Beer

This weekend I bottled the barleywine that I brewed so long ago. Let me give a short review of all that has happened with this beer:

1.) First thing to do was to dry hop with the last of the Cascade hops. I simply tossed the pellets into the fermenter (still primary at this point) and resealed the lid.
2.) After pitching the champagne yeast once the lock stopped bubbling, fermentation stuck at gravity 1.032.
3.) The first thing recommended to me by the LiveJournal homebrewing group was to try adding yeast nutrients and swirling the beer around a bit to oxygenate. No change in gravity.
4.) Several weeks pass with no change in gravity. I attempt to make a starter with a second pack of yeast, but my attempt is foiled when a fruit fly makes its way in and contaminates it! Bah!
5.) A few more weeks pass. I purchase a glass carboy and rack the beer onto to some oak chips within. Still no change in gravity.
6.) Several months pass to this weekend.

Well, I think I left the beer on the oak chips a little too long. Pre-primed tasting is ULTRAOAKY. I'm sure it will improve with some time in the bottle and some fizz. They always do.

Beer & Wine Hobby has a 70 dollar (!!!) bourbon cask vanilla bean stout kit. The most recent newsletter from Modern Homebrewing Emporium has instructions that I can put together on their website for $55. The vanilla beans are another 10 clams from JR Mushrooms and Specialties, but I want to do a vanilla bourbon infusion, too, so I need those beans! I will skip the bourbon soaked oak chips

Here is the plan (modified to suit my tastes and available hops):

- 1 lb crystal malt (90L)
- 1 lb Maris otter malt, since it sounds interesting
- 1/4 lb chocolate malt
- 1/4 lb black patent malt
- 1/8 lb roasted barley
- 6 lbs dark malt extract (dry)
- 1 oz Northern Brewer hops (kettle)
- 1 oz Chinook (aroma)
- White Labs WLP004

Ferment in primary for a week, then rack to secondary on top of four vanilla beans.

Rack to secondary? Uh oh, my brand new carboy is already full of barleywine! On the recommendation of the LiveJournal Homebrewing community, that will be sitting for a few months on some medium toast French oak chips.

CHEAPSKATE TIP: A paper bag from the supermarket is just as good for a 5-gallon carboy cover as it is for a book cover! Just cut a hole in the bottom of the bag for the fermentation lock to poke through.

Today was a big beer day. Last Saturday, I had added the second specified spice packet to the pumpkin ale I had brewed. In doing so, I racked it all into the bottling bucket, then got rid of all the yeast trub at the bottom. This made today's bottling experience much easier. No sediment at the bottom of the fermenter means less grit in the bottles! Altogether the yield was about 4.3 gallons into 26 nice big bottles. For the sake of consumer interest, the gravity on this when racking to secondary was 1.016 and just before priming and bottling was 1.014. Temperature corrected ABV is 5.1% and a 12 ounce bottle would have about 184 calories if I bottled in bottles that small.

Once bottling of the pumpkin ale was complete, I started the barleywine brew also mentioned in the above link. I slightly modified my plans to include steeping some bitter orange peel along with the grains. The OG for this is 1.082 at 75 degrees. Once primary fermentation is done, I am to pitch the champagne yeast right into that vessel, and then rack to secondary once THAT fermentation is finished. This brew could get up to 11% alcohol! Yow!

Last Friday I was on the radio. The auto-archiving on WZBC is now working. These links should function until October 30.

Hour 1: http://zbconline.com/wzbc-2009-10-16-22-00.m3u
Hour 2: http://zbconline.com/wzbc-2009-10-16-23-00.m3u
Hour 3: http://zbconline.com/wzbc-2009-10-17-00-00.m3u

Playlist below:

Continue reading "Beer and "wine" and tracks" »

Some production and consumption notes:

Saturday I made a pumpkin ale. I have long wanted to make a clone of Souther Tier's Pumking, but I'm not ready for all-grain brewing yet, so instead I picked up a kit of the on-sale Harvest Feast Pumpkin Ale from Beer and Wine Hobby. This kit consisted of 6.6 pounds of malt extract, with a pound of flaked barley, half a pound of chocolate malt, 2 oz of Hallertau hops for bittering, a can of pumpkin puree for those of us without fresh pumpkin available, two packets of magical 'pumpkin spice', the usual priming sugar, and Irish moss for clarification. I opted for the dry yeast version of the kit as my fridge is full. As usual, I started things off by rehydrating the yeast using a stir plate. (Someday I may actually make a yeast starter the night before brew day.) Brewing was straightforward, but I did try a few new things for this batch! I sparged my grain bag with hot water instead of squeezing it, making the total boil volume just shy of four gallons. I actually strained out the hop and protein residue before adding to the fermenter; hopefully this results in less useless sediment at the bottom and more clear beer to drink! The kit instructions said that the gravity of the wort should have been 1.042. In reality, it was 10 points higher, 1.052 after temperature correction! I can't imagine what may have happened. This brew also calls for racking to secondary and adding a second sachet of pumpkin spices. I don't have a glass carboy, so I will have to rack to my bottling bucket and then back into my primary fermenter just as I did with my chocolate stout.

The brewing store was busy, and I think they may have given me a yeast that was not quite intended for this beer. They handed me a packet of Safbrew T-58 yeast which is what I used for my "Belgian" honey amber ale. This yeast generates spicy and fruity flavors all its own, so this may be a really weird ale!

My next beer project will be a barleywine based on Death by Barleywine. I bought 10 pounds of dried amber malt extract; a pound of crystal malt and half a pound each of chocolate malt and roasted barley; 1 ounce of Nugget hops for bittering and 3 ounces of Cascade: one for aroma, one for flavor, and one for dry-hopping; a packet of Pasteur champagne yeast to take over once the Safale S04 dies off; and French oak chips for aging. The oak chips take about 6 weeks to fully infuse, at which point I will bottle and let that stuff sit until the bleak midwinter. Mmm.

We also roasted a chicken Saturday night. It was a kosher chicken and that made a serious difference. Moist and juicy! I attempted to make a nice chicken gravy with the drippings, but we were too hungry to wait for it to boil down!

Sunday I attempted to make a Steak and Ale pie with the last of my Park Ave Porter Plus . It was tasty, but the crust didn't puff up as puff pastry is supposed to! It just got warm and stayed mushy. Bummer :(

Oh, and today while on a stop at the liquor store to get a single bottle of wine, I picked up Sam Adams Imperial Series Stout and Double Bock, a bottle of Troegenator, a Stone Vertical Epic 09.09.09, and a Red Hook Tripel. I hate having a semi-decent beer store right on my walk home from the train.

The words of C. B. Stubblefield adorn every bottle of Stubb's barbecue products: "First of all, you have to have the taste and the time."

Well, I didn't have the time today, so I had to buy a bottle of someone else's sauce.

Today was my extended family's July and August birthday party and was the first chance for most of them to meet our new baby. Always on the lookout for a barbecue excuse, I offered to make ribs at my dad's house where the party was being held. He and I have the exact same smoker configuration. For some reason, even though I only bought my kit after he did (and made some really awesome ribs) he thinks I have some magic power that he doesn't, so he told me that he would pick up the charcoal and he would watch me do everything.

Anyway, since the party was on a Saturday, I wouldn't have time to make my ribs the day before since I would be at work. Food was to be served at 1:00 P.M., so my options were limited. I decided to try my hand at Memphis dry ribs since this style only requires 1-2 hours to cook.

Friday night, I made some brief preparations. I put together a half-batch of my old standby, Mike Mills' Magic Dust. While not strictly Memphis style, it is somewhat similar to the spicy version of this Memphis rub which I will try in the future. Notice that the Memphis Dust does not include ANY cayenne or chili powder by default!

What makes dry ribs dry is the lack of a sauce basted at the end of the smoke. You still can use a mop. I would recommend it for any barbecue, honestly. I improvised since I couldn't find the recipe I used last time: 1 cup olive oil, ½ cup apple cider vinegar, ½ cup Worcestershire sauce, a can of Miller Lite, and a few spoons of Phat Mike's mysterious rub that appears to be equal portions paprika and espresso grinds.

This got packed up with a my actual mop and a few foil pans. I asked my dad to get a few oak logs handy.

This morning, I stopped at McKinnon's, hoping to get some full slabs of the baby back ribs on sale starting Friday. They had three half slabs and when I asked at the counter they were otherwise out! Instead, I picked up two slabs of spare ribs. They were cut super thick: ten pounds each! I also picked up a bottle of Charlie Beigg's Maine Apple barbecue sauce, and some ice for the trip. Upon arriving at my parents', my dad presented me with yet another rack of ribs (baby backs!). To start the fire, he usually uses small pieces of pine wood that have been covered in wax. This is basically a homemade version of those fire log contraptions you get from the grocery store. It worked well enough. The cooker got up to temp pretty quickly. My dad went to run some errands, and told me to wait on the baby back ribs so he could watch the whole process.

Turns out that half a batch of Magic Dust is exactly enough for two slabs of untrimmed spare ribs (the meat flaps on the backs were mostly fat and the knife was getting slippery) and one side of baby backs. After scraping and oiling the cooking grates, I loaded the spares into the cooker, and waited for my father's return.

Once he got back, I spiced the baby backs, and I placed that rack on the warming rack.

Now, the other thing about dry ribs is that they are smoked really hot for barbecue. I was shooting for a temperature of 350°F, so I actually started the fire in the main cooking chamber, not in the firebox. Guess what? Some of the spare ribs got a little burnt! Oh well.

After about two hours and much pestering by the family, I took the ribs to be sliced. I actually trimmed off the brisket bone and all the cartilage-y bits but served them anyway, warning people about the difference. Nobody seemed to mind. There were leftovers, but honestly, three racks of ribs for 15 people who were also eating dynamites is a little overkill. One comment made by my brother makes me want to explore some of the standard Char-Griller modifications to reduce the right-side hotspot, but that will be a long time from now, I'm sure.

I bottled my porter project yesterday! FG was 1.019, which gives an absurdly low ABV of 2.944%? I don't believe it. Anyway, I tasted the very last bit of gritty stuff at the bottom of the bucket and it was delicious! I just hope I didn't bottle too early!

Last Saturday, I brewed the porter kit my parents bought me for my birthday. I decided once again to tweak it, this time by adding molasses (just shy of 1/4 cup) to the boil right from the start, then a bag of cracked coffee beans for 30 minutes and 1/4 cup of cocoa powder for 5 minutes. OG was just about 1.042. Should be tasty!

On the weekend of April 24th-26th, I will be volunteering at the Megapolis Audio Festival, in and around Harvard Square and the Elks Lodge in Central Square in Cambridge. This event features live performances, audio art installations, and workshops on such topics as circuit-bending, making your own contact mic. Weekend passes are $45 ($30 for students) with some workshops requiring RSVPs and/or materials fees. There are also tours of a mysterious nature (!) and an all-night audio slumber party (!!!)

On Friday May 8th, Contra Mestre Marquinho Coreba of Capoeira Gerais, my capoeira instructor will be performing a demonstration along with Instructor Morcego, Coehlo, and Fantama of Capoeira Luanda as part of a late addition to the program of the Voidstar Productions 2009 Multimedia Circus. (click for flyer).

My amber ale is delicious!

My dad gave me most of a cut-up cherry tree and a pile of red oak! IT'S SMOKING SEASON as soon as I re-season the grates on my smoker.

I will post the final Octave One interview soon. I have been in total information chaos since that weekend and the CD with the final version has been in my desk at work for quite some time.

Just for the record: FG: 1.023

Total yield was about 4.25 gallons. Beyond the usual loss to the yeast cake and the stuff left in the bottling bucket, I managed to overfill a couple bottles, and accidentally open the bottling bucket spout and pour some more beer all over the floor.

I actually managed to crack a bottle neck while capping, so I drank it! Verdict: flat beer sucks.

So, this afternoon, I used the beer kit I received as a Christmas gift from my parents. Here are the original kit ingredients:
- 3 pounds Muntons Pale Extract (hopped)
- 2 pounds Muntons Amber Extract
- 1 pound mixed Munich and Wheat Malt
- 1 tsp Irish Moss (boiled 15 mins)
- 1 oz Willamette hops (half for 60mins, half for 10 mins)
- Safale S04 yeast

I added the following ingredients:
- 2 oz bitter orange peel (at 5mins)
- 1 lb honey (partly wildflower, partly mesquite, added at 2nd boil)
- 0.5 lb light candi sugar (at 2nd boil)
- 0.5 lb malto-dextrin (at 2nd boil)

I switched the yeast to Safbrew T-58, which I made into a starter on a stir plate. I'm not sure if that is going to make a difference since I only stirred it for an hour.

OG is 1.065, up from the 1.040 on the kit instructions. Spent grains are currently being baked into a this spent grain bread, and I'll hopefully also make this one and this one later on today!

For Christmas, my parents bought me an Amber Ale kit from Blackstone Valley Brewing Supply. I think I will make it next week, but I think I will modify it somehow. The people from the Homebrewing LJ community recommended steeping orange peel, or adding honey, or trying a different yeast strain. Considering I have an enormous bear of honey, I will probably add about a pound of that. If I can make it to the brewing store, I will get some orange peel and possibly a different yeast as well. Safale T-58 was the specific strain suggested. Beer and Wine claims to have it, but that doesn't mean they'll have it in stock. Boston Brewin' may have it; they have no website so I can't check. I may also add some malto-dextrin and candi sugar, just to see what happens.

Because the ale kit has both extract and grains, I'm going to take the spent grains and try to make bread with them. This recipe might work, but I have actually never made bread by hand before! If I end up with more than 3 cups of grains, I might make two loaves. I've found several for the bread machine: Spent-grain beer bread (contains eggs), honey wheat bread, honey wheat/rye bread, herbed spelt or whole wheat bread, and another eggy bread. I have purposefully left out anything that requires a starter for the bread.

On another note, I am considering the following recipes for my next beers:

• Mother Earth Old Ale or this Old Ale with English malt instead of Belgian. To be aged until wintertime!


• Belgian-style ales: This extract kit is an option. Yet another option: Triple Play (extract recipe) or this extract kit (advantage: cheap). I am also considering trying one of the Stone Vertical Epic ales, specifically the 06.06.06 version.


• Extract barleywine recipe from BeerAdvocate. This will require about a month of secondary fermentation on oak chips. (Well, the recipe doesn't call for it, but I'm going to try it.), likely this coming winter. Alternate: Mindblowing Barleywine


• Southern Tier Pumking clone. To be brewed once #8 is complete and I have enough empty bottles. #9 Delayed until next fall for reasons of timing and funding.


• Dogfish Raison D'Ètre clone. Hard. For springtime 2010 perhaps.

These bring me up to about batch 12. The Free Beer recipe is right out because WTF GUARANA IN BEER? However, there's no real point in assigning numbers to batches I haven't brewed!

FG: 1.025

That's a little high. I probably should not have racked to secondary at all. Every smells saison-y. There was some stuff floating in the beer. I am wondering if that was just yeast or some other wild organism that made it into the fermenter. I'll know in a little while once I crack open a bottle. I ended up with only about 4.5 gallons total yield, likely due to racking loss.

For an early Christmas, my parents bought me another amber ale kit. I will use this as batch 6 instead of the Free Beer project, since I don't have the equipment to do all-grain brewing.

I did replace my hydrometer; the new one has a built-in thermometer too! I am also receiving a secondhand stir plate for making yeast starters tomorrow, hopefully.

Tonight I racked the saison to secondary, as the recipe recommended. Those keeping score will notice that I only have a single fermenting vessel. What I did was rack it to the bottling bucket temporarily while I cleaned and sanitized the fermenter, then racked the beer back to the fermenter. The recipe said to get rid of the sediment. I hope I didn't clear all the yeast out of the wort. I need to get the brewing store soon to pick up a new hydrometer so I can test that things are moving along properly.

A few months ago I picked up one of these saison kits from Beer & Wine hobby. Tonight while was at work, I did the boil and put it into the fermenter. In 3 to 5 days, I will rack to secondary (meaning I will hold it in the bottling bucket, clean out the fermenter, and rack it back to the primary) to clear out the sediment.

Notes on this batch:
- The wheat it came with was not cracked. I didn't realize this until I got back from the store, so I used the blender to crack it.
- the instructions involved numerous muslin bags. Unfortunately, it came with one too few. In sequence, they were supposed to contain (1) wheat malt (2) Hallertau hops (3) bitter orange peel (4) bitter orange peel, coriander, grains of paradise, cracked peppercorns. Unfortunately, when I tried to add the orange peel to bag #2, I spilled some into the wort. I don't think this will cause a problem as I fished all the peel bits out with a spoon.
- It looked like the wort was supersaturated with malt!
- My cats stole the dust cap for my fermentation lock, just after I had thrown the old one away! I can't find it, so I am using a piece of saran wrap for now. Stupid cats.
- I purchased a Thief for sampling wort and beer for the hydrometer. Unfortunately, I managed to break my hydrometer while putting it back into its case. The bottom fell out and the hydrometer dropped to the stone floor. B&W has them for $8, or one with a built-in thermometer for $15.
- OG was 1.058-1.059, exactly what the kit specified.

What with all the equipment I have to replace, homebrewing is definitely NOT cheaper than buying it in the store, unless you have VERY expensive taste!

I also picked up four bottles of Flaio (two each Primitivo and Negroamaro), an Ayinger Celebrator (Doppelbock), an Aventinus (Wheat Doppelbock), an Anventinus Weizen-Eisbock, a Cisco Baggywrinkle Barleywine, and a St. Amand French Bière de Garde. That last one isn't very wintery, but the rest should last me until spring 8)

Bottled the gruit ale last night. FG was around 1.010 before priming. Wish I had the OG! Oops! I couldn't find my priming sugar, so I used KreamyX from the Saison kit in my basement instead! I hope that turns out well.

The herbs were added directly to the boil. This is not a problem except that I also failed to sparge before adding the wort to the fermenter. With hops this isn't a big problem, as they settle to the bottom of the container, but heather tips and yarrow float! This clogged my racking cane and also got stuck in the bottle filler valve. When your bottle filler is stuck open you end up spilling beer!

Also, on 's suggestion, I sanitized all the bottles in the dishwasher, on the high heat wash and high heat rinse cycle. I had 37 bottles after discarding quite a few that wouldn't come clean, in both 12oz and 16oz sizes. This was exactly enough for the 5 gallon batch minus the sediment.