OK, back to brewing this weekend after a 3 week break. I almost did an extract batch this weekend just to save a little time, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the extra $20-25.This weekend will be another Two Hearted IPA clone. I’m extremely happy with how this last one turned out, even if it is a bit cloudy. It smells and tastes fantastic. I’m probably going to end up making it my go to brewing beer from here on ou, hoping to perfect it along the way.
Pictured in the photo to the right is my Mango Blonde, my Raspberry Wheat and my Imperial IPA. After working on the Mango for 4 years, I think this is my last attempt. I just don’t get any mango taste or aroma that comes through so it seems like a waste of time and energy. It was a worthy effort but it’s time to hang it up.
You may remember my brewing schedule that I set up back in January, here’s the list as it stands right now:
May
Russian Imperial Stout
Weissbier
Two Hearted Clone
June
Belgian Dark Strong
Oktoberfest
July
Pumpkin Beer
Chocolate Cherry Stout
August
Schwarzbier
Robust Porter
September
Dopplebock
Christmas Ale
Imperial IPA
October
80 Schilling
Southern English Brown
November
Belgian Dubbel
Oatmeal Stout
Two Hearted Clone
December
English Barleywine
Brown Porter
I originally was going to brew a Belgian Dark Strong this month, but the Belgian beers just aren’t doing it for me as much anymore. I find them a bit too sweet and I can’t drink more than one without wishing I had something a bit hoppier. So I’ve decided to move the Weiss beer up to May and I’m thinking about taking the BDS out all together and moving the English Barleywine up to June and finding something else to brew in December.
Also, if anyone is interesting in homebrewing and has never done it or if you just want to help, you’re always welcome to come over to the house and help out.
What is it about beer events on Saturdays that means, “Hey! It’s time to freeze your butt off!” It’s May, I shouldn’t have to worry about frostbite. But on the plus side, there was always beer to make the event tolerable. Irene and I headed out to O’Fallon Brewery on Saturday morning to begin the day with the Garage Brewing Society. When we arrive at about 11:30, things were in full swing.
Many different kinds of brewing systems. The photo in the lower right is Drew Huerter sparging his American English Barleywine.
We then celebrated the worldwide toast at Noon. This was a touching toast that not only celebrated homebrewing but to honor Beer Hunter Michael Jackson as well.
Homebrewers weren’t the only ones brewing on Saturday. Brian Owens, the head brewer at O’Fallon, was brewing up a batch of the O’Fallon Pumpkin Ale. Brian accidentally forgot the rice hulls in this batch until he had sparged about six barrels. Whoops! We then made our way to Worm’s Way to visit the St. Louis Brew’s event.
Just an update on some of my brewing from over the past few weekends.
Brewed the Two Hearted Clone last Saturday.
OG finished a little lower than I would have liked, but nothing terrible at 1.062 (was shooting for 1.065)
Lag time of about 8 hours. Also added 8 drops of FermCap to keep down on the krausen.
Dry hopped with 2oz of Centennial hops this weekend and moved into the closest for one week on the hops.
Moved the Pliny the Elder (Imperial IPA) clone from a carboy into a bright keg.
Unfortunately the pelletized hops clogged up my ball lock, so I had to just open the keg and rack it in.
Finished out at 1.014 from an OG of 1.088. I tasted it and was quite impressed. I had the girlfriend taste it and she said even at this point, it’s better than Hopslam.
Noticed a bit of fusel alcohol aroma as it warmed. Hopefully some of this will age off a bit.
Brought the Mango Blonde down to 37° last weekend.
Transfered to bright keg this weekend and added 6lbs of mango. Looking back at it though, should not have moved this into the bright tank. I think I’ll just swap dip tubes.
Also, fitting 6lbs of mango into the keg lost me about a gallon of beer. Not a big deal.
Chilled and carbonated the La Fin Du Monde clone.
Bottled 20 bottles of my Oatmeal Stout and 14 Bottles of the Southern English Brown. Dumped the rest of the Oatmeal Stout.
Had a lot of foaming with the Oatmeal Stout, I think it was due to the keg being warm.
This weekend I tackled a Raspberry Wheat beer. 47.9% Pils, 47.9% White Wheat and 4.3% Crystal 15. One additional of Willamette at 60 minutes to bring it to 18 IBUs. I’ll add 3lbs of raspberry puree after primary fermentation has ceased.
I also did overnight mash for this beer. I’m trying to avoid brewing on Sundays and thanks to the awesome Repeal of Prohibition festival I was busy Saturday afternoon. So I began my mash right before heading for dinner on Friday night, came home and brought the temperature up to 174 with my heatstick and left it overnight. I woke up early on Saturday morning and began heating my sparge water. The temp on the mash dropped to 153 overnight, so I used the heatstick to bring it back up to 170. Did my sparge and then boiled. I was hoping this would make a 6 hour brew day only 3-4 hour day, but thanks to a 90 minute boil it was closer to 4.5-5 hours. Still made for an interesting experiment.
Oh, this was also my 6th batch in 6 weeks. Whew. Talking a Belgian Wit this weekend and then taking off a few weeks from brewing. I’m sure it’ll make Irene happy.
I mentioned in Friday’s Round-Up that I was brewing a clone of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder. I thought I’d provide a picture of it fermenting because I was pretty shocked just how violent it became. I brew 5.5 gallons of beer and put it into 6.5 gallon carboys to allow room for the krausen (that brownish-yellow foam on top). But when you have bigger (as in sugar/alcohol) beers such as this one, you’ll usually need to have a blow off tube to catch any additional krausen that may come out of the fermenter.
Here are some quick specifics about my beer:
OG 1.088
IBUs: 100+ (ProMash estimated it at 284)
Lag time: About 8 Hours
This is a bit bigger than Vinnie’s beer, but I’m sure that the amount of hops added should be able to handle the extra 15 points of sugar. After the primary finishes I’ll rack to a 5 gallon carboy and dry hop with about 7 more ounces of hops. This will probably be the first beer I try my Randal on. Exciting stuff, though I guess this means I’m officially a hop head.
The item you see on the left is what’s known as a heatstick. There are two different ways to heat up a mash (the mixture of water and grain) One is by infusions of hot water. The problem with this method is let’s say your mash tun can only hold a total of 10 gallons. You have 7 gallons of mash in the tun, but to bring your temperature up 10 degrees it may require 4 gallons of water. A big mess is what you have. The other method of heating your mash is directly applying heat to it via flame or in this case a heatstick.
Basically, this is nothing more than an electric hot water heater coil, a couple of pipes, and a hell of a lot of silicone to keep the electricity away from the water. I gave this it’s maiden voyage while making a Saison last Saturday. I’m happy to say, not only did I not die, but it worked pretty damned well.
The other item is used after the beer has been finished. It’s basically the homebrewer’s version of a Randal the Enamel Animal. If you love hops, then this is your dream device. It’s basically a water filler that you fill with fresh whole hops that the beer passes by on the way to your glass. From what I’ve been told it really helps to give the beer a real final shot of fresh hop aroma that can’t be beat. If you want to see a picture of something like this in action, head over to the Maltose Falcoln’s website or if you’re interested in building one of these yourself, click here.
I mentioned this class about a month ago, but I think I’d give you a quick update. As of the time of this post, there are only 2 spots left in this class. If you’re interesting in learning the basics of homebrewing, here is a great chance to learn with a great teacher.
Dan George of the St. Louis Brews is holding a homebrewing class on March 1st from 9AM - 12:30PM at Forest Park Community College. He’s an excellent brewer and an all around nice guy. I’d also suggest that you attend some of the local homebrew club meetings. You’ll get a chance to meet other homebrewers, many of whom would be happy to help you out with your first brewing session.
Hopefully this snow isn’t putting a damper on your beer festivities this weekend. You have the Super Bowl this weekend, a fine beer drinking opportunity, as long as you’re able to wake up the next morning. Or you also have Mardi Gras, which seems to be your best bet if you’re looking for tremendous amounts of beer and maybe the occasional breast. I on the other hand will be homebrewing this weekend (Saison) where there will still be a tremendous amount of beer but a much less likely amount of breasts.
Stuff from around the web
Anheuser-Busch’s profits up 12%, but they still missed analysts marks.
If you’re a homebrewer in St. Louis, then it’s a good bet you’ve visited St. Louis Wine and Beermaking in Town and Country. Offering the freshest yeast and the biggest number of homebrewing products in St. Louis it should be the first stop on whether it’s your first brewing session or your one hundredth.
Dave from St. Louis Wine and Beermaking mentioned to me a while back that they would be updating their website and it looks like that day has come. It’s far easier to find products compared to the old website and also features technical articles and recipes now as well. Make sure to check it out.
In trying to keep up with my Year of Brewing Beer this past Sunday I went ahead and brewed a Southern English Brown. You may not be familiar with this style as there are no real commercial examples available in St. Louis (at least that I’m aware of.) Here’s a quick rundown from the BJCP:
Overall Impression: Malty-sweet, often with a rich, caramel or toffee-like character. Moderately fruity, often with notes of dark fruits such as plums and/or raisins. Very low to no hop aroma. No diacetyl.
History: English brown ales are generally split into sub-styles along geographic lines. Southern English (or “London-style”) brown ales are darker, sweeter, and lower gravity than their Northern cousins.
As you may or may not remember, I brewed this beer in early September for a party we were having in October. I’ve quickly found this is one of my new favorites, it’s lush and slightly chocolaty. Also, at 3.8%, it’s a perfect session beer. The other great thing about this beer, is because I enjoy it so much, it gives me a chance to really hone my techniques and start focusing on making sure to do all of the little things right. It gives me the ability to see what differences there are from batch to batch and where I might need to improve in the future.
This was also the second time I got a chance to use my whirlpool immersion chiller. If you’re not familiar with brewing beer, one of the most important parts after you’ve finished brewing your wort is to cool it as quickly as possible. You get benefits not only from a flavor and sanitization standpoint, but also because it saves you time. An immersion chiller is really nothing more than a coiled copper pipe that you attach to a hose or your sink. You push cool (or at this time of the year, cold) water through the pipe and in turn it cools your wort.
One of the problems with this though is that you’ll get an envelope effect going on in your pot. You’ll find that you’ll have pockets of cooled liquid and where the immersion chiller is touching the wort and pockets of hot or warm liquid where the immersion chiller isn’t in direct contact with the wort. Well, the whirlpool method that Jamil Zainasheff came up with helps to resolve that problem. By using a small pump and a small copper pipe that dips into the pot, you can take liquid from the bottom of the kettle and pump it past the immersion chiller, allowing you to cool your wort more quickly than letting it sit there alone. Here’s a picture that gives you a quick run down:
I’ve also included a video of the pump in action:
After the jump there is a run down of the day in picture form. Read the rest…
I wanted to ask you, is there any place in Saint Louis to take homebrewing classes?
As a matter of a fact there is. Dan George of the St. Louis Brews is holding a homebrewing class on March 1st from 9AM - 12:30PM at Forest Park Community College. He’s an excellent brewer and an all around nice guy. I’d also suggest that you attend some of the local homebrew club meetings. You’ll get a chance to meet other homebrewers, many of whom would be happy to help you out with your first brewing session.
OK, back to brewing this weekend after a 3 week break. I almost did an extract batch this weekend just to save a little time, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the extra $20-25.This weekend will be another Two Hearted IPA clone. I’m extremely happy with how this last one turned out, even if it is a bit cloudy. It smells and tastes fantastic. I’m probably going to end up making it my go to brewing beer from here on ou, hoping to perfect it along the way.
