Brewing for Christmas - Christmas Stout

One of the biggest draws to most people to the art/science that is home brewing is the ability to experiment and create your own personal brews with your own personal flavors.  In the spirit of that, the most recent batch will hopefully be like Christmas itself stood up and slapped you in the face.  It is based off a basic Irish Dry Stout recipe that we infused with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.  


Additionally, this brew was a bit of an experiment.  Several weeks ago my wife ran across an article online discussing a Belgian brewery that touted the effects and advantages of brewing on a full moon (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLNE69D0CI20101014).  Their claim was that, somehow, the full moon impacted fermentation reducing the necessary fermentation time from 7 to 5 days.  Reading up on several blogs about this provided what one can normally expect, a lot of people saying it sounded like junk science and that any gravitational effects from the moon would be minimal.  From a scientific perspective I have to quickly agree, while tides are very clearly affected by the phase of the moon believing it would have a dramatic effect on the brewing process of a little 5 gallon container in my hall closet seemed a big of a stretch - they ARE claiming an approximate 28% reduction in fermentation time here.



With that said, there is no penalty for testing this theory myself.  And my Christmas brew is not going to make itself.  So the date was set for the next full moon (October 22, 2010 9:36).  I have tested with some of the same spices before and know that the cloves give off by far the most flavor and aroma.  


Recipe

5 lbs Dark DME (Dried Malt Extract)
2 cups chocolate malt
2 cups crystal 120L
2 cups barley
1 cup roasted barley
1.5 tbsp ground nutmeg
1.5 tbsp whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks + 2 tsp ground cinnamon (mixed into water slurry)
2 oz Kent 7.2 α hops (pellet)


Dissolved the DME in 2 gallons of water over very low heat.  Once fully dissolved added the malts and the spices into the liquid and adjust heat to to med-low (approximately 120ºF).  After 20 minutes adjusted the heat up to achieve boiling.  

I try to slowly approach boiling giving my malts and spice more time to soak in.  Once boiling remove the malts only and place in a strainer over the boil pot too allow excess liquid to drain back into wort and add the hops (used bittering hops only).  Boiled for 35 minutes, added a whirlfloc tablet and continued the boil for an additional 25 minutes.  

After the boil, I cooled using a cooling coil (more efficient that letting it sit or soak in ice water I think).  Put about 2 gallons of cool water into the primary bucket then strained the wort into the primary.  I have never read anywhere that discusses the straining of the wort into the primary but I’ve had good success with it, it probably reduces the overall hop flavor in the beer since they are removed and don’t sit in the primary or the secondary but I have managed to produce some very clear brews while still maintained good aroma and hop flavor.  I bring the total volume of the bucket up to 5 gallons but running the last bit of water through the strainer with the remnants of the wort still in side to get that last bit of flavor I can before disposal.  For this brew I used a simple Windsor dry yeast.  I pitched the yeast at 10:20 so I missed the full moon mark by about an hour but still had almost a full night of full-moon activity ahead of me.  


Initial Readings:

γ = 1.060 (this is a little higher than planned for the basic Irish stout)



First thing the next morning when I checked the batch I already had good fermentation underway, bursts of bubbles at first and by 10:00 AM the primary was bubbling out of the airlock continuously (I counted 160 bubbles/minute but at that rate the accuracy of my count is somewhat suspect.)


As with all brewing the chemistry experiment is commenced and its out of my hands now, I have done what I can, sanitized thoroughly and now all I need to do is wait and track my fermentation progress to see if there is any truth to the myth.  


Update:
After nearly 36 hours in the primary almost all fermentation had ceased, over a 3 minute span there was not a single bubble released from the airlock.  This isn’t just hours but entire days ahead of normal.  I racked to the secondary and Beck tells me it already tastes good.

Intro

I thought about starting with something poetic, but that really isn’t my style.  I have been what many call a beer snob since my first taste of draft Guinness.  That was quite a few years ago, and I have moved far beyond Guinness in my choice of beer selection.  From the northwest originally, I lived in a beer culture, Deschutes, Rogue, Full Sail, Widmer, these were all local brews to me.  But after living in the southeast for several years now the ability to try new and interesting brews was waning, or so I thought.


For my birthday I received a gift, a Mr. Beer home brewing kit.  It was a basic starter kit, nothing elaborate, though a few of the premium beer mixes were included.  It made brewing not only accessible but very easy, the whole process took less than 30 minutes start to finish, and in 7-10 days I had 2 gallons of beer ready for bottling.  It was all well and good, beer wasn’t bad either, but I knew there was more.  Lying just beneath the surface was a nerd’s paradise.  


The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian, this is not an idiots guide to homebrewing, this was a guide written by a beer lover for other beer lovers.  Much has been written about him, but the first thing I noticed was his background - no degrees in fermentation studies here - an engineer, even better, a nuclear engineer.  This wasn’t just hope, it was inspiration.


I brewed my first batch of real beer (admittedly from a pre-packaged kit) on April 11th, 2010 and haven’t looked back since.  I have made a lot of mistakes along the way but to date haven’t ruined a batch yet.  I’ve learned to be more and more obsessive about the sanitation, and gotten more and more adventurous with the spices.  As of today I still have not made the leap to all-grain brewing but the day is coming.