Dry Irish Stout Review

Appearance: Very dark brown body, nearly black. Free of yeast sediment. Tan, fairly persistent head with thick appearance. Good lacing.

Aroma: Malty aroma, a little like black coffee. Earthy. No alcohol notes, maybe slight hop aroma. As it warms it smells a bit rounder with better malty complexity.

Taste: Dry, fairly roasty, slight acridness. Slight crystal sweetness comes through as it warms. Like black coffee but less intense. Bitterness is moderate. The dark roast malt has some acidity, a bit like the bite at the end of Guinness.

Mouthfeel: Smooth body. Medium carbonation (CO2, not nitrogen, so not as smooth as Guinness.)  Drinkable.

Overall:  Fairly pleasant dark stout. Straightforwardly roasty with a slight acrid-coffee flavor. Minimal sweetness from the C120. Pretty drinkable. Fairly similar to Guinness but not as smooth and a little more intensely roasty. I would brew again and probably would not change anything, though of course it is fun to experiment with different roast malts.

Brett-Cherry Saison Brewday

There was a bottle of really good cherry-fruit beer at a meeting of one the homebrew clubs of which I am a member. The person who brought it had traded for it, and I think it was Wisconsin Belgian Red. In any case I was inspired to brew a brett-cherry saison. The malt bill is nearly identical to my previous brett-saison, but with a different strain of brett, slightly more late hop additions, and obviously with the planned additions of cherries. I was planning to use some Brett C but the local shop didn't have it, and the GigaYeast Tart Cherry Brett sounded perfect for this beer, for obvious reasons. The ABV on this one will be at least 7% after the addition of the cherries, nearly double the ABV of the New Glarus beer. Oops, I probably should have considered that.

Not sure what form the cherries will take - frozen, puree, fresh, etc... It depends on availability. Puree would probably make for the easiest handling and lowest amount of fermenter loss.

Also I've been trying to tweak my planned volume amounts, ideally to get 5.5 gallons of clear, non-truby wort into the fermenter. But that didn't quite happen here.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Brett-Cherry Saison
Style: Saison

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.62 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.50 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal  
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 4.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 74.6 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
9 lbs                 Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM)            Grain         1        72.0 %       
2 lbs                 Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM)                Grain         2        16.0 %       
1 lbs                 Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)             Grain         3        8.0 %        
8.0 oz                Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM)         Sugar         4        4.0 %        
0.75 oz               Sterling [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min        Hop           5        18.7 IBUs    
0.50 oz               Sterling [8.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min        Hop           6        4.5 IBUs     
1.00 oz               Sterling [8.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min         Hop           7        1.1 IBUs     
1.0 pkg               Tart Cherry Brett (Giga Yeast #GB002)    Yeast         8        -            
4.20 lb               Cherries (Secondary 0.0 mins)            Flavor        9        -            


Mash Schedule: 150F, Mash Out, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 8.0 oz
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Name                    Description                                          Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash Step               Add 16.00 qt of water at 162.8 F                     150.0 F       60 min       
Mash Step               Add 9.60 qt of water at 203.7 F                      168.0 F       10 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 2.91gal) of 168.0 F water

Notes:
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1/2 tsp gympsum, 1/2 tsp CaCl to mash water, a little less to sparge water.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
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Low gravity starter made on 4/13/16, with yeast nutrient. By brew day there was no visible activity but I did get some nice bretty smells from the starter.

Brewed 4/16/16.

Hit my mash temp. Pre-boil OG was ~1.044 (pre-sugar),  ~1.046 (post-sugar), on target. Post-boil OG was ~1.065, a bit high, likely due to underestimation of boil-off.

Brewing went smoothly except that I had to disassemble, clean, lube and reassemble my grain mill to get it to work properly.

Force cooled to 120F, racked to better bottle, and accidentally chilled all the way to 33F in my chest freezer.

On 4/17/16, pitched yeast at 33F and shook the carboy a bit, then allowed to warm to 68F for start of fermentation. May increase to 70F tomorrow. I don't want a heavily oxygenated wort for brett since that can produce too much acidity or other weirdness.

There was about 5.4 gallons in the fermenter, a little less than planned, and although most of the wort I racked was trub-free, I did get a bit of hot-break material in the wort.

5/7/16: Visibly active fermentation occurred from April 19 - April 30, with temperature ramping from 68F - 70F. As of 5/7/16 quite a bit of yeast and trub has settled to the bottom but the beer remains turbid with yeast. Will rack next week and at some point add the cherries.

5/15/16 - Racked to secondary. Carried some yeast into the new vessel. 

6/20/16 - I was away on vacation at the time that fresh sour cherries were available, and I couldn't find any frozen ones. So I added 36oz of frozen raspberries instead to the secondary fermenter.

Dry Irish Stout Brewday

One of the clubs of which I am a member is doing a club experiment where a bunch of brewers will brew nearly the same recipe but vary one ingredient - in this case the roast malt. I decided to use Carafa I in this recipe to see how that grain tastes in comparison to Black Patent, Roast Barley, Chocolate Malt, etc...

Cooling the wort. 

Recipe: Irish Stout
Style: Dry Stout
TYPE: All Grain
Note: 1/2 g Cal. Chloride and 1/2g Gypsum, per gallon of brewing water.
Ferment at 68F for 6 days, 70F for 2 days, crash cool to 35F.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.88 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.88 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.5 gal  
Bottling Volume: 5 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 41.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 39.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
5.25 gal              Boston, MA                               Water         1        -            
7 lbs                 Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)           Grain         4        57.1 %        2 lbs                 Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)                 Grain         5        16.3 %       
2 lbs                 Carafa I (337.0 SRM)                     Grain         6        16.3 %       
1 lbs                 White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)               Grain         7        8.2 %        
4.0 oz                Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)   Grain         8        2.0 %        
0.95 oz               Magnum [12.00 %] - Boil 65.0 min         Hop           9        39.9 IBUs    
1.0 pkg               Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs #WLP004)     Yeast         10       -            

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 4.0 oz
----------------------------
Name                    Description                                          Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash In                 Add 19.31 qt of water at 161.2 F                     152.0 F       60 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 4.52gal) of 168.0 F water


Made starter on 3/23/16 since I was planning to brew that week. Brewday was delayed... After starter fermented, cooled, allowed yeast to completely settle, then put yeast in mason jar with boiled H20.

4/3/16. Brewed. Brew day went well. Hit my mash temp of 152F. Mashed for 1 hour, drained, then sparged. Probably oversparged a little.

Pre-boil OG was ~1.046 / 11.4B. Post-boil OG was 1.054 / 13.4B, slightly under. Overvolume.

Cooled to 90F, then placed into fermentation chamber for final cooling to 68F.  Got 5.75 gallon into fermenter pre-pitching.

After wort reached 67F, oxygenated 1 min and pitched yeast directly from Mason jar. At around 9 pm.

By 5pm on 4/4/16 the beer was actively fermenting. I am afraid some foam may blow out of the airlock when high krausen hits. The temperature probe taped to the side of the carboy read 67.7F. Of course the middle of the beer is likely at a higher temp due to the heat of fermentation.

4/5/16, 5pm. Quite some foam blew through the S-type airlock during high krausen. I removed the beer / krausen soaked airlock and bung, and replaced them with a clean one. High krausen has passed but the new airlock was bubbling at a moderate pace.

I would like to have a stainless kettle with internal volume etchings for better control over my final batch volume. 

Trois IPA Review

My previous "Brett IPAs" were probably the best IPAs I have ever produced. Can I duplicate that success? If not it would suggest a problem with the quality of my ingredients or process, since I know the recipe is good (although this one only differs by use of Lemon Drop rather than Cascade Hops). Variation in the quality of the product likely is therefore a result of ingredient quality and / or process variation.

Appearance: Fairly hazy with non-flocculent Trois yeast. Golden / light orange color with persistent white head and good lacing. Even after the first few pours from the keg, a small bit of hop material gets into the galls.

Aroma: Fruity hops, grapefruit, pine, slight dank / piney. Nelson comes through nicely but not as intensely as I would like.

Taste: Dry and bitter, with fruity hop quality mixed with piney / grassy notes. The hop flavors are juicy but bitterness counteracts that character. Bitterness is a little harsh. Doesn't have much in the way of malt flavors.

Mouthfeel: Light, dry body with moderate-high carbonation level. Maybe a little minerally-ness.

Overall: Well I'm disappointed. It's definitely not like my previous versions of this brew. The results here surely point to the need to 1) use the freshest possible ingredients especially hops for this style and 2) control my process sufficiently so that I can clone my own recipes with minimum variation in the final product. To match by previous brews of this style, this beer needs to be intensely aromatic, less bitter, and have a juicier hop character in the taste. Overall this beer is pleasant but not as remarkably good as my previous brews with this recipe.

Russian Stout 2 Tasting

My second Russian Stout is now 11 months old, and this time around it was done with the benefit of a kegging system with which to dial in the right volume of carbonation. However, since I would prefer not to have a keg of 10% beer in my 2-tap kegorator, I have bottled this beer using my new toy, a Last Straw counter-pressure filler.

Appearance: Deep black and opaque. Dark tan head which dissipates a little too quickly but leaves decent lacing.

Aroma: Malty sweet, roasted malts, moderate dried fruit like raisins or plum. Earthy and woody. Whiskey aroma, if any, is quite light. Hope aroma is low to none. I was hoping for more of dry-fruit notes from the WLP007. Aroma improves as it warms.

Taste: Like the aroma. Fairly sweet but not cloying. Roasty quality and sweetness well balanced, so that it's not acrid or over-roasted. Boozy and warming but alcohol is pretty smooth. Hop bitterness mixes well with the other flavors. Hints of wood blend well with other flavors. Maybe some dry tannic quality in the aftertaste. Complex and difficult to describe.

Mouthfeel: Thick and viscous but not as syrupy as Port wine. Carbonation is low to moderate.

Overall: An intense and complex sipping beer. Very pleasant as a winter warmer. No flaws or off-flavors as far as I can really tell. In my view this iteration is smoother than my previous one, as this beer is better balanced between the sweetness and roasty/acrid flavors. The whiskey / oak combo is very subtle and might not be detectable except if the drinker knows that whiskey / wood was added, which is not surprising given the intensity of the underlying beer style and the melding of the flavors.

 

Baltic Porter Review

 
Appearance: Very dark brown, but not quite opaque when held to the light. Thin but persistent tan head. Good lacing.

Aroma: A unique biscuity and intensely chocolate nose. Not quite like any of the other beers I've made. Bittersweet chocolate mixed with bread crust or the like. Maybe like a chocolate desert cake? As it warms I get some earthy or spicy hop notes but overall the impression of bittersweet chocolate predominates.
 
Taste: Leads with a taste similar to the nose. I get bittersweet chocolate, some coffee and crystal malt sweetness, again with an interesting biscuity quality. Perhaps surprisingly given the amount of roasted grains, I do not get any acrid characteristics - either they're not there or the sweetness and bready character covers them up. At the end, some nice alcohol warming brought about by the 9% or so ABV. Crystal malty sweetness but definitely not cloying. Hop bitterness mixes cleanly with alcohol and roasty notes. Clean lager fermentation, with no off-flavors that I can detect. I don't really get any fermentation esters or dried-fruit notes.

Mouthfeel: Thick and chewy without being cloying. No acridness. Aftertaste is pretty smooth for a boozy beer. Carbonation on the low/moderate end - I don't think I would change.

Overall: I'm very happy with it. It has a clean, complex aroma and taste with a really interesting mix of bread / biscuit and chocolate roast. The balance between sweetness and acrid / roast is much more even here than it was in either of my Russian stouts. It's a sipping beer, but more drinkable than a RIS. I'd like to try this style again. My guess is that the Amber Malt is driving the biscuity flavors.

As to how close it tastes to the Smuttynose Baltic Porter, I'll do another taste test with my wife and eventually I will get some feedback from the clone competition. That will all be for another post.

Trois IPA

So this is the 3rd iteration of the Brett IPA I first brewed in August of 2014 using WLP 644. Since then, those rascally microbiologists have discovered that WLP 644 is not in fact a type of brettanomyces but rather "Saccharomyces 'bruxellensis' Trois". Regardless, the last two brews of this beer were some of my best IPAs, so I've decided to brew it again, this time with a full 5-gallon batch, and, continuing the slight tweaks, using Lemondrop Hops instead of Cascade.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Trois IPA

Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.88 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.88 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal  
Bottling Volume: 5.11 gal
Estimated OG: 1.062 SG
Estimated Color: 6.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 49.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
5.25 gal              Boston, MA                               Water         1        -            
7.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent   2        -            
5.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   3        -            
11 lbs                Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)           Grain         4        86.3 %       
12.0 oz               Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)                    Grain         5        5.9 %        
8.0 oz                Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)                  Grain         6        3.9 %        
8.0 oz                White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)               Grain         7        3.9 %        
0.50 oz               Magnum [12.20 %] - First Wort 60.0 min   Hop           8        22.3 IBUs    
1.00 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min     Hop           9        12.1 IBUs    
1.00 oz               Lemon Drop [4.60 %] - Boil 10.0 min      Hop           10       5.5 IBUs     
1.00 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min      Hop           11       6.6 IBUs     
1.00 oz               Lemon Drop [4.60 %] - Boil 5.0 min       Hop           12       3.1 IBUs     
2.00 oz               Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpoo Hop           13       0.0 IBUs     
1.0 pkg               WLP 644                                                  Yeast         14       -            
1.00 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days  Hop           15       0.0 IBUs     
1.00 oz               Lemon Drop [4.60 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days   Hop           16       0.0 IBUs     
1.00 oz               Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 1.0 Da Hop           17       0.0 IBUs     


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 12.0 oz
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Name                    Description                                          Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash In                 Add 19.94 qt of water at 161.3 F                     152.0 F       60 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 4.42gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:

After flame out and addition of Whirlpool hops, recirculate using March pump, allowing to whirlpool for 5 minutes at ~210F. Then cool to 180F and allow to whirlpool at 180F - 160F for 30 minutes. Apply gentle heat if needed to prevent it sinking too fast to 160F.
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2/10/16 - Made starter with 60g of DME, 1100 ml water, yeast nutrients and a little bit of leftover Citra hops.

2/13/16 - Brewed. Hit my mash temps well. For some reason I got lower gravity than expected. Pre-boil was ~1.044, Post-boil ~1.054. Probably a bit over volume. Need to adjust my equipment profile in Beersmith for about 0.5 gallon of dead-space in my big MLT. Otherwise brew-day went fine. Also it was VERY cold (~10F) so maybe that messed up my refractometer.

After whirlpool and cooling, racked to 6 gallon fermenter, leaving most of the hop gunk. Wort at ~90F. Set in 65F ambient to cool. Pitched most of the starter a few hours later after oxygenating for 20 seconds. With starter, 5.5 gallons in fermenter.

2/14/16, 2pm. Good krausen going. 

2/15/16, 5pm. Very active fermentation. Constant airlock bubbling.

2/20/16, added dry hops directly into primary vessel. Fermentation appeared complete. Moved vessel to 70F ambient.

2/27/16, crash cooled. Will keg tomorrow.