Brewer’s Blog

I don’t intend to update this weekly with our hops, probably once or twice a month. But I did want to try to capture the relative vigor of Cascade hops compared to the other varitals we have in the ground. Compare the shots below with the first Hopwatch post and you notice (pruning back aside) that the Cascades seem to grow at a much more rapid pace than the other three, with Fuggles pulling into second likely do to a bush shading the centennial early in the morning. The cascades have grown about 4-6 inches in the last 5 days.

Cascade:

Centennial:

Fuggles:

 Goldings:

While I still don’t consider us veteran or expert homebrewer’s, the wife and I have made some fantastic beers over the last year and a half. We’ve gotten our pale ale’s and IPA’s down to a science (so much so that I think I avoid brewing them because we have a tendency to finish those batches entirely to fast). We brewed more belgians than our livers could handle, we’ve gone dark as RIS and light as a Koelsch. The facilities to lager still eludes us, but one day I’m sure we’ll get that down also.

For now I have found a new inspiration for our brewing: Blending

The compulsion to start blending was inspired by one of the best tasting brews I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying, Firestone-Walker Eleven (Anniversary Ale). This beer is a fantastic blend of Imperial Brown Ale, Imperial Amber, Imperial Stout and Oatmeal Stout. All of the individual ales were brewed and aged in a variety of oak barrels before blending. There is such an incredible depth to this beer, the flavors seem to be endless and swim around in your mouth from sweet decadent chocolate, to espresso, to more earth tobacco and leather flavors. There is a subtle creaminess to the beer that further enhances the caramel and fruity undertones.

So, our first attempt at blending is based loosely on the ideal above, though dramtically simplified. We started with the Imperial Brown Ale recipe already posted on this blog. On it’s own this turned out the be around a 7.5% brown ale with a pretty terrific taste. Once fermentation was complete we transferred the beer to a secondary fermentor and added french oak chips that had been soaked for weeks in a mason jar full of bourbon. We let this sit for a week before tasting. There was a suprisingly pungeant vanilla flavor that was not present before (french oak is higher in vanilla than american).

At this point we added two bottles of Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout to the main beer. We tasted the next day and found the beer almost suffocatingly vanilla and far more creamy than expected. I started to doubt that this would work out as planned. However, after another short two weeks we took another tasting yesterday, and much to my suprise the beer has balanced out very nicely. The creaminess is still there, but far more sublte. The vanilla has subsided substantially and has been balanced by more straight forward oak flavors. We drew enough to take a hydrometer reading (finished out at 1.015) which I shared with the wife. We normally don’t like to waste beer, so we try to drink samples, but this time it wasn’t even a question. The 65 degree uncarbonated sample tasted absolutely fantastic just how it was. So we kegged it.

I will update in a week or so once this has had time to chill and carbonate with final tasting notes. This may not sound like much, but we wanted to start small blending only two beers, given the additional complexity of oaking. So far nothing has deterred me from continuing to experiment with blending. Next step is the blend three ales, and hopefully all of them will be homebrewed this time around.

Cheers!

Our second year hops are coming in, and at quite a stepped up pace compared to last year. We’re very hopeful for a great harvest this year. Here are some early pics:
Cascade:

Centennial:

Fuggles:

Goldings:

I’ll try to update the pictures regularly because its pretty crazy how fast these grow. The cascades have grown about 2 inches to what you see there just in the past couple days, and they are not even close to the most vigorous growth stage yet!

Been a while since I added anything here, plus as we get better at brewing we’re getting worse about taking notes but I’ll try to get a few new recipes on here.

 In the meantime we documented our brewday yesterday and made a little slideshow about how easy it is to brew beer from scratch. I hope you enjoy!

 http://blogs.hundredmonkey.net/brewingiseasyslideshow.html

Cheers!

Brewed for my B-day but would eventually be served with pumpkin pie at Turkey Dinner 2007:

5 Gallons

OG: 1.054

FG: 1.010

ABV 5.8%

**Dough-in as usual then add 2 large cans of pumkin puree (unspiced).

Grain:

7 Lb Two-Row

1.2 Lb Victory Malt

.75 Lb Crystal 20L

.5 Carapils

.25 Caramunich

2 Pounds Pumpkin Puree

.5 Lb Brown Sugar added with 10 minutes left in boil.

Hops:

1 oz Northern Brewer @ 60

.5 oz Liberty @ 20

.75 Fuggles @ 5

Spices:

1/4 Tsp All-Spice

1/4 Tsp Nutmeg

1/8 Tsp Cinnamon

All Spices added @ 10

This beer is fantastic! Don’t listen to people that say you only need the spices, the pumpkin really does make a difference. This drinks and smells exactly like pumpkin pie with alcohol. I could hover over this and inhale all day long. The light cinnamon is also key, as most spiced beers are too heavily dominated by cinnamon. Adding the cinnamon stick at serving bumps it up a notch. Might add more carapils next time, as head retention appears to be an issue.

First attempt at a super High Gravity brew utilizing the yeast cake from a previous IPA which was pitched on Ale Yeast donated from Rubicon Brewpub in Sacramento.

Target OG: 1.114 (Actual OG 1.102)

FG: 1.032

9% ABV, we were shooting for 11%

5 Gallons

Grain:

16 LB Maris Otter

6 Lb Two-Row

.5 Lb Victory

.5 Lb Crystal 120L

.5 Lb Aromatic

.5 LB Caramunich

Hops:
1.75 oz Amarillo @ 60

.5 Cascade @ 20

.5 Amarillo @ 2

As of 11/16, this beer is drinking fairly decent. Might dry hop next time. A slightly lower FG would have been nice, as the beer has a slightly more viscous nature than I would like. Seems the yeast may have either petered out after getting our IPA to such a low FG, or simply struggled with the high ABV. Overall, not to bad considering we typically don’t like beers that are so malt-forward, but the hop bitterness and flavor keeps it fairly balanced. This sat for almost two months in secondary and has a slight sourness to it, but you have to really be paying attention to sense it.

Recipe Name: Indiana Jones and the Pale of Ale

10 Gallons - 60 Minute Boil

Grain:

18 Lbs Maris Otter

4 Lb Munich Malt

1 Lb Crystal 60L

.5 Lb Carapils

Hops:
1.2 oz Magnum @ 60

1.5 oz Simcoe @ 15

1.5 oz Simcoe @ Flameout

Half of batch dry hopped with 1 oz Simcoe, Half with 1 oz Amarillo

Yeast: Donated Rubicon Brewpub Ale Yeast

Target OG: 1.061 (Actual OG: 1.054)

FG: 1.00656!! Lowest FG ever!

6.25% ABV

Blew through this in a hurry. Just an awesome tasting beer. All hops, not overly dry despite insanely low FG.

 So far we have 4 taps on our kegerator, eventually we’ll add two more. Added bonus, making your own soda with carbonated water is awesome! 

Recipe Name: Belgian Waffles

Mash @ 154

10 Lb Belgian Pils

4 Lb Marris Otter

2 Lb German Pils

2 Lb Munich

.75 Carapils

1 Lb Clear Candy Sugar @ 10

8.43 ounces of real maple syrup added to secondary.

…

1.25 Tettnanger @ 60

.25 Summit @ 60

.5 Hallertau @ 2

.25 Summit @ 2

Target OG: 1.1oo

Actual OG: 1.081 ><

Secondary Transfer SG: 1.020 7/13/07 - Added Syrup which adds .003 to the SG

FG: 1.018 - 8.5% ABV

WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast