Tasting the Late Summer Patersbier

I'm pretty happy with the way the Patersbier I brewed a few weeks ago turned out.  Because it does well at higher temps, and I don't have fermentation control, this is one of my go-to later summer brews.  It's also pretty popular among both beer geeks (lots of Belgian phenols) and non beer geeks (it's not dark or otherwise intimidating, and it looks nice in a tall glass on a hot day).  I took a keg to a family get together for Labor Day, and we put a solid dent in it.

Beer by me, venue by my father-in-law.

Fermentation ended up happening at 81F, which is really just crazy, and one of the reasons I don't brew so much in late summer.  I'm comforting myself by thinking of this as a recreation of Westvleteren 4, the no-longer-brewed, monks-only beer from the St. Sixtus brewery.  Brew like a monk mentions that Westvleteren lets the 12 get up into the 80s using yeast from Westmalle, which I've done here, if not on purpose. 

I need not have worried, although spicier than normal (and more than I'd prefer), this ended up at only 4.7%, and I really babied the yeast with a big pitch and a dose of O2, so there's not a fusel character.  It has great head retention, and, although the picture above shows it a bit cloudy, which it was after the keg bounced up to Maryland, the version in the keg at home cleared brilliantly.  The aroma is spice (yeast-derived ginger and hop-derived, uh, spicy hop aroma?) and pears, which come through in the flavor too, with a crackery flavor in the aftertaste that's somewhere between saltines and ritz.  Although it has a dry finish, the addition of carapils gives this a round mouthfeel that I enjoy (previous versions have been good, if a bit watery), and probably has a lot to do with the great head retention.  The version at home with kaffir lime leaves tossed in the cold keg had no noticeable difference in flavor or aroma.  I think the leaves may need more time at higher temps (like dry hopping, which is a slow process at kegerator temps).  

As much as I liked this batch, I think I'd back down on the fermentation temps (which amounts to waiting another month for cooler weather), and bring the abv below 4.5% by knocking off a pound or two of grain.  The addition of the carapils give this a body and mouthfeel that should allow the lower starting gravity without the final beer coming off as watery.  I'd also consider adding a larger flavor and aroma charge of hops, or even try dry hopping with a German noble variety or one of the American derivatives. 

Brewing a Patersbier

What's golden, thirst-quenching, dry but spicy, singing with noble German and Czech hops, usually less than 5% abv, and can be fermented in a 75 degree basement at the end of summer?  Well, yes, a table-strength saison, but also a Patersbier, that's what, and that's what I brewed a couple of weeks ago.

Patersbier, or Belgian single or enkle, is low-alcohol, very light in color, and not crazily hopped.  One of my favorite aspects of this beer is that—despite enough Trappist spice and ester to satisfy all but the most jaded beer geeks—it's a crowd pleaser.  My father-in-law—he of the ice in his Budweiser—likes this beer.  I like it, too.  There are some historic precedents, and my recipe is based on the Northern Brewer recipe, which is in turn based Westemalle Extra.  Still, the BJCP hasn't got its hands on this yet, and I've felt free to adapt the recipe to these last, waning days of summer.  This beer is my answer to the German pilsners I can't brew due to lack of a cool place to brew in the summer, when I want a lighter beer.  It's been popular at family beach gatherings in years past, and I plan to bring  a keg to a labor day party in a few weeks. 

My previous tries at this beer have been 100% pilsner, using either hallertau or saaz for all additions, like some German pilsners, with Wyeast's 3787, which should be the Westemalle strain.  I've been brewing some seriously hoppy (for me, anyway) beers this summer, and have gotten a little tired of losing good beer to hop sludge, and decided to cut down on hop bulk by using about 3/4 of an ounce of Magnum, at about 15% AA, for the bittering charge.  I've never used it, but understand it's a hallertau derivative with clean bittering properties. I've also added a pound of carapils to help with head retention and body.  This is mashed very low to drive the dryness, and I think some light crystal like carapils can add to it.

One sad note, in making my yeast starter, my 2L flask cracked.  I guess you can only take a glass container from flame to ice bath so many times before you start to have issues.  Oh well, time to support my local home brew shop.

This crack held for 36 hours, with only a tiny bit of liquid seeping through.

On to the recipe:

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Patersbier
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer: 
Style: Belgian Specialty Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 13.66 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.96 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal   
Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 3.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 76.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
10.20 g               Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   1        -             
18 lbs                Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)            Grain         2        94.7 %        
1 lbs                 Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM)              Grain         3        5.3 %         
28 g                  Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min            Hop           4        7.3 IBUs      
21 g                  Magnum [15.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           5        20.8 IBUs     
28 g                  Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min            Hop           6        2.6 IBUs      
1.0 pkg               Trappist High Gravity (Wyeast Labs #3787 Yeast         7        -             


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 19 lbs
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 6.32 gal of water at 158.4 F        148.0 F       75 min        
Mash Step         Add 9.00 gal of water at 187.6 F        170.0 F       10 min        

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 1.42gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------

Mash settled in at 145, and I've no more water. I'm cool with letting this thing dry out more.

Prepared a 2 L starter for the yeast, which is only a month old. Unfortunately, my flask developed a crack in transfering it from the stove to the ice bath--It held, but I don't think I'll be able to use it again. Shame, really, unless you sell glassware.

Fermentation took off, with primary ferment at 81F (!). Even with the sweet, silent ton of foam control, a bit of the 3787, that beast, came up through the airlocks. I guess this is going to be a Westvleteren-style patersbier...Westemalle yeast with no temp control. I think they used to make a 4 that probably would have looked a lot like this..

Finished right at 1.010, so measured ABV of 4.7%, very nice. Kegged everything up. Looks gorgeous, smells a bit hot (not surprised. can't wait for winter brewing), also like honey, ginger and pears.

 Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dominion Cup

Tasting Black Abandon CDA

This was a very interesting beer that was fun to brew, turned out surprising well, and showed just how quickly hop aroma and flavor disappears. I kegged half of this straight from the primary fermenter on an ounce of Citra hops, put it on tap, carbed it in three days and started drinking.  The other half was bottle conditioned and stored in my room-temp, under-the-basement-stairs "cellar."  I entered two botttles of the latter into the Dominion cup.  I haven't seen the score sheets yet, but I won't be shocked to find they didn't so well.

Good thing I've got Imperial Pints.

The kegged beer was shockingly smooth, with an ever-increasing fruity hop aroma as the Citra released its goodness.  There's a reason this hop is crazy popular right now...it's darn good.  I really enjoyed the touch of chocolate roast in combination with an all-American, cascade-dominated hop profile. (Just a touch!  The ever-carmudgeonly Velky Al has a great post on the need for Black IPAs to bend to his will here, and I tend to agree) A great beer, but at a calculated ABV of 7.8%, a bit strong in full pints.  I ended up giving away five or so liter growlers to my BJCP class when it met at my house, a week or two after kegging.  I finished the keg a week after that, and was fairly happy for it.  This beer was consumed as fresh as possible, at what I believe to have been its prime.

The bottled version was nowhere near as smooth, and the hop aroma not nearly as fruity or as pronounced.  The last hops this version saw were in the primary fermenter, and the bottles are stored warm, so it's no wonder I didn't get the hop aroma of the kegged variety.  What really amazed me was how quickly that aroma faded.  Additionally, as shockingly smooth as the kegged version was for a nearly-8% beer, the bottled version showed its alcohol content in spades.  With this version, the touch of roast combined with harsh, fusel alcohol notes to become the beer I fear when I go to homebrew club meetings.  I've also been amazed at how the hop character has dropped precipitously—three weeks ago, cascade was very apparent.  Today, it's mostly gone.  The flavor is still there, but the aroma has faded nearly completely. Unfortunately, this is the beer I entered into the Dominion Cup!

What have I learned?  Mostly, that some cold storage would be nice to have, and that hoppy beers need to be drunk as fresh as possible.  Nothing world-shattering there, but the conventional wisdom is certainly cemented as truth in my mind.   

Branching Out

The subtitle of this blog is "a subsistence brewer contemplates the larger world."  That's a bit of an inside joke. A couple of years ago I read a toast to the subsistence brewer and identified with every line of it, especially this line: "to everyone who would rather have those three unmarked bottles than a chance at a medal."  I still strongly identify with this, and treat homebrewing as a pleasurable household chore akin to putting up jam when fruit is cheap or making bread or freezing a big batch of spaghetti sauce.

But there are benefits to competitions that appeal, like the opportunity to get feedback to become a better brewer.  I like my beer, my wife likes my beer, and my friends like my beer.  This is good, but we all suffer from the bias of knowing the brewer to be a great guy...no, really...and I'd be shocked if any of my beers could win a competition.  I am the hardest critic of my beer, and I'd appreciate occasional, unbiased feedback from knowledgeable brewers.  You can get this from a homebrew club, but even then there can be a bias...who wants to tell a guy you've just met that his beer tastes like turpentine (maybe I just need to make it to more meetings)?  I've avoided competitions in the past because they tend to be so focused on style guidelines, and I still look to that aspect with a gimlet eye.  I'm not so concerned with finding out that my beers aren't to style.  But to hear about any identifiable flaws the judges can spot that I can trouble shoot would be worth the price to play.  

So, that's one reason why I've just entered three beers into the Dominion Cup. This will be my first competition after 12 years of brewing.  I'm still a subsistence brewer—I'll be submitting what I've got on hand, rather than brewing beers specifically for the competition: a Black IPA, a Berliner Weisse, and a Barleywine.  Also proof that I'm still a subsistence brewer?  I'm not quite willing to part with the last few bottles' worth of my ordinary bitter...also not sure how to get it into bottles from the keg!  

Mostly, though, I'm looking forward to the social aspect of the competition.  Homebrewers tend to be a fun lot to hang out with.  If I can have fun on a Saturday in August, and get some pointers on my brew, this should be a worthy endeavor.

Brewing Black Abandon CDA

This one is stolen inspired by the Northern Brewer Black IPA recipe.  Last month, my wife and I had been enjoying O'Connor Brewing Company's Dismal Swamp Black IPA as it migrated through the tap lists of the various bars and restaurants of the Bellevue neighborhood in Richmond.  I really like OBC's take on the style—it's hoppy and chocolately and oh so well balanced, with a touch of  ::Horrors!:: diacetyl butterscotch that I enjoy (so sue me, I used to live in Yorkshire).

First-year cascade in the background.

Knowing it wasn't going to last forever, I was informed that this was our next beer.  Being more of a 3% English pale ale brewer, and at a loss for how to create such a thing as this, I turned to that great recipe repository, the Northern Brewer catalog.  On a side note, I seriously love that thing.  So many homebrewing resources and companys are poorly done, but the NB catalog is gorgeous.  I relied on NB when I lived in the hinterlands for ingredients, and I still send them my custom when I can't get something at my awesome local shop (oak-smoked wheat malt, anyone?).

This recipe is for a 10-gallon batch. I bottled half the batch after following the instructions to the letter, and kegged the other half with an ounce of Citra hops.  I rarely bottle, so these might get entered in the Dominion Cup, which would be my very first competition entry ever.

On to the Recipe:


BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Black Abandon CDA
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer:
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 13.09 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.96 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal  
Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.075 SG
Estimated Color: 30.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 79.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.7 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
8.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent   1        -            
25 lbs                Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM)    Grain         2        84.7 %       
1 lbs                 Caramel Malt - 80L 6-Row (Briess) (80.0  Grain         3        3.4 %        
12.0 oz               Carafa Special III (Weyermann) (470.0 SR Grain         4        2.5 %        
12.0 oz               Chocolate (Crisp) (630.0 SRM)            Grain         5        2.5 %        
2 lbs                 Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM)         Sugar         6        6.8 %        
2 oz                  Summit [17.60 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           7        50.4 IBUs    
2 oz                  Chinook [11.80 %] - Boil 15.0 min        Hop           8        15.2 IBUs    
2 oz                  Centenial Type [9.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min  Hop           9        10.1 IBUs    
2 oz                  Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop           10       3.5 IBUs     
2 oz                  Centenial Type [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min  Hop           11       0.0 IBUs     
4.0 pkg               Safale American  (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)  Yeast         12       -            
2 oz                  Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days      Hop           13       0.0 IBUs     


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge w/ mashout
Total Grain Weight: 29 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash In           Add 8.59 gal of water at 163.7 F        152.0 F       60 min       
Mash Step         Add 5.16 gal of water at 198.6 F        168.0 F       10 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 3.44gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------
6/28/2012 Dry Hopped in one primary with one oz of Cascade pellets, to be bottled as part of brewing presentation on 6/30/12.  Dry hopped the other with 0.6 oz of whole cascade (11% aa!), and plan to keg hop with Citra.

kegged half with 1 oz of Citra, bottled the other half in presentation.  Had serious siphoning issues with the whole-hopped version—lost some serious volume and aerated everything due to a bad seal in the siphon starter...put it on tap immediately to slow down any resulting oxidation.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tasting the House Bitter (1.3)

One of the nicer things about a low gravity beer made with English yeast is that the ferment is done in a few days, and the yeast drops like a rock.  If you're kegging, you're enjoying the fruits of your labor in about two weeks.  A month, tops, if you bottle condition.  The house bitter I brewed a 12 days ago has been on tap for nearly a week, and it's quite good, but I think a few tweaks are in order.

No such thing as a failed experiment...'specially when it tastes like this.

I experimented with a more complex grain bill and a higher mash temp, 155 versus my more-usual 150, in this iteration.  In a beer that starts out with a malty, bready base malt, I think all those body-boosting, character-boosting tricks come come together as a bit too much.  In fact, although the beer came out right at 3% abv, it drinks way bigger than I was aiming for.  The pale chocolate and special roast together give a toasted sourdough thing (a flavor I've heard about from special roast, but not experienced until now) that I'm not that fond of.  Again, just too too much bread given the base malt.  

That said, I do like the caramel flavors I'm getting from the english dark and special B combo.  It's an almost candy-like aroma that is kept from being cloying by a pretty firm bitterness, with a nice hop flavor finish.  I didn't end up dry hopping this, so there's no pipe tobacco (which goes great with caramel malts), but there is the barest hint of fuggle aroma.  I know I'm complaining about too much body and keeping the crystal malts, but I absolutely love that burnt toffee note from the dark crystal, and will reduce dextrins elsewhere. 

Speaking of which, I've tended to mash lower in the past—even for a low gravity beer—and I experimented with a higher mash of about 155.  The beer has a lot of body for a 3% alcohol beer, and that would be great if this was February, but it's not really playing so well in June, when I want something more crisp.

For house bitter (1.4), I think I'll drop the roasted malts to streamline the flavor, stick with one caramel, and drop the mash temp a bit to dry this for a bit more crispness. Back to basics.  In the meantime, this batch is still awfully tasty.

Brewing the House Bitter (1.3)

I've mentioned before that, too me, a good bitter (pale ale, whatever...there, I said it) is the platonic ideal of beer.  For a while I've been working a a good house pale, starting back in the day with something a lot like a Sierra Nevada, and slowly, but surely, working my way to something more closely resembling it's malty cousin across the sea.  There is absolutely nothing better than having a good bitter on tap in the house—also, it keeps my wife happy (sometimes I love my honey-do list).   

Despite the long-term love affair, development of a house beer has been willy-nilly, with batches tucked in between my more numerous one-off batches.  This is fine, because I love pales/bitters in nearly all of their permutations and I am not—NOT—someone who cares that much about consistency in a home-crafted beer.  However, since purchasing a copy of BeerSmith, which has some nifty version controls, I've decided to work on dialing the beer in, if only as an exercise in getting my process more consistent, which I do care about. 

I'm on the third batch since adopting a somewhat controlled method of recipe development, and I've enjoyed every batch so far.  I started with Jamil's recipe for an ordinary bitter from Brewing Classic Styles, scaled up for my system.  I've played around with the yeast, using the new Yorkshire Ale strain, S-04, and British Ale II, and I'll be using the Wyeast 1968, London ESB strain this time.  This time will be the first time that I've played around with the specialty grains in the recipe, trading out half of the British dark crystal for special B, and half of the special roast for pale chocolate.  With four different specialty grains, this is starting to look like a real homebrew recipe!  I have a suspicion that it'll come out muddled, and I'll end up with a much more simple recipe in the end--probably just Munton's dark crystal.

Foam Control is Essential.  Also Plastic Wrap. 

Another change I'm making this time—okay, so this isn't exactly controlling for variables—is that I'm switching out the EKG and sending in the fuggles.  I'm a big fan of fuggles, which I think have a nice earthy, sometimes pipe-tobaccoe nose, that goes really well with the toffee notes of the darker crystal malts I like.


This will also be the first time that I've tried this recipe as a no-sparge recipe.  I upgraded to a larger cooler mash tun in the hopes of being able to make no-sparge session ales, as I've heard the technique can be helpful for giving a low-gravity beer a nice, rich body.  I also find that I frequently overshoot my expected gravity when there's not much grain.

Big flavors in a little beer, folks.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: House Bitter (1.3)
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer: 
Style: Standard/Ordinary Bitter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 13.09 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.96 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal   
Bottling Volume: 10.42 gal
Estimated OG: 1.038 SG
Estimated Color: 12.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     %/IBU         
14 lbs                Pale Ale (Crisp) (4.0 SRM)               90.3 %        
8.0 oz                Muntons Dark Crystal (135.0 SRM)         3.2 %         
8.0 oz                Special B (Dingemans) (147.5 SRM)        3.2 %         
4.0 oz                Pale Chocolate (200.0 SRM)               1.6 %         
4.0 oz                Special Roast (50.0 SRM)                 1.6 %         
57 g                  Fuggles [5.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min   21.2 IBUs     
28 g                  Fuggles [5.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min         7.3 IBUs      
1.00 Items            Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)        -             
28 g                  Fuggles [5.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min          1.9 IBUs      
1.00 tsp              Yeast Nutrient (Boil 3.0 days)           -             
1.0 pkg               London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) [124. -             
28 g                  Fuggles [5.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days      0.0 IBUs      


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 15 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 5.81 gal of water at 167.4 F        155.0 F       75 min        
Mashout           Add 9.64 gal of water at 177.2 F        168.0 F       40 min        

Sparge: Batch sparge with 1 steps (Drain mash tun, ) of 168.0 F water
Notes:

I love how fast low-gravity english beers can be made. 

This came out a very decent 3% quaffer in about a week and a half. 

 ------
Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tasting the Fresh-Kegged No-Boil Berliner Weisse

It's a good thing I brew for domestic consumption, because these multi-adjective descriptions would make for lousy marketing.

Still life with white beer and petunias.

Not very long ago, I brewed a no-boil berliner weisse as part of my plan to continue use of my ancient plastic equipment through brewing of sour beers.  The idea was to keg half of the beer fresh out of the fermenter, and leave the other half in a keg in the basement cellar to further sour until I break it out sometime during the dog days.  I've been drinking the fresh-kegged version for about a week now, and have some thoughts.  

In general, this is a pretty good beer.  It's super light, only about 3% alcohol, and has a nice grainy, just-tart flavor with a super dry finish.  There's also a bit of a funk on the nose from the lacto that I like in some examples of the style.  It's just barely sour, but there's really no sweetness to be balanced, so it comes off as a not-too-tart, unsweetened lemonade.  And it looks like lemonade.  They aren't kidding when they say this stuff is white—the lack of a boil, plus a bit of still-suspended yeast (lacto, starch?) makes it very, very pale.  I'm looking forward to trying the other keg sometime later this summer.  


I'm about half way through this keg, and I have learned some lessons that may help make it a much better beer next time.   

In brewing this, I focused on the health of the lacto and so abused the yeast more than I might usually, and that was a mistake.  I pitched this WYeast German ale strain without a starter into quite warm, unoxygenated wort some time after pitching a huge starter of lacto, which doesn't like oxygen.  As a reward, I ended up with rather large dose of sulfur, which I find happens with some yeasts when they are not treated properly, so I guess this is one of those strains.  In generally, I don't mind a tiny bit of sulfur, especially in a light, thirst-quencher like this, but a lot smells like...well....like sulfur.  Sulfur is pretty volatile, so it dissipates quickly in a highly-carbonated beer like this.  You just don't want to stick your nose in the foam for the first minute or so.  Luckily, when you keg, you can "burp" the keg at the pressure release valve a few times a day, and you can get rid of a lot of the sulfur, so the smell is now down from Blazing Saddles to something you might find in some commercial lagers.  The short of it is that next time I'll pitch a starter and oxygenate, and not worry so much about what it does to the lacto.

This head was not long-lived. Actually running this through a picnic tap to avoid bacteria in the taps.

I'm also a bit disappointed by how cloudy it still is and how the head dissipates so quickly.  The recipe I used involved an hour-long protein rest at 133, and I suspect that may be too long, resulting in a break down of the proteins needed to have good head retention (I also missed low, which might have been the issue).  Of course, for all I know, a good head on a Berliner Weisse not to style, but it does look nice.  The recipe also involved doing a mashout right after the main sacarification rest, which is reached by a decoction.  I suspect that raising the temp to mashout from the sac rest through heating the mash takes long enough to allow the starch released during the decoction to convert.  But I used a boiling water infusion, so I may have denatured the enzymes too quickly, leaving the beer with a starch haze.  Next time I may let it sit for a while before mashing out.

All-in-all, a nice beer to have around.  I'm looking forward to trying to make it better.

Brewing a No-Boil Berliner Weisse

I've wanted to brew a Berliner Weisse for quite some time, and my recent foray into sour beers seemed like a great opportunity to give it a whirl.  I really like the funky lemonade quencher aspect of this beer.  The fact that it is only 2.5-3% alcohol makes it—like all session beers—ideal for homebrewing.  Session beers don't travel well and don't do well sitting on the shelf at the beer store, so the quality differences you get drinking it a week or two out of the bucket in your basement is really noticeable (although I wonder how true that will be with a sour session?).

Also, my wife recently called from her sister's house, raving about Bell's Oarsman and hinting heavily that she would like to see something similar on tap at our house.  The recipe below is based on Kristen England's BWeisse recipe in Brewing with Wheat.  The only thing I've added is a pound of rice hulls, just because I despise stuck mashes.  It's probably not needed.

Mash hopping: feels so wrong, but smells awfully nice.

There a couple of weird things about this recipe.  First and foremost, it's not boiled.  This is fine from a bacterial viewpoint, as the 160+ mashout step gets into the pasteurizing range, but it does feel wrong. Speaking of feeling wrong, this recipe is also mash hopped.  I put an ounce of lovely, whole saatz in there, which made the psychic scars from the Great Hop Shortage of the Late Naughties ache a bit.  I've heard that mash hopping is about as effective as voodoo for getting hop character into the finished beer, but there's a sizeable decoction in the mash program for this, so there is some boiling of hops.  I was relieved to find a faint noble hop aroma in the wort as I was casting out, so maybe it wasn't a waste after all.  We'll see if it persists into the finished beer.


I decided to brew this as a no-sparge recipe.  One of the main reasons I upgraded from my trusty 48 quart mash tun to a 70-quart cooler, is that I wanted to brew 10-gallon batches of low gravity beer with no sparging.  I've heard that you can get a better character because you aren't over-sparging the tiny amount of grains used for session beers.  This also makes it a lot easier for me to brew, as I have only a single kettle.  I use the boil kettle as the HLT, mash as usual, then add a mashout step that adds the rest of the water needed for the recipe.  I need to batch sparge for beers bigger than about 1.050, so then I use the old 48 quart mash tun as an HLT.

Still life, with lacto.

This batch also represents my first attempt to culture bacteria.  After being terrified of bacteria for so many years as a brewer, I was shocked at how difficult it was to culture up the Wyeast Lactobacillus strain.  My mid-70s kitchen (temperature. style-wise, I'd say it's early-50s) wasn't doing anything for it, so I rigged up an incubator by putting it to bed in a cooler with a hot water bottle.  After a week of filling a growler with boiling water 3-times a day for nearly a week, the culture—which was only two weeks old, according to the time stamp—finally started to get a funky, tart smell.  I remember my dad incubating snake eggs using an aquarium heater in a dish of water—we're a hobby-lovin' family—and I may rig something like that up next time. 


I read on a few boards that Wyeast may have picked a fussy strain because other strains may be too difficult to eradicate in the brewery.  Whatever the reason, I've tried to give the Lacto a fighting chance by culturing up a 2 liter starter, then only chilling the beer to 95 and pitching the Lacto.  The Yeast goes in once the beer has cooled naturally to the mid 70s in my still-frigid basement.  I'm also not doing a yeast starter, which shouldn't be needed since the yeast is fresh and the original gravity is only 1.030.  Hopefully I haven't gone overboard—most of these techniques came from the sour freaks over on the Burgundian Babble Belt—but if it's too sour, I'll just take to drinking it with syrups like a real Berliner.  If it's not sour enough after all this effort, I may culture up a he-man, brewery-wrecker strain from a handful of malt next time.

The goal is to put the first keg of this on tap when it's super fresh, and let the second keg sour up in the celler to refresh during the dog days.  

On to the show:

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: No Boil Berliner Weiss
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer: 
Style: Berliner Weiss
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 11.96 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.96 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal   
Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.030 SG
Estimated Color: 2.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 1.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.3 %
Boil Time: 0 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     %/IBU         
6.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        -             
6.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins -             
1 lbs                 Rice Hulls (Briess) (0.0 SRM)            7.7 %         
6 lbs                 Pilsner (Weyermann) (1.7 SRM)            46.2 %        
6 lbs                 Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (2.0 SRM)   46.2 %        
28 g                  Saaz [3.70 %] - Mash 60.0 min            1.5 IBUs      
2.0 pkg               German Ale (Wyeast Labs #1007) [124.21 m -             
1.0 pkg               Lactobacillus Bacteria (White Labs #WLP6 -             


Mash Schedule: Decoction Mash, Single
Total Grain Weight: 13 lbs
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Protein Rest      Add 6.50 gal of water at 142.8 F        133.0 F       60 min        
Mash Step         Add 3.00 gal of water at 198.5 F        152.0 F       15 min        
Mash Step         Decoct 2.60 gal of mash and boil 20 min 166.0 F       1 min         
Mash Step         Add 4.82 gal of water at 178.6 F        170.0 F       40 min        

Sparge: Batch sparge with 1 steps (Drain mash tun, ) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------ 

Pitched two-week-old lactobacillus packet into 1.9 liters of 1.040 starter wort. No stirplate. Started on kitchen counter, but moved into a cooler, with hot water bottles to keep temp above 80.

Doughed in before coffee, and the water wasn't hot enough. Only hit 122F. Raised to 133 with an infusion, then followed the mash schedule.

Ended up with 1.035, so watered down to 1.030 and raised temp to 160 to pasteurize. Chilled to 95, put into fermenters, and pitched the Lacto. Will add the yeast when temps get down into high 70s.

Kegged the first half straight out of the fermenter, and really enjoyed it.  Tasting notes.



6/3/2012 decided to enter into Dominion Cup.  Will need to figure out  how to bottle a few for the competition.  Will probably put the beer on tap and use a tube to fill the bottles.

Tasting the Winning Also Rans

The British half of the second runnings from my IHP 2012 hypermild brewday blew the Belgian half out of the water.  To recap, I brewed a massive barleywine with the first runnings, and a reasonable English Pale Ale/Best Bitter wort with the second runnings, pitching half with good ol Safale S-04 and the other half with Wyeast's French Saison.  I was a lot more excited about the French Saison half, Bitter Francophile, because it was something new, but it turned out a bit unbalanced.  I'm going to keep playing with the yeast, but this wasn't the wort for it.

The British half turned out very well, indeed.  The crystal malt played nice with subdued esters to lend a sweet fruitiness that was balanced by the hops and second-running tannins.  Served on the lower end of the carbonation range, this was a very nice beer.  The body wasn't quite what I like to see in these beers, but I'm not complaining about something so minor in what was, essentially, a free beer.  

The reason I don't have a nice picture of this extremely pleasant pale ale is that it all went down the gullets of my loving family and a few choice friends in a single day.  We had a party for my youngest daughter's second birthday with a pinata and some cake for the kids, and smoked pork tacos and beer for the grownups.  (Quick note: kid's birthdays are best before they realize they have birthdays).  I put this beer on tap around noon, and had to hook the Bitter Francophile before 5.  Maybe I have an alcoholic family, but I believe that these beers are crowd pleasers.

To me, English pales (or British bitters, whatever) are the platonic ideal of beer.  This is my white-can-with-the-word-beer-stenciled-in-black-spray-paint beer, the beer that weaned me off the macro-lagers of my misbegotten youth, the house beer at my house beer.  There's not much better—doesn't matter if it's hot, cold, wet, dry, with food, or just a lonely pint—than an easy-drinking, well-balanced English Pale (although its Irish, Scots, and American cousins all come pretty darned close).  The only problem is that they go fast.  

And now I'm out again.  Think I need to get brewing. 

Tasting the Bitter Francophile

I've been drinking the half of the beers made from the second runnings of my 19th Century Scottish hyper mild that was pitched with Wyeast's French Saison for a little over a week now.  (See also the tasting notes for the other half, pitched with S-04 English Ale yeast).  It's not my usual cup of tea, but it's growing on me.  It pours a hazy amber that looks like the classic British Best Bitter the recipe is based on, but goes off in other directions from there.  It has an amazing head that just won't quit, despite the fact it's served off the keg, and my system is balanced for the low end to suit the beers I tend to keep on.

The unmistakable farmhouse esters and slight caramel sweetness are more than balanced by a dry finish, with tannins that linger refreshingly in a way that reminds me of iced tea.  The tannins are especially interesting, and fairly pronounced—something I've noticed to good effect in some commercial beers brewed using partigyle methods.  Also, I have heard that the French Saison makes a super dry beer, but with a paradoxically smooth mouthfeel, and that is definitely in play here. 

If I were to do this again, I think I'd tone down the bitterness, which is in the mid 30s IBU range, as the French Saison yeast doesn't leave much sweetness to balance it out.  When combined with the tannins, it's too much.  Also, although the beer is very, very dry, the ester flavors are almost cloying when combined with flavors of the British crystal that I capped the mash with.  I'm surprised by how estery this is given that it fermented in the low to mid 60s with a good-sized starter after a big dose of O2.  I'm pretty excited about trying the S-04 version of this beer, which should have a bit more sweetness left to it, and will have the more restrained British esters I tend to prefer.  At any rate, this is pretty good for a "free" beer made from the leftovers off a strong ale.

Tasting the Faucet-Clogger Black Forest Rye Oatmeal Stout Porter...where was I?

Hard to explain, easy to drink

This one sat around a bit longer than most.  It got a shot at lagering as it sat in the kegerator from Mardi Gras to Easter (hardest 40 days I've ever done!). 

1/15/2012: Plain Version Kegged up and still yeasty.  Nice  Rye flavor.  Sooooo thick and creamy.  Intense bitter/roastiness is great to sniff, with flavor and just a bit of aroma of english hops coming through (or is that spiciness the rye?).  A bit intense, but nice. 

By Easter, I had combined the remaining half kegs of chocolate/cherry juice and plain and it had changed beautifully after sitting cold for a month and a half.  You can just barely tell—if you hold it up to a kleig light—that it's perfectly clear, with just the faintest purple tinge.  The chocolate and cherry, which were in the background before, have come to the fore: a tart mouthful with a lovely cocoa finish.  I took this to a homebrew club meeting, and most folks wandered off before I could finish explaining what it is, but it's worth waiting for.  Shame it was such a pain in the ass to brew. 

Brewing an Aged Flanders Pale

Homebrewing involves a lot of plastic stuff—buckets, hoses, autosiphons, etc.—that all needs to be replaced about once a year, or else the cumulative microfauna will eventually begin to show itself in what you had hoped would be a nice, clean pale ale.

In the past, I've always said goodbye to my gear at the end of its time, but have decided this year to dedicate it to a new life brewing sour beers.  Given that a lot of sours run $5-12 for a 12 oz bottle, this has the capacity to recoup my investment in a whole new batch of plastic stuff for my clean beers. 

Night Brew on the Magic Plastic!

Like most beer geeks, I've enjoyed a few sours in the last few years, as sour has become the new hoppy (you  know, expensive and increasingly out-of-balance).  I was turned off by the first couple of back-sweetened beginner examples I tried—they tasted too much like terriyaki sauce, but I've discovered that I really enjoy a couple of the more straight-up sour varieties like berliner weiss (love it—coming soon), unsweetened lambics, and some of the drier Flanders Reds, but I had not yet decided what to brew.

I plan to brew a berliner weiss for this suummer, but also wanted something to lay down.  I am intimidated by the classic lambic turbid mash (okay, lazy is fair), and I wasn't so sure I wanted more than the occasional Flanders Red.  Then, the other night I had a glass of Petrus Aged Pale on tap at Mekong during one of my hopefully-not-so-rare-anymore attendances at a meeting of the James River Homebrewers Association.  It was amazing.  Dry, sour, with a fantastic lemony-funk aroma, and just the barest ghost of a long-lost hoppiness.  Tweaking the recipe for a Flanders Pale in Wild Brews to make use of 10 pounds of Crisp pale malt lying around from my IHP 2012 participation, I came up with the following.

I have to make an aside here—Tony, over at Original Gravity on Lakeside Avenue, had two fresh packs of the Wyeast Roeselare yeast, Weyerman's carahell, and my choice of continental pilsen malts, ready to go on absolutely no notice.  This from a small shop that's been open for less than six months.  Amazing.  If you're in RVA and you brew, you need to check this place out.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Flanders Pale
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer:
Style: Flanders Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 12.62 gal
Post Boil Volume: 10.92 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 12.00 gal  
Bottling Volume: 11.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.058 SG
Estimated Color: 6.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 23.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 72.9 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
8.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   1        -            
14 lbs                Pilsen (Dingemans) (1.6 SRM)             Grain         2        52.8 %       
10 lbs                Pale Ale (Crisp) (4.0 SRM)               Grain         3        37.7 %       
2 lbs 8.0 oz          Carahell (Weyermann) (13.0 SRM)          Grain         4        9.4 %        
8.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Boil 90.0 mins Water Agent   5        -            
94 g                  Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop           6        23.6 IBUs    
2.0 pkg               Roselare Belgian Blend (Wyeast Labs #376 Yeast         7        -            
1.0 pkg               Safale American  (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)  Yeast         8        -            


Total Grain Weight: 26 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash In           Add 8.00 gal of water at 164.0 F        150.0 F       75 min       
Mash Step         Add 5.00 gal of water at 208.1 F        170.0 F       40 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 1 steps (Drain mash tun, , 6 gal) of 170.0 F water
Notes:
------
ended up with 9.5 gallons of 1.073, topped up to 12 gallons of 1.058 in the fermenters.

mixed the two Roeselare packs with a rehydrated US-05, and pitched half into each bucket around 75F.

Smells AMAZING.

Two days later, I've got clogged airlocks and one of the lid blows off.  This is why I ferment in a spare shower.  Smells great while I'm cleaning homebrew off the ceiling.  I pull the airlocks and move to quasi open fermenters (lids on, no seal).  

Racked into secondary after primary had subsided (about 8 days).  I put these in better bottles, which I understand are perfectly adapted to long conditioning of sour beers.  The beer had cooled to 66 F and had dropped clear.  Normally, I keep beer in the primary for two or three weeks, but I figure these should be out of the more oxygen-permeable primary buckets, and into the better bottles sooner, rather than later.  Also, the brett should have plenty of time to clean up any diacetyl. 


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brewing a Partigyle Wm. Younger "Mild" and Split Anglo-Belgian Pale Ales

My first sack!  Wait...

This year I decided to take part in the Fuggled International Homebrew Project.  The assignment was to brew a 19th Century Scottish Mild.  Excited to hear all about this easy-drinking, malty session beer from one of the prophets of session ales, I was floored to find out that "Mild" back in the day meant "19th century Scottish hyperIPA drunk before it starts to go sour."  In this case, the beer in question was a monster, with an OG of 1.114 (wow!) and nearly 100 IBUs of British aroma hops.  The recipe was provided by Kristen England, and came from the William Younger's Abbey Brewery in Edinburgh, and was brewed in 1853.  The ingredients are simple, but the results should be very complex. 


Because I didn't want to spend a lifetime boiling down the wort, I decided to make this beer with the first runnings off a mash of 45 pounds of Crisp pale ale malt, for a 5 gallon batch (I thought, anyway), with another 10 gallons of second runnings,  The general rule of thumb as I understand it, is that half of the gravity points are in the first 1/3 of the runnings, with the other half in the last 2/3 runnings.  To do the calculations in BeerSmith, I calculated a 15 gallon recipe with the total gravity points, then saved a copy of the recipe for the second runnings, and adjusted the batch size and efficiency until the OG worked out. 

I love me a British Best Bitter, so I capped the mash with 2 pounds of Muntons dark crystal and pitched half of the second runnings with S-04.  For the other five gallons, I decided to pitch a pack of Wyeast's French Saison yeast, which I have heard lots of good things about, but had never used. Here are the tasting notes for the British (Winning Also Rans) and Belgian (Bitter Francophile) versions. 

Three beers from one brew day!

On to the recipe(s):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: IHP 2012 1st Runnings (19th cen Scots Mild)
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer:
Style: English Barleywine
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.87 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal 
Bottling Volume: 4.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.114 SG
Estimated Color: 12.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 92.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 39.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 42.5 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU       
12.00 g               Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   1        -           
45 lbs                Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)           Grain         2        100.0 %     
170 g                 Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 90.0 Hop           3        65.7 IBUs   
120 g                 Fuggles [5.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min         Hop           4        26.4 IBUs   
3.0 pkg               Windsor Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml]  Yeast         5        -           
45 g                  Fuggles [4.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days      Hop           6        0.0 IBUs    

Recipe: IHP 2012 2nd Runnings (Split Eng. Belg Pale)
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer:
Style: Saison
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 13.09 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.96 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal  
Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 17.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 37.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 38.7 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
45 lbs                Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)           Grain         1        95.7 %       
2 lbs                 Muntons Dark Crystal (135.0 SRM)         Grain         2        4.3 %        
113 g                 Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - First Wor Hop           3        36.3 IBUs    
6.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Boil 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   4        -            
6.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Boil 60.0 mins Water Agent   5        -            
2.0 pkg               SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast         6        -            
1.0 pkg               French Saison (Wyeast Labs #3711) [50.28 Yeast         7        -       
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time   
Mash In           Add 12.38 gal of water at 164.9 F       150.0 F       75 min      

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 0.82gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------
Partigyle.  1st 1/3 runnings should be be 1.114, with 2nd 2/3 being 1.057.  

1st third 5 gallons are for the IHP 2012 19th century Scottish mild.


Plan was 120 minute mash at 150F.  Wind is really blowing, and it's quite cold.  strike water temp dropped, and I undershot at 145F.  Left it there for 30 minutes before doing a decoction and hitting a perfect 150F.  Left it for another 90 minutes.

Didn't get a hydro reading—pansy-ass scientific equipment can't take a hit—but this stuff was like maple syrup.  Pitched 4 packs of rehydrated Windsor and had a volcano on my hands for three days...appear to have lost around a gallon of beer-soaked hops, with at least a gallon of hops, trub, and yeast in the bottom of the carboy.  I'll be lucky to get much more than 3 gallons of beer out of this.

Free rose to about 76F, which was 10F above ambient, that dropped to 66 (ambient), so I moved it closer to the heater to keep it up around 72, around day 4.  Started dropping clear around day 6 or 7, completely dropped (but not crystal) at day 8, and turned off the heat.

2nd two thirds is 12 gallons of beer to split as ESB and Dark Saison, after capping with 2lbs of dark english crystal.  one is pitched 1.6 L starter of 4 day old (I love my homebrew shop!) Wyeast French Saison.  The other is pitched two properly rehydrated packes of S-04.

Ambient was 65 for first three days, then up to 70 over a couple of days until day 8, when I turned off the heat.

Dry hopped everything on March 17 (st. Patrick's Day).  Racked into purged kegs one week later.

Both of the second runnings turned out quite nicely for what amounts to free beer.  I preferred the English Yeast over the French Saison with this grain bill.  

4/14/2012  bottled the first runnings with 1.5 ounce of sugar (already had a little bit of carbonation).  Finished 1.038.  Gorgeous, honey-colored beer.  Warming alcohol, pleasantly fruity.  Very bitter, with a long finish, but balanced by all that residual sweetness.  Looking forward to this.

6/3/2012 Still flat, but delicious.  Already the bitterness has dropped a bit, and the flavors have mellowed nicely.  Have decided to enter into Dominion cup.  Uncapped a six pack and added in a few grains of S-04, as I imagine the issue is lack of yeast.  Will enter whether or not it's carbonated. 

Back, maybe

I plan to take part in this year's International Homebrew Project. Part of that means blogging. God bless and keep you all in the coming storm.