First Homemade Wine

I’ve been meaning to take a crack at making wine for awhile now, with the intentions to making about 2-3 batches a year.  Recently, Midwest Supplies did a Groupon* for a wine starter kit, which was a deal  too good to pass up.  The deal included the basic home wine making kit (including a 6 gallon Better Bottle secondary fermenter) , a choice of two different ingredient kits (Coastal Red or Coastal White), and a $25 voucher towards a future purchase, all for about $82, including shipping.  Needless to say, this was a crazy good deal.

I ended up going with the Coastal Red kit.  From the perspective of a homebrewer, making wine from a kit was pretty straight forward.  “Brew day” was much shorter since it essentially entails mixing up some water, the grape juice, and nutrients in a fermenter and pitching the yeast.  There are few more steps that you have to take along the way that you don’t have to do with brewing, like degassing and stabilizing, but other than that, it was pretty straight forward and the end result came out pretty tasty.  If you can follow a cooking recipe, you can make wine with kits like this.  I think I may do a Malbec as my next kit, but time will tell.  Here are a few pictures from my first wine:

Sample of the wine at bottling time.

Left: my Fresh Hop IPA in the secondary, Right: my first wine in the secondary.

The finished result of my first wine about 3 months after bottling.

*Note: Midwest has done a very similar deal on Groupon and on Living Social for a homebrewing kit.  For someone looking to get into the hobby, it’s a fantastic deal.  I imagine they will be running the deal for the wine starter kit again also.

Song of the Day: “Worlds Apart” by Times of Grace

Beer of the Day: Liefmans Goudenband

About That …

Yikes – it has been about three months since my last post.  About time I got back in the saddle.  Not much excuse for not posting – just kind of lost track of the blog for a bit and got busy with a variety of events.  Anyways, I have been keeping busy with a variety of fermentables (including my first cider and wine), so there actually is a decent amount of stuff that I want to update on.  To keep it a bit more manageable, I’m going to split it up into a few pieces (pretty much a post for each batch).  So without further mucking about ….

One of my better book purchases of the last couple years, is the book that Stone Brewing Company came out with about a year ago.  Besides giving a great history of one of my favorite breweries straight from the source, the book also has some awesome homebrew versions of a bunch of beers that they have released over their history, including a lot of rarities and one-time releases.  Among these recipes, was Lee’s Mild – a dark English mild that Stone released early in its history, that didn’t fit in with their portfolio and was never released again by the brewery.  Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a fantastic beer.  Finding myself wanting a flavorful English session beer, I decided to give this one a whirl. 

I love this beer for a variety of reasons.  One, it’s a damn tasty beer.  Two, its sessionable.  Three, it challenges peoples’ perceptions of craft beer.  Some people are convinced that all homebrews are these big, strong beers that will get you drunk after just one or two.  This beer (and the style, for that matter) is proof that even craft brewers and homebrewers enjoy being able to have a few pints without getting sloshed.  Clocking in at just 3.8% ABV, this beer has less alcohol than a Coors Light.  The other way it challenges people is that it disproves the myth that low alcohol correlates to low flavor.  Think again, buck-o; this bad boy has a surprising amount of depth and never fails to satisfy. 

I definitely recommend brewing this, or some sort of English Mild, for all your session drinking needs – whether you need a batch for a party, or just want a tasty beer to be able to drink a few of.  This is roughly the recipe from the book, although I have modified it a bit for ingredients on hand and rounding some of the weights.  This will certainly be finding its way into my regular rotation. 

A glass of Lee's Mild held up to a light. 

Lee's Mild Clone

Recipe specifics:

Style: Mild

Batch size: 5.2 gal

Boil volume: 3.5 gal

OG: 1.041

FG: 1.010

Bitterness (IBU): 24.9

Color (SRM): 18.8

ABV: 4.0%

Grain/Sugars:

4.00 lb Maris Otter Malt, 46.6%

3.15 lb NB Marris Otter LME, 36.7%

0.62 lb Brown Malt (British), 7.3%

0.56 lb Crystal 135-165L (British), 6.5%

0.25 lb Pale Chocolate Malt, 2.9%

Hops:

2.00 oz Sonnet (AA 4.0%, Pellet) 60 min, 23.9 IBU

1.00 oz Sonnet (AA 4.0%, Pellet) 2 min, 1.0 IBU

Yeast/Misc:

English Ale yeast, 1.0 unit(s), Yeast

Irish Moss, 1.0 unit(s), Fining 1 tsp at 15 min

Song of the Day: “Focus Shall Not Fail” by All That Remains

Beer of the Day: Iron Hill/Ithaca Dark Humor Aged in Sherry Barrels

Competition Update

Well, Philly Beer Week has come and gone, which means that the flurry of brewing competitions that was my first half of the year, is winding down.  So far this year, I’ve entered five competitions – three of which, were AHA/BJCP category formats, while the other two were single-entry competitions.  Here’s a little wrap up of the competitions so far this year:

·         War of the Worts: This event that was hosted by Keystone Homebrew Supply was the biggest homebrewing competition (based on number of entries) on the East Coast ever, aside from the Sam Adams homebrewing competition.  This meant that there would a tougher, larger field of competitors compared to other competitions that I had entered, prior to this.  I ended up entering six beers into this competition and ended up getting some great feedback on all of my entries, but didn’t quite have enough to place in any of the categories.  I did, however, manage to pull some solid scores – two in the high thirties, one in the mid thirties, and the rest in the mid twenties to low thirties.  I have a feeling that two that scored in the upper thirties were close to placing, but just didn’t quite have enough to push them over the edge.

·         Battle of the Homebrew Shops: This was a pretty cool concept that they did for the first time this year.  Basically, each homebrewer would enter a beer with their local homebrew shop.  The winners from each shop would advance to the second round to brew a beer using coffee (but no stouts or porters!).  The only guideline for the first round was that it needed to be a session-strength beer (ABV needed to be 4.5% or lower), so it was pretty open stylistically.  I ended up entering Theresa’s Ale in the first round and didn’t make it into the finals.  It’s kind of a gamble with a competition like this, because the guidelines are so open.  I was hoping to make it to the second round, but oh well – definitely looking forward to this competition coming back next year.

·         NHC: This was the first year that I entered the National Homebrew Competition.  I ended up putting in three entries – Moment of Silence, the blend of Moment of Silence and Moment of Violence, and Theresa’s Ale.  I ended up getting two 29s and a 26 in the regional round.  It was a little bit of a gut check considering the two Streetlight beers had scored in the thirties in the War of the Worts.  However, it seemed like the scores were a bit tougher in NHC (based on a couple homebrewer friends of mine that had similar scores), and the beers that moved on to the finals needed to be in the 30s or higher.  So with that in mind, I was fairly pleased with my performance for my first year entering NHC.  Once again, no medals, but great feedback from the judges.

·         Triumph Homebrew Competition: After making it to the final round in last year’s competition, I decided to do a variation of my Angry Rhino Black IPA (the beer I entered last year) to enter into this year’s competition.  I ended up doing a saison version of the beer to mix it up a bit.  Although I didn’t get past the first round this year, it was definitely a blast to attend and was much more organized and structured this year.

·         Buzz Off: Hosted by the BUZZ Homebrew Club on the same day as the Triumph competition, I was not able to attend this year’s Buzz Off competition.  However, I put in seven entries – including my first mead.  I ended up getting second place for three of my beers in their respective entries – Belgian Rhino in Belgian Specialties, Moment of Silence in Other Smoked Beers, and the dry-hopped version of my Big Dog Barley Wine collaboration with my buddy Dan in American Barley Wines.  On top of that, I got some great feedback on all of my entries.  It was a great feeling to finally have a few entries hit home and place after having been in the middle of the pack or on the edge of placing for the last few competitions!  Congrats to my buddy Jeremy, who also took home three medals in the same competition! 

Buzz Off had some pretty cool medals this year.

The Summer has been very busy (as usual) since then, with non-brewing-related activities (which will be summed up in post shortly to follow this one, hopefully).  The next competition probably won’t roll around until early Fall.  Until next time, raise a pint, and enjoy life!

Song of the Day: “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones

Beer of the Day: Ommengang Seduction

Belgian Rhino Black IPA

Well, I’m a bit behind on a few posts, but I’m going to attempt to catch up in the next week or two.  A couple months ago I decided to bring back one of the biggest beers I’ve brewed (topped only by my recent Phantasm Imperial Stout), with a twist.  I brewed my Angry Rhino Black IPA last year for the first annual Triumph Homebrew Competition. 

I was very happy with the way it turned out, but wanted to turn up the hop profile a bit for the next version.  As an additional twist, I decided to try out Wyeast’s French Saison yeast strain instead of Wyeast American Ale II (1272), which I used for the original version.  I needed to take a little break from American and English Ale strains, and try something new.  So I found myself keeping essentially the same grain bill, amping up the hops (my hoppiest brew to date), and tossing in a yeast strain I haven’t used before.

The finished product came out great and exceeded my expectations.  The earthy saison yeast paired very nicely with the Chinook hops, with some citrus thrown in there from the Centennial.  One of my concerns with using a saison strain was that it might be too potent of a yeast flavor, in a beer that is meant to be primarily hop-driven.  However, the saison actually pushed the hops a bit and added a nice background complexity and smooth mouthfeel (despite the fact that the yeast dried out the beer very nicely).  This 10% ABV monster actually came out very smooth and was not as brutal as it may appear based on the hop bill.  It was definitely a worthwhile departure from the normal Black IPA flavor profile, although I will probably only mix this one in once in awhile.  The next Black IPA I brew will probably be a more standard reprisal of the original Angry Rhino Black IPA.

What better way to test out the new version of the recipe, than in competition?  To be honest, I timed this one to coincide with the Second Annual Triumph Brewing Competition, hosted by Triumph Brewing Company, which was held this past Saturday.  This year, the entries were split into four different categories and was held over three rounds, the first of which was a peer review.  Although the Belgian Rhino didn’t make it past the first round (in hind sight, I probably should have entered into Belgian category instead of Ales/IPAs), I did have a chance to taste a lot of interesting beers, including one made with jalapenos!  The competition was definitely a good time again this year, and was much more organized than last year.  Can’t wait until next year’s competition!

Although I didn’t make it past the first round in the Triumph Competition, I did fair a bit better with the Belgian Rhino in the Buzz Off Competition, hosted by BUZZ Homebrew Club on the same day as the Triumph Competition.  I ended up taking home second place in the Belgian Specialty category, which felt really good considering this was first time I had placed in a competition since last year’s Buzz Off competition, despite coming close on a couple other competitions (more on that in another post).  I also ended up taking second place in the Smoked Beer category for my Moment of Silence smoked porter, so it was a good night overall.  My cousin-in-law and brewing buddy, Jeremy, took home three medals for his beers in the same competition, so it was a good night for both of us!

Anyway, I had a lot of fun brewing the Belgian Rhino, and if you’re looking for a twist on a hefty black IPA, give this one a shot!  Cheers!

Belgian Rhino Black IPA

Batch size: 5.2 gal

Boil volume: 3.5 gal

OG: 1.106

FG: 1.027

Bitterness (IBU): 96.4

Color (SRM): 40.6

ABV: 10.4%

[Grains]

NB Gold LME    12.000lb    Extract    75.0%

Light DME    2.000lb    Extract    12.5%

Crystal 60L    1.000lb    Grain    6.2%

Carafa III malt    1.000lb    Grain    6.2%

[Hops]

Chinook 5.00oz 13.0% AA Pellet @ 90 min, 85.8 IBU

Centennial 2.00oz 10.0% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 4.9 IBU

Chinook 2.00oz 11.5% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 5.7 IBU

Centennial 2.00oz 10.0% AA Pellet @ Dry Hop (Split into two dry hops, a week for each)

Chinook 2.00oz 11.5% AA Pellet @ Dry Hop (Split into two dry hops, a week for each)

[Yeast/Other]

French Saison Yeast    1.0 unit(s), Yeast

Irish Moss    1.0 unit(s), Fining 1 tsp at 15 min

*Note: The saison strain actually attenuates a bit more than indicated above.  It seems to dry out a lot more than American Ale strains.

Song of the Day: “This Darkened Heart” by All That Remains

Beer of the Day: Stone Brewing Company’s Imperial Russian Stout

Barley Wine Collaboration

I’ve been a bit a busy (and a little lazy when it comes to posting to this blog) lately and am a little behind on a couple brew day posts and other posts I’ve been meaning to get up for a bit now, so I’m hoping to get a few more updates up here in the next week or two to catch up. 

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to brew my first collaboration for the year (this was also the long-overdue first brew that I did with my buddy Dan).  In order for both brewers to gain value from a successful collaboration, it should accentuate the similarities between the brewers, but also force both brewers out of their box a little and teach them something new.  That is something I look for when I pursue doing collaborations.  In the case of Dan and I, we both tend to lean towards American styles, with experimentation mixed in.  In collaborating with Dan, I expected to not just get an exceptionally made traditional beer, but also to try new ingredients and experiment a bit. 

For our first brew together, we landed on barley wine as a style to brew.  This style would serve well as a base to use a variety of treatments on (i.e. different yeasts, dry hopping, oak-aging, etc.).  The idea was to take one base 10 gallon batch and split it into four different variants (5 gallons for each of us, which we each split again into 2.5 gallon batches).  Our goal was to brew a fairly dry (for the style) barely wine that would finish out around 10% ABV. 

When March 18^th rolled around (note to self – in the future, don’t schedule brew days on the day after St. Patty’s Day), I found myself driving down to Delaware, coffee in hand, to start up the brew day at Dan’s place.  After cleaning the equipment, heating the strike water, and grinding the base malt, we were ready to mash.  The 75 minute mash, sparge, and 90 minute boil all went smoothly.  We then kicked off the flame and added some Calypso to steep for a few minutes before chilling, and splitting the wort between our carboys.  Another successful brew was in the books.  Really, the only hitch in the brew day was that we missed our OG by a bit because we over-estimated the amount of boil off slightly.  No big deal; that just means more beer in the end.  :-)

We both ended up going with a starter of California Ale (White Labs 001) for the yeast and let the primary ride out.  The secondary fermentation is really were we took one beer and ended up with four different variants (half of mine was hit with an ounce each of Bravo and Calypso, and the other half got 2oz of American Oak chips soaked in 150ml of Cruzan Single Barrel rum for two weeks).  I am very excited to see how our four different variants will come out in a few months.  We are planning on doing a side-by-side tasting down the line to see how they compare.  It will be a lot of fun to see how the four variants compare to each other in a side-by-side format.  This beer should be perfect for the Fall and Winter (although, I will definitely be sampling a few bottles before then, because I’m impatient).  After tasting my variants when I bottled the beer a couple weeks ago, I was very excited to see how these beers develop with some age.  They dropped down to a pretty dry level for barley wine (FG of about 1.016 for one variant, and 1.017 for the other), which is exactly what we were aiming for.  The oak/rum aged variant is probably my favorite of the two so far, striking a great balance between bitterness, malt, oak, and a touch of rum aroma and flavor.  I can’t wait to sample them after they have conditioned in the bottle for a bit!

Samples of each of my half-batches of barley wine at the time of bottling.

I definitely learned a lot with this brew and got to experience some new hops and malts that I had not used before.  It was also nice to brew on someone else’s system and get some ideas for what kind of setup I want to build for myself when I have the room to upgrade to a true full-boil all-grain setup.  All in all, the brew was a great experience and I will be updating this blog after we do our tasting of the four variants.  We are already planning on doing another brew together.  The next one will probably be a little further out there – probably something along the lines of Theobroma.  A big thanks to Dan for hosting the brew day!

Big Dog Barley Wine

Batch size: 10.0 gal

Boil volume: 11.0 gal

OG: 1.099

FG: 1.025

Bitterness (IBU): 87.6

Color (SRM): 20.1

ABV: 9.7%

[Grains]

Maris Otter Malt    22.000lb    Grain    65.7%

NB Gold LME    6.000lb    Extract    17.9%

Crystal 135-165L (British)    2.000lb    Grain    6.0%

Cane Sugar    1.500lb    Sugar    4.5%

Biscuit    1.000lb    Grain    3.0%

Light DME    1.000lb    Extract    3.0%

[Hops]

Magnum 2.00oz 12.0% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 29.0 IBU

Bravo 2.00oz 15.0% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 36.3 IBU

Magnum 2.00oz 12.0% AA Pellet @ 30 min, 22.3 IBU

Calypso 3.00oz 12.0% AA Pellet @ 0 min, 0.0 IBU

[Yeast/Other]

Irish Moss    1.0 unit(s), Fining 1 tsp at 15 min

California Ale yeast    1.0 unit(s), Yeast

Recipe Notes: This recipe was split into 2 five gallon batches (5 gallons for each of us).  I split my half into two batches at the time of secondary.  One half got an ounce each of Bravo and Calypso hops for a week, and the other half got 2 ounces of American Oak chips soaked in 150ml Cruzan Single Barrel rum for two weeks.

Song of the Day: “Under and Over It” by Five Finger Death Punch

Beer of the Day: Troegs Nugget Nectar

Small Batch Meads

In the last year, I have been experimenting around a bit with small batches of mead.  I have mentioned this in a few of my posts, but haven’t really gone into it in very much detail.  A lot of people get into mead from homebrewing (if you have the equipment to brew beer, you have most of the equipment you need to make mead).  As such, I figured I would share some of my experiences, recipes, and techniques here, in case anyone wants to get the feet wet and try making mead.

Let me start off by saying that I am definitely not an expert on making mead.  Everything I know about mead, is based off a few rough recipes and articles online and in magazines.  Much like my tips and techniques for homebrewing, take my mead techniques and tips with a grain of salt.  There a ton of techniques and styles for making both mead and beer.  Use techniques and equipment that best fit your preferences and time/space/financial constraints.  There is no “best” technique – simply use the one that works best for you.  The techniques and tips that I suggest here are geared towards someone from a homebrewing background, looking to experiment with making mead.  These techniques work best for me.  Adjust as needed.

Batch Size

Quality honey (the base fermentable for mead) is not cheap.  Mead takes awhile to finish out fermentation and I don’t have tons of space to dedicate to fermenters filled with mead (beer takes priority over mead for me when it comes to fermenter space).  Since mead was not something I know that much about going into my first few batches, there was a decent chance I could mess up a batch.  These are the three main reasons that I chose to keep my batches at a rather small scale – 1-2 gallons.  This allows me to do a 2-3 week primary fermentation in a carboy or bucket fermenter, then transfer the mead to one gallon jugs for secondary fermentation.  After I get more experience with mead and more space (i.e. a house), I plan to up the batch sizes to normal 5 gallon batches.

Finished product of my first mead, made with Clover honey.

Finished product of my second mead, made with South Jersey Pine Barren honey.

My third mead, a melomel, in the carboy on the day of pitching the yeast.

A sample of my melomel on the day of transferring it to 1-gallon jugs for a secondary fermentation.

Start Simple

My recipes have been based roughly on other recipes that I have seen online.  My first two meads, were made with all honey.  This allowed me to get a better feel for the character of different yeasts and honey varieties.  Like most people, there really aren’t many commercially available meads available to me (after all, this isn’t medieval Europe).  As a result, I really didn’t have a baseline of what kinds of meads and honey varieties I liked.  As a result, my first few recipes have been specifically designed to be simple and straightforward. 

Source Quality Honey

“Garbage in” equates pretty well to “garbage out”.  This one is fairly common sense (especially if you brew), but it is worth reinforcing.  Just like brewing, don’t skimp on the quality of ingredients that you use in mead making.  If you make mead with shitty honey, you’re probably going to get shitty mead.  The last couple times I have gotten my honey from local honey makers.  Most farmers markets tend to have a couple vendors that sell honey.  Lacking that, you can usually find decent honey in other grocery stores.  When it comes to adding fruit it to make melomels, source quality fruit, however you can get it.  Fresh is great, but if you can’t get what you need fresh, quality frozen fruit works great too. 

Nutrient Additions

This tip came to me compliments of an episode of Brewing TV on mead.   When making mead, it’s a good idea to add nutrients in multiple stages, rather than just on the day you make it.  I tend to do an addition at the time of pitching the yeast, about 24 hours after pitching the yeast, and another one about 72 hours after pitching the yeast.  This gives the yeast nutrients at multiple stages of its growth and fermentation process, leading to a healthier fermentation.  In theory, this also lets the mead clean up a bit quicker, making the mead drinkable quicker (i.e. instead of having to age for years to get a drinkable product). 

Pasteurizing vs. No-Heat vs. Boiling

There are a few different schools of thought when it comes to whether to heat the mead or not.  One school of thought is to boil the honey mixture to kill off any wild yeast and bacteria.  This method also causes some proteins and solids to break from solution, which allows you to skim them off, theoretically, resulting in clearer, cleaner mead.  Another school of thought is to pasteurize the honey.  This achieves the goal of killing off any wild bacteria or yeast, while preserving more of the delicate aromatics and flavors of the honey in the finished product.  The final school of thought, is the no-heat technique.  The idea on this one is preserve as much of the flavor and aroma of the honey in the finished mead.  There is a slight risk of infection while using this method, but a lot of mead makers believe that this not much of a risk since the cultured yeast that you pitch into the mead will out-compete and clean up any wild bacteria or yeast that may be present.  Personally, I subscribe to the no-heat method, and have had good results so far, with no infections.  I chose this option because it preserves the most of the honey character.  Whichever method you use, you should also factor in any treatments that have occurred to the honey prior to packaging (i.e. pasteurization, filtration, etc.), and adjust to your methods.

Patience, Young Grasshopper

Making mead, even when using staggered nutrient additions, takes longer to get a solid finished product than most beers.  Honey contains sugars that take longer for yeast to break down, requiring it to be fermented longer.  The fermentation regiment for my first few meads was a 2 – 3 week primary fermentation, a 2 – 3 month secondary fermentation, and finally at least a few months of bottle conditioning.  The conditioning time is flexible but I would recommend giving it at least a couple months to let the flavors clean up and come together, before you pop your first bottle.  Your patience will be rewarded.  Don’t expect your mead to be ready in a few weeks like your favorite homebrewed session ale. 

Clarity

There are also a several clarifying agents and methods that can be used to give you’re mead a crystal clear appearance.  These agents will knock out any residual proteins in the mead to clear up the appearance in the glass. I haven’t used any clarifying agents in my meads as of yet, mainly out of simplicity.  My first mead, a hydromel made with clover honey, came out very clear on its own through the normal fermentation bottle conditioning process.  On the other hand, my second mead, made with local South Jersey Pine Barren honey, probably could have used a clarifying agent, but I was still happy with the end result.  You can make great mead either way – use whichever method works best for your preferences.

Recipes

Clover Honey Mead:

-Batch Size: 1 Gallon

-Ingredients:

·         36oz Clover Honey

·         1 Packet Red Star Champagne Yeast

-Observed OG( 6/18/2011): 1.072

-Observed FG (7/2/2011): 0.996

South Jersey Pine Barren Honey Mead:

-Batch Size: 1 Gallon

-Ingredients:

·         3LB South Jersey Pine Barren Honey

·         1 Packet Lalvin EC-1118 Yeast

-Observed OG( 9/3/2011): 1.108

-Observed FG (12/11/2011): 1.000

Mixed Berry Melomel:

-Batch Size: 2 Gallon

-Ingredients:

·         8LB Wildflower Honey

·         5LB Frozen Berry Mix (Blackberries, Blueberries, Raspberries)  

·         1LB Fresh Organic Strawberries (added to half of the batch at secondary)

·         1 Packet Lalvin D-47 Yeast

-Observed OG (3/3/2012): ??? (forgot to get a reading, Probably around 1.200)

-Observed SG1 (3/3/2012): 1.004 (Note: this was taken at the time of transferring to the secondary, not at the time of bottling)

Hope this helps anyone who is in the same position as I am in that is looking to experiment with meads.  I’ll continue to post on mead in the future as I do more.  Until next time, cheers!

Song of the Day: “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones

Beer of the Day: Maine Beer Company’s Zoe

Phantasm Imperial Stout 2012

I was long overdue to brew up an imperial stout when I finally fired one up a few weeks ago.  Since imperial stout is one of my absolute favorite styles of beer, I have been planning on working an annual imperial stout into my brew schedule for quite some time now.  I’m finally now able to introduce Phantasm Imperial Stout and Phantasm’s Revenge into my regiment. 

The stars finally aligned and I had a good opportunity to brew one let it rest in the fermenter for the next month or two (its been in the secondary for about a week or two now after fermenting in the primary for about two weeks).  The idea is to split the batch into two halves once the secondary is done – half will be bottled as-is as a standard Imperial Stout (Phantasm Imperial Stout), the other half will go through an alternative conditioning (Phantasm’s Revenge).  I’m planning on giving Phantasm’s Revenge a different conditioning each year.  This year’s will likely be dosed with orange zest and cocoa nibs for a two week tertiary fermentation to impart some citrus and chocolate tones. 

The recipe started as Northern Brewer’s Imperial Stout Kit as a base.  I then upped the OG with some additional malt and brown sugar to bring the ABV up to around 10% and increased the hops to bring the IBUs up to compensate.  When I tasted a sample when I transferred it to the secondary, it was definitely a bit harsh (“rough around the edges” puts it pretty mildly), but this one isn’t designed to be a quick beer.  Age should mellow this beast pretty substantially and turn it into a delicious monster.  Despite the “hot” edges in the sample, I am very pleased with the way the beer came out so far.  It has a delicious, roasty, rich malt profile that is balanced out a bit by a healthy dose of hops.  I’ll be posting more updates on this brew after it has some more months behind it.  Until then, here is the recipe I used and some pictures from the brew day. 

(Disclaimer: if you brew this, I highly recommend using a blow-off hose as this one was spewing yeast out of the blow-off hose on my 6 gallon carboy for a couple days.)

I mashed the grains using a big fine mesh bag directly in the brew kettle.  This method works with up to about 5lbs. of grain.  I still go back to this method when I don't feel like pulling out the mash tun.  It keeps the equipment clutter down in the kitchen and clean up is quick and easy.  Efficiency isn't as good, but I don't mind that when I'm doing partial mashes.  Sometimes, I go for ease of use.

Boil time!  This brew really filled the apartment with some delicious malt aroma!

OG: 1.108 :-)  This monster should settle out around 10% ABV and still have a fair amount of malt body left to make a very rich malt profile.

Recipe

Batch size: 5.2 gal
Boil volume: 3.5 gal
OG: 1.107
FG: 1.027
Bitterness (IBU): 76.9
Color (SRM): 59.3
ABV: 10.5% 

[Grains]
NB Dark LME    12.000lb    Extract    66.7%
Two-row (US)    2.000lb    Grain    11.1%
Brown Sugar, Dark    1.000lb    Sugar    5.6%
Flaked Oats    1.000lb    Adjunct    5.6%
Roasted Barley    0.500lb    Grain    2.8%
Black Patent (US)    0.500lb    Grain    2.8%
Chocolate Malt (US)    0.500lb    Grain    2.8%
Crystal 120L    0.500lb    Grain    2.8% 

[Hops]
Summit 3.00oz 18.0% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 65.9 IBU
Centennial 2.00oz 9.0% AA Pellet @ 15 min, 10.9 IBU
Cascade 2.00oz 6.6% AA Pellet @ 0 min, 0.0 IBU 

[Yeast/Other]
Irish Moss    1.0 unit(s), Fining 1 tsp at 15 min
Scottish Ale yeast    1.0 unit(s), Yeast (2L starter)

Now, go.  Go forth and brew.  

Song of the Day: “Ray Charles” by Chiddy Bang

Beer of the Day: Iron Hill Media’s Hopilicious

Gearing Up for Competition Season

I have been brewing at the fastest sustained clip over the last few months since I started brewing.  The main reasons have been two-fold – 1. I literally only had about three bottles of homebrew that were ready for everyday drinking 2. Competition season is very rapidly approaching.  Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been brewing beers just for the sake of competitions – in fact, I have brewed a lot of beers that have meant a lot to me.  However, I love to have as many beers ready for competition as I can.  Competitions are fantastic opportunities to gain valuable feedback on your beers from trained judges.  They really are a great way to push yourself as a brewer and improve.  And, hey, competitions are good way to use my favorite hobby to satisfy my competitive streak. :-) 

That being said, it seems like a crazy amount of homebrewing competitions take place in my area in the first half of the year, culminating in June, during Philly Beer Week.  I already have several competitions in my sights for the next few months. 

War of the Worts

This February will be my first year competing in the War of the Worts, hosted by Keystone Hops.  I have heard that it is one of the largest competitions in the area, making it a great place to really see how my brews stack up against the rest of the pack.  I ended up entering six beers in the competition – Bulldog Brew (rye amber), Chipotle Ale, my Ruination clone, and all three of the Streetlight beers.  I am hoping they all do well, but I have the highest hopes for the three Streetlight beers.  The final judging for this competition is this weekend and should be a really fun time.  This will also be the first time that Theresa will be able to make it to one of my competitions, so it will be a lot fun to have her along with me and show her what homebrew competitions are all about!  Theresa’s cousin Stacy, and her husband Jeremy, will also be going to the competition since Jeremy is a homebrewer too and has entered the competition.  It will be will great to see them and hang out!

NHC

The National Homebrew Competition is the big one for American homebrewers.  The registration for this is coming up quick, and I am thinking I may enter all of the beers that I enter in the War of the Worts (depending on how they score at War of the Worts), plus my hefeweizen, Theresa’s Ale.  This competition is so big that they have the first round judged at ten regional judging locations, where the top beers for each category from each location move on to the final round at the AHA National Homebrewers Conference in June.  To say that this is the big leagues of homebrewing, is kind of an understatement.  I’ll be pretty ecstatic if any of beers even make it past the first round.

Battle of the Homebrew Shops

New this year, the Battle of the Homebrew Shops is a competition that is being sponsored by Philly Beer Scene, and is planned to be an annual competition.  This one sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun.  Basically, each brewer enters a beer with their respective local homebrew shop, and the best two beers from each shop from the first round move on to the final round, where they will be judged in June, during Philly Beer Week.  The first round is pretty open – the only rule is that it has to be 4.5% ABV or lower (in other words, a session beer).  The entries from each shop will be traded with another shop, where the beers will be judged.  The top two brewers from each shop will move on to the second round, where the brewers will be given a pound of coffee from a local supplier to brew a beer with the coffee.  Here’s the twist – no stouts or porters (the two most logical styles to do with coffee) will be allowed.  The judges will basically be looking to see who can pull off the most creative beer they can, while still producing a great beer.  In other words, a good blonde ale brewed with coffee would have a better chance at winning than an amazing brown ale.  The winning brewer wins a bunch of prizes, plus the homebrew shop that the brewer represents wins the trophy for the year and gets the shop name engraved on it.  It should be a lot of fun to see the friendly rivalry develop between the different homebrew shops in the area.  I am planning on entering Theresa’s Ale in the first round.

BUZZ Off

I am planning on entering the BUZZ Off competition (Hosted by BUZZ Homebrew Club) again this year.  This is another BJCP open competitions, similar to the War of the Worts.  Last year’s competition was the first competition that I entered, and I even managed to walk away with First Place in the English Pale Ales category for a beer that I brewed with my friend Keith.  I am not sure what I am going to enter in this competition yet (this one will probably be in May sometime I am guessing) – I’ll have to see what I have that’s ready when we get closer to competition.

Commercial Breweries’ Competitions

There are also a couple competitions a little further out that are being sponsored by local breweries.  Triumph Brewery (in Old City) is going to be bringing back their homebrew competition that they did last year in conjunction with the Preston and Steve Show.  This competition was a blast last year and turned out to be a fun networking opportunity with other brewers.  The winner of the competition gets to brew a beer with Triumph on their system.  I’m not quite sure what I am going to enter in this competition, but I am leaning towards entering a re-vamped version of Angry Rhino (a Black IPA), which I entered in this competition last year. 

Boxcar Brewing Company is planning on hosting their first annual homebrew competition this year.  The details haven’t been fully released yet, but it sounds like the winning brewer will be brewing a beer with Boxcar to be served during Philly Beer Week (see what I mean when I say that competition season culminates with Philly Beer Week?), which would lead me to believe that the competition would be sometime in the next 2 -3 months.

As you can see, I’ll have my hands full with a bunch of competitions coming up.  I just brewed up an imperial stout that will be fermenting for the next couple months before it is bottled and conditioned (more on the imperial stout in a future post).  This will probably be my last beer that I do on my own for a bit.  I’ve been brewing at a pretty fast clip for my time and capacity constraints, so I need to take a little bit of break from brewing on my own.  In the mean time, my hands will be full with competitions and brewing and planning a couple collaborations with a couple of my buddies.  Now that I have several different beers ready for competition, and my homebrew stock is more than caught up, it will be nice to experiment around a little.  Until next time, cheers!

Song of the Day: “Wrong Company” by Flogging Molly

Beer of the Day: Victory Brewing Company’s Headwaters Pale Ale

Liquid Music Series Vol. I, II, and III: Moment of Silence and Moment of Violence

Taking a cue from Dogfish Head’s playbook, I have had this idea to create a series of beers that have are dedicated to, and themed after, musicians and bands that have been influential to me throughout my life.  Each beer will be themed after a specific (one of my favorite) song(s) from the band.  I started developing the first few recipes for the series (which will be brewed intermittently – probably around two or three releases per year) in the summer and fall, but just haven’t had the time and energy to put into these beers that are very meaningful to me.  Well, the time finally came that I had the opportunity to the do the first installment (I guess more accurately, three installments).

Streetlight Manifesto, a Jersey based ska-punk band, is one of my favorite bands of all time.  (Side note: in my opinion, they also have the best horn section for a modern ska band, aside from maybe the Mighty Mighty Bosstones - so if you’re into ska, check them out.)  Their album Everything Goes Numb is certainly not your run-of-the-mill ska album, dealing with much more serious and heavy subject matter than your average light-hearted ska album.  This album is also my favorite from the band, and one of my favorite overall albums of all time. 

So why does Streetlight Manifesto get three volumes in the series?  Well, one of my favorite songs from them, is actually two tracks – one a faster continuation of the first.  “Moment of Silence” is a mellow, moody, slow paced track that transitions into the much faster, harder, and more energetic “Moment of Violence”.  What’s the third beer for?  Since the beers transition into each other, I decided to do a 50/50 blend the two beers.

Volume I: Moment of Silence

For the first track, I wanted to do something dark and rich to match the moody tone of “Moment of Silence”, so I went with a smoked porter – a style I have been wanting to do for quite some time.  Rich malt character is definitely meant to be the main source of the character of this beer.  This beer tastes somewhat akin to a slightly smoked dark chocolate, in liquid form – one of my favorite malt bills that I have brewed to date.  Here’s the recipe:

Batch size: 5.2 gal

Boil volume: 3.5 gal

OG: 1.069

FG: 1.017

Bitterness (IBU): 35.8

Color (SRM): 34.9

ABV: 6.8%

[Grains]

NB Gold LME    6.000lb    Extract    50.0%

Smoked Malt    2.000lb    Grain    16.7%

Maris Otter Malt    2.000lb    Grain    16.7%

Chocolate Malt (US)    1.000lb    Grain    8.3%

Crystal 120L    1.000lb    Grain    8.3%

[Hops]

Calypso 1.00oz 12.0% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 24.3 IBU

Willamette 1.00oz 4.5% AA Pellet @ 30 min, 7.0 IBU

Willamette 1.00oz 4.5% AA Pellet @ 15 min, 4.5 IBU

[Yeast/Other]

Irish Moss    1.0 unit(s), Fining 1 tsp at 15 min

English Ale yeast (White Labs 002)   1.0 unit(s), Yeast

Volume II: Moment of Violence

The first drum line in the song quickly morphs the more mellow “Moment of Silence” into the fast, energetic track “Moment of Violence”, taking the same musical patterns and speeding them up substantially into a heavy punk-ska beat.  For this one, I wanted a bright, somewhat bitter, very hoppy ale.  I decided to do a hop-bursted American Pale Ale with lots of Amarillo and Cascade hops.  Hop-bursting is a technique where a substantial amount of the bitterness comes from late additions of hops, rather than the traditional large bittering charge in the beginning of the boil.  The result is that you get heavier amounts of hop flavor and aroma for the same amount of bitterness.  You also use a whole lot more hops in the process.  So far, this one seems to be about what I expected – a tasty pale ale with lots of hop flavor and aroma, without being overpoweringly bitter.  The bottles aren’t fully carbonated and conditioned yet, so I am guessing the hop aroma will increase a bit as the carbonation goes up.  Here’s the recipe:

Batch size: 5.2 gal

Boil volume: 3.5 gal

OG: 1.065

FG: 1.016

Bitterness (IBU): 49.4

Color (SRM): 8.9

ABV: 6.4%

[Grains]

NB Gold LME    6.000lb    Extract    54.5%

Two-row (US)    4.000lb    Grain    36.4%

Crystal 40L    1.000lb    Grain    9.1%

[Hops]

Cluster 1.00oz 7.7% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 16.4 IBU

Cascade 1.00oz 6.6% AA Pellet @ 15 min, 7.0 IBU

Amarillo 1.00oz 8.0% AA Pellet @ 15 min, 8.5 IBU

Amarillo 1.00oz 8.0% AA Pellet @ 10 min, 6.2 IBU

Cascade 1.00oz 6.6% AA Pellet @ 10 min, 5.1 IBU

Cascade 1.00oz 6.6% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 2.8 IBU

Amarillo 1.00oz 8.0% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 3.4 IBU

Cascade 1.00oz 6.6% AA Pellet @ 0 min, 0.0 IBU

Amarillo 1.00oz 8.0% AA Pellet @ 0 min, 0.0 IBU

[Yeast/Other]

Irish Moss    1.0 unit(s), Fining 1 tsp at 15 min

American Ale yeast (White Labs 001 yeast cake from my latest batch of Ruination)    1.0 unit(s), Yeast

Volume III: Moment of Silence / Moment of Violence Blend

After both beers went through their primary fermentation, I racked half of each beer into the same carboy and let the beers play with each other for a couple weeks before bottling.  The result so far is a nice, complex beer with smoky chocolate notes, with a nice hop character.  The smoked porter seems to be the slightly more dominant of the two beers, but overall, this beer came out like a delicious, pre-blended black and tan.  I am very interested to see how this bad boy turns out when it is fully carbonated and conditioned. 

Left to right: Moment of Violence, Moment of Silence / Moment of Violence Blend, and Moment of Silence.

This project was probably my most ambitious project to date, and one of the most fun!  Most of the future installments of my Liquid Music series, will most likely be individual beers, but this project was definitely a fun way to kick of the series.  It is still a little early to completely judge these beers, but so far, so good.  I can’t wait until they are fully conditioned! 

Alright folks, less typing, more brewing.  Cheers!

Song of the Day: “Point/Counterpoint” by Streetlight Manifesto

Beer of the Day: Fire Rock Pale from Kona Brewing Co.