Munich Dunkel

I still remember my first experiences with lager.  The very first was a sip of my dad's Old Milwaukee when I was eight; I can't say it agreed with me.  In college in Boston, Sam Adams frequently showed up at parties, and while it was one of my first welcome introductions to craft beer, I can't say I was really taken with it.  And at the tender age of twenty one, I was offered my first Bud by the drummer of a band for whom I was working merch; the fact that it had about the same taste as a glass of water did not make a great impression.  Following experiences like this, my initial homebrewing instinct was to stick to ales; they were by far what I preferred to drink.  While I've had a few decent craft lagers over the years, I was never swayed to try making one myself.

That was, until I spent a week in Santiago, Chile last October.  Chilean beer is currently experiencing a craft renaissance, but the traditional beers of the country (and many other South American countries) are German lagers.  I had a number of really exceptional lagers while there, but the one that really nailed it for me is the one pictured here: deeply malty and supremely drinkable.  It wasn't too hard a sell sitting in an outdoor cafe in downtown Santiago, enjoying the Southern Hemisphere's early spring weather.  Unfortunately, I can't remember the brewery that produced it, so I couldn't look into it further.  But it was the beer that finally inspired me to really give lager a shot at home.

Lacking a lot of lager knowledge, I couldn't decide if the beer from my memories of Chile was a Vienna lager or a Munich dunkel.  Digging on darker beers for the winter months, I decided to follow the road to München.  (Looks like the inspiration is more a Vienna, though; that may be the next up, then.)  Nearly entirely Munich malt, with just a pinch of dehusked Carafa for deeper colour.  A very light brush of neutral bittering hops, with Hallertauer to finish.  Not knowing my lager yeasts, Wyeast's Munich Lager strain seemed like an easy go-to for the style; building a proper starter took some time, but was well worth it to have a good pitch of yeast.

Brewday went smoothly, leaving my only other big worry being my ability to actually lager, which I did in my swamp cooler with water along with a bunch of ice and ice packs.  I was shocked when I realized I'd made it a full month keeping the beer at a fairly constant low- to mid-30s F with this method.  While it's not perfect--I could stand even more malt character--this could be the start of a long, positive relationship of lager in my homebrewery.

Primavera en Santiago - Munich Dunkel

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.059
Projected SRM: 13.8
Projected IBU: 25.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 87%

Grains
98.8% - 10 lb Weyermann Organic Munich
1.2% - 2 oz Carafa Special II

Hops
.3 oz Magnum (13.5%) (60 min)
2 oz Hallertauer (3.9%) (15 min)

Yeast

WY2308 Munich Lager - 4l, 3-stage starter on stirplate

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

Water additions (mash)
3 gal distilled water
1 g Gypsum
1 g Salt

Brewday: 21 September 2013 
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes.
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12P (1.048)

Fermented in swamp cooler at 50F.

24 September 2013: Definite smell of active fermentation.  No sulphur yet, just yeast churning away.  Give it two weeks, then pull from swamp cooler for diacetyl rest.

9 October 2013: Diacetyl rest at ambient (65-70F).

16 October 2013: Lagered with ice bath in swamp cooler for 4 weeks.
FG:1.016
ABV: 5.6%

Bottled: 21 November 2013
Warmed to room temperature for several days before bottling.
Bottled with 4.1 oz table sugar and rehydrated champagne yeast.

Wet-Hopped Ordinary Bitter

I feel lucky to have next-door neighbours who are avid beer drinkers, particularly living where we do.  The husband prefers his tipple light and balanced, while the wife likes hers all over the map, strength and style wise.  They've reacted very enthusiastically to everything I've shared with them, and have returned in kind with some of their local commercial favourites.  This summer they generously volunteered to water my hop bines in our long absence.  I was able to give the hops one pruning before we left; I wasn't going to further burden friends who were already doing me such a big favour.

Upon returning to town, we found the hops in prime shape, ready to be picked.  The thing was, I couldn't tell what was what; the three separate plants had spent the summer growing up and out, tangling together inextricably.  That's what happens, obviously, when you're not on hand to continually prune and sort out the bines as they grow; I just wasn't expecting this level of entanglement, as last year they weren't too tough to separate.  I'd planned on doing an ordinary bitter with the wet Goldings and Willamettes, but since it was impossible to separate them from the Centennials, DeAunn and I picked them all together and into the brewpot they went.

With the success of the ultra-simple recipe for this summer's best bitter, I went much the same route with this English-style beer.  All Maris Otter base, with under a pound of British crystal for residual sweetness.  A little bit of UK bittering hops at the start of the boil, then all those fresh, wet hops at the end.  It's always enjoyable to see all of those green cones swimming in the kettle.  Last year's dry Willamettes went in for dry hop.

Starting so small, this bitter didn't take long to ferment, and I was pouring it under a month from brewday.  This turned out to be another reminder of why I should brew more session beers: the first glass begs for the next, and at 3.3% that doesn't become a problem.  It turned out maybe a little drier that I would've liked, so I'll increase the crystal or raise the mash temp a couple degrees next time.  I can't complain about the drinkability, though, with a bit of crackery malt meshing well with the slight mineral flavour from the yeast.  The one letdown was the lack of hop presence; the bittering is nicely balanced, but for all of that vegetable matter that went in late, there's not a lot going on in the nose.  That being said, it's an exceptionally fine, restrained beer that I've pretty much decimated by this point.  And I got the reaction I'd hoped to receive from my neighbours; while they're always appreciative, this beer went over VERY well, especially with the husband.  I won't lie: it's nice to hit the bullseye.

Wet Hop ‘13 - Ordinary bitter with all the hops straight off the bines

Batch size: 6 gallons
Projected OG: 1.036
Projected SRM: 7.5
Projected IBU: 30.8
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%

Grains
90.3% - 6 lb Maris Otter
9.7% - 12 oz British medium crystal

Hops
.5 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (60 min)
11.1 oz Wet homegrown 2013 hops (Willamette/Centennial/Goldings) (10 min)
4.7 oz Homegown 2012 Willamette (dry hop - 10 days)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 1 qt starter on stirplate

Extras

Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions (mash)
10 qts RO water
1 g Gypsum
1 g Baking soda
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 25 August 2013
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.3 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 7.2P (1.029)

Fermented in swamp cooler; started at 65F, rose to 67F.

28 August 2013: Visible (via airlock) fermentation complete; removed from swamp cooler & left at ambient temp (~70F) to finish.  Krausen still present the next day; agitated fermenter to encourage flocculation.

Dry hop: 2 September 2013
Took some work to get the whole-cone hops wetted and working on submerged.  Sample I snuck tasted excellent.

Bottled: 12 September 2013
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.3%

Bottled with 3.2 oz table sugar.

Kölsch

My first experience attempting to brew a kölsch was within my first couple years of homebrewing, when I didn't necessarily have a solid handle on process, and definitely not on fermentation temperatures.  I produced two small batches, about two gallons each; one was mostly pils, the other principally Global kölsch malt.  Giving them too little attention during fermentation and my faux-lagering phase (sitting on a bag of ice for a couple weeks), neither ended up being drinkable.  It was a lesson in paying attention to the beer as it ferments, providing the yeast with a suitably temperate environment, and a number of other brewing issues.  While I wanted to have another go at this singular German ale, interest in brewing other styles and wariness about having a setup to ferment and lager at proper temperatures for the yeast kept me from pulling the trigger.  Years passed.

At long last, the proper confluence of events took place, thanks to my dad's new brewhouse: the starter was finished out and the yeast washed, the grist and proper fermentation temp control were in place, and the fermenters were cleaned and at the ready.  It was finally time again to brew a kölsch, but to do it RIGHT this time, dammit.  Long had I anticipated this day.

A very simple grist, a bit more pils than Vienna, and a single noble hop addition at the start of the boil were all

that went into this wort (along with a couple Whirlfloc tablets).  My dad's ample fridge room easily allowed for the fermentation temp to be kept in the mid 50s for primary.  That same setup permitted this beer to receive a proper lagering as well.

The only unfortunate part to this story is that I won't taste the final product; packaging day came after we headed back to Utah.  It should've been just last week, in fact, if everything went well.  I'll certainly look forward to hearing about how it came out, however; with further experience brewing and much more high-tech fermentation management, I certainly hope this version comes out better than my initial attempt.

Kölsch

Batch size: 12 gallons
Projected OG: 1.046
Projected SRM: 4.2
Projected IBU: 22.0
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 73%

Grains
61.5% - 12.75 lb Weyerman Pils
38.5% - 8 lb Weyermann Vienna

Hops
3 oz Hallertauer (4.3%) (90 min)

Yeast
WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch (3.5 gal regular starter)

Extras
2 tablets Whirlfloc (10 min)

Brewday: 13 July 2013
Mash: 150F for 90 minutes
Mashout @ 168F
Fly sparge
Pre-boil volume: 14.5 gallons

Fermented at 55F ambient for 2 weeks, then allowed to free rise to mid 70s ambient for diacetyl rest.
Lagered for 4-6 weeks in low-mid 30s F.

Best Bitter

Most of the batches my dad and I brewed this summer were ten to thirteen gallons, much larger than my normal five- to six-gallon scale.  Between the much bigger grain bills involved in these high-volume batches, the frequency with which we brewed (often once a week), and the distance to the local homebrew shop, it's only reasonable that my dad keeps a few bags worth of base grains on hand.  In this sea of malt, though, even significant amounts of a particular grain can be overlooked at times.

Such was the case with an eighteen-pound portion of Maris Otter a few months ago.  It had been meant for a stout, I believe, but my father had missed the bag of Maris sitting among all the other grains, using an American pale malt instead.  So we were left to devise a recipe to properly exploit this fine English malt.  My thoughts went right to bitters.

Adding just a pound of lighter German caramel malt (antithetical for a British ale, I know) in place of the amber malt I couldn't procure, I angled to create a best bitter.  Northern Brewer for bittering hops, Bramling Cross for flavour, and Goldings for aroma, without a dry hop; we kept it simple. Working with dry yeast also kept the process from getting complex, saving us from having to grow up a large pitch a liquid strain before setting it to work on this middleweight wort.

Efficiency was higher than expected, and we ended up with a slightly bigger beer than intended.  After a few weeks of age, though, it really melded well, combining bready, slightly crusty malt backbone with a subtle kiss of hops.  Once we got going on it, this one didn't last long.  I foresee a return to more balanced, sessionable beers in the coming months.

Best Bitter

Batch size: 12 gallons
Projected OG: 1.051
Projected SRM: 5.2
Projected IBU: 24.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%

Grains
94.7% - 18 lb Muntons Maris Otter
5.3% - 1 lb Weyermann Carared

Hops
1 oz Northern Brewer (9.6%) (60 min)
1 oz Bramling Cross (7.4%) (20 min)
1 oz Goldings (5.8%) (10 min)

Yeast
2 pkgs Nottingham, rehydrated

Extras
2 tablets Whirlfloc (15 min)

Brewday: 1 July 2013
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes
Mash pH: 5.96 - 2 ml Lactic acid added
Mashout @ 168F
Fly sparge
Pre-boil volume: 14.75 gallons

Fermented at 62F ambient.

Bottled: 12 July 2013
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.1%
3 gallons bottled with 1.6 oz table sugar; remainder kegged.
Cold, uncarbed sample was a bit watery, but had a nice grainy/bready finish.

GF Oatmeal Stout - Fail

In the continuing saga to provide the best in gluten-free fermented beverages for my bride, I'd long planned to try my hand at brewing her a beer with alternative grains; I still have the oats I toasted for that project, though they're probably getting stale at this point.  With an abundance of time, materials, and fermenter space this summer, though, it made for a perfect time to experiment with gluten-free brewing.

Given DeAunn's preference for roast over hops, an oatmeal stout was an excellent pilot brew.  Oats themselves are a gluten-free grain; my understanding, though, is that they're often processed on equipment that also handles grains with gluten, making them unsuitable for those with Celiac disease unless clearly marked as GF.  Since DeAunn just has a sensitivity to gluten and not full-blown Celiac, regular oats would probably be fine.  I roasted a pound of rolled oats the day before brewing; however I was unwilling to completely fill my parents' beautiful new home with smoke and the stench of burning grain, so they came out without quite as much colour as I would've liked ideally.  Normally I'd give the roasted grain a couple weeks to mellow before using them; in this case, I put the roasted oats in a bowl that I swirled and agitated often that day to get out as much of the overboard bitter flavours as possible.

The homebrew shop my dad frequents, Scotzin Bros. in Lemoyne, carries an impressive array of small-batch gluten-free malted grains, including millet, amaranth, teff, and more.  For this first GF outing, though, I tried to play it safe, basing the recipe around sorghum extract and brown rice syrup.  Having given many of the GF beers on the market a try in the last year, DeAunn and I had both decided the tang associated with using a

high percentage of sorghum was not really to our taste.  Unsure of how to best treat other grains for this beer, though, I went with the devil I knew, relying on the other ingredients, such as the roasted oats, dark candi syrup, coffee, and vanilla bean, to counterbalance the sorghum.

By the end of brewday, though, we were left with a carboy full of opaque, almost latte-coloured liquid that only fermented down to about 1.020 over the next couple weeks.  Having started at 1.062, that's pretty sweet.  The taste was very twangy, much as I'd expect of a sorghum-based beer.  In the end it seemed like it would be a waste of good coffee and vanilla to add them to this batch; the pound of D-180 hadn't really helped much to darken it or improve the flavour.  With heavy heart, this batch went down the drain, a failed first GF experiment.  Fortunately, a followup brew of a similar nature by my dad later in the summer turned out much better; it still has a distinct sorghum flavour to me, but DeAunn's really enjoying it.  It inspires me to continue exploring GF brewing.

GF Oatmeal Stout (extract w/ grains)

Batch size: 4.8 gallons
Projected OG: 1.062
Projected SRM:
Projected IBU: 23.0
Boil time: 30 minutes

Grains/Fermentables
36.7% - 3 lb 15 oz Brown Rice Syrup
30.7% - 3 lb 4.8 oz Sorghum Syrup
9.3% - 1 lb Rolled oats
9.3% - 1 lb Rolled oats, roasted to brown malt
9.3% - 1 lb D-180 Dark candi syrup (3 days into primary)
4.7% - 8 oz  Lactose

Hops
1 oz Centennial (8.7%) (30 min)

Yeast
1 pkg Nottingham

Extras
2-3 Vanilla beans, cut & scraped (end of fermentation)
Cold press coffee (bottling)

Brewday: 14 June 2013
Post-boil OG (w/o sugar): 1.056
Not very stout looking; very milky, yeast coloured.

21 June 2013
Added D-180 syrup
Active fermentation has slowed considerably

Ended very twangy, not really close to traditional beer, and not very tasty in general (to me).  Dumped.

Brown Rye (starter beer)

As I wrote about recently, I brewed a lot of beer with my dad this summer on his beautiful new all-electric setup.  He's been trying out a number of recipes in different styles he's found online--a frequent starting point for me as well--as well as working on scaled-up AG versions of beers I designed when he was doing small extract batches in my folks' former home.  Over the summer we'd trade off between us on the brew planning.  Having sought to finally brew a kölsch for some time--most recently this spring--that was my first choice.  Brewing such large volumes (11-12 gallons) and not having a stirplate on hand at the time (my dad built a nice one soon after this) meant that before the main brew must come a starter beer.

As it happened, my dad had a big Belgian/Trappist-style beer planned and needed to propagate yeast for that as well, so we brewed six and a half gallons of low-gravity wort to split between the two yeasts.  In some sense it was also a cleanup beer, finishing up some odds-and-ends grains in the brewery.  However the main malts, Munich and rye, I chose very intentionally, aiming to get a lot of richness out of this smaller beer.  Coincidentally this ended up encompassing long-term plans I've had to brew a Belgian rye table beer.  My original aim was for a red colour, but it ended up solidly brown.  Out of the two beers produced, I prefer the Belgian iteration, the kölsch yeast characteristics not really meshing well with the strong malt flavours.  In the end, though, we had large yeast pitches for both big brews and a couple interesting experimental beers to try.

Brown Rye - Kölsch/Trappist starter
Batch size: 6.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.042
Projected SRM: 13.7
Projected IBU: 18.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 77%

Grains

64.2% - 6.5 lb Weyermann Munich Type 2
24.7% - 2.5 lb Briess Rye
4.8% - 8 oz Crystal 120
4.8% - 8 oz Dingemans Biscuit
2.5% - 4 oz Briess Victory
1.2% - 2 oz Dingemans Chocolate

Hops
1 oz Hallertau (4.3%) (60 min)
1 oz Hersbrucker (4.3%) (15 min)

Yeast
3.5 gal - 2 vials WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch
3 gal - 2 vials WLP500 Trappist Ale

Extras
1.5 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Brewday: 7 June 2013
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
Mash pH: 5.2
Mashout @ 168F
Fly sparge
Pre-boil volume: 9.5 gallons

WLP029 fermented at 60F ambient.
WLP500 fermented at 68F ambient.
Following fermentation, both crash cooled at 41F.

Bottling: 23 June 2013
WLP029 FG: 1.019 @ 50F - 1.018
ABV: 3.1%
WLP500 FG: 1.0??

Both bottled cold with sugar and rehydrated US-05 added.
Each bottled with 2.5 oz table sugar and rehydrated US-05.

Brett Love I

While it probably won't replace hops as the signature ingredient of American craft beer, Brettanomyces funk has come into its own as a popular brewing component in the last couple years.  This is the first in a planned series of all-Brett beers.  The inspiration for this one was Russian River's Consecration; a big, dark beer that will get fruit and oak made for a good choice to spend the summer maturing on a pitch of Brettanomyces.

My first choice for the yeast strain was Wyeast's Brett Lambicus, known for its pie cherry qualities.  Unable to get it in time for the brewday, I decided to mess with the tropical fruit character of White Labs' Brett Brux Trois.  As in the past, I included a short period of sour worting before the boil to lower the pH and thus encourage the yeast to move toward the funky side during fermentation (though I'm getting to the point with the process that I may try acid malt or adding lactic acid instead in the future; they'd be a lot less labour intensive ways and could get close to the same result).  Also to push for more funk, this batch saw no temperature control; ambient temp was pretty reasonable when we left town, and as the summer progresses, the higher temps may coax more interesting (or possibly terrible) compounds out of the fermentation process.  We'll find out what magic took place in about a month.

Brett Love I

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.092
Projected SRM: 16.8
Projected IBU: 23.2
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 81%

Grains/Fermentables
41.2% - 7 lb Malteurop 2-row
29.4% - 5 lb Weyermann Pils
11.8% - 2 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
8.8% - 1.5 lb Dingemans Aromatic
2.9% - 8 oz Weyermann Caramunich II
5.9% - 1 lb D-90 syrup (end of primary)

Hops
.6 oz Magnum (14.6%) (90 min)

Yeast
Lacto starter
WY5526 Brett Lambicus - yeast cake
WLP644 Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois - 2-qt starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)                   
1 lb Dried currants (end of primary)
8 fl oz Cherry concentrate (end of primary)
1 oz Bourbon-soaked 2nd-use oak cubes (end of primary)

Water additions (mash)
3 gal RO water
1 g Gypsum

Brewday: 22 May 2013
Mash: 156F for 60 minutes.
Pre-sour SG: 15P (1.061)

Sour worted for 7.5 hours.
Post-boil OG (w/o D-90 syrup): 20.6P (1.086)
Started at 63F ambient; left to ferment at summer ambient temps (probably 80F+) for 3 months.

End of primary: 19 August 2013
SG: 9.4P (measured) - corrected 1.007
Added D-90 syrup, currants (rinsed in Star San to remove oils), and oak.
Should’ve moved to a 5-gal secondary & racked on top to be able to reuse the big carboy and avoid oxidizing, but oh well.

2 September 2013: Restart of fermentation has been slow, but today there’s been a lot more airlock activity.  At this point the currants have swelled and are floating.

Bottled: 12 October 2013
FG: 1.013
ABV: 10.4%

Bottled with 5 oz table sugar and rehydrated champagne yeast.