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!
