American Pale Wheat with Citrus Zest

I have run out of hoppy beer yet again - need to learn to time things better.  For my next Pale Ale I'll be going back to a recipe I've used quite a few times previously using a pretty good amount of wheat and a combination of Citra and Amarillo hops with create a beer with strong Citrus like flavors.  To further enhance the citrus character I'm going to infuse the beers with some real citrus flavors.

I'll be getting the citrus I'll be making a Oleo Saccharum which is a simple syrup that extracts citrus oil from the peals.  This is a ingredient for old time cocktails.  It is very simple to make, you just peal citrus zest off the fruit, cover it in sugar, and then wait a few hours to a day and the sugar will extract liquid and flavors from the fruit and turn to a syrup.

For my batch I'm going to be using Orange and Grapefruit - both of which have flavor similar to what I get from these hops.  I'll add this syrup on transfer to the keg and then let the sugar ferment off to carbonate the beer (and hopefully do a bit of oxygen scavenging as well in the process).

Other than the citrus it's a fairly standard beer.  I'll be using enough grain to get a ~3% beer, bittering with 1 oz of hops, flavoring with 5 oz of hops at the end of the boil, and then Dry hopping with 6 oz of the Citra and Amarillo.  This seems like a sweet spot to get a refreshing and drinkable hoppy beer that I can have as many pints of as I like.

I'm thinking the citrus will be a nice subtle additional element to the beer.  Hopefully it is present in the flavor but not overwhelming.  I plan to try this again if it's not a disaster.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 5 lb Pale Malt
• 4 lb flaked wheat
• 5 oz Crystal 10L
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 60 min
• 2 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 0 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) at 0 min
• 2 oz Amarillo (Leaf, 8.8% AA) Dry Hop
• 4 oz Citra (Leaf 13.1% AA) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice (3rd Pitch)
• Water:
• 14 gal of spring water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
• Extras
• Citrus Sugar:
• 5 oz Sugar
• Zest of 2 oranges
• Zest of 2 grapefruit
• 1 cup water

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 160 for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 65 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 2 weeks in Keg

Results:

• OG:
• 1.036 (Target 1.038)
• Efficiency:
• 68% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• 1.013 (Target 1.013)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 63% (Target 63%)
• ABV:
• 3% (Target 3%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/5/21 - Made a yeast starter with 100g of DME and 1 L of water.  Set this up on stirplate to propagate over night
• 11/6/21 - Brewday - 12 PM to 4:45 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 185 F
• Milled my grain.  Added Gypsum and CaCl to it so I wouldn't forget

• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun.  Let the water cycle through the RIMS until the system had hit 170 F
• Stopped the RIMS and stirred in the grain.  Took care to eliminate doughballs.  Let this settle for 10 min.  Temperature was 158 F after this
• Cycled the RIMS at 161 F for 50 min

• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 185 F for the sparge
• Drained the mash tun and added hot water to the top until I'd collected about 5 gal.  Started to heat the kettle after collecting 3 and had it a boil shortly after collecting 5.
• Topped up the mash tun with hot water and let sit for 10 min.  Slowly drained the mash tun into the kettle until I had 9 gal.  Did this very slowly so the boil wasn't interrupted
• Added the bittering hops at this point and boiled for 60 min

• With 15 min left I added the irish moss
• With 5 min left I added the wort chiller to sanitize
• At the end of the boil I added flavoring hops.  I put a low flow of water in to chill down to about 190 F.  I then let the hops steep for 30 min which took the temperature from 190 F down to 170 F

• Chilled the wort down to 70 F
• Drained into my stainless steel brew bucket - Pitched the yeast during the transfer
• Collected 6.25 gal.  Measured the gravity at 1.036
• Set the fermenter up in my fermentation chamber with my jar based airlock to capture some C02 which will protect the beer during cold crash
• 11/7/21 - Fermentation is a bit slow to get started - no airlock activity yet but there is a bit of foam on the beer which makes me feel a bit better
• 11/20/21 - Dry hopped the beer
• 11/21/21 - Cold crashed the beer to 45 F
• 11/25/21 - Made my citrus syrup:
• Pealed the thin layer of peal off 2 oranges and 2 red grapefruit

• Mixed the peal in a bowl with sugar

• Let this sit over night
• 11/26/21 - Kegging day:
• Transferred beer to keg until I had 5 gal.  I'd first filled the keg with sanitizer and pushed it all out with C02.  Then I fed the CO2 into the fermenter to push the beer into the keg
• Once the transfer was complete the keg was depressurized
• I added 1 cup of boiling water to the citrus syrup and filtered out the orange rinds.  The syrup has a very strong orange/grapefruit aroma

• Took the lid off the keg quickly and poured in the syrup

• Pressurized the keg up quickly the make it seal well and left the beer out at basement temperatures to ferment off the sugar.  I'll give it a week at basement temps
• 12/5/21 - Moved the beer onto tap.  It was already carbonated - a bit over carbonated initially
• 12/29/21 - Tasting Notes - It's a pretty nice drinking beer with a nice hop focused flavor.  It isn't the most complex beer I've made and the hop character is fairly mild as far as these beers go.  Only going by my imperfect memory I'd say this beer isn't quite as hoppy as some of my other recent examples.  I also think a slightly higher staring gravity could be helpful as think it could have done with just a bit more balance to the malt.  Still, I'm happy to drink every drop of this keg.  As for the citrus, I'd say it certainly doesn't overwhelm the beer used at these levels - I think I'll try this approach again at some point using a bit more.
• 2/6/22 - Kicked the keg today.  Hop/Citrus character was still plenty strong at the end.

Pilsner Take II - Tasting Notes

This is my second attempt at the Pilsner Lager style.  This is a pale lager featuring pilsner malt and enough noble hop to get an assertive bitterness.  This version was loosely based on Victory's Prima Pils which adds quite a bit of noble hop flavor to the style by using quite a lot of late hopping.

I really like the flavors of the noble hop and find the original to be really satisfying bitter beer.  It's crisp, easy drinking, and refreshing.

I've been drinking my version of the beer beer for over a month now and it's pouring clear and has a really smooth taste.  It has been very enjoyable having it on draft.  I think it's a good time to do an official tasting here before it's gone.

Tasting Note:

• Aroma:
• Grassy and herbal along with a bready and grainy malt character.  I also get the lager yeast aroma
• Appearance:
• Light gold and perfectly clear.  Pours with a 1 finger head that quickly settles down to a thin ring
• Flavor:
• Light bready malt flavor up front with a bit of herbal hop flavor in the mix as well.  The finish has a fairly firm bitterness along with a bit of malt character.  The balance is towards the bitterness.  Get a little bit of alcohol in the mix and a bit of lager yeast character
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied and pretty dry.  Smooth and very easy drinking
• Overall:
• This is a really nice flavorful and easy drinking beer.  Tastes like a pilsner - no doubt about it.  I really enjoy the smoothness of it and the balance between the malt (which is more present than an IPA) and the very satisfying bitterness.

Berliner Weisse Take IV - Tasting Notes

This is my fourth attempt at the Berliner Weisse Style - that is a Sour German Wheat Beer.  They are typically fermented with ale yeast and lactobacillus which creates a light lactic acid based sourness.

For this attempt I reused a blend of Lactic acid, Brett, and Belgian yeast which I've been saving in a jar in the fridge for the last 1.5-2 years.  I didn't create a starter as that wouldn't really help the blend but after several days I'd found that no fermentation had begun (I should have made a starter after all).  I added some German Lager yeast and that got it fermenting.  At the end of fermentation the beer had a pellicle but on sampling I found that no significant sourness had developed (did have a slight Brett character though).

Rather than proceeding with an unsour Berliner Weisse I opted to use 1 gal of aged Sour Blonde beer to make a blend in the keg.  My Sour Blonds are fairly aggressively flavored (largely with Brett) and have a good strong sourness so I figured it would have a meaningful impact when mixed with 4 gal of mildly flavored wheat beer - I'm happy to say that it did and that it managed to save this batch.

As you'll see from the notes, it isn't exactly like a standard Berliner Weisse but it's pretty close and is a nicely flavored, refreshing, and complex beer

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Overripe fruit along with an earthy character are prominent.  Also has a slightly mineral and light bready grain aroma.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a 2 finger head that quickly fades.  Light gold in color and pretty cloudy
• Flavor:
• Medium-light sour flavor hits up front.  This is followed by a bit of bready malt and an earthy/cheesy and slightly fruity Brett character.  There is some mineral flavor in the finish along with some wheat and lightly acidic flavors.  Has a pretty nice balance between the brett, malt, and sour flavors.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied and dry.  Easy drinking
• Overall:
• This is a very interesting beer.  It has a nice pleasing sourness to it which makes it easy drinking and refreshing - about on the level I'd expect for a Berliner Weisse and it also has the wheat malt character you get from the style.  The dynamics are quite a bit different though with a fairly assertive Brett character in the beer - it is quite a bit more complex than a just a lacto soured wheat beer will be.  I'd say it's a bit closer to Lambic than Berliner Weisse although the level of sourness is quite a bit toned down compared with my Lambic inspired Sour Blonds.  I think it's very nice although I'd probably stick to the normal lacto soured version for the next one.

El Dorado & Zappa Pale Ale - Tasting Notes

Time for a tasting of my most recent Hoppy Pale Ale - an El Dorado & Zappa hopped version.  This beer was brewed on 8/14, spent 6 days on 8 oz of dry hop, and then was kegged on 8/28.  I've been drinking it the last couple weeks now.  This, like all the hoppy beers I've brewed in the last several months, is a a pale ale strength beer (~4% ABV) which focuses on Aroma and Flavor hops.  I'm using flaked grains quite a bit in these beers to help with body and typically mash warm to try to retain some additional malt character and then bittering at a fairly consistent amount to end up with a product that has a nice firm bitter character - bitter but not aggressively so.  

This base beer creates a nice palate to experiment with different dry hopping combinations.  Dry hopping is such a wonderful approach to getting intense hop flavor and aroma in a beer.  I've tried quite a few now and have never gotten a combination I don't like.  For this one, I decided to try a couple hops I purchased in bulk:  El Dorado at 6 oz of dry hop and Zappa at 2 oz of dry hop.  I've used these both separately where the El Dorado produced a Citrus character where the Zappa had a piney, grassy, and marijuana like character - both very good beers.  The Zappa was a very pungent hop compared with the El Dorado so I opted for a fairly restrained portion.  We'll see how that turned out in the following tasting notes.

Anyway, I will say  I've very much enjoyed drinking this beer - a beer I can have 3 of in a night and not have a problem.  Time to do a tasting before it's gone.

Tasting Note:

• Aroma:
• Grassy, piney, and a slight bit of citrus character.  Maybe get a small bit of bready malt coming through.  A bit of a spicy character in there too.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a 1-2 finger head that lasts for several minutes and leaves lacing on the glass.  Light gold and a little hazy
• Flavor:
• Piney and herbal hop flavor up front.  This lingers into the finish which has a medium bitterness along with lingering hop flavor.  Slight bit of bready malt and a touch of sweetness in the mix to providing a little balance to the hops.  Not really picking up any alcohol or yeast character
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied and pretty dry.  A little bite of bitterness prickling the tongue but still easy drinking
• Overview:
• This is another nice hoppy pale ale.  Easy drinking with delicious hop derived flavors.  This one is fairly boldly flavored but not quite as bold and bright as the last one that used Zappa only.  The El Dorado is a more mild hop and I think the 6 oz used were somehow out competed by the 2 oz of Zappa here.  This beer is certainly no chore to get through but I'm not sure I'd call Zappa and El Dorado a winning combination (at least these crops in these proportions).

Milk Stout - Tasting Notes

I brewed up this Milk Stout back in July based on a historical recipe from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog:  1939 William Younger Nourishing Milk Stout.  A milk stout is brewed with Lactose, which can't be fermented by brewers yeast, in order to get a beer with a bit more sweetness than normal (it's also called a "Sweet Stout").  Lactose is the sugar found naturally in milk - it is sweet in a very mild way - and was traditionally marketed as sort of a healthful and fortifying addition to beer (sometimes for nursing mothers  - old marketing being shameless in that way)

I've had this beer on tap at 50-55 F for the last 4 weeks and it's drinking very nicely.  Time for some tasting notes before it's gone

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Roast, coffee, and a bit of overripe fruit.  Maybe some honey in there and some sweet bready malt.  Maybe some herbal and grassy hop aroma in there as well.
• Appearance:
• Pours with couple finger head that lingers for a couple minutes and leaves some lacing.  Black (dark reddish brown when held to the light) and a little murky
• Flavor:
• Sweet, roasty, and slightly fruity up front.  The finish has a mild level of bitterness which comes pretty close to balancing a sweet character that lingers.  The sweet flavor has a depth and complexity to it - there's an initial up front mild sweetness which I'd credit to the lactose and then an even more mild caramel-like flavor.  I think I pick up on the Licorice as well although it is very subtle (contributing to the slightly fruity character - not really anything like the candy).  May have a slight bit of herbal flavor in the background.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied.  Sticky sweetness.  Pretty easy drinking - goes down very smooth.
• Overall:
• Richly flavored and sweet (but in fairly restrained way) - aroma and flavor are really lovely.  Has a good bit of complexity with a lot of flavors to pick out and quite of interesting notes.  Goes down very easily and I find that 1 glass is never enough

El Dorado & Zappa Pale Ale

I am finally getting smart with my beer management and brewing up a new hoppy beer before the last one has kicked.  This will be another 3-4% ABV pale hoppy beer loaded up on dry hops.  This is really the wonderful style of beer in my opinion - so flavorful & complex and easy drinking enough to have any many as I want.  These are beers you can't buy commercially and, even if you could, getting them as fresh as you can get homebrewing would be a huge PITA, and then they'd be ridiculously expensive

For this one, I'll be using 6 oz of El Dorado, which impart a sweet fruity character, and 2 oz of Zappa which make a really reach piney and earthy character.  I think two hops will get along well together and at this ratio they'll likely give similar level of character (since the Zappa are so powerful while El Dorado are a bit more mild).  The 8 oz of dry hops get a really bold character - I imagine this is very close to saturation point.

Like the last several pale ales I'll be using about 20% of the grainbill as flaked grain (this time wheat and corn) to try to provide a bit more malt presence.  I'll also mash at close to 160 F to help finish with more body.  These also help keep the ABV relatively low.  With this much hop the malt is so far in the background it doesn't really cut through but I'd like to imagine this could help a bit.  This will probably be clear beer like the others but if it ends up a bit hazy that's fine too.

Finally, I'll be using Imperial Yeast Juice for this beer.  This is probably my fifth beer using this pitch of yeast and a third re-pitch.  It is a good yeast that makes some subtle fruity character.  It also seems to be continuing to ferment out nicely after extended time sitting in jars in the fridge.  This is a really good way of saving some money since yeast is so expensive.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 8 lb Pale Malt
• 1 lb Flaked Corn
• 1 lb Flaked Wheat
• 5 oz Crystal 10L
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 60 min
• 2 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) at 5 min
• 1.7 oz Cascade (Homegrown Leaf) at 0 min
• 2 oz Zappa (Leaf 5.3% AA) at Day 7
• 6 oz El Dorado (Leaf, 14% AA) at Day 7
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice (3rd Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 158 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 65 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA 

Results:

• OG:
• 1.046 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 72.5% (Target 71 %)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.015)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 73% (Target 66%)
• ABV:
• 4.5% (Target 3.9%)

Brewing Notes:

• 8/14/21 - Made a starter using a saved jar of yeast, 1 litre of spring water, and 100g of DME.  Set it up on the stir plate to propagate over night
• 8/15/21 - Brewday - 12:15 PM to 5:00 PM - Including setup and Cleanup
• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 185 F
• Milled my grain - mixed in brewing salts along with this
• Added 6 gal of strike water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until it had reached 168 F
• Stopped the RIMS and mixed in the grain until there were no more dough balls
• Let the Mash settle for 10 min.  Then started the RIMS cycle and let it go for 50 more minute
• Heated 7 gal of sparge water up to 185 F
• At the end of the mash I did a modified fly sparge until 8.5 gal of wort had been collected.  Started heating the kettle after collecting 4 gal and had it at a boil shortly after the end of the sparge.

• Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared
• Ended up having to adjust the burner strength to keep boil over
• Wth 15 min left I added the Irish moss
• With 5 min left I added more hops and the wort chiller to sanitize
• At zero minutes I chilled the beer a bit with the heat still on to settle the beer near 175 F and added the 0 min hops
• Let the beer sit and steep at 175 F for 30 min
• Chilled the beer down to 80 F

• Drained the brew kettle into the fermenter.  Let the beer fall a couple feet to aerate.  Pitched the yeast during the transfer

• Moved the beer to the chest freezer set to 67 F to chill down to fermentation temperature to and to start fermentation
• Measured the gravity as 1.048.  Collected 5.75 gal.  Added water up to 6 gal
• 8/16/21 - The beer is fermenting aggressively this morning
• 8/22/21 - Added the dry hops in muslin sacks weighed down with stainless steal.  The beer still had a bit of krausen on the surface.  I pressurized the fermenter with CO2 prior to adding the hops and again after to try to displace the O2 that got in

• 8/26/21 - Cold crashed the beer down to 40 F.  Pressurized the fermenter with C02 to protect from oxygen during this.  I ran out of C02 part way through this.  Hopefully that doesn't cause any harm.
• 8/27/21 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 8/28/21 - Transferred the beer to a keg backfilled with C02.  Measured the gravity as 1.012.  I'm going to let this carbonate for a week before trying it out.
• 9/20/21 - Tasting Notes - This is another nice hoppy pale ale.  Easy drinking with delicious hop derived flavors.  This one is fairly boldly flavored but not quite as bold and bright as the last one that used Zappa only.  The El Dorado is a more mild hop and I think the 6 oz used were somehow out competed by the 2 oz of Zappa here.  This beer is certainly no chore to get through but I'm not sure I'd call Zappa and El Dorado a winning combination (at least these crops in these proportions).
• 10/19/21 - Keg kicked today.  The beer was still very nicely hoppy at the end

Pilsner Take II

Today I'll be brewing a Pilsner destined for one of my four Kegs - this will be my second attempt at the style (read about my first attempt).  I very much enjoy the light, crisp, and hoppy flavor of Pilsner (my last two cases of hoppy beer were Victory Prima Pils) - this beer is somewhat inspired by this clone recipe.  I couldn't get the right hops for that one so I've used Saaz and Tettnang for this batch.

This is a very simple recipe with just Pilsner malt.  I've done Decoction mashes for my German inspired lager previously but this time I'm going to see how it does with a single stage mash which will make for a quicker brewday.  I'm shooting for an ABV for around 4.7% for a bit easier drinking on this one.

I'm going to give a few weeks to ferment out and then will do a short (2 week) lager period before kegging.  Looking forward to having this one on tap.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 10.5 lbs Pilsner
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Hallertau Blanc (Pellet, 9.4% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Saaz (Pellet, 2.8% AA) at 30 min
• 1 oz Tettnang (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 30 min
• 1 oz Saaz (Pellet, 2.8% AA) at 5 min
• 1 oz Tettnang (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 5 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 152 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Primary at 50 F
• Diacetyl Rest at Basement Temps
• Lager at 40 F
• Primary Duration:
• 1.5 weeks
• Diacetyl Cleanup Duration:
• 1 week
• Lager Duration:
• 2 weeks

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048 (Target 1.047)
• Efficiency:
• 72% (Target 71%)
• FG:
• 1.008 (Target 1.011)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 81% (Target 76%)
• ABV:
• 5.1% (Target 4.7%)

Brewing Notes:

• 7/31/21 - Built a yeast starter using 100g of DME and 1 L of boiling spring water.  Let this cool and then pitched my jar of yeast and set it up on a stir plate to propagate over night
• 8/1/21 - Brewday - 1:20 PM to 5:20 PM- Including Setup and Cleanup
• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 175 F
• Milled my grain.  Added brewing salts to the grain
• Moved 6 gal of spring water to the mash tun and cycled until it had settled to 164 F
• Stirred in the grain and let this sit for 20 min.  It settled to 154 F
• Cycled the RIMS at 153 F for 40 min more

• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 185 F
• Did a fly sparge until 8 gal had been collected.  Started heating the beer after collecting 4 gal and had to a boil just after finishing the sparge
• Added the bittering hops at the start of the boil once the hot break had settled a bit

• Added the 30 min hops
• Added Irish Moss with 15 min left
• With 5 min left I added the wort chiller and some flavoring hops.  Let the beer come back to a boil
• Chilled the beer to 80 F
• Collected 5.5 gal and measured the gravity as 1.052.  Topped it up with 0.5 gal of spring water to get to about 1.048
• Moved the beer to the fermentation chamber to chill down to fermentation temperature (50 F)
• 8/3/21 - Airlock finally started bubbling today
• 8/15/21 - Moved it out of the chest freezer for diacetyl rest
• 8/28/21 - Moved the beer back to the chest freezer set at 37 F for a couple weeks of lagering
• 9/5/21 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 9/6/21 - Transferred to a C02 purged keg to carbonate.  I'll give the beer a week or so before trying it.
• 10/16/21 - Tasting Notes - This is a really nice flavorful and easy drinking beer.  Tastes like a pilsner - no doubt about it.  I really enjoy the smoothness of it and the balance between the malt (which is more present than an IPA) and the very satisfying bitterness.
• 11/3/21 - The keg kicked today.  I'm going to miss this beer.