Some Fuck'n Hops - Session IPA

Here is one that I just finished up last week.

I have been craving and making some lighter beers lately, probably because of the weather but also because they are easy to drink and can still pack some serious flavor. I didn't used to be a fan of Session IPAs. However, over time I have grown to seriously respect them. The amount of care that goes into extracting the flavors and aromas of the hops while still maintaining a good malty base at a low ABV is awesome to me.

One of the commercial session IPAs that I like a lot is the Firestone Walker Easy Jack. The hop character from the Mandarina Bavaria is amazing but still, somehow, the malty flavors are very forward. It is also super refreshing and easy to drink. I decided to base my recipe a tiny amount on it. Since I like how they did the malt character, I tried to replicate it as close as I could. However, I did my own hop combination that I think is interesting.

I had originally planned to brew this one a bit later, but because of my Pumpkin Ale getting infected and me hosting an Oktoberfest part at my house, I needed a beer quickly. I did this one grain to glass in 9 days.

Here is the recipe:
Exp OG: 1.048
Exp FG: 1.010
Exp ABV: 5.0%
Exp SRM: 4.5
Exp IBU: 54.8

Mash 75 mins at ~151℉
Batch Sparge 20 mins at 168℉
8 lbs 2-Row (81%)
10 oz  Munich I (6.3%)
6 oz Crystal 20L (3.8%)
5 oz Carapils (3.2%)
5 oz Pale Wheat (3.2%)
4 oz Flaked Oats (2.5%)

1 oz Southern Star (17% AA) at 30 mins
.25 oz El Dorado (12.9% AA) at 10 mins
.25 oz Lemondrop (5.2% AA) at 10 mins
.25 oz El Dorado (12.9% AA) at 5 mins
.25 oz Lemondrop (5.2% AA) at 5 mins
.5 oz El Dorado (12.9% AA) at Flameout
.5 oz Lemondrop (5.2% AA) at Flameout
1 oz El Dorado (12.9% AA) Dry Hop in Keg
1 oz Lemondrop (5.2% AA) Dry Hop in Keg

WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast

The brew day went well. I am still working on getting my efficiency figured out. I just think that my system limits me.

Here were my steps to get this thing in the glass so quickly:
Day 1 - Brew/Pitch/Ferment
Day 2-7 - Ferment
Day 7 - Transfer to purged keg with dry hops in a SS pod. Carb to 30 PSI and shake for a few minutes.
Day 8 - Purge CO2 and set to serving pressure.
Day 9 - Serve.

I was skeptical of the 30 PSI trick at first, hence why I only let it sit there for a day after short shake. I actually did pour some of this beer right after purging it down to serving pressure and it was pretty much already perfect. I should also note that this is my first time using a dry hop pod. It has made the aroma seem super fresh. We'll see how well it holds up over time. I also did not filter this one at all.

The aroma and flavor is citrus fruit with a good amount of lemon notes. As expected, the malt still has a forward presence and mouth feel is impeccable. Next time, I may try to use a little less Lemondrop and add Mosaic or Galaxy.

1979 Is Dead :(

Welp, bad news about the Pumpkin Ale. After being in primary for about 4 weeks, it got infected. At what point this happened, I am not sure. It could of been that there was some bacteria still in the fermenter, but I cleaned it with PBW for this brew. By some crazy chance, something may have gotten in there while the lid was open for a second when I took a gravity (refractometer) sample a couple weeks ago. Or the Star San in the air lock just wasn't good anymore and allowed for something to get in.

It does look like a lacto infection, which isn't the worst thing in the world. I am considering adding some brett and letting it sit for a year to see what happens. I just would have to purchase a new auto-siphon and tubing to reduce risk of infecting other brews. Also, I would have to figure out how to bottle it, since I do not want to infect my keezer at all. I'm going to do some more research and figure out the best path going forward before dumping it.

The sample that I did take was a beautiful orange color but it did taste like an infected beer. Hopefully with time and the addition of brett, it would get better. I could end up with a really cool Sour Pumpkin Ale for next Halloween.

1979 - Third All-Grain, First Pumpkin Ale

Getting this one ready just in time for the fall season. I've wanted to make a pumpkin ale ever since I started brewing and I've finally gotten it to fit into my brew schedule. This beer style tends to either be loved or hated. I happen to truly love pumpkin ales. As for the name, it's my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song.

This one is going to have a slightly longer fermentation schedule to help round out the typical booziness pumpkin ales like to finish with. I am aiming for a 2 week primary into a 3 week secondary and 2 weeks in keg to carbonate. I should be drinking it around 10/06/17.

Here is my recipe:
7 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs Munich I
2 lbs Aromatic
12 oz Caramunich II
8 oz Melanoidin

1 oz Southern Dawn hops - 60 mins
60 oz (2 cans) Pumpkin pie filling - 15 mins
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice - 5 mins

WLP002 English Ale - 1.5L starter

1.5 tbsp Vanilla Extract - last 5 days of secondary

Mash at ~151-152℉ for 90 mins. Batch sparge to 168℉ for 10 mins.

I am aiming for an OG of 1.065 and FG of 1.018 for an ABV of 6.2%

There are two things in my recipe that I feel that I should address. My use of the pumpkin and vanilla. There is an endless debate on how to correctly handle the pumpkin during the brewing process. Some believe that you should mash it, others that you should boil it, most think that you should do both and there's also a minority that think it should be introduced during the fermentation process. I personally am only trying to get the beautiful orange color out of the pumpkin, so I am just going to boil it for now. In the future, I may try and add it to my mash tun.

As for the vanilla, I am hoping to add a bit of a smoothness to the back of the tongue with it. I don't want it to be an in your face sort of thing, I just want it to create a pleasant complexity. I am also introducing it 5 days to the end of secondary as to not kill the aroma with CO2 production while still giving it time to circulate throughout the beer.

Now, I have had issues with my efficiency on my last two brews. So when I went into my LHBS, I picked up some Iodophor Iodine to check my conversion during mash. I personally feel that my poor efficiency is stemming from an issue with my vorlauf or batch sparging technique. Still working on it.

I got the starter ready last night and will be brewing this tomorrow (08/18/17). Updates to come.

Oktoberfest - Finished Fermentation, Now Lagering

To start, I am very happy with how this beer is turning out. It will be one of the best if not the best beer I have made. Despite the low efficiency, I still ended up with an FG of 1.009, giving me an ABV of 5.8%. This is lower than the style's typical FG, but it still tastes exactly like an oktoberfest. Plus, in recent years, breweries have started making Oktoberfest beers lower on gravity/drier so that they are in turn more universally accepted and easier to down at a festival.

My fermentation schedule ended up being:

5 days at 53℉ (to ~50% attenuation)

.5 days at 58℉

.5 days at 63℉

4.5 days at 68℉ (diacetyl rest)

3 day at 31℉ (cold crash/gelatin fining)

10 weeks for lagering in a keg in my keezer

The sample taken for the FG was a light amber gold and had an incredible malt character while still being clean tasting and refreshing. No signs of diacetyl or any other off flavors.

I can't wait to see how this one turns out. Just have to wait..

My First All Grain Batch - Oktoberfest

So this was my first all grain batch ever. I definitely learned some things. I did not get the efficiency that I had hoped for and I think that this is mostly due to mashing at ~151℉ for only 60 minutes. The next batch, I will do the same temperature but for 75-90 minutes. I also rushed the batch sparge, I poured the water in and did not let it sit long enough (a couple minutes). Next time I will let it sit for 10+ minutes before vorlauf.

Other than the lack of efficiency, I am super impressed with my mash tun's performance. I lost less than a half degree of heat throughout the mash. I did get a bit to much wort from the sparge, so I boiled it for 15 minutes before the first hop addition.

Here is the beer:
5lbs Pilsner
5lbs Munich I
1lbs Munich II
.5lbs Caramunich II
2oz Tettnang hops (2% AA)
2L starter of  2x WLP820 (Oktoberfest/Märzen yeast)

 I pitched the yeast at 53℉ and will let it stay there for 5 days, check the process with my refractometer and if it's 50%+ attenuated, I will raise the temp 5℉ every 12 hours until it hits 68℉. and let it finish fermenting. I will then cold crash it to 33℉, gelatin it for a few days and then transfer to keg to lager in the keezer until October.

The color is beautiful. It's a nice light orange, like I wanted. I was originally aiming for an OG of 1.062 but ended up landing at 1.052 due to my lack of efficiency. This will still give me a really easy to drink ~5% ABV beer. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Sex & Candy - Brewed, Fermented, Change of Plans

So I actually did the boil for this one two weeks ago (06/23). I was successful at getting within a point of my target OG, 1.090.Unfortunately I had to head to LA right after pitching the yeast, so I was not able to witness the fermentation starting and when we got back 2 days later, the airlock was not bubbling. I immediately took a hydrometer reading and saw that it was about half way done (1.050). However there was no visible signs of fermentation so I was concerned that the olive oil trick did not work this time around.

I decided to just be patient and wait until Friday to check it again. I did slowly raise the temp up to 70℉ throughout the week and gave the fermenter a little swirl every day. The reading I took on 06/30 was 1.031. So it was obviously fermenting, just super slowly and without any visual tells. I kept it at 70℉ and kept swirling it every day. Today, I took a hydrometer reading of 1.022 which I'm satisfied with, seeing that my goal was 1.017. The sample tasted AMAZING. A nice blend of nuts, toffee and caramel.

Since Quadrupel Threat got bottled instead of the planned keg; I am kegging this beer. Which means it switched places with the Quad as a Winter beer. Now its a late summer, early fall beer.

I added the Mezcal and Oak Cubes into the Primary Fermenter today as well.

Which by my calculations, makes the ABV ~10.32%. I'm going to let it sit for the next two weeks like this and then keg it. Telling by the sample I had today, I really does not need to age to be very good. I'm sure age would make it better, but I am happy with the way it's turned out.

Gear Update - All Grain Build

I decided randomly yesterday to get setup for All Grain brewing. I headed to Home Depot to check out coolers and sink return lines (for my pseudo false bottom) to start. I ended up finding this nice 60 quart Rubbermaid cooler and 10 feet of 1/4" return line that should work perfectly for a mash tun. This will give me plenty of room to do very high gravity 5 gallon batches and in the future, maybe normal gravity 10 gallon batches. I have an old Coleman cooler that I haven't used for along time and figured it would make a perfect Hot Liquor Tank.

After getting all of this stuff together and doing some measurements, I headed to the local brew shop (Doc's Cellars) to get the rest of the hardware I needed. Fortunately they had full stainless steel valve setups that didn't require many other parts to get them installed. I did have to use a couple couplers on the Mash Tun to get it to reach through the incredibly thick insulation. Also, I bought 2x 3 foot 1/2" ID tubes, a simple sparging end, some hose clamps and a barbed end for the false bottom.

In an ideal world, everything would have gone together without issue. But of course that was not the case.I struggled big time with leaks at the valve on both tanks. Long story short, the rubber washers that came with the valve kits where not working for me, the rubber washers that were on the coolers' OG valves were perfect. Once I put those on, I had no more issues with leaks.

So here are the final results. I am planning on doing my first all grain batch this Friday. It will be my Oktoberfest lager.

Mash Tun:

Hot Liquor Tank:

Quadrupel Threat - Update (15.8%!!!)

So, good news. I stopped (cold crashed) fermentation on this monster at 1.015 which puts this beer roughly at 15.8% ABV. The scary thing is that I did have to stop the fermentation. The WLP099 was still eating. I was concerned that if I just let it finish naturally, it would be at risk of taking it all the way down to 1.000 (which I found with some research, has happened). The hydrometer sample I took tasted really good. It does obviously need to age for awhile but the fruit and candy flavors I was looking for are definitely prominent.

Originally I was going to be kegging this beer after a long secondary. But due to the situation with the WLP099 needing to be stopped and my worrying that even after a cold crash there would still be plenty of yeast to get active again in secondary, I opted to bottle. I now am confident this is a better option, because I now have the ability to age bottles of this beer for a very long time, which is exciting to me.

Now, this is no normal beer, so it will not be getting my normal bottling treatment. I took my time to make sure that the overall presentation is nice. I designed what I think is a pretty cool label (applied with milk). While it would be awesome to use Belgian corked bottles for this beer. That would be a pretty expensive endeavor. Maybe on a future version of this beer.

I am aiming for about 2.5 vol of CO2. A little higher than I would normally go, but not so much that it will cover the fruity esters. This means about 4.5oz of sugar for my priming solution. Seeing that I based a lot of this recipe on Westvleteren 12, which is a bit hazy, I figure the cold crash is enough to drop most of the yeast but keep the body character that I want. So no gelatin finings on this one. Also, while there still may be enough WLP099 to carb the bottles, I still added a half packet of EC-1118 (champagne yeast) to the bottling bucket just in case the WLP099 was close to done due to the toxic alcohol environment. I would usually add the whole packet, but I do not want exploding bottles so I only added half of the packet.

So, I will be letting this sit for about a month before popping one of them just to check for carbonation. If everything looks good, I will try my hardest to leave it alone until December. We'll see :)

Sex & Candy - My Christmas Imperial Brown Ale, Aged on Mezcal

This is just a fun one for me. It's about that time of the year to get the winter brews going and I've decided on doing an Imperial Brown Ale. However, I want to make it as interesting as possible. Here's my recipe:

Spec:
Est OG: 1.089
Est FG: 1.018
Est ABV: 9.5% + 1.6% (from Mezcal) = 11.1%
Est IBU: 48.4
Est SRM: 29.1

Steep 30 Mins:
4oz Crystal 80L
4oz Pale Chocolate
8oz Victory Malt

Hops:
60 Mins - 1oz Northern Brewer (8.5% AA)
15 Mins - .75oz Hallertauer (4.5% AA)
5 Mins - N1/69 Experimental (13.2% AA)

Fermentables:
60 Mins - 3lbs Pilsen Light LME
15 Mins - 7lbs Pilsen Light LME
15 Mins - 1lbs Corn Sugar
15 Mins - 1lbs Homemade Smoked Candi Sugar

Yeast:
WLP007 Dry English Ale

Fermentation:
3-4 Week Primary
Bottle age to December

Additions:
7 Days - .75oz Medium French Oak w/ 750ml (whole handle) El Silencio Mezcal

There are a lot of interesting choices in here for me. The grains I chose are simple, normal brown ale specialty grains. Where it starts to get different is with the N1/69 South African Experimental hop. I had purchased a South African hop sampler box from Northernbrewer.com primarily for an IPA I wanted to do, but the tropical aromatic character of this hop I feel will contrast with the smokiness of the candi sugar and mezcal very well, further adding to my whole Sex & Candy theme.

In regards to the late additions, I have had great success with these at this point and I plan on continuing this process as long as I'm doing anything with extract. Yes, I did in fact make my own Candi sugar that I consider an epic fail for a Belgian. However it has this wonderful smokey fruit flavor to it that I think will really work in this brew.

I'm using WLP007 because I only want a small amount of the classic English fruit esters, but not enough that it becomes overwhelming with the smokey flavor. Also, since this is a higher gravity beer, the higher attenuation is useful.

My favorite part of this brew however has to be the Mezcal. I had a Mezcal/Tequila barrel aged Imperial Brown Ale from Figueroa Mountain about a year ago and it was so good that I have been wanting to make something similar for some time now. The crisp smokiness is so unique. And yes I am using A LOT of it. But screw it, it's Christmas. We can use the warm up. By my calculations, there will be .46 shots in each 12oz beer. Yummy. Also, some oak.

I will be making the starter for this beer Wednesday night this week and brewing it on Friday. Unfortunately, this one is going to sit for a long time, but it will be worth it.

Quadrupel Threat - Fermentation

I brewed this beer almost 4 weeks ago (05/25/17). It is still fermenting. This is the longest fermentation I have ever had.

I pitched the wort onto the yeast cake at 64℉ and let it sit there for 3 days. These were the most explosive 3 days of fermentation I have experienced. I had a blow off tube in there from the get go, but it overflowed my starsan mug within half a day. I cleaned that mess up and put the mug inside of a sauce pan to catch the overflow. This had to be emptied about three times.

Once the fermentation started to calm down, I pitched the WLP099 starter and raised it a degree to 65℉. This caused some more explosiveness for a couple of days.

Once it calmed down again, I started raising it a degree every 2 days until I hit 69℉. After about a week there, I turned up the temp controller to 72℉ and it's been sitting there ever since.

I am finding that WLP099 is a very slow and steady yeast near it's end. The airlock has been bubbling every 5-6 seconds for about 16 days. I have been checking the SG about weekly, last time being this previous Wednesday (06/14/17), where it was at 1.030 (13.8% ABV). Getting Close!

I do have to say that this process has pretty much sold me on the Olive Oil trick. It is obviously working just fine. We'll see how the final product is with head retention and what not, but attenuation is fine so far!

I plan to check it again this Wednesday. WLP099 is also known for over attenuation, which I absolutely do not want. So hopefully, Quadrupel Threat will be <1.020 by Wednesday. If so, I am going to cold crash it for a couple days and transfer it to secondary to batch age. Plus, at this point, that yeast cake is almost 6 weeks old. I've heard of people going longer, but I don't want to push it and get weird flavors.

On a positive note, the Dubbel I made for the yeast cake is on tap and delicious!
I've named it Dubbel Time. 6.5% ABV.

Quadrupel Threat - A Very Large Belgian Quad

So, I was wanting to make a very big beer just to play with what it takes to successfully attenuate and create actual good flavor with high gravity/abv. After doing some research, I decided to go in the route of a Belgian Quad / Dark Strong Ale. This is mostly due to the capabilities of WLP530 (Abbey Ale) yeast. It has a high alcohol tolerance as well as being well known for not stopping mid fermentation. I also just really like belgians and it's summer so the math added up.

For the recipe, I did some research on what specialty grains and hops are used for certain clones, such as Westy 12, and then adjusting the amounts via ratio of clone abv vs goal abv. After building myself a bunch of options, I ended up going with the following:

Steeping grains:
6oz Special B
12oz Caramunich

Hops:
60min - 1 oz Nugget (13% AA)
30min - 1.5oz Hallertauer (4.8% AA)
15min - 1.5oz Styrian Goldings (5.4% AA)

60min:
4lbs MoreBeer UltraLight LME

15min:
12lbs MoreBeer UltraLight LME
2lbs D-180 Belgian Candi Syrup
1lbs D-45 Belgian Candi Syrup
1lbs Corn Sugar

On paper, this would get me an OG of roughly 1.133. Belgians are notorious for having a high percentage of pure sugar, so I went with 20% total mixture of candi and corn sugar. I chose MoreBeer's UltraLight because of it's higher than average fermentability (80% +/- 5%). So in a perfect world, this would let me attenuate down to 1.015. All of these decisions are in the name of attenuation, as well as aiming for as traditional of an end product as possible.

I suppose I should also explain my reasoning for the extreme amount of late addition. I am a firm believer that the length of a boil for extract brewing is only important for the AA extraction of hops. LME/DME was already wort at one point, so you only need to get it dissolved into the water. This reduces the amount of sugar that is caramalized during the boil which in turn means more fermentable sugar and lighter color. However, you do need a small amount at the beginning of the boil to help the hops (i aim for ~20%). More on this HERE.

Now, the most important part of this whole experiment is the yeast. I did mention WLP530 earlier, which I am using. However, to get enough of a yeast starter for this beer is incredibly difficult. Even a 1 gallon starter is not necessarily enough to give it a proper pitch. I decided that my best option was to make a 5 gallon batch of a simple ~1.060 OG Dubbel and pitching on it's yeast cake. In theory, this would give me about 1 trillion yeast cells. Yes this is over pitching a bit, but I am not taking any risks. I want attenuation. This also gives me a beer to drink while waiting on the Quad. :)

On top of pitching onto the WLP530 yeast cake, I pitched a small 1.5L starter of WLP099 (High Gravity Yeast) after about 3 days of fermentation. This allows the WLP530 to create most of the yummy Belgian flavors and lets the WLP099 do the cleanup work and make sure that my goal FG of <1.020 is reached. Also to note, WLP099 creates some belgiany type flavors itself in the right conditions.

Most everyone will tell you that you need an insane amount of oxygenation to make the yeast happy on a brew such as this. I do not have an oxygen tank and I do not plan on buying one either. My reasoning for this is the incredible power of olive oil. I opted for a small toothpick dipped in olive oil with the remaining drippings flicked off, and then thrown into the boil. This is a very controversial subject that is still not considered as good as oxygen, but I'm doing it anyways because $$$. You can read more about the science HERE.