Beer Tasting

Today, a good friend at work is moving to another company so we are throwing a good-bye beer tasting to send him on his way. Six different beers are going to be sampled: Berliner Weiss, Saison, Wit, Irish Red, Irish Stout, and Chocolate Cherry Imperial Porter. Should be a lot of fun.

Additionally, the Nut Brown Ale I brewed with my daughter is bottled and the preliminary first test (one week in the bottle) went well. Both the Irish Red and Nut Brown were all grain kits from Northern Brewer that I received as Christmas presents from my wife. Both are very fine session beers and I understand why they are best sellers. Later this month I'll be back to my own recipes when I produce a Helles, my first lager in quite a while. I finally freed up some space in the beer fridge and since I keep it around 50 degrees it's ideal for lager fermentation.

Irish Red in the Bottle

I got around to bottling the Irish Red Ale I brewed two weeks back. Very tasty and well balanced. Should make a fine session ale as it ended up with about 4% ABV. Too bad it won't be ready for St. Patty's Day tomorrow.

My daughter, who was home for spring break, helped with bottling. She is a Journalism major at the University of Florida (Go Gators) and observed/helped produce the past two batches of beer while home for spring break. She is taking a magazine writing class and one of her assignments was to produce a trade/how to feature story for class. She chose homebrewing for her topic so I got to be her "subject". Maybe she'll let me post it after it's been graded.



My beautiful wife and daughter.

Long Time, No Post

It's been quite awhile since I updated my blog. I guess that's because I wasn't brewing a bunch. But in the past two weeks I've brewed two batches of beer. The supply was getting a little low and I needed to get the stock back up.

First, let's try to catch up on the old stuff. The Typhoon Willie Mead was bottled in early December. It finished up about 17% ABV and a fairly dry for such a big mead, a FG of 1.017. It should be quite amazing after it conditions in the bottle. I bottle the majority in 375 ml bottles with cork. I thought it was pretty good even at a young age. Hardly any of the hot alcohol and very nice honey notes.

Next up was the Palo Santo Ale. Half was bottled after a couple weeks on the wood and the other half was racked onto some bugs I got from a friend. The wood aged beer is kind of strong and is conditioning in a keg. The bug beer is still in the carboy.

The Flanders Red, now at about 8 months, has a pellicle and another 4 months before I consider bottling. I may get a sample to try and see how it is progressing.

Finally to the Berliner I made last year. We finished off the first case a few months ago. I just took the second case out of storage and cracked on this weekend. WOW! My daughter said it is identical to the Berliners she sampled in Berlin last spring. It is fantastic. This is one beer I will have to recreate again.

As far as my hiatus from brewing, well, we expanded our family in early January. We now have two Cavalier puppies roaming our house. Sami and Lilah, a pair of tri-color sisters.

Sami

Lilah

Back to the beer. The girls are now old enough that they don't require constant attention, so getting the time to make beer is a bit easier. And besides, the stocks were dwindling.

The first beer I made was an Irish Red Ale and the second was a Nut Brown Ale. Both were all-grain kits I received for Christmas that were purchased from Northern Brewer. I selected yeast from the slants I have at home. For the Irish, I used WL Pacific Ale and for the Nut Brown, I used California Pub ale. Not standard choices, but both should produce nice beers. I also added an extra pound of British 2-row to the Nut Brown since I wanted a little higher starting gravity.

The Irish will be bottled this week. I made the Nut Brown Ale yesterday with my daughter. It was my birthday and she is going to write a magazine article on homebrewing for her magazine writing class at UF. Great way to spend a birthday.

Hopefully I won't be as negligent with my blog as I had been recently. I'll let you know how these two turn out. Any suggestions on a name for each?

The Bug Farm

I recently received a gift from a friend I met over on the Burgundian Babble Belt. His name is Al Buck, and he is a big time "wild beer" brewer. The gift was an assortment of wild yeast and bacteria-innoculated wood chips. He calls it Bug Farm II since it is his second offering. I'm thinking of splitting the chips to add to two separate beers. My thoughts are this:

Add half the bugs to the already fermenting Flanders Red.

Add second half to 1/2 of the Palo Santo Ale batch.

I have a couple of 3 gallon carboys so the split batch would make a nice comparison. One half "wild brew" and one half on the Palo Santo wood.

Another alternative would be to create a new unique beer for the chips.

I'm posting a poll to see how you all feel or feel free to comment below.

Catching Up

It's been over a month since I contributed to my blog, and that's because it's been that long since I brewed something. That doesn't mean that I haven't been working on my homebrewing, just that it usually slows a bit during football season.

My last post detailed the bottling of the Berliner Weiss. To date, one case has been consumed. I was astonished that the beer turned out freakingly similar to the Kindl Weiss I found this past summer in Lexington, Ky. My daughter, the original Berliner Weiss snob, gave the beer rave reviews and said it was just like the Weiss she had in Berlin. We even had some schuss to add to give it a bit of authenticity.

The next beer task accomplished this past month was the bottling of the Saison. It spent over 40 days in the fermenter and managed to finish with a gravity of 1.006. Final ABV of around 8%. The sample had that classic Saison spiciness but was a bit drier than my past attempts. Should be good.

I also took a gravity reading of my Flanders Red. After the initial primary fermentation, the gravity was 1.022. After 4 months in secondary, it's down to 1.012. The bugs are doing their job. The beer is tart but I'm not sure how much funkiness to expect at this time. I can detect both lactic and acetic sourness, with the lactic sourness predominating (more like the Berliner). It still has a way to go.

Finally, I got around to brewing again. I put together my Christmas beer, a Clone of Dogfish Heads Palo Santo Marron. It seems that I'm into putting together beers that fall into the "significantly different" category. It is a big Brown ale that will be aged on Palo Santo wood. It also has 2 pounds of Sucanat added. Here's the recipe.

Palo Santo Ale

22-C Smoked Flavored/Wood Aged, Wood-Aged Beer

Recipe Specifics

Batch Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 17.38
Anticipated OG: 1.086
Anticipated SRM: 24.4
Anticipated IBU: 44.4
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 110 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

10.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)
3.75 lbs. Munich Malt
2.00 lbs. Sucanat
1.00 lbs. Crystal 60L
0.25 lbs. Chocolate Malt
0.25 lbs. Pale Chocolate Malt
0.13 lbs. Black Patent Malt

Hops

1.10 oz. Amarillo Gold 8.40 AA 60 min.
0.75 oz. Willamette 5.20 AA 20 min.
0.90 oz. Amarillo Gold 8.40 AA 10 min.
0.75 oz. Goldings - E.K. 4.75 AA 0 min.

Yeast

WYeast 1728 Scottish Ale

Mash Schedule

Saccrification 153 degrees
Batch sparged

Note: Add Sucanat with 15 minutes remaining in boil.
Add 3 oz of Palo Santo wood chips to secondary fermenter.

Bottling the Berliner

I finally got around to bottling the Berliner Weisse I made in late July. It has been in the secondary for close to 60 days. I was hoping the additional time would firm up the lactic tartness of the beer. I did a comparison of my weisse with Kindl Weisse from Berlin. Mine wasn’t quite as tart as the Kindl but still expressed the necessary lactic twang. Another homebrew blogger, the Mad Fermentationist, wrote that the weisse he brewed really picked up the lactic sharpness after it was primed and bottled. I’m hoping mine does as well. The only other difference I noted was mine was a shade lighter than the Kindl. As far as a refreshing, low-gravity beer, I think I found the mark.

Fermentation Friday - Indigenous Ingredients

Final Gravity is hosting this month’s Fermentation Friday and asks the question “What indigenous brewing ingredient have you used or would you like to brew with and what style would that beer be?” This was a difficult question for me since I couldn’t think of any indigenous ingredient that I would use in beer that came from my area in Northwest Florida. Then I went out into my yard and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Growing in both my back and front yard, I find Butia capitata, or the Pindo Palm, also known as a jelly palm. Pindo palms are cold-hardy palms that have large, showy clusters of orange-yellow, juicy, edible fruits, the size of large dates, which are often used to make jams or jellies. The sweet-tart flavor of the fruit is reminiscent of both apricots and a pineapple-banana mixture.


Fruit from the Pindo Palm

I knew the fruit was edible but I was more concerned about the mess they made around my pool in the summer. I searched the internet and found that the Pindo is actually native to South America, but if it grows in my yard, it’s got to be indigenous to Northwest Florida too. Right?

As for the type of beer I would make with the fruit, I think it’s got to be a fairly light fruit ale that would highlight the flavor of the fruit. Since the fruit produces in the summer here, that would probably work well with the season. There you have it, Pindo Palm Ale.