Thursday, April 30, 2009

Tasty McDole's Amber

First beer I brewed with best man (BM) Sean.







I was in the mood to brew an amber and I heard so many great things about Tasty and his beer that I brewed it up. Here's the recipe (w/ my own hop substitutes).

11 lbs 2-row
1.5 lbs Carapils®
1.5 lbs Crystal 40
.5 lbs Wheat
2 oz. Roasted Barley

Sacc @ 153

Hops:
60 min: .5 oz Northern Brewer
30 min: 1 oz Northern Brewer
15 min: .5 oz Northern Brewer
.5 oz Centennial
0 min: 2 oz Centennial
Dry Hop: 2 oz Cascade

Pitched 2 quarts of WY1272 @ 65 F
Water Profile built from RO:
Ca: 130 ppm
Mg: 15 ppm
Na: 30 ppm
CO3: 15 ppm
SO4: 203 ppm
Cl: 152 ppm

Appearance: See above. Very nice clarity.

Aroma: Lots of pine, moderate citrus, present sweet malt, resiny hop aroma

Taste: Sweet caramel mixed (prominent) with a solid bitterness and wonderful hop flavor that creates a wonderfully balanced and flavorful brew. Same flavors as in aroma, but you get some of the northern brewer coming through, kind of a herbal almost woody flavor. Bordering on resiny mouthfeel.

Mouthfeel: Very full. Beer finished around 1.018 but there were enough hops to balance it out.

Overall: Extremely satisfying and flavorful... I would like for it to finish lower next time (aerate & larger starter)

Not as pretty as above.






Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout Recipe

Another modified recipe from Beer Captured. The one w/ the most rave reviews

1 lbs Chocolate Malt
.5 Roasted Barley
.25 Flaked Wheat
.25 Black Patent Malt
2 Pale Malt

8 lbs Light DME
1 lbs Wheat DME
.25 Maltodextrin

60 Min. Boil
3 oz East Kent Goldings

15 Min. Boil
.5 East Kent Godlings
.5 Cascade
Irish Moss

5 Min. Boil
.5 Willamette
.5 Cascade

Wyeast 1028 London Yeast

Belgian Quad Recipe

This is from Beer Captured and was modified by my newbie opinion. But turned out amazing. Similar to Kasteel Donker.

.5 lbs Caramunich
.5 Special B
.25 Aromatic Malt
.25 Biscuit Malt
.25 Chocolate Malt
.25 Honey Malt
2 lbs Belgian Pale

5 lbs Light DME (or in total 15.66 lbs of Belgian Pale or Pilsner which includes pale above)
1 lbs Wheat DME
1 lbs Sugar
.25 Maltodextrin

60 Minute Boil:
.5 oz Challenger
.75 oz Styrain Goldings

15 Minute Boil:
.5 oz Styrian Goldings
1/4 tsp. of cinnamon
Irish moss

5 Minute Boil:
.5 oz Styrian Goldings

Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong

Welcome

So this blog is nothing special. It is only a journal of my brewing endeavors where I can share experience, recipes, ideas, and thoughts about brewing related topics. Mostly it's for me, but others are free to check it out. I will begin by sharing my brewing testimony.

It was around this time two years ago (Dec 2006) that my friend Dallas got a book called "Beer" by Michael Jackson and a six pack of Blue Moon. I had already begun to appreciate other craft and imported brews, so Dallas' gift was appropriate... and it was. I never really knew how beer was made I just had a vague idea from those Budweiser commercials (funny how they don't brag about rice being apart of it). So when I started looking through this book (which was more of a big picture book for adults with minimal writing) the brewing process was explained in a basic and comprehensible matter. I thought maybe I could boil some flour and hops, strain it, add yeast, and get beer... I was a little off. So later that summer I saved up my birthday money and purchased a Basic Brewing Kit from a sweet store in Denver, Stomp Them Grapes www.stompthemgrapes.com and I bought a True Brew Octoberfest beer kit that weighed in at a whopping 1.040. It turned out alright, but at that point I wanted more. I wanted to make a heffeweizen.

So I decided it would be a good idea to buy a recipe book, the book was Beer Captured and what sold me was the recipe for Paulner Heffeweizen. I brewed it up w/ Mike.

I used WLP Bavarian Weizen for the yeast and pitched the tube straight into the fermerter. And it actually tasted very similar to Blue Moon. All in all it was a success. Here's a list of beers I've brewed since then.

July '07: True Brew Octoberfest: It was a mild amber. Tasted fine.

August '07: Paulner Heffeweizen: Turned out really well. Just like Blue Moon. No detectable flaws.

August '07: Belgian Quad: A modified recipe from Beer Captured (I will post it later). It turned out very well after a year of aging. I made a pithy started in a 22oz bottle for a beer around 1.100. So it was slightly under-attenuated, but the complexity and flavor is unparalleled. A total success. I brewed this beer with Sexy Back Barrick.

September '07: Brookly Imperial Chocolate Stout Clone from Beer Captured: Another beer brewed when I didn't know how to make a good starter. Like the last one, when I waited 8+ months it tasted amazing and has been the biggest hit among my friends. I'm keeping 9 or so bottles to enjoy over the next six years. I brewed this beer with Watson and Sexy Back Barrick.

October '07: Fantome Saison Clone Recipe from Beer Captured: I brewed this beer for my friends, Dave & Caroline, as a wedding present (they got about 3 cases of bombers). I altered the recipe by using Wyeast's VSS French Saison and Forbidden Fruit strain, which added an extrordinary frutiness. Plus I used Oregon fruit puree. It ended up extra dry, I'm guessing because I left it the secondary for 5 months. I wished it didn't turn out so dry, but it was pretty good.



I took a brewing haitus and in the mean time I decided to go all grain. And my next brewing project was a doozy. I brewed 35 gallons for a friends' wedding.

March '08: Amber from Beer Captured: I missed my efficiency on some one of the batches so I tried to fix it by adding a condensed mixture of LME. I'm guessing between that and using a low attenuating yeast (Wyeast Northwest Strain) it was heavy in the body but 100% delicious. I thought my water chemistry concerns were taken care of by using 5.2, but now I realize the beer could have tasted cleaner had I used better balance w/o the chlorine. BUT in the batches where I hit everything right, it was amazing straight from the fermenter. I'll post the recipe below.

March '08: Classic Heffeweizen: I brewed this for the same friends' wedding and I tried several different yeast strains and the best one was Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan. It was a simple 50/50 wheat & pilsner recipe.

My next batches were a failure.

May '08: Duvel Clone by Jamil Z: I was so excited to try this, but I failed to consider the chlorine in my water. My other complaint is that the yeast threw off tons of sulfur (WY 1388 Belgian Strong), which eventually substantially subsided. I used the strain before in my quad and didn't get any of the sulfur or aforementioned mentioned results. I even used a larger starter and temp control. Regardless of my attempts, I got what I believed to be chlorophenols (bandaid and rubber). But it tasted good enough to have the owner of my new LHBS (Homebrew Shop in St Charles, IL) to trade 2 cases of it for a recipe kit.

May '08: Goose Island Clone: I decided to transport this beer across the country in the plastic fermenting bucket and it got oxidized. Boooo!

July '08: Saison by Jamil Z: So far I haven't brewed a recipe exactly as it was written. Instead of regular Munich malt I misremembered at the LHBS and I bought caramunich. This recipe turned out very well and the caramel works very well in this recipe. I seperated the batch into two fermenters and used Wyeast VSS French Saison and Farmhouse. It's excellent, in spite of its incredible dryness (1.002 which put it at 9% ABV) the flavor is awesome (due to the yeast high fermentation temps). I'm waiting for summer to drink this.


So this brings us current. I have just finished my first semester of law school and I have a query of beers to brew that will use up 3 sacks of grain. And I cannot wait!!! Prost!