achouffe tripel

Ive been so lazy lately....
trotting upstairs and blogging in the 95 degree plus bedroom has taken a backseat to things like playing the legend of zelda in the 68 degree living room.......

excuses

either way I think my blog is going to start to head more in the direction of only being posts of kick ass things that I've brewed or thing's that I am committed to re brewing to perfection, it may also open up to food, as Iv'e decided to dedicate the next few months to cooking traditional Mexican dish's, I'm so enamored with this idea that I have even been considering taking up the meat again (suuuuuuuper small quantities) just to get a handle on it.
anyways

said recipe is a direct reaction to Sean's tripel. It sounded really really good so I wanted to brew something similar but with a twist. What I came up with is a riff on a Achouffe recipe. ( thank you Drew Beechum)

Basically a tripple but sub in a ton of wheat and aromatic, and hop with a ton of amarillo for huge apricotty notes, this recipe is definitely in the rebrew group, It isn't attenuated enough... but I'm finding this to be a touchy subject for the style. This beer finished around 1.013 - 1.015 which is a bit too high for the amorphous tripel/belgianIPA style. I have been finding that alot of belgian ipa brewer's have been finding out about how well spicy ( read: not fruity) belgian yeasts go with amarillo hops.
In my humble opinion, These belgian IPA's need to finish in the 1.010 - 1.013 range with a malt bill that exaggerates honey or lite munich type malts (read: honey malt or a carapils/munich mix).
I pick up a strong to lite plastic/rubber/phenolic like note in many of the belgian beer's that feature high IBU's/late hop character, I am no scientist but I think that this will be the area that is honed in before this becomes a BJCP recognized style.

anyways

heres the recipe... change's for next time will include more base malt subbed out for dextrose and more amarillo!

OG. 1.080
FG. 1.014
IBU 50 IBU - Rager
SRM - 7
80%Eff

7Gallon pre boil'
6Gallon finished boil'


2Row: 69%
Wheat Malt: 26%
Aromatic Malt 5%


.50 pounds brown sugar @ 45 minutes

HOP SCHEDULE

Amarillo@ 8.5% .75oz@20min .75@10min .5 @ 2min

Citra @ 11% .25@20min .25@ 25min .25@ 2min

columbus 14%@ .5 @ 60min
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.hopefully more to come soon

Bowie 3

I've finally got Bowie Porter to a flavor profile that I'm pretty pleased with. The only changes that I'm thinking of for a re brew are ones to turn this into a straight up baltic porter, as is, I feel like this beer is already skirting the line.

Bowie Porter

1.054 OG
1.012 FG
5.5% ABV
33 IBU
80% EFF
7.5 GAL



71% Marris Otter
8% Munich malt
4% Brown malt
12% E. Crystal 85L
5% E chocolate malt

Fuggles @ 4.5%

50grams @ 60min
14Grams @ 15min

148 degree mash for 9o minutes

us - 05

beers...

I've brewed alot of shit recently. For posterity, here's the numbers.






Drunk Tank Ari Red ( or D - TARD)

I managed to brew this one cleanly amongst the chaos of having 7 or 8 drunken friends around ( yay me!) , most notably our good friend Ari who showed up at the beginning of the brew day 6 beers in ( go red wings! ) After asking me " your still brewing!?!????" 50 million times and letting his creepy stache near my beer twice as many, this beer carries his namesake.


One of many malt bills I've cribbed from jamil recently

1.067OG
12SRM
76IBU
1.013FG
6.8%ABV
86% eff

80% 2row
7% munich
7% crystal 40
3.5% crystal 120
3.5% victory

zeus 16% 1oz @ 60min
amarillo 8.6% 1oz @ 10min 1oz @ 2.5 min
cenntenial 7.8% 1oz @ 10min 1oz @ 2.5 min

dry hopped with:
1.5 oz centennial



American Mild

Inspired by the delicious "shut the hell up" i had at the alchemist pub and brewery in vermont. delicious, smells like a big double ipa yet is only 3.5 %ABV
The idea is to have a have a super sesionable, yet drinkable and hoppy beer.




1.041 OG
1.013 FG
3.5% ABV
25 IBU
80% Eff

91% marris Otter
6% Aromatic
3% Victory


Centennial @6% 14.2G at 5min
Simcoe @12.2% 7.1 G at 10 min 14.2G at 5min
Columbus @14% 21.3G at 5min 14.2G at 5 min 21.3G dry hop
Amarillo @ 9.8% 32 G at flame out

1.oz centennial
.5oz columbus

1.5 weeks @ 68degrees

keg hopped with:



an american brown with all columbus. Hoppy and resiny as fuck.
I used US 04 to see how it's fruitiness works with an american type hop and malt bill.
This yeast is a super shitty attenuator so that's where the pound of sugar comes in.
after using it a few times, I've got to give a thumbs down to US 04, while giving some very bright red apple and pear notes to a beer this yeast will just not attenuate past 6o% without adding dextrose.
I'm also feeling like columbus has changed. To me it is much less fruity and pungent compared to a few years back

American Brown

1.066OG
56IBU
80%Eff
1.012FG

10.5 # 2 row
1 # sucrose
.50 # C - 40
.25 # C60
.25 # Victory
.50 # Chocolate

Columbus @14%

1 oz. at 20min
2 oz at 10min
1 oz at 2 min

keg hopped with:

148 degree mash

us-o4

Being Lazy

I've been very lazy brewing and post wise recently... mostly because of this thing sucking up my pre work free time.



no excuse though as ive brewed...

2 brown porter's, a NW red ale, a belgian ipa, an Orval type beer,a dark triple for blending, and a scottish 60 shilling since the last post.

Ive moved to a busier work schedule to save some extra money hopefully I can catch up on the blog soon.

Hop Shot/ Pils Pale

So Quinn is in love with the candy like taste of Pilsener malt and demanded a pilsener based pale ale. As the "some one who must be obeyed" in my life I obliged. I thought this would be a good chance to try out the " hopshots" that I have recently aquired.


What are hop shots you say? These are the home brew sized doses of the hop extract that the big (actually little) guys use i.e. Russian river, Avery, Lagunitas, etc. This hop extract basically separates all the flavor and bittereing compounds from a Columbus hop while leaving the hop mass behind. In a nut shell you get all the good in a handy syringe while leaving the vegetle hop mass behind. Columbus is my favorite so I was pretty stoked on this brew.

The hop extract squeezes out alot like toothpaste, all in all very weird. The literature that came with the hop shots was pretty confusing. 1 ml in 5 gallons for 60 min in a 1.050G wort equals X...easy until you get into 5 minute and flame out additions. Anyways shorthand I found that the hop shots basically work universally as a 13% AA hop addition in whatever program you use.
At this point hop bombs aren't my obsession, YesI love hoppy beers, and I fiend Pliny/the maraja/hop stoopid/alpha dog etc. from time to time, yet im far more interested in the malt. That said... as a home brewer, Holy Shit! I can't wait for the day when hop extract is available right there next to whole/plugs/pellets. If I could get a range of hops in an extract form I would brew double IPA's and Reds every day!
The wort loss from whole hops as well as the un sanitariness of whole leaf dry hopping are the main reason I like the hop shots.
anyways I'm rambling,
Here's the recipe

HOPSHOTPILSPALE
brewed 1/20 ish

1.054 OG
1.010 FG
5.8% ABV
44 IBU
6 SRM
6 Gallon
86% Eff


90% German Pils
5% Wheat Malt
5% C 50L

150 mash for 90 minutes

Amarillo pellets 8.7%AA 15 grams@ 90min - 20 IBU
Hop shot "13% AA" 5ML @ 15min - 13.5 IBU
Hop shot "13% AA" 5ML @ 10min - 11 IBU

Zeus @ 16%AA 1 oz dry hop at 35F for 1 week
Zeus @ 16%AA 1 oz keg hop


Wyeast 1098

fermented at 67 degrees for 3 days
raised to 70 and continually roused for a week
lagered at 34 degrees for about 2 weeks before dry hopping.

* again, sorry for a lack of pictures

Sour Beers

Belgian wheat (DeDolle)

Brettanomyces lambicus Wyeast

Brettanomyces sp. Rodenbach Foederbier

RF1 Rodenbach Foederbier

Pediococcus sp. Rodenbach Foederbier

Brettanomyces sp. Ongefilterd Palm

Brettanomyces sp. New Belgium La Folie

LF1 New Belgium La Folie

LF2 New Belgium La Folie

Lactobacillus delbrueckii Wyeast

ah AlB's famed Rodenbug Blend. A mixture of yeast and bacteria from the highest pedigree; blended in a ratio perfect for sour flanders type beers.

about 20mins after pulling it out of the fridge

Waiting on a list and repaying AlB in sour beers seems to be the norm. So I'm feeling very grateful, as well as a little guilty, for having brewed 2 beers from Sean's original pitch of this blend.

The first beer brewed was a Flanders Red ale recipe straight from the back of Wild Brews ( a wonderful book by Jeff Sparrows). This was also the second collaboration brew between myself and Sean. The brew day went down with out a hitch, except for us forgetting to add the tritcale until 70 minutes into the mash. All in all it was no big deal, it converted, and even if it didnt the bugs would eat through that starch like a pack of starvin' Irishmen.

The recipe is as follows:

Flanders Red. Brewed on 1/30/10

Recipe is for 12.9 gallons pre-boil, 11.7 gallons post-boil, all grain

O.G. 1.060 IBU's 16

12.25 lb. Vienna Malt

5 lb. Flaked Triticale

2 lb. Aromatic malt

2 lb. Caravienne

1.5 lb. crystal 15

.75 lb. Special B

.5 lb. crystal 120

.5 lb. crystal 75

***

52 gr. Willamette whole 4.7% AA 60 min

Mash 7.5 gallons water with the following additions:

5 gr. chalk

1 gr. gyspum

2 gr. calcium chloride

2 gr. baking soda

Mash in to 156

Forgot to put in the triticale! Put in at 20 minutes, dropping the temp to 148.

Pulled .75 gallons of mash liquor and heated to boiling, adding back to mash.

This raised temp back to 158

Total mash time 75 minutes

Sparge with 8.5 gallons at 170

Collect 12.9 gallons at 1.054 = 81% efficiency

Boil 60 minutes

yeast nutrient at 10 minutes

Chilled to 70, aerated by shaking for 2 minutes

pitched a slurry of AlB's Rodenbug blend / cali ale yeast

Fermented in the mid 60's for about 3 weeks, then racked to secondary for aging. Gravity was at 1.020.

*** damn you Sean! and your non percentaging self


After racking this beer into a corny keg for bulk storage, Sean was kind enough to let me keep a small pitch of the now 3rd generation rodenbug pitch. Into the fridge went the yeast and off to vacation I went; now 1 month later Ive finally gotten around to brewing a beer with my pitch.

Over vacation, Quinn and I did some brainstorming over what we wanted our sour beer to be. I knew that I wanted this one to be different from the other sours I've done by having a malt complexity in the finished product. Quinn wanted a sour beer that would get a fair amount of it's sourness from malic or citric acid a la Consecration or even more recently Supplication. After toying around with making a biscuit bomb as a base beer, I reconsidered and settled on making Tomme Arthur's Lost and Found Dubbel as our target base beer. If you have never had this beer, it could best be described as over the top: a blend of many very flavorful malts that that coalesce into a bready raisiny/plummy whole. Anyways, I thought this over-the-top base would still shine through a bit after being soured. *
This summer, Quinn and I hope to source some fruit to freeze or use immediately in this brew. I'm thinking raspberries or possibly cherries. (Quinn's coworker's grandpa own a cherry farm: "Quinn see if we can get schaarbeek cherries!")

* Interestingly the percentages for Lost Abbey's double (sans sugar) match up pretty close to the Wild Brew's recipe for Cuvee de Tomme.

Anyways the recipe is as follows:

Brewed 4/1/10
Quinns Birthday Beer
OG 1.087
24 IBU
27 SRM
7 gallons
87 eff.






65% Belgian Pale
8% Wheat
4% German munich
6% Aromatic
3% Biscuit
3% Caramunich
3% Caravienne
8% Special B

09' US Fuggles 4.1%AA
- 2 oz @ 60 min

152 mash

cha cha changes

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strain.
Ch-ch-changes.
Gonna’ have to be a different beer.
Time may change me, but I can’t trace time."
"
sorry but this IS Bowie Porter part 2.. couldn't help myself.


I also just got back from vacation and have no batteries in the camera so I've got to apologize for shitting the bed image wise.

So Bowie Porter was a bit of a disappointment, by no means a bad beer, yet no where near the brew i was targeting ( Fuller's Porter, Anchor Porter, BJCP brown porter etc.). my complaints with Bowie #1 was with how malty it was. The brew finished very dry yet had an over powering "brown malt" character reminiscent to the Mild ale I brewed with Sean a few months back,again it is by no means bad tasting yet not quite as drinkable as a proper English ale should be. I'm finding brown malt to be alot like biscuit/victory malt to my palate, flavors I enjoy but only at very restrained percentages.

Bowie #1 didn't have the right caramel character either, much too shy, I'm looking for a strong toffee note and darker flavors like plum and raisin that the Fuller's and Anchor example's highlight so well.
Any ways, the original recipe was so off that I changed quite a few things instead of following the common wisdom of only changing one thing at a time.
anyways, here's the changes.

Bowie Porter #1

1.049 OG
7 Gallons
26 IBU
22SRM
85%Eff


76% Marris Otter
12% Brown Malt 70L
10% English Crystal 75L
2.1% English Chocolate 450L

Mashed at 152 for 60 minutes


43G Fuggles@ 4.75%AA 90 min
14G Fuggles@ 4.75%AA 15 min





Bowie #2

1.054OG
24IBU


80% Maris Otter/Golden Promise
5% Brown Malt 70L
4% British C - 75L
8% British C - 120L
4% English chocolate 450L

Fuggles@ 4.5%AA

32G @ 90
14 G @ 15

wyeast 1028

Pedio Infection (or) K.Y.-iezenbock

So I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of a weird infection that 2 cases of wheat bock got.







I have pretty much narrowed the infection down to Pediococcus because after 3 months in the bottle it has contributed a significant lactic sourness and some Diacetyl.

The infection is some what understandable since the wheat bock was brewed during a time when I was brewing nothing but sours. What is so confusing is the purity of the infection. Assuming it is an infection from some sort of transfer line, than this beer should also have a heavy brett presence ( lacto too if it weren't such a pussy bacteria) but it doesn't.

The other interesting aspect of this infection is the "ropiness" or at least this is what I think is going on. The wheat bock finished around 1.012 ( wayyy too low which is why it was bottle conditioned to age in the first place) but tastes like it has a FG of around 1.050! It's reminiscent of carbonated maple syrup.

I have never had "ropiness" or had an intentionally sour beer get "sick" before so I'm pretty fascinated about this, it is also my understanding that when beers get "sick" it is usually not until after the bulk of souring is done, immediately after bottling seems fast.

So what to do?
Malt and bitterness wise this could make at the very best an interesting sour beer. My concerns are:

1. how long does the "ropiness" last

2. how much diacetyl will it produce ( it's no where near objectional at this point)

3. How to add brett to about 45 bottles to metabolize the diacetyl should it get out of control

BALTIC THUNDERBOLT!

Photo's from a great day of brewing Baltic Porter and racking some sour beers with Sean.




























cold steeped Carafa 2






























Victory's Baltic Thunder
























Adding the cold Carafa right before sparging



Sean stirring the mash

























Mash foam art


Fresh Lupulin


racking my portion of Flanders red for bulk storage





















a nice pitch of Al's Bugfarm for a later use

























Sean's Homemade bazooka tube









Dealing with the plate chiller's ''gravity feed'' issues


















































the money shot




right on mark at 1.076 OG

dis-re-garde

Biere de Garde, yum, One of the styles I find fascinating. I drink about ten times more Saison yet find its French sister even more intriguing, this is most likely due to the lack of information on it, (Farmhouse Ales is great but history aside, I feel it doesn't goes as deep into Biere de Garde as it does Saison).


Farmhouse Ales describes most classic examples as having a "huskiness" or "maltiness" that can be mimicked with additions of munich and biscuit/victory. The preportions of these malts that are recommended seem a bit too high to me though. To me the best bottles of the examples I can get ( La Choulette, La Goudale, Castletain, and Jenlain) only seem to have a very low level of husky/toasty maltiness, the prominent flavor seems to be a candy like sweetness from quality pilsener malt, low hopping and a fermentation that lets the malt flavors shine.


For my recipe I ended up using mostly German Pilsener, Aromatic malt and U.S. 6 Row. What's that you say? 6 Row? that malt used by BMC for its diastatic power to convert shit tons of rice and corn into fermentable suger? Yes! I am starting to love this malt for the grainy/husky notes that it gives when used like a specialty malt. Almost every old school English recipe I've brewed seems to include 6 Row and it has allowed me to get a pretty good handle on it.

The part of my recipe where I am really deviating from what is recommended is in yeast choice. Rather than using a super clean ale or lager yeast Ive decided to use T - 58 a wit beer yeast. This choice was based mostly on

A. I am a cheap ass

B. This yeast gives off big pepper esters that I feel will compliment this brew if held to low levels

C. I want to test how a low fermentation temperature, a larger pitching rate and an extended lagering will effect ester production in beer brewed with an expressive yeast.







Dis - re - Garde


6.5 Gallon Batch
1.070 OG
5 SRM
22 IBU - Rager
83% Eff
90 Minute Boil




69% German Pilsener
21% US Six Row
3.4% Aromatic Malt
6.9% Cane Sugar


Mashed at 143 - 146 degrees for 100 minutes, then mashed out at 168 degrees before fly sparging.



50G Willamette - 3.7AA @ 60minutes


Pitched 2 Packets of T - 58 (23 grams, or roughly 400 billion cells)

fermented at 65 degrees.













And equally important...




Mashed in to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, Hunkydory, and The Fall

Sparged and Boiled to Iggy Pop's Raw Power and Blood On The Wall's self titled.

Hop Oil

What is it? how its made? how to use it? and most importantly how the fuck do you take a clear picture of a bottle so small?

I picked up a small dropper of this stuff at Steinbarts a few weeks ago and it's taken me a while to get a good handle on it. The only information the bottle gives is that it adds aroma and flavor without bitterness and to use it at a dose of 1 drop per 12 oz finished beer. hmmm not alot to go off of. The most info homebrew shop guy could offer up is that its fun to put in peoples budweisers at parties, not being a huge fan of secretly dosing peoples beers with mysterious chemicals at parties I thought i might try it out in some commercial beers as well as homebrews.

All in all I think this stuff is great.
Whatever the stuff is that Steinbarts is selling its 100% Centennial based.
At first I didn't care for the extract because I felt it had a twang. Now that Ive been using it for a while i realize that the twang is really just the total purity of this stuff. It basically tastes like the concentrated yellow lupulin that gather's at the bottom of whole hop packages. whats different about it is that nothing is mellowed from fermentation and therein lays it's weakness. It's awesome but only when used in the presence of many other aroma and dry hops, otherwise the flavor and aroma seem too focused. 1 drop in 12 oz. of an other wise non hoppy beer is going to make said beer taste like you dry hopped it with upwards of 4 oz of centennial. Mix it into an IPA though and this stuff is great. At 5 bucks a batch i think this stuff is a steal.

so what is it?

acording to Hop Unions website

Preparation:	Oil - fractionated from whole LCO2 extract and purified by vacuum distillation Essences - fractionated from whole oil by column chromatography
Major Role:	Enhancement of hop aroma and flavor in beer
Method of Use:	Oil - addition to the kettle or added to the final beer as in dry hopping Essences - addition to beer at any post-fermentation stage

Composition
Oils	-	pure varietal oils or a blended oil
Essences	-	1% solution of hop oil fraction in 80% ethanol
Late Hop Essence Spicy	-	terpene and sequiterpene oxides and alcohols
Late Hop Essence Floral	-	the ketone fraction

Advantages

Oils - easy to handle and store - standardized and consistent - available in variety specific or generic forms Essences - easy to handle store and use - standardized and consistent - available in generic and now variety specific forms Both - provide means for precisely adjusting and controlling the flavor of beer - produced totally by physical means with no chemical processing - free of residues and foreign matter

Disadvantages Oils - require emulsifying or shaking with alcohol-based solvent prior to use Essences - costly shipping of flammable materials in small quantities Both - minimum quantity and notice required for variety specific product

I'm curious to try thhe hop oil pre fermentation. I'd be willing to bet it's like adding food grade lactic acid. gross post fermentation but not too bad when fermentation has mellowed and rounded its character.

Quinn's Anarchy Wheat Wine

I'm taking no credit for this brewday as it was Quinn's beer and i was pissed for the majority of it. I probably shouldn't post it, but what the hell? Heres for posterity sake ( oh and this beer actually tastes AMAZING going into secondary)




A wheat wine based on an excellent Smuttynose example we had in Vermont over the summer as well as the beautifully hopped Barley Wine that the local favorite Walking Man Brewery makes. The idea with this one was to have a focused malt profile with all caramel/melanoidin based flavors coming from the extended boil. Quinn used some nice clean magnums for most of the IBU's along with lots of late hopping with fuggles for a nice woody, green hop flavor that should meld well with some of the ester that the wyeast 1028 puts off.

This massive beer was brewed on our Sunday. The only major issues with this beer where:

A. I had brewed the previous 2 days and had no interest in helping
B. Whether or not the mash would fit in our mash tun was never looked into pre brew
C. The kettle that was used was not marked for volume so the boil was wonkity
D. The brew day which consisted of a 3 hour boil started late in the evening


The Massive mash which had to be mashed and maintained in two separate vessels.


Quinn maintaining the mashes'


when added together the main mash filled up about 13 to 14 gallons of my keggle tun


I believe this is what happened


6.5 Gallon batch
1.120ish
7 SRM
100ish IBU
73% eff
9.5 Gallon pre boil volume
1.075 pre boil OG
152 degree mash



59% Marris Otter
61% Red Wheat Malt

57G Magnum@ 13.5% @ 90 minutes
28G Fuggles@ 4.75% @ 15 minutes
28G Fuggles@ 4.75% @ 10 minutes
28G Fuggles@ 4.75% @ 5 minutes

pitched a massive starter of wyeast 1028 at around 64 degrees. Took off to around 70 degrees in the first 12 hours or so before quickly being taken down and holding at 67 degrees


This mess from cleaning a carboy is probably why our roomate is moving out. (whoshitthetub?)

Dictator Of Hops For Life

Bitch's ain't shit!
This beer is gross. Big for Bridgeport but the hop variety's they chose are gross. oniony and pungent, yuck! It's rare for a sixer to stick around for a few days at my house yet this one did.
That said the retarded image and name have also stuck around for a while at my house ( sneaking up on your lady telling her your the "hop czaaaaaar" never gets old)







anyways, I brewed a big bad ass ipa myself named "Dictator of hops for life"
It's basically a blind pig clone. I've brewed this one before and it's the type of IPA I like, aggressive high cohumulone bitterness, and big centenialish aroma and flavor hops. The only major process change is the warm steeping at the end of the boil. I basically add my flame out hops and then cover the boil kettle for about ten minutes before starting the chiller. Ideally this mimics commercial breweries "whirlpool" and will extract more flavor from the late hops whithout letting too much DMS form. It should be interesting to see how much this will increase the late hop character of the beer as well as how much added bitterness i get from the hops sitting in the kettle an extra 10 minutes.

anyways the recipe is

HOPS DICTATOR FOR LIFE

1.068 OG
6.5 ABV
6 SRM
86% eEff
7 Gallons

90% 2 row
3.5% wheat malt
3.5% C- 40
3.5% Carapils

42g Chinook (13.0%) - 60.0 min
15g Cascade (5.8%) - 30.0 min
28g Cascade (5.8%) - 15.0 min
15g Amarillo (8.5%) - 2.0 min
15g Simcoe (13.0%) - 2.0 min
8g Amarillo (8.5%) - dryhop
8gSimcoe (13.0%) - dryhop
15g Cascade (5.5%) - dryhop
28gCentennial (10.0%) - dryhop

us-05

pitched and fermented at 67 degrees