Strange Brew

On election Day, I was a nervous wreck. I was also sick of the talking heads. Starting right away in the morning, it was all conjecture about what was going to happen, and the inane guessing game lasted until the polls closed. Then it got worse.

I woke up, took the Smith Herd to daycare, went to work for an hour, and left. I went home, and brewed beer.
It allowed me to relax, take some time, and most importantly, to not obsess over election coverage.

I brewed two beers that will largely be used for Christmas presents this year: a British brown ale and a maple syrup porter.

I didn't do an all-grain batch this time, as when I was purchasing ingredients, I was unsure of the weather. I figured it would be crappy, so I didn't want to brew outdoors or in my garage. Thus, I bought extracts and then some specialty grains, which you see pictured here. I ran some 60L Crystal malt and some black patent for the porter, and some 60L Crystal malt and some chocolate malt for the brown.

Now this may seem backwards, but the extract I used for the brown ale extract was a dark liquid extract, and the porter was an amber liquid extract (dark was Muntons, amber was Coopers). The brown ale is a recipe I have brewed over and over, and it is in a place where I am really quite happy with the flavors. The side benefit is that it is a huge starting gravity (will get it from home...forgot my recipe and stuff...will update later) and has flavors that taste mature pretty quickly, so this one will be ready on about 2 weeks. It just gets better as it ages for a few extra weeks beyond that.

The porter, however, is a brand new recipe. I made-up a basic brown porter recipe just so it would be something simple. We'll see if it came out okay. On top of it, I added a quart of maple syrup, right at the end of the boil to crash it (thanks for the advice, Sopor). I got the maple syrup from ATK-regular(ish) Christian, who told me in no uncertain terms to "not use it on your fucking pancakes." That really left me now choice but to brew with it. I am hoping the syrup will add a little hint of flavor with a nice increase in ABV given that maple syrup is liquid sugar! However, with using only a quart, I am not sure I am going to get much flavor out of it. I might just get the alcohol boost. That said, when I bottle these beers, I will use corn sugar as always for the brown ale, but I may use maple syrup again for bottling the porter (I found a little chart for how much syrup to use for priming bottles in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing).

Some random shots. These are fresh-grown Cascade hops from Michigan State. Having an agricultrual University a few miles from home is kinda nice! I used Cascade for the porter, for the bittering as well as aromatic. Loves me some Cascade.




I used some Fuggles (boil) and Styrian Goldings (aroma) for the brown ale.
Throwing whole hops into a boil is fun, but filtering them back out when I move the beer into the fermenter is a giant pain in the ass. It's why I prefer pellets. But boy, whole hops in a boil looks pretty!
And here's the finished products. I was aerating the wort and waiting a bit for it to hit room temperature before I pitched the yeast. Brown ale is pictured first, then the porter.



When I chilled the wort, I use a copper coil chiller. I stuped-out for a minute and got the wort down to a nice 70 degrees, forgetting that I was about to add a few gallons of cold tap water. Duh. So instead of waiting for the beer to cool a little more, I had to wait for it to warm up! No big deal. The yeast is pitched (WLP 002 English Ale Yeast), and a quick check in my cabinets under my bar this morning showed healthy fermentation roiling away. Can't wait!