Beers

Brew Days, Recipes, Planning

Beer 8 – Black Rye IPA

November 15, 2014 in Beer Topics, Beers by Brian Thompson | 1 comment

  • Beer Name: Burnin’ Spades RIPA
  • Style:  Black, Rye, IPA
  • Alcohol: 7.1%
  • Color: unknown

My first venture into all grain brewing has literally blown up in front of me.  So who know how it tastes, but here is what happened.   After coming home from vacation I saw liquid coming from the fermentation chamber.  When I opened the doors about 6 bottle or so had exploded at the bottom.  So I took everything out and cleaned things up, exactly what you want to do after a long travel day.  Just as I was putting the beers back in the fridge, the bottom of a six pack broke open and the bottles dropped maybe a foot.  Well all 6 of those bottles exploded.  Sounded like a bomb went off.  I was lucky no glass hit my face, but my legs and feet were not so lucky and had blood streaming down.  Now I had another mess to clean up.  So while I was cleaning that up 2 more bottles exploded just sitting on the sidewalk.  Awesome, I have bottle bombs.  Not wanting to loose everything. I place the remaining beer bottles in a cooler and inside my fridge.  That night I heads several more explode…sounded like a gun shot.  Hoping to save the beers, I planned to pop the tops on the remaining bottles and then re-cap them.  I put on my bomb squad gear (an old paintball face mask, a thick long sleeve, and some gloves) and reached into the cooler to take the tops off.  The first one gushed everywhere, same with the second, third and so on.  After a bit there was so much foam I was just feeling through the cooler to find unopened bottles.  Well needless to say this was a total loss.  I did try about half a glass full just to see what it was like and it was sweet almost like the raw wort.

So here is what I think happened.  During my last batch of beer my fridge died, so I didn’t really have good fermentation control while this beer was fermenting.  We had really hot days and warm nights.  I think the yeast shutdown due to the high temperatures.  I should have noticed that my final gravity reading was high and done something, but just moved right into bottling.  After I bottled I also replaced the AC unit with a min-fridge coils and was able to set the temp.  I think when I did this the yeast woke up again and started chomping on all the unprocessed sugars, thus creating my bottle bombs.

On the fun side, I got some 3/4″ stickers to make cap labels for my beers.  I got lucky and made labels for my previous beers as I had to move my bottles all around while cleaning.  Making a label is now part of my beer making process.

Total Loss
Bottle Bomb Casualty
First explosions
Exploded 6-pack
Bomb Squad
Welcome home
What I saved
Before the explosions
Labels
Recipe Notes
yeast output actual

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My Brew Notes

Recipe Info

 Recipe Notes

Execution Notes

Tried making a 2L starter in a 2L flask.  Resulted in a boil over.  Separated into two flask for the boil then recombined when they cooled.  Ended up with 1.6L of the 2L.

First time making all grain batch.  MLT filter was too small and got a stuck sparge.  I knew what my number were supposed to be, but wasn’t prepared to be able to measure if I was hitting them or not (ie. depth to volume conversions). Messed around switching in a different filter which caused the temps to go wild.  Through all the hops directly in which wasn’t so bad.  What was bad way the bag I had to catch the gunk at the output end of the hose when transferring to the primary got clogged up and ended up not using it which passed a lot of material in the fermenter.  When transferring to bottling bucket the the filter around the tube also was causing problems so a lot of material ended up in bottles.  Need to do this better next time

Schedule

  • Brew day: 6/13/2014
  • Cold Crash Start: N/A (Broken fermentation chamber)
  • Secondary Fermentation: 7/2/2014
  • Dry Hopping: 7/29/2014
  • Cold Crash 2: N/A
  • Gelatin: N/A
  • Bottling Prep: 8/4/2014
  • Bottling: 8/5/2014

Recommendations for next time

  • Get the filtering down much better
  • Make sure the fermentation chamber is working
  • Know numbers better and know how to take measurements

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Beer 7 – Belgian Witbier

September 2, 2014 in Beer Topics, Beers by Brian Thompson | No comments

Beer Name: Whenever Wit

Style:  Belgian Witbier

Alcohol: 4.31%

Color: 15

Recipe Source:  Midwest Belgian Witbier

This came out to be a pretty nice beer.  I didn’t do anything fancy (no secondary, no fining agents) and was pretty happy with the result.  I added a bit of fresh orange peel to give it a bit more zest though I’m not sure how much it added over the dried peel that came with the kit.  It has a nice hazy color and is well carbonated (if not too much).  If I were to do this again I’d reduce the coriander a bit as it is a bit strong for my tastes, but not so much that it ruins the beer.

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My Brew Notes

Ingredients

  • 6 lbs wheat LME
  • 8 oz Carapils (30 min steep)
  • 1 oz Liberty hops (60 min)
  • 1 oz bitter orange peel (10 min)
  • 1 oz coriander (10 min)
  • 1oz sweet orange peel (10 min) added by me
  • 1 oz Hallertau (2 min)
  • Yeast: White Labs WLP400

Execution Notes

I didn’t do anything fancy for this beer and left it in the primary untouched the whole fermenting time (and a bit longer).

I did a bit more research of Witbiers and came across this post which suggests fresh orange peel.  So I added a bit of my own to the kit.

For what it's worth, Here's a quote from July/Aug 2007 BYO mag, Style profile (Witbier) by Jamil Zainasheff:

"The best way to add citrus character is with fresh citrus. The Petrified bits of orange peel often used may be authentic, but fres zest has a much brighter character. Select tangerines or oranges with a nice bold, fresh, aroma...Use a citrus zester to peel the very surface of the skin and avoid digging deep into the white pith as it is bitter and lacks citrus character. Measure the zest by weight, targeting about 1 to 2 ounces in a 5 gallon batch."

His recipe is in that article, as well. (calls for 1.5 oz of zest and .4 oz of crushed coriander.)

So I didn’t do the yeast start calculations correctly and subtracted 5 months instead of 4. This resulted with an over pitch but given that I hit my OG and FG right on everything worked out just fine.

Also, I didn’t clean out my tubing right away on brew day.   Some of the hoses look stained now.  I’m not sure if they would have been if I’d cleaned everything right away, but I think they are still usable.

Finally, my fermentation could get down to cold crashing temperatures.  At one time it was iced over so I had to let the thaw out.  This was the first time it has ever iced up and after that either something broke in the A/C unit or just I’ve never tried to cold crash when it was this warm.  Either way my fermentation chamber could only get down to ~55 degF and that was with it running almost none stop.  I really hope it didn’t break.

Schedule

  • Brew day: 3/15/2014
  • Cold Crash Start: 4/22/2014
    • Broken fermentation chamber
  • Secondary Fermentation: N/A
  • Dry Hopping: N/A
  • Cold Crash 2: N/A
  • Gelatin (32): N/A
  • Bottling Prep: 4/27/2014
    • No early prep
  • Bottling: 4/27/2014

Alcohol

  • Target Starting Gravity: 1.042
  • Starting Gravity:  1.042
  • Target Final Gravity: 1.010
  • Final Gravity: 1.009
  • Alcohol %: 4.31

Color: 15

Recommendations for next time

Use less coriander.  This beer is a bit too spicy for my tastes. Still good, but I’d tone it down a bit as suggested in the same Witbier article mentioned above

For what it's worth, Here's a quote from July/Aug 2007 BYO mag, Style profile (Witbier) by Jamil Zainasheff:

As for the coriander, he says, "I gently crush the coriander with the back of a heavy spoon to expose the inside of the seeds, which gives it a fairly strong, spicy character versus whole seeds. The level of coriander is probably the area most brewers overshoot, resulting in a really peppery beer. The desired result is a gentle background spicing not an overwhelming one. If you have fairly fresh coriander, start with .4 oz per 5 gallon batch during the last 5min of boil."

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Magnum hops in a Kolsch?

August 25, 2014 in Beer Topics, Beers, Forum by Brian Thompson | No comments

homebrewtalk.com forum

I’m copying the (Black Widow Kolsch recipe, but have made some adjustments for my efficiencies and losses which puts my hops Hallertauer hops to 1.25oz (60min boil). Since the hops come in 1oz bags I’m thinking about just using 1oz of Hallertauer and then using 0.25oz of Magnum which is leftover from my last batch. Seems to look like the profile is about where I want it (brewtoad recipe), but I’m wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the taste/smell impact as I’ll know is what I’ve read from freshhops

Magnum hops in a Kolsch?

Beer 6 – Falconer’s Success I2PA

May 21, 2014 in Beer Topics, Beers by Brian Thompson | No comments

Beer Name:  Falconer’s Success I2PA

Style:  Imperial IPA (Rouge XS Imperial IPA clone)

Alcohol: 7.78%

Color: 18

Recipe Source:  Austin Home Brew Supply, Extract

Well this is the first beer I’ve made that I’d say that I’m impressed with and say that it is a success.    My beers prior to this were okay, but not impressive and I always thought they were not just quite right.   This beer is clear, well carbonated, the hops aromas are amazing, and the taste is excellent.  It is the second beer since I made the fermentation chamber  and I’ve gotten better at the process in general, but either way I’ve happy with the outcome.  In fact I was so pleased with my beer that I had a stupid childish grin on my face that Lisa couldn’t help to notice when I had the first bottle.  At any rate this beer is my first true success!!!

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Yeast Plan
Yeast Inputs

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My Brew Notes

Ingredients

I used the extract kit provided in the link above and added 1oz falconer’s flight hops added with the other dry hops.

Execution Notes

This was the first time ever and used my new flask.  I used 6.5oz DME to 1.8mL of water for the first step up.  I had a hard time pouring DME into flask and should pour water into measuring cup then back into flask.  I also had a major boil over and lost about 0.100mL.  For the second step up I used fermcap-S and have zero boil over!!  Water took longer to get to boiling since there was so much water stretching the time out more than it should in the future.

This batch went pretty well on brew day.  I didn’t do any of the pre-brew day tasks except for buy the ice and water and managed to do the rest while I was brewing without any delays between steps.  After about 10 mins into the boil I had to run to the restroom and somehow managed to have a boil over in that time.  I was concerned that I might have lost a lot of wort since I wasn’t there to witness the boil over, but after a few questions to the home brew forums I think I was able to determine what happened which caused me to miss my ABV by 0.66%.

The fermentation took off quite vigorously and foamed out of the bucket on the second day.    I noticed I had an issue when I saw a fruit fly buzz across the webcam.  I was afraid that when I opened the fermentation chamber that there were going to be flys and larva everywhere, but fortunately there was just the one fly.  This was a pretty sticky mess to clean up, but wasn’t too bad to wipe out of the chamber.  I cleaned out the airlock and let to do its thing

I used a secondary (cold crash prior to transfer) and gave it my first try at dry hopping.  I finished things off with gelatin and a cold crash prior to bottling.  I also tried something new this time when transferring to the bottleing bucket.  I placed the siphon in a fine nylon filter which I think helped keep out some of the muck.  I don’t know how affective this was, but it is simple to do and will add this to my normal routine.

Yeast: White Labs California Ale V WLP051

Schedule

  • Brew day: 1/4/2014
    • Boilover
    • Vigous fermentation mess
  • Cold Crash Start: 1/13/2014
  • Secondary Fermentation: 1/23/2014
  • Dry Hopping: 2/25/2014
  • Cold Crash 2: 3/3/2014
  • Gelatin (32): 3/4/2014
  • Bottling Prep: 3/7/2014
  • Bottling: 3/8/2014
    • nylon filter around siphon

Alcohol

  • Target Starting Gravity: 1.80
  • Starting Gravity:  1.077
  • Target Final Gravity: 1.020
  • Final Gravity: 1.022
  • Alcohol %: 7.78

Color: 18

Recommendations for next time

Watch the boil over.  I lost about 0.15G affecting the OG.

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Beer 5 – Honey Bacon Smoked Porter

January 19, 2014 in Beer Topics, Beers by Brian Thompson | No comments

Final Beer Name:  Where’s the Bacon???

Style:  Smoked Bacon Honey Porter

Alcohol: 6.49%

Color: 35

This is my first beer since making my fermentation chamber and using my improved process with a drill pump and paint mixer.  Besides enjoying the beer I’ve had a lot of fun using my new toys and working on making better better.

The first sip was on new year’s eve which is a few days early for the 3 weeks in the bottle.  The beer wasn’t very carbonated so I waited a few more weeks to 1/18/2014 see if it just needs more time or perhaps the bacon fat killed off my bubbles.  Also, there appeared to be no bacon flavor which is kind of disappointing.  I was really worried that it would be bacon-y so I’m much happier to err on this side of the line, but wish there was still a hint of bacon.  I’m wondering if the flavors might come out a bit better after more time in the bottles.

Well the final taste test still doesn’t have much/any bacon flavors or aromas, but that’s okay.  The beer has a really smokey flavor with a nice smooth mouth feel.     The beer seems very clear, which I’m not too surprised as there was almost no trub in the carboy after transferring to the bottling bucket.  There isn’t too much carbonation, but enough to say it isn’t flat.  I’m wondering if the bacon has impacted that, I’ve read the bacon fat can kill the bubbles.

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Yeast Plan
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[Show as slideshow]

 

My Brew Notes

Ingredients

This recipe is a specialty brewing kit plus a few of my add ons.  The kit is from Midwest Brewing Supply and is a Honey porter extract brewing kit which includes (I forgot to take notes on the specifics:

  • some specialty grains, maybe?
  • Some extract
  • Honey (30 mins)
  • 1oz Kent Goldings hops (60min)
  • 1oz Cascade hops (2 mins)
  • priming sugar

then to get some smoke flavor I added

And for the bacon flavors I dry-hogged” as mentioned on BYO.com which suggests 5oz of bacon added like a normal dry hop schedule.  To get there I started with

  • 1lb of uncooked bacon

Execution Notes

Schedule

  • Brew day (0) – 11/9/2013
    • No boil over which is good.
    • Fermenting didn’t start for about 36 hours.  Worried that yeast didn’t take, but I did see bubbles before pitching it so it should have been fine.  Will look to yeast starter going forward as recommended by boydster in other post
    • Bubbles for quit after about 1.5 weeks.  I was going to do a test but broke my hydrometer.  I’ll probably update. my process to do hydro tests with the hydrometer attached to fishing line so that I don’t waste beer.
    • No or really slow bubbles on day 11.
    • waited a couple of days since I couldn’t do a hydro check for the moment.
  • Cold Crash Start (13) – 11/22/2013
    • Since the fermenting took longer than expected I delayed the cold crash a couple of days.  Should look into taking measurements.
    • It took about 1 day for the chamber to reach the cold crash temp.  I changed the cold crash temp to ~40 so that the A/C wouldn’t turn on every 3 hours.  Probably get it closer to 36 for the next crash
  • Secondary Fermentation (16) – 11/25/2013
    • The auto-siphon had a gap at the siphon to tubing.  I’m pretty sure I exposed the beer to a lot of oxygen.  Need to get some clamps before the next transfer.
    • I left the chamber off for ~ 1 day for the beer to more naturally rise back to room temp.  Near room temp I turned on the chamber which the heat pad did a bit of work for the last few degrees.
    • Chamber set for 19.5 +/- 2.0.
  • Dry “Hogging” (27) – 12/6/2013
    • In reading about how to do the bacon it was clear that I needed to remove as much fat as possible so that the beer doesn’t stay flat.  I’m not sure why, but apparently the fat will cause the beer to not hold the carbonation or something.  So to do this I started with my 1lb of bacon and trimmed off as much fat as I could with a knife.  Then I cooked the bacon in the oven on a rack that would allow for the grease to drip out.  A few times while is was cooking and while flipping the bacon I used a paper towel to absorb the standing grease on the bacon.  When it was all cooked my 1lb of bacon was about 3.5oz which was short of the 5oz I was targeting.  With the bacon cooked I simply open up the carboy and dropped them in.
  • Cold Crash 2 (31) – 12/10/2013
  • Gelatin (32) – 12/11/2013
  • Bottling Prep (35) – 12/14/2013
  • Bottling (36) – 12/15/2013
    • Very little trub in the carboy and I don’t think I sucked it up into the bottling bucket.  I’m not sure if this is due to the gelatin (which I don’t really see at the bottom as much as I thought I would) or from doing the first cold crash.
    • Bottled 22 220z bombers, and 11.5 12oz bottles for a total of 588.5oz (22*21+11.5*11).
    • Set the fridge to 20+/- 2 for carbonating
    • Took about 3 hours to bottle and clean up.  Need to track times for other steps to better understand how long it takes to do things.

Alcohol

  • Target Starting Gravity: 1.06
  • Starting Gravity:  1.059
  • Final Gravity: 1.011
  • Alcohol %: 6.49

Color: 35

Recommendations for next time

  1. Look into using more bacon and/or stripping the bacon flavors out using vodka before brewing the beer
  2. Might use a little less smoke, Weyermann grains, by ~1/4lb to allow more of the honey flavor to show.

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