2011-09-29

Fermentor tour

I've got several things sitting around in fermentors and in various stages of aging, and I'm in a mood to try a few things.

So, I got out my turkey baster (a poor-man's wine thief), glass of sanitizer, and tasting glass and got to "work".

Wedding Stout:  This tastes a bit thin, but it needs some more time on the gas to come together.   If I don't get enough Brett. character in time, i'll probably blend in a bit of the Old Ale, which is tasting great.   I had a little of both in a glass, which had an excellent flavor.   Brett. Lambicus and cherries just go well together.

Hard Cider Experiment:   I took a gallon of local cider that Abby picked up at the Murfreesboro farmer's market (~1.049 SG), added 1/4tsp of pectic enzyme, and a packet of rehydrated Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne yeast, and let it sit in the cellar for a couple of weeks (the cellar was right at 70F for most of that time).   It fermented down to 0.994 SG and has a really pleasant flavor.   I think it'll taste great chilled and naturally carbonated.

Strawberry Melomel:   Most of the strawberry flavor and aroma have dissipated at this point.   It's something more than just the mead, but the strawberries are definitely better represented within a jar of jam.  This one also still tastes a bit "young".

Blackberry-base Meads:
Back at the beginning of March 2011, Abby and I mixed up some water and a gallon of Oregon Blackberry Honey.    At some point this summer (shortly after gooseberry season, I suppose), we split the batch into 5 1-gallon jugs, to try out a few different flavors in it.   1 was plain, and was a partial jug, which I bottled a couple of weeks ago, so the cider would have a place to go.   All of these batches got an additional dose of winemaker's acid blend, which really livens up the mead.

Cinnamon Metheglin: This had a single stick of ceylon cinnamon broken in half and dropped in.   There is a hint of cinnamon in the nose, but I don't notice any in the flavor.   We either need to pulverize it or add more.  

Vanilla Metheglin:  This has a light vanilla nose, and a lovely vanilla flavor.  One bean split, scraped, and rough chopped per gallon of mead is pretty much perfect for me.  Neither the mead nor the spice overwhelms the other.

Rosehip Metheglin:  This was 2oz of dried rosehips in a gallon.  The mead extracted a beautiful color from the rosehips, and has a really unique flavor and aroma.  I have no words for this, but I really like it.   There is something slightly citrusy to it, but something else, too.   "Rose", I suppose.

Gooseberry Melomel:  Quite quite sour.  It has a nice crisp and clean flavor otherwise, though.  This may really need to be blended with something to be generally palatable, if I were going to send it to a competition or something.   It does have a nice fruity flavor to it.


Milksick Stout: Tremetol B: Cherry Stout:   The roasted malt flavor and aroma are still the predominant features of this one.   There is a sourness on the tongue with this, but it isn't overwhelming, and doesn't quite stand out as much as I would like.   The oak character in this one is starting to assert itself, as well.   It should be quite tasty whenever I manage to get it ready for serving.

Sour Thing:   Wow, last time I tasted this, I was on the verge of dumping it, and it has since come around nicely.   It's still not a great beer, but I could sit and drink half a 12oz bottle of it, now, and I wouldn't have attempted that before.   This was my first attempt at a wild brew, and I wound up just throwing the kitchen sink at it (not to mention the dregs of a few sour beers).   I have a plan for another, and meant to get some cheesecloth when i was at the store tonight, but forgot that.   oh well, I have some time before i'll need a live starter to maintain.


...  and I've probably had enough, tonight.

2011-09-07

Wedding Small Stout

So, Abby and I are getting married, and I thought that a batch of homebrew would be great for the reception.    I wanted to do something more on the malty end, because I know several of the attendees are not big fans of hops.   So I arrived at a dry stout, because it's a fairly accessible style, and I could put in some extra stuff that would complement those flavors nicely.   I got the base recipe from Brewing Classic Styles, and then slightly modified the grain bill, because too much of the black barley will make a beer taste like an ashtray, and I added a little Victory malt to my recipe, to add some toasty, biscuity flavors that the extract wouldn't have.

Originally, I was thinking that I could do an extract  batch and save myself a couple of hours.  This seemed like a good idea, because we've got so much going on with moving and combining households and such.   I looked into cold steeping the roasted grain the night before brewing, which seemed like it would work nicely.  Then I realized that the flaked barley really needed to be mashed to extract all the good stuff from it, so I would have to at least do a partial mash.   At that point, I decided that I may as well do a full-on all-grain batch.

I found a bucket of Maris Otter pale malt in the basement, which I hadn't realised that I had, so that was settled.   I removed the Victory malt from the recipe, because this base malt has some nice flavors to it (aside from it probably getting lost in the other flavors).    I spotted the cherry syrup that was left over from a couple of other brews, and decided to add that, to make mine a little more unique, and get rid of the bottle.

Friday rolled around and I skipped out of work a little early and got going.   There were a few problems along the way.   I overheated both the strike water and the sparge water.  I also forgot which direction I needed to hook things up with the pump, so I spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out why the sweet liquor wouldn't flow when the pump was on, but would when it was off.   Other than those relatively small things, and a swarm of mosquitoes, things went pretty smoothly, though.

My current plan is to rack this into a keg in a couple of weeks, and add the oak cubes from Old Funkulator (an old ale with a bunch of Brett. Lambicus added, which has been warm aging for 7 months).   I'll let it sit warm after that, and hopefully the brett will have just enough time to add some interestingness to the stout before it's time to drink it.


Wedding Small Stout

Batch Size (Gal): 5.5
Total Grain (Lbs): 9.00
Adjunct Sugar (Lbs): 1.00
Anticipated OG: 1.047
Anticipated SRM: 36.9
Anticipated IBU: 29.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time (min): 70

Grain

60.0% -- 6.00 lbs. Maris Otter
20.0% -- 2.00 lbs. Flaked Barley
5.0% -- 0.50 lbs. Roasted Barley
5.0% -- 0.50 lbs. Black Barley

Sugar
10.0% -- 1.00 lbs. Fruit Fast Montmorency Tart Cherry Concentrate

Hops
1.25 oz Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 5.20% AA) 60 min.

Yeast
Lallemand (Danstar) Nottingham (rehydrated in 90F distilled water)

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight
1/8 teaspoon Calcium Carbonate
1/4 teaspoon Calcium Chloride 

Mash Schedule
Sacch. Rest: 60 min. @ 156F
Batch Sparge:  15 min. @ 166F

Notes

  • Brewed on Friday, September 2, 2011
  • Added Roasted Barley and Black Barley before adding the sparge water, to hopefully prevent getting too much astringency from the dark malts.
  • Actual OG: 1.048:  volume was a little low.
  • Pitched yeast slurry at ~11AM Saturday, September 3, 2011, wort was at 56F.   Capped with foil.
  • Monday, September 5, 2011 @8AM, still no activity.   Wort is now at 58F.  I'm guessing that the cold shocked the yeast, at this point.   I'll probably stir the wort up a little bit if I don't see any activity by this afternoon.
  • Monday, September 5, 2011 @11AM, finally some kraeusen starting to form.  59F.
  • Tuesday, September 6, 2011 @8AM, 54F:   should have backed off on the ice additions to the cooler.
  • Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @7AM, 60F: perfect.   Added less ice back, to counter the temperature rise that the yeast are trying to make happen.
  • Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @4:30PM, 62F.   Replaced ice.
  • Thursday, September 8, 2011 @8AM, 61F.   Replaced ice.
  • Thursday, September 8, 2011 @7PM, 62F.  Measured 1.020, so I decided to stop switching out the ice packs and just let it slowly rise.
  • Saturday, September 10, 2011 @2PM, 64F, most activity appears to have stopped.