2004) American craft brewers settled into the divergent "pale ale" styles of American Pale Ale, American Amber/Red Ale, and American Blond Ale (which developed to account for extra pale, light-bodied ales). They were all made from mostly domestic 2-row and they were all usually hopped with the "new" American cascade hop, that came to define and influence American brewing for the next two plus decades.
Today a blond is brewed with usually 100% 2-row, or occasionally pilsner malt; a dose of wheat perhaps; and possibly a pinch of very light crystal or carapils malt. Blonds are usually low-bodied and not very hoppy. They tend to be subtle, restrained beers - owing their heritage as much to the pale lagers of Milwaukee and St. Louis as they do to the pale ales of Britain.
Pale Ales came to be defined by a medium body, made from mostly 2-row and a touch of crystal malt, generously hopped with cascade hops (later other domestic hops became associated with the style, as well). Pale Ales today are frequently dry hopped, but this was not in common practice in the halcyon 1980's when the style really came into its own.
American Amber Ales (sometimes still called "red ales") are usually maltier versions of American Pale Ales. Probably the truest to its roots as an American take on English Bitters, the best Amber Ales are balanced, with a medium body, rich malt backbone, and the unique aroma and flavor of modern American hops. Most of the originals featured cascades again, but several are made with milder more "English" domestic hops like Willamette or Glacier. Others are made with bolder contemporary American hops like Citra or Simcoe. The malt bill is typically domestic 2-row and crystal malt, but many feature some Munich Malt (usually domestic 10L), a small amount of wheat malt, and/or some dark malt to help color the beer. The beers are usually bittered for balance, with low to moderate hop aroma and flavor. Dry hopping is optional, but somewhat rare in the style.
While most breweries either had a "pale ale" style of pale ale or an "amber ale" style of pale ale, today many breweries have both. As such, the styles have further diverged and Amber Ales have taken the short end of the stick. Often they are a brewery's "girl beer" for "BMC drinkers." They are often cheap on hops, overly sweet, and clearly not brewed to "wow" any beer geeks, but to produce something palatable for guests who do not generally like beer or hop bitterness. And that's fine. Not every beer needs to be something I find delicious. My problem is that, as American brewers have stepped beyond the British origins of American craft beer with the rise of American IPA, the decline of balanced American Amber Ales, and the near-death of American Brown Ale; bars and breweries rarely have a truly balanced ale on their taplist.
Homebrewing to the rescue. A well done American Amber Ale provides a gentle hop punch, a solid (but not overwhelming) malt backbone, and a body and ABV that lends itself to easy drinking. My take on American Amber Ale features the best attributes of American Pale Ale, Düsseldorf Altbier, and English Bitter. It is clean, fairly dry, medium-bodied, with a rich malt flavor and a distinct cascade hop aroma and flavor. A while back I "settled" on a malt bill of 8% British medium crystal malt, 1% carafa special II, 20-25% Munich malt, and a base of American pale malt (2-row or pale ale); this time I decided to try adding a touch of wheat malt to add a little more body and head retention without deepening the flavor or adding any sweetness. My recipe is designed to be mashed between 150º F and 152º F, aiming for a somewhat dry finished product. I bitter the beer with the smooth (but not too smooth) super-alpha Summit, which was not available to brewers in the 1980's. And I feature cascades in the beer as first wort hops, 5 min hops, and flameout hops (a hop schedule that is itself a curious mix of 1980's and 2010's). Since I am brewing 12 gallons, I initially intended to dry hop only half of the amber ale, for the sake of comparing the two.
The brewday was distracting, to say the least. My fiancée was having a bridal shower at the same time as I was brewing, and her dad and uncle were hanging out with me during most of the brewing process. Since I made a few bonehead mistakes before mashing in that wasted over an hour, I decided to cut my usual 90 minute boil down to 60 minutes, and I didn't really compensate for the reduced evaporation (I boiled a bit more aggressively than usual, but that didn't increase the evaporation rate by enough). As a result, I ended up with a little more slightly lower-gravity beer than planned. No problem, though, because the recipe was for a beer on the big end of the style.
I pitched some second-generation BRY-97 and fermented at 62F. After 3 days, the majority of fermentation appeared complete, so I pulled the fermenters out of the fermentation freezer and let them finish up at ambient for a couple days until the majority of the yeast appeared to floc out. At that point, I put one of the buckets back into the fermentation fridge at 34º F to help the yeast floc out of suspension to aid in both harvesting the yeast for an upcoming IPA and to clear the beer for future consumption.
I was planning on drinking one of these soon and dry hopping the second, but now I am considering just dry hopping both of them, as my taps are full and there isn't a free keg to put the beer in.
Early on there was no distinction between Pale and Amber ales. The term "amber ale" came about to account for the difficulty found by some brewing pioneers marketing a copper-colored "pale ale" to people who were used to straw-colored beer. The breweries all had different ways of marketing their products. While some breweries (notably Anchor and New Albion) simply called their Pale Ales "Ale" with the understanding that customers would associate an ale with "pale ale" due largely to the renown of Bass Ale from England (truly a hallmark of the style for over a century until some beverage conglomerate took over and reduced the brand to its current state). "Amber" slowly came to define those beers that were deep gold and copper-colored beers, while "Red" came to define those that were between copper and light brown. An today "red" and "amber" are basically synonymous (~SRM 10-16) with "pale" usually being reserved for light or deep golden-colored beers (~SRM 4-8).
By the time I came of legal age (2004) American craft brewers settled into the divergent "pale ale" styles of American Pale Ale, American Amber/Red Ale, and American Blond Ale (which developed to account for extra pale, light-bodied ales). They were all made from mostly domestic 2-row and they were all usually hopped with the "new" American cascade hop, that came to define and influence American brewing for the next two plus decades.
Today a blond is brewed with usually 100% 2-row, or occasionally pilsner malt; a dose of wheat perhaps; and possibly a pinch of very light crystal or carapils malt. Blonds are usually low-bodied and not very hoppy. They tend to be subtle, restrained beers - owing their heritage as much to the pale lagers of Milwaukee and St. Louis as they do to the pale ales of Britain.
Pale Ales came to be defined by a medium body, made from mostly 2-row and a touch of crystal malt, generously hopped with cascade hops (later other domestic hops became associated with the style, as well). Pale Ales today are frequently dry hopped, but this was not in common practice in the halcyon 1980's when the style really came into its own.
American Amber Ales (sometimes still called "red ales") are usually maltier versions of American Pale Ales. Probably the truest to its roots as an American take on English Bitters, the best Amber Ales are balanced, with a medium body, rich malt backbone, and the unique aroma and flavor of modern American hops. Most of the originals featured cascades again, but several are made with milder more "English" domestic hops like Willamette or Glacier. Others are made with bolder contemporary American hops like Citra or Simcoe. The malt bill is typically domestic 2-row and crystal malt, but many feature some Munich Malt (usually domestic 10L), a small amount of wheat malt, and/or some dark malt to help color the beer. The beers are usually bittered for balance, with low to moderate hop aroma and flavor. Dry hopping is optional, but somewhat rare in the style.
While most breweries either had a "pale ale" style of pale ale or an "amber ale" style of pale ale, today many breweries have both. As such, the styles have further diverged and Amber Ales have taken the short end of the stick. Often they are a brewery's "girl beer" for "BMC drinkers." They are often cheap on hops, overly sweet, and clearly not brewed to "wow" any beer geeks, but to produce something palatable for guests who do not generally like beer or hop bitterness. And that's fine. Not every beer needs to be something I find delicious. My problem is that, as American brewers have stepped beyond the British origins of American craft beer with the rise of American IPA, the decline of balanced American Amber Ales, and the near-death of American Brown Ale; bars and breweries rarely have a truly balanced ale on their taplist.
Homebrewing to the rescue. A well done American Amber Ale provides a gentle hop punch, a solid (but not overwhelming) malt backbone, and a body and ABV that lends itself to easy drinking. My take on American Amber Ale features the best attributes of American Pale Ale, Düsseldorf Altbier, and English Bitter. It is clean, fairly dry, medium-bodied, with a rich malt flavor and a distinct cascade hop aroma and flavor. A while back I "settled" on a malt bill of 8% British medium crystal malt, 1% carafa special II, 20-25% Munich malt, and a base of American pale malt (2-row or pale ale); this time I decided to try adding a touch of wheat malt to add a little more body and head retention without deepening the flavor or adding any sweetness. My recipe is designed to be mashed between 150º F and 152º F, aiming for a somewhat dry finished product. I bitter the beer with the smooth (but not too smooth) super-alpha Summit, which was not available to brewers in the 1980's. And I feature cascades in the beer as first wort hops, 5 min hops, and flameout hops (a hop schedule that is itself a curious mix of 1980's and 2010's). Since I am brewing 12 gallons, I initially intended to dry hop only half of the amber ale, for the sake of comparing the two.
The brewday was distracting, to say the least. My fiancée was having a bridal shower at the same time as I was brewing, and her dad and uncle were hanging out with me during most of the brewing process. Since I made a few bonehead mistakes before mashing in that wasted over an hour, I decided to cut my usual 90 minute boil down to 60 minutes, and I didn't really compensate for the reduced evaporation (I boiled a bit more aggressively than usual, but that didn't increase the evaporation rate by enough). As a result, I ended up with a little more slightly lower-gravity beer than planned. No problem, though, because the recipe was for a beer on the big end of the style.
I pitched some second-generation BRY-97 and fermented at 62F. After 3 days, the majority of fermentation appeared complete, so I pulled the fermenters out of the fermentation freezer and let them finish up at ambient for a couple days until the majority of the yeast appeared to floc out. At that point, I put one of the buckets back into the fermentation fridge at 34º F to help the yeast floc out of suspension to aid in both harvesting the yeast for an upcoming IPA and to clear the beer for future consumption.
I was planning on drinking one of these soon and dry hopping the second, but now I am considering just dry hopping both of them, as my taps are full and there isn't a free keg to put the beer in.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Brewing Like a Belgian
Oh Belgium. Just a decade ago their beers were all but unknown to the average American drinker. Today we all know Belgium to be the Holy Grail of boundary-pushing excellence in the European brewing art. So off-kilter is Belgium's brewing tradition, and so successful, that we Americans have established defined "style guidelines" to create their micro-nation-specific styles of beer. The grandest of which are the three great Trappist styles: Dubbel (double), Tripel (triple), and Belgian Dark Strong Ale (sometimes synonymous with Quadrupel or Quadruple).
My brew-buddy Patrick and I decided to brew a Tripel. Neither of us are particularly into super-boozy giant beers, so we kept it on the small side. Our intention was to brew a 1.075 beer. However, this was our first time with a new mill and a new mash tun, and we ended up with a slightly lower efficiency than expected, and that took us to an out-of-style (by BJCP standards, not Belgian standards) 1.073 Tripel.
For the recipe, we went with a pretty standard base of Pilsner Malt (Weyermann) and pinch of Munich. We also added a touch of acid malt just to ensure a good pH. We mashed low (149º F) and we took a rather large liberty by deciding to add some late hops - Glacier (English-style US hop) and a little Cascade (the classic American "C" hop) were chosen to add a judicious dose of hoppy aroma to our Tripel.
Designing Great Beer Part 3: Managing Fermentation
Some people wax philosophic about brewer's yeast. Something living turns your carefully-designed wort into beer. More than any other part of the process, the yeast can make your homebrew taste like fine craft beer or "homebrew." That is to say that 90% of homebrew off flavors I encounter come from improper fermentation management. What do I mean? Let's look at what yeast needs to give you the best beer possible.
Choose the Right Yeast Strain
Want to make a great Belgian Dubbel? Use a Belgian yeast recommended for Dubbels. There are several choices and Wyeast and White Labs both have pages on their website that will help you pick the correct strain for your recipe. This isn't brain surgery, though. Many strains are very versatile. Nearly every style of lager can be effectively brewed with Wyeast 2124 or White Labs 830. Any American-style ale can be made with the renowned "Chico" strain that almost every brand of brewer's yeast produces: White Labs 001, Wyeast 1056, Safale US-05, and Danstar BRY-97. And one "trick" that I have learned is to use a clean English Ale yeast like WLP002 to make American Ales - that's what Deschute's and Ninkasi use and they are both known for producing fine American-style ales.
Pitch Enough Healthy Yeast
Another common problem people run into is pitching too little yeast and/or pitching unhealthy yeast. Despite what Wyeast and White Labs will have you believe, one "smack pack" or vial of yeast is not the ideal amount to ferment 5-6 gallons of beer. Most of the time you should ideally pitch 2-3 times as much yeast. This doesn't mean you need to buy 2-3 smack packs for every brew because you can either use a pack of dry yeast (Safale and Danstar yeast sachets really do contain enough yeast for 5-6 gal of beer up to 1.060), or you can make a yeast starter to build up more healthy yeast to pitch into your beer. Another option is to save the yeast slurry sitting on the bottom of your last batch of homebrew. The yeast you have on the bottom of your homebrew fermenter is usually healthy and there is a ton of it. Some people recommend that you only reuse yeast from beers under 1.060 OG that aren't hoppy, but, in my experience, anything under 1.070 OG can be reused just fine, hoppy or not. This is standard practice in the brewing industry. And while I avoid going more than 6 generations with my yeast, most pro brewries go 20+ generations before they start fresh. I just saved you $8 per batch of homebrew. Pitching rates (the amount of yeast you need for the beer you are producing) can be looked up in your homebrew software or at Mr. Malty.
Oxygenate Your Wort
Yeast need Oxygen to be happy. This can be achieved by adding O2 directly to your wort, or by stirring or otherwise aggressively aerating your wort to make sure their is enough oxygen in the wort to provide an ideal environment for the yeast to feast.
Pitch and Ferment at the Correct Temperature
After you made your wort, aerated id, and you are ready to pitch plenty of healthy yeast into the beer, you can still ruin your beer by fermenting at the incorrect temperature. This is the single most common brewing mishap. 9/10 homebrews I taste that I do not like were fermented too warm. Fermenting too warm can lead to the yeast producing various esters, phenols, and other off flavors, often "fruity" or "spicy," these off flavors make the beer taste unpolished, unprofessional, and like "homebrew" instead of craft beer. Yes the yeast companies tell you 65-72º F is the ideal temperature for most strains, but that is the fermentation temperature, not the ambient temperature outside the fermenter that they are describing, and they are considering fermentation in MUCH larger vessels. Larger fermenters, like a standard 10 bbl/310 gallon conical fermenter at a craft brewery, will permit higher fermentation temperatures with fewer yeast-derived off flavors. In your 5 gal carboy or 12 gallon plastic fermenter, you need to keep the temperature a few degrees cooler than that to get the cleanest flavor from most yeast strains. This often depends on the yeast strain, but I shoot for the low end of the "recommended" temperature range provided by the yeast manufacturer. How do I keep my fermentation so cool when my apartment is usually warmer than my ideal fermentation environment? I have a chest freezer with an external temperature control that I use to keep the temperature at a steady whatever-I-want-it-to-be. It looks like this (when it was in my old Portland apartment).
There are other ways of keeping your beer fermenting at the right temperature, and you can google "son of fermentation" and "homebrew swamp cooler" to find some of them.
Let It Finish
Your beer will tell you when it has finished fermenting. Krausen will fall, the airlock will stop bubbling, and you can check the gravity to make sure it stops dropping (checking once every 2 days after fermentation looks complete is a good method). Once the beer is finished, let it sit at a warm indoor temperature (~68-72º F) for a few days to make sure it cleans itself up and settles. If you can, after the beer has sat at a warmer temperature for some time, try to cool the whole fermenter down to 34º F or so. Spending a couple days at that cold temperature will help the yeast fall out of suspension and compact on the bottom of the fermenter. This makes it easier to rack the beer off of the yeast with minimal yeast tranfer (so your beer will be clearer), and the remaining yeast cake is easier to harvest for use in your next batch.
Take Care to Bottle or Keg Properly
I keg my beers and have a pretty good technique of force carbonating. But be weary of the kegs. Sometimes they can look fine, but not be perfectly sealed, causing your beer to oxygenate or spoil. You don't want this to happen, so don't let it happen. Once it is kegged or bottled and carbonated, give it a couple days cold before you pour off that first pint. Once you do, you will get a lot of the remaining suspended yeast out in the initial 4-8 oz. After that you beer will pour clearer and clearer every day. Try not to knock the keg around so you can keep it all nice and settled and the yeast doesn't get back into suspension.
Choose the Right Yeast Strain
Want to make a great Belgian Dubbel? Use a Belgian yeast recommended for Dubbels. There are several choices and Wyeast and White Labs both have pages on their website that will help you pick the correct strain for your recipe. This isn't brain surgery, though. Many strains are very versatile. Nearly every style of lager can be effectively brewed with Wyeast 2124 or White Labs 830. Any American-style ale can be made with the renowned "Chico" strain that almost every brand of brewer's yeast produces: White Labs 001, Wyeast 1056, Safale US-05, and Danstar BRY-97. And one "trick" that I have learned is to use a clean English Ale yeast like WLP002 to make American Ales - that's what Deschute's and Ninkasi use and they are both known for producing fine American-style ales.
Pitch Enough Healthy Yeast
Another common problem people run into is pitching too little yeast and/or pitching unhealthy yeast. Despite what Wyeast and White Labs will have you believe, one "smack pack" or vial of yeast is not the ideal amount to ferment 5-6 gallons of beer. Most of the time you should ideally pitch 2-3 times as much yeast. This doesn't mean you need to buy 2-3 smack packs for every brew because you can either use a pack of dry yeast (Safale and Danstar yeast sachets really do contain enough yeast for 5-6 gal of beer up to 1.060), or you can make a yeast starter to build up more healthy yeast to pitch into your beer. Another option is to save the yeast slurry sitting on the bottom of your last batch of homebrew. The yeast you have on the bottom of your homebrew fermenter is usually healthy and there is a ton of it. Some people recommend that you only reuse yeast from beers under 1.060 OG that aren't hoppy, but, in my experience, anything under 1.070 OG can be reused just fine, hoppy or not. This is standard practice in the brewing industry. And while I avoid going more than 6 generations with my yeast, most pro brewries go 20+ generations before they start fresh. I just saved you $8 per batch of homebrew. Pitching rates (the amount of yeast you need for the beer you are producing) can be looked up in your homebrew software or at Mr. Malty.
Oxygenate Your Wort
Yeast need Oxygen to be happy. This can be achieved by adding O2 directly to your wort, or by stirring or otherwise aggressively aerating your wort to make sure their is enough oxygen in the wort to provide an ideal environment for the yeast to feast.
Pitch and Ferment at the Correct Temperature
After you made your wort, aerated id, and you are ready to pitch plenty of healthy yeast into the beer, you can still ruin your beer by fermenting at the incorrect temperature. This is the single most common brewing mishap. 9/10 homebrews I taste that I do not like were fermented too warm. Fermenting too warm can lead to the yeast producing various esters, phenols, and other off flavors, often "fruity" or "spicy," these off flavors make the beer taste unpolished, unprofessional, and like "homebrew" instead of craft beer. Yes the yeast companies tell you 65-72º F is the ideal temperature for most strains, but that is the fermentation temperature, not the ambient temperature outside the fermenter that they are describing, and they are considering fermentation in MUCH larger vessels. Larger fermenters, like a standard 10 bbl/310 gallon conical fermenter at a craft brewery, will permit higher fermentation temperatures with fewer yeast-derived off flavors. In your 5 gal carboy or 12 gallon plastic fermenter, you need to keep the temperature a few degrees cooler than that to get the cleanest flavor from most yeast strains. This often depends on the yeast strain, but I shoot for the low end of the "recommended" temperature range provided by the yeast manufacturer. How do I keep my fermentation so cool when my apartment is usually warmer than my ideal fermentation environment? I have a chest freezer with an external temperature control that I use to keep the temperature at a steady whatever-I-want-it-to-be. It looks like this (when it was in my old Portland apartment).
Let It Finish
Your beer will tell you when it has finished fermenting. Krausen will fall, the airlock will stop bubbling, and you can check the gravity to make sure it stops dropping (checking once every 2 days after fermentation looks complete is a good method). Once the beer is finished, let it sit at a warm indoor temperature (~68-72º F) for a few days to make sure it cleans itself up and settles. If you can, after the beer has sat at a warmer temperature for some time, try to cool the whole fermenter down to 34º F or so. Spending a couple days at that cold temperature will help the yeast fall out of suspension and compact on the bottom of the fermenter. This makes it easier to rack the beer off of the yeast with minimal yeast tranfer (so your beer will be clearer), and the remaining yeast cake is easier to harvest for use in your next batch.
Take Care to Bottle or Keg Properly
I keg my beers and have a pretty good technique of force carbonating. But be weary of the kegs. Sometimes they can look fine, but not be perfectly sealed, causing your beer to oxygenate or spoil. You don't want this to happen, so don't let it happen. Once it is kegged or bottled and carbonated, give it a couple days cold before you pour off that first pint. Once you do, you will get a lot of the remaining suspended yeast out in the initial 4-8 oz. After that you beer will pour clearer and clearer every day. Try not to knock the keg around so you can keep it all nice and settled and the yeast doesn't get back into suspension.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Brewing Great Beer Part 2: Brewday Decisions
My friend Patrick and I brewed the Rye Pale Ale last weekend. The brewday went pretty well, but for the fact that I was horribly undercaffeinated early in the brewday. I made a "gameday decision" to add what I thought was 2 oz of whole amarillo hops to the flameout addition of the batch. I packed the 2 oz of amarillo into a hop bag with the chinook/columbus blend that Patrick had contributed. Except that I added 4 oz of amarillo, not 2. Later in the day (post coffee), I realized my mistake and decided to drop the 2 oz Cascade flameout hops, since it was already such a big dose of amarillo, columbus, and chinook. I also decided to push the crystal hops to 5 min to see if 5 min hop additions (something I used to use a lot, but haven't tried for quite some time). As a result of the swap, I decided to punch up the bittering addition a bit. And, as the beer became less cascade-centric and amarillo took on a leading role, I decided to add a touch of amarillo to the dry hop mix and to embolden the beer with a larger-than-standard dry hop dose.
The brewday went pretty well. We again had a fairly serious problem with wort being trapped in the mash tun and not draining fully out (this mash tun badly needs to be replaced). But since the recipe was planned with a lower efficiency in mind, we still hit our ideal gravity of 1.051-1.053.
I sprinkled the BRY-97 dry yeast directly onto the wort, as that is what I generally do with US-05 and I wanted to see if I encountered any real problem in doing so. I pitched at 62F and I left the fermentation chamber at 56F, which is ideal for fermenting at 62F. The yeast lagged a bit, and didn't really "take off" until I raised the ambient temperature in the fermentation chamber to 58F (thus promoting a fermentation temperature of 64F). Even still, krausen grew slower and worked slower than US-05 would, even at a much cooler fermentation temperature (I have fermented at 56F without issue on numerous occasions with a similar-gravity beer). This leads me to believe either that Danstar yeasts are much less amenable to being sprinkled directly onto the wort without proper rehydration or that US-05 is much more cold-tolerant than BRY-97.
Time will tell.
Here is the updated recipe:
The brewday went pretty well. We again had a fairly serious problem with wort being trapped in the mash tun and not draining fully out (this mash tun badly needs to be replaced). But since the recipe was planned with a lower efficiency in mind, we still hit our ideal gravity of 1.051-1.053.
I sprinkled the BRY-97 dry yeast directly onto the wort, as that is what I generally do with US-05 and I wanted to see if I encountered any real problem in doing so. I pitched at 62F and I left the fermentation chamber at 56F, which is ideal for fermenting at 62F. The yeast lagged a bit, and didn't really "take off" until I raised the ambient temperature in the fermentation chamber to 58F (thus promoting a fermentation temperature of 64F). Even still, krausen grew slower and worked slower than US-05 would, even at a much cooler fermentation temperature (I have fermented at 56F without issue on numerous occasions with a similar-gravity beer). This leads me to believe either that Danstar yeasts are much less amenable to being sprinkled directly onto the wort without proper rehydration or that US-05 is much more cold-tolerant than BRY-97.
Time will tell.
Here is the updated recipe:
Monday, January 7, 2013
Brewing Great Beer Part 1: Designing a Great Recipe
The very first step in designing any great beer is determining what kind of beer you want it to be on a very basic level. Rich? Easy-drinking? Simple? Hearty? Robust? Then you decide from there which (if any) of the beer styles best fit what you want to drink.
A while back, my brew-buddy Pat and I decided we wanted something somewhat hoppy and pale to brew next. We knew we wanted something easy and approachable and that we wanted it to be out-of-style slightly. Additionally, Pat wanted to do something with rye malt. What would be hoppy, pale, approachable, and feature rye malt? An extra-hoppy Rye Blonde Ale? A Rye ESB? A Rye Pale Ale? We decided to brew a Rye American Pale Ale. It suited our tastes, and it was the perfect beer to use up my hefty supply of 2011 Cascade hops.
So what is a Rye Pale Ale? There are a few interpretations - you can add some flaked rye or you can feature a rye crystal malt, but the most common way to brew a "Rye" version of a classic style features Rye Malt to augment the flavor and mouthfeel of the base malt. Basically, my take on Rye Pale Ale is an American Pale Ale with some portion of the base malt replaced with rye malt.
Now, this means the base malt will not be 100% pale ale malt, but some portion rye malt, as well. Given my experience brewing different homebrew recipes, like Denny's Conn's famous Wrye Smile IPA, I decided to go for total grist to be about 15% rye malt (meaning rye will be about 20% of the base malt, with an additional 10% specialty grains). That makes the base 5 parts pale ale malt and 1 part rye malt. Trust me, I am good at math.
Now, a little trick to brewing a happy rye beer is using some rice hulls as a portion of the grain bill. Rice hulls will "thin out" the grain bill, helping "sticky" malts like rye and wheat from gumming up the lautering and keeping the wort from running off easily.
The Malt Bill
American pale ales typically have some portion of crystal malt in the gist, contributing a fullness of flavor, a balancing sweetness with some caramel quality, and a richer viscosity (mouthfeel). While this usually means some carapils, a dose of light/medium crystal, and the rest pale ale malt or basic 2-row; I decided to ditch the carapils (a malt that contributes chiefly body with little to no color or sweetness) since the large portion of rye malt will be contributing a great deal of body as is. So the malt bill I settled on was just pale ale malt, a generous dose of carahell (a light German crystal malt), rye malt, and some rice hulls to ease the lautering.
The Hops
The star of most American Pale Ales is the cascade hop. But this is a rye pale ale, so balance is of the utmost importance if I want to make sure the rye malt's flavor still comes through. So instead of stacking bold hops on bold hops, I am combining a generous dose of cascade with the more neutral crystal hops, providing a balanced "hoppy" quality that won't be overly dank or fruity, but will be bold enough to balance the malt. I decided to bitter with a the original super alpha variety (columbus) for its consistency and sharp bittering quality, as well as its citrusy-spicy aromatic qualities.
This is the recipe I came up with:
Recipe: CRye Baby Pale Ale
Style: 10A-American Ale-American Pale Ale
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 60.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 50.00 l
Volume Transferred: 46.00 l
Water Added: 0.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 46.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 44.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.045 SG
Expected OG: 1.053 SG
Expected FG: 1.010 SG
Expected ABV: 5.8 %
Expected ABW: 4.5 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 39.7
Expected Color: 7.1 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 80.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US Pale Ale Malt 20lb 0oz (74.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rye Malt 4lb 0oz (14.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
German CaraHell 2lb 0oz (7.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rice Hulls 1lb 0oz (3.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Whole Hops used First Wort Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Crystal (2.9 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Whole Hops used 10 Min From End
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 28 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Chinook (10.5 % alpha) 28 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Whole Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale or similar
Mash at 150 degF for 60 mins
A while back, my brew-buddy Pat and I decided we wanted something somewhat hoppy and pale to brew next. We knew we wanted something easy and approachable and that we wanted it to be out-of-style slightly. Additionally, Pat wanted to do something with rye malt. What would be hoppy, pale, approachable, and feature rye malt? An extra-hoppy Rye Blonde Ale? A Rye ESB? A Rye Pale Ale? We decided to brew a Rye American Pale Ale. It suited our tastes, and it was the perfect beer to use up my hefty supply of 2011 Cascade hops.
So what is a Rye Pale Ale? There are a few interpretations - you can add some flaked rye or you can feature a rye crystal malt, but the most common way to brew a "Rye" version of a classic style features Rye Malt to augment the flavor and mouthfeel of the base malt. Basically, my take on Rye Pale Ale is an American Pale Ale with some portion of the base malt replaced with rye malt.
Now, this means the base malt will not be 100% pale ale malt, but some portion rye malt, as well. Given my experience brewing different homebrew recipes, like Denny's Conn's famous Wrye Smile IPA, I decided to go for total grist to be about 15% rye malt (meaning rye will be about 20% of the base malt, with an additional 10% specialty grains). That makes the base 5 parts pale ale malt and 1 part rye malt. Trust me, I am good at math.
Now, a little trick to brewing a happy rye beer is using some rice hulls as a portion of the grain bill. Rice hulls will "thin out" the grain bill, helping "sticky" malts like rye and wheat from gumming up the lautering and keeping the wort from running off easily.
The Malt Bill
American pale ales typically have some portion of crystal malt in the gist, contributing a fullness of flavor, a balancing sweetness with some caramel quality, and a richer viscosity (mouthfeel). While this usually means some carapils, a dose of light/medium crystal, and the rest pale ale malt or basic 2-row; I decided to ditch the carapils (a malt that contributes chiefly body with little to no color or sweetness) since the large portion of rye malt will be contributing a great deal of body as is. So the malt bill I settled on was just pale ale malt, a generous dose of carahell (a light German crystal malt), rye malt, and some rice hulls to ease the lautering.
The Hops
The star of most American Pale Ales is the cascade hop. But this is a rye pale ale, so balance is of the utmost importance if I want to make sure the rye malt's flavor still comes through. So instead of stacking bold hops on bold hops, I am combining a generous dose of cascade with the more neutral crystal hops, providing a balanced "hoppy" quality that won't be overly dank or fruity, but will be bold enough to balance the malt. I decided to bitter with a the original super alpha variety (columbus) for its consistency and sharp bittering quality, as well as its citrusy-spicy aromatic qualities.
This is the recipe I came up with:
Recipe: CRye Baby Pale Ale
Style: 10A-American Ale-American Pale Ale
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 60.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 50.00 l
Volume Transferred: 46.00 l
Water Added: 0.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 46.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 44.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.045 SG
Expected OG: 1.053 SG
Expected FG: 1.010 SG
Expected ABV: 5.8 %
Expected ABW: 4.5 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 39.7
Expected Color: 7.1 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 80.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US Pale Ale Malt 20lb 0oz (74.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rye Malt 4lb 0oz (14.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
German CaraHell 2lb 0oz (7.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rice Hulls 1lb 0oz (3.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Whole Hops used First Wort Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Crystal (2.9 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Whole Hops used 10 Min From End
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 28 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Chinook (10.5 % alpha) 28 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Whole Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale or similar
Mash at 150 degF for 60 mins
Friday, December 21, 2012
Brewing Up a Storm: 100% Vienna Malt Bitter, Grey Skies Porter Again, Double Red Ale, and American Brown Ale
First I want to make a little pledge: I will make this a better and more complete blog. I do this because the story I want to tell and the perspective I want to give is how homebrewing excellent craft beer is absolutely attainable to an ordinary non-handy person on a budget.
I see plenty of my fellow brewers on the internet advocating sloppy techniques and shortcuts that I don't advocate. For example, I believe extract brewing should be a first step to ease the learning curve, not the core of the hobby. I also encounter plenty of "homebrew porn" detailing beautiful homemade hardware that only a seriously crafty person could build alongside wonderful gadgets that cost an arm and a leg. And I love that some people take the hobby in those directions. My way isn't the only way or the best way, but I make consistently great beer and I do it on a budget. My brewing is a cheap hobby. I actually save money on beer now that I don't need to buy equipment (save for replacing beer line and the occasional bucket or keg piece). That's right: this hobby saved me money in 2012.
So my pledge is to make this a more complete blog. My first post of 2013 will document a recipe formulation, and future posts will take that beer from brain to grain to glass
Now to take this post in the direction it was originally headed: my four most recent brews.
I have been brewing pretty frequently these past two months. My brews have all either been split 10 gal batches or 5 gal batches, so the take-home amount of beer has been somewhat pitiful (especially since this is X-mas present season and I am saving up to pay for a wedding). I have been brewing so often and with such abandon that I have three brews to share in this post. I will describe them in the order I brewed them.
100% Vienna Bitter
My plan with this beer was to find a nice way to brew something small with some fresh Wyeast 1318 slurry I got from Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, OR; while also using up my large supply of Gambrinus Vienna Malt. This seemed like an easy enough task - I would just brew up a 100% Vienna Malt bitter. At around 1.044 and 35 IBUs - something nice and easy to drink to give to my fiancée's family as a christmas gift (though I intend to keep a small amount for myself).
Since I tend not to buy imported hops and because I still have such a large supply of 2011 hops on hand, I opted for a hop profile that featured Glacier hops as well as some US-produced Tettnanger hops (said to resemble English Fuggles more than German Tettnanger). And then I made a last-minute decision to dry hop for a few days with Crystal hops right before bottling.
This is the recipe I went with. I ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort (I usually go for 6 gal).
9lb 12oz Gambrinus Vienna Malt (Canada)
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Tettnanger 3.0 % 40 g 8.2 Bagged Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Glacier 5.0 % 50 g 26.6 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Tettnanger 3.0 % 30 g 0.0 Bagged Whole Hops At turn off
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 0.0 Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Crystal 2.9 % 25 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-hop (4 days)
Mash at 152º F for 60 min
OG 1.048 FG ~1.013
Wyeast 1318-London Ale III
Grey Skies Porter Again
This turned out to be the single most unique of any of my modifications to the original recipe. The big change this time was swapping the British pale chocolate malt out for Franco-Belge Kiln-Coffee Malt. The resulting beer is more toasty, coffee-like, and dry-tasting; and less caramel-like, chocolatey, and creamy. It is still a very good beer and I may even submit it into a competition or two, but I personally like the standard version of the recipe better. That's how you hone a recipe, though - you try a change and find out what works and what doesn't.
I brewed this one with my friend Patrick at his grandpa's house. We did a 12 gallon batch and split it. It was a lucky brewday - it rained during the mash (when we didn't need to be outside brewing) and it rained before we started, but we didn't get wet while brewing. And the skies really were gray, too.
The recipe (12 gal):
Great Western Pale Ale Malt 23lb 79.4 %
Belgian Kiln Coffee Malt 2lb 6.9 %
Belgian Caramel Munich Malt 40 2lb 6.9 %
UK Chocolate Malt Crisp 1lb 3.5 %
UK Extra Dark Crystal Crisp 1lb 3.3 %
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Nugget 10.9 % 70 g 37.5 Bagged Pellet Hops 90 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 40 g 3.3 Bagged Pellet Hops 10 Min From End
Mash at 154º F for 60 min
OG 1.062 FG 1.013
Wyeast 1318-London Ale III
Skeptic Winter IPA
I noticed a trend the last time I was in Portland. So many winter ales these days are essentially darker variations of IPA. So I made one. I decided to use up some malts I had in stock: Special B, CaraFoam, and Golden Naked Oats (a crystal malt made from oats). I hopped it a little less boldly than I usually do an IPA - but there is still plenty of Columbus, Summit, and Amarillo hops to insure a bold hop profile.
Here it is:
US 2-Row Malt 13lb 0oz 83.9 % 3.5 In Mash/Steeped
German CaraFoam 1lb 0oz 6.5 % 0.3 In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Special B 1lb 0oz 6.5 % 22.3 In Mash/Steeped
UK Golden Naked Oats 8.00 oz 3.2 % 0.8 In Mash/Steeped
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Columbus(Tomahawk) 12.0 % 20 g 21.5 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Summit 15.0 % 40 g 41.3 Bagged Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
US Amarillo 8.0 % 90 g 0.0 Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Amarillo 8.0 % 40 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) 12.0 % 20 g 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops Dry-Hopped
Mash at 152º F for 60 min
OG ~1.068, FG ~1.014
Wyeast 1318-London Ale III
Rodeo Clown Brown
I brewed this one just yesterday. It was adapted from a recipe I developed months ago - the original recipe was going to be more hop-forward and less roasty. I had planned on brewing a dank dark beer - more of a brown IPA, but when it came time to brew the beer, my mood had changed and I wanted a more classic American Brown Ale. So I modified the grain bill to make it more robust (adding brown malt and opting for pale chocolate malt in place of midnight wheat malt). Then I toned down the hop profile, opting instead for a firm and assertive profile built of noble and English-style Northwestern hops (Glacier and Crystal), with the bittering coming from new-school "super alpha" Apollo. For the yeast, I decided to use some Nottingham slurry left over from the brown porter I made last month (erring on the side of overpitching). I pitched at 58º F and fermentation began promptly. At high krausen, I allowed the fermentation temperature to rise to 64º F, and I expect a restrained, but detectable ester profile as a result.
Here is the recipe:
US 2-Row Malt 9lb 0oz
US Flaked Barley 2lb 0oz
UK Dark Crystal 1lb 0oz
UK Brown Malt 1lb 0oz
UK Extra Dark Crystal 8.00 oz
US Rice Hulls 8.00 oz
UK Pale Chocolate Malt 8.00 oz
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 8.5 Bagged Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Apollo 16.8 % 12 g 19.0 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 10.9 Bagged Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
US Crystal 2.9 % 60 g 0.0 Bagged Whole Hops At turn off
Yeast
Danstar-Nottingham
I see plenty of my fellow brewers on the internet advocating sloppy techniques and shortcuts that I don't advocate. For example, I believe extract brewing should be a first step to ease the learning curve, not the core of the hobby. I also encounter plenty of "homebrew porn" detailing beautiful homemade hardware that only a seriously crafty person could build alongside wonderful gadgets that cost an arm and a leg. And I love that some people take the hobby in those directions. My way isn't the only way or the best way, but I make consistently great beer and I do it on a budget. My brewing is a cheap hobby. I actually save money on beer now that I don't need to buy equipment (save for replacing beer line and the occasional bucket or keg piece). That's right: this hobby saved me money in 2012.
So my pledge is to make this a more complete blog. My first post of 2013 will document a recipe formulation, and future posts will take that beer from brain to grain to glass
Now to take this post in the direction it was originally headed: my four most recent brews.
I have been brewing pretty frequently these past two months. My brews have all either been split 10 gal batches or 5 gal batches, so the take-home amount of beer has been somewhat pitiful (especially since this is X-mas present season and I am saving up to pay for a wedding). I have been brewing so often and with such abandon that I have three brews to share in this post. I will describe them in the order I brewed them.
100% Vienna Bitter
My plan with this beer was to find a nice way to brew something small with some fresh Wyeast 1318 slurry I got from Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, OR; while also using up my large supply of Gambrinus Vienna Malt. This seemed like an easy enough task - I would just brew up a 100% Vienna Malt bitter. At around 1.044 and 35 IBUs - something nice and easy to drink to give to my fiancée's family as a christmas gift (though I intend to keep a small amount for myself).
Since I tend not to buy imported hops and because I still have such a large supply of 2011 hops on hand, I opted for a hop profile that featured Glacier hops as well as some US-produced Tettnanger hops (said to resemble English Fuggles more than German Tettnanger). And then I made a last-minute decision to dry hop for a few days with Crystal hops right before bottling.
This is the recipe I went with. I ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort (I usually go for 6 gal).
9lb 12oz Gambrinus Vienna Malt (Canada)
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Tettnanger 3.0 % 40 g 8.2 Bagged Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Glacier 5.0 % 50 g 26.6 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Tettnanger 3.0 % 30 g 0.0 Bagged Whole Hops At turn off
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 0.0 Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Crystal 2.9 % 25 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-hop (4 days)
Mash at 152º F for 60 min
OG 1.048 FG ~1.013
Wyeast 1318-London Ale III
Grey Skies Porter Again
This turned out to be the single most unique of any of my modifications to the original recipe. The big change this time was swapping the British pale chocolate malt out for Franco-Belge Kiln-Coffee Malt. The resulting beer is more toasty, coffee-like, and dry-tasting; and less caramel-like, chocolatey, and creamy. It is still a very good beer and I may even submit it into a competition or two, but I personally like the standard version of the recipe better. That's how you hone a recipe, though - you try a change and find out what works and what doesn't.
I brewed this one with my friend Patrick at his grandpa's house. We did a 12 gallon batch and split it. It was a lucky brewday - it rained during the mash (when we didn't need to be outside brewing) and it rained before we started, but we didn't get wet while brewing. And the skies really were gray, too.
The recipe (12 gal):
Great Western Pale Ale Malt 23lb 79.4 %
Belgian Kiln Coffee Malt 2lb 6.9 %
Belgian Caramel Munich Malt 40 2lb 6.9 %
UK Chocolate Malt Crisp 1lb 3.5 %
UK Extra Dark Crystal Crisp 1lb 3.3 %
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Nugget 10.9 % 70 g 37.5 Bagged Pellet Hops 90 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 40 g 3.3 Bagged Pellet Hops 10 Min From End
Mash at 154º F for 60 min
OG 1.062 FG 1.013
Wyeast 1318-London Ale III
Skeptic Winter IPA
I noticed a trend the last time I was in Portland. So many winter ales these days are essentially darker variations of IPA. So I made one. I decided to use up some malts I had in stock: Special B, CaraFoam, and Golden Naked Oats (a crystal malt made from oats). I hopped it a little less boldly than I usually do an IPA - but there is still plenty of Columbus, Summit, and Amarillo hops to insure a bold hop profile.
Here it is:
US 2-Row Malt 13lb 0oz 83.9 % 3.5 In Mash/Steeped
German CaraFoam 1lb 0oz 6.5 % 0.3 In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Special B 1lb 0oz 6.5 % 22.3 In Mash/Steeped
UK Golden Naked Oats 8.00 oz 3.2 % 0.8 In Mash/Steeped
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Columbus(Tomahawk) 12.0 % 20 g 21.5 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Summit 15.0 % 40 g 41.3 Bagged Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
US Amarillo 8.0 % 90 g 0.0 Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Amarillo 8.0 % 40 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) 12.0 % 20 g 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops Dry-Hopped
Mash at 152º F for 60 min
OG ~1.068, FG ~1.014
Wyeast 1318-London Ale III
Rodeo Clown Brown
I brewed this one just yesterday. It was adapted from a recipe I developed months ago - the original recipe was going to be more hop-forward and less roasty. I had planned on brewing a dank dark beer - more of a brown IPA, but when it came time to brew the beer, my mood had changed and I wanted a more classic American Brown Ale. So I modified the grain bill to make it more robust (adding brown malt and opting for pale chocolate malt in place of midnight wheat malt). Then I toned down the hop profile, opting instead for a firm and assertive profile built of noble and English-style Northwestern hops (Glacier and Crystal), with the bittering coming from new-school "super alpha" Apollo. For the yeast, I decided to use some Nottingham slurry left over from the brown porter I made last month (erring on the side of overpitching). I pitched at 58º F and fermentation began promptly. At high krausen, I allowed the fermentation temperature to rise to 64º F, and I expect a restrained, but detectable ester profile as a result.
Here is the recipe:
US 2-Row Malt 9lb 0oz
US Flaked Barley 2lb 0oz
UK Dark Crystal 1lb 0oz
UK Brown Malt 1lb 0oz
UK Extra Dark Crystal 8.00 oz
US Rice Hulls 8.00 oz
UK Pale Chocolate Malt 8.00 oz
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 8.5 Bagged Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Apollo 16.8 % 12 g 19.0 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 10.9 Bagged Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
US Crystal 2.9 % 60 g 0.0 Bagged Whole Hops At turn off
Yeast
Danstar-Nottingham
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Revisiting Your First Homebrew
My very first homebrewed beer was back in the the fall of 2006. My brew-buddy (who long ago gave up the hobby) bought a nut brown ale extract ingredient kit from Oak Barrel Winecraft in Berkeley, CA (I had purchased the brewing equipment for him as a birthday present), and we got to brewing. After 2 weeks in the bucket fermenter and another 2 weeks in the bottle, we had 50 bottles of cloudy, sweet dark brown beer with about a half inch of sediment on the bottom of every bottle. But it tasted all right - more than all right - I was hooked.
Flash forward to the fall of 2012. I have now been brewing for 6 years and I am a pretty advanced-level all-grain brewer who has presented on brewing techniques and beer styles, and who is an active member of 2 different AHA- sanctioned homebrew clubs. I have brewed so many styles several times, and so many recipes have been honed and improved upon over the years. But I never went back and brewed another Nut Brown Ale.
Well, after a few different American-style brown ales came out pretty tasty - and after the malty, English-style brown ales seemingly faded from existence on the shelves of my local beer shops - I decided to brew up another batch of Nut Brown Ale inspired by my first homebrew.
Now that first homebrew was an extract beer, it was very dark brown (chestnut-colored), and it was balanced in favor of the malt. It also had an OG of 1.060 (we followed the advice of the guy working the counter of the LHBS and added a half cup of brown sugar to the boil). I was pretty sure some of the extract was "amber" and I remembered it had chocolate malt and crystal malt, but I wondered whether any other "steeping grains" were included - and what kind of extract did we use? Thankfully, someone on Hopville posted the recipe, although I am nearly certain that when I brewed it, the late hops were East Kent Goldings and were dropped in with 15 minutes left in the boil (not a flameout addition as indicated on the posted recipe). Nonetheless, I think I figured out how to brew this thing right - a lot of crystal malt, some chocolate malt, and some out-of-style "homebrew" flourishes.
I settled on using my ample inventory of Canadian Vienna Malt as the base of this recipe (not too far off from the Munich Malt base of the posted recipe). And on utilizing my beloved British Extra Dark Crystal Malt (120L from Crisp, though I usually use a darker one from Fawcett or Simpson's). And in keeping with the "homebrew flourish" concept, I added a bit of Golden Naked Oats. In lieu of standard chocolate malt, I went with some Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt (which, at 400L is actually darker than standard 350L American chocolate malt from Briess).
For the hop rate, I wanted to avoid anything citrusy or fruity and keep it similar to the 60 min Northern Brewer, 15 min East Kent Goldings recipe I remembered from my original brew. So I decided to use Nugget for bittering (a 60 min addition) and FWH with Glacier. I did add double the Glacier compared with the EKG/Willamette of the original recipe, but there is no way this beer will turn out to be a "hop bomb" by any means, with less than 2 oz of hops in it for a whopping 32 IBU at 1.060.
I mashed at 152 and used Nottingham (the yeast that came with my original kit, though we opted for a single vial of WLP002 with no starter because that was recommended to us by the LHBS. Everything in the brewday went pretty smoothly, aside from running out of propane while I was heating up my mash water (no harm done). I was shooting for 1.055-1.057, but a bump in extract efficiency (I think that Canadian Vienna Malt has a higher extract potential than the US Vienna Malt I used for my calculations), as well as a bit too much evaporation has led me to a situation where my beer will be just a bit bigger than planned (but even closer to my first batch), as I hit 1.060.
I followed the instructions on the yeast packet to rehydrate the yeast properly, then I added it to the fermenter with the wort temperature at 60F. I am shooting for a clean 62F fermentation, and planning on giving this beer 9 days at 62F followed by a few days (maybe a week) at ambient temp, and then a cold crash before I keg it.
Here is a simple un-scientific version of the recipe:
11 lbs Gambrinus Vienna Malt
1 lb Crisp Extra Dark Crystal Malt (120L)
8 oz Simpson's Golden Naked Oats
8 oz Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt (400L)
30g Glacier (5% AA) FWH
20g Nugget (10.9% AA) 60 min
Nottingham Dry Yeast (1 packet)
Mash at 152 for 60 min, no mashout
90 min boil
Ferment ~62F
SRM 26 (Somewhere between a Northern English Brown Ale and a Brown Porter, if you ask me)
IBU 32 (pretty tame for 1.060, but Nugget is a bold bittering hop, so I think it will come across fairly balanced)
Flash forward to the fall of 2012. I have now been brewing for 6 years and I am a pretty advanced-level all-grain brewer who has presented on brewing techniques and beer styles, and who is an active member of 2 different AHA- sanctioned homebrew clubs. I have brewed so many styles several times, and so many recipes have been honed and improved upon over the years. But I never went back and brewed another Nut Brown Ale.
Well, after a few different American-style brown ales came out pretty tasty - and after the malty, English-style brown ales seemingly faded from existence on the shelves of my local beer shops - I decided to brew up another batch of Nut Brown Ale inspired by my first homebrew.
Now that first homebrew was an extract beer, it was very dark brown (chestnut-colored), and it was balanced in favor of the malt. It also had an OG of 1.060 (we followed the advice of the guy working the counter of the LHBS and added a half cup of brown sugar to the boil). I was pretty sure some of the extract was "amber" and I remembered it had chocolate malt and crystal malt, but I wondered whether any other "steeping grains" were included - and what kind of extract did we use? Thankfully, someone on Hopville posted the recipe, although I am nearly certain that when I brewed it, the late hops were East Kent Goldings and were dropped in with 15 minutes left in the boil (not a flameout addition as indicated on the posted recipe). Nonetheless, I think I figured out how to brew this thing right - a lot of crystal malt, some chocolate malt, and some out-of-style "homebrew" flourishes.
I settled on using my ample inventory of Canadian Vienna Malt as the base of this recipe (not too far off from the Munich Malt base of the posted recipe). And on utilizing my beloved British Extra Dark Crystal Malt (120L from Crisp, though I usually use a darker one from Fawcett or Simpson's). And in keeping with the "homebrew flourish" concept, I added a bit of Golden Naked Oats. In lieu of standard chocolate malt, I went with some Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt (which, at 400L is actually darker than standard 350L American chocolate malt from Briess).
For the hop rate, I wanted to avoid anything citrusy or fruity and keep it similar to the 60 min Northern Brewer, 15 min East Kent Goldings recipe I remembered from my original brew. So I decided to use Nugget for bittering (a 60 min addition) and FWH with Glacier. I did add double the Glacier compared with the EKG/Willamette of the original recipe, but there is no way this beer will turn out to be a "hop bomb" by any means, with less than 2 oz of hops in it for a whopping 32 IBU at 1.060.
I mashed at 152 and used Nottingham (the yeast that came with my original kit, though we opted for a single vial of WLP002 with no starter because that was recommended to us by the LHBS. Everything in the brewday went pretty smoothly, aside from running out of propane while I was heating up my mash water (no harm done). I was shooting for 1.055-1.057, but a bump in extract efficiency (I think that Canadian Vienna Malt has a higher extract potential than the US Vienna Malt I used for my calculations), as well as a bit too much evaporation has led me to a situation where my beer will be just a bit bigger than planned (but even closer to my first batch), as I hit 1.060.
I followed the instructions on the yeast packet to rehydrate the yeast properly, then I added it to the fermenter with the wort temperature at 60F. I am shooting for a clean 62F fermentation, and planning on giving this beer 9 days at 62F followed by a few days (maybe a week) at ambient temp, and then a cold crash before I keg it.
Here is a simple un-scientific version of the recipe:
11 lbs Gambrinus Vienna Malt
1 lb Crisp Extra Dark Crystal Malt (120L)
8 oz Simpson's Golden Naked Oats
8 oz Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt (400L)
30g Glacier (5% AA) FWH
20g Nugget (10.9% AA) 60 min
Nottingham Dry Yeast (1 packet)
Mash at 152 for 60 min, no mashout
90 min boil
Ferment ~62F
SRM 26 (Somewhere between a Northern English Brown Ale and a Brown Porter, if you ask me)
IBU 32 (pretty tame for 1.060, but Nugget is a bold bittering hop, so I think it will come across fairly balanced)
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Brewing at Mom's
Aside from the 100 qt mash tun that I let at Pat's after the last brewday, I took my entire system to my mom's house, as she has a yard and I do not. In order to be able to brew there sometimes, as brewing in my little apartment just isn't happening. I brewed on this system
last week, and took some pictures this time around. The beer is a black IPA and the recipes will follow the images.
Recipe: Enigma Black IPA
Style: 14B-India Pale Ale(IPA)-American IPA
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 35.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 27.00 l
Volume Transferred: 23.00 l
Water Added: 0.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 22.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 20.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.047 SG
Expected OG: 1.061 SG
Expected FG: 1.010 SG
Expected ABV: 6.8 %
Expected ABW: 5.3 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 65.6
Expected Color: 32.6 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 83.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US Mystery Malt 11lb 4oz (72.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
US White Wheat Malt 1lb 4oz (8.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Carafa Special II 1lb 4oz (8.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Munich 10L Malt 1lb 0oz (6.5 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal 12.00 oz (4.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Summit (14.6 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 80 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Centennial (8.5 % alpha) 100 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Summit (14.6 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Centennial (8.5 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
Yeast: DCL US-05 (formerly US-56) SafAle
Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name: No Chosen Schedule
Recipe Notes
Bulk of grain bill was a pre-measured recipe weighing 11 lbs 4 oz. Due to the loss of my previous laptop, I don't know what the recipe was (though I suspect it was a "bulked up" Kölsch or Altbier (without any carafa).
My unusually poor hop harvest left me with too few hops to base a beer around, so these were added to the flameout. There was roughly 1/2 oz dried and it was mostly columbus with a little cascade.
The Carafa Special II was all added to the mash tun after the first runnings had drained, but before my batch sparge. I let that sparge steep for 15 minutes in order to get maximum color from the Carafa. The wort was nearly pitch black. First runnings wort was a medium amber, leading me to believe the "mystery malt" was a Düsseldorf Altbier malt bill.
last week, and took some pictures this time around. The beer is a black IPA and the recipes will follow the images.
Recipe: Enigma Black IPA
Style: 14B-India Pale Ale(IPA)-American IPA
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 35.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 27.00 l
Volume Transferred: 23.00 l
Water Added: 0.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 22.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 20.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.047 SG
Expected OG: 1.061 SG
Expected FG: 1.010 SG
Expected ABV: 6.8 %
Expected ABW: 5.3 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 65.6
Expected Color: 32.6 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 83.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US Mystery Malt 11lb 4oz (72.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
US White Wheat Malt 1lb 4oz (8.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Carafa Special II 1lb 4oz (8.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Munich 10L Malt 1lb 0oz (6.5 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal 12.00 oz (4.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Summit (14.6 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 80 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Centennial (8.5 % alpha) 100 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Summit (14.6 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Centennial (8.5 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
Yeast: DCL US-05 (formerly US-56) SafAle
Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name: No Chosen Schedule
Recipe Notes
Bulk of grain bill was a pre-measured recipe weighing 11 lbs 4 oz. Due to the loss of my previous laptop, I don't know what the recipe was (though I suspect it was a "bulked up" Kölsch or Altbier (without any carafa).
My unusually poor hop harvest left me with too few hops to base a beer around, so these were added to the flameout. There was roughly 1/2 oz dried and it was mostly columbus with a little cascade.
The Carafa Special II was all added to the mash tun after the first runnings had drained, but before my batch sparge. I let that sparge steep for 15 minutes in order to get maximum color from the Carafa. The wort was nearly pitch black. First runnings wort was a medium amber, leading me to believe the "mystery malt" was a Düsseldorf Altbier malt bill.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Brewing a West Coast IPA (or Brewing Somewhere New)
Nine days ago, I brewed beer for the first time in over four months. Since my new apartment isn't a very brewing-friendly place, I co-brewed on my 10 gallon system with a friend at his grandfather's house and split the batch with him. We decided to brew a West Coast IPA because we both still had a ton of 2011 hops left and the new harvest is already picked, so it seemed like time to brew with those 2011 hops.
There were a few hiccups, due in part to my never brewing on that exact system before and in part on the fact that I was a bit rusty. I measured the mash water wrong and also the sparge water because of some fuzzy math and lack of caffeine - let's just call it a case of rusty brewing. So we ended up with a slightly lower efficiency than expected, and we got a more concentrated wort that subsequently needed to be diluted with water.
But everything is fermenting all right and I have managed to keep the fermentation nice and cool. Here's the recipe:
Recipe: New Oakland IPA
Style: 14B-India Pale Ale(IPA)-American IPA
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 49.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 40.00 l
Volume Transferred: 36.00 l
Water Added: 2.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 38.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 36.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.055 SG
Expected OG: 1.064 SG
Expected FG: 1.013 SG
Expected ABV: 6.9 %
Expected ABW: 5.4 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 75.1
Expected Color: 7.0 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 79.6 %
Mash Efficiency: 71.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 22lb 0oz (80.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Vienna Malt 4lb 0oz (14.5 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Carapils Malt 1lb 0oz (3.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Caramel Munich Malt 60 8.00 oz (1.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Magnum (9.5 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 90 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 70 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Amarillo (8.0 % alpha) 100 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Simcoe (10.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Citra (10.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Simcoe (10.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Citra (10.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Amarillo (8.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Simcoe (13.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Citra (12.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
Whirlfloc Tablet 2 g used In Boil
Yeast Nutrient 2 g used In Boil
Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale
Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:IPA-Pale-ESB
Step: Rest at 150 degF for 60 mins
There were a few hiccups, due in part to my never brewing on that exact system before and in part on the fact that I was a bit rusty. I measured the mash water wrong and also the sparge water because of some fuzzy math and lack of caffeine - let's just call it a case of rusty brewing. So we ended up with a slightly lower efficiency than expected, and we got a more concentrated wort that subsequently needed to be diluted with water.
But everything is fermenting all right and I have managed to keep the fermentation nice and cool. Here's the recipe:
Recipe: New Oakland IPA
Style: 14B-India Pale Ale(IPA)-American IPA
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 49.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 40.00 l
Volume Transferred: 36.00 l
Water Added: 2.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 38.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 36.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.055 SG
Expected OG: 1.064 SG
Expected FG: 1.013 SG
Expected ABV: 6.9 %
Expected ABW: 5.4 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 75.1
Expected Color: 7.0 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 79.6 %
Mash Efficiency: 71.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 22lb 0oz (80.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Vienna Malt 4lb 0oz (14.5 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Carapils Malt 1lb 0oz (3.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Caramel Munich Malt 60 8.00 oz (1.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Magnum (9.5 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 90 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 70 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Amarillo (8.0 % alpha) 100 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Simcoe (10.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Citra (10.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Simcoe (10.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Citra (10.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Amarillo (8.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Simcoe (13.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Citra (12.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
Whirlfloc Tablet 2 g used In Boil
Yeast Nutrient 2 g used In Boil
Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale
Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:IPA-Pale-ESB
Step: Rest at 150 degF for 60 mins
Monday, October 1, 2012
Brewing After Not Brewing for 3 Months
So I haven't brewed since June - crazy. And my new apartment has no outdoor space, so I am having to move my brewery elsewhere. I decided on my mom's house, though it is very far away, on account of that she will let me brew there and not hassle me about when or how often I do brew there. And MY LAPTOP WAS STOLEN! It was insured, so I got a shiny new laptop, but I lost DOZENS of homebrew recipes and I now have to buy a new copy of Beer Alchemy! Balls.
Anyway, a lot of non-brewing stuff has taken my attention. I swore into the State Bar of California, I opened my own law office, and I built a website for that law office, which you can go to by clicking on these links or just going to SchuylerCampbell.com.
But I still have a lot of 2011 crop hops left, so I am planning on doing 2 10-gallon batches of IPA in the near future - one Black and one Regular (possibly even a re-do of my Old School IPA - though the recipe is lost). We'll see. I miss having beer on tap.
Anyway, a lot of non-brewing stuff has taken my attention. I swore into the State Bar of California, I opened my own law office, and I built a website for that law office, which you can go to by clicking on these links or just going to SchuylerCampbell.com.
But I still have a lot of 2011 crop hops left, so I am planning on doing 2 10-gallon batches of IPA in the near future - one Black and one Regular (possibly even a re-do of my Old School IPA - though the recipe is lost). We'll see. I miss having beer on tap.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Brewing Like Rogue
It's funny to think that Rogue, a brewery known for several renowned "classics" like Dead Guy Ale, Brutal Bitter (now annoyingly called "Brutal IPA"), Shakespeare Stout, and I2PA doesn't really brew many true-to-style beers. Indeed, of the above-named beers, only I2PA fits neatly into any BJCP category. Dead Guy Ale was inspired by Maibock, only extra hoppy and brewed with an Ale yeast. Brutal Bitter/IPA was basically meant to be Rogue's take on ESB - except it is extra bitter, wonderfully hoppy, and fermented dryer and cleaner than most English ales. Perhaps this is why it is marketed as an IPA now, except that it is too malty, not bitter enough, and doesn't really have an IPA-style hop profile. But who cares? It tastes great, and is probably Rogue's finest beer. I think that the reason Rogue's beers don't fit into the now-standard BJCP categories is because many of those beers predate the BJCP, or at least they predate the brewing industry's common acceptance of the BJCP style guidelines.
Back to Brutal Bitter - it is a great beer, really. It is very hoppy, robustly bitter (but in a balanced way), cleanly fermented, and with a rich caramel malt profile (not particularly toasty or biscuity). I would describe this beer as a hoppier, cleaner ESB. Famously, this beer is brewed with 100% Crystal hops, which must cost a small fortune, since they are extremely low in alpha acids, and so a massive amount must be used to get the beer as bitter as it is. I decided to make a similar beer with the same balance and focus on crystal hops, but at a slightly more sessionable strength. I ended up deciding to use an American super-alpha hop (Summit) for bittering, since it seemed wasteful to use so much crystal for bittering, and I like the bittering properties of Summit hops. Then I decided to fortify my domestic 2-row with a touch of Vienna malt to "up the ante" as far as malt profile. And I added a touch of wheat malt to smooth out the body and improve head retention. Rather than using a variety of crystal malts, I opted for a judicious dose of my "house specialty malt" which is Thomas Fawcett Medium Crystal (120 EBC or ~65L). I dosed it with crystal hops at 30 min, 10 min, flameout, and a big dose of dry hops - treating the hop profile somewhere in between an American IPA and an ESB, since that is how Brutal tastes to me. I fermented fairly cool and with WLP051 California V Ale yeast. I know that Rogue uses their house Pacman yeast for this recipe, but I had WLP051 on hand and since it is a relatively similar strain, I figured it wouldn't hurt to save myself some time and money and just go with this one. I mashed fairly low (150F) to keep it fairly dry. The result should be a medium-bodied, clean, hoppy beer with a rich malt backbone and without the usual-for-me citrusy hop kick.
The recipe:
Recipe: Crystal Ship ESB
Style: 14A-India Pale Ale(IPA)-English IPA
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.50 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 5.50 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.25 US gals
Expected OG: 1.055 SG
Expected FG: 1.012 SG
Expected ABV: 5.7 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 46.7
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 8lb 10oz (78.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal (120EBC) 1lb 0oz (9.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US White Wheat Malt 12.00 oz (6.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Vienna Malt 10.00 oz (5.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Summit (15.9 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Whole Hops used 30 Min From End
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used 10 Min From End
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 90 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 50 g Loose Whole Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
1 Whirlfloc Tablet used In Boil (10 min)
1/2 tsp Wyeast Nutrient used In Boil (10 min)
Yeast: White Labs WLP051-California Ale V
Mash at 150 degF for 60 mins
Back to Brutal Bitter - it is a great beer, really. It is very hoppy, robustly bitter (but in a balanced way), cleanly fermented, and with a rich caramel malt profile (not particularly toasty or biscuity). I would describe this beer as a hoppier, cleaner ESB. Famously, this beer is brewed with 100% Crystal hops, which must cost a small fortune, since they are extremely low in alpha acids, and so a massive amount must be used to get the beer as bitter as it is. I decided to make a similar beer with the same balance and focus on crystal hops, but at a slightly more sessionable strength. I ended up deciding to use an American super-alpha hop (Summit) for bittering, since it seemed wasteful to use so much crystal for bittering, and I like the bittering properties of Summit hops. Then I decided to fortify my domestic 2-row with a touch of Vienna malt to "up the ante" as far as malt profile. And I added a touch of wheat malt to smooth out the body and improve head retention. Rather than using a variety of crystal malts, I opted for a judicious dose of my "house specialty malt" which is Thomas Fawcett Medium Crystal (120 EBC or ~65L). I dosed it with crystal hops at 30 min, 10 min, flameout, and a big dose of dry hops - treating the hop profile somewhere in between an American IPA and an ESB, since that is how Brutal tastes to me. I fermented fairly cool and with WLP051 California V Ale yeast. I know that Rogue uses their house Pacman yeast for this recipe, but I had WLP051 on hand and since it is a relatively similar strain, I figured it wouldn't hurt to save myself some time and money and just go with this one. I mashed fairly low (150F) to keep it fairly dry. The result should be a medium-bodied, clean, hoppy beer with a rich malt backbone and without the usual-for-me citrusy hop kick.
The recipe:
Recipe: Crystal Ship ESB
Style: 14A-India Pale Ale(IPA)-English IPA
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.50 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 5.50 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.25 US gals
Expected OG: 1.055 SG
Expected FG: 1.012 SG
Expected ABV: 5.7 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 46.7
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 8lb 10oz (78.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal (120EBC) 1lb 0oz (9.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US White Wheat Malt 12.00 oz (6.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Vienna Malt 10.00 oz (5.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Summit (15.9 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Whole Hops used 30 Min From End
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used 10 Min From End
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 90 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
US Crystal (3.3 % alpha) 50 g Loose Whole Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
1 Whirlfloc Tablet used In Boil (10 min)
1/2 tsp Wyeast Nutrient used In Boil (10 min)
Yeast: White Labs WLP051-California Ale V
Mash at 150 degF for 60 mins
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Brewing After Diminished Victory
So I passed the California Bar Exam the second time around. Although passing the bar exam the second time feels a little like winning the special olympics, it is definitely cause to celebrate, so I am brewing a style I haven't attempted since my extract days - Imperial/Double IPA. It's not only a pleasant style to drink, but it also happens to be the most "celebratory" style I can think of, and a great style to brew when "money is no object" since it uses up a lot of hops. I am brewing this one with a pretty traditional hop bill and a now-traditional zero-crystal malt bill. Also unusual for me, the beer will be augmented by some cane sugar to keep it nice and dry and to boost the ABV a bit. I have a fresh cake of WLP051, so I will be using some of that for this beer and saving the rest for a Mirror Pond Clone I am planning to brew in the near future. Here's the recipe:
Passing the Bar DIPA
Style: 14C-India Pale Ale(IPA)-Imperial IPA
Wort Volume Before Boil: 9.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.50 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.02 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.053 SG
Expected OG: 1.080 SG
Expected FG: 1.014 SG
Expected ABV: 8.8 %
Expected ABW: 6.9 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 192.3
Expected Color: 5.1 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 81.6 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 16lb 0oz (88.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Munich 10L Malt 1lb 0oz (5.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Sugar - White Sugar/Sucrose 1lb 0oz (5.6 %) Start Of Boil
Hops
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used First Wort Hopped
US Apollo (18.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (13.2 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 90 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Amarillo (10.1 % alpha) 90 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Amarillo (10.1 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (13.2 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used Keg-Hopped
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used Keg-Hopped
Yeast: White Labs WLP051-California Ale V
Mash at 148 degF for 60 mins
Passing the Bar DIPA
Style: 14C-India Pale Ale(IPA)-Imperial IPA
Wort Volume Before Boil: 9.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.50 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.02 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.053 SG
Expected OG: 1.080 SG
Expected FG: 1.014 SG
Expected ABV: 8.8 %
Expected ABW: 6.9 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 192.3
Expected Color: 5.1 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 81.6 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 16lb 0oz (88.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Munich 10L Malt 1lb 0oz (5.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Sugar - White Sugar/Sucrose 1lb 0oz (5.6 %) Start Of Boil
Hops
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used First Wort Hopped
US Apollo (18.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (13.2 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 90 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Amarillo (10.1 % alpha) 90 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Amarillo (10.1 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (13.2 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used Keg-Hopped
US Centennial (11.1 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used Keg-Hopped
Yeast: White Labs WLP051-California Ale V
Mash at 148 degF for 60 mins
Monday, April 16, 2012
Problems with the BJCP Guidelines
I often gripe about issues I see with the BJCP guidelines. So I decided to put my feelings on the guidelines here: I actually credit some fault in many homebrew competitions to the BJCP for including some styles that I personally deem (in all my omniscient wisdom) to be too obscure and rare or undefined-in-their-home-country to be appropriate for judging. Other styles should be merged, I think. And some styles should have a better spot than Category 23. I also have some other issues with the guidelines. Among them:
Northern German Altbier and Düsseldorf Altbier: "Northern German Altbier" is exceedingly rare and basically fits within parameters of Düsseldorf Altbier, so the styles should be merged. And despite what the guidelines say, I do not believe anything called "altbier" in Germany is made with a bottom-fermenting yeast. Then again, if a brewer submitted a beer fermented with a lager yeast, no one would be able to tell that it wasn't a German Ale yeast fermented extra cool.
Scottish 60/-, 70/-, and 80/-: all three Scottish session ales should be a single style, IMO, or included with bitters since, in Scotland, that is how they are treated; and they are RARE in Scotland, as the hoppier "bitter" style has dominated the draught ale market for the past 30+ years.
Southern English Brown Ale: there is only one such beer brewed in England (Mann's Original Brown Ale) and it is pasteurized, never-cask-conditioned crap, which is not CAMRA-approved and not exported to the USA. Just fold this one into Northern English Brown Ale and call it "English Brown Ale."
Brown Porter and Robust Porter: should just be a single category since they can be fairly judged against each other and are so similar
Foreign Extra Stout and American Stout: should be merged into a single, "Extra Stout" category since any foreign extra stout fully fits within the guidelines of an American stout and the difference implies an American Stout needs a C-hop aroma which muddies judges' perceptions and causes judging errors.
English IPA: should be treated as a style of bitter, since that is how it is treated in England and cask ales almost NEVER exceed 6% ABV (most beers called IPA are under 5% ABV in Britain), the recent brewers who do English IPA's that fit within the style guidelines were inspired by American beers and usually use imported American hops - so they are really just brewing American IPA. My point being, the idea of a maltier-than-American-IPA 6.5% ABV hoppy ale brewed with British hops existing in any form in Britain is unfounded. If anything, splitting the American IPA into the styles of "East Coast IPA" and "West Coast IPA" makes more sense since both styles actually exist on a large scale, but I would just drop English IPA and fold it into bitters.
Belgian Pale Ale: while I appreciate the BJCP trying to create a style for De Koninck-style beers, the truth is that only De Koninck and Palm truly fit this style. Anyone who has tasted a fresh De Koninck in Antwerp and subsequently tasted a Rare Vos in upstate New York will tell you the two beers couldn't be further apart, stylistically. While I very much like De Koninck and Palm, there are too many Belgian Styles as is, and many more common styles in Belgium (like the modern trend of hoppy Blond Ales or the widely-seen style of "Red Ales" that are essentially toned-down Dubbels) are kept out of the guidelines. This is why there is a specific "Belgian Specialty Ale" category. In my opinion, this category should absorb "Belgian Pale Ale"
Sour Ale: while this style is basically well put-together, there is no "other sour ale" or "specialty sour" subcategory, despite the fact that 99% of homebrewed sours do not fit within the guidelines of the existing categories and end up overloading the Belgian Specialty Ale category as well as Category 23 with sours (which inevitably leads to especially bad apples-oranges problems for judges).
Strong Ale: I just don't see a reason for the distinction between Old Ale and English Barleywine.
If it were up to me, the guidelines would be shorter and probably with more "other ________" or "specialty ________" subcategories, but since these guidelines are what we have, they will define styles (and do - I have seen pro breweries in the US brew the BJCP "English IPA" as though the style was really English and not just a way for the brewery to sell an "IPA" brewed with fewer and cheaper hops like Willamette and Nugget. Regardless, I am glad the BJCP exists, despite its flaws, because these competitions would be hell if there were no universal guidelines.
Northern German Altbier and Düsseldorf Altbier: "Northern German Altbier" is exceedingly rare and basically fits within parameters of Düsseldorf Altbier, so the styles should be merged. And despite what the guidelines say, I do not believe anything called "altbier" in Germany is made with a bottom-fermenting yeast. Then again, if a brewer submitted a beer fermented with a lager yeast, no one would be able to tell that it wasn't a German Ale yeast fermented extra cool.
Scottish 60/-, 70/-, and 80/-: all three Scottish session ales should be a single style, IMO, or included with bitters since, in Scotland, that is how they are treated; and they are RARE in Scotland, as the hoppier "bitter" style has dominated the draught ale market for the past 30+ years.
Southern English Brown Ale: there is only one such beer brewed in England (Mann's Original Brown Ale) and it is pasteurized, never-cask-conditioned crap, which is not CAMRA-approved and not exported to the USA. Just fold this one into Northern English Brown Ale and call it "English Brown Ale."
Brown Porter and Robust Porter: should just be a single category since they can be fairly judged against each other and are so similar
Foreign Extra Stout and American Stout: should be merged into a single, "Extra Stout" category since any foreign extra stout fully fits within the guidelines of an American stout and the difference implies an American Stout needs a C-hop aroma which muddies judges' perceptions and causes judging errors.
English IPA: should be treated as a style of bitter, since that is how it is treated in England and cask ales almost NEVER exceed 6% ABV (most beers called IPA are under 5% ABV in Britain), the recent brewers who do English IPA's that fit within the style guidelines were inspired by American beers and usually use imported American hops - so they are really just brewing American IPA. My point being, the idea of a maltier-than-American-IPA 6.5% ABV hoppy ale brewed with British hops existing in any form in Britain is unfounded. If anything, splitting the American IPA into the styles of "East Coast IPA" and "West Coast IPA" makes more sense since both styles actually exist on a large scale, but I would just drop English IPA and fold it into bitters.
Belgian Pale Ale: while I appreciate the BJCP trying to create a style for De Koninck-style beers, the truth is that only De Koninck and Palm truly fit this style. Anyone who has tasted a fresh De Koninck in Antwerp and subsequently tasted a Rare Vos in upstate New York will tell you the two beers couldn't be further apart, stylistically. While I very much like De Koninck and Palm, there are too many Belgian Styles as is, and many more common styles in Belgium (like the modern trend of hoppy Blond Ales or the widely-seen style of "Red Ales" that are essentially toned-down Dubbels) are kept out of the guidelines. This is why there is a specific "Belgian Specialty Ale" category. In my opinion, this category should absorb "Belgian Pale Ale"
Sour Ale: while this style is basically well put-together, there is no "other sour ale" or "specialty sour" subcategory, despite the fact that 99% of homebrewed sours do not fit within the guidelines of the existing categories and end up overloading the Belgian Specialty Ale category as well as Category 23 with sours (which inevitably leads to especially bad apples-oranges problems for judges).
Strong Ale: I just don't see a reason for the distinction between Old Ale and English Barleywine.
If it were up to me, the guidelines would be shorter and probably with more "other ________" or "specialty ________" subcategories, but since these guidelines are what we have, they will define styles (and do - I have seen pro breweries in the US brew the BJCP "English IPA" as though the style was really English and not just a way for the brewery to sell an "IPA" brewed with fewer and cheaper hops like Willamette and Nugget. Regardless, I am glad the BJCP exists, despite its flaws, because these competitions would be hell if there were no universal guidelines.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Brewing It Again (Honing Your Best Recipes): Porter & American Amber Ale
For those of us who entertain the idea of ever really owning a brewery or even of having a great home pub with a few regular beers on tap, having perfected those four or five "regular beers" is an important task. And it makes for a fun and educational way to brew - always looking at your beers objectively, trying to determine how to better the recipe or the process to get it "just right." Another consideration is ingredient selection - using under-appreciated and less costly hops as well as domestic grains can help keep costs down; nice savings in everyday brewing, but especially important in a production brewery.
The very first beer that I tried to replicate was the porter I brewed in the fall of 2008 (during my partial mash days), that I dubbed "Grey Skies" after the trademark Portland weather I was experiencing at the time. I dare say that was the finest extract beer I ever made. Not only did I have to convert it to all-grain, but I soon learned that one of the key ingredients (Franco-Belge Kiln-Coffee Malt) was very difficult to obtain (kudos to F. H. Steinbart for carrying it). So I have remade the recipe several times, always with "perfection" in mind.
I also worked on perfecting American Amber Ale, Kölsch, Düsseldorf Altbier, English "Best" Bitter, and American Brown Ale styles - deducing that maintaining a single-yeast brewery for the regular lineup, and that the most logical strain would be the brewpub standard-bearer and workhorse WLP001/Wyeast 1056, also called "Chico" due to its famed use at Sierra Nevada.
But I would get bored always using WLP001 for my homebrew, so I often try out different yeasts, and since I have no immediate plans to "go pro," I don't bother myself with the fact that some of the flavors and aromas wouldn't necessarily be the same.
Grey Skies Porter
The last time I brewed this beer, I found it a little lifeless. I think this is because the combination of the clean (low-ester) American yeast and the relatively low level of hop flavor, combined with the low roast-bitterness from my judicious use of Carafa Special II (a dehusked Chocolate Malt from Germany) instead of the more classic UK or US Chocolate Malt or Black Patent Malt led to the beer being a bit too "tame" and smooth. Additionally, the Belgian Special B malt added a fruity aspect that seemed out-of-place, particularly since it replaced the toffee-molasses candy flavor that I get from British Extra Dark Crystal.
So this time around, while still using an American ale yeast (this time WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast, I decided to go with a lot of British Medium (65L) Crystal malt in place of any Extra Dark crystal or Special B, and I used British Chocolate Malt in place of the Carafa Special II I have been using for some time (since the original recipe's Belgian Kiln-Coffee Malt is hard to find in the bay area). I also decided to make this a bit of a hoppier beer by swapping the English or Noble-type flavor/aroma hop addition in favor of Centennial, a classic American "C Hop" with a more punchy floral character than the English-style hops I usually use.
Here's the recipe:
Recipe: Grey Skies Porter v5
Style: 12B-Porter-Robust Porter
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 14.50 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 12.00 US gals
Volume Transferred: 11.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 11.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 10.50 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.050 SG
Expected OG: 1.060 SG
Expected FG: 1.014 SG
Expected ABV: 6.1 %
Expected ABW: 4.8 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 41.9
Expected Color: 32.8 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 75.2 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 14lb 4oz (57.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Vienna Malt 3lb 12oz (15.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal (120EBC) 3lb 0oz (12.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Pale Chocolate Malt 2lb 0oz (8.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Aromatic Malt 1lb 0oz (4.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Chocolate Malt 1lb 0oz (4.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Nugget (11.6 % alpha) 65 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Centennial (6.5 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
Yeast: White Labs WLP090-San Diego Super Ale
Mash at 154 degF for 60 mins
Wanderlust Red (American Amber Ale)
I settles on the ideal basic malt bill for an American Amber Ale last year when I brewed the Undead Red Ale last year. Since then, all my American amber ales have been pale ale malt or plain 2-row, a little Munich Malt, a good dose of British Medium Crystal, and a touch of Carafa Special II for color. My last attempt won my club's style of the quarter competition and took third inState. So this time, I went with a very similar recipe, just tweaking the hopping a little bit to make it a bit more aromatic than before, and reducing the size of the beer a bit to make it more sessionable. Also, I used a different yeast, Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite, just because I had it around, and have found it a nice yeast for amber ales in the past. Since I am planning to enter this beer into nationals, as well as the World Cup of Beer, I really wanted to get this one right in the middle of the style guidelines to really hammer it in with the judges that I know how to make a great American Amber Ale. Also, this is a smallish beer, so I figure I can build up all this yeast to put into a big stout in the near future.
Recipe: Wanderlust Red
Style: 10B-American Ale-American Amber Ale
Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.50 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.20 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.02 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.037 SG
Expected OG: 1.051 SG
Expected FG: 1.012 SG
Expected ABV: 5.1 %
Expected ABW: 4.0 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 38.4
Expected Color: 12.0 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 74.9 %
Mash Efficiency: 78.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 66 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 7lb 7oz (67.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Munich Malt 2lb 8oz (22.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal (120EBC) 1lb 0oz (9.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Carafa Special II 1.00 oz (0.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Nugget (11.6 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Centennial (6.5 % alpha) 35 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Amarillo (10.9 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
Yeast: Wyeast 1450-Denny's Favorite 50
Mash at 152 degF for 60 mins
The very first beer that I tried to replicate was the porter I brewed in the fall of 2008 (during my partial mash days), that I dubbed "Grey Skies" after the trademark Portland weather I was experiencing at the time. I dare say that was the finest extract beer I ever made. Not only did I have to convert it to all-grain, but I soon learned that one of the key ingredients (Franco-Belge Kiln-Coffee Malt) was very difficult to obtain (kudos to F. H. Steinbart for carrying it). So I have remade the recipe several times, always with "perfection" in mind.
I also worked on perfecting American Amber Ale, Kölsch, Düsseldorf Altbier, English "Best" Bitter, and American Brown Ale styles - deducing that maintaining a single-yeast brewery for the regular lineup, and that the most logical strain would be the brewpub standard-bearer and workhorse WLP001/Wyeast 1056, also called "Chico" due to its famed use at Sierra Nevada.
But I would get bored always using WLP001 for my homebrew, so I often try out different yeasts, and since I have no immediate plans to "go pro," I don't bother myself with the fact that some of the flavors and aromas wouldn't necessarily be the same.
Grey Skies Porter
The last time I brewed this beer, I found it a little lifeless. I think this is because the combination of the clean (low-ester) American yeast and the relatively low level of hop flavor, combined with the low roast-bitterness from my judicious use of Carafa Special II (a dehusked Chocolate Malt from Germany) instead of the more classic UK or US Chocolate Malt or Black Patent Malt led to the beer being a bit too "tame" and smooth. Additionally, the Belgian Special B malt added a fruity aspect that seemed out-of-place, particularly since it replaced the toffee-molasses candy flavor that I get from British Extra Dark Crystal.
So this time around, while still using an American ale yeast (this time WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast, I decided to go with a lot of British Medium (65L) Crystal malt in place of any Extra Dark crystal or Special B, and I used British Chocolate Malt in place of the Carafa Special II I have been using for some time (since the original recipe's Belgian Kiln-Coffee Malt is hard to find in the bay area). I also decided to make this a bit of a hoppier beer by swapping the English or Noble-type flavor/aroma hop addition in favor of Centennial, a classic American "C Hop" with a more punchy floral character than the English-style hops I usually use.
Here's the recipe:
Recipe: Grey Skies Porter v5
Style: 12B-Porter-Robust Porter
Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 14.50 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 12.00 US gals
Volume Transferred: 11.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 11.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 10.50 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.050 SG
Expected OG: 1.060 SG
Expected FG: 1.014 SG
Expected ABV: 6.1 %
Expected ABW: 4.8 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 41.9
Expected Color: 32.8 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 75.2 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 14lb 4oz (57.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Vienna Malt 3lb 12oz (15.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal (120EBC) 3lb 0oz (12.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Pale Chocolate Malt 2lb 0oz (8.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Aromatic Malt 1lb 0oz (4.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Chocolate Malt 1lb 0oz (4.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Nugget (11.6 % alpha) 65 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Centennial (6.5 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
Yeast: White Labs WLP090-San Diego Super Ale
Mash at 154 degF for 60 mins
Wanderlust Red (American Amber Ale)
I settles on the ideal basic malt bill for an American Amber Ale last year when I brewed the Undead Red Ale last year. Since then, all my American amber ales have been pale ale malt or plain 2-row, a little Munich Malt, a good dose of British Medium Crystal, and a touch of Carafa Special II for color. My last attempt won my club's style of the quarter competition and took third inState. So this time, I went with a very similar recipe, just tweaking the hopping a little bit to make it a bit more aromatic than before, and reducing the size of the beer a bit to make it more sessionable. Also, I used a different yeast, Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite, just because I had it around, and have found it a nice yeast for amber ales in the past. Since I am planning to enter this beer into nationals, as well as the World Cup of Beer, I really wanted to get this one right in the middle of the style guidelines to really hammer it in with the judges that I know how to make a great American Amber Ale. Also, this is a smallish beer, so I figure I can build up all this yeast to put into a big stout in the near future.
Recipe: Wanderlust Red
Style: 10B-American Ale-American Amber Ale
Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.50 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.20 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.02 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.037 SG
Expected OG: 1.051 SG
Expected FG: 1.012 SG
Expected ABV: 5.1 %
Expected ABW: 4.0 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 38.4
Expected Color: 12.0 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 74.9 %
Mash Efficiency: 78.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 66 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 7lb 7oz (67.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Munich Malt 2lb 8oz (22.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal (120EBC) 1lb 0oz (9.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Carafa Special II 1.00 oz (0.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Nugget (11.6 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Centennial (6.5 % alpha) 35 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Amarillo (10.9 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
Yeast: Wyeast 1450-Denny's Favorite 50
Mash at 152 degF for 60 mins
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