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Well, it’s bound to happen sometime, and today I have been hit with an infection. It sucks, but it gives me a chance to write about it. If you have been brewing for any length of time, there is a good chance you either have been hit with an infection, or you will sometime. For me, it has been a few years since I have been infected with something. I have, what I think to be, very good cleaning and sanitation practices. I clean my equipment, I replace hoses and plastic parts often, and I give the equipment and bottles more than enough contact time with Star San. Still, something is bound to be in the air or hiding somewhere along the line. But the trick is that once this happens, you need to put on your detective hat and figure out what may have gone wrong so you can avoid it again in the past. That is what I am going to talk about today. So here is my situation……
My infected beer
As you can see I have what are called gushers. What exactly causes the gushing is not known at this time, but it is thought that whatever the infecting agent is, forms some sort of protein that allows for nucleation points and gives the CO2 a place to form and gush out of the beer. Sort of like dropping Mentos into a Diet Coke. This gushing happens when you pop the top of the bottles, the beer foams out and sometimes comes out in a stream. It acts a lot like a shaken up beer, but you did not shake it. Normally it will also continue to foam out of the bottle for some time. There can be a few causes of gushing, one is from a fungal infection in the grain called Fusarium. Fusarium is killed during the malting process, and if it were to survive there it would surely be killed in the boil. The toxins produced from the fungus withstand the boiling process though. The use of Fusarium infected barley is a common cause of gushing. However, Fusarium infection is not the only cause of gushing. It can be a few factors and I don’t think Fusarium is the cause of my problem.
When this happens, it helps to think about something you may have done out of the ordinary during this batch. It also helps you narrow down a cause if every bottle is infected, or if it is just one or a few. If it is one or two, it was probably something with the bottle. The whole batch however, is a different story. Did you use a different fermentation vessel than you normally use? Did you not sanitize your bottle tree? Did you think you could get away with a shortcut you normally don’t take? Did you drop something into the beer on accident? Basically, what was different?
In my case, everything I did was as I normally do. The auto-siphon I used was fairly new, it was clean, and well sanitized. The hoses were new, and sanitized. The aeration stone was boiled and the hoses were sanitized. I had a micron filter put in place between the pump and stone. I sanitized everything that came in contact with the cool beer. I did not mill any grains in the area, or around the time of brewing or bottling (raw grains naturally have bacteria on them, like lactobacillus). I checked my bottles and sanitized them with a long soak in Star San.
So what did I do? Well, the only thing I can figure out is that I used Coopers Carbonation drops. I used these before in a batch that I kegged and I bottled, so I had some left over. I thought they would be alright because I had them sealed in a bag. This is the one thing I can think of that I did differently. I don’t think the carbonation drops in the original package are sterile, so I figured it would be OK. However, when I think of it, they have been sitting for some time and could easily have harbored some sort of bacteria or wild yeast that was slowly consuming the sugar. There was some time for humidity to set in and make the outside of the sugar moist at one time. I am willing to bet that this gamble is where I went wrong. I used those drops in every bottle in the batch, and the beer was infected in every bottle. It makes sense that this infection took place after bottling because during bottling the beer tasted excellent. Also, right after carbonation it tasted quite good. It was not until 2 or 3 weeks after they were carbonated that I thought the beer started to taste a bit off, with a funky overly bitter and sour taste. Then a week or two later the beer seemed to really pop in the bottle, like it was over carbonated. Then not too long after that, we have this.
So I am willing to bet that whatever took hold, did so during bottling and the carbonation drops seem to be the perfect villain in this story. So if you ever use these to bottle a few bottles, as well as keg. Don’t use the leftovers. You would probably be better off figuring out the dosage for the amount of bottles you want to use, and boil corn sugar and add that to the beer instead of using a few carb drops.
Finally, you may be wondering what I do now that I have an infection. Well, this part can get a little pricey, but I feel it’s the most effective way to ensure your next batch is not infected. That is to replace all the parts you can. Although I don’t suspect my autosiphon, it may very well be the cause and I just don’t know it. So at this point it is better to replace all plastic parts and hoses. So I am replacing my autosiphon, my hoses, and micron filter. My aeration stone is getting an extended boil to kill anything that may be inside there. Bottles are easy. I am just cleaning them and sanitizing them now. Then when my next batch is done, those bottles will be sanitized again. Carboys should be cleaned and sanitized and plastic buckets replaced. This may not be feasible for everyone because of budgets, but do the best you can. At the very least replace the autosiphon and hoses. Right now I am sanitizing my bottles are I write this.
Now grated there could have been many other causes. It could have been something in the air that day when I bottled, I could have had some solid particulate in a hose or some little nook somewhere, there may be a small crack harboring some bacteria. But because of my practices and how I check my equipment over, I just think those are less likely causes. The only real way to be sure that it was the left over carbonation drops, would be to replicate the mistake. But when it comes to infected batches, that is one process I don’t want to replicate. Now if I brew again and this same batch develops something, that will take a bit more digging.
If you think there may be something wrong with one of your beers. You can get some hints on what those may be. Sometimes flaws are not caused by infections of bacteria or wild yeast, but could be something that went wrong in the brewing process. Feel free to check out the beer evaluation page to get some links and documents on troubleshooting your beer.
OK, today I am just going to do a quick post on the Northern English Brown I brewed with some friends a few weeks back. This post will be short and sweet, but will be the defining moment on if I know if this beer will be competition worthy. Although I have done fairly well in competitions before, I was thinking I am going to start entering more competitions now that I feel I have fairly consistent results and can get most beers about where I want them.
So let’s take a look at this puppy, even though it probably could use a few more days conditioning since I bottled it only 10 days ago.
Jaba's Busted Nut Brown
OK, this beer did have some issues, which is why it is a “busted” nut brown. But the minor brewing issue aside (my grains did not come crushed, and since I had someone coming to watch me brew, I had no choice but to improvise my crush. Not an ideal situation), the rest of the brew day went well. Once I opened the fermentor to bottle it, it smelled a lot like New Glarus Fat Squirrel. It also tasted quite good at bottling, but it is hard to get an exact feel without carbonation.
Aroma: Very nutty, with sweet almonds. There is some solid crusty bread and a hint of toffee. Nothing as far as hops at all in the aroma. A bit more hops would probably help, but in this case I wouldn’t add any more. (8 points)
Checking clarity
Color: A nice clear dark amber with reddish highlights. It poured a decent head that dissipated quickly, but does leave a thin layer until the end. (3 points)
Flavor: The beer has some nuttiness to it, that is for sure. The beer starts off a bit sweet, but does not finish sweet. I also wouldn’t say it finishes dry, but it just sort of drifts off. I do like the toffee flavor that is in the finish as it trails off. There is also some light biscuit and a touch of toast. The hop flavor and bitterness are spot on I have to admit. There really is no hops in the flavor and zero bitterness. Personally, that is a new one for me, but according to the guidelines that is OK. The only thing I feel this beer is lacking is overall malt depth. Although all the components are there, it feels a bit too small for me. Also, there is a bit more of a fruity flavor than I would like, but it is still on the lower side. (14 points)
Mouthfeel: To me it feels a bit too thin. It may be in the medium-light range, but it does feel to be solidly in the light range for me. At this time the carbonation is also low, but it is also a bit early. (3 points)
Overall: Overall I am very happy with how this beer turned out. Not having an ideal crush probably made the difference. With a better crush, I am sure the malt profile may be a bit more full. Still, all the right flavor and aroma components are there for exactly what I am looking for. With a bit more malt depth and a bit more body, I really think I have a solid winner here. Still, this beer may take some 1st place awards in competition, so I will be sending it off. But I do want to re-brew this fairly soon and hit it right on. I am not going to change the recipe, but want to re-brew it with a proper crush before making adjustments. (7 points)
Overall I gave it a 35 out of 50. With a bit more body and malt depth, this beer probably would be up in the 38+ range for me. Still, I am proud of this beer as it is right now.
If you want to brew this beer, you can find it in my recipes section on this blog.
This was a topic from my old site, but seems to get a lot of hits yet. Unfortunately, I don’t have the draftbox any longer and for some reason, at this time cannot find my old pictures. But here are the directions for building a draftbox for the 5 liter mini kegs and philtap.
1 – Valve Stem from an old inner tube (A.K.A. Schroeder valve) ($0 if taken from an old inner tube, or a buck or two if you buy one new.
Here is what the valve stem looks like
4 – 1/4″ hose clamps
8″ of 1/4″ inner diameter vinyl tubing or nylon braided vinyl tubing. (Less than $1.00)
1- Faucet Assembly with 3″ shank (2″ will work too) wing nut, tap handle, nylon washer and tailpiece and short segment of beverage tubing (or use the picnic tap tubing that came with the philtap). ($35.00)
1 – 28qt cooler ($10.00)
**optional 6″ of 1″ inner diameter tubing cut in half and glued to the inside for storage of 2 extra CO2 cartridges.
All I did was Drill the holes in the cooler with a small hole saw and for the tubing used a large drill bit. All you need to do is assemble the faucet assembly (it’s so self explanatory I am not going to list how to do that.)
For the gas line you have 2 options. You can do what I did and use the valve stem, or you can cut the gas inlet tube off the phil tap, and use the 1/4″ I. D. tubing as a jumper. What I did was drill out the stopper valve in the valve stem and then placed the vinyl braided tubing in boiling water to soften it. I then put a little bit of caulk on the valve stem and inserted it into the softened vinyl tubing. I then tightened a hose clamp around the valve stem. I now have a gas in hose. Slide the tube into the hole you drilled out for it and fill the gaps with caulk and let them set. Then connect the other end to the phil tap and secure it with the other hose clamp. You should be all set from there.
I also had some old 1″ tubing left over from a blow off tube and I just cut some small sections and glued a plastic bottom on them and glued them to the inside of the cooler. That way I can have 1 co2 cartridge in the dispenser and carry 2 along with me so I know I will not run out of CO2 at a party.
This cooler also fits perfectly in my beer fridge and it was how I kept beer on tap in my bar.
I am trying to dig up some old pics from somewhere, but here is the only picture I can find of the draftbox.
Only photo left of the draftbox at this time. It fit 2 mini-kegs inside
If I find the pictures from inside the draftbox I will post those for clarity.
EDIT: I could not find one anywhere. I can’t believe I deleted them. Anyway, here is a crude drawing of what the inside of the cooler would have looked like, then from the outside above, you get the picture.
Crude drawing of the innards of the draftbox.
OK, I am not going to get into a lot of depth in this post, just the basics to help push you in the direction of all grain brewing, if that is something you are interested in. All-Grain Brewing can be as difficult and technical as you want it to be, or it can be just as simple as extract brewing….with some additional time. This post is not a complete instructional post on all things all-grain. This post skips any technical data or brewing science and just shows you the process…..the bare basics of the process. If you read this and find you want to learn just a little bit more than I provide here, check out John Palmer’s Website “How To Brew”, here is a direct link to the All-Grain Brewing chapter.
So why go all grain if you can make perfectly good beer with extract, and extract takes less time? Well, the simplest answer is that you have more control over the brewing process and you can more accurately brew styles that are very difficult to master with extract. The reason is because when you brew all-grain, you are mashing whatever grains you want or need for that beer. If you use extract, the bulk of the grain bill is decided by whomever produced your extract. Even using light or extra light extract, you have not control over what brand of grains or the mashing temperature. In all grain, you are creating your own extract, just not concentrating it. This gives you more control, more room to be creative, and you can create styles using grains that require mashing. Also, lets be honest. There is a a step up in the pride factor as well for brewing a beer you created 100% from scratch. I want to stress this, all grain brewing does not produce better beer. If you are having a hard time making good beer with extract, you will not make good beer all-grain. You will read all over the net, several homebrewers stating that all-grain makes better beer, or once they switched to all grain their beer got better. This is all bunk. If that were true, all-grain beers would be winning all the 1st place, gold medals, and best of show in competition. What it does do is produce a wider range of styles more accurately than extract, and many times ferments out a bit more than extract. The “All Grain=better beer” mentality comes from a combination of more brewing experience, “I did this all myself” pride, and the control over ingredients. Not many brewers start out with all grain, and when they make the jump to all grain they know that they love the hobby enough to stick with it so are committed to brewing quality beer, and have learned to pay attention to sanitation and brewing practices. There is also a mental sense of pride when you do something all by yourself from scratch, that makes the product seem….well, better. We already covered the range of ingredients that all grain covers, and that is every single grain available. If you use fresh malt extract (the age of the extract does make a big difference in extract brewing), and pay attention to cleanliness and sanitation, you can make beer that is almost indistinguishable from an all-grain beer. I promise you. The part most often ignored is finding extract that is as fresh as possible, most imported extracts are not good in my opinion just because of this factor.
There is a few downfalls to all grain brewing. The first is you are probably going to add a few hours to your brew day. You have more water to heat, the mash takes 60 extra minutes, you have the sparge (even batch sparging will add a few minutes), and most of the time the wort takes longer to get to boil if you are not already doing full boils. There are also a few more technical details that can go wrong. I am not going to cover them in detail, but you need to be aware of them in case you need to troubleshoot your beer. You may need to do water adjustments if you have problems with your PH in your mash, you will need to monitor the crush you get from your grains, and water temperature is crucial in all grain brewing (this I will explain later).
So to show you how easy all-grain brewing can be, I am going to show you how to make a simple Nut Brown recipe, without making any water adjustment or using any complicated equipment. All you need is a mash tun (home-made is just fine and cheap), a good thermometer (preferably a digital one where you can set an alarm when it reaches a specific temp) a boil kettle big enough to hold 7 gallons, and a smaller pot to use as a hot liquor tank, and a fermentation bucket or carboy with an airlock (I personally like buckets. I used glass carboys for years but like the bucket for easy cleaning, will not shatter, and they are cheap to replace). That is about it. Optionally you can use hop bags, stainless mesh balls, and either an O2 or aquarium pump with aeration stone, hydrometer with test cylinder, and PH meters . But those are not required to make good beer, but having them will help make consistently good beer.
Jaba’s Busted Nut Brown
(download the recipe below if you want to brew this, it is basically Northern Brewer’s Nut Brown Ale Recipe)
Brewsheet – BeerXML – Beersmith Format
The first thing you need to do is determine your water volume. By far the easiest way is to use brewing software. What this does is take into account the amount of grains (because the grains will retain water after the mash), the evaporation loss, and loss to trub and transfers. Next the software will ask what temperature you want to mash at. I wanted to do this at 154, so with adjustments made (by the software) for grain and mash tun temperature, I need to bring my water to 169 degrees to have my mash equalize at 154 degrees.
Almost there....only 2 degrees left.
So once the 2.66 gallons of water was added to the mash tun, then I added the grain and stirred. It showed a temperature of 153......which is not bad. But it has not equalized yet, you may get readings a few degrees higher and lower for the first few minutes.
I stirred the mash to make sure there were no dough balls, or other dry spots in the mash. You want to stir it very well, then place the cover on to allow it to equalize. I leave the thermometer in the mash to monitor temperature.
……and now it equalizes at…….
....at 154. Just as the software calculated. Sweet! Now if you are off by a degree or two, it is not the end of the world. A slightly cooler temperature will result in a more fermentable and dryer beer, while temps higher than 156 will yield a more full bodied and sweeter beer.
Now you wait 60 minutes after the temps equalize. Halfway through the process you want to start heating your sparge water. I do batch sparging because it is both faster and easier to do than fly sparging. But you can choose whatever method you wish. You want to heat your sparge water to above 180 degrees, but I like to avoid boiling. Too hot and too long of a sparge can extract tannins from the grain husks. So I heat my sparge water to between 180 and 185.
Once your mash is done and the sparge water is heated. You want to get your boil kettle ready to catch the first runnings of wort. If you have only 1 pot, you can run your beer into a plastic fermentation bucket until you are into your final round of sparging. I do 2 to 3 rounds of sparging, depending on what I need for a final water volume (which again is determined by the software). In this case I needed 5.75 gallons of sparge water. Below are some pictures of the first runnings and sparging.
You want to run your first 2 to 4 quarts of wort into a pitcher or bucket then re-circulate into the top of the mash. The reason is the first little bit has a lot of protein and husk material that when poured back into the top is filtered by the grain bed. This will result in a better looking beer, and reduce the chances of tannic astringency.
Recirculation...the cheap way.
Some people defuse the pour by using the back of a spoon. I have not found any difference in using a back of a spoon or not, so the choice is yours.
Once the 1st runnings are out of the mash tun, you want to quickly pour in your hot sparge water. If you wait too long the grain bed can become compact and a bit harder to work with. Once the sparge water is in, you want to stir well to dissolve any sugars in the grains.
Here is just a shot of how I collect my wort. Directly into my boil vessel.
Now I did two rounds of sparging here. Below I am showing you three pictures, all of the same beer. What this will show is the amount of sugars and other goodies you are extracting from the grains. The first picture is from the 1st runnings, look how dark the wort is. This is the highest concentration of malt sugars, then compare that to the second and third runnings. This is normal.
1st runnings
2nd runnings
3rd runnings
Here are the spent grains. You will have some sugar left in them, so if you taste it, it will be slightly sweet. If it is real sweet, you probably didn't stir your sparges very well or used too little water.
From here on out is the same as any extract batch. But for fun, here are some more pics of my all grain process.
I don't have many of these, so they don't work well for very hoppy beers. But for 1 or 2 ounce additions these things are great. THey help keep the hop mess down when it comes time to drain the cooled wort. You have to remember that the hops will expand when wet, so I only fill them to less than half full. But they work better than hop bags in my opinion. They don't float and keep the hops submerged.
2 balls perfectly hold 1 oz of pellet hops.
Chilling is very important in all grain beers. From my experience, you have higher DMS levels in all grain beers compared to extract, but maybe that's just me. So the faster the chill and more vigorous the boil, you eliminate the DMS factor.
I also like to Aerate. This is not a requirement but it does help with yeast health and getting a solid full fermentation from your yeast. Here you see my home-made set up. I use an aquarium pump with an inline hepa filter, and a racking cane with vinyl hoses. All this NEEDS to be sanitized well because it comes in contact with the cool wort. I boil my stainless diffusion stone and soak the lines in Star San.
Aeration set up
Last, add the yeast. I love to use a good quality dry yeast. I use US-04 for clean and American styles and s-04 for British styles. Other styles I use liquid yeast because those special strains just are not as good in dry form. But for your basic American and English ales, dry yeast is very good. For this beer I am taking a suggestion from my Brewer Interview and using more dry yeast. For the same cost or even cheaper than 1 vial of White Labs or 1 smack pack of Wyeast, I get 2 packets of dry yeast with a very high cell count and no need to do a starter. (I also sanitize the yeast packets prior to opening them and sanitize the scissors that I use to cut the packets open)
That’s about it. I would like to give a quick shout out to Mike and his buddy who did not participate in this blog entry, but a good time was had none-the-less.
Aside from getting a pot and doing a full boil, one piece of brewing equipment I highly suggest spending some money on is some brewing software. On average the cost is $20 and you will have it forever, and it makes planning your brew sessions and recipes so much easier, and for me more fun. There are a few mainstream programs out there such as Beersmith, Promash, Beer Tools Pro, and Strangebrew. If you are looking for free alternative, there are also some good brewing spreadsheets floating around on the Internet, Beer Tools has some free tools you can use to create basic recipes (look along the left hand side of the page), then you always have the Beer Recipator to use for free. However the spreadsheets can be a bit cumbersome to use and maintain, especially if you are not familiar with using spreadsheets, and the free tools really limit your ingredient list.
All of these tools above will help you create, tweak, and store recipes. Some even allow you scale recipes, like if you have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and you do 5, or you have a pro brewing friend who gives you one of his recipes for a 30 barrel system and you need a homebrew scale. I own and have used Beer Tools Pro, and I use Beersmith for almost all my recipes. I really like how user-friendly Beersmith is. For the purpose of this post, I am going to take shots of all the software, just to help show all of you sitting on the fence, just how this software can make your life so much easier. All of these major software brands do have free trial offers to test drive them for yourself. In part 1 of this topic, I will take a look at Beersmith and Beer Tools Pro.
Beersmith
In this picture you can see the opening screen and options for Beersmith.
In the above picture, this is the default screen you come to when opening Beersmith. Here is where you can format a recipe, select if it is extract, partial mash, or all grain. You can see, if you look at this picture for a while, there are options for converting recipes (for example if you have a friend who sends you a recipe for all grain, but you are an extract brewer, you can convert his recipe to an extract recipe and vice versa), scaling a recipe (which can be either scaling it up or down), an inventory feature where you can enter what ingredients you have at hand, and many other tweaks you can make. Under the file tab, there are options for importing recipes you may receive from a friend or off of websites who may use the Beersmith format, and there are many options for tweaking water, measurements, what equipment you have, and brewing processes. But what I like is there are default features you can use right from installation without tweaking it to your system right away.
In the next few pictures, I will show you what a basic all grain recipe will look like in Beersmith, then last convert that recipe to extract, and scale that recipe up to 10 gallons.
Below, you can see what the software shows you when you have a recipe entered. I used one of my favorite homebrew recipes, a chocolate stout of mine called Vader’s Fist. You can see that it gives you estimated starting gravity, finishing gravity, color, and IBU’s. It gives you the range for the style you picked. And once you brew it and take measurements you can add in what the actual gravity’s were and it gives you the ABV. What you can’t see, is further below you have fermentation and bottling/kegging options.
Recipe in Beersmtih
In the following picture, this is just showing the preset mashing and sparging options. All you have to do is pick one. If you want to tweak them you can edit and save the changes you make to these options. Of course, if you are doing extract you don’t have to worry about this.
Beersmith Mashing Options
Next if you noticed in the upper right side, there is a button that says “Preview Brewsheet”. You can hit this button, then have the option to print out a handy brewing schedule for your recipe. It will look something like this.
Brewsheet
Now lets hit that Convert button and convert this recipe to extract. One thing I want to note is you want to create a copy in your recipe list of the original recipe, because once you convert it, you sort of lose the original recipe. Unless I am missing something, this could cause problems. I simply make a copy of the recipe (copy and paste in the recipe list) then covert the copy.
The convert option in Beersmith
As you can see, if your all grain set up used a keggle but you want to do a partial boil for the extract, you can do this. You just select the equipment you have for extract. You can then select the type of malt extract you want to use for your base (Dry or liquid, extra light, light, amber, dark, ect). Finally either check or leave it blank the option for auto converting grains that must be mashed. This does cause an issue when converting because some grains need to be mashed. If you must, you can substitute some grains that don’t need to be mashed, but the end result may not be exactly the same as the all grain version.
Last, here is the scale option.
Scale the recipe up
This is pretty simple also. Select the new batch size you want, select the efficiency, and also if you want to fix the amount based on your equipment. Most of the time you want to do this unless you have many different sized pots or mash tuns.
Well, that is the basic overview of Beersmith. Lets take a quick look at Beer Tools Pro. This one will be a bit quicker for two reasons. First, I am still learning this one because I think it has a bit longer learning curve than Beersmith. And second, I don’t see scale or convert options to show you. I will use the same recipe as I did in Beersmith for this example.
Beer Tools Pro
As you can see the user interface is a lot better looking that Beersmith. I really like the slide scales and the color of the beer picture. Once you enter the recipe from the ingredients categories on the left, and drag and drop them from the pane at the top (above the pint glass), most of your recipe control will take place in the “Display” tab to the bottom right below the pint glass. Here you can enter your equipment, mash schedule, other adjustments, ingredients, and so on. Also, you can see various aspects of your beer and brewing schedule under the tabs labeled: style, analysis, schedule, summary, carbonation, and notes.
Let’s take a look at how you would enter your mash schedule.
Mash Schedule
Here is how you do your schedule in Beer Tools Pro. Under the display tab you can select “Schedule”. Then in the blank area, right click and select an option, such as “New Mash In” , “New Infusion”, “New Rest” , or “New Sparge” (there are more options but these are the most used by me). Then enter the information as you need to. This is very easy if you have your equipment entered in and calibrated, which can be a pain, but I will not cover that. You can do that with the instructions if you purchase the program. Once things are in, all you should have to do it enter your target temperature and the program will update the other fields for you. You do this for all the infusions or sparges you are going to do. For example a single infusion with a batch sparge will look like this.
Single Infusion with Batch Sparge
And the last thing for this basic overview is the option to print this off.You can select what aspects of the recipe to print off.
Beer Tools Pro Print Option, no brewsheet?
There is no handy brewsheet that I can see. However, the print off you do get will do the trick. I do like the “check it off” style of Beersmith, but Beer Tools Pro has a great look to it that makes up for some shortcomings like no conversion tool. No scaling tool either. But the tweaking options here are almost endless. Also, I could be wrong. Just because I don’t see the option does not mean it is not there. If you want to learn more about Beer Tools Pro, they have an online Wiki for Beer Tools Pro you can read that will probably give you more insight and in depth instruction than I am giving here. This is just a top down look at the software.
Beer Taste Wheel (Can Be Downloaded on Beer Evaluation Page)
Since this beer blog’s main focus is the evaluation side of beer culture, I just realized I never posted anything on sensory training, and how one could do this at home on their own. I do want to say that in order to taste beer, you don’t need any special training, you already have all the tools you need with your eyes, nose, and tongue; you just need to listen to them and trust what you perceive. However, it helps a great deal to take a BJCP course (or other course like it), and take the test to validate your skills, especially if you want to judge competitions. But all that aside, I have met people with no formal training who could identify flaws and evaluate beers like no other, and the other way around. However, if you want to hone your skills, practice, or simply learn exactly what Diacetyl tastes like in beer, or how oxidation tastes, you can doctor beers to help teach yourself what these flaws or beer attributes taste like.
In some cases, you already have an idea of what you are looking. For example if you have ever had microwave popcorn with butter flavor, you will have a idea of what Diacetyl is like. Diacetyl is butter flavor that is used in a lot of artificial butter microwave popcorn. If you have ever made a spit ball and chewed paper to get it wet, you have an idea of what flavor would be in the beer for a stale or oxidized beer. But the way the flavor or aroma interact with the beer and various other flavor components can throw you off a bit. So this is where this type of training really comes in handy, and you can do this at home by yourself, with some friends, or in a homebrew club.
When doing this doctored beer lab, I find that some newer people even have a hard time detecting any difference in the concentrations given. So don’t be afraid to bump some of them up a touch for your first time through. The idea is to be able to detect these levels, then over time you can reduce the amount used to see how low you can detect the difference. It is best to first do labs like this with a beer like Budweiser or Miller, basically a very neutral low flavor and aroma beer. You taste an undoctored sample side by side with one where you have put in an additive. As you progress, you can try to doctor other beers with more flavor and aroma to see how the flavor and aroma components interact and change with the stronger malt or hop flavor and aromas of other styles. Many people just stop at the Budweiser sampling when they get a feel for what “sour” is. I suggest at least doctoring a few more intense beers with the same concentration just to see if you can detect it.
Below is the recommendations for doctoring beer from the BJCP Exam Study Guide, this is a basic lab that covers the major flaws in beer. The BJCP also sells a sensory training kit, if you are interested you can buy one there http://www.bjcp.org.
| Flavor | Adulterant | Quantity |
| Sour/Acidic (lactic) | USP lactic acid | 0.4 ml (1/3. tsp of solution of 1/8 tsp lactic acid plus 3/8 tsp distilled water) |
| Sour/Acidic (Vinegar/Acetobacter) | White wine vinegar | 3/4 tsp |
| Bitterness | iso-hop extract | 1 or 2 drops, to taste |
| Sweetness | sucrose (table sugar) | 1/4 tsp dissolved in 1/2 tsp water |
| Astringency | Grape tannin | 2 tsp. of solution of 1/8 tsp tannin dissolved in 5 Tbsp water |
| Phenolic | Chloroseptic | 0.4 ml (1/3. tsp of solution of 1/8 tsp Chloroseptic plus 3/8 tsp distilled water) |
| Clovelike | Clove solution | Make solution of 8 cloves soaked in 3 oz. of beer and add liquid to taste (about 4 tsp) |
| Sulfitic | Potassium metabisulfite (Should not be tasted by persons with asthma or sulfite allergies.) | Make solution of one tablet dissolved in 3 oz. of beer and add to taste (about 1/2 tsp) |
| Alcoholic | Ethanol | 2 tsp (increases alcohol by 2.7%). 3 tsp vodka may also be used |
| Sherry-like | Dry sherry | 3/4 tsp |
| Nutty | Almond extract | 0.1 ml (1/8 tsp of solution consisting of 1/8 tsp. almond extract plus 5/8 tsp. distilled water) |
| Papery/Stale | N/A | Open bottles to air, reseal, and keep at 100 F or warmer for several days (I like to pour the beer from the bottle into a sanitized bottle to give more air) |
| Winey | White wine | 2 Tbsp |
| Diacetyl | Butter extract | 4-5 drops |
| Estery | Banana extract | 6-7 drops |
| Lightstruck | N/A | Expose commercial beer in green or clear bottles to sunlight for 1-3 days. |
| DMS | Juice From Can of Corn | 1 ½ tsp of juice from a can of corn. |
This is just the basics, you can use other additives to taste for different flavors, for example you could dry hop various hops to see the affect they would have on the beer. Get creative and you the possibilities are endless. For example, if one had the time, they could make small batches of beer without hops, that accentuate specific types of malt. You could also make a basic base beer with a light malt profile, and hop it with a single hop type to learn what type of bitterness, flavor, and aroma each hop adds to a beer.
For a lot more on this topic, I highly suggest Tasting Beer, by Randy Mosher or for even more advanced (and a much drier read) information, Evaluating Beer. As always when relating to this subject, the BJCP website is a good source of information as well, and its free.
Hops
Ahhh, hops. Every brewers friend. It balances sweetness with it bitterness. It adds flavor and aroma to many styles of beer. Even in beers where you may think there is no hops, chances are it is there in the background providing just enough bitterness to prevent the beer from appearing sweet, even if there is not much hop aroma or flavor. But the focus on hops is almost always the Alpha Acids, and to a much lesser extent the beta acids. Since the focus of this article is not on those two components, I will only briefly brush through their role in hops before I hit on the main topic of my posting, co-humulone.
Almost all the matter that benefits beer is found in the lupulin in the hop cone. You can easily identify lupulin in the hop cone as the yellow powdery and slightly sticky substance under the cones of leaves (see picture below). The alpha acids, which when isomorized in the boil, contribute bitterness to the beer, as well as some mild preservative qualities because of their antiseptic properties as well. The Beta acids also contribute a slight bitterness, however, since they don’t isomerize, but rather become soluble through oxidation, high amounts of beta acids can contribute to off-flavors such as a vegetal aroma for example. This lupulin also has the other oils and resins that contribute flavor and aroma as well as co-humulone.
Lupulin
So why is understanding co-humulone important? By understanding what it does, you can control the type of bitterness your beer has. If you have ever had an IPA with say 60 IBU’s (International Bittering Units) that you just loved, but then had another that was stating it was also 60 IBU’s but you found the bitterness quite off-putting, it could have been the co-humulone level of the hops used in each beer. In short, it is the level of co-humulone in the alpha acids that will dictate the type of bitterness the beer will have. Higher co-humulone hops tend to have a more bracing or harsh bitterness, while lower levels of co-humulone tend to have a softer more rounded bitterness. Think Amarillo, and the type of bitterness it provides compared to Chinook.
So here is where you can really start to have fun with recipe formulation and playing with hop varieties. I consider lower co-humulone levels to be that of 25% of total alpha acid, anything below 20% I consider to be quite low. Most of you nobel hop varieties fall in this range (15%-25% co-humulone), but some American varieties, some of the newer varieties in particular fall in here as well. See the bottom of the post for a list of low co-humulone US variety’s of hops.
Now there is some debate on if co-humulone really affects the type of bitterness. From my personal experience, it does. I have brewed a few IPA’s using the traditional Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, and other “traditional” American hops, and I have made IPA’s using the newer varieties like Amarillo, Glacier, Simcoe, and Horizon. I found that I prefered the newer varieties as opposed to the traditional. I never knew why until I discovered the effect co-humulone level has on bitterness.
I do have to say though, that if you are brewing for competition, it may be a good idea to add a small amount of higher co-humulone hops to the boil. The reason is that judges, and other beer geeks, have come to expect a certain type of flavor and bitterness when it comes to American IPA’s. I have found that all low co-humulone IPA’s seem to be described as “not having the bitterness expected for an IPA” and such. I don’t really think that is the case, but rather the bitterness is more well-rounded and not as sharp. My low co-humulone IPA’s are quite bitter if you pay attention, it’s just the bitterness is…..different. But keep that in mind if you enter one in a competition.
Below you will find a link to a hop data sheet, you can use this to research hop varieties from the US, UK, Germany, and other countries. These data sheets are helpful for finding a particular hops alpha acid, beta acid, and co-humulone range as well as getting aroma profiles, primary usage, and alternatives if you can’t get that particular hop near you. Below that I listed the low co-humulone American hops I know of.
US Low Co-humulone varieties
- Amarillo
- Citra
- Glacier
- Crystal
- Golding
- Hallertau
- Horizon
- Mt. Hood
- Santium
- Simcoe
- Summit
- Tettnang
- Vanguard
Homebrew Competition
A friend of mine from our homebrew club, The Manty Malters, has produced some very fine beers lately, and I keep telling him that he should be entering these in competition. First of all, he will get some great outside feedback aside from members of the club, but I am confident he will be taking some awards. At our holiday party this past weekend he was telling me he would like to send beer off, but is unsure about how to package and ship his beer for competition. So, this post is for Brian, and others like him who may be a bit unsure about how to send beer in to competition.
First, you need to find a competition to send to . There are two spots you can look that I know of. First is the Homebrewers Association competition calendar, and second is the BJCP Calendar. You will have to look at the specific rules for each competition because not all competitions are open to all categories of beer, and some are club only competitions. Club only competition means your club needs to be a member of the AHA to enter.
What competition you enter is important too. For the best chance at getting great feedback, regardless of winning a ribbon or medal, you want to enter a large competition or one with a great reputation. Smaller competitions are great too, and each will have some great judges. However, usually (but not always) the smaller competitions also have limited numbers of judges and many times some beers are judges by inexperienced or non-trained judges. But on the flip side, your chances of winning a medal or ribbon (if that is all you are looking for) are better with a small competition. After all, a decent beer has a better chance of placing in a competition where your category has 5 entries, compared to a larger competition where you may be up against 18 to even hundreds of other entries. But a win in a large competition just feels so much better. For some of us though, as long as you get solid and honest feedback, that is what we are looking for.
So, now that you found a competition and made sure the beer you are entering fits the category you are entering (This is very important. You want to make sure you read the guidelines and enter your beer where it fits best. You may have set out to create a dry stout, but if it is sweet you are better off entering it as a sweet because that is what the beer is.), you are ready to ship.
Being a shipping clerk and working in the shipping and receiving industry for 17 years, has given me some insight into how to ship these bottles with the least chance of breaking, while still not costing an arm and a leg. I will run this down for you here, then give detailed description on how I pack for competition or trades. The trick is to prevent the glass from hitting each other, double bag the beers (I will explain why later), and pack the box tight so there is no play inside the box at all. The box should feel like a solid mass with no internal movement. If you follow those rules alone, your beer will make it to its destination safely.
Attach Label
First you want to attach the proper label as required by the competition. You are not allowed to have any markings on the bottle or the cap, so you need to affix the paper label with a rubber band. I also suggest making sure the beer is not cold when attaching the label because the condensation can make any ink you use, run, or make the paper so wet it will rip.
Wrap it with foam, bubble wrap, or newspaper.
Next you want to wrap the beer in a layer of foam, bubble wrap, or newspaper just enough so that if two bottles do make hard contact, they will not clink together or make any sound.
Wrapped tight
As you see, you want enough foam or wrap to make a nice barrier. I also leave enough at the top and bottom to protect the neck and bottom. To hold it in place you can use any type of tape.
1st bag.
Now for the bagging. You want to use this first bag as a catch-all for when the carrier handles the package too rough and it does cause some breakage. The foam will help prevent the glass from cutting the bag (as long as you can foam inside the bag first)if it breaks, and the bag will help contain the beer.
2nd bag
Now here you can do it one of two ways. You can bag each bottle in two bags, or do as I have done and place a few bottles that have been placed in smaller bags, in one large ziplock bag. What this does is give you an additional layer of leak protection. If UPS or FedEx (Never ship beer USPS to competition) detects any leaks, your package will be stopped right there. So this way, even if you have breakage, your package will get to the destination.
Layer large shipments
If you are sending many bottles, you will want to place a large layer of foam in the bottom, then place a layer of bottles. On top of that, place more foam, then your next layer of bottles. You also want to make sure that the sides, front, and back are all packed tight too. In this picture, there is a layer of 4 bottles below this, then a layer of foam, and a partial of two bottles here.
Pack it tight.
Last, you want to make sure you pack the box tight with foam. You want to force the top down so that you can pick up the box and shake it, there should not be any movement. I can tell you that FedEx and UPS handle packages a lot rougher than you think, and putting a glass or fragile sticker on the box does little for how they handle it. So pack it very tightly, that is your best protection. If there is no movement inside the box, you will be fairly safe, and foam and bubble wrap are cheap. So don’t be afraid to use them. Newspaper works good too, but can easily compress. DO NOT EVER use packing peanuts. These allow heavy items to settle and there is a lot of movement allowed by packing peanuts. These are best used for lighter items in bigger boxes, but should never be used for heavy or fragile items.
I hope that helps with how to ship beer for competition. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.
My Homegrown Hops
I am a huge fan of the technique called “Hopbursting”. I first discovered the yet to be named technique in 2006 on a general discussion of the possibility of eliminating the bittering hop addition, and instead using massive quantities of hops at the end of the boil. A few guys tried it and really seemed to like the results, so I then also brewed my first beer with all late additions in September of 2006. Most of my IPA’s and Pale Ales since the discovery of this Hopbursting technique, have been done this way with what I feel are outstanding results. I will provide a few of my own recipes at the end of this posting, two will be pale recipes and one smoked IPA recipe.
First let me explain what Hopbursting is. The technique is simple, you just increase your charge of hops and deliver them all to the boil within the last 20 minutes of the boil. The thought is that bitterness is imparted to some degree during even a short boil, and this is true. I have made some very nice IPAs with all my hops added in the last 15 minutes. They are nicely bitter and the aroma and flavor are bright and pleasing. I also find the bitterness to not be as bracing or harsh and seems to have a more round and soft character. The thing to not be confused about, is hopbursting is not just simply adding a large charge of aroma and flavor hops, ALL hops are added during the last 20 minutes. There are no 60 minute additions. You can probably get away with adding 30 minute and still calling it hopbursting, but the original technique adds them all within the last 20 minutes. As an example, in my smoked IPA recipe I add 7 ounces of hops all within the last 10 minutes of the boil.
So what are some the benefits of hopbursting? First and foremost, this technique gives you the bright and clear hop flavor and aroma that many people look for in a good IPA or American Pale. You can achieve these results without dry hopping, that of which I am not a personal fan of. Although I do enjoy dry hopped beers from time to time, I find the hop flavor to be a bit more grassy and raw than I like.
Another advantage is the bitterness I spoke of. If you don’t enjoy the harsh or bracing bitterness that some IPAs have, but yet yearn for intense hop flavor and aroma, then this is the technique for you. As I explained before, I find the bitterness to be more rounded and pleasing to the palate. The flavor also seems to shine more, where in traditionally hopped beers, the flavor seems to take a back seat to the bitterness. Don’t get me wrong, you will still see a good deal of bitterness, but it just won’t have the same feel to it.
Every technique has some disadvantages, and hopbursting has them as well. One disadvantage is that you lose more wort to absorbtion. So increase your wort volume based on how many extra ounces of hops you use. Also, hops are not all that cheap (but getting better again) so more hops will equal more cost. Another thing to consider is that if you don’t have a false bottom or good way of straining the wort, you will have a lot more hop matter to clog your spigot. One last thing I can think of to consider is your PH. If you measure your PH, remember that a high PH can make your beer appear more bitter than what it is. So with more hops, can come more bitterness than you want if your PH is too high. So pay attention to that.
All those things considered, Hopbursting is a good way to move more into the realm of hop flavor and aroma, instead of the just intensely bitter IPA’s. Below are some of my favorite recipes that I hopburst, and these all have turned out quite good. Keep in mind that the IBU’s for hopbursted beers probably appears a slight bit lower than what is listed. I also list the estimated OG and FG instead of my measurements.
Brass Monkey Pale Ale (My First Hopbursted Beer)
5 Gallon Batch
10.00lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1.00lb Caramel Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM)
1.00lb Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SRM)
2.00oz Chinook [12.80%] (10 min)
2.00oz Amarillo Gold [8.40%] (5 min)
0.40oz Chinook [12.80%] (0 min) -
1 Pkgs US-05 or WLP001 or Wyeast 1056 Yeast-Ale
Single Infusion Batch Sparge
Mash in with 15 quarts of water at 165.9 degrees F. Mash for 60 Min at 154.
Batch Sparge with 4.75 gallons of water based on equipment.
Ferment at 62 degrees until done. No need for secondary.
Est. OG=1.60
Est. FG=1.014
ABV=6%
IBU=42.4
Land of Lincoln Pale Ale (This beer has taken a 1st and 3rd place medal in competition)
5 Gallon Batch
10.00 lb Pale Ale Malt 2-Row (Briess) (3.5 SRM)
1.50 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Munich 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [16.10%] (15 min)
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [16.10%] (10 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [5.30%] (5 min)
0.20 oz Glacier [5.60%] (5 min)
1.10 tbsp 5.2 PH Stabilizer (Mash 0.0 min)
1 Pkgs US-06, WLP001, or Wyeast 1056 Yeast-Ale
Mash in with 15 quarts of water at 165.9 degrees F. Mash for 60 minutes at 154 degrees. Sparge with 4.75 gallons of water per your equipment.
Est. OG 1.050
Final 1.012
ABV 4.5%
IBU 41
Emperor’s Hand IPA (Smoked American IPA) and Juniper IPA
5.5 Gallon Batch
Please refer to my home roasting post to get the instructions on how to make the home roasted malts.
12.00 lb Pale Ale Malt 2-Row (Briess) (3.5 SRM)
1.50 lb Gold Malt (home roasted) (20.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Amber Malt (home Roasted) (22.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Copper Malt (home roasted) (100.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Deep Amber (home roasted) (60.0 SRM)
3.00 oz Simcoe [13.40 %] (10 min) Hops
4.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (5 min) Hops
1.00 oz German Saphire [4.11 %] (0 min)
1.00 tbsp 5.2 PH Stabilizer (Mash 0.0 min)
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
1 Pkgs (DCL Yeast #US-05, WLP001, or Wyeast 1056 (chico strain)
Mash in with 20.63 quarts of water at 168.2 degrees F. Mash for 60 minutes at 154 degrees. Sparge with 4.5 gallons of water per equipment.
Ferment at 62 degrees until finished. No need for secondary.
OG 1.067
FG 1.016
ABV 6.26%
IBU 62.7
For Juniper IPA I added 1 package of Juniper berries soaked in 1 1/2 cups 170 degree water for 15 min. I added water and all. (Note – next time add Juniper to primary after fermentation is complete, or rack to secondary and add berries and water) Let sit for 2 weeks on berries.
Like many other aspects of brewing, there is more than one method to achieve a specific end result. You have the Extract vs. All Grain methods (and those in between), dry yeast vs. liquid cultures, fly sparging or batch sparging (or even now sparge methods), and so on. So when it comes to adding chocolate flavor to beer, it should come as no surprise that brewers use various methods to impart chocolate character to their beers. In this posting I will discuss my favorite method, which I have been using for years with great success, using roasted cacao nibs.
To add a distinct chocolate character to beer, brewers use roasted malts, cocoa powder, bakers chocolate, bar chocolate like dark chocolate, cacao nibs, chocolate flavoring, or a combination of these. I have had beers that used all of these methods and some are better than others in my opinion. Out of these, the worst is the use of bar chocolate and Baker’s Chocolate. To make the chocolate into a bar, the manufacturer uses cocoa butter or other fats to bind the chocolate. You do not want these fats and oils in your beer, not only does it affect head retention, but fats go rancid fairly quickly. Chocolate flavoring can be OK, but many times it does not give you the chocolate character that goes well with beer. Most chocolate flavoring gives you a sweeter milk chocolate or chocolate candy flavor (maybe you remember Frederick Miller Classic Chocolate Lager from Miller Brewing Co). The use of Cocoa Powder is pretty popular, but in all honesty still tastes like cocoa powder in the beer, but it can work. The use of malts to impart chocolate is probably the best, but can sometimes be tricky to really get that chocolate character you may be looking for. For, me the use of Cacao Nibs gives you the distinct natural bitter-sweet chocolate flavor and aroma, non of the fats, and does not give you that cocoa powder flavor.
Here is what Cacao Nibs look like.
Cacao Nibs are chocolate at is roots. They are the roasted and broken up pieces of the cacao bean. You do need to find the roasted nibs, and not raw. There is a difference. There are several vendors that sell Nibs, and I prefer these.
Scharffen Berger Cacao Nibs
You can add the nibs to the end of the boil for a small amount of chocolate flavor and aroma, or add them to either the end of the primary or in the secondary fermentor. The best way that I have found to impart the most the character from the nibs is to soak them in vodka for 24 to 72 hours prior to adding them. You use just enough to cover the nibs amount you want to use. For example, if you use 6oz for a batch of beer, the amount of vodka it takes to the cover the nibs in a small container is not enough to alter the ABV by anything you can detect by taste or smell. You do add the nibs and vodka to the beer. Just remember, only add enough to cover the nibs, no more than that.
So why the vodka you ask? Because there are volatile components to the chocolate that are not soluble in water. So for better extraction of the flavor and aroma qualities of the nibs, you need a medium like alcohol to draw them out. Vodka is neutral enough to do the job, while not affecting flavor or aroma in the small amount used for a 5 gallon batch of beer. Another benefit is that the vodka is high enough in alcohol to sanitize the nibs prior to adding them to the primary or secondary fermentor.
So does it work? Yes, I have a special recipe I will share with you that I have done well with in competition. The extract version of the beer and the all grain version of this beer have both won awards. The all grain version also lost by only 4 votes in a “Best of the Fest” people’s choice award at a brewfest against 30 commercial brewers and one other homebrew club. The issue with this beer you can expect if you enter it in competition is that it is what I call a tweener beer. It is too dry to be a sweet stout, too sweet to be a dry stout, and does not fit in the oatmeal stout category well even though there is some oats in the recipe. But one fact remains, this is a very good people pleasing chocolate stout.
The 501st Vader's Fist Chocolate Stout
The 501st Vader’s Fist Chocolate Stout (All Grain Version)
Batch Size= 5 gallons
6.00 lb Pale Ale Malt 2-Row (Briess) (3.5 SRM)
2.00 lb Munich 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM)
1.25 lb Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel Malt – 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Oats, Flaked (Briess) (1.4 SRM)
0.25 lb Roasted Barley (Briess) (300.0 SRM)
1.50 oz Fuggles [4.10%] (60 min)
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.10%] (30 min)
1 tbsp 5.2 PH Stabilizer (Mash 0.0 min)
6.00 oz cacao beans (Secondary 7 days)
1 Pkgs US-05, Wyeast1056, or WLP001
OG=1.054
FG=1.013
IBU’S=33.5
SRM=40.5
ABV=5.3%
MASH INFO:
Single infusion/Batch Sparge/Full Body
Mash in with 14.38 quarts of water at 174. Should equalize to 156 degrees. Mash at 156 for 60 minutes.
Batch Sparge twice with 2.5 gallons of water at 175 degrees.
Boil for 60 minutes using the hop schedule listed in the ingredients section.
Add Nibs to primary after fermentation has ended, do not rack beer to a secondary. Just add the nibs to the primary fermentor. 2-3 days before adding them, soak the nibs in just enough Vodka to cover the nibs. Then dump them in, vodka and all, let sit on the nibs for 7-10 days max, 3 to 4 days seems about right. Add Milk Sugar if preferred.
501st Vader’s Fist Chocolate Stout (Extract Version)
6.60 lb LME Dark Traditional (Briess) (8.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM)
3.25 oz Fuggles [4.10%] (60 min)
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.10%] (25 min)
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)
6.00 oz cacao beans (Boil 5.0 min)
1 PKG US-05, Wyeast 1056, or WLP001
(For 5 gallon pot) Bring 1.5 gallons of water to 158 degrees and place grains in pot, place cover on pot and allow to steep for 30 min. Remove Grains and Sparge with 1 gallon of Hot Water in a strainer. Bring water volume to 4.0 gallons. Bring Water to boil and add LME and EKG hops. Add Sterling Hops at 30 min in. Then Add Irish Moss with 15 min left in boil. Cool and add top-up water to fermentor as needed to reach 5 gallons. Soak nibs in Vodka for 2 to 3 days and add nibs and vodka to primary after fermentation slows allow to sit on the nibs for 7-days. If you have the ability to do full boils, add your usual water volumes for a 5 gallon batch.
If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask.
Roasting your own grains is an awesome way to add another personal touch to your homebrew. I love roasting my own malts and even make my own crystal malt from time to time. It is so easy, and all you need is an oven and some time. Roasting your malts doesn’t take more than 45 minutes at the most, excpet for crystal malt. Be aware that I have found from my experience that roasting your own malt seems to reduce the amount of sugars you get, but maybe it’s just me. But it also adds some awesome malt flavor so I am happy with the trade, just use a touch more base malt, no big deal. I have made several beers using only home roasted malts for the specialty grains. Granted, you don’t have the consistency of professional malts, but you have added more home-made factor to your beer. For more on this topic or how to do your own crystal/caramel malts I suggest buying Randy Mosher’s Book Radical Brewing, which is where I based my roasting methods off of.
- For Pale Gold Malt (est. 10 L), which has a nutty but not toasty flavor, roast your base malt for 20 minutes at 250 Degrees F.
- For Gold Malt (est. 20 L) that is malty, caramelly and rich but not toasty roast your base malt for 25 minutes at 300 degrees F.
- For Amber Malt (est. 35 L) that is Nutty, Malty, and lightly toasty roast your base malt for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F.
- For Deep Amber Malt (est. 65 L) that is nutty, toffee-like; with some crisp toastiness roast your base malt for 40 minutes at 375 degrees F.
- For Copper Malt (est. 100 L)that has a strong toasted flavor with some nutlike notes roast your base malt for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.
- For Deep Copper Malt (est 125 L) that has a roasted, but not toasted flavor; roast your base malt for 40 minutes at 400 degrees F.
- For Brown Malt (est. 175 L) that has a strong roasted flavor, roast your base malt for 50 minutes at 400 degrees F.
- For Crystal/Caramel Malt soak 1-2 lbs of pale 2 row in just enough water to cover plus about an inch (make sure you use distilled, filtered tap, or spring water). Let soak for a few hours, but no less than 2 hours and no more than 24, I soak for 3 hours. Then Put grains into a pan and keep grains about 2″ deep then place into a preheated 180 degree oven (make sure you have a probe thermometer in the oven and not to let the temps inside the stewing grain to go above 160. If they do reduce your ovens temperature) for 1 1/2 hours. Then spread out grain into 2 separate pans and make sure the grains are no more than 1″ deep. Then increase temperature in over to 250 and let bake for 2 hours or until dry. Then if desired remove from oven for light crystal, or use the roasting guide above to create your own darker versions of crystal malt. Personally I like the 350 degrees for 45 minutes for a sweet roasty crystal malt. Experiment with 1lb batches and see what you like. I find that 1.5lbs is perfect, 2lbs seems to take way to long to dry.
Recipe: D.O.A. IPA
Brewer: Jason Johnson
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
D.O.A. IPA
Recipe Specifications
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Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.92 gal
Estimated OG: 1.066 SG (Actual was 1.059)
Estimated Color: 12.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 117.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
11.00 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM) Grain 70.97 %
2.00 lb Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SRM)Grain 12.90 %
1.50 lb Vienna Malt (Briess) (3.5 SRM) Grain 9.68 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.45 %
0.50 oz Newport [9.30 %] (60 min) Hops 13.6 IBU
0.50 oz Newport [9.30 %] (40 min) Hops 11.9 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe [11.90 %] (25 min) Hops 24.2 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (20 min) Hops 15.2 IBU
1.00 oz Palisade [6.30 %] (20 min) Hops 11.2 IBU
1.00 oz Palisade [6.30 %] (15 min) Hops 9.1 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe [11.90 %] (15 min) Hops 17.3 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (10 min) Hops 9.1 IBU
1.00 oz Glacier [4.50 %] (5 min) Hops 2.6 IBU
1.00 oz Palisade [6.30 %] (5 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
1.00 oz Glacier [4.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL #US-05) Yeast-Ale
Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 15.50 lb
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Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 9.03 gal of water at 163.3 F 154.0 F
Notes:
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This was a brew in a bag batch where all the water is added at once in the kettle while the grains are contained in a bag. The process had a few glitches, but the beer turned out awesome.
The last post was getting too long so I decided to split it into two sections. This one will cover the brewing session as well as the D.O.A. IPA that was brewed in a bag as covered earlier.
D.O.A. IPA review.
D.O.A. IPA from the total brew in a bag posting.
I cracked open the D.O.A. IPA that I brewed a few weeks back, and if you recall the hop aroma at the time of bottling was pretty much nill. As I suspected, the carbonation had a huge impact in correcting this. This beer quite honestly shocked me. I have made many beers in my day, but only about 10 batches really stick out in my head as being outstanding in my opinion. This beer actually is one of them.
The aroma is thick of citrus, mostly bitter orange, pine, and some lemon. I know that palisade hops contribute a nice orangy character and this came through very well. The pine and lemon probably are coming from the combination of simcoe, amarillo, and glacier hops. The malt aroma is very nice, biscuity and toasty malt backbone with some caramel mixed in there. What is most shocking to me is how bright the hop aroma is compared to almost getting none at the time of bottling. This just shows the effect of carbonation on the finished beer.
The color is a rich light amber, and quite hazy. I suspect it is from the 10 ounces of hops used. The head poured is very nice and dense. It lasted quite a while and produced a nice lacing.
DOA IPA head
The flavor is good, mildly sweet with some toffee notes as well as biscuty crusty bread. The hop flavor is mostly piney up front then right in the middle you get a huge influx of grapefruit. This fades quickly to a sticky resinous hop flavor that lasts a while into the finish. What is nice is the bitterness is high, but never harsh. In my personal taste, this is what I am looking for in an IPA’s flavor. A nice balance between malt and hops, but with hops winning in the end.
Overall the beer turned out very nice. All I want to say is the first words coming out of my mouth when I drank it were “Wow, oh wow. Damn.” and in all honesty, I don’t do that often, especially with my own beers.
D.O.A. IPA is mine 
Brewing A Roggenbier
Taking inspiration from the brew-in-a-bag method, I decided to use a 60 quart mash tun to try a semi- nosparge method. What I did was configure my mash as normal with 1 to 1.25 quarts per pound for the mash. Then when the mash was done, added all the remaining water at mash-out temperature to the tun. Then mixed the mash very well then ran off the wort. I have to say that although not as easy as the brew in a bag method and uses more equipment, it did work a bit more smoothly than with an full sparge.
Here is the Recipe.
He Let Me Push It Roggenbier
8.75 gallons of water
4lbs of Durst Munich
4lbs of Weyermann Rye Malt
2lbs Rhar Pale Malt
1lb of Wyermann Chocolate Rye
.25lbs of caramel wheat
1oz of Mt. Hood Hops (60) 5.1%AA
Wyeast 3638 Bavarian Wheat Yeast
1/2lb of Rice Hulls
3.83 gallons heated to 170 for mash temp of 154.
5.2 gallons heated to 198 for mash out.
Mashing
Run-off.
Boiling
Yeast is ready to go.
Just chill
Filling the bucket after fully chilled
Almost full.
Below were just some cool high speed shots.
Cool Shot 2
High speed and close up. Just pretty cool.
This weekend was a fun beer and brewing weekend. It all started off Friday with the Northernbrewer grand opening in Milwaukee. I then built a new mash tun, and had an epiphany related to the brew in a bag method I had tried. Finally, I brewed a Roggenbier this Sunday and tasted the completed DOA IPA which was the total Brew-in-a-Bag method. I will cover all of these in today’s blog postings.
Northernbrewer and The Brewing Network
Friday was culmination of my favorite mega-brewstore as well as my favorite podcast personalities. A friend of mine was going down for the grand opening of Northernbrewer in Milwaukee. I wanted to go, but I only had one day of vacation left. But then I learned that Justin Crossley and Jamil Zainasheff were going to be there as well. Well, that settled it. I could take a half day and tag along and not only attend the grand opening taking advantage of 10% off everything in the store, but also meet two of my favorite beer personalities. I am an avid listener to The Brewing Network since podcast 1 in 2005. Since then I have seen the conception of The Jamil Show/Can You Brew It, Brew Strong, and that other show. So this was a huge treat for me. Justing and Jamil are both great guys and easy to talk to. I would like to say we talked a lot of shop, but really it was more like talking with friends than grilling them about beer and brewing. Below are some pictures from the event.
Me with Jamil Zainasheff
Me and Justin Crossley
Heck, even Bub was there.
Building my new Mash Tun
This section will just be a series of pictures. Overall, this set up is 60 quarts (15 gallons) and cost me less than 50 dollars! I bought the cooler on sale at a local Walmart for $26. You have to wait until they want to get rid of them after summer. The hoses and hardware cost me $17 and some change at Menards. Here is the parts list.
1-30″ toilet supply line.
1 roll of 3/8″ OD vinyl tubing
1 roll of 1/2″ OD vinyl tubing
4 – 1/4″ hose clamps
1- small plastic valve (Drill out center screen).
60 quart cube.
Note, I need to add a 90 degree copper or stainless elbow to get better drainage.
All the hardware parts
The 60 Quart Cube Cooler.
You need to remove the inner hose from the toilet supply line. This can be difficult in a 30" hose.
You need to crimp and twist one end to prevent grains from going through the end.
Now you need to attach the open end to the 3/8" OD vinyl tubing. Then you wet the tubing by soaking it in hot water. This softens the hose and lubricates it. Then force it down the drainage hole in the bottom of the cooler.
Connect one end of the 3/8" tubing to the valve and if the other end is larger like mine was, attach the other end to the 1/2" vinyl tubing. If the valve sizes are the same on both ends, just use the 3/8" OD vinyl.
Inside shot. As you can see the angle of the hole leads the strainer up too high. For my first brew, I just tipped the tun, but I am going to add a 90 degree elbow to keep the stainless strainer on the bottom.
Here is the completed cooler.
Well, today I bottled DOA IPA, which is the batch from an earlier post where I tried that brew in a bag method, as well as used a hop bag. To the left is a picture of the sample I drank (keep in mind this is from the fermentor, so it is not carbonated) and the one clear bottle I filled. I normally keg now, but because I am in the process of finding a new chest freezer to build a new kegerator, I decided to bottle again until my new kegerator is built. So now that you can see what it looks like, lets give it brief taste.
So far there is not as much hop aroma as the bubbling airlock lead me to believe. However, it is also not carbonated. The carbonation is what pushes the aroma out of the beer so we will really have to see what that aspect is like in a few weeks.
The flavor is quite nice with a bit of sweet bread malt and a good citrus hop flavor. There is a bitterness that lingers long into the finish but it is not harsh. The mouthfeel feels a bit light, and there is no astringency. So far, this beer is shaping up to be a very good IPA. We will see if this holds up and improves with carbonation. Below are a few other quick shots I took.
Siphoning the beer into the bottling bucket.
The bottling bucket being filled
Two cases of DOA IPA.
Today I brewed an IPA using a whopping 10 ounces of palisade, simcoe, amarillo, and homegrown glacier hops. This beer also used 15.5 lbs of grain, including 2 row base malt, Victory, Vienna, and crystal malt. For the whole recipe, see the bottom of the post.
I have brewed many beers in my day, and most of them have been all grain, but this brew session was a bit different. I decided to to try out the brew in a bag method. This is where you use all your water, do not sparge, and all your grains are contained within a bag. Then instead of sparging, you just remove the grains and bag from the kettle and continue on with the rest of your brewing process. One thing I discovered is that a 5 gallon paint strainer bag is not big enough for a keggle. For next time I will have to use a custom made bag.
I had a very difficult time finding an accurate temperature. I was getting reading varying from 148 in the center of the mash, to 160 in the outer portions. I attribute this to having a bag too small for the process. The good news is I did get conversion, the wort was sweet. I realized that my hydrometer broke during the last brew session, so I gave a sample to my friend and he is supposed to email me the OG. I’ll see what my OG was sometime tonight (it turned out to be 1.059). Other than that, the process was very slick and I will be trying it again with a bigger custom made bag.
The second full bag method I employed was using a hop sack. Since I was using 10oz of hops, I wanted to be able to pull them out o fthe kettle making it easier to transfer with less hops to strain out.
Above are the hops, below is the way I hung the strainer as to not have it resting on the bottom. The bag was weighed down with two stainless steel nuts.
Here are the grains pulled from the kettle, my brewing friend Brian is holding the bag.
As you can see the bag is a bit small. Below is the hops pulled, and this is also a 5 gallon bag. It does appear I got a lot of hop character even through the bag because the bedroom where my bucket is fermenting in, smells very thick of hops. I like it, but my wife is not overly thrilled.
Any good brewing session is not complete without some good beers.
So, when all is said and done I don’t think my first brew in a bag session was a success. I don’t think the bag’s size allowed for a true representation of the method. So my main reason for posting this blog entry was to prove that even when many many batches under your belt, picking up a new technique can lead to mistakes. But as long as you learn from them and either adjust the new technique to fit your system. or drop it all together and stay with what works, at least you are trying to improve or simplify the process, which is progress. Before I end up tweaking the recipe, I will first get this process down. I really like the way this recipe looks, and contains some of my favorite IPA components: Simcoe and Amarillo Hops with Victory and Vienna Malts.
D.O.A. IPA
11.00 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM)
2.00 lb Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SRM)
1.50 lb Vienna Malt (Briess) (3.5 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (40.0 SRM)
0.50 oz Newport [9.30 %] (60 min)
0.50 oz Newport [9.30 %] (40 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe [11.90 %] (25 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (20 min)
1.00 oz Palisade [6.30 %] (20 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe [11.90 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Palisade [6.30 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Palisade [6.30 %] (5 min)
1.00 oz Glacier [4.50 %] (5 min)
1.00 oz Glacier [4.50 %] (0 min) -
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
2 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL #US-05)
9.6 gallons of water total heated to 160 to hit a mash temp of 154. (I did have a hard time hitting the proper temp with the small bag)
90 minute mash
Heated pot to 180 for mash out, removed and drained grains.
Boil=60 minutes
Ended up with 5.25 gallons total.
First off I am not going to just re-hash all the hard work others have put into writing books and such, besides they have done a much better job than I could ever do. I highly recommend checking out John Palmers site; How To Brew to get a good idea on how to get started. This is the same as his first edition book and it is free online. Or better yet you can go out and buy the 3rd edition. Anyway, on this page I will give a few tips from things I have learned while brewing. Some other great brewing books to add to your collection are Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels, Brewing Classic Styles by John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff, and Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher.
*Adding Chocolate Flavor to a beer. I have found that Cacao Nibs are the best choice. First off all, they are the roasted cacao bean. The base off chocolate. The problem with using bakers chocolate is that to bind the chocolate together they need to use some sort of fat. Mostly coco butter. The nibs don’t add any of the head retention killing fat. Plus with age any oils or fat will go rancid. This will not happen with the nibs. For best results just soak anywhere from 3 to 8 ounces in just enough vodka to cover the nibs. Then let them sit overnight. Add them to secondary, vodka and all. It even works better yet if you crush the nibs up even more than they already are.
* Adding Honey to a beer. Boiling honey or even adding honey to the primary will scrub out a lot of the flavor and aroma components that you are seeking by adding honey in the first place. What I have read works best (And this is how I do my honey lager) is to make 1 gallon less of beer than you plan to finish out with. Then when the primary fermentation is done, you boil then cool 1 gallon of water to 174 degrees. Then add your honey and let it sit in that hot water for 15 minutes to kill any nasties. Then cool that gallon in an ice bath. Add it to the secondary, then rack your 4 gallons (or full batch minus 1 gallon) onto that 1 gallon of honey water. You will get a second (less vigorous) fermentation, but it will retain a lot more of the honeys qualities.
* Full Wort Boil – This is the single best improvement you can make to your brewery. Even if you are an extract brewer, going to a full wort boil will make your beer much much better. All grain it is mandatory. You will get a better hop utilization, less burned wort (dark caramelization/unfermentable wort) just to name a few things. Buying an old dented keg and cutting the top off is the cheapest way to go full boil, plus then you can upgrade to 10 gallon batches if you wish. Those kegs are 15.5 gallons.
* Aeration- Not a must for starting out but if you are looking for some small tweak to bring your beer over the top, this is one of those things. The yeast will much more healthy and will ferment stronger and faster then without the oxygen rich wort. Just remember, oxygen before fermentation is good, oxygen added after fermentation begins or worse yet has completed is very very bad.
* Dry yeast – Many homebrewing “snobs” or homebrewers who have been brewing for many many years (from back when dry yeast was sub standard) will tell you liquid yeast is the only way to go. This is not true at all by a long shot. The technology has come very very far and there is excellent quality dry yeast on the market now. Fermentis is top notch and has the basic strains you could want to make about 90% off all the beer styles out there. I rarely use liquid yeast (only for heffe’s or a sour ale or other very specialized yeast flavor profile) and almost exclusively use one of 4 strains of dry yeast. I have been using Nottingham,But lately I have been using a lot of the Fermentis dry yeasts and LOVE THEM! For example you can use Fermentis US-05 (Same as Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001)for any ale you want a clean yeast profile for. I also use Fermentis Safbrew S-33, and I use Fermentis Saflager S-23. If you want to do an English Ale you can use Safale S-04 or use Safbrew T-58 for Belgian style ales. There are even a Belgian wheat specific dry strain out there from Brewferm but I have not used it. One thing you don’t want to use is those blank dry yeast packets that come with some of the kits. Just be safe and pick up at least some Nottingham or Windsor yeast. Dry yeast is cheap, high quality, and does not require a starter. If you want to do a high gravity beer, just pitch 2 packets. It’s still way cheaper than any of the liquid yeast. This is one case where the saying “you get what you pay for” is not true.
* Water – Many people want to jump right into adjusting their water’s mineral content or PH. Truth is, this should be the last part of your brewing technique you start to tweak. You need to really know your content of minerals and the PH of your water before you start adding acids, salts, or other minerals. From my experience, the best all purpose water I have found is just a generic brand spring water. It is free from chlorine, and chlorimines, and will have an average mineral content. The water I get is $3 for 6 gallons at my local Wal Mart. There are 2 other things you can do, that don’t really count as adjusting your water. One is to filter (if your not using bottled water), this is something to seriously consider doing if your using tap water. Another option is to use campden tablets to remove chloramines. I have done this in a pinch and it works well. You still need to let the water sit overnight. If you do want to build your own water, use distilled water. This water has no minerals or anything in it and you can easily build the water you want. DO NOT use distilled water for brewing without adding minerals.
* Roasting your own grains – Roasting your own grains is an awesome way to add another personal touch to your homebrew. I love roasting my own malts and even made my own crystal malt. It is so easy, and all you need is an oven and some time. You can click HERE to get a list of temperatures and times for different common roasts. Roasting your malts is fun and easy and doesn’t take more than 45 minutes at the most, excpet for crystal malt. Be aware that I have found from my experience that roasting your own malt seems to reduce the amount of sugars you get, maybe it’s just me. But it also adds some awesome malt flavor so I am happy with the trade, just use a touch more base malt.
It was pretty easy. As you can see from the pictures below. All I used was some 1/2″ copper tubing and some 90 and 45 degree elbows a few T’s and 2 female threaded attachments. For the spigot I used a brass valve, a brass close nipple a few Stainless steel washers and silicone O-Rings. Below are better Descriptions.
Here is the manifold at the bottom of the tun that will filter out the grains. Depending on the size of the cooler used cut the copper tubing to length. I used 4 elbows on the frame and 3 t’s. One facing up for the connector. For the connector I used 1 90 degree elbow right off the T connection and 2 45 degree connectors to form sort of a backwards Z so it came to the right spot on the cooler to meet up with the hole. I used copper bond epoxy which is good up to 185 degrees and is food grade. The mash should not get that high so things should be OK. Copper Bond is supposed to act exactly the same as soldering the joints. After it is assembled and bonded, I cut slits in the manifold with a hacksaw. Above, you can see the positioning in the cooler. Below is a close up of how I build the manifold.
For the spigot I just used a 1/2″ brass close nipple, 1 5/8″ Stainless Steel Washer, a 1/2″ brass ball valve, and a 90 degree 1/2″ to 3/8″ hose barbed hose adapter. The other side of the close nipple threads onto the manifold at the other end. There is a silicone gasket on this side as well right behind the washer. 
Although I Batch Sparge now, when I started I was Fly Sparging. If you want to Fly Sparge you can build a sparge Manifold like the one to the right. I built the sparge manifold the same way as the bottom, except I drilled holes for the water to shower down onto the grain bed and the T pointing up is connected to a straight piece of copper that goes through the lid and to another 1/2″ female adapter and a 1/2″ to 3/8″ hose adapter. Except it is straight through instead of angled to meet the hole like in the bottom. Below is a pick of the top of the tun, and the flip side of the lid pictured below that.
