Red Ale Round 1

I like red ales. I like that they are unfussy. They offer lots of variation. The ruby color is impressive poured into a glass where a recipe design and a homebrew technique combine to make a goal happen.
I missed. The color is close but looks more amber than red. There's redness there, and it looks to be a quality homebrew, but it is probably not going to be a perfect color of red to dazzle guests.

(We'll see what happens after fermentation clears out the wort, though!)

Red Ale Round 1

OG 1.050 (estimated at 75% efficiency)*
FG 1.011 (estimated)
22 IBU ***
4.6% ABV (estimated)
14 SRM (hm... We'll see.)**

Ingredients:

6 pounds of pale malt
2 pounds of red wheat malt
6 ounces crystal 40l
6 ounces special b
2 roasted barley
2 ounces of flaked wheat
1 ounce of Progress hops at 60
1 ounce of cracked coriander at 8
1/2 ounce of cracked szechuan peppercorn at 8
Safale US-05

A multi step mash to settle the wheat and oats with 10 minute rests at 90, 113, followed by half an hour at 145, and a 60 minute conversion mash at 151-154 degrees. (All of these times approximate. Multi-step mashing is more guesswork than science on an electric range where quickly moving out of the target temperature is just not possible!)

**A singed brewkettle where the false bottom failed.

*A mystery conversion of 60 minutes for the main conversion, with a missing presumed tossed refractometer leading me to sort of sip wort and guesstimate if it is getting sweeter/richer or not.

***A crazy boil where I lost the boil for a few minutes halfway and i am uncertain i got a good heat break
It will be interesting. It is fermenting with safale us-05 as we speak. Will update with results.

Pictures? Pictures.

<-spice is nice!

Oatmeal Stout Porter Deliciousness, plus a Caribbean Recipe

I cracked open the first Oatmeal Stout Porter last night. I shared some with my wife who made a quick version of a traditional Caribbean "Eggnog" with it, both recipes I have included below.

Making Stouts and Porters is one of the most rewarding parts of homebrewing, because they command a premium in stores but come cheap as sin as homebrew, and the darker  roasted beers are the most-forgiving styles of beer to make at home. The simple, clean yeasts that are commonly used are forgiving of temperature shifts. The clean bittering with a simple, single addition is, again, forgiving. The roasted malts mask any minor misteps. And, my wife will also drink them in her own special, Caribbean way. Sharing is good!

This was a winner. Woot is it good. The head formation was impacted by the high percentage of oats, but this was a small price to pay for such a tasty, smooth brew. A complex bouqet of spicy and sweet flavors rolled over my tongue with the silken oats and enough Cascade hops carried through to the final product from the single addition to add lovely herbal and citrus notes under all that excellent malt.

Aiming for 3 gallons of brew-in-a-bag goodness, the grain bill was 5 pounds of 2-row, 1 pound of roughly-toasted quick oats (barely-stirred: let the sides singe!), 10 ounces of homemade brown malt, 10 ounces of crystal 40l, 8 ounces of special B, and 4 ounces black patent. 1 ounce of Cascade hops was added at 60 minutes for an hour boil, for about 34 IBU, and good ol' Safale US-05 was the yeast of choice. 

The temperature was kept on the high end for the yeast, and given three weeks in the primary before bottling. 

The only negative mark against this super-fantastico brew is the head retention, but with so much oat you expect to pay a price. It's worth it. Woot is it good. Woot woot.

I've got twelve big growlers of this carbed and waiting in a box. But wait, beer is more than just beer, for it can also be an ingredient for other mixed drinks!

Caribbean Eggnog

My wife, who is not a beer drinker, actually liked this brew. She used it to make a quick and dirty variation on the traditional Caribbean beverage that her Grenadian grandma calls "eggnog" that I've seen many of her relatives make with a Guinness Stout. 

1 part Stout or Porter

4-6 ounces Sweetened Condensed Milk (Whole Milk plus sugar) per 12 ounces of Stout

Lime Zest (one whole lime's worth per 12 ounces)

Raw Egg (optional)

Blend it in a blender to get it frothy and serve over ice with a lime wedge!

1 beer's worth will serve 2-4 people.

Angie's QuickNog

1 part Stout or Porter

4-6 ounces of Whole Milk

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

dash of vanilla extract

juice of half a lime

Stir vigorously over ice.

Getting Ready for Gruit!

I'm sipping Mama's Witbier, and I'm down to just a couple bottles. Thank goodness I've got that Molasses (Wh)E(at)SB in the bottles getting carbed up! Between the last post and now I spent a lot of time researching different healing herbs that are also often paired with tea or traditional brewing of healing beers. I put together a recipe for a pretty basic, Munich-y Irish Red Ale with grains I have hanging out in my brew closet. I'm going to use it as a base for a gruit in the morning. Once I get done with this post, I'm going to measure all the pieces out to get it ready for the morning. I've got Nottingham sitting in the fridge, ready to eat some wort and make beer, and I know my yeasty-beasties can't wait to start chewing up some sugar. If only I had a wort for them! First, the grains for 3 gallons of a healing gruit: 3 pounds of Rahr 2-Row 2 pounds of Munich Malt 5 ounces of piloncillo 5 ounces of flaked barley 4 ounces of Rahr Red Wheat 2 ounces of Debittered Carafa I I will use hops. My gruit research indicates that hops are still a must, because they keep beer from spoiling. I don't want a sour gruit! I'm going to use just enough hops to get the IBU up to a legal Irish Red Ale. That's 0.3 ounces of Cluster @60 for bittering, and 0.15 Styrian Celeja @30, and 0.15 Styrian Celeja @10. Styrian Celeja is a hop without too much distinctive flavor. It is a pleasant flavor, but it isn't a citrus and spice bomb like Cluster, and Celeja seems to be noteworthy for adding a sense of hoppiness and little else. It's good for malt-forward beers, I've noticed. In this case, it will be used for herb-forward beer. I spent a few hours researching different good herbs for male health - particularly cardio-vascular health as it's an area I feel like I could always improve in the winter. Are you ready for this? I'm about to destroy this beer, to your eyes, with an insane drink-able experiment that has quite a lot going on. Chamomile, Rosemary, Sage, Cinnamon, Ginger, Cardamom, Black Pepper, Turmeric, Coriander, Crushed Red Pepper, and Orange Peel. The other thing I was doing this evening, while researching herbs, was making tiny tea blends to figure out what will not be nasty to drink. The thing that was so surprising is how drinkable sage, chamomile, rosemary, cinnamon, ginger, coriander, and black pepper are, together. One could legitimately make a tea out of this combination of things. The turmeric is dangerous, and must be kept in a very minimal amount. The hot pepper is dangerous and must be kept, again, minimal. Still, for the goal of a healing brew, both turmeric and hot pepper are excellent for cardio-vascular health. Even a little bit - and it will be just a teensy, tinsy little bit of each - should make a subtle difference in the health of vital organs. The only herbs that do not aid the heart and veins are cardamom and coriander, and these are mostly digestive aids, to help all this stuff go down with a good flavor! With all of these herbs and spices, a little bit goes a long way in both flavor and health impact. The hope is that this will be a drinkable, enjoyable brew that gets the elegant complexity of flavors from healing herbs, not hops or yeasts. It will be an adventure of complex flavors and aromas. I'm going to go measure it all out. This will be madness of the maddest sort.

BREWDAY: Wise Pumpkin Says Dunkel for Halloween

The seasonal brews are one of my favorite things to do. Most brewers don't like pumpkin beer. It is a plebian affair, after all, and you have to like what pumpkin tastes like to like it in a brew. Pumpkin has a flavor. It is not necessarily a pie flavor. In fact, most pumpkin pies are made with butternut squash. Still, for those of us who do enjoy pumpkin, a seasonal brew with the fruits of the autumn harvest is the perfect time to celebrate that pumpkin love.

Ah, pumpkin. Ah, Halloween. Halloween pumpkin. Ah. Yes.

Here's what I came up with from my handy brew closet supply:

3 gallon batch

1 whole roasted pumpkin pie pumpkin (about 2 1/3 pounds, cleaned, in this case)

2 pounds of red wheat malt

8 ounces of 2-row

8 ounces of caramunich

8 ounces of piloncillo sugar

2 ounces of carafa i

2 ounces of quaker quick oats

.8 ounces of Styrian Celeja hops @60

.2 ounces of Styrian Celeja hops @30

1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice blend (in this case, McCormick's brand. I did a good strong amount because the container is years old. Were this a fresh batch of homemade stuff, I'd use 1/3 of a teaspoon!)

1/2 teaspoon of Chinese Five Spice (in this case, a homemade blend, about a year old, containing fennel, star anise, clove, szechuan peppercorn, and cinnamon)

Things I did differently this time:

I used 3.75 gallons of storebought spring water to fill my kettle, this time. I want to see if I can isolate either the water or the sanitation process. I kept my sanitation the same, with the bleach and the rinsing of bleach. Let's see if it is (as I suspect) likely coming from the hard, chlorinated San Antonio tap water.

I've had good results with overnight mashing, and I'm going to keep doing it, for now, until I can get a refractometer. I've ordered one, but it is not here, yet.

So, I got my strike water up to 175 degrees, doughed in with my fresh crushed grain and pumpkin, and got the temperature up to about 155. Then, I placed my kettle in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees. I flipped the oven off, went to bed, and did the rest of the boil in the morning. Simple. 

Pumpkin. I love pumpkin. I could take a cured cinderella pumpkin, slice it up like fine cheese and eat it raw. I could make pumpkin bread, and pumpkin alcohol, and pumpkin cinnamon rolls... I love pumpkin!

How do you process a pumpkin for homebrew if you don't have a food processor? Ours was dirty, and I was too lazy to clean it, so I had to find a different way. I put the roasted pumpkin in a plastic bag, and smashed it up with my hands, crushing it inside of the plastic bag into a gooey paste. It was clean and easy to work with, and seemed to lead to good conversion in the kettle. Time will tell. Time will tell. Refractometer en route.

Anyway, the wise pumpkin says dunkel, because yeast should have a flavor, and the spicy, fruity German yeast will complement the spicy, fruity pumpkin brew. It will not be another commercial amber pumpkin ale. (I could buy that in the store, if I wanted it!) It will be something I haven't seen out and about. And, my hope is that the piloncillo and caramunich will impart a rich caramel flavor to go with the pumpkin and the spice. Caramel pumpkin is a wise combination, no?

Pictures:

BOTTLING DAY: Golden Cloud Ale

Today was the day. The beer had stopped fermenting, and it was time to put it in a bottle. I've used Danstar Munich before and gotten good results, but I have to wonder if the difference between extract brewing (and water PH?) had any effect on this batch. It was a mess. The beer was not clear. It was not clearing. It was just sort of stuck exactly where it was supposed to be, at my target gravity (1.014). It wasn't cleaning itself up, and I needed the bucket and the yeast cake. So, I made a judgment call. Bottle this gloopy mess. Hefeweizens are supposed to have some yeast, right? Right? If I had known how much yeast was still hovering in the wort, I'd have tried again.

I got 15 bottles before it was too sludgy to move. It tastes all right. The yeast is definitely a part of the beer, and gives it a creamy texture enhanced by the use of oats in the mash. The head is thick and foamy and rich. Coming in warm, I'm tasting a lot of clove in the beer. I wanted to see what that meant, when people talk about the clove and the banana, and try a couple beers to find that range. Well, I found the clove range, for sure. It's not unpleasant when cold, but it's definitely something i'd like better if there was blood oranges in the batch. The next batch (currently bubbling away) will be kept much cooler to aim for the banana esters. The toasted malts have definitely improved the recipe, as well. There's an indescribable something in the malts, sweeter and nuttier than expected. There's something there, and it's wonderful, and it's hard to place on the palate. The color is beautiful. The beer is refreshing and spicy and there's just that nice hint of sweet toastiness somewhere, riding over the clove esters. It's not a caramel malt sweetness, and not a roasted barley toastiness, but it's there, just on the palate and gone. Give it time. Maybe the beer'll get better. Takeaways: 1) Research how Danstar Munich reacts to different kinds of water, because maybe that's why it would not drop clear out of the wort. 2) Research my own water, here in San Antonio, and see if I can't find a way to do it better with either water treatments or Reverse-Osmosis water, or even just the spring water I used to use in Decatur, GA, because the tap water was no good. Did the hard water I used impact the flavor? 3) Be more disciplined with temperature control. I wanted to let it run hot to see what it tasted like that way, and now I know. It isn't bad. In fact, in a blood orange hefeweizen, I'd say it would be ideal for me to have more clove, but in this toasted malt hefe, it isn't the right balance. Cool it off, and aim banana with toasted malts. Aim banana. Lesson learned. Hey, want to find out about the Blood Orange Hefeweizen that's so popular on-line? Sure ya do: Right! A great time was had by all, and some beer is in front of me that needs drinking. Next time, BREWDAY: Red River Ale!

Caramel Malt Experiment #1

I have nothing against commercial caramel malts. I use them, and will use them again. Right now, though, what interests me is doing it myself. I read about a guy who made his own caramel malts at home. I've noticed in on-line discussions there's a lot of debate about whether these are actually caramel malts. You see, commercial caramel malts are made by sprouting green barley grains, then roasting them. It's just not the same to do it at home with dry grains. But, some homebrewers will tell you that you aren't changing the chemistry, just the process. The enzymes that make the whole process work are still present in the grain. Or something. I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me if I'm getting a true caramel malt, or just something different that works the same.

The thing that matters to me, as a homebrewer, is the beer. If the beer tastes really good, and the process was unique, that only makes the beer more appealing to me, because it makes it something that I cannot purchase at the store. It makes it something that I can teach to my nephews and nieces someday, when they're old enough for this hobby. It makes it artisan and craftsman and made with human hands.

Why not try to make our own caramel malts at home?

So, I'm going to try a couple different processes to produce caramel malts. This blog post will be my first experiment.

I soaked grain overnight, as if they were beans, and then rinsing them, again, like beans. 

Then, I spread them on a foil-wrapped baking sheet, and poured a little more water over them, to keep them damp during the roast.

I placed them in a cold oven, and then I set the temperature of the oven for 170 degrees (my lowest setting). 

Then, I stirred occasionally and added more water as things dried out, to keep the grains damp, for one hour and fifteen minutes.

At the end of that time, I set the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Now, it was pretty late at night, and I had some other things to do that would take a lot of my attention. Once the oven hit 350, I gave it a minute, and flipped it off, while leaving the grains in the heated oven. A few hours later, I checked and noticed there was still dampness in the grains, so I stirred and flipped the oven back on to 350. Once it struck, I gave it five minutes, then turned it off again and went to bed. In the morning, the grains were dry and a good color, so I put them in a paper bag to age.

These will age at least five days. 

Are they caramel malts? Are they some sort of super-toasted sweet malt? I don't know. I do know that they smelled grainy and sweet, and that they developed a golden red color that cooked in a bit darker during the drying phase. 

Until someone comes by to tell me precisely what I created, I'll call it Experimental Malt #1.

Man, but it was late, and I think the lesson learned here is to budget your time a little smarter. I needed to do it tonight to let it age for a few days before my next batch (hurled upon the yeast cake of Golden Cloud Ale) and I still have to roast some chocolate wheat for my next planned batch! Argh! I was so sleepy!

I'll do things differently, next time. I will roast earlier in the day. I will use a different process for the caramel malts. I will experiment, iterate, try new things!

This is a great way to keep my hand in the business while my Golden Cloud Ale is still fermenting.

Also, is it any wonder I'd want to do it myself when there's prices like this out there: