Brewer's Cache » Beer

12-27-2007: Kansas City Wheat Beer — All-grain version

brewbaron — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:21:00 +0000

A light-colored, light-medium bodied ale with nice, noticeable citrusy notes that is reminiscent of Boulevard Wheat Beer. This is my all-grain version of the Kansas City Wheat beer.

Expected Original Gravity: 1.047 – 1.051
Expected Final Gravity: 1.010 – 1.014
IBUs: 22-26
Alchohol by Volume: 4.5-5.0%
Boil duration: 60 mintues

Grain Bill

10 lbs Wheat Malt
0.5 lbs Caravienne

Mash Schedule
Protein rest ~ 20 minutes
Sacrification rest @ 153 ~ 60 minutes

Hop Schedule
1 oz * Cluster Hops ( bittering ) @ 60 min
1 oz Willamette Hops ( finishing ) @ 5 min

Notes

* I am going to substitute the Cluster hops with Amarillo–it is the variety that I have on hand.

You will need to adjust the quantity of bittering hops depending on the alpha acid content of your variety; shoot for 23 IBUs.

Ferment this beer around 65F to reduce the fruity esters. In the past, I followed the 1-2-3 rule, but this time, I think that I am going to ferment in glass and primary this beer for 3 weeks and then rack to a keg for secondary fermentation until its time to tap the keg.

10/17/2007 – Company Cream Ale – taste with age

brewbaron — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:46:10 +0000

My batch of Company Cream ale is aging nicely and is becoming more drinkable. The almost-overpowering ester profile has faded considerably and the corn-like flavor (style characteristic) is starting to come through. Also, the beer has marginally cleared; it is still hazy but not embarrassingly hazy. The hop bitterness is spot-on; I wouldn’t change a thing.

If you attempt this one, be sure to keg it and forget about it; come back to it in six months and I bet that you will be pleased.

10/17/2007 – Step Ladder Stout : Kegged and on tap

brewbaron — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:39:00 +0000

Yesterday evening I finally got around to transferring the Step Ladder Stout from the primary into its keg. I don’t much like waiting this long before racking it off, but I have been very busy lately getting Brutus, the brew dog, acclimated and trained–getting used to morning walks has been a bit of a shock to the system!

The step ladder stout terminated with a final gravity of 1.014 which is a little higher than expected–I had trouble with the mash temperature control and ended up mashing at a low temp. I took a little taste and the roasted barely comes through in a huge way, maybe too huge. The color is lovely ink.

I am going to carbonate this one just using CO2 because I don’t have the nitrogen kegging equipment. Based on my past results, this one will be carbonated nicely in about a week or so ( sitting at 12-15 Psi and 45 degrees ).

10/1/07 – Company Cream Ale – Early Observations

brewbaron — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:05:53 +0000

This batch of company cream ale is finally carbonated enough to issue some early observations. The color of this beer is a very nice straw yellow color but is quite hazy. I recommend that a flocculant be used to create a beautifully clear beer. This beer has a strong flavor profile with very apparant ester notes of bananna and pear. I can also detect some cider notes in this one, which would likely be due to the extra table sugar added. I recommend that a Californa Ale Yeast be used to clean up the profile a bit and be sure to keep control of your fermentation temperatures. There is little or no hop flavor and the nose is all esters. For a cream ale, I would have perfered a more noticable DMS character, which I am sure is present but masked by the strong ester profile.

This beer has a very nice mouthfeel, very drinkable. I need to fine tune the carbonation before I can give a full report.
Overall, this is going to be a fine beer, just not the beer that I had intended ( we will see ). To find the right balance in this recipe, next time around I am going to experiment with first using a cleaner yeast and keeping very close attention to the fermentation temperature, and then if that doesn’t get me where I want to be, I am going to cut almost all of the table sugar out of the recipe.

[Edit] This beer is improving every day with age and improved carbonation.

If you attempt this recipe, let me know. I always love to hear feedback from the readers.

9/21/07 – Now on tap: Company cream ale

brewbaron — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 03:01:06 +0000

I just tapped my recipe, Company Cream Ale, brewed some weeks ago. Though it is quite early to offer my my early observations, I can say that I nailed the color that I was shooting for. This beer pours crystal clear with a beautiful straw yellow color–it was my first attempt at a light-lovenbond beer. The first pour was relatively free of any “gunk;” I chose to secondary this beer, a practice that has significantly waned now that I keg my beers.

At this point, the flavor is pretty strong; the DMS that is characterisitic of the cream ale style does come through. The pilsen malts and a boil limited to 70 minutes contributed the DMS. The alcohol warmth is certainly present ( 7+%). I expect that this beer will be a nice counterpoint to my lastest batch of brew, the Step Ladder Foreign Stout, which will take its place on tap in a couple of weeks. I hope that the difference in final gravity of the cream ale will be different enough from the stout that I will be able to pour a black and tan, where one beer “sits” on the other in the glass.
More updates to follow when this golden beauty is fully carbonated ( and further aged ).

9/15/2007 – Step Ladder Foreign Stout

brewbaron — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:43:47 +0000

Step Ladder Foreign Stout
A dry, intensly dark, foreign stout that should go nicely on a cool fall day.

OG 1.050
IBU 50
Bu/Gu: 1.0

Grain Bill
.75 lbs Roasted Barely 300 L
.75 lbs Roasted Barley 650 L
1 lbs Chocolate Malt
7.6 lbs Pale 2-row
1 lbs Wheat Malt
.50 lbs Dextrine Malt
.75 lbs Crystal 6L

Mash
Single Infusion mash @ 152 with a R = 1.2. I had a hard time holding on the to temperature this time around. My mash actually dipped to 149F before the end of the mash. I had too little remaining capactiy in the tun to adjust. This will lead to a very fermentable, albeit lighter beer–I normally perfer my stouts pretty thick. I batch sparged and got about a 70% efficiency.
Hop Schedule ( 90 minute boil )
2.38 oz Amarillo @ 60 minutes.

I had a boilover at around T-50 minutes. This will likely affect the overall bitterness of this brew. I couldn’t guess how much hop matter was ejected during the boilover so I didn’t attempt to correct for it.

Yeast
1 pk Danstar Windsor English Ale yeast ( properly rehydrated )

Notes:

I had about 5-6 gal of wort after the boil @ 1.050 OG. This was the first brew that I have brewed that required a blowoff hose. I just used my syphon hose which is a little on the long side; it generates too much resistence when it gets gunked up with krausen. When the hose if full, the fermenter pressure really builds up; I can hear the fermenter whistling. I am going to have to keep a close eye on this one.

8-30-07: Sim City IPA, a beautiful thing

brewbaron — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:21:26 +0000

This is a pull of Sim City IPA in a Samuel Adams glass ( courtesy of AHA )

From Sim City IPA

August 13, 2007: Company Cream Ale

brewbaron — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:30:36 +0000

Company Cream Ale

This a light-bodied cream ale ( ale-equivilent to light American lager ). A full description will be added after tasting. I am shooting for a crisp, clean finish with a light mouthfeel–something that is easy drinking. This beer should turn out like a big version of Rolling Rock. I have never brewed a beer that is this high in gravity or mashed at such a low temperature. I hope that the desired balance comes out. The color is very, very light, around 3-4 SRM.

In this beer, one of the key flavors is DMS. The boil length was reduced to allow for some DMS to remaining the wort. DMS has a half-life of 40 minutes.

Grain Bill

6 lbs Pale 2-row
6 lbs Pilsen ( 2-row) malt
1 lbs Flaked Corn ( maize )
1 lbs 2 oz Table Sugar

OG: 1.066 @ 70% efficiency

Mash: Multi-step

A multistep mash is required because a large portion of the grist is pilsen malt, a moderately modified malt. With a 5-gal capacity igloo-style cooler, multi-rest mashing can be a challenge. If I had more space, I would have conducted the first step with a greater water to grist ratio. After about 40 minutes, I had to draw off one quart of wort from the mash and heat it up to 190 degrees to adjust the mash temperature. I performed a batch sparge and collected seven gallons of wort in total. Be sure to exclude the table sugar from all of your mash calculations.

25 minutes @ 120F R = .8
90 minutes @ 149F ( for conversion ) R = 1.3
Hop Schedule: 75 minute Boil

1 oz Amarillo ( 7.6 AAU ) @ 70 minutes
1 oz Amarillo ( 7.6 AAU ) @ flameout

Yeast and Fermentation

I just used a pack of Munton’s Ale yeast that I rehydrated for 30 minutes before adding to the wort. Visible activity in the airlock was apparent in about three hours ( not bad for dry yeast!) I am going to ferment this as close to 65F as I can, which is some temperature around 70F–It’s in a cold water bath.

Additional Notes:

Due to the capacity of my brewpot, I had withhold about 2 gallons of the wort until after the hot break. The extra wort was added back in at 70 minutes.

July 17, 2007: So Long Elaine, Hello Sim City

brewbaron — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:17:16 +0000

Just finished the last glass of Elaine’s Big Head Pale Ale and the keg went dry. The hop flavor of this beer mellowed out nicely over time hoppyness but it maintained a fantastic balance with the malt. ’Tis a shame that it didn’t last a couple of more days. I have some relative coming in tomorrow and was hoping to share a glass of this ale with them. The Somegood wheat beer has also improved considerably in the last month. For a while there, I was always tasting some faint aftertaste that I just couldn’t identify; this has since disappear and Somegood wheat has turned out to be a nice drinkable pint.

I only have a two tap system and this provided me to a chance to tap the Sim City India Pale ale that has been waiting in the keg for almost two months now. I drew a pint of the Sim City IPA to clear the bottom of the keg and then filled one up for me. Being my first IPA, and a homegrown recipe at that, I had been concerned with the bitterness. With a Bu/Gu of .75, a harsh bitterness would put the tastebuds on your tongue into and then out of their misery. I was pleased to find that this new beer has a nice smooth but distinct bitterness that I think will really continue to age nicely. I will give an observation on this ale in about a week when it reaches it terminal carbonation level.

Also today, after leaving Jamil’s American Brown Ale in the primary one full month to they day, I will be racking it off directly into the keg where it will sit cold condition until the other tap is free.

Jamil’s American Brown Ale: Early Observation

brewbaron — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:44:27 +0000

I figured that I would mention that this beer is the only beer that I have made so far whose prefermented wort was actually pretty darn tasty. This wort had a very complex flavor full of maltyness and roastyness and all sorts of goodness.

Pitching this wort on the previous batch kicked started this yeast like I have never seen before. It was up and running full speed in less than two hours. This certainly is a new persional landspeed record. I guess so much for ester production but that is just fine; I wasn’t looking for fruity flavors in this one anyway.

I had a real hard time keeping this temperature down, even in the tub. It fermened for a solid 48 hours. As of today, this beer is still in the primary fermenter. I am giving it a long rest on the yeast to ensure that the yeast has time to clean up the mess from a warm fermenation. Thankfully, I don’t think that this beer fermented warm enough to generate any of those hot fusil alchols.

I will be transfering this into a secondary in the next few days and then moving it into the back of the kegerator. I want to give this some time to clarify before moving into a keg. If you skip the secondary, you can safely move it into the keg but the first few glasses are a bit chunky–and if you bump the keg real good, you will get some serious haze for a few more glasses ( of course, it still tastes fine either way ).