Category: My Beers

Commodore Perry CloneCommodore Perry Clone

Great Lakes Brewing Co. – Commodore Perry IPA

Just brewed on Saturday. First time in a long time.  Details unnecessary, but back on the hoss. I’ve committed myself to brewing a Commodore Perry clone repeatedly until I get it right.  An homage to a great beer.

Noting meticulously my errors and successes. So this is round one.  In the future, I’ll brew 2.5 gallon increments! =)

Here’s the recipe I went with.  Variations in the future will be noted.

Recipie

IngredientQuantity
Rahr Malt (2 Row) (1.9 SRM)15 lbs.
Caramel/Crystal Malt – 30L (30 SRM)1 lbs.
Honey Malt – (25 SRM)1 lbs.
Simcoe 13.0%1 oz. 60 min.
Cascade 5.50%1 oz. 30 min.
Willamette 5.50%.5 oz. 30 min.
Cascade 5.50%.5 oz. 20 min.
Willamette 5.50%.5 oz. 20 min.
Cascade 5.50%.5 oz. 10 min.
Willamette 5.50%.5 oz. 10 min.
London Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1028)2L starter
Cascade 5.50%.5 oz. Dry Hop.
Willamette 5.50%.5 oz. Dry Hop.

Hit my targets right on the money. It was beautiful. Too beautiful. I’m waiting for the other shoe right now, in fact.

Struck at 171 degrees and got a mash temp of 156.4.
Let it sit for un hora.
Then my seven-year-old son popped in to start helping me and broke yet another hydrometer.
But together we pushed on to triumph.
He helped through all the runs and vorlaufs:

  • 1st Run @ 149 degrees, 3 gallons, 23 brix, 1.094 SG (no hydrometer)
  • 2nd Run @ 143.5 degrees, 2 gallons, 23 brix, 1.094 SG (no hydrometer)
  • 3rd Run @ who cares degrees, 2 gallons, 9 brix, 1.034 SG (no hydrometer)
  • Wort in 8 gallon pot at 7.0 gallons, 17.5 brix, 1.068 SG (no hydrometer)

Boiled for 70 mins, various hop additions, son helping with hop socks and sniffing and considering the differences between hop varietals. While also stirring the 7 gallons of boiling wort and causing me no end to terrible scenarios in my mind, esp while touching the ball valve on the boil pot.

Got a post boil volume of around 6 gallons at 1.079 OG, pitched the yeasties, and …

The fermentation is sluggish. Smells bad. May have effed up the starter. Sour Commodore anyone? I could be pessimistic, too. Stuck my nose in the fermenter and had my eyebrows burned off.  Loving life. If this one is bad, I’ll do another.

Oktoberfest!Oktoberfest!

Yes, it’s that time of year already. I christened my 5.5 gallon batch with a 1.8L starter of German Lager yeast, WPL830, yesterday at 5:00pm.

IngredientAmount
Munich Malt5 lb
Pilsner Malt5 lb
Vienna Malt3 lb
Hallertauer1.5 ounce (60)
Hallertauer.5 ounce (20)
WLP830 (German Lager)1.8 Litre

Everything went very smoothly. I treated my water with salts to boost the water profile (tsp epsom salt, tsp calcium chloride, ph stabilizer).  Mashed at 156 for 50 minutes. Got 2.8 gallons on the first run at 16 brix @ 140 degrees for a 1.078. Sort of confirmed by a hydrometer reading of 1.054 @ 140 degrees = 1.070 approximately. Second run at 1.25 gallons with 10.5 brix @ 142 degrees for 1.043, hydrometer 1.030 @ 142 for 1.046. Third run at 1.5 gallons at 6.5 brix @ 148 degrees for 1.020. And a fourth run of 1.3 gallons which was nearly water and I only used about a quart.  The pre-boil gravity was 1.056. I boiled for one hour. Cooled the wort to 63 degrees (which is the temperature of my basement where the starter had been sitting) and pitched. OG was at 1.050 which I’ll discuss in a minute. Hooked up to my handy-dandy Johnson control unit/heater set up and threw the fermenter in the refrigerator at 53 degrees. Now I’ll just wait for nature to take it’s course.

Per the above, I continue to have issues, for some inexplicable reason, with my gravities at OG time. I cannot understand how a wort with a pre-boil gravity of 1.056 can boil for one hour and come out at 1.050. That seems impossible. Water should evaporate and sugar should not. I confirmed with the refractometer which showed even lower. This is a source of endless confusion for me. I can understand if one over-collects on the sparge and then has too much water in the kettle, but I measured the pre-boil gravity… Regardless, I may have to take another tack and do some calculations on pre-boil gravity, evaporation rates, and so on to see if I can estimate the OG. But the fact that the tools reported something else is highly upsetting. In the end, I guess, it’s all about what the beer tastes like. But still.

Conway CloneConway Clone

conway

My last brew session was a Conway’s Irish Ale clone of the Great Lakes Brewery beer. I chose this one at my wife’s behest and the thought that my dad would enjoy this one as well.

The clone is not precise for a few reasons, the first being that I don’t have a whole lot of money to throw around right now and I had a backlog of ingredients on hand. As I pursued a clone recipe for Conway I learned that Great Lakes uses Harrington 2-row as the base for most of its brews. This is good to know, as I have a desire to try a few clones: for instance, my Christmas ale this year used a Nosferatu clone as the base–again, however, I didn’t know about the Harrington 2-row. I learned about the base characteristics of Great Lakes brews from a nice post on The Beerists blog site.

In looking around, the only places I’ve seen that carry Harrington are Midwest Supplies and Northern Brewer.

Additionally, Great Lakes uses quite a bit of Cascade.

Regardless, here is the clone that I used:

  • 11 lb Maris Otter
  • .75 lb Crystal 80
  • .10 lb Crystal 40
  • 1 oz Northern Brewer (30 min)
  • 1 oz Hallertauer (10 min)
  • .75 oz Fuggle (5 min)
  • WLP002 British Ale yeast

We’ll see how this compares, although I expect significant differences. In the future, I aim to try this again with a more precise version that uses Harrington 2-row, Cascade, and Wyeast London Ale 1028.

Outdoor BrewOutdoor Brew

Spent part of Monday brewing outdoors. The first time I’ve done that. I purchased a Blichmann floor burner from Grape and Granary a few years back and just hadn’t gotten around to using it; well, now I can say that I have.

The burner is fantastic and connects to a propane tank. It puts out 72,000 BTU’s per hour which translates to a whole lot of heat for fast boils. I am used to brewing in my kitchen where I use a standard gas range. The time to boil was a great delay in the brew day for me. After lautering and sparging and collecting the wort into the boil kettle, the time from that 160 or so degrees to 212 was too much. It could take nearly an hour just to get to boil. I didn’t time things out specifically, but I would swear that the Blichmann was heating water at around 10 degrees every five minutes, maybe even faster. So in approximately twenty to twenty-five minute it was boiling. It happened so fast, in fact, that I had my first boil over in years, even with fermcap. But it was outdoors, so only the ants were pissed (and me later, when I had to scrub the pot).

Another upshot with outdoor brewing is that I just ran the hose to the kettle and used the hose to connect to the Blichmann plate chiller that I have. The excess water that comes in chilling the wort went straight into the garden beds for the very thirsty pumpkins, cucumbers, and peppers. The main drawback was that the water temperature was very difficult to get down, with the nearly 100 degree heat, so I could only chill the wort to 77 degrees, which is a bit high for pitching (but I did it anyway).

I brewed a Brown Ale with lots of Cascade and Nugget hops. The Nugget came straight from my backyard, circa 2011 (vacuum sealed in the freezer). It was a low gravity extract beer which I am using as a yeast starter (essentially) for an all-grain Imperial Red (Nosferatu clone) that I’ll brew in a week or two.

Brew DayBrew Day

Two Brews and Some Crazy Notions

Recently brewed two clones: Founder’s Breakfast Stout and Stone Cali-Belgique. I’ve put the recipes in below, including the BeerXML files. 

Founder's Breakfast Stout BoyI just moved the two to the secondary last night. I added 2oz of Grand Cru to the Breakfast Stout and .5 oz of Cascade and 1.0 oz of Centennial to the Cali. Tasted both out of the primary and they were delicious. I used both a refractometer and hydrometer to see the gravity progression and to continue to test the comparison between the readings. Each seems to be on target coming in at around 1.018 and 1.016 respectively–and there’s still a bit more time in the secondary where some action will take place. I’ll bottle the Cali-Belgique for a wedding but keep some back for the All-American Homebrew Competition; a part of the Cincy Winter Beerfest.

I’m planning my next brew, which will be a Hopslam clone, and I may try to get it in before the All-American Homebrew Competition deadline, but it will be a very tight squeeze on this one. I went out to JW Dover’s homebrew store in Westlake yesterday to fill some of the holes in my inventory and had one fortuitous encounter and learned one thing I didn’t know–so it was worth the trip. First, I met the owner and proprietor Jerome Welliver and Tom ? one of the brewers who offered to provide me with yeast slurry from one of their brews. All I have to do is bring in a sanitized mason jar and they’ll fill it up. That kicks ass. I was looking for the 1056 in their yeast cooler and then I got to talking with Tom and he offered. For me this means several things: first, the slurry will be a big pitch, meaning energetic and complete attenuation/fermentation; second, it is second generation from a professional brewery; third, I hope it’s a connection that I can maintain. Second, in the grand scheme of things, what I learned is that Jerome is not only the owner and proprietor of JW Dover, but Black Box Brewing Company, which now owns the label for Crooked River and is brewing up their old recipes.

This also sparked in me two notions, one tempting the other possibly stupid. First, to brew one beer a week for the year. Don’t know if I can pull it off. But I’d like to try. I’m behind right now, but have the ingredients to brew the Hopslam and a Flanders Red, which I could so this coming week and it would put me on track for January. Second, I’m considering the Lenten trial of drinking only beer until Easter. I would be hoping to drop some pounds and let’s face it, beer tastes better than the Almased liquid diet. And besides: it’s beer! Three times per day.

We’ll see. I’m looking forward to heading out to Black Box Brewing this week to pick up the slurry and brewing up a Hopslam clone.

Recipes:

Breakfast Stout

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Breakfast Stout
Brewer: Tom Hayes
Asst Brewer: 
Style: American Stout
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal      
Boil Size: 5.72 gal
Estimated OG: 1.093 SG
Estimated Color: 57.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 64.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      
13 lbs 3.2 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        74.66 %       
1 lbs 6.4 oz  Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM)                    Grain        7.92 %        
1 lbs         Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)                Grain        5.66 %        
1 lbs         Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)                Grain        5.66 %        
8.0 oz        Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)    Grain        2.83 %        
5.3 oz        Carafa III (525.0 SRM)                    Grain        1.87 %        
4.0 oz        Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)           Grain        1.41 %        
1.10 oz       Nugget [13.00 %]  (60 min)                Hops         37.3 IBU      
2.50 oz       Williamette [5.50 %]  (30 min)            Hops         27.6 IBU      
2.50 oz       Williamette [5.50 %]  (0 min)             Hops          -            
1.50 oz       Chocolate, unsweetened baking nibs (Boil 1Misc                       
2.00 oz       Kona Coffee (Secondary 1.0 weeks)         Misc                       
2.00 oz       Sumatran Coffee (Boil 10.0 min)           Misc                       
2.50 oz       Chocolate, Dark Baker's (Boil 10.0 min)   Misc                       
1 Pkgs        American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)          Yeast-Ale                  


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 17.68 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Full Body
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp     
60 min        Mash In            Add 22.10 qt of water at 170.5 F    158.0 F       
10 min        Mash Out           Add 8.84 qt of water at 196.6 F     168.0 F       

Cali-Belgique

BeerSmith Recipe Printout – www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Stone Cali-Belique IPA
Brewer: Tom Hayes
Asst Brewer:
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) 

Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 5.72 gal
Estimated OG: 1.076 SG
Estimated Color: 6.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 64.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amount Item Type % or IBU
13 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 92.86 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt – 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
0.64 oz Pearle [8.00 %] (90 min) Hops 16.3 IBU
0.43 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (90 min) Hops 19.1 IBU
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops –
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops –
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (15 min) Hops 29.5 IBU
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Belgian Golden Ale (White Labs #WLP570) Yeast-Ale 

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 14.00 lb
—————————-
Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 17.50 qt of water at 162.5 F 151.0 F

Old Christmas BastardOld Christmas Bastard

That’s what I named my Christmas beer. It’s a pretty good beer. The main detractor from the Christmas beer was that when I Christmassed it, I over bittered. The beer is an Arrogant Bastard clone, and so is sufficiently bitter already. Then I added the orange peel and curacao (along with everything else), which sealed the deal. Consequently, I had to sweeten it with 4oz of milk sugar (lactose). It worked very nicely, the beer has a sweet front end and a very balanced bitter finish. Bitterness does pass with time, so it was important not to over-compensate on the sweet side.

Old Christmas Bastard was well-received by friends and family and all that remains is three twenty-two ounce bullets. In addition, I entered the beer in the Wizard of Saaz competition which concluded recently, and, unfortunately, by some cosmic mistake, the beer was not judged in the competition. The message from Mike Yingling read, partially, as there was a “screw up in the cellar. The beer was on the pull sheet but the stewards & cellar master must have made a mistake. I’m very sorry your beer was not judged.” However, I am far more interested the evaluation of the beer, and Mike emailed to tell me that it would be reviewed and the results sent.

So, there goes the first competition; but that was the first for me. There will be many more, now. I’m very interested in getting the feedback on my beers as, when you brew for a long time, as I have, you get into certain habits of approach to the brewing process. I try as much as I can to read and adjust and experiment, but at the end of the day my brew session is to get the beer brewed so I can drink it! Competitions will help point out areas that are weak and push me in the direction of exploring more intensely the questions of the process.

Recent brew sessionRecent brew session

Thought I’d throw up a few of the shots from my most recent brew session–the Arrogant Bastard clone.

Photo descriptions

The first is the 10-gallon water cooler that I use as my mash/lauter tun. It’s upside down in the picture drying out after I washed it. There’s a couple of shots of the brew in the kettle as it simmers: anticipating the rolling boil to come. I’ve got a shot of the counter top with the Chinook pellet hops in their respective hop socks: the first, on the left is the 90 minute, then 30, then flame out. There’s also a bag of Whirlfloc tablets and Irish Moss. I only used the Whirlfloc. You can also see my digital scale and a small white bottle of Fermcap (anti-foam)–oh, and cookies! I’ve got a shot of my Therminator plate chiller which I’ll talk about soon in another article, as well as a shot of the Thrumometer which allows me to keep tabs on the temperature of the wort after it exits the plate chiller on its way to the fermentation bucket. Good stuff.

Conclusion

The OG of the Arrogant Bastard was 1.084 which is good, but given the recipe I used demonstrates my continued problem of low efficiency in my process. The one sure area of my brewing process on which I want to improve.

Brews a’Bubblin’Brews a’Bubblin’

An assortment of things…

Rodenbach

Follow-up on the Brew day

Had some people ask about the Arrogant Bastard clone so I thought I just throw an update out. The brew day went off so surpassingly smoothly that I sort of floated through it.

I modified the recipe some, as I didn’t have all the grain that I thought I did, so the final recipe looks a bit more like this: 

  • 15.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
  • 1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0
    SRM)
  • 1.00 lb Munich Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM)
  • 0.50 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)
  • 0.50 lb Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM)
  • 0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
  • 0.25 lb Carafa II (412.0 SRM)

I also went with the 5.72 gallon boil volume recommended which was a mistake given a 90-minute boil time. In retrospect I should have boosted the volume to around 6.5 gallons. Regardless, I had prepared the yeast starter a week or so back and the airlock was bubbling within 12 hours or so.

Next Brews

On another note, I just went to the grape and granary site and picked up ingredients for a Founder’s Breakfast Stout clone and a Flanders Red, which I’m real intrigued about. My wife enjoys Rodenbach so I thought I’d take a stab at it. Little did I know that it involves nearly 2 years and a pitch pack named, enticingly, “The Roeselare Blend” which apparently contains “Belgian style ale strain, a sherry strain, two Brettanomyces strains, a Lactobacillus culture, and a Pediococcus culture” which results in a 1.5″ cake of pellicle on the fermenting beer.

Mr. Beer Kit

As well, I won a Mr. Beer kit on eBay ($25) which I’m going to play with just for kicks and see what I can make out of it. If nothing else there was a post on homebrew talk that mentioned the fake barrel being useful for real ales. Regardless, I can load up that barrel and the party pig and avoid the problems I had with the Keg Charger at the Oktoberfest.