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The California Common is shaping up

I bottled my California Common steam beer back on 3/31 (Golden Gate Retriever) and cracked the first bottle three weeks later. I think it was a bit early, as I thought I sensed a trace amount of acetaldehyde green apple flavor. I haven’t had a problem with this off-flavor much in the past. Acetaldehyde is usually found in beer that was racked from primary fermentation too early, not giving the yeast time to clean up this off-flavor they create during the process. I looked back at my fermentation schedule and it was in primary for 20 days (plenty of time!) at temps of 55-58*, which I’d think would be the culprit if this weren’t fermented with WLP-810 San Francisco lager yeast. In reading the description on White Labs’ site, I guess they say the optimum fermentation temp for this strain is 58-65*, so I might have been a bit under the optimum fermentation temp which may have inhibited the yeast from cleaning up after themselves…

Fortunately, the yeast appear to be cleaning up the small amounts of acetaldehyde in the bottle over time. The green apple flavor has dissipated over the past week of bottle conditioning since I opened the first bottle. It’s getting clearer at lower temperatures too. This drinkable 4.5% brew will be one of the two I may compete in my brew club’s summer <6% beer competition. We’ll see if it’s better than the Belgian Pale Ale I’m working on, which should clock in at 5.5%. Read the rest of this page »

May 2, 2012 | Categories: Brewing | Tags: | 1 Comment »

Maibock throwdown!

Happy Mai… er… “May!” Very soon it will be May and you know what that means? Maibock.

I brewed a maibock (Maibark) this past January and  lagered it in my garage over the remainder of Minnesota’s short winter this past season. When cracking the first bottle, I thought it bold yet appropriate to buy a few locally brewed commercial examples of the style and take them head to head against my own. I have high hopes for this brew.

  1. Shell’s Maifest – the most malty of the three, sort of a noble hop skunkiness about it that wasn’t so pleasant as it warmed up
  2. Summit Maibock – thinnest and sharpest of the three in regard to both carbonation and hop profile
  3. Barking Dog Maibark – middle of the road maltiness, some pepper notes and a tad sweet in the finish which will probably dissipate more over time as it was only bottled four weeks ago at the point I opened this one (4/13)29

Read the rest of this page »

April 29, 2012 | Categories: Tasting Notes | Tags: | Comments Off on Maibock throwdown!

I met John Palmer at Northern Brewer's grand opening

I met John Palmer last weekend, author of How to Brew (2006), a seminal homebrewing text for many who have picked up the hobby in the last few years. John was at Northern Brewer’s new Minneapolis location for the last two days of their week-long grand opening celebration, giving presentations on a few different brewing topics and selling his books (I ended up buying the one he co-authored with Jamil Zainasheff called Brewing Classic Styles). In addition to speaking with John about how to best avoid and eliminate acetaldehyde, we discussed his move to L.A. from Michigan, quitting his job as an engineer last year to promote his books full-time and the hoops one must jump through to get a book published.

I was able to attend John’s session that afternoon on foam, specifically head retention. John explained all the factors that go into creating a nice sustainable head in beer and gave some suggestions as to how to ensure retention. He got very detailed into the chemistry of this and honestly he lost me for a good portion of it. I don’t think I was alone, however. Not many people had questions when he completed his presentation, so either I was in a room full of chemists or everyone else didn’t quite understand what he was talking about enough to ask informed questions. Read the rest of this page »

April 28, 2012 | Categories: Beer Events | 1 Comment »

Sour beer flocculation

It was kinda cool to watch the WLP-510 Bastogne ale yeast flocculate out of the sour beer (11 lbs. modified pilsner, 2 lbs malted wheat) recipe as ferment completed. It changed color in a definitive manner three pronounced times. After pitch to primary fermentation color, primary fermentation color to a darker color once transferred to secondary and finally a slightly darker color (and clearer) yet again a week after being transferred to secondary. The pics below were taken over a few days during the second of the three pronounced changes. Check it out:

Going lower… Read the rest of this page »

April 25, 2012 | Categories: Brewing | 1 Comment »

Stir plate for growing yeast

I’m lame. Most homebrewers would have the drive, ingenuity and thrift to to build one of these things out of a few magnets and an old hard drive fan. Not me. I just walked into Northern Brewer and dropped $80. Sorry, but case closed. Call me lazy or good at delegation, but now I can focus on making lots of yeast instead of making things to make lots of yeast. Much more interesting. Here’s a similar stir plate to the one I bought that you can find on Amazon.com.

The first brew I used this on was for my Malinois Belgian Pale Ale, working the WLP-510 Bastogne ale yeast I’d washing from the sour beer primary into a viable amount to pitch for a 1.049 wort. There was a full 24 hrs. between making this starter and pitching. Fermentation took off within 6 hrs. of pitch at 65* so I think this worked out ok.

The only thing I’ll say is that the upgraded $10 stir bar I bought is as loud as shit unless you turn the speed down pretty low. I still think it’s fast enough but I’d be interested to see next time if the smaller stir bar that came with the plate is quieter. Is the noise worth the extra awesomeness of the larger stir bar? Not sure…

April 22, 2012 | Categories: Barking Dog (homebrewery operations) | Comments Off on Stir plate for growing yeast

Hop farm season 2

It’s been an incredibly warm spring in Minnesota. We were briefly hitting mid-70’s as early as the second week in March. Though it cooled off quite a bit later in March and early April, my hop plants took early-March’s cue and started to come up. Check out the Centennial plant on April 7th:

I uncovered all the plants a week later so I could bury the chicken wire around them to keep the rabbits away. They’d already chewed a few bine shoots before I caged up the plants. Bastards!

Here are all the plants after I uncovered them on 4/14 prior to caging them up: Read the rest of this page »

April 19, 2012 | Categories: Hop Crop | Comments Off on Hop farm season 2

Malinois Pale Ale

I threw together a brew day at the behest of the wife this past weekend as she was going to be busy with other stuff. Not a problem! I just moved up my plans to brew a Belgian pale ale by a few weeks (named after a popular Belgian sheep dog, the Malinois). This will be one of the two beers I’m going to choose from to compete in my homebrew club’s summer competition (the other being the California Common I brewed last month).

In my recipe research, I bought a bomber of Belgian Pale Ale produced by local brewery Flat Earth and sent them an email to see if they’d be open to sharing the recipe. No response! :) That’s ok, I get it. Just thought I’d try. I took another avenue and listened to a podcast by Jamil Zainasheff from 2006 where he walks through his own BPA recipe (listen here). Mine is largely based off of his. Given that the caramunich I could get was only 57*L instead of 75*L like Jamil suggested. To help compensate, I used 0.5 lbs of it instead of .75 lbs and then changed the normal 8*L munich he suggested for dark 15.5*L munich malt and then added 6 oz. of 1.8*L carafoam so I could make sure this brew has a nice sustainable head. Also, I threw in a tbsp of bitter orange in at the end of the boil to see if I could help bring out that flavor in this BPA.

Other than that, this brew day was pretty much by-the-book. 151*-149* 75 min. mash, 90 min. boil to eliminate DMS from the pilsner malt and I’m using the WLP-510 Bastogne yeast I collected and washed from the sour beer’s primary ferment. It’s rockin’ and rollin’ as I type this! Here’s the recipe: Read the rest of this page »

April 18, 2012 | Categories: Brewing | Tags: | 1 Comment »

Washing yeast

To complete primary fermentation on the sour beer I brewed near the end of March for my brew club‘s barrel-aging project, the organizer had us use one of two specific types of Belgian yeast: White Labs limited edition WLP-510 Bastogne ale yeast or Wyeast Ardennes ale yeast. Naturally I went for the White Labs product as I freaking hate those smack packs (I can never get them going correctly!).

I knew that I had plans to brew a Belgian pale ale in the weeks to come, so after transferring the batch to secondary, I took it upon myself to do a bit of quick research to figure out how to properly wash and preserve yeast. I watched an annoying but information video made by a guy who probably works as Santa Claus at the local mall over the holidays who was just as over-the-top jolly to match. I’ll spare you the agony of watching that video and outline the basic steps necessary for washing yeast here (let me know if I’m missing something, but I’ll say what I did here seems to be  working great after re-pitching yesterday): Read the rest of this page »

April 14, 2012 | Categories: Barking Dog (homebrewery operations) | 2 Comments »

Surly 5

I was able to procure two bottles of Surly 5 when it went on sale last September and have been hoarding them since.  Since I brewed my wort contribution to my homebrew club’s barrel-aged sour beer this past Sunday, I figured it was as good a time as any to crack the first bottle in anticipation of what our club brew could turn out to be like when it’s finished sometime next year.

I believe Surly 5 is only the third sour beer I’ve ever had so I’m far from a connoisseur, though I’ve really liked the sours I’ve tried. This is in part because I generally drink beer too fast and sour beers slow me down and force me to savor them a bit more. Surly 5 almost seemed like a carbonated red wine to me. Slight oak char from the wine barrels it was aged in, roasty red malt profile, tart acidity… zinfandel? I liked it. I think I’ll wait to open the second bottle until the club beer is done and I can taste them side by side. C’mon spring/summer 2013! It’s gonna be amazing.

April 1, 2012 | Categories: Tasting Notes | Comments Off on Surly 5

Barrel-aging project sour beer

In a recent post, I discussed how members of the Nordeast Homebrewers Club are doing a sour beer project. Since my schedule will be a bit cramped in the coming weeks with the new baby, work and gigs with my band, I decided to get this brew done ASAP on 3/25 so I could ensure I’m ready to transfer this into the barrel along with everyone else’s beer near the end of April.

Using a batch sparge for only the second time (normally I’ve done fly spargin) and trying my hardest to speed along this pseudo-impromptu brew day, I was able to crank it out start to finish in just 6 hours (7am-1pm) with an extra half hour or more of cleanup later in the afternoon. Normally my brew days run 8 or 9 hours so I was pretty happy with my time here.

The pic to the right shows the high mash temps we’re all employing with this brew in order to leave lots of long-chain unfermentable sugars left over for the bugs to eventually eat in the barrel over the course of the coming year.

Here’s what the grist translated to at the individual recipe level: Read the rest of this page »

March 30, 2012 | Categories: Brewing | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

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