HotHead, Juniper, and Right Proper Hyperborea

I hope that people get something from my talks at homebrew festivals around the world, because I certainly benefit from the arrangement! My trip to Norway for the 2016 Homebrewers Weekend in Drammen was enlightening on many fronts, but it was the introduction to kveik that has proved the most valuable. Kveik is true farmhouse yeast, with the now commercially available strains passed between local brewers up until only a few years ago. While I enjoyed the test batch with the cultures I brought back, I wanted to try the traditional combination of kveik with juniper and smoke. With the light acidity of those test batches, I decided to buy a fresh pitch of the orange-scented heat-loving Stranda culture from Omega Labs, HotHead.

Traditionally (as Lars Garshol extensively documented) juniper branches, not just the berries, were an indispensable and underappreciated component of traditional brewing across Europe. This is annoying as berries are easy to buy and store, while branches are not. As fate would have it the Eastern Red Cedar in my backyard is in actuality Juniperus virginiana, Virginia juniper! Not the first time I've turned to one of the four trees on our property (mulberry, the others are oak and sour cherry).

I loosely based the amount of Eastern Red Cedar tips on the Sahti recipe in Homebrewer's Almanac (written by the brewers and foragers of Scratch Brewing). It is one of the most inspiring brewing books I've read in years! I enjoyed samples of their beers at GABF a few years ago enough that I'm considering making the four hour drive down to Ava, Illinois when I visit Indianapolis for the next BYO Boot Camp in November 2017. I backed down on their flame-out addition to leave room for the yeast and smoke.

Anytime you forage for brewing ingredients (or anything) make a positive identification of what you are harvesting. I contacted a local arborist to confirm what I had growing. Given the pictures and ranges I saw online I was pretty sure, but pretty sure isn't something to risk your health on!

I'd been looking for an excuse to hang out with Blane, who is opening Sinistral Brewing in Manassas, Virginia. We brewed on the 15 gallon electric system in his garage. He was into the weird idea despite not loving smoked beers, and luckily enjoyed the results. We'll see if it was enough for him to ever brew something like it commercially! We were joined by his friend Carlos, who had foraged for local juniper before to brew sahti (not to mention malted quinoa, and had strong opinions on brewing with corn and chiles - someone I need to brew with again!).

Summer Kveik

Smell – When it was young, orange from the yeast was the primary aroma. Over the last couple months stonefruit has overtaken with the citrus. "Peach gummy rings" as a couple friends described it. Fresh juniper has a less singular more green aroma than the berries, a little more spruce than gin. Smoke is smooth and woody, not phenolic or sharp.

Appearance – I’ve been jokingly calling this one New England Kveik given the glowing cloudy orange-juice body. Head retention is decent, not great. Given some experiments with juniper teas I was expecting more color, but the lower ratio of tree to liquid prevented that.

Taste – Zesty orange, apricot, and fresher herbaceous juniper. I was going for a winter beer… clearly I missed on that! The smoke is firm but fleeting, which works well with the bright fruity flavors. Balanced, smooth, minimal bitterness, but enough to keep it from tasting candied (like my Spruce-Grapefruit India Pale Gruit). I don’t pick anything distinctly rye, but it has a rounded malt flavor likely contributing. Mellow sweetness in the finish.

Mouthfeel – Lighter body than I intended, partly because we undershot the gravity by .010. Medium carbonation keeps things moving.

Drinkability & Notes – It is weird for a smoked tree-flavored beer to be quenching and crushable, but it is! One of the strangest and most intriguing beers I’ve brewed. Authentic? Likely not, but I enjoy adapting flavors and ingredients rather than slavishly recreating.

Changes for Next Time – For a more authentic result I’d move all of the juniper to the HLT and do a longer infusion. I’d opt for a Bohemian Dark (or Munich) for the entire base in place of the Golden Promise. I would also go darker on the Carared maybe CaraMunich II, and add a touch of Carafa as I was originally planning. Not that it would be a better beer, just more in line with my original target. Also makes an interesting blend is the citrusy gose with smoked sea salt on tap next to it.

I brewed Kodachrome Dream(ing) with my friend Nathan at the Right Proper brewpub in Shaw a couple years ago. For our second collaboration (and the first at the Brookland production house) we wanted to brew something in the same vane, although more inspired by Alu by Norse (a small amount makes it to the US). Jacob McKean the founder of Modern Times was planning a trip to DC, so we roped him into the plan.

After tasting my batch, Nathan wanted to tone down the assertive fruit flavors from the yeast. As a result he blended the HotHead (harvested from my batch - strangely trusting) with US-05 and lowered the fermentation temperature to 70F. In search of increased maltiness and color, he added CaraAroma and Carafa. He also wanted a more traditional juniper flavor, so we added juniper berries near the end of the boil in addition to 15 lbs of juniper branches at 190F in the HLT overnight for 24 bbls.

Nathan named the resulting beer after a mythical people of the article circle, the Hyperborea. Kegs will be available in DC, Virginia, Maryland, and New York! If you try it, let me know what you think! Sunday March 12 Nathan will be brewing a Nordic IPA with Stone, Pen Druid, and metal band Sunn O))), feel free to stop by the brewery around 1 PM and say hello! Both beers should be on tap through CBC next month!

Right Proper Hyperborea

Smell – Brighter than you’d expect for a dark/smoked beer. Mild generic citrus and green-herbal. Light phenolic smoke, the Briess Cherrywood Smoked gives it some sharpness. Touch of toast. Not distinctly juniper from the berries.

Appearance – Fantastic head retention, at least partly thanks to the flaked oats. Really dense, off-white. The body is reddish-brown, and pretty cloudy… likely again partly thanks to the oats.

Taste – Balanced depth between the combination of toasty-smoke and yeasty-juniper fruit. The Munich and dark malts serve as a malty bridge between the smoke and the fruit in a way that my beer is missing. Minimal hop bitterness. Nice lingering herbal-smoke melding.

Mouthfeel – Medium body, light tannic drying. Carbonation seemed a bit higher in the growler than it was on tap at the brewery.

Drinkability & Notes – For a beer with so many components it really falls into place. Doesn’t quite hit the oomph and richness of Alu, but not far off! Nathan was right to temper the Hothead with US-05 to prevent it from crushing the malt and juniper.

Summer Kveik Recipe


Batch Size: 16.00 gallons
SRM: 5.6
IBU: 14.5
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.3%
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%
Boil Time: 60 mins

Grain
-------
32.3% - 10 lbs Simpsons Golden Promise
16.1% - 5 lbs Weyermann Floor Malted Bohemian Dark
16.1% - 5 lbs Weyermann Oak Smoked Wheat
16.1% - 5 lbs Weyermann Rye Malt
16.1% - 5 lbs Weyermann Beech Smoked Barley Malt
3.2% - 1 lbs Weyermann Carared


Mash
-------
Sacch Rest - 50 min @ 156F

Hops/Juniper
----------------
60 g Juniper Tips @ Hot Liquor Tank
60 g Juniper Tips @ Mash
60 g Juniper Tips @ 60 min
2.25 oz Mixture (Pellets, ~4.50% AA) @ 60 min
60 g Juniper Tips @ 30 min
1.00 oz Hallertau (Pellets, 4.50% AA) @ 15 min
90 g Juniper Tips @ 0 min

Other
-------
None

Yeast
-------
OYL-057 Omega HotHead

Notes
-------
12/14/16 4 L stir-plate starter with 3 month old HotHead.

12/16/16 Crashed starter. Harvested Eastern Red Cedar from the tree in my backyard.

12/17/16 Brewed with Blane on his electric system. Dosed 60 g (three 12" twigs) into the HLT and then again into the mash, 60 min, and 30 min. 50% extra at flameout. Hops @ 60 min were a variety (Hallertau Tradition, EKG, Tett, Hallertau).

Chilled to ~95F and pitched half of the decanted starter into 5 gallons (my share). 5 gallons additional for Carlos, 5 gallons with the Voss culture from Norway (slightly lactic) for Blane.

Fermentation by 6 hours on the radiator insulated in a sweatshirt.

1/3/17 Kegged with 3.5 oz of table sugar into flushed keg.

Blane's version tested at 5.68% ABV.

I get a commission if you click the links to MoreBeer/Amazon/Love2Brew and buy something!

Matt: Adam with Calvados and Candi Syrup

It is interesting to drink two glasses of beer side-by-side made from wort separated 18 months ago (recipe post). In addition to the recipe differences between these two Adam-variants (maple syrup and bourbon vs. dark candi syrup and calvados) the aging and serving were also different. I recently reconnected the maple/bourbon half (tasting) to the stout/nitro tap now that the weather has cooled off. The candi/calvados half has been aged at cellar temperature in bottles. The maple half is cleaner, with less dark fruit. Its ethanol is also more up front, although it is also a somewhat stronger beer.

HoTD Matt - Inspired

Smell – Interesting blend of dark fruit and earthy smoke. Much less direct than the maple-bourbon. The smoke melds in with dried fruit, caramel, and aged maltiness.

Appearance – Dark russet, amber crema. Head falls relatively quickly. Good clarity when held at an angle to the light.

Taste – Sticky, reads sweeter than the maple (less simple sugar and liquor to dilute the malt). Saturated with dark fruit, dates especially. The malt is rich, caramel and cocoa powder. No apple specifically, but a nice baked fruitiness. Finishes pleasant campfire singe.

Mouthfeel – Full, but the medium carbonation is a bit disruptive, more than I’d prefer.

Drinkability & Notes – Warmer aging and lower alcohol have resulted in a beer that has aged faster and perhaps peaked younger. The smoke, intense malt, and fruit-brandy blend into a unique combination I haven’t tasted before. This beer is based on a German style as brewed by an American brewery with Scottish yeast and malt, infused with Belgian candi syrup and French apple brandy... a real mutt!

Changes for Next Time – Clean up my bottling process… given that approximately one in three bottles have picked up a mild Brett character. Otherwise the "clean" bottles are what I wanted them to be! Still haven't had the beer that inspired it, Hair of the Dog's Matt, so can't judge how close I came.

Bonus Quick Tasting: Hoppy Halloween Adam
Before flying back to DC after a couple days in Fargo, ND for Hoppy Halloween 2015, I stopped by a brew day a few local homebrewers were having at Eric Sanders' house. They were brewing a 20 gallon batch of Adambier, so I brought along the last bottles of my original and "authentic" batches. When I bumped Tom Roan (the guy who had coordinated the whole thing) at NHC in Baltimore, he handed me a couple bottles of that batch (plus one of his delicious wheat wine)! Finally getting around to drinking one now that a rich smoky malty beer sounds good!

The results are really pleasant, good balance of intense-malt and apparent smoke. Dark fruit is more subdued than mine. The result is somewhere between my more and less authentic batches. Interested to try a sample of the version they fermented with Roeselare some day!

OG: 1.094
IBU: 42
SRM: 32.7
Boil Time: 90 min

70.1 lbs. Munich Malt
7.5 lbs.  Dark Munich Malt
7.5 lbs.  Smoked (Bamberg)
7.5 lbs.  Torrefied Wheat
3.0 lbs.  Thomas Fawcett Pale Chocolate
1.5 lbs.  Weyermann Carafa Special III
1.5 lbs.  Weyermann Caramunich II
1.5 lbs.  Dark Crystal

Hops:
Magnum Pellet to 42.0 IBU - First Wort

Yeast:
Wyeast German Ale 1007

Maple Bourbon Adam Tasting

Maple imperial stouts... so hot right now. Like coconut last year, mole a few years ago, and whiskey-barrel-aged before that (not that any of those have gone anywhere). Maple syrup is a comparatively mild flavor, difficult to showcase in a flavorful style without resorting to "natural" flavorings or fenugreek.

Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout was the first to really get beer nerds excited about maple-stout. I aged a Breakfast Stout inspired recipe on maple syrup-soaked bourbon oak cubes to replicate the contribution of bourbon barrels that subsequently held maple syrup, but only got a hint of flavor.

More recently Tree House has Good Morning sitting at #1 on BeerAdvocate. I was amazed how intense the maple flavor was, really jumped out of the growler (although I’ve talked to other people who had growlers from later in the same batch with only a hint of maple, not sure if it was palate or beer differences). Toppling Goliath’s Mornin’ Delight is #2 on BA (although I’ve yet to get a chance to sample it).

Rumor is that some well-thought-of maple beers are brewed with 10% or more by volume (e.g., a half gallon of maple syrup in a five gallon batch!). That seemed like too much simple sugar, so for this batch of Adam I added only a quart (5%) of Grade B as fermentation slowed. Some brewers suggest dosing the syrup into cold beer to prevent refermentation, but I didn't want that much sweetness in the finished beer. Others suggest adding it early in the boil to encourage the Maillard reaction between the sugars and proteins, but I worried that the fermentation would scrub out volatile aromatics. I wasn't worried about boiling them off though, as maple syrup is created by boiling for many hours.

Usually I bottle big beers to space out my enjoyment, but not 13% ABV big! I didn't want to risk two cases of uncarbonated beer (like my first Adam clone) so I kegged and force carbonated. Nice to have the option to pour a few ounces without committing to a whole 12 oz bottle, but tough to tie-up a tap long-term. After a few months I disconnected the keg to put the Saphir Pilsner on. Doubt I'll tap it again until next fall. I actually dusted off the last bottle of my original Adam clone to share while brewing a more traditional adambier with a group of homebrewers in Fargo, ND a few months ago: still delicious, and Hoppy Halloween was a blast!

Maple Bourbon Adam

Appearance – Brunette body with a tan head. Dark enough to be nearly opaque, but clear edges when held at an angle. Decent retention for a liquor-infused strong ale.

Smell – Light woodsy smoke, caramel, vanilla, and hints of clean ethanol. Varied aroma, but given everything that is in there not especially intense. Not too phenolic as I’ve heard complaints about Briess cherry wood smoked malt.

Taste – Sticky-intense caramel maltiness. Bourbon notes come through in the finish (vanilla with a hint of butterscotch), about the right intensity. Mellow maple syrup contribution despite accounting for 12% of the fermentables. Finish is a nice blend of oak and hardwood smoke. The cherry wood malt melds well with the bourbon and maple, but none of them are bold. How some of those commercial maple beers get such an assertive aroma/flavor is beyond me!

Mouthfeel – Full and luscious. Despite being on the same PSI as my other kegs this one never seems quite as carbonated, not that I’m complaining!

Drinkability & Notes – The blend of smoke, booze, and maple evokes my trip to Montreal and dinner at Au Pied de Cochon, which was the goal. A hulking 13% ABV beer in a relatively drinkable cloak. That is good and bad – for that much alcohol I want a WOW beer and this is a pleasant sipper. I’m not an “It hides its alcohol well” fan, I’d much rather a 9% beer drank like 13% than vice versa (not hot or boozy, but rich, full, complex, intense etc.)! Should age beautifully!

Matt, and Maple-Bourbon Adam

It’s been more than two years since my series of four barrel-aged strong/dark beers (Wheat Trippelbock, Rye Stout, Vanilla/Cinnamon Porter, and Quadrupel), and stocks are beginning to dwindle. It seemed like a good excuse to brew a variant on the fantastic Hair of the Dog Adam clone I brewed six years ago, considering I'm down to my final bottle (recently drank the second to last – still tasted fantastic). However I didn’t want 10 gallons of the same ~10% ABV beer (no matter how well it ages).

Hair of the Dog occasionally brews a version of Adam called Matt which augments the base with candi sugar, more malts, and bourbon and apple eau de vie barrel aging. Apple brandy and dark candi syrup seemed like a nice match, so I went with that for five gallons of the beer.

I’d been thinking of brewing a Baltic porter inspired by the transcendent Les Trois Mousquetaires Porter Baltique I brought back from Montreal… with the addition of maple syrup and bourbon. I decided it would be a bit too close to Adam (both are dark, lightly smoky, and 10% ABV) so I transferred the concept to Adam. Maple syrup plus some bourbon is a technique that I’ve use to great effect before in a Founder's Canadian Breakfast Stout inspired RIS variant. I wanted more maple flavor so I added one quart (nearly three pounds) of grade B maple syrup after primary fermentation slowed. That may sound like a crazy amount in five gallons, but I've heard that some highly sought-after maple beers are brewed with twice that rate (around 10% maple syrup by volume!).

The base recipe is pretty close to my first Adam clone. I tweaked a few percentages and hops, but the only major substitution was the switch from intense peat-smoked malt to a mellower combination of Briess Cherry Wood Smoked and Weyermann Beech Smoked. I used a higher percentage of smoked malt than the first batch, so hopefully the smoke intensity will be similar, if a bit sweeter.

This was the first strong beer (over 1.075) I brewed on the new system. I used the technique borrowed from HoTD, collecting only my target volume of first runnings and boiling down well below the target volume. This concentrates the sugars and amino acids, increasing the rate of Maillard reactions (raising the pH slightly with baking soda further encourages this process). Rather than top-off with water (through my new Camco filter), I sparged with cold water to collect four gallons of second runnings which I boiled for 45 minutes separately. This resulted in pretty good efficiency (overshooting my target gravity) so I topped-off with water post-boil. Nice to have 8 gallon fermentors to accommodate situations like this!

Matt, and Maple-Bourbon Adam

Recipe Specifics
-------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 11.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 46.75
Anticipated OG: 1.095 (Pre-Sugar)
Anticipated SRM: 31.8
Anticipated IBU: 64.9
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65 %
Wort Boil Time: 180 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
--------------
62.0% - 29.00 lbs. Rahr Pale Malt
19.3% - 9.00 lbs. Weyermann Munich Malt
7.0% - 3.25 lbs. Simpsons Medium Crystal
4.3% - 2.00 lbs. Briess Cherry Wood Smoked
4.3% - 2.00 lbs. Weyermann Beech Smoked
2.1% - 1.00 lbs. Simpsons Chocolate Malt
1.1% - 0.50 lbs. Simpsons Black Patent Malt

Hops
------
3.50 oz. Rakau (Pellet, 10.50% AA) @ 60 min.
2.00 oz. Crystal (Whole, 5.00% AA) @ 40 min.
1.25 oz. Crystal (Whole, 5.00% AA) @ 10 min.
1.25 oz. Saaz (Pellet, 3.50% AA) @ 10 min.

Extras
--------
1.00 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Yeast
-------
White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington, DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch - 60 min @ 153F

Notes
-------
Brewed 3/8/15

Added 4 g of CaCl to the mash and 3 g of baking soda to the boil. Collected 11 gallons of 1.078 runnings in the main kettle, plus 3.5 gallons of 1.060 in a separate kettle.

IBUs likely lower than projected given concentrated wort. Boiled down to about 6 gallons (~1.143). Added the 3 gallons of second runnings, plus 1 gallon of water to get to 10.5 gallons at 1.105 in the kettle. Then mixed with the entire yeast cake from the Honey Stout which was resuspended in another gallon of water for 11 gallons in the fermentors (poured back and forth to mix). Wort temperature was 64F in the fermentor. Left at 56F ambient.

Added 45 seconds pure oxygen about five hours after pitching.

Good fermentation by 24 hours. Temperature is a bit cool for this strain, so I wrapped the fermentors in a blanket to help hold in the heat of fermentation.

3/11/15 Moved to 67F ambient.

3/12/15 Still fermenting, thankfully as it's at 1.060 (37% AA), only half way there...

3/15/15 Still slowly ticking along, 1.038 (60% AA). Krausen has only gotten bigger. Adding sugars tomorrow.

3/16/15 Still some krausen, but activity seems to have mostly stalled. Added 32 oz (by volume) ~2.8 lbs of Whole Foods Grade B maple syrup to the bucket (effective OG = 1.111), and 1 lb of D-90 Candi Syrup to the Speidel (effective OG = 1.101). Still at 67F ambient.

3/19/15 Candi half down to 1.030 (70% AA, 9.5% ABV), the maple at 1.025 (77% AA, 11.5% ABV). Right where they should be, and fermentation appears finished.

3/22/15 Fermentation appears finished on both, moved to 55F ambient to settle.

4/5/15 Bottled the Matt portion. 5.25 gallons. Added 4 oz of Daron Calvados. Rehydrated 2 g of Pasteur Champagne yeast, and primed with 106 g of table sugar. Aiming for 2.3 volumes of CO2.

4/12/15 Kegged the Maple half with 1 cup of Medley Brothers bourbon.

2/2/16 Tasting notes for Maple-Bourbon Adam. Maple wasn't as assertive as I'd hoped, but it is there and melds nicely with the smoke, bourbon, and intense maltiness.

12/6/16 Tasting notes on the Cavados/Candi half.

12/29/16 Boiled 2 oz of toasted (55 minutes at 350F) maple bark chiseled off a tree in my parents' front yard in 2 qrts of water for 60 minutes uncovered. Infused 1 qrt of the resulting liquid into the keg. Really boosted the maple flavor! Boiled the remaining 3/4 cup of liquid with 1.5 cups of sugar until it reached 219F (for pancakes).

3/12/18 Tasting notes on the portion with maple bark.

Home Smoked Roggenbier Tasting

Rye is a weird grain. It has a flavor that some people call "spicy" but I've never thought it made a beer taste like it had been spiced (unless you also add caraway, like our Kvass). To me rye malt adds more of a rustic earthy grain flavor that is hard to articulate. On previous batches I'd stuck between 15-25% (in Denny's RIPA, and Brett'd Saison), but brewing with my friend Scott we went all the way up to 45% in our Cherry Wood Smoked Roggenbier. Brewing a collaborative recipe is a good way to try something out of your comfort zone, something you would not brew if the choice was entirely up to you. Sometimes it yields a beer you love (as it has on several previous batches with Scott), while other times it gives you a data point for future experiments.

Rauch Roggenbier

Appearance – Ruddy brown, with the rye adding a thick almost muddy haze despite several weeks of cold conditioning. Head pours a finger thick, but deflates rather quickly. Looks similar to a dunkle, but I would like it to be a bit lighter on the haze.

Smell – Some ctrusy hops, sweet cigarette smoke, sulfury yeast. Nice complex aroma, the smoke is lighter and melds better with the yeast and hops than other smoked malts I have used. It is a nice level of smoke for complexity, but some people might want more.

Taste – Firm bitterness, lingering smoke, maltiness, a bit muddled. The rye adds an indistinct earthy malt character that gets in the way of the other flavors. I think I would back down on the rye to 25% if I brewed it again (swapping in some wheat malt probably).

Mouthfeel – Creamier and almost syrupy compared to what I expect in a beer like this (the rye's beta glucans are to credit/blame). Solid carbonation, I'm sure purists would want it spritzy, but in a higher bitterness example like this I think too much carbonation would be grating.

Drinkability & Notes – Solid beer, but it just doesn't have the balance I want. Baking down on the rye, and upping the smoke slightly would be the way to go if I brewed it again. One of the problems with home-smoked malt is that inconsistency compared to commercially smoked versions, but the soft cherry wood smoke was the right choice by Scott for this beer.

As a side-note, this is my 500th post... yikes.

Cherry Wood Smoked Roggenbier Recipe

Recipes and ingredients are important, but brewing the best beer requires control over your process. You might get lucky once, but consistently great beer does not come with chance. The more variables you can manage the more repeatable your process will be, and the closer you can dial in a target. For example, mashing offers a level of control that you give-up by using extract. For where my process is, gaining more control over the fermentation is more important than focusing on wort production. For example, I can set the ambient fermentation temperature, but setting the temperature of the beer itself would be better; I make starters to ensure healthy/active yeast, but doing cell counts and viability tests to know what I am pitching would be better.

When it comes to smoked beers the biggest problem that brewers have is the variable nature of commercially smoked malt. Aecht Schlenkerla (which brews almost nothing but smoked beers) overcomes variability by smoking their own, blending different lots of smoked malt into the same batch of beer, and then blending multiple batches of beer together for packaging. As a homebrewer all that blending isn’t feasible, but then we don't need the exacting level of consistency. The biggest issue we have with smoked malt is that the aroma tends to fade as the malt ages, and unless you are able to find out how fresh the malt is it is hard to anticipate how much to use. By smoking your own malt you can exert more control over the process (not to mention play with smoke from less common woods as well as herbs, spices, I've even seen recipes that call for tossing strips of bacon onto the fire).

My friend Scott (who I brewed with for the first time shortly after moving to DC five years ago) invited me to his house to brew 10 gallons of smoked roggenbier (similar to a dunkel weisse, but with rye in place of the wheat). I have brewed a number of smoked beers before (Rauch Dunkel, Smoked Baltic Porter, Smoked Imperial Porter, Adambier, Smoked Doppelsticke, and DCHB Apple Smoked Stout), but this was the first time using home-smoked malt. New Glarus brewed a beer along the same lines (Unplugged Smoked Rye Ale – which was brewed with a combination of German beechwood and Briess cherry wood smoked malts), but it is stronger and smokier than something we wanted five gallons of.

(A few weeks earlier...) to smoke the malt Scott thoroughly mixed base malt with enough distilled water to moisten (~1 cup in 5 lbs). Dampness helps the smoke to stick, and distilled water ensures that there is no chlorine, which would combine with the phenols in the smoke to produce medicinal tasting chlorophenols. Scott spread the damp malt onto old window screens placed in his smoker (the same one we used two years ago to smoke bacon). He made a small fire in the corner of the smoke box as far back from the main cavity of the smoker as he could to keep the heat low enough to avoid scorching the malt. He added cherry wood chips each time the smoke died down. Woods from fruit trees tends to produce a sweeter and softer smoke than other woods, making them a good choice when smoking malt for a beer fermented with a fruity yeast. After a couple hours the malt was dry and fragrant. He sealed it in a large Tupperware container where it stayed until I came over to brew (he had also used some in a smoked mild).

In addition to the rye and smoked malts we included Pilsner, Munich, CaraMunich, and Carafa Special II. Between the nearly 50% rye malt, specialty malts, and the assertive yeast we wanted to go easy on the smoked malt, so we settled on 3 lbs in 10 gallons. We ended up with a few more IBUs than anticipated due to a miscalculation in splitting the batch for two boils, but it the original gravity is towards the big end of the style so I’m not worried.

POSTPONED On a side note, Sunday December 11th from 2-5 PM I’ll be teaching another homebrewing class at Mountain View Farm in Purcellville, VA. This one will primarily be an introduction to brewing, but there will also be time to discuss whatever questions people have. If you are interested in attending the deal is the same as last time ($25/person or $40/couple), send an email to Shawna (shawna_dewitt@yahoo.com) to register. I'll also be bringing samples of the Peach-Amber Wheat we brewed during the August class. POSTPONED

Cherry Wood Smoked Roggenbier

Recipe Specifics
-----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 10.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 26.75
Anticipated OG: 1.062
Anticipated SRM: 16.7
Anticipated IBU: 33.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 69 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain
------
44.9% - 12.00 lbs. Rye Malt
18.7% - 5.00 lbs. Munich Malt
18.7% - 5.00 lbs. Pilsener
11.2% - 3.00 lbs. Cherry Wood Smoked
5.6% - 1.50 lbs. CaraMunich
0.9% - 0.25 lbs. Carafa Special II

Hops
------
4.00 oz. Crystal (Whole, 4.75% AA) @ 60 min.

Extras
-------
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Yeast
------
WYeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Springfield, VA

Mash Schedule
----------------
Saccharification Rest: 60 min @ 153 F

Notes
-------
Brewed 10/29/11 at Scott's

Scott had home smoked the malt over cherry wood (mixed in enough distilled water to get it wet, then laid it over a screen with a very low fire all the way back in his firebox).

Tried to distribute the runnings from the double batch sparge evenly between two kettles. We ended up a bit under volume, but with plenty of gravity

Chilled to 65 F. Ran through a screen to remove the hops. Aerated with pure oxygen. Scott made a 2L stir-plate starter, decanted and pitched half into each 5 gallon batch.

I ended up with 4.5 gallons of wort at 1.072, added 3/4 gallon of distilled water when I got home to dilute. Fermented at ~58 F ambient with the lid just resting on top of the 8 gallon bucket. Active fermentation by the following morning, nearly blowing off by day #2. I left the lid resting on the bucket for a low-pressure open fermentation effect.

11/06/11 Moved upstairs (~62 F) to make sure the yeast was warm enough to finish fermenting.

11/20/11 Down to 1.010. Racked to a purged keg with 3 oz of cane sugar to prime. Really full keg.

1/19/11 Reasonably happy with the way this batch turned out. If I brewed it again I would back down on the rye and hops, and up the smoke slightly. I think the cherry wood is a mild enough complement to the yeast and malt, good choice there.

English Barleywine Recipe - DCHB Anniversary Beer

DC Homebrewers (now in its third year) quickly established a great meeting format, but we are still lacking activities outside of our monthly get-togethers.  After the success of the Smoked Stout brew day we had at my house last winter for the anniversary of the club, we decided to try something similar again this year.  This time around though the club decided to brew something a bit bigger and paler, an English barleywine. 

Inspired by JW Lees Vintage Harvest Ale and Fuller's Vintage Ale which are each brewed with a single malt, our plan was to have Maris Otter comprise 100% of the grist for this batch.  Those English strong ales are darker and maltier than you might expect from just pale malt, so to replicate these characteristics we decided to borrow a trick from Hair of the Dog's Adam: boiling the wort down past the target volume and then topping off with water after the end of the boil.  The extended high-gravity boil concentrates the sugars and proteins which raises the boiling point of the wort and in turn causes the formation of additional melanoidins (these Maillard reaction products darken the beer and provide complex malty flavors).  When using this method you need to account for the lower efficiency caused by undercutting the amount of sparge water (we collected just 6.5 gallons of 1.084 wort).  Regrettably I only had 15.5 lbs of Maris Otter on hand and no one showed up with more, so we were forced to augment it with a few pounds of American Pale and German Munich.

Balance was provided by 1.75 ounces of homegrown hops that Sam and I contributed, combined with 2 ounces of commercial Styrian Goldings, all added with 80 minutes left in the boil.  The major problem with homegrown hops is that you don't know the percent of alpha acids they contain (which prevents the calculation of the IBUs they contribute), but for this beer we were willing to live with a bit more or less bitterness than my educated guess suggested.  This beer is primarily intended for aging so we skipped late boil hop additions since their aromatic character would have faded before the beer was ready to drink.

One other advantage of the concentrated boil method was that it allowed us to chill the top-off water before adding it to the partially cooled wort which helped bring it down below 70 F.  With the wort topped off we pitched one pack each of US-05 and S-04, both rehydrated in warm water for 15 minutes.  Rehydrating dried yeast is always a good idea, but it is an especially important step when brewing a high gravity beer (the osmotic pressure exerted by the high density of sugar would kill many of the dehydrated cells otherwise).  Ideally I would have used only English ale yeast, but I was more concerned about underpitching a 1.100 beer.

In a nod to the solera method we added half a bottle of last year's stout to the wort as well. We'll see if this turns into a tradition with future batches, but it was a good excuse to open up a bottle of the stout (which was drinking beautifully, with a muted smoke character that enhanced the charcoal character of the roasted grains).

It was a successful day of brewing (as well as eating braised pork and drinking homebrew) with my fellow DCHB members.  I was even talked into turning the second runnings into a low gravity lager, but more on that in a post next week.

DCHB Anniversary English Barleywine

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.25
Total Grain (Lbs): 25.00
Anticipated OG: 1.100
Anticipated SRM: 13.2
Anticipated IBU: 53.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 57 %
Wort Boil Time: 195 Minutes

Grain
------
62.0% - 15.50 lbs. Maris Otter
20.0% - 5.00 lbs. German Munich Malt
18.0% - 4.50 lbs. American Pale "2-row"

Hops
------
2.00 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 4.50%AA) @ 80 min.
1.25 oz. Cascade (Whole, 4.50%AA) @ 80 min.
0.50 oz. Mt. Hood (Whole, 4.50%AA) @ 80 min.

Extras
-------
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.

Yeast
-----
S-04 SafAle English Ale
US-05 Safale American Ale

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Filtered Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-------------
Sacch Rest 75 min @ 154

Notes
-----
Brewed 5/8/11 with Brian(s), Josh, Martin, Bob, Raine, Sam, Henry, and Claire

No water adjustments. Mash was a few degrees cooler than I intended.

Collected 6.5 gallons with a batch sparge. Boiled down to ~3 gallons (not including the hops). HoTD method to boost mealanoidin production.

Chilled to ~85 F then added 2 gallons of chilled spring water to cool it the rest of the way. Rehydrated and pitched 1 pack each of US-05 and S-04 once the water was added to cool it to 65 F. Left at 66 F ambient to start fermenting.

Added ~12 oz of the 1st Anniversary Stout to give it a taste of Solera.

5/29/11 Down to 1.028 (72% AA).  Racked three gallons to a three gallon carboy, and 3 L each into two 4 L jugs.  The jugs each got a pound of defrosted Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.

5/31/11 Added .5 oz of bourbon soaked American oak cubes to the larger fermenter and .375 oz of Grand Marnier French oak cubes combined to grape portion.

10/1/11 Bottled with a few grams of rehydrated Premiere Cuvee, and 3.5 oz corn sugar.  We blended the plain and grape portions back together after some taste tests.

11/29/12 Tasting notes are up, and while the beer isn't off other than being a bit too oaky, it doesn't have the complexity and depth of character that I expected in a strong ale. Next time I'd add some caramel malt, and maybe a hint of a dark malt.

Hair of the Dog Adam Clone Tasting

It has been a year and a half since I last posted thoughts on my attempt to copy Hair of the Dog's Adam.  It never carbonated (one of the risks of bottle conditioning a high alcohol beer), but through the magic of a carb cap I can pump some pressured CO2 into a bottle before serving.  I've been meaning to adapt the technique from this recipe (boiling down past the target volume and then topping back up with water post-boil) to make a 100% Maris Otter English barleywine.  It seems like a simple recipe would be a good way to actually gauge what the long concentrated boil is accomplishing without specialty malts complicating things.

HotD Adam Clone

Appearance – Viewed straight on it is deep, dark, impenetrable blackness, but held up to the light the edges are clear amber/red. The head is light tan, and composed of really fine bubbles. Decent retention leaving some lacing down the sides of the tulip.

Smell – Aged doppelbock: prunes, bready malt, and light chocolate. There is some subtle earthy smoke, but nothing too aggressive.

Taste – The spicy smoke helps to cut through the residual malt sweetness (it does not have that really strong iodine-bog flavor that some peat smoked beers get). There is a mild balancing bitterness as well, but even when fresh it never tasted as sharp as the 66 IBUs would suggest. There are some pleasant dark fruity oxidation flavors, but no cardboard (or worse). The smoke character reminds me of a lightly bourbon barrel aged beer, providing some of those same notes that a charred barrel brings.

Mouthfeel – Thick and coating body (almost sticky) with moderate-low carbonation.

Drinkability & Notes – This one has aged into a beauty, complex, but still drinkable. The bitterness and smoke make it easier to drink than most aged German beers that head toward cloying as they age.  This is about as close as I could imagine getting to the original, great recipe.  I'm down to my last six-pack, sorry to see it so low when it is drinking so well.

Smoked Rye Baltic Porter Tasting

A Baltic porter with some smoked malt and flaked rye was the last in my series of four beers with Wyeast's Kolsch strain. I drew inspiration from a alder wood smoked porter I brewed a couple years back, and a Scandinavian Imperial porter I brewed four years ago.

The plan was to brew something that had a big smoke character; the aroma is there but despite 6 lbs of Weyermann smoked malt the flavor isn't as strong as I was aiming for.  One of the big problems with using commercial smoked malt is that the flavor it imparts fades as it ages (and there is no easy way to know how fresh it is).  Now that I have a smoker, once the weather gets nicer, I'll find the time to put it to use on a few pounds of malt .

RauchRoggenPorter

Appearance – Deep brown, bordering on black. Held at a angle some amber light shines through. The big tan head exhibits good retention, lasting almost till the bottom of the glass. Nice looking porter.

Smell – Woodsy smoke, hints of bacon/sausage (but not nearly as strong as something like a Schlenkerla). There is a freshness to the aroma, it has a hint of herbal hops, and lacks those dark fruit flavors that I've come to expect in a big dark beer. Some dark chocolate comes through, but it isn't what I would call roasty.

Taste – Smooth mellow coffee/cocoa roast. No harsh or acrid roasted notes, the dehusked Carafa really did a nice job. The smoke seems less intense in the flavor than it was in the aroma. Sort of a bitter-sweet balance, it may not stay that way as it ages and the bitterness drops off (we'll see). The kolsch yeast did a good job keeping clean and out of the way, not as fruity as it was in the lower gravity beers.

Mouthfeel – Full body without being syrupy. The flaked rye really adds its character here. Moderate-low carbonation, just the way I like a big/dark beer.

Drinkability & Notes – For a relatively young (about 4 month old) high gravity beer it is nicely rounded and mellow. The smoke has come out more as the beer sat in the bottle for a couple months and cleaned up. It isn't as rich or complex as I expected, but that may come with a bit more age.

Smoked Double Secret Probation Tasting

With a sizable backlog of cellared beers to sample, I thought I'd knock another one off the list by revisiting my Rauch Doppelsticke (literally Smoked Double Secret).  If you'd remember back to the summer of 2009, this beer was originally slated to be the second beer into our bourbon barrel, but after the Wee Heavy started to sour I just bottled it straight.  In a week we are going to bottle the second beer from that barrel (a porterish stout) so it seemed like another good time to revisit this one.

Double Secret Probation

Appearance – Nearly opaque dark brown, but it has a luminous ruby glow when held to the light. Pours with two-finger-creamy-tan head that sinks slowly over a few minutes trailing a spotty lacing.

Smell – Good balance of rich “German” maltiness and subtle smokey complexities. The malt is a bit crackery, fresh, grainy.

Taste – Woodsy smoked malt start, but not to the level of being bacony or meaty. There is some dark fruit (raisin) complementing the bready malt. Just a hint of alcohol in the finish along with a touch of full city roast coffee. Slight lingering bitterness balances the moderate malt sweetness. Still tastes pretty fresh, no oxidation character (unless that's what the raisin is...).

Mouthfeel – Medium body, not too full/thick like many big German beers (thanks to close to 80% apparent attenuation). The carbonation is medium-low, just about right for a complex ale like this.

Drinkability & Notes – A complex yet drinkable beer as is, but it would have been great with a bit of oak/vanilla from a few months in a bourbon barrel. I love the flavor possibilities of big lagers, but they are often so sweet that the balance and drinkability of their smaller siblings is completely lost.

Smoked Spruce Gruit Kvass Tasting

After it was pointed out that De Molen is Dutch (and thus not Scandinavian) I've decided to just call this beer what it is, a smoked-spruce-elderberry-sour-gruit-kvass...  I really like this beer, but it isn't the type of thing I would want to have on tap.  The flavors are intense, and take a few sips to get used to.

Gruit Kvass

Appearance – Muddy amber-brown. The thin white head recedes quickly.

Smell – Sharply smoky. Almost comes across as peat, it might be the resiny spruce mingling with the beech wood smoked malt. Behind the singed woodlands there is some yeasty/bready “rustic” character.

Taste – Strong lactic acidity, that is a surprising after experiencing the aroma. The finish recalls the nose, smoky and bready (maybe a hint of pine). It is dry enough, and with the acid for balance I don't miss the hop bitterness. I don't get much from the elderberries.

Mouthfeel – Medium body, a bit more substantial than the East End Kvass (which works well with the more assertive flavors). The carbonation is moderate, which helps to clean the palate of all of the heavy flavors.

Drinkability & Notes – The smoke has already calmed down a bit, but I'd suspect that this will continue to get better for awhile. It will be interesting to see how this beer ages, certainly a nice first attempt at a gruit (but I'd like to do something with more spices and less smoke next time around).

Scandinavian Gruit Kvass Recipe

After Nathan and I brewed East End's recipe for Kvass, we decided to crank out a couple more kvasses with recipes of our own design. The first was inspired by a sample of Menno & Jens (a gruit that had a unique flavor that was smokey, tart, and herbal) a collaboration between the two Scandinavian breweries (Haandbryggeriet and De Molen).

Nathan took the standard kvass recipe and morphed it into a complex Scandinavian gruit.  The smoke character came from three pounds of Weyermann rauchmalt, a sizable addition for a beer that barely topped 4% ABV.  For winter spicing we added blue spruce (for evergreen aromatics) and elderberries (for dried fruit character).  The sourness was provided by Lactobacillus resident in the dried bread yeast working unconstrained by hops.

This was the first batch of beer I have brewed that was devoid of hops.  While today beer and hops are culturally (and in some cases legally) synonyms, this has not always been the case.  For centuries political and religious institutions required the use of gruit (a secret spice blend often containing mugwort, yarrow, marsh rosemary among others) both as a counterpoint to the sweet malt (beers were often far less attenuated than today) and as a way to tax/control brewing.  Hops became the dominant seasoning for beers only about 500 years ago, as a result of their ability to add bitterness as well as inhibit lactic acid producing bacteria.

Our method of incorporating the bread (by soaking it overnight in 190 degree water, pureeing it with a stick blender, and then adding it to the boil) was identical to our previous batch of kvass, but this time we used a loaf of pumpernickel bread in place of the standard seeded rye.  We hoped the darker bread would be a better complement for a slightly stronger beer intended for fall/winter drinking.

The results were intriguing, one of the most flavorful low alcohol beers I have tried.  Granted the beer is still young, but it turned out a bit smokier and not as sprucey as we intended.

Scandinavian Kvass

Recipe Specifics
-----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.25
Total Grain (Lbs): 7.50
Anticipated OG: 1.040
Anticipated SRM: 11.9
Anticipated IBU: 0.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain
------
40.0% - 3.00 lbs. Maris Otter
40.0% - 3.00 lbs. Rauchmalt (Bamberg Smoked)
6.7% - 0.50 lbs. Rye Malt
6.7% - 0.50 lbs. Brown Malt
6.7% - 0.50 lbs. Crystal Rye

Extras
------
5 g Blue Spruce @ 30 min
20 g Dried Elderberries @ 0 min

Yeast
-----
Red Star Bread Yeast

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-------------
Sacch Rest 60 min @ 152

Notes
-----
Brewed 9/24/10 with Nathan and Devin

1 gallon of pumpernickel bread puree (1 loaf) added before the start of the boil.

5 grams spruce at 30

20 grams dried elderberries lightly crushed at flameout

Pitched 1 gram of rehydrated Red Star bread yeast once the wort was cool. 

Left in Nathan's basement ~75 degrees to ferment.

FG 1.010

10/08/11 Turned out well, powerful smoke (mingling with the spruce) and as predicted bread yeast and no hops made for a tart beer.

Smoked Rye Baltic Porter Recipe

In the great ether of the Internet I do a lot of talking about homebrewing, between posts and comments on this blog, emails, forums, Twitter, and Facebook.  It feels odd to talk with so many different people about brewing without actually getting to sample their beer or visa versa.  Once in awhile I'll swap some bottles with someone else via UPS, but it's rare (so much effort to try beers from one person). 

A few months back a few guys on BeerAdvocate hatched a plan to form a group of homebrewers willing to brew the same beer style (with our own spin) and then swap bottles.  Sounded like a good plan to me.  The basic concept was borrowed from a group of professional brewers who dubbed themselves Collaborative Evil.  The group was founded by Todd Ashman of FiftyFifty, Zac Triemert of Lucky Bucket, and Matt Van Wyk of Flossmoor Station in 2008 with the idea that they each brew a version of the same recipe with their own embellishments.  Over the last few years the group has grown to include five other brewers.

For our first attempt at this concept we decided to copy this year's Collaborative Evil style, Baltic/Strong Porter.  I decided to use the opportunity to brew the spiritual successor to the best dark beer I've brewed, my Scandinavian Imperial Porter (which I'm down to the last three year old bottle of).  I took what I liked from that recipe, but pared down the overly complex malt bill and eliminated the tacked on ingredients (heather-honey, licorice, cardamom).  I also added a hefty portion of smoked malt in place of half of the Munich/Pils base.  I did keep the flaked rye because I love that it contributes a hefty body without adding excessive sweetness like a higher mash temp or crystal malt does.

Smoked Baltic porters seem to be in vogue these days with Surly's Smoke, Hill Farmstead's Fear and Trembling, and Great Divide's Smoked Baltic Porter.  I haven't had a chance to sample any of them yet, but the idea of rich smoke mingling with the coffee and dark fruit character of a Baltic Porter seems like a perfect pairing. 

With the fermentation complete, yesterday I dropped the temperature of my fermentation fridge for the long cold lagering period.  Over the next six weeks the yeast and proteins will slowly fall to the bottom and the yeast character will mellow, hopefully allowing the smoke to shine through. This batch should be ready to drink just as winter is really hitting here in the Mid-Atlantic.

Smoked Rye Baltic Porter

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 4.75
Total Grain (Lbs): 14.50
Anticipated OG: 1.081
Anticipated SRM: 34.4
Anticipated IBU: 48.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
------
41.4% - 6.00 lbs. Weyermann Smoked Malt
20.7% - 3.00 lbs. German Munich Malt
20.7% - 3.00 lbs. French Pilsen
6.9% - 1.00 lbs. Flaked Rye
5.2% - 0.75 lbs. Brown Malt
5.2% - 0.75 lbs. Carafa Special II

Hops
------
1.00 oz. Brewer's Gold (Pellet, 7.80% AA) @ 75 min.
0.75 oz. Perle (Whole, 7.17% AA) @  75 min.
0.38 oz. Fuggle (Pellet, 4.00% AA) @ 35 min.

Extras
------
0.35 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.

Yeast
------
WYeast 2565 Kolsch

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
---------------
Sacch Rest 60 min @ 154

Notes
------
Brewed 9/11/10 by myself

For the Collective Sin group.

Collected 6.5 gallons of wort from batch sparge @1.072. (Much better efficiency than expected, so I added an extra 1/2 gallon of water mid-boil along with the Fuggles to boost up the IBUs slightly)

Chilled to ~80 and place in the fridge at 54.

Pitched the small yeast cake from Fresh Hopped Pale Ale after 5 hours. Gave 45 seconds of pure O2 before pitching. Attached blow-off tube.

Good fermentation after 8 hours.

9/17/10 Upped temp to 60 to help it finish out.

9/24/10 Racked to secondary, still has a krausen, still really yeasty.

9/27/10 Down to 1.026 (68% AA, 7.3% AA), nice bacon-y smoke, still a bit sweet and yeasty, but another week should take care of that.  Temp up to 64 to make sure it finishes out.

10/3/10 Dropped the temp to 35 to start dropping out proteins/yeast.  Shooting for 6 weeks of lagering before bottling.

11/19/10 Bottled with 2.5 oz of table sugar.  Stirred up with the auto-siphon to pick up a bit of the yeast. Down to 1.024.

1/20/11 Smooth chocolate roast, but not as much smoke as I was aiming for.  I guess the smoked malt wasn't as fresh as I hoped.  Still a pretty good beer, drinkable for being so big/young.

Rauch Dunkel - Smoked Dark Lager Tasting

Lagers take a bit more time to turn around that ales, but at a low gravity and with some chocolate rye and German Beechwood smoked malt my Smoked Dark Lager is drinking pretty well just 6 weeks after I brewed it. Turned out to be just what I was craving, moderate smoke, big bready malt, drinkable even in the summer heat, and great with grilled food. 

Rauch Dunkel - Smoked Dark Lager

Appearance – Transparent (well just a bit of haze) leathery brown topped by a three-finger off-white head. Nice looking beer, certainly plays the part of a traditional Dunkel. The head falls sooner than expected though, a short protein rest might have helped there.

Smell – Bread crust, light smoke, and a touch of spicy hops. The depth of the breadiness is very nice. Clean fermentation character (no buttery diacetyl or fruity esters), I'm impressed with the performance of the W-34/70 strain.

Taste – Rich and malty with a pleasant sweet smoke in the finish. The smoke isn't potent enough to give it the hammy/sausage flavor of some of the more aggressive German rauchbiers (cough Aecht Schlenkerla cough). Leans towards the malty, but there is enough bitterness to leave me wanting another sip. Again I'm surprised just how clean this is for pitching dry lager yeast right out of the package (I'll have to try the strain in a subtler recipe).

Mouthfeel – Moderate-low carbonation plus a surprisingly full body for a 4.5% ABV beer.

Drinkability & Notes – The perfect dark beer for a summer day, low in alcohol, balanced, but with enough character to stand up to barbeque or burgers.  I'll have to brew an ampled-up version of this for winter (smoked Baltic porter?).

DC Homebrewers Anniversary Stout Tasting

Back in February I managed to convince  dozen or so other members of DC Homebrewers to come over to my house to brew an anniversary beer despite the massive amount of snow we'd been hit with.  We came up with the recipe on the fly based on the ingredients that everyone brought.  We tried to focus on local ingredients like homegrown hops, smoked malt from a Virginian distillery, yeast from a DC brewpub, and wildflower honey from Maryland.  I brought a few tester bottles to the June meeting last night, the people who tried it seemed to enjoy it, but we'll see how it ages over the next five years (after this preview we'll be drinking only a few bottles at the February meeting every year until it runs out).

DC Homebrewers Anniversary Smoked Stout

Appearance – Dark brown with a thick tan head. Carbonation looks a bit stronger than I would have expected for a beer that only got 2.25 oz of cane sugar for priming.

Smell – Nice blend of dark malt and light smoke. Not much honey or hop presence in the nose.

Taste – Good balance, with the dark malt mingling nicely with the sweet smoke. The roast character leans towards lighter roast coffee, and heavily toasted bread, no burnt/charcoal etc... The hop bitterness is there to balance the beer, but it doesn't take much since it is pretty dry (thanks to less than 2% crystal malt and the highly fermentable honey). Slight alcohol warmth in the finish, but I think its in character for a beer just above 8%.

Mouthfeel – Carbonation is a bit higher than I anticipated, which makes the beer seem lighter (not so bad on a hot June night). Body is light for a big stout, but it isn't thin.

Drinkability & Notes – Tasty, glad too many brewers in the brewhouse didn't spoil the beer. Hopefully this is just the first in a series of anniversary beers for the club, glad so many people were able to contribute and attend.

RauchDunkel - Smoked Dark Lager

Inspired by my favorite pale session smoked beer (Helles Schlenkerla Lager) and a sample of Denison's Dunkle I decided to brew a smoked dark lager.  Doing low gravity smoked beer is a balancing act, too much smoke can destroy drinkability, while not enough and the smoke character disappears after the first few sips.  The biggest problem is that the smoked malt itself is variable, mellowing with time and exposure to the air (smelling and tasting it before finalizing your grainbill is important). 

Equal parts Vienna/Munich/Pils is a base malt combination that has worked for me in a couple beers (e.g. Flanders Red), so I just swapped out the pils for Weyermann Rauch (beechwood smoked) malt.  I was planning on using carafa special for adding color without much roast flavor, but when I looked through my specialty malt box on brewday the closest thing I could find was chocolate rye (which is dehusked and so has a similar character). I went pretty easy on the hops (all Saaz), since I didn't want the bitterness to get in the way of the malt. 

This was my first time using Saflager W-34/70 (a dried lager yeast) and I was less concerned with achieving an ultra clean fermentation because the complex malt and smoke will help to cover up some minor fermentation sins.  Fermentation took longer than I expected to take off, which was probably due to under-pitching by about 50%.  I pitched the yeast into the wort once it reached 50 degrees (which took several additional hours in the fridge post cooling with my immersion chiller), which is also a couple degrees lower than the yeast lab recommends.

When the beer is done lagering it should be a perfect beer to have on tap for the summer, the dark malt and smoke will be a nice match for grilled food and barbecue, and the low alcohol will keep it refreshing.  Some time this summer I'm planning on smoking some malt myself, but I'll talk about that another time (happy to take any malt smoking tips that anyone has though).

RauchDunkel

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.25
Total Grain (Lbs): 9.38
Anticipated OG: 1.047
Anticipated SRM: 19.9
Anticipated IBU: 22.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
-----
32.0% - 3.00 lbs. German Vienna Malt
32.0% - 3.00 lbs. German Munich Malt
32.0% - 3.00 lbs. Weyermann Smoked Malt
4.0% - 0.38 lbs. Chocolate Rye

Hops
----
2.00 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellet, 2.80% AA) @ 45 min.
0.50 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellet, 2.80% AA) @ 10 min.

Extras
------
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 11 min.
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 11 min.

Yeast
-----
Saflager Weihenstephan - W34/70

Water Profile
--------------
Profile: Carbon Filtered Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-------------
Sacch Rest 60 min @ 153

Notes
------
Brewed 5/20/10 by myself

Batch sparged collected 7.25 gallons of 1.035 wort.

Hops adjusted down from 3.5% AA, ~18 months old.

Dissolved Whirlfloc and Yeast Nutrient in warm wort before dumping it into the boil.

Chilled to 80 (ground water is around 70 these days), strained, left most of the trub behind leaving closer to 4.75 in the fermenter, put into fridge at 50.

8 hours later gave it 60 seconds of O2, and pitched the dry yeast straight in.  Left it rehydrate and gave it a shake an hour later.

36 hours later there still weren't any signs of fermentation, so I gave it a swirl and upped the temp to 55. 8 hours later a small krausen had formed.

12 hours after that strong fermentation, backed down to 53 degrees.  Good strong fermentation.

6/11/10 Up to 56 to make sure it finishes out.

6/13/10 Racked to a keg.  Flavor was good, a bit of tea like flavor from the hops.  Audrey thought it had a bit of tartness, but I couldn't pick up on it.  Lagers are often a few tenths of a pH point lower than ales, so that may have been all it was.  Put of gas and shook several times to get some CO2 into solution then moved to the fridge at 40 degrees to lager.

7/3/10 Moved to keggerator and hooked up to gas.  Keg seemed to be leaking, not much pressure left.

7/15/10 Tasting of this one, turned out to be a great beer.  Subtle smoke, nice dark malt character, balanced, great with food.

Smoked Stout - DC Homebrewers Anniversary Beer

There is something really wonderful about joining an organization right when it is starting up.  I've been attending meetings of the DC Homebrewers club since it was founded in early 2008.  It has been rewarding to participate in the club as it grows and tries to find an identity in a metro-area that already has several larger/older homebrewing clubs.

A couple months back I struck upon an idea, why not get club members together to brew an anniversary beer to celebrate 2 years of DC Homebrewers?  I sent out an email to the club discussion list and got some interest.  Someone suggested that we try to brew a beer with as many local ingredients as possible.  Our definition of local was pretty loose, but we came up with barley malted/smoked by a local distillery, homegrown hops, local honey, and yeast from a local brewpub.
People were great about procuring ingredients and then bringing them over to my house early on a Sunday morning to brew.  Once most of the people (ingredients) arrived we set about trying to put together a malt bill based on what we had on hand.  For awhile it had a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen feel, but after awhile we hashed out something that I think most people were happy with.  We decided on a moderately strong stout/porter, in addition to the smoked malt we added plenty of pale malt for gravity, flaked barley for body, and a complex blend of dark malts for depth and balance. 

I contributed 1.25 oz of my own homegrown cascades (basically the whole harvest...), but luckily someone else brought some commercial cascades to supplement.  This is intended to be a beer that will age well, so we were a bit more heavy handed with the hops (50 IBUs) to ensure some bitterness remains in a year or two, and we left out late boil hops since the hop aroma is the first aspect of a beer to fade.

The yeast slurry from District ChopHouse (20th generation Scottish yeast) was gangbusters ripping through the beer quickly despite the low wintertime temperature of my basement.  Scottish yeast is relatively mild in character and great in malty beers, but it will be interesting to see how this one is after so many repitchings.
The honey will be added to the primary fermenter after the initial fermentation dies down. This will preserve as much of its aromatics as possible because the honey will not be subjected to heat or the CO2 scrubbing of primary fermentation.  Despite adding it late in the process I'm not expecting too much character from the honey in a finished beer with so much else going on.

Hopefully the club will repeat this event every February to produce another anniversary beer. A six-pack of each of these beers will make it to the club's anniversary meeting every January, with the goal (a few years down the road) of being able to sample 5-6 different batches once a year.  We spent most of the boil discussing styles to brew in the future (possibly alternating between two different styles, tweaking them as time goes by), but it will probably be next winter by the time the format is determined.

If you want to see more pictures of the brewday take a look at the Flikr page.

DC HB Anniversary 2010 - Smoked Honey Stout

Recipe Specifics (All-Grain)

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Batch Size (Gal):         5.25 

Total Grain (Lbs):       14.75

Anticipated OG:          1.075

Anticipated SRM:          34.0

Anticipated IBU:          49.9

Brewhouse Efficiency:    72 %

Wort Boil Time:          90 min.

Grain/Sugar

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61.0% - 9.00 lbs. Canadian Pale Malt     

16.9% - 2.50 lbs. Wasmund's Smoked Malt        
6.8% - 1.00 lbs. Flaked Barley         

1.7% - 0.25 lbs. Simpson's Extra Dark Crystal                       

1.7% - 0.25 lbs. Carafa Special II         

1.7% - 0.25 lbs. Belgian Chocolate Malt                 

1.7% - 0.25 lbs. English Roasted Barley
0.8% - 0.13 lbs. English Black Patent Malt

0.8% - 0.13 lbs. Coffee Malt

6.8% - 1.00 lbs. Honey (after primary fermentation)           

Hops

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3.50 oz. Cascade (Pellet 4.50% AA) 60 min.

Extras

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1.00 Unit Whirlfloc @ 15 min.(boil)

0.25 Tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.(boil)

Yeast
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White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

Water Profile
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Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
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Sacch Rest 60 min @ 152

Notes
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Brewed 2/21/10 With a big group from DCHB.

Apple smoked malt was from Copper Fox Distillery (Wasmund's Whiskey).  Didn't look like it took a very good crush.

No water adjustments.

Hops 1.25 oz of my homegrown, 2.25 oz of year old pellets.

Yeast was a cup of slurry from District ChopHouse, 20 generations.

Shook to aerate.  Violent fermentation by 12 hours.

2/25/10 Added 1 lb of Bee George Honey (Wild Flower Honey from Takoma Park Maryland).  Considering I bought it at the COOP in Takoma Park it seemed appropriate addition to a "local" beer.  After adding the honey I gave the beer a gentle stir with my wine thief to ensure that it was mixed in.

3/13/10  Racked to secondary, should be bottling in 2-3 weeks.

5/06/10 Bottled with 2.25 oz of table sugar.  Gravity down around 1.012.  Sample tasted pretty good, not much smoke/honey character.

6/23/10 First tasting, good if a bit over-carbonated (I'll be more excited about drinking it next winter, summer is not the right season for this one).