Oatmeal Stout Take II - Tasting

This was a recipe that I came up with.  It had a significant percentage of the grain bill made of up of flake oats (~20%), was hopped pretty strongly, and used Simcoe for flavoring.  The beer ended up fermenting all the way down to 1.006 and initially tasted something like a black IPA.

The beer has mellowed a bit over the last month and a half I've been drinking it but it is still very hoppy.  The low FG really makes it hard to tell that there were any oats in the beer.  Still, it's tasty enough without that - just not what I was planning.

I had considered submitting the beer to a local contest to try to get a bit of objective feedback (not that I think this would score all that well).  The beer has a complexity that challenges me to describe.  I ultimately decided not to as the entry form requires a list of ingredients and this beer drinks much more like an American Stout than an Oatmeal stout and I suspect that, even though the oats don't actually taste like 20% of the grain bill, the judges will consider the large percentage as a flaw and not be able to see past that.

As I continue to brew my own recipes I'll look to submit something to a competition.  This one just doesn't really fit any style very well.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• It has an interesting aroma - complex and difficult to describe.  It think it's mostly a mix of roast/chocolate and pine.  There is also quite a bit of spicy fruityness with some alcohol.  I can't say whether malt, hops, or yeast character are the dominant force here.  The aroma has not really faded or changed in the month and a half I've been drinking this beer.
• Appearance:
• Very dark brown - pretty much black.  Pours with a pretty good head but that fades down to nothing in a few minutes.  Leaves no lacing on the glass.
• Flavor:
• Up front the flavor is slanted towards the roast malt flavor with some pine and spicy yeast character.  The finish has a pretty firm bitterness that lingers.  Most of this is the hops but I think some of the bitterness is from the roast malt.  There's also a bit of chocolate mixed into the finish.  As it warms the 6% alcohol starts to gain prominence in the flavor.  The bitterness has decreased but it could still almost pass for a black IPA - not quite bitter enough for that maybe.
• Mouthfeel:
• The beer is fairly thin bodied and dry.  Slight astringency gives it a bit of prickliness on the tongue.
• Overall:
• The beer has a mix of interesting things going on between the roast and chocolate malt, strong bittering charge & piney finishing hops, and expressive English yeast.  I believe those are the three major contributors to the flavor.  This batch was an experiment so that I got something interesting out of it was the most I could really hope for.  I'm not sorry to have 50 bottles of this to drink but it would have also been interesting if I'd gotten the expected character from the oats and the higher gravity I'd planned for.  I might have to revisit this recipe at some point.

Hard Apple Cider

It seems like we have quite a few Apple Orchards around in PA.  Now that we are getting into Autumn we are starting to see Apple Cider make an appearance in the super markets.  This has inspired me to try making a Hard Apple Cider.

I have had a few commercial ciders that I have generally enjoyed.  They usually seem to be very dry, crisp, and refreshing.  A lot of homebrew recipes involve adding sugar to up the OG and alcohol content.  I've decided to keep this batch simple and ferment from the cider's OG.  I chose a Cider from a local orchard (Weaver's Orchard in Morgantown PA).  It has been pasteurized but doesn't contain any preservatives.  It comes in at a pretty low 1.044 which is fine by me.  It's a very nice tasting cider - really bright apple flavor

I am still lagering my Munich Helles so I'll be letting this beer ferment at ambient basement temps which have been about 70 F of late.  May get a bit of a cool down over the next week or so though.  Either way, the yeast is recommended to ferment in around this range so I think ambient temps will be fine.

Compared with making a batch of beer cider making seems very simple.  It will be interesting to see how quickly I can get a drinkable product.  There are a large variety of things you can add to a cider (fruit, spices, and even hops) as well as different techniques that can create different flavors (like back sweetening/pasteurization and souring).  If this one goes well I may have to try some other varieties.

Recipe Details:

• Apples/Juice:
• 5 gal Weaver's Orchard Cider
• Yeast:
• WLP 775 English Cider Yeast
• Extras:
• 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 1 gal Weaver's Orchard Cider for Back-sweetening

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5 gal
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (65 F to 72 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 4 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.044
• FG:
• 0.994 (Target 1.000)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 100% (Target 100%)
• ABV:
• 6.56% (Target 5.78%)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/19/15 - Setup a yeast starter.  Boiled 500 mL of water and 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient in the flask with the stir bar.  Chilled this down to room temp.  Added 1 L of apple cider to the mix.  Set it up on the stir plate over night.
• 9/20/15 - Brew day - 12:00 PM to 12:15 PM
• Took the cider out of the fridge to get up to basement temps a few hours prior to starting.  The cider is cloudy.  It has a really nice apple aroma to it.  It is sweet up front and then has a fairly firm tartness that lingers in the finish.  The apple flavor is very bright - I'm no expert but to me this seem like a very good and very fresh cider. 
• Boiled 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient in 500 mL of water to dissolve it.
• Poured 5 gal of cider into sanitized fermentation bucket
• Add the yeast nutrient water
• Added the yeast starter.  The starter had developed a nice layer of foam.  It had a bit of a sulfur smell which was noted by white labs as a bi-product of fermentation.

• Let sit at basement temps to ferment
• 9/21/15 - The fermentor was bubbling vigorously this morning
• 9/24/15 - Bubbling has stopped
• 10/30/15 - Bottling day - The cider has fermented all the way down to 0.994.  It has cleared nicely and tastes a lot like a dry white wine.  It looks like there may be a slight pellicle forming on the beer.  I have decided to spit the batch.  I'll leave one half plain and back-sweeten the other half with more apple cider.  Bottled the plain half (2.5 gal) with 1 oz of priming sugar - got 23 bottles.  Bottled the other half with a bit less than 1 gal of cider which seems to give a nice slight sweetness - got 38 bottles.  I measured the gravity of the back-sweetened portion as 1.004.  If I leave these be I'll get bottle bombs so I'm going to try a bottle pasteurization technique.  I'll let the cider condition for a couple days and then, once they are carb'd up to a good level, I'll put them in a hot water bath to kill all the yeast.  I'm thinking a 150 F bath for 10 min should be good.  I am going to use my Mash Tun and RIMS to ramp up the temperature.  I'll check on a bottle each day to try to avoid over carbonation.

• 10/31/15 - Checked on a first bottle today.  Very light hiss when I opened it but no real carbonation has formed yet.  It is pleasantly tart, slightly sweet, and very tasty.
• 11/1/15 - Drank another one this afternoon.  Still got the light hiss on opening and no real carbonation.  I'll give it another day.
• 11/2/15 - Still little to no carbonation
• 11/4/15 - A bit more carbonation today in my test bottle.  There was a half a finger head on the pour and then some bubble coming up afterwards.  I am going to try pasteurizing tomorrow.
• 11/5/15 - Pasteurized the cider this evening.  Heated up about 10 gal of water in my mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until it got up to 145.  Added the bottles and the water dropped down to 130 F.  Heated up to 150 F which took about 30 min and then let sit at that temp for 10 min.  Then chilled down to 100 F with some cold water and removed the bottles from their water bath to air cool.  No broken bottles fortunately.  I kept a couple unpasteurized bottles aside and put them into the fridge to compare the pasteurized from unpasteurized portions.

• 11/7/15 - Tried the pasteurized an unpasteurized ciders side by side.  There were no differences that I could detect either cold or when I let them warm up.
• 11/11/15 - Tried both the sweetened and unsweetened cider today.  The sweetened cider doesn't seem to have gotten any more carbonated in the last week.  It's looking like the pasteurization worked.  The unsweetened cider I tried hadn't developed any carbonation and had a pretty strong sulfur smell and a slight sulfur flavor.  This should age out over time.
• 2/20/16 - Tasting Notes - The back sweetened half turned out to have a nice balance between sweet and sour.  Pretty happy with this one.  The plain half picked up a sulphur aroma and flavor during bottle conditioning which reduces my enjoyment of it.

Flanders Red 1.5.1

This will be my fifth batch of Flanders Red from my original yeast cake.  It will be pitched onto the cake previously used for Flanders Red 1.4.1.  This beer will be undergoing a primary fermentation with brewers yeast and lacto for a month prior to going onto the Roeselare cake.  I'd really like to get this primary first approach down to a science as I think this pre-fermented beer would be better for topping off my existing batches as well as for blending purposes.  It would also give me a bit more control of the amount of sugar going to the souring microbes if I could be confident about hitting a particular SG after primary.  My first couple attempts fermented down a bit further than I was hoping (would like to see it at ~1.015 after primary).  I am going to keep attempting this.

I tried a modified malt bill with Flanders Red 2.1.1 that I am going to further tweak for this batch.  I'm going with the cereal mash of Corn Grits again to try to get a starchier wort.  This time I am going to do the cereal mash in my kettle while doing the mash so that I can be on hand to stir it and so that I don't make another mess of the kitchen.  I am also going to increase the mash temperature to 175 F prior to adding the cereal mash to the main mash to try to prevent conversion of the corn starches.  Once again, I am going to assume no gravity contribution from the cereal mash which I'm sure will not be the case.  I am going to use rice hulls again as the corn grits are kind of a slimy gummy mess that could hurt the flow through the grain bed.

For the last batch I tried to approximate the malt complexity I'd been getting from the Munich and Vienna using Victory malt.  From the few tastes I had of the wort it seemed a little too crackery with this in the mix.  For this batch I've decided to go back to using a bit of Munich instead.

The malt bill, overall, has been cut back quite a bit.  I'd been targeting an OG of 1.062 which, if I'd ever hit it, would have produced a beer of nearly 8% ABV given the super high attenuation I've been getting.  This is a bit higher than I'd like.  So, I'm going to try to bring this been in around 1.045.  Additionally, I will be getting 5 of those gravity points from Maltodextrin which is a carbohydrate powder that yeast can not break down but the lactic acid bacteria can.  This feels a bit like cheating so I may not make this a permanent part of my process.  I was too curious to see what it would do to hold off on it though - will be very interesting to see how this impact the attenuation of the primary yeast.

I had planned on re-using the primary yeast from 1.4.1 but decided against it as it had the lacto and possibly some other microbes in it.  I was worried that this could impact the attenuation of the primary.  I picked up another Belgian yeast (Wyeast Abbey Ale 2) to do primary for this round.  I am going to try hard to maintain this as a clean strain for later re-use.

I am also going to primary ferment a gallon of the batch with lacto as I did with Flanders Red 1.4.2 (which I'd saved the lacto from).  This lacto strain (Brevis) produces a wonderful fruity (apple juice like) sourness that I think is assertive enough for 1 of 6 gal to contribute a reasonable level of sourness to the overall batch.  I will give this a couple weeks by itself before adding to the main batch.  I really like this approach to the lacto souring as it seems like it will give a lot more control than you'd get by pitching the lacto into the main batch and then waiting a couple days to pitch the primary yeast.  This also allows me to ferment the lacto up in the bedrooms where it's a bit warmer than the basement.

Finally, I am going to add more oak cubes to the beer when I transfer over to the Roeselare cake.  This will up it to 2 oz of cubes.  I have been soaking the cubes in Port wine for about 3 months now for this beer.  The port wine has a nice sweetness than I think will compliment the beer nicely.  I am going to continue to add oak over the next few batches with the goal of inoculating enough to perform the long term aging/souring without the Roeselare cake to more closely match the Rodenbach process.  Probably want to have at least 6 oz of cubes for this so it's going to be a few more batches before I can try it.

Recipe Details

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 4 lbs 2 Row
• 3 lbs Dark Munich
• 12 oz Caramunich III
• 12 oz Aromatic Malt
• 12 oz Special B
• 12 oz Maltodextrin (Not Factored into Efficiency Calculations - 5 gravity points)
• Cereal Mash (Not Factored into Efficiency Calculations):
• 1 lb 8 oz Corn Grits
• 6 oz 2 Row
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Second Pitch)
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Fifth Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 oz Oak Cubes (from previous batch)
• 1 oz Port Soaked Oak Cubes
• 8 oz Rice Hulls in Mash

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  160 F for 45 min (Target 160 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramp up to 175 F over 20 min (Target Ramped up to 175 F in 15 min) 
• Boil:
• 60 min(Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F to 75 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Yeast and Lacto:
• 1 Month
• With Roeselare:
• 3 Months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 Months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.049 (Target 1.045 - with 5 points from Maltodextrin)
• Efficiency:
• 85% (Target 72% - Does not factor in the Cereal mash which I don't want converted)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/17/15 - Prepared a yeast starter with 5.75 oz of DME in 1.2 liters of water.  Included 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient.  Set it up on a stir plate to propagate.  Also took my jar of lacto out of the fridge to warm up - I had crashed this jar part way through fermentation so there is probably a bit more food for it once it warms up.

• 9/18/15 - Brewday - 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM - Including setup and Cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water up to 165 F.  Cycled through the Mash Tun and RIMS until everything was up to temp - took 45 min
• Ended up with 4 gal above the false bottom and 6.5 gal in the system total
• Set the RIMS up on a cycle of ~2 qt per minute at 165 F
• Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the Tun
• Added the grain and rice hulls and stirred to eliminate dough balls
• Added 2 gal of 200 F water to the kettle for the cereal mash
• Added the corn grits to the kettle - this dropped the temperature to 168 F
• Added the 2 row which brought the temp down to 160 F
• Let the cereal mash sit for 10 min to start conversion
• Checked the main mash after 10 min - temp ranged from 157 F to 162 F.  Gave the mash a stir to help even out
• Brought the cereal mash up to a boil - took 5 min
• Stirred the cereal mash every 5 min or so to prevent scorching.  A white gelatinous membrane formed about halfway through the ~45 min mash.
• Brought 6.5 gal of sparge water to a boil
• Stirred the main mash after 30 min - temp was 163 F.  Lowered the RIMS to 162 F
• Gave the mash a final stir at 45 min - was about 160 F at that point.  Raised the RIMS to 185 F to help ramp the mash up to 175 F - Ended up taking 25 min
• Drained the grant to the main mash and added 1 gal of sparge water up front to provide a layer of water over the grain bed.
• Poured the cereal mash into the main mash and stirred it in.  It was very starchy and slimy - probably had about a gal of cereal mash due to absorption and evaporation.  It left a lot of residue in the boil kettle which I decided not to clean off as it seems like it would be adding some extra starch to the wort.

• Sparged at about 1 gal every 5 min
• Started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal of wort
• The wort was running very clear which surprised me given the corn grits.  Stirred the mash a couple times during the sparge to try to get a bit more starch into suspension.  The wort was very cloudy as a result of this.
• Gravity was down to 3.8 brix (1.015) after collecting 8 gal.  Sparge ended up taking 30 min.  Wort was right on the verge of a boil the whole time.  Was boiling vigorously after 5 more min.
• Added the Maltodextrin with about 20 min left in the boil.
• Added the wort chiller with about 5 min left in the boil
• Chilled down to 70 F
• Drained off ~0.75 gal onto the lacto once the wort was down to 80 F
• Drained the remainder to the fermentor once it was at 70 F.  Wort dropped a couple feet to aerate.  Collected about 5.5 gal in the fermentor for ~6.25 gal total.
• Measured gravity as 12.2 brix which is 1.049
• Moved the fermentor down to the basement and the lacto up to the bedroom
• 9/20/15 - The fermentor had started bubbling pretty vigorously about 6 hrs after pitching the yeast.  It had stopped bubbling a few days later.  The lacto part had also been very active for the first couple days but it seems to have slowed down a lot and maybe stopped by this afternoon.
• 10/3/15 - Combined the 1 gal portion with lacto into the main primary fermentor.  Both portions have fermented down to 1.020.  The lacto portion has developed a nice clean sourness.  The clean portion has a slight fruitiness from the yeast.  Neither portion is sweet and they are both medium bodied.  They're a really muddy brown - this is a really starchy wort.  I will give these two weeks more before transferring them onto the Roeselare cake.  I added half a gal of DME based wort to the dregs of the lacto half and I pulled off some yeasty wort from the clean half into two mason jars to keep the yeast going for re-use on my next batch.
• 10/25/15 - Transferred this beer onto the yeast cake freed by Flanders 1.4.1.  I tried to transfer very gently with my auto-siphon to minimize introduction of oxygen.  The beer has developed a thick layer of krausen since adding the lacto soured gal back into the mix.  Measured the gravity of the beer as 1.020 which is good.  I don't really detect any sourness to the beer even though the 1 gal of lacto portion was fairly sour - just too diluted by the other 5 gal.  It is a muddy brown still.  I added 1 oz of Port Soaked oak cubes to the mix during the transfer.

• 2/19/16 - Finally got around to transferring this beer to a glass carboy with a vented silicon stopper for long term aging.  The beer had a bubbly pellicle and a fairly pungent and funky aroma.  I measured the gravity as 1.004 so even the corn and Maltodextrine can't stop these microbes from taking a beer low.  The beer is still very cloudy and it is a light brown color rather than red.  It has very firm sourness and a fairly assertive brett funk character.  It is missing the fruity complexity that most of the other beers aged on this cake have ended up with at this stage.  That was one of the most pleasant aspects of these beers and I'm disappointed that it's missing from this one.  It will be interesting to see if those flavors come through during the aging period.  Can't say I really get any oak or port character from the cubes I added to this batch which is a bit surprising.  This yeast cake will be used for the "A" half of Flanders 1.6.1 and I will also be pulling some of the inoculated oak cubes to age with Flanders 3.1.1.

• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Funky aroma - pretty rich - with a bit of fruit
• Orange/red in color and a bit cloudy
• Light sourness.  A bit of earth flavor.  Also get a bit of malt on the finish.
• Mild flavored with a fair bit of complexity.  Pleasant but not that exciting

Lessons Learned:

1. Cereal mashing was messy in the boil kettle.  May be worth getting a 5 gal pot to use with my turkey fryer.  This would probably help with the scorching a bit as well as the big pot had a lot of surface area with such a small volume.
2. I am tired of my immersion chiller.  It's in the way out in the garage and lifting it out of the wort sucks.  I'm thinking a plate chiller should be my next purchase.  This will, of course, create it's own extra work due to extra items to sanitize but I'm thinking it will be a net benefit.

Double IPA

When I was considering starting homebrewing a few years ago one of things I was most excited about was being able to brew up my own big Double IPAs for a lot less money than I would pay for them at the store.  Brewing them at home would ensure that I would also be getting fresh beer with intense hop character.  So, now I am finally making one.  I had been a bit hesitant prior to now due to the high ingredient cost and the possibility that I'd screw it up.  I've built up quite a bit of experience now and I'm pretty confident that I can pull one of these off.

I have decided to try out the Heady Topper clone on homebrewtalk.com.  I've never had Heady so I don't really care if it's an exact copy.  I chose it because I was very impressed by the amount of hops crammed into one beer - 15 oz of hops post boil with a big bittering charge of hop oil.  It seems like this beer must have incredible hop flavor with that insane hop schedule.  This is quite a bit more than any beer I've made so far.

I will be using a second pitch of Conan from a Pale Mild I brewed a couple weeks ago.  I've read that Conan attenuates better on the second pitch.  The beer includes a bit of sugar in the raw and is mashed at 150 F to get a reasonably dry finish.  I'll also be ramping up the fermentation temperature towards the end to help it along.  Hopefully I'll get down to the target FG of 1.010.

I'm planning on about 0.5 gal of loss to the huge amount of hops and will filter them from the beer on the transfer to the fermentor - I really want to get a full 6 gal of this beer.

Really excited for this beer - can't wait to be drinking my first one 6 weeks from now.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 14 lbs 8 oz Pearl Malt
• 1 lb White Wheat
• 12 oz Turbinado Sugar
• 12 oz Crystal 20L
• 4 oz Crystal 10L
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 12 mL Hop Shot at 90 min
• 1 oz  Simcoe (Pellet, 12.6% AA) at 5 min
• 0.5 oz Apollo (Pellet, 18.5% AA) at 5 min
• 1 oz Columbus (Pellet, 12.5% AA) at 0 min
• 2 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.6% AA)  at 0 min
• 1 oz Columbus (Pellet, 12.5% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.6% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 8.0% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.8% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 0.5 oz Apollo (Pellet, 18.5% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Columbus (Pellet, 12.5% AA) Dry Hop
• 2 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.6% AA) Dry Hop
• 1 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 8.0% AA) Dry Hop
• 1 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.8% AA) Dry Hop
• 1 oz Apollo (Pellet, 18.5% AA) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• Yeast Bay Vermont Ale Yeast (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 13 gal spring water
• 6 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride in Mash
• 1 tsp Gypsum in Mash
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride in Boil
• 1 tsp Gypsum in Boil
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 150 F (Target 150 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 96 min (90 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 65 F for 4 days
• Raised to 70 F to finish
• Primary Duration:
• 28 days
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.073 (Target 1.073)
• Efficiency:
• 66% (Target 66% Assuming loss of 0.5 gal loss to hops)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 83% (Target 86%)
• ABV:
• 8.01 (Target 8.26%)

Brew Notes:

• 9/7/15 - Brewday - 4:45 AM to 11:30 AM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10.25 gal of spring water in HLT and cycled through mash tun and RIMS until the system was at 155 F - took 1 hr
• Ended up with 6 gal above the false bottom and 8.5 gal in the system total
• Added CaCl, Gypsum, and Acid Malt to the mash tun
• Doughed in and stirred until all the clumps were broken up.  Liquid level rose to 7.5 gal above the false bottom.  It is a thin mash
• Cycled through the RIMS at about 2 qt per minute.  Set the RIMS to 155 F.
• After 10 min the mash was at 145 to 146 F
• After 30 min the mash was about 154 F.  Lowered the RIMS to 152 F.  Stirred the mash to help conversion.
• Heated 10.5 gal of sparge water in the HLT
• The mash was 150 F with 10 min to go.  Gave it a final stir
• Stopped the mash after 60 min.  Measured gravity at the grant as 13.4 (1.054).
• Drained the grant volume back to the tun
• Added fly sparge water up to 9 gal above the false bottom.  Sparged at about 5 min per gal
• After collecting 3 gal the gravity in the grant was 12.8 brix (1.052)
• Started heating the kettle after collecting 4 gal
• Gravity at the grant was 13 brix after collecting 5 gal
• Gravity at the grant was 9.9 brix after collecting 7 gal
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the kettle at around the 8 gal mar - wort was on the verge of boil at this point
• Gravity was 5.5 brix after collecting 9 gal
• After collecting 10 gal the gravity at the grant was 4.8 brix (1.019)
• Sparge took 1 hr.  I had some issues maintaining the 1 gal per 5 min rate due to flow restriction out of the HLT.  Was easy to correct after I noticed.
• Added hop shots after big hot break cleared (had a minor boil over)

• Added the worth chiller halfway through the boil to sanitize.  Don't want it in there when I'm doing the hop stands.  Sprayed it down with a starsan solution once it was out.
• Added Irish moss with about 20 min left in the boil
• Added the 5 min hops with about 1 qt left to boil off
• Added the sugar with about 2 min left to go.  Stirred the mash to help it dissolve.  Left my mash paddle in the kettle to say sanitized.
• Added the 0 min hops at flameout
• Boil took 96 min - ended up with about 6.5 gal of wort
• Let the kettle sit uncovered to chill down to 180 F - took 20 min
• Measured gravity as 17.8 brix which is 1.073 - right on target
•  Added the hop stand hops once the temperature was 180 F - left covered
• After 20 min the wort was down to 168 F.  Took off the lid for the final 10 min.
• At the end of the 30 min hop stand we were at 158 F
• Added chiller - chilled to 70 F - took 15 min
• Drained through a sanitized hop sack onto the previous batch's yeast cake.  There was a huge amount of hops at the bottom of the kettle - poured this bit into the hop sack as well.  Ended up squeezing the hop sack to get as much wort as I could out of the hops.  Ended up with about a softball size ball of hop matter at the end.  Collected 6 gal of wort.  My estimate of losing about 0.5 gal to the hops was a pretty good one

• Moved the beer down to the fermentation chamber and set to 65 F.  Setup the fermentor with a blowoff tube as this will probably be a pretty strong fermentation.

• The fermentor was already bubbling 7 hrs later
• 9/8/15 - I had been lagering a beer in the chamber prior to adding the Double IPA.  This morning I found that the lager had managed to cool this beer down to 59 F.  It was still bubbling pretty strongly so it doesn't appear that any damage has really been done.  I left the chamber open all day and the beer has gone up to 62 F.  This might have an impact on some of the ester character but I think there is plenty of time to recover from this.  I will leave the chamber open until it gets up to the target of 65 F.
• 9/11/15 - Bubbling in blowoff has settled down a lot.  Moved the beer out of the fermentation chamber and set it up with an airlock to finish fermentation at basement temps (low 70s).
• 9/21/15 - Added half the dry hops in a hop sack.  These will stay in the beer for 7 days.
• 9/25/15 - The hop sack hadn't sunk yet so I tied a sanitized stainless steel bolt to it.  This did the trick.  I have a string tied to it to make for easier extraction.  I'm thinking the hop sack might restrict the exposure of a lot of the hops to the beer.  I'll be throwing the second round in loose.
• 9/28/15 - Pulled the first round of dry hops and added in the second round loose.
• 10/5/15 - Bottled with 3.75 oz of priming sugar.  Measured FG as 1.012.  Ended up with ~5.5 gal in the bottling bucket which got me 54 12 oz bottles.  There was about a half a gal of trub at the bottom of the fermentor.  I ended up picking up quite a bit of hop particulate in some of the bottles.  The beer smells and tastes terrific - really nice fruity hop character.  I will give it a couple weeks to condition before trying my first one.
• 10/10/15 - Tested one of the bottles that had quite a bit of sediment for carbonation.  Pretty good carbonation so far.  So, I am going to start drinking this beer a bit earlier than planned.  The hop flavor is intense but the aroma isn't quite as profound as I'd hoped it would be - in that first bottle anyway.
• 10/25/15 - Tasting Notes - Fantastic beer.  Best I've made so far.  Intensely hoppy with citrus fruit, pine, and dank earthy hop flavors that linger on the palate.  Intensely bitter but somehow still reasonably balanced on the finish.  The beer is also pretty smooth and easy drinking despite the 8% ABV.  I am really happy how this one turned out.
• 2/14/16 - Drank the last bottle of this today.  The aroma hops had faded considerably but it still had the great intense flavoring hops front and center.  This was a really good beer.  I'm going to have to brew this up again before too long.

Lessons Learned:

1. Smooth but long brew day.  I hit all my numbers and didn't make any big time wasting mistakes this time.  One of my best brew days so far.  Big relief given the complicated and expensive recipe.
2. There was quite a bit of contact between my hands and the beer during the transfer to through the hop bag.  The bag had been soaked in sanitizer so I think it will probably be okay.  I probably should have sprayed my hands a bit more rigorously prior to squeezing the bag.
3. Hop oil is very oily - made a big mess in my boil kettle.  Will soak it in oxiclean over night.

Flanders Red 2.1.1

I recently placed an order with the Yeast Bay so I decided to give their sour blend (Mélange) a try.  This will give me a bit more biodiversity and hopefully provide some more range for blending my Flanders Reds.  As some point I'll probably mix this culture with Roeselare to see how the two interact.

I have also put together a new grain bill that I'll try on my next few Flanders Reds.  I have swapped out the Pilsner, Munich, and Vienna malts for 2 Row and some Victory malt to get a cheaper mash that will hopefully provide roughly equivalent levels of malt complexity.  I have also swapped the flaked oats for corn grits with the hopes of extracting a bit more starch.  My efficiency always seemed to suck with the old grain bill and I've suspected it was the fault of the oats.

Corn is apparently a fairly common ingredient in Flanders Reds so I feel justified in using it.  I will be using a cereal mash for the first time to extract the starches from the corn.  I plan on adding it to the mash right before the sparge to hopefully allow some unconverted starches to make their way into the kettle.  I will also be using rice hulls for the first time to try to avoid any sticking of the mash due to the corn.

Once again, no hops on this batch.  It will be very interesting to see how sour this blend will get on it's first pitch.  It's fairly new and I haven't been able to find much in the way of user reports on the blend yet.  It smelled great going into the fermentor.  I'm looking forward to seeing it develop.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 8 lbs 2 Row
• 1 lb Victory
• 12 oz Caramunich III
• 12 oz Aromatic
• 12 oz Special B
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Cereal Mash (Not factored into efficiency calculations):
• 1 lbs 8 oz Corn Grits
• 6 oz 2 row
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Yeast Bay Mélange Sour Blend
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 oz of Oak Cubes (in primary)
• 8 oz of Rice Hulls in Mash
• 1 oz of Oak Cubes from a clean batch of beer (in secondary)

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 160 F for 60 min (Target 160 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F to 75 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.059 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 87% (Target 74% - Does not factor in the Corn Grits which will not get a full mash)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.002)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 96%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.30%)

Brewing Notes:

• 8/30/15 - Brewday - 4:40 AM to 9:30 AM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10.5 gal of strike water to 165 F.  Cycled through mash tun and RIMS to get them up to the target temp - took 45 min
• Ended up with 4 gal above the false bottom and 6.5 gal in the system
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Added the grain and rice hulls and stirred it all in.  Ended up with 5 gal above the false bottom after dough in

• Cycled at about 2 qt per min with the RIMS set to 165 F
• Added 4 qt of spring water at ~165 F to a separate pot for the Cereal mash
• Added the corn grits - temp fell to 157 F.  Added the two row which brought the temp down to 152 F

• Let the Cereal mash sit for 15 min
• Main mash was at 161 F after 20 min.  Stirred the first time.  Lowered the RIMS to 160 F
• Brought the Cereal mash to a boil after 15 min rest on the kitchen range.  Stirred it periodically.  At one point I stepped away too long and had a big boil over which was a sticky mess.
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT for a total of 8 gal and brought to a boil
• Stirred the main mash again at 40 min.  Temp was down to 156 F so I raised the RIMS back to 165 F
• Stirred the mash one final time at 60 min
• Drained all the wort from the grant back to the tun and stopped the cycle
• Poured the near-boiling Cereal mash (which was the consistency of watery oatmeal) into the main mash

• Fly sparged with near-boiling water at a rate of approximately 1 gal per 5 min.  Had about 7 gal above the false bottom during the sparge which gave a good layer of water.  Drew lines in the top of the mash with my paddle to help ensure even draining.
• At the start of the mash the gravity at the grant was 11.2 brix (1.045)
• Started heating the kettle once I'd collected about 3 gal.  This will halt conversion of the corn's starches if the hot sparge water hasn't already.  Gravity at the grant was about 12 brix (1.048) after collecting 3 gal
• Gravity at the grant was 10.2 after collecting 6 gal
• Stopped the sparge at 8 gal - gravity at the grant was 3 brix (1.012) at that point
• Sparge took about 30 min
• Brought to a boil - took only about 5 min more thanks to the heat during the sparge.  Fly sparging is great.
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added the chiller at flameout to sanitize
• Chilled down to 70 F - Took 50 min
• Measured the gravity as 14.4 brix which is 1.059
• Collected 6 gal by letting the wort fall down to a couple feet to the fermentor.  
• Moved the fermentor down to the 70 F basement and pitched the yeast
• Added 1 oz of oak cubes
• 8/31/15 - The fermentor was bubbling by this afternoon
• 9/13/15 - The airlock is still bubbling a bit after two weeks.  This was also a pretty strong fermentation that had caused the airlock to fill with wort in the first several days.
• 12/5/15 - Transferred to a glass carboy to age with a 3 piece airlock.  The carboy had 1 oz of oak cubes that my English Barleywine had aged on.  Freed the cake for Flanders 2.2.1.  The beer was down to 1.001.  It has a very funky and slightly unpleasant band aid like aroma.  The flavor isn't offensive - quite a bit of brett funk and a slight fruitiness.  No sourness has developed so far.  I think the Roeselare was a bit nicer on the first batch.  We'll see how this one develops.

• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Bold earthy aroma mixed with dark fruit
• Dark red and clear - very nice looking beer
• No sourness has developed.  There is a bit of interesting fruitiness and some bready malt.  Also get a hint of alcohol.  Finish has a bit of funk
• Mild flavor with a fair bit of complexity.  I think this one is outshined by the Roeselare batches but it brings some different flavors

Lessons Learned:

1. My efficiency was much higher than normal.  My assumption about not getting any sugars from the Cereal mash is flawed.  If I factored that in my efficiency would have been about 74% which is much closer to my normal.  The role the rice hulls played is something I'd like to understand better.  I will keep using them going forward.
2. I still feel like my use of the system is improving.  I was able to cleanup efficiently in parallel with the boil.  This included a drain of the mash tun and a soak in Oxiclean.  The oxiclean then went into the boil kettle and then everything got a rinse with tap water.  This did add about 45 min to the end of the brew day but I think it is worth it to have a clean system for the next batch.  I still think there is room for improvement.

Belgian Dubbel - Tasting

I brewed this Belgian Dubbel about 6 months ago and gave it a 3 month secondary to bulk age and mellow.  The recipe was a lower OG version of a Westvleteren 12 clone.  I have never had that beer so I can't really say how close it got to the real thing.

The recipe was interesting in that it was all pale malt with the color mostly coming from Dark Candi sugar.  I attempted to do a reduction of the first gal of runnings as well but it didn't reduce quite as much as I would like and didn't really get very dark.  The beer seems to have gotten a lot of it's flavor from this sugar which is also pretty interesting - next time I try one of these beers I'm going to seriously consider making my own sugar.

The beer fermented in the low to mid 60s which has left a fairly restrained yeast character.  I would try to increase this a bit (maybe to ~70 F) next time to see how much fruitier it would get.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• It has a malty sweet smell.  I get caramel and honey from it.  There is also a bit of fruity yeast character.  No alcohol smell and nothing I can pick up as hops.  It has very nice aroma.
• Appearance:
• Dark brown with a red tint.  Clear in the edges when held to the light.  Pours with a pretty think tan head which fades down to a thin layer quickly.
• Flavor:
• The beer has a nice backbone of sweet caramel flavor with some restrained fruity yeast character.  There is also a hint of alcohol but it doesn't taste like it's an 8.5% beer.  The finish is a balance of sweet malt and a bit of hop bitterness.
• Mouthfeel:
• It has a fairly light body.  It drinks very smooth and finishes dry.  Carbonation is low and the alcohol is very well hidden - this does not drink like the big beer that it is.
• Overall:
• This is pretty tasty beer.  It has a nice malt complexity and is a pretty easy drinking beer.  I think a bit more fruity ester character would have been nice.  It's obviously the product of a Belgian yeast but it's a little more restrained than I would like next time.

Pale Mild

My first all grain batch was a Dark English Mild.  It turned out well and the last bottle was consumed over a year ago now.

 I've been brewing quite a few hoppy beers here recently so I decided to try another malty mild ale.  I wanted a paler beer this time so I developed a recipe that should yield a copper colored beer with a good bit of complex malt flavor

I will be brewing with the famous Conan Yeast used by the Alchemist for Heady Topper.  This beer will serve as a big starter for a clone of that beer that I will be attempting for my next batch.  I'm hoping that the yeast character will play an interesting role in this mild.  The yeast is reputed to be a bit finicky so hopefully I'll also get a feel for how to coax it to completion on this cheap batch before trying it on the very expensive double IPA.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 6 lbs Vienna
• 8 oz Crystal 10 L
• 8 oz Crystal 20 L
• 4 oz CaraBrown
• 4 oz Biscuit
• 2 oz Honey Malt
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.2% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Yeast Bay Vermont Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal(Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 156 F for 60 min(Target 156 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min(Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 65 F for 1.5 days
• Allowed to raise to Ambient basement temps (70 F) to finish
• Primary Duration:
• 2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.032 (Target 1.032)
• Efficiency:
• 72% (Target 72%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 68% (Target 68%)
• ABV:
• 2.89% (Target 2.89%)

Brew Notes:

• 8/21/15 - Created a starter with 6 oz of DME in 1.5 liters of water along with 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient.  Chilled down to ~70 F, pitched the yeast, and set it up on a stirplate down in the 70 F basement.  The yeast didn't stay cool during shipping so I want to make sure I have a good cell count even though the beer will be about at a starter's gravity.
• 8/23/15 - Brewday - 6:45 AM to 10 45 AM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of water in my HLT and cycled through Mash tun and RIMS trying to get to 161 F.  Ended up overshooting at 170 F.  Had 3 gal of water above the false bottom and a total of 5.5 gal in the system.  It took about 45 min to do this
• Turned off the cycle and added the grain.  This got the volume up to 3.5 gal above the false bottom.
• Restarted the cycle with the RIMS set to 158.  Cycled at around 2qt per min

• The temperature settled at 158 F after 10 min
• Stirred the mash at 30 min.  Temp was down to 154 F.  Raised the RIMS temp to 160 F
• Heated 9.5 gal of sparge water up to 190 F (this included 5 gal of tap water)
• Temp was at 156 F at 45 min.  Stirred the mash one last time
• Gravity was 8.5 brix (1.033) after 55 min of mashing - right on target
• At the end of the mash I drained the grant to the mash tun.  Added sparge water until the mash volume got to 4.5 gal above the false bottom.  Sparged at about 1 gal per 5 min.
• Started heating the kettle once I'd collected a couple gal

• 15 min into the sparge, after collecting 3 gal, the gravity at the grant was 8.8 brix which is 1.035
• Brought the kettle to a boil once I'd collected 4 gal
• Stopped the sparge once the gravity at the grant was down to 3 brix (1.011) - I had only collected 6 gal at this point so I topped up the kettle with 2 gal of sparge water.  Sparge took about 35 min.
• Added the hops after the hot break cleared
• Added irish moss with about 20 min to go
• Added the chiller to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled to 80 F which seemed to be what ground water temps were at
• Measured the gravity with my hydrometer as 8.2 brix or 1.032 and collected 6 gal.  Wort dropped a couple feet to aerate
• Moved to the fermentation fridge to chill down to 65 F
• Pitched the entire starter once it got down to the fermentation temperature
• 8/25/15 - The airlock was bubbling vigorously the night after pitching and for most of yesterday.  It has slowed down a lot this morning.  I moved it out of the fermentation chamber into the 70 F basement to finish up.
• 9/2/15 - Measured the gravity as 1.010.  The sample was clear and light copper.  The aroma and the flavor to some extent had a bit of an odd grainy and slightly buttery flavor (movie theatre variety) that I'm thinking may be Diacetyl.  This beer has only been going for about a week and half which is on the very young side for me.  I will try it in four or five more days.
• 9/6/15 - The odd aroma is still present in the beer after a few more days.  I've started to doubt that it is Diacetyl that I'm getting and that this might be some of the expressive yeast character people report with Conan.  I will need the yeast cake tomorrow so I have chosen to bottle.  Primed with 3.5 oz of corn sugar.  Collected about 6 gal which got me 59 12 oz bottles.
• 10/15/15 - Tasting Notes - An easy drinking malt forward beer.   The beer has very similar flavors to Honey Nut Cheerios which I like.  It's not exciting but I wasn't really going for an exciting beer.
• 7/21/17 - Still have quite a few of these left.  They're so bland that I rarely feel compelled to reach for one given other options.  I tried mixing one with a about a tablespoon of honey with good results.  This gave it a very slight sweetness and added some depth to the flavor profile.  I think I'll drink the remainder this way most likely.  This discovery would almost make the recipe worth brewing again (but not quite).

Lessons Learned:

1. This was a very smooth brewday as a result of my better grasp on how to use my system.  I have gotten much better and quicker at setting up the cycle with the RIMS which really helped with heating the mash tun up prior to doughing in as well as with the fly sparge.  I added another bulkhead and valve to the front of the my kettle to allow for the kettle to be heated while fly sparging wort into it which was a good time saver.
2. I did my cleanup of the mash tun and RIMS in parallel with the boil this time.  I drained it, then heated some water with Oxyclean and cycled that.  I then rinsed with cool water and then finally captured some of the hot water from the wort chiller to do a final rinse.  I'd gotten some bad smells in my mash tun and grant from the last batch - hopefully this extra cycling got everything clean enough.