Blonde Bottled and Cranberry Wheat Secondary

Friday, October 21st, the first blonde ale was bottled.  The total volume, 48 12-oz bottles.  Final abv is only 3%.  The result has shown me that improvement is needed in efficiency in the mash. An update with taste, aroma, color will be later.

Saturday, October 22nd, Cranberry Wheat was transferred to the secondary.

The cranberry wheat is a cranberry bog! It smells tart and hints of the juniper berries are coming through.

Only about 4 gallons were transferred.  This has been typical with the cranberry ales I have done and have presented a problem that I needed to find an answer for! Along with the beer being transferred, 1/2-oz of juniper berries, crushed by my lovely brew partner my wife, was added along with the juice from crushed 6-oz of cranberries.  Adding the juice is an attempt to get the cranberry flavor in this beer.  I added the juniper berries because I think they will complement the cranberry flavor, we shall see how it turns out.

Double Brew Columbus Day: Cranberry Wheat Ale and Blonde Ale

So to celebrate Columbus Day, I decided to brew two beers; a cranberry wheat ale and a blonde ale.  The cranberry wheat will take a bit longer to be done as it has fresh cranberries. The plan is to have it ready by thanksgiving.  The blonde ale should be ready to be bottled in just a few weeks.  Also to note that these are both all-grain recipes.

First, a little background on the cranberry ale, this is the second cranberry ale I am attempting.  The first cranberry ale was a standard pale ale recipe that I added crushed cranberries to the primary fermenter. It turned out all right, but I wanted to change it up a bit.  The wheat base I thought would help the cranberries shine through.  As for the blonde ale, I wanted to have my hand a simple pale ale.  A blonde is type of pale ale, that has the appearance of a straw-blonde.

Above is my home brewery set up.  I use two modified water coolers, a 5 gallon (top tier) and a 10 gallon (mid tier), a 7 gallon boil kettle and I have several fermentation containers.  For the cranberry ale, I used the 6 gallon bucket and for the blonde ale, I used a 6 gallon carboy.  The top tier 5 gallon water cooler is the hot liquor tank.  This is used to hold hot water, strike or sparge water, until it is needed for the mash.  The mid tier 10 gallon water cooler is the mash ton.  The grains and hot water are added and mixed in this container.

Cranberry Wheat Ale:
6 Gallons
IBU: 21.55
ABV: 7.2%

Ingredients:
Grains:
5 lbs Red Wheat, 3.3L
5 lbs 2-Row - Pale, 2
2 lbs 2-Row - Pilsen, 1L
1 lbs Light Crystal, 10L

Hops:
1 oz Vangard (AA 5%) @ 60 minutes
0.25 oz Vangard (AA 5%) @ 5 minutes


Additions:
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz orange peel, bitter @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz Crushed Juniper berries @ 5 minutes

66 oz crushed cranberries


Secondary Fementer:
0.5 oz crushed juniper berries
6 oz crushed cranberries
Note: These are to be added once the beer has been transferred to the secondary.  Let it sit in the secondary for at least 2 weeks or until flavor is achieved. Will be updating this beer. I just wanted to add in here that there will be some secondary additions.


Yeast:
WLP300, Hefeweizen
Note: Made starter day before.

Mash: 2-step protein develop (90 minute mash)
Protein rest: 3.25 gallons (13 quarts) of 130F water added to grains.  Let sit for 30 minutes.  Target to get a temperature around 122F to get the grains to extract necessary proteins for fermentation and head retention.
Mash: Add 1.625 gallons (6.5 quarts) of 212 F water added to the mash.  Stabilize to 152F let sit for 60 minutes.
Sparge: Mash out after 60 minutes and sparge with 3.5 gallons of 181 F water.
Target pre-boil gravity and yield: 1.059 of 8.3 gallons
Actual yield: 1.037 of 6.5 gallons.

Boil for 60 minutes, add hops and additions per schedule. Post boil gravity reading 1.045 and 5 gallons of wort.

While boiling mash, crush cranberries in 6 gallon fermenter bucket.  Once boil is complete, pour hot wort directly on crushed cranberries.  Let cool naturally.
Note: For the future, I would place the bucket in an ice bath after 30 minutes to cool it faster.  It took 5-6 hours before the wort cooled to pitching temperature.
Once cooled, I added the yeast starter and placed in the beer closet.


Blonde Ale #1
Note: This recipe is called Blonde Ale #1 because I plan to duplicate this recipe but with different hop additions to see the difference in the flavors that will be imparted. 
5.5 Gallons
IBU: 22.3
ABV: 4.6%


Ingredients:
Grains:
7 lbs 2-Row - Pale, 2L
0.5 lbs Vienna, 4L
0.75 lbs CaraPils, 1.5L
0.5 lbs Light Crystal, 10L

Hops:
0.5 oz Challenger (AA 7%) @ 60 minutes
0.25 oz Challenger (AA 7%) @ 30 minutes
0.25 oz Cluster (AA 7.9%) @ 20 minutes
0.25 oz Cluster (AA 7.9%) @ 5 minutes


Additions:
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes


Yeast:
Wyeast 1056: American Ale
Note: No Starter.

Mash: Single step Infusion (60 minute mash)
Mash: Strike 3.5 gallons of 163 F water added to the mash.  Stabilize to 158F let sit for 60 minutes.
Sparge: Mash out after 60 minutes and sparge with 4 gallons of 181 F water.
Target pre-boil gravity and yield: 1.047 of 8.3 gallons
Actual yield: 1.035 of 6 gallons.

Boil for 60 minutes, add hops and additions per schedule. Post boil gravity reading 1.035 and 5 gallons of wort.  I added 1/2 gallon of cold water post boil to bring it up to 5.5 gallons.  This brought down the gravity and for the future, I wont add water to make up for lack of wort.

Cool to pitching temperature and pitch yeast.

I designed a wort chiller that I thought would be good.  I had a tube in a bucket of ice water.  It turns out, there needs to be a longer tube to be a more effective heat exchanger.  I will stick with the immersion wort chiller for now.  I had to let it cool naturally which also took a while to cool (~5 hours).

So how did I accomplish a double brew day by 2pm?  Well I started at 6am, cleaned all the equipment.  At 8 am I started the mash for the cranberry wheat. Once I mashed out, I had heated up strike and sparge water for the blonde ale.  After the mash out, the water was place in the hot liquor tank (the top water cooler in the picture at the beginning of this post.) As the boil started for the cranberry wheat, I started the mash for the blonde ale.  Because I did not cool the cranberry ale and added it directly to the bucket fermenter on top of the cranberries, I was able to mash out the blonde ale immediately following the end of the boiling of the cranberry wheat ale.

Some notes and final thoughts on this brew day.

My "new" chiller attempt: I made a new chiller for the blonde ale to chill.  I wanted to make a chiller that cooled my wort very quickly.  I took a bucket and fashioned a ball valve on the bottom similar to the mash ton. I then had a coil of plastic tube coil up to the top.  Filled the bucket with ice water and attached the racking siphon to the inlet and siphoned the hot wort through. It definitely needs to be re-engineered and will be another project I will work on.  I was attempting a heat exchanger but it didn't turn out too well. It was still pretty hot when it came out.  Needs some work.  Until I finish the chiller I will have to resort to my old wort chiller.

Cooling the wort: For the cranberry wheat, after about 30 minutes, I should have put it in an ice bath to cool it down faster rather than just waiting on it to cool naturally.

Mashing: To increase efficiency, for the future I will try to mash with slightly more water and try to keep the temperature closer to 152-155F.  The yield for the blonde, did not mash out too efficient. 

Better Bottle: Do not use as a hot liquor staging area.  The 5 gallon better bottle melted to a 3 gallon better bottle when added the strike water to hold for the blonde ale while the cranberry wheat mashed out.

Other than that, everything turned out good or so I hope.  We shall see how these beers turn out. Until next time, cheers!

Barley Barely Wine - Bottling Half Batch

Back in July or August I brewed a barley wine, once the fermentation was complete, I split the batch up into two separate secondaries, 3 gallon carboys.  In one, I added oak chips that I soaked in bourbon for 24 hour and the other nothing.  The one that had nothing was only about half full and I didn't have a stopper so I used duct tape to seal the airlock.  This was not the best option as I think it affected my beer greatly :-/ in a bad way (infection).  However, there was no sign of anything growing in the beer (sat for 2-3 months before I bottled it).  In hindsight, I should have bottled the left overs instead of filling a 3 gallon carboy halfway without a stopper, especially since I didn't add anything to the carboy.  Oh well, I will let it sit for awhile to see what happens.  It only came out to 12 beers, so I am not too worried about loosing it.

I am still letting the rest of the barely wine sit in the secondary with the wood chips, I might try some to see how it tastes. 

All-Grain Pumpkin Ale

So my first all grain recipe is a Pumpkin Ale.  It was brewed on September 25th.  It was 5 gallon recipe.  I just transferred to the secondary (10/2), only 4 gallons made it.  Lots of trub (hops, spices, and pumpkin) left behind.  I had my lovely wife and my friend Mike help me brew.  We made a pretty good brew team.

The target on this beer is as follows:
Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons
Original gravity: 1.075
Final Gravity: 1.022
ABV: 7.0%

Actual results (as of Sunday October 2nd):
Batch size: 5 gallon --> 4 gallons Secondary
O.G.: 1.075
F.G.: 1.010
ABV: 8.4%

The higher ABV is a tribute to the pumpkin that was added.  The brew calculator did not have pumpkin as a fermentable option.

Ingredients:

Grains:
10 lbs. 2-Row Malt
1 lbs. Crystal Malt (~90L)
1lbs. Wheat

Sugars and Other Fermentables:
2 lbs Brown Sugar
60 oz. Canned Pumpkin Puree (unspiced)

Hops (49 IBUs):

1.5 oz Cluster pellets (aa7.9%) @ 60 mins
0.5 Challenger pellets (aa 7%) @ 10 mins
0.5 Challenger pellets (aa 7%) @ 5 mins

Notes: After tasting when transferred to the secondary, the bitterness was a little over powering.  If it was a normal ale, it wouldn't have been too bad, but because Pumpkin and the spices are the star, next time would use less hops.  I was attempting to balance out the higher alc%, but I should have left it with less hops.  The bittering may also have been from not sparging correctly.

Yeast: Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale

Additions (Spices):
1 tsp. Ginger
1 tsp. All-spice
1 tsp. Nutmeg
1 tsp. Clove
2 sticks of Cinnamon

All added 5 mins before the end of the boil.

First, the pumpkin was spread out on a cookie sheet and baked at 350F for 45 minutes, a nice light browning.  Then I let it cool to room temperature.  I used single step infusion for the mash type.  What this means is that I head the mash to a single optimum temperature ~152F, rather than raising and lowering the temperature to develop proteins.  It depends on the style of beer, the grains used and equipment as to what mash type one will use when doing all-grain brewing.  The grains and pumpkin puree was added to the mash ton along with 4.5 gallons of 163F strike water.  The temperature stabled at around 150-155F.  I let it sit for 60 minutes.  While waiting for the mash, I warmed up the sparge water, 4.2 gallons to 181 F.  After the 60 minutes, I mashed out into the brew kettle.  The first 2 quarts of wort, I cycled back in until it was clear.  I then sparged with the 181F 4.2 gallons of water.  For future, I will try to fix the hot liquor tank that had a leak in it.  In doing this I can have an even spread of the sparge water and maintain the water bed with the grains preventing it from sticking to the mesh strainer.  I think that not having it sparged correctly, i.e. leaving water above the grain bed resulted in some of the husks to get into the wort and boil causing the bitterness. Lesson learned is to be more careful with sparging.

I ended up with about 6 gallons that boiled down to 5 gallons after the hour long boil.  I added the hops and spices at the times given in the recipe.  I used the wort chiller to cool the wort which took 30 minutes.  I might try looking into building a more efficient wort chiller.

It was done fermenting by Friday (5 days) at a final gravity of 1.010.  I transferred it to the secondary and was only able to get 4 gallons.  There was a lot of trub, but that was expected.  Next time, I might try to top off the primary to get around 5.5-6 gallons because the ABV is a bit high and wouldn't be hurt too much by adding some water.

Test (10/02): Gravity Reading: 1.010
Aroma: "pumpkin pie" notes of clove hints of cinnamon and nutmeg not overpowering.
Color: orange/reddish (20-24)
Taste: "pumpkin pie" flavor not as prevalent, slightly more bitter than expected.

The Step to All-Grain Brewing

It has been awhile since I have updated as I have been a little busy.  I am now newly and happily married.  I now have a pretty good brew partner, my wife.

So having a bunch of extract brews under my belt and my natural desire to do everything myself, I decided to take the leap into all-grain brewing.  What is all-grain brewing, you ask? Instead of buying pre-made malt extract, one takes the necessary grains needed for the beer and essentially makes his/her own malt extract just like the big boys in commercial brewing today.  The advantage to doing all-grain is you control the amount fermentable sugars and the taste of your malt. The disadvantage is the there is additional time, space and equipment needed to brew because "mashing" which is mixing hot water with the grain to get the fermentable sugars and proteins for the wort.  Controlling the temperature is a big part in this process.  What takes the most time is holding the temperature for 60 minutes or longer.

The additional equipment needed area a mash ton (basically a large cooler with a stainer to hold the hot water and grains), a larger brew pot (I bought 7.5 gallon),  and a more efficient burner to bring 5-7 gallons of water up to a boil.  After a trip to home depot and the homebrew store I was ready to begin.

(The not so Dark and Imperial) Imperial IPA - Update - 05.17.2011

Sooo, after 2 days of fermenting and an exploded BUCKET fermenter, I checked the gravity and found some interesting observations.

Gravity reading: 1.020
What does this mean?  Well, I will tell you.  Since I dumped pretty much the remaining yeast from the IMPERIAL stout I made into this wort, the batch was probably over pitched and hence the quick fermentation.  So this beer should be done fermenting soon (which is good so I can get it off the yeast cake) and I can move it to the secondary fermenters.

Description:
Appearance: ...well it's not black or even dark at all.  It's a red/orange.  I would have thought the black slug (yeast) from the imperial stout would have added some color, but I guess I learned something today; a beer gets it's color from the malts (and the hops but only a little)  that go into it.  For future, I will add in maybe 1/2 lb of some roasted malts to give it a darker color and some roasty flavor.
Aroma: Very citrusy.  This is due to the hops and I am very pleased with this.  It's almost an orange citrus and it's nice.  I know that with time this will mellow but as a young beer brewing, it is nice to smell.
Taste: Grapefruit, and hoppy. No roasty notes at all.

All in all, this is turning into just your run of the mill IPA, slightly darker and maybe a little more alcohol content than normal.  I do like where it is going but growing in a different direction...this will add to the back story for the Dark Devil which now I am thinking to call it Demon Ale.  It seems more fitting as it is no longer an Black IPA.

We shall see where we go.  Also, up next cultivating the yeast from the Pils.

The Two-Headed Dark Devil (Imperial Dark IPA) - 05.15.2011

The Dark/Black IPA is sort of a new style of beer.  It is as hoppy as an IPA but black/dark like a porter and more malty.  Also known as an American Black Ale.  It being a relatively new style becoming more popular, I had to do some experimenting. I first had to do some research as to what this "new" and "upcoming" style was and is.  So I went down to the local liquor store and pick up a sample.  I chose Stone's "Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale".  I didn't write down a review of it, but I like it.  It had a good balance of Malty and roasty notes and was well hopped.  The hop aroma came through more than a porter, much like drinking an IPA with a brown ale or porter.  It was delicious.

The story behind my choice to do this beer is as follows.  I brewed a HEAVY (probably overly) hopped beer (that may have gotten an infection or it was just the enamel ripping off my teeth that gave the off flavor) that when I transferred to a secondary fermenter, I did a 5 gallon and (2) two 1/2 gallons.  I did this because I was doing some experimenting, as any engineer would want to do.  I was curious about flavors and infusing them into my beer.
One of the 1/2 gallons I added some oak chips that I had soaked for 1-2 days in bourbon.  The final product of this beer, was quiet delicious and it's too bad it only made about (6) six 12-ounce bottles.  It gave the IPA a nice oak-y flavor and you could taste the bourbon.  My thinking behind doing this was to imitate the style of the original IPA flavor.  The style of the Indian Pale Ale was when the English wanted to bring beer to the troops in India.  So to preserve the beer for the long journey, they added more hops and at the time beer was stored in barrels.  So these pale ales where hoppier than the typical English Pale ale and had more of an oak-y flavor because of the time spent in the barrels. Sorry for the short history lesson, but I not only enjoy to drink the different styles, I love to find out how they came to be.  It's like learning a new piece of history because a lot of the styles out there today are that way because they were brewed a certain way with different ingredients due to the part of the globe where they originated.  So I wanted to try to make a tribute to this style of beer and it worked out.  My only regret is there was a limited supply.
The other 1/2 gallon, I was curious how a habenaro would taste with the spiciness of the hops in a beer.  The final product left me with again only (6) six 12-ounce bottles, but it was quiet interesting and delicious.  As one of my friends (best-man actually) put it as "it's a sipping beer".  And there was requests to do it again.  Basically, I just pan fried a frozen fresh habenaro from my father's garden and dropped it in the 1/2 gallon fermenter.  While there was only a limited supply, the demand for more arose. So I tasked myself to brew again.

Now that I had the idea to brew an IPA with some hot pepper again, I also was intrigued by a Black Ale.  My brain began to turn and the idea for "Dark Devil" was born.  I wanted this beer to be dark and "evil" if you will (hotness from pepper).  Again, I did not want to do a full 5 gallon batch of spicy sipping beer, but I wanted to do more than a few bottles.  So I decided to split the batch once again, but into two equal 3 -gallon secondaries, hence the "Two-Headed Dark Devil". One will be made from the burning darkest deepest parts of hell and the other will be it's smooth other half aged on Oak.  Born the same but a different path they will take.

So I had the idea and I had to wait for my breakfast stout to get out of the primary so I could give my creation life.  Then I remembered reading online about reusing yeast from a previous batch and either pitching all of it or some to a fresh wort.  It was advised to start with a light low hopped ale to the darker and more stronger flavored beer because as you reuse the yeast the next beer will take up some of that flavor.  I saw this as a perfect way to get some roasty dark flavors from the breakfast stout! Call me crazy but sometimes you have to be.  Also, the yeast that I used for the Stout, Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale is to be used for stouts or Strong Ales. While it is a little unorthodox to use Irish Ale yeast for an IPA, I am not one to follow the rules all the time (and yes this has resulted in bad beer but hey, you will never know unless you risk it).

Let's begin the birth of this monster.

The Recipe:

Specialty Grains:

• 1 lbs Briess Vienna

Extracts:

• 6.6 lbs LME - Golden Light
• 3.3 LME - Amber (to give a red hue)

Hops and Hop Schedule:

• 3 oz of Cascade Hops (Pellets) AA%: 7.5% (Bittering)
• 1 oz @ 60 minutes
• 1oz @ 45 minutes
• 1 oz @ 30 minutes
• 2 oz of Amarillo Hops (Pellets) AA%: 7.2% (Flavor and Aroma)
• 1 oz @ 15 minutes
• 1 oz @ 5 minutes

Yeast:

• Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale: Harvested from Breakfast Stout II
• Once racked from the primary, I added (cooled) 1 pint of boiled water to the primary fermenter to loosen the yeast cake and poured it into a 1/2 gallon jar, a growler.
• Waited 2 hours to settle and decanted some of the liquid and poured a little more water to loosen it up again and poured into another 1/2 gallon jar.  Typically, one would see the separation of yeast cake and settled yeast  over time but the yeast was quiet dark so I had to take my chances.  This processes is known as yeast washing.  But I wanted some of the flavors from the stout into this Dark Devil.

This was actually the fastest I ever brewed from start to finish, 2:15 clean-> sanitize -> boil -> hops -> cool -> yeast+wort -> clean up.  I was really quiet impressed with myself.  So I started as usual, 2.5 gallons of water bringing to a boil with the grains in a mesh bag steeping them carefully watching the temperature for 30 minutes.  At the end of the "mashing" period, I dumped the grains in a strainer and "sparged" the grains with 1/5 gallons of water that I brought up to ~155 F. Then added the LME and brought to a boil.  Once boiling commenced, I followed the hop schedule as noted above. At 10 minutes I added Irish Moss as a clarifying agent.  I cooled the wort as fast as possible in an ice bath, then dumped it through a strainer into the fermenter.  This yielded probably more than 6 gallons.  Took the OG at 1.067 and added the yeast.

And on the first day, the beast was born with but a single head and a deep dark red color, breathing loudly from the darkest forgotten places in hell as he grows with power and madness.

Maybe I will actually come up with a cool tag line/story that I can put on the beer and give to my friends.

Update: It is fermenting.  This morning I found the top of the pail blown off and Kreusen foam at the rim of the pail. It smelled like an explosion of hops in my basement and replaced the cover.

Update 5.21: So I have come up with a new name for this beer, Angels and Demons Ale,  the Angel Ale will be the IPA without the chili pepper and the demon ale is the IPA with the chili pepper.