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Double Brew Day: Use It Up

I’m at that point with brewing where the objective is “to make beer.” Perfect beer? Nope. Passable, but interesting beer? Sure. I have stopped paying so much attention to things like mash temperature, pH, and water chemistry. I often forget to check gravity, too. After all, I know that, in the end, the beer is probably going to be at least passable.

Today’s double brew day’s objective was to make beer without having to buy anything. I have some specialty malts sitting around, and they’ll eventually go bad, as will all the bulk hops I bought, so I figured I’d try to use some up. I did not bother with adjusted RO water this time, using ordinary tap water. I was so lazy that I didn’t even pass it through the Brita filter the way I used to. I did let it sit out overnight though, which is supposed to let the chlorine evaporate, and I did add some Mash 5.2 powder. Mash 5.2, according to many people, does absolutely nothing, but once again, I had it sitting around and wanted to get rid of it.

Beer #1: Leftovers pale ale (2 1/2 gallons)

4 1/2 # 2-Row malt

2 oz Aromatic malt

2 oz Biscuit malt

6 oz Vienna malt

6 oz Crystal 15 malt

1/2 oz Cascade bittering, 1/2 oz Cascade aroma

Beer #2: Leftovers oatmeal ale (2 1/2 gallons)

4 1/2# 2-Row malt

3 oz Special B malt

2 oz Chocolate malt

9 oz Quick oatmeal (too lazy to do the cereal mash, so I hope it works)

1/2 oz Fuggle bittering, 1/2 oz Fuggle aroma

Water: ordinary tap water, left out overnight with Mash 5.2. Yeast is US05 at 62 degrees, new and hydrated.

Grains before milling.

Beer #2. I think I could have added more chocolate malt because I was thinking it would be kind of stout-colored, which it isn’t.

I am having a problem with bugs lately, so I didn’t want to brew on the patio. I dragged my kitchen island over to the screen door, put both induction cookers on it, and then put a fan on to blow the steam out the screen door. It kinda worked.

Gravities ended up at approximately 1.056 for both beers. I say “approximately” because my main hydrometer broke, and I’m using a cheap backup. I have ordered a refractometer so that I won’t have to deal with broken hydrometers anymore.

#paleale #recipe

My Red Ale isn’t so red

This red ale was the other half of my double brew day a few weeks ago. Seeing how it’s almost completely Red X malt, I expected it to be really, really red, but it really isn’t. It has a strange, soapy flavor to it that I don’t like at all. The other beer I made that day with the same yeast had the same soapiness to it, so I have to assume it’s the M07 yeast. Will not use that one again, but I think they discontinued it anyway.

#redale #badyeast

Another Double Brew Day

Dweet! (or Dark Wheat) 2 1/2 gallons

3# 2-Row

1# Munich

1 1/2# Wheat

1/2# Special B

3 oz Chocolate

1/2 oz Cascade @ 60 min

1 oz Liberty @ 5 min

Rye Just Made This Up! 2 1/2 gallons

1 1/2# Rye

3# 2-Row

1/2# Vienna

3 oz Aromatic

1/2 oz Cascade @ 60 min

1/2 oz Cascade @ 5 min

I completely made both of these up based on what I had lying around and wanted to get rid of, and suggestions from the LHBS owner. This is my first time using Special B, which he suggested instead of crystal malt.

Water was RO with CaCl, gypsum, and lactic acid, as usual. Yeast is Mangrove Jack M20 Bavarian wheat. I’ve never tried this yeast before, so I wonder if it’s similar to Danstar Munich.

Dark wheat

Rye

Both worts ended up at 1.058 or so. Close enough, anyway. I’m at that point with brewing that everything is “eh, close enough” for me. Fermenting at 62 degrees.

#wheat #rye #recipe

First tasting of IWIHLA Pale Ale

I am taking my first taste of the last double brew day. This is the It’s What I Had Lying Around Pale Ale or IWIHLA. Clarity is horrible, but I don’t care. The combination of Perle and Fuggle is pretty weird, kind of sour, and not terribly fragrant. The Mangrove Jack M07 yeast was also pretty weird. It went to full krausen very quickly, then disappeared immediately, and there was one clump of very sticky yeast cake left. So in the end, this is pretty *meh*, but not horrible.

#paleale

Double Brew Day

I haven’t been brewing much, as other hobbies have been taking over lately, but I’m running low on home brew, so it was definitely time. I had this urge to make a really, really red ale using Red X malt. It’s almost a SMaSh. The second one is just something I made up from what I had lying around.

Simply Red Ale, 2 1/2 gallons

4# Red X malt

1# Vienna malt

1/2 oz Cascade bittering

1/2 oz Cascade aroma

1.050 OG

It’s What I Had Lying Around Pale Ale (IWIHLA,) 2 1/2 gallons

4# 2 Row malt

1# Munich malt

1/2# Crystal 15 malt

2 oz Aromatic malt

1/2 oz Perle bittering

1 oz Fuggle aroma

1.060 OG

The Fuggle is really old and starting to lose its aroma, so I wanted to get rid of it, which is why I added so much. Water was RO water with calcium chloride,gypsum, and lactic acid. I hit 152 degrees for mash temps on both beers. Yeast is Mangrove Jack M07 for the first time. I have US05 lying around, but I wanted to try something different this time. Red Ale ended up at 1.050, which is good. IWIHLA ended up at 1.060.

#paleale #recipe #redale

laymansbeer

Saugatuck Brewing (a personal favorite of mine) posted a wonderful joke response to Budweiser’s weird renaming thing.

“We’re very proud to introduce our brand new name and packaging, along with the assurance that all of our beer is brewed under the careful watch of 1,776 Bald Eagles.”

via Facebook

Results of Double Brew Day Barley Experiment

On my last brew day, I took non-malted, uncooked pressed barley, typically found at Asian grocery stores, and made beer out of it. This is the result.

I completely forgot to take a final gravity reading, so I don’t know what the ABV is, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere between 5 and 6 percent. It is bland. And thin. At first, I was put off by its blandness and thinness, but then I realized that blandness and thinness, as with all things, have their own places in this world. I think what I kind of ended up with was a cream ale without the corn, and if you think of it in that way, it’s not really bad. It could use more carbonation, an even lighter color, and some noble hops instead of Cascade and Fuggle, and then I’d have a very light, bubbly non-cream ale sort of thing.

This is the second pale ale from that day, a combination of wheat, Munich, aromatic, and biscuit malts with Perle and Cascade hops. Again, I completely forgot to take final gravity, so I don’t know what the ABV is. I think it’s somewhere between 5 and 6 percent.

I actually really like this one. It is again too thin, as I think I mashed a little low, but the combination of malts is really pleasant. I think with a bit more mouth feel, I’d have something pretty good. I’m also wondering if maybe I should try this same recipe again with a Belgian yeast.

#paleale #barley

breakthecitysky

Until the November election, Budweiser is swapping out everything on its can including its own name to be as patriotic as possible. That’s right, Budweiser has renamed its beer America for the summer.

WUT.

craftbeerlibrary

For real?

I guess this is corporate America letting the common people “buy America” just like they do. Right?

Results of April 9 Double Brew Day

This is the end result of my April 9 double brew day. The Agave Wheat Beer (top) somehow finished out at a whopping 8.9% ABV. I am not sure how. The Not So Pale Ale (bottom) finished out at 6.6% ABV. The Not So Pale Ale pretty much tastes like the same Bee Cave based pale ale I always make, only it’s dark. So I guess if you knew someone who said they didn’t like dark beers, it might convince them that not all dark beers necessarily taste like dark beers. The Agave Wheat beer just tastes like an American wheat with a high ABV. This was my first time using the M44 yeast, which is another variant of the Chico strain. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty close to US-05, so I’ll consider them interchangeable from now on.

Both beers are kind of thin, which seems to be the norm for me, and both beers are also really, really severely under-carbonated. Apparently, I messed up on the priming sugar. Even after force carbonating, they still taste flat.

Anyway, not a success, but not a failure either, I guess.

#wheatbeer #paleale

Stone Brewing CEO Greg Koch took to the stage at today’s EG Conference in Carmel, California, and announced that he and Stone co-founder Steve Wagner are developing a project called True Craft as a…

Double Brew Day - Pale Ale Experiments

I was at the Korean grocery store last week and picked up some rolled barley. Of course, I wanted to make beer out of it. Rolled barley is usually cooked and eaten like rice (it tastes kind of like brown rice,) or made into tea. In its packaged form, it’s uncooked. And of course, unlike barley malt, it’s not malted, so it has no diastatic power. I decided to just cook it in my rice cooker and throw it in the mash.

Pale Ale #1 - Barley Experiment (2 1/2 gallons)

1 1/2 lb rolled barley, cooked

1 lb Vienna malt

2 ounces Carapils

3 lb 2-Row malt

1/2 lb Crystal 15 malt

1/2 oz Fuggle 60 min

1/4 oz Cascade 15 min

1/4 oz Cascade 5 min

This is, for the most part, a variation of the same pale ale I always make. I’m just using cooked rolled barley in place of some of the 2-Row.

Pale Ale #2 - Wheat-Munich-Aromatic-Biscuit Thing (2 1/2 gallons)

1 lb wheat malt

1 lb Munich malt

2 ounces Biscuit malt

4 ounces Aromatic malt

3 1/2 lb 2-Row malt

1/2 oz Perle 60 min

1/4 oz Cascade 15 min

1/4 oz Cascade 5 min

This one uses Munich instead of Vienna, has some wheat in it, and no crystal. I’m adding a small amount of both Biscuit and Aromatic, because I have them around.

I miscalculated just how much heat the cooked barley would consume, so the mash is pretty low at 139 on the Pale Ale #1. Oh well. Meanwhile Pale Ale #2 mashed at 150. PH looks... eh, close enough, I guess.

The sparge on Pale Ale #1 was slow and gloopy, as expected, due to all the gelatinized starch from the rolled barley. What I didn’t expect was for the rolled barley to absorb so much water. I had to keep adding water to the sparge to make my pre-boil volume.

Gravity ended up at 1.052 for Pale Ale #1, and 1.054 for Pale Ale #2. I am pitching them with 2nd generation Mangrove Jack M44 yeast slurry and fermenting at 62 degrees.

#barley #paleale #recipe

Update on the micro kegging project. I now have 3 of the stainless carbonator caps, which are as low as $10 on amazon or ebay. 6 liters of home brew, plus a 24 oz paintball tank will all fit in one shelf of a refrigerator door. No more bottling, and no investing in a kegging setup either!

#kegging #bottling

So for everyone who is sick of bottling, yet doesn’t have room for kegging, here is an update on the Micro Kegging attempt. After a few months of use, I decided it just wasn’t working. The first problem with the system is that the little “beer spears” leak CO2 out of the swivel connection on the tap. I fixed this by putting some stainless jam nuts on, or so I thought. It still leaked. I came home to an empty tank three times, so I gave up.

This incredibly simple system seems to be working a lot better. I think it’s a good alternative to the now-defunct (?) Party Pig, Tap-a-Draft, or Beerbox, all of which I considered. You need a carbonator cap (or several,) a paintball tank, and the paintball regulator from Williams Brewing, or any tank/regulator combination for that matter. I just like this one because it’s so compact. Then you also need a gas-in ball lock fitting, some vinyl hose, 2 stainless hose clamps, and a lot of empty 2 liter soda bottles. I drank a lot of generic club soda at 99 cents per bottle to get mine. Fortunately, I really love club soda.

When your beer is ready to bottle, prime as you always do, then bottle in 2 liter soda bottles instead of bombers or 12 ounce bottles. It’s a LOT faster, believe me. Chill the 2 liter bottles before serving, (obviously,) and then after pouring a beer, swap out the plastic cap for the carbonator cap. Before putting the bottle back in the fridge, just re-carbonate it. The next time you pour a beer, it’ll be nice and fizzy.

It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s definitely the easiest.

#kegging

Another Double Brew Day

I think the one thing that has made brewing really fun lately (I mean, more so than usual) is the fact that I realized I owned 2 complete mash tuns and can now make 2 different beers at the same time. I’m at that point with brewing where I enjoy winging it, improvising, and making stuff up as I go more than I enjoy sticking to a set recipe. So I made up both of these based on what I had sitting around.

Not So Pale Ale (2 1/2 gallons)

1# Vienna

1/2# Crystal 15

1/4# Carapils

2 ounces Chocolate

4 1/2# 2-Row

1/2 oz Fuggle @ 60 min

1/4 oz Cascade @ 15 min

1/4 oz Cascade @ 5 min

1 whirlfloc tablet

1.054 / 1.004 6.6% ABV

Wheat Ale (2 1/2 gallons)

4 1/2# 2-Row

1/2# Crystal 15

2# Wheat malt

5 oz agave nectar @ 15 min

1/2 oz Crystal @ 60 min

1/4 oz Crystal @ 15 min

1/4 oz Crystal @ 5 min

1.072 / 1.004 8.9% ABV

Water: RO water with Calcium Chloride, Gypsum, and Lactic Acid

Yeast: Mangrove Jack M44 West Coast

The (not very) pale ale is the old Bee Cave recipe, for the most part, but with some chocolate malt added in for color, because I have it sitting around and want to get rid of it. I have the agave nectar sitting around too, so I decided to throw it into the wheat beer. I am really eager to try out the M44 yeast. As much as I love Safale S05, I’d like to find alternatives, and I’ve been pretty happy with Mangrove Jack yeast in the past.

Mash temps were 148 in both tuns.

I gave up on my cheap pH meter. Not only was it cheap, but I didn’t want to bother with calibration. I’m now using these limited-range pH strips instead. They’re probably not that accurate, but more accurate than an uncalibrated meter.

A little chocolate malt goes a long way! The wort on the not-so-pale ale ended up pretty dark for just a few ounces of chocolate malt.

I recently upgraded my immersion chillers to 3/8″ copper. This was long overdue and cut my chilling time in half.

Wheat beer ended up a whopping 1.072. Must have been the agave nectar.

Not-so-pale-ale ended up at a more typical 1.054.

Both beers are pitched with hydrated M44 yeast and fermenting at 62 degrees. Then I made pizza with the spent grain.

#paleale #wheatbeer #recipe

Sampling the Coca Cola Beer

The Coca Cola Beer is carbed, so I opened my taster bottle. In keeping with the theme, I primed it with more cola instead of using priming sugar. It came out to 4.8% ABV. It’s really not too bad. Not surprisingly, it tastes like something halfway in between coke and beer. Fermentation was kind of slow, because the phosphoric acid slows down the yeast activity, but in the end, the high fructose corn syrup does ferment and turn into alcohol. It’s probably healthier than Coke. Next time, I’d like to use the Coke that uses real cane sugar instead of corn syrup.

#cola #experiment

There are many potential benefits to brewing with a high percentage of oats like reducing common off flavors, improving beer stability, and improving yeast health.

#studies

Sampling the (not quite a) dopplebock

The second part of my double brew day was supposed to be a dopplebock, but as the ABV came out to 6.3% (1.060/1.012) it doesn’t qualify, so I guess it’s more like a “bock.” Overall, a bit thin, even though final gravity was 1.012, and the use of Perle and Saaz hops seems to leave the Perle completely dominating the Saaz. Also, either it’s underprimed, or the new swing tops I got don’t hold pressure well. The one thing that’s really striking is how clean tasting the M84 yeast at 52 degrees is. Clean, almost to the point of being bland, but then again, I imagine some people like “bland.”

#Bock

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