Bell's Two Hearted Clone

Ernest Hemingway's fishing failure

Gather 'round whilst I regale you of my recent infatuation with Bell's Two Hearted. It all started a few months ago at the Beer 1k in Crystal City. This was a really cool event during which Julie, I, and some friends were able to sample small pours of 20+ beers over the course of a few hours. I sampled some hits and misses but nothing that really rocked my world. For those familiar with the event, the 1k ends at the top level of a high rise building in Crystal City. The entire floor is unfinished and very industrial looking.

After taking an elevator to the top the doors opened to reveal a sensory overload of loud techno beats, hundreds of half drunk 1k-ers, and another dozen beer vendors. Upon entering this state of sensory overload I spied her from across the room. Twas' a Bell's Brewery booth done made it all the way from Kalamazoo to our little neck of the woods. I was already a big fan of Bell's Brewery - A) It's from Michigan B) Oberon is like capturing Michigan summers in a bottle, and C) all the beers are brewed almost exactly the way a homebrewer would do it. It's unfiltered, unpasteurized, bottle carbonated, and quite literally a living entity.

After a ten minute line for the Bell's booth I discovered they were sampling a beer I hadn't had yet but probably should have - Bell's Two Hearted. It has a color somewhere between amber and orange but the most in-your-face quality of Two Hearted is by far the aroma. I wasn't very familiar with Centennial hops at the time but it was love at first smell. It had a nice but not overpowering citrus smell with a grapefruit quality and a muted but persistent floral tone. If Two Hearted aroma was a band, Sinister Grapefruit would be shredding it up on lead guitar but Floral Garden would be rockin' a solid but not showy drum beat that pulls it all together.

I remember savoring that small sample of Two Hearted for ten minutes. This turned out to be a couple of minutes too long because the booth had just been cleaned out of all samples by the time I got in line again. The following day and a short time afterward, acquiring a six-pack of Two Hearted became my solitary grocery goal. It's not impossible to find in VA but it's not too common. After a second taste confirmed my original opinion and refuted my working theory that Bell's slipped some ecstasy into their samples, I decided to try brewing it myself. The recipe below and the next six weeks are my power ballad love song to Bell's Two Hearted.

Brew Recipe

Looks like 3.5 Michigans

Brew Date: 3/31/2013
Style: American IPA
Batch Volume: 4.2 gal.
Type: All Grain
Boil Time: 60 min.
Color: 5.5 SRM
Target Bitterness: 47.2 IBU
Target OG: 1.071
Target FG: 1.018

Grist
8 lb. American Two-Row Malt
1.6 lb. Vienna Malt
0.4 lb. Crystal 20L Malt
0.4 lb. CaraPils Malt

0.8 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (60 min.)
0.8 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (15 min.)
0.8 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (5 min.)
0.8 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (1 min.)
0.4 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (Dry Hop)
1 pkg. Safale S-04 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152
Mash Time: 90 min.
Pre-Boil Volume: 4.75 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Mash Efficiency: 71.9%
Measured OG: 1.061
Measured FG: 1.007
ABV: 7.1%
Calories: 198

Crushed grain again at 0.030" gap setting. Filled brew kettle w/5.5 gal. of hot tap water. Mash in at 157. Dropped temp to 152. Doing a 90 minute mash on this one for more conversion a lighter mouth feel. Finished mashing at 149 with sleeping bag method. Was surprised to get a low gravity reading pre-boil but thought maybe it was a fluke. Post boil gravity was still 10 points under target. Low mash temperature? Combination of more water volume than expected and lower efficiency. Hopefully doesn't affect the taste too much. New target ABV is 6%.

Used new wort chiller to cool but didn't have the proper hose connection gender. Held two ends together for 10 minutes. It worked but I got soaked in the process. Need a female garden hose connection on one end and a male faucet connection on the other.

After pitching yeast and letting brew settle there appears to be a LOT of sediment forming. Some can probably be attributed larger hop additions but looks pretty grainy. Must try a wider gap setting for next brew.

Update 4/6/13 - Pulled a gravity sample and holy cow is it low. It's at 1.008 down from 1.061 after only a week. It tastes and smells great too.

Update 4/7/13 - Racked into secondary today. Collected about 3 1/3 gallons. It has a nice orange color very similar to Two Hearted. All signs pointing to awesome!

Update 4/14/13 - Pitch 0.4 oz. of Centennial pellet hops directly into secondary fermenter. Swished the beer around for 10 seconds or so to mix them in and prevent them from just floating on the top the whole time. Hopefully they will settle out before next weekend when it's.... bottling time baby!

Update 4/20/13 - Finally time to bottle this motha'. Appropriately Julie's mom was here to help supervise and photograph the process. Had 3 1/3 gal. of beer in secondary so used 1/2 cup of priming sugar for bottling. Yielded 35 bottles in total. FG ended up at 1.007 which I believe is the lowest I've ever had a beer finish. I'll attribute that to the lower mash temperature I suppose. The gravity sample tasted fan-frickin'-tastic, albeit a little thin. Maybe the carb will body it out. Good color too. Seems like almost the perfect shade of Two Hearted orange.

I tried a new method for racking beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. I rubber banded a hop bag to the output end of the auto siphon. There was a lot of hop material floating around after dry hopping and I definitely didn't want that in the bottles. (Sorry centennial hops, I still love you.) It worked out really well! Caught a thin layer of hop particles in the bag and toward the end of bottling noticed almost no sediment/material in the bottling bucket. I'll certainly be doing this every time I rack from a dry hopped fermenter.

Guinness Clone

For my tenth homebrew adventure we pulled off an epic 'trippel' brew day. I got together with my new brew buddies Mike and Scott to brew a trio of beers ready in line with the St. Patrick's Day season. On deck were an Imperial Stout, an Irish Red, and my cobbled together recipe for a Guinness clone. This was also my first time brewing outdoors which turned out to be a blast. It also somehow went by very quickly. All three of us finished in under four hours total. I've never brewed that fast indoors on any of my brews, even the extract batches. The ladies brought us District Taco for lunch so that gave us the energy to push through to the end.

This was also my first experience brewing with a wort chiller. Mike was interested in building is own out of copper tubing so I decided to go in with him and try to make one myself. I was less patient with the turns and ended up kinking the copper piping a little but it worked really really well. It normally takes 30-40 min. to chill 4 gal. of wort from boiling down to 80 degrees. The wort chiller did it in less than 10 minutes. Definitely a worthwhile investment. Just need to find an attachment for my kitchen sink for those indoor brew sessions.

Brew Recipe
Brew Date: 2/24/2013
Style: Irish Stout
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: All grain
Boil Time: 60 min.
Color: 33.5 SRM
Target Bitterness: 33.6 IBU
Target OG: 1.046
Target FG: 1.011

Grist
5.5 lb. Maris Otter
2 lb. Flaked Barley
1 lb. Roasted Barley

3 oz. Acid Malt
2 oz. Willamette Pellet Hops (60 min.)
11g. Danstar Windsor Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 155
Mash Efficiency: 78.8%
Pre-Boil Volume: 4.4 gal.
Volume after Water Addition: 4.5 gal.
Measured OG: 1.054
Measured FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.3%
Calories: 179

Started with 5 gal tap water brought to 162F. Saccharification rest at 154°F for 30 min. Used .030" crush again and ended up with very similar brewhouse efficiency as last batch. Very consistent so far. Had to ferment in the small carboy (~4.5 gal.) so gravity ended up being higher than target because there was no volume left to add water.

Update 3/5/13 - Gravity reading today is 1.014. Got a lot of roasty taste and it's pretty good already. Pretty excited about this one.

Update 3/17/13 - Bottled today. Gravity remained 1.014. Yielded 43 bottles. Used 1/2 cup of priming sugar again to hopefully prevent over carbonation. This is especially true with the 43 bottle yield vice a traditional 50 bottles.

Belgian wHeat

This here is one for the ladies. Julie's soccer team, The Heat, is preparing for their first game of the season in early April. What better way to celebrate the their eventual first victory than with a homebrew party? Since the only brew everyone on the team can agree upon is Blue Moon Belgian White, we decided to try brewing a Blue Moon clone. This will be my first wheat beer so I was excited to give it a shot. After searching the Googles for a good clone I found this recipe on Home Brew Talk and decided to give it a shot. We went to the homebrew shop today to pick up ingredients and it was BUMPING! The store has maybe 250 sq. ft. of retail space and it was all occupied with 15+ people. It was a super crappy rainy day outside though so maybe everyone was in a hunker-down-and-homebrew mode. We sure were.

Brew Recipe
Brew Date: 2/23/2013
Style: Belgian Wheat
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: All grain
Boil Time: 60 min.
Color: 3.3 SRM
Target Bitterness: 21.4 IBU
Target OG: 1.049
Target FG: 1.012

Grist
5 lb. Pilsner Malt
3 lb. Flaked Wheat
1 lb. Flaked Oats
0.75 oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (45 min.)
0.75 oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (15 min.)
0.4 oz. Corriander Seed
3 oz. Fresh Chopped Orange Peel
11g. Danstar Munich Wheat Beer Yeast

Protein rest at 131°F for 30 min.
Saccharification rest at 154°F for 30 min.
Mash out at 168°F for 10 min.

Brew Notes

Protein Rest Temp: 134
Mash Temp: 151
Mash Efficiency: 77.2%
Pre-Boil Volume: 4.4 gal.
Preboil OG: 1.057
Volume after Water Addition: 4.85 gal.
Measured OG: 1.051
Measured FG: 1.011
ABV: 5.3%
Calories: 168

Used .030" crush resulting in less efficiency but hopefully less sediment to rack off too. Used hop bag for first hop addition. Should get another hop bag rather than try to put 2nd hop addition in boiling hot hop bag.

Update 3/5/13 - Checked gravity. We're sitting at 1.013. Smells of sulfur still from the Belgian yeast but definitely picking up the same black peppery taste I get from Blue Moon. Hopefully that means we're headed in the right direction.

Update 3/17/13 - Bottled on Julie's birthday. Used only 1/2 cup of priming sugar because of over carbonation problems with recent batches. Will be carbonating in the warmest part of the house. Gravity is now 1.011. The sulfur smell from two weeks ago is gone and it's smoothed out a lot. Looks like it's going to be a good beer to complement orange slices. Yielded 45 bottles.

Deep Woods Stout

Creepy Laser Ice Breath

It's that time of year when a cold breeze whips past your bald head and icicles hang from the gutters of the house you never leave. Except maybe for a Chipotle run. To fend off old man winter and his creepy skeletal hands we'll be brewing a hearty recipe tailor made to warm the coldest cockles. Today's kit comes from the great guys at WindRiver Brewing Co. and this time it's all about the stout! It will be the last kit in my kit-of-the-month club since I've recently started mad-sciencing with all grain recipes. So let's get on with it, eh?

Recipe: WindRiver Deep Woods Stout

Brew Date: 2/17/2013
Style: Stout
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: Extract
Boil Time: 60 min.
Target OG: 1.064
Target FG: Not supplied for recipe

9.3 lb. Dark LME
0.5 lb. Black Patent
0.5 lb. Crystal 80L
1 oz. Brambling Hops (60 min.)
1 oz. Willamette Hops (10 min.)
1 pkg. Muntons Dry Ale Yeast

Brew Notes
Collected Volume: 5 gal.
Measured OG: 1.070 (Waaay of. Did I get too much LME in my kit?)
Brew Time: 3h30m
Actual FG: 1.021
ABV: 6.5%
Calories: 234

Started with 3 gal of hot water, heated to 162. Steeped grains in muslin bag for 30 min. Killed heat and added LME. Brought to boil and added Brambling hops. Willamette added w/10 minutes left. Cooled wort in 30 min with ice bath. Racked to fermenter and topped off to 5 gal. Measured OG is 1.070. Pitched yeast, aerated and sent to the cellar.

Update 3/5/13 Gravity reading is 1.034. I'm a little concerned that this isn't lower. I'll check again in a week and see if we still have fermentation activity.

Update 3/17/13 - Gravity is still only 1.031. Maybe this is just a high finisher.

Update 4/20/13 - After two months in primary the gravity finally fell down to 1.021. I've run out of patience so I'm bottling this one, gravity be damned. Used 2/3 cup of priming sugar for about 4.5 gal of collected beer. Yielded 44 bottles. It's not really stout season any longer but it might be good for those dark and stormy days we sometimes get.

English Mad Mild

Fermentification

So you like beer but feel trapped in a world of high ABV extreme craft brews? Me too. I've been on a very brief quest (barely left the Shire) for a good low ABV beer to accompany days of lawn mowing, snow shoveling, etc.

After cruising around the forums at HomeBrewTalk.com I came across this little recipe from a poster named Orfy. His Mild Mannered Ale has received 33 pages(!) of reviews and recommendations. I decided it's a shoe-in for my next brew. Low ABV beers also lend themselves well to the Brew In A Bag (BIAB) method so it works well with my small setup. Let's get on with it, shall we?

Mad Fox's Ale Yeast

My first step on my low-ABV journey led me to Mad Fox Brewing Company, in Falls Church, VA. I've been enjoying their <4% Mason's Mild for some time now and ordered one on a particular Saturday in November. Fortune smiled upon my wife and I when our server asked if we'd like a behind-the-scenes tour of the brewery. Hell yes!

Our tour guide, Charlie Buettner, asked if there were any homebrewers in the crowd and I sheepishly raised my hand. I had been brewing for about three weeks at this point and could barely tell a ball valve from a bung hole. Charlie mentioned they regularly dispose of 40lbs. of yeast per batch and would rather give it to homebrewers than dump it down the drain. After taking him up on this offer I went home the proud parent of billions of little ale yeast cells.

The Grist + Willamette Hops

Now with an English yeast in hand and most of the ingredients in inventory it was time to craft a recipe. I was able to obtain all of the grains from my local homebrew store but had to substitute Willamette hops for the Fuggles called for in the recipe. Since I've never used an English style hop before I imagine I won't taste much difference.

After noticing a bit too much trub in the fermenter from my last brew I decided to increase the mill gap to 0.028" from 0.025". The BIAB method lets me use a finer crush than a traditional mash and lauter system because there's no worry of stuck sparges.

Makeshift Mash Tun

The BIAB method isn't all upsides though. One problem we have with this method is retaining heat during the duration of the mash period since the brew kettle serves as our mash tun. One great suggestion I found online was to wrap the brew kettle in an old sleeping bag (remove from stove first...).

Over the course of the 60 minute mash I lost only four degrees and that includes stirring the mash every 15 minutes. This brew was mashed at 158 degrees to promote a more dextrinous wort to give this low ABV mild a little substance.

Fancy Cooling System

After mashing I ended up with a pre-boil gravity of 1.048, waaaay over what I was shooting for with this 1.037 OG mild. Future brews will need to account for these epic ~95% BIAB efficiencies. After calculating a 1/2 gal. water addition during the chill phase I ended up with a 1.037 OG on the money! That also helped reduce my chill time which is pretty... chill.

At the end of the day my 4 gal. recipe ended up yielding 5 gal. after overestimating evaporation and low-balling my efficiency estimate. Free beer!


Recipe: Orfy's Mild Mannered Ale

Brew Date: 1/27/2013
Style: English Mild
Batch Volume: 4 gal.
Type: All grain
Boil Time: 60 min.
Color: 21.6 SRM
Target Bitterness: 24.7 IBU
Target OG: 1.037
Target FG: 1.009

4.5 lb. Maris Otter Malt Recipe
1 lb. Crystal 60L
4 oz. Chocolate Malt
0.75 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering)
0.75 oz. Willamette Hops (Flavor)
8 oz. Ringwood Ale (Wyeast 1187) yeast slurry

Brew Notes
Mash Temp: 154 - 158
Mash Efficiency: 96%
Pre-Boil Volume: 4.75 gal.
Preboil OG: 1.048
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Post-Boil OG: 1.044 (Why is this lower than pre-boil? Measurement error?)
Water Added: 0.5 gal.
Dilluted OG: 1.037
Dilluted IBU: 19.1
Brew Time: 4h50m (1 hour to heat mash liquor)
Actual FG: 1.012
ABV: 3.3%
Calories: 123

2/2/2013 - Pulled a sample to test gravity. SG is 1.013. Mash temp was a little high so not surprised if this is about as low as it gets. Plan to bottle next weekend regardless. Tastes pretty good, a little chocolaty and sweet. Julie detects a coffee aftertaste but she's a coffee bloodhound.

2/10/2013 - Pulled a sample. SG reading 1.012.

2/16/2013 - FG finished out at 1.010. Collected 4.75 gal. from carboy, yielded 47 bottles. There was a lot of flour/grit on the side of carboy after racking. Probably need a coarser grind. Not much appeared to transfer into the bottling bucket though. The roasty finishing character mellowed out a bit. Julie finds it a little more pleasing. I'm leaving these bottles on the main floor where it's a little warmer for one week to carbonate then plan to cellar.

American Amber Ale

American Amber Ale
January 6, 2013
3 gal.

5 lb. 2-Row Pale Malt (Rahr)
1 lb. Crystal 60L
1.5 oz. Cascade Hops
¾ oz. Cascade Hops (Dry hopping)
1 pkg. Munton’s Dry Ale Yeast
½ cup Corn Sugar (Priming)

1/6/13 - My buddy John helped brew today. Crushed at 0.028” gap to reduce flour created. Used hot water from faucet to fill boil kettle to 5 gal. Started at 120 deg. Heated to 162 and added grains. Temp came down to 158. Used sleeping bag to insulate kettle during mash. Had to remove bag to drop temp down to 153 halfway through mash. The sleeping bag insulates very well! Did not use hop bag in boil because it smelled bad. Ended up getting leaf hops caught in auto siphon. Will probably use hop bag from now on or some other mechanism to separate hop material.

After grain absorption and boiling still ended up with 4.25 gallons in pot. Probably got 4 gallons in carboy because of what was absorbed by the hops. Looks like we can regularly do 4 gallon batches on this stove. OG was 1.042 because of the extra gallon of water that wasn’t absorbed or evaporated.

1/13/13 - Gravity reading is 1.011. 4.3% ABV. Seems ready to be bottled. Tastes a little hoppier than last AG. More amber color too. Doesn’t taste much sweeter but that might be more apparent in a side-by-side with the previous AG.

1/16/13 - Gravity reading is still 1.011. Dry hopped with 0.75 oz of Cascade hops filled with Go marbles. Boiled the bag for 8 minutes to sterilize. Was hard to put the hops in the carboy with all the marbles in there. Maybe no marbles next time. Still tastes good.

1/25/13 - Fixed auto siphon by putting dime in bottom to replace one way valve. Bottled today. Collected 3.5 gal of beer after dry hop absorption. Exactly 36 bottles. Final gravity 1.010. Marbles were in hop bag so couldn't pull out of carboy. Destroyed bag. Dry hop without marbles. Total time 1.5 hours. Used 5/8 cup priming sugar to bottle. Leaving bottles upstairs in warmer air to carbonate. Acceptable amount of trub. Maybe try 0.030" grind next time.

2/10/13 - Tastes and smells really good. Got a little over carbonated. One bottle foamed out the top after opening. Left upstairs to carb for two weeks. Maybe that was too long before chilling? Labelled bottles and put in the cellar. Designed some sweet labels.

Belgian IPA

Brewer’s Best Belgian IPA (The Belgian Julie)
January 5, 2013
5 gal.

6.6 lb. Pilsen LME
1 lb. Soft Candi Sugar
8 oz. Caramel 40L
4 oz. Flaked Wheat
0.5 oz. Millenium Hops (Bittering)
1.0 oz. Nugget Hops (Flavoring)
2.0 oz. Chinook Hops (Aroma & Dry)
1 pkg. Sachet Belgian Style Dry Yeast
½ cup Corn Sugar (Priming)

1/5/13 - Brewing with new 7.5 gal pot. Raised 5 gal of water to 156 to steep/mash. Mashed specialty grains for 45 min. Wrapped sleeping bag around kettle. Only 3 degree drop over mash duration! Removed grains and brought to boil. Taking a long time to boil, may reduce batch size in the future. Used calibrated wooden dowel to measure final yield of just over 5 gal. Took an hour to cool to 85 in sink full of water. Rehydrated and pitched yeast at 85. OG is 1.060. Total brew time 5 ½ hours...

1/12/13 - Dry hopped with remaining Chinook hops. SG reading was 1.020. ABV 5.3%. Had a super thick krausen, had to punch through with wine thief. Tastes pretty good, very Belgian-y. Fermentation smell is thick with sulfur. Slight smell in sample pulled for gravity reading. Hopefully will dissipate over time.

2/3/13 - Bottled today. FG: 1.006, 7.2% ABV. Collected 5 gal. from fermenter and exactly 50 bottles. Used 3/4 cup of priming sugar. Lowest finishing gravity of any beer I've made yet. It did set in primary for a month so maybe that's why. Tastes reallly good, like a bitter Belgian. Can't wait for this one to carb.

2/8/13 - Cracked one open today and it tastes wonderful. Like a bubble gummy Belgian with an extra bitter finish. Not much of the Chinook dry hopping coming through but definitely some hop bitterness. Designed a label based on Julie's favorite wedding photo.