Something's funky in the kitchen

I've had a carboy of blonde ale (actually more amber, than blonde) sitting in the kitchen and the story of its fermentation is a bit interesting. I started out pitching Wyeast 3711 French Saison, which didn't start up as I had hoped, with no visible krause after 48 hours. Getting nervous, I pitched some EC-1118 Champagne yeast, the only available yeast I had. This got things going rather quickly in less than six hours. Hurray!

I sampled this beer a couple weeks later and was not pleased -- too malty, too sweet and lacking flavor. I expected the Champagne yeast to ferment pretty clean (even at 78 degrees) but it left me craving for something different. I racked the beer to the secondary hoping that it would dry out a bit on its own, but in the back of my mind I started thinking of what else I could do with this beer.

After contemplating adding fruit to this beer I decided to add some more yeast --- sort of -- I added the dregs from one bottle of Boon Gueze Mariage Parfait from 2007. Two weeks passed and there was no activity and no pressure change in the airlock. A few days later there was a wisp of krausen on top, but no change in the airlock. That's when after having a few beers I decided to add the dregs from a two-year-old bottle of New Glarus Imperial Saison, a beer with a fairly tart flavor profile and a flavor I enjoyed. There was a decent amount of dregs. I had a lot of hope that something would happen.

A couple days later there was an inch-tall krausen in the next of the rather full carboy and activity in the airlock. This was followed by about 10 days of bubling in the airlock every minute or so. Things have since calmed down and I've sample the beer again. The gravity has changed by about 4-5 points, but what really has me impressed is the flavor profile: sweet at first, but then a dry tart finish with a biy of bitterness. The smell is slightly funky; that Champagne-like nose you sometimes get from a gueze or an Orval, slightly metallic and slightly phenolic with a bit of pear, certainly more interesting than what I sampled a few weeks ago.

So now I'm wondering what's next for this beer. Do I go ahead and bottle, freeing up the carboy, or do I let it sit? I'm thinking that if I'm really eager to bottle that I let it sit for at least a week and check the gravity again. If it hasn't changed I'll likely bottle.

Fermentorium full of blondes

There's been a lot going on in the brewery (kitchen) the last few weeks.

The session blonde ale has turned out quite well. It's really turned the corner in the past couple days and is tasting a lot less "green." I was bit worried about the color at first, having added a tremendous amount (a full pound) of Briess Special Roast, but the color has lightened and the initially intense flavor of the Special Roast has softened. I do believe that about two weeks of lagering at about 60 degrees (not really lagering, but almost) helped this particular beer.

Since brewing the blonde, I've also brewed a stronger blonde that I initially intended to ferment with Wyeast 3942, but I ended up pitching some EC-1112 Champage yeast after about 24 hours with no visible fermentation activity in the airlock and no krausen. I didn't use a starter for this batch (which had a starting gravity of 1.060) so I probably should've just been more patient. The Champagne yeast took off like a rocket, but when I tasted this beer before racking it to the secondary it seemed to be lacking the esters I wanted from the Wyeast. No doubt the Champagne yeast took over. My solution to this lack of complexity was to add the dregs of one bottle of 2007 Boon Mariage Parfait. About a week later I added more dregs, this time from a bottle of New Glarus Imperial Saison from a couple years ago. Now I have very full carboy (it was full to begin with) and a little bit of krausen on top. I plan to let this batch of beer sit for awhile, maybe the whole summer, who knows? I have no idea how this experiment is going to turn out.

The newest batch of brew I have going is a little Franco-Japanese saison-style beer brewed with pilsner malt extract, Sorachi Ace hops and Wyeast 3711 (French Saison.) It's also substantially lighter in gravity than the strong blonde, checking in at 1.048, just a touch stronger than the session blonde. This most recent brew has been quite active this week. I pitched the yeast on the 15th and the airlock is still bubbling every so often. The temperture has been in the high 70s in the fermentorium, so I reckon that this latest beer might turn out to be very well attenuated and quite dry, which would be quite alright with me.

Dry Stout: Almost Gone!

I've really been enjoying the dry stout I made back in January. In fact, I've been enjoying it so much I forgot to post an update here. I really wanted to get a video up of the Party Pigs in action, which I did, but then I also managed to mistakenly erase the video I shot. Anyone interested in how the Party Pigs work should check the video downloadable at the manufacturer's site. I've since brewed another batch of the stout and I'm planning on filling the Party Pigs once again. For the rest of tonight I'm working on draining my second pig of stout so I can refill the "pigs" and get the fermenter empty for the blonde ale I plan on brewing tomorrow night.

The grain bill (partial mash) for the blonde include Belgian Pils malt, Briess Special Roast and Torrefied Wheat. The remainder of the fermentables will be made up of Munton's Extra Light DME. The hops will be Columbus. I wanted to use Magnum hops, but my LHBS was out of stock.

Brew Session: Revisiting Irish-style Dry Stout

Brewed an Irish-style dry stout for the first time in awhile yesterday (like maybe seven years!) I brewed the stout with three pounds of Munton's DME and one pound each of Dingemans Belgian de-bittered black, a third-pound of some left over Weyermann Carafa III de-husked malt, and a pound each of Thomas Fawcett roasted barley and flaked barley. I added one ounce of Galena bittering hops at 30 minutes left in the 60-minute boil and pitched an Activator pouch of Wyeast 1335. I think the brew session went well and you can actually see for yourself below. I plan to serve up the stout in a couple of my Party Pigs from Quoin, as ales always seem to be extra creamy when served from one of the Pigs. I plan to do a video update of the packaging of the beer in the Party Pigs once the beer is finished fermenting.

The Brewing of a Dry Stout from Marcobrau on Vimeo.

Another Hoppy Brown Ale

Another hop-bursted brown ale with different hops this time. Ah, wait...I didn't put anything in here about the first one now, did I? The previous brown ale was a little higher gravity (I used all DME instead of half dry and half liquid) and I used Michigan-grown Centennial hops along with Pacific Northwest Crystal. I brewed it December 4 and bottled and it 10 days later. It's fantastic stuff so far. I have the half the batch in the "cellar" at about 40 F and the rest split between the kitchen corner at 75 and the fridge. Despite a boil-over which resulted in some hops being lost, the final product is quite hoppy with an impressive hop aroma, especially considering I didn't steep or add any dry hops. I'm staring to think that hop-bursting is the way to go in order to impart the now classic in-your-face American hop flavor and aroma. I'll try and post more on this batch as it ages.

So that was the first batch. This time around I couldn't get enough of the Centennial hops I wanted, so used a half-ounce of Magnum at the start of the 60-minute boil and three ounces of Sterling and the remaining half-ounce of Magnum at 15 minutes left in the boil. I also split the addition of the malt extract, adding three pounds of dry at the start and the liquid 45 minutes into the boil. All the of extract was the same: Briess Pilsner. Before starting the boil, I filled the fermenter with six gallons of water combined with one crushed campden tablet to counteract the chlorine in my tap water. I let this mixture sit a minute, then I poured three gallons into the brew kettle and left three in the fermenter. My mini-mash included one pound of Victory and a half pound each of Carafa I and brown malt in bag for 15 minutes. The mash temp got a little high (160 F), but I'm not going to worry about it. What's done is done. I actually had to restart the boil when I added the second half of the malt extract. I immersed my wort chiller for the final two minuets of the boil to sanitize it, then let the beer cool for 30 minutes. I added Irish moss at 13-15 minutes left in the boil and I cooled the wort for 30 minutes, poured into the awaiting fermenter filled with the remaining water. I sprinkled one packet of S-05 yeast in a layer on top of the wort and let sit for 15 minutes in covered fermenter then mixed by agitating the fermenter bucket, added ferm lock and moved to space under counter in the corner of the kitchen. Here's to hoping this brown ale is as good or better than the previous one!

Belgian IPA gets tapped

I tapped a very interesting IPA tonight. I ended up packaging the whole batch of my Belgian IPA into two Party Pigs and just tapped the first pig after less than a day in the fridge. The aroma, despite dry hopping in the secondary and the Pig, is a bit neutral at first with light orange-marmalade notes which give way to a fairly intense phenolic character. This marmalade-phenolic character imparts itself on the palate as well and the esters make an interesting mix with the Chinook flavoring hops. The finish is bitter at first, but then tart. There is a decent amount of body to this beer, at least up front, which is what I expected using the Wyeast 3711 strain. I'm not sure I like such a strong phenolic character in a hoppy beer. Perhaps with age in the fridge the phenols will lager out. I think if I brewed this again that I would cut back on the Caravienne (I used a full pound), since I think it may have add a bit too much sweetness. I may have to start calling this beer Bittersweet IPA, as it almost tastes like I'm sucking on a toffee hard candy, eating an orange slice and drinking an IPA all at the same time.