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| Smack pack round 2! |
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| New yeast, old hops, milled grain for a porter. |
Showing posts with label Post-Brewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Post-Brewing. Show all posts
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Fall/Winter Brewing Roundup and Spring Forecast
It's a new month so I better post a new entry.
I started this blog four years ago to share my love of homebrewing and to document my own adventures. I initially posted an entry for every batch of beer I brewed, but that slowed down when I wrote my PhD dissertation at the end of 2013, and again when I moved across the country to start my first post-graduate research job. I still photo-document every batch, but those images are stored on my personal laptop, which I don't have ready access to as my wife uses it regularly for her graduate coursework. I barely get to use it for more than 5 minutes at a time when I download podcasts and sync them to my iPod a couple times a week. Before my current work travel to the Black Hills, I uploaded the photos from my past four homebrew batches to Facebook galleries and now feel right posting about those brewdays as I have access to their images. Three of the batches I described in my previous homebrewing post have been tasted and are almost gone, so I now have the opportunity to give a wrap-up report on them.
Monday, December 7, 2015
Brief Update
Hey all!
I have a brief update for you. I've been traveling and sick the past two Mondays, respectively, so haven't been able to get a new post written and up. But I haven't been lax in my brewing and craft beering!
Everything I've been working on in the past few months has been bottled, and I've even tasted a few of the batches. The first I tasted was my oat pale ale. Not impressed. It tastes like green apples, which means acetaldehyde, a precursor to ethyl alcohol in the fermentation process. The yeast is supposed to clean up all the acetaldehyde by the end of fermentation, but if you remove the beer from the yeast too early, or allow the yeast to go dormant and fall out of suspension, that step can be arrested. Apparently that's what I did! Even though the beer sat on the yeast for a month before bottling, maybe the yeast just didn't finish its work. I talked to Tom at Oak Barrel and from what he could gather from books they have on hand, there's not much I can do once it's on bottles. So I've placed my case of OPA near the heater in my apartment and shake them up every few days to rouse the yeast so that it can do some more work. Hopefully that works. If it doesn't, I've got a cidery beer on my hands, and a bit of a disappointment in my work. After the off flavoring of the S'More Of What?, another not great beer is kind of a slap in the face, and has me questioning my desire to go into brewing professionally. Oh well, ever onward…
The #w00tstout is amazing! Can not wait to try this. I'm having some friends over in a two Fridays to sample the latest of Dr. Bradley's Brewing Co., and this will be the star of the show. The hydrometer sample was quite good, so I know the conditioned product will be great, and I will slowly mete out this batch over the next year-plus.
I dry-hopped and bottled the Almost Gold Medal IPA, cold crashing for 1.5 days in between, and it smells great. I barely got to taste it having to use some of the hydrometer sample to fill the 20th bottle, but what I did taste was quite good. For an IPA it could be a bit bitter, but it's hoppiness is sweet, floral, fruity, and a light touch, very well balanced. I hope only 11 days in bottle will be enough to meld and condition the flavors for competition at the BAM Christmas party this Saturday. Even if it doesn't place, I expect this batch to be a good one, and the happiness should mellow into something nice while this batch lasts. Definitely a leg up on my IPA making, and I will be researching the temperature variance of the fermentation schedule to understand the why and how of what I was directed to do following that recipe.
I finally tasted the Grapes & Grain, and it's good! The yeasty esters are a bit much, for my tastes at least, but it's good overall. I drank the mixture of the two versions, and it was plentifully carbonated without being a gusher or having too strong of a carbonic taste. Having this batch turn out this good, after two disappointments this year, was like a weight lifted off my shoulders, and I won't be ashamed to serve it to my friends next Friday. I'll also be shipping some to the grapes' provider in Atlanta, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks of them.
This last weekend I had a triple-beer experience. A new friend of mine from BAM was brewing a Mexican milk stout using Abuelita tablets, and we collaborated on adapting a recipe he found to his 5-gal system. After that I headed over another friend's house where he and his husband were hosting a house warming holiday get-together after their recent nuptials, and shared a batch of nut brown ale they recently brewed. Then Sunday morning I got up and brewed a lower ABV version of my Imperial White Russian milk stout w/ coffee, The Dude Abides. I like what I've produced before, pushing it up to 9.1% ABV, but I'd rather have a more drinkable beer, especially with the #w00tstout I'll have around for the next year-plus. My aim was to get something about 5.5%, but I believe this batch will be about 7%, which is fine. I already have an idea how to modify it more to reduce the ABV and keep the body and mouthfeel full and smooth. After pitching around 1:30PM, fermentation began by midnight, and by this morning it was bubbling away. I'll "dry hop" the whole beans, although I'm considering coarse grinding them and putting them in a muslin sock for greater area exposure
And that should take us up to today. I am working on my overall brewing plan for 2016. Having some friends over next week to sample my beers will be the inaugural event in what I hope to be an every 6ish weeks series wherein I serve my friends my beer and they give me honest, open feedback. I hope to use this next year to push my brewing to the next level with consistent, positive results. I will also be seeking any and all local homebrewing competitions to start getting official recognition under my belt.
What have you been up to before and since Thanksgiving? Any fun autumnal or wintery brews coming up? What are your plans for 2016?
Until next time friends, happy brewing!
I have a brief update for you. I've been traveling and sick the past two Mondays, respectively, so haven't been able to get a new post written and up. But I haven't been lax in my brewing and craft beering!
Everything I've been working on in the past few months has been bottled, and I've even tasted a few of the batches. The first I tasted was my oat pale ale. Not impressed. It tastes like green apples, which means acetaldehyde, a precursor to ethyl alcohol in the fermentation process. The yeast is supposed to clean up all the acetaldehyde by the end of fermentation, but if you remove the beer from the yeast too early, or allow the yeast to go dormant and fall out of suspension, that step can be arrested. Apparently that's what I did! Even though the beer sat on the yeast for a month before bottling, maybe the yeast just didn't finish its work. I talked to Tom at Oak Barrel and from what he could gather from books they have on hand, there's not much I can do once it's on bottles. So I've placed my case of OPA near the heater in my apartment and shake them up every few days to rouse the yeast so that it can do some more work. Hopefully that works. If it doesn't, I've got a cidery beer on my hands, and a bit of a disappointment in my work. After the off flavoring of the S'More Of What?, another not great beer is kind of a slap in the face, and has me questioning my desire to go into brewing professionally. Oh well, ever onward…
The #w00tstout is amazing! Can not wait to try this. I'm having some friends over in a two Fridays to sample the latest of Dr. Bradley's Brewing Co., and this will be the star of the show. The hydrometer sample was quite good, so I know the conditioned product will be great, and I will slowly mete out this batch over the next year-plus.
I dry-hopped and bottled the Almost Gold Medal IPA, cold crashing for 1.5 days in between, and it smells great. I barely got to taste it having to use some of the hydrometer sample to fill the 20th bottle, but what I did taste was quite good. For an IPA it could be a bit bitter, but it's hoppiness is sweet, floral, fruity, and a light touch, very well balanced. I hope only 11 days in bottle will be enough to meld and condition the flavors for competition at the BAM Christmas party this Saturday. Even if it doesn't place, I expect this batch to be a good one, and the happiness should mellow into something nice while this batch lasts. Definitely a leg up on my IPA making, and I will be researching the temperature variance of the fermentation schedule to understand the why and how of what I was directed to do following that recipe.
I finally tasted the Grapes & Grain, and it's good! The yeasty esters are a bit much, for my tastes at least, but it's good overall. I drank the mixture of the two versions, and it was plentifully carbonated without being a gusher or having too strong of a carbonic taste. Having this batch turn out this good, after two disappointments this year, was like a weight lifted off my shoulders, and I won't be ashamed to serve it to my friends next Friday. I'll also be shipping some to the grapes' provider in Atlanta, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks of them.
This last weekend I had a triple-beer experience. A new friend of mine from BAM was brewing a Mexican milk stout using Abuelita tablets, and we collaborated on adapting a recipe he found to his 5-gal system. After that I headed over another friend's house where he and his husband were hosting a house warming holiday get-together after their recent nuptials, and shared a batch of nut brown ale they recently brewed. Then Sunday morning I got up and brewed a lower ABV version of my Imperial White Russian milk stout w/ coffee, The Dude Abides. I like what I've produced before, pushing it up to 9.1% ABV, but I'd rather have a more drinkable beer, especially with the #w00tstout I'll have around for the next year-plus. My aim was to get something about 5.5%, but I believe this batch will be about 7%, which is fine. I already have an idea how to modify it more to reduce the ABV and keep the body and mouthfeel full and smooth. After pitching around 1:30PM, fermentation began by midnight, and by this morning it was bubbling away. I'll "dry hop" the whole beans, although I'm considering coarse grinding them and putting them in a muslin sock for greater area exposure
And that should take us up to today. I am working on my overall brewing plan for 2016. Having some friends over next week to sample my beers will be the inaugural event in what I hope to be an every 6ish weeks series wherein I serve my friends my beer and they give me honest, open feedback. I hope to use this next year to push my brewing to the next level with consistent, positive results. I will also be seeking any and all local homebrewing competitions to start getting official recognition under my belt.
What have you been up to before and since Thanksgiving? Any fun autumnal or wintery brews coming up? What are your plans for 2016?
Until next time friends, happy brewing!
Monday, November 16, 2015
2015: A Year of Brewing
As I mentioned before, while I was quiet here on the blog I was not absent in my brewery, I mean kitchen. I plowed forward, re-brewing previous batches and attempting new recipes while making my own. I also joined the Bay Area Mashers homebrewing club in the summer, and they run a quarterly in-house brewing competition, so some of my batches were to compete in that, and will be in the foreseeable future. Additionally, I've been doing my own sampling of the pros, and continue to seek out neighborhood breweries and brewpubs wherever I travel.
Friday, March 7, 2014
Spent Grain Bars
I take an afternoon break every work day and walk down to the coffee shop on campus to refill my reusable mug with 16 oz of burnt bean water and talk to the baristas (or Sagistas, as it's the Sage's Cafe). Then I walk back to my office to enjoy my coffee with a granola bar. Sometimes I forget my granola bar when I pack my lunch so I have to buy a bagel or cookies, but I have been purchasing a big box of 48 packages of Nature Valley granola bars for years, and in the past two have been enjoying them with coffee in the afternoon. In an effort to "save money" and "use all the parts of the animal," I've decided to use the spent grains from brewing to make my own granola bars. I've made two batches now, and so this post discusses that process.
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