Honey Wheat - Recipe

With all of the dark, strong and sour beers I have been brewing recently, it was time to make something light and easy drinking.  After tossing a few ideas around I decided to make some honey wheat beer. 

Recipe (10 Gallons)
  10# Rahr 2-row
  5# Wheat malt (Local shop didn't have enough of one kind, so I used white and red)
  2# Wheat flour
  3# Orange blossom honey added at the end of the boil.
  1oz Zythos hop blend (60)
  1oz whole homegrown Cascade hops (15)
  2 packs US-05 dry yeast

Mash:
  Protein rest 10 minutes at 122F
  Sacc rest 50 minutes at 152F

Notes:
  Brewed 12/2/12  OG=1.051
  I took a chance mashing so much wheat with no rice hulls, but with the protein rest and a thin (1.5qt/#) mash, I didn't have too much trouble sparging.  I boiled 9 gallons down to a little over 7. At the end, I topped off with 2.5 gallons of bottled water, giving me 10 gallons in the fermeters.

Belgian dubbel/oud bruin

Recipe for 10 gallons.  I split this into 2 pails.  One got the standard Belgian yeast, the other Roeselare yeast blend, which will become an Oud Bruin.

Fermentables:
   18# Rarh 2-row malt
     1# Carapils
  1/2# Special B
  1/2# Belgian aromatic malt
     1# Belgian dark candi sugar
     2# sugar
Hops:
  2oz German Tradition (60)
  2oz Hersbrucker (15)
Other:
  1 Whirlfloc tablet (10)

Yeast:
  Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abby ale - Sub White labs 530 Belgian Abby ale
  Wyeast 3763 Roselare blend - used in 1/2 the wort for an old bruin.
 
Notes:

10/28/12 - Starter of WYeasty Abbey Yeaast

10/31/12 - Belgian starter failed!

10/31/12 - New starter w/ WLP 530 Abbey Ale

11/1/12 - Brew 10g Belgian double (1/2 goes to oud bruin)   OG=1.065

11/24/12 - Secondary  SG=1.011

Hazy, amber.  Slight yeasty. not much Belgian character.  A little sweet but not bad.

Smoked Porter - Recipe

I combined 2.5 gallons of a strong stout and 2.5 gallons of smoked malt to make this beer.  I got 2 different 5 gallon batches with only a little extra effort.  See here for the full Strong Stout recipe. I mashed the smoked malt separately testing the 'brew in a bag' method.  It doesn't help that I didn't have the right kind of bag, but I think I got enough out of it.

For 2.5 Gallons (Then combined):
Fermentables:
  5# Briess Cherrywood smoked malt

Hops:
 1/2oz Northern Brewer (60 min)

Yeast:
  1 packet Nottingham dry ale yeast

Combine with 2.5 Gallons of Strong Stout wort.

Notes:
 Brewed: 10/7/12

 Mashed  @ ~152F for 60 minutes at 2qt/#
   Collected 3.5gals @9brix (1.036sg)
   Final (After combining): 4.8gals @14brix (1.056sg)
  After cooling, I took a gravity reading and got closer to 1.050. 

Looks like I got poor efficiency from the smoked malt.  The small bag made it difficult to stir the mash well.  At least the high gravity of the strong stout helped balance that. 1.050 will probably yield around 5% ABV, so its not too bad.  I will have to top it off 1-2 quarts to make up for the short volume, but it wont affect it by too much.
I did notice that the smokiness of the malt was very mild.  I am hoping 5# was enough to give it some good smoke character.

Update 11/25/12 Tasting

Strong Stout/Porter - Recipe

This recipe was for a combined brewing day.  I have been experimenting with different ways to get more than one beer in a short brew day.  For this, I made ~7.5 gallons of a strong stout and 2.5 gallons of smoked beer.  This recipe is for 7.5 gallons of stout.  See here for the smoked half.

For 7.5 Gallons:
Fermentables:
   15# Rahr 2-row
   1# Caramel 80
   1# English Chocolate Malt
   1# Flaked Oats
   1# Flaked Barley (I had ordered 2# barley, but was shipped 1 barley, 1 oats)
   8oz Black Patent Malt
   8oz English Roast Barley

Hops:
 2oz Northern Brewer (60 min)

Other:
 1 Whirlfloc tablet
 1 Vanilla bean (at flame-out)

Yeast:
  2 packs of S-04 dry ale yeast.

Notes:
 Brewed: 10/7/12 Start 7:45am

 Mashed  @ ~152F for 60 minutes at 1.5qt/#
   First running: 4.25gals @20.8brix (1.087sg)
   Second running: 5gals @11brix (1.044sg)
   Pre-boil 9.25gals @15brix
   Final: 7.5gals @18brix (1.074sg)
  After cooling, I took a gravity reading and got closer to 1.070. 

I probably could have gotten away with 1 yeast pack, but with the high OG, I decided to over pitch rather than under.  I'm sure it helped because the next day, I had blow off - Unexpected with 2 gallons of head space I leave in the pail.
Another thing I noticed with this beer.  Skimming the wort really helped avoid boilover.  I started with 9+ gallons in a 10 gallon pot.  I have skimmed before, but I could see this was really going to need it.  After taking off the top layer of foam, the rest of the boil went flawlessly.

Eberhardt Dark - Recipe

I based this recipe off of a combination of the Scottish 80 and German Lager - both of which I made in the last few months and liked at lot.
I combined what I though were the best parts of each into this one batch of 10 gallons.  This will be split into 2x5 gallon with the only difference this time being the yeast.

Recipe:
  for 10 Gallons OG=1.049
Malt:
 16.5# 2-row
 2# Munich 10l
 2# Vienna
 4oz Chocolate malt
 4oz Black patent malt
Hops:
 2oz Northern Brewer (60 minutes)
Yeast - each went into half (5 gallons)
 Safeale S-04
 Safbrew S-33
Other:
 1 Whirlfloc Tablet in boil (15 Minutes)
 2oz Med Toast Hungarian oak cubes - 1oz in secondary for each 5 gals
Mash 60 minutes at 152F

Brewing:I took the first gallon of mash runnings to boil down separately. This is to caramelize it a little and add to the maltiness.
My boil kettle is only 10 gallons, so I don't have enough room for a full 10g boil.  I started with 9 gallons, which boiled down to a little under 8.  Combined with the separate boil and 2 gallons of distilled top off water, I have my 10 gallons.
With my basement temp around 75F this time of year, I started the first few days of fermentation in the chest cooler, set to low 60's.
After at least 2 weeks primary, I will secondary on oak.  The first half will be kegged soon after, with the other waiting until the first half is gone.
I brewed this at the same time as this year's Havest IPA, which made for quite an exhausting day.

Notes:
  8/26/12 Brew 10 Gals @ 1.058 (Efficiency must have been a bit better than expected..)
     Fermenting in Chest freezer @60F
     1/2 gets S-33 other gets S-04