Belgian Pale & Hefeweizen & Coffee Stout Tasting, Beer & Campfires

I posted about brewing these beers a couple weeks ago here and I had the chance to enjoy them recently so I thought I would go over some tasting notes.

Belgian Pale

Appearance - Fairly clear beer, especially for a Belgian. Nice orange-amber-rusty color with a white 1/2 head that dissipates pretty quickly and doesn't leave much lacing on the glass. I'm very happy with the color.

Aroma - Not much for aroma on this beer. Even though it includes ingredients like coriander, bitter orange peel and grains of paradise it most smells of malt with a very small hint of orange citrus.

Mouthfeel - Light-Medium Light body and mouth feel. Not crisp and dry but just what you would expect for a pale ale. Almost slick/oily like a good oatmeal stout, not sure what's causing this.

Taste - There's a definite orange citrus flavor coming through on the front and back of my tongue which leads me to believe that both the coriander and bitter orange peel are in play here. There's a spicy note but not really peppery so like this is from the yeast rather than grains of paradise.

Future Changes - This beer is pretty good the way it is but I think it needs more spicy/phenolic/yeast character than it has. Ramp the temperature up to encourage yeast character. Fermented at 65 this time around, 75-80 should improve this beer.

Hefeweizen

Appearance - Hazy yellow color that reminds me of a banana Popsicle. Large foamy head that laces sticks around a moderate amount of time and leaves a nice lacing.

Aroma - Smells of banana. Not like a real banana but like a banana Popsicle, there's a theme forming.

Mouthfeel - Light body but not thin. Supports the beer perfectly.

Taste -  Very banana forward Hefe! There are some nice phenolic notes behind the banana but they're hard to put your finger on. This beer is so good but overwhelmingly banana so I assume it would not do well in competition. I would have said you wouldn't want to drink pint after pint of this beer but I've already proven that wrong.

Future Changes - None. I've brewed this recipe before with the Fermentis Wheat yeast and it came out much more balanced between phenol and fruity esters but just as good. I would not make this beer to have on tap all the time but it's a wonderful beer every now and again.

This beer is also great around a campfire:

Chocolate Coffee Stout

I brewed the bertusbrewery Chocolate Coffe Stout about a month ago for our annual memorial day party. My father-in-law loves the stouts and a strong cup of coffee so I thought I'd give this one a go.

I pretty much followed the instructions are recipe on bertusbrewery blog so have a look there if you're curious about any of that. Here are some pictures of the brew day.

Appearance - Moonless midnight black. You can't see through this beer even on the edges, very nice for a stout. Beautiful tan thick head that sticks around forever.

Aroma - Coffee! A tiny whiff of chocolate that eludes most of the time.

Mouthfeel - Medium-Medium Light and dry. This is definitely an american stout. It finished at 1.013 and with the roast and other dark malts + Coffee it finishes very dry on the tongue.

Taste - Great! I can't keep my hands off this beer which is a problem since it's earmarked for a party. It went over pretty well when I took it to our clubs big-brew-day as well. There is no chocolate taste in this beer at this point. There was a tiny amount when it was fresh out of the fermenter but the coffee has completely taken over at this point. It's still a great beer, amazing coffee flavor from the cold steeped kona and roast malt. 

Future Changes - First I would change the name to just Coffee Stout. The chocolate is barely noticeable. I would skip the cocoa nibs entirely, they're too expensive to waste on a beer where they're barely noticeable, I would split this beer into two. Leave the recipe as is for the stout removing the nibs and designing a chocolate porter minus the roast malts and coffee so the nibs can shine. I would also switch the yeast to WLP013 London Ale. This is a clean fermenting yeast that will leave a little more body in the beer which is how I prefer my stouts.

Homebrew Practices that Matter

1. Clean your equipment at the end of every brew day, sanitize before use on your next brew day! You don’t want to give any nasty critters the chance to start growing and embedding in your equipment so don’t leave it laying around with the perfect environment for this to happen. You also don’t need to use PBW to clean your equipment, dish detergent will do unless it’s a carboy you can’t get your hands into. Just make sure you clean it when you’re done using it for the day. This goes for Kettles, Mash tuns,pumps,hoses, flasks, hop bags etc… etc… etc...
2. Control your fermentation temperature and know the yeast you’re using. Some yeast perform best at 65, others 72 and still others at extremes one way or the other. Know your yeast and control that temp!
3. Know your equipment! Take the time to figure out the efficiency of your system so when you’re formulating a recipe you scale the ingredients to hit the numbers! This is important for future batches and adjustments otherwise your variables are too numerous to nail down what’s causing a certain flavor or lack thereof.
4. Know your water and the role it plays in each beer style! I know my water is high in alkalinity and total hardness. I can use my tap water for dark beers. Pale beers get RO water with gypsum and chloride added in with even ratios for malty pales, 2:1 for hoppy pales. Amber beers are just a mix of tap and RO water. Do yourself a favor and have your water tested. https://producers.wardlab.com
5. Make sure you’re not drunk by the end of your brew day! Drinking too much during the brewing process, next to ignorance, is probably the number one contributor to bad beer. It can cause you to forget to pitch your yeast, clean and sanitize an item, add hops during the boil etc... etc… etc…
6. Do not bag your hops in a beer you want to have great hop flavor and aroma. The loose hops rolling around in your boil seem to release more oils into the beer contributing more hoppy goodness.
7. Allow your hops into the fermentor. Long term contact with the hops also help in flavor and aroma contribution. Not all hops have to enter the fermentor but a significant amount will help the flavor and aroma of your beer.
8. After fermentation avoid allowing oxygen in your beer if you want it to last. If you have beer that’s going to be sitting around for a while then take extra care to avoid any splashing, vigorous stirring, air pockets in your auto-siphon etc.. etc.. etc… Oxygen is terrible for finished beers and will cause cardboard flavors, loss of hop flavor and aroma and staleness.

So says FerventBrewer

Belgian Pale & Hefeweizen

It's been awhile since my last post, mostly because the weather in my neck of the woods has gotten so nice and the honey-do-list is in full effect. That hasn't stopped me from brewing though. I still managed to fit in several brews in the last couple of months which I'll use for the next couple of posts.

My homebrew club  signed up for club night at this year's NHC (HomebrewCon) in Baltimore (look for the SLAM booth - Western Theme) but there are only four of us going so I felt the need to bring quite a few beers plus fill my own kegerator. I received a bonus day off from work when my fencing contractor called and said he needed to see the yard and the plans so I used the opportunity for a double brew day.

The first beer was 11 gallons of a Belgian Pale Ale I made up on the fly. It's about 70% pilsner, 20% munich, 5% caramunich and 5% crystal 60. I bittered with Warrior and flavored with saaz hops. There is also bitter orange peel, coriander and grains of paradise to Belgianize the beer :). I used White Labs WLP550 Belgian Ale which I've used several times and absolutely love.

The second beer was another 11 gallons of a German Hefeweizen that I've brewed before. The recipe is the same but I swapped the Safale Hefe yeast out for White Labs WLP 300 which is supposed to have more banana characteristics. I'm not competing with this beer so rather than balance I wanted it to stand out a bit more. I also added coriander and orange peel to this beer only I bagged it after clogging the kettle valve on the Belgian Pale ;-).

These beers are currently fermenting and both Hefe fermentors exploded on me. One was a bucket and the lid blew clean off. The other oozed all over my hardwood floor. Ahhh the price we pay for good beer.

The Barrel Program Begins...

While we had a beautiful day (in February in Western N.Y.!) this past Sunday I used the opportunity to build some 10 gallon barrel rails. It was a pretty simple procedure since I doubt I will ever go beyond two levels and more than 50 gallons of sour beer.

I currently only have two barrels (one of which isn't even mine) and it looks a little sparse but I will build on it as time and money permit. The spacing isn't perfect but I can make then up with different size blocks for the second tier. I used scrap wood, screws and cinder blocks I had laying around so I don't have any extra investment in the racking system.

Milk Stout Plus Roeselare and Belgian Sour Mix 1

Last week in Western N.Y. was a cold one. I had planned to brew on Saturday but when I woke up it was -10 degrees Fahrenheit according to my trusty kitchen window thermometer.

Being a completely obsessed brewer with a heat source in the Horse Barn Brewer I gave it the good ole college try but it just wasn't meant to be. I ruined a potable hose that provides water to the Horse Barn Brewery from the house. Then the hose spigot was frozen up and I nearly gave myself frost bite trying to thaw it with a propane torch. I went to change the tank and started cross threading the nozzle, when I backed it off gases leak onto and through my gloved hands. I followed the recommend procedures and saved my pinky finger! :)

So I decided to make up for an entire weekends loss of brewing by brewing triple the amount this weekend. I needed something to top off the Bourbon County Stout sitting in my basement. There's far too much head-space in that barrel and the barrel's not mine. I also wanted to start fermenting two new sours to fill a new barrel I was getting third hand for free.

I received a new 15 gallon kettle for my Christmas 2015 and a new 70qt converted cooler mash tun for my birthday 2016 so I had enough equipment to brew the beers side by side. As it turns out this didn't save me any time over pipe-lining the brews, mostly because I forgot to put the bazooka screen in the new mash tun, Doh!

I also found out that I was low on roasted barley and a few other ingredients for my milk stout so had to make some last minute substitutions. I'm far to over confident in my memory which I know isn't great.

All things considered the brew day was a success. I have 12 gallons of sour wort fermenting away and 7 gallons of Milk Stout all of which hit their numbers.

Here are a few photos of this "epic" brew day.

Sour Fruit Experiment - Blueberries

In the past year I've been trying my hand at making sour beers. I have three separate five gallon batches going now and I'm brewing another 10 gallons very soon. The first batch I brewed from the dregs of a Hill Farmstead Nordic Saison I picked up while visiting Vermont.

That first batch soured very quickly. I checked it after only 6 weeks in the fermenter and it was already quite tart. It had a pH of 3.4 and to tasted very good to my new-to-sours pallet. I had watched a video with Vinnie of Russian River stating 3.4 was their target pH and since I liked the beer I wanted to keg it. I posted in the Milk the Funk group on Facebook to get some feedback which pretty much said "If you like it keg it" and "Split the batch and let some continue to age", so that's what I did.

I kegged four gallons of the five because I was very concerned the beer would continue to sour and drop the pH since the F.G. was only 1.010. As it turns out that was just some newbie nervousness. After 7 months I checked that remaining 1 gallon of that first batch. It was a bit lighter in color and significantly more clear but other than that it was what I remembered with maybe a slight cherry like fruitiness to it. The pH was still at 3.4.

After a few more sour beers under my tasting belt I've come to realize that first batch wasn't very good and was pretty 1 dimensional with mostly a lacto sourness and not much else for flavor. The batches I have going now will age a very long term to help build those characteristics along with higher mash temps and the addition of some oats and maltodextrin. I've also used ECY 20 Bug County for one and the next two batches will be split between Wyeast Roselare and White Labs Belgian Sour Mix 1. Both of those cultures have a mix of Brett, Pedio, Lacto and Sach which should be everything you need in a mixed culture to make good things happen to a good base beer.

With that being said I'm not going to waste this remaining 1 gallon of my first batch.

Instead of drinking it the way it is or dumping it, I decided to use it to experiment with some fruit. I had three quarters of a pound of frozen blueberries in my freezer so I removed 1 quart of the batch (into a couple of glasses!) and replaced it with the blueberries which filled the space back up to the same original level, guess I did something right. I've read that 1lb per gallon of sour beer is the recommended amount for adding fruit but I simply used what I had on hand.

I doubt this will "fix" this small batch of beer but it should give me an idea of what blueberries will taste like in a sour. I'll give this beer another two months to finish off the sugars in those blueberries and report back then.

Cheers!

Sour Inoculation

I recently had a bit of a panic attack because I transferred these beers into secondary PET containers for long term aging. They spent 3 months in the primary and I didn't brew more wort to pour on the yeast cake. So I dumped the cake and cleaned the primaries thinking I could just use samples from the secondaries to inoculate a new batch. I'm sure I have a good reason for thinking I could do this but I don't remember reading about it anywhere specific.

I was trying to do some reading on the subject to find out how much sour beer I would need to add to inoculate the new batches but everything I was finding on TheMadFermentationist.com, in American Sour Beers and on MilkTheFunk.com was about using the sediment in bottle dregs.

I was freaking out because I only had the one pitch of ECY 20 Bug County and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get my hands on another until maybe next winter.

I decided to email Michael Tonsmeire on the off chance he would answer a desperate reader and he did. He responded quickly and I found out that I'm an idiot.

The answer is on page 90 of American Sour Beers which states that New Belgium leaves 10-20% of sour beer behind in their foeders to inoculate the next batch.

If you want to inoculate from bottle dregs you can find a nice write up on MilkTheFunk.