Shua Brewing

Wine Barrel Flanders Red Update

Just sampled my Wine Barrel Flanders Red tonight for the first time since November. I am pretty excited because we all agreed it is ready to bottle in the coming weeks. Just fantastic, lots of depth and complexity. Not as sour as some sours out there ( I am looking at you La Folie) but very well balanced between sour, funk, wine, and oak. Now is the hard decision, how much to bottle, all of it, or just part which is what we originally planned on. I am actually leaning toward all of it now, which we guess is about 50 gallons. The barrel started out a little more then 5 gallons short of the full 60, and we are guessing around 5 gallons has evaporated since, causing the top bit of the barrel to dry out. Because of this filling the barrel up all the way could cause leaks, which is why I am a fan of bottling it all, then washing it with boiling water, allowing the barrel to seal, and then fill it up again. Then of course the big decision, what to fill it up with next?

After we tried our beer, we also drank a bottle of Sour in the Rye from the Bruery. One of the guys brought it over after his trip down to UC Davis to look at grad schools. I have never had anything from the Bruery before, but wow, this was one of my favorite sours I have ever had after the first sip. The sour hits you right off the bat, then this sweet juicy citrus fruit just attacks you, ending with hint of rye at the end. I can’t describe this beer well enough to do it justice.

My camera on my phone decided not to work so I have no pictures of the barrel beer or the Sour in the Rye, which is disappointing, but oh well, deal with my words.

Baltic Porter

Baltic Porter is one of those styles I always tell myself I am going to brew, but never do. But after realizing I had a good lager strain on hand and all the ingredients to brew one, I jumped on it. Although true lagered commercial examples are far between, the ones I have had have always made a good impression. When I think of a Baltic porter I think of a smooth, clean porter, with a toned down character compared to its other porter compatriots. Toned down does not mean not as interesting, it just has this more relaxed character to it. While I don’t think this first recipe hit that goal on the head, It does have many of the characters I was looking for. Enough of me trying to put off writing a lab report, here is all the goods.

Baltic Porter

OG: 1.067   FG: 1.020    ABV: 6.14%    IBU: 22.4    SRM: 40.8

Size:5 gallon       Mash:158F  Ferment: 50 F (10C)

Recipe:

57% 2-Row (GW)

15% Munich (GW)

10% Vienna (Bairds)

5% Carafa II (Weyermann)

5% English Chocolate 413L (Crisp)

5% Flaked Oats (GW)

3% C120 (Crisp)

13g Magnum 60min [22.8 IBU]

Yeast: 2nd Generation Labs German Lager X slurry

Water Profile:

Ca: 63.7  Mg: 0  Na: 21.2  SO₄: 29.5  Cl: 41.5  HCO₃: 141.6

Notes:

2/2/13 A bit windy but a decent brew day. My friends Aaron and Kelsey joined for a bit. Aaron knows the drill and focused on drinking from the kegerator, but Kelsey was interested so I managed to sucker her into doing some of the boring work haha.

2/3/13 Fermentation was going strong by the next morning.

2/7/13 Raised temp slowly up to ~58F to finish out and diacetyl rest.

2/11/13 Started slowly bringing it down to 32 

2/18/13 Kegged, set psi at 12

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Close to pitch black body, with a thick tan colored head. As it sits the head slowly dissipates to a couple cm which lasts the whole time. Excellent lacing as well.

Aroma: Just like many porters the aroma starts out with a very bready, malty, sweet, dark chocolate character. Not roasty but closer to ash or chalk, but not in a bad way. Unlike its fellow porters it seems to have a bit cleaner of an aroma, which makes sense with the lager yeast, although I could be full of shit.

Taste: Just like the aroma, but even more focus on the dark chocolate, and ash like quality. Again not in a bad way. It is on the sweeter side but not cloying and definitely would not slow down the consumption. Just as clean as the aroma, very smooth.

Mouthfeel: As stated in the taste it is very smooth, with a very filling mouthfeel, although it still manages to not exactly be heavy. Medium carbonation.

Drinkability and Notes: While it feels bigger and has a sweetness to it, its not to the point it would slow you down from drinking it. Seemed to be a well liked beer at the homebrew meeting. My only complaint is it is a bit out of style, a bit to dark both in color and flavor. Slightly less ash quality would benefit it a bit. But by far one of the better porter/stouts I have ever made.

Improvements:

To fix the few critiques I have with this beer, I plan on lowering the English Chocolate down to roughly half what it is now, maybe 2/3. I will possibly replace what I remove with C120 but I am not set on that. Of course a patient lagering schedule would also be an obvious benefit. Although I do plan on slowly drinking this one and let it age for a bit.

German Lager X

portlandlovespints said: I love that yeast strain, it took my awhile to find a lager yeast strain with the profile I liked. Diacetyl rests are so important

I am a big fan of it now as well. I have used it in 3 beers now. This helles, baltic porter, and the helles II. It really does provide a great malty and creamy beer profile. Attenuation and flocculation have been solid. Although like you said I think it produces a bit more diacetyl then previous lager strains I have used. I tend to always ferment at 50 with lagers and slowly rise at the end of fermentation up to high 50’s low 60’s for a few days to clean it up and never have problems. For the helles II I raised it a bit higher for a bit longer which will hopefully solve my problem. It should be up and carbed in the coming week or 2 and I will post about it. I also saved a few 125ml erlenmeyers of the yeast so I can keep brewing with it. I think it will be my go to strain the rest of the year!

Munich Helles

One of my goals for this year was to brew more lagers. So it only made sense to get right to it with the second brew of the year. I had purchased a vial of White Labs 835 German Lager X back in November, which is said to produce a “creamy, malty beer profile”. With this in mind a Munich Helles seemed perfect for the situation. While I have never had a good commercial example of a Helles, after reading the BJCP guidelines for it, I was hooked.

Munich Helles

OG: 1.047   FG: 1.011    ABV: 4.7%    IBU: 16    SRM: 4.7

Size:5 gallon       Mash:150F  Ferment: 50 F (10C)

Recipe:

90% Pilsner (Best Maltz)

5.0% Vienna (GW)

5.0% CaraHelles (Weyermann)

20g Mt Hood 60min [16 IBU]

Yeast: White Labs German Lager X

Water Profile:

Ca: 53.9  Mg: 0  Na: 5.2  SO₄: 51.6  Cl: 65.4  HCO₃: 0

Notes:

1/18/13: Brewed by myself. Everything went fairly well. Hit numbers dead on.

1/27/13 Bumped up to 58 for diacetyl rest.

1/29/13 Crashed it down to 32.

2/1/13 Kegged. Added Gelatin during transfer to help clear it up. Set PSI at 20 for a few days then backed off to ~12.

2/3/13 Pulled two pints worth to remove gelatin.

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Wonderful light gold color to it. Very good clarity, although the picture does not do it justice. A fluffy 2 finger thick white head billows on top of it. Sinking slowly to a mm thick coating. 

Aroma: Sweet pils malt. It really has a beautiful, elegant quality to it. Blended in to this is hint of diacetyl which is disappointing.

Taste: A great light malty character to it right off the bat. Definitely tastes of pilsner malt, slightly grainy in a good way. Again a hint of buttery diacetyl. After the initial character a slight sweetness follows, although it finishes with a crisp ending that seems to be accentuated from the carbonation.

Mouthfeel: Medium body that is very smooth with a medium high carbonation.

Drinkability and Notes: This beer is one of my favorites to date. Very drinkable with my only concern being the slight diacetyl presence. Great malty complexity. Definitely a beer that would like to have on tap all the time. My best friend is a Budweiser guy but he even went back for a few pints. Seems to be a great beer for both craft beer people and non craft beer people alike.

Improvements:

The main improvement is a better diacetyl rest next time. And by next time I mean the Helles that I brewed 2 weeks ago haha. I enjoyed this recipe that much. At first I also wanted to lower the sweetness slightly but  after giving this much needed time to actually lager it became more balanced. Although my newest recipe lowered the CaraHelles by a percent, it should change little in the final outcome.

First brew of the year, and first non turbid mash using the basic propane system. I decided to stick with something simple, low bitterness and low alcohol. Dark mild fit that category perfectly, something that would be easy to make changes on the fly.

Dark Mild

OG: 1.038   FG: 1.008     ABV: 3.9%    IBU: 17    SRM: 19.1

Size:5 gallon       Mash:158F  Ferment: 17 C

Recipe:

82.5% 2-row (GW)

10.0% Crystal 77L (Crisp)

5.0% Crystal 135/165L (Crisp)

1.25% English Chocolate 413L (Crisp)

1.25% Carafa II (weyermann)

32g US Goldings 45min [17 IBU]

Yeast: US-05

Notes:

1/11/13 First brew day of the new year. Had trouble reaching mash out temp on such a cold day (~15 F). Eventually made it work. Also forgot to bag the hops and they clogged my filter a bit for chilling so had to stir the whole time to free it up and was far slower then the usual ~10 ish minutes or so it usually takes.

1/12/13 Bumped the temp up a bit because it was getting down around 17C or so since my room is so cold. My ferm chamber doesn’t have heat but might need to fix that. Put a growler of hot water next to it and it rose to ~18.5.

1/13/13 Fermentation took off a bit more today with the increase in temp, this also rose its own temperature up to 19C. Which is about where I want it for the next few days until I raise it to help it finish out. Hopefully the non steady temps wont have a huge impact on the beer.

1/25/13 Kegged it. Set at ~20 psi for a few days to get it carbed, and then brought it back down to ~12.

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Sort of a dirty brown. It looks better in person, the picture above looks awful. Light tan head that sticks around for a few minutes.

Aroma: The aroma smells of sweet caramel and toasted bread. A slight hint of chocolate.

Taste: Like the aroma it has some caramel and toasted qualities to it. A hint of bitterness to balance it out. Ends a little dry with the slight chocolate quality coming around.

Mouthfeel: A light body… way to light. Carbonation is higher then is standard but doesn’t hurt this beer with how low the final gravity ended up.

Drinkability and Notes: This beer is very light but does have some underlying complexity which is nice. Definitely falls under the session category. If it would of finished a few points higher, ideally in the 14-12 range it would of really helped the body and character of this beer out.

Improvements:

It needs a little more character malts to spice up the background of this beer. Along with this, more non fermentables to allow it not to finish as low. If I re-brewed this right now I would throw in some amber or victory malt, and possibly some oats. I would also try raising the mash temp even higher, although this is already very high. I have a black IPA and 2 pales ales planned for the next month or so, but maybe after that I can revisit this. I really would love to have a great mild on tap.

2012 In Review

As usual I am slow at posting stuff to here but better late then never. 2012 was my best year in terms of how much I brewed by far. I started out the year very strong, brewing almost every weekend. During the summer I slowed down a bit but did primarily 10 gallon batches with my friend David. Between now and then I have slowed down significantly with my last semester being extremely busy. I am hoping I can pick up my pace for the first few months of 2013.

Brew Day: Washington Lambic

This last weekend my friend David and I completed the first of two brew sessions to fill a 15 gallon plastic barrel of lambic. While I initially dubbed this beer “Washington Lambic”, it is currently a “Mostly Washington Lambic”, since we have yet to successfully culture local yeast and bacteria. We chose to ferment the batch with Wyeast Belgian Lambic Blend instead, along with various dregs of sour beers we drink, as well as any successful local funk we culture in the near future.

Aged Cascades from my neighbors brothers hop farm near Sunnyside

We did manage to keep the rest of the ingredients fairly local as seen in the recipe below. Finishing off my 50 pound bag of Washington select 2-row, unmalted local wheat, and aged cascade hops I had in my attic. Living 30 minutes from the largest hop region in the US makes hops the easiest to obtain by far. While it was nice to keep the hops local it also wasn’t completely ideal because although aged a bit, they still had an estimated 6.0% AA content which did not allow us to pack it full of as many hops as is traditional. Also to be noted is a 66/34 ratio was going to be used for the grain bill but I ran out of unmalted wheat so I added in a little torrified wheat.

David heating Kettle #2 to 176.

Mashing wise we wanted to do a traditional turbid mash. This was surprisingly refreshing reverting back to using my propane burner, since I have been brewing with my full electric rig for the last 2 years. It is odd but I find I at times miss standing in the cold over a propane burner, not having electronics to automatically hit my temperatures. One of my favorite brew days to date.

The boil. 10 Gallon pot was a bit small for this, had to keep topping off.

Below is the steps I set out for the brew day. I was proud of myself, I tend to do stuff on the fly which seemed like trouble waiting to happen on this brew. Turns out planning everything out so well allowed me to hit most of my numbers pretty close for each step.

Turbid Mash Schedule:

1. Heat 5 gallons of water to 150 F in main Kettle.
2. Add 6 qts to MT.
3. Crank heat on main kettle to bring to a boil.
4. When water in MT is at 135.6 F add grain.
5. Planned Temperature: 113 F              Actual Temperature:   ~112.5 F
6. Adjust accordingly. Total Water in MT:  6 qts
7.  Wait 20 minutes
8. Add boiling water until mash hits 136 F.       Actual Temperature:  ~135.5 F
9. Water added  4.5 qts                       Total water in MT: 10.5 qts
10. Wait 5 minutes.
11. Vorlauf to remove big chunks. Pull 1.5 qts to small kettle and heat to 176F.
12. Add boiling water until mash hits 150 F.       Actual Temperature: 151 F
13.  Water added  5  qts                   Total water in MT: 13 qts
14. Top off main kettle.
15. Wait 30 minutes
16. Vorlauf to remove big chunks. Pull 6 qts to small kettle and heat to 176 F.
17. Add boiling water until mash hits 162 F.          Actual Temperature: 161.7 F
18. Water added  8 qts                 Total water in MT:  15 qts
19. Top off main kettle and bring it up to 185F for sparge.
20. Add small kettle to the mash. Bring it to 167 F.
21. Adjust accordingly to hit temp.
22. Wait 10 minute.
23. Recirculate for 10 minutes/Vorlauf tell clear. Start Sparge.

Chilling the wort at the end of the day.

Washington Lambic (1/2 the batch)

OG: 1.051   FG: NA     ABV: NA    IBU: 15.9    SRM: 3.7

Size:8 gallon       Mash:Turbid Mash  Ferment: Garage Ambient ~60 F

Recipe:

66.63% Washington Select Pale malt (GW)

31.78% Unmalted Wheat

1.59% Torrified Wheat (GW)

21g Aged Cascade 150min [15.9IBU]

Yeast: Wyeast Belgian Lambic Blend, Sour Bottle Dregs

Notes:

12/22/12 Brewed the beer, brew day lasted approximately 8 hours. Pretty good for a long mash, and 2.5 hour boil.

12/23/12 Fermentation going in full force.

Planning on brewing the rest of it after Christmas. By then the fermentation should be slowing down, and ready to fill it up to the top. Trying to avoid spewing wort everywhere when its full and fermenting.

After a day of brewing I apparently wasn’t the only one tired. Bella is only 6 months old and hasn’t learned to be lady like yet. Bit of a ho haha.