The summer beer from March was an interesting brew and one that I really am proud of because I made up the recipe once again, and once again it is good.  I used flaked wheat, oats, barley, and corn as steeping grains and all my fermentables came from extract.  The flaked grains came out of the steep looking like gruel and smelled like they would be good with a little salt and butter.  The resulting beer is super-hazy, highly carbonated, and light, much like a Belgian Wit.  I used the Wyeast French Saison yeast and gave it plenty of sugar for carbonation.  While bottling it, I started thinking of what to call it and the words Gruel Summer came to mind in the form of the song Cruel Summer by Bananarama.  Yep, that tells my age right there.  I laugh every time I think of it.

The IPA that I made in March is dark and hoppy.  I wanted to make a dark-colored IPA and little did I know at the time that the Cascadian Dark Ale or whatever they are calling this “new” style would be all the rage.  I haven’t followed many of the brewing podcasts or publications lately.  I mentioned that I am now the lazy and depressed brewer, right?  Anyway, the dark IPA idea worked great in theory, but the resulting beer is not all that good.  I used all extract, as it was too cold out and I was just plain lazy by not at least doing a partial mash.  I used a whole bunch of hops that I don’t remember and the Safale US-05 yeast.  The beer is darker than most IPAs and quite bitter with a good hop aroma, but overall it’s just not that good.  I’ve drunk most of them, but that’s typical and not indicative of flavor in my house.

So okay, I have boo-hooed enough for today.  I’ll try to post more… when I brew more.

The Adequate Lazy and Depressed Brewer

I have a plan for a dry stout with cherries that I am going to brew as a partial mash so I don’t have to go outside, but I just can’t seem to get a free day or two to prepare and brew it.

The Raspberry Blonde has carbonated but not yet to my satisfaction because the house has been cool for quite a while now.  I’ve sampled a few and they are quite good.  The clean malt flavor is supported by a touch of hop bitterness and raspberry flavor.  The aroma is nearly all raspberries with a touch of malt.  It’s also very light-colored and extremely clear.  Here is the recipe for any that may want it. 

Raspberry Blonde
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.010
IBU: 29
ABV: 5.5%

Malts/Fermentables
8 lb 14 oz Pilsner malt
1 lb 2 oz UK Pale Ale malt
4 oz US Caramel 40L
1 oz US Caramel 20L
12 oz Frozen Raspberries @ 0 min.

Hops
.75 oz US Amarillo (8.9% AA) @ 60 min.

Yeast
Wyeast #2565 Kolsch

Single Step Infusion Mash – 149 degrees F/ 60 min.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post about this beer that I was originally planning to do a partial mash but changed to a full mash the day of the brew.  I also didn’t have enough of any one malt to make a full mash.  So, the recipe seems a bit strange with unusual amounts of malt.  These specific amounts don’t need to be replicated.  Rounding the malt amounts or using all Pilsner or all UK Pale Ale malt will result in a very similar beer, in my opinion.  I would do it this way if I were to re-brew the recipe.

The Adequate Brewer

It’s more of a brown porter if we’re talking BJCP Styles, but with a hint of smoke character from the Weyermann Smoked Malt.  The beer is quite dark but also quite clear with a decent head on it.  I like the rich, chocolate and coffee flavor and aroma.  The smoke is there, but is subtle.  I may make this again with a little more smoked malt just to make it more pronounced.  But, like I said, the beer is good now.

So if you wish, take this recipe and brew it.  If it’s good, let me know.  If it’s bad, well then I don’t know what to tell you.

Bitter & Brown

Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.015
ABV: 4.5%
IBU: 26.2 (Rager formula)
Single Infusion Mash (153 degrees F – 60 minutes)
Fermentation Temp: 70 – 72 degrees F

Malts
6 lb UK Pale Ale Malt
2 lb German Munich Malt
1 lb German Smoked Malt
10 oz US Chocolate Malt

Hops
.75 oz Northern Brewer (8% AA) @60 minutes
.25 oz Northern Brewer (8% AA) @ 0 minutes

Yeast
Wyeast #1968 London ESB (1 qt starter)

The Adequate Brewer

I wanted to use up some of various light base malts I had around so I mixed Pilsner and US 2-Row and added just a touch of Caramel 40 for some more depth.  I used Amarillo hops at the beginning of the boil for about 25-26 IBUs and no late hops at all.  Just before I shut off the burner, I added a 12 oz bag of frozen raspberries.  It was fun to see the raspberries basically explode when they hit the boiling wort.  The smell was incredible…in a good way.  I probably should have used my screen inside my kettle as the raspberries that didn’t disintegrate, wanted to clog the spigot.  All went well though, as I guess the raspberries were soft enough that they did shoot through the spigot and hose to the fermenter.  I use a strainer to catch the hop bits before they reach the fermenter with every batch and I am glad because I didn’t want all the raspberry chunks in there either.

I used Wyeast #2565 Kolsch yeast with a quart starter and by bedtime the batch was fermenting nicely.  By morning, there was a tremendous blow-off that lasted all day.  It has settled down after a week, but still I hear the satisfying “bloop” of the air-lock now and then.

As usual, I will post the recipe if, after tasting, it is worth posting.

The Adequate Brewer

I’ve looked at this recipe for some time now, but have never gotten around to brewing it.  Since the weather is cooperating for all-grain brewing (outside), I decided to brew this one all-grain.  The recipe calls for a total of 13 pounds of grain, the most I’ve ever tried to fit in my mash tun.  At 1.25 quarts per pound of grain this completely filled my mash tun and I had no room for water additions to raise the rest temperature.  So I had better hit the recommended rest temperature of 156 degrees on the first try.  I didn’t.  I hit 153 degrees.  There was nothing I could do at that point so I just went with it.  I really don’t think 3 degrees is going to make that much of a difference in the finished beer.  But if the beer turns out horrible, that’s what I’ll blame it on…not really.

Fast-Forward two weeks and I have just added the dry hops.  I used .5 oz of Centennial and .5 oz of Cascade pellets and I gave the fermenter a gentle shake to get the hops moving around a little.  The air-lock bubbled a bit more as the hops sloshed around but has settled back down again.  All should be good to go to the bottle next weekend.

The Adequate Brewer

I know that once the weather turns cold I will want richer beers so I designed a recipe to be rich, chocolate-y, and full bodied.  I wanted an ordinary strength beer just with plenty of body and richness.  I just bottled a batch of a Belgian Dark Strong kit from Northern Brewer called The Number 8, so the super heavy beer for this winter is done.  This bitter and brown ale will fit in as more of a session beer whereas The Number 8 will be a sipper.

I used English pale malt, Munich malt, a fair amount of chocolate malt, and some German smoked malt.  I have never used German smoked malt and I think I used a small enough amount to give a nice smokey undertone, but not enough to be obnoxious.  The mash smelled like roasted coffee with chocolate, and I did detect a slight smoke aroma.  I also mashed fairly high to leave enough residual sweetness to be satisfying.  I’ll let you know when the beer is done if I got what I was looking for.  I’ll also give out the recipe if it’s worth giving.

Until then, I remain,
The Adequate Brewer

When I popped the cap on the first one a couple weeks ago, it hissed from the carbonation.  I though this was a bit soon to have that much carbonation but there’s not much I can do about it now.  The beer is a dark reddish brown and has cleared quite well despite my forgetfulness with the Irish Moss.  When I poured out the last of the bottle there was a huge slug of yeast left behind.  Apparently, that was the cloudiness that I saw during bottling.  The smell was hard to describe, but it was sweet, musty, and a bit medicinal.  There was also a hint, somewhere deep inside, of cherry.  The taste was nearly as hard to describe but was very similar to the smell.  It had a sweet caramel flavor with a fairly intense medicinal and liquorice taste.  Also, there was that hint of cherry underneath it all.  I wanted to reserve some of the harshest judgement because it was only in the bottle two weeks and it is after all, an Old Ale. 

Last weekend, a friend was in town and we decided to try one.  The difference of a week was very interesting.  All of the above described flavors and aromas were present except the medicinal tones.  The medicinal, or as my wife described, liquorice flavor was much diminished to our palates.  My wife could still detect it, however.  To me the cherry aroma was even more pronounced and reminded me of Rodenbach Grand Cru.  This is a good sign, in my book.

So, I am surprised the Brett has become apparent so quickly.  I expected it to show itself slowly as the beer aged, but I can obviously taste and smell its presence.  I just wonder how far the little bugs will go.  Hopefully, this one will age nicely.  I’ll try to keep you posted.

The Adequate Brewer

I have a solution!  I know it is probably obvious, but it took me quite some time to come up with it.  I usually grind my grains on Friday evening, so I’ll grind enough grain to do a partial mash and keep enough extract around to brew on the stove if it rains.  But if I get a good Saturday, I can just grind the rest of the grain bill on Saturday and I’ll be set to brew outside.

I know, it’s not an incredible insight, but at least now I won’t run out of home brew.

The Adequate Brewer

The main things I wish I could change about the process are location and chilling the wort.  I don’t have a covered patio so I am at the mercy of the unpredictable KY weather.  I am tempted to move to the garage but I’ve been spooked by stories of carbon monoxide poisoning even with the garage door open, so I may not try this.  Maybe I’ll get a carbon monoxide detector.  Chilling the wort is another thing that I need to reevaluate.  Right now I am using a big metal wash tub and lots of ice.  In the fall or early spring it works okay, but in the heat of summer it takes a very long time… and a lot of ice.  I plan to get an immersion chiller before the next batch but I need to get new hoses.  My garden hoses are in poor shape and the connections leak.  The last thing I need is garden hose water spraying into my kettle as it cools.

My 5 gallon cooler mash tun works remarkably well.  I have the thermometer port on the front and that works nicely.  The cooler seems to only drop a degree or two over the course of an hour rest.  The false bottom filters well and I have only needed to recirculate a couple of quarts to get most of the grain husks out of the runnings.

My Barley Crusher grain mill works like a charm giving me a consistent and good crush in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of effort.  I tried to hook my cordless drill up to the crank arm, but I couldn’t get it to work correctly, so I just crank manually.  It can be a work-out to grind 12 pounds of grain, but like I said, it’s reasonable.

So, on to the reviews of the two batches.

Batch #47
Hop Grenade
This one really didn’t get as hoppy as I wanted or as the name implies.  It’s more like a hop fly-swatter.  It is a deep reddish color and has a good hop aroma with a little bit of caramel.  The taste is hoppy and malty, but not as bitter as I had intended.  I think I just went a little conservative with the hops.  I can see myself re-brewing this one with some minor adjustments to the malt bill and certainly to the hop bill, especially the bittering hops.  This one cleared nicely, although it is not as clear as other batches.

Batch #48
Saison
This one was a lot of effort.  I had a lot of ingredients and some that I had not used effectively in the past, namely orange and grapefruit peel.  In the one other recipe I used these ingredients, the beer turned out pretty good at first, then went downhill fast.  It ended up tasting like vegetables.  Some of the problem, I believe, was canned extract, but something else went wrong as well.  I used a micro-plane to peel the fruit with the first attempt, but with batch #48, I used a carrot peeler.  The peeler worked perfectly whereas the micro-plane seemed to turn the peel into pulp.  Anyway, this Saison is one of the best beers I have made.  It is crisp, bitter, and refreshing.  The color is light gold and somewhat hazy.  The Wyeast French Saison yeast added a soft bread-y and slight banana aroma.  The orange and grapefruit peel come through as in the aroma as well as the flavor.  This is as refreshing as any ‘lawnmower beer’, but at 7% ABV one should not quaff too many after working in the yard.  I can’t see myself wanting to do much work after a couple of these.  You can get the recipe here.

#49
Old 49er
Old Ale
This one is the biggest all-grain batch to date and one of the biggest beers I’ve ever made.  I used 12 lb of grain and 3 lbs of extract as well as 10 oz of Black Treacle.  I mashed with about 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain and this was incredibly thick and difficult to stir.  I probably could have increased the water/grain ratio or I could have used more grain and water as my mash tun was not full.  I’m still finding my mash tun capacity.  This one took a very long time to cool and I finally gave up and pitched warm.  I haven’t bottled this batch yet so I’ll review flavor at a later time.

The Adequate Brewer