Month: February 2010

Black Box Stout

Posted by mac – 2010-02-28

mac batch #4

Based on a “Black 47 Stout” recipe from North American Clone Brews.  Black 47 is brewed by The Old Nutfield Brewing Company of Derry, NH, but as I’ve never had any of their beers, I don’t quite know what to expect out of this brew, hence “Black Box”.

[2010-02-28] Boil Day

  • 3 lb UK 2-row pale malt (1.8 L)
  • 1 lb roasted barley (525 L)
  • 8 oz black patent malt (500 L)
  • 8 oz crystal 120 L
  • 1 1/2 tsp gypsum
  • 6 AAU Northern Brewer (0.8 oz of 8.1% AA) for 60 min
  • 1/2 tsp Irish moss for 15 min
  • 3 lb LD Carlson Briess Sparkling Amber dry malt extract for 15 min
  • 4 AAU Fuggles (0.8 oz of 4.8% AA) for 5 min

steep all above grains (two giant muslin sacks worth) in 155*F water for 45 min (started with 5 3/4 gal), then bring to boil

Ended up with 1.018 @ 78*F, which corrects to 1.021; using hopville’s beer calculus, I worked out that I got about 56% efficiency from my “super steep” method.

The recipe I was following has OG at 1.047, so I needed to work out how much dry malt extract I’d need to add.  Fortuitously, the 3 lb that I calculated I needed was exactly how much I had on hand.

As I was bringing the wort to a boil, I added ~1.5 tsp of gypsum.  I’d never used the stuff before, maybe I should have added it before the steep, since I’ve read that its supposed to alter the pH, which has an effect on the mash.

Add Northern Brewer, boil 45 min

Off heat, add dry malt extract and Irish moss, return to boil for 10 min

Add Fuggles, boil 5 minutes

Chill to ~70 deg with immersion chiller (took 30-45 min)

Pitched Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale using the “immediate” method, rather than the “let swell for at least 3 hrs” method.  It was probably around 10PM when the yeast met the wort.

Gravity was 1.049 @ 68*F, which corrects to 1.050; a little high.  I have about 4.8 gals in the ale pail, so that’s 240 gravity units.  If I want 1.047, I need to add water to get to 5.1 gal, so I put about 6 cups of water on to boil and cool (dig a hole; now fill it in).  When it got to ~70*F,  I popped the lid on the ale pail and poured in the water.  I didn’t bother to take a hydrometer reading (cleaned and put away), but the math doesn’t lie, dude.  OG should be 1.047 for my now 5.1 gal of wort.

Hold the Lemon Hefe – Hefeweizen

Posted by halfmanbot – 2010-02-13

  • A Hefeweizen made for the man who likes some citrus is his beer but doesn’t want a wedge of lemon floating in his pint glass.
  • target OG: 1.047
  • target FG: 1.012
  • target ABV: 4.5%
  • brewed: 02-15-09
  • 5.5 lb wheat
  • 5.5lb german pilsner
  • Tried to protein rest at 122 F but my strike water must have been high because the mash settled at 137 F.  Mashed at 137 F for 30 minutes then decocted up to 154 F, mashed for another 60 minutes and mashed out with 170 F water.
  • Boiled for 90 minutes.
  • 3/4 oz Hallertauh hops 5.0% (17) for 90 min
  • 1/2 oz Perle 9.4% (10) for 15 min
  • 1/2 oz Perle 9.4% for 1 minute
  • Pitched at 80 F with Wyeast 2068 Weizenstephan Weizen.  Temp dropped to 54 F overnight and rose to 64 F the next day. Temp rose to 67 F at end of fermentation. 
  • Transfered to secondary after a week.  Simmered the flesh and juice from 2 mini watermelons and 3 stalks (1 oz each) of lemongrass at 170 F for 15 min.  Added the tea to the secondary.  Added brewers belt to fermentor.
  • Kegged after 2 weeks with 1/2 cup priming sugar.  Strained out the lemongrass and watermelon, added another 2 oz of lemongrass in the keg.  The beer smelled pretty hot at this point, didn’t think it would turn out well.
  • OG: 1.004
  • FG: 1.008
  • ABV: 4.4%
  • Results:  This ended up being a nice, refreshing summer beer.  The lemongrass was a nice touch, but couldn’t detect much of the watermelon.  This beer could actually use more lemongrass.  Next time increase by maybe 50% and drop the watermelon.

mac batch #2: first taste of Sierra Naomi

Posted by mac – 2010-02-13

[2010-02-13]  It has been a week since I bottled this batch, so, typically impatient, I chilled one down on the back deck to have a taste.  Not too energetic on the pour yet, though it did form a bit of  a head when I poured right down the middle.  Also, I overcooled it a bit, so had it been at a slightly warmer temp, it might have been a little fizzier.

This is actually quite a delicious brew.  I was concerned that the dry hopping might make for a smack across the face of hop aroma, but I think this has really good balance.  I really like the Cascade flavor, I think they’ll become a staple of my brewing for American pale ales.  I’m very pleased.  Hopefully it gets even better after another week or two in the bottles, but I’m going to have a hard time staying away from them in the mean time.

mac batch #3: sparkling sweet hard cider

Posted by mac – 2010-02-6

Ingredients

  • 6 x 1/2 gal Zeigler’s Organic Apple Cider (pasteurized, no preservatives)
  • 3 tsp yeast nutrient (urea and diammonium phosphate)
  • 1 packet Red Star Cote des Blancs dry yeast

Process

[2010-01-24] See the stuff after those three bullets up there? I mixed em together in a 3 gal glass carboy and sat it on the floor in a coolish spot (60-65*F). OG: 1.045

[2010-01-29] Gravity is 1.004  time to bottle.  Its dry as hell, and tart!  Need to sweeten this up a bit so that it gets bubbly, and so that it doesn’t make you cross eyed and puckery faced.  I’ve read that you want to get the gravity up to 1.010 to have enough sugar for carbonation.  I figured if I could get it to 1.020, then let it ferment in the bottles till its carbonated to my liking, maybe at that point it would be at near 1.010, which would leave a little sweetness to counteract the pucker.

Rather than calculate anything, I took a wild ass guess and dissolved 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup honey in something like 1 cup of water, and added it to the fermented cider.  That got me to 1.010…whatever, good enough.  Even straight from the fermenter, this stuff is tingly, maybe it won’t need much time in the bottles to carbonate enough, and it won’t eat much sugar in the process.

[2010-01-30] after only like 14 hours in the bottles, its plenty fizzy. I don’t have enough cold storage for all this cider, so i’ve got to kill these yeasties with heat before the bottles blow up all over the place.  My cider book says submerge the bottles completely in a canner, and boil them for 60 seconds.  Sounds crazy, but I’ll give it a shot.

It would take forever for that much water to come to a boil from room temp, so I boiled the water in my brew pot, then killed the heat and added the bottles, then put the spurs to it again.  After 7 minutes, the water still wasn’t fully boiling, but one of the bottles decided it had enough, and blew itself to bits with a bang.  Sweet.  I killed the heat fast, but visions of picking glass out of my forearms kept me away from the remaining bottles for 5 or 10 minutes.  I eventually took the bottles out and let them cool.

I scoured the internet for a gentler (less ridiculous) approach to pasteurization for the second half of the cider.  One source suggested placing the bottles in 160*F water for 10 minutes.  This sounded reasonable to me, so I went for it.  I made a “test bottle” by filling an open bottle with room temp water, and placing a temp probe in it, so that I didn’t over- or under-cook the cider.

Well, 10 minutes in and my test bottle hadn’t hit 150, so I let it keep going.  A few minutes later, another bottle let go with a bang, so I decided that this batch was also cooked enough.  Next time I’ll skip the temp probe and just listen for the explosions.

This cider is pretty dang tart, with a nice dry finish.  I didn’t add any clarifiers to the batch, so its very cloudy, and a bit rosy in color (similar to the starting unfermented cider, but lighter).  I think it would actually be a pretty nice summer drink, it finishes almost like a good guezue.

mac batch #2: SNPA clone

Posted by mac – 2010-02-6

[2010-02-06] Bottling Day

FG: 1.014 @ 62*F

primed with 5 oz corn sugar

yield 46 x 12 oz bottles

Dubbel Trubbel – Belgian Dubbel

Posted by halfmanbot – 2010-02-5

This recipe is the Westmalle Trappist Dubbel recipe from Beer Captured with different hops.

target OG: 1.071
target FG: 1.014
target ABV: 7.0%
brewed: 04-11-09

3 oz Chocolate malt
8 oz caramunich
5 oz biscuit
12 lb belgian pilsner

struck with about 5 gallons of 65 F water
mashed for 120 minutes at 150 F
raised temp of mash to 170 by heating up 1 gallon portions of the liquor and adding it back. Sparged out with about 4 gallons of 170 F water. The first few gallons of liquor were cycled back thru.

Boiled for 60 minutes
1/4 oz Hallertauh hops 6.2% (5 IBU) for 60 min
1/2 oz Golding 6.2% (8 IBU) for 60 min
1 oz Hallertauh 3.6% (12 IBU) for 60 min

Irish moss for 15 min
4 oz malto dextrose for 15 min
12 oz dark candi rock sugar for 15 min

Pitched onto a 2nd gen cake of Wyeast 1388 – Belgian Strong Ale
Fermantation temp started at 64 F and rose to 68 F.
Transfered to Secondary after 2 weeks, bottled with 1-1/4 cups DME after another 2 weeks.

OG: 1.064
FG: 1.010
ABV: 7.1%

Results: This beer began with a light malt flavor and ended with a nice yeast spiciness. Got a lot of good comments on this one. I think the fermentation temp is right on, but next time I’m gonna mash at a higher temp, maybe like 152-153 to try to get a better malt flavor in it.  I might up the specialty grain amounts a bit too.  And boil for 90 min.

Batch #25: IPA

Posted by tgl – 2010-02-5

2010FEB04

FG 1.010 (6.5% ABV) courtesy the ABV calculator

Primed with 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
56 12oz bottles

mac batch #2: “Sierra Naomi” SNPA Clone

Posted by mac – 2010-02-4

Est OG: 1.055
Est. FG: 1.014
Bitterness: 36 IBU

Ingredients

  • 1.8 lbs Briess Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
  • 4 lbs Alexander’s Pale Liquid Malt Extract
  • 1 lb Maris Otter (sub’d for unavailable 2-row)
  • 1 lb Crystal 40L
  • 0.5 oz Perle pellets 8.3% -> 4.15 AAU (60 min)
  • 0.3 oz Magnum pellets 14.4% -> 4.32 AAU (60 min)
  • 0.5 oz Cascade pellets 7.8% -> 5.4 AAU (15 min)
  • 1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)
  • 0.7 oz Cascade pellets 7.8% (0 min)
  • Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast
  • 0.8 oz Cascade whole leaf (dry hop)

The Boil [2010-01-16]

  • Bring 5 gals filtered water to 155*F
  • Place Marris Otter and Caramel 40L in muslin bag and steep 30 min
  • Remove grains, bring to boil (add 1-2 qts makeup water during rise to boil)
  • When boiling, remove from heat, add dry malt extract, and stir. Place 60 min hop additions (Perle, Magnum) in nylon boil bag and add to wort, then return to boil
  • After 45 min, remove from heat, add Irish Moss, 15 min Cascade addition, and stir in the liquid malt extract, return to boil
  • After 15 min, remove from heat  and add 0 min Cascade addition
  • Chill to 75-80*F, transfer to primary fermenter
  • Aerate wort, and pitch Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Primary Fermentation [2010-01-16]

OG: 1.051
[2010-01-21] Bubbling slows to a crawl (3-4/min)

Secondary Fermentation [2010-01-23]

Racked to secondary, specific gravity is 1.014
Added 0.8 oz Cascade whole leaf hops to the secondary (smells so good)