Category Archives: Uncategorised

Batch 16: Floret (pilot batches)

Brewed:  Jan 10, 2016

OG:  1.076   FG: 1.006   IBU: 15    ABV: 9.0%

This brew day occured because Aimée, my girlfriend, came with me to the homebrew shop for some unrelated ingredients. After her review of the spices available at the shop, we decided to brew up two 1-gallon experiments (exbeeriments) of a simple saison with herb additions.

The boil was split to two pots at 30 minutes left, and at 10 minutes each pot got its own herb additions:  One received 0.50 oz of rose hips and 0.50 oz of pink peppercorns, the other received 1.00 oz of elderberries and 0.2 oz of willamette. These smaller volumes made the ice bath in the sink a lot more efficient, and with gentle stirring the wort was cooled in about 10 minutes to 75F.

Since the grain was purchased with a 2.5 gallon batch in mind but we only brewed about 1.7 gallons, gravity is quite a bit higher than our initial intent. Considering watering down at bottling with the corn sugar addition.

Recipe: 

80%    German pilsner malt

10%     Flaked wheat

10%     Malted wheat

Hopped to 15 IBU with Willamette

WYeast 3711 – French saison

 

Process:

Infuision mash (BIAB), 150F for 90 minutes, 170F for 10 minutes

Boiled 90 minutes

Fermented at 72F for 21 days

 

Tasting Notes:

Jan 30, 2016 – Bottling day. Elderberry version is tasting pretty nice, smells a bit green still but flavour is apricot, berries, and grainy malt. Rose hip & pink peppercorn version is very peppery, not unpleasantly so but hoping it will tone down with some conditioning time.

 

 

 

Batch 15: Walrus

Brewed:  Dec 30, 2015

OG: 1.079      FG: 1.017      IBU: 42     ABV: 8.2%

 

Squeezed one more brew day in before the end of the year. I wanted to brew something with a similar malt profile as the KBS / FBS clone, but without the coffee addition and a little lower gravity. This was a 9L half-batch (2.3 gallons approximately) brewed on the apartment stove-top.

 

Specs:walrus-1

45%    Canadian 2-row pale malt

33%    Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter

8.5%   Flaked oats

5%      Chocolate malt

3.5%   Crystal 120

2.5%   Carafa II

2.5%   Roasted Barley

1 oz    Willamette @ 60 min  (40 IBU)

1.5 oz    Cacao nibs @ 10 min

Fermented at 68F with WYeast 1318 – London Ale III

Mashed at 154F for 60 min,  159F for 15 min

Boiled for 120 min.

 

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sandbox_walrus1sandbox_walrus3

 

Brew Notes:   Targeted 155F mash temp, hit 154. Dropped to 153 after about 35 min. Added some boiling water at 60 min to bring up to 159F for 15 min. BIAB with towels for insulation. Used 1 gallon “sparge” dunk in 3 gallon kettle at 173F for 10 min. Boiled 120 min, gentle rolling boil. Chilled by gentle stirring in ice bath. Changed out water 3 times to keep cool. Chilled to ~79F and transferred to carboy. Put carboy in 60F water bath to finish out the chill.

 

At 12 hours, wort at 68F and some activity starting. No krausen yet but swirling action and about 40 bubbles per min.

 

Tasting Notes:

Jan 13, 2015 – Taste off hydro sample at 2 wks in. SG is down lower than I wanted at 1.017, taste is overwhelmingly teriyaki/soy sauce at the moment with some bitter chocolate as well. Tastes young but also dry. Certainly not what I was going for, hope this beer doesn’t suck and isn’t infected. Will leave another week before attempting to bottle.

Jan 24, 2015 – Bottling day. Phew, tasting a lot better than just one week ago. Cocoa flavour up front with a little umami / soy on the back end. Still, a little drier than I was going for but I’m a lot more optimistic about the batch now. Stayed at 1.017.

Mar 6, 2016 – Has come around fairly well, tastes fine though not particularly interesting. Chocolate is subtle but there. Decent body, not creamy but medium-full. Touch of booziness. Will be interesting to see how it develops over a few months.

Nov 12, 2016 – This matured into a pretty good beer, just a little overly dry for my tastes. Chocolate flavours came out more as it aged. Carbonation stayed low, but picked up enough to fit the style. Overall happy with the recipe, just need to dial the process.

Batch 14: Woodstock Old Ale

Woodstock – Old Ale aged on oak with brettanomyces

This was my first collaboration with a friend who homebrews under the moniker Playhouse Brewing. His homebrew is an inspiration to me and his experience far outweighs my own, so this was a great opportunity for me. We both intended to brew a similar beer this month so we decided to do so together, splitting the wort and pitching our own yeasts.

The malt bill was his doing, closely matching what I had in mind already:

88.5%  Maris Otter

6.5%   Crystal 40

3.5%   Crystal 120

1.5%   Chocolate malt

Bitterness was added by way of hop extract at FWH to acheive 45 IBU. My 2.5 gallons received WYeast’s 9097 old ale blend, a “Private Collection” strain that includes some brettanomyces and is only released every couple years from my knowledge.

Fermentation was quick to get going and vigorous. Bubbling started after only a few hours.  The next morning there was a nice 30mm krausen, and by that evening it was in full blow-off mode. It continued to blow off for about 10 hours. After a few weeks in primary this will spend an extended time in secondary on boiled oak cubes.

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OG:  1.099     IBU: 45     FG: 1.010

Brewed:  Dec 6th, 2015     Bottled:  April 24, 2016

Fermentation took place in an “ice bath” which I tried to keep at an average 67 – 68F for the first four days, but in reality it would slowly oscillate between 64 and 73F due to my only being able to add ice every 8 hours or so. I pitched only the swelled smack pack, which is a pretty light pitch for 2.5 gallons of 1.100 wort I realize.

Tasting Notes:

Jan 3, 2016 – Sample from primary. SG down to 1.019, though it tastes sweeter. Intense fruitiness and solid caramel backbone. Surprisingly little ‘young’ flavour and not a lot of heat either, considering it’s clocking in at 10.7% right now. Added boiled oak cubes and will leave in primary until bottling.

May 30, 2016 – First bottle. Negligible carb, which was expected and welcomed at this point. Flavour is dominated by a leathery quality which is quite pleasant. Some subtle dark fruit flavour. Moderate and pleasant oak presence. So far, so good! Despite the 90% attenuation, the beer does not come across as particularly dry thanks to the brett flavours.

Feb 6, 2019 – This beer turned out great. Despite the lack of updates on this page, I’ve been slowly working my way through the batch for damn near three years now and still have a few left – and it’s still improving. Lots of leather and dark fruit, with a little bit of chocolate and caramel for good measure. Carbonation remained very low, and the mouthfeel is a little slick, but it’s a great sipper.

Batch 13: Founders Breakfast Stout clone

This brew is based on the Zymurgy recipe, which a number of local homebrewer friends are also brewing for a comparitive tasting in the new year. Changes I made were to use Willamette exclusively (1.25 oz at 60 min and 1.00 oz at 30 min for a 3.4 gal batch for 60 IBU), cacao nibs rather than cocoa as stated, and I used WYeast’s 1450 – Denny’s blend. I also [bone-headedly] forgot to adjust the chocolate, cacao and coffee amounts down for the smaller batch size so they’ll be prominent.

The OG came out dead-on at 1.092. Depending on where it finishes at, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s well over the original’s ABV. With the extra coffee also, it might do well with some age provided it turns out. Overall a pretty smooth brew day except the lack of hop spider or otherwise to help filter the hops and chocolate was a mistake – the ‘bazooka tube’ on the valve clogged entirely due to the chocolate / hop sediment mixture and we had to revert to pouring into the funnel with screen. And the screen had to be constantly un-clogged. So it took about an hour to transfer, but during this time it was WELL aerated.

The plan is to primary for a couple weeks then fill a 3-gallon secondary to the brim (with some cold brew and bourbon oak cubes) and let that rest for 6 or 8 weeks.

The ingredients (minus the yeast)

FBS1

Without any particular water chemistry knowledge, I added 1/2 tsp of baking soda to help reduce the acidity from all those roasted grains. Much roasted grains.

FBS2

Getting the boil underway. It was a 90 minute boil, and thanks to the lower volume it was a bit more vigorous than usual. It was brewed on a gas range stove-top. The hot break was pretty lively, hard to tell as the fluid level is so low.

FBS4

Here is the cooled wort, this was at the point where the screen had clogged and nothing was passing through the valve anymore. The nibs were floating along with the coffee grounds, and chocolate smeared on the wall of the kettle.

FBS5

And ready for the basement. As we were transferring I was convinced we came in well under target volume (which was 3.4 gallons) but this looks about right. Hopefully we’ll be able to get nearly 3 gallons into secondary in a couple weeks.

FBS6

 

Tasting Notes

Jan 10, 2016 – 2.5 weeks in bottle only. Very mild carb, tons of rich coffee flavour. Some chocolate filling the back end of the palate. Pretty nice.

Jan 22, 2016 – Creamy coffee, some chocolate, not overly complex or flavourful beyond the coffee but nice enough.

Feb 4, 2016 – Coffee is coming across with a celery salt / green pepper quality in this bottle, which is too bad.

Apr 26, 2016 – Green pepper is almost gone, bottle has finally carbed, and lots of chocolate coming through. Body is full and lovely.

May 27, 2016 – Well, there it goes again. Heavy carbonation clearly due to some infection, likely brett. Body has diminished and the beer has picked up some bad flavours. Well, it was good for a short bit there.

 

 

Batch 07: Citra IPA (SMaSH)

My coworker / brew partner wanted to do a SMaSH IPA (single hop, single malt) as a straightforward brew that we could then substitute with in the future to gain experience with different hop and malt varieties. I was on board because science. Citra was an easy choice for both of us, and Maris Otter was the malt choice. I wasn’t sure that a full MO grain bill would work out, but this beer tasted excellent. No regrets.

The Details (5 gal batch):

6.50 kg    Maris Otter

Citra additions:

1.0 oz @ 20 min

1.0 oz @ 5 min

4.0 oz @ whirlpool (15 min, 200F)

4.0 oz dry hop for 4 days

Fermented with WYeast 1056 – American Ale @ 67F.

OG: 1.068    FG: 1.014    IBU: 70

Brewed: July 11, 2015

Bottled: July 29, 2015

Tasting Notes:

[Aug 6, 2015]  Juicy and lovely huge melon-forward citrus both on the nose and palate. Bit sweet. Not much bitterness.

[Aug 13, 2015]  Bitterness picking up, balance is good. Straightforward, bit of a one note beer but very enjoyable.

[Sep 5, 2015]  Starting to pick up a bit of grassiness and losing some steam, still enjoyable though

 

Batch 06: Esmeralda

Brewed: July 1, 2015

OG: 1.089    FG: 1.018    IBU: 54    ABV: 9.4%

Esmeralda is named after our sheltie who passed in 2013. Part of the inspiration was to make a beer with both Scottish and Canadian influence. Brewed with Scottish ale yeast and maple syrup, this beer also uses a heavy dose of rye malt and plenty of earthy hops as well.

The Details (2.5 gallon batch):

1.75 kg   Maris Otter

0.50 kg   Rye malt

0.25 kg   Caramunich

0.10 kg   Chocolate malt

0.5 oz Fuggles @ 60 min

0.5 oz Cascade @ 40 min

0.25 oz Cascade @ 20 min

0.25 oz Cascade @ flameout

Mashed at 152F for 75 min, boil 90 min

Fermented with WYeast 1728 at 60F

0.68 kg maple syrup added at 12 hrs in

 

OG: 1.089   FG: 1.018   IBU: 54

Brewed:  July 1st, 2015

Bottled: July 25th, 2015

Tasting Notes:

[July 9, 2015]  First pull from primary. Smells of raisins and figs with booziness. A bit of the maple on the palate.

[Aug 8, 2015]  Very young after bottling. Slight maple on nose with booze soaked dark fruits. A bit of chocolate and caramel on the palate with bitterness and a bit of woodiness.

[Sep 2, 2015]  Taste is coming together better, but un-apologetically boozy at this point. Needs more time.

[Sept 24, 2015]  This bottle is less boozy. Turned out pretty well, a bit drier than I’d like actually. Higher mash temp in order.

[Nov 7, 2015]  Nose is a pretty alluring mix of maple, plum, and toffee. Certainly still booze-forward but has more to offer. Not sure I agree with previous comment about being too dry anymore – it’s about right in that regard. I do think it’s maybe a little too heavy on the rye and I’d like to see the maple flavour come through more.

[February 3, 2016] When cold, this is pretty nice. Solid caramel and dark fruit presence, more esters than it should have but they’re pleasant enough. Body is a tad thin but acceptable. As it warms though, there’s a harshness that I think must be fusels which aren’t going anywhere. Odd, as I thought I fermented reasonably cool (low 60’s if I recall correctly), but something was amiss.

 

 

Batch 05: Euka I

When I first decided to try homebrewing, there were two things I knew I wanted to get to as soon as I had a handle on things: an English barleywine and a funky saison. Five batches in and I was making the second happen.

Without the knowledge nor experience to cultivate a good ‘wild’ culture, I co-pitched WYeast’s powerful 3711 saison yeast along with a vial of White Lab’s 648, Brett Brux Trois Vrai. Check out that FG.

The Details:

3.00 kg   Pilsner malt

1.25 kg   Wheat malt

0.75 kg   Vienna malt

0.20 kg   Acid malt

0.5 oz Willamette + 0.5 oz Saaz @ 60 min

0.5 oz Willamette + 0.5 oz Saax @ 15 min

Mashed at 153F for 90 min, boiled 90 min  (Long mash due to bottling other beer)

Pitched both WY3711 and WLP648 together

OG: 1.045     FG: 1.000     IBU: 26

Brewed: June 21, 2015

Bottled: August 23, 2015

Tasting Notes:

[Sep 5, 2015]  Big fruitiness, apricot and white peaches. Subtle funk, bit of fruit skin character. Not yet fully carbonated.

[Sep 24, 2015]  Has developed more of a cider-like character, a lot of apple/pear skin. Not yet a lot of funk.

[Oct 8, 2015]  This is better than the last bottle. Orange stone fruit on the nose, gently spicy. Still plenty of apple/pear but more going on.

Batch 04: PACMAN pale ale

Most people would guess that the name PACMAN comes from using WYeast’s pacman blend, but it doesn’t. I actually didn’t know about that yeast at the time. It stands for Pale Ale [with] Citra / Mosaic / Amarillo [hops], Northwest [ale yeast].  An APA at 50 IBU and around 5.5% with a hop blend based on my favourites.

The details:

75%    Thomas Fawcett Golden Promise

20%    Vienna malt

5%     Carapils

1.0 oz mosaic @ 30 min

1.0 oz mosaic, 1.0 oz citra, 0.5 oz amarillo @ 5 min

2.0 oz mosaic @ flameout

Mashed at 153F for 60 min, boil 60 min

WYeast 1332 – Northwest Ale at 67F

Dry-hopped 9 days with 2 oz mosaic, 1 oz citra, 0.5 oz amarillo

OG: 1.050    FG: 1.012   IBU: 50

 

Brewed: May 24, 2015

Bottled: June 21, 2015

Tasting Notes:

This was drinking very nicely from 2 – 5 weeks in bottle, then started to develop a grassy character. Could have used more late-addition hops or a longer whirlpool. Bitterness picked up over the first few weeks. Attributing much of the quick downfall to poor filtration methods resulting in too much hop sediment making it into bottles. This grassiness tended to disappear at the 6 week mark, but the hop character overall was also starting to fade at this point. Last bottle was drank around 9 weeks in-bottle. Did not last long, I blame summer!

Batch 11: Tesserae

 

 

This beer is a made-up recipe that’s not based on anything in particular. Original inspiration was Driftwood’s Naughty Hildegaard, a Mosaic-hopped “ESB” that drinks more like a slightly malty IPA, though this beer has morphed into something a little darker to suit the late fall weather. I’m not really sure what to expect.

The details:

64.0%   Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter

21.3%   Thomas Fawcett Amber malt

7.1%    Thomas Fawcett Dark Crystal (83-90L)

5.2%    Flaked oats

2.4%    Thomas Fawcett Pale Chocolate

0.5 oz Centennial @ 60 min

1.0 oz Centennial, 1.0 oz Mosaic, 1.0 oz Amarillo @ 5 min

1.0 oz Mosaic, 1.0 oz Amarillo steeped for 10 mins after boil

WLP005 – English Ale yeast

Dry hop (6 days): 4 oz Mosaic, 0.5 oz Centennial

OG: 1.050    FG:  1.015    IBU: 50    ABV: 4.6%

 

Brewed: October 8th, 2015

Bottled: November 3rd, 2015

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IMG_0023

 

Tasting Notes: 
[Nov 3, 2015]  Bottling day. A little backstory: this was brewed in a friend’s parent’s place. So it wasn’t overly accessible, especially by me. So I got lazy and didn’t worry about attenuation because it was a pretty straightforward beer. Poured a cylinder sample during transfer to the bottling bucket and didn’t bother sticking the hydrometer in until the end of bottling because I thought it was a formality. Well, lesson learned!! This stalled / kicked out at 1.024, easily ten points higher than I’d have expected. Now I fear that the yeast will wake up, knock a few more points off, and over-carbonate the bottles. Needless to say I will be opening one regularly, and in all likelihood drainpouring at least a portion of the bottle. We’ll see.

As for tasting notes: the aroma is great. But it was dry-hopped with 4 ounces of mosaic alone. As you would expect it’s overly sweet on the malt side. The darker malts are pretty weird, I feel like they might work if the beer was a LOT drier though. Hard to say.

Batch 12: Winter Bochet (burnt mead)

[Brewed Oct 31, 2015]   OG: 1.130  Est. FG: 1.027  ABV: 14%

It was only about a week ago I learned what a bochet was. Instantly intrigued, I planned to make one as soon as possible. I picked up what I needed during the week and it happened today.

I read a little bit on the process but preparations were minimal. I learned some things. I can tell you that while it doesn’t take very long compared to brewing a beer, there are no breaks. As soon as the honey comes to a boil, you can’t stop stirring it for more than a couple seconds at a time.

I used Fireweed honey as it lacks a lot of delicate fragrances that I’d be losing anyway during the boil. I added a stick of cinnamon halfway through the boil because it seemed like a good idea. I have never tasted a bochet, so I have no basis to go on.

This was the honey and nutrients I used. The only other things that went in were a 3″ long stick of cinnamon, Lalvin 71B-1122, and enough pre-boiled water to top things up.

bochet1

I used 1/2 tsp of the superfood, and 1/4 tsp of the energizer. The 1500g of honey brings me to a calculated OG of 1.130, which is certainly on the high side. I am hoping that the yeast (Lalvin 71B-1122) will finish up around 1.025 – 1.027, which is the advertised 14% alcohol tolerance point of that yeast. That would leave me with a pretty sweet mead, but hopefully not overly so.

bochet3

This shows the progression in caramelizing over about 25 minutes. It’s not very linear; it takes 10 – 15 minutes to show much change and then it darkens up fairly quick. It’s very hard to tell what the liquid’s colour is because of the incessant foaming. I cut the heat immediately after the lower right photo because I was just starting to pick up some ‘burnt’ smell. Before that it was marshmallows, leading into a very short toffee period then a touch of burning firewood smell.

I knew that at this point it is important to cool the mixture quickly. Usually this is done by adding a couple cups of hot water, which will spit and spew violently due to the super-heated temperature of the honey. I thought I was clever by opting to drop the pot into an ice bath to pre-cool the honey, but I was wrong. It immediately started sticking to the sides of the pot with incredible tenacity. Out of the ice bath it came, and I did things the way others have: add a cup of hot water and quickly cover while it freaks out for a couple seconds. Repeat until it stops freaking out, then add the balance of your water more expediently.

Since my top-up water was pretty hot itself, I cooled the whole mixture in an ice bath with constant stirring until room temperature. The liquid was darker than I had anticipated from the boil but as far as I can tell, it’s not overcooked. I am very interested to see how this turns out.

bochet4

I added the re-hydrated yeast and put the airlock on. It’s now in my cellar at 62F where I’m hoping to find some activity in the coming days. Also shown is about 3/4 gallon of old ale (Buckstock) which I had bottled as well.

bochet5

I will update on how its fermentation goes and how it ends up tasting. I don’t expect I’ll be bottling it until the end of the year, maybe even early next year. I plan to bottle it uncarbonated, and have already picked up 375mL clear Bordeaux bottles and cork T-caps for it because I am a massive dork.

[Oct 31, 2015] At 6 hours after pitching, activity has started. Bubble once every 4-5 seconds, some caramel colored foam building on the surface.

[Nov 1, 2015] At 20 hours, a thin krausen has fully formed (formed around the 12 – 14 hr mark) with a nice orange top and cream foam. Bubbling at around 40 bubbles per minute.

bochet6

[Nov 5, 2015]   The krausen has dropped, so I topped the jug up with about 2.5 cups of boiled then cooled water, a couple spoonfuls of honey, and 1/4 tsp of yeast ‘Superfood’. No gravity reading yet.

[Nov 14, 2015] Gravity 1.078, higher than expected at 2 weeks!  Fed 1/2 tsp of superfood and 1/4 tsp of energizer boiled briefly. Smells strongly of Elmer’s wood glue, which I hope is just a product of the active fermentation!

[Nov 28, 2015] Transferred to secondary although the gravity has only dropped to about 1.059. That plasticy / wood glue smell is fading a bit. Hoping that an extended secondary will see some significant drop in SG still; I want a sweet mead but I’d like to see it in the 1.030’s. The taste is promising, despite being dessert-sweet it has nice complexity and the 10% ABV thus far is starting to balance it out somewhat.

[April 24, 2016] Bottled into 375mL clear Bordeaux bottles. Still has a bit of a glue-like note but otherwise quite nice. Likely still need some aging before it hits its stride.

[Dec 18, 2016] The glue smell has nearly completely dissipated now and the flavour is really quite nice.  I shared a bottle with a number of friends and it was a unanimous hit. Very much a dessert beverage, it remained easily in the 1.050 range. However there is just enough alcohol to help balance it out a little bit, and the marshmallow and caramel flavours work really well. It would have been better to finish a little lower and now that I’m better equipped both equipment- and knowledge-wise, I look forward to giving this another try sometime.

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