Bourbon County Stout Clone - Barrel Time!

Around the second week of December 2015 a couple of the brew club members and myself got together and brewed a Bourbon County Stout Clone. You can view the recipe here.

This was a mammoth brew day. We ran into all sorts of problems from not enough room in two 10 gallon mash tuns, not enough room in a 15 gallon kettle to not being able to get the barrel to seal. All in all I was in the brew room for about 9 hours.

The O.G. ended up being 1.129 after adding 3lbs of dry malt extract to the boil kettle. It was obvious we weren't going to hit our numbers when we took the preboil gravity so we added the extract. F.G. was 1.039, a little higher than expected (1.035) but after tasting the hydrometer sample I'm not a all worried. This beer is going to be fantastic with some age on it.

We eventually got the used apple brandy barrel to seal (we used apple brandy) and transferred the fermented brew into it. Here are some pics.

Fun with Sours

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. I was doing brewing videos for a short time but I guess they lost their allure after a short time so back to the written word.

I've brewed quite a bit since my last post but what I've done most recently is move a couple sours into long term aging vessels. I brewed 10 gallons of a Golden Sour back in October. I fermented half with ECY Bug County and the other half I poured onto about a half gallon of my last Oud Bruin type batch.

The Bug county was already quite sour and nearly crystal clear while the other was very milky/yeasty looking.

The Solara batch had a distinctive grapefruit flavor/sourness to it that was unlike the last batch from that bucket. The Bug county was a very clean sour, I didn't detect any funk.

Both batches had nice Pericles formed because I left them in the primary far too long (3 months+).

                                     ECY Bug County                                                        Oud Bruin Mix

The Bug County was already at a F.G. of 1.000 where the other was 1.006. The bug county is quite good already and I feel as though I should bottle it as is before the oxygen from the transfer turns it too acetic. That's was I did with the last Oud Bruin batch and wished I hadn't because who know what it could have become so I think this time I'll risk wasting the batch.

I added medium toast oak spirals to both batches. I found my last sour to be a little thin and 1 dimensional so I'm going to try the oak spirals, split the batches and put fruit on half of each. I'm thinking dried cherries for one and Pineapple on the other. First I'm going to brew a new batch for primaries with White Labs WLP 655 and a mix of these two for the other half plus enough to top these off.

I think after the WLP655 I'll give the Yeast Bay a try, I think I'll pick something with Brett Lambicus for some added funk/dimension.

Sanitizer and Brewery Cleaner Quick Reference Chart

I frequently find the need for a small batch of sanitizer or cleaner and every time I need one I have to calculate out the batch size. Here is a handy chart I created for a quick reference

Water	Water	Water	Starsan	Starsan	Alkaline Clnr	Alkaline Clnr Kettles	PBW	PBW for Kettles
Gallons	Liters	Qaurts	ml	oz	oz	oz	oz	oz
10.0	37.9	40.0	60.0	2.0	2.0	4.0	1.5	3.0
9.5	36.0	38.0	57.0	1.9	1.9	3.8	0.8	1.5
9.0	34.1	36.0	54.0	1.8	1.8	3.6	1.4	2.7
8.5	32.2	34.0	51.0	1.7	1.7	3.4	1.8	3.5
8.0	30.3	32.0	48.0	1.6	1.6	3.2	1.2	2.4
7.5	28.4	30.0	45.0	1.5	1.5	3.0	2.8	5.5
7.0	26.5	28.0	42.0	1.4	1.4	2.8	1.1	2.1
6.5	24.6	26.0	39.0	1.3	1.3	2.6	3.8	7.5
6.0	22.7	24.0	36.0	1.2	1.2	2.4	0.9	1.8
5.5	20.8	22.0	33.0	1.1	1.1	2.2	4.8	9.5
5.0	18.9	20.0	30.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	0.8	1.5
4.5	17.0	18.0	27.0	0.9	0.9	1.8	0.7	1.4
4.0	15.1	16.0	24.0	0.8	0.8	1.6	0.6	1.2
3.5	13.3	14.0	21.0	0.7	0.7	1.4	0.5	1.1
3.0	11.4	12.0	18.0	0.6	0.6	1.2	0.5	0.9
2.5	9.5	10.0	15.0	0.5	0.5	1.0	0.4	0.8
2.0	7.6	8.0	12.0	0.4	0.4	0.8	0.3	0.6
1.5	5.7	6.0	9.0	0.3	0.3	0.6	0.2	0.5
1.0	3.8	4.0	6.0	0.2	0.2	0.4	0.2	0.3
0.5	1.9	2.0	3.0	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.2

HBW 2: 20151215 nternational Brew Day and Paul Wicksteed Supercharger Dr...

HBW 1: 20151208 Paul Wicksteed Supercharger

Rogue Chocolate Stout Clone

For our January meeting our brew club has decided to brew stouts for comparison and feedback from the club. I decided to brew a Rogue Chocolate Stout Clone with my own brewers signature in the mix.

This article from homebrewers association is what prompted my decision to brew the clone. http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/rogue-chocolate-stout-clone/

This was a pretty typical brew day and I follow the instructions in the link above except for a few aspects.

First I input the recipe in beersmith and used my equipment profile which adjusted the OG, ABV, efficiency etc... So I used beersmith to recalculate these values based on my equipment in order for  the base recipe to end up as intended.

The second thing I did is mash at 160 degrees instead of 152. The Rogue stout finishes at 1.017 and it's a good stout but I like my stouts to have significant mouth feel especially one with chocolate in the name. The recipe includes oats which will help in with mouth feel but I wanted more. The increased mash temp allowed my beer to finish at 1.020 which is closer to what I wanted. I usually shoot for a 1.025-1.028 F.G. in my stouts.

The third and final adjustment I was forced to make because I used a natural chocolate flavoring instead of an extract. I wasn't sure what the difference would be but the recipe called for 1.5oz of extract. The bottle of flavoring I purchased called for 4oz / 5 gallons so I used the entire bottle.

Lastly I used a lower attenuating yeast WLP013 London Ale yeast. I chose this yeast because it will still ferment very clean like a CHICO yeast but should have left the beer with some more body.

while the beer was fermenting the entire first floor of my home smelled of cascade hops. I've never used American style hops in my stouts before and this was a pleasant byproduct of the Rogue recipe. I didn't taste the hops in the beer when I sampled while moving to the secondary.

This beer is currently sitting in the secondary on the chocolate flavoring and will be kegged and conditioned this weekend. I'll follow up with the results.

Craft Brewery Graveyard

So after so many breweries either being bought outright or selling off percentages of their company to big beer, I'm gong to start keeping a list of breweries whose beers I won't be buying anymore.

This is just my ideology about craft beer. So many of these breweries have preached doing it for the love of making beer and the comradery you get in craft beer that you can't get in any other business.

They preach about just loving what they're doing. Then they sell out to big beer. Well say goodbye to my money. I'm a homebrewer, I'll brew my own.

So I say it's about the money for these companies, which is pretty damn good considering the cheapest craft beer in Western NY is about $10 a six pack, even from our local breweries like Ithaca brewing. Most of the time I'm paying $11-13 a 6 pack which is definitely an increase over just a couple of years ago. They claim they need to charge these prices because they use more expensive ingredients and they use more of these ingredients but me thinks its about the money and I'm done paying for it.

You also have the Brewers Association changing its definition of what a craft brewer is. In 2010 they changed the maximum barrel allotment from 2M to 6M to accommodate Samuel Adams and in 2014 they started allowing  those who use rice and corn in their beers to be called a craft brewery. WTF? Why not just let anybody in? Its about money and I'm guessing it always has been.

I know its a little naive to think everyone who starts up a small brewery is doing it because they love beer, they love brewing and they love the community, but I wish it wasn't. And I wish they would stop selling out to big beer. If you want out of the business hand it down to your kid or allow your head brewer to buy it on a lease to own deal or to another private brewery owner looking to expand like what happened with Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Ales and Uptown Market, my guess is that you can afford it.

I recently went on vacation to Vermont and toured many of the states 40+ microbreweries. It was a fantastic and quaint visit full of some of the best beers I've ever had. I would desperately like to have that experience over and over again in the future. This doesn't seem possible when breweries keep selling out.

Please support your local breweries who are making great beer but let me know if they sell out to big beer or to private equity groups so I can add them to this list. I don't want to accidentally support them. This county was built on small business, some companies get to big for their britches and greed has them wrapping their tentacles around our beloved microbreweries.

2016

• Devils Backbone - ABinBev

2015 

• Elysian Brewing - ABinBev
• Oskar Blues - Not to big beer but looking kinda shady as they won't release details
• Full Sail Brewing - Oregon Craft Brewers Co Investment Group
• Lagunitas - Heineken
• Firestone Walker - Duvel
• Ballast Point - Constellation Brands (Corona, Pacifico and Modelo)
• Saint Archer - MillerCoors
• Golden Road - ABinBev 
• Four Peaks - ABinBev
• Founders - Mahou San Miguel 30%
• Breckenridge Brewery - ABinBev

2014

• 10 Barrel Brewing - ABinBev
• Southern Tier - NY Investment Firm
• Blue Point - ABinBev
• Widmer Brothers - ABinBev 33%

2011

• Goose Island - ABinBev