Cherry Schwarzbock

I know it has been a few months since I've posted anything.  Things have been a bit hectic.

Here's what I've been up to lately -> brewing a cherry schwarzbock for my sister-in-law.  Think about a schwarzbier but in a bock profile.  When doing this, its important not to use too much roasted malt.  Otherwise, it carries too much coffee/espresso flavor and ends up tasting stoutish.  Its also important not to use too much wheat, like a dunkleweizen.  It ends up tasting too wheat-stoutish.

To try to avoid these problems in this attempt, I decided to use de-bittered Carafa II and Carafa III malts.  My sister-in-law also wanted something fruity.  Cherrybock beers have been around for a while, so that's what I went with.

I made this beer back on March 10, 2013.  Its been fermenting at about 45F for four weeks now.  I have just added the cherry puree.

Banana – Lavender Honey Mead: An Arranged Marriage

Bananas and Lavender Honey

It isn’t often that I make something that wasn’t riotously planned out with an exact flavor in mind for the outcome.  This is one of the exceptions.

My wife and I had a couple pastele making days this winter. If you don’t know what pastels are, think of tamales but made with plantains and green bananas instead of corn.  When my wife went into the grocery store to buy the bananas, she said to the produce clerk, “I need ____ pounds of green bananas.”  The clerk told her that if she purchased a whole box of bananas, that she would get a much lower cost per pound on the bananas.

So she bought awhole box.

Pasteles are awesome.  I could eat them until I puke and then eat some more.

On New Year’sDay, we made 100 pastales.

We had 35 green bananas left over.

What do you do with 35 bananas?

Thanksgiving Turkey Fry Homebrew Brining Wort

Crushed Grains for Wort and Grain Bag

It will have been two years this Christmas since I received my turkey fryer.  The ostensible reason for asking for it as a gift was to make the move to all-grain brewing and to move my homebrewing out of the kitchen and into the garage.

It was just before Thanksgiving last year, when my wife and I were planning to host both our families at our house for the first time, that I realized I could use my turkey fryer to actually fry a turkey.  We ended up frying three turkeys last year:  thanksgiving, christmas, and another one for fun sometime in March.

Imperial / Double Hefeweizen Homebrew

This beer is a good example of the iterations I go through when formulating a new recipe.  Originally, the plan was to make a California Common out of a Pilsner grain bill.  I quickly came to the decision that my brew areas were too warm.

So I thought, "maybe an estery Hefeweizen?"   So I took half Pilsen malt and half wheat malt started fooling around.  So I thought "make it big, use weird hops, and dry hop."   In short: everything you're not supposed to do.   I debated for a while on whether to call it an Imperial or a Double.  Eventually, I decided on "Double" because my goal was "twice what you typically find in a hefeweizen."

Here's what I came up with for my Double Hefeweizen:

Pumpkin Saison Fermentation Results

The pumpkin saison is finally bottled and in the process of carbonating.  I've been kind of sick for a while, so I've fallen behind on posts.  You can compare the beer results to what my original recipe and plan was here.

Pumpkin Saison in the bucket

Grain Bill
9lb Pilsen Malt
12oz Wheat Malt
8oz Biscuit Malt
8oz Crystal 20L Malt
1lb Belgian Clear Candi Sugar (added with 10 minutes remaining in the boil)

Hops
2oz 3.8%AA Hallertau 80 minutes
1oz 13.9%AA Citra 5 minutes

Spices (at flameout)
0.5oz Coriander
0.15oz Cinnamon sticks
0.15oz Clove
0.15oz Nutmeg

Fruit/Vegetables
3.62lb (58oz) of Canned Pumpkin Purée in the mash

Side By Side Comparison - Homebrew Wee Heavy vs. 70 Shilling

These are the same beer, literally the same grain bill. The difference is the 70 Shilling was a second running on the Wee Heavy's mash. I filled my mash tun back up with 168F water and drained it again.

I was going to post my recipe here.  But it looks like when I updated my brewing software, the recipe got corrupted.

But its a fairly standard Wee Heavy recipe for a 7% beer with 8oz of Peated Malt, 8oz of Smoked Malt, plus sitting on oak chips for 3 weeks.

The 70 Shilling is a second running on the first.  It came in at 3%.

2012 Pumpkin Ale - Part 2

I've been thinking about the pumpkin ale some more and something started getting me nervous:  when do I have to start brewing it?

My typical brewing schedule goes:  2-4 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, 4 weeks bottle carbonating.  And that's if I secondary.  For this beer, I think it will be worth it.

So according to that schedule, if I want to be absolutely sure it is ready for Halloween night, I have to brew it before the end of August.

Brewing in August is problematic for me.  I had to give up my fermentation fridge to my wife's new tattoo shop:  Liquid Jade Tattoos.  That means I'm at the mercy of my basement and cellar temperatures for fermenting.  My basement is currently 76F and my cellar is currently 78F and neither is likely to change substantially until mid to late September.

Solution:  Switching to a saison base and yeast for the Pumpkin Ale.  It should work.  I've never had a bad fruited, spiced, or herbed saison.

Here's the new recipe:
Fermentables
9lb of pilsen malt (mash)
8oz of 20L Crystal malt (mash)
12oz of Wheat malt (mash)
8oz of Biscuit malt (mash)

1lb of clear candi sugar (boil)

4lb of roasted pie pumpkins (mash) (I will substitute an equal amount of canned pumpkin because fresh pumpkin is not available)

Rice Hulls

Spices (added at flameout)
0.5oz Coriander
0.25oz Allspice
0.07oz Cinnamon (1tsp)
0.07oz Clove (1 tsp)
0.07oz Nutmeg (1 tsp)

Hops
1oz Hallertauer 60 minutes

1oz Citra 5 minutes

(edit:  my local home brew store was out of hallertauer, so I substituted 2oz strisselspalt)

Yeast
White Labs 566 - Saison II

Step Infusion Mash
120F for 30 minutes
153F for 60 minutes
168F for 10 minutes

OG = 1.067
FG = 1.019
ABV = 6.3%
IBU = 21
Color = 13L

2012 Pumpkin Ale

I'm not exactly a pumpkin ale fan.  But I've decided to make one this year.

My main problem with pumpkin ales is that they don't ever seem to be either pumpkiny enough our spiced enough or bready enough.

So I'm going to try to resolve those issues with the following recipe:

Lets get started

As of today, I’ll be posting my thoughts on beers that I have made and their recipes.  I’ll also post my thoughts of craft beers that I have tried and clone recipes for them.  I am going to try to post to this blog on a weekly basis.

A little back story on myself, I’m a home brewer.  I’ve been brewing since 2004.  With few exceptions, I have only brewed recipes of my creation, or at least ones that I have modified to suite my tastes.  I typically brew out-of-style.  My brewing philosophy is,

Styles are very important in terms of history, marketing, and competitions.