Mother of Invention Black IPA

Sometimes a brewday takes an unexpected turn.  I’d been planning for several months to make a strong, dark “winter” saison with vanilla bean and cinnamon in secondary.  Unfortunately, my WY3711 French Saison yeast starter never got going at all; the yeast were pretty fresh, so I’m not sure what happened.  The brew was taking place on my recent massive bottling day, so I didn’t have a lot of time to run out for more yeast (and I wasn’t relishing the thought of how much it would cost to buy multiple packets to get my pitching rate to the appropriate levels).

So, weighing my options, I made a couple quick changes: I went with the packet of US-05 dry yeast I keep around for backup, and switched the saison’s minimal hopping schedule for a much heavier one, using Centennials I’d picked up for a future Two Hearted Ale-style beer.  The result: my first black IPA (or, given the IBUs, DIPA).

The grain bill is not what I’d normally pick for an IPA.  Munich malt is great, but usually I’d swap the German pilsner for domestic 2-row.  I’d also use a lighter, less dark-fruity crystal malt than Special B if I’d really been planning this, but at under 5% I expect it won’t really dominate.  The heavy use of wheat should be the most interesting aspect; often a little wheat (malted or otherwise) is added to pale ales to aid head retention, but at nearly one-quarter of the grist, this one’s more in American wheat beer territory.  With the dry hopping still to come, it’ll be a while before I can comment on the final profile.

Mother of Invention Black IPA

Projected OG: 1.071
Projected SRM: 35.9
Projected IBU: 99.7
Brewhouse Efficiency: 63%
Boil time: 90 minutes

for 5 gallons:

Grain/Fermentables
5 lb    Pils - 32.3%
5 lb    Munich - 32.3%
3.5 lb    Wheat malt - 22.6%
12 oz    Special B - 4.8%
8 oz    Carafa III - 3.2%
12 oz    Homemade amber candi sugar (10 min) - 4.8%

Hops
1 oz    Centennial (9.2%) (FWH)
1 oz    Columbus (14.5%) (90 min)
1 oz    Centennial (30 min)
1 oz    Centennial (5 min)
1 oz    Centennial (2 min)
1 oz    Centennial (dry hop)

Yeast
1 pkg    US-05 (rehydrated)

Extras
3 g    Gypsum
1 tsp    Irish moss (30 min)
1.5 tsp    Yeast nutrient (30 min)


Brewday: 11 February 2011
Mash-in: 18.5 qts @ 149̊F for 3.5 hours - temp dropped to 138̊F
1st sparge: 9 qts @ 168̊F (added @ 212̊F)
2nd sparge: 10 qts @ 165̊F (178̊F)
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons?
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 11̊P (1.044)
Post-boil volume: 5.2 gallons
OG (w/sugar): 17.3̊P (1.071)

Whirlpooled and let sit for 40 minutes before chilling.

Horrendous time straining hops using strainer bags in bucket; took forever and was really messy.

Started upstairs (68̊F ambient) then move to basement (52̊F) once active fermentation started.

20 February 2011: Active fermentation finally started slowing down; brought it upstairs to finish out.  Smelled wonderfully hoppy through the airlock.

Dry hopped: 25 February 2011
In primary.  Back to the basement.

Bottled: 4 March 2011
FG: 1.015
ABV: 7.3%
Bottled with 4.2 oz dark brown sugar

Big Ol' Bottling Day

My first bottle of Rodenbach Grand Cru was my sour beer awakening, and love at first sip.  When I learned of Wyeast’s Roeselare Blend, designed for just such a beer, I went right for it, and began the process of brewing my first Flanders red.  Actually, my first two: the first packet I found was pretty old, so I ended up picking up a fresher packet for the five-gallon batch and used the first one for a one-gallon extract batch that also got a pound of raspberries.  My dad was nice enough to fashion an oak stave for me to use with main batch in secondary to add barrel character and double as a stopper; using my specifications to avoid problems with the carboy cracking as the stave expanded, it ended up looking more like a Louisville Slugger.

When the batches reached their first birthday, I decided to go ahead and bottle.  The same day, I also bottled my two recent batches of wheat mild.  As if that weren’t enough, I also went forward with a rough brewday that was originally supposed to produce a black saison; more on that soon.

Bottling was pretty easy and straightforward; it was just an awful lot of beer to bottle.  I ended up with right around five cases all told, and between sanitizing bottles, cleaning and sanitizing (and recleaning and resanitizing) racking equipment bottling equipment, capping bottles, and cleaning fermenters, it was a pretty serious time investment.  I was happy to have it all done, though; no more worrying over when it was all going to happen.

The samples of wheat mild were wonderfully, vibrantly bready; I didn’t notice a lot of differences between the batches, but I imagine they’ll stand out more with more in-depth tasting.  The main batch of Flanders red, though, turned out to be a disappointment.  Nearly a year ago, when I moved it to secondary to age and funkify, the few drops I tasted were already quite sour; at bottling, it had an appropriate aroma, but tasted almost like water.  It had very little sourness, tartness, or even discernible flavour at all.  This on a beer that developed a pond scum-like pellicle more than once in its aging.

Fortunately, the raspberry Flanders turned out more to what I’d hoped it would.  This little batch blew off its airlock early into fermentation; after that, I just put a Ziploc bag over it.  It was never transferred to a secondary fermenter, and a very serious, funky scum formed and stoically remained on top of the raspberries for the duration of aging.  Between the reading I’ve done since brewing these and the observed differences in treatment of these beers, I hope the next big batch will turn out a bit more sour and funky as planned.

Aliss IPA

Homebrewing is a hobby my dad and I share.  Shortly after I told him I’d started brewing, he ended up winning a silent auction for a Mr. Beer kit, which he’s greatly enjoyed using.  Once he'd gone through all the kits he had, I started putting together 2-gallon extract-with-grain recipes he could brew in his small kettle and ferment in the Mr. Beer fermenter.  We also try to brew together as often as we can, which ends up being once every couple months or so; it’s been a great bonding experience for us.

Among the many things he does well, my dad is an accomplished woodturner.  In line with this, he’s named his homebrewery Turned Timber; his beers are usually named for different tree species or woodturning paraphernalia.  Our most recent brew, Aliss, is instead named for the bulldozer he used this summer to pull up tree stumps from several acres he and a couple friends cleared that will eventually be the location of my parents’ new house.  An American IPA, this is by far the most hop-forward beer we’ve brewed together, and will be the first dry hopping he has done; it should be a fine thirst-slaking beverage after a hot day pulling stumps with Aliss.

The brewday went smoothly, and enjoyed a bit of notoriety for our use of snow in the cooling process.  I’m looking forward to my next visit when I’ll get a taste of this one.

Aliss - American IPA

Projected OG: 1.072
Projected SRM: 11.1
Projected IBU: 59

for 2 gallons:

Grain/Fermentables
2.75 lb  Light DME
2 oz        C 120
8 oz        Table sugar (10 min)

Hops
.25 oz     Columbus (14.4%) (60 min)
.25 oz     Columbus (20 min)
.5 oz        Amarillo (7.5%) (10 min)
.5 oz        Cascade (5%) (5 min)
.5 oz        Amarillo (Dry hop 7 hops)
.5 oz        Cascade (Dry hop 7 days)

Yeast
½ pkg     US-05

Brewday: 5 February 2011
Fermented at ~63̊F ambient.

Parti-gyle: Wheatwine & Wheat Mild

“A Lot of Wheat, A Lot of Wort”

Sometimes you have to go for broke.  During a recent brewday, I set myself two new challenges: to brew using the traditional British parti-gyle method, and to brew with a grist predominantly made of wheat.

In parti-gyle, one makes multiple beers of differing strengths from one mash by keeping the first runnings separate from the later runnings; the first runnings, which contain the bulk of the mash’s sugars, make a small amount strong beer, while the lower-sugar later runnings make one or more session or table beers.  Fuller’s Brewery famously still uses this method to produce (listed strongest to weakest) their Golden Pride, ESB, and Chiswick Bitter ales.  The method employed by most modern brewers (and homebrewers) is to combine all the runnings to make a single beer; the challenges facing a novice parti-gyle brewer are to find the proper proportions of first to later runnings to reach the desired wort gravities and volumes.

After barley, wheat is the most often used grain in brewing.  However, it’s not often used for more than half of the grist; it tends to get gummy, and using a lot of wheat can lead to a stuck mash (and many brewing headaches trying to get the mash moving again).  Last summer’s success in brewing a British bitter composed almost entirely of rye, another notoriously gummy malt, gave me confidence to move ahead with this project.

I’ve never been a big fan of barleywines, but the concept of a wheatwine (a barleywine-strength beer made with a significant percentage of wheat) has intrigued me for some time.  Using Wyeast’s Old Ale Blend should add some Brettanomyces complexity to this as it ages, as well.  The idea of a low-gravity British ale (here, in the form of a light mild) made principally of wheat struck me as pretty interesting as well.  I used the last of my homegrown hops from last summer, just over an ounce of Willamette, for the single hop addition for the mild.  Having never actually tried a commercial wheatwine (or wheat mild, though I don’t know of too many examples) might be interpreted as another challenge, as I’m not really sure how any of these beers will taste.

The brewday went pretty smoothly, if long; no stuck sparge issues at all, despite what might be considered a dangerously low mash temperature for wheat (which can encourage gumminess).  I “capped” the main mash after collecting the first runnings with a “side mash” of specialty grains that added character to the mild (and helped clear out some old grain odds & ends I’d amassed by the end of the year.  I didn’t get quite the efficiency I’d hoped from the batch; of course, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the parti-gyle in the first place.  The brewday was greatly enhanced by the loan of a beautiful ten-gallon stainless steel brewpot from my college friend/beer & brewing buddy Ted (not this Ted); while he couldn’t make the brewday, he still made his presence felt.  I split the wheat mild into two batches and used different yeasts, one British and the other American, to keep things interesting.

Wheatwine - Wheat Mild parti-gyle

Wheatwine
Projected OG: 1.115
Projected SRM: 11.6
Projected IBU: 57.3

Wheat Mild
Projected OG: 1.039
Projected SRM: 10.9
Projected IBU: 12.7

Brewhouse Efficiency (total): 68%

for 8.8 total gallons:

Grain (Main mash)
13 lb        Wheat malt
2 lb        Biscuit

Side mash (Wheat Mild)
13 oz        Munich
9 oz        UK 2-row
8 oz        Special Roast
8 oz        Honey malt
8 oz        Aromatic
8 oz        Flaked Wheat
4 oz        C 120

Water additions (Main mash)
1 g        Gypsum
1 g        CaCl

Wheatwine
Hops
.5 oz        Columbus (14.5%) (60 min)
1 oz        EKG (4.5%) (10 min)
.5 oz        EKG (Dry hop #1 - 3 days)
.5 oz        EKG (Dry hop #2 - 4 days)

Extras
.5 tsp        Irish moss (45 min)
1 tsp        Yeast nutrient (45 min)
.5 tsp        Yeast energizer (45 min)

Yeast
WY9097 Old Ale Blend - 1.5-gal starter batch (Citra Bitter)

Wheat Mild
Hops
1.1 oz        Willamette (~4.5%, leaf) (60 min)

Extras
1 tsp        Irish moss (30 min)
1 tsp        Yeast nutrient (30 min)

Yeast
Split batch - WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale/WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50

Brewday: 30 January 2011
Mash-in: 20 qts @ 150̊F for 2 ½ hours; added 1 qt @ 212̊F to bring up to 153̊F
Pre-boil volume (Wheatwine): 3.6 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15̊P (1.061)
90-minute boil for increased kettle caramelization & to reach
Post-boil volume: 1.8 gallons
OG: 27̊P (1.115)
Shook to aerate; hopefully it’s enough to keep it going

Side mash (Wheat Mild)
Mash-in: 4.5 qts @ 155̊F for 75 minutes, then add to mash after running off Wheatwine wort
1st sparge: 15 qts @ 154̊F for ~2 hours
2nd sparge: 8 qts @ 160̊F
3rd sparge: 10 qts @ 167̊F
1st sparge SG: 10̊P (1.040)
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons?
Pre-boil SG: 8̊P (1.032)
Post-boil volume: 7 gallons, split into two fermenters
OG: 9.8̊P (1.039)

Fermented all batches in basement at ~57̊F ambient

Wheatwine started fermenting quickly and violently even at basement temp, sitting on the yeast cake

6 February 2011: Brought all batches upstairs to finish out; agitated fermenters once or twice a day

Wheat Mild Bottling: 11 February 2011
Both batches:
FG: 1.007
ABV: 4.2%

Samples both had a wonderful bready flavour; didn’t detect a whole lot of yeast variance.

8 March 2011: Put wheatwine in warm water bath (maintained with aquarium heater) at 88 F to encourage more activity from the Brett.  Adjusted in the next couple days, settling it at 82 F.

Wheatwine Bottling: 20 April 2011
FG: 1.028
ABV: 11.5%

Spent Grain No-Knead Pizza Dough

As many others have noted before, brewing is really just another type of cooking.  During our time off from everyday life last week thanks to Thundersnow 2011, I had a chance to make something I’ve read about and thought about concocting for some time: pizza dough made with grain that had previously been mashed.

My wife DeAunn and I love food and love to cook even more; pizza is something that we make fairly regularly.  After working at a by-the-slice gourmet pizza joint in undergrad, I became a pretty intractable pizza snob; I still find myself critiquing dough at various and sundry pizza parlours on its balance of crisp bite, soft inner texture, yeasty breadiness, and hint of sweetness.  I used to experiment quite a bit with making them myself, but more recently, being pretty busy/lazy, we’ve settled on the tasty whole wheat doughs from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.

I was inspired to get back into making dough when I came across a dough recipe incorporating post-mash grain posted by Morebeer forum member Alewife.  The other source for this dough was a no-knead recipe from Ideas in Food by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot; I’d never done no-knead, and being stuck inside due to the snow, I had plenty of time to let it rise.  The grain came from my recent altbier.

DeAunn assembled one of our favourite pizzas on this crust: a no-marinara pie with mozzarella, cheddar, tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms, topped with a barbecue sauce lacing.  While the dough could’ve used a bit more time to cook through, it was highly enjoyable (and repeatable).



for 1 dough:

2 cups        Whole wheat flour
1 cup          Spent grain
.5 tbsp        Sea salt
.5 tbsp        Sugar
.25 tsp        Active dry yeast
1.5 cups     Water

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl; mix well to thoroughly blend in the yeast.  Combine spent grain and 1/2 cup water in food processor; process until it all gets pretty gooey.  Add spent grain mixture to the flour mixture along with the remaining cup of water; mix with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until the water is absorbed and there are no lumps.  Cover the dough and let sit at room temperature for 4 hours; dough will rise to half again its original volume.

Loosen the dough from the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Slide a damp hand under one side of the dough, and fold the dough into the center.  Fold the dough this way on 4 sides, then flip over the whole dough so the folds are now on the bottom.  Cover the dough and let sit at room temperature for 3-4 hours; dough will double.

(It still looked a bit wet after sitting for a while, so I dusted on some extra wheat flour.  Some it absorbed, some just sat dry on top of the dough.  I might keep the faith a little better next time and go without this extra step.)

Citra Bitter

I needed to make a starter for the Wyeast 9097 Old Ale Blend I used for the wheatwine portion of my recent parti-gyle.  While I could’ve just used some of the final runnings I’ve saved from previous mashes and thrown them on the stirplate, I decided to make a small (1.2-gallon) extract batch of beer.

A few months ago, fellow brewer and Northside Homebrewers Connection founder Ted Danyluk shared with me a bottle of a pale ale he’d made using only Citra hops.  I’d read about the intense tropical fruit flavour and aroma from this hop, but wasn’t prepared to be walloped by the papaya scent emanating from this beer.  It was amazing, and I’d been keen to get this hop in my kettle.

I’ve brewed a number of extract batches with my dad in the last couple years, but I haven’t made anything more grandiose than a few starters with extract since I put together my mash tun.  With few exceptions, my extract beers just never measured up to what I was able to brew with my all-grain setup.  This simple recipe has proved to me that it may well be worth revisiting extract brewing from time to time; the hydrometer sample I tasted when I bottled this beer was fruity, hoppy, and clean, with none of the extract “twang” I remembered from my early days of brewing.


Citra Bitter (Extract)

Projected OG: 1.032
Projected SRM: 9.3
Projected IBU: 44.3

for 1.25 gallons:

Grain/Fermentables
1 lb    Pilsner DME
8 oz    C 20

Hops
.2 oz    Citra (12.3%) (30 min)
.2 oz    Citra (10 min)
.6 oz    Citra (dry hop - 7 days)

Yeast
WY9097 Old Ale Blend

Brewday: 16 January 2011
30-minute boil
Fermented in basement, ~56̊F ambient

19 January 2011: has been fermenting strongly; moved upstairs to finish out

24 January 2011: moved to ice bath to flocc out yeast

Secondary: 30 January 2011
Volume: 1.2 gallons

Bottled: 7 February 2011
FG: 1.012
ABV: 2.6%
Bottled with .7 oz light brown sugar

Mad Elf clone - 1-year Tasting & Recipe

While shuttered inside against the thundersnow a few evenings ago, I sampled one of the last bottles of a clone beer I brewed a little over a year ago.  The original, Mad Elf Ale, is the winter seasonal by Tröegs Brewing Company, based in my old home state of Pennsylvania.  Mad Elf is a Belgian strong ale, brewed with cherries and honey with a spicy Belgian yeast character.  I’d read about it, but lacking distribution this far west, it took a while to get hold of some to taste (which happened when my parents headed back to PA for a visit last winter).  In the meantime, I put together my recipe based on thoughts and suggestions on the Northern Brewer forum and got to brewing.  I was pretty happy with how it came out; not exactly like the original, but in the ballpark, and a good winter ale to help brace against the cold weather.  And at such a high ABV (12.3%), it made an excellent candidate for aging.

The past year has been very kind to this beer; the flavours have mellowed and blended, and the fruit is very forward, particularly in the nose.  The next night I sampled a year-old bottle of the commercial beer; it was good, but the yeast was dominant over the cherry.  I just wish I had more of these squirreled away!


Mad Elf clone - 1 year old

Appearance
Murky red-orange-brown with chill haze; off-white head that dissipates within a minute or two.

Aroma
Big cherry dominates, sweet with a hint of tart; some yeasty esters.

Taste
The vinous quality has developed pleasantly.  The alcohol has mellowed; it gently warms but doesn’t burn.  Definite Belgian yeast character, followed by cherry at the end and lingering in the nose for a short time.

Mouthfeel
Medium body; moderate-high carbonation keeps it from been too thick and syrupy

Overall
Remarkably drinkable for such a big beer; nicely mellowed after a year.  While alcohol is present, certainly doesn’t taste as big as it is.  A half glass is plenty, though; it’s still a sipper.

Recipe - Mad Elf clone


Projected OG: 1.114
Projected SRM: 15
Projected IBU: 17
Brewhouse efficiency: 71%

for 3 gallons:

Grain/Fermentables
10 lb    Belgian Pale
2 lb    Belgian Munich
2 lb    Honey (KO)
5 lb    Frozen Sour Cherries (secondary)

Hops
1 oz    Hallertau (3.8%) (150 min)

Yeast
WY1762 Belgian Abbey II - 3L starter

Starter: 13 September 2009
3L w/ 10 oz Light DME

Brewday: 14 September 2009
Mash in: 17 qts @ 152̊F for 60 minutes.
2 ½+ hour boil - ran out of propane, had to boil on stovetop.

Pre-boil volume: 5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 16.3̊P (1.066)
Volume: 3 gallons
OG: 27.2̊P (1.115)

Chilled with IC, then overnight in cold water bath.  Starter had been crash cooled all day on ice, then placed in fridge overnight.

Wort temp: 65̊F.  LHBS suggested temp of 68̊F for full fermentation; may let it go (up to 75̊F) after a few days.  Will need to condition warm to finish fermentation; keep yeast in suspension!

Secondary: 7 October 2009
Spent 2+ weeks jogging fermenter multiple times a day to keep yeast in suspension; no activity noted in airlock for some time.
SG: 1.023 - 80% attenuation.
Beer tastes fairly solventy right now; give it a long secondary/tertiary/bottle aging before drinking.

Bottled: 13 November 2009
FG: 1.027
Bottled with 2.5 oz cane sugar in solution and a partial pack of rehydrated Muntons yeast.

=====

At five years old, this beer was past its prime, unfortunately.

Altbier

To take advantage of the chilly temperatures in the basement, I decided to make an altbier as 2011's inaugural brew.  Originating in Düsseldorf, the term literally means “old beer”; it refers to the traditional method of brewing with ale yeast and then cold aging, which predated the use of cold-loving lager yeast.  It’s a clean and smooth amber ale whose bitterness can range from balanced to pronounced.

While I’ve brewed a sticke alt (“secret” style with extra malt and hops put on tap in place of the regular alt without notice every so often in German bars) before, this was the first regular-strength version I’ve made.  My recipe used Vienna and Munich for a lot of maltiness, with a bit of light crystal rounding out the grist.  I’m pretty sure it’ll end up a few shades paler than is standard; I have a bunch of British light crystal I’m trying to use up.  Darker crystal or a couple ounces of Carafa would put it in the right range.  A week after brewday, there’s still krauesen hanging out–WY1007 takes a good while to flocculate–but you can see from the picture how high it went when it was in full swing.  After finishing up in primary, it’ll lager for a few weeks so it can drop bright.

Alt.

Projected OG: 1.049
Projected SRM: 8.4
Projected IBU: 36.6
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%

for 5.5 gallons:

Grain
50% - 5 lb    Vienna
45% - 4.5 lb    Munich
5% - 8 oz    Caramunich - sub C 20

Hops
1.5 oz    Mt. Hood (5.5%) (FWH)
1 oz    Mt. Hood (60 min)
1.5 oz    Mt. Hood (FO)

Yeast
WY1007 German Ale - 3L starter on stirplate

Extras
1 tsp    Yeast nutrient (30 min)
½ tsp    Acid blend (1st sparge)

Starter: 25 January 2011
3L starter wort brought to boil w/1/8 tsp yeast energizer, iced to 75̊F, put on stirplate

Brewday: 27 January 2011
Mash-in: 12.5 qts @ 152̊F for 90 minutes
1st sparge: 9 qts @ 170̊F (added @ 200̊F) - added @ 212̊F, spiked to 175̊F
2nd sparge: 9.5 qts @ 170̊F (added @ 180̊F) - added @ 170̊F
Pre-boil volume: 6.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10̊P (1.040)
Post-boil volume: 5.5 gallons
OG: 12.2̊P (1.049)

Fermented at 56̊F ambient

After reviewing the numbers, the starter was much bigger than required since it was propogated on the stirplate; should have plenty of healthy yeast after this

Amazingly high krauesen ring on the carboy!

Secondary: 18 February 2011
Lagered in swamp cooler in low 30s F
Bottled: 4 March 2011
FG: 1.009 (1.010 @ 32̊F)
ABV: 5.2%
Bottled with 4.8 oz dark brown sugar