Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Brew #101: Vanguard Red

Revisit a nice brew with nothing over the top. Let's see if mixing Reverse Osmosis water with the filtered makes a difference. This batch also marks my first try at a starter. It's been cool lately where my kitchen may be at 66-68F. The airlock is showing activity by the next morning even at this cool of a temp.

This brew got a score of 32.5/50 at the Bluebonnet Brewoff. BJCP Amber Ale style. I think it is a good one for those people not into huge flavor. It is rather mellow as homebrews go, but that makes it a good drinkable beer.

At the beginning of June 2009, I've only got 7 bottles left. Might be enough to enter in the Lubbock contest and maybe Cerveza Fest in San Antonio.

Brewed: 01-27-2009
Racked: 02-02-2009
Kegged: 02-20-2009

OG=1.050@67F
FG=1.012@68F

ABV=4.978%

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Brew #100: Honey Lemon Blonde

For batch number 100, I'm using Beer Tools Pro to formulate my own recipe. The hope is to get honey-type flavors from Honey Malt and some lemony tartness from Sorachi Ace hops and blend them into a pleasantly quaffable brew. I based the recipe on a blonde ale and tweaked it from there. I've added 1/2 oz. Sorachi Ace at the last 5 minutes and will dry hop with the other 1/2 oz. Bittering and flavoring used 1/2 oz. of Amarillo for each. I'm anxious to see how this will turn out. It could be real good or could be off the mark.

The taste was pleasant at racking but no lemony tones yet.

At kegging, the lemon took over. It's tart almost at sour only from the half ounce dry hop. But this is still the taste warm and flat. If it continues, I'd want a bit more sweetness to shine through to balance the tang of the lemon.

This was a brew that didn't match my design, but was quite pleasant. It was hoppy like a pale ale, but .... different. The Sorachi Ace dry hop tended to give lemony, tangerine, but also a slight grassy flavor. So lemongrass. It worked. I do intend to do this again.


Actual Recipe:

1.0 lb Honey Malt
0.5 lb Flaked Wheat
2.0 lb Pilsener Lager Malt
5.0 lb Extra Light LME
0.5 oz Amarillo - 60 min.
0.5 oz Amarillo - 15 min. + 1 Whirlfloc tablet + 5 tsps Yeast Nutrient
0.5 oz Sorachi Ace - 5 mins.
0.5 oz Sorachi Ace - Dry Hopped

Took 1/2 RO water and 1/2 filtered Austin water and added 1/4 tsp Epsom Salt (just to see), 1-2 drops phosphoric acid to adjust pH. Added one drop olive oil as I pitched yeast. I do a late addition for the LME where I take the pot off the burner with 15 mins left of the boil, stop the timer, add in the LME, bring it back up to boiling, add the flavoring hops, and continue the timer for the last 15 mins. Supposed to keep scorching or caramelizing down. I am still doing partial boils on my stove.

This brew ranked a 36/50 in the Bluebonnet Brewoff and made it to the second round as a Specialty Beer, since it is an overhopped Blonde.

Brewed: 01-14-2009
Racked: 01-22-2009 (w/ 0.5 oz. Sorachi Ace dry hop)
Kegged: 01-27-2009

OG=1.052@65F
FG=1.014@66F

ABV=4.978%

Brew #99: Ahtanum Pale Ale

My last hoppy beer is finished so I must have a replacement...

Normally, I would rack off of the hops into another carboy. THis time I used a patch of a green scrubbie to act as a filter and keep hop matter from going through the racking cane and tube. Mighty tasty!!!

Will this be ready for a Superbowl party?

Brewed: 01-09-2009
Racked: 01-17-2009 (w/ 1 oz. Ahtanum)
Kegged: 01-27-2009

OG=1.046@69F
FG=1.012@66F

ABV=4.454%

20090115: Root Beer!

I have my sepcial keg for holding my homemade root beer. I call it home made, but is really easy when you take some extract that is already made and add it to 4 gals water with 8 cups sugar. My tweak is that I buy the Root Beer Extract and the Birch Root Beer extract and mix them half and half. For this round I took 17.5 quarts RO water, 2 cups light brown sugar, 6 cups white sugar, and the extract. All the water was boiled at least 15 minutes to try to drive any oxygen out and to make sure that the sugars got dissolved properly. Slap that into the kegerator and force carbonate to about 2.5 volumes.

When it was boiled, you could really smell the birch extract. That stuff is the "ZING!" flavor that Barq's has. It mellowed nicely in the keg though - YUMMY!

Brew #98: Whiskey Oaked Porter

I'm revisiting a porter with oak chips again and this time I'm adding a bit of whiskey to the mix. I've soaked the oak chips in Maker's Mark for 2 1/2 weeks before adding it into the primary after the yeast had already settled down. Only the chips were added but I'm saving the whiskey to possibly add at kegging to flavor to taste.

34.5/50 at Bluebonnet Brewoff.

Somewhere in there I thought the whiskey flavor had tailed off. I added 300ml at kegging originally, so I doubled that and added 600ml. Shortly after, I saw the condensation line at about halfway down the keg. It meant I added double the whiskey to half the batch - 4 times the original addition. It took a bit for the whiskey to come down, but it was very well received at a band practice night in March.

Brewed: 01-03-2009 (Whiskey soaked oak chips added 01-10-2009)
Racked: 01-17-2009
Kegged: 01-22-2009

OG=1.063@68F
FG=1.014@67F

ABV=6.419%

Brew #97: Double Chocolate Stout w/Raspberry

My award winning Double Chocolate Stout w/Raspberry (named Midnight Chocolate Bar Stout) is down to less than a gallon left and here is the replacement. It should be ready for entry to the Bluebonnet, and I'll take the remainder and charge it on the beergas to serve at the contest's Club night.

Recipe (5 gals):

3/4 lb. Chocolate Wheat
1/8 lb. Roasted Barley
1/4 lb. Crystal 40L
1/8 lb. Black Patent
2 1/2 lb. Maris Otter Pale Malt
1/2 lb. Maltodextrin
5 lb. Liquid Dark Extract

1 oz. Galena (bittering hops for full 60 minute boil)

3.5 oz. Lindt 70% cacao chocolate bar (added in last 5 minutes of boil).

4 oz. Raspberry extract (added at kegging)

When doing primary fermentation, the oils in the chocolate will get bubbled by the krausen and make a "butter" on the top. When you go to rack, take a sanitized slotted spoon and try to scoop out this "butter" as best you can. You will likely get some at the top of your secondary, but you will try to leave it behind by the time you get it into the keg. Those oils could kill the head retention. Add 4 oz. raspberry extract at kegging for the raspberry version or 400 ml Amaretto for my Marzipan Stout.

Brewed: 12-17-2008
Racked: 01-03-2009
Kegged: 01-27-2008

OG=1.055@69F
FG=1.020@66F (I bet the chocolate is throwing this measurement off)

ABV=4.585%

Time to get caught up.

My last post stated my shock at not having brewed for almost 6 months. The nice thing about the rate of my brews previous to that are that I am only now drinking down those brews. I had room for some root beer again and room for the partial keg of Black Star Coop's Moontower that I sponsored. Imperial Stout - very nice!!

Now it's time to catch up my blog to the last four brews.