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.