Homebrew Batch #2

Sunday was spent setting up a new batch of homebrew. Hopefully #2 will be done in time for more nice weather and the delayed inaugural deck party at the house. The recipe is for a Belgian Witbier and was my first attempt at an all grain batch. The main fermentable ingredients included 5 lbs 9 oz of 6-row barley, 2 lbs 60z of unmalted flaked wheat, and 7oz of honey. I cheated a little bit and added 1 lb of dried malt extract to the boil to compensate for a lack of mash efficiency since this was my first attempt and some of the mash conditions have to be spot on for a good yield of fermentable sugars. Also included in the recipe are orange peels, corriander, and cumin. I bittered with an oz of East Kent Golding hops. Two types of yeast were used, an American ale yeast and a Belgian ale yeast to add some fruity esters.

This time around wasn't nearly as dramatic as the first attempt. My gas did run out right as I was starting the main boil, so I'm glad I had a backup. Like I thought, my efficiency was a bit low. After the boil I had about 3 gallons of ~1.060 gravity wort. After adding water to bring the total wort up to 4 gallons, gravity was at 1.045 which was the target for a 5 gallon batch. I figured I'd rather have 4 gallons of more potent beer so I left the it at that. Monday morning the bucket was already fermenting like crazy so off to a good start. At the end of the week I'll rack this into a glass carboy for a secondary fermentation to improve clarity and to add some more spices. Should be ready to drink sometime mid April.

Fermented Pear Cinnamon Cider

To anyone following the blog, I'm hopefully "back" at it for awhile. I may still be off gluten, but I have some cider homebrewing tales to tell.

While on a particular homebrewing forum, someone mentioned that Trader Joes had just released a new cider in the juice isle, and that it sounded like it could be something worth fermenting. It was called "Pear Cinnamon Cider". Often, fermented pear cider is called "Perry", and is fairly sweet with a strong taste of pears.

With that in mind, I took a 1 gallon jug of the stuff, put it into a glass fermenter, tossed some yeast in and called it a day. 4 weeks later, I took a small water/honey solution and "Backsweetened" it. Backsweetening is necessary in fermented ciders because unlike with the malt in beer, almost all of the sugars in juice are fermentable, so the resulting solution is almost always super-dry. I bottled this backsweetened concoction. and 3 days later gave it a taste.

Firstly, it has decent carbonation and a very mild aroma. It has a great color that cleared up from fermentation. My first impression of the taste was "Whoa, that is fairly tasteless". My wife mentioned that it was "Sort of like a Miller Lite of cider". I consider that to NOT be a compliment. She was right. It was light and flavorless. My bet would be that I would have to backsweeten the next batch with ACTUAL pear juice to make it more of a traditional Perry.

I give my own Perry a C+. It was drinkable, but very bland.

Meh, that's what experiments are for! Next up, my adventures with my kegerator.

-Bo

Homebrew Tasting Day

So there haven't been any posts the last couple of days because I've been skiing in Vermont and the last of my scheduled posts ran out. Bo is in cider land and Roy is a bum, so posts have been lacking. I had a couple of good beers in Vermont including a local ale and a black IPA. I didn't take any notes to do posts on them because I was tired from skiing all day and just wanted to relax with some beer and not be that guy at the bar writing notes down with each sip.

I got home after a long day of driving and what do you know? I was in the mood to relax with a nice beer. I had bottled my home brew over two weeks ago meaning that the sugar added at bottling had been fermented to provide carbonation and a bit more alcohol. I figured now would be a good time as any to try my very first batch so here we go.

Poured a hazy coppery brown that had a massive sticky head. Head was off-white and stuck around a long time. This is an unfiltered beer since I lack the equipment to do the sort of filtering that professionals do. If I do brew this again, I can use a glass carboy for a secondary fermentation to improve the clarity. The aroma had the distinct grapefruit aroma from the cascade hops. Some of the yeast was present in the aroma as well. The first sip carried with it the familiar hop flavor though it was a little more subdued than I thought it would be. Some sweet malts were present as well. Some roasted malts started into the transition the finish. Finish carries with it plenty of bitterness and was plenty dry. Overall it was quite good especially for a first attempt. I think if I were to try this recipe again, I'd increase some the malt base to increase the flavor. I'd probably do a dry hop phase as well to increase the overall hop flavor and aroma. Luckily I liked drinking this one since I have over a case of it in my basement. B-

Bottling Day

My first attempt at home brew finished fermenting the other day which meant it was time to bottle. It had been two weeks and a few days since brew day and the airlock had more or less stopped bubbling. If a beer is bottled too soon, there can be too much fermentable sugar left over which can cause the bottles to explode while fermentation continues. I spent the evening cleaning out bottles and getting ready. I had about fifty some bottles left over from all the beers I had been enjoying through the blog process which was more than enough for the five odd gallons that were brewed.

I peeled the top of of the fermenting tub and was greeted with a wave of massive hopiness. It smelled like an incredibly concentrated cloud of cascade hop gas. It made my eyes water and nearly caused to start coughing into the batch. I siphoned off a bit for the hydrometer reading and found that it had a final gravity 1.012. The original gravity was 1.052. This difference shows how much "stuff" fermented and became alcohol. This beer will be about 5.5% ABV.

I siphoned off the beer into the bottling tub and added the priming sugar. This sugar will be food for the yeast and will be fermented in the bottle to provide carbonation. I had tasted the beer when measuring the FG and it tasted like a nice and hoppy pale ale. A flat pale ale, but it tasted like beer nonetheless.

The beer left a thick nasty looking sludge in the bottom of the fermenting tub which used to be the yeast and other proteins that had settled during fermentation. This did not taste like beer and was, in fact, quite disgusting. I did manage to find the missing gasket that was pushed through during the first night, so great success!

The bottling itself was not to eventful, but now I have a cabinet of bottled homebrew that should be ready to drink in two weeks.

Home-"brewing" Hard Cider

Cider(hard) has been in the American landscape since the colonial times. It was often the primary drink in a landscape that didn't have potable water at every turn. Many people think that it is having a 2nd coming in the USA.

Me? I'm just making it because I might be gluten-intolerant.

I have all of the necessary equipment to make a 5 gallon batch:

• 6.5 gallon plastic fermetor bucket - "Ale Pale"
• Rubber stoppers with an "airlock" to stop air from coming in, but allow CO2 to go out
  
• Beer "thief" - to take small samples from fermentor
• Hydrometer - to measure alcohol content
• A beer bottle capper
• A wine corker

That's really all I need. However, I decided that I wanted to test out a few recipes before committing to a 5 gallon batch, so I bought 4 1-gallon glass jugs for experimenting. ($4.95/ea by the way).

Here are the 3 recipes I used, which I based loosely on things I've read on the internet:

Orange/Ginger Cider
- 0.5lb of dark brown sugar
- the zest of 2 navel oranges
- the juice of 2 navel oranges
- roughly 3 Tbsp of ginger, peeled and sliced thin
- Top off with Apple juice

Cinnamon/Nutmeg/Cloves Cider
- 0.5lb of dark brown sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 whole nutmeg, cracked into about 6 pieces
- 1 clove (I'm experimenting here, and people say to be cautious with cloves, they overpower whole batches)
- Top off with Apple Juice

Plain cider (yes, its this easy)
- 0.5lb dark brown sugar
- Top off with Apple juice

For all 3 of the ciders, I dissolved the brown sugar in some juice on the stove-top, heating it slightly.

For each of the "spiced" ciders, I made a little tea out of the ingredients and about 1/2 gallon of Apple Juice, and simmered it for about 20 minutes to extract the flavors. I then mixed them into their jugs, tossed in some Nottingham Ale Yeast, and topped them off with juice before sealing them up.

These ciders had original gravities between 1.060 and 1.068, which puts them to be about 7.5% ABV by the time they're done. I'll probably sweeten them up with Apple Juice concentrate after fermentation (the yeasties eat up ALL the sugar in the juice, making it a very very dry drink).

From what I hear, these babies will stop fermenting in 1-2 weeks, and I will be able to bottle. Then another week or 2 before they're tasty.

First attempt at home brewing

So it has finally come to this. No more taking the easy way out by sipping on brews where all the hard work was already done. It was time to step up to the big leagues and brew my own beer. I had received the Ale Pail brew kit for Christmas and was biding my time while the last components I need to start a batch showed up. On Friday, my 20 Qt stock pot showed up from Amazon and I knew it would be a good night to start.

For my first batch I went with a pale ale recipe from the How To Brew book with a few modifications to make it my own. For my malts, I'm using are a couple of cans of Munton's Light Malt Extract, Briess Caramel Malt, and Fawcett Pale Chocolate malt. My hops will be Northern Brewer hops for bittering, Cascade hops for bittering and finishing, and Glacier hops for finishing. Yeast is a liquid strain of American Ale yeast.

The first step of this process was to heat up some water to steep my specialty malts in. So I added one gallon of water to my 5 gallon pot, placed it on my old electric range and waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. It took the better part of an hour and the thermometer was only registering 140, I'd need to get this up to at least 150 (preferably up to 160) in order get the mash to start releasing the sugars which will be turned into sweet, nourishing alcohol by the yeast later on.

My problem here was that my range is flat and my pot was so large that it didn't sit flush with the element so there is a layer of air that made this grossly inefficient. Luckily, I remembered that my propane grill outside has a side element that would be perfect for this. So-what that it was the middle of a winter night and it was well below freezing with snow on the way? I had beer to brew damn-it! So I fired up the grill and transferred my pot. In no time flat I hit my temperature and I was ready to steep. Thank you clean, efficient, beautiful propane. Hank Hill would be proud.

I steeped for thirty minutes and had a nice looking wort going. I'm hoping that the caramel and chocolate malt will impart some nice sweetness and roasted notes to the final product. Next step was to add the main malts and start the hop boil.

This was the first time I had seen a liquid malt extract before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The best way to put it is that it makes molasses look watery by comparison. Took awhile to scoop this mess out and into the pot. Once I got it out, I brought my water level up to three gallons and cranked up the heat. Even using propane, I figured it'd take a while to bring this to a boil. About twenty minutes in I started to worry. The grill had been running on one tank all summer long and had gotten plenty of use. Lifting the tank, it didn't quite feel empty, but it was no where near full. If I ran out of gas halfway through, I'd be toast. The electric range would never heat this enough and everything I'd done to this point would be a waste. My paranoia got the best of me so I did what any sane and rational person would do in this situation. Jumped in the car in shorts and moccasins and sped off the Home Depot which was closing in 10 minutes. I left instructions with my brother-in-law AJ to start the hops if the pot started boiling before I returned.

Luckily we live close to the Depot and had green lights all the way (read: I sped like a maniac through a string of yellow lights while screaming "I NEED PROPANE!!!"). I made it with five minutes to spare, got my tank and headed home. I made it home with no problem and found the kettle boiling nicely with the first hops already added and a timer counting down to the next addition.

Hops were added at the 60, 30, and 15 minute marks. Bittering hops are added early, flavoring hops are added half way through, and finishing hops are added at the end. The reason for this is that hops contain alpha acid humulone resins and volatile oils that impart the characteristic flavor and aroma. As the hops boil, the alpha acids isomerize and impart their bitter flavor. On the other hand, the boiling breaks down the oils which takes away their aroma and flavor. For that reason you add your aroma and flavoring hops later in the boil to keep these aromas present and hopefully create a yummy beer.

Once the boil finished, I added another can of the Muntons and turned off the gas. I waited about ten minutes while the remaining heat pasteurized the malt. I now had what is called a wort, essentially young, not yet fermented beer. Next I needed to cool the wort quickly and induce the "cold break." The cold break is when the rapid change in temperature causes residual proteins to coagulate and settle to the bottom of the kettle. While not critical, this makes the beer clearer later on prevents chill haze from occurring.

AJ and I had a tub filled with ice and water and we plunged the pot right in. It took maybe twenty minutes for the temperature to drop from 220 to 80 degrees. We saw the cold break, which looks sort of gross, and pulled the pot out. I poured the contents into my fermenting tub and added water to bring the total volume to five gallons. I pitched the yeast and sealed the lid. Last thing left was to add the airlock. This allows for any CO2 to bubble out while the wort ferments while keeping air and bacteria out. CO2 is later created by adding more sugar and allowing fermentation to occur in the bottle.

While pushing the air lock into the lid gasket, I got a little too excited and managed to push the gasket straight through and into the wort! AJ and I exchanged glances like a pair of deer stuck in head lights. There was a ton of foam in the tub so hopefully the gasket would be resting peacefully on top. No such luck, we could see a spot in the foam where it had fallen straight through. We sanitized a spoon and went hunting for the missing gasket. Still no luck. We sealed the tub back up and place the air lock in the now gasket-less hole. Luckily it seemed air tight enough. Pushing the lid down caused the water to rise in the air lock meaning air wasn't escaping around the sides. The gasket itself was sterilized so it shouldn't hurt the beer.

Currently I'm playing the waiting game. The yeast should start fermentation in the next couple of hours and in about two weeks this should be ready to bottle. Hopefully this will become a delicious batch of beer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Beer Related Gifts

Plenty of excellent beer related gifts were under the Christmas Tree this year.

• 1 750mL bottle of Duvel Triple Hop Special Edition Ale
• Microbrew assortment pack containing:
• Victory Lager
  
• Troegenator Doublebock Beer
• Stone IPA
• Lagunitas Brown Sugga' Ale
• Duck-Rabbit Porter
• Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
• Starr Hill Pale Ale
• Blue Point Toasted Lager
• Ale Pail Homebrewing kit

Expect lots of yummy reviews in the days to come as well as some posts on the homebrew process as I begin (delicious) experementation. Thanks everyone!

NoVA Homebrew Club & Delirium Noël

In renewing my interest in homebrewing, I decided to look up any local homebrewing clubs to see if I could find someone who was doing an all-grain batch so that I could learn from them.

To anyone not familiar with homebrewing beer, there are a few "methods" generally used to make some delicious brew. One way is called "Extract Brewing" where people use a can of malt extract and pour it directly into the boil kettle in order to have yummy fermentable sugars for the yeast to gobble up during the fermentation process. Another way, which commercial brewers use, is called "All-grain" brewing. As the name implies, you get all your fermentable sugars by steeping a pile of cracked grains in hot water for an amount of time, before transferring that goodness to a boil kettle.

Anyways, I managed to contact the Nothern Virginia Homebrew Club and asked its members if anyone was doing an all-grain brew anytime soon, and if I could observe/help them. Turns out that one of the founders, Mitch, was doing a brew and invited me out. It was a great experience. He ended up using his new 3-tier brewing "sculpture" to brew. It ended up being a fairly long day because of a combination of his recipe requiring long periods of time and a few errors on our part :)

A tradition of homebrewing for most people is to drink a homebrew during the brewing process. Since I didn't have any homebrew, I offered up to Mitch a bottle of what is one of my favorite beers: Delirium Noël.

Delirium Noël is a seasonal beer and is only out for a few weeks close to the winter holidays, so I suggest that you go out and snag one ASAP. It is a strong belgium ale that sits at 10% ABV. My picture doesn't do it justice, but it pours an amber color with an orange glow to it. The aroma on this beer is excellent, and smells like a combination of citrus notes and holiday spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. It has a very slightly roasty flavor characteristic, but mostly the taste that comes through is the sweetness of the malt. It has a pleasant citrusy/ale aftertaste and the alcohol in this beer is sure to warm your belly on a cold winter night.

I give this beer an A+ and will certainly be grabbing another bottle or two before the end of the month. Cheers!

-Bo

Shenandoah Brewing Company - Brew Your Own

Friday I got the chance to watch my friend and his Dad make their own beer at the Shenandoah Brewing Company in Alexandria, VA. It was a pretty cool experience.

When you first arrive, you sample a few different beer styles that they have on tap, to see if you'd like to brew any of those. They also have a large variety of recipes to choose from. My friends decided to brew a clone of Fat Tire IPA.

After choosing your recipe, and weighing all your ingredients, you head over to the beautiful copper-shrouded stainless steel kettles. They have about 8 of these on hand, and there were several groups of people in the space that were brewing along side us. After steeping a pile of grains for 15 minutes, we dumped in the liquid malt extracts and the first set of hops. After a schedule of dumping hops in for an hour, the delicious beer was pumped into a large plastic fermentation container, and we pitched some yeast in there.

Hopefully in 3-4 weeks we'll have some delicious brew.

During the whole process, I got to drink on of their beers on tap. Old Rag Mountain Ale is a dark scottish-style ale. It has a slightly malty aroma, very light body, and a slightly alcohol-like aftertaste that isn't necessarily pleasant. People at the pub were mentioning how it is their best beer on tap. I would probably drink more of this, being the only dark beer in the joint, but there certainly was not anything special about it.

I'd give it a C+.

-Bo

Introduction

This blog is going to be dedicated to all things beer. Roy, Alex, and I will be submitting daily (we hope) posts on reviews of beers, events to look out for in the beer world, musings about homebrewing, etc. We hope that anyone out there who stumbles upon this blog enjoys our work, because we certainly do :)

-Bo