Andy's Blog

I finally got around to kegging an IPA I made earlier this year. Actually, I finally finished my Saison which was already in the keg. This is likely going to be my best IPA ever. It's color is AMAZING. Rich copper color and crystal clear (helps that I let it sit in secondary for 6 months). As to flavor... It's got a hint of maltiness so as not to be too dry and I nailed the hoppiness. The bittering hops (Cascades I believe) are balanced nicely against the aroma hops (Simcoe and Amarillo). It's got a BOLD hoppiness but it's not overwhelming. I'm gonna enjoy having this keg around. So much so, that I think I may need to get a fridge for it.

For the second time in as many weeks I brewed. This time it was an all-grain Bourbon Barrel Porter Basically a stronger than usual Porter with Makers Mark Bourbon, and "toasted" American oak cubes added to the secondary. Even without the addition to the secondary, this looks like it's going to be a *tasty* beer.

For the beer geek I had an OG of 1.061 and with an expected attenuation of 69-73% the ABV should be 5.6% Adding in 16oz of bourbon obviously is going to bump that up. Mmm.

I finally got around to bottling my IPA. I expected a final gravity around 1.022 and it turns out that I got 1.018! Which means my TCP/IPA is going to have an ABV of 8.1% Whoa. It tastes excellent too.

I just finished another round of IPA. Randy thinks it should be named TCP/IPA. You gotta admit it's a stinkin' good name.

Details...

14 lbs. grain, the only ones I remember that are likely to be there are 8lbs Maris Otter Pale Malt, 1lbs Rye Malt, 1lbs Caramalt (Raph at Cellar Homebrew does my recipes).

Hopping schedule:
60min. 2oz. Fuggles, and 1oz. Amarillo
30min. 1oz. Amarillo
10min 1oz. Chinook, 1oz. Amarillo

Dryhop:
1oz. Amarillo
1oz. Chinook

and I might get some Columbus too...

Yeast:
Wyeast London Ale Yeast 1028

My original gravity came in at 1.080 which means that if I get the expected attenuation of 73-77% (attenuation is calculated as [(OG-FG)/(OG-1)] x 100) then my final gravity should come in around 1.022 and my beer will have an alcohol by volume of 7.6%, (1.080 - 1.022) * 131. A VERY respectible IPA.

France isn't exactly known as a beer place but I managed to find a few interesting beers while I was there:

• Kriska (you can see that it isn't thought of too highly, but it tastes like lemondrops and is very refreshing to drink... not exactly beer though)
• Dorelei (decent amber ale)
• Affligem (I can't find the beer that matches this... It was very Lambic-like... sour, horse-blanket and while Affligem makes Belgian, I can't find a Lambic. Not sure if we got a skunk or whether the barkeep poured the wrong beer, or my taster's busted)
• Monaco (this one was confusing... a lot like a Shirley Temple, and it turns out my taster was right. It's actually a mixed drink Refreshing)
• Brugs (a very light Hefe-like beer... served with a lemon. Pretty nice, but not my favorite by any stretch)
• Leffe (a common Abbey ale... Very nice. It'd be very easy to seriously get into Leffe)

A little over a week ago I brewed a "Saison"... I don't have the grain bill (my friend in Seattle put it together for me) except that it has 1lb. of flaked rye in it.

For the boil I did this:
* 60 minutes 1oz Nothern Brewer
* 30 minutes 1os Saaz
* 5 minutes 2oz Saaz
* 5 minutes 1 tsp ground corriander
* 5 minutes 1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Then I intended to add orange zest to the boil, but instead was going to substitute orange marmalade (since I didn't have fresh oranges), but I forgot so I just added about 1/4 cup of orange marmalade to the primary.

OG: 1.076

I think I made dry hop with Saaz, but we'll see what the hoppiness is like when I rack it.

My friend was in town for a long weekend and we did two batches of beer. Herewith a tale of brewing adventure.

Our first entry was a holiday ale that was pulled (more or less) from Radical Brewing. In round one everything went quite smoothly with the exception of a slow sparge (which was only foreshadowing of adventure to come). When all was said and done we'd produced a 1.101 original gravity wort that was quite tasty. Here's what we used:

• 8lbs Crisp English pale malt


• 4lbs Belgian biscuit malt


• 1 lb Crisp English wheat malt


• 1 lb Belgian caramunich malt


• 2 os Chocolate malt


• 2lb 4oz Thai palm sugar

In the boil

• .25 oz cracked whole Allspice (0 min)


• 4 oz grated fresh ginger (0 min)


• Zest of two oranges (0 min)


• 1 oz Centennial hops (60 min)


• 1 oz Mt Hood (60 min)


• 1 oz English Fuggles/Goldings (0 min)

Yeast was Wyeast 1028 London Ale and was slightly moribund. It took almost 3 days to get going, but is going nicely now.

For our second offering we did another IPA a since I so much enjoyed my first attempt The recipe was slightly different:

• 8 lbs English pale (Maris Otter) malt


• 4 lbs US rye malt


• 1 lb German Munich malt


• 1 lb crisp caramalt 15L


• .5 lb German light crystal malt

In the boil (more or less... the story that unfolds later will explain)

• 1 oz Chinook (60 min)


• 1 oz Columbus (30 min)


• 1 oz Willamette (5 min)


• 1 oz Amarillo (5 min)


• ? oz Other (can't remember)

Original gravity of 1.083. The plan is to dryhop with 1 oz Crytal and 1 oz Amarillo.

The interesting part was that the whole process took probably close to 10 hours. To blame? The sparge and propane canister. The sparge was REALLY slow. Apparently the rye malt doesn't have husks so it makes it harder to setup a filter bed. Personally I'm betting that my circle of hose was actually a circle of harm and prevented wort from flowing. I'm pulling it out next time. Either way, we tried all manner of stirring and even started over but we never got run-off flowing faster than one can pee. After we had about 2 gallons and dinner time arrive, we were starting to feel a little bit like maybe the batch would be a bust (call it equipment failure). So we decided to just let the sparge sit and drain at it's piddly pace. We went to dinner and came back. Sure enough it drained entirely and was really clear too. So we added in another 2 gallons of hot water and waited another hour. We ended up with close to 7 gallons and began the boil. About 30 minutes into the boil we ran out of propane. It was 11PM. Cool thing is, it turns out that there were three places we could've gotten more propane from at that hour. We ran down to the local gas station and picked up a new canister and finished off the boil, chilled, aerated, and pitched the yeast. The ordeal was done, and I'm well on my way to having another IPA.

Last friday in addition to bottling my IPA I brewed an oatmeal stout. Excepting the sparge which had a small hiccup, this batch went a lot smoother. In the sparge, I couldn't get a good filter bed setup and my sparge got totally clogged. In trying to unclog it I dislodged the hose from the false bottom and all hope was lost. However, as they say, "necessity is the mother of invention." I dumped my grain back into the mash pot and worked on the false bottom I was using in my sparge container (a 5 gallon cooler with a rubber "bung" installed where the spigot used to be). Basically, I cut a rubber hose length-wise and fitted that around the perimeter of the false bottom. Then I cut another length of hose and made a circle of hosing. I placed that circle under the false bottom and hooked it all up again. Here's some lame ASCII art that is a profile of the setup...

  |            |
  |            |
  |            |
  |            |
  |            | 5 gallon cooler
  |            |
  |            |
  |            |
  |            |
  |      |-----0-------- hose through rubber
  |{----------}|<-       bung and into false bottom
  |  |   ^   | |  \
   ------------    false bottom with hose around it
     ^       ^
   circle of hose

This setup worked like a charm. I just dumped the mash in and let it sit occassionally adding hot water. Basically the hose around the false bottom made a better seal with the sides of the cooler, and the extra hose on the bottom blocked out and remaining grain that may have slipped passed the false bottom; it also gave a little extra space that allowed better wort flow.

After the initial sparge challenge, I ended up with TOO MUCH wort. I had almost 7.5 gallons in my 8gallon kettle so I started to boil over, and had to dump out half a gallon. After that, I boiled down to 5 gallons and pitched the yeast after cooling the yeast (a chiller is a FINE thing... took only 20 minutes). Fermentation got going really strong after about 12 hours, and wrapped up within 4 days. I just racked it the first time tonight.

Bittering Hops:
1 oz Willamette
1 oz Chinook

Finishing Hops:
1 oz Willamette

OG: 1.072
FG: 1.031

So, that should me ABV of 5.371. Not bad, and the initial taste test is promising.

Lots of people complain about the hard work involved in brewing and how it's just so easy to buy microbrews. I kinda like it. For now at least.

I couldn't wait any longer. I bottled my first batch of beer (an IPA) last Friday, and today I decided to have my first bottle. It was EXCELLENT. Maybe not the best IPA I've ever had, but IMHO probably top ten. It was (understandably) light on carbonation which should get better as it ages, but it was fully-bodied nicely hoppy, all around delicious. I've got to pass some along to the robots; 43 things helped me get there.