Rye IPA #1 Tasting

I've been working on my hoppy beers to get them more assertively bitter and with a stronger hop aroma. For this one I added rye to the mix, because, well, why not? And I've been wanting to do something with rye for a while. Happily the results have been good.

Appearance: Light copper in color with a thick white head that lasts and that makes a nice lacing as I sip the beer. Moderate chill haze.

Objects in the picture may appear darker than they really are.

Aroma: Fruity Cascade hops dominate the nose. The aroma was definitely stronger when I first sampled this beer last week, but I still get a nice hoppy nose. Grapefruit like, not much of that pungent piney quality that some IPAs have. Maybe a slight breadiness. The aroma gets stronger as the beer warms a little.

Taste: Bitter, but more balanced than my previous IPA. A malty, slightly spicy quality at first, and then a moderate bitterness. Slight grainy sweetness. Fairly balanced between the bitterness, hops and malt qualities., I would say.

Mouthfeel: Moderate body and carbonation. Aftertaste is moderately bitter with a decent bit of sweetness.

Overall: A moderately aromatic IPA with a fruity nose and a taste well balanced between bitterness, rye like spiciness, and slightly malty or bread like sweetness. I like it quite a bit. At 55 IBUs and about a 1:1 ratio of BU:GU, tt's less assertively bitter than my previous IPA, but I think due to the late hopping and dry hopping it has a better aroma. The rye comes through only slightly in my view, adding a bit of complexity to the nose and taste, but does not dominate. Next time perhaps I would only up the IBUs slightly and dry hop with more of the piney hops for a more complex nose.

Rye IPA #1 Brewday

One of the benefits of being in the local homebrew club is apparently that some people come in with stuff to give away. Of course everyone shares their homebrew, but in the last two meetings I've attended, a couple of people walked in with big bags of ingredients or small pieces of equipment that they didn't need. I was fortunate enough to have been given 3oz of Warrior pellet hops and 3oz of homegrown Cascade hops from the 2010 harvest. Both sets of hops were in unopened vacum-sealed bags and apparently had been stored in a freezer, so they should be in a decent state of freshness.

I've been wanting to do something with rye to see what it adds to a beer. For this beer, I plan to use some of the Warrior hops for bittering, along with a late hop addition of Cascade, Chinook and Centenial for flavor and aroma, as well as a dry-hop with those varieties. I hope to get a firmly bitter IPA with a nice rye backbone and strong hop aroma. I read from several sources that the Cascade - Chinook - Centenial combo is a classic one for American IPAs. The grain bill is based off the previous IPA I brewed, with Rye substituted for some of the 2-Row, and with a small amount of CaraRed for head retention and I hope a reddish hue.

Rye IPA #1
3.25 gallons

6.25# American 2-Row
2# Rye Malt
4oz Crystal 20L
4oz Crystal 40L
2oz CaraRed

Mash at 150F, 60 minute boil.

.875oz Warrior, 13.7% AA, 60min

1/3oz Chinnook, 11.9% AA, 5min
1/3oz Centenial, 8.7% AA, 5min
1/3oz Homegrown Cascade, (Estimated at 5%-6% AA), 5min

1/3oz Chinnook, 11.9% AA, 1min
1/3oz Centenial, 8.7% AA, 1min
1/3oz Homegrown Cascade, (Estimated at 5%-6% AA), 1min

1/3oz Chinnook, 11.9% AA, Dry, 7 days
1/3oz Centenial, 8.7% AA, Dry, 7 days
1 and 1/3oz Homegrown Cascade, (Estimated at 5%-6% AA), Dry, 7 days

US-05 Yeast, fermented 64F.

Expected FG/OG/IBUs/ABV: 1.067, 1.017, 67, 6.5%

Brewed 2/25/13
Made a starter the previous evening using recycled US-05 from a previous batch. It was slowly bubbling by 9am, so probably not yet at full krausen.

My mash temps were a little low. Drained off some wort, boiled for a minute and added back to raise the temp a couple of degrees.

Got 2 gallons of 1st runnings. Added about 2 gal of sparge water at 180F. The mash temp was 165F - perfect. Got a total pre-boil volume of 4.25gallons, a little above target but I will boil for an extra 15mins or so.

I used my hop bag for the first time. Basically a nylon mesh bag clipped to the side of the kettle with a giant paper clip. So far it seems to work well.

The wort is boiling quite vigorously. Woohoo! 

Preboil OG was 1.050 at 4.25gallons. Low efficiency. Crap. But according to a couple of calculators if I hit the target volume of 3.25 gallons I will get an OG of 1.064, which is about right, though I added 2oz of DME to compensate.

My immersion ooler worked really well today because of the cold weather. The cooling water temp was in the 30s and there was some ice in the recirculation pool. Still, my IC doesn't cool the wort uniformly - the center of the pot was at 80F when the sides near the cooler were at 60F.

Removed the hop-bag and squeezed it out, resulting in about another 1/4 gallon into the pot. Transferred and aerated using a siphon spray aerator (as usual) when the wort was about 65F. Pitched most of the starter, which by now was actively fermenting.

Placed fermenting bucket in bin of 65F water in the basement. The stick-on thermometer read 61F. Got about 3.25 gallons in the fermenter.

Overall a fast brew day due to the low temps outside and the quick cooling.

But I realized I forgot to add Irish Moss. D'Oh!

2/18/13
The beer got off to a slow start with fermenting, and didn't seem to cause a lot of bubbling in the airlock. Still there seems to be a lot of krausen creeping up the side of the fermentor.  I think the less than vigorous fermentation is due to the relatively cool pitching temperature and ambient air temps. Currently the fermentor is in 64F ambient air temps. Perhaps I will move it to a warmer place tomorrow for it to finish out fermenting.

2/22/13
Dry hopped today as per the schedule. The beer inside was still bubbly on the surface and not clear, so at least some fermentation is going on. I will move the fermenter to a warmer spot in a couple of days just to make sure fermentation is complete. 

3/3/13
Bottled today, aiming for 2.25 volumes of CO2. Got 32x12oz bottles of 1.014 FG beer. So the beer has attenuated enough. Squeezed the hop bag (wearing sanitized kitchen gloves) to get all the beer absorbed by the hops.

Funky Table Saison Review

The Snowpacolypse has descended upon the Boston area. What better thing to do than review a batch of homebrew!

For my first experiment with a brett beer I brewed a 1.045 saison with WLP565 and brett. c., in October 2012. The idea was for a light, refreshing but tasty beer that wouldn't need as much time as a stronger brett beer for the flavors to develop.

Appearance: Orange - golden in color with a moderate foam on top. Slight haze. The foam slowly dissipates to a thin covering fed by numerous bubbles moving up to the surface. Good lacing on the side of the glass.

Aroma: Fruity but subtle. Maybe bananas, pineapple or other tropical fruits. The brett is subtle but noticeable.

Taste:A fruity taste with a slight acidity to the aftertaste. To my tongue it does not have the characteristic brett phenols, but it does have some pepperyness.

Mouthfeel: Moderate carbonation. Probably should be more carbed. Body is light, but not as light as some commercial saisons I've sampled.

Overall: A refreshingly light and fruity beer with low-to-moderate brett characteristics, at least to my tongue. Fruity smell, slight acidity, and a little bit of bretty aftertaste. Low hop presence. Probably most appropriate for a hot summer day.

Note that I did get some feedback from the guys at a homebrewing club meetup. They said that while the beer is pretty good and quite drinkable, for the style it is a tad sweet and needs a little bit more hop aroma to balance out the fruit brett character. I like this beer quite a bit but perhaps I'll try next time to use more late addition hops or even dry hop in order to get a little more hop aroma.

American Stout Tasting

Winter is coming. Actually, it's here. The temperature outside right now is 19F, with lows tonight around 6F. It's not so cold that my tastebuds can be warmed up enough to taste the American Stout I brewed a few weeks ago using the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. I let this one sit in the primary fermenter a little longer than usual to let some of the potentially acrid tastes mellow out so that the beer doesn't taste too much like burnt coffee and so that any dusty pieces of roast grain that might have gotten into the fermenter have a chance to settle out.

Appearance: Opaque black in color with a dark tan head that lingers pretty well. Some carbonation bubbles stick to the side of the glass as I pour.

Aroma: An interesting mix of roasty notes with piney hops smell. These notes seem to be about equally balanced or maybe slightly tilted toward the hoppy smell, at least to my nose.

Taste: Again a pretty strong roast taste, but with a noticeable bit of resinous hops, especially in the aftertaste. Some hints of chocolate and an almost smokey quality. A firm bitterness. A bit of sweetness is in there as well so that it doesn't taste acrid.

Mouthfeel: Thick body but not cloying. Low to moderate carbonation. Hop bitterness and a bit of sweetness linger in the aftertaste.

Overall: The dark roast and hoppy quality dominate.  I like it quite a bit although to me the hoppiness could be dialed down a little bit so that the roastiness comes out a bit more. I'm pretty happy with it.

American Stout

I seem to have focused on dark beers for a while. It's not only my doing: my wife wants me to brew dark beers like porters, stouts and dark milds. She likes the complexity of porters with their mix of chocolate and coffee like qualities, but finds dry Irish style stouts like Guinness a bit lacking in complexity. I tend to agree with her, although Guniess is a great beer. American stouts are predictably bolder, combining an almost acrid roast note with aggressive American hops. This recipe is a scaled version from Brewing Classic Styles. I hope it will have a nice bold complexity when complete.

A note on the process: In some of my previous dark beers, I've steeped the dark grains rather than including them in the mash, a technique that is supposed to lend a smooth roast character. For this beer, however, I wanted to include the dark grains in the mash for a bolder character and, of course, to simply experiment with techniques.

American Stout
3.25 gallons
60 minute boil

Breiss 2-Row: 8.313#
Breiss Black Barley: 9oz
US Chocolate Malt: 5oz
Crystal 40L: 5oz

7/8oz Chinook, 11.7%AA, 60 mins
.75oz Columbus, 15%AA, 5 mins

US-05

Mash at 154F, batch sparge.

Expected OG/FG/IBUs: 1.071 / 1.018 / 55

Brewed 12/21/12

Didn't have time yesterday to make a starter using the re-cycled yeast from my previous batch. Oh well. Will use a packet of US-05 instead.

My mash temp was 155F, just slightly higher than my target. The mash looked really dark wight a nice dark foam on top. Collected 2 gallons first runnings. Collected 2.5 gallons 2nd runnings for a total pre-boil volume of 4.5 gallons.

Pre-boil OG was 1.053, for my typcial efficiency of 70%. If it boils to 3.25 gallons I should hit my OG almost spot on. Boiled for 20 minutes before adding first hops because I collected more wort than intended. The boil was smelling really good after the first hop addition.

The weather was rainy and windy today. A few drops of rain landed in my wort before cooling began. Probably it won't be an issue in terms of infection or anything. 

Cooled wort to around 90F using the IC, then left in 50F ambient air to cool to pitching temps. That was around 1:15pm.

Transferred at pitched at about 6:15pm, left in 61F ambient to begin fermentation. The next morning the ambient temp was 61F, which is a little too low for most ale yeast, so I moved the bucket to the furnace room where ambient temps are 64F.

Post-boil OG was 1.070, right on target! Woohoo!

12/23/12
10am, beer was sitting in 65F ambient air temps, with good activity in the airlock. The stick-on thermometer read 63F. So in the right temperature range for minimal yeast character. 

12/24/12
9:15am - Airlock activity had slowed to about one bubble per 15 seconds. Ambient temps around 64F. I hope the yeast will be able to dry out the beer enough before flocculating.

1/14/13

Bottled with 60g of sugar, going for 2.1 units of CO2. Measured FG at 1.022, which is a little bit higher than expected. I hope I don't get any exploding bottles! I got 30 x 12oz bottles.

IPA v3 Tasting

I've tried to brew IPAs a few times so far, and have never really been satisfied with them. My third attempt has turned out quite a bitter better, with a more assertive but not harsh hop bitterness, but it doesn't have the wallop of hop aroma that a really good IPA has. I do like this beer a lot, I just want it to have a stronger aroma.

Appearance: Coppery in color with a moderate head that fades to a thin layer of bubbles over the surface of the beer. Low chill haze but not crystal clear. I really don’t have a problem with haze in most beers, unless it causes the beer to look like mud or something. Lacing sticks to the side of the glass as I drink.

Aroma: Low to moderate aroma of hops. A nice piney quality mixes with some tropical fruitiness. The aroma is better than my previous IPA but not what I hoped for in terms of strength.

Taste: Hops predominate. It has a piney, resiny character with a little bit of "cattiness" but I do not find it harsh. Slight fruity quality. The bitterness is assertive, but again it doesn't have the fruity character of some IPAs. A slight taste of malty sweetness but that is in the background.

Mouthfeel: Low-medium carbonation, appropriate for the style. It has a medium body. A nice hop bitterness lingers in the aftertaste.

Overall: An IPA with good bitterness, low-moderate hop aroma, and low sweetness. Moderate body. I guess it is more in the "West Coast" style of IPA, which is hoppier and without as much body than an "East Coast" IPA.

For Next Time: Go for a more assertive hop aroma. The "hop-stand" was an experiment. Next time I brew this I will either dry-hop or skip the hop-stand in hopes that either of those methods will increase the hop aroma. I don't think I would change much else.

Coffee Oatmal Stout Tasting

My first brew with coffee turned out pretty well, I am happy to say. I am relieved because the oats I used were old and Irish style, instead of the standard quick oats that usually should be used in an oatmeal stout.

Appearance: Very dark, opaque brown or black color with a medium sized tan head on top. Carbonation bubbles stick to the side of the glass.

Aroma: A mix of coffee, toasted notes and chocolate notes. Complex, but I think the coffee is most prominent. I don't think I get any hop aroma.

Taste: Like the smell - a mix of toasty and chocolate, combined with a subtle roastiness and coffee taste. There's a definite sweetness from the crystal malt, and a nutty or bready flavor from the Maris Otter. No one taste predominates, which suprises me a little because when I bottled the beer it had a very strong coffee odor and the sample tasted like coffee. It has mellowed out quite a bit since then. I get a hint of hop bitterness in the aftertaste, but overall the malty / coffee flavor is dominant.

Mouthfeel: Pretty thick and creamy, but smooth. Moderate carbonation. There's a lingering coffee aftertaste, maybe combining with a bit of hoppiness.

Overall: A complex mix of roasty, coffee, chocolate and sweetness. Thick mouthfeel from the oats. Pretty smooth and not overpowering.

It would be great to have a side-by-side comparison between my version and the original, ut I'm not really interested in duplicating other beers so much as I am in getting a good end product. In this case I do think the beer is pretty good.