Brewblog, Entry Eight

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

Son of a bitch!

The sour infection that refuses to die came back to taunt me with our Saison. When I racked it, I was sure it was completely fine, but after a few days in the carboy, there was some unusual fermentation activity (a haze) and I took a sample. Yep, sour! Fuck. Suspecting the source of infection to be the plastic Better Bottle carboy, I isolated the batch and crossed my fingers that this was the end, for reals this time. I had already stopped using the pail that gave us the horrible 112 and slightly less disgusting Sour Strawberry Wheat.

Belgian IPA 2 was most likely fermented in the same pail as the Saison. (I should have been keeping better track of these things.) After primary fermentation, it seemed fine, again, but after racking the ten gallon batch into two carboys, unusual secondary fermentation was again witnessed after a few days. In my Better Bottle, there was strange surface bubbling. In Simon's glass carboy, the surface actually hardened into a crust. Cue panic.

Because BIPA2 had initially seemed fine, Extra Special Bitter 2 was also fermented in the same damn pail. Once again, when I racked it, it seemed completely fine, but after a few days there was suspicious secondary fermentation activity in its two carboys. And a weird smell.

Ridiculously, after racking the ESB2, I then threw a friend's kit beer into that same fucking pail.

It was shortly after this that I decided to buy a new fermentation bucket and start using glass carboys and containers more consistently. I was going to put an end to this infection once and for all.

Oh, wait!

Last weekend, I did another tasting of all of the supposedly infected beers. And they are not sour! Well, no, the Saison is still sour, but everything else seems kinda fine. Good, even. ESB2 has a Belgiany aroma that it shouldn't have, but that's way better than sour, and it may actually be due to stressed yeast rather than infection. Belgian IPA 2 tastes and smells like it probably should. Even that stupid kit beer tasted and smelled like a kit beer, even though I would have sworn it was sour when I racked it. Holy confirmation bias! What the fuck?

I guess this is good news, but it's super confusing. Stay tuned for more details as they are available.

September 11, 2010 - Brewed Bushwakker Imperial Stout Clone (WAK2)

This was an interesting experiment (with results still pending). We had all greatly enjoyed the ALES club Big Brew Day Russian Imperial Stout (WAK) where our only contribution to our bottles was the Wyeast Denny's Favorite 50 yeast and the priming sugar. With the recipe for that big batch freely available, it made sense that we would eventually attempt to replicate that beer with our ingredients and our mash equipment.

I had to scale the recipe down and make some substitutions. We did not have Crystal 120, so I used Crystal 80. We did not have Carafa Malt, so I did a lot of research and determined that our Chocolate Malt would work. We did not have Munich 120, so I devised a combo-substitution of Munich 90 and Black Malt. For hops we had what we needed, namely Columbus and Willamette, but I had to guess at quantities without knowing alpha acid details.

I had originally planned to use an old ranched London Ale yeast for this batch. I created a starter and everything. But our second sour scare was now underway and the starter smelled funny, so I backed away from reusing the yeast and threw in two packets of dry ale yeast instead.

When we racked this beer one week later, the sample definitely showed a lot of promise. The beer hasn't been touched since then. Nothing wrong with bulk aging this batch since we still have a fair bit of WAK left to drink.

September 18, 2010 - Brewed Harvest Ale (HA)

One of the first awesome beers I had as an ALES member was a Pale Ale made with locally grown fresh Cascade hops. Inspired by that, Simon and I both planted rhizomes from that hop plant in our yards. Both of our plants did quite well this year after not doing much last year.

Actually, my plant is fucking ridiculous. SO MUCH HOPS. So it was time to try using them. I had no idea how effective the hops would be, but the standard recommendation is five times as much wet hops as you would usually use of dry pellet hops. With no other evidence, I took that as gospel.

For a recipe, we went with an all Pale Malt grain bill to keep things simple. I picked a pound of hop flowers on Saturday morning, devised a staggered hop addition schedule, and hoped we'd end up with something that tastes like an American Pale Ale in the end.

Um. No. It does not. Based on the sample from racking, it needs way more hops. Dammit. I still intend to dry hop it with more of the fresh hops before bottling. Hopefully a nice pleasant citrus aroma will distract from the bready taste.

September 25, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #7 (212)

Oh, sour 112, you are the absolute worst. How can we learn anything about Goldings hops from your ketchup chips-ness? Trevor had a fantastic idea about using the 112 to marinate meat for a BBQ party. We certainly don't want to drink that shit.

Lucky number seven? 212 was pretty much the exact same recipe as 112, with minor adjustments to Goldings hop quantities. I haven't touched it yet. It had better not be fucking sour. If it is, I quit.

Next time on Brewblog?

Dunno. Hopefully some good news about WAK2's awesomeness. And confirmation that 212 is not sour.