Higgins Heifer Brewery

Contest Entries

2007-08-31T21:24:00.000-04:00

While I've slacked a bit on writing up my brew sessions, I've been quite active. I just submitted four entries to the Topsfield Fair home brew competition. I expect to be schooled in some categories, and may compete in others. The nice thing is that I should received some informed constructive criticism with my scores. Feedback from friends is nice, if not biased to the positive. Unfortunately, I don't hang out with enough home brewers who'll tell me that I under pitched the yeast and caused some wacky side reaction.

I submitted:

Frak You You Frakking Cylon - An American pale ale brewed with a german altbier yeast, and a blend of whole leaf Simcoe and Sariaci Ace hops. The APA category typically gets a lot of entries. I don't expect to faire to well. The beer is a bit turbid, and the hops aren't as fresh now as they once were. I do think my hop choices, particularly the Japanese Sariachi Ace may get some bonus points for uniqueness.

Alt Deco Rock Fist - My take on a german altbier. I cold conditioned this quite effectively to get a nice smooth flavor. My cold conditioning equipment may offer an advantage over a complete novice. I may have over hopped this brew - and may lose points for using some American hops.

The Wallonian Wazoo - A saison that had been sitting in the basement for about 8 months with a strain of Brettanomyces bringing the funk. I entered it as a Belgian specialty ale. Its too dark to meet the saison guidelines, and might be a bit funky. This beer is decent, and may benefit from slim competition.

The Cult of Skaro Triple - This Belgian style triple would easily be my strongest entry if I weren't afraidd of some problems with uneven carbonation. Lets see if I get lucky, or some advice to solve that problem.

Rack the Wazoo, Taste the Cat

2006-11-29T06:38:00.000-05:00

Monday night, I racked the wallonian wazoo to secondary. I added 1/4 cup of medium toast French oak chips, and 2 bits from the wassail to wallonia. I also pitched half a pack of wyeast's brettanomyces bruxelis. That saison will live in the basement for 6 months as flavors develop. The gravity at racking was 1.012.

We also tasted the first of the scooting cat. It pours a hazy orange, with wonderful white head. the retention is excellent. The spelt definitely helped out there. The flavors range from sweet to resinous citrus notes and the hops can get a bit grassy. It's also very full bodied, which was unexpected given my recent run of thin beers.

Wallonian Wazoo

2006-11-19T19:47:00.000-05:00

The saison I brewed last summer has developed very nicely, and is easily the best beer I ever brewed. Since Kate and I have become miserly in its consumption, so that there is more to share, we decided it would be best to brew another. Instead of trying to recreate a high temp fermentation as temperatures fall, I figured that I'd switch yeasts and take some liberties with my recipe so that I can better explore the style. I also ordered some brettanomyces yeast to sour the brew in secondary.

Again, I used a 2 hour boil but with this stove I encountered complications from evaporation and the occasional boil-over. I need to think ahead and boil additional water to add at the one hour point to replace evaporated liquid durring my partial boil.

This saison is my first beer that will not have irish moss as a clarification agent. We'll see how that works out. I also tried using my brewing chest to cool my pot (after adding a gallon of ice water). It wasn't especially effective. I need a wort cooler.

Grains: 1.5 lb Aromatic, 1lb Pilsner, 1 Lb Wheat, 0.5 lb Munich Malt. Mashed with a single 60 minute infusion at 148-152 sparged @ 170 F.
Dry Extracts: 2lbs Muntons Light DME
Liquid Extracts: 3.3 lbs Breiss Bavarian Wheat
Hops: 1 oz East Kent Goldings (60), 0.5 oz Hallertauer (20), 1 oz Hallertauer (1), 0.5 oz East Kent Goldings (1)
Yeast: Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes (cultured from flasks)
Etc: 1 g Grains of Paradise (20 min)
Fermentation Notes 1 week @ 75 F
OG: 1.060

Scooting Cat / Agressive Progressive

2006-10-28T09:04:00.000-04:00

My most recent brew session was inspired by Brasserie d'Achouffe's Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel. It may be one of the most perfect beers in the world, and the first to blend American hoppiness with fruity Belgian yeasts. So I snagged a smack pack of Wyeast 3522 the Ardennes Yeast (proportedly d'Achouffe strain) and went to town crafting some madness.

Grains: 0.5 lb Aromatic, 0.75 Vienna Malt, 2lb Pilsner, 0.5 Lb Spelt, 0.25 lb Biscuit Malt. Mashed with a single 60 minute infusion at 150-155sparged between 170-175 F.
Dry Extracts: 2lbs Muntons Light DME, 2lbs Cooper's Light DME
Hops: 1 oz Northern Brewer (60), 1 oz Cluster (30), 1 oz Liberty (1)
Yeast: Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min)
Fermentation Notes 1 week @ 79 F
OG: 1.065

Continuing the Burton Ale Yeast Campaign

2006-10-28T08:09:00.000-04:00

While I have been lax in updating this blog, I have been quite occupied with brewing. I used the Burton Ale yeast cake from the mild to prepare two higher octane beers. One is an attempt at a Chery Stout, the other my holiday Barleywine. My stove likes to cause boil-overs.

Cerise Noire - Cherry Stout

Grains: 1 lb Chocolate Malt, 1 lb Crystal 105, 2lb Belgian Pilsner, 0.5 Lb Roasted Barley, 0.25 lb Cara-Red. Mashed with a single 60 minute infusion at 150-155sparged between 170-175 F.
Dry Extracts: 3lbs Muntons Light DME, 2lbs, Muntons Dark DME
Hops: 1 oz Northern Brewer (60), 1 oz Williamette (5 min)
Yeast: White Labs #026 - (Burton Ale Yeast from Clark Kent's Manners Cake)
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min)
Fermentation Notes 1 week @ 69 F, racked onto 5.5 lbs of Frozen Sweet Dark Cherries for 2wks at 68 F, racked into tertiary fermentation for a month at cellar temps (64-55)

The initial gravity was about 1.060, and it dropped to 1.015 before racking it onto Cherries.

Boil-over Barleywine - (the most frustrating brew day ever)
Grains: 1 lb Belgian Aromatic, 0.5 lb Vienna, 2lb 2-Row Pale, 0.5 Lb Cara Pils Barley. Mashed with a single 60 minute infusion at 150-155sparged between 170-175 F.
Dry Extracts: 8lbs Muntons Light DME, 1 lbs, Coopers Light DME
Hops: 1 oz Galena (90), 1 oz Cluster (60 min), 1 oz Crystal (1 min)
Yeast: While Labs #026 - (Burton Ale Yeast from Cerise Noise Cake)
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min)
Fermentation Notes 2 week @ 68 F, cold conditioned from 60- 40 over two weeks on the yeast, racked to secondary with 5 oz of priming sugar (I'm concerned about oxidation) and 1 oz of Crystal. 4 Weeks at cellar temps, will bottle with S-59 dry yeast.

OG: 1.090

Another Take on Clark Kent's Manners

2006-09-12T20:38:00.000-04:00

I decided to kick off my post-summer brewing relay with a mild. I'll use the yeast for my next two brews (a cherry stout, and a barleywine). The mild is just a big starter with a tasty by-product.

It also gave me a chance to cut my teeth on brewing with an electric stove. It's certainly inspiration to buy a propane burner. Although it is nice to use a stove that outputs enough heat to create a truly vigorous boil.

This recipe is drawn from the pages of David Sutula's Mild Ale. It's also the first beer to be fermented using Greg's chest freezer for temperature control. I have it set to 68+/-1 degree. It's sharing the chest with the saison, which I had cold conditioned down to 55 for a week. Now it's back in the heat. The secret to my saison will be temperature abuse. Of course, I'll send it to the basement this weekend.

Grains: 0.5 lb Belgian Pils, 10.5 oz Flaked Maise, 1.33 lb of Crystal 60 a 30 minute rest at 130-140, 60 minute rest at 150-165 (the new stove is wacky) sparged between 170-175 F.
Dry Extracts:2 LB Muntons Extra Light DME.
Adjuncts 10.5 oz Cane sugar, ~0.25 cup molasses
Hops: ~0.5 oz Hallertau (90), 2 oz Fuggle (90) (the recipe only called for fuggle, but didn't adjust hops for extract or all grain, so I added my scrap hallertau).
Yeast: While Labs #026 - (Burton Ale Yeast)
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min)

Note to Self....

2006-06-19T09:04:00.000-04:00

Bronze winner Cerise Cassée ("Broken Cherry') from Cambridge Brewing Co. in Cambridge, Mass., begins with a 100% sour mash for three days. After primary fermentation, brewer Will Meyers adds 300 pounds of sour cherries and ignites a second fermentation with a Belgian abbey ale yeast. A third fermentation with several strains of Brettanomyces lasts nine months in French oak Pinot Noir barrels.

Taken from Probrewer.com

Wassailing to Wallonia

2006-06-18T07:43:00.000-04:00

I thought I was done brewing for the summer. I figured it was too hot, I was too busy, and I would be otherwise occupied. I planned to use the summer to read, research and prepare for the next round. Then one of my co-workers ordered a kit, and I was inspired by Phil Markowski's Farmhouse Ales.

So, I advanced the time table for my Christmas saison. I planned to brew it up in September but figured that I could take better advantage of the next six months to let it mature. I'll admit, finding out that Brassiere Dupont runs their fermentation for Vieille Provision (Saison Dupont) at 95 F. Many folks regard Saison Dupont as the finest saison. It's nice, but I'm partial to the wackiness from the nutjobs at Fantome

Anyway, I browsed through the book, and noted the common ingredients to concoct my own recipe. It's my first foray into completely designing a recipe. I must and Promash was quite helpful in calculating gravity and IBUs. I still worry that I may have over hopped, but we'll see. They were all low AAU hops.

One big difference with this brew, is that I used a 2 hour boil instead of a typical 60 minute excursions. Hopefully this adds some caramel notes and may help as a preservative.

Grains: 2 lb Belgian Pils, 0.5 lb Belgian Aromatic, 0.75 lb Munich Malt mashed in at 30 minute rest at 134, 45 minute rest at 147 and sparged between 170-175 F.
Liquid Extracts: 2.7 lb Briess CBW Bavarian Wheat Malt Extract, 3.3 LB Muntons Extra Light LME.
Hops: 1 oz Hallertau (60), 1 oz Styrian Goldings (5 AAU) (30), 0.5 oz Hallertau (30), 0.5 oz Hallertau (5), 0.5 oz Styrian Goldings (5 AAU) for 34 IBU
Yeast: While Labs #565 - (The Dupont Yeast)
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min), 1 oz powdered ginger (30)

The fermentation progresses quite vigorously, which was a bit of a surprise. I’ve heard that this yeast is rather slow. I'm not planning to rack to secondary until Sunday of next week. We'll see if this yeast agrees. Right now its at about 78, but I'm letting it go at its own pace. I hear that the ambient temp will push into the 90s today. Maybe I'll get some Dupont efficiency.

I'm already inoculating some oak chips with apple wine so see if I can impart some wild flavors.

Notes on the Bottom Hefe

2006-03-31T17:17:00.000-05:00

I was side tracked by work, and life and haven't had a chance to post notes on my latest batch of brew - a German style Hefeweisen that I brewed in a full blown partial mash. It's the most complex brewing session I've done, and also the beer that I made the mostly stupid mistakes brewing. Don't worry, they shouldn't present a quality issues, it's more of a yield hit. Nothing irritates an engineer more than loss of yield, especially when the product is precious beer.

Grains: 2 lb Wheat Malt (maybe german, probably not), 1.5 lb Belgian Pilsner Malt, 4 oz Munich Malt mashed in at 99, 30 minute rest at 120, 45 minute rest at ~150 (thermometer issues) sparged at or near 170.
Liquid Extracts: 4 lb Briess CBW Bavarian Wheat Malt Extract
Hops: 0.5 oz Hallertau (60), 0.25 oz Hallertau (30), 0.25 oz Hallertau (5).
Yeast: Wyeast #3056 Bavarian Wheat Yeast
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min) - Yes, I know it violates the purity laws but I had turbidity issues related to limitations in my partial mash set up

One of the suggestions I read about brewing wheat beers was to mash in at low temperatures to help the enzymes in the wheat start moving about. With the amazing power of our kitchen stove, that was not difficult. I mashed in about a gallon of water and kept it at 99 for 10 minutes before raising the temp to 120. This rest was for some saccrification, and then I slowly raised the temp to 150. I kept it at about 150 for 45 minutes.

I used a warm water bath to help control the temperature of my pot, and added hot water to keep things stable. Occasionally, I had to remove the pot, and give it a pulse of heat but the bath worked well for holding temp.

I upgraded my lautering tun design by adding tinfoil to the sides of the strainer. It worked pretty well. I also used a piece of tin foil with little holes to distribute my 1.5 gallons of sparge water over the grain bed. I added this 170 degree water one ladle at a time.

Wheat has more protein than barley, so wheat mashes run a greater risk of gumming up. I didn't recirculate my wart sufficiently, and was a bit worried about my flow rates so I occasionally shook the lautering tun. My wort wasn't as clear as I had hoped.

The boil went smoothly except that I tried converting Dry Extract weight to liquid extract on the fly, with my shoddy memory and ended up adding 0.2 lb less extract than I could have. I diluted my batch to a gravity of 1.050 (target range 1.050-1.054) and not to a 5 gallon batch volume. My error didn't cost quality, it just hurt quantity.

I'm not sure of the origins of the grains. I'd like them to be European but have a feeling that they are American. The extract company is based in Wisconsin and is very proud of owning all parts of their process. I'm hoping that they have some Canadian grains - or at worst Wisconsin grown. Those would be more European in character and less protenatious. Either way. Higgins approved of the extract.

I pitched the yeast at a temperature of about 55 F, and fermented between 68-70. The Germans have a rule of thumb that the sum of the pitching and fermentation temperatures should be about 30 C. I didn’t quite hit that, but I followed the guidance of pitching cool to ferment warm. The primary went on for four days before I bottled and primed with 1.75 qts of gyle.

I fermented the bottles at 68 or so for a week, and have begun a month of cold conditioning. Right now they’re at 55 but I’ll drop their temp 5 degrees a week for 4 weeks (well I’ll go down to 37).

What to do with spent grains?

2006-03-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

Ben’s brewing again, which means I will be baking again. I use the spent grains from Ben’s mashes to make breads, which will be featured in a recipe corner. So what if it’s not actually a corner?

The first spent grain loaf I made is based on the Tyrolean ten-grain torpedo in Rose Levy Beranbaum’s excellent book The Bread Bible. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in baking, regardless of skill or experience. The author details the ingredients, methods, and equipment necessary to produce great bread. I’ve been baking for years, and always thought I was pretty good at it, but learned several things I now apply every time I bake. I started using instant (so-called “bread machine”) yeast instead of active dry – it has a higher viability and doesn’t require proofing – and placing a steamer tray of water on the bottom of the oven to delay the crust from setting, giving a more complete rise and lighter loaves. The recipies, although I’ve only tried a few, all look tasty and (mostly) attainable. I’m looking forward to making some brioche, but that dough is too light and loose to support much grain incorporation. Instead, I will focus on denser breads capable of holding the grain in the crumb. On to the first recipe!

As written, the recipe calls for:
A starter of 2/3 cup bread flour, ¼ tsp instant yeast, ½ Tbsp malt powder or extract, and ¾ cup water, mixed and given up to nine hours of fermentation time to develop flavor.

I tweaked this to fit my ingredients and time schedule. Instead of using powder or extract, I replaced the water with ¾ cup liquid squeezed from the grains after they were sparged and drained. These grains were from Clark Kent’s Mild, so were dark and roasty. Lacking bread flour, I just used normal all-purpose flour. I also shortened the starter time to an hour or two, because I wanted to bake that evening.

The recipe then calls for:
1 ¼ cups bread flour, ¾ tsp instant yeast, 1 tsp salt, and an optional 4 tsp wheat gluten.

Again, I used AP flour. To make up for the lower protein level, I included the gluten. This would produce the stronger bread needed to support the grain. At this time, I also added about 1 cup of the spent malt. I knead by hand, so added a little more flour as kneading. The recipe calls for a set time of 1 hour to overnight, rise, shaping, final rise and baking. I omitted the initial set and simply did rise-shape-rise. I hadn’t made a torpedo before, but it was very easy using the shaping directions she described earlier in the book. It felt like origami. After 30 minutes in a 450 degree oven, the bread was done and looked good. It was a deep brown color, and the grains were slightly bitter. If I made it again, I’d include a little sugar with dark roast grains, or use a lighter roast. There were some amber and brown malt used here, but the predominant flavor was from the chocolate. The color variation was nice.

Premature Racking? Obsessive Racking

2006-03-16T10:50:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night, I racked the Temple Street Mild. It had appeared to have a vigorous fermentation, and had slowed it's bubbling substantially. The krausen hadn't completely fallen, but was on a speedy decline. There was also significant sedimentation. I was surprised to find that the current gravity was 1.020. It's only 50-75% done fermenting. I suppose that would be a fine time for the typical german diacetyl rest. British beers need it as much or more than lagers.

Of course, the temperature has dropped, and it's now fermenting at 68 instead of 70. I'd need to raise it up to get the yeast active in converting any potential diacetyl into something less buttery.

At the same time, it's good to have the beer off of the trub. Dead yeast cells autolyse (self destruct) and yield off flavors.

I may end up racking a second time this weekend, and raise the temp up to 71 or so for a 2 day diacetyl rest and have a sediment free tertiary fermentation. Typically commercial breweries use conical fermenters, and draw off the sediment daily. I’m not just obsessive about this. Sediment is a real issue. A crazy part of me wants to start fermenting upside down but the engineer in me knows that I'd take a massive yield hit doing that with these carboys.

Brew and Bottle Day

2006-03-12T11:33:00.000-05:00

Some triumph of scheduling resulted in my taking Saturday to bottle Pay It Pale Ale, and brew my next mild. With a little better pre-planning and organization the brew/bottle day might be reasonable. This time, it was hectic. Everything needed to happen at once.

The mild that I brewed was based on a variant of Jasper's Vat House Mild Ale recipe. He suggested the extra chocolate malt to brew up a really dark mild. I used some partial mashing to practice the technique. Knowing full well that the grains I was using had been stripped of the enzymes that make mashing effective. This second attempt revealed a number of issues with my set-up (all kitchen ware). It might make more sense to work on getting a larger brew pot before taking partial mashing much further.

The original gravity of this brew is 1.042 and should finish between 1.010 and 1.005. I pitched the yeast at 75 degrees, and let it ferment overnight. This morning it was still at 70, and had an inch and a half of krausen. I took the fermenter outside, to drop it to a more comfortable temperature and it's moving along very well at 68. We're picking up a chest freezer today, so I can get giggity glaven about temperature.

Specialty Grains: 3 oz Dehusked Carafa III Malt, 6 Oz 40L Crystal, 6 oz Chocolate Malt. (Mashed in at 140, mashed between 150-160 (w/ a dip to 140)
Liquid Extracts: 3.3 lbs. Muntons Light Malt extract Syrup, 1.1 lbs of Munton's Munton's Amber Malt Extract, 1.1 Lbs of Wheat Malt Extract
Hops: 1 oz. Challenger 8 AAU (60 min), ~0.5 Oz Kent Goldings 2.4 AAU (40 min), ~0.5 Oz Kent Golding 2.4 AAU(5 min)
Yeast: Wyeast #1056 American Ale Yeast
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

The bottling portion of the day went smoothly. The final gravity of Pay It Pale ale was 1.005, suggesting a brew with 5.9% ABV. I re-boiled my gyle to sterilize it before dumping it into the Pay It fermenter. I wish that I strained out the collagen and trub before heating it, as most of the sediment dissolved upon heating, and will now just precipitate out in the bottles. I think Kate's labels look excellent.

Ranco Temperature Controler

2006-03-09T10:50:00.000-05:00

I've scoured the internet, and it doesn't seem as though I can find a nice, cheap external thermostat for my freezer conversion. This excellent digital model is catching my eye for a minor increase in cost.

http://honeyrunapiaries.com/store/goldline-sp30-replacement-ranco-p-88.html?osCsid=cf716d1fa72e353430d7300fe17266f0 This apiary supplier's price beats Grainger's list, but not quite my company discount. We'll have to see if I can order the controller with my personal card and have it shipped to work.

Book Review: Mild Ale - David Sutula

2006-03-04T08:38:00.000-05:00

Brewers Publications has a Classic Beer Style Series of books that include historical details of beer styles, ingredient information, typical flavor profiles, and traditional brewing techniques in a single package designed to appeal to beer enthusiast and home brewers alike. There's a difficult balance to strike between readability, and robust technical detail. Admittedly, I worried that the goal of readability would kill the technical usefulness of the books. The balance seems just about right (on average) there are some technical gaps and excessive readability.

David Sutula's Mild Ale is the first of the series that I've read. the history was interesting, and the general technical info quite competent. I will admit that the author's credibility was diminished by the 1999 copyright date, and his continual reference to Cleveland area breweries that were not in existence or operation during my time in Cleveland (98-03). There was a lot of turnover in the flats during that time, so it and at least one other place failed to keep business open at the same address.

Of course, Cleveland's role in the history of the mild is limited. In fact all of the history is in England, where it belongs. Sutula makes a strong effort to show the evolution of traditional brewing in England, and explain the relative fogginess about the specifics of the mild style. He even addresses the curious line between the Mild and Brown, and complains about the marketing jerks that label their milds browns because they lack the stones to stand by the traditional style.

From a technical standpoint, it was very interesting to read a book that took an application specific approach to techniques an unit operations that I've read so much about in general home brewing texts, and on websites. While those resources have dragged a bit, and felt like text books minus key equations, the style specific focus made that reading fluid. I would have enjoyed a bit more detail about home brew scale equivalents for hop backs, and small volume casks/firkins. It also would have been nice to see some alternatives to sugar priming, unless of course the Brits always sugar primed.

I can't complain too loudly. There are carbonation tables and a few recipes (all grain, and extract) and in the back. I would have liked a few more recipes, as he includes ingredients lists for a number of commercial milds. A clone recipe would be nice - if only to provide insight when crafting my own recipes. In all fairness, the specialty grain bill attached to some of the extract batches borders on mini-mash scale. It's cool for me, but might intimidate some brewers.

There was also a table of "statistics" didn't understand. The author tabulated starting gravities and ABV for a large number of British and micro milds. It would have been excellent if he was kind enough to provide an average and standard deviation on this data. Then, perhaps we could define the style as the mean +/- 3 standard deviations. It would be extra cool if they could do the same thing with IBUs and color. I'm a geek.

Racking Pay It - Dry Hopping

2006-02-26T09:50:00.000-05:00

It started snowing yesterday, setting the stage for a perfect day of screwing around with beer. Monday's batch of Pay It Pale ale was ready for racking to secondary, and I certainly wasn't going to go outside to play. My third racking had the most hickups so far.

Pay It Pale was my first attempt at partial mash brewing, and yielded a lot of goofy proteins. It's the first beer that krausened so much during primary that it actually used my blow off tube. The batch was a quart low, and the foam still escaped the carboy. It was unreal, and left a disgusting mess all over the carboy.

The yeast flocculated heavily, and partially obstructed my better bottle valve making it difficult to fill my transfer lines. I racked with partially filled lines, and probably introduced a fair amount of oxygen into my brew. Fortunately, there's still some active fermentation and hopefully the CO2 generation will displace much of that 02.

the gravity has dropped from 1.050 to 1.009 suggesting a 5.5% ABV. I'm pretty happy with this attenuation, although it took a lot of hydrometer measurements to get it. My first reading was 1.040 and I was quite irate about dealing with two stalled fermentations. I couldn't understand how my most active fermentation yet was the least effective. I measured again 1.030. One more time 1.040. What could be wrong? Then I felt like an idiot as I realized that my wine thief / hydrometer tube was not sufficiently full. The hydrometer needs to float to give a meaningful reading.

I dropped in my bag of dry hops - amarillo pellets, and will let them steep for two weeks before bottling. I tried to find whole leaf hops, but they weren't in stock at my local homebrew store. So these are wrapped up in a muslin bag that would typically be used for steeping specialty grains, however I'm semi mashing and won't put that to use any longer.

Tasting Two Batches

2006-02-26T08:51:00.000-05:00

After two weeks of bottle conditioning, it seemed about the right time to give my first few batches a proper tasting. The results were mixed.

Clark Kent's Manners, my attempt at an English mild is dark but not as dark and roasty as we'd hoped. That's probably as much the recipe as it was my brewing. I'll have to start formulating my own soon. The ale is dark brown, and pours up a pleasant and surprisingly retentive head. There's some subtle chocolate flavors, a bit of hoppy bitterness, a nutty aroma and a butterscotch finish. It's not bad. The bottle conditioning resolved the excessive diacetyl brought on by a warm fermentation. The FG is 1.005, and the ABV is about 3.1%. It will make an excellent quaffable session brew.

Kimble's scotch ale did not fair so well. It has minimal carbonation, and forms very little head. It still tastes textured and overly sweet. The fermentation stalled out during bottle conditioning, leaving too much sugar behind. I'm heating the bottles hoping to jump start that process. If it doesn’t work in a week I will have to dump them all back in a carboy, pitch a more attenuative yeast (one that doesn't become drunk and lazy in 7% alcohol), and rebottle. I'm thinking about an aggressive American strain or some crazy Belgian action. My only concern is that the yeast will take a bite out of the 1.015 FG and explode a couple bottles. We'll see.

Partial Mash Brew Day - Pay It Pale Ale

2006-02-21T19:18:00.000-05:00

I took some time yesterday to brew another batch. This time I brewed a pale ale. It'll end up being amber in color with some nice aroma. It's a modification of Jasper's Snowy Mountains Pale Ale recipe swapping Amarillo hops in for the over used Cascades.

Hopefully it ends up tasty. The brew will be dry hopped for extra awesomeness, and a real hop aroma. The time it takes to cool extract wort tends to cause significant losses of hop aromas. As soon as I get my large brew kettle, I will buy some copper tubing and fashion an immersion chiller to cool my wart. Until then, I have to top up the pot with as much cold water as I can fit and then dunk it in an ice bath. My aromas stay warm and disappear. If the dry hopping experiment works, I may find myself doing small dry hopping additions to non dry-hopped brews. Just wait until I dry hop some milds with simcoe.

This brew was also my first attempt at partial mash brewing. I read on-line that the carapils malt really need mashing to contribute to a brew. So I gave it a shot, and found out that I picked the wrong pan, and had less consistent temperature control than I imagined. I tried to do most of the hour at 155 to allow the magic enzymes to activate the sugars in the grain. There was a spike up to 170 (at least on the bottom of the pan) that may have caused trouble. Hopefully I didn't denature too many enzymes. The spent grains still tasted sweet, and Higgins was willing to eat them. All was not lost. I used 1 qt of water, and a cooking thermometer that didn't always stay at the bottom of the bed.

I sparged the grains with 1/2 gallon of 170 degree water, using a spaghetti strainer lined with a plastic mesh bag. It worked well. I also tried some recirculation (lifting my mash, and sparge water up and passing them over the grains). It didn't work too well. My bed depth was sufficient to yield good filtration. That’s what I get for only using a lb of grain instead of a full batch. I'll up the grain bill over time, and start designing true partial mash recipes. I guess that means it's time to get promash or some other utility.

Specialty Grains: 0.5 lbs. Carapils Malt, 0.5 lbs. 20L Crystal Malt
(Mashed in at 140, 10 minutes at 129, mashed between 150-160 (w/ 1 spike to 170)
Liquid Extracts: 6.6 lbs. Mortons Light Malt extract Syrup
Hops: 2 oz. Perle (60 min), 1 oz Amarillo (10 min)
Yeast: Wyeast #1056 American Ale Yeast
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 min)

Bottling Time

2006-02-13T21:38:00.000-05:00

After driving through Sunday's Blizzard, Kate and I came home and got ready to bottle. The secondary fermentation had been conducted between 60-62 F. I left both carboys in with the space heater for a diacetyl rest at about 68 degrees. It was time for the fun to begin.

The instant foaming and fermentation kick upon adding priming sugar to the carboys surprised me, and inspired a bit of a panic. I figured that it would need to sit a little bit before the brews were ready to bottle, and I hadn't finished sanitizing much. Kate helped out, and we put together quite an assembly line sanitizing bottles, rinsing, and treeing them, then taking turns filling and capping.

One thing I read online recently suggested seating caps on bottles, and waiting 30-60 min so that the 02 in the neck is displaced before capping. Maybe we'll try that next time.

Kimble's scotch ale tastes pretty good. The extended secondary allowed the flavors to deepen, and gain complexity. Clark’s Manners still seems too hot and yeasty. I'll chock that up to learning experience.

Also, I tasted a bit of the brews after sugar had been added. They tasted vulgar, poorly textured, and over sweet. I'm glad that will ferment completely and disappear. It's also nice that I won't sugar prime any longer. It’s such a cheap shortcut.

I will be a Keg Man

2006-02-08T14:13:00.000-05:00

When we were in Jasper's a middle aged man raved about his keg set up, and encouraged anyone he met to upgrade to one as fast as they could. I should have taken that as a sign that my obsession would soon turn there.

Some one on BA mentioned that used corny kegs were available for $14 from Adventures in Homebrewing. I had planned to pick up a glass fermenter for beers that need longer conditioning, and SS for less seems preferable. It probably wouldn't be long before I set up a keg system.

Bottling is supposed to be hard work. I'll find out on Sunday, as I plan to bottle both Kimble's and Clark's. ooh. My next beer must not be a possesive. Kate's given me permission for a draft fridge in our dining room. I'll just need to find a fridge with room enough for two kegs, or get my thermo electric solution off the ground.

Trials and Tribulations of Chest Freezers

2006-02-05T17:15:00.000-05:00

I saw an ad on Craigslist last Thursday for a chest freezer. For $50, I could find the end of my temperature control worries and a stable environment for aging beers during the summer. Kate rented a zipcar, and we went over to Inman square to haul this monstrosity out of a house's basement, drove it back, and lifted it up to our second floor apartment. It was no easy job, as this freezer isn't young and doesn't have handles. After breaking quite a sweat and nearly destroying two of Kate's fingers I plugged it in. The compressor rattled pretty badly for 30 seconds, then settled into a nice hum. I put a water bottle in the freezer and let it sit over night. I woke up Saturday morning to find that it was only 62 degrees. That's no good.

I emailed the nice lady who sold it to me, and she said that she'd get a refund check in the mail ASAP. Now I just need to figure out how to dispose of the beast, and I must resume my search for a fridge/freezer to convert or a thermo electric thermostat. Of course, at this rate, I may just punt and use the freezer converter thermostat from most home brew supply places.

Two More in the Pipeline

2006-02-05T17:03:00.000-05:00

While in New Hampshire, we paid a visit to Jasper's to pick up a few cases of bottles, and the ingredients for my next two batches. I'll have a pale ale dry hopped with amarillos, and a dark mild. The owner was very helpful and modified a few of his stock recipes to help brew the beers we wanted.

He didn't have any simcoe or glacier hops, otherwise this pale ale would use those.

Dreaming of an All Grain World

2006-02-01T20:02:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple links describing all grain systems. Some day, I'll build one. Not Today, but I'll keep these handy and browse them for ideas.

http://brewery.mvlan.net/folder/011/Homebreweries%20Directory/
http://www.brewzilla.nl/hi.htm

Right now, I'm still obsessing about temperature control. I need to figure out how to build a thermoelectric cooler with inexpensive variable temperature control.

Racking Clark's Manners

2006-01-31T19:53:00.000-05:00

After 3.5 days of primary fermentation, Clark's manneres had slowed it's bubbling to 2-3 a minute and the Krausen was beginning to fall. It seemed prime time to rack it to secondary.

The transfer was easy, and the current gravity is 1.009, down from 1030 suggesting an ABV of 2.9. It's a very mild mild. It has some carmel notes, hints of chocolate, and a fair amount of fruity esters grapes, buttery diacetyl and some citrus notes. I may have fermented it too warm. It seems a bit more Belgian than brittish, but it's still intriguing.

Brewing low ABV variants of Belgian classics would be quite a challenge.

Yeast Washing

2006-01-31T14:08:00.000-05:00

I came across this link while browsing BeerAdvocate at lunch. Wyeast's Yeast Washing Guide. I'm getting ready to rack Clark's Manners to secondary, and my mind is already racing ahead to bottling. I've always thought ill of the process of "priming" home brews with sugar to generate CO2 at bottling. I'm no Bavarian purist, but that sugar charge seems like a cheap short cut. I'd rather just spike the beer with co2 with a cold industrial injection. Of course, I don't want to buy a C02 system right now, so that's out. Kent's Manners and Kimble's Scottish ale will be sugar primed, but I will use an alternative means of carbonation.

The traditional procedure, called krausening, calls for an addition of freshly fermenting wort to provide carbonation. This step is easy in a brewery setting, but few home brewers crank out a batch of the same beer every month. However, through the wonders of refrigeration I can trick my brew into believing that it is popular, loved, and continually produced. The folks at the 7 bridges cooperative have done the math on injection of unfermented wort, or gyle.

The goal of this process is to introduce fermentable sugars into the beer, and allow them to ferment in a sealed environment. Co2 is a key fermentation by-product. During primary and secondary fermentation, so much C02 is produced that homebrewers must vent their fermenters, through air locks, or blow tubes, just to keep the carboys from exploding. Bottles can explode too, so sugar additions must be controlled so that they provide enough pressure to yield fizzy beer, but not shards of glass. The math is simple with corn sugar, as most of it is fermentable. 3/4 cup seems to be fairly standard. It's safe and consistent, but isn't expected to produce fresh tasting beer. There's a lot more guesswork when using wort as some sugars are fermentable, and other large molecules aren't. Gravity readings lend some insight, and I'll use them conservatively.

I'll refrigerate my wort until the bottling day, and add some of the preserved yeast to start some freshly fermenting wort and a real krausening.

Temperature Control Owns My Soul

2006-01-29T14:31:00.000-05:00

One of the things that deterred me from starting brewing as soon as I received the kit was the lack of "adequate" temperature control. I can't exactly put Higgins in a box, and expect him to mind the fermentation while I'm gone.

I'm an engineer by training and character. As much as I appreciate the art of brewing, and hope to appreciate it more by participating, I am comforted by the science. There are knobs to turn, and variables to control that can influence product quality. Brewing isn't a hocus pocus black box, like vinting. Who cares about the slope of the hill where my ingredients grew? In fact, I’d wager that there wasn't a hill within 500 miles of where my grains grew. That's how little hill slope matters to brewing. Now I might care about whether my hops grew in Europe or in America... but that's mostly because American hops are on steroids. It's widely acknowledged, and can be traced to the concentration of certain acids. If I wanted to get industrial, I could control flavors by controlling the concentration of that acid in my brew. Of course, I'm just starting. That knob is out of my reach.

The only knob I can really get a handle on is fermentation temperature. Ale yeasts generally like fermenting somewhere between 60 and 70 degrees. Different strains have different comfort zones, but the ballpark is the same. If the temperature is too cold, the yeasts get lazy and don't do their job. If it gets too warm, they go crazy and start producing by-products like esters which aren't always well received by the beer drinker. Some times they're desirable, and can give a fruity taste. Sometimes they are just nasty.

Generally, I like yeast flavors and subtle esters in my beers. I'd like to ferment warmer temperatures (68-70) to ensure that I get some esterfication, but not too much. My fermentation closet (I live in an apartment) is about 65 degrees. It's ok, but not perfect. I want that temperature control.

My first solution was the purchase of a fermiwrap heater. It's a flexible piece of plastic with a lithographically applied coating, conveniently hooked up to an electrical plug. It's a good idea. The funny thing was that the fermiwrap was made in CA, but the heating element was manufactured by a company here in MA, Calorique. It must be a nice weekend job to take two commonly available parts, clip them together, bag, and distribute. Maybe I'll figure out a must have homebrewing gadget, and actually make money at the hobby.

Anyway, Kimble decided he didn't like the fermiwrap, and clawed four holes in it as I unrolled it for the first time. He didn't short anything, so I just covered the holes with electrical tape and plugged it in. The fermiwrap worked fine and warmed my brew up above 70 degrees. Unfortunately, the fermiwrap has no thermostat. So I had to plug and unplug it. I suppose I could have devised some goofy timer control. At this point, I am unwilling to drop $80-100 on a direct temperature controller to get the fermiwrap to behave.

My solution, which should have been my first idea anyway, was to go out and find the cheapest space heater with some sort of variable control. I found a ceramic one, with an oversized PC fan, and a dial that looks to offer more than 3 or 5 control set points. It works fine for heating, but doesn't seem ideal at dealing with cooling wart. The Fermiwrap had heated Clark's Kent’s Manners up to 74 degrees by the time I came back from the store. I swapped the space heatre in, and at its lowest sitting, the heater would activate before the wort had cooled.

I pulled the heater from the closet and let the wort drop below 70, now the heater is back and seems to be holding temps around 71. I don't know exactly because I'm using a Fermometer (a sticker that changes color along the scale and has 2 degree increments). It's not precise, but seems accurate and is incredibly cool. I've slapped them on all of my carboys, and put one in my beer fridge.

For a guy who's so anal about control, I seem to have a relaxed attitude about 1-2 degrees here or there. They call it a dead band in the world of process control. Instrumentation error, systems lags and the like add up to a nice window of "I can't tell the difference and I don't care".

Of course the upper end of this strain's recomended range is 72, but I doubt I'd be concerned if the limit was 70.

Clark Kent's Manners

2006-01-29T13:48:00.000-05:00

English milds are a fascinating style of beer, and are somewhat difficult to find here in the states. Kate and I discovered them at NERAX in '04. The event spotlighted the style, and had casks imported from Britain as well as a few hauled in from local micro breweries. This traditional style predates the industrialization of brewing and packs a lot of flavor into a low alcohol beer. Colors range from brown to black. My personal preferences range to those with chocolate flavors. There can be incredible complexities in these subtle beers.

The general trend I've seen in American micro breweries is to generate complexity according to the Doc Oc philosophy of "More! More! More!". Whether its from stronger hops, more ingredients, more Belgian influence, or more alcohol, great complex American beers tend to be big beers. There's nothing wrong with big beers. I enjoy them. In fact my scotch ale may well turn out to be "big". The notion that brewers can get more complexity with less ingredients is simply fascinating.

I brewed this batch with a kit from Northern Brewer.

Here's the ingredients

Specialty Grains: 0.125 lbs. Simpson's Chocolate, 0.25 lbs. Crisp Amber Malt
0.25 lbs. Crisp Brown Malt. (I steeped these from the start of heating until 170 degrees - Northern brewer recommends a 15 minute max, but with my slow stove I needed 45 minutes to get 170 degrees. The grain needs to be about 150 before any interesting sugar conversions occur)
Liquid Extracts: 3.3 lbs. Amber Malt Syrup
Solid Extracts:1 lbs. Amber Dry Malt
Hops: 1 oz. Fuggle (60 min)
Yeast: 150 ml smack pack Wyeast #1275 Thames Valley Ale Yeast
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss (Not included, but I believe in clarification. I do not believe in filtration, despite the fact that it pays the bills)

Higgins started to take an interest in the brewery with this batch. He clawed holes in the grain and malt powder bags as soon as I brought the kit home. During my brewing he reopened the powder bag, and opened both bags of sanitizer that I stored in the box. Fortunately, I noticed most of this trouble before I lost much through the holes.

I would have been in trouble if he figured out how to open the syrup bottle.

I brewed this batch with a 2 gal. boil, instead of the recommended 1.5 gal. My pot is big enough, and greater volumes yield better flavor extraction. Maybe this would help my hopping problem. After the seemingly over sweet Scottish ale, I seriously considered keeping some of the hops for an aroma addition. That might not have been true to form, so I figured I would try to follow the kits directions (mostly). If it came out weird, I could fix it next time around. After all, the Higgins Heifer Brewery is in the business of brewing milds (among other things).

Racking Kimble

2006-01-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

After five days in primary, the bubbling of Kimble's scotch ale had decreased to 1-2 per minute and the krausen had noticeably fallen. It was time to rack this boy to secondary, and free up the primary fermenter for my next (and intended first beer).

The racking went relatively smoothly, and the better bottles demonstrated the value of their design. I just sanitized some tubing, attached it to the valve. Sanitized the valve through the tubing (I don't have a lab squirt bottle yet). Rinsed everything, and placed the tube in a sanitized and rinsed 5 gal better bottle. I opened the valve, and watched it drain. It was almost too easy. I didn't have any valve clogs, and left all of the trub behind. I can probably improve beer yield with some additional finagling. It is just a solid-liquid separation.

The gravity of the brew was 1.018 suggesting 7.3% ABV. Kate and I drank the sample from our hydrometer tube. It was very sweet with a lot of caramel, and only vague hints of hop bitterness. I think that the hopping didn't scale well between the BOP recipe and my home brew set up. That or I screwed up. We'll see. Kate was surprised that the brew tasted so much like beer after less than a week. Maybe time will help resolve the sweetness issue. If not, Kimble's scotch ale will taste like something from the Dogfishhead brewery sans amarillo hops.

I did most of the fermentation at room temperature (65-68 degrees) and eventually hooked up a fermawrap for a day and a half at 70 +/- 2 degrees. Now it's at about 62 for a nice long secondary in my beer closet. We need to get access to our basement storage so I wig out a bit less about temperature.

Details of Kimble's Scotch Ale

2006-01-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

This was my first brew. I'd gone a little crazy looking at all of the Christmas toys that I'd been allowing to collect dust. My ingredient kit was taking its sweet time to come in from Minnesota. I drove out to Woburn in search of inspiration from a homebrew shop there. It was a cold, heartless, warehouse filled with wine people. I don't get grapes.

I came back to town, picked Kate up at work, and headed out to Natick. We picked up this kit from Dan at Barleycorn's and headed home. I brewed late into the night. Our stove doesn't yield much heat, and I wanted to boil with at least 50% liquid volume. Our biggest pot wasn't big enough to hold 2.5 gallons, so I split it in two. Our 4 burner stove seems to have a fixed BTU output . It can all come through one burner, or be distributed across the four.

Any way the brew came out with a gravity of 1.072, which was a bit stronger than I expected although I had no basis for this expectation.

The ingredients included

Specialty Grains: 2oz Roasted Barley, 8 oz Caramel Malt (20 Lov.), 8 oz Caramel Malt (80 lov), 3 oz. Smoked Malt. (I steeped these for an hour between 150-160 C and kept them steeping as I ramped the temp up to 170)
Liquid Extracts: 3.0 Lbs Light, 4.0 lbs Amber, 0.5 lb Dark, and 0.5 lb Wheat
Hops: 1 oz, Goldings (60), 0.75 Fuggles (30)
Yeast: 1 pkt Safale S-04 (Whitbread)
Etc: 1 tsp Irish Moss

So It Begins...

2006-01-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

Latin beats and waves of euphoria tickle my spine as I sit to type in time... keeping real, the enormous moment and a slice of lime. Type in time. It's free thought on the brewery exchange. Last weekend, I took the plunge and put some of my Christmas gifts to work brewing beer.

I figure that I'll document the madness here. Right now I have two batches in fermentation. Kimble's Scottish Ale is in secondary trying to mellow some of its insane sweetness. Clark Kent’s Manners (a Mild) has been in primary less than 24 hours, and is bubbling a few times a minute.

Coming this far has been an adventure, I'm sure the fun has only begun.

Music - Free Thought - 8 ft Flourescent Tubes (4/17/98)