Update 5/15/12 - FG 1.003. Bottled. Tart, tasty, just a hint of sweetness and alcohol (tasted at room temp)
Update 10/31 - SG 1.026. Racked off of berries. Will try to let the gravity drop a little more.
Update 10/14 - SG 1.035. The blueberries float. Recommend mesh bag and some weights to submerge next time. Pretty tasty. Magenta color.
Update 9/13 - Racked to secondary with blueberries. SG 1.050. Probably should have stirred up the lees a couple times before now. Oh well. Patience and maybe some more yeast in the coming weeks.
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Made some more mead. Yaaaaay.
Mead Batch #03
Black and Blue Melomel
-12lbs Orange Blossom honey
-2lbs Blackberry puree (frozen, primary)
-3lbs Blueberries (frozen, secondary)
-Water to 4 gallons
-GoFerm
Split yeast: 71b-1122 (8g)
OG: ~1.116 (estimated, too much fruit gunk in solution to measure)
FG: 1.003
ABV: ~14.8%
Mix it all up. Go!
Showing posts with label Blackberry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blackberry. Show all posts
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Why not?
Update 9/13/08 - Bottled 4.5 gallons. Tart right now, but should mellow over the next month or so. Primed with 4oz corn sugar.
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Update 9/7/08 - Racked to secondary, added 1# frozen berries.
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Update 9/1/08 - Ack! Well, more of a "BOOM" and a soft rattle of the house. I forgot that this one tends to ferment really fast and didn't hook up a blow-off tube. So I instead spent about half an hour cleaning up the closet and am doing laundry to get the blackberry out of everything. At least my fancier clothes that share the closet weren't hit. Smells good, though.
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Competitions are coming, and just for the hell of it, I decided to submit one of my favorite brews. Changed it up a little this time to enhance the berry flavor. Should be ready in time for the California State Homebrew Competition, and the MoreBeer forum competition, which I will be stewarding to try and get in to the judging thing (at the very least, to refine my tasting skills). I'll probably also submit the GoP Trippel.
In other news, my mash efficiency jumped up today. Turns out the mill I was using didn't grind well enough for all grain. With the other mill in the shop, my efficiency (nothing else significantly different) jumped to around 75%.
Batch #21
Blackberry Stout 3 (All-grain), Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs 004)
--9 lbs Amer. 2-row Pale (RAHR)
--1 lb Crystal 40L
--8 oz Black Roasted
--4 oz Black Patent
--4 oz Chocolate Malt
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (60min)
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (1min)
--4 lbs Frozen blackberries (~10min)
--1 lb Frozen blackberries (secondary)
--1/4 tsp Supermoss (10min)
OG: 1.054+ (right on the money for 75% efficiency!)
FG: 1.011
ABV: ~6%
Calc. IBUs: ~23
Mashed for 1 hour at 154F in 3.5 gallons water. Fly sparge (by the pint) with 170F strike, collected ~ 6.5 gallons wort. Added 4 lbs berries with clarifier to sterilize. One pound of berries will be added to the secondary.
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Update 9/7/08 - Racked to secondary, added 1# frozen berries.
--
Update 9/1/08 - Ack! Well, more of a "BOOM" and a soft rattle of the house. I forgot that this one tends to ferment really fast and didn't hook up a blow-off tube. So I instead spent about half an hour cleaning up the closet and am doing laundry to get the blackberry out of everything. At least my fancier clothes that share the closet weren't hit. Smells good, though.
--
Competitions are coming, and just for the hell of it, I decided to submit one of my favorite brews. Changed it up a little this time to enhance the berry flavor. Should be ready in time for the California State Homebrew Competition, and the MoreBeer forum competition, which I will be stewarding to try and get in to the judging thing (at the very least, to refine my tasting skills). I'll probably also submit the GoP Trippel.
In other news, my mash efficiency jumped up today. Turns out the mill I was using didn't grind well enough for all grain. With the other mill in the shop, my efficiency (nothing else significantly different) jumped to around 75%.
Batch #21
Blackberry Stout 3 (All-grain), Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs 004)
--9 lbs Amer. 2-row Pale (RAHR)
--1 lb Crystal 40L
--8 oz Black Roasted
--4 oz Black Patent
--4 oz Chocolate Malt
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (60min)
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (1min)
--4 lbs Frozen blackberries (~10min)
--1 lb Frozen blackberries (secondary)
--1/4 tsp Supermoss (10min)
OG: 1.054+ (right on the money for 75% efficiency!)
FG: 1.011
ABV: ~6%
Calc. IBUs: ~23
Mashed for 1 hour at 154F in 3.5 gallons water. Fly sparge (by the pint) with 170F strike, collected ~ 6.5 gallons wort. Added 4 lbs berries with clarifier to sterilize. One pound of berries will be added to the secondary.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Blackberry Stout the Second
Update: So tasty. So very, very tasty. Roasty toasty malt flavor with just enough berry flavor for it to be recognizable but not overpowering. Will definitely go for round 3 on this one.
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The old blackberry stout was such a hit after it aged for a couple months that I thought I'd try it again. This time, instead of spending nye $30 to have the berry puree shipped from Maryland (seriously, it's the one berry that MoreBeer doesn't supply), I spent about $10 at Trader Joe's for berries. The stout kit I used as a base last time has changed a little (hop shortage, anyone?), and we left out the gypsum, since that just made the beer chalky and is primarily for mash water adjustment, anyway. The main difficulty of the method I used was that I didn't have a sanitized strainer on hand to scoop my berries out of the wort. This meant that I clogged the spout on my bucket and had to pour from the bucket into a funnel. That actually went surprisingly well with an extra pair of hands to help. The only other issue was the berries clogged the funnel at the end of the pour, and I had to hop (as in a grain hopper, not as in hops) the funnel so the berries would fall through.
Batch #11
Blackberry Stout 2 (extract), Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs 004)
--7+ lbs Ultralight Malt Extract
--1 lb Crystal 40L
--8 oz Black Roasted
--4 oz Black Patent
--4 oz Chocolate Malt
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (60min)
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (1min)
--5 lbs Frozen Blackberries (~10min)
--1 Whirlfloc tab (20min)
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.4%
Calc. IBUs: ~25
Steep grains 30 minutes in 4 gallons water at 160±10ºF, add water to 6 gallons, bring to boil. Add extract and 1 oz Glacier. At 20 minutes, toss in clarifier. At 10 minutes, dunk in chiller and berries. I'd recommend bringing the berries up to at least room temp first, as the cold berries set my boil back about 10 minutes. More hops at 1 minute. Chill. Ferment. Secondary after 1 week to get the beer off the berries. After bottle/keg, give it one month to condition, drink within four months.
---
The old blackberry stout was such a hit after it aged for a couple months that I thought I'd try it again. This time, instead of spending nye $30 to have the berry puree shipped from Maryland (seriously, it's the one berry that MoreBeer doesn't supply), I spent about $10 at Trader Joe's for berries. The stout kit I used as a base last time has changed a little (hop shortage, anyone?), and we left out the gypsum, since that just made the beer chalky and is primarily for mash water adjustment, anyway. The main difficulty of the method I used was that I didn't have a sanitized strainer on hand to scoop my berries out of the wort. This meant that I clogged the spout on my bucket and had to pour from the bucket into a funnel. That actually went surprisingly well with an extra pair of hands to help. The only other issue was the berries clogged the funnel at the end of the pour, and I had to hop (as in a grain hopper, not as in hops) the funnel so the berries would fall through.
Batch #11
Blackberry Stout 2 (extract), Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs 004)
--7+ lbs Ultralight Malt Extract
--1 lb Crystal 40L
--8 oz Black Roasted
--4 oz Black Patent
--4 oz Chocolate Malt
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (60min)
--1 oz Glacier 6.0%AA (1min)
--5 lbs Frozen Blackberries (~10min)
--1 Whirlfloc tab (20min)
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.4%
Calc. IBUs: ~25
Steep grains 30 minutes in 4 gallons water at 160±10ºF, add water to 6 gallons, bring to boil. Add extract and 1 oz Glacier. At 20 minutes, toss in clarifier. At 10 minutes, dunk in chiller and berries. I'd recommend bringing the berries up to at least room temp first, as the cold berries set my boil back about 10 minutes. More hops at 1 minute. Chill. Ferment. Secondary after 1 week to get the beer off the berries. After bottle/keg, give it one month to condition, drink within four months.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Blackberry Stout
Update 12/02/07: We opened up some of the conditioned blackberry stout this weekend, and the verdict is in: it's... OK, I guess. One of my friends thought it had a bitter finish, which I didn't taste. The lady says it's too dry in the finish, which I agree with. In the end, I think it's a good balance between hop and blackberry, and it's the taste I was aiming for, but that the gypsum gave it a little more hardness than needed.
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Update 11/19/07: Bottled. FG and ABV below. The beer is not quite as purple anymore, and tastes pretty good. I'm looking forward to the finished product. Yield was a little low at 4 gallons.
---
A brief foray into the world of fruit beers. This recipe was intended to be a mix of two Irish stout extract recipes I found on www.beerrecipes.org, but I settled for the MoreBeer kit as a starting point, since the differences were not too great. I had intended to use 6 lbs dark malt extract and 1/2 lb each of 80L and 120L. I was going to give Fuggles hops a try, as well. I decided to pasteurize the puree, despite claims of it being asceptic, and hope that most of the pulp will settle out before I rack to the secondary fermenter. The calculated IBUs are probably a bit off due to the gravity of my boil at different times, but hey, it's...
Batch #3
Blackberry Stout (tweaked extract kit), Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs)
--7 lbs Ultralight Malt Extract
--1.5 tsp gypsum*
--1 lb Crystal 40L
--8 oz Black Roasted
--4 oz Black Patent
--4 oz Chocolate Malt
--1 oz Northern Brewer 6.8%AA (60min)
--1 oz Cascade (1min)
--3.1 lbs Seedless Blackberry Puree (~10min)*
OG: 1.051-1.052
FG: 1.016
ABV: 4.7%
Calc. IBUs: 28.6
*My additions, the rest (except for the yeast) is MoreBeer's Stout (Kit175). The gypsum (CaSO4) acts to improve clarity and accentuate the hop bitterness. If you've never used it, do like I did: check your water report and figure out the ppm of sulfate to expect after the addition. Too much has toilet-related consequences. Thanks again, John Palmer...really, read his book!
Much like the porter, the baby beer spit up through the airlock. I really need a blow-off rig for the fermenter.
---
Update 11/19/07: Bottled. FG and ABV below. The beer is not quite as purple anymore, and tastes pretty good. I'm looking forward to the finished product. Yield was a little low at 4 gallons.
---
A brief foray into the world of fruit beers. This recipe was intended to be a mix of two Irish stout extract recipes I found on www.beerrecipes.org, but I settled for the MoreBeer kit as a starting point, since the differences were not too great. I had intended to use 6 lbs dark malt extract and 1/2 lb each of 80L and 120L. I was going to give Fuggles hops a try, as well. I decided to pasteurize the puree, despite claims of it being asceptic, and hope that most of the pulp will settle out before I rack to the secondary fermenter. The calculated IBUs are probably a bit off due to the gravity of my boil at different times, but hey, it's...
Batch #3
Blackberry Stout (tweaked extract kit), Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs)
--7 lbs Ultralight Malt Extract
--1.5 tsp gypsum*
--1 lb Crystal 40L
--8 oz Black Roasted
--4 oz Black Patent
--4 oz Chocolate Malt
--1 oz Northern Brewer 6.8%AA (60min)
--1 oz Cascade (1min)
--3.1 lbs Seedless Blackberry Puree (~10min)*
OG: 1.051-1.052
FG: 1.016
ABV: 4.7%
Calc. IBUs: 28.6
*My additions, the rest (except for the yeast) is MoreBeer's Stout (Kit175). The gypsum (CaSO4) acts to improve clarity and accentuate the hop bitterness. If you've never used it, do like I did: check your water report and figure out the ppm of sulfate to expect after the addition. Too much has toilet-related consequences. Thanks again, John Palmer...really, read his book!
Much like the porter, the baby beer spit up through the airlock. I really need a blow-off rig for the fermenter.
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