Brew #5, Redheaded Ryerish Ale, July 26, 2014

Brew #5 was another recipe from Midwest supplies: Redheaded Ryerish Ale.  I must confess I did not buy this from Midwest - I went to my local shop for the ingredients.  I don't recommend this method because it is much more expensive, even factoring in shipping cost.

Recipe
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Size: 3 gal
Target OG: 1.066
Target FG: 1.016
Style: Rye Irish Red
Recipe Type: Extract with specialty grains
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Water:
Acadia bottled spring water

Specialty Grains:
0.25 lbs Carared (Weyermann)
0.25 lbs English Dark Crystal
0.25 Victory
1 oz English Roasted Barley

Fermentables:
9.9 lbs Rye LME

Hops:
1oz Nugget (pellets) @ 60 min.
1oz Palisade (pellets) @ 15 min.
1oz Centennial (pellets) @ 15 min.
1oz Palisade (pellets) @ 5 min.
1oz Centennial (pellets) @ 5 min.

Yeast:
WLP 051 California V Ale Yeast

Brewing Notes
7/26/2014 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the big mouth bubbler primary.
• Heated 3 gal water to 155 F in 5 gallon economy stainless kettle on the stovetop.
• Steeped specialty grains in muslin bag for 25 minutes.
• Removed the grain bag and held it above the kettle to drain.
• Brought to boil
• Removed kettle from the burner.
• Added 3.3 lbs rye LME and stirred well
• Return the kettle to the burner and bring back to boil
• Set timer for 60 minutes and added hops per the recipe schedule
• At 20 minutes, paused the timer, removed the kettle from the burner, and added 6.6 lbs Rye LME and stirred thoroughly.
• Returned to boil and resumed the timer, adding the remaining hop additions per the recipe schedule.
• At 0 minutes, moved the kettle to the ice bath in my sink to chill. Chilled/diluted to 76F and 5 gallons.
• Took an OG reading of 1.065, corrected to 1.067
• Pitched the yeast directly from the White Labs vial.
• Put the BMB in the beer corner of the dining room with blowoff tube just in case (standard practice now).

7/26 - 8/7/2014 - Primary Fermentation:
Racked to 5 gallon glass carboy on 8/7.  Gravity was 1.020

8/7-8/28/2014 - Secondary Fermentation:
My patience was improving - 3 whole weeks in the secondary.

8/28/2014 - Bottling:
Bottled per our standard practice. This would have meant 5oz of corn sugar to prime. Gravity was 1.018, which I calculated to me 6.4% abv.  Yield was 51 12 oz bottles

9/5/2014 - First Taste:
Dead flat

9/12/2014 - Second Taste:
Dead flat

9/16/2014 - Third Taste:
1/2 carbonated

Eventually this one carbonated fully, around 8 weeks after bottling.  This tasted very malty and we did drink it all, but I noted that this is not a repeat. I don't know if this is because it wasn't very good or because it tried my patience for bottle carbonating.

Brew #4: Honey Hefeweizen, July 13 2014

Brew #4 marked a minor milestone for me. This was the first brew that I intentionally modified the kit's recipe. I started with a Hefeweizen extract kit from Bailee's but added 2 lbs of clover honey late in the boil, as well as switched out yeasts from the kit's Safbrew WB-06 to White Labs WLP 300 Hefeweizen Liquid Ale Yeast.

Recipe
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Size: 3 gal
Target OG: 1.048-1.052 (did not include honey)
Target FG: 1.012-1.016
Style: Hefeweizen
Recipe Type: Extract
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Water:
Acadia bottled spring water

Specialty Grains:
None

Fermentables:
6.6 lbs Wheat LME
1 lb Wheat DME
2 lbs clover honey @ 10 min.

Hops:
1oz Hallertau (pellets) @ 60 min.
1oz Hallertau (pellets) @ 10 min.

Yeast:
WLP 300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast

Brewing Notes
7/13/2014 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the big mouth bubbler primary.
• Brought 3 gal water to boil  in 5 gallon economy stainless kettle on the stovetop.
• Removed kettle from the burner.
• Added 6.6 lb wheat LME and 1 lb wheat DME and stirred well
• Return the kettle to the burner and brought back to boil
• Set timer for 60 minutes and added hops per the recipe schedule
• At 10 minutes, paused the timer, removed the kettle from the burner, and added 2 lbs honey
• Returned to boil and resumed the timer, added the 10 minute hop addition.
• At 0 minutes, moved the kettle to the ice bath in my sink to chill. Chilled to 68F.
• Transferred to the BMB by siphoning and added water to get to 5 gal volume
• Took an OG reading of 1.072
• Pitched the yeast directly
• Put the BMB in the beer corner of the dining room
• Still reeling from the blowout in Brew #3, and wishing to keep my wife happy I rigged a blowoff tube just in case.

7/13-7/25 Fermentation:
The liquid yeast tore through this bigger beer with no trouble.  There was nothing else of note, which is probably good

7/25/2014 - Bottling:
Prepped bottles by washing in oxyclean and sanitizing in the dishwasher overnight. Everything else got sanitized with star-san. We attempted to prime the bottles using a 1/2 cup of honey boiled in 2 cups of water, but this boiled over on the stove, so we went back to the 3/4 cups of corn sugar, boiled in water for 10 minutes. Final gravity was 1.012, which I calculated to mean 7.9% abv. Yield was 51 12oz bottles.

??? - First Taste:
Again, no date, no notes.  This one drank very well, I and my friends were pleased with how this one came out.

Brew #3: Hop Cult IPA, June 21, 2014

Brew #3 was an American IPA extract kit from Midwest Supplies again: Hop Cult IPA. Since I didn't realize that #1 was English style until I opened the first bottle, I wanted to make something hoppier.  Additions to my process and equipment for this one: Late malt addition, dry hopping, and a 6.5 Gal Big Mouth Bubbler to be used as a primary fermenter, since I didn't trust the seal on the bucket after the first 2 brews.

Recipe
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Size: 3 gal
Target OG: 1.064
Target FG: 1.016
Style: American IPA
Recipe Type: Extract with specialty grains
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Water:
Acadia bottled spring water

Specialty Grains:
0.5 lbs Belgian Aromatic

Fermentables:
1 lb Gold DME
1 lb Wheat DME
6 lbs Gold LME @ 15 min.

Hops:
1oz Warrior (pellets) @ 60 min.
1oz Centennial (pellets) @ 10 min.
1oz Citra (pellets) @ 10 min.
3oz Citra (pellets) dry hop 7 days

Yeast:
Safale S-04, pitched dry

Brewing Notes
6/21/2014 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the big mouth bubbler primary.
  
• Heated 3 gal water to 155 F in 5 gallon economy stainless kettle on the stovetop.
• Steeped specialty grains in muslin bag for 25 minutes.
• Removed the grain bag and held it above the kettle to drain.
• Brought to boil
• Removed kettle from the burner.
• Added 1 lb wheat DME and 1 lb gold DME and stirred well
• Return the kettle to the burner and bring back to boil
• Set timer for 60 minutes and added hops per the recipe schedule
• At 15 minutes, paused the timer, removed the kettle from the burner, and added 6 lbs Gold LME and stirred thoroughly.
• Returned to boil and resumed the timer, added the 10 minute hop addition.
• At 0 minutes, moved the kettle to the ice bath in my sink to chill. Chilled to 74F.
• Took an OG reading of 1.060, corrected to 1.062
• Sprinkled the yeast dry on top of wort
• Put the BMB in the beer corner of the dining room

6/21 - 6/27/2014 - Primary Fermentation:
Since my fermenter was clear now, I could see the activity, so that was fun.  On 6/22 at 5:30 AM the krausen was up to the 6 gallon mark, airlock bubbling faster than once per second.  I left for a bike ride. At around 11:00 AM, i got the now infamous "I hate you. I hate your beer." phone call (sorry Lauren). Apparently the krausen plugged up the 3-piece airlock and shot it and the bung up to the ceiling, spraying foam all over.  Since I was unreachable at the time, Lauren researched how to make a blow-off tube.  We used the siphon/bottling tube shoved into a clean/sanitized bung on one end, with the other end in a wine bottle half filled with sanitizer solution.

Look at the spatter on the wall.  Just after I shot this picture and cleaned the mess off the top, it shot the bung out again.  Now the bung goes ALL the way in. On 6/27 racked to 5 gallon glass carboy and measured gravity of 1.018.

6/27-7/14/2014 - Secondary Fermentation:
7/6 dry hopped with 3 oz citra pellets added directly into the carboy.

7/14/2014 - Bottling:
I prepped my bottles the same way I did for the first 2 (if it aint broke...), hand washing 54 bottles in oxyclean and sanitizing in the dishwasher (no soap).  On bottling day, I sanitized everything else that might touch the beer with star san in the bottling bucket and let it dry completely on a clean towel on the kitchen counter.  I boiled the whole 5oz package of corn sugar in 1 c of water, cooled that in a mini ice bath, and added that to the bottling bucket.  I siphoned the beer on top of that to mix.  I think this is where I started "filtering" - I put a sanitized nylon mesh bag over the discharge end of the hose to try to catch any big chunks of the dry hop. We decided it smelled like cat pee. I didn't note final gravity, so we'll call it 1.018 from when I measured it previously, which I calculated to mean 5.8% abv. After the gravity reading, I pulled all of the bottles out of the dishwasher and we filled and capped as usual. Yield was 44 12oz bottles and 2 22oz bottles.

??? - First Taste:
I got nothing. No date, no notes.  I know it smelled less like cat pee once we drank it, and I was pretty happy with how this came out.

Brew #2: Bailee's Witbier, June 13, 2014

Brew #2 was a Witbier extract kit from my local homebrew shop, Bailee's Homebrew.  If you're in the York, PA area, you should check them out. Again, I tried to brew this as precisely to the recipe as possible, figuring I certainly did not know enough to start messing with a recipe.  Bailee's instructions were concise but clear.  What I'm not crazy about is that they don't list what is in the specialty grains. This makes it more difficult to learn how you produced the flavors of the finished product and use that knowledge to apply that to future brews.

Recipe
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Size: 3 gal
Target OG: 1.044-1.050
Target FG: 1.010-1.016
Style: Witbier
Recipe Type: Extract with specialty grains
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Water:
Acadia bottled spring water

Specialty Grains:
??? A mystery - Bailee's doesn't share what is in their specialty grain bags.

Fermentables:
3.3 lbs Wheat LME
3 lbs Wheat DME

Hops:
1oz Liberty (pellets) @ 60 min.
1oz Tettnang (pellets) @ 10 min.

Other:
Spice Pack (again, contents are a mystery but it involved bitter orange peels) @ 15 min.

Yeast:
Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast.  My notes are bad, so I don't know if I re-hydrated or not.

Brewing Notes
6/13/2014 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the fermenting bucket.  Equipment was the same as Brew #1: Auto siphon, tubing, 1pc airlock, bucket lid, and hydrometer.  I set these on a clean dish towel on the counter to dry during the brew
• Heated 3 gal water to 150-160 F in 5 gallon economy stainless kettle on the stovetop.
• Added mystery specialty grains in a muslin bag when the water temperature reached 110F and allowed the temperature to rise the rest of the way to 150-160F.  I held the temperature here for an additional 25 minutes before removing the bag.
• Removed the grain bag and held it above the kettle to drain.  When I got bored of that, I set them in a cereal bowl, which I periodically dumped into the kettle during the boil.
• Brought to boil
• Removed kettle from the burner. On my electric stovetop, this means pick it up and move it off the burner.
• Added 3.3 lbs wheat DME and 3 lbs wheat LME and stirred well
• Return the kettle to the burner and bring back to boil
• Set timer for 60 minutes and added hops and mystery spice pack per the recipe schedule
• At 0 minutes, moved the kettle to the ice bath in my sink to chill.  This time I had planned ahead and collected some extra ice from my ice maker.  Chilled to 72F.  Ice baths take a long time.
• Took an OG reading of 1.050, corrected to 1.052
• Presumably pitched yeast, though I never wrote that down, and installed the lid and airlock.
• Put the bucket in my now dedicated beer corner of the dining room

6/13 - 6/21/2014 - Primary Fermentation:
Saw airlock activity on 6/14 and 6/15, but by 6/16 the levels in the airlock had equalized.  I left this alone until 6/19 when I attempted to "rouse" the yeast by swirling the bucket around.  The airlock bubbled once every 30 seconds for a little while and then quit again.  I suspect this bucket just didn't seal well at all because this was the same thing I saw on Brew #1. Racked to 5 gal glass carboy on 6/21 because I didn't trust that the bucket seal was keeping the atmosphere out.  Measured gravity of 1.013 at this time.

6/21-6/25/2014 - Secondary Fermentation:
This was a bit of a joke of a secondary fermentation (4 days?), but I wanted to get the beer out of the leaky bucket. Saw some airlock activity and little bits of foam on the top.

6/25/2014 - Bottling:
Because it worked well for my first brew, I prepped my bottles the same way, hand washing 54 bottles in oxyclean and sanitizing in the dishwasher (no soap).  On bottling day, I sanitized everything else that might touch the beer with star san in the bottling bucket and let it dry completely on a clean towel on the kitchen counter.  I boiled the whole 5oz package of corn sugar in 1 c of water, cooled that in a mini ice bath, and added that to the bottling bucket.  I siphoned the beer on top of that to mix.  Final Gravity was 1.012, which i calculated to mean 4.2% abv. After the gravity reading, I pulled all of the bottles out of the dishwasher.  I filled while Lauren capped with the wing capper.  Yield was 51 12oz bottles.

7/4/2014 - First Taste:
This time I only waited 9 days, but with the full shot of priming sugar and the rising basement temperature, this beer was carbonated. My tasting notes are extremely brief: "Tasty, less orange-y than Shock Top."  As this one aged in the bottle, the carbonation/head got out of control again.

Brew #1: Fuggles IPA Extract Kit, May 3, 2014

Here was my first attempt at homebrewing.  Along with an equipment starter kit, I bought this extract recipe kit from Midwest Supplies: Fuggles IPA Kit - Midwest Supplies.  I'm not sure why I chose this one - probably a combination of the price, the fact that it was an IPA, and it had a funny sounding name.  This was a pretty simple single hop English IPA.  I tried to brew this one precisely to the instructions.  I still don't know if I got it right.  The recipe that follows reflects how I interpreted the instructions at the time.

Recipe
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Size: 3.5 gal
Target OG: 1.042-1.046
Target FG: 1.010-1.012
Style: English IPA
Recipe Type: Extract with specialty grains
Boil Time: 90 minutes

Water:
Acadia bottled spring water

Specialty Grains:
1 lb Caravienne

Fermentables:
6 lb Gold LME

Hops:
1oz Fuggles (pellets) @ 90 min.
1oz Fuggles (pellets) @ 30 min.
1oz Fuggles (pellets) @ 5 min.

Yeast:
Munton's Dry Ale Yeast, 6gm, re-hydrated

Brewing Notes
5/3/2014 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the fermenting bucket: Auto siphon, tubing, 1pc airlock, bucket lid, and hydrometer.  I set these on a clean dish towel on the counter to dry during the brew
• Heated 3.5 gal water to 155-160 F in my new 5 gallon economy stainless kettle on the stovetop.
• Steeped specialty grains in a muslin bag for 37 minutes (?) holding the temperature between 155 and 160.
  
• Removed the grain bag and held it above the kettle to drain.  When I got bored of that, I set them in a cereal bowl, which I periodically dumped into the kettle during the boil.
• Added 6 lbs of Gold LME with the kettle off of the burner
• Brought to boil and managed to avoid a boil-over
  
• Added 1oz Fuggle hop pellets (I think I used a nylon hop bag) and set a timer for 60 minutes. This is where I got confused.  To this day, I still don't understand if the recipe included in the kit is specifying a 60 or 90 minute boil. I suspect it should have been 60 total.
• After 60 minutes, added 1oz Fuggle hop pellets and set another timer for 30 minutes.
• With 5 minutes remaining on this timer, added 1oz Fuggle hop pellets
• At (electric) flame out, chilled by placing the kettle in an ice bath.  I remember this took a long time and I melted all of the ice I had in the house - I started adding lunch box cool packs to the water in the sink.  My notes say "Next time have more ice,"
• Gave up on chilling when the temperature reached 75 F
• Added room temperature bottled water until the kettle was almost full
• Transferred to the fermenting bucket using the auto siphon.  I aerated the wort by siphoning as noisily as possible, holding the end of the hose near the top of the bucket and shaking it during the whole siphoning process.  This produces a lot of foam.  So far, it seems to be effective.
• Took OG reading - 1.042 at 74 F, corrects to 1.044
• Pitched re-hydrated yeast on top of the wort
• Closed the bucket and installed the airlock.  I filled the airlock with vodka.  I'm not sure why.  I put the bucket in the corner of my dining room and blockaded it with a couple of cases of empty bottles to keep my son (who had just become mobile) and my dog away.
  

5/3 - 5/8/2014 - Primary Fermentation:
I only saw airlock activity the second day, so by day 6, I figured either it was finished fermenting or something had gone wrong.  I opened the bucket and saw that the Krausen had fallen, so I took a gravity reading - 1.016.  Figuring the bucket just wasn't sealed well, I siphoned to a 5 gallon glass carboy.

5/8-6/5/2014 - Secondary Fermentation:
Since I was so impatient during the primary fermentation, I compensated during the secondary fermentation by waiting nearly a whole month.  The airlock bubbled every 90 seconds or so this entire time.


6/5/2014 - Bottling:
This went remarkably smoothly.  I hand washed 54 bottles in oxyclean and put them in the dishwasher overnight to sanitize with the most heat I could manage (extra hot wash - no soap, sanitizing rinse, heated dry) the night before.  On bottling day, I sanitized everything else that might touch the beer with star san in the bottling bucket and let it dry completely on a clean towel on the kitchen counter.  I boiled the whole 5oz package of corn sugar in 1 c of water, cooled that in a mini ice bath, and added that to the bottling bucket.  I siphoned the beer on top of that to mix.  Final Gravity was 1.010, which i calculated to mean 4.5% abv. After the gravity reading, I pulled all of the bottles out of the dishwasher.  I filled while Lauren (my wife) capped with the wing capper.  Yield was 48 12oz bottles.

6/19/2014 - First Taste:
Yes, I waited a full 2 weeks for bottle conditioning.  My tasting notes are simple and brief: "Ready to drink; smooth, somewhat sweet like pumpkin, reasonably clear, ok head."  I have no notes after that.  I know I served some of this a month later, and I know the head got out of control.  I took me several more brews to find out why and even more to do anything about it.

Intro

I started homebrewing in May of 2014: I saw how some of my co-workers enjoyed it, tasted a few of their brews, listened to what they had to say, and decided "Yeah, I can try that." So I bought a starter equipment kit and and extract recipe kit online and brewed it as soon as it arrived at my door.  As soon as that batch was in the bottle, I brewed a second kit.  Once I had bottled that one, I brewed the third, and the rest is history as they say.  Needless to say, I was hooked. Now, almost 2 years and 39 (and counting) batches later, I'm looking back at my brew journal, trying to figure out what I've learned. My engineer's chicken scratch handwriting doesn't help.

I've been kicking around the idea of starting a homebrewing blog for a little while now, but I've been apprehensive. There are several websites, blogs, books, forums, etc. already out there, many of which are written by experts.  I am not an expert.  I consider myself a novice at best.  My equipment is cobbled together and my techniques are unrefined. But my friends and family and I think I make some darn good beer, and I truly enjoy the process.  So I've decided to give this a shot, coming at the blog from a perspective of "For novices by a novice."  I intend to try to recap the past 2 years of brewing, sharing recipes and brewing notes, reviews of equipment I've used or still use, as well as descriptions of the changes I've made to my brew process and set-up.  Once I get caught up - and that may take a little while - I plan to keep the blog current with my ongoing brewing.

What I brew:
A little of everything.  I usually prefer IPAs, as do most of my friends and family, so generally speaking, every other brew is an IPA.  I'm sure this blog will make a liar out of me on that point.  However - I like to try new things.  At a restaurant I can't order the same meal twice in a row, and at a bar or taproom, I can't order the same beer twice in a row.  For this reason, my beer list looks nearly completely random.  I've tried making a variety of wheat beers, Belgian abbey ales, porters, stouts, sours, pumpkin beer, winter warmers, etc.  There are very few repeats, and even those are not quite identical.  Lets call that "recipe development."  I like to keep one foot in uncharted territory at all times.