What going on here?

What can I say, I like to brew beer! I also like to ride my bike, camp, hike and do a bazillion other things. Because I have so many things going on in my life, I am trying to strike the balance between getting so heavily involved in a hobby that I must commit myself fully to the study and perfection of the art and the opposite end of the spectrum, being that you commit so little time to the activity that it isn't worth doing. Somewhere between brewing like a monk & teenagers making wine out of grape juice concentrate is where you will find me.

More on the philosophy of brewing like a slacker in a later post. For now, enjoy the recipes, tips and things that I imported from another blog. This blog will be dedicated to brewing good beer, not getting so heavily involved that it requires a oxyacetylene torch as part of the brewing equipment list and enjoying good beer!

Racked the Dark Honey Hefe'

Gravity Reading was ~1.012 at 66 degrees. The smell was out of this world. When I take a gravity reading I like to taste the wort and it was nice. Wonderful aroma like most hefe's I have had. The color is an amazing brown color, lighter than a traditional porter or stout. I can't wait to try this one!

Here is the link to the brew log for the Dark Honey Hefe'.

 Also, found a nifty little gadget here that calculates the percent alcohol by volume. This one weighs in pretty heavy at 7%. Mind you that I am just racking the beer and it has another week or two in secondary fermentation. Another hydrometer reading will be taken on bottling day to see what the final.....final gravity reading is.

Dark Honey Hefe'

Batch number 12 in the brew log.....

I have no idea how to leave well enough alone. I had a Northern Brewer, Bavarian Hefeweizen kit. Should be simple enough right. Follow directions, make beer. Yum!

Not me. I looked through the shelves and found honey begging to be added to the batch. I had some grains (1/2 lbs. cracked dark wheat and 1/2 lbs. cracked Simpson's Chocolate Malt) left over from another brew that I didn't use. I have had a dark wheat beer before and thought it was great. Now if I can get a good flavor combination from the phenols created by the yeast, the floral aromas from the honey and a bit of that chocolaty malt taste I might be on to something!

What did I end up making?


El Hefe's Bavarian Dark Honey Hefeweizen

Brewer:	Scottieie		Email:	-
Beer:	Bavarian Dark Honey Hefe'		Style:	Weizen/Weissbier
Type:	Extract w/grain		Size:	5 gallons
Color:	50 HCU (~22 SRM)		Bitterness:	14 IBU
OG:	1.063		FG:	1.010
Alcohol:	6.8% v/v (5.4% w/w)
Grain:	8 oz. British chocolate 8 oz. Flaked wheat
Boil:	minutes	SG 1.105	3 gallons
	7 lb. Wheat extract 1 lb. Honey
Hops:	1 oz. Spalt (6.75% AA, 60 min.)

Everything was brewed as you normally would, but in an effort to retain the honey flavors, I added the honey with only 5 minutes left in the boil. Boiling has a tendency to ruin these flavors and I wanted all the honey fragrance and flavor I could get.

Who really knows how this one will pan out, but the wort tasted nice. O.G. came in at 1.060, pretty close to what the recipator above had and it is in the coat closet for two weeks of seclusion with brief visits to observe bubblage activity.

Scott's Light & Hoppy Pale Ale - Reloaded

As you may or may not know, I like to brew beer. I have been brewing for just under 1 year and now that I feel like I am pretty decent brewer. I am an extract brewer meaning that I don't brew with all grain as I don't have the equipment. Most of my batches do have some grain in the brew, but not all of them. This recipe is an example of one that doesn't have any grain in the process.

I am going to start experimenting a bit with some recipes. Thus far I have one under my belt, what I dubbed the Really Light Pale Ale. What I intended with that batch was to create a light and hoppy pale ale through the use of some Rice Sugar in the recipe. You can read all about the old recipe in the link above, but to work towards perfecting that beer, I am going to try and up the gravity a bit on it, by using 6 lbs. of Pilsen Malt Syrup and 2 lbs. of rice syrup solids. I also intend on upping the bitterness, but am very interested in dry hopping 1 oz. of hops in this recipe to get the flowery aroma one gets when dry hopping depending on the type of hops.

Calculations were done using the Beer Recipator, found here.




Scott's Light & Simple Hoppy Pale Ale

Brewer:	Scottieie		Email:	-
Beer:	Scott's Light & Simple Hoppy Pale Ale		Style:	American Pale Ale
Type:	Extract		Size:	5 gallons
Color:	7 HCU (~6 SRM)		Bitterness:	41 IBU
OG:	1.058		FG:	1.011
Alcohol:	6.1% v/v (4.8% w/w)
Boil:	minutes	SG 1.097	3 gallons
	6 lb. Light malt extract 2 lb. Rice extract
Hops:	2 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.5% AA, 60 min.) 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.5% AA, 30 min.) 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.5% AA, 15 min.) 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (aroma)

I will keep everyone posted as to the results of the brew after I brew it.

Bottled Batch 10 & 11......Full Brew Cabinet

Was almost out of brew, so I went on a tirade brewing 3 batches in about a months time. The Oatmeal Stout is turning out really well. After 2 weeks in the bottle it is smooth, well carbonated and getting better every time I try one. Sunday the 6th of Dec. I bottled the Ordinary Bitter and the Dry Irish Stout. I will post F.G.'s and some notes on both in the links to the beers, but they both are going to be great beers. The Dry Irish Stout's wort was ooh, la, la!

Batch Number 11: Dry Irish Stout - Northern Brewer

Been on a brewing kick here of late, this time brewing up a batch of Dry Irish Stout from a brew kit from Northern Brewer. This was a simple batch, with very few ingredients, just showing that it doesn't take much to brew a batch of beer.

Ingredients:

1 lbs. Simpsons Roasted Barley

6 lbs. Gold Malt Extract

1 oz. Nugget Hops @ 60 mins.

* 1 cup Brown Sugar

* Residue from this mornings Coffee in the French Press @ 15 mins.

1 Pkt. Safele S-04 Ale Yeast

* I can't leave well enough alone, so I went looking at what else I could throw into the mix.

Brew date: 11/23/09

Size: 5 gal.

O.G. 1.041 @ 80 = ~1.043

F.G.  1.016

Pretty straight forward batch of beer. Either the brown sugar or the coffee upped the specific Gravity a touch. Now it is all up to the yeast to make some beer out of sugar water.

Final Gravity to follow in a few weeks!

Notes: Wow, the wort on this beer is amazing. The coffee really comes through in the flavor. It is going to be a really dry stout and am excited for it to age a couple weeks in the bottle for carbonation. Should be good!

Home Made Wort Chiller - Cool Beer Fast

The left side goes in a water bath, the right into the wort pot.

After watching my friend Jason use his home made wort chiller, I had to have one. Jason gave me all the pro's and con's to his design, namely it works great, but he got the wrong size copper tubing. Knowing this, I went down and got the wrong size tubing as well (dumb), but since I was committed to the tubing after they cut it, I decided it would have to do. Smaller tubing will give you more surface area for heat exchange, wasting less water in the process.

This fits on the faucet.

I designed mine with two sets of coils, one for a cold water bath with ice cubes in it, the other to submerge into the wort. The need for the coil in the cold water bath isn't founded and was just an idea. I have tried it in a cold water bath and without, and not sure if there was a difference in chill times. The copper is easily twisted, and it is best to have your brew pot around to ensure that you will get it to fit. Also, use a bottle or large can to twist the copper around and if you are so lucky as to have some tubing benders, those make the work even easier.

When you are purchasing materials, make sure you know what size your faucet is. The faucet at the old house in Lawrence wouldn't have been able to use this, but our new place does.

When you use the chiller, make sure this end goes in the sink or a bucket!

How does it work you ask? Very well. I can cool a 3 gallon vat of wort in about 8 minutes, from boiling hot to about 90 degrees or so. Mixed with room temperature water, it is yeast pitchable.

Bottled Batch Number 9 Tonight - Finally Out of the Closet!

Bottled the Breakfast Stout tonight (11/22/09), got 51 - 12oz. bottles from the batch. A week or so from now and it and it will be ready to test! Couple more weeks and it should be well ready. Can't wait. The F.G. came in at 1.016 @ 60 degrees F. I didn't think it would be this high since I gave it 2 weeks to ferment. Wondering if the lactose in the recipe is responsible?

Batch Number 10: Ordinary Bitter

Brewed another batch tonight, this time a recipe from Austin Homebrew Supply. I am a huge fan of the British Bitter and this one was an easy batch to brew.

Ingredients:
1/2 lbs. Crystal 60L
1/2 lbs. 2 Row Barley
5 lbs. Extra Pale Malt Extract
2 oz. Fuggles hops (1.5 @ 60 and .5 @ 15 min.)
Irish Moss - Pinch at 10 min.

The O.G. was 1.041.
F.G. is 1.0135.

This beer is one of my favorite styles and am excited about trying it. Should be ready in a week or two..

Batch Number 9. Northern Brewer's Breakfast Stout

Brewed batch number 9 today, which was an inexpensive kit from Norther Brewer. The kit was the Breakfast Stout and was one of their cheapest kits available at $19.95. Initial brew day impressions are positive. The wort smelled great and my new home made wort chiller worked like a champ, cooling the 200 degree wort down in less than 10 minutes to a yeast-pitchable-ready 85 degrees.

Beer in the closet! I can't wait till it comes out!

Here are the kit's ingredients:

1.5 lbs. Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs. Simpson's Roasted Barley
3.5 lbs. Dark Malt Syrup
1.0 lbs. Lactose (non-fermenting sugar)
1 oz. Willamette Hops
1 pkt. Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast
* 1+ Cup Molasses

* My addition. Really like the way it makes the beer taste and smell, especially since this is a breakfast beer.

Everything else is pretty standard, steep, boil, ferment, bottle, drink!

O.G. is 1.044

Just a note that this came out about 0.014 more than the recipe specified. I don't think that 1 cup of Molasses would add that much and I bet I didn't add enough H2O to my carboy. Darn the bad luck, guess we will see what happens. Pics. and F.G. will be posted in due time. Check back later.

Here are the results of this brew!

Batch Number 8. Really Light Pale Ale - Suggest A Name?

Cat approves of the finished product.

I made up a beer recipe that I thought I would be embarrassed to admit to making up. I wanted a really light, but bitter pale ale type of beer so I used rice syrup solids for some of my fermentable sugars. What I ended up with was something that I was surprised to say I really liked and has been well received by some other beer lovers.

The beer has a really light color at ~6 HCU's, a nice bitterness to it at around 41 IBU's and ended up with a ~5% alcohol by volume.

Here is the batch ingredients for a 4 gallon batch size:

- 4 lbs. light malt extract
- 1.5 lbs. rice syrup solids
- 2 oz. cascade hops
- 1 oz. goldings hops
- 1 pkt. Mutton's yeast
- bit of Irish moss

Pretty standard instructions:
- bring 3 gal. H2O to boil
- turn off heat
- add sugars
- turn on heat
- add hops at 60, 45 and 15 mins. into the boil
- add Irish Moss at 15 mins. left to aid in clarification.
- cool in carboy or bucket and add yeast at optimal yeast temperature
- ferment 1-2 weeks or until F.G. gets down to 1.010 or so.
- bottle and wait

Oh wait...relax....have a home brew through at least 100% of these instructions.

So, for the future, I am going to make a 5 gal. batch and change a few things about the recipe trying to give it a bit more hop as well as more sugar to increase the alcohol content as well as the flavor a bit. My idea is that the rice will add sugar for fermentation, but that sugar won't be adding too much in the way of flavor, kind of like an American Macrobrew but the hop will let you know that it definitely isn't that! I am also trying to achieve a high rate of attenuation and would like most of the sugars to be converted to alcohol for a dry crisp taste.

- 5 lbs. light malt extract
- 3 lbs. rice syrup solids
- 3 oz. cascade hops
- 2 oz. goldings hops
- 1 pkt. muttons dry yeast
- Irish Moss

I am going to dry hop 1 oz of the goldings hops in a secondary fermentation vessel for a week. The rest of the hops will be added at 60, 45, 30 and 15 mins. Otherwise pretty similar, with just a bit more fermentable sugar per batch size than what I did before.

Conversions were done using the Beer Recipator 2.2.

As I get this recipe tweaked out, I will be trying to think of a name. Anyone has any suggestions, send it my way.

As usual, pics to follow some time soon.

Batch Number 7: Arrowhead Alt Beir from Wind River Brewing Co.

Going in reverse to get all my brew batches online....

Here are the ingredients:

6 lbs. Amber Malt Extract
2 oz. Mt. Hood Bittering Hops
1 oz. Hallertau Aroma Hops
1/2 lbs. Crystal 60L Grain
1/2 lbs. Carapils Grains
Muttons Yeast Pkt.

O.G. 1.046
F.G. 1.013

5 Gallon batch
Cost from Wind River Brewing: $22.95

Great batch, actually just finished my last bottle the other day and it was really nice, kinda wet beer. I don't know if it is one of my favorite styles of beer, so I don't know how soon I will be brewing another one.