Rye Ale, Porter, and Double IPA, Oh My!

I brewed three batches this fall, two rebrews of previous batches and a simple new one, putting me at four brews deep after my move to Berkeley. My first brew here, the annual Spicy Jalapeño Saison, is another rousing success. The next three brews were a first-time rye pale ale, which has been bottled, conditioned, and is currently being enjoyed; a rebrew of the peanut butter porter I brewed in the 2012-2013 winter; and a rebrew of the single-hop IPA recipe I augmented into a double IPA and brewed on July 4, 2013. I've been enjoying the rye pale ale and have noted a maturation from the first bottle I drank. The PB Porter was tasted at the end of the first week of December and the double IPA was bottled November 29 to be tasted before year's end.

Everything going into the beer.

Following my brewing plans for the year I produced a Rye Pale Ale, courtesy of the Beer Making Book. I wanted to brew such a style for this fall to have a medium-bodied pale ale with a subdued profile to balance against the darker, more fuller-bodied beers I am likely to brew throughout the colder months. This was another batch that fermented and aged in the carboy while I was out of town for work for a few weeks, and an unfortunate incident involving left-on stove burners for several days created a warmer-than-wanted environment, the effect of which I could not predict, but seems to have not damaged the final product.

The brewing went well with no mishaps. I've brewed so many beers with special ingredients (like the next one I brewed) or techniques that this straightforward recipe was a welcome respite. As a recipe out of the Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book, I doubled the hops, and using Brew365's mash and sparge water calculator, I went to work! After five hours I had chilled wort in the fermenter with yeast pitched ready to consume those sugars.

Heat break! Boil about to start.

However, there were two major incidents during the fermentation. The first was the substitution of the recipe-listed dry yeast, US-05, with BRY-97, at the suggestion of the clerk at the Oak Barrel. He said it would start fine and showcase the hops better than the yeast I planned to purchase. I believed him and purchased the packet of BRY-97 dry yeast. That was a mistake. I brewed on a Thursday and was leaving for a 3-week work trip that Sunday. I expected fermentation to start by Friday afternoon at the latest. Come Saturday morning there was finally some activity. The rest of the primary fermentation went fine, but that 36-hour lag time was reminiscent of brewing the CA Commons this spring, except I was using an ale yeast at room temperature! After googling around I found that many have had this experience with BRY-97 dry ale yeast. Additionally, one specific homebrewer ran a careful experiment with it, brewing a batch of pale ale and splitting it into two fermenters to pitch BRY-97 in one and US-05 in the other. Both were fermented similarly and the final result was dulled hop flavor in the BRY-97 batch! So the exact reasons for which I was suggested to use BRY-97 are the very issues I encountered: slow start and subdued hop character.

Fermenting that beer.

The second incident, mentioned above, involved higher-than-wanted fermentation temperatures. While I was gone for a 3-week work trip my wife traveled to visit her family and attend a friend's wedding in Michigan. When she returned she found the apartment very warm because two of our stove burners were left on high! Without going into detail, we think someone let themselves into our place the day she left, turned the burners on, but stole nothing. So our apartment, all closed up because we were gone, gathered the heat from two stove burners on full blast for 6 days. Luckily, primary fermentation had finished by that point, but I wondered if the heat, which could have been upwards of 90°F, affected the yeast. I've been wary of this brew because of that, and only with the opening of the first bottle was I even sure that the yeast had survived and was able to carbonate the beer. In fact, some of the bottles have been overcarbonated, foaming out the bottle upon opening, so apparently the yeast survived the heat exposure! I wasn't sure of this brew at first, but everyone to whom I've given a bottle or a sample has liked it, and every bottle I've tried has been better than the last, so I guess I did something right.

Rye pale ale bottles labeled and ready for conditioning.

The recipe is from the Beer Making Book and a full gallery of photos can be found here.

The next beer I brewed was a rebrew of the Peanut Butter Porter from the Beer Making Book. The first time I brewed this I used natural peanut butter, as per the recipe, and even though the final product was great and formed good head at the pour, it had poor overall foam retention. The good foam formation was due to it being slightly overcarbonated, and the poor foam retention was from the peanut oil, which was visible on top of the beer when I bottled it. So for this batch I researched and purchased powdered peanut butter. It's pulverized roasted peanuts with the oil squeezed right out, so no more worries about peanut oil spoiling the foam forming abilities of my beer! In addition to this recipe alteration I dialed back the amount of base malt and added Carapils Malt to decrease the resulting ABV while maintaining a full body. I also included some flaked wheat to help with foam formation.

Grain (already in mash), plus powdered PB, hops, and yeast.

OG reading low enough for my aims of this batch.

Overall this brew wasn't anything exciting, but I did have two friends come over to check out: Loretta, a new friend who is interested in homebrewing, and TJ, a homebrewing friend from Cleveland who moved out to Stanford in August. TJ was interested in checking out my 2-gal all-grain brewing, and it was nice to catch up with him and share some homebrew. This brew day ended with the chilled wort in the carboy, yeast pitched, blow-off tube and bottle in place, and it all sitting under a doubled-over towel in the cube cooler. Primary fermentation went well and three weeks after pitching the yeast I bottled it. My attempt to decrease the final ABV left it at 6.5%, down from the 8.6% of the original batch, but I might try to lower it even more, aiming for 5.0%, the next time I brew it. The first bottle was very good and I expect this beer to mature nicely, as well, over the next couple of months.

Prepping for bottling.

My altered recipe is:
PB & Porter (v2)

Grain Bill:
3.5 lb American 2-Row Pale Malt
0.4 lb Caramel/Crystal 60L Malt
0.4 lb roasted barley
0.2 lb Chocolate Malt
0.25 lb Carapils Malt

0.25 lb flaked wheat

Strike 8.25 qt H2O at 166°F.  Mash for 1 hour at 156°F.  Sparge with 8.25 qt H2O at 170°F.

90-min Boil:

0.4 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 90 min

(1) 6 oz jar of PB2 (powdered peanut butter) at 60 min
0.4 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 45 min
0.4 oz UK Fuggle hops @ 35 min

1/2 tsp irish moss @ 30 min

Cool to 65°F in ice bath. Hydrate and pitch 1 packet Safale S-04 dry yeast. Bottle with 6 tbsp honey.

Yummy, creamy PB porter waiting to be drunk.

A full gallery of peanut-buttery photos can be found here.


The third beer I brewed this autumn was a rebrew of my big, bold attempt at a double IPA. Last summer I brewed this and it came out great! It was over 8% ABV and was well-balanced and hoppy, but not hoppy enough for my double IPA aims. I did some research this time and found this great and simple explanation of the construction of a double IPA. Comparing with the first time I brewed this, my grain bill was fine and the first hop additions were okay, but the final boil hop addition and the hops used in dry hopping weren't enough. I shot for the middle of the suggested ranges, scaled for my 2-gal brewing, and ended up using nearly 6 oz. of Zythos hops. A week after pitching the yeast I dry hopped, and a week after that I bottled.

Everything by water and heat needed to make beer.

The bottling was the most interesting part of this brew since I nearly forgot to add the priming sugar solution I prepared! To prepare a priming solution I heat just over 1/2 cup of water to a boil to sanitize the water and sugar I'm using (honey, agave nectar, maple syrup, priming sugar), pour it into a sanitized 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer to cool quickly. I did that for this batch and while it was cooling I sanitized the rest of the bottling equipment: bottle stand, bottles, bottling bucket and valve, tubing, racking cane and cap, bottling wand. When all was sufficiently drained of sanitizer (I don't worry about the sanitizer drying completely since it's harmless, just don't want too much dilution) I began bottling: syphon beer out of the carboy into the bottling bucket, set bottles in two pans (to catch overflow) onto towels on floor (to catch spills), take a hydrometer sample, fill the bottles and cap 'em all. See how I didn't write "mix priming solution into beer in bottling bucket"? That's because I didn't do that. I filled all the bottles, with difficulty toward the end because the dry-hopped hops that made it into the bottling bucket clogged the bottling wand, and then realized I didn't add the priming solution to the bottling bucket. So, with great aggravation and dread, I carefully poured all the beer back into the bottling bucket, added and stirred in the priming solution, and rebottled. I unclogged the bottling wand to satisfaction so I could use it again and make bottling a snap.

Krausen in the carboy just as primary fermentation ended.

In the end I got 19 equivalent bottles (fifteen 12-oz and two 22-oz), and could have gotten one more if I hadn't forgotten the priming solution as I lost just the amount I needed to finish a twentieth bottle from all the beer transfer I had just carried out. I had plenty to taste along with the hydrometer sample, and it was quite enjoyable! The body and mouthfeel were enough to my liking of this style, and the hop character was strong and clean, like grass, but not overpowering. I can't wait to see how this turns out, and will try the first bottle by New Year's.

Dry hoppin' hops.

Here's my recipe:
Zythos Indubitably Patriotic Ale (v2)

Grain Bill:
6.0 lb American 2-Row Pale Malt
0.5 lb Caramel/Crystal 40L Malt
0.25 lb Munich Malt
0.25 lb Carapils Malt

Strike 10.4 qt H2O at 158°F.  Mash for 1 hour at 148°F.  Sparge with 7 qt H2O at 170°F.

90-min Boil:

0.6 oz Zythos hops @ 90 min

0.6 oz Zythos hops @ 45 min
0.6 oz Zythos hops @ 15 min

1/2 tsp irish moss @ 15 min

1.8 oz Zythos hops @ 0 min
2.0 oz Zythos hops dry hop for 6 days, 1 week after pitching

Cool to 65°F in ice bath. Hydrate and pitch 1 packet Safale US-05 dry yeast. Dry hop as directed above. Bottle with 1.1 oz priming sugar for 1.9 vol CO2.

A full gallery of hopped-up photos can be found here.

19 bottles to eventually drink / 19 bottles of beer!

The primary lesson I learned in these batches is that I need to trust my water calculations. For both the PB & Porter and the ZIPA I felt I had too much wort at the end of the boil and boiled for another 15-30 minutes. But then I felt like I didn't get enough wort in the fermenter and have to strain out all the hops which was messy and tedious. While following Wil Wheaton's homebrewing over the past few weeks I realized that the wort I'm measuring with my calibrated stirring spoon is of greater volume during the boil than it would be if cooled to room temperature because fluids expand with temperature! I calibrated said spoon while boiling away water, so even though I measure the volume before the boil, during, and have a rough idea of where 2-gal is in my carboy, these measurements are all taken at different temperatures. The next time I brew I'm going to trust the water calculations and end the boil at the planned time no matter the volume. Also, I need to make sure to make the volume measurements in the same position of the boil kettle every time.

And that's what I've brewed this fall. By New Years I'll have four varieties of homebrew to enjoy and I'd like to brew something festive with my parents when they visit for the holidays.

How has the autumn been for your brewing? What's in keg or bottle at your place?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!