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.

Homemade New Year’s Eve Beer Dinner

Rather than battling the crowds on New Year’s Eve, Theresa and I decided to stay in this year and have a nice homemade dinner.  Naturally, being the beer geek that I am, I decided to do a homemade beer dinner.  I ended up going with a three-course meal, with a different beer paired with each course.

Course 1: Bruschetta Paired with Ommengang Witte

I decided to do a filling, yet light and refreshing, first course and went with a basic bruschetta.  To go along with it, I paired the delicate and refreshing Ommengang Witte.  The recipe for the bruschetta was really easy to make and I am definitely planning on doing this recipe again.  The recipe can be found here.

Bruschetta with Ommengang Witte

Course 2: Filet Mignon and Lobster Tail with Sautéed Asparagus Paired with Ithaca Excelsior! Twelve (Anniversary Ale)

You can’t really go wrong with surf and turf for the main course.  Not really much of recipe to post for this one.  Just season the steaks simply, sear/sauté, and serve.  Boil/steam and broil the lobsters.  Sauté the asparagus with some oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.  I went with a bottle of Ithaca’s Excelsior! Twelve to pair with this.  This was a fantastic beer and went great with the steak.  It didn’t pair as well with the lobster, but as a whole, the pairing of the dish with the beer worked well.

Fillet mignon with lobster tail and asparagus, paried with Ithaca Excelsior! Twelve.

Course 3: Jalapeño Blue Cheese Cheesecake Paired with Homebrewed Wedding Ale

I went with a recipe out of the Stone Brewery book that I got in the fall for dessert.  This is kind of a weird one for dessert, but if you like blue cheese, this is an interesting dish.  Don’t fear the jalapenos – you de-seed the peppers before you chop them up and mix them in so there isn’t much heat from them.  The fruit added on top balances the blue cheese very nice.  Another good use for this dish is to use it as a spreadable cheese on crackers.  To accentuate the fruit topping, I went with a bottle of my Wedding Ale to pair with the dessert.  The cherry tartness in the beer worked well with the fruit on the cheesecake.  Something like a hefty stout with nice chocolate tones probably would have worked well here too. 



Jalapeno blue cheese cheesecake paired with Wedding Ale.



The beer lineup for the night.

Wedding Ale in Theresa's snifter glass.

Overall, this dinner came out awesome and was a lot of fun to do!  I am definitely planning on doing more beer dinners soon!  Give it a try!  Until next time, cheers!

Song of the Day: “Royal Oil” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Beer of the Day: Thornbridge Hall Bracia

Wedding Ale

Wedding Ale is actually a beer that I brewed back in the Fall to give out as groomsman gifts and to age for special occasions and anniversaries.  The fact that it was part of the groomsman gifts is largely why I overlooked doing a post for this beer (didn’t want to ruin any surprises).  However, I felt this beer merited a post since its one of the more interesting beers that I’ve brewed in awhile.

I bottled Wedding Ale up in 22oz bottles, did a decent label, and dipped the tops of the bottles in red wax for a nice presentation.

Wedding Ale is actually based off of Charlie Papazian’s recipe Cherries in the Snow (from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing), just boosted a little and slightly oak-aged.  The boil was just like any other beer, except I added about ten pounds of tart cherries (in a mesh bag for less mess) at flameout.  Adding the cherries in the end of the boil, brings the temperature of the wort down to around 170F to kill off any baddies that might be in the cherries, without destroying the delicate flavors and aromas from the cherries.  After steeping the cherries and cooling the wort, I added the cherries into the primary fermenter with the wort.  I then racked the wort into the secondary with 4oz of American oak chips for three weeks. 

According to Papazian, this recipe should hold up very well to age, which will work great for drinking this brew on anniversaries with my beautiful wife!  My main departures from Papazian’s recipe is to boost the gravity a bit, oak age the beer to cut the tartness a little, and use canned tart cherries (tart cherries were out of season already by the time I brewed the beer).  The important thing to consider is to use canned cherries that are packed in water only, not pie filling, if you are considering doing this recipe without using fresh cherries. 

So far, I have cracked a few bottles of this open around the holidays and for taste testing purposes.  The cherries left a very refreshing tart flavor and aroma, as well as a beautiful red tint to the beer.  The oak left a balancing, but not overpowering, oak flavor.  I am very happy with how the beer came out so far and I hope the flavors come together even more as it ages. 

I am planning to try this recipe again with fresh tart cherries when they are in season again and am planning to leave out the oak the second time around to do something closer to Papazian’s recipe.  It should be interesting to see the difference between the two versions.  Here is the recipe that I brewed.  Enjoy!

Wedding Ale

Batch size: 5.2 gal

Boil volume: 3.0 gal

OG: 1.063

FG: 1.016

Bitterness (IBU): 18.5

Color (SRM): 5.7

ABV: 6.2%

[Grains]

NB Gold LME    9.150lb    Extract    100.0%

[Hops]

Santiam 1.50oz 6.0% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 17.3 IBU

Santiam 0.50oz 6.0% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 1.1 IBU

[Yeast/Other]

American Ale yeast    1.0 unit(s), Yeast

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

Tart Cherries    10.0 unit(s), Other 1 unit = 1lb, steeped at end of boil and put in fermenter for 5 days

Song of the Day: “Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts” by Less Than Jake

Beer of the Day: Boxcar Brewing Company’s IPA

Looking Back, Leaping Forward

Time for the obligatory retrospective on 2011 / goal setting for 2012 post.  2011 was definitely a massive year for me, complete with getting married and getting a new job.  It was certainly the most important year of my life!  It also was a great year for completing goals that I set for myself, especially on the brewing front.  I’m looking to keep that momentum going into 2012!

Goals from 2011

I did not meet my goal for fitness in 2011.  I had actually lost a fair amount of weight before the wedding – not the 20 pounds that I had set as a goal, but definitely around 10.  Then, I quickly gained that weight back and am now back up to about the same weight I was at last year.  Most of this can be attributed to me getting busy, falling out of the swing of working out, and having other priorities the last several months. 

On the brewing front, I actually exceeded the goals I set for myself last year.  I had set a goal of brewing 10 beers, and I actually brewed 16 different beers.  I was extremely happy to get that many in.  I learned a lot from all these beers and got to try out a lot of new ingredients.  It also helped me work out the kinks and let me experiment with ideas and see what worked well (dry hopping with orange zest in Theresa’s Ale) and what didn’t work as well (flavoring with roasted bananas in the mash in my Banana Bread Ale).

The other end of my brewing goal was to enter in at least one brewing competition.  I ended up entering four different beers into competition (three into Buzz Off, and one into the Preston and Steve Homebrew Competition).  I even managed to take home a blue ribbon in the English Pale Ale category for the Bass Ale clone that I brewed with my buddy Keith!

Goals for 2012

I am definitely planning on continuing the fitness goal theme and try to lose at least 10 – 15 pounds this year.  This will get be down to a weight where I want to be.  I really want to get back into hiking and I may even pick up a bike to keep in shape.  I will hopefully get back into running a little bit too to stay in shape (running is also a great way to exercise my dog Abby).

On the brewing side, I am not looking to significantly increase my production compared to last year.  I’m thinking that anywhere in the neighborhood of 15 – 20 different beers (which will not all be full batches) will keep me plenty busy.  Instead, I want to try to have a little more focus on building a bit more individual brewing style and really focus on technique this year.  I feel like a lot of my brewing efforts last year went into trying a bunch of different styles, trying some concepts that were in my head, and finding a handful of recipes that I want to repeat on a somewhat regular basis (at least annually).  I learned a whole lot by doing this – some good techniques, and some bad.  However, I do feel like a lot of my brewing this past year lacked focus, so this year I really want to take what I learned last year and expand on it.  I want to build better grain bills, make sure I have healthy fermentations every time (probably the most important thing you can do as a brewer), and have a little more focus and cohesion in my brewing portfolio.  That’s not to say I don’t want to experiment or branch out into more styles.  On the contrary, I most certainly want to experiment and branch out into more styles.  However, I want to make sure that I am approaching new styles and experiments in a well thought-out manner using the lessons that I’ve learned, and ensure that they fit in with my style as a brewer.  In other words, I don’t want to just wing it to get a concept out of my system.  Now, when you’re setting goals, you’re supposed to make them measurable and quantifiable so you can compare your actual results against your goals.  Obviously, I haven’t done that yet in this little rant, so let’s get down to the nitty gritties.

For starters, I want to use a yeast starter in all of my full batches of beer that are going to be over 5% ABV (which is most of my beers).  One of the things that I have neglected as a homebrewer, is the importance of pitching a healthy number of yeast cells into the beer.  Have a strong, healthy fermentation, reduces lag time, decreases off-flavors, and improves the overall quality of the beer.  Healthy fermentations make the difference between good beer and great beer.

On the competitive side, I would like to enter at least two competitions again this year.  Not only did I have a blast at the couple competitions I entered last year, but I also got some great feedback on my beer, which improved me as a brewer.  The more beers I can get feedback on from trained judges, the better.  While placing in these competitions would be fantastic, it’s a secondary concern to me – the main purposes are to network with other brewers and to get feedback on my beers.

I also want to brew at least three collaborations with other brewers this year.  Everyone has their own setup, techniques, and styles that they use in homebrewing.  One of the best ways to grow as a brewer is to collaborate with others and see how they do things.  I am by no means an expert brewer, so brewing with others will be a great learning experience and a great way to brew something that pushes my style further as a brewer.

I really want to get a bit more into cooking with, and pairing food with, beer this year.  Again, this one is tough to put into quantifiable terms.  I will set a goal to make at least three dinners that are four, or more, courses, pairing each course with a different beer.   Also, in general, I want to start cooking more with beer (i.e. using beer in marinades and in the cooking process).

Alright, enough talk about goals – go do something productive, like drink a beer!  (Which, by the way, if you aren’t drinking a beer while reading any of my posts, I don’t know how you get through my dry-ass writing.)  Cheers, and good luck with those resolutions!

Song of the Day: “Story of My Life” by Social Distortion

Beer of the Day: Witte from Brewery Ommegang