The Lost Mitten

This recipe is my contest entry for the 4th Annual Bell's Homebrew Competition. It's similar to the All Day IPA clone adjusted to use wort distributed by Bell's. The competition wort is made from 100% Michigan Pale Ale malt and measured in at 1.050. It seemed much darker than any pale malt I've used before. Maybe it was more roasted than typical pale malt or maybe some was made into crystal malt.

My understanding is that the Flaked Oats and Red Wheat in this recipe require a mash to convert their starches into sugars. Since the Bell's wort has been boiled already I think this removes its ability to do this. Therefore I had to mash these grains with some kind of enzyme source so I chose two row since I had it on hand. Unfortunately the two-row will contribute its own sugar to the wort so I had to reduce the amount of Bell's wort to keep the gravity down. I ended up using only four of the five gallons of Bell's wort but I couldn't figure out another way to make this recipe keeping the gravity below 1.060. I chose a target gravity a little higher than All Day to give it a little more flavor for the judges and bumped up the IBUs to compensate by using a full 1oz. of Simcoe in the boil.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 9/16/2013
Style: India Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: ?? SRM (Bell's wort was pretty dark for being all pale malt)
Target Bitterness: 54 IBU
Target OG: 1.056
Estimated FG: 1.012

Grist
4 gal. Two-Row wort from Bells (1.050)
1 lb. American Two-Row (For mash diastatic power. 6-row would have been better)
10 oz. Crystal 10L
8 oz. Crystal 60L
12 oz. Flaked Oats
4 oz. Red Wheat

1/4 oz. Crystal 4.3% (60 min.)
1/5 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.)
3/10 oz. Simcoe 13% (5 min.)

10-Day Dry Hop Addition
1 oz. Amarillo 8.7% (originally 1/2 oz.)
1/2 oz. Crystal 4.3%
1 oz. Simcoe 13% (originally 1/2 oz.)

2-Day Dry Hop Addition (Why not?)
1/2 oz. Amarillo 8.7% (originally 1/2 oz.)
3/4 oz. Crystal 4.3%
1/4 oz. Simcoe 13% (originally 1/2 oz.)

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 155 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 4.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4 gal. (+ 1 gal top up water)
Measured OG: 1.056
Measured FG: 1.010
ABV: 6.0%
Calories: 183

Measured out all my grain, dumped them in the mill and started the power drill to mill them. The torque from the drill dumped the grain all over the floor because I forgot to hold the other end of the mill down. Bummer. Three pounds of grain in the garbage. That was my only Crystal 20 on hand so I had to change the recipe a bit. Replaced crystal 20 with a combo of crystal 10 and crystal 60 since those were the only crystal malts I had on hand. Mashed 3 lb. of grain in mixture of 4 gal of Bell's wort + 1/2 gal. of tap water.

Measured gravity after boil was 1.070 with 4.0 gal. volume. Added 1 gal. tap water to reach 1.056 OG with 5 gal. volume. It's not Michigan tap water but, hey, it's the best I can do. :) Pitched yeast at 79 degrees.

Update 9/26/13 - Racked to secondary nearly 5 gal. of beer. Gravity reading is a bit over 1.010 which is right around target. Tastes pretty good so far, like a stronger, sweeter version of the All Day. Decided to up the dry hops to 1 oz. Amarillo, 1 oz. Simcoe, 1/2 oz Crystal because you gotta bring your A-game, right?

Update 10/04/13 - Second dry hop addition. Why not? Had some extra hops in the freezer with no home. So I gave them a home. This brings the total dry hop additions to 4 oz. I don't know how much 'too much' hops is but I guess we'll find out if 4 oz. is too much. This is for you Bell's!

Update 10/6/13 - Bottled today with 4 oz. of priming sugar. Got only 43 bottles out of it thanks to dry hop absorption. Boo! I wish I had used slightly less sugar (3.5oz or so) because I don't want too much fizzy out of this. Julie and I tasted the last bit in the bottling bucket and it was SUPER bitter. I hope this is because it may have contained some stuff that settled to the bottom of the bucket. Shouldn't be all that bitter, all things considered.

Update 10/13/13 - Cracked open a bottle after only a week and it is pretty well carbed already. It tastes pretty fantastic with a very strong hop aroma punch and flavor. This'll be one I'm proud to submit for the homebrew competition. I'll be calling it the 'Lost Mitten' as a gesture to my recurring longing to return to Michigan. Fingers crossed! Will be shipping tomorrow.

Punkin Ale

Pumpkin Season!

Let's keep the streak going. Fourth brewing weekend in a row. Today I brewed with my buddy Greg Robbins at his place. He brewed a complex Flying Dog Fear clone and I brewed this recipe I found on HomeBrewTalk that emulates the DFH Punkin' Ale. Started off with four pounds of pumpkin puree baked in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Let it sit in the oven to cool slowly for the next 30 min. Came out a nice warm amber color. Also had to buy my second 50lb. sack of two-row today for this brew's grist. I feel like working your way through your first 50 lb. sack should earn you an intermediate brewer's badge. I'll ask the wife to make one.

Malt Contains no Dinosaurs

Watching Greg mash in a Rubbermaid cooler and sparge with stove top heated water looked so much simpler than the BIAB that I may heavily consider upgrading to a cooler based mash from the BIAB method. Especially for bigger winter beers like this that are a bit more unwieldy in a bag.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 8/24/2013
Style: Spice Ale
Batch Volume: 4.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 13 SRM
Target Bitterness: 20.2 IBU
Target OG: 1.067
Estimated FG: 1.017

Grist
8 lb. American Two-Row
1 lb. Crystal 60L
1 lb. Victory
4 lb. Baked Pumpkin Puree

1 oz. Hallertauer (60 min.)
1 lb. Brown Sugar (60 min)
1 oz. Hallertauer (5 min.)
2 tbsp. Pumkin Pie Spice (5 min.)
    - 1/2 cinnamon, 1/4 ginger, 1/8 nutmeg, 1/8 allspice

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 155 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Mash Efficiency: ?
Measured OG: 1.067
Measured FG: ?
ABV: ?
Calories: ?

Marble Orange Hot Break

Dough in at 157 dropped the temperature way below target to about 145. After adding all 10 lb. of grain and 4 lb. of pumpkin the brew kettle started overflowing and was at its absolute limit. Heated the mash on the burner to reach a temp of 157. After a 72 minute mash I squeezed the hell out of the giant grain bag and collected 4.5 gal. of wort. Put the bag in a bucket and 'sparged' another 1/2 gallon through it to collect 5 gal. total for boil. Used the wort chiller to cool down to 90 degrees and immersed pot in water bath for a while to get down to 85. Poured beer into fermenter and will wait until temperature drops below 80 before pitching US-05 yeast. Measured gravity was 1.067 which is AMAZING. Even with so many variables I can't believe I've been hitting my target gravity this consistently.

After bringing all the equipment home and avoiding cleaning because I hate cleaning the living room has a little pumpkin and graham cracker smell. I can only hope this is echoed in the brew six weeks from today.

Update 8/30/13 - Gravity reading is 1.010. Finishing way lower than the recipe predicted. Maybe because dough in brought the temperature too low for a few minutes? Regardless it tasted fantastic. Very excited to move this one along and get it in my belly ASAP.

Update 9/21/13 - Bottled 4 gallons of the pumpkin ale today with 3.5 oz. of priming sugar yielding 40 bottles in total. Finishing gravity was 1.008. Somehow I liked the taste a little more three weeks ago. It tastes a little too spicey and just a bit hot out of the hydrometer tube. If this guy smooths out a little with age it'll be a winner.

Simcoe Select IPA

Chillin' out max. Relaxin' all cool.

Third brew weekend in a row! BOOM! Today I'll be brewing a kit from Midwest Brewing Supply called Simcoe Select IPA. I received this kit as a gift from Mike and Sheila Willey for being a part of their fantastic Tennessee wedding. Thanks guys! I've been meaning to do a Simcoe SMaSH for some time too but I think this kit is a better plan. I only had a 5 gallon fermenter available so I cut 10% of the grain bill and volume to do a 4.5 gallon batch to give it some fermentation room but kept the full hop additions. So what do I do with the extra 2lbs. of grain? Why munch on it throughout the brew day, of course.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 8/17/2013
Style: India Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 4.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 11 SRM
Target Bitterness: 67 IBU
Target OG: 1.063
Estimated FG: 1.014

Grist
9 lb. American Two-Row
.9 lb. Crystal 40-60L
.45 lb. Munich
.45 lb. CaraPils

1/2 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (60 min.)
1/2 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (40 min.)
1 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (20 min.)
1 oz. Simcoe 12.7% (2 min.)

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 155 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Mash Efficiency: ?
Measured OG: 1.062
Measured FG: ?
ABV: ?
Calories: ?

Temperature was in the low 70s in the middle of August. What is this? My birthday? Anyway, executed a double brew day today with Mike and Beth Helle and their dog Oxford. Also had a meet and greet between Oxford and our two cats. They were not impressed. Mike brought over a 2nd copper coil so we put it in a cooler of ice water and ran a line from that to our wort chillers. We were finally able to bring wort temps down below 80 degrees in the summer with the help of this new contraption. FG was right on target again. Awesome.

I used four hop bags for the four hop additions but they were pellet hops so not a lot of hop material was held back. Should just reserve the hop bags for whole leaf hops. Not really worth it for pellets. Actually I've been reading about homebrewers using paint strainer bags and pouring the wort through the bags during aeration to collect hop and grain material. Sounds like a better plan than hop bags.

We now have 17 gallons of beer fermenting in the basement between my brews and Julie's so we're both very satisfied brewers now.

Update 8/30/13 - Pulled a gravity sample today and we're sitting at 1.022. Tastes good - bitter with some grapefruit or melon flavor on the back end. It's been stable at 1.022 for a few days now. Maybe when I separated the grain it wasn't mixed well and too much Crystal and Cara ended up in the mash? Whatever. I'll be racking this to secondary in a new Better Bottle I picked up from the local homebrew store. It was much cheaper than a new glass carboy and the mouth is bigger which makes me think removing a dry hop bag will be much easier in this guy.

Update 9/21/13 - Bottled 4 gallons today with 4 oz. of priming sugar. Got 42 bottles total. Final gravity was still 1.022. Julie and I are cursed with mono-Simcoe ales finishing very high. Oh, well. Some like 'em sweet.

All Day IPA

Who doesn't like a beer they can drink all day? This recipe is a Homebrewtalk.com work in progress to clone Founder's All Day IPA, a relatively low ABV pale ale with a great hop forward taste and aroma. I've wanted to brew this recipe for a while now but it's been hard to source Amarillo hops since there's apparently a nation wide shortage of this type. My local homebrew store was out and so were the online go-to's NorthernBrewer and MidwestBrewingSupply.

As fortune would have it today we decided to tour Three Stars Brewing company, a new brewery that opened last year in DC. It was a wonderful tour by one of the owners who was a really great guy from Cleveland (booo!). Before the tour began we browsed around their homebrew shop and what to my wondering eyes did appear but several ounces of Amarillo hops, all in a row. I snatched up 2 oz. after the tour along with the rest of the grist which they had on hand entirely. Despite the 4+ oz. of fairly expensive hops the whole recipe rang up to about $30 AND they helped me pick out bulk grains and crushed as I shopped. I was a fantastic experience and I would love to visit this brewery and their homebrew shop again soon. Great folks all around.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 8/10/2013
Style: India Pale Ale
Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 5.8 SRM
Target Bitterness: 43 IBU
Target OG: 1.046
Estimated FG: 1.011

Grist
7 lb. American Two-Row
1 lb. Crystal 20L
12 oz. Flaked Oats
4 oz. Red Wheat

1/4 oz. Cascade 6.6% (60 min.)
1/2 oz. Amarillo 8.9% (20 min.)
1/2 oz. Cascade 6.6% (20 min.)
1/4 oz. Simcoe 14.1% (20 min.)

1/2 oz. Amarillo 8.9% (5 min.)
1/2 oz. Cascade 6.6% (5 min.)
1/2 oz. Simcoe 14.1% (5 min.)

1/2 oz. Amarillo 8.9% (dry hop)
1/2 oz. Crystal 3.8% (dry hop)
1/2 oz. Simcoe 14.1% (dry hop)

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 150 °F
Mash Time: 50 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 5 gal.
Measured OG: 1.048
Measured FG: 1.008
ABV: 5.3%
Calories: 157

Got a late start on this brew with dough in at 6:20pm to avoid the heat. Remembered it as 6:10 though so only mashed for 50 min. but that shouldn't matter. Tried sparging grains w/170 degree water over a collander but was more work than it was worth. It takes time for the grain to absorb the water and even more time to squeeze it back out again. Probably just top up with hot water instead to 5.5 gal. next time.

Update 8/17/13 - Dry hopped tonight with 1.5 oz. hop blend. Sprayed sanitizer on a hop bag, filled it up, and dropped it right in the fermentation bucket. The bag keeps floating to the top but hopefully will sink in after it absorbs some of the liquid. Gravity is 1.008. Tastes pretty good so far! Kind of a mellon and grapefruit combo kind of thing going on.

Update 8/23/13 - Too impatient to wait a single day longer I decided to bottle today and get these babies going. Used 4 oz. of priming sugar in the 4.5 gal of collected beer for bottling. Gravity remained 1.008. Squeezed the hop bag dry before removing to get every delicious drop. Dry hopping has added a strong and excellent aroma and just a little pucker around the edge of the tongue. Looking forward to that mellowing out just a bit as it bottle conditions. Got 44 bottles total.

The beer was very cloudy and looked a bit more like cider than beer. I wish now I had taken the time to rack to secondary and let it clear up a little bit but you have what you have. After racking the first gallon to the bottling bucket I rubber banded a hop bag around the siphon to keep unwanted hop material and trube out of the bottles. Worked pretty well but there's a lot of room left for clarifying in the bottle.

Also, the taste was fantastic. Definitely will be brewing this again. And I can say that two weeks in.

Belgian Blonde

So, do I suddenly have a thing for blondes? The power of summer compels me! Following on the heels of the Centennial Blonde we brewed in June is this tasty concoction inspired by the Belgian beer Leffe Blonde. I originally looked at doing a Trappist style ale but reading up on the brettanomyces refermentation and the 6-8 month secondary requirements I was understandably intimidated and impatient. So Leffe Blonde clone it is. For this recipe I'll be substituting American Two-Row for what is thought to be pilsner malt. The hops also came in at way lower alpha acid content than I predicted so the second hop addition was moved up from 30 to 40 minutes from the end of the boil to help account for the difference. This is also the biggest all-grain recipe I've done so far at 1.069 target OG.

Brew Recipe

Brew Date: 8/04/2013
Style: Belgian Blonde
Batch Volume: 4.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 5.8 SRM
Target Bitterness: 20.1 IBU
Target OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.017

Grist
9 lb. American Two-Row
1 lb. Light Munich
10 oz. Cane Sugar (Added at 15 min. before flameout)
5 oz. Belgian Biscuit
4 oz. Melanoidin

1 oz. Styrian Golding 3.2%AA (60 min.)
1 oz. Saaz 3.0%AA (40 min.)

1 pkg. Safbrew T-58 Belgian Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 158 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.75 gal.
Mash Efficiency: ?
Measured OG: 1.070
Measured FG: ?
ABV: ?
Calories: ?

It was a lovely 78 degrees out today. After crushing my grain for this recipe I realized the gap setting for the mill was waaay too wide. Set it to 0.030" and re-crushed. With 5.5 gallons of 166 degree water, after adding the grist I was very close to the top of my 7 gallon boil kettle. A lot of grain in this one. Mash temp started at 160 and ended at 158. Added table sugar at 15 minutes left in the boil. Had problems cooling the wort again with the coil chiller. Only able to get down to 90 degrees. Took it inside and ice bathed it down to 84. OG reading was spot on which was good news.

Got impatient during the cooling pricess and transferred it to the carboy and pitched the T-58. I've heard Belgian yeast likes it hot but I think this was too hot. Awoke the next morning to a very vigerous fermentation. No off smells or anything. I'm excited to try this next weekend and see what the warm starting temp for fermentation produced.

Update 8/8/2013 - Couldn't resist pulling a sample today. After four days the gravity dropped down to 1.012 with little activity going on in the fermenter. Taste had a hint of the Belgian character I'm going for but had a pretty strong fusel alcohol taste which I'm sure is a side effect of the high fermentation temps. I'm not sure if this will mellow out over time but it's currently a little too harsh to be enjoyable. Maybe chalk this up as a brewing lesson learned and move on. Must devise a better method for chilling wort quickly to pitch temps in the summer.

Update 8/11/13 - Racked to secondary today. Detected a small hint of that belgian characteristic in the nose from the gravity sample but not quite 'belgian' yet. Very bready still. Gravity was standing strong at 1.011.

Centennial Blonde

Looking for a Famous Blonde?

Break out the sunglasses and hot pants, the heat of summer is in full effect. When you're sweating like a mad cow in pasture and staring at your brew equipment with strong anticipation of your next brew day there are a few styles that immediately tear into mind. I needed a cold, light, refreshing brew that was better at quenching thirst than inspiring daring tales of taste exploration. Upon researching recipes for just such a brew I settled on an overwhelmingly popular recipe on HomeBrewTalk.com for a Centennial Blonde ale. As we all know Centennial hops are clearly the best hop out there for every occasion so I needed little convincing.

• Greatest Country: U.S.A.
• Greatest Planet: Planet Earth
• Greatest Hop: Centennial, of course!

Here's the recipe for this little blonde thirst quencher.

Brew Recipe
Brew Date: 6/22/2013
Style: American Blonde
Batch Volume: 4.5 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 3.9 SRM
Target Bitterness: 21.6 IBU
Target OG: 1.039
Estimated FG: 1.008

Grist
5.5 lb. American Two-Row
10 oz. CaraPils
6 oz. Crystal 10L
6 oz. Vienna

0.25 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (55 min.)
0.25 oz. Centennial Pellet Hops (35 min.)
0.25 oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (20 min.)
0.25 oz. Cascade Leaf Hops (5 min.)

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 150 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Mash Efficiency: 71%
Measured OG: 1.040
Measured FG: 1.004
ABV: 4.8%
Calories: 129

Brewed this one with my friends Rob and Beth, their dog Bo (as in "Bo knows beer"), and the inlaws Dave and Ann. It was hot outside like last time but decided to brew this one on the flagstones in the shade of our north yard. This turned out to be a MUCH better idea than brewing in the sun stricken heat of the south yard. We also discovered our new go-to outdoor lounge location. Six people drinking around the brew kettle in camping chairs is one of the most relaxing environments I can imagine.

Despite being a little cooler today than the last batch the wort chiller couldn't get the brew below 90 degrees. Finished cooling in an ice bath in the sink. The OG for this batch ended up spot on the recipe target. I may be delusional but I think I'm getting better at this.

Update 7/27/13 - Bottling day. This time I'll try shooting for a specific carbonation level. The carbonation level in a bottle of beer is measured in a simplified unit called 'volumes.' One volume is equal to one liter of CO2 at 20C at 1 atmosphere in 1 liter of beer. With a blonde ale like this I'll be shooting for 2.5 volumes of CO2 as a good amount of carbonation for this style.

According to this priming sugar calculator we should be using about 100 grams of corn sugar with our 4.0 gallons of beer. So I guess a good rule of thumb is 25 grams of corn sugar per gallon. Boiled 100g of priming sugar in 1 cup of water. Added to 4.0 gallons of beer while racking into the bottling bucket. Stirred a little with the wine thief. Yielded 40 bottles even. Carbonation on the Willamette Pale is a little low still. Hope this one carbs ok.

Willamette APA

For lucky brew number thirteen I decided to tackle a more experimental recipe. I had a bunch of Willamette hops laying around after my Guinness clone brew. Since the aroma and flavor isn't really detectable in a stout I decided to brew a Willamette-forward beer to get a sense of what these little buggers can do. You don't see a lot of all-Willamette beers out there and there may be a reason for it. We're about to find out. I emphasize "experimental."

I was also able to test the limits of my wort chiller with this brew day. I somehow decided it would be a good idea to start brewing outdoors at 2pm in 90 degree heat. After a very hot but enjoyable brew session my wort chiller was not able to bring temperatures down below 82. After pumping 10 gallons of cold water through the chiller I decided to give up and bring the show inside. The yeast was pitched after wort temp fell below 80. All the plants in the yard got a few large drinks of water after distributing all the hose water pumped through the chiller.

Brew Recipe
Brew Date: 6/1/2013
Style: American Pale
Batch Volume: 4.0 gal.
Type: All Grain
Color: 7.4 SRM
Target Bitterness: 39.2 IBU
Target OG: 1.045
Estimated FG: 1.011

Grist
5.5 lb. American Two-Row Malt
1.0 lb. Pilsner Malt
0.5 lb. Crystal 60L Malt

1.0 oz. Willamette Pellet Hops (60 min.)
1.0 oz. Willamette Pellet Hops (15 min.)
1.0 oz. Willamette Pellet Hops (5 min.)
1.0 oz. Willamette Pellet Hops (1 min.)

1 pkg. Safale US-05 Ale Yeast

Brew Notes

Mash Temp: 154 °F
Mash Time: 60 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Pre-Mash Volume: 5.5 gal.
Post-Boil Volume: 4.5 gal.
Mash Efficiency: 71.4%
Measured OG: 1.041
Measured FG: 1.005
ABV: 4.7%
Calories: 132

Update 6/10/13 - Racked to secondary today with Julie. Julie had her first successful 1 gal. rack. It went by so fast! Pulled a gravity sample - 1.006. She's gonna be an easy drinker. Sitting at 4.7% ABV right now. It smells a little pungent so I don't think I'm a huge fan of the Willamette aroma but it tastes pretty good. May or may not dry hop with 1 oz. Willamette a few days before bottling.

Update 6/29/13 - Decided to pass on the dry hopping. Last couple of brews were hop monsters so I decided to settle things down a bit. Julie and I pulled off a joint bottling day with her first one-gallon batch yielding nine bottles and this batch yielding 37. FG was a low 1.005 so we should the crisp finish I'm looking for.