Brewing My Summer Wit

I brewed my summer Wit last week, with a recipe going a little something like this:

For 3 Gallons:
1.0lb Dark Belgian Munich
0.25lb Aromatic
5.0lb 2row Harrington
0.75lb Flaked Oats
0.5lb granulated sugar

0.3oz Centennial hops @ 60 min

0.1oz Coriander @ 0 min
0.2oz Chamomile Tea @ 0 min
Zest of 3 Clementines @ 0 min

Fermented with Fermentis T-58

So far, this one is looking iffy. I know it isn't a wit recipe, but I was hoping to get a combination of characteristics I might enjoy. I made a grave mash miscalculation which lead to me mashing in at 165F, which is 5 degrees warmer than I have ever heard of anyone trying to go. I cooled it down and mashed for 90 minutes, but I don't think this will dry out like I wanted it to. A gravity sample taken after the krausen dropped read 1.016, down from a starting gravity of 1.066. I was hoping to be closer to 1.010, but it really all comes down to how much I like the beer. We will see how it matures once it's bottled.

Stupid Bottle Cleaning Trick

So... Just in case I'm not the last person that figured this out, if you use a bottle brush on a bottle while it's still underwater, it doesn't flick cleaning solution all over.

I had always tried to avoid using a bottle brush since it flung so much cleaning solution all over, but I just realized that using it underwater in a tub or basin works really well.

Dreaming Up a Wit For Summer

I'm currently musing up a recipe for a strongish Belgian Wit for the summer, based loosely on the Wit show from the Jamil Show (that Doc actually did).

1.5 lbs of flaked oats
1.0 lbs of white wheat malt
0.3 lbs of aromatic malt
Enough pale 2 row to get to 1.070

Mashed at 148-150

First Wort Hopped with Centennial

No-Chill - with orange zest, coriander, and chamomile in the bucket

Fermented with Fermentis T-58, I had a Wit at Niagara Tradition last year made with this yeast and it had some nice aromatics - for cheap dry yeast prices!

AWOG 2nd Place Wood Aged Beer

I submitted my Hippoportamus to the Western New York homebrew competition, the Amber Waves of Grain, and it won 2nd in it's category (smoked or wood aged beers). The main detraction listed by the judges seemed to be that the oak character was too subtle. I agree that it is subtle, but I made it that way because I wanted the oak to blend nicely in with the big brown ale flavors and not dominate the beer.

I only have 6 bottles of it left, and every one has been really enjoyable.

I also entered a brown ale in the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery quarterly homebrew competition. It's on the bitter / hoppy end of the spectrum for a medium gravity brown ale. I brewed it as a continuing test of my new process, most of the hops were added at the end of the boil and then the wort was added to the fermenting bucket near boiling, so that it cools slowly without any effort from me.

It turned out clean, uninfected, hoppy, crisp and I liked it - which is the most important part when you are a homebrewer. So far the no-chill process does everything I need it to do.

I will post the Pearl Street Results when they come out.

Whirlpool Oaking Expirement

I have been no-chill brewing lately. And I'm interested in doing a primary fermentation on oak, like a Firestone Walked Double Barrel Ale clone. So tonight I conducted a brief expirement to see if adding an oak cube to 2oz of boiling water and allowing it to cool would create any undesireable flavors.

The sample tasted woody, with vanilla and Lincoln Log. (if you ever bit a Lincoln Log when you were a kid you know exactly what I mean). Overall, I didn't taste anything bad so now I'm going to try it out in a batch of beer.

Brewing the Hippoportamus

Here is the recipe for 6 gallons:

(mashed at 152F)
12.3 lb 2 row pale malt
1.0 lb white wheat malt
1.1 lb brown malt
0.7 lb chocolate malt (350l)
1.1 lb Crystal (40l)

0.85 oz of magnum pellets (14.4% AA) for 60 min

The brew session started right after my wife and I put our son Noah to bed. She brewed with me start to finish for the first time for one of my birthday presents. It was nice to have some helping hands and fun to share my hobby with her.

We ground all 16.2 lbs of malt by hand using my corona mill. It took awhile to grind but we had it done before the sparge water was ready. I have since purchased a 5 gallon bucket from Lowe's to keep crushed grain in, allowing me to complete this task during free time before brew day.

I calculated my water salt addition for the mash using Palmer's spreadsheet (www.howtobrew.com), but I cut the addition in half. I do this to avoid going overboard with my water adjustment. My brewing water is pretty good, and Tim Herzog at Flying Bison says they don't adjust their water at all.

The mash tun held temperature within a degree or so. We finished collecting our first runnings 75 minutes after mashing in. They were taken outside to the keggle and we got it fired up so that it could begin heating while we collected the second runnings. This saves time and we reached a boil 40 minutes after mashing was complete.

The boil went normally and I added hops at 60 minutes and irish moss (which I re hydrated ahead of time) at 15 minutes.

This is another no-chill brew, so at the completion of boiling I put a lid on the keggle, turned the burner off, and put it away in the garage to cool until the following evening.

The next day I rehydrated my yeast and went out to the garage with all my sanitized equipment to fill up my fermenter from the keggle. I got about 5.5 gal of wort with 0.75 gal of trub and hops left over in the bottom.

The yeast was pitched right away while the wort was at 57 degrees. I aerated by shaking the bucket until the airlock stopped bubbling backwards. Fermentation started a day later and slowly oozed gunk and yeast through the airlock bubbler for several days (even though I was using an ale pail). This is the most vigorous fermentation I have had. After 4 days I moved the fermenter upstairs to allow it to finish warmer. The initial stage of fermentation happened at 66F, (4 degrees warmer than ambient) and the second stage was at 70 - 72.

After one week in the primary fermenter the beer was transferred to my carboy and the medium toast American oak cubes were added. At this point fermentation still seems to be finishing up, though I did not take a gravity reading. To steam the cubes I placed 2oz of them in a pyrex measuring cup with a few ounces of water and cooked them in the microwave for 2 min. The smell was amazing, and I really hope they impart a similar character to the beer. It was tricky to spoon the cubes into the carboy. In the future a large funnel would be nice to just dump them in.

After 1 month of aging with the oak cubes I bottled 51 bottles of my oaky new brew with 4oz of granulated sugar (on Jan 1st). I have a bad cold, but from what I could tell it was great. Candi also tasted it and thought it was good, so I'm expecting the final carbonated beer to be excellent.

Hippoportamus

After brewing Jamil's brown porter I'm inspired to brew something bigger for the winter. I plan to multiply my base malt by 1.4 and my other grains by 1.1 to get close to a 1.070 starting gravity. Then I will substitute 1 pound of base malt for a pound of wheat malt to aide in head "creamyness". I will also use the recommended 350L chocolate, rather than an adjusted amount at 450L. Hops will be altered to only a bittering addition, but scaled appropriately in IBU's for the gravity. Finally, this beer will be finished on american oak cubes, becuase I haven't oaked before and I want to.