God Save The Keg

It’s that time of year when I like to brew strong full bodied dark beers.

Fear the Dark is a 10% imperial stout. The target is a medium-full body with notes of chocolate, caramel, and coffee. However, none of that will actually go into the brew. I hope to achieve these flavors flavors via various malts in the grist:

The Grist

• Maris Otter Pale Malt – 60%
• Golden Promise Pale Malt – 19%
• Flaked Oats – 5%
• Caramel Malt 40L – 4%
• Carafa II – 3%
• Pale Chocolate – 3%
• Special B – 3%
• Caramel Malt 120L – 1.5%
• Blackprinz – 1.5%
• Roasted Barley – 1.5%

This was a rather large grain bill for my Grainfather G30 to handle. The G30 can technically handle a 20lb grain bill but I don’t recommend trying that (I have). With my G30 I prefer grain bills of 17lb or less, but this one weighed in 18.5lbs. I knew the mash was going to be a challenge so I mashed for 90 minutes (I normally mash for 60 minutes).

Hops are not the star of the show here, but you need a considerable amount of bitterness to balance this much dark malt. So into the boil went approximately 85 IBU of Columbus hops:

• Columbus at T-60 for 64 IBU
• Columbus at T-15 for 17 IBU
• Columbus at T-0 for 4 IBU (20 minute hopstand at 170ºF)

Also towards the end of the boil I added 2lbs of powdered dextrose to help drive up the ABV. I don’t like doing this but to achieve 10% ABV it’s necessary if I want a full volume batch. Next time I may reduce my batch size and skip with the dextrose. I can also double mash, but I’m not a huge fan of doing that either. We’ll see.

I prefer to bottle condition strong beers as to not have them tap where it will remain for a long time. I don’t often drink 10% beers. Here is what it looked like on bottling day:

I’ll provided an update when the bottles are ready for tasting.

It looks like we are going to have another great Blackberry harvest this year so I figured I better use up what we have from last year. So I whipped up a Blackberry Saison.

I figured the hops would just be playing a supporting role so I didn’t go crazy. I used East Kent Goldings and Saaz for a total IBU of 27-ish.

I used one packet of SafAle BE-134 and fermented at 72ºF. The yeast had been in my fridge for at least 2 years so I was concerned, but the airlock was showing activity with a few hours.

When fermentation was 80% complete I pureed three pounds of blackberry and strained it to remove the seeds. I heated the puree to 140ºF for twenty minutes. After chilling to room temperature I added the puree to the fermenter.

Fermentation was complete in only four days. I let it hang out in fermenter for another two days. Final gravity is 1.006 and the ABV is approximately 6%. I’m not sure how much fermentable sugar the blackberries added so it may be slightly stronger.

This should be a good summer beer. It will be interesting to see what my friends think of it.

Another Hop Therapy is in the books . It’s batch #11 and features two New Zealand hops Waimea and Wai-iti.

These hops came from my Hop Box subscription via Yakima Valley Hops (YVH). They lend a fruity and citrus aroma/flavor. You can find detailed descriptions at YVH:

• Wai-iti
• Waimea

I fermented this batch with one of my favorite yeasts for IPAs, Lallemand’s Verdant IPA. I find this yeast complements fruity and citrus forward hops. I try to keep a fresh culture of this yeast on hand.

The malt bill is essentially the same as previous batches, but with a little Crystal for color (since I’m using Pilsner malt this time):

• Weyermann Pilsner Malt – 80%
• Flaked Oats – 8%
• Avangard Wheat Malt – 8%
• Briess Crystal 40 – 2%

Here’s the latest iteration of my GWEN series

• Avangard Wheat Malt – 52%
• Weyermann Pilsner – 44%
• Avangard Dark Munich – 4%

The brew day was uneventful and went as planned (rare). I used a lot of rice hulls in the mash which undoubtedly helped. For my G30 I always set my strike water temp to 5F above my mash-in temperature. I mashed at 152F for 60 minutes and then mashed out at 168F for 10 minutes.

I pitched a fresh culture of the Weihenstephaner yeast I harvested into my Grainfather Concial fermenter where I fermented at 69F for 14 days. Trub dumps were performed on day 4 & 10. I cold crashed for 2 days at 39F. On kegging day I harvested yeast and performed a pressure transfer to keg.

After about 3 weeks in the keg this brew is rather tasty and does lean more towards banana than clove; which I prefer. I’m going to have to brew this again quick, it’s going fast.

I’m not going to pretend to understand all the politics related to St. Patty’s day. For me it’s an excuse to brew and drink what most would consider to be traditional Irish brews. So I present my version of an Irish Stout and Red.

Irish Stout Malt bill is pretty simple:

• 6lb – Marris Otter – Pale Ale
• 2lb – Flaked Barley
• 1lb – Roasted Barley

The only hop addition is at 60 minutes:

• 1.5oz Cluster Hops (7% alpha acid)

My brewing water goes through a softener. The only adjustment I made to the water profile was for PH:

• 4ml lactic acid in mash water
• 1ml lactic acid in sparge water

Mash profile include two steps:

• 152F for 60 minutes
• 168F for 10 minutes

Yeast used:

• Lallemand Nottingham

The Irish Red Malt bill:

• 7.5 lbs Briess Brewer’s malt
• 12 oz Briess Carapils
• 4 oz Special Roast
• 2 oz Biscuit Malt
• 2 oz Chocolate Malt

Hops:

• .75oz Willamette (5.5 % alpha acid) T-60 mins
• .75oz East Kent Goldings (4.4% alpha acid) T-30 mins
• .25oz East keng Goldings T-10 mins
• .25oz Willamette hopstand for 10 mins

I used the same yeast. However, this brew is still pretty young. I hasn’t cleared up yet but this pic will give you an idea of what it looks like.

I haven’t posted in a while. Honestly not much new to post since I’ve been continuing to iterate on brews I’ve already posted.

I’m up to Hop Therapy #9 now. Not much is going to change in this series except the two hops I choose. I’m not going to post an article for each pairing. If one of the pairings turns out fantastic I’ll post an article. Otherwise just search my brewery’s page on Untapp’d and you’ll be to find all my Hop Therapy brews and more.

I think I’ve gone as far as I can with the El Hefe series. This was my Hefeweizen series which used White Labs WLP300. Last year I started a new Hefeweizen series called GWEN which uses Weihenstephan Yeast I harvested from their Hefeweizen bottles. I’m up to GWEN #3 and I’m really happy with it. I’ll just be tweaking the water profile, yeast pitch rate, fermentation profile (time and temp), and keeping the yeast healthy going forward.

I’ve posted articles about Scotch Ales in the past but I’ve been working on a Wee Heavy series I call Karaoke Machine. This is not a beer I brew often as it’s 8% and rather tasty. That’s a dangerous combo to have on tap. I’m not going to spill the beans on the recipe just yet as I’m still refining it. My goto yeast for this brew is WLP028. I keep a fresh culture in my beer fridge at all times. I make a large starter before each brew which is critical to a good Wee Heavy. Here is what Karaoake Machine II looks like:

What’s next on the brew schedule? It currently looks like this:

• Irish Stout
• Irish Red
• Gwen #4
• West Coast DIPA
• Hop Therpay #10

That should kept me busy for the next couple months.

Oh… That reminds me. I do have a my first serious German inspired Lager in progress. It’s currently on Week 3 of lagering. Not sure when I’m going to keg that one. The idea is to lager it long enough so that it’s nearly crystal clear before transferring to keg. This one will be called “Bottoms Up”. So look for it on Untapp’d or here on my blog.

On a recent trip to Florida I picked up a large bag of Navel Oranges. I made delicious organce juice from them, but before doing so I zested each one. I saved the zest in a zip lock bag and froze them.

I decided to make a Witbier. This isn’t your typical recipe, I skipped the usual coriander so I can see just how much the orange zest contributes.

• Grist:
  • Weyermann Pale Ale Malt – 48%
  • Avangard Wheat Malt – 38%
  • Flaked Oats – 10%
  • Briess Carapils – 4%
• Hops
  • East Kent Goldings – 3.5 IBU – T-60
  • Saaz – 4.7 IBU – T-30
  • Saaz – 3.2 IBU – T-15
  • Lemondrop – 1 IBU ? – Whirlpool below 180F
• Misc
  • 260 grams of orange zest at flameout

This was for a 5 gallon batch. It turned out to be nice light, refreshing, and at 4.6% very session-able. I was hoping for more of an orange flavor and aroma. It’s there is a hint of it on the finish.

Maybe adding the zest at flameout drove off a lot of aroma/flavor I was looking for? Not sure, but I did that to kill off any bacteria/yeast. Next time I do this I’ll probably go back to soaking zest in vodka and adding the mixture during fermentation. It will be interesting to see whether that contributes more aroma/flavor.

Here’s a look at the beer (click caption for untapp’d entry)

I’ve cranked out two more in the Hop Therapy series.

Hop Therapy #5 has the same malt bill as #4 and features Citra & Simcoe. I got crazy efficiency out this batch for some reason. This one finished out at 5.9% abv.

Apparently I don’t have a photo of Hop Therapy #5… Hmm… It’s still on tap so I’ll fix that issue soon 😉

Hop Therapy #6 I dropped the golden naked oats in favor of 2 lbs of German Wheat Malt and used Apollo & Citra hops. This is my first time using Apollo. I also used Verdant IPA yeast (really liking this yeast). This batch finished closer to what I was expecting at 5.6% abv.

A few weeks ago I decided to harvest yeast from two bottles of Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier

I used the same recipe as my El Hefe XIII:

• Wheat Malt Pale (Weyermann) – 54%
• Pilsner Malt (Weyermann) – 40 %
• Carapils (Briess) – 4 %
• Melanoidin (Weyermann) – 2%

The big difference being the yeast used (Weihenstephaner harvested yeast .vs. WLP300) and the fermentation temperature.

I fermented this batch at 62ºF for 7 days and then raise the temp to 72ºF for another 7 days

The result?

This batch pretty much nails the flavor profile and body I’m looking for in a Hefe.

What’s with the name you ask? Well my friends can’t pronounce Weihenstephan correctly so we often refer to it as Gwen Stephanie… Hence…. GWEN….

Another in the Hop Therapy series. The grain bill is typical of the series:

• Briess Brewer’s 2-Row – 84%
• Flaked Oats – 8%
• Golden Naked Oats – 8%

I mashed at 149ºF for 60 minutes. Raised the mash to 168ºF for mash out.

Hops at flame out:

• 1.25 oz Galaxy 17% Alpha Acid
• 1.25 oz Mosaic 12% Alpha Acid

The hops went into a hop spider and I recirculated the wort into it for about 20 minutes.

I chilled and transferred the wort to my Fermentasaurus Snub Nose fermenter. I pitched a fresh pack of Lallemand Verdant IPA yeast.

Fermentation took off really quick. Maybe my Tilt was acting up but it showed a 20 point drop in about 24 hours. It sure looked like it was at high krausen. So I harvested a little yeast and performed the first and only dry hop:

• 1.5 oz Galaxy
• 1.5 oz Mosaic

Four days later the gravity stabilized so I moved the Snub Nose to the fridge to chill. The Snub Nose allows me to ferment under pressure so it was ready to drink after the two day chill.

So from grain to glass in about 10 days. Good thing because I really like my Hop Therapy series, especially this one: