#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.

Session Baltic Porter

I like porters. I really like Sinebrychoff. And it's cold out now, so I've been jonesing for dark and malty beers pretty hard lately. But I'm also looking for more session-strength beers so I can keep drinking, rather than being knocked out after a bottle or two of high-octane stuff. So here we are.

Lower-gravity English porters are fantastic, but I wondered what a scaled-down Baltic porter would be like. With session beers, I try to stick to a few of Mike Tonsmiere's basic guidelines to preserve flavor in a smaller package:

 - Use more characterful base malts
 - Use a higher percentage of character malts
 - Aim for a higher saccharification rest temperature
 - Select a less attenuative, more expressive yeast strain

First three items: check. While the Wyeast German Ale strain doesn't really fit Parameter 4, it should keep the finished beer a bit more lager like, in the style of the original. Bring on the little big beer.

Minibrychoff - session version of Sinebrychoff Baltic Porter

Batch size: 5.75 gallons (5 finished gallons)
Projected OG: 1.044
Projected SRM: 32.4
Projected IBU: 23.5
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%   

Grains
57.1% - 5 lb Weyermann Vienna
22.9% - 2 lb Weyermann Munich II
11.4% - 1 lb Weyermann Carafa Special III
8.6% - 12 oz Weyermann Caramunich III

Hops
.3 oz Millennium (15.6%) (60 min)
2 oz Saaz (3.0%) (10 min)

Yeast
WY1007 German Ale - .6L stirplate starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
1/2 tablet Whirlfloc (10 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
Target profile: London (brewersfriend.com)
Ca 94.5, Mg 3.0, Na 10.0, Cl 65.1, SO4 54.3
Alkalinity as CaCO3 83.7, RA 14.6

Brewday: 26 November 2016
Mash: 155F for 90 minutes (1 qt @ 212F added to reach temp)
Pre-boil volume: 7.3 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.7P (1.038)

Water additions: 3 g Gypsum, 4 g CaCl, 5 g Chalk, 2 ml Lactic acid (88%)

5.3 gallons to fermenter. Fermented in swamp cooler at 58F ambient.

28 November 2016: High krauesen & blowoff at 58F or even slightly lower. Krauesen starting to fall, so warmed swamp cooler to 60F; will continue to raise temp ~5F every 12 hours to 68F.

20 December 2016: Fermentation has been finished for a week or more. Moved fermenter to garage (50F) until bottling.

Bottled: 19 January 2017
FG: 1.016
ABV: 3.7%
Moved 1 gallon onto 1 oz oak cubes (boiled) and 1 gallon onto .1 oz Seville orange peel, .1 oz cinnamon stick, and 1 oz toasted coconut, all soaked in Jim Beam for a couple weeks.
Bottled 3.25 gallons with 3.7 oz brown sugar and rehydrated US-05.

Bottling #2: 26 February 2017
Bottled 2 gallons (oaked, spiced) together with 2.0 oz brown sugar and rehydrated US-05. The oak and the coconut really come through; the coconut is particularly fantastic.

American Dark Wheat

One of the nice surprises from my summer cross-country trips in recent years has been Thunderhead Brewing in Kearney, Nebraska. I went in the first time not expecting too much, but was very impressed with the beers. The one that made the biggest impact on me was their Cornstalker dark wheat beer: dark in color and a little chocolatey but with a light, easy drinking body. It's built a bit like a dunkelweizen, but with a clean American yeast and American hops. On a hot day, I could go through pint after pint of this stuff.

Though I really wanted to brew something in the Cornstalker vein to have around for the warmer months, this batch didn't make it out until late autumn. It's still pretty damn drinkable in colder weather, though more like a black blonde ale (if you will) than an American dunkelweizen. The Midnight wheat is actually too smooth; only giving off the slightest hint of roast, upon rebrew I'd sub out some of this grain for chocolate malt to achieve more coffee and chocolate notes. It also stayed on the dry hops much longer than originally intended; instead of a real grapefruit punch, the hops come across as herbal. A few tweaks and better planning to put this out in the late spring, and I think it'll really be a winner.

American Dark Wheat

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.046
Projected SRM: 29.1
Projected IBU: 26.4
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 75%   

Grains
54.8% - 5 lb Great Western 2-row
32.9% - 3 lb White Wheat
8.2% - 12 oz Midnight Wheat
4.1% - 6 oz Bairds Dark Crystal

Hops

.3 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5.5%) (30 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (dry hop - 2 days)

Yeast
WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast

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

Water additions (mash)
4 g Gypsum
1 g Salt
4 g CaCl
1 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 18 September 2016
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.4 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.4P (1.037)

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

Water Profile: Reno
Target profile: Balanced Profile (brewersfriend.com)
70.9 Ca, 3.0 Mg, 22.0 Na, 83.7 Cl, 71.4 SO4
Alkalinity 20.6, RA -31.7 (ppm as CaCO3); 5.3 mash pH

Dry hop: 21 September 2016
Added as fermentation slowed, but hadn’t finished completely.

Bottled: 30 October 2016
FG: 1.011
ABV: 4.7%
Bottled with 4 oz light brown sugar.

Sample was fairly neutral. Bottled more than a full month after intended; not a lot of dry hop character, but also not super vegetal, thankfully.

Dark Mild Tasting

Happy to get to tasting notes on this beer, which I've been enjoying all summer. I still haven't really connected with this style; it strikes me as somewhere between a blonde ale (light, not overtly hoppy, easy drinking) and an English brown (rich "fruity" English yeast character, chocolate & toffee from roasted & caramel malts). This batch has been much more drinkable than past attempts. My most recent session IPA has been more of a go-to of late, but it's been nice to switch it up regularly by going to the "dark side."

Appearance: Deep brown, ruby highlights when held to the light. The latte-like head lingers for most of the session.

Smell: Toffee dominates, followed by a little burnt caramel.

Taste: Toffee, milk chocolate, hint of coffee, a little peach, a whiff of alcohol on the end. No hops of which to speak.

Mouthfeel: Round, surprisingly full for such a low-gravity beer. A little tickle of carbonation keeps it from overstaying its welcome.

Overall: Though it still strikes me as an odd duck--I haven't tried too many examples to "normalize" my palate to it--it's a solid little fighter. I'm encouraged to keep exploring this style in the future.

Dark Mild

Looking to have some sessionable beers on hand for the summer, I returned to the realm of British ales. Milds have rarely crossed my path, but I find the concept of a dark, low-alcohol beer that pushes malt and a little roast over hops intriguing. Having recently started listening to the Experimental Brewing podcast, and mild having come up there in light of the recent Session Beer Day, this recipe is loosely based on host Drew Beechum's (et al.) CDJK Mild.

I grew up the West Yorkshire Ale yeast from my sadly diacetyl-laden porter, hoping that getting past that first generation might yield better results. Thankfully it did: I've noticed no diacetyl so far. I also skipped water treatment (except carbon filtering) this time. As I continue to refine my brewing practices, it seemed a good idea to see what kind of beer my source water produces on its own before monkeying with the chemistry, which I still don't fully grasp (it's been slow going through Water for some time now). I'll pick on this aspect if/when I rebrew this recipe.

As this style traditionally gets the cask treatment, my three one-gallon cubitainers came back out on bottling day. Not having any interesting aroma hops around at the time--and this being a more malt-focused style anyway--experimentation between vessels took a different turn. One cubitainer remained plain, one got home-toasted oak cubes, and the last got a small dose of whole Stumptown coffee beans from our recent trip to Portland. I sampled liberally from all three in celebration of Memorial Day; while all were quite good, the oaked version really stood out for me. Full tasting notes coming soon!

Dark Mild

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.040
Projected SRM: 19.1
Projected IBU: 22.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 64%   

Grains/Fermentables
60.6% - 5 lb Rahr 2-row
12.1% - 1 lb Bairds Crystal 75L
3.0% - 4 oz Bairds RB
12.1% - 1 lb Flaked oats
12.1% - 1 lb Turbinado

Hops
1 oz EKG (5.7%) (60 min)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 1L starter from Winter Porter yeast cake

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

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)

Brewday: 7 May 2016
Mash: 153F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 6.9P (1.027)

Fermented in bucket with lid loose in swamp cooler at 65F ambient; locked down lid, affixed airlock, and ramped up to 68F after 3 days active fermentation.

Bottled: 23 May 2016
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.9%

3 gallons into cubitainers, each with .2 oz table sugar: 1 plain, 1 with g oak cubes (boiled), 1 with 3 g Stumptown El Nevado Colombian coffee beans (whole, loose, unsanitized).

Remainder bottled with 1.66 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.

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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.

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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%

Winter Porter

My last several batches have been more on the hop forward side, and I longed for a dark beer to pair with the colder weather. Following the old BJCP style guidelines, I believe this would fit pretty well into the mold of a brown porter; with the 2015 revision, for style considerations it now sits as an "English porter."

The beer came together without incident, but the yeast behaved differently than I expected. My experience with West Yorkshire Ale is that the kraeusen hangs around long after active fermentation ceases. This time around, I saw almost no visible activity other than a bit of trub ring. Though this batch had plenty of time to sit at room temp at the end of fermentation, this batch showed lots of diacetyl shortly after bottling. Fortunately, a lot of that has seemed to dissipate over time. The resulting beer is pleasant, though it has an edge that I attribute to too much roast malt. I kept pushing up the roasted grains in BeerSmith to get it dark enough; the end result is plenty brown-black, but could probably do with a reduction in these malts to keep it from getting to acrid. The remaining diacetyl works with the acrid roast character in a not unpleasant way, resulting in a bit of dark fruit character rounding out the flavor. Not bad; would rebrew with tweaks.

Winter Porter

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.045
Projected SRM: 29.1
Projected IBU: 27.9
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 66%   

Grains/Fermentables
67.5% - 7 lb Rahr 2-row
14.5% - 1.5 lb Brown malt
9.6% - 1 lb UK dark crystal (75-80L)
4.8% - 8 oz UK Pale Chocolate
3.6% - 6 oz UK Chocolate

Hops

.3 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
1.3 oz EKG (5.7%) (10 min)
.3 oz Styrian Goldings (3.8%) (10 min)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - no starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
107 Ca, 11.2 Mg, 44.1 Na, 63.7 SO4
Alkalinity 171.6, RA 88.7

Brewday: 10 February 2016
Mash: 13 qts @ 154F for 60 minutes + 2 qts @ 212F to get to temp
1st sparge: 12 qts @ 190F
2nd sparge: 13 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume:  gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10P (1.0)

Salt additions (to mash): 1 g Gypsum, 3 g Epsom salt, 4 g CaCl, 11 g Chalk, 5 g Baking Soda, 8 ml Lactic Acid (88%)

5.8 gallons at 64F to the fermenter; no aeration past transfer splashing.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 65F ambient.

13 February 2016: Visible activity stopped without any sign of the never-ending krauesen characteristic of this yeast. Removed from swamp cooler & agitated; sat at ambient (68F). Moderate surface bubbling—not a real krauesen yet—appeared over the course of the day.

Bottled: 2 March 2016
FG: 1.018
ABV: 3.5%
Bottled with 3.4 oz table sugar.

Moved final gallon onto Sour Culture No. 2.

Sour Bottled: 30 April 2016
FG: 1.013
ABV: 4.2%
Good lactic sourness.
Bottled with .3 oz table sugar.

Tasting

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.

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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.

American Oatmeal Brown tasting

Catching up on my tasting notes! I fairly tore through this batch of hoppy American brown ale with oats, but managed to show enough restraint to keep a final bottle for tasting notes. It's had a little while to hang out in the fridge, but I don't think the time has really detracted from the overall impact of the beer. The way fruity American hops combine with the cocoa and roast character of the dark grains is fantastic. I doubt I'll drink browns all the time, but I certainly won't avoid them as I once did.

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Date: 16 February 2015

Venue: Our house

Appearance - Nearly black, opaque; big-bubble cappuccino foam drops after a few minutes.

Smell - Lots of orange, a little pine.

Taste - Pine, chocolate covered orange. Not a lot of malt presence. Solid bitter finish.

Mouthfeel - Light-medium body; gets nicely thick & creamy when chewed.

Overall - This was the last regular bottle, and it's mellowed a bit. The hops still sing pretty well, though, especially when it's warmed up a little. The effect of the oats on the mouthfeel was definitely worth repeating. On a rebrew I might back off the dark grains to achieve more of a brown color and further restrain the roast character. Pretty damn tasty, and very happy with how it came out.

American Oatmeal Brown

Salt Lake City's Epic Brewing Company (not to be confused with the brewery of the same name in New Zealand) was definitely one of the discovered gems of our three years in Utah. They specialize in high-point (Utah definition: over 4.0% ABV) beers, which state law prohibits from being served on tap. Possibly my favorite beer that they produce is their Santa Cruz Brown Ale, an American brown. This is the beer that brought me back to brown ales. I've often found the style to be overly sweet and unappealing, and a number of years ago had stopped even trying them. This example, as the name implies, takes a West Coast approach. It has the great toasty, malty, chocolatey notes one expects of

brown ales, but balances it with a drier finish and plenty of hop bitterness and aroma.

Looking to create a similar beer myself, I opted to aim a little lower in ABV, shooting for between five and six percent. Vienna was still my base grain on hand, lending more character than straight 2-row. Balancing it were moderate amounts of crystal and chocolate malts; not too much to get cloyingly sweet, but enough to add more malt structure and body. The grist also included a fair portion of oats; I've done this a few times recently and feel like it can add a little extra dimension to the beer. Accompanying this malt bill was a wallop of Amarillo and Centennial, both as a hop steep/whirlpool addition and in the dry hop. The neutral American yeast added a little bit of fruitiness but mostly stayed out of the way of the malt and hop profiles.

As Ron Pattinson might say, this beer goes down a treat. I'm almost completely out now, though I still have a bottle saved for tasting notes. This is the kind of thing I'd consider keeping on hand as my "house beer." I suspect there will be followup batches in the not-too-distant future.

One more thing... I've made another step into joining the twenty-first century social media community by opening an Instagram account. In typical beer nerd(/hipster? I can't conceive of myself as hip) fashion, it's essentially a rundown of beers I'm drinking with quick tasting notes. Lots of sexy shots of our collection of Funkwerks goblets, guaranteed. For those who are interested, here's me: @bier_here.

American Oatmeal Brown

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.054
Projected SRM: 20.2
Projected IBU: ~48.1(whirlpool/steep hops as 15 min)
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 75%

Grains
76.1% - 8 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
9.5% - 1 lb Flaked Oats
4.8% - .5 lb C40
4.8% - .5 lb C60
4.8% - .5 lb American Chocolate

Hops
.5 oz Magnum (13.5%) (60 min)
1 oz Amarillo (8.2%) (0 min) - 30 min steep
1 oz Centennial (11.8%) (0 min) - 30 min steep
2 oz Amarillo (Dry hop - 5 days)
1 oz Centennial (Dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
US-05 (repitch from Summer Farewell Blonde)

Water
Profile: Reno
1 g Gypsum
1 g Epsom salts 1 g CaCl
1 g CaCO3

Brewday: 21 October 2014
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6.9 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 11.2P (1.045)
Fermented in swamp cooler at 64-66F.

Active fermentation done after about 5 days. Bumped up to 70F & swirled to make sure it completes any unfinished business.

Secondary: 6 November 2014
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.5%

Bottled: 11 November 2014
Bottled with 4.6 oz of brown sugar.

Tasting: 16 February 2015
Some pine is present, but as this beer warms a little, the biggest sensory impression I get--other than hoppy--is chocolate covered orange. Fantastic.

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.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

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

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

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

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

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

Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ferment in swamp cooler at 64-66F.

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

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

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

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

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

Brown Malt Porter

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brown Malt Porter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RIS III

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

1) I now have time to brew again.

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

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

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

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

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

RIS III

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

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

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

Yeast
2 pkg US-05, rehydrated

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

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

Brewday: 30 November 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Toasted Oatmeal Stout & the Simplicity of the One-Beer Brewday

I finally had a chance to put the oats I toasted to use.  While stout is a favoured style this time of year for us, the oatmeal variety has usually left me wanting.  The main problem, of course, are my own expectations: what do I think oats are going to add to all that stouty goodness already present?  In my mind, it's probably more what you get from lactose: a bump in sweetness and body.  In reality, there's an added fullness, but a certain slickness on the palate as well.  Why not just throw in some lactose and call this a sweet stout then?  Cos I really want to wrap my head (and taste buds) around the concept of oatmeal stout in a new way.  That, and these oats smelled so damn good.

Simple American base malt balanced with equal parts roasted barley, chocolate malt, and caramel malt set the stage.  While I often like to go with the more heavily roasted British grains in dark beers, I wanted to make sure

that coffee and roast characters didn't steal the stage from the brother grain that gives this style its name, so I went with the American versions for colour and the normal stout personality.  The oats had plenty of time to mellow and let any harsh aromas and flavours that developed from their time in the oven to dissipate before use; when I opened the bag of toasted wonder on brewday, the first thing that came to mind was coconut.  In these cold days, there was something about that scent that will not get old for me.  A bit of Galena for bittering without trying to make too much of a hoppy impression, a small starter of White Labs Dry English yeast for a bit of character and a respectably low finishing gravity, and it was time to brew.

Nailed the mash-in temp; managed to put it right where it should have been, sometimes more of a struggle for me than it should be.  Mash efficiency came in a bit low; not sure if that came from the wild card contribution of the oats--uncertain what to really expect from them in terms of fermentable sugar--or the fact that it's just been a while since I've brewed.  The day went on, and the brew came to a happy end in the fermenter.  The best part of it all, honestly, was how well everything seemed to come together because I wasn't also working out the logistics of a second beer at the same time.  It's been quite a while since I've done a (relatively) simple one-beer brewday, and it went so smoothly it almost seemed untrustworthy.  You could get used to this kind of ease.  Thing is, I'm too greedy to make that a normal thing; I want to get the maximum return (= multiple full fermenters, of different styles if possible) out of a given brewday.  Oh, the incredible struggles of the homebrewer.

 Toasted Oatmeal Stout

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.048
Projected SRM: 29.1
Projected IBU: 34.2
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%

Grains
74.0% - 7 lb Malteurop 2-row
10.1% - 15.3 oz Organic quick oats, toasted
5.3% - 8 oz Roasted barley (US)
5.3% - 8 oz Chocolate (US)
5.3% - 8 oz Briess C-80

Hops
.7 oz Galena (13.2%) (60 min)

Yeast
WLP007 Dry English Ale - 1L starter

Extras
1 tbsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)

Water Additions (mash)
5 qts Distilled water

Brewday: 17 November 2012
Mash: 153F for 75 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6.3 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 11P (1.044)

The toasted oats have a great nutty aroma in the bag, even with a coconut overtone; continues into the brewkettle
5.3 gallons into the fermenter
Fermented in swamp cooler at 58F ambient

20 November 2012: Active primary fermentation complete; yeast has flocced out and krauesen has completely dropped.  Agitation of the yeast cake yields no renewed activity.  Pulled from swamp cooler and brought to room temp.

Bottled: 8 December 2012
FG: 1.016
ABV: 4.2%
Bottled with 3.5 oz table sugar.