January 21st Brew Day

[Mike Grover]

Well unless the forecast changes dramatically we are going to have a pretty tame January brew day this year. It is supposed to be sunny and in the low to mid 70s. I will be brewing a Dusseldorf altbier. Wayne will have the monster system here. Who else is brewing?

[BigWally]

I'll be brewing a roggenbier.

Nice weather?! BOOOOO!

[Brian B]

I will be brewing an Imperial Stout.

Brian

[bpillmore]

I am new to the group and this will be my first outing. I have a starter kit and I am beginning with some malt extract kits. Would there be someone that would help me through the process? (I have a brewer's best kit for an IPA)

I am looking forward to meeting you all and learning from you.

Thanks!

Brian

[Llama]

I am new to the group and this will be my first outing. I have a starter kit and I am beginning with some malt extract kits. Would there be someone that would help me through the process? (I have a brewer's best kit for an IPA)

I am looking forward to meeting you all and learning from you.

Thanks!

Brian

Smart move! There are will be a large number of seasoned brewers available to help you. I wish I had done this when I started.. it would have accelerated the learning curve greatly.

Taking it one step further the club offers "Club Brewmeisters" specifically to help.

Proost!

[TheMacheteMasher]

Brian B has graciously offered spent grains for a party gyle. I'll bring some hops and create a witches brew!

He is doing a roasty imperial stout. The remaining should be shy of a dry stout.

.

[Bill Lawrence]

bpillmore, in the interest of having you be wildly successful on your "virgin" journey, post your recipe. That way, we can kibitz and make sure you have the right stuff before the brewing even starts. I am personally adverse to using extract kits with the hops already included because you never know what the manufacturer actually used (and adding your own hops is easy). Also of course, IPA's need to have big time hop flavor and aroma and you can't get that from a can. Although I am probably not the best one in the club to advise on the hoppy stuff, there are plenty of guys who are into the "hop delivery vehicles" who can help you out. I see Mr. Beyers will be there, he is a good resource as he makes alot of really hoppy beers (of course you need to put up with his "surly" demenor but that is a story for another day). For whatever it's worth though, I would try to hop burst the stuff as well as dry hop it, the lads can certainly show you how it's done and all that is within the reach of an extract brewer. Brew days are of course a great way to learn if you are new, the only problem is that the distractions can be, shall we say, distracting (beware bomber bottles and anything with a cork).

[bpillmore]

Taking it one step further the club offers "Club Brewmeisters" specifically to help.

I will take all the help I can get! Thanks and I look forward to seeing you all there!

[bpillmore]

bpillmore, in the interest of having you be wildly successful on your "virgin" journey, post your recipe. ... I am personally adverse to using extract kits with the hops already included because you never know what the manufacturer actually used (and adding your own hops is easy). ... For whatever it's worth though, I would try to hop burst the stuff as well as dry hop it, the lads can certainly show you how it's done and all that is within the reach of an extract brewer. Brew days are of course a great way to learn if you are new, the only problem is that the distractions can be, shall we say, distracting (beware bomber bottles and anything with a cork).

Bill - Thanks for the gracious offer of help. I hear what you are saying on the hop additions. I welcome any advice and I can pick up some additional ingredients before Saturday if you let me know what to get. I will try to watch what I am offered to drink. Perhaps I will ensure that I watch what you stay away from and follow your lead (not sure if that is wise or not).

As for the recipe, here is the basic rundown... Full details are here: http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/1037 ... le_Ale.pdf

Ingredients
FERMENTABLES
6.6 lb. Light LME
1 lb. Golden DME
SPECIALTY GRAINS
1 lb. Caramel 40L
8 oz. Victory
HOPS
3.5 oz. Bittering
1 oz. Aroma
YEAST
1 Sachet

Steps

STEEP GRAINS
Pour 2.5 gallons of clean water into your brew pot and begin to heat1. Pour crushed grains into grain bag and tie a loose knot at the top of the bag2. When the water is within an appropriate steeping temperature (150º - 165ºF) place the grain bag into the brew pot3. Steep grains for approximately 20 minutes. Remove grain bag and without squeezing, allow liquid to drain back into brew pot. Your water is now wort.

START BOIL
Bring your wort to a gentle, rolling boil. Add all of the included LME and DME to the boiling wort. Continuously stir the extract into the wort as it returns to a gentle, rolling boil.

ADD HOPS
Slowly sprinkle the bittering hops into the boiling wort. Be careful not to let the wort boil over the pot. Using the provided BREW DAY SCHEDULE (right), note the time the bittering hops were added. Continue the gentle, rolling boil.

BOIL SCHEDULE
1. Add bittering hops 0:00 (time)
2. Boil 55 minutes
3. Add aroma hops 55:00 (time)
4. Boil final 5 minutes
5. Terminate boil 60:00 (time)

COOL WORT & TRANSFER
Cool the wort down to approximately 70ºF by placing the brew pot in a sink fi lled with ice water7. Pour or siphon wort into a sanitized fermenter. Avoid transferring the heavy sediment (trub) from the brew pot to the fermenter.

ADD WATER
Add enough clean water (approx. 64º - 72ºF) to the fermenter to bring your wort to approximately 5 gallons. Thoroughly stir the water into the wort. Be careful not to add a volume of water that will cause the wort to fall outside of the OG range specifi ed in the BREW STATS8. Once you are satisfi ed your wort is at the proper volume and within the OG range, record the OG in the ABV% CALCULATOR (right).

PITCH YEAST
Sprinkle the contents of the yeast sachet over top of the entire wort surface and stir well with sanitized spoon or paddle. Firmly secure the lid onto the fermenter. Fill your airlock halfway with water and gently twist the airlock into the grommeted lid. Move fermenter to a dark, warm, temperature-stable area (approx. 64º - 72ºF).

Sorry for the length... not sure if posting in this format is standard in the forums. Let me know if the link is plenty and I will just do that in the future.

[Bill Lawrence]

The malt bill looks good to me. It's too bad they don't tell you what type of hops they are giving you, I bet it's Cascade but one never knows. I would at the very least dry hop the stuff and maybe rearrange the late hops as well but again, that depends on what hops they are providing. Again, talk to Bryan about what you're doing, he is not half as stupid as he looks. Also, I see Walter and Mike will be around, they are also knowlegable.When it comes to cooling the wort, get one of the guys to let you run your stuff through their wort chiller, it will save you time as well as trap some hop aroma for you. Even if you do the kit exactly like the directions indicate, it should provide you with good beer so as they say, "relax and have a homebrew". Actually, this brewing stuff is really not all that hard, if it was, morons like us would not be participating. Just concentrate on learning how to handle 5 gallons of wort and have fun, I bet it will work out great for you. By the way, I still remember my first batch, it was serious swill but I must say, it was efficatious. While you are at it, buy a few examples of commercial stuff so you learn what you think is good. I personally like Dogfish Head 60, Ranger IPA and Bells to name a few. I could pretty easily find really good clone recipes for all of them you could make with extract so you could have you pick on your next attempt. Finally, after you finish brewing this batch, make another one. Porter is a very good beer for newer brewers, it's fairly forgiving and as the boys will tell you, I once had a semi religous experience drinking porter. Incidentally, it would likely be a bad idea to hold me up as a role model, as you will likely learn quickly enough, temperance is not exactly one of my virtues.

[JGraham]

I am relatively new to the club as well, but I'll bring my turkey fryer set up and brew a batch of Irish Red Ale. I can post the recipe and I would definitely welcome any comments and/or critiques.

Thanks,

Graham

[Bill Lawrence]

For some reason, I had to brew several batches of Irish Red before I got one I liked. I brewed my version just last week and put it into secondary on Sunday. Initial tasting was encouraging so I guess I'll see what happens. Actually, that style should be easy, I guess I'm not the "sharpest stick in the shed". Anyhow, post your recipe, I would be interested to see what you are going to try. In my opinion, this style is all about balancing things out correctly and as noted, it took me awhile to get what I thought was decent. Of course, I'll probably get my ass handed to me on a silver platter come the Bluebonnet. I used Irish Ale yeast on this version, last time I made it I used the Fuller's strain and it worked out pretty well. I like just a touch of diacetyl which both strains will give you (and alot if you are not careful). The recipe I use reminds me of the kind of stuff we did back in the day 20 years ago, I put a pound of brown sugar into the boiler, it tends to dry it out a bit which I think works out pretty well. This year I have my Irish on as I brewed both this as well as a dry Irish stout so now I should theoretically be able to make a traditional "Black and Tan".

[JGraham]

For some reason, I had to brew several batches of Irish Red before I got one I liked. I brewed my version just last week and put it into secondary on Sunday. Initial tasting was encouraging so I guess I'll see what happens. Actually, that style should be easy, I guess I'm not the "sharpest stick in the shed". Anyhow, post your recipe, I would be interested to see what you are going to try. In my opinion, this style is all about balancing things out correctly and as noted, it took me awhile to get what I thought was decent. Of course, I'll probably get my ass handed to me on a silver platter come the Bluebonnet. I used Irish Ale yeast on this version, last time I made it I used the Fuller's strain and it worked out pretty well. I like just a touch of diacetyl which both strains will give you (and alot if you are not careful). The recipe I use reminds me of the kind of stuff we did back in the day 20 years ago, I put a pound of brown sugar into the boiler, it tends to dry it out a bit which I think works out pretty well. This year I have my Irish on as I brewed both this as well as a dry Irish stout so now I should theoretically be able to make a traditional "Black and Tan".

I'm still searching for a great Irish Red, and this may be my best effort thus far. The recipe as well as mashing and fermentation steps are below:

Ingredients/basic steps (7 gal. batch):

Fermentables:
9.5 lbs. Two-row (British)
1.0 lb. Munich (German)
1.0 lb. Crystal 40L
0.5 lb. Crystal 120L
0.5 lb. Victory Malt
0.25 lb. Roasted Barley
0.2 lb. Chocolate Malt

Hops:
1 oz. East Kent Goldings (5.0% AA), 60 minutes
0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings (5.0% AA), 15 minutes
0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings (5.0% AA), 5 minutes

Yeast:
1 packet Wyeast 1084 (or Safale S-04)

Mash @ 156 degrees for 60 minutes

Primary: 1 week
Secondary: 2 weeks
Force carbonation in keg

[Bill Lawrence]

Well, my initial take is that your beer is going to be pretty roasty, and pretty chewy. If you are tying to win in a competition, you might want to check out the style guidelines because I think both those attributes may cause you some problems. My go to beer in this style is Smittwicks which is a fairly small beer for the style I admit. You have damn near 1/2 a pound of heavily roasted malt when you consider both the roast barley and chocolate malt together. Also, you have 1 1/2 pounds of crystal malt (and by the way, the 120L is going to add some roast notes as will the Victory) which is going to cause the beer to be pretty heavy with alot of residual sweetness. What O.G. are you aiming for (I could figure it out for my system but yours might yeild very different results) and what IBU level are you targeting? What you should be going for according to the guidelines is a beer that is slightly dryer and slightly hoppier than a Scottish ale (the operative word being "slightly"). You can also get away with a slight roast aspect to the beer but more than slight is going to be an issue. On the other hand, your formulation might taste really good and after all, what the hell do those judges know anyway? The thing about this hobby is, you can do pretty much whatever you want, it's your beer.

[JGraham]

I'm shooting for an O.G. of 1.050 to 1.053 and 18 to 22 IBU -- I think I would be able to hit the O.G. and the IBU from the full recipe. Maybe I could reduce the roasted barley and chocolate malt by close to half (.15 lb. roasted barley and .1 lb. chocolate malt) and maybe reduce the crystal malt some to reduce the heaviness, since I'm looking to enter it in competition.

Thanks for the comments thus far!