Brewblog, Entry Five

Has it really been a month and a half since the last brewblog entry? Yes, yes, it has. Catch-up time!

June 26th, 2010 - Brewed Sour Strawberry Wheat (SSW)

There is a large bin full of Wheat Malt in my brew studio. There was a time that we thought we'd do a lot more wheat beers than we have been doing, but difficulties with stuck sparges and a general overall dissatisfaction with our end products has left that Wheat Malt more or less untouched for months.

But every once in a while, we decide to give it another shot. This American Wheat Beer recipe had a simple 50% Pale Malt, 50% Wheat Malt base, with just a touch of Crystal 40 for body, in an attempt to make a light and refreshing beer for summer consumption. Winter Wheat 2, which scored very respectably in the ALES competition, was the template for the recipe, but we had a Wyeast American Wheat Beer yeast to use in place of the Safale yeast used previously. I also substituted Hallertau hops for Tettnang in the new recipe, although the quantity of hops is so low as to make that change likely imperceptible.

I have no idea if this beer (originally dubbed Beat the Heat Wheat) would have turned out better than Winter Wheat 2 or not, because it was unfortunately soured during primary fermentation. Goddammit!

This Sour Wheat is hopefully the end of the sour beer scandal that rocked our brew club this summer. As a refresher, a few months back we had the not-so-bright idea to attempt to make a sour beer on purpose. Sourness is caused by wild yeasts, and with time and aging often lends an interesting complexity to a beer. Our problem started when the wild yeasts somehow started infecting unrelated batches, beginning with Simon's Blonde and ending with the 112... or so we thought. We thoroughly cleaned all equipment that we thought had come in contact with the sour beers, and we crossed our fingers that it was over. But it next came out of seemingly nowhere to rear its ugly head in the Belgian IPA. And then the same apparently infected equipment was used for the Beat the Heat Wheat, before the sourness had been detected in the Belgian IPA. This equipment has now been marked as "Contaminated?" and set aside to never be used for regular beers again.

I think it was Trevor that had the bright idea how to possibly save the Sour Wheat. I was commenting on how many strawberries I had in the garden this year, more than I could eat myself, so it was suggested that it couldn't hurt to add a pound of sliced strawberries to the Sour Wheat. I ended up adding a kilogram.

We've now bottled the Sour Strawberry Wheat, but it isn't quite ready for consumption. From our sampling, I'm not sure that adding the strawberries made it good, but it definitely made it much more drinkable and appealing than the Belgian IPA and 112, so it'll do.

July 10, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #6 (224)

Our first 200-level Brewniversity recipe, 224 was a refinement of the very well received 124. Brewniversity recipes are always quite straightforward, generally using only Pale Malt as a base and Munich and/or Crystal Malt as an adjunct. For yeast, we continued our recent trend of using Wyeast liquid yeasts; Simon had a yeast cake of European Ale that was healthy and ready to go.

The 124 was our first attempt at staggered hop additions, adding a small amount (17g) of Cascade hops at every 15 minute interval (for a total addition of 85g). For the 224, I slightly increased the overall quantity of Cascade to 112g, and scheduled 10 minute hop additions. My problem with the 15 minute additions was that it only hit one of the three hop utilization peaks that are often key to recipe formulation. Bitterness is easy; the longer the hops are in the boil, the better the bitterness utilization. For hop flavour, the recommended addition time is approximately 20 minutes before the end of the boil. For hop aroma, the recommended addition is between 5 and 10 minutes before the end of the boil. Understanding this, the 10 minute interval makes much more sense than 15, although it requires you to stay on top of the clock more, which isn't always easy while thoroughly drunk.

The end result is in its carboy right now, awaiting bottling on this coming weekend. I will be dry hopping the 224 a few days before bottling to maximize the hop aroma in the beer. The sample I had after primary fermentation showed no signs of sourness--so, yay!--and was very, very good. I have high hopes.

July 17, 2010 - Brewed Honey Nut Brown (HNB)

After racking the 224 to its carboy, I noticed that the Wyeast European Ale yeast was still looking quite healthy. Having failed to plan a recipe for this brew day in advance, I decided to look at what other beer styles Wyeast recommended for the yeast. Southern English Brown Ale stood out to me in the list. We hadn't yet made a Brown Ale of any style (at least on purpose), and I am quite a big fan of Browns personally.

I browsed a few Brown Ale recipes on the internet, not really finding anything that excited me. I then pulled out Radical Brewing, which reminded me about the Oud Bruin that was aging in my basement and had recently ruined four batches of beer (how could I forget?). The base recipe for the Oud Bruin was a quite good Brown Ale, from what I could remember of the pre-sour sample I had tried months back.

But I decided I wanted to take that Oud Bruin base to the next level for this beer. And the easiest way to do that was to go crazy on the malt profile. Over the past year, we have accumulated some interesting adjuncts that were only used once or twice, and I decided that my Brown Ale was going to use as much of them as I could. I grabbed the rarely used Honey Malt, Melanoidin Malt, and Special B out of the pantry, as well as some much more common Biscuit, Crystal 40, Munich, and Chocolate Malts. The base malt would still be Pale, but only just barely (42%). And thus was born Scott's Honey Nut Brown. For hops, which should be more or less undetectable in the sweet maltiness of the final product, I went with Fuggles.

The end result is sitting in its carboy alongside the 224, waiting for a later bottling date. The sample I had after primary fermentation was pretty much exactly how I hoped it would taste at that stage--and again, no sourness, yay! So, again, I have high hopes.

July 24, 2010 - Brewed Wee Heavy (WH)

A Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast had been sitting in my fridge for quite some time, awaiting this day. A bag of Peated Malt had been sitting in my pantry for quite some time, awaiting this day. Our previous attempt at a Scottish Ale, technically a Scottish Export 80, made with Safale dry yeast, had been a reasonable example of the style, although with some unfortunate off-flavours, but all of its bottles were long gone. It was time to make a Wee Heavy.

The recipe for the Wee Heavy was an extension of the first Scottish Ale, but with all quantities of malts and hops effectively doubled. To give it an extra kick of booziness, I also added a pound of table sugar.

My work for this brew day started earlier than normal. On the morning of July 23rd, I prepared my first yeast starter. I followed Wyeast's instructions: 100g of light dry malt extract in 1L of water, with one-half teaspoon yeast nutrient added, boiled for a few minutes for sanitation, and then added when cooled to a sanitized container with the yeast. I have to say that the yeast starter worked like gangbusters.

The Wee Heavy's original gravity was a very strong 1091, and after only three days of seemingly mild fermentation (from visual inspection of the krausen), the specific gravity dropped to an unexpectedly low 1022. Wow. At this point, I'd describe the flavour of the 9% Wee Heavy as peat and burning. It will need time to mellow, but I'm quite confident that we have a winner on our hands there.

Next time on Brewblog

It looks like we will be brewing on Sunday of this coming weekend. I have a few more Wyeast liquid yeasts in my fridge that are begging to be used. Saison is on the top of the list.