First Brew in Awhile, and... CRAP - Old Hops!

Yeah it's been awhile - Meg and I have been traveling, working like crazy (Meg landed an event planning gig at Revolution Brewing), hosting and attending parties, yadda yadda. Even though rain was in the forecast today, I said heck with it - it's rained like the past 3 times we've brewed, we'll deal! We need a good IPA on tap, stat.

So the mash and everything went well, then it started to sprinkle, then thunder and lightning got me thinking we need to do something. Normally I'd rig up the tarp, but since we've had work done on our house, all the hook-up spots where gone, so into the garage is was! Surprisingly, this worked really well - why hadn't we just done this before? ANYWAYS...

We get the kettle fired up and I chuck my bittering hops in, some Columbus - 1oz as a first wort, then 2oz in a hop sack come boil. After we've been boiling 10 minutes or so, Meg and I are chatting over the kettle when I notice a minty smell - I ask Meg about it and she's like, "Yeah, herbally." I fetch some of the Columbus pellets and crack one open - crap, that's it. I check my inventory records, and we bought a pound of these in May 2010 - crap. We store them pretty well - wrapped in the oxygen barrier bag they come in, wrapped in another freezer bag. But I guess old is old unless you're super crazy and vacuum seal every time, and we don't have one of those. I noticed kind of an herbally flavor in one of my more recent beers too, likely the same problem - hops we bought in bulk last year are noticeably oxidizing. I know that's usually a cheesy smell, but seems it can be herbally too. Maybe it's herbally cheesy.

So back to brewing - I immediately take the hop sack out, nothing to do about the 1oz still in the kettle. Fortunately, the rest of the hops - Centennial and Simcoe, were fresh - so all good there and I think all will turn out well. I mean, there's like 5oz of hops in this recipe before we even get to the dry hopping.

But from here on out, I'm keeping on eye on hop freshness and smelling everything before I dump it in the kettle - cheers!

Cheese & Beer Dinner - CCBW 2011

Whew - we survived another American Craft Beer Week! The Illinois Craft Brewer's Guild always puts together a week full of great events right here in Chicago for the occasion. Of course, we couldn't resist hitting up a few of the events, so you'll get a rundown here. Though it may not have been an "official" CCBW event, one of my favorite events of the week, and certainly the most delicious, was a Wisconsin Cheese & Founders Beer Dinner at Kendall College.

We were asked to attend this dinner by the good folks at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. (Thanks, Joanna!) How can you resist Wisconsin cheese paired with brews from one of our favorite breweries? Neither of us had been to Kendall for a dinner before, and were we surprised by the amazing facilities! The faculty and students there putting out some very impressive food and service for a bargain price. (Check out their Monday Night Dining Series for more info.)

For our dinner there were 5 courses on the menu, plus a beer & cheese reception. It was apparent that a lot of thought was put into each course & pairing. For me the cheeses really stood out as the most interesting part. (I am a sucker for Widmer cheddars and anything Carr Valley.) The Hook's Tilston Point Blue with the Centennial IPA was intense, but the winner in my book. (However, it was followed pretty closely by the apple salad/Red's Rye pairing.)

A couple of the pairings, although good on their own, just didn't shine like the others. The Dirty Bastard made a nice sauce for the Braised Beef, but was just a little too mild for the dish as a whole. Same for the dessert (pictured left). The big flavors of the gingerbread needed a boozier brew - like a barleywine or Russian imperial stout to match its boldness.

Overall, I think this was a fantastic event. It's through dinners like these that people who don't often think of beer & fine dining get acquainted with the subtleties of pairing beer and food (especially cheese). Thanks again to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board for hosting a fantastic evening!

PS - Our fellow guests, Guys Drinking Beer, also posted their thoughts on the evening.

Why We Need an Indoor Brewing System

Yes, that's Matt during a thunderstorm holding an umbrella over the brew kettle, which is underneath a leaking tarp. We also had a floodlight set up just so we could see.

This beer will be named (aptly) Sturm und Drang.

We Took the BJCP Exam

So last Saturday we headed down to Plant Chicago to take the Beer Judge Certification test. We'd been part of a study group, which met around once a month since last December. The study class, led by National Judge/chemist Steve McKenna and organized by our homebrew club, HOPS!, was key. In the class you don't just just learn about beer styles, ingredients, processes, etc. - but you learn how to take the test. 3 hours may seem like a long time, but you need to cram *a lot* into those three hours. Many people don't even finish the test, so you need a strategy going in.

As part of the test is judging, we learned about identifying not only what's appropriate (or not) for a given style, but we also isolated off-flavors to help us identify them. This typically involved doctoring a bunch of Bud Light. This was kinda funny - here we were, supposed beer people, bringing cases of Bud Light to a beer meeting.

We also sampled classic examples of various styles, and each-other's homebrews.

The test itself consists of 9 essay questions, judging 4 beers, and filling out a scoresheet as if you were tasting a classic example. Part of what made the test so difficult is that it pulls from a large pool of possible questions. For example, there's an ingredients question. It might ask you about hops, or mashing, or malting, or water, or yeast. To get a good score on the question, you gotta know your stuff. If you get mashing, you need to talk about what happens during mashing - how the malt's enzymes convert starches to sugars, etc. - there's chemistry of some sort in every answer. To our dismay, we got malting - one of the longer and more difficult questions to answer.

It boils down to about 12 minutes an answer. Even with a watch, it's tough to manage your time. You'll be cruising along on a question when an administrator plops a beer down in front of you to judge. So you gotta stop what you're doing, get out a scoresheet, and judge. The admins can be tricky too - and give you a beer that perhaps is said to be one style, but would actually fit better into another style - and hopefully you can pick up on that.

Anyways...
When the three hours were up, my hand was killing me - I think Meg and I each wrote 20 pages or more. Even with all our prepping, our last couple answers were rushed and not stellar, but hey, we finished. After that, we hit the bars and got ripped like we just finished finals.

This is the last year the test will have this format. Starting next year, you'll need to pass an online, pre-test of sorts before you can even take the full test. The tasting and written portions will be held on separate days. This sounds like a good format, but I was also glad to kick it old school.

I went into the test just wanting to learn things to help me become a better brewer. I certainly got that, but also met some really cool people and got to know some folks in my homebrew club even better. And some of those elusive styles and off-flavors aren't so elusive anymore. Worth it? Totally. Major props to HOPS! - especially Mr. Corey and McKenna for devoting so much of their free time to organizing everything, and to the good folks at New Chicago Brewing for hosting the exam.

Cheers!

BOSS Homebrew Awards, Flossmoor ProAm & Stout!

First off, I'd like to extend a big "huzzah!" to our brewing brothers and sisters at BOSS for hosting a great competition last March. We entered a few beers, and also judged. As homebrewers, we've found judging to be extremely useful for sensory development - that along with the BJCP study class we're taking. As a judging apprentice (someone who hasn't taken the test yet), you'll get paired up with a more experienced judge who will help you - it's worth pursuing as you'll learn a lot about common off-flavors and brewing mistakes, and chances are you'll try styles that you've never tried before or maybe don't know much about.

Anyhoo, we took home three awards from that comp:

1. 3rd place for an American Pale Ale
2. 1st place for English Barleywine
3. 1st place for American Stout

The first two beers on the list were actually brewing goof-ups that we fixed, so I can't really provide accurate recipes for those. The barleywine was originally brewed an an American barleywine (from Jamil's Classic Styles) - but due to some unexpectedness on the brewday and some needed improvising/tweaks - turned out more malty than expected. 

This proved a good case for submitting your beers to competitions. Not really knowing any better, I submitted this barleywine to a different comp where a judge remarked that it was more like an English barleywine. So for BOSS I entered it as such and bam, it placed. Good judging sheets can be priceless.

The American Stout is a recipe we've been working on awhile. It still needs a few tweaks here and there, but here is it if you'd like to try it. It assumes 80% efficiency, and 8 gallons pre-boil volume:

Recipe: Stupid American Stout
Style: 13E-Stout-American Stout

Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.72 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.00 US gals
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.059 SG
OG: 1.070 SG
FG: 1.016 SG
ABV: 7.2 %
ABW: 5.7 %
IBU (using Tinseth): 69.9
Color: 39.3 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 76.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 60.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 67 degF
Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 13lb 12oz (85.3 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 40L Malt 12.00 oz (4.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Dark Chocolate Malt (420) 10.00 oz (3.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Debittered Black Malt 8.00 oz (3.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Roasted Barley 5.00 oz (1.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 120L Malt 3.00 oz (1.2 %) In Mash/Steeped
Hops
US Horizon (9.1 % alpha) 2.78 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Centennial (9.1 % alpha) 0.80 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 5 Min From End
US Cascade (5.4 % alpha) 1.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Chinook (11.5 % alpha) 1.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
Other Ingredients
Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale OR Wyeast 1056 - 1.5L starter
Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:Single Step Infusion (68C/154F)
Step: Rest at 154 degF for 60 mins

So why "Stupid American Stout"? Lots of reasons - but if you drink enough, you'll act like a stupid American ;)

One thing I've really learned brewing this is that stouts really need to age a bit before you really know what the beer can be. After dry hopping and carbonating, this beer had an almost ash-like flavor and I was really bummed out - but it improved over the course of a month, and well, now I'm glad I kept it around!

This beer will also be brewed by Flossmoor Station as their GABF ProAm entry, where a professional brewery brews a homebrewer's recipe. The recipe has to take 1st at a BJCP sanctioned competition - lucky for me, I know the brewer at Flossmoor and lucked out. If you brew it, let me know how she turns out. And look for this to be on tap at Flossmoor late this summer.

'til next time - cheers!

Smoky Red Beans & Rice (w/ beer, of course)

Despite being incredibly busy this winter, I've found some time to try out some new recipes. I whipped up these Smoky Red Beans & Rice a couple of weeks ago. Though a little time consuming, they were very simple and I appreciate that the recipe is vegetarian friendly. (I'm always looking for something to whip up when my veggie friends come over!)

The recipe calls for Corona...strange, I didn't have any in the house. Instead I used a slightly DMS-y Maibock that we had on tap at the time - perfect for savory cooking. We paired it with beer brined smoked chicken. (Will post the recipe soon.) This made A LOT of food, and would be great for football games or a cold winter day.

Beer Mac 'n Cheese

Been completely crazy busy around here - it's competition season!! Though we've been madly fermenting and judging, I still found some time to do a little cooking. I whipped up this recipe for Mac 'n Cheese using Founders Porter last week. There was no porter in our house at the time, so I used the Maibock we have on tap and it worked great. Also, I ran out of panko so I used some crushed french fried onions for the topping instead - yes! (OK, they may be a little white-trashy, but french fried onions are my secret ingredient to a lot of things.) This was definitely not a cheap dish with all of that cheese, but it fed us for three nights and was pretty simple to make. Highly recommended!

Diacetyl Precursors and Purging Secondary Carboys

This is actually the 3rd "official" beer in our Cry Havoc yeast series. First we did a Blonde Ale, then a Maibock (more on that later when we get some scoresheets back - good but probably not in style), and then we brewed Charlie Papazian's Contrarian Amber-Golden Lager, which is what this is about.

I had high hopes for this beer, as it was the only recipe we made that's actually designed by Charlie himself to go with this yeast. After fermentation and a diacetyl rest, and slowly brining it down to 40F, it was tasting really good. Bready malt flavors and nicely hoppy. The only thing left was to dry hop it. So, I transferred it to a carboy, and dry hopped away. Then I was like - hmmmm.... shoulda purged that carboy with CO2. Oh well, I don't always purge carboys and never had a problem. The CO2 coming out of the beer usually makes the carboy sorta purge itself. 

So after 10 days or so of dry hopping, I put it in the fridge to crash everything down. Then today before we went to keg it, we pulled a taste and wow, diacetyl - right in the nose and on the tongue. The bready, hoppy goodness was gone. What happened?

Well, after reviewing my process and going through Jamil and Chris' Yeast book, I think I figured it out. There are diacetyl precursors in beer, namely acetolactate, that can produce diacetyl when introduced to oxygen. These precursors must have been present, and when I racked to the non-CO2-purged carboy, they took up the oxygen and whammo - diacetyl. I racked too soon. Next time, I'll perform a simple diacetyl test, which goes a little something like this. Anyhoo - the beer was butter. Yes, homebrew mistakes can happen.

But Can't You Save It?
There are ways to get rid of the dreaded "D". Your best best is to let the beer rise back up to room temp so the that yeast can reabsorb the diacetyl. Diacetyl is actually a natural product of fermentation - the yeast just reabsorb it towards the end. In lagers, that's why you do a diacetyl rest, and maybe even a follow a diacetyl reduction scheme (cold pitching). But since I'd already removed the beer from the yeast, that wouldn't work so well here.

You can also "krausen" the beer, where you pitch some actively fermenting wort back into the beer, with the hope that the active, healthy yeast will reabsorb the diacetyl - but since I'd already dry hopped the beer (used 1oz), I wasn't 100% sure that would work as the hop gunk could get in the way of the yeast. I could have racked *again* but I also know from past experience that if there's too much diacetyl that even krausening won't work, and there was a lot here. So going off my past experience, I made the command decision to dump and move on, causing the entire bathroom to stink of butter. I generally find trying to "fix" D-bomb beers an aggravating, time-wasting experience that never lives up to my expectations. Would rather re-brew.

The good news is that we've made another, final beer with this yeast, a smoke beer, and no diacetyl (just a smokey nose without any slickness on the tongue). And if there is, well, the smoke covers it nicely! I think this is further evidence that the "D" developed in the secondary.

Anyways, if I make this again - I'd just skip the dry hopping or dry hop right in the fermentor - maybe just extending the diacetyl rest into a dry hopping period (any tips on dry-hopping lagers?). It's an interesting recipe, and if you'd like to try it out - here it is:


Recipe: Contrarian Amber-Golden Lager

Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.72 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.00 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.047 SG
Expected OG: 1.056 SG
Expected FG: 1.016 SG
Expected ABV: 5.1 %
Expected ABW: 4.0 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 56.0
Expected Color: 7.5 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 68.0 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 52-55 degF

Fermentables
German Pilsner Malt 9lb 14oz (74.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Pilsner Malt 8.00 oz (3.8 %) In Mash/Steeped (for boiling - keep reading)
US Flaked Rice 1lb 5oz (10.0 %) In Mash/Steeped (for boiling - keep reading)
US Rice Hulls 8.00 oz (3.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
Canadian Honey Malt (Gambrinus) 4.00 oz (1.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Aromatic Malt 4.00 oz (1.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Special B 4.00 oz (1.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Sauer(Acid) Malt 4.00 oz (1.9 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
French Strisselspalter (1.8 % alpha) 1.50 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Mount Hood (5.0 % alpha) 1.50 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Liberty (4.5 % alpha) 1.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Liberty (4.5 % alpha) 1.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 20 Min From End
US Mount Hood (5.0 % alpha) 1.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
French Strisselspalter (1.8 % alpha) 0.50 oz Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped

Yeast: White Labs WLP862-Cry Havoc, lager-size starter or ready yeast cake

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name: Papazian 132 - 155F
Step: Rest at 132 degF for 30 mins
Step: Raise by infusion to 155 degF for 30 mins

Recipe Notes (from Zymurgy)
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.016
IBU: 55 or so
Color: 14 SRM

Special Instructions

1. Add 9q (2.75 gal) 140F water to rice husks and crushed malt. (Do NOT add .5lb pils or flaked rice). Stir, stabilize at 132F for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, add leftover pils and flaked rice to 7 quarts (1.75 gal) cool water and bring to a boil (stir to prevent boil over/scortching). 
3. After 30 minutes, add the boiling mixture to the mash, adding heat as needed to bring up to 155F and hold for 30 minutes.
4. Raise/Sparge at 167.

I did this in my 10 gallon cooler, and the mash worked great. 

Cheers!

Association of Beer Vixens

Wow, has it been a very beery past 15 months for me! Joining HOPS, studying for the BJCP, being chosen for the CBS board...fantastically fun (and educational) beer times. I must admit my favorite part of all of my new beer adventures has been meeting beer people, specifically my fellow Beer Vixens.

About a year ago me and a couple of other beer-minded ladies decided to form a women-only beer group. We weren't sure how many people would be interested or what our goals would be, but we thought we would give it a shot. Ten events and lots of beers later, over 100 ladies are members of the Association of Beer Vixens (ABV).

It's been amazing meeting so many extremely cool women who love beer too! We've explored sour beers, toured breweries, paired beers with cheeses, poked around Chicago's historic speakeasys, and most importantly had a complete blast. Every single lady at our events is down-to-earth, smart, funny, and helping to break stereotypes about women and beer. Or as my friend Colleen would say "my people."

Randy Mosher mentioned to me once that even if he could never have a drop of beer again he would still hangout with beer people, as they are the best in the world. Though I would be sad if I could never have beer again (and would guess that Randy would be too), I couldn't agree more. So a hearty Cheers to you ABVers! I look forward to sharing many, many pints with you in the years to come.

White Labs Cry Havoc: Batch 1 - Blonde Ale

White Lab's Cry Havoc (WLP862) is a unique yeast in that it can ferment at both ale and lager temperatures. This sounded extremely useful (imagine brewing a session ale in order to provide plenty of yeast for a lager - that's the plan here). So I thought I'd give it a shot - and also grab a piece of homebrew history as this is Charlie Papazian's personal yeast strain.

I kicked off my Cry Havoc yeast adventures with a blonde ale. I wasn't sure if it would turn out more like a bitter, but after bringing it to my BJCP class, the teacher said this is a very nice blonde.

When fermented at ale temps, Cry Havoc gives a lot of apply/cherry like esters, while keeping a nice bready, malty base that makes for a well balanced ale. The northern brewer hops, used mostly for bittering here, give a nice spicy/bitter flavor that keeps you sipping away. And at under 5% ABV, you can easily have a few.

After this batch, I used the cake to brew a Helles Bock, which is finishing up now (and will report on later). When Cry Havoc is fermented at lager temps, the fruitiness goes away, and a sample revealed a nice bready maltiness. Cry Havoc is a low floculator, which doesn't seem to be a problem with the lager, but the ale was a bit hazy - even with whirlfloc added in the boil. If clarity is important, you may wish to cold crash an ale before kegging/bottling with this yeast.

Anyhoo, here's the blonde-ale recipe:

Wort Volume Before Boil: 8.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.72 US gals
Volume Transferred: 5.50 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 5.50 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 5.00 US gals
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.036 SG
OG: 1.047 SG
FG: 1.012 SG
ABV: 4.5 %
IBU (using Tinseth): 32.9
Color: 5.7 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 73 %
Mash Efficiency: 81.0 %
Boil Duration: 60.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 67 degF (ramp to lower 70's towards end)

Fermentables
Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt - T.Fawcett 8lb 8oz (94.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Wheat Malt 8.00 oz (5.6 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
German Northern Brewer (10.4 % alpha) 0.75 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
German Northern Brewer (10.4 % alpha) 0.25 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
Kent Goldings (4.9 % alpha) 1.00 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 1 Min From End

Yeast: White Labs WLP862-Cry Havoc (small starter)

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:Single Step Infusion (67C/152F)
Step: Rest at 152 degF for 60 mins

Big Brews, A Rainy Brew Day, Cry Havoc, and Fermcap-S - Oh My!

The past couple months have been crazy and we've been slackin' on the bloggin' - apologies! Here's a recap since the last post.

Big Brews
Wrapping up our brewing with White Labs 001 American Ale yeast, we finished big with an American Barleywine and a Russian Imperial Stout. The barleywine has been bottle conditioning for about a month and a half. We added both sugar and some fresh yeast at the time of bottling. We cracked one over the weekend, but there wasn't near enough carbonation yet. With the frigid weather here in Chicago and our house only staying in the 65-68F range, along with the hugeness of the beer, it looks like they're just going to take awhile longer to fully carbonate. Pleased to report it was quite delicious and we easily finished the bottle in spite of the low carbonation. I swirled the other bottles and moved them close to a heating vent, with the hope that helps keep the temp up a bit.

I also brewed a Russian Imperial Stout on impulse. We still had plenty of good 001 yeast left (NOT the barleywine yeast, which was totally pooped), so I brewed up a RIS with yeast I had left over from an American Stout - just pitched right on the cake and had an explosive, but controlled fermentation thanks to my temp controlled fridge. I have it kegged and sitting in the basement, where I plan on forgetting about it for awhile. An initial taste was smooth and choclately with hints of plum from the Special B malt.

Both of these beers were taken from Brewing Classic Styles, bastardized to suit the ingredients I had on hand. I can't say enough good things about this recipe book.

A Rainy Brew Day
Yesterday I brewed something like an English Bitter, or at least that was the intent - with an OG of 1.047 or so it's more like a Special Bitter. Boiled a bit too hard/long perhaps. Anyhoo - while I could have diluted with water to bring that down the beer already had precious little hops in it and I didn't want the color any lighter. The recipe, inspired by Steve Hamburg, was simple: 95% Marris Otter, 5% Wheat, 1oz Northern Brewer for bittering and 1oz Kent Goldings for flavor/aroma - around 32 IBUs.

Chicago weather has been on crack lately - while freezing all week it warmed up a bit to make it seem like a great brewday - but then it started raining as I was running off. So I rigged a tarp up to stay dry and keep that nasty city rain water out of my kettle:

This worked out well - it reminded me of camping in the Smokies in November, where it rained all the time. Those are stairs going down into our basement - so there was plenty of room for stacking things and actually standing up at the bottom, where there's also a convenient drain. The stairs are "pool style" - the curved ends are wider than the middle - just enough room for my propane burner and brew kettle.

I normally brew using a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in the kettle to hold hops in, since I tend to use a lot of them. I also put my runnings through the bag to catch any stray pieces of grain that may have made their way out of the mash tun. I then shake and rinse the bag out, and return it to the kettle for hops. But with only 2 oz of hops here, I decided the bag was pointless, but I still used it to strain my runnings.

Cry Havoc
Cray Havoc, White Labs 862, is Charlie Papazian's yeast strain - and I was intrigued to try it because it can ferment at both ale and lager temperatures. So, the bitter I brewed will be fermented with this, and then I'll use that cake to make a Munich Helles, and then an Amber Lager, and then a Smoke Beer (Rauchbier).

I made a starter, and decided to use some Fermcap-S, a foam inhibitor, in it while I was boiling it in the Erlenmeyer flask so I didn't have to watch it so much for boil overs. Well, I meant to add 1 drop, but instead a glob plopped out that was probably more like 4-5 drops. While it did a wonderful job during the boil, there was no krausen on the starter. I could see bubbles popping up from the bottom - but there's something reassuring about that krausen.

Anyways, after pitching the starter yesterday we have fermentation in the carboy this morning. This yeast is very English-like in that it clumps together at the surface like cottage cheese. Will be very curious to see how my Cry Havoc experiments go, and if that Fermcap mis-hap is going to affect the size of the krauzen in the carboy as well.

This'll probably be my last post before the holiday - so Happy Holidays and Good Brewing to all! Cheers.

Entering the World of Competitive Homebrew

We've been homebrewing now for a couple of years and feel comfortable that we're making solidly good brews (most of the time). But are we biased? Are our friends just being nice? I think this is something that all homebrewers deal with, and I feel the best way to get an honest opinion is by entering a homebrew competition.

There are a lot of things a homebrewer needs to think about when entering a competition: carbonation (did you bottle condition, are you bottling off of a keg), transportation (do you have to ship it, how long will it take to get there), category to enter in (is this a Pale Ale or an IPA), and timing of your brew schedule. Luckily, the Chicago Beer Society puts on a homebrew competition every Halloween, so we had no reason not to enter. Transportation wasn't a worry, but we still had to deal with carbonation, category and timing. We decided to just enter what we had ready to go: Evil M-Squared (American Amber), Super Cres (American IPA), and Passion Fruit Wheat (Fruit Beer). The only "x factor" was when to bottle it off of the keg to assure freshness. We bottled 8 days prior to the event and crossed our fingers that the carbonation held. Also, we decided Super Cres had a better chance in the IPA category instead of the DIPA it was meant to be.

If you thought there was a lot to think about when entering, there are 1000 more things to think about if you're running a competition. But that's a post for another date! Let's just say the folks that organize and work the event deserve major props.

When all was said and done, we took away 3 medals. The Amber and IPA each took 3rd, and our Passionfruit Wheat took first. This was a great learning experience - and we're looking forward to entering more competitions - cheers!

http://chibeer.org/spooky10winners.htm

Updates: Passionfruit Wheat and Post-Oktoberfest Stuff

If you read one of my previous posts, you'll know that I've been working on a Passionfruit Wheat and an under-attenuated Barleywine. Here's some updates on those puppies.

The passionfruit wheat is carbed and tastes pretty good - I think it's missing some malt character, or needs less fruit next time. The malt bill was 5% Crystal 15, with the rest split even with 2 Row and Wheat. The OG was 1.051 - and we used 48oz of Passionfruit puree. I've been drinking a lot of Lagunita's A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' which has a great malt base (they say they use 3 different kinds of wheat) - and really admiring how well the malt balances all the hop flavor. It's 7.5%, and a dangerous 7.5% at that - so I might kick up the malt next time and see how she goes. I think I'll also use an American Wheat yeast strain - I just used 001 here.

I will say this beer makes some excellent passionfruit pancakes! Jiffy mix, an egg, and some beer are all you need. Mix until thickish, put in the fridge for 15 minutes, and cook 'em up - if you want to get fancy, sprinkle some coconut in to get a nice tropical aura.

And krausening the barleywine really worked! It's down from 1.035 to 1.027 now. I'm going to let it sit a couple more weeks and see if it drops anymore. I'll also pitch a bit of fresh yeast when bottling comes around, according to these "bottle like a pro" directions (though I've decided to use Safale-05 for bottle conditioning this one). So maybe that'll drop the FG a bit more too.

After the HOPS! Oktoberfest I was left with a half keg each of IPA and Pale Ale. I was sorta tired of each beer, neither of which was outstanding on its own, so I blended the two together to make what I think is a very good, well balanced pale ale that I'm very happy with. To do this, just make a keg jumper from some beverage line and 2 keg-out connectors (the black ones on ball lock kegs). Bleed the destination keg every so often, and slowly push with some CO2 from the source keg - I demonstrate this in my Double IPA video. I love doing these closed-system transfers.

Recently Brewed
There was a Pliny clone in a recent issue of Zymurgy, which I brewed up. It was a totally impromptu brew - I was having a crappy day, so I just decided to f everything and brew something. The last double I made came out too bitter for me, so I cut the boil time from 90 to 60 minutes wo/ cutting the 3oz of bittering hops (though I did use 1oz of that for 1st wort hopping). The end result was I came in an entire point low on my OG - 1.063 vs. the desired 1.073 - oops, tough I did hit my pre-boil on the dot (hurray!). In the spirit of RDWHAHB, I shrugged my shoulders and wrapped it up. It finished out at 1.011 and was tasty - not too bitter or boozy at 7%, so instead of a double I'm just going to have a heckuva single IPA on my hands. It's dry hopping now and we'll just have to see how it tastes once it's carbed up.

Controlling that CO2 Bitterness
One thing I've been doing with my kegs and carbonation is cutting off the gas once the beer tastes good to me, and then giving it more gas as needed to keep the serving pressure up. I think the beer doesn't absorb so much CO2 that way, and as a result, doesn't keep getting more and more bitter as it sits on the gas - as CO2 adds a certain "bite" to the beer, and can also thin out the mouthfeel. Maybe I'm just weird and it's all in my head, but seems to be doing the trick on certain brews.

Cheers and brew on!

HOPS! Oktoberfest 2010

This year, Meg and I will be participating in the annual Chicago HOPS! Oktoberfest extraveganza! Professional brewers and talented locals unite to bring you the ultimate in local craft beer and food. Come on by and say hello! Hope to see you there.

What?
Join Homebrewer's Pride of the Southside (HOPS!) in celebrating the beeriest holiday of them all: Oktoberfest! Our annual fundraiser features music, an impressive spread of food offerings, and--most importantly--dozens upon dozens of delicious craft-brewed lagers and ales from local breweries and the award-winning brewers of HOPS! This year's fundraiser runs from 2-7pm on Saturday, September 25, 2010. Come rain; come shine; come thirsty! Prost!
NOTE: No one under 21 years old will be admitted.

» Get your ticket here!

Where?
Chicago Bridgeport VFW Post 5079
3202 S May St
Chicago, IL 60608

Beer?
Absolutely! We'll be serving up the best local, hand-crafted beer available with kegs contributed by the likes of:

• Rock Bottom
• Half Acre
• Flossmoor Station
• Revolution
• Metropolitan Brewing
• Gordon Biersch
• Goose Island Brewery
• Two Brothers... and More!

Food? 
Not only will there be food, but plenty of delicious food - from authentic German styles to mouth watering BBQ! Just check out this page for the state of the menu.

Get Your Ticket!
All you can eat and drink tickets are only $30 - and you'll need to purchase one over here.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact Mark Mazanec (312-315-0829).

Passionfruit, Barleywine, Evil Twin & More - The Weekend of Beer Trials

Hi all - been awhile since the last post, but that doesn't mean we haven't been brewing up a storm!

With the approach of the HOPS! Oktoberfest and end of summer parties, I've been doing my best to brew as much as possible. Here's the lowdown on what's brewing.

First off, I've been messing around with the EZ Water Spreadsheet - with varying degrees of success. All I can really say is water is a tricky subject, and less is always best. I'm running some more experimental batches with water, and think that probably deserves a post of it's own down the road.

Last weekend I decided to totally go back to basics. I brewed a pale ale with 100% Canada Malting Pale Ale malt - with Simcoe and Amarillo for flavor hops and a touch of Galena for bittering. With no water adjustments or stabilizer, I was wondering if this might mean less efficiency with the mash, but quite the contrary, I got 85%. What I've found with batch sparging is if I give the mash an extra stir or two here and there, it'll jack my efficiency 5% or so. In the back-to-basics spirit, I fermented with Safale S-04 Dry Yeast, and had a good strong fermentation. No taste or readings to report yet.

4 weeks ago we brewed a Barleywine - pitched on top of a White Labs 001 cake with a staring gravity of 1.111. It fermented strong for 2 weeks or a little more, then cleared nicely. We were getting ready to bottle it (everything sanitized and such) when a reading showed it stopped at 1.035 - what the... I was shooting for more in the 1.025 range. After a quick call to a fellow HOPS! member (thanks Bob), I decided to krausen it with some Safale S-05. I made a 1 liter starter, transferred the beer into another carboy, and pitched the starter at high krausen. Now the airlock is bubbling again, and hopefully that'll shave some more points off it. Silly me, thinking a barleywine would be ready in 4 weeks. Sheesh. I think I'll just leave that in the closet for awhile.

We brewed a Passionfruit Wheat a few weekends back. After racking to a keg, it was a bit on the tart side, so we let it mellow at room temp for a week - which did wonders for it. So now it's in the fridge, carbing up.

On Saturday, we kegged a batch of of IPA - which tasted mighty fine. I saved that yeast and brewed up Jamil's Evil Twin (recipe at bottom of page) yesterday. The brew day went pretty well - hit the target pre-boil but my OG was a little low - something that seems to happen to me every so often, even after a strong 90 minute boil. I had decanted the yeast cake from the IPA into a 3L jug - there was a little over 2 liters of slurry in there, which I let sit all afternoon so it was nice and separated (the trub/hop residue/dead yeast settles to the bottom, the creamy good yeast in the middle, beer on top). After decanting the beer, I saved about 1.5 cups in a sanitized mason jar for the fridge, and after aerating the cooled wort, dumped the rest in - doing my best to leave most of the junk behind.

Well, 24 hours later - I've got a bit of very, very slow movement in the airlock, but no krausen. This happened to me before - the last time I reused yeast wo/ any kind of starter, and everything turned out OK so I'm going to wait another day and see (UPDATE: Fermenting strong 2 days later). Seems I have troubles/show starts when reusing yeast unless I either (1) pitch right on the cake or (2) make a starter.

So there you have it - got brats and beer to attend to, so until next time - keep on brewing ;)

October 2, 2010 Update: The Passion Fruit wheat is on tap. While enjoyable, I think I'll either boost the malt bill or cut back on the passionfruit puree a bit (we used 48oz this time), or both. Dunno yet. I will say that it made some mighty fine passionfruit pancakes ;)

Star San + Distilled Water = Star San for Weeks

A few weeks back I picked up some distilled water, and mixed up 2.5 gallons of Star San with it. Normally, here in Chicago, the Star San mixture is cloudy by the end of the day, and the next morning it's getting that slimy feeling - both indicators it's time to dump.

But with distilled water, the PH stays nice and low - and 3 weeks later the Star San I made with distilled water is still crystal clear and foaming just like I made it that day. I put some in a spray bottle, and don't have to worry about it going bad.

The past couple weeks, having this bucket of sanitizer has been very handy - I've found myself having to switch out airlocks, rig up blow-off tubes, sanitize bottles among other various things, and not having to mix up sanitizer each time has been a real hassle-saver.

Is it economical/practical to do this all the time? I don't know - up to the individual. But if you plan on lots of brewing work over a period of a few weeks, this can be real handy. Just cover the bucket with a lid and fill up that spray bottle - cheers!

On Cleaning the Boil Pot

Last Monday I had the wonderful opportunity to help brew a batch of beer at the Goose Island Brewpub here in Chicago. This was to be a collaboration brew between Goose Island and the Chicago Beer Society. The beer is a recipe by Randy Mosher for a spiced Belgian Wit called Partial Eclipse. There were a number of us helping, which basically meant we did a lot of cleaning while guys like head-brewer Jared, Randy, and Ray Daniels took care of the recipe and managing the brew process.

Anyways, of the many things I learned (and cleaned), the one that I took immediate notice of was the boil kettle - mostly because I found myself getting inside it (a tricky climb through the top port - thank you yoga!) and scrubbing while holding onto a flashlight in the other hand (very dark in there!), and trying not to hit my head/rack myself on various steel tubing. Here's me in the kettle:

The first thing that struck me was, dang - even dirty this thing is cleaner than my boil kettle! So I just set about cleaning it best I could before hosing everything down. Well, after assistant brewer Todd checked my work, he climbed in and scrubbed out a spot I missed around the drain pipe - damn! He then filled the bottom with an acid-based caustic solution, let it sit awhile, and pumped it through the plumbing. So anyways, that got me wondering....

Just How Clean Should My Kettle Be?
I posed this question to both Randy and Rodney Kibzey (Sam Adams Longshot Winner). They both recommend keeping your pots good and clean, free of both gunk and beerstone because it helps minimize any off-flavors, saves your pot from pitting, keeps the heat dispersal even, and general peace of mind. On the other hand, I've heard guys say the dirtier the pot, the better the beer - like seasoning a cask iron skillet. Post boil I've been scrubbing down with dish soap and a kitchen scrubbie-sponge, getting most, but not all, the gunk off, and then spraying the pot down with some StarSan, which is acid-based and good for the steel. I started doing this less-than-polished type of cleaning after a metallic taste appeared in one of my batches.

So the next day I decided to try properly cleaning my pot. I gave the entire thing a good 1 hour soak in PBW (1oz per gallon), scrubbing with a brush. I also opened/closed the ball valve a few quick times before and after the soak, trying to loosen any gunk in there. After an hour I gotta say the water was a gross, murky brown - and some of that gross murky brown stuff was probably getting into my boiling wort SCREW THAT! I drained it through the ball valve, hoping to flush any more crap outta there. Makes me think about investing in a 3 piece valve I can take apart and clean.

The PBW took away most everything, except there was some white stuff at the bottom that wouldn't scrub off - I took this to be some hardcore beerstone or maybe a limestone-like substance, either of which can harbor microorganisms and damage the steel underneath it. There was also some particularly stubborn, brownish beerstone along the sides still. From an article on byo.com:

Bio-fouling (trub deposits) and beerstone scale (calcium oxylate) can also cause corrosion. The metal underneath the deposit can become oxygen depleted via biological or chemical action and lose passivity, becoming pitted. A two step procedure is most effective for removing beerstone. Beerstone is a combination of protein buildup and mineral deposit, so removal works best if the protein is broken up with a caustic, like sodium hydroxide or PBW, and then the remaining lime can be dissolved by an acidic cleaner like CLR (Calcium Lime Rust Remover).

Off course you can say we're killing all those nasties during the boil, but if we're going to be clean let's be clean, and keep our kettle in good shape while we're at it. So after the PBW soak I did a splash of warm water, and an equal splash of CLR, and a sponge-wipe, and it was gone just like that. Rinse with some cold water, and wow - like new! A quick spray with some StarSan, and it's good for storage. Now my kettle is as clean as I can make it - looks good, and ready for my next batch :)

Full Length Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Entry

So I decided to enter the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp contest this year. Since I've been a drummer for 20-some years, I thought it might be cool to outfit my drum kit with various pieces of brew gear and see what sorts of sounds I could pull out of them.

So, after making my masterpiece, I got around to reading the rules - and fortunately read that the video had to be under 2 minutes long - doh! Mine was close to 5 minutes! So I had some editing to do, which didn't turn out too bad - you can see the cut version on the Beer Camp site here.

But just in case you want more - here's the raw, uncut version feature the full jam - cheers!

Matt's Uncut Video Entry for the 2010 Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Contest from Matt M. on Vimeo.

The Other Dreaded D: DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide)

Last week we tapped our second light-colored lager, a German Pils - made with 100% pilsener malt. Our fist light-colored lager, an American Premium, suffered from diacetyl to the max (not enough yeast, no diacetyl rest). This time around I managed to get rid of the butter, but handily discovered another flavor: DMS.

At first I wasn't quite sure what I was tasting. The beer is super clear and beautiful, but yet - what is that? Unlike our previous lager, this wasn't terrible. There was just too much of something unbalancing the beer. After having a couple beer-judge friends taste it, the culprit was identified - Dimethyl Sulfide.

A small level of DMS in lagers is acceptable. In fact, now that I know what it tastes like (think corn when drinking a Schlitz), I can pick it out in other beers. Ours just has a too much of it - thankfully there's enough hop bitterness in there to cover it up some, especially when it's nice and cold. But we pitched plenty of yeast, and cooled fast by pumping ice water through our immersion chiller, so....

What Causes DMS?
The first thing each judge asked us is if we boiled with the lid on. Nope. But, I don't think I boiled hard enough to drive it all off. In an effort to save gas and avoid kettle caramelization, I've been experimenting with a less-than-rolling boil - just getting it going enough to be boiling. Well, no more wimpy boils here, now that I know that a boil isn't just to sanitize and add flavor/hops to the wort, it's also supposed to drive off stuff you don't want in there. So it's time to crank it up a bit (but not so much that hot wort is leaping out of the kettle!). In general, a 10-15% evaporation rate per hour seems to be the goal. So if you start with 7.5 gallons, you want to boil off around 1 gallon or a little more in an hour, or around 1.5 gallons for a 90 minute boil. In the meantime, I'm just going to bring the iced keg to a 4th of July party, where I'm sure it'll get sucked down pretty quick on this hot Chicago day (update: it did). Cheers!

NHC 2010 Pictures

Here's a picture set from the 2010 National Homebrewers Conference! Not that many - but my hands were busy either holding beer, tapping kegs, hauling gear, etc. Next time I'll be a little more prepared to document the madness ;)

In the picture below:
Meg, John Blichmann, Me, Bill, Bob, and Doug (also of Blichmann Engineering). With the exception of the Blichmann guys (awesome to hang with ya'll), we're all members of HOPS!.