Japanese Sunshine gets brewed

Earlier today I brewed a wheat beer based on a recipe I brewed last year. I'm calling it Japanese Sunshine. It's a wheat ale fermented with a Belgian yeast strain (Wyeast 3711 French Saison) made using a partial mash consisting of Belgian Pils malt, flaked wheat and flaked rice along with Munton's wheat malt extract and Briess pilsner malt extract. The hopping schedule included solely Japanese Sorachi Ace hop pellets at mashing (first wort), 20 and 15 minutes. (A half-ounce at 20 minutes and an ounce and at 15 minutes with a half-ounce for first wort hopping.) I was thinking of adding some spices for this beer, but I've left it up to the yeast and hops for complexity. The temperature in the fermentorium is currently 72-73 degrees, which should make this yeast reasonably happy, throwing s fair amount of esters.

I'm feeling like I really need to ramp up my brewing schedule in the next few weeks. I'm thinking a full on IPA should be in the mix; or maybe a "Belgian" IPA. I'm also thinking about an American wheat. Ideas?

Looking back at the Sunshine and talking about blood oranges and stout

Wow. My first batch of Liquid Sunshine, which I later brewed as Japanese Sunshine back in July, is holding up quite well. There's an orange-y-citrus nose. (Very sunny.) It has a nice clear gold color to it and well, tastes fantastic. Lightly citrus fruity with a definite wheat flavor. Finish is perfectly balanced, perhaps a touch sweet (to be expected after nine months!) I'm quite pleased at how well my summer brews hold up. It was nice brew to accompany a bottling session the other day. I bottled the Blood Orange IPA and it's well, very hoppy! There's a pronounced fruity flavor (citrus, guava, mango, pineapple...you name it, it's in there.) I'm eager for this beer to be carbonated so I can start enjoying it's wonderful hoppiness. The only thing I would change is I'd like to try using more blood orange juice and even more zest; just more orange flavor, I guess. Blood oranges have a real interesting flavor and I'm kind of missing it in this beer. I'm looking for that grapefruit tartness and bitterness that comes from a good blood orange. Not entirely sure if I need to use more juice or more zest or both.

I'm enjoying a Bell's Amber Ale (well, a few of them) this evening and I'm thinking I package up the dry stout I brewed early last week. It's had a few days of diacetyl rest and should be ready to go, especially noting that I used the Fermentis S-04, which seems to ferment rather quickly. I'm looking forward to a roast toasty stout for St. Patrick's Day quaffing. Yes, I brewed a dry stout 13 days ago and it fermented rather quickly. Looking back at my notes I see that I pitched a combination of the S-04 and Wyeast 1318 slurry that had been sitting in my fridge for at least a couple of months. Fermentation was very active for about 36 hours. I used a blow off tube instead of an airlock for the few days of fermentation. I used a full pound of roasted barley in addition to a half pound of black malt in the stout, so I'm expecting some burnt roasted malt flavor and substantial bitterness. It might end up being a good stout for black and tans. (The tan ideally cutting the burnt grain bitterness.) As I said earlier, I hope to package this beer soon. It will go into two Party Pigs, which always seem to deliver a nice creamy pint of stout.

Wee Heavy Bottled, Blood Orange IPA Racked

Took a half day off work on Monday and got caught up on some homebrewing. First, I moved the Wee Heavy Scotch Ale I brewed about six weeks ago out of cold storage and bottled it. Bottling went well. I was amazed at how the six weeks of lagering cleared up the beer. I actually roused some yeast in fear that not enough would be suspension for the beer to carbonate -- probably unnecessary I know, but my hydrometer sample tasted delicious -- I really want this beer to turn out!

The second part of my afternoon was to rack the Blood Orange IPA into the Better Bottle that I used to lager the Wee Heavy. I went for broke, and since there was so little yeast sediment, racked right on top of the the yeast. Well, first I added an ounce of Zythos hop pellets for dry hopping. A taste test a few days ago revealed that this beer was lacking the hop aroma I wanted. It mostly smelled fruity; kind of an English aroma with maybe just a hint of tropical fruit. The beer is very cloudy, so I'm thinking of lagering this one, too, but I'm also considering using some Polyclar for the first time, but I read that it works best when the beer is kept very cold. I fear the combination of the clarifier plus lagering might have me adding more yeast before bottling.

Tasting the Abbey Ale (formerly Belgian Dark)

Decided to try a couple of beers I've had stashed for the last several weeks and months. First up is what I intended to be a Strong Belgian Dark, but it's more amber than brown. It pours with a nice rocky head thanks to some wheat malt and plenty of carbonation, but smells relatively clean for a Belgian-style ale. There's some trademark raisin-like character from the Special-B malt that I used, but the mouthfeel isn't right. There's just not enough body and there's too much bitterness. It's actually quite dry, but I should expect that from Wyeast 3522. This beer is almost saison-like at least in terms of body. I measured the original gravity at 1.089 and it finished at 1.016. It's an odd creature. There really aren't off flavors except for the unexpected harsh bitterness in the finish. I guess you'd call it an amber abbey ale. I think I'll call this beer "Saison in my Abbey." Still not sure what happened here.

The next beer is the Autumnal Saison. I meant for it to be a saison with Munich malts; sort of a Belgian festbier sort of thing, but it's ended up more like a tasty, dry Belgian Pale Ale. I say this because I had a Belgian try it and he liked it quite a bit. It's not at all bitter; it's estery and dry with caramel malt flavor. I have few bottles left that might all go to him...cheers to you Fabien Van der Stappen!

Blood orange IPA gets brewed

I had an incredible beer a couple summers ago from Shorts' Brewing Company in Bellaire, Michigan. (One of many incredible beers I've had from the brewery.) This particular beer was described as a wheat wine with blood oranges and it was packed with extreme amounts of flavor. Seemingly lots of hops combined with the grapefruity bittersweet flavor of the blood oranges. (I'm guessing a lot of the supposed hop flavor came from the oranges.) Tonight I've brewed a tweaked version and I'm eager to see how it turns out. I brewed my blood orange beer as an IPA style more than wheat style, although I did use a about 20 percent wheat for body. The rest of the malt bill was Pilsner malt. I should clarify that all of the malt was extract. My weeknight brews usually comprise more extract (if not 100 percent) to save a little time. I also simplified things further by using the Safale S-33 yeast. I've used this yeast before with success in a wheat bock type of beer. I used the flesh and juice from six Moro blood oranges, along with the grated peel of two of the oranges. I used Magnum hops for bittering (one ounce at the start of the 60-minute boil and one ounce at a half hour.) I was a little bit excited to find the Zythos hops blend which I added at 45 and 50 minutes into the boil in one ounce increments. I also added a half-ounce of Trader Joe's Flower Pepper at the 45 minutes into the boil. The wort was cooled in about 20 minutes with my immersion wort chiller with two packets of the S-33 pitched into the fermenter. I accompanied the brew session with a Merry Ale, which was quite delicious, if I dare so myself. It was somehow more bitter than it seemed at first, with the hops playing against the crystal malts quite nicely. A very hoppy, bitter red with plenty of fruitiness, but also not to strong at 5.2 percent.

Brewed a Wee Heavy

I brewed a Wee Heavy tonight. It's a kit beer that I've brewed before with good results, from Northern Brewer. Everything went pretty well. I followed the instructions, which called for adding six pounds of Maris Otter extract at the beginning of the boil and six pounds at 45 minutes into the 60-minute boil, no doubt to prevent excessive caramelization of the wort. (I'm a stovetop brewer so I tend to favor extract-based kits.) The kit included just one ounce of Northern Brewer hops added at the start of the boil, so this beer is definitely going to be a malt bomb. I plan to ferment it in my 75-degree kitchen (yeah, I now kinda warm) for a couple weeks and then lager it off-site at about 60-65 degrees (I'm guessing) for a couple of months. The yeast start didn't show a crazy level of activity, but it smelled good, so I pitched and off we go. I used about a quart-sized starter (probably a little more.)

I still have a flask of Wyeast 1318 in my fridge that I'd to something with, maybe another bitter, but I'm also kind of thinking of brewing my first Mild ale. I think I might be lazy and get another kit from Northern Brewer.