Back from the Borderlands: Two Tastes, and Two Kegs (always keep one in the fermenter)

Wow, it has been a while. A lot has gone on, and my lack of updates has been due to equal parts of a new xbox game, visiting good friends, as well as my aversion to having to write a really long post. I finally managed to get myself on it tonight, since there is only more beer coming, of which must be written. This isn't the lightest reading, so I should keep it as short as I can...

Enjoying autumn amidst canned farmhouse, friends, and nostalgia. I have only brilliant excuses for not writing

First things first: the Simo. I was pretty damn eager to get a taste of this one for a while, and finally had my wishes fulfilled last week. It conditioned for about 3 ½ days in a keg at 30psi (per recommendation—I’m new to the area of kegging). It worked out damn well, pouring slightly heady-er than I would have liked. The taste however was phenomenal. Heavy coco/hazelnut characteristics from the malt, with a fine accompanying hop bite at the end. It weighed in at about 9.5% and you can sure taste it. There is a bit of a warming feeling after the second sip (or so),that signals a high ABV, but nothing offensive.

Despite what you may think, this is a shot of me at work. 

 It’s a brilliant beer. I’ve gotten loads of compliments on it from everyone that’s tried it, but it could be heaps better with a bit of aging. So of course, I now have two 500ml, corked bottles sitting in my cellar. They will be opened for New Years. As is tradition.

Second up is the Tarakena. This was my first personally-kegged beer, and I’m decently content with the results. An odd descriptive, I know, but it really is the only way. This beer is good. The malt profile (to remind, is a Saison build) is spot on, and the hop additions are perfect. The issue is that upon first taste, the beer screams BELGIUM. The golden ale yeast was a hell of a lot more potent than I thought it would be (in retrospect, it’s a Belgian yeast. That’s like a French recipe in cooking—if it doesn’t floor you it’s not worth trying). The yeast character completely stole the show from the chamomile, ginger, and mint. There is a decent orange character in it, however, which really compliments the NZ hops. The ginger also makes a brief appearance, but otherwise, one would never know I used chamomile or mint.

Achievement Unlocked: Color perfection

I’m really tied, because I like the golden ale yeast flavor, but need it to be subtler. The ABV is moderate (about 6.4%), so I don’t want to short the amount of yeast pitched, and so I believe the solution is to change the yeast (which I’d be somewhat alright with) or to increase the mint and chamomile. Its really looking like I’ll have to do an experiment with this one, and do a split batch with both options to see what works best. It has a hell of a lot of potential, and so I would love to get this one down to near-perfection.

Now that the tastings have been covered, it’s time to move onto what’s still fermenting. I’m going to cheat a bit, however, since the first beer I’m covering is now in a keg. The Smoked Weizenbock(WB) is a troubling beast. I’m concerned because I had high hopes for this one and it has been—nearly—my Titanic. While the fermentation seemed fairly vigorous, it only dropped the gravity by a miniscule amount. Going into secondary it was only 1.042…

To make matters worse, I completely overlooked my fermentation set up. When I racked the WB into the secondary, I realized that I didn’t have a stopper for the damn thing. Amidst my panic I used some plastic wrap and a rubber band to ‘seal’ the opening—a strategy I picked up from some book I read somewhere along the line for making yeast starters. I kicked myself all day and made sure to get a proper seal as soon as I finished work the following day.

Low gravity, but promising taste. Why you gotta play me, Weizenbock?

I’m remaining optimistic however. It was only a jerry-rigged airlock for less than 24 hours, and upon tasting the into-keg-product today I didn’t get any signs of an infection. I am wary, however, about what I put into that keg. The gravity didn’t change from 1.042, so the ABV is roughly 5.4%—much lower than I wanted. I’m not entirely sure as to why it crapped out on me, but after reading Dave’s contribution, the issue may have been my general ignorance to the particular yeast. Perhaps I should have added more to the fermenter—the yeast presence is very subtle-to-nonexistent.

On the positive side, though, the malt profile is a thing of beauty. It has a dark fruit/date/sweetness to it, and a nice bitter bite that’s about half malt-based, half hop-based.

If you look closely, you can see bits of my perfectionism floating to the bottom...with my dreams

In addition, the level of smoke in the beer is spot on. I’m glad I showed some restraint in that area, because it is quite literally on the line of being too much for liberal WB interpretation. Overall, I think that as long as the lower ABV gets forgiven (and there is still no infection: fingers crossed), it could be an appreciated take on an already enjoyable style.

The other fermenter, of course, contains the pumpkin ale. I’m fairly certain that this recipe is flawless, because goddamn, I think Shiggy and I are going 3 for 3 on medals for this sonofabitch. Transferring into a secondary, the gravity was perfection: 1.012. At 5.5%, it’s a pumpkin ale that won’t put you on your ass, yet is still enjoyable. And tasty it is! My nip from the transfer was heaven. I would drink this beer uncarbonated. The dropping of the clove and cutting back on some of the spices helped immensely, especially with increasing the amount of pumpkin. Uncarbonated, the beer tastes thick, rich, subtly spiced, and frankly, bitchin. It will be going into the keg tomorrow (after bottling the remaining Tarakena).

Phew, what a lot to catch up on. Now onto the new things, as well as planned ventures! I weighed out the remaining Serebrianka hops the other week, and realized I had roughly 350g left….single hop IPA? Yes. I thought I could also sneak in some research for a future recipe and used a theoretical malt profile I had been planning. It consists of Maris Otter, Victory, and Crystal 60 (in decreasing % order). I did the same hopping technique used for the Cascadian Ancestral, but kept it around a total of 60ish IBU’s (following my only reference of 8Wired’s Tall Poppy…) I used the American ale yeast blend, and HO-LY-SHIT does that yeast work! 22L is currently still fermenting heavily—after a week and a half—with an OG of 1.066. I plan on transferring it to a secondary when it calms down a bit more, which it does seem to be slowing. I’m taking my time with this one, though, because I may have found the yeast/malt build for my Fenrir…

The only other thought that I had in regards to a Fenrir build occurred during my visit to Café Bruges today. They stock a new beer called the Svea IPA, which was damn good. What interested me most about it was the malt profile. They used everything. Barley, oats, wheat, and rye…it made me think. My idea of Fenrir is—obviously—something delicious, with some very specific flavors. But if I could get the same backing that this beer had along with the creativity of using every brewing grain possible…well that only feeds the beast more (appropriately so!).

Food for thought.

If you’re still with me, I may as well discuss the next two recipes in brief. Wheat wine. Round two. This time it will be what I want. I’d love to get this baby straight into bottles, and age it until new years. Only issue is—of course—not diluting the fucker again, as well as having it taste like a wheat wine rather than a hard, hoppy, wheat ale (I like the idea of the Hard (hugh)Heff, but I want to make reality what I imagine, not settle for calling screw ups my ‘works of art’).

The other was a recipe that slapped me across the face, and begged me to make it. Bored at work, I tossed through an ancient beers book and found a rudimentary recipe for a ‘beer’ called a Gotlandsdricka. With a name like that, it has to be made. Not to give too much away now, but it’s going to be smoky, sweet, and use juniper in some pretty awesome ways. It’s recipes like this that make brewing so much damn fun.

No real meaningful lessons learned for this entry (the WB will probably have a few once it is in a drinking state…), except for one. Refrigerators with a two-corni keg-capacity are hard to find, and even harder to transport in a small car…

Serebrianka Single Hop
Maris Otter, Victory, Crystal 60L
Serebrianka
American Ale Blend (WLP 060)

Two Beers in Two Days: Brewing up a Competition!

This will be a big one. Along with the usual updates, on beers in progress, the story of the weekend must be told as well. Two beers in Two days is a tall order, but I had help, thankfully. This week produced a Smoked Weizenbock and a classic Pumpkin ale specifically for entry into the Maryland Oktoberfest. Overall, it was a great weekend to brew, and having good, talented company made it all the better.

I may as well keep this in chrono-beer-o-logical order, and start with the beer on deck. The Simo Imperial Brown ale was transferred to a secondary fermenter last week, and is looking pretty as all hell. I got a nice cylinder full for a gravity reading and It’s going to end up being around ~9ish%. Not brilliant for an imperial, but acceptable for sure. After I tasted the sample, I will most definitely accept it. Even without carbonation it tastes beautiful. We’ll be putting it on tap at the shop this week, and goddamn, am I drooling to get a proper taste of it.

Though not quite in order of the events as they happened, I transferred the Tarakena to the secondary. It was doing the classic slow, annoying Belgian fermentation, but was still going steadily (but slowly) when I transferred it. The reason I did it ‘early’ was to make room for the other two beers, and yet still get some clarification from the re-racking. I may have performed a pointless act, though, since the fermentation wasn’t over. We’ll see. I’ll probably cheat a bit and buy some clarifier tomorrow. Hopefully that will give me a better result. I guess I’ll just need more carboys…

I'm a busy brewer. I gotta feed the addiction

I’ll definitely need to sit down and figure out a strategy for carboy rotation now that I have all three fermenters occupied. Two beers in two days…some might think its overkill, but I like to think I’m only imitating those I admire (cheers, Garage Project). My friend Grant came up to help me this weekend as well. He was a heavy influence on Sunday’s beer, believing that we should enter something German for an Oktoberfest competition. And it should be smoked (of course). I tossed around for a while and wrote up a recipe for a smoked weizenbock. When prompted to give a name to such a design, the Dane always provides: “Two Smokin’ Barrels” is fermenting vigorously, and will be entered first in the Maryland Oktoberfest.  

::obligatory grain-in-hands-shot::

Having someone help was fantastic. I may have to incorporate friends more often…. It also helps for other projects—such as this blog—if the friend is a brilliant photographer. In between lift-work steps, Grant took some fantastic brew-porn shots. Photos aside, he helped make the entire brewing process heaps easier.

We were given a pretty fantastic weekend to brew as well. Two days of gorgeous sunny skies, and a cool autumn breeze. Clearly, we had to brew it all outside. And brew outside we did. I used my normal mash technique for the weizenbock(WB), but added a decent rest on the end for the fair amount of wheat malt that was used in the recipe. I sparged out, keeping a close eye on gravity and getting about 20 litres of wort to boil at 1.064. And the color of the beer was….pure…Sex.

Seriously. All it needs is booze and carbonation and its fucking perfect

The boil was nothing out of the ordinary either. It consisted of just two additions of Tettnang over the course of a 90-minute boil. After the cooldown we transferred into the carboy, and measured in at about 3.5 gallons (14ish litres?) at 1.082 OG. The gravity is going to make it an intense brew, and most of that is due to the volume boiled off. I’m definitely marking this as an issue, since this now makes three beers in a row that were under 20 litres going into the fermenter. I am most certainly not a fan of this trend.

Though it is not the worst problem in the world, it is a consistent problem that needs to be solved. I partially attribute it to my paranoia from the wheat wine incident (where I diluted the wort too much). I’m too concerned about getting a decent gravity rather than get the volume for a decent mash efficiency. Although I was a bit wary to go with my first instinct to solve this issue, I ended up following my hunch. Thankfully, it turned out to do a pretty good job of fixing the issue.

OPERATION PUMPKIN RESCUE

I decided that for the pumpkin ale we did on Monday, I would get the volume I wanted rather than embark on the usual quest for the perfect gravity. I was a bit nervous to do so, since the pumpkin ale will also be an entry in the competition, but I believed that learning is learning, and that I wont win anything until the beer is 100% through the process.

I used my normal mash (again), but this time sparged until I reached a pre-boil volume of about 23 liters. I was a bit concerned at first test of the pre-boil gravity, since it was only at 1.042. I kept repeating my mantra for the day, however (me—‘it will boil off, the gravity will be fine’), and went about as usual. It was just a 60 minute boil, adding US Saaz (in place of the original Motueka), as well as dropping the cloves from the original recipe altogether.

The rest of the ingredients consisted of about 2.3kilos of pumpkin with some allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar. By the end of the boil, the beer smelled brilliant, and even the taste was great (albeit sweet—duh). Best of all, the beer’s original gravity finished up around 1.054, and measured up to 18 liters. While the gravity isn’t exactly what I hoped for, it will give me a good level of alcohol appropriate for the style.

Not pictured: the baked pumpkin seeds we lustfully devoured 

So clearly, the lesson for the day (or weekend, rather) was that I need to remind myself that fucking up is totally fine. Though the turn around process of brewing takes a lot longer than most hobbies, a complete failure won’t leave a hole in my pocket. And it certainly will not leave me with wasted time. With the records that I keep, I’ll be able to detect exactly what went wrong, what to fix, and will—overall—be better off from the experience. I took a leap from my comfort zone in guessing the boil-off amount, but it worked out well. I might have to use the finer calculators in Beersmith now…

brewing barefoot, however, is totally within my comfort zone.

To close it all off for this entry, the fermentations are going great. The Tarakena is up to speed again after the secondary transfer, and the pumpkin is going along nicely. Best of all, Two Smokin’ Barrels is fermenting like a rage-fueled monster. While I’m excited for all of them, I’m definitely most eager to see the results of the WB. I’ve never made anything like it before, and so far, everything is going along brilliantly.

Raise a glass for good luck to the WB and Pumpkin ale competition entries. Let’s hope a nuveau-fusion interpretation of a German classic will be accepted among the judges! And more so, lets see if this pumpkin ale recipe can go 3 for 3 in terms of winning medals!

(All photos are credited to the His Most Honorable Vikingness, Herr. J. Grant Knud-Hansen, TGT)

Two Smokin’ Barrels Weizenbock
Torrified wheat, Belgian Pilsner, Melanoiden, Caramunich, Special B, German Rauchmalt
Tettnang (4.5%)
Dusseldorf Alt (WLP036)

‘Ajack’ Pumpkin Ale
Maris Otter, Munich, Crystal 120L
US Saaz
California ale (WLP 001)
Pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, allspice

Tarakena Summer Ale, and Cascadian #1 results

Lots of things happening since the last post. I have a feeling these pieces are going to get much more involved in the near future. Next week, is looking like two beers in two days, both of which are to be entered in the Maryland Oktoberfest homebrew competition: A smoked weizenbock (affectionately called ‘Two Smokin Barrels), and a remake of the gold medal pumpkin ale. Beer crazy? Maybe. I just like learning and beer. Thankfully, brewing provides plenty of both.

So first off, I should address the result of the Cascasdian Ancestral (#1).  Though the number should be enough to signal my intentions, It bears stating that I plan on making another batch. It has perfect color, could use some clarity, but definitely needs progress on taste. As of now, it’s a toss up on what I’m thinking needs improvement, but one fault I’ve nailed down. Thanks to my excruciatingly detailed brewing notes, I know exactly where the off flavor came from.

Looks how I wanted, but full of things I didn't anticipate. A cruel mistress....

When I first tasted it, I thought I had some overly-fruity notes, as well as some diacytal. When I brought a six-er with me to a Maryland getaway with friends, I noticed that the fruity notes had disappeared. Probably just premature opening/not enough conditioning. The diacytal remained, however, which really surprised me considering the fact that I left the fermentation to go a bit longer than I thought was necessary. It’s nothing offensive, but not David Wood-worthy.

A hint of oxidation is present from my lack of bottling nozzle. I had to use nothing but the faucet on the bottling bucket to fill the bottles up. The lesson from that experience may be overkill to some, but for me, it’s nothing short of necessary. I’m getting a keg setup for the next brew. No questions asked.

Regarding the next brew, I’m quite excited about this one. As I mentioned before, I’ve been eager to recreate Coronado’s Saison by the Sea. While not really a saison, it was a super drinkable beer that had all sorts of delicious summer-appropriate flavors in it. The only ‘recipe’ I had to go on was what I recalled from the ingredient listing on the bottle I had a year ago. Reliable? Not really. Potential for individuality? Extreme.

I figured my summer beer of choice is in fact the Saison, so I chose the malt profile I used for the one I made in New Zealand. It is very simple, but gives a good body for a summer beer. The other ingredients I knew I wanted (/somewhat recalled) were chamomile, spearmint, ginger, and orange. The way to figure out how much of each to use was a bit of a task. It eventually finished with a taste test of the most unfamiliar ingredients soaked in hot and warm water for an hour and a half.

The luke-warm samples. And 8 disassembled tea bags.

The results were actually quite informative. The chamomile in hot and warm water worked well, but delivered brilliant aroma and taste in the hot water in small quantities. I figured from that I’d use it in the boil, around 15 minutes. Through another method I figured a ½ tsp per gallon was a good amount (based on the teabag size/cup). As for the spearmint, the hot water was out of the question. It produced a brutally offensive flavor that would be unbearable (or at the very least not even a remotely close) flavor for the beer. In the luke-warm water however, it gave off a hint of a mint taste, as well as a tinge of aroma. Dry-hopping was definitely the answer for the spearmint.

All of the boil additions. Minus the ginger....

As for the ginger, I completely forgot to add it in the boil. My solution is to dry hop it (shave the root then dry it, so that the beer rehydrates it), with the spearmint. Hopefully that will give it a mild ginger tinge, but nothing offensive or too powerful.

While the other ingredients were an easy choice (thanks to my memory of the Coronado label) the hops took a bit of thinking. I had a few things in mind, but it really all came together when I noticed that there was a perfectly appropriate amount of hops from New Zealand left in stock at the store to produce a nice Summer ale. Pacific Jade was my bittering, and NZ Hallertau brought up the aroma and flavor. I also tossed in a few extra PJ in the flameout for a (hopeful) extra citrus.

As for the yeast, I wanted to try something different, yet complimentary to what I was looking for in taste. I chose a Belgian Golden ale strain to accent some of the fruitier characteristics. Hopefully that’s what it will do. This is a new yeast for me, and using unknown yeasts is always an adventure…

A little sparge-porn for you hedonists.

I had also tossed around names for this brew for a while, but it really came to me after I made up my mind on the hops. The beer is something I want to have fruity, juicy, citrusy characters, as well as a hint of flowers, and a touch of earthy (balancing) bitterness. The best way I can sum it up is to say that it should taste Teal. Like the color. Seriously. Think about the color teal. If it helps, think about it in context to a tropical ocean—not in a HOT location, but one like New Zealand, where it is cool—thanks to the wind. The ocean breeze and the blue waves come up and crash against the rocks on a partly cloudy day, and its just paradise. THAT kind of teal. Cool, refreshing, quenching.

While thinking all of these things, a single spot came to mind. I made a point to take a break there every time I did my 30 mile bike circuit around Wellington city. When you ride uphill for a good while in Seatoun, you’re suddenly greeted by a narrow pass cut through a hillside. Following the road, you’re assaulted by the view of the south sea (next stop, Antarctica), and a blast of fresh sea air. Open ocean spreads out before you, and it is nothing short of perfection.

Tarakena Bay. If I can make a beer anywhere near as fulfilling as that spot, I’ll consider myself well on my way to being a reputable brewer.

End note: I felt like experimenting with the copious amounts of grains I was using. So I made a  couple of loaves of beer-grain barley bread. It. Tastes. Brilliant.

I really do not understand why more people don't get into this hobby

Tarakena Summer Ale
Beglian Two-row Pilsner, Vienna, Torrified wheat

Pacific Jade, New Zealand Hallertau
Belgian Golden Ale (WLP570)
(Chamomile, Spearmint, Ginger root, Orange peel/zest)