Pre-brew day extravaganza

What a perfect night to roast malt, make belgian candi sugar, and a yeast starter! 

Of course I could buy these ingredients - but making them is more fun and probably saved me $20 or so. 

Here's some roasted wheat:

I chose wheat for its lack of a hull that can cause a bitter taste. 

Here's some sugar:

 

And almost finished:

Should help my belgian beer brewday tomorrow. 

Hwheat

Up next on tap is a delicious American wheat beer. It is light bodied and refreshing - but still has plenty of malt character. It hides it's 6.2% abv with American grown centennial hops and a proprietary blend of spices.

Original Gravity: 1.060
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU: 28
SRM: 4.3 L
Hops: Centennial
Malts: 2-row, Vienna, White wheat, carapils.
Yeast: American ale

Tasting the carbonation sample now - definitely a summer beer with its citrus and lemony taste. Delish.

As for the other beers: the pale ale is but a hazy memory, the rye IPA (now called Falconrye) is conditioning and smelling like a world of olfactory awesomeness. The cream ale is still in the fermenter but will soon be placed in the keg and cold conditioned for a few weeks (lagering). The brown ale was just brewed yesterday so that has some time. The wort tasted slightly roasty (as it should) - I'll probably dry hop it with an oz or so.

I just realized I'm halfway through brewing. Please let me know if you have any requests for a "party" beer (date and location TBA). I can do either a 5 gallon batch of higher abv beer - or a 10 gallon batch of a <~5% beer.

Up next is my take on a bohemian pilsner. Crisp, dry, and refreshing but mine will have a bit more kick than the European version. Probably will hit it up mid next week.

Pale Ale Hiztorical blog

Pale ale is a product of English brewing innovation.

The innovation of American craft beer is a product of pale ale.

Go figure.

Pale ale traces it's roots to early 17th century England - where maltsters were transitioning from wood to coal in it's malt kilning process. The use of wood made controlling the heat difficult and as a result most malted barley was scorched and produced a darker malt and beer. With the cleaner burning coal (coke) a more-even heat could be employed and thus a more "pale" malt was produced. This pale malt produced fine, heady pale ales that were usually reserved for only the wealthy and awesome. Eventually pale ale would also become "Pale ale as prepared for India" - but we will save that for another historical blog entry (beer #3).

Here in 'merica pale ale was influential in the craft beer revolution. Liberty Ale (Anchor, 1975) and Sierra Nevada's Pale ale (1980) paved the road for the craft beer resurgence that we know today (I can say on a personal note that these were some of the first craft beers I've ever had). Sierra Nevada pale ale is the 2nd most purchased craft beer today (2nd only to Boston Lager) and is allegedly Trey's favorite beer.

American pale ale is usually brewed from american 2-row malted barley with a variety of specialty character malts added in (caramel malt comes to mind). I like to add a bit of caramel with some munich or vienna for a bit of malty/breadiness. Hops are usually generously applied of the "C" variety and provide a citrusy/spicy blend in both flavor and aroma. Yeast is usually clean finishing but can provide some esters if you're into that sort of thing.

So that is pale ale. The pale that I've chosen to brew is a bit of an amalgamation of ingredients from different parts of the world (UK, NZ, US, Germany), but it should work well. We will find out in a few weeks either way. For now I can tell you that it smells amazing from the fermenter - kind of like toast with marmalade on it. It should be pretty awesome - 3 more weeks and we will be drinking it! Fuck-yeah!

Old Zealand Pale Ale

Tomorrow afternoon I will kick off brewing season with a great pale ale. Tonight I'm farting around with the recipe - I think it will go something like:

Base malt: Maris Otter (regarded as the best base malt for ales by many) and Munich (German malty base malt - added in many american ales for complexity).

Specialty malt: Crystal 40L (medium caramel malt flavor, body, head retention - a staple in most pale ales).

Hops: All NZ hops (for no good reason) - Green Bullet (the original NZ hop - a classic hop in their beers), Pacifica (hallertauer type hop), and Wai Iti (newer style hop - citrusy and delicious). I'll probably do a blend of these hops for bittering, flavor, aroma, and dry hop additions. Should showcase these hops well.

Yeast: My personal favorite - Scottish Ale yeast (it's Freakin' huge!). It's a great all around yeast that emphasizes the malts and leaves a slightly sweet finish on most beers. I'm thinking it will pair great with all of the hops.

I'm really excited to brew this beer - I've always loved pale ales as they introduced me to the world of craft beer (Saranac Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale, etc.). While I'm a small-time brewer I figured I'd throw in these rare hops - as they are tough to find in large quantities.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow - I'll probably get going around 2pm and go until 6-7pm. Either on my front porch or in the back yard.

Party-gyle time!

So on this wonderful Sunday afternoon, we will be rejoicing at the holiest church of homebrewing and praise thee, the holy partigyle barleywine and porter.

We will of course be sticking to the purity commandments.

First of all let me say that it is cold as balls outside - even for here in Buffalo. It is currently 10 degrees out with some wind and a bit of snow. We will still be attempting this holy partigyle - but we will probably do the big beer inside and the final boil on the lighter porter outdoors.

With that being said, here is the proposed recipes:

Carl's Millenium Barleywine

2.5 gallon batch in partigyle fashion

14lb 2-row
1 lb crystal 120L
.75 lb wheat
.5 oz millenium @ 60
.5 oz Cascade @10
.5 oz  Pacific Jade @0
Scottish Ale yeast
Champagne yeast if needed
OG: 1.090
FG: 1.020
ABV: 9.19%


Don's Breakfast porter

5-6 gallon batch

Same as above but add:

.5lb rolled oats
.5lb UK coffee malt
.5lb chocolate malt
Breiss porter LME - as needed to bring up the gravity (my first partigyle - so I don't know what I'm doing)
.75 oz Northern Brewer @ 60
.5 oz Cluster @ 30
.5 oz Willamette @ 20
Scottish Ale yeast
OG: 1.072
FG: 1.018
ABV: 7.09%


My good friends are coming by to assist me in the brewing and so they get a delicious beer named after them. They are both aspiring to brew and I hope that they enjoy this afternoon of homebrewing.

Beer and puppy pictures to follow. Go Sabres.

Here's the barleywine after 12 hours - crazy yeast festival:

Sweet porter is done!

Christy's Witbier

Ok - so I may or may not be getting a puppy tomorrow. This of course changes my plans of brewing at 6:30am - now I must drink some coffee porters and brew through the night. Here we go:

Small 4 gallon batch:

3 lb Wheat
3 lb 2 row
.25 lb Carapils
.13lb rolled oats
.5 lb honey
.75 oz Tettnanger at 60 minutes
orange peel & corriander @ 5 minutes
Belgian Wheat yeast 3942


And there it is. Should be a nice, drinkable wheat beer.

According to my beer software I'm looking at around 5.1 SRM - so it will be the lightest beer I've made yet. Also it's IBU's are clocking in at a modest 17.5 - also a low for me. I have read that late additions to wheat beers are pretty much useless as the yeast flavor takes over. I'm not going to dry hop this thing here.

The honey addition was something I added to my last hefeweizen. I liked the boost in gravity - and I guess technically that makes it a "braggot" (beer and mead mix). Oh well - it will taste good either way.

I added a small amount of oatmeal to enrich the mouthfeel.

And finally my last straying from the Bavarian purity act, the peel and spices - well they just add a nice touch. Additions of spices, called "gruit" in Europe, were traditionally added to beers instead of hops. Eventually some dick ruler started taxing these spices and boom: people started using the flowers of a rapidly growing vine called "hops".

Another factor that caused gruit to be no longer utilized is the presence of psychoactive and poisonous herbs that were frequently added into the gruit. When Protestant Puritans saw the often aphrodisiac effects of the gruit in the beer, some guy was probably like: "hey, we should add hops to beer so we don't trip balls like those hippie Calthoics". Hops being a sedative preserved their inhibitions slightly more and they didn't trip balls.

Hops also acted as a preservative and they taste awesome.

Not bad fermentation activity for only 6 hours in and no yeast starter. Also a nice light color.

After some further research I have decided that (according to BJCP standards) this beer will be a Belgian Wit. The Belgians were the Dogfish Head of Europe.While the Germans were only brewing with 4 ingredients (only 3 that they knew of) - the Belgians were adding sugar, fruit, spices, sour beer - anything that wouldn't make 'em go blind. The wit beer at one time was a sour beer and typically has fruity, citrus, and bubblegum flavors. It's typical grain bill is around 50/50 barley to wheat and it is hopped with the noble variety (crystal was bred as the "American Hallertauer" - so that is why I chose it). Although a very popular beer at one time in Europe - it became extinct after lagers gained popularity in Europe during the 19th century. Hoegaarden Brewing eventually started brewing Witbier again in the 1960's but only in the past few decades has the style gained popularity here in the states.

Is beer in my blood?

So my brother was contacted by our geographically estranged cousins from the west coast and apparently my cousin (who was born two days after me) is a brewmaster in Colorado:

http://www.facebook.com/VerbotenBrewing

A pretty cool setup. As a small scale homebrewer - it is cool to see someone open up a shop like this - maybe someday I will open up the East coast version.

Ok - just wanted to share that. Check out his facebook page for more information. Back to porter research for me (drinking 5 porters tonight and taking notes.

Tomorrow: brewing a Belgian Wheat.