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Cold Weather And Slow Fermentation And How To Solve It

When the cold weather comes around we start to get the phone calls about how the fermentation is  not starting or being sluggish at first.  Well if it makes you feel any better, it’s usually not anything you did.  Usually around this time of year it’s because of the weather and the cooler fermentation temperatures.

In the summer time you can assume that your ale will ferment around 72-75 degrees.  At the end of July and early August maybe even warmer.  In the winter you can assume that it will be fermenting around 68.  Since yeast is pretty finicky about temperature, this can play a big part in your fermentation process.  Even if your thinking, “But it’s just a few degrees” the answer still remains as, yes it’s a big enough deal to mess with the fermentation.

Temperatures that are in the 60’s can play a bit of a challenge for yeast.  There is a plus though, this temperature range is about as perfect as you can get if you are going for a clean batch of ale.  So as a brewer think of turning this negative with colder fermentation temperature to a BIG positive.  How so? It’s easy.

First I would treat any ale that you are making in the cold months as if it were a big beer.  Think of making a starter, if that isn’t working for you or for what ever reason you don’t have the means of doing that, think about adding yeast nutrient.

Second, I would pick a yeast that does not flocculate that high.  White labs website has a list of all there different yeast strains and how they flocculate.  They will let you know if it is, “High”, “Medium”, or “Low”.  You want to choose one that is low or medium.

Other then being a pretty cool word to say, what is flocculation?  Flocculation is how much yeast tends to clump up.  All yeast strands have this characteristic to it, it really depends on how high or low it is though.  The higher the flocculation rate is, the more the yeast will clump and then sink to the bottom of the fermenter.

When fermenting in cooler temperatures, yeast has the tendency to flocculate even more, which is exactly why your fermentation will get stuck or slow down more in the winter than in the summer.

A solution for winter fermentation issues is usually by rousing up the yeast.  Just shake your fermentation vessel up to try to get the yeast on the bottom of the fermenter kicked back up.  It doesn’t hurt your beer, it actually helps.  Just be careful if you have glass, no reason to lose your beer and a carboy when shaking it up.

Does anyone find that there fermentation problems increase in the winter time?

 

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How To Dry Hop

There’s a lot of ways to bring out a nice hop aroma in your beer.  One of the best way’s to do so in my opinion is to dry hop your beer.  So what is dry hoping? Simply dry hoping is adding hops in your beer unusually while it is in secondary fermentation.  Some myths that I feel need to be clarified about dry hopping have to be addressed maybe this is in hopes to end the hate on dry hopping.

When dry hopping, most people are concerned with contaminating their beer. This is understandable because so many in the homebrewing world are very concerned with contamination, me never been really that OCD about it. While it is true that uncooked hops (such as not boiling your hops in the wort) may contain some bacteria on them, the acts of dry hopping virtually never contaminates a beer.

There are a few reasons that you can make this assumption and continue to dry hop without any fear.  When fermentation takes place, the beer will become anaerobic. In general, most contaminates are aerobic, meaning that they need oxygen.  Next after fermentation takes place there is alcohol, this again inhibits most organisms to grow, I mean it even kills the yeast.  The last factor, when fermentation takes place the pH in beer drop, becoming more acidic again making a hostile environment for these bacteria.

Back to dry hopping when racking to your secondary fermenter, take your container of hops, open them dump them in the carboy.  Now siphon in the beer.  Allow them to sit for 2 weeks before bottling.  I know, it’s a very complicated process…

You don’t need hop bags, but if you wanted to use them it wouldn’t hurt the process.  In the case of using hop bags just make sure that they are clean and disinfected. The plus side to using a hop bag for this is that you will have less sediment.  One trick to keep a hop bag on the bottom is take a stainless steel nut, bolt, or screw, and put it in the bag after it is disinfected – this will act as a weight. Another on is you can always disinfect a marble and put it in the bag as well.  Since the weight is stainless steel or glass, you do not worry about it changing the flavor or your beer.

Dry hopping is a great technique that can totally change the flavor or any of your beers.  Most often you will find that dry hopping happens is Pale Ales as well as with IPA’s.

If you end up dry hopping beers, you’ll notice that you might not need as many hops in the boil to get the full, “hoppyness” of the beer.  The reason being in my opinion is, what you smell is what you taste.  It doesn’t matter if you’re opening from a bottle or sipping from a glass, when the first thing you smell are fresh hops you are automatically preparing your senses to taste hops.  With that said, you will taste more hops.

Truthfully, I don’t really dry hop.  The reason I don’t is that my favorite styles don’t need dry hops.  I know this will sound old to many people but I feel I must say it again, I make styles like Scottish, Milds, Browns, Irish Reds, just European brews.  I make those a lot, for what ever reason pub ale’s are just my favorite.  A lot of these you can also assume that you are going to use a total of 4 different types of hops: Fuggles, Kent, Styrian, Willamette.  In those styles you really don’t find it helping the recipe to dry hop.  But if your making other styles it’s something that you might want to consider.

Hope this helps those that are, “hop heads” or people trying to put their nerves to ease about dry hopping their beers.

Cheers

~Derek

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13 Steps To Make Culturing Yeast Easy

One of the easiest ways to save money with homebrewing is culturing your own yeast.  Before you have a knee jerk reaction thinking that it is hard or complicated just know people have doing this since there were pyramids if they can do it, you can too.

One reason why you might want to culture your own yeast is if you use that yeast in a lot for your beers.  An example is WLP001 California Ale Yeast or 1056 American Ale.  One that I am starting to love is the relatively new White Labs Yeast 090 San Diego Yeast which has a super fast fermentation.  By being able to keep these yeast around on stand by you have just saved yourself about $7 per recipe, not bad.  If you brew once a week it’s about $30 a month, not to shabby at all.

To culture your own yeast all you have to follow are these 13 easy steps and also all of this information can be found in the book, “The Joy Of Homebrewing”.

What you need first:

  1. 12 330ml beer bottles (12 oz bottles)
  2. 12 bottle caps
  3. 3 fermentation locks with #2 stoppers with a hole in them
  4. 6 oz (170g) dried light malt extract
  5. 1/4 oz (7g) bitter whole hops
  6. 2.5 qt. water
  7. House hold bleach
  8. Cheap Vodka
  9. Small, fine strainer
  10. Q-Tips
  11. Glass measuring cup with pouring spout

After you have collected all of your supplies,

  1. Boil the malt extract and hops in water for 30min.
  2. While the wort is boiling, take the bleach (or your preference of sanitizer) and sanitize your bottles.  Use 1/4 tsp (2ml) per bottle.  Fill with water and let them soak for 15min.
  3. You will also want to ether boil the bottle caps and measuring cup for 15min or you can soak them in the cheap but high proof vodka.
  4. After the wort has boiled for 30min, remove hops by pouring wort through a strainer into another pot.
  5. Bring to a boil again and boil for at least 10 more minutes.
  6. Drain all the water from the beer bottles then take the sterile measuring cup, pour about 6 oz of boiling sterile wort into each sanitized bottle.
  7. Cap immediately with sterile caps.
  8. Label the bottles.  Let them cool, once they are cooled down a bit put them in your refrigerator.
  9. Remove the bottle filled with beer wort from storage and shake.
  10.  Prepare a solution of 1 teaspoon of household bleach per qt of water and immerse rubber stoppers and fermentation locks.
  11. Carefully remove cap from bottle.  Open container of yeast and pour into the beer wort.  Make sure that the opening is sanitized before pouring.  If it is glass, you can burn the lips of it with a lighter.  If it is plastic you can take a swab of the vodka and rub it to make it sanitized.
  12.  After the yeast has been added, place the #2 stopper and the airlock on top.  Fill the airlock with the appropriate amount of water or sanitizing solution.
  13. Allow the wort to sit at room temp for about 18 hours (you will want a strong fermentation), then place in refrigerator.  The idea behind the refrigeration is that the decrease in temperature will make the yeast go dormant.  The yeast should remain healthy for another 2 weeks before having to propagate the yeast in another bottle of sterile beer.

After a prolonged period, the yeast will begin to die.  This period will be shortened if the yeast is agitated.  Yeast can be stored for long period by freezing it.  The way to store yeast without killing it if you are freezing the yeast is to add glycerol to it making it 10% of the total volume.  If this is done correctly, the yeast may be frozen for up to one year before recapturing is necessary. 

 

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1 Trick That Saves Time With Bottling That You Need To Know

Everyone has a trick that they know or learned from some one that just saves you time and or makes life easier.  They are the types of tricks that you can’t wait to show off when you have a friend in the room and the reaction is always the same, “wow that’s clever”.  This trick is on that level.  I wish I could take credit for it I really do but, I learned it from one of my customers a while back.  Ever since I learned this trick it has saved me time, sanitizer, and frustration when it comes to bottling.  This trick is one that you must share with friends.

So when it comes to bottling day if your like most home brewers or home wine makers you have a process that is a bit long and might take up half of the day.  Just know there is a short cut that you can do with no equipment really needed.

THE TRICK THAT SAVES TIME WITH BOTTLING THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW GOES LIKE THIS:

After you end up drinking your beer, wash it out with soap and water like you would normally do and let it air dry.  This is the part where the trick comes in, you take your bottle and some tinfoil torn off such as the picture below.

Take your tin foil that is torn off in a square and wrap it around the bottle.

Then stick it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Just let it bake, then take it out and leave the tin foil on the bottle until you plan on bottling.

What’s so great about this trick:

Why I love sharing this trick with home brewers or home wine makers is that it is simply brilliant.   When you end up baking the bottle and leaving the tin foil on the top you are burning out any dust or bacteria that might be in the bottle, so by all means it is sanitized.  By leaving the tin foil on top of the bottle you don’t have to worry about dust getting back into the bottle.  Why that is so great is that you can sanitize your bottles as you drink them or over a course of time, when it comes to bottling day all you have to worry about is bottling then because the tinfoil will have protected them from dust and everything else that can get back into the bottle.

There is a trick though, when you end up washing out the bottles you need to make sure that they are pretty dry on the inside.  The reason is that if you don’t steam will come out pretty hard and blow the tin foil off the top.

A lot of people ask if the bottles break with that amount of heat. It’s yet to happen to me, I’m sure anything is possible but I’ve never had an issue.

All in all it’s a pretty nice little trick.  One that I hope you can use and give a go.

Question: Do you guys have any tricks worth sharing that people should know about?

 

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5 Lalvin Yeast And How To Use Them

Making beer is one of my biggest passions, but I like to mess around with other brewing projects when I get bored with beer though. The nice thing with brewing is a lot of the equipment is the same from beer to wine so you really don’t have to invest in a whole heck of a lot to switch between the two.

A lot of times about once a month I’ll end up making mini batches of wine or mead.  Over time you get quite a few wine bottles, especially because I use 375ml bottles to bottle in.  When making these smaller batches of wine or mead one of the things that I use is Lalvin yeast, which is a dry wine yeast.  Unlike white labs yeast where they have so many yeast types, Lalvin has 5.

When in doubt though I always figure use a a chart, that’s why I added one below.  It’s a pretty good reference guide.  I elaborated on it though with my own personal experience as well as the ABV that you can get from the yeast.

RC 212

This wine yeast is really great for Red’s.  This strain helps with enhancing fruit flavors. The darker the red, the better this yeast preforms.

Alcohol 12%-14%

D-47

Is great for whites.  I’ve used this one with meads as well. This strain of yeast really does need appropriate nitrogen levels in order to turn out well, so make sure to add nutrient as well as energizer to it.

Alcohol 12%-14%

71B-1122

What’s kinda cool about this yeast is that it can metabolize malic acid turning it into ethenol.  Now in engish, it will make acidic wines or meads, melomels (fruit meads) into more well rounded ones with out such a bite if you start off with lots of acid in it.

Alcohol 14%

K1V-1116

I typically use this one for ciders and natural fruit that are light. It works really great with stuck fermentations as well.  The reason why I prefer this one with ciders and a lot of light country wines is that it is an extremely competitive yeast strain. It needs a high level of nitrogen though, so act appropreityly.  Another thing about this yeast is that it keeps the fruity flavor longer then other strains.

Alcohol 16%-18%

EC-1118

This is a champagne style of yeast.  It can take a wide range of fermentation temps as well (50 degrees up to 95 degrees).  This is a great yeast to help restart stuck fermentations as well get a high alcohol if that’s what your going for.

Alcohol 18%

So if your interested in making little batches of wine what I recommend you get assuming that you already have everything else because of your beer equiptment is:

A glass jug – 1 gallon

A box of 375ml bottles

A bag of corks – size #8 or #9

A #6 rubber stopper that is drilled (fits into the glass jug)

And a corker – either a handheld which are cheaper or a floor which is easier but of course more expensive. 

Either way that’s what your really need to get going with making your own mini batches of wine or mead.  Pretty soon we’ll be posting up so cool recipes for wine and how to do them as well.

But  I’ll end this by asking you, do you have any have any  country wine recipes or any mead recipes that you would like to share?

Lalvin’s website where the chart can be found: http://www.lalvinyeast.com/strains.asp

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White Labs To Wyeast Chart

There’s a lot of recipes that you find on the internet or in books that either have white labs or wyeast yeast, but rarely does it have what the equivalent one is in the other brand.  At Jay’s Brewing we sell White Labs yeast.  I am partial to white labs because I’ve only had good experiences with it but that just may be me.  When I’ve used wyeast in the past, I end up looking like I am doing an impression of a crazy from a halloween movie just punching the bag not knowing if I have broken the capsule in the middle.  With that said everyone has there preference just my own personal experience with wyeast.

With all that said here is a reference chart though of wyeast to the equivalent white labs.  This usually comes in handy when transcribing recipes.

1007 German Ale Yeast = WLP029 German / Kolsch Ale Yeast
1010 American Wheat = WLP320 American Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
1026 British Cask Ale = N/A
1028 London Ale Yeast = WLP013 London Ale Yeast
1056 American Ale Yeast = WLP001 California Ale Yeast
1084 Irish Ale Yeast = WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast
1087 Wyeast Ale Blend = N/A
1098 British Ale Yeast = WLP005 British Ale Yeast
1099 Whitbread Ale Yeast = WLP006 Bedford British Yeast (PS/Sep-Oct)
1187 Ringwood Ale Yeast = WLP005 British Ale Yeast
1214 Belgian Ale Yeast = WLP550 Belgian Ale Yeast
1272 American Ale Yeast II = WLP051 California V Ale Yeast
1275 Thames Valley Ale Yeast = WLP023 Burton Ale Yeast
1318 London Ale Yeast III = WLP002 English Ale Yeast
1332 Northwest Ale Yeast = WLP005 British Ale Yeast
1335 British Ale Yeast II = WLP025 Southwold Ale Yeast                                      1338 European Ale Yeast = WLP011 European Ale Yeast
1388 Belgian Strong Ale Yeast = WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast
1728 Scottish Ale Yeast = WLP028 Edinburgh Scottish Ale Yeast
1762 Belgian Abbey Yeast II = WLP530 Abbey Ale Yeast
1968 London ESB Ale Yeast = WLP002 English Ale Yeast
2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast = WLP800 Pilsner Lager Yeast
2035 American Lager Yeast = WLP840 American Pilsner Lager Yeast
2042 Danish Lager Yeast = WLP830 German Lager Yeast
2112 California Lager Yeast = WLP810 San Francisco Lager Yeast
2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast = WLP830 German Lager Yeast
2178 Wyeast Lager Blend = N/A
2206 Bavarian Lager Yeast = WLP820 Oktoberfest Lager Yeast
2247 European Lager Yeast = WLP920 Old Bavarian Lager Yeast (PS/Sep-Oct)
2272 N American Lager Yeast = WLP840 American Pilsner Lager Yeast
2278 Czech Pils Yeast = WLP802 Czech Budejovice Lager Yeast
2308 Munich Lager Yeast = WLP838 Southern German Lager Yeast
2565 Kolsch Yeast = WLP029 German / Kolsch Ale Yeast
3056 Bavarian Wheat Yeast Blend = N/A
3068 Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast = WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
3112 Brettanomyces Bruxellensis = N/A
3278 Belgian Lambic Blend = N/A
3333 German Wheat Yeast = WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast
3463 Forbidden Fruit Yeast = WLP720 Sweet Mead / Wine Yeast
3522 Belgian Ardennes Yeast = WLP510 Belgian Bastogne Ale Yeast (PS/Jan-Feb)
3526 Brettanomyces lambicus = N/A
3638 Bavarian Wheat Yeast = WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
3787 Trappist High Gravity = WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast
3942 Belgian Wheat Yeast = WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale Yeast
3944 Belgian Witbier Yeast = WLP410 Belgian Wit II Yeast (PS/Jul-Aug)

N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP003 German Ale II Yeast (PS/May-Jun)
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP008 East Coast Ale Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP022 Essex Ale Yeast (PS/Mar-Apr)
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP026 Premium Bitter Yeast (PS/May-Jun)
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP033 Klassic Ale Yeast (PS/Jan-Feb)
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast (PS/Nov-Dec)
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP565 Saison Ale Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP715 Champagne Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP718 Avize Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP727 Steinberg – Geisenheim Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP735 French White Wine
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP740 Merlot Red Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP749 Assmanhuasen Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP750 French Red Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP760 Cabernet Red Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP770 Suremain Burgandy Wine Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP775 English Cide Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP833 German Bock Yeast
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP885 Zurich Lager Yeast (PS/Jul-Aug)
N/A ***No Equivalent*** = WLP940 Mexican Lager Yeast (PS/Mar-Apr))

 

 

 

I got help from

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=44592

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9 Off Flavors and Solutions

Sometimes you just don’t nail your brew when it comes to the tasting part.  To your defense, there’s a lot of things that could have happened. It’s best not to have a camera around when tasting a bad batch of beer because your face will make some very odd expressions.  Regardless there are off flavors that can be produced and it’s best to learn what happened so you don’t repeat it later down the road.

I’ve taken 9 of the most common off flavors that you will find in your home brew and created a guide so at least you can start to trouble shoot.

1) Actaldehyde – Taste like green apples

Cause: It could be because of contamination or because you didn’t let the beer mature to the full capabilities

Solution: Clean better next time, don’t remove the beer prematurely.

2) Astringency – Taste Like Tea

Cause: This is caused from steeping the grains at too high of a temp.  This could also happen when your grain has been over crushed.

Solution: Just pay attention to what temp your steeping your grains at (shoot for around 150 degrees).  Don’t steep grains that are pulverized into almost a flower looking powder.

3) Diacetyl – Taste like butterscotch of buttery flavor

Cause: Removing your beer before fermentation is complete or a bacterial infection.

Solution: Make sure that you are letting your beer ferment for the full amount of time. If you are lagering, allow a diacetyl rest at 50-55 degrees for a few days.

4) Dimethyl Sulfide – Taste Like Cabbage or taste like seafood

Cause: This is caused from a bacterial infection.  Another way that this is caused is covering up your brew pot during the boil.

Solution: Don’t cover your brew pot during the boil.  DMS is boiled off during the boil, so keeping the brew pot on naturally will exploit this flavor.

5) Esters – Fruity flavors such as banana or cherry

Cause: Fruity esters can be tasted in your beer when you ferment at a high temp.  Certain yeast strains are exceptionally more prone to producing these flavors.

Solutions: Ferment at proper temp and also do some research before you pick out your yeast strand.

6) Phenols – Taste like band-aids (assuming you know what band-aids taste like)

Cause: If you use bleach to sanitize, this is a sign that you did not rinse it completely. This flavor can arise when you over crush your grains as well.

Solutions: Make sure that you properly rinse your equipment when using bleach or bleach like products.  Also make sure that your grains are not over crushed.

7) Skunky Beer – Smells like a skunk is in your bottle

Cause: This is usually caused by oxidation or UV light being introduced to your beer. The UV reactions with the hops and will cause this flavor.

Solutions: Do not use green bottles or clear bottles, stick with brown/amber.

8) Sour Beer – Taste just very sour, puckering experience

Cause: Bacterial infection.

Solutions: Better sanitation practices.

9) Sulfur – smells/taste like rotten eggs

Cause: Yeast cannibalism, or a bacterial infection

Solutions: Good sanitation usually helps with this, also do not let your beer sit in the primary for too long.  If you plan on making brew with a secondary fermentation make sure to keep yeast from primary separate.

Conclusion

It’s not the end of the world when your beer gets ruined from off flavors, when you end up getting a trouble some batch it’s best to step back and view it as a learning experience.  I can tell you that if you know what happened to make that batch go bad, or a least have an idea of what happened to make that batch go bad, you’ll do what you can to not let that happen again.  Just view everything with brewing as a learning experience and a lot of the times it may seem your learning on your own, but know every brewer has had some weird batches – make sure to get back on the horse as soon as possible. Past that I hope it helps.  I’ll leave it with you, has anyone had any really weird batches of beers?

 

 

* I used http://www.homebrewzone.com/ as a reference 

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Homebrewing On The Rise As A Hobby!

I found an article while looking on the internet about how more people are home brewing.  I copy and pasted it below, found it to be very interesting as well as put in my two cents.

I hope that you find it as interesting.

Results Indicate Growth, Increased Diversity

Boulder, CO • July 20, 2011—For the second consecutive year, the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) conducted a survey of homebrew supply shops. The 2011 survey, conducted in the spring, saw a dramatic increase in respondents—67 percent increase over 2010′s survey. Across the board, the results indicate that homebrewing is growing consistently, leading to a more diverse demographic of homebrewers and new shops catering to local enthusiasts.

I’ve seen this to be very true.  When first opening the shop, most of the customers were from the baby boomer generation.  That is not the case any more, we have all walks of life come through our door.  A lot of generation X & Y.

Overall, homebrew supply shops grew 16 percent in gross revenue in 2010, which matches the previous year’s growth rate and reflects a steadily increasing demand for the ingredients and equipment needed to brew at home. Additionally, 82 percent of shops saw an increase in sales of beginner kits in 2010, another strong indicator of the growing interest in the hobby.

I can not tell you how happy it makes me to help a customer with their first beer.  At Jay’s Brewing one of our most popular items that is sold is the starter kit. A

Also of note, 43 percent of retailers indicate that the most common age group for beginner equipment purchasers is those under 30., which points to homebrewing’s widening demographic. AHA Director Gary Glass explains: “Traditionally a hobby dominated by middle-aged males, the influx of younger homebrewers bodes well for the future of the pastime.” In that same vein, on an anecdotal basis, shops surveyed indicated that they saw the numbers of female homebrewers gradually ticking upwards.

This is not to big of a surprise to me, but that’s because I am in that group that they are talking about.  People in there 20’s are in a generation which is about customizing and uniqueness. We started to get spoiled with ring tones then it progressed.  Naturally what we drink we want to be made to our specifications.  I wasn’t to surprised with women either.  We have quite a few female customers, I applaud women who know what a good beer is.

With growing demand for homebrew supplies and equipment, homebrew shops are responding to the trend and benefiting from the growth. In 2010, 25 percent of shops indicated they’d been open for three years or less, showing that many new shops are springing up to meet the needs of homebrewers in underserved regions and towns.

The AHA will continue to conduct this survey annually to track industry trends and to supply retailers with data relevant to their businesses. Future surveys will incorporate suggestions from retailers on additional data they would find useful.

To me home brewing is in the up and up.  Most of the findings in this article I know to be true.  It makes me happy to see so many people brewing their own beer.  In my humble opinion it’s one of the best hobbies out there.  Your going to drink beer anyways, why not make a hobby out of it?   Especially when you get into kegging it just makes it that much easier to really get into because you won’t have to clean bottles.  Speaking of, I will be posting soon the biggest shortcut you can take with cleaning bottles that I’m sure will blow your mind as well as save you bundles of time.

 

 
Read more: Homebrewing on the rise | Beer Nut http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/beernut/2011/07/20/homebrewing-on-the-rise/#ixzz1ZwSDEnrT

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1st Step To Making Best Stouts Ever

If your even thinking about making a stout this winter, this is a good one to make.  The stout is actually going to be two different stouts 1) Whiskey Oak Aged Dry Stout 2) Rum Oak Aged Dry Stout.  The thing with this stout, is that you need to plan it out in advance because of the amount of time it takes; 3 – 4 months.  The base of this recipe is a  5 gallon batch of a  “Dry Irish Stout” then I’m going to split the batch in half for the secondary putting the beer into two different 3 gallon carboys.

While they are in the secondary, I’m going to add to oak that has been soaked in whiskey for one and rum for another.  I haven’t tried the rum one before, but a good customer of ours with lot’s of brewing experience told me that this is one that he does.  I’m going to trust him at his word.

If this is something that your interested in, then I suggest you start this as soon as possible because this process will take quite a few weeks.

The scedule looks something on the lines of:

3 weeks of oak soaking   – WEEK 1-3

Make Dry Irish Stout let ferment for 1 week in primary – WEEK 3-4

After a week of fermenting, add the oak that soked into the carboys – WEEK 4

Let the carboys secondary ferment for 6 weeks. – WEEK 4-10

Bottle and let sit for 3-4 weeks. – WEEK 11-14

So at the end of the process it will take about 14 weeks which is about 3-4 months.  Since it’s October, this beer you will not be able to drink until January. In my opinion, that is perfect stout season anyways.  It’s gonna be cold by then and your mentality will be, “Grab Me A Stout”.

For this beer, we will do a series though and go step by step to make it turn out right.

The 1st major step is pretty easy though. 

Buy a small bottle of whiskey and a small bottle of rum. Growing up I always heard when cooking with wine, “Don’t cook with wine that you wouldn’t drink”.  I keep this mentality with brewing as well.  So I have a fine taste, for the whiskey I bought “Makers Mark” and for the rum I bought, “Sailor Jerry’s”.

Now that you got your liquir you need to buy a total of 4 oz’s  2 oz of Oak Chips.  Home brew stores should have them, we do.

Split them up into two different food grade containers.  One will be for the whiskey and one will be for the rum.

The one that’s for the whiskey, pour whiskey on top of the oak until it’s covered.  The one that’s for the rum do the same thing.  After you have poured your whiskey and your rum on top of the wood chips, close them up and set them aside.  If they start to dry out take more whiskey or rum and pour more on top.  It’s as simple as that.  Now we wait 3 weeks.

We’ll make a post when we get to the next step.  Until then.

Cheers

 

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8 Steps Maple Syrup Amber

Since it’s fall and we have already done a Pumpkin Ale, it’s time to stay frosty and keep up with cool brews to show off to friends and family.  This one is quite different, Maple Syrup Amber.  In my opinion this is one that will ease you into the stout making season. This recipe is quite simple, fast turn around and I’m sure that you will get a reaction out of it.

Like the pumpkin beer, at the end of this we’ll go threw the different ingredients and see what they were and I’ll tell you why I made the choices I did for this one.  Now it’s time for the 8 Steps Maple Syrup Amber.

Ingredients:

3 lbs Golden Light Malt Extract

3 lbs Amber Malt Extract

.5 lbs Cara Vienna

.5 lbs 40L Crystal

.5 lbs Cara Pils

12 oz of Maple syrup Grade A.  (You’ll need 6 oz for boil & 6 oz of bottling)

1 oz Willamette

Safale 04

For Bottling- 6 oz of maple syrup for bottling

Directions

1) Take 2.5 gallons of water heat up to 150.  Turn off heat and put grains in steeping bag.  Steep for 20-30min.

2) Take grains out, put in malt extract. Bring to boil.

3) At the beginning of the boil, add 1 oz of Willamette hops.

4) Boil for 60 min. Turn off heat, pour 6 oz of maple syrup and cool down (that should be half of the maple syrup in the package).  It’s okay to eye ball it.  Just look at half of the bottle.

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5) After it is cooled down, put into fermenter and fill up to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast

6) Let the amber ferment for 1-2 weeks. Then its time to bottle. As you can see I have marked my maple syrup so anyone who comes over to my house will not use the left over 6 oz of maple syrup.

7) For bottling use the other 6 oz of maple syrup as your priming sugar.  To do that, take about a cup of water, put in sauce pan bring to boil,  then add the 6 oz of maple syrup and heat up for about a min.  Turn off the heat, and let it cool down. Take that mixture and pour into bottling bucket, then siphon beer on top of the mixture, stir around then bottle.

*If kegging pour that mixture into the bottom of your keg. Purge your keg, but don’t pressurize other then the inital to fill up the head space.  Let it sit for a bit of a week.  You might have to adjust the carbonation level.

8) Drink in about 2-3 weeks.

The reason why I do things the way I do:

Combination of 3lbs of Amber and 3 lbs of Golden light

The reason why I chose this combination is that I really want to bring out sweet tones in the brew.  Amber malt extract is created from crystal malt and 2 row brewers malt.  When converting amber malt extract into all grain recipes you actually look at it as 95% 2 row and 5% crystal malt (60L or 80L depending on your school of thought).  I really wanted to accent on the sweetness of the maple syrup. I knew when making the recipe that I was going to add crystal malts to the recipe so I only added 3 lbs of the amber malt extract because I didn’t want a crystal malt overload.  Having this balance between 3 lbs of amber and 3 lbs of golden light will allow room to add different speciality grains which help in adding complexity to the beer.

.5 lbs of CaraVienna.

Odd grain to chose right? Not used in a ton of recipes, used in this one!  I like this grain a lot.  Cara just means caramel.  It’s a weird abreviation that home brewers use.  Caravienna malt adds sweetness and body to this beer.  It will add a bit of color, not a lot though since its only 20-24L.  This grain does add a very light nutty sweetness to the beer which is hard to substitute.  Substitutes for this could be 20L crystal malt but it would lack the nutty aspect.  CaraVienna does have a nice aroma also, kinda bready in my opinion.

.5 lbs of Crystal 40L

Between all of the crystal malts, I really enjoy crystal 40L and crystal 60L.  I honestly don’t have too big of a reason other then that’s normally what all my recipes will have in them when I end up using crsytal malt.   Normally at home brew shops they’ll have: 20L, 40L, 60L, 80L, & 120L .  So 40L crystal malt is on the lower spectrum of the crystal malts.  When you get into the higher crystals they have almost a raisin like flavor to them.  I wanted to stay away from that flavor in this beer (it’s good for stouts and porters) so I used  40L, if you couldn’t get 40L I would go with 20L or 60L but not anything higher then 60L. If you go higher in the crystal malts you might end up covering up the maple syrup.

.5 lbs cara pils.

This grain balances the beer without adding any color.  Also this grain is great for head retention which is defintly what we want for a beer like this.

1 oz Willamette Hops 60 min boil

No aroma hops in this beer.  I didn’t want aroma hops because the maple syrup is the main thing that is the focus point.  Having hops in the aroma I think could take away from the maple syrup.  Willamette are kinda woody in profile as well as a bit spicy. I figure keep earth (woody) with earth (maple syrup from trees).  This type of hop is a lower alpha hop generally around 4.5%.  If you wanted to add an aroma hop I would stay as low as possible for the alpha.  Examples would be: Liberty – 3.4%  or Crystal – 2.8%.  I would not go to high on the alpha because you’ll cover up the maple syrup.

Maple Syrup For Flame Out & In Bottling Process

I like to use both Maple Syrup at the end of the boil and also in the bottling process.  I don’t like to boil it for too long because I just feel that it loses some of the essence of the Maple syrup.  When you use Maple syrup for bottling you’ll be able to smell it when you open the bottles.  Kinda reminds me of pancakes when you open the bottle.

I would suggest to let the beer age in the bottles for about 2-3  weeks.  If you ended up wanting to add more maple syrup or adding more in the fermentation process you should defiantly let it stay in the bottles for more then 2-3  weeks.  If not, the beer might taste hot.

Safale – 04 or White labs 002 or White Labs 013 or White labs 023.

I like Safale 04 for this recipe.  It leaves more residual sugars meaning that the beer will be sweeter.  Now that is what I’m talking about!  If you chose a stronger yeast then what will happen is that most of the sugars will just be converted into alcohol, making the beers ABV pretty high up there.  If that’s what your going for, then leave it in the bottles for more then 2-3 weeks.  The other white labs that I have listed above will also give a similar effect as the Safale -04.  I would not use WLP001 on this one.

Conclusion:

It’s good, it’s different, and worthy of a repeat beer for next year.  I particuarlly like this beer because it’s nice to drink when the weather starts to change and leaves you with this refreshing taste in your mouth. The hops are going to be on the light side, if that’s a bit of a turn off to you this may not be the beer for you.   You could add another ounce with 30 left in the boil but I wouldn’t want to do to much more (as in ounces) then that because it will just take away from the maple syrup smell. Also I wouldn’t put hops in to much past 30 min because it will add to much aroma.  I would not put to much of any hop in this beer because I wouldn’t want my palate to be in shock.

The thing that I like most about the amber is that you are starting off with a beer that is already sweet, to build off of that I feel is not that hard.  So in my opinion the 8 Steps Maple Syrup Amber is a great transition beer into the fall.

If you think that I’m being particularly up tight with the Maple Syrup and afraid of “taking away from it” let me explain.  I figure that this beer has one purpose, maple syrup.  If you take that away from it, it’s just like any amber.  So when I’m telling my friends, “Hey try my Maple Syrup Amber” the only reaction I want is, “I CAN TASTE THE MAPLE SYRUP! NOW THAT’S COOL”.  A response such as, “I can’t taste it.” or “It’s pretty hoppy” would be a failure for what I was going after . With that said, feel free to take from it, build off of it, or leave it, in my opinion this beer will set you up for some great reactions with friends and family though.

Enjoy, and brew on.

Cheers

~Derek