Apple Jack ... Mead

5 lbs of cheap Clover Honey
boiled for 30 mins with

Two handfuls of raisins
Dash of Cinnamon
One diced vanilla bean
One fling of allspice
One puff of cloves
6 oz bottling cane sugar

Chilled to room temp with
64 oz White grape juice
64 oz Apple juice

Transferred through the filter-funnel, removing all the fruity bits - and keeping all that stoopid cinnamon, probably. Just a hit of cool water from the brewing shower into the blue corney to get up to 3.5 gallons. Pitched with a proofed packet of bread yeast, and, just to hedge the bet, a packet of Nottingham. OG: .1070, potential alc: 10%. A slurp of the pre-pitched must tasted just like friggin' wassail. Blasted apple juice. This was supposed to be a mead.

Next time, let's use predominant amounts of honey and some champagne yeast in our mead, whaddya say?

Day 2: OMB, the bread yeast and nottingham are making the air in the fermentation closet smell like buttgas. 

Day 20: Racked off and back into the same corney. Two things: first, FG is zero. There is no residual sugar, so it's a true sour apple flavor. 
Second, 90% of taste is smell, and the batch still smells like a orangutan's orangy asscrack.

Into the garage you go for solitary confinement to see if you can dissemble into something presentable over the next 6 months. Don't come back unless you do so. 

Final notes. After all was done, this is all that needs be said: This one got poured down the sink. Cheap apple juice? Wrong yeast? Yeah, all of my fears confirmed.

Honey Oatmeal Brown

Steep:
.25 lbs Simpson’s Chocolate
.25 lbs Dingemans Special B
.25 lbs Dingemans Biscuit
.25 lbs Briess Special Roast
3 cups Quaker Oats

Smelled great, got really dark - at least a 35L.

6 lbs Gold malt syrup
1 oz Cluster @ 7.5%, all at beginning of boil.

1 lb nondescript Honey late addition after 60 mins
... skimmed off the impurities, then cooled.

Not much to report, except that I hope I didn't make any other mistakes than to neglect getting an OG reading when pitching the yeast (Safale dry). We were draining the Deuce Juice corney, and the combination of a CF workout and that 8.5% imperial on an empty stomach made me a bit stoopid. I used a turkey baster and pulled it the next morning: .1052.


Day 5.5: Stopped fermentation at .1022. 4% alcohol, nice and easy. In 6 weeks, we'll have a party day and drink this alongside the second 5 gals of Deuce Juice. Maybe try a 50/50 Brown and Brown mix of the two and see what happens.

Day 13: Racked, a bit roughly. Been meaning to for the last 4 days, but finally made time. FG: 1016. 

Three months: Carbonated for a day at 30#. Word has it from the taste-testers that it's good, with lots of coffee overtones. Me, I just took a swig post-carbonation and only noticed the metallic carbon bite.

Five months: Did we brew an IPA? A little more time in the tank, and this became a heavily hops-forward brown IPA. Not bad, but sharp. Any carbon bite isn't there now though.

115th Dream Hopbursted Imperial Double IBA v2 : "Deuce Juice"

Doing 10 gallons this time. This is what happened last time. I didn't even read the write-up prior to this batch. Should have!

Didn't steep in anything  - this kit is all extract: 12 lbs. Amber Malt, and 12 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Bitters: 8 oz. Cluster pellets (7.5%), 24 0z. Hopbursted (proprietary) mix
Yeast: two packets of Safbrew S-05, which I only wetted prior to the boil, last time I started on bottling-sugar water 16 hours prior, and that would have been good.

10 gallons of water, once boiling we put in half the Amber and half the Gold extract (not paying close attn), brought it up to a boil and tossed in 4 oz of Cluster.
30 mins later, the rest of the extract and 4 more oz of Cluster.
15 mins later, 6 oz of hopbursted pellets. 10 mins, 6 oz, 5 mins, 6 oz, flame out, the final 6 oz and 3 lbs of botting sugar. Kept one pound back just because we didn't want the final product to end up too dry.

After chilling, we ran the wort out through a butterfly net into the corneys, then back through the net into the boilkeg, then finally into the corneys through the tight mesh funnel. All the while gleaning off glops of green diarrhea-hop-scrunge. Thus, the deuce juice moniker.
Pitched in the safale (kinda more into one than the other), shook it all up and set it to task in the big industrial sink. This time of year in there, it's going to be about 72 degrees - a little warm, but I'm hoping the yeast just go rabid.

Wort gravity: 1120+ on about 6.5 gallons - yes, that's what you see in the picture above! Added in about a gallon of good ol' Bakersfield tap via the hose for about 4.25 gallons per corney. Added an approximation of that to the hydrometer and we have a bestguess OG of 1084. That's strong medicine, my friends.

Day 7: Looks like fermentation's done, into the chiller before racking. FG: 1032 - which seems like a lot of residual sugar. 7% alcohol in there.

Day 19: No hurry on the racking. Gravity down to 1021, and the color is a nice rusty walnut. Great hop aroma. Transferred as much as possible into the grey-marked corney (4.9 gallons) and the rest was poured over into the lime-marked (2 gallons, say) and racked back after settling. This is to say that both corneys are a mix from the original two, but the low filled got handled a bit rougher - and I didn't de-oxygenate any of the tanks before racking.

Week 10: Carbonated at 30# for a day and a half, then shook the corney and still it sucked gas from the bottle. So left it on for another 24 hours at 30#. It's pretty well carbonated, but I'll shake it one more time when it's on ice this Sunday for NFLredzone and brewing (upcoming: Honey Brown).
Hops are definitely up front, but there's enough residual sugars to assure me that this will be a much mellower beer in 2 to 3 months. We'll drink the first 5 gallons this week and age the second corney. Wins: Enough body to balance out that 8.5% alcohol this one's packin' and a lot of good hop aroma. More notes after the drinking/brewing session. Gravity still at .1021.

Two weeks later: Honey Oatmeal Brown brew session/brats/NFLredzone Sunday. Yeup, kept the Rosa's milk jug half full all day long, and that 8.5% kicked me in the head. We floated the 5 gals, but I had enough at the end of the night to send a bomber to Rabideau (which got its own proprietary label, but FedEx won't allow me to ship). This is a well-balanced Imperial - balanced between body and the alcohol, sugars and the hops. They're still at opposite ends of the teeter-totter though. They're both there in balance, but distinct. We'll give the second 5 gals a few months to see if they come back into line in combination.

8 month mark, to the day: The second five gallons disappeared amongst the wreckage of hot wings and montecristo. Clarity was great to the bottom of the corney; color darkened to complete Halloween black. 
Tapped the bottle up next to our Honey Oatmeal Brown from November (which kinda transformed itself into an IPA), and between the two, the Deuce Juice tasted downright hops-neutral. Half of that is saying that the Brown sprouted an additional hop-kick from nowhere, but also that the additional conditioning time for the Deuce Juice allowed the hops to dovetail into the malt to balance out (most of) the alcohol, with only the alcohol coming out slightly stronger than the others. Never would have predicted that. After shoveling two pounds of hops into the batch, I would have laid money down that this was going to be the hoppiest beer ever. Time heals all wounds, and, like a wine, barrel aging brought an insane amount of hops into line with residual sugars from a perfectly stopped fermentation - good thing the Safale petered out (something an aggressive Nottingham might not have done). Holding back on the second dose of bottling sugar was a good call as well. Maltywine trumps barleywine everytime.

White House Honey Ale

Pretty easy kit on a pretty easy night with Montre, drinking up the remnants of the Wyeast version of the Super Bowl Blackout Oatmeal Stout. Not much to say, brewing went off without any monkey wrenches.

Steep:
0.75 lbs English Medium Crystal Malt
0.5 lbs Belgian Biscuit Malt

Boil
6.3 lbs Gold malt syrup (60 min)
1 lb Gold dry malt extract (60 min)
Gravity at .1050 prior to the honey,
1 lb Honey (5 min)

OG: 1072, which is higher than the expected 1062

1.5 oz East Kent Goldings 5.8% alpha (45 min)
1.5 oz UK Fuggles 4.5% alpha (15 min)
Danstar Windsor Ale - Optimum temperature: 64-70°F

... we'll see if the pantry sink can stay in the 75 degree range duing fermentation.

7 week mark:
Two day-long C02 infusions at 22lbs, and we tried it out for a session with Scottie and Monte. Yes, it's a real session beer. And, the light went on: it's an English ale with Honey. Guess I wasn't thinking too much about the White House aspect of the kit (since it was a freebie with my Northern Brewer order), but supposedly, Zero made a big splash by brewing beer in DC:

Inspired by home brewers from across the country, last year President Obama bought a home brewing kit for the kitchen. After the few first drafts we landed on some great recipes that came from a local brew shop. We received some tips from a couple of home brewers who work in the White House who helped us amend it and make it our own. To be honest, we were surprised that the beer turned out so well since none of us had brewed beer before.
As far as we know the White House Honey Brown Ale is the first alcohol brewed or distilled on the White House grounds. George Washington brewed beer and distilled whiskey at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson made wine but there's no evidence that any beer has been brewed in the White House. (Although we do know there was some drinking during prohibition…)
Since our first batch of White House Honey Brown Ale, we've added the Honey Porter and have gone even further to add a Honey Blonde this past summer. Like many home brewers who add secret ingredients to make their beer unique, all of our brews have honey that we tapped from the first ever bee-hive on the South Lawn. The honey gives the beer a rich aroma and a nice finish but it doesn't sweeten it.

Um, like everything Obama's done during his worst-presidency ever, no one told him that he didn't have to brew an English Ale. Another case of either pathetically ignorant, or willfully errant.

Oatmeal Super Bowl Blackout Stout

Steep Grains
1 lb flaked oats
- additional 2.5 lbs Quaker oats
1 lb Black Malt
1 lb English Dark Crystal
5 lb Maris Otter

Boil - 60 mins
6.3 lb Dark malt syrup
2 lb Briess Dark dry extract
4 oz US Fuggle (all)

Yeasts:
5 gal each - Safale 04 and Wyeast 945 NeoBrittania

We'll see which ale yeast wins in this brewing battle between the dry and the liquid - made better via lubrication as we downed the batch of Urca Vanilla Porter - which, by the way, kicked serious vanilla bootae - from last go around.

We had an OG of .1054 but added some water in after pitching, approx 1.25 gallons each corney. Didn't take a gravity reading after that, so we may have a not-too-stout stout.

Day 5: Fermentation more than complete. Both the corneys showed a FG of 1020. The Safale had flocculated completely and was dark and clear. The Wyeast had floating clumps and was cloudy and tan. No implications here, just observation.

Day 12: Racking out of the leakers and into the good dispensers. All seems well.

9 Weeks: Win. Both corneys were ready and good, a lighter-bodied black stout with a hint of the oatmeal maltiness over the top. Think Lobotomy or Stockyard.
Put 20# pressure of the C02 on them overnight, then drank them up at Monte's for UFC. The verdict: Dry yeast was the winner. The liquid batch had a bitter aftertaste - not so much it wasn't drinkable, but enough to make you want to drink out of the Safale corney all night.
I might stir in a couple teaspoons of honey to see if that will balance out the bite, still have 3 gallons in the Wyeast corney.

Seven weeks later: at the 4-month mark, we drank up the last of the Wyeast version while brewing a White House Honey Ale. Yes, two teaspoons of honey and a bit of time for the sweetness to saturate was all that was needed to cancel out any bitter bite.

Urca Dry Dock Vanilla Porter

No Vanilla in it yet, but it's gonna be a good porter before that. Ignored the NB instructions and just did the tea-bag steep with 4 muslin bags - a full hour at 158 to 170 degrees.

1 lbs English Maris Otter
.875 lbs English Medium Crystal
.75 lbs Flaked Barley
.5 lbs Belgian Aromatic Malt
.5 lbs British Chocolate Malt
.5 lbs Belgian Special B
.25 lbs English Black Malt

Threw in the extracts and started a full boil:

3.15 lbs Gold malt syrup
2 lbs Munton's Plain Light dry malt extract

Did a 60 min boil with hop-drops at 45 mins, 30 mins, and 15 mins. Shut off the heat and coasted the last 10 mins - pellet Willamette Alpha 4.7/Beta 3.7 for all three.

Pitched a day-old Wyeast 1056 American smack pack. OG 1070. Predicted: 1062.

Will add 10 vanilla beans during secondary. See you in a few days.

Day 7: Final gravity: .1022, which sounds just a bit high ... But! An initial taste test says Right On. Lots of cocoa/coffee overtones with a smoky buttery maltiness down the pipe.

Will rack it tomorrow and add in the beans. Two weeks from now prepare to cream your jeans.

Day 11: Racked and added in 10 vanilla beans (5 bourbon/5 normal), split, skinned, fractionated and commingled into a tea ball.

Final at the 8 week mark: Super Bowl Sunday 2013, we downed all 5 gallons (minus a growler that went home with Meren). This was spot on, and a serious vanilla ass-kicking. Good round body, with just enough vanilla to know we meant business with the beans, but not so much it was all the beer was about. A good porter foundation with lots of round mouthfeel and mocha.

Backyard Honey Brown Bowden Ale

Okay, never before have I wondered as I began fermentation, This could really be an awful, or awesome, beer.

Usually, it's all high hope and high fives.

We started with a Northern Brewer Nut Brown kit: which would have an OG of .1040 and only fuggles as a basis. Thinking I could go one better on a proven winner, I added a pound of 40l caramel, a couple doses of Casade leaf hops, and 3 cups of honey.

Please Lord, help me to stop fermentation before everything gets out of hand. OG: 1062.

Steep:
.25 lbs English Chocolate Malt
.25 lbs Belgian Special 8
.25 lbs Belgian Bisquit
.25 lbs Briess Special Roast
1 lb Briess Caramel 40l

Boil:
6 lbs Maris Otter malt syrup
1 oz American Fuggles pellets - alpha 4.2 (60 mins)
60 oz quality Kirkland honey (15 mins)
1 oz Cascade leaf - alpha 8.9 (30 and 10 mins)

Dry Nottingham yeast

Gravity after steep: 1020! Gravity after extract: 1030. Gravity after Monte added too much honey: 1062. heh.

Day 5: Transferred to the fridge. Was super worried that the fermentation was stuck - just no sound or action coming from the corney vent - but took a hydrometer reading and got .1020 ... pretty relieved by that. That seemed high, but a tastetest said that the bitter and sugar are pretty well balanced there. Let it all come together. Will rack in a few days.

Week 4: After 3 weeks of conditioning, there's pretty heavy alcohol and the hops and honey haven't met in the middle ... yet. Fingers crossed.

Week 7: Still a little green. A lot closer than last taste. Good, but not great. Yet! 3 more weeks will tell.

RyePA

With a reddish-golden hue and a good balance of firm body and lingering bitterness, this brew is a showcase of both hops and grain. The fruity/floral notes of Palisade hops are a perfect complement to the spicy flavor of rye malt.

Steep:
.5 lbs. Oats
.5 lbs. Briess Caramel 80

9.15 lbs Rye malt extract (70% two-row, 20% rye, 10% caramel 40)

Hops
17.6% alpha, 5.4% beta Summit pellets 1 oz. (60 mins)
7.8% alpha, 7.43% beta Palisade pellets 1 oz and 1 oz (15 and 0 mins)
8.9 alpha, 6 beta 1 oz Cascade leaf (.5 @ 30 mins, .5 @ 0 mins)

Started the water in the evening in anticipation of the UPS truck coming with the ingredients - just couldn't wait to get this goin. Beefed up the recipe with the oats (as an afterthought) and the Cascade (just because). Also, I messed up and was supposed to add only half the second Palisade at 0 mins, and dry hop with the second half oz, but I just put it all in. I'll either neglect to dry hop, or just get more.

Not much head space. Pitched Safale 05. Again, I don't have an OG reading, dropped and broke my hydrometer, and didn't remember to order a refractometer with this kit. It's nice to know the OG/FG, but it kinda doesn't matter, yah?

Cheered on by the end of a Sequoia Big Horn Red IPA growler and Hop Ottin's.

Day 5: Stopped the tailed off fermentation.

Day 7: Racked out and back off the yeast and hop dust.

1 Month: Taste test says it's still tight. A few more weeks of conditioning, at least.

Chinook IPA

Taking a shot at all-grain with Dew. His new mash tun had a hard time with the Oatmeal Stout we brewed up in January (not logged, in fact, we poured out 5 gallons of it tonight to make room for the 5 gallons of this). With improved tubing, the tun drained really well. We were a little gun shy and steeped the Sacch rest in a pillow slip (heh) but did the mashout out of the bag. Worked great both times.

Mash:
10 lbs Rahr 2-row Pale
.75 lbs. Belgian Caramel Pils
.25 lbs. Briess Caramel 120

Hops
11.8% alpha, 3% beta Chinook 1 oz. (60 mins)
.5 oz (20 and 5 mins)
Another ounce waiting in the wings for dry hopping.

Sacch rest for an hour at 160. 10 minute mashout. Added a 6 ounces of honey and skimmed when the aroma hops went into the boil.
Started with 5 gallons of water, had 2.5 to cool. Pitched Safale 05 and just filled up the rest with good ol' Bako tap.
Don't have an OG reading, dropped and broke my hydrometer. Hope this all turns out well - we were drinking Sierra Nevadas and Double Barrel Ales from bottles. Poor nutrition for brewing.

Day 7: Racked off the yeast and dry hopped. 1010 final gravity, right on the money. Taste test showed a bit of yeast flavor (that should step back into the shadows), a heavy hop bite (which should step forward into the light with knuckles bared), and a bit of the honey sweetness hovering overhead (which should take the other two by the scruffs and collide their skulls together). High hopes for this batch.
In other news, the leaky fermenter I used for the transfer tonight smelled like ass when opened. Cleaned it out pretty well, but it needs a heavy dose of BLC.

Day 14:
Racked off the dry hops. Out into a leaker corney, and back into the Doc's Cellar fermenter. Taste and aroma are both good. Some sharp hop overtone, which we hope will subside with conditioning. Color and body are all good. Should be a winner in a month.

Final Notes:
The consensus was that this was a winner - we hit the mark we were aiming at with a light body (I would say "watery," but I was feeling more like nutritious beer all month) and good spicy hop punch. We finished off all of it at the Amgen in Hart Park, perfect for a sunny biker day.

What I'd change? The simple grains and single hop was a bit too simple for me. I'll mix it up a bit (and have, with the RyePA we just brewed) by adding some other hops for complexity.

Moose Drool Ale - Spit n' Image

It's brown, it's named after a large North American ungulate, and its name suggests oral incontinence. Ah, we market product with our minds, but we drink beer with our mouths! Which is why this American brown ale is your new favorite session beer. Dense layers of malt, caramel, baking chocolate, and a hint of light-roast coffee give way to reveal a hop character you'll be surprised to find if you're used to drinking English brown ale. The finish is complex but balanced, and the gravity is not so high as to keep you from having another.

Sunday.
MattT and I at Walker's place. Another remote brewing on Walker's new turkey burner that seemed to flame out every 15 mins. Used a pair of Northern Brewer Caribou Slobber knockoff kits, but swapped out the Windsor for dry Nottingham (one packet did 10 gallons marvelously well), and added a honey bear to the second 5 gallons just to see what can happen.

Steep Grains - 45 mins up to 170 degrees, in two bags
.5 lbs Briess Caramel 80L
.5 lbs Fawcett Pale Chocolate
.25 lbs Black Malt

Fermentables
12 lbs Amber malt syrup
2 lbs Amber dry malt extract
1 lb Honey late addition (5 min boil)

Hops
2 oz US Goldings (60 min)
2 oz Liberty (45 min)
2 oz Willamette (15 min)

Not too much to report on brew day. All went easily and well. OG: 1050 without the honey, 1064 with - shooting for an OG of 1052..

Fermentation took right off, and the weather was just right for keeping the corneys in the garage at 60 degrees overnight, up to 72ish in the afternoon. In fact, with the locks open, we got a good puddle going and I belatedly moved them into the pantry washbasin. Should have put them there from the get go. Wow, still learning something every time.

Shut down fermentation on Thursday morning. Gave the tanks a shot of 20# Co2 and chilled them at 45 degrees. Sunday night, one week after the boil, we racked both corneys out and back into their original tanks. FG for both: 1012. Right on the mark.

See you after a month of conditioning.

One Month Mark:
Saturday, I watched UFC at Firehouse and sipped Moose Drools all night.
Sunday, Walker got a taste of the brew and said, "That's great." I tasted and said, "Ugh." Dry, bitter, no mouth feel. So, Walker leaves and leaves half a beer behind, and, half an hour later, I take a sip before dumping it down the sink.
Cha-ching.
Once the stuff had a chance to warm up and the chill haze to melt down, sure enough, we had a spot on Moose Drool - tasted, looked, had all the mouthfeel and stuff of the Firehouse draughts.
Now to waste a couple gallons on MattT.

Muddie Phat Tyre

Grains
.5 lbs Victory Malt
.5 lbs Briess Caramel 60
1 lb Fawcett Pale Chocolate

Extract
1 lb Pilsen light dry malt extract (60 min)
6 lbs Munich malt syrup late addition (slated for 15 min, gave it 60)

Hops
1 oz Perle 9.4% alpha (60 min)
1 oz Hersbrucker 2.4% (15 min)

Yeast
Safale US-05 Ale Yeast. Started it only an hour early on honey and white sugar. Optimum temp: 59°-75° F

25 minute steep up to 170 with all the grains. Gravity reading after was negligible: still .1000 … .1001 maybe. Everything else went like clockwork, except for throwing down all the extract at the beginning of the boil. Think that was good for a protein break, but also did something special to the sugars in the Munich as we ending with an OG at 1077 instead of a predicted 1052.
Guess we could've added some water as we had a bit of extra head space, but ... hmmm.

Going to boil some now.

Strap yourselves in, it's going to be a bumpy night.

Tres Bros Honey Brown

Dew and I at Dave P's place. First time I've packed up all the gear to do a remote brewing! Simply used the Northern Brewer Honey Brown kit, but swapped out the Wyeast 1056 for dry Nottingham.

SPECIALTY GRAINS - 25 mins up to 170 degrees
.25 lbs Simpson’s Chocolate
.25 lbs Dingemans Special B
.25 lbs Dingemans Biscuit
.25 lbs Briess Special Roast

FERMENTABLES
6 lbs Gold malt syrup
1 lb Honey late addition (45 min)

HOPS
1 oz Cluster @ 7.5% (4/5ths at 30 min, 1/5th aroma at 45 min)

Kinda knocking the Naughty Brown formula, but substituting Cluster for Cascade, and real grains (!) for the Quaker oats. This should be good!
Everything went like clockwork. Nice slow steeping on the grains, got up to a good boil after a 10 minute-ish in-between after adding in the extract - so, really a 50 minute rolling boil. Dew brought the magic in the form of a full Lengthwise pig of seasonal Brown and a good tri tip.

What to report? Hops went in and smelled yummy. Dave got the yeast wet in a cup and we dabbed in a spot of honey. Honey went into the boil and we skimmed off the foam impurities. Ran the hose chiller, put the yeast in first, and kegged in a leaker corney.
Shooting for an OG of 1050, hit it right on the mark. Grains and extract, before the honey, was 1030, FYI.

Day 2, the Nottingham is going great, pushing gas out of the top cap.

Day 3: Someone did me a favor and added some plastic atop the corney to keep it from making a mess. And, in the process, depressed the release valve, closing it. The perfect little slow-leak we had goin' was no more, the tank built up pressure all night, and the brew waited like a pandora's box for me to release it this morning. Which I did ... all over the floor, walls and my clothes.
The fermentation is vigorous, we'll say. Now to continue to pull the pin on that release valve everytime I think of it for the next few days – which I was hoping to be freed from thinking about. Ah well.

Day 6: Finished the ferment at 1008. Thrown into the fridge and we'll rack out of the bottom in a day or two.

9 Weeks Later:
There's still a bit of a funk to what's going on in that corney. Hit it really hard with the Co2 and will pull off anything that's still floating around in there. We drank up 5 gallons of this one's twin that was a week younger while brewing a chocolate Phat Tyre today, but when that ran out, we opted for real New Belgium/Rogue Muddy Tires instead of drinking this. Hope it can turn around.

Wingu the Xingu Clone

Steeping: 1 lb each
German Vienna Malt
Simpson's Extra Dark Crystal
Simpson's Chocolate
Took it up to 160 on the kitchen stove and let it steep for 20. Poured it through sieve and the micronet funnel into the corney, then measured in the rest of the 5 gallons.

Boil: 2 x 3lbs Munton's Plainlight Spray DME (10EBC)
Add: 4 oz Brown Sugar

25 mins boil with .5 oz Yakima Magnum (14.4%) (bittering)
25 more with another .5 oz Yakima Magnum

10 mins no heat with .5 oz German Hallertau (4.2%) pellets

Yeast: Wyeast 2308 Munich liquid

So, a full hour boil for the protein break. Chill and spill the smack pack - OG: 1072.

This is my first lager, let's keep our fingers crossed.

Final gravity: 1018. For all that sugar, it's still got some bitter, and a resonant coffee overtone. Too strong to call it a Xingu – it's something other, but that other is what it is. Gonna finish this off as we brew a honey lager in late March.

Quaker Maple Wheat

Steeping: I dunno, about a pound? of stale Quaker oats
Boil: 3 x 3lbs Munton's SprayME 55% Wheat/45% Barley (9EBC)
Add: 20 oz Top-Quality Kirkland Brand Maple Syrup
Yeast: Wyeast 3056 Bavarian liquid

41 mins boil with 1.5 oz of Wilamette 4.7% alpha (bittering)
13 mins no heat with .5 oz of the same Wilamette pellets
24 mins to chill and pitch

Got all the ingredients for the Xingu clone with this shipment … realized that this was going to be water, DME, hops, yeast. Too simple! Where's the complexity? So opted for the oats up front for a little mouth feel, and hopefully, just enough maple syrup to leave a hint of aftertaste.

Smacked the pack only before the boil time. Left the corney outside in the 80 degrees down to 70 degrees evening.

Day 2: Used the beer thief to check gravity, to my horror found it at .1090. Tossed in two and a half quarts of good ol' Bakersfield tap to bring it down to .1075.

Day 3: Fermentation is really active, lots of blow off. Took the corney up to the bathtub and half sunk it, wrapped it in a wet towel to wick, and set the thermostat to 72. I know, I have a beer fridge for this, but there's beer in it.

Days 6-13: Stopped fermentation and let the fridge chill everything down. After two days, found that gravity was still at .1030. So, out of the fridge and back into a fermentation mode for two more days.

Day 21: Figured all was well. Started racking the yeast off the bottom, and then pulled a gravity reading yesterday. And, it read .1033 (explain that shite!) so yanked it outta the fridge and warmed it up again, hoping for some fermentation for reals. What the heck??

Got ticked and dry hopped in a half oz of Hallertau (4.2%) pellets. Five days from now I'll put the can back into the fridge, and then rack ... or just serve out.

10 week update:
The idea behind adding in the maple was to add just a bit of snap. Razzlem'dam, it's overpowering. 20 ounces is too much, by far. The bite from it didn't condition out after 6 weeks like it seemed to have been doing up to that point. 10 oz would be too much. I'd go 5 ounces and work up from there, had I my time machine.

115th Dream Hopbursted Imperial IPA

Yeah, so you brew beer. You hop it up. Buy the pellets instead of the petals. But nothing's prepared you for this. This is off the charts.

Prior to all the fun, I used a good amount of the bottling sugar to get a Safale-05 yeast starter going. 16 hours of preparation, you yeasties are still not gonna be ready for this.

Okay, here's the brewday schedule, which I messed up. I put in half of the boiling hops, and half of the near-aroma hops, because, dang, I'm not used to putting this much in!

4 gallons of water in, boil it up. Then put in 3# of amber extract. 30 mins later, in goes the first 1 oz of Cascade pellets (all at 7.5%). It should have been 2 oz. but that's Crazy!

30 more minutes, you're at the full-hour protein break. In goes another 1 oz of the Cascade, which should have been two.

15 minutes to the end of the boil, the first quarter of the 12 oz of the Hopbursted mix (from Northern Brewer) goes in to begin as aroma hops. Here's where I realize what I'd missed, and we drop in the other 2 oz of the Cascade.

So, we let the boil run and added the next two 3 oz batches of hops at 10 and 5 minutes out. Shut off the heat and added in the remainder of the 2# of bottling sugar and the final 3 oz of the Hopbursted mix.

The wort chilled quickly, but it was so full of gunk from all the hops, running it through the funnel with the microscreen took forever. Came away with about 2.5 gallons of super-hopped wort at ... get ready for this ... .1150 original gravity. Poured in the cook-pot of yeast. The garden hose provided the aeration for the next 2 gallons.

Didn't steep in anything this batch.
Extract: 6 lbs. Amber Malt, and 6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Honey: .5 lbs. Clover
Bitters: 4 oz. Cluster pellets (7.5%), 12 0z. Hopbursted (proprietary) mix
Yeast: Safbrew S-05, started on bottling-sugar water 16 hours prior

Good luck all.
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5 day update:
Gave the corney a swirl and didn't get any exhale from the relief valve, so I popped 'er into the fridge. It's a low 40's in there. 5 days at approx 68-70 degrees should have done all the fermenting that is fermenting. I'll pull a final gravity when I rack here in a day or two.
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14 day update:
Okay, finally got around to racking over from the leaker fermenter into the dispensary. Did I say a day or two? I meant a week or two.
Haven't racked in a few batches, I've just been letting the brew sit on the yeast for a couple of weeks, then pushing yeast off the bottom with the Co2 and drinking it clear. My racking cane is in my guts. But not this batch. Still, it's been sitting on the yeast for long enough.

Put 30 lbs of Co2 on it with some shaking, until no more pumped in. Now I'll just let it sit for a couple of weeks. No original gravity reading, and I didn't take a final either. I'll get a final at drinking time, maybe. What a brewmasterscientist I've become.
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33 day update:
Checked for final gravity (1006) and drinkability. Bud Light, you can suck it! It's hoppy - duh! - but surprisingly balanced for IPA-on-steroids. See you in 4 weeks, muthafukas! I predict a win.
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The Bottom Line:
Took this out to the Amgen bike race tailgating party with a bunch of lite beer drinkers ... and it disappeared. Gnarly hoppiness, but man, so good.

Honey Brown Ale

What would happen if you augmented the slightly dry, caramelly and roasty character of a smooth, mellow English brown ale with the sweet floral flavor of clover honey? What if you added the honey at the very last possible minute to maximize its presence in the finished beer? What if it was delicious? Something with a little backbone, but still smooth.

So, the stuff came from Northern Brewer, who calls this "A light, clean fermenting ale modeled after the "cream lagers" of the northeast United States. Low in gravity, long on flavor, this beer is a pale thirst-quencher, great for brewing and enjoying in the summertime. Dingemans Biscuit Malt gives our Cream Ale a warm, toasty flavor that complements the light hopping." Bring it. We've got some Cream Stout that needs some pairing for Black n' Tannage.

Steeping: .5 lb. Simpson's Chocolate, .5 lb. Dingemans Special B, .5 lb. Dingemans Biscuit, .5 lb. Briess Special Roast
Extract: 12 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Honey: 2 lbs. Clover
Bitters: 1 oz. Cluster pellets (7.5%) at 30 minutes into boil; .75 oz Cluster at 50 minutes in, then .25 oz pellets and 1 oz Cascade leaf (8.7%)
Yeast: Safbrew S-33's, started on honey water 12 hours prior

Steeped the grains for 30 mins from 80 degrees up to 125, drinking up the last pitcherful of the Cream Ale. Hey look! We've got a corney of the Cream Stout in the fridge hiding behind that Ale. And it's good!
Took 30 minutes to get the 10 gallons up to a rolling boil, the first hops going in then. The biggest long chain bread crumbs floating around in their after the protein break that I'd ever seen.

Added the second Cluster, and let the boil go, thinking we'd get in a quick WoD during the half hour before the next batch of hops to go in, but it all took longer than we thought. Boiled 7 minutes longer than the 30 planned, put in the final Cascade and shut off the heat.

Oh, yeah, that honey stuff.

Fired up the gas again, started stirring, poured it in, then just shut it all back down. No honey boil. This ain't mead. heh.

Chilled and really took a long time to get back under 100 degrees. Two full corneys (not much head space) but a lot of yeast in there workin'. Corneys in the garage, should be at an optimum temperature of 59–75° F. It'll run a little warm, but let's git 'er done.

No real mishaps, everything tasting, looking and smelling good. Thinking that the normal OG would be in the low 1040ies, but we're at 1050. Rock the house.

Day 4: Fermentation stopping at 1011 for both corneys. Into the chiller wid' ye.

Three weeks later, we had a sweetish light brown liquid with an alcoholic sledgehammer hidden within every glass. Dry. 11.5% octane.

Six weeks later. It's smooth, smooth. The hammer's still within, but softened with a layer of brown velvet. It's a win, but don't drink it on an empty stomach.

Cream Ale on Walker's Dime.

Cream Ale was Walker's idea. A lawnmower beer for the guy who never comes over and mows my lawn. Bastard. His only saving grace is that he bought the ingredients.

So, the stuff came from Northern Brewer, who calls this "A light, clean fermenting ale modeled after the "cream lagers" of the northeast United States. Low in gravity, long on flavor, this beer is a pale thirst-quencher, great for brewing and enjoying in the summertime. Dingemans Biscuit Malt gives our Cream Ale a warm, toasty flavor that complements the light hopping." Bring it. We've got some Cream Stout that needs some pairing for Black n' Tannage.

Steeping: .75 lbs. Gambrinus Honey Malt & .25 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit
Extract: 6 lbs. Pilsen Malt Syrup
Bitters: 1 oz. Cluster
Yeast: Safale US-05

Shooting for an OG in the low 1040ies / FG: 1010.

Cooked up everything using a lot less water this go-round. Only making 5 gallons, but put in two to steep up the grains. Everything goes a lot faster this way! Got to 150 degrees in no time, then in goes the extract. A hard boil in a minute, and maybe a protein break at 20 mins. Hopefully a protein break at 20 minutes, because that's all the boil that was boil this batch. Quick with the hops, and used the new outdoor shower to fill with cool water, and aerate in one action. Wort was still hot though!

Left the batch in the new pepsi leaker to ferment while I took a trip to Anaheim - four days of 68 degrees did the trick. OG: 1042, FG: 1010. Love it when it all works out. Chilled and racked a bit, with no filtration, and gave it all an hour and a few shakes at 30 lbs carbonation.

Day 14: Still a bit green, and seems a mite cloudy, for what we're looking for. Or what Walker's looking for - that budmeister grass-cuttings flave. May need some filter.

Drank up the last of it on Oct 18th, as we brewed up a Honey Brown. An orangy brown, with some hoppiness and some sharp overtones. Better with age until the end.

Sweet Creamy Stout

Creamy has to do with adding Lactose, here, for the first time. Not because of what you're thinking, gutter-minded one.

Okay, so it's winter-going-on-spring, the wife likes the dark ales, and marathon training demands some recovery drink that's both hearty and nutritious. Time to brew up the first Stout ever in time for it to parade in all its green glory for Super Bowl Sunday.

* approx 1 lb. Quaker Oats (steeped)
* 1 lb. Dingemans Debitter Black (steeped)
* 1 lb. Simpson's Chocolate (steeped)
___
* 12 lb. Amber malt syrup
*. 2 lb. wildflower honey
* 2 oz. Willamette Pellets (4.4% alpha: Boil - 40 mins.)
___
* 1 oz. Fuggle Pellets for aroma (4.6% alpha: Chill steep)
* .75 lb. Lactose (we went light on this, because we're old and lactose intolerant)
* a pair of Danstar dry Nottinghams.

Shooting for an OG of 1040-5ish / FG: 1010.

So, I got everything cooking, and begged the wife to find my floating thermometer for me. I'd been waiting for the ingredients to arrive for over a week. One would think I'd be better prepped. Besides a mostly meaty pig of seasonal Brown Ale from Lengthwise and a good attitude, we weren't at all prepared for this.

From 140 to 160, we steeped up the grains and the oatmeals. Pulling out the muslin left brown-black drainage that one would expect from an old oil filter. Noice! We're getting Stoutish now, baby.

Got a light boil going for 40 mins, don't think we really hammered out a protein break. Everything smelled great with the malt and honey going at the half hour mark. Took a preliminary OG: 1043 at about 65 degrees. We're gonna kick some buttocks. Took a couple of mugs out of the wort and poured them into the corneys, after letting them cool, Walker and I added a pack of Nottingham each. He gets the right-side-up keg; I get the upside-down one. (Actually, I get them both, since I get to walk out to the garage and press my lips to the tap anytime I want. But you understand both what I mean, and the depth of my personal determination, responsibility and inpregnable integrity).

Mostly did some talking and stirring, and dropped in the Fuggles and the lactose after shutting down the heat. Walker got to babysit the chiller while I tucked CC in. All got cool, and poured the wort with the team effort we've developed over the long haul of doing this twice. We spilled a bunch but still got 4.75 gallons into mine, and 4.5 gallons into Walker's.

Out the corneys go to the service porch. We'll get a good, hard fermentation going before we go into the fridge. More soon.

Day 3: After two days of super-aggro fermentation at 68 degrees, I was afraid all was going too quickly. Moved everything into the cooler at 62 degrees for a day. Then, racked off some and gave it a hydro reading. 1030 for mine, and 1033 for Walker's. Hmmm. Moving it back into the warm.

Day 4: Now, everything's slowing down. Tomorrow morning, I jack you punks into the fridge at 40 and teach you a lesson.

Day 6: Racking off some of the flocculated yeast and cold slurry, then back into hibernation.

A few more days of that racking-off-the-bottom and the yeast is owning. Ordered a cartridge filter with a 1 micron mesh. It'll be here midweek to Save the Day.

Day 21: Wednesday = midweek, and 3 weeks from boil. Pushed my (read: not Walker's) corneyfull through the filter first, but Charlie's new/old soda kegs are both leakers (suitable for primaries; the other one is fermenting mead as we do this filtration). So, I ran "mine" through into the leaker, ran Walker's into mine after a rinse, then mine back outta the leaker into Walker's, after a rinse. So we swapped corneys, but most notably, "mine" got filtered twice. Ah, we'll see if there's magic in the mistakes.
On a side note, there's a gorgeous depth to the dark of this stout. Watching it bubble back and forth through the filtration hoses was picturesque.
Shame we're gonna have to turn it all back into piss!

Put 'em both on 30 lbs. pressure and shook 'em 50 times - hey! it's a new Crossfit exercise for time! - and put them back on ice. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will tell.

Day 35: So, it's 3 weeks-ish later, and after a long session for Big Sur, and I'm dreaming about spaghetti and a hearty, nutritious stout. This didn't disappoint. We hit the mark spot on with the gravity, mouth-feel (note to self: 1/3 the lactose of others' recipes is plenty good), chocolate and coffee hints all over. We win.

Cracked open the corney and hit it with some gas on Oct 18th, as we cooked up some Honey Brown - fine nitrogenous bubbles, double-barrelled coffee burst and a smooth finish. Wow, where'd this come from?

Walker IBA

Walker does pull down his pants and show his bared arse now and again, but this has nothing to do with that.

We're looking to make an unholy offspring of an Englishy Brown Ale and an India Pale. So, we're going to have some honey/meady smoothness, a sweet finish (FG above 1012, we hope) but with some lots of high-alpha Cascade for a long boil for India hoppiness and a touch of bitter. That's the plan.

* approx 1.5 lb. Quaker Oats (steeped)
* 1 lb. Crisp Brown Malt. 60-70° L. Green and cracked, hopefully with the high alpha Cascade, will add a touch bitterness to the final product, hopefully. (steeped)
* 6 lb. Briess Sparkling Amber DME 13L
*. 1.5 lb. clover honey
* 2 oz. Cascade Pellets 6.3% alpha. 1 oz (Boil - 66 mins.), .5 oz (Boil - 36 ), .5 oz. (Finishing - 6 mins, plus another 20 during chill, bah)
* a pair of Sabrew s-33s (EDME). Optimum temperature: 64-75° F, but I'm gonna have a hard time maintaining that with this new fridge. I'm gonna miss my in-line temp controller.

Shooting for an OG of 1044ish / FG: 1012+.

Got the yeast going in a couple of cups of honey and sugar water. We stuck in in the oven to hide it from prying hands.
Steeped up the Malt and Oatmeal in some old panty hose (where did that muslin bag go?) 50 mins from 100 to 155. It shure did impart some dark color to the wort. Dunno the lovibond, think soda brown.
Added the extract and the honey, 1 oz of the Cascade - 30 minutes.
Dropped in .5 oz of the Cascade, 30 minutes.
The finishing hops - .5 oz - 6 mins.
Took out the boiling hops, but left the tea ball with the finishing hops at the bottom durning chilling. Just didn't fish it out, but in keeping with the IPA nature of this IBA, we'll just let the bitters do their thing. 20 mins to chill down to 80.

...good thing Walker was here to help heft the boil keg, that sucker felt heavy. He earns his namesake this time. Poured back and forth into the two corneys (one of which blew out of the In valve overnight, and has a stuck fermentation after a day - bah number 2).
Rooted out the yeast from the stove, where it had bloomed out of the measuring bowl and gooped up the stove innards like pancake batter. Pitched the very happy yeast half and half into the kegs (about 4 gals each) and put them into the fridge.

OG of 1042. Fudging a bit at 75 degrees, reading at that temp was 1040. So, maybe a 1043, but we're right in the range. The amber extract (and the light yeast, granted) brought the pre-fermentation color back to a maple sugar brown. Happy days!

Day 3 update: Fridge is running cold - 60 - and try as I might, can't get it to get up to 65+ without just shutting down. Corney #1 is blowin' and goin', #2 was leaking pressure, so on day 3 I've swapped into #2 another corney with a good, oxygenating pour. Fingers crossed on #2!

Day 5: Corney #1 is done fermenting; 1011. Nothing ever happened with #2. Every pull on the relief valve has only ever produced a faint burp. I've got 5 gallons of ready-to-condition beer, and 5 gallons of still-waiting-to-ferment wort. Okay, so I have a great idea. I'll chill and carbonate #1 and rack off the yeast to #2. I know that the yeast from #1 is good - if it can wake up and get #2 going, all will be well, right? So, I rack off what's there into #2, put #1 into the chilly fridge, and wait until morning.

Day 6: Just as a thought before running the yeast from the #1 to the #2, I thought "why not run a hydrometer on #2? ... Has it fermented 25%? 50% ... at all?" So I did. It wasn't fermenting at all because it was done fermenting. 1011. Go figure. If it did all it's work in the first day and a half when the valve was leaking, so much the better. But geez.

Now on to conditioning. Day 7, running the C02 at 30 lbs for 3 hours at 45 degrees. Both show really strong coffee overtones and a backbone of honey sweetness.

Day 8: Racked yeast off the bottom of both corneys and blew off the loose C02 to let the ale rest. Bottled up a couple for Walker to try, after I tasted my way through the gradations of sediment. One day of conditioning for #2, 2 days for #1. What a difference a day makes! Both exchanged all the honey flaves for a round nuttiness, with just a splash of coffee surviving. Where did that nutty brown come from? Oatmeal, I reckon - Quaker Oats FTW? Or those cracked green malts? Time to do some brew testing in upcoming batches.

Now to really do some waiting and see just how brown this green beer can be.
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The Bottom Line: What happened at last? Well, the fast-fermenting can grew worse with age. The mutations didn't condition out. The slower-fermenting corney was a brew for the ages, though. A perfect nutty-brown with a little hop kick. It didn't last long, although we tried to parcel it out a pint at a time.

Lesson learned: I'm just using Nottingham from now on. I want a fast fermentation, with no worries. Git 'er done! I'll leave the subtlety for the sweet mead-yeast when we bust some must.

Jarhead Brown Ale

Six pints of this and you should know everything about Military Intelligence.

So Tel Janin wanted to brew and kill on his birthday? Here's what happens when the brewing is on the back burner, and Myth/Unreal Tournament get all your conscious attentions. A rough sketch of the brew process, but will it be a smooth Brown... or a Marine Green beer? Time will tell.

Moral: Sometimes, it's best to brew in the background. Just boil and play.

Shooting for an OG of 1040ish / FG: 1012.

* 2 lbs. Oatmeal
* 1 lb Carapils cracked malts
* 3 lbs Light DME
* 3 lbs Dark DME
* 1.5 lbs clover honey
* 2 oz. Cascade plugs (6%)
* 2 Windsor / 1 Nottingham packets of dry yeast

Boil (Day 1):
Began steeping Grains and Oatmeal in gauze sack from 90° to 172°, made sure that it took a good long time, and dig a little squeezin' on the bag at the end, just to get all the goodness out. Tel stirred in all the DME and the honey, and we were on our way. Man, it was smelling good!
30 mins after a real rolling boil, tossed in the first 1 oz of the Cascade. Never boiled over or anything. What a brew with military polish.
35 mins after; added the second dose (1 oz) of the Cascade. Made certain that we got a good hour of hard boil, and a serious protein break. Not really, we just lost track of time playing on the computer.
Popped in the wort chiller about 20 mins after turning off the heat - a no-no, we know, but we were preoccupied, again. Once the chiller got to cooling, I shook it a few times, and shook the hose clean off the chiller, er, a few times (think I'd learn). We didn't get water directly into the wort, but dang.

Chilled to touch-temperature, mixed the 3 packs of yeast, and tossed it into uncleaned, unsterilized corneys still housing the slurries from Haley Ale. OG: 1040 dead on (!). Both corneys filled to 3/4, just enough head room. Everything looks, smells, tastes great - man, oughta think less and brew more in the future, if I get results like this all the time.

Fermentation (Day 3):
Took about 6 hours (six hours of Unreal Tournament) for the yeast to really begin its blowin' and goin'. After a too-cool night in the fridge at 50 degrees, warmed up to the 65° where we expect to finish at in about 3 more days.

Racked, Carbonating & Conditioning (Day 10):
Okay, fermentation took a bit longer than we anticipated. On day 6, we racked off some yeast and took a gravity reading: 1018 and 1020 for the two 5-gallons - surprisingly, the corney without the slurry was the one that ran to 18. Still a little higher than we would like, so a quick shake, tap on the thermostat (to 68°) and four more days of final fermentation were in order. Which, now four days later, was precisely what the doctor ordered as both corneys now check in at 1012. Perfect!
The slurry is still very yeasty (racked off as much as possible warm, after a couple of days we'll pull some more off the bottom) with a little yeasty bite that may add character, or may make for BitterBeerFace competitions. We'll see. The other batch is already very drinkable - still a touch sweet since the honey hasn't smoothed into the hops and still a bit green, but it smells great. All signs point to this 5 gals as a real winner.
Had to change out a cap on the non-slurried corney, turned on the Co2 to 22 lbs, then took everything down to 45° . We'll wait 3 days, turn off the Co2, then let everything condition cold for another week.

Final Notes (Day 18):
Well, after a little time, a couple of mild rackings and 3 more days at 20 lbs Co2, Tel came by and downed one or two from both corneys, and the verdict is in: It's good stuff, and only gonna get better with a week or two more conditioning. Surprisingly enough, the slurry, which was a bit too tangy a week ago, improved and surpassed the other corney. It's really smooth, and perfectly carbonated. The non-slurried batch sports a more substantial head, and with a week in the Lazyboy, will be simply awesome. Cheers!