Bottling went well with the Bass-clone. The yield was 1 clear 33oz bottle with swing top, 12 25.4oz crown top (re-purposed Martinelli's bottles), 3 22oz. brown swing top bottles, 1 16.9oz crown, and two six packs of standard 12oz. bottles.
The following day I decided to brew the rest of the root beer. If you recall my post from a few weeks ago, I wished I had added more honey instead of sugar. I vowed to adjust the recipe to add honey. And I did. But this time, the root beer flavor was not as strong. Diagnosis: uneven split of the extract from last time to this time.
I actually measured it on a digital scale the first time, but assumed the remainder would be equal. It wasn't. The flavor otherwise was pretty good, but not totally root beer. So my conclusion is that I will brew the entire 5 gallons of soda at once.
I tried it with all sugar; I tried it with honey. Now I aim to sample some different types of sugars.
My wife is into food product development, so I am exposed to different varieties of sugars. I get sent on these missions to Whole Foods with wacky shopping lists. I usually have to drag one of the clerks into my obscure food puzzle. I once walked in with a shopping list that included Evaporated Cane Juice.
I started in the juices aisle, then by the evaporated milk, confused at least two clerks until it occured to one of us (probably not me) that it might be in the sugar aisle. For those not already laughing at me, evaporated cane juice is evaporated. Not like the milk. Definately not like juice. Like sugar. Granulated. Except the crystals are bigger.
There is also turbinado sugar, which is slightly browner and with even bigger crystals. There is also Agave syrup, which is like honey but thinner and not as sweet. I will have to sit down (with supervision, of course) and sample different sugars and figure out what might be added to the soda's to give them some unique flavors.
But back to the root beer cause analysis... If I don't split batches and brew 5 gallons at a time, then I have a new challenge. I will end up with 45 bottles that need refrigerating within 2 or 3 days. So I will have to find volunteers up front who will take soda home to their fridges. I'll also continue to use more plastic containers to mitigate risk of shards of glass appearing suddenly.
The next batch won't be for a while, but it will be cream soda. Get your orders in now....
Next time, the great boil from this past weekend, using Alton Brown's English Ale recipe.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Bottling Day - Bass 1
The pictures to the left are the start and the end of the brew day for Bass 1. Above left is the fermented brew awaiting bottle sanitation. Below left is the beginning of the mash for the grain portion of the boil, done on Superbowl Sunday.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Dark Bass aint that bad
The condensation turned out to be nothing to be concerned about. A neighbor of mine, who has a two year head start on me has been kind enough to answer such questions as they come up.
The color was concerning, but even if it didn't come out tasting anything like the brew it was inspired by, it would probably be good in it's own right.
Earlier tonight, I got the specific gravity meter out and gave it a test.
Color still dark, aroma not bad. I marked the reading as 1.009, and poured the contents into a drinking glass. Better get this over with.
OK It's a little hoppier than Bass at first taste, but definately mellow after that. Missing the caramel flavor in between. I believe by overcooking the sugar it not only turned the beer darker than it was meant to be (through carmelization) but it also dulled the sweetness a little. It's still got the sweetness you don't find in a brown, though. Not that bad, but not as good as the first batch.
I will bottle it on Sunday (tomorrow is Valentines Day; the wife likes beer, but not that much). We'll see what it tastes like after conditioning, carbonating and cooling down. More to come on that.
I may also try for the root beer on Sunday as well, using the honey and dissolving the yeast in warm water first.
The color was concerning, but even if it didn't come out tasting anything like the brew it was inspired by, it would probably be good in it's own right.
Earlier tonight, I got the specific gravity meter out and gave it a test.
Color still dark, aroma not bad. I marked the reading as 1.009, and poured the contents into a drinking glass. Better get this over with.
OK It's a little hoppier than Bass at first taste, but definately mellow after that. Missing the caramel flavor in between. I believe by overcooking the sugar it not only turned the beer darker than it was meant to be (through carmelization) but it also dulled the sweetness a little. It's still got the sweetness you don't find in a brown, though. Not that bad, but not as good as the first batch.
I will bottle it on Sunday (tomorrow is Valentines Day; the wife likes beer, but not that much). We'll see what it tastes like after conditioning, carbonating and cooling down. More to come on that.
I may also try for the root beer on Sunday as well, using the honey and dissolving the yeast in warm water first.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
I'm Back!
Alright already, I'm back.
So much has happened, but life has taken precedence until now. The latest happenings: Dr. Cherry, ESB (if the pictures didn't let the cat out of the bag), brewed some cola, and started a second batch of beer.
At least one person was waiting with baited breath to find out what happened with Dr. Cherry. My final analysis was 1) Not properly activating yeast before adding to the soda mix and 2) It was January. I tested the activation theory by using the same yeast in a batch of cola, but activating it in warm water for 5 minutes first. I also placed the case of bottled soda under a heater vent for good measure. It was ready in 3 days, but more on that later.
The Dr. Cherry suffered from the long carbonation period, and came out tasting like cough syrup. Live and learn; no need to dwell on that.
Now for the ESB. The tasting I did before bottling was spot on, but with carbonation. I found it sharp and flavorful on the front, and nice and smooth going down. If anything it needed a little more on the back nine, so the next time I brew it I will use more malt.
I decided to have a Superbowl party to release it to the public (although I gave my wife, the pastry chef, an advance tasting and made sure she didn't turn green first). It seemed to go over well.
Once I decided to have the Superbowl party, I figured I needed to have some soda there for the drivers, kids, and those not daring enough to try something that sat in my closet for a month. So I used a pre-packaged soda from Homebrew. The 2 oz bottle boasted a 4 gallon yield, and I opted for a half batch. In addition to activating the yeast at precisely 89 degrees for 5 minutes, I decided to vary my sugars.
The recipe called for 4 cups of sugar, so I used half sugar and half honey. For the honey I went with good ol' Sue Bee as a baseline. A pre-bottling taste left me wishing I had not included so much honey, but after carbonating and cooling down for a couple days it almost tasted exactly like Pepsi. For the next batch I will use 2 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 1/2 cups honey to see how it works out.
The nice thing about the honey is that it lingers longer than the sugar, which is dominant at first taste. The sugar blends nicely into the honey. I am interested in trying other sugars, but will aim to nail this down first. Overall, I was very pleased with the soda. I will continute to tune this one.
Another thing that occurred to me in pondering Superbowl Sunday was that most (if not all) of my first brew would be cashed out by my guests, and that I would need more beer. The challenge with home brew is that a beer run is a 28-day process.
So I went back out to More Beer (http://www.morebeer.com/) and started poking around. I had a Newcastle clone in hand and got talking to the guy about keggerators. My ideal keggerator has two spigots; one for a bass clone and one for a guiness clone. I am limited with present gear to carbonated beers (not nitrogenated ones like Guiness), and ales at that, since I don't have the temperature control for lagers, and.... wait.... Bass is an ale, right?
So they don't have an off the shelf Bass clone, but they had enough staff to where they guy could help me throw one together. So he pulls a recipe off the web, and we go in the back room. For the first time, I feel like a real brewer; I have entered the hallowed "back room".
I see bins filled with different types of grains. He takes 3 different types and weighs them out. Then they go in the miller, where the grains are cracked. We pick up some malt, some sugars. Now I am brewing Bass.
My first mistake was to do it the morning before Superbowl. I figured I'd have my brother over to help with the brew. I learned about all the different prop bets one could make. Somehow, he walked into a casino in Vegas after the first week of the season and took the Arizona Cardinals as a 50-1 to win the Superbowl. He also had James Harrison as 35-1 to win the MVP (who was the lineman who intercepted a pass in the end zone and rambled all the way for a touchdown just before half).
So needless to say I got a little distracted. The core problem was that I was sure I had kept the instructions from the first batch, but I never double checked. And I didn't have them. And since this was a custom batch there were no instructions. But I remembered the process with enough detail I felt I would be fine.
Start with cold water, steep the grain in a grain bag as the water gets to 170 degrees in 30 minutes, take the grain out, bring to a boil, turn off heat, add malt extract, bring to boil, add bittering hops, then add other hopping steps per the specific beer requirements. After an hour boil, put the pot in an ice water bath to cool it down, and keep the lid on to keep away vermin, then pour through funnel into fermenter, take temp, add yeast at the proper temp (<90 degrees), shake vigorously, and put in closet.
I would have been fine, but the Bass came with Dried Malt Extract (DME) and corn sugars (no, not including the priming sugar), and I wasn't prepared to deal with that, since it wasn't part of the ESB.
Issue #1: Bass is not as dark as soda. I've tried it, and it has a caramel color. My version is not. I suspect I put the sugar in too early (I decided to put it in with the malt extract) and/or it took too long to get back to a boil. One "upgrade" I tried was starting the boil with 3 gallons of water instead of 2 1/2; it took longer to get to a boil, so I may have had the stuff on the stove too long.
Issue #2: Why is there condensation in my carboy? The temp seemed OK, and it is definately fermenting so the yeasties are happy. Maybe something in the vigorous shake I gave it vs. last time, or maybe something with the sugar. Or, gulp, contamination? Not sure what to make of it.
Issue #3: I squeezed the grain bag on the way out. My mum was english, and you put the tea bag on a spoon, and tied the string around it to squeeze out a bit more flavor. But given that I repeated a mistake of not using high enough heat for the steeping, I may have squeezed bitter tannans into my brew.
Issue #4: I failed to sterilize a tasting spoon or utensil for gathering the specific gravity sample ahead of time, so I couldn't take the reading or a taste test. I won't know for a few more days until I take a baseline gravity sample to make sure it's safe to bottle. I can only wonder until then.
Thanks to all who tasted and enjoyed the first attempt at brewing. All the bottles have been enjoyed or spoken for, so I will have to wait 3 more weeks.
My upcoming projects:
As I am regaining a good supply of bottles, I think I will have another run at root beer. As noted earlier, I will include honey. recipe and outcome will be posted.
I have to have IPA brewed in April for a specific visitor from Alaska, who has made it clear he will drink nothing but (I will slip him an ESB and see if he notices). I think that leaves me one more batch between. I think I will revisit the Newcastle. It had quite a lot of malt, so it should be a nice change of pace. For the IPA, I am toying with the thought of some apricot flavoring- just a hint to enhance the bitterness of the hops. Maybe a drop or two of malt to feed the yeast.
More to follow! Until next time, cheers!
So much has happened, but life has taken precedence until now. The latest happenings: Dr. Cherry, ESB (if the pictures didn't let the cat out of the bag), brewed some cola, and started a second batch of beer.
At least one person was waiting with baited breath to find out what happened with Dr. Cherry. My final analysis was 1) Not properly activating yeast before adding to the soda mix and 2) It was January. I tested the activation theory by using the same yeast in a batch of cola, but activating it in warm water for 5 minutes first. I also placed the case of bottled soda under a heater vent for good measure. It was ready in 3 days, but more on that later.
The Dr. Cherry suffered from the long carbonation period, and came out tasting like cough syrup. Live and learn; no need to dwell on that.
Now for the ESB. The tasting I did before bottling was spot on, but with carbonation. I found it sharp and flavorful on the front, and nice and smooth going down. If anything it needed a little more on the back nine, so the next time I brew it I will use more malt.
I decided to have a Superbowl party to release it to the public (although I gave my wife, the pastry chef, an advance tasting and made sure she didn't turn green first). It seemed to go over well.
Once I decided to have the Superbowl party, I figured I needed to have some soda there for the drivers, kids, and those not daring enough to try something that sat in my closet for a month. So I used a pre-packaged soda from Homebrew. The 2 oz bottle boasted a 4 gallon yield, and I opted for a half batch. In addition to activating the yeast at precisely 89 degrees for 5 minutes, I decided to vary my sugars.
The recipe called for 4 cups of sugar, so I used half sugar and half honey. For the honey I went with good ol' Sue Bee as a baseline. A pre-bottling taste left me wishing I had not included so much honey, but after carbonating and cooling down for a couple days it almost tasted exactly like Pepsi. For the next batch I will use 2 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 1/2 cups honey to see how it works out.
The nice thing about the honey is that it lingers longer than the sugar, which is dominant at first taste. The sugar blends nicely into the honey. I am interested in trying other sugars, but will aim to nail this down first. Overall, I was very pleased with the soda. I will continute to tune this one.
Another thing that occurred to me in pondering Superbowl Sunday was that most (if not all) of my first brew would be cashed out by my guests, and that I would need more beer. The challenge with home brew is that a beer run is a 28-day process.
So I went back out to More Beer (http://www.morebeer.com/) and started poking around. I had a Newcastle clone in hand and got talking to the guy about keggerators. My ideal keggerator has two spigots; one for a bass clone and one for a guiness clone. I am limited with present gear to carbonated beers (not nitrogenated ones like Guiness), and ales at that, since I don't have the temperature control for lagers, and.... wait.... Bass is an ale, right?
So they don't have an off the shelf Bass clone, but they had enough staff to where they guy could help me throw one together. So he pulls a recipe off the web, and we go in the back room. For the first time, I feel like a real brewer; I have entered the hallowed "back room".
I see bins filled with different types of grains. He takes 3 different types and weighs them out. Then they go in the miller, where the grains are cracked. We pick up some malt, some sugars. Now I am brewing Bass.
My first mistake was to do it the morning before Superbowl. I figured I'd have my brother over to help with the brew. I learned about all the different prop bets one could make. Somehow, he walked into a casino in Vegas after the first week of the season and took the Arizona Cardinals as a 50-1 to win the Superbowl. He also had James Harrison as 35-1 to win the MVP (who was the lineman who intercepted a pass in the end zone and rambled all the way for a touchdown just before half).
So needless to say I got a little distracted. The core problem was that I was sure I had kept the instructions from the first batch, but I never double checked. And I didn't have them. And since this was a custom batch there were no instructions. But I remembered the process with enough detail I felt I would be fine.
Start with cold water, steep the grain in a grain bag as the water gets to 170 degrees in 30 minutes, take the grain out, bring to a boil, turn off heat, add malt extract, bring to boil, add bittering hops, then add other hopping steps per the specific beer requirements. After an hour boil, put the pot in an ice water bath to cool it down, and keep the lid on to keep away vermin, then pour through funnel into fermenter, take temp, add yeast at the proper temp (<90 degrees), shake vigorously, and put in closet.
I would have been fine, but the Bass came with Dried Malt Extract (DME) and corn sugars (no, not including the priming sugar), and I wasn't prepared to deal with that, since it wasn't part of the ESB.
Issue #1: Bass is not as dark as soda. I've tried it, and it has a caramel color. My version is not. I suspect I put the sugar in too early (I decided to put it in with the malt extract) and/or it took too long to get back to a boil. One "upgrade" I tried was starting the boil with 3 gallons of water instead of 2 1/2; it took longer to get to a boil, so I may have had the stuff on the stove too long.
Issue #2: Why is there condensation in my carboy? The temp seemed OK, and it is definately fermenting so the yeasties are happy. Maybe something in the vigorous shake I gave it vs. last time, or maybe something with the sugar. Or, gulp, contamination? Not sure what to make of it.
Issue #3: I squeezed the grain bag on the way out. My mum was english, and you put the tea bag on a spoon, and tied the string around it to squeeze out a bit more flavor. But given that I repeated a mistake of not using high enough heat for the steeping, I may have squeezed bitter tannans into my brew.
Issue #4: I failed to sterilize a tasting spoon or utensil for gathering the specific gravity sample ahead of time, so I couldn't take the reading or a taste test. I won't know for a few more days until I take a baseline gravity sample to make sure it's safe to bottle. I can only wonder until then.
Thanks to all who tasted and enjoyed the first attempt at brewing. All the bottles have been enjoyed or spoken for, so I will have to wait 3 more weeks.
My upcoming projects:
As I am regaining a good supply of bottles, I think I will have another run at root beer. As noted earlier, I will include honey. recipe and outcome will be posted.
I have to have IPA brewed in April for a specific visitor from Alaska, who has made it clear he will drink nothing but (I will slip him an ESB and see if he notices). I think that leaves me one more batch between. I think I will revisit the Newcastle. It had quite a lot of malt, so it should be a nice change of pace. For the IPA, I am toying with the thought of some apricot flavoring- just a hint to enhance the bitterness of the hops. Maybe a drop or two of malt to feed the yeast.
More to follow! Until next time, cheers!
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