Another IPA - Another FAIL

Not having great feelings about the IPA I brewed for my friends' wedding, and needing more beer to give as gifts to a few other friends, I gave the IPA carousel another ride. Especially since the previous IPA wasn't ready for comparison by this brewday, I forged ahead with a completely new and different recipe.

Sad to say, though, the results were much the same, for all the same process issues mentioned in the previous post. The time has come for me to buckle down and really figure out my processes for hoppy beers. I foresee a very straightforward series of pale ales and IPAs in the next year to master these issues.

Again, for posterity, here's the recipe. Looking forward to switching gears next brewday for a style that's more in my wheelhouse.

#162 Payback IPA

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.065
Projected SRM: 4.9Projected IBU: 42.2
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%   

Grains
 64.7% - 11 lb 2 row
17.6% - 3 lb Weyermann Rye
17.6% - 3 lb Weyermann Vienna

Hops
.4 oz Millennium (15.0%) (60 min)
1 oz Cascade (8.4%) (20 min)
1 oz Ahtanum (3.9%) (15 min)
1 oz Cascade (10 min)
1 oz Ahtanum (5 min)
2 oz Cascade (dry hop 2 days)
2 oz Ahtanum (dry hop 2 days)


Yeast
WLP001 California Ale - 1 l shaken starter

Extras

1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
10g Gypsum, 3g Table salt, 12 ml Lactic acid (88%)
2 g Citric acid (sparge)

Brewday: 1 May 2017
Mash: 22 qts @ 150F for 90 minutes
Sparge: 19 qts @ 212F
Pre-boil volume: 7.75 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15.0P (1.060)

Target water profile: Light colored & hoppy (brewersfriend.com)
Ca 69.0, Mg 3.0, Na 40.4, Cl 52.9, SO4 146.8
Alkalinity -90.0, RA -140.9, pH 5.48

Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient.

5 May 2017: Allowed swamp cooler to free rise to 65F.
7 May 2017: Removed fermenter from swamp cooler to free rise to room temp. Spiked to 73F ambient the next day, so moved back to swamp cooler at 68F and agitated daily.

Dry hop: 11 May 2017
Moved fermenter back out of swamp cooler to free rise to ~70F ambient. Agitated daily.

Bottled: 16 May 2017
FG: 1.012
ABV: 7.0%
Bottled with 5.1 oz table sugar. 

Matrimonial IPA - FAIL

At the request of a friend, I brewed an IPA for her wedding last month. I've been pretty let down by my attempts to make hoppy beers, so I've stayed off IPAs in general for a while. For this one, I went for a very pale wort--just 2-row, pils, and wheat malt--and a mix of traditional and new-school hops, including a bunch of Waimea that I received for renewing my AHA membership.

 Though I've mostly calmed down my noob homebrewer tendency to take the kitchen sink approach to recipe design, I still get too weird too fast with my hopping regime to really understand what

Unfortunately, this beer lived up to my expectations...of failure. Despite using more than a half pound of hops, it really lacks in flavor, aroma, and even bitterness. The malt end misses the mark: it's sort of sickly sweet (though it's fairly well attenuated) and insipid, lacking any real grain character. The appearance is also quite strange: it's quite a bit darker than I'd expect from the grains used and has a weird pink hue that's pretty intense in the bottle dregs. While it's drinkable, it's a solid flop. The rest of the batch will find its way down the drain shortly.

My thoughts are that I have a number of recipe and process issues here, including (but probably not limited to):

 - Serious oxidation problems, especially at bottling. I try to be conscientious about keeping out oxygen at transfer, but I suspect I'm still not doing a good enough job.

 - Messing with water chemistry without having a firm grasp on what's in my tap water to start or really what I'm trying to accomplish. I haven't invested in an actual water report, relying on an old report someone posted to brewersfriend.com. To that I've been adding what seems like an awful lot of minerals in a somewhat haphazard fashion to make the numbers look right on brewersfriend's water calculator come out right. I've tried to make my way through Water and have failed spectacularly; I need to get a better handle on what I'm trying to achieve before playing around with this any more.

 - Bittering addition is too small. I still remember my very first extract kit: a pale ale. When I tried it, I was dismayed by its overly strong bitterness. This memory has stuck with me and has informed all of my batches up to now, to the point where I get really gun shy around the early hop addition for pretty much every recipe. Until I really push into NEIPA territory, I think my beers--particularly the pale ales and IPAs--could really do with a more substantial bittering charge.

 - Adding flavor/aroma hops in too many ways to understand what each of them do. Hopbursting, whirlpool additions, staggered dry hop additions, mid-ferment dry hops to encourage biotrasformation by the yeast...I've given every method I've come across a shot, though usually not one at a time so I could figure out what each contribution lent the final beer. It's time to simplify and learn for myself what each of these will do.

 - Rushing the batch to finish. Yes, a batch of beer can be done in a week, depending on certain factors. In my hurry to have this batch ready for the wedding, I threw caution to the wind a bit and pushed ahead with certain steps, particularly bottling, perhaps before they should've happened. Gotta plan better and learn to chill.

In the spirit of this blog--and proper documentation in general--here's the recipe. Maybe I'll revisit its battered, broken husk at some point once I figure out what the hell I'm doing when it comes to hoppy beers. Also as of this post, I'm going to start including my batch number. One function of this blog is to act as an online batch log, so I should keep the batch numbers, right?

#161 Matrimonial IPA

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.068
Projected SRM: 4.5
Projected IBU: 36.0
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 66.5%   

Grains
66.7% - 12 lb 2-row
22.2% - 4 lb Weyermann Pils
11.1% - 2 lb White Wheat

Hops
.4 oz Millennium (15.6%) (80 min)
1 oz Simcoe (12.9%) (5 min)
1 oz Waimea (17.8%) (5 min)
.5 oz Mosaic (11.0%) (5 min)
2 oz Waimea (hop steep - 30 min below 185F)
1 oz Mosaic (hop steep - 30 min below 185F)
1 oz Cascade (8.4%) (hop steep - 30 min below 185F)
1 oz Cascade (dry hop - day 4)
1 oz Waimea (dry hop - day 4)
1 oz Simcoe (dry hop - day 10)
.5 oz Mosaic (dry hop - day 10)

Yeast
WLP001 California Ale - 1.5 L starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 Whirlfloc tablet (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
10g Gypsum, 3g Table salt, 11 ml Lactic acid (88%)
2 g Citric acid (sparge)

Brewday: 16 April 2017

Mash: 23 qts @ 152F for 60 minutes
Sparge: 19 qts @ 190F
Pre-boil volume: 7.75 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15.0P (1.060)

Target water profile: Light colored and hoppy (brewersfriend.com)
Ca 69.0, Mg 3.0, Na 40.4, Cl 52.9, SO4 146.8
Alkalinity -90.0, RA -140.9, pH 5.48

Fermented in swamp cooler at 64F ambient.

Dry hop #1: 21 April 2017
Removed blowoff tube & allowed swamp cooler temp to rise to 66F.

24 April 2017: Taken out of swamp cooler, free rise to 70F over 2 days. Agitated daily.

Dry hop #2: 27 April 2017

Bottled: 29 April 2017
FG: 1.013
ABV: 7.3%
Bottled with 5.1 oz table sugar.

Barleywine 2016

On the eve of 2016, I brewed the first installment of a planned annual barleywine project. Here's round two, brewed almost exactly a year later. The first beer really dried out, but after several months in the bottle, it's become more enjoyable. The new batch has retained a better balance of residual sweetness and hop bitterness and is pretty tasty right now. I'm tempted to punch it up a bit with dry hops before bottling (in the style of Stone's Old Guardian with Pekko dry hop) but I doubt I'll drink an appreciable amount before that addition fades. And this is a beer I plan to keep around for a while to appreciate. 



Barleywine 2016

Batch size: 3 gallons
Projected OG: 1.102
Projected SRM: 14.6
Projected IBU: 105.5
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 60%   

Grains
80.0% - 14 lb Great Western 2-row
11.4% - 2 lb Weyermann Munich II
5.7% - 1 lb C40
2.9% - 8 oz C80

Hops
.6 Millennium (15.6%) (60 min)
.5 oz Bravo (16.2%) (15 min)
.5 oz Chinook (11.9%) (15 min)
.5 oz Centennial (8.9%) (15 min)
.5 oz Bravo (10 min)
.5 oz Chinook (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (10 min)
1 oz Bravo (5 min)
1 oz Chinook (5 min)
1 oz Centennial (5 min)

Yeast
2 pkg US-05 (rehydrated)

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (10 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
8 g Gypsum, 5 g CaCl, 3 g Baking soda, 8 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 29 December 2016
Mash: 20 qts @ 151 F for 90 minutes
Sparge: 14 qts @ 200 F
Pre-boil volume: 6.1 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 17.5 P (1.0)

Target water profile: Balanced (brewersfriend.com)
Ca 109.2, Mg 3.0, Na 35.5, Cl 81.0, SO4 141.7
Alkalinity -19.7, RA -99.3, pH 5.25

3.5 gallons to fermenter at 56F. 1 minute pure O2. Fermented in swamp cooler at 58-60F ambient. After 3 days of active fermentation—and signs of krauesen beginning to drop—allowed swamp cooler to free rise, about 1F/day.

10 January 2017: Ambient temp rose to 63F & held for several days; moved swamp cooler out of brew closet, ambient rose to 65F & roused daily. Today all krauesen has dropped. Removed from swamp cooler to rise to room ambient (68F) & roused daily for a week or so.

Secondary: 26 February 2017
FG: 1.022
ABV: 10.7%

Bottled: 30 April 2017
Bottled 2 gallons with 1.7 oz table sugar, yeast nutrient, and rehydrated US-05.
Moved 1 gallon onto 1 oz boiled oak cubes.
Bottling yeast (US-05) acclimated to the beer’s high gravity 24 hours ahead of time by adding finished beer to the priming solution at a ~1:1 ratio with water.

American Strong Ale

During a stay in Boise a few months ago, some good friends invited me over to harvest Chinooks from their backyard bine. It was pretty late in the season for it, and the hops were a bit past their prime; unfortunately, they were also pretty well infested by aphids. Nevertheless, we had a good time picking sticky hops on a crisp autumn afternoon, and I took home and dried what ended up being about 3.5 ounces.

Well, what to do with Chinooks, a variety with which I have little experience? Take on something in the neighborhood of Tasty McDole's Arrogant Bastard clone attempt! I've been coming back around to Stone's bigger, less hop-focused (than Ruination, IPA, Delicious, etc.) beers, such as Old Guardian and Arrogant Bastard, as the thermometer's been dropping. Uncertain of the potency of the fresh hops, given their age at picking--they only lost half their weight at drying--I supplemented with Cascade and Centennial pellets.

I'm pretty pleased with this small batch, though the bitterness seems very low compared to the IBU estimate. Great classic American maltiness, though. I'm planning to use this recipe as a base for this year's barleywine, just amped up a bit; going to really push the bittering.

Bastardized - riff on CYBI Arrogant Bastard clone

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Projected OG: 1.072
Projected SRM: 15.3
Projected IBU: 83.6
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 68%   

Grains
93.6% - 11 lb 2-row
6.4% - 12 oz C150

Hops
.3 oz Millennium (15.6%) (60 min)
1 oz Chinook leaf (6.5% est.) (15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.9%) (15 min)
.5 oz Centennial (7.6%) (15 min)
1 oz Chinook leaf (10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (10 min)
1.5 oz Chinook leaf (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Centennial (5 min)

Yeast
WLP007 Dry English Ale - 1.2-L starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
1/2 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
9 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl, 2 ml Lactic Acid (88%)

Brewday: 6 November 2016
Mash: 150 F for 3 hours
Pre-boil volume: 6.2 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.0P (1.051)

Transferred 4 gallons to fermenter. Fermented in swamp cooler at 66F.

Bottled: 26 November 2016
FG: 1.014
ABV: 7.7%
Bottled 3 gallons with rehydrated US-05 and 2.4 oz brown sugar.
Remaining gallon transferred to secondary with 1 oz home-toasted oak cubes (360F for 3.5 hours, sanitized with boiling water in microwave before adding). Planning to let it age long term and use for future blending.

Amarillo IPA Tasting & Recipe

Right after moving to Reno two years ago, I stumbled upon a ridiculous local sale on Amarillo pellets and bought two full pounds of them. While I'd love to purchase in bulk more regularly, my planning skills tend to fail me when it's time to get serious about it. These hops have found their way into a number of beers over the past couple years, but I still had a sizeable cache hanging around this spring.

Rogue's Yellow Snow IPA is the beer that first turned me on to this varietal, probably better than a decade ago now. My sense memory of the beer from that time is of big, bright, fresh mixed citrus, not dominated by old-school grapefruit bitterness or (soon-to-be) new-school overripe tropical fruit character. I decided the best use for the rest of my stores was to make a Yellow Snow-inspired batch.

Rogue freely gives the ingredients for their beer right on the bottle, and between that information and a little more online digging, I put together my recipe. Sadly, it did not come together well for me. The previous beers in which I'd used this batch of Amarillo had tended to have an unpleasant onion/garlic/sweat element, probably from my less-than-perfect packaging/aging techniques. That element was front and center here, coupled with a cloying malt presence from the melanoidin malt. Though well brewed, the end result was tough to choke down.

Though I don't plan to completely remove Amarillo from my hop rotation, I won't be as eager to add it to my full range of hoppy beers in the future. Hoping for better experiences to come that will restore my faith in this hop!

=====

Appearance: Deep amber with orange highlights, quite hazy. Tan-tinged white foam collapses but leaves traces most of the way down the glass as it's drunk.

Smell: Thick taffy-like sweetness, kind of old onion, a hint of orange peel.

Taste: The melanoidin malt is front and center, giving the beer a cloying malt sweetness. The garlic/onion edge of the hops follows up, making for a bizarre flavor combination. A slightly vegetal bitterness helps scoot the beer off the palate, but the garlic/onion lingers in the aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Carbonation is okay, but not enough to counterbalance the weight of this beer. It seems like the malt character is weighing it down despite its relative dryness.

Overall: Sadly, this one's a dud. The melanoidin malt is overwhelming, and the Amarillo really has none of the citrus-tropical character I used to love. This combination works well for Rogue, but terribly for me.

=====

Amarillo IPA - Rogue Yellow Snow-ish

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.064
Projected SRM: 6.5
Projected IBU: 69.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 61%  

Grains
70.5% - 10 lb 11 oz Rahr 2-row
19.7% - 3 lb Weyermann Vienna
6.6% - 1 lb Carafoam
3.3% - 8 oz Melanoidin malt

Hops
.5 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (60 min)
1.5 oz Amarillo (15 min)
2 oz Amarillo (0 min) 30-min steep
3.5 oz Amarillo (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast - 1.5 L starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
Target profile: Light colored and hoppy (brewersfriend.com)
91.1 Ca, 3.0 Mg, 10.0 Na, 46.8 Cl, 144.5 SO4
Alkalinity -39.9, RA -106.6 (ppm as CaCO3); 5.23 mash pH

Brewday: 05 September 2016
Mash: 152F for minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.8P (1.0)

Water additions: 9 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl, 6 ml Lactic acid (88%).

5.75 gallons into fermenter.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient.

Dry hop: 11 September 2016
Active fermentation pretty much complete; wanted to add dry hop before cessation of activity.

Bottled: 17 September 2016
FG: 1.010
ABV: 7.1%
Bottled with 3.87 oz table sugar.
Aroma was much brighter at day 2 & 3 of dry hop. Will experiment with shorter contact times in the future.

American Sour Red

Last summer, I brewed a mixed fermentation blonde beer with a collection of propped-up bottle dregs. This year, I continued that tradition with a red beer.

While the rough outline of the recipe follows the Rare Barrel's base red beer, I used Best Mälz's RedX malt for the base to (hopefully) achieve a truly saturated red color. Flaked oats as well as wheat and rye malts joined the party for added malt complexity and mouthfeel. The barest sliver of Galena brings just over 5 IBUs to the batch.

Prior to boiling, I soured the wort with a lacto starter grown up from malt. I've followed this process with great success in the past, but this time around, it failed to produce any noticeable sourness. It may have been the short contact time: having found this method to make a big impact in previous batches, I only gave the starter 8 hours to work before boiling. At this point, however, my dregs culture has produced plenty of acidity, so no harm, no foul. I started this year's batch with Wyeast's French Saison yeast to consume some of the simpler sugars and produce some spicy esters before the Brett and bugs took hold and continued shaping the beer. At transfer, I didn't get any bold saison characteristics, which was in line with my expectations for this yeast's addition: subtle underlying complexity.

Since my 6-gallon carboy was otherwise occupied by mead, this batch spent its two months of primary fermentation in a plastic bucket. At transfer to secondary, the flavor was developing nicely, but might be more acetic than I'd prefer. It has since developed a nice pellicle and is aging happily. While I really enjoyed fruiting much of last year's blonde, most of the fruit I have on hand right now--farmer's market-procured pluots, peaches, and nectarines, all sliced, frozen, and vacuum packed in the freezer--don't strike me as a great pairing for a red beer. I do have some cherries from a year and a half ago, but they haven't been properly sealed and smell suspiciously like the smoked cheese we bought around the same time. This beer might be a good candidate for oaking.

I've planned a dark beer for next year's iteration. I'll still probably go with that, but may brew another blonde in the meantime to use all of the stone fruit I have hanging around right now. I may also start a new dregs culture; in my zeal to start this project, my existing culture received dregs from a few bottles that I'd prefer not to have in the mix. This spring I had a new culture going from a bottle each of Logsdon Farmhouse Cerasus (October 2014) and Cascade Blackcap Raspberry (2015) that was producing a fantastic strawberry character. I ended up adding it to the mix that went into the red, but I'd like to start over with that blend for future mixed fermentation beers. As far as the project overall, though, I don't regret a moment of it.

American Sour Red

Batch size: 5.25 gallons
Projected OG: 1.063
Projected SRM: 15.3
Projected IBU: 5.2
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 62%

Grains
67.2% - 10 lb Best Mälz RedX
13.4% - 2 lb Weyermann Wheat
9.2% - 1 lb 6 oz Flaked oats
6.7% - 1 lb Rye malt
3.4% - 8 oz Aromatic

Hops
.1 oz Galena (16.0%) (60 min)

Yeast
250 ml Lacto starter (sour wort 8 hours)
Sour Cultures No. 1 (1/4 cup), 2, 3
WY3711 French Saison - 1 l starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
Target profile: Balanced (brewersfriend.com)
65.2 Ca, 8.5 Mg, 20.9 Na, 76.5 Cl, 86.7 SO4
Alkalinity 34.0, RA -17.5

Lacto starter: 28 May 2016
25 g DME with 250 ml water & pinch of yeast nutrient, with handful of malt
Kept in bucket with hot tap water & aquarium heater set to max (93F).

Brewday: 16 June 2016
Mash: 18 qts @ 156F for 60 minutes
Sparge: 20 qts @ 190F
Pre-boil volume: 7.2 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.2P (1.052)

Water additions (mash): 4 g Gypsum, 2 g Epsom salts, 1 g Salt, 4 g CaCl

Pre-acidified with 7 ml Lactic acid (88%), brought to quick boil, chilled to 115F, pitched Lacto starter. Covered in plastic wrap, kept warm for 8 hours; no noticeable souring took place. Boiled as usual.

Transferred 5.9 gallons at 15.8P to fermenter.
Chilled to 72F (warm ground water), put in swamp cooler at 62F to chill. Fermented in swamp cooler at 68F ambient, ramped to ambient (~75F) after 1 day active fermentation.

Secondary: 17 August 2016
SG: 1.012

Bottled: 1 May 2017
FG: 1.010
ABV: 7.0%
Bottled 4 gallons with 3.8 oz table sugar.
Bottling yeast (US-05) acclimated to the beer’s high gravity 24 hours ahead of time by adding finished beer to the priming solution at a ~1:1 ratio with water.
Moved 1 gallon onto 9.7 oz dried blueberries (rinsed in boiled water, sprayed with Star San) & .5 oz boiled oak cubes.

Session IPA III Tasting

Back from summer travels, it's time to get down to business. Let's start with some long overdue tasting notes. This batch is in its twilight: we're down to the last few bottles, and it's past its peak. I was worried that the final bit had turned entirely for the worst, but the bottle I used for this tasting was still hanging in there.

Appearance: Brilliantly clear gold-orange. Foam hangs around well.

Smell: Floral, red berry and orange, a little caramel. Round and sweet.

Taste: Hops are fading, but good grapefruit and orange notes still come through, along with a touch of dank. Crisp bitterness, warm wheat bread finish.

Mouthfeel: Nice medium body that, consistent from start to finish.

Overall: This was a nice quencher over the summer; it went over well with the folks who tried it as well as with me. Though it’s past its prime now, it’s still drinking well.

Session IPA III

Back for more summer session beer stockpiling. For the third iteration of this recipe, I returned to the original grist, yeast (third generation now for the WY1469), and water treatment, messing with just  the hops a little. I got weird on Simcoe in my first couple years of homebrewing, but now that my once-beloved Amarillo has really changed--at least the ones I've had in the last couple years--it seems only right to return to this first-new-wave "super fruity" hop.

As with the dark mild, I started this batch as a semi-open fermentation, letting it do its first few days of active fermenting with the bucket lid loose and aluminum foil instead of an airlock. The aromas coming from the fermenter have been encouragingly fruity. If it ends up like its predecessors, it won't be hard to enjoy. Bring on the heat of summer.

Session IPA III

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.038
Projected SRM: 6.8
Projected IBU: 57.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 67%   

Grains
83.3% - 7.5 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
11.1% - 1 lb Flaked oats
5.6% - .5 lb Belgian Caramunich 80L

Hops
.5 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (10 min)
.5 oz Columbus (15.2%) (10 min)
1 oz Simcoe (12.9%) (0 min) 40-min steep
1 oz Amarillo (0 min) 40-min steep
.5 oz Columbus (0 min) 40-min steep
2 oz Amarillo (dry hop - 6 days)
1 oz Simcoe (dry hop - 6 days)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 3rd generation, harvested from Dark Mild

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
Target profile: Light colored and hoppy (brewersfriend.com)
94.5 Ca, 3 Mg, 10 Na, 48.5 Cl, 150.4 SO4
Alkalinity 8.3, RA -60.8

Brewday: 24 May 2016

Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
No sparge
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 8.3P (1.032)

Water additions (mash): 9 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl, 2 ml Lactic acid (88%).

5.75 gallons to fermenter at 66F. Fermented in swamp cooler at 64F. Started with fermenter lid loose for semi-open fermentation.

27 May 2016: Sealed fermenter, added airlock, and removed temp control; rose to 70F over the next few days. Agitated (spun fermenter) 2-3 times/day.

31 May 2016: Removed fermenter from swamp cooler; ambient ~75F.

Bottled: 9 June 2016
Forgot to check FG!
Bottled 4.5 gallons with 3.6 oz table sugar.

Double IPA & Winter Porter Tasting

While brewing a session IPA today to have on hand for summer festivities, I finally decided to knock out a couple sets of tasting notes. Neither of these beers turned out exactly as I'd like. The double IPA seems like it might've found the mark if I wouldn't cling so closely to my memory of what Amarillo hops used to be; the porter suffered from my own misuse or mistreatment of the West Yorkshire Ale yeast. For all the smack I talk below, I'm still drinking both these beers without having to work too hard to choke them down.

===== 
BRING IT ON DIPA

Appearance: (Chill) hazy golden orange color, big off-white head that has a good bit of staying power. In pouring, the beer/bottle yeast can have a strange pinkish hue. Becomes very clear when warm.

Smell: Pine, onion, some alcohol, a little bread as it warms.

Taste: Pine & onion hanging around from the aroma along with some diesel hop character. Some perception of sweetness that may be coming from the hops. Finishes with a balanced bitterness, definitely not overly bitter.

Mouthfeel: On the thin side, though not overly so. Medium carbonation; hits the tongue without filleting it. A little tongue numbing.

Overall: Probably my most successful attempt at a double IPA. This one reached the degree of attenuation I was seeking to get away from cloying malt sweetness; I may even want to bump it back up a couple points next time to retain a bit more malt backbone. Malt definitely didn't get in the way here, and I'm tempted to add in a higher percentage of character grains (Munich, Vienna, aromatic, or even a bit of crystal) in the future. I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that the Amarillo hops I've had in the last couple years do not have the same citrus characteristics that endeared this varietal to me originally. I'm getting a lot more of the onion/garlic/diesel now. It doesn't always come out--and I sure hope it doesn't on the session IPA I'm brewing today--but I'm missing the mark more often than not with this hop.

=====

Winter Porter

Appearance: Deep brown/black body with clear red-brown highlights; a little bit of light brown foam hangs out at the rim for a while. While I'd like more head on this beer, otherwise it looks pretty much like spot on for the style.

Smell: I've given this one fifteen to twenty minutes to warm up before sampling, so much of the diacetyl present in this batch--which has been widely variable, bottle to bottle--may have blown off. Some butter popcorn remains, combining with the dark grains and a mineral character to give an impression of sharp mineral roastiness. While not terrible, the diacetyl buttery character has been so strong on other bottles as to make this nigh undrinkable.

Taste: I'm struggling here. Not assertively roasty, though not chocolatey either. Has a certain tang that I associate with the dark malts to a degree, but I can't quite pin with a descriptor. Not the best.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body from the residual sweetness and slight residual diacetyl. Does retain a certain creaminess, especially when chewed a bit. Not unpleasant.

Overall: Not my favorite porter, to be sure. I've had spectacular results from this yeast (WY1469) in the past, but on this batch it really took a bad turn. This was my first real experience with diacetyl, and it's been strong enough to encourage me to do a diacetyl rest on every beer from here on out. It's been a few years now since I had Flag Porter, but my recollection of that beer was my guide here. My quest for a really badass "English/brown" porter continues.

BVIP II

And like that, I've reached my one hundred fiftieth batch. Keeping with my tradition of brewing a big dark beer every twenty-fifth batch, I returned to what was such a monumental hit at batch #50, Denny Conn's bourbon vanilla imperial porter. A perfectly refined porter recipe with the addition of vanilla beans and bourbon to approximate barrel aging, this treated DeAunn and me very well on our honeymoon.

I played it pretty much exactly like last time, though the original gravity was quite a bit lower (last time it was 1.085) and I left the vanilla beans in for better than a month, rather than a couple weeks. Nevertheless, it tasted great at bottling and I'm looking forward to cracking open one of these despite the approaching warm weather.

BVIP II
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.072
Projected SRM: 41.1
Projected IBU: 35.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 65%   

Grains
64.0% - 12 lb Rahr 2-row
13.3% - 2.5 lb Weyermann Munich I
8.0% - 1.5 lb Brown malt
6.4% - 1.25 lb UK Chocolate
5.3% - 1 lb C120
2.7% - .5 lb C40

Hops
.7 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
1 oz EKG (5.7%) (10 min)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 (12.29.2015) - 1.8-l stirplate starter, crashed on brewday

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
2.5 Vanilla beans, chopped & scraped (secondary)
300 ml Bourbon (bottling)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
Target Profile: London (brewersfriend.com)
96.1 Ca, 15.6 Mg, 27.0 Na, 58.3 Cl, 2.6 SO4
Alkalinity 103.1, RA 25.4

Brewday: 6 March 2016
Mash: 24 qts @ 152F for 60 minutes
1st sparge: 8.5 qts @ 190F
2nd sparge: 9 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15P (1.060)

Salt additions (mash): 5g Epsom salts, 1g Salt, 3g CaCl, 13g Chalk, 1g Baking soda, 10 ml Lactic acid (88%)

6 gallons at 18P (1.072) to fermenter at 61F. Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient.
Extra runnings (including lots of trub) went to a gallon jug; added water to reach about a gallon. OG 12.8P (1.050), dosed with harvested WY1469.

Vigorous activity within 12 hours. Swamp cooler free rose to 64F ambient over the day.

On day 2 of active fermentation, temp surged and the krauesen rose out of the bucket (stopper hole was covered with aluminum foil. Swamp cooler temp had been pushed to 66F. After cleanup & blowoff setup, fermenter was put back in swamp cooler held at 62-63F ambient. Came out of swamp cooler after high krauesen & finished at 68F ambient.

Secondary: 23 March 2016

Bottled: 30 April 2016
FG: 1.021
ABV: 6.9%
Bottled with 300ml Jim Beam bourbon and 3.8 oz table sugar.
Adjusted ABV: 7.4%

RIS III: (nearly) 2-Year Tasting

This was my last big "quarter century" beer--brewed a bit over two years ago--and my third (of three, to date) imperial stout. Not only were the roasted grains put front and center here, but I even cleared the grain bill of really anything else; the grist is about 80% base malt, the remaining 20% made up of brown malt and roasted barley.

That's a hell of a lot of dark grain, and it showed. I liked the beer all right when it was younger, but it was not easy to finish a bottle. It did all right in competition last year, but I saw a lot of truth in the judges' comments about its high residual sweetness and astringency. I ended up dumping nearly all of the bottles months ago, saving a few with the intent of cooking with them.

On a whim, I threw a bottle in the fridge the other week. After nearly two years in the bottle, I found it to have softened and rounded out considerably. I'm definitely bummed now that I only have a few bottles left, but it definitely cheers me up as I consider finally doing a vertical tasting of my first three beers in this series.

=====

Appearance: Jet black, the edge rimmed with tiny mocha bubbles.

Smell: Plums, big chocolate note jumps out of the glass. Fanfuckingtastic.

Taste: Fruity, high-percentage cacao dark chocolate. Comes on strong with some booze initially, but then clears out relatively quickly. It manages to avoid being syrupy despite the high FG (1.032).

Mouthfeel: Medium-thick and full; pretty mouth-filling but not overly heavy. Enough carbonation to help clear it off the palate. It (thankfully) has left heft than many huge imperial stouts.

Overall: Could use a little more going on in the middle (caramel malt, perhaps) but a damn sight better than it was in its first year. The acrid/astringent notes have mellowed considerably, leaving chocolate, fruit, and booze. It's a good lesson in patience; maybe I should just bury the next batch in an undisclosed location for a few years.

SMaSH II Tasting

The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that SMaSH beers are more useful as experiments to get to know particular ingredients than as "refined" recipes for heavy rotation imbibing. While I'll admit that the two SMaSHes I've done now haven't made me the most excited of anything I've brewed, this one in particular isn't terribly hard to drink. Though I doubled the hops from my first SMaSH, I'll probably push up the hopping rate further for subsequent batches. I do get some flavor & aroma contributions from the Sterling here, but this rates as a solid blonde ale. To really get the full sense of the hops, I'll probably aim for more West Coast pale ale character going forward.

=====

Appearance: Burnished gold, a touch hazy.

Smell: Slight toast, warm malt. Hops come out as herbal and earthy. Maybe just a little citrus hiding in the back.

Taste: Crisp, herbal, slightly orange. It intensifies as it moves to the back half of the tongue, finishing warm and bready. An herbal note lingers.

Mouthfeel: Medium-lean body, mid/low carbonation that gives it just a little bite around the front and sides of the tongue. Not difficult to take the next drink.

Overall: Though it's not terribly complex, it's an easy drinker. The Vienna makes a good impression here. I could use more Sterling character...or maybe I couldn't, as the lingering herbal note isn't necessarily my favorite. I could see this hop working well in a lager.

Double IPA

With few exceptions, my hoppy beers haven't been terribly successful. My attempts to brew double/imperial IPAs have met with outright failure. But hope springs eternal, and here I am, giving this style another shot.

I blame having a few opportunities over the past couple years to bury my face in a Pliny the Elder at Russian River's brewpub; living on this end of the country definitely has its advantages. For me, this beer still captures the best of hop flavor and drinkability that this style can offer. So, as many before me have done, I loosely modeled this recipe on the one Vinnie Cilurzo has given out freely for many years now.

That being said, I swapped Vinnie's crystal and carapils for dark Munich to add a touch of maltiness and added flaked oats for...well, because I can't help myself. With my excessively low mash temperature, I may yet regret the lack of unfermentables when I check the FG. Hey, I like a well

attenuated beer, so I guess we'll just see. I stuck with CTZ, Simcoe, and Centennial for hops, but added a significant amount of fruity Amarillo to the hop party. (I still have a bunch left over from last year, and I see a Yellow Snow-inspired IPA on the horizon to take care of that.) I also added a hell of a lot of brewing salts to the mash, chasing Tasty McDole's mineral concentrations I recorded from a Session at some point. I've been pleased with--or at least not offended by--the water manipulation I've done in the last few years, but this is another level of messing around.

While I certainly have a lot of trepidation revolving around this batch, fermentation on the Cal ale yeast cake from my recent SMaSH beer took right the hell off, but I easily kept fermentation temps low in a swamp cooler. With the first charge of dry hops in the carboy, it smells amazing; I'm fired up to see how it all turns out in the end.

BRING IT ON

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.073
Projected SRM: 5.4
Projected IBU: 110.6
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 60%   

Grains/Fermentables
69.8% - 11 lb Rahr 2-row
12.7% - 2 lb Flaked oats
9.5% - 1.5 lb Weyermann Munich II
7.9% - 1.25 lb Table sugar (primary)

Hops
1 oz Columbus (15.2%) (60 min)
1 oz Simcoe (11.6%) (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (11.2%) (10 min)

1 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)
1 oz Centennial (8.5%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)
.5 oz Simcoe (11.1%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)

2 oz Amarillo (dry hop #1 - 10 days)
2 oz Centennial (dry hop #1 - 10 days)
1.5 oz Simcoe (dry hop #1 - 10 days)

1 oz Amarillo (dry hop #2 - 5 days)
1 oz Centennial (dry hop #2 - 5 days)
1 oz Simcoe (11.6%) (dry hop #2 - 5 days)

Yeast
WLP001 American Ale - cake from SMaSH II 

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
114.1 Ca, 18.2 Mg, 10 Na
43.3 Cl, 264.6 SO4
Alkalinity -123.8, RA -215.8

Brewday: 17 January 2016
Mash: 146F for 70 minutes (intended 151F)
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12.8P (1.050)
Post-boil OG (w/o sugar): 15.6P (1.062)

Salt additions (to mash): 14 g Gypsum, 6 g Epsom salts, 3 g CaCl, 12 (should’ve been 14) ml Lactic acid (88%)
Chilled to 58F.
5.6 gallons to fermenter; 45 seconds of pure O2 at pitching.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 60F ambient.

Sugar addition #1 (.75 lb): 22 January 2016

24 January 2016: moved out of swamp cooler to ambient temp (~66F).

Sugar addition #2 (.5 lb): 25 January 2016

Dry hop #1: 27 January 2016

Dry hop #2: 2 February 2016

Bottled: 6 February 2016
FG: 1.009
ABV: 8.5%
Bottled 5.5 gallons with 4.3 oz table sugar.

Tasting

2015 Barleywine

I admire brewers that produce annual "special" beers. From Sierra Nevada Bigfoot to Mike Tonsmiere's funky dark saisons, these can make for some very special comparative samplings. While I do mark every twenty-five batches with a big, dark beer, alternating between imperial stouts and Baltic/imperial porters, it can be several years between these batches. Usually, very few bottles from each batch remain to compare to the next. So at the end of 2015, I finally brewed my first barleywine, which I plan to rebrew annually in some form and (mostly) save for vertical tastings.

I shot for an American interpretation, somewhat in the style of Bigfoot. In light of how my Munich II SMaSH turned out, that grain should lend plenty of malty oomph to augment the crystal additions. The hops are geared mostly for bitterness; I don't plan to drink this terribly young, so I'm not worrying too much about the aromatics. The smaller batch size should be enough to taste over the span of 2016 and still leave some for comparison with future iterations. I dig establishing a new tradition.

2015 Barleywine

Batch size: 3.25 gallons
Projected OG: 1.109
Projected SRM: 14.9
Projected IBU: 127.7
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 59%

Grains/Fermentables
63.2% - 9 lb Rahr 2-row
15.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Munich II
5.3% - 12 oz C40
3.5% - 8 oz C80
14.0% - 2 lb Table sugar (primary)

Hops
1.1 oz Columbus (15.6%) (60 min)
2 oz Centennial (8.5%) (15 min)

Yeast
1 pkg US-05, rehydrated

Extras

1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
10 g Gypsum
6 g Epsom salts
2 g Salt
2 g Chalk
2 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 30 December 2015
Mash: 147F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 13.9P (1.055)
Post-boil OG (w/o sugar): 20P (1.081)

Mash water target Mosher’s “Ideal Pale Ale” profile (110 Ca, 18 Mg, 17 Na, 50, Cl, 279 SO4).
3.75 gallons to the fermenter. 1 minute of pure O2 at pitching; reoxygenated 15 hours after pitching with no visible activity.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 60F ambient.

6 January 2015: First sugar addition, 1 lb dissolved in water. Lots of additional fermentation activity. Keeping swamp cooler temps at 60-61F, rousing yeast/off-gassing beer several times a day.

9 January 2015: Second sugar addition, 1 lb dissolved in water. Significant odor I associate with acetobacter, possibly from fermenting with lid only loosely placed on bucket rather than sealed w/ airlock. Might also be from first sugar addition, as odor only appeared after that. We'll see how it turns out.

Secondary: 30 January 2016
FG: 1.008
ABV: 13.5%
3+ gallons to carboy; ~1/2 gallon to growler with .5 oz home-toasted oak (boiled).
Hydrometer sample isn’t thin, but lacks the body and maltiness I’d expect from a barleywine. The bittering hops are very present but not explosive like a young Bigfoot; they lay on the back of the tongue and stay past their welcome.

Bottled: 30 April 2016
Much rounder, more pleasant, and more characteristically barleywine flavor after this time bulk aging. No acetic notes, improved body, and the hop bitterness has recede. Oaked growler didn’t exhibit a lot of oak character, but seemed just fine and went in the bottling bucket with the rest of the batch. Looking forward to tasting this carbonated, and looking forward to it even more next winter when I brew the next batch.
Bottled with 1.7 oz table sugar.

SMaSH II

My brewing runs in short spurts these days. I finally managed to get some wort out of the mash tun and over the burner during the no man's land between Christmas and New Year's Eve. The first batch was another SMaSH, this time featuring Vienna malt and Sterling hops.

I've used Vienna quite a bit and really like the bready, grainy warmth it brings to a recipe. Sterling, on the other hand, I've never used in a way that has really accentuated its character. I recall a beer brewed by Ted Danyluk in Chicago in my early days of homebrewing that featured this varietal, but that's about the extent of my experience with it.

Given the lack of hop character in my previous SMaSH, I've bumped up the hops to four ounces this time; hopefully they'll make a more pronounced appearance in this iteration. I suppose I should really aim for a half pound or more to really make them stand out, but we'll see how it goes here. As this beer features a German malt and an American "noble"(ish)-style hop, I went with an American ale yeast fermented a little cooler than normal to get a clean (possibly faux-lager/hybrid?) character.

As of this posting, the batch has been going for a solid week, the swamp cooler holding steady and cool, and the overly full primary carboy has been intermittently blowing off yeast throughout a very consistent fermentation. Thinking good thoughts as it continues to rock along.

SMaSH II

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.048
Projected SRM: 5.0
Projected IBU: 37.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 73%

Grains
100.0% - 10 lb Weyermann Vienna

Hops
.5 oz Sterling (8.7%) (60 min)
1 oz Sterling (10 min)
1 oz Sterling (0 min - 30 min whirlpool/hop steep)
1.5 oz Sterling (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
1 vial WLP001 California Ale - no starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
8 g Gypsum
1 g Epsom salts
1 g CaCl
5.5 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 27 December 2015
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.8P (1.038)

Mash profile target “Light colored and hoppy” from brewersfriend.com.
Received 45 seconds of pure O2 at pitching. Reoxygentated 12 hours later prior to active fermentation.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 59-61F ambient.

3 January 2016: After 6 days of active fermentation, during which there was active blowoff, upped the swamp cooler temp to 62F.

Despite very cloudy kettle runoff at the end of transfer to primary, there's probably only about 1 qt of trub at the bottom of the fermenter. Will plan to leave less in the kettle in the future!

8 January 2016: Krauesen still present, but very little noticeable activity. Raised swamp cooler temp to 64F & have agitated fermenter daily.

Dry Hop: 9 January 2016
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%

Transferred to new bucket, sealed without an airlock (or hole). Fair bit of splashing during transfer early on, unfortunately, so won’t be surprised it this one turns out oxidized.

Bottled: 15 January 2016
Bottled with 4 oz table sugar.

Tasting: Success! Easy drinking with notes of warm bread and herbal hops.

SMaSH I Tasting

Sadly, I haven't been able to fit in a brewday since the one when I started this batch and the Timothy Taylor Landlord clone, which sadly seems to have succumbed to oxidation. While I hope to brew in the final days of 2015 (and the early days of 2016) in the meantime it was definitely time for tasting notes on my first SMaSH beer. At the extreme end of base malts, I can now say that I definitely understand the flavor impact of Munich II when formulating future recipes. The hops, however, were too sparse to really make a statement; I'll dial up those for future batches.

=====

Appearance: Deep amber, trending toward orange at the edges with solid red highlights. Just a little hazy.

Smell: Super malty, a little sweet, lots of dark bread crust. This is a melanoidin-rich aroma. No discernible hop presence.

Taste: Bread crust through and through, richly malty, but without any lingering sweetness. A hint of fruitiness maybe. Just a touch of neutral hop bitterness on the end, leaving an aftertaste of warm bread.

Mouthfeel: Full, heavy for such a low-alcohol (4.3% ABV) beer. Carbonation is medium-low; present without being prickly, it's a bit above cask level.

Overall: Honestly, not a bad malty beer. It's fairly one-dimensional, which isn't hard to believe given the grain bill and relatively neutral yeast. Unfortunately, I'm left with no idea what the Nuggetzilla hops have to contribute in terms of flavor or aroma. This is ended up being a real malt bomb, which really switches it up from my normal brewing habits. It certainly isn't hard to drink, but tends to be a low-gravity sipper.

SMaSH I

Though I’ve been brewing for a number of years, I don’t always feel like I have a great sense of my ingredients. Case in point: when this summer’s pale ale came out rough and oniony, it wasn’t until my LHBS gave me a whiff of some Amarillo hops they had on hand that I believed they could’ve brought that character to my beer. In an effort to better understand what's going into my beer, I'm finally embarking on a series of SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) beers. With a sole ingredient in each category, I can really wrap my head around what those ingredients offer.

One oft-reported downfall of SMaSH beers, though, is that they can come out pretty one-dimensional (by design, of course) and uninteresting. So for my first go-around, I went with the richest base grain I could find: dark Munich. For hops, I went kind of nutty with Nuggetzilla, a variety I've never used. While I probably should've stuck with a very neutral yeast like Cal Ale, I opted for Denny's Favorite to boost the interest level even more.

My efficiency has been riding somewhat low since the spring for some reason, so my OG was a bit lower than I'd hoped. Between the malt and yeast, though, the final product turned out ridiculously malty. This beer could really use more oomph in the hop bitterness--it definitely doesn't read as 46 IBUs--flavor, and aroma departments to balance all that malt. This is pretty much a dark Munich showcase, and it gets overwhelming pretty quickly. So for round one, I don't think I really allowed for much learning: I already had a good feel for Munich (and even dark Munich, to an extent) and I didn't add enough hops to get a solid impression of their character in any aspect. At least I learned more about how to conceive of SMaSH beers for next time.

SMaSH I
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.045
Projected SRM: 9.2
Projected IBU: 46.5
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%

Grains
100% - 10 lb Weyermann Munich II

Hops
.2 oz Nuggetzilla (15.4%) (60 min)
.8 oz Nuggetzilla (10 min)

1 oz Nuggetzilla (0 min - hop steep/whirlpool 30 min)

Yeast
WY1450 - slurry from Competition Pale Ale

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tab Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
Target water: “Balanced profile” from brewersfriend.com
5 g Gypsum
5 g CaCl
5 g Baking soda
3 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 7 September 2015
Mash: 13 qts @ 151F for 60 minutes - added 1 qt @ 212F to get to temp
1st sparge: 12 qts @ 212F
2nd sparge: 14 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume: 8.2 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.9P (1.035)

5.5 gallons to fermenter at 11.4P.
Ferment in swamp cooler at 65-67F.

Moved out of swamp cooler to ambient temps (60-68F) after 6 days of active primary, near end of activity.

Bottled: 19 September 2015
FG: 1.013
ABV: 4.3%
Bottled with 3.8 oz table sugar.

Tasting: 6 December 2015
Holy malt, Batman. Hops additions need to go up to be  noticed.

Summer Pale Ale '15 tasting

This has turned out to be one of my more successful hoppy beers, though it's not as fresh as it once was. The malt character is close to what I'd like out of an American pale: background grain & bread, no more than a hint of sweetness. The hops side still needs to be dialed in; lacking experience with Chinook--and maybe getting something different from the Amarillo than I foresaw--the hop character ended up much darker and heavier than my sense memory had prepared me to expect. If the worst thing that happens, though, is that I have to do more "research" (read: brewing) to learn more, then I think I can live with that.

ALSO: Hey, it's post #100! I've gone through a couple gallons of beer over the last four and a half years since I started whinging about homebrewing. More to come!

=====

Appearance: Amber-gold, a bit hazy. Moderate head laces down the glass.

Smell: Assertive orange juice, hints of dark pine following up. Very nice.

Taste: Orange juice carries through from the aroma, coupled with firm upfront grapefruit/pine bitterness. Finishes somewhat rough, on the onion/pine end of the spectrum. Malt is slightly warm in the finish, but pretty low; it adds a little complexity to the end. Low for a pale ale; the hops are solidly on top.

Mouthfeel: Carbonation is a little prickly; body is low-medium with a nice creaminess. Squarely a pale ale in this area.

Overall: Not a bad pale ale, though not quite to my taste. The assertive onion/pine character was more than I’d prefer. I’d pinned it to the Chinook, though I’ve recently had it suggested to me that this character may come from certain Amarillo crops. In the end, the principal drawback from its sessionability is the hop character; I keep stopping to consider the hop character. Not a bad thing, honestly.

Competition Pale Ale

Back from summer travels and back into the mash tun. Since my rye saison and session IPA placed in this spring's Great Basin Brew Off, I needed to rebrew for the Nevada State Homebrew Championship; bottles are due at the start of October. The session IPA picked up an honorable mention in the American Ale category, entered as a pale ale. It wasn't really a proper pale (on purpose) so for competition I started from scratch with a new pale ale recipe.

I've never really nailed hoppy beers; usually I'm supremely underwhelmed by the aroma and flavor I achieve (the one exception was the session IPA, which is why it went to competition). For this batch, I leaned more toward the currently trendy tropical fruit salad style with Galaxy, blended with the no-longer-new-school big citrus of Amarillo. The malts are overwhelmingly German, with oats for body/mouthfeel (it's getting to be a regular thing) and just a little American crystal. My love affair with Vienna continues, augmented by dark Munich and Caramunich for extra maltiness. Looking for more yeast character than Cal Ale--which also seems to be the current trend for East Coast hoppy beers--I put Denny's Favorite back in the ring.

BeerSmith is back up and running, and the new version has me rethinking my efficiency calculations. I've always had my mash efficiency in mind, but looking through the new version of the program, I'm now trying to think more in terms of overall batch efficiency. Which, of course, means I'm looking at significantly lower numbers. Even factoring in that, my mash efficiency seems to have dropped off a fair bit from even a year ago. Is it my crush (same mill gap), water calculations (need more?), or just Reno? Still working it out.

Brewday went well, though it's a real struggle to get temps in check here in late August; I pitched with the wort only down to 80F. Fortunately, not much seemed to get going before the swamp cooler brought the batch into the mid 60s. The beer is through fermentation now, waiting for an empty carboy so it can receive its dry hops. The yeast will go on to ferment another pale ale, my first straight-up SMaSH.

Galaxarillo Pale Ale

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.047
Projected SRM: 9.2
Projected IBU: 47.5
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 64%

Grains
61.5% - 6 lb Best Malz Vienna
20.5% - 2 lb Weyermann Munich II
10. 3% - 1 lb Flaked oats
5.1% - 8 oz Weyermann Caramunich II
2.6% - 4 oz C40

Hops
.2 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
1 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (10 min)
1 oz Galaxy (14.8%) (10 min)
1 oz Amarillo (dry hop - 5 days)
1 oz Galaxy (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 - 1.4 l starter with continuous aeration

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
5 g Gypsum
4 g Epsom salts
3 g CaCl
3 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 16 August 2015
Mash: 12.5 qts @ 152F for 60 minutes (+1 qt @ 212F to get to temp)
1st sparge: 10.5 qts @ 190F
2nd sparge: 12 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10.3P (1.040)

Water profile based on the "Light colored & hoppy" profile from brewersfriend.com.
5.5 gallons at 12P (1.047) into the fermenter.
Chilled to 80F (warm ground water), 1 minute pure O2, pitched yeast.
Active fermentation 15 hours later at 65F.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 65F; brought up to 70F at the end of fermentation.

Dry hop: 5 September 2015
FG: 1.015
ABV: 4.2%
Gravity was a few points higher than expected, but the sample didn't taste overly sweet. Nice warm malt character; hops give balanced bitterness with a bit of tropical fruit flavor, but not very pronounced in taste or aroma.

2nd Place, American Ales: NV State Homebrew Championship 2015

American Sour Blonde

For as much as I really enjoy sour beers, it's been nearly two years since I produced one. Seeing an opportunity over this summer to set a new sour project rolling undisturbed, I put together a recipe for a moderate-gravity blonde beer based on The Rare Barrel's blonde recipe. The only alterations I made to this recipe had to do with ingredient availability: Briess aromatic malt was available locally while the Franco-Belges variety was not, and unmalted soft white wheat stood in for spelt malt. I don't foresee these changes really ruining this beer.

I really like the approach Jay Goodwin, one of The Rare Barrel's founders, has described for testing out ingredients and processes for producing sour and funky beers. He's covered it several times in his interview on the Brewing Network and in his own excellent BN show, The Sour Hour. The Rare Barrel contracts local breweries to produce three different worts--blonde, red, and dark--to their specifications, eliminating the need for their own on-premise "hot side" brewery. They then experiment with different yeast and bacteria strains and mixes, fruits and other post-boil ingredients, and other variables in their Berkeley, California facility. Over time and many batches, they seek to determine what different souring methods and processes offer sour brewers and blenders. It was a real treat to finally sample their wares in their tasting room this spring.

My plan here was to make a double batch of wort to ferment and sour with two different cultures: one with Wyeast's proprietary lambic blend, the other with the sour/funky dregs I've collected over the past year (along with the grown-up dregs from a bottle of Russian River's Damnification). I managed to produce about six and a half gallons of wort on my system, to which I then added back boiled & cooled water for eight total gallons. Two carboys received four gallons each. The batches fermented cool and controlled to start, then ramped up to the semi-uncontrolled ambient temps of Reno's summer months. The initial krauesen had dropped in both fermenters after the first few days in water baths, though the Wyeast carboy began another before we left town.

Not trusting conventional airlocks to stay full during our absence in the heat and low humidity, I set up blowoff tubes for each carboy that run into a bucket of Star San. Hopefully this will keep oxygen transfer to the wort from getting too crazy. My only big concern for this experiment comes from my top-up water; I couldn't tell before I started adding it to the carboys, but it picked up a bit of pink-brown color from the old boil kettle that held it. That kettle has had some deep scorching from a failed batch several years ago that I wasn't able to fully remove. At this point I can only hope that it won't heavily impact the way this project turns out. For now, I'm just curious to see the variation between the carboys as the different yeast and bacteria blends have expressed themselves when we return.

American Sour Blonde - double batch

Batch size: 8 gallons
Projected OG: 1.050
Projected SRM: 5
Projected IBU: 7
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 68%

Grains
68.75% - 11 lb 2-row
12.5% - 2 lb Wheat
6.25% - 1 lb Organic soft white wheat
6.25% - 1 lb Aromatic
6.25% - 1 lb Organic flaked oats

Hops
.2 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)

Yeast
A - Bottle dregs from RR Damnation (multi-stage stirplate starter) & collected sours
B - WY3728 Belgian Lambic Blend - no starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
2 g Gypsum
6 g CaCl
3 g Epsom salts
1 g Salt
7 mL Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 15 June 2015
Mash: 156F for 60 minutes
Milled & boiled white wheat in 1 qt water for 15 minutes; added to start of main mash
Pre-boil volume: 8.25 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12.7P (1.051)
Post-boil SG (before adding back water): 14.1P (1.057)

Top-up water had pink-brown cast to it; may be from sitting all day in the old kettle.
Final fermenter volume (total): 8 gallons
OG is estimate; possible affecting factors include untrustworthy measuring tools and stratification of wort & top-up water.

Water report and chemical calculations from brewersfriend.com, using "light colored & malty" setting.

Topped off 2 fermenters with boiled & cooled water to 4 gallons each.
30 seconds of pure O2 in each fermenter.

Ferment:
Day 1 - up to 69F ambient
Day 2 - 71F ambient
Day 3 - 72F ambient; initial krauesen dropped in both carboys
Day 4 - removed from water baths, left at ambient temps (75-85F) for several months

15 February 2016: As the WY3728 batch's airlock tended to suck back and go dry with exceeding regularity (drafty corner?) I swapped the airlocks on both batches for breathable silicone stoppers a couple months ago. Today I found out how good a job they do at creating a vacuum rather than let in outside air. I pried a bit at the top piece, expecting to let out a bit of pressure. Instead a massive gasp of air rushed in, breaking the pellicle. I haven't checked these batches' progress at all; this might be the time.

Secondary/Bottling #1: 30 April 2016
A
FG: 1.011
ABV: 4.6%
Sample was solidly lactic, tart that grabs the sides of the tongue, very light hint of saltine.

Bottled 1 gallon with .4 oz table sugar. Remainder put on fruit:
1-gal #1: 1 lb 6 oz pluots
1-gal #2: 1 lb peaches
1-gal #3: 2 lb 7.1 oz cherries

B
FG: 1.011
ABV: 4.6%
This batch took on air during fermentation and developed very obvious acetobacter infection, but tasted all right at this point. Sample was somewhat tart, generally uninteresting.

Bottled 3 gallons with 1.9 oz table sugar. Remaining gallon put on 1 lb 5 oz cranberries.