Blog Resurrection Once Again

So it's been a fairly infinitesimal amount of time since I last posted. Without temperature control (and free time!) brewing is pretty difficult in this part of the country during the summer. Since opening our second restaurant, I've been really busy with work and haven't had time to either brew or take care of my aging sours. Today, I finally bottled my Oud Bruin which I brewed back in May of last year. It is an exceptionally old tasting beer with a considerable amount of oxidation coming through (hopefully not detrimental, but will see with carbonation and additional age). My fermentation basement is getting into the lower 70's and hopefully I'll have time to bust open my still unopened sack of Weyermann Pils Malt to get some brews moving.

Failing that, I have ventured a bit more into the molecular gastronomy world. It's been a huge passion of mine (albeit mostly just reading and not so much doing). Chemicals are on the way to experiment at home and I have a group of folks coming for dinner next week anticipating a 4 Star dinner. Hopefully I'll find time to take notes and take some photos of the dishes to share here in the void of beer posts. For those of you who come into the "brewing vacations", I really appreciate it. Here's to hopefully some new brewings, and new experiments!

Wedding Belgian Single Test #1

As I talked about in my previous post, I'm working on nailing down a recipe to serve at my wedding next year. I think Belgian style ales are the best for celebrations being they're relatively dry, highly carbonated, and fruity/spicy. Granted not all Belgians fall under that description, but the pale styles generally do. I initially wanted to make something pretty high in abv (a la a tripel), but was convinced to go lower. The other suggestion I had was to use some honey and flowers. I really wanted to use pink peppercorns since I love the flavor and their fruitiness. In addition, I thought lemongrass would be a great complement. However, this morning I tried two grocery stores and found no lemongrass. I did find both hibiscus and chamomille. I thought, why not; and they'll both work well with the peppercorns. (their freshness is a bit suspect though)
The recipe itself is very simple. Pilsner malt, flaked wheat, couple hop additions (just what I had on hand), and 3787, my favorite Belgian yeast from Westmalle. The honey I have decided to add after primary has slowed down to ensure good florals are saved. I'll likely add this at about day 3. I also decided to order some Five Star 5.2 pH Stabilizer. I am hoping it helps my efficiency just a bit and if not, it's just a couple bucks. This should hopefully turn out well, but I'm happy to do another rebrew if necessary; it has to be a perfect beer!
Recipe:
Batch Size: 5.40 gal
Boil Size: 6.34 gal
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 19.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 76.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
6.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 66.67 %
2.00 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 22.22 %
1.00 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (75 min) Hops 15.6 IBU
1.00 oz Styrian Goldings [3.50 %] (10 min) Hops 4.7 IBU
1.00 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 11.11 %
1 Pkgs Trappist High Gravity (Wyeast Labs #3787) Yeast-Wheat

5/12/10: Brewed on a sunny, muggy morning. No wind to deal with. At flameout, I added 6gm chamomile, 10gm hibiscus and 12gm pink peppercorns. Excited to see my numbers when I pulled my sample; 76% efficiency! Granted I used to get this consistently a year ago, but it's been a while since I've touched it. The effective number is 1.041 now, but with the addition of 1# of honey in a couple days will push it to 1.047 which I think is perfect. Flavor of wort was very strong on the chamomile, while the rest quite subdued. I'll see how things go fermentation wise, and adjust if necessary. I made a .5L starter this morning with a very happy pack of fresh 3787. Ferment will start at about 66 and will be raised to the 70s in a couple days.
6/5/10: Pulled first sample about ready to keg. All signs of fermentation are definitely over and ambient temp has gotten up to about 73. Gravity reached 1.010, at 78% attenuation and 4.8% abv. Not as dry as I was looking forward to, but that can be tweaked in the next batch. Flavors are really nice and the spicing is subtle and balanced. Can't wait to see how this is once chilled and carbonated.

Beer and non Beer news

Just a quick post to talk about some upcoming brews. I'm still really excited to get all the carboys filled! This week I actually have a full vacation; however nothing really going on since my employers basically forced my remaining time from the year. With that said, I scrambled to get together a couple brews while I had plenty of time. I ordered everything I needed for my fruited Berliner a couple weeks ago but lo and behold, I ended up ordering Brett L instead of Lacto! Doh! Now I've started building up the pack and I may still do a Blackberry, all Brett L wheat, but probably another week or so away.
The other big news is I got engaged! I'm super excited about getting married, and we've roughly set the date at June 2011 in Asheville, NC. Both Madeline and I are (vaguely) from NC and Asheville is a city we both love. My good friend and brew buddy in Lawrence, KS, Mikey, had brewed all the beer for his wedding. He spent an insane amount of time getting roughly 50 gal of beer (5 varieties) ready for his reception. I'm no way going to go that far, but I will make a celebratory beer to serve at the reception. I initially thought of doing simply a tripel, but was urged by friends to go a little lower gravity for more consumption. With that said, I decided on a Belgian single lightly spiced with pink peppercorns and lemongrass. I'll be doing a test batch tomorrow and post preliminary the recipe tomorrow (will post recipe then).
Other than that, I have some plans to knock out a Americanized mild this week and a Belgian Barleywine with the cake from the "Saison". Looking forward to taking advantage of all the cooler temps before it gets too hot. I also want to get one of my sours bottled here in a week or so. Either the Table Sour or Oud Bruin, I'll see which seems more ready.

Funky Saison

That time again to get another sour/funky beer in the works. This one ended up being a result of purchasing some Sorachi Ace hops several months back. S. Ace hops can be really divisive; some folks claim it produces a nasty, fake, lemon pine-sol type of flavor/aroma. Other say it gives a nice balanced, bitter citrus note. I was inspired by Brooklyn's Saison which is made exclusively with Sorachi Ace (all throughout from bittering to dry hopping). I had it on tap in town and really enjoyed the balance of Belgianesque phenolics with the light lemon notes. I also wanted to try a couple other techniques; using T-58, a dried yeast from Safale that is supposed to produce light clove and banana flavors, and pitching in some cultured bottle dregs. It started with simply a bottle of Saison de Lente from the Bruery, a fantastic, dry fruity saison finished with Brett. I ended up supplementing with some dregs from the bourbon barrel wee heavy and the Flander's Red. The result was a pretty hoppy, mid gravity saison (if you will) with some funk in the finish. I don't have plans to give it tons of time before kegging, so the funk should be pretty subdued.
Recipe:
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 5.87 gal
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 5.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
7.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 66.67 %
3.00 lb Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 28.57 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 4.76 %
0.50 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (75 min) Hops 23.2 IBU
1.00 oz Sorachi Ace [11.10 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Sorachi Ace [11.10 %] (10 min) Hops 14.3 IBU
1.00 oz Sorachi Ace [11.10 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs SafBrew Specialty Ale (DCL Yeast #T-58) Yeast-Ale

04/19/10: Brewed this morning. Efficiency didn't seem to take too much of a hit. Mashed at 150 to control yeast and residual sugars for Brett. Beer took off very quickly and temps started out in the mid 60s quickly got around 80. Moved carboy to the basement where it was in the mid to upper 60s to finish out before kegging. Hope to get this guy kegged within a month or so.
05/10/10: Just pulled the first sample and it's remarkably at 1.003. No funk is noticeable but the spice profile is really nice. Certainly not along the lines of a saison but some solid Belgian flavors.
05/24/10: This guy is starting to get a nice fluffy white pellicle, one of this thickest I've had of any sour. Hopefully one of my kegs kicks soon and I can get it tapped.

NHC 2010 Results

So this year, I was a bit bummed not to make it back to Philly to judge again in the NE region of the NHC. However, I did enter three beers. I thought these would be my three best I've made in the passed year. I entered: Christmas Saison, Funky Belgian Stout (tasting to follow in a few days, recipe unfortunately lost), and my Oat Wine.
I thought the saison would do the best, but it only managed a 33 overall. Judges said it was a bit over spiced (entered in 16E, Belgian Specialty) and too alcoholic. I had novice and recognized judges, so nothing too special there. Other notes; there was a 4 point differential between the two, looks like the novice had to come down from a 37 if I can read it correctly. He seemed to really enjoy it despite saying he's partial against spiced beers. He didn't pick up much of the ester profile even though I think it's pretty prominent, just the spices. The other judge hopes things will mellow with age, so if I have anymore, perhaps I'll enter in another contest.
The Oat Wine did the worst, managing a 31.5. I was forced to enter it into OA/Smoked beer category because there's a limit of one entry per category. Both judges said the alcohol was too dominant and the oak wasn't prominent enough. Why I didn't manage full points for appearance is strange (should be a given unless high cloudiness/poor head retention which neither was present). The judges just seemed confused about the beer since there was some "different" things going on with no comparison. I hoped it would do better since both 1st and 2nd in the same category last year (in NE) were sours.
Fortunately, the Funky Belgian Stout did the best. It got a 41, though frustratingly did not move on to the Nationals. The judges seemed to really enjoy the range of funk and acid coming through with a light roasty background. One called it a black gueuze! Said the roast was lacking but the wild yeast was great. The other said "don't change anything!". It went to mini best of show, but didn't make it past. The one problem I remember from NHC first round last year is you only have 1 sample per beer. It get's really difficult to ration all of the samples especially if it goes to BOS. I wish it was a 2 bottle entry, but I understand with upwards of 800 entries per region, that would be a ton of beer (and what to do with entries that don't need the second bottle for judging).
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results, though I wish I had an entry move on. The feedback was good, and certainly things I agree with the judges on. As other friends have told me, it's really a crapshoot to do well with beers that are so different, and are not traditional styles (however, the opposite could be just as true). I'm hoping to enter a couple into Spirit of Free Beer this year, though I'm not sure which since it requires a 3 bottle limit per entry.

Long Aged Homebrews

As I'm finishing up chilling my cream ale wort, I found my last bottle of amber saison I made about 1.5 years ago. It's actually pretty high in abv (7-8% IIRC), so it's certainly age worthy. I used 3724 (Dupont) for yeast, which is known to be very finicky though I did get very good attenuation (recipe is lost however due to my previous pc crashing). The beer is definitely showing some oxidation, and the rich thick maltiness is coming out. Near sherry like notes dominate while the spicy, earthy saison yeast has subsided. I can't say it's in an improved state, but it's an interesting one to taste; obviously better than how the Pliny clone aged though! Anyone else have good/bad results with an aged beer, hopefully something over a year or so?
(as an aside to photog snobs, I know the white balance is off, but I really like the strong blue tint I got to this shot)

Cream Ale V3.0

I'm really digging getting back into brewing since so long of a break. I had just not made time for myself to enjoy a nice relaxing brew day, and certainly enjoying the results. Now that I'm quickly filling up all my fermenters and draining my kegs, it feels good.
This week I'm brewing my third rendition of a cream ale. The first was basically straight out of Jamil's book, with a slight hop substitution. The second I switched up the yeast, hops and grain base (while still using some corn and sugar). This time, it's not a huge change-up, just a way to utilize some hops I have (one variety I don't believe I've ever used). It should follow the Schwartzbier on tap once it's kicked. Looking forward to this one when the warmer weather hits.
Recipe:
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.30 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 3.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 20.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
10.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 81.63 %
1.00 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 8.16 %
1.00 oz Williamette [4.50 %] (75 min) Hops 14.3 IBU
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (10 min) Hops 4.9 IBU
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs Ale (DCL Yeast #US05) Yeast-Ale

04/14/2010: Brewed on a gorgeous, warming morning. Mashed at 150-149 for 60min on this one for high fermentability. Meant to add .75# of cane sugar but totally forgot. Gravity at 1.051 is still good, and I'm happy to have my efficiency back up to 70%.
05/10/2010: After really neglecting this beer, I pulled a sample and it's sitting at 1.005. Flavor is extremely mild with really nothing dominating. Basically, what I'm looking for. Hopefully I'll get it kegged up within a week or so.

Imperial Munich IPA

Since I got a little careless with utilizing my cold weather season to brew some more lagers, I had to come up with something to use all the Munich malt I bought for a Doppelbock. Having torn through anything hoppy on tap, I figured I would put together a double IPA that was all Munich malt. (I also have a ton of American hops on hand, so really nothing else to buy but yeast). Because Munich malt isn't as fermentable as Pilsner, or any pale 2-row, I decided to go about 90/10 Munich/sugar to ensure it was dry enough. Coupled with using US05, should be no problem. The only other issue I've just been reading about is the low diastatic power of Munich malt (in essence, that it can be tricky to self convert without the use of a high lintner malt). However, having just finished mashing, and knowing I used Bolander Munich from Briess and completing an iodine test, I'm confident I have some sweet, sugary wort. Aside from that, I had to come up with a solid hop schedule. And I'll admit, I kind of just went the dart board method, and randomly picked them. I know I needed some first wort hops, bittering, flavor and aroma, so just went with the strong points of each hop. Chinook for FWH (not a huge fan of the piney notes, but it's my highest alpha hop and would do well for bittering), Centennial for bittering and flavor (love the citrus), Simcoe for flavor, and Amarillo and Centennial to finish out the aroma for knockout. I haven't determined what I'll do yet for keg hopping but will certainly update. Anyone else out there with success stories for single malt beers?
(started my brew day off with one of the first (carbonated) bottles of the Bourbon Barrel Wee Heavy)
Recipe:
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: ~8 gal
Estimated OG: 1.072 SG
Estimated Color: 14.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 124.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 63 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
15.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 90.91 %
1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (75 min) (First Wort Hops 37.8 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (75 min) Hops 26.1 IBU
1.00 oz Centennial [11.50 %] (75 min) Hops 31.9 IBU
1.00 oz Centennial [11.50 %] (20 min) Hops 18.5 IBU
0.50 oz Simcoe [12.70 %] (20 min) Hops 10.2 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Centennial [11.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.50 lb Cane (Beet) Sugar (0.0 SRM) Sugar 9.09 %
1.5 Pkgs Ale (DCL Yeast #US05) Yeast-Ale

4/07/10: Brewed this morning in the hot morning sun. No problems other than the horrible efficiency. Due to either incomplete conversion or otherwise, it's something I want to revisit in the future. Will add some keg hops when it comes to that, but will be updated on the blog.
4/21/10: Just pulled the first sample and this is an awesome beer! Huge caramel, toffee, biscuity nose without a huge hop presence. Big bitterness and nice citrusy flavor with a dry finish. Gravity finished at 1.012 so 7.8% abv and 82% attenuation. Hoping to get it kegged up today just need to get some hop bags (pantyhose!) and kill the Cal Common. Wow, I'm happy with this one.
4/21/10: Kegged up with 3oz of Centennial and 2oz of Amarillo. Been drinking fantastically since just carbonated. It's going to go fast!
5/10/10: And it's kicked! Haha, probably my best kegged beer to date.

Bourbon Barrel Porter

Well, it's that time of the year again, to empty out one of our barrels. The Wee Heavy we made about 13 months ago, since going sour, is ready for bottling. Since we've abandoned the idea of aging anything clean in the barrel, we needed to decide what kind of beer would do well souring and absorbing any bourbon flavor that is left. The Wee has turned out really well with a nice mingling of funk, sour, oak and bourbon. The ideas first thrown out were: tripel (a la Allagash Curieux), robust/baltic porter, stout or barleywine. The first was quickly abolished because none of us (myself excluded) are huge fans of Allagash's, barleywine is just too close to the Wee, so it was down to stout and porter. We all agreed that a Baltic or Rubust porter would be best for long aging (higher abv, roasted malts), and that it was not as rich as a stout (Imperial or otherwise). Finally, we decided that using lager yeast, as in traditional production of a Baltic, would be just too tricky as it needs longer time and some of us (okay, just me) don't have good temperature control. The recipe is very simple, and most of us used US05 since it ferments quickly, is pretty clean, and cheap. Barrel date is set for this Saturday, March 20, should be exciting!
Recipe:
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.70 gal
Boil Size: 8.30 gal
Estimated OG: 1.077 SG
Estimated Color: 38.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 67.50 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
15.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 84.24 %
1.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.79 %
0.90 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.89 %
0.75 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.08 %
2.00 oz Williamette [4.50 %] (75 min) Hops 24.1 IBU

Yeast
-----------
US05 (1.5 packets)

3/03/10: Brewed today after getting my Barley Crusher functioning again. Mashed quite high, about 158-159 since I was using the beast known as US05 and we wanted plenty of residual sugar for the bugs. Fermenting in the low 50s. No problems, ended up with better, but still poor efficiency.
3/17/10: After a very quiet fermentation, gravity is down to 1.020, but there may be some more left in it since the ambient temp is in the upper 50s, to near 60.

And I'm back! Sort of...

Well, it's certainlly been a rollercoaster type of winter so far. If you watch any news at all, you've noticed DC has received record breaking snow fall despite winter only being about 2/3 done! I've been just so uninterested in brewing lately as a part result. The other has been my battle with my keg regulator with Midwest Brewing Supplies. They had sent me a new gauge, which didn't solve anything. However, they sent me a brand new regulator soon after (about a $100 value), and everything seems to be up and running with my IPA and Cal Common on tap. I have to say, Midwest has fantastic prices AND amazing customer service to boot (something I really appreciate being in the service industry).
Back to the blog. After taking a couple months off of brewing and blogging, I'm more or less back. Just finishing up brewing my Schwartzbier, and no problems whatsoever. I just bottled my Funky Belgian Stout which I brewed back in late November 2008. It got plenty of age (despite a FG of 1.026) and turned out really tasty. I'm also just pointing out that at this point I think I'm merely going to use the blog as a place for me to post recipes and production tracking. I am still very upset that I lost all of the data of nearly 3 years of brewing to my old computer and figure using a blog (on the "cloud") to backup this data is the best use. I'll try to make some other updates in addition (tastings, beer happenings, etc), but can't promise anything.
From that, here is my recipe for the Schwartz, basically an adaptation of Jamils':

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.30 gal
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 28.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 66.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
6.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 51.37 %
4.50 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 38.53 %
0.37 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 3.17 %
0.37 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 3.17 %
0.22 lb Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.88 %
0.22 lb Carafa II (412.0 SRM) Grain 1.88 %
1.75 oz Crystal [4.30 %] (75 min) Hops 26.1 IBU
0.50 oz Crystal [4.30 %] (20 min) Hops 4.3 IBU
0.50 oz Crystal [4.30 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs Bavarian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2206) Yeast-Lager

2/17/10: Brewed today. Awful efficiency, not sure if it had to do with crush or what. Also lost a ton of volume from either a vicious boil, or weather. Either way, a 1.050 OG is fine for this style. Mash ran a bit higher than expected (156-157), hopefully the yeast is able to manage at least 70%AA. Pulled a 2 cup runnings to get the yeast going since the starter was made a couple weeks ago.
3/27/10: Kegged her up today. Gravity managed to get down to 1.010, so I'm pretty happy. However, there's a strange note in the aroma, most likely yeast derived. I can't say that it's diacetyl, but I'm really not sure what it is. Hopefully a couple weeks in the fridge to lager will help it out.