#177 Fawkes Bitter

I dig a good English bitter, particular a nice low-ABV ordinary bitter when I can find it. Brewed on the fifth of November, it only seemed appropriate to name this session beer after Guy Fawkes.

The recipe for this beer was very simple, though I had to sub in WLP002--the über flocculator--for my preferred WY1469. Mash temp turned out to be extra low, leading to a thin, overly attenuated beer. Things also got tough with dry hopping; I'd planned to go just a few days before bottling, but a cold postponed bottling day until after a trip, leading to sixteen days of contact time. The aromatics were lost and the extra hops may have contributed a harsher vegetal character to the bittering. Add to that the fact that this beer hasn't properly carbonated and we have a fairly unappetizing tipple. Hoping a bit more time in the bottle will add carbonation that will lift it just a bit.

Check out my Nov 5, 2019 instagram post to see a few brewday pics.

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#177 Fawkes Bitter

Batch size: 4 gallons
Projected OG: 1.039
Projected SRM: 6.8
Projected IBU: 28.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 87%   

Grains/Fermentables
83.3% - 5 lb Golden Promise
16.7% - 1 lb Carastan

Hops
.5 oz Mandarina Bavaria (10.7%) (30 min)
1 oz Styrian Celeja (3.0%) (5 min)
.5 oz Cryo Loral (22.7%) (5 min)
1 oz Styrian Celeja (dry hop - 3 days)
.5 oz Cryo Loral (dry hop - 3 days)

Yeast
WLP002 - no starter

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

Water (mash)
Profile: Denver (brewersfriend ID: 2CZ8J00)
5 g Gypsum
2 g Epsom salts

Brewday: 5 November 2019
Mash: 11 qts @ 149F for 60 minutes
Sparge: 8 qts @ 212F
Sparge: 8 qts @ 212F
Pre-boil volume: 6 gallons

Transferred 4.75 gallons to fermenter.
Fermented in swamp cooler. Day 1 - 65F; 2 - 66F; 3 - 68F; 4 - 70F; 5 - 72F; 6 - 73F

Dry hop: 7 November 2019
Agitated fermenter several times/day to get yeast back in suspension.

Bottled: 23 November 2019
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.8%
Bottled with 2.3 oz table sugar.

Sample tasted neutral with a firm bitterness. Not getting a lot of standout malt/yeast/hop characters.

#176 Hoppy Brown Ale

This was the "small beer" from my RIS IV mash. Since the RIS mash was done in two parts, I followed the same reiterated mashing technique for the brown: I resparged the "spent" first RIS mash for my initial brewing liquor for the brown, then used this liquor to resparge the spent second RIS mash portion. Confusing and overly complicated to execute, but it yielded a decent small beer.

The hops ended up relatively muddled; the final beer was firmly bitter with just a general "hoppy" aroma. This read more like a black IPA than a real brown ale, but was still overall enjoyable.

Sorry, no extant pictures of this one!

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#176 Hoppy Brown (RIS IV final runnings small beer - American Brown)

Batch size: 3 gallons
Projected OG: 1.041
Projected SRM: 43.6
Projected IBU: 40.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 17.5%

Grains/Fermentables
59.6% - 17 lb 2-row
17.5% - 5 lb Munich I
14.0% - 4 lb Flaked oats
3.5% - 1 lb Roasted barley
3.5% - 1 lb Special B
1.8% - 8 oz Chocolate

Hops
.2 oz El Dorado (13.4%) (60 min)
.2 oz Centennial (9.1%) (10 min)
.2 oz Hallertau Blanc (9.7%) (10 min)
.8 oz El Dorado (hop steep - 30 min)
.3 oz Centennial (hop steep - 30 min)
1.5 oz Centennial (dry hop - 4 days)
1.3 oz Hallertau Blanc (dry hop - 4 days)

Yeast
1 pkg WLP066 London Fog - .5 l starter

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

Water (mash)
Profile: Denver (brewersfriend ID: 2CZ8J00)

Brewday: 22 July 2019
Mash #1 (15 lb 2-row): 20 qts @ 170F
    Short rest & runoff following RIS mash #1 lauter
Mash #2 (remainder of grain bill): Mash #1 liquor @ 170F
    Short rest & runoff following RIS mash #2 lauter
Pre-boil volume: 5.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.2P (1.036)

Transferred 3.9 gallons to fermenter.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 67F ambient.


29 July 2019: It seems like active fermentation has probably ceased, but the krauesen is still sitting on top of the beer (much like with WY1469). Removed from swamp cooler to rest at 70F ambient.

Dry hop: 1 August 2019
Krauesen layer still present; breaks up momentarily but doesn’t sink with agitation.

Bottled: 5 August 2019
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4.1%
Bottled with 3.4 oz table sugar.

#175 RIS IV

...and we're back! Fell out of the blogging habit for quite a while there. As this blog was meant mostly to document my brewing and record my thoughts on the results, these posts will probably slim down (unless there's a good reason to really get into the weeds on ingredients, process, etc.). Onward!

My latest quarter-century batch came up in July; time for my fourth Russian imperial stout! Double reiterated mash, per usual. Grain bill accentuating rich maltiness and a blend of dark/roasty characters. I didn't notice a lot of impact from the four months it spent on oak cubes, but it went to bottle tasting very nice: lots of dark chocolate, roasty/almost smoky aroma, formidable body. One gallon will sit on Seville orange peel and cassia cinnamon bark for a while to see what they might add.

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#175 RIS IV

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.106
Projected SRM: 36.5
Projected IBU: 61.8
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 56%   

Grains/Fermentables
59.6% - 17 lb 2-row
17.5% - 5 lb Munich I
14.0% - 4 lb Flaked oats
3.5% - 1 lb Roast barley
3.5% - 1 lb Special B
1.8% - 8 oz Chocolate

Hops
2 oz El Dorado (13.4%) (90 min)

Yeast
2 pkg US-05

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
1/2 tab Whirlfloc
5 g Seville orange peel (tertiary)
2 g Saigon cassia cinnamon (tertiary)

Water (mash)
Profile: Denver (brewersfriend ID: 2CZ8J00)
Mash #1:
    2 g Gypsum
    5 g CaCl
    3 g Citric acid
Mash #2 (ended up in sparge water - d’oh!):
    2 g Epsom salts
    5 g CaCl
    2 g Chalk (dissolved in carbonated water)

Brewday: 22 July 2019
Mash #1 (15lb 2-row): 19 qts @ 150F for 20 minutes
Sparge: 18.5 qts @ 150F
SG: 13.8P (1.055)
Volume: 7.5 gallons - hold at 150F
Mash #2 (remainder of grain bill): Mash #1 liquor @ 140F for 90 minutes
Sparge: 10 qts @ 175F
Draw off & boil 1 gallon, add back to raise temp to 148F
Draw off & boil 1.25 gallons, add back to raise temp to 161F
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 21.3P (1.087)

Transferred 5.5 gallons to fermenter.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 67F ambient.

29 July 2019: Active fermentation has ceased; krauesen has fallen. Taken out of swamp cooler to rest at 70F ambient.


Secondary: 5 August 2019
SG: 1.024
Added 1.1 oz home toasted American oak

Bottled: 5 December 2019
FG: 1.025
ABV: 9.9%
Bottled 3.9 gallons with 2.9 oz table sugar and rehydrated US-05.
Transferred 1 gallon to tertiary with rye-soaked Seville orange peel and Saigon cassia cinnamon.

Gose

For this summer's road trip beer, which traveled all the way back east across the country with me for work and family time for a month, I decided to go for a session-strength quick sour. The first examples of gose that I tried just a few years ago didn't excite me; the idea of a briny beer sounded disgusting, and that's how those first tastes read to my palate. My opinion of the style came up substantially, though, after a couple trips to Portland and its myriad kickass breweries. So, onward gose!

I've had plenty of success achieving a clean, lemony lactic sourness from sour worting with an uncrushed malt lacto starter. This time, though, I decided to combine its power with that of Goodbelly, highly touted by Milk the Funk for lacto souring. I found MTFers to generally recommend going with the mango version to minimize flavors contributed by the drink itself.

Trepidatious about ending up with an overly salty mess, I went conservative on the salt addition this time. Following the never-fail advice from the Mad Fermentationist, I did my best to forego the celery flavor of Mexican coriander in

favor of the Fruity Pebbles-like hit of the Indian version. Not having used either type in a beer before, however, I went light on that as well. For extra fun, I added some fresh nectarines (after freezing them) to a portion of the batch for a week before bottling.

So, how did the final beer(s) turn out? So well that I don't have a bottle remaining to do formal tasting notes. For those who liked sour beer, it went over very well: solidly tart without being tongue scraping with a robust tropical fruitiness (though not a new world overripe fruit character). It had a surprisingly full mouthfeel, probably from the high FG and mango in the Goodbelly, to which I also attribute that tropical fruit flavor. The salt and coriander were very subdued, so next time I'll definitely up those contributions.

I'll also consider sour worting for one day less; while the sourness wasn't overpowering, I think it might work even better here backing off it a touch. I'd be interested to see how Goodbelly does on its own; I dug the rounder, gentler lacto character this batch had over previous quick sours I've done with just malt starters. Another flavor of Goodbelly would be worth exploring, too; given how the mango carried over to the finished beer, one could definitely design a recipe to work with those residual characters.

While I didn't feel like downing bottle after bottle at a time of this, it was a welcome fresh flavor in the heat of a swampy summer.

No Witty Pun - Gose

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.053
Projected SRM: 3.4
Projected IBU: 11.2
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 77%

Grains
48.8% - 5 lb Pilsner
48.8% - 5 lb White Wheat
2.4% - 4 oz Acidulated malt

Hops
.2 oz Galena (16%) (90 min)

Yeast
1.7 l Lacto starter
16 fl oz Goodbelly Mango probiotic drink
US-05

Extras
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (10 min)
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
.5 oz Sea salt (0 min)
.5 oz Indian coriander seed (0 min)
3.5 lb Yellow nectarines, sliced & frozen (secondary)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno

Lacto starter: 17 June 2017
1700 ml starter wort, 1 cup uncrushed malt, 1/2 tsp Lactic acid (88%), held at ~108F for 3 days.

Brewday: 20 June 2017
Mash: 13 qts @ 152F for 60 minutes
Sparge: 20 qts @ 190F
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-lacto SG: 10.8P (1.042)

Lacto fermentation: Brought to brief boil then chilled to 110F. Added 1/2 tsp Lactic acid (88%), Goodbelly at room temperature, and lacto starter. Covered wort surface with plastic wrap to reduce oxygen contact, held at ~103F for 3 days.

22 June 2017
Kettle was too full and the covering couldn’t keep a perfect seal. Sweet wort exhibits some fecal aromatics, but also includes a strong, full mango/peach aroma.

Transferred to boil kettle; boiled, hopped, chilled, and pitched US-05 as normal.

5.3 gallons to fermenter. Fermented in swamp cooler at 65F ambient.

28 June 2017: Allowed temp to rise 2F per day. Krauesen beginning to drop.

Bottled: 2 July 2017
FG: 1.015
ABV: 5.0%
Bottled 3 gallons with 3 oz table sugar.

Transferred remaining 2 gallons onto 2.5 lb yellow nectarines (frozen).

Nectarine Bottled: 9 July 2017
Bottled 1.75 gallons with 2 oz table sugar

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.