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
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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.