Boston Stock Ale Update

We tried the first taste of the dry-hopped Boston Stock Ale yesterday and both of us were surprised by how mild the taste was.  Not to say we didn’t like it, but for all the batches we have made this was by far the most mild and subtle in flavor.

It dawned on me that this batch was actually my problem batch so let me recap here.

After 24 hours in the primary there was no evidence of active fermentation at all and it was starting to concern me.  After some troubleshooting I determined that the room I use for my fermentation was too cold for the yeast in this batch.  I use a hall closet because its dark and usually nice and cool putting it right in the prime range for good fermentation.  This batch, however, called for temperatures greater than 65 and my closet was just a tad on the cold side for that.  With this knowledge I pulled the primary out of the closet and placed it in a dark but warmer part of the house to sit.  Thinking I had a stalled fermentation I was hoping that in a day or so that it would pick back up and continue as normal.  

Eight (8) hours after moving the primary I went to check on it and found a complete foam over.  The fermentation had kicked off all right and had produced enough foam to escape through the airlock and even puddle up a bit on the lid of the primary.  I quickly sanatized a new lid for the primary and a new airlock and replaced the lid and airlock on the primary.  

I watched and tracked the fermentation for the next few days as it continued rather steadily before racking to the secondary.  When I racked to the secondary I added the whole aromatic hops in a muslin bag to the carboy prior to racking.  I completed the remainder of the 14 days in the secondary and bottled using ¾ cups of corn sugar.  

This batch conditioned for a little longer than usual and when I first popped the topped noted it had good solid carbonation. Again the taste itself was very mild but it was quite drinkable and I could have easily had a few more.  Given that we are moving in a couple of days now these might be the perfect brews to provide as moving fuel for our helpers, mild and drinkable.

English Brown Ale Update

The English Brown Ale brewed back the 21st of November as part 2 of the "full moon brewing" experiment turned out very similar to the initial full moon brew.  This theory is gaining momentum.  See previous post for full info into the full moon phenomenon but suffice it to say that this batch experienced what can only be described as flash fermentation.  After taking almost 12 hours to get started this batch bubbles and off-gassed like few others have and was well on its way down by Wednesday the 24th of November when we racked to the secondary.

Bottling was completed on the 2nd of December for a total fermentation time of 11 days.  This batch was bulk primed using ¾ cups of dextrose (corn sugar) into very slightly over 44 - 12 ounce bottles.  The taste is right on target for this brew and unfortunately I spilled my hydrometer before I took my readings so I don’t actually know the final specific gravity of this batch.  The good news is that due to the recent brewing bonanza I have been on this batch will have plenty of time to condition in the bottle.

English Brown Ale

After my recent taste and experience with brewing on a full moon, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to brew again the next time time a full moon came around.  Such a night came around this past Sunday.  My last full moon brew session went late into the night and I didn’t want to be up all night before work, so I decided to take a different route with this brew and we will just have to wait and see how it turns out. 

This recipe is a pretty basic dry malt extract English Brown Ale that is relatively light on the hops.

Recipe:
Amber DME - 5 lbs

Speciality Malts:
English Chocolate Malt - 1 cup
Crystal 120L - 2 cups

Hops:
Fuggle 4.0 α - 1.75 oz (60 minutes)
Fuggle 4.1 α - 0.5 oz (2 minutes)

The process for this was similar, yet different, so it bears repeating here.  I dissolved the DME into 2 gallons of warm water over a 20 minute span.  After the DME was fully dissolved, I placed the specialty malts into a muslin bag and lowered into the brew pot.  Heated the brew to 150 degrees Fahrenheit and held for about 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, I increased the heat to boiling and removed the malts.  I placed the bittering pellet hops into a nylon bag in the brew pot and placed the grain bag into a strainer over the brew pot to strain out all of that malty flavor.  Thirty-five (35) minutes into the boil I added the whirlfloc tablet and continued the boil for a further 25 minutes, adding the whole leaf fuggle hops in a muslin bag for the last 2 minutes of the boil. 

When the boil was finished, I cooled the wort using a coiled wort chiller, this time I left the bags of hops in the wort during the cooling process.  I cooled the wort down to 150 degrees Fahrenheit and added 2 gallons of cool water into the primary bucket.  Placing the strainer over the primary bucket, I poured the wort into the primary slowly allowing the bags of hops to drop into the strainer but not into the primary.  I pressed the liquid out of the hop bags and filled the primary up to 5 gallons. 

Here is my next big departure from previous procedure: I placed the lid on the primary and sealed the primary with an airlock without pitching the yeast.  Since I did this brew in the afternoon and this was my full moon brew, I decided ahead of time that the most important part for making this a full moon batch was to pitch the yeast after dark.  With the primary locked, I activated the liquid Wyeast packet and waited until dark.  I locked the primary at 3 pm and finally pitched the yeast at 7:20 pm.  The initial γg of my brew was 1.042, just slightly higher than the target γg of 1.038 for a basic mild English brown ale. 

On a completely unrelated note, I realized for the first time during this batch that Wyeast, my favorite liquid yeast to date, is produced in Hood River, Oregon.  So another shout out for my northwestern brethren. 

I checked the brew first thing in the morning, it was insanely early so I will spare you with the time, but fermentation had not yet started.  When I checked again around 9 am, the bubbles had started to build and a couple of hours later they were moving pretty nicely.  If memory serves me correctly, the last brew was already fermenting very actively 9 hours after pitching the yeast but since the γg of that brew was almost 0.02 higher than this batch, that could be a factor playing into how active the fermentation is shortly after pitching.  We’ll continue to track the fermentation progress and hopefully will be ready to rack into the secondary early again with this batch.

Honey American Ale - A High Gravity Accident?

It may not be the right season for a light golden ale, but one of the things I love about brewing my own beer is the ability to decide what I feel like brewing no matter what season.  For this batch I am taking a recipe for a classic American ale with some quality northwestern hops, and also including some fresh local honey.  This brew is actually a gift for my father and brother-in-law so I used some local honey from their area (Brevard County, Florida) to add in some of those nice local flavors. 

Recipe:

6 pounds Extra Light DME

2 cups Crystal 10L malt

4 cups unpasteurized wildflower blossom honey

1.75 ounces Willamette bittering pellet hops (50 minutes)

0.5 ounces Cascade flavoring whole hops (10 minutes)

0.5 ounces Cascade aromatic whole hops (2 minutes)


First we dissolved the DME into 2 gallons of warm water.  After the DME was completely dissolved we added the malts and the honey (I warmed the honey for about 30 seconds ahead of time in the microwave to make it easier to pour) into the brew pot.  Warmed the mix for about 20 minutes and then adjusted the heat up to achieve a nice low boil.  Again, we approached boiling slowly, not only to avoid boil over but also to maximize the amount of time the malts sat in the brew pot.  When a good low rolling boil was achieved I pulled the bag of malts out and dropped in the bittering hops.  To ensure all of the flavor of the malts stays with the wort I strain the malts over the brew pot throughout the boil pressing the malts a few times to drain all the remaining liquid into the wort.  After 40 minutes added the whirlfloc tablet and the flavoring whole hops and continued the boil for a final 10 minutes.  Two minutes before the boil completed we dropped in the last aromatic hops.

So far everything had been pretty much the same as the other brew procedures.  Usually I cool the wort prior to adding the additional water using a standard wort chiller (copper tube heat exchanger) but this time I elected to let the wort cool more slowly.  I placed the brew pot into the cool sink and let it sit for about an hour.  I placed the lid over the brew pot which clearly reduced the rate at which heat escaped from the brew pot but I felt that decreasing the risk of contamination was worth the added layer and the reduced heat transfer. 

After the hour had passed, the pot itself was still plenty warm but the temperature of the wort itself was down to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  I filtered the wort into the primary and added water through the filtered hops to bring the total volume up to 5 gallons.  I then took a sample from the primary prior to adding the yeast. 

This is where this batch gets a little funky. 

The γg of the of this sample was planned for around 1.056, my reading was in excess of 1.1.  Now, first of all, the γg of the liquid is clearly dependent heavily on the temperature so my inclination is to write this off as a bad reading since the liquid still feels warm to the touch and is probably up in the 100 + range.  Using my spoon I mix the wort well and add the previously activated liquid yeast and sit back and wait. 

This batch started fermenting early, we noticed active fermentation within the first 5 hours after sealing of the primary.  The other change for this batch of activation of the liquid yeast prior pitching. These were the directions on the packaging for the yeast, and I decided to follow them- shocking, I know.  Obviously pleased with the quick start to fermentation, I tracked the progress over the next few days. I expected the off gassing of CO2 to die out almost completely within 3-5 days, if not sooner due to the rapid on-set, which has been the case in previous batches.  In this batch though, that was far from the case.  At 7 days out from brew day fermentation was only finally starting to taper out (≈ 10 bubbles per minute).  

Our most recent brewing experience had undergone what can only be described as flash fermentation, and as a result this extended fermentation cycle was causing me to be quite antsy.  On day 7 I sampled for the γg and got 1.012 which was actually a hair under the 1.015 I was aiming for.  Given where the γg was I decided to rack into the secondary and of course take the all important taste test.  The flavor was good but there did seem to be more alcohol taste than I am used to out of my home brewed batches.

The question now is, what happened?  Based on my admittedly limited knowledge (no chemistry major here) I came up with two competing thoughts.  First, the γg of the original sample was way off, off by around 0.05.  That to me seems like a rather wild variation based on temperature alone.  The other thought was that the honey contributed heavily (more so than anticipated) to the fermentable sugars and that quite by accident we have ended up with a high gravity brew.  It could be a combination of the two, as well, and that is most likely the case but I felt it was important to identify the two processes at work here.  Only the final taste test will tell, so its time to sit back and wait again and see what bottling turns up.