Brett/Bug Culturing

I keep going back to the Mad Fermentationist for inspiration. A couple months ago I listened to Jay Goodwin of the Rare Barrel interview Mr. Tonsmiere himself about his new book (which I'm sorry to say I still haven't read) on the first episode of the Brewing Network's Sour Hour. It sent me to the MF blog archives, particularly to a post from a few years back on maintaining Brett and Lacto cultures. My sour brewing has gone all right so far, but I'm interested in doing more, so I decided to take some advice from that blog post and start a mixed microbe culture.

Since I'm looking to nurture the full range of tasty sour bugs available, I made a quart of starter wort from a mix of DME and preservative-free apple juice to an OG of about 1.030, along with a bit of yeast nutrient. This is hanging out in a growler in the back of our fridge to keep the bacteria from outcompeting the yeast. Every other month I'll decant off the old starter and add a new batch. I may add a few IBUs worth of hops to successive worts and sample the fermented starters to get a sense of the culture's evolving character (and make sure it hasn't gone south).

Now when I have a sour beer at home that I enjoy, I check this list of viable bottle dregs (once again from MF, natch). If it's on there--or I can find decently reliable information elsewhere that the bottle should contain living bugs and/or Brett--I flame the bottle lip and the dregs go into the growler. It's definitely influenced my beer-buying habits; I purchase sours more often now, but also spend time investigating them for possible culture viability.

As long as this culture continues to behave itself, I'll keep a record of its development here, including the list of dregs added and when I change out the starter wort. The initial donors are in the picture above, and I just picked up a few more bottles last week in Colorado that will make their way into the mix soon. I'm sure that eventually I'll acquire a few samples from the burgeoning northern California sour scene as well. Let me know if you recommend scouting out anything in particular!

Sour Culture No. 1

11 October 2014:
Added 1 qt starter wort @ ~1.030 (Light DME, Apple juice, Yeast nutrient)

2012 Goose Island Sofie
2012 Lindemanns Cuvée René

7 December 2014

Decanted off old starter wort

Added 1 qt starter wort

   .5 qt Apple juice

   2 oz DME

   No hops this time

OG: 14.6P (1.059)! Way higher than desired. Added extra 1 qt water to bring it in line.

Old starter tasted pretty sweet. The cold is impeding the bugs from out competing the Sacch & Brett, but all microbial action may be near zero at this point. Considering giving the starter a warm stretch at some point in the process to ensure everything stays alive & working.

13 January 2015
2014 TRiNiTY Blow Up Your TV Blanche Saison Grisette

14 January 2015
2014 Crooked Stave St Bretta Autumn

18 February 2015
Warmed starter to ambient (high 50s) a few days ago; subdued but active fermentation in progress. Kicking out sour, buttery aromas presently.

30 March 2015
Decanted off old starter wort. Sat out at ambient (~65F) for a few weeks, then back into the fridge once active fermentation ceased.
Added 1L starter wort
   1.1 L Filtered water
   55 g Light DME
   Pinch Yeast nutrient
   No hops
100 mL went on to 2015 Russian River Damnation dregs; rest onto bugs. Both starters out on counter, ambient ~65F.

Old starter was tart, clean, and very tasty. Guess we'll see what develops in a full-size, long-term ferment.

///

Sour Culture No. 2

21 October 2015
1 qt starter wort @ ~1.030 (light DME, yeast nutrient)
Kept on counter at ambient temp (~67F)

2015 Almanac Farm to Table Farmer's Reserve Pluot
   - Hay/tart aroma; rounded fruity (pluot) taste

23 October 2015

2015 Bruery Terreux Sour in the Rye
   - Firm lactic acidity

22 December 2015
2015 Crooked Stave Hop Savant Galaxy
   - Musty funk, light citrus, hay

24 December 2015
2015 Crooked Stave Progenitor
   - Barnyard, hay, tropical funk

3 January 2016
Dec 2014 Crooked Stave Cerveza Sin Frontera
   - Drying sour, lots of cranberry

17 January 2016
Chilled in fridge for a week and a half, decanted beer. Beer was nicely tart, fruity, background saltine note (Crooked Stave character) with a surprisingly viscous mouthfeel.
Added .75 qt boiled down final runnings from IIPA.

///

Sour Culture No. 3

26 May 2016
10 g DME in 100 ml water, plus a pinch of yeast nutrient
Oct 2014 Logsdon Farmhouse Cerasus
   - Complex tart (lactic & acetic), cherry, oak tannin, a little malt

31 May 2016
2015 Cascade Blackcap Raspberry
   - Really nice dark berry, solidly sour

7 June 2016
100 g DME in 1 L water, plus a pinch of yeast nutrient

16 June 2016
Chilled in fridge for several days, decanted beer. Not fully attenuated--only left a few days for fermenting--but resulting beer was lightly tart and had a really nice strawberry flavor.

///

Sour Culture No. 4

20 November 2016
4 oz DME in 500 ml water, plus a pinch of yeast nutrient
2015 Russian River Supplication
   - Hay, barnyard, cherry, Pinot, damp funk, oak

23 November 2016
2016 Holy Mountain Grapefruit Table
   - Clean lactic acidity (lemon), grapefruit juice

27 November 2016
2016 Holy Mountain Dark Retreat
   - Strong, rounded tart (not just lactic), juicy red/dark berry, oak

4 December 2016
2015-16 Oude Gueze Tilquin A l'ancienne
    - Wet hay, lemon peel, damp basement, tannic

25 December 2016
Chilled for a week, decanted & added 52 g DME in 500 ml water, plus a pinch of yeast nutrient. Spent starter was sweet-tart with a prominent Cheerios flavor that dominated the aftertaste (THP).

26 February 2017
Chilled for several days, decanted & added new starter (1.5 oz DME in .5 qt water plus yeast nutrient). THP was very prominent, the principal flavor of the spent starter, followed by a faint tartness.

16 April 2017
Chilled for several days, decanted & added final runnings from an IPA. Much less grainy/cheerios, now only faint; stronger tartness that grips the back of the throat a bit. Still a keeper.

6 May 2017
Holy Mountain The Gray Tower Blend #3
    - Mandarin orange tart, deep damp funk

///

Sour Culture No. 5

25 December 2016
50 g DME in 500ml water, plus a pinch of yeast nutrient
2016 Cascade Blackcap Raspberry
   - Strong lactic tartness, big dark berry, jammy, fantastic

30 December 2016
2016 Logsdon Farms Cerasus
   - Tart cherry, woody, drying, very slight Cheerios at end

26 February 2017
Chilled for several days, decanted & added new starter (1.5 oz DME in .5 qt water plus yeast nutrient). Spent starter was clean, weakly lactic tart, watery, a touch cherry.

16 April 2017
Chilled for several days, decanted & added final runnings from an IPA. Clean, solid tartness, still a good bit of cherry/berry.

17 June 2017
Chilled, decanted & added new starter (2 oz DME in .5 qt water plut yeast nutrient). Still pretty cleanly tart with a fair berry note, maybe a hint of graininess/Cheerios sneaking in. Next week, while it's hopefully very active, it will go into sour beer that will eventually get a bunch of stone fruit.

Amarillo Rye Saison

I've mentioned before that I have a messy history brewing saisons; I've often tried to use the style as a forum for weirdness before really figuring out the base beer. This summer's straightforward iteration was much more successful, though it may have suffered from some oxidation in the bottle. For my second batch of Reno-based homebrew, I continued my exploration of this fascinating, rustic beer.

The biggest influences on wort production were 1) the significant amount of Weyermann rye malt in my stores right now, and 2) an astonishingly good deal on Amarillo pellets at Reno Homebrewer, one of the local supply shops, right after we moved here. I've stuck with Wyeast's French Saison yeast over one of the Dupont strains. Dupont isn't my favourite example of the style and I really like how WY3711 tears right through a wort without fuss.

As an added bonus, it was on this batch that I finally checked the efficacy of my water bath method for stabilizing fermentation temperature. I've never been sure of the temperature differential between the water bath and what's going on in the fermenter during active fermentation. Thus, I didn't really know how much I

needed to drop the water bath temp to maintain my target fermentation temp. With the saison wort actively fermenting (just about high krauesen) in a glass carboy sitting in a ice chest water bath that only came halfway up the batch, the fermentation only ran a half a degree higher than the water bath itself. I'll definitely do more testing, but that's an informative first result.

The beer finished nice and dry--as expected with this yeast--and has been in the bottle for a few weeks now. As beer tends to do, it's evolved a bit over that time. Early on, the leading aromatic and flavour character was somewhat phenol-plastic; it wasn't terrible, but it definitely wasn't the best. That's begun to mellow a little, leaving room for a fruitier character to come through. My initial impression is that the Amarillo and rye (even at 30% of the grist) are not playing dominant roles; it's the yeast that still comes to the fore (see update below). If anything, some of the unpleasantness may have come from the interaction of these ingredients. It may be on the bright side for the cooling fall temperatures, but it helps me remember summer. Complete tasting notes coming soon.

My next saison will be a rebrew of my petit saison noir from a few winters ago, hopefully with the WLP566 I originally used. I don't really have any "house" yeast strains, especially for saisons, though I've really been pulling to get what I want out of WY3711. Based on this current batch, though, I may start to mess around with others to find my preferred mix of fermentation characters. Of course, if this beer continues to mature into something along the lines of my last saison, I may just stay put.

Update: It's hard to keep everything in mind all the time. As I'm sure many of you have, I now recall reading a pile of anecdotal information on the plastic-phenol bombs that can arise when combining Belgian yeasts with American hops. I'd forgotten all about that until yesterday, when I watched Nate Smith's 2014 NHC presentation on using new hop varieties, courtesy of the intrepid Chip Walton of Chop & Brew. I'm considering rebrewing this beer soon with more traditional continental hops--either Styrian Goldings or something noble--to contrast with the current batch and possibly restore my faith in WY3711.

On another note, I really like the concept Nate presented in his talk for doing split batches to compare hops. He produces a large batch (15 gallons) of base wort, then splits it post-boil, running 5 gallons at a time through a hop back with a different hop variety, then through a plate chiller to each fermenter. He then usually follows up with a dry hop that matches the hop back charge for each split. It's a great idea that easily scales for smaller test batches, but requires a couple pieces of equipment I lack. Worth ruminating on for the future...

Update 2: After some time in the bottle, this beer has really turned around for me. While the combination of Amarillo and spicy yeast still throws me a little, the plastic character is gone. Much more drinkable, thankfully! Notes on this beer and the rebrew coming soon.

Autumn Denial - Amarillo Rye Saison

Batch size: 4.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.063
Projected SRM: 7.3
Projected IBU: 30.1
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 79%

Grains/Fermentables
60.0% - 6 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
30.0% - 3 lb Weyermann Rye
10.0% - 1 lb Turbinado (10 min)

Hops
.5 oz Millennium (13.5%) (60 min)
.5 oz Amarillo (8.2%) (10 min)
1.5 oz Amarillo (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
WY3711 French Saison - 1.5L stirplate starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)

Water
Profile: Reno
1 g Gypsum
1 g CaCl
1 mL Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 27 September 2014
Mash: 12 qts @ 147F for 3 hours - dropped to 116F
Pre-boil volume: 6 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o turbinado): 11P (1.044)

Chilled to 74F. Yeast pitched a little over 24 hours after knockout, once starter flocc’d out. Aerated for 30 minutes before pitching.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 70F for 2 days, then raised 3F/day to 80F.

Dry hops: 14 October 2014
Added loose to primary.

Bottled: 20 October 2014
FG: 1.003
ABV: 7.9%
Bottled with 4.8 oz brown sugar.

Blonde Ale

Properly situated in our new digs, it was a happy day when the brewing kit finally came out. The first beer on the docket was a style that hadn't held much interest for me until recently. I've often passed over blonde ales for bolder, hoppier options like pale ales and IPAs. As I've cultivated an appreciation for the uncluttered flavours of pilsener and kolsch over the past year, though, blondes have found a place in my glass, prized for their bready notes and extreme drinkability. I'd hoped to brew this before the official change in season--this would definitely count as a lawnmower beer--but with the weather here still more summery than autumnal on brewday, it worked out just fine.

A blend of domestic 2-row and Vienna keep the colour light. I haven't used Palisade hops before, but the descriptors--floral, subtle apricot, grassy--are in line with the unobtrusive role they're set to play here. I've wanted to see how a single yeast strain behaves over successive batches for a while now, so the neutral Chico yeast seemed like it would serve the purposes of that experiment and this beer.

For the first product of the brewhouse's new location, this was definitely a success. It might actually be too restrained, but it has a long bready tail and is still pretty damned quaffable. It's a fast, easy, sessionable beer that's kept the fridge well stocked and helped us make new friends; it'd make a great house ale that would easily lend itself to experimentation. I imagine I might see this one again (or a variation of it) come next spring.

Summer Farewell

Batch size: 6 gallons
Projected OG: 1.044
Projected SRM: 3.5
Projected IBU: 16.9
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 91%

Grains
62.5% - 5 lb Malteurop 2-row
37.5% - 3 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna

Hops
.5 oz Palisade (7.8%) (60 min)
.5 oz Palisade (10 min)

Yeast
11.5 g US-05 (rehydrated)

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (0 min)

Water
Profile: Reno
1 g Epsom salts
1 g CaCl
1 mL Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 27 September 2014
Mash: 10 qts @ 154F for 105 minutes - dropped to 144F
1st sparge: 11 qts @ 212F (w/ .75 mL Lactic acid)
2nd sparge: 11 qts @ 190F (w/ .75 mL Lactic acid)
Pre-boil volume: 6.7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.2P (1.037)

Chilled to 68F.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 62F.

4 October 2014: Activity slowed. Removed from swamp cooler & swirled a few times a day.

Bottled: 7 October 2014
FG: 1.008
ABV: 4.7%
Bottled with 5.1 oz table sugar.

Tasting: Three and a half months after brewing, it showed its age a bit...or perhaps just my poor handling later in the process. The good bottles were still crisp, crackery, and very drinkable.

Peach Melomel II

It took some time to get my brewing kit set up here, but this past weekend I finally snuck some wort into a couple fermentors. In the meantime, though, we came across the perfect excuses to engage in some gluten-free fermentation: ripe California peaches at the farmers market and a closeout on a brand of honey at the local Whole Foods.

Reno is host to a different farmers market just about every day of the week during the summer. Much of the selection comes from across the state border, and these markets are overflowing with tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, seafood, and more. DeAunn discovered freestone peaches from one of these vendors that were nearly as good as the ones we had in Alabama a couple summers ago. Recalling how well our first melomel turned out using those southern peaches--we enjoyed the final bottle to celebrate our move here, and it was excellent--it took little time to plan this followup. Finding a frankly fantastic deal on honey only made it come together more easily.

The recipe remained the same from the previous batch, though the ratio of fruit to honey was switched in favour of the honey, due to the weight of the peaches once we got them home and prepped. Our new place provided a more stable fermentation environment than the last batch had; that one toiled away on the rear floorboard of our car as we drove cross country in the middle of summer. Michael Tonsmiere raised an excellent point this spring on considering honey varietals (his first line puts it best: "If a beer recipe calls for 'honey' without specifying a varietal, it might as well call for 'malt' and 'hops' with similar imprecision."). I'd very much like to explore more fully the fermented outcomes of different types of honey available. For now, though, the general "wildflower" honey I've found works just fine, fermenting clean and leaving a fragrant white wine-like note.

As I prepared to transfer this melomel over the weekend, I was dismayed to open the fermentor and find two fruit flies floating on the surface. I've played it pretty fast and loose with mead; since we usually aim to make about 1.5 gallons per batch, I've done all of my primary fermentations in the two-gallon bucket we bought for that first batch of melomel. I left the lid, now quite warped, loose and covered the bucket with a clean t-shirt, relying on this setup to be enough to keep away any nasties. Obviously it wasn't enough this time, and the batch may suffer for it. The bucket has now gone for recycling; next time, we'll go with primary in glass.

The mead has now been racked to secondary on bentonite to clear, and a half gallon received newly-toasted oak cubes as well. It had fermented quite dry, and showed no signs of infection at that point. It's dropped pretty bright already, so we'll plan to bottle soon, keep it cold, and drink it quickly. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid the majority of possible bacterial off-flavours and fully enjoy this reminder of our first taste of our new home.

Peach Melomel II - Reno edition
Batch size: 1.75 gallons
Projected OG: 1.121

Fermentables
5 lb 12 oz Honey
3 lb Peaches - peeled, sliced, frozen

Yeast
Lalvin 71B-1122

Extras - SNA
1 tsp Yeast nutrient
.5 tsp Yeast energizer
   3/8 tsp after pitching
   3/8 tsp after 24 hours
   3/8 tsp after 48 hours
   3/8 tsp after 72 hours

Brewday: 1 September 2014
Fermented at 75F ambient.

Secondary: 28 September 2014
Added 1 tsp bentonite dissolved in 1 cup water, .5 oz newly-toasted oak to .5 gallon.
Found two fruit flies in the bucket. Apparently I didn’t keep the bucket covered well enough...

2014 Beehive Brewoff Results

We're just about settled in our new place in Reno. Helping this feel more like home, I put together a melomel a few weeks ago, which I'll move out of primary for clarification and further aging today. Today will also mark my first brewday in Nevada, an event that will definitely help me feel more at home here. The first bit of homebrewing activity here, however, came a few weeks ago in the form of my BJCP scoresheets from the 2014 Beehive Brewoff.

This was my second time entering this competition, and I felt the feedback I received both times was on the mark for the beers reviewed. I'm happy to report that this year the Belgian dark strong I brewed a couple years ago took second in the Belgian strong ale category with a respectable average score of 40. The years have treated this beer well, rounding off its sharp edges. It's gratifying as well as edifying to read reviews from impartial judges; even though they scored this beer well, they had suggestions for improving it.

Even more helpful were the scoresheets for the other two beers I entered, my second attempt at a Flanders red and my most recent iteration of Russian imperial stout. The RIS scored a 32, dinged primarily for high residual sweetness and astringency. The FG was quite high in the end, which I'd hoped would help balance the high amount of roasted grains (the main contributor of astingency). In the end, I missed the balance here; while I enjoyed the experiment of cutting out the caramel malts and upping the roasted component on this batch, it does make for a less pleasurable experience than it could be. I'll definitely retool for the next go-around, adding back some caramel and cutting down on the roast.

The Flanders red did not do well, scoring an average of 22. While it received generally good notes for the aroma, the judges pointed to a high level of acetobacter activity (vinegar) and high astringency. While they found it to be sour, they found little else. At the beginning of the summer, in the first few months after bottling, I got a ton of great cherry and bready malt riding the bracing wave of sourness in this beer. Tasting it now, however, I certainly agree with the judges; most of the cherry and malt have fallen off, leaving just a stomach-churning acidic burn. However, I think I've already had more mileage out of this batch than I could have reasonably expected: it blew out its airlock in primary over the summer while we were away for three months, then spent a year wasting away in a plastic bucket, prone to oxygen exposure and acetobacter infection, before I finally bottled it. That I was able to have a good tasting experience with this beer at all was a boon, given the amount of abuse and mishandling it received.

Though we're not in Salt Lake City anymore, I would not hesitate to enter this competition again. Furthermore, I plan to seek out competitions locally over the next few years; getting experienced opinions from others on how to improve my beers will certainly help me advance more quickly than just doing my own informal evaluations. Looking forward to brewing today, and improving those beers in subsequent batches.

Saison

Belgian beers don't always speak to my tastes, but saisons are usually a treat. That being said, my favourite isn't the standard bearer, Dupont; I'm a much bigger fan of St. Feuillien's version, as well as those by Rockmill in Ohio. For as much as I like a straight-up saison, though, more often I've brewed ones that were adulterated: soured, with citrus, or spiced. This beer was a move back to basics: simple grist, straightforward hopping, Wyeast's French Saison yeast.

Still learning to play nicely with my water, I believe I overacidified my sparge a bit. Thankfully the finished beer doesn't seem to have suffered terribly from it. Brewing and bottling went smoothly. I've gone back and forth on this beer: it was spicy and bready at bottling, but later seemed to overcarbonate and pick up a bit of an off-flavour, which I thought might indicate infection. Most recently, though, I've decided what I mostly taste is the yeast and a perhaps a bit of oxidation, which isn't the end of the world. I've already planned the next batch, which will bring in some rye and more assertive hopping, but otherwise will stick to the plan presented here.

Saison ‘14

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.052 (12.9P)
Projected SRM: 4.9
Projected IBU: 26.7
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 79%

Grains
77.8% - 7 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
22.2% - 2 lb Weyermann Wheat

Hops
.4 oz Magnum (14.2%) (60 min)
1 oz Amarillo (8.8%) (5 min)

Yeast
WY3711 French Saison (no starter)

Water Additions
8 qts RO water (w/ 3 qts filtered SLC water) (mash)
1 g Gypsum (mash)
1 g CaCl (mash)
2.4 ml Lactic acid (1st sparge)
2.6 ml Lactic acid (2nd sparge)

Brewday: 4 June 2014
Mash: 150F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6.5 gallons
                                   
Fermented at 68F for two days, then 73F for two days. Krausen dropped at that point; raised to 75F for the remainder of fermentation.

12 June 2014: Removed from swamp cooler; sitting at ambient temp (80F). Active fermentation complete.

Bottled: 28 June 2014
FG: 1.004
ABV: 6.3%
Bottled with 4.8 oz table sugar (~2.8 volumes C02).

Summer IPA

Between putting a range of beers on the docket and having little time in the last year to brew them, it had been some time since I'd produced anything with hops in the foreground. Thus, this spring I set out to brew both a pale ale and an IPA. While the pale ale came up short, the IPA was more of a success.

As I've worked through a sack of Vienna in the past year, I've really liked its grainy character over domestic 2-row as a base malt in many cases. The flaked oats went in for head retention and complexity; I don't know that the light roasting added much, but it (predictably) made the kitchen smell incredible. The turbinado drove up the OG and drove down the FG while adding more colour and maybe a bit of background interest. I've started messing with my water a bit more, particularly the pH on lighter beers like this. However, I miscalculated my lactic acid addition and drove my pH well below where it should've been. Thankfully, I don't believe it negatively impacted the mash or the final beer.

I did not skimp on hops here, and do not remotely regret it. Thirteen ounces all told, the largest addition being at flameout for a hopstand. Of course, the dry hopping wasn't exactly light, either. When in doubt, throw more hops at it. The mix of varieties leaned heavily toward the fruity for a more latter-day American IPA sensibility.

This beer came out almost big enough to fall into the imperial IPA category, especially since it finished fairly low--just what I wanted. Once carbed, the bottles went very quickly; I haven't brewed very many hoppy beers which which I've been this pleased. I'd probably only make a couple changes for a rebrew. The first would be to increase the IBUs. I've been gun shy on overbittering since my first extract kit, an all-Cascade pale ale, finished with a rough bitterness. Though the hop flavour and aroma were really nice on this beer, it could've taken a bit more bittering to back it up. The other change is entirely based on my personal preferences: I'd drop the Citra. I've used this hop before and loved it, but after someone suggested to me that it could have a certain soapy character, I haven't been able to get that concept out of my mind. Though I kept the dosing low, its distinct tropical (and, sadly for me, slightly soapy) flavour dominated the beer. I might swap it for something more piney and/or resinous to diversify the hop character next time. That being said, I didn't have a hard time disposing of the batch. Here's to summer.

Why Not Another IPA?
Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.071
Projected SRM: 6.9
Projected IBU: 52.1
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 81%

Grains/Fermentables
80.0% - 10 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
12.0% - 1.5 lb Toasted organic flaked oats - roasted @ 250F for 30 minutes, turned once
8.0% - 1 lb Turbinado (5 days into primary fermentation)

Hops
.6 oz Warrior (14.8%) (60 min)
1 oz Centennial (9.5%) (10 min)
1 oz Citra (12.5%) (10 min)

1.4 oz Warrior (0 min - 60 min hopstand)
2 oz Columbus (16.3%) (0 min - 60 min hopstand)
2 oz Amarillo (8.8%) (0 min - 60 min hopstand)

2 oz Amarillo (dry hop  - 5 days)
2 oz Centennial (dry hop - 5 days)
1 oz Citra (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
1.5 pkgs US-05 (rehydrated)

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
1 vial Clarity Ferm (post-chill, pre-pitching)

Water Additions (mash)
12 qts RO water
2 g Gypsum
1 g Epsom salt
1 g CaCl
240 mL Lactic acid

Brewday: 25 May 2014
Mash: 150F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.1 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12P (1.049)
Post-boil SG (w/o sugar): 13.8P (1.056)

Used undiluted water numbers for pH adjustment, so probably WAY overacidified the mash water.

Cooled to 69F; swamp cooler at 57F. Swamp cooler stabilized at 65F the day after brewing; held there.

29 May 2014: added turbinado (boiled w/ water)
Agitated a few times a day.

1 June 2014: Activity drastically slowed. Moved out of swamp cooler; ambient temperature 71F. Continued to agitate intermittently.

Secondary: 8 June 2014
SG: 1.009
ABV: 6.1%

Bottled: 13 June 2014
Bottled with 4 oz table sugar.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

A couple summers ago, I had a chance to try DuClaw Brewing Company's Sweet Baby Jesus. It's not much of a summer beer, but it made for a great sipper one late night in a smoky, air-conditioned central Pennsylvania bar. I'm an admitted sucker for chocolate; coupled with a rich but not overbearing peanut butter presence, I was sold from the first taste. Of course there was nothing for it but to make one myself. When a deal on PB2 peanut butter powder came up last fall, I jumped on it; much of the oil has been removed, making it more suitable for use in beer than other forms of peanuts. I'd planned to make this beer this coming fall, but when I realized that the expiration date on the PB2 was approaching, it became clear its time had come.

Not necessarily looking to clone DuClaw's beer, I started my recipe from scratch. The plan was for a big base beer--an imperial porter--to lend a big malty backbone upon which I could layer the peanut butter and chocolate additions. Brown malt has had a very positive impact on my dark beers in the last few years, particularly in a brown porter from earlier this year that aimed at using the grain for forty percent of the grist. The oats went in to add their characteristically slick mouthfeel; the toasting was to add colour and a cookie/malt complexity. The lactose and English yeast conspired to keep the beer from finishing too thin; the low mash temp worked to keep it from finishing too high. By the numbers, the final gravity is just about where I'd like it; this isn't meant to be a light summer drinker.

I've messed with adding chocolate to beer before, usually with cacao nibs in secondary, but have found myself mostly unsatisfied with the results. Not having a lot of experience with baker's chocolate or cocoa powder, I went for broke and used both at separate points in the brewing process. Following some highly technical internet searching, the PB2 seemed the clear choice for adding the peanut butter element. However, it seemed as though it might take quite a bit to make a real impact on the final beer. Again, I went big, adding two full pounds of the powder over the course of the process.

The brewing process could best be summed up with the word "sludge." High-pressure sprayers and long, hot OxiClean soaks left the fermenters no worse for wear, thankfully. My friend Graham, fellow low brass player and sometimes homebrewer, helped out on brewday; it was nice to have assistance filtering out as much of the post-boil sediment as possible. I was surprised to find that the gravity increased following the secondary peanut butter and chocolate additions, which leaves the gravity reading following primary in some question. The sample at bottling had a pleasant peanut butter presence, though the chocolate could've been more substantial. I don't plan to consume much of this over the next few months of intense heat, but I do look forward to trying it once carbonation is complete, and hopefully enjoying it over the fall and winter.

Update: The peanut butter character pretty over the top, but the chocolate was lacking. The bottles spent the summer in a very warm (80F+) environment, and I kept worrying over the peanut oil going rancid. In the end, this batch really didn't end up being what I'd hoped it would be, and I dumped most of the bottles. May someday return to this concept, upping the chocolate, toning down the peanut butter, and brewing it on the cooler end of the year.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

Batch size: 4 gallons
Projected OG: 1.085
Projected SRM: 34.4
Projected IBU: 29.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 67%

Grains/Fermentables
57.2% - 8 lb Malteurop 2-row
21.4% - 3 lb Crisp Brown malt
10.7% - 1.5 lb Toasted organic quick oats - roasted @ 350F for 15 min, 400F for 15 min
3.6% - 8 oz Crisp Chocolate malt
7.1% - 1 lb Lactose (10 min)

Hops
.6 oz Magnum (14.2%) (60 min)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - cake from Brown Malt Porter (w/ 1-liter starter)

Extras
16 oz PB2 peanut butter powder (5 min)
4 oz Unsweetened baker’s chocolate (5 min)
16 oz PB2 (secondary)
8 oz Organic cocoa powder (secondary)
2 Vanilla beans, chopped and scraped (secondary)

Water additions (mash)
8 qts RO water (w/ 8.5 qts filtered SLC water)
1 g Baking soda
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 14 May 2014
Mash: 147F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 5.8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 14.6P (1.060)

Ferment in swamp cooler at 64-66F.

17 May 2014: Fermentation slowing; brought swamp cooler up to 68F. Agitated periodically.

Secondary: 30 May 2014
FG: 1.026
ABV: 7.7%

Sample was on the boozy side, but had decent chocolate notes and a slight hint of peanut butter in the background.

Bottled: 28 June 2014
FG: 1.030 - backsweetened by the peanut butter & chocolate?
Bottled with 2.8 oz table sugar (2.3 volumes C02).

Tasting notes: Lots of peanut, not a lot of chocolate, going rancid after being stored too warm too long? Sadly, a dumper.

Proserbräu

Steve, DeAunn's private teacher and a member of the orchestra here in SLC, has been a great friend to us in so many ways over the last three years. He's also one of the beer geekiest folks we know around here; we've enjoyed a number of get-togethers at his family's home where we shared new, interesting bottles with each other. Steve has a particular affinity for Belgians, so as we came to the end of our terminal degrees, nothing seemed so appropriate as brewing one for him.

Considering his favouring of beers such as Gulden Draak and Piraat, we aimed at crafting a Belgian strong. Vienna is my current go-to grain, as I'm working my way through a bag of Weyermann Organic Vienna; we augmented it with a bit of oats to add mouthfeel to what would be a fairly dry beer. A good dose of turbinado in primary increased dryness and colour, bringing it an amber hue. I've used the Duvel yeast strain on Belgian strongs in the past, but haven't cared as much for the "sharp" character it can bring. I was very happy, however, with the results I had with Belgian Abbey II in my Mad Elf clone a few years ago; in my aged quasi-side-by-side tasting, I actually preferred the rounded alcohol and more pronounced cherry presence of my version to Troeg's original.

My friend Brian came over to assist with part of brewday, including the ever-popular fermenter transfer/filtering out of hops. With his help, things went particularly smoothly. This was a small batch, and just about all of it went to its intended recipient; I only kept a six pack. I've had one so far; the yeast is even more muted than I'd intended, but it's still pleasant. Next time I'd probably push it to higher temps faster to try to increase ester production. So far it's hiding its alcohol very well; it's almost too easy drinking, and could cause some trouble if one weren't paying attention to consumption rate. Steve was really happy with our gift; DeAunn and I were pleased to be able to do something like this for someone who's done so much for us.

Proserbräu - Belgian Strong

Batch size: 3.7 gallons
Projected OG: 1.081
Projected SRM: 7.5
Projected IBU: 25.7
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 78%

Grains/Fermentables
79.0% - 8 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
11.1% - 1 lb 2 oz Quick oats
9.9% - 1 lb Turbinado sugar (dissolved in water, added as primary activity slows)

Hops
.4 oz Magnum (14.4%) (60 min)

Yeast
WY1762 Belgian Abbey II - 1-liter stirplate starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)
1 vial Clarity Ferm (pre fermentation)

Water additions (mash)
10 qts Distilled water (w/ 2 qts filtered SLC water)
1 g Gypsum
2 g Baking soda
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 16 March 2014
Mash: 149F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 5 gallons         
Post-boil SG (w/o sugar): 16.7P (1.069)

Aerated with 5 micron stone for 45 minutes.
Begin fermentation at 60F ambient; raise 3F/day after 24 hours of active fermentation, topping out at 72F.

21 March 2014: Added turbinado.

Secondary: 1 May 2014
FG: 1.009
ABV: 9.8%

Added 1.7 oz bourbon-soaked oak cubes.

Bottled: 24 May 2014
Bottled with 3.4 oz table sugar.

Spring Pale Ale

 Given how busy the last year has been, it's a wonder I brewed at all. It had been since last summer that I brewed anything with an appreciable amount of hop character. Beckoning from the back of the brew freezer was the end of a mixed pound of American pellets that had been hanging out for better than a year, along with a bunch of whole cones I picked in our neighbourhood last summer. An American pale ale was in order.

The brewday went without incident, but the final product didn't end up very engaging or interesting. My bet is that the flaws in this beer come from oxidation, particularly in the secondary during dry hopping. Not having a lot of experience with whole hops, I made no attempt to break up the chunks of cones that came out of my vacuum-sealed bags. As a consequence, when I opened the bucket to bottle, I discovered floating hop glaciers that were still dry inside. For those that did soak up beer and break apart, I expect that they released a bit of trapped air in doing so. Live and learn.

This is further encouragement for me to work on simple recipes, perhaps even to begin a long-considered SMaSH series. This will help me learn what each ingredient I use contributes as well as hone my brewing and fermentation processes on a particular style. Not yet sure this will be my Year of Pale Ale, but anything's possible. Fortunately the IPA that followed this beer (posting soon) turned out more solid. Here's to warm-weather hoppy drinking.

Why Not Another APA?

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.050
Projected SRM: 4.7
Projected IBU: 42.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 80%

Grains
84.2% - 8 lb Malteurop 2-row
15.8% - 1.5 lb Weyermann Organic Munich

Hops
.2 oz Warrior (16.7%) (60 min)
1 oz Galena (13.2%) (KO - caluculated as 5 min)
1 oz Willamette (4.7%) (KO - calculated as 5 min)
1.8 oz Warrior (KO - calculated as 5 min)
6.7 oz Neighbourhood-picked hops (Nugget?) (Dry hop 7 days)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions (mash)
9 qts Distilled water (w/ 3 qts filtered tap water)
2 g Gypsum

Brewday: 16 March 2014
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes - dropped to 148F
Pre-boil volume: 6.75 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10.2P (1.041)           

Following KO, chill to 180F, then whirlpool/hop stand for 30 minutes.  Finish chilling.
Ferment in swamp cooler at 65F.

Dry hop: 12 April 2014
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.0%

Bottled: 23 April 2014
Bottled with 4.1 oz brown sugar.

Tasting Notes: Comes across weirdly fruity, but not in a hops-derived way; either yeast character, fermentation flaw, or oxidation. Darker than expected as well--though clarity is good--so I imagine it's one of the latter two reasons. Hop character lacking, though with this mix of hops I'm not sure what to expect. Not a complete failure, but far from the best it could be.

Brown Malt Porter

Brown malt has fascinated me since I learned of its prominent place in brewing historical porter. Originally comprising up to one hundred percent of porter grists, it was eventually replaced by black malt, coupled with a simple pale malt base. This type of brown malt has now disappeared, but the product now available under this name--and I'm unsure of exactly what separates it from the original--adds a wonderfully roasty, not-too-burnt character to dark beers. While I haven't geeked out on it as hard as I have on rye malt, brown malt has definitely captured my imagination.

About a year ago I started listening regularly to the Brewing Network, particularly the Session, picking and choosing my way through the archives. In the fall, I was taken by an interview they did with a pro brewer (from Round Guys, maybe?) who used forty percent brown malt in his brown porter. This sounded like nothing so much as a gauntlet thrown down, daring me to load up a sessionable porter with brown malt. I dutifully took up that challenge.

This beer pretty much topped out the original gravity of the BJCP guidelines for the smallest porter category (for those who are incredibly concerned about such metrics), but it included in a full four-tenths proportion of Crisp's brown malt. Aside from a bit of pale chocolate malt to round out the roast profile, the rest of the grist was pale malt. A simple low bittering addition of Phoenix, a newer British hop varietal, was all that went into (most of) this recipe. Wyeast's West Yorkshire Ale yeast gave it a particularly British character. This batch also received a dosing of Clarity-Ferm prior to fermentation to break down the gluten and make it suitable for DeAunn's gluten-intolerant consumption. While it seemed to help initially, eventually we found that this product still left too much gluten in the final beer for her to enjoy without experiencing gluten-related side effects. Back to messing around with cider, mead, and sorghum, then.

Further experimenting with this batch, one gallon went into a cubitainer with dry hops for cask conditioning (with which I've experimented before) and another gallon into a 5-liter mini keg, for which my father constructed a tap system, based on this design. Unfortunately, these innovations didn't work out quite as planned, either. I never have quite the luck I'd like with the cubitainers; this time, it began to leak when the internal pressure exceeded what the container would take. In addition, all the dry hops seemed to add--loose in the cubitainer as they were--was a bit of plant material that got stuck in one's teeth while taking a drink. The kegging setup had me a bit flummoxed, as I have little experience with force carbonation. I tried
to use high pressure (30 psi) carb method for a short period, combined with shaking, to get CO2 into solution, as one would do with a corny keg. The tap setup for the mini keg did not allow for as tight a seal as a corny, so attempting this carbonation method ended up with me hosed down with porter and emptying both

disposable CO2 cartridges I had without reaching proper carbonation. Next time, I'll use a lower pressure for a longer time. After letting the keg sit for better than a month in the fridge, figuring I'd oxidized the hell out of it with all the shaking, I dumped it; upon sampling what came out of the bung, not only was it partially carbonated--and kind of at a perfect cask carb--but it was still in great shape. Live and learn.

Fortunately, I had a number of bottles of this porter that were naturally carbonated. They're all gone now, but the best descriptor for this beer was "luscious." It was an easy drinking, sturdy porter with great chocolate and roast notes. This fall I'll probably brew this one again just as the recipe stands; especially now that I have a better handle on how the mini keg functions, this will be a great beer to have around once the weather turns cold again.

Brown Malt Porter

Batch size: 6 gallons
Projected OG: 1.052
Projected SRM: 25.3
Projected IBU: 21.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 89%

Grains
55.0% - 5.5 lbs Malteurop 2-row
40.0% - 4 lbs Crisp Brown malt
5.0% - 8 oz Crisp Pale chocolate

Hops
.7 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (60 min)
.3 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (dry hop in 1-gal cubitainer - 5 days)

Yeast
WY1469 - harvested from Wet Hop ‘13, 1.2 qt starter

Extras
1 vial Clarity Ferm (post chilling, pre yeast)

Water additions (mash)
9 qts distilled water
1 g Epsom salts
1 g Baking soda
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 4 January 2014
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes

Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10.8P (1.044)

Fermented at 60F ambient for 4 days, then moved to 70F ambient to free rise.  Active fermentation mostly finished by that point.

Bottled: 1 February 2014
FG: 1.019
ABV: 4.3%

Bottled 5l in mini keg, 1 gallon in cubitainer with .5 oz table sugar and dry hops; and remainder with 2.8 oz table sugar.

RIS III

As of last week, I am now a Doctor of Musical Arts. What does this have to do with homebrewing and/or blogging? It means I've now finished my terminal degree, so

1) I now have time to brew again.

2) I now have time to catch up on writing about what I've managed to brew in the last few months.

This first post back brings us to a special beer in my brewing calendar: Russian imperial stout. I designated every quarter-century brew as a gargantuan dark beer; while the "even-numbered" ones (#50 and #100, so far) have been imperial porters, this batch (#125) marks my third foray into the biggest entries of the stout family. The previous two iterations (the first predating this blog) have been immensely satisfying, and I'm down to my last bottle of each; after giving this latest batch a few months to age, I'll plan a vertical tasting.

This time around, the aim was for an even bigger, roastier stout. I eliminated all crystal malt, limiting non-base grains to roasted malts. Using a reiterated mash boosted efficiency well above what I expected based on the previous batches; I'd planned to add a pound of turbinado to raise the gravity and drive down the final gravity, but found it entirely unnecessary given the high

OG. It finished out higher than intended, but the high percentage of roasted grains really helped balance this beer. Next time around, I'll work toward an even lower FG and increase the bittering hops to help maintain balance over an even longer term.

I'm sampling my first bottle now; unfortunately it hasn't yet carbonated, but I'll happily reyeast these bottles if the need arises. I'm still working through technical issues with some of my other recipes (more on that soon), but in terms of this series, thing are going well. This beer almost makes me look forward to next winter already.

RIS III

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.118
Projected SRM: 65.2
Projected IBU: 68.0
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70.5%

Grains/Fermentables
79.2% - 19 lb Malteurop 2-row
12.5% - 3 lb Crisp Brown malt
8.3% - 2 lb Crisp Roasted Barley
1 lb Turbinado sugar (5 days into primary)

Hops
1 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (120 min)
1 oz Columbus (14.5%) (120 min)
1 oz Sterling (7.0%) (15 min)

Yeast
2 pkg US-05, rehydrated

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
1 vial Clarity Ferm (post chilling, pre yeast)

Water additions
15 qts distilled water (mash #1)
1 g Epsom salts (mash #2)
1 g Salt (mash #2)
1 g Baking soda (mash #2)
1 g Chalk (mash #2)

Brewday: 30 November 2013

Reiterated mash
Mash #1 (12 lb 2-row): 150F for 20 minutes
Volume: 7.5 gallons
Run off to secondary pots; hold at 150F
Mash #2 (remainder of grist): Mash #1 liquor @ 145F for 90 minutes - dropped to 141F
pH: 5.0
Draw off & boil 1 gallon, add back to raise mash temp to 154F for 15 minutes
    Only raised it to 145F; drew off 2 more gallons & boiled, reaching 156F
Mashout - draw off & boil 2.5 gallons, add back to raise mash temp to 168F for 5 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 19.8P (1.083)

Aerated for 1 hour prior to pitching yeast, then again 6 hours after pitching.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 61F.
SNA: added additional 1 tsp yeast nutrient (boiled & cooled) at 24 hours, then 48 hours  into active fermentation.

After active fermentation slowed, pulled from swamp cooler & brought to 65F ambient to continue working. Agitated daily to keep yeast in suspension.

Secondary: 31 December 2013
SG: 1.032
Bulk age for at least 2 months.

Dry hop: 12 April 2014
Accidentally used the 2 oz EKG intended for the Burton ale. Will give it a week or so, then bottle.

Bottled: 23 April 2014
FG: 1.032
ABV: 11.3%
Bottled with 3.5 oz table sugar and rehydrated champagne yeast.

State of the Brew 2014

To say it's been a while would be a gross understatement. I'd always resolved to skip posts lamenting lack of updates, as they almost inevitably seem to sound the death knell for that blog. The last few months have been some of the busiest of my life; finishing this doctoral degree will be a real accomplishment, and it will happen this spring. Of course, to guarantee that, other aspects of life have gone by the wayside. Things like, oh, brewing and blogging. I'm very much looking forward to having time to come back to both more strongly, though once school's out the job search gains further momentum (it never stopped).

For now, I'll make a few quick notes on the past year of brewing, based only on my current recollection:

- I would've loved to have brewed more. The class/homework/project/dissertation schedule kept the kettles in the closet, mostly.

- Beers tended to sit much longer than intended before bottling. E.g., the Burton ale is now the best part of two years old, and I'm only now considering the dry hop. Still haven't even tasted it. Guess we'll see what kind of havoc the massive amount of oak cubes--probably 5 oz total?!--have wrought.

- More tasting notes are in order. Still working on that one.

- Utah low-point beer isn't terrible, and the brewers here work their asses off to pack as much flavour as possible into that small amount of alcohol. That being said, I won't be sad if our next home is somewhere outside the state, where full-strength beer is a bit easier to come by.

Right now, I have the Burton ale, a Belgian "amber" strong, and a pale ale in the fermenters. The APA will get the end of last year's locally-picked hops for dry hop in the next couple days, and the Burton will finally get its final dosing of Goldings soon. I look forward to writing all about each of these beers as soon as possible. Til then, prosit.

Local Cider '13

In the fall of 2012, DeAunn and I managed quite a haul from harvesting fruit, mostly apples along with some pears, and produced a few mini-batches of cider and perry.  The straight cider turned out decently; the other batches picked up infections and were dumped.  While we exerted a lot of energy grinding and pressing the fruit on our own for a very small yield, it was an experience that brought a connection to the ingredients that's hard to get otherwise.

This fall, a friend pointed me toward a different source from which to gather fruit straight from the trees.  They were all culinary apples, but in several varieties; the diversity was definitely welcome.  In addition, I was also able to gather some crabapples from the same plot.  After last year I did a little bit of cider homework, looking to enhance the flavour of what had turned out to be, after fermentation removed the simple sugars, a dry, somewhat bland beverage.  Adding crabapples to the mix seemed like a good way to introduce the acidic and tannic characters culinary apples lack.  Before getting down to juicing, the apples were also allowed to sit for the better part of three weeks to "sweat"; the natural yeast begins to ferment the fruit sugars, breaking down the cell structure and making the apples easier to process.

And so, one November weekend when DeAunn was out of town, I pulled a solo all-nighter preparing and juicing the apples...with our small consumer-grade juicer.  Yes, it took all night and into the early morning, but the juicer actually did a pretty good job.  My hands were a wreck by the end from being constantly wet for hours on end; gloves would've been a good move.  In the end, I had almost three gallons of cider ready for fermentation.  Since it had sat out in the open air all night, I gently heat pasteurized the batch before pitching.  After about three weeks in the fermenter, it was ready for bottling.

I cannot say enough nice things about how this cider turned out.  The crabapples were definitely a good idea; their acidity and tannins gave the cider real heft and character, and balanced well with the touch of residual sweetness left after fermentation.  While it was much more work than ciders I've made from store- (or orchard-) bought juice, the final quality was much greater, and my enmeshment in the process was much deeper.

As homebrewers, we have to really work to connect with our ingredients; while we can grow our own hops, isolating suitable yeast cultures on our own requires a substantial amount of work (which a number of folks admirably put in), and growing and malting enough of our own grain to sustain this as a year-round habit is pretty much out of the question for anyone living in an urban or suburban setting.  Working on the fruit for this cider allowed me to really get in on the ground level of the ingredients in a way that I probably will never be able to do with barley malt and saccharomyces.  It made the final product that much more enjoyable.  My next cider will undoubtedly come from store-bought juice, and I'd still encourage anyone looking to try cider making to go this route.  If one day the opportunity to pick your own apples and choose the balance of fruit going into the cider presents itself, though, go for it; it takes the "easy" out of making cider, but we're not really doing this because it's easy, are we?

NB: After making this cider, I came across a couple very recent resources that may interest those looking to take their own steps into fermenting pomme fruit.  The first is an article in the Nov/Dec issue of Zymurgy that covered a side-by-side comparison of different brewing yeasts for making cider.  The results suggested using British strains for suitable ester character and favourable residual sweetness; WLP002 or 004 may be what I try next.  The second resource is Drew Beechum's recent book, The Everything Hard Cider Book, about which I learned from an interview with the author on the Brewing Network's The Session podcast.  Drew's book focuses on how to make good cider with readily available juices and other materials, as well as how to use this type of cider as a basis for experimentation.  It's one I'm planning to pick up before too long.  Hope these help.

Local Cider ‘13 - From apples & crabapples picked in residential SLC

Batch size: 2.8 gallons
OG: 13.2P (1.052)

3 ½ buckets various varieties of apples & crabapples
WLP775 English Cider yeast

Brewday: 2 November 2013
Let apples sit for 2 ½ weeks after picking.
Processed apples with home juicer; VERY labour-intensive process.
Strained, pasteurized at 160F for ~10 minutes, chilled, pitched.
Fermented at ~65F ambient.

Bottled: 22 November 2013
FG: 1.005
ABV: 6.4%
Bottled with 2.7 oz table sugar and rehydrated champagne yeast.