Dubbel Trouble

Yeah, yeah, corny title, but it's the truth. Here's the story:

I had come up with this awesome recipe for a Belgian dubbel, bought a 17 ounce hockey puck-looking lump of palm sugar from the Asian grocery store, and cultured yeast from a bottle of Chimay Red. I thought everything was good, brewed it up on Monday without incident, and pitched what I thought was an active starter (with about .5 inch or more of slurry at the bottom of my flask) at 64 degrees. I had this idea after reading on various forums that I should pitch around there and then just let the temps go up, so I pitched at 64 exactly and left the primary in an upstairs closet which would be warmer than downstairs (where I usually ferment).

Monday night - nothing
Tuesday morning - nothing, swirled it good
Tuesday night - nothing, swirled (starting to get nervous)
Wednesday morning - nothing (freaking out)
Wednesday night - nothing

Wednesday night I went and bought a smack pack of 1214, went home, and turned on the space heater for a few hours and swirled every 20 minutes or so. I pumped it up to about 68 and then at about 9 I decided to activate the smack pack. At 10 I pitched it, even though it wasn't swelled up too much, and added 2 tiny drops of olive oil as I poured it in.

Thursday morning - nothing
Thursday after work - nothing - so I turned on the space heater again and finally said F this and pitched a pack of Munton's Gold dry yeast that I had sitting around. As of this morning, it's just starting to throw tiny amounts of CO2 after I swirl.

I refuse to give up on this batch! So does anybody care to place bets?

1. Will this make beer?
2. Will it taste like dirty water?

In other news, the Hopslam will be brewed tomorrow!

Hopslam Clone

Okay, so after much research and a couple of different versions, Cole and I have come up with what we hope is a close reproduction of Bell's Hopslam. In my last post I mentioned the thread that came up on the BrewBoard forum about a clone and how somebody mentioned using Vanguard, Hersbrucker, and a few others and that this person got the info straight from Bell's. We decided to disregard this information and go with the hops we can actually get our hands on that are really citrusy. The stuff tastes like grapefruit juice, right? The problem is, the suggestion of Simcoe that sounds right for this recipe is pretty tough to find, so we had to make do with what we could find:

Steeping grains:

• 1/2 lb. honey malt
• 1/2 lb. munich malt
• 1/4 lb. caramel 10L
• 1/4 lb. caramel 40L

Fermentables:

• 9 lbs Briess Pilsen DME
• 1 lb. honey

Hops:

• 60 minutes: 1 oz Yakima Magnum
• 30 minutes: 1/3 ounce Ahtanum, 1/3 ounce Amarillo, 1 ounce Cascade
• 20 minutes: 1/3 ounce Ahtanum, 1/3 ounce Amarillo, 1 ounce Cascade
• 10 minutes: 1/3 ounce Ahtanum, 1/3 ounce Amarillo, 1 ounce Cascade
• Flameout: 2 ounces Centennial leaf hops

How does that look? According to the TastyBrew calculator we're looking at an OG of 1.091 and 101 IBUs, with the majority of the bittering coming from the late additions. We tried to balance out our desire for a big double IPA with the scarcity of hops and economic considerations. This is still going over 80 bucks! Does that sound like it might taste like Hopslam to you? We're hoping it gets close, if not, it will hopefully be a damn good beer anyway.

PS - I'll be brewing up my first dubbel with harvested Chimay red yeast this weekend. Woohoo!

EDIT: I just scored 3 ounces of Simcoe and 3 ounces of Columbus! Now it's back to the drawing board. Any suggestions?

The Next Project

Well, before I fill you in on my latest planned brewing adventure, how about an update on my stash? The DIPA is kicked, along with the Deported stout, and my Blonde Abbey and Full Monty are dangerously close to being gone. Sniff. On the upside, my Bourbon Barrel Brown is tasting pretty damn good, although more oaky than I expected, especially since I only threw in an ounce of oak chips for 4 days. I do really like it and think that it's one of the better brews I've made, it's just not a session brew - probably a good thing, that will force me to keep some for a while and see how it changes over time.

My all-Cascade Hopburst APA is now carbed and tastes awesome, if I do say so myself. It's not as citrusy like I normally associate with Cascade, which I'm thinking is the result of only doing the late additions. It is a beautiful gold color, clear, nice white head, sweet malty backbone, a taste of sweet caramel or honey, with the citrusy, piney hops balancing it out nicely. This was a really easy beer to make too, so if you want the recipe let me know. With lighter colored beers like this I'm really digging the full boil action - I was never able to get golds and yellows on the stovetop.

I bottled my Wee Heavy Saturday, the sample was a nice mahogany color, very malty sweet, a little alcohol in the finish, and just a slight peaty or smoky flavor, which is weird since there isn't any peated or smoked malt in it. I'm anxious to see how this one develops over time - the plan is to drink some young (an ale brewer's version of a maibock?), and then keep the rest for next fall and winter.

Now on to the PLAN. So my buddy Cole and I have both been enjoying the Bell's Hopslam lately. Over a few beers after work on Friday, we devised a plan to tag team a clone of this, splitting the work and cost. We both figured that with the cost of hops lately and the high gravity of this bad boy, it will get pretty spendy. I've figured out from the Bell's website that the OG is around 1.090 and I'm thinking around 100 IBUs. This is the best thread I could find so far: http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=67588 . On this thread, somebody said that according to Bell's, they "use Hersbrucker, Centennial, Glacier, Vanguard, & Crystal in the kettle, and then dry hop with Simcoe." Does this sound right to you? I don't know much about a lot of those hops, but I don't recall ever hearing "citrus" associated with any of those except Centennial and Simcoe. Any ideas? I'm thinking more about Ahtanum, Centennial, Amarillo, Cascade, Galena, Simcoe, Columbus. We'll be brewing this up in 2 weeks (I've got a dubbel on deck for next weekend), so any input you've got would be great!

A Non-Technical Post, I Promise!

Alright, judging from the amount of responses to my last post my readers (all 2 of you) are either: not interested in starters, bored by long winded technical treatises on the finer points of yeast harvesting and propagation, or both. So, here's a short post to bring you back in the fold.

I bottled up my all-Cascade Hopburst APA last night. The sample tasted damn good, but not as hoppy as I expected, probably because I've been destroying my sense of taste by drinking too many SN Bigfoot and Bell's Hopslams lately. This APA should be a good one once it's carbed up.

Right now I am drinking the last bomber of my Summit 2IPA. I am very close to crying. All I have left of this batch is a 34 oz special reserve. I will be bringing this, plus 34ozers of my Deported Stout, Blonde Abbey, Full Monty cherry bitter, and a few Bourbon Barrel Browns and a single uncarbed bottle of the APA to the Dells this weekend for the waterpark extravaganza. See you there Bri!

Yeast Starters

Alright, so I've been talking about these since I've been using them so much lately. Here's the Tesslerfied version. DISCLAIMER: You can find a lot of info about starters by searching the forums at northernbrewer.com or tastybrew.com, and I've probably read most of those (addictive personality), and I encourage you to check those out too. There are different schools of thought about different steps in the process, so just understand, I am by no means an expert and am still figuring this stuff out, but this is what I've learned after killing countless hours reading. So take it with a grain of salt, consider the source, yadda yadda.

MATERIALS:

• 1000 OR 2000 mL Pyrex flask, growler, or 1 gallon cider jug
• small soup or saucepan if you're not using the flask
• scale - preferably one with metric measurements
• dry malt extract (DME) - a 1 lb bag is plenty
• measuring cups
• airlock or foam stopper

METHOD

The whole point is to build your yeast population to a large enough number so that you can reduce lag times, reduce the risk of contamination, and ensure a more complete fermentation. Wyeast smack packs and WhiteLabs tubes are supposed to be pitchable, but for higher gravity beers and lagers starters are almost a necessity. Even smaller brews can benefit from a starter. If you're going to drop the cash and spend the time brewing your beer, why not give it a better chance of being successful right? A starter is just a mini batch of beer, where you're giving your smack pack or whatever more food so that the yeast inside will gorge themselves, multiply their population, and get primed for fermenting your precious wort.

First, you need to determine the size of your starter. If you want to really get technical you can check out the pitching calculator at the Mr.Malty site on my links, but I never do, too technical for me. Basically, you want to make a starter that has an OG of around 1.035 or so. As far as how big you want to go, that depends on your beer. Right now I am building up a culture from the bottom of a bottle of Chimay for a dubbel I'm brewing in the future, so I started with a half-liter starter, let it go for 2 days, then did another half-liter, then I'll step up again to a liter and maybe do that again. For most brews that's probably not necessary, especially if you're starting with a smack pack. Most of the starters I've done have been a liter for beers between 1.040 and 1.065, and 2 liters for bigger brews.

To get a gravity around 1.035, the easiest way to do it is to go metric. A simple ratio of 1 gram DME to 10 mL of water works out to about 1.035. So, measure out 100 grams of DME to 1 liter of water and you're good to go! If you are anti-metric, you'd need a little under 4 ounces DME for 1 quart of water. You can get a cheap digital scale at Target.

Now you're ready to boil, so let's talk containers. You can use one of the Erlenmeyer flasks that Northern Brewer sells (I have one), but it is not a necessity. The advantage to those is that if you have a gas stove or electric coils, you can put the starter mix right in the flask, boil it in the flask, cool it, then dump the yeast in. I have a smoothtop electric stove and have seen Kristen make a Pyrex mixing bowl explode on top of that, so that worries me a little. The other thing I don't like about the flasks is that they are narrow at the top so you can get a really fast volcanic boilover even with the little amount of wort you're boiling, and that's a PITA. I just put it in a saucepan and boil it for 15 minutes. Then I pour the starter into a standard half gallon growler that you can get at any brewpub. A one gallon cider jug would work fine too.

When your starter is cooled enough so that it's no longer warm to the touch I flame the lip of my sanitized growler, put in the sanitized funnel, dump in the yeast, throw the airlock on, and shake like crazy. Some people have stirplates that continously stir the starter which is really good for the yeast, but I just swirl it every time I walk by. The key is to not let your yeast drop out of suspension so that's what the swirling is for. You don't have to go nuts with it, but do it when you can. This keeps the yeast active so that they keep reproducing. Oh yeah baby, asexual reproduction! As far as temperature goes, keep it around room temperature. Some people say you should keep the starter at the same temperature that fermentation of the beer is going to happen, but for a starter you're just building cell counts, so just keep it between 65 and 75 and you're good to go. I keep mine on top of my fridge with a brown paper lunch bag to protect it from light. There's mixed information out there about whether light is bad or good for starters, so I just err on the side of caution.

Now, the big question is, when do you make your starter? There's a lot of conflicting information out there on this one too, and basically the controversy is whether you pitch the whole starter when it's active or do you put the starter in the fridge to crash the yeast and make them settle to the bottom, then pour off the spent wort and just pitch the slurry. I have done both and have noticed the crashed starter took a little longer, but lag time was still under 6 hours. For me, the decision boils down to the size of the starter. If it's bigger than a liter, I'll crash it and decant, if it's a liter or smaller, I pitch the whole thing. I personally prefer having an active starter to pitch, so if I'm going to brew on Saturday, I would make the starter on Wednesday or Thursday. That way I'll have a fairly active starter being pitched into my wort.

Starters do give you some flexibility too. If I made a starter on Thursday but then had to postpone for a week, I would throw the starter in the fridge and then the night before or morning before brewing I would take it out, let it warm up, pour off the spent wort then give it a fresh meal of cooled wort so that it's active. Right now I have half of the yeast cake from my Bourbon Barrel Brown in the back of the fridge. When I know I'm going to use it, I'll wake it up by warming it up to room temperature and then giving it a fresh meal and pitch the whole thing. Well, I see this post has gotten ridiculously long (me, ramble?), so I'll just stop here. Any questions?

Fun with Hopbursting

Sunday was brew day for me. I put together a recipe using "Designing Great Beers" for an American Pale Ale: .5 lb Munich, .5 lb Crystal 40, 6 lbs Pilsen DME, and 5 ounces of Cascade hops. I've been reading about hopbursting, so I decided to give it a shot with this batch. Basically, the idea is to add all of your hops at the end of the boil to maximize flavor and aroma. You still get some bittering, but not tons, so that's why you need to use a lot of hops. I started my additions with 20 minutes left, then did another ounce every 5 minutes.

I did have another minor boilover right away when I added the first 3 lbs of DME. I'm trying to decide for next time if I should drop my boil volume by a gallon or try out some Fermcap (I guess it's supposed to knock out the foam). What would you do? Anybody else having issues with their new full boil setups? I did rig up a pretty sweet windscreen for my burner and kettle. Brian suggested sheet metal, but what I think he suggested (I was drinking at the time) didn't sound like it would work on my rig, so I ended up getting 2 ten inch diameter furnace duct pieces that are 36 inches long. I crimped them together and ended up with an awesome windscreen that goes almost all the way around the burner stand and goes up almost to the top of the kettle to trap in heat, plus it only cost me 8 bucks.

I reused half of the yeast cake that I saved from my Brown ale, which had been in the beer fridge for 3 weeks. I just brought it to room temp while I was brewing but didn't make a starter or anything to wake it up, just poured off the beer from on top, swirled it to get the yeast into suspension, and pitched it. It was probabably about 2 cups of slurry total. Apparently if a yeast cake has been sleeping in the cold for 3 weeks it needs a snack to wake up, because it took 20 hours to start fermenting. I was pretty worried, plus I went to my LHBS to pick up some dry yeast "just in case", but it was closed for President's Day. Fortunately, when I got back home empty handed the yeast was belching out CO2. It is now rocking out and kicking goo into the blowoff tube at a comfortable 60 degrees and it smells awesome!

I'm thinking about maybe brewing a dubbel after I culture the Chimay yeast or another brown ale (probably not oaked) next. Have you seen kit and hop prices at Northern Brewer lately? Holy smokes, it's like 50 bucks for their IPA kits! I did spend a little more at my LHBS when I built my APA recipe, but their hops were still only 2 bucks an ounce. I'm thinking about buying a 33 lb jug of LME to save some cash. Anyone else do or consider bulk buys?

I know at least Jeremy brewed this weekend, how did your brew day go?

Super Bowl Sunday

Way to go Giants! I am so happy to see that cheater Bellichek get beat. Anyways, I haven't brewed in a while, just done some menial brewing chores. I have really been enjoying drinking my homebrews.

• I'm on the last minikeg of Deported Stout, and I will be sad to see it go. I remember when I first started drinking this batch and it had some bad fusels, headache city. Now I taste the big roasted and chocolatey malt, and it still has a big hop kick to it too.
• The 618 2IPA is also just getting better and better. This beer is 97 IBUs! I'm lucky to be on heartburn meds, otherwise I would be really suffering after a bomber of this one. Definitely my best IPA so far.
• The Blonde Abbey is also tasting really good. I picked up a mix and match 6er a couple of weeks ago and grabbed a Leffe Blonde (what NB's Lefse Blonde kit is supposed to copy) and an Affligem Blonde. My beer is really close to the Affligem, so I'm stoked that my first Belgian turned out as good as it did.
• The Full Monty Cherry Bitter has been a pleasant surprise. When I bottled this, the sample tasted like it was going to be a dumped batch, it totally tasted like ass. I carbed it pretty high and let it sit for a month before I started drinking it, and now it's actually pretty good. It finished pretty dry, probably because of the pound of brown sugar to boost gravity. You can definitely taste the tartness of the Montmorency cherries contrasting with the bitterness of the hops. It's not my best beer, but considering what I thought it was going to be, I'm pretty happy that it's totally drinkable and actually enjoyable.
• I bottled my Bourbon Barrel Brown today, and I am super excited about this one! If you remember from the last post, I designed this beer from scratch with "Designing Great Beers". I had steamed an ounce of oak chips and soaked them in 5 ounces of Maker's Mark bourbon for about a month, and just racked the beer into secondary on top of the oak chips and bourbon last Tuesday. I pulled a sample Friday night and I could definitely taste the oak, so I knew it was time to bottle. I actually left about 30 ounces of this in the bottling bucket just so that I could drink this today. The oak is pretty obvious, but you can totally taste the hops and malty goodness too. If it tastes this good on bottling day, I've got very high hopes for this when it's carbed. It will be hard to keep this one in the house.
• On the non-homebrew front, I've been drinking some Abita TurboDog lately, and I highly recommend this American Brown Ale. It's super tasty.

What are you drinking?