Bitter American Clone

Next up on my list of session brews is the Bitter American by 21st Amendment brewery. I love this ale for contributing a big malt character in a class of otherwise thinner 'hop water' ales. I'd love to nail down *my* perfect session ale and always have some variation of it on tap. Bitter American, it's your turn to shine. Show me what you're workin' with.

Recipe Notes
Style: American Pale
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: 8 SRM
Target Bitterness: 41 IBU
Target OG: 1.042

Grist
3 lb. Golden Promise
3 lb. 2-Row
1 lb. Munich
1 lb. Crystal 20L

0.5 oz. Warrior 15% (60 min.)
1.0 oz. Cascade 6.6% (15 min.)
1.0 oz. Centennial (Dry Hop)
1.0 oz. Simcoe (Dry Hop)

1 pkg. US-05

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 5/26/14
Mash Temp: 154 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.0 gal
Measured OG: 1.042
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%

Today was a 'quad brew' day with the wife and two close friends. All together we made 17 gallons of beer! Used my propane tank that read 'empty' with the intention of finishing it off and swapping it out with the tank on my friend's grill. Well I'll be damned if the tank didn't last through the whole brew day! I can't recall how many brew days I've gotten out of this tank but it's far more than I expected. Had a little bit of a boil over because I wasn't paying attention but it was an otherwise flawless brew day. Nailed my target OG which always makes you feel good.

6/8/14 - Racked 4.3 gallons to secondary. Gravity reading was 1.008 for an ABV of 4.5%. Looks pretty dark for a pale ale just like Bitter American. Kind of tastes like generic beer and has only faint hop aroma. These should both change w/a 2 oz. dry hop addition.

6/17/14 - Dry hopped with simcoe and centennial in two sanitized hop bags weighed down with a couple of shot glasses each. Hopefully they can give this bland beer some character.

6/20/14 - Kegged today because impatience. Transferred the two hop bags from secondary into the keg to get the 'keg hopped' flavor. Put it in the kegerator at 45F under 10psi.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.008
ABV: 4.5%
Calories: 137
Carbonation: 2.1 volumes

6/21/14 - Let the keg chill for a day under pressure then shook it back and forth for five minutes in attempt to speed up carbonation and to increase beer contact/flow through the two hop bags. Excited to see if/how this changes the flavor and aroma.

Guinness Clone (Batch #3)

Brings a tear to my eye.

Oh dry Irish stout. No matter how hard I try I can't quit you. I'd like to always have a dry stout on tap at Casa Drews and this will be the first batch to meet the new keezer. I'm going back to basics with this recipe without any hops or yeast substitutions. I've used Willamette in the past instead of East Kent Goldings because they were available, cheaper, and fairly similar. I've also used a dry English ale yeast (S-04) for my previous two batches. This one's getting the real stuff - Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast. Sometimes you just gotta kick it old school.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 4/12/14
Style: Irish Stout
Batch Volume: 5.25 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 32 SRM
Target Bitterness: 38 IBU
Target OG: 1.040
Estimated FG: 1.010

Grist
5 lb. American Two-Row
2 lb. Flaked Barley
1 lb. Roast Barley

2 oz. East Kent Goldings 5.1% (60 min.)

1 pkg. Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.0 gal
Measured OG: 1.040
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%

It was a beautiful day today so I took the brew outdoors. First outdoor brew of the year! The old propane tank had about a brew's worth of propane left so I let it ride. Turned out to be enough but need to exchange before the next brew day. Post mash I squeezed the grain bag to get every drop out and dumped it in the boil kettle. No sparging today - too messy and complicated. Just added water to get kettle volume up to 5.5 gal. 

Busted the smack pack in the Wyeast package a little late in the day (during the mash) so the package only swelled a little. While pitching the yeast I noticed there was a ton of nutrient still left in the inner package so I squeezed it all out into the fermenter. Why not? Looking forward to a great stout a few weeks from now. I just need to acquire a third keg so this guy has a home after he gets evicted from the fermenter.

Left about a quarter of a gallon in the boil kettle that couldn't fit in the fermenter. With better volume management the OG could have been a little higher.

Update 4/21/14 - Racked to secondary today. Gravity reading was 1.012 for an ABV of 3.7%. Tastes like a light bodied toffey flavored stout. Julie says it tastes 'smokey.' Whatever it is it'll definitely be an easy drinker.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.9%
Calories: 131

Carbonation: 2.1 Volumes CO2

Update 5/11/14 - Kicked my first keg of beer a couple days ago so I finally had an opportunity to move the Irish stout from secondary into the keezer. I chilled at at 45 for a day then decided to do a little carbonating trick. I pulled the keg out of the keezer with 10psi attached to it and rolled it back and forth on the ground for 10 minutes. The idea is to create more surface area allowing the keg pressure to carbonate the beer more quickly.

I'm excited to see if this speeds things up a bit. I'm a little less excited if I discover this process creates a carbonic acid bite from rapid carbing. I'd like to call this process 'turbo carbing'. I've read about the process be never came across a name so I'm coining one now.

It tastes great so far. Not much different than previous brews so I may just stick with S-04 dry yeast in the future. However, the FG did end up exactly where I want it with the Irish ale yeast.

The Lost Mitten v2.0

I lived in the blue one!

After a two month brewing hiatus (putting together a sweet 3-keg keezer system) it was strongly suggested that I rebrew The Lost Mitten. I'm excited to see how this version turns out using a malt bill I can actually procure instead of the Bell's homebrew competition wort. The first Mitten was a hop monster but it had a good amount of malt character to back it up resulting in a fairly balanced beer. I think this recipe will turn out lighter bodied than the first and can't wait to do a side-by-side tasting once it's all ready. I also can't wait to drink this brew a week earlier than usual w/the new kegging system.

I made a small change to the hopping schedule. I moved more of the Simcoe up front in the boil to do the bulk of the bittering and moved the Crystal addition to later in the boil. I'll also be doing a full 3 oz. of dry hopping making for an even 2 oz. of each of the three hop varieties. Simple.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 3/23/14
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 6.2 SRM
Target Bitterness: 54 IBU
Target OG: 1.056
Estimated FG: 1.014

Grist
9 lb. American Two-Row
1 lb. Crystal 12L
12 oz. Flaked Oats
4 oz. Pale Wheat

1/2 oz. Simcoe 13% (60 min.)
1/2 oz. Amarillo 8.7% (20 min.)
1/2 oz. Crystal 4.3% (20 min.)
1/2 oz. Simcoe 13% (20 min.)

1/2 oz. Amarillo 8.7%(5 min.)
1/2 oz. Crystal 4.3% (5 min.)

7-Day Dry Hop Addition (Leaf Hops)
1 oz. Amarillo
1 oz. Crystal
1 oz. Simcoe

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.25 gal
Measured OG: 1.055
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%

I tried to mash this one a little hotter but it ended up not working out. I heated the mash water to 160F and dumped in the grain. Unfortunately I had a few dough balls to break up and all the mixing ended up dropping the temp to 152. Well, whatever. Near the end of the mash I heated 1 gal of sparge water to 170 and put the grain bag in the sparge pot, mixing for a couple of minutes. Then dumped in the sparged wort and started the boil. The Amarillo + Simcoe + Crystal hop addition at 20 minutes smells amazing. It took everything I had to pull it away from my nose and dump it in the kettle. Pitched the yeast at 70F and aerated.

Update 4/8/14 - Dry hopped with an ounce each of Amarillo, Simcoe, and Crystal loose leaf hops in separate hop bags. Added a sanitized shot glass to each bag to help weigh it down. Drew a sample which weighed in at 1.009 SG for an ABV of 6.1%. Smelled and looked great. I thought the sample tasted a little too bitter though so maybe moving to a 1/2 oz. addition Simcoe at 60 minutes was a little agressive.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.008
ABV: 6.2%
Calories: 179

Carbonation: 2.1 Volumes CO2

Update 4/13/14 - Kegged the mitten. I squeezed the three hop bags with my sanitized hands back into the fermenter to try to get every drop. The overly bitter taste from the last sample was gone. Tastes pretty good but a little young. Had a fair amount of yeast still in suspension that I hope will settle below the keg dip tube. Gravity ended up at 1.008. Cleaned and sanitized keg and beer line before racking into keg. Set at 10 psi and about 45 degrees F. Will sample again in a week and see how she's progressing.

French Saison

Start that Yeast!

Mad Fox's new Saison DuWha? has inspired me to attempt brewing my first Saison. Since this will also the first time I've used a liquid yeast I want to try my hand a making a yeast starter. I won a stir plate in a raffle during the Bell's Homebrew Competition kick-off and I've been waiting to put it to good use.

I created the starter on 1/18, the day before brew day. I smacked the smack pack and waited a few hours for the package to swell. Then I boiled 70 grams of light DME in 600ml of water for 10 minutes. Boiled in an Erlenmeyer with the stir stick in. After cooling the starter wort to 70 degrees I pitched the yeast packet into the starter, covered with a sanitized foam stopper, and set the stir plate to aerate overnight. 

The next morning I saw a bit more foam than the night before much not much other visible change. Kept the stir plate going until right before pitching. According to Mr. Malty this should increase the cell count from about 100 billion cells out of the package to almost 200 billion out of the yeast starter. I'm looking forward to fermentation kicking off pretty quickly, finishing fast, and finishing low.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 1/19/2014
Style: Saison
Batch Volume: 5.0 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 7.7 SRM
Target Bitterness: 45 IBU
Target OG: 1.058
Estimated FG: 1.008
Yeast Cells Needed: 202 Billion

Grist

8.5 lb. Pilsner

1.5 lb. White Wheat

8 oz. CaraMunich

8 oz. Flaked Oats

0.5 oz. Sorachi Ace @ First Wort (11.9% AA)

0.5 oz. Fuggles @ First Wort (5.3% AA)

0.5 oz. Fuggles @ 30 min. (5.3% AA)

1.0 oz. Fuggles @ 5 min. (5.3% AA)

1 lb. Orange Blossom Honey @ 5 min.
1.5 tsp Ground pepper corn @ 5 min.

French Saison Yeast (Wyeast 3711)
- 1 L yeast starter

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5 gal
Measured OG: 1.064
Brewhouse Efficiency: Hard to tell w/honey addition

Update 2/1/14 - Racked almost 5 gallons of the saison to secondary. The yeast tore through this beer drying it out to a low 1.004 SG after two weeks. Tastes pretty good so far even though the fermenter smelled like butt. I guess that's just the saison yeast doing its thing. Tastes a little dank and farmhouse-y. Very cloudy.

After racking, I sanitized two 16oz. mason jars and funneled in a bunch of the yeast left in the fermenter. Tried just scooping it in w/o using a funnel and there was stinky yeast all over the place. Use a funnel! I plan on using this yeast to do a SMaSH saison in a couple weeks to use up the Hallertauer hops I got from the Bell's homebrew competition.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.004
ABV: 7.9%
Calories: 206

Carbonation: 2.26 Volumes CO2


Update 3/13/14 - Kegged my first batch of beer today! Set the keezer temperature to 45F and the CO2 pressure to 12 psi. In seven days I should have a saison carbonated to 2.26 volumes. Tastes a little bit cider-y but definitely has the saison aroma.

Centennial IPA

Delicious Centennial Hops

First brew of the new year, and 'tis the season for rebrews. Today I'm brewing up a second batch of the Bell's Two Hearted clone but with some minor changes. First, I'll be dropping the OG just a bit for a target ABV of around 5.5%. I'm becoming a big fan of these 'session IPA' type beers and find myself gravitating toward brewing them. However, I want to keep a little malt backbone around for the Two Hearted clone to hold up the big Centennial hops flavor. The second change is moving from an English to an American ale yeast, S-04 to US-05, possibly resulting in a cleaner flavor than the last brew. Lastly, I'll be jacking up the dry hopped additions from 0.5 oz to a big ole' 3 oz. The Centennial hops I've had since March of last year are burning a hole in my freezer and I gotta use 'em up so it's time to go big. No, bigger than that. BIG! YEAH!

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 1/5/2014
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 5.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 5 SRM
Target Bitterness: 49 IBU
Target OG: 1.055
Estimated FG: 1.014

Grist

7 lb. Two Row

2 lb. Vienna

8 oz. Crystal 20L

8 oz. CaraPils

1.0 oz. Centennial @ First Wort (8.7% AA)

1.0 oz. Centennial @ 15 min. (8.7% AA)

1.0 oz. Centennial @ 5 min. (8.7% AA)

1.0 oz. Centennial @ 0 min. (8.7% AA)

3.0 oz. Centennial Dry Hop

1 pkg. US-05 American ale yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.25 gal.
Measured OG: 1.050
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%
Measured FG: 1.007
ABV: 5.6%
Calories: 162

Soaked mashed grain bag in ~2 gal of 170 degree water. Stirred around and added most back to boil kettle to get 5.5 gal pre-boil. Didn't need quite that much sparge water. Maybe 1-1.5 gal next time. Pitched yeast at 70 degrees. Brew went off without a hitch.

Update 1/12/14 - Racked to secondary. Gravity sitting at 1.008. Plan to dry hop in a week with 3-4 oz. of Centennial. Tastes a little dry and base-malty but hope it forms a solid foundation for the dry hopping. This was fermented during the DC cold spell when temps dropped to single digits. Basement was pretty cold, possibly affecting ferm?

Update 1/19/14 - Dry hopped with 3 oz. of Centennial pellets. Swirled the carboy around a bit to mix them in. Smelling pretty dandy.

Update 2/1/14 - Bottled today with 3.5 oz. of priming sugar. Yielded 30 12oz. bottles and seven 22 oz. bombers. Smells and tastes terrific. Very centennial grapefruity. Covered both ends of autosiphon with hop bag to prevent dry hops from getting into bottling bucket. Had to restart siphon several times but the bottling bucket ended up very clear. Final gravity was 1.007.

Texas Breakfast Stout

Texas Whiskey Barrel

I've been wanting to do a barrel aged ale since I heard about barrel aged ales but I thought it was a pipe dream. The smallest barrels I'd seen were 35 gal. and it's pretty difficult to make that much beer. For my birthday though, the wife was able to find me a 5 gal. whiskey barrel from a Texas distillery and had it shipped right to the house. It's the perfect size! Now I have a new problem... filling it.

To me, the only beer allowed to have a big oak and whiskey flavor is a big stout. The only stout I've really brewed and liked has been the Guinness clone, but that has a relatively low OG of ~1.040. We need to go bigger. So I found a recipe for a Founder's Breakfast Stout clone that seemed to fit the bill. I couldn't quite mash as much grain as the recipe called for but I still need 5 gal. of beer to fill the barrel. So I cut a few lbs of base malt out of the recipe to fit the system. We're targeting an OG of 1.060.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 12/1/2013
Style: Breakfast Stout
Batch Volume: 5.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 54 SRM
Target Bitterness: 25 IBU
Target OG: 1.060
Estimated FG: 1.015

Grist

9.3 lb. Two Row

22 oz. Flaked Oats

16 oz. Chocolate Malt

12 oz. Roasted Barley

9 oz. Black Patent

7 oz. Crystal 120L

0.5 oz. Nugget @ 60 (13.9% AA)

0.5 oz. Mt. Hood @ 30 (4.3% AA)

0.5 oz. Mt. Hood @ 2 (4.3% AA)

2 oz. Ground Arabica coffee
1 oz. Unsweetened cocoa powder

1 pkg. S-04 English ale yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.5 gal.
OG: 1.070

Bottling Notes
FG: 1.012
ABV: 7.6%
Calories: 230
Carbonation: 2.0 Volumes CO2

Collected 4.5 gal of mash water. Less than the usual 5.5 gal because of the large grist. Raised water to 160. Temperature after mash in was 152. Still some head space in mash tun so heated extra water to 170 and added to tun. Raised temp to 153.

After mashing I decided to try sparging to raise efficiency. Put grain bag in 3 gallon pot and filled with hot tap water. Stirred for a few minutes then removed the bag and squeezed it out. Added collected wort to the already heating boil kettle. Boiled for 60 minutes. Added 2 oz. of coarsely ground Arabica coffee and 1 oz. powdered cocoa just after boil. Collected about 5.25 - 5.5 gal. of wort at about 1.070. That's 10 gravity points more than usual. Batch sparging raised efficiency from the usual 70% to 82%! Pitched yeast at 75 degrees.

Update 12/7/13 - Pulled a gravity sample today. Fermented down to 1.014, 7.4% abv. Tastes pretty good. Medium roasty, a little sweet, and a little alcohol-y which I hope will mellow out but might not have a chance with it aging in a whiskey barrel for a month. Will be racking to the barrel next weekend.

Update 12/15/13 - Time to rack to the whiskey barrel! Filled the barrel with 5 gal. of 160 degree water for an hour like the instructions suggest. I think the reason for this is twofold - to sanitize and to swell the barrel to prevent leaks. Temperature immediately dropped to 150 after filling the barrel. After an hour drained and rinsed with StarSan. Little black roasted barrel chunks fell out of the barrel with every rinse. Will have to filter the beer with a hop bag when I rack it to bottle. Planning to let this sit for four weeks to pick up some oak and whiskey character. SG was still 1.014.

Update 1/12/13 - Bottling day! Beer has a strong oak and whiskey aroma. Perfect in the nose. I think it absorbed a little too much whiskey flavor but after aging time will tell. FG was 1.012. Tasted a little thinner than I'd prefer but not too bad. Cracked a couple of bottles during bottling. Should start looking into kegging. Not sure how many reuses you get out of a bottle but it can't be that many. Primed with 3.0 oz. corn sugar. With 4.6 gal bottled this works out to 2.0 volumes of C02. This seems like just the right amount of carbonation for a flavorful stout.

Forgot to wrap a hop bag around the autosiphon to filter out the barrel char particulate but the bottom of the bottling bucket looked pretty clean after bottling. Looks ok, but try not to forget next time. Now the big question... what gets oak aged next?

Guinness Clone (Batch #2)

This recipe is a slight variation on the Guinness Clone I made in February. I'm using Golden Promise instead of Maris Otter, and slightly less of it at 5 lb. I'm also skipping on the Acid malt to keep things simple and using S-04 instead of Windsor ale yeast.

The last batch also ended up at a higher gravity than planned because I intended to dilute with water but didn't have enough room in the carboy.This time I'll try actually hitting the 1.040 OG mark.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 11/11/2013
Style: Dry Stout
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 34 SRM
Target Bitterness: 34 IBU
Target OG: 1.040
Estimated FG: 1.012

Grist
5 lb. Golden Promise
2 lb. Flaked Barlye
1 lb. Roasted Barley
2 oz. Willamette Hops 5% AA (60 min.)

1 pkg. Safale S-04 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 152 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 5.25 gal.
Measured OG: 1.038
Measured FG: 1.012
ABV: 3.4%
Calories: 126

Started with 5 gallons of water and ended up with 4.25 after mash. Added a little tap water up to 4.5 gallons and started the boil. Hops in at 60. Back down to 4.25 gal post boil. It was hard to take a gravity reading with StarSan foam covering the top of the hydrometer and the dark wort occluding the bottom but estimated it at 1.050. Since I'm adding tap water anyway I should really just rinse the StarSan out of the hydrometer tube before measuring.

Calculated about 1 gallon of tap water should bring it down to 1.040. Second gravity reading was much easier to see and read 1.038. Undershot the gravity a little bit but whatever.

I'm planning to split this batch up into 1 gallon fermenters once primary has finished. I think one will be the control but I'm trying to narrow down what to put in the other 3-4. Here's what I'm thinking so far...
- 1 oz. coarse ground dark Arabica coffee
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 oz. cocoa powder
- 2 lb. cherries

Update 11/18/13 - Gravity is sitting at 1.014. This is probably as low as it's gonna get. The S-04 makes it taste a little different than the US-05. Buttery? Bready? Something. Decided to split the batch into three secondary containers - two 1 gal. fermenters and a 5 gal carboy for the remainder (control). One of the 1 gal. fermenters got 1 oz. of coarsely ground Arabica coffee and the other got 1 oz. by weight of a Canadian blend whiskey (I didn't have bourbon.) We'll see how it goes.

Update 11/25/13 - Finished up at 1.012. Tastes much better than it did a week ago. Very dark, smooth, and dry. Made a 16 oz. sugar solution again with 4 oz. priming sugar. Got 2.75 gal. of the 'control' beer in the bottling bucket => added 8.8 oz. of sugar water. Split the rest between the two 1-gal. experimental brews. I couldn't taste much difference in the whiskey experiment. Maybe a hint of alcohol way back there.

The coffee experiment on the other hand tasted VERY heavily of coffee. Almost tastes more like coffee than beer. Maybe a little less next time? Rubber banded a hop bag around the auto-siphon to keep the coffee grounds out of the bottles.