Is It Spring Yet?

Since I haven't posted in awhile, here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to beerwise.

• Kicked the Oatmeal Stout keg.  Overall this was a nice beer.  Good roasted barley character, a little toasted flavor, and a nice and smooth mouthfeel.  May have been just a bit too bitter, so I'll probably use a little less at 60 minutes.  While I enjoyed drinking this beer, I got a little sick of it by the end.  Not a real session beer.
• Brewed the Double IPA with almost 2 ounces of Warrior at 60 to bitter.  I split 2 ounces of Simcoe and 2 ounces of Summit into three piles and added each pile at 15, 5, and flameout.  I was going to use the yeast cake from the VSS Imperial Blend but the starter beer I brewed and attempted to FWH for the first time, did it wrong, and mistreated the yeast somehow so it tasted too estery.  I just pitched 2 packets of US05 instead.  This beer did finish too sweet, so next time I'll use more sugar instead of malt to get it dryer, but it tasted drier than it measured.  At 10% ABV and 125 IBUs, this beer is really deceiving and dangerously drinkable.
• Brewed a Patersbier with Wyeast 3787 and all Saaz hops.  I'm hoping to use the yeast cake for a tripel in a month or so.
• I have converted my keg into a kettle, but I still need to clean it up and do a test run.  I'm not real confident in how fast I'll be able to boil with my current burner.  I think that I'll also probably need to build a new immersion chiller for 10 gallon batches, which reminds me that I need to do that soon since I'm having a Big Brew Day club event and was going to split a batch of Saison with a friend.  I'm thinking about giving the Brew in a Bag all grain method a try this summer once I finish the upgrade.
• Last Saturday the RAZE club toured the Mantorville Brewing Company.  The owner, Tod Fyten, started as a homebrewer and gave us the full on beer geek version of the tour.  It was awesome!  He really had a lot of insight into the history of beer and brewing, especially in Minnesota, and also gave us a detailed talk of his brewing process.  We finished it off with some samples of his Maple Ale, Blonde, and Smoked Porter.  I got a growler of the Smoked Porter and had no problem finishing it. 

This weekend the club is meeting at a member's house to get rhizomes, but it's been pretty cold here lately so I think we might get frozen out.  I'd like to get the keggle cleaned up and do a test boil at some point too.  At some point I need to brew again too, probably an APA.

Time to try a bitter

I just got done making a starter for Sunday's brewday. I'll be brewing Jamil's Best Bitter (minus the aromatic malt since I'm mini-mashing with Maris Otter) and smoking a pork shoulder at the same time. Should be a good time. It's been a long time since I made a starter! I've been using US05 so much that I actually had to look back at an old blog post that I made about starters and check the Mr. Malty site. I ended up using Wyeast 1028 London Ale instead of the 1968 ESB that Jamil recommends but the LHBS doesn't stock it. Oh well.

RAZE meeting tomorrow night, woot! Lots to talk about too, upcoming brewery tours of Mantorville Brewing Company and Pearl Street Brewery, plan for the hopgrowing season, and figure out what we're doing for Big Brew Day. We've got more members trickling in, which is awesome since it's always good to talk to other brewers and beer geeks like myself. I must admit I'm also stoked that I'll be able to drink Hopslam on tap! I'm still trying to decide if it's worth dropping 16 bucks on a 6er, when I can just about brew 5 gallons for that, not a fine DIPA of course, but still, 5 gallons.

The Hopsicle IPA is tasting mighty fine right now. I just tapped the Oatmeal Stout and am drinking my first pint right now. It's a little young, but it's got a nice roasty chocolatey flavor with a little hop bitterness in the mix too. I'm happy! Here's the Hopsicle recipe (partial mash)if you're interested:

• 3 lbs Golden Promise
• .5 lbs C60
• .25 lbs C120
• .25 Vienna
• 6 lbs Briess Pilsen DME
  
• 1 oz Nugget @ 60 minutes
• 1 oz Simcoe @ 15
• 1 oz Centennial @ 10
• 1 oz homegrown Cascade/Centennial/Zeus mix at 5
• 1 oz homegrown mix at flameout
• 1 oz Columbus dry hop

1.070 OG, 1.017 FG (a little high, but the bitterness balances it out), 77 IBUS, 6.9 ABV.

A Trip to the Brewshop

It was a busy brew related weekend for me! I hosted the RAZE brewclub meeting at my house Friday night. Not everybody could make it but I sampled some awesome beers, saw a cool oxygen free beer transfer gadget, and talked a lot about brewing. On Saturday I took the fam to the zoo and then made a stop at Midwest Supplies. I grabbed a bunch of Warrior hops, some Summit and Strisselspalt hops, a bunch of o-rings, a good supply of US-05, a smackpack of one of the new Wyeast VSS releases (Imperial Ale - here), and a new book: Farmhouse Ales. Today was brewday, so I did a partial mash Oatmeal Stout. This was my first time brewing an Oatmeal Stout so I used Jamil's recipe from Brewing Classic Styles, although I did make a few minor changes based on what I had on hand. I also managed to rack my Hopsicle IPA into secondary on top of an ounce of Columbus hops. Now I'm relaxing with a homebrew.

I'm thinking I'm going to brew an Imperial IPA again pretty soon. I've got pounds of hops in the freezer and a fresh smackpack of the Imperial Ale yeast, so it is officially on deck. Rather than screw with a starter though, I think I'm just going to brew an APA with it and save the cake. I'll probably brew that next weekend and try out my new Warrior hops and possibly first wort hopping too. Three weeks after that I should be ready to brew the Imperial and have it ready for Kristen's birthday.

So for Christmas I got a 365 days of beer page-a-day calendar. Saturday's beer was Saison Dupont. Reading that got me fired up about saisons like Ommegang's Hennepin so I adopted another resolution for the year: learn how to brew a good saison. So far it's a pretty good read. I'm thinking about brewing my first one after the APA. EDIT: Monday I picked up a 4 pack of Ommegang Hennepin, a 750 of Saison Dupont, and Surly Cynic for research.

In other brew news, Kristen actually suggested that I get a propane hot water on demand system and build a small shed of some sort with a sink and stuff so that I can have everything I need on the brew patio and not have to make so many trips in an out of the house and back and forth to the garage/basement. I love that woman. I'm thinking an inline filter might be a good idea too. Any suggestions on what I should do?

Brew Year's Resolutions

It's hard to believe it's almost been a month since I last blogged! Despite the craziness of the holiday season, I did manage to keep brewing. Since my last post, I blew the Ahtnanum APA keg, blew the Red Hook Harvest clone experiment keg, brewed my version of Jamil's Evil Twin red ale, brewed Jamil's Irish red ale, brewed an IPA, and put off brewing an Oatmeal Stout so that I can recuperate today. Details about my brews:

• Ahtanum APA: Bittered this with some Nugget then added 3 ounces late in the boil (1 oz each at 10, 5, and flameout). I used the same malt profile as usual for my APA (6 pounds Pilsen DME, .5 lb Caramel 60, .5 lb Carapils), but this beer was pretty blah. The Nugget did provide a nice clean bitterness, but the Ahtanum didn't provide nearly the citrus that I expected from reading the description. It tasted and smelled more flowery to me. It was still a good beer, but didn't really do it for me. I think I'll stick to Cascade and Centennial for my APA.
• Red Hook clone: This beer turned out to not be real close to the original because there was too much roasted barley. However, I really liked this beer alot. It wasn't really a session beer, but it was a great fall or winter brew. This was probably one of the most balanced beers I've brewed so far. There was a nice roasty and smoky backbone to this one with just enough hops to balance it out. Style wise, I'm not really sure what this would be. I read the BJCP descriptions and it is really a toss up between a brown, red , or porter. I'm having a really tough time deciding whether I should brew this again next fall the same way or decrease the roasted barley presence a little.
• Jamil's Evil Twin: I am not calling this Jamil's Evil Twin anymore since it wasn't hopbursted and I didn't use the same hops, so it is more inspired by his recipe. I am calling it Big Red because that's what it is, a big, malty, hoppy red ale. I used .25 oz of Nugget to bitter and then an ounce of Simcoe and Amarillo at 10 minutes and then again at flameout. This beer is GOOD! Nice deep red in color, awesome hop flavor and aroma, and good malt flavor to back it up without being too sweet. When I brewed this I was drinking and inspired by Widmer Brrr and Lagunitas Imperial Red, and I think I hit the mark on this one. It will be brewed again.
• Hopsicle IPA: Named this one because I froze brewing it. This was a minimash with 3 pounds of Golden Promise just to see what would happen. Bittered this one with Nugget, then threw in some Simcoe, Centennial, and then the last of my hop harvest (a mix of Cascade, Centennial, and Zeus). This one will probably get dryhopped with Columbus.
• Jamil's Irish Red: Kegging this one today, haven't tried it yet. I've got high hopes though!

After increasing my brewing skills and volumes over the last year, now I'm looking forward to 2009. Here are my brew year's resolutions in no particular order:

• Brew more. I would like to be able to not buy beer anymore except for when I'm working on a recipe. I brewed over 100 gallons in 2008, hoping to do even more in 2009.
• Move up to 10 gallon batches. I'm having a tough time keeping the kegerator full and I think this will help, especially now that I am brewing tried and true recipes that I know I will like.
• Upgrade the kegerator. Hopefully by the summer I will have a chest freezer with a collar that will be capable of dispensing 4-6 different beers. Variety is good, but this might also make it easier for me to keep the kegerator full without brewing every other weekend.

Any of my huge volume of loyal readers out there have any resolutions, beer related or not?

Happy Repeal Day!

Hopefully you're all drinking right now, or did sometime today. December 5, 2008 is the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, thus ending our nation's stupid experiment called Prohibition. So drink up!

To celebrate, I had a Widmer Brrr, a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, a 21st Amendment watermelon wheat (how appropriate), and my own Wee Heavy. I also broke down all of my kegs and replaced the o-rings, then kegged my RedHook Late Harvest clone and my Ahtanum APA. All in all, a good day.

Sunday I'll be brewing Jamil's Evil Twin with a few modifications. I'll be partial mashing the specialty grains and adding an extra pound of Munich, then I'm subbing Simcoe and Amarillo for the late hops. I'm excited! The recipe is here: http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm.

Cheers!

My First Partial Mash

I broke in the mini mashtun today with the Late Harvest Autumn Ale clone I've been working on. The recipe is in the previous post. I used 5 quarts of water and 4 pounds of grain. I think I could do 5 pounds of grain but I would definitely have to do a thicker mash to fit it in there, probably 1 quart/pound instead of 1.25. I did make a few mistakes though. First, my strike water was a little too warm - about 168 after I added it to the mash, so I had to stir for a while to bring it down to 158, which I now realize is still probably too warm. Next time I'll just heat the strike water to 160. My next mistake was getting worried about the mash being too hot. About halfway through the mash I opened up the cooler and stirred some more to drop the temp. I ended up losing more heat after this because after an hour it had dropped to 148. As a result of these, the OG was 1.050, but I was shooting for 1.059. Oh well, lessons learned. Hopefully it's still drinkable. If I get motivated I'll post some pictures.

The "pilsner" has dropped to 1.012 and is golden and tasty. I put it in the garage to cold crash it before I keg tomorrow or the next day. The Centennial IPA is tasting pretty good too, but it's well on it's way to being kicked. I am having a really rough time keeping 2 beers on tap! Any of you have that problem? I'm going to have to crank out a quick APA next weekend to rebuild the stash, I'm thinking Nugget to bitter and Ahtanum for flavor and aroma to get a feel for what it can do.

Why does my blond ale taste like a hefe?

I'm sure all of my readers are concerned about what I've been doing in the month and a half since last time I blogged. Oh wait, I don't have any readers. Ha!

Since last blog entry I kicked the Brown and Mild ales, brewed a blond that I'm drinking right now, got an IPA with 4 ounces of Centennial during the boil sitting on 2 ounces of Centennial dryhops in the secondary, got a primary full of Bohemian Pilsner brewed with 5 ounces of homegrown Saaz but fermented with US05 at 62 degrees since I can't lager yet. I've also smoked about 25 pounds of pork on my new smoker. Good times! The Pils was brewed at RAZE's (Rochester Area Zymurgy Enthusiasts) Teach a Friend to Homebrew event on Saturday.

If you've been following this blog you probably know that about 14 of the last 15 batches I've brewed I've pitched US05 dry yeast. I have not had a problem until this blond ale I brewed up at the beginning of October. I've brewed something like 18 batches in the last year and really have my system and process dialed so the problem that's developed with this beer is driving me absolutely crazy. It tastes like a frickin wheat beer. It's got the same kind of esters that you'd taste in a hefe! What the hell? I pitched the yeast at 65 degrees and temps never got above that, they actually went lower, and it was a long and slow fermentation. The thing is, I've pitched US05 lower than that and fermented as low as 60 and never had a problem and still get the FG down below 1.015 every time. I think it has something to do with the sluggish fermentation but it's really weird how the flavors developed into a wheaty mess. It has been getting better in the keg and it's totally drinkable, but it just doesn't taste like it should.

Next beer on deck is going to be a clone of RedHook's Late Harvest Autumn Ale. Kristen and I went through a 12er of this while camping 2 weeks ago so I'm trying to clone it. I got the OG, IBU, SRM, and malt and hop varieties (but not quantities) off their website, so I used the TastyBrew calculator to come up with this for my first partial mash brew in my 2 gallon mash tun:

• 2 lbs Rahr 2 row
• 1 lb Weyerman rauchmalt (smoked malt)
• .5 lb Caramel 60
• .25 lb Caramel 120
• .25 lb roasted barley
• 4 lbs Briess pilsen DME
• 1 oz Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes
• 1 oz Saaz @ 10 minutes

Have any of you had this beer? How does the recipe look to you? I hit the stats that RedHook provided but we'll see. I'm not sure about the rauch malt, so I went with just a pound to start. If this all works out I can always try again. It was a nice malty and slightly smoky beer, perfect for cold weather.

I actually just ordered a bunch of stuff from Midwest Supplies too: Golden Promise, Maris Otter, more 2 row, and some yeast. I'm planning on doing a partial mash brew here and there. I might use the Maris Otter in an Oatmeal Stout and the Golden Promise in a big IPA. We'll see though. Anybody else brewing or drinking anything interesting?

Here's what the little mash tun I made looks like. These aren't my pics but mine looks exactly like this: