Belgian Porter 4/23/11

Everyone was in the midst of intensive academic work, but we managed to take a day to brew two beers. The first was a Belgian porter. We used the same yeast blend that we had for the Ram's Head (Belgian Amber), but used a malt bill characteristic of an English brown porter. It will be interesting to see how it compares to a traditional dark Belgian (dubbel, dark strong, etc.).

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.070

Measured FG: 1.020

Estimated ABV: 6.5

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 28

Pitching Temperature: 74

Yeast: WLP575 (Belgian Ale Blend)

Fermentation vessel: Better Bottle

Malts		Amount	%	Max Pts.	Color
Extra Pale DME		7	74%	56.00	1.25
Crystal 40		0.5	5%	34.00	40.00
Chocolate		1	11%	28.00	350.00
Pale Chocolate		1	11%	28.00	225.00

Hops/Additions		Amount	Time	AA%	IBU's
Horizon		1	60	9.1%	27.74

Less attenuated than we planned. This is the second time this yeast blend has underperformed (previously Ram's Head). Nevertheless, in terms of flavor, this beer turned out almost exactly as we imagined. Both chocolate and Belgian phenolic flavors are strongly present, and the two complement each other well. It tastes a lot like a Belgian dark, but with all of the dark fruit flavors replaced by chocolate flavors. We might have to re-brew this.

Mon Oncle Brewday 4/12/11

The day after I got back from the conference we brewed the Mon Oncle, a biere de garde. The final recipe is simpler than it started out being, with pale chocolate being the only specialty malt. I have little to no idea what the yeast character is going to be in this beer. Even though it's labeled biere de garde yest, rumor is that the yeast is from Fantome, which is known for its saisons. Saison and biere de garde have been lumped together for historical reasons, but in terms of taste they are worlds apart.

I tried a biere de garde for the first time two days before brewing this one. It was Jenlain's biere de printemps. I enjoyed it, but was underwhelmed. As a result of this I decided to increase the hopping somewhat, from 1.5 oz to 2 oz total hops. I think that the beer I tried isn't generally considered to be one of the better biere de gardes, though. Anyway, Jack has doubts about this beer, but I think it's going to turn out pretty good.

This should be a deep amber to light brown ale, with a moderate earthy hop aroma (slightly out of style), moderate bitterness, a dry finish, and a malty, breadcrust type flavor. Yeast character could be anywhere from clean to wild.

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.070

Measured FG: 1.010

Estimated ABV: 7.9

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 35

Yeast: Wyeast 3725 (Biere de Garde)

Fermentation vessel: AHB Bucket

8 lbs extra light DME

0.75 lbs Pale Chocolate

1 oz Northern Brewer 9.4% AA at 60 minutes

1 oz Northern Brewer 9.4 AA at 15 minutes

Bottled 4/26/11 with 5.5 oz of priming sugar: More bitter and estery than the style, but from what I could taste through my congestion, it's quite good and very interesting. This beer is very attenuated (86% apparent attenuation!).

Hefeweizen Round 2 4/3/2011

Tim and I brewed this beer after the Imperial Stout finished, while Lee took the afternoon off to nap. Our last hefeweizen was such a success we decided to go for round two. If you didn't get to try the first round, you're not alone; we didn't really want to share.

At Angry Monocle we're always trying to innovate, and this beer is no exception. The Western Wheat as I have just decided to call it, is a german style hefeweizen dry-hopped with Amarillo, currently our favorite hop. For this brew we decided to take the recipe from the previous hefeweizen and up the malt and add in some american hops. Our aim is to make a beer that's got a good balance of body and sweetness with a fruity kick from the yeast and pungency from the dry-hopping. Its gonna be interesting to see how the fruitiness of the Weihenstephan mingles with the fruitiness of Armarillo hops.

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.062

Estimated FG: 1.015

Calculated ABV: 6.3%

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): ??

Yeast: Weihenstephan Smack pack

Fermentation vessel: Better Bottle Carboy

10 lbs wheat LME (40% wheat)

1 oz Hallertau 4.3% AA at 60 minutes

0.25 oz Amarillo 9.3% AA at 60 minutes
0.75 oz Amarillo 9.3% AA dry-hop

The boil went without a hitch. As usual, we added half the LME at the start, and this time the other half went in at 15. We added it earlier than usual as previous batches had been held up by adding the LME too close to the end. This was also the first batch we remembered to add yeast nutrient (.5 tsp at 10 min). Crunched on time, we opted to pitch right from the smack pack this time, which swelled up like a bag of Lay's on a cross-country flight.

The only possible trouble could result from infection. The outside of the funnel wasn't santized, and the foam billowed out as the fermentor was filled, contacting the funnel. I don't think this should cause much of a problem, but we'll see! Right now the airlock is bubbling away nicely.

Imperial Stout Brewday 4/3/11

In the midst of Div III madness, we managed to make time to brew a beer of greater proportions than we had previously dreamed. This stout is loosely based on the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, with a lot of influence from the stout chapter in Designing Great Beers.

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3.5 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.095

Measured FG: 1.030

Calculated ABV: 8.4

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 54

Yeast: Nottingham (two 11 gram packets)

Fermentation vessel: AHB Bucket

Days in primary: 19

10 lbs Extra Light DME

1.5 lbs Roasted Barley

1 lb Chocolate Malt

0.25 lbs Black Patent

2 oz. Horizon 9.1% AA at 60 minutes

1 oz. Kent Goldings 7.2% AA at 15 minutes

4/4/11: This thing is fermenting so hard its blow off needed a blow off. It's the first time we've had a bucket blow off; I think the lid may now be permanently convex. I guess with the amount of yeast and fermentable sugar we put into that bucket I shouldn't be that surprised, but it's quite dramatic.

4/14/11: Fermentation stuck at 1.030. Tried rousing the yeast by swirling the fermenter slightly, but a few days later, no change in specific gravity. Re-pitched with dry champagne yeast.

Bottled 4/22/11: Gravity still 1.030. Not as attenuated as we were aiming for, but this should still be a very good beer.

Belgian Amber Ale Brewday 3/6/11

The BAA, or Ram's Head Ale, was brewed the day after the Golden Strong. It was a brewtiful weekend.

Calculated OG: 1.066

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 37

Yeast: WLP575 (Belgian Ale Blend)

Malts		Amount	%	Max Pts.	Color
LME		9	90%	45.33	5.00
Crystal 40		0.5	5%	35.00	40.00
Caravienne		0.5	5%	35.00	20.00

Hops/Additions		Amount	Time	AA%	IBU's
Saaz		1.5	60	3.3%	15.51
Saaz		0.5	0	3.3%	0.00
Styrian Goldings		0.5	0	3.5%	0.00
Saaz		0.5	15	3.3%	2.56
Styrian Goldings		0.5	15	3.5%	2.72
Styrian Goldings		1.5	60	3.5%	16.45

Golden Bear Brewday 3/5/11

Today we brewed a Belgian Golden Strong Ale, similar to Duvel. A very simple recipe with one hop, one malt, and 2 lbs of cane sugar. The sugar dries out the beer so that it is very crisp at a high ABV.

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.072 (including sugar during fermentation)

Measured FG: 1.008

Calculated ABV: 8.5

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 39

Vol. CO2: 2.9

Yeast: WLP570 (Golden Strong)

Measured pitching temp: 63F

Fermentation vessel: AHB Bucket

Days in primary: 16

8 lbs Extra Pale LME

2 lbs cane sugar

3.5 oz Saaz 3.3% AA at 60 minutes

Since the recipe was so simple, the brewday was quite easy, though somewhat complicated by the fact that we bottled the Armadillo Pale Ale in the middle of the boil. Nothing to steep, and only one hop addition. The 3.5 oz addition of Saaz created a thick, green, moss-like coating to the boiling wort that persisted throughout the boil, no matter how many times we stirred it back in.

We made a 1.5 liter starter a few days in advance and crashed it out in the fridge the day before. This volume of a starter would be considered underpitching for a beer of 1.072, as I listed above, but note that we are actually pitching into a wort of 1.054, as we won't add the sugar until fermentation has mostly finished. A 1.5 liter starter is right on target for a 1.054 wort. The starter smelled quite nice, so things are looking up for this beer.

3/6/11: Minor disaster. We ran out of vodka awhile ago, so I had taken to filling the airlocks with sanitizer. Unfortunately, vigorous bubbling during primary fermentation can cause the sanitizer to bubble out of the airlock entirely, quickly lowering the liquid level. So I swapped the sanitizer out for water, and in the course of putting it back in, the stopper was pushed through the hole in the bucket lid, into the beer. After much skimming of the krausen with a sanitized spoon, we managed to retrieve the stopper, and will remember to be very careful with the stopper in the future. I don't expect any ill effects, considering the strength of the fermentation.

Bottled 3/21/11: By far the palest beer we've made so far. A bit more bitterness than I expected, but not overpowering. Slightly tart fruitiness, phenolic, with some malt background.

Tasted 4/2/11: Clearer than anything we've brewed before. Very similar to Duvel, but slightly more bitter (I miscalculated the IBUs because the of the difference between the apparent and actual OG) and without the pilsner malt flavor you get from Duvel. This latter difference is surely because we used extract, but I don't mind because I'm not a big fan of pilsner anyway. Definitely carbonated, dry, crisp, highly drinkable, and delicious. I'd say it's a highly successful brew. We named it the Golden Bear.

Raspberry Stout Brewday 2/27/11

On Sunday we brewed the raspberry stout. This beer has characteristics of a Foreign Extra Stout, sweet stout, and brown ale, as well as including raspberries. It has more chocolate malt (2 varieties) and less roasted barley than a typical stout. The bitterness level is fairly low for the gravity, with 35 IBUs at an OG of 1.072 (not 100% sure on the gravity, since I'm not confident of my calculations with the raspberries).

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3.5 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.072

Measured FG: 1.012

Calculated ABV: 7.9

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 35

Vol. CO2: 2.5

Yeast: Nottingham

Measured pitching temp: 64F

Primary fermentation high: 72F

Fermentation vessel: Ale Pail

Lag time: Short

Days in primary: 11

9 lbs Extra Pale LME

0.5 lbs Chocolate malt

0.5 lbs Pale Chocolate malt

0.25 lbs Roasted Barley

0.75 lbs Crystal 75

3 lbs Raspberry Puree (added after primary fermentation)

1 oz Kent Goldings 7.2% AA at 60 minutes

0.5 oz Kent Goldings 7.2% AA at 30 minutes

0.5 oz Kent Goldings 7.2% AA at 15 minutes

We had a pretty major disaster early in the brewday. Since we were using so much steeping grains, we decided not to use bags and to strain the steeping water into the kettle. The colander ended up falling into the pot and splashing wort everywhere. While Jack was getting the stains out of his shirt, I managed to remove almost all of the grains that had fallen into the kettle. However, there was a small amount of grains that remained in the kettle throughout the boil. I expect no ill results because the amount was small, but it's something I worry about.

Other than that, the brewing went smoothly, and the beer is now fermenting vigorously. The fermentation has actually kicked up the temperature of the beer by 8 degrees, from 64 to 72. We had filled the airlock with sanitizer, but the beer ended up bubbling so much that it bubbled all of the sanitizer out of the airlock. We replaced it with water.

3/2/11: Three days after pitching. Fermentation slowed considerably, so we added the puree, which had the consistency of tomato soup and a strong raspberry smell. A couple hours later the fermentation has started to pick up again.

3/5/11: Specific gravity: 1.012. This beer seems to have dried out more than we thought it would. The hydrometer sample was very good, although the raspberry flavor overwhelmed the roasted grains a bit. I expect the raspberry to fade somewhat with time, and I'm also excited to experiment with blending this with other beers.

Bottled 3/10/11 with 4 oz of priming sugar.