Brew Day: Yarmouth Special Dark Bitter

After a visit to The Blue Anchor in Delray Beach, FL, and a few pints of London Pride, I decided I must have an English pale ale/bitter style beer at home.  This recipe is essentially the Pride formula with the addition of a touch of Thomas Fawcett pale chocolate malt (200L), and a simpler hop bill (excluded Challenger, bumped up EKG's). After much success with Wyeast 1469 - West Yorkshire Ale yeast it is always at the top of my list. The result is a browner, stronger (unintentionally, the wind boosted the evaporation rate),beer that hopefully captures the same spirit as a pint of Pride.

Yarmouth Special Dark Bitter

6 gallons 

70% efficiency (planned)

SG: Pre-boil 1.048 - 7 gallons (1.044 planned)

SG: Post-boil 1.062 (1.054 planned)

IBU: 33 Rager Formula

SRM: 11

Grist

12 lbs Marris Otter Pale Malt

0.5 lbs Simpson's Dark Crystal 70L

  3 oz  Fawcett Pale Chocolate  200L

Mashed with 4.5 gallons of 165F strike water @ 155F. Stepped up to 162F with 1.5 gallons of boiling water.

1.5 tsp of Gypsum to mash

1.5 tsp of CaCl to mash

0.5 tsp of Gypsum to boil

Sparged with 3 gallons of water at 175F.

Hops 

75 mins - 1.0 oz East Kent Goldings - 5.1 % alpha acid 

15 mins - 0.5 oz East Kent Goldings - 5.1 % alpha acid

15 mins - 1.0 oz UK Northdown - 6% alpha acid

Added 0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings  to the whirlpool after wort chilled below 100F to simulate using a hop back. 

Yeast

Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 1 smack pack at 50% viability ~50B cells. Pitched at 64

Fermentis US-05 American Ale Yeast - 10 g - or ~150B cells. Pitched at 64 2 hours after liquid yeast.

(rehydrated according to Zainascheff and White's procedures)

Oxygenation - filled headspace with O2 and shook for 1 minute. Two doses.

Notes: Must have ended up with around 5.5 or less gallons post boil. The wind was ripping and increased to evaporation rate. Slightly increased efficiency. Collected 7 gallons of wort at 1.048 pre-boil. 

Brew Day: Manchild II

"Can you bring a keg on my birthday?"

Fermenting in chest freezer with Johnson Controller.
Its important to use a bud light koozie to insulate your probe.

Damn right I can.  Since its the end of May in Florida, I initially leaned towards a light 4% pale ale.  But I've had many of these recently that are just too damn bitter.  Its really hard to get enough body and residual sugars into a 4% beer with tons of high alpha hops.   I decided to beef up the old Manchild recipe, and switch up the hops.

I really like simple grain bills these days.  This recipe uses the Firestone Walker approach to pale ale malt bills.  American 2-row + Munich + light-medium crystal = good.  Its a little more interesting and less "flabby" than going with 100% Marris Otter or other UK pale malts.  For hops,  whatever you can get that is from the US and starts with C is good.  Throw in some amarillo, simcoe, or mosaic and I'm happy.









Manchild II

Volume:  6 Gallons
Original Gravity:  1.052
Finishing Gravity: 1.012ish
IBU:  37 using rager formula
SRM: 6.4

Grist


12 lbs American 2 Row
  1 lbs Light Munich
 .5 lbs Carastan

R.O. Water
1 tsp Calcium Chloride
1 tsp Gypsum

Mashed at 151 F

Hops

14 g Willamette   - 5.2 % AA  -  60 minutes
28 g Cascade     -  8.1% AA -    30 minutes
28 g Amarillo      - 8.0% AA -    10 minutes
28 g Centennial   - 10% AA -     10 minutes

28 g Amarillo - Dry Hop 7 days

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 in a 1.5L starter for 24 hours - Fermented at 64 F for 2 days.  66 F for maturation and dry hopping.

NOTES: I forgot the whirlfloc.  Will use isinglass to try to drop the yeast and haze.

Brew Day: Blacksod

                                                                                                 










When I started brewing I was really into Murphy's and Beamish nitro stouts.  I brewed a few of my own attempts at the Dry Irish Stout with less than stellar results.  The first batch was overcarbonated and very acrid. The second batch was much better, but not quite perfect. I've always wanted to brew a stout for St. Patrick's Day, and this year I'm finally going to get it done.

The starting point for this recipe was the traditional 70% pale malt, 20% flaked barley, 10% roasted barley recipe. However, to boost the body, I'm going to swap half of the flaked barley for malted rye.  I've never used rye in a beer, but I've heard so many brewers talk about the oily fullness rye imparts. That should be perfect for a low gravity dry stout. Also I've added some chocolate malt and boosted the gravity a bit.

Blacksod

6 gallons

1.048

1.012

45 IBU

   8 lbs Marris Otter

   1 lb   Flaked Barley

   1 lb   Rye Malt

.625 lb   Roasted Barley

.375 lb   Chocolate Malt

1 oz Target @ 60 mins

.5 oz Goldings @ 20 mins

Wyeast 1469

Brew Night: Three Strikes

Faux Beer Barrels in Gaston's Tavern

It's 1:15 and I've just hit a boil 10 minutes ago.  Its going to be a late one. With a grist of 12 lbs of Weyemann Pils I'll be boiling for 90 minutes. There are a lot of hurdles for this beer to overcome. But nothing is impossible. First, plan on force carbonating and serving this at a super bowl party 2 weeks from tomorrow. No wait today. Tripels are usually conditioned for at least a couple weeks. Secondly, my homebrew shop only had one 3 month old White Labs WLP 530 Abbey Ale. I only have a 2 L flask so that's as big a starter as I could make. I was just reading a great article by Stan Hieronymus about Belgian fermentations from a 2006 BYO article. Westmalle pitches at about .25 Million cells per mL per degree Plato. Huh, good news for me. Too bad they are using top cropped well acclimated yeast. We'll see how this sucker turns out. Last tripel I made ended up a bit sweet. So this time I cut the gravity down, hoping for higher attenuation but arriving near the same ABV. Recipe anyone?

THREE STRIKES:

6 gallons

OG 1.068

FG  1.008 (hopefully)

35 IBU

12 lbs Pilsener Malt

  2 lbs Cane Sugar (added to boil)

1 oz Mt. Hood @ 90 minutes 5.2 % Alpha Acids.

1 oz Tettnanger @ 45 minutes 3.9 % Alpha Acids.

1 oz Tettnanger @ 15 minutes 3.9% Alpha Acids.

WLP 530 - Abbey Ale 2 L starter

RO water with 1 tsp Gypsum (4g), 1 tsp Calcium Chloride (3.4g), and 5 mL Lactic Acid

Leftover Wort Fermented with Red Star Montrachet.

.

Black Butte

There are some great beers available here in South Florida. But recently, every porter I've had has been too full bodied, too acrid, or too boozy. One of my favorite porters is Black Butte from Deschutes. Its infinitely drinkable. There are great hints of roast and coffee but not overly burnt and overwhelming. The light hop flavor is also a great counter point.

Sadly, the only way I've ever gotten to drink this beer is when my brother brought some home from a trip to South Dakota. Fear not, I can make my own. Like most of the brewing Ideas I get, this recipe is from The Brewing Network's - Can You Brew It. Only modifications I made are Briess light roasted barley in place of American chocolate malt, and Wyeast 1469 instead of the Fuller's strain (Wyeast 1968/ WLP 002). The Fuller's strain is notoriously flocculant, and I don't want to have to worry about it dropping out too early. Also, I'm a big fan of the 1469.  It finishes dry but leaves a great fat malt character behind, even in lower gravity beers.

Batch Size: 6 Gallons
Starting SG: 1.055
Ending SG: 1.011
App. Atten: 80%
IBU's : 38
ABV: 5.8%
Color: 25 L


Grist:

10 lbs 2 Row
1.5 lbs Wheat Malt
.7   lbs Crystal 80 L
.42 lbs Crisp Chocolate Malt
.42 lbs Briess Light Roasted Barley ~300L


Hops:

.75 oz Galena @ 60 Minutes - 12% AA
.25 oz Cascade  @ 30 Minutes - 6% AA
.25 oz Mount Hood @ 5 minutes - 5% AA

Yeast:

Wyeast 1469 - West Yorkshire Ale

1600 L Starter. Refrigerated after activity stopped. Plan to decant and add fresh starter wort on Brew Day.

Brew Strong.

Brew Me, I'm a Beer Recipe: Pater's Pils

I've been craving a dry, fruity, peppery, floral Belgian pale beer lately. No commercial offerings available in my area fit the bill. This is why I got into brewing in the first place.

My idea, German pils hops, American pale ale hop schedule, and a blend of saison and Trappist yeast. I'll update the White labs and Wyeast numbers later. The Trappist (WY 3787) should finish up any residual sugars after the finicky saison yeast (WY 3724) starts misbehaving.

For the malt, American pale ale malt. Low in protein, and a great backdrop to showcase the yeast and hops. I just brewed a Helles that would be fantastic sans the DMS. I'm staying away from pils malt until I can upgrade my chilling, or the ground water gets cooler. (85 f in FL) I boiled the crap out of that beer for 90 minutes. What a shame.

Not sure when I'll get around to brewing this. Stay tuned.

Brew Day: Man Child

I've been working on a recipe for a 4th of July party my brother is hosting. I've been on a hop kick recently as my columbus hops in the backyard are starting to plump up. So the idea is to brew something you can drink a lot of (its for a party after all) but is packed with citrusy hop flavor with a bit of "dank" pine and resin. So I want to keep it under 5% abv and keep the bitterness down.  I've got 2 oz each of Zythos and Falconer's Flight in the freezer. I think I'll supplement that with an ounce each of Columbus and Simcoe late in the kettle.

Despite the size of the beer I want to keep the body nice and full.  All those hops and a dry finish can get kind of abrasive. So I think I'll mash super high (156 F) and add some carahell and crystal 60. Just enough to give a nice mouthfeel but avoid too much caramel flavor. I'm also thinking of adding a pound of torrified wheat. It should provide a boost to the body and help make the head last. I've never used it but thats what all the suppliers claim. Shouldn't hurt anything.

Here is the Recipe:


6.25 Gallons

OG: 1.047
FG:  1.012
SRM: 6.8

EST ABV: 4.4%

IBU: 39

8.5 lbs Marris Otter
1.0 lbs Toriffied Wheat
0.5 lbs Carahell
.25 lbs Briess C-60

Mash Salts: RO water + .5 tsp gypsum + 2 tsp CaCl

1 oz Columbus - 10 minutes - 13% AA
1 oz Simcoe - 10 minutes -12.2% AA
2 oz Zythos - 10 minutes - 11.6% AA
2 oz Falconer's Flight - Dry hop

Boil Salts: 1 tsp epsom salt + 1 tsp CaCl

1300 mL starter of White Labs Oh-Oh Seven at Ocean Eleven.(WLP007)

By the way. I hope the Heat lose.

Brew Day: Michuda 10

This beer was meant to be. I went to the home brew store on Friday with no idea what I was brewing on Sunday. I looked at the base malts and the yeast available. The freshest things that caught my eye were WLP 530 Abbey Ale and WLP 800 Pilsener Lager. The Belgian pilsener malt was fresh so I went with the Abbey yeast. A couple ounces of Saaz and a couple of Hallertauer. I came home to find the latest issue of BYO. Whats the cover story? A feature article on brewing traitional Tripels. Sweet. Good reading will making sure the 2 L Erlenmeyer doesn't boil over.

Note: I was shooting for 1.081 original gravity. Two things happened. The lady at the homebrew store spilled some cracked malt going from a bucket into the bag. Then she added 4 more lbs. The spilled portion was probably mostly husks. Also I sparged really slow. I was concerned I'd be low on gravity. Good guess.

Michuda 10

OG: 1.091-94 (Depends on whose refractometer calculator you use)

IBU: 35

Grist:

15 lbs - Belgian Pilsener Malt

2.5 lbs - Dixie Crystals Granulated Cane Sugar

Mash:

131 F for 10 minutes

141 F for 40 minutes - raised by direct heat

153 F for 20 minutes - raised by direct heat

Could be the reason for the big jump in efficiency.

Water:

RO water from machine at grocery store. 4 grams each of SO4 and CaCL added to mash. 2 grams of SO4 added to Boil with 3 grams of CaCL.

Hops:

1 oz - Hallertauer 85 mins

1 oz - Saaz 85 mins

.5 oz - Hallertauer 30 mins

.5 oz - Saaz 30 mins

Yeast:

WLP 530 Abbey Ale

1860 mL Starter, 1 tastey pint decanted.

Pitched at 62. Free Rise to 66. Raise 2 degrees a day for 3 days. Then temp control off.

This is my first time using my brand new chest freezer and Johnson controller. What a pain in the ass it tape the probe to the side of a better bottle with bubble wrap as insulation. Gotta figure out something better. Maybe I'll go the thermowell route.

Brew Day: Anniversary Ale

I started homebrewing a couple years ago. My first batch was a Big Ben Pale Ale kit from midwestsupplies.com. But for my second batch I came up with my own Pale Ale recipe. I managed to squeeze in 6 different grains into a mini-mash. The crazy thing is that the beer came out pretty darn good. It had the body and malt character of a Sierra Nevada Pale ale with a floral, piney, resinous hop character. Maybe its an inflated memory, or I was just so happy about creating my own beer. Either way, I saw my hand scribbled recipe acting as a bookmark in my copy of Charlie P's, The Hombrewer's Companion, I just had to make this again. This time All-Grain with a long hop stand after the boil.

Anniversary Pale Ale

Batch size: 6.0 gallons
Boil size: 7.0 gallons
Boil time: 60 minutes
Grain weight: 10.5 pounds
Efficiency: 75%

Original gravity: 1.049
Bitterness (IBU): 36
Color (SRM): 5.2°L

Yeast: White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Malt Bill
10.5 pounds

4 lbs Maris Otter 4°L - 38.1%
4 lbs American 2 Row 1.5°L - 38.1%
1 lb Munich (Light) 8°L - 9.5%
1 lbs Wheat Malt 2°L - 9.5%
.5 lbs Carahell 11°L - 4.8%

Mash
Strike Target 155°F
5.0 gallons165°F 90 minutes (+0)


Boil
60 minutes, 7.0 gallons

0.35 ounces Chinook hops 11.8%, Pellet 60 minutes
0.50 ounces Goldings (Kent) hops 5%, Pellet 30 minutes

Whirlpool / Hop Stand Hops

40 Minute hot whirlpool/rest(wort chiller gets in the way of the whirlpool) after the boil. Estimated hop utilization the same as a 10 minute hop addition in the boil. Maintaned over 180 F for whole rest.

0.5 ounces Goldings (Kent) hops 5%, Pellet 5 IBU
1.0 ounces Crystal hops 3.1%, Pellet 3 IBU
1.0 ounces Chinook hops 11.8%, Pellet 10 IBU


The goal for this recipe was a nice bready, biscuity, crackery malt flavor. The original recipe used Optic, Halcyon, and Marris Otter malts. But I kept it simple. I also used bolander munich from Briess in the original. But the new homebrew shop I went to only had weyerman light. Thats an upgrade anyways IMO.

I've heard Jamil Z uses no hops in the boil when making Heretic Evil Twin. So obviously you are getting isomerization during hot whirlpools. Figured this was the perfect beer to try it with. I want a big hop character without overwhelming the malt with a bitting bitterness. The crystal and chinook are the perfect floral and piney pairing. If you want a single hopped example of crystal try Rogue's Brutal IPA FKA Brutal Bitter.

Can't wait to taste this bugger.

Brewers Note: I love the new hop union packaging. Easy to open, and the aroma of the chinook was insane. Makes me think all the hops I've used in the past were stale.