Harvest Ale (Batch #45)

After waiting all summer for my hops to grow I was finally able to harvest a few dry ounces from my Columbus plant that smelled great. I didn't have much success with the 2nd year Centennial or the 1st year Cascade. And the squirrels ate my 1st year Chinook so they didn't even make it out of the ground.

So I put this recipe together first to try brewing with my homegrown hops and second to help clean out the cupboards of some of our various left over malts. I had a bad experience last year brewing with homegrown Cascade so I also wanted to minimize any negative impact they may impart. I decided to throw 2 oz. in a hop bag for a 5 minute boil and I kept them in the boil kettle during the chill.

Recipe Notes
Style: Pale Ale

Batch Volume: 4 gal.
Color: 9 SRM
Target Bitterness: 46 IBU
Target OG: 1.048

Grist
7 lb. 2-row
1 lb. Crystal 20
8 oz. Crystal 40
3 oz. Maris Otter
3 oz. White Wheat Malt

1 oz. Centennial (FWH)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (15 min)
2 oz. Homegrown Columbus (5 min)

Yeast
Mangrove Jack M44 US West Coast

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 9/10/16
Mash Temp: 150
Mash Time: 60 min.

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4 gal
Measured OG: 11.8 Brix (1.048)
Measured FG: 1.010

Doughed in at 158 with 5 gallons of water. Ended up with 4 1/4 gallons post-mash without squeezing the BIAB bag. Was able to chill to only 90F post boil because summer sucks. Chilled the wort in my keezer until it got down to 70 and pitched. Fermentation temperature got up to 84!!! so I put it back in the keezer with the temperature probe directly in the wort. This didn't work so well because of the keezer overshot the target temperature (65F) by 5 degrees (60F). Fermentation had stopped but I thought it was because I put the yeast to sleep. Ended up taking a gravity reading which read 1.012 so I think it was basically done before the temperature shock happened. I let it sit for a couple of weeks to clean up fermentation byproducts.

9/25/16 - Kegged at 1.010 so it continued to attenuate a little over the last two weeks. Turbo carbed so it was ready in three days. This beer tastes really full bodied and creamy with a pillow-y white head that sticks around. There isn't much hop presence in aroma or flavor but there's just a little hint of 'ourdoors' smell that's kind of generically plant-y but not too off putting. In fact it complements the weather well as we head into the fall season.

German Wheat (Batch #44)

This is a beer I threw together to make use of some German Hefeweizen yeast that was about to expire. I took almost no notes but I figured I'd make note of the brew for the record. My buddy Mike and I had a joint brew day in his back yard. Mike brewed an American wheat and I brewed this German wheat.

Recipe Notes
Style: German Wheat

Batch Volume: 4.5 gal.
Color: n/a
Target Bitterness: n/a
Target OG: n/a

Grist
Forgot to record...

Brew Notes
Brew Date: Early summer some time
Mash Temp: 160
Mash Time: 60

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.33 gal
Measured OG: 11.0 Brix (1.044)

The only abnormal part of this brew day was that my mash temp after dough in stayed at 160F so I decided to mash without wrapping the pot in a sleeping blanket like I usually do. Follwing the 1-hour mash the temp had dropped to 148F.

Since it was pretty hot out I was only able to chill to 88F following the boil. So I took the wort home and put in my chest freezer over night. The temp dropped to 56F by morning so I just decided to pitch then. As you might expect it took a while to get going but fermented down to 1.007. It ended up sitting in the fermenter for a couple of months until a keg opened up in the keezer. I force carbed at 30psi for 48 hours then dropped to 12 psi serving pressure. I love that trick; it carbed up great. It does taste pretty thin and very attenuated but there's definitely a hefe-yeast character there. Not a super great beer but it tastes OK when it's hot out.

Bee Cave Pale Ale (Batch #43)

Ed Wort

I've been meaning to brew this recipe for some time now. The Bee Cave Pale is a very popular pale ale recipe on HomeBrewTalk by brewer 'EdWort.' It's a simple, no-frills recipe for a super solid pale ale. I've had a history of throwing a lot of hops at my pale ales in my pursuit of hop nirvana. With this brew I'd like to find a stronger appreciation for well balanced pale ales.

Recipe Notes
Style: Pale Ale

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: ?
Target Bitterness: ?
Target OG: ?

Grist
8 lb. 2-row
2 lb. Vienna
1/2 lb. Crystal 10L

1 oz. Cascade (FWH)
1/2 oz. Cascade (30 min.)
1/4 oz. Northern Brewer (15 min.)
1 tsp. Irish Most (15 min.)
1/4 oz. Cascade (5 min.)

Yeast
Nottingham Ale Dry Yeast

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 3/6/16
Mash Temp: 150
Mash Time: 60

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.9 gal
Measured OG: 12.0 Brix (1.048)

Hand ground the malt today instead of using my stupid cordless drill that always runs out of battery 20% of the way through anyway. Not too bad. Will probably do this from now on unless we need to buy a corded drill for some household project.

Brought 5.5 gal. mash water to 163. Temp fell just below 150 after dough in. Collected 4.75 gal of 13 brix wort. Boil was straight forward. Added 1/2 gallon of cold water post-boil during the chill phase. Ended up with about 5 gallons of 12 brix wort which is right where I wanted it. Filled the Better Bottle fermenter a little too high probably. Had to dump about 20 oz. of wort or so down the drain. Hopefully not a super vigorous fermentation or things could get messy.

4/23/16 - Kegged today at 1.008 for an ABV of 5.3%. Tasted a little BMC-ish. Fairly dry but with a bit of a toasted, 'husky' flavor I think from the Vienna. The beer also has a slight hefeweissen aroma that dissipates quickly over time. Had a major blow-out during fermentation which usually happens when I brew wheat beers so maybe I'm correlating the dry grain smell or maybe it was the Nottingham yeast that I'm not too familiar with. I usually use US-05 for this type of recipe. I think it'll be a solid easy drinker once it's carbonated.

Trying out a new carbonation method this time. I disconnected the other kegs from CO2 then turned the pressure up to 30psi. I'll leave it there for 48 hours while the keg is in the keezer chilling. I won't be rocking the keg around to increase surface area absorption. After 48 hours I'll drop back to serving pressure (14psi) and see how this trick impacts carbonation time. I'd like to have this beer carbonated within 11 days so it'll be ready for a work party so hopefully this'll do the trick.

4/26/16 - After two days at 30psi and another at 14psi this beer is perfectly carbonated. I think this'll be my go-to carbonation method from now on. Zero to carbed in 72 hours is great, especially for a beer that had some extra time to mature in primary.

Brew Shop Stout

Time for my homebrew to take the black. I haven't made a stout all winter so now we're way past due. The hops, yeast, and 5 lb. of non-base malt was purchased from the newly opened Brew Shop in Arlington, VA. So I dub this recipe the 'Brew Shop Stout.'

Recipe Notes
Style: Stout

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: ?
Target Bitterness: ?
Target OG: ?

Grist
5 lb. 2-row
1 lb. Crystal 80
1 lb. Roast Barley
1 lb. Chocolate Malt
1 lb. Stout Malt
1 lb. Oats

0.9 oz. Perle (FWH)
0.5 oz. Nugget (FWH)
0.3 oz. Northern Brewer (FWH)
1 tsp. Irish Most (15 min.)

Yeast
Safale S-04

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 2/27/16
Mash Temp: 158
Mash Time: 90

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.5 gal
Measured OG: 13.2 Brix (1.053)
Measured FG: 1.017

Today I experimented with using my refractometer to measure wort gravity over the progression of the mash. At 4 brix after 30 minutes, 5 brix after 50 minutes, and 6 brix after 75 minutes. This had me pretty worried because were supposed to be around 12-13 for the recipe. Was using the pipette to draw wort off the top of the mash after stirring around.

After a fairly long 90 minute mash I pulled the grain bag and remeasured. Now we were up to 12 brix! Something about my mash readings just resulted in incredibly low measurements. Maybe somehow the wort on the bottom of the kettle was thicker than that at the top and I wasn't mixing properly?

At any rate I was relieved to hit pre-boil gravity. After an uneventful boil I collected 4 1/2 gallons of 13.2 brix wort, pitched the S-04 and aerated for a few minutes. I set the fermenter in front of my heater register to ensure fast fermentation and to encourage yeast to clean up diacetyl that was present in my last brew.

3/19/16 - Kegged today at 1.020 for 4.3% ABV. FG a little higher than I anticipated. Maybe because I used S-04 instead of the trusty US-05? Decided not to secondary this beer to let the yeast clean it up in primary. While racking it was a dark ruby color but crystal clear. Will likely not rack to secondary again. For dry hopping just hop in keg for a few days before chilling and carbonating.

EDIT: Actually the hydrometer is miscallibrated, reading 0.003 too high, so I think the real reading is 1.017 for an ABV of 4.7%.

Late-Hop Experiment

My intention with this brew was to use most of my home grown hops to make a nice hoppy pale ale. However, the Cascade I picked still smelled really off like they did last year. Kind of like a mixture of cabbage and pickles. The 1 oz. of Columbus that I picked smelled really awesome though so we'll still be using those. I think in the spring I'll dig up the Cascade plant and replace it with something else. I'm not sure what's wrong but I am sure I'm tired of figuring it out.

So absent a bunch of back yard hops this brew turned into a late-hop experiment. Beside a 1 oz. bittering charge of Columbus at FWH I'll be adding 6 oz. of hops post-boil in attempt to extract more flava' and keep it in the wort instead of boiling it off. Also we had a bunch of random small amounts of grain in storage so I'll be cleaning out the pantry.

Recipe Notes
Style: IPA

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: ?
Target Bitterness: ?
Target OG: ?

Grist
6 lb. 2-row
3 lb. 8 oz. Pilsner

13 oz. Munich

8 oz. Rye

8 oz. Wheat
4 oz. Crystal 20

3 oz. Crystal 40

2 oz. Crystal 10

2 oz. Special B

1 oz. Columbus (FWH)
1 tsp. Irish Most (15 min.)
2 oz. Columbus (Flame out)
1 oz. 7 C's (Flame out)
1 oz. Falconer's Flight (When temp drops to 180F)
1 oz. Home grown Columbus (When temp drops to 180F)

0.8 oz. Simcoe (When temp drops to 180F) 

0.3 oz. Chinook (When temp drops to 180F)

0.33 oz. Citra (Keg)

Yeast
Safale US-05

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 1/24/16
Mash Temp: 152
Mash Time: 60

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.4 gal
Measured OG: 1.068

Couldn't find the new pH meter I got for Christmas to use for the mash. Sad... However, I used my new refractometer to evaluate the wort pre boil. Came in at 14.6 brix which is somewhere around a gravity of 1.060. At flame out I immediately added the flame-out hops and stirred for a bit to break up the pellets and submerge my hop bag of homegrown Columbus. Temperature dropped to 180 after 25 minutes. Added the rest of the hops and steeped for 30 minutes. Temps dropped to 158. Chilled wort to 68F and poured into fermenter without filtering any of the hop matter. Pitched dry yeast and aerated. Fermented cool in the basement. Activity seen after 24 hours.

1/31/16 - Racked to secondary after a week in primary. Gravity is all the way down to 1.011 for an ABV of around 7.5%. Tastes incredibly juicy like most very young IPA's. I did appreciate the robustness that the higher gravity provided. Ended up with ~3.5 gal. in secondary after racking off of the trub and hop matter.

2/7/16 - Kegged today. Threw in 1/3 oz. of Citra in a hop bag into the keg for future deliciousness. Final gravity 1.011. Added 1/4 oz. of Citra we had lying around into the keg. Tastes juicy. Not much aroma. Almost too bitter, but not quite.

2/9/16 - After a couple of days in the keezer the diacetyl content was too much for me to take. Removed from the keezer so it'll hit room temp again and hopefully the yeast will clean up the majority of it.

2/17/16 - After a week of diacetyl clean up I can't taste it any longer. However, I have a tough time tasting it when the beer is warm. Same with fusel alcohols. Transferred back to the keezer and crossing my fingers.

2/20/16 - Diacetyl still somewhat present but greatly reduced. Good enough for me. In the future will leave my beer in primary for at least two weeks before racking to secondary. Also will pay more attention to fermentation temps especially when reaching terminal gravity. Will try to ensure warm fermentation near the end to help yeast cleanup byproducts.

Small Oud Bruin

Three weeks ago I racked my first sour beer into a barrel to age for a few months. The yeast cake I racked from contained precious microbes from the bottom of a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere that I didn't want to waste. I held on to the cake until I could figure out what to do with it. Then opportunity knocked.

My friend in brew, Mike, was planning to make a high gravity stout to celebrate the upcoming holiday season. He offered me the second runnings off his mash. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. Thanks buddy!

Recipe Notes
Style: n/a

Batch Volume: 4 gal.
Color: n/a
Target Bitterness: 22 IBU
Target OG: n/a

Grist
??? (Something stout-y)

Boil Additions
0.3 oz. Columbus (FWH) - For Columbus Day!
1 tsp. Irish Most (15 min.)

Yeast
Yeast/bug cake from Bam Biere clone (WLP 550 & Bam Biere Dregs)

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 10/12/15
Mash Temp: n/a
Mash Time: n/a

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.0 gal
Measured OG: 1.036

The boil was super uneventful. I used a small FWH addition of Columbus to bitter it up because that's what I had in the freezer. Plus, it's Columbus day! How can you pass up that coincidence! Some Irish moss at 15 min. was the only other boil addition. Chilled down to 85F with the wort chiller then further to 71F in an ice bath. Then I spent a few minutes 'rousing the beast' to get the yeast cake to become a homogeneous solution again. Then, instead of pitching yeast, I pitched the wort on top of this recently roused yeast and bug farm.

Despite having not tasted the Bam Biere clone yet, I'm excited at the possibility of having a yeast cake with a history and a lineage. Bam Biere clone begat Sour Stout begat... whatever's next. Once this has spent enough time on the cake (I really have to name this thing) I'm thinking of racking onto a pound or two of sour cherries. Fingers crossed on this not tasting nasty.

10/31/15 - Halloween update. This beer took about 2-3 days before there was any visible fermentation activity. I'm blaming the WLP 550 since I think it's a slow starter. Gravity is down to 1.008. Brown in color, a little bit malty, and a little bit tart already. Has the aroma of a sour and a little of the bite but not much. Will wait and see how this develops before any fruit ageing occurs.

2/1/15 - Kegged my first sour today. Refreshingly tart for a dark ale. Light gravity and light sourness make it kind of a thirst quencher.

All Day IPA v2.0

My last four brews have been pretty experimental. I made three batches of the same pale ale with only a change to the malt as a bast malt experiment. Then I made a sour ale which will probably be a few more months in the barrel and has a distinct possibility of tasting terrible. Today is a different story. Today I brew for the ole taste buds.

I'm going back to the well of delicious hoppyness for this brew by whipping up another batch of the old 'All Day' recipe. I did want to make a couple of changes though because that's what I do. I upped the flaked oats to 20 percent of the grist because that's how I understand Founders brews it. I also added 1 lb. of Munich because I love a little of the darker German malt in my pale ales. Lastly I decided to try adding all my hops in the last 20 minutes since I've heard good things about late hopping. Lastly I'll be finishing it all off with a 30 minute hop stand of the 0 minute additions at 180F to favor aroma and flavor over bitterness.

Recipe Notes
Style: Pale Ale

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: 7 SRM
Target Bitterness: 45 IBU
Target OG: 1.050

Grist
5 lb. Pale Malt
2 lb. Flaked Oats
1 lb. Crystal 20
1 lb. Munich
8 oz. Rye Malt
8 oz. Wheat Malt

0.5 oz. Amarillo (20 min.)
0.5 oz. Simcoe (20 min.)
1 tsp. Irish Most (15 min.)
0.5 oz. Amarillo (10 min.)
0.5 oz. Simcoe (10 min.)
0.5 oz. Amarillo (5 min.)
0.5 oz. Simcoe (5 min.)
0.5 oz. Amarillo (0 min.)
0.5 oz. Simcoe (0 min.)
1 oz. Amarillo (Dry Hop 5 days)
1 oz. Simcoe (Dry Hop 5 days)

Safale US-05

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 9/27/15
Mash Temp: 150F
Mash Time: 60 min.

Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.8 gal
Measured OG: 1.046

Great day for an outdoor brew. The sky was threatening rain but it held off for the whole brew day. Raised water to 160F. Dropped to 150F after dough in. I'm getting a lot of variation on my temp drops after dough in. I have to dial that in a little better. After flame out I chilled down to 180F in two minutes then pitched the 0 minute addition and covered with a towel. Smelled fantastic. Chilled down to 85 then took a reading. OG was 1.050 but only collected 4.3 gallons of wort. That's pretty poor efficiency and I'm not sure why. Anyway, I wanted more volume so added 1/2 gallon of water to reach OG of 1.044 in 4.8 gallons. Chilled wort in keezer for a few hours to 68F. Pitched US-05 and aerated.

10/4/15 - Racked to secondary. Gravity is 1.008. Smells fantastic. Tastes a little thin. Also, forgot to temperature correct my OG. Corrected is 1.046, so we're sitting at 5.0% ABV right now.

10/6/15 - Dry hopped 2 oz. in a single hop bag and swished it around a bit.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.007
Attenuation: 85%
ABV: 5.1%
Calories: 149 per 12oz.
Carbonation: 2.5 volumes (After force carbonating)

10/12/15 - Kegged after dry hopping for six days. Gravity is 1.007. Hop aroma and flavor is fantastic. The malt body is a little bit 'meh' though despite the six-malt grist. Maybe simpler is better.