Phineas & an Ugly, Ugly Brewday

At the end of a recent Brewing TV episode on brewing double IPAs, Kristen England spoke on the difficulty small breweries have obtaining the hottest, sexiest new hops; between small harvests of these new varieties and these breweries being low on the pecking order for the hop quantities needed for commercial-scale

brewing, it seems like it's easier to score the likes of Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra as a homebrewer than as a widely recognized regional brewery.  As alternatives to the flashy new hops, Kris brought up "back to basics" varieties like Cascade and Brewer's Gold, reminding me that these were the basis for the monuments of craft brewing like SNPA.  It being high time to bring another batch of pale ale into the world--the Short Notice Pale has come and gone already--it felt right to return to the roots of homebrewing by using some tried-and-true hops.

With the late spring heating up, few things would be more welcome here than a hefty supply of easy-drinking hoppy beer.  On hand last summer were the yin-and-yang "session IPAs" Sturm und Drang; they ended up being less sessionable than intended, but certainly did the trick.  So this year why not counterbalance a "traditional" pale with another one that takes advantage of that homebrewer-scale access to all these exotic new varieties?  Taking this theme of opposites attracting in a different direction, I set out to brew ten gallons of wort, hopping one half with old-school hops and the other half with the new wave.

None of my three pots would hold the 13+ gallons of pre-boil wort alone, but the solution was fairly elegant (if not exactly ingenious).  The first and second runnings went into the 9-gallon pot, while the final sparge water--heated in one of the 7.5-gallon pots--was added to the tun.  These runnings were mixed well and evenly split between the two smaller pots; the final runnings also ran to the big pot and were mixed before being split between the other pots again.  The pre-boil gravity ended exactly the same between the two pots.

Everything can't go right for too long, of course; it just wouldn't be right.  Apparently a flaw in the design of my new small-pot windscreen has been exposing the end of the propane line to elevated temperatures while in use, and while heating the final batch of sparge water, the hose finally degraded and started leaking propane, igniting in a magnificent (also frightening) gout of flame outside the safe confines of the turkey fryer.  Fortunately no hellacious propane tank explosion ensued, but an hour and a half of driving around searching for a replacement hose for my (admittedly cheap Chinese) fryer assembly proved fruitless, so onto the slow burn of the electric range went the pots.  To put it charitably, the brewday was extended somewhat by this development.

Past those good times, I also managed to unintentionally leave three different valves open in the brewing process, causing a minor kitchen flood each time.  Two were on the swamp coolers--left open since their last use to air dry--while the other was the mash tun valve, which was open for the same reason.  Fortunately no wort was lost, just a little bit of the strike water.  Still aggravating.  As the final brewday coup de grace, I

crushed one of my floating thermometers while placing a fermenter in its swamp cooler.  As an added bonus, the slurry of WY1450 I pitched in both fermenters didn't seem to be taking off even after a couple days, so I rehydrated my emergency packet of US-05 and pitched it with a fair bit of yeast energizer.  I'm not sure if the new yeast went right to work or if the energizer kicked the old yeast into gear, but fermentation was going strong within a few hours.

Activity has slowed to a crawl, so the dry hops should go in soon.  Provided I don't introduce acetobacter at that point (knocking on wood as I write) I should have several cases of hoppy session beer to last through what's shaping up to be a beautiful summer.  For the record, the name of this batch derives from a character from the book A Separate Peace who delights in all manner of outdoor summer activities.  It's also a badass name in its own right...and just happens to grant these two beers the same initials as a very famous duo of much more high-octane offerings from a renowned West Coast brewery. 

Phineas Summer Pale Ale - split batch

Batch size: 10 gallons
Projected OG: 1.046
Projected SRM: 7.1
Projected IBU: 38.4/38.1
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%

Grains
80.0% - 12 lb Malteurop 2-row
13.3% - 2 lb Weyermann Organic Munich
6.7% - 1 lb Caramunich II

Hops (per half batch)
.4 oz Nugget (12.4%) (60 min)
.9 oz Hop blend (15 min)
.9 oz Hop blend (0 min - hop stand 30 min)
1.2 oz Hop blend (Dry hop 5 days)

- Phineas the Elder blend - 1:1:1 Centennial Type (9.7%) - Columbus (13.3%) - Nugget (12.4%)
- Phineas the Younger blend - 1:1:1 Amarillo (9.3%) - Citra (13.4%) - Sorachi Ace (12.1%)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 (slurry)

Exras (per half batch)
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions
3.5 gal RO water (mash)
1 g Gypsum (mash)
2 g Epsom salts (mash)
1 g CaCl (mash)
1 g Gypsum (per half batch, boil)

Brewday: 12 May 2012
Mash: 151F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 13.6 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.2P (1.037)

Phineas the Younger 
Fermenter volume: 5.2 gallons
OG: 10.6P (1.043)

Phineas the Elder
Fermenter volume: 5 gallons
OG. 11.4P (1.046)

No activity after 42 hours; rehydrated & added US-05 to both fermenters.  Activity after a couple hours; fermenting strongly by the next morning.

Dry hops: 6 June 2012
Transferred PtY to a 5-gal bucket to free up bottling bucket.  Didn’t taste it, but aroma was alarmingly Belgian; no sign of infection, though.  Hopefully it’s just the hops, but will know at bottling in under a week if it’s infected or if somehow I used the wrong yeast.

Bottled: 11 June 2012
Bottled each batch with 4 oz table sugar

Phineas the Younger
FG: 1.008
ABV: 4.6%

Phineas the Elder
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4.7%

The “Belgian” aroma detected at transfer in PtY seems to be hop derived, probably from the Sorachi; the yeast flavour is clean.  Not sure it’s my favourite hop, though it could work very well in a number of Belgian-style beers, especially a saison.

Tasting: PtY never turned out; it gave the distinct aroma of Pine-Sol, with a flavour to match.  PtE was all right during the summer, but fell off by the autumn; entered in a local homebrew contest, it was diagnosed with serious brewing/fermentation flaws.

DMA BDSA

When we decided to go back to school for our doctoral degrees, I thought a great corresponding project would be to brew a few batches of beer that we could age until we finished our dissertation defenses. Considering what would improve over that time, I settled on a quadrupel/Belgian dark strong ale, a barleywine, and a Flanders red.  The plan was to brew them before we started back at school and give them the full three year school years to age.  Of course, we've now finished the first year and I have only just brewed the first of these.  Better late than never, at any rate; the Flanders will hopefully be brewed before we make our summer trip back east so it can start its long, long primary, and the barleywine by early fall.

I go back and forth on Belgian beers; many times the yeast phenolics don't agree with me.  Belgian dark strongs, though, are often a treat; when I come across St. Bernardus Abt 12 on draft (back in Chicago, anyway), there's nothing quite like it.  To allow this very big beer to be as "digestible" as possible, the grist is simple, unclouded by lots of dextrinous malts, and mashed low; to get a maltier quality, the base is Vienna instead of the more traditional pils.  The grist also includes nearly 10% sugar for increased fermentability.  While I've experimented with making my own candi sugar before, I was curious to try some of the commercial dark candi sugar available; some have said that though it's just plain cane sugar (and/or sometimes beet sugar) the flavour can be very different from homemade iterations.  There are a couple pounds of D-180 picked up at NB Milwaukee last summer just waiting to spring into action; one pound is for this beer, while the other is for another upcoming batch.  The rest was originally going to be simple table sugar, but when I found turbinado for a decent price, it seemed right to go with the more characterful choice.

WY3787, purportedly Westmalle's (and Westvleteren's, Achel's, and quite likely St. Bernardus's) yeast, produces some fine Trappist and abbey ales.  I've used it to make a nice dubbel, but the follow-up BDSA did not do as well, sputtering out at 1.050.  Unfortunately I haven't had an aeration system to get the proper amount of oxygen into the wort for big beers like this, which may be a major factor in the yeast failing to finish; I actually just acquired an aeration stone and an inline air filter, but not in time for this most recent batch.  To give the yeast a better chance at finishing out this time, though, I reserved the sugars for incremental additions during primary, along with some yeast energizer to keep the little guys up and moving.

The mash-in for this batch was so large (6 1/2 gallons of liquor) that there was only pre-boil volume enough left for a single batch sparge, as opposed to my normal double.  Thus, there was a significant dropoff in efficiency; next time I'll plan for a larger volume and increase the boil time.  It also took an inordinate amount to lauter, which I wasn't expecting from a mash that included no rye, wheat, or oats to stop up the works.  Coming off a smallish starter, the 3787 got right to work, requiring a blowoff tube in the first couple days.  Fermentation temps have been kept relatively moderate, coming up from the mid 60s into the low 70s only after most of the activity had finished; this should keep phenolic production while still keeping the yeast at work.

At the end of the first week, fermentation had slacked off significantly, so I added the first sugar addition.  The gravity was at 1.030, which doesn't seem too bad in under a week; if it hasn't dropped within a couple weeks of the final sugar addition, I'll get a fighting starter of the very attenuative Wyeast French Saison yeast on the stirplate and see if that will finish the job.

DMA BDSA
Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.101
Projected SRM: 24.2
Projected IBU: 28.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 58%

Grains/Fermentables
80.0% - 18 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
9.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Organic Munich I
2.2% - 8 oz Dingemans Cara 45
4.4% - 1 lb D-180 Belgian candi syrup (primary)
4.4% - 1 lb Turbinado sugar (primary)

Hops
.7 oz Warrior (16.7%) (60 min)

Yeast
WY3787 Trappist High Gravity (2-qt starter)

Extras
1 tbsp Yeast nutrient

Water additions (mash)
20 qts distilled water
2 g Epsom salts
1 g Salt
1 g CaCl2
1 g Chalk

Brewday: 5 May 2012
Mash: 148F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 5.8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 17.0P (1.070)
Post-boil OG (w/o sugars): 20.2P (1.085)

Ferment started in swamp cooler at 62F ambient
Activity took off in under 12 hours; by 36 hours had to replace the airlock with a blowoff tube

Sugar addition #1: 11 May 2012
8 oz turbinado with yeast energizer (boiled & cooled with enough water to dissolve)
SG: 1.030 - may need 3711 to finish the job
Bumped up temp over the last couple days to a high of 74F ambient as activity slowed.  Fermentation put out ~800 ml of blowoff by that time; replaced blowoff tube with an airlock when activity slowed and gave the fermenter a good spin to rouse the yeast.  Activity took off again, so dropped the temp back into the mid 60s.  Activity was slacking again before the sugar addition.

Sugar addition #2: 15 May 2012
D-180

Sugar addition #3: 20 May 2012
D-180

Sugar addition #4: 25 May 2012
Turbinado with yeast energizer

Secondary: 5 June 2012
SG: 1.022
Pitched rehydrated champagne yeast to encourage the gravity down into the teens, hopefully.

4 August 2012
SG: 1.016

Bottled: 10 August 2012
FG: 1.015
ABV: 11.3%

Bottled with 4.8 oz table sugar.

Tasting: Substantial with lots of fruit.  Belgian yeast character as all get-out, generally complemented by the residual sweetness.  A very decent sipper; I don't know how much will make it all the way to the end of this degree.

2nd Place, Belgian Strong Ale: 2014 Beehive Brew-Off

English Summer Ale

I stacked my brewing docket very ambitiously this winter.  So here we are, halfway through spring, and most of the beers still on it are kind of out of season.  I'm still planning to brew most of them, and several will hopefully be brewed to age over the summer for the next round of cold weather, but it's time to incorporate some more season-appropriate batches into the rotation, ones that are both light and sessionable.  First up, an English summer ale.

My enticement to this style came from the description (and recipes) in Radical Brewing:  "The moment begs for a perfect summer ale - crisp, dry, refreshing, but sturdy enough to satisfy, a citric hop aroma leaping from a dazzling white meringue." (83)  I've never had the pleasure of trying a commercial (or homebrew, for that matter) example of this style, so I used Mosher's description and recipes as a compass.  My aim was for a beer low in gravity with a significant proportion of wheat, hops heavier on aroma than bittering, and a characterful English yeast.

Perhaps perversely for this British-style beer, the grist came entirely from Weyermann.  Glacier hops provide light and (hopefully) neutral bittering.  I really wanted to try Styrian Goldings at the end of the boil, but, as seems to happen every time I want to use this varietal, my LHBS was out.  I subbed Fuggles as an English substitute at knockout with a thirty-minute hopstand; I've learned from my recent Facloner's Flight double IPA not to expect any bittering from this addition (good for this beer, but very unfortunate for the IIPA, which I've had to reclassify as an old ale).  My good friend Ted strongly endorsed the Wyeast 1028 for a yeast with lots of character, so into the fermenter it went.

This was the first beer I brewed since the end of our first year of doctoral study, which ended just a few days before brewday; it was followed by a quadrupel/Belgian dark strong that had been on the longstanding winter "big beer" docket, just to keep everything in balance.  I actually stuck around for the beginning of the boil for once, and thus avoided any nasty boilovers.  After giving the Fuggles a full half hour for the hopstand, I learned that five gallons of boiling liquid will still shed quite a bit of heat in that time; it was already at 110F when I started chilling.  My smack pack of 1028 had already begun inflating (with the inner nutrient pack still intact) when I picked it up at the LHBS; a little online searching let me know that I'd be fine adding the yeast to the fermenter then clipping
open the nutrient pack.  As an added treat, I pulled my reserve bottles of last year's summer beers, Sturm and Drang, to sample while brewing the first of this year's summer beers; while the hop aroma has diminished, they were still pretty damn tasty.
After about twelve hours, the fermenter started going like gangbusters; as it slowed today, I pulled it out of its water bath this morning.  I'll probably jog it every so often and give it a few more days to finish up before bottling.  This should be a fine porch sipper in the next couple months; now I just have to decide what to brew with the big ol' cake of 1028 I'll have.









Summer Ale

Batch size: 5.75 gallons
Projected OG: 1.044
Projected SRM: 5.3
Projected IBU: 22.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%

Grains
50.0% - 4 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
25.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Organic Munich I
25.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Pale Wheat

Hops
.5 oz Galena (13.2%) (60 min)
1 oz UK Fuggles (4.2%) (0 min - 30-min hop stand)

Yeast
WY1028 London Ale (no starter)

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions (mash)
8 qts distilled water
1 g Gypsum

Brewday: 5 May 2012
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 8.7P (1.035)

Started in closet, ~65F ambient; after activity started, moved to water bath at 62F ambient, adjusted down to 58F as activity picked up
Out of the water bath as activity slowed to finish

Bottled: 15 May 2012
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4.4%
1 gallon in cubitainer as “cask ale”; bottled remaining 4 gallons
Bottled cubitainer with .2 oz table sugar; rest with 4.1 oz table sugar

Tasting notes: Mineral notes are interesting, but may be an even better beer with a more fruit-oriented English yeast.

Hops, 2012 Edition - Spring Pruning

Spring has definitely sprung: the mercury's starting to climb back to short pants levels, and the flora has burst forth in a wide assortment of leaf and flower.  Add to that my hops, still in their planters; growing them in 18-gallon totes was supposed to be more of a temporary fix, but since we don't seem any closer to settling in anywhere in particular right now, it's good to see them flourishing so well under less-than-optimal conditions.

Other than being in the totes and thus not able to really spread out their seriously scary root systems (if you haven't seen photos of mature hop plants, get on the Google) a friend of some of our fellow tenants, in helping them move during the winter, backed into the planters, destroying the one that held the Goldings plant.  After a couple months of personal sloth, I finally picked up a new tote and took to the touchy prospect of replanting the mangled plant.  The superfine rootlets were shredded, but the main roots seemed to be in good shape; I pretty much dumped the whole mess into the new planter with no idea of which end had been up and hoped for the best.  The new tote is narrower and taller than the old, meaning that the bines would have a lot more digging to do once they figured out which way was up.

By March the Centennials and Willamettes had begun to poke out of the ground; the Goldings kept me worried for a couple more weeks before emerging, as hearty as ever.  They are weeds, after all.  There was lots of early growth; they'd probably just turn into bushes if I let them.  It wasn't until last week that I was finally able to prune them and train the bines to the leads; by then, they'd already grown several feet long.  Now they're cleaned up, trained, and climbing.  They don't seem to be making the same crazy amount of headway up the leads as they have in past years, but it's still early in the season, and the temperatures haven't really stabilized yet.  Hopefully I'll be able to convince some friends to water them and give them more line while we're away this summer.  In which case, I foresee a nice wet-hopped APA making its way into the rotation come September or October.