Orange Mead

I'm always looking for new things to try.  I've been brewing for over three years now and have yet to make a Mead.  Decided to give one a shot.

A friend of mine makes one every year or so and usually gives me a bottle to try.  They are often very similar to a white wine - still, with strong alcohol, and lightly sweet.  They take a long time to mellow and seem to age very nicely.

I have chosen to make a 2 gal batch of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead found on Homebrewtalk.com.  It is a flavored mead (duh) which, in addition to the oranges, contains cinnamon, cloves, and raisin.  It is designed to finish sweet through the use of bread yeast which apparently doesn't have a very high alcohol tolerance.  The recipe calls for 3.5 lbs of honey per gal.  Since the clover honey I selected comes in 2.5 lb packages I decided to go with 7.5 lbs for my 2 gal batch.  I considered trying out a more traditional plain batch first but this seemed like too much fun to resist.

The process is very simple.  No boiling even.  I'd expect that writing up this blog post will take just about as long as making this will (~30 min).  I really love making things where there is a little up front investment in effort and then you set it and forget it until magic has happened, giving you something totally different as a result.  Mead seems like it fits this description very well.

I plan to give this one a good 6 months to mature.

Recipe Details:

• 7.5 lbs of Clover honey
• 1.75 gal of tap water
• 2 Navel Oranges
• 1 handful of Raisins
• 2 Cinnamon Sticks
• 3 Cloves
• 1 tsp Bread Yeast

Results:

• OG:
• 1.120
• FG:
• 1.036
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 68%
• ABV:
• 11.03%

Process/Notes:

• 10/28/17:
• Poured containers of honey into 2 gal glass jar

• Added 1 gal of hot tap water.  Poured a bit of this into the three containers of honey to rinse out the remainder
• Honey had sunk to the bottom and the water floated on top.  Stirred until the honey was dissolved.
• Washed the oranges well and then sliced them into eighths.  Added these to the mead.

• Added the raisins
• Added the Cinnamon Sticks and Cloves

• Added cold tap water to get close to full - ended up getting 3/4 of a gal in.  Only left an inch and a half of head space (recipe recommended 3 in).  Hopefully this wont be trouble.
• Gave it a final vigorous stir with a slotted spoon to aerate.
• Measured the temperature of the mix as 83 F.  Decided to add the Bread yeast right away.  Sprinkled on the surface, let it hydrate for a few min, then stirred in vigorously to aerate some more.

• Moved it to the basement utility sink to ferment (in case there is some overflow).  The jar has a glass lid with no gasket - I'd expect the CO2 will be allowed to escape pretty well with it seated normally so I'll leave it as is.
• Measured the OG as 1.120 (wow!)
• 6/2/18 - It has been 7 months since making up this mead.  It has been fermenting/aging undisturbed in a dark corner of my basement in this period.  It dropped clear several month ago.  Just here in the last few weeks most of the oranges have sunk to the bottom.  I'm pretty busy with other beer stuff at the moment but I'm thinking this should be ready for bottling at any time now.  Will plan to take care of that some time soon.

• 8/11/18 - Bottled today after a little more than 9 months of conditioning.  Measured the gravity as 1.036 which got me to 11% ABV (bread yeast should be proud of the themselves).  The spice character is very profound in both aroma and flavor.  It is a bit sweet and certainly doesn't taste like it's 11% alcohol.  I got 20 12 oz bottles out of the 2 gal batch.
• 1/20/20 - Tasting Notes - Very boldly flavored with a pretty nice complexity.  Potent at 11% ABV but hides that very well - probably a combination of the long aging and the residual sweetness.  Not a beverage I find myself reaching for on a regular basis but it does make for a nice after dinner drink on a cold winter night.

Cherry Flanders Red Blend #2

I picked some really nice Sour Pie cherries this year from a local orchard which will give me another opportunity to brew up some cherry beer (I have 12 lbs of fruit for this batch).  There is no better cherry beer than Flanders Red for my money.  I have really enjoyed the version I brewed last year.  I plan to make this beer yearly - thankfully I have the large stockpile of beer necessary to do this.

I wrote up my logic for putting together a plain Flanders Red blend in an earlier post.  For this Cherry Flanders Red batch I wanted to use a couple different beers.  I decided to use a couple of the more mild flavored Flanders Reds in my arsenal as the Cherries will bring some additional complexity to an otherwise unexciting beer.  I chose these two beers:

Flanders Red 1.1.1:

My oldest beer (brewed in October 2014).  Developed some nice fruity flavors but always stayed pretty mild.  Three years of aging didn't improve it much over where it was after the first few months I'd say.  The Roeselare got a lot better after this first pitch.  Here are my tasting notes:

• Funky aroma with some fruit
• Orange/red and clear
• Lightly sour with a bit of Brett character.  Light fruit flavor.
• Fairly mild in flavor with not all that much complexity

Flanders Red 1.3.2:

This beer was brewed April 2015 and was a third pitch of Roeselare.  The cake was really starting to mature nicely at this stage.  Had started to develop some sourness and put out some really lovely fruity Brett yeast character.  The brother batch to this will age until next year so I'll still have some beer of this generation to enjoy in the future.  Here are my tasting notes:

• Earthy funk dominates.  A bit of fruity character mixed in.  Has a rich smell
• Red/orange and slightly cloudy
• Light sourness.  Brett earthiness fairly assertive.  Good level of malt flavor in the finish
• Fairly mild in terms of flavor but has a nice level of complexity

These will be blended 50/50 and I'll be shooting for 6 gal of beer.  The cherries have been stored in the freezer which will allow the juice to be extracted a bit easier.  This year I have decided to add some Black Cherry Juice as well to give the fruit a bit more depth of flavor.  Will do 1 qt of that.

I'll give this beer 3-6 months on the sour cherries before bottling.

Blending Notes:

• 9/4/17:
• Transferred ~3 gal of Flanders Red 1.1.1 into a bucket fermenter
• Transferred ~3 gal of Flanders Red 1.3.2 into the fermenter
• Racked the remainder of 1.3.2 into the 1.1.1 fermenter
• Drove the beer to our new house.  I tried to keep sloshing to a minimum but there is only so much you can do when carrying a heavy bucket full of beer.
• Added the sour cherries and juice to the fermenter.  6 gal of beer plus 12 lbs of fruit plus a quart of juice proved to be too much.  I drained off a quart of the mix to make a bit of room - this was enough.

• Set it up with an airlock
• 9/16/17 -  No sign of fermentation for the first week.  After that is started bubbling a little.  With the beer so close to the brim the beer has started to get pushed up into the airlock

• 9/20/17 -  So much beer got pushed up through the airlock that it has pretty much filled the lid with a little lake of beer.  This is now forming a pellicle.  Active fermentation seems to have died down a lot so I decided to remove the lid and clean it as I use this space for my clean beers.  The fruit are floating at the top and are already pretty mangled.

• 4/1/18 - Bottled this batch today
• I've decided to backsweeten and then pasteurize this batch (as I did with Flanders Red Blend #2).  Made some invert sugar for this task using 1.75 lb Demerara sugar, 1/4 tsp citric acid, and 2 cups of water.  I heated this until it reached 290 F and was a lovely dark red color.  Let it cool down to 200 F and then added 2-3 cups of boiling water to ensure that it stayed a liquid.  This sugar has flavors of raisin, caramel, and toasted marshmallow.

• Added Red Star Premier Cuvee Wine yeast to carbonate the beer
• The cherries were shriveled and faded
• Got 6.5 gal of beer which netted me 64 bottles.  Stirred it well after adding sugar and yeast to evenly distribute

• Measured the gravity with the sugar as 1.014
• The beer has a pretty rich cherry flavor along with the complex fruity, funky, and sour flavors from the Flanders Red.  This one also has a somewhat spicy character which comes through in the aroma particularly.  The sweetness balances the fairly firm sourness nicely.
• I'll open a bottle every 2 or three days until it is carbonated to the right level
• 4/26/18 - Pasteurized the beer in 150 F water bath for 15-20 min.  I had one bottle explode during this process.  I had another that developed a leak in the cap.
• 8/19/18 - Tasting Notes - Bold flavored with a really striking complexity.  The cherries play very well in this beer and are the obvious star of the show.  The acetic character the beer developed supports the overall package in my opinion.  I also think the slight sweetness from the backsweetening makes this a much more drinkable beer.  
• 6/26/20 - 2020 Vertical Tasting:
• Aroma:  Cherry aroma most prominent followed by some vinegar.  Also get a bit of Brett character.  Some sweet caramel as well
• Appearance:  Reddish brown and fairly clear.  Pours with a thin layer of foam that settles to a thin ring that lingers for quite a while
• Flavor:  Rich cherry flavor that lingers into the finish.  Medium acidity kicks in in the middle and melds nicely with the cherry.  Get some leathery Brett in the finish.  A bit of vinegar mixed in as well as a vanilla-like flavor.  The finish also has a nice bit of sweet caramel that balances everything
• Mouthfeel:  Medium light bodied and a bit of sweetness.  Pretty easy drinking
• Overall:  Really richly flavored beer.  Cherry is the star of the show but there are quite a few other characteristics that bring a lot of complexity.  Really nice drinking beer with a pleasant balance to the finish

American Pale Wheat Take II - Tasting Notes

This is my second attempt at an "American Pale Wheat" which is an American take on the Hefeweizen.  Like many other American beers this means that it is much more heavily hopped than is traditional with the European Original.  The style also forgoes the heavy esters that characterize the German version.

The wheat beer provides a pretty lovely background for a bold citrusy hop.  Like with the first time I brewed the beer (clone of The Mad Fermentationist's "Fortunate Islands" prototype for the Modern Times Brewery) I utilized Citra hops to provide that flavor.  I decided to try out the Australian hop Galaxy which is supposed to also provide a nice citrusy flavor.  I haven't used Citra enough to say where it ends and the Galaxy begins but I can say that they do work together.

I bottled this beer after two weeks (1 week of fermentation and 1 week of dry hopping) and then tried my first one after 3 days (was nicely carbonated already).  It has been hard not to drink the beer exclusively over that last couple weeks.  It is so nice having fresh hoppy beer!

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Bold hop aroma dominates - it is a mix of citrus and pine.  No malt or yeast character come through on the aroma
• Appearance:
• Pours with a 3 finger head that fades down to a thin layer after a few minutes.  Leaves lacing on the glass.  The beer is light gold in color.  Very clear if I'm careful not to include too much of the dregs.
• Flavor:
• Pine and citrus (and other harder to pin down fruit) hop flavors up front with a restrained bitterness in the finish.  A bit of bready malt character but the hops dominate.  The beer has a rich and complex flavor profile.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light/medium bodied with only a faint sweetness.  The finish is smooth and dry.  It is a very easy drinking beer.
• Overall:
• A really flavorful hoppy beer with a light but pleasing bitterness.  I'm happy with how the large amount of hops used for this beer present themselves.  I think this is a really nice recipe - the malt bill provides a great base for a hoppy beer.

California Common - Tasting Notes

I brewed up this California Common (Steam Beer) back in July.  A California Common is sort of a Ale/Lager Hybrid in that it uses lager yeast but ferments at Ale temperatures.  The brewing process, in and of itself, likely doesn't do much to differentiate it from a typical Lager (which the beer tastes like to me).  What really makes the style is it's exclusive use of Northern Brewer Hops.  The style is really a bow to the Anchor Steam brewery which was a pioneer of craft beer.

I've been drinking this for a month and a half at least at this point.  The hops were a very strong presence initially and they have continued to be a strong portion of the flavor through today.  It may be that some of the aroma has fallen off but it still is maintaining a very nice balance.

I've wanted to make one of these beer for quite a while.  I've used Northern Brewer hop before but I've never given it such a prominent role in a beer.  It is interesting to get a more intimate showing of its flavor contributions.  It isn't a sexy hop by any means but it does impart a bold flavor which I think is quite pleasant.

Really happy that I finally found the time to do an official tasting.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Sweet malt aroma is prominent.  Smalls of bread and a bit of caramel.  Herbal tea-like aroma from the hops comes through pretty strongly as a secondary smell.  Also get a bit of the typical "lager" yeast aroma.  No alcohol comes through.
• Appearance:
• Light brown/dark copper in color.  Clear with a bit of particulate matter floating.  Pours with a 1 finger head - this dissipates down to a thin layer after a few minutes.
• Flavor:
• Sweet and slightly toasty malt flavors form the backbone and then a pretty pronounced set of grassy and herbal hop flavors provide a nice balance to this.  The beer finishes with a fairly pronounced that lingers for some time.  The flavors are quite bold.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied.  Light sweetness.  No astringency.  Smooth and easy drinking.
• Overall:
• This is a really nice tasting beer.  It has a nice complex flavor profile and is very easy to drink.  I think it's quite like Yuengling Lager actually (which I like quite a bit) but with a bit more hop presence