Smarch Maibock [secondary]

Racking date: March 17, 2014

Following a brief, 48 hour diacetyl rest at the ambient air temperature upstairs (~64F), I racked the maibock to a pail and set in my frigged garage to lager for the next several weeks.

The air temperature in my garage will likely swing wildly with the late winter/weak spring that we're having. Temperatures so far have ranged from ~30F to 48F. I hope to keep it within this range for 4 weeks.

Ingredients:

• 3/8 oz crystal (3.8%, pellet) (secondary)

Observations:

• FG: 1.019
• Vol: 5 gal

A quick taste test of the flat maibock yielded exciting results: Malty goodness, ending clean and dry. No detectable diacetyl or other esters to cloud the crisp, lager flavor. A few weeks in the cold, and this baby is ready to roll!

Tom's Pumpkin Ale [bottled]

Bottle date: March 14, 2014

Ingredients:

• 95 g corn sugar
• 1.5 c water

Desired CO2: 2.3 vol (4.75 gal @ 60F)

Smarch Maibock

Brew date: March 1, 2014
#26 - 5.5 gal

Bocks. I love them. Pretty much the only thing to like about February and March. (Lousy Smarch weather!) They have the alcohol backbone to stand up to Mother Nature (whose been a real b!tch this year).

)

So, after a weekend downing a few tankards at the Essen Haus and then again at Capital Brewery's Bockfest, I had a taste for more. Thankfully Coincidentally, the weather forecast continues to look dismal (read: cold) for the weeks ahead, so I decided to make the best of a bad winter and try to cram in a late season maibock.

[One more thing before I forget: Krombacher's Bock. Really really good. Had it at the Essen Haus. Delicious, on the darker side, with a little more burned caramel flavor than most bocks. Also a little lower ABV, so it didn't knock me on my ass. (I saved that for the Paulaner Salvator Dopplebock.)]

A few notes about the brew day. It was a crisp, snowy day. Roughly 10F outside, 20F in the garage. Beautiful, no doubt, if you were watching from the window. But, sadly, I'm over it by this time of year.

I'm continuing to use a 50-50 RO/filtered tap split for all of my water based on my reading of Madison's hard water supply. I believe I lost a little grain (maybe 4 oz) when I was at the Wine and Hop Shop and failed to push the milling bucket all the way back.

I set out about 10 gal of water in my garage overnight to nearly freeze, in order to quickly cool the wort post-boil. Use a large Rubbermaid tub and a cooler to do this. Chilling to 60F probably took 20-30 min.

The maibock has been sitting in my laundry room with the door closed to maintain a pretty consistent air temperature of 55F. I placed the carboy in a tub and filled it with a few gallons of cold water. Then covered the carboy with an old shirt. As the water slowly wicks up the shirt and evaporates, it should help maintain the fermentation temperature. Sitting on the floor, my carboy temperature strip reads 52-54F. I'll keep it there for two weeks before checking the gravity. If it's close, I'll rack to secondary, toss in my final addition of hops and lager in my garage for a month. Hopefully by then the temperature will be consistently in the 30-40F range.

Ingredients:

• 13 lb Pilsner malt (German)
• 1 lb Aromatic malt (Belgian)
• 1 lb Rye malt
• 0.5 lb Caramel wheat malt (Thomas Fawcett)
• 0.5 lb Munich malt 10L (Briess)
• 0.5 lb Vienna malt (Best Malz)
• 0.25 lb Carapils (Briess)
• 2 oz German Hallertau (4.1%, pellet) (60 min)
• 1 oz German Hallertau (4.1%, pellet) (15 min)
• 1 t Irish moss (15 min)
• 0.5 oz Saaz (3.0%, pellet) (5 min)
• 0.5 oz Crystal (3.8%, pellet) (secondary)
• Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager - 2 pack yeast starter, 2/25/14
• 5 gal RO water, 5 gal filtered tap water

Target OG: 1.068

Target FG: 1.017

Target ABV: 6.7%

Target IBU: 30

Schedule:

• Heat 6 gal strike water to 130F
• Mash in and rest @ 122F (30 min)
• Heat and rest @ 154F (60 min)
• Mash out @ 168 (10 min)
• Batch sparge 4 gal (10 min)
• Boil (60 min)
• Chill to 62F and pitch
• Ferment at 52-54F (ambient air temp: 55-59F) (2 wks)
• Secondary and lager (4-6 wks)

Results:

• First runnings: 3.5 gal @ 1.088
• Pre-boil: 7.5 gal @ 1.060
• OG: 1.068

Poutin' Stout Jr [bottled]

Bottle date: Feb. 23, 2014

FG: 1.016

Great roasty aroma. Silky mouthfeel from the lactose, but dry with coffee and burned brownie flavors. Clear, ruddy black-brown color.

Ingredients:

• 56 g corn sugar
• 1.25 c water

Desired CO2: 2.2 vol (3 gal @ 60F)


Lionel Hutz Stout ("Brownest of the brown liquors")

Conditioned in secondary on five split whiskey staves from Old Sugar Distillery for 20 days.

Ingredients:

• 47 g corn sugar
• 1 c water

Desired CO2: 2.1 vol (2.75 gal @ 60F)

“Polar Vortex" Saison Blackberry: Tasting Notes

Appearance:

Pours nice, perfect carbonation. First thing I'm struck by is the purple-pink head. The body is black to blood-red purple in color. Very wine-like, almost like a pinot noir.

Aroma:

Blackberry, cabernet, even sherry-like notes, dry, some funkiness from that Belgian strain.

Taste:

Smooth and silky, with tart blackberry right up front. Nice dryness. Some tangyness, some funk, but overall very slight. But the blackberry is the real star here. As I said, perfect carbonation, which keeps the flavors effervescent.

Verdict:

Totally unlike anything I've brewed thus far. At first, the blackberry was so forward that it threw me. But, as the beer warmed and after a few more sips, I found myself really liking the departure. Dry and tart, but with enough subtle sweetness and warm flavor to bring balance. I would definitely brew this one again.

“Tom's" Pumpkin Ale

Brew date: Jan. 26, 2014

#25 - 5 gal

It's nothing pretty, but chilling by a sink is a breeze.

My father-in-law received the gift of homebrewing from a friend -- a pumpkin beer kit -- but no equipment with which to brew, ferment, or bottle. So he left it to me. We were all set to spend the day brewing together, but he had to cancel on account of the godawful weather we're (still) having this winter.

Yet, we must leave no beer behind.

Even though it was disappointing that I couldn't illustrate my homebrewing hobby obsession to Tom -- I suppose I can come off as a little crazy about beer making -- it was kind of fun working on my kitchen stove again with only a partial mash and some malt extract. Not freezing my ass off outside was definitely a nice change of pace.

I altered the kit recipe slightly. Since Tom had the kit for sometime before I was able to use it, I decided to add some aromatic malt, and threw in about a pound of 2-row to up the starch conversion in the pumpkin. I also added a 15 minute hop addition and held off from pouring in the malt extract until about 30 minutes into the boil in order to increase the bittering from the tettnanger.

On the whole, it was a relaxing brew day. Chilling the wort to pitching temperature was a snap with the sink nearby. Again, the good old days. Since then, it's been fermenting at about 64/68F each day.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Pumpkin pie mix, canned
• 1.25 lb 2-row malt (Briess)
• 1 lb Aromatic malt
• 1 lb Caramel 60L
• 7 lbs  LME (30 min)
• 1.5 oz Tettnanger (pellet) (60 min)
• 0.25 oz Mt. Hood (6.1%, pellet) (15 min)
• 1 t Irish moss (15 min)
• White Labs WLP008 East Coast Ale yeast starter

Target OG: 1.064

Target FG: 1.016

Target ABV: 6.27%

Target IBU: 28

Schedule:

• Mash 3.5 gal water @ 155F
• Sparge 1 gal water @ 168F
• Boil 60 min
• Chill to 72F, add 1 gal cold water to fermenter, and pitch yeast
• Ferment @ 64-68F

Observations:

• Mash @ 1.027
• Pre-boil 5 gal @ 1.023
• Post-boil 4 gal @ 1.079
• OG 1.065

Poutin' Stout Jr

Brew date: Jan. 20, 2014

#24 - 6.5 gal

Prepping a stout for St. Paddy's Day. It won't be an "Irish" dry stout, but rather one that is (hopefully) both semi-sweet and darkly rich. Having never worked with lactose and just read about cold-steeping dark grains, I can only guess.

This brew takes some inspiration from AHA's Triple-X and Chai Milk Stout recipes, with hopes of submitting this to a local competition in March. In the meantime, I'll split the batch and secondary half of it on some whiskey barrel staves from the Old Sugar Distillery -- great local rum and whiskey if you're in the Madison area.

A smoother brew day overall, with one exception: During sparging, one hose came loose and sprayed wort every.where. I can't wait for warmer weather to fine tune my set up, and better prepare the garage for beer making.

Ingredients:

• 11 lbs Maris Otter
• 1 lb Chocolate malt
• 0.75 lb Flaked barley
• 0.75 lb Roasted barley (cold steeped)
• 0.5 lb Black malt (cold steeped)
• 0.5 oz Columbus (16.3%, pellet) (60 min)
• 0.5 oz Magnum (14.3%, pellet) (60 min)
• 0.5 oz UK Goldings (5.0%, pellet) (30 min)
• 0.5 lb Lactose powder (15 min)
• 1 t Irish moss (15 min)
• Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale yeast starter

Target OG: 1.058

Target FG: 1.015

Target ABV: 5.76%

Target IBU: 49

Schedule:

• Cold-steep roasted barley and black malt in 3.5 qts water, 36 hrs before brew day. Strain and add steeping wort to boil 15 min before flame out. Add bag of steeped grain to mash, but remove before mash out. Doing so to help raise the acidity of the mash, but pulling before risk of tannin extraction during mash out.
• Mash in 5 gal @ 152F for 60 min
• Mash out @ 168F for 10 min
• Sparge 4.5 gal for 10 min
• Boil 60 min
• Add steeped wort 15 before end of boil
• Chill to 68F and pitch yeast
• Ferment 66F for 36 hrs, raise to 68F after peak fermentation

Observations:

• First runnings: 1.069
• Second runnings: 1.028
• Steeped wort: 1.035
• Pre-lactose: 1.055
• OG: 1.058
• Use 50/50 RO and filtered water