Blog Update and DIPA!

My wife and I welcomed our newest member of the family on July 10th, Greta Gail is doing great and getting older by the second. I have neglected this blog because time is very short these days and brew days are harder and harder to come by. But SWMBO was extremely kind and gave me and afternoon to do some brewing. I had no warning so it was a run to midwest and make something up sort of deal. I wanted to use up some of the simcoe hops that are in the freezer, so I opted for my first DIPA. Here is the Grist:
13 lbs Rhar Two Row
3 lbs Golden Promise
1 lb Golden naked oats
1 lb Crystal 50/60
.5 lbs Cara Pils
Hops: Mash Hops 2 oz simcoe whole leaf - since I have an abundance of simcoe I decided to throw some in the mash.
First Wort 1 oz Chinook Pellets
First Wort .33oz citra .33oz simcoe .33oz cascade
60 1 oz Simcoe
20 1 oz Chinook
10 1 oz Cascade
10 .75 oz Citra
1 2 oz simcoe
1 oz chinook
Dry Hop 10 days with
2 oz simcoe
2 oz chinook
1 oz cascade
Pitched 2 vials of WLP007 Dry English Ale This yeast is new to me, but it sure looks like it is a great strain. My og was 1.070 (63% eff) which was way low, but it will make good beer! The yeast went from 1.070 to 1.020 in about 36 hours which was pretty impressive, a very aggressive fermentation, fermentation was at 68 with a brief spike to 73 until I got it into the cooler and it is now at 66. I am really curious how this will turn out, but so far so good. Look for some pictures and updates as the beer gets into the bottle. Cheers!

Orange Rye IPA Tasting and Pour

I got a chance to give the Orange Rye IPA a proper tasting. While this beer is young, word has it that it is best fresh, so here we go:

The Pour:



Nice Orange/Copper, it does remind me of the trees in the fall. A nice two finger head on the pour.

The Nose starts with some simcoe fruitiness but then you can really pick up the citrus from the centennial and the orange peel. It also has a slightly sweet aroma, think candy and caramel, and a nice bready undertone from the rye

The mouthfeel is full, the fullest mouthfeel of any of the beer that I have brewed. Carbonation is spot on. The taste is Bitter/sweet, Assertive on the sides of the tongue but also a nice sweetness that is not overpowering. The centennials @ 60 was a really with the simcoe FWH. It is smoothly bitter and it lingers and coats the mouth. The later hop editions shine.

A c-hop resin finish with some lingering bread y spice from the rye and a hint if alcohol.

Over all I am very pleased with this beer. I would mash lower next time and maybe try hops that are near the same ibu level but are a little less potent, maybe something of the traditional english IPA. I do think that with another week or two of aging, this beer will be even better as it smooths out. Keep an eye out and I will try to write a review of it then.

Orange Rye IPA Update and tasting of more beer...

Dank Brewer and I had a quick taste of the Orange Rye IPA last week, and I jotted down this post after the tasting only to hold it off as I wanted to make sure it was coherent as I also tasted quite a bit of Dank's beer, while the beer ORIPA is not totally ready, I thought it would be nice to give it a go even though it has only been in the bottle for about a week. I am excited about this beer and I think that it has some really nice potential, only time will tell. The color is a nice orange/amber color, reminiscent of autumn. The aroma is very distinct, the simcoe definitely shines through but it also has a nice c-hop type of aroma as well, a very citrus-y fare with the orange in the backround. The taste is fairly assertive on the hop bitterness followed by a nice citrus from the orange peel and a bready spicy hint from the rye, citrus also comes through on the tongue in the finish. The finish is also sporting some nice lingering bitterness which balances out the sweetness from the high mash temp. I cannot give a true verdict on this beer until it is fully carbed and chilled, but so far so good. Also I had a great opportunity to taste a nice variety of the Dank Beers. I was super impressed with the Dark Embrace and The Essence. Both IPA's and both totally different.  The dark embrace is a great take on the dark IPA. Early editions of simcoe come through really nicely and this beer does not leave one confused where the bitterness comes from, no malt bitterness from the dark grains, just pure hop bitterness with an awesome aroma, definitely one to try if you ever run across Nick. The Essence has really come along nicely. The only other time I has this beer it was very young, time was really good to this beer as it now has a wonderful pungent c-hop aroma and a crisp assertive hop bite. A touch of honey is also present and rounds out the beer nicely. One could look at the hop schedule and think No way that is going to be balanced, but it honestly is and it was a great beer, if you are a hop head brew it up, it is worth it, it checks in high on the ABV and higher on the IBU's but man it is a great beer. Stay tuned for more updates when I get the chance to post them, and a full tasting of the orange rye IPA.

Orange Rye IPA

Since I have consumed almost all of the simcoe single hop IPA, it is time to brew more beer as I am running out! I brewed up an orange rye ipa that I think will be really tasty. It is a combo of several recipes, from denny conn and don osborn with my own hop twist. Here is the grist and hop schedule:

12lbs rhar 2 row
3 lbs Rye Malt
1 lb crystal 40
.5 rhar white wheat
.5 carapils

Mash 180>156 for 1 hour (mashed high as I knew this was going to be really bitter and I wanted enough sweet left over to balance it out. Sparge at 167 for 30 min.

FWH 60+ 1oz Simcoe 12.7
60 1oz Centennial 9.7
30 1oz Centennial 9.7
15 1oz Sweet Orange Peel
5 2oz Simcoe 12.7
2oz Simcoe 12.7 Dry hop

Yeast starter of 1056

OG 1.070!
FG ?

68% brew house efficiency

Brew day was split into two, I mashed and sparged friday night and heated the kettle to 185 covered it in blankets and let it sit over night. Woke up @ 6am and the kettle was @ 170, added FWH and brought the kettle to a boil.

I am hoping that this works out just fine as I rarely have time to fit in a brewday and if I can keep splitting it up I think that I will be able to brew more as I am not spending a whole day brewing. Stay tuned for updates! Cheers to good beer.

Single Hop Simcoe Tasting

First I will start out with the review of the single hop IPA simcoe edition. This beer pours a clear orange color with a nice cap that sticks. The aroma is of pungent simcoe hops, really nice strong simcoe smell from the big late editions and the dry hop. The taste is somewhat bitter up front, assertive but not overly bitter, there is some malt balance then a burst of hops come through and it finishes with just enough lingering bitterness with a hint of sweet. Mouthfeel is really nice, the oats definitely add a touch of smoothness that i really like. Over all I have to say that is by far and away my best beer yet. It fared really well at the single hop tasting and was enjoyed by all. This beer on an A to F scale gets an A. This is a beer I would buy and drink a massive amount of, even though I love the simcoe hops, I think that many beer drinkers would really like this offering. It is a shame that I have drank nearly the entire batch as I really should have saved some and entered it into a competition to see what the scores would be just to see how it measures up. I guess I will just have to brew it again! Also be sure to stock up on your simcoe and amarillo hops as there is a reported shortage of those hops in 2011! Midwest and Northern Brewer are out of them or have very little in stock and midwest doesn't anticipate another shipment of simcoes until next year! I got a pound in the mail and I will repeat this beer and then brew a few more beers where simcoe is the finishing hop.  Check out the pictures of the Nordeast brewers alliance single hop ipa beer tasting! Cheers to great beer!

Black IPA Pour

Here is a pour of the black IPA. A very good beer with a head that lasts to the last sip, aggressive on the hops but smoothed out by the malt. A nice winter warmer. See the previous post for the grist, this batch was primed with carb tabs.

Homegrown Hops IPA - Thought and Review

I will get some pictures up when I can. The homegrown hop IPA is not the beer that I hoped it would be. The grist seems to be alright and I am going to brew this up with the same commercial bill to see the difference, which I suspect to be quite substantial. The homegrown hops are not very potent, they lack the bitterness that I was going for, that alone would not have been a big deal, the biggest problem with the beer is the taste that the hops imparted. I think that this is a two pronged issue, one I think that the hops just are not very good as they are first year hops and were probably not dried as well as they could have been, also I used notty as the yeast and it just plain sucks if you ask me, I will never use it again, a real fruity odd taste that I can tell is coming from the yeast. The fermentation temps were on the high side, but they were no outrageous (lower 70's) and all of the other liquid and dry yeast that I have used has not had a problem like that. The beer is nice and malty with some roasted overkill from the biscuit but the beer has an overwhelming sour fruit flavor that I just don't like, I can drink it but I just am not crazy about it. The nice thing is that this beer is really strong (9.7 ABV) so I only need one any way. The hop taste is really hard to describe, it is a sort of vegetative sour fruitiness that just doesn't belong in beer. On an A to F scale I would give this beer a C- D+.

Brewclub Single Hop IPA

My contribution to the great hops experiment is in the fermenter. I did the simcoe edition. Here is the grist:

10 lbs Rhar 2 row
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb crystal 60
.5 lb cara-pils

Hop schedule (All Simcoe Hops)
.75 oz @ 60
1 oz @ 20
1 oz @ 10
2 oz @ 1
2 oz Dry Hop for 7-14 days

OG 1.056

Brew day went smooth, mashed at 152 for 1 hour, sparged 167 for 30 min. I did a much better job hitting my temps with this brew so I am excited about that.  I also had some efficiency gains taboot. I got 6.75 gallons of wort, all of the simcoes in the boil at the right times, and I also got my wort really nice and chilled down and fast, I guess that is the one advantage to MN in the winter! Got it cooled down to 68 in 20 min and pitched my starter of 1056. I pitched around 5 and there is slow activity now @ 9:20 and the fermenter is 66 degrees. Looks like it will be right on track. Also a big shout out to SWMBO for the time!! Check back for the latest on the Nordeast Brew Clubs single hop experiment.

NE Homebrew Club Single Hop Brew Off..The Great Hops Experiment

So my next batch will be for the Northeast Homebrew Club's first ever single hop brew off. There are five of us in the club that will be brewing the same grist and using a single hop for all of the additions. I am excited about this and Dank Brewer and I have talked about doing this for awhile on our own so it is very cool that there are more people involved. I am obsessed with hops and I am really excited to see how different all of the beers turn out. Here is the grist:

10 lbs American 2 row
1 lb flaked oats
.5 lb crystal 60
.5 lb carapils

Hop Schedule is:
@ 60min  1.0 oz Simcoe
@ 20min 1.0 oz Simcoe
@ 1min 2.0 oz Simcoe
Dry Hop 2 oz Simcoe
 
I will be using simcoe! Real excited about that as that is my favorite hop and one that I have wanted to do a single series on for a while and now I have a reason to do so. The other hops in the mix for the other four people are:
 
Sorachi Ace - Really interested to try this one as it is a newer variety that I have never tried
Fuggles
Citra
Saaz
 
I will report back with brewday updates and also tastings sometime in January.  Cheer to good beer!

Amarillo American Pale Ale - Update

The amarillo american pale ale is now in the sweet spot. The beer is crystal clear and all carbonation problems have worked themselves out. Time is really the key when having carbonation issues, this batch was bulk primed and I did not get the sugar mixed in well enough, so the last few bottles were gushers and the first ones bottled took over 5 weeks to prime. Another thing to note is the taste difference between the beer that were lightly carbed and the ones that were over carbed. The over carbed beers, at least early on, tasted so much more complex and fruity, the ones that were under carbed we harsh and extremely bitter. Strange to say the least as I thought that priming with dextrose did not change the flavor of the beer. That still may be true, if you wait long enough. Two things that I have had to admit to myself are that I am impatient when wanting to drink my beer, another is that I over bittered this batch a bit. Here is the true review of the first all grain batch I produced, the Amarillo American Pale Ale:

Pour - Pours a bright orange, almost crystal clear with a nice white two finger head.

Aroma - Citrus/spicy hop aroma. No sweetness in the aroma, a nice match of the spicy chinook hops and citrus fruity notes from the amarillo and simcoe hops, smells really nice.

Taste - Well carbonated, nice mouthfeel may be a bit thin, the bitterness is aggressive and a little over powering but not bad. Next time I would just do the 1/2oz chinook FWH and not add the other 1/2 oz @ 60. This beer would be much more balanced without the extra 1/2oz. But if you are a hophead you will like the bitterness, to an untrained palate it may taste a bit harsh and overbitter.

Finish - Lingering bitterness and some spicy notes, not sure where those came from simcoe/amarillo or just the combo? I really like the aftertaste and the flavor/aroma hops, this is a solid beer, not a competition beer. On an A to F scale I would rate this a B+!

Cheers to good beer!



Biscuit Malt

In the homegrown IPA I used a pound of biscuit malt. I like malty beers and figured that a pound of biscuit and a pound of Munich 10 would add some really nice malt complexity. I did a lot of reading and the line with biscuit seems to be do not use for more that 10% of the grist. I ended up using it at 6% of the grist and I feel like that is WAY too much. I kind of knew that I was high on the biscuit but I figured that it never hurt to experiment so off I went. Now the problem here is two fold, one is that I did not get the bitterness from the homegrown hops that I wanted that would have balanced it out and two is that I just plain used too much of it. I will be bottling this beer hopefully this weekend so that I can let it sit for awhile before I start ripping into it. All of the samples that I have tasted are just different, the biscuit stands out way too much and it threw the beer out of balance in my opinion. I am curious how this will taste after it has been aged for some time. I am really interested to see how this tastes in say January/February after 3-4 months in the bottle. If you are looking for a flavor reference for biscuit malt think fat tire, you know that really nice maltyness that you get in that beer, the flavor that kind of stands out, I am not sure that it is biscuit malt in that, but that is the flavor that I have picked up in my beer, and it is dominate! I will update you and let you know how the tasting goes and we will see if this is a beer that I will never ever brew again, of if it is a beer where I can stand it and like it as a change of pace and a beer to lay down for a while. Only time will tell! Cheers!

Homegrown Hop IPA Brewday Update - Updated

This is kind of odd, I have not had a fermentation like this yet, here is the deal. As you can see in the video below the fermentation was really active and some krausen had formed. The video is about 14 hours into fermentation and I pitched on Saturday night. I went and checked it yesterday morning (10/26) and the krausen had already fallen. So I sat there and scratched my head as I usually have fairly long fermentation's and the krausen takes a while to fall for the majority of my beers. Also this was a fairly high starting gravity so I was really surprised. So I sanitized the thief and pulled a sample and took a gravity reading and this beer went from 1.075 to 1.025 in about 60 hours! Whoa! I am using two strains of yeast in this thing and I don't have any experience with either strain. I used Notty and WLP051.  I think the Notty took off early and then the WLP051 took over as I could definitely tell the difference in smell from the first time I checked it and how it smells this morning. Since I mashed high I am thinking that this beer is almost done, I am expecting it to finish around 1.020 - 1.015 so five to ten more points to go. I will leave it in primary and rack to secondary this weekend and start the dry hopping. Another thing that I found interesting is that when I tasted the sample of the cooled wort right after the brew session it tasted really super sweet, not a huge suprise but I thought that I would get more out of the 2oz FWH with the homegrown magnums. I did not get any bitterness in the first tasting. When I tasted it yesterday I defiantly got the bitterness, not quite as bitter as I wanted, but still enough to balance out the amount of sugars form the grist. I still have my fingers crossed but I think that this beer will turn out just fine! It tastes a little hot from the fast fermentation but it is not bad and it should mellow fairly quickly. Be on the lookout for more updates soon! Cheers.

P.S. Also congrats to Dank Brewer on getting his single tier set-up up and going! Cannot wait to see that thing in action!

SO the homegrown hop ipa is brewed up and happly fermenting. The post below has all the details, I will just tell you that brew day went extremely poorly, I started late and was rushed, but I know that I will end up with beer so it should be alright. My gravity is nice at 1.075ish and it is really sweet wort. I mashed a little high so there should be some nice sugars left over. The homegrown magnums did not get the bitterness that I was looking for but I will let you know how it turned out in about a month. Below is a pic of the sweet wort out of the kettle and a video of fermentation. Cheers!

Homegrown Hop IPA on Deck for this weekend!

I am really excited about this brew, my first with the nordeast homegrown hops! I will repost back with pics and notes from brewday.  Here is the bill for the HomeGrown IPA:

GRIST
65% 10lbs Golden Promise
6% 1lbs British Crystal 50-60L
6% 1lbs Biscuit Malt
6% 1lbs Munich Malt - 10L
3% .5lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine

With 10-15 min left in boil
13% 2lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose)
1 Whifloc Tablet
Yeast Nutrient

HOP SCHEDULE (ALL HOMEGROWN)
FW 60+ 2oz Magnum
1oz Cascade @ 20
1 oz Cascade @ 10
2 OZ Cascade @ flameout to 140 degrees
2 oz Cascade Dry Hop

Pitched a tube (no starter) of WL051 Cal V and
Since I didn't do a starter I also pitched a pack of Nottingham dry yeast (was worried about underpitching with a high SG)


Cheers and look out for the updates on brewday.

Celebration Stout Tasting

Ahh the crisp air of fall has arrived and so has the dark beer! If you remember a while back my brother-in-law and his wife are expecting an arrival in a few months. I decided we should brew up a celebration ale so that he has something to sip on when he can't get out the door to get some more beer. This was my last extract beer and one of the best extract brews that I did.  When the beer was young I had two of them and they were good but needed a little more time to come together. Well that has happened and it is ready for a proper review.

The pour - A nice black oily looking brew with an awesome head which is visible above. The head took 20 minutes to die down and a nice frothy cap lingered until the last sip!
Aroma - Dark malt, molasses, coffee, brown sugar tones dominate and it smells like a nice dry Irish stout and I felt a little like Pavlov's dog when I was taking in the aroma.
Taste - Fits in perfect with the aroma, a really nice coffee, molasses dark malt taste with just a hint of hops and a really nice dry twang finish that should be present in a dry irish stout. It is not extract twang, it is from the yeast and while I was not happy with the yeast when it was fermenting, I gotta say that it did a great job and imparted all the flavors that it should.
Overall impression - This is a nice winter beer, the mouthfeel is a little thinner than it should be but it is close, this is a highly quaffable winter warmer at around 5.8 abv. If I did brew this up again I would add some more hops for bittering and aroma, but that might upset the balance that is happening here, but I would love to give it a try. Over all I am extremely pleased with this beer and I think that the brother-in-law will be as well. So raise a glass in celebration and cheers to the expecting couple!

NE Brew Club

Hey y'all, if you are in NE or have ties to NE and you ferment you have to check out the new homebrew club that is just starting to get its feet off the ground. We don't have an offical name but we are working on it, if you are interested you can check out the details and blog here! Cheers to good beer! I will have some pics and a tasting of the Amarillo pale posted in the next few days, I think that I will try to hook up with SIR DANKNESS for a joint tasting.

Peace!

Black IPA and Home Grown Hops Update

UPDATE:
Chalk one up to not thinking things through! The black bitter with the homegrown hops went down the drain last night. I am bummed as this is the first time that this happened, but hindsight is 20/20 and I don't know what the heck I was thinking! I was harvesting some of the cascades and I didn't dry them and just threw them into the bitter, well that is really dumb as I tasted a little bit last night and it tasted like drinking a blended up plant with some malt in it, man it was gross. Guess I will just chalk this one up and not repeat the same mistake again.

I have racked the Black IPA into secondary and I added 1 oz of Ahtanum plug hops. I also got the Amarillo pale bottled as well (I will be sure to do a tasting of this one!). I also was able to rack the black bitter with homegrown hops into secondary and I picked some of my cascades and threw those into secondary. It looks like I will have a few ounces of cascades and magnums to use up straight from the NE Mpls soil! I am excited about this and I am also excited to try the black bitter and see how the homegrown hops stack up.  Here is a pic of some of the hops that I picked last night.  Cheers!



HomeGrown Goodness!



All Grain Black IPA

I love dark beer and I love hoppy beer so why not put them together. It is worth a shot, oh to be drinking a dark but hopalicious beer in the fall time in MN! Here is the bill for the Black IPA:

12 lbs Rhar
.5 lbs carmel 80L
.25 lbs dehusked carafa III
.25 lbs chocolate malt

Hops:
1 oz Summit 60
1 oz Simcoe 15
1 oz centennial 10
1 oz cascade 5
1 oz amarillo @ flame out steeped until 140 degrees

WL001 saved/washed yeast from Amarillo Pale!

Mashed for 1 hour @ 154
Sparged a little cool ended up with 8.5 gallons of wort (Uh Oh)...

So this beer went better than the first all grain, but I still need to get my efficiency up I am hovering in the low 60's and want to get to 70-75 (barley crusher here I come), I ended up boiling the extra 2 gallons in another pot in the kitchen. I knew that I collected too much wort so I did a mini batch and used all home grown hops in this and pitched the same yeast.  I am anxious to see how that turns out! I am expecting it to be much more malty as I have no idea what the AA content of the homegrowns are, but I threw in two handfuls (getting scientific here!) of Magnums for bittering and three of cascades at flame out.

Here are some pics of the brew day:

All of the ingredients

Draining the first runnings

Look at that color!

All grain trinity, from the left, Amarillo Pale Ale, Black Bitter with homegrown hops, Black IPA

Homegrown Hops in NE...Update

My hops EXPLODED over the past moth or so. Two of the bines went absolutely nuts.  Two did not produce at all.  I planted Willamette, Cascades,Magnums, and Nothern Brewer. I did not expect this many hops for first year bines so I am quite happy. Some of them are ready for harvest and some are getting close, I think that I will pick and dry some in the near future. I used some of them on Monday in a brew which you will hear about asap.  Here are some pics of the hops.

All Grain Amarillo Pale Ale Update..

Here are some pics of the amarillo pale ale.  It is not quite ready for a "real" tasting but it is good and I am excited about it so far!

Nice Color with some chill haze but that should clear up

Nice head and some lacing

I have transferred the Amarillo Pale Ale into secondary with an ounce of simcoe for dry hopping. The beer looks and smells great and I am really excited as this is my first all grain beer. I should be bottling next weekend then 2 more weeks until I can taste the sweet nectar. One other first is that I saved the yeast from this batch. I still need to wash it, but I was really surprised at how easy it is and how much yeast I got! Since I whirlpooled in the kettle and siphoned into the better bottle I got almost no break material and very minimal hop sediment. When I checked on the yeast this morning in the fridge it settled nicely and there was a super small layer of hop trub in the saved yeast. I will decant and try to get all the yeast and use it on my next batch or the one after that. I don't want to hang onto it too long, but it is in a nice sanitized sealed mason jar for safe keeping. I am hoping to brew another all grain beer in the next 2-4 weeks and it will most likely either be the same recipe as Dank Brewers Dead Guy Ale Clone or a black ipa.  I am leaning toward the black IPA as WL001 would work really nice in that one and I will then have two really nice all grain hoppy ales to drink on for a while. We will see and I will keep you updated.  The bottling of the celebration stout went really well and I am looking forward to enjoying those with my brother in law when his new arrival comes this winter!  Here are some pics of the Amarillo in secondary!  Cheers!

Ale Asylum Hopalicious Review and More...

Ale Asylum Hopalicious is an American Pale Ale brewed with all Cascade hops.  There are 11 additions of cascades to this tasty beverage. This ale is unfiltered and according to the bottle brewed in sanity (love that tag line by the way!).  It pours a slightly hazy orange copper with a nice white cap. The aroma is citrus with some grapefruit and orange and maybe a little lemon? It smells like it is going to be a small hop bomb.  The taste is not entirely like the smell. There is a faint bitterness, but the character of the cascades really shines through. This is a great beer for people that really want to know what cascades can do for a beer.  The mouthfeel is good and where it should be and the hops linger on the tongue and the back of the pallet. This is a very sessionable beer and one that I would keep in the fridge as a go to in the summer. My only complaint would be that this beer needs to be drank young, I had a few on tap and it was WAY better, but it still tastes good out of the bottle. This beer leaves some nice lacing as shown here.  On an A-F scale I would rate this a B+.

Now on the the Gran Cru that I brewed a few months ago.  This beer really surprised me as I am not usually a fan of these types of belgianesque beers.  I am not really a huge fan of beers with coriander in them, but this beer might persuade me to rethink that.  This beer pours a clear yellow/straw to slight copper. The head retention is somewhat problematic with this beer, but it does leave some nice lacing. The smell is yeasty with the orange peel and coriander shining through, I can also smell the honey. The thing that I love about this beer is that none of these flavors dominate and they have all come together nicely.  The S-33 fermented in the upper range to get some esters out of the yeast and I am really happy that I fermented this hot around 75. I don't really pick up a ton of fusels which is great and the yeast definitely gave it some of that nice Belgian flair that I do like. Overall I am really happy with this beer and it is one that I would consider putting in standard rotation.  Here is a pic of the beer after a few sips. Cheers to good beer!