Bottled up!

This weekend I set up the bottling line. The main purpose was to get some of this beer into 12 oz bottles for competitions at a later date. That’s one issue with always kegging... a bunch of really fine beers never makes it to judging. 

Five different brews were bottled up. 

1)      Belgian Golden Ale – 10% ABV

2)      Oaked Belgian Stout – 9% ABV

3)      Dry Irish Stout (Beamish clone) – 4% ABV

4)      Breakfast Stout – 8% ABV

5)      Jaggery Barley Wine - 10% ABV 

I have a bunch of the Belgian stout bottled up, but the rest were bottled for competitions only. The Belgian stout is really interesting. I have nothing to compare it to and I am really looking forward to what others have to say about it.

Revival RioT Red Ale

We brewed this hoppy American style Red Ale for the 2012 MLS season. We are all big Real Salt Lake supporters so the red ale was an easy choice. The team plays in Rio Tinto Stadium which has been dubbed the RioT, hence the name.

This beer uses a fairly rich malt bill but it is offset by a generous amount of hops. We did not do any bittering additions and instead went with a hop burst method. I really like the way all the late additions result in amazing hop taste and smell with very smooth bitterness. It turned out to be a really great beer that will be brewed many more times. Note this recipe is for a 20 gallon batch!

Brewhouse upgrades

Well it's the time of year for upgrading the brewhouse. The stage is set for some very big beers and big batches in 2012!

New milling platform
I purchased a 3 roller Monster Mill (MM3) with a 38 pound hopper. I mounted it to a metal cart from Home Depot. Driving it is a 1/2 inch variable speed D handle drill from Harbor Freight. The thing is working great after dialling the gap in.

26 Gallon mash tun and hot liquor tank

Presenting the 3 amigos. With the addition of a new 26 gallon mash and hlt, I plan on brewing quite a few 20 gallon batches!

New March nano brew pump

This thing puts the old 809 pump to shame. It is pretty quite too! This was mounted a small wheeled moving cart. I like being able to easily move it around rather than fixing it to one location.

New Fermentation vessel

And lastly I needed another place to ferment with all these other upgrades. I decided to try out using sankey kegs for fermentation. This keg is from GW kent. It is sold for the wine industry and they call it a topping keg. It has a 4 inch tri clover fitted to the top and a 1.5 inch tc near the bottom.

I then had synergy metalworks build me the 4 inch lid with ball lock posts and pressure release valve. There is a dip tube that ends about an inch above the bottom of the keg.

35 gallons in 8 days

I took advantage of the crazy warm weather and stayed busy over the Christmas break by pulling off 3 brews in 8 days! I had to use some carboys and buckets in order to do it. Haven't used those in a while!

Here is a quick summary of the beer in the pipeline.

Brew #1 (Dec. 24th)


Breakfast Stout (est. 8%)
10 Gallons. Contains Sumatra coffee, Cacao nibs, 85% dark chocolate, Oatmeal, and a lot of dark malts. Cold brewed coffee will also be added to the keg. A meal all by itself!

Here are some pictures from the brew day.

Crushing 34 pounds of grain

All crushed

15 gallon mash tun maxed out with 10 gallons of water and 34 pounds of grain.

The boil smells great.

Sésquac Imperial Stout

A huge bold RIS fermented with Wyeast 3711, French Saison. I brewed this with Great Divides Yeti RIS in mind. On a recent visit there I was able to try many of the variations of Yeti that they have produced. I most enjoyed the Belgian Yeti and decided to try and produce something similar.

This beer was brewed late September, so I suspect it is no where near its flavor peak. Still even this early on it is an incredible stout.

 

Grains & Adjuncts (10 Gallons)
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
29.00 lbs	79.45 %		Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel	60 mins	1.037
1.50 lbs	4.11 %		Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L	60 mins	1.033
1.50 lbs	4.11 %		Chocolate Malt	60 mins	1.034
1.50 lbs	4.11 %		Black (Patent) Malt	60 mins	1.025
1.00 lbs	2.74 %		Roasted Barley	60 mins	1.025
1.00 lbs	2.74 %		Rye, Flaked	60 mins	1.036
1.00 lbs	2.74 %		Wheat, Flaked	60 mins	1.035

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
2.50 ozs	33.64		Chinook	60 mins	11.90
2.50 ozs	25.86		Chinook	30 mins	11.90
1.00 ozs	6.68		Chinook	15 mins	11.90

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
9.00 pkg	French Saison	Wyeast Labs 3711

Mash at 150

M.I.C. Jaggery English Barley Wine

Yesterday we brewed up an English style Barley Wine. This is the richest and strongest of all the English style ales. This style should be a showcase of malty richness and complex, intense flavors. The character of these ales can change significantly over time; both young and old versions should be appreciated for what they are. 

In addition to some well modified english style malt, we pulled out the jaggery sugar to help with the complex flavors.  The jaggery we used are small blocks of sweetness made from concentrated sugarcane juice without the separation of the molasses and crystals. Unfortunaly it is not the seasonal type of  jaggery which is made from palm sugar. However it is still a fairly unique sugar type that we thought tasted a bit like southern style pralines.

Jaggery sugar

From the BJCP guidelines

Ingredients: Well-modified pale malt should form the backbone of the grist, with judicious amounts of caramel malts. Dark malts should be used with great restraint, if at all, as most of the color arises from a lengthy boil. English hops such as Northdown, Target, East Kent Goldings and Fuggles. Characterful English yeast.

Aroma:
Very rich and strongly malty, often with a caramel-like aroma. May have moderate to strong fruitiness, often with a dried-fruit character. English hop aroma may range from mild to assertive.

Appearance: Color may range from rich gold to very dark amber or even dark brown. Often has ruby highlights, but should not be opaque. Low to moderate off-white head; may have low head retention.

Flavor:

Strong, intense, complex, multi-layered malt flavors ranging from bready and biscuity through nutty, deep toast, dark caramel, toffee, and/or molasses. Moderate to high malty sweetness on the palate, although the finish may be moderately sweet to moderately dry (depending on aging).

Mouthfeel: Full-bodied and chewy, with a velvety, luscious texture (although the body may decline with long conditioning). A smooth warmth from aged alcohol should be present, and should not be hot or harsh .


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.00 gal     
Boil Size: 14.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.096 SG (actual 1.098)
Estimated Color: 20.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 52.23 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes
Mash temp: 153


Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                       
28.00 lb      Gambrinus Pale ESB malt
1.50 lb        Crisp Crystal 60                           
1.50 lb        Dingmanns Special B                    
2.00 lb        Jaggary Sugar                     
8.00 oz       Williamette [4.9%]  (90 min)                 Hops         52.23 IBU     
1 Pkgs        Nottingham slurry

Massivly Intoxicating Cervisia
Jaggery
Barley Wine

YAMber Ale and more...

It was a seriously busy weekend for home brewing.

I filled all my kegs and a bunch of bottles. I was also able to brew up a small batch of some Yam beer... More on that in a minute.

I needed to free up some corny kegs so I bottled the remains of my recent Cascadian dark ale and a big dark strong Belgian.

I then filled a keg with my Farmhouse Saison. It's been sitting in primary for 5 weeks. So I transferred it to a keg and will leave it in the basement for a while.

I also put my experimental old ale/braggot I brewed last Oct into a keg to carb. I will plan on bottling that in a few days. That one is quite interesting. You can find a previous post from my brew day on that.

Next I emptied the conical of the 10 gallons of Coconut porter. I put it into kegs where I will let it sit another week or so before carbonating it.


Then finally I wanted to brew an autumn beer... Yeah it's probably a little late but whatever.
I thought about a pumpkin ale, but that's pretty common now days. I decided to use yams instead. Probably not all that different in the end, but it sounds cool.

I did a small 7 gallon batch. Into it went 6 pounds of yams that I chopped up, sprinkled with brown sugar, and cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon, and cloves. That was baked in the oven and then mashed up. I dumped that into the mashtun and added a small amount of additional spices with 5 mins left in the boil. It's fermenting away now and I hope it is drinkable before the snow flies around here. If not it will probably end up as a holiday beer :)

So that's it... Busy couple of days.