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!

Poo Dollar Memories

This past weekend I had a few of the guys from my fraternity over. They came in Friday night and one of the guys who is now a 5 star chef and masters grad from the CIA, cooked up steak and lobster on the grill and we washed it down with the Poo Dollar IPA. (My chef friend was all sorts of impressed with the beer so that was a small victory)

As much as this was a fun get together, it was also an emotional one. We went to Rochester to say our good byes to a close friend. Chung (pictured here to the right of me) was a good friend and we are all going to miss him. The IPA was named Poo Dollar after a game that Chung made up. It consisted of taking a dollar bill and picking up a piece of dog poo with it. After that you leave the dollar on the sidewalk (poo side down of course) and let the hilarity begin. Anyway, he used to have a sinister little giggle when he would talk about Poo Dollar.

Named appropriately, Poo Dollar IPA has Chung's evil little fingers all over it. It's what we would call back in college a "creeper." One of the guys that was over was really throwing them back and kept telling me I was lying about the ABV and that it was not that strong. In fact he went so far as to pound a full glass before he wonked out for the night. Well the next morning the joke was on him. That Poo Dollar creeped up and nailed a spike through his head in his sleep. He looked (and probably felt) like shit. It was great.

Anyway, a quick review of the Poo Dollar; It has a very pinny smell right out of the tap. The head is hit or miss because I was screwing around with the PSI on my keg more than anything, but when you get a good pour, the head retention it strong with a tint of copper. The color of the beer is on the darker side of an IPA, I would say it has the color of an DIPA. The flavor profile if not what I expected. There is a flowery, pinny almost off flavor that is coming out of the hops. I am not sure how to nail it down, but it is not the kind of tastes you would expect from an IPA. Nonetheless, it's very good on the malt side of things, though most of the malt character is really drowned out by the hops.

Drinkability is dangerously delicious. These guys slide right down and weighing in at just under 8%, they really do creep up on you, like picking up a dollar bill only to find poo on the other side.

Now since last weekend put a real dent in my brew supply, I had to push up the brewing of my next batch. Instead of doing an all-grain, because I am working on some tight time schedule stuff, I am going to brew an extract batch. This is my second shot at a flavor beer and it's a vanilla cream ale. I looked into buying vanilla beans, but they are so damn expensive I couldn't bring myself too it, so I bought some pricey extract. Here is the recipe:


5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) 83.3 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) 8.3 %
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 4.2 %
0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 4.2 %
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.80%] (60 min) 9.6 IBU
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (30 min) 9.3 IBU
1 Pkgs California Lager (Wyeast Labs #2112)
1 fl oz Bourbon Vanilla Bean Extract
OG-1.043

I am brewing this tomorrow night so we will see.

Cheers!

Quick update: Poo Dollar IPA

I brewed my first extract brew in a long time and I used Beer Smith to make the recipe. Here is what I did:

3.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.0 %
6.00 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 60.0 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 10.0 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00%] (60 min) Hops 44.1 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50%] (30 min) Hops 28.7 IBU
2.00 oz Glacier [5.60%] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops
-
1 Pkgs
American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [Starter 125 ml]
Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.069 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG
Measured Final Gravity: SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.0 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: %
Bitterness: 72.9 IBU
Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 14.1 SRM

I named the brew Poo Dollar IPA in memory of my friend Chung B. Hua. Poo Dollar was a game that brought him a lot of joy. I really used to love to hear him laugh.

Cheers Chung, say hello to heaven.

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?

Thermometer Installation

In my continuing quest to find a financial shortcut to everything, this week I installed a thermometer on my brew kettle. I searched around and found that there are 2 or 3 companies that make these specifically for brewing and to install onto a brew kettle. Let me start by saying that these thermometers have a distinct advantage over the one that I installed here because they are marked with the proper temps for everything you would do with homebrewing.



However, I found this thermometer on eBay for $16 (with shipping and everything it was $25) so I was sold. It did not come with the "all-in-one" installation, but I am always one for a challenge. So this is what I did:



Thermometer $25
Brass Fitting $3.95
2 3/4" brass washers $4
2 1/2" rubber gaskets (had them from before)
Thread stuff (had it from before)
Total $32.95 compared to the $33 for an all in one kit...who's the sucker now!

Anyway, I digress, in order to install this I had to use the step drill bit that I used for the ball valve and make a hole big enough that the 1/2" threaded section of the thermometer would fit in. This was as much of a project as it was the first time and as with before, it was as much of a chore as the whole project combined.


As with the ball valve, I put a washer on this with a rubber gasket on the inside so that it would seal the whole upon tightening. I used the thread stuff (in the background) the make sure that there were not any leaking on the connections.


As you will note from the image on the right, I had to put the thermometer offset to the right of the ball lock because the face of the thermometer was not going to fit flush right above the ball lock. If I had elected not to use the washer, it would have fit, but the washer would have been on the lowest ring and would have not sit flush, so tightening would have been a problem. Initially I was a little distraught, but then I remembered that this was MY brew kettle and as long as I didn't care, it was perfect.

Finally I tested it for leaks overnight and it was a slam dunk! I even got the dial on straight (after a few tries) so it's a totally functional brew kettle.

I am going to right a review of the thermometer on the first time I use it because it was reading some wacky temps when it was first installed, but once it got settled, it was fine...we will see.

Cheers!

"The First Tuesday After The First Monday" Abbey Ale

I went out looking for an Octoberfest brew that I could make with extract. There were a lot of them out there, but the one thing I noticed is that there was no consistancy in the ingredients so I was not sure what made one different from the others. So here I am. I found this Abbey Ale recipie on the internet and made some adjustments to make it my own. Ommegang has a GREAT Abby Ale so if you are interested to get a good taste, thats a great place to start.

Malt Extract: 6.6 lbs Muttons Malt Extract
3 lbs Muttons dry malt

Specialty Grain: 1 lb De Wolf-Cosyns Belgian pale malt
.5lbs Briess Victory Malt

Bitter Hops: 1 oz Czek Saaz (55 min)
Flavor Hops: 1 oz Czek Saaz (5 min)
Kicking it up: 1 oz Czek Saaz (2 min)

Yeast: Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey

Special: 1 lb dark Belgian candy- when you add the candy, add it 1/4 of the bag at a time and stir it in. This allows the candy to dissolve)

OG: 1.080
FG: 1.010

ABV: 9.17%

Cherry Wheat

Now I have never been a fan of the Cherry Wheat's that I have tried (Sam Adams), I think because they use the Cherry Flavoring as opposed to the real Cherry's. Well everyone I have talked too loves the Cherry Wheat so I bucked and decided to make this.

Malt Extract: 3.3lbs Light malt extract (I used Muttons)
3.3lbs Wheat Malt extract (again, Muttons, wish they would sponsor me)
Specialty Grain: .5lbs Crystal Malt

Bitter Hops: 1.5oz Hallertauer (45min)
Flavor Hops: .5oz Hallertauer (10min)

Yeast: Wyeast Weizenbeer Yeast

Special: 8 lbs of frozen sweet cherry's (they are put in during the fermentation, watch for clogging of the bubbler, I used a spill-over tube which consists of a tube connected to the plug where the bubbler goes and it runs into a bucket of sanitized water, worked really well, the fermentation was really intense on this batch)

OG: 1.040
FG: 1.005

Fermentation

This is a brewers note:

The primary fermentation for the Orange Blossom Honey Amber was about 5 days. I racked it last night and it smells and looks good. I think that with all of the fermentables this is going to be a strong brew.

The last brew that I did kept fermenting in the secondary fermentation almost up until I kegged it. That was the result of racking too early. This one has not been fermenting at all so I think we are in good shape. No we wait, the hardest part!

Orange Blossom Amber

This is one I found on the internet at Beer Recipes.org and it sounded too good not to try!

Malt Extract: 6.6lbs Muttons Extract
Specialty Grain: .5lbs Crystal Malt

Bitter Hops: 1.5oz Hallertauer (45min)
Flavor Hops: .5oz Hallertauer (10min)

Yeast: Safale S-04 (dry yeast)

Special: 2 cups orange blossom honey (45min)
1tsp Irish Moss

OG: 1.045
FG: 1.005

*Add the Irish moss after 15min of boiling. The honey goes in with the extract. It started fermenting within 12hrs.

Blanche de Bruges (Belgium White)

This was a mix I got from Ed at EJ Wren, there are a lot of extras in this one and I have to say the are all good.

Malt Extract: 4lb Alexander's wheat Malt Syrup (60% wheat and 40% Barley)
Specialty Grain: 4oz flaked oats
3oz Belgian biscuit Malt

Bitter hops: 1oz Styrian Goldings (45 min)
Flavor Hops: 1/2 oz Saaz (15min)

Yeast: Belgian White Beer Yeast- liquid

Special 1/2 lb Belgian clear candy sugar (45min)
*1tsp ground coriander (15min)
1oz bitter orange peel (1/2 15min, 1/2 at 3min)
1/4tsp crushed cumin seeds
1tsp crushed grains of paradise

OG: 1.045 (range 1.048-1.049)
FG: 1.015 (1.009-1.010)

*I did not use this, but it was part of the mix.

I brewed this for just under an hour and it fermented in the primary for about 3 or 4 days before slowing down. It smells really good I can't wait to try it!

Pugnacious Porter

Malt Extract: 3.5lbs John Bull Dark, 4lbs dry amber
Specialty Grain: 1lb 90-L Crystal malt, 3/4lb Choc. Malt
Bitter Hops: 2oz Northern Brewer (45min)
Flavoring Hops: 1oz Foggles (20min)
Finishing Hops: 1/2 oz Foggles (5min)
Misc: 1 hand full of anise seed (enough to cover the palm of your hand)
OG/FG: 1.055/1.015
Primary: 6 days 58-66F
Secondary: 15 days 58-66F

Notes: The black licorice flavor was a little strong, next time use a little less. It was a very dark and very strong brew. The taste was great!

I did let the specialty grains sit in water that was hotter than it was supposed to. The rule is that you are supposed to have the SG in the water for about 1/2 hr before the water reaches a boil. I did not notice much of a difference, but the flavor of this brew was strong so I doubt you would notice something like that.

It was a kicker of a brew, three beers and you are giddy.

Granddad Brown Ale

Malt Extract: 5lbs John Bull Light
Spec. Grain: 8oz 40-L Crystal Malt, 2oz Black Patent Malt
Bitter Hops: 1oz Saaz, 1/2 oz Hallertaver (45min)
Finishing Hops: 1/2 oz Hallertaver (5min)
Yeast: Whitebread Ale (liquid)
Primary: 7 days 55-61 degrees
Secondary: 10 Days 63 degrees
OG/FG: 1.040-1.050/1.008-1.014
Misc: Brown sugar boiled in with 1pt of water, introduced before secondary fermentation. Molasses is also something that can be added, preferable in the wart with the boil.

Notes: Late fermentation, it took about 32 hours to start fermenting, and I had to bring the brew to about 63F to get it moving. Temp increased to 66F and the fermentation picked up.

I think that the problems spawned from a bad pitch, I had not given the yeast enough time to wake up from the cold.

I introduced the brown sugar before the secondary fermentation (I forgot to add it during the primary), I would not recommend this as a normal practice because all of the additional activity will keep the brew from clearing up the way that you want.