What’s Up Wednesday: 3.7.2012

It's been a busy week in terms of turning out new batches. Recipes and commentary are included below—let's get to it.

Homestead Magazine:
Last fall for the AHA big brew day the brew club had some new guests and they brought their cameras. Alan, the fearless leader of the Deer Island Homebrew Club, hosted the brew day and was being featured as part of a magazine article on hops. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time as my picture made the final cut.



Belgian Golden Strong:
This brew was part of a pact to brew the same style as another brewer and taste them side by side. He got a head start on my, but mine is finally off the ground and bubbling. I've never brewed this style before let alone anything quite this strong (with the exception of wine). The golden strong style is much like the tripel style which are actually both subcategories of the Belgian Strong Ale style.


To really make this interesting I decided to brew a 10 gallon batch and split it between two fermenters. Each fermenter had different yeast pitched into it. The strains are both from Wyeast: 1388-Golden Strong and 3864-PC Canadian/Belgian. This batch was brewed up last Friday evening and I took an interesting tact since I did not have a chance to make starters for it. Side note: beers this strong need a lot of yeast cells. You can read more about pitch rates here. This beer ended up with an OG of 1.080. So the route I took was to chill the batch of wort and split it into 3 fermenters. The first two fermenters were filled to 2.5 gallons each and the last one was filled to 6 ( No, 2.5+2.5+6 does not equal 10 – I always overbuild my recipes to account for loss to trub, sampling, transfer, etc). Now, each of the 2.5 gallon batches had one swelled smack pack each pitched into them. The 5 gallons remaining went into a temperature controlled freezer at 35 degrees for storage. I waited 2 days to let the yeast multiply in the 2.5 gallon batches and then warmed up the extra 5 gallons and added 2.5 gallons to each of the already active fermenters. This had the effect of stepping up the yeast cell count (or so I hypothesize).


The fermentation is active an appears to be going well. I have not taken gravity yet, but I will soon. I started the batch at 62 degrees and have been stepping it up each day by 2 degrees. As of this morning the fomenters were holding at 72 degrees. I'm really excited for the portion with the Canadian Belgian yeast and I would be quite happy if it came out something like La Fin Du Monde.


Malt
36 lbs     American 2-Row


Adjuncts
4 lbs    Table Sugar (add to boil @ 10 mins)


Hops
4 oz     East Kent Golding (4.5%)    @ 60 mins
4 oz     Saphir (3.7%)                      @ 10 mins

Mash at 148F for 90 minutes using a 1.4 qts of water per pound of grain. Batch sparge.

 
Dry Stout:
The recipe for this brew was put together by looking at what has been done by others and what the style guide would suggest. For a good read on Dry Stouts check out this article. We took the advice at the end and used Galena hops for bettering and Willamette hops for flavor. The recipe that we used for a 15 gallon batch is below. As of last night the gravity was down to 1.032 with the temperature holding at 66 degrees and the sample tasted great.


Malt
19 lbs     American 2-Row
9 lbs    Marris Otter
3.5 lbs    Roasted Barley (300L)
5 lbs    Flaked Barley


Hops
2 oz     Galena (13%)          @ 60 mins
2 oz     Willamette (5.5%)    @ 30 mins
2 oz     Willamette (5.5%)    @ 10 mins

Mash at 148F for 75 minutes using a 1.35 qts of water per pound of grain. Batch sparge.
Double step one packet of Wyeast British Ale II yeast using a stir plate. First step at 0.5 gallons wort, second Step at 1.5g of wort and both on a stir plate. I was hoping to land somewhere around 8ml cells per milliliter for an inoculation rate.

 
Falconer Ale:
Okay 2 wasn't enough right? This brew was born as a last minute initiative to test the yeast culture that I mentioned stepping up last week. I am happy to report that the yeast cells looked healthy under the microscope at pitching time and are now fermenting the beer beautifully. I started with 4 test tubes of wort and pitched a small amount of yeast into each. I then stepped those 4 up into about 1 quart of wort before the final step into about 1 gallon of wort. This gallon of starter spent about 36 hours on a stir plate and put up a nice krausen layer. The entire gallon was dumped into 10 gallons of oxygenated wort at 1.055 OG.
The recipe came basically out of nowhere. I thought let s add some honey malt since it has such a nice flavor and aroma and then I thought lets sweeten it up a bit and lend some color with some caramel 40. We were driving back from a drip up north in Washington when we settled on running test batch to try the yeast so we weren't prepared with the grain we would need at it was late Saturday afternoon. As we approached Kelso, WA we pulled out the androids and looked for a homebrew shop that we though existed there. Indeed there was one. We headed straight for it and luckily they were still open. The place is called Your Homebrew and I highly recommend checking them out if you are in the area. The staff is very friendly as we found out while stopping there for about an hour and discussing everything from keg draft components to brew competitions. I even grabbed a packet of Safale S-05 in a quick moment of doubt that my yeast culture could take on 15 gallons of wort.


So the recipe is listed below. We will soon find out how this recipe tastes. We used summit and falconer hops in this batch and this was the first time we have ever used falconer hops. I am hoping for a nice aroma from those hops. If you don't know the story behind the naming of falconer hops give this a read—RIP Glen.



Malt
29.5 lbs    American 2-Row
4 lbs        Caramel 40
1 lb        Honey Malt


Hops
1 oz     Summit (16%)        @ 60 mins
1 oz     Summit (16%)        @ 30 mins
8 oz     Falconer (9.5%)        @ 10 mins
4 oz     Falconer (9.5%)        @ 5 mins
4 oz     Falconer (9.5%)        @ 0 mins


Mash at 148F for 75 minutes using a 1.35 qts of water per pound of grain. Batch sparge.
This recipe is for 15 gallons and we used the cultured yeast that I have been talking about for 10 gallons of this and we used a package of SafAle S-05 for the last 5 gallons.

 
Green Shoots:
The seedlings are coming along nicely. After about 3 weeks they are several inches tall and starting to produce their second set of leaves. The habanero peppers are the only exception: they are just starting to sprout. Since the first planting I also started a few eggplant seeds which have yet to sprout. And, just last night I planted a second tray with more peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant as well as some bok choy and basil. I'm currently running the lights 16 hours a day on a timer which makes this project as simple as watering the plants. As the root growth advances I plan to start watering from the bottom only (pouring into the tray). As long as the results continue to

What's Up Wednesday (2/29/12)

Well it isn't exactly Wednesday, but we can pretend it is. It has been a busy week and there are a few new things to talk about.


What Just Happened:

Yeast Culturing - I have successfully produced some yeast colonies on a petri dish. This strain is the Thames Valley II seasonal yeast from Wyeast. I recently made an IPA and a Scottish 80 with this strain and really like the flavor and flocculation. If you take a look at the picture you can see a bunch of little white dots. These are yeast colonies that grew from a single yeast colony. The large group of them is from the spot where I first streaked the plate. I started on that side and then continued streaking around the plate. This had the effect of scattering a few yeast cells and that is why you can see the lonely white dots. These single ones are most likely to be from a single yeast cell and are the cultures that I am most interested in since they represent an isolation of the strain.

Starting last night, I began stepping up single yeast colonies in about 10ml of wort. I filled 4 autoclavable test tubes with wort, added yeast nutrient and put it in the oven with the lid loosely screwed on and set it to 300 degrees. It didn't take long to get these to a boil and I let them continue for 30 minutes. I then added the single yeast colonies using an inoculating loop after sterilizing it with an alcohol flame. If all goes well I will continue to step this culture up over the weekend and report back next week.

In addition to this, I made a first step yeast starter for the brewing we will be doing this weekend. This weekend we will be making a dry stout. The yeast we chose is Wyeast British Ale II. This is a strain that we have not used before, but are excited to try. I took a bit of an adventurous route on the wort for this one. I used my usual frozen second runnings wort from my last batch, but this time I decided to boil it in the same container that will be on the stir plate. So instead of using a pot and transferring it into a glass jug I planned to just cut out a step. Now I knew this glass jar was not made of pyrex so I was trying to be careful. As you might have predicted I did lose this jar. Everything went well until I added the yeast nutrient. This wort had been boiling in my oven for about 30 minutes when I decided to add a little yeast nutrient. When I did it boiled over immediately. The boil over cracked the top of the top of the glass, but did not shatter it. So, I carefully bulled the jar out of the oven and transferred the liquid to another sanitized container. I think the lesson here is pyrex is worth the money. And it looks like I need to shop for some more lab glassware.

What to look forward to:

Slurp and Burp Competition: I made 5 entries into the competition this year: Dusseldorf Alt, Cranberry Wit, Bohemian Pilsner, Bavarian Weizen, and Apple Cider. The judging will take place at Fearless Brewing in Estacada, Or on Saturday March 10^th from 9am-4pm. Last year there were 279 entries, so I expect every category to be competitive this year.

Brewing: We will be brewing up a batch of dry stout this weekend. We actually have not brewed one of these before, although we have done other stouts in the past. I'm thinking some of this will get a little habanero dry hop to give it some kick. Check back soon for the brew day review.

 

On the Road:

Brewery Visit - Last weekend we stopped in at Roadhouse 101 and had some brews made by Rusty Truck Brewing in Lincoln City, OR. We just happened to walk in on Thursday which means pints are $2 all day long. As we sipped on a brew and had an order of onion rings we noticed someone walk behind the bar and get a beer for themselves, so we asked the barkeep "how do you get that status?" He replied: "he's the brewer." Awesome! While we were there we tried 4 different beers in all and I would recommend the Road Wrecker IPA but I also enjoyed the Fender Bender Amber. The IPA comes in at 7% and had a nice resiny bitterness paired with a solid malt backbone. I also had the chance to taste a sip of the Moonlight Ride Blackberry ale. It had the distinctive aroma of blackberries and is sure to be popular with the fruit beer ladies (and guys). I've got to make a quick mention about the peanuts in this place. They come in large buckets and you toss the shells on the floor—who doesn't like that. I somehow missed taking a picture of the surprisingly large buckets. If you have been to Lincoln City then you know the micro brew scene isn't big and this place is definitely worth a stop.

 

Seafood and Wine Festival - I won't go on too much about the festival, although I did spend two afternoons there. Come on, winemaking is the cousin of beer brewing and I have love for the whole family. And it doesn't hurt to spend some time doing things that your girlfriend and her friends can get excited about. I will say this festival was crowded on Saturday and it draws many more people to Newport than I realized. Friday was nice because the crowds were smaller and I had a chance to talk to several winemakers and pick up a few tips. In the future I would avoid Saturday at the festival altogether. There was a divers showing of wineries featuring wines that ranged from superb to questionably drinkable. I was excited to see how many mom and pop type wineries are out there. Well, I promised to keep it short so I'll wrap it up by mentioning Friday morning was the most beautiful winter day that I had ever seen in Newport, but by 2 pm it was pouring rain—I mean really pouring and windy too. Ah Oregon, how unpredictably horrible the weather can change.

 

 

 Bier One – This place makes me want to move to Newport! Bier One is a homebrew shop meets tasting room in heart of Newport. I heard about this place from a winemaker at the Seafood and Wine festival and had to make a stop in. I had no idead that it would exceed the high expectations that were built by the friendly winemaker. When you walk in you see brewing supplies to each side and a bar straight ahead. They had 10 excellent brews on tap so I quickly moved to have the Skunk Ape IPA from Boneyard. The entire selection was awesome including the likes of Racer V from Bear Republic. This place is the best beer spot in town (short of the Rogue Brewery). You could lift this place from Newport and put it in Portland only to find there would never be an empty seat in the house. And, they are doing a pretty good job keeping it hopping in Newport. There is a side room where they have live bands and they even have a foosball table and host a plackard from the foosball competition. Did I mention they sell beer in bottles too. I am getting excited just talking about this—sorry if the excitement is scattering my thoughts. No doubt I will be back to this place again. Okay, one more thing to mention. For all the smartphone users out there, they have a QR barcode below their flat screen beer tap list. You scan the code, it sends you to a website where you can like or dislike the beer you are having. Wait for it… then your like or dislike is sent directly to the board and appears in the order sent at the bottom. I had a chance to talk with the guy who put together the system and he is really excited to see people using this. It helps them keep track of what it popular and bring more good beer to the people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's Up Wednesday (Feb 22, 2012)

Can you believe another week has passed already? Well here is what is going on..


What Just Happened:

Yeast Culturing - I purchased a microscope and a bunch a lab equipment. Petri dishes, test tubes, inoculating loops, an alcohol burner, and more now all reside in the brew room. As a first go at culturing yeast I prepared a few petri dishes and a number of slants.

I used some frozen second running wort from my last batch that had an original gravity of 1.040 so make the cultures. The first step was to boil the wort until a hot break formed (about 15 minutes). I added yeast nutrient and irish moss at this point. Next I cooled the wort and then let it sit. When the break had settled I then poured off the clear wort into another container. This container then went into the microwave until it was near boiling. The agar was then sprinkled onto the surface and stirred in once it was hydrated. This agar was purchased from a local Asian market (H Mart).

The next step was to fill each test tube with 15ml of the solution and place them in the pressure cooker. The remaining wort was poured into a canning pint jar and placed in the pressure cooker as well. The petri dishes were placed in the pressure cooker too. I happen  to have a digital pressure cooker so I set the pressure to the max (80 kpa) for 30 minutes. When the cycle was complete, I placed the test tubes at a slight angle to cool and poured the liquid from the pint glass into the sterilized petri dishes and left to cool. Condensation formed on the lids of the petri dishes so I stored them upside down in a paper bag at room temperature to help evaporate some of the water. In the morning I took on petri dish and inoculated it with some Thames Valley II yeast krausen from an active fermentation. We shall see how my first attempt turned out soon.

Record Keeping - I decided to number my kegs this week in an effort to bring a bit more order and record keeping around. I have yet to have a problem with a keg, but if I ever do it will be interesting to see if the beer that lived in it previously is the culprit. I encourage everyone to take note of everything. Information is your best friend in brewing.




Hop Garden Visit - We took a trip to visit a friend last weekend who enjoys brewing and has a nice hop garden. As you can see he has many varieties and grows a nice bumper crop of hops each year. Now is the time of year to get your rhizomes from a friend (or supplier) and start thinking about how to grow them to their full potential. To round out our trip we sampled some of the 15 brews he had on tap including 3 meads, 2 ciders and a number of ales. He was so gracious as to send us on our way with a pound of magnum hops and a bit of insight on how to grow our own.



What to look forward to:

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Seed Starting - Not related to beer, bu tit is that time of year. I planted 36 tomato plants and 36 pepper plants. The peppers include bell, jalapeno and habanero. I even threw in a few extra pots (not pictured) for eggplants. I placed a fluorescent light above the flat and used a seed heating mat below. Result to appear soon.

What's on Tap:

Brewery Visit - Last weekend we stopped in at Golden Valley Brewing in McMinneville, OR. I had tasted their beer before at a local ale fest and had seen it available in the grocery store. Upon our arrival I was surprised to see how busy the place was at the lunch hour. The space was large for a small town. The space was a nicely upgraded older building with giant wooden beams and fitting stain wood bar and table to complement. The beer sampler consisted of 10 beers and was served on a unique sampler tray. Upon inquiry I confirmed that the tray was made from a used wine barrel slat. The beers were all good. Lindsay liked the pale ale the best, but I was a fan of the dark lager. All of the beers were bright and flavorful. The bar was nicely crafted from solid wood and featured stained glass inlays at about 14 feet above us. Sitting at the bar you can look to your right and see directly into the brew room. Well worth a visit, this brewery has been in business since the early nineties. We should have made it out to this one long before now.

What's Up Wednesday

Wednesdays are far from Monday, but still far from Friday. It's always a good day to start thinking about the weekend and recapping what has happened recently.


What Just Happened:

Scottish Redemption (80 Shilling) - After we brewed a much loved Scottish Wee Heavy last spring we were determined to make another in the fall, but the second result was lacking that je ne sais quoi. Not knowing quite changed, except the yeast I set out on a little project last weekend to redeem my ability to brew an admirable Scottish ale. The brew was made spontaneously one evening and uses three different yeasts: Wyeast Thames Valley II, Wyeast Denny's Favorite 50, and White Labs Burton Ale. It is fermenting away and more details will emerge if the results look promising.

What to look forward to:

Golden Strong Ale - I picked up the yeast and grain for this batch. Two strains of yeast will be propagated in preparation for this monster beer. The strains are both from Wyeast: 1388-Golden Strong and 3864-PC Canadian/Belgian. The final recipe and details of the brew will follow the actual brew day. If you don't know the style you can read more here. And, there might just be a rival batch in the works...stay tuned.

Pouring at the Coast 2012 - This is an annual brew fest. One of the smaller and quainter ones around, but it also includes a brewing contest. I booked a room yesterday and look forward to attending this year. The festival takes place on Saturday, March 17th and there is a brewers dinner the night before. http://www.seasidechamber.com/?page_id=50

What's on Tap:

Our Taps (from left to right) - Belgian Red IPA, American Brown, Dusseldorf Alt, Triple Decocted Bavarian Weizen, Cranberry Wit, Bohemian Pilsner

Around Town - The new Widmer rotator: Spiced IPA is out. Over the last year I have greatly enjoyed the rotator series: they presented excellent takes on NW IPA using Citra, Nelson, and Falconer hops. This spiced IPA is a whole new twist on the NW IPA style by using subtle additions of a number of spices. The beer pours with exceptional clarity and has an intriguing aroma. After the first sip you know there is something unique about this beer--a hint of something like the spice cabinet. I think they have done great work here keeping the spices at an appropriate level, but I have to say they wore on my as I worked to the end of the pint. I give it a 1 beer rating--meaning it is a good pint, but I didn't want a second. Exceptionally brewed, exciting to try and I would recommend everyone take the opportunity to try something that is a little out of the box but still in with the IPA drinkers palate.

DIY: 55 Gallon Mash Tun

As we started to involve more people in the brewing process and try new styles we started to feel cramped in our 25 gallon mash tun. After discussing alternatives for a few months we came up with an idea to build our own mash tun. Using a food grade 55 gallon barrel we estimated that we could complete the project for less than $100. Even if it didn't work out we wouldn't have been into it nearly as much as our current mash tun.

Materials:

• Food grade blue barrel (previously held malt extract--came from a local home brew shop).
• 36" x 40" sheet of perforated food grade stainless (3/32" holes on 5/32" centers).
• 1/2" Ball valve, threaded fitting, o-ring (2) and a quick disconnect fitting

Tools:

• Grinder + 1 cutoff wheel and 1 grinding wheel
• Sharpie and string for marking the cutout shape
• Tape measure

The pictures tell most of the story...

After Thoughts:

• Add support underneath--it turns out the weight of the grain did cause some bowing in the metal and before the next use we will be adding some support underneath it. We mashed with 96lbs of grain and 36 gallons of water. I would guess there was several hundreds pounds of force on that screen

• Add a handle--You can see that the barrel is tapered at the bottom. This makes for an excellent seal around the edges of the mash screen, but makes it almost impossible to remove. We pocked a wire hanger through one hole in order to pull the screen out which worked, but a handle would be better.

• Build a platform--Getting the mash tun off the cold cement floor is probably a good idea for convenience and heat retention.

How I Did It: 2 Step Starter

This is the first in a series of posts detailing the practical side of brewing. What you will see is exactly what I did. This is theory and practice coming together. Today I will be detailing the 2 step starter that was created for an American IPA. Two different yeast strains were propagated and the result is enough yeast to pitch into 30 gallons of wort.

Step 1: Boil the wort
Make a basic 1 gallon batch of wort. You can use DME or liquid malt, but I chose to use some frozen wort from my last batch. Each time I make a batch I pull off some of the wort and freeze it into giant cubes. Then when I need a starter I just pull it out, let it thaw, and boil.

Step 2: Chill

For this starter I will be taking a bit of an easy way out. There are better chilling methods, but I find this one acceptable for making my starters.

1. Sanitize a couple of glass containers (glass wine jugs work well).
2. I run hot water over the glass to bring up the temperature.
3. Sanitize a funnel
4. Slowly pour the near boiling wort into the jugs. Be careful! I know someday the glass could crack, but so far I haven't had a problem.
5. Cover the jugs with sanitized foil and fill the sink with water.
6. Go to bed

Step 3: Pitching Yeast

When I wake up the next morning the wort is at about room temperature and I simply add the yeast. At this step I also places the jugs on a stir plate. If you don't have a stir plate you will get many fewer cells and should think about shaking the starter every few hours and/or oxygenating.

Step 4: Repeat Steps 1 & 2 (Double the Volume)
Same drill with twice as much wort. Same method, but remember to be gracious to others who live in your house since you have just taken over the sink for 2 nights in a row.

Step 5: Pitch Yeast
I poured the yeast and new wort back and forth 3 times to thoroughly mix the yeast and new wort into both containers. If I had a larger container this would have worked better. I'm not crazy about the exposure to air while pouring, but the cell count should be high and I'm gonna relax, not worry and have a homebrew. 

The First Night (8 hrs before pitching)

The Second Night (16 hours after first pitching)

Notice the signs of a krausen layer that formed and dropped.

 

The Second Night (8 hours before second pitch)

The Second Morning (24 hours since first pitch, time for second pitch)

Why use multiple steps?

Multi stepping allows you to grow a large amount of yeast from a small culture. This translated into fewer packs of yeast to buy (or start with a slant culture). Plus I get to have more fun with beer.

What is your OG?
I used 1.040 of course! Check a few books or websites and you will see the same recommendation.

How many cells are we talking about?
I'm targeting 12 million cells per milliliter. According to the Wyeast website that should be about right for inoculating a wort between 1.061-1.076.
I used the wyeast calculator: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_pitchrate.cfm

What kind of yeast is that?
For this batch I made half of the starter with Denny's Favorite 50 and half with the Thames Valley II (private collection), both from Wyeast. I love the smack packs.


And that's all folks. Now you are ready to go and make your own.

Cheers,
Jeremy