IPA

After waking from our food coma this morning we brewed another IPA. Compared to previous batches of IPA, this recipe was much simpler and had only 2 other malts. Other recipes have had up to 5 different types of grain and as a result the beers were too malty and sweet and the hop flavor was not as prominent as it should have been. I did make a slight mistake when I was shopping for the grains and switched one of the caramel malts with the amount for the biscuit malt. The beer will probably be a little sweeter and darker than originally planned but it shouldn't be too bad. This will probably be the last batch of beer before we make a lager at the very end of December/early January. When making lagers, after primary fermentation has been completed at ~49F, you raise the temperature of the beer to ~60-65 to perform a diacetyl rest. The rest allows the yeast to clean up off-flavors (diacetyl, which is a butterscotch type flavor) and then the beer will be lagered at 37F for 4 weeks. We are going to take advantage of the d-rest and brew a porter and ferment it in the fridge while the lager is sitting out. After that we will probably make a doppelbock that wont be ready to drink for ~6 months.


Side note, in 2010 to date we have brewed 94.5 gallons of beer. Legally, as a two-person household we can brew 200 gallons/year for personal conusmption, so we are under that but it is still a lot of beer.

First Snow

Its that time of the year, it has finally snowed here in Denver. Usually, we get snow much earlier than this, but better now than never. The reason that the first snow is important to us is becuase we brewed a beer on July 31st and bottled it on September 14th that was not to be opened until the first time it snows. The style of beer is an English Old Ale, a 8.4% dark malty beer perfect for dark, cold winter nights. After tasting this one, it is very good. It's sweet, thick, and the alcohol warms on the way down. Unfortunately, being 8.4% alcohol, it is not quite as carbonated as we would like after only 2 months in the bottle, but another 3-4 weeks and it will be fine. I am also guessing that in about 4-5 months when it mellows a little bit more that this beer is going to be really really good.

Also, when the first snow comes, we bring out Elky (for whom the beer is named) and he stays until the first rain storm in the spring.

Back in the game

Finally brewed again, this time we did a repeat batch, Bailey's Brown Ale. Same recipe as last, but a decrease in the chocolate malt from 8oz to 4oz. It is a good beer, but it is big, dark, and pretty strong; almost bordering on a porter. So, to take it a bit more towards a brown ale we dropped the chocolate a bit. We also treated the water with brewing salts. By making the Cl:SO4 ratio favor the Cl, the malt flavors will be more forward than the hop flavors in this beer. We'll see what effects that has on this batch and hopefully we will still have a couple of the old ones around to compare it too.

Also, this is the maiden voyage of the temperature controller we bought. The temp controller is used to set the fridge to whatever temperature we want. In the pic above you can see that it says 63. There is a sensor that goes into the fridge that we insulate against the side of the fermentor. Whenever the beer heats up during fermentation, the fridge will turn on and cool everything down to the desired temp. When the temp stabilzes, the fridge will turn off, and the cycle continues. By controller the temperature, we can control what kind of yeast characteristics we want. Lower temperatures will be very clean and neutral and almost lager-like, while higher temps will impart more fruity flavors.
This will also allow us to finally attempt to make some lagers. Lagers normally ferment in the high 40s/low 50s, and then require 2-6 weeks at 34 degrees to "lager." When the brown is complete and ready to bottle (around Thanksgiving) we are going to brew a schwarzbier (black lager). Schwarzbiers are kind of like "black pilsner" in that they are not very roasty or heavy like a stout, but are dark in color and generally lower in alcohol, ~5%. Here is a link to description of a schwarzbier. The main reason we are also making a lower alcohol lager is so we can use that yeast to make a high alcohol doppelbock. Lagers normally require 2x the amount of yeast ales do, and for just the schwarz we will have to make 2 different starters to get enough yeast. It would probably take us a month of making starters to make enough yeast for the doppelbock. Instead of making a bunch of small starters, we are essentially makaing a 5 gallon starter that we get to drink later. The doppelbock will probably be brewed right around Janurary 1st and we are thinking of using that as our First Snow beer for next winter. That way it will have about 2 months of lagering, and about 6 months in the bottle to age before we crack one open.
The only problem now with having the fridge and making lagers, is that there will be a lot longer time between batches if we want to use the fridge becuase lagers require such a long time.....Best solution= new fridge and temp controller :)