Vanilla Bourbon Porter tasting

I popped open the first bottle last night and was unpleasantly surprised. The Vanilla had mellowed A LOT, almost to the point where I couldn't taste it. And, the carbonation was lacking to say the least. I've had it in the bottle for exactly 3 weeks, and the only thing I can think of is that it's too cold in my kitchen where I store them. I moved them into the dinning room right next to the heating vent last week. Hopefully that will have an effect, but I don't know.

I had big hopes for this beer, and it still tastes pretty awesome, but the carbonation sucks and I need more cowbell.........I mean vanilla. Any hints on what went wrong or how to fix it? I primed with 5 oz. of corn sugar. Do you think the addition of the bourbon killed off the remaining yeast which would lead to little or no carbonation??

Let me know what you think!

Cheers,
Jason

Brewing Calculations site

Marcus over at Final Gravity found a great site on brewing calculations. It has temp corrections for Hydrometers, Refractometer conversions to gravity from Brix/Plato, yeast pitching rate calculator and a fermentation calculator. Very cool site. I'll post the link on the sidebar on the left as well for permanent use.

http://www.brewcalcs.com/

Cheers,
Jason

First All Grain Batch

Today, I made the jump to all grain brewing. It's been a long time coming. I've been saving up so I could upgrade my equipment to allow me to do all grain. I recently bought a 10 gallon Rubbermaid mash tun from more-beer and a 60,000 BTU propane burner. Added to the blichman brew kettle my wife bought me for my b-day, I'm ready to rock.

I wanted to do a somewhat easy beer, but something I could brew a lot and make my "house" beer. Lately, I've been hooked on Harpoon Brown Ale. It's their rendition on an American Brown, with some good up front bitterness, and balanced malt sweetness. I'd probably tell you it's my favorite beer right now, but that's because I have one in front of me.

My goal for my first batch, was simple.....clone the harpoon Brown and I'm good. So, I went out their site and noted the stats (they don't list malts or hops they use) and hoped to try and match that. I've been listening to Jamil Zainasheff over on the Brewing Network and he had a show on American Brown ales, so I took his recipe and scaled it down to a 6 g batch and reduced the IBU's so it would be closer to Harpoon. I had a problem though, because the day before i was listening to his show on APA's and when I was going through my notes I seem to look at the APA recipe at the last minute and made a change from cara-pils to Munich, why I don't know. Not sure how much of a difference it will make, but we'll see. Below is the recipe and stats.

American Brown Session Ale

OG - 1.052

FG - 1.010

ABV - 5.5%

quarts per lb - 1.3

Fermentables:

10 lbs American 2-row

.25 lbs Victory Malt

.5 lbs Munich Dark

.75 lbs Crystal 40L

.25 lbs Crystal 60L

.5 lbs Chocolate Malt

Hops:

1 oz Phoenix (10% AA - 60 min)

.5 oz Amarillo (7% AA - 15 min)

.5 oz Amarillo (7% AA - Flame out)

Yeast:

Wyeast 1.056 American Ale

Grains were mashed in 4 gallons of water. Dough in was at 164 f and mash stabilized for 60 min at 150. The mash temp dropped to about 148 f by the last few minutes, but I think it was because I had the top to the mash tun off a bit then getting ready for the sparge. Sparge was with 5.5 g of water at 175 f. The wort boiled down to about 6.5 gallons and I collected about 5.5 in the carboy.

Cheers,

Jason

Catching up - Christmas Ale

I've been a little distracted lately. I've been on the hunt for a new job, interviewing and traveling almost every weekend for some reason or another, and entertaining family a few weeks ago for my B-day. My B-day was a great one. I was pretty bummed about turning 30 this year, no0t because I think it's old, but because I feel old. I used to be a great athlete back in college (I'm usually modest, but I'm 30...time to be proud), but since then my lazy attitude toward training, and ridiculously busy schedule has led me to gain a ton of weight, and constantly injure myself. So, needless to say, even though I was turning 30, I felt like I was turning 60.

But my attitude changed greatly, when my wife pulled out the best gift a home brewer could ever get....a shiny new Blichman Boilermaker 10g brew kettle complete with the Brewmometer, ball valve spigot and borisilic glass sight gauge (yes, I know...my wife rocks). So, what to do with my new kettle....well, brew DUH!

So this weekend, I spend the few hours of free time I had brewing a Christmas spiced beer. I was always a fan of the Saranac Seasons best beer in college, so I wanted to make a spiced ale for Christmas. My brother has always said he has a Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale every Christmas eve while putting the kid's toys together, so I told him my goal was to make one to replace that. My intention wasn't to clone it, but to make a very big, warm and spicy beer that you can enjoy by the fire on Christmas eve, or anytime during the winter. Hopefully I hit the mark. The recipe is below:

Christmas Spiced Ale (recipe created on tastybrew)

Target OG - 1.082

Actual OG. - 1.084

Fermentables:

6 lbs light DME

4 lbs light LME

1 lbs wheat malt

1.5 lbs Munich light

1.54 lbs crystal 80L

Hops:

2 oz. Kent Goldings pellet (5%AA - 60 min)

1 oz Tettnanger plug (4.5%AA - 2 min)

1 oz Hallertau pellet (4.5%AA - 2 min)

Spices:

.5 tsp fresh ground cinnamon (10 min)

.25 tsp fresh ground ginger (10 min)

.25 tsp ground nutmeg (10 min)

1.5 cinnamon sticks, 2 inch (secondary)

Wyeast 1056 - American Ale (primary)

Wyeast 1056 - American Ale (secondary)

I was hoping to have a little more aroma and taste from the spices when I racked it to the carboy, but it was very faint. Next time I will definitely shy away from the plug hops too. They broke apart and clogged by auto-siphon and it was a pain in the ass to get it to the carboy. I will add the remaining cinnamon sticks to the secondary to hopefully get some more spice in the beer. That all depends on how it turns out.

Cheers,

Jason

White Water Rafting on the Kennebec River

I spent this past weekend with some friends up in The Forks, Maine doing some white water rafting with the Northern Outdoors company. I've never been rafting and I was very excited. My wife, not so much. She was petrified! But, she faced her fears, and got on the river and loved it. We rafted on the Kennebec river leaving from a Hydro electric dam about 20 miles north of where we stayed. Luckily for us, Saturday was a scheduled dam release, so the normal 3,400 CFS (cubic feet per second) was more than doubled to 8,700 CFS. That made for some pretty big rapids, two sections were class IV. It was a long day, but we all managed to stay in the boat without getting tossed by the rapids, thanks to our guide Nick Atwood. I recommend him if anyone goes up there. He knows the river well and will make the trip a lot of fun for you.

The best part of the weekend happened when we got to the lodge and I realized that not only was this an outdoor adventure company, but they were a brewpub too. They had 5 beers on tap this weekend, Kennebec Logger (a pilsner lager), Kennebec Summer Ale, Big Mamma Blueberry Ale (named after the big mamma rapids), Ripogenus Red (amber ale), Magic Hole IPA, and were out of their Class V Stout which according to all the guides is there best beer.

My personal favorite was the Ripogenus Red, but I really liked the blueberry. It was a lot darker than most commercial blueberry's I've seen, but it tasted every bit as good. Although we didn't eat dinner there, we had breakfast and lunch and both were fantastic. I am definitely going to plan another trip. They also raft on two other rivers up in Maine, The Dead River and the Penobscot river. The Dead river is supposed to have equally big rapids, but they last almost the entire 15 miles. It has the most continuous white water than any other Eastern river and some are even class V. The Pennobscot is a much bigger class river with bigger rapids, mostly class V, but they are short technical sections. Our guide is pushing us to come up and do the Pennobscot next as he said it's so much better.

Cheers,

Jason

Robust Vanilla Porter

I had high hopes for this beer. After making a test batch and missing the mark, I decided to move forward with a full 5.5 g batch. I used tastybrew for the recipe formulation and couldn't wait to get brewing. The brew day started off very well, and I noticed as I was steeping the grains there was a frothy foam in the kettle. I figured that was from the flaked barely, which helps with the head of the beer.

I went into the boil, and hopped as scheduled. After I cooled the wort and topped off to 5.5 g, I took a gravity reading and to my surprise, I overshot it by a mile! I couldn't (and still can't) figure out why I overshot it that much. After the session, I re-did the recipe in tastybrew and in my spreadsheet thinking I miscalculated, but it was exactly what it should be. My only thought is that the guy at my LHBS didn't hear me right and gave me more than asked for. I guess I'm going to have to start re-checking everything I buy, which sucks.

I bought two Madagascar vanilla beans which I'll boil to sanitize and add them to the secondary and most likely will add an additional packet of yeast. I'm still confident this beer will finish well, just not exactly like I planned. Sometimes, that's not a bad thing I guess. Recipe and stats are below.

Batch Size - 5.5 g
Boil volume - 4 g
Mash ph - 5.0
Target Gravity - 1.057
Actual OG - 1.082

Fermentables:
8.5 lbs Dark Malt Liquid extract
.5 lbs British Crystal 135-165
.5 lbs Black Patent
.5 lbs Chocolate
.5 British Brown
.5 Flaked Barley

Adjuncts:
2 Madagascar Vanilla Beans (secondary)


Hops:
.5 oz. Challenger (7.5% AA - 60 min)
.5 oz. Challenger (7.5% AA - 30 min)
.5 oz. Fuggle (5.1% AA - 15 min)
.5 oz. Fuggle (5.1% AA - 1 min)

Yeast: - Wyeast 1275 -Thames Valley

New Notes:
(9/2) - Fermentation started with a bang. I woke up this morning to see that overnight, it had blown through the blow off tube into the collecting bowl and already dissapated back down into the carboy. It's still bubbling very frequently (every 2-3 seconds) and hopefully will ferment all those extra sugars I apparently put in.

(9/9) - It's still bubbling away. The bubbles have slowed to about once every 20-30 seconds, but it still going. Once it slows considerably, I'll rack it to the secondary and add the vanilla beans.

(9/15) - I racked it to the secondary yesterday and took a gravity reading (1.020). It still has a little ways to go. I halved the vanilla beans and they are soaking in 1/2 cup of Basil Hayden's small batch bourbon. I'll add that to the secondary tonight.

Cheers,
Jason

Fresh Hop Harvest Ale

I had a great bewing day today. I was able to harvest a small amount of my cascade hops (I took 1 oz) and brewed my Fresh Hop Harvest Ale using the Cascade hops right from the vine as well as some Centennial pellets. I used Tastybrew to pull the recipe together since my recently created spreadsheet is not reliable at this moment. I was able to hit my target gravity right on the money. Below is the recipe and brewday stats.



Stats:
Water PH - 5.4
Mash PH - 5.0
Target Gravity - 1.056
OG - 1.056



Fermentables
7.5 lbs Amber Malt Liquid Extract
2 lbs. Pale two-row
.25 lbs Belgian Biscuit
.25 lbs CaraPils
.25 lbs Crystal 20L
.25 lbs Crystal 40L



Hops
.5 oz Centennial (pellet, 10.5% - 60 min)
.5 oz Cascade (fresh wet hops, 6.6% estimated - 30 min)
5 oz Cascade (fresh wet hops, 6.6% estimated - 15 min)
.5 oz Centennial (pellet, 10.5% - 5 min)
.5 oz Cascade (fresh wet hops, 6.6% estimated - Dry hop in secondary)

Yeast
Wyeast #1056 - American Ale


New Notes:
(9/2) - Primary fermentation went great. When I woke up the next morning, the bubbles were vigourusly popping. I racked to the secondary 8 days later (8/29) and added another .5 oz of fresh picked hops. Thankfully, I have another ounce or so on the vine which I'll dry and store for later use. The hop smell was amazing. Fresh cascade aroma filled the air as I racked the brew. I gave the .5 oz that I was dry hopping with a big squeze and rub to release some more aroma and dropped them in. I'm getting very excited about this beer.

(9/15) - I bottled this yesterday. When I uncovered the carboy to bottle, it had an interesting white film on the top of the beer. It tasted fine as I sipped the hydrometer sample (1.012) so I'm not too concerned. Hopefully the hops didn't have a bacteria on them when I dry hopped. Anyone have any experience with this or have seen this film on their beer before?

(10/6) - Bad news.....I tried the first bottle and it is completly ruined! It tastes like vinager so I'm going to jhave to dump them all. I'm am not happy. I guess thats the risk you run with fresh hops....lots of bacteria on them. Next year I will make sure that I boil them all and not dry hop with them. I had real high hopes for this one....oh well!!!



Cheers,
Jason

Me vs. A Big Bear

It's a slow day here at work, but a friend of mine sent this to me today and I had a good laugh and thought I needed to share. We were at a post wedding reception "after party" and I got in a slight tussle with a bear. I totally kicked that bear's ass. I mean, if it were alive....I would have killed it! Anyways....back to work.

Test Porter and Starter Session

Last night was a busy night for me. I brewed two 1 gallon batches. One was just a gallon of un-hopped wort for starters, and the other was a 1 gallon test batch of a Porter. And the most exciting part about last night was it was the first time I got to use my new wort chiller that I bought from Beer-Wine.com.

For the 1 gallon starter batch, I was able to squeeze 9, 500 ml bags of starter wort to save for later use. I separated them out in Ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. My goal here is to start to save and re-use my yeast for future batches. Not only will it help with the cost aspect (I hope to be brewing a lot more now) but a friend of mine tuned me into the tidbit that if I plan on making a lager, that the best results come from 3rd or 4Th generation yeast. That being said, I'm starting. I'm going to order some test tubes so I can store them in the fridge and label them easily.

The 1 gallon test batch was a little different. I completely missed my target gravity (reached 1.046, target was 1.057). After the boil, I had to add some chilled water to try and top off to a full gallon but was unable to reach a gallon before the gravity was already at 1.046 (I originally measured it at 1.096 after I chilled it). I have no clue how that happened. I followed my recipe from tasty brew to the T, but was still not able to make it happen. Unfortunately because I was trying to multi-task my two brews while watching the Red Sox/Rangers slug fest, I took horrible notes and now can't go back and review. It's currently in the jug fermenter (Carlo Rossi jug....thanks for the idea Ted) so we'll see how it comes out in the end. It looks and smells fantastic, but I was a little dissappointed when I took the gravity reading. I guess this will be a good learning experience....if I can ever figure out what the lesson is?!?!?!?

1g Starter:

1 lb extra light DME

Boiled in 1 gallon of water for 10 min, chilled and bagged.

1g Test Porter:

Fermentables
1 lb Muntons Dark DME
4.2 oz Chocolate Malt
2.1 oz Crystal 120
4.4 oz British brown

Hops
.5 oz UK Challanger (7.5%AA - 30 min)
.5 oz Cascade(6.6%AA - 15 min)

Wyeast #1275 - Thames Valley Propagator

Cheers,
Jason

Almost Harvest Time

The hops are growing at record pace and I'm psyched. I'm working on the fresh hop APA that I'm going to make with them, along with some centential pellets. I can't wait. I couldn't believe how quickly they grew from just 2 weeks ago. I gave them a squeeze last night and they are still a little ways away from being harvested and some of them are weeks away. I'll post the recipe and pictures of the harvest as it happens.

Cheers,
Jason