Busy Day

These multiple-step brewdays are NUTS!!

I had to brew the Porter#3 (which was all F'ed up), put the Barleywine (which hasn't gotten down to the gravity I wanted), and bottle the Wheat#2 (the only bright spot).  I got it all done in 5 hours or so, but it was a pain in the ass,

First of all, the Porter, which I really want to turn out well, fell victim to my incessant tweaking fetish.  If i was smart, I would have just accepted the efficiency of my system, and made adjustments when I scaled up...but no.  I had to get all smart and mess with my process.  I upped the amount of water I used to mash the grains, added a mash-out step by raising the temp, over flame while stirring, to 168F.  I held it there for 10 minutes, then drained it through a colander to the boil kettle.  Then I returned the grains to the mash pot, and rinsed them with the rest of the water, which was at 170F, and drained them through the colander again.  My efficiency went up to 80...yes 80%.  63% to 80% is huge, and not a good thing when you're trying to keep at least some kind of consistency.

This forced me to add some water to the boil to get to the correct gravity, and then boil a little longer to get the right IBUs from the hops.  I ended up with 1.25 gallons of Porter (0.25G of which I dumped) at a gravity of 1.057.  The IBUs ended up a little low for the style, which is not too bad.  Thank God I decided I was going to leave the brown sugar out this time, or I would have had like 3 gallons of wort.  Here's the recipe:

-2lbs Maris Otter
-0.1lbs Flaked Barley
-0.05lbs Black Patent
-0.15lbs Chocolate Malt
-0.1lbs Crystal 40
-0.3oz Fuggles @ 70 mins
-0.2oz Fuggles @ 30 mins

The Wheat, on the other hand, ended up perfect in terms of gravity.  It actually went down to 1.012, which is a little lower than I expected.  The Safale US-05, as I have read, loves Wheat Malt.  I bottled three with 5 carb tabs, and three with 6 carb tabs to see where I want the carbonation to be.

With the Barleywine, I placed it in secondary with a little fresh yeast to try and bring down the gravity some more, as it was stuck at 1.037.  It's going to be in there for a while, so I guess we'll see what happens.

This weekend, I'm bottling the first Pale Ale experiment, and brewing the first Brown experiment.  I honestly can't wait to taste the Pale, so I'm glad its only 2 weeks away.

Getting on a Schedule

Now that I have a few beers in fermenters, and a few of the experiments already in bottles, it looks like I'm getting into a weekly rotation.  This weekend, I'm bottling the Wheat, Putting the Barleywine in secondary (more on that in a minute), and brewing the third iteration of the Porter (more on that coming up as well).  The following weekend, the Pale gets bottled, and the first Brown gets brewed.  After that, A regular, weekly schedule of tasting, bottling, and brewing goes into place except for a one or two week break while I'm on vacation.  I'm hoping this schedule will speed up the experiments without confusing me too much...because I get confused easily.

The Barleywine, as I said above, is scheduled to go into secondary for conditioning/ bulk aging, this weekend, but I checked the gravity, and it is still kind of stuck at about 14 points over where it should be...my first stuck fermentation.  I have to look around online, but I think tossing in some new yeast in secondary may help out.  I've heard of some brewers using champagne yeast as well, but I'm not sure I want to do that.

With the Porter, I think I may have broken my original plan of changing just a small aspect with each batch by reducing the black patent and adding a relatively large amount of Crystal all at once.  I actually liked the first example more, so I'm going to bump the Black Patent back up to the original level, and just add a charge of Crystal 40 to combat the sharpness I was trying to soften out.

I really can't wait to get this going on a weekly basis.  I love seeing how these ideas effect the final product.  Even better, however, is when I go to a brewpub or taste a commercial beer, and can pick out certain ingredients because I've tried so many of them so many times.  I'm having a blast.

Pale In the Books, and the Porter's Worse

As the title suggests, I brewed the first iteration of the Pale this weekend.  It was an extremely simple recipe, using only one type of malt (American Pale Ale), and one type of hop (Willamette).  I still have that problem getting good efficiency in the mash.  I've tried a few different things to bump it up, but I can't get above 63%...F'ing annoying.  I am trying to decide if it really matters enough to try and fix anymore, or if I should just accept it, and scale the recipes accordingly when I move to 5 or 10 gallon batches.  For this beer, I also gave the whole "Late-Hop-The-Crap-Out-Of-It" thing, doubling the amount of hops from the bitterring addition in both the flavor and aroma steps.  Not that it's really that tough, But here's the recipe:

2.5lbs American Pale Ale Malt
0.2oz Willamette @ 60 min
0.4oz Willamette @ 15 min
0.4oz Willamette @ 5 min
5g Safale US-05

I also tried the second Porter experiment, and didn't like it as much as the first.  The subtraction of a chunk of the Black Patent malt decreased the sharpness that I was looking to lose, but also seems to have thinned out the flavor too much; the Crystal 120 added some darker fruit flavors and subtle sweetness, but seemed too light for the overall impression of the beer.  I think, in the next one, brewing this weekend, I will go back to the original amount of Black Patent, and go with a different malt to sweeten it up, maybe Special-B?

Almost Forgot!

The bubbling sound that I caught during a break in the audio of the Kings/Coyotes game reminded me That I hadn't yet posted for yesterday's batch.  Its probably the most simple recipe in my plans so far; just a pound of 2-row, a pound of wheat, and 0.3oz of Tettnang hops at the beginning of the boil.

I mashed at a lower temperature to try and thin out the mouthfeel since I'm planning on making this a Summer beer.  This is the first time I've tried a temp other than 152F because I'm not really fond of thinner beers, but I don't think I'll mind it in a hot weather brew...hell, I may not even notice.

There was a decrease in efficiency this time, only about 63% in the mash...the inconsistency in that area is getting annoying.  I may need to bring in some outside help to review my process and give me some ideas.

The fermentation took off pretty quickly, and has been the most active so far.  I always use a blow-off tube to prevent any overflow, and this is the first time anything has made it up the tube and into the overflow vessel.

My wife's birthday is next weekend, so I'm not sure I'll be able to get away with a brew until sometime during the week.  I haven't yet decided which of the experiments I want to try out.  I was inspired by the best Brown Ale I have ever tasted, Voodoo Brewing Company's Wynona's Big Brown Ale, to maybe try the Brown, but for simplicity's sake, I could also do the Pale, which is a simple Single-Malt-and-Single-Hop (SMaSH) beer, and a bit more seasonally appropriate.  I may just decide when I figure out how much time I have, since the homebrew store closest to me uses an analog scale for grain measurements, thus making the easier Pale a better choice.

Lots of Crap Happenning

The Barleywine is fermenting away over in the corner.  If it ends up how I planned (which almost never happens) it should end up around 10% ABV...in like 6 weeks.  After that, its going to sit in a secondary vessel for a few months before I bottle.  I'm still trying to figure out why this is recommended, but everyone I talk to and/or read says its important.  It will sit in bottles for at least 10 months before I give it a try...if I can remain patient.  Recipe:

2.35Lbs 2-Row
1.15Lbs Maris Otter
0.1Lbs Crystal 40
0.1Lbs Crystal 60
0.1Lbs Crystal 20
0.02Lbs Crystal 120
0.02Lbs Special B
0.05Lbs Table Sugar

0.4oz Centennial @ 70
0.2oz Cascade @ 60
0.4oz Citra @ 20
0.2oz Cascade @ 10
0.2oz Centennial @ 10
0.2oz Centennial @ 0

I'm going to dry hop after 7 days with 0.2oz each of Citra and Centennial, and leave them in for 14 days more before transferring it to the secondary.  It should be a strong, hoppy, sipping barleywine without too much sweetness.

The second Robust Porter experiment is in bottles now, and should be ready in two weeks.  It ended up at about 1.018 SG, putting the beer at just about 6% ABV...which is perfect.  The American yeast and warmer fermentation temps seemed to have helped a lot.  I thought it would end up at 1.014, but 1.018 is acceptable, but I can get it lower if I lower the mashing temps, which I don't want to do because I like the mouthfeel the higher mash temps provide.

The Wheat tastes just like the batch we won in competition with, which means its not American at all.  The next batch, brewing this weekend, will have no spices (the original has coriander) and American yeast as opposed to the Hef yeast in the original.

The 10 Year Experiment

I'm planning on brewing the American Barleywine in the next day or two, since I'm kind of in a holding pattern for the Porter and Wheat while they ferment and carbonate respectively.  These lulls should dissipate after this first one, since I will be brewing once per week, but for now, I need to find another trial to occupy my time...So how's about a beer that takes a year or more to make?!
With Barleywines, the high amount of alcohol requires time to soften so the complex flavors of malt and hops can shine, otherwise you're looking at a drink that tastes more like whiskey or vodka than beer.  Also, in American varieties, the hop profile is so intense that aging is vital as it allows time for the bitterness to mellow.  This means that if it takes me ten experiments to perfect the recipe, ten years or more will pass before its perfect.
I based the recipe on a few suggestions picked up in Zymurgy magazine from a few months ago, and a podcast on The Brewing Network.  It looks like it will end up at about 9.3 percent alcohol, ferment for 6 weeks or so, and age for about a year before I even think of trying it.

I also "built" a mash tun to keep my temps a little more stable in the mash.  All I did was wrap some insulation (the silver, foil-like, bubble wrap type that goes around hot water heaters and such) in two layers around the pot I usually mash in.  Then I duct taped two layers to the bottom, and taped two layers together to form a lid.  I'm giving it a shot with the Barleywine, and will see how it does.