Sourish American

I like sour beers, though they take a tremendous amount of time in most cases to do the full souring process. I'm talking like 8 - 12 months minimum. I've completed a Flanders Red which turned out very good but not quite sour enough, and a Belgian strong dark sour which is currently in process, but will likely be ready in another 4-6 months.

A couple of months ago I had a chance to grab a smack-pack of WY3202 - De Bom, a sour blend that can apparently create a good sour in 2-4 months under "optimal conditions". Turns out though that those conditions are fermenting at 75F-80F. Probably I should have brewed this thing in the summer, when things are more in the optimal range. But I figure waiting a long time for a sour is kind of normal. So we'll see what happens.

The recipe is a basically scaled version of Sourish American from The Mad Fermentationist's book, "American Sour Beers." I highly recommend the book, though at this point I cannot directly speak to the quality of the recipes. Though this recipe uses a US 2-Row instead of Pilsner malt and different hops, the biggest difference is the sour mix, since I didn't have a vial of ECY Bugfarm. I also mashed really high to give the bugs lots of complex sugars to chew on.

Sourish American
3.25 gal batch

4.25# US 2-Row
2.5# Maris Otter
12oz White Wheat
8oz Flaked Barley

.5oz Fuggles, 4.5%, 90min

Wyeast De Bom - No starter

Expected OG / FG / IBUs / ABV: 1.062 / 1.009 / 12 / 6.8%

Mash at 158F, sparge with 180F water.

After primary fermentation, add red-wine soaked oak cubes. 

Brewed on 9/13/14
Hit my mash temp well, and the gravity of the pre-boil wort was correct.

However I over-boiled and ended up with like 2.5 gallons of wort, so I topped off with some boiled water to get my volume right. I hardly left any wort in the kettle.

Pitched at around 70F, left in 68F ambient air.

9/14/14, 10pm - Solid krausen forming.

9/22/14 - Krausen has dropped but there still seem to be some bubbles occasionally emerging. Temperature is around 68F - 70F but has fluctuated a bit.

Homegrown Hops

In April, I planted four hop rhizomes in my parents' garden. I had been wanting to plant hops for a while, and since I don't have my own place with a garden my parents' place seemed logical. Here's a rough accounting of what happened.

I planted two Cascade plants, which almost certainly did not get enough sun as they did not grow very tall or fast and only produced a handful of small hop cones. However the cones did smell pretty good. Both of these plants grew up twine which was attached to screws in the side of the house.

Also I had two Centennial plants, one of which did not have enough sun as it was against the same wall as the Cascades and produced a lot of pale green-yellow leaves and only a few cones. The other one grew very well, at least in comparison to the other 3 plants. This one had much more sun and a large trellis built out of PVC pipe to support its growth. It produced a large volume of dark green leaves and about 1lb, 2oz of wet cones, though the cones were small and do not have a huge hop aroma. (Perhaps I picked them too soon.)

So lessons learned from the growing experience.

• Put the hops in a place where they have as much sun as possible. I have a plan for moving things around next year so they get better sun.
• If you plant them in containers, use a very large pot.
• Hops will grow vertically and produce many leaves if they are healthy. Make sure your trellis or twine is well-secured against the wind.
• Have some way to either lower the top of the plant down for picking, or a tall ladder so that you can reach the top. 
• Picking takes time. It took me a hour to pick the hops off of the big plant.
• Learn to pick the hops at the right time- not when the are too underdeveloped but not after they have dried out on the plant. I wish I had looked at some YouTube videos for this.

Once I picked the hops, I placed them in brown paper bags for drying. A few days later they seemed dry, though I don't really know if I am doing this right. Unfortunately they do not smell like the hops I buy from the store. They kind of smell .... grassy or stale or something. But they definitely have some bitterness in the core as I can see, taste and smell the yellowish-green lupulin when cone is cut open.

The yield from the Centennial was a total of 7oz dry hops, and about 3/8oz dry hops from the Cascade. So, the Centennial lost about 1/2 of their weight when drying.

I am pretty hesitant to brew a beer with these things. First, I have heard that first year hops do not tend to be good for beer as the plants have spent their energy developing the root system rather than the lupulin and such. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, my hops just don't smell great. If they don't smell good on their own, how could they smell good in my beer?

My expectations for the first year of growth were not high. But it was for sure a learning experience and I am positive that I can change things up a bit so that next year I get more hops and better quality hops. Picking them at the wrong time may have been the reason for the poor smell.

Brett IPA Review

This is my first IPA brewed with brettanomyces yeast, and based on the results, I will absolutely try again with this combination of yeast, hops and malt, with the only change being a slight addition of acid malt.

I brewed this beer as part of a club-only competition to brew a brett-IPA for a group barrel project. The winning recipe will be brewed by a bunch o' club members then fermented in a wine barrel. It turns out this beer is one of the winners - I'm really interested to see how it turns out when brewed in the barrel.

----------------- Original Review, written 8/27/14
Appearance: Hazy orange, most likely due to low-floccuation brett still in suspension. Fluffy white head, but it dissipate a little too quickly.

Aroma: Very fruity hops. Stronger hop aroma than many or most of my previous hoppy beers. I smell the Nelson quite a bit but it's layered with the classic Cascade & Centennial combination. I don't get much pine. I'm not sure how to identify the contribution of the brett. It's supposed to give a variety of tropical fruity aromas, which if present here blend very well with the hoppy aromas.

Taste: Like the aroma - complexity in the hopiness. Dry but fruity, bitter but not astringent, a hint of pine, maybe a barely noticeable hint of brett funk or so in the aftertaste. Hard to describe except to say that to me it tastes really good. A little fruit-juicy. No sourness detectable.

Mouthfeel: Dry, high-moderate carbonation, and kind of thin in body. Close to effervescent in mouthfeel. Refreshing, but the bitterness prevents it from going down like fruit juice.

Other: I really like it.

For Next Time: I didn't include any acid malt in this brew, but I have heard that including some can boost the brett tropical fruit esters. So, that's what I will do the next time I brew this thing, which I definitely plan to do. Also I will try to pitch a very large starter to ensure good attenuation and avoid bottle-bombs.

--------------- Comments / Consensus from club tasters, 8/28/14
There were about 18 other entries in the field, and mine and another were selected to be brewed for the barrels. I was very happy!

The consensus seemed to be that the two winners had the most "brightness" in terms of hop flavor, as well as good body and appropriateness for the barrel. Additionally neither of the two winners had no faults such as diacetyl, excessive phenols, or acid clashing with the hops. I tasted all of the entries, and I did taste in some other them those flaws, including some that just tasted... bizarre in a way that I don't know how to describe.

Robust Rye Porter Brewday

Back to a dark beer after a string of light and hoppy beers. This will be my first straight porter, as all my previous porters were brewed with smoked malt. I used the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles with a couple of modifications, since I had on hand a pound of rye malt with no immediate plans to use it, so I substituted it for some of the base malt. Secondly I had some spare Crystal 60 lying around, so I tossed it in the mash instead of C-40, and reduced the amount a bit since I figure C60 will give a sweeter note that C40. As for hops, again it was a substitution to what was in my fridge. Now onto the good stuff:

Robust Rye Porter
6# Briess 2-Row
1# Light Munich
1# Rye Malt
8oz Chocolate Malt
7oz Crystal 60
4oz Roasted Barley

Warrior,  .35oz, 15.5%AA, 60min
Willamette, .5oz, 4.7%, 10min
Willamette, .5oz, 4.7%,  5min
Willamette, .15oz, 4.7%, 0min (finishing a bag of hops)

Mash at 154F

US-05

Expected OG / FG / IBUs / ABV: 1.063, 1.016, 28, 6.1%

9/5/14 - Made a starter with recycled yeast from the latest APA

Brewed 9/6/14
Hit my mash temp well, but oversparged and collected 4.75 gallons of wort at 1.051FG. Boiled for 30 minutes before adding hops to compensate.

Everything went well - I even took the gravity at flame out, using my refractometer and volume using my measuring stick. I was over gravity and volume, with about 3.5 gallons at 1.068.

Cooled wort using fresh groundwater to 85F, then placed in basement to reach pitching temps.

Several ours later, decanted most of the starter beer (it had fermented over the past day) and pitched the yeast at 70F.

9/7/14, 2pm - active fermentation with the carboy sitting in a pale of water at 70F, 68F ambient air.

FYI, here's a picture of my cooling setup. The hot wort leaves the kettle through the stainless valve and the high-temp tubing into the march pump, the returns through a whirlpool arm attached to the wort chiller. In this picture the garden hose is supplying fresh water, which is filling the grey bin. Normally, I would use the submersible pump in the bin to re-circulate the cooling water through the chiller, but water in that bin gets really nasty after a while, so I occasionally dump it. Also, in this picture I have managed to balance the chiller just right so that it does not fall over onto the side of the pot.

Audacity Clone Attempt Review

So I attempted to clone the "Audacity of Hops" from Cambridge Brewing Co. without a complete idea of the recipe. I didn't end up with a clone by any means, and sadly, not even with a good beer. Suboptimal. 

Appearance: Chill-hazy deep-orange with fluffy white head that dissipates fairly quickly but leaves a thin layer of bubbles around the perimeter of the glass and on the surface of the beer.

Aroma: Resiny, earthy hops. Fruity background notes. To me it also as a fairly strong caramel sweetness in the nose as well as some kind of yeast-derived esters and a boozy note.

Taste: A kind of odd combination of high bitterness, yeasty spice and a bit of caramel sweetness. It's kind of muddled - like there's too much going on and it doesn't all make sense together. I think I taste the alcohol a bit as well.

Mouthfeel: Medium body, accentuated by the caramel malts. Low to moderate combination. Bitter and alcoholic aftertaste.

Overall: Yikes. A muddled mess. The combination of high hops, caramel malt, and yeast spiceness and esters just doesn't work right in this circumstance. I can drink a glass, but I wouldn't want more than one. You win some, you loose some, especially when you basically have to guess at the recipe.

Needless to say, there was a closer clone attempt from another club member. The pro brewers at CBC were very helpful with their suggestions about yeast handling, drying the beer out, and avoiding any crystal malt in this beer. They also suggested avoiding the "whirlpool hop" technique.