Hop Retirement Party

Brought to you today by 'Whirlpool'

For the last of my 'spring cleaning' series I'll be brewing a single-malt 'hop retirement party'. I'm looking forward to brewing a few experimental SMaSH ales next month and wanted to get in the mood by sticking to only two row for this brew. However, I'll be using the remaining six different kinds of hops from our freezer to spice it all up. All you hops is commin' out of retirement for one last party and today is that day.

I'll also be experimenting with a hop stand (a.k.a 'whirlpool') for this brew since I learned Stone uses something similar to make their 'Enjoy By x/x/x' series. There's no real consensus yet on what temperature to hop stand at or for how long. I believe most brewers that whirlpool hops just toss them in after flame-out during the whirlpool process and experience a decreasing steep temperature. I decided chill my wort to 170F and then hop stand for 20 minutes. I chose to cool the wort first to reduce isomerization of the hops during the hop stand. I've read this process is greatly reduced under 175F so that's why I chose the temp.

Recipe Notes
Style: Pale Ale

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: 3.3 SRM
Target Bitterness: 39 IBU
Target OG: 1.040

Grist
8 lb. Briess 2-Row

1.1 oz. Hallertau 2.6% (FWH)
0.6 oz. Liberty 4.5% (FWH)
0.2 oz. Tettnang 4.5% (FWH)

0.8 oz. Cluster 8.1% (20 min.)

0.75 oz. Chinook (Hop Stand)

0.75 oz. Northern Brewer (Hop Stand)

Reused Yeast Slurry (US-05 & WB-06)

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 2/22/15
Mash Temp: 147F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.0 gal
Measured OG: 1.040
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%

Excited to use my re-calibrated thermometer today. It seemed a little weird to mill 8 lbs of only 2-row but I resisted the urge to spice it up. Raised 5.5 gal. water to 156 and doughed in. Mashed at 147 for 60 minutes. This was quite a large temperature drop, more that I usually experience. I had expected to mash around 150 but whatever. Chucked in the hops on first wort and collected 5 gallons of runnings. Boiled with only the 20 minute addition. Stuck the thermometer in the boiling wort and it read '204F'. Stupid thermometer. Recalibrated to 212 since I now how to do that now.

After boil I ran the wort chiller for only 2 minutes dropping temp to 170. Added the Chinook and NB hops to steep for 20 min. Temps dropped to 157F after the steep time. After hitting 70F poured the wort through the BIAB bag on a collander and into the ferm bucket. Bag got clogged pretty quickly which made this a slow process. Decided to pour through a hand held fine collander for the last half. This was very easy to dump once it was clogged and the process went much faster. Collected 4.25 gal of 1.048 wort. Dilluted with 0.75 gal of water to reach about 5 gal. of 1.040 wort.

Yesterday I saved two pint jars of yeast/trub slurry when racking the previous brew to secondary. I removed these from the fridge before brewing. Decanted the liquid beer portion of each pint jar (top 1/3 or so) into the wort and aerated vigorously. The slurry was very dark so it may add some color to this brew. Being all 2-row it could probably use some color though.

Update 3/1/15 - Gravity sample after 1 week in primary is at 1.009. Beer is a cloudy light yellow 'straw' color. Tastes very dry. Not much hop aroma or flavor in this one. Maybe next time I'll use a larger volume of late hops.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.008
Attenuation: 80%
ABV: 4.2%
Calories: 130 per 12oz.
Carbonation: 2.5 volumes

Update 3/6/15 - Finally completed keezer today adding CO2 distributor which lets me finally run lines for my third keg. Racked this beer into the third keg today. Gravity finished at 1.008. Smells and tastes kind of like my 'Spring Cleaning: Light' which is also in the keezer. Not much for variety but can't complain about having 15 gal. of cold fresh beer on tap :)

Update 4/24/15 - Beer is ridiculously cloudy. Maybe from deciding not to secondary? Figured this would be a good brew to try my hand at fining. Measured 1 tsp. of gelatin into 8 oz. of tap water and microwaved in 20 sec. increments, stirring with a thermometer, until it reached 150F. Added gelatin solution to keg and swirled it around a bit with my mash paddle. Decided to add 1 oz. Columbus dry hops just to make the aroma more interesting. Might not help the fining process but I luvz the hops.

Spring Cleaning: Dark

Modern Art: Malt-Oat-Barley

This brew is my dark complement to last week's 'Spring Cleaning: Light'. I accumulated all the Chocolate, Black Patent, and Black Barley in the house and threw in a pound of flaked oats for good measure (and smoothness.) Last year I had accidentally purchased the wrong hops for a brew so I had 1 oz. each of Fuggles and Styrian Golding with happens to be just perfect for bittering up a dark and dirty monster.

An explanation on the yeast. The wife is a 1 gal. brewer and only needs 1/2 package of dry yeast for a healthy fermentation. Thus we had a couple 1/2 packs of yeast hanging out in the fridge with nothing to do. I decided to put 'em to work for this brew. Typically I'd use an Irish Ale yeast or S-04 or something for this dark ale. Instead we're experimenting with half American ale yeast and half Bavarian wheat ale yeast. These house cleaning recipes are really igniting my child-like curiosity. Why can't I justify a whipping up a crazy recipe unless I "have" to. Me sees more wacky brews in the future.

Recipe Notes
Style: Black Half-Heffe?

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: 48 SRM
Target Bitterness: 32 IBU
Target OG: 1.040

Grist
5 lb. 8 oz. 2-Row
1 lb. 1.2 oz. Chocolate Malt
1 lb. Flaked Oats
7.1 oz. Black Patent Malt
5.7 oz. Black Barley

1 oz. UK Fuggle 5.3% (FWH)
1 oz. Styrian Golding 3.2% (FWH)

1/2 Pkg. Safale US-05
1/2 Pkg. Safbrew WB-06

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 2/15/15
Mash Temp: 149F
Mash Time: 80 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.25 gal
Measured OG: 1.040
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73%

Brew day went very smooth. Raised water to 160 to dough in. Mashed at 153 (149 after correcting for uncalibrated thermometer.) Collected 5 gal. of wort even and boiled for a solid 60 min. Chilled to 70F and poured through brew bag and colander to filter out hop crap. Collected 4.5 gal from boil kettle at a gravity of 1.048, so had some room to top up. Added 0.75 gal. of cold tap water to hit 1.040 in the fermenter.

Update 2/21/15 - Racked to secondary to make room in the fermenter bucket. Gravity is 1.012. Tastes and smells veeery roasty. Almost getting an astringency out of the roast. Lots of chocolate and toasted flavors.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.011
Attenuation: 73%
ABV: 3.8%
Calories:132 per 12oz.
Carbonation: 2.5 volumes

Update 2/25/15 - Kegged 10 days after brew date. Gravity is 1.011. Tastes pretty good. Wife says it tastes 'smooth.' I'll take it. Purged CO2, pressurized, and shook keg back and forth horizontally 100 times to try carbonating faster. Will try doing this once per day and compare to the previous brew to see if it speeds things up. All done under serving pressure of 12 psi.

Spring Cleaning: Light

Brew Shop!

Time to get back on the horse. It's been four months since I last homebrewed so we've got a lot of ground to make up. My first 'recipe' of the year will be a spring cleaning brew. We've accumulated over a dozen specialty malts in fractional quantities with some nearing a year old. So it's time to use up the old and make room for the brew (new... brew... get it?) This first spring cleaner will incorporate all the pale and crystal malts we've got in the inventory. In a couple of weeks I plan to do a spring cleaning 'dark' in which we use every malt that starts with 'chocolate', 'roasted', or 'black'.

Spring cleaning the hops out of the freezer means this brew is getting a generous helping of Willamette and the rest of the Centennial. I've had these hops in the freezer since I just started homebrewing when I decided then I would only brew Guinness and Two Hearted clones. Time to move on. 18 month old hops... get in there!

I also want to use up some of the dry yeast that's been in the fridge for a few months. We received some free packets of dry belgian saison yeast last year at the AHA conference so this one's getting the saison treatment. It will most likely be cold fermented in our chilly basement at around 60-65 farenheit. We'll see if that saison flavor can power through at the low ferm temps.

Oh, also this is the first recipe I made with our new app, 'Brew Shop.' Things went pretty well except I found out the malts in the app aren't alphabetizing correctly. TODO++;

Recipe Notes
Style: Um... what kind of bagel is an 'everything' bagel?

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: 11.4 SRM
Target Bitterness: 43 IBU
Target OG: 1.043

Grist
6 lb. 8.5 oz. 2-Row
11.1 oz. Rye Malt
8.1 oz. Special Roast
7.2 oz. Crystal 120L
4.7 oz. White Wheat Malt
4.6 oz. Acid Malt

1.25 oz. Willamette 5% (FWH)
1 oz. Willamette 5% (20 min.)
1 oz. Willamette 5% (10 min.)
1.25 oz. Centennial (Whirlpool)

0.5 oz. Amarillo (Dry Hop 4 Days)
0.5 oz. Simcoe (Dry Hop 4 Days)

0.5 oz. Crystal (Dry Hop 4 Days)

Dry Belgian Saison Yeast

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 2/8/15
Mash Temp: 150F
Mash Time: 90 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.6 gal
Measured OG: 1.043 (1.043 @ 70°F)
Brewhouse Efficiency: Too lazy...

Brought 5.5 gallons of water up to 157F. Doughed in all at once dropping the temp to 150. Mashed for about 90 minutes stirring once. Temperature finished at 148. Collected 5 gal wort after squeezing the BIAB bag. Losing only 1/2 gal to grain absorption sounds pretty good. Brought the wort to a boil at 216F... maybe time to re-calibrate the thermometer. After boil, added whirlpool hops after dropping tempt to 190F to reduce AA isomerization and bitterness. Poured wort through BIAB bag to filter out hop matter. This took a while since there was a lot of hop crap in there. Measured gravity at 1.047 for 4.25 gal of wort. Added ~0.4 gal. of water to hit target gravity of 1.043 with final volume of ~4.6 gal. Pitched yeast, aerated, and let it do its thing.

Update 2/13/15 - Pulled a hydrometer sample just out of curiosity. Sitting at 1.008. Smells saison-y and a little sulfurous. Tastes pretty grainy (young?) and has a little bit of a sharp bite at the finish. Is that the saison yeast or the acid malt? IDK.

Update 2/15/15 - Racked to secondary to make room for a dark hefe in primary. Gravity is 1.006. The aroma is starting to come together. Smells great. Has a deep cloudy orange color. Pretty excited to put this one on tap. Maybe dry hopping for a few days beforehand. We'll see.

Update 2/18/15 - Dry hopped in a sanitized hop bag. Swirled the beer around a bit to coat the hop bag. Planning to keg after four days on the hops.

Update 2/20/15 - Pulled a gravity sample to measure and taste. Gravity remains at 1.006 (whew) and smells like the inside of a peach. Saison acidic bite on the back of the throat. Like if a citrus peach existed this would be the flavor. A couple more days on hops then into the keg with you.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.006
Attenuation: 86% (yikes!)
ABV: 4.9%
Calories:139 per 12oz.
Carbonation: 2.5 volumes

Update 2/22/15 - Racked to the new keg I got for Christmas after four days on hops. New keg is nice, shiny, and leak free. Leaving to carb under serving pressure (12psi) at 40F. Not agitating keg in any way to determine how long it takes to carb if I just leave things alone. Smells and tastes like melon and citrus. Very juice like. I think this is just because it's fairly young and this *should* go away and taste more like beer with time if I remember correctly.