Possum Sweat CaliCommon

Finished drinking dregs of a CaliCommon with a rich and ample base of Vienna Malt to go up against a wall of Northern Brewer hops.

Possum Sweat was fairly simple to brew. A single infusion mash at 152. Eight pounds Vienna, 1 pound Flaked Maize, 1 pound Caramel/Crystal 60l. 3 equal additions of Northern Brewer Hops of 1 ounce @60, .5 @30, .5 @5, and 1 @0.

 3 ounces of Northern Brewer hops is, like, a LOT of hops, for me. 

Used Saflager yeast that I washed out of the yeast cake of the superior deliciousness of my recent Vienna Lager. Fermented fairly hot, a room temp of 75 degrees, it is very fruity, but the high hops really cut it on the back of the tongue and leave mint and pine in the aftertaste.

A sweet and fruit nose full of apricot and candy malt, that gives way to a massive, cleansing bitterness of hop. The beer is right on that edge of too hoppy, and too sweet. Any less of the sweetness or the hoppiness, the balance would shift. Good mouthfeel, leaving a thick fruit and mint in the aftertaste.

The dregs of the beer suggest it would be great with bison burgers, Salmon, and mushroom dishes. We shall see how it ages and settles down in the bottle. I am curious to see what happens when the different aromatics arrive after carbonation.

What to do with 8 pounds of red wheat malt?

Leftover bulk grains are a thing that make me no longer want bulk grains, and grateful a good homebrew shop expanded into the Valley out on my side of town. I had some grain to pound through before it got stale.

Since I brew in a bag, I have been able to make beers nearly entirely with wheat malt without a problem. It is interesting how each method of brewing makes certain different things possible, in the process. Every brewer can come up with their own little twist.

Bagman is a twist, then, on what I can do.

8 pounds of red wheat malt
2 pounds of dark munich malt
6 ounces crystal 120l
6 ounces chocolate malt
1/2 an ounce of German Pearle @60 for 20 IBU
Danstar Munich yeast
Step mashing slow and long all the way up to 151 for an hour saccharification rest.

Brew day was crazy. I rushed home from work to try and pound through before sunset. During my mash, I ran out of gas! I had thought I had enough for one more round, but not so. I had to stop and run out to the corner store to trade my empty in. I managed to do so without hurt in my mash much. If it had to happen, that was the best time for it!

But, sunset happened. I was out in the dark like a madman. My wife, annoyed inside, had prepared an amazing feast. I rushed through it to get back to brewing.
After dark, I finished a long boil.

My old final gravity spectrometer thingum busted bad. Time for a new one. I had to rely on tasting the wort to tell if it was converting. 

An exciting brewday! Pictures soon!

I had a dream about a beer recipe

Last night I had a dream about a recipe that tastes of the sea, and of the old gods. Three weird sisters, with one hop for each of the fates. Six row as a base malt, at 9 pounds, and 4 ounces of Blackprinz and sea salt at a minimum.

The recipe would be strong and sturdy, and a reddish color. It would have crystal malts and more specialty grains of some sort, with a forceful field of hops. Some sort of cascadia dark ale, perhaps? An imperial IPA? An old ale or scottish ale? It was to taste of viking sailers and the three weaving women who knit our days to the end of them.

It is not next on my brewing line up. Next is bottling the steam beer, and brewing something corona-like do the summer, light and Lager.

But I dreamed of a recipe. I write it down.

You know the limitations of the recipe. What do you add? What hops? What other grains? What style should it be?

3 weird sisters

9 pounds Six-Row Malt
4 ounces Blackprinz
?
Sea salt
3 different hops @60, @30, @15

Fill in the gaps. My dream did not reveal more than this.

Vienna Dark Lager, on bottling day

 

On bottling day, the Vienna Lager is supremely tasty. It's a little smoky, a little sweet, a little herbal, and a little spicy, but not quite, yet, smoothed out in flavor. In a couple weeks, I expect the flavors to merge a little more. I hope the strong and prominent vanilla flavor remains present in the brew when it's settled down. It tastes like it has vanilla in it, at bottling. And, it doesn't.

It is a beer that would be perfect with barbecue, or in barbecue sauces. The sweet and smoky notes, balanced by the spicy hops, are reminiscent of good barbecue sauce. With spicy food, the beer really shined. The hard hit of spicy, Mexican bean soup was cut by the mouth-filling vienna malts.

Next time, what I would do differently? Well, give it a couple weeks to age and I'll speculate more, but, for now, maybe cutting down the honey malt to 6 ounces instead of 8, maybe. Maybe, a little stronger hop - Magnum, or Tradition, or somesuch. Maybe reducing the Vienna Malt half a pound and putting in a little more flaked maize for a lighter body in the depths of Texas heat. But, for 18.50, this is a fantastic beer, on bottling day.

The saflager yeast is not a popular one, but, in this case, I see no reason to hate. The cheapness of the yeast is exacerbated by its unpopularity, and the results are quite pleasant. It is hard to imagine a tastier batch for less than .40 cents per 12 ounces! I may have discovered my favorite new cheap beer! Depths of complexity, easy-to-drink 4% ABV, and perfect for Tex-Mex, I could have kept going after sipping through the dregs!

Recipe:
7 pounds American Vienna Malt
1 pound flaked maize
8 ounces Gambrinus Honey Malt
4 ounces Caraffa I
1 ounce Santiam at about 6 IBUs @60minutes
Saflager s-23, fermented cold, followed by a rest to warm to room temperature, then into the secondary with a couple weeks to lager close to freezing.

The mas schedule was fairly simple, as well. A beta-glucan rest at about 110 for fifteen minutes, followed by a saccharification rest at about 153-154 for an hour.

The depth and complexity of a fairly simple grain bill and hop schedule is very surprising to anyone accustomed to Negro Modelo's clean and watery mouthfeel. This one really fills the mouth with malt sweetness, without being cloying. Initially, it has the clean flavor of a good Negro Modelo, but as it passes over the palatte, all these notes rise up, carried underneath smoke and vanilla. At bottling, there was so much aroma of vanilla, that it was hard not to picture the pleasure of pouring it over ice cream. It tastes like a Tex-Mex beer. It feels rich and sweet like a Mexican Mercado. I want to grab a bunch of barbecue fajitas, horchatas and Mexican street food and throw back my dark lagers one after another with good friends!

I'm calling it either Possum Stomp, or Ochociento. Probably Ochociento. It tastes like 800 pesos well spent.

I am pleased.

Many Brews, Much News

Swamped with work, and work, and more work. I didn't stop brewing, but I did stop posting about it.

Things I have done include a first lager, a robust porter, that came out just fine.

A cranberry-chipotle porter with dehusked caraffa for all the roasted malts and all nugget hops, otherwise quite like any porter out there, came out supremely pleasant and tasty. Losing coffee notes for caraffa was a wise call, as the fruit sings over the top.

I brewed and Oaked a 2nd round of the house red that was very pleasant with bourbon-soaked oak chips. I expect to do it again, to try and get it down solid. Adjusting always. Not quite right.

Witbiers are great for beer nerds and casual drinkers alike. My preferred recipe is probably the one thing I have made  most. I made it fi r Thanksgiving and it was a smash success.

Call it Simplicity
5.5 gallons spring water
2 pounds Vienna Malt
2 pounds American 6-row
2 pounds Red Wheat
1 pound Quaker quick oats or flaked oats
1 pound honey
Noble-origin, floral hop (Saaz, Goldings, Glacier, etc.) As bittering and aroma @60 and @15. Aim for 15 IBU, max 18.
Chamomile, coriander, black pepper, fresh orange peel to taste.
Wyeast Belgian Saison
Do a protein rest for 15, followed by a saccharification rest at the low end around 151-152 for 60 minutes. Mash out at 175. Add honey at the end of the 60 minute boil.
Ferment cool at first and raise the temp up to 90-95 by the end. (In south Texas, that is very easy to do...)
Simple and beautiful and easy-drinking, witbiers are homebrew winners.

It is my most-popular brew to date, and I have happily resigned myself to being ready to brew it for family functions.

Now, with my lager fridge, I have been trying my hand at lagers. I have two brews with one yeast running, both in Secondar y.

First, I brewed a Tex-Mex Vienna Lager I am calling the Possum Stomp, in honor of what I will be doing when I am drinking it in the garden...

5.5 gallons San Antonio tapwater
7 pounds Vienna Malt
1 pound flaked maize
6 ounces Honey Malt
4 ounces Caraffa I
1 ounce Santiam Hops@60
Saflager yeast
Step mash with 15 minute Beta-Glucan rest, then a saccharification of 154 for an hour.

This one is sitting in Secondary, layering in my fridge. The greatest thing about this recipe was how cheap it was. Total cost of ingredients was 18.50 at the local homebrew shop, and the dregs were quite pleasant.

With the washed yeast of that possum stomp, I put together a simple steam beer recipe, again with copious Vienna Malt.

Possum Steam
6 gallons san antonio tap water for 5.5 gallons beer
8 pounds Vienna Malt
1 pound crystal 60l
1 pound flaked maize
.5 ounce Northern Brewer hops @60
.5 ounce Northern Brewer hops @30
.5 ounce Northern Brewer hops @15
.5 ounce Northern Brewer hops @0
Washed Saflager Yeast from Vienna Lager
With a very simple, single step mash at 154 for an hour, no fuss, no muss.
Ferment at ale temperatures, like an ale.

I just racked it off this morning. It is the color of suede, and blazingly hoppy at one week of pitching the yeast. It should smooth out as it ages. I hope it does!

Dont know how to post pictures from my new phone. Hm. I hope that worked

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!

Anybody in San Antonio interested in this little event?

Talking About Faith Through Imaginary Worlds:

Speculative Fiction at Viva!

   

August 31

12:30-2:30pm

Panel Discussion and Book Signing

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror offer the unique opportunity to post unreal elements in the real world.  More than just adventures and entertainment, these books offer new insights into the human condition.  Three leading authors of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror will be here at Viva to talk about speculative fiction's role in healing the world.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of The Worker Prince and The Returning, novels that re-invent the classic story of Moses as a space opera.  He also hosts the popular #sfwriterchat on Twitter.  Follow him @bryanthomas or visit his website atwww.bryanthomasschmidt.net

Maurice Broaddus is about the pursuit of truth, be it by art (over 10 years as a professional writer), science (20 years as a environmental toxicologist), or by religion (over 15 years in ministry).  New he focuses on working with the homeless by day (as Executive Director of Cities of Refuge Ministries) and writing by night (learn more at MauriceBroaddus.com)

Django Wexler is an author with a strong interest in history, which includes a serious study of religion as a defining factor in monumental conflicts.  His fantasy novel, The Thousand Names: Book of One Shadow Campaigns looks at Victorian Imperialism with an eye for adventure.

(Author's note: I'll be moderating and shuttling people around or something, so I'll be around if you want to meet with me, as well.)