We will be closed this coming Monday May 13th. There’s going to be a newsletter sent out also with this as a reminder. Normal hours will resume for the rest of the week at Jay’s Brewing. Hours of operation can be found here.
Session Beers – Step 7 – Summertime Swill or Light Lager
My latest of projects has been working on is creatiing really light lager that you can give to most people that don’t drink beer. Essentially it’s a homebrew version of a commercial lager. It just so happens that it is a session beer as well. For those that don’t know to much about lagers you need to do them with colder fermentation. We do have a guide that breaks down how to lager beer.
If you don’t want to do a lager because it takes too much time or just don’t have the correct fermentation equipment, I would just change the yeast strand for this beer to something much lighter. However, if you do plan on lagering this beer I would recommend making 10 gallons instead of 5. Since it’s a lighter beer it’s going to be consumed pretty quickly and the wait time for lagers is substantial. The recipe listed below is for a 5 gallon recipe.
This beer is light, crisp, and does not have a whole lot of color or hoppyness. Some might say this is what they were trying to get away from and that’s why they got into craft beer or homebrewing. To me though, this beer is something that is just easy to drink in the summer time. If you are going to do this recipe all-grain then I would use 6-Row if you have the choice. 6-row will give the beer an old school flavor to the beer. 2-Row brewers malt will also work just perfectly fine.
Ingredients
3 lbs Golden Light Malt Extract
1 lbs Corn Sugar
.25 lbs Rice Syrup Solids
.5 oz Tettnanger Hops (60 min)
WLP 840 for Lager
Saf 05 or 060 for Ales
Specs
OG: 1.034
FG: 1.007
SRM: 2.47
ABV: 3.5%
Instructions
- Take malt extract, rice syrup solids, corn sugar and put in a pot with 2.5 gallons of water
- Bring to boil
- Add tettnanger hops
- Boil for 60 min
- End boil
- Cool, down, put in fermenter
- Depending if you are making a lager out of this beer or doing an ale dictates the next plan on action
- If you plan on lagering we have set of instructions for you on that
- For ale, pitch yeast, and ferment for 1 week
- Bottle and use .75 cup of corn sugar for priming
- Let sit in bottles for 2 weeks before you drink
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Session Beers – Step 6 – Wheat Beer Recipe
There are just a few more of these session beers I want to tackle before we leave this series. One of the ones that I love to make is a session wheat beer for the summer time. It’s really easy to drink and pretty refreshing. In my wheat brews I like to add just an ounce or two of acidulated malt. The reason for adding acidulated malt is that the beer always taste less, “Flat”, to me. Normally with wheats when you drink them they tend to have a big banana or clove flavor and that’s about it. When you add in acidulated malt it will give a bit of a tang to it.
Having a beer that is a bit more multidimensional in my opinion is just a signature of a good brewer, but it’s even more important when you are making smaller beers. If you don;t they end up just tasting like sparkling water with hops in them. At the same token you don’t want too much going on because something so small is going to be delicate to changes – the balance is key. Acidulated malt will give a bit of a tang, the torrified wheat/flaked wheat will give the beer it’s wheat flavor as well as a good mouth feel and meladonin will change the color just a bit and make the brew a bit more malty.
The hops are really lightly hopped and have a low alpha acid. This is vital for a beer that sits at 3.9%. This is a fantastic summer beer and one that I totally recommend you trying out – perfect for after mowing the lawn. If you are going to do this one all-grain then you would want to use Pilsner malt.
Ingredients
1 oz Acidulated Malt
2 oz Melanoidin Malt
1 lbs Torrified Wheat
1 lbs Wheat Flaked
3 lbs Pilsen Malt
.25 oz Cascade (60 min)
.5 oz Liberty (60 min)
.5 oz Cascade (10 min)
.25 oz Liberty (5 min)
WLP 320 or WB-06
Specs
OG: 1.038
FG: 1.008
SRM: 2.55
IBU: 20.7
ABV: 3.9%
Directions
- Heat 2.5 gallons to 150 degrees
- Steep grains for 30 minutes
- Take grains out
- Add in malt extract
- Bring to boil
- Add .25 oz of cascade and .5 oz of Liberty to boil
- Boil for 50 min
- Add .5 oz cascade hops
- Boil for 5 min
- Add .25 oz of liberty hops
- Boil for 5 min
- End boil
- Cool down, put in fermenter, pitch yeast
- Ferment for 7 days
- Bottle with .75 cup of corn sugar
- Let sit in bottles for 2-3 weeks
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Session Beers – Step 5 – IPA Recipe
With session beers they are supposed to be light and refreshing. I ended up just doing a session IPA a little bit ago and I’m going to be putting it in bottles this week. This one is pretty cool and a bit different. I’ll give you the tasting notes once I give it a sip.
As a base I used Munich and Pils. The Munich malt is going to make the beer a bit more chewy and also make it a bit darker. I’ve done all-grain IPA’s using Munich as a base malt but this is the first time I’ve done it with extract and specialty grains using it as the malt extract. I expect the same results.
As far as the grains go, I took some tips from some customers that make IPA’s all the time and they turn out fantastic. Honey malt really is used just to make it a bit sweeter so I didn’t have to use crystal malt, carapils is for the head retention, victory to add to the chewy flavor, and aromatic to give a malty smell. The specialty grains make this IPA geared more towards an East Coast IPA rather than a West Coast IPA.
The first additions of the hops are some pretty clean hops, Columbus for the bittering followed by a bit of Warrior. Columbus hops are among my favorite for bittering just because they are so clean. Then I did a quick hop bursting at the end. This type of hop addition was added to give the illusion that the beer is actually hoppier then what it really is, since the beer is sitting at 53 IBU’s.
For the yeast I used the new Danstar yeast. It’s actually meant for West Coast IPA’s but I wanted to give it a go for this one either way.
I’m doing a tasting of it with Proper Hops pretty soon to give some good feed back on this one and let you know how it turns out. On paper though, this looks like a stellar session IPA.
OG: 1.045
FG: 1.009
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: 53
SRM: 8.48
3.3 lbs Munich LME
2 lbs Pils DME
.25 lbs Carapils
.25 lbs Victory
.5 lbs Aromatic
.5 lbs Honey Malt
.5 oz Columbus (60min)
.25 oz Warrior (30min)
.5 oz Amarillo (20 min)
.33 oz Amarillo (10 min)
.33 oz Centennial (10 min)
.33 oz Simcoe (10 min)
.33 oz Amarillo (5 min)
.33 oz Centennial (5 min)
.33 oz Simcoe (5 min)
.33 oz Amarillo (0 min)
.33 oz Centennial (0 min)
.33 oz Simcoe (0 min)
.5 oz Amarillo (7 days)
.5 oz Centennial (7 days)
1 oz Simcoe (7 days)
YEAST: danstar bry 97
Directions
- Heat 2.5 gallons of water up to 150 degrees
- Steep grains for 30 minutes
- Take grains out
- Add in malt extract
- Bring to boil
- Add Columbus Hops
- Boil for 30 minutes
- Add warrior hops
- Boil for 10 minutes
- Add .5 oz of Amarillo hops
- Boil for 10 minutes
- Add .33 oz Amarillo .33 oz Centennial .33 oz Simcoe
- Boil for 5 minutes add .33 oz Amarillo .33 oz Centennial .33 oz Simcoe
- Boil for 5 minutes and turn off heat
- Add .33 oz Amarillo .33 oz Centennial .33 oz Simcoe
- Let sit for 10 min then cool down put in fermenter, fill to 5 gallons and pitch yeast
- After 7 days of fermentation add .5 oz Amarillo .5 oz Centennial
1 oz Simcoe - Let sit for 7 more days then bottle with 3/4 cup of corn sugar
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Session Beers – Step 4 – Mild Recipe
What’s nice about session beers is that you can make them pretty quick and then drink them pretty quick. When I say quick, I should say that they could be done in a matter of just a few days. Since they are so light as well, you’re not going to gain some major complexity with them sitting for months in a bottle either. These beers you can make on a Sunday, and if you are kegging you can drink the next Sunday. Pretty wild right?! Hense why I love them – they are the perfect pub ale. This beer is going to be light in flavor with a just a light brown color to it. Fuggles are the only hop addition to this beer so you are not going to have a big hop aroma at all. The hops are going to be mellow and not going to have a huge bitterness to them. That makes sense though since the beer is so light to begin with.
This is a recipe that I’ve used in the past that I really like a lot. This is a mild that is pretty good and easy to drink year round. If you are doing all-grain then I would recommend using M.O for this beer. Also you might want to consider the no sparge technique for brewing since you can do it for this one.
Ingredients
4.5 lbs Golden Light LME
1 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz Flaked Corn
1 lbs Cane Sugar
1 oz Fuggles (60 min)
Any English Ale Yeast
Specs
SRM: 6
OG: 1.033
FG: 1.006
ABV: 3.5%
Directions
- Heat 2.5 gallons of water up to 150
- Put grains in steeping bag and steep for 20 min
- Take grains out
- Add malt extract and sugar into water
- Bring to boil
- Add Fuggle hops
- Boil for 60 min
- End boil
- Cool down, put in fermenter fill to 5 gallons and pitch yeast
- Ferment for 3 days – 7 days
- Put in bottles with 4 oz of corn sugar
- Let sit in bottle for 2 weeks
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Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Beer Recipe
This is one of the more popular Pale Ale’s. In general it’s a classic Pale Ale that has a rich malty flavor. The thing that I like about this beer is the mouth feel. In general most home brew pale ale’s don’t include any malto dextrin but for this beer, that is not the case.
In my opinion it’s an easy drinking beer. It has a nice mouthfeel as far as that department is concerned and the hops leave a clean after flavor.
Since it’s dry hopped you get a big aroma when you lift the beer to your nose. Just a great beer. Of course, if you are looking for all-grain here is the conversion chart.
Recipe 4 oz 60L
Crystal Malt
6 lbs Light DME
4 oz Maltodextrin
1 oz Nugget (60 min)
1/2 oz Perle (15 min)
1 oz Cascade (1 min)
1/2 oz Cascade (dry hop)
WLP 001 or WYEAST 1056
Specs
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.015
IBU: 32
SRM: 17
ABV: 5.5%
Directions
- Heat 2.5 gallons of water up to 150 degrees
- Steep grains for 30 minutes
- Take grains out of water
- Add malto dextrin and DME
- Bring to a boil
- Boil 1 oz of Nugget hops
- Boil for 45 minutes
- Add 1/2 oz Perle hops
- Boil for 14 minutes
- Add 1 oz of Cascade hops
- Boil for 1 minute
- End boil, cool down, fill to 5 gallons pitch yeast
- Wait 7 days then add 1/2 oz of cascade hops
- Wait 7 days then bottle with 3/4 cup corn sugar
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Legal To Homebrew In AL Soon?
It just became legal to homebrew beer in Mississippi a handful of weeks ago. Now the pressure is on AL. Oh how it’s hard to change ways, but it’s homebrew! Apparently the bill being proposed has a pretty good shot of getting passed though. So for anyone in Alabama reading this, just know you got my support!
Session Beers – Step 3 – The Balance (HOPS)
The hardest thing about making session beers is keeping the balance. Balance in a beer is the essential element for having a beer that is drinkable and enjoyable. It’s hard to get and it’s even harder to achieve for beers that are 4.5% ABV or less. In this part of the series we’ll break down some keys to the balance particular for hops because that’s normally where it falls short.
For most of this post we’ll just use the classic IPA as an example. When making an IPA, normally you will have something along the lines of 7% ABV and around the lines of 70 IBU’s. You can do this pretty easily just because the malt bill will give a back bone to contrast the hops. I talk about this in pretty big depth in our series on How To Design Your Own Beer. But when you are making a session IPA, you really can’t push the IBU that high without it tasting like club soda that you dropped some hops in. For a session IPA you have to keep the IBU’s lower because it is a smaller beer. So a session IPA might be around, 50 IBU and that’s the top limit. But there is a way to trick people into thinking it’s a hoppier beer then what it really is without losing any balance.
So the way that I like to add my hops with session beers is by giving the illusion that the beer is hoppier then what it really is. An easy way to do this is by Hop Bursting with the conjunction of First Wort Hop Additions (FWH). Let me explain what both of these are.
Hop bursting is a kinda something new in the IPA world, I’m not sure who started it though. Essentially you don’t have many hops in the beginning and you grow the hop additions as the boil continues. So it doesn’t have a huge bittering part but it grows in the flavor as well as aroma. By doing this you are preventing astringent flavors at the end. So the beer will have hop flavor to it but it just won’t be that bitter. I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it’s the way it works. To ensure that you don’t have any of these sharp flavors that can throw off the balance of a session beer, I really do prefer to use FWH.
FWH additions are when you add the hops to wort before it even begins to boil. Normally in a beer, you will bring the wort to a boil and then add your hops in the beginning. The risk that you run with is that you can have some sharp flavors. FWH additions really do minimize the risk. It’s has a mellow flavor and really doesn’t pack a punch. It’s my favorite way to add in bittering hops into beers.
The last tip for doing session beer IPA’s is that I would use a very clean bittering hop for the first addition hop. As of late I have really preferred Columbus hops as well as Magnum. Both seem to just leave a clean flavor for the beer with out too much going on. If you have a, “Citrus” hop that’s added into the wort in the beginning, it might get carried away with being to flavorful (in a bad way). Clean hops in the beginning really do help out.
I know for this whole post I’ve talked about IPA’s but in all actuality you can use these principles to any session beer. The key when adding hops is quite simple with session beers, if you wanted to add lots of hops, you have to add them at the end. It prevents your beer tasting weird and just seeming like a really hoppy watery beer.
So next we’ll start building some good session beers to have in the summer and explain the recipe so you can get some direction when you start your own session beer.
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A Wheat Beer For Warm Weather
When it starts getting hot outside, wheat beers are a great beer to be sipping on. A wheat beer is a good spring time beer. They are pretty refreshing and have fruity esters to them.
I find that many homebrewers first recipe seemed to be a wheat beer. So if you have been in the game for a while it’s understandable that you might be feel a little burnt out of making wheat beers. Let me assure you though, they are still a fantastic style of beer to sip on and shouldn’t be ignored.
What makes wheat beers very unique is that they have a boutique of fresh flavors and aromas which are clove like and banana like. The hops are pretty mellow compared to other beer styles which makes this style of beer a favorite among those that don’t like hoppy beers.
Here is a recipe that I do every year. Yes it’s simple but it does taste amazing. Hope you enjoy. And if you are doing all-grain make sure to do a 50-50 ratio or a 40-60 ratio of wheat and 2 row. Also think about using some rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge.
Ingredients
4 oz Munich Malt
6 lbs Wheat DME
1 oz Hallertau Hops (60min)
WLP 300 or WB 06
Specs
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.011
IBU: 10
SRM: 6
ABV: 5.4%
Instructions
- Heat 2.5 gallons of water up to 150
- Steep grains for 30 minutes
- Take grains out
- Add malt extract to water
- Bring to boil
- Add hops
- Boil for 60 minutes
- End boil
- Cool down, put in fermenter, fill up to 5 gallons, pitch yeast
- Let ferment for 1 week
- Bottle with .75 cup of corn sugar
- Drink in 2-3 weeks
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How To Make Kombucha
Once you start making beer, wine, or cider, pretty much any thing that involves fermentation is on the table. Let’s face it at the end you’re a scientist and you’re creating something very cool. As of late, I’ve been hearing lots of talk about making Kombucha from customers.
If you have never had Kombucha it’s fermented tea. It’s made with starter culture that goes by lots of different names (mother, scoby, mushroom). Kombucha involves the starter culture, tea, sugar and that’s it. The mixture ferments for about a week to a month and then it’s done. People drink Kombucha for a number of different reasons involving it’s health benefits and just the flavor of it.
Also it’s pretty cheap to make – it’s about $1 a gallon. If you’ve never had Kombucha before you can expect it to be a bit sour, or tart. Some people describe it having an apple cidery flavor. It really all depends on what tea you use, if you add flavorings to it and also the temp. Most places like Whole Foods have it. Give a try to see if you like it before you like.
Even though Kombucha is fermented, it’s not going to catch you a buzz. It’s below 3% ABV for the strongest types. With Kombucha one of the best ways to bottle it is by using EZ cap bottles. It allows you to open and close them as you wish and also can withstand pressure.
Here is a really good video that sums it up pretty well in just about 10 minutes. If you can make beer or wine, anything with fermentation follows the same basic principles. Enjoy!
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