Zythos IPA - Tasting

I love the way this beer turned out. My goal was strong citrus American hop flavor without too much bitterness. I did originally plan it to have higher alcohol, but it is ok where it ended up. I do not expect this keg to lay too long, which is ok because these IPAs are best fresh. This weekend, I will be brewing a lighter pale ale version of this.
Links: Recipe Brewing

The beer is this pretty copper color with great clarity. I think I will stick with using a secondary. It helps to drop the yeast out before I get it into the keg.

The aroma is all hops. American citrus type hops.

For the most part, the flavor matches the aroma, hoppy goodness. There is a little malty sweetness to help balance.

The beer is quite drinkable, especially for a 7.5%abv beer. It has this thirst quenching quality to it. I could drink it by the quart.

Notes:
  4/7/12 - Brewed - OG=1.061 (Poor efficiency)
  4/22/12 - Secondary G=1.005   + 1 oz Zythos dry-hop
      Hazy, but not too yeasty.  Some hop aroma, good hoppy flavor.
  5/10/12 - Keg Zythos IPA  FG=1.004  ABV=7.5%
      + 1oz Zythos keg-hop
  Initial tasting - Soft with pleasant hop flavor with a hint of "Soapy"   Low bitterness
  So far, I have not had any issues with the keg hops. I didn't do anything special, just tied up 1oz of pellet hops in a mesh Baggie and threw them in.

And a thank you to Keith for the perfect mug to drink this beer from!

First sourdough (bread)

With all of this beer making, we thought it was time to start our own sourdough culture. Bread is solid beer after all.
It all started two weeks ago when I mixed some leftover wort with some flour in a mason jar. We fed it daily (your are supposed to feed twice daily, but we had trouble keeping up) for two weeks. This weekend I decided it was time to see what our little creation could do. I found a basic sourdough recipe and got to work.

Starter culture

Here is the recipe and process I used. It is a combination of a few I found online modified for what I had on hand.

Mix 1 cup sourdough starter in large bowl with -
 3/4 cup water
 2-1/3 tbsp olive oil
 1-1/2 tbsp buckwheat honey
 1-1/4 tsp salt
Mix ingredients well then add in 2 cups whole wheat flour and mix well.
Turn onto floured surface and kneed in another 1/2 cup or so of white flour.
Kneed into a ball and put in covered greased bowl.
Allow it to rise - we gave it about 8 hours.
Punch down, kneed some more and formed into a ball ( from here you could do loaf, rolls, pretzel, etc)
Put onto floured pizza stone (bad idea) and let rise another hour or so.
I forgot to slash the top, but that didn't cause a problem here.
Baked at 370 for 40 minutes.

I baked it on our pizza stone, but soon learned I should have put something on it other than just flour. The bread was glued to the stone and it took some time to scrape it free. Someday I will learn how to use that thing,.

We let it cool 10 minutes before trying it.

Soft crust, very soft and springy inside. It was also a bit chewy. Not bad for almost all whole wheat.
Standard bread flavors, but definitely has that sourdough taste to it. Not overpowering, but it was definitely there.
Lactic acid flavor lingers long after you are done eating it.
Overall, we were very happy with how this came out and will definitely make it again.

4 way wheat beer tastings




Weihenstephan, Schneider, Franzikaner, Mine!

  Spring is here (not that we really had much of a winter) and that means its time to break out the wheat beers. Or as the Germans call it Weissbier. Sure America has wheat beer too, but this post isn't about those.  I stopped by the beverage distributer and grabbed 3 German weisse beers to compare - and of course added my own into the mix (This one). I had used the weihenstephan yeast for mine, so there should be some similarities.

 #1. Weihenstephan 
  We start with the Worlds oldest brewery. It also happens to be the only one that I have a matching glass for.
     Yellowish orange hazy. Pillowy white head.
      Fruity Belgian yeast aroma
      A little bread malt in flavor.  Refreshing light beer.  Yeast esters dominate the flavor.  It is a little tart with some citrus and maybe a hint of banana.
     The beer has good carbonation with a slight prickliness to it.

#2 Schneider Weisse "The original weiss beer"
   This one is a bit darker with an off-white head.  Sizzling carbonation.
   It has a cleaner aroma and flavor.  Not as light and refreshing as the last one.
   Lauren says it needs brats :)
   The flavor does have some yeast mixed with a mild maltiness - and perhaps some fruit?
   It has a good carboniation, but with less prickly.
   This beer has a slightly drying to the mouth in the finish. Is that tannins?

#3 Franziskaner Weissbier
   How can you not love a beer with a drunken monk on it?
  Pours light hazy orange with large creamy off white head.
  Mild yeasty aroma with a slight spiciness mixed with citrus and bread.
  This beer has a good wheat flavor with more of that spicy citrus.  It also has a slight drying of the mouth.
  Again highly carbonated with some prickly, but not overly soda like.
  Another great beer.  Similar to the weihenstephan one.  My Only complaint is the foil wrap that is impossible to get off if you want to reuse the bottle.

 #4 My 2nd run wheat beer
  One difference - this beer was kegged, while the others were all bottle conditioned.
  Nice light orange color.  Hazy, but it is starting to clear up a bit.  More translucent than the others, but not by a whole lot.  Pillowy white head.
  Mild yeast aroma.  Less of the clove/banana than I got on the initial tasting.  Leaves a slightly phenolic after taste.
  Flavor is bright and almost citrusy wheaty goodness.  Good carbonation.
  Definitely light and refreshing.

Overall:  Mine may be the overall most refreshing, but I think I like the more complex flavors of Weihenstphan and Franzikaner a little better.  To me, Schneider came in last place here.

Double German lager brewing

I finally made the leap and am doing my first lager. Lagers are not really much harder than ales, except that temperature control during fermentation is much more important. Lager yeast ferments at a lower temperature than you can get from leaving the fermenter in the basement.
Ever since I got this chest freezer, I have been waiting to make the move - And today is the day.
I wanted to make the most of today's brew session and end up with two beers. To keep things simple, I decided to go with generic German lager and Oktoberfest. This would let me use the same mash and hops, with the divergence after the boil.  The only differences are the yeast and I will water down the lager a little.

A few days ago I made large starters of wyeast bohemian lager and octoberfest blend yeasts.

The day ended up being quite productive. In addition to ten gallons of beer, we made a sour dough yeast starter, took the kids to mayfair, mowed the lawn, cleaned the basement - All while I monitored a job for work.

Back to the beer - I opted for simple to save time and let me multitask a little. Single infusion mash at 152dg.  My mash tun was filled to the top, but rather uneventful.  First run and 2 sparges later, I had 12 gallons to work with.  Making a 10 gallon batch in a 10 gallon pot can be a bit tricky, so I split the wort - 8 gallons into the main kettle and 3.5 in a smaller pot on another burner. I combined these while it was cooling.
I ended up with 4.5 gallons in the octoberfest and 4 gallons in the lager. This seems low, but it was stronger than expected (1.064 sg) so I can water them down to 5 gallons each.
After filling the fermenters, I collected some more wort to feed some wild yeast starters I have and make the sour dough starter.

It was a tight fit, but I got the two buckets into the chest freezer with 4 kegs. I did have to remove the cider keg.  After initial fermentation at 50dg, I will let it warm up to finish off for a few weeks.  After that, the Lager gets 1 month of cold storage.  The Oktoberfest 3 months.

Notes:
Full recipe here.
Measuring out the grain, I realized I was 6# short - So emergency trip to the Growler in the morning.
1:30pm - Started heating water and crushed the grains
 Infused 30qt at 168dg for 152dg mash at 1.4qt/#
2:30 pm Sparging:
   1.  4.75 gals @ 21.7Brix (1.091sg)
   2.  5.25 gals @ 11.5Brix (1.046sg)
   3.  2 gals @ 7.5 Brix (1.03sg)
4pm Start boil
  2 hop additions into the 8 in the main pot
  3.5 gallons in another pot
5pm combined and cooled
6pm - 8.5 gallons into the fermentors at 16Brix (1.064)
  Will add .5 gals water to Oktoberfest for vOG=1.059 
  Will add 1 gals water to Lager for vOG=1.051

Scottish 80 (Oak) Tasting

The beer:  This is the second half of my Scott 80 beer that I brewed up 10 gallons of back in
January.  Full Recipe here.  Tasting for the 'clean' half here.  For this part, I aged it an additional 5 weeks on
1 ounce of medium toast Hungarian oak cubes.
OG=1.049, FG=1.012 ABV=4.75%

Appearance: Pours with a think head whith good retention, which leaves lacing all the way down the glass.
There is a decent clarity through the dark reddish-brown body.

Aroma:  A nice toasted oak aroma.  Some nuttyness. 
It gives it some of the toffee flavor I was looking for in the base beer.
The oak is not overly strong like cut lumber.  Something I have heard too much can give.

Taste: Again, oak is the dominant character here. A little bit of matiness sneaking in the background.  From the oak, I can taste some vanilla, caramel, wood, slight fruitines and maybe some nuts.  Its like a whisky without the burn.

Mouthfeel:   Slight creaminess, but overall a thinner beer. The carbonation is just right to not make it seltzery.  It does leave a slight dryness to the mouth afterwards; this may be from the oak tanins.

Overall:  I think the 1 ounce oak for 1 month was just about right for this.  It could go a little more,
but much more would be way too overpowering.  Much of the subtle characteristics of the base beer are lost in the oakiness, but since the primary goal of this batch was to experience what oak gives the beer, I don't mind that at all.
The extra month of aging did help the beer.  The clean half was kegged too soon and the first few pints
had way too much yeast. 
I will definitely use oak in beer again, although I will probably take a break from it for the summer. 
I might even do this recipe - the only change would be to up the malt character and possibly something to give it more body - Like flaked barley or oats.
I have the cubes I pulled from this currently soaking in some Vodka to make me some cheap imitation whiskey.  It is intersting to see what flavors you can get out of it over different lengths of time.
Some day I would love to work with barrels, but good luck talking the wife into that one!

Notes:
1/29/12 - Brewed 2x5 gal   OG=1.049
  2/15/12 Secondary Oaked Scott 80
     +1oz JD soaked Med-Toast Hungarian oak  
  3/23/12 - Keg FG=1.012    4.75% ABV
     Decent clarity.  Dark reddish brown.
     Nice oaky flavor.  there but not overpowering.  Almost a buttery sweetness to it.
  4/19/12 - This tasting

Zythos IPA - brewing

I thought it was about time to make something hoppy. Over the last 6 months, I have been making malty, roasty or sour beers. With such a long break from hops, I wanted this one to be big. As I was putting the recipe together, I decided to focus more on the citrusy side of American hops, but I soon found out that all of the good ones are sold out until the next harvest (early fall). What I did find was the hop bled from hop union called Zythos. It is apparently a blend of quite a few American hops. I ordered a pound of this and worked 1/2 of that into this recipe. 6 ounces in the boil and 2 more for dry hopping. I needed a malt bill that can stand up to that much hop flavor.
I started with a base of standard 2 row, a pound of caramel 80 (I happened to have some I wanted to use up) another pound of cara-pils and a pound of sugar to top it off. The goal is an ~8% abv beer. Full recipe here. Also with 6oz hops in the kettle, you lose quit a bit of wort, so I planned this as a 6 gallon recipe and will hopefully end up with 5 in the keg.

For today, I wanted to keep it simple and focus just on this one beer. I didn't start the water or crushing the grains until after 9am and I had the chiller going in time to make it to the farmer's market by 12:30. For the most part, the day went smoothly although during the boil, there was some boil over, but strangely no wort escaped, it just pushed all of the hops out. I scooped them back in and kept the fire going. Everything looked like it was going well, but when I checked the gravity, it was much lower than expected. 1.061, which means I only got 60% efficiency. Depending on where it finishes, I may have a 6.5% beer. Not quite as big as I was hoping, but will still be OK.
My daughter really liked sampling the sweet wort. I may have to start making some non-alcoholic malt beverages.

I then used a half gallon of the final runnings to top off my sour cultures and set a couple out in an attempt to capture wild yeast. We will see how that goes...

Second run Heffeweizen - tasting

This is the perfect beer to welcome in the spring - a German Heffeweizen. It is a refreshing wheat beer fermented with a characterful yeast that gives clove and banana esters. This year I did not dedicate a brew day to just this one beer. Instead, I made it from the second runnings from the lambic mash. The difference is that I pulled some for a small decoction. This is where you boil some of the mash before adding it back in. This is supposed to impact the color and flavor, but I cannot really say how as I have never compared two side by side.

Appearance. Pours with a thick pillowy white head that hands around forever. The body is a nice yellowish orange, hazy but with a little more clarity than it should have.

Aroma. Definitely a heffe here. The banana/clove dominates the aroma.

Taste. Tastes of a refreshing wheat beverage with a hint of tartness. No detectable hops. Neither sweet nor bitter.

Mouthfeel. Light creamy texture, which is interesting considering the low finishing gravity and high carbonation. Not sure what is keeping it from being seltzer like, but it is nice. The body is light and refreshing. I am looking forward to some hot weather so I can sit out in the sun with this.

Overall. This is a nice refreshing beer with enough character to not be boring. Considering this was the leftovers from another beer, I save times and money making it. Of course the hops, yeast and some malt extract and propane were not free.
It. Does not have as much of the banana that I was secretly hoping for. Next time I may have to raise the ferment temp.

Notes:
'Recipe' here
  2/20/12 - Brewed 5.3 Gal  OG=1.040
   Fermented cold (~60F)
  3/9/12 - Keg   FG=1.009  ABV=4%
     Great hazi-ness.  Not yeast-murky, but more of a starch haze.
     More clove, less banana, maybe a little sweet.  has potential.  will be good carb'd