Double your fun.

In my usual last minute frenzy to brew some beer for Christmas gifts, I tried a new trick to increase output. The night before, I boiled 5 gallons of water to sterilize it, then let it cool overnight. In the morning, I split it into two carboys and put them outside.

Now, for the afternoon brew session, I did a double strength five gallon batch so I could split it into the carboys of cold water, which has the added benefit and decreasing the amount of time and water I use to cool the wort. I got the wort down below 100 degrees, then poured it into the 60 degree water. In the time I usually spend making 5 gallons of beer, I made 10. Twice as much to beer to gift and/or drink.

I wouldn't recommend doing this for a high gravity beer, but for a Cascadian Pale Ale like I usually make, this experiment worked great.

Cheers

Nate

Imbibe interview

Check out my 40 min IPA recipe in Imbibe magazine. There's an interview in this month's issue as well.

579 Beers on the Wall...

...You take 36 down, then fall on the ground...

Our recent trip to the BENELUX countries was one of the most amazing beer experiences of my life. Belgians, especially, appreciate and take pride in their beer, and we were the fortunate to be able to sample many of them. Actually, between the three of us, we tasted over three dozen! One beer cafe in Brugge had a beer menu with over 500 beers in it (see above). Here's what we had:

St Feuillien tripel 7/7

duchesse de Bourgogne 7/7

Steen brugge blond 7/7

Amstel

Heineken

De konick 7/6

La trappe trippel 7/4

Rodenbach 6/30

Rochefort 10 6/30

Westmalle dubble 6/30

Cantillon gueze 7/1

Cantillon kriek 7/1

Cantillion raspberry 7/1

Rodenbach grand cru 7/1

Westmalle tripel 7/2

Orval 7/2

De dolle brouwers te esen overbear 7/7

De struise browers te veurne pannepot 7/7

Grimbergen bruin 7/7

chimay tripel 7/7

De halve maan bruges zot 7/8

De halve maan bruges zot dubbel 7/8

De halve maan straffe hendrik tripel 7/8

De halve maan straffe hendrik quadrupel 7/8

Wittekerke rose 7/9

Quintine blonde 7/9

Anker golden carolus hopsinjoor 7/9

Westvleteren donker 8 7/9

Achel brune 7/9

Delirium tremens 7/9

Petrus oud bruin 7/9

St bernardus abt 12 7/9

La chouffe blonde 7/9

Ichtegem's grand cru 7/9

Chimay quadrupel 7/10

Leffe blond 7/10

Home brewing cheat sheet

Recently, Mix Magaizine did a feature on my homebrew setup. It was flattering, and possibly overstated my expertise, but at any rate, it prompted a lot of questions from homebrewer friends. As well as a little bit of ridicule.

In response to one friend's request for advice, I sent an email with an oversimplified checklist for a brew day. This presumes that you have equipment and ingredients and are ready to go, but maybe a little nervous about where to start if it's your first time. Here goes...

1. Print your recipe out, maybe print this list, too.
2. Lay out all equipment and ingredients
3. Get your water boiling. Use 2 pots if you are going to steep grains or if your stove is slow like mine
4. Using a smack pack of yeast? Smack it.
5. Clean everything that needs to be cleaned, sanitize now.
6. Steeping grains go in when water is at 140 or so. Extract goes in when it's up to boiling
7. When extract is in and you add the first hops, write times on your recipe for hop additions, use a timer even
8. Be ready to cool your wort, get or borrow a wort chiller if you don't have one
9. When it's cooled, strain the hops out into a bucket
10. Pour into carboy
11. Aerate
12. Add yeast, put on a airlock. Check tomorrow
13. Clean up

2010 Hop Harvest

The hops are picked, dried and bagged. Here's the tally (in dry ounces):

Nugget: 1.4 oz

Centennial: 5 oz

Chinook: 3.6 oz

Magnum: 1.25 oz

Cascade: 11.65 oz

This is season #2 for my hop plants, and with the cooler than average summer we had this year, I think it was worse than season #1 which is crazy. But there's always next year!

Evolution of a Recipe

Today, I am taking another stab at my 40 minute IPA. The first batch I ever brewed was Amarillo by Morning, a pale ale made with extract and grain that used exclusively Amarillo hops. Over time, I have repeated and tweaked that recipe, mostly in the direction of making it stronger and more hoppy, hence the "Accidental IPA." Most recently, I tried a partial mash version, which was the best yet, though the first 40 min IPA was pretty great, a cleaner crisper version. Today, I'm giving the 40 minute another shot, and am using the time between hop additions to review the different directions this recipe can go.

I like making something over and over until I understand it, so below are 4 different versions of a beer I have made a dozen times now. All were made with Wyeast 1056. Someday, I'll try an all grain version, but for now, my kitchen will do fine.

Amarillo by Morning, OG 1.054 IBU's 44
6 lbs Light DME
8 oz Crystal 60
8 oz Cara/Pils
60 min 1 oz Amarillo
20 min 1 oz Amarillo
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
1 min 1 oz Amarillo
This turned out pretty good, a solid and aromatic pale ale.

Accidental IPA OG 1.062 IBU's 68
6 lbs Light DME
15 oz Crystal 60
12 oz Cara/Pils
60 min 1 oz Zeus
40 min 1 oz Zues
20 min 1 oz Amarillo
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
This was a little bitter for my taste, but was a good strong IPA.

40 Minute Accidental IPA, fermented on top of the first Accidental's yeast cake
This was a major success, made it for my brother's wedding and it went fast
OG 1.068, 67.5 IBU's
7 lbs Light DME
8 oz Crystal 60
8 oz Cara/Pils
40 min 2 oz Zeus
20 min 1 oz Chinook
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
1 min 1 oz Amarillo
This was the best year to date. Clean and crisp, even at close to 7%, it was easy to drink and the Amarillo gave it a great nose.

Partial Mash Accidental IPA
1 lb honey Malt
1 lb Crystal 60, malt was mashed for 60 min at 150-155
6 lbs Extract
60 min 1 oz Chinook
40 min 1 oz Chinook
20 min 1 oz Amarillo
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
after 7 days, added 2 oz Amarillo to fermenter
Considerably more body and maltiness than any of the others, this was also a great success. Well balanced and on the stronger, more bitter end of the spectrum.

OLCC and DOJ Cancel OR State Fair Homebrew Competition

This is heinous.

According to Connie Bradley, Fair manager, "The issue has to do with the judging. Judges are considered the public, and we cannot have the public tasting amateur wine or beer."

Umm, last I knew the State Fair's HBC was a BJCP sanctioned event. This means that the "public" isn't really judging beers; beer judges are judging beer. Beer judges who know their shit. Beer judges who have to take a rigorous exam to get their credentials. Beer judges who don't confuse a terminal gravity ipa, for example, with a mcmenamins hammerhead.

Maybe the BJCP is no longer part of the State Fair, which would lend some credence to Ms. Bradley's comments. But if I'm write, she's a moron.

What's Brewin'

This weekend: American Pale Ale

On deck: Cream Ale

On draft: Imperial IPA

In the barrel (bourbon) aging: American Barleywine

Discuss.

Beervana

http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonexperiencearchive/beervana/player.php

well, it's about time...

Hi.
I've been included in the "contributors" list since the summer, and am now finally getting around to posting. So here goes:

Earlier this year, an idea came up that in order to best celebrate the birth of Nate and Marissa's son we would brew up some beer and give it to them. Joel took it upon himself to go the Parti-Gyle route, for those of you who don't know what that means you should look it up. I mean, you're already on the internet, it'll take just a few seconds.
Just kidding. Here it is. Once you've absorbed that info, I'll let you know that I got the second pull, and with that decided to make a 90 minute IPA in the style of Dogfish Head(which, by the way, is worth every penny that you'll spend on it. In my experience most of their beer is right on target.)
Now, it's also important to note that I was starting with a smaller amount of beer than I usually do: 2.5 gallons rather than the full 5. I didn't really think through this process, and proceeded to make my beer as if it was a full 5...Actually, now that I think about it, I did add some water, but not nearly enough. I think that I started with 4 gallons, and by the time it was all over I boiled off enough to end up with 3.
Anyways, throughout the brewing I found myself saying "fuck it" quite often. I said it when I added the hops (every few minutes for 90 minutes. I used a mix of Magnum, Amarillo, and Fuggle. These aren't the hops that the origonal recipe calls for (Simcoe, Amarillo, Warrior) adding much more hops than what was required for the amount of wort I had going. I also said it when I put in the entire packet of yeast (Wyeast 1099).
In the end, after dry hopping for a couple of weeks, I gave it to Nate. He drank it, said it was fine.
I held back a couple of bottles for myself and just cracked them a few weeks ago. With the amount of sugar in the beer compared to the amount of yeast I found that the end product was too sweet, and although I had added so much more hops than called for it got lost in the yeast.
I've added a photo, courtesy of Nate.

My next post will be in 11 months.

5 Breweries, 3 Days

Regan and I decided to pack up the car and head out on a little road trip recently. We did a little loop, heading straight down I-5 for the Bay area, then looped up and around toward the California 1 and up the coast route back into Oregon. Pictured above is a view south from Port Orford (could this be heaven??) toward Humbug Mountain, where we made a nice camp.

The drive and time alone with my busy wife was amazing. The scenery was spectacular. And the beer...yes, beer...was truly incredible. On the trip, I was able to hit 5 of my very favorite breweries, all situated (conveniently) along our route.

First, there was Lagunitas, in Petaluma, CA.

Pints consumed = 2

* Hop Stoopid (imperial IPA) - mouth puckering hopiness; crisp, clean and dry. amazing

* Benny and the Jets (bourbon barrel aged imperial stout) - 11% alcohol. rich malt. sweet. good.

Then there was Russian River, in Santa Rosa, CA.

Pints consumed = I don't remember

* Sample Tray - all of the breweries current offerings in 1 convenient place.

* Blind Pig IPA - A tasty, clean and hoppy IPA. Aged in oak for a little while before serving

* Pliny the Elder - my favorite imperial IPA on earth. Nobody does this style better than Vinnie.

* Others??? Hmmmm. Don't remember, and I blame it on Vinnie.

Bear Republic Brewing came next. In Healdsburg, CA.

Pints consumed = 2

* Racer X (imperial IPA) -big citrusy hop flavor. Dry and crisp. California brewers really know how to brew double IPAs, and I'm not sure why. Portland brewers should take a workshop from any 1 of them.

* Hop Rod Rye (brown or rye IPA) - this is one of my favorite ipa-style beers. A good chunk of the malt bill is made with rye malt. Gives the beer a warm, rich spiciness. Goes well with loads of hops.

Followed by Anderson Valley Brewing, Boonville, CA.

Pints consumed = 1

* AV IPA - a good, not great IPA. Very malty, a little too fruity, and with a slightly higher finishing gravity. This gives the beer (in my opinion) a heaviness that makes me want to only have 1 pint. But a spectacular IPA. This is similar to most IPAs you get in Portland.

Finishing with Eel River Brewing, Fortuna, CA.

Pints consumed = 2

* ER IPA - another good, not great india pale.

* ER Triple Exhaultation (old ale) - probably one of my favorite american strong ales (after Hair of the Dog Fred, of course). This one has an intensely rich malt flavor, characterized by a sugary sweetness (maybe from brown sugar or teacle?) and just enough hops to keep it from getting cloying.

Cheers.

Pumpkin Spice Ale

Brewed a pumpkin Spice Ale (partial Mash) using Vienna, Crytal specialty malts and pumpkin. The trick to this brew is the pumpkin. I followed a receipe off of the internet. There are several out there. This one called for 6-10 lbs of pumpkin. The pumpkin(s) I used were the small pumpkins, not the big ones; I read this somewhere. I cleaned and cut the pumpkins. I then cut the pumkins up into 'manageable pieces'. I did 2" by 2" chunks. Baked the pumpkin, skin and all, at 325 for 1 hour. This is followed by a 1 hour rest at 160F of the pumpkin and grains in about 7 gallons of water. The picutre above is of the cooked pumpkin. I won't go into the receipe, as you can google a dozen. I did use cinammon, nutmeg, vanilla, molasses and brown sugar. I sampled the wort.......just like pumpkin pie. yum.

On a side note, Gear talk: I fired up my pump for the first time and its fantastic. I really like it. I was frustrated at how my counter flow chiller, under gravity, took along time. With the pump, it is much faster. i'll time it some time and we can quantitatively compare the immersion to the CFC. I was able to dial in the wort temp to 74 degrees right into the carboy.

Hop Harvest

I've harvested all but a second crop of Zeus that are still trying to flower before the cold of fall comes on. Here's what I've got so far:

Cascade - 10.0 oz

Cenntennial - 1.2 oz

Nugget - 2.5 oz

Zeus - 1.0 oz

Chinook - .9 oz

Magnum - .6 oz

Not bad for first-year plants. Next year I'll be pouring all my beers through a french-press randall just to deal with the surplus! Ok, maybe not. But a guy can dream.

Pretty cool.

Pictured above is my new recirculation chiller. Just did my second brew with it today, and I'm blown away by how fast it cools. It took my wort from 212 F to 112 F in 1 minute! Thereafter, the marginal cooling is about 2-3 degrees per minute. So, took 7.5 gallons of boiling wort down to pitching temperature in about 15 minutes. This thing is amazing.

It works by drawing boiling wort out of the ball valve (pictured left) and recirculating it back up to the top of the boil kettle with the aid of my pump. You can see the silicon tubing and copper return piece in the center of all those lines. The copper return is curved so that returning wort enters beneath the surface of the wort and forms a whirlpool that swirls around the coils of my immersion chiller. This is what enables the 100 degree drop so fast. It's basically super-efficient heat exchange. The other lines are your basic input/output lines for an immersion chiller.

The beauty of adding recirculation to an immersion chiller is that the entire volume of wort can be cooled relatively fast. Other chillers like counterflow and plate chillers also cool very fast, but cool only small amounts of wort at a time. The faster that the entire volume of wort cools, the better will be the cold break, and the more hop flavors and aromas will be preserved by late hop additions during the boil. And at $8 for the silicon and copper tubing, a guilt-free equipment addition I must say.

Pretty cool.

Counter Pressure Bottle Filler

Many of us keg our brews. I enjoy kegging cuz its fairly simple and you can enjoy the brew sooner. But there are times that come along when you want to share the beer with others. Times like these call for the ability to bottle from the keg. Two main methods on the market, the counter pressure bottle filler and the Blichmann's Beer Gun. Which way to go?

Well the Beer Gun claims to be better. Its claims to be eaiser to use and to sanitize. Thats probably true. I didn't go with the beer gun for two reasons. 1- i want to be able to bottle under pressure and a blanket of Co2. The beer gun can give you a blanket of co2 but it doesn't bottle under presser. This is its strength (easier to use) and its weakness. And Secondly, which may come to no surprise, i wanted to build my own.

The Counter Pressure Bottle Filler

We all want stainless.....but its expensive and not readily available. Morebeer has a great CPfiller but they are always out of stock. So build my own. I am cost conscious in these tough times so i knew that an entire stainless setup would not be possible. There are numerous designs for every budget out there. I went with a brass valves and compression fittings with stainless tubes. The brass compression fittings are holding the stainless tubes. I have one compression fitting using teflon will the others are using brass. In fact, in use i got a small leak on one of the compression fittings. By no means was it a show stopper but i may change the inner workings to Teflon.

I sanitized the bottles, froze them, sanitized the CP filler and was ready to go. I won't get into the details of how a CP filler works other than to give an over view. You start by purging your bottle with CO2. You then shut off the exhaust valve and pressurize the bottle with CO2. Then you shut off the CO2 and open the beer line. The beer does not flow because the bottle is under pressure. Then you slowly open the exhaust valve and the beer flows in slowly under pressure. The dissolved CO2 stays in solution. You then immediately cap the bottle and you are done.

My first run went well. I bottled 6 - 22 oz bottles. I turned a valve the wrong way at the wrong time a couple times and got a spray of beer but no major problems. I am very pleased. Here is the device. Under $60 in total.

Cheers!

Stout

A Run on IPAs...

The Organic Brewer's Fest brought some pretty tasty beers, however I was unable to secure a glass of Laurelwood's Organic Green Mammoth.

Pictured here is one of our own bloggers being handed the last pint of IPA (and this was a shitty one) at the festival.

Due to the run on IPAs and apparent popularity of hoppy beers in the Portland metro area, the festival now features 12 tents of nothing but Widmer hefeweizen. Bring some lemons.

IPA #2 (Four Squre IPA)

Four-Squre IPA

A richer, redder, more malty version of number one. The malt bill combines domestic 2-row and munich malts as base malts, with victory and crystal malts to bring out the color and flavor. Hops are Centennial, Nugget and Amarillo through the boil, plus 2 weeks of dry hopping in the secondary with Centennial. Yeast is Wyeast 1056.

I'm proud of this one, but as always, successive brews will make tweaks one variable at a time.

I love this hobby.

Let's compare...

Yesterday, a few friends helped me taste a few recent concoctions. Specifically, I opened a few bottles I had been saving: QIII Cascade Pale Ale, QVII Rich Hipp's Rise'n'shine, and QIX Accidental IPA. All three are variation of a very basic recipe, with minor adjustments to steeped grains, extract amounts, and hops.

This is the first time I have let anything age at all (QIII a few months, QVII about a month, QIX not really). The QIII tasted great like I remember, pretty easy drinking with a strong hop finish, though not as strong as it once was. I think aging mellowed it out a little.

Rich Hipp's Rise'n'shine was a strange mistake. I tried to imitate the recipe of QIII but with more extract, but I think I racked too early. It ended up malt forward, a little sweet, but still a good hoppy finish. Neither of these is about 40 IBU's. I think the maltiness was from racking a little early, so it was still sweet. Lucky I didn't have a bottle bomb, I suppose, so all's well that ends well.

QIX is a very good IPA, though I can tell a little more complexity in the malt bill (i.e. brewing from grain), would help balance it out. I used more graing and less extract than usual, but might go farther in this direction next time. Still, pretty tasty. These three beers were different enough that they appealed to different people, but none were terrible, and it was a chance to compare some intentional and unintentional differences in the process.

Accidental, now official IPA

The pale ale I was making until recently is named Nate's Unorthodox Ale due to it's inability to conform to parameters of either American Pale Ale or IPA. But a couple tweaks later, and lo and behold, it's an IPA. The Accidental IPA. And it turned out well. So, I'm trying it again, but making it an IPA on purpose. The yeast (Wyeast 1056) went like gangbusters on the last one (QIX), so I brewed a new batch to throw right into the same carboy. Sure enough, bubbles bubbles within hours. This second one, QX Accidental IPA Revisited, uses more extract and less grain. I'm assuming that reusing the yeast will make a dryer than normal beer, so I made sure to get lots of Amarillos in there at the end for aroma. I also made it simpler because I felt lazy after bottling QIX. Nice to bottle again after kegging the last couple. I used an assortment of 6 oz, 12 oz, and 22 oz bottles, which will make for fun gifting.

So, to compare...

QIX, Accidental IPA
6 lbs Briess Golden Light Malt Extract
15 oz crystal 60
12 oz dextrine malt

Boil:
60 min 1 oz Zeus
40 min 1 oz Zeus
20 min 1 oz Amarillo
5 min 1 oz Amarillo

OG 1.062, final 1.020, calculated 68 IBU and 6.1% ABV

QX, Double T Matrimony Ale
7 lbs Briess Golden Light Malt Extract
8 oz Crystal 60
8 oz Dextrine Malt

Boil:
40 min 2 oz Zeus
20 min 1 oz Chinook
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
1 min 1 oz Amarillo (added during chilling)

OG 1.068, calculated 67.5 IBU and 6.8% ABV

Might be a good candidate for dry hopping, but I'm probably too lazy for that.

Yeasties

I've always known that re-pitching yeast from prior batches can produce truly great beers, but I never bothered with it.  Now I'm bothering, and here's what  I'll do.  

1.  After fermentation and when the beer is racked off (to whatever vessel), swirl the yeast cake at the bottom of fermenter and pour into a graduated sterile container and set in cold fridge for next brew day.  I'll use a $5 polypropylene bottle and sterilize by putting a little bit of water in the bottom, lightly capping, and microwaving for a couple minutes while the water inside boils and steam heats the container.

2. Figure out how much yeast I'll need for my next batch of beer (should brew within 2 weeks of your last batch, as yeast viability greatly decreases after this time without making a starter) by going to Jamil Zainasheff's Yeast Pitching Rate Calculator at www.mrmalty.com.  Use the "Repitching from Slurry" tab, and enter the fermentation type, original gravity and volume of your next brew, and enter when you harvested your yeast from Step 1 above.  Read the "# of ml of yeast needed" value on Jamil's calculator.  Don't touch the "yeast concentration" and "non-yeast percentage" default values.

3.  When its time to pitch for a new batch of beer, take the bottle out of the fridge, open it up and decant the beer that sits on top of the yeast at the bottom.  Read the volume of what remains in the bottle after decanting.  Divide the value that Jamil says I need (from Step 2 above) by this value to get a percentage.  

4.  Pour some sterile brewing water (I always have this handy, sitting in a growler in the fridge) into the bottle on top of the yeast, cap and shake vigorously to clean the yeast.  Let settle for about 10 minutes, and the trub and dead yeast cells will fall to the bottom.  The healthy yeast remains in suspension in the liquid layer on top.  Read the new volume, and multiply this by the percentage calculated in Step 3 above.  This is the volume I need to remove from the container and pitch to the new batch of beer.