Out Of Key Brewing

Its been a busy brewing start to the new year.  In the first two weeks that opening the new year I have put 35 gallons into the fermenters.  Both brew days were on on the coldest days of this winter thus far.  So cold were the days that we managed to put ice in the sanitizer bucket.

On the first weekend I was joined by the Freedlund men for our annual winter brewing session.  Seriously, the last time this many Freedlund men were together was down in Cell Block C in Joliet.  For this session we put together 10 gallons of the Barham Irish Red and 10 gallons of an American stout that I am calling Pavement.  Both brew sessions came off with little issue outside of coming in a couple degrees low on our mash temps.  Both batches were fermented with Whitelabs Wlp002.  I was quite impressed with this yeast but am going to save that for another post.  Both beers received 60 seconds of oxygen.  They were fermented at 62 slowing ramping to 68 over 3 days.  Both beers fermented to terminal in 4 days time.

The Barham Irish Red Fermented from 1058 -> 1012 this yields 6% abv @ 78% apparent attenuation (ADF).  On Saturday night I kegged this beer (1 week after pitching) and it was very clear.  I force carbonated a liter of it and had my wife try it and she thought it was great.  It has massive mouthfeel and has a nice level of sweetness.  This is a departure for this beer from last year but it is a change that I thought was necessary.  Two months of aging will help crisp this beer up.

The Pavement went from 1068 -> 1018 which yields 6.6 abv and 72% ADF.  I hope to get this beer into the keg this week.  The hydro sample was quite good.  I will report back once I have a chance to really taste this beer.

Both of  these beers were brewed for the Annual Barham St. Patrick’s Day party that we attend.  In addition to these two beers I will be bringing a Dortmunder Export and a Schwartz Beer.

I did a ten gallon split batch of Harry Knuckle Rye IPA.  Half is fermenting on US05 and the other on wyeast bavarian lager yeast at 50 degrees.  I am going to try and have the ale half ready for the holidays.

On Sunday I did a 5 gallon batch of Schwartz beer.  Not sure on the name.  The recipe broke down like this:

Pilsner (2.0 SRM) 60.5%
Munich Malt, Dark (15.5 SRM) 27.9%
Carafa III (525.0 SRM)  7.0%
Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L (60.0 SRM) 4.7%

Magnum [14.10%] (60 min) Hops 24.3 IBU
Spalter [4.10%] (20 min) Hops 3.0 IBU

Mash at 154 for 60 minutes.

Mill the the Carafa seperate from the other grains and do not mash it.  You want to cap the mash with these grains. I added them to the mash before the first vorlouf.

The Schwartz is for the St. Patricks day party.  It should have 2 solid months to lager. It is fermenting in the same water bath as the Harry Knuckle Rye Lager.  I used a 2 liter starter of Bohemian lager yeast.

I came across a great blog today by a Masters Candidate and Professional Brewer from Colorado that focuses strictly on the funk.  He is using his blog to document his research into several different strains of  brettanomyces.  While many of his entries in his blog are quite technical, they are full of interesting information.  What really strikes me about the blog is that while he is doing a lot of lab work there is ongoing practical research going on @ Odells.  I would love the opportunity to sample some of that research.

Went to the Chicago Beer Society’s First Thursday meeting for the last night with Jon. I brought along a growler of my Bourbon Vanilla Porter and a liter of the Swine Flu Dark Mild.

I heard good feedback on both but I would say that the Porter received with great reviews. I must have had 15 people tell me that it was a great beer. Several told me that it was the best beer they had that night, commercial or otherwise. Great feedback. I knew this was a great beer (and have told many people that it probably is the best beer I have brewed) but to hear it from a more independent source really felt good. Ive got a handful of bottles that I pulled off the keg that I plan on entering into a few competitions this February.  Just really not sure what Category to enter it in.  I am leaning towards 12b Robust Porter but am not sure how the vanilla and bourbon would affect the judging.

The Dark mild is a good beer but of a totally different character. I think a couple people were disappointed when it did not exhibit the same strong flavors that the porter did. I think this is akin to saying that the chicken is awful because it tastes nothing like steak. I did have Randy Mosher try the beer and the first thing he asked me was if it was an extract beer. Not exactly off to a rousing start here. He admitted that he was not an expert at the style but from what he knew of it, he thought it was spot on. Another homebrewer thought that perhaps it was too clean. That there were not enough residual sugars remaining and that it was not fruity enough. Perhaps fermenting a touch higher and under pitching will resolve this.

All in all a great evening. It was really great to be able to meet Randy and tell him home much I really enjoyed his book Radical Brewing.  Its not every day that you have the chance to have brewing royalty try one of your beers.

Came across these guys today in a thread about yeast costs over at probrewer.  Their site has a ton of great yeast information including a section on how to troubleshoot your fermentation.
If you have any interest in yeast it is probably worth checking out.

After over 40 days of fermentation the sticke bock nuts (thanks again for the name Nate N) seems to finally be approaching it’s terminal gravity.  When I checked the gravity last night it had hit 1.022, down from the original 1.092.   The 40 day fermentation was probably a result of underpitching the yeast.  Even though I stepped up the smack pack 2 times I was still short probably by a factor of 2.  Add the fact that it only got the shake treatment for oxygen (+ a touch of EVOO) and it most likely did not have adequate aeration as well.  The new oxygen system will help with that in the future.

The hydro sample was quite nice.  Very malty with a solid hint of hop bitterness.  Similar to a barleywine without any of the fruitiness.  I think its going to be a nice beer.  Perfect for cold winter evenings.

I bumped up the fermentation temps to 60 for a couple days and will probably pull it out of temperature control this weekend.  It will find itself into a keg next week.

Now what do I do with this massive Bavarian Lager yeast cake?

I don’t normally write endorsements of Online Homebrew stores, not sure why, I suppose I just never had any reason to.  Normally I order my supplies from one of two homebrew shops.  They both are large and do a fine job.   What I find lacking is their customer service.   It has just never impressed me.  While listening to an archive show of BrewStrong I heard an ad for the fine people at Brewmaster’s Warehouse.  Their hook?  10% off if you use the coupon mention BNArmy at checkout.  That was enough to get me to check them out.

The site is well designed and easy to navigate.   The search functionality works well.  Grain is organized into logical groups.  They support the ability to build custom recipes online, order the grains, and then share them with the interwebs.  But lets be honest here, while all the above may have drawn me in, what kept me there were the prices.  Their specialty grains are the best priced on the internet (even before the coupon).  I have been in the market for an oxygen system for a couple months.  I would have liked to buy it a couple months back but they have been out of stock at one large retailer for over 2 months.  BMW had them in stock and at prices that were extremely competitive.  I ended up placing a large order for all my non base malt grains for the next several months, my oxygen system, and some flasks for yeast starters.  This was on a Friday after close time for them.

Monday morning I got a call from them.  My first thought was that something was out of stock and would need to be removed from my order.  Fine.  It happens.  My concern was that when this happens at other stores it moves your orders to the bottom of the list and it typically takes a couple extra days to ship.  Imagine my surprise when they told me that instead of removing the items they were going to swap them out with better items at no extra cost.  Check this out.  I had ordered a pound of Calcium Chloride.  It was out of stock.   What they did for me was,  send me 2 oz (solving my immediate shortage), and once the pound is in stock they are going to ship it to me.   At another homebrew shop, my only option was drop it form the order or wait.  This was way above and beyond.  Add this to the fact that that I received my shipping notice that afternoon and the order was delivered two days later.  I was impressed.

The order was well packed,  The yeast was sent with a gel ice pack,  All the flasks were intact, and all the grains computer labeled with maltster and grain type in heat sealed heavy plastic bags.  Perfect execution.

The only thing I found lacking was the ability to save your cart.  Personally I find it nice to be able to be build a shopping cart over the course of a month or two.  Think of something I need to brew my Imperial Wit next spring, log in, add it to my cart, and log out.  Then when its time to place my order, it is already full of stuff that I would otherwise have forgotten.  Minor and something that can be rectified with alittle technical work.

So in summary Brewmaster’s Warehouse:

Great Prices.         Check.
Flat Rate Shipping.   Check
Customer Service.     Check.
Above and Beyond.     Check.
My new brew shop.     Check.

TLDR:  Brewmasters warehouse has great prices and great service.  Use BNARMY coupon for 10% off your order.  Its my new brewshop of choice.

This Post article is another example of making beer that is neither good not refreshing.

While I like hops as much as the next guy, it’s not suprising to me that the new cutting edge is making session beers or bring back older styles.

Ron over at Shut up about Barclay Perkins says today what I think is on the minds of many people.

Just brew good refreshing beer

Whats the point of brewing of going extreme if it tastes like shit.

In the defense of extreme beers I think one source of these styles may be the need to break from the yellow fizzy beers the most American beers drink.   Really I think its not too different from a teenager dying their hair purple do be “different”.  Perhaps to break the mold of their parents.  Of course, in time ,when everyone is “different” we cease being different at all.

Lite Lager anyone?

Stan made an interesting post today about an old book that he came across on google books.  In it the author makes the case and gives direction for using potatoes in brewing beer.  Anyone ever done it?  I think I may see a small batch of potato porter in the future.