You're Killing Me Smalls!

Fans of one of the best coming-of-age movies produced in the '90s will instantly recognize the title of this post.  Those who don't should navigate away from this blog, somehow get a hold of "The Sandlot," and watch it.  You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish you grew up in the Valley in the 1960s, but most importantly you'll understand the plight of newcomer Scotty Smalls when asked if he wants a s'more.  For those of who will always answer the question, "Do you want s'mores?" with a resounding, "yes please!" then this beer might be the one for you.

Milled malted grains, cocoa nibs, hops, yeast... BEER!

This is another recipe out of the Brooklyn BrewShop Beer Making Book, and as much joy as I've gotten from brewing their beer, I've learned that the faults in their recipes and am very curious how they've stumbled upon these issues and didn't iron them out before publishing.  On top of not enough hops, they use ingredients that may not be readily available in Anytown, USA.  Of course if you're a "poor" Brooklynite you're a subway ride away from just about anything you can get your hands on, but a PhD student in Cleveland, OH doesn't have those options, and so I've had to improvise.  This is fine, and I do not curse these substitutions because hey, it's beer, but their book could have been more explicit in trying to make the recipes Anytown-friendly since they imply that.  That said, I enjoyed brewing this and learned something about brewing with cocoa.  On to the brew!

As you can see from the above photograph, there are no graham crackers or marshmallows in this beer, but there is cocoa.  As explained in the recipe book, this is an interpretation of s'mores, not a literal translation that bonfire treat.  The cocoa nibs and chocolate malt are the explicit chocolate bar, the two Crystal Malts are supposed to impart the sweetness of graham crackers, and the use of English Ale yeast is supposed to impart a fluffiness to the body and head.  So there you have it, s'mores beer.

First (bottom) and second (top) runnings.

What is there to share about this brewing?  Everything went well and there wasn't anything of note with the process, but one of my newer piece of equipment fell apart on me.  I didn't mention this in the Jalapeno Saison post, but I noticed something amiss with my remote probe digital thermometer by the end of that batch.  Throughout its boil it was reading near 220°F, which should not be the case for a boiling mixture of mostly water, but I didn't think much about it.  Before starting this batch I tested the probe at room temperature and with ice water, and it read far above what it should for both points.  Bummer!  Somehow I decalibrated the probe and this put oven mashing in jeopardy.  The whole point of having a remote probe thermometer is so that once I put the mash into the oven I don't have to open the oven until the hour mash ends.  So I bit the analog thermometer bullet and proceeded to brew with it, like I did in the caveman days.  Instead of checking the mash temperature every 10 minutes, I did so every 15 minutes to minimize the opening of the oven so as to keep as much warmth in there as possible.  The temperature curve from the mash had a slight downward slope, as is expected, and I believe I extracted with decent efficiency.  Once sparge was done and all the wort collected it was on to the boil.

First hops addition.

Second hops addition.

Cocoa nibs for the boil.

Final hops addition.

There's nothing really to report from the boil.  There were three hop additions and another 2 T of cocoa nibs.  At the end of the boil I chilled the wort in an ice bath and poured it into the fermenter through a strainer and funnel.  I took a sample for the hydrometer reading and then topped off the fermenter before I realized that I had forgotten to pitch the 1/2 C of rehydrated yeast.  Darn!  I carefully poured the yeast into the fermenter and was sure that the now more-than-1-gallon would overflow out of the blow-off tube during vigourous primary fermentation.  The final wort+yeast mixture was at 65°F, on went the blow-off tube and bottle, and the whole of it went into the brew bin for fermentation.  The OG measurement gave a reading of 1.060.

Pouring the chilled wort into the fermenter.

And I forgot to pitch the rehydrated yeast before completely filling the fermenter.

Just the right temp!

New wort next to it's day-older cousin, fermenting away.

OG reading.

And then primary fermentation happened and for the first time in several batches the yeast action in the wort didn't foam up or push wort out of the blow-off tube.  And even when some wort wasn't pushed out through the blow-off tube there was enough foam to cake the neck of the fermenter.  You can see in the below image that before I racked two weeks after brewing there was very little foam up top but plenty of trub settled to the bottom of the fermenter.  While the lack of foam was an odd sign, the trub was a good sign as most of it looked like flocculated yeast.  I spoke to my friend Pete about this and he said that in his brewing he's noticed that using normal cocoa or chocolate leads to a lack of foam during primary fermentation.  It wasn't until he found and used de-alkalinated cocoa did he notice normal foaming in primary fermentation for beers with chocolate.  He feels that the alkali in cocoa suppresses the foaming but doesn't affect the fermentation.  I think the layer of trub and obviously flocculated yeast at the bottom of my fermenter before racking nominally attests to that.

After sitting for a while, this beer is ready to rack.

Post-racking fermenting beer.

Fermented beer ready to bottle.

A week after racking I bottled the brew and measured the final gravity.  The result did not please me.  It came to 1.021, which put the ABV at 5.3%, 1.7% below the target alcohol content.  The Brooklyn BrewShop Beer Making Book doesn't give target gravity readings, just expected ABV, so I have no idea what the post- or pre-boil gravities should have been, so I have no idea if I efficiently extracted enough sugars.  Maybe the cocoa did affect the fermentation.  Maybe oven mashing wasn't as successful as previous times because I had to open the oven to remove the mash pot to stir and take temperature readings 4 times in an hour to make sure it kept an even temperature (which it did at 156°F for 50 of the 60 minutes).  Whatever happened to this batch I won't know how it will finally turn out until later in May after I let it bottle condition for a while.  It's bottled with 3 T of maple syrup, as per the recipe, and I thank my friend Pete for giving me the syrup from his supply of expensive organic stuff so I wouldn't have to shell out $20 for a bottle.

Here's the recipe with minimal changes from me.  Straight from the Brooklyn Hipsters to you:

S'More of What?
Grain Bill:
1.5 lb Marris Otter Malt
0.6 lb Smoked Malt
0.2 lb Caramel 20 Malt
0.2 lb Caramel 60 Malt
0.2 lb Chocolate Malt
2 T cocoa nibs

Strike 3.4 qt H2O to 162°F.  Mash in oven 60 min at 155°F.  Sparge with 5 qt H2O at 170°F.

60-min Boil:
0.2 oz Centennial hops 8.7 AA% at 60 min.
0.2 oz Hallertau hops 4.3 AA% at 30 min.
2 T cocoa nibs at 15 min.
0.1 oz Hallertau hops 4.3 AA% at 5 min.

Cool to 65°F in ice bath. Hydrate and pitch 1/2 packet Safale S-04 yeast. Bottle with 3 tbsp maple syrup.

9 bottles waiting for summer breezes to be enjoyed.

The full gallery of photos can be found here.  This beer has been conditioning for two weeks now I won't touch it until early May, if not longer.  What ingredient has done interesting or unwanted things to a batch or your homebrew?

Until next time friend, happy brewing!