12.21.07
Brownish Red
The American Red was brewed on the 12th.
I would have written about it earlier but after my last post the door was kicked in by a few of our city’s finest and I was dragged off in the middle of the night at gunpoint. It seems that the government has a problem with feeding one’s kids booze and making them work every waking hour. Who knew? Aahhhh well, we live and learn I guess.
So no more beer as food for the kids. Too bad though they really liked it. We have to find other things for them to eat (or at least that what the nice officer said…). Harley’s still on a hunger strike but at least Dina found another food source.
Personally I didn’t even know that blue tinsel was edible.
Anyway the American Red didn’t really turn out as red as I had wanted, but it was only a first attempt. It’s more of a brown with red aspirations. It should taste fine though.
In the pursuit of a real red color, unmarred by the dull coloring of my usual base malt, I opted to use Pilsner Malt instead of 2-Row. Other than that it was a fairly straightforward recipe.
- 18 lbs German Pilsner
- 2 lbs Vienna
- .5 lbs American Crystal 60L
- .5 lbs Roasted Barley
- 1 oz Northern Brewer (pellets) 8.2AA 60 min
- 2 oz Fuggles 4 AA 20 min
- 1 oz Fuggles 4 AA 1 min
- WLP001 American Ale Yeast
I had originally planned on conducting a fairly thick mash somewhere around 152F but due to incompetence of the head brewer (read: me), who forgot to take into account that the grain had been sitting out in a cold garage, the mash only got up to the low 140s. So the HLT was fired up again and near boiling water was added which loosened up the mash considerably and only managed to bring the temp up to 146F. So in the end I had a rather wet mash with a rather low temp.
What does that mean? Basically two things will happen with a low mash temp. First it will make the wort more fermentable and bring the final gravity lower than would the same grain bill mashed 10 degrees higher. Second it will end up tasting a little drier. Obviously the second is due to the first but thought I’d explain it. Since this is my first time brewing this recipe it might be a good thing.
The yeast seemed to really like it. Lee brewed with me again and we put his half into a carboy. He had a bit of trouble and had to switch to a blow off tube. Mine stayed in the bucket but did make an unsuccessful escape attempt. I’m still getting a bubble now and again so I haven’t checked the gravity. It should finish in the next day or two. I’ll probably rack mine to a secondary for a couple of days to finish before putting this one in a keg.
Speaking of which, I have NOT started the keggerator project yet. Why? Because I haven’t so stop asking! It will get done at some point, just like at some point the kitchen will be finished. Maybe this coming week I can get a few hours to work on it.
Though not tomorrow, as Lee and I will be starting Round 1 of the California Common experiment, in which we will brew at least 4 different versions, maybe 6, hopefully finding one we like. Tomorrow Lee will be pitching one yeast into his half while I pitch a completely different one. How exciting!
12.09.07
The downside of Homebrewing
As much as I love making my own beer, there is a downside to it. Basically having all this beer laying around the house can lead to a little temptation for the kids. It would seem that Harley really likes “Berg’s Homebrew”. Can’t say as I blame him but still.
It all started when Lisa, being the great marketer that she is, decided to surprise us with new T-shirts, which have the logo on them. We got Harley into his and plopped him on the couch to show it off. In the middle of the photo shoot he suggested that it might be more of an artistic statement if he had a bottle showing the logo on the label to hold up beside the shirt. We agreed that it would be a nice shot so we gave him one.
Great shirts aren’t they! Send a check for $20 to get yours before they run out.
After a few shots we became a little uncomfortable with the way he was snuggling the bottle and calling it “My Precious” so we tried to take it away from him before Child Protective Services showed up. He didn’t want to let it go and started to throw a fit.
Lisa just couldn’t wrestle it away from him. Eventually, after a long struggle where some things were said that shouldn’t have been (I’m sure he didn’t mean to call his mother that), Harley just took the bottle, stormed out of the room and locked himself in his bedroom.
All we could hear through the door was the hiss of the carbonation as he opened the bottle with a bottle opener he had hidden in his toy chest. It’s sad but on the lighter side he did sleep in the next morning.
What I’m saying here is that Homebrewing is a wonderful hobby but make sure that if you have young, impressionable kids around the house only exposed them to something like broccoli flavored beer or there could be problems.
Anyway the next brews up are going to be a California Common and an American Red Ale. And maybe starting the keggerator project…
12.01.07
3 batches and a mead
So no new posts in a while but at least the brewery is producing.
I talked about the American Brown in the last post but since then Lee and I brewed up the Robust Porter on the 3rd and I followed it up with the Oatmeal Stout a few days later. Then having an extra fermenter laying around I whipped up 5 gallons of mead.
The Brown ended up fermenting out to 1.014. Half got bottled and Harley racked the other half into the keg.
I’ll hold off on the my assessment until I break into the bottles. While still a very young beer I’m a little disappointed with the results. It’s OK but I had higher hopes for this recipe. Some time in the bottle should help bring it together.
Lee’s Porter is going to be great. The recipe was fairly simple and the sample smelled and tasted great. Really looking forward to this beer coming of age.
- 20 lbs American 2-row
- 1 lb American Crystal 60L
- 1 lb American Chocolate
- .5 lb American Black Patent
- .5 oz Chinook 12.8AA 60 min
- 1.25 oz Centennial 9.AA 30 min
- 2 oz Santium 5.8AA 10 min
- WL005 British Ale Yeast
We split the batch and he fermented half at his place and I put mine into the fermentation closet here at the homestead, which was modified to hold 35 gallons worth of fermenters. Mine fermented out to 1.011 while I think that Lee got to 1.010 or maybe a little below. We bottled his first, not sure exactly when but mine were bottled later on the 17th.
I’m fighting the urge to open one early to “check the carbonation” and such. With only half the batch in my possession I should miser this one. It’s going to be a great beer.
The Oatmeal Stout went off on the 8th. It’s only a mild experiment since this was a simple, great tasting Stout recipe that I added some flaked oats to.
- 20 lbs American 2-row
- 3 lbs American Roasted Barley
- 3 lbs Flaked Barley
- 2 lbs Flaked Oats
- 2 oz Chinook 13.1AA 60 min
- .5 oz Chinook 12.8AA 60 min
- 1 oz Nugget 11.AA 60 min
- WLP060 American Ale Yeast Blend
This stout recipe takes 4-6 months before it really mellows and comes together so I’m not in a hurry to get this one into bottles. I also fermented this one in a new 10 gallon vessel as a primary fermentation, which seemed to work out well. On the 27th it got racked into 2 glass carboys for a secondary. It seemed to be done when I racked it. The SG was 1.012 and I don’t expect it to come down any further so I’ll probably get it into bottles sometime in the next week or so and stick it away in a closet till late spring.
One thing that was a bit of a disappointment on all three of these first batches was that I missed my target gravity by 7-10 points across the board. Not the end of the world but it does bring my brewhouse efficiency down to around 65%, which is not acceptable. The problem is most likely a combination of my return manifold creating channels and the cavitation problems I’ve had with the pump from the HLT on the last two batches. I’ll try something new on the next batch and see if I can’t bump that percentage up.
I also made two mead experiments in the last month or so.
The first involved the leftover runoff from the American Brown. After filling the boil kettle on that batch I drained the MT into a bucket and ended up with nearly 4 gallons of a nice smelling and tasting runoff with a SG of around 1.012. I boiled it down for a while, threw some hops in and then added 3 lbs of a really dark Buckwheat Honey. It ended up as 2.5 gallons of something with a OG of 1.051. I skimmed some of the yeast off of the Brown and it fermented out to a FG of 1.001. The end result was fairly nasty to smell and taste. The hops and the Honey did not combine well. I bottled it anyway and plan to check back on it in 6 months or so. It may be the first “brew” that I pour down the drain.
The second experiment was a straightforward Mead that I will add some Plums from our tree to and make into a Melomel. So far it’s still a Mead with just Honey and water with dry Lavalin D-47 yeast and nutrient. I had an OG of 1.105. As of the other day it was down to 1.046 and still chugging along. Being a Mead it will take a while and I don’t plan on racking it onto the fruit in a secondary for at least a few weeks. I’m not sure how long I will bulk age it before bottling but I expect to have one of my carboys tied up for the near future at least.
