Evolution of a Stout

Confessions of an Extract Brewer

It all started with a pot of coffee.  It is brew day and my friend Frank and I are invading my wife’s kitchen, brewing a dry Irish stout.  I had recently brewed a Bass clone and at this point, I've got black and tan’s on the brain.  But on this day, in exchange for allowing the intrusion, I am asked to brew a pot of coffee for my wife.

As the wonderful scents from the coffee pot intermingle with the aromas of the steeping grains, Frank and I look at each other with the same idea.  As we plan on when and how to add the coffee, I have a revelation.

My favorite coffee drink by far is an Iced Mocha from Peet’s.  Chocolate, milk and espresso.  I’ve had Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  I’ve enjoyed Samuel Adams Cream Stout.  In my younger years I started a few camping mornings with Red Hook’s Espresso Stout, brewed with Starbucks coffee.  But I’ve never had all three together.  I realize it is now incumbent upon me to create it.

Iced Mocha Stout is born.

Using the dry Irish stout as a base, I add lactose powder for the milk, double strength coffee and cacao nibs for the chocolate.  It isn’t bad, but you don’t get much chocolate.  Cacao nibs impart the bitterness of pure chocolate, but no sweetness.

Any sugar I add would be consumed by the yeast during fermentation.  My wife is a pastry chef.  So I appoint her my in-house food consultant and inquire how much vanilla would highlight the chocolate without upstaging it.  She is conservative, so we start with a tablespoon of vanilla extract.

I try another batch with two tablespoons.  I am also interested in increasing the mouthfeel.  Lactose is milk sugar.  It is mildly sweet, but viewed by yeast much like my 8-year old son views cauliflower.  It is meant to add thickness and a slight creaminess.  I start with 4 oz of Lactose powder because that is the package size sold by the brew supply shop.  Or why not use 2 packages?

Around the same time, I catch wind of the Samuel Adams Longshot competition.  So I decide to send off some bottles.   When they were ready, I popped one open and discovered why not.  The lactose washes out both the chocolate and the coffee and leaves it totally unbalanced.

While one judge likes the direction and scores me a 34 out of 50 (which I later came to understand wasn’t such a bad score), my overall was a disappointing 31.

The next batch I drop the lactose back to 6 oz.  As I measure out the coffee grounds to brew my coffee  for the fermenter, I have the idea of skipping Mr. Coffee and just putting the grounds in a hop bag.  I am no barista, but I know enough about coffee to know that boiling the grounds scorches them and makes them bitter.  Bitter coffee not good.

But I want to give steeping a try.  Putting them into the fermenter means they go in cold.  Not optimal.  Putting them into the carboy also presents concerns.  The thought of the beer sitting on week-old coffee grounds does not sound appealing.  That kind of bitter is not better.  There is but one solution.  I know the risks, but I decide to go for it.  185 degrees is safe enough not to ruin the coffee, but that means opening the kettle lid to whatever happens to be floating in the air.

My in-house food consultant (IHFC) has told me many a time that the danger zone for food is 40 – 140 degrees.  Anything colder or hotter is inhospitable to bacteria.  My main adversary, lactobacillus, happens to be bacteria.  So with 45 degrees of cushion, I decide to go for it.  I make my little Arabica tea bag, wait for 185, drop it in, and give it a prod with a sanitized spoon to get it into the soup. 

This turns out not to be as easy as I thought, because of the wort chiller taking up all that space in there.  But I get it done.  The result is not bad.  What else can I tweak?

I start playing with the grain bill.  Some of the feedback from the 2010 competition was a desire for something roastier.  I try a variation with rauch malt, which is smokey.  I try a batch toasting some 2-row at home.  Then the beer shop decides not to sell dark malt in ½ pound packages anymore and is clearing them out.  I buy a few and decide to swap out some of the liquid malt.  I first try half a pound and then a pound.  Each half pound of dry replaces ¾ pound of liquid.  I hate math.  It ruined my aspirations of becoming a theoretical physicist (that and having only an average intelligence).  So I decide to use a pound and ditch the small amount of extra “roasty” malts and call it even.  I decide to get the roasty flavor from the coffee, now that the lactose is down to 4oz.

The Longshot competition comes around again.  This time I know going into the brew that this will be competition beer.  I boost up the coffee weight.  The contamination risk is weighing on me though.  I open the lid just enough to drop the coffee bag in, give it a prod, and then close it to limit exposure.

After I have transferred to the fermenter, I discover to my horror that the bag had been caught between the wort chiller and the side of the kettle.  While most of the bag is wet, there are dry grounds in the middle as I empty the bag.  What to do?

I can’t put grounds into the carboy.  Adding the extra coffee at bottling strikes me a bit like unwrapping your presents before Christmas, like it’s cheating somehow.  The beer’s true flavor can only be unveiled after a full fermenting period and you sink or swim with that.  I did increase the grounds, but there was a lot of dry in that bag.  Guilt wins; I go with what I got.

The scores come back.  Average is 30.5.  At the conclusion of my pitty party, partially exacerbated by the fact that the free tee shirt was not as cool as last years, I steel myself and decide to continue on.  I will build it better, faster, stronger!  Well, better and stronger anyway.

Costco has a sale on Madagascar vanilla around the holidays.  Same sale they had last year.  I had bought some to experiment with and liked the results.  But after the holidays were gone, so was the vanilla. Buying it elsewhere was muy expensive, so I had gone back to extract.  I see it back in Costco’s baking aisle, in all it’s glory.  I stock up.  I look over at the wife.  She approves.  Maybe I’ll grab one more package then.

I try using the bean like a flavoring or aroma hop, in the last 5 minutes of the boil.  Almost no flavor impact.  Next batch, I think about transferring the bean from kettle to carboy.  But my adversary, lactobacillus, would want me to do that.  And I did buy that extra package at Costco…

Since dropping back the lactose powder, I find myself missing the mouthfeel, that cream in my coffee feel that should come with an Iced Mocha Stout.  As I read through a brewing book that I scored from Santa, I come across a recipe for Oatmeal Stout.  Something has to be done.  Maltodextrin is cheating, but Oatmeal is insane, isn’t it?  Or is it deliciously insane?

I decide to go for it.  As an extract brewer I don’t get much practice at trying to hold a mash temperature at precisely 158 degrees for an hour.  A previous experience mashing pumpkins yielded good results.  I muse on how Mashing Pumpkins might be a good name for a pumpkin ale, then I realize I don’t have a good lawyer for that.  So I set to mash oatmeal.  The first batch, my second most recent to date, turns out pretty good.  There is a nice flavor that oatmeal imparts to a stout.  It turns out to play nicely with others, and gives that mouthfeel I was looking for.

But that damn coffee is off again!!

I dread subjecting myself and my friends to another 5 gallons of off-balanced stout.  I decide to sac-up and….coffee directly to the keg.  I am able to re-balance it, and it is great.  I decide that more important than being macho is making beer that tastes great.

And here comes Longshot 2012.  I have no misgivings about winning anything but a free tee shirt, but I damn well want better than a 31/50.

So my last changes for the competition beer:

Change to Espresso instead of coffee and add 2 vanilla beans to the fermenter.

These two changes really pull everything together.  Espresso has that roasty flavor, more so than coffee.  It tends to have a stronger finish, which is why most people prefer it with sugar or sweetness.  I typically don’t transfer to a secondary fermenting vessel.  And in this case, I leave the beans (sanitized in vodka, cut longways and scraped with a sanitized knife.  Yes, on a sanitized cutting board!) in the fermenter for 3 weeks.

After, I transfer the whole contents to a keg.   I pull a measured sample, and then add a measured sample of espresso.  I play around with the ratio until I have the right mix.  For an impatient person with a hobby that requires great patience, I feel a certain catharsis about getting instant gratification.

I pull enough Espresso shots to reach the desired volume (math, don’t let me down again!), and then pour it in.  I have to bottle for the competition, so I prepare my bottling bucket and transfer a couple gallons directly from the keggerator.

By now it has been judged.  I simply await the results.  I wonder how I would react to a 30, or something close to that.  At worst I know I will receive feedback from the judges.  The interesting thing about these competitions is that judges are judging taste, smell and color,  but in comparison to a specific “classic style” category.  What if I want to make my own category!! 

I can take a 30 if guys and gals that like beer…. like my beer.

New Brews

My Brewed is back.

It has been a while, but not to worry, i have not slowed brewing, just gotten too busy to post. I've been putting in a lot of work on the Iced Mocha Stout, discovered a brewery has pilfered the Evil Twin from my Evil Twin IPA, and got my Liquid Amber to taste a bit like Boddingtons (wait til I get the faucet and nitro mix!).

I did a pretty decent Pumpkin Ale that I will add to the holiday docket, although i did not do a Holiday Ale this year. I have two bottles left from last year, one of which I'd like to open and try some time soon. The initial offering, which included ginger, orange peel and cinnamon, came out a bit heavy on the ginger flavor due to the use of fresh ginger. Next time the orange peel will be fresh too. Curious too see what happens after a year in the bottle. Will the ginger mellow out, or will it become more dominant?

I am taking advantage of the colder weather to lager. I have an East Coast style (think Boston) Lager going in the garage getting ready to go into secondary. I also have the latest versions of the Evil Twin IPA and Iced Mocha Stout going.

Evil Twin

The ET is based on a modest quantity of strong bittering hops, with the nice flavor combination of Cascade and Amarillo. I had upped the quantity by an ounce each (in a 5 gallon batch) and a bit more malt to balance things out, and the outcome was solid- the best batch yet.

So the batch in the carboy now has another ounce of a different hop, which i believe will add a bit more depth of hop flavor.

I've also been experimenting with roasting my own grains. For this batch I have increased the roast by 1/4 lb of English 2-row, that i roast lightly toasted for 10 minutes.

Brewing operations were improved by the acquisition of a small electric drill-powered mill that i got for a steal. It was returned to the store because the user couldn't get it to work. The free roller has a tendency to loose traction with the grain and stop spinning. With the help of an allen wrench to start the motion again, all is good.

The IPA will transfer to Keg around Jan 20th, and be ready to go by the 27th (in time for the Superbowl!!)

As i mentioned earlier, I've been putting in a lot of work on the Iced Mocha Stout. I actually was working on posts the last two batches, but never managed to finish them. So for the next post I will add some of those notes, along with notes from the most recent batch. I will drop one hint: Oatmeal may be involved!

Yes, I know it has been a while. Lest ye think I have lost the taste for the habit, i have been so busy that I have not had time to post. I have 3 on tap, 2 in wait, a Belgian in the carboy, and an Amber just waiting to be brewed.

I have upgraded from a canning pot to a proper brew pot, with a fancy thermometer that screws into place.

I even crafted some 1/4" copper tubing into a home made wort chiller.

Most importantly, the head shakes and the "oh, not again" look from the wife has developed into irritation at the impact crater I supposedly leave in my wake as I brew. To rectify this, I purchased a Brinkmann outdoor cooker. Now the birds and squirrels will exhale loudly as they think "does it ever end?"

I have also come up with some lists to remind me of what tools and buckets, etc, I need for different tasks (i.e. brew day, yeast starter, kegging and/or bottling day). I will post some of these because I periodically lose track of the binder I keep those in.

So let's start with the freezer. It turns out I was never in any risk of having the beer freeze. After lagering, I thought I would turn the cold up a little, so I turned down the temp on the thermostat. After a week or two, I thought I should probably make it colder. Another turn of the thermostat. Still not cold enough. Screw it, it's going down into the high 20's. No change.

Turns out there is some sort of freon link, and as freon has this nasty habit of dispersing the ozone layer, you cannot get it at the neighborhood hardware store. So I am evaluating options. For now I will have to deal with beer at 47 degrees. And get back into bottling.

That's all for now. Next time I'll cover what's in production and consumption phases.

Lager's Run

I've brewed many an ale in the 14 months or so that i have been brewing. I even brewed a Common. But a lager? Thanks to new technological advances (my neighbor Chris, a home brewer himself, gave me his old converted chest freezer in exchange for a regular supply of beer) I am now able to brew a true Lager.

But what to choose for the sentimental first? A lot of lagers are either too light or one dimensional. This is actually preferable on a hot summer day, but it is still cold outside and I want some flavor and complexity. I want my first time to be special, okay?

So where else would you go for inspiration but a bowling alley?

On a recent trip bowling, my friend Myron bought a pitcher of beer. The taste was crisp and light, yet had a sweetness to it. And I picked up some spices, too. When pressed, Myron gave up that it was Samuel Adams' Winter Lager. I was actually surprised to hear it was a lager from the complexity of flavors.

So when I ran out of my Iced Mocha Stout, my Smokehouse IPA and ran low on my Irish Red, there was plenty of space in the keggerator to lager.

I got this one off the web and had to modify it, due to some of the hops not being available. The recipe is at the end, if you are interested.

I have run across others on similar beer quests. My friend Jim is a more advanced brewer than I, and after a visit he sent me home with a stir plate and beaker to borrow. He gave detailed instructions on how to actually prepare the yeast starter right there in the beaker. However, I was able to find a way to have it boil over every time and extinguish my gas stove flame. Finally I resolved to prepare it in a saucepan and transfer it afterwards.

After 24 hours of spinning around in a pyrex beaker, i let the yeasties rest a bit. Then I figured that since these were lager yeast bound for a winter brew, they might like a cooler climate. So in the fridge they went.

I took them out the next day for brewing and mused that they probably would have done better just sitting out. I was left with a cake of yeast on the bottom, and some starter wort on top, wondering if I blew it or just had a dead batch of yeast.

Jim came by and confirmed that this was how it was supposed to look. He also advised pouring off most of the wort and just using the cake with a little of the remaining liquid to pitch with. Otherwise the full contents might alter the flavor a bit.

So it is sitting in the very freezer you saw abo.... what's that? freezer? no.... don't worry. I'm not freezing it. I picked up an analog regulator that the freezer plugs into. The regulator can be set to fridge temperatures by shutting off juice to the freezer when the temperature probe senses it's getting too cold. Likewise when it gets too warm, it turns back on. In this case, I have turned it up from mid 30's to mid to high 40's (there is a temperature variance of 4- 8 degrees) for the initial fermentation period.

Okay, so let's take a step back and talk about all this lager stuff. What the heck is the difference between an ale and a lager, and why would a freezer be involved? For the most part, it is the yeast. Ale yeast strains tend to strive for the top, so they can look down with self-importance and savor their hard work. And they should be proud! They are considered top fermenting. Lager yeast strains are bottom dwellers, cellar creatures, no ambition but to congregate at the bottom of the carboy and do that thing they do. They are bottom fermenting.

The difference is, that while ale yeast like warm weather (but NOT sunshine), the lager yeast like it when it's cold and dark. And they are lazy. And slow. They take longer to finish their jobs. But you know, if you leave them alone and don't nag them too much, they actually amount to something. Such as a Winter Lager.

Jim also sent me home with two more carboys. So after the first week when fermentation dies down, I will transfer the beer to one of the new carboys. The method to that madness is to get my precious lager away from the sediment for it's long journey. Unlike ale, which is ready for kegging or bottling in two weeks, the lager will require another 4- 6 weeks to maximize the crispness that sets it apart from it's ale bretheren. That sediment could otherwise eventually contribute off flavors, and we simply cannot have that.

Now I am still using the same airlock on the carboy that I always do, rather than a tube that extends out of the top and into another container to filter out C02. So I've felt almost obsessed about going out to the garage and opening the freezer door to keep pressure from building up. I have these visions of the freezer exploding from all the built up gas coming from the air lock.

And since we're having this private conversation, I even found myself huffing and puffing, trying to blow the C02 out of the freezer compartment to alleviate pressure build up. I know, it's kinda silly, huh? But let's just keep that to ourselves. Hate to have something like that show up on the internet.

Anyways, I'll let you know how it comes out. In the meantime, I am going to have another run at the Iced Mocha Stout. This time I'll add an extra Tbsp of vanilla just to see what happens. Maybe next time I will play around with the malts to see how that changes the flavors.

The first batch turned out great. The coffee was strong but not overpowering. It went really well with the stout flavors. The lactose contributed a nice mouth feel, a certain smoothness. I may consider adding another 2 oz on a future batch to see what changes. I was worried about the vanilla taking over, but it wasn't detectable. I did pick up some of the chocolate, which was the purpose of the vanilla. I am hoping my tweak brings out a bit more of the chocolate, and if not I will play with the grain mix. Heck, I'll probably do that anyways.

Without further ado, the Winter Lager recipe:

2.75lbs Light Dried Malt Extract
4lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb Wheat malt
1.5 lbs Munich malt
1.5 lbs Crystal malt 60L

Bittering- 2 oz. Kent Goldings (60 minutes)
Flavorings added in last 15 mins:
1 oz Curaco Orange (bitter orange peel)
0.5 oz Freshly grated ginger root
1/2 tsp Powdered cinnamon
Finishing/Aroma (2 mins):
1 oz Liberty
1 oz Saaz

White labs WLP830 German Lager Yeast.

Iced Mocha Stout

As mentioned last time, I have had a cream stout, a chocolate stout and an espresso stout. But I have never had all three. In a few short weeks that will all change.



To make the Iced Mocha Stout work I wanted to make sure special attention was paid to the ingredients. I started with a dry irish stout kit from the local beer supply store.


To mocha-tize it, I examined the contents of an Iced Mocha. Ice. Chocolate. Milk. And of course, coffee.



The ice would be supplied from the outside.



The chocolate had some scientific challenges. We couldn’t just drop a chocolate bar into the boil. Chocolate has fat (I know, it turns out those rumors are true), and that does not play well with the yeast. I had tried Hershey’s special dark cocoa during conditioning on the last stout, but it added just a hint to the aroma and was lost in the other flavors.


So this time I decided on 2 Tbps that would be added towards the end of the boil. I’ve also been curious about using cacao nibs. So I decided to add 4 oz.



Neither chocolate is sweet, and I’m not trying to rot anyone’s teeth, but I did want to try to enhance the flavor a little bit. I was going to add ¼ tsp of vanilla extract, however after consulting with the resident pastry chef, I bumped it up to 1Tbps.



For the milk, you can’t just open a quart of Berkeley farms 2% and dump it in, but you can get lactose powder. So I got 4 oz of that for the milk component.



I would need to go all out for the coffee. But what to use? There are so many different varieties of coffee and so many ways to roast it to get so many flavors.



So I made a field trip to the Peet’s Coffee & Tea store in San Ramon, CA. I announced my intentions, and was enthusiastically directed to the barista, who himself was a one-time brewer. The challenge is that you don’t want a coffee that will lend a nutty, fruity, spicy, chocolatey or really any other flavor. The other ingredients will capture other flavors. This coffee should be a straight forward dark roast, and taste like….. well, coffee. The barista recommended either French or Italian roast, and I went for French. Whole bean, of course, so I can grind it right before use.



So I added twice the recommended daily allowance of fresh grinds for a pot of coffee and took 1 liter of the yield for the brew (about 32 oz).



Here’s how I put it all together: I added the lactose and cocoa powder to the last 5 minutes of the brew. I added the Peet’s French roast and the vanilla extract to the carboy, just prior to pitching the yeast.



Then when the brew had fermented for a week, I added my cacao nibs. I did a taste test just prior and so far the results are good. We’ll see what the nibs bring to the party.



This brew will go into the keg on Sunday, and I will give it a week or two to carbonate. I’ll post some pictures and the results of the taste test when it is ready to go.

Next Up: Iced Mocha Stout

There's always that dude that orders iced beverages in the dead of winter so the coffee shops have to keep the ice maker plugged in, damn the blizzard outside. That dude is yours truly.

My favorite coffee beverage is the Iced Mocha at Peet's.

As chronicled earlier, I ran an Espresso Stout and it turned out pretty good (if not a bit too strong on the coffee). That one was done on the fly, so this time i did a little research and pondering, and now I am ready to give it a go.

The premise: I've had a cream stout (Sam Adams has a nice one). I've had an Espresso Stout (Red Hook used to make one. Breakfast on camping trips when i was single and much younger). I've had Chocolate Stouts (Young's is my favorite). But I've never had all three in one beer. With all the brewers out there I'm sure it has been done, but since I've never heard of one, yet alone tried one, I'm on it.

The gist: I am starting with an extract version of a dry Irish stout. To that, I am adding lactose at the end of the boil, double strength Peet's coffee and a touch of vanilla extract to the cooling wort (before pitching the yeast), and cacao nibs in the second week of fermenting.

The plan: I will brew it this weekend, and keg it two weeks later. If it tastes as good as it sounds, I'll brew another batch and bottle it.

More to follow on brew day, including some pics.

45 Million Year Old Beer?

Bottle Washer called my bluff, and as it was near his birthday, and since he made the road trip (with brand new baby in tow, no less) I let him pick the beer we'd brew. His choice, dunkelweisen. Drunken-what? It's like at Hefeweisen, but a bit darker. It's meant to have a sort of banana flavor and be a bit richer than a Hefe.

And so it did. I was a bit worried with the amount of dried malt extract that the recipe called for, and it is a bit sweet, but it actually has a nice rich flavor with a hint of banana.

In fact, my friend David, who fancies himself a beer conniseur proved his mettle and picked out the banana without coaching.

The Espresso Stout turned out pretty good. I had added a liter of strong coffee plus about 5 Tablespoons of coffee grounds as detailed in an earlier post. I would either decrease or leave out the grounds, but otherwise I fully intend to do this one again. Some stouts have a heavy feel to them, but this one was nice and light. The coffee went hand in glove with the dry stout. At this point I find myself craving it, and I'm nearly out.

The chocolate was not dominant. My wife, the resident chocolate expert, said it had a chocolate nose. I had to explain to her that beer does not have facial features. No laughs but I did get the eye roll and almost a smile.

I may try to introduce chocolate next time to the boil, but again, the end result was quite good as it was, so I may just leave it out altogether.

******
More Beer sent me a postcard to notify me of a big event with tastings and discounts, etc. My wife intercepted it, which turned out to be a good thing, as it was handed to me with that look of resignation "I guess I know where you're going on Saturday". No groveling required. Just ingenious marketing right there.

So under the pressure of a 15% off sale, I finally broke, and came home with a Cornelius keg, a CO2 tank, and all the fittings.

However this presented yet another problem. What do I fill it with?

So my friend Rene has been living out of town, and has just moved back to the San Francisco area. We go way back, so I figured I would honor her return by letting her select the next beer to go in the pot.

"I don't know," she says. "I like ales". "And Lagers".

If you are not laughing (or at least chuckling) let me explain...

All beers are either Ales or Lagers. This is largely deliniated by the type of yeast used and fermenting/conditioning temperature. Ales use yeast that ferments on the top and brews at 65-75 degrees. Lager yeasts prefer the bottom of the bottle or bucket for fermenting, as well as a chillier temp- about 55- 65 degrees.

So I have a few options here. Then I think of a smart ass way to fill the request. A steam beer, or California Common is a lager brewed at Ale temeratures. I could give her both an Ale AND a Lager!!!

So I had a brew day this past weekend, and it is still nice and active. So next weekend, no bottles to wash (I might bottle a gallon or two to share- I am told that if kept cold and under pressure, the beer should keep about a month. i can't drain 5 gallons myself and the wife will tolerate only so many social gatherings in a week).

*******

Earlier this week I came across an article claiming someone in Northern California is brewing beer with 45 MILLION year old yeast. Turns out it's true- Jurassic Park style, found preserved in Amber. And out of 150 types of yeast, 149 would not be brewers yeast, but this one actually was!

So here is a link to the story from the Contra Costa Times. Check it out!
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_12924553?source=most_emailed

What's Good for the Bottle

It's bottling day, and I am waiting for the sanitize cycle of the dishwasher to finish so I can get this stout on to the next step of it's journey through it's short but important life.

The stuff you see on the sides are the coffee grounds, from the post-pitch shake. We are 9 or 10 days into fermentation and this wort is no longer sweet. I usually wait 2 weeks, but since it has more or less stopped bubbling, I declare it beer.

I gave it a taste test yesterday. The original recipe was modeled after dry Irish stouts, like Guiness, however this one won't have the creamyness nor the nitrogen bubbles. At least not this batch. The flavor was indeed reminiscent of a classic Irish stout, malty but dry, and the kick was complimented by the coffee.

So the bottling bucket is soaking in sanitizing solution, along with all the tubes and nozzles. This evening, I will be employing 15 swing-top bottles of various sizes and colors, 4 Martinelli's bottles and 20 or 21 12-ouncers. Yeah, I know, I swore off the Martinelli's bottles, but I had put the rest of my stash in the fridge to extend the life, and as it turns out after a couple days in the arctic, the crispness is back. To that end, I am planning to expedite the purchase of a mini-fridge, rather than wait to buy the whole kegging kit. Better to have more cold beer on hand anyways.

I had mentioned in the last post that I was thinking of it as an ice mocha stout, but the more I think about it (and after my tasting) the more I think that name doesn't fit. I have acquired some dark cocoa blended with dutch cocoa. I will add the cocoa to the conditioning sugar mixture. This is 100% cacao, mind you, so I'm not adding sweetness here. Any sugar I might add would be consumed by the yeast for carbonation, and if I tried to add more it would at best make it over carbonated and at worst send shards of glass through the air at high rates of speed. No lactose was added to the boil either, so it won't really fit. It would be more like a rich dark chocolate espresso. I don't know, how about Dark Chocolate Espresso Stout. I'll know in 3 weeks if it's worth naming.

The bottles just finished their heated dry and are freshly sanitized. They are very hot so they might kill the yeast. I'll let them cool a bit while I tell you about the cream soda.

*******

So I brewed some cream soda a few days ago to bring to my sister's birthday party. To avoid issues with unequal extract portions and the messy bags that come with splitting batches, I decided to brew the whole 5 gallons. I have been collecting the A&W Root Beer bottles that are 20oz and dark brown plastic. They are thicker than normal bottles and the texturing gives them panache strangely reminiscent of the Willie Mays Hayes VW Bug with the Rolls Royce grill.

Anyways, the recipe called for 4lbs sugar and 1lb honey. Again, it called for throwing dry yeast in. Since I was using the ale yeast-- the same ale yeast that ruined the Dr. Cherry when used as directed-- I opted to activate it in a cup of lukewarm water before pitching.

The nice thing about ale yeast is that it goes dormant at fridge temperatures, so you can keep it for quite a while. But it has a bit of a funny taste, for lack of a better term.... well, yeasty. Not great in soda. The champagne yeast has a cleaner taste and smaller bubbles, however it doesn't go completeley dormant. I found a root beer that had slipped behind a shelf in the fridge, and after 3 months, there was a noticable arc to the cap (don't worry, it was in the A&W plastic root beer bottle), and when opened half the contents bubbled out into the sink.

For the pound of honey I experimented a bit. The wife had some orange blossom honey (about 4/10 of a pound) and I added 2/10 of a pound of agave syrup and the rest was standard honey. I would probably go back to champagne yeast for this one and nix the agave. In fact, I liked the whisper of orange so i would go with a full pound of it. The extract I used was Gnome brand, in a silver pouch. It's a good extract, and comes out soda color instead of the usual cream soda beige.

*******

OK, enough vamping, back to the beer at hand. The bottles are cool enough to use, so I am going to go bottle. pardon me for about 45 minutes while I bottle.

*******

Wow, you have the patience of a saint! So I put my chocolate simple syrup into the bottling bucket and started siphoning in the wort. I can smell the chocolate, definately the beer, the coffee is there too. I have to try this. Hold on....

OK I have a small cup of the primed beer. Mind you, this will be a little sweeter than the final product, but here goes..... Wait, I'll smell it first. The aroma is mostly coffee with a subtle hint of chocolate. Now taste. Ok I'm wading through the sweetness, and I am picking up some bitterness. The stout itself has survived it's journey intact, and I can tell we have a pretty good alcohol content. On the second sip, the bitterness subsides, and I have to say, coffee and chocolate are playing great supporting roles. And I'm not talking Val Kilmer in Tombstone stealing the show type of supporting roles. They complement the stout well. Off the cuff, I think I may reduce the cocoa to 2 Tbps (I had added 3 Tbsp).

OK back to bottling. See you in a bit.

********

Another note on the cocoa. A lot of it ended up on the bottom of the bottling bucket. Not sure if that's the best I'm going to get from cocoa, or if it needed to boil a bit longer. The resident pastry chef is off duty and asleep, so I'll ping her tomorrow for advice.

I put some of the nectar in the freezer while I bottled to get a sense for the cold taste, and it did clear up a bit. So there is definately some complexity there, a roasty-ness that comes from the grains (black roasted, black patent and chocolate) and the..... enhancements.

I will check it again in two weeks. In the meantime I intend to brew again Father's day weekend. Perhaps if Bottle Washer reads the blog regularly as he says he does, he can come over for a brew day....

A Stout Challenge

My friend Frank is visiting again from Mexico, and so I thought I'd take him by the local brew store. We checked 0ut the kegging systems, and talked about different types of beer that we could brew.

Being the good host that I am, I gave Frank the option, and he chose stout. To be specific, he took the standard Irish dry stout as opposed to an Imperial stout.

As we got the boil going, my wife came in and made a request for coffee. So as we were brewing a pot of coffee, it clicked. I used to enjoy the Red Hook Espresso Stout; why not bring it back in an un-official capacity.

I do a partial boil, so once that was in the carboy, I added a liter of freshly brewed strong coffee, and then the rest of the water. Then I added about 5 tablespoons of coffee grounds into the carboy before adding the yeast.

I got this crazy idea about brewing an iced mocha stout, and had ground up some cocoa nibs, but we had a change of heart. As it turns out, adding chocolate to the primary fermentation inhibits the yeast and could spoil the beer. Luckily, Frank has culinary expertise and was there to keep me grounded. So what I might do is add cocoa powder to the priming sugar, and introduce the chocolate in the conditioning phase.

Frank and I did the brew on Sunday (yesterday), and as of this evening the yeast are exuberant. They seem to be sharing the top with the coffee grounds without complaint so far.

I'll do another post to detail the conditioning and provide measurements if I decide to go for the Ice Mocha Stout.

As my eldest son is turning 7 and having a lego party at the house, I will also brew some cream soda this weekend.

Cheers!

Keg Is King

As time goes on, I am noticing that home brew loses it's hoppiness. No preservatives, and over time, I guess, even beer gets old.

Some observations.

I spent some time collecting bottles. First it was getting larger bottles to reduce the amount of work for bottling. Then it was swing tops. I found some clear 33.8 oz bottles. I found brown 33 oz bottles. I even found a half-gallon bottle that held some German winterbrew.

I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to bottling, size counts. against you. I posted earlier that the flavor in the 25.4oz Martinelli's bottles was not crisp. My theory was that the green glass was letting in light that was spoiling the beer.

So what happens when you use the larger brown bottles? Same thing. The taste is just not there like it is in the smaller bottles.

Conclusion: Go with 12- 20 oz bottles. The crisp flavor is worth the extra cleaning bottling and capping.

****

My neighbor down the street brews as well, and he came by and invited me over the following Sunday. He and his buddies were gathering for the opening day of the Formula One series in Australia, and they were kicking things off with their first attempt at kegging.

I like the idea of kegging, but my concerns are: (1) How long will the beer keep once you've cracked the seal, (2) It's spendy for the gear and (3) It can be hard to keep track of how much you drink.

Sunday came around, and I swung by. We exchanged some brewing experiences and best practices. It was nice to know I shared some common challenges with other brewers.

As I tried to glean what knowledge I could about F1 racing before the start of the race, they cracked open the keg. What came out of the tap was a resolution to keg.

My neighbor had brewed an IPA with a full fruity body behind it. But equally impressive was the freshness. You really can't beat draft beer. I tried the same beer in a 12 oz bottle, and it still had all the flavor, but that draft freshness really elevated the experience.

So apparently you can keep the beer in decent shape for about a month. But of course, I will have to research it myself, before posting it as ipso facto on "My Brewed".

I am in the process of pulling coins out of the furniture and my wife is amazed at my sudden interest in laundry. I will slowly amass my fortune in spare change and turn it into pure amber gold.

I have resolved to keg.

It will cost me about $185 plus cooling to start. This will give me the refurbished soda keg (5 gallons), regulator, Co2 tank, tubing and spigot. For cooling, the plan is to get a mini-fridge I can use to keep kegs cold (no room in the fridge without massive reconfigs, and I actually do eat more than just beer). Should be able to find one on the cheap on Craig's List. And then when the time comes, with a few more bucks, I can convert it into a full kegerator. With two towers.

Three Batches Later

Where do I start?

I guess the first question is whatever happened with the Bass? First the pour. Still darker than Bass, aroma was right. Then the taste. Yeasty, but in a fresh bread kind of way. A bit of a bite. Nice malty...sweetness. Adequate. Clean finish. Need another sip. The sweetness is not the caramel flavor, and kind of subltle. Very adequate!

As it turns out, it wasn't as good as the ESB. But it was very drinkable. It seemed to take on more of the caramel flavor you get with Bass when the temperature rose. So it could be consumed either way.

In the meantime, I made another venture outside the world of kits and used a recipe from Food Network's Alton Brown. In his show "Good Eats", Alton Brown features an episode called "Amber Waves". After watching this initially around 3 years ago, I was left with the feeling that I could brew beer. My wife got me a mini kit from Bed Bath & Beyond. In 4 short weeks I would have a six pack of beer!!

I made my wort per the instructions, cooled it, added my powdered yeast and..... nothing. No bubbling, no fermenting. It actually took a month or two before I came to the realization that it probably wasn't going to happen. The "I can do it" feeling subsided, and the idea faded with time.

Thank God for TiVo. A couple years later I got the bug again when I reviewed "Amber Waves" from the DVR (you think I'm a packrat with the shows, you should see my garage). This time, I hinted Santa might look at a big boy brew kit, and I even stopped by my local beer store and picked up a brochure to help clarify the hint. And I circled the kit in the brochure. Then brought it to her attention. Twice.

Anyways, here is the recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-brew-recipe/index.html

Some of the user reviews are a bit rough, regarding his process, but the important thing he impresses on you is the necessity for being fanatical about sanitation.

So I used his recipe. I meant to get light liquid malt extract, but I accidentally got extra light. Also the recipe called for Crystal Malt but was not more specific. I used 40L.

Fast forward 2 weeks, and one of my friends, Marcos, is flying in from Alaska for his birthday (for accuracy's sake, his birthday is the day after Christmas, however he has rejected this and replaces it with the Oakland A's season home opener). He has requested IPA. "It's all I drink" he writes.

So Saturday I bottle the Alton and on Sunday I brew the IPA. I could have gone two directions. There was a Brittish IPA, that is brewed using oak chips, and there is an American IPA that has a nice full flavor with a fruity finish. I like the idea of the oak chips, but I have kicked this thing off with 3 consecutive Brittish recipes, so I decide to go with the American IPA.

After brewing and cleaning up, I am feeling brewer's fatigue, and decide to take a break from brewing. I decide I may try the Brittish IPA or something completely different. In a few weeks.

Two weeks later, the Alton Amber is ready. First taste, very hoppy. A bit bitter, and kind of a watery finish. Company is coming over Friday with expectations (that I set) of fresh home brew. That Thursday, it is the same way. There is a bitterness and still a lack of body.

In the meantime, I have discovered that the few bottles of ESB that I had hid away, had lost some of their hoppyness, and there was kind of an odd taste that I could only classify as "old". I had been saving these for special occasions, and now they were stale and past their prime.

Strike Two. It's Friday.

I open the Alton, and it's simply a different beer. The hoppy bitterness has blended into a nice sharp bite and a very flavorful malty finish. Smooth, and body is well provided by the equilibrium of malt and hops. Day saved. The lesson learned is that 3 weeks in the bottle is better than two. A beer is just not ready until it is ready. I recommend this recipe.

The larger Martinelli's bottles are lagging behind. In fact with both the Bass and the Alton, the flavor is a little different in these dark green bottles. Not as crisp. I decide they are good for bottling soda, but not beer. I vow to replace them and never to use them again.

I make a run to BevMo looking for brown swing tops, find that Groelsh is bottling beer again, and find a few other swing's to bottle with.

But for the IPA it is too late. I have a wife and two kids, no longer in college, no longer young, and am unable to consume enough beer before bottling day. So the Martinelli's bottles go back into service.

Next post will cover a discussion with a neighbor that turned into a resolution, and Marcos arrives from Alaska. Will the IPA be ready? Will it turn out OK? Will he be thawed out enough to drink it??? You'll just have to wait. It'll be shorter that 3 months this time, though.

The Root of my problem

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.

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.

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.

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!

And Another

Another

First pic's

Soda Anyone?

So after getting the beer into bottles and into the closet for a couple weeks, I decided to have a crack at making a Dr. Pepper type soda, as mentioned earlier, that I got from Hoptech.

The scent of the extract was like a mix between Dr. Pepper and cherry, which is probably why it was called Dr. Cherry. The recipe calls for 4lbs of sugar, about 15 grams of ale yeast, water and the 4 oz bottle of extract.

This would yeild 5 gallons (roughly 2 cases) but I only had one case of beer bottles. The thing to keep in mind here, is even if I have enough bottles, you can't just leave soda out. With such a rich supply of sugar, the yeast will continue to chow, making more C02 and the bottles will burst. So I need to make sure I have enough room in the fridge for 48 bottles of soda, as I also use my fridge for storing food. So I'm halving all the ingredients.

So I need the bottling bucket, spigot, tubing, thermometer, bottling wand; all sanitized. Then I get my pre-measured ingredients. I'll be making 2 1/2 gallons, and will need a cool-down, so I stashed a one gallon bottle of spring water in the freezer before sanitizing.

I got the kitchen facuet running nice and hot and then filled a gallon and a half of water in. I put in 4 cups of sugar (2lbs) and stirred. Then I stirred in the extract. Once everything was nicely mixed, I grabbed the bottle of water out of the freezer and dumped it into the bucket (for you literalists, I opened the bottle and poured the contents into the bucket). I also dropped the thermometer in the mix.

Once we were below 80 degrees, I added the yeast and mixed thoroughly.

I got the bottles together, connected the tubing and bottling wand to the spigot, cranked it up, and started filling.

This was 5 days ago, and I still do not have carbonated soda. So I have to work out what went wrong.

I was pretty good about sanitation, so I don't think that's it. I used ale yeast instead of champagne yeast, at the recommendation of Hoptech. At first I thought it just took longer to get going. I also thought it might be dead yeast, but I am getting a little bit of firmness on my plastic bottles, so they are going, but going slow.

Yeast also have a hard time breaking down table sugar. Perhaps I never got the sugar hot enough to break it down to a monosaccharide, therefore essentially teasing the yeast and getting them very angry.

Ale yeast are also more sensitive to cold. One benefit of using ale yeast over champagne is that when you put it in the fridge it goes inactive right away. In the interest of being able to make mortgage payments without eating dry cat food, we keep the house at a consistent 68 degrees. OK for beer, not so good for soda maybe.

The latter is my best guess, although the sugar could be another reason. I have a blanket on the soda now to see if that will warm the hearts of the little yeast, and wake them up again.

To test these suspicions and for due dilligence, I plan to brew the rest of the root beer with the ale yeast and make a batch of dr cherry with the champagne yeast. I will also try brewing in the dr cherry with ale yeast in the summer months.

Oh the joys of life.....