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:

Brewing News

Well, it's been awhile since I've blogged about the brewing news. Since the last post, I've blown through the Columbus APA keg. The latest of my single hop APA/IPA series of the summer, I was pretty happy with the results, but I think Columbus, for my taste anyway, needs to be blended with other American hops. Just a little too rough around the edges for beers following the Bush Doctrine of go it alone.

I also buckled down and made my first wine, a Chilean Pinot Noir, that is in secondary right now. Wine kits are a little pricey, but they are ridiculously simple. It took about a half hour to make the thing! From what I hear, they are pretty hard to mess up, so I'm hoping that around Christmas time I'll be sipping some good wine that cost about 4 bucks a bottle.

Right now I'm drinking my Big Bill's Brown ale and will be kegging Jamil's Mild sometime tomorrow. The brown is a little on the young side, only 2.5 weeks since brewing, but it's nice and clear and has a nice sweet chocolate malt backbone with a good hop punch to balance things out.

I picked up ingredients to brew another blonde ale this weekend, as well as the 50 pound sack of DME I ordered. For the blonde I'll be using my hop harvest as well as a bunch of huge Cascade cones that I harvested from the hop yard of a guy in my homebrew club. Last Sunday another club member and I went to his house to help him get rid of his crop. When I saw the trellis I almost cried. It was like a wall of hops reaching to the heavens. After 3 or 4 hours of picking, I got about 3 pounds of Cascade and about a pound each of Saaz and Fuggles. Some of the Saaz will be going into a Czech Pilsner that will be dumbed down with ale yeast since I can't lager yet and the Fuggles will be going into a Stout or Porter of some sort. Seeing this hopyard really got me thinking hard about making a major expansion to my yard next year.

Finally, I picked up all the parts for a partial mash tun so that I can start experimenting with some different base malts like Golden Promise and Maris Otter, but I don't have any solid plans for what I'm going to brew for my first partial mash brew. I'm leaning towards an Oatmeal Stout or maybe a Smoked Porter, but that may change. Any suggestions?

Union Brew - Big Bill's Brown Ale

With my last weekend of the summer I decided to spend Labor Day brewing and drinking homebrew and decided a big American style brown ale was in order. Being Labor Day and a union man, I just had to name it after Big Bill Haywood, labor organizer and one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World. This batch is a second shot at the Bourbon Barrel Brown, but without the bourbon or oak. I envisioned this as having a little more chocolate but also some more residual sweetness than the first attempt, so I added a little more caramel malts in 3 different lovibonds for complexity, more chocolate for flavor and color, and some pale chocolate for a little toastiness. I kept the hop varieties (Galena for bittering, Ahtanum for flavor/aroma) and schedule the same, but IBUs decreased just a little. Just like I did with the Columbus APA, I brewed with 6 gallons of unsoftened and untreated tap water from outside that I treated with a campden tablet to remove chlorine and chloramine. Big Bill's Brown came in at 1.066 OG and 52 IBUs. I'll leave this in the primary for 3 or 4 weeks and then it's going straight to keg.

While I was brewing this I poured the last pint of my Raspberry Wheat. It's pretty depressing to have a kegging setup with no beer to put in it :( For the first time since June (aside from beer for camping, which doesn't count) I had to buy beer that somebody else made. Bummer. This brew shortage got me motivated so I'm brewing again Saturday morning. On deck I've got Jamil Zainasheff's Mild ale from his book "Brewing Classic Styles." If you don't have this book already, go get it. Now. 80 award winning recipes (1 or 2 for each BJCP category) that have all won ribbons for one of the best homebrewers in the country. So far I've done the IPA and American Amber and they've been 2 of my best beers, so I've got high hopes for this one. It's a very small beer - the OG is only 1.036 - so it will be kind of weird to brew this, but I've heard good things about the recipe and it should be done fast so I'll be able to go right to keg quickly and start drinking a nice session beer for football season.

In other homebrew news, I picked up some more hops (Simcoe and Argentina Cascade) and a spare keg on a recent trip to Midwest Supplies. I just saw today that Freshops has some of the 08 hop crop in and they've got some varieties for pretty cheap, so I'm deciding if I should pull the trigger or not. One thing that complicates the decision is I just dropped a big chunk of change on a 50 pound bag of dry malt extract. I'm a little concerned about how I'm going to store it without it getting chunky, but buying in bulk will save me about 8 bucks a batch for a standard 1.056 beer with 6 pounds of DME in it, so if it works out I figure it's worth it.