Mocha Porter: Disappointing Brewday

Today's brewday was a new version of my mocha porter recipe. Unfortunately, nothing really went very smoothly. For one thing the sparge got stuck. It's the second time it's happened but I'm pretty sure I know why. It's probably the flaked oats causing it to stick, but for some reason the last time I used this quantity of oats nothing went wrong. Well, lesson learned. I'll always use rice hulls in a batch like this from now on.

The next problem was that the grain extraction efficiency was awful. The final gravity came to about 1.065, when it should have been closer to 1.075. I'm going to take a look at the spacing in my grain mill, I have a suspicion that I'm not cracking the grains as much as I should be. This makes two batches in a row that have been lower than expected in efficiency. I'm thinking that because I haven't added the chocolate or coffee, I may just leave this as a standard porter and try brewing the recipe the right way in another week or two. Not sure yet.

Thoughts on the Amarillo IPA

The American (Amarillo) IPA in my chest freezer was tapped before I left for a wedding in Connecticut this past weekend. This was my first IPA that I've ever brewed, which is weird considering how much I love IPAs.

Pulling a pint tonight, it looks like the sediment has finally settled out, giving the beer a lightly hazy and light amber color. The aroma isn't as plentiful as I'd hoped, meaning I need to not be so paranoid about over-hopping next time. Only one variety of hop was used for this batch: Amarillo. It's a nice high alpha acid American hop that doesn't have the grapefruit character that Cascade does.

The beer could probably use a little bit more hop bitterness and a lot more character from finishing hops. I'm pleased with the recipe, especially for a first attempt at the style, but I'm looking forward to tweaking it and making it better.

Brewday: English IPA

Today was quite productive. Kegged my Brown Ale from a few weeks ago, tapped my American IPA that was kegged earlier in the week, and brewed an English IPA. My recipe for the English IPA, and notes on the brewday:

English IPA
Malt:
-10.00 lbs Maris Otter
-01.00 lbs Crystal 60L
-01.00 lbs Munich Malt

Hops:
-1.00 oz Northern Brewer (10.1% AA, 60 min)
-0.50 oz East Kent Goldings (5% AA, 60 min)
-0.50 oz East Kent Goldings (30 min)
-1.00 oz Fuggles (4% AA, 10 min)
-1.00 oz Fuggles (0, min)
-1.00 oz East Kent Goldings (dry hop)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

I mashed this one around 156F to give it some body. In the end, the gravity came out about 5 points low at 1.055, when I wanted it around 1.060. I'm starting to suspect that my grain mill needs to be readjusted so I can get a finer crush.

Sampling the IPA

This evening I took a sample of the American IPA I brewed last week. Without carbonation and sitting around 72 degrees, it has a nice mild malty flavor that lets the Amarillo hops shine through nicely. The taste is pretty close to what I was going for... definitely a nicely balanced IPA, though it could probably use some dry hopping, which I think I can handle. I have a feeling it's gonna go down like water once it's chilled and carbonated. It's at ~6.5% ABV, which is pretty much what I was going for, and shouldn't be painful to pound on a hot day. :p

Brewday: Brown Ale

On Wednesday I decided I would brew a new session beer today. The style I chose was a brown ale. Beers of the World had a new shipment of yeast and hops, which was great because my fear was not having a choice of yeast for this one. I managed to get a British yeast that's always worked well for me in the past.

Brown Ale

Malt
-8.00 lbs Maris Otter
-1.00 lbs Flaked Oats
-0.50 lbs Crystal 60L
-0.50 lbs Roasted Barley
-0.50 lbs Vienna Malt

Hops
-0.50 oz Northern Brewer pellets (7.7%AA 60 minutes)
-0.50 oz Northern Brewer pellets (7.7%AA 30 minutes)
-1.00 oz Mount Hood pellets (3.8%AA 5 minutes)

Yeast
-Wyeast #1098 British Ale Yeast

Mash Schedule
-3.25 Gallons of water at 160F stabilizing to 151F
-Mash for 60 minutes
-Sparge with 4.25 Gallons of water at 170F

Specific Gravity
1.055 (temperature corrected)

Brew day went extremely well. I wound up with the exact 5 gallons I was looking for, and the exact specific gravity I was looking for. I sparged the grains for over half an hour to make sure I got as much out as possible. Seems to have worked as I hit my estimated gravity perfectly.

Looks like there's already pressure in the airlock of the fermenter, so the yeast were ready to go!

Upcoming Batches

Before it gets too late in the summer, I want to brew a beer to age for the holiday season. That beer will be either a slight tweak on my Mocha Porter, or a cherry version of the Mocha Porter. In addition to the beer for the holidays, I need to get another session beer made (I'm going through the mild ale pretty quickly). I'm thinking of using some of the remaining grains and hops I have here to keep the cost of a new session beer down.

The hard part of choosing the next session beer is figuring out what style to make. I haven't made a brown ale in a long time, and I have my favorite brown ale hops right now (Mount Hood and Northern Brewer). A good English bitter is always good, too. Oatmeal stout is a style I've never really brewed, but could be interesting. I've made some pretty good witbiers in the past, but haven't really been in the mood for them this summer (wit + rain = meh).

So yeah, help me decide if you like. I'm thinking of choosing between:
Brown ale
English bitter
Oatmeal stout
Belgian pale ale

Leave a comment and help me decide. If there are suggestions for other styles, also let me know. Looking to make a session beer (3-5% ABV, yes I consider 5% to be a session beer).

This will, of course, depend on the yeast selection in the area. Last time I was at Beers of the World their selection was sparse. I'll head back there tomorrow to get an exact list, possibly picking up ingredients if I've decided on a recipe.

Brewday: IPA

I brewed the American IPA this afternoon. From start to finish, including cleanup, it took four and a half hours. Not too bad for all grain. I was able to use the mash downtime to watch the Baseball Hall of Fame induction speeches. Good times.

The beer came out a bit weaker than I was hoping as it looks like my extraction from the grains was lower than normal. Not really sure what the issue was this time, though I think I may have drained that mash too quickly. I need to brew more often so my technique stays consistent.... hmmm, maybe I should brew again sometime this upcoming week. :)

Starting gravity is 1.064, where I was aiming for closer to 1.070. Hmph. Oh well.

New Beer Recipe: American IPA (Updated)

It's been a while since I brewed a batch of beer, and I just realized I've only brewed 5 times this year. Wow, homebrew fail. Looking through my brewing records (I keep records of all my batches in a paper binder and on my computer) I brewed: 21 times in 2006, 7 times in 2007, 3 times in 2008, and 5 times so far in 2009. That's a most unfortunate trend. To be fair, though, the brews in 2007 and 2008 were all 10 gallon batches, so they could really count as twice as many brews. The change in frequency is pretty easy to explain (though there's no good excuse, I know...), I quit grad school and went looking for a job. I moved to Rochester in February 2007 and didn't brew again until I had my all-grain setup put together. It's tough finding the time to brew, especially when I have to brew alone, with a full time job schedule, and lots of travel on weekends because Rochester sucks.

Well, I have 5 months left to get my brewing back on track. I'm going to start this weekend with an American IPA. For reasons that elude me, I've never brewed an IPA of any sort. My tastes tend to keep me more focused on Belgian and English styles, and typically maltier styles. I've always brewed a lot of English Bitters, as that's my favorite session beer style. Various types of stouts are also frequently in my queue. Now it's time for some good American hop action.

My first cut at the recipe is below. I don't know the exact alpha acid content of the hops, but I'll recalculate once I buy them and find out the numbers. The alpha acid contents I'm using below are my best guesses.

American IPA:
Malt
- 1.00 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
-10.00 lbs U.S. 2-row Malt
- 1.50 lbs Vienna Malt
- 0.50 lbs Crystal 20L
- 0.25 lbs Wheat Malt

Hops
-1.00 oz Amarillo (8%AA, 60 minutes)
-0.75 oz Simcoe (13%AA, 30 minutes)
-0.50 oz Amarillo (8%AA, 30 minutes)
-0.75 oz Simcoe (13%AA, 5 minutes)
-0.50 oz Amarillo (8%AA, 0 minutes)

Yeast
Not sure yet. Depends what they've got. Probably Wyeast #1272 American Ale II

Mash
152 degrees for 60 minutes, most likely. Might go 150, not sure yet.

[Update]
After going to Beers of the World to buy ingredients, the recipe has been forced to change slightly:
-They had no light crystal malt, so the Crystal 20L will now be replaced by Crystal 40L
-Simcoe hops were sold out. This will now be an all Amarillo IPA with the following hop schedule:
-1.50 oz Amarillo (60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Amarillo (30 minutes)
-0.50 oz Amarillo (5 minutes)
-1.00 oz Amarillo (0 minutes)
-This batch of Amarillo is all at 8% Alpha Acid content.
-Yeast selection was extremely thin this time (which is rare for these guys). No Wyeast 1056 or 1272, so I picked up the only American yeast they had: Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale.

Mild Ale

I just poured a sample of the mild ale to check the gravity. Gravity stands at 1.012 right now. It hasn't bubbled in a days, so I think it's done. I'll check again tomorrow night, but if it's done I'm kegging it.

The sample has a nice toasted biscuit malt backbone with a hint of sweetness. A mild toasted aroma with a bit of earthy hops. The bitterness is just up there enough to provide balance, but is otherwise unnoticeable. This is a delicious session beer. I think this one's even better than the first all grain bitter I brewed. YUM! Can't wait to have it kegged, chilled and carbonated.

Mild Ale: Quick Update

It has been twelve days since the Mild Ale was brewed. The fermentation took off really quickly that night and was vigorous for a few days. There is still activity currently, though it is slow. I will keep an eye on it and once I've noticed the fermentation completely trail off, I will take a gravity reading. It would be nice to get this beer in a keg early this week; I've needed a kegged session beer for a while now. This beer should end somewhere around 4%ABV.

Beer Filled Wednesday

I've been trying to plan my next few batches of beer; I've been running low lately (only one keg and one fermentor full). Since it's summer soon I will be brewing a Belgian Wit. That's one of my favorite styles of beer especially in summer. After that I want to brew a tweaked version of my Mocha Porter.

Traditionally, wits are brewed using approximately 50% un-malted wheat in the grain bill. The problem with un-malted wheat is that it needs to not only be mashed, but it also needs to go through a protein rest to break down the high protein content. This requires two separate mash temperatures: 122F for the protein rest and ~145-150F for the mash. The procedure for this will be setting up all the grains in water and equilibrating at 122F for about 15 minutes for the protein rest, followed by a hot water addition to bring the temperature up to 145-150F for the regular mash. Because of the water necessary to increase the temperature enough (thank you thermo!) I will need to use the large mash tun I usually use for 10 gallon batches. This will be interesting. I hope I don't mess anything up. My tentative recipe for this beer is below.

Wit Bier

Malt:
-5.00 lb British 2-row malt
-4.00 lb Flaked Wheat
-1.00 lb Flaked Oats
-0.50 lb Munich malt

Hops:
-1.00 oz Hallertau hop pellets (4.8% AA, 60 minutes)

Other:
-0.50 oz Corriander, crushed (5 minutes)
-2 Orange zests (5 minutes)

Yeast:
Not sure yet. It depends on what yeast strains Beers of the World has. I imagine they have Wyeast #3944 Witbier Yeast, but we'll see.


An update on the Mild Ale, too. The Mild is still bubbling a little bit through the airlock. The yeast went crazy for the first couple days, but they've trailed off. I'm hoping that since the initial gravity was fairly weak (1.042) they finish soon so I can keg it already. I love good session beers.

Recipe Modification: Mocha Porter

A few months ago I brewed my mocha porter. This beer came out really well, now I'm planning on brewing this beer again. I'd like to brew a new batch of the porter soon, with some tweaks in the recipe, and let it age in a keg in the cellar until this coming winter. I want to tweak the recipe before brewing it again because I want it bigger and feel that it could be improved. I have been asking advice from people and doing a lot of reading to try and figure out the best way to modify this beer. The original recipe is below.

Malt
-2.00 lbs X-Light DME
-7.00 lbs British 2-row
-2.00 lbs Flaked Oats
-0.50 lbs Crystal 60L
-0.50 lbs Crystal 120L
-0.50 lbs Chocolate Malt
-0.50 lbs Roasted Barley

Hops
-1.00 oz Northern Brewer (7.7% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Fuggles (4% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Mt Hood (3.8% AA, 2 minutes)

Misc
-10 oz Ghirardelli Unsweetened Baker's Cocoa
-12 cup pot of Kona Blend coffee from Wegmans
-1 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients (with Wyeast #1098)
-Mashed at 150F (was supposed to be 154, but it came out a bit low)

The question of how to modify it now comes up. The beer currently has a nice smooth flavor. The coffee and chocolate flavors are present, but a bit on the subtle side. I would also like to boost the alcohol without adding much sweetness. I have a few ideas, see below, and am looking for feedback and any other ideas anyone has.

-Changing some (maybe 5%) of the base pale malt to Munich malt would add some maltiness to the backbone without adding much/any sweetness. The idea would be to have a stronger malt backbone to accentuate the chocolate and coffee flavors.

-Replacing some/all of the chocolate malt with roasted barley would give the beer a slightly richer dark flavor that would play well with the toasted grains and the chocolate/coffee flavors.

-I would like to add some base malt to boost the alcohol, and I will likely need to mash a little lower to make sure I don't add any sweetness. The beer is in a pretty good place with its current level of sweetness.

Let me know if there are any suggestions out there. Any comments on my ideas above would be appreciated, too. I have never tried tweaking a beer recipe before, I typically don't brew the same recipe twice.

Brew Day: Mild Ale

I was looking for a new session beer to put on tap and decided to brew a Mild Ale. The revised recipe is below:

Mild Ale

-4 lbs Mild Ale Malt
-3 lbs Maris Otter
-.25 lbs Chocolate Malt
-.25 lbs Crystal 60L
-.5 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 60 minutes)
-.25 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 30 minutes)
-.25 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 5 minutes)
-Wyeast #1968 London ESB yeast

Mash at 154F for 60 minutes.
Original Gravity: 1.042

The gravity was higher than I expected, based on my usual efficiency, so the longer sparge time I had today must have helped get me some extra extraction from the grains. The volume was dead on, as was the mash temperature, so today was a really good brew day. Hopefully, with the starter going strong yesterday, this brew should be done fermenting by the weekend and should be ready for the keg sometime next week. That's the beauty of low gravity beers: quick turn-around! :)

Now to plan the first real summer beer. That's probably gonna be a Witbier.

Belgian Dubbel: Keg Tapped

I finally tapped the keg of Belgian Dubbel that I brewed in mid-March. After pouring a couple of glasses of it into my Ommegang Abbey Ale goblet, I have to say that it's decent.

The beer is a very deep burgundy color, with a thick off-white head that leaves a nice lacing behind. The aroma has a bit of sweetness in it, with some dark currant and prune-ish aromas. The body is a little bit thicker than I'd like, ending at 1.018 gravity. There's a light malty sweetness, and a mild bitterness from the hops on the back of the tongue. The flavor has a mix of dark fruit flavors with a mild floral flavor from the yeast.

All in all this one's decent, but highlights the issues I've always had making dark Belgian ales. My yeast management is lousy, I already know this. I need better temperature control and to make larger starters so I can get better attenuation from the yeast, and I should probably start mashing at lower temperatures. The attenuation is the key to why these beers aren't coming out right (though the last one also had too much aromatic malt in it). If this beer had more of its sugars consumed it would be vastly improved. Ideally, I'd like to get the final gravity down to around 1.010-1.012.

Homebrew Recipe: Mild Ale

Alright, with the brown porter keg kicked, I need a new session beer to put on tap. I'm thinking a mild ale would be nice. The recipe I have tentatively put together is below. If anyone has suggestions let me know.

Mild Ale

-4 lbs Mild Ale Malt
-2 lbs Maris Otter
-.25 lbs Chocolate Malt
-.25 lbs Crystal 60L
-.5 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 60 minutes)
-.25 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 30 minutes)
-.25 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 5 minutes)
-Wyeast #1968 London ESB yeast

Mash at 150F for 45 minutes.

The next beer after that is most likely going to be a wit style as the summer quickly approaches.

Memorial Day

This Memorial Day weekend I had Bill in town for a visit, and much beer was consumed! :p

Friday night was a quiet one that saw us drink some homebrew and play Settlers of Catan: The Card Game. This was an interesting take on the board game version. It had the same overall feel with the construction of roads, settlements and cities, and the resource management was handled really well. It was somewhat slow to develop early on, but once we had build up enough to where we could use action cards, the game really took off. Very fun game, and a good relaxing night.

The first order of business on Saturday morning was gorging ourselves on great food and shitty coffee. Highland Park Diner it was! The great thing about that place is that you don't need to worry about food for many hours afterward... though your arteries probably aren't happy. :p

An on-the-fly decision was made to head down to Honeoye Falls, southeast of where we were, to visit and tour the Custom Brewcrafters brewery. That was a very good decision. This is a brewery whose business model is to brew custom batches of beer for local restaurants and bars. They had about 19 beers on tap in the tasting room, which was huge! Of note, their Rye Ale was delicious. It was light bodied, with a rye character that blended nicely with the hops. That one is an easy drinker that I could just pound all day. Yum!

In the middle of our tasting (they allow 6 samples of beer) we were able to get onto a tour of the brewery with three other people. The guide was an older guy that was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. He gave a great tour with a really good explanation of the brewing process and the specifics of what goes on in their brewery. That was the best tour I've been on so far of any brewery, hands down (though the Cooperstown Brewery is a close second).

Following that, we stopped in Honeoye Falls at a small bar & grill called The Brewery for a pint. It was a small bar with a small deck out back to overlook the falls. There was a pretty good beer selection for such a townie-feeling bar. I remember there being only 4 beers that I wouldn't drink, one being Genny Light (blech!). This was an interesting experience, but we were ready to drink some serious beers....

On to the Old Toad! The Toad is one of my favorite Rochester bars because the beer selection is amazing! They have three casks (which is exceedingly rare in the States), a constantly rotating tap selection, and they refuse to put crap beer on tap. They do serve Blue Light and Amstel Light, but those are in bottles in the cooler behind the bar. I had a Fuller's London Porter on cask that was wonderfully smooth, followed by a Brooklyn Intensified Coffee Stout. Bill had a cask version of Flying Bison's Rusty Chain which we both found wonderfully drinkable and balanced. A great session beer if I've ever had one! He also had a Dogfish Head Midas Touch for the first time in a great while and was reminded of why it's amazing.

NOTE: All of these session beers and beers with more modest flavors that we were thoroughly enjoying led to some interesting conversation on the craft beer movement, extreme beers, and the lost art of the session beer. I'll post on that later.

At this point we decided it was time to hunt down some food action. We headed down to Hennrietta to hit up the bar I frequent about twice a week to drink and watch baseball with some regulars: J.B. Quimby's. This is where I watch most Thursday and Friday Mets games while talking baseball with Jeff, the main bartender, and Dave, one of the regulars. We had a couple beers, ate some good pub food, and saw innings 2 through 8 of the Mets-Red Sox game. That game had all the action occur in the 1st and 9th innings, and we missed all of it. It was an odd evening. :p

When we got to my apartment, we decided to wander into the village of Fairport and hit the Towpath Cafe, right on the Erie Canal, for some coffee and much-needed relaxation. It was a nice night for a walk and that coffee really hit the spot. The rest of the night was spent playing Rock Band, and watching Robot Chicken and The Fifth Element.

All in all, a pretty damn good weekend.

Mets' Season Defined

It's been a while since I posted anything about the Mets. The team currently sits in the midst of a 4-game losing streak after being swept out of LA by a red-hot Dodgers team. They are getting ready to play the Red Sox in Boston tonight. The Mets stand at 3-4 on the current 10-game road trip to San Fran, LA, and Boston.

The beginning of the trip saw the team take 3 games against the Giants with a lot of come from behind fights. The offense was still clicking at that point, so it kept everyone from noticing how our defense was still subpar, as it has been all season. Fans were very quick to compare this road trip to a similar trip to the west coast back in 2006, where we went 9-1 against some tough competition and that set the tone for the rest of the season. It was early June and we took 2 of 3 in LA, swept 4 games in Arizona, then came back east and swept 3 games in Philadelphia. That went on to be a dominant year for us, but we all remember how that ended.

This year is different, and that's why it was very premature to start declaring this current trip as 'season defining'. Sometimes I'm amazed at just how delusional Mets fans allow themselves to be. We have seen, during the past three years, just how hot and cold our offense has been. One week we'll score 40 runs and thrash our opposition, then the next week we'll be lucky to squeak out 15 runs. Our hitters have a history of getting hot or cold seemingly at the flip of a switch. Our starting rotation has been steadily improving, even with Oliver Perez on the DL with a broken brain, and the bullpen has weathered Sean "look at me, I'm Aaron Heilman!" Green. So, other than the offense's drastic inconsistency, our major problem hasn't been the pitching... it has been the defense. Only being behind the Nationals for the most errors in the NL is absolutely unacceptable! You don't win games where you hand the opposition 3 or 4 extra outs. Johan Santana has allowed 8 earned runs and 6 unearned runs!! That's absurd. The two losses he has on his record were both 1-0 games where he allowed 1 unearned run because of our slop-tastic defense.

The hitting and defense in the current road trip have been absolutely dreadful. The defense has been even worse than normal due to the fact that we're playing so many players out of position due to injuries. Why Jerry Manuel refused to play Murphy at first base (he's an infielder by trade not a left fielder), played Jeremy Reed at first base (an outfielder by trade) and Ramon Martinez at shortstop (he's just terrible all around) is beyond me. I know we can't help all the injuries that happen, but it wouldn't kill us to have some intelligent roster management.

So, if you were calling this road trip 'season defining' last weekend, you were right but for the wrong reasons... Sloppy defense and streaky offense have definitely defined our season so far, and it doesn't look like things will be getting any better as our players keep dropping like flies.

Another tough year as a Mets fan.... Let's hope we don't get squashed like bugs in Boston.

Homebrew Updates

I've had the Mocha Porter (brewed on: 02/08/09) kegged and on tap for a while now, and it's absolutely delicious. I really don't think that tasting it from a growler after I've hauled it across NY to Albany really does it justice (*cough* Bill and Dave get your asses out here *cough*). It's nice and smooth right now. I'd love to buy a beer gun sometime so I could fill some bottles and send it to a competition or two to get some (professional) feedback.

The Belgian-style Dubbel I brewed on 03/14/09 has been kegged and carbonating for over a week. Something about my Belgian Dubbels seems to always be off, so my expectations for this batch aren't the normal expectations I have for a batch: I just want it to not be weird. Probably just need to start doing better yeast management, but we'll see how this one came out before making a judgment.

And in one bit of sad news... I kicked the keg of Brown Porter last week. That was a delicious session beer. I need to make something to replace it soon. Thinking a mild ale, but I need to do some more research on it first.

Test.

Weyerbacher Fireside Ale

I've been a fan of Weyerbacher for a long time, so when I saw a new beer by them at Beers of the World yesterday, I had to grab a couple. Last night I was playing some Rock Band with Beercommdood and Vandaronas (Bill and Dave) and popped one of these bottles open.

The beer is pretty dark with a decent, fizzy white head. The rest of the experience was very disappointing, unfortunately. The aroma reminded me, sigh... of Bud. Basically, it has that cheap, malt smell with some spicy hops. The best word to describe the aroma is thin.

The flavor here can only really be described as gross. The body is thin and lightly malty, with a touch of smokiness. The smoke and a touch of hops are all on the front of the tongue, then the back of the mouth is filled with kind of a cheap corn type flavor. I'm almost positive that corn-ish flavor was caused by a mix of the smoke and the beer I had previously, so I'm going to try it again today with a clean palate and sober head.

This is my first disappointing Weyerbacher experience. Here's hoping that it was a fluke and the next bottle does it justice.

UPDATE:
Yes, it's a gross as I thought. I just poured my second bottle of it, and after two sips I'm done. It smells thin and vaguely of Bud. The aftertaste is really nasty, some kind of smoky-corn flavor. This is undrinkable to me.

Homebrew Updates

First, let me say that I am sad. I kicked the keg of ESB last week. That was a sad day. Fortunately, I had another full keg in there to make up for it. Back on 23 March I kegged the mocha porter I had brewed in early February.

The Mocha Porter turned out awesome. It ended with a final gravity of 1.018 giving it around 7.3% ABV. It's a dark, murky brown color that lets pretty much no light through. It has a nice roasted malt aroma with some coffee notes. The body is thick and silky smooth from the flaked oats I used in the mash. There is a solid porter foundation with lots of dark malt flavor and a touch of crystal sweetness. The coffee and chocolate flavors meld nicely, neither one being too obvious above the rest of the beer. This was easily the best coffee/chocolate-based beer I'm brewed yet. This recipe will definitely be brewed again with tweaks to hone it. If I ever manage to open a brewery like I want, this'll be a nice Winter seasonal (maybe with a bit more alcohol, though). :)

On the same day I kegged the Mocha Porter, I also racked the Belgian Dubbel into a secondary fermenter. The gravity was 1.022 at the time and fermentation had pretty much ceased. After racking, I put it closer to the heater and let it go. The fermentation kicked back up fairly strongly for a few days, so I'm hoping I got a lot closer to my attenuation target. I should probably check the gravity of it soon and get it into one of the empty kegs. There is one open slot in the chest freezer for another keg to get tapped.... :)

Opening Day: Mets 2 - Reds 1

Today is opening day for baseball. I got to work a little early so I could bolt around lunch time to catch the Mets @ Reds game on TV. The game wound up being delayed 30 minutes due to 45F temps and rain/snow/sleet/whatever.

The pitching matchup was Johan Santana(0-0, 0.00ERA) vs Aaron Harang (0-0, 0.00ERA).

Final score: 2-1, Mets
Win: Johan Santana (1-0, 1.59ERA)
Loss: Aaron Harang (0-1, 1.80ERA)
Save: Francisco Rodriguez (1)

Comments on the game:

-Johan didn't really have it going early. He probably was having difficulty getting a feel for the ball with the temps hovering around 45F. He walked 4, which is unusual for him, and his slider kept missing high. Once he had the lead, however, Santana turned it up a notch, as always. :) He carried a 2-1 lead into the end of the 6th.

-Given the lack of command, Santana threw a lot of pitches. A surprise move had Manual taking him out of the game with two outs in the 6th. He was up around 99 pitches with a runner on base and Edwin Encarnacion coming to bat. Encarnacion has been a nemesis for Santana, so that probably helped Manual pull the trigger. Also, why work your ace more than necessary on a cold day when you have a bullpen you trust?

-The bullpen was stellar. Sean Green came in and got the final out of the 6th on a hard line drive caught by Murphy in left-center. Green pitched a nice, quick 7th giving way to our other new relievers, JJ Putz and K-Rod. Putz pitched around a walk in the 8th and K-Rod ended a perfect 9th with a strikeout.

-Last year's Mets bullpen would have blown a one run lead without hesitation.

-Dan Murphy, the rookie left fielder, provided all the offense we needed and some nice defense. He hit a solo homerun off Harang in the 5th, and had an RBI groundout in the 6th. In the bottom of the 6th, the line drive from Encarnacion looked as if it would be a double in the gap, but Murphy took a tough rout to the ball and made what appeared to be a difficult catch.

-Final note, which is also a concern, is that our offense left 11 men on base in the first 6 innings, then went down quietly for the rest of the game. There were so many missed opportunities in this game. I know we're going to score a lot of runs like last year, but there were so many games last year that we could have blown open with one timely hit.


Despite our offensive struggles, I'm a lot more confident about this team now than at the end of last season. I can't wait to watch Mike Pelfrey's first start of the year on Wednesday.

Update: Mocha Porter

Tonight was the night I finally around to kegging the Mocha Porter that was brewed on 8 February. The gravity wound up at a respectable 1.018, putting it in the middle of the 7% range which works for me. The important thing is that it's full of awesome. It smells dark, rich and full of coffee with a somewhat subdued chocolate nose. The body is think and silky, with the roasted grains taking a nice back seat to the coffee and chocolate. I can't wait until this one is chilled and carbonated. This is going to turn out well, and will probably be gone really quickly. :( Which just means I need to make another batch. :)

Update: Belgian Dubbel

The dubbel I brewed on 14 March got itself racked to secondary tonight. The airlock looked done, but I roused the yeast and am hoping that gets things going again. The gravity is currently at 1.022, giving it 68% attenuation so far. I'm aiming for more like 75%+, so I'm gonna keep an eye on it over the next few weeks. As expected, it currently tastes sweet, but the Belgian character I was looking for is there. This one just needs a fair amount of time. I can handle that.

Fantasy Draft

Below is the result of yesterday's fantasy draft for Patrick's league. There are 10 teams in the league, and I had the 9th position in the draft order. Sigh. Here's what I wound up with:

Hitters:
C Brian McCann
1B Ryan Howard
2B Mark DeRosa
3B Troy Glaus
SS Stephen Drew
IF JJ Hardy
OF Carlos Lee
OF Vladimir Guerrero
OF Xavier Nady
Util Pat Burrell

Bench:
BN (OF) Rick Ankiel
BN (2B) Kelly Johnson
BN (2B) Rickie Weeks
BN (C) Kelly Shoppach
BN (OF) Daniel Murphy

Starting Pitchers:
SP Johan Santana
SP Roy Oswalt
SP Edinson Volquez
SP Gavin Floyd
SP Mike Pelfrey

Relief Pitchers:
RP Joakim Soria
RP Carlos Marmol
RP Francisco Cordero

I think I can go into the season with a reasonable measure of optimism for this team. The one glaring void is that I have no speed on this team. If ever win the SB category, it'll be by sheer luck. Now, because I'm obsessive about baseball and fantasy, and it's a quiet lazy Sunday, I'm going to analyze my team. Yes, I'm that kind of uber-dork.

Starting Pitching:

Obviously, the strength of this team is the pitching. Johan should win 18-20 games this year with the Mets' improved bullpen and Citi Field likely more of a pitcher's park than Shea was. Oswalt could win 20 games if his team wasn't the Astros. Volquez is something of a question mark given his lack of experience; was this past season a fluke for him or is he going to be a consistently dominant starter? Pelfrey turned a corner last year and pitched great the second half, while also looking really good in spring training. I think he'll have a really good year. Gavin Floyd is looking good, but is mostly in there for depth if one of the other question marks fails or gets injured. The really nice thing is that this pitching staff really has no fear-inducing injury history.
Grade: A

Relief Pitching:

The relief corps of Soria, Cordero and Marmol should give me a ton of saves with a good ERA and WHIP and a fair amount of strikeouts. I just hope Marmol can keep up his high level of play for a full season in the closer role. The Cubs should win enough games to give him lots of chances. The problem with Soria and Cordero is that they're on lousy teams.
Grade: B+

Catcher:

For once my catcher position isn't a black hole of hitting. Brian McCann is one of the best hitting players in that position these days. Unless he gets hurt, this position will only change hands when he gets a day off. Kelly Shoppach is on the team as a reliable backup in the case that I want to take a slumping McCann out of the lineup for a week.
Grade: A

First Base:

Ryan Howard, despite his lousy batting average, will hit a ton of homers, score a lot of runs, and drive in a ton of runs. He's a perpetual home run champ in the NL, and a constant MVP threat. I don't have a backup for him, but any backup I could get now would be useless in comparison. First base is a strength for me this year. That being said, I really wanted Pujols. After finally getting surgery on his elbow this offseason, he'll be playing pain-free this year. I believe he will have a disgustingly monster year which is scary considering his typical season. Oh, well.
Grade: A-

Second Base:

Second base is one of those positions where there are a couple of great players, but the rest of pack is mediocre at best. Mark DeRosa has eligibility at 2B, 3B and OF, and is a fairly reliable hitter. He gets lots of RBI opportunities in the Cubs' lineup. I think this was a really good mid-round pickup. The need for depth at this position, though, forced my hand. I grabbed Kelly Johnson, who should be a decent backup for DeRosa, but may also come out and have a good season in his own right. Worth a shot, in my opinion. In addition I made something of a dark horse/sleeper pick in Rickie Weeks. He's always had real potential: decent power and lots of speed. The problem has been injury and a propensity to strikeout (425 Ks in 445 games). I feel it's a chance worth taking, and I can always drop him if I see someone else coming up big.
Grade: B-

Third Base:

Third base is usually a strength for my teams, but not this year. DeRosa can slot in here, but I've got Troy Glaus as the regular starter. I'm honestly not a fan of Glaus, but the draft order kept me from my boy, David Wright, and I want nothing to do with A-Rod's fragile psyche and the relentless verbal attacks he'll get this year on the road. Now, there's nothing really wrong with Glaus, he'll still get me 25-30 homers and drive in around 100 runs, especially in a lineup with Rick Ankiel and Alber Pujols, but I still wanted someone better there. We'll see.
Grade: B

Shortstop:

I grabbed two shortstops for a specific reason. I missed out on the elite shortstops (Reyes, Rollins, Ramirez), so I decided to take the route of drafting a SS with lots of potential that I think is likely to have a breakout year. Stephen Drew is that man. He's been in the league since getting called up by Arizona in 2006, and has shown a lot of improvement over the time period. I firmly believe this is the year he establishes himself. In case he falters I have JJ Hardy as a backup. Hardy is not the best SS out there, he has put up respectable numbers consistently.
Grade: B

Outfield:

The outfield is hit or miss with me most of the time. Either I have one that's stacked or I have one that's mostly average. I'm carrying 6 outfielders currently, 3 filling the OF slots, 1 filling the utility slot, and the others on the bench. I think Carlos Lee and Xavier Nady will be provide good, consistent production, while Vlad is a question mark. That Angels lineup is never overly potent, so he never really has the opportunity to drive in a ton of runs. He'll still put up good numbers if his knees don't completely give out on him this year. He's the one I'm worried about most, but he does have a really good chance of helping me quite a bit. It pained me, as a Mets fan, to pick Pat Burrell, but he's around for depth. I think he'll have a good year in Tampa Bay, but there's a lot of really good pitching in the AL East. He'll probably bounce back and forth between my lineup and bench unless he's cruising. Rick Ankiel will probably be in the lineup more than Burrell, as he's in a situation where he'll face weaker pitching and just looks really good right now. Either way, Ankiel is great depth that I couldn't pass up. Dan Murphy is totally a homer/sleeper pick. He is the young man that the Mets are slotting into left field to replace Grandpa Alou. He has shown great plate discipline at the ML level, and is looking really good this spring. Either way, this position is above average for me, with solid depth.
Grade: B

All in all, this is not a bad team to go into the season with. It's not the best I've had, but it's solid. The positions that don't have elite players have enough solid depth to hopefully compensate for any under-performance. If the pitching staff doesn't have any injuries, it's going to be filthy. So close to the season, but still so far away....

Fantasy Baseball

Yesterday was the live draft for the fantasy baseball league that Patrick runs. Last year I dug myself into a hole in June, but was able to claw my way back to third place. I wound up cruising through the playoffs and beat Meredith for the championship. That said, Meredith had a great first year of fantasy baseball. This will be my fourth year of fantasy baseball, and I've had a decent amount of success running two teams every year:
My team names are typically the Solar Flares and the Big Scary Animals.

2006
My first year saw the most success I've had so far. I made the championship round in both leagues. I won one of them and lost the other.
Solar Flares: 2nd place
Big Scary Animals: 1st place

2007
Not as much success my second year. This year's results were entirely based on one pair of moves I made. One was brilliant and the other was absolutely moronic, while both involved the same player. I dropped Gary Sheffield from one team when he couldn't hit anything for two months (he was promptly picked up by someone else). I picked him up with my other team when I realized he was back on track. Suffice to say, that move made one season and broke the other.
Solar Flares: 1st place
Big Scary Animals: 7th place

2008
Both of my teams this past year went un-managed for the month of June due to no internet at the new apartment and way too much going on in and out of work. Oh well.
Solar Flares: 1st place
Big Scary Animals: 5th place

I'm not sure if I'm going to run two teams this year or not. One team was drafted yesterday. We'll see. I may join a public league and try to dominate a bunch of random idiots. :p

Brew Day: Belgian Dubbel

Today was brew day. Hurray! It's a been a few weeks. As the winter is beginning to wind down, I decided to take the opportunity to brew one last darker beer. This is a Belgian Dubbel which, while still dark in color, isn't really a "heavy" beer. If I didn't screw anything up, it should be pretty drinkable, especially in the crazy Rochester spring weather.

Jeff and Angela came over and helped, so it was more interesting than normal.

Belgian Dubbel

Malt:
-11 lbs British Pale Malt
-1 lb CaraAroma
-1lb Light Munich Malt

Sugars:
-1 bottle (~1.5 lbs) Dark Belgian Candi Syrup (beet sugar)

Hops:
-1oz East Kent Golding hop pellets (5.5% AA, 60 minutes)
-1oz Saaz hop pellets (4% AA, 15 minutes)
-1oz Saaz hop pellets (4% AA, 5 minutes)

Mash:
-4 gallons of water at 162F for the mash
-Mash temp stabilized at 148F (where I wanted it)
-Mashed for 90 minutes
-Sparged with 4.75 Gallons at 168F

The gravity wound up at 1.070 (temperature corrected). The yeast was Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale. I was really happy that the mash temp came in where I wanted it, as I did not want this being too unfermentable. It's supposed to be a fairly light (in body) style, so I didn't want the temp to be too high in the mash. It came in at the temperature I was aiming for. The gravity also came out where I was hoping it would. I haven't brewed a Belgian in a long time, so I'm hoping this comes out well. The brew day was pretty much free of screwups, so I'm hopeful.

Beer Review: Great Lakes Blackout Stout

Blackout Stout, Great Lakes Brewing Company



I've been impressed with Great Lakes Brewing Company, as we've been seeing a lot more of it on tap around the Rochester area during the past year. I'm a big fan of stouts, so I decided to grab their stout last time I was at Beers of the World. Apparently, Great Lakes brewed the Blackout Stout in memory of the 2003 blackout that hit a large portion of the northeast. I remember not knowing about it until I left work, as the building I was working in at Cornell was on their own power grid that wasn't hit by the outage. It was a weird day, but turned out to be kinda fun cooking dinner in the kitchen at my dad's lab.

The Blackout Stout pours an extremely dark color, with a little light showing through around the edges. The head begins at two finger-widths, but settles to about a quarter-inch with some serious lacing on the glass.

Its aroma is one with a smooth roasted base. There are definitely some sweet caramel notes, with some lighter roasted notes, possibly brown malt or some dark toasted malt.

There is a mooth roasted bitterness with a touch of crystal malt sweetness. A serious chocolate character provides a nice layer on the roasted base malt flavor A moderate bitterness from the roasted malts and the hops hits the back of the tongue and mixes well with the smooth roasted chocolate flavor over the middle of the tongue. All these flavor mix to give a great finish.

As expected from a 9% ABV stout the body is heavy, but with a silky character that makes it go down easier than would be expected.

Overall I would call this a delicious imperial stout. The hops can become a bit harsh as you drink, but that's the only real complaint. The rich, smooth, roasted chocolate flavor works well with the silky body. This is definitely highly recommended, as the beers tend to be from Great Lakes Brewing Company.

And now they've gone too far.

Last week I setup my new media PC. I made sure to get an internal Blu-Ray drive for it ($100, eat that PS3!), and just finally got it to play my first Blu-Ray disks. Was the drive broken? No. Were the disks scratched? No.

First, the software included with the drive, Cyberlink PowerDVD 9, was the Deluxe version. PowerDVD 9 comes in three flavors: Standard, Deluxe, and Ultra. Ultra is the only one that has Blu-Ray functionality included. Any guess as to which they actually package with the player? That's right, Deluxe. Interesting that a Blu-Ray player would be packaged with software that you have to upgrade immediately in order to use with said drive.

PowerDVD9 Ultra was subsequently... 'acquired'.

The proper software, when loaded and reading the disk, actually gave me an error within the first three seconds. The error said something about not being able to process the contents of the disk. Huh? Alright. After a few searches on the intertoobs I found something wonderfully amazing called HDCP, High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. Basically, this is hardware implemented anti-piracy scheme used by the ever-paranoid recording industry. This is a three pronged attack against piracy:

1. Devices go through an authentication process, whereby all devices being used to read, transmit, process, and display HD content need to be 'licensed' to perform those actions.
2. The data are encrypted while being transmitted, because obviously digimal piracy involves grabbing bits from the toob that connects the computer to the TV.
3. There are unique keys in these 'licensed' devices that help ensure that compromised devices can't be used. Blah blah blah.

So, what does this mean for me? My Blu-Ray player, graphics card, sound card, HDTV, and probably my AV receiver need to be HDCP certified/licensed/whateverstupidbullshited. I know the graphics processor on the motherboard isn't compliant, neither is the sound card. Hell, I don't know if my TV is even compliant, but that's moot with the rest of the hardware failing the compliance test.

The next piece of information I came across was that there's a program called AnyDVD HD. Running in the background, this software will remove copy protection schemes from any DVD that is playing, so the HDCP never gets initialized. This is a legal program that requires purchasing a license. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this, but I'll move on. I 'acquired' that license and now I can play Blu-Ray disks. Finally.

The recording companies are so damn paranoid about piracy that now I have to buy software to remove copy-protection from my legally purchased Blu-Ray disk, and upgrade the useless software that came with this drive so I can play said disk in my legally purchased Blu-Ray drive, with my legally purchased graphics and audio processors in my motherboard, transmit those data through my legally purchased HDMI cable, so my legally purchased HDTV can display this movie to my legally purchased eyeballs. This is the reason I refuse to pay money for anything that will help these companies get richer.

This just makes me want to pirate media MORE.

Ugh, Monday

Quite the interesting weekend. I left work on Wednesday morning around 11am and took the rest of the week off. I had just finished getting some functioning that had taken me forever (lots of hardware communication issues), so I decided to have an extended weekend to relax.

I got my new computer parts on Wednesday afternoon. It was the summer of 2005 when I last upgraded my computer, so I decided to go all out and get a media PC put together to hook directly up to my HDTV.

There was a beer tasting on Saturday via Twitter Taste Live. I'll have to sit down and do a more in depth post on that later. Let's just say that the night ended painfully, and I don't remember going to bed. That'll happen when you drink a full (large) bottle of Dogfish Head Fort, Red & White, and a small bottle of Palo Santo Marron.

The World Baseball Classic is underway, as is MLB spring training. The USA crushed Venezuela yesterday 15-6. I'm considering starting up a second blog just dedicated to baseball. Gotta document another miserably disappointing season as a Mets fan. Huzzah.

Beer Review: Harpoon Celtic Ale

Harpoon's Celtic Ale

I had this on tap at J.B. Quimby's last night.

This beer pours a deep copper color with a two finger thick head. The bubbles in the head are large and coarse and pure white. After settling, the head remained thick enough to keep the beer covered.

The first impression you get from this beer is that it smells like lightly toasted bread. If there was any hop aroma, I wasn't able to detect it. Some British malt comes through in the nose, slightly offsetting the bread aromas. A minimal amount of yeast esters manage to poke through as well, lending a touch of a sweet floral aroma.

As with the aroma, the flavor of this beer is dominated by bread. There is a solid malt base that uses the bread and toasted notes to balance itself rather than hops. There do not seem be more than a token amount of hops as the hop bite was barely noticeable on the back of the tongue.

While not a light beer, this is an easily drinkable one. It's thick enough in the mouth so you know it's a solid beer, but it's thin enough to go down pretty quick.

Overall
Harpoon's Celtic Ale is not the most exciting beer, but you could do a ton worse. It's definitely a solid beer that should be really good on those cool rainy spring evenings. I would have enjoyed it more had I not been in a hoppy mood when I tried it. Don't expect an award winner, but this is a decent beer that's worth trying if you're not in the mood for hops.

Beer Review: Drake's Crude Oatmeal Stout, Erie Brewing Company

Drake's Crude Oatmeal Stout, Erie Brewing Company


Pour
This stout pours a thick black, with a small white head on it.

Aroma
There is a light malty sweetness in the aroma, but it is dominated by the roasted grains (as would be expected). No detectable hop aroma.

Appearance
This is a black beer. I see no light getting through it at all.

Flavor
There is a nice roasted flavor that forms the base for this beer, but it is nicely balanced by a light crystal malt sweetness. It is dark and roasty, surely, but only has a very mild bitterness, probably more from the roasted malt than hops. This oatmeal stout is a very easy drinking beer, which says a lot for a stout.

Mouthfeel
This is a full bodied stout, with a very nice silky smooth feel to it from the oats.

Overall
This is a fantastic oatmeal stout, and I encourage anyone that enjoys this style to try it. There are just enough hops to keep it from being a malt bomb, and the texture from the oats makes it deliciously smooth.

Update: Mocha Porter

The mocha porter is now in the secondary (after procrastinating for a week). The gravity is sitting at a nice 1.018, putting it a little over 7%ABV. The gravity sample tastes like a mix of dark roasted coffee, one of those 75% cocoa dark chocolate bars, and has a silky chocolaty body. This beer is still way young, but it's got some serious potential. I'm thinking I'll probably secondary it for about 2-3 weeks and see how it is then. Let me just say, I've surpassed all of my previous chocolate based beers with this one. Mmmm.

Three inches of trub at the bottom of the carboy! And it was thick, chocolaty stuff that took forever to get washed out.

Adventures In Spending My Own Damn Money

With my tax returns being on their way (the refunds should be direct deposited any day now) I decided that some of the money is going toward building me a home theater PC, including internal Blu-Ray drive. As with most of my computer purchases, I hit up the great Newegg. I made my order during a period of a couple of hours when work was slow, finally. A little while later I get an email notice saying that my credit card was declined. I went looking at my order and found that I had typed in my zip code as 14550 instead of 14450. So I contacted Newegg and had them change the data in my order and resubmit. Some time passes and I get the same email again informing me that my card was declined... again.

Alright, so I'm irritated at this point, but not pissed yet. When I got home from the gym I called the number on the back of the credit card thinking, "I'm gonna get my customer service on!". The automated message relays three purchases to me and asks if I recognize and authorize them. Two were Microsoft points purchases I had made and one was the computer. I pressed the "Authorize my fucking purchases already" button, then contacted Newegg a while later to have them run my card again.

OK, so once again the card gets declined. The email about this was received while I was in Best Buy. I just stood there incredulous in the aisle. People around me probably thought something weird was going on. Now, keep in mind that this is NOT the first time I have made a large random purchase on this card. As I was standing there trying to keep myself from breaking something I got a call from the card company. A very pleasant sounding you woman named Julie called from their fraud department. She was very sweet and apologetic about the whole thing and said that she told the system to allow my shit to go down. I thanked her and refrained from breaking Best Buy's precious merchandise. I got home, contacted Newegg AGAIN, and had them rerun the card.

Any guesses where this is going...? Declined! Fuck this shit! I went to Newegg, canceled the order and reordered with my debit card. So much for getting points on my credit card, I guess. Now I know that they've got algorithms that look at spending habits and try to spot fraud, probably some kind of genetic algorithm or a simple neural network algorithm, but haven't they seen my buy a $1400 TV, a $400 receiver, and an $1800 sound system within the last year? Honestly! They need to train the algorithms better, or get better programmers. And when you tell me that I'm authorized to make my purchases, I damn sure better be able to make my purchases! I'm probably going to fire off an angry letter to their customer (dis)service department and let them know that if that happens again I'll go to a direct competitor.

Beer Review: Koningshoeven Quad

Quad, Koningshoeven

Pour
The Quad pours with a thin white head that dissipates quickly. There is no lacing to speak of other than a thin white ring around the edge of the glass just floating on the beer.

Aroma
The nose is met initially with a moderately sweet malty aroma. There is a light, almost honey-like aroma behind the malt with a mild bitter citrus aroma. The background aroma is more like a bitter orange rind than anything, and blends beautifully with the honey-malt aroma. These aromas are all reinforced by a strongly floral set of esters from the yeast.

Appearance
This one is a dark amber color with a light haze. There are several dozen columns of carbonation bubbles rising to the surface.

Flavor
The tip of the tongue is met with a sharp sting from the traditionally high level of carbonation seen in Belgian beers. The sides of the tongue get a candy-like sweetness, while the rest of the mouth gets a combination of a syrupy sweetness, a touch of hops bitterness, some orange flavor, and a hint of bread. Initially, the alcohol blends with the rest of the flavors and not distinguishable. The aftertaste leaves a fair bit of alcohol warmth, like the last lingering warmth from a shot of whiskey.

Mouthfeel
After the initial sharpness of the carbonation, the beer has a thinner syrup-like quality akin to what 100% pure maple syrup would have.

Overall
The flavors work really well together, making it seem like someone mixed syrup with some orange rinds and some flowers. If you're looking for a quad that isn't as overly thick as some others tend to be, this is the one. None of the flavors is over powering, and they all seem to blend really well. Absolutely delicious. Highly recommended.

Brewing Series

I really liked doing a series of brews using the same yeast cake. The fermentations were excellent and quick, so I'm already planning on my next series. I haven't brewed anything Belgian in a long time, and they really like to have lots of yeast pitched into them, so I think it's about time.

I'm thinking something along the lines of doing a relatively weaker beer, then a mid-strength beer, then something uber. Maybe do: Belgian brown (5%-ish), a dubbel (7%-ish), and finish with a quad or a dark strong or something similar (9-12%-ish). Style, yeast and recipe suggestions are always welcome. Obviously I'm going for a series of dark beers, but I could just as easily go light (pale - blonde - tripel?).

Gravity Sample: Mocha Porter

The fermentation of the coffee-chocolate porter was minimal yesterday and today, so I checked its gravity this evening. It went from 1.074 to 1.018 in 4 days! Nice. That puts it over 7%. The coffee flavor came through beautifully (making it worthy of the name Mocha Porter) with the chocolate actually being fairly subtle, but still providing a good base flavor. It had the silkiness in the mouthfeel from the flaked oats, too. It smelled... roasty. As in a mix of roasted flavors. Definitely something that is waaay young and needs a decent amount of maturation, not to mention it needs to completely finish fermenting, but it's looking gooooood. :) I may rack it to secondary on Sunday (provided it's done bubbling) and just stick it in a closet to condition for a number of weeks.

The brown porter that I kegged on Sunday should be carbonated soon, so I'll probably hook up a tap to it tomorrow or Saturday and give it a taste. It's good to see multiple kegs in my chest freezer. :)

Update: Chocolate Porter

I'm going to refer to this one as just a chocolate porter until I taste it and see how well the coffee came through.

So, the fermentation was really vigorous on this beer starting about an hour after pitching and lasting two solid days. It was tailing off on Tuesday and looked to be pretty minimal this morning. If I don't have to work really late, I intend to take a gravity sample tonight to see where it stands. Here's hoping nothing got seriously messed up (i.e. infected) along the way. Also hoping that it attenuates enough to get under 1.020.

Beer Review: Southern Tier Gemini

Gemini, Southern Tier Brewing Company

Pour
Poured really foamy, starting with about three fingers worth of bright white head. The head receded slowly leaving thick, porous looking lacing on the sides.

Aroma
Sitting back in my chair I can smell the sharp citrus aroma of the American hops. There seems to be a sweet, almost tangerine base to the aroma. There is a hint of malt character in the nose, but the dry hopping is too assertive for much to show through. This is definitely and IPA.

Appearance
Light amber in color, almost like it was straw colored with a twinge of orange. Though the bottle states that it is unfiltered, the beer looks almost crystal clear. There is a small amount of haze, but it is barely noticeable.

Flavor
Strong acidity on the front of the tongue from a higher carbonation level quickly gives way to a mild crystal sweetness. There is a wonderful hop flavor that spreads quickly across the tongue, but is much less sharp than the aroma would suggest. There is a strong, distinctive citrus flavor from the high alpha American hops with bitterness levels that are balanced just enough by a surprisingly robust malt base. The beer has a hint of a medicinal syrup-like quality that works perfectly with the hop choice. The hop flavors linger on the back of the tongue with only a small amount of bitterness.

Mouthfeel
Gemini has a thicker and heavier malt backbone than is suggested by its appearance and aroma. It is almost able to hide the 10.5%ABV. There is a mild chewy feeling left in the mouth after each sip which gets stronger as the sips continue.

Overall
This is a really good Imperial IPA. The malt backbone is a little less robust than I would like, but it was surprising given how it looks through the glass. This is a very tasty beer that is a blend of two of Southern Tier's other brews: Hoppe and Unearthly.

Brew Day: Chocolate-Coffee Porter

Today was brew day for my porter. I wanted to reuse the yeast cake from the previous Brown Porter, so I figured that some sort of porter or stout would be a good idea. The yeast cake is Wyeast #1098 British Ale Yeast. It does a pretty good job, leaving a bit of sweetness behind. The decision was made to brew a chocolate stout like I've done a couple times in the past, but leaving the door open for adding coffee as well.

The decision was made this afternoon to make it a chocolate-coffee porter.

Chocolate-Coffee Porter

Ingredients:
Malt
-2.00 lbs X-Light DME
-7.00 lbs British 2-row
-2.00 lbs Flaked Oats
-0.50 lbs Crystal 60L
-0.50 lbs Crystal 120L
-0.50 lbs Chocolate Malt
-0.50 lbs Roasted Barley

Hops
-1.00 oz Northern Brewer (7.7% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Fuggles (4% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Mt Hood (3.8% AA, 2 minutes)

Misc
-10 oz Ghirardelli Unsweetened Baker's Cocoa
-12 cup pot of Kona Blend coffee from Wegmans
-1 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients

Procedure:
-Filled mash tun with all grains except the roasted ones
-Used 3.5 gallons of strike water at ~170F
-Mash settled to 150F, which was a couple degrees cooler than I had intended
-Added the roasted grains with 15 minutes left in the mash to avoid astringency they can produce (based on advice from some homebrewing forums)
-Sparged with 4 gallons of 170F water
-Added the DME then brought to a boil
-Added the Northern Brewer and Fuggles hops
-Boiled for 45 minutes, then added the yeast nutrient
-With 2 minutes left in the boil, added the Mt Hood hops.
-Once the burners were off and the chiller was ready, the coffee and cocoa powder were added
-Chilled, took hydrometer sample, transferred to fermenter, aerated-pitched-aerated, slapped the airlock on

Starting gravity at 70F is 1.074 (adjusted). This is going to be solid.

UPDATE: It's only an hour after pitching the yeast cake, and the airlock is bubbling pretty steadily. This should bode well for some healthy fermentation.

Beer Review: Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA

Double Simcoe IPA, Weyerbacher

Pour
Poured moderately foamy with a decent amount of carbonation being released.

Aroma
The nose on this beer is definitely aggressive. There are strong pine notes with some hints of citrus. These aromas blend nicely and, while assertive, are not overpowering as some double IPAs are.

Appearance
A dark orange-amber color with a light amount of haze. It settled to about 2/3 of a finger's width of head which left moderate lacing while it receded. The head receded fairly quickly.

Flavor
Pine. A very assertive pine flavor from the hops with a moderate amount of hop bitterness on the tongue. There is a light amount of lingering bitterness on the back of the tongue after swallowing. Just enough malt shows through to keep it balanced enough to drink. There is a slight sweetness from the malt that is critical in keeping the beer drinkable. After a few sips, an alcohol warmth slowly builds up in the throat, but the alcohol is otherwise undetectable.

Mouthfeel
An initially sharp bite from a relatively higher level of carbonation gives way to a chewy feeling, leaving the mouth slightly dry after the swallow. The beer is moderately thick, but easily drinkable.

Overall
The hop bitterness, while strong, is not overpowering. The Double Simcoe IPA is a very nice showcase for a delicious American hop variety, and goes just far enough with the malt to make it drinkable. If there was a small increase in the malt base, this beer would be a great example of what a double IPA should be. As it stands, though, this beer is really good and very enjoyable for someone who likes American hops.

I love Dr Tran (NSFW - language)

It's totally worth it for the final minute.

Brown Porter... THE UPDATE!

Tonight I decided to check the gravity on the brown porter and give it a taste test. It's definitely done fermenting, with a final gravity of: 1.010. This puts it at an alcohol content of around 3%ABV. Yes, I know, that's not nearly as strong as most of my brews have been, but it's not really a high alcohol style. Either way, it tastes interesting. The malt flavor has a complex mix of things like toast, biscuits, and cookies as a result of the weird grain toasting I did. The hops come through pretty well but don't overpower the malt. I have a feeling it'll be pretty good once it's chilled and carbonated. That'll be sometime this weekend, I think.

I'll be using the yeast from this batch one final time in a new batch, just not sure what that batch will be. A much stronger porter could be in order considering just how many damn yeast cells I have living in the fermenter. Chocolate porter? Coffee porter? Choco-coffee porter? Something else? Maybe a basic robust porter. Not sure yet. Suggestions are always encouraged.

Update: Brown Porter

The porter I brewed Saturday was put directly onto the yeast cake of the ESB, and was bubbling like crazy through the airlock after only an hour or two. It has tailed off significantly since then, but that's probably because the original gravity was fairly low. This batch is most likely almost done fermenting. I'll check the gravity next Monday when I get back from Connecticut.

Now I'm debating whether I should reuse the same yeast again for another batch next week, or if I should look to brew with some other yeast instead. I have a bottle of the dark Belgian candi syrup that I'm looking forward to using in a dubbel sometime, but I'm thinking I want to use this British ale yeast one more time. Considering that this yeast has fermented two batches already, it might be time to brew something stronger.... ;)

Brew Day: Brown Porter

The plan for my brown porter that I wanted to brew today was to pitch it on top of the yeast cake from the ESB I brewed a few weeks ago. The ESB has been done with its fermentation for a few days now, so it was time to finally get it into a keg and start the carbonation process. I took the opportunity to keg that beer today while also brewing the brown porter.

I posted a preliminary recipe for the brown porter last week, but that wound up being modified before I actually brewed it. The updated recipe is as follows:

Brown Porter
-7.00 lbs British 2-row
-1.00 lbs Brown Malt***
-0.50 lbs Crystal 120L
-0.25 lbs Roasted Barley
-0.75 oz Challenger Pellets (7%AA) 60 minutes
-0.25 oz Challenger Pellets (7%AA) 15 minutes
-Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast from the yeast cake in the ESB

The porter was mashed at 152F with a water/grain ratio of 1.25 qt/lb for one hour. There was a problem when I went to start sparging the mash: some grain apparently made its way under the false bottom in the mash tun and clogged it. I couldn't really do anything about this, so I went to the basement and retrieved the rectangular mash tun that I use for my ten gallon batches which uses a bazooka screen instead. The mash was dumped into this tun and sparged. I really did not want to use this mash tun because more wort gets left inside it because of deadspace under the valve. Sometimes you just have no choice.

As the wort was being chilled with my immersion chiller I racked the ESB into a keg and got it setup inside my chest freezer. The ESB came out to ~4.8% ABV and tastes delicious. Once that was all set, I was able to get the porter transferred into the fermenter that the ESB had been in. It was then that I realized that I had over half a gallon of wort more than I had planned on. This led to the gravity of the porter being 1.033 instead of the 1.043 that I had planned on. That irritates me, but it won't be a deal breaker on this one. We'll just have to see how it turns out.

*** The 'brown malt' listed as an ingredient is actually a pound of British 2-row malt that was toasted in my oven at 350F. 0.4lb was toasted for 10 minutes, 0.3lb for 20 minutes, and 0.3lb for 35 minutes. This should be an interesting experiment.

Holy Roasted Malts, Batman!

Last night I made the "brown malt" that will be used to brew my brown porter this week. The procedure is as follows:
Grain used: 1lb of British 2-row
-preheat oven to 350F
-spread 6.4oz of grain on a cookie sheet
-leave in oven for 10 minutes
-remove grain
-spread 4.8oz of grain on cookie sheet
-leave in oven for 20 minutes
-remove grain
-spread 4.8oz of grain on cookie sheet
-leave in oven for 35 minutes
-enjoy your apartment smelling like toast all day

I like experimenting with home roasted grains. The other times I've done this I have used a whole pound of grain and had it toasting for 30 minutes. That was for a bitter I made that came out awesome.

Update and Big Day Coming Up

The ESB now sits at 1.019 and is still bubbling ever so slightly. I'm leaving it until Thursday to keg, just to make sure it's done. It tastes delicious, even without carbonation or proper chilling. The hop bitterness nicely balances the toasted maltiness, with the balance leaning mildly to the hoppy side. There's a nice lightly sweet and nicely toasty malt flavor up front, with a solid, but muted hop bitterness at the back of the tongue. It has a mild earthy and toasty aroma to it. The color is a brown-ish orange and is really clear. This isn't the best bitter I've made so far, but it's making a serious challenge for that title. I have a few ideas for how to make the recipe better in the future, so that may be another brew I make down the road.

Now to talk about the big day. No, I'm not talking about the inauguration tomorrow, I'm talking about the three year anniversary of the first batch of beer I brewed! Next Thursday (the 29th) is the exactly three years after Dave and I brewed that first brown ale with all my equipment that I had pilfer... um, borrowed from my dad's lab at Cornell. Since I don't work on Fridays, that Thursday is a perfect time to brew a batch in celebration. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to brew for that, but it's going to be awesome (possibly a chocolate stout recipe based on our original recipe with some tweaks).

ESB Update

The ESB looks like it's finished fermenting. I'll check the airlock tonight along with the gravity, if there's still a little bit of activity I'll rack to secondary so I can have the primary free for later this week. If there's no activity in the airlock and the gravity looks good, I may just keg it tonight. There is a keg sitting in my kitchen right now soaking in B-Bright to get any beer residue out from the last batch, and I can sanitize it quickly if necessary. This beer tasted really good last time I took a reading, so I can't wait to have it in a keg.

Upcoming Recipe: Brown Porter

I've come to a decision on the recipe for the brown porter I plan on making this weekend.

6.00lb British pale malt
1.00lb Brown malt*
0.50lb Crystal 40L
0.25lb Chocolate malt

0.75oz Challenger pellet hops (7%AA) 60 minutes
0.25oz Challenger pellet hops (7%AA) 15 minutes
Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast

* The 'brown malt' is going to be something made in my kitchen based loosely on instructions from a book on Mild Ale that I have. There's no commercial brown ale malt available around here, so I have to make it. This will consist of one pound of pale malt going into my oven at 350F.
0.40lb for 10 minutes
0.30lb for 20 minutes
0.30lb for 35 minutes
This will develop the different flavors that brown malt typically have, or at least it will come reasonably close, I guess. Either way, it'll be an interesting experiment.

Try Try Again

Having found a number of likely causes of the weird flavors in my previous batches of beer, and with the recent success of my most recent one, I have decided to brew another this weekend to make sure my system is alright before moving onto the bigger beers I'm looking at doing soon. I'm looking to make a batch that is fairly light on cost, so it will need to be lower in gravity and lower in hops, but I'm looking for another winter style. That leads me to a style I've never tried making before: Brown Porter. It just sounds like an interesting style to try if I'm going to stay light on the gravity while aiming to have a good amount of flavor. I'll try my hand at constructing a recipe tonight or tomorrow and post it.

Beer Updates

Tonight I took gravity readings for the ESB and the American Pale Ale I brewed recently. The APA came in at 1.010 for its gravity, which was lower than anticipated (probably due to low mash temps). This one has the same weird taste the Amber has, so now I'm starting to get worried. The gravity of the ESB came in at 1.022, but that just needs more time. The ESB tastes fantastic, contrary to the other two batches I have sitting there. I have no idea what happened to the other batches, but I guess I'll leave them both in secondary fermenters and monitor how they taste over time. Sigh, at least the most recent batch worked out well.

UPDATE: After discussing my flavor issue with another brewer, it would seem that age of my yeast may be a contributing factor. The yeast in the batches that are weird was really old, but the yeast in the ESB was brand new. I'm going to plan a brew for this weekend that doesn't include too much cost in ingredients as a test batch to see if I've removed the problem by using new yeast. I plan on continuing to look for other possibilities, so we'll see what I come up with by the weekend.

Brewday: After Action

Yesterday I brewed an ESB I had been planning. The plan was to reuse the yeast cake from the amber that was in one of my fermenters. As the ESB was boiling in the kettle, I took a gravity reading on the amber. I don't exactly know how to describe the flavor of the amber, but it definitely has some peculiarity to it. It definitely tastes like there was too much hoppiness in the boil, which is true considering the gravity of the beer was 2/3 of what I was hoping so the hops in the boil were over-utilized. I racked it to a secondary to sit for a few weeks to see if this flavor will condition out. It still tastes weird on top of the over-hoppiness, but I don't know how to describe it. I'm just trying to worry too much about it right now.

The problem with this is that I kinda got worried during the boil yesterday that the using the yeast cake from that amber might not be the best idea for the ESB. So, at the last second I dumped the yeast cake and cleaned and sanitized the fermenter and got the ESB wort transferred to it and capped. When I made the decision to dump the yeast cake I had to look through my fridge to see what yeast packs I had left. My yeast stock, according to my memory, was a Belgian saison yeast and an Irish Ale yeast. Turns out that I also had a Wyeast pack of British Ale yeast, which was perfect and seemed like a fucking miracle. I sat that next to the heater that was warming the fermenters in the kitchen, popped the nutrient pack when it was warm enough, then pitched the yeast a couple hours later when the package was bulging.

To avoid this type of trouble again, I will be checking the gravity on the American Pale Ale I have fermenting so I can know whether or not to get new yeast for the American IPA I'm brewing soon.

And for the record, the gory details of the yesterday's ESB:
-9.00lbs British pale malt
-1.00lbs mild malt
-0.50lbs toasted malt
-0.25lbs Crystal 120L
-0.25lbs wheat malt

-1.00oz Challenger pellet hops (7%AA) 60 min
-0.50oz Liberty pellet hops (4.1%AA) 30 min
-0.50oz Liberty pellet hops (4.1%AA) 0 min

-Wyeast (#1098) British Ale Yeast

Mash was 3.5G of water with a mash temp of 155F for 75 minutes.
Sparged with 4G of water at 170F.
Two more gallons were added to the kettle for the boil. I probably would have had slightly better extraction by using those two gallons for the sparge, but I don't have a large enough pot to heat six gallons of sparge water. Oh well, I'm running at a solid 70% extraction efficiency, which is respectable.

Brewday

I brewed my ESB today. It's a long story as to how it went, though, so I'll post more about it later. Let's just say that it wasn't a very good brew day, so I need a drink.