brewing in maine

So I picked up a bag of Weyermann Pilsener malt a few weeks back and it’s been sitting in the corner of my dining room just waiting to get cracked open. Got it for a song and it should cover at least the next 4 or 5 lagers or Belgians on the list.

It seems like a good idea to have a large amount of base malt laying around now that I finally have a grain mill. I’m thinking of picking up a bag of Crisp Maris Otter for any British beers I want to brew (think biscuity) so that all I need is specialty grains. It keeps the costs down.

Now if only I could get moving on culturing a few key strains of yeast and growing aroma and flavor hops I wouldn’t have to buy much of anything when it comes time to brew.

I tore into the bag this weekend for a traditional Bohemian Pilsener:

12 lb Weyermann Pilsener malt
0.75 lb Carapils (dextrine malt for head retention)

Mash at 154 degrees for 60 minutes, collect enough to end up with six gallons after a 90 minute boil.

1.75 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 60 minutes for 20.3 IBU
2.25 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 30 minutes for 13.3 IBU
1 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 10 minutes for 2.3 IBU
1 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 0 minutes for 0 IBU

WLP800 Pilsener (Urquell) in an active 2L starter (1.3L pitched)

Ferment at 52 degrees. I could only get 54 in the basement and the lager fridge is in lagering mode at 34 degrees right now.

The mash went well, though the grain looked a little more crushed than usual. It was my first crush with the new mill, the Barley Crusher, which was a breeze to use. It came fully assembled, you just stick in on the top of a 5 gallon bucket, hook up the drill, fill the hopper and let it rip. It’s fast and clean with no dust at all.

I definitely learned a lesson about whole hops as well. It was the first time I haven’t used pellets and I underestimated quite how much boiling wort would absorb into the hops, especially 6 full ounces. I only made a fermenter volume of about 4.75 gallons and had to top it off with some water.

The OG before the water addition was about 1.068, 12 points higher than it should have been, so I diluted it to 1.056 with three quarts of cold water. This also brought the temp closer to the target pitching temperature.

The WLP800 should attenuate down to around 1.014, or 75%, for an ABV of about 5.8% and a nice Saazy hop flavor and aroma.

The Tripel I brewed waaaaaay back in September and cold conditioned for almost five months, just because I didn’t get around to bottling it, is finally in bottles. Final gravity in the carboy was 1.007 for an alcohol by volume of around 9.84%.

It was actually easy once I had everything I needed. We saved bottles as we drank Belgians, and then I bought a case of 12 to round it out. A full 5-gallon carboy fit into about 25 750ml bottles.

After unsuccessfully trying to beg or borrow a corker I caved and picked up a Portuguese Floor Corker at Maine Brewing Supply ($72 later, ouch!). I bought a package of reference corks for Belgian bottles and a bag of twist cages to hold the pressure.

According to ProMash I needed 6.3 oz of priming sugar to get 3.25 volumes of CO2 in the conditioned beer. Because the carboy had sat at cold temperatures (42 deg) for nearly five months I felt like it would be wise to re-pitch fresh yeast, so I rehydrated 2/3 package of Safbrew T-58 and pitched it into the bottling bucket. I had read that T-58 is well known for forming a solid sediment after conditioning is complete – we’ll see how that turns out.

The bottles are currently stored on their side in my living room and the heat is locked at 66 degrees. It usually goes down to 58 in the daytime to save money on oil – oh the things we do for beer!

Tasting notes to follow someday…though I will open one in a couple of weeks, I am hoping this one will be good to put up for a while.

We tried some cider before it fully carbonated and man is it alcoholic, to the point that it overwhelms the other flavors and completely takes over the cider. I’m thinking the quantity of Maker’s Mark might have been too much, or maybe the yeast didn’t finish their job properly and convert some of the more solventy alcohols down to their final forms.

I’m hoping that given some time the flavors will mellow and with cold and carbonation things will even out a bit.

As for the Framboise I dumped half of it (a full case!) before I said, “maybe I should just try one of these, just to be sure.” It was spectacular! Any hint of the cardboard oxidized flavor of the one previously tasted bottle was gone completely – these were great beers. A lucky break – I saved the rest for storage.

The Tripel is still in the fridge cold conditioning. I’ve been waffling between bottling it in Belgian bottles and just kegging the damn thing so I can drink it. I don’t have quite enough bottles, nor corks or corker, so I haven’t done anything yet.

Also there’s a Porter in the future, someday.

Happy new year.

I’ve been so busy with house projects I haven’t had time to brew or post about it. The tripel is still in secondary cold conditioning and the cider is still in its bucket, unbottled. But I just finished the last of the Helles keg, so that’s something. Still the best beer I’ve made and one I will repeat next spring.

If I can get all the tile installed that I have to do this week I might finally get around to bottling. But it means I’ll have to come to grips with dumping both cases of Framboise that went cardboard on me. I guess I have to finally accept it.

Today I added the 4 oz of lightly toasted American oak chips that were soaking in Maker’s Mark to the cider. I’m going for a barrel-aged kind of flavor with a hint of bourbon, hopefully not overwhelming. I poured off (I know, sad) most of the bourbon before the chips went in. We’ll give them a week, taste it, and see how it turns out. If it’s done, it’s into the bottles.

This one will be interesting.

I went ahead with the cider recipe and it’s fermenting in my 7.5 gallon bucket right now. Mistakes were made, but I’m thinking they won’t be a big deal.

I bought 7 gallons of local cider from the grocery store – it was pasteurized – and decided upon some research to skip the Camden tablets entirely. I sanitized the bucket, lock and cover and dumped it all in. OG on the cider was around 1.042.

Into the cider went both vials of yeast, a White Labs English Cider WLP775 and a White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale (Westmalle yeast). Then I realized that the cider temp had to be somewhere in the low fifties. Not good.

No action for 24 hours, but then a little bit of bubbling, and by this morning it’s cranking. The top of the bucket is bulged up and the lock is burping away. Without Campden tablets I do have to be very careful about the timing of my next sugar addition (the honey, molasses and cane sugar) because once the yeast are done something else might move in. I intend to check the gravity in another 24 hours to see where we’ve gotten to.

The cider yeast attenuation is over 80% and the Westmalle is around 80% tops so this should be nice, dry, strong cider when all is said and done.

The Tripel has been racked to its secondary where it will live for a week and then head into the fridge for a week of cold conditioning. I was shocked to find it had fermented all the way down to 1.008! That’s the best attenuation I’ve had yet, assuming I hit my OG which I’m not sure about, practically 90%.

It smells great and tastes good too, all kinds of clove, fruit and not much of an alcohol-heavy flavor at all. Looks like I survived my fermentation temp rise so far.

This one should come in around 9.5% ABV once all is said and done.

Last year we did two ciders, one straight up with wine yeast, another with British ale yeast. The Brit ale came out better, slightly less dry and with more complex flavor. The wine yeast cider was good, but very dry.

This year it’s going up a notch. The initial plan (likely to change) is as follows, for a 7 gallon batch:

7 gallons apple cider (~60 lbs.)
1 lb. molasses
1 lb. local honey (from our bees, thanks ladies!)
4lb. table sugar
1 cup pureed raisins

Wyeast 4766 Cider
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale

Ferment the cider first with the 4766. Then add sugars, raisins and Belgian yeast. After fermentation is wrapped up add 4oz medium toast bourbon-soaked French oak cubes along with the bourbon. Might try to use finings as well to clear it up.

The goal is a complex, strong cider that doesn’t ferment all the way down to dry, ready in time for the holidays. Might do it this weekend…maybe next.

So I’m going to try something new here on the blog. In addition to writing about homebrewing I am also going to review some beers, bars, etc. while I’m at it.

First beer on deck, Achel 8 Brune – the Dubbel.

Tasted in an Achel goblet. Chilled the bottle from room temp for maybe 15 minutes in the fridge so it might have been a touch warm, but it seemed about right.

Appearance – Deep reddish-brown in color with big head, both in quantity and size of bubbles. Didn’t lace much at all. Slightly cloudy appearance but mostly clear – probably some yeast knocked loose from the bottom of the bottle. The head subsided quickly.

Aroma – I was surprised to find not much of one. No hop presence I could detect, caramel and nut and a wonderful slightly funky/musty farmhouse kind of yeast smell.

Taste – Warm but without any solventy or alcoholic flavor. Caramel aftertaste married to more bitterness than expected. No hop flavor. Some tarty sour/farmhouse but proportionally not much compared to the aroma.

Mouthfeel – Silk. Absolute silky smoothness assisted by the fizz of high carbonation.

Drinkability/Experience – A strong but smooth beer that represents the style well. Smoother than some other Dubbels out there, Chimay included – possibly due to Achel’s use of Westmalle yeast and a step mash that results in good balance of dextrins.

The smells coming from the Tripel as it ferments have been pleasantly fruit-like but subtle. Once the cane sugar went in, however, the room nearly filled with a banana ester flavor. It must be something to do with the way the yeast process the cane sugar. Since we’re doing a renovation on the house my brewing books are boxed away in storage so I can’t do much for research.

I’m concerned that the esters will be too powerful, or linger too much, but maybe a lot of it will be reabsorbed as the yeast go dormant. Either way it’s to style from what I’ve read.