Some unnamed horror

Finally, a strong golden belgian ale, roughly the BYO Duvel clone recipe. This is why I bought pilsner malt for brewing this summer.

Batch #43
The Whisperer
Belgian Golden Strong Ale
--10.5 lbs Ger. Pilsner Malt
--6 oz CaraPils
--26 oz Cane sugar (15min)
--1 lb Cane sugar (secondary)
--1.9 AAU Hallertauer (60min)
--4.1 AAU Tettnanger (60min)
--3.75 AAU Saaz (15min)
--3/4 oz Saaz (0min)
--1/4 tsp supermoss (15min)
--1/4 tsp gypsum (mash)
--WLP550 Belgian Ale Yeast, 2L starter
OG: 1.065 (primary), ~1.073 effective
FG: 1.015
ABV: ~7.7%
IBU: ~20

Mashed in 14qts at 100F, slowly ramp (50min today) the temperature to 150F. I used direct flame, so had to stir very frequently (really, like, every minute, so grab a brew and a book) to prevent scorching and tanin extraction from hot spots. Held at 150F for 40min. Mashed out at 168-170F for ~10min, extracted 7 gallons wort. Boiled for 90min, yielding 5.3ish gallons of wort in the fermenter (a little boil over since I was distracted with measuring hop additions).

Ferment starting around 68F, allowing temperature to rise to low-mid 80s after 2-3 days. Rack to secondary, add sugar, and wait, etc...

Weird.

Halloween's a-comin', so here's one of the draft beers for that. I revised the recipe from last time. The main goal was to use fresh sugar pumpkin. Fresh pumpkin was located...after I started the mash. I scaled back the amount of canned pumpkin under the assumption that I'd find the fresh stuff in time to secondary for a bit before kegging. This one should actually taste like pumpkin. I also toned down the spice and added some chocolate malt for color and maltodextrin for body. Still f-ing terrible efficiency on this one, though.

Batch #22
Old Pumpculiar v1.5
--8 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt (RAHR)
--1 lb Flaked Wheat
--2/3 lb Crystal 75L
--1/8 lb British Pale Chocolate
--4 oz Maltodextrin (60min)
--8 oz Cane Sugar (15min)
--8 oz Molasses (15min)
--45 oz Canned pumpkin (in mash)
--1/2 fresh pumpkin (15min)
--1/2 fresh pumpkin (in primary)
--1 oz Glacier 6% AA (60min)
--0.5 oz Willamette 4.6% AA (15min)
--Whirlfloc (15min)
--1.25 tsp pie spice (15min at flameout)
--White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast (1.1L starter)
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.007
ABV: 5.1%
Calc. IBU: 27

Single infusion, 1hr at 150F. Collected 6.5 gallons of wort with an efficiency of under 60%. Rargh. No idea what's up with that, seeing as I pulled 75%+ on the blackberry a couple weeks ago. Fresh pumpkin was split in half (goo and seeds removed) and baked face down at 300F long enough to soften the flesh. Pie spice was 2 parts cinnamon to 1 part each of cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and ginger.

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.

GoP

Update 9/13/08 - Bottled just under 5 gallons. Nice and peppery. Hazy because I forgot the clarifier on brew day, but delicious. No competition until the haze settles out. High expectations for aging on this one. Primed with 4oz corn sugar.
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The Westmalle Trippel is delicious. This is not it. But based on a clone recipe for it from BYO. But definitely not going to be Westmalle's trippel. It was mainly an excuse to use the grains of paradise!

Again, low mash efficiency. I may have to chat up someone that knows what they're doing here...

Batch #20
GoP Trippel
--12.75 lbs German Pilsner Malt
--1 lb Clear candi sugar
--1 lb Amber candi sugar
--1 oz Glacier 6% AA (90min)
--1 oz Mt Hood 5.2% AA (15min)
--1 oz Mt Hood 5.2% AA (5min)
--1/4 tsp lightly crushed grains of paradise (5min)
--White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast (2L starter)
OG: 1.070 [target 1.081 >:( ]
FG: 1.006
ABV: 8.4%
Calc. IBU: 38

I added the grains of paradise, subbed in Mt Hood and Glacier (available and in my freezer, respectively), and split the 2 lbs clear sugar into 1 lb clear, 1 lb amber. Also, I'm an idiot, and didn't see the Belgian pils bin right next to the German at the shop. Whatever. Obviously, I'm not trying to make Westmalle.

I mashed in at 135F in 4 gallons. Over the next hour and a half or so, I ramped the temperature to 148F by adding ~3 pint amounts of hot water. After 10 minutes at 148F, I added enough water to get the temperature to 167F and let the mash sit for another 10 minutes before starting the lauter. With no sparging I was able to extract 7 gallons.

This was a two hour boil. I boiled the Glacier for 90 to account for the slightly lower AA compared to the Styrian Goldings called for in the Westmalle clone recipe. The sugar went in with 30 minutes left. I lightly crushed the spice (just enough to split the corns in half or so) and boiled that for the last 5. Chill. Pitch yeast.

Wat.

Update 9-4 - Kegged. Cleared the keg with CO2, racked, set seals, put in fridge at 40F with 10psi. Also, very tasty, with a nice aroma.
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Update 8/28 - Racked to secondary. 1.5oz Willamette added. Tastes great. Will keg in a few days.
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I brewed up a batch of St. Rogue Red Ale clone last night. I made a bittering hop substitution since the shop was out of Chinook. An ounce of Magnum gave me a slightly higher AAU than the recipe called for. That in combination with the faster evaporation rate than expected led me to do a 75 minute boil instead of 90. The problem, though, is that my gravity came out 10 points shy. TEN! Even more irritating is that the hydrometer reading actually dropped between lauter and flame out. So my initial mash gravity reading of 1.043 (which would be perfect!), was probably high due to stratification in the collection vessel (despite my efforts to stir it around). This means that my overall efficiency is low...back to the books, eh?

Batch #19
St. Rogue (with substitutions)
--7 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt (RAHR)
--1 lb Dark Munich (recipe calls for "Munich", but this smelled tastier)
--1 lb Crystal 15L
--1.25 lbs Crystal 40L
--1 lb Crystal 75L
--1 oz Magnum 13.1% AA (75min)*
--1 oz Centennial 10.4% AA (2min + whirlpool)*
--Whirlfloc (15min)
--White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast (1L starter)
OG: 1.040 [target 1.052 >:( ]
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4%
Calc. IBU: 45ish

*Recipe calls for ~ 10AAU Magnum for 90 minutes, and ~ 10AAU Cent. in whirlpool or hopback

Mashed grains for 60 minutes at 155F. Sparged with water at 168-170, extracting 6.5gal. The recipe calls for 6 gallons wort + 0.5 gallons water. I thought that was stupid.

At flame out, I removed the bittering hops, gave the wort a whirl with the Centennial. Chilled to about 70, and pitched just the slurry from my starter. Lag time of more than 3 but fewer than 10 hours (I sleep sometimes). I'll likely secondary with the leftover Willamette from the pumpkin brew to give it some more hop aroma.

It's pie time I brewed this.

Update 8/14 - Bottled. Spices are good, pumpkin flavor is a little mild. I think I'll add that a little differently for the next round. In other news, I'm done with WLP007. I don't really want a FG below 1.010. I didn't even really want that yeast, but am too impatient to wait for the Los Altos B3 shop to get the right strains in stock.
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I was advised to try brewing Old Pumpculiar, as everyone that has made it seems to love it, and I'm looking for a good pumpkin brew for the fall. So, it being August, I decided to give it a go. I figured that if this is ready by September, that gives me plenty of time to decide on changes before the Halloween edition.

Batch #18
Old Pumpculiar (with substitutions)
--8 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt
--1 lb Flaked Wheat
--2/3 lb Crystal 75L*
--8 oz Cane Sugar
--8 oz Molasses
--75 oz Canned pumpkin* (in mash)
--1 oz Glacier 6% AA (60min)*
--0.5 oz Willamette 4.6% AA (15min)*
--Whirlfloc (15min)
--1 Tbs Pie spice* (15min at flameout)
--White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.006
ABV: 5.2%
Calc. IBU: 23

*Substitutions and changes. I added cloves to the pie spice because they belong there.

Mash grains and pumpkin (fresh or canned) at 153F for 60 minutes. I collected 6 gallons of wort, which makes for a slightly small batch. I'd recommend 6.5 gallons. My OG was about 10 pts low - I think due to over sparging during lauter. [I ended up making closer to 7.5 gallons of wort and not collecting all of it. The mistake: submerged hose tricked me into thinking I needed more water in the tun. So, my efficiency was low (really low...like 50-60%) unless I use the 7.5ish estimate which puts me right around 75%.]

Add hops and sugars at the appropriate times during the boil. Add the spices at flame-out and rest for 15 minutes before chilling. I used yeast from a 2L decanted starter. Good kraeusen when I checked about 10 hours after pitching.

Ruin(ed?)ation

Updated 7/31/08 - Well, it's not Ruination. But it's pretty good anyway.
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Five gallon mash tuns are a funny thing. They work great. They really do. So long as you're mashing less than about 14 pounds of grain. But when you want to mash 15.6 pounds for an OG of 1.075, your water to grain ratio quickly falls to almost one quart to a pound. The first lauter had a great SG of about 1.08, but I had to batch sparge twice to get the seven gallons needed for a 90 minute boil. My initial boil gravity came out to about 1.052. I added some corn sugar and DME to boost it a little bit and wound up with an OG of 1.065 after the boil. Even with the target FG of 1.010, this is going to be a little weaker in alcohol than we were shooting for. Between all of that mess and some hop substitutions, well, we'll see...

Batch #17
Stone Ruination Clone - "Rumination" (so Brad can say it right). Recipe from BYO's 150 Clones special issue.
--14.6 lbs 2-row
--1 lb Crystal 15L
*--8 oz Corn Sugar
*--1 cup Light DME
--36 AAU Magnum (60min); *I used 4 oz of 9.3% Newport
--15.7 AAU Centennial (Steep 5min at flame out); *2oz 6% Cascade pellets + 1oz 7.4% Cascade whole
--2 oz Centennial (Secondary 3-5 days); *2 oz Cascade
--Whirlfloc (20min)
OG: 1.065 [1.075 target]
FG: 1.008 [1.010 target]
ABV: 7.1% [7.7% target]
IBU: ~120 [100+ target]

*My subs and fixes

Mash grains at 149°F for 60 minutes, 90 minute boil. My mash was funky because of the capacity of my mash tun. I extracted 1 gallon after an hour, and pulled out 6 more over the next hour. I had lots of temperature fluxuation due to heat loss out the top (no tight seal when it's that full) and hot water additions combined with difficulty stirring such a thick mash. Moral of the story: 10 gallon mash tun for OGs over about 1.065. Racked to secondary after 8 days. Cascade added. Kegged after 5 days.

Do the mash.

Well, I've now brewed my first all-grain recipe. I built a mash/lauter tun out of a 5 gallon cylindrical water cooler, a stainless steel false bottom, and the following (inside to out):

3/8" hose barb to 1/2" MIP
1/2" FIP to 3/4" male hose
3/4" female hose to 3/4" MIP
(Cooler wall)
#17 rubber O-ring (#15 would have been better)
3/4" ID washer (2" OD, milled to 1.75" to fit the cooler)
3/4" FIP to 1/2" FIP reducer
1/2" x 1.5" MIP nipple
1/2" ball valve (threaded 1/2" FIP both sides)
3/8" hose barb to 1/2" MIP

Toss in some vinyl hose, teflon tape, and a trio of clamps, you've got yourself an all-grain setup. It's fun to build, but not really worth the time. I spent about $75 ($20 for a new cooler, $25 for the false bottom, $30 for other parts), which is only about $10 less than a new complete assembly from MoreBeer.

For my first recipe, I borrowed Jim Rossi's Honey Pale Ale from MoreBeer's library.

Batch #15
Jim Rossi's Honey Pale Ale
--7 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt
--8 oz Honey Malt (Crystal 25L)
--3 lbs Honey (15min)
--0.5 oz Cascade 7.4% AA (60min)
--0.5 oz Cascade 7.4% AA (1min)
--Whirlfloc (20min)
--White Labs WLP001 Calif. Ale Yeast
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.004!!!
ABV: 6.5%
Calc. IBU: 15ish

Mashed 1 hour at 152°F with 2 quarts per pound. Batch sparged to 6 gallons. Mash gravity was 1.035. My calculations bring that to about 74% efficiency. I used whole hop leaves for this one.

Where's a live grenade when you need one?

Updated 3/30 - Kegged. Strong, delicious. Can't wait for tapping time.
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As revenge for doing an entry level brew last week, we did a partial mash last night. I still have yet to get the volume of water right for this process, as I ended up with far less than the target 3 gallons of wort from the mash. I know part of it is that the bottling bucket with a grain bag isn't the best lautering system in the world. I also don't have a spare kettle large enough to heat the 2+ gallons for sparging if I want a collection vessel. The centennial hops smelled pretty good, but I'm not so sure about the rye...I had my first rye beer a couple days ago and I wasn't that impressed. Hopefully it will be balanced well enough by everything else that's in...

Batch #9
"Fire in the Hole" (MoreBeer MiniMash Kit355)
English Ale Yeast (White Labs...1 L starter using 1 cup light DME)
--7 lbs Ultralight LME
--2 lbs 2-row
--1 lb Flaked Wheat
--1 lb Crystal 75L
--8 oz Rye
--8 oz Munich
--2.8 oz Carafa
--1 oz Magnum 13.1% (60min)
--2 oz Centennial 10.4% (5min)
--1 Whirlfloc tablet
OG: 1.067
FG: 1.015
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: ~56

The target gravity ranged up to 1.075, so I tried making a starter. Boiled 1 cup of light DME in 1 liter of water for 10 minutes, let it cool, and pitched my yeast with a teaspoon of fermaid K. It built up a nice layer of yeast at the bottom and was still active when I chilled it to knock the live cells out of solution so I could pour off the top half-liter or so before pitching to primary. I used an empty vodka bottle, largely because I felt I could skip sanitizing something that lived in the freezer and contained 40% alcohol. If I had any doubts, the batch is bubbling away right now.

As always, the Fonz was in for the last 10 minutes of the boil, and I still haven't tasted copper in any of my conditioned brews.

Mashing and Kegging

We did our first mash about a week ago. The ladybrewer wanted to try the whole process as she's felt like she hasn't done much actual brewing since we started. Which is true. I was hogging all the kitchen work and she helped mainly on the bottling and drinking end. She also picked up a "mini-mash" kit, which meant a couple small pieces of equipment, and a couple hours additional time. The partial mash still uses mostly extract, but you get a more complex flavor by mashing a few pounds of barley. The recipe is the MoreBeer Malty Brown Ale (Kit300), and smells great during the brewing.

We also took a few minutes out of our holiday schedule of drinking beer and watching Ghostbusters to bottle the dunkelweizen. The stats have been updated in that post. The color looks right, and the apple cider smell is there. I estimated the ABV at about 5.4%, but I think I may be wrong, since I've been doing the FG measurement after adding the primer, which should add about 40ppg. With 4 oz of sugar, that works out to 10 gravity points, so maybe it's closer to a 6.7%.

The blackberry stout has aged very well. The finish is no longer very chalky and the blackberry is a little more pronounced. We've stepped up our operation a bit with an additional primary fermenter so we have a couple batches going at once, and Santa dropped off a keg and CO2 system for a lucky brewer. =)

Batch #5
Malty Brown Ale (mini-mash kit), East Coast Ale Yeast (White Labs P008?)
--7 lbs Ultralight Malt Extract (liquid)
--1.75 lbs 2-Row malt
--1 lb Munich malt
--8 oz Caravienne malt
--8 oz Aromatic malt
--8 oz Carapils malt
--8 oz Crystal 60L malt
--4 oz Chocolate malt
--1 oz Northern Brewer 6.8%AA (60min)
--1 oz Kent Goldings 4.9%AA (10min)
--1 oz Kent Goldings 4.9%AA (1min)
--1 tsp gypsum in mash water
--1 Whirlfloc tablet in wort
OG: 1.070
FG: 1.024
ABV: ~6.0%
Calc. IBUs: 21.1

Update: Stuck at 1.026 SG. Transferred to secondary, added champagne yeast and 3g fermaid K nutrient on 1/15/07. After 2 days, SG has still not dropped.

Next up: St Patrick's Day brews - irish stout and a red.