Rye Saison IIa

This was the second beer to come out of the kettle on my first brewday back. This was a competition rebrew of my rye saison from this past winter, so not a lot to report on the recipe. The only planned difference was that I added the turbinado to the fermenter as primary slowed rather than adding it to the boil kettle. I actually waited longer than planned for this addition; by the time the turbinado joined the party, the krauesen had completely dropped. The fermenter showed very little activity even with more fermentables added. I gave it a few spins several times a day for about a week and fortunately it finished out properly.

The numbers from BeerSmith have been very different from those on Brewtoad when I first brewed this recipe, most importantly in IBUs and efficiency (versus my OG-to-volume numbers). I may look into the IBU formula settings, but as long as I'm sticking to BeerSmith, I should be able to trust the consistency of my numbers. The efficiency is probably based on different values for the grains between programs; until I get serious enough to input specific numbers for each lot of grain I use, I'll probably stick to relying on BeerSmith.

First taste at bottling displayed a more subdued yeast profile than the previous batch. I pitched very warm, but may have overcooled before fermentation really got going. Next time I may just let WY3711 start in the low 70s and free rise from there; I haven't encountered any issues with it generating fusels or other problematic compounds at elevated temps so far, and hey, it is a saison yeast. We'll see how this iteration does in competition in about a month.

Rye Saison IIa - rebrew for the NV State Homebrewing Championship 2015

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.053
Projected SRM: 5.5
Projected IBU: 23.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%

Recipe

Brewday: 16 August 2015
5 gallons at 11.2P (1.044) (w/o sugar) to fermenter.
Chilled to 78F, 1 minute of pure O2, placed in swamp cooler. Active fermentation 15 hours later at 66F (cooler temp).
Fermented in swamp cooler at 68F; ramped up to 75F after 1 day of active fermentation.

21 August 2015: Active fermentation ended. Added turbinado (in solution). No activity witnessed over 24 hours; may have happened quickly overnight? Agitated regularly for a week; showed a little activity.

Bottled: 2 September 2015
FG: 1.003
ABV: 6.6%
Bottled with 4.3 oz table sugar.

1st Place, Belgian & French Ales; 3rd Place Best of Show: NV State Homebrew Championship 2015

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

Session IPA

While I was still under the impression that my two recent saisons hadn't turned out (which more recent taste tests have proven false), I really wanted to make something quick and straight ahead (i.e.,

nothing too weird) to have on hand. Given the substantial (for me) amount of hops and diminishing supply of base grain I had on hand, I decided to try my hand at the "session IPA" genre again.

The Mad Fermentationist provided invaluable assistance, as always. Fortunately I still had just enough Vienna malt in the house for most of the grist, complemented with oats and Belgian Caramunich for enhanced mouthfeel, residual sugar, and further depth of flavor. I also went with my first no-sparge mash to increase body and malt perception. In addition, Wyeast's West Yorkshire Ale yeast provided extra character and low attenuation to round out the package. To keep things extra international, the hops were all American, plentiful, and were hopbursted, hop stand-ed, and dry hopped.

Unfortunately my laptop died at the end of the year and I have yet to replace it, so I was without my normal brewing software, BeerSmith. However, I had pretty good experiences with resources currently available online, including Brewtoad and Brewer's Friend. I was very happy with the no-sparge technique, though due to habit I really had to fight the urge to sparge the rest of the sugars out of the grain. The mash received what seemed like a massive amount of gypsum, though it should've been the correct dosing for the volume of strike water. Less wonderful was running out of propane shortly after putting the sweet wort on to boil; the brew moved back inside to finish. Between that, my friend Doug stopping in to check out the brew and have a beer, and the normal hectic nature of the brewday, I managed to swap my 10-minute and hop stand Amarillo additions, adding quite a few extra calculated IBUs; the finished beer doesn't seem to have suffered, though.

I pulled around a half gallon for cask conditioning in a cubitainer when the rest of the batch went to secondary for dry hopping. The "cask" was really fantastic; great aroma, super fruity and balanced. It seems like some of that dropped off in the secondary, possibly because of the size of the dry hop charge. The main batch is drinking just fine, however; I have no complaints about a lack of good beer  in the house ready to go. I've already rebrewed this recipe with a couple tweaks, one major, one minor; more on that soon. For now, though, things are tasting great.

Session IPA (also available at Brewtoad)

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.039
Projected SRM: 9
Projected IBU: 49
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 59%

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

Hops
2 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (10 min)
.5 oz Columbus (15.6%) (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (11.3%) (10 min)
1 oz Amarillo (0 min) 30-min steep
.5 oz Columbus (0 min) 30-min steep
.5 oz Centennial (0 min) 30-min steep
3 oz Amarillo (Dry hop - 6 days)
1 oz Columbus (Dry hop - 6 days)
1 oz Centennial (Dry hop - 6 days)

Yeast
Wyeast WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - no starter

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

Brewday: 17 January 2015
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
No sparge
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 8.5P (1.034)

Amarillo additions should have been 1 oz @ 10 min, 2 oz for hop stand.
Water report and chemical calculations from brewersfriend.com, using "light colored & hoppy" setting.

Fermenter volume: 5.8 gallons
Fermented at 64F, raised to 67F near the end of fermentation.

Secondary: 26 January 2015
Put some air into the beer when I had to restart the siphon mid-transfer. Extra ~1/2 gallon went into a 1-gallon cubitainer with .4 oz table sugar.

Bottled: 1 February 2015
FG: 1.013
ABV: 3.4%
Bottled with 2.2 oz table sugar.

Honorable Mention: Great Basin Brew-Off 2015 (Pale & Amber Ales)

Rye Saison II

Not entirely happy with how my recent saison with WY3711 came out, I did something out of character for me: a straight-up rebrew with a single change (basically). As I'd blamed my perhaps overzealous use of Amarillo hops for the prominent plasticky quality of the first batch, this batch instead received the more traditional Styrian Goldings for the flavor/aroma component. I also upped the pre-boil volume to finish with a full five gallons, added Irish moss at the end of the boil, and altered the fermentation temp a bit, as noted below.

While the brewday caused no fuss, the fermentation was where things got more exciting for this beer. I brewed this the day before we drove cross country for the holidays, putting it in a water bath with my aquarium heater to keep it in the mid-70s during our two-week trip. Over that time, not only did our car break down twice--both times in Arizona--but a poorly insulated sprinkler pipe in the attic of the house froze and broke, running water through half the house for several hours before the fire department turned it off. And where did it break? Just above the closet in which the saison was fermenting.

Our gracious landlords were very quick to clear out our belongings from the affected areas of the house and had the water evacuated. When we returned, I found the carboy still in the cooler, now drained of water. Miraculously, it was perfectly fine; no evident infection, with the airlock more or less firmly in place. Once the house drying was over and we were able to move back in--it'll be months before repairs are completed--I gave it a few days to let the dust kicked up by the work settle and then bottled this batch. Tasting the hydrometer sample at bottling, I'm afraid that the Amarillo may not have been the culprit in creating the quality I dislike in the first batch; though not exactly the same, it's present in this second batch. I'll do a side-by-side tasting of these saisons shortly.

Update: Given some aging, the plastic note has disappeared from both batches, leaving not one but two very nice saisons. I'll get into it in the tasting notes.


Rye Saison II (The Styrian)


Batch size: 5.3 gallons

Projected OG: 1.062

Projected SRM: 7.3

Projected IBU: 36.5

Boil time: 60 minutes

Brewhouse efficiency: 71%


Grains/Fermentables

60.0% - 6 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna

30.0% - 3 lb Weyermann Rye

10.0% - 1 lb Turbinado (10 min)

Hops

.5 oz Millennium (13.5%) (60 min)

2 oz Styrian Goldings (4.5%?) (10 min)


Yeast

WY3711 French Saison - 1.5L stirplate starter

Extras

1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)

1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water

Profile: Reno

1 g Gypsum

1 g CaCl

1 mL Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 20 December 2014

Mash: 147F for 3 hours

Pre-boil volume: 6.8 gallons

Pre-boil SG (w/o turbinado): 10.4P (1.041)

Chilled to 70F. Aerated for 30 min, pitched 8 hours after KO. Started in water bath @ 55F; raised to ~75F over several hours, left there for fermentation.

Survived the great NYE flood intact. Sat @ ~80F(?) for a few days during cleanup, presumably after active fermentation finished, then moved to 50F garage for a few days prior to bottling.

Bottled: 10 Jan 2015

FG: 1.006

ABV: 7.5%

Bottled w/ 5.2 oz table sugar.

Tasting: 13 May 2015
Success! Turned out clean, spicy, and fruity with a few months of age. Also took first in Belgian ales in a local comp! Will rebrew this fall for a statewide comp.

1st Place, Belgian & French Ales: Great Basin Brew-Off 2015

2014 Beehive Brewoff Results

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

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

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

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

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

RIS III

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

1) I now have time to brew again.

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

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

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

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

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

RIS III

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

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

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

Yeast
2 pkg US-05, rehydrated

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

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

Brewday: 30 November 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

DMA BDSA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeast
WY3787 Trappist High Gravity (2-qt starter)

Extras
1 tbsp Yeast nutrient

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

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

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

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

Sugar addition #2: 15 May 2012
D-180

Sugar addition #3: 20 May 2012
D-180

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

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

4 August 2012
SG: 1.016

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

Bottled with 4.8 oz table sugar.

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

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