Release the swarm!

It's been a slow year for my hops. The gray, rainy June stunted the vigorous growth of May, but they seem to be back on track. I also added some more fertilizer, in the form of an organic fertilizer tea, which has helped. I need a bigger pot for my Cascades, they're pretty rootbound. But the Chinooks and Centennials are doing well and the new Tettenanger rhizome is settling in nicely. But as usually, an annual problem has finally arisen.

Hops are fairly easygoing plants overall, but they suffer from a few problems. First among them is everyone's favorite little green bastard: the aphid. Aphids love hops. Left unchecked they will blanket the newly grown leaves and the apical bud, they'll infest the hop cones, and they'll seriously stunt the bine's growth. If you see aphids you really need to get on top of it, ASAP.

Depending on how large the hops have grown you can do several things to fight aphids. Commercially, industrial pesticides are used. And to be fair, there are times when they are really infested that I think "Man, a little Diazinon would show 'em what for!" Which is one of the reasons that organic hops are so hard to come by. It's just so much easier to spray insecticides. But there's a geographical component to the problem too. Three-quarters of the country's hops are grown in the Yakima Valley, and the fields usually touch each other. Organic certification would be difficult for any one field, as the spray from his neighbors would reach his fields. Plus the social flak of "Hey neighbor, I now have to spray my fields more because your organic field is just a nursery for pests and diseases!" Add the economics of it all and you can see why organic hops are somewhat rare. Which is partly why they have been exempted from the Organic certification for beer. Well that, and I imagine that AB-InBev's 'Stone Mill' Organic Pale Ale would use all or most of the country's current production.

But if you are growing at home you can be as organic as you want to be. Not being stuck with an economy of scale, you can use a few more labor intensive methods.
If the plants are small you can just use your hands, crushing and flicking the pests off as best you can. You can use a water jet to blast them off. You can use an insecticidal soap, which works but I've found it's not usually great for the leaves. Or you can set your own biological control in motion: release the swarm!

Ladybugs. Lots of ladybugs. 1500 ladybugs. Picked them up at Swanson's Nursery for about $12. That'll put a dent in the aphid population.

One of the problems with ladybugs though is keeping them around. It doesn't do you any good if they decide the grass is greener in your neighbor's yard and just take off. So you need to encourage them to see the many perks, amenities, tax-breaks, etc. that your yard has to offer.

I started by sticking them in the fridge once I got home. A couple hours cold makes them slow and hungry. Then I released them as it got dark, since they tend to only fly during the daytime. Since it was right around the Solstice, that was about 10:30 at night. I also prepped their new home. First I sprayed the bottoms of the hop plants with the hose a bit. This gives the ladybugs water to drink and also makes them "stick"; they don't tend to fly when they're wet. It helped that it was gray and rainy for a few days too, they explore more on bright, sunny days. I sprinkled them around the base of the hop plants, and a few more around the garden. Then went to bed.
Then next morning they were all over the yard, and especially all over the bines, happily munching away on the aphids. But it's not really about how many they eat the first time around. Yes, the adults will eat lots of aphids but mostly they're thinking about other adult things: are there mates and is this a good place to lay eggs? If there's enough food around, they ladybugs will start getting it on like a tree-full of monkeys on nitrous. And they did. You see, what you really want are the ladybug larvae, which look like little weird alligators . I've heard they can eat 50+ aphids each, a day. And once they pupate into adult ladybugs the next round begins.

They stuck around in noticeable amounts for a good week or so, and I still see a few around. Hopefully the rest laid lots of eggs before they took off to wherever it is ladybugs go.

Read more

Brewday: The Great Classic American Pilsner Off

American Pilsner.

Could any beer be more loved, and loathed, than American Pilsner? Loved, because it makes up the vast, vast majority of beer sold in this country, and increasingly, the world. Loathed, because it has a reputation for being tasteless, bland, low-brow and unstoppable in its quest for total world beer domination.

It's hip to trash on American light lager beers when you're a homebrewer/beer snob. After all, we owe much of the current craft brewing movement to a rejection over the last 40 years of these mass-market lagers by small brewers and their supportive customers. Popular mass-market beers are bad, because they're popular and mass-market, while all the cool kids drink craft beer.

This contrarian stance seems a very human one to take. Many people start drinking fizzy yellow beer, then move on to more complicated styles as they get into brewing or are exposed to more craft beer. Your tastes grow up. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

I was going to paraphrase that as "When I was a child, I drank as a child..." but that didn't seem quite right. The point is that these beers are something you move past as a regrettable proof of your earlier state of ignorance. Now you're a Big Boy and drink nothing but Double IPAs and Russian Imperial Stouts. You rebel, you.

Eventually though I think we come full circle. The fact is, American Light Lagers are very, very hard to brew. There is no room for error, nothing to hide behind. And it's a technological marvel that every can of Bud tastes the same the world over. Seriously, that's an achievement on par with the Moon Landing. So you begin to respect it, in a grudging kind of way.

But it's still, well, bland. But it is designed to be that way. The irony of American Lager is that the very height of the Brewing Arts is used to produce a beer that tastes as much like nothing as possible.

But it wasn't always like this. What if there was another way?

The Classic American Pilsner

The story of American Light Lager is the story of Railroads, Immigration, Prohibition, Class Warfare, Junk Science, Television, Advertising, War, Monopolization, Baby Boomers, the Growth of the Middle Class, Suburbia, and well, basically, the story of everything that happened in the last 150 years. In short, way too complicated for much discussion here. Suffice to say, many factors contributed to a race-to-the-bottom in terms of flavor. Bud-Lite today doesn't taste anything like Budweiser did, say, 120 years ago. In fact, the beer that built the fortunes of Messrs. Busch, Miller, Coors, and Pabst was a very different beast indeed.

So why not make one? After all, the joy of homebrewing is the ability to brew whatever strikes your fancy. Why not brew a Classic American Pilsner like Grandpa, or even Great-Grandpa might have drank when he was young?

Unfortunately, this beer is functionally extinct. What would such a beer look like? Much of the homebrewing revival of the style can be attributed to the writings of Jeff Renner, whose research and methods have been used for years by homebrewers resurrecting the style at home. (See The Revival of the Classic American Pilsner, Zymurgy, 2000; and Reviving the Classic American Pilsner - A Shamefully Neglected Style, Brewing Techniques, 1995.)

Traditionally, recently immigrated Continental brewers would have been faced with a challenge. Most barley grown in America back then was 6-row, meaning that the kernels grow in six vertical rows around the stalk, instead of just two as in 2-row barley. This created a problem, because 6-row has higher protein and thicker husks than 2-row, which means it could cause chill haze when used to brew the newly popular, and preferably clear, lager beers.

But 6-row had other tricks up its sleeve. Firstly, it was suited to a wider variety of growing conditions which meant that it was planted and thrives in many areas of the country. When malted, 6-row also had the benefit of increased enzyme levels over its 2-row brother, meaning it could easily convert high percentages of unmalted grain adjuncts. The higher percentage of husks also meant that lautering was fairly easy, even with gummy adjunct grains. Substituting in a percentage of corn or rice meant that the protein levels of the 6-row could be tempered a bit, resulting in a clearer beer, while the cheaper adjuncts and ready availability of the malt saved the brewer money. Consumers also enjoyed the mellow sweetness of corn, and the crispy dry quality of rice. It is a match made in heaven that continues in the American Light Lagers and Malt Liquors of today.

So what's the difference between those beers of yesteryear and today's beers? Well, there are several important technical differences in the industrial brewing process, but I think the most important difference is hops. The German and Czech brewers tended to hop these beers like a Continental Pilsner, making the hops noticeable not just as bitterness but also in taste and aroma. Traditionally they would have used Cluster, America's historic variety, but also possibly some of the Noble varieties, either imported or cultivated for the brewery. But over the years this hoppiness was slowly chipped away, until now most American Pilsners are about 1/3 as hoppy as their forebearers.

So in a nutshell, a Classic American Pilsner (or CAP, as they're often affectionately called) is a light lager, made with 6-row malt and high percentage of corn or rice, probably a bit stronger than modern lagers, and hopped at a level similar to a German or Czech Pilsner.

Well, I'm up for a challenge and my New Years Resolution was to brew lighter, more drinkable beers, so I figured I'd give it a try. I set out to write a recipe in BeerSmith, trying to use as many ingredients that I already had as possible. Most notably the beer would be based on 2-Row pale malt, because I had a 50# sack of it.

Another important step would be the use of First Wort Hopping. An ounce of my hops, normally destined for late addition for flavor and aroma, would instead go into the freshly run-off wort and kept hot (175-180) for the duration of the sparge. This results in a smoother bitterness, and retention of aromas and flavors that would normally be boiled away in a conventional hop addition. Why this works no one really knows. One theory is that the hop oils and acids attach somehow to other molecules in the wort prior to the boil, which helps them survive the process and emerge on the other side. Personally, I chalk it up to magic elves. Thank you magic elves.

Water is really important for pilsners, and Seattle's water is, big surprise, basically rain water. In the winter our water comes from rainfall, and in the summer it's melting snow. So it's well suited to brewing Pilsners. Just a little calcium chloride would be needed to drop the pH into the right area, and lactic acid to lower the pH of the sparge and knock-out water.

But as I worked on the recipe I quickly got in over my head, mostly due to mash schedule issues. Protein rest or no protein rest? Multi-step, or just infusion? Cereal mash or flaked corn? Decoctions? Argh...

So I sent a post out on AHA Techtalk to see what others thought and ended up kicking a beehive. I received a lot of advice, opinions, uppity snide comments, and well meaning suggestions, much of which was contradictory. Finally I even heard from Jeff Renner himself. Based on his suggestions I put a recipe together, but I was still somewhat attached to the first one I'd cooked up by myself.

The Project - A Tale of Two Pilsners

In the end I decided that I would brew two CAPs. One I would make as simply as possible. 2-row malt, flaked corn, single infusion. The other would more or less follow the recipe in Renner's 2000 Zymurgy article. 6-row malt, corn grits in a cereal mash, with multiple rests following the traditional American Double Mash schedule. Yeast will be the same. Hops the same. Water treatment the same. Fermentation temp the same. Carbonation levels, etc.

It was to be a battle of convenience vs. authenticity. Historical Perspective vs. Modern Sensibilities. At the end, I'll take a couple growlers to the club meeting and see what people think. Was it worth the extra effort? Is one more stylistically accurate, but the other tastes better? Well have to wait and see.

Brewday #1: CAP 'n Trade 2-Row Classic American Pilsner

This recipe was designed to use ingredients I already had, and to be a simple and easy as possible.

Classic American Pilsner, All grain, 5.25 gallons, 90 minute boil
Est. O.G.: 1.057
Est. F.G.: 1.015
Est. ABV: 5.6%
Act. O.G.: 1.060, overboiled so diluted down to 1.053 with distilled water
Act. F.G.: 1.011-1.012
Est Act ABV: 5.5%
32.5 IBU
3.7 SRM

Grain Bill:

• 8 lbs 2-Row Pale Malt (Great Western)
• 3 lbs Flaked Corn

Mash: Single Infusion Mash at 150, then infusion to 170 for mash-out. Added a couple handfulls of rice hulls with the mash-out infusion, and 0.1 ml lactic acid to the knock-out infusion water.

Mash Water treatment: 3 gm Calcium Chloride. Campden tablet to remove chloramines.

Sparge water treated with 0.5 ml lactic acid. Collected 7.5 gallons for the boil.

The Boil:

• 1 oz Domestic Hallertau, leaf, 4.7% AA. First wort hop.
  
• 1/4 tsp Calcium Chloride at 90 (to help buffer pH of boil)
  
• 1 oz Domestic Hallertau, at 60 minutes.
• 0.25 oz Domestic Hallertau, at 15 minutes.
• Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes.

After 90 minutes, cooled to 53 degrees using my plate chiller. Settled cold break in carboy for two hours in a chest freezer set at 40 degrees, which you can see in the image to the left. Racked off of cold break into another carboy and oxygenated wort. Pitched two packets dry SafLager-23, rehydrated in warm water with some GoFerm 15 minutes prior to pitching.

Fermenting in a fridge set to 48 degrees. I'll pull it out and give it a D-rest at 60 degrees for three to four days after 9 days fermenting cold. Then lager for 6 weeks at 34 and keg.

Notes:

Nearly flawless brewday and super easy. Had my first boilover in a long time though, too busy blogging... :) Minor mess, need to pay more attention! Vigorous boil to encourage protein break, actually overboiled wort and had to dilute with distilled water. My tap water is cold right now, on full blast it was chilling to 53. Not too shabby, was shooting for 48-50. Mash was easy, but flaked corn tends to float, which made seeing the sparge water level over the grain bed a bit difficult.

Procedure for first wort hopping: collected a gallon of wort in a 5-gallon bucket, then mixed in the 1 oz. of leaf Hallertauer First Wort Hops. Continued to collect wort until I had three gallons in the bucket. Transferred to the kettle and kept wort and hops around 175-180 degrees as best I could. As the rest of the wort continued to sparge I kept adding it to the kettle at 1 gallon intervals, keeping it hot, until I had the full boil volume and began the boil.

So there's the 2-row CAP. Two days later I invited some interested members of my homebrew club over and we brewed the 6-row CAP.

Brewday #2: CAP 'n Trade 6-Row Classic American Pilsner

This one is designed to be a far more traditional CAP than the 2-row version. The recipe is based on Jeff Renner's 2000 Zymurgy article. It utilizes a cereal mash, which gelatinizes the starches in the corn grits and acts as a sort of decoction to pull the main mash temperature up for an alpha rest at 158. Otherwise pretty much everything is the same: water, hops, boil time, minerals etc.

Classic American Pilsner, All grain, 5.25 gallons, 90 minute boil
Est. O.G.: 1.052 (6-row has less extract yield than 2-row)
Est. F.G.: 1.013
Est. ABV: 5%
Act. O.G.: 1.050 (Underboiled, ended up with closer to 5.75 gallons)
Act. F.G.: 1.010-1.012
Est Act ABV: 5.1-5.3%
33.8 IBU
3.7 SRM

Grain Bill:

• 8 lbs 6-row malt
• 3 lbs Corn grits (Two 20 oz. packages was only 2 1/2 lbs. It was like hot dogs and hot dog buns, I wasn't going to buy another box just to get that last half pound. So I used a half pound of coarse cornmeal instead.)

The Classic American Double Mash

This was the mash schedule I worked from. I printed it out and posted it in the kitchen so it was readily available.

• Prepped 3 gallons of water at 114 degrees with 3gm of Calc Chloride and some campden tablet.
  
• Time 00: In a large pot, mash in 3 lbs corn and 1 lb 6-row malt with 5 quarts of 166° prepared water to hit 153° F
  
• Time 15: Mash in main mash of 7 lbs 6-row with 1.4 gallons at 114° to hit 104° F
  
• Time 20: Bring cereal mash to boil
  
• Time 30: Cereal mash boiling
  
• Time 35: Add about 1 gallon boiling water to ramp main mash to 144-146° F
  
• Time 65: Add cereal mash to main mash, adjust temperature as needed to 158° F. Have boiling water and cold water ready for this.
  
• Time 95: Ramp to 170° F mashout. Should take about 1.5 gallons of boiling water. Include .1ml lactic acid in water.
  
• Time 105: Begin sparge and lauter

That was the plan anyway, and it went more or less like that. I had to use some boiling water to adjust temperatures here and there. Most notably, as the cereal mash got thicker I turned the heat down, and so when I added it to the main mash it wasn't as hot as it could have been. As a result I had a hard time hitting the 158 degree target and got closer to 154. Oh well. Iodine tests confirmed conversion at Time 95 so I mashed out and began the sparge. Included .5 ml lactic acid in the sparge water.

Sparge, boil, hopping, cooling, pitching and everything else was the same as the previous beer. As a result of the 6-row and a less rolling boil, I ended up with an O.G. of 1.050 and 5.75 gallons of wort. Oh well, at 5% ABV it's still stronger than Bud-Lite...

So there we have it. A tale of two pilsners. They are fermenting away, and the next post will be in two months or so when they've been lagered and kegged. Then comes the taste test. Will authenticity triumph? Will modern malts make a cleaner beer? Will both be good in their own different ways? Most importantly: did I brew a clean lager?

We'll find out.

UPDATE: The Results

Read more

2009 Pinot Gris

Last Sunday I pressed the grapes for my first wine from whole grapes! I've made several batches of wine from kits before, a Viognier and a Sav Blanc, and they turned out quite well. Making kit wine is actually very easy, and relatively cost effective. I figured it cost me around $3 a bottle, so if I made wine that tasted like it was worth more than that then it was a success! And it was.

This year though I went all out and am making two batches of wine straight from the grape. I got in contact with a man named Doug Schaad, owner of Schaad Vineyards. He's been supplying quality grapes to small-scale and home winemakers in the Seattle area for decades now. When I showed up he greeted me looking like a country doctor fresh in from an afternoon's flyfishing in some storybook Garrison Keillor-esq Minnesota. Which is funny, because he actually is a doctor and faculty at UW Med School and is very into fishing. But he was friendly and helpful to a somewhat confused newbie like me. His vineyard is next door to Rex Hill's vineyard in the Chehalem Mountain AVA of Oregon, which is a sub-AVA of the greater Willamette AVA and about 20 miles outside of Portland. The AVA has some other notable wineries, Adelsheim and Ponzi are there, as well as Momokawa Sake's brewery. It's known for Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. Though I had the option of getting some Pinot Noir, I'm taking it a bit easy on this first run and will only be doing whites this year. Next year I'll take what I learned, plus a winter's worth of study and anxious anticipation, and make some kickass Pinot Noir.

First up was Pinot Gris. The first grapes to ripen in the AVA are often the Pinot Gris and sure enough mine were ready to be pressed and picked up on Sunday. The first step was going through the 70 pound tubs of grapes to select the ones I wanted, then guestimating the amount I'd need to get a good 5 gallons out of it. I went with 110 lbs and we loaded the grapes up and sent them through the Crushinator. Seriously, the crusher-destemmer is a monstrously cool toy. Near as I can tell you load grapes in the top, then tiny gremlins crush the grapes, spitting them out into one bucket, then shoot the now grapeless stem cluster out into another bucket. Magic! (Actually it is a combination of rollers that crush the grapes and a drum with holes in it that lets the grapes fall through, then spits out the stem. Or gremlins, whichever you prefer.)

We then loaded the grapes into the press. Sampled some of Doug's wine. Collected the free run juice. Sampled some more wine. Started pressing. More wine... You get the picture. I had brought a 6.5 gallon carboy figuring it would be enough for my 5-ish gallons. Well the juice just kept coming and coming. By the end I had borrowed a carboy and was at 7 gallons. Maybe 110 lbs was too much. Meh. My only worry is running out of carboys, they are ALL in use right now. It's ridiculous.

So the numbers.

Everett Cellars 2009 Pinot Gris

• 23.5 Brix (1.099 SG)
• pH at pressing = 3.18
• Titratable Acidity (TA) of must = .65 g/100ml
• Estimated Final ABV = 13.5 to 13.8% alcohol
  

So as you can see the acidity is a bit low (.7 to .9 is more normal for dry whites) and the Brix is a bit high, which is pretty standard for Gris. The wines tend to be fruity, fairly high in alcohol but with lower acidity than say, a dry Riesling. I may tweak the TA a bit later but right now I'm just letting 'er rip. Also I have to note that I got the pH and TA readings later from Doug. Turns out the Sodium Hydroxide in my acid titration kit expired two years ago. Ooops. And my pH strips are only accurate +/- .1 pH. Which doesn't seem like a lot. But I couldn't tell if it was 3.1 or 3.2, and due to the logarithmic progression of pH that .1 is a fairly important difference. It also is very important in adding the correct amount of sulfite, as its effectiveness is pH dependent.

But I got the must home, did the tests, sulfited the must, stuck the carboys in the lagering fridge for 24 hours, racked off the solids that sank to the bottom, then pitched the yeast. I used two packets of Lalvin D-47, rehydrated in warm water and 7 grams GoFerm per packet. Today I added 7 grams total Fermaid K to the carboys to really get the fermentation going. And it is. I've got some very bubbly carboys in the basement.

Fortunately we get to drink this one young! A couple weeks of fermentation, then racking and clarifying, then into bottles and we start drinking it within about 3-4 months probably.

Up next I have some of his Riesling on order. Last week the grapes were only at 19 Brix so they've got a way to go yet. Hopefully two more weeks should do it. Cross your fingers and hope for good weather down there!

Read more

Brewday: Fresh Hop Beer!

So the weatherman was predicting the end of Summer here, and we had one last glorious weekend ahead. My Centennials were doing pretty well, as you can see above. My Cascades and Willamettes grew to about 7 feet tall and then just stopped. No weird diseases or pests. Just stopped. But they were planted near the end of June so I can't really blame them. My Chinooks have flowered but the cones weren't ripe yet. I decided to go ahead and make the Fresh Hop beer with just the Centennials. If it began to get cold and rainy while I waited for the Chinooks to come around I might lose the whole lot to mildews and diseases. The first year is about building root structure anyway. Can't wait for next year!

So I climbed the ladder, unhooked the C-clamp that the rope was tied to on the roof, and we harvested what we could. I'd had aphid problems on the Centennials and Cascades. Sprayed with insecticidal soap three times throughout the season. But I think what really helped was a wasp colony that found the vines and started eating the aphids. Still, freaked me out when I had to climb up there...

We managed to harvest a mighty... two ounces. Yep. Woo hoo. With the 1/4 ounce I'd already harvested and dried, that was it. I'd planned on using six ounces of fresh hops in this recipe, so I faced the choice of: use what you have and see what happens, or cut with Cascade and make something drinkable but inauthentic. Decided, screw it. Use only the 2 oz and see what happens. The bitterness of fresh hops can be difficult to dial in, so I did use an ounce of Newport to get the IBUs spot on. Anyway, the reason you use fresh hops is their superior aroma and flavor anyway, not bitterness.

Fresh Hop Pale Ale
All Grain. 5.25 gallons
Est. O.G. 1.054
Act. O.G. 1.061 (over boiled, oops. Diluted later with a gallon distilled water.)
Est F.G. 1.012
Est ABV 5.2%
IBU = somewhere between 40 and 45

9.5 lbs Pale Ale Malt
8 oz Crystal 80
4 oz Cara-Pils

Mash at 151 for 75 minutes. Knockout at 168. Collect 7.5 gallons.
90 minute boil
1 oz Newport (11.1% AA) at 60 minutes.
1 oz Fresh Centennial at 15. I would have preferred 3 oz.
1 oz Fresh Centennial at 0. I would have preferred 3 oz.
1/4 oz Centennial (dry hop)
Whirlfloc at 15.

Used Wyeast London III. You could use American Ale and it would be fine. I just needed a starter for my upcoming Pumpkin Ale.

Oh yeah, water modifications. Into the mash: 1 T pH 5.2 stabilizer, 2 t gypsum, 1/4 t kosher salt, 1 t Epsom salts.

UPDATE 11/19/09

The beer has turned out well. It's pleasantly hoppy actually, despite only 2 oz of fresh hops. It seems to have picked up a floral, perfumey hopiness more than anything, which is really, really weird considering it was Centennial hops. There's a bit of grassiness too, which I attribute to dry hopping with the 1/4 oz dry whole Centennial. Won't be doing that next year. Needs a bit more body. I'll mash at 154 next year.

Read more

Brewday: Baltic Avenue Porter

A week ago I moved my two Oktoberfestbiers in to kegs and was left with the accumulated yeasty dregs. What oh what to do? Brew something I haven't brewed in years, obviously. A Baltic Porter.

Heck, the last one was at least four years ago. I seem to remember a hurricane interfering with my lagering. Katrina? Wilma? I can't remember. But it all came out ok, the coconut version took gold at the Coconut Cup that year. I put a grainbag full of toasted coconut flakes in the secondary of half the porter.

The style itself comes from Russia and the other Baltic countries, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Basically it's a strong porter, almost like a Russian Imperial Stout, but brewed with lager yeast and Czech hops due to the location. A good one is incredibly complex and smooth, no harsh burnt or roasted flavors, just lots of coffee, caramel, chocolate, and a hint of weird fruit (raisins, plums) sometimes. Using Carafa will keep the bitter harshness down while providing the color and flavor of burnt Black Patent malt. Authenticity might dictate using Polish Lublin hops, but I used Newport because, well, I had Newport.

What's fun about this style is that it was a seriously Cold War beer, and it wasn't until the Iron Curtain fell that we started seeing it in the West. Which is a shame, because they're delicious. My favorite of the commerical examples are Baltika 6 and Zweic, though for American brewers Duck Rabbit and Victory's Baltic Thunder are also pretty darn tasty.

Brewed on a nice sunny day with no major cockups. Decided to run out during the mash and pick up two more packets of yeast. Used a mix of Wyeast Bavarian and Munich Lager yeasts, since I combined the Oktoberfest yeasts anyways. Gravity suffered for some reason. I moved the rollers on my grain mill closer together for the next batch. Seems to have fixed it.

Baltic Avenue Porter

All Grain. 5.25 Gallons.
Est O.G. 1.089.
Act O.G. 1.082.
Est. F.G 1.016-1.020.
Est. ABV 8 - 8.5%
32 IBU







12 lbs German Pilsner malt
3 lbs Munich Malt
12 oz Caramunich (I subbed Caravienna because I was out of caramunich. Oops)
8 oz Crystal 80
8 oz Chocolate Malt
4 oz Carafa II
2 oz Special B

Mashed 90 minutes at 150. Knockout at 168. Collected a total of 7.5 gallons to boil down to 5.25.

Water modification in the mash = pH 5.2 stabilizer, 1/4 t gypsum, 1/4 t kosher salt, 1 t chalk. No lactic acid adjustment for the water, Seattle's water has low residual alkalinity and though it has a high pH it drops quickly and easily. The dark malts would be more than enough.

Hops
1 oz Newport (11.1% AA) at 90.
0.5 oz Czech Saaz (3% AA) at 15.

Whirlfloc tablet at 15.

Pitched with a packet of Wyeast Bavarian Lager, Wyeast Munich Lager, and yeast cake of both of those from two Oktoberfest batches.

Ferment at 50 degrees for 10-14 days, bring up for a diacetyl rest at 62 degrees for at least 3 days, then rack to secondary to finish, stepping temp down a degree or two every day to 34 degrees. Leave there for a couple weeks. Keg and serve sometime in February probably.

Update: 2/15/10

Ugh. It has a heavy phenolic note that is totally offputting. My guess is that it wasn't cooled enough before pitching. I took it off tap and let it hang out for six weeks to see if it improved. Nope. Looks like it's the sink for this batch. The recipe is sound though, I just need to cool it better before pitching. Based on what I've been getting using ground water during winter here, it looks like lagers are going to be a seasonal project.

Read more

Brewday - Hop Suey Double IPA

So I've got a freezer full of hop pellets. They were bought in bulk, or won in raffles, or were sample packets Hop Union sends to brewers. Anyway, I've got a lot of them. And some of them are getting pretty old. And I like big IPAs, and my dad likes big IPAs, so I figured I'd invite him over and we'd do a freezer-cleaner monstrously hoppy double IPA.

It all begins with Hop Suey. I went through the freezer and poured in any and all open bags of hop pellets until I had a whole pound. I didn't really keep track, it's not meant to be repeatable. But I think it contained:

• Cascade
• Chinook
• Centennial
• Santiam
• Simcoe
• Summit
• Mt Hood
• Maybe some Amarillos too

The base beer was based on the recipe by Vinnie at Russian River for Pliny the Elder. Certainly one of, if not the, best double IPAs produced. I definitely agree with his philosophy of: keep the grain bill light and simple, attenuate well, let the hops talk, and dry hop like crazy!

HOP SUEY

5.25 gallons. Est OG 1.077. Est FG 1.018-1.014. Est ABV 7.75%

• 12 lbs Pale Malt
• 8 oz Carahell
• 4 oz Crystal 60
• 1 lb Invert Sugar (add in last 15)
• whirfloc tablet (last 15)
  

Mashed in at 151, then another infusion to 168.
Water Treatment: 2t gypsum, 1/4 t salt, 1 t Epsom salts.

Hops. You'll need one pound of Hop Suey.

• 2 oz into the mash
• 2 oz at 90
  
• 2 oz at 30
• 2 oz at 15
• 2 oz at flame out
• after a couple days when the krausen is down, add 3 oz dry hops. Let sit 5 days.
• Rack to secondary and add 3 oz dry hops. Keg when done. I'll cold crash it overnight too to try and drop some of the hops out of suspension.
  

I used hop bags for the four boil additions. At the end you'll have a lot of hop trub which can be a pain in the butt and clog valves. My kettle draws through a hop back out the middle of the kettle, which works great for whole leaf hops, but I can't whirlpool pellets, so I had to use bags. If I could whirlpool I'd probably have made more smaller additions to increase the complexity. Still, at racking to the secondary it was tasting pretty darn good...

UPDATE 9/14/09

Kegged it yesterday, my but it's bitter. Great aroma and hop flavor, but the bitterness is a bit harsh. This was after it was cold crashed at 34 of course, and it got better as it warmed up. Still, I'm thinking it might benefit from a couple weeks' aging before drinking. In the future I might move the 90 minute addition forward to 60, or even drop it and add the 2 oz at 10 or 20. It's plenty bitter. FG was 1.014.

UPDATE 9/18/09

Tried it on tap. Mmmm not good. I think it needs some aging to drop the hops a bit. And some of them really were a bit past their prime, it's got a bit of cheese. And I was lazy and dryhopped a bit too long on the second addition, so it's a bit grassy too. Meh, some of those hops were pretty old, time to dump the rest.

Read more

Brewday - College Debt Brett

So now that I'm back in a place where I can ferment beers at room temperature, and have a nice big basement to store things in, it was time to make my first ever (intentionally) soured beer! The original plan was to make a 10 gallon base beer and ferment 5 gallons with Roeselare Ale Blend as a Flemish Red, and 5 gallons with Brettanomyces Bruxellensis and pluots. Well, there was no Roeselare to be found. So brett it was! If you're not sure what a pluot is, here's a Slate article.

Brettanomyces is a wild yeast, most notably used in the sour Flemish ales and Lambics of Belgium. Bruxellensis is, as the name suggest, a strain harvested from the region around Brussels. Brett is a weird critter, in that it can digest more complex dextrose molecules, meaning that over time it will create a very dry beer. It takes a long time to work (3 months to a year) and likes acidic environments, so it's usually used in conjunction with good old S. Cerevisiae and often lactic or pedio bacteria cultures. Over time brett produces a wide range of interesting funks, including everyone's favorite "horse blanket" as well as spicy phenols and notes like pineapple.

The base beer was:

• 4 lbs Pale Malt
• 4 lbs Vienna Malt
• 2 lbs Wheat Malt
• 8 oz Carahell
• 4 oz Aromatic Malt
• 4 oz Cara-Vienna
• 2 oz Special B
• Hops were 1/2 oz Magnum at 90 minutes.
  

Mashed at 158 to encourage dextrine formation. Then decoction to knockout at 168 to further make some tasty dextrines. After all, once the ale yeast is done we want the brett to have something to eat. No fining or anything, again, more food for the brett later. After a week's primary fermentation it was racked and split into two carboys. One had 5lbs of pluots from the farmer's market. (Sliced in half and frozen first). The other had 5 lbs of blackberries I'd foraged from a local park. Again, frozen first. Added some brett to each carboy and here they will sit until sometime after New Years'.

Then I'll rack them off the fruit, add some oak chips, and let them sit another three months or so. Then into bottles and hopefully a glass by this time next year. Meanwhile these carboys (and everything else that touches the brett) will get a skull and crossbones on it, because it will never be used for normal beer again. But I'll be more on the ball next year and grab some Roeselare blend when it's available!

Oh yes: there's a lot of head-space. I purged it with co2 after racking. Oxidization bad.

Read more

Hop Harvest I

Well, it was time to get the ladder out and check on the hop cones that had developed over the course of the summer.

All in all, a disappointing first harvest. The Centennial and Chinook bines were planted at the end of May, and have grown up over the roof, while the Cascade and Willamette, which went in a month later, still are only about as tall as me. But their roots are now set and I expect good things next year. Fortunately, there are still a bunch of proto-cones on the Centennial and Chinook plants, so I expect another round of harvesting throughout September.

As you can see, the Centennial on the left has grown up over the roof, while the Chinook on the right was tied to a light and once it hit that point couldn't quite figure out where to go... But a couple days ago it shot out a bunch of flowers so all is not lost.

Meanwhile my other hops haven't really done much this year. :(


But the cones from the first picking were spread out to dry. Forecast is for several days of mid-70's and sunny, so I'll leave them out to dry for three days or so.

Read more

Nitro Is Go!

The new Nitro tap is up and running! And it's sweet... But it was a pain in the behind to get going. Here's why.

I went to Ballard Central Welding to get a 5lb beer gas tank. And got one, no problem. Which is good, because apparently it's a problem to find such small tanks in some parts of the country.

Then I got home and tried to put the regulator on. My tank had a standard co2 nozzle. My reg had the female nitrogen nozzle. D'oh! Much posting to TechTalk ensues. Many thanks for all the input from everyone!

Back to the welding store. Oh, we have an adapter. It'll be in tomorrow.

Back to the welding store. That'll be $20. Argh. Ok. Finally:

Yay, more connections to potentially leak. Oh well, Teflon tape and soapy water check. Doing fine.

Into the newly repainted freezer you go. Tied to the co2 tank for a bit more stability.

Yes, that is a stencil of Mr. T.

Hooked up the tap. Cranked the nitro reg to 35psi (have since moved it down a bit, still trying to find the prefect level for my setup you know. Going to redo the draught lines soon anyway, then I'll do the math and find the perfect psi/length/diameter/lovely wife? Can you do the math for me please!?!). Have the problem of pulling mildly foamy pints, but then I'm usually pulling the first pint out of a warm end of the line. Don't have it in me to tinker with the freezer to chill all the way to the tap, just put some insulation in.

Screw on the handles. The old Mendocino Brewing handle works great on the nitro faucet! It's really heavy, like "It was Russell, in the Conservatory, with the Mendocino Brewing Tap Handle" heavy. And it will turn my normal taps on accidentally, so I don't use it much. But not the nitro faucet. Sweet.

The Shoggoth's Little Peculiar American Amber half of the Shoggoth's Partigyle went on nitro. The other tap is the Triticus Minimus half of the Triticus Partigyle. (It was very delicious but has since kicked, sadly.)

Cheers!

And thanks again to our friends for gifting us with this marvelous new evil superpower!

Coming up on the nitro tap: Nitro Baltic Porter. Nitro Buckwheat Honey Stout. Nitrotoberfest?

Read more

Brewday: It's Parti Time!

In a fit of perhaps serious optimism I did some brewing in preparation for a major Bar Is Over / Meredith's Defense Is Over / Housewarming party that will take place in early August. Since I had little time and a lot of catching up to do I decided to do two parti-gyle brews back to back, one week apart. Hah hah, I know.

Parti-gyle brewing is a historical method of brewing whereby the first runnings of the mash are collected for a strong beer, then second runnings are collected for a weaker beer. This is a great way to make different beers with different alcohol strengths, and to use the grain more efficiently. The idea would be to get a start on two barleywine strength beers and also make two regular-to-light session beers for the party. I'd make a huge wheat mash and split it into a wheatwine and a summer wheat ale. Then use the yeast from the primary of the wheatwine to ferment an American barleywine and a second American Amber. The wheat beer would be called Triticus Maximus and Triticus Minimus, the barleywine would be this year's Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, with the amber being Shoggoth's Little Peculiar.

That was the plan anyway. And it was a good plan.

Things I have learned from the experience:

1. Don't do a parti-gyle brew as your first brewday in a new house. Just don't.
2. Don't do a parti-gyle brew as your second brewday in a new house. Just don't.
3. Seriously, you don't know what kind of boiloff rate and efficiency you're going to get with your new location. Madness and Chaos will ensue.
   
4. Take a temp reading on your tap's hot water before you start heating it for the dough-in. I was looking to do a protein rest on Triticus at 122 degrees, which meant strike water at about 135. So I started heating the water and dropped the thermometer in: 145. That after about two minutes of heating. So I did a whiskey tango foxtrot and measured the hot water coming out of my tap. 136 degrees! "Safe" water temps are in the 120's. Which explains why I kept burning the crap out of my hands when I did the dishes. But at least I know I can protein mash right out of the tap! Sweet.
5. Unpack everything and put it in its place before you brew. Make sure everything is there. Don't find yourself with 5 minutes till flame-out but your heat-exchanger out-tube and thermometer are MIA. Then find yourself speeding downhill to the wonderfully named Tacoma Screw to get some kind of bodged together hose barb solution.
   
6. Also learned: "It's a beer emergency!" will get a shopkeeper to stay open a few minutes after closing to help you.
7. Homebrew Rule # 1836: Your wife will inevitably find the hose you were looking for within moments of you returning.
8. My kettle has a false bottom that functions as a hopback. It functions quite well actually, when you use whole hops. When you use four ounces of pellet hops, don't put them in a hop bag because you get lazy, and can't whirlpool because your kettle draws right out of the middle, your valve will clog. Halfway through cooling Shoggoth's Old Peculiar. Lesson learned. Fortunately Oldy came out at a frightening O.G. of 1.120 (was shooting for 1.090). So the rest was dumped into the bucket holding the runnings for Little Peculiar and the whole thing was diluted and boiled at about 8 gallons. This resulted in somewhere near 4 gallons going to the Little Peculiar at 1.050 and the rest diluting Old Peculiar down to around 1.085. Chaos and Madness, appropriate for a Lovecraft themed beer, but it all worked out. Though now I have no idea what the IBUs or hop profile will be like. I may have a very bitter amber indeed.
9. I haven't figured out when to stop the fly-sparge on a partigyle. I went too long on Triticus Maximus and so Minimus came out at 1.030 and I had to spike it with Extra Light DME. And Shoggoth's just ended up being chaos.
10. Since it gets dark at around 10 PM right now at least you have lots of extra time to finish your brewday when things go horribly, horribly awry.
11. My new cellar holds a near constant 64 degrees. Sweet!
    

On to the recipes. To make them I used Randy Mosher's parti-gyle tables to figure out the needed O.G. of the 'master' beer, then estimated 60% for the 1st half and 40% for the second. Then spiked them with DME to my liking. I made three recipes in BeerSmith, one for the master and one for each half (estimated and 60/40 of the master). I could then adjust the hops to get the right level out of the two beers based on their gravities. So here goes:

Triticus Parti-Gyle - Master
Brewer: Russell Everett
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Barleywine
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.80 gal
Estimated OG: 1.072 SG
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 2.00 %
4 lbs Wheat Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 16.00 %
10 lbs Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (2.0 SRM) Grain 40.00 %
8 lbs Pilsen Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.0 SRM) Grain 32.00 %
8.0 oz Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 2.00 %
8.0 oz Caramel Malt - 20L (Briess) (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.00 %
8.0 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 2.00 %
2.00 oz Horizon [12.00 %] (90 min) Hops 39.5 IBU
2.00 oz Pearle [8.00 %] (90 min) Hops 26.3 IBU
1 lbs Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 4.00 %


Mash Schedule: Double Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 20.00 lb
----------------------------
Double Infusion, Light Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
30 min Protein Rest Add 4.50 gal of water at 134.8 F 122.0 F
30 min Saccrification Add 3.00 gal of water at 203.5 F 150.0 F
10 min Mash Out Decoct 2.73 gal of mash and boil it 168.0 F


Notes:
------
This assumes DME added to boil based on amount stated in the separate recipes. The total DME listed is the total amount needed for both recipes. 4 for Maximus and 1 for Minimus. 1lb honey for Maximus. This should make 5.25 gallons of 9.5% Wheat Wine and 5.25 gallons of 4.75% American Wheat Ale, but honestly take gravity readings and shoot from the hip. You will also need 2 oz Perle for Minimus and 2oz Horizon for Maximus. Also 6g Kaffir Lime Leaves and some lemon grass, in a tea, at bottling, for Minimus. Yeast was a 1L starter of Pacman for Maximus and American Wheat for Minimus.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Shoggoth's Old Peculiar - 10 gal parti-gyle - Master Recipe
Brewer: Russell Everett
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Barleywine
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: I could murder a Shoggoth's...

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.80 gal
Estimated OG: 1.075 SG
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 18.69 %
14 lbs Pale Malt (Weyermann) (3.3 SRM) Grain 52.34 %
5 lbs Munich (Cargill) (9.5 SRM) Grain 18.69 %
1 lbs Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM) Grain 3.74 %
1 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 3.74 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 1.87 %
4.0 oz Special B (Dingemans) (147.5 SRM) Grain 0.93 %
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (90 min) Hops 20.4 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (90 min) Hops 8.6 IBU
1.75 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (90 min) Hops 35.8 IBU
4.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (90 min) Hops 62.9 IBU
3 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 21.75 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 5.44 gal of water at 168.3 F 150.0 F
10 min Mash Out Decoct 2.17 gal of mash and boil it 168.0 F


Notes:
------
Theoretically the gravities would be 1.090 and 1.055. As for hops, the idea was to do 1 oz. Chinook at 90, 1 oz. Simcoe at 30, and 2 oz. Centennial at 10 for the Old Peculiar. For the little guy it would be 3/4 oz. Chinook at 90, 1/2 oz. Cascade at 30 and 1/2 oz at flameout. The hopping went to chaos after I had to mix half of the finished Old Peculiar into the Little Peculiar. So for that boil I added no bittering hops, and 3/4 ounce Cascade at 15 minutes and 3/4 at 1 minute.
Yeast was the Pacman from Triticus Maximus for Oldy, and Wyeast Northwest Ale for Little P.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read more

Youtube Stardom - The Vertical Epic

Haha, never expected to have my name up on a youtube video. (All my painful hijinks as a youth were not recorded, and thus not up for viral fame. Though there's a great video of my family tying a younger version of me's loose tooth to a door, and slamming it shut, around somewhere...) Cheer's to Chris for the fine photography and his awesome girlfriend with video skills.

But yeah, I didn't feel like going through the hassle of moving the beer collection across the country, under refrigeration, guarded by Cossacks. So I invited a bunch of our serious beer friends over and we staged some awesome verticals.

On the docket was:

• Stone Vertical Epic 03-04-05-06-07-08
• Stone Anniversary 8th, 9th, 12th
• Victory Old Horizontal (various years)
• Newport Brewing Storm of the Season 03-05-06-07-08
  

Things also began with some nice single bottles, a Russian River Pliny the Elder, a Bell's Hopslam, Dogfish Burton Baton, some of my homebrews, and many more.

Great friends, great food, great beer, great party!

That's it for my carefully cherished and hoarded Vertical Epics, but fortunately Stone posts a more or less instructive "recipe" for each one. So next year's brew project will be to brew a batch of each of the last eight years' brews. One a month. The Homebrew Horizontal-Vertical Epic.

And just for posterity, there were about 15 people around the table, so pours were about an ounce each. Otherwise, were you to go looking for me today "you'd find me a grave man..."

Read more

Brewday: Dunkelweizen

Brewday today. Had a bunch of wheat, and wanted to try out the dry German Hefeweizen yeast from Danstar. So I brewed a Dunkelweizen.

Here's the recipe. You'll note it's a double decoction (i.e. infusion to a protein rest, then two decoctions for alpha and beta amylase rests, then infusion for knock-out.)

I hate doing decoction mashes, they are messy, unpredictable, and time consuming. But there are two times when it's worth it: Pilsners and Hefe's. Here's a photo of one of the decoctions in progress. Decoctions are great for upping the maltiness of lagers and for building body and color. They're also a pain in the butt. But sometimes you just can't get that true German taste without them. Here's some tips. Watch your burner, don't go too hot, just bring it to a boil gradually. Stir Stir Stir. Don't stop. In the time it took to snap this photo the decoction got a little scorched.

Some purists would say that a Dunkelweizen should just be wheat and munich malt, with color coming from a triple decoction. Well I didn't have a lot of munich and hey, I didn't get into this to do it the traditional way... But I must admit I have a bit of concern that I made the recipe too complicated. We'll find out soon enough.

I'm going to try fermenting at 66 degrees, we'll see what banana and clove notes the yeast produces. Some people are all about doing their hefe's at high temps (mid-70's+) but I find that you lose the banana and get a heavy lemon-citrus out of the yeast.

Dunkelweizen

Type: All Grain
Date: 3/14/2008

Batch Size: 5.25 gal
Brewer: Russell Everett
Boil Size: 7.11 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00

Ingredients

Amount, Item, Type, % or IBU

• 2.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 1.28 %
• 5 lbs Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (2.0 SRM) Grain 51.28 %
• 2 lbs Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 20.24%
  
• 1 lbs 8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 15.18 %
• 8.0 oz Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 5.13 %
• 4.0 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 2.56 %
• 4.0 oz Crystal 120 (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.53 %
• 2.0 oz Carafa II (412 SRM) Grain 1.32 %
  
• 2.0 oz Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 1.28 %
• 0.75 oz Tettenang [4.50 %] (90 min) Hops 12.4 IBU
• 0.25 oz Tettnang [4.50 %] (15 min) Hops 2 IBU
• 1 Pkgs Bavarian Wheat (Danstar Munich) Yeast

Beer Profile

• Est Original Gravity: 1.051 SG
• Measured Original Gravity: 1.048 SG
• Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
• Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.94 %
• Est Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
• Bitterness: 14.4 IBU Calories: 212 cal/pint
• Est Color: 17.2 SRM

Mash Profile

• Double Decoction Mash
• Total Grain Weight: 9.75 lb
• Sparge Water: 4.14 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
• Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F TunTemperature: 72.0 F
• Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE Mash PH: 5.4 PH

Step Time	Name	Description	Step Temp
35 min	Protein Rest	Add 2.47 gal of water at 133.8 F	122.0 F
20 min	Saccharification	Decoct 0.87 gal of mash and boil it	145.0 F
20 min	Saccharification	Decoct 0.66 gal of mash and boil it	158.0 F
10 min	Mash Out	Add 2.47 gal of water at 180.8 F	168.0 F

Mash Notes: Used for some authentic German styles. Attempt to draw decoction from the thickest portion of the mash. Profiles vary. Some traditional German mashes use a long acid rest at 40 deg C. Also some sources recommend the decoction amount be given a 15 minute saccharification rest at 158 F (70 C) before boiling it.

Read more

Brewday: Jasmine IPA

Sunday was a brewday, and I've been trying to use up ingredients that I have stockpiled. So this was a 10 gallon batch of Elysian's Avatar Jasmine IPA, based on a recipe provided by their awesome head brewer Dick Cantwell. Some substitutions were made though. First, I used Maris but you could use any pale malt. Second, I used Magnums to bitter, I think he uses Chinook. I used Horizons and a bit of leftover Glacier, he uses all Glacier. The Horizons I had were old, the 2004 crop, and though they didn't smell cheesy or anything, they didn't smell vibrant and fresh either. We'll see, but I think they'll be fine. I split the batch and did half American Ale yeast and half British, just for kicks. He recommends the American yeast.

The key to this beer is dealing with the jasmine/malt balance. You'll notice that the IBUs are a bit low for the style (even below the guidelines in fact). But if you've ever over-steeped jasmine tea you know it can get bitter. With 3 ozs (remember: 10 gallon batch) boiling for 10 minutes, the jasmine will impart a lot of flavor and bitterness that we don't have the numbers to account for. Also, the beer has an OG around 1.062 but is only 5.6% by volume: meaning a high final gravity. The sweetness needs to be there to balance the jasmine, the hops are just there for background bitterness and aroma. So we'll see how the yeast does, hopefully stops about 1.016. I got an OG of 1.060, meaning only about 70% efficiency, but it was a 10 gallon batch and I think some just gets lost in the volume. Also, I had to pull a decoction instead of an infusion due to the volume of the Igloo. Should help up the maltiness and body though, so it's ok. This beer is great, it has a wonderful IPA nose with a hint of jasmine, then a round full malt and jasmine flavor, finishing with a nice bitterness.

Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA

American IPA

Type: All Grain	Date: 4/20/2008
Batch Size: 10.50 gal	Brewer: Russell Everett
Boil Size: 13.80 gal	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0	Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 22 lbs Maris Otter (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 91.67 % 1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 4.17 % 8.0 oz Carahell (Weyermann) (13.0 SRM) Grain 2.08 % 8.0 oz Caramel Malt - 40L (Briess) (40.0 SRM) Grain 2.08 % 1.50 oz Magnum [14.60 %] (90 min) Hops 33.4 IBU 0.50 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (2 min) Hops 0.4 IBU 3.00 oz Horizon [11.00 %] (2 min) Hops 4.0 IBU 1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 1.00 oz Jasmine (Boil 0.0 min) Misc 2.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc 3.00 oz Jasmine (Boil 10.0 min) Misc 1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale 1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.065 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.44 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.87 %
Bitterness: 37.7 IBU	Calories: 269 cal/pint
Est Color: 8.1 SRM	Color: Color
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body	Total Grain Weight: 24.00 lb
Sparge Water: 9.98 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Single Infusion, Medium Body Step Time Name Description Step Temp 60 min Mash In Add 7.50 gal of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F 10 min Mash Out Decoct 2.26 gal of mash and boil it 168.0 F

Read more

Coconut Cup

So another Coconut Cup has come and gone! Many thanks to everyone in the club who worked to make sure it went near-flawlessly. This year we had fewer entries, around 250, but at three bottles each that means we had more bottles to deal with than ever before. I know that I personally judged many fine beers this year, particularly a flight of nearly flawless lagers! Good job homebrewers, keep it up! In terms of the club competition MASH lost the Cup for the second year in a row to the Tampa Bay BEERS. But we did come in second, which is better than last year!

Most everyone in the club who entered won a medal, some for the first time, so congrats to all. The results can be found here. I didn't get into homebrewing for the competitive aspect, though I know some people are really into it. But I save a couple bottles throughout the year for our own club's competition, you know, solidarity and all that. This year I took three medals: a Gold for Shoggoth's Old Peculiar Barleywine, a Silver for Brother Russell's Tripel, and a Silver for a Coconut Beer, affectionately titled "A seagull eating pommes frites from the husk of a coconut on a hot day after Christmas while Pater Noel roasts slowly in the afternoon sun on South Beach...dreaming of next year."

And no, that's not my tanned, leathery chest in the photo. It's our dining room table, which just happens to be tanned and leather (it's an Equipale).

Read more

Brewday: Oatmeal Stout

So the stout for an upcoming wedding was brewed last week. It's a typical British Oatmeal Stout. I used some 200L Light Chocolate Malt instead of normal Chocolate Malt. Quaker Quick Oats. Modified the Miami water to get closer to London. Yeast was dry SA-04 British Ale yeast. A pretty flawless brewday until I accidentally pushed the Stopper Thermowell into the carboy. D'oh! That will be fun to retrieve. At least it was thoroughly sanitized...

Oatmeal Stout

Type: All Grain	Date: 2/8/2009
Batch Size: 5.50 gal	Brewer:
Boil Size: 8.13 gal	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 115 min	Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0	Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 8 lbs Maris Otter (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 69.57 % 1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 8.70 % 12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6.52 % 12.0 oz Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SRM) Grain 6.52 % 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 % 8.0 oz Roasted Barley (Briess) (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 % 0.13 oz Summit [18.00 %] (90 min) Hops 8.0 IBU 1.75 oz Williamette [4.50 %] (60 min) Hops 23.7 IBU 0.25 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 2.3 IBU
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.010 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.16 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.65 %
Bitterness: 34.0 IBU	Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 32.7 SRM	Color: Color
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body	Total Grain Weight: 11.50 lb
Sparge Water: 4.45 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Single Infusion, Medium Body Step Time Name Description Step Temp 60 min Mash In Add 3.80 gal of water at 165.3 F 154.0 F 10 min Mash Out Add 2.07 gal of water at 197.2 F 168.0 F
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).

Read more

Brew Day: Buckwheat Honey Black Braggot

Not actually a brew day, more of a celebration. I put the last remainders of the keg of Buckwheat Honey Black Braggot on tap and it definitely deserves a mention. This is easily the most laborious, experimental, and otherwise extreme beer I've ever made. It took about a year, and tastes like no other beer I've ever had. It's a love/hate beer, some people scowl and twitch when they try it. But I'm very happy with it. It's won a fair amount of things, and the buckwheat beers do tend to be crowd favorites. On the right is the bronze it took in the 'Other Mead' category at the 2008 SAAZ competition, a very mead heavy competition in a state full of mead masters.

It begins with Buckwheat honey, which is quite unlike any other honey out there. It's jet black, looks like molasses, and has a honey-molasses sortof funk about it. I've made several batches of beer with it, most notably the annual Buckwheat Honey Stout for St. Patrick's day. But that only uses a pound or two. I wanted to see what happened when I used a lot of it.

So here's the recipe:

Buckwheat Honey Braggot

Braggot

Type: All Grain	Date: August 06
Batch Size: 5.00 gal	Brewer: Russell Everett
Boil Size: 7.18 gal	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50):	Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 46.64 % 10 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.20 % 6 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 2.53 % 1.00 oz Summit [18.00 %] (90 min) Hops 52.7 IBU 7 lbs Buckwheat Honey (60.0 SRM) Sugar 46.64 %
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.090 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.090 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.023 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.84 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 9.18 %
Bitterness: 52.7 IBU	Calories: 417 cal/pint (mmmm...)
Est Color: 49.0 SRM	Color: Color
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body	Total Grain Weight: 8.0 lb
Sparge Water: 5.04 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Single Infusion, Medium Body Step Time Name Description Step Temp 60 min Mash In Add 2.50 gal of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F 10 min Mash Out Add 1.40 gal of water at 196.6 F 168.0 F

Here's the instructions for fermenting it:

So it was Mead Day about two years ago. The club was together making meads, teaching new folks, and so on. I was gearing up to make a braggot, which is a beer fortified with honey, or a mead fortified with beer, depending on how you look at it. (More the second sense, really). Though usually they are more traditional ale + clover or orange honey. This one was going out on a limb.

So while I was outside, in August, slaving over a hot burner, the rest of the club was inside in the airconditioning mixing honey and water. Which takes about as long as you would think. I spent about 4 hours outside making the braggot. So start by brewing outside in Miami in the height of Summer. Stir in the honey near the end, the last 5 minutes or so, to try to keep the aromas around.

Fermented initially with two packets of American Ale yeast. They took off and chugged for a while. Then stopped at 1.040. And stayed stopped. So I added some Wyeast Belgian Strong yeast. Which it killed. And some Champagne yeast. Which it killed. By this point it had been maybe three months. So I left it to see if something would keep going for another couple months. Nope. I also added some oak chips and left them in for a while, at least two months. Somewhere in the time I went away for a while and the airlock went dry. Ooops! So it oxidized a bit. Which I actually like, it took on a sherry aspect (rather than wet cardboard, whew!).

Eventually I discovered that Buckwheat honey has a very, very low pH for honey: 3.83. With all the dark grains, my hunch was the pH had dropped too low and the yeast couldn't take it. So a bit of Potassium Bicarbonate later and poof: it started up again! Eventually stopped at 1.020 which was fine, not cloying anymore. Kegged and bottled, then let sit for a few months.

In the glass it pours opaque black, with a tan head, garnet highlights. Aromas are port/sherry, some stone fruit (like sour cherries), just a hint of chocolate and roast, alcohol, and the sortof weird, musty, sour, honeyish aroma I now just associate with buckwheat honey. Body is a little thin for a stout (due to honey). Flavor hits you all at once, then tails off to a lingering warming finish. Honey, some tartness, alcohol is there, a bit of complex sugars, a bit of roastiness. Easily one of my best beers ever.

It just took a year to make!

Read more