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.

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Related Post

Homebrewing surge!Homebrewing surge!

My wife forwarded a good article from Ohio.com about the rising tide of homebrewers, with a nice shot of John Pastor, owner of the Grape and Granary.

Beer in the secondary as photographed by Ohio.com

The photo of Michael Danks in the article shows a pretty similar set up to my own, with the boil kettle and the 10 gallon water cooler. Looks like he’s stirring the mash while a 7 gallon fermenter bucket sits in the back waiting to be filled with liquid joy.

I also just discovered from my wife that one of our good friends works for LD Carlson in Kent, OH. Have to see what goodness that can bring!

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.