Celebrating Something

I made a batch of Celebration Ale this weekend. I always make a batch of beer when one of my younguns is soon to have a baby. Recent batches have included Wait for Nate (which surprisingly turned into Ain't Nate) and Hey Jude Celebration Ale. Since I don't have the predetermined name of the baby yet, I can't name the beer. For now I'll just name it Yummy Beer. It's a perennial favorite that I make every year for the Holidays. This beer will also be ready in time for Dr. Beyer's arrival. The OG came in at 1.056 (a bit disappointing), but I'm hoping for good attenuation which may drive the final gravity to lower than expected levels and yield a bit more alcohol kick. I couldn't find any Safale US-05 yeast locally, so I went with a double pitch of Nottingham Ale Yeast. If you don't try different things, you'll never try different things, correct?
So stay tuned for details on the outcome. The beer and the baby...

The Numbers Are In

The Black Chocolate Stout appears to have attenuated nicely. The starting gravity came in at 1.089, and the last check on the final gravity yielded a 1.019. My goals were 1.090 and 1.023, so not a bad effort. In terms of alcohol content, we should be looking at just over 9% ABV. Perfect for Dr. Beyer's visit at Christmas time. I've got in in the keg and am conditioning it for 6 more weeks before I partake. I've never been able to hold off that long on a batch; wish me strength.

I've been focusing on yeast performance as of late, especially since I detected diacetyl in my rye-wheat batch made over the summer. I'm lead to believe that petite mutants, those respiratory deficient little buggers with their impaired mitochondria, may have created the problem. I controlled the fermentation temps to lower levels, trying to maintain around 66 degrees for the first week, then slowly bringing it down to around 60 degrees before taking it off of the yeast cake. This, combined with a double sized pitch quantity from a healthy starter should do the trick for eliminating undesirable flavors. I also aerated the dickens out of the wort with my aquarium pump and stone.

Oh, did I say that it was BLACK chocolate stout. Check out my favorite coffee cup below. Hint: it ain't coffee in that cup.

BIG Brew Today

Big brew day today…my buddy Jack is in from Spokane and we’re going to do a very large American Stout; a clone of Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout – one of my perennial favorites. Too bad Andy isn’t here…he used to be pretty good at this.

Here’s the grain bill:
15.5 lbs pale
1 lb chocolate
¾ lb white wheat
½ lb roasted black barley
¼ lb flaked wheat
3 oz black patent

That equates to 18 plus lbs of grain. Yeah baby! We’re looking for an OG of 1.090 plus! If I can bring her down to a target 1.023 FG, she should come in at 9% ABV with good attenuation.

I’m going to mash in at 154 degrees to get some extra sweetness and mouthfeel. This should be a very large beer suitable for drinking in January on these bitterly cold southwest Louisiana nights:)

Here’s the hops bill:
2 oz Kent Golding 60 min
½ oz Amarillo and ½ oz Kent Golding 15 min
½ oz Amarillo and ½ oz Glacier 5 min

The estimated IBU is 46. Did I ever mention that Garrett Oliver is one of my beer heroes?

I also made a yeast starter using Safale 05 dry yeast on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning to assure that there would be a sufficient quantity of the little buggers to address the high gravity wort head on!

Stay tuned for brew day details! There will also be stogies involved and endless college football. I only hope safety professional Jack can be of some assistance lifting these heavy containers…

My Boat Babe

I was drinking a homebrew on Friday night while preparing for a Saturday fishing trip and discovered this in my boat. Isn't she beautiful? I'm crazy about my boat babe...

Then, when I went to get a refill, I came back and the neighbors were in my boat.

We had good Friday night...

Brew Plan

Here's my brew plan for the remainder of the year. For me, I have to put it in a spreadsheet to make sure that I don't have multiple events occuring with any single piece of equipment. Thanks to Mark's advice, I'm going to brew the Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout next week and let it condition for a good long time until I drink it in, say, January. While that is going on I'll brew up a batch of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale in time for the Holidays, followed by a Bell's Two Hearted Ale that will be ready after the new year.

I happen to have all of the ingredients for all of these all grain brews in my refrigerator as I type. That's because if you buy more than $100 of merchandise from Austin Homebrew Supply they throw in the shipping for free. 50 plus pounds of grain with no shipping charge. I love it when that happens...

Better Red than Dead

That's the name of the recipe for my Irish Red ale that I used from one of my prior year's Zymurgy magazines. Last year's initial try was tasty but came out looking more like a Porter. So I adjusted my specialty grains this year and the result is just about what I was looking for. I think a bit more tweeking and the color will be perfect next year. The flavor is awesome, however. This continues to be one of the best beers I've ever brewed - perfect for Fall. It's becoming my official Octoberfest beer. This is a wonderful session beer; I could easily drink six of these and still want more.

Irish Red Anyone?

Yesterday I kegged the Irish Red I made back in August. I was going to keg half and bottle the other half, but I simply kegged all of it. Call me lazy. Call me a draft beer lazy kind of guy. Bottles are way too much work after a day of work at my paying job. So I kegged it all into two of my Cornies. It should be ready to sample by the weekend. Actually, I’ll probably drink some of it on Thursday since the Aggies are playing football on ESPN and I’ll need something to settle my nerves.


The photo shows my relatively easy kegging process. I condition the beer in a 5 gallon Cornie, then I use CO2 (blue hoses) to push it from the large keg to the smaller kegs I keep in the fridge. The keg in the foreground is already full; I was pushing some CO2 into the top to displace any oxygen. One of the tricks of the trade here is that you have to introduce the beer into the receiving keg through what is normally used as its outlet. That way, the beer enters the keg almost at the bottom as it flows out of the intake tube. Otherwise, your beer would fall the height of the keg through the gas inlet and entrain much oxygen on its journey down. Always remember, oxygen = bad for beer.

Who Put the Buttered Popcorn in my Homebrew?

I just racked the remainder of my rye-wheat Hey Jude Celebration Ale into a few commemorative bottles (yes, I kegged the remainder) and I noticed something strange…the beer had a hint of butter flavor to it. Oh my gosh…I’ve got diacetyl in my beer! where did that come from? I never had it before. Is it supposed to be present in this beer style (which I’ve never made before)? Or did I do something wrong? Will other people notice it? Could it harm my unborn grandchild? Should I dump it all and start over? Hmmm… I’ve got some research to do. I do know this from my on-line investigating. Here goes:

Three pathways lead to the creation of diacetyl. The first is through normal yeast metabolism. Brewer’s yeast form a precursor called alpha acetolactate (AAL), which is tasteless. This compound is converted to diacetyl as the beer ages. The reaction that changes AAL to diacetyl is accelerated by high temperature. At cool temperatures it will still occur, but more slowly.Modern brewing practice dictates that beer be aged on live yeast until the vast majority of AAL is converted into diacetyl. Brewer’s yeast, while unable to metabolize AAL, will readily absorb and break down diacetyl into relatively flavorless compounds. By giving the beer enough contact time with the active yeast, the brewer can eliminate the diacetyl. It generally takes only about two weeks of aging ale to assure that it will have no buttery flavors. OKAY. I GAVE IT TWO WEEKS, SO I SHOULD BE GOOD HERE.

Diacetyl is also formed by mutant yeast. Brewer’s yeast that has lost its ability to properly utilize oxygen are called respiratory mutants, or petite mutants (because they form abnormally small colonies on laboratory plates). These yeast are also unable to properly metabolize diacetyl, thus leaving it in the beer. DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS, BUT I DID BUY MY USUAL PACKAGED YEAST.

A bacteria called pediococcus can also form high levels of diacetyl in beer. While this bug cannot hurt humans, it can make beer sour as well as buttery. Tartness is desirable in Lambic beers, but it is most unwelcome in most other beer styles. The vast majority of brewers do their best to avoid pediococcus! I DON’T THINK THEY HAVE THIS IN LOUISIANA.

By the way - my Irish Red yeast made a bubble gum smell while fermenting. This could be interesting.

My Homebrew is Holding Me Hostage

I was going to brew some Bell’s Two Hearted Ale today, but I couldn’t. I have no where to put it. I have too much beer in my inventory. This is a unique problem for me.
You see, I like to keg my beer. Perhaps because I am lazy, perhaps because I spent hundreds of dollars on being able to keg my beer, perhaps one led to the other. Anyway, I don’t much care for bottling beer like I used to do. I like to keg it. But my kegs are full. Well, two of them are half full of current drinking inventory, and one is empty and ready for beer. But I’ve also got 5 gallons of Irish Red ready to put into the empty keg and one of the half full ones when it becomes empty. So where to put the Two Hearted Ale in two weeks when it is ready to keg? I guess I need to start drinking more beer more quickly. Or have a party…

Until then…cheers!

Irish Red Ale

I took the day off and brewed an Irish Red ale today. It’s a great session beer. I brewed my first batch last year for my buddy Eugene’s 50th birthday party, and I immediately took a liking to it. Which says a lot about it for a hop head such as I. Did you know that you can hardly find a true Irish Red Ale any more? Sorry, Killians is a lager and it’s terrible, thanks to Coors. Murphy’s Red is also a lager. Rogue makes a version called St. Rogue’s Red, but it’s not made in the true style of an Irish Red from the Emerald Isle, as they bitter it with northwest hops. I hear that Sam Adams makes an Irish Red; I’ll have to try it if I can find it. The only other one to be found is Smithwick’s.

That pretty much leaves you to drink my version if you are around these parts. Last year’s batch was a bit too dark, so I lightened up on the specialty grains and adjusted my water chemistry a bit to reduce the residual alkalinity. The numbers look pretty good. I was shooting for a gravity of 1.053 and wound up at 1.055. Nothing wrong with a wee bit more alcohol. If I have good attenuation with my yeast, I should be able to achieve a final gravity of 1.016 and an alcohol by volume of 5.3%.

Tonight the yeast should start their party…

Hops Baby!

I planted a couple of Cascade rhyzomes and a Centennial this spring so that I could establish a hop source for my hobby. I harvested the Cascade crop today. It's really not bad considering that it is in its first year of growth, and who would think one would have a snowball's chance to grow hops in this southwest Louisiana summer heat anyway!? I'll probably get 2 or 3 ounces out of this one gallon package after drying them.

Until I feel like writing again...Cheers!

And Here He Is...My Grandson Jude!

My son-in-law was kind enough to visit one of my favorite beverage retailers in Albany this weekend, with his new son Jude along for the experience. At just under two weeks of age, the timing was perfect for him to be photographed with grandpa's favorite beverage. Note how excited he is, and how he grasps the bottle with his little monkey foot...

And the Winner Is...

Thanks all of you for the hundreds of entries received in my "name that beer I brew while I wait for my grandson to be born" contest. The lucky winner is that sweet little prego gal on the left coast whom I love so dearly. The beer will be named "Hey Jude Celebration Rye". I racked it to the keg on Monday. It looked and smelled even better than a newborn baby. I didn't measure the final gravity yet, but the yeast ring on the side of the fermentation bucket leads me to believe that it had fantastic attenuation! Kind of like Jude's hair. It looked like it was just microns away from blowing through the airlock. I'm sure we're looking at a 6 percenter. Anyway, I'll tap into it on Friday and let you know my first impression. I've saved some of it back to put in special bottles with labels I've yet to create commemorating the lad's birth. Todd and I have much celebrating to do...

Until then...Cheers

Ahem...hello...anybody out there? Where have you people been?!

Anyway, the wife is out of town again so I'm brewing tomorrow. I'm brewing an American Rye-Wheat Ale, and I'd like to give it a name deserving of the event for which my wife has departed - the impending birth of my 2nd grandson. His name shall be Jude. Unless he turns up Judy, which has happened in our family before...but that's another story.

Anyway again, I'm taking suggestions for names. My current choice is "Summer of Jude Wheat". Any others please?

btw - I did kick Andy's butt last year at the NHC. Heck, I think even Elizabeth beat him...

Welcome back, and
Cheers