RIS Showdown

Tonight I tasted a bottle of Old Rasputin against my clone home brew, Arctic Circle.  The Rasputin has the same bitterness as Arctic does, something I didn't remember when I did the original taste test.  I notice more malt aroma in the Rasputin, but the Arctic seems to be smoother and less bitter actually.

The brewmaster's assistant did a blind tasting and decided that the Arctic Circle was better.

This may be the best beer I've brewed yet.

Belgian Quad

Just moved the Belgian Quad from the secondary to the keg and now it's carbonating.

Need to think of a name for this one.

It's tastes great, very Belgian.  Brewer's assistant says it tastes like an expensive bottle of commercial Belgian, so I guess we did all right.  I need to get a bottle of Three Philosophers to taste against since this is a clone recipe.

Brewery Ommegang recommends Three Philosophers with roasted meats and rich cheeses.  I'm thinking lamb.

Waiting for carbonation...

Strong Dunkel

Reader Jason's Dunkel after finishing up its weightlifting set.  How strong is that beer, Jason?

Beer Moving Day

Today I moved the RIS from secondary to the keg.  Had a bit of an emergency; when I pressurized the keg, the pressure relief valve was leaking.  I turned it a bit and it stopped, but when I jostled the keg, it started again.  So I took the valve off and flipped the seal over to the side that is flat, the original side had worn down.  Voila.  No more leaking.

Cleaned out the carboy, and moved the Belgian to secondary.  Measured FG at 1.020.  Exactly what the recipe says in Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them  That gives it an ABV of 8.9%.

Tasted it and it is a bit harsh, kind of like the stout, and it has a lot of settling to do, very cloudy.  So we'll let it sit for a while and see how it goes.

For Jason, here's how to move your beer from one vessel to another.
Fill your racking cane completely with water and about a foot of the tubing after the curve of the cane.  Put your finger over the end of the tube and quickly invert the cane and insert into beer.  Take your finger off the end and let the beer start flowing.  I usually drain the water that was in the tubing into a cup and then put the tubing into the next vessel.


Sorry about the lighting, kind of dim today in the kitchen.

Brewmasters

Discovery Channel has a new show starting tomorrow night called Brewmasters.  Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione is the host.  There's no embed link so you'll have to click through.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/brew-masters/

From the description:

Each week on Brew Masters, Sam Calagione, maverick, family man and entrepreneur owner of Dogfish Head Brewery travels across America and around the globe as he explores new ingredients and techniques and collaborates with other craft brewers to come up with the next great brews. Every Sunday at 10 pm E/P.

Keg Fridge Upgrade

I was getting a bit worried about all the weight on that thin glass shelf, so today we upgraded to a 3/4 inch plywood shelf.

Belgian Dark Strong Ale

Decided to brew again yesterday so we'd have a variety of beer for the holidays.  I started with the Ommegang Three Philosophers recipe in Brew Like a Monk, page 248.

Calculated for 5 gallons and am altering to adjust to my timeline.

10lbs. 11oz.  Dingeman's Belgian Pale Malt
2lbs.   12oz.  Dingeman's Belgian Munich Malt
1lb.  Flaked Wheat
10oz.  Dingeman's Special B Malt
9oz.    Dingeman's CaraMunich Malt
6oz.    Dingeman's CaraVienna Malt
10oz.  Dark Candi Sugar 275L

1oz.   Northern Brewer hops 8% AAU

White Labs WLP500  Trappist Ale Yeast


Infusion Mashed the pale, munich, and wheat at 155F for 75 minutes.  Added Special B, CaraMunich, CaraVienna to lauter tun during sparging.

Collected 8 gallons of wort.  Boiled for 75 minutes down to 6.5 gallons.  Added Candi Sugar.

Added hops and boiled for 75 more minutes.  A gorgeous brown with hints of red.

OG 83, recipe specified 87.  Pretty close.

Cooled to 86F and pitched yeast.  Fermenting at 68F.

Need to think of a good name for this one.
    

Tired

The tired brewer's assistant waiting for the cider to cool.

More Cider

Wild Yeast Hard Cider Experiment



New Full 5 Gallon Hard Cider Batch

Moving to Secondary

Pictures start here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/n1ghtstr1k3/5103014294/in/set-72157625135757774/

Primary Fermentation Done

Cracked open both fermenters tonight as they stopped bubbling a few days ago.

Stout:  FG is 1.022 (perfect according to the recipe) - 7.4% ABV
Taste and smell excellent, a bit of a harsh aftertaste, but (as the recipe says) I can see it mellowing in a month.
Appearance is a bit lighter than I would have liked, but still looks good.  I was sampling in an opaque white plastic cup, so maybe a little hard to tell.

Hard Cider: FG is 1.000 - 5.9% ABV
Taste is excellent, just as the yeast description said, there is still the slight taste of apple, but the alcohol is not overpowering.  This is a hard one to decide whether to carbonate or not.  Will have to wait for the brewmaster's apprentice to taste and have an opinion.

Tomorrow I'll move them secondary fermentation and harvest the yeast, they both did a great job and I think I'll make a full batch of cider again soon.

More Pics

All the other pics from brew day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/n1ghtstr1k3/sets/72157625135757774/with/5069426010/

Brewing Again!!!

Finally brewed again yesterday.  The first time since brewing Oktoberfest in March.

We brewed a Russian Imperial Stout and some hard apple cider.

We contracted with Jackron Industries to supply the raw apple cider and some labor.

First the RIS.  This is a clone of North Coast Brewing's Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.  See recipe below.

We followed the recipe except the brewshop doesn't carry Carastan so I substituted 40L crystal malt.

The brewmaster apprentices checking the wort.



Apprentice cooling the cider before pitching the yeast.



Next, cider.  Heated on medium high for 30 minutes, then cooled in an ice bath.  Fermented the cider using White Labs WLP775, English Cider Yeast.



Pitched the yeast and started the fermentation in my warm office.  Checked this morning and we have bubbling.  Put both brews into the brew fridge at 68F.  The inside of the fridge smells awesome, the hop aroma from the RIS and a bit of the apple.

RIS in the front, cider in the rear.  RIS is much more active than the cider.




----------------------------------------------


Old Rasputin Imperial Stout (clone) 
5 gallons, extract with grains 
OG = 1.090 FG = 1.022 IBUs = 85-95 ABV =9% 

Ingredients 
9.9 lbs. Coopers Light malt extract syrup 
1.0 lb. Hugh Baird Carastan malt Crystal malt (40° L)0.5 lb. Hugh Baird Brown malt 
0.5 lb. chocolate malt 
1.0 lb. crystal malt (120° L) 
0.25 lb. roasted black barley 
22.7 AAU Cluster hops (bittering) 
(3.25 oz. of 7% alpha acid) 
9.0 AAU Northern Brewer hops 
(aroma hops) (1 oz. of 9% alpha acid) 
8.8 AAU Centennial hops (aroma) 
(1 oz. of 8.8% alpha acid) 
1 tsp Irish moss 
White Labs WLPOO1 (California Ale)yeast
0.75 cup of corn sugar for priming 

Step by Step 
Steep the crushed malts in three gallons of water at 150° F for 30 minutes. Remove the grains from the wort, add malt syrup and bring to a boil. Add the Cluster (bittering) hops and Irish moss and boil for 60 minutes. Add the aroma hops (Northern Brewer and Centennial) for the last two minutes of the boil. When you are done boiling, strain out the hops and add the wort to two gallons cool water in a sanitary fermenter. Top the fermenter off with cool water to 5.5 gallons. Cool the wort to 80° F, aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. Allow the beer to cool over the next few hours tó~ 68-70° F, and ferment for 10 to 14 days. Bottle your beer, age for two to three weeks and enjoy! (Yes, that's right, this beer so well- balanced that North Coast releases it to the public in less than a month.) 

Michelob Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale

I'm rating this beer against the BJCP style guidelines for 21B, Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer.

The neck label reads "An auburn-colored brew with a smooth, robust taste full of rich aromas, hints of vanilla and flavorful hops."

The front label says "Winter ale aged on bourbon oak casks and whole Madagascar vanilla beans".

You would expect a beer like this to have huge aromatics, but even after allowing it to warm up for quite a while, I could barely detect any aroma at all. If there is any detectable aroma, it would be vanilla, but only very slightly.

Next, the appearance of this beer is excellent. A deep amber color and extremely clear. Looked great in the glass. The head was well-formed, but didn't last very long before dissipating.

As for the flavor of this beer, it's VANILLA, VANILLA, VANILLA. If you label a beer as bourbon cask ale, then for pity's sake, have some of the bourbon or oak flavor come through. Unfortunately, this beer has way too much vanilla in it. The vanilla overshadows all the other flavors, if they are there, including the malt, hops, bourbon, and oak. I could not differentiate any other flavors than vanilla. Vanilla. Vanilla.

This is a medium body beer with moderately high carbonation and a good, creamy mouthfeel.

Overall, I do like this beer, but it does have some shortcomings. It has to be a dessert or standalone brew. By dessert I mean as a dessert in and of itself. I can't imagine any food, including desserts, that this would actually pair well with.

Here is my scoring:

Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Mouthfeel	Overall Impression
3/12	3/3	10/20	5/5	7/10

Total: 28/50 - Falls in the Good category (21-29 points) for BJCP

Back for 2010

It's a new year, so by popular request, I'll actually be blogging more than once a year now.

I'm going to expand this a bit to include more than just my brewing sessions.

I'll blog about the various beers, wines, and liquors I sample, rate them, and write descriptions of them. This should give you something to read in between the times that I brew.

Sláinte

Mead!!!

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything. It's been a long time since I brewed. I made a batch of Oatmeal Stout in November, but it didn't turn out as good I would have liked and since then I've been so busy I just haven't gotten around to it.

This morning I started a batch of Mead. I've made two different kinds before, a Ginger Mead and a Blueberry Mead. This is just plain.

12 lbs. Clover Honey
1 tsp. gypsum
1 tsp. citric acid
3 tsp. yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp. Irish Moss flakes
2 packets Red Star Pasteur Champagne dry yeast

Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. As the mead is getting hotter, skim off the coagulated protein that is floating on top. When it reaches boil, continue boiling for 15 min.

Pour into the fermenter and add enough cold water to make 5 gallons.

My OG ended up at 1.077, so this will most likely be about a 12% ABV brew.

Pitch both packets of yeast around 80 degrees F. and ferment at 75 F.

New Belgium Brewery Tour

Last year when I was in Denver I had a great Belgian beer called Fat Tire. Someone told me it was local brew, but after coming back to the east coast I kind of forgot about it.

Reading Stan Hieronymus's Brew Like a Monk jogged my memory that New Belgium Brewery was who made the Fat Tire beer. Every since I remembered I've been anxious to tour the brewery.

I don't know how I forgot to post this, but two weeks ago when I was in Denver, I drove up to Fort Collins and went to the New Belgium Brewery. The tour was very cool. New Belgium is the fastest growing brewery in the world and third largest craft brewer behind Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada.

The guy that gave us the tour was recently granted ownership of the brewery. The brewery is employee-owned and privately operated. All of the owners have a say in the operation of the brewery, and it was obvious that everyone loves working there.

New Belgium is very energy efficient in their brewing, recovering most of the heat lost during the boil and recycling it through a heat exchanger. They also recover all of the heat from the wort as it is piped to the cellar before the yeast is pitched. This lowers the wort to the correct temperature and recovers heat. All of this recovered heat is used to heat the boil kettle and water so they are never starting with a cold pot.

The best part of the tour is of course the beer. Any day of the week you can come into the brewery, sit down, and be served four different samples of any of their beers, no charge. I tried the 1554, Abbey, Trippel, and of course Fat Tire.

Fat Tire is still my favorite, but the Abbey and Trippel were excellent. Very complex and satisfying.

Unfortunately, the picture is not of New Belgium beer (It's Ommegang Hennepin), I had no way to get a case of Fat Tire back from Denver. But at least I have a couple of glasses and a t-shirt to commemorate my trip.

APL to Bottle

Bottled the APL, the final gravity is 1.010 making the alcohol content 4.5% by volume. It has a very citrusy flavor from the Amarillo hops, very drinkable.

Blueberry Mead

Here's my latest brew, a melomel (mead with fruit), Blueberry Mead.

12 lbs. clover honey
6 lbs. frozen blueberries
1 tsp. gypsum
1 tsp. citric acid
3 tsp. yeast nutrient
Red Star Champagne Yeast

Mix the honey into 1.5 gallons of water and heat on medium. Stir until all of the honey is disolved, then add the gypsum, citric acid, and yeast nutrient.

Bring the pot up until just before it boils and then remove from heat.

Add all of the blueberries to the fermenter and slowly add the hot liquid. Top off the fermenter with cold water.

I pitched the yeast very warm, between 90-100 F.

It is bubbling very slowly, but is fermenting.


After 7 days, I'll rack off of the blueberries into a secondary and leave for a few months.

APL to Secondary

I moved the American Pale Lager to the secondary fermenter. Tastes great! Very smooth. Dry hopped with the Amarillo. I'll leave it in for a few weeks, hopefully it will clear a little more. The Cascade hops really come through.