Wet Hop Cascadian Dark Ale - Tasting Notes

A few weeks ago I wrote about my back yard hop harvest and my Wet Hop Cascadian Dark Ale, I think it's time for tasting notes.

Appearance - I know the photo make it look like this beer actually turned out black but it didn't. It's more of a muddy brown verging on black which is a disappointment. I changed the recipe to use carafa II rather than roasted barley and now I regret it, it was really good the first time around. The head pours large and creamy, too much for the style.

Aroma - The citra dry hopping comes through big time in this beer as it should because I used 3.5 ounces. There's also a chocolate/coffee aroma in the background.

Mouthfeel - There is way more body in this beer than expected for a 1.010 FG. It's very creamy feeling in your mouth and gives the impression of a root beer float. Not exactly what I was looking for. Likely due to 16% rye malt.

Taste - There is a slight chocolate flavor and some coffee notes that aren't especially roasty just give the impression of dark grains. There's also a beautiful layering of citrus that doesn't clash as much as you might think it would. Very very little bittering, no surprise since this was 100% whirlpool hopped. The taste has changed significantly since I kegged it. The flavors have mingle together well and I'm really starting to enjoy this beer regardless of its faults.

Future Changes - Try midnight wheat for coloring next time and bump up the target SRM from 31 to 37. I'll need much less midnight wheat to make the beer black and this might help with some of the short comings. Reduce the rye malt by half to take some of the body and head creaminess away. Dry hop with centennial and cascade rather than citra, it's just too much.

Blog Roll Issues

This is not a brewing related post, this will be rant about losing my blogroll for some unknown reason. I'm not sure how much others rely on their blog rolls but I love having mine. It allows me to quickly see who's blog has new content and I run down that list several times a week.

It also helps me keep track all the various blogs I like to read, about 20 of them just for brewing. I know I won't be able to recreate the entire list if blogger can't bring it back and I'm seriously riled up about that.



It's like losing the Google RSS reader and the start page all over again. I checked and I'm not the only blogger user who is suddenly missing their blogroll. It looks like they changed the name of the gadget from Blog Roll to Blog List.

I have sent feedback about this although I'm not expecting a response. If I was a more serious blogger I would consider switching hosts, as it is I'm just playing so I can spend more time thinking about my hobby.

Sigh.

Fuck!

Brewing Budget

So I'm putting myself on a brewing budget. I spend a lot of money on this hobby and that should change a little. The budget is going to be fairly large, about $200/month but it will be for ingredients, equipment and craft beer purchases. I will allow carry over from one month to the next but no robbing peter to pay paul. In other words I can't borrow from a future month to buy that Tower of Power. I have to be conservative until I have all the money. Tougher than it sounds considering I buy pils and munich in bulk bags, that's about $120 in one shot and lasts about 2 months.

I plan to stretch the budget by being better at harvesting yeast for the future. I'm going to pick 5 strains that I'll attempt to keep in a healthy state. That also seems like a lot but I want to brew US, British and Belgian ales plus lagers and sours. I'd say 5 strains is a minimum. The 5th will be a mixed culture and I'll pull dregs from bottles for that.

Yeast is about 10-25% of the cost of a homebrew if you purchase a new pitch so this could take me a long way. I haven't proven to be very good about using the yeast I've harvested because I'm always brewing a different style of beer but I plan to pull wort from each beer I make and rotate the yeast in starters just to keep them healthy. Then if I don't use them for a while I know they aren't a bunch of dead cells. I won't be streaking because I don't have the equipment and that would be a pretty large initial investment, especially for the microscope.

My other thought is to plan my next 6 brews ahead of time. Then I know what ingredients and equipment I'll need and can find the best deal. For example I sometimes buy my ingredients on morebeer.com and make sure to spend enough to get free shipping. I often find myself forgetting one ingredient then having to run the LHBS where I inevitably spend even more money. This will also allow me to plan for bottle purchases for beers like Barleywine, RIS and Old Ales. Not much point of having these beers hold up a keg for months on end. I usually buy my bottles with craft beer already in them so they may be costly :).

Next 6 Homebrews

- British Barleywine (An effort to utilize that WLP002 yeast cake from the brown ale and porter)
- Winter Warmer (Smutty Nose Style - no spices)
- American Pale Ale (Supercharger Clone) - Will need to buy RO water
- Kettle Sour w/Brett
- XMAS Amber Lager (I have an amber lager all grain kit that was cheap I want to use up) May need to buy spices
- Dunkelbock

Bonus: Porter - rebrew the porter I just made.

Not too many sessionable beers in there, it's looking like I'll be ready for a cold winter.

Modern English Porter 13C - Smoked Pork Back Ribs

Last weekend I brewed a British Brown Ale using White Labs WLP002 yeast. Since the price of yeast is so damn high anymore (my LHBS is selling white labs for $9 and wyeast for $10, geesh) I try to get as many uses as possible out of it. Normally I would make a starter and scavenge some yeast form the starter before pitching but last weekend's brew day was impromptu, the yeast was only a month old and the brown ale had a low enough gravity for a direct pitch. So I decided to line up my next few brews for dumping on the brown ale's yeast cake.

So this weekend was 5 gallons of an English Porter (why in hell the BJCP switches from British to English in these styles is beyond me) and next weekend will be a stout then a barley wine. I may skip the stout, we'll see. I've brewed this porter before and it turned out exceptionally well.

Most the brew day went pretty smoothly except for one little thing. The recipe calls for 3/4 lb of chocolate malt and I didn't have any plus my LHBS is 40 miles away, blah. So I had to adjust the recipe on the fly. I ended up substituting 1/2 lb pale chocolate and 1/2 lbs midnight wheat for the chocolate malt. It bumped the SRM up a few points but I'm okay with that, I just didn't want to add any strong roast flavors to this beer. We will see how it turns out, to bad I don't have any of the last batch for comparison but I drink the beer I make, I don't tend to let it sit around for long :).

Since I racked on top of the entire yeast cake from the brown ale a very fast and vigorous ferment started within a couple hours. This is the data from just 18 hours of fermentation.

Beer Overview
Brew Date	9/25/2016
Beer	Nakota Porter 2016
OG	1.065	Sunday, September 25, 2016 at 1:29:38 PM
SG/FG	1.013	Monday, September 26, 2016 at 9:14:38 AM
Current ABV	6.83%
Highest Ferm Temp	73° F
Average Ferm Temp	69.9° F
Lowest Ferm Temp	64.2° F
Days to Ferment	0.80

You can see the beer started at 64F, the fermentation room was a steady 67F and the beer rose to 73F just from vigorous fermentation. That's a lot of happy yeast partying it up for less than a day to almost completely ferment this beer in 18 hours. I'm not sure if the excess yeast will keep esters down or the added fermentation temperature will drive them up but I'm excited to find out. The estimated FG was 1.024 which has already been blown by. I didn't expect the large pitch to make the yeast more attenuative but it seems to have done just that. Hopefully there will still be a little body left in the beer, I dislike dry, thin or watery porters and stouts. This may be a lesson learned, I did consider removing a significant amount of the yeast cake before pitching but decided against it. I may regret that decision.

The Recipe:

Overview

Name	Category	Brewer	OG	FG	ABV	SRM	IBU
Keeper: Nokota Porter	American Porter	Wilby	1.064	1.021	5.7 %	36.9 SRM	35.1 IBUs

Fermentables

Amount	Name	Diastatic Power	Color	Notes
9 lbs	Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess)	140.0000000	1.8 SRM	Flavor:Mild Malty Smoother, less grainy flavor than 6-row
1 lbs	Barley, Flaked (Briess)	0.0000000	1.7 SRM	Use at 10-25% to produce a light colored, mild flavored, dry beer.
1 lbs	Brown Malt	0.0000000	65.0 SRM	Imparts a dry, biscuit flavor. Used in nut brown ales, porters and some Belgian ales.
1 lbs	Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L	0.0000000	120.0 SRM	Adds body, color and improves head retention. Also called "Crystal" malt. Very Dark
12.0 oz	Victory Malt	50.0000000	25.0 SRM	Toasted malt that adds a "Biscuit" or toasted flavor to English ales. Use for: Nut brown ales, porters
8.0 oz	Chocolate Wheat Malt	0.0000000	400.0 SRM	Intensifies aroma and color in top-fermented beers such as dark wheat beers.
8.0 oz	Pale Chocolate Malt	0.0000000	300.0 SRM	Dark malt that gives a rich red or brown color and nutty flavor. Use for: Brown ales, porters, some stouts Maintains some malty flavor, not as dark as roasted malt.
8.0 oz	Special B (Dingemans)	0.0000000	147.5 SRM

Hops

Amount	Name	Alpha Acids	Time	Notes
1.50 oz	Mt. Hood	6.0000000	60.0 min	Used for: European Lagers, finishing Aroma: Mild with a clean aroma, neutral flavor. Somewhat pungent. Substitutes: Hallertauer, Liberty, Crystal
1.50 oz	Mt. Hood	6.0000000	5.0 min	Used for: European Lagers, finishing Aroma: Mild with a clean aroma, neutral flavor. Somewhat pungent. Substitutes: Hallertauer, Liberty, Crystal

Yeast

Amount	Name	Attenuation	Notes
35.49 ml	English Ale WLP002	70.0000000

Mash Steps

Amount	Type	Name	Ratio	Temp	Time	Description
4.70 gal	Infusion	Mash In	1.250 qt/lb	68.8888889	45.0000000	Add 4.70 gal of water at 167.6 F

Notes

Ver 1.1 - Changed batch size to 5.5 gallons - Changed water profile from a mix of RO and tap to pure avoca tap - good for malty beers with dark grains - removed 1 lb cara 8 - added 0.5 lb special B - added 1lb Victory (Briess buiscut malt) - adjusted hops to gain a IBU/GU ratio of 0.5 - Added flaked barley for some creamy body -When I went to brew this beer I found I didn't have any chocolate malt, thought I had 5 lbs so the recipe changed on brew day to the following --removed 3/4lbs chocolate --added 1/2 lbs pale chocolate --added 1/2 lbs midnight wheat --hit my numbers dead nuts

Espresso anyone?

Smoker BBQ Pork Back Ribs

This is the third time I've smoked on a brew day and I'm here to tell you the two things just go together. If you prep the meat the day before it's so easy to toss it into the smoker and just check on it occasionally while you're brewing. Plus you have a delicious meal after all your hard work with minimal effort.

Here is the recipe and process for Fervent Brewer's Smoked Ribs.

1. Remove the membrane from the back of your ribs (if it's there).
2. Use a coffee base pork rub ( I like it spicy) and apply to ribs 24 hours before smoking.
3. Smoke with hickory wood for 2 hours then apply butter with a brush every 30 minutes for the next hour.
4. Lay out foil. Apply butter to the foil with brush then honey about 2-3 tablespoons (your choice of type) and a handful of dark brown sugar. Place top of ribs down into the butter,honey,brown sugar mixture. Wrap with foil and place back in smoker for another hour with the top facing back up so the honey and sugar run down over the ribs.
5. Remove ribs from foil and brush on your favorite BBQ sauce, place back in smoker for another 30 minutes.
6. Enjoy! So damn good!

Happy Brewing!

Amazing Graf

So for those that don't know Graf if a fictional drink described in Stephen King's Dark Tower series of books. There's not a ton of detail about the drink in the book only that it is a specialty drink of Mid-World where orchards are plentiful. It's described as a strong apple beer.

Graf

Many people have made versions of this drink including a couple local breweries and cideries in my area. The owner of one such cidery dropped in to our homebrew club meeting last night and brought an very interesting version of a Graf that I thought was amazing. I've heard of people making beer and cider and blending them for Graf but this is the first time I'd heard of anyone substituting cider for all the water to make a beer, good idea really. What made this Graf unique is that it tasted just like a beer with a slightly tart finish.

I didn't get his exact recipe but this is the information I gathered from our conversation.

ABV: 8.9%
Water: 100% Apple Cider
Recipe Type: Extract w/ a portion of wheat extract- I feel this is key, I'm not sure you could get a mash to convert starches using cider in place of water.
Yeast: Hefeweizen

So the Hefe yeast worked exceptionally well in this beer/cider. When I make a wheat beer it tends to attenuate to 1.002 but this beer had more body. This seems strange when you consider most ciders ferment out to .999 depending on the yeast used.

The books warn to take it easy with Graf as it is a strong apple beer, I think 8.9% abv qualifies for this warning so if you make it beware, it's a deceptively easy beer to drink! You would never know it was nearly 9%.

Hop Harvest Day & Wet Hop Cascadian Dark Ale

It was time to harvest my hops in Western NY. Most of the small hop farms in the area had already harvested theirs even though I couldn't imagine how it was possible the hops were ready. Mine while papery, weren't easily coming apart in my hands and I made the mistake of harvesting too early last year and wasn't about to do that again.

This weekend would have to be it because much of the hops were browning and they were the most dry I had felt them. The weather was also about the change pretty drastically from 60's overnight to 40's.

I planned the harvest on day where I could also brew. Planning to make my typical Wet Hop Cascadian Dark Ale recipe which hides vegetal wet hop character quite well while also showcasing the citrus and resiny notes from my backyard  Chinook, Cascade and Centennial hops. I also threw in a handful of Norther Brewer because that's all I got from the 1 bine I have. NB doesn't seem to like the climate or soil here in WNY like Cascade, Chinook, Centennial and Mt. Hood do. I also recently found out that Liberty grows quite well here while Perle does not. This could be the placement in my tiny hop yard but I doubt it considering they're in the same 16x4 foot patch as everything but the Chinook.

Came home from work Friday and this poor guy was down!

Centennial harvest, only about a half pound from 2 bines. I don't think they liked the string of 90+ degree days and no rain this year. Even though I have then irrigated.

You can see the large percentage that were turning brown although even the worst of them had good lupulin content.

I've brewed the Wet Hop CDA before, I only tweaked it for this years available harvest. The rye gives it a nice body without taking away from the strong hop presence.

Wet Hop Cascadian Dark Ale:

Fermentables

Amount	Name	Diastatic Power	Color	Notes
13 lbs	Pilsner (2 Row) Bel	105.0000000	2.0 SRM	Belgian base malt for Continental lagers
3 lbs	Rye Malt	75.0000000	4.7 SRM	Adds a dry, crisp character to the beer. Yields a deep red color, and a distinctive rye flavor Must limit to 10-15% fo the mash as it tends to produce "stuck" mashes.
1 lbs 8.0 oz	Crystal 40, 2-Row, (Great Western)	0.0000000	40.0 SRM	Crystal 40 (35-45°L) A fully modified and saccharified two-row crystal malt roasted to a target color of 40° ASBC. A versatile malt providing moderate color and caramel flavor.
1 lbs 4.0 oz	Carafa II (Weyermann)	0.0000000	415.0 SRM	Chocolate malt. Dark beers, Alts, Bockbiers. Adds color and aroma.

Hops

Amount	Name	Alpha Acids	Time	Notes
2.50 oz	Cascade	5.5000000	30.0 min	A hops with Northern Brewers Heritage Used for: American ales and lagers Aroma: Strong spicy, floral, grapefruit character Substitutes: Centennial Examples: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale
2.00 oz	Centennial	10.0000000	60.0 min	Used for: General purpose bittering, aroma in American ales and Wheats Aroma: Floral, citrus aroma, spicy, clean bittering flavor Substitutes: Galena, Eroica, Nugget, Bullion Examples: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
1.00 oz	Chinook	13.0000000	30.0 min	Strong versatile bittering hop Used for: Ales, porters, stouts Aroma: Heavy and spicy aroma Substitutes: Galena, Eroica, Nugget, Bullion Examples: Sierra Nevada Stout, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
1.00 oz	Northern Brewer	8.5000000	60.0 min	Also called Hallertauer Northern Brewers Used for: Bittering and finishing both ales and lagers of all kinds Aroma: Fine, dry, clean bittering hop. Unique flavor. Substitutes: Hallertauer Mittelfrueh, Hallertauer Examples: Anchor Steam, Old Peculiar,
1.00 oz	Cascade	5.5000000	60.0 min	A hops with Northern Brewers Heritage Used for: American ales and lagers Aroma: Strong spicy, floral, grapefruit character Substitutes: Centennial Examples: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale
1.00 oz	Centennial	10.0000000	60.0 min	Used for: General purpose bittering, aroma in American ales and Wheats Aroma: Floral, citrus aroma, spicy, clean bittering flavor Substitutes: Galena, Eroica, Nugget, Bullion Examples: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot

Yeast

Amount	Name	Attenuation	Notes
50.28 ml	Safale American	76.5000000	American ale yeast that produces well balanced beers with low diacetyl and a very clean, crisp end palate.

Mash Steps

Amount	Type	Name	Ratio	Temp	Time	Description
24.44 qt	Infusion	Mash In	1.250 qt/lb	64.4444444	75.0000000	Add 24.44 qt of water at 158.6 F

The brew day went quite well considering I harvesting hops and mowed my lawn during the mashing and boiling.

Here is the 1.75lbs  bag of wet hops that went into the whirlpool!

First Wort Hop :)

Had to mash them down into the chiller, Haha

 The following day I harvested my Mt. Hood and Liberty hops. I pulled as much weight in hops from my two Mt. Hood bines as I did the 7 bines I harvested the day before, 3.5lbs. The remaining Chinook, Cascade and Mt. Hood are currently drying out in my home made box-fan oast.

I love this hobby. Even though the hops cost me about an extra $60 in my water bill for the summer and they take hours to harvest for very little yield I have good time watching them grow and utilizing what I can from them. $60 would buy me about 2-3lbs of already dried and harvested hops and that's literally all I got from my harvest once you calculate the difference between wet and dry hops. I could have save myself the time and money but there's just something about utilizing your own home grown ingredients that is ultimately satisfying. Besides this is a hobby, you're going to spend some money on your hobbies, right?

Belgian Dubbel & Dark Strong Ales

These may very well be my favorite Belgian style beers. I love the dark fruit notes and the dry finish. I love those same dark fruit notes (plum, fig, prune etc...) in bock beers as well. I've brewed a couple of these beers now and thought I would go over the style and my experiences with it.

BJCP 2015 Guidelines - Belgian Dubbel:

A deep reddish-copper, moderately strong, malty, complex Trappist ale with rich malty flavors, dark or dried fruit esters, and light alcohol blended together in a malty presentation that still finishes fairly dry.

BJCP 2015 Guidelines - Belgian Dark Strong:

A dark, complex, very strong Belgian ale with a delicious blend of malt richness, dark fruit flavors, and spicy elements. Complex, rich, smooth and dangerous.

If you go on to read the individual attributes of each style you realize they are very similar other than alcohol strength. Both should finish dry, drier for Trappist versions and either may or may not have some spice to them. They both share the dark fruit and malty characteristics. This is why I chose to cover both styles in one post.

I brewed my first BDSA in February of this year. I did some internet style research where I came across this slide presentation by Gordon Strong called "Designing Great Belgian Dark Strong Ales". There was a lot of information in the slide show which is hosted on docslide at http://docslide.us/documents/designing-great-belgian-dark-strong-ales.html. My take away was to design a beer that would be complex and malty with raisin, plum and possibly some cherry notes. Also to to control fermentation temps and re-yeast at bottle time to make sure the beer drys out.

Due to the cost of candi sugar ($7/lb) I chose to use specialty dark malts to gain the dark fruit notes I was looking for. I had some crystal 150 and special B laying around so those won the day. I was counting on the yeast to take care of the attenuation rather than worrying about using sugar to dry out the beer. Turns out my hunch was right, Wyeast Abbey II did the job and then some.

Belgian Dark Strong Recipe:

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1250178?&doid=57cde81f6eeb7

This recipe turned out to be exactly what I wanted for this style of beer except for one issue, fusel alcohol. I'm not positive that's exactly what I'm tasting. It's definitely an alcohol taste but it could be the slight alcohol/ethanol that the yeast is purported to produce. I plan on sending this beer in to several competitions to find out. It's currently been aging for 7 months and according to the slide show these beers do best with 9+ months of age on them.

Regardless of the competition results I love this beer. The alcohol taste is not offensive and all the malty dark fruit goodness is there. It's very complex  and I'll be making it every year with greater emphasis on fermentation temperature control.

 I also plan to use the same recipe for a doppelbock. I'd love to see if those dark fruit notes carry through during a lager fermentation.

If I'm being a complete dumb-ass, let me know in the comments.

Cheers!