Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Sir Reginald's SMaSHing IPA (and a new cider experiment!)

First wort hoping kept this full pot from boiling over!
Hey all! Those of you that keep up with my twitter feed (@cuttshomebrew) have probably seen some of the updates from the last couple of brews, but I thought it was time to log them officially and give a little more information about these upcoming beauties. First of all, my new technique of yeast harvesting worked wonderfully well, and the WLP002 culture from the Husky Lad Mild Porter stayed clean, made a good starter, and is now fermenting vigorously away at the beautiful English IPA I cooked up. I am very excited to have such an easy and reliable new method for harvesting (and reharvesting) yeast, because I definitely have zeroed in on my favorite "house" strains for English (WLP002) and Belgian (WLP500) ales, and it's really nice to save some money on batches, as yeast is one of the more expensive elements of homebrewing.

I had a lot of fun brewing up this beer. I did a long (~2 hours) mash at 152°F, and then, instead of the usual bittering addition, I did some first wort hopping. This is a technique I've used in other beers to nice effect, where you add the hops to the hot wort in the boil kettle as you collect the runoff. Because the wort is hot but not boiling at this stage, certain volatile hop oils and compounds are extracted more effectively, resulting not only in an effective bittering component after boiling, but also more complexity in the flavor and aroma of the finished product. Additionally, this also helped to prevent a boil over in a very full pot. First wort hopping was one of the Top 10 Tips for a Super Hoppy Beer that I followed for this recipe. I also followed Callahan's advice of adding the aroma (flameout) addition once the beer cooled below 180°F and then doing a relatively long (~15 minute) steep of the aroma hops before chilling. I must say, whenever I smelled the hops hitting the hot wort, I got really excited for an EKG hop bomb of a beer. The starter made with the harvested yeast from the porter got the batch going really nicely, and it has been happily and vigorously fermenting for the last several days. Here is the simple yet specific recipe:

Sir Reginald's SMaSHing English IPA:
Projected ABV: 7%
Projected SRM: 7.6°L (a deep golden color)
Projected IBU: 46

14 lbs Maris Otter

WLP002

3 oz East Kent Goldings @FWH
1 oz EKG @20 minutes
1 oz EKG @15
1 oz EKG @10
1 oz EKG 15 minute steep @180°

1 oz EKG dry hop 7 days
1 oz EKG dry hop 5 days
1 oz EKG dry hop 3 days

Awww yeah.

Prior to my brew day, I was really catching the fever while waiting for the starter to reach its full potential, so I finally whipped up a batch of graff, a type of cider that uses malt to achieve a desirable level of body and residual sweetness. I used the very popular Brandon O recipe on Homebrewtalk.com, combining 1 oz torrefied wheat, 1 lbs crystal 60, and 2 lbs of malt extract with 4 gallons of apple juice to make 5 gallons of delicious homegrown alchemy. I threw in some dry Nottingham yeast that took off like a shot and fermented like crazy for quite a few days, kicking off some really nice apple aromas. The other key with graff is that it is supposed to be very drinkable very quickly, so I should be enjoying it soon. I am very excited about this project, because while I have had some decent success making homebrewed ciders, I have never done more than a gallon or two at a time, and they've never come out quite exactly right. I really enjoy cider, and I know that many others do as well, so it will be nice to have a good, reliable recipe for draught cider.

The graff cider bubbles away
More updates to come soon! Prost!





Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Special edition post: lessons learned, tidbits from the process

I recently happened upon an excellent article on HomebrewTalk.com, where homebrewer Chris Callahan shared his Top 10 Tips for a Super Hoppy Beer. His tips are quite good, and I will definitely be using many of them in my upcoming Maris Otter/East Kent Golding IPA, but I also loved the way he presented the article, not claiming to be any kind of expert, but offering up some humble bits of advice in the form of lessons learned during the homebrew process. This caused me to reflect on important lessons I've learned throughout my own homebrewing process, ultimately asking the question, 'What makes my beer better now than it was when I started brewing six years ago?' Turns out, quite a bit. Let's explore:

On Cleanliness (Cleanliness is Godliness):
Sanitation is the key! Keep your stuff clean, and you'll be well on your way. The only reason I had any hope early on as a brewer was because I paid close attention to sanitation. You are never in too much of a hurry to make sure your stuff is clean, even if it just means one more dunk in the sanitizer. As sanitizers go, I really like StarSan. It is food grade, you don't have to rinse it, and you can reuse it as long as it maintains its acidity. I buy a big bottle of the stuff once in a great while and it lasts me forever. Keep it clean, y'all!

On Fermentation (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Starters):
Every time I have made a yeast starter for a batch of beer, I'm all like, why the heck don't I do this every damn time? Whenever I pitch a nice, healthy starter into a fresh batch of wort, fermentation is always speedy and beautiful, and the resulting beer is excellent. Happy yeast makes for happy beer. This is why I now make starters EVERY. DAMN. TIME. Whether it's a one-gallon experimental batch or a starter of simple wort on the stirplate, starters will make your beer better. You give the yeast more opportunity to do what it's supposed to do when you let it grow in the right conditions. While you don't need starters for dry yeast cultures, there are far more strains available in liquid form, and given my penchant for experimentation and recipe tweaking, I use almost exclusively liquid cultures, so it's important to always make a healthy starter.

On Fermentation Temperature (Keep it cool, man):
When I first started brewing, I was happy fermenting ales around or even above 70. My beers tasted fine, but once I started dialing my temperatures in and getting them closer to the ideal range for the yeast strains I was using, I noticed much cleaner, more nuanced flavors. This was especially effective in the crafting of English and American beers, and in the use of the German Hefeweizen yeast strain. Belgian strains do better at higher temperatures, but I still use similar methods to keep the temperature in check. I don't have a fermentation chamber or anything, but I have had a lot of success with the "swamp cooler" method. I put a wet T-shirt over the fermenter, and the evaporation of the water lowers the temperature significantly below ambient. I keep an eye on the temp and adjust the dampness of the shirt accordingly.

On Experimentation (A reminder to always be beer-curious):
Experiment as much as you can. This means exploring new styles AND perfecting familiar ones. It means brewing classic styles AND inventing perfect, inspired hybrid beers. It means conjuring up complex, inspired recipes AND seeking brilliance through simplicity with single malt and single hop (SMaSH) and other stripped-down recipes. Take risks and experiment as much as possible. This is one of the greatest joys of being a homebrewer (and human being), so get out there and get experimentin'! One of my favorite summer beers of all time was last year's Nuptiale, which was a summer wheat all-Citra pale ale with Shelburne farms honey and a generous helping of apricots...talk about brewing like a homebrewer! NOTE: Don't poo-poo fruit beers, if you do them well and still pay proper care to the base beer, you can end up with some great stuff with the fruit really complementing the other flavors. Additionally, if you are interested in experimenting with fruit, dried, unsweetened apricots do AMAZINGLY in beer. The two apricot beers I have made were magical.

On Belgian Beers (Big beer, good yeast, can't lose):
I feel like I could fill all four taps on my kegerator with different beers all fermented with WLP500. I have recently pledged to keep the Beehive Blonde as a semi-permanent fixture of the home kegerator. A delicious, complex beer resulting from a relatively simple recipe that SWMBO and I could drink all day, erry day. Here are a few points on the success I have found with Belgians:
-Higher alcohol (>5%) is good. Yeast/ester/phenol/fermentation character is so important to the flavor of Belgian beers, more sugar->more alcohol production->more fermentation character
-Some of this gravity should come from simple sugars. There are lots of great Belgian candi syrups and sugars out there, but this is also a great opportunity for experimentation. Honey, treacle, and other raw, unrefined sugars can create wonderful results.
-Find a strain you like. I love WLP500, which is the Westmalle Trappist Abbey strain. It is complex and wonderful, and it does really well at good ol' room temp.

On Roasty Beers (Brew simply so that others may simply drink):
In addition to having a pretty regular craving for a good Belgian-style ale, one of my main everyday beer cravings is for a good roasty toasty beer. I love stouts and porters, and I've made many good dark beers, all slightly different, all with some pretty key common denominators:
-Simple recipes. I find that simple recipes often give birth to the most complex and well-defined flavors I've ever experienced in my homebrewing. For me, this actually came out of a historical look at the porter/stout tradition. I realized that some of the most tried and true recipes in history were outstandingly simple, so when I gave my first go at an Irish dry stout, it was a very simple recipe. When I gave it my second go, it was with an even simpler recipe. Same goes for my historical porter, which only has a few ingredients. These beers had wonderfully well-rounded flavors and great roast character, with no muddiness.
-Skip the crystal/caramel malt. You just don't really need it. Brown malt has been one of my secrets to great porters, and I think it adds an amazing character to the beer.
-Session it up. I'm pretty sure the most alcoholic dark beer I've made has been about 5% abv, and I've never felt like I was sacrificing flavor. I contend that a session stout or porter is easily the best bang for your buck as a homebrewer, especially because most of the time, the only hop addition is at the beginning of the boil. Save some money and calories, and relish in a flavorful beer that you can drink all day long. I will definitely brew a big ol imperial stout someday, but for everyday enjoyment, I prefer a good session brew.
-Bonus:add a little roasty kick to other malty beers. I like an English mild or brown ale with a little hint of roast to it. Also, one of the best things about the only Irish red I ever brewed was the little bit of dry roast on the finish, which was achieved through some pale chocolate malt (highly recommend this).

On Hoppy Beers (Read the article I linked at the top!):
I have made many tasty pale ales, especially as single-hop beers. Like everything else, I try to keep them simple and balanced, with some nice citrus/pine flavors. It's time for some IPA experiments. First will be my Maris Otter/East Kent Golding SMaSH IPA, whose ingredients arrived in the mail yesterday! I also think I'm overdue for a go at a Belgian IPA (which I think will be good for summer) and I really want to try my hand at a big-ass imperial/double IPA, so there will be more on hoppy beers to come very soon!

Prost