In the HOPper

This weekend, I keg the Wheat Ale I brewed, and in another week, I keg the Saison.  Those ought to turn out fine, and perhaps we'll hold a few bonfires and invite people to help drain the kegs ASAP.

This is important because of the next 3 beers I have coming-up:

1) Spiced Pumpkin Ale.  This will be my first attempt at a pumpkin ale - including using real pumpkin in it.  Going for a hint of pumpkin pie, not this-beer-is-too-sweet pumpkin pie.

2) Bourbon Barrel Porter.  I brew porters frequently; most notably my Maple Syrup Porter.  In this, I have some bourbon barrel oak spirals that I will put in the fermenter to infuse that bourbon-y character I'm after.

3) Spiced Winter Ale.  Nice basic copper-colored Brit "bitter" brewed with beautiful, aromatic mulling spices.  Looking forward to this one!

More details as they come, but you should all at least be informed of what my kegs will contain this Fall/Winter.

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Smitty's Pub 2.0 - Update

The phones are going wild, folks.  Pledges are rolling-in for the Nitro Upgrade for Smitty's Pub.  Pledge now in the comments section before you're left out of the party.

60% of the way towards a stoutier stout!

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Smitty's Pub Upgrade, Version 2.0

Remember a few weeks back, when I mentioned I wanted a stout faucet and nitro system, so I could finally drink certain beers the right way, like my Chocolate Milk Stout?

Let's make this a reality.

Since I doubt I can do a Kickstarter project for my own enjoyment, I thought I'd usher-in a new era here at ATK:  Beerstarter.

This is simple.  Smitty's Pub needs an upgrade; a version 2.0.  This includes a nitrogen keg system and a stout faucet so big beers can be enjoyed with those lovely cascading bubbles, and the Hell I'm living through now of suffering through pint after pint of big stouts pressurized and dispensed on a CO2 system can finally cease.

And you, dear ATK member, can be a part of it all.  You can make this happen.

How? Easy.  Pledge money towards the goal in the comments section of this and subsequent posts.  A mere $289.99 is all that's needed to re-launch Smitty's Pub.  If I get enough pledges by November 31, 2012 (a time after which I will have brewed and started fermenting Nestle's Nemesis), we'll get the system.

Why?  Because when the pub is re-launched, and the first keg of Chocolate Milk Stout is ready on New Years Eve...You, dear member, will get an invitation to the Smitty's Pub New Years Celebration and Smittys Pub 2.0 Re-Launch Extravaganza, in which pint after pint of Nestle's Nemesis (my name for the recipe) is consumed.

I've kicked-in seed money, and will use the progress bar below.  Look!  We're just over 1/3 of the way there already!  It's like a race; when the beer is ready to be kegged...will it have to suffer CO2?  Or will a lovely canister full of Nitrogen be ready and waiting a beer worthy of its tiny, creamy bubbles?

$100; 34.5% towards drinking stouts the right way

The rest, loyal beer enthusiasts, is up to you.

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NY Times Brews and Reviews White House Honey Ale

As you may have read, a few of us gathered a week or so ago to help Smitty brew his own, all-grain version of the White House Honey Porter, which is to be followed up by an extract version of the White House Honey Ale.

The New York Times has beat us to it, enlisting the help of a Brooklyn, New York brewer who brewed the Ale.  The NYT followed up with a positive review.  




I look forward to Smitty's improved, all-grain version made with his favorite grain, hops and the sweat and love of ATK.

UPDATE:  Over at Streak's Place, our friend is also brewing and bottling the Porter.  Too bad we live a half-country away and cannot do a back-to-back taste test.

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NOS, Dude.

I've decided to make the plunge into Nitrogen.

No, not for my car; I drive a Chevy Traverse.  NOS would be kinda a waste of time and effort, and quite frankly I am pleased enough with my junk that I don't need the ego boost.

No, not to make whippets for me to get high as shiiiit either.

No, it's time to introduce a nitrogen tap into my brewing repertoire.

I've not had to do much begging with Mrs. Smitty.  She enjoys a nitrogenated brew, especially a stout.  It enhances toasty-roasty flavors, and imparts a creamy taste and mouthfeel to an otherwise heavy beer.  Some of her favorite beers are more favorite with nitrogen.

However...it's an "investment."  Nitrogen requires its own special tank and its own special regulator and its own special tubing, given its molecular difference from good ol' CO2.  Heck, it even requires a special "stout faucet" to pour that perfect pint of cascading bubbles.

But look how pretty:

so shiny!

It's not pure nitrogen; that's really hard to force into a beer under homebrewer conditions.  It's a nitrogen/CO2 mix, available at my local gas supply store as "brewer's mix," or "G-mix."  But it is nitrogen-heavy, and given the smaller bubble size than CO2, gives the beer that creamy cask-aged mouthfeel you get from Guinness or Boddington's or a darn-good classic British Pub Ale.

And given that I'm now entering stout/pub ale season, with batches of Chocolate Milk Stout in the works, I figure it's time to amp-up my offerings and do a stout the way it's meant to be done:  through a stout faucet, maintained by nitrogen.

And worse comes to worse, I'll try that liquid nitrogen ping-pong-ball trick I saw on YouTube.

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Hail to the Chief Beer

Feels good to be back in the brewing saddle after a summer-long break.  So busy was the Smitty clan with vacations and sports over the summer that I didn't get a chance to brew.  First time in a long while that that much time has gone between batches.

But no more!  Yesterday's brewing event was my all-grain conversion of the White House Honey Porter, and less than 24 hours after pitching yeast, we've got solid fermentation.

Crack those grains...

Though I was heartbroken that my normal Chief Assistant Brewmaster Joel wasn't able to make it, I had wonderful assistance in Acting Chief Assistant Brewmaster Bob (yeah, that Bob of this here site), and Assistant to the Acting Chief Assistant Brewmaster James, who is new to brewing altogether...but not new to beer.  The Lagunitas he brought over helped lubricate our collective bad-decision-making capabilities.  We were further joined by Lead Technical Observer Brian and Jon the Entertainer.

We will allow Mrs. Smitty to comment herself on how the day went; everyone who came over brought at least one kid with them, so it was actually a giant, screaming Kid Party in which a handful of outnumbered adults drank and brewed beer and pretended not to hear anything.

Hops

The White House Honey Porter will be ready for drinking on election night.  Party at the Smitty House on November 6!  Election results and beer!

The honey

Pitching yeast

Tonight I plan to do the White House Honey Ale.  This one is a extract-plus-specialty-grain kit you can buy exclusively from Northern Brewer.  I had planned to simultaneously brew the al-grain for the experienced guys and anyone who was curious, and the extract for a n00b who is actually interested in picking up the hobby.  As it turned out, everyone wanted to watch the all-grain process.  Who knew.  So, I'll do the extract this evening.  It'll seem fast and easy, and will be ready on Election Eve as well.

Beautiful fermentation!

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For Amber Waves of Grain...

Where's the grain bill for this Sunday's Patriotic Brew Fest?

Almost here!

On Vehicle for Delivery...TODAY!!

***UPDATE***

Delivered!!

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Patriotic Brew Day

Having put this off long enough, I have finally pulled the trigger on a brew day for the Presidential beers! This Sunday, October 7, starting after breakfast and before kickoffs, I'll be firing-up the burners, mashing grains and boiling wort!

Northern Brewer offers the recipe kits for the White House Honey Ale and the White House Honey Porter for a decent price. The problem is this: the kits are extract-with-specialty-grain kits, and this blog has gone all-grain for some time now. A conundrum.

Problem solved, however! There are enough people interested in being a part of this "Presidential Beer" moment - and enough people who haven't brewed yet but want to learn - that I can kill 2 birds with one stone! I purchased the Northern Brewer Honey Ale kit, and plan to introduce the n00bs who will be joining us to the ease and joy of homebrewing by doing that beer the beginner's way: stovetop kettle, steep specialty grains in a little bag, add water to the fermenter. Easy, done in 2-2 1/2 hours! I hope to urge some folks to take-on this fine craft, and may even be willing to part with my old stovetop boil kettle and bottling bucket to an interested party.

Then, I took about an hour, consulted some resources and pros, and converted - to the best of my and our collective ability - the Honey Porter extract kit to an all-grain recipe. While the stovetop crowd knocks the Honey Ale out, some of us can do the all-grain on the big burner.

I am actually really looking forward to Sunday. We'll move a TV into the garage and show some football while we brew. People are bringing kids over and Mrs. Smitty is preparing a "hotdog party" for the families that come over (tons of hotdogs, gobs of options for toppings, from sophisticated to ballpark). This isn't just a brew day...it's a brew party!

I have timed it so these two beers will be ready to be tapped on election night. So...follow-up party on November 6!

For the real geeks in the crowd, the original Northern Brewer White House Honey Porter Kit calls for:

• 6.3 lb Gold malt syrup
• 1 lb honey
• 1 lb Briess Caramel 20
• .75 lb Briess Munich Malt
• .625 English Black Malt
• .188 English Chocolate Malt
• 1 oz Nugget (.5 @ 45 min, .5 @ 30 min)
• 1/2 oz Halertau (end of boil)
• Wyeast #1056 - American Ale

I converted it thusly:

• 7.75 lb Maris Otter Pale Malt (base-grain, to simulate Gold malt syrup)
• 1 lb Crystal Malt 60L (base-grain, to simulate Gold malt syrup)
• all other specialty grains and honey remain the same, as is the hop schedule

I feel good about the conversion, and I am so in love with Maris Otter as a base grain for Brit-originated beers (thanks Sopor!) that I get all tickly just thinking about it.  It imparts just the perfect balance of biscuity-sweet that it really mellows and rounds-out a beer the way I remember them from my trip to the UK.  Its worth the extra pennies it costs per pound than any other pale malt base grain, and even more worth the extra-extra pennies to purchase the old-school floor-malted stuff that brewers over there have preferred for 200 years.

Pics and Facebook/Twitter-posting madness to ensue in a few days.  And if you're in the neighborhood around 11:00 this Sunday....come over.  There's beer to be had while there's brewing to be done.

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Barack O'Beer

Perhaps it was public pressure. Perhaps it was our post, one among many, urging the White House take action.  Perhaps our President and his staff are just into the finest hobby in the world.  Whatever it was, whatever the reason was, the White House has decided to release their beer recipes unto homebrewers the world over!

From the press release:

As far as we know the White House Honey Brown Ale is the first alcohol brewed or distilled on the White House grounds. George Washington brewed beer and distilled whiskey at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson made wine but there's no evidence that any beer has been brewed in the White House. (Although we do know there was some drinking during prohibition…)

Since our first batch of White House Honey Brown Ale we've added the Honey Porter and have gone even further to add a Honey Blonde this past summer. Like many home brewers who add secret ingredients to make their beer unique, all of our brews have honey that we tapped from the first ever bee-hive on the South Lawn. The honey gives the beer a rich aroma and a nice finish but it doesn't sweeten it.

Another nice touch is that the staff didn't just brew the kit recipe.  They sought some advice, engaged other homebrewers who work at the White House and made some recipes they can truthfully call their own.

Before I get to the recipes, the White House has included a fun little 4-minute vid on brewing the beer, the first-even beer brewed on the White House premises.

These recipes are extract-plus-specialty-grain beers; the kind almost every homebrewer whets their teeth on.  In the coming days, I'm going to look into converting the extracts detailed in the White House recipes into all-grain.  It's a matter of picking the right base grain and a few additional grains for color and flavor in such a way as to match the flavor of the extract syrup.  Additionally, they used dry yeast.  I'm not a giant fan of dry yeast, so I'll grab some yeast strains from White Labs or Wyeast that are in essence the same as the dry...just, you know, wet.

But for the extract brewers on this blog, and for general interest, behold:  The White House Honey Porter and the White House Honey Ale!

White House Honey Porter

Ingredients

• 2 (3.3) lb. cans light unhopped malt extract
• 3/4 lb Munich Malt (cracked)
• 1 lb crystal 20 malt (cracked)
• 6 oz black malt (cracked)
• 3 oz chocolate malt (cracked)
• 1 lb White House Honey
• 10 HBUs bittering hops
• 1/2 oz Hallertaur Aroma hops
• 1 pkg Nottingham dry yeast
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for bottling

Directions

1. In a 6 qt pot, add grains to 2.25 qts of 168˚ water. Mix well to bring temp down to 155˚. Steep on stovetop at 155˚ for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, bring 2 gallons of water to 165˚ in a 12 qt pot. Place strainer over, then pour and spoon all the grains and liquid in. Rinse with 2 gallons of 165˚ water. Let liquid drain through. Discard the grains and bring the liquid to a boil. Set aside.
2. Add the 2 cans of malt extract and honey into the pot. Stir well.
3. Boil for an hour. Add half of the bittering hops at the 15 minute mark, the other half at 30 minute mark, then the aroma hops at the 60 minute mark.
4. Set aside and let stand for 15 minutes.
5. Place 2 gallons of chilled water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons if necessary. Place into an ice bath to cool down to 70-80˚.
6. Activate dry yeast in 1 cup of sterilized water at 75-90˚ for fifteen minutes. Pitch yeast into the fermenter. Fill airlock halfway with water. Ferment at room temp (64-68˚) for 3-4 days.
7. Siphon over to a secondary glass fermenter for another 4-7 days.
8. To bottle, make a priming syrup on the stove with 1 cup sterile water and 3/4 cup priming sugar, bring to a boil for five minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 1-2 weeks at 75˚.

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White House Honey Ale

Ingredients

• 2 (3.3 lb) cans light malt extract
• 1 lb light dried malt extract
• 12 oz crushed amber crystal malt
• 8 oz Biscuit Malt
• 1 lb White House Honey
• 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings Hop Pellets
• 1 1/2 oz Fuggles Hop pellets
• 2 tsp gypsum
• 1 pkg Windsor dry ale yeast
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Directions

1. In an 12 qt pot, steep the grains in a hop bag in 1 1/2 gallons of sterile water at 155 degrees for half an hour. Remove the grains.
2. Add the 2 cans of the malt extract and the dried extract and bring to a boil.
3. For the first flavoring, add the 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings and 2 tsp of gypsum. Boil for 45 minutes.
4. For the second flavoring, add the 1/2 oz Fuggles hop pellets at the last minute of the boil.
5. Add the honey and boil for 5 more minutes.
6. Add 2 gallons chilled sterile water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons. There is no need to strain.
7. Pitch yeast when wort temperature is between 70-80˚. Fill airlock halfway with water.
8. Ferment at 68-72˚ for about seven days.
9. Rack to a secondary fermenter after five days and ferment for 14 more days.
10. To bottle, dissolve the corn sugar into 2 pints of boiling water for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 2 to 3 weeks at 75˚.

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Obama Brew!

In the most imporant news of the day, it has been reported that the White House now brews its own beer!

According to the DesMoines Register, not only does the White Brew two varieties of beer, they carry it with them on the Presidential tour bus.

Maybe you think Obama is the 2nd coming of Christ, who saved the world from economic collapse and brought honor back to America.  Maybe you think he is the illegitimately-elected Kenyan usurper of the Constitution. 

Not matter your political affiliation, I think we at ATK have to say that this action alone warrants an endorsement from our editorial board.  What say you ATKers?

UPDATE:  In a related article from CBS News:

"...the White House's own brew, made with equipment the Obamas bought with their own money -- the first beer ever made at the White House, according to historians.


It is White House Honey Ale."

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Beer to Beat the August Heat

Time to get a couple beers in the fermenter for the brutal August I'm expecting.  I'm thinking of some new (but not risky) takes on classic summery ales.

What about a Blonde Ale (go here, click "6B" on page 2), brewed with apricots?

What about a Kolsch (go here, click "6C" on page 2), or maybe a Weizen, (15A, same page), brewed with honey?  Note:  the honey doesn't add sweetness; it ferments completely.  It'll add some alcohol, and some flavors of the type of honey it is (organey from orange blossoms, floral from clover, etc), as well as add a bit of body to the beer.  So the Kolsch won't be so lightly watery and the weizen will be a tad creamier.

This Blonde Ale, which is normally this sort of lighter, grainy concoction, brewed with apricots is really exciting me.  I love Dogfish Head ApriHop, what with its complex balance of hoppy IPA and nectary-sweet apricots.  Really a great beer.  But a Blonde Ale is normally so...so...boring.  I think apricots, as mildly sweet as they are, will add a really nice sweetness to this otherwise grainy doldrum without overpowering it.  Apricots aren't as strong as blueberries or raspberries or cherries.  They're really mild, so I feel like I'm not gonna be brewing "fruit juice with beer in it."

Note - some examples:  New Holland has a fine Kolsch-style ale called Full Circle.  My favorite weizen is Hacker-Pschorr Weisse.  And a passable Blonde Ale is either Fuller's Summer Ale or Saugatuck Oval Beach Blonde.

What says the crowd?

Week 3 of Crossfit training.  I train 3 days, take a day off to stretch and do yoga, 3 on 1 off, etc.  Today's Workout of the Day is called The Filthy Fifty:

1. 50 box jumps
2. 50 jumping pullups (start in a squat, jump into pull up, drop, land in squat)
3. 50 kettlebell swings, 30#
4. 50 walking lunges
5. 50 push-press (standing shoulder/upper-chest press), 45#
6. 50 back extensions
7. 50 burpees
8. 50 jump-rope reps
9. Run 800m

Hell yeah.

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Experimental Beer 1

I've got these tried-and-true recipes that keep my taps flowing and keep my wife happy (the most important):  Scottish 80 shilling, maple syrup porter, nut brown ale, to name a few.  I've got a few I like and am working a few minor bugs out of, like a smoked Scottish Wee Heavy, chocolate milk stout and American wheat ale.  I've got some standard beers I want to add to me repertoire:  American pale, IPA, saison, doppelbock.  So many beers, so little time.

But I also want to try to come up with a really catchy, kitschy beer.  Something that pushes the envelope just a little.  Something that stands out from the crowd and challenges my personal creativity.  FSM-knows I can't draw or paint.  Woodworking is out.  But come the Zombiepocalypse, I can make the Funny Juice.  That's how I know I'm still human.

So here's where the stage is set.  Sunday afternoon last week was a bright, beautiful day.  The snow was wet as the temp hovered just below freezing; with the sun beating on it, suspended in a liquid-blue sky, it was perfect packing snow.  I took the boys to the woods near our house.  We played Star Wars (they each had light sabers), threw snowballs, worked on a fort, and built a snowman once we walked back home (which they promptly beat to the ground with their lightsabers).  And what do you do after a fun winter afternoon outdoors?  Drink hot chocolate.

Bear with me.  I'm getting to the beer part.

The boys don't really want anything more sophisticated than a Swiss Miss packet and some marshmallows, so a few minutes in the microwave had three happy boys sipping merrily away, complete with chocolate mustaches and sticky fingers from fishing the marshmallows out of their mugs.

But me?  I wanted more.  Hmm...Girardelli dark chocolate mix?  Mmm, nah.  Oh, hey, Girardelli dark chocolate hazelnut mix?  Hey...mmm, nah.  But wait.  What's this?  Near the back?

Xocolatl.

Hot chocolate like I had in the Yucatan.

Cacao powder, bits of ground pure dark chocolate, cane sugar, chili (cayenne), and cinnamon.  This cup of hot chocolate was bliss.  Dark, bitter-rich, with that spicy cinnamon that goes so well with those velvety chocolates dominates the taste.  Sweet, lucious, slightly complex.  Then the cayenne hits and bites the tongue and back of the throat just a little; just a touch so the next sip carries that much more flavor.  That much more punch.  This hot chocolate is alive.

And then I started thinking.

There are chocolate beers.  There are chili beers.  There are holiday beers spiced with (among other things) cinnamon.  I think there's even a chocolate chili beer on the market somewhere.  But I want to make a chocolate beer spiced the way the Mayans do.  Xocolatl.

This is not a unique idea, I found to my dismay.  A few beers were even named Xocolatl; one a porter, the other a barleywine.  But I do want to experiment based not only on the "Mayan" aspect of the spices - cinnamon, cacao, and chili - but also on the experience I had drinking the hot chocolate I had.  Hence, the story.  I had to get myself there, in that place: happily worn-out, frothy mug of spicy-sweet xocolatl that woke me right back up again on top of being just damn comfortable.  That.  That's what I want to recreate.

I consulted the brewers' tome of unimaginably weird stuff for beer (Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing) and found some sage advice about when to add spices, non-hop bitterers (like cacao) and sweeteners (like chocolate).  The question now is how much.

I am going to start with Northern Brewer's Chocolate Milk Stout as a base.  It has received some smashing reviews, especially after they replaced the artificial chocolate sweetener with real cacao nibs, and I have brewed it here before.  The keg was drained in a week.  Starting with a tried-and-true base recipe gives me the beginning foundation I am after:  dark, slightly bitter chocolate with a milky sweetness and creaminess (from the addition of lactose).  I don't have to tinker with that.  What I have left now is the interesting stuff:  cinnamon and chili.  Perhaps I'll boost the chocolate flavor and add some shaved dark chocolate (60% cacao), perhaps not.

So the base recipe:

• 8 lbs Rahr pale malt
• .75 lbs of Fawcett pale chocolate malt
• .25 lbs English extra dark crystal
• .75 lbs Weyermann DeHucked Carafa II
• .75 oz Cluster hops (60 minutes)
• 1 lb lactose (60 minutes)
• .5 oz Cluster hops (30 minutes)
• 4 oz. cacao nibs - secondary fermenter
• Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale Yeast

Like I said, maybe I add some more cacao, like 1 or 2 oz more, maybe I add some shaved dark chocolate, maybe not.  This base recipe is good stuff, but given the emotion I am trying to recapture relies on a heavy chocolate flavor, maybe I will.

Chili and cinnamon are left.  You could taste those ingredients in the hot chocolate.  They were present individually, but not overpowered; they were definitely part of the total, working in conjunction with each other flavor, not as some dominant stratification.  But I've had enough baaaad chili beers to know that one misstep gives a beer that makes you quite literally choke.

Advice?  Ideas?  Shut up and trust myself?

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Maple Syrup Porter

With my kegs at home dangerously low or otherwise depleted, I came to the stark realization that I have fallen-out of my brew cycle that assures at least 1 operational keg in my kegerator at all times.

Coupled with the facts that:

1. The High Holy Day is a mere 7 weeks away;
2. The ales I wish to brew for the High Holy Day are 6-week ferment and force-carb; and
3. The Smitty family has an annual St. Patrick's Day party,

I realized I better get on the ball.  FSM-forbid I have empty kegs for the Highest Holy day of Most Extreme Magnitude.


This weekend started the 1st of the 2 beers I will have on tap:  the Maple Syrup Porter for which I have become famous:*

• 9lb Maris Otter
• 1 lb Briess caramel 40L
• 1 lb English Brown Malt
• 10 oz. English Chocolate Malt
• 32 oz. pure maple syrup
• 1.5 oz Fuggle (60 min)
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (5 min)
• Wyeast London Ale 1028

1. Sacch' Rest:  154 degrees F for 60 minutes
2. Mashout:  170 degrees F for 10 minutes
3. 2 hour boil** (but add hops with 1 hour left and 5 minutes left)
4. Add maple syrup at end of boil (cut heat, pour syrup)

Add a few friends and some beers in the garage, and it's a Brew Day Social Event!  This beer is ready to serve on March 10.  If I brew the other beer by this coming Saturday, it'll be ready on...March 17!

*Well, as famous as one gets with the lot that reads this blog and the handful of people who drink all my beer...

**The grain bill in this recipe is such that the amount of water needed for each step yields about 8 gallons.  You lose 1.5 G/hour during the boil, and I want to pitch yeast into 5 gallons.  Thus:  2 hours.  So you wait an hour, then add the 60 minute hops, etc.

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Brew Day - Scottish 80 Shilling

With all of the things that require a decent amount of fussing-over when brewing beer, including the 4 - 4 1/2 hours to actually brew, chill and pitch the yeast, one would think that brewing is stressful or at least a pain in the ass.  For me, it's anything but.  All the fussing, all the things to be hauled, cleaned, sanitized, stared-at and stirred, is relaxing.  Plus, there are great spans of time in which I can peel away and still be an active member of my household.  It's like a two-fer for Mrs. Smitty; she gets beer, and still gets help with kids!

At Mrs. Smitty's request, this weekend's brew is a Scottish 80 Shilling.  That's their "export" beer, meaning its alcohol content and general malty robustness makes it travel-worthy (a lot of beer actually doesn't travel well).  The name refers to its cost Way Back When; 60 shilling, 70 shilling, 80 shilling - the price went up as the beer got stronger.  This, given old Scottish culture, was not designed to deter the consumption of higher-alcohol beer; rather, it reflected an increase in the amount of grains used.  More grains, more expensive beer.

Cracking the grains

A Scottish 80 shilling is a malty beer, but a balanced malt sweetness.  It's not a malt-bomb in the same sense as a Winter Warmer of a Barleywine, which is that syrupy-thick cloying kind of sweet.  A Scottish 80 is just...malty.  A hint of botterness from mild hops, and a slight roastiness from a scant handful of darker-roasted grains rounds out the palate of this crowd-pleasing style of ale.  Not a lot of complexity; in fact, it's sort of "boring" as that goes.  But it's an easy-drinking beer for sure, though on the upper end of sessionable.

The grain bill only weighs-in at about 10 pounds (9 pounds of a nice biscuity  malt called British Golden Promise, and 1 pound of English Medium Crystal for some color and roasted flavors), and the recipe only calls for 1 oz. of Fuggle or East Kent Golding hops (I used Fuggle), making the beer just barely bitter.  Fuggles and Goldings are extremely mild hops and are really there as a natural preservative and to remind you that this is a beer and not just grainy sugar-water!

Boiling wort

I am pretty happy with the mash, and despite the 43-degree temp in my garage, my mash tun kept the mash steady at about 155 degrees for 45 minutes of the hour it needed.  A quick addition of near-boiling water (about 3/4 gallon) brought the temp back up to 155 for the last 15-20 minutes of the mash cycle.


The beer is happily fermenting away in its dark little cabinet thanks to the big fat yeast starter I made.  I added Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale Yeast to a little bit of wort - made from 2 cups of water and 1 cup of dry light malt extract, which was happily fermenting by the time I pitched the yeast into the cooled wort.  2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, and a few days as I force carbonate it; we're drinking it by December 3!

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Forgive Me. It's Summer Time

Yeah, so maybe I'm a little lax about blogging lately. There is so much to say about politics that's disheartening right now, and I am too busy getting buzzed on patios to care.

And then it dawns on me: oh yeah! That's right! This is a beer blog! I can blog about beer!

A few weeks back, I bragged about getting the big-pants brewing equipment. Well, I've put it to good use brewing 2 batches of beer for my cousin's upcoming wedding reception. He's getting married in Oxford, UK, this weekend. He is coming back to the state to do a U.S. reception for friends and family whop couldn't make the hop over the pond, and given that he is trying to get into brewing too, he asked me to whip up a couple batches. Specifically, after getting his PhD at Oxford and drinking British beer for the last 3 years, he wants some American beers. He did stipulate that he didn't want the 5,000% abv beers we tend to brew, but just some nice, basic American beers. I decided to serve-up a nice malty/grainy American Brown Ale (the Brit style being malty/fruity/estery) and a classic American wheat ale (Oberon when it was still good; grainy, orangey, whereas the German equivalent is that banana-clove people have come to love). Both beers hover in the 4-5% range; plenty sessionable. He is well-pleased with the choices. We'll see how the results stack up.

Hot liquor tank (hot water) on top, steeping grains
below, ready for sparging (rinsing)

Hopefully, the steps work out. Being still largely new to the process, I have been very careful with each step to really learn and feel it as I go, before I go being a smartass and screw around with lautering temps and "whirlpooling" hops and all that crap. All that to say that given that I followed the steps pretty well, I think they'll turn out. I kinda have a way with beer!

Grains steeping, performing "recirculation"
step, just before the sparge.

Anyway, some action shots for your viewing pleasure:

Sparging, or, rinsing the remaining sugar
from the grain bed

Chief Assistant Brewmaster Joel sparging into the boil kettle

The boil.  Zzzzzzz.... Nice upgrade:  can boil whole
wort and not have to add water at the end!

VERY happy fermentation on the brown ale

Equally happy fermentation on the Wheat!

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Beery Goodness

I sometimes have to remember that I started this bloggity to be a beer blog, along with politics. Beer has taken a slight back seat to politics, but with complete and utter bullshit like this out there, it's hard not to write about it and shake my sword at the abyss.

A week or so ago, I mentioned I ordered a big upgrade to my brewing apparatus. It's time, folks, as my 2 existing kegs begin to drain, to put it to good use.

I feel weird about it, but I'm cheating. I am buying 2 highly-recommended all-grain kits from Northern Brewer. I normally like to formulate my own recipes, given them a trial run, make a tweak or two, and consider a good recipe developed. But the process of all-grain brewing is longer and a few steps more complicated. Maybe complicated isn't the right word, because all I am doing is pouring hot water over grain a couple times and straining it into a big pot. But it adds a few more steps that a beginner at the process could fuck up by not paying a hint of attention. So I bought the kits, and can follow a tried-and-true recipe from start to finish, using every new step along the way, and will have an idea of how the beer should taste versus how it ends up tasting.

I ordered Northern Brewer's American Wheat Ale kit and their Caribou Slobber kit, which is a clone of Big Sky Brewing Company's massively-famous Moose Drool. So, classic Oberon as we Michiganians knew it when it was better, and a highly-coveted big American Brown Ale. Here we go.

Speaking of making my own recipes, I just obtained an iPad app specifically for homebrewers: iBrewMaster. Oh, sweet motherload of beery calculating heaven. This app has it all. It has pre-installed recipes for you to test and tweak. You can write you own. Keep track of batches, suppliers, test what a particular adjunct may do to your beer (licorice? honey?), and even share recipes over an iBrewMaster community. If you brew, extract and/or all-grain, this app is so user-friendly and comprehensive that it's like it was built from the ground-up by homebrewers who would know exactly what they'd want in brewing software. Oh...wait...

Oh, I can't help it. More awesome screenshots from the app. It's like brewer porn.

I stumbled across an iPhone app that pulled at my heartstrings. No, it's not this. It's BrewVault. It keeps track of the beers in my fridge, the beers I am cellaring, the beers I keep meaning to buy, beers I've tasted at a bar and want to purchase later elsewhere...all of that and more. It organizes by state, by brewery, by type. It allows me to add tasting notes, which helps my reviews, especially if I am at a bar and am like "oh man, I need to review this beer" but don't have a pen and a cocktail napkin. Now I have BrewVault! Check out its cool features.

The path to sudsy goodness resides in awesome iOS apps.

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All Things Beer

Hoo boy. We've got a lot of gro und to cover, so let's get started.

First, brewing. Time to re-focus on brewing and up the sophistication of my process. I have relied on some brewing buddies for eauipment for my all-grain batches and for ease and laziness, I have done a lot of extract-plus-specialty grain brews. In the dead of Michigan's winters, I have gone that way because my garage, where I brew big batches, is often well below freezing.

Well, no more excuses. I am scrapping my hodge-podge of equipment and going with a brand new All Grain System along with a brand new brew kettle with a focus on stepping-up the quality of my beers.

Speaking of brewing, my World- Lansing-famous maple syrup porter is in the fermenter. I tried to move it to the secondary this weekend, a week after I initially put it in the primary fermenter, but the fermentation was still way too active for me to be comfortable with that move. In about 2-3 more weeks, though, I'll keg that badboy up in just enough time for maple syrup fests around the Mitten State.

And finally, I have been asked to be a Guest Blogger over at Drink Michigan! It's the destination on the web to celebrate all of Michigan's fermented products and is quickly carving its niche as the one single place to stop for anything you want to know about Michigan beer, wine and liquor. THey want me to start doing Michigan Beer reviews for them! I am thrilled and excited!

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Sing Me A Song

This...is perfect.

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