I've been through the desert on a beer with no name

...It felt good to be out of the snow. While we are still unsure about the name of this IPA, for now it's a poe-boy because we used our free hops from Red Hook for it! It's a great tour if you get the chance and you're in Portsmouth, I recommend it.

As you can see from the picture above, it was actually cold out for our brew day. This is man brewing conditions, not like those in Georgia where 55f is a cold brew night. We got to brew out the Carharts already!

This was an IPA with a lot of hops and about 55lbs of grain involved. There were some adjustments to the recipe that was indicated earlier. First off, it was German Tetinang, not Galana that we had to brew with so we went a little heavier on the Northern Brewer. In the end, we were able to get very near our intended IBU's.



Now when it came to how to distribute the hops over two 10 gallon batches of beer, Nick had a pretty crazy idea to help us brew and cool in a timely manner. First off, please note that we take and mix all of the batches when we put them into our fermentation buckets.

Now Nick's idea was simple - We have bittering hops and flavor hops. The flavor/aroma hops do not need to boil for the full 60 min, nor does the wort that gets those hops. So, we have one 10 gallon keggle for bittering that boils the full 60 min, and the second one boils with all the late hops additions. While we cool the flavor/aroma keggle, the bittering keggle is on the second leg of it's boil. By the time we are done with the flavor/aroma keggle, the bittering one is ready to cool.

I racked my brain for a way to make this not an acceptable method, but it seems pretty logical. I am interested to hear some feedback, if I get ambitious, I may make a diagram for this.

So, quick recap - The keggle on the left has all the bittering hops additions. The keggle on the right has all the aroma and flavor hops additions and only boils for 1/2 hr. In the end, they are all mixed together.

Overall it was a great brew day. We missed out on our volume and didn't take any mashing/sparging readings, but we were well over our mark on gravity (1.066, instead of 1.057) so I think in the end, we were right where we wanted to be. The beer was a nice straw color, so we will see how it settles out.

We also did a tasting of Ted's Mint Stout. I will be posting up a video later this week to get everyone through turkey day.

Cheers!

Back to brewing!

Finally, we are going to brew this weekend! Because Nick and I are so low on brew and because I was able to come across some free high alpha acid hops while on brew tour, we are making an American IPA. I picked up the grains last night and I am going to be rocking the starter tonight.

This is currently a namless IPA, but I am sure Nick and I will come up with something good.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 20.00 gal
Boil Size: 22.89 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 8.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 98.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

50.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) 91.32 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 3.65 %
1.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 2.74 %
1.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine 2.28 %
5.00 oz Galena [13.00 %] (90 min) 59.8 IBU
2.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (45 min) 13.4 IBU
2.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (30 min) 11.2 IBU
2.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (20 min) 8.9 IBU
2.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (15 min) 4.7 IBU
2.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (1 min) 0.4 IBU

1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [SYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 54.75 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 17.11 gal of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 10.95 gal of water at 200.2 F 168.0 F

I am still up in the air about weather or not we're going to fly sparge or batch sparge. It will be a game time decision.

On another note, I would like to congratulate Joel (the picture was taken at a MNB brew night)from Monday Night Brewery was recently elected 4th ward dog catcher. With his political prowess, I am sure he will be moving up the ranks to city-wide dog catcher in no time!

Cheers

Californication round two

This weekend Nick wasn't available to brew, so Bryan and I brewed up hist first batch of all-grain. For this, I wanted to take another stab at my ribbon of participation winning California Common called Californication from last year. This year I made some changes to the recipe and quadrupled the recipe for a 20 gallon batch. Here is the tale of the tape:

Grain

40.2lb US 2-Row
3lb Crystal 40L
3lb Crystal 90L
2.75lb Vienna
2oz Brewers gold (60min)
1.5oz Target (60min)
3oz Cascade (10min)
1oz Cascade (1min-cool down)

Brewing

We struck with 15.3 gallons at 161f for a mash temp of 155f (panned out to 150 at the end due to heat loss on the big tun) and collected close to 10 gallons on the first runnings. The gravity for the first runnings was 21.5 brix (1.090) which was pretty high. After the second and third runnings, the pre-boil gravity was 1.052, well above the 1.045 I was expecting.



One quick note; last time we brewed with this large mashtun, we noted that we were not able to get up to mashout temp because Beer Smith's temps were low for our needs. With that in mind I made some observations this time around and played with the temps:

Sparge 1 - Supposed to be 168f - I used 9 gallons of water at 175f - Grainbed temp was 158f up from 150
Sparge 2 - I used 5 gallons of water at 185f - grainbed temp was 168f making me pretty happy

Lesson learned was two-fold:

First off, we loose about 4-5f every hour we mash (this was a 75min mash). I need to make sure that I overshoot temps with that in mind. Second, when I want to mashout or sparge, 5 gallons at 185 will get me 10f in increased grainbed temp on ~50lbs of grain. Good stuff to know.



Anyway, besides all of that, we would up with an OG of 1.053 (I must be taking my refractometer readings too high because it's not adding up with what I am getting in measured OG at the end) and a very hoppy brew. We used a qt starter of Wyeast California Lager yeast and mine were firing away within hours.



In the end this beer was $38pp for 10 gallons of beer, not too bad. Bryan volunteered to take care of the spent grains because I wasn't sure of a good place to dump 50lbs of wet grain in the suburbs.

It was a damn fine brew day and both of us left happy. We had some burgers for lunch, my wife made some pancakes for breakfast and we hit all our brew milestones. What more is there to say?

Cheers!

Maibock means May Bock

Nick was out of town so I decided to do a solo batch of maibock using a Munich yeast I had been holding onto for a while. This was the same yeast I used on the Oktoberfest. It's a great yeast and I have the fridge space to do it so I figured 'why not?'.

Anyone not familiar with Maibock I recommend giving one a try. My favorite is the Smuttynose Maibock. It's such a unique flavor. It tastes like you are drinking unfermented wort that is carbonated. Sounds a little weird, but it was honestly the only way I could describe it.

With this beer, I was shooting for an OG of 1.069 to give me a 7%abv brew that would be a smooth drinker with a little kick. The plan is to break this out in the fall (yea I know, May-bock not October-bock) for our Oktoberfest party to go with the OF brew and some brots. Should be a good one.

Here is the recipe:

12lbs German Pilsner
2.25lbs Munich Malt (light)
1.25lbs Vienna Malt
1/2oz Target (60 min)
1oz Liberty (60 min)
Wyeast 2308 - Munich Lager

Process
35min protein rest at 122f (added 4.25 gallons at 133f)
15min Decoction (2 gallons)
45min Rest at 145f
Mashout - 1 3/4 gal boiling - hold at 160f for 10min
Sparge - added 2.2gal of water to mashtun at 168f as wort ran off

The early runnings were 17.5brix (1.070) and the the pre-boil gravity at was at 14 brix (1.055). This was better than the projected 1.051, but in the end, it the gravity was less than the desired 1.069 by showing up at 1.067. Not too bad. It is still plenty in style and should have all the taste I want. The total brew day took about 4 1/2 hrs and was a pretty relaxing brew session. I forget how much more manageable everything is with 5 gallons.

I just checked it tonight and the brew is plugging away in the fridge. I love Munich yeast. Its like a good lineman, it shows up every Sunday and just works. No problems or questions.

Cheers!

The Gelatin Experiment

This is the tale of two ESB's. Last brew day we did a 20 gallon batch so both Nick and I had 10 gallons. Coming out of the primary, both were pretty cloudy and lacked any clarity. Having been down this path before, I decided to add gelatin. However, since I had two of the same brews, I figured I would make an experiment out of it!

The idea here was to see if this gelatin stuff really works. For those of you who don't know, there are many who recommend the addition of flavorless gelatin to the secondary or to the keg to allow the beer to clear up. The process is pretty simple, you get some of the flavorless gelatin comes in single use packages. Make up one pack per 5 gallons in a small amount of water (much like priming sugar), let it cool to room temp and add it to the secondary. I have even heard that you can add it to the keg as well (but I've never tried that).

Either way, I decided to give this a head to head and this is what I saw 10 days after the addition:



On the left is the vessel that I added the gelatin to, on the right is the one without. As you can see by the carboy on the left, a lot of the traub that is seen sticking to the bottle is not in the brew anymore and make it clear. One important aspect of this is balance. The gelatin is finings and can have an effect on the flavor of your brew (as it is pulling some of the proteins and what not from the brew). Using this amount has worked for me in the past and I was pleased with the results. The only question I was left with was "does that stuff really make the difference?" and I think this experiment is pretty conclusive.

There are other ways to get similar results like dropping the temp down to the 40's on the brew and giving it a lot of time (this is more safe for the brew to stay in the secondary for a longer time anyway). This is an alternative for anyone that is repulsed by gelatin and what it's made of. Not me though. I am a non-discriminative eater, all animals are fair game on my pallet.

Pushing the limits

This was the first weekend brewing with the NEW 100qt mash tun. While there is still a lot of work to be done on this hoss, we figured we would give it a test drive the old fashioned way; put her to work. We decided the best way to do that was a 20gallon batch of Mother's ESB.


This time around, I took the advice of Bad Ben and made some changes to the recipe. I replaced the chocolate malt with biscuit and dialed down the hops by about 10IBUs. I also cut out the dry hopping. This is what the recipe wound up looking like:



Mother's ESB - Round 2
Brewer: Travis & Nick
Asst Brewer: Meatball
Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 20.50 gal
Boil Size: 24.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 12.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 33.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount
39.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 82.19 %
4.20 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)Grain 8.85 %
3.25 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 6.85 %
1.00 lb Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 2.11 %
2.00 oz Target [11.00 %] (60 min) Hops 18.0 IBU
1.50 oz Brewer's Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 9.8 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (60 min) Hops 1.8 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (15 min) Hops 3.5 IBU
0.25 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (15 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (1 min) Hops 0.3 IBU
1 Pkgs London Ale (Wyeast Labs #1028) [StaYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 47.45 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 12 gal of water at 164.2 F 150.0 F
Batch Sp 1 - 10gal at 168f
Batch Sp 2 - 5gal at 168f
Target preboil OG was 1.043

First off - The Mash tun - No need for words, just take it in. That's 47lbs of grain in there.




Picture below is the run off. We were concerned with the potential of anything in the false bottom that might not have come out in rinsing so we ran everything through a screen. It worked out pretty well.



Vitals:

1st addition - 12gallons at 166f mash settled in at 154f for 75min - 19brix (1.077) runoff gravity
Sparge 1 - 10gallons at 168f the mash settled at 155f - 14brix (1.055) runoff gravity
Sparge 2 - 5 gallons at 172f mash settled at 156f - 11brix (1.043) runoff gravity
Total water - 26 gallons



Those are two 5 gallon pots, one with 5 and the other with 3. The brew kettle (15gal) had the rest in it. The big pot was where we added all the hops. In order to ensure that everything was distributed properly in the end, we poured the other two pots in to the big pot as space permitted.



In the end the new mash tun gave us just under 20gal of brew at 1.060 - 73% efficiency! Pretty good for a first run at this. All was not totally perfect with the process though. The pressure inside the tun pushed out on the walls and cause a little steam to leak out of the handle area. It's a lot of pressure on the cooler so we're going to have to consider putting something around it for stabilization.

Over all we were very pleased with the process and so far with the results. The new tun has a lot of potential and may allow us to brew more beer while brewing less frequently. Bryan was over for his second shot at homebrewing. It was a great success and due to the high price of DME, he is ready to make the dive into all-grain.

Cheers!

Three Brew Weekend!

This past weekend we brewed up three batches of brew. We also broke a new brewer into the hobby when by wife's cousin Bryan (Yes MNB, spelled like Bryan Adams, no need to get all giddy) joined us and brewed up an extract batch. When the day was all said and done, we had brewed up about 20 gallons of beer.

Nick and I brewed a 10.5 gallon of Belgian wit I named Ongenaet Wheat - after Belgian SU Basketball player Kristof Ongenaet. If you haven't seen the guy play, he's a warrior, total scrapper. Against Marquette he stole the ball and did a 1 on 4 coast to coast where he dunked and drew the foul. I couldn't find that highlight, but here is Arinze Onuaku breaking a backboard at the midnight madness game.

Ongenaet Wheat
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.12 gal
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 5.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

12.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Euro (3.0 SRM) Grain 51.72 %
8.25 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 35.56 %
1.75 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 7.54 %
1.20 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.17 %
1.00 oz Brewer's Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 14.0 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (25 min) Hops 2.6 IBU
1 Pkgs Belgian Strong Ale (Wyeast Labs #13Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 23.20 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body

75 min Mash In Add 7.25 gal of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 4.64 gal of water at 200.2 F 168.0 F

'Cuse may have been snubbed from the big dance, but this beer is going to help wash away the pain. We also used 2oz of sour orange peel, 1tsp of crushed coriander, and 2oz of grains of paradise. It weighed in at 1.044 making this a summer sensation.

The second recipe we brewed was a 5 gallon alt that we used the kolsch yeast in both for the cream ale and the kolsch. The recipe was based on the specs from Ray Daniels Designing Great Beers:

Alt-ternative Lifestyles
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 13.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

6.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 59.63 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 18.35 %
1.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRGrain 11.47 %
1.00 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 9.17 %
0.15 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 1.38 %
1.25 oz Brewer's Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 37.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Kolsch Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2565) [SYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 10.90 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge

60 min Mash In Add 3.41 gal of water at 159.1 F 148.0 F

This beer came in a little light for the specs, but I would say that a lot of that had to do with the new mash tun clogging. The OG should have been 1.047 and it wound up 1.041. I have since fixed the issue with the false bottom and moved back to the braid - old faithful - it always works!




Finally we brewed up Bryan's Guinness Stout Clone. I came up with the recipe based on Googling some clone recipes and trying to find out what worked. It turns out people on the Internet are morons (present company excluded). The recipe is way light and a little under hopped. Not a HUGE deal, just a little pissed that people (multiple) post up recipes that are so far off. Anyway, lesson learned and I am sticking with good ole Beer Smith from here on in:

6.6lbs Muttons light LME
1lb Flaked Barkey
.5lb Roasted Barley
.25lb Black Patent
1oz Northern Brewer (60min)
1oz Fuggles (3min)

Steeped grains for 1/2hr at 158f, added 1tsp of gypsum. We dumped in the extract, brought it to a boil and topped it off with water once it was cooled off to give him the proper quantity. The OG was about 1.049 with 33 IBU's.

Going forward, I would replace the light LME with dark, increase the BP from .25 to .5, and the roasted barley to .75. Right now he is light for the color (about 26SRM) and could use some more hopps. With that said, it should still be a good beer for his first time out.

Bryan came over Sunday morning prepared with venison sausage, baked beans and a cast iron pan (seen cooking in the picture) so we got to eat some breakfast and brew some beer. Not much else to say besides that...

Cheers!

Oktoberfest '08 By the numbers

OK - So I'm a little late with this one, but I have been distracted by a little side story that caught my attention. All I have to say that even our politicians screw ups are better than those in Georgia.

So this weekend Nick and I brewed up the Oktoberfest from last year. In true Marzen fashion, we brewed this hoss in March and I am going to let it sit till the last week in September where we'll break it out with brots.

We started brewing this guy at around 7:30am (Daylight savings time messed us all up) and it was just Nick and I this time. We were able to brew out of a single mash tun for the first time in a while and it went pretty well. We struck 8 gallons of water at 132 which had our grain at about 123f for the first 35min. To mix the grains up in the hot water, I used my new tool that I got from Home Depot. This is a paint mixer that hooks to my wireless drill and acts as an auger. I made a short video:

After the first 35min rest at 123f, we pulled off about 3.5 gallons of grain/wort mix for our single decoction. This came to a boil within about 20 min of being pulled off and boiled for 3min before being returned to the mash tun. This brought our temp to 155f and held for 45min. As always we mixed and mixed to avoid hot-spots. The drill auger worked out pretty well for all this mixing. I was pleased, well worth the $8.

Once the mash out came, because we were pretty close to full, we pulled off about a gallon and a half of mostly liquid and brought it to a boil. We then added that back to the mash tun for the mash out which was 171f. We sparged with 7 gallons which gave us pretty good volume. Our pre boil gravity was (?).

After everything was all said and done (yes we had a few boil overs) we wound up with a solid 11gallons with an OG of 1.064 - well above the targeted 1.054. I am not sure what is to account for the 69% efficiency in the mashing (up from the usual 60%), but I was not displeased with the result.

We pitched with a 2qt starter that was rested at 44f before being added to the brew buckets. We did not bring the wort down to 44f before adding the yeast, though I have been reading a lot of people saying that we should. Several days in now, it's gone from 1.064 to 1.044, so it is slowly working its magic in that cooler temp. It's been bubbling really slowly.

I think that's it for now. Cheers!

Oktoberfest in March

In the true spirit of a Marzen, we are going to be brewing an Oktoberfest this weekend. With hopes of matching the success of the fall 2007 Oktoberfest party, the plan is to brew up 10 gallons of this delicious brew and let it age till late September when we can have friends over to drink it all with us.

The brew is in the spirit of the 2007 Oktoberfest which was a rousing success at our Oktoberfest party;

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.12 gal
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 6.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 28.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
18.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 70.0 %
4.70 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 18.3 %
3.00 lb Munich Malt - 20L (11.0 SRM) Grain 11.7 %
1.00 oz Brewer's Gold [8.00%] (60 min) Hops 14.0 IBU
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30%] (60 min) Hops 7.5 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [4.30%] (60 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [4.30%] (30 min) Hops 2.9 IBU
1 Pkgs Munich Lager (Wyeast Labs #2308) Yeast-Lager


Mash Schedule: Decoction Mash, Single
Total Grain Weight: 25.70 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Protein Rest Add 8.85 gal of water at 128.6 F122.0 F 35 min
Saccharification Decoct 3.98 gal of mash and boil155.0 F 45 min
Mash Out Add 3.50 gal of water at 205.2 F168.0 F 10 min

We will be brewing this Sunday and for the day I have a new toy. In the process of picking up some cheese cloth from Home Depot so that I could use it for dry hopping our Celebration Ale I saw this beauty;

This hos hooks in like a 3/8 drill bit into a drill and is normally used to mix paint, but for us, it will act as our mash mixer. For the $8 it cost me, it was well worth it (assuming it works). The cheese cloth was used as a way to dry hop with out sacrificing a lot of volume. It's a less than perfect solution if you ask me, but it works for now.

I had hoped to run all the wort from my racking cane through the hops into the carboy, but that didn't work. Good idea, but failed just the same.

Finally I had lunch at Empire Brewing Company today and thoroughly enjoyed the smoked porter and saison they had on tap. Great job by Tim the master brewer.

Cheers!

Celebration Ale - Rewind

So we went ahead and brewed this weekend to get ourselves back on track. This was again the Celebration Ale clone in exchange for wine bottles. The recipe is the same as in the previous post,
except that we decided to replace the Amarillo hops with Cascade out of the pound we picked up. So when you are looking at the recipe, its more like this;

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 13.00 gal
Boil Size: 15.98 gal
Estimated OG: 1.065 SG
Estimated Color: 14.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 88.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
32.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 82.05 %
2.60 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 6.67 %
2.60 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.67 %
0.90 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.31 %
0.90 lb Munich Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.31 %
4.00 oz Target [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 40.0 IBU
4.00 oz Cascade [8.50 %] (30 min) Hops 32.6 IBU
2.00 oz Target [8.50 %] (15 min) Hops 10.5 IBU
2.50 oz Cascade [8.50 %] (5 min) Hops 5.3 IBU
2.50 oz Cascade [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 6 days) Hops

This was a single infusion mash that we split up into two coolers due to the size of the grain bill. Both mashes were struck aiming for 150f with the fist mash hitting 151 and the second being more like 149. We ran off and sparged the first mash, and then dumped the grains, scooped the stuff from the other cooler into the tun and sparged that.

*There is no question that this is not the way that we want to do things going forward. I have started to look for a great price on a 100qt cooler that we can make into a mash tun. Any leads are welcomed, trades will be accepted.

Our pre-boil gravity showed up at 16 brix or 1.064 (well above the expected 1.057) making us quite happy. There were a few boil overs due to the increased volume of over 14 gallons in a 15 gallon brew pot (it was actually more than that because we had two gallons that started out in another brew pot and was added once the first boil over happened). Oddly, the OG wound up at around 1.064 as well, making me wonder about the temp of the sample on the pre-boil gravity. I am going to have to watch that in the future. But alas, it was all good because we were at the proper OG on multiple instruments with a final yield of 13.5 gallons.

When it was all said and done, it was a 6hr brew day. Most of the extra time was used cooling the unusually large wort that we had and was well worth the effort because this is going to be a GREAT brew. I would hate to not have a full five gallons for myself.

Within 8hrs it was bubbling away:

Yea I know, it's a pretty boring video, what can I do? At least it's better than babbling about Bryan Adams.

Going forward, I would like to create a long-term plan for our brewing operation. As we look at the plan to buy a 100qt+ cooler, there will be the opportunity to evaluate the whole setup and I would like to move away from looking at the brewery as one single part at a time. Instead I would like to create and work towards a plan where pieces are worked on and put into place for an overall new brewery. That's the dream anyway.

Cheers!

Celebration Ale Weekend

Well the weekend is upon us and it's time to brew. We're currently looking for an extra set of hands because the doc says I can't lift anything greater than 20lbs. If you're in the area and want to come by to join us, shoot me an email so I can give you directions.

This weekend we're going to be brewing a clone of the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale for one of my brother-in-laws friends. We worked out a deal with him where we supply some Celebration Ale and he gives us enough wine bottles and caps for us to do the batch of wine we have been talking about. This is a big batch because once we got a gander at the recipe, we knew we were each going to want some too.

On a side note, thanks to a tip from a good friend, I was able to track down a pound of cascade hops for $28. It was locally grown by a guy whose family has roots in the old NY hops growing and has done it his whole life. I'm not going to lie, I was giddy as a school girl when he told me he had a pound of Cascade. That stuff has been impossible to track down.

Anyway, on to the beer:

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Celebration Ale
Brewer: Travis & Nick
Asst Brewer:
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 13.00 gal
Boil Size: 15.98 gal
Estimated OG: 1.065 SG
Estimated Color: 14.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 88.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
32.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 82.05 %
2.60 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 6.67 %
2.60 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.67 %
0.90 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.31 %
0.90 lb Munich Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.31 %
4.00 oz Target [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 40.0 IBU
2.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 6 days) Hops -
4.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (30 min) Hops 32.6 IBU
2.00 oz Target [8.50 %] (15 min) Hops 10.5 IBU
2.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (5 min) Hops 5.3 IBU


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 39.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 12.19 gal of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 7.80 gal of water at 200.2 F 168.0 F

Now here is where things get a little wacky. This recipe is on the assumption that we are not going to get the Cascade in time. If we are, replace all the Amarillo with the Cascade my father is going to bring us. If he doesn't make it, I think we will be fine with what we have.

Finally a little humor brought to you by comedian Rich Williams of MyBlueCollar.com. Enjoy!

Saturday is brew day

Today was my brew day for the doppelbock. This 21lb, 7 1/2 hour journey has whipped me out! but I am done and it was a great experience that should yield a great beer. Before I go through some of the high points on the brew day, this was my first time doing a decoction mash so I am going to go through the steps.

For those of you that have not tried a decoct mash, it's not actually that difficult, it's simply VERY time consuming. You can add an extra hour on your mashing for every decoction step in your process. A summary of a decoction is taking 1/3 of your grain out of your mash tun after you have doughed in your mash and putting it into a separate pot. The consistency should be pretty think, it reminded me of oatmeal. You get it up to 152f, give it a 20min rest at that temp and raise it up to a boil, boil it for 20 min and return the grain back to the mash tun. Mix in well and watch for hot spots. Pretty simple, right? Well it actually is. It just takes a while. Here is my time line:

Look inside the Decoc Pot

7:30am wake up, start heating 10 gallons of water for 2qt per lb of grain mix
8:30am(ish) dough in grains at 152f strike temp, 144f grain bed
8:45am take out 1/3 of the grains, add to heat get up to 152, rest 20min
9:30am get the decoc grain up to a boil, boil for 20 min
10:00 am add grains back to mash tun, grain bed temp at 152f, let rest 70min (mowed my lawn)
10:40am draw off grains for 2nd decoc, get onto heat and go straight to boil, wait 20 min
11:10am add grains back to the mash tun, get grain bed temp up above 165f for mashout
11:30am mashout, wait for sparge water to heat up
11:45am start sparge...
And so on...

The left shot is the grains in the decoc pot and the right is the non-decoc grains. It's not easy to see, but the decoc grains got a little darker.


There was a 90min boil to boot. Like I said, this was a very involved beer (did I say that?). In the end it would up being a lot more quantity than I planned, and the OG was not exactly what I wanted either. It was 1.052 before the boil and finished at 1.061. I am not good at checking quantity on my keg kettle, I could have used some more boil, but I am not sure I could have handled another minute of this brew day.


I got the idea to try a doppelbock after reading a great article on it in BYO and they indicated how difficult and time consuming this beer was if brewed in a traditional fashion. I have to agree. However, it was a great experience and I am a fan of the decoction. However, I am not sure there enough days left in my life to make a habit of it.


The other new things about the brew is that I reused my Bohemian yeast from my Oktoberfest. I basically just racked my Oktoberfest to the secondary and left the stuff at the bottom of the bucket. I added my wort and walla! The good news is that it is already bubbling, so I know it worked.



One last note- regarding my comment on the last post about being the smartest man alive; not in fact true. Come to find out my shower head sparge arm sucked ass. Back to the drawing board.

Cheers.

Two Brew weekend

This weekend I am going to be using my Beer Smith generated recipes to brew up two brews. The first will likely be tomorrow night and it's going to be an Extract IPA. I decided that I was in need of a beer to have on tab while I work on the Oktoberfest (yea I know, I am late, oh well) and the Doppelbock in a few weeks.

This brewing session is going to prove to be several big steps for me. First off I am using the Wyeast #2124 (Bohemian Lager) for both the Oktoberfest and the Doppelbock so I am going to reuse my yeast! This was something that I knew nothing about two months ago and since then I had someone from my brew club tell me about it, Ted talked about it, and by LHBS owner Ed said the same thing, it's easy! Which is good news to me.

The second first for me I will get into in greater detail next week, but in my Doppelbock I am going to try for some step infusion. In fact this is going to be like a 5 stepper! But according to BYO it's well worth the effort. Anyway, like I said, I will get into that more next week.

For now, I am brewing my extract tomorrow and my all-grain on Saturday. Should be fun!

BTW- Awesome printer friendly recipes brought to you by Beer Smith, did I mention that I want to make out with that thing?

Beautiful Day to Brew!

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the mid-west who have been effected by the tornado's. I lost my house to fire and I know how it feels to have to pick up the pieces, things will get better with time.

With that said, we were fortunate this weekend in the North East to have an albeit breezy, but sunny day in Upstate New York. Sunday I took advantage of the weather and brewed the crowd favorite Mulligan Wit.

Here some some items of note from the brew day:

• I made a starter that I cooked a little hot and it boiled over in the stove.
  It's also had some of the DME scorched the bottom of the flask (first time using
  my flask, kind of a pain in the arss).
• Started brewing at 8:30am, finish time 2:30pm, 6hr brew session.
• I heated the mash water up to 175F and it leveled out at about 154F when it was in the mash tun. One item of note was that I got two different readings from the
  thermometer, I usually stick it into a tiny hole I have in the top of the mash
  tun, and it was saying 160F, when I put the thermometer into the mash, it was
  154F. I am assuming that this is because the steam is so hot in the mash tun.
  Take note for future batches.
• The gravity of the mash was 1.060 without any adjustments to compensate for heat. I need to make sure that I start cooling these off more from now on.
• I sparged at 175F and had two rests in the sparge. By the time I was done with the sparge I had used 5.5 gallons of sparge water and 4.5 gallons of mash water.
• The beginning boil OG of the wort was 1.040, this was again without adjustment to temp.
• I used a fine grain bag as a way to keep hop loss to a minimum. I also used this for all of the other items on the list for this recipe.
• The boil went for about 1hr and 20 min., the end yield was 4.8 gallons.
• The OG was 1.059, a whole .010 over my target at 1.049 so I added water
  and stirred it a while. I got it down to 1.052 and called it good.
• I pitched at 74F and it was bubbling within 24hrs very actively!

It was a successful brew day. I doubt I will enter this one into any competitions as it's more of a brew that I enjoy than anything. I just hope that I am going to be able to get it close to what I had last year.

Cheers!

The Return of the Mulligan

So I thought that the best way to wake my senses back up was to brew...so away I go. This is an all-grain interpretation of the Blanche de Bruges (Belgium White) that we coined Mulligan Wit after a piss-poor day of golf. I considered going safe and just making another extract brew, but I am always one for a challenge so here goes.

Grain Bill:
2 Row Pale Malt (Mutton's US)- 7.43 lbs
Flaked Wheat- 5.76 lbs
Biscuit Malt- .14lbs
Flaked Oats- .27lbs
Clear Candi Sugar- .5 lbs (45min)


Other:

1.5 tsp Ground Coriander (15min)
1.5 oz Bitter Orange Peel (1/2 @ 15min 1/2 @ 3min)
1/2 tsp Crushed Cumin Seed
1.5 tsp Crushed Grains of Paradise


Hops:

1oz Saaz (3.75% AA) 60 min
1oz Styrian Golding (5.25% AA) 30 min



Yeast:

Belgium White Beer Yeast

OG: 1.052
FG: 1.009

ABV 5.6%

I made some adjustments to this recipe because I am shooting for a 7 gallon yield. I have been trying to get higher and higher yields and I am barley getting what I need to so I am going to shoot for a little more this time and see where I end up.


If you see anything here that looks out of place, now is the time to let me know because I am not brewing till this weekend!


Cheers!

Bottled Mother's ESB

Today was my day to bottle the ESB and take the final gravity. Now I say bottle because I picked up some growlers from my Brother-in-law at his eBay store:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220065864894

I wound up getting 18 of them because I wanted to start having some brew to take with me places. These worked out well with this batch because I didn't wind up with the 5 gallons I was shooting for. This was the result of all the hops I used in the process and the lack of any filtration out of my brew kettle. I lost a whole gallon's worth of ESB from all of the hops I had to dump out. Oh well, live and learn.

Anyway, I took my FG and it was 1.010 making this a 6.5% ABV wonder. I drank the gravity sample and I was a little turned off because there was a strong alcohol burn, but otherwise it was quite good.

I am hoping that a little bit of time will cure the issues with the burn. I will be sure to write on the growlers, but so far they are great and it's not easy to find the amber ones, so that's a bonus.

Cheers!

Quick update on the Mother's ESB

I racked yesterday which seemed a little soon, but the bubbling had stopped a day or so before. When it was going, it was aggressive. I took a gravity reading and it was at 1.012 (from 1.060) so I have to say it's right on the money.

One thing I have to say though is my overzealous use of hops cost me some quantity. The hops at the bottom of the bucket was so thick, I couldn't save a bunch of the brew so I lost a little bit. I will have to adjust my recipe appropriately for the next time I dry hop or get really aggressive hopping sessions.

Otherwise I cannot wait on this brew. It smells great and has a nice dark hue that should lighten up to a rich deep copper once it's in my glass. With about 6 1/2% ABV at racking, it should provide some intoxication upon consumption as well.

I got my brew kettle thermometer and I took some pics of the installation so I will be sure to have a post on that in the near future.

Cheers!

Mother's ESB

This is the beer I am going to brew this weekend. I got the inspiration after reading the blogs of some folks that have left comments, (Bad Ben and Ted I am looking in your direction) I couldn't help myself but to jump on the ESB Express. I was initially going to brew my Belgium Wit, but it has been colder than a bastard in Upstate New York and I like my BW in the sun, so I decided to wait.

So using my handy dandy Designing Great Beers book, I decided to go ahead a design an ESB I will name this weekend. Here goes:

*This recipe was based on 65% efficiency so adjust accordingly

12.69 lbs (5756g) 2 row pale malt
1.05 lbs (476g) Crystal Malt 60L
.45lbs (204g) Chocolate Malt

Boil-2.5oz (70.9g) Goldings 5% AA
Flavor-1.2oz (34g) Fuggle 4.75%AA
Aroma- 2.2oz (62.4g) Mt. Hood 5.5% AA
Dry- 1.5 oz (42.5g) Goldings 5% AA

Wyeast 1028 or 1968 (gotta see what my brew supply has in stock)

OG- 1.060
FG- 1.012

6.5% ABV
48IBU

So I will probably have some adjustments to this after I go to the brewer, but this is what I have so far. Anything seem out of place?

Tasting the IPA

Well I wish I could say that the beer lived up to the name, but alas, nothing ever does.

The IPA is all hops and no malt flavor. It's kind of sad, even my wife commented on how light it was.

The good news is that I know what went wrong. Remember, this predates my understanding of adjusting recipes to my system (and brewing experience) efficiency. I have since received a wealth of information from some of the bloggers on this site and others (Groves Beer Log and Bad Ben) and from the forums on Beer Advocate. This has helped me to understand where I was going wrong and help me to figure out how to get "Back on Track!"

Kegged Joe Cool

I moved my Joe Cool IPA from the fermenter into the keg. It's a little earlier than I wanted too, but I was drinking Molsons Canadian for the last week and I JUST COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

Anyway, this beer was surprisingly light in color and pretty smooth to drink. So far (and yes as always I am drinking my gravity test sample) it's not a knockout by any means, but it's good with a lot of hops flavor.

Something a little weird with this is that the reading I got on the hydrometer was 1.000, but since mine only reads in increments of .005 I figured that was a sign that is was under .005. It made me thing though, is it possible to get a reading of 1.000 from anything other than water? Could you have an aggressive enough yeast session to get down that low? My first thought is no. I would say that in a hypothetical case like that, you would not have any flavor in the beer because there would be no sugar left.

Either way, beer is beer and I am pleased with this one thus far.

Cheers.