Munich Dunkel Take II - Tasting Notes

This is my second attempt at the Munich Dunkel style.  For this version I used Munich Malt only and performed a triple decoction.  It's a fairly light example of the style but has the flavors I'd expect from a Munich Dunkel

It was brewed back in November 2020 and kegged in Late December after a 3 week lagering period.  I've been drinking this beer now for a few months.  I feel like every pull from the keg could be the last so it's time for a tasting.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Sweet bready malt - like lightly toasted bread.  Also get the classic lager yeast aroma.  Nothing I can pick out as hop aroma
• Appearance:
• Light brown with a little haze.  There are some solids that come with the pour.  Two finger head that quickly fades to a thin ring
• Flavor:
• Light toasted bread and the light lager yeast flavor up front.  The finish has a light bitterness that offers some balance to the sweet malt.  There is a bit of alcohol in the flavor profile but it is smooth
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied, slightly sweet, and smooth.  The flavors linger on the palate for quite a while after the sip
• Overall:
• This has a very nice malt character to it.  I really like the Munich Dunkel style.  I also very much like the later yeast character and enjoy the interplay between the malt and yeast here.  This is a fairly strong beer at 6.2%.  This doesn't hurt it but does make it more difficult to choose this as a second pour.  I'd aim for a bit lower next time.

El Dorado Pale Ale - Tasting Notes

This is a very hoppy pale ale which I made using 5 oz of kettle hop and then 8 oz of El Dorado for dry hop.  This was kegged just about three weeks ago.  I started drinking it a few days after kegging.  I love a hoppy beer and this is going quick.

It was brewed to be a low ABV beer and ended up at 3.9% so it's very easy to decide to go for another.  I was envisioning it to have a fairly firm bitterness but to mostly have a very profound hop character.  I've never used El Dorado hop before but I've been pleased with what they brought to the table.  The beer used 4 oz in fermenter and was amazing at transfer to keg - had wonderful citrus flavor.  I used an additional 4 oz of hops in the keg.

In the first week and half the beer was slightly hazy and had that same wonderful hop character I got from the fermenter.  I keep my kegs between 45 F and 50 F.  After the second week the beer dropped clear and I noticed the hop character had dropped a bit and the bitter finish became a more prominent characteristic.  I started to suspect oxidation but noticed that if the beer sat in the glass a bit longer and warmed the hop character came through a lot better.  After that I raised the fermenter to 50 F - 55 F which has improved the hop character close to what it had been initially (interestingly, this also resulted in the beer becoming slightly hazy again)

This is a good discovery although I don't understand why it happened.  Beers don't carbonate quite as well at higher temperature (which is why I'd set it as I had initially) but I do find the 50s - cellar temperature - to be a preferable temperature for beer in general.  I drink most of my bottled beer at basement temps (high 50s) and am perfectly happy with that

The beer's difference from fermenter to the flavor when cold did get me questioning my keg hopping routine a bit.  The assumption that beer being in contact with hops in the keg for weeks would maintain great hop flavor rather than introduce less pleasant flavors may have been a bad one.  Also, the process to add hops to a keg is one where you purge the keg of oxygen (by filling with starsan and then displacing it with CO2), then open the keg to add the hops which partially undoes the purge, and then a half hearted attempt to drive out any oxygen that got in.  This could also undo any good effect the keg hops are having.  I think my next hoppy beer will try all hops in the fermenter.

Anyhow, this beer went from disappointing to redeemed which makes me pretty happy.  Good to have  this on tap.

Tasting Note:

• Aroma:
• Strong citrus character - very orange-like.  It kind of reminds me of tang.  Also get some herbal and pine-like notes in the mix.  Can't really pick out anything I'd credit to malt or yeast
• Appearance:
• Golden with a slight hazy.  Pours with maybe a 1 finger head which fades pretty quickly.  Leaves some lacing on the glass
• Flavor:
• Bold hop flavor out front - citrus and also a sort of peach-like character.  The fruit flavors linger into the finish.  The beer has a medium level bitterness.  There is a slight malty sweetness in the finish as well.  One interesting notes is a sort of cream-like flavor along with the fruit kind of reminiscent of lactose - no idea where that came from but very pleasant
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied with a slight sweetness.  Pretty smooth beer - the bitterness lingers on the palate and makes me want another sip
• Overall:
• I really enjoy the flavors in this beer - nice bold and pleasing fruit character.  Has a good level of complexity as well.  The balance is all toward the hop but the hop flavor and bitterness sort of provide a balance in and of themselves.  It is amazing to me how much a difference it makes serving this beer in the low to mid 50s.  With this beer on tap it is hard to get myself to drink anything else

Dark English Mild Take III

This will be my third attempt at a Dark English Mild (read about First and Second).  This is a low alcohol and malt forward beer meant to be consumed in volume - easy drinking but flavorful and complex.  The style is very rare to see in the US although it is now something you can find from some craft breweries.  It seems to be unreasonably expensive as sold today for a beer that you don't just have one of - that is one reason why it's better to be a homebrewer than a craft beer drinker.  

For this attempt I'm going to use a historical recipe from the Shut Up about Barclay Perkins Blog:  1952 Lees Best Mild.  This beer has a fairly complex malt bill with 4 dark specialty malts, used in small amounts, to bring complexity to the beer.  It also features invert syrup (like many historical English recipe) to dry it out.  Finally, it also uses a small amount of brewers caramel for color.  I'm going to make my own invert and caramel for this beer.

For hops, the recipe called for a fairly restrained dose of Fuggle.  I had Willamette on hand which is quite similar so I've used that instead in the same amounts.  This is a malt forward beer where the hops will provide some balance but not make too much of a flavor contribution.

Finally, the recipe calls for Wyeast London Ale III which is the same strain as Imperial Juice.  I have a saved pitch from a previous batch to use here.  This helps keep the cost low on this beer.  I haven't found this to be that estery a strain when used in a hoppy beer.  We'll see how it does here in a beer without bold hop flavors to compete with.  It will be fermented cool at 63 F which will probably keep it pretty clean

Have an empty keg and can't wait to get this on tap.  Will give fermentation 3 weeks I think.  Should be a beer that will be good young.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 6 lb Golden Promise
• 4 oz Crystal 60L
• 4 oz Chocolate Malt
• 2 oz Brown Malt
• 2 oz Black Malt
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb Invert #1
• 2..2 oz Brewers Caramel
• Hops:
• 1 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 90 min
• 0.5 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 30 min
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temp:
• 63 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.039 (Target 1.035)
• Efficiency:
• 79% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• 1.008 (Target 1.008)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 79% (Target 77%)
• ABV:
• 4.1% (Target 3.5%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/20/21 - Quite a bit of prep for this one:
• Replaced my RIMS heating element.  Swapped from a 120 V 1500W to a 120 V 2200 W.  Did a bit of a test run and it didn't cause the breaker to flip on a 15 A circuit which is good.
• Created a yeast starter with 100 G of DME and 1 L of water.  Took the mason jar containing my yeast out of the fridge a few hrs before pitching and it was bubbling pretty good by the end of that which is nice.  Set it up an a stir plate to grow over night

• Brewers caramel:
• Heated 2.2 oz of Turbinado sugar on a pan at medium
• Let this cook until the sugar was bubbling and smoking - only took a couple minutes
• Let it cool down in the pan.  I'll dissolve it tomorrow with boiling wort
• Invert #1:
• Combined 1 lb of white sugar with 2 cups of spring water and 1/4 tsp of Citric Acid
• Heated this at medium low for 1 hrs until it was a light gold in color
• It's still liquid enough to pour
• 3/21/21 - Brewday - 11 AM to 3:45 PM- Including Setup and Cleanup
• Heated 8 gal up to 175 F (5 gal spring water and 3 gal tap)
• Milled my grains - adding brewing salts to the milled grain so I wouldn't forget
• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun.  Cycled through the RIMS until the system had settled to 160 F
• Stopped the RIMS cycle.  Added the grain - stirred well to eliminate clumps.  Let this sit for 10 min.  Settled at 152 F
• Cycled the RIMS at 150 F for 50 min

Wort Cycling through grant - looks good

• Heated 8 gal of sparge water to 190 F
• Drained the mash tun to the boil kettle until I'd collected 4 gal of wart.  Did a bit of a modified fly sparge here
• Started heating the wort after collecting 3 gal
• Added enough water to cover the grain bed to the mash tun.  Let this sit for 10 min
• Drained the mash tun again to the boil kettle.  Added more water to the top as I went.  Collected slowly to allow the kettle to keep boiling.  Collected until I had 8 gal of wort.
• Boiled for 60 min.  Added bittering hops at the start of this
• Added the brewers caramel.  I had to pour boiling wart into the ban to dissolve it.  This took multiple rounds to get it all
• Added remaining hops at 30 min
• Added irish moss with 15 min to go.  Also poured in my invert syrup at this point.

• Added wort chiller to sanitize with 5 min left
• Chilled the beer down to 70 F
• Collected 5.25 gal and measured the gravity as 1.044.  So, got quite a bit higher efficiency than planned.  I'll add half 3/4 which should get me to 1.039
• Transferred to the fermenter.  Let it fall a foot to aerate
• Pitched my yeast and moved the fermenter to fermentation chamber set to 64 F
• 3/22/21 - The beer was bubbling pretty well the next morning
• 3/24/21 - Still bubbling away this afternoon
• 4/10/21 - Cold crashed at 38 F.  Added gelatin to fine the beer later in the day
• 4/11/21 - Kegged the beer today.  Measured the FG as 1.008
• 5/28/21 - Tasting Notes - A nice flavorful and fairly complex session beer.  It is light and easy drinking - having a couple of these in the mid-afternoon doesn't impact my ability to do some chores later which is nice.  I think it's a great style of beer and this is a very nice version of it.
• 7/2/21 - Keg has kicked :(