Heavenly Storehouses Laden With Snow

Christmas Ale time!  This being the first Christmas I am brewing means that this will be my first attempt at a Christmas Ale. I'm not doing any spices in this though as I don't want to screw it up and ruin it.  I loosely based the recipe off Widmer's Brrrr, although I don't know if I've had that one at all.  I just liked the malts in their recipe and the hops used, so it seemed like a good route to go.

The name of the recipe comes from the song "Indescribable" by Chris Tomlin, who got the lyric line from Job 38:22.  My wife thought that that was a really silly line before she found out it was from the Bible.  She still thinks it's silly, but at least it's biblical this way.  So since it refers to storehouses of snow and when I think of snow I think of Christmas, it seemed fitting.  Now if only it would snow here for Christmas...

Recipe:
5.5 Gallon

Grain:
9.5lb GW 2-Row
1.75lb Crystal 15L
1.5lb Crystal 75L
1.1lb Munich Light
1lb Carapils
.25lb Chocolate (Patagonia Light-a new tasty one they got at Brew Bros.)

Hops:
1.5oz Cascade (10.2%!!) for 90m
1oz Cascade (6%) for 30m
1oz Simcoe (13%) for 30m
1oz Cascade (6%) for 1m
1oz Simcoe (13%) for 1m

2oz Cascade (6%) for 7 days dry hop
1oz Simcoe (13%) for 7 days dry hop

Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB

Notes:
Smooth brewing day.  Less that four hours from setup to cleanup.  Gravity came it right at 1.069, which was a little low, but I'm not overly worried.  If the FG comes in below 1.020 then I'll hit my marks just fine.  I'm really liking brewing on the porch as I don't feel so disconnected from my family when I do brew since they're usually in the front room so it's nice being able to play with the kids while brewing!
Update 11/20/11:  So the yeast I used from my yeast supply didn't do anything so after about three days I dumped the wort into another bucket, tried to keep out the bad yeast (I didn't try to hard though) and added the new 1968 Wyeast London Ale Yeast.  Fermentation is going well.  I'll transfer in a couple days.
Update 11/23/11: Gravity is at 1.030, so this needs a few more days.  I shook up the bucket so hopefully that will help.  Flavor was really good though.  Spicy, yet smooth.  This should be great!
Update 11/26/11: Racked to secondary and added the dry hops.  FG was 1.024.
Update 1/27/12: Bottled this a while back and kegged about 2 1/2 gallons.  I'll save some for the long haul so I can try this again in five or ten years.  Flavor was very complex.  It was great with food and pretty good on it's own.  I'll probably not brew this again, but it was very good.

Lagering Up For Winter

So now that the weather is cooler it's time to break into the lagers.  The cooler temps needed to ferment make this a great one to make in the fall/winter/early spring around here.  This is actually my first attempt at a lager, so I'm excited to see how this turns out.  I fashioned a recipe loosely based on a Kona Longboard Lager and gave it a go.  I plan on racking this to secondary in a week or two and then putting it on the back porch for a month or two (so long as it doesn't get below about 30 at night).

Recipe:

Grains:
7.5# GW 2-Row
2.2# Briess Red Wheat

Hops:
1oz Mt Hood for 60m
1oz Hallertau for 30m
1oz Hallertau for 1m

Yeast:
Wyeast California Lager from Old Dirty Randy.

Notes:
Nice and smooth brew day.  Getting my groove on here at the new house and it's nice to brew on the porch.  Free from rain and easy to watch football while I brew.  OG was 1.052.  FG should be about 1.015ish to make this about 5%.  Hopefully this will be ready for Christmas (although this isn't the holiday ale I'm planning on doing).
Update 11/20/11:  Racked to secondary and put it on the back porch.  I'll deal with it again in 6-8 weeks.  OG 1.014.  ABV is around 5%, right on target.  Flavor is good, although I know that the lagering process will add and age the flavor.
Update 12/16/11: Tasted.  Clear, crisp, and tasty.  I'll keg this once a keg opens up, probably in a couple weeks.
Update 1/7/12: Kegged plus 8 12oz bottles.  I can't wait to try this!
Update 1/27/12: This is ok.  Nothing great, however it is fantastic when mixed with an oatmeal stout (Othello at the Horse Brass anyone?).

The IPA Showdown

So the time has come to compare the two Experiment IPA's.  On the left is the Experiment #2 (referred to as "Dry Hop IPA") and on the right is Experiment #1 (referred to as "Non-Dry Hop IPA").  To refresh you these were two IPA's made with the same grain and hop ingredients.  The only difference was the addition of the hops.  One was all added during the boiling stage and the second has less boiling hops and added some dry hops.  Same amount of total hops used of the same varieties.  So here's the results:




Aroma/Smell:
#1: Pretty basic IPA smell.  Not overpowering, but not too light either.
#2: Much more aroma.  I can pick up some floral and piney aroma's.  Much more robust in it's smell (if it's possible to have more robust aroma?)

Taste:
#1: Smooth, classic IPA taste.  Very similar to what you would expect from a larger micro-brewery IPA.  Good mouthfeel.  Can pick up some of the aroma flavors.  Enjoyable.
#2: Much more flavor.  While a little less bitter, it has much more flavor and mouthfeel.  Reminds me of a Lagunitas IPA.  The floral and piney flavors come through much more.

The Bottom Lines:
#1: This is a classic tasting IPA.  Something you would expect from Deschutes or Widmer.  Great flavor, very enjoyable IPA.  If you're looking for a cheap great tasting IPA that will appeal to the masses, brew this.
#2: This has much more the flavor and aroma of a smaller micro-brewery IPA.  Think of Lagunitas IPA or a lighter version of a Green Flash IPA.  This adds a lot to the aroma and flavor of the IPA.

Which do I prefer?
Between the two I really prefer the second because of the aroma and extra flavors that come through in the Dry-Hop process.  They're very similar, but side by side, you can really pick up the dry-hop process and the extra flavor that comes from that.  Ideally I'll add more hops to the boil and then even more to the dry-hopping to really max out the hop flavor!

Bonus Section:
I combined the two to see how they would taste.  They taste much more like #2 so the Dry-Hops really do stand up among the competition!

Cascade Pale Ale

I've had way too many IPA's brewing lately (wait, is that even possible?) so I decided to scale back and brew up a classic Pale Ale.  This is loosely based on a Mirror Pond (similar grain and cascade hops) but it's a made up recipe from my head.  I really love me some Cascade hops, especially when I'm using some of the 5 pounds worth I got for $30.  In case you're wondering, that's less than half of what normal retail is for these.

I switched from brewing on the side of the house after my buddy Scott (www.beanbotbrew.blogspot.com) noticed that the ceiling on my porch looked like it was probably high enough to brew under.  After check that out, I agreed and moved to the porch.  Way better.  Plus I can watch college football from there while brewing.  Talk about living large!

So here's the details that you're dying to know:



Grains:
10lb GW 2-Row
1.65lb Crystal 60L
1lb Carapils

Hops:
1.5oz Cascade @ 60m
1.25oz Cascade @ 15m
1oz Cascade @ 1m

Yeast:
Recent slurry of Wyeast 1056

Notes:
Brewing on the porch is awesome, other than having to haul the brew tree from the backyard.  Great weather that day as well.  One of my propane tanks is busted now, the top valve is somehow not functioning properly, so that's a real bummer.  I also created a new airlock for my bucket fermenter.  I hate the overflow of yeast and stuff on the tops of my buckets so I reverted to a hose in a bucket of water method.  I simply added a hose to the stem of a busted airlock and put that into a bucket of water.  Works much better for primary fermenting than a regular airlock or just a hose.  Keeps the seal tighter.

Update 11/20/11: This turned out great.  Good crisp flavor and a smooth body.  Quite a tasty pale ale.

The IPA Experiment, Part 2

So this was the second round of the IPA Experiment.  Luckily my good buddy The Stokska came by today to hang out and help me brew.  Everything went pretty smooth.  I'm still getting used to brewing with the new setup, setup being the side of my house.

Today was the aroma emphasis IPA.  Pretty much the same as the last recipe, I'm just adjusting the hop additions.  Here's the details.

Grain:
12lb GW 2-Row
1.5lb Crystal 40L
1lb Carapils

Hops:
1oz CTZ @ 60m
.5oz CTZ @ 30m
1oz Simcoe @ 1m

Dryhop 1oz Simcoe for 7 days in secondary

Yeast:
New pack of Wyeast 1056

Notes:
Smooth brewing.  OG was 1.064, which I think was right on target.

The IPA Experiment, Part 1

So in brewing I usually finish the IPA's much faster than anything else in my supply, so I'm constantly brewing and giving away IPA's.  In the next couple batches I'm going to really test the ingredient process in my IPA's.  While I have a feeling and a hunch on how this will turn out, I figured I would try it anyways.  What I'm doing is brewing two IPA's with the same ingredients, but varying the hop addition times.  This first batch is the bitter version, the second will be the aroma addition.

This IPA has four ounces of hops, all put in during various times of the boil.  The second will have less bittering additions and more aroma/dry hop additions.  So here's the details on round one:

Grain:
12 lb GW 2-Row
1.5 lb Crystal 40L
1 lb Carapils

Hops:
1.5oz CTZ @ 60m
.5oz CTZ @ 30m
1oz Simcoe @ 5m
1oz Simcoe @ flameout

Yeast:
New packet of Wyeast 1056

Notes:
First brew day at the new house.  Not quite a luxurious as the old house (no garage at the new place), but still works well.  Took about 4 1/2 hours.  Only downside is I forgot to take a OG reading, but the pre boil was on target at 1.052, so I'm guessing final was probably about 1.062ish.  That's the one kink in my plan.  Oh well.  I'll try to brew the next batch this week.

Hop Harvest Part 2

The Bines at the Heitschmidt's.

So I went over to Ryan and Nikki's house to harvest the hops we planted out there.  Granted I had picked about 6oz of wet hops a couple weeks ago.  So the totals I got dried from our harvest this year is the following:

2 Hallertau Bines: .5oz
2 Centennial Bines: 1oz
2 Cascade Bines: 3oz

Next year we're going to plant another 6-12 bones to boost our numbers (plus Ryan and Nikki really love having the hops so they want to have more!).  Hopefully after a few years we'll start pulling the 1 pound or more per bine!

Hop Harvest Part One

The bounty on the trellises.

So my neighbors had planted hops to go over their trellises a few years ago and haven't ever used them for anything except shade and great aesthetics.  They had offered me free reign of them for brewing purposes so today I started the harvest.  I picked about 17 gallons today in about 2 hours.  There's probably another 50-70 gallons available to be picked.  I think they're mostly cascade, although we're not certain on that.  I put them on a couple screens in my blazing hot attic as well as in my grain dryer outside.  Hopefully they get good and dried out by tomorrow so I can pick more.  Now to just find someone with a vacuum sealer so I can package them.  Here's some pics of the harvest.

A portion of a bucket full.

Drying on the grain dryer.  

Tara-Dact-Ale round 2 and a bonus!

It was time for another IPA so I reverted to good old Tara-Dact-Ale since it was soooo good last time.  I had to modify the recipe since I messed up buying the hops.  I was trying to double the recipe in my head at the brewing store and I didn't buy enough hops.  Oh well, luckily I have a good supply in my freezer!

Recipe:
11 gallon batch (to split)

Grain:
22lb GW 2-Row
6.6lb Maris Otter
3.3lb Crystal 40L
2.2lb Carapils

Hops:
3.5oz CTZ for 75m
1.5oz Centennial for 75m
2oz Amarillo for 10m
2oz Simcoe for 10m
3oz Simcoe for 1m
.5oz Centennial for 1m

I'll do 2oz Simcoe and 2oz Centennial for 7 days dry hopped

Yeast:
1056 Slurry

Notes:
I ended up not being able to fit the entire grain amount and strike water in the mash so I used less water on the strike and then added water to the sparge.  It seemed to work out ok.  I still hit my gravities perfectly.  However I did end up with like 2 gallons extra from the sparge, so I added another gallon of water through the mash tun and got about 3 gallons.  I then added an ounce of Amarillo and boiled for about 45m.  I added an ounce of Simcoe towards the end for aroma.  Hopefully I get a couple gallons of bonus beer!  Original Gravity for main batch was 1.082, gravity for bonus batch was 1.042 (session beer!).
Update 9/13/11: Racked one bucket to secondary and added dry hops: 1oz Centennial and 2oz of Simcoe, cause more Simcoe is always better!  Gravity was 1.016 for an ABV of 8.7%!  The other bucket needed a few more days.  I think it was because of the warmer weather we had and the buckets were in the garage.  The Bonus Beer was also racked to secondary with an ounce of my neighbors hops thrown in for more flavor.  I'm pretty sure it's cascade.

Sierra Nevada Pale Round 2

So I tried the Sierra Nevada again today.  This time I dropped to Crystal 40L instead of the 60L to try to get the color a little closer.  I also used fresh Cascade hops for the flameout aroma addition.  Everything went smooth, although it took 6 hours since I was doing a double batch.  I ended up with close to 12.5 to 13 gallons fermenting.  This will nicely fill my keg, fill 48 bottles for my neighbor, and still leave me with a supply to give away to friends!

Recipe:
25lb GW 2-Row
1.65lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
1.5oz CTZ for 60m
.5oz Warrior for 30m
1oz Fresh Cascade for 10m
4oz Fresh Cascade at flameout for 10m

Yeast:
1056 Wyeast slurry that keeps on going!

Extras:
2tsp Irish Moss @10m

Notes:
Gravity came in at 1.062.  It was supposed to be 1.063, so I'll take it!  Smooth brewing day, other than ending up with about a gallon more than anticipated.  Maybe I need to lengthen my boils to 75m.
Update 9/4/11: Kegged my portion and got 12 12oz bottles with it.  It's pretty cloudy, but really tasty.  I also bottled my neighbors portion and got 48 12's for him and another 18 12's for me!  Nice thing about having too much, I get to give some away now! FG on my batch was 1.011, and 1.016 on the other half.