God Save The Keg

Here’s another entry in my Hop Therapy series.  I ran out of Pilsen malt so I had to change supplement with some Golden Promise:

• Golden Promise – 46%
• Pislen – 40%
• Flaked Oats – 7%
• Golden Naked Oats – 7%

Again no hops in the boil but plenty in the whirlpool:

• Southern Cross – 1oz
• Motueka – 1oz
• Galaxy – 1oz

I fermented this under pressure with Verdant IPA yeast and at high krausen I added:

• Cashmere – 2oz
• Galaxy – 2oz

I love the aroma and appearance of this one.    The flavor is pretty good as well.   I would like more of a hop punch, but it’s pretty good as is.   Can’t wait to start work on Hop Therapy #4 🙂

Grist:

• Pale Ale – 67%
• Flaked Oats – 13%
• Crystal 40L – 8%
• Pale Chocolate Malt – 4%
• Roasted Barley – 4%
• Chocolate Malt – 4%

After primary fermentation I added two Madagascar Vanilla beans I had soaking in a wee bit of vodka since brew day.   I let it sit another week or so before transferring to keg.

This time I decided I would try natural conditioning vs forced carbonation.   I had some Belgian Dark Candi Syrup laying around so I added about 4oz of that into the keg before transferring from the fermenter.  Conditioning took approximately two more weeks at cellar temperature.

In all it took 5 weeks for this brew to be ready to drink.   I get hints of Vanilla but it’s not over powering.  I think the Candi Syrup is adding a little bit of a vinous character.  It could use more body and I’m not fond of the dry finish.   It’s a decent beer.   I’ll definitely drink it, but I’ll be changing the recipe when I brew my next Oatmeal Stout.

I like session beers in the Summer, but when the weather turns colder I like to amp up the flavor and ABV of my brews.   To that end I have several new beers in the works:

First up is an Oatmeal Stout with Madagascar vanilla bean that’s been naturally conditioned on Belgian Dark Candi Syrup.   This one is in keg now just waiting for a tap to free up.  

I still have the taste for IPA in the fall so I made a quick one just to have on hand.  I’m just calling this one Random IPA because no real thought went into it.   I think it’s a around 6%.

Next up is a heavy hitter.   Anotther Wee Heavy, but this one is turned out to be quite heavy at 9.5%.   Not sure what I screwed up but it was supposed to only be 8%.

These beers will be going on tap soon and I’ll review them after my first proper pint.

I’m planning on brewing plenty more stouts, porters, and Scottish Ales soon for fall/winter.

This brew demonstrates the challenges of only using homegrown hops.   I knew it was a risk since I didn’t know the Alpha Acid content of my hops.    When Harvest Ale #1 was done fermenting I thought all was fine.  I checked the FG and it was within my target range of 1.010, but the beer was SUPER SWEET.   I’m guessing that my backyard Centennial hops didn’t pack anywhere near what typical Centennial hops have for Alpha Acid.   Something had to be done.

To rescue this beer I boiled 2oz of Columbus hops in a medium sauce pan for 45 mins.   I didn’t measure how much water I boiled…  Probably around 32oz…   I dumped the hops in the pan and let it boil…  

After 45 mins I cooled it to room temp and strained the liquid with coffee a filter.  

I dumped the remaining liquid in the fermenter and I’m happy to report that 2020 Harvest Ale #1 is now quite drinkable:

Well this year’s hop harvest will provide enough hops for at least two brews.

Harvest Ale #1 is already cold crashing.   This one is basically a Wet Hop’d version of Bell’s Two Hearted.   Only difference is that I hop’d in the fermenter with my Wet Cascade hops (because I had so many of them).   Bell’s Two Hearted features Centennial hops exclusively.   Hopefully I’ll be trying this beer by the end of the week.

Harvest Ale #2 is in whirlpool now.   This is an all Cascade brew.   A total of 27oz of Wet Hops went in on the hot side.   Not sure if I’m going to hop this in the fermenter or not.   Given the amount of hops on the hot side I’m not sure it will be necessary.   However, I still have a lot of hops on the bines so who knows 🙂

Might actually brew a third Harvest Ale this year….  We’ll see..

More to come.

Here’s another brew in the Hop Therapy series.

The grist is simple:  85% Pilsen Malt, 15% Golden Naked Oats.

I used my new water profile which should have resulted in 100 ppm Sulfate & 150 ppm Chloride.

I only boiled this one for 30 minutes.   No hops in the boil.   I used a 30 minute whirlpool where I added 1oz each of Citra and Galaxy.

I fermented with WLP-008 (East Coast Ale) and at high krausen I added another 1oz each of Citra and Galaxy.

End result?

 Here’s the untappd link

It’s summer and I love my low-ish ABV hoppy beers.   I tend to brew a lot of them and I’m not creative enough to name each one.   So I’ve to name them all “Hop Therapy”.   The name will only differ by batch #.   Each batch will feature different hops.   The malt bill for these beers is pretty basic:

• Some sort of pale/pislen malt at 80%
• Crystal 40L 4% (mostly for color)
• A mix of Wheat Malt & Oats making for the remaining 16%

So here is Hop Therapy #1

Featuring Cryo Mosaic, Simcoe Whole Leaf & Pellets, and Azacca

You can find it on untapp’d by clicking here

At 5% this is a great beer to have on tap.  I haven’t made many beers with Simcoe so I think it’s standing out for me.  I really like the aroma and flavor it contributes.  I’ll have to experiment more with Simcoe.

• 96% Briess Brewer’s Malt, 4% Crystal 40L
• Warrior T-60 22 IBU
• Cascade T-5 3 IBU
• Citra T-5 7 IBU
• Grapefruit zest soaked in vodka 8oz end of primary
• 1oz Cascade and Citra at end of primary
• Cold Crash one day after adding Grapefruit peel and dry hops
• Cold Crash for 3 days.
• Pressure transfer to keg

Result?  Delicious 6.2% Grapefruit IPA.

Note: the Grapefruit zest was from 4 Grapefruit and soaked in vodka in a Mason Jar for about 3 weeks (I added the zest as I ate the Grapefruit).

I love Grapefruit so the next version of GRIPA will probably include zest from 6 Grapefruits and maybe some of the flesh as well.

You  can’t can go wrong with the combination of Citra and Galaxy hops.   In the past month or so I’ve created two beers which didn’t last very long.

I made a Galaxy Pale Ale.   Malt bill consisted of: Pearl Pale (87%), Flake Oats (8.7%), and Dark Munich (4.3%).   I only used Galaxy hops: 22 IBU (T-60), 13 IBU (T-0), and 2oz in dry hop for 3 days.

This beer finished out at 6% ABV and was pretty dang good.   Here’s the untapp’d link: Galaxy Pale Ale

So after that brew I decided to pair up Galaxy with Citra.   Exercising extreme creativity I named it “Citra Galaxy Pale”.   

This time the malt bill was: Viking Pale (80%), Flaked Oats (8%), Weyerman Wheat Malt (8%), Crystal 20L (4%). 

For hops I add 11 IBU of Citra and 15 IBU of Galaxy both at T-20 and again at T-0 (Whirlpool 194ºF) for 20 minutes.   Magically the IBUs for the T-20 and whirlpool additions came out the same (according to Beersmith).   I dry hop’d on day 2 of fermentation with a 1oz of Citra & Galaxy.

Net result?   An eff’ing crushable 4.9% beer.  This one kicked in record time.   Here’s the Untapp’d link:  Citra Galaxy Pale.

BTW both beers were fermented under pressure in my Fermentasaurus Snub Nose and were ready to drink with 7 days from start of fermentation.   This will be my preferred method of fermentation my for hoppy beers going forward.

Brewed this for AHA Big Brew Day (May 2nd).  You find the details here

I substituted Cashmere for Taiheke and Citra for Wai-iti hops.   I chose Lallemand West Coast Ale for the yeast.   Otherwise the recipe is essentially the same as described the in link above.

End result?  A rather tasty 6% IPA.  There’s a firm lingering bitterness, good hop aroma and flavor.   I’d say flavor is equal parts pine & ctirus.

If anything I’d probably dial back the bitterness on this and round out the body a bit more.  

This is a very drinkable beer and won’t last long on tap in my brewery 😉