St. Crispin's Brewlog

Overdue

2010-03-12T07:01:00.001-08:00

So, I let a cold winter all but pass, without making use of the gloriously cold ground water for wort chilling. Ah well. Up next, I will retackle the British ordinary bitter using Maris Otter and US Goldings hops...a little concerned about the US origin Goldings, but we'll see. Then its time for another pilsner, methinks.

That is all.

St. Crispin's Day 2009

2009-10-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

...and there was much rejoicing.

To Sleep, Perchance to Lager

2009-09-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

Oktoberfest is approaching at rapid speed (approximately one thousand miles per hour at the equator, the usual speed for the passing of days by the rotation of the Earth) and in my lagering fridge I have a good German Oktoberfest lager. Last year my first draught brew was a "mocktoberfest", using alt ale yeast instead of lager yeast, but this year I should get a bit closer to that delightfully subtle amber lager of autumnal Munich, perhaps a month or two late, but such is what happens when one puts off brewing sessions for too long.

Still, lately I've experimented with sauermalzen (in low increments, undetectable), and have a patersbier in the fermentor, to be followed with a bottled tripel, which I shall consider trying to reserve for longer aging, to herald the return of spring.

Poetry of Beer

2009-04-08T07:39:00.001-07:00

A haiku in honour of what turned out to be a really very excellent first attempt at lager brewing, a simple golden pilsner that is now sadly gone:

Is that CO2
Sputtering up the dip tube?
Farewell, my sweet beer.

The Bi-Annual Brog Update

2009-01-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

As I inch towards six months of inactivity, I feel the bi-annual instinct to brog.

The draft system is up and running, as of last month! I've been enjoying my Oktoberfest, finally, after lagering it for many months. Slated to replace it is a low-strength pyment, made with Chablis grape must and honey, for a lighter mead champagne. After that, my first true lager will have finished a good long lagering phase. It was a very simple recipe...about 9 lbs of American pils malt, bittered to 10-20 IBUs, and finished with an ounce of Saaz at the end of the boil, and fermented right around 50 degrees F with a dry lager strain, Fermentis S-23. I'm not expecting brilliance, but it should be a nice drinkable beer, likely with some obvious defects that will show me where I need to shore up my technique and process. Mild beers like that are excellent for exposing flaws...no huge flavours to hide behind.

A pumpkin ale that I threw together a few months ago has proven to be somewhat ill-advised. It was fairly basic, the remainder of my British pale malt with mashed pumpkin, lightly hopped, spiced with the usual spices, and (here may be the big mistake) fermented with some extra weizen yeast I had on hand. The result is phenolic. Quite unpleasantly phenolic. Likewise, the malted/oaked cider might have pulled too many tannins out of the oak...its a bit less drinkable than I'd hoped. Oh well, win some, lose some.

The doppelsticke altbier is delicious though, a great example of a big, bold, and bitter German beer, although there are not many of them, admittedly.

At least I have learned some lessons; save the weizen yeast for weizenbier. Fair enough!

August Update

2008-08-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I brewed a Doppelsticke Altbier, a big, heavily bittered dark German ale. Original gravity was 1.082, and it is fermenting at approximately 60 degrees.

The previous weekend I laboriously juiced a 5 gallon bucket full of small, underripe Granny Smith apples from my backyard tree, to make just under a gallon of juice. I sulfated this juice, and then later pitched a white wine yeast. This weekend, I decided to dilute these very tart apples with some plain sweet apple juice, and I did so with 3 gallons of juice. I may make up the final 1 gallon of volume with another gallon of acidic Neufeldian apples, but if I get lazy another gallon of storebought juice should do the trick, albeit make for a more insipid, bland cider. A 2 to 3 ratio of tart juice to sweet juice should make a great fermented cider.

Last night, I bottled my kirschweizen, which has a sort of cherry pie character now, between the tart acid cherry juice and the rich malty sweetness of the crystal and pale malts. It is somewhat on the strong side at 7% ABV thanks to a secondary refermentation caused by the addition of the cherry juice, but it is smooth and quite drinkable at this stage, even pre-carbonation.

I'm backing off the idea of the soured wort experiment, and I may try using the acidulated malt from Weyerman to approximate the sour character in a weizen, Belgian, or fruit beer, without actually developing funky bacterial cultures. One of my new ideas (actually an older idea, but rejuvenated) is to brew a Chocolate Coconut Porter. First I would brew a basic porter around 1.060, using lots of chocolate malt and maybe some extra crystal malt to ensure sweetness and full body. Then in secondary, I would add a bottle of coconut rum (an easy way to add coconut flavor without the oils) and a 1/2 pound of cacao nibs for extra chocolate flavor. German Chocolate Cake in a glass!

Words of Wisdom

2008-07-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

Give a man a beer, and he'll waste an hour.
Teach a man to brew, and he'll waste a lifetime.
-Anonymous

Hopfen und Maltz, Gott erhalt's!

2008-07-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Loosely translated, the above saying means "God Save Hops and Malt". A good transition to discuss my next brewing ideas.

First off is a "mocktoberfest"; yes, an Oktoberfest or Märzen style beer fermented with ale yeast instead of lager yeast. I will be brewing it with a combination of Munich and Pilsner malt, for an orange-amber hue. Only hop additions will be modest bittering, and I will ferment it at a cool 60° F with the aid of a brewing refrigerator thermostat. I'll be using Fermentis K-97 yeast, which is derived from the German alt yeasts, known for a clean, crisp profile with few esters. I plan on lagering this post-fermentation until October, when hopefully I will have my draft system up and running, and can celebrate Oktoberfest thousands of miles away from Munich.

Secondly I plan to take the cake of alt yeast and ferment what is known as a "sticke altbier". These are special seasonal brews from alt breweries in Northern Germany, and they have a similar malty profile to altbier but with much higher gravity. 12lbs of Munich malt, 2lbs of wheat, some Caramunich, and some Carafa malt, and it should be a dark, malty, tasty beer, perfect for when weather cools down around here.

Lastly, and this is just me considering some random brew ideas, I may have to try Charlie Papazian's method for sour mash brewing. My idea is as follows:

First, mash a simple pale beer, with about 6 pounds of pale malt, 3 pounds of wheat malt, and 1 pound of crystal or caramel malt. Mash for the standard period until conversion takes place, and then lauter into the kettle. Then I will take maybe 1/2 pound of extra uncrushed barley malt, and put it in a disposable muslin straining bag, tied off loosely at the end to keep the grain in the bag. This I will add to the wort when it has cooled to about 90° F. Then I cover it and leave it for a day or so, at room temperature, and allow the bugs on the unmashed malt to go wild. All kinds of nasties will start swimming around...lactic acid bacteria, particularly...and the wort will get funky and soured. Nothing you would ever want to drink. However, pinch your nose, pull the grain bag out and put the kettle on the stove. Now, open the windows, get the heat going, and boil the soured wort like it was any other brew, adding hops as needed. This will drive off a lot of the worst smells. What will remain in the brew is the sourness, which will give a refreshing tartness to the final beer. I think Fermentis T-58 would make a great estery Belgian yeast for this sort of beer. A sour Belgian style, without the post-fermentation wild yeast/bacteria still hanging around.

Bitter Bottled

2008-06-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

Bottled a bitter last night. It was intended to be a "Special Bitter" or "Best Bitter"; that is, stronger than an Ordinary Bitter but not as strong as an ESB or Extra Special Bitter. My mash efficiency was a bit better than I expected, yielding a 1.050 original gravity, which is more in the ESB range, but I'm going to call it "St. Crispin's Best Bitter" regardless, as ESB in my opinion ought to have a little more oomph in bitterness and body.

So far this has been one of my most promising brews. I'll approximate the recipe from memory:

7 1/2 lbs British Optic 2-row
1/2 lb Belgian biscuit malt
1/2 lb British medium crystal malt, 60 deg Lovibond
3 ounces Belgian debittered black malt

The small quantity of debittered black malt darkened the beer up more than I had anticipated or intended, and instead of the orange amber I wanted, it was a deeper reddish amber, verging on brown. However, the roasted flavours associated with the darker malts is not there. Here is my hopping schedule:

60 min: 1/2 oz East Kent Goldings, 1/2 oz Willamette (both around 5% alpha acids)
30 min: 1/2 oz Willamette
10 min: 1/2 oz East Kent Goldings

The light hopping really allows the malt and hops to be in balance, something I've never quite allowed in my British bitters before (to their detriment). Willamette makes a great substitute for UK Fuggles, I think, and the aroma of it fresh is intoxicating. Very nice hop, one of my favourites.

I used the Fermentis S-04 strain (with a Whitbread origin) to ferment this batch. This is a very flocculant strain, which leaves a "bright" beer atop a concrete-like yeast cake.

In bottling it last night, the sample I had had a warm maltiness to it, with an unmistakeable biscuit-like flavour from the biscuit malt. Also a slight honey note. Very drinkable; has a sort of mild, rounded flavour that is never harsh or astringent. This is what brewing is about!

Weizen

2008-06-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I brewed a hefeweizen, my first wheat beer since last June. A delightfully simple and easy brewing session, using 4 pounds of British Optic 2-row malt and 5 pounds of domestic wheat malt. For yeast, I used a rehydrated packet of Danstar's Munich yeast. I hit the target OG dead on, at 1.049.

For hops, I was very generously given an interesting new product to try; Northern Brewer's HopShot. The details of the product are not all clear at this point, but it appears to be a non-isomerized hop extract. It comes in 5ml resealable syringes, with 1ml of extract having approximately the same bittering power as 1 ounce of 2.4% alpha acid hops; that is, 1ml will impart 10 IBUs to a 1.050 wort when boiled for 60 minutes. Very interesting, aromatic, and convenient. Hopefully this will help homebrewers get through the hop shortage a little bit better. I bittered with 1.5ml at 60min, and 0.5ml at 30min, which imparts an estimated 18 IBUs. A touch bitter for a true hefeweizen, but should still be nice.

Tonight I will be brewing a base beer for the kirschweizen (cherry wheat). This beer will need a touch more sweetness, so I will dial back the hop extract to a single 1ml addition at 60min, giving 10 IBUs. The grain bill will be similar, with 5lbs of American wheat, but an additional 1/2 pound of Optic and 1/2 pound of Crystal 60 for sweetness, for a total of 10lbs. Once this has finished fermenting in primary, I will rack this onto a quart of tart cherry juice concentrate.

As a status update on earlier beers, the bitter will be bottled in a week or two, having clarified nicely. The ginger beer is hot, spicy, dry, and strong, as expected. I sampled both the gruit and the espresso stout. The gruit was interesting and herbal, but the espresso stout is shaping up to be a royal failure, with a harsh astringency that I may not be able to force on anyone. Live and learn...coffee should be enjoyed freshly brewed, not bottle conditioned and aged.

Bitter and Ginger Blonde Ale

2008-05-29T06:27:00.001-07:00

Two batches are now in process. The brewing of the bitter went well, a little bit higher gravity than I anticipated due to the concentration of the boil, but still shaping up to be a good session style beer. The Ginger Blonde had a very nice tasting wort; the caramel sweetness of medium crystal malt blended wonderfully with the spicy heat of about 10oz of peeled ginger root. This is a much stronger beer, at 1.064 OG. At one point I would have considered that a medium gravity beer, but I am becoming much more interested in the lighter, weaker styles of beer lately.

The hefeweizen and kirschweizen are next, I'm awaiting yeast.

Additionally, two more batches have been bottled: the espresso stout and the juniper anise gruit. The espresso stout was biting, almost too biting with coffee and stout bitterness, but it did strike me as an ideal candidate for a stout float with some vanilla ice cream. The gruit ale, with an OG around 1.055 or so, is very interesting and herbal in aroma. The mugwort used in it imparts a strong sage-like aroma, and I wish I had doubled up on the juniper and anise! I can see this working well as a dinner ale, if paired well (with strongly spiced, hearty dishes).

In the more distant future I am wanting to try a couple more ideas. Northern Brewer has a Patersbier recipe kit, which essentially is the simplest Belgian ale imaginable: 9lbs of Belgian pils malt, very light hopping, and a Belgian trappist yeast strain. I'm rather eager to see how that one works out! Also, I am planning on a malted cider experiment. First I would do a 1-gallon minimash with Carafoam, Crystal 20, and a bit of 2-row malt, with just enough water and malt to convert the carafoam and crystal, and then I would add this concentrated wort to a cider, using perhaps 3 gallons of standard apple juice and 1 gallon of apple juice concentrate to thicken up the apple flavor and strength. The idea behind the malt is twofold. First, the Crystal malt would add in all the things we miss in fermented cider...candy-like sweetness, a slight caramel flavor, and body. Second, the Carafoam would help contribute to head retention, producing a sparkling cider with a foamy beer-like head. Age it with some toasted oak, and I think it might turn out to be my best attempt at cider yet.

Lastly, the call of the draft system beckons. If you've got a chest freezer you want to get rid of, let me know.

Bi-Annual Update

2008-05-21T09:40:00.001-07:00

Well, again, it has been under six months, so I'm a bit early on my update. Nonetheless, I've had a bit of a brewing resurgence, so I thought I'd document some of my planned undertakings:

First, I've three batches yet to bottle: the aforementioned Rauchian Imperial Stout, an espresso stout, and a brown juniper anise gruit ale.

Tonight I am brewing the first new batch in five months or so. First up will be a very simple Best Bitter. 8lbs of British Optic malt sweetened with a half pound of Crystal 60 malt, bittered with an ounce of Willamette at the start of the boil, and a half ounce of East Kent Goldings at the 30 and 10 minute marks, for flavor and aroma. Fermented with S-04, a good British ale yeast. Should make a great session brew.

In a week, I will brew a "tiered" batch, using the yeast cake from the Bitter. This will be a Honey Ginger Ale, using perhaps 6 lbs of malt with 4 lbs of honey, for a style similar to a braggot. It will probably utilise Argentinean Cascade hops for the bittering, and will have close to a pound of fresh ginger, creating a strong, dry, pale golden ginger beer. Perfect for a barbeque on a hot summer evening.

Continuing on the line of summer style beers, I have two wheat beers lined up as well. The first is an exercise in simplicity; 4 lbs of pale malt with 5 lbs of wheat malt. A single bittering hop addition of 1 oz Spalt hops will balance it out, and a new Danstar wheat beer yeast (that came highly recommended to me by Kristen England of Northern Brewer) should be the star of the show, as a traditional Bavarian weizen.

A week after that has brewed, I will essentially duplicate the process using the yeast cake, and brew another weizen with the same ingredients. This time, as the beer is racked to the secondary fermentor, a quart of Montmorency tart cherry juice concentrate will be added, which would reconstitute to 2 gallons of tart cherry juice. This should create a refreshing fruit beer...rather interesting.

After all this, I'll still have a packet of K-97 Alt yeast, and I might try a Roggenbier. But I need to be careful not to fill my fermentors faster than I can bottle.

Rauchian Imperial Stout

2007-12-25T09:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I got this entry in before January, so technically I am not updating on a biannual basis. Anyway, I've been rather limited on my brewing of late, thanks in part to a horrific hop shortage that I assume is mildly inconveniencing major brewers, strongly impacting microbrewers, and giving the Unmitigated Royal Shaft to home brewers, who are of course at the bottom of the hop suppliers priority list.

But as I've been lovingly working to perfect my meat smoking/grilling techniques, I've decided to follow on my last success with the rauchweizen and do a beer that is rife with smokiness, using almost entirely German rauchmalz. Yes, I am doing a "Rauchian Imperial Stout", if you'll pardon the pun ("What pun?") ("Wasn't there one? Oh, I'm sorry."), informally titled "Grill Droppings". I haven't brewed it yet, but here's my assumed recipe:

"Grill Droppings" Rauchian Imperial Stout
14 lbs German Smoked Malt
1 lb British Crystal 90L
1 lb British Roasted Barley
1/2 lb British Black Patent Malt
1/2 lb British Chocolate Malt

Mashed medium low, 90 minutes.

Boil for 90 minutes.
90 min addition: 2oz Pride of Ringwood hops
15 min addition: 1oz Pride of Ringwood hops

Racked onto a S-04 Whitbread ale yeast cake, from an Australian Brown Ale I'll be doing first. The hops are Australian principally because of the aforementioned hop shortage. But I think given some aging this will be a nice strong, inky black stout with a potent smoke aroma and flavour, perfect for chilly fall evenings beside the grill.

Rauchbier

2007-07-20T13:47:00.001-07:00

I've stopped keeping this blog up, haven't I? Well, that's OK, because you've stopped reading it. Admit it.

That won't stop me from sharing a recipe that I think will prove to be one of my better creations:

St. Crispin's Rauchweizen

3 lbs German Munich malt
4 lbs German rauchmalt, or alder-smoked malt
4 lbs German wheat malt
1/3 lb rice hulls (for ease in sparging)

The above was mashed around 152 degrees F for 60 minutes, and I boiled the wort for 60 minutes, with only a single bittering hop addition of 1oz of Perle hops (6-7 percent alpha acid) at the 60 minute mark.

After it was cooled it was racked on a yeast cake of Wyeast Weihenstephaner weizen yeast. Original gravity is somewhere around 1.056, specific gravity around 1.014. It isn't bottled yet, but after a bit more yeast settles out it will be.

The richness of the Munich malt (which has a pleasing maltiness compared to other base malts), the spiciness of the yeast combined with wheat malt, and the savory smokiness of the rauchmalt make this one of the more appealing smoky beers I've ever tried. Honestly, it tastes like bacon beer. All hail the bacon beer.

Fear the Chipotle Beer!

2007-02-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

I bottled two brews this weekend:

First, the Chipotle IPA. This 7.7% ABV IPA is light bodied with a coppery hue. The base beer (pre-Chipotles) was pretty bland, on the whole...not a lot going on in it, but it was OK. Fast-forward to this weekend, and I've bottled the whole thing, mostly in 12oz and pint bottles. Believe me, you will not be craving more than 12oz of this unless you are crazier than me. It is HOT. First sip, for a second I was like, oh, OK, and then within a second, BAM it hits you and you're gasping for air. Drinkable? Yes, of course...I'm not an insane heat person. But it is hot. I will have plenty of this on hand since I bottled it in small bottles so if you are ready to take the plunge into serious chili beer, let me know and I will hook you up. This is a fiery SOB...I may make a lot of beer chili with it. But if you are ready to have some burn with your beer, as I said, let me know.

Secondly and much more sedately, my blackcurrant cider. As a refresher, this is basically a very simple recipe. I fermented a base cider of 4 gallons apple juice and 2 lbs brown sugar using my favorite British ale yeast (S-04). Then I racked that onto 1 gallon of Trader Joe's 100% Blackcurrant Juice. It is a rich purple-black in colour, and it is surprisingly sweet and light in ABV...a final gravity of 1.013 and an ABV content of only 6%. Very appealing, on the whole; quite drinkable and won't devastate you after a pint or two. I may give a pure apple cider experiment another shot, especially bearing this in mind. I put this into the 2-liter growler, so hopefully it will be quite a hit at the next St. Crispin's dinner. For which I'm unsure of the best sort of food...I've thought about Mexican food, Danish food, or a return to British cuisine. Any comments, let me know. Cheers!

An Update or Zwei

2007-01-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night I will be fobbing off some of my hoppier creations to unsuspecting innocents, and I thought I'd post a couple updates.

First off, the Ardennes IPA is magnificent. Best homebrew ever. The sort of beer that you gaze at lovingly, perhaps tearing up a bit, and gasp out incredulously, "I made this?!" Yes, its that good. Only a mother's love, so to speak, or rather more accurately, only a hophead brewer's love.

Secondly, the black IPA (Centennium, IBA, whatever I ended up calling it) is still not carbed! That is frustrating. It is too good of a beer to do this to me. The last beer that crossed me like this, well we all know what happened to it! >:^0 Yes. It was consumed by a wrathful emoticon. Feel mah funky rage!

And finally, the Chipotle IPA (notice an IPA theme here?) is sitting in the fermentor and I'm a little afraid to go near it. It is going to be searingly hot. 20 dried chipotles in 5 gallons...basically a half a pepper per each pint. That's fairly reasonable I'd say. But I have this fear that it is going to make the drinker sweat (though I cannot take credit for this glorious ensuing simile) like Oprah in a donut shop. Sweet flame! In a beer...crazy, innit?

New Year Update

2007-01-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

While I step carefully through a minefield of inane puns ("happy BREW year!! haha!") allow me to update you on some of the status of my brewing projects.

I bottled the apfelwein last night. Approximately 12% ABV, using nothing but apple juice and apple juice concentrate to provide fermentables, and aged on French oak and spices (cinnamon, allspice, vanilla). It has a surprising balance given the lack of care I gave it...quite pleasingly sweet with a perfect balance of spice, very much like a spiced hot apple cider. I was genuinely surprised how nice this turned out. I bottled it in 12oz bottles as this is better consumed in small nips (4-6oz) due to its strength and sweetness.

The Centennium Imperial Black Ale is still not carbed! I'm a bit concerned so I moved the bottles upstairs for a warmer environment...perhaps it was a bit too cold for yeast comfort. Jury is out.

The Ardennes IPA, however, is absolutely fantastic! It has carbed and is what I would call one of the best beers I have ever made. A mild Belgian yeast character paired with rich hop aroma, and picture perfect clarity. A really, really tasty beer in my opinion...I'll be making it again.

The Marston's Pedigree clone...well, I'm not sure. The yeast strain was anything but flocculent, meaning most of the yeast carried on to the secondary. I'll age it a bit before bottling.

The Challenger IPA came out nicely, a rich hoppy ale, and also has a lot of yeast sediment that carried into secondary.

The beer that I intended to be "Hopricot", a super hoppy all-Summit IPA, turned out nicely with good attenuation, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. It did end up having that curse of Summit hops, that should have prevented me from trying it...a garlic-y, green onion aroma. At first with the hydrometer sample, I thought I didn't detect it, but after chilling it a bit, pow, there it was. My alternate plan for this...a chili beer. A chili IPA, yes! Savoury, hoppy, and SPICY. I mean, apricots and onions do not mix, but chilies and onions? Not too bad! I'm thinking perhaps dried chipotles might be ideal, but I'd better get a gauge on how many to use. I'll save the remaining apricot purees and essences for another stab at "Hopricot", possibly using Amarillo hops this time.

And lastly, my blackcurrant cider is faring nicely. Haven't tried it since mixing, but its aging happily enough, and the base cider was, well, what you expect fermented apple juice to taste like. Different from my previous ciders, it was just apple juice, no funky tannic juices like cranberry or currant in the primary.

Christmas Update

2006-12-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

Pardon my conspicuous lack of witty banter. I'll just get right to it and update you on brewing projects:

Centennium is in the bottle. Uncarbed, it had a strangely sweet/fruity sensation which was enjoyable and it hardly is undrinkably bitter, it is surprisingly mellow. As I recall it is around 9% ABV and 100 IBUs.

My Belgian IPA, known as "Ardennes IPA", is also in the bottle carbing. It is a tribute (if not a clone) to the Belgian Houblon d'Achouffe (or whatever Achouffe's IPA is called). Jury is still out. It will be an interesting beer, at least.

The grape wine experiment was bottled...it is very sweet and grapey, but hey, some people might like that, and it only cost 17 bucks for the whole 5 gal batch!

I tested the Sparkling Mead. Right know it is a Still Mead. No matter, it has a delicate, very simple flavour profile, and it may carb eventually.

Two items were started on Sunday. First was my attempt at a Marston's Pedigree Bitter clone. I used Burton water salts, Burton ale yeast, Maris Otter malt, and a combination of Goldings, Fuggles, and Challenger hops. The hydrometer sample tasted fairly good...this may not be the equivalent of that most excellent British bitter, but it should still be a good, quaffable ale. Second was a very basic cider...4 gallons of cider and 2lbs of brown sugar with Whitbread ale yeast. That is thundering away...when it is finished, I will rack it onto a gallon of pure blackcurrant juice for a "black cider". I'm sparing the blackcurrant juice from the first vigorous primary fermentation, with the hopes of ensuring more blackcurrant flavour in the end product, post-fermentation.

Up next, on the yeast cake of the Pedigree clone (WLP029, Burton Ale) I will be brewing a strong English IPA utilizing only Challenger hops (and plenty of them). Perhaps I'll name it Challenger IPA with a picture of the British FV4030/4 Challenger Main Battle Tank. And on the S-04 Whitbread yeast cake (from the cider) I'll be brewing Hopricot, an IPA with apricots. It will be a standard American IPA, brewed with high-alpha Summit hops, and then racked onto 3lbs of apricot puree, possibly with an addition of natural apricot essence for aroma. Basically a combination of powerful hop bitterness and aroma with apricots, in the vague style of Dogfish Head's Aprihop.

Fall Brewing

2006-09-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Well, beat me senseless with a distraught spoonbill, I've gone and forgotten to update the brog again!

Several brews have snuck through unnoticed in the meantime...another ESB (quite good!) as well as a cranberry cider and double stout. The latter two are set to be bottled perhaps this weekend. The cranberry cider surprised me...tart like every other cider I've done, but not tart like I expected...it has a unique fruity sensation that reminds me of (forgive me) Hawaiian Punch. Strange...its just apple cider and cranberry juice.

Up next, two more projects. The first is already in the fermentor, a cheap-ish grape wine experiment. Grape juice concentrate and cane sugar...this is the bottom of the wine barrel, but it was cheap, and I think it might end up being pleasant, with a little carbonation. I usually end up liking cheaper wines (when I like wine at all) so we shall see! It will be a bit more "grapey" and less wine-like due to the grape varietals used (probably Concord) but that doesn't bother me much. Hey, like I said, its an experiment. The second project is a new style....the "IBA", or Imperial Black Ale. Take a hoppy American IPA (in the style of Bell's Two Hearted), make it even bigger (more base malt) and hoppier (50% more hops), and colour it black with debittered black malts and Sinamar extract. Looks like a stout, tastes like a double IPA! Gimmicky, I know, but if anything this will be a fun trick to play on my Guinness-swilling but hop-fearing friends. I also realized with my hop additions I will be kicking this one substantially over 100 IBUs....this is with my recipe calculation estimating Centennial hops at 9% alpha acid, which is the low end. That is insane. On the high end (12%) it calculates to 133 IBUs...the average American lager clocks in around 10 IBUs, and most craft brews are in the 10-50 IBU range. This one will be named CENTENNIUM as it is a single hop brew, just Centennial hops. 7 ounces worth, added throughout the boil, with full wort hopping and dry hopping as well. Huge, huge bitterness, strong hop flavour and aroma. It will be awesome! It will scrape the enamel from your poor, helpless teeth! Muahahahahahaha! Bow before CENTENNIUM, the Darth Vader of beers, the world's first Imperial Black Ale!

Overdue Update

2006-06-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

I've not been updating the brog for a while, now, I admit. Since my last entry, I've brewed two all-grain batches (a Mild and another ESB) with good success and excellent efficiencies, a Ginger Porter as previously referenced, and a pure honey-only mead destined to be a light bodied sparkling mead.

The Mild I'm particularly taken with, not for any particular robustness of flavour, but for its lightness and simplicity...it is the sort of ale one would consider nourishing, easy-drinking, and (naturally) mild, and with an ABV content of 4.0% it is my lightest homebrew, and thus I can have one with dinner and still be free to go out afterwards if need be. It has very little hops, and roasted malts impart a nice coffee/tea flavour to it that is very refreshing. It is conditioning in the bottle as I type.

I may bottle the Ginger Porter tonight...a rather tasty brew it was last time, so this is its encore appearance. I've got another St. Crispin's dinner coming up in July and I don't think it will be ready by then, but the Mild will be, and we'll polish off a lot of that I'm sure.

The intensely concentrated "apfelwein" is around 13% ABV, if I recall, and still aging in the basement. The yeast looks like they have retired/expired, because the FG is reasonably high, in the 1.030s. I've come upon a new idea, though...to use heavy toast oak in this and impart some oaky vanillins to counteract the sweet apple tones. For any of you who things the pairing of oak and apple is strange...get yourself a bottle of calvados! It is a heavenly spirit.

The sparkling mead is being prepared for the 31st of December...champagne? Bahh! Crack out a bottle of lightly effervescent mead instead, to ring in the new year! Lacking spices, fruit, and other ingredients, it will be a very delicate, dry sparkler...perhaps augmented by a small amount of medium toast French oak for complexity.

Updates and Such

2006-05-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

The second all-grain brew is in the fermentor...this was a horrific experience of brewing. An impossibly stuck mash, probably due to excessive rye malt, that resisted all efforts to "unstick" during lautering. This brewing session lasted many, many hours and my efficiency honestly calculated at about 40 percent (should be in the 60 to 70 percent range, if not higher). Still, I made "beer" at least. Won't be my best, but I gained some more experience.

My first AG (the ESB) is actually maturing into quite a tasty little brew, very typical of an British special bitter. Much better than expected!

The apfelwein/cider is fermenting happily away. Chose a white wine yeast strain for that one, to preserve lots of fruity character.

Next up...Ginger Porter, revisited. After a catastrophic AG session I'll be happy to do a little extract brewing again. Also next, I'm going to start collecting bottles of Looza Pear Nectar...from which I will eventually make a perry (pear cider).

The Ides of March

2006-03-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

I've not updated in a while, but with readership being what it is, or rather isn't, that isn't much of a concern. I've bottled the all-grain ESB, which I found to have a slightly bitter edge, not a hop bitterness but a grainy bitterness possibly due to either suboptimal mash temperatures or possibly the extraction of tannins from grain husks. Still, its not bad, just not the near-divine perfection it will be after I do a few more batches and get the process down.

Other news...I've got a Cidre de Cassis, a 1.081 cider with blackcurrant juice, in secondary, and a 1.081 blackcurrant wine in the primary. Next up will be an Apfelwein, a strong pure apple cider fortified with apple juice concentrate to an original gravity of 1.110, or thereabouts.

Mash, Vorlauf, Lauter, Sparge

2006-02-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

These are but a few of the great words I get to use as an all-grain brewer. The mash went well, overall, on Saturday. I hit slightly lower than expected temps for the mash, around 150 degrees. This will most likely result in a thinner, more fermentable ale, which is fine with me, as my extract brews of late have been finishing high in residual sugars, and I'd rather fancy a drier ferment. Mash efficiency wasn't great...probably 63 percent or so, but I ended up with 5 gallons (or slightly less) of 1.052 wort. It fermented heavily for two days, and has slowed considerably since then...I'm hoping it didn't "stick". It shouldn't have, I pitched plenty of yeast, mashed at lower temps, used yeast nutrient, and kept it relatively warm (high 60s). It will be a very hoppy (in an East Kent Goldings kind of way...it uses 3 ounces, plus an ounce of Target for bittering) and hopefully fruity Extra Special Bitter. I wish I could have increased efficiency and hit a higher gravity, but this will make a great session ale nonetheless.

I also pitched some EC-1118 (champagne) into my braggot, in an attempt to jump-start that ferment and finish it out a little bit drier. Right now it is far too high, in the 1.040-1.050 range as I recall.

I'm anticipating two ciders...first one in the mold of my earlier cider, except with a gallon of blackcurrant nectar, turbinado sugar instead of brown sugar, and T-58 yeast for a tiny Belgian kick. It will be known as "Cidre de Cassis". After that comes an interesting idea that may actually not be a cider at all...probably end up being a mead. 4.75 gallons (18 liters) of blackcurrant nectar, which has an OG estimated of about 1.067, and .25 gallons (1 liter or 3 pounds) of honey for a little extra gravity points. Pure blackcurrant goodness. My local grocery store is stocking the blackcurrant nectar so I am buying out their stock weekly! At 2.50 a liter it is reasonable, especially for one over which blackcurrants hold such merciless sway.

Not sure what to brew next...Oatmeal Stout? Something light, drinkable, easy going. An Oatmeal Stout, a Mild Ale, Brown Ale, even an Irish Red, perhaps. Another possibility, down the road, is a rye beer, possibly spiced with caraway. That will be an interesting experiment.

All Grain Brewing

2006-02-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I have bitten the bullet, and my Honigweizen will be the last extract brew, at least for a while. I've purchased a good system (two ten gallon coolers with brass valves, a sparge arm, and a false bottom) for all-grain brewing, which means using malted barley grain, instead of prepared malt extract syrup and powder. I'll save money, and it will give me more control over the brewing process, ultimately giving me a more authentic product. First up will be an ESB, with Maris Otter pale malt and loaded with East Kent Goldings hops. Brewday is Saturday.

Other happenings will include starting the Blackcurrant Cider, racking the Honigweizen to secondary, and bottling the Ginger Metheglin. I'm also planning to add some medium-heavy toast oak cubes to the cherry melomel, to add a nice tannic addition to the sweet fruitiness that already rules that mead. I'm also keen to try out a new dry yeast...Safale S-04, the Whitbread strain. That will be used in the ESB this Saturday, and I'm looking to get a great English style yeast profile from it, balanced with fruity (but not phenolic) esters and bready flavours. So if you think of it, mates, raise a pint on Saturday to the inaugural mash at St. Crispin's, as I break in my new mash/lauter tun! Prost, Slainte, Cheers!

Honigweizen

2006-02-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

Well, another brew is fermenting. This time, a "honigweizen", a not-so-traditional German wheat beer made with honey. I started with a basic ingredient list for a Bavarian-style hefeweizen, and amended it with a new yeast strain and added honey. Hopping is quite low, with only a single ounce of Tettnang added for bittering. The malt is approximately 65 percent wheat and 35 percent barley. In the last minute or two of the boil, I added 3 lbs of blueberry honey. Bear in mind that blueberry honey is not blueberry-flavoured honey, but just a variety depending on nectar source, like clover honey or orange blossom honey. I chose a Belgian ale strain, Fermentis T-58, for the yeast, instead of a traditional Bavarian wheat yeast. I'm hoping for some very interesting esters from the yeast strain, maybe a bit crazier even than the traditional weizen "banana and clove".

Also, another batch of cider will be coming soon, too. I'll have to empty some carboys (I foresee a bottling session in my future) but the cider will be a strong fortified cider with a rich dose of blackcurrants...found a stash of Looza blackcurrant nectar!

Untitled Update

2006-01-25T07:27:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to regret implementing post titles on my brog. (No, "brog" is not a silly Asian-accent version of "blog", it is short for "brew log" just as "blog" is short for "web log".)

Anyway, let's look at, as Marvin Gaye would intone, "what's going on". Now everything is out of the primary. I got a bit of hope for my Double IPA, as I had added enzymes to it and raised the temperature, and it restarted a very slow bubbling, so it may be finishing its ferment. The Cherry Melomel is still slowly chugging along, and I assume it is going to end up rather dry. I've had a full glass of it when it was at 1.045, which is very sweet, but it was actually quite pleasant. I think the danger here is that it will end up too dry, but we'll see. I was worried about severe oxidation when I racked it to tertiary, but I think we are all right; the restarted ferment scrubbed a lot of oxygen out I'm sure. Who knows, the mead may have been low on oxygen and just needed a bit of a boost to restart the yeast. The Ginger Metheglin is drying out, at 1.010 or so. Not nearly what I had hoped, but acceptable, at least. I added about 10 oz of freshly grated ginger, or rather, I steeped that amount of ginger in a pint or so of boiling water, and added that ginger "extract" to the mead as I racked it to tertiary. The Black Braggot is slightly disappointing...I finally racked it to secondary, and it seems still, completely without activity, and stuck at the high gravity of 1.037, although the second test showed more like 1.040. This was supposed to be so much more fermentable than an Imperial Stout, and thus end up drier. Oh well, there's lots of time to correct that. The Agincourt Ale, my strong dubbel, is aging quietly in the basement. Once it clears sufficiently it will be bottled.

New plans...well, I have been somewhat taken with my cider. I liked it well before, but after I discovered the method of sweetening/flavouring it in the glass with a shot of Ribena, wow! It pairs wonderfully. The dry tartness of cider is tempered by the fruity sweetness in the Ribena syrup. Once I exhaust my supply of Ribena, which is rather costly, I suppose a decent Creme de Cassis would do fine as a substitution...making the drink into a "Snakebite". But that has prompted me to decide on my next brewing project...another cider. I think I'll stick close to the mold of my last one. I was thinking of going crazy and using a gallon to a gallon and a half of tart cherry juice, but that gets very costly, and it might end up just tasting like alcoholic Juicy Juice. But yes, more cider is on the way. Oh, and by the way, at least some of those bottles have carbonated. Can't beat it! Slight fizz, natural crispness. I'm really a bit put off that cider is so uncommon here, and especially that the few commercial examples are so "manufactured", sorbated, sweetened, adjusted, and tweaked until they are nothing more than apple flavoured wine coolers. This nation used to be a cider nation...sweet cider, hard cider, apfelwein, apple brandy. Beer was secondary to cider at one point. Remember Johnny Appleseed? I'd take a pint of good cider over a glass of any froo-froo wine for dinner, anyday.

A Quick What's-Going-On

2006-01-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

Well, while no major brewery projects have been actively undertaken yet, I thought I might offer a couple updates. The Double IPA is all but a bust at this point. I might experiment on it with some enzymes to see if I can get them to digest some of the unfermentables remaining in the half-fermented beer. No matter what the outcome, this won't be publicly released, and only if I somehow perform magic will this beer escape a destiny with the drain.

The Agincourt Ale has been resting in secondary, and I've still got high hopes for it. I was heretofore thinking of corking it, but the high price of corking may put a nail in that coffin...I might wait and see just how good it ends up being. The Black Braggot is still in primary...I haven't noticed fermentation activity so here's to hoping it has just about finished attenuation. D47 has so far proven very reliable in that regard (unlike EC1118, surprisingly). I'm giving it extra time, partly because it is a high gravity mead, and partly because I don't have a free 5 gallon fermentor at the moment! So I'll either have to bottle the cherry melomel, the ginger metheglin, or the Agincourt Ale, or dump the Double IPA. The only real choice here would be either to wait as long as possible and bottle the Agincourt Ale (not something I'd prefer to do, it needs time before bottling) or dump the Double IPA. Or, rack the braggot to a 6 gallon fermentor, despite me preferring to bulk age in 5 gallon carboys with less headspace. Now, I might do that with the Ginger Metheglin...it is in need of a racking.

I've been partaking in the Honey Koelsch of late...what a nice, light ale it is, it definately makes the "brew again" list.

Blackcurrant Mead Bottled

2006-01-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Last night was a bottling session. I bottled my blackcurrant mead; I would consider it semi-sweet, bordering on dry, with a terminal gravity of 1.004. To my best estimation the alcohol content is somewhere between 12% and 13%. I chose not to use finings...a sample I took last month appeared very clear. However, when I racked the mead I noticed that much of it was still cloudy, apparently not all the yeast had fully dropped out of suspension. This isn't a major problem, as with time the yeast will flocculate out in the bottle, but it does mean I will have more sediment in the bottles than I would have had otherwise. Not a big issue, but I'll probably clarify all my meads in the future with finings before bottling. This mead had a nice jammy nose from the currants, I think it will mellow nicely in the bottle. Great acidic bite, too!

Let me tell you...a Ferrari floor corker is a beautiful thing. Splendid, consistent corking with ease. Awesome piece of equipment. Brass jaws in the iris, heavy construction...it's a great tool.

Also I racked my Agincourt Ale into secondary. Well attenuated, at 1.023. It has a splendidly estery nose of bananas...the specific ester is isoamyl acetate for you chemistry geeks. Also tutti-frutti and bubblegum aromas, all stemming from the Belgian origins of the T58 yeast strain. Very nice...I'm quite impressed with T58.

Next week I'm having a sampling at my house...I think I might also cook up a Carbonnade (Belgian beef stew) using my Wee Heavy ale.

Busy Weekend

2006-01-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve was a big brewday for all of us here at St. Crispin's. First, after about 15 days with the cherries, I racked the cherry melomel to tertiary. This was a tough decision, brought on by a lack of 6 gallon fermentors. However, I don't think it was a mistake in that I tasted the "spent" cherries and they were fairly bland, indicating that they had imparted the acidity and flavour to the mead already. I ran into considerable frustration racking it (cherries have a tendency to clog your racking cane) which may have resulted in some potential oxidation, but we'll have to just wait and see on that one...I topped the fermentor off with pure cherry juice (about a quart). The gravity is still high, in the mid 30s, but I'm expecting it to drop. It doesn't have to drop all that much because a cherry mead ought to be somewhat sweet.

With the 6 gallon fermentor now empty and clean (quite a task...you try getting 9 lbs of soggy cherries out of a glass carboy!), I moved on to the brewing task of the evening, a braggot in the style of Imperial Stout. I used a variety of strongly flavoured British malts, including extra dark crystal, chocolate, and black patent. I only steeped the black patent malt for a few minutes, in order to extract the colour but not the harsh flavours. The "base beer" was a mid-strength stout of approximately 1.048 OG. I hopped it decently with British hops, Target and East Kent Goldings. Then after the boil ended, I added 9.5 lbs of raw clover honey. It is fermenting with Lalvin D47 yeast, with an original gravity of 1.114. I'm expecting a final ABV of somewhere around 12 percent, and this will be laid down for perhaps a year, depending on its progress aging in the bottle.

Next up...no brewing projects persay, but bottling, racking, and general maintenance. The blackcurrant mead is next up for bottling!

Zalig Kerstfeest!

2005-12-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

Christmas greetings in Flemish, there, for you all. Last night I brewed St. Crispin's Agincourt Ale. Using a variety of Belgian caramel malts (Special B, Caramunich, and some Aromatic), as well as some heavily caramelised raw turbinado sugar, I brewed quite a potent dark ale using some choice European hops (Hersbrucker and Saaz). It is bubbling merrily away with a Belgian strain of yeast (Fermentis T58) that is likely to give it fruity, spicy, and estery flavours. The initial output was boiled down to a very strong gravity, 1.098, but I cut it with water to reach a more temperate gravity of 1.086, to ensure that the fermentation would not "stick". I want it powerful, but moderation is key, and balance is ever so important with a Belgian ale. Besides, I want to test out the T58 strain first, make sure it can handle something so high in gravity. I am considering, when it is finished, bottling it in corked Belgian beer bottles...perhaps you've seen them, with the wire cages as on a champagne bottle. I have the proper corker for this now, thankfully! It is expensive, however. 65 cents a bottle, just for the corks and cages!

Now I am in a "tending" stage, where I must manage my remaining fermentations before worrying about new ones. I have three meads in various stages...one of which is ready to be bottled (I am reasonably certain), and the other two are sitting in secondary with their "flavourings" (fresh ginger and tart cherries). Still got an overly sweet IPA that I don't know what I'll do with, exactly. Might bring it upstairs in an effort to jumpstart it. But after things mellow down some, I've got a braggot to start...basically I am brewing a base beer, a medium strength stout-style beer with black patent malt, dark crystal, and maybe a few more various malts. At the end of the boil I am going to add nine pounds of honey, making it essentially mead strength. This will be a sort of cross between a honey mead and Imperial stout, bottled in 12oz bottles and held for a long time (like my barleywine, bottled after several months of aging in October, and I won't be touching it for a long, long time).

Had a minor feast on Christmas Eve with family, preparing a variety of English foods, from scones with blackcurrant jam, to Cottage Pie, to Welsh Leek Soup. Also Carbonnade a la Flammande, a Belgian beef stew made with a good Dubbel-style ale (Ommegang Abbey Ale). Went over pretty well, I think. Still have some leftovers...

Cherry Melomel Back in Action

2005-12-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

So my cherry melomel is back in fermentation...I added 9 lbs of tart cherries to the fermentor (a LOT) and racked the base mead (specific gravity 1.045, original gravity 1.120) onto it. I've been keeping the temperature at 74 Fahrenheit, approximately, and it has restarted fermentation apparently. This is a brief post, and that's about all I needed to mention. I'm hoping to get the mead down to 1.010 to 1.020, but I would take even a dryer melomel, given that these are tart cherries and should have a nice acidic bite. I tried one, and wow, it made me pucker. A little "flavour bomb" if you will, so I'm excited about this one.

Next month, the blackcurrant mead will be bottled. Now that is one I am excited about.

Back to Agincourt

2005-12-15T15:37:00.000-08:00

So, I've got another order of supplies on the way, including some basic essentials, as well as a champagne corker, top flight stuff. This will make mead bottling a breeze from here on out. Although, I've got new stuff in the pipeline. But first, some status updates.

The Koelsch is doing well, only had one bottle so far. The cider (bottled the same time) is not exactly doing a stellar job carbonating, but its fruity, winey dryness is appealing both carbonated and uncarbonated. I had it last night with some Thai food, and wow, it went great. But I should let it lie for a good long time to reach its peak. The Tongue Splitter (American session IPA style) is quite good, but dwindling...it was a small batch. It is better fresh, anyway...hops tend to fade. So get in on that while you can, I tell 'e. I've still got one bottle of the ESB remaining, brewed in June. It's coming up on 6 months and is probably fading in its appeal to some extent. Still, I wanted to see what aging could do.

To do...I need to get up the courage to do something about my Double IPA...check the gravity, bottle it, whatever. Dramatically underattenuated, its very sweet and very hoppy. I'll probably bottle it anyway but thats a lot of work. This would be when Cornelius kegs would come in handy. My other issue with underattenuation is a mead destined to be a cherry melomel, but I'm hoping the issue is more one of me checking too early. Meads do take time, despite the magnificent performance of my first three batches. So I'll check it again in a week or so, and regardless, I'll rack it onto the cherries. Even if it gets stuck at 1.050, God forbid, that would make a very sweet and intersesting elixir. Apple juice is at 1.050, so it wouldn't be any sweeter than that. Again, we'll see how it goes.

With that out of the way, here are my plans. First off is St. Crispin's Agincourt Ale. This will be a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, a Quadrupel style, a rich, dark, strong ale in the tradition of Belgian Trappist monasteries. It is so named for various reasons. The Battle of Agincourt occurred in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France, in the Northeast of France just by the border of Belgium. It was the scene for the climax of Shakespeare's Henry V, and the location for the stirring St. Crispin's Day speech, from which this brewery's name was inspired. So it seemed appropriate, being something like a Franco-Belgian brew, in a sense. It will have continental European hops, sugars, and Belgian barley malts.

After that, eventually, my attempt at a dark braggot, a Black Braggot in the style of an Imperial Stout, will ensue. I'm buying the malt and hops for this now, the honey will be procured later. Should be a striking brew.

New Plans and First Impressions

2005-12-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Firstly I am coming up on another purchase of supplies, which will likely include a corker and various supplies as well some ingredients for further brewing. I have two projects in mind. One is a Belgian ale, styled after a Trappist Dubbel. Dark malts, spicy yeast notes, dark sugars, held together with a restrained European hopping. Should be quite interesting, I'm finalizing my recipe now on it. The second possibility is what I have dubbed a "Black Braggot". A braggot is a fusion of ale and mead...technically a mead with a certain quantity of malt (and possibly hops) added. My version will be unique for its use of highly kilned black or dark malts, which will make this into an interesting hybrid of mead and Imperial Stout. My recipe for this, however, is far from finalized. If you (the reader) have any advice on the use of black patent malt, I'd be interested in discussing it with you.

As for first impressions, I finally tested my blackcurrant mead, which had been sitting in secondary for two months now. It had a gravity of 1.004, with a Brix reading of 10 degrees. After some computation this implies that the corrected original gravity (adding juice in the secondary threw off the initial reading) is 1.100, being a noticeably milder mead of 13% ABV, approximately. It has a wondrous nose of blackcurrants, without obscuring some honey notes. Also quite perceptable was the heavy char oak cubes, offering up a distinct vanilla/bourbon note. This was a very welcome bit of complexity, and I'll be using it again. It has a light body and was quite drinkable. And I can't forget to mention the colour...rich, jewel-like burgundy, with surprisingly impeccable clarity. I won't be using any finings on this mead!

Also, I forgot to mention, but I did rack the mead onto the ginger. Peeling and chopping the ginger was quite an undertaking, but I completed it. I'm a little worried the ginger, with around three weeks of age in the refrigerator, might have lost some of its potency, but that may have been my imagination. I'm sure no matter what it will be a beast of gingery goodness, and hey, if after a month I find it to be lighter on ginger than expected, I can always rack it onto a new bed of ginger!

I leave you with a saying that has somewhat stuck with me, and would be a worthy remembrance for just about anyone:

"Wine is a Good Servant But a Terrible Master"

Cherry Melomel Started

2005-11-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

I admit, I am on a mead kick. Mead is extraordinarily easy to make, and gives you immense latitude for creativity. This weekend I started a cherry melomel. In the same manner as the zingimel, and the blackcurrant melomel before that, initially it is only a "base cyser", a mead of honey and apple juice. This will produce a relatively neutral mead, in that apple juice retains little appley-ness after a vigorous fermentation (much to the chagrin of cyser makers). In the secondary fermentation, when the yeast is about done, I will add the fruit. The yeast I used for the cherry mel is Lalvin 71B, the "Narbonne" yeast. It comes highly recommended for fruit mead, because it will neutralize acids in the must, resulting in a softer, hopefully sweeter mead. Depending on the final gravity of the mead when I rack it, I will be adding some extra honey...I want a fairly sweet mead from this. The cyser base for the zingimel is still fermenting, I'll give it another week to finish up.

I also tried the first bottle of the first mead I did, started in early August. It's a spiced cyser, and yes, it needs significantly more time aging. Hot and potent describe it quite well; its a raucous little beverage right now. Definite alcohol presence that might put off some tasters accustomed to tamer beverages, but I'll wager there's nary a Viking that'd turn down a flagon of this golden elixir, fiery or not. I bet it will be excellent for next year's Thanksgiving, however.

Tongue Splitter

2005-11-23T09:49:00.000-08:00

So I opened a bottle of the Tongue Splitter last night, which has spent about 2 1/2 weeks in the bottle. Surprisingly the carbonation was excellent, and the head was as frothy and long-lasting as any homebrew I've yet completed. Wow, what an aroma. Fellow hopheads and lupomaniacs, this brew's for you. Five glorious ounces of American hops...citrusy, grapefruity, extraordinarily fresh. This is one brew that will be much better fresh and young, so I'm not planning on aging it much. It is ready for consumption!

The base cyser for the zingimel is nearing the end of its fermentation cycle, I think. Perhaps this weekend I can rack it onto the ginger. Not only that, but I now have the requisite ingredients (cider, honey, nutrients, yeast) to get started on the next mead, a cherry melomel. No cherries added until secondary, though, I'm afraid. I plan to use high quality fresh-frozen tart cherries, in quantity of, I don't know, 6-9 pounds. I want this one bursting with cherry flavour, not in a fruit candy kind of way, but in a rich, winey, complex and deeply flavourful way. I will probably oak this one as well. I'm much more inclined to oak the dark melomels than the lighter meads like the spiced cyser and zingimel. Speaking of, I shall be cracking the first bottle of the aforementioned spiced cyser at Thanksgiving. Far too early, I admit, in that it will only have 4-5 months of age, but it should give me an idea how it is progressing, and a point of reference for future samplings.

Cider and Kölsch Bottled

2005-11-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

Last night I attempted an ambitious bottling session...first the Honey Kölsch, then the cider. 10 full gallons of brew bottled and conditioning. The Kölsch was nice...the honey taste was either faded into oblivion, or was subtly enhancing the other flavour components. I had worried the addition of honey might veer the beer away from the traditional, approachable pseudo-lager type that I was aiming for, but thankfully that is not the case. However, the finish is decidedly wheaty, which I find pleasant, but others who dislike wheat beer may not. This is somewhere between a regular beer and a wheat beer in that it uses some wheat malt but only a small percentage. It is very clear and light gold...a beautiful beer that hopefully will have a nice head as well. After three weeks conditioning at room temperature it will be placed in the fridge for cold conditioning.

The cider was very interesting...a pinkish, purplish hue of red (thanks to the blackcurrant nectar and cranberry juice) with a tart, acidic, and winey nose. I liked it much more this time...the individual fruits don't stand out admittedly, but it seems more melded and interesting. Dry and wine-like is what I would describe this as...and definately refreshingly acidic. Potent, too. Probably about two times as strong as a standard strength beer, so caveat emptor, and pour accordingly. Its also conditioning...I wanted to carbonate the cider. It will be very dry, and not sweet like many people expect hard cider to be, but this isn't sorbated, artificially carbonated, sweetened macro-cider...this is real, artisanal cider, to be laid down and enjoyed over time. I think the first bottle opened will be on New Years, as a substitute for champagne...another tart, dry, and bubbly beverage.

Up next, mead, mead and more mead. Yes, the one in the primary right now, a high gravity base cyser to be racked upon a bed of fresh ginger, is still bubbling away. It will become a "Zingemel", ginger mead. Today I went to the Farmer's Market and bought some extraordinarily fresh ginger root, much better looking than the stuff at Hyvee, for half the price that it sells for there. I also looked for cherries for a cherry mel, but they are past season I'm fairly certain. I'm almost positive I will be using cherries to make the next mead, a cherry melomel. I purchased a couple packets of Lalvin 71B Narbonne yeast which works great with melomels and gives a softer, sweeter taste profile with less acidity. I might go crazy and use 15 lbs of honey in that one, to boost the final gravity for some sweetness. We'll see how she does. But the ginger mead is still fermenting, so I'll give it another week or two in primary. It's only been a week, which is no time, really, for mead.

I'm keen to brew again, but haven't budgeted enough for it yet. I'll keep you posted. Next project will likely be Chocolate Stout and Imperial Stout or ESB and IPA. Votes?

Double IPA Floundering

2005-11-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

My Double IPA is exhibiting poor attenuation. I racked it Saturday to secondary after three weeks in primary, and it still showed a specific gravity of 1.035, when it should be much lower, preferably in the low 20s. I pitched some dry yeast (Cooper's) in hopes of getting some fresh yeast to resume fermentation, but I'm not seeing any activity. I might consider pitching champagne yeast, but I'd much prefer not to. There's no reason a 1.082 ale should need champagne yeast. Still, time will tell. The hydrometer samples have not been bad...with all the immense hops, the residual sweetness from the high specific gravity is not unpleasant.

Friday I started another mead, or to be more accurate, a cyser. 12 pounds of clover honey and 4 gallons of apple cider, without any water. I'm fairly certain the apples will not remain very apparent after fermentation, as the cider blend was filtered, sweet, and nondescript. I also used EC-1118, a saccharomyces bayanus strain, also known as champagne yeast. It is a very vigorous and thorough fermentor that is sure to attenuate this mead to its capacity, producing a very lightly flavoured, crisp, and potent mead...an ideal "clean slate" upon which to craft a ginger metheglin. In secondary I plan to add a full pound of freshly peeled and chopped ginger root. All in all, what I'm looking at is a very strong "ginger wine" with a light body, a potency in the range of fortified wine, and a very strong ginger flavour. This will be an ideal aperitif, palate cleansing and fresh, but not something one would want a large glass of. It will be, to make up a new term, a "zingimel", loosely meaning ginger mead. Believe me, this one will need to age a long time, being of such high gravity and using champagne yeast. At bottling I'd be willing to wager it will taste like kerosene and ethanol. All that will mellow with time and it should be a nice long-aging mead. I will probably use composite corks.

The Koelsch is finishing up its stay in secondary, and if my count is right, next weekend is bottling time. After three weeks to carbonate, I will be cold-aging it in a refrigerator until Christmas. I will be quite interested to see how it comes out.

Keeping an Eye on Local Restaurants

2005-11-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

Last night I had the pleasure once again of dining at The Rheinland Restaurant in downtown Independence. In my mind it shares much of what I envision for St. Crispin's...a very warm, welcoming restaurant with a genuine cultural authenticity and relaxed atmosphere. Of course, naturally this is a completely different creature, being a German restaurant, but still, there was a certain atmosphere they have that I'd like to capture. I had the Jaegerschnitzel, which is without question my favourite item on the menu. I also sampled Koenig Ludwig Hefeweisse, with a glass of Spaten Optimator with Raspberry Romanoff for dessert. Excellent!

This morning I visited the Farmer's Market (downtown city market), and I was lucky enough to again catch the beekeeper who supplied me with my last gallon of honey (blackcurrant mead). I bought two more, since I probably won't be able to see him til next year, and I'm still keen to continue my meadmaking experiments. Right now, there are a few possibilities in the running. A ginger metheglin, a dry crisp mead with up to a pound of fresh ginger root imparting an intense spiciness, a sort of "ginger wine". I could also follow a recipe many others have done, a Peach Ginger Melomel, but I think it would be too difficult to capture and retain the essence of the peaches well, without using untold pounds of peaches, and that introduces pectin haze problems, not to mention fermentor space. I think if I try either of those, it will be a pure ginger metheglin. Then there are the fruit meads...a berry melomel, even another blackcurrant melomel if I could find the juice for cheap, would be quite tasty no doubt. I've also read about this intense "Apple Butter Cyser" that might also be good, if a bit over the top. I also was considering a clone of Lurgashall Tower of London Mead, an English mead fortified with Scotch whisky. Luckily I was able to find a bottle of this, and while I haven't sampled it yet, I will try it out and see if I like it enough to try making my own. It certainly sounds interesting, but it wouldn't be cheap, and the temptation to use lower-quality Scotch to save money would be there, and if I'm doing anything I want to do it well. So in all likelihood, a strong dry ginger mead and a melomel using as-yet undetermined fruit will be my choices for this honey, but thats far off still.

Right now I go to start racking my Honey Koelsch (well attenuated, already...1.057 to 1.012!) into secondary. The sample I took this afternoon had a strong bitterness that I think will mellow with conditioning, and a honey-wheat character.

Slow Progress and Aging

2005-10-31T10:20:00.000-08:00

A few minor updates. Last week I bottled the barleywine. It is a sweet, potent concoction, with an original gravity of 1.122 and a finishing gravity of 1.038. That puts it at a low level of attenuation (but better than expected), around 66% apparent. ABV is just over 11%. It used brown sugar and molasses in the boil, and fermented down to around 1.050 with an ale yeast strain. To "unstick" the fermentation I used champagne yeast and the long passage of time. I wasn't expecting it to get into the "30s", a high final gravity range but one that isn't atypical for big barleywines. I had added an ounce of leaf Cascade hops in the tertiary fermentation (more of a bulk aging and clarifying stage) as well as three ounces of oak chips soaked in a quality single barrel bourbon. I bottled with a small amount of brown sugar to prime, mostly in 12oz bottles. This one needs to sit for ages, honestly, but I think it'll be quite good. I hope to hang on to some bottles for many years.

I have not as yet moved either my Double IPA or the Honey Koelsch to secondary. I sampled the DIPA with a hydrometer last night, and was disappointed to find it around 1.040...it had better get down to the "20s" before I transfer it. The original gravity was fairly reasonable, 1.082. There is no reason it should get stuck at 1.040. The Koelsch, being fermented at a lower temperature, is still moving along, so who am I to impose a week-long limit on primary fermentation. I'll let it finish and then transfer it.

I am considering bottling my cider sooner rather than later. It's such a hodgepodge of ideas (apple cider, blackcurrant juice, cranberry juice, brown sugar!!) that I don't really feel the need to age it like a wine. The sample as I racked it to secondary was a little "hot" but not funky or off-tasting at all. Maybe I should exercise patience...but for right now I'll exercise laziness and wait til I've got more time to consider bottling. I might consider spiking it with further cranberry juice to add more "intensity" but that would require a tertiary transfer to a 6 gallon carboy.

I'm also working with an artist friend on the design of a logo or crest for labels. It'd be nice to add a little visual design to this site, for one thing, and also to publicly distributed samples. Wait, that sounds bad, like I'm handing alcohol out to kids on the street. Only to friends at this time. The fact that my last post had several dozens of lines of Shakespeare in it should make it clear that I am not marketing to minors.

Happy Belated St. Crispin's Day!

2005-10-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, how ironic for me to get this wrong. St. Crispin's Day is October 25th (yes, that was yesterday). But nonetheless, I'll celebrate it. 6 carboys bubbling merrily in my basement (well, two...the others are aging quietly), and last night I polished off almost all of my first batch, a tasty and ever so hop-bitter ESB. I've got one pint left. I might actually bottle my barleywine tonight, in order to make this weekend a little easier. The final gravity as I recall is going to be insanely high, but hey, I'm not about to throw out good ale...it could just need a good long period to age. This weekend I will need to transfer the Koelsch into secondary...although if fermentation continues steadily I may have to postpone that. I've got my fermentation temps in the sweet spot for that ale...low 60's. Most likely it will be quite pleasant; light in body, with a pleasing triad of light pilsner malt, austere German hops, and the sweet aromatics of clover honey. Honestly this is the kind of beer to brew in late spring, to enjoy crisp and cold during the hot summer months. I'm going to let the Double IPA have two weeks in the primary, to ensure it attenuates as much as it needs to. I've also been seriously considering making the jump beyond extract brewing and going all-grain. Not going to do it just yet, anyway.

But now, my friends, let's recount the inspiration for the project, from Shakespeare's Henry V:

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Brewing All Weekend

2005-10-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit tired from a busy weekend...a great deal of which was consumed by brewing. Friday night saw the racking of the Tongue Splitter (highly hopped American Pale Ale) into secondary, and then I brewed a "Magnum PA"...a Double IPA of high gravity and hoppage. It uses two ounces of Yakima Magnum hops, one ounce of Liberty, two ounces of Northern Brewer hops, and another ounce of Cascade for dry hopping in secondary. I added half the malt extract to bring the wort into the 1.040 range for the first 40 minutes of the boil, to encourage more extraction of hop bitterness. I kept the reserved extract to be added late in the boil. The original gravity was 1.082...big, but not too big. I pitched it onto the Tongue Splitter yeast cake, and affixed a fermentation lock....

Which turned out to be a comically big mistake. For the first time I actually needed a blowoff tube, and I ended up with slimy worty blowoff goo all over my basement floor the next morning. I cleaned it all up and affixed a blowoff tube. It's been fermenting vigorously ever since. That done, I headed on over to my local homebrew store to pick up some ingredients for a recipe I'd pieced together in my head...a Honey Kölsch. Kölsch is a type of beer from Cologne, Germany, and it is notable because it is probably the lightest ale you will ever run across...you could call it a top-fermenting pilsner. Light straw-gold with a delicate flavour of malt and noble German hops (in my case, imported Hallertauer), I'm actually doing this one as a Christmas gift for a family member / inlaw who is fond of domestic lager. I'll approximate my recipe:

1 lb white wheat malt, cracked and steeped at 150 degrees for 25 minutes
3.3 lb Briess Pilsen Light liquid malt extract
1 lb Muntons Extra Light dry malt extract
1 lb Muntons Wheat dry malt extract
1 lb local clover honey (added at beginning of boil)
1 lb local clover honey (added at flameout, to retain aroma)
1.5 oz Hallertauer hops (60 min boil, bittering)
0.5 oz Hallertauer hops (10 min boil, flavour/aroma)
White Labs WLP029 German Ale / Kölsch yeast

Original gravity came in too high due to boil off, in the upper 60s, so I added some water to bring it back down to the target OG of 1.057. It started bubbling in a little over 12 hours, which isn't too bad without a starter. This one will take some cold-conditioning to clear it. I'm hoping to have a mild, subtle, and tasty brew that BMC drinkers would find appealing, but that I would not be bored with if I end up with it anyway.

I sampled the cider, by the way...a lot has fermented out, it is at 1.007, and is still going down I think. It has a mild "fruit punch" flavour to it, and is not short on alcohol. I may carbonate it, and forget the whole corking thing with this one. The problem with cider is that attenuation is so complete, if you aren't careful you are left with what tastes like alcohol, water, and a hint of juice. I think I've added enough unfermentables to this to avoid that, and the yeast itself is known for retaining a fruity profile.

Kitchen Sink Cider and Hoppy Pale Ale

2005-10-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a rather busy one with my brewing projects. I created a yeast starter last Wednesday with a quart or two of apple cider, some yeast nutrient, and a vial of White Labs English Cider yeast. Friday night, I created it...a hodgepodge of juices, 4 gallons of apple cider, 1 quart of pure cranberry juice, 2 quarts of a delicious Belgian blackcurrant nectar, 4 cans of apple juice concentrate, and a couple pounds of dark brown sugar. The brown sugar was a gamble and I'm not sure if I will like it in there...it added a distinct nuttiness to the sample, but after it all ferments out it might be quite interesting. The fermentation has been wild, almost violent, ever since it was pitched on Friday. Original gravity was 1.078, give or take. This is going to have a lot of flavour!

The ale brewing went well too...I added a great deal of hops to this one. Not much to report...it has Nugget, Kent Goldings, Cascade, and Mt. Hood hops, as I recall. Another dousing of Cascade and Mt. Hood hops will go into the secondary to add a strong aroma. Should be fairly standard, so to speak; being a American Pale Ale, albeit an insanely hopped one. It isn't especially strong, but I boiled the volume down a bit. The target OG was 1.045 but I ended up at 1.052.

I'm thinking of brewing a Koelsch to share with family at the holidays...I'd better get cracking. Also this Friday I'm brewing a monster of a Double IPA.

Blackcurrant Mead

2005-10-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

A few things of which to keep you all (you two...you one...anyone?) aware...

First off, last night I bottled the Wee Heavy. It stayed at its previous gravity reading of 1.032, so it is rather sweet, but that is by no means unheard of for an ale of a 1.100 original gravity. It's full bodied, sweet, and smoky. I think it will be a perfect wintertime nightcap, preferably at cellar temperature. I bottled it in 500ml (16.9oz) European pint bottles, mostly, with a few in various 12oz bottles. Give it at least a month...this one would benefit from a few months, actually, if not longer.

Secondly, I'm calling the 80 Shilling a loss...lesson learned. Medicinal, phenolic smells dominate the profile, almost a plastic bandaid smell. No, you can't have a bottle. I would rather not share a poor example of my brewing. After consulting with some of my brewing peers online, there was a consensus reached, that the particular strain of yeast used (Wyeast 1728, Scottish Ale Yeast) is very sensitive to the presence of chlorine in the water, and could have reacted with the chlorine to produce off-flavours. From now on I will be treating all brewing water with a Campden tablet (rather, 1/4 of a Camden tablet per 5 gallons) in order to purify it and clear out the chlorine.

And lastly, today I finally picked up the blackcurrant wine base I had been seeking. I paid $35 for a can of blackcurrant juice (96 fl oz, 3/4 gal) which is a bit excessive, but still worth it. The base mead had been fermenting for two weeks, being made of 12 lbs of local clover honey, 2 gallons of apple cider, and 2 gallons of water. I used the same Côtes-du-Rhône strain as the recently bottled cyser. The base mead started at 1.115 and was at 1.005 at time of racking...plenty of strength in that mead. I poured the blackcurrant juice into a new fermentor and racked the mead on top of it. Oh the smell of blackcurrant juice. It defies description. All I can say is that this is going to be pure nectar. The colour is a rich dark red like a Cabernet. I'm pretty excited about this one, but it will be aging for a while.

Up next! Three new brews. I ordered supplies today, and this next weekend I plan to start a brew of both a cider (with a few twists of my own) and a highly hopped American IPA (to be followed the next week by a Double IPA).

The Joy of Corking

2005-10-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

I won't burden you with griping and complaints about the frustration, anger, and physical pain I endured as a direct result of using a Gilda handheld corker, but suffice to say I was kicking myself for not springing for the nicer floor corker. The cyser is corked, but it was no fun, let me tell you. I injured my wrist and almost broke the corker during the whole debacle. Next time I'll use a proper corker, even if it costs me another $100.

However, I'm excited about a few new projects. I still haven't racked my blackcurrant melomel...I'm in no hurry, and haven't gotten the blackcurrants yet. I want the primary to attenuate properly first. I did however make a great buy on five gallons of pasteurized apple cider (not from concentrate with no additives). I'm going to make an apple wine with this...hopefully using apple juice concentrates to raise the gravity, and with added cranberry juice for tartness. This will be uncarbonated, corked, and aged. And the plan still stands to brew two excessively hoppy ales. This weekend I'll probably order the ingredients. Additionally planned for this weekend...the bottling of the Wee Heavy. I fear it is underattenuated, but this winter a thick, full-bodied, and malty-sweet ale will hit the spot.

First Bottle of 80 Shilling

2005-09-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

I popped open a bottle of the 80 Shilling last night. I admit, I'm jumping the gun (less than 2 weeks in the bottle) and the carbonation was indeed weaker than it should be. It seemed mildly smoky...quite faint, but overall, a sweet, non-bitter ale. It had some funkiness I couldn't quite put my finger on, but I'm hoping it might be something that will age out. I find it in general to be slightly bland, compared to the very flavourful ales done previously (IPA, ESB, Ginger Porter). Unless it shows significant improvement I won't be passing this one out. Still, if I let it age til this winter it might smooth it out and make it quite a pleasant tipple, especially when not overly chilled.

Next projects...bottling the Spiced Cyser this weekend. It has much, much aging to do. I just need to forget about it for a year. I might check the fermentation status of the mead for the melomel, as I'll probably be getting blackcurrants this weekend too. If it has attenuated sufficiently, into secondary that mead will go. Then it's a question of which to bottle first...the barleywine or Wee Heavy. I'm leaning towards the latter.

A New Mead and Some New Plans

2005-09-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

Another mead is in the primary; this one of local clover honey is to be the base mead for a blackcurrant melomel. I once again used apple cider, this time only 2 gallons, mainly as a nutrient aid. A good 5-10 lbs of blackcurrants added to the secondary fermentor will no doubt give this mead a rich, dark colour and a delicious blackcurrant flavour. My Spiced Cyser is coming along nicely, and I will be bottling it next weekend, as I don't want the spices to grow too strong. It's going to take some time to tame.

Take heed, hop lovers...the two next beers on the horizon will contain more hops than you can imagine. A standard strength ale with overly heavy hopping will come first, followed by a Double IPA of high strength and even heavier hopping. I'll have to do a Sweet Stout or Mild Ale just to counterbalance those, as these will be some bitter and hoppy beers, to be sure.

New Mead in the Primary

2005-09-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Another mead has been started. This one will end up being St. Crispin's Blackcurrant Mead, batch number 8. I used 2 gallons of water, 2 gallons of apple cider, and 1 gallon (12 lbs) of local clover honey. To add a nice tart acidity I added 1 cup of pure cranberry juice (not the diluted and sweetened cranberry juice cocktail). It is fermenting as we speak with a Côtes-du-Rhône strain of wine yeast, as with the previous mead. Technically this is a cyser right now, but I added the apple juice mainly for nutrients and a boost of gravity. When fermentation slows, this will be racked into secondary upon a bed of blackcurrants, where it will stay for some time, melding the flavours of a crisp honey wine with those of the potent blackcurrant. I saw a recipe for "blackcurrant wine" that was simply blackcurrants and 8-10 pounds of white sugar, but that seemed quite unpleasant to me. I'd rather add natural sugars, like juice, honey, malt, etc. That said, I have used brown sugar in two ales, but thats more for a nice caramel/molasses taste.

The clarifying agents appear to have worked marvelously with the barleywine...a thick yeast sediment, previous absent, now rests at the bottom of the carboy. I'm actually a bit worried the heavy yeast suspension could have thrown off the gravity reading, but I think that might be rather unlikely. It's going to be a sweet, thick, and rather strange barleywine, and I've come to accept it. It's a bit of a roll of the dice as to whether it will be worth the effort, but we'll see.

I've got to clean bottles to make ready for the Wee Heavy, that peat-smoked monster of an ale, as I don't know if I've got a lot of money for new bottles. That said, to the two guys who have been sampling St. Crispin's, if you've got empty 22oz bottles still, hang onto them as I can use them.

Spicing a Cyser

2005-09-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight I spiced my cyser. I had used an additive to clear it to crystal clear perfection last week, and so the remaining step before bottling, other than bulk aging, was adding the spices.

I crushed around 2/3 oz of allspice berries, which released an enormously pleasing and fresh aroma. I cracked them coarsely with a newly acquired mortar and pestle. Then another 1/2 oz of cinnamon quills, again, quite coarsely cracked. I didn't want to grind these into powder. Finally, 5 nutmegs (around 3/4 oz) were cracked and broken up. I put all these in a small mesh bag and added it to the carboy. Hopefully this will add a nice spiciness to the cyser.

The specific gravity of this cyser is at a rather impressive 1.003, down from an OG of 1.120. This means approximately 16% by volume. Still, the hydrometer sample was remarkably light. It had a floral, mild honey note with a faint appley note...an excellent backdrop for the spices. It still has a good deal of aging to do to reduce the "hotness". I don't think I'll give any bottles of this out til next Christmas; I'm fairly certain it won't have reached its potential by this December. Which isn't to say that I personally won't have a glass of this on Christmas Eve.

By the way, I tried another bottle of the Ginger Porter earlier this week. This time some of the initial awkwardness of the ale (can't find a better way to describe it) was gone, and the hops were more recognizable...a citrusy, almost sweet hoppiness that is definately mild but recognizable. In case you're wondering, I used two ounces of Cascade for bittering/boiling hops and one ounce of Willamette for aroma/flameout hops. The ginger is there still in full force but it cooperates a little better with the other elements.

New projects...looking forward to finding a source of freshly pressed, preservative-free apple cider, with which to make a nice English style cider to age for a year. Any of you few guys reading this know of a good cider mill that might do this? I need to call up Stephenson's and Louisberg and ask them. Also, I might get going on the blackcurrant melomel anyday now. I actually could start the mead, and I probably should. The blackcurrants are only needed for secondary fermentation.

Bottling Mishap #1

2005-09-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen. As my confidence grows and I take an increasingly relaxed approach to brewing, I should have expected this. I bottled the 80 Shilling last Friday. The peated malt was nice, and more noticeable than I had thought it would be. A nice smokey sweet ale with a beautiful auburn colour. So I transferred it to the bottling bucket after having sanitized all equipment and bottles, and proceeded to fill the bottles. After 4-5, my wife (always the pleasant and helpful bottling companion) asked about carbonation and how it works, and I, being a know-it-all, started explaining the intricacies of bottle conditioning. A few sentences into it, it hit me. I had omitted the priming solution, and was bottling what would be flat beer.

Nonetheless, I made up a quick mix of corn sugar and boiled water and added it to the bucket, so the remaining bottles (about 16) should carbonate nicely.

After that I began a rather involved process of "musical carboys". First I cleaned the 5 gallon carboy that housed the 80 Shilling, then I racked the barleywine into it (a tertiary racking). Then I cleaned the barleywine's old 5 gallon carboy, and used it as secondary for the Wee Heavy, which is coming along...a bit underattenuated, but that's not necessarily bad for the style. Quite smokey! I then added Super Kleer finings to the barleywine, and added 1 oz of whole Cascade hops for dry hopping. I then tossed in some oak chips (probably about 3 oz) as well as the few hundred milliliters of single barrel bourbon the oak chips had been soaking in. I'll give it a few weeks to soak flavours out of the dry hops and oak, and I'll go ahead and bottle it.

Also, I added the finings to the cyser, and within a day or two it is crystal clear. A beautiful amber gold...it really ought to be bottled in clear glass. I have yet to add the necessary spices.

I'm still unsure of what to do next. It's likely that my next one will be a modified cyser...in fact, a blackcurrant melomel that uses apple juice (a cheaper store-bought variety) as more of a source of nutrients and fermentables than flavour, and then it will sit on some blackcurrants in secondary and hopefully develop a frightfully fruity potency. After that, I have a number of options...traditional cider, highly hopped IPA, English Mild, some sort of "Tanenbaum" juniper ale for the holidays, whatever strikes me.

First Impressions of the Ginger Porter

2005-09-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

Cracked one open last night after chilling it for a few hours. It had spent 12-13 days in the bottle, and it was quite evidently carbonated. The colour was a transparent blackish brown, with a foamy, surprisingly vigorous head. The flavour profile hadn't changed considerably since bottling (further aging might cause that, though), although it did seem a bit more "melded". The brown sugar added to the boil no doubt both lightened the mouthfeel and upped the potency, as this was a crisp and light-bodied porter with a deceptive kick. However, the flavour was the main event, here: zesty, potent, spicy ginger abounds, going up against a semi-dry, roasty chocolate malt backbone. A true "ginger ale". Not terribly sweet, but that works in its favour, as the slight dryness and clean finish highlight and amplify the ginger. Hops definately take a backseat, but I know they would be missed if they weren't there.

This is completely in a different vein from prior batches (mostly English style, malty, sweet, and hoppy with full bodies) and so its a bit strange to me, but I think I like it. Show me a store in Kansas City where you can buy true gingered ale!

A Review

2005-09-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

Let's get caught up on what's brewing...

Batch 1
St. Crispin's Extra Special Bitter
OG: 1.049
A flavourful first brew with a large dosage of English hops. As of this posting I've got only three bottles left due to premature consumption after an infection scare.

Batch 2
St. Crispin's Scotch Barrel IPA
OG: 1.074
A bigger IPA pitched onto the ESB yeast cake. Around 7% ABV and also utilizing English hops and yeast. I added some oak chips marinated in Dewar's 12 Year Scotch for a nice addition of complexity, simulating a beer aged in barrels previously used for Scotch whisky. I've got a little over half the batch left in bottles.

Batch 3
St. Crispin's Bourbon Barrel Barleywine
OG: 1.122
A massively huge barleywine pitched onto the IPA yeast cake. I'm still trying to finish out the fermentation with enzymes and champagne yeast. I used brown sugar and molasses, and plan to add a large amount of oak chips, bourbon, and dry hops. This will require a lot of aging...don't expect it any time soon.

Batch 4
St. Crispin's Spiced Cyser
OG: 1.120
A strong mead with apple juice and spices. 12 pounds of orange blossom honey mixed with 3 gallons of apple cider from a local cider mill and a gallon of spiced "tea" (water boiled with spices). This is in secondary, bulk aging and slowly clarifying. Another one to wait a while on! It is around 14-15% ABV, so it is quite strong.

Batch 5
St. Crispin's Ginger Porter
OG: 1.056
A chocolatey porter using a quarter pound of fresh grated ginger and a pound of brown sugar (for a lighter body). Should be a thirst quenching brew with a lot of spiciness. This should be ready in another week or two, I'm eager to try it.

Batch 5
St. Crispin's 80 Shilling Ale
OG: 1.052
A malty Scottish ale of average strength with a small addition of peated malt. Kind of plain, but it should be excellent in its subtlety. I should be bottling this this weekend.

Batch 6
St. Crispin's Islay Wee Heavy Ale
OG: 1.100
A full 0.75 lbs of peated malt gave this brew a strong, smokey smell as I brewed it. A strong ale with minor hop presence. A malt monster. It is still sitting in primary and I am a bit anxious to see how it has attenuated. Once I transfer the 80 Shilling into bottles I can rack this into secondary...presumably this weekend.

An Introduction

2005-09-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

St. Crispin's is not a commercial brewery persay (as yet) but is somewhat of a project in its infancy with a vision for future possibilities. I won't go into great detail, but the concept of a brewpub in Kansas City with an authentic English pub atmosphere is essentially what has been in development. And I don't mean authentic as in, kitschy pop Brit culture ala Austin Powers with a few Union Jacks thrown about, but a genuine English feel, with authentic British "real ale" and genuine English food using the highest quality ingredients. A small, cozy, relaxed atmosphere...a place that would feel like a taste of home to a UK expatriate. Much more detail has been planned out and a lot has been considered, but such a venture is a long way off, if in the future at all.

So this blog is about the core offering of a future St. Crispin's Alehouse...namely, fine ale. As I experiment and develop brewing skills as well as unique recipes, I'll be posting my thoughts on it here, as well as tips and ideas I get along the way. This blog isn't limited to brewing, though. As passionate as I am about the sweet nectar of malt and hops, I'm also keenly interested in traditional English cooking, which we all know has been much maligned (unjustly, methinks), and you can expect postings regarding certain dishes I experiment with.

And yes, I don't expect readership really at all, but this gives me a convenient way of logging my thoughts.