First All-Grain and Parti-Gyle

It's been a while since I've posted. Wife and I had twins roughly a year ago which took a toll on brew days. I'm back now and have made a few improvements to the brew setup.

For the first day back brewing, the bros decided to try my mash tun cooler. This was constructed from a cooler that my brew neighbor dave was throwing away due to a faulty drain plug, perfect.

For the first all grain brew, we decided to do a parti-gyle "like" brew technique which essentially makes two separate brews from the same (larger) grain bill. For this, we made a barley wine and english style pale ale. Here are the recipes:

25 lbs Maris Oter

1.5 lbs Crystal 120

1.5 lbs Cara Munich II

1 lb rye

We mashed at 154F for ~90 min and drained the first ~6 gallons of wort into Ben's 10Gallon brew pot. We boiled this for over 90 mins and raised the OG substantially.

Pre-boil OG: 1.088

Post Boil OG: 1.122

BARLEYWINE

Here is the hops schedule for the barley wine. The bros talked me into going much more aggressive on the hops schedule. I originally was shooting for ~80IBUs

0.6 oz Chinok (12.5%) FWH

1 oz Chinok (12.5%) 60 min

1 oz Cenenial (8.9%) 60 min

1 oz Chinok (12.5%) 2 min

1.5 oz Cenenial (8.9%) 2 min

Total IBU 115 (depending on calculators used)

Yeast: 2 packs of Nottingham

Fermentation temp: 68-70F (brewed this during a heat wave)

ENGLISH PALE ALE

For the Pale Ale, we refilled the cooler for the batch sparge with 170F water. We then stirred it, let it sit for 3-5 min, recoiled some wort, and drained into Dave's 15G pot. I wanted to top off the mash with some extra oats but forgot ... oh well. We boiled this beer for only 30 min. Here are the OG readings:

Pre-Boil OG 1.038

Post-boil OG 1.040

Hop schedule for this light brew:

1 oz UK Fuggles (4.5%) 30 min

2 oz blend (Ave 4.7%) 5 min

2 oz blend (ave 4.7%) 0 min

.5 oz fresh centennial "wet" hops just for fun (Thanks Dave)

Total IBU 25-33 depending on calculations

Yeast: Safale S-04 (english yeast)

Fermentation temp: 68-70

update 8/3/2011:

The english PA was done fermenting 48 hours after brew day. At 72 hours I tested the gravity and snuck a little test.

FG: 1.010

ABV: 3.9% ... official session brew :-)

Tasting notes. Since this was only 72 hours old, it tasted a little green. Another couple days in primary, a week or two in secondary and this will be a great session brew. For using 5 oz of hops, I was a little disappointed with the hop aroma and flavor. However, the brew tasted like I was sitting in a brew pub in London which is exactly what I was shooting for. Can't wait to try this again in another week or two.

While I was testing the PA, I took a gravity reading of the barleywine.

OG: 1.122

FG: 1.022

Current ABV is 13.3%.

I quickly tasted the beer and even though it's young, it is very enjoyable. I can't wait to bottle this one. The body was lighter than expected, but it had a nice bitterness bite at the end. Hop aroma and flavor were lacking so a hop tea may be needed if the bros want more hop flavor. This will be a treat.

Update 8/9/11

I racked the English PA to the keg last night and had some issues. My normal racking tube was missing so I used a larger tube in its place. That was a mistake. There was a lot of air mixed into the beer when transferring so I'm a little worried about oxygenating the beer. I'm thinking about just throwing this into the fridge for the remainder of the two weeks to minimize any negative effects that may occur.

The primary also a lot of hop sediments which got transferred to the keg. I think this was actually the fresh hop particles. Next brew I want to filter out as much hop particles as possible before going into primary. There was so much hops that I couldn't even save the yeast (or want to).

I also added an ounce of UK Golding in a mesh bag for some nice dry hop action.

Tasting notes - light - minimal hop flavor, minimal malt flavor. Perfect as a lawnmower beer or for a party with non-craft beer drinkers. Just what I was looking for.

OG: 1.040

FG: 1.008

ABV: 4.3%

Update 8/15/2011

transfered BW to secondary.

OG: 1.122

FG: 1.019

ABV: 13.7% - too high?

Tasting notes: Hot, dry, nice hops bitterness, good mouthfeel. This may need a year to age.

Double Down IPA

In honor of the upcoming twins boys that Michelle and I are having, I decided to brew two beer kits and combined it into one 5 gallon batch (double pleasure? double pain? double trouble?). As I was looking through the kits from my LHBS, I decided to do another big IPA. The two kits I chose was an Irish Red Ale and a double IPA kit. If that wasn't enough, I purchased some additional hops to use in the kit.

Brew day occurred on 5/17/10. Thanks to fellow master brewer Derek for helping with the brew. It was a little crazy with four kids (6,3,3,1) but we managed to get the job done.

The kits came with a total of 15.3lbs of malt extract. I estimated the OG to be close to 1.098. However upon measurement, the OG ended up around 1.108

Hop, Drop, and Roll

Long time friend Ryan came over last night for yet another brew session. Ryan is a great chef and likes to tinker with food recipes (and loves beer) so it seemed fitting for him to get into home brewing. One thing home brewing does is to allow people to create all sorts of crazy hooch, I think Ryan will soon be a home brew addict :-)

For this recipe, we changed the hop scare kit sold by Midwest brewing. We added another ounce of cascade continuously to the beer for the final 20 minutes. I also plan to dry hop the beer with an ounce of centennial and two ounces of Amarillo (premium plug hops). We also added roughly a pound of honey to increase the ABV. By my calculations, we should get a brew with roughly 8% ABV. This past year, I broke two hydrometers so from now on, its all guesses. I used Safale S04 for the yeast.

I'm also trying a method called double drop fermentation. In this method, you let the fermentation go for roughly 24 hours and then rack the beer and discharge much of the brewing trub. Tonight I racked the beer and everything seemed to go well until 30 minutes after transfer. The racking stirred up the beer and cause a VERY VERY vigorous fermentation until the brew was spilling out of the airlock (I was using a 6 gallon better bottle). I then had to run to the basement and grab a blow off tube so my "fermentation closet" didn't get too messy. It the most vigorous fermentation that I have seen yet. I guess that's good news??? I'm now going to wait at least three weeks before transferring the beer to the secondary and dry hop with the three ounces of hops.

Double Dropping

Blew right through the airlock after 20 min Switched to blow off tube

Hop Head IPA

Brewed a double IPA for new years. I used the STD mutons yeast for the brew followed directions which is new for me. I also used a hop bad which I think is a mistake because it seems the hops utilization goes down when using hops bags.

I tasted two beers so far. They tasted "green" still which is not unusual for such a strong beer at this early stage. I will be fun to taste it again in April after a few months of conditioning.

Dry Hopped Irish Stout

I brewed an Irish stout in January. I was toying with the notion of doing a single stage fermentation as this was a fairly simple beer. However .... I decided a normal stout just wouldn't do. I had a few ounces of hops in the freezer and thought a dry hopped stout would be interesting. Hey, I can buy any old stout at the local liquor store, but where can you buy a dry hopped stout.

I added an ounce of centennial premium plugs to a secondary fermenter. A tasting will have to wait until easter as I gave up beer for lent (what???).

BTW, the stout was awesome when tasted during transfer. Will update later.

Another brother? From the same mother?

Another brother from the same mother? I think we may have broken some sort of rule here.


Kyle came over to help brew a Bourbon Barrel Old Style Ale which will need to be in fermentation for another 12 months. Is he hooked? Not quite sure. Was he helpful? Definitely.

Abigail stayed up to watch the entire process, which ended around midnight. Yikes.

This one should be ready for Christmas. We are shooting for a ABV of around 11% to keep a brother warm for the holidays. A creative title like, 'Bye Bros Bourbon Barrel' is still being pondered, as is a new label for the bottles.

Hop Hop Hop

The addition on my house is almost complete so I'm able to start brewing again. I purchased a kit from Midwest about a month ago when I was on a hop kick (of course now I'm really into dark beers). The kit is called hop head and contains a ridiculous amount of hops so it should be a good beer to get back into. All this hops should mask any mistake I make along the way.

More updates to follow:
I also need to update the blog on the blueberry oatmeal stout. The stouts are still sitting in the 1 gallon fermenters. My goal is to have a tasting in April/May with the four bros.

A Micro Summer

Another Minnesota summer, another Minnesota winter. They come, they go. But, why in the sequence sweat pants do our summers pass so fast?

This summer was good to us though, especially when measured by our knowledge gained in the beer department. It all started with a sip of the Backyard Maple Sap Porter at the Lake Alice cabin. It was one of those encounters with liquid that made your toes curl and your face squirm. The Porter had the ability to work more muscles in your face than a sour warhead and a shot of scotch. Whether the beer was just green, or John didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing – that uncanny taste of dire beer ignited a certain nosiness among us. And hence, a brother’s brew began.

Don’t get us wrong, we all drink beer. We have been drinking beer for years. But this summer was different. We grew a little closer to beer. It wasn’t the typical summer of pounding Coors light on the speed boat at the cabin. Wait, drinking 13 beers in one summer day isn’t normal? This summer was about appreciation. Drinking less quantity, but more quality…..Much more quality. The sixers were more expensive, but man did they rock your palette. The liquor store stops didn’t revolve around sale prices and big yellow stickers, but conversations with the clerks. It might seem weird to know every single employees name at your local liquor store – but I assure you, it is not. “Hey, Mike – Time for another IPA, whatcha’ got?”. Oh man, have you tried the Full Sail, Grandson of Spot? “No, I have Not.” I just ordered their last palette, you got to try it. “Yes, please”. The conversations got longer, and the beers we hadn’t tried got shorter. Let’s just say it was a good summer of sampling. While improving our admittedly (that's a word, right?) mediocre home brews, we had the pleasure of drinking some pretty damn good micros. And that’s what this post is: a thanks to the micro breweries around the nation.

Here is a list of the micro brews we tried this summer, and our personal favs:

Surley: Furious, Bender. Tyranena: Bitter Woman in the Rye, Hop Whore, Chief Black Hawk Porter, Dirty Old Man Imperial Rye Porter, Cherry Blessed Porter. Rogue: Mocha Porter, Chocolate Stout, Dead Guy Ales. Old Rasputin: Imperial Stout. Rush River: Bubble Jack IPA. Full Sail: IPA, Grandson of Spot. Founders: Porter, Old Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale. New Belgium: Abby, 1554, Sunshine Wheat, Trippel, Skinny Dip. Bells: Porter, Kalamazoo Stout. Left Hand Brewery: Milk Stout, Rye Bock, sawtooth ale, JuJu Ginger, Imperial Stout. Boulder Hazed and Infused, Mojo India Pale Ale., Flashback Anniversary Brown Ale. Boulevard: Pale Ale. St Ambroise: Oatmeal Stout. Samuel Smith: Nut Brown Ale, Taddy Porter, Black Ale. Sprecher; Black Bavarian. Furthermore: Knot Stock. Big Sky: IPA. Magic Hat: Roxy Rolles Autumn Seasonal (Hoppy Amber Ale). Oskar Blues Brewery: Old Chub, Gordon, Dale's Pale Ale. Lagunitas: Maximus IPA, Red. Great Divide: Titan IPA, Hercules Double IPA.

Derek’s Favs: Hop Whore (Tyranena), Grandson of Spot (Full Sail), Kalamazoo Stout (Bell’s), Imperial Sout (Old Rasputin), anything from Founders, and anything from “The Brother’s Brew”.

John’s Favs: Dirty Old Man Imperial Rye Porter (Tyranena), Masala Mama IPA (from cask), Flashback Anniversary Ale (hoppy brown ale), Octane IPA (4 dudes brewing), Grainbelt Premium (no joke, keppin it real)
Ben’s Favs:

Jim (are you still with us?):

PF Rosso is bottled!

The Padre E Figlio: Rosso Birra Chiara (PF Rosso - for Short) has been in fermentation the entire summer...... Until now. She's bottled up and just looking for an excuse to be opened.

All I can say is this lager better be worth the wait!

Hopefully, now that the buzy summer is over, we can update the blog a little more frequently.

More brew sesssions too!

Blueberry Infused Oatmeal Stout (BIOS)

Brewed another batch tonight. This time I wanted to try adding a blueberry twist to a beer since its blueberry season in MN. Nothing too heavy on the fruit. Just a subtile taste.

For the base beer, I used an oatmeal stout kit from Midwest. I will bottle 2 gallons and then run some experiments on the remaining three gallons. Here is what I plan to do:

Gallon 1) Add pure blueberry juice to the secondary (bought at the store)

Gallon 2) Add hand-squeezed blueberry juice to the secondary

Gallon 3) Add whole (crushed) blueberries to the secondary

Update: It's been over 4 months now and the 3 gallons are still in secondary containers. I've been a little busy with an addition on my house and I figured letting them sit in the secondary can't hurt much. However, it's time to bottle tonight (Jan 7th). Note that the original oatmeal stout was great

Update: Feb 15, 2010: Finally bottles the beer back in Jan . Sampled the three beers two weeks later ,,, ahhh not so good. I think the blueberry was a little strong. It may have been good with a stronger stout in the background. The oatmeal stout was a little sweet to begin with so the addition of blueberry was a little much. Will update later once I have a good chance to sample the beers and take good note (after lent is done)

OG: 1.40