Pitching Rate Experiment

One of the neat things about homebrewing is that you have so many people with different degrees of experience and all kinds of systems. One of the forums I frequent, over at Northern Brewer, will often have someone new to brewing asking a question. A lot of people chime in. The funny thing is, there are usually two camps that end up breaking out on any topic. Glass fermenters versus plastic fermenters is common. One that recently came up involved pitching rates.

As you can see by the introductory question, the starter of this particular thread wants to know that when it comes to pitching liquid yeast into a batch of beer, should he pitch one Activator pack, or two.

Let the shitstorm begin.

Where I stand on this opinion depends on the strength of the beer you are making. My general rule is that anything at a specific gravity of 1.055 or less I would feel comfortable throwing a Wyeast Activator into, preferably fully puffed out after you've smacked it, but still okay if puffed out just a little. Case in point: I made a Patersbier at my dad's place. The Activator pack was 3 months old. I didn't feel real good about the age of the pack, but I trusted the Trappist High Gravity yeast to be a strong one. The gravity of the beer was 1.048, so I wasn't too worried about it. Fermented it for a week at around 63 degrees, finished at 1.011. Done.

At about 1.060, I begin to make yeast starters. So I do believe in starters. In fact, I really wanted the Koelsch I just made to do really well, so I made a quart starter for it, even though the gravity was only 1.050. I moved it to secondary after 13 days. The gravity was at 1.016 at the time, which was kind of surprising; I thought it would finish lower. That starter grew for about 28 hours.

Of course, the most frustrating thing to me about homebrewer opinions, is that at times, people think that their opinion is the only way to do things. That's fine. Believe what you want. But just don't tell me it's the only way to do things. Or tell me I can't do something, especially if I've done it, or if I think it will work. See the Koelsch above as an example. Made with 95% Koelsch malt. Some dude said on the NB forum that I couldn't make a Koelsch with that malt. Guess what? Did it. Guess what else? It tastes fucking great. As my wife put it, "Reminds me of the beers I used to drink in high school." Well, maybe. It is a Koelsch.

So this guy, Sean, decided to do an experiment. As you can see, for the cost of shipping, he sent us 3 beers to try. I got my brewing friend, John, to share the tasting with me. I told him, "YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT THE BEER UNTIL WE'RE DONE!" He looked at me funny.

Here were our comments:

John (A): Cloudy. Not really amber. Hazy. Smells of alcohol. Tastes somewhat fruity, mildly hoppy, tastes of alcohol. Over-attenuated? Slightly astringent. Low mod. body, good carbonation.

Jez (A): Decent foam. Kinda light in color for an amber. Decent lacing. Hazy, smells fruity, apple-juicy, caramel, alcohol. Flavor is a bit appley, hops are nice. Very dry, not much of a malt backbone. Mouthfeel: Back bit of hops. Smooth feel. Appropriate carbonation. Seems like it's underpitched. I seem to have gotten better attenuation from a smack pack.

John (B): Thicker head than A. Same amount of haze as A. Smells slightly estery, flavor is estery as well. Less astringent than A. Is this under-pitched?

Jez (B): Bigger head on this one. A bit stronger lacing. Same haze as A. No fruity aroma, maybe some caramel nose. Very dry, nice hops for an amber ale. Same mouthfeel, nice carbonation. Guessing this one used a starter.

John (C): Same as A.

Jesse (C): Same as A.

So as you can see, I thought A&C were underpitched, John thought B was underpitched.

Overall, I think that there really wasn't that much difference in the beer. One was not really better than the other. I think that if you told me that these came from the same batch, I couldn't really tell a difference.

I'd like to thank Sean for the beer. It's always so nice to share someone else's beer. I'll be in Indianapolis in May. Perhaps I could bring you some of mine?

Also, this confirms my indifference to "amber" ales. I think I like more of an Amarillo-Zeus-Simcoe combo of hops in mine.

A Crash Course in Home Brewing

I’ve had a couple of friends over on Facebook mention that they were interested in trying my beers or brewing their own beer. The main factor for them (or as it is considered in beginning any new hobby) is “How much is this going to cost me?”

Brewing beer, like any hobby, can cost as much or as less as you want it to. You can buy a used set of golf clubs at a garage sale, and depending on your local public course greens fee, can probably golf relatively cheap. On the other hand, you can spend tons of money on new clubs, goofy looking balls, a golf cart, accessories, join a country club, etc. Personally, I think I’ve golfed 4 times in my life. I like the part of being outdoors and hanging out with people, but I don’t really feel the need to go chasing after a little, white ball.

The best thing for you to do is look for local brewers in your area and ask them when they are brewing so you can see how it is done. I had a buddy who had all the equipment, so I started out buying a piece here and there until I finally splurged last fall and bought the equipment I really wanted.


Equipment

When it comes down to it, you probably have what you need to do the actual brewing part of beer in your house: A good-sized kettle and a big spoon for stirring. I had a 3-gallon aluminum kettle that always burned my jambalaya when I cooked it. Some people say you should use stainless steel, but recently, I’ve read on various forums that some people have used aluminum pots for the boil for years.

I would suggest getting at least a 9-gallon kettle. Ingredient kits are made for brewing 5 gallons of beer, which should yield you about 2 cases of beer, and you have to boil the beer (wort) for 60 minutes (sometimes longer), so you want to be able to put about 6 or 6.5 gallons in your kettle.

You’re also going to need (at a minimum) a hydrometer and a tube or vessel to put the wort in so you can measure the gravity, so you know when it’s done fermenting, some kind of fermenting vessel so it can ferment, a ferment lock, a bottling bucket, caps, a bottle capper, and some sanitizer. It might not hurt to buy some muslin bags for the grain and some hop bags for the hops.

You should shop around, but both Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies have some decent basic starter kits. If you live in a bigger city, there may even be a local homebrew store (noted in most beer forums as LHBS)

Ingredients

If you’re going to go at this alone, I would suggest buying a kit or two and brew those. Both the Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies have their own kits. I would recommend trying NBs Kolsch, or the Wit Bier. You can try the other recipes, but these two extract kits don’t come with any specialty grains. You just heat your water up to about 150, stir in the syrup or extract, then bring the whole thing to a boil. Then you follow the hop schedule.

Extract kits with specialty grains aren’t difficult to master. They just require one extra step, and you just need a thermometer. See “Brewing” below.

If you really want to make a certain style or clone a recipe, you can usually find one out there by googling the name of the beer and using the words “clone recipe” or just “recipe” after it. Some breweries will even list the ingredients. You can use beer brewing software to help you figure out quantities, and get close, or even nail it. This is an medium-beginner technique, though, and you shouldn’t worry about it yet.

Once you get your kit, take the yeast out and put it in the fridge. Don’t freeze it. I always put the hops in the freezer, but if you’re brewing in a week’s time, I wouldn’t sweat it.

Brewing

Here’s what you need to brew:

The biggest pot you have
A big spoon
A stove or one of them turkey fryer burners (I have a turkey fryer burner because I can do the boil outside and not stink up the house, plus, they have a higher BTU rate than the big BTU burner on my stove, and they kick ass).

If you’re using a Wyeast product, follow the instructions on smacking the pack. Do this up to 8 hours before you use it, or no less than 3 before you start brewing. If the package doesn’t look like it’s puffing up, then you might have a bad yeast, and you may as well call of brewing unless you can get another one right away. The White Labs are little test tubes that you shake up. Take it out of the fridge and set it on the counter before starting to brew, to warm it up. I’ve never used dry yeast, but it’s probably the easiest. I recommend the Wyeast products.

Like I said above, you’re going to follow the instructions included in the kit, and basically do the following:

If you have specialty grains, put them in the included muslin bag. Set this bag of grains aside in a bowl or outside on the porch, because dust will fall out of the bag.

Depending on how you are going to chill the wort will depend on how much water you use. If you plan on immersing the pot into a tub or sink of ice to cool it to 70 degrees after the boil, then I would use about 3 gallons max for the boil. If you have some kind of immersion chiller or a huge bank of snow, then I would pour 6 gallons into the pot, if your pot is that big.

Get your water heated up to 154 degrees and then turn off the heat. Put the bag of grains in there and let it sit or steep, for like 45 minutes (check the instructions, sometimes it’s longer). Keep an eye on the temperature. You don’t want it to go above 160, but you should try to keep it about 154-156.

If you got the Wit or the Kolsch kit, you won’t have to worry about this step. Instead, as the temperature gets up to about 140-150, start pouring in the extract syrup and stir it vigorously for about 5-10 minutes. You don’t want the syrup burning on the bottom of the pot.

Bring it to a boil. Watch the kettle here. It will help if you have a thermometer on a string that goes into the kettle that you can pull out and read, or one they sell that looks like a big meat thermometer. When it gets close to boiling, you may need to lower the heat so you don’t have a boil over. This is another reason I do this outside, and not in the kitchen. I also had a buddy tell me that he screwed up his girlfriend’s white kitchen cabinets brewing inside. I’m just sayin’.

Once it starts boiling, note the time. You will note the hop schedule will look something like:

2 oz Strisselspalt (60 min)
1 oz Coriander Seed (10 min)

You’re doing a 60 minute boil. So, you’re going to boil the 2 oz of Strisselspalt hops for the whole 60 minutes. 50 minutes later (at 10 minutes left in the boil), you’re going to throw in the Coriander seed. I know this seems backwards, but that’s just how that bird sings.

Depending on how you are going to transfer the wort to the fermenting vessel, you may want to use nylon hop bags that they used to include in kits (but no loner appear to do so). Whole leaf hops actually serve as a nice filter, but you can’t exactly pull them out of the steaming wort at the end of the boil if you’re pouring it into a bucket. Pellet hops (most common style used in kits and for availability) need to be put into bags, as they turn to mush.

Once you’ve reached 60 minutes, cover your kettle and turn off the heat. This is where stuff gets interesting.

Chilling and Pitching Yeast

You’re going to have to get the wort down to 65-70 degrees. Some people say cool the Kolsch wort as cold as you can get it and let the temperature come up. I’ve never tried this, and I wouldn’t recommend it for your first brew, unless you’re crazy like me, in which case go ahead.

The trick here is to cool the stuff as quickly as possible. I have a counterflow wort chiller, which is this kickass tool that allows the beer to flow through a copper coil that is inside a larger plastic hose where cold water from my faucet flows over the copper pipe cooling the wort to the desired temperature. That, coupled with a thru-mometer, which gives a colored readout of the temperature, is just great. You also have some other options:

Using a thermometer put the kettle into a sink full of ice and water. Obviously, don’t fill this to high, as you will overflow the sink if you do. Move the kettle around in the water. You may have to add additional ice and water to cool the wort (which you should check by keeping the thermometer in it). Keep the kettle covered. Banks of snow work surprisingly well for this application as well. I was able to chill some wort for a yeast starter in about 5 minutes, but then, that was only 2 quarts of water.

You can also buy an immersion chiller, which works kind of the opposite of a counterflow chiller, in that one end of a copper coil is attached to a water source, while the other comes off the other end and either goes into your sink or onto the ground (my buddy has an area in his yard where the kids can dig. When we started brewing, this is what we used. It usually resulted in something like 20-30 gallons of water onto the ground, creating an excellent mudpit for the kids).

Probably even simpler is to reduce the size of your boil to maybe 3 or 3.5 gallons so that you end up with 2.5 gallons of hot water. Then, in your fermenting vessel, have the coldest possible amount of water to make up 5 or 5.5 gallons. Pour the hot liquid on top of the cool liquid. You may have to wait a couple of hours or so to pitch your yeast to get it down to 65-70 degrees, but this is easiest.

The most important thing is to try and keep a lid on the kettle to prevent outside organisms from getting into the wort. You’re no longer boiling, so you don’t have a sanitized environment. That’s why the counterflow chillers are so great. We sanitize ours with boiling water before each use, and so the wort flows from the hot, boiled kettle into a clean copper tube, into the fermenting vessel.

Fermenting

When you buy a kit, if you’re going with the cheapest version, you will get a fermenting bucket. These are nice in that the top is a wide open bucket so you don’t need a funnel to pour your hot wort into. If you get a big plastic bottle (I have 2 six-gallon Better Bottles), you will probably need a funnel with a screen on the inside (to prevent excess hops and other particulates).

Once the temperature is 65-70 degrees, pitch the yeast. Have yourself a bucket (fill the bottling bucket or fermentation bucket with up to 5 gallons of water and add an ounce of sanitizer or whatever they provide in the kit) of sanitizer set up, either while you’re brewing, or while you’re waiting for the temp to fall in the fermenter. In this bucket, put in your ferment lock. It’s important to make sure the wort is going to touch sanitized surfaces. If you haven’t sanitized your fermenting vessel, you will also want to do that before you pour the wort in there (not an issue if you did what I said at the top of the paragraph). Let that sanitizer set for a good 15 minutes or more.

Siphon some of the wort out of the vessel into the big hydrometer test tube in your kit, and drop the hydrometer in there to check your Original Gravity. Compare it to the O.G. on the kit to see how well you did.

When using liquid yeast, shake the hell out of it before putting it into the fermenting vessel on top of the wort. If you’re using Wyeast, dip the end of the bag you’re going to cut into the bucket of sanitizer and then pour it on top. Follow instructions if you’re using dry yeast (usually bring a small amount of water to about 70 degrees, shake yeast on top, stir it up and then pour mixture into wort).

Fill the ferment lock with some water about halfway and secure it onto the top of the vessel.

Next, you will need to get oxygen into your mixture. If you have a bucket or a plastic bottle, pick it up, making sure the ferment lock is held onto and shake it for about 30-60 seconds. Glass ferment bottles are available as well, but I have read horror stories about these breaking for no damn good reason. I mean, really, do you want to be dancing in your basement with about 50 pounds of glass and liquid? Me? Not so much.

You can also buy an oxygen stone (around $40) from a beer supply place and a small red tank of oxygen (about $10) at your local hardware store. Sanitize the oxygen stone (not the tubing, stand over a small pan with boiling water) by immersing it into boiling water for 5 minutes. Cover the stone with foil and put the tubing into the sanitizer without dipping the stone into it for about 5 minutes. Also avoid immersing the filter. I usually dip the stone (without the foil, of course) into the fermenting vessel for about 2 minutes. By that time, foam is usually pouring out of the top.

Set the vessel in a corner where it’s going to be at least 65 degrees until the fermentation stops. We’ve done this using space heaters, heating pads, blankets and such in the winter. In the summer in NW Indiana, my basement temperature goes between 68-72 degrees, which is perfect.

In about 24 hours, you should see bubbling in your ferment lock. If so, congratulations, you are making beer! If not, shake it up some more and wait a day. Hopefully it will work out for you.

As the days go by, check your vessel and the lock. Once the bubbling has gone to less than one bubble per minute, it’s likely done. Use a siphon to once again check the gravity. If it’s around 1.009 – 1.016 for those kind of beers you have, it’s probably done fermenting. Make sure by seeing if you get the same result 3 days in a row.

I recommend having a second vessel for secondary fermentation. This step gets the beer off the dead yeast and other crap that has floated to the bottom of the primary fermentation vessel. Using a siphon, set the primary vessel on something higher than the secondary vessel, which should be placed on the floor. Allow the beer to flow from one vessel to the other. Then set this vessel aside without worrying about the temperature. Ideally, you’d like the temperature to be between 35-55 degrees. This will help with the clarity of the beer, unless it’s supposed to be cloudy, then you don’t have to worry about it being so cool. Just don’t allow the temperature to get around 80 or above, because this will impart some off-flavors to your beer.

Bottling

After a week or two in the secondary, you can bottle the beer. Prep by cleaning around 50 bottles. I would recommend making about 10 gallons of sanitized water and placing the water in a clean cooler that you use for picnics and outdoor festivals, something that can hold 50 bottles lying on their sides. Immerse the bottles in the sanitized water. I have a bottle washer that I use that goes on a sink in my basement. You can buy and adapter for your kitchen sink as well. This is a handy tool that I use after the bottles have been immersed for at least an hour. I usually do this the day before, though.

Next, you will need two pans. In one, put about 55-60 bottle caps and cover them with water. Boil the caps for 5 minutes, and then take the pan to the place where you will be bottling.

In the second pan, boil 2 cups (16 ounces) of water and put three-quarters of a cup of PRIMING sugar (don’t use normal table sugar, as this will fuck up your beer) that came with your ingredient kit and also boil for five minutes. Do not put more sugar than this into the mixture, as it is likely to cause exploding bottles.

Siphon or pour your beer into your bottling bucket. Make sure you have sanitized your beer filling wand (that came with your kit) and the hose that connects the wand to the bucket. You can put these in the cooler with the bottles.

Pour the sugar water into the bottling bucket on top of the beer. Don’t worry about stirring it in.

Fill your bottles and cap them, then set them aside.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Usually, in 10 days, I pop a bottle and check the beer. Most of the time, it’s decent. What I mean by this is that it has some what of a head and tastes like beer. The beer usually becomes perfect after 3 weeks in the bottle. By then, you’re getting a decent head, good carbonation, and the flavor has developed.

Summary

I totally recommend reading a book or two on the subject in conjunction with brewing a batch or two with someone who knows what they’re doing. Some homebrewers are choosey about who they let drink their beer. My friend, John, told me after I had bought my first batch that we brewed and I was going to take 12 to a party that I shouldn’t. I ended up finding bottles of my beer that still had a good third of the beer in the bottom of the bottle. This was a lighter, hoppier ale, and it was bitter, so there’s no doubt that it was an acquired taste.

Understand that this is the shortest I could make this article. There are tricks and tools out there that I didn’t mention. Mostly, I just wanted to give you an idea of what was required to brew beer. It’s definitely more work than going to the grocery and picking up a sixer of a microbrew. I enjoy it, though, and want to spread the joy as much as I can.

I'm a Jinx, Bedlam Follows Everywhere

It's been close to a year since I mentioned The Jinx, a beer brewed by Magic Hat in Vermont. The good news is when I went into Pat's about 2 weeks ago, they had six packs of #9 and The Jinx. So, naturally, I picked up a sixer of The Jinx.

It does not appear to be showing the purplish hue I remember from last year, but it could be the glass that I drank it from. I need to pour it into more of a traditional pint glass and verify it. The smell of smoked peat malt is there, as is a tiny aroma of CTZ hops that they use. Since I harvested my Zeus hops (more on that next week), I can identify the smell easily.

A note about Magic Hat: A lot of people find their beers to be wimpy. I have even read and heard people say that they make "beer for women." Whatever. I find that they make good, interesting, lighter ales. The Circus Boy is my 2nd favorite American Wheat (to Three Floyd's Gumball Head), even though some would call it a vegetable/herb beer since it uses lemongrass.

Where I do agree with most critics of Magic Hat is the way they're so into marketing. That webpage of theirs is a mess, and they're always promoting events. I bought a Jinx t-shirt for $20, and boy, was it a dissapointment. Looking at the photo, looks like a decent shirt. When I got it, it was an XL, but the collar was tight, and the material was not like a beefy-T (No, I don't need a 2X. Most of my t-shirts are XL, and my collared shirts are usually L). It was closer to the kind of white t-shirts you get at your local five-and-dime in a package, 3 for $5. I know you hippies are trying to expand your brewery and all, but Christ, if you want me to support your company, don't try to fuck me in the ass.

But I digress.

Using both Beer Smith and ProMash software, I believe I have been able to build a clone recipe for this curious ale. Somehow, using the ingredients given by Magic Hat for the Jinx in the Google search engine, I came upon this recipe, which is a Scottish ale, that has some of the same ingredients. Substitute .33 oz of CTZ hops for boil at 60 minutes, and another .34 oz of CTZ hops at 15 minutes, and you get the same IBUs. Using dark brown sugar seems to give it the color it needs. The dark Belgian candy sugar made it too dark. Adjusting the black malt and the sugar got me within 1 SRM of the color Magic Hat says the Jinx is.

A guy named Wahoo who posts over at the Northern Brewer Forums, posted this about the yeast I want to use:

London Ale Yeast attenueates well and does not produce large amounts of esters the way Ringwood or Special London (Wyeast 1968) do. It finishes dry enough to be excellent in IPAs and Pale Ales, the "minerally profile" Wyeast refers to makes it great in a stout, and I have no reason to think it is anything but the absolute best choice for a London Porter (a style which I haven't brewed in a decade). It does attenuate very well so if you are doing a low OG recipe such as an Ordinary Bitter or Dry Stout, you may want more Crystal or Cara-Pils than you would use with a yeast that leaves more residual sugars in the beer.

The low flocculance of this yeast makes for a beer that is not as easy to get crystal clear as some of the other strains you might use in some these styles. However, I find that as a homebrewer, "working" with the yeast (harvesting, pitching, etc) is easier if it does not make an extremely compact yeast cake, and in that respect the low flocculation of 1028 is somewhat of an advantage.

What Wyeast Says: Rich with a dry finish, minerally profile, bold and crisp, with some fruitiness. Often used for higher gravity ales and when a high level of attenuation is desired for the style. Flocculation: Medium-Low Attenuation: 73-77% Temperature Range: 60-72F, 15-22C Alcohol Tolerance: 10%ABV.

I did read somewhere that Magic Hat uses a Ringwood Yeast, but I liked the description of the yeast above, and how the Wahoo guy is really into this style of yeast.

Based on all of this, I give you my recipe for Samhain ale, since I can't exactly confirm that it is going to be exactly like the Jinx, it will be slightly different, and therefore not a Jinx clone, per se, but pretty damn close, and hopefully even better:

Samhain Ale
Partial mash

Grains
8.3 lbs Pale Liquid Extract
1.5 lbs Caramunich Malt
0.5 lbs Crystal Malt 20L
0.10 lbs Chocolate Malt
0.13 lbs Peated Malt
1.0 lbs Dark Brown Sugar

Hops
0.33 oz Zeus @ 60 min.
0.34 oz Zeus @ 15 min.

Yeast
Wyeast 1028 London Ale

OG = 1.080
IBU = 20.1

Put grains in a couple of muslin bags and steep at 155* F for 45 minutes. Bring to a boil and follow hop schedule. Substitute Columbus or Tomahawk hops if Zeus are not available. Add extract and sugar at end of the boil. Cool to 70*F and pitch yeast. Suggest making a yeast starter or pitching two Activator packs. Ferment at 65 – 70*F.

Two New Brews

On Tuesday, we racked two new beers: one was an Amarillo Pale Ale, made with 2 ounces of Amarillo hops, and the other was a Czech-style pilsner.

The Amarillo ale is looking good. It's clear, nice color, and currently has a gravity of about 1.014. It will probably end up around 1.012 in three weeks. We had this one in the conical for about 2 weeks, and it's now in the keg. We're still doing partial mash recipes at this time. For this one, the recipe is as follows:

Amarillo Ale
6.8 lbs Pale Malt Extract
1 lb Briess Caramel 60L
1 oz Amarillo Hops @ 60 minutes
1/2 oz Amarillo Hops @ 15 minutes
1/2 oz Amarillo Hops 5 @ 5 minutes
1 TSP Irish Moss @ 5 minutes
White Labs California Ale V (WLP051)
We loaded up about 6 gallons of water and heated it to about 160F and turned off the burner. Put the Briess Caramel grains (freshly cracked from Shoreline Brewery, thank you, Sam) in a muslin bag and let them steep for a good 35 minutes. Added the PME and brought it to a boil and added the hops. Chilled the wort to about 70 F and then pitched the vial directly into the conical. Added a drop of olive oil and oxygenated it for about 90 seconds. I'm looking forward to this one.

For the pilsner, I used a variation the partial mash recipe from May-June 2008 issue of Brew Your Own magazine. This is the recipe:

Wiesbaden Pils
6.0 gallons distilled water
5.0 oz Pilsner Malt (2-Row)
2.0 lb Caramel Pils Malt 2*L
1.5 lb Munich Malt 10*L
3.0 oz Acidulated Malt (0.375 cup)
4.0 lb Generic Light Malt Extract - Light (stir in at end of boil)
1.25 oz Vanguard Hops (60 min)
1.50 oz Vanguard Hops (15 min)
1 Whirlfloc Tablet (15 min)
0.25 oz Vanguard Hops (0 min)
Wyeast 2000 Budvar

O.G.: 1.049
F.G.: 1.014 – 1.018
IBU: 42

Put cracked grains in bag and steep in 3 gallons of distilled water for 45 minutes at around 150*F. Rinse the bag with a quart of cool water. Raise total volume to 5.5-6.0 gallons and boil for an hour, adding hop additions. Be sure to stir the extract in at the end of the boil.

Unfortunately, we did this brew starting around 8:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. The reason we did this was because we bought a big Activator pack of the Budvar yeast and smacked it on Thursday night. We've had a terrible time with this yeast. The first time we tried to brew a Pilsner, we just pitched a single vial of the White Labs version of the yeast and we didn't get fermentation, we got a bunch of growing things on the top of the carboy. So I bought all the ingredients and a Propagator pack, figuring to make a starter. I smacked the pack and gave it 3 hours. Overnight, the yeast did nothing in the starter bottle. So we ordered an activator pack, smacked it, and waited. On Sunday (three days after we smacked it) the pack began to swell. We made a starter on Sunday evening, and had to brew Tuesday.

Instead of just 3 gallons, when I got to John's house, he had 6 gallons going, and I managed to get all the grains into one bag. Looking back, we should have just done the 3 gallons and divided up the grains into several bags for more surface area coverage. I think I'd just prefer to do an all-grain version of this recipe. The gravity ended up at like a 1.039, when we were looking for a 1.049. The nice thing was we had whole-leaf hops for this brew, and they were awesome. Before racking it and putting it back into the fridge at 38 F, we sampled it. It's golden, light in body, but a hop monster. Not overhopped, but hopped like I remember a good pilsner being in Germany. The Budvar yeast is nice, it's very fruity. I'll have photos of these up in a few weeks.

Chris' Beer

I had to go over to John's and dry-hop the Tongue Splitter ale yesterday, so I took over the two bottles of beer that Chris gave me on Friday night. This is actually the first homebrew someone else has given me since I started the hobby. I thought I would review it here.

Oatmeal Stout: First of all, I need to preface this by saying that I'm not a huge stout fan. I can appreciate a good stout, but I will rarely order a stout to drink. Usually they are very filling, and therefore you drink one, and you're done with that style for the evening.
I thought Chris' stout was pretty good. The bottle made just a little hiss, very quick, when opening (Chris asked me to check that as he just recently bottled this) and had a nice tan head on it. It was definitely an opaque black. Nice flavor, left a nice film on the mouth. John thought it didn't have enough body. Honestly, I couldn't agree or disagree. It went down smooth, and that's about all I know.

Black India Pale Ale (India Black Ale): I mentioned to John twice that this was an India "Black" Ale, yet when he poured it, he was like, "Whoa, why is this so dark?" I told him it was an "I - BEE - A" and then he was cool. Same deal with opening the bottle. Both beers did not seem flat, in case you were wondering, Chris. This beer was just AWESOME. It had that hoppy smell that I associate with Amarillo hops, but then, I don't really know my hops that well, but it smelled sort of like a Three Floyd's Gumball Head, and I know they use Amarillo hops. Bitter as all get out. Really a hop head's dream. Nice tan head that stuck with the beer in the glass all the way down. Another opaque black beer. John said, "We should get the recipe for this."

Good job, Chris!

Chesterton/Region Homebrewers UNITE!

Went to Shoreline tonight with the family and John the Brewer. John had a beer and left, but not before meeting Chris, who also brews. I've been meaning to write Chris, but you know, that whole apathy thing came into play.

Anyway, Chris was telling us that he does all-grain brewing with some modified Coleman coolers. So we were pretty rapt with attention. Chris says, "Later," then John left. Chris returned with two 22-oz bombers of his oatmeal stout and India Black Ale (IBA). I couldn't believe it! So awesome to finally get someone else's beer to try. I told Chris I would return his bottles full of my own recipes. I was gonna post a photo here of the two bottles in my fridge, but apparently, my 13-in-1 card reader has decided to go on the fritz.

We also just brewed a kit I got from Northern Brewer this last week. I guess the Tongue Splitter kit I got for around $26 just went up to $41. Whew! Just got in under the wire for that one. I was actually gonna try to brew my own hoppy pale ale, but I was looking at spending $47 to do that with about 4 different kinds of hops. I figured I would just check out the kit at a lower price and get some more experience under my belt. This is only the 5th beer we've brewed. John brewed an Alt (another NB kit) on 12/31 with another friend. I had to work. I think I'm ready for all grain now. I've read enough about it, now it's time to do it.

Here's the Tongue Splitter recipe:

Tongue Splitter Pale Ale
Grains and Fermentables
0.5 lbs Dingman’s Caramel Pils
0.5 lbs Simpson’s Caramalt
6 lbs Pilsen Malt Syrup
Hop schedule
1 oz Nugget @ 60 minutes
1 oz Glacier @ 15 minutes
1 oz Cascade @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade @ 2 minutes
0.5 oz Mt. Hood @ 2 minutes
Dry Hop
0.5 oz Cascade
0.5 oz Mt. Hood
Yeast
Wyeast #1332 Northwest Ale Yeast

Steep grains in 6 gallons of water @ 160-165*F for 15 minutes. Add syrup and bring to a boil. Start Hops additions.

OG = 1.045
Optimum Temperature: 65-75*F

Porter, Indiana

Sure, it's a town. But it's also the name of our latest homebrew. I'm not sure if this one is quite done yet, but it tasted really good even before going into the keg. We brewed this a week after we brewed the white ale (wit). Speaking of, John called me the day before our New Year's Eve party and said that the wit had completely changed. It was no longer as cloudy, and all the floaties had disappeared. I didn't get any photos of it, but boy, is it nice.

This porter is probably our best beer to date. Seems like we always get into our beers before they mature. Like the wit. I was thinking about it, and yesterday this thing should have matured to the point the wit. So I'm wondering how it is. I need to try it again.

Here's the recipe:

Porter, Indiana

5 gallons/extract, specialty grains

6 oz. chocolate malt (British)
2 oz. black patent malt (British)
0.5 lb crystal malt, 70L
8 lbs (2 cans) Alexander's pale malt extract
1 oz Chinook hops (13%AA) for 60 min
1 oz Cascade hops (5.5%AA) for 10 min
1 oz Tettnanger hops (4%AA) for 2 min
1/2 tsp Irish Moss for 20 min
Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast

Steep grains at 150° F for 20 minutes in 3 gals. of water. Remove grains and bring the liquid to a boil. Add extract and Chinook hops and bring back to a boil. Boil 40 minutes and add Irish moss. Boil 10 minutes more and add the Cascade hops. Boil 8 more minutes and add the Tettnanger. Total boil is 60 minutes. Cool the wort. Place in fermenter and top off to 5 gals. Pitch yeast when cool enough. After two weeks prime with corn sugar and bottle.

White Ale Check and Current Inventory

Here's a follow up from last week's check on the Girls' Night Out White Ale.  It's pretty cloudy, as you can see in the photo.  Lotsa floaties in it as well, although the beer tastes pretty great.  Almost overpowering with the cloves.  I only put an ounce in, so I didn't think that would be too much.  I will probably drop it down to like 8-10 cloves next time.  Probably won't add the vanilla, and maybe not use the fine orange peel.  Go for something more coarse.

But like I said, it tastes good, but those floaties leave something to be desired.  This is before we charged it with CO2 as well, so there wasn't really much of a head on this.  Had one on Thursday of last week.  John poured the second one and he had way more of a head on his than mine, and also appeared to have less floaties.

The porter has officially been kegged as well.  We had a taste prior to kegging, and it was damn good.  Even without carbonation.  Not as dark as I would have liked, but we only used a 70*Lovibond crystal malt when the recipe called for a 120, which was not available.

Christmas Fridge

In the fridge this Christmas is the following:

22 oz Three Floyds Behemoth barleywine

4 12 oz bottles of Three Floyds Alpha King

5 12 oz bottles of Bell's Two-Hearted Ale

1 12 oz bottle of Bell's Winter White Ale

8 12 oz bottles of Blue Moon

Homebrew Update - December '07

I got one of my Christmas gifts early.  A plastic, 6.5 gallon conical fermenter.  The great thing about conical fermenters is that you don't have to move the beer to a second fermenter because all the trub (yeast and other "floaties" - excuse my non-professional terminology) can be removed from the valve located at the bottom on a daily basis, instead of being left in the primary fermenter.

The upper valve on the cone can be used to get samples to check the gravity of the beer.  This also allows you to keep more beer in the fermenter, instead of excess beer for gravity tests through siphon hoses.  It also prevents infection from siphon hoses.

Meanwhile, over at John the Brewmeister's house, we've got two more beers fermenting the old fashioned way, in glass carboys:  A White Ale and a Porter.  Here's the White Ale recipe.

Girls’ Night Out White Ale 

5 gallons, extract/specialty grains

Ingredients:

1 tsp Gypsum
½ lb Pilsner Malt
¼ lb Munich Type 1 Malt
¼ lb Caramunich Type 1 Malt
¼ lb cracked Wheat
4 lb Alexander’s Pale Malt Extract
1.4 lb Alexander’s Pale Malt Extract Kicker
1 oz Northern Brewer hops (60 min)
½ oz Saaz hops (30 min)
½ oz Saaz hops (15 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss
1 oz orange peel
1 oz cloves
0.5 oz Coriander seeds, whole
1 tsp Trader Joe's Vanilla bean mash
White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale Yeast

Step by Step: 

Put grains in grain bag or muslin bag.   Add gypsum to 2 gallons of distilled water and heat to 165*F. Add grain bag, remembering not to add grains to water above 165*F.  Hold temperature at 155*F, stirring grain bag gently from time to time.  Leave pot uncovered during this time, allow grains to steep for 25 minutes. Remove grain bag and let drain.  Don’t squeeze grain bag!  Rinse grains by slowly pouring 1 cup of HOT tap water over top of grain bag.  Discard grains.  Add 3.5 gallons of of water, malt extract and kicker, and bring to a boil.  When boiling starts, add Northern Brewer hops.  Calm boil.  After 30 minutes of boil, add ½ oz of Saaz hops and Irish Moss.  Boil 20 more minutes and add the other ½ oz of Saaz hops along with the spices, ground course.

Original Gravity = 1.040
Final Gravity = 1.010 – 1.012

I'll post the Porter recipe in a later post.  Hopefully there will be more photos of the actual beers and how they've turned out soon.  John said the Porter tastes great and is close to final gravity.

Beer #1

My friend John has been talking about brewing beer for a while now. We got together about three weeks ago, and when I say we I mean my friend Adam, John, me, and the kids. The kids didn't really help out except for playing in the backyard and letting the process happen. And, of course, taking off all their clothes and running around naked.

We've tried the beer in all of its stages. On Saturday night, we loaded it up with CO2 and put the keg in the fridge. So it should be good to go any day now.

It's a pale ale, but not so pale. Smells very hoppy and kind of musty in a good beer way. The taste is smooth, just a tiny bitterness. Pretty good for a first beer, I think.