Queso Fresco with Chipotle Pepper

For my fourth attempt at cheese making I chose to make a Queso Fresco based on another recipe from cheesemaking.com.  This was another simple recipe that doesn't require aging (which I'm still not equipped to do).

Queso Fresco means "Fresh Cheese" in Spanish - it is meant to be eaten fresh.  I've seen it in the supermarket before but haven't had it.  I chose it because it will broaden my horizons somewhat by including a pressing with an increasing amount of weight along with the use of peppers.

Like last time, I'll be using raw milk from a local dairy.  For the pepper, I found some dried chipotle at a local supermarket (Wegmans).  The peppers have a really nice flavor and are very spicy.  They're really dry - I debated whether to do something to try to re-hydrate but I'm assuming the remaining whey in the cheese will do that for me.

I've been happy with the other cheeses I've attempted - I expect the same from this one.

Ingredients:

• 2 gal Raw Milk
• 1 packet of Mesophilic Culture
• 1/4 tsp of Liquid Animal Rennet
• 1 oz Kosher Salt
• 1 Finely chopped Dried Chipotle Pepper

Process/Notes:

• 9/11/16 - Cheesemaking day:
• Left the milk on the counter for a couple hrs to warm up a bit
• Heated the milk to 90 F on the stove in a 5 gal pot - overshot a bit to 92 F
• Sprinkled the culture on the surface.  Let it hydrade for a couple min before stirring in
• Let the culture work for 45 min
• Diluted the rennet in 1/4 a cup of tap water.  Added to the milk and stirred for 30s
• Let set for 40 min - temp was 90 F by the end
• Had a nice clean break by the end of that time
• Cut the curd into a half inch grid
• Set sit for 5 min to allow the whey to come up through the cut lines and separate the curd
• Put on low heat to get to 95 F for the cooking phase
• Stirred the curd every 5 min or so.  Started gently.  The curd broke into 1/4 in pieces which shrunk and got firmer through the cooking time.  This is an important step but I'm still not quite sure I'm getting things to the right level of cooking.
• Scooped the curds in the a cheesecloth lined colander
• Chopped up the chipotle pepper
• Let drain for 30 min - stirred a few times to help the whey drain out
• Stirred in the pepper

• Stirred in the salt a little bit at a time - it seems like an awful lot of salt but the recommendation is ~3% by weight which is about 1 oz assuming I got 2 lbs of cheese (which I didn't actually measure - doh).
• Bundled up the curd and pushed it into the cylindrical form.  I folded up the cheese cloth at the top and then added the follower and put a half gal of water on top to press which is about 4 lbs (this step was specified as 30 min with 3-5 lb).  Had quite a bit of whey drip out to start but it slowed quickly.

• Pressed on one side with this weight for 15 min then unwrapped, flipped the cheese, and pressed on the other side for 15 more min.  It was pretty unstable.  It fell and spilled the water once but I eventually found the equilibrium that allowed it to stay up

• The next step was to be 60 min at 8-12 lb.  I half filled two gal jugs for about 10 lbs.  I put a box on top with the water in it to press.  The cheese wasn't all that flat and it was very difficult to balance.  It fell a couple times and spilled water.  I flipped after 20 min or so and then gave it another 20 min on the other side before it tipped again.
• The next step was to have been 4-6 hrs with 25 lbs of weight.  Given my difficulty with the previous attempts to press I opted to quit here.  I put the cheese in a zip lock freezer back an put it into the fridge for the night before trying it
• 9/12/16 - Tried the cheese the next afternoon
• 10/15/16 - I had gone through about 90% of this cheese.  It started to get quite a bit more funky over the last couple weeks and wasn't as good.  Today it had started to form some mold so I decided to throw it away.

Impressions:

• The wheel of cheese is a bit lumpy and uneven - not very attractive really.
• It is a salty cheese that gets along very well with the smoky and spicy peppers.  The peppers hydrated nicely in the salty whey - you can't tell that they were dry when I mixed them in.  It is as tasty as I'd hoped it would be.
• The cheese is pretty firm and has a smooth texture.  It has some voids that probably would have been pressed out with the 25 lb weight.  Still pretty moist as well.
• When I cut it and leave pieces on the cutting board at room temperature they start to weep why after a few min.
• I've been eating the cheese for about a week now and have gone through half of it.  No real signs of it falling off so far.
• Mostly been eating it plan.  Had some on flat bread last night - graded pretty well and melted okay.  The spicy peppers added a really nice dimension.

Lessons Learned:

1. Pressing the cheese by balancing water bottles on top wasn't ideal.  Having to get 25 lbs of weight this way was just too difficult.  I plan on making more cheeses that require pressing so I think I'm going to invest in a cheese press.  It's not a real complex machine so I may just try to build my own.
2. Dried peppers seemed to do just fine without being hydrated 

No Knead Dutch Oven Bread

We are in the process of moving so I haven't felt up to the time commitment required for brewing a beer recently.  I've been watching some videos of bread making and it looks like it, like cheesemaking, has a lot in common with making a beer. 

I always find it interesting delving into a world that I hadn't paid much attention to previously.  From my brief glimpses into bread making it had seemed that there was a fairly complex process associated with making a dough, letting it ferment, shaping, and then baking it.  I imagined that an improperly fermented and burnt product would be the result unless great care was taken.  After taking a closer look it seems like there are some simple steps that a beginner can take to produce a nice bread with not a lot of effort.

There is a fairly new technique called the "No Knead" method the greatly simplifies the process of making dough which seems like it's been pretty revolutionary for bread making.  It involves, as the name implies, minimal mixing of ingredients followed by long period of fermentation at room temperature.  Here is the New York Times Article where the concept was first presented.  It seems simple enough for me to have a reasonable chance for success.

The bread is baked in a Dutch Oven which apparently helps retain the amount of moisture professional bakeries achieve through fancy steam injection.  The original no knead recipe calls for putting the bread into a pre-heated Dutch Oven.  A clever trick that the many people who've made this recipe before me came up with is to line a bowl with parchment paper, put the bread in the bowl, and then transfer the dough to the heated Dutch Oven like in a cradle.  Pretty smart - I'm going to try this way.

The whole process, which mostly consisting of waiting, takes a good 24 hrs or so.  It seems like the steps could easily fit in my normal work day schedule.  If I like this I might have to start making my own bread regularly.

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups Flour (I wasn't super careful with this)
• 1.25 tsp Salt (I used kosher salt)
• 0.25 tsp Dry Bread Yeast
• 1 2/3 Cup tap water (I used tap water at about room temp)

Process Details:

• 9/10/16:
• Measured out Flour, Salt, Yeast, and water and added them to a metal bowl
• Mixed the ingredients together.  Started out looking like there was too much water then seemed like there wasn't enough but after 3 min of stirring with a wood spoon it smoothed out where all the ingredients seemed well mixed

• Covered with plastic wrap and placed on top of the fridge to ferment.  This was at about 8:00 PM
• 9/11/16:
• 19 hrs later dough had more than doubled in size.  It filled the kitchen with a nice flowery smell as it fermented.  I poured the dough onto a well flowered cutting board.  Was still very sticky.  Used a spatula to scrape it all out.  Sprinkled flour on top of the dough and then folded it up in each side to make a square.  Then shaped it into a ball.  Had to sprinkle more flour on it along the way to prevent sticking.

• Moved the dough ball to a floured parchment paper lined bowl and covered with a paper towel.  Let set for 5 hrs or so.  I had intended to only leave it for 2 hrs but got destracted.
• Tried to cut the top for expansion but the knife stuck pretty badly.
• Heated the Dutch oven for about 10 min in a 450 F oven
• Added the dough - didn't hold it's shape too well.  Sprinkled the top with flour

• Put in the oven for 30 min
• Removed the lid and let it bake for 25 more min
• Removed it from the dutch oven and took off the parchment paper
• Let rest over night with foil wrapping.  The bread was crackling a little bit as it cooled
• 9/12/16:
• Tried some bread the next morning
• Ate over half of it.
• 9/13/16:
• Quality starting to fall off a bit but still very nice
• 9/16/16 -  Baked up another loaf:
• This time I measured water and flour by weight:
• 430g of Flour
• 345g of Water
• The dough wasn't any less sticky with these measurements unfortunately
• Let it ferment for 18 hr
• Only had 1.5 hrs to let it rise after shaping
• Cooked it at 515 F for 30 min with the lid and 20 min with the lid off
• The bread was a bit overcooked

• 9/18/16 - Baked up another loaf.  Measured based on weight again.  This time I cooked it at 475 F for 30 min with the lid on and 20 min with the lid off.  This produced a really nice crust.  Before baking I drizzled on some olive oil and a bit of salt which were also nice additions.
• 10/2/16 - I've baked up this bread 5 or 6 more times.  I used Rye Flour for about 1/3 of the batch for a couple which makes a nicely flavored bread - although the texture is a bit different.  Also tried putting various spices on the top the bread while it bakes.  Sill like the original the best I'd say.  I'm going to play around with the ratio of flour to water a bit in the next several loaves.

Impressions:

• Really nice chewy bread.  I really like the bread at Tired Hands brewery and I think this bread is very much like it.
• Flavor was quite nice as well - I'd put it against store quality bread.
• It was fun but a bit more frustrating that I thought it would be.  I expect it will feel more natural as I try again.
• 515 F is too hot in my oven

Lessons Learned:

1. I ended up making two loves for this first round.  With the first I tried to put the bread in a cold Dutch oven with olive oil to prevent sticking.  It stuck so badly that I had to tear it apart to clean the pot.  The parchment paper method worked well with no sticking
2. The dough didn't hold it's shape well or allow me slice the top due to it's level of stickiness.  I believe this was because I was pretty caviler with my measurements of the flour and water.  I've done some further reading and found that 1.5 cups of water seems to be a good alternate amount (recipe recommended 1 5/8).  People also said the "cups" measure should be interpreted as "firmly packed cups'.  I used 1 2/3 cups of water and did not make sure to firmly pack the flour.  Weight seems to be a better method of measuring out ingredients.  I will try that next time.

Black Raspberry Tart - Tasting

I brewed up this beer back in March using Raspberries that I picked myself in 2015.

My initial plan for this beer was to prevent fermentation of the sugars in the fruit to get a sweet final product.  It turned out that the fruit wasn't really all that sweet to begin with so the gravity wasn't really raised much once the fruit was added.  I believe the added liquid more or less offset the added sugar.  Based on this I opted to just let the cards fall as they may and allow the beer to ferment out.

It had a nice fruit presence after spending a couple months on the raspberries but was a little bit bland so I added 0.75 gal of lacto soured wort.  This had the desired effect of giving the beer a bit more pep.

I've been drinking this beer for the last month.  It's going quickly (drank about half the batch).  Better get in the review now before it's all gone.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Strong aroma of black raspberry.  They're not quite like either red raspberry or black berry.  Interesting fruit that I hadn't tried prior to moving out here.  They smell very natural - not like a candy version of fruit at all.  No malt comes through.
• Appearance:
• Purple to dark red.  I usually pour in the dregs (as they improve the fruit character) so it's a little cloudy.  Pours with a 1 finger head that is a nice pink color.  Head doesn't last long and settles down to nothing.
• Flavor:
• Fruit flavor up front with a sour bite in the finish.  There is a slight incongruity to the flavor profile where the sourness has a character that is slightly different than the natural tartness from raspberries - more of a citrus maybe.  It certainly doesn't clash but I was hoping that the sourness would feel a bit more like an enhancement to the natural raspberry sourness rather than a separate sourness (not sure I'd pick this out if I didn't know there was lacto in the mix).  Very slight bready malt backbone to the flavor.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium/light bodied with a slight sweetness.  Finishes with prickly sourness.  The sourness lingers on the tongue for some time.  Easy drinking beer that makes your mouth long for another sip.
• Overall:
• It's an interesting and really nicely flavored beer.  Not sure you'd guess it had 10 lbs of fruit but it's certainly very fruity.  It definitely provides the sour kick that I've grown to enjoy frequently.  I was a bit disappointed to not get the amount of sweetness that I'd expected from the fruit.  Also hard to disconnect the beer from the fact that I spent $40 for the right to pick and 4 hrs doing the picking in order to make it.  I didn't do that this year and I'm not sure I'd do it again.  The black raspberry flavor is nice but I think I may prefer the normal red raspberry to it.

Mozzarella Cheese - Take II

I enjoyed my first two forays into cheesemaking.  Enough so that I think I'm going to take the next step and work to setup a mini-fridge as a temperature & humidity controlled cheese cave.  This will allow me to make a wide variety of aged cheeses which really appeals to me.

We have decided to buy a house here in PA so I have put my efforts to setup a cheese cave on hold until we are settled in a few months.

In the mean time I decided to try out another simple cheese that doesn't require aging.  I'm not all that adventurous so I'm going to try to make Mozzarella again.  Last time, I made a soft mozzarella with rennet tablets and citric acid.  It turned out nicely but I didn't get to eat all that much of it as I made it at my mothers house and didn't think it would travel well.  It was so soft and sticky that it seemed like it would be ruined on a warm and bumpy trip.

For this attempt I'm going to use a culture and will shoot for a firmer cheese that can be sliced and grated easily.  I opted to use this recipe/procedure from cheesemaking.com.

This recipe was nice in that it really started to hammer home how decisions at various steps (temperature the cheese is ripened at or the size the curds are cut into) help contribute to the final product.  Making cheese is as complicated, and as interesting, as making beer I would say.

Finally, I found a local farm that sells unpasteurized raw cows milk (they also have goat's milk available).  It tastes very nice and has a rich body.  It's a bit more expensive than store bought milk but I figure if I'm going to spend hrs making a cheese it may be worth the cost to get a purer product (not that I think my palate is refined enough to tell the difference between raw and store bought milk).

Ingredients:

• 2 gal Raw Milk
• 1 packet of Thermophilic Culture C-201
• 1/2 tsp Liquid Animal Rennet
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt

Process/Notes:

• 8/27/16 - Cheesmaking Day - Took ~6 hrs
• Heated up 2 gal of milk in a 6 gal pot of the stove top.  Heated on low.  Stirred every 10 min or so to get even heating.  The milk started at 34 F.  Took about 1.5 hrs to get up to the target of 100 F.  Didn't have any issues with the cream settling to the top that I noticed.
• Added the culture.  Sprinkled on top of the milk and gave it a couple min to hydrate before stirring in.

• Moved the pot to a hot water bath at 100 F
• Let the cheese ripen for 60 min
• Measured out rennet and put it into a small glass of warm water
• Added the rennet and stirred into the milk for 30 s
• Let coagulate for 45 min - cheese fell to 98 F over this period without any heat
• Did a knife check at the end of 45 min and found that the curds had formed
• Cut the curds into a 1/2 in grid (suggestion was to do this to get a drier cheese)
• Let the cheese sit for 5 min while the whey seeped up through the cuts 
• Stirred to break up the curds - tried to get 1/2 in chunks.  The curds sunk to the bottom

• Moved the pot back to the burner and heated the cheese up to 106 F.  Over shot a bit and had it at ~109 F.  Turned off the heat at this point
• Let the curds cook for 1 hr.  I stirred every 5 min or so (also to help get a drier/firmer cheese)
• At the end of the hr I scooped out the curds with a slotted spoon and placed them in a stainless colander.  I was able to scoop out all of them rather than pour the contents into the colander.
• Dumped the whey
• Moved the colander back to the pot and placed it into a 100 F hot water bath.  The curds were 101 F at this point.
• Let the curds ripen for 2 hrs.  This allowed the cheese to acidify which is crucial for being able to stretch it

• Heated a gal of water up to 180 F for the stretch
• At the end of the 2 hrs I cut off a piece of curd and put it into some hot water to check the stretch.  Found that it was breaking after a short stretch so I decided to give the cheese another 20 min to develop more acidity.
• Cut the curd mass into 1 in cubes and moved half of them to a bowl
• Poured hot water into the bowl and pressed the cunks of curd to the side to get them to soften and melt.
• Consolidated all the curds into one mass.  Pulled the mass with the spoon to smooth it out.  The mass never got all that smooth unfortunately - it was very firm.

• Pulled the mass out once it had cooled a bit and stretched it by hand.  It stretched but not anywhere near was well as with the first batch.  I returned it to the water bath for a reattempt but no joy.  It probably stretched 6 inches or so as opposed to the 18 in that the other batch stretched.
• Poured about 1/4 tsp of salt onto the cheese during the stretch.
• Formed it into one big ball.  Ended up slipping out of my hands and onto the floor at one point and picked up some cat hair.  Washed this off in the sink.  Put a bit more salt on the outside and then put it into the freezer to cool
• Repeated the steps for the second ball (minus the drop on the floor part).  This one didn't stretch well either.
• Moved both cheeses to plastic ziplock bags and put them into the fridge.

Impressions:

• It tastes like Mozzarella cheese which I'm counting as a major victory.  The salt level is very nice
• It's a bit chewy and stringy - like a string cheese in texture.  You can even pull pieces off like with string cheese

• I melted a piece in the microwave - it melted well and was nice and stretchy and gooey when put onto chips

• Shreds very nicely - we plan on using quite a bit of this cheese on lasagna tonight
• Cheese was still good a week and a half later when we used it on Pizza.  All gone now.

Lessons Learned:

1. I think the curd may not have been cut into small enough chunks to get even heating for the stretch.  I cut them into 1 in chunks.  These should have been much smaller.  The difficulty stretching may have been partly due to this (although the overall firmness of the cheese was probably the main contributor)

Dark English Mild - Take II - Tasting

I brewed up a Dark English Mild as my first all grain recipe and really enjoyed it.  It's a nice style as it's very flavorful but also really easy drinking with a low ABV.  Also quite cheap to brew with low hop rates.  It's been over two years since that one so I decided to try another.

I used a recipe by Charlie Papazian which was a bit higher in alcohol and had a much more significant level of hopping than I wanted so I cut these back significantly - brought this beer in at 3.28% ABV with only bittering hops.  The recipe leverages a new variety of malt - Double Roasted Crystal 120L which sounded compelling to me.  This beer, as light as it is, will be a showcase for that malt.

Been drinking these for the last month or so and am about half way through the batch.  It was good young and it's continued to be tasty.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Sweet graham cracker and caramel malt.  A little roasty and slightly chocolaty.  Also sort of reminds me of burnt marshmallow.  Pleasant aroma.  No hops and no yeast character come through.
• Appearance:
• Very deep amber color.  Good clarity.  Pours with 0.5 finger head which settles down to a thin layer and lingers.  Leaves some lacing on the glass.
• Flavor:
• Malt flavor dominates with a light bitterness rounding out the finish.  Malt is slightly roasty with biscuit/cracker and caramel flavors.  No hop flavor.  It has a nice, malt slanted, balance.  The flavor dissipates very quickly on this one.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied with a bit of sweetness on the backend.  Smooth and easy drinking with no astringency.
• Overall:
• I think this is a nice easy drinking beer with plenty of flavor.  Really aren't sacrificing any flavor with this being such a light beer.  It's very nice to mix these in on weeknights as I can have 2 or 3 and, at 3% ABV, there's really no effect.  The late hopping the original recipe called for would have been nice but the beer really doesn't need them.  It's a nicely complex malt flavor that stands up well on it's own.  I think the double roasted crystal is a nice product that I wish I could get more easily - it definitely brings a bit more flavor to the table than normal Crystal 120L.

Double IPA - Take 2

I really love the complexity and depth of flavor in a well made double IPA.  These are usually my beer of choice when going to the local bar.  I've been very impressed by many of the new beers I've tried this year - the level of hopping these beers are bringing to the table seems to be steadily increasing.  The trouble is that the cost of the beers seems to be steadily increasing as well.  It's not unusual to see a 10 oz pour go for $7 or more around here.  This is too much for me to be happy drinking them very often.

My first attempt at brewing a Double IPA, a Heady Topper clone, turned out to be as good as any commercial beer on the market.  It was a sad day when I drank the last one.  I held off brewing another one due to the extra cost and effort associated with brewing one of these.  It's a long brew day dealing with all the hops and, with a well hopped example like the Heady Topper, you're looking at 20-30 dollars in hop costs alone.

As good as the Heady Topper clone ended up being it's also difficult to get up the courage to try to brew some other beer as it's likely not going to match it.  I found a nice looking Pliny the Elder recipe on the Bertus Brewery blog that might have a fighting chance.  When fresh, Pliny the Elder is a fantastic beer with great intense hop flavor (falls off slightly with age).  The hype seems to have subsided a bit as people have moved onto newer beers but it's still a very difficult beer to track down - even in Sacramento CA somehow.  It's funny that it's actually a bit easier to get Russian River beer here in Philadelphia that it is in the Sacramento area.  I haven't had any Pliny now in at least a year - I need my Pliny fix.

Pliny has a very simple malt bill with just a bit of specialty malt (1 lb) along with some sugar to help dry the beer out.  I'll be mashing at 152 F.

It would normally call for hop extract for the bittering but I'm going to just use some high AA hop instead as I didn't really care for the hop extract last time I used it (in my Two Hearted Clone attempt).  It will be a 90 min boil on this batch.  The recipe calls for 45 and 30 min additions of hops which I'm going to defer to 10 and 5 min.  Additionally, I'm going to increase the flameout and dry hop additions a bit to try to get more hop intensity.  I'll add both flameout and whirl pool additions of hops.  I have some Simcoe, Amarillo, and Columbus hops left over from the Heady Topper batch last year that I am going to be using in addition to those called for in the original recipe.  I've been storing them in the fridge in zip lock bags.  They smell good still (compared them with the fresh hops I have for the batch and they're about the same) so I'm confident that they aren't oxidized.  With these I'll have a bit more than 1 lbs of hops in the batch.

Like with the Heady Topper clone, I've planned to end up with 6.5 gal post boil with the assumption that I'll lose about a half a gal in the kettle to all the hops.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 15 lbs 2 Row
• 8 oz Crystal 60L
• 8 oz CaraPils
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• 12 oz Dextrose
• Hops:
• 1 oz Apollo (Pellet, 18% AA) at 90 min
• 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) at 15 min
• 0.5 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 7% AA) at 10 min
• 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 8% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Columbus (Pellet, 12.5% AA) at 0 min
• 2 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.6% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 7% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 6.9% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Centennial (Pellet, 7.6% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 6.9% AA) First Dry Hop - added after 4 days (sit for 7 days)
• 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) First Dry Hop - added after 4 days (sit for 7 days)
• 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) First Dry Hop - added after 4 days (sit for 7 days)
• 0.5 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 7% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 6.9% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
• 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
• 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 8 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 Temp:
• 153 F for 60 min (Target 153 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 90 min (Target 90 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 63 F for 4 days
• Allowed to ramp up to 70 F to finish
• Primary Duration:
• 21 days
• Secondary Duration:
• None

Results:

• OG:
• 1.083 (Target 1.070)
• Efficiency:
• 78% (Target 66%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 85% (Target 85%)
• ABV:
• 9.32% (Target 7.88%)

Brewing Notes:

• 7/30/16 - Created a 1.6 L starter out of Munich Malt and pitched the yeast.  Set it up in a flask on a stir plate.  Bubbling started a few hrs later. 

• 7/31/16 - Brewday - 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM including setup and cleanup
• Brought 10 gal of spring water to 175 F
• Transferred strike water to mash tun and grant until there was 4 gal above the false bottom and 7.5 gal in the system total
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Cycled the RIMs at 153 F
• Added the grain.  Stirred well to eliminate doughballs
• Mashed for 60 min

Grant

• Brought 10.5 gal up to 185 for the sparge
• Fly sparged
• Collected 9.5 gal.  Gravity at the grant was 6 brix at the end of the sparge
• Started heating the kettle after collecting 4 gal.  Had it to a boil shortly after the end of the sparge
• Added the bittering hops shortly after the hot break cleared
• Had several partial boil overs
• Added the sugar with 30 min left in the boil
• Added the Irish Moss with 20 min left in the boil
• Added the 15, 10, and 5 min hops
• Boiled down to 6.5 gal in order to get 6 gal of beer
• Added the wort chiller at flameout
• Added the fame out hops
• Let the flameout hops sit until the kettle reach 180 F (which took 20 min).  Then added the "whirlpool" hops.  Let these sit for 30 min with the kettle uncovered
• Chilled down to 80 F (this seemed to be as far as ground water temps would take me).
• Transferred the beer to the fermenter.  Collected 5 gal before the hop particles blocked the flow.  Decided to just pour all the liquid into the fermenter - took most of the hops with the beer.

• Ended up with 6 gal.  Measured gravity as 1.083 - significantly overshot the 1.070 target OG.
• Pitched the entire yeast starter.  The starter had settled down since the morning when there was about an inch of krausen.
• The beer was at 75 F.  Moved it to the fermentation chamber set to 63 F to chill.  Setup the beer with a blowoff tube as this will probably be a pretty strong fermentation.
• 8/1/16 - Beer was bubbling frequently this morning.  Fermentation is well underway.
• 8/5/16 - This morning I increased the chamber temperature to 70 F.  Will let it ramp up naturally.  The beer was still bubbling.  This afternoon I added the first round of dry hop.  I used a mesh bag weighed down with a couple stainless steel bolts and tied on a string to pull them out when done.  I'll give these dry hops 7 days.  There were a lot of hops floating on the surface of the beer.  It smells very nice.

• 8/14/16 - Pulled the first round of dry hops and added the second round to the fermenter loose.  The beer has a really wonderful hop aroma at this point.  I squeezed out the hop sack into a glass.  Was awesome but slightly astringent - probably good I didn't squeeze that into the main batch.  I lowered the chamber temperature to 62 F.  Will give this 4-5 days before cold crashing.
• 8/20/16 - Lowered the fermentation chamber to 35 F to help clear the beer.  I'm going to skip gelatin on this batch.
• 8/22/16 - Bottled the beer today.  Had 6 gal in the fermenter but it turned out the last gal was all hops - pretty amazing.  Measured the gravity of the beer at 1.012.  Bottled with 4 oz of priming sugar.  Ended up with 51 12 oz bottles.  The beer smells fantastic and has a really rich hop flavor.  I think it's going to be very nice.  I'll give this a week to carb before trying my first one.
• 9/3/16 - I've had 4 or 5 of these over the last week.  Very little carbonation has developed so far.  I guess the 9% alcohol must be slowing the small bit of remaining yeast down a bit.  The beers still taste wonderful though.
• 10/26/16 - Tasting Notes - Can't believe it's been 2 months since I bottled this beer.  It's held up nicely.  Slight reduction in intensity of hop flavor but it's still plenty hoppy.  This one never quite carbonated and just doesn't look very nice.

Lessons Learned:

1. With my last IPA I used a bag to filter out the hops from the kettle.  I didn't do that this time.  We'll see if I have a problem when it comes time to bottle as a results.

Flanders Red Blend #1

I have decided it is finally time to start drinking some of the Flanders Red beer that I've been accumulating over the last year and a half.  I have brewed up 18 5-6 gal batches of beer over that time.  I don't want to try to get too fancy with this first blend so I'm going to limit myself to 2 beers - one "old" one (~18 months) and one "young" one (~1 year old) a la Rodenbach Grand Cru.

I am going to blend up 2 ~5 gal batches of beer as part of this first blend.  One of these batches will be bottled immediately (will be going with normal capped bottles as all my beers are pretty dry and will carb up using priming sugar and wine yeast).  The other batch will be aged on 10 lb of pitted sour cherries that I picked up this week.

For the "old" beer I have two candidates:  1.1.1 (21 months old) or 1.2.1 (18 months old).  I'd like to age one of these for a full 3 years before using.  They were both pretty similar in flavor so either would be nice for the blend.  I decided to use 1.2.1 as it would hit the 3 year mark 3 months after 1.1.1 and I'd rather not wait that extra time. 

Here are some tasting notes for 1.2.1:

• Aroma:
• Brett funk comes through strongly on the aroma along with a bit of cherry.  I don't remember the Brett being anywhere near this strong in the last sample (back in January).  No hop aroma and no alcohol.
• Appearance:
• Has a really nice red color and very clear.
• Flavor:
• Fruity flavor comes through first followed by a pretty firm sourness (very similar level to Rodenbach Grand Cru).  Tartness lingers through the finish.  Earthy brett flavor comes in pretty strongly in the finish as well.  No vinegar flavor that I can detect.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light-medium bodied.  No astringency.  Acidity brings a slight prickliness.  There is a very slight sweetness to the beer although the impression of sweetness may be enhanced by the acidity.
• Overall:
• The beer has a nice level of complexity between the fruit, brett funk, and sourness.  I'm really happy with how much the last 6 months have allowed the brett to impact the flavor.  I think this will be a good blending ingredient given this aged beer flavor - would also be very good by itself if I wanted to go that way.  I was hoping that some acetic acid would develop in a beer this age.  It seems that the glass carboy and airlock did a really good job keeping oxygen exposure pretty low.

For the "young" beer I have quite a few options.  The 1.4.x (1.4.1 and 1.4.2) series struck me as being the best beers so far from my initial tastings.  Add to that that I noticed a small crack had formed towards the bottom of the glass carboy holding 1.4.1 and that pretty much sealed the deal for me that these would be the ones I should use first.  I will plan on blending half of 1.4.1 with half of 1.2.1 and then bottling that directly, blending half of 1.4.2 with the other half of 1.2.1 (and aging this on the cherries), and then transferring the remainder of 1.4.1 into the 1.4.2 carboy for further aging.

Here are some tasting notes for 1.4.1:

• Aroma:
• Fruit along with fairly pronounced earthy brett aroma.  May get a small bit of oak mixed in.
• Appearance:
• Dark red and perfectly clear.
• Flavor:
• Up front I get a lot of fruit flavor before a firm sourness kicks in.  The sourness lingers into the finish where it is balanced by a really nice bready/roasty malt character.  There is also a chocolate like favor in the finish which is very nice.  The flavors in this beer are very bold.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied.  Sour finish has a stickiness to it - lingers for a bit after drinking.  No alcohol presence I can detect.  Smooth and easy drinking.
• Overall:
• This is a really nice tasting beer.  It's firmly sour but the maltyness that has remained over the aging period does a lot to balance this.  The fruit flavor is very bold in this beer - I hope this remains strong in the blend.  Big brett aroma but not a whole lot in the flavor so far.  I think this is going to be very good in a blend.

Here are tasting notes for 1.4.2:

• Aroma:

• Very funky/musty aroma along with some fruit.  Alcohol comes through - smells pretty potent.
• Appearance:
• Very pretty dark red.  Perfectly clear at room temperature.
• Favor:
• Pretty firm sourness with some fruity notes.  Sourness lingers through the finish.  Quite a bit of bready malt flavor through the finish as well.  A bit of brett funk in the finish but it's pretty mild at this point.  Taste the alcohol a little bit as well.  It's very wine like in flavor.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium light bodied.  Slightly prickly from the acid.  Slight sweetness in the finish.  Slight alcohol warming.
• Overall:
• Very complex flavor and aroma like the other two.  This one is a bit stronger than the others at nearly 8% ABV.  It will be nice to blend this down a bit with the slightly weaker beer.  I think this will be a good one to mix in with the cherries given the firm sourness and nice malt backbone.

Blending Notes:

• Cherry blend:
• 7/28/16:
• Added 10 lb of pitted sour cherries to a plastic bucket fermenter.  Highland Orchards lost all theirs this year in an early spring cold snap but were nice enough to order some from Michigan for me.  They have a lot of juice and are slightly sweet.  I think they will be very nice in this beer

• Transferred about half of 1.4.2 onto the cherries.  This was probably about 3 gal.
• Transferred half of 1.2.1 into the fermenter.  This was likely about 2.5 gal

• Will let this ferment out for several months in the room temperature basement with an airlock
• 7/30/16 - The airlock is bubbling slowly this morning.  Third round of fermentation is getting underway
• 8/5/16 - Lots of little bubbles in the airlock still
• 1/15/17 - Bottled this beer today with 3.5 oz of priming sugar and a pack of dry yeast (Premier Cuvee).  Didn't rehydrate the yeast this time.  Got 6 gal of very pulpy beer.  Ended up with 51 12 oz bottles of beer.  The FG is 1.002.  The beer is very sour with a pleasant cherry flavor.  Smells a lot like Rodenbach Alexander.
• 3/31/17 - Tasting Notes - I think the beer and the large amount of cherries get along very well.  The beer is bold enough to make it's presence felt and play an effective supporting role to the star of the show.  The cherries come through in way that makes you well aware that you're drinking a cherry beer which is exactly what I'd hoped for.  It's a complex beer and I'm very pleased with it. 
• 6/27/20 - 2020 Vertical Tasting:
• Aroma:  Candy-like cherry aroma followed by earthy and leather Brett character
• Appearance:  Brownish red and pretty clear.  Pours with very little foam that is gone in a second
• Flavor:  Mild cherry flavor up front that transitions to a light acidity.  Earthy Brett comes in next and lingers into the finish along with the acidity.  it has a slight nutty character in the background - almond maybe.  Also some mineral flavor in the finish
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  Fair amount of prickly acidity.  Easy drinking and refreshing
• Overall:  Flavor and aroma are fairly mild.  Nice complexity - a lot going on.  The cherry is more in the background than I remember
• Plain blend:
• 7/30/16
• Transferred the remainder of 1.2.1 (~2.5 gal) to the bottling bucket
• Transferred about half of 1.4.1 to the bottling bucket (~3 gal)

• Rehydraded a package of Red Star Premier Cuvee champagne yeast in a glass of warm water.  Let this sit for about half an hr prior to pitching
• Dissolved 4 oz of priming sugar in 2 cups of boiling water and added to the beer
• Stirred well to get good distribution of sugar and yeast
• Got 58 12 oz bottles out of the batch
• Will let these sit for a few weeks before trying the first one
• 11/30/16 - Tasting Notes - The beer ended up with a really pleasing level of complexity.  It's not as good as Rodenbach but I'm still really happy with how well it delivers the expected flavors.  The malty flavor is especially pleasant going along with the firm acidity.  Not sure how the beer managed to retain this as a number of the other batches didn't really have that.
• 6/27/20 - 2020 Vertical Tasting:
• Aroma:  Earthy and leathery Brettanomyces character.  A bit of overripe fruit.  Maybe a touch of vinegar.
• Appearance:  Reddish brown and clear.  Pours with a think wisp of foam that is gone immediately.
• Flavor:  A bit of fruity flavor up front which then transitions to sourness which then lingers to the finish.  It is a medium level of sourness.  Earthy and funky Brett flavor lingers in the finish as well
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and very dry.  Light prickling acidity.  Very easy drinking and refreshing
• Overall:  Bold flavor and aroma and fairly complex.  The earthy Brett character is probably the most dominant characteristic.  Pleasing level of acidity makes for nice drinking