Category: HomeBrewing

I’ve got a couple of “projects” in the pipeline and got a chance to work on each of them tonight.

The Hefeweizen I made a couple months ago was nearly gone and I don’t have enough corny’s or a big enough chest freezer/keggerator to inventory more than a couple batches.  So dumped out the last few quarts remaining to free up that keg.   It was just “OK” anyway and I got a bit bored of it, frankly.  It gets to be a bit of a chore to power though 5 gallons of mediocre beer when you’ve got other things to work on.  This is another argument for bottling I suppose.

Into that keg I transferred the Dopplebock that had been laggering for the last nearly 3 months and turned the temp controller to 24F.  Yup, its going to be an Eisbock. I’ll check it every 12 hours or so and when tipping the keg back and forth reveals that it is getting “slushy” I’ll use CO2 to push out the remaining liquid.  Shooting for about a 20-30% reduction on each of the two steps I pan to do.  Looking forward the that.

The Belgian Tripel finally got racked from Primary into the other 5gal corny I have but since the 24F keggerator was too cold, I just set it in my garage which is in the mid 30s after this cold weather that has come though this week.  Hooked the CO2 up to it and after a few days I’ll see how it’s doing and draw off the yeast that will undoubtedly settle out by then.

I’ve still got the second half of the Berliner-Weisse souring in a 3G carboy.  Haven’t tasted it in a while but I’ll probably bottle that this weekend and see how it turned out.  It is the half that I used the WYeast 5335 as opposed to the spontaneous Lacto I used for the other half.  A bottle of the latter I had the other day and it was great.  Light, tart, exactly the high carbonation I was shooting for and very refreshing especially after a hard workout on the bike trainer.

UPDATE 12-12-13

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After a few days the Dopplebock didn’t sound like it was very frozen so I bumped down the temp to 21F and then it started to freeze.  A few days of checking it each night,I guessed that it was about half frozen, and hooked up a “jumper” from the out fitting to another corny’s out fitting and pressurized the source keg about 5psi and just vented the target keg every minute or two.  I filled the target keg, a 2.5G and wasn’t pulling any air yet from the other so there is probably 2.5-3G of mostly beer flavored “sno-cone” left in the other corny.  I’ll probably thaw it and take a gravity reading so I can figure out my ABV of the remaining Eisebock.

The Tripel out in the garaged has been on 25psi at about 35F for the last 5-6 days so I vented it a bit and hooked up a picnic faucet and after running it for a few ounces to pull up the sediment, poured a small glass for myself.  Nice light orange amber and nearly the carbonation level I want.   Still very cloudy, murky even.  Big fruity esters and the classic Belgian yeast aroma. Pretty earthy and muddy flavor, again I think a lot of sludge was stirred up.  I may even transfer it to another keg to help clear it up.   Pretty big alcohol burn, as I think I calc’d it at 10.3%.  So, It’l do the trick.

I’ll likely bring a little of each to an early Christmas work party to share, and in a week is the homebrewers club meeting where I will be able to get some feedback and suggestions.  So I got that going for me.

I’ve been homebrewing for several years including a few years in the middle when I was on some kind of hiatus…but now that I have started upo again in this summer/fall I have been wanting to  try a few styles that are somewhat more adventurous for me.

Historically Ive done a lot of Hefeweizens, Pales, IPAs and a few Stouts and Porters.  A few years ago when hops got real expensive, that was party what got me out of it since most of what I made required quite a bit of them.  When I spec’d out an IPA recipe that was going to cost me as much for hops as it did for malt and yeast, my enthusiasm waned a bit.

Now, hops aren’t that much cheaper but I have gotten interested in a few other styles that are not hoppy, or also quite low gravity. The Berliner-Weisse I made last month, probably the least expensive 5G batch I’ve ever done, the Belgian that I am working on currently has a pretty big grain bill but hardly any spendy hops, and even the Dopplebock I did last month was kind of the same way.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love a good IPA, and I may get around to one of those before long, but these times have forced me into looking at styles that before now seemed a bit too risky or complicated.

This next one will be a Belgian Tripel.  A lot of advice I found online stressed a very simple grain bill.  Pilsener mostly, and  little Munich and Cara-Vienne for color, character and body.  This will be the first time I’ve used sugar, and I’ll go with the traditional Belgian Candy sugar.  That will make up about %10 of the fermentation.

It took me a long time to come around to Belgian beers in general, which might seem a bit strange since that seems to be where most beer nerds go eventually.  Either that or they become hop-heads.  I am more the later but my appreciation for the beers of the lowlands has gained some traction lately.  Maybe it was the Operation Market Garden episode of Band of Brothers that I recently re-watched that did it…   OK, fine, that was the Netherlands technically but Antwerp is only about 70 miles from Eindhoven.

14# Pilsener and a pound each of Light Munich, Cara-Vienne, and Wheat plus 2# of light candi sugar I’ll add to the boil.  Miscalculated my strike temp and had to add more hot water to the mash trying to get up to 150F.   A 1 qt starter of WLP500 which supposedly is the same strain that is used at Chimay for their Grand Reserve (Blue)  Of the Belgian strains, this one has a little more of that fruity ester notes and less of the spicy peppery character.

I pitched the starter at ab 72F and let it do it’s thing and figured it would free-rise a few more degrees.  Which it did.  At full roiling activity it was at about 74.  A little warm, but that’s OK.  Also, the color is quite a bit darker than I was hoping for.  It was nearly a 90 minute boil so that may have added a little color via some caramelization from being “cooked” so long.

Still, interested to see how this turns out.  Looking forward to something a bit different from my brewhouse.  On to Berlin !

Lately I’ve been trying to streamline my old bottles of beer that I have made and found that I wish I’d been more organized in labeling them.

I have several bottles amongst my collection of something labeled 6007 which my naming scheme suggests that it is the 6th batch I brewed in 2007.  Holding the bottle up to the light showed that it was VERY dark.  Likely a stout.  Probably the 1.130 OG Imperial Stout that I could not fit even 1 more pound of grain in to my 55 qt cooler/mash tun. I think I used 30# of grain and my first runnings when I lautered were 1.085

As I recall, the final gravity on that one was about 1.04 which put it at around 12.5% ABV.   Also, that was my first attempt at something so big and I overpowered the yeast on it so it had carbonation problems when I tried to bottle condition.  I think that is why after a sampling bottles over the first few months showed that the carbonation was not coming up like I had hoed, I relegated the remaining bottles to the back of my shelf in the basement.

The other day, after 6 years, I pulled one out and shared it with a few friends, notifying them with a big disclaimer about how I don’t know if this is any good, not ever sure what it is..etc..etc..  I was pleasantly surprised by the carbonation.  It was a little soft, but for the style, it worked out OK.  Black with deep redish mahogany on the edges and highlights.  Nice warming aroma of dark roast and raisins.  Flavor was a bit oxidized, as I kind of suspected, but it was definitely drinkable and I’ll be going back through all my bottles and rounding up any remaining from that “vintage”.  They wont be getting any better.

I plan on cranking up production this year and this kind of lack of documentation and organization is not good.  Just lucked out on this one a bit.

After a little research I decided to split this batch into to 3 gal carboys.  Both got a Lactobacillius head start.

In one, I went with the Wyeast 5335 lacto culture and in the other I tried a spontaneous variant (pictured at left) that I grew by taking a cup of raw uncrushed 2-row right from the bag, added about a cup of 120F water and sealed it in a pint mason jar for a week.  The fact that I took it from a sack of 2-row that has been sitting for several months probably helped, if anything. It took off really well and a nice sour apple aroma was coming off of it after the first day or so.  It was actually pretty strange how much like granny smith apples it smelled.  Evidently, that is a sign that the correct microorganisms are at work.

So I added a little more water to this homegrown culture and pitched all the liquid I could pour off of it, into 1 carboy and the Wyeast lacto in the other.  After a little over 24 hrs I was getting a thin white haze on the home grown one and barely visible activity on the Wyeast one.

After 3-4 days the wild side was going nuts.  Big puffy pillowy powdery marshmallowy stuff going on.  The commercial version was a bit behind but showing some a little white fuzz.  I took a guess and after 3 days, I pitched re-hydrated Safale US- 05 into both.  Shortly after that a more typical fermentation took place.

When the airlock activity had nearly stopped, I racked each into a clean 3G carboy and let them set.   After a few days, I started to get a white pellicle again.  Basically that meant that the Lacto was still doing its thing.  The sourness was not quite enough at that point so I let it ride for another week.

From what I had read, the souring will continue in the bottle so I primed with enough corn sugar for about 3.6 volumes of carbonation and bottled the “wild” half into 12 22s and 8 12s.  This has been a week now and i’ll give it another week or two before I open one of the little ones and check on carbonation and sourness levels.

-Update   Opened one of the little bottles and it was nearly a gusher.  It was still at room temp so this helped.  The flavor was just about right on.  Very dry, tart, and lemony.  Put a big bottle of it on ice for a few hours and shared it that night with the HomeBrew club at our monthly meeting and, chilled, it was very nice.  Got several good comments on it.  I will move some of that bottled half batch to the cool garage to see how the sourness comes along, and refrigerate the rest.

Very encouraged with this recipe and I will be making it again sometimes soon, possibly adding rasberries or pie cherries to some of it.  Also, Will be looking to enter a couple bottles in a HB competition if there is one coming up that I can send them off to.

Homebrewing is a science as much as an art.  A lot of right brain AND left brain stuff going on.  Creating something that is subjective and personal taste driven, but at the same time, has processes that are fairly exact and deviating from them can be detrimental, or downright disastrous.

I have frequently described to fronds that ask me about it, that it is kind of like a cross between cooking and a mad scientist experiment…that you get to drink when its done.

One of the parts of the process is measuring the amount of dissolved sugars in the solution just before and after fermentation is done.  Mostly this is so that you can then calculate the amount of alcohol present in the finished product.  This is referred to the “specific gravity” of the solution.  With 1.00 being equivalent to water, 1.100 would be quite a lot of dissolved sugars and 1.010 would be the low range, of a finished beer, after the yeast ate up all they could handle, and left you with alcohol and carbon dioxide.

You can measure this is two basic ways.  One is by filling a tall narrow container of the solution and floating a hydrometer in it.  The higher this device floats in the solution the higher the specific gravity is of the solution you are testing.  Basically the solution “pushes” up the hydrometer and there are graduation marks on the side that you can eyeball and take a measurement.

There are a couple factors that complicate this measurement.  One is temperature.  If you are measuring something hot, the reading will be a bit lower than that same sample would be at room temperature.  So you have to adjust for that.  Also you have to waste several ounces of your precious beer to take a measurement like this since you have to pull out enough to float the hydrometer.

The other way to measure specific gravity with a refractometer.  A small device that looks a little like a mini telescope.  You open a little flap at the end of the deice and put a single drop of the solution on it, close the flap and look through the scope and as the incoming light is “refracted” you can read it against a graduated scale as you are looking through it.  This way is NOT temperature affected and only requires a drop or two of what you are measuring.  Two pretty good advantages.  They cost $30-$50 though.

Homebrewfinds is a good site that shows sales and bargains for hombrewing ingredients and equipment.  You can follow them on twitter @homebrewfinds Recently they posted a refractometer for only $20 or so.  I might have to pull the trigger on that one.

It has been a few years since I made a beer like this.  And I am sorry I waited so long.  Dopplebocks are, according to the BJCP, deep golden to dark brown, intense malty aroma, virtually no hops and fairly high gravity.  All of these are A-O-K in my book.  Supposedly, beers of this style would sustain monks during their time of (relative) fasting.  Sounds like splitting hairs to me, but they are delicious (the beer, not the monks and one of my favorite styles.  Also what’s cool about them is that traditionally, commercially produced Dopplebocks are often named ending in -ator.  Celebrator, Liberator, Consecrator etc.  I’ll have to think of something worthy for mine I guess.

The recipe I am following for the most part is posted on Ratebeer.com and when I made it last time, it turned out really well.  The fact that I turned it into an Eisbock had something to do with that, I’m sure.  I’ll be doing the same to this one and that process will be another post.

Today I am starting the starter, 1l of 1.035 wort and a Wyeast “smack-pack of 2308 “Munich Lager”  I chilled the wort in a growler and broke the inner packet and after about an hour, poured the contents into the growler only to find that the inner yest capsule never broke.  So I popped it, while still inside the foil packet and poured that in as well.  I just have horrible luck with those things.  Whenever a recipe calls for a WY strain, I immediately consult the converter chart for a White Labs equivalent.  This time the only HB shop I could get to in time had WY.  Anyway, everything was about 60F and I put the growler with an airlock in my kegorater set for 58F and I’ll watch for activity.  It’s still live yeast…and it’s still nutrients and it’s still a liter of wort.  It should be fine, right?

We’ll see I guess.

You need a good beverage, that’s a fact, and for a long time I have been intrigued with the possibility of distillation but put off a bit with the legal ramifications.  “Fractional Freezing” at first glance seems to find a fine line between them and as such eases my conscious a bit.  While distilling spirits at home is illegal according to the ATF, unless it is for fuel, freeze-distilling seems to be not quite so certain.  There are multiple articles and blogs about this and I wont go into it here.  Maybe it is a case of don’t ask, don’t tell, but the friend that I have that is into this, is not making it for himself to sell, only to experiment with the process itself.  Or so he tells me….

Anyway, so this friend decided to try a few tests and I will do my best to document his/her efforts here.

A fresh pressed unknown variety of apples, fermented with standard California ale yeast.  After a week or so, the resulting cider was poured off into a a pair of 2L PET bottles an put in to a chest freezer set to about 25 deg F.  After a day or so, interestingly one of the bottle was mostly frozen and the other was not at all. The “frozen” bottle was shaken and squeezed a bit to break up everything inside so as to make a coarse slush and then slowly the liquid was poured out into another bottle.  it worked out that almost exaclty 1 quart of ice was left behind meaning that the decanted solution was very nearly double concentrated.  The “snow” left behind in the original bottle was nearly colorless and it tasted nearly flavorless.  My hunch is that it’s alcohol and sugar content was effectlvel nil.

The second bottle strangely needed a freezer temp of several degrees colder to get the same effect.  When it did, the same procedure was used with very similar results as far as quantity of water (ice) extracted.

Soo Now there was a single 2L bottle nearly full of this “Double-Strength” Cider, affectionately now known as “Apple-Jack”.  With the understanding that this was an experimental projeect, my friend figured that to stop now would be contray to some deep-down primal need to push the envelope ever further.  So, the freezer was bumped down to about 15F and the same thing happened.  the bottle looked completely frozen…but on taking it out and shaking and squishing, the contents were “worked” into a slushy.  Removing the cap and inverting the bottle produced a steady trickle of a decidedly deeper colored golden amber elixer.  It took 10-15 minutes but the remaining liquid barely fit into a 1L flip-top bottle. I didn’t check the melted “slag” after the second round of fractional-freezing as itis called but I suspect the efficiency dropped a bit and a little alcohol and flavors came out with that ice.

So, we have a gallon of very sweet fresh pressed apple juice, initially fermented to about 7.5% ABV due to its rather high sugar content to start, concentrated to 15% in the first round, then, allowing for a loss of efficiency in the second round, 1 Liter of approximately 25% ABV “Apple-Jack”.

The finished product is definitely drinkable, tastes a bit “Hoochy” but not nearly as much as a sample did after the first round.  Much more reminiscent of lighter-fluid and jet-fuel then, not nearly so much now.

My friend is considering a type of “back-sweetening” with frozen apple concentrate and maybe a little spices for a sweeter more flavorful sipping beverage.

A famous George Carlin quote goes something like ” …Hobbies cost money…interests are free”

I can see the truth in that.  My hobby these days is Homebrewing.  The fact that it is definitely not free means that according to (the late) Mr. Carlin it is not an “interest” .  To make a 5 gal batch of beer the material costs are anywhere from 15-50$ depending on what style is produced and what, if any ingredients you can use that you don’t need to purchase every time. Yeast for example, which technically I think can be considered more a catalyst than an ingredient.

Last month I was involved in a homebrew competition called Iron Brewer.  The unique features of this particular competition is that the organizer calls out 3 somewhat unrelated ingredients and it is up to the contestant to make a beer, of any style he or shoe whats, that showcases these special ingredients and still makes up a drinkable beverage.  I participated in round 4 of 6 and was tasked with using a type of malted barley called acidulated malt, a kind of ops called Strisslespalt, and also something called brewer’s licorice.  I went with a style called a Baltic Porter with is typically a rather strong, slightly sweet dark beer, and is a style that I happen to like very much  I figured the Licorice would go fairly well and the hops and malt I had to use could be incorporated and still be something  that I would not mind drinking 4-5 gallons of over the next couple months.  It turned out fairly well, and got good comments from the other contestants (we each shipped samples to every other participant and reviewed them all together during an hour- long Skype session.

As it turns out, I know personally 4 other Home-brewers that were also involved in other rounds of this same competition, and traditionally, we have gotten together and shared with these other people samples that were in the round we participated in.  Tonight we got together and all tried submissions from Rd. 4, the one that myself and another Boise area HBer were in. A few decent beers and a couple quite good ones were tried and discussed a bit.  Then, another individual that was also in rd 4 with me brought out several of his own beers he had made over the last year or so.  A couple of dry Apple Ciders, one with Raspberry Liquor added, a Fresh Hop IPA, a Black IPA, and a couple others.  They were all great and it was a great time, sipping and discussing, and critiquing each one.  It was an interesting, entertaining, and edifying experiance.

My contribution was one of the last bottles of an Imperial Stout I had made in the spring of 2007.  3 Years ago.  It was 12.7% ABV and in my opinion too sweet, under-carbonated and while a fun experiment back when I made it, not particularly good.  Somehow after sitting in the bottle for a few years the flavors had really blended together and turned out to be a pretty big hit at our little meeting.  It was encouraging to get positive feedback and I am more motivated than ever to make something like it again.  As I recall it was 30# of barley and it completely filled my mash tun.

During our homebrew discussions, we also touched on what is called a “Solera” project.   In this case, several home brewers get together and make a simple “base” beer of very similar recipes, and combine then into a full sized 50-60gal oak barrel, typically used previously for aging wine.  The barrel is then “inoculated” with special micro-organisms that sour the beer.  Ever 6 months or year or so, a small portion, 5 or maybe 10 gallons is racked out and then immediately replaced by fresh “base” beer again to top it off,  The cycle is repeated indefinitely and a yearly supply of oak aged sour beer is produced.  these mini batches that come out can them be blended with older or newer portions or have fruit added to them and generally be used an an experimental base for many other types of sour beer.   The trick is to find a barrel, which we have, and then to coordinate a time when we all bring our beer to fill it up with.  Hopefully we can get this going soon.  There a re a few good sites/blogs that talk about this.