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.

American Pale Lager

Brewed this on Monday, New Year's Day. I haven't decided what to call it yet.

Was going to make it an American Pale Ale, but since it's cold enough in the basement now, I decided to ferment it with lager yeast.

8½ lbs. pale malt
1 lb. crystal malt 20L
½ lb. toasted malt - 10 minutes at 350º F
1 oz. Chinook Hops 12% AAU - Bittering
1 oz. Cascade Hops 6.4% AAU - Flavor
1 oz. Cascade Hops 6.4% AAU - Aroma
½ oz. Amarillo Hops - Dry Hopping
1 tsp. Irish Moss


Mash Grains in 4 gallons of water:

45º C for 15 minutes
62º C for 35 minutes
70º C for 20 minutes

Sparge with 70º C water

Add Chinook at 60 minutes
Add Irish Moss at 15 minutes
Add Cascade at 5 minutes
Add Cascade at 1 minute

Ferment with Saflager S-23 around 13º C

I will dry hop with the Amarillo when I move it to the secondary fermenter.

The O.G. read 1.044, but I think that was a little low as I had lots of hop debris in the hydrometer tube. Bubbles started four hours after I pitched the yeast, and fermentation took off. I added about 5.5 gallons and in this 5 gallon carboy, the krausen overwhelmed the airlock for the first two days, had to remove it at one point as it was close to being clogged. It's settled down now, but it appears that it will be a couple more days until it's done. Never had a lager ferment so fast, especially at this temperature.

Beer Christmas

My wonderful wife did a great job on Christmas presents this year.

She got me a Bayou Classic turkey fryer. I've wanted one for turkeys, but the burner is perfect for brewing beer. Much easier to get 6.5 gallons of wort boiling on it than on an electric burner.
If you get one of these, just make sure you don't use the included pot for brewing, it's aluminum and may leave nasty flavors in your beer.

She also got me a subscription to Brew Your Own Magazine, and a copy of Brew Like a Monk by Stan Hieronymus.

Way to go, honey, love you.

Sam Adams Longshot Homebrew Contest Results

Back in August I entered the Sam Adams Homebrew Contest. I didn't hear anything back, but they were supposed to send your scores to you for each beer submitted.

Well, finally they arrived, and I am quite pleased with my results.

I submitted three beers, a Hefeweizen (which I knew had no chance, I don't really like it that much, but I figured I had room in the box to send it, why not), an IPA, and an Oatmeal Stout.

The Hefeweizen did as I expected, terrible, but the other two did rather well.

For the IPA I received scores of 38 and 40 out of 50 for a final score of 39.

For the Oatmeal Stout I received scores of 41 and 42 out of 50 for a final score of 41.5.

Sam Adams was also nice enough to send a t-shirt too with the Sam Adams logo on the front, and the Longshot logo on the back.

Amarillo Pale Ale Experiment

I decided to try a little experiment with Amarillo hops. I wanted to see if I could replicate the Dogfish Head's 60 Minute IPA flavor by continuous hopping.

Here goes.

Mashed 7 lbs. 2-row pale malt and 2 lbs. crystal malt 20L at 65º C for 60 minutes.

Split this into three pots of 1.5 gallons each.

Hopped each of the three differently.


First

Continuous hop, total of ½ oz. of Amarillo hops divided into 12 equal parts, each 12th added every five minutes for 60 minutes of boil.

Second

½ oz. Amarillo at 60 minutes
1/3 oz. Amarillo at 15 minutes
1/10 oz. Amarillo at 1 minute

Third

¼ oz. Yakima Magnum at 60 minutes
¼ oz. Amarillo at 5 minutes



Added ¼ tsp. irish moss to each pot at 5 minutes

Initially I thought the beer was too dark, but after aging for a few weeks it had a very nice straw to light amber color and extremely clear.

I used Safale 56 yeast to ferment each in a 2-gallon plastic bucket. This yeast gives a great crisp clean finish to ale, I think it's perfect for APAs.

Result

My favorite of the three was the second batch with the first being a close second. The continuous hopping did not give me the full flavor of the hop I was looking for. Also, don't need to be so conservative with the hops next time.

Bare Chest Oktoberfest

This is a non-traditional Oktoberfest. I tasted the beer while transferrring the secondary for lagering and decided I wanted a little more hop flavor. I know Oktoberfest is supposed to be malty, but I like hops, so I dry hopped with more Hallertau.

Ingredients:

5 lbs. 2-row pale malt
4 lbs. Muntons Carapils
2.5 lbs. Munich malt
1.5 lbs. crystal malt 20L
1/2 tsp. Irish moss
1.25 lbs. plain light DME
1.25 oz. Hallertau hops - Bitter
1 oz. Tettnanger hops - Flavor
1.5 oz. Hallertau hops - Dry Hop
White Labs WLP830 German Lager Yeast

Mash Grains at 67º C

Add Hallertau and DME at 60 minutes

Add Irish Moss and Tettnanger at 20 minutes


O.G. was 1.056
F.G. was 1.014

This beer has a great taste, obviously more hoppy than traditional Oktoberfest, but I like it better. Nice flavor and aroma from dry hop.