Smoked Mild Brewday

I like smoky beers. The first one I ever consumed, before I was 21 and before I knew much about beer, was the Alaskan Smoked Porter. That was more than ten years ago. What recently got me started on smoked beer was of course the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, an intensely smoky Märzen-style lager from Bamberg, Germany. That beer almost has an overwhelming smokiness that makes it hard to drink more than a pint. The smoked porters, a couple of smoked brown ales, and a few other smoky beers that I have sampled were less ham-like in taste, but nonetheless feature a prominent smokiness.

So for this recipe I am going for a beer with a prominent but not overwhelming smokiness, combined with a relatively low alcohol content. The recipe is based on one found in Smoked Beers, with a few modifications. The original recipe calls for all Weyerman malts, but the LHBS didn't have them all, so I made some substitutions. Also the smoked malt is cherry-smoked, which is supposed to have a less bacon-like and more rounded flavor.

Smoked Mild - 3.25gal
3# 4oz Munich Light
1# 6oz Cherry Smoked Malt
0# 7oz Crystal 60L
0# 4oz Black Patent

5/8oz Willamette, 4.2%AA, 60 min
3/8oz Willamette, 4.2%AA, 15 min

Safale S-04 Dry Yeast, fermented at 62F.

Mash at 152F for 60 mins

Expected OG/ FG at 70% efficiency: 1.039 / 1.011 / 3.7%ABV
Expected IBUs: 23

9/24/12
Hit my mash temps OK, with a degree or two of variation between the top of the mash and the bottom of the mash. Stirred it a little to even things out. At the end of the mash the temps looked about right.

Recirculated a few quarts and collected about 2.3 of first running, more than target. Reduced my sparge water from 2 gal to about 1.75 gal to compensate, and ended up with almost exactly 4 gallons of pre-boil wort, if the numbers on the side of my bottling bucket are correct.

Pre-boil OG was pretty high: 1.036. Zowie, that was around 83% efficiency. How did that happen? Perhaps my system is more efficient at small beer volume. It's also possible that I mismeasured the amount of grain and ended up with more than needed, but I weighed the grain on my kitchen scale and it looked correct. In any case, the actual OG for 3.25 gallons of wort will be around 1.047. Meh! Perhaps I could dilute the beer a little?

Cooled beer to 100F using the IC, then placed the covered brew kettle in a tub of 66F water to cool it down to pitching temps. I'll only need to pitch 1/2 of the dry yeast package to get the right number of yeast cells.

Transferred, aerated and pitched 1/2 of the yeast packet into a 3 gal Better Bottle about three hours later when the beer was 70F.  Placed the better in a tub of 62F water which I will cool with ice. I got almost exactly three gallons of beer and 1/4 gallon of trub left in the pot. So, it appears that my system boils off about .75 gal / hr. Awesome!

9/24/12 - 11am. The bottle was sitting in 60F water. The krausen was starting to form with slow airlock activity.  The beer appears as dark as a porter or stout but I hope by the time it gets to my glass it will be a nice brown or reddish color.

10/3/12 - Bottled today with 1.3oz sugar, aiming for about 1.85 volumes of CO2. I got 27 x 12oz bottles, or about 2.6 gallons. Less that I was hoping for but the gravity was higher than expected. The FG was 1.017.  If my measurements of volume are correct that equals 3.9% ABV.

American Brown Tasting

Wanting a cheaper American brown ale than the very tasty but relatively pricey Janet's Brown Ale, a few weeks ago I brewed the Dirty Water Brown, also from Brewing Classic Styles (though I had to substitute the hops). The results are quite pleasant, but unsurprisingly not as distinctive and enjoyable as the Janet's Brown. My first tasting was three weeks after brewing, at which point it had a "green" taste. It has however improved significantly since then. Again, more and more I have seen that most of my brews should not be consumed at less than a month old.

Appearance: Coppery brown in color with moderate chill haze despite that this bottle has been in the fridge for 5 days. Good off-white head from the initial pour, which over time fades to a light coating of bubbles on the surface of the beer and sticks to the side of the glass.

Aroma: A good whiff of Cascade hops greets the nose upon the initial pour, combined with a slightly sweet and toasty smell. Pleasant. The hoppy smell fades as I drink, with the toastiness becoming more prominent.

Taste: A really nice combination of slightly sweet / malty / toasty character combined with a fruity hoppy character and moderate bitterness in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Low carbonation, moderate body, with a slightly sweet aftertaste.

Overall: A moderately hoppy, moderately malty brown ale, well balanced between malt and hops. No alcohol bite. Not a strongly flavored beer but very pleasant. I like it a lot.

For Next Time: I don't think I would change anything with this one except for finding some way to reduce the chill haze. I did put Irish moss in the boil. Maybe I could make improvements to the wort chiller or boil more vigorously?

Flanders Red Brewday

Collecting Wort

This will be my first sour beer done with souring in the fermentation rather than through sour-mashing. Though it will take at least a year to be ready, I hope the results will be worth it since beers in this style tend to be very interesting taste wise and, if bought commercially, expensive.

I will be doing a 2-week primary fermentation in a plastic bucket. The beer will then age on oak cubes in a 3-gallon glass carboy in the basement, where the ambient temps range from 72F in the summer to I'm guessing 60F in the winter. If things get too cold down there I can always move the bottle to another area of the house since they do not tend to keep it too warm in the winter.

I am not necessarily looking for an extremely assertive vinegar taste in this beer. I have had one example of the style that tasted like apple cider vinegar, but I don't want this beer to end up that way. Brewing Classic Styles recommends an oak peg be stuck in the opening of the carboy to allow in some oxygen for the Acetobacter to chew on. This should allow just the right amount of acetic acid formation. However I don't have any oak pegs lying around, nor do I know where to get one, so perhaps I can just unseal the carboy for a minute at the 6 month mark to let in some oxygen.

Pre-boil OG.

Red In the Face
Size: 3 gallons
2# 10oz Belgian Pilsner
2# 10oz Weyerman Vienna
8oz Munich
4oz Belgian Aromatic
4oz Weyerman Wheat Malt
4oz Caramunich Malt 60L
4oz Special B Malt
-------------------
6# 12oz

0.5oz Kent Goldings, 4.5% AA, 60 mins

Wyeast 3763 Roselare Blend

0.75oz Medium Toast Oak Cubes, steamed and added to secondary


Anticipated OG / FG: 1.053 / 1.013
Anticipated IBUs: 14
  

9/17/12
Mashed at 152F with 2.11gal water for 60minutes. Mash-out water of 1 gallon at boiling to bring mash-out to 165F, held for 10minutes and collected first runnings. Sparged with 2.1 gallons at 168F, held for 10 minutes and collected second runnings.

2.15gal first runnings, on target. Second runnings were about the 2.1 gal for a total pre-boil volume of 4.25, again right on target. Yay!

Pre-boil OG was  1.041, at 4.25gal, for about 70% efficiency. If I boil it to 3.25gallons, then the beer will have an OG of 1.054, again pretty much right where I wanted it. I seem to be hitting my numbers better. That's really good news.

Started heating wort at 12:09pm. Boil began at 12:40pm. The plan is to boil 90 minutes to drive away any DMS.

Boiling before hop addition.

Added 1/2 oz East Kent Golding hops after 30 minutes of boiling. Added 1/2 tsp Irish moss for the last 15mins of the boil. 

Stopped boil at 2:10, cooled to 110F, then placed the brew pot in a bin of 68F water for the beer to fully cool to pitching temps. That was around 2:40pm. Looks like a little over 3 gallons are in the pot.

10:15pm. Aerated and transferred to a plastic bucket, which was placed in 60F water. Pitched yeast after "activating" the smack pack. It was only moderately swollen and seemed to have two inner packs, both of which were smacked. I've never used one of these things before. 

9/18/12
Signs of activity in the airlock by 10:45am. Bucket was sitting in a tub of 65F water. By later in the day the activity had picked up a little.

9/19/12
11:00am - Airlock was bubbling very actively as the fermenting bucket sat in 67F water.  Added some ice to keep the fermentation temps down.

9/21/12
10am - The airlock is still bubbling about once every 10 seconds. The fermenting bucket is now sitting in 68F ambient air temps.

Beer with Star-San bubbles.

9/30/12
Transferred to a 3-gallon glass carboy and added 5/8 oz medium toast Hungarian oak cubes. The volume of beer was just over 3 gallons. Placed the carboy in the 66F basement and covered with an old bed-sheet to protect the aging beer from light. Now for the long, long wait as the beer sours and picks up some oak character over the course of a year or more. Will plan on posting occasional updates when the beer develops a pellicle, etc.
  

10/6/12

It appears that a pellicle is starting to form in a few spots on the surface of the beer. It looks like the mold that grows on bread, but I'm pretty sure its just the brett doing its thing.

A pellicle starts to form.

9/12/13
I took off the little white cap for a few minutes, twice over the course of the previous 6 months or so, in order to let in more oxygen. There didn't seem to be much of a pellicle forming, which indicated a lack of oxygen. After letting some air in, the pellicle below formed and has slowly changed during the course of fermentation. No sign of it sinking down, so the beer is not yet done. I may need to wait 18 months before bottling.



1/8/13
Finally bottled today. There was still a pellicle on top, but I've read it's OK to bottle sours even when that's the case. Used 2.5oz sugar, going for around 2.4 volumes of CO2. I added some EC-1118 yeast after re-hydrating as per the instructions on the package, and made sure to stir it into the beer adequately. I got 30 x 12oz bottles.

The beer was quite clear, with a brownish (not red) color, and a very nice cherry-apple-bretty aroma. I had enough for a hydro sample, which read 1.080. So pretty dry, and right in the range where bottle conditioning should begin. The taste of the sample was OK, but not as sour as I might want.

Placed the bottles in a 60F ambient area - a temp the wine yeast are comfortable with. I plan to wait another month or so before cracking the first bottle, though of course it would be best to wait for at least another few months before the beer really comes into its best possible flavor.

Saison Tasting

Hoping to duplicate my surprisingly successful saison (my fourth ever brew), last month I brewed another saison from the same Brewing Classic Styles recipe. I do not however expect the results to be the same, since there has probably been quite a bit of variation in my ingredients (due to the way the LHBS sold grains) and process (due to my poor fermentation temperature control) between the two brews. Nevertheless, I will be happy if this attempt is as good as my previous one.

Appearance: Hazy golden copper with a thick white head that dissipates but leaves a thin layer of bubbles over the beer. This bottle was only in the fridge for around 8 hours, so the chill haze may be reduced after more time in the fridge.

Aroma: Fruit of some kind. A combination of bananas and other yeasty esters, maybe plums. Some sweetness in the smell.

Taste: Fruity and a bit phenolic, but not unpleasantly so. A slightly "hot" aftertaste and almost a slightly sour or funky note. Slight sweetness. Kind of refreshing. A slight hint of noble-hop bitterness with attendant earthy notes.

Mouthfeel: A little bit too heavy for the style. Could use some more carbonation in my view. Not as spritzy as the style is supposed to be, but my wife and other taster did find it refreshing.

Overall: A light, fruity beer with yeasty notes and a moderately refreshing quality. Not spritzy, but well carbonated. Slight funkiness from the yeast phenolics. Pleasant, but not great. Needs a lighter body and it should be drier.

For Next Time: Control the fermentation temps better to get higher attenuation and thus less sweetness. More carbonation to get a more spritzy mouthfeel.

 

Smoked Porter Review

A little more than a month ago I brewed a Smoked Porter based on a clone recipe for Alaskan Smoked Porter. This type of smoked beer is reputed to age pretty well as the smoke flavors blend with the chocolatey, roasty, coffee tastes. I'll plan to hide away a few bottles to taste from time to time. Of course I'll post the results here.

Appearance: Dark black when poured into a pint glass, with dark brown highlights. Thin tan head that slowly dissipates but sticks to the side of the glass.

Aroma: Subtle hints of smoke. Not like bacon but a little more woody somehow. Mostly it smells like coffee or chocolate.

Where there's smoke there's fire.

Taste: Again, mostly tastes like a pretty normal porter with the complex blend of roasted, coffee and chocolate notes with a bit of smokiness. More smoke in the taste than in the aroma, with lingering smokey aftertaste. Some sweetness as it does not taste like black coffee. Minimal acrid or harsh tastes. It has some bitterness but it blends quite well with the emphasis on the roast quality. 

Mouthfeel: Moderate body and carbonation. Smooth.

Overall: A complex beer with a blend of smoke and roasted malts. Smokiness is subtle but adds to the complexity. Maltiness dominates but some bitterness in the finish. This is definitely on the top end in terms of the quality of my home brew. My wife really likes it too. Better than my previous attempt at the style.

For Next Time: While I really like the complexity of this beer and find that it does not have the undesirable acrid notes of my previous attempt at smoked porter, I was hoping for a more assertive smokiness. So, on the next brew of this style I will up the percentage of smoked malt. The freshness of the racuhmaltz also has something to do with it, since the smokiness deteriorates over time.

 

Dirty Water Brown Ale Brewday

I have brewed two of the brown ales from Brewing Classic Styles, both of which turned out very well. The Nutcastle recipe turn out with a nice nutty taste, for a pretty easy drinking British style beer. The Janet's Brown Ale had a wonderful minty quality from the Northern Brewer hops combined with some great malt flavor. In fact my own special lady likes the Janet's Brown so much that I brewed it again, although the second attempt didn't turn out as well because the grain wasn't crushed properly at the nearby LHBS since they had a crappy hand-cranked crusher that was out of adjustment. (The not-so local shop had a much better system but was obviously a longer drive away.)

However I did find the Janet's Brown to be an expensive brew because of both the high gravity and the large amount of hops needed to brew it. The below recipe is also from BCS - the Dirty Water Brown. It comes in at a lower gravity and uses less hops than the Janet's Brown, so it will be more feasible to brew it often. Not sure if the wife will like it as much, but we'll see...

Dirty Water Brown
3.5 gallons (4.5 gal boil, 3.25 into fermenter, 3 into bottles)
5# 12oz American 2-Row Malt
0# 4oz Chocolate Malt
0# 4oz Crystal 40L
0# 2oz Crystal 60L
0# 2oz Victory Malt
------------
6# 10oz

.3oz Horizon, 12%AA, 60min
.5oz Cascade, 9%AA, 15min
1.25oz Cascade, 9%AA, flameout

US-05 Yeast

Expected OG / FG: 1.048 / 1.013
Expected IBUs: 36
Expected SRM: 20, light-medium brown

Brewed 8/25/12
Today for a variety of reasons my my note-taking was a little lax. Sorry, none of my amazingly beautiful pictures today. Meh!

Calculated mash and sparge volumes using .2gal / lbs of water absorption by grain. This proved to be on the high side, resulting in too much wort. But I did hit my mash temps exactly, with 152F for the mash and 166F for the mash-out.

Made a 1L yeast starter with recycled US-05. Pitched the starter yeast at around 2:30pm

Started mash around 2pm.

First runnings were about 2.5 gallons, 1/4 gallon above target. Second runnings were nearly five-gallons, again above target.

Boiled for 90 minutes, the first 25 of which were split because my 5-gallon brewpot can't safely boil more than 4.75 gallons. When the wort in the small pot was reduced in volume I poured it back into the main pot.

Also I followed the advice in Brewing Better Beer to steep the dark grains for 5 minutes rather than adding them to the mash. I placed the chocolate malt into a nylon mesh bag, steeped at 165F for 5 minutes, strained the grains, and then poured the resulting dark liquid into the boil. Apparently this process reduces the ashy, acrid and harsh flavors associated with tannins and such that can be extracted when dark grains are mashed. 

Cooled with the IC to 110F, then placed the brewpot in a bin of 69F water, at around 4:45pm.

The post-boil hydromenter sample read 1.043. A few points off because I collected more wort than predicted.  Efficiency was a little less than usual, around 67%.

At 11:45pm the starter was bubbling away. Transferred and aerated the wort into the fermentor leaving behind the trub. The wort was nice and clear because it had time to settle in the brew pot. Got about 3.6 gallons, a bit more than planned. Pitched the starter and placed some ice packs in the bucket where the beer was sitting.

8/26/12, 8:45am. The beer was at 68F and actively fermenting. Put some new ice in the water bath to keep the fermentation temps in check.

8/27, 9am. Fermentation still active. Freshened with new ice-packs.

9/6, 3pm. Bottled today with 1.75oz table sugar and .5 oz brown sugar, aiming for about 2 volumes. Got 6 x 22oz, 25 x 12oz = 432oz or about 3.4 gallons. In the bottling bucket it looked more like 3.6 gallons or so. Hmm. The hydo sample tasted good. Review to follow in a few weeks.

Berliner Weisse Tasting

A few weeks ago I made my first sour beer, Ich bin ein Berliner Weisse, by sour-worting for about 20 hours, followed by a 15 minute boil. The sour-worting technique avoids the long aging times necessary for the "bugs" to do their thing, but can be an unpredictable process because the conditions of the sour wort and the growth rate of the microorganisms can be hard to control.

Appearance: Hazy straw yellow. White head with small bubbles that disappear quickly but leave a white lacing around the side of the glass.

Aroma: Lemony, with some sourness and a hint of funkiness - not putrid exactly but a slight whiff of trashy smell.

Taste: Mildly sour. Not puckering by any means. No bitterness. The funky weirdness of the smell is not present in the taste. Not a complex taste.

Body: Spritzy due to the carbonation of about 3 volumes. A bit tingly on the the tounge, again because of the high carbonation and low gravity.

Overall:  A mildy sour, lemony beer with light body. Refreshing and drinkable. Slight funkiness, so not a completely "clean" sour flavor. Overall pleasant but not a strongly flavored beer. Good refreshing summer beer.

For Next Time: Longer sour mash to get a much more prominent sour smell and taste. Perhaps inoculate the wort with a commercial tube of Lactobacillus. The sour mash of only 12 - 24 hours, though recommended as a good starting point, has not in this case produced a very sour beer (to my palette), certainly not compared to the reference beer I used, Bell's Oarsman (which BTW is itself only considered mildly sour).

Update: As of August 31, the slightly trashy smell is no longer present. I'm not sure why or how. I am really seeing the value of aging homebrew at least 5-6 weeks before drinking it, as many harsh or weird flavors seem to disappear as the bear ages.