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