Witbier Cookies

Based on a similar theme to the Oatmeal Stout cookies:  Witbier cookies.  I'm using ingredients that might go into an actual witbier (Wheat malt extract, bitter orange peel, coriander seeds).    They're even pale in color, due to the lack of brown sugar (I didn't think the molasses-y flavor would be appropriate).  

I'm very pleased with the flavor of these.   The citrus really shines, and the coriander backs it up nicely.
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1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup Wheat Dry Malt Extract
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt 

2t bitter orange peel

2t whole coriander seeds

1.5 cups flaked barley
1.5 cups flaked wheat


preparation 

1. Grind Bitter Orange Peel and Coriander in a coffee grinder
1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugar until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, wheat malt extract, salt, and baking soda; mix well. Add wheat and barley; mix well.
2. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets.
3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

Oatmeal Stout Cookies

I just realized that I forgot the salt.

Anyway, I've been wanting to make these for a while, and Christmas is the perfect time to pawn some cookies off on other people, so we don't have to eat them all.   Not that I mind piles of cookies around the house, but I just can only eat so many cookies.

The basic idea behind these is to use some of the same ingredients that would go into an oatmeal stout.   I get the maltiness from the malt extract, and the roasted flavors from the chocolate malt and roasted barley.   It just seems fitting to use flaked barley alongside the oats for some chew.  All of these ingredients should be available from your friendly-neighborhood brewer's supply shop.

Unfortunately, my nose is a bit stuffed up, so I can't give a great review of them, but I think this works quite nicely.   The roasted malts really give these a nice dark-chocolate/coffee flavor. 

I've got plans for a batch of Witbier cookies, too, and hopefully this experiment will give me enough data to learn some stuff for the next batch. 

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1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2  cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup Dark Dry Malt Extract
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

2T Roasted Barley

2T Chocolate Malt

1.5 cups flaked barley
1.5 cups Oats (whole rolled, uncooked)


preparation 

1. Grind Chocolate Malt and Roasted Barley in a coffee grinder
1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour and baking soda; mix well. Add oats and barley; mix well.
2. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets.
3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

Grain Cleaner (Indian Tumbler)

Post-boil wort sample.

At least half of the brown ales that I brew wind up being a way to get rid of a bunch of the grain scraps I have left over from various other brews.   Inventory is a whole lot easier to do when you have nothing to count.  This one wound up being that way as well.   I do like them, though, partly because it's a nice canvas on which I can really get creative, and partly because they tend to pair well with a variety of food.  

Two of my absolute favorite brown ales are Sierra Nevada's Tumbler and Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale.   Initially, I was going to make a Tumbler clone and in looking up clone recipes found that the "secret" ingredient is smoked malt. So I started looking around at smoked malt, and then thought, "Hey, I've got all this old French Pils and a stovetop smoker, why don't I try smoking my own?"   I couldn't think of a good reason not to, so I got out the smoker and the Alderwood chips and did it.   The smoker's tray held a little over 6oz. of malt, so that's all that I did.   I started off by spraying the malt lightly with water and stirred it while putting it into the tray.   Then I ran the smoker per its directions, but kept it on medium heat, and stirred every few minutes so I wouldn't burn the grain.   It seemed to work out nicely, and the grain came out with a scent reminiscent of smoked almonds, or toast and bacon.  

What I love about the DFH Indian Brown is the hoppiness of it.   The hops and the other flavors just work really well together in that beer.  It's also no slouch in the alcohol department.

After thinking about the brew for a while, I came to the conclusion that I should try to meld these and see what happens.   Unfortunately, I haven't taken inventory in so long, that I really don't know what grain I have, so the grain bill wound up going off of my mark a bit.   The LHBS didn't have any Crystal 60, so I went with Crystal 90 instead, and it turned out that I barely had any Crystal 40.   I was also close to the end on the Marris Otter, so figured I would just add that and have a nice gravity bump, and add slightly to the toasty flavors.   The Warrior, Columbus, and Cascade were all left over from the Pliny the Toddler Variants.   That's fine, though, as I think a bit less emphasis on the fruity side of things will do this beer well, considering the yeast and grain bill.

Grain Cleaner (Indian Tumbler)

Batch Size (Gal): 6
Total Grain (Lbs): 16.12
Anticipated OG: 1.067
Anticipated SRM: 27.5
Anticipated IBU (Tinseth): 65.8
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time (min): 90

Grain:
74.3% -- 11.98 lbs. Canada Malting 2-row Pale Malt
10.1% -- 1.63 lbs. Marris Otter 2-row Pale Malt
6.2% -- 0.99 lbs. Crystal 90L
4.7% -- 0.75 lbs. Pale Chocolate Malt
2.4% -- 0.39 lbs. Alderwood Smoked French Pils
1.8% -- 0.29 lbs. Crystal 120L
0.6% -- 0.09 lbs. Crystal 40L

Hops:
0.74 oz. Warrior (Pellet, 13.7% AA) 60 min.
0.82 oz. Columbus (Pellet, 13.9% AA) 20 min.
0.98 oz. Cascade (Pellet, 5.4% AA) 10 min.
1.00 oz. US Saaz (Pellet, 5.8% AA) 10 min.
1.00 oz. US Saaz (Pellet, 5.8% AA) 0 min.

Yeast:
WLP007 Slurry from 1/2 of my Pliny the Toddler Variant

Water Profile:
Clearview, degassed ~23h
Calcium Chloride: 1/8t

Mash Schedule:
90m @ 153F

Extras:
1 Whirlfloc tablet at 10m left in the boil.

Notes:

• Actual efficiency appears to be ~71%
• The first runnings came out delicious.   Rich toffee/caramel/raisin flavors with a pleasing slightly smoky finish.  22.25 Brix
• Pitched entire slurry at 8PM.   Wort stayed in the refrigerator a bit too long, so the temperature was 57F.

Pliny the Toddler Variants

Abby and I finished off both the Saison Sombre and the Wedding Stout this week, so it was a good thing that I had planned on brewing this weekend. When I finally managed to remind myself to get ingredients, my latest edition of Zymurgy had come that day, so when I asked Abby what she wanted to drink for a standard swiller, she pointed to a variation on Pliny the Toddler from a section on going from mash tun to good beer in 6 days.   I don't think I'm going to rush it that way, but it seemed like a decent recipe for a session IPA.   This will also be my first 10 gallon batch.  Now that I have a kettle that will handle that, I figured I should take advantage of the way things scale.

Unfortunately, Rebel Brewer didn't have WLP001 or WY1056 in stock, so I decided on WLP007 Dry English Ale and WLP575 Belgian Style Ale Yeast Blend.   I'll be splitting the batch and trying some different things.   I also accidentally only got one pound of Carapils, so I made up the gravity difference with some Wheat Malt and the last of my Caramel 20L.   The wheat should add some additional protein and help out with head retention, and the Caramel Malt should just add a little sweetness.   My current plan is to ferment with the belgian yeast in my brettanomyces fermentor and add some oak cubes that spent several months in the Old Funkulator (Bretted Old Ale).


Pliny The Toddler Variants

Batch Size (Gal): 10
Total Grain (Lbs): 16.26
Adjunct Sugar (Lbs): 1.00
Anticipated OG: 1.046
Anticipated SRM: 4.1
Anticipated IBU: 56.4
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time (min): 90

Grain
42.0% -- 7.25 lbs. Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
42.0% -- 7.25 lbs. Canada Malting 2-row Pale Ale Malt
5.8% -- 1.00 lbs. Carapils (Dextrine) Malt
2.7% -- 0.47 lbs. Wheat Malt
1.7% -- 0.29 lbs. Caramel 20L Malt

Sugar
5.8% -- 1.00 lbs. Turbinado Sugar

Hops
1.25 oz Warrior (Pellet, 13.7% AA) 60 min.
1.25 oz Columbus (Pellet, 13.9% AA) 10 min.
1.38 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.8% AA) 10 min.
1.38 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.4% AA) 0 min.

Yeast
1/2 White Labs 007
1/2 White Labs 575

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight
3/8 teaspoon Calcium Sulfate

Mash Schedule
Sacch. Rest: 90 min. @ 152F

Extras:
26 drops Fermcap-S (to prevent boiling over)
2 Whirlfloc tablets

Notes

• Brewed on Saturday, October 29, 2011
• Actual efficiency: 67% (I'm starting to think my efficiency problems are ingredient related, rather than process)
• Pitched yeast into each fermentor at ~9PM.   The wort was down to 64F, and it's 62F in the cellar.
• 6:30AM Monday, both beers are fermenting happily.   the 007 has a bit more kraeusen, but the 575 is catching up to it. 
• Beers rose to about 70F, after I covered them with a blanket, and they are now holding there with the use of the heat mat.   The 007 is pretty much finished, and I'm giving it another day at the warmer temp before letting it chill back to cellar temp (61F, currently) for a few days.   I added the brettanomyces infected oak cubes from the wedding stout keg to the 575 fermentor on Tuesday (11/1), and it still has a nice layer of foam on top, so it will sit around in the fermentor at least until I have another empty keg. 
• The 007 beer is carbonated and is getting swilled down this weekend.  It's quite hoppy, but the malt flavor is still there, and there's a nice sweet fruitiness with the yeast, even though it finished out quite dry

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.

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.

Belgian IPA MII

The first beer I brewed using my new setup was also my first attempt at creating something similar to Stone's Cali-Belgique.   Though, instead of doing an IPA with Belgian yeast, I basically did a Tripel that was hopped like an IPA.   I did use all European-style hops (Mt. Hood, US Fuggles, US Saaz), to try and keep it in that less-aggressively-hopped realm.   It turned out to be really tasty, and something about that particular combination of hops produced an Orange-Juice-like flavor, which was pretty neat.

Today's brew is going in a little different direction.     I've got the T-58/3787 left over from the Cherry Stout, and I'm going to go with American hops this time around, to get more fruit flavors.   I'm using a few pounds of honey to dry it out and maybe provide some floral flavors, and I'm going to give it about an ounce of oak chips for it to sit on during primary fermentation.   I did the honey and oak thing in my first beer of the year, and it wound up making a really tasty, drinkable beverage.

So, yet again, my efficiency was horribly low.    All I know to do at this point is to either adjust the copper manifold somehow or to go back to the stainless mesh.   Luckily, I had some malt extract on hand, so I wound up adding a good bit of that to the boil kettle.   I even did a 90 minute mash.   I really don't have any obvious culprit for what the problem is, though, so I may just try going back to the mesh on the next beer and see if that fixes things.   Then I'll at least know whether it's an equipment problem or a technique problem.   Another culprit may be the gap on my grain mill...   I should check that.

Belgian IPA MII

Batch Size (Gal): 6
Total Grain (Lbs): 11.83
Adjunct Sugar (Lbs): 3
Anticipated OG: 1.081
Anticipated SRM: 7.1
Anticipated IBU: 76.8
Brewhouse Efficiency: 40%
Wort Boil Time (min): 90

Grain
53.9% -- 8 lbs. French Pilsen Malt
3.4% -- 0.50 lbs. Aromatic Malt
3.4% -- 0.50 lbs. Crystal 40L
19.1% -- 2.83 lbs  Munton's Extra Light DME (Due to efficiency problems)

Sugar
20.2% -- 3.00 lbs. Tennessee Mountain Wildflower Honey

Hops
0.50 oz. Centennial (Pellet, 8.80% AA) First Wort
0.50 oz. Amarillo VGXP01 (Pellet, 6.90% AA) First Wort
0.75 oz. Magnum (Pellet, 12.10% AA) @ 60 min.
1.00 oz. Amarillo VGXP01 (Pellet, 6.90% AA) @ 15 min.
1.00 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.80% AA) @ 10 min.
1.00 oz Amarillo VGXP01 (Pellet, 6.90% AA) @ 5 min.
1.00 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.80% AA) @ 0 min.
1.50 oz Amarillo VGXP01 (Pellet, 6.90% AA) Dry
1.50 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.80% AA) Dry

Yeast
Wyeast 3787 - Trappist High Gravity
Fermentis Safbrew T-58
(repitched slurry)

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight
1.5 teaspoons gypsum

Mash Schedule
Sacch. Rest: 90 min. @ 151F
Batch Sparge:  15 min. @ 166F

Notes

• Brewed on Monday, May 30, 2011
• Actual OG was 1.070 after everything was said and done.   A good reason to keep DME around.   That was around the gravity that I was originally aiming for.
• Added 1oz oak chips soaked in 1 cup of water for a couple of hours and then heated to boiling in a microwave to fermentor immediately prior to racking from the kettle.
• Chilled to 64F and pitched.
• ~48 hour lag time.  I'm not sure if that was because of the temperature, the honey, or both.
• Temperature rose by itself up to 70F, and after a day and a half, I covered it and set the temperature controller to 70F.
• Temperature then levelled off at 72F, and it was held there for 7 days.
• Flavor is currently "Tropical fruit bubblegum"   which isn't a bad thing in my opinion.
• The bubblegum has diminished significantly.   Racked to secondary and dry hopped with 1.5oz Amarillo and 1.5oz Centennial on June 20, 2011

Honey Beer Bread

 December 4, 2010.   I pretty much just threw this together and it worked.   I was trying to make a decent "rustic" loaf of bread.   In my experience that basically means a big lump of dough that's cooked on a flat surface.   Having a pizza stone makes this particularly easy.
 -----------------------------

1/4 cup warm water
1 pack active dry yeast

Rehydrate yeast in water

1/4 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup oat flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
2 cups AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients

1/2 cup malty beer (yazoo fall fest in this case)
1/4 cup clover honey
1 cup warm water

Mix everything together and turn out and knead for 10 minutes let rise for 90 minutes, and then punch down and fold into a loaf and let it bench proof for another 80 minutes. Cut slits in the top & bake at 350F for 45 minutes.

Milksick Stout: Tremetol B

I have been brewing variations on stout pretty much since my first solo brews.   It's still one of my favorite styles of beer.   There's nothing quite like a nice thick, rich chocolatey stout to warm you up on a cool winter night.  Not to mention the flavor combinations of  a roasty, coffeeish stout with a rich dessert (especially one with dark fruit, caramel, or chocolate).

If you look around on just about any homebrewing forum online, and just about any of the good brewing books, you'll eventually run across assorted discussions on water.   Water is the primary ingredient in beer, and has all sorts of impacts on just about every aspect of brewing, from mash chemistry to off flavors.    The water at my parents' house is really tasty and really hard.   I've still yet to get it tested, though I am tempted to do that now, since I have some extra around today.   I do know that it's from a deep well on a mountain where the majority of the rock is limestone.   I also know that it makes excellent stouts.   I try to use their water for as many of my dark beers as possible.

Milk sickness is caused by cows eating White Snakeroot, and then nursing their young, who then get sick and sometimes die from the milk.  The active chemical that causes milksickness is Tremetol.  White County, TN was apparently pretty rough on cattle back in the day, between Milksick Mountain and the Calfkiller River.   So, as a sort of tribute to the place where the water is coming from, I'm working on a series of stouts brewed with water from Milksick Mountain.   I brewed the first one earlier this year, and it's currently cold-conditioning in the keg.   My goal was to use the same grain bill with each of them and vary the yeast, adjunct sugars, and aging process.

Unfortunately, for this one, I forgot to check on my flaked (i.e. old fashioned) oat supply, so I've replaced half of the oats with flaked barley, as that should help with the thick/slick mouthfeel.   I found sour cherry concentrate at Kroger a few weeks ago, so I thought I would alter this recipe somewhat and go for a cherry stout.   The amount of cherry concentrate that I'm using should work out to the equivalent of a little more than 3lbs/gallon of cherries.  The cherry may be overpowering...  I'm also decreasing the hops a bit, to make up for the fact that I'm adding sour cherries, as the sour and bitter may not go very well together.   I'm using the Wyeast 3787 Belgian Trappist yeast (Westmalle, Westvleteren, etc.), which I've done in a stout-like beer before and it turned out really tasty, hopefully the flavors from it don't conflict with the cherry.  I'm also pitching a little bit of Fermentis Safbrew T-58, because I forgot to make a starter for the 3787 last night, and I only need half a pack for the Berliner Weisse from Saturday.

Milksick Stout:  Tremetol B

Batch Size (Gal): 5.5
Total Grain (Lbs): 19.00
Anticipated OG: 1.086
Anticipated SRM: 61.5
Anticipated IBU: 50
Wort Boil Time (min): 60

Grain
68.4% -- 13.00 lbs. Canada Malting Pale Malt
5.3% -- 1.00 lbs. Flaked Barley
5.3% -- 1.00 lbs. Flaked Oats
5.3% -- 1.00 lbs. Roasted Barley
3.9% -- 0.75 lbs. Chocolate Malt
3.9% -- 0.75 lbs. Pale Chocolate Malt
7.9% -- 1.50 lbs. Fruit Fast Montmorency Tart Cherry Concentrate

Hops
1.50 oz. Centennial (Pellet, 8.80% AA) @ 60 min.

Yeast
Wyeast 3787 - Trappist High Gravity
Fermentis Safbrew T-58

Water Profile
Milksick

Extras
11 drops Fermcap-S

Notes

• Brewed on Saturday, May 2, 2011
• Actual OG: 1.074
• 6:00 PM, 68F pitched full pack of 3787 and ~6g of T-58
• Fermentor is wrapped in a blanket, and the temperature controller is attached, but the intention is o let it go to whatever temperature it wants to go to, and I'll just hold it at that final temperature for a few days after the fermentation is finished.
• May 3, 7:00 AM, still 68F, 1.5 inch kraeusen on top.  replaced airlock with blowoff tube, just in case
• May 3, 5:00PM, 72F.   Apparently Fermcap is no match for WY3787.    Blowoff tube was a good choice.
• May 4, 6:00AM, 80F.
• I never actually applied heat to this beer until it started cooling off.   The beer peaked at 81F on May 4.   Since then, I have held it steady at 80F, so that the yeast can finish out.   This is a similar temperature to where Westvleteren ferments with this yeast, and around where I did my Dubble-Weizen last year, so it should be just fine. 
• I killed the heat after the beer had been in the fermentor for 10 days or so.
• Thursday, May 26, I heated 1.5oz Medium toast Hungarian Oak cubes in 1/2 cup distilled water in the microwave for 3 minutes.   Then added them to a secondary fermentor and racked the beer onto them.   This will sit in the cellar for at least a month.

Berliner Weisse

I have wanted to try my hand at making this beer for the last couple of years:  basically, since I heard about it.   Now seemed like the perfect time, since summer is coming up and it is supposed to be a somewhat crisp and refreshing beer.

The style is a really light, low-alcohol ale with a good bit of wheat in it.   But it's also got a strong sourness due to the presence of Lactobacillus (The same genus of critters as the ones who make yogurt and pickles).   It has almost no hop bitterness, partly because lactobacillus is the primary critter that hops are antiseptic against.   The one that I've gotten to try (One that New Belgium brought to Brewgrass) tasted a bit like an unsweetened lemonade, really.  This should be an awesome lawnmower beer.

This was probably my easiest and shortest day brewing a beer.   It's 100% extract, so there was no grain to mash, or even steep.   I chose to do all extract because I see this beer as more of a fermentation experiment than as a full-on brew, and I don't mind spending a little extra money on the wort to not have to spend the time and effort for such a simple wort.   The boil is merely 15 minutes, which is essentially enough time to get things heat sanitized and a tiny bit of flavor, aroma, and bitterness out of the hops.   The bacteria like a warm environment (human body temperature is perfect for them), so the long tail of wort chilling time was non-existent.   No oxygenation/aeration, so I just dumped the bugs into the fermenter and started keeping them warm.  Though, I'm currently in a bit of a quandary, since I'm not entirely certain how long to let the bugs go before pitching the yeast.   I think I want to pitch the yeast relatively cool, so I may cut the heat and pull the blanket off of the fermentor tonight before I go to bed, and then pitch in the morning.    Hopefully the pH won't get too low for them before the beer is finished.


Berliner Weisse

Batch Size (Gal): 5
Total Grain (Lbs): 3.50
Anticipated OG: 1.032
Anticipated SRM: 3.4
Anticipated IBU: 3.4
Wort Boil Time (min): 15

Grain
85.7% -- 3.00 lbs. Munton's Wheat Dry Malt Extract
14.3% -- 0.50 lbs. Munton's Extra Light Dry Malt Extract

Hops
0.50 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 5.20% AA) @ 15 min.

Yeast
White Labs WLP677 - Lactobacillus Delbrueckii
Fermentis Safbrew T-58 

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight

Notes

• Brewed on Saturday, April 30, 2011
• Actual OG: 1.032
• Lactobacillus likes it warm and doesn't like oxygen, so after racking the beer to the fermenter, I pitched the vial of bacteria and brought it in to sit on the heat mat set to 94F, without aerating or adding oxygen. 
• May 1, 7:00AM no activity
• May 1, 8:00PM airlock bubbling merrily
• May 1, 10:00PM cut off heat mat
• May 2, 7:00AM airlock still bubbling, temperature: 87F, removed blanket
• May 2, 6:00PM 76F, pitched 6g Fermentis T-58
• May 3, 7:00AM 70F, still bubbling

Saison Sombre

I've been wanting to brew a Saison for about a year or so, so when I saw that the yeast I've been experimenting with is good for Saisons as well as Biere De Garde, I decided that now's the time to make one.   As I tend to do, though, I wanted to put my own little spin on it.   Saison is considered a "Farmhouse Ale", which is historically just a beer that was brewed in a farmhouse, for farm hands to drink for refreshment and energy.   The more modern versions are a little more "special", and are often quite a bit more alcoholic than the original beers would have been.   Mine is definitely on the modern side.  

After getting bitten a bit by a shortage of Candi Syrup earlier in the year, I wound up buying a whole lot of it when I was able to find some. So I thought I'd use some of that in it, since simple sugars are used to help dry these beers out. I was a big fan of Yazoo's Rye Saison, so I thought the rye character would be nice in it, and had a bit of rye malt left over after brewing the Rye Thing.  After plugging those things into ProMash, I decided that I wanted it more like the color of a Porter, so I added the last of the Carafa I had left over from something I did a while back, and some Caramunich 60 that I bought last year, thinking I would be making a Dubbel last year (I did, but it wound up being part of a partigyle).   So, based on all of that, I should wind up with a wort with some toffee, raisin, caramel, and some spiciness.   I have noticed some black peppery kind of spiciness in the two beers that I have fermented with this yeast, so that should add some interesting characteristics, as well.   I should also get some "earthiness" from the Styrian Goldings, and some more floral spiciness from the Saaz hops. 

For this fermentation, I'll be laying the spurs to the yeast during the later parts of fermentation.   The last two brews I have made with this, I have kept the temperature restrained, and only allowed it to rise to 70F during the last bit of primary fermentation, just to give it a diacetyl rest and keep it fermenting to the end, to dry them out.   Saisons are often fermented above 80F, and the Saison Dupont strain is known to get "stuck" even when fermented as high as 85F.  These temperatures encourage the various esters and phenols that the yeast produces to really come to the fore, and give it the interesting, complex fruity and spicy flavors that saison is known for.    

Saison Sombre

Batch Size (Gal): 6
Total Grain (Lbs): 14.69
Adjunct Sugar (Lbs): 1
Anticipated OG: 1.072
Anticipated SRM: 23.3
Anticipated IBU: 24.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time (min): 90

Grain
74.1% -- 12 lbs. French Pilsen Malt
9.3% -- 1.50 lbs. Fawcett Malted Rye
6.2% -- 1.00 lbs. Franco Belges Caramel Munich 60
1.2% -- 0.19 lbs. Weyermann De-Husked Carafa II
6.2% -- 1.0 lbs. Belgian Candi Syrup D2
3.1% -- 0.5 lbs Fruit Fast Montmorency Tart Cherry Syrup

Hops
1.25 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 5.20% AA) @ 60 min.
1.00 oz. US Saaz (Pellet, 5.80% AA) @ 0 min.

Extras
Whirlfloc - 1 tablet @ 10 min.

Yeast
Wyeast 3725 - PC Bier De Garde Yeast (repitched slurry)

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight
~1/5 of the water was distilled, to soften the profile some.

Mash Schedule
Sacch. Rest: 70 min. @ 151F
Batch Sparge:  15 min. @ 162F


Notes

• Brewed on Saturday, April 16, 2011
• Totally forgot to add the syrup to the wort.   I guess I'll add it to the fermentor in a couple of days.   On the upside, that should help keep the yeast going, as well as improve the flavor that it gives to the beer.
• I'm still amazed by the fact that with the new pump and chiller, it takes 10-12 minutes to go from a full, rolling boil, to 80F.
• Chilled to around 64F
• Oxygen:  wide open for 50 count
• Pitched at 4:30PM
• OG: 1.061 (minus the syrup)
• 71F and blowing off at 7:00AM, Sunday morning.
• Raised temperature to 73F at 7:00AM Monday morning.
• Added 1/2 lb. cherry concentrate and 1lb. belgian candi D2 syrup boiled with 2 cups of water and then chilled to around fermentation temp.  9:00PM monday.
• Tuesday 7:30AM:  temperature was 74F.  Raised to 75F.
• Wednesday 7:00AM:  raised temperature to 77F.
• Thursday 7:00AM: raised temperature to 79F. 
• Friday 7:00AM: raised temperature to 80F.
• After a week or so at 80F, the temp control was removed and the beer was allowed to return to room temperature (~65F).   It spent 2 or 3 weeks in the primary fermentor, and then was moved to a secondary to warm age for a few weeks.
• Kegged on June 19, 2011

My Biere De Garde

Reading "Farmhouse Ales" last year, I found that you could make a passable Biere De Garde using an American Hefeweizen yeast.   So, I tried it, and it wound up being my favorite beer of the summer.    A little too alcoholic to be a "Lawnmower Beer", but it had a nice malty flavor that was both sweet and dry at the same time.   You didn't notice that it was around 7% ABV until you got up to get another glass.   It is somewhat difficult to describe a beer from memory.  My dad described it as almost like an Irish Red, which is what he tends to drink when he's not having my homebrew.   I haven't had an Irish Red in a long time, so I can't really comment on the similarities, but he was drinking it 9-10 months after brewing, and I don't know how the flavors might have developed in the meantime.





The "secret" to brewing this style is low temperatures.   Mash low to extract as much fermentable sugar as possible.  Add additional simple sugar to get the alcohol up a little higher while keeping the body light and refreshing.   Ferment cool to keep the yeast from expressing too much fruit character.   When primary fermentation is done (10-14 days), put the fermenter into a refrigerator and age the beer on the yeast for 4-6 weeks (This final chilling process is the "Garde" in the name).

For today's session, I have modified the recipe from last summer slightly.  I have reduced the amount of grain to reflect the higher efficiencies that I've been getting with my new pump and copper manifold.   I am also using Turbinado Sugar, instead of white cane sugar, just because I don't want to pass up a chance to get some flavor into the beer.  Due to not keeping track of my inventory as well as I should, I'm also changing the bittering hops up slightly. I also decided to add a little bit of calcium chloride, which should help amplify the maltiness. Finally, I'm using the appropriate yeast this time (repitching a little less than half of the yeast cake from the Rye Thing): Wyeast 3725 PC Bier De Garde.

My Biere De Garde

Batch Size (Gal): 6
Total Grain (Lbs): 10.42
Adjunct Sugar (Lbs): 1
Anticipated OG: 1.063
Anticipated SRM: 10.0
Anticipated IBU: 23.7
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%
Wort Boil Time (min): 90

Grain
75.4% -- 8.61 lbs. French Pilsen Malt
7.9% -- 0.91 lbs. Franco Belges Munich Malt
4.0% -- 0.45 lbs. Castle Special "B" Malt
4.0% -- 0.45 lbs. Castle Belgian Biscuit Malt
8.8% -- 1.0 lbs. Turbinado Sugar

Hops
0.50 oz. US Fuggle (Pellet, 5.10% AA) @ 60 min.
0.50 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 5.20% AA) @ 60 min.
0.25 oz. US Saaz (Pellet, 5.80% AA) @ 20 min. 

Extras
Whirlfloc - 1 tablet @ 10 min.

Yeast
Wyeast 3725 - PC Bier De Garde Yeast (repitched slurry)

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight
Calcium Chloride -- 1/8t in the mash, 1/8t in the boil

Mash Schedule
Sacch. Rest: 90 min. @ 147F
Batch Sparge:  15 min. @ 165F 

Notes

• Brewed Saturday, April 2, 2011
• Initial mash temperature came to 149F, added some cold Milksick water to reduce the temperature some.
• Realized that I was out of Fuggle, so added some Styrian Goldings.   They're genetically similar, and still style-appropriate, so that should be fine.
• Somehow, I managed to get a pretty crappy efficiency this time.   The mash may have gotten too cool.   Also, inserting the chiller killed the boil, and it never recovered, as I was simultaneously running out of propane, and the wind kept blowing the flame out.
• OG: 1.050, but I got more than my volume.  So this will be a smaller, more drinkable BDG than my last one, I guess.   Honestly, that's OK.
• Pitched ~1/2 quart yeast slurry @ 9PM, temperature was 65F
• Sunday @ 7:30AM, temperature was 67F and kraeusen had started.   Moved blanket back to keep temperature from rising too much.
• Monday @ 7:30AM, temperature was 66F.   Replaced blanket, to hold heat in (I'm fermenting in a cellar which typically stays around 56F through the winter)
• Monday @ 7:30PM, it was still at 66F, so I pushed it up to 67F, to make sure the yeast stay active.
• Tuesday @5:30PM, I bumped it up another degree to 68F.   Trying to encourage the yeast to eat up their Diacetyl
• Wednesday @5:30PM, increased to 69F.
• Thursday @5:30PM, increased to 70F.  It will sit here until the middle of next week.
• Saturday April 16 @3:00PM , took carboy to upstairs closet, A/C is off, hopefully this will help finish it out.
• Tuesday April 19 @5:00PM, checked gravity, and it was at ~1.004, so set carboy in refrigerator for garding period.
• Tuesday May 23, racked to keg.

Rye Thing

I was eating breakfast with Abby the other day and trying to think of what my next beer should be.   I was trying to think of a small beer (i.e. something with a relatively low alcohol content) that wouldn't have to spend much time aging.   She wound up suggesting the wheat beer that I've made a couple of times.  Then I remembered her pointing out a rye pale ale in the latest Northern Brewer catalog, and decided to basically do the wheat recipe, but with rye instead of wheat.

As a grain, I have only rarely eaten rye.   Occasionally, I have had it as the main part of some sandwich bread, or as an element in some sort of multi-grain thing.   I have always enjoyed Terrapin's Rye Pale Ale, though, and Yazoo made a Rye Saison last year that I think is the best thing they've ever done.   So, I made sure to get a large pinch of rye kernels and eat them while I weighed it out to be crushed.   I was pleasantly surprised by the nutty flavor.  Hopefully, that will carry through into the beer, but at 40% of the grist, I'm pretty certain that the rye will shine through.

This was also my first beer using my new copper-pipe-manifold for filtering the grain.   I was using a piece of stainless steel braid, but it was getting dented and squished from a few years of use.   The manifold covers more of the bottom of the cooler that I use for a mash tun, so I should be getting much better efficiency from my mash.

I was also interested in doing this beer because I made a Biere De Garde last year with the repitched yeast from the wheat beer, which I wound up really enjoying.   In thinking along those lines, I wound up getting Wyeast's 3725, which may be the yeast that Fantome uses.  So I may have a one or two of my next beers somewhat planned out.   (Saison with rye and wildflower honey, maybe?)

To round it out, I decided to use some Amarillo hops in the finish, to give the beer some citrusy character, and Fuggles for bittering, for some underlying "earthiness".


Rye Thing

Batch Size (Gal):  6
Total Grain (Lbs): 11
Anticipated OG: 1.043
Anticipated SRM: 4.2
Anticipated IBU: 20.9
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time (min): 60

Grain
59.1% --  6.5 lbs. Canada Malting 2-row Pale Malt
40.9% -- 4.5 lbs. Fawcett Malted Rye

Hops
1.00 oz. US Fuggle (Pellet, 5.10% AA) @ 60 min.
0.50 oz. Amarillo (Pellet, 6.90% AA) @ 0 min.

Extras
Whirlfloc - 1 tablet @ 10 min.

Yeast
Wyeast 3725 - PC Bier De Garde Yeast

Water Profile
Clearview, degassed overnight.

Mash Schedule
Sacch. rest 60 min. @ 152F

Notes 

• Brewed Saturday
• Sparge got stuck, so added 2 handfuls of rice hulls when I got everything stirred back up.
• Efficiency wound up at 79%  (Hooray for not knowing how to brew on new equipment)
• Everything else pretty well went as planned, but that efficiency increase led to me getting a OG of 1.051.   Hopefully, the yeast won't have a problem with that.
• Pitched the Yeast around 4PM and set the temperature controller to 67F.
• 7:30AM the Sunday, there were bubbles and a small line of foam on top of the wort.
• By 11:30AM, foam had filled all of the headspace, and the beer has blown off some, but the temperature has maintained at 67F (it's 3:45PM, now, and the temperature is still the same)
• Stepped up to 68F at 8AM Monday. 
• Stepped up to 69F at 8AM Tuesday. 
• Stepped up to 70F at 7:30AM Wednesday. 
• Measured 1.013 on Saturday
• Turned off temperature control at 7:30AM Wednesday.   
• Friday night, racked to a keg got a 2-glass sample, and measured.   FG: 1.007, which is approximately 5.8% ABV.   Right now (still), it has a kind of fruity-nutty nose and a nice sweet foretaste and a reasonably dry finish.     The rye is quite prominent, but I think I like this better than the wheat version I have done in the past.   Unfortunately, it wound up a bit strong to be a session beer, but i think it's still low enough to do what i need.