Strong Scotch Ale - Empirical Series 2013

"Nothing, at first view, may seem more unbounded than the thought of man, which not only escapes all human power and authority, but is not even restrained within the limits of nature and reality."

 

Once again, I am late getting this year's Empirical Series brewed. February, which is when I always plan to have these beers brewed, seemed to speed pass in the blink of an eye. And March almost got away from me too! Luckily, I managed to find the time the other day to get this brew done, the fifth version of this annual tradition.

This year I decided to try a Strong Scotch Ale (aka Wee Heavy) for the first time. For this strong, malty beer I decided to take the more "historical" route with the recipe. Instead of loading it up with crystal malts, I took the first gallon of first runnings and boiled it down to almost three cups. This process took about an hour in a wide shallow pot and resulted in a thick, super sweet syrup. It was really cool to watch the changes take place - especially at the end when, all of a sudden, the reduction began to foam up (as seen in the photo above). Once I saw this, I was nervous about burning the syrup, so I only let it go another couple of minutes before I pulled it off the burner. I then added this reduced wort to the main boil at about the 30 minute mark. Hopping is low for a beer of this gravity, though I targeted the higher side since I want to make sure the hops are still around after some extended aging.  I also added a pound of oats to the mash to give this beer additional body and mouthfeel. To add to the complexity, a week earlier I toasted the oats in a 350°F oven for about 30 minutes (I used some organic quick oats we had in the pantry and it worked just fine - I just kept an eye on them and stirred them up every so often).

As I have done with all the past Empirical brews, I added some non-malt sugar to help increase the gravity. This time, I used honey, thinking the delicate honey aromas and flavors would add some additional depth and richness. I really wanted to use some heather varietal honey for this, but I couldn't find any locally and thought all the online sources to be too expensive, so I went with a local wildflower honey instead. I successfully fought off the urge to add some smoked malt to the grist as I was afraid it might take over the flavor of the beer.

I'll let this one ferment for a few weeks before racking to a glass carboy for some extended aging. The plan is to bottle in a few months and then stash those bottles away until the cold weather starts to settle back in again in November.

Mons Aureus (aka David) - Empirical Series 2013
brewed on 3/29/13

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 4.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.00 gal (includes reduction of 1 gallon of first runnings)
Estimated Color: 14.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
OG: 1.080 SG
FG: 1.018
ABV: 8.2%

Grist
9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 79.1 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (toasted) - 8.8 %
1 lbs Honey - 8.8 %
3.0 oz Roasted Barley (432.0 SRM) - 1.6 %
3.0 oz Acidulated Malt - 1.6 % (for proper mash pH)

Hops
18 g Challenger [8.20 %] - 60.0 min
10 g Challenger [8.20 %] - 15.0 min

Yeast
Edinburgh Ale (White Labs #WLP028)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 153°F, Batch Sparge

2013 Altbier

Not sure where February went. And now March is almost half over too. Luckily, I managed to find some time today to brew up this year's Altbier...a bit later than I wanted to, but better late than never.

Last year's Altbier was really quite nice...easily my best one yet. However, I felt like it needed a few things. First, it didn't have the head I thought it should have, so this time I added a protein rest to perhaps help with that. Second, I replaced the pale ale malt with more Pilsner malt, and added some Caramunich after reading some info by Kai Troester about the use of crystal malt in this style. Lastly, and this is the place I debated about the most, I went with a single hop addition of Spalter hops, giving me only approximately 30 estimated IBUs. I think this is a more traditional hopping schedule, even though the IBUs fall outside the BJCP style guidelines.

Last year I opted not to lager this beer. This year, I may not have the choice as the coolest ambient temperatures may already climb into the 50s by the time this is done fermenting (I rely completely on the various ambient temperatures of my garage and cellar, which is why I try to brew this beer earlier in the winter, when I'm reasonably certain to have cool enough temperatures).

Spätfrühling
brewed on 3/11/13

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 11.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 32.4 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 74.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes
OG: 1.048
FG: TBD
ABV: TBD

Grist
4 lbs Pilsner malt - 61.0 %
2 lbs Munich Malt - 30.5 %
6.0 oz Caramunich I - 5.7 %
2.0 oz Acid Malt - 1.9 % (for mash pH)
1.0 oz Chocolate Wheat - 1.0 %

Hops
28 g Spalter [5.00 %] - 60.0 min

Yeast
Dusseldorf Alt Yeast (White Labs #WLP036)

Mash Schedule
Protein Rest - 133.0 F (10 min)
Sacch. Rest - 152.0 F (40 min)
Mash out (via 10 min decoction) - 164.0 F

Water - (estimated)
Ca: 88 ppm
Mg: 1 ppm
Na: 3 ppm
Cl: 37 ppm
SO₄: 156 ppm
Alkalinity (as CaCO₃): 20 ppm (pre-treatment)

My First Lager

I've been thinking about brewing up my first lager for a while now. The issue though is that I don't have any precise temperature control, so keeping a lager fermentation cold and a lagering stage even colder has been a major hurdle. However, over the past several years I've realized that in the middle of winter my cellar, "mudroom", and garage might just work for what I need. I almost tried this last winter, but I think we had the warmest winter on record and temps were never to my liking, so I abandoned the idea. This year, however, we've had some seriously cold weather - so cold in fact, that I was starting to worry it might be TOO cold to brew a lager. But things have warmed up just enough and I think I have a window to get this thing done. So, a week after brewing a dark, bold American Stout, I found myself staying up into the wee hours of the night to brew something on the complete opposite side of the beer spectrum - a "classic" German Pils.

I went simple with the grist - just Pilsner malt and a little acidulated malt to help with the mash pH. However that was about the only part of the brew that I decided to go simple with. I ran a three-step mash - infused the first step to 131°F for a protein rest for 20 minutes, stepped the mash up to the saccharification rest of 148°F for 45 minutes and then pulled a thin decoction, boiled for 10 minutes, to get me up to mash out at 170°F. I also tried first wort hopping for the first time - hoping to get some of the smooth bittering and lingering hop flavor that some folks say you get with this technique. I'm still pretty confused about the proper technique - do the first wort hops replace some hops in the recipe? And if so, which ones? Or are they used in addition to the other hops? And how much bittering do you really get from them? In the end I used them as an addition and treated their IBU contribution like a regular 60 minute addition - bascially following Gordon Strong's advice in Brewing Better Beer.

I ended up using 100% New Zealand Pacific Hallaertau hops...not exactly a classic hop to use for a German Pils, but I had them in my freezer and wanted to use them. A lot of places suggest that they are similar to the quintessential German noble hop, Hallertau Mittelfrüh, so I am optimistic that they will work just fine. I pitched a stepped-up starter of White Lab's German Bock yeast (WLP833) and have the beer fermenting in my mudroom which has an ambient temperature between 48-50°F. We had a warm front come through today, so I am a little nervous that the temp will climb a bit...but another cold snap is forecast starting tomorrow night, so I am thinking it should be OK. I plan on letting the fermentation go for a couple weeks or so and then rack to a carboy and lager it in my garage, which is currently at an ambient temp of 38°F.

I'm excited about this, but, as my first lager, I am feeling very rookie-like. I haven't stressed like this over a beer in quite some time!

Gartenwasser Pils
brewed on 1/27/13

Recipe Specifications

Batch Size: 3.50 gal
Estimated Color: 3.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
OG: 1.053 SG
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.4%

Grist
6 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsner malt - 98 %
2.0 oz Acidulated malt - 2 % (for mash pH)

Hops
14 g NZ Pacific Hallertau [4.50 %] - First Wort
14 g NZ Pacific Hallertau [4.50 %] - 60.0 min
9 g NZ Pacific Hallertau [4.50 %] - 15.0 min
9 g NZ Pacific Hallertau [4.50 %] - 1.0 min

Yeast
German Bock Lager (White Labs #WLP833)

Mash Schedule
Protein Rest @ 131°F - 20 min
Sacch. Rest @ 148°F - 45 min
Decoction (10 minute boil) for mash-out @ 170°F

Water - estimated
Ca: 57 ppm
Mg: 11 ppm
Na: 3 ppm
Cl: 56 ppm
SO4: 94 ppm
Alkalinity: 20 ppm (as CaCO3)

Snake River Stout

I sense a pattern in my blogging and brewing - apparently the late fall and early winter are not great for me. It makes sense given this time of year is particularly busy for me - between my teaching schedule, the kids' various activities, and the holidays. Still, I always have big plans to brew up a few batches during this time, when the weather is pretty much perfect for brewing. I should learn that I just need to take a month or two off and pick things up in January when I have more time (before the rush of the Spring semester starts). Anywho...

Last week I finally got around to brewing a recipe for my version of the massively award-winning Zonker Stout from the Snake River Brewery (Jackson, WY). I was at the brewery a few times this summer while on family vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. Excellent beer and excellent food. My wife and I were particularly impressed with Zonker Stout - one of the most balanced, tasty stouts we've ever had. I asked the waitress if the brewers ever gave out recipes, but she told me, emphatically, that they did not. Oh well...worth a try, right? Still, undeterred, I emailed the brewery when I returned home from the vacation. Much to my surprise, one of the brewers, Chris Erickson, emailed me back...not just with a recipe, but with their own excel spreadsheet with EVERYTHING you could possibly want to know, but don't need at the homebrew scale. Like "Heat Exchanger Cleaning...Caustic Strength 2-3%...circulation time 1 hour". And, "Water Flow Rate (gal/min)...107.1". How spectacular is that!?!?! I even had a few questions about the recipe that I couldn't quite glean the answers from the spreadsheet and Chris was nice enough to answer them all. So much for not sharing the recipe!

I had hoped to brew this back in the September or October, but it should make a nice late winter/early spring beer. I tweaked some of the grain amounts a little to fit my scaled-down version and still hit the OG I was looking for and used Maris Otter as my base instead of American pale ale malt (not actually sure why I went with this now that I'm looking back at the recipe Chris sent).

Snake River Stout
brewed on 1/17/13

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 58.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 41.4 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
OG: 1.062 SG
FG: 1.022
ABV: 5.3%

Grist
6 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 73.8%
12.0 oz Roasted Barley - 8.5%
8.0 oz Caraamber (36L) - 5.7%
8.0 oz Dark Crystal (150L) - 5.7%
6.0 oz Chocolate Malt (475L) - 4.3%
3.0 oz Black Malt - 2.1%

Hops
15 g Centennial [9.9 %] - 60 min
6 g Tettnang [3.5 %] - 30 min
6 g Tettnang [3.5 %] - 15 min
3 g EKG [4.5 %] - 15 min
9 g EKG [4.5 %] - 1 min
6 g Tettnang [3.5 %] - 1 min

Yeast
California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 152ºF, batch sparge

Graff - is it cider or is it beer?

I've tried my hand at making hard cider the past few years, but have never really hit on anything I've absolutely loved. So, when I read about "Brandon O's Graff" over at HBT I thought it would be cool to try out. This is something of a hybrid between cider and beer - I'm looking for a cider-like drink with more body and residual sweetness. Instead of using just malt extract and steeping some crystal malts like the original recipe, I decided I would brew up a small batch of amberish beer and add it to a couple gallons of local cider.

I had some leftover grain from my last batch (minus the crystal 120 and chocolate malt I added there), so I threw that into my small 2-gallon cooler that I used to use for doing partial mash batches, batch sparged, and collected about 2 gallons of combined runnings. I added some amber DME I had lying around and threw in some crystal hops and boiled for about 30 minutes. Once it was chilled I tossed it into the carboy and dumped in 2 gallons of fresh-pressed, pasteurized but preservative-free, cider. I had an old vial of Scottish ale yeast in the fridge and decided to forgo making a starter (since I didn't plan ahead like I should have) and just threw it in there. I was nervous about the viability of the culture, but fermentation has been chugging along nicely (hopefully it works ok).

I brewed this up while home with the kids during Hurricane Sandy and it was completely a spur of the moment endeavor. I rushed through everything, only paying attention to getting my mash temp somewhere in the 150s and calculating the hops so as not to exceed 5 IBUs. I have no idea what the original gravity ended up being, though I imagine it was close to 1.050. I'm excited about the potential this has, but really have no idea how it will end up.

Hurricane Graff
brewed on 10/29/12

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.5 gal
Estimated Color: 8.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 5.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
OG: 1.050ish SG
FG: TBD
ABV: TBD

Grist - this is a complete extrapolation based on some leftover pre-mixed and crushed grain from a previous recipe
1 lb 5 oz Pale Malt - 53.0%
4.0 oz Pilsner Malt - 10.1%
2.0 oz Crystal 60 - 5.1%
2.0 oz Munich I - 5.1%
2.0 oz White Wheat Malt - 5.1%
0.3 oz Roasted Barley - 0.1%
0.3 oz Acidulated - 0.1% (for mash pH)
8.0 oz Amber Dry Extract - 20.2%

Hops
14 g Crystal[2.80 %] - 30 min

Misc
2 gallons of apple cider

Yeast
Edinburgh Scottish Ale (WLP028)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 153ishºF, batch sparge

Cranberries and Brett...again...but different

I should probably ditch this fascination I have with trying to use cranberries in a beer, but there's something about using a locally-grown, native fruit that I just can't let it go.  My first attempt at using cranberries was HIGHLY experimental and had disappointing results (though I am geared up for another tasting to see if time has helped).  Cranberries contain a lot of tannins and they seemed to add a fair amount of astringent bite to the last beer, which was too much for such a dry beer to handle.  But, I've been thinking that a richer, maltier, "sweeter" beer would work well with cranberries.  Especially if I don't overdo the cranberry addition.  So, I brewed up an English-style brown ale sort of beer that will hopefully hold up to the cranberries.

As you can see from the grist bill below, this is decidedly not a standard brown ale recipe and is not the way I would build a brown ale if I were starting from scratch.  But I wasn't starting from scratch.  You see, I had grain already milled for another version of my ongoing attempt to perfect a hoppy red ale recipe I've been playing with the past couple of years.  However, I never got around to brewing it, and I wanted to brew up this new beer so that it would be ready in time for Thanksgiving, and I didn't feel like wasting all this grain.  So, I decided I could start with the grain I had, add some more crystal malt and some chocolate malt and...voila...turn it into a "brown" ale.  Some of the grain weights are a little weird too since I had too much grain in the original red ale recipe for the lower gravity I was looking for with this beer, so I pulled out a couple of pounds of grain and just extrapolated the remaining grain weights based on percentages.

As for the yeast...I decided to go with the Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois strain I harvested from my multi-grain farmhouse style ale I brewed over the summer.  I absolutely loved the fruity character I got from that strain and I am thinking that it will complement both the malt and the cranberries.

Speaking of the cranberries....I am planning on picking up some freshly harvested fruit from one of the original cultivated cranberry bogs on Cape Cod.  This bog is now currently owned by "Annie's Crannies", but was originally farmed by Captain Henry Hall, the man credited with being the first to commercially cultivate cranberries.  I'll add the fruit to secondary once the fermentation is fully complete.  I'm not sure yet how much I will use, but am thinking on the order of 0.25 pounds per gallon.  I figure it is better to be conservative.  I may also bottle some of the base beer without the cranberries just in case the cranberry version turns out to be not so great.

So much for trying a simpler approach this time around....

[UPDATE 10/21/12 - I decided to rack the entire batch onto 1 pound of cranberries.  The cranberries were picked up fresh from Annie's Crannies, as mentioned above. I vacuum-sealed them, and then froze them, thawed them, then froze them again, before thawing them a second time before racking the beer.  I'll let the beer sit on the cranberries for 10 days or so.  Not sure if this is enough time, but I want to get it in the bottle in time to be ready for Thanksgiving.]

Henry Hall Ale
brewed on 9/26/12

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 22.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
OG: 1.046 SG
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.5%

Grist
3 lbs 10.0 oz Pale Malt - 58.9%
12.0 oz Pilsner Malt - 12.2%
6.0 oz Crystal 120 - 6.1%
6.0 oz Crystal 60 - 6.1%
6.0 oz Munich I - 6.1%
6.0 oz White Wheat Malt - 6.1%
3.0 oz Chocolate Malt - 3.0%
0.7 oz Roasted Barley - 0.7%
0.7 oz Acidulated - 0.7% (for mash pH)

Hops
9 g EKG [4.50 %] - 60 min
7 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 30 min

Misc
1 lb of fresh cranberries added to secondary

Yeast
Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois (WLP644)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 150ºF, batch sparge

Pumpkin Beer

A couple of years ago I brewed up a really nice pumpkin beer and thought it was about time to try it again.  I even planned way ahead and planted a sugar pumpkin plant in my home garden for the sole intention of using the pumpkins in a beer.  Unfortunately, the plant had some serious issues and I didn't get a single fruit from its vine (in fact, all my squash/cukes/melon plants had issues this year).  So, I went with Plan B and picked up a couple of small pumpkins at a local farm/orchard.

There are a multitude of methods out there for brewing a pumpkin beer - from using a canned puree to baking whole pumpkins in the oven with brown sugar to skipping the pumpkin altogether and just using the requisite pumpkin pie spices.  I didn't like any of those options.  I wanted to use fresh pumpkin, but didn't want to deal with the extra steps of baking it (and the mess and probable stuck sparge that goes along with it).  I did a little research and discovered that the gelatinization temperature for pumpkins falls within the normal mash temperatures.  So, I figured if there's any starch that needs to be converted, it can just happen right there in the mash (though it turns out, as far as I can tell, there's not a lot to convert).

I cut the tops of the pumpkins, scooped out the seeds and stringy pulp, and chopped them up into chunks (rind and all).  I then processed the chunks with my cuisinart with the handy-dandy grater attachement.  The resulting pumpkin "hash" was mixed right into the mash.  After an hour, full conversion was confirmed with an iodine test and I proceeded to sparge as normal with no problems.  The brew process went without a hitch.  I decided to use a combination of EKG and Challenger hops since I have found recently that I really like the beers I've made that use more than a single hop variety - there just seems to be an added dimension to these batches.  I also added a judicious amount of spices (again, using a combination to give the final beer more complexity).  Most pumpkin beer recipes I see out there tend to only add hops for bittering, letting the spices predominate the flavor and aroma, but I like the way English hops meld with the spices, so I opted to add some late hops.

For the yeast, I decided to try something different and went with WLP072 French Ale (Platinum Release)...mostly because I had it already in my fridge after picking it up on a whim earlier in the summer, but also because I figured its malt-forward characteristics would work well in a beer like this.  I pitched a 1 liter starter and fermentation took off.  I currently have it in my "mudroom" (for lack of a better term) where the ambient temp is ~64°F.  I hope to have a few bottles ready for a pumpkin-carving party in October, but I imagine it won't really hit its peak until at least Halloween.

Feathertop 2.0
brewed on 9/19/12 (and into the morning hours of 9/20/12)

Recipe Specifications 
Batch Size: 4.00 gal

Estimated Color: 11.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 69.00 %
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%

Grist
5 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 52.6 %
1 lbs Caramunich I - 10.5 %
8.0 oz Melanoidin Malt - 5.3 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt - 5.3 %
8.0 oz Wheat Malt - 5.3 %
2 lbs Pumpkin, fresh, raw, grated - 21.1 %

Hops
10 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 60.0 min
10 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 60.0 min
4 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 15.0 min
4 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 15.0 min
4 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 1.0 min
4 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 1.0 min

Spices (all added in last minute of the boil)
0.50 tsp Cinnamon, ground
0.50 tsp Nutmeg, ground
0.25 tsp Ginger, ground
0.25 tsp Allspice, ground
0.13 tsp Cloves, ground

Yeast
French Ale (White Labs #WLP072)

 Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 150°F, batch sparge