AHS American Red Ale

First post in a while. 

Just a follow up on this homebrew: Austin Homebrew's American Red Ale, mini-mash method. It turned out pretty good (maybe it will get even better). It's less muddy than my picture makes is seem, but not very red (certainly not as crimson as the copy of The Crimson Petal and the White upon which it sits). A definite Cascade hop flavor comes through, although much subtler than in so many American pale ales. But this isn't a pale, it's a red ale. 

I might have liked a touch more malt flavor, but this is really more of an easy drinker, a good warm weather beer at that. It seems to appeal to "civilian" beer drinkers, though hop heads might find it a little dull. No idea how much of a difference mini-mash makes versus extract + specialty grain.

For my sixth brew, I took a chance on all grain, more or less. I'll try to post soon.

Brewhouse Honey Blonde

Just in time for the warm weather, my Brewhouse Honey Blonde, modified for five gallon rather than six, and with WLP008 yeast rather than the enclosed Cooper's.

It turned out good. Orange-tinged, slightly hazy (though more clear than my picture lets on). It has what I consider to be more of a soda pop carbonation -- plenty of what feel like bigger bubbles -- which is more appropriate for this style.  The honey flavor is actually buried underneath what I think are yeast flavors. I probably should have used a cleaner yeast; then again, I kind of like this taste. Without it, it might be kind of a boring beer.

So thumb's up on the easy to make, but pricey, Brewhouse Honey Blonde.

  

AHS American Red Ale

This is my fifth batch of homebrew, although I haven't tasted my fourth batch yet (maybe tomorrow; I'm pretty patient). My first partial mash, using a kit from Austin Homebrew.

American Red Ale

5 lbs. Munich LME

1.5 lbs. Munich malt

1.5 lbs. 2-row

0.5 lbs. Cara-Munich

0.25 lbs. Special B

1 oz. Cascade (7.5%) each at 60, 15, 5. 

Windsor yeast

The grains smelled like Grape Nuts flakes.

The AHS instructions specified using a stockpot (and large grain bag) for the partial mash, but I used a 4-gallon cooler (and grain bag).  I figured this would hold the heat better, but (a) I forgot to pour hot water into the cooler ahead of time to raise the internal temperature, and (b) the grains and strike water (two gallons) barely filled half the cooler. So I lost more heat than I think I should have, finishing the 45 minute mash rest just below 150 degrees. But I don't know if that's a big problem with a mini-mash. My OG was 1.057 instead of the expected 1.053, but I don't trust my gravity readings that closely. 

The whole thing has smelled strongly of Cascades from the first day until bottling day (today). That's the "American" part, but I wonder if AHS adjusts its recipes for AA, with 7.5% is on the high side for Cascades. Windsor yeast is known to leave a fairly high FG, which is part of the reason this isn't an APA, I guess. The yeast was slow to get going, which worried me a bit. Last known gravity was 1.020 (expected 1.014), but my hydrometer broke so I didn't get a bottling day measurement.

Four weeks in primary, no secondary, and now it will be three weeks in the bottle before I crack one. I do like this mini-mash procedure and look forward to using it more, probably with more grains and less extract. Possibly I could try an all-grain half batch, but my weak electric stove limits my ability to boil too much wort.

Brew House Honey Blond Ale (modified)

For my fourth batch of homebrew, I decided to give a Brew House kit a try. If you're unfamiliar with these, they describe themselves as "premium all grain beer kits" from Canada. But this isn't all-grain brewing; it's no boil brewing. You get a four gallon bag of wort brewed to high gravity (~1.080) and add two gallons of water, and pitch yeast. To prevent spoilage, the bagged wort is acidic, which you rectify by adding potassium bicarbonate (included) to raise the pH. This is the big idea that allows you to avoid the use of extract and its corresponding problems (e.g. dark color, extract twang).

Supposedly these kits make the best beer short of all-grain brewing, plus are as simple to use as no-boil canned beer kits from the likes of Cooper's and Mr. Beer. This raises an interesting conundrum. You'd think ease of use would be a great selling point, but I don't want the process to be too easy. I mean, if I want easy, I'd just buy beer. On the other hand, it does seem silly to want to go through extra steps of steeping grains and boiling wort if it still produces inferior beer. (Though at this point, I can't vouch for the quality of the Brew House kits.)

Fortunately, The Brew House kits are hack-able, allowing brewers to put their own stamp on the beer. You can swap yeasts. You can add less top-off water to produce stronger beer. You can boil hops of steep grains in the water before topping off. The manufacturer's website gives a few interesting recipes, and I found a few more here.

Although I was tempted by the Duvel clone built upon the neutral American Lager kit, I instead opted for the Honey Blonde kit with two modifications: I used liquid yeast, and I added only enough water to make a stronger, five gallon batch (note: the kits say they produce gallons, but those are imperial gallons). The yeast I used was White Labs East Coast Ale, WLP008. In truth, I might have been content using the enclosed Cooper's dry ale yeast, but I wanted to give liquid a shot for the first time. WLP001 (West Coast) would probably have been a more natural choice for this style of beer, and I can't say why I chose WLP008 instead. 

The night before "brewing," I made a 1/2 gallon starter (my first!) using DME, a pinch of yeast nutrient, and a sanitized growler. The process seemed to go well. I pitched the whole starter into chilly wort (below 60). I had stored the kit box in the garage and grew impatient waiting for its 40+ pounds of mass to warm up. I still saw bubbles that evening, and within 24 hours had a raucous ferment on my hands.

The kit instructions suggest using a 12 US gallon fermenter (!) which I don't have. So instead, I used a blow off, snipping the cross off the bottom of my 3-piece airlock and attaching 1/2 inch wide tubing to its stem.  It worked perfectly. Plenty of gunk inside the tubing suggested things would have been messy without the blowoff. 

Anyway, fermentation died down abruptly and stuck at around 1.030 (after a starting OG of ~1.060).  I tried gently swirling the pail, but ultimately opened her up and stirring with my sanitized thief. I also increased the heat a few degrees. Both of these things -- opening up the pail and warming -- have their drawbacks, but they worked, and my fermentation ended at 1.017 when I transferred to secondary 11 days after brewing. Still, not great attenuation, but I think that's what WLP008 does. 

This is my first use of a secondary. I don't know if one was really needed, but I need my ale pail for my next brew. So my 5 gallon Better Bottle is sitting in a closet and will be there for another couple weeks. It'll be some time before I see how this tastes.

Even if the taste is great, two caveats:

1. I paid nearly $45 for the kit. Your mileage may vary, but these are very heavy and thus very expensive to transport. Again, this is a kit designed to make six US gallons, or 4-5 gallons of bigger beer, but it's still pricey.
2. If you don't have a really big pail, you'll need to use a blowoff. Even then, I don't know if you can make six gallons of this in a 6.5 gallon bucket. I found that others have reported violent fermentations, so be careful. 

Postscript: here's the finished product.

Mudlark Ale

This is my third batch of homebrew, and the first I've given its own name. In Erie Canal lingo, a boat was "mudlarked" when it was grounded in low water. Mudlark has also been used to describe someone who scavenges in river mud for valuable items. This brew looked really muddy for a time. 

I created my own recipe, and again made a smaller batch. Don't know what style this is.

3.5 gallons:
4 pounds of light DME
8 oz. Crystal 60L

4 oz. Crystal 90L
1/2 oz. 6.5% Challenger hops (60)
1 oz. 4.5% Progress hops (1/4 oz. each at 60, 45, 30, 15)
Coopers dry ale yeast (7 gram package)
Irish Moss
2 1/2 oz. corn sugar for priming

I ordered the ingredients at the same time as those from my previous batch, so I went with dried extract and uncrushed grains because they last longer (of course I crudhed the crystal before steeping). I chose English hops because I had Challenger left over. I chose Cooper's yeast for no reason better than that it came in a smaller packet for a small batch. I was planning on making a lighter three gallon batch, but then realized I'd be drinking this in the dead of winter, so I bought an extra pound of DME locally and upped the recipe by a half gallon. This was a dumb adustment because it threw the rest of my calculations off.

The brewing process went very smoothly, and rightly or wrongly, I'll give much of the glory to the DME. It fermented better than my previous batches with LME: from 1.061 to 1.017 still not quite (75%). According to the recipe calculator, IBUs were 28. 

I pitched that yeast at 64 degrees and it peaked at just over 70. The Cooper's yeast may have attenuated well, but it didn't flocculate for nuts. I lost a couple bottles worth amidst the sandy dregs. My new toy this time was an autosiphon, which was well worth the price.  While siphoning, the beer looked beautifully golden through the hose. In bottles, it was darker but still clear... until I chilled it. The first few bottles were foggy, but now it's reasonably clear again.

The taste? I think my process didn't hurt it any, but I'm not sure about my recipe. It's sort of an awkward blend of caramel, somewhat raisiny malts and earthy, herbal hops. The levels of each element seems spot on, but the combination isn't exactly right. So enough with my own recipes for a while. Still, it's pretty good, and pleasingly free of any off flavors. Solid execution of a questionable game plan.

What I learned: DME and autosiphons are good. There's so much I would like to try for my next batch. Partial mash, secondary, a yeast starter, or maybe one of those Canadian Brewhouse kits some people are raving about. First, I have to create some empty bottles. 

Homebrew in Five Days

Courtesy of Men's Health Living, a way to brew a small batch of beer in your home using your Mr. Coffee machine. I don't own a coffee maker so I can't try it out, but it looks like it would have been a useful suggestion back in 1975. Today, not so much. Ingredients include "1 packet of baker’s or other yeast." Makes 1 to 2 pints. Commenters are skeptical.

English-style Porter

For my second homebrewing effort, I did two things differently: I created my own recipe and made a smaller batch.

Actually, the recipe was hardly original. I mostly just started with John Palmer's porter and switched to English hops. It seems like a lot of homebrewers like trying to make something that's never been done before. I'm not interested in that yet, but the experience of looking through existing recipes definitely helps in learning about beer styles.

As far as the small batch is concerned, I know, it's just as much work making three gallons as five. However, I want to get a few batches under my belt quickly, and I don't want to forgo frequent visits to my local beer retailer. I used the beer recipator to check my recipe and ordered from Austin Homebrew, which lets you select small amounts.

3 gallons:
3.5 pounds of extra pale DME LME
6 oz. each of chocolate malt and Crystal 60L
1/2 oz. 6.5% Challenger hops (60)
1/4 oz. 4.5% East Kent Goldings (30)
1/4 oz. 4.5% East Kent Goldings (15)
Safale 04 dry yeast (about two-thirds of the package)
Irish Moss
2 1/4 oz. corn sugar for priming

Despite the small batch, I still used a partial boil and about a gallon of top-off water to replace boiled of liquid. I also boiled the wort for 75 minutes. Whether the extra 15 made a difference, I can't say.

In general the process went smoothly, although I did have a problem with measurements. My instant read thermometer zapped out mid-session. I used an old candy thermometer for part of the process, but it doesn't go below 140 degrees, so I ended up using a Polter probe thermometer to check the wort before pitching yeast.

I also struggled with my hydrometer. I measured an OG of about 1.065, which had to be wrong. I suspect the wort wasn't mixed enough at the time. Based on the recipe, the OG was 1.047 and the IBUs were around 25. I ended up with an FG of 1.018, which I hope was wrong but probably was right. Poor attenuation again. Inadequate aeration? Maybe, but not for lack of trying. I can't blame the yeast this time. I've read that extract brewing often results in high FGs, so maybe that's at least part of it.

Bottling day was a mess, and I already went out and bought an auto-siphon (no kegging equipment yet though). I lost a good bit of beer during bottling as well, which hurt more given the small batch.

It's now been nearly two months since brewing and five weeks since bottling. The beer is pretty good. No off flavors like my first batch. It has a nice light roastiness to it, but isn't a really rich porter. Compared with my first batch, this one has more carbonation than I'd like and doesn't keep as good a head. Palmer says the latter is a downside to using Irish moss for extract beers, and I'll confess that I forgot to adjust my quantity down to account for the smaller batch. (That stuff smells like Poseidon's armpit too.)

I actually just brewed my third batch yesterday (this is the advantage of smaller batches), but I'm a way's away from drinking it.

True Brew Nut Brown Ale

Homebrew!

It's funny. I never had the slightest interest in homebrewing, but this summer I suddenly got the itch and it wouldn't go away, so I succumbed. There were two main reasons I wasn't interested in homebrewing:

1. Sanitation. Who wants a hobby that stresses cleanliness so heavily?
2. I'm not a big drinker. I mean, I like beer a lot, but I like to drink as many different ones as possible rather than a bunch of the same. What would I do with two cases of possibly mediocre suds?

But for whatever reason, I took the plunge. I bought a basic equipment kit (plastic pail, no wort chiller or anything) and a True Brew Nut Brown Ale kit. My guide was Palmer's How to Brew, which I might write about in a separate post. I also tried to read as many web pages as possible about the hobby.

The True Brew Nut Brown Ale kit includes Munton's ingredients: a can of hopped light LME, one pound each of pound of amber and light DME, a pound of brown sugar (!), specialty grains (chocolate malt, dark crystal and black patent), Fuggles finishing hops, and Munton's Dry Yeast.

I brewed this first batch on one of the many unfortunately hot weekends in July. I prepped as much as possible and things went well... up to a point.

My first mistake was dumping my sanitizer when I thought I was done with it. I ended up needing more for items I'd forgotten about. My second problem was cooling the wort. Despite only doing a partial boil, it took me way too long using an ice bath. On hindsight, I should have stirred the water outside the pot (or stirred the wort inside it) to get some convection going. I impatiently pitched my (re-hydrated, as per Palmer) yeast at 73-74 degrees.

I also didn't aerate the wort enough, and the top off water I used had been boiled, which I think means it lost most of its oxygen. I stored my fermenter in a basement storage area that was a tad over 70 degrees, but the temperature inside the vessel was in the high 70s when fermenting. This meant quick fermentation, but also some wayward esters. The FG never made it below 1.020 (it was supposed to be 1.012-14). The OG was supposed to be 1.050, though I never verified that. Poor attenuation. Poor brewing, I suppose, although I've discovered that a lot of people have problems with Munton's regular dry yeast.

About bottling day, the less said the better. What a mess. Someone's going to say I should switch to kegging, but I really don't want to invest more money until I brew a few more batches. After bottling was done, I really needed a beer, and what I had (something from Flying Dog, I think) was the best beer I’d ever drank if for no other reason than I had no need to de-label the bastard afterward. (For the record, Hoegaarden labels are super easy to remove, but don't even bother with St. Peters.)

I poured my first beer two weeks after bottling, four weeks after brewing, and it was murky and, of all things, a tad astringent, powdery on the back of the tongue. Did I boil the specialty grains? I don't think so. But that was the only bottle that felt like that. In successive beers I've tasted a bunch of wrong flavors, though it seems to be improving. Maybe it will taste good someday. What's always been good about it is the big, fluffy head that sticks to the glass as you drink it, as well as the spot on carbonation (I used 3.5 ounces of corn sugar instead of 5, in part due to my high ending FG).

So overall, what do I make of it? In cooking terms, homebrewing seems like a cross between making chicken broth and baking, in its emphasis on sanitation and precision, respectively. This isn't the casual stew or soup making we all know and love. It has a comical ratio of doing-to-waiting. And it isn't necessarily value for the money; better to think of those dollars as coming out of your hobby/entertainment budget than your beer budget. Nonetheless, I can't wait to brew again, and spend hours planning my next batch, not to mention the batch after that.